Obama's Whip Hand

The bank didn't want the money in the first place but was forced to take it--now they want to pay it back:

But the Obama team says no, since unlike the smaller banks that gave their TARP money back, this bank is far more prominent. The bank has also been threatened with "adverse" consequences if its chairman persists. That's politics talking, not economics.

Think about it: If Rick Wagoner can be fired and compact cars can be mandated, why can't a bank with a vault full of TARP money be told where to lend? And since politics drives this administration, why can't special loans and terms be offered to favored constituents, favored industries, or even favored regions? Our prosperity has never been based on the political allocation of credit -- until now.

This is what pushed the banks into insolvency in the first place--being forced to lend to borrowers who were incapable of paying it back, then supposedly being "guaranteed" by Fannie and Freddie, who have since been bailed out with billions, nearing trillions of our money.

President Obama is wielding a whip hand and is forcing our country toward bankruptcy . It's a new kind of slavery.

Barack will make you work.

More: Simon Heffer, The Telegraph, a new world order is fantasy:

Those who thought that Dr Goebbels came to an end on a stretch of waste ground in Berlin in 1945 have been forced to think again. The piece of theatre that concluded in London on Thursday was one of the great confidence tricks of our lifetimes.

The importance of entrepreneurship:

While Mr. Schramm believes that the government has a role to play, he argues that "historically through the last seven recessions it's been entrepreneurs who essentially restarted the economy."

Matt Continetti:

When Obama says his budget heralds "a new era of responsibility," he's not talking about individual responsibility, or the responsibility of families to raise the next generation. Nor does he mean government's responsibility to provide for a decent measure of social and national security, and a legal and regulatory framework that allows civil society and the free market to flourish. No, Obama is talking about the responsibilities government is going to impose on us in the form of higher taxes. The upshot is more government, and still more debt. Not to mention a dependent citizenry.

More: Mark Steyn, "Feel Like Getting Nasty?"