The United States Government to Take Over the Banking System

I previously wrote about the president considering a take over the banking system here, and it now appears as though this is going to happen. The bailout bill gave Paulson the authority to do whatever the hell he wanted to do with $1 trillion. And he has begun to spend it.

The federal government is now poised to take over the top nine banks in the country.

Treasury essentially forced the nine major U.S. banks to agree to take $125 billion from the federal government. Treasury will buy $25 billion in preferred stock from Bank of America — including Merrill Lynch— as well as J.P. Morgan and Citigroup; between $20 billion and $25 billion from Wells Fargo & Co.; $10 billion from Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Morgan Stanley; $3 billion from Bank of New York Mellon; and about $2 billion from State Street. The remainder will be available to small- and medium-size institutions that apply for an investment.

This is a socialization of the banking system no matter how you look at it.

The move, in effect a partial nationalization of the banking system, does put the United States in the awkward position of owning shares in institutions it also regulates. The shares purchased by the government will be nonvoting. They also give the government a priority in getting paid back if a company fails.

The president has assured us (whatever that is worth) that this is only temporary. He claims that this is not an attack on the free market.

“The government’s role will be limited and temporary,” Bush pledged. “These measures are not intended to take over the free market but to preserve it.”

Even as the president claims that he is saving the free market, the government is taking it over. A direct contradiction. We are supposed to believe that it will only be temporary, how many times has a government willingly given back power that it stole from the people?

But, historically, it’s often hard to undo new rules in Washington after businesses, consumers and policy makers adjust to changes.

The government will never give up this new power, we are slipping into socialism and it is almost probably too late to stop it.

The more that we hear about this bailout bill the worse it gets. The president made it his staple to protect America after 9/11 and he did, but he has done almost as much to undermine America and her form of government in the last two months as he did to protect her the last eight years.

While he has protected us from enemies abroad, he has sold us out to the enemies of free market, capitalism from within. The result of this is the rise of Barack Obama, under whom the socialization of America will only be expedited.

America as we know it is slipping away and I am not sure that it can be reversed, somehow it seems a majority of Americans have accepted socialism and I am not even sure that they realize it. Barack Obama fits perfectly in that America and that is what has me worried.

I have defended the president through thick and thin but I cannot defend him on this one. I am just too damned pissed off about it. As the momentum builds for Barack Obama and it looks as though he may be headed to a landslide victory in November I can’t help but think of a line from Star Wars, Revenge of the Sith. The line was meant as a shot at President Bush and at the time I thought that is was ludicrous, but now I find it apt, “So this is how democracy ends, with thunderous applause.”

Welcome to Obama-world.