Bureaucratic Creep

The LA Times is reporting that President Obama is pushing for sweeping new regulations on just about any industry that deals with finances:

'Reporting from Washington -- The financial regulation plan that President Obama will roll out today will impose stricter and broader government oversight of the nation's banking system -- including tough new requirements on companies whose failure would threaten the economy, and creating new agencies to regulate banks and to protect consumers. The most sweeping overhaul of financial rules since the Great Depression also would grant the Federal Reserve broad new powers to oversee large firms, such as insurance companies, that it does not regulate directly. The Fed would have the authority to seize and dismantle these companies if they are in danger of failing. ... The plan must be approved by Congress. In drafting the measures, Obama administration officials had two key concerns -- moving quickly, before the momentum for reform evaporates, and avoiding withering turf battles with regulators and lawmakers that could derail the effort.'

Wow - am I the only one finding it odd that the president wants the executive branch to 'seize and dismantle' private companies upon an internal finding that the company is 'failing,'
and that the White House drafted this legislation itself?  Has Congress become his personal rubber stamp?  And how does that article (published June 17) with this article publishedthe same day.  The first addresses massive legislative proposals, while the latter states that the Administration is only trying to deal with the immediate situation, and is moving quite cautiously.  They can't both be right.

The Problem is Us

The Planet Money segment on yesterday's Morning Edition (NPR) had one of the most succinct, accurate and chilling descriptions of why we're in our current economic mess, and what we'll have to do to fix it. You can read the transcript at the title link, and listen to it here, but I've pasted in the most salient portion of the discussion below.

"That chart is the most striking piece of evidence that I have that what is happening to us is something that goes way beyond toxic assets in banks. It's something that has little to do with the mechanics of mortgage securitization, or ethics on Wall Street, or anything else," Beim says. "It says: The problem is us. The problem is not the banks, greedy though they may be, overpaid though they may be. The problem is us."

We have overborrowed, Beim says: "We've been living very high on the hog. Our living standard has been rising dramatically in the last 25 years. And we have been borrowing much of the money to make that prosperity happen."

In other words, the problem the banks are facing is the problem we, as a society, are facing: We all have too much debt. And getting rid of it is going to be painful.

If you want a solution in which those who bear the most guilt for the financial crisis pay the most to fix it, while the innocent don't have to pay anything, that's not going to happen.

It seems that the U.S. economy is way past that point. Americans are going to spend a lot of money. The government may bail out some banks that some people wish it wouldn't. There is no magical solution where the U.S. gets out of this mess without any pain.

While they might disagree on who will bear the brunt of that pain, all the experts interviewed for this report say the longer the U.S. waits, the worse it will be for everyone.

If only we'd all be willing to face the fact that this mess isn't just about corporate greed, poor regulation, too much regulation, or failure to help out the 'little guy.' It's about our national addiction to easy credit, an economy based solely on debt, and our love of spending. Until we come to grips with that, we'll never solve our problems.