The wit and wisdom of Ralph Nader's dad comes to mind with the bailout of Bear Stearns with federal money, and with the future Wall Street bailouts sure to follow.

In his essay Faith-Based Economy , Tom Piatak takes on the revolting hypocrisy of "federal efforts to prop up a financial sector in trouble as a result of its own avarice." The first paragraph:

"It is fitting that one of the signal events of what will likely become the second Bush recession has been the Federal Reserve's propping up of the Wall Street firm Bear Stearns. For years, Wall Street has opposed any such bailouts of old-line manufacturing firms being swept away by the tsunami of free trade, and has applauded as employers have cut back their workforces, the benefits they provide, and even their presence in the United States. The Wall Street mantra has been, layoffs good, outsourcing better. But when the time comes for Wall Street speculators to experience the "magic of the marketplace," the tune has been different, with Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson saying Sunday that "I really support the Fed's work here." Of course, the Federal Reserve's bailout of Bear Stearns, followed quickly by JP Morgan's acquisition of the firm, comes hard on the heels of many other federal efforts to prop up a financial sector in trouble as a result of its own avarice, including the federal bailouts for foolish subprime mortgages contained in Bush's stimulus package."

In his essay Printing Money for Wall Street , Oskari Juurikkala equates lowering interest rates to counterfeiting:

"When a central bank lowers interest rates, it engages in an activity that is loaded with moral meaning. The jargon of the macroeconomist can be misleading. Lower interest rates are achieved by increasing the money supply, which is basically equivalent to "printing money out of thin air," and selling it cheaply to the banking community (although technically it is now achieved by creating fictitious accounting entries).



"The moral dimension becomes plainer if we consider a private person doing that. It is called fraud. Counterfeit money enriches the fraudster at the expense of the rest of the society. Creating more paper slips does not bring about more economic resources (production or consumption goods), but only serves to redistribute them. The counterfeiter immediately acquires additional money at his disposal, whereas the purchasing power of the money balances of the rest is slowly eroded."