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Is Obama’s Proposed Bank Tax Purely Political?

Topics: Politics | 2 CommentsBy admin | January 15, 2010

Well OF COURSE it’s political, but something like it is certainly warranted. Or maybe we could do the old Roman thumbs-up thumbs-down thing, complete with lions and stuff.

If you’re a conservative, you may be finding yourself in a slightly untenable position right now. Your obligatory knee-jerk response to Obama’s new proposed tax on bailed out banks will be to say: “Sure. More taxes are the solution for everything for you ignorant weepy liberals“. At least that’s the stance of business-minded republicans like Tom Donohue, the CEO of the US Chamber of Commerce, who calls the plan a bad idea. So why is your position going to be untenable? Well, the first part of your problem is that if they’re not taxing the banks, they’ll be taxing you and your offspring for generations to come. And because the next part of your argument is going to be that that the banks won’t even feel it, or will pass the buck to consumers. Which suggests that either a.) The fees should be even higher, or b.) That we need to regulate the banks so they’ll stop raping the consumer and anybody else in sight that they’re not directly invested in. Granted, this is a complicated situation, and there’s a fair amount of political populism in the president’s proposal, but how could any American – other than a banker who just got his multimillion dollar bonus, of course – be against the idea of punitive measures against the bankers who created this entire travesty continuing to benefit from their failures and miscalculations? I mean, especially if you believe in Ayn Rand-driven laissez-faire capitalism like a good Republican should? Even Timothy Geithner says it’s sensible. Of course, he’s got his own problems, so maybe that’s some personal damage control at work. In any case, I have a better idea for dealing with the bankers. Put it to simple popular vote and see what the average hardworking American would do about it. I’m sure the results would be fairly grisly, but gratifying. What do you think?

Read Comments

  1. Posted by clay barham on 01.15.10 11:42 am

    Those who admire and criticize Ayn Rand’s beliefs about people standing on their own feet say she advocated selfishness, thereby greed. That implies self-centered, like the arrogant left. It is anti-individual creativity, which is not Ayn Rand. From her works, it is apparent Ayn Rand admired people who were courageous pebble-droppers, the nails standing above the boardwalk that ruling elite might trip over, who challenged the established and accepted way things were done. They were outer- and other-centered visionaries and dreamers. This is reflected in a new book due soon on Amazon called SAVE PEBBLE DROPPERS & PROSPERITY, also on [blog spam deleted].com. She pitched for the accomplished individual and for individual freedom. Only the leftists believe individuals are bad and community, led by them, is good. They believe they are the elite who must rule and Ayn Rand opposed that. [blog spam deleted].com

  2. Posted by admin on 01.15.10 11:57 am

    Wow Clay, I was going to thank you for the thoughtful discourse which is so rare these days, when even grandma has a blog, and 12 year old script kiddies know how to write spam bots. Then I did a quick search of the first sentence of your comment, and realized you ARE spamming. Thanks for showing your creativity and individualism by resorting to cut and paste blog spam to prostitute promote your book.