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7 comments:
Statist economic theory, rather than specifically Republican. "Be obedient, and we will take care of you, we promise".
This is unregulated free market Capitalism, at it's finest.
For thousands of years the worldwide standard of living was nearly stagnant. At almost exactly the same time that capitalism was invented, the standard of living began a sharp upward climb--not just sharp, but geometric.
...and in the modern world, there's a clear correlation between living standard and economic freedom.
But of course that's all coincidence.
Whoa, Nelly. Slow down there. You mistake my comments about the current nearly totally free-market, low-regulation Capitalism as a knock on all Capitalism and that's just inaccurate. I understand how you got there because we haven't discussed this in depth but it's not all Capitalism that's wrong. It's just the, again, nearly totally unfettered, unregulated, selfish, greedy brand of buy the government you want with campaign contributions Capitalism that is the problem. It's what got us the 2008 national and international global meltdown and it's also what, on a far smaller scale, got West Virginia it's Republican, "I hate big gubmint" chemical spill last week and all it's associated nightmares.
So to be clear, it's not all Capitalism at all. It's just if you let the billionaires--the lunatics--run the asylum.
You sound like a person who equates Capitalism with Democracy with a capital D and patriotism, too frequently.
Saying "I'm for capitalism, but we need more government control" is like saying "I support the second amendment, but we need to ban most guns", "I support freedom of speech, but the government should be allowed to prosecute racist speech" or "I support freedom of religion, but not for cults".
We have an incredible amount of regulation, much of it for no good reason, some of it contradictory. OSHA regulates how many days a company is allowed to use an extension cord. Federal SOX regulations extend to the forms people use at my job to tell me a network jack is broken. You can't sell minibikes designed for kids under 12, because they aren't lead free and a kid might lick the valve stem or something.
Fraud, theft, breach of contract, reasonable safety are things that should be regulated. My boss should be concerned with how well I fill out a trouble ticket, but the government shouldn't have any say.
No, actually saying "I'm for Capitalism, but we need more government control" is nothing whatever like also saying "I support the second amendment, but we need to ban most guns.
At least not to a discerning adult.
It's far more akin to saying "I support the 2nd Amendment but I'm also for background checks for mental stability and criminal history so that we reduce the numbers of innocent Americans slaughtered, needlessly, in this country." Now that's an apt analogy.
Our regulations, that you claim we have to little of, have gotten us the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the 2008 national and international financial near-collapse and now, the chemical spill in West Virginia that killed West Virginians, made many more sick, sending lots of them to the hospital for treatments and keeping hundreds of thousands of them from having water of any kind.
Do we have regulations? Sure. Are lots of them watered down, to favor the wealthy and corporations and whatever they want to do?
Yes, actually, that's exactly what we have--a weak, weak system that lets the wealthy and corporations have their way with the public.
Regulations are watered down for big corporations...but still apply to smaller competitors. I don't see how your solution of adding still more regulations helps.
The BP spill had regulations on the side of making things worse--like limiting oil company liability for spills, and the idiot government officials who stopped a skimmer, in theory because while the water it was spitting out was vastly cleaner than the water it took in, the discharge was still considered a pollutant in excess of allowed limits. I have a hard time believing anyone is really that stupid, and it almost makes me think that some of the government wanted to make things worse so they had an excuse for more power. (Nobody other than Christy's staff would ever do that...)
Same thing with the housing market--Fed says you can't loan in these neighborhoods, then you must loan in these neighborhoods, even the ones that are poor risks, and even if the people don't particularly want loans. Now the Fed wants to make all banks use the same computer models...so if the models are wrong, who will be left to pick up the pieces?
We need simple rules that anyone can follow, with consequences for anyone who breaks them, big or small. Risky investments must be allowed, but the risk should be understood.
And central planning has a long history that we really need to learn from instead of saying "if we put the right people in charge, it will work this time for sure".
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