Conservative Virtues, Then and Now

[RedEarth]

Despite rising unemployment, tanking financial markets, and record levels of home foreclosures—with more pain sure to come—a number of conservatives are urging us to look on the bright side of the recession.

Washington Post Columnist Michael Gerson suggests that there are “hidden virtues” to the economic downturn, such as increased exercise, reduced smoking, and home-cooked meals. Preacher Morris H. Chapman sees opportunities for witnessing amid a fear-ridden nation. And many conservative bloggers and pundits are wagging their fingers through the Internet at the public, saying these hard times will teach us much needed lessons about thrift and savings.

Of course, there’s nothing wrong with any of this advice, though it rings hollow set against the massive economic crisis facing the nation—a crisis brought on by conservatives’ laissez-faire economic philosophy run amok.

.......

It is true, as Gerson admits, that any discussion of the recession must include “the language of morality.” Words like “excess,” “recklessness,” and “greed” apply here. But let’s be careful at whom we aim those words and make sure the laser-beam of blame isn’t too narrowly focused. If blame gets heaped upon consumers who have racked up huge credit card debt, bought houses they couldn’t afford—often, let’s not forget, because they were trying to claw their way into the middle class when wages were flat but the costs of health care, education and housing were skyrocketing—then surely a far wider beam of blame should shine upon greedy financial executives and negligent public officials whose free-market ideology and preference for the wealthy resulted in wanton deregulation and skewed policies that have ruined millions of lives.

Where to start….

First, there is former Sen. Phil Gramm (R-TX), who shielded a financial device known as credit default swaps from regulatory oversight by slipping a rule into an unrelated budget bill in 2000. That may seem so long ago, but this unregulated swap market eventually reached a peak of $62 trillion. Taking advantage of this environment, global insurance giant American International Group. Inc. issued over $40 billion in swaps that it couldn’t honor, necessitating a government rescue. To this day, Gramm refuses to acknowledge his culpability for today’s financial crisis.

Then there were the predatory lenders, snookering the public with subprime and other non-traditional mortgages. In 2001 Sheila Bair, a senior Treasury official, tried to persuade subprime lenders to adopt a code of “best practices” and allow monitors to verify their activities. According to the New York Times, “None of the lenders would agree to the monitors, and many rejected the code itself.” By 2005, subprime mortgages were a $600 billion-business and 20 percent of all mortgage originations, a sharp increase from 2001 when they were just 5 percent of originations.

http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2009/02/conservative_virtues.html

[ananda]

1. What a joke. Conservative virtues is..

.. an oxymoron, just like Compassionate Conservatism.

It's a contradiction in terms... a logical fallacy.

Dardydar.