From April 13, 1929

Democratic capitalism is an experiment that has resulted in the greatest wealth for the greatest number. Railing against Wall St or other big entities in the economy is to beg for poverty back. Remember poverty? Outhouses, but no refrigerators?

It might help if our citizens, including churchmen, learned about democratic capitalism and how it works, do you think? How many of our ‘educated’ fellow citizens don’t know who Adam Smith is, don’t know a stock from a bond or how to value either, and have no savings. When the huckster cons the rube, whose fault is it?

The name you need to remember in the current malaise is Barney Frank. Barney and his friends, with the help of their liberal fellow-travelers, put a shotgun to the face of the mortgage industry and forced it to make unsound loans at the very heart of the system—the secured home loan. Then Barney offered to buy the loans with your money. You see, Barney knows how to help. He’s smart.

Government has a role to play by enforcing the rules. But when it enters the arena and becomes a player, we no longer have democratic capitalism. Call it socialism. Call it central planning. Call it anything. But it’s not democratic capitalism any more and it won’t work.

The wolves are still loose. No regulation seems able to reign in the greed. From insider trading, to wild speculation in oil and other critical commodities, we have made the world's economy just another big casino operation. Only there are no limits to the stacking of the odds against investors. What is needed is a strategy to avoid the charlatans entirely. Perhaps investing only in your local community bank is the answer. Thus the big boys currently too big to fail may just actually fail or clean up their acts.

The problem is not with lending. The problem is with banks directly speculating in every kind of market from commodities to currencies. Derivatives are the worst form of financial instrument and they love them because they only exist in some kind of database. No servicing required and their are no depositor demands to satisfy. The current financial and banking system would alarm and mortify people of my father's generation and my grandfather would simply bury his funds in a coffee can.

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