It was hilarious watching the financial pundits and Wall Street suits on CNBC today demanding government intervention as the market's tanked and the credit markets seized up. This is the crowd that thinks the government has no business in education, social services, health care or interfering in businesse's right to pollute the environment, fleece consumers and endanger the health of it's employees.
There they were demanding the return of the 'Greenspan Put'. Referring to Alan Greenspan's policy that it was not the Fed's business to interfere with Wall Street while it creates speculative bubbles and recklessly endangers the economy with evermore exotic financial instruments, unsound predatory lending and a mountain of leverage and debt. But when this irresponsible behavior inevitably leads to a bust itis the Fed's responsibility to come to the rescue.
So you see the rich want to party till dawn, drink all they want and be as wreckless as they want and they want the Fed to promise they won't ever have to wake up with a hangover.
Yes, when it comes to $billions in handouts to oil companies that are already making more profits then any business in history. Welfare for Agribusiness and protecting the rights of mega-corporations they want all the benefits of government largess and the full force of government power behind them. The income streams of the rich: dividends and capital gains get preferential tax rates while the working stiffs pay the higher income tax rates.
This is modern big state conservatism: socialism for the rich and capitalism for the rest of us.