The Big Government Types Continue to Co-Opt the Anti-Goldman Anger

The basic lack of understanding about the relationship between government and business could not be more clearly driven home than by this report from Esther Kaplan for Nation:

In a brightly lit basement room at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Chicago tonight, Angel Seda was leading seven hundred people in a chant. "Tell me what you want, what you really want," he called. Hundreds of voices shouted back, "Our homes back!" "Tell me what you need, what you really need." "CFPA!"

CFPA?

Yep, you heard right, hundreds of people were chanting for a Consumer Financial Protection Agency, a new oversight body Barack Obama has proposed that could ban such disastrous practices as no-doc mortgages, payday loans, and no-warning overdraft fees on checking accounts. (A bill to create the agency made it through the House Financial Services Committee last week). Wonky, sure, but vital, too, and it was both hilarious and inspiring to see a roomful of Iowa farmers and Kansas retirees and preachers and teachers and utility workers jumping to their feet at the sound of those magic letters. One woman from Wichita, Arnetta Jefferson, told me she herself was facing the loss of her home and described "house after house after house empty" in her community, all from foreclosures. "I'm tired of it," she said. CFPA! CFPA! CFPA!

Among the things these protesters don't get is:

A. The real estate crisis was caused by the government in the first place through the Federal Reserve, i.e., the government is the problem

B. Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, and the like, benefit from bigger government and more regulations, since there will always be loopholes and exemptions that will allow them to operate freely. It , while hampering its competitors.

C. Big government and added regulations just create more centers of power for the bad guys to influence.

D. CFPA is created and promoted by big government advocates President Obama and serious interventionist, Elizabeth Warren . It is about creating more government power.

What these protesters are doing, but they don't realize it (except for the organizers) is shouting "Stop the beatings, bring on the waterboarding."