| Free-market analysts and their allies in the Bush administration believe that the companies -- government-chartered but shareholder-owned -- pose a threat to Washington's own solvency and must be thrown into a bankruptcylike receivership, run by the government until the current financial crisis eases and then broken up or sold off. In no case, say advocates of this view, should the Treasury Department pump taxpayer money into the once-rich enterprises, which hold more U.S. home mortgages than any other company and have seen their fortunes plummet with the housing market. On the other side, congressional Democrats and major financial market players argue that the government should spare no expense in rescuing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. They argue that the mortgage giants must be healthy not only for Americans to buy houses, but for the economy to regain its footing. |
Not hard to predict which team will win that scrimmage! Assuming the Los Angeles Times knows what it is talking about, naturally. Any crew of clowns and ideologues that want their Uncle Sam to spend less are doomed in advance, no matter who it may be that they aggress against. The last time they got their announced wishes was in 1837, or thereabouts. To set themselves up against both Capitol Hill and the Owners of America simultaneously, "congressional Democrats and major financial market players," brings them nigh unto the alleged Polack cavalry of 1939 in gallantry. And nigh unto Ebeneezer Scrooge (Mark I) in charity, for who else would prefer "Washington's own solvency" to Americans buying houses and economies regaining footing? But I beg your pardon, that last editorialism deals with the matter of the FMFM matter and not with Form alone.
Indeed, I suppose who will win the scrimmage is itself no better than a low material consideration. Turning to our proper business, we should not, I think, lay too much stress on a convergence of convenience involving "Teddy Communist" [1] and Daddy Housebucks. More exactly, we should have become used to that sort of thing happening long ago and marveled to ourselves, probably quite inaccurately, "Only in America!" [2]
No, the real fun here is that "free-market analysts and their allies in the Bush administration" profess to be Daddy Housebucks’ best friend and bulldog defender, yet here they are on the other side of the trenches! What on Gore’s green earth have we here? Where are Neocomrades B. Lewis and F. Fukuyama when they are seriously needed? Somethin’ is rotten in the End of Histo®y for sure, that the prophets of profiteerin’ should be thus at odds with the practical profiteers. "What went wrong?"
Not an impossibly difficult question, even in the absence of competent guidance by gurus of Wingnut City and Rio Limbaugh. Our original account of The Anatomy of the Elephant broke the Party of Grant and Atwater up into four subfactions, two of which turn up in this morning’s newspaper fifteen or twenty years later. After the Big Bang, we decided to admit the Libido Dominandi Fan Club ("neoconservatives") as a fifth and hindmost subfaction, as follows:
- Big Management
- Political Christojudaeanity
- Political Capitalism
- Mugwumps
- Weekly Standardisers
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[1] The senior Senator from Massachusetts. Also known to his nonfriends as "The Troll of Chappaquiddick" and by various other cutsey names as well.
[2] On the international ideofront, it is tempting to regard the clowns and ideologues aforementioned as an alien irruption out of Mars or Mitteleuropa, but that case cannot really be made out satisfactorily. Considering the broad course of human and dollar events in the holy Homeland since 1837, however, it would be contemptible not to slap down any pretensions on the part of "free-market analysts and their allies in the Bush administration" to be Yankier than thou. Those bozos are not Yankier than anybody at all, except possibly Freddy van Hayek -- and I drag in poor Freddy only honoris causâ, really.
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