The eleventh hour for the bail-out?

I don't know if Congress passed the bill by midnight as they said they would and I don't like listening to news before going to bed as it's nearly always alarming - not the sort of thing conducive to sweet dreams and peaceful sleep.

But I'll have my final say on the "crisis" before I go to bed. First: it's not really a full-blown financial crisis; it's a "banking" crisis and, since banks' main business nowadays is usury, it could also be called a money-lenders' crisis or, to be more polite, a "credit" crisis.

Now, I realize that I've only owned and operated small businesses (successfully and profitably) not a big corporation but I've never used "credit" except for mortgages which are fully collateralized. I just don't understand borrowing money without collateral for purchases or payroll but, the more I read about this "crisis," the more it seems that all big businesses are now operated by borrowing money, on "credit" which is "collateralized" by promises of future expansion and increased profit - or as us hicks call it, "pie in the sky."

I once had to get a small business loan through a bank in order to buy out a partner. I was told to come up with a "business plan" touting my future intentions for the business so that I could get as much money as possible. I said, "No thanks. No one knows the future. I just need enough money to buy out my partner and I'll collateralize it with the increased equity on my commercial real estate." Four years later the Internet Bubble burst and I lost many of my high-rolling customers. Then 9/11 happened and I lost my tourist customers. You bet I was glad that I did not have a big loan to pay off. The business was no longer profitable but I sold the real estate for three times as much as I paid for it and bought another (profitable) business.

This whole "credit culture" in business nowadays is way beyond my understanding. I cannot for the life of me get the point of it and, quite frankly, my dear, I would like to see the whole house of cards crumble. It stinks. Most of the money we borrow comes from the Chinese or Japanese and we are basically selling our children and grandchildren into indentured servitude. The money for the bail-out will also probably be borrowed from Asia.

I know I'm a very moralistic and judgemental person and can't stand this phony way of doing business and would like to see everybody on Wall Street and in Congress locked up in dungeons for life but....

There's a practical side of me too. Business has always had its fair share of con artists and smooth operators. It's a fact of life and, unless we could somehow manage to run the world on strict Christian Utopian principles (which of course would naturally mean some sort of coercion aka loss of liberty) we have to put up with the fact that freedom (and the free market) is messy and imperfect but it's better than the alternative which is socialism.

From Rich Lowry at the Corner:

1995 Redux?

A friend on Capitol Hill in a very dark mood thinks so. Last time, House Republicans got blamed for shutting down the government, this time they'll get blamed for shutting down the financial system. He also worries—did I mention he's in a dark mood?—that if nothing passes and the crash comes, the country may arrive at a turning point, moving irrevocably in the direction of a social democracy

Rightly or wrongly, capitalism (and Republicans) will be blamed if the house of "credit" cards collapses and a global depression ensues and all the Marxists all over the world will be crowing: "We told you so." And the same majority of people who currently think that the crisis is the Republicans' fault will swallow whatever New Deals the socialists can deliver.

The sad fact is that we may have to prop up the house of cards with the bail-out just to avoid a worse evil. Once again, as usual, it's a choice of the lesser of two evils.