Two of my grandsons are actively involved in 4-H activities. Some may not be familiar with this organization but it has been around over a hundred years and teaches young people to learn by doing. Originally it had roots involving agriculture but now has evolved to meet the needs of kids in urban and rural settings. About a hundred thousand Kansans are members. The 4-H pledge pretty well sums up the meaning of the group:

County fairs are a place where 4-H members can display their projects and animals for judges to rate by comparing them to others. Kids work really hard to make the best presentation. Ribbons are awarded and the fair concludes with a livestock sale where the kids can receive a premium from buyers that is in addition to the market price of the animal. Kids also can learn a life lesson as did my grandson Josh. His goat died the day the animals were being taken to the fair. No goat, no ribbon, no premium money. He was very fortunate to have a back-up disaster plan. It was the FGIP similar to the FDIC. That’s not the Federal Goat Insurance Program supported by a massive bureaucracy, but rather it’s the From Grandpa Indemnity Plan. It doesn’t take the government to make everything better in life.

I was shocked, but really shouldn’t have been surprised, to read that GM purchased a Sub-Prime auto lending company for 3.5 billion dollars! Yep, the same company that we the taxpayers gave billions and billions of our tax dollars, and the same company we still “own” 61 % of, even after many billions or dollars in debt have been forgiven by the Treasury Department now went out and bought AmeriCredit Corp.

Wow, you just can’t make up stuff like this. Our congress just passed the most massive new financial regulation ever conceived. It placed unworkable and unpractical regulations upon every federal regulated lender in the country, like this bank, in the name of “consumer protection." Keep in mind, all regulated lenders were already covered under laws protecting consumers. But, just guess who was omitted from being covered by these new laws? The auto companies and dealers. So, at the same time banks were telling Congress what a mess the new law would have on the public and credit availability, GM was back in some smoke filled room planning the purchase of this sub-prime lender. Immediately after the new law passed, which didn’t cover them, they buy this company. Remember, money talks in Washington, and a bunch of money was handed out in DC to sell this dead goat. The one place where the public really needs consumer protection is at a car lot, but as Lily Tomlin used to say “never mind”.

Maybe I’m just cynical, but it frosts me to be struggling with new rules and laws from congress and also paying for them when community banks had nothing to do with sub-prime lending and now our government, by way of General Motors, is flaunting this action by spending 3.5 billion of our dollars to buy one.

Another little known fact that the news folks will not report is that the TARP money that actually went to real banks has made the government money. When the books are closed on TARP, over a hundred percent of bank-received money will have been repaid. But the banks only got half of TARP and that going to GM, Chrysler, and AIG isn’t coming back into the treasury even though we can waste some of it buying a sub-prime lender.

I guess I should be happy I’m not one of those mega banks. The feds are going to demand that they pay for the TARP money these other companies haven’t and won’t repay. That, my friends, is double dipping.

It is rather ironic that Senator John Kerry voted for all these regulations and taxes, and has repeatedly torched banks for not paying enough taxes. He charged that is was a bank’s civic responsibility to carry the TARP and bailout burden alone. Well it must have just been another trivial oversight that Mr. Kerry accidentally parked his seven million dollar yacht in Rhode Island rather than Massachusetts. He really didn’t intend for this parking mistake to allow him to avoid a half million in Massachusetts sales and excise tax. The guy driving his boat just needed a remedial geography lesson and he was confused by all that upper crust New England snob fog after all. Mr. Kerry will say this is proof we need more educational funding on the east coast.

After the 4-H livestock sale was completed, I took the boys to the carnival. Every county fair has one of these, complete with rides and games of “chance”. Jake seemed to think he could beat the system and win a big stuffed animal. He walked up and down the lane in front of all the carnival barkers. Each was shouting as to how their game was the easiest to beat. Finally he picked the one throwing a ball at some mugs. Since he was on the local Little League all-star team, he has a good arm. He got a bunch of dollar bills from granddad and wound up his arm. As hard as he would try, the mugs just wouldn’t all fall down. With the money gone and no prize in hand, we walked away. I asked if anything was learned from the carnival. Jake quickly told me the games were all rigged. His brother proceeded to lecture him about watching this very thing on TV and that he thought the carnival worker stepped on a lever when Jake threw the ball. With two of the boys out of cash we walked away.

The new and not improved financial regulations are just like the carnival games. All seemed to have been rigged to protect the political donor, hide government mistakes, and preserve the most important thing; reelection. Nothing was really done to protect Joe Public as he will be the one paying for all this mess in the end.

As I left the boys with their parents following this granddad life lesson, a lesson that had also been given to me by my father, I reached into my pocket and gave each some “walk around” money to spend on the rides, because every lesson in life shouldn’t leave you broke.

Kansas Liberty columnist Bill Wyckoff is president of Labette Bank, a community bank with locations throughout southeast Kansas, and an occasional contributor to the Wall Street Journal and Fox Business News. He lives on a farm outside Altamont, Kan. A graduate of Kansas State University with an MBA from Southern Illinois University, he enjoys collecting antique John Deere tractors and driving his hemi orange Dodge Challenger. Email bwyckoff@labettebank.com.