“quasi-fascist?”

fascism

Too late, dude. We’re already there.

my greatest fear is that the DO in fact understand perfectly what they are doing. lenders still possessed of free choice will learn strong object lessons about doing business with the government and with heavily unionized firms. they will stop or demand draconian rates.

this will put pressure on the unionized firms (and there will be lots of new ones if the card check license for thuggery legislation passes). they will need more government support of the support of firms influenced by government through quasi-fascist paths like TARP and the Chrysler negotiation.

this just deepens governmental control over whole industries and creates a massive “governmental kieretsu”, which is, i fear, what they want. it can spread through card check and be cemented by forced loans from ostensibly private companies that are, in reality, anything but.

they get to have their cake and eat it too. they control all the interactions, but never take actual ownership, so every time the it falls on its face, they can blame capitalism.

unions band together when they vote. individuals and entrepreneurs are easy to factionalize.

this will create a strong power base from which to extend this agenda.

i dearly hope that the sort of federalist stands being taken by texas and oaklahoma catch on. it’s really the only way we are going to roll this back.

Here’s a question for the conspiracy theorists (I guess I’m among them) ahead of the release of the stress tests:

What would it take for this guy to paint a picture of some banks bad enough so that they wind up effectively nationalized? They’ve gotten pretty far with Citi and B of A already, and will probably convert the preferred shares to common, diluting current shareholders and gaining control (which they already basically have under TARP, but this makes it real).

What this would then allow them to do is control Chrysler (and probably GM), keep it afloat via sweet lending deals, and mandate ridiculous CAFE and/or draconian emissions standards, passable only by cars built by Chrysler (and possibly GM).