Democrat demagoguery about Wall Street

David Hirsayni:

No. Legislators never would employ crude and simplistic sloganeering like those rowdy anti-gummint protesters.

Just ask Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who this week offered up this eloquent gem: "A party that stands with Wall Street is a party that stands against families and against fairness."

You know Wall Street; it lives to destabilize the family unit. Just scratch the surface and you'll find 8,500 companies trading on the New York Stock Exchange and another 3,200 companies listed on Nasdaq. Nearly 50 percent of households own some form of equities, and 21 million households own individual stocks outside any employer-sponsored plan.

All working together against kids and fairness.

Actually, what Reid's words reveal is an ideological disposition that is wholly unconcerned with creating a healthier Wall Street or a Wall Street scrubbed of crony capitalism and government-produced moral hazard.

Using stale populist rhetoric, Democrats dishonestly pit families against "banks" to generate enough support to pass a fiscal reform bill. But how many voters manipulated by the fear-mongering of Chris Dodd, Reid or Barack Obama fully understand reform? I sure don't. It's complex stuff, no doubt.

How many of us are aware that these derivatives that politicians rail against are financial tools that often allow people to hedge bets and take insurance on risk? As The New York Times recently reported, entities like Mars, the maker of M&M's, like to dip into the derivative market to insulate themselves from fluctuating prices of sugar and chocolate.

How many voters are aware that the pending Senate reform bill includes a payback to unions in the form of a "proxy access" that would allow labor to manipulate company boards? How many are aware that the bill may give the Treasury Department the right to seize private property and businesses without any significant judicial review?

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There is more.

I think one of the reasons the Democrats are in such a rush with this bill, is that they do not want voters to find out what they are pushing. This bill has the potential to be as big a disaster as their health care monstrosity. For all the bill does and purports to do, it does not address the central problem that caused the financial crisis. The requirement that lenders make bad loans and that Fannie and Freddie buy them and then push their toxic product through the derivative market. The Democrats just do not want to admit that it was their policies that caused the finaancial crisis.