Politicians solving their own problem(s)
Thomas Sowell explains what politicians are after when making disastrous policy:
Solving Whose Problem?
No one will really understand politics until they understand that politicians are not trying to solve our problems. They are trying to solve their own problems– of which getting elected and re-elected are number one and number two. Whatever is number three is far behind.
Dr Sowell looks at Barney Frank’s role in the mortgage crisis:
Very few people are likely to connect the dots back to those members of Congress who voted for bigger mortgage guarantees and bailouts by the FHA. So the Congressmen’s and the bureaucrats’ jobs are safe, even if millions of other people’s jobs are not.Congressman Barney Frank is not about to cut back on risky mortgage loan guarantees by the FHA. He recently announced that he plans to introduce legislation to raise the limit on FHA loan guarantees even more.
Congressman Frank will make himself popular with people who get those loans and with banks that make these high-risk loans where they can pocket the profits and pass the risk on to the FHA.
So long as the taxpayers don’t understand that all this political generosity and compassion are at their expense, Barney Frank is an odds-on favorite to get re-elected. The man is not stupid.
What is stupid is believing that politicians are trying to solve our problems, instead of theirs.
While you’re at it, don’t bet on the Community Reinvestment Act to stop being law any time soon.
And a side comment:
Townhall.com, where the Sowell article is posted, now has the most obnoxious, by far, website. As Gerard put it, it’s become a
crapulous example of graphic sludge, popovers, popunders, animations, blink tags and other web page bullshit gone wild
As if that weren’t enough, the RSS feeds are screwy, too.
If any of you guys in charge of that mess are reading this, I urge you to please clean up the mess.
Tags: Barney Frank, Community Reinvestment Act, CRA, Fausta's blog
November 24th, 2009 at 1:04 pm
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Fausta, Fausta. Fausta said: Politicians solving their own problem(s) http://ff.im/-bWFUf [...]
November 24th, 2009 at 2:30 pm
Barney Frank and his cronies have submitted H.R. 1479, the “Community Reinvestment Modernization Act of 2009″ in September to strengthen(!) that policy. Barney thinks it might be even more fun, the second time around.
November 24th, 2009 at 2:56 pm
Fausta regarding the comment on townhall’s not very excellent website, using Safari I have 1 popover for Sarah Palin’s new book, that’s all. I don’t go for the RSS feeds though.. but aside from that, it still lacks.
November 24th, 2009 at 8:31 pm
Just what the economy needed, Scott!
December 1st, 2009 at 9:00 am
[...] hey, why worry? The politicians will do anything to get elected. As Thomas Sowell said, So long as the taxpayers don’t understand that all this political [...]