As Anthony Gregory posted over at LewRockwell.com/blog yesterday:

Now the pundits and historians are beginning to compare Bush to Hoover, for supposedly not doing enough and thus letting the collapse happen. LRC readers know the truth about Hoover, that it was his big-government response to the market crash that began prolonging and deepening the depression before FDR ever got to office.

If the hyper statist Bush regime is remembered for being too inactive, both in domestic and foreign policy, it portends bad things for the future of America and the way Americans perceive our nation’s history. As I mused on LRC back in 2004, “The worst likely outcome would have Bush going down in history the way Herbert Hoover has: a clueless, “laissez faire conservative” who refused to increase government activity sufficiently in the face of a national crisis.”

Also in one of my first articles, I wondered if any pro-war libertarians would have supported the New Deal. We might just find out.

The far left is truly deluded but truly believe Bush and company are capitalists and what they propose is free market capitalism. That what we have now is free market. That he wasn’t energetic enough. If that belief catches on with the general public we are in for far more hurt than this liquidation alone would inflict.

http://www.reuters.com/…

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission issued an emergency order on Friday temporarily halting the short selling of 799 financial stocks in an effort to protect investors and markets.

The measure underscores growing concerns that short-selling has led to sharp declines in U.S. and European financial stocks since the onset of the credit crunch.

“The emergency order temporarily banning short selling of financial stocks will restore equilibrium to markets,” SEC Chairman Christopher Cox said in a statement. “This action, which would not be necessary in a well-functioning market, is temporary in nature and part of the comprehensive set of steps being taken by the Federal Reserve, the Treasury, and the Congress.”

As Bill Anderson over at the Lew Rockwell blog has said:

The last line is a howler worthy of Paul Krugman’s twice-weekly missives in his New York Times column. The SEC is not “restoring” equilibrium; it is preventing equilibrium.

It seems that policy makers are making the same terrible errors committed by the Hoover and Roosevelt administrations during the 1930s. (The Daily Kos, a popular Democratic blog, is calling for a “New New Deal.” Frankly speaking, we are not rid of the old New Deal.) The government wants us to believe that the real problem is falling prices, so if the government can prop up prices of assets by any means, then it is doing us a favor.

Remember that Carl Menger wrote in his wonderful Grundsatze that “all things are subject to the law of cause and effect.” Indeed, Menger’s words live here; falling prices are an effect, not a cause. Short sellers and others who are helping to drive down asset prices are restoring the markets to their natural equilibrium, not preventing it. Unfortunately, the SEC is channeling Hoover and FDR, and they are preventing the economy from recovering.

The more they tinker… the more pain we will end up in.

http://www.foxnews.com/…

House Democrats responded to President’s Bush’s call for Congress to lift the moratorium on offshore drilling. This was at an on-camera press conference fed back live.

Among other things, the Democrats called for the government to own refineries so it could better control the flow of the oil supply.

They also reasserted that the reason the Appropriations Committee markup (where the vote on the amendment to lift the ban) was cancelled so they could focus on preparing the supplemental Iraq spending bill for tomorrow.

At an off-camera briefing, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) said the same. And a senior Republican House Appropriations Committee aide adds that “there were multiple reasons for the postponement” including discussion on the supplemental. But the aide said there was the thought that Democrats may wish to avoid a debate today on energy amendments.

Here are the highlights from briefing

Rep. Maurice Hinchey (D-NY), member of the House Appropriations Committee and one of the most-ardent opponents of off-shore drilling

We (the government) should own the refineries. Then we can control how much gets out into the market.

Oh boy. I don’t see this going anywhere but if people are pinched hard enough at the pump they may actually let it happen. Someone recently was telling me how they could see a New Deal part II coming from this current mess. I’m afraid to agree.