Finance, credit cards and capitalism: Free trade or a free-for-all?

Is this what we call free trade, or is it just a free-for-all?

That credit cards, and the whole gamut of lenders, can do the things they have been doing, to everyone's ruin, is wrong. It is not merely unfortunate, nor unfair, but immoral, amoral, and capitalism in its crudest, egregious form. How such behavior can possibly be considered a free market is euphemistic at best.

A free market could be mistakenly defined, in finer print, as one that takes advantage of the poorest and [those who are] the hardest working for the lowest wages: that is capitalism at its worst. If that is free trade, then give me something BETTER than that. A free market would be one that considers all the rational and positive facets of the word "free": free to trade, free to live, free from illicit deception, etc. Free market ought not be defined as one party is free to do any damned thing they please no matter the result on others (including, as in the recent financial disaster, the results that impact all others).

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Missing Minds | Obama's Fannie Mae 'Connection' (Wash. Post - The Fact Checker)

Minds are missing, but no one at the Washington Post seems to notice.

This is from our "get over it, you silly PC dum-dum" file:

Washington Post's "The Fact Checker" cannot even get past pointing out skin color of people in an ad that regards economics by a presidential campaign. What is the point to giving credence to their fact checks, then? I put a comment under the piece at the site, but the idiocy of the piece goes beyond that one item. Going deeper into the uselessness of this fact check by the Post, says the super-brilliant Fact Checker: "The latest McCain attack is particularly dubious." Particularly dubious? How about the dubiousness of the fact check? Here's the first example from this Post "fact check" that makes my head ache:

The McCain video attempts to link Obama to Franklin Raines, the former CEO of ... Fannie Mae, who also happens to be African-American. It then shows a photograph of an elderly white woman taxpayer who has supposedly been 'stuck with the bill' as a result of the 'extensive financial fraud' at Fannie Mae."

My comment, taunting and crass, but not racist (except it would be, to irrational, knee-jerk PC liberals) seeing the context, was this:

Did you forget that Obama is half-white in his ethnic lineage? Or has he disavowed his, umm, whiteness? Curious that you point out the black and white skin color of the people in this video. Really, I suggest that the woman might be Hispanic. Oh, now that would be shocking! If you are so sure to offer the facts, try keeping to RELEVANT facts, too, Skippy.

This beautiful example of poor journalism only starts with pointing out the skin color of people, as if that is relevant. It then stumbles over its claim that McCain's camp is lying with a statement that shows Obama's troupe might be lying about the facts in the ad, and that Franklin Raines is definitely lying, within 100 words!

So what part is incorrect in the McCain camp's video? That they suggest Raines an adviser to the campaign? That's not accurate, but it is not an outright lie! The Post neglects to point out that the Obama campaign likely has -- and Raines definitely has -- lied in the matter, while the paper (seemingly by accident) actually demonstrates the lie:

Obama spokesman Bill Burton went a little further, telling me in an e-mail that the campaign had "neither sought nor received" advice from Raines "on any matter."

The piece then notes that Raines himself told a Post writer "that he had gotten a couple of calls from the Obama campaign. I asked him about what, and he said 'oh, general housing, economy issues.' "

So, how is it that Raines and the Obama camp are not lying, which is worse than stretching the truth, which is what McCain's ad does? Raines said that he got calls from the Obama team! Where is the "dubious" adjective attached to the Obama/Raines side? After the ad runs Raines says he is not an adviser, the BO club says the same thing, but Raines had said he did get calls for advice. OK, so Raines isn't flying to events with Obama, but the he did get calls. It's not an official role with the campaign, but it goes against the Obama campaign statement that "the campaign had 'neither sought nor received' advice from Raines 'on any matter.' " It would appear that they had.

Washinton Post, your bias is showing. Yet again! That, or you really need to start training your writers to see facts, and add them up.

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