Published: March 05, 2009 04:05 pm      

Letters to the Editor

March 5, 2009

Government ‘change’

is no change at all

To the Editor:

The dire warnings of Henry Paulson, Harry Reid, and Nancy Pelosi resulted in hundreds of billions of dollars to bail out Wall Street from the calamitous results of their own greed in leveraging up debt through derivatives to over 60 to 1 in order to make extraordinary earnings in up-markets to justify the collective multi-billion dollar bonuses they voted to themselves from what should have been shareholder earnings.

When the executive up-market adjusted, as always happens, the risk side of gambling with excessive leverage in this $680 trillion worldwide derivatives market brought most of Wall Street to virtual bankruptcy, as Warren Buffet foretold several years ago when he said the immense derivative market was a walking time bomb.

However, not to worry. Treasury secretary Paulson created a wall of fear to get taxpayer money to bail out his Wall Street buddies. The almost 90 percent disapproval by our people was considered by many congressmen to be based on ignorance, but it appears that it was the approving congressmen who were ignorant.

The proper means for resolving these problems was Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings, as overseen by the court, rather than throwing taxpayer money at the problem with no oversight.

Unfortunately, Obama too appears to be relying on the fear factor to see his immense $800 billion program, presumably to create jobs. Private sector jobs move to other necessary work when the job is finished and provide tax revenue, unlike the many government jobs which are anticipated in this plan. And, as Ronald Reagan said, government jobs remain after the need is past.

It is the private sector jobs we need, and for work that is truly necessary, not just prettying up the place. To get these jobs, our industry, and particularly small business, needs tax incentives.

The other way to do it is to let the government take charge and we can have the former Soviet ethic in our own society, “They pretend to pay us and we pretend to work.”

Although some pork has been removed from the bill, clearly, at its present level, much remains. Pork is purely for the purpose of buying votes which, ultimately, will be paid for by all of us in the inevitable “inflation tax.” The many congressmen who continue to place pork in the bills which go through Congress should review the oath of office they took to truly represent their constituents.

Obama should consider that what he is buying into as “change” appears to be no change at all, and the youth who gave him a large majority of their vote find little change in job opportunity resulting from this spending program.

Sandy Johnson

Indianapolis