Et tu, Brute?

Betrayal is afoot. The President and his followers are at odds. The people are restless and angry at government. And if we're going to see better days, the opposition needs to step up start providing answers to a hungry and disillusioned public.

Matt Taibbi's column in Rolling Stone along with a piece in The Atlantic, May 2009 by Simon Johnson (former chief economist at the IMF) are prime examples. In their respective articles, Taibbi and Johnson capture the conventional wisdom regarding the bailouts and the cozy relationship between Wall Street and D.C.

Taibbi's column (if you use the term liberally, it was more of a rant) essentially bemoans his observation that Wall Street controls politicians. His fluency in finance jargon like “collateralized debt obligation”, “credit default swaps” and “debt instruments” is notable.

On the other hand, his style reeks of an over-coddled latte-sipper whose rigorous college career was filled with getting baked, too much disc golf, reading gonzo journalism and hyper-erotic, violent novels that pass for literature at modern university. Considering the number of extra-topical shots he takes at frat boys, apparently he hasn't forgiven them for the wedgies and getting the attention of the pretty girls on campus. Johnson's piece is much more respectable, but equally as flawed.

Don't mistake my effort here, as much I love to lambaste and humiliate hapless morons, both articles have some measure of merit. Let's take a look.

To their credit, both writers have no taste for the bailout mentality. They seem equally disgusted as I am at the cozy relationship between high finance execs and the government. I couldn't agree more with the assessments on these issues. Publicizing what should be private losses through handouts is both unjust and it enables future bad decisions. There are deleterious effects to the government getting in bed with business, both sides equally to blame. Well, not entirely; apparently Hank Paulson got pushy and some banks were told they would be accepting government dollars, like it or not.

Their ideas thus far seem to square well with people from both sides of the political spectrum. They don't like government and business getting too friendly, and rightfully so. But the compliments must cease. Both Taibbi and Johnson misdiagnose the symptoms of a sick economy and subsequently write a faulty prescription.

Both writers argue that the cause of our financial woes is greed, lack of regulation, and dishonesty. It is the fault of private enterprise and their perpetual quest for profit that has toppled our economy and thus kicked the proletariat while they were down.

They indict the entire financial industry on counts of writing bad mortgages, leveraging their portfolios, and general carelessness. If those greedy bankers hadn't smugly outmaneuvered government and cared more about social responsibility we wouldn't be in the shape we're in. This, of course, is a pseudo-Marxist fantasy built on the myth that free markets are fundamentally flawed (both morally and economically).

The question that most people seem to be ignoring is: "what gave reason to make bad such decisions?" The easy answer is that the nation’s financiers were greedy and reckless. That certainly played a role in the downfall. However, it truly was the government that enabled, encouraged, and reinforced the bad decisions leading up to the crisis at hand.

We’re all mad at the same thing: the economy is suffering and government is out of touch, unaccountable, reckless, and wasteful. Now, the trick is to remind people that it was the government, not the market that pushed us into this mess in the first place. Even if it was an outright failure of the market, markets correct themselves. Government does not. It’s up to the people to do that. The asinine policies of the government brought us to where we are today, so let’s clean house (the House, that is, and the Senate while we’re at it).

The government cultivated conditions in which I will argue directly lead the economy into its current state of turmoil. I’ll post them up here in a few days; I don’t want this piece to get too long.

Rather, I just want to say that even the Marxist, latte-sipping, tree-hugging crowd is mad as hell at the government. That’s something conservatives and libertarians need to embrace. It’s time we offer a genuine alternative to the “business as usual” Washington, D.C. model. For a long time those who think like myself have been the party “that isn’t as bad as the Democrats”. Both parties have been feeding an overgrown, invasive, corrupt, and defective monster. Now is the time to harvest the anger and frustration and kill the beast.

Obama promised change, tax cuts, pacifism, etc. His hollow promises and subsequent policies to achieve such plans have left the American public incensed. It seems to me that when IMF elites and Rolling Stone berate policies of likely the most socialist president in history, perhaps there’s something people don’t like about socialism.

There has been a betrayal. Obama sold out his followers when he doubled down on the mistakes of the Bush administration. His Treasury is in bed with business, his Fed is handing out easy money, and his budget is outrageous. And in turn his followers will abandon him. I always loved a story of treachery and betrayal.

Maybe there is hope for change I can believe in after all.