The biggest armed robbery in history

Quite "a coincidence that you're interested in this one," the salesman says. "Another lady was just in here wanting it and she ran home for her checkbook. I can't guarantee it'll still be here in half an hour."

Eleven days ago, the entire government of the United States -- OK, no one invited the Supreme Court -- sat in the White House in front of the gathered cameras and played used car salesman. From Bernanke of the Fed to Paulson of the Treasury; from Harry Reid to Nancy Pelosi; from Chris Dodd to John McCain to Barack Obama to their earnest front man George W. Bush, the government sat there stern-faced and swore in all earnestness that the nation was in an economic crisis -- a liquidity crisis (despite the fact the Fed has been printing up and handing free money to the big bankers all year, by the billions.)

Congress was going to have to hand to the nation's rich, fat cat bankers -- who have already salted away their billions in bonuses and stock options for slicing up and reselling 13 years worth of bad mortgages -- a big new IOU payable by America's struggling taxpayers, the gang insisted.

And -- after Banking Chairfolkpersons Chris Dodd and Barney Frank assured us for years that everything was fine -- the crisis was so urgent the thing had to pass within days: No time to bother reading it!

But by the time the bailout finally came to a vote on Monday, six days ago, part of it was missing. The tens of billions of dollars in that "vital, desperately needed" bill that would have funded what The Wall Street Journal called the "Barney Frank-Chris Dodd slush fund" -- constitutionally forbidden money for Barack Obama's "Acorn" scam and scores of similar socialist squeeze plays -- had gone missing.

If the whole package was desperately needed, why did they take that part out (only to replace it this past week with $192 million for rum producers in Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, $33 million for companies operating in American Samoa, a $6 million tax cut for the producers of wooden arrows -- 448 new pages of pork and sharply targeted tax breaks added to what was once a three-page bill)?

Then, when the House finally voted, the proposal ... lost.

Wall Street was stunned. The news media were stunned. Washington was stunned. If everyone in the whole city -- Republicrat and Demopublican alike -- said it was necessary, if The New York Times and The Washington Post said it was necessary, if CBS and ABC and MSNBC soberly intoned that it was inescapable, unavoidable ... how could it lose?

The answer to both of the above questions is the same. The rubes out here in Flyover Land no longer depend on the carefully slanted statist-agenda "newscasts" at the TimesPost and CBSABCMSNBC. They've got Rush Limbaugh, who pounded on the Acorn handouts for days. They've got the Internet. (Go to www.lewrockwell.com/ to read Gary North; Ron Paul; Doug French; Bob Murphy; Shawn Ritenour -- especially read http://mises.org/story/3132 and www.lewrockwell.com/orig8/ritenour2.html.)

The rubes can even share the real news via cell phones.

I went out to dinner Tuesday night with some friends. They asked if I'd seen anything on the major news stations, or moving on the wires, about demonstrations outside the New York Stock Exchange and the Federal Reserve in Washington. I said I hadn't seen a thing about any such demonstrations.

Our dinner companion handed me her picture phone, displaying a photo from the demonstration outside the stock exchange, unmistakable with its big post-9/11 American flag.

The demonstrators were showing a touching level of concern and empathy for the Wall Street bankers and brokers inside. The biggest hand-lettered sign on view read "Jump! You (Expletives)!"

I somehow doubt any Americans were shown that on their network evening news last week. Which is why they no longer trust the network evening news, any more than they trust any of the clowns who sat around that big table at the White House 11 days ago.

The Democrats in Washington enacted the Community Redevelopment Act under Jimmy Carter in 1977, and then put the whole deal on steroids under Bill Clinton in 1995.

Federal regulators refused to approve perfectly prudent bank mergers unless everyone participating cranked up their racial quota ratings by making "enough" bad loans to inner city minority folk, even if they had to let them use their welfare and unemployment checks to "qualify" for a mortgage.

This worked great when it came to buying Democratic votes. In the long run it didn't work out so well for the banks.

Congressmen, facing the voters in five weeks, admit their e-mails were running 80-20 against the Biggest Attempted Armed Robbery in History. Let's figure that means they were actually running 98-2.

What went wrong is that the rubes weren't buying it anymore.

Congress just changed and updated the bankruptcy laws, to make things easier for creditors. What's wrong -- don't the banks who pushed for those rule changes want to file for Chapter 7 or Chapter 11 and have a receiver auction off their assets under the same rules they just rewrote for some Joe or Jane who falls behind on the mortgage?

Instead it was, "Please wave your magic wand, Mr. Bernanke, and turn us into 'bank holding companies.' "

If you or I wanted to form a "bank holding company" we'd be undergoing audits and waiting for bureaucratic approvals for years. But the rich cronies of Messrs. Paulson and Bernanke ask for some magic fairy dust to change them overnight from "investment banks" into "bank holding companies," and they get their wish?

Why didn't they just ask to be turned into guys in colorful spandex suits with superhuman powers?

To win this election, John McCain needs to hammer the fact he was calling for regulatory reform of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac for years -- that the folks who stood in the way of that reform were the Democrats who were on the payoff list, big time, for the lobbyists and PACs of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac: Chris Dodd, Barack Obama, John Kerry, Hillary Clinton.

Then he needs to announce that his first appointment will be a secretary of the Treasury who still wants to know why we need a "Federal Reserve Board" to replace real gold and silver money with increasingly worthless fiat "dollar" coupons, at all -- Republican Rep. Ron Paul.

Vin Suprynowicz is assistant editorial page editor of the Review-Journal and author of the novel "The Black Arrow." See www.vinsuprynowicz.com/.