Posted on 07/17/2010 5:59:08 PM PDT by Wanderer659
This past week, President Obama called on former President Clinton for his help on the struggling U.S. economy. It appears Obama is starting to feel the heat from his failed economic policies as more and more people express concerns over his ability to address the nation’s economic woes. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce issued a scathing critique of the administration’s policies. The leading business group issued a rebuke of Obama’s economic agenda, accusing him and his Democrats in Congress of neglecting job creation and hampering growth with burdensome regulatory and tax policies. This is all happening as the Senate prepares to vote on one of the most anti-capitalistic bills (Financial Reform Bill) that this nation has ever seen.
It appears that the President and his party are struggling over what exactly capitalism is and how it can actually help restart the economic engine of America.
(Excerpt) Read more at conservativehideout.com ...
It’s actually pretty easy. If it’s the first word in the sentence or a proper noun, the first letter should be capitalized.
Obama doesn't care.
What’s to learn? he already knows EVERYTHING/sarc/
0bama is at his core driven by Ideology.
People such as this are what we call “knowers”, that is that they are simply incapable of new learning when it comes to things not within his narrow Idealogical bandwidth.
If we brought him 10 or 20 statistical models of evidence based in the finest science one could find he would discount all of it out of hand, and go home CERTAIN about his correctness.
People like this scare me because they are true zealots, and with that, they become capable of anything to keep their Ideological model intact in their own mind.
To sum this up - 0bama is SCARY STUPID.
Well said!
...and in the Oval Office.
Real reason he wan was to take the blame for her policies, so she can rule the desolation in peace without blame.
What I suspect he will do is ask for advice from those who really want and know how to make the economy do better and then do exactly the opposite. Which is pretty much what he is doing now.
Just as there is wide spread confusion regarding political systems there is similar confusion in the economic arena. All during the 20th century Americans were led to believe that there was a great struggle going on between capitalism and the communist world. Undoubtedly, a struggle existed but the real adversaries were rarely identified properly.
No discussion about economic will make sense without first defining terms. One of the most basic terms in economics is capital, whose definition is the means of production.
To illustrate what capital is let’s consider a very simple economy. On the sands of a small island a cast away has just washed ashore. He has no food and he is hungry. He searches the island and finds no berries, coconuts, or anything eatable. He goes back into the water and trys to catch a fish with his bare hands but he fails. He goes back up on shore and he finds a bush. He breaks off a branch and he gnaws on one end to make a sharp tip. Back into the water he goes and with his spear, he catches fish. His spear is capital. It’s the means of production for catching fish. He gave up some of his time and some of his energy to produce something he could not eat but something that would help him produce something that he could eat. Capital can therefore be tools, machinery, and even a man’s handmade spear to catch fish.
Such being the case consider that the communist in the former Soviet Union as well as in China and Cuba have always used tools and machinery. Officials there even view people as capital. Therefore by strict definition are not communist capitalist. For that matter, isn’t everyone a capitalist? Is not every economic system a capitalist system?
What then is the difference what the communist system is and what the American capitalist system is supposed to be?
The difference is ownership of the capital. Is the system monopolistic state-controlled capitalism or is it competitive free enterprise capitalism? It is between these two opposing economic system that a battle has always waged.
Before we proceed let’s also define free market. Basically, it is a self regulating system in which all parties are completely free to transact with one another. Where force, fraud, or injury damages one party the government’s role is only to punish those who commit such offenses and to vindicate the rights of the other party. This protects the integrity of the free market or free enterprise system without intervening in it.
The term “private property” also needs clarification for private ownership and control of property is a key component in the free enterprise system. In order for ownership of property to be full and complete all four of its aspects must be met. These are title, control, use, and the ability to dispose of what a person owns. In a free market economy, these aspects are unrestrained so long as the owner does not infringe on the legitimate rights and claims of others. True ownership of property and freedom go hand in hand. They always have.
Now let’s compare the two systems of capitalism, monopolistic state-controlled capitalism and competitive free enterprise capitalism.
In the competitive free enterprise system, capital or property is both owned privately and controlled privately. In the monopolistic system, holding title to capital can be accomplished privately or by the state but more importantly capital is controlled by the state or by the elite few who control the state.
Just as the political spectrum shows the range of government power, we can also plot the various economic systems along another spectrum. These forms of government control in the market stand in sharp contrast with a completely free market. In the last century or so there have been basically four forms of state controlled economies all on the far left of the economic spectrum.
Fascism, Nazism, Socialism, and Communism. In each, the government controls the capital. The difference among these is how much is owned or controlled outright by the government.
In a Fascist system, the government doesn’t own businesses on paper but it does control them.
Under Nazism, which means National Socialism, its proponents went one step further and acquired ownership of some corporations and controlled all others.
Socialism is where government officials acquire possession of major industries such as transportation, communications, and utilities in order to leverage control over the entire economy. Through ownership of these vital segments of industry and by creating government regulatory agencies socialist gain control over virtually everything else.
Finally, there is Communism, the granddaddy of all in the economic sense. Because the state owns and controls all of the capital communism is more honest than fascism; there are no pretenses about it.
Now let’s combine political and economic systems because ultimately one never exists without the other. We see again that there are only two ultimate choices, a competitive free enterprise system in a Republic, or a monopolistic state controlled system under an Oligarchy.
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