QOD

Filed in National by on October 15, 2008

Has the myth that a Free Market can exist been put to bed? 

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  1. jason330 says:
    October 15, 2008 at 6:59 am

    Hell yes. I could never have thought in my wildest dreams that George Bush was going to be so effective at discrediting and disposing with wingnut economics.

    My hope is that socialization of banking will be the first step in a long process of nationalizing other social safety net items like health care and education.

  2. anon says:
    October 15, 2008 at 9:03 am

    Jason you are dreaming…. as soon as Democrats repair things to the point that the middle class starts building some equity again in their homes and investments, some job security and gains in real income, and a healthy Treasury – some Republican will come along with some magical theory about the government “giving your money back” and will once again strip all that equity away and hand it back to the rich.

  3. anon says:
    October 15, 2008 at 9:15 am

    Jesus H. Christ, is there anybody George Bush hasn’t written a check to?

    We’ve got bailout checks to banks, stimulus checks to everybody else, no-bid contracts everywhere, payments to faith-based groups, and shrink-wrapped pallets of cash shipped to Iraq by the ton.

    I guess Bush proves you can’t buy popularity.

  4. RSmitty says:
    October 15, 2008 at 9:21 am

    The problem with this “free market” was the pigs at the trough hoarding more and more for themselves. That’s the biggest flaw on capitalism, the lack of ability to keep the pigs from making themselves obese at the expense of everyone else, which by doing so, goes against the theory of free markets.

    Face it, human nature is what makes the intended free market so highly difficult to obtain, if not impossible anymore. It’s like asking a 6-year-old to baby sit a room full of 4-year-olds. Good luck with maintaining order, especially while the 6-year-old takes everything in site as his own.

  5. anonone says:
    October 15, 2008 at 9:27 am

    This is a great on-topic read. I think even our Libertarian friends might like it:

    http://www.juancole.com/2008/10/great-reagan-pyramid-scheme-comes.html

    Excerpts:

    “The Great Reagan Pyramid Scheme Comes Crashing Down

    The Republican Party that Nixon invented melded the moneyed classes of the Northeast with the white evangelicals of the South. This odd couple went on to simultaneously steal from and oppress the rest of us….

    The Reagan Revolution included the stupid idea that you can cut taxes, starve government, abolish regulation of securities, banks, & etc., and still grow the economy…”

  6. Von Cracker says:
    October 15, 2008 at 9:53 am

    What free market? There never was one.

    Business collude.

  7. Duffy says:
    October 15, 2008 at 10:26 am

    Businesses collude and government has it’s thumb on the scale.

  8. Mike Protack says:
    October 15, 2008 at 10:30 am

    Capatalism is the best economic system bar none. If our economy was not so strong there would not be money for so many handouts and freebies.

    Sad but all of you liberals trash talk the free market yet you are always the first in line to take from someone else or ask for something.

  9. Von Cracker says:
    October 15, 2008 at 10:38 am

    oh boy.

  10. jason330 says:
    October 15, 2008 at 10:43 am

    ….all of you liberals trash talk the free market yet you are always the first in line to take from someone else or ask for something.

    Like capital gains tax cuts?

  11. Von Cracker says:
    October 15, 2008 at 10:47 am

    “take from someone else” – like a parent’s dead kid in Iraq?

    piss off

  12. Unstable Isotope says:
    October 15, 2008 at 10:51 am

    in line to take from someone else…

    like the Wall Street Welfare Queens?

    Yes, I think the free market deregulation is dead. There are still some Republicans that follow it, like House Republicans and Mike P., but the American people aren’t buying it anymore. The idea that conservatives have been selling that the crisis is all poor people’s faults doesn’t seem to be selling, since we can all see who is in line begging the government to save them – AIG, Bear Stearns, Lehmann, Merrill Lynch, etc.

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