Monday, July 28, 2008

The Big Bailout: America as a Full-Spectrum Kleptocracy (William Grigg)

William Grigg has some, uh, unkind things to say about the "Mother of All Bailouts" (this is yet another brilliant article by Mr. Grigg, I highly recommend reading it all!):

Its name somewhat anachronistically means "assembly of old men." George Washington famously -- and, it must now be admitted, with excessive optimism -- characterized it as an institutional saucer intended to cool legislation passed in the intemperate heat of the moment. Its members demand, with entirely unwarranted self-approval, to be called, collectively, the World's Greatest Deliberative Body.

Sober observers understand it to be the most corrupt legislative assembly in human history. To those characterizations of the United States Senate we must now add another, perhaps the final one: Gravedigger of the republic.

With the Senate's passage of the Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac bailout last Saturday (July 26), the United States of America has now become the world's first full-service kleptocracy, a form of government described earlier in this space as a government of, by, and for the robbers.


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