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The End Of American Capitalism?
The worst financial crisis since the Great Depression is claiming another casualty: American-style capitalism.
Pedestrians are reflected in an electric stock market board in Tokyo. Punctuating its worst week in history, Japan's main stock index plummeted nearly 10 percent. European indexes followed suit. (Photo: AP) Since the 1930s, U.S. banks were the flagships of American economic might, and emulation by other nations of the fiercely free-market financial system in the United States was expected and encouraged. But the market turmoil that is draining the nation's wealth and has upended Wall Street now threatens to put the banks at the heart of the U.S. financial system at least partly in the hands of the government.
The Bush administration is considering a partial nationalization of some banks, buying up a portion of their shares to shore them up and restore confidence as part of the $700 billion government bailout. The notion of government ownership in the financial sector, even as a minority stakeholder, goes against what market purists say they see as the foundation of the American system.
Yet the administration may feel it has no choice. Credit, the lifeblood of capitalism, ceased to flow. An economy based on the free market cannot function that way.
The government's about-face goes beyond the banking industry. It is reasserting itself in the lives of citizens in ways that were unthinkable in the era of market-knows-best thinking. With the recent takeovers of major lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and the bailout of AIG, the U.S. government is now effectively responsible for providing home mortgages and life insurance to tens of millions of Americans. Many economists are asking whether it remains a free market if the government is so deeply enmeshed in the financial system.
Given that the United States has held itself up as a global economic model, the change could shift the balance of how governments around the globe conduct free enterprise. Over the past three decades, the United States led the crusade to persuade much of the world, especially developing countries, to lift the heavy hand of government from finance and industry.
But the hands-off brand of capitalism in the United States is now being blamed for the easy credit that sickened the housing market and allowed a freewheeling Wall Street to create a pool of toxic investments that has infected the global financial system. Heavy intervention by the government, critics say, is further robbing Washington of the moral authority to spread the gospel of laissez-faire capitalism.
The government could launch a targeted program in which it takes a minority stake in troubled banks, or a broader program aimed at the larger banking system. In either case, however, the move could be seen as evidence that Washington remains a slave to Wall Street. The plan, for instance, may not compel participating firms to give their chief executives the salary haircuts that some in Congress intended. But if the plan didn't work, the government might have to take bigger stakes.
"People around the world once admired us for our economy, and we told them if you wanted to be like us, here's what you have to do -- hand over power to the market," said Joseph Stiglitz, the Nobel Prize-winning economist at Columbia University. "The point now is that no one has respect for that kind of model anymore given this crisis. And of course it raises questions about our credibility. Everyone feels they are suffering now because of us."
In Seoul, many see American excess as a warning. At the same time, anger is mounting over the global spillover effect of the U.S. crisis. The Korean currency, the won, has fallen sharply in recent days as corporations there struggle to find dollars in the heat of a global credit crunch.
"Derivatives and hedge funds are like casino gambling," said South Korean Finance Minister Kang Man-soo. "A lot of Koreans are asking, how can the United States be so weak?"
Other than a few fringe heads of state and quixotic headlines, no one is talking about the death of capitalism. The embrace of free-market theories, particularly in Asia, has helped lift hundreds of millions out of poverty in recent decades. But resentment is growing over America's brand of capitalism, which in contrast to, say, Germany's, spurns regulations and venerates risk.
In South Korea, rising criticism that the government is sticking too close to the U.S. model has roused opposition to privatizing the massive, state-owned Korea Development Bank. South Korea is among those countries that have benefited the most from adopting free-market principles, emerging from the ashes of the Korean War to become one of the world's biggest economies. It has distinguished itself from North Korea, an impoverished country hobbled by an outdated communist system and authoritarian leadership.
But the repercussions of crisis that began in the United States are global. In Britain, where Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher joined with President Ronald Reagan in the 1980s to herald capitalism's promise, the government this week moved to partly nationalize the ailing banking system. Across the English Channel, European leaders who are no strangers to regulation are piling on Washington for gradually pulling the government watchdogs off the world's largest financial sector. Led by French President Nicolas Sarkozy, they are calling for broad new international codes to impose scrutiny on global finance.
To some degree, those calls are even being echoed by the International Monetary Fund, an institution charged with the promotion of free markets overseas and that preached that less government was good government during the economic crises in Asia and Latin America in the 1990s. Now, it is talking about the need for regulation and oversight.
"Obviously the crisis comes from an important regulatory and supervisory failure in advanced countries . . . and a failure in market discipline mechanisms," Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the IMF's managing director, said yesterday before the fund's annual meeting in Washington.
In a slideshow presentation, Strauss-Kahn illustrated the global impact of the financial crisis. Countries in Africa, including many of those with some of the lowest levels of market and financial integration and openness, are now set to weather the crisis with the least amount of turbulence.
Shortly afterward, World Bank President Robert Zoellick was questioned by reporters about the "confusion" in the developing world over whether to continue embracing the free-market model. He replied, "I think people have been confused not only in developing countries, but in developed countries, by these shocking events."
In much of the developing world, financial systems still remain far more governed by the state, despite pressure from the United States for those countries to shift power to the private sector and create freer financial markets. They may stay that way for some time.
China had been resisting calls from Washington and Wall Street to introduce a broad range of exotic investments, including many of the once-red-hot derivatives now being blamed for magnifying the crisis in the West. In recent weeks, Beijing has made that position more clear, saying it would not permit an expansion of complex financial instruments.
With the U.S. government's current push toward intervention and the soul-searching over the role of deregulation in the crisis, the stage appears to be at least temporarily set for a more restrained model of free enterprise, particularly in financial markets.
"If you look around the world, China is doing pretty good right now, and the U.S. isn't," said C. Fred Bergsten, director of the Peterson Institute for International Economics. "You may see a push back from globalization in the financial markets."
Staff writers Blaine Harden in Seoul and Ariana Cha in Washington contributed to this report.
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94 Comments so far
Show AllI guess Gordon Gekko was wrong after all, greed isn't good.
Nope. It never was.
The greatest myth of all is that capitalism has created the great wealth and improvement in quality of life that has been seen over the past few centuries. The variables are too many and the interrelationships too complex for any such conclusion to be drawn with confidence. Another interpretation of the facts could be that science, technology, and trade have produced all the wealth, while capitalism and capitalists have been the parasites that have naturally grown to feed off of the wealth.
There are an infinite number of possible political/economic/social organizations for groups of human beings. It is not a certainty but it appears more and more likely that shifting to an organization other than corporate capitalism will be necessary for humans to continue improving their quality of life, and quite possibly such a change will be necessary for humans to continue at all.
No conservative Republican policy in our lifetimes has improved the human condition in America. We have been sold on the equation Capitalist = Democracy, but the truth is Capitalism = Plutocracy. It is time to relegate unregulated Reagan trickle-down capitalism to the scrap heap where it always belonged.
American-style or corporate capitalism is the organizational manifestation of hyper-individualism coupled with the xenophobic tendecies that characterize US culture. Fortunately, most other countries have chosen not to adopt our adolescent ways, thereby imparting some hope for the future of humanity.
Well said.
Cannot be said better.
Attribution of harnessing of the steam power to the East Indian Company is as stupid as attribution of the harnessing of the computing power to Bill Gates. Yet the false mythology still persists in the minds of uneducatable for the same reason as orginized religions persist - it is very profitable mythology indeed, albeit for few.
It is an irony of all ironies that unraveling of the $0.5 Quadrillion market of derivatives, which brought down the global financial system in every institution and every contry that followed American model, is a direct result of privatization of intellectual "property" - no peer reviews were allowed by "owners" of underlying theories. It demonstrate total impossibility to impose private property ownership on the most profitable of all properties, the intellectual "property", which may function only as a common property, commons of scientific age.
If this contradiction between means of production and production relationships is not the most urgent to solve than I do not know what urgency means. It is high time to awake humanity to the new ways of living beyond capitalism.
Let's hope that this time transition will be less bloody than that of hundred years ago.
Awakened of World, unite!
v.purto
The end of:
deregulation
trickle down
government is the problem
free trade
free market economy
lower taxes
leadership - CEOs deserve their grandiose pay
us versus them politics
The end of conservative ideology in American politics. The end of Reaganism.
I never thought I would say this, but thanks W.
WHO, exactly, is going to "end " all of this?
Obama and Mccain are huge proponents of the free market economy.
It may be slanted a little more kindly--tax cuts for middle class, too! But wouldnt you rather that we invest it in building a long term, commonwealth, where peopel can work their way out of poverty (if they can), and build a new consensus? Sound ridiculous?
How much good is $1000 going to do you? But--how much good could it do, if we took that, reversed the tax cuts, pulled out of our military installations, and put the money towards bulding a sustainable future?
The end...it collapses on itself. It's unstable, unsupportable.
I like your ideas.
And what's this ending of "US versus them", Kimosabe?
phasor yo've said it all. Good on you!
Let's hope the changes that need to take place are realized.
Yeah right ....its not the end of anything. Its just a tiny burp. They havent completely fleeced the rest of the 95% yet. For heavens sake we just unloaded $700 Billion into their coffers. They are laughing all the way to the bank (in fact they are even buying the banks !!). They are just getting started. The only thing thats happened is that we have essentially pissed away our future earnings into their pockets ... and we are busy crowing the 'system is dead'. What a hoot !
agree... just the start of obomanations to come
The reason that other countries USED to have such a high idea of our system is that our system USED to be one that worked, and worked for the majority of people. Then the republicans decided they didn't like us having enough money to have our own lives, and they set about taking it all back. They couldn't do that with regulations in place that made things fair and workable, so they got rid of them. They made the system work for those who already had too much, and work for them alone. Those who lived by greed have done very well for themselves over the last 30 years.
They changed the tax laws to reward themselves for shafting their citizen workers, and ran whole sectors of our economy over over to foreign lands. THAT, BTW, is why other countries have done well, it's because they took our jobs and factories, and yes, that raised their citizen's earning capabilities. It decimated ours. We now have next to nothing for a retail manufacturing sector in this country. We don't grow our own food, anymore.
Our system under these people has also destroyed the economies of places like Mexico, where their people can't live on what they can make there, so they come here. And as a result, we have a huge sector of our economy where we don't pay living wages, and so we can't afford to do those jobs, anymore, and pay our own bills. But for the immigrants that come here illegally, it's good money.
Our system, as it is, is clearly unsustainable. I've been saying this ever since Reagan started his Alzheimer's economics policies, and they have just gotten worse since then. W and his rush to the destruction of this country is just the final blow. Or it is if we MAKE it so. This giving everything to those who already have too much has GOT to stop. Trickle down is a joke, and always has been. It's just not a very funny joke. Give those who will spend the money a larger share, and there will be jobs supplying their needs, provided that we don't keep rewarding those who run jobs and factories off to foreign lands. Now we are in a situtaion where we will need tooling, machinery, buildings, and the like to rebuild what they have destroyed and sold off. We also need to rebuild our infrastructure that has been ignored since Reagan and his short sighted fools took over, not to mention getting ourselves off of oil as an energy source.
There are jobs to be had, but it will take investment in THIS country instead of other ones. It will take reigning in big money and making it act like AMERICAN companies rather than international ones. Tax law MUST be changed to reward those who do well by America, not just by profit. Money needs to stop calling the shots, and common sense must be the things that makes decisions. Unfortunately, money and common sense are frequently mutually exclusive, and so one has to take precedence over the other. Money cannot be allowed to be the decision maker anymore. It has been for far too long.
If we do these things, we can be the envy of the world again. If we don't, we will make Britain look like a super power again. We will continue our slide into mediocrity and irrelevance. We will go the way of the Roman empire, and probably take the rest of the world with us.
The UK is already alot more financially powerful then we are. It is a milder form of what is really needed. Socialist Democracy.(See Sweden, Venezuela--a much less affluent country)
Who wants to be the "envy of the world"? All that that has done is make us get involved in wars, and people hate us. I want to cooperate, in a multi-polar world
This is not a "burp", "blip" ot "correction". Capitalism, as practiced in the uS, simply does not work. Many economists are trending that way, also. Some people say that we didnt practice "pure" Friedman-esque capitalism--that is why it didnt work. That is horseshit.
The yoyo (youre on your own) US economy needed regulating about 100 years ago--if at all. Now it is just screwed. When the market (which we created--it wasnt handed dowm from god), no longer serves the needs of the majority of people, it needs to be dismantled. The planet is runnign out of resources. We have many peopel here already living in Thrid World conditins, and that will grow. People will DEMAND cutbacks in social spending to cover Wall St's ass, just when we wil need social servides the most.
This is the intended end result of unregulated capitalism. It is not a "problem" for the haves and have mores--it worked just perfectly.
Capitalism kills,.
Cool heads - with intellegence and an understanding of Economics are what's needed now. Not the air-heads and Kival's "capitalist parasites" (right on) who've gotten us into this disaster running around like chickens with their heads cut off coming up with even stupider ideas about how to "fix" the mess they've made.
I listened to several of those "cool heads" on the Nightly Business Report and News with Jim Lehrer, and others in the days before Congress passed the bailout bill, and I'm sure those who were against the bailout could could come up with a sane way to stabilize the market.
The way it's all heading now, there isn't going to be a single thing left in this country that hasn't been "Governmentized" by Bush.
Folks, what you have is a RIGGED "capitalism". If real capitalism had existed, Wall $treet wouldn't be getting huge bailouts as they have been so many times this year alone.
Where is your "evidence" that, if unregulated, this laessez-faire capitalism, works, for more than a tiny minority of the population?
It never has, never will. Well, in Ron Paul's wet dreams.
As it stands, the bailouts become "necessary" because, people get further and further divorced from their morality , when money comes into play.
Democratic socialism is a reasonable compromise.
Democratic socialism is NOT a reasonable compromise. Democratic socialism is the ONLY realistic way out of this mess.
Democratic soliasm is a system that leaves the capitalist class in control of the system and we're seeing what this class is capable of doing. No to democratic socialm - yes to REAL socialism - an end to the capitalist class.
Cheers.
They say "free" but it never was so. Government always subsidizes either directly or through corrupt policies even if they don't tell you. Ron Paul is a rare exception of a true libertarian who knows better and he never supported these kinds of Wall $treet bailouts. If you had studied Ron Paul's stands on legalizing hemp and raw milk sales, you would have found out that he's not the Neil Boortz faux "libertarian". Yes, I have issues with Paul but compared to both these parties, his are minor in pale comparison.
I read as much as I can stand about Ron Paul.
He supports the
"Austrian" model. Ever been to Austria?
Actually, Paul would be preferable to Dubya. But, his theories berak down at the point of "no federal school required, no taxes, except sales, no social programs at all". It is just not practical, and, talk about things never happening.
On his website, he refers to an Austrian site--the tinges of pre-WWII Austria are a little more than I can stomach. We would agree on not doing the bailout--that is about it.
FJ,
You miss the point.
We have had the conservatives wet dream these past 8 years. Unregulated, free market capitalism.
Wall Street is being bailed out because they've destroyed America's financial system. Many, if not all, U.S. banks have debt that will not be repaid. They have no assets. Bush has no solution other than to print more money and GIVE it to the banks.
Wall Street has effectively externalized risk for these debts...to the American tax payer.
I wouldn't say that all "conservatives" supported this bailout. Take a look at the vote count. That alone should give you a hint that the words "conservative" and "liberal" are just bullshit labels. I'm sorry but there were plenty of votes from both sides and most of the yes votes shamelessly came from the Democrats this time around which goes to show that they are just as bad as the GOP when it comes to showing contempt on Main Street. I'm glad I'm voting for Nader even if SC were to be a swing state by some quirk of fate. There is no such thing as unregulated free market capitalism. The "free" market has actually been funded by US taxpayer money or borrowing from other countries which would be footed by the taxpayers anyway.
The trouble with capitalism is the same trouble with communism-it doesnt factor in human nature. The assumption is let the market control--ignoring human corruption. The same can be said for total government control.
Socialism is the middle ground-although not perfect. But humans are by nature social animals-the idea of having a system based upon unnecessary aggression and competitiveness is less stable than one that is supposedly designed for social stability.
Maybe it's just time we changed the words "Capitolism" and "Socialism" because they've been perverted - just as "Liberalism" has.
I'm reclaiming "Liberal" as a proud title and not a slur a la Rush Limbaugh. It make me cringe when you see Democrats twisting themselves into pretzels to avoid the term when it should be a badge. Grow some balls for Christ's sake!
God is punishing the world for the sins of George Bush, Alan Greenspan and Milton Friedman.
However, we can be saved! Read on:
First, we go with the Treasury Secretary we got. Henry lead us to the promised land: The New New Deal. Dethrone Milton Friedman/Arnold Greenspan (Markets work; governments don't), install John Maynard Keynes/FDR (they helped save capitalism the last time).
Memo to Obama: Drop Robert Rubin and Larry Summers and the rest of the free market deregulators on your team.
Just like Nixon who found peace with China, Paulson can lead to us to a caring socialism/capitalism. It's possible: we could become a loving Scandinavian country.
Dr Wu, the last of the big-time thinkers
You already said this yesterday. It applies no more now then it did then.
How do "markets work"? WTF makes you think that Paulson would lead us to a "caring socialism/capitalism"? He is a free mkt., daddy warbucks, "screw them all but save six for pallbearers" greedy asshole.
You're misreading what he is saying, though part of what he is saying is pure crap. First, he is saying to get rid of the Friedman type of crap (markets work) and go back to an FDR style economy. One where gov't regulates and sets rules so that thiskind of BS doesn't happen again. In that respect, he is right.
In the other, that Paulson has anything but his own profit and that of his friends in the industry at heart, he is out to lunch. Paulson is a CEO from Goldman-Sachs. he left the industry very recently and will no doubt be going back to is rather shortly as well. He is setting up the biggest theft of the world, and he is going to profit from it like a bandit. He will NEVER do anything for the good of the majority, it's not in his psychological makeup.
In that regard, YOU are right. He is nothing but a greedy asshole. Just like everyone else in W's administration, because psychopathic losers surround themselves with the same type of people that they are. In this case, greedy, selfish, incompetent people who don't care how much damage they do while they are "running things". Running them into the ground is more like it.
And anyone who is surprised by this has either got blinders on or has never paid any attention to W's history. He failed at everything he ever tried and had to be bailed out by Daddy and Mommy, another pair of psychos. He even failed at the oil business! Now he's making up for it in spades, byt destroying the whole country. One failure after another until the big one, driving the entire US of A into the toilet.
I agree, for the most part. I gues I was acting on "instinct"--I see the name Paulson--AAAAAAAuuuuuuGh! There is that guy who totok a bunch of working peoples' money!
I'm only surprised at how quickly it al fell.
But, Keynes??
Thanks. For a couple of years this site
http://www.worldreports.org/news
has been documenting some of what has been going on and it includes the things you highlight. I have found it difficult to come to terms with what Storey has been saying, but the past couple of weeks have borne out much of what he was predicting.
In a word, no.
The question raised by this article is wishful cheerleading. Alert readers will noticed that another commondreams article entitled "A Year Later, Creation Museum Claiming Big Crowds" was posted simultaneously with this one. Here's the URL:
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2008/10/10-0
Our culture steadily embraces anti-intellectualism, with at least a third of the polity ready to wage holy war against liberal plots like science. These people are willing thralls to the Limbaughs and Coulters of the world. They equate any easing of Bush-era theft and damage with radical leftism. I am not kidding. Just read through another of today's articles for the latest reminder:
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2008/10/10-8
Those idiots think Obama is a socialist.
Now ask yourself: do you think that the Cheneys of the world will be anything less than ruthless in defending the current kleptocratic arrangement? Not only do they have their legions of holy warriors, but also there's Blackwater, "active denial technology," and other weapons to suppress the citizenry.
Instead of the (further) end of capitalism, I predict that we shall see the US sharply divided between haves and have-nots in a way that will make 2008 look like the good ol' days. We're over $700,000,000,000.00 of the way there right now.
We do not HAVE to do this.
Let me repeat--we do NOT have to do this.
Sure, the people in power always resist a change--we should "persuade" them, by any means necessary. People wil DIE because of this bailout and this unregulated free market. People wil sleep in the streets, 20,000 will die from a lack of decent health care.
WE do not have to do this.
sp-usa.org
marxist.com (In defense of Marxism)
Here is what the Swedes did.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/23/business/worldbusiness/23krona.html?em
There sure is a lot of crazy thinking going on right now.
Here's a hint: corporate welfare is NOT capitalism and it never was.
A truly "free market" would not allow BIG OIL to use the US military to procure its oil and guard its oil pipelines. Also, in a real "free market", the costs of global warming, and they are staggering, would be priced into the cost of fossil fuel products. Doing that, a barrel of oil would cost many multiples of what it costs now. Again, there is no "free market" capitalism; what we have now is corporate welfare, i.e., socialized corporate costs and privatized corporate profits.
For way, way too long now, the public has been subsidizing mega-corporations and their shareholders. That is NOT capitalism by any stretch of the imagination.
Capitalism will ultimately die but citing its death based on the current crisis is exaggerated. We may, on the other hand, be seeing the death of Reagan's trickle down economics. There's really not all that much left to trickle down.
It's time to stop funding two wars and an out-of-control military giveaway and the abuse of BIG OIL and start investing that money into America's infrastructure, America's citizens and America's future. Corporate welfare, runaway greed and a government that empowers them are destroying not just this country but the entire planet. When the government and society's institutions do not serve us, it's time to replace them. We have the power to do that; we just don't know that we do.
good post. thanks
I liked it alot, too.
The market/capitalist approach to social/economic organization has within it the seeds of its own destruction. The approach requires a focus on the short-term, as the competitive nature of the market means that those who do not focus on the short-term probably will not be around for the long-term. Also, for similar competitive reasons, the approach requires a focus on narrow self-interest.
So the market/capitalist approach leads to a short-term narrow self-interest view, which means that those who become leading players in the market have an interest in influencing market rules to benefit themselves in the short-term, whether influencing the rules directly or indirectly through a government they hold sway over because of their market power (and this influence over the government usually leads to corporate welfare as well), and this warping of the rules to serve the interests of the powerful market players seems almost inevitable and proves quite difficult to guard against. And as they benefit themselves in the short-term, they gain more power to influence the rules to an even greater extent, in a positive feedback loop, on and on until they have warped the rules to such an extent that the system comes crashing down.
Another approach that would reward personal evolution that leads to the development of broader views of self-interest, and that would lead to more emphasis on the long-term, would allow more individuals to see their broadened self-interest as merging with the community interest and would offer the promise of a more stable, healthy, and productive social/economic organization.
But how to get there from here remains the difficulty, as the market capitalists with a focus on the short-term always seem to have an advantage in a short-term competition, and they can use that advantage to prevent the competition from becoming long-term.
I thought capitalisn needed new resources, and a strong military to get them.
..
I'm no longer able to see your post but will try to respond to what I'm able to remember (which is more challenging than I care to admit).
First, to clarify, in no way was I suggesting any sort of "no government" or small government. Any conflation between libertarian values and my own was inferred, not implied.
Also, let me state that nothing in my post was intended to be a defense of capitalism. I, too, think workers should control the companies they work in. To empower faceless investors pursuing only profits at the expense of workers, the society and the environment is ultimately untenable and unjust. Power, in all venues, must be restored to its rightful owners.
Where I'm less clear from what I can recall about your post is the delineation between corporations and government. I have no quibble that power accrues to money and that capitalism enables the few to devour the many. The result turns governmental power into a commodity to serve the most narrow interests. I would characterize the conduct of those involved in the process as treasonous.
But I nevertheless, even under capitalism, have concerns when we see such inevitability that we are left with no opportunity save for overthrowing the capitalist cabal. That, I do not believe.
We have not only failed to make the case for socialism but we have even failed to make the case for citizen empowerment. Perhaps Marx did not differentiate between the two; I do. Ultimately, when there is nothing left to steal, citizens will replace capitalism with some system that empowers them. To me, this seems inevitable. Still, the path to the changes we perhaps both envision lies first through the awakening and educating of the masses. Until the mass consciousness understands and internalizes the reality that we can change our institutions and take back power, defining the goods and bads of one economic system versus another is merely the work of scholars.
I have found that "spouting Marx or spouting socialism" fails to do much in the way of awakening and energizing people. Such rhetoric is foreign to them and is quickly rejected. I think we need to respect the process of influencing people and reaching them "from where THEY are" rather than "from where WE are."
I give my little speeches twice a month at a local documentary film series I'm associated with. I try to talk to people in very tangible ways. For example, we saw a film last night on the abuses of the chemical industry. The industry was able to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to block ballot initiatives that would have required all sorts of transparency and disclosures in a number of states around the country.
I asked the participants: Does it seem right to you that corporations, with the power of their financial resources, should be able to campaign for political issues while citizens rarely can raise the funds to compete with them? Every single person there agreed corporations shouldn't be empowered in the way citizens are. Will this change the law overnight? No, of course not. We're up against, as you might say, capitalism itself. I, for one, don't accept the idea, however, that we are powerless to fight back against laws like these.
The point is, I think in fighting for the end of capitalism, we need to first awaken and empower (and respect) citizens. If the counterpoint is that you can't get there from here and that citizens are powerless until capitalism is destroyed, let's just say I disagree. If that's the script, then only violent revolution can bring change. We don't have the numbers or the resources to win that conflict ... at least not today. But, we are not powerless no matter what economic system is in place. More of us need to understand that.
First I am going to curl up in bed and whimper.
Then I'm going to lose interest in curling up in bed and whimpering, and I'm going to wonder what I can do. I can design better greenhouses that grow hot weather crops (and can keep babies warm and heat the bath water too). I can pull together a small coalition of carpenters and farmers, and we may not wear fancy shoes for the next decade but we'll all be warm, fed and at work, thank you.
Now, what are you going to do? Capitalism isn't supposed to be an invisible back-of-the-hand that goes around and hits you again and again and again. Capitalism is something that people made. You either endure it, or else you change the rules.
If you don't like crooked insurance companies investing in Florida swampland (and most of Florida will be swamped when Antarctica melts) change some rules. If you don't like tweedledee and tweedledum elections, change some rules. If you don't like giving some boss the power to fire and bankrupt you anytime he/she pleases, change some rules.
If you're not up to all this, just go whimper for a while.
Touche' Make lemons into lemonade or suck on a lemon. Many folks like lemons...what may one say?
As soon as the dollar is no longer the international fiat currency, America is in for bad times. This stupid bailout bill moved the international community closer into abandoning the American dollar, because the trillion dollars it created is essentially inflationary money created from thin-air by arcane stock and credit manipulations.
Down but not out.
Me too. Good. But, some people ARE out.
This article is bullshit propaganda!
It discusses the crisis and "American style Capitalism" without acknowledging the crucial role that deregulation over the last thirty years has played in forming both of them.
To the readers of this article the crisis appears out of nowhere like a storm coming over the horizon.
Yes we need to change some rules...lots of them.
The housing mortgage crises is just the latest Debt nightmare caused by the Global War economy and the fact that all our money is only created by the now empty scam of money based on infinite debt instead of value and resources.
But to change rules we need lots of unity but we can't have unity when we argue over definitions of capitalism and socialism.
All systems are mixed and to argue about what they are is keeping us from changing the rules to better keep our system evolving to a better balance of private and public ownership.
We need to think of a better balance because that is what reality is about and now the balance is way off going in the direction of National Socialism of the corporate kind or Fascism on a global scale.
We don't like the 2 party winner take all system but this is a system that evolved and is ingrained from the top down to the thousands of local town and county governments.... It would be nice if a vote for a 3rd party could change this but as a progressive community if we are one, we are being sold the fantasy that a vote for some 3rd party will change the system... not so and we don't have a hundred years left to see if it would.
Obama is goin to be the next president and I am glad because at least he has a brain and a good temperament to handle the infinite mess we are faced with.
I hope that we can push him to end all these wars and change to a peace global economy and I say this knowing that the Dem haters will attack me for that. Obama will be the next president and that is reality and we will have a chance to Unite into a stronger progressive Force.... Parties, all of them is what keeps the People down so as long as we think another 3rd party will do anything about it we will be goin nowhere...
We need to drop our fixation on single parties, the idea that this or that one party is the answer and fixated on the terms Socialism and Capitalism because they are all myths used by the ruling class to divide confuse and defeat our longing for better world for everyone.
If Obama does not end the war in Afghanistan like even the British are thinking about through talks with the Taliban then I will give him hell after I vote him in.
3rd party folks can give him and me hell now all you want but you won't have a chance to get your ideas elected until we unite after the election and it is gonna be a hard job.... if the 3rd parties unite maybe we can change some rules but divided as we now stand, all we do is yell at each other and go nowhere.
It is time to get Radical with good ideas and unite for a better balance.
Yes, the "socialists" in this country are so many and so powerful, that must be why the Democrats cant bring about any progresive change!! Me, and the 300 others...-(Never mind that the rest of the civiized (are we?) world all has some form of socialism--US is just scared of the words)
We'll back off, while you and Obama work on world peace and economy.
Oh, and good luck "giving hell" to the president! Dont talk about it online too much--he wil know that youre going to--you know, the FISA Amendments.