No matter how many regulations exist – it’s never enough for the Left. Regs are their Jell-O – they think there’s always room for more.
New EPA Regs Issued Under Obama Are 38 Times as Long as Bible
Since President Barack Obama took office on Jan. 20, 2009, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has issued 2,827 new final regulations, equaling 24,915 pages in the Federal Register, totaling approximately 24,915,000 words.
As diligent as the Left is in trying to add to the government rule rolls, they get absolutely apoplectic when they lose any ground anywhere.
So when this happens:
WikiLeaks Leaks A Chapter Of A Global Trade Agreement That Deals With Financial Deregulation
The Left rends garments and gnashes teeth.
A Plan Only Banksters Will Love: WikiLeaks Reveals Trade Deal Pushing Global Financial Deregulation — Democracy Now!
(Said trade deal is the Trade in Services Agreement.)
Democracy Now! appears on a great many government-funded Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) stations.
Pioneering the largest public media collaboration in the U.S., Democracy Now! is broadcast on Pacifica, NPR, community, and college radio stations; on public access, PBS, satellite television…and on the internet.
Meaning we paid – and continue to pay – for this sort of brilliant, rational analysis.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: According to the leaked text, the trade deal aims to cement the deregulatory model of the 1990s by forbidding countries from improving financial regulation.
AMY GOODMAN: For more, we go to Denver, Colorado, where we’re joined by Lori Wallach, the director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch…
LORI WALLACH: Well, we’ve known these negotiations have been ongoing, but no one knew exactly what they were up to until this leaked. And effectively, the text, if it were enacted, would roll back a lot of the re-regulation that followed the global financial crisis and basically handcuff us into the 1990s extreme deregulation model that we all recognize was the cause of the crisis.
Actually, over here in Reality we recognize something else entirely was the cause of the 2008 global financial crisis – really stupid government regulation. Specifically, government mandating banks lend mortgage money to people everyone knew couldn’t pay it back.
New Study Finds CRA ‘Clearly’ Did Lead To Risky Lending
Democrats and the media insist the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA), the anti-redlining law beefed up by President Clinton, had nothing to do with the subprime mortgage crisis and recession.
But a new study by the respected National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) finds, “Yes, it did. We find that adherence to that act led to riskier lending by banks.”
Added NBER: “There is a clear pattern of increased defaults for loans made by these banks in quarters around the (CRA) exam. Moreover, the effects are larger for loans made within CRA tracts.”…
The strongest link between CRA lending and defaults took place in the runup to the crisis – 2004 to 2006 – when banks rapidly sold CRA mortgages for securitization by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and Wall Street.
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are huge government entities. That bought up a great many of the bad mortgages the CRA mandated banks write – and guaranteed the rest.
So the 2008 global recession was a government-regulation-induced event. Blaming the private sector – or free trade – is like shooting someone and then blaming them for bleeding on you.
And which economy would you rather have? The 1990s (and 1980s, and most of the 2000s) Democracy Now! decries as a “extreme(ly) deregulatory” – or the 2010s so far?
Four Years Later, Obama’s ‘Recovery’ is Still Around the Corner (2012)
Chilly (2014) 1Q: U.S. Economy Contracts for First Time Since ’11
A little more from the Reality-challenged Democracy Now!:
What they want to tear down is the regulatory structure that was strengthened after the global financial crisis.
Yes, please. That is in fact an outstanding idea – for every economic sector, because…
The Freer the Trade, the Better Things Get
Only the likes of the government-funded Left-Media can’t see that.
Editor’s Note: This first appeared in the PJ Tatler.