Puncturing the ideological "free market" veil

marjorie says...

From the New York Times this morning, regarding the massive bail-out of Wall Street the federal government (as in, "all of us") is currently making:

"Mr. Paulson, the Treasury secretary, vigorously endorsed the Fed’s rescue efforts on Sunday and made it clear he was much less worried about the “moral hazard” of bailing out a Wall Street firm than he was about a chain reaction of defaults if Bear Stearns were to abruptly collapse."

And what would the "moral hazard" be? The fact that reality is coming out from behind of the ideological veil of the "free market"...in broad daylight for all of the world to see?

Clearly, the economy is embedded within our society. It doesn't exist outside of it, operating with some kind of quasi-mystical "invisible hand." We are all in this together.

More on this later. I hope everyone is paying attention...what we're witnessing is amazing, and highly instructive. I'll try to keep from veering into didactic excess about it all.