Breeze: You’re off your meds again, aren’t you? Where, oh where, to begin?
First off, there is a key distinction between businesses and individuals, and being a “balance sheet” kind of guy (as you yourself pointed out), my advocacy has always been for safe and sound lending.
Obviously, that has not happened and that is a major part of the problem we’re facing.
Secondly, and based on that, I would never and never have advocated lending to someone who is a poor credit risk, business or personal.
Third, good and great credit risks remain out there and they need capital to continue operations and grow their businesses (this, Breeze, would the aspect of “proper capital allocation” you seem to be willfully ignoring). As I mentioned before, credit remains frozen due to fear of the unknown, meaning those crappy assets that haven’t come to light, versus actual credit risk, which is still finding it’s proper pricing in the market. In order for us to find our way out of this morass, capital will need to be properly allocated to those businesses that are best able to put it to use and grow efficiently. Parenthetically, yes, we are watching the government engage in some central planning and questionable “asset management”, but we’re also in the throes of a very serious credit crisis, with the risk of systemic collapse near by (see the fourth point below).
Fourth, the word “crisis” by it’s very definition recognizes a situation that will pass at some point. Where that point is can often be determined by what strong actions are employed to avert or mitigate it. I am an advocate of the free market (not that I think that one exists, but that’s another story), but I also recognize that sometimes you have to do things that transcend normal policy, since these aren’t normal times. Akin to Lincoln’s suspension of the writ of habeas corpus during the American Civil War. Extraordinary measure for an extraordinary time (and, yes, Breezie, he reinstated it, so please don’t worry).
Fifth, I’m not a liberal. Never have been, never will be. You, Breeze, are a liberal, or, more correctly, a leftist. Hence your doe-eyed, stutter breathed support of Obama and his various henchpersons and minions. Me, not so much.
Sixth, Barney Frank? Really? Yet another cheap strawman argument and with no basis (given that I’m a conservative and all). No, my esteem for the Honorable Mr. Frank is about on par with Maxine Waters, Henry Waxman and Diane Feinstein (whom I fondly remember from my days growing up in the San Francisco Bay Area).
