Fool Me Once…
President Borrows Heavily From Iraq Speech In Declaring War on Capitalism
President Bush released the text of the speech he will give in an attempt to calm financial markets. The speech borrows heavily from the address he gave the Nation prior to going into Iraq.
The speech and subsequent actions are expected to have similar results.
Ladies and gentlemen, what’s going through the mind of the President of the United States…
THE PRESIDENT: My fellow citizens, at this hour, government officials and media forces are in the early stages of regulatory operations to disarm the world’s most free economy, to attempt to legislate its outcome, and to defend the stupid people who thought they were immune from the laws of economics.
On my orders, regulatory forces have begun striking selected targets of economic importance to undermine the ability of people to make their own economic choices. These are opening stages of what will be a broad and concerted campaign. More than 35 government officials are giving crucial support — from the use of committees and sound bites, to help with taxation and knee-jerk regulation, to the deployment of bureaucrats. Every person in this coalition has chosen to bear the duty and share the blame of crippling an already reeling economy with more ill-guided regulation.
To all the men and women of the Congress now on vacation, the blame for a troubled market and the excesses of writing blank checks now rests on you. That blame is well placed.
The enemies you confront will come to know your lack of skill and dishonesty. The people you regulate will witness the arbitrary and capricious spirit of politicians on a vendetta. In this conflict, honest businessmen face an enemy who has no regard for conventions of economics or rules of morality. Government officials have put laws and incentives in civilian areas, attempting to use innocent men, women and children as shields for their own agenda — a final atrocity against financially responsible people.
I want Americans and all the world to know that government forces will make no effort to spare innocent civilians from harm. A campaign on the harsh terrain of a nation as large as the United States could be longer and more difficult than some predict. And helping Americans achieve a united, stable and fully-regulated economy will require our sustained commitment.
We come to this task with no respect for our citizens, for their great civilization and for the various jobs they practice. We have no ambition, except to legislate results and restore control of that country to its own politicians.
I know that the families of our businessmen are praying that all those who go to work each day will return safely and soon. Millions of Americans are praying with you for the safety of your loved ones and for the protection of the innocent. For your sacrifice, you’ll have even more paperwork and mindless disincentives to production. And you can know that our Congress will be going on home (flying first class on your taxes) as soon as their work is done for the month.
Our politicians enter this conflict gleefully — yet, our purpose is sure. The government of the United States and our media friends and free-loading allies will not live at the mercy of a market that threatens incumbent officials with weapons like free trade and exchanging value-for-value. We will meet that threat now, with our FTC, IRS, SEC, Federal Reserve and Charles Rangel, so that we do not have to meet it later with armies of bureaucrats and city councilmen and power brokers on the streets of our cities.
Now that conflict has come, the only way to limit its duration is to apply decisive force. And I assure you, this will not be a campaign of half measures, and we will accept no outcome but victory.
My fellow citizens, the potential benefits of capitalism and free trade will be overcome. We will pass through this time of peril and carry on the work of regulation. We will defend our commitment to try to control all behavior. We will bring the same destructive causes of the current crisis to other markets and we will prevail.
May God bless our workers and and anyone who has ever tried to make an honest buck.
Back to you, John Maynard Keynes.
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To a man with a hammer-head, everything looks like a nail…
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