Forum Post: DEREGULATION OF the free market is to blame! - Nope. That's a myth.
Posted 12 years ago on Dec. 7, 2011, 12:08 a.m. EST by theaveng
(602)
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
It's a common refrain among Occupy, democrat, and liberal circles (or TV talkshows). The reason the economy collapsed was because of deregulation. But is that true? Is this proof that a "free market" is a miserable failure? So there are no more regulations whatsoever???
First-off one of the MAJOR market regulations was enacted by the HUD in 1998 and nicknamed Homestead Affirmative action. It had far-reaching consequences. Basically it required banks to issue a mortgage to anybody who asked for one (or else be sued by the HUD and DOJ for discrimination against the poor). This regulation actually created the subprime housing bubble that hyperinflated & then burst in 2008. Ooops.
Anyway back to topic:
Deregulation? Nonsense. More than 50 agencies have a hand in federal regulatory policy, and together these agencies enforce almost 160,000 pages of rules. There were only 130,000 pages of rules when Clinton left office. That means regulations went UP during the George "duh" Bush years.
So not only is the assertion of "deregulation" incorrect., we had MORE regulations in 2008 than we had back in 2000. I guess we need to find a different scapegoat, because the deregulation scapegoat simply isn't true. Nor can we come to the conclusion that "free market is a failure", since we never had a free market in the first place. In point-of-fact we had a heavily-regulated market.
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Here's the proof that the 1998 regulation FORCED banks to issue subprime loans to poor persons (first 3 minutes). It created a bubble which burst ten years later. The regulation is the root cause of the collapse. Even Obama admitted it (near the end of this video).
VIDEO - http://youtu.be/ivmL-lXNy64 --- SOURCE - http://www.heritage.org/Research/Reports/2008/03/Red-Tape-Rising-Regulatory-Trends-in-the-Bush-Years#_ftn10 - http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2010/03/red-tape-rising-regulation-in-the-obama-era
Yes, deregulation is very much to blame.
Depository Institutions Deregulation and Monetary Control Act 1980 Garn-St Germain Depository Institutions Act of 1982 Remarks on Signing the Garn-St Germain Depository Institutions Act of 1982 October 15, 1982
Thank you all very much, and thank you for joining us to sign this historic reform. This bill is the most important legislation for financial institutions in the last 50 years. It provides a long-term solution for troubled thrift institutions. It's proconsumer, granting small savers greater access to loans, a higher return on their savings. And when combined with recent sharp declines in interest rates, it means help for housing, more jobs, and new growth for the economy. All in all, I think we hit the jackpot. Let me just divert here for a moment to underline the importance of something that we've been saying since our administration took over. Bringing down inflation brings down interest rates which brings backs the economy. And what a better way to cap off a big week of momentum toward recovery than this morning's Producer Price Index report -- down another one-tenth of 1 percent last month, and up only 3.1 percent so far this year. If that rate holds steady, it'll be the best performance in 10 years.
Now, this bill also represents the first step in our administration's comprehensive program of financial deregulation. I particularly want to commend the leadership of the chairman, Senator Garn, and Chairman St Germain, along with Secretary Regan and his fine team at Treasury. They did a remarkable job forging a consensus within the Congress and among affected industries in favor of the bill's deregulatory provisions. I'd like to also thank Congressmen Stanton, Wylie, and LaFalce for their assistance.
What this legislation does is expand the powers of thrift institutions by permitting the industry to make commercial loans and increase their consumer lending. It reduces their exposure to changes in the housing market and in interest rate levels. This in turn will make the thrift industry a stronger, more effective force in financing housing for millions of Americans in the years to come.
Unfortunately, this legislation does not deal with the important question of delivery of other financial services, including securities activities by banks and other depository institutions. But I'm advised that many in the Congress want to put this question at the top of the banking deregulatory agenda next year, and I would strongly endorse such an initiative and hope that at the same time, the Congress will consider other proposals for more comprehensive deregulation which the administration advanced during the 97th Congress.
Thank you all again. I'm very pleased to sign this Garn-St Germain Depository Institutions Act of 1982.
Note: The President spoke at 11:03 a.m. at the signing ceremony in the Rose Garden at the White House.
As enacted, H.R. 6267 is Public Law 97 - 320, approved October 15. http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/archives/speeches/1982/101582b.htm
Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999 AKA The Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act
Ever notice how all the big "news" channels basically create the same thoughts and therefore, reality, for the "peasants" (as citibank called regular people).
Who cares about lies and propaganda on Iran or China or Russia, we can go straight to the people to find out what is really happening, no?
Create your own youtube channels and broadcast to one another, forget big media, working together they create an artificial reality composed mainly of stuff none of us know or care for but simply offer an opinion on, and this is what divides us in our media matrix.
The MEDIA is the MATRIX
The market itself is self-regulating. If the government would step back and let the market correct itself, the economy would correct itself.
Self-regulating markets crashed the world economy. I'm surprised that you missed it. Were you away?
Actually yes. I don't remember that at all. Please explain.
Well, it was actually government interference in self regulating markets but let's not quibble when we are busy demonizing!
Didn't I say that?
You're thinking the cycle of demand and supply, right? Well, here's what happens:
Producer increases supply, consumers increase demand, supply drops, demand drops, supply increases again...
What you don't understand is now there is a second cycle going alongside this one: the financial cycle. The overall diagram looks like this now:
Producer increases supply, consumers increase demand, supply decreases, demand decreases, producer invests in financial markets... if he wins, he gains money; if he loses, he still gains money, then stores it in tax haven, producer invests in financial markets again, gains money, stores it in tax haven, producer invests in financial markets again, gains money, stores it in tax haven...
A closed loop of finance market investment that sequesters money outside of the cycle. Let me repeat: special interests are funneling money into tax havens and out of the country.
Are we going to trust greedy people to play with their money in a way that doesn't deplete the stocks for the rest of us, or are we going to have to nudge them in the right direction?
And with a wave of my hand - Poof - you are gone.
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I'm not actually religious so take that as you will. I agree with you I was just saying what I thought should happen. Nothing was really changed or regulated at all. I don't know why you are angry at me.
you believe the heritage foundation?????????
same thugs who gave us project for the new American century & iraq war
good troll, good troll
fyi - there is no democrat party
The what?
And how was Heritage responsible for the Iraq War? I thought Saddam's invasion of Kuwait was the reason that happened. (And what does "no democrat party" mean?)
You are right, it was the heritage's silly step child, Project New American Century, who gave us the Iraq War.
all supported overwhelmingly by both houses of congress dont forget.
Hmmm so a private association that has no hold over the government caused a war on terror.... That makes complete sense. Not really, that's complete bull.
google "project for the new American centurry" - they brought us Georgie's war
from our wiki friends: "Democrat Party" is a political epithet used in the United States instead of "Democratic Party" when talking about the Democratic Party. The term has been used in negative or hostile [ or assinine ] fashion by conservative commentators and members of the Republican Party in party platforms, partisan speeches and press releases since 1940.
You really did not know this?
Where did you learn the names of the parties, Lee Atwater? Karl Rove?
Dick N. ? Dick C. ? An evangelical "preacher" ? fox ?
your model solution is what? give me a historical reference .
My model solution is to put Power in the hands of the People to make their own decision and vote (with dollars) which companies they like best (and bankrupt companies they don't like).
Regulations interfere with that freedom of the People to make their own choices. Of course we will need SOME regulations to protect basic rights (no killing, no polluting the air, and so on), but we don't need 160,000 pages of them. Most of those just limit the citizens' liberty.
What you're promoting is essentially anarchy, which is impossible to attain. A government of some sort will always rise up.
so give me an example of your ideal society that exists now or has existed in the past. Or are you inventing something new lol!
The U.S. from 1830 to 1913 was pretty good. No central private bank to devalue the Laborers' savings through increases of the money supply (inflation was essentially zero).. It was also our most prosperous period when we moved from a 3rd world agrarian economy to a # 1 industrial state of the world.
That's the power of a free market with zero (or almost-zero) regulations. PLUS because it's a "free" market the People enjoy the liberty of living their lives as they please rather than being shackled by the government.
Now:
I am not entirely against regulations. I think we need environmental regulations to protect the People's Natural right to clean air, but you don't need 160,000 pages of rules to accomplish that. Most of those regulations, like outlawing incandescent bulbs, are ridiculous.
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sounds like we totally agree. Although the 1920's were good too. 1950's 1980's 90's even most of the 2000's. It's just that with the weight of the government now - it's harder to dig out when the government constantly feels it has to meddle in the market.
Bullshit. Banks resented the incentives to invest in under severed communities - rather than embrace their civic duty they chose to break things - and break things they did.
Beginning with CountryWide - where fraud was rampant. You can see 60 Minutes.
I'm so sick of hearing that very same lie - it's a common refrain among bankers and their apologists. It's disgusting.
It comes from a mindset that claims: those people should not own homes anyway . . .
the classist fucks!
This is no different than the lie they tried to sell when they wanted to implement new fees - they claimed the new regulations were costing them 8 billion a year.
fucking LIARS and thieves!
I see they backed off real quick when they found the public actually reacting.
And someone else put up a very nice piece about the way in which regulation faces sabotage both from within and without. I wish I had saved that link, because the two issues are inextricably entwined.
what's the bottom line?
they don't like regulation.
they are content to break things and lie
blaming regulation - when it is their will to fuck the public that is to blame
If you really want to understand how evil the system was, and how far it would go to avoid regulation, read, "All the Devils are Here," by Bethan McClane. She was also the author of, "Enron, The Smartest Guys In The Room."
Mortgage originators preyed upon people and took advantage of the thinnest of regulatory regimes.
And we have been sold a lie that the mortgage crisis happened because the government forced lenders to give mortgages to poor people....
My Lord, just look at the areas where there are the highest rates of foreclosures......Stockton, CA; Las Vegas; the Inland Empire, CA; Phoenix; Florida; etc.
These are NOT poor areas.....
Nice way of undercutting the bullshit
I fucking hate it when they engage in robbery and then insist it wasn't robbery at all, but a natural consequence of government . . .
I mean, wtf?
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I love this post.
It shows your true colors (you react with EMOTION and HATE while your brain is barely being used). Good job.
yeah that's right!
I just fucking hate lies!
Fuck this guy. He thinks he's going to win converts with his numbers game. Deregulation isn't real unless the number of words in the US code decreases or something.
BINGO.
There is no other way to PROVE things were deregulated, unless there's an actual decrease in the # of regs.
How about corporations and people blatantly disregarding existing regulations and paying the people who are writing them to make them suit their needs? How about writing regulations that don't regulate?
It's not about the number of regulations in the books: it's about enforcement of existing regulations and appropriate punishment of those who cross the line and endanger the economy of the nation and the health and lives of people.
Collusion between corporations and government to give the former more free reign to do as they wish with no regard to the nation's and the people's welfare (something the government is sworn to defend, by the way) is de facto deregulation and, dare I say it, borderline treason.
That's certainly a possibility. Can you prove that happened? But the fact that spending went UP several billion by the regulating agencies indicates it is not true. They increased oversight.
Spending on what, though? Where does the money go? Part of it goes to truehearted regulators who do their jobs properly. Part of it goes to legal costs to fight against lawsuits of corporations on regulating bodies. Part of it gets funnelled to lobbyists and corporate fingerlings who are gaming the system.
If we want to regulate, we gotta regulate smart. In a sense, you're right: a bloated bureaucracy has become so distorted and confounded that any clown waving around enough cash can change the rules to his advantage, obfuscating the original regulations so that not only are they ineffective at doing their job, but they make regulators more susceptible to judicial attack and require four times the work to properly interpret and enforce.
Provide proof.
Otherwise I'll just reject your argument as being as fallacious as Alex Jones' claim that 9/11 was an inside job. Statements without backing are worthless.
It warrants investigation at the very least.
So do I, and the current myth that "there are fewer regulations now than 2000" is one of those lies. (Unless you can prove me wrong with some actual numbers.)
And someone else put up a very nice piece about the way in which regulation faces sabotage both from within and without. I wish I had saved that link, because the two issues are inextricably entwined. . .
. . . .I said.
bad regulation is just as bad as deregulation. don't be dense.
here's the post on the regulatory process
Thanks to looselyhuman for the post, and to someone else for finding the link.
Yes I read it. The article was nothing but OPINION with no facts to back it up. (No numbers to show that the # of regulations had decreased.) It might as well have been something written by Glenn Dick.... er, I mean Beck.
yeah-ya.
as if you've had time enough to trace back the sources . . . .
I'm surprised you didn't pick up on the assertion that the President had hired someone he knew, who apparently doesn't like regulations.
And again: I don't see any NUMBERS to back-up the wordy article. Without numbers it might as well be a car ad: "This car is fast! How fast? Really, really fast. And it has a great fuel economy that gets tons of miles per gallon, but we're not going to tell you how many miles per gallon."
I want cold, hard facts not an article that resembles the transcript of the Rachel Maddow show (lots and lots of opinion with no facts).
Anyway while while I'm reading supper I'll go re-read the article a second time. I try to be open-minded enough to listen to the opposite side (which is why I listen to progressive talk radio).
The number of paper regulations may have increased, but that does not necessarily mean anyone is beholden to them, or that the content of these regulations are effective at all.
And yet many here are calling for MORE regulations? Don't you find that the least bit ironic?
We're calling for regulation to be obeyed. Right now, there is so much regulation in the books that is being flat-out ignored by people who have a money-made "get out of jail free" card, that it's not unreasonable to declare this system corrupt.
The reason we need regulation is the same reason we need traffic lines on roads: without them, some people would think they're not only allowed, but ENTITLED, to drive anywhere they want on the road, and cause an accident as a result. This is what is happening right now: a few people think they're entitled to disregard the laws and cause accidents, and the worst thing is, they are blaming the accidents on those who were following the rules currently set in place!
Here's something I wrote that explains how deregulation caused the crisis but also, Greenspan and others who should-have seen the housing bubble. The wall street moneychangers bundled and sold those subprime loans to school-districts and pension funds,etc. in the form of credit default swaps, which magnified the crisis:
$531-Trillion Derivatives Market / Alan Greenspan #1 Culprit / Follow the Money
Yes, Trillion! Certainly, Alan Greenspan knew what "Bucket Shops" were. Greenspan worshiped Ayn Rand, the ultra-Libertarian, who believed in no government oversite of the economy.
In the final days of the Clinton administration, corrupt legislators pushed through the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000, which enabled Bucket Shops to open up on Wall Street.
A specific clause in The Act over-rides state laws against Bucket Shops. The Moneychangers on Wall Street fooled school districts, banks and retirement & mutual funds to buy these deriviatives. Lyndon Larouche warned about these criminally AAA-rated paper pigs almost as soon as the market took off, eight years ago.
IMO: the only solution is for Obama to recall and reissue currency. This will force the crooks who profit from drug deals and these Derivatives to prove how they obtained their $$$.
The "Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000" (H.R. 5660) was introduced in the House on December 14, 2000 by Rep. Thomas W. Ewing (R-IL) and cosponsored by Rep. Thomas J. Bliley, Jr. (R-VA) Rep. Larry Combest (R-TX) Rep. John J. LaFalce (D-NY) Rep. Jim Leach (R-IA) and never debated in the House.
The companion bill (S.3283) was introduced in the Senate on December 15, 2000 (The last day before Christmas holiday) by Sen. Richard Lugar (R-IN) and cosponsored by Sen. Peter Fitzgerald (R-IL) Sen. Phil Gramm (R-TX) Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE) Sen. Thomas Harkin (D-IA) Sen. Tim Johnson (D-SD) and never debated in the Senate.
Must-see video on this subject: The Bet that Blew Up Wall Street, Steve Kroft, 60-Minutes.
My letter on New York Times columnist, Frank Rich's blog regarding this.
Source of Pic: New York Times, October 9, 2008.
Link to the New York Times article: "The Reckoning: Taking Hard New Look at a Greenspan Legacy", October 9, 2008.
UPDATE: Frontline (PBS) show "The Warning". Really good but still doesn't answer the question, "Where did all the $$$ go, who benefited"?
This video explains another aspect of the economic collapse: Hedge funds "Naked Short Selling" Bears Stearns & Lehman Bros. stock, which caused these two businesses to collapse.
Links here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/666_is_money/3187334305
I have to say that you make some good points. But, also, is your factories doing well now? Without some regulations the industrious, you, will over produce and cause more grief than good. Our nation went along time negating the boom and bust cycle of the past, then some industrious people thought they were to good to listen to the will of Congress and they moved their factories over seas. Now we find our selves in the slump that congress always feared. You may be a shining knight to the folks in India, with your airconditioned factories, but here we are, same shit, different era. now, if you want to keep selling your widgets to us, you will have to compromise with us, or watch us overreact like we did last time our industrious did not listen to the will of the people. remember we greedy leaches, here in America, still have all the Boom-Booms. I just hope cooler heads prevail. the attitude that it is the principal of the matter that counts may just erase your factories of the face of India's map. not a threat but food for thought.
Exactly. You are fiilled with HATE not logic or reasoning. I feel like I'm talking to a bunch of christians.
"The earth is 6000 years old!" Uh no actually science has shown it's about 5 billion.....
"The earth is 6000 years old!" But we have fossils that are millions of years ol.....
"The earth is 6000 years old!" But there are asteroid craters that are much older than.....
"The earth is 6000 years old!" (sigh). Nobody is interested in hearing any facts contrary to their beliefs. They have already made-up their minds and reject anything that causes cognitive dissonance in their minds (i.e. upsets their belief that the market was Deregulated).
Maybe I should stop trying to think for myself. Just spew the MoveOn.org talking points like a good little religious person.
yes I hate - I hate idiocy and disinformation and those whose arguments depend on it!
Since you don't have any other argument other than the obvious fallacy posed by religious dogma - which is sure to play well, regardless of the merits - or lack thereof - of everything else you did claim yet do not prove . . .
let me repeat:
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Bullshit. Banks resented the incentives to invest in under severed communities - rather than embrace their civic duty they chose to break things - and break things they did.
Beginning with CountryWide - where fraud was rampant. You can see 60 Minutes.
I'm so sick of hearing that very same lie - it's a common refrain among bankers and their apologists. It's disgusting.
It comes from a mindset that claims: those people should not own homes anyway . . .
the classist fucks!
This is no different than the lie they tried to sell when they wanted to implement new fees - they claimed the new regulations were costing them 8 billion a year.
fucking LIARS and thieves!
I see they backed off real quick when they found the public actually reacting.
And someone else put up a very nice piece about the way in which regulation faces sabotage both from within and without. I wish I had saved that link, because the two issues are inextricably entwined.
what's the bottom line?
they don't like regulation.
they are content to break things and lie
blaming regulation - when it is their will to fuck the public that is to blame
Good reading:
How Deregulation Eviscerated the Banking Sector Safety Net and Spawned the U.S. Financial Crisis
http://moneymorning.com/2009/01/13/deregulation-financial-crisis/
Point-by-point deregulation since 1980.
And find a source other than Heritage for a credible response.
That article provides no facts (no numbers). It's nothing but opinion which is basically worthless.
Bullshit, it provides plenty of numbers: 1980, 1982, 1988, 1993, 1999, 2004... And the FACTS associated with those years.
It provides OPINIONS about those years. Not facts. For example if someone showed me a Fact that the # of regulations had gone down since 2000, then I'd be convinced the market had, indeed, been deregulated.
So far no one of you has done that.
Come on. Surely it can't be that hard to show the # of regulations went down.
You're really a douchebag aren't you?
The stated purpose and widely-hailed (by free-marketers) outcome of all those legislative activities (events rightly stated as FACT in the linked piece) was "deregulation."
The 21st amendment repeals the 18th amendment. Did the number of characters in the constitution decrease accordingly?
I see NO evidence that the legislature reduced regulation. In fact I see a lot of evidence that Bush was a Neocon who increased government's size (such as Homeland Security, warrantless wiretaps, Patriot "repeal the 4th amendment" Act, and growing the war apparatus).
He even handed-out 700 billion in bailouts. He was the opposite of a free marketer. He was a big government, pro-regulation kind of guy.
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And here's how your reply addresses the actual subject and points I've made:
When liberals run-out of rational thoughts or arguments, they revert to name-calling ("You're a douchebag.") and other childish crap.
And then the Constitutionalist (that's me) wins.
Win? By having nothing in response but some bitchy little pity-fest? Nobody here gives a fuck about civilized debate tactics. You've won shit.
Nice editing btw. Like anyone cares.
You interpret 30,000 extra pages in regulation law as a increase in regulations. I see it for what it was, an increase in loopholes.
I guess the "clean skies initiative" and the "healthy forests initiative" were tremendous regulatory burdens. Seems a bit counter intuitive considering that they were written by the same industries they were intended to regulate.
That's an odd viewpoint which really makes no sense. If the extra ~30,000 pages were loopholes instead of new regulations, then regulatory costs would have gone down.
But that's not what happened. Regulatory costs (to enforce the additional rules) went up tens of billions of dollars from 2000 to 2008.
The regulators had to spend more money to enforce the regulations? And that means that the regulations were stronger? Could it be that the increased pages of regulation really was intended to tie the hands of regulators? To make it more expensive for them to do even less?
The heritage foundation puts out facts. But the facts are chosen to advance an argument. Each of the arguments you have put forth are easily refuted. That is because the facts do not logically lead to the conclusions they want you to make. They seem related but there is some missing information that is unfortunately required before one can make the jump to "deregulation had nothing to do with the collapse." That is simply preposterous.
Deregulation stripped our economy and gave power elites a little bit more money.
But I just showed that we have not been deregulated. We now have MORE regulations than ever before... the number increased from 130,000 to 160,000 pages during the Bush era. If we had been "deregulated" that number would have been near-zero.
Utter BS there is a 750 trillion credit bubble derivative world wide ready to burst. US banks are exposed to euro debt. The IMF and workd bank and fed has enormous pressure from private banks now to bail out europe. There is nothing but loop holes. BAC and other zombie banks forced the fed to back stop 75 trillion in deregulated toxic asset trades in Oct., trillions in these are exposed to europe. Its 2008, in 2012 the banks have learned nothing. Things like shawdow banking and other loop holes need to be made illegal. With no lobbying money via deregulated politics via corporate money to influence loop holes that only favor a small percentage of people. The deregulated banks will be asking for another bail out with tax payer funds. Thanks deregulation. The only jobs we should be outsourcing are the 40,000 D.C. LOBBYIST jobs. Nope deregulation is a sham.
Nothing you said negated my post. The "book" of regulations has increased from 130 to 160 thousand pages. If the market had been Deregulated, then the number of pages would be zero (or near-zero). That's what deregulation means -- no regulations.
God. I feel like I'm stuck in the 1984 novel where words don't mean what they mean. ("War" is peace. "Free market" is a heavily-regulated market. And "deregulation" is 160,000 pages of regulations.)
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Bureaucratic, ineffective regulation is meaningless. Have you forgotten about the Glass-Steagall act? This is perhaps the most important piece of regulation that was dismantled which contributed to the crisis...
Aside from that, history has proven that corporations are incapable of regulating themselves. They can't. It simply costs too much and corporations are not only legally mandated to make a profit, but must continuously find ways of increasing their bottom line. Why do you think the constantly fight regulation??? Why was there a great depression?? Regulation is necessary, however the corporate state will aways be waiting in the wings to dismantle it.
Have you forgotten I said I support reinstating the G-S act?
When? Way back in the 1800s? The horse-and-buggy days are' hardly applicable to now. BESIDES the marketplace is not regulated by corporations. It's regulated by the People through voting (with their dollars). It is basically a pure form of demcoracy.
your logic is circular. I understand what you are saying, but understand when you remove the regulations, those in power i.e. private wealthy individuals will work to do what they need do to change all no regulations or regulations or de- regulations in their favor. The only answer is more oversight, not less. Less oversight just leads the system to eat itself. Liberation concepts are dangerous and have a poor track record. Glad you support G-S.
Anything that is ever conspired amongst the elite 1% and thrust across the media as a god-honest truth must always be questioned. There are so many corporate, right-wing policy think tanks that promote this deregulation rhetoric, with almost all of it funded by large profiteers. It's one of those things that would likely not even be a central issue if it were not for so much corporate money in politics. You can't sit back and honestly think that people are naturally going to be OK with fracking for natural gas in their backyard? But when the corporate 1% get involved, it's all a liberal conspiracy. All our technology is clean. Nothing to worry about.
Sorry, but we're not buying it. Not for a second.
Well where did the "market was deregulated" paradigm come from? Where is the research/statistics to back that up, and why should we believe that is any more trustworthy?
Glass/Steagal was revoked. Regulation of the derivative markets were revoked.
Those two alone laid the foundation for the current economic collapse.
That is 100 percent correct. The issues are always more complicated, but if a researcher had to make one logical clear point, repeal of glass steagsl and other additional loopholes wrecked our economy, destroyed the middle clasd, casued politicans to only cater to the rich and the result now is social disenfranchisement of average people. Now we have mass protests, nothing like we havent seen since the 1960s. The difference now is this isnt going away. Thanks deregulation for ruining the USA.
Your first statement is true. Mixing Savings with Investment in the same bank is a bad idea, and G-S should be reinstated.
Your second statement is false. Derivative markets gained MORE regulations, not less. The 1998 Homestead Affirmative Action (and related rules) regulated not just mortgages but the derivatives from those mortgages, and it is the root cause of the housing bubble.
Not all regulations are good. The ones I just cited are an example of government regulation causing an economic collapse. Had that regulation not been passed by Clinton's HUD secretary, no subprime loans would have been issued to people too poor to pay them back. There would be no housing bubble. There would be no collapse in 2008.
Let me break it down for you in the most unspun way I can. I am fine wirh private banks gambling with trillions in money they dont have, but not with my money. Private banks gamble via hedging with money they dont have. In fact 750 trillion, derivatives markets world wide, hedged against what?. I DONT think the world is even worth that much. However, deregulated policies caused the politicans to be bought. Thus when these corporations fail, namely, banks, our tax dollars bail out their executive bonsues. When they take or get profits they keep them and when they fail we bail them out and they steal our homes. Thats basically indebted serfdom. We have nothing but deregulation to thank for this predicament. To point the finger at any politicians is a distraction because corporate money owns the political system. Thus we need to fix this mess. I am angry. We need more regulations and less loop holes and more over sight. These police thugs on mayors orders via fed backing controlled by corporate money can beat me until my last breath, but I refuse to live in 1984 meets a brave new world masked behind the myth of deregulation, which is nothing more than code for social capitalism for billionaires who want to do nothing but destroy civil liberities and maintain the sham status quo. Degregulation is a joke and a myth. It does not work. Never has.
Thanks for modding me down to -1. That was just rude. We are both on the same side. I hate corporations as much as you do. I hate TARP (read: theft of the people's money) just as much as you do. We are on the same side, even if we have minor diffferences on how to reach the end goal
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I BELIEVE THE SAME THING. That's not a free market -- it 's a crony market. I have never supported and never will support such a thing. That's why I sent ~500 emails to Congressional representatives to tell them to vote "no" to the TARP bailout bill. Where were YOU? Did you do anything?
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I have PROVEN that is false. I have posted that the number of regulatiosn increased from 130,000 to 160,000. I have posted VIDEOS which prove the root cause of the hlusing collapse was a "house affirmative action" bill and even a video of Obama AGREEING that was the cause.
Nothing is more frustratring then talking to a person who SEES the facts but refuses to accept them. Its like telling someone that 160,000 is greater than 130,000 and they reply, "No it isn't."
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Deregulation is lack of action in enforcing paper regulations, just as much as it's the nonexistence of paper regulations. Just because 160,000 regulations exist on paper does not mean they are being wholeheartedly fulfilled, or that the newly-created regulations are even effective to begin with, especially when drafted by the parties which are supposed to be regulated by them. People don't understand the notion that corporations with enough money and who levy enough power and influence in politics can simply ignore regulations, provided they can throw around the dough a little.
no it hasn't. you are totally wrong. it has NOT been proven. fact. you are wrong.
‘Repeal’ of Glass-Steagall Irrelevant to Financial Crisis
http://www.lewrockwell.com/woods/woods183.html
Now we have industry shill Heritage and Austrian ideologue Lew Rockwell making the "case." Classic.
Please provide proof tat Rockwell is an "industry shill". Or retract the statement as an ad hominem attack with no basis & false.
No, he's the Austrian ideologue.
This jackass has never even heard of what you are talking about pay him no attention. I doubt he even knows who Von Mises is. He just reads shit off of the heritage foundation and regurgitates it here
Yep, straight up.
Whatever that means.
??? You racist against Austrians?
You should read some books on economics.
I was just teasing you. Of course I know what Austrian economics (thanks to Ron Paul and Judge Napolitano directing their viewers to go read about it), is but saying "he's an austrian idealogue" is NOT a valid argument. It's an ad hominem attack which has no validity during a debate/discussion.
Austrian school is not economics, mkay? It is a device created for the 1%, just like "trickle down economics" and Libertarianism.
Hardly. It permitted banks to engage in speculation, derivatives, and other nefarious commercial wall street transactions the collapsed the economy.
They could not have securitized mortages without it.
Oh is that the racist who contributed to the Ron Lawl Newsletters??? Do you have any Gary North propaganda to go along with Lew's BS???
There is no data to show deregulation works. Period. Quite the opposite actually, because there are tons of data showing deregulation is a disaster. The economy since the 1970s has done nothing but been stripped of its base in the US while bailouts caused by corporate money via deregulated rules influencing politics has gotten us a national deficit 98 percent of GDP. That is deregulstion at work. Period. DOES not work.
I suspect the market deregulation rhetoric might have originated in think tanks like the Brookings Institution and the American Enterprise Institute, with ideas generated by philosophers like Milton Friedman and Ayn Rand. It is also highly supported by proponents of Supply-Side Economics, the term of which means economics on the side of suppliers (employers).
To actually gather all the research would take much more time than I have here, but the financial problems associated from deregulation can be traced back to the break-up of the Bretton Woods system, then the Tax Reform Act of 1986, the repeal of Glass Steagal, etc..
The parties who present this stuff work often generate public support using the media. The media deals with "experts" on the matter, and those experts usually have ties to corporate infidels. There are people in backrooms board meetings that think of ways to try to get the public on their side. The result is a public so paranoid, where little can be trusted. They cling to the people who they feel are going to free them from a fabricated federal mess. The support for deregulation is rife with a fear of government and a fear that things will be taken away from you. Naturally, that would be something to fear. The problem is that it is promoting a "do-what-you" want attitude. If I change oil on my car, let the oil flow out onto the ground, and then some Feds arrive and provides me with a heavy fine. The way the Feds came could be protested in that they are using draconian measures, but allowing oil to flow onto the ground is unethical.
You didn't answer my question.
I meant where did the "market was deregulated and that caused the collapse" mythology come from? I first heard it on the Rachel Maddow show but suspect she was just quoting some other organization like ACORN or Tides Foundation (neither of whom I trust due to Soros backing). Were they they ones that originated the myth that Bush deregulated the market?
Thanks.
I thought 'Inside Job' movie had a pretty good grasp of the facts that show how deregulation caused the collapse.
Because 2008 and now the 2012 bubble will/ was directly the rusult of off the books unregulated derivatives trading.
Ahh, more nuggets of wisdom from Mr. Scientific method. Riddle me this dipshit, name me a country with clean air and water with no enviromental regulations. Name me a country with a highly educated population with a private only education system. Name me a country with thats high on the oecd healthcare index that doesn't have a national healthcare system. I doubt you will be able to because they don't exist. There are countries that do have an economic system approaching something like the "free market" they are called third world countries. There has never been a "free market" in this country and there never will, because powerfull capitalist intrests do not want to be subjected to chaotic market forces.
It's a myth if you were to say that market deregulation alone caused the collapse. It's not the only factor, but it is a major playing factor. As to where it came from? Likely from people outside of the corporate arena. I haven't done the research on it as to pinpoint its exact source. But this read should be a bit more informative.
http://www.zcommunications.org/from-global-financial-crisis-to-global-recession-part-i-by-jack-rasmus
Deregulation working is a total myth. 0 zero evidence of it's success. All we have to show for it are trillions in off the books hedged financial bets and then corporate money influencing politicians to make tax payers bail out executive bonuses. Its happening in Europe right now...
Nope deregulstion does NOT work...
That's because we've never tried it. At no point since WW2 has the "book" of regulations drop to 0 pages (or even near-zero pages). On the contrary regulation keeps growing more and more. From 130,000 pages in 2000 to 160,000 pages in 2008.
Its like communism because all that happens is that deregulatd policies cause the ultra rich and their corporations to buy the politics and tilt the system. In communism power was corruptly dustrubuted to a few a politicians. Deregulation is a myth because there is no way to enforce anything. And yes we are deregulated. Since 1970 and more recenty with Clinton we have financial markets with no rules and loop holes. If your disturbed fantasty of this perfect deregulation was aslo implemented we would just be in reverse communusim and plutocracy or corporatocracy i.e. oligrachy would reign. The result is monoplies. Deregulated money just buys the system and tilts it in the owners favors. Markets dont correct naturally because of it. The result in your world is an end game of fedualism. Deregulation leads to feduelism. History continuously demonstrates that deregulation fails. Pure deregulation has a very poor track record. Liberitian policies doesnt work. Occupy until we regulate these billionaires back to fixing the system.
Also read adam smith. He favored regulaton
sfsteve - nice going - if regulation means any thing it is not measured in the number of pages or laws but how the financial system is controlled and who are the watch dogs - anyone who has read any of the books explaining this latest crisis (goes for many past crises also) would know this is nonsense
that the banks were forced to lend to certain groups of people caused this is a clever rue devised by the banks to put the onus of the depression on the government to sway public opinion against further bank regulation. the simple cause of the depression is that people lived beyond their means for a solid ten years (e.g., median home loans at 50% of income between 2004-2008), their incomes did not rise in excess of inflation and now they're basically much poorer with less to spend in the future. that causes economic contraction.
[Deleted]
Fact: 80% of high-value subprime loans were from institutions that were not subject to CRA - which includes only depository institutions. If you can reference Heritage, I can reference MediaMatters (quoting UMich law professor Michael Barr):
http://mediamatters.org/research/200809300012
Unregulated financial instruments and institutions were behind the subprime lending crisis. The rest is spin. To blame a 1977 act with 1995 adjustments for a crisis in 2007 then lay it at the feet of ACORN is just grasping by the right wing - which, by the way, is where I've found references to all the claims you're making - mostly originating with Rush Limbaugh. Dittohead.
Media Matters? hahahahahaha. You might as well be quoting Faux News or Microsoft NBC. Mediamatters is funded by globalist George Soros and is as biased as sin.
Ooops.
I at least admitted my source was perceived as biased. Soros is way better than the Kochs that fund Heritage - your primary source for this entire BS thread.
There is no 'Homestead Affirmative Act' you cretin. You must be one of those snake oil salesmen out of the secondary mortgage market who helped create this mess.
Here's what your post looks like after I remove the grade school insults/name calling:
Wow short. Anyway there is affirmative action towards housing, starting in 1998, in order to help the poor acquire homes. I posted the video showing when it was born. Here it is again (first three minutes). Please watch it. http://youtu.be/ivmL-lXNy64
BTW I have video where President Barack Obama concurs with everythng I just said. "The original idea was a good one..... in theory this should have allowed lending to be less risky and more diversified, in order to provide loans to poorer people, but it failed to work as intended. This caused a collapse."
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Yeah, the biggest failure was that people in the industry saw a way to collect their fees, pass on the risk to the government and to hell with the taxpayer. Business as usual for ditto heads.
No the biggest failure is that government policy created an economic bubble by making loans to people who could never pay them back.
The Homestead Affirmative Action was not a banker's idea. The root cause is that ACORN and other community organizers (circa 1995) brought lawsuits against banks that had rejected submprime mortgages for the poor. They charged it was discrimination.
This captured the attention of Clinton, Harry Reid, and Republican John McCain. They came-up with the idea of the new 1998 regulation to FORCE banks to issue subprime mortgages, because "every american deserves a home". While in theory their motives were GOOD and helpful, in reality it created a major housing bubble and rapid inflation in prices (~$500,000 for a home that used to cost ~$200,000).
When the poor persons could not payback the subprime loans, the Hometead Affirmative Action revealed itself to be a flawed policy. There were some like Ron Paul in 2003 who tried to repeal the regulation because he knew it was headed towards collapse , but few in Congress wanted to hear it. Then in 2008 his prediction came true.
And now you know..... the Rest of the story.
WTF is it with you? People don't like your comments so you decide that they're worth deleting and re-posting? Are you brain-damaged?
It's been established that there is no such thing as "Homestead Affirmative Action". The closest thing in reality is the 1977 Community Reinvestment Act which was amended in 1995. I've addressed this below - in response to this exact same comment which you deleted.
After the hell we have been through as a nation in the last ten years some people have the nerve to call for more deregulations while posting a link to Koch supported Heritage Foundation....REALLY???
You might recognize names of some of the organizations that the Koch brothers fund. Americans for Prosperity is their Tea Party effort. They fund the Cato Institute, the Heritage Foundation, the Reason Foundation, the Institute for Justice, the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies, the American Legislative Exchange Council, and many many more. Through their massive funding efforts, they have fought against health care and are fighting against protecting social security, as well as fighting efforts to halt climate change, and fighting against LGBT rights, Immigration rights, unemployment insurance, environmental protections, the rights of unions to organize and educational opportunity, just to name a few areas they focus on.
http://blogs.alternet.org/speakeasy/2011/03/10/the-koch-brothers-exposed/
We haven't had deregulation. I have proved that (the number of regs went UP 30,000 pages, not down). And I have no idea who the Koch brothers are or why I'm supposed to hate them. Did they kill people? Overthrow governments like George Soros did???
A fatal flaw of the Occupy movement is that you speak as if everyone should "just know" that the Koch Brothers are evil, but you never explain WHY they are evil. If it's because their opinion is different than yours (i.e. they don't believe in climate change), that doesn't mean they are evil..... perhaps stupid. But not evil.
I know you won't read it, but others might: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/08/30/100830fa_fact_mayer?printable=true
After reading through the piles of propaganda generated by your incessant and likely obsessive posting here, I'm of the opinion you're a paid Koch troll. Does New Media Strategies pay your bills?
http://crooksandliars.com/karoli/new-media-strategies-get-yer-koch-sock-pupp
I skipped over the black tie and sexy lady stuff, but yes, I read it. Overall I agree with the Koch brothers that government needs to be shrunk (I'm a 10th amendment constitutionalist). I do Not agree with their anti-environmental policy.
I drive the world's second-cleanest production car (2002 Honda Insight), because I think the People have a right to clean air. Pollution needs to be reduced to the lowest-level possible from car and factory exhausts. But I still don't consider the Kochs to be evil..... it's a difference of opinion.
George Soros on the other hand?
Yeah I consider him evil.
You might want to do some reading
I'd suggest you google these terms:
Commodity Futures Modernization Act
Consolidated Supervised Entity
Term Auction Facility
Before you reply with one of your distorted facts that there exist other bills that regulate with more consonants or that these deregulations were combined with regulations, remember to back it up with something..
Again, even though the number of regulations went up, the number of lobbyists and persons with vested interests in Congress and regulation-drafting positions has also increased (or perhaps we are simply more aware of them?). Regulations drafted by folks with vested interests in the regulated company in question will rarely actually be respected or drafted in a way that is effective. Legalese can be written to be almost impossible to interpret except by its authors, and they can spin the regulations in a way that ties the hands of the regulators in red tape.
There is no free market when some can accumulate such a concentration off economic and financial power that they can then use that power to deprive others of their economic freedom and access to the free markets.
This is subversion of the free markets. This is economic fascism.
And when that over-concentration of economic power is directed at the political process it corrupts and subverts one American one vote democracy.
Democratically regulate these economic predators out of the markets and free the markets from this undemocratic accumulation of power.
2005 bankruptcy reform act allows derivative claims to be paid out before FDIC insured depositor claims in the event of a bank failure. How is that for deregulation..........................
Sounds like a reason why regulations == fail.
Most of the regulations on the books are there to benefit the 1% not the 99%.
If regulations were actually written to benefit the people then I'd be okay with them but that has Never been the case.
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That has rarely been the case since 1980. Thanks to neoliberal free market thinking and the associated acceptance of commercial interests dictating policy.
Regulator is a thankless job. All political parties pledge to shrink government while it should instead be growing to service an increasing population and respond to problems of increasing numbers and complexity.
Regulation has been necessary even before the industrial revolution came along. There were plenty of regulations by combination of royal decree or papal edict. Until the 1530s, the Church in England , as in the rest of Western Europe, was under the final authority of the Pope, and its doctrine and worship were Catholic. When Henry VIII failed to persuade Pope Clement VII to annul his marriage to Catherine of Aragon, he had himself declared Supreme Head of the Church in England and closed down all the monasteries—though he continued to regard himself as a Catholic. Fast forward to the 20th century and we see there is a need for more regulation and regulators not deregulation.
Enron Scandal http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I12UcHwUPaY [right click]
Worldcom Scandal http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7g_d-phoUrU [right click]
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQtq77RQRf0 [right click]
Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RiZe1KSkYYY [right click]
Exxon Valdez 20 Years Later Democracy Now http://www.democracynow.org/2009/3/24/20_years_after_exxon_valdez_oil [right click]
This is a dumb ass post. As somene who has been very involved in the housing industry, I have to tell you that the HUD act had absolutely nothing to do with it.
It was lowering interest rates, along with pushing values higher.
And dont give me the "gov regs forced banks" bullshit. When shitty homes are sitting with no mortgage (only 47% of properties had mortgages prior to 2001), it doesnt matter if the new owner pays 1$ and then defualts- its one more dollar than they would have gotten anyways.
We are now near 100% mortagage backed properties, due to all the refinancing. They have everyone stuck in underwater properties for the next 30 yrs-the plan all along.
That's right!
People make the argument against deregulation on the unspoken premise that "Without regulations, corporations will constantly break all of the Laws!"
But this is a false premise.
Fraud is illegal, even without regulations. Discrimination is illegal, even without regulations. Exploiting employees is illegal, even without regulations. Monopolies are illegal, even without regulations. Polluting is illegal, even without regulations.
At worst, regulations always have some ulterior motive. Usually, that has something to do with barrier-to-entry against the small guy.
At best, regulations calcify the structure of industry in a misguided attempt to create "stability".
But consider the suspension of your car as an analogy; if your suspension is flexible, then your ride is more smooth, i.e. stable.
Changes in the "real world" cause pressure below the platform of the industries which our society "rides on top of".
When we allow big business to secure their fixed positions in changing markets against smaller, more agile, more flexible organizations, through subsidy or regulation -- then the shocks to society become greater. And more painful.
That is the real crux of "too big to fail".
Getting corporations to follow the laws is a different problem, and it isn't solved by regulation. It's solved by enforcement.
i never thought of it like that. very cool.
100% agreed. Obviously we need SOME regulations (do not kill, do not phyically assault, do not pollute the air), but we don't need 160,000 pages of them! It limits the freedom of the citizens to live their lives freely.
Your post makes a lot of sense, but I doubt these government-lovers will comprehend it. Perhaps if you trimmed your post to 1/3rd its present size, they'd be able to wrap their short 3 minute attention spans around the point.
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I'm amazed that people call our system "the free market". Banks are allowed to gamble with money they borrow from each other and the fed . When the bets go bad taxpayer's are on the hook for the losses. I call that welfare for billionaires. In My "free market" wall street would not be allowed to borrow money from any entity that held citizens funds, that includes retail banks, the fed and insurance companies. Wall street investment banks and hedge funds would have to lend money to each other and if they went bankrupt ,to bad, not my problem. Banks that held FDIC insured deposits would be regulated. Wall street would be left alone in the Free Market and no longer allowed to suckle at the feds teat.
Obviously we don't. We have a Crony market where the Congress gives corporations free cash (corporate welfare), and the corporations give Congress reelection. Beito Mussolini called this system "Corporatism".
It is NOT a free market and claims by Democrats/liberals that we had one under Bush is ridiculous.
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No dem/liberal would claim that the Bush economy is a free market system. I've only ever heard that claim from the right.
I just heard a Democrat make that claim an hour ago on CBS. They were arguing that Bush's policies of a free market and deregulation caused the crash. Even our president is making a slightly similar argument on his 2012 campaign speeches.
The "free market" was an excuse for the policies, so it is related that way. The deregulation allowed the mortgage brokers to liars' loans progression, and the failure to regulate derivatives led to massive sales of bundled bad loans, leveraged up, which in turn kept the mortgage brokers churning out bad loans, until it crashed. And it took the economy with it.
Ok let me clarify it for you. Greenspan's ideology about the free market caused him to deregulate the banking system and get rid of Glass/Steagall. The Ideology / mythology about the "free market" and reality are two different things. Greenspan's ideology worked for a few years while the market was going up, more risk more leverage Whoopie evbody makin' monies-----------when the market turned down excess leverage did what it always does ---------what it did in 1929 ----it magnified the losses just like it magnified the wins. Turns out that because we let wall street into our banking system all our deposits were at risk if we didn't pay off wall street's bad bets------------rather than creating a real free market Greenspan's " free market " ideology had created a giant welfare system for billionaires and yes bush made it worse. We have changed nothing from 2008
I agree repealing G-S was a mistake, but I don't consider it the cause of the crash. Even if G-S was still in effect it would not have stopped the issuing of mortgages to people too poor to pay them back (thus leading to the housing bubble of the 2000s and subsequent crash).
Perhaps you can explain how G-S would have stopped that from happening?
Why Glass-Steagall Didn't Matter and the Peril of Deposit Insurance http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0ycz2gGkTs
I would include Grenspan's law regarding derivatives and the banks being allowed to use 30X leverage instead of the 6 or 7 they previously allowed to the mix. You also need to add in the fed's lower interest rates that provided the spread that made the securitization of mortgage bonds so profitable. I agree none of this would have possible without the middle class providing the 3 or 4K profit that wall street made on every home sale. The investment trusts of the 20's as well as the internet stock bubble needed that fuel from the middle class. The problem with all wall street written laws since the 90's is they have found a way to hold our bank deposits and insurance policies hostage when their bets go bad, but they make all the profits when their bets go well. It's not a free market it's a welfare system for billionaires supported mainly by the GOP.
It's interesting you bring that up. The Socialist countries of the EU have MORE severe levagering than we've got. They are leveraged 60-to-1. That means a decline in their assets of just 1.6% would make them crash.
How did that happen? The E.U. and its member states are the most-heavily regulated markets in the world (they even regulate the curvature of bananas and cucumbers), so why did their politicians allow banks to leverage at 60-to-1?
I guess the EU politicians are just as bought-out (corporatists) as the U.S. Perhaps much much worse. So much for the EU socialist paradise.
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Whatever caused that I'm sure Goldman Saks had something to do with it. Quite frankly the entire western world has been sold the myth that China can make all our stuff and our economies will somehow survive ---------they won't. The only way to function with our trade deficits is to borrow ----------whether or not we have a functioning heath care system like Europe of the disaster we have here in America doesn't really matter.
Probably, but since Europe is supposedly a Socialist paradise, Goldman Sachs never should have been able to pass laws to allow 60-to-1 leveraging. POINT: Socialism is not the magic answer (like OWS believes). It failed in europe to prevent takeover by corporations & damage to the economy
do you all read some manual ? you all sound the same and it's all meaningless propaganda. I'm pretty done with this conversation.It's pretty obvious you are unable to reason and unable to get out of the tiny little box you are stuck in. Sad that you vote but a waste of my time
When liberals run-out of ideas or arguments, then they resort to grade-school name calling and insults. And that's when they lose.
There are a lot of improvements that need to be made. The list reforms people Americans want to see is long and varied depending on who you talk to. That said, I believe there is one reform that would provide the American people the best chances of seeing other meaningful reforms actually happen - that is REAL, loop-hope free CAMPAIGN FINANCE REFORM! I have seen others on this site calling this the "fulcrum" or pivotal issue. Right now the current legalized bribery, pay-to-play system of campaign donations and paid lobbyists has disenfranchised the American voter. Until this is fixed, any other reform the politicians may try to placate us with (be it a change to healthcare, clamping down predatory school loans, new financial regulations, etc.) will be about as effective as a farmer putting a new roof on his CHICKEN COOP, but still letting the FOX guard it.
We need to go back to the original political currency. Instead of the current system of who can collect the most money from corporations and special interests it should be who has the BEST IDEAS to EFFECTIVELY RUN THE COUNTRY (we don't need "Wealth Redistribution," what we need is "Political Influence Redistribution")!
For the sake our our children and future generations of Americans, we need to take back our democracy from the rich and powerful who are using their vast sums of money to "speak" as if they represent millions of Americans. This "Corporate Personhood" that has crept into our laws is allowing them to manipulating our policies in their favor at the expense of the average American (the recent "Citizens United" Supreme Court ruling is a miscarriage of justice and must be reversed. The $50 or $100 a normal American may give to a political campaign becomes meaningless when corporations or other special interests are handing our millions to buy political access to the decision making process.
For decades now the corporations and special interests have had our "representatives" bought and paid for (both on the right and the left). Concentrating our efforts on getting the money out of our politics is the best way we can create an environment in which further reforms can be realized. Until we end the current system of legalized bribery (campaign donations) and paid lobbying our politicians will continue to be the LAP DOGS of the corporations and special interests. What we need first and foremost is real, loop-hole free CAMPAIGN FINANCE REFORM!!!! If the corruption is not dealt with first, the chance of any other meaningful reforms becoming a reality is almost zero - the special interests will just use their money to buy votes and put forward bills that create loop-holes or otherwise twist the law in their favor. If we want our children to live in a country where there vote matters, we need to get the money out of our politics, otherwise they will increasingly become the 21st century version of the "landless peasant." Spread the word - End the LEGALIZED BRIBERY!!! CAMPAIGN FINANCE REFORM needs to be THE main goal of the protests!!!
There are a lot of improvements that need to be made. The list reforms people Americans want to see is long and varied depending on who you talk to. That said, I believe there is one reform that would provide the American people the best chances of seeing other meaningful reforms actually happen - that is REAL, loop-hope free CAMPAIGN FINANCE REFORM! I have seen others on this site calling this the "fulcrum" or pivotal issue. Right now the current legalized bribery, pay-to-play system of campaign donations and paid lobbyists has disenfranchised the American voter. Until this is fixed, any other reform the politicians may try to placate us with (be it a change to healthcare, clamping down predatory school loans, new financial regulations, etc.) will be about as effective as a farmer putting a new roof on his CHICKEN COOP, but still letting the FOX guard it.
We need to go back to the original political currency. Instead of the current system of who can collect the most money from corporations and special interests it should be who has the BEST IDEAS to EFFECTIVELY RUN THE COUNTRY (we don't need "Wealth Redistribution," what we need is "Political Influence Redistribution")!
For the sake our our children and future generations of Americans, we need to take back our democracy from the rich and powerful who are using their vast sums of money to "speak" as if they represent millions of Americans. This "Corporate Personhood" that has crept into our laws is allowing them to manipulating our policies in their favor at the expense of the average American (the recent "Citizens United" Supreme Court ruling is a miscarriage of justice and must be reversed. The $50 or $100 a normal American may give to a political campaign becomes meaningless when corporations or other special interests are handing our millions to buy political access to the decision making process.
For decades now the corporations and special interests have had our "representatives" bought and paid for (both on the right and the left). Concentrating our efforts on getting the money out of our politics is the best way we can create an environment in which further reforms can be realized. Until we end the current system of legalized bribery (campaign donations) and paid lobbying our politicians will continue to be the LAP DOGS of the corporations and special interests. What we need first and foremost is real, loop-hole free CAMPAIGN FINANCE REFORM!!!! If the corruption is not dealt with first, the chance of any other meaningful reforms becoming a reality is almost zero - the special interests will just use their money to buy votes and put forward bills that create loop-holes or otherwise twist the law in their favor. If we want our children to live in a country where there vote matters, we need to get the money out of our politics, otherwise they will increasingly become the 21st century version of the "landless peasant." Spread the word - End the LEGALIZED BRIBERY!!! CAMPAIGN FINANCE REFORM needs to be THE main goal of the protests!!!
It was Greenspan's libertarian Anne Randian deregulation of wall street.. It was the repeal of Glass/Steagall and the deregulation of derivatives.That's what happened at AIG Lehman brothers Bear Stearns Citi Bank Bank of America. We are going to need constant regulation with the repeal of Glass Steagal because now our banks full of American's hard earned money are allowed to speculate with company funds. They will need to be watched every minute of every day so that we don't have more incidents like MF Global. That's why Glass Steagall worked for 50 years it let wall street gamble but kept the high roller speculating away from our bank deposits. Do you really want a bunch of clowns gambling with your hard earned money? I know I'm sick of it.
i bet if they used cops to regulate business transactions, they would not have to use as many cops to lock away the population.
Great Post ! to bad the OWS losers wont get it. They need government to save them from the big bad world lol!
I never thought of it like that, but you're right. The Democrat Party is the "daddy" party.....it's for people too scared to care for themselves so they turn to the Dems and their government to be a surrogate dad (and hand-out a monthly allowance).
Of course the Republicans aren't much better. It's why I quit both parties ten years ago.
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Heritage Foundation tells the truth about anything?
Nope. It's a pure propaganda machine for the GOP/libTs.
That's what it was founded to do.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xgWPV60G2I
Who the hell are these guys?
Government must provide protected class identity group discrimination before it may sue banks. There is no such thing in the law as "discrimination against the poor." This is a total fabrication. Banks were never required to lend to poor people. Banks chose to do that. However, if banks lend to poor white people, they must also lend to poor black people. It is that simple. Discrimination against black people is and has always been epidemic, and remains so. See this article for a clear case.
Has the subprime mess exposed redlining of minority neighborhoods? http://www.bloggingstocks.com/2007/11/04/has-the-subprime-mess-exposed-redlining-of-minority-neighborhood
These OWS terds don't know what they are talking about. Their just the blind following blind with a copy of the Communist Manifesto in brail. They got the Che Geuvara t-shirt with the berkenstock sandals and an Apple computer to distinguish their artistic "progressive" non-conformist lifestyle from the rest.
The Revolution has a new song!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P89PlNkk0eY&feature=related
http://occupywallst.org/forum/make-a-stand-join-the-clan/
The Revolution starts here!
Byron Dorgan warned of it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OvnO_SH-4WU
Sorry if this has already been posted, but this is an important video everyone should check out:
part one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OvnO_SH-4WU
part two: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=veAOoQEy0PI
regulation crafted by and enforced by those who are to be regulated is not really regulation
That's true. Most regulations are a way for corporations to gain special favors for themselves, and drive-out smaller competitors.
Take for example the mandate to provide healthcare for employees. While the regulation technically covers ALL corporations, Walmart, McDonalds, GM, and a few others contacted the Obama administration and asked to be exempted. Obama granted it. But everyone else, like small business owners, still have to bear the additional expense..
Your right, but not exactly. Haven't you ever heard of "capture" pal.? Most of the regulatory bodies didn't simply deregulate that was just one way they made things comfortable for the Corps. they supposedly regulated. If possible an Industry would lobby to get one of their own on top of an agency so they could CAPTURE it and rewrite the regs to their benefit.
You mean like how Google put a man on the board of the FCC, and now they are pushing to end all Free TV broadcasts (in order to use that spectrum for internet/cellphones)?
Really? You're the only as*le with that deduction.
The problem was red lining by banks and other institutions where people of color mostly were denied mortgages even when they could show sufficient financial wherewithal to afford the mortgage. Only the financial industry and their cohorts are going around claiming they were forced to give out mortgages. That's utter PR spin. The truth is these institutions were paid whether the mortgage defaulted or not, so in an orgy of greed they decided to give them out without attempting to ascertain ability to pay. They saw the chance to stick Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac with the debt and they took it. In other words in true conservative fashion, these institutions saw a chance to steal from the people as a whole and they pursued it with gusto. I suppose this poster in his stupor thinks Enron was run by liberals.
NOT MYTH. Here's the proof that the regulation FORCED banks to issue subprime loans to poor persons (first 3 minutes). It created a bubble which burst in 2008. The regulation is the root cause of the collapse.
http://youtu.be/ivmL-lXNy64
YES MYTH, BIG-TIME MYTH. That's your idea of proof?? You must have gotten your education out of a crackerjacks box. Even if ALL the loans attributed to ACORN and others are added up, they're a mere minor fraction of the total bad loans made by banks in reckless disregard of proper stewardship and good sense, not to mention good corporate citizenship.
Subprime loansin 2007 represented almost 20%. That is way, way more than a "fraction". It was enough to bring-down the economy when those 20% of loans were defaulted upon.
Please don't insult my education. By doing so you also insult dozens of professors too. That's just plain rude.
Oh yeah, economics as lapped up by feather-brains like Bachmann? She's got a PHD you know! Are you a professor at one of those laughable religious institutions? LOL! The stuff you've cited wouldn't pass muster in a low level undergraduate course.
When liberals run-out of rational thoughts, they resort to name-calling and insulting...... even of professors they never met & cannot defend themselves from the slander.
I went to Penn State, one of the top universities in the nation. For you to sit there and insult the professors is unconscionable.
"For you to it there"
A fine education at work.
Oh look. A spellbot escape from wikipedia! How cute. ;-) The first error is a TYPO, because I typed too fast. It's considered very, very poor netiquette to nitpick somebody's typos. Bascially something a Troll would do.
And the second error is not an error at all. I just looked it up and verified that unconscionable is a word.
Get over it. The tripe economics professors put out is truly unconscionable and I can prove it. Dismal science? More like talking points for sycophants and wannabe plutocrats. But aside from that issue, the video you present is on the order of something an undergraduate might put out. And if I had graduated from Penn State, I'd ask for my money back.
[Removed]
You're affirming the consequent.
I am affirming the consequences, but denying the cause was "We have almost zero regulations of the market." That claim by the pro-big-government persons is ridiculous.
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No, I mean the fallacy. Your premise is entirely dependent on your conclusion to be true, which makes your argument bad from a logical pov.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Z9WVZddH9w
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EewGMBOB4Gg
Outsourcing is one of the major problems. Cheaper labour overseas means jobs go bye-bye, and also jobs that depend on those jobs. Its not deregulation so much as it is globalization... and the failure of governments to put a stop to it.
Its not a failure of the free market, the free market is working great; there is a natural consolidation of wealth in the hands of fewer people, and a company not wanting to pay American wages just has to pick up and move to China, and it can keep selling is products to Americans anyway.
Allowing the free market to run amok is a failure; free markets do a lousy job at creating real prosperity, and the long term impact of free market economics on the economy is devastating. You can not add 6.5 Billion new people to the labour market and expect that wages will not crash to 3rd world levels.
Sigh. What 6.5 billion people are you talking about? Most of them are already in the workforce.
Obviously.
I'd be in favor of blocking goods from China where it's discovered that the factories are abusing their workers. Such as making them work 100 hours of overtime when the legal limit is only 36/month according to the law.
Another idea is to stop buying their plastic crap. I just learned that Lego and Disney toys are made in a factory where the workers are pushed to work 7 days a week. (again, in violation of the law). Boycott Disney and Lego.
The free market should exist inside the U.S. (i.e. stop punishing citizens w/ those onerous and expensive regulations). But there should be no free market with China, India, or any other country that abuses its workers. The flow of goods internationally should be strictly restricted -- no imports from factories that are caught breaking the law.
Sorry, thought you were talking about free-trade for some reason. Sure I can totally agree with that!
Bush's Regulatory Kiss-Off Obama's assertions to the contrary, the 43rd president was the biggest regulator since Nixon.
http://reason.com/archives/2008/12/10/bushs-regulatory-kiss-off
THANK you.
Of course these folks won't listen to facts. They have already reached their conclusion and are unwilling to modify it to fit the new facts (# of regulations went up by tens of thousands of new rules). It's reminiscent of how the Pope arrested Galileo even after he had proved the earth is not the center of the universe. If you don't like the facts, then suppress them.
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Does anyone stop to consider what is being regulated by these regulations? It is our right to provide for our own lives that is being regulated. That is my argument against "regulation". I think it is the strongest argument an American citizen can make. When our government (who's only legitimate purpose is to protect individual rights, if you believe in the principles outlined in the Declaration of Independence) enacts legislation to limit our rights, this is not unconstitutional--It's unAmerican.
Your right to your own life is not regulated, your behavior towards others is.
When any agency controls what I may or may not produce and/or sell, I disagree.
Sorry, an agency has every right to restrict your production and sales of many things. Poison, for example.
You live among other people, and have, not only rights for yourself, but obligations to them. If you don't like it, buy yourself an island.
I'm saving up for it :) The only obligation I have to other people is to refrain from violating their rights. I should be able to produce as much poison as I want to. So long as I do not dump it into someone else's water supply or burn it and poison the air, I have not violated anyone else's rights.
Good luck on your purchase.
As to the hypothetical poison, you are party right, but also partly wrong: it depends on the poison. If you wanted to make your rat poison to use your self, there would likely be no problem, But if it's weapons grade anthrax, no matter what rights you think you have, your community, via government, has every right to deny it to you. Even if you swear on a stack of bibles in all sincerity that you will never use it, you may not have the proper storage facilities, have no security clearance, and a whole host of other reasons for denying you this so-called right. As to selling it, there is even more reason to deny this right to you. Until you actually buy it, you don't live on an island now.
Of, course, this is an intentionally dramatic example, but it nevertheless belies your assertion that you have every right to produce and sell anything you want to. No one granted you those sweeping rights. And since all rights are those agreed to by people, not God or Nature or what have you, if the people decided against your desire, you simply are without that right.
And, of course you have many obligations in any society. You have been given the privileges that come with with living in a civil society. Those privileges extend to all the physical infrastructure you use, the schools in your community, even your right to own property, which is less your right to own it then everyone else's prohibition against owning it.
You have an obligation to pay taxes, abide by laws, refrain from yelling "fire" in a crowded theater, and so on. If you refuse these obligations, you must also refuse the privileges, which, frankly are too numerous to count. That includes ALL your privileges, including your freedom of movement, your ownership of anything at all, even your life itself.
Society is a mix of freedoms and obligations, individuals and communities. There is no absolute one way or the other: it is always a balance.
"And since all rights are those agreed to by people, not God or Nature or what have you, if the people decided against your desire, you simply are without that right."
This is a statement which not only ignores, but outright denies the concept of rights. Rights are not granted to individuals by other individuals (or by groups of individuals). That makes no sense. How can one individual (or group of individuals) have the right to decide what rights others have? A right is an aspect of life required by the type of life it pertains to. For instance, we have the "right to life". This is the right to provide for our own survival. It is not the right to demand that someone else provide for our survival. How are we to provide for our own survival? By using our minds to evaluate reality and take actions in accordance with what we observe while bearing in mind that we may not violate the rights of others. In order to do this, we require the corollary right of liberty, which is the right to perform the above-mentioned activities. Given that a driving factor in human life is the pursuit of happiness, that right is also one held by all human beings. The Declaration of independence (and the constitution) do not grant these rights. Those documents merely recognize that they exist (the Declaration of Independence moreso than the constitution). The declaration of Independence recognized that the only proper purpose of government (the organized use of force and coercion) was the protection of these rights. A democratic society which does not place individual rights outside the realm of democratic (or any) interference will vote itself to destruction, as we are seeing now.
Nature grants you no rights whatsoever. if a bear wants to kill you, as long as you can't fend it off, it will. If a virus can do so, it will. It is not your "right to life" you defend, but a biological impulse to stay alive. Nature does not even grant you so much as the right to live.
People, on the other hand, form groups. Those groups are called cultures or societies or tribes. In the common interest of that group, rules are made by various mechanisms. Some rules grant rights, some restrictions to rights. Some restrictions are onerous to a few individual, some are not. Some rights are liberal and generous, some are not. Whatever those mutually agreed to rights and obligations of a society are, developed often over the course of millennia, the fact remains that they are invented by people.
As I said, the right to life is not the "right to be alive". It is the right to maintain your life according to the means which nature has granted to you (i.e., the exercise of your rational faculty). If a bear wants to kill you, it may. It will succeed so long as you do not defend yourself. You have a right to defend yourself against an attack by a bear (or another man) because that is what is required in order to maintain your life. Another man does not have a right to attack you because it would violate your right to maintain your own life. It would be contradictory for that man to believe that he had a right to his own life and to deny yours to you.
Rights are distinct from privileges in that they are implicitly held by all. In other words, you cannot violate the rights of another while still claiming that you have the right you have violated. Privileges are different. Government has the privilege (the power) to use force, but only to the extent that those who are governed by that system allow it to. If a man steals from a man who has stolen from him, both are criminals. If the government performs its proper purpose and forces the thief to return what he has stolen, it does so by exercising its privilege, which does not deny to either man his rights.
Most people do not have a concrete grasp on the concept of rights as distinct from privilege because it is such a new concept. America is the first country (that I know of) that attempted to form its government around the principle of rights, rather than privilege. We are now seeing the effects of the reversal of that premise. This reversal came about through contradictions in the constitution (mainly the commerce clause and government's legal monopoly on the production of currency) and through a concerted attack on the concept of rights. Most notorious is FDR's "second bill of rights" which is a list of privileges, which someone must produce and which others have a "right" to; A house, medical care, a car, etc. These are not rights, but goods and services, which must be provided by someone's effort.
You are confusing "right" with "impetus".
You have no "right" to defend yourself, you have the urge to. A right is a distinctly legal term.
The Declaration of Independence gave you no rights, regardless of the reason behind it. It was a purely rhetorical document expressing one society's aspirations and grievances. It was a Dear John letter to the British, a demand for a divorce.
The "right" to that divorce was not granted due to Divine Intervention. Nature did not unleash a storm upon the British Empire. Guns did. The "right" to live without British control was won by human beings with guns. If the war had ended differently, no such right would exist.
So the Declaration is meaningless from the point of view of rights.
The Constitution, on the other hand, also written by and agreed to by people, not nature, enumerates certain rights. Some of those rights were for one group of people to enslave another group. Those rights were also won by force of man-made guns, not nature. Those rights have been revoked, again by people.
Ownership of property is similarly not a right granted by nature, but by agreement between people.
You claim that you do not have the right to violate another's rights and still keep your own. Well, yes you do, if that's what a court or legislature decides, however irrationally.
Kant's categorical imperative is a moral and philosophical, not legal statement. Rights, on the other hand, are only legal determinations based upon consent of the people (at least in non-totalitarian systems).
As to your argument about rights v privileges, you are correct in making the distinction. i wold, however, refute your conclusion that FDR conflated to two. If the law grants a right to life, it must also not violate that right by denying medical care, food and housing to those citizens who need it. Doing so would constitute a legal conflict.
Just as rights are determined by law, so too are obligations. If the law requires that starving citizens be fed, the law can also make it obligatory for others to pitch in to pay for it, in our case, through taxes. The law does not, implicitly or explicitly, grant one the right to keep all of his money to himself. Because it does not do so, no such right - aka. agreement by the people - exists completely. Indeed the right to any money at all is granted by law, but is not absolute. To be sure, the constitution does not disallow rights that are not enumerated within it (just the opposite, in fact) , but has created a mechanism by which to grant or refuse rights or impose duties and obligations. If those duties and obligations include the populace paying a portion of their earnings to help those in need, there is no natural or legal right being violated.
From google's 'define:' function:
"Impetus:
One may or may not have the impetus to defend oneself. This does not erase the fact that one has the right to. I disagree with the idea that rights are a legal abstraction. I find them to be philosophical in nature. It is from a philosophy in which rights are recognized to exist that our system of government was developed (this principle went unimplemented in the constitution but that does not erase its existence from the history of the formation of this country). It was a system which required that government observe that rights existed and not violate them. It was a system which placed rights outside the interference of government.
Nowhere did I mention that I believed the source of rights was the Declaration of Independence. My purpose in bringing it up was to point out that at one time in history, men understood that rights were outside the province of government intervention and that a system of government which recognized this was almost established.
Whether you refer to rights (as I have used the word) as the "categorical imperative" ("Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law without contradiction") or as "rights" is irrelevant. What is meant by "the right to life" is that one man may take any action to support his own life so long as he does not violate the same right of another man. This idea does not violate Kant's Categorical Imperative.
The distinction between rights and privileges makes clear that the legal concept of rights is actually the concept of privilege. The legal concept of rights is not the same as the 'natural' concept of rights. Again, the law is not the source of rights, but that is essentially irrelevant to your point about denying medical care. The medical care is provided by a human being in order to support his own life. That is the work he has chosen to do and he rightfully demands that those receiving his services trade something in return for them. To deny an ailing man medical care (if he can not pay for it, or for any other reason) is not a violation of his rights. The right to life does not grant him the right to live at the expense of others; this would violate their right to life (and Kant's Categorical Imperative). The right to life is the right to provide for one's own life. If there were no doctors, the ailing man would not have a right to the medical care that would not exist. He would only have (and does only have) the right to either learn to take care of himself or earn enough to pay someone else to take care of him.
I do not consider anyone else to have the legitimate authority to demand that I do or do not do anything which is not in accordance with the 'natural' concept of rights (or categorical imperative, if you prefer). I do not recognize as valid any law which violates my rights. I observe those that do only because I do not have the resources to defend myself against those who would use force to compel me to do so if I chose not to.
"If those duties and obligations include the populace paying a portion of their earnings to help those in need, there is no natural or legal right being violated." According to the definition of natural rights given above, you will surely see why I disagree with this.
Your definition of rights has no basis. It is something agreed to by law or custom only. it is distinctly a societal concept. The Declaration of Independence did not recognize rights as something outside the province of government. It was a rhetorical document only. Indeed , the rights themselves were determined later, by an established government. That determination was codified in a legal document crafted by government, call the Constitution.
There are some cultures in which there is no right, natural or otherwise, to own land. Some Native American cultures come to mind. That right, deemed natural by you, was an invention by a different culture (won, by the way, by use of force). All rights are such conventions, agreements between people. Those rights may take the form of written laws, oral tradition, cultural customs. But they are all behaviors determined by the society as a whole. And they are enforceable by that same society. As you can see, rights are culture based, not universal or natural. They change from place to place, depending on what constitutes a sense of fairness by any given culture.
This is not some arcane legal abstraction, but the basis of all social contracts, the creation of all civil society, of all rights people have and all the obligations that come with them.
You may not consider anyone else to have legitimate authority over you, but that does not lessen the reality of legitimacy of that authority. It only speaks to you lack of understanding of it. Denying a dying man medical care is a indeed violation of his rights if a society decides he has an inalienable right to life, as this country declared it agree to.
It also agreed that your "right" to personal property is in itself not absolute. If you own land in between someone else's home and the road, you will most likely be required to provide an easement for your neighbor, a passageway on YOUR property he may use at will to get to and from his home. And it is your obligation to comply, whether or not you recognize the people's authority.
Do you recognize no distinction, then, between right and privilege? The concept of rights that I proposed above is the distinction that I recognize. Otherwise I see none.
From the wikipedia article:
"Rights are legal, social, or ethical principles of freedom or entitlement; that is, rights are the fundamental normative rules about what is allowed of people or owed to people,"
Furthermore, I would argue that the Declaration did indeed recognize rights as something outside the province of government. I would point your attention to the following quotation from said document. "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men..." Here, government is proposed solely as a protector of rights which exist with or without its recognition of the fact, not their source.
Nature has given me my body. I have a natural right to use that body however I please (so long as I don't infringe upon somebody else's body). Even 2500 years ago some Athenian philosophers recognized this most basic natural right.
So there's at least ONE right that nature has granted me. Your statement has been negated.
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Having a "free" market is a myth.
That's correct. We've not had a free market (zero or near-zero regulations) since I don't know when. The 1800s probably. Calling the present market "deregulated" is just silly nonsense.
The myth is that the president or congress writes, (or even suggests), legislation. There's always a lobby that will do the legal writing and editing to get business regulations through, with a little incentive here and there. Legislators concentrate their proposals on bills that get them re-elected. Family value, criminal, war and the stuff they know won't become law anyway. Free enterprise, my ass. If it were, we'd all start a business.
Correct. We don't have that, nor do we have a free marekt. We have a heavily-regulated Crony market where corporations and congressmen spread the money around amongst themselves (and the People get screwed).
The Myth that Laissez Faire Is Responsible for Our Financial Crisis http://www.lewrockwell.com/reisman/reisman45.html
No, the Free Market Did Not Cause the Financial Crisis http://www.lewrockwell.com/woods/woods111.html
No it's people not standing up to greed and corruption wherever they see it!
http://occupywallst.org/forum/make-a-stand-join-the-clan/
The Revolution starts here!
Killing a ___y ompany like Toshiba sounds okay to me. But I'd rather start be kiling-off RIAA instead. (Since they keep suing grandmas and teen millions of dollars for downloading 5 songs.)
lets do both because the irony is these artists say that they care about the poor and then they turn around and sue them. But we still need to stop Toshiba because they helped cause a nuclear accident in Japan.