Workers of the World!

"The state is a large and well-bred horse, who is slow in his motions owing to his very size and laziness, and needs to be stirred into life. I am that gadfly which God has attached to the state, and all day long and in all places I am there, to sting people and whip them into a fury, all in the service of truth."

--Socrates, in Plato's Apologia, 7:30e-31c.

Financial Crisis

Another day of "what the heck was that?" in the financial markets as we ask ourselves yet again, are we happy about what measures the government is taking with our dollars? I can't watch the Dow anymore-- all the ups and downs make me nauseous.

Ben Bernanke takes the historical approach in a piece for the Wall St. Journal today: "Over the past year, the Federal Reserve has actively used all its powers and authority to try to help our economy through this difficult time. Central banks around the world have also consulted closely and cooperated in unprecedented ways to reduce strains in financial markets and to bolster our economies. We will continue to do so. However, clearly the time had come for a more comprehensive and broad-based solution. History teaches us that government engagement in times of severe financial crisis often arrives very late, usually at a point at which most financial institutions are insolvent or nearly so. In these conditions, the consequences and costs of inertia and inaction can be staggering. Fortunately, that is not the situation we face today.

Y'know, gosh, all of this government intervention and seizure of some banks and nationalizing of others to force them to start lending again, darn it, it sounds so familiar. Where did I read that...? Oh yeah, here it is, in the Communist Manifesto, Chapter 2: Proletarians and Communists: "Centralisation of credit in the hands of the state, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly." Yep. Communist Manifesto. Hey, I'm just sayin'....I report, you decide. Socialist or Fascist? Which are we?

At RCP, Eugene Robinson is having similar thoughts: "Can any Republican candidate claim with a straight face to represent the party of small government? For that matter, can any Republican candidate plausibly explain what the party is supposed to stand for these days? It's pathetic to hear right-wing talk radio blowhards try to associate Barack Obama with 'radical' or 'socialist' views when a Republican administration is tossing aside 'Atlas Shrugged' and speed-reading'"Das Kapital'...When Ronald Reagan was president, I had a sense of what ideas and principles his party stood for. When Newt Gingrich and his 'Contract with America' brigade took Washington by storm in 1994, I knew what they believed -- loopy though it was -- and what they hoped to accomplish. I defy anyone to give a coherent explanation of what today's Republican Party, under George Bush and now John McCain, wants to do except perpetuate itself in power."