A Financial Dictatorship?

The last few months have seen an amazing restructuring of the American economy moving power from the private sector to the government. We're likely to see even more. Thanks to the Bush Administration, the rules no longer exist and the government can simply buy anything it wants and pay for it by printing money. The auto bailout, as negotiated before it fell apart, had the government buying stakes in the Big 3. Banks and insurance companies have already been bought. The Fed has been buying corporate debt.

There are no rules, there is only a growing series of financial spasms as we attempt to avoid responsiblity for our actions, avoid paying for what we buy and refuse to deny ourselves any pleasure we can dream up. Like a worm recoiling from the touch of your finger, we're operating instinctively, attempting to avoid any kind of short-term pain.

That's all about to change as the nationalization of our economy moves into overdrive. Charles Krauthammer has an excellent piece describing this.

Obama was quite serious when he said he was going to change the world. And now he has a national crisis, a personal mandate, a pliant Congress, a desperate public -- and, at his disposal, the greatest pot of money in galactic history. (I include here the extrasolar planets.)

It begins with a near $1 trillion stimulus package. This is where Obama will show himself ideologically. It is his one great opportunity to plant the seeds for everything he cares about: a new green economy, universal health care, a labor resurgence, government as benevolent private-sector "partner." It is the community organizer's ultimate dream ...

With the country clamoring for action and with all psychological barriers to government intervention obliterated (by the conservative party, no less), the stage is set for a young, ambitious, supremely confident president -- who sees himself as a world-historical figure before even having been sworn in -- to begin a restructuring of the American economy and the forging of a new relationship between government and people.

And if you disagree with him, because of the dissolution of the barriers to government ownership of private firms and the elimination of worry over the debt, he can simply print the money he needs to buy you.

Mussolini is on the way.