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A little help for little guy long overdue Ron Bartizek Business LOCAL

Sunday July 05, 2009 | 01:00 AM

Here’s a wild idea; how about instead of printing money and propping up failed businesses, the government stops trying to “revive” the U.S. economy?

“Revive” sounds too much like performing CPR on a terminally-ill patient; chances are if they live they’ll never regain their full health and in the long run their care will siphon off resources from more productive uses.

Should we really long for the days of overheated home prices, liar loans and consumers spending more than they earn? I thought those were the problem, not the solution.

The prolonged and steep economic slowdown has put a severe dent in a lot of people’s savings, leading to millions of dashed hopes, postponed dreams and slimmed-down retirements. Much of that is collateral damage left by the callous and conniving behavior of a cadre of financiers whose thoughts were on their yachts and vacation homes, not on the responsibility they had to investors and other stakeholders. Sadly, they found plenty of willing victims in “aspirational” borrowers who believed they deserved gold-plated lifestyles even if they earned tin cup salaries. Worse, innocent bystanders who handled money responsibly and trusted in the system lost small and large fortunes in plunging markets and falling home values.

The crooks got plenty of help from government officials who bowed to the wishes of cagey Wall Streeters while taking hefty campaign donations, or who from their D.C. office suites were supposed to discipline the same people they’d been pals with for decades. Chris Dodd, senator from my home state, is a poster boy, getting sweetheart loan deals from Countrywide and help by way of a big contributor in buying a vacation cottage in Ireland while holding powerful positions on Congressional banking and housing committees.

As for the Obama administration’s response to the economic crunch, ironically, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and her European counterparts – decried in the past by disingenuous U.S. conservatives as socialists – have become scolds, telling the President to slow down the printing press and let economic principles deal with the remaining problems. But they don’t mean relying blindly on the questionable wisdom of “the market,” which to insiders came to mean leaving the henhouse guarded by foxes.

Adopting reasonable regulatory protections – or simply reinstating ones that were dismissed over the past 20 years as unnecessary – will put our financial system on a sounder and more consistent footing. That would mean putting consumers’ interests ahead of investment bankers, a delayed but logical shift in an economy that is so dependent on personal and business spending.

If they can get past outdated visions of their own self-interest, even opponents of sensible regulation might acknowledge that people are more likely to spend, invest, borrow – and be able to pay – if they believe they’ll be treated honestly and fairly. Would that make the USA a nanny state? Hardly; knowing their savings and credit lines are secure is more likely to free striving individuals and entrepreneurs than it is to instantly turn them into wards of the state.

Sometimes people need to be dragged kicking and screaming to a position that ultimately is good for them.

This is one of those times; instead of reviving a flawed model, let’s refocus attention on what really drives America’s prosperity, individuals and small businesses fired by ambition but guided by common sense.

About the Author

Ron Bartizek covers business for the Times Leader. Reach him at (570) 970-7157 or rbartizek@timesleader.com.

Ron Bartizek has more than 30 years' newspaper industry experience, in advertising, news, general management and ownership. He has been business editor of the Times Leader since mid-2005.