Letter: Congress caused financial woes

Thursday, Aug. 15, 2002 | 8:45 a.m.

All financial bubbles "are saturated with excesses in hype, speculation, debt, greed, fraud, gross errors in investment judgment, carelessness on the part of analysts and investors, huge paper profits, conviction that a new era economy has arrived and, above all else, pie-in-the-sky expectations," noted Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, on the House floor in a July 9 speech.

"When the bubble is inflating, there are no complaints. When it bursts, the blame game begins. ... It quickly becomes a philosophic, partisan, class, generational, and even a racial issue" -- and the only ones who benefit are "the central planners in Washington" and their allied special interests.

Rather than initiating a Soviet-style campaign against honest creators of wealth, "Congress should be investigating the federal government's fraud and deception in accounting, especially in reporting future obligations such as Social Security, and how the monetary system destroys wealth," continued Paul.

"Those problems are bigger than anything in the corporate world and are the responsibility of Congress. Besides, it's the standard set by the government and the monetary system it operates that are major contributing causes to all that's wrong on Wall Street today."

This is the other side of the story that the anti-business politicians avoid.

KEN HOVEY