Maggie's Farm

They are going to do it again:

...believe it or not, the federal government is now starting another initiative to force banks to lend to low-credit-rated blacks and Hispanics -- not just anybody but specifically blacks and Hispanics -- and is threatening -- and already imposing -- huge punitive fines if they don't. Moreover, this time they're going even further. They're going to take over the credit rating agencies and force them to change their standards to accommodate blacks and Hispanics so that nobody will have any idea who is a bad credit risk and who is not. In so many words, the government is about impose its will on the whole home-lending market and force another round of bad loans so that the banks are going to be looted once again so that even the federal government may not be able to bail them out this time.

Designed to fail, like the Health Care bill. They'll blame the "greedy bankers" again, while forcing them to do stupid things which lose money. Then they will want to nationalize the banks and eliminate the reality of credit risk. Laws that try to cancel out reality are never a good idea but can gain plenty of political support.

How my family built a business without any help:

My dad took a huge chance without any help, grants, assistance -- no safety net -- and started our small company in our garage. He worked hard, and he did finally achieve "solid middle-class" levels by the time I moved out on my own, but I'll tell you, things got pretty thin at times.

On my own I worked for my dad, and I worked hard. Neither of us ever asked for anything from the government. I paid my taxes. I married. My wife and I both worked for the company. We saved our money. We gambled with the future, investing our efforts into that small family business that paid us little. In fact, among the three of us, we made less than we paid our top employee.

We lived simply; we didn't eat out except sometimes a take-out pizza. We didn't have much, but we were working for the future.

That's what my Dad did, but he never hit the big time. Didn't care too much, just wanted to be honest and to get by on his own with some masculine dignity. Still proudly working every day at age 72. He will never retire because work is in his Polish-Yankee blood and he was not made for leisure.

Michael Walsh on The Dependency Society:

Welcome to the Dependency Society, where citizens and public servants alike have their hands out, and sometimes even in the till.

In all, some 45 million Americans are now on food stamps — a record high. And more Americans went on “disability” over the past three months (246,000) than actually found jobs (225,000).

It’s vicious cycle: The bad economy leads to job losses and reduced income; lower or nonexistent incomes force more people to take advantage of the safety net; government spending on “entitlements” rises to meet the demand; deficits widen; borrowing soars; the economy worsens — and ’round we go again.

Yet President Obama and the Democrats soldier blithely on, proposing $3 trillion budgets, running up massive deficits and pushing the national debt — now almost $16 trillion — into the ionosphere.

And, for the most part, the Republicans go right along with them.

Why? For votes. It’s just that simple.

Yep. What did FDR's aide say? "Tax, tax; spend, spend; elect, elect." Bread and circuses for the plebs, provided via the patricians. It keeps the plebs fat and malleable, until it doesn't. Gimme more!