Crisis

President Bush has, with some justification, been accused of exaggerating the threat posed by terrorism. But what really has me scared are all of the politicians running around screaming about economic crisis. As John Stossel notes:

Where is this "credit crisis"? Did the supermarket reject your Visa card? I still see Ditech commercials offering fixed-rate mortgages at around 5.5 percent.

Sure, some lenders are skittish while things play out. Some investment banks and brokerage houses are sitting on shaky mortgage-backed securities. But why call that a "crisis"

Do we have 25 percent unemployment, as we did during the Depression? Do we even have 7.5 percent unemployment, 12 percent inflation and 20 percent interest rates, as we did during Jimmy Carter's presidency?

There's a been a loss of jobs in the past two months, but thatcomes after years of strong job creation -- 25 million net jobs in the last 15 years . At 5.1 percent, unemployment is low by historical standards.

And are we really experiencing a mortgage-default "crisis"? No. The Mortgage Bankers Association's 2007 fourth-quarter survey reports that foreclosures came to 2.04 percent of all mortgages. Many of those were speculators seeking flip profits rather than homeowners losing a dream house. During the quarter, only 0.83 percent of homes entered the foreclosure process. It may get worse -- in March, "foreclosure
filings, default notices, auction sale notices and bank repossessions rose 5 percent," Reuters reports. But let's keep things in perspective: Ninety-eight percent of borrowers are not in foreclosure. Only a small percentage of them are even late in payments.

Politicians love a "crisis." John McCain, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama all think that the government should bail out homeowners who can't pay their mortgages. When they say the government should do this, they mean the taxpayers, including those who are paying their mortgages. They also think the government should regulate the lending and investment industries further.

Why?

Because "crisis" justifies making big government bigger.

Exactly. It gives politicians an excuse to change the rules, to order the economy as they see fit, to impose their vision of economic justice.