Free kibbles

Government takes the next step and guarantees liquidity to the entire financial market, not just individual companies. This is the only step that isn't a repeat of the mistakes of the Great Depression. Government caused this crisis, but it must make sure the economy doesn't repeat the credit contraction that was the single biggest cause of the Great Depression. Unfortunately, because government has a monopoly on controlling the money supply, our entire economy is at the mercy of government. Rescue plan could cost taxpayers $1 trillion. Naturally, the stock market is up on the news that Washington won't let any more companies fail. The flip-side of that is that companies will run more risk than ever and future socialism will damage us even further.

Given what we're seeing, it should come as no surprise that the United States has dropped from 2nd in the world in economic freedom in 2000 to 8th in 2008 according to Cato. The US score has dropped from 8.55 to 8.04. Only Zimbabwe, Argentina, Niger, Venezuela, and Guyana suffered bigger losses in economic freedom during this period. Bush the Democrat, a big-government Republican Congress, and even bigger-government Democrats are to blame.

I guess North Korea has strung us along, played us for fools, and received as much welfare from the US as they think they'll get because it is now officially pulling out of the nuclear deal it never intended to meet anyway.

Dept. of Justice refuses to give in to Obama campaign's demand for a political witch hunt against Obama's opposition. Good for them. But if Obama looses, you can bet we'll get new campaign finance laws to further restrict free speech.

Desperate Democrats try to blame the credit crisis on Phil Gramm for legislation deregulating part of the mortgage industry, legislation supported by leading Democrats. Deregulation is not the problem. The problem is regulation (control) by government that perverts the market and stifles competition.

The energy bill passed by the House and likely to be passed by the Senate is a huge socialist bill in which government determines where companies can drill for oil and where they can sell it. More socialism won't help us. It also contains $85 billion in handouts for the auto and energy industry. I guess Congress hasn't figured out we don't have any money. We're running a deficit. Hopefully we can kill this socialist bill and force Congress to recognize the constitutional limits on its powers and allow a free energy market to solve our energy problems. I'm not holding my breath.

Cato laments the government's bailout mania, putting taxpayers on the hook for some $1 trillion in debt. Much of it will get paid back, but we don't know how much.

Jonah Goldberg scoffs at Democrats for blaming Wall Street, pointing out Democrats blocked reforming Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which are the focal point for the entire credit crisis.

Obama's thuggery - the politics of Chicago and ACORN (is that change?), the tactics of Marxists - is coming out in full force. Obama tells his supporters to go out and argue and get in the face of independent voters. This is how Obama rose to the top in Chicago, with Chicago's thug politics. I think it will backfire in the rest of the country. But at least Americans are finally seeing this dangerous, corrupt radical for what he really is. This could get ugly. And every time it does, the Democrats will cry racism.

Top 10 Obama dumb comments. I wouldn't call all of them gaffes because gaffes implies, at least to me, impromptu.

Boortz summarizes redlining, the Community Reinvestment Act, and the subsequence subprime crisis.

Lawrence Kudlow points out another government created problem aggravating the credit crisis called mark-to-market accounting. I'm going to have to look that up. He suggests a couple of policies that might help including recreating the RTC, which is sounds like a twist on a white knight. This article was written before Paulson's completely socialist bailout plan was announced.