Nothing new under the sun

As a wise man once said "There is nothing new under the sun" (Ecclesiastes 1:9)

I'm not a huge fan of Ayn Rand or some of the people that subscribe to her philosophy, but she does have a quote that I find to very relevant to our current situation in America.

From The Voice of Reason: "One of the methods used by statists to destroy capitalism consists in establishing controls that tie a given industry hand and foot, making it unable to solve its problems, then declaring that freedom has failed and stronger controls are necessary."

Is there any more accurate description of the recent spate of financial crises than this?

Liberals pushed banks to make loans to people that were poor risks and couldn't pay them back. When others tried to put some controls on this, such as reigning in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, they were told it was not a problem. Told this by Chris Dodd, Barney Frank and others who had the duty to oversee the financial system.
Now that it has crashed these same people are coming in and saying the government has to step in, infuse the system with cash and impose more strict controls on everyone.

Auto makers have to push to meet inflated MPG cafe standards and develop alternative fuel cars that consumers don't want. When they can't sell these cars, who is there ready to offer a helping hand in exchange for control?

The fact that the helping hand is stuffed full of money taken from hard working taxpayers so it can be redistributed to failed businesses reminds me of another quote:

"From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs." Karl Marx