Don Marti

Thu 02 Oct 2008 07:51:53 AM PDT

Media Elitists Against Common Sense

The New York Times columnists have gone to the well for reasonable pro-bailout arguments and come up dry. Time to fall back to name-calling.

People who don't favor handing over $700 billion to known financial failures are "nihilists", "madmen", and "idiots".

Look, Rep. Pete Stark, as a former bank founder and CEO, has more bank knowledge than the bailout cheerleaders, and he has come out against it. Rep. Stark is a Democrat, but this bailout issue isn't the Republicans against the Democrats, or the free-marketers against the statists. It's common sense against One-Big-Project-Can-Solve-Everything-ism.

Let's bulldoze a neighborhood for One Big Freeway, and put the people in One Big Tower. Let's put a huge percentage of the federal budget into One Big Airplane for the USAF. Let's all read One Big Newspaper. Or let's do One Big Bailout.

Come on, people. That never works. If there are bailouts needed, make them small, and focus them on the people who need them. Borrowers who are paying on deceptively sold mortgages? Municipalities that need bond underwriting? Fine, dig up some of the many good ideas floating around economics departments, and use them. Local and regional banks, which didn't post the paper winnings of the big ones, are ready to take on a bigger role. Losing gamblers, and the East Coast Media Elite that wants to throw good money after bad? Let them fail.