"The great masses of the people…will more easily fall victims to a big lie than a small one." - Adolf Hitler
This current American economic meltdown might one day be traced back to the big lie that some American companies (or institutions) were "too big to fail", and therefore required government bailout money to save them regardless of the cost. This lie went down with hardly a whimper of protest, perhaps because we, the common taxpayers, didn’t feel qualified to question or contradict any high government official or so called “expert economist” who makes such pronouncements.
To believe that anything is too big to fail is a big, fat lie (think the Roman Empire, communism, etc.).
The possibility of failure is as intrinsically embedded in the American free-enterprise system as is the possibility of success. One cannot logically exist without the other. The greatness of our system made America the gold-standard in the world for prosperity and abundance because one of our greatest historical freedoms has always been the opportunity to do better, to make more money, to increase our standard of living, while at the same time recognizing the possibility that the risk of failure is also part of the package. Many of us have discovered that we learn more from our failures than we do from our successes and that it's our failures that ultimately motivate us to take our medicine and do better next time.
Implicit in the big lie is a smaller lie, i.e., that only the government can save us and consequently federal-government intervention is the only clear solution for what ails us. Interesting, isn't it, how one big lie becomes the mother of many other smaller lies.
Unless there is something akin to a new revolution, the current course of action will bankrupt the government itself. This leads us to the ultimate question, "Is the U.S. Government too big to fail?" Judging from history, it would not appear any government is beyond failure.
The biblical position on these issues is clear. Obedience to God's laws does not produce bondage. Quite the contrary, it provides us the greatest freedom of opportunity to succeed or fail, based on our own hard work, ingenuity, wisdom, and acceptance of personal responsibility. The audacity of any civil government assuming a role that only God is qualified to fulfill can produce nothing but failure and divine judgment. The only one too big to fail is…GOD.
Principle Based Evaluation: Centralized decision making as a long-term policy produces inefficiencies, unhealthy dependencies, and a loss of freedom. Along with this there comes a loss of any sense of personal responsibility. A government made up of citizens who take no responsibility cannot in itself be responsible.
Lawrence Wilson
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Too Big To Fail I believe that some corporations were allowed to become too large by our government and had to be rescued or the US economy would have gone into a depression rather than the recession that we are now beginning to work or way out of. Proper limits on the size of corporations around the world with regulations that even the playing field for all companies need to be put into effect on a world wide basis or greed and other excesses by corporate and government leaders will allow this same situation to resurface in the future. The father has given us free will to manage our financial structures and if they are not managed in line with Gods will this situation will not be resolved and at some point the system will fail. |
Joel Petersen
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" Divine Judgement " Is Barack Gods whipping boy? Is this nation decending deeper into the judgement of God? Is there a lethargic veil over the minds of the majority of Americans? We "Postmillinialists " generally believe we are called to restore our nation back to the ways of the Lord. Just what are "The Ways of the Lord"? We are not even close to assuming leadership to rebuild and restore. Lets engage, we have a lot of work to do. |
Joel Petersen
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A start to understanding " The Ways Of The Lord " You might find this interesting.....http://www.chalcedon.edu/papers/Judgement.pdf... or just go to chalcedon.edu and look at the top of their homepage at their position papers. |
Tim Stauffer
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Recovery? Lawrence, I disagree that we are working our way out of the recession. It will appear this way due to the massive amounts of new dollars being flooded into the market. We have doubled the money supply in the past year, and as banks begin to lend these newly printed dollars, it will appear that profits are rising (they will be in nominal terms). Unfortunately, the purchasing power of those profits will begin to fall as a result of twice as many dollars chasing the available goods. Inflationary policy ultimately rewards the borrower, as the first to receive the newly printed dollars gets the most benefit. We are continuing to train the market, and thereby its participants, to be indebted, and to spend money now before its purchasing power declines. While I agree that smaller businesses are ideal, I do not believe that more regulation is the answer. Large companies are, ironically, best poised to comply with regulation, as it becomes too costly for small companies to comply. This also raises the bar of entry, helping to keep new competition from surfacing. Instead, I believe that we need true market interest rates for borrowing and savings, instead of the current manipulated system. This would decrease the demand for debt as a means of financing, and would encourage savings rather than consumption as the return on savings would actually increase your purchasing power, rather than just slowing down your loss in purchasing power. Unfortunately, the path we are currently on appears to be one of devaluing our currency until it hits its intrinsic value of zero. This path may produce less short term pain, but ultimately end with much more pain. The questions now on the table appear to be, is the US Government too big to fail? Is the US Dollar too big to fail? As Ray states in the article, there is but One who is too big to fail, and the arrogance to believe otherwise may have dire consequences. |
Tessa Hart
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America Like Rome I do not believe anyone can say an organization will go on forever. It has been said, that history repeats itself. History tends to copy cat itself. We can see this not only in trends but in historical events as well. It seems as though when one thing or nation gets too powerful or big, it fails. This is seen clearly in the time of the invaders. The Romans, Persians, and Assyrians each had their time of power and control over the Empire. But each came to an end. If we apply this to government, this theory would suggest that once government becomes too powerful, it collapses. What follows is a time of rule by the people. The people take over and throw off all government. Then someone takes a stand against the anarchy and a new form of government is created. Hence the endless cycle of history. When will our government grow too large and collapse like the Roman Empire? "There's an amazing resemblance between America's current situation and the ancient Roman Empire. The Roman Empire fell due to various reasons--three of them are worth mentioning: the decline of morality, culture and politics from within; the overly self-confident army and various wars to extend borders; and the financial irresponsibility of the central government. Don't these sound familiar?? It's now the time to learn from history to make steps and make sure that America will emerge from these tasks a winner." http://watchingamerica.com/New...an-empire/ Is government in the US "too big"? In Lisa Epstein's article "Saving too-big-to-fail banks: Here comes a new government takeover strategy", "The federal government could soon have the right to seize control of troubled financials institutions that are deemed "too big to fail," fire their top executives, wipe out shareholders and rewrite the institution's loan agreements." She discusses the consequences of the government helping banks who were deemed "too big to fail". To read this article in depth go to http://www.dailyfinance.com/20...t-takeov/. I found this article very useful in exploring this topic. Another article I found regarding this issue was one written by Nicole Gelinas. The title of her article was America, Too Big to Fail . . . Probably- The feds can bail out Fannie and Freddie, but who will bail out the feds? http://www.city-journal.org/2008/eon0716ng.html The last line of Ray Mccollum's Too Big to Fail? states, "The only one too big to fail is…GOD." This was such a great reminder; even for everyday life. When all else fails, God doesn't. |
Ashley McCuen
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... There is no nation, people or government that is too big to fail. I firmly believe this. Recently I have been studying WW1. It is interesting to see the effects it had on Great Britain. Britain was one of the greatest superpowers in the world. But after a devastating and crippling war, the great nation of Britain had fallen. For many years, they struggled to recover and rebuild. Even today, Britain is still trying to rebuild the great empire that it once was. According to the British Empire site (http://www.britishempire.co.uk/), "At its peak, the British Empire was the largest formal empire that the world had ever known. As such, its power and influence stretched all over the globe; shaping it in all manner of ways." Later in this site, they discuss how after WW1, the empire suffered economically, but after WW2, they were completely devastated, never to fully recover again. This just goes to show that no matter how big an empire, how great its leaders, people or government are, failure is still possible, if not inevitable. Similarly, we see this trend in the US. We are the great superpower of the world. We pride ourselves in our people, technology, industries, government and much more. But, one must remember the cycles of history--"history repeats itself." Like Tessa Hart said above, the question of America following in the steps of the Roman Empire is a constant thought. Rome was the great superpower, in a time of utopia, enjoying the greatest "pleasures" of life. But what became of that? I believe that America is not as far as the Roman Empire...yet. According to the Heritage Foundation, in an article, entitled "The Lessons of the Roman Empire For America Today," they wrote "similar circumstances will always produce similar events. But I would say at the same time, as Churchill did, that history is both a guide and an impediment to understanding the present." I think know one could have said it better than Churchill himself--we must be guided by history in order that we understand the present...and with this, understand that no nation is too big to fail. Sources: http://www.britishempire.co.uk/ http://www.heritage.org/research/politicalphilosophy/hl917.cfm |
Jaelle Hamann
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New Solutions Thinking that a government could possibly be too big to fail is more than a lie it's an idealist mindset. Let's not forget what springs from worshipping ideals aka communism. It's doesn't matter how airtight the system is, government will always have the ability to fall because man himself is fallen. Unfortunately because we believed this massive atrocity big companies like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were allowed to swell until they had control of half the countries 12 trillion dollars worth of home mortgages. "Some institutions really are too big to fail, and that's the way it is," said Douglas Elmendorf, a former Treasury and Federal Reserve economist who is now at the Brookings Institution in Washington. "There are no good options." Their collapse would mean chaos for America as well as the other nations equipped with us. But more money for these companies cannot be the solution. It just seems unsafe, not only because these companies have already proved themselves incompetent to a degree, but because America is already trillions of dollars in debt. Printing more money will only decrease the value of our dollar and the value of our country. As of October of last year, CNN reported that America was 53 trillion dollars in debt and counting. It's time we came up with new solutions for our debt and for government. What could those be? As of now I am not fully equipped to answer, hopefully somone out there is. Any ideas? To read more on America's debt go here.http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/10/06/walker.bailout/index.html To read more about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac click here.http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/20/business/worldbusiness/20iht-20fail.14631291.html |
