dirty word

During the course of the last few months, I've heard many people, from commoners like me to the alleged best and brightest our nation has to offer, express disdain and distrust for so-called 'socialist' policies enacted by our new administration. These comments range from the uninformed to the just-plain stupid. When powerful politicians make such public statements, like John McCain's recent accusation that the Obama administration doesn't have the courage to let banks fail, I'm forced to wonder how such ignorance is possible.

Ours is not the first generation to fall on hard financial times, nor is it the first to see banks go belly-up. In 1933, during the FDR administration, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) was created to respond to the thousands of bank that failed during the Great Depression. The FDIC is an agency of the federal government which insures deposits against bank failure. The FDIC is managed by a five-person board of directors, all of whom are appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate.

For the last 75 years, when a bank has failed:

• The FDIC swoops in to take over the bank.
• The FDIC then checks the balance sheets to ensure that the checking/savings/etc of the customers are covered.
• The bank leadership is fired, the shareholders' values are liquidated, and bank assets are sold off to cover liabilities.
• The bank is then put up for sale, and the new ownership can either reopen it the way it was or let it die.

Under the current administration, when a bank fails:

• The FDIC swoops in to take over the bank.
• The FDIC then checks the balance sheets to ensure that the checking/savings/etc of the customers are covered.
• The bank leadership is fired, the shareholders' values are liquidated, and bank assets are sold off to cover liabilities.
• The bank is then put up for sale, and the new ownership can either reopen it the way it was or let it die.

Why, then, is the idea of "letting the banks fail" considered noble and courageous, while the idea of nationalization is considered some big, scary evil? I've got news for you, folks. In addition to democratic policies, most major world governments, including our own, have employed socialist practices for years.

I'm of the opinion that a governing body should research a problem and then use whichever solution most effectively addresses the issue. Just because a particular method, such as capitalism, has historically been the best answer for our country does not necessarily mean that it cannot be improved upon. Perhaps the trouble here is not socialism, but the inflexible adherence to dogmatic ideas.

All of my life, I've been told that I'm fortunate enough to have been born in the greatest country in the world, the most powerful country in the world, the only free country in the world (all propagandized matters of opinion, by the way). What I've never heard anyone say is that I live in the most intelligent country in the world. Isn't it about time to change that?