Communists of the World Unite!
This was a full page advert in today’s New York Times, paid for by Bill Perkins
>
UPDATE: September 24, 2008 9:44am
The WSJ picked up the advert in this morning’s paper:
The president has run into a wall of skepticism over his plan.
Troubled voters are calling their congressmen. Academic economists are
churning out sound bites. Democratic lawmakers are demanding that the
plan include perks for the working classes, while Republicans are
saying the plan interferes with the invisible hand of the free market.But the 39-year-old Mr. Perkins is putting cash behind his anger. He
commissioned an African-American arts collective to draw a cartoon
depicting Mr. Bush, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal
Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke trampling on the graves of private
enterprise and capitalism. Then he paid $139,104 to run the drawing as
a full-page ad in the Tuesday editions of the New York Times. And he
promises to spend a million more on ads before he is done."I see it as trickle-down communism," Mr. Perkins said. "We have a
communist action where everybody is paying for the benefit of the few
and hoping the benefits will trickle down to everyone else."
Trader Makes a Quick $1.25 Million on Rescue, Then Slams It
MICHAEL M. PHILLIPS
WSJ, SEPTEMBER 24, 2008
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122220938944168865.html
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September 23rd, 2008 at 7:36 pm
“redistribution of wealth”
from the rich to the poor = socialism.
from the poor to the rich = capitalism.
September 23rd, 2008 at 7:37 pm
I just watched Senator Bernie Sanders rip Kudlow a new one. Someone please put this on youtube.
Also check out Sanders site where he has an open pretest to the bailout.
http://sanders.senate.gov/
September 23rd, 2008 at 7:42 pm
More info on the commies.
http://www.americanhistory.org/2008/08/our-mission-thesis/
September 23rd, 2008 at 7:46 pm
We are Enron nation. The American people elected the people who enabled this. We get the government we deserve. This country is shit.
TM
September 23rd, 2008 at 7:46 pm
And now, beyond all shadow of doubt, we know that “some animals are more equal than others”.
September 23rd, 2008 at 7:50 pm
IMVHO socialism is the redestribution of wealth from all to the government in name of the poor.
September 23rd, 2008 at 7:58 pm
When I was in the Army in the mid to late-80′s, during the waning days of the communist menace across the pond, we had a bumper sticker that was simple and direct in its summation of how we felt and why we had volunteered:
“Russia Sucks”
It’s hard to imagine hardly a score has passed and it turns out it was all for naught.
I suppose the freedom we fought for and protected included everything except the freedom for rich bankers to fail. If America is no longer committed to the ideal that man is blessed with certain rights (life, liberty, pursuit of happiness, e.g.) and that the exercise of these rights carries concomittant responsibilities, such as prudently managing the risk of failing at the pursuit of happiness, then today it can be said, like we did twenty-some years ago about the old Soviet Union:
America sucks.
September 23rd, 2008 at 7:58 pm
Submitted for your approval, a new nickname. No longer “Helicopter” Ben but now Ben “Reality Sucks” Bernanke based on the following:
Quote: “‘If the Treasury bids for and then buys assets at a price close to the hold-to-maturity price, there will be substantial benefits,’ Bernanke said. ‘First, banks will have a basis for valuing those assets and will not have to use fire-sale prices. Their capital will not be unreasonably marked down.’
In contrast, if banks use existing ‘mark-to-market’ rules that require them to value the holdings at what similar securities have recently sold for — in some cases pennies on the dollar — it could make the whole bailout futile because it would hurt many banks’ balance sheets, causing some to fail. ‘This creates something of a vicious circle,’ he said.” End Quote.
No doubt, Ben, reality does indeed suck. It sucks that mark-to-make-believe values do not reflect actual market values. But, here’s something else, pal….life ain’t fair. Tough shit. Get over it.
Perhaps simply “Well no shit, Ben” or simply, “Well, Duh!” would suffice.
“Helicopter” Ben, though, seems unduly heroic.
September 23rd, 2008 at 7:59 pm
wanted to post on locker at VALERO yet it disaspeared
September 23rd, 2008 at 8:04 pm
“..Of the rich, by the rich and for the rich.”
September 23rd, 2008 at 8:10 pm
US Stock Market $15 trillion
US Mortgage Market $7.2 trillion
CDS Market $62 trillion
Maybe I need to learn to speak chinese.
September 23rd, 2008 at 8:11 pm
…Quote: “‘If the Treasury bids for and then buys assets at a price close to the hold-to-maturity price, there will be substantial benefits,’ Bernanke said…
If that is the real problem, then why keep the 700B, just change the law from mark to market to mark to hold(imagine) till this is over?
September 23rd, 2008 at 8:12 pm
here’s a study aid, to go with the art:
http://clusty.com/search?input-form=clusty-simple&v%3Asources=webplus&query=10+planks+of+the+communist+manifesto
September 23rd, 2008 at 8:17 pm
Nonsense.
If it were Communism, we’d at least GET something like universal health care or universal higher education.
This is Crony Capitalism!
September 23rd, 2008 at 8:18 pm
Good point, Mich!
September 23rd, 2008 at 8:19 pm
Who cares about the freakin’ banking system when we’ve got problems like this:
Daley to Wrigley bars: Curb booze sales or go dry
http://www.suntimes.com/news/politics/1180386,wrig092408.article
September 23rd, 2008 at 8:19 pm
Today’s testimony really made me lose a lot of respect for Hank Paulson. It is actually making me rethink my fanboy status for Goldman Sachs, despite the world-class (albeit unaffordable) babeagery at 85 Broad. Any GS insiders know anything juicy about the relationship between Paulson and Jon Corzine? Surely, these two must have been at odds at some point, given the wide disparity in their political views.
September 23rd, 2008 at 8:25 pm
Seems fitting to this thread
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIdKhaxo3OE
(there are also remix, dance versions on youtube, everything is popular culture these days)
CIAO BELLA
One morning, just risen from bed
Oh Bella ciao … (Goodbye, my beautiful)
One morning, just risen from bed
I discovered the invaders
Oh partisan, carry me away
Oh Bella ciao …
Oh partisan, carry me away
For I feel I’m dying
And if I die as a partisan
Oh Bella ciao …
And if I die as a partisan
You must burry me!
Burry me way up in the mountains
Oh Bella ciao …
Burry me way up in the mountains
Under the shadow of a beautiful flower
And the people passing by
Oh Bella ciao …
And the people passing by
Will tell “What a beautiful flower!”
And that’s the flower of the partisan
Oh Bella ciao …
And that’s the flower of the partisan
Who died for freedom (liberty)
Died for freedom
Died for freedom!
September 23rd, 2008 at 8:27 pm
socialism my ass. a socialist government doesn’t leave a hurricane-ravaged city to fend for itself.
September 23rd, 2008 at 8:28 pm
Mich,
Mark-to-Imagine, what a concept.
Imagine there’s no losses
It isn’t hard to do
No fall in asset prices
House values stuck like glue
Imagine all the buyers
paying all their bi-i-lls
Well you may say I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
Bernanke agrees that it can happen
If we only bail about a ton
September 23rd, 2008 at 8:29 pm
To sign Senator Sanders’ petition letter:
http://sanders.senate.gov/petitions/?petition=Financial_Crisis_1
September 23rd, 2008 at 8:39 pm
just watched Senator Bernie Sanders rip Kudlow a new one. Someone please put this on youtube.
Enjoy!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lkqb1pQrCcg
September 23rd, 2008 at 8:39 pm
During Kudlow’s show today he had a real problem with banks and brokers that go to the tax payer’s trough but were restricted from getting big pay packages. Kudlow also said it is government confiscation to take a stake in the company and expect a return for the tax payer. Kudlow get more screwed up everyday–please, can anyone tell me how he stays on the air?????
September 23rd, 2008 at 8:48 pm
Funny how the biggest commie in Congress, Bernie Sanders of Vermont, is setting out positions most in line with the most strident free marketers.
Cue Bob Dylan …
September 23rd, 2008 at 8:53 pm
–please, can anyone tell me how he stays on the air?????
Posted by: gunthestops | Sep 23, 2008 8:39:56 PM
http://clusty.com/search?input-form=clusty-simple&v%3Asources=webplus&query=Bush+Administration+pays+TV+Experts
http://clusty.com/search?input-form=clusty-simple&v%3Asources=webplus&query=Operation+Mockingbird
gts,
above, are some study aids
September 23rd, 2008 at 8:54 pm
Sanders v. Kudlow
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lkqb1pQrCcg
Sanders sounds like a Rockefeller Republican from 1979.
Kudlow sounds like … well ….
Time flies when your economy and news media are on mescaline and quaaludes.
September 23rd, 2008 at 8:54 pm
The Sanders-Kudlow exchange clearly shows what Kudlow and his ilk are all about. All the talk about free-markets and capitalism is just an ideological excuse used to enrich the banksters.
When free-markets and capitalism fail to enrich the banksters then they have no problem with government bailouts. Bailouts said to be in the name of promoting future free-markets and capitalism of course!
I would laugh at Kudlow if I wasn’t so busy choking on the vomit from the visceral disgust he causes. What a sleazy creep. Lord knows what skeletons are in that closet!
September 23rd, 2008 at 8:55 pm
Where’s the cartoon of a Wall St. Hoodlum seizing the Statue of Liberty from behind with one arm, and a gun pointed at her head with the other hand, saying “Give us our fix or the dame gets it!”
September 23rd, 2008 at 8:56 pm
by the way….
housing prices fell 5.3% in a month…
that would be, uh, 64% in a year…
Cramer says he’ll find his bottom next June..
Maybe…
September 23rd, 2008 at 8:59 pm
These bailouts would be a little more palatable if for each outfit bailed out:
1. President and CEO to jail, the real jail, not the country club jail.
2. For them and all other general management, say VPs, and the board, their assets, including financial accounts, houses, yachts, etc. are taken over and become the first bailout bucks.
3. They are left penniless, homeless in the street with their families.
Possibly they would think of a solution not involving the taxpayer.
September 23rd, 2008 at 9:02 pm
I wonder why Paulson didn’t open his testimony today by pledging $200 million of his own money to be the first in? Now THAT would’ve shown a huge set of cajones.
September 23rd, 2008 at 9:07 pm
From the NY Times on September 30, 1999:
“Fannie Mae Eases Credit To Aid Mortgage Lending”:
In a move that could help increase home ownership rates among minorities and low-income consumers, the Fannie Mae Corporation is easing the credit requirements on loans that it will purchase from banks and other lenders.
The action, which will begin as a pilot program involving 24 banks in 15 markets will encourage those banks to extend home mortgages to individuals whose credit is generally not good enough to qualify for conventional loans. Fannie Mae officials say they hope to make it a nationwide program by next spring.
Fannie Mae, the nation’s biggest underwriter of home mortgages, has been under increasing pressure from the Clinton Administration to expand mortgage loans among low and moderate income people and felt pressure from stock holders to maintain its phenomenal growth in profits.
In addition, banks, thrift institutions and mortgage companies have been pressing Fannie Mae to help them make more loans to so-called subprime borrowers. These borrowers whose incomes, credit ratings and savings are not good enough to qualify for conventional loans, can only get loans from finance companies that charge much higher interest rates — anywhere from three to four percentage points higher than conventional loans.
”Fannie Mae has expanded home ownership for millions of families in the 1990s by reducing down payment requirements,” said Franklin Raines, Fannie Mae’s chairman and CEO. ”Yet there remain too many borrowers whose credit is just a notch below what our underwriting has required who have been relegated to paying significantly higher mortgage rates in the so-called subprime market.”
In moving, even tentatively, into this new area of lending, Fannie Mae is taking on significantly more risk, which may not pose any difficulties during flush economic times. But the government-subsidized corporation may run into trouble in an economic downturn, prompting a government rescue similar to that of the savings and loan industry in the 1980s (MP: How prophetic!).
‘
‘From the perspective of many people, including me, this is another thrift industry growing up around us,” said Peter Wallison a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. ”If they fail, the government will have to step up and bail them out the way it stepped up and bailed out the thrift industry.”
September 23rd, 2008 at 9:14 pm
Or, given that the free market is out the window, and the government is playing a heavy handed role in the market, why doesn’t Congress just seize $500 million from him and an equal amount from each of his peers so as to begin to pay for this mess they put us in?
No need for him to pledge it in the new, Bush nation-state. Like so many Iraqi oil fields, the government might merely take that which it covets.
September 23rd, 2008 at 9:22 pm
So Cramer has been yelling all week how Goldman is in great shape, with a scrubbed balance sheet and much less competition. If that’s the case, why does it have to pay Warren Buffett 10% in order to get money? Heck, even an assistant manager at Costco could probably get a home loan these days for less than that.
September 23rd, 2008 at 9:23 pm
Part of me wants a market crash and a deep recession so that frauds like Kudlow are fired and “sent to the farm” (euthanized).
Please let it happen for that reason alone.
September 23rd, 2008 at 9:43 pm
Posted by: Jeff M. | Sep 23, 2008 9:23:11 PM
Jeff,
I hear ya, but there’s a Grand Gulf between the French Revolution, and Our own.
The past is a Carcass that no longer Hunts.
and, to mix metaphors: The Best way to punish a child, is to take away their toys.
We, for far too long, have been their Toys.
As Our Founders rightly said, in today’s spin: “F*ck That!!”
Now, We need to begin to understand how to grow into, paraphrasing Carlin: “rational people, capable of Critical Thinking”. He was Right, that’s against their Interests, and it will shear them of the Interest we pay them.
September 23rd, 2008 at 9:52 pm
You’ve got to pick up every stitch
You’ve got to pick up every stitch
Beatniks are out to make it rich
Oh no
Must be the season of the witch…
September 23rd, 2008 at 9:57 pm
That advert is a symbol of the American ignorance about communism and socialism. I guess that the CIA and Hollywood have done a ‘nice’ job brainwashing.
What is happening here is pure and simple fascism, that flag should have a swastika.
This is welfare for the rich and the fittest, totally the opposite of communism.
I guess that the educational system of the US is rotten too!
What would you expect from such talented people that are result of a intelligent design.
September 23rd, 2008 at 9:57 pm
I have only 3 words to say on behalf of US taxpayers to Paulson “NOT ONE DIME!”
September 23rd, 2008 at 10:06 pm
Press release from the People’s Bank of China concerning the ongoing credit crisis:
“All your pony are belong to us.”
September 23rd, 2008 at 10:08 pm
screw this lame cartoon. rich guys just don’t know when and how to spend money. maybe had this kind of thing been appearing en masse, about one or two years ago, it would make any difference. as it is, this is just gallows humor. which i love. don’t get me wrong. i’m just trying to say this is too far gone to turn around.
September 23rd, 2008 at 10:10 pm
Before getting all hot for a war of any kind in any name…just run through a list of lost causes over which wars have been fought and for which untold blood has been spilt and lives destroyed.
Just remember how easily populations can be manipulated into believing what those in authority would have them think for reasons other than reasons given.
What is the ultimate agenda for those in power? Retention of that power at whatever cost. Why? Because you cannot wield great power without the belief that you are intrinsically superior and deserving which by simple logic means you believe others are not.
September 23rd, 2008 at 10:17 pm
Hilarious picture:
http://afp.google.com/media/ALeqM5iLwO6hogahbhW5sO18xTPg4zeVaQ?size=l
September 23rd, 2008 at 10:18 pm
BR: Your site’s starting to lose it. The cartoon wasn’t particularly original much less amusing and doesn’t bear any relationship to what is happening which is essentially not very different from the thirties when the US govt bailed out the capitalist system and averted real communism, or real fascism, or Huey Long type fascism. Some of the posters here need to take a couple of aspirins and go and lie down. There seems to be a bit of a Gresham’s Law of blogging going on, maybe it’s the weather.
September 23rd, 2008 at 10:21 pm
Owner Earnings @ 7:37:56 PM
I usually disagree with Bernie Sanders. But this time he was spot on.
September 23rd, 2008 at 10:24 pm
Why do people keep calling this communism? The bail out of large banks is in no way communism or new communism or socialism. If this was a communistic revolution there would be workers taking over factories and dead bankers everywhere. This- the free for all writing of checks to companies- is the end game of capitalism. How did you think capitalism would end? Capitalism always had a bug and that was greed- and now we see the end result – a government bought out and which is now totally subservient to the large capitalistic interests.
September 23rd, 2008 at 10:26 pm
A side of me fears the $700B will be used for coup d’état if Obama is to win the elections. After all, everybody including Paulson, Bush, et al and many posters here believe American public J6P is ignorant of finance, real-politics, etc. If that is the belief how could you leave the wheel to a young, inexperienced person when your country needs you more than ever, right?
After Afghanistan and Iraq, Cheney wouldn’t want to leave before messing Iran, would he?
Nothing would surprise me, after seeing all the constant lies, deceptions, and arrogance for the last 8 years.
September 23rd, 2008 at 10:30 pm
Mich(^IXIC1881) @ 8:11:08 PM
“…just change the law from mark to market to mark to hold(imagine) till this is over?”
Another option: go ahead and buy $700B worth of the paper, and THEN change the rules of the game to make the paper more valuable. Then sell it to investors, thereby producing a profit for the government (which, of course, will be promptly squandered).
After about two years, the accounting rule can then be changed back to “mark-to-market”.
September 23rd, 2008 at 10:51 pm
The US government owning or regulating assets in the private sector is neither nationalism nor socialism. Barry, when is the last time you read our constitution?
It works like this: Our economy is based on the civil liberties protected in our constitution – life, liberty and property. This does not mean you can do anything with your property you want. Your rights are limited in so much as they might diminish other citizens rights. For example, try getting zoning approval in your neighborhood to build a 10 story lighthouse with a rotating beacon at night with 5 million lumins. Not a chance, it would deprive your neighbors of enjoying their property. This is the legal basis behind regulation.
Wall street poses a risk to my liberties and it needs to be regulated.
Furthermore, there is nothing in the constitution that says the government can’t own private assets, nor participate in the markets. These are natural instruments of state policy.
And it’s good thing to because the markets caused the great depression and the government got us out of it.
Deja vu.
September 23rd, 2008 at 10:52 pm
Sanders on Kudlow.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=865507900&play=1
September 23rd, 2008 at 10:56 pm
“BR: Your site’s starting to lose it.” – John(2)
I’m with you.
September 23rd, 2008 at 10:57 pm
It seems that the moral hazard lies partly with government officials. They do a crap job of regulating financial markets, and then can use taxpayer debt to “save the day”, all the while never worrying for their own jobs or having any of their money on the line.
September 23rd, 2008 at 11:06 pm
What we need now is what we have always needed: A Constitutional basis for the creation of money. The Constitution says that “Congress shall have power…to coin money, regulate the value thereof and of foreign coin, and to fix the standard for weights and measures.” Do you notice that it doesn’t say anything about hedge funds, mortgage banks, or any of the other creators of the so-called “money” of the US in that reference?
We all play a game here. It’s a game because we all come in at a certain point and we all leave when our time is up.
Every game has rules. The rules for our game are written out in the US Constitution.
Some people broke the rules of the game when they finagled their way into creating as much money as they wanted to, regardless of the consequences. They put the entire country on the hook for their malfeasance.
Now they come running to the Congress, demanding that every one of us pony us at least $2000 to bail them out. These bastions of the free market, them…
Now we are faced with the proposition that we should either try to remedy the past malfeasance, or whether we should strike out on our own, and let the old order fall.
It would be better for the US in the long run to abandon the old order, and strike out on a new course.
What would this new course look like? It would mean that the US government would create the money of the United States instead of a group of private banks, as it says in the Constitution.
It would mean that money would be spent from the “bottom up” instead of “from the top dowm.”
When we spent money into the economy by building an electrified high-speed rail line that could go 300mph+ we would have something to show for our money. When we spent money on wind energy we would free ourselves from the clutches of foreign oil.
The old order wants us to spend the same amout of money bailing them out of their bad decisions. Does not compute.
September 23rd, 2008 at 11:17 pm
This isn’t socialism, it’s disaster capitalism.
September 23rd, 2008 at 11:17 pm
This isn’t socialism, it’s disaster capitalism.
September 23rd, 2008 at 11:24 pm
those in power, staying in power == cronyism
government of, for, and by the rich == plutocracy
your wallet or your life == thuggery
Fellow Americans, what we have here is a failure of thuggish plutocratic cronyism.
//////
“redistribution of wealth”
from the rich to the poor = socialism.
from the poor to the rich = capitalism.
Posted by: xuxE | Sep 23, 2008 7:36:06 PM
September 23rd, 2008 at 11:29 pm
If we’re going to spend this much money, I think it deserves a think about what *else* we could spend it on instead. Imagination abounds, but here’s something notable:
Scientific American just had an article about how much it would cost the U.S. to build a series of giant solar plants in the Southwest which could meet most of our energy (not electricity, “energy”, meaning it includes transportation) needs by 2050. Price tag: $400 billion.
September 23rd, 2008 at 11:45 pm
the external forces of communism and socialism like Russia that the US was so fearful of during the cold war was not
the real threat. The real threat came from
within the US government.
September 24th, 2008 at 12:45 am
Take a look at bloomberg. They are showing a video that clearly shows Ben and Hank have no idea what they are talking about. PROOF POSITIVE. Now they want us to believe the bailout will work. Nothing will stop this extreme deflation train. The BS supply siders are going down and so is their BS economic policy. Thanks alot you supposedly educated idiots. I am going to PUBLIC SCHOOL you Ivy League morons (appologies to those who are Ivy and knew), and I was able to figure out the situation we were going to be in over 2 years ago. I wrote a term paper @ 2 years ago and got an A. I wanted to be wrong. It is this orthodox and not heterodox method of thinking and greed that got us here. I wonder if this could have been done on purpose as they transfer wealth to a new financial center (HUB). Mabye im crazy….. or mabye not??
Here is the link (Check out the video)
http://www.bloomberg.com/index.html?Intro=intro3
Econ101
September 24th, 2008 at 1:12 am
And it’s good thing to because the markets caused the great depression and the government got us out of it.
Where did you get this????
What book????
I am a student of economics and what the ???? are you talking about. There were several methods used to no avail the cycle probably corrected itself over time. You are hitting up only one THEORY of how the depression ended. This is the kind of crap I’m talking about. Saying oh yea….. this and that. Ok, I’m now requesting if you state something CITE your source and it better be good because I will check. Before I state something I do my research and fact check. You had better know fact or theory well. Also I’m a bit of a nerd…. I have kept all of my books from school and even have several economics books from the library that I bought and re-read often. My favorite is Masterworks of economics (Abbott).
September 24th, 2008 at 2:05 am
What’s the difference between socialism and capitalism?
Under capitalism one person exploits another person, and under socialism – the opposite.
September 24th, 2008 at 2:17 am
“These bailouts would be a little more palatable if for each outfit bailed out:
1. President and CEO to jail, the real jail, not the country club jail…”
Fine, but you gotta include the trophy second wives and mistresses.
As for the cartoon, I agree that the more accurate analogy is to classical fascism rather than communism or socialism, but I think you’re missing the ironic point of the references to left-wing ideologies.
The great ideological battle of the last century was between the advocates of supposedly free-market capitalism against those championing state-owned and controlled economic activity, supposedly on behalf of the “worker.” The ideological shock troops of the free-market side have always been the pro-business conservatives in this country, whose allegiances have always been strongly with the Republican party. These free-market capitalist advocates have endlessly excoriated left-wing economic philosophies for their rejection of so-called “rugged individualism” in favor of a flabby and morally corrupt egalitarianism. This egalitarianism would sap the moral fiber of the virtuous yeomen citizens of America, who were supposed to be free to make as much money as they could, by virtue of our unregulated, untrammeled capitalist system. The less-appetizing aspects of unregulated capitalism were always morally justified by, among other things, emphasizing the inherent risk that each capitalist assumed.
Now that socialism has been vanquished, it seems as though the attractions of “rugged individualism” AND its inherent acceptance of economic risk as well as reward have been very conveniently forgotten by those formerly stalwart heroes of American capitalism.
And as far as the idea of TBP going downhill, don’t make me laugh. This is one of the premiere sources of reality-oriented but resolutely pro-capitalist thinking around anywhere. Just the comparisons to the idiots like Kudlow and Cramer and Kneale alone ought to make clear how valuable TBP is in the arguments and issues facing us.
September 24th, 2008 at 2:52 am
AFP reports: “In a farewell speech to the assembly, US President George W. Bush assured worried world leaders that his administration and the US Congress would approve an emergency 700-billion-dollar Wall Street bailout “in the urgent time frame required.”
What democracy?? Bush is a dictator!!
September 24th, 2008 at 2:58 am
Another typical example of American political incompetence: In socialism you seize the assets, with some compensation. In communism, you seize the assets, without any compensation. In fascism, you infuse money into private assets as protected corporations. What we have proposed here is American fascism. . . . I mean, the Paulson Proposal is odious, but let’s get the namecalling right for once, hey?
September 24th, 2008 at 5:53 am
Time to hit the streets with protests before were thrown out on the street .
September 24th, 2008 at 5:56 am
Time to hit the streets with protests bedore we thrown out onthe street .
September 24th, 2008 at 6:37 am
What is getting lost in all the debates and arguments is the fact, that this crisis has been caused solely by previous government interventions into the market. This crisis is not a failure of capitalism or deregulation, but a consequence of past introduction of aspects of corporate socialism into the economy: bailout of LTCM, artificially low interest rates, “Greenspan put”, existence of GSE’s, government rigging of the bond market etc.
In a true free-market capitalism, real estate bubble would never occur, because the markets would raise interest rates as soon as inflation reared its ugly head. In a free market economy, companies would be allowed to fail and as a result would never engage in making risky loans or reckless investments.
We are in a spiral, where a new, bigger intervention into the markets is proposed to solve the mess created by previous interventions.
September 24th, 2008 at 8:00 am
In a true free-market capitalism, real estate bubble would never occur, because the markets would raise interest rates as soon as inflation reared its ugly head. In a free market economy, companies would be allowed to fail and as a result would never engage in making risky loans or reckless investments.
————————-
Bingo. The biggest problem we are facing is purism, ideology and a black or white mentality.
But there is no pure free market. Never has been, never will be. If people came to accept this and understood that life has many shades of gray, maybe we would not get into this mess. But this is also wishful thinking because in the real world, we tend to be run by purists and ideologists. Leadership positions typically attract focused, stubborn people. Those who understand that life has different shades of gray tend to be less ambitious and more family oriented.
That’s why history will keep on repeating itself.
September 24th, 2008 at 3:56 pm
I think the biggest failure in this crisis has been of the media, and the people. We have seen some extraordinary spinning by people who don’t need to spin and are supposed to say it as it is, or at least try to sound that way but what we have instead is astonishing mind boggling hypocrisy and blatantly self serving logic on the back of ‘middle class America’.
The entire media and establishment is compromised and complicit apart from a few individuals. Even more disappointing thing is the absence of grass roots movements and the reluctance of ordinary Americans to exercise their demcoratic right of protest.
People need to march to Washington and tell these folks this is not acceptable. Period, Until some thing extraordinary happens from the people these folks will continue to have their way, the media is managed, the system is managed, infact they are the system.
September 24th, 2008 at 6:36 pm
I`m afraid there is a huge misunderstanding in here somewhere: When the state defends the ownership rights of big business and big industry against its own populace, the name of the game is NOT communism, it`s corporate fascism. This is not my view, but was pronounced (in the late 1920s) by an “expert”, a man who should know: Benito Mussolini.
What many of our country`s citizens still fail to realise is that the US is not on the slippery slope towards fascism, but rather that it already bears most of the hallmarks of the classic fascist state.
September 24th, 2008 at 7:52 pm
The cartoon is not every well drawn. Bernanke in the center was the only one I recognized immediately. I guess the guy on the right is supposed to be Bush, but for the longest time I was wondering what Paul Wolfowitz was doing in that picture.
September 24th, 2008 at 11:21 pm
I usually do not respond with such vitriol, but dave101 is really an ahole who needs to go study history. Government got us out of the GD? Ever hear of WWII dave 101? Sheeesh, the ignorance of some is overwhelming.