A Socialized Bailout For The Rich

Knee-jerk conservatives and their Republican heros are dead set against just about any form of universal health care for all Americans. They consider "single-payer" systems along the lines of the models in Canada and Europe to be "socialized medicine." However, they have no problem with socialized bailout of the bad boy big financial firms on Wall Street. When one of the big private investment banks gets sick, the Republicans rush in with taxpayer money to help make it well. Socialized financial medicine for the wealthy is fine, but socialized health care for Americans is not.

Bush and company won't even more closely regulate these private banks. The Times Paul Krugman notes today in is column:

"...in a draft of a speech to be delivered on Monday, Henry Paulson, the
Treasury secretary, declares, “I do not believe it is fair or accurate to blame
our regulatory structure for the current turmoil.”
And sure enough,
according to the executive summary of the new administration plan, regulation
will be limited to institutions that receive explicit federal guarantees — that
is, institutions that are already regulated, and have not been the source of
today’s problems. As for the rest, it blithely declares that “market discipline
is the most effective tool to limit systemic risk.”
The administration,
then, has learned nothing from the current crisis. Yet it needs, as a political
matter, to pretend to be doing something."

When will American wise up to this stuff, if ever?

Jim