Posted on 07/22/2008 8:42:09 AM PDT by 300magnum
Welcome to the conservative's worse nightmare: The law of unintended consequences. Why? Nobody wants to admit it, folks, but the conservatives' grand ideology is backfiring, actually turning the world's greatest capitalistic democracy into the world's newest socialist economy. A little history: The core principles of conservative economic ideology are grounded in Nobel economist Milton Friedman's 1962 classic "Capitalism and Freedom." Too late to stop President Lyndon Johnson's Great Society, those principles became the battle cries energizing conservatives since Reagan: Unrestricted free markets, free enterprise and free trade; deregulation, privatization and globalization; trickle-down economics and trickle-up wealth to an elite plutocracy destined to rule the new American capitalist utopia.
So what happened? Are you guys nuts? Hey, I'm talking to all you blind Beltway politicians (in both parties) ... plus the Old Boys Club running Wall Street (into the ground) ... plus all you fat-cat CEOs (with megamillion parachutes) ... and all your buddies scamming everybody else to get on the Forbes 400. You are proof of Lord Acton's warning: "Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely." It's backfiring! You folks turned our America from a great capitalistic democracy into a meddling socialist economy. Still you don't get it. You're acting like teen addicts tripping on an overdose of "greed-is-good" testosterone while your caricature of conservative economics would at best make a one-line joke on Jay Leno. Here are 11 reasons your manipulations are sabotaging the great principles of leaders like Friedman and Reagan:
(Excerpt) Read more at marketwatch.com ...
Sheesh.
You don't throw out correct economic strategy because of a few bumps in the road.
Last week I talked with a few recent graduates with economics degrees from a prestigious university. To a one, they had never even heard the name Ludwig von Mises. Not even to disagree with him.
We have become a socialist country, but not for lack of trying to avoid it. It's just that the insane swell to enslave us to socialism is now overwhelming. And there are no voices out there lodging a protest.
On that I totally agree. The Republicans have so lost their way. I actually peg it all the way back to 1995 when they lost their nerve over social program cuts because the RATS were on the floor of the House setting up big pictures of supposed victims of the cuts and calling the Republicans mean-spirited, only to be topped, of course, by the so-called government shutdown when they blinked. From then on, they were angling for ways to distance themselves from the conservative agenda whenever possible. As time went on, the whenever possible because more frequent till it distancing themselves from the conservative agenda was their normal routine.
QUICK!!!
Someone clue the Pubbies in.
America already has one major political party promoting our transformation to a Marxist/Leninist Socialist state.
Another BS Doom & Gloom....I also resent how this writer cannot discern between Conservative and Republican...he needs to be reminded that Conservatives have the right Principles...also where does this stupid POS idiot get off on carppin’ on Reagan....!
Your statement above I agree with but there are still private companies in the U.S. and we have private property ownership so the U.S. is not a socialist country yet. The ultimate goal of socialism/Marxism and Democrats is the elimination of private property. Private property ownership is what differentiates capitalism from socialism where the state owns everything and no private ownership is allowed.
100 years of Democrat/Marxist legislation brought us to this point.
From an email I received :-)
Political Science for Dummies
DEMOCRAT - You have two cows..
Your neighbor has none.
You feel guilty for being successful.
REPUBLICAN - You have two cows.
Your neighbor has none.
So?
SOCIALIST - You have two cows.
The government takes one and gives it to your neighbor.
You form a cooperative to tell him how to manage his cow.
COMMUNIST - You have two cows.
The government seizes both and provides you with milk.
You wait in line for hours to get it.
It is expensive and sour.
CAPITALISM, AMERICAN STYLE - You have two cows.
You sell one, buy a bull, and build a herd of cows.
BUREAUCRACY, AMERICAN STYLE - You have two cows.
Under the new farm program the government pays you to shoot one, milk the other, and then pours the milk down the drain.
AMERICAN CORPORATION - You have two cows.
You sell one, lease it back to yourself and do an IPO on the 2nd one.
You force the two cows to produce the milk of four cows.
You are surprised when one cow drops dead.
You spin an announcement to the analysts stating you have downsized and are reducing expenses.
Your stock goes up.
What's the old saw about lighting just one candle?
The candle's been lit, and others are glowing as a result of it.
Just because you don't see something on MSNBC or in the Wall Street Journal does not mean it doesn't exist.
Have optimism. Things will turn around.
I must admit it is a total failure of any regulation by the Bush administration. They let the wall street roobbers swoop in and steal everything. The SEC has allowed naked shorting for years, and getting rid of the ut rule was a conspiracy to bring down the markets imo. Even Cramer says the the SEC is shorty’s best friend. I have no problem with shorting-but naked shorting =stock counterfeiting-it’s a huge problem thanks to the SEC being the most inept and corrupt govt organization in history imo. when you don’t locate a share after a short, you have created a share out of thin air, diluting the ownership of shareholders.
do you really think that this is the first time that the “wall street robbers” have swept in? Study some history...
Or try Hayek’s “The Road to Serfdom”. Here’s the dumbed-down but so true version:
Correction;
Under capitalism American style you would have two cows and you keep them both and buy frozen semen from someone who is in that business, thus you have two cows to produce calves rather than one cow and one bull. Under capitalism nineteen fifty style you would lead your cows over to your neighbor’s bull and have them bred while you and your neighbor stand and lean on the gate and watch the proceedings.
That IS funny but actually socialism = Communism = Liberalism = the Democrat party = Marxism = Government ownership of property and capital = totalitarianism.
Capitalism = freedom = private ownership of property and capital.
Private property forms the backbone of the western democratic system. Its central purpose is twofold: firstly, civil liberty (the right to pursue one’s own interests, and lead one’s life as one chooses within the bounds of the laws of the land) and, secondly, political freedom. These are both a direct function of the existence of private property. To the extent which government controls property, it controls people. Without private enterprise, people become totally dependent on the government for their livelihood and their autonomy to choose their own occupation vanishes. As private property declines, governmental power increases. As the governing bodies obtain more power, they do so at the expense of the individual and the government’s reliance on those individuals for its growing power becomes less and less, until it is merely responsible to itself. Foremost, without private property, the people lose their own power to check and oppose the government, should the need arise and, in particular, in instances when government officials are found to be corrupt. In short, without private property, democracy will remain but a fraudulent myth.
This has been effectively and statistically demonstrated by Paul Johnson in his book, A History of the Modern World.
http://www.ourcivilisation.com/cooray/westdem/chap5.htm
http://www.amazon.com/Capitalism-Freedom-Phoenix-Milton-Friedman/dp/0226264017
Thanks. I’ll forward it to those econ “graduates.”
Have optimism. Things will turn around.
I believe in optimism. We are not put on this earth to look down, but up.
And change is a constant. Thanks for the excellent link.
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