TWO MORE MORE STRIKES AGAINST CONSERVATIVE DELUSIONS

The wingers assume that the Free Market somehow eliminates the natural consequences of greed and theft but we know (and so did Adam Smith) that that is a delusion. Aside from the corruption and deceit involved in the housing bubble, we have examples of highly regarded MOTU who turn out to be massive frauds. The most famous right now is Bernie Madoff and the most recent is billionaire R. Allen Stanford. These two alone may be responsible for the destruction of $60 billion in capital, more than the total for Freddie and Fannie to date.

The wingers almost always say that government is always worse than the private sector except in one area, the military. That belief has been debunked by the enormous amount of fraud and corruption in the the reconstruction of Iraq, some of which involves military officers. This is just one example:

In one case of graft from that period, Maj. John L. Cockerham of the Army pleaded guilty to accepting nearly $10 million in bribes as a contracting officer for the Iraq war and other military efforts from 2004 to 2007, when he was arrested. Major Cockerham’s wife has also pleaded guilty, as have several other contracting officers.

Of course, you won't hear much about this from either Fats Limbaugh or Sean Hannity and that's why we need some sort of counter-balance to their agit-prop.