Pull the plug

Barack Obama says the bailout must meet four conditions:

• a payback plan for taxpayers if the bailout succeeds;
• a bipartisan board to oversee the bailout;
• limits on any federal money going to compensate Wall Street executives;
• and aid to homeowners who are struggling to pay their mortgages.

OK, so what about Wall Street executives struggling to pay their mortgages? Where's the compassion for these hard-working CEOs, huh?

Seriously . . . At this point, I say pull the plug. Liberals are always talking about "death with dignity." The housing market slipped into a coma months ago. So let it die a natural death, rather than trying to keep it hooked up to a bunch of tubes and wires and pumps.

As any reader of Amity Shlaes' The Forgotten Man knows, one of the reasons the Great Depression was so bad was because of the repeated efforts of government to "fix" the problem. What Obama and the Democrats are demanding is just that kind of phony-baloney "fix."

So pull the plug. The fallout will be harsh. A lot of retirement funds will get trashed, we'll have a sharp contraction and a recession that might last six quarters, and . . . so what? You think capitalism is a game where there are never any losers? Should markets always go in only one direction? Do you know enough Latin to get the meaning of caveat emptor?

You buy the ticket, you take the ride. Pull the plug.

UPDATE: Mary Katharine Ham has a rundown of who said what yesterday about the bailout, including this quote from Sen. Richard Shelby:

"What troubles me most is that we have been given no credible assurances that this plan will work. We could very well spend $700 billion and not resolve the crisis."

Exactly. As Michelle Malkin said last week, this bailout would mean privatizing profits and socializing losses. Pull the plug, I say.

UPDATE II: Great minds, etc.:

It's no coincidence that most of the areas hardest hit by the foreclosure wave -- Loudon County, Virginia, California’s Inland Empire, Stockton, San Joaquin Valley, Las Vegas, and Phoenix, for starters -- also happen to be some of the nation's largest illegal alien sanctuaries. Half of the mortgages to Hispanics are subprime (the accursed species of loan to borrowers with the shadiest credit histories). A quarter of all those subprime loans are in default and foreclosure. . . .
For the last five years, I've reported on the rapidly expanding illegal alien home loan racket. The top banks clamoring for their handouts as their profits plummet, led by Wachovia and Bank of America, launched aggressive campaigns to woo illegal alien homebuyers.

Pull the freaking plug.

UPDATE III: When she's hot, she's hot, and now Michelle catches this latest from Sen. Richard Shelby:

"I think we’re going down the road of France now," Mr. Shelby told one television interviewer Tuesday. . . .

NOTE: Just wanted to mention that The Other McCain was Website of the Day yesterday at Conservative Grapevine. I'm grateful for the honor.