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Ex-Im bank: Crony capitalism at its absolute worst

Republican pigs: Not only is this Republican Congress pushing to reinstate the Export-Import Bank so that the federal government can provide cheap loans to their corporate buddies, several senators are pushing to require that there be political litmas tests before those loans are granted.

[S]enators from both parties are pitching a condition: that applicants for loans essentially vouch support for the Israeli economy in order to be approved. The move, described by multiple sources, is meant to counter a pro-Palestinian campaign to undermine Israeli exports because of its occupation of the West Bank and blockade of the Gaza Strip.

Specifically, the Ex-Im Bank would have to consider whether applicants for loans oppose “policies and actions that are politically motivated” and meant to inhibit “commercial relations specifically with citizens or residents of Israel.” In the past, Ex-Im has taken into account applicants’ stance on human rights and terrorism, prompting advocates of the new language to propose the new qualification.

It is obscene for the federal government to be in the loan business, picking favorites among private companies. It is even more obscene for these elected officials to demand that those favorites adhere to their political whims (no matter that I might agree with those particular whims). The Ex-Im bank should go away, along with the senators who are now pushing for it.

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On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.

 
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4 comments

  • wodun

    It is nice to see that people still have principles.

  • Cotour

    Q: Can the Ex-Im bank be seen as a counter balance to other country’s subsidizing there own company’s thus giving them an “unfair” advantages in the global markets?

    “Principles”, that’s a good one Wodun, this game is not based on principles its based getting business done and making a profit if you can. Here is a book I suggest you read:

    http://www.amazon.com/Confessions-Economic-Hit-John-Perkins/dp/0452287081

    This is how the game is played at the highest levels.

  • Edward

    Which road is it that is paved with good intentions? It looks like the legislators are trying to correct a wrong by making yet another wrong. This is a process that could go on for years or decades.

    Oh, wait! That is exactly how we end up with a huge, tyrannical government. Rather than sticking with the basics of protecting the citizens, peaceably resolving disputes, and getting the hell out of everyone’s way, government get all high and mighty by seeing themselves as problem solvers. However, instead of solving the problem, they merely create new problems, which they then think must be solved by them.

    This is how we ended up with a useless, tyrannical Obamacare, which has not solved a single problem and has created a large number of other problems.

    And now the Ex-Im bank is getting further involved in political solutions (read: “problem generation”) to political problems (read: “previous attempts at problem solving”). Government isn’t the solution, it is the problem.

    What a crock!

  • Cotour

    I assume (I really know nothing about the bank and its operation) that the Ex-Im bank is the result of big business players and their lobbyists crafting the laws of the country in order to give them the leverage that they believe they need to realistically compete in the international arena.

    Laws and protectionism are the things that must be sometimes overcome and there is only one way to affect those laws and that protectionism and that is through legally “cheating”. I will assume that the rule in international business is that there are no rules and if you have the opportunity to gain an advantage, even if you custom manufacture it you take it.

    Corrupt and perverted? Oh, bet on it.

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