Turns out to be not so free, or free of government intervention, after all.
The U.S. government is prepared to provide more than $7.7 trillion on behalf of American taxpayers after guaranteeing $306 billion of Citigroup Inc. debt yesterday. The pledges, amounting to half the value of everything produced in the nation last year, are intended to rescue the financial system after the credit markets seized up 15 months ago.
The unprecedented pledge of funds includes $3.2 trillion already tapped by financial institutions in the biggest response to an economic emergency since the New Deal of the 1930s, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The commitment dwarfs the plan approved by lawmakers, the Treasury Department’s $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program. Federal Reserve lending last week was 1,900 times the weekly average for the three years before the crisis.
It always amazes me how few political commentators, especially on the BBC who I know to have at least one former(?) Trotskyist, like to point out the hypocrisies of such free-market-preaching governments when those governments make massive centralized plans and are spending tax payers’ money in such ways.
Well… we should let them off. I mean, I guess they have, in fact, being spending tax payers’ money whilst preaching about reducing the role of State and to have more free trade (and slipping in a little protectionism through the back door) for a while though. Say one thing, do another, hope the press doesn’t notice.
So maybe nothing new to report after all then. Move along now, nothing to see here.
