$1 USD, that's like $1 CAD?

[chatfsh]

No, but fair is fair.  So you must now find each and every politically incorrect post and give the author a written slap on the wrist.  Feel free to include yourself amongst those who should be chastised. ;)

[Dante]

*Snort* You actually think you can draw attention away from your complete lack of feeling for starving children by changing the subject to political correctness? Come on, you're making this too easy.

Also in the interests of staying on topic, does anyone know how well other currencies are doing right now? I'm particularly interested in the yen, as I heard that Japan gave a lot of advice to the west following the breakdown, as that country suffered a similar catastrophe in... the 70's I think.

[chatfsh]

You

[SandChigger]

Got a yen for the yen, Dante? ;)

I didn't hear the value this morning, but it's up against the dollar. Was less than 100 yen per a few weeks back. Gasoline is now down to 95 yen/liter or so. Toyota's extended their production stop for another 11 days or so. Things ain't so peachy here at the momont.

(There's a bilingual pun hidden in there somewhere....)

Seriously...how many tears do you shed each day for all the dying children?

[Dante]

Hey, I make no bones about my dislike of children. Or anyone else, I think. Why in this very thread, if I recall correctly, I mentioned the schadenfreude that I enjoy upon seeing the world collectively go emo over money.

However, I'm not the one defending the system that caused it. I'm not the one speaking out in favour of an economy that just cost several thousand people their jobs and homes, while a small minority took massive payoffs just before getting new jobs. Nor am I the one with a bank balance with enough zeros to look like an extended slinky, claiming that it justifies my complete disregard for my fellow man (who should have worked harder if they wanted to avoid starving in a refugee camp anyway).

I'm just a student at a less than prestigious university who enjoys calling people out on half-truths, false arguments, comfortable illusions and plain old lies.

This topic isn't about people like me, working summers as a tour guide for a charity. No, this topic is about the failure, in both an immediate and a general sense, of the capitalist system. Some people think this failure is inevitable. Others maintain that this is a hiccup, a blip that will be ironed out. And people attempt to justify their point of view with arguments of economy, politics, history and morality.

The topic is therefore, on this page at least, on the morality of capitalism and capitalists. I theorise that an uncomfortable truth has been brought up, and that the nervous, twitchy offtopic replies above are an attempt to divert attention from an argument with no basis in traditional morality. In other words, the capitalist knows that what they do is wrong, but they don't care, and have no way to phrase this without seeming like a heartless fat cat. Once called out on this, they cannot deny it so they misrepresent it, divert it or ignore it.

I have several other theories as well, but they're less general, and therefore probably best not expounded.

I should probably point out that no, I don't have anything personal against you, Sandchigger. ;) The argument in the above paragraphs wasn't written at you. There is a subtext to this argument that has given me reason to argue where normally I wouldn't see the point. But it has run its course now I think, and it's about time the debate moved in a different direction.

So yen. I thought it was doing ok. Yeah...

[Edric O]

20 replies in one day, many of them addressed to me... I can't complain about the suddenly increased forum activity, but replying might take some time. :)

[i originally meant to write the rest of this post on the same day, but real life intervened; so I wrote it three days late]

I think I covered that with the self-selection comment. When things get bad, you switch over before the catastrophe becomes all-encompassing. If total failure is averted, we can still draw conclusions about the old system.

But in the Soviet case, the switch to a more market-oriented system caused the total failure.

I recall that the agricultural sector did very badly in that period.

Yes, the agricultural sector did rather badly. But since agriculture is less and less of a concern for modern economies, that issue is getting less and less important every day. How many people still work in agriculture in the most industrialized countries? A few percent - and even that is usually only thanks to massive subsidies (*cough* EU common agricultural policy *cough*).

Regardless, a broken system can function for a while with visible defects only appearing later.

How long is "a while"? The Soviet economic system functioned extremely well for about 45 years in the Soviet Union and 25 years in several other countries, then functioned moderately well for a further 10 years.

Now, I completely agree that the Soviet economic system was broken - in the sense that it had a number of flaws which eventually contributed to its collapse. These flaws include:

(1) the lack of freedom of speech, which meant that bad management and government mistakes usually went unreported, and thus were never corrected;

(2) the fact that economic planners were unaccountable to the people, so they had no incentive to produce quality consumer goods;

(3) the fact that the country was ruled by an undemocratic elite, which could (and eventually did) figure out that it could re-introduce capitalism in order to make itself richer.

But my point is that the Soviet economy performed remarkably well in spite of these flaws, and - most importantly - that these flaws could easily be corrected while maintaining a planned economic system.

I have to admit I don't know much about Vietnam. But the Soviet aparatchiks proved that even while the rest of the country is hurting, they usually can manage well enough for themselves.

Yes, but not as well as they did for themselves after capitalism came along. They'll all great business tycoons now.

As for sluggish growth not equating failure; it shows their failure to compete with market economies. And the whole point was that command economies can never provide citizens with as much welfare as market economies.

You forgot two facts:

(a) Even with sluggish growth, they will still growing (a little bit) faster than most market economies. Given enough time, they would have caught up.

(b) Which market economies are we talking about, exactly? Compared to most of the market economies in the world (which are located in Asia, Africa and Latin America), the Soviet-style command economies provided their citizens with far more welfare. And in many cases they also provided their citizens with more welfare than the market economies which were later introduced in the same countries after 1990 (for example, most Russians were better off in the Soviet Union than they are today).

I suspect that the little growth of the economy in the '80ties had much to do with increasing military spending to keep pace with the US. The Soviet military industrial complex was efficient and enduring enough until the collapse, but the rest of the economy was in an atrocious state. On the other hand, the black market was positively huge even before Gorbachov took office. I wouldn't blame the disintegration on perestroika at all.

Perestroika was the trigger event that led to the collapse of the Soviet Union. You seem to be arguing that the collapse would have happened anyway, even without that trigger. Maybe, but you can't prove it, and we'll never know.

It's a bit like the question: Would the First World War have happened anyway even if Gavrilo Princip hadn't assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo?

On another note, if the USSR was suffering in the 80s mainly as a result of the arms race with the United States, then that's a point in favour of the Soviet economy: It means it would have done better if the Americans hadn't been causing trouble.

The black market was huge in the 80s, that is true. But it was huge largely because of flaws #1 and #2 with the Soviet system (listed above), which could have been corrected. As a result of restricted freedom of speech, there was widespread misreporting of production - which meant that things could be skimmed off the top and sold on the black market. And as a result of the planners' neglect for consumer goods, many people had to resort to the black market to buy things.

Perfect competition is an archetype, and archetypes are never fully realised in practice. It may never be achieved in its totallity, but measures can be taken to approximate it, ie anti-trust legislation.

Right. But if we're dealing with archetypes, perfect economic planning is even better than perfect competition.

[chatfsh]

For starters, capitalism is not to blame for the world

[Dante]

You don't get it, surprise surprise. Either the reaction to the picture is present, in which case the subject is a hypocrite, or the reaction in absent, in which case the subject is morally corrupt. It's a lose-lose situation for the capitalists, I'm afraid. Except for those that genuinely believe that the world can be changed through charity I suppose, but those are few and far between.

In order to clarify a point: individual capitalists should not be blamed for playing the game well. After all they inhabit a system with rules, and work within that system. It is the game itself that is the problem, not the people within it. If they could be transplanted into a different game, then they could excel within a different set of rules. It is their rabid defense of their game that is their primary fault, not their success within it.

Also Hwi, your success doesn't bother me in the slightest. I'd far rather be where I am now than where you are, so rest assured that there's very little teeth-gnashing going on here.

[SandChigger]

(That's a good thing. It's hell on your enamel. ;) )

[Anathema]

Africa's problems are myriad, and to blame all of them on "capitalism" (or outside interference in general) is inane. For starters, look how well the nominally marxist regime in Zimbabwe has managed things after inhereting a fairly well run country from their predecessors.

I could also post some nice pictures relating to the Ukrainian famine in the '30ties, but what's the point?

[Sneakgab]

Oh, jealousy is human nature too now? Another great survival technique, wasting time on trying to sabotage others of you're species instead of on your own survival? Most mammalians species rarely injure each other. The ''removal'' of competitors by members of the same species does happen but is a rare occurrence. In fact, I have yet to encounter such in my reading. Most predators and prey act co-operatively to feed or avoid being eaten so eliminating members of you're own pack makes no sense. As for other packs that falls outside of the instinct of jealousy and more within the realm of acting on territorial instincts. As for ''lone wolf'' species their association is rarer in general, and as long as their territory is left alone they don't care.

Now, there is envy of territory, mates, alpha male position, e.t.c, though all of this could be accounted for simply by selfishness or more logically perhaps simply wanting to survive and reproduce. However, envy is not the same as jealousy. They are very different, animals being jealous of ''superior'' animals and trying to sabotage them would indeed be a most unsuccessful survival instinct. Especially because animals would counter-evolve to destroy their inferiors for this reason (well, on that specific point I am not certain). Yes, jealously as a survival instinct is MOST infeasible. Envy of food and mates? Maybe, it is conceivable and maybe even plausible. Jealousy of ability? never, it makes no sense.

Maybe people envy you're stuff, but I don't think that too many have time for jealousy. It seems like it probably wouldn't be in their ''supposed'' human nature and even if it was selfishness would take priority (as capitalists seem to argue it always does, treating it as though it is do dominant an aspect that maybe no other aspects exist).

Now, much of the remaining text is probably irrelevant really. But I might want to keep it here so I shall mark the body with ---------------------------

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And on the matter of attributing selfishness and the like to animals... it is more logical to say that an animal has an instinct to mate, not an instinct to be selfish. Instincts to eat, gain territory, and survive, not to be selfishness. Selfishness does not increase the reproductive success of species.

All that matters is that the species mates. It doesn't need to hoard more meat or territory or rank or anything. It does not matter how ''rich'' the animal becomes. It only pursues that which increases it's chances of mating. In other words, if an animal worked for money, once it had what it needed for mating it would simply stop working because working further would be a waste that reduces it's chances. Of course, that would only be if evolution could/did/does work in a system of animals with money(except for the few millenia in which humans and such things existed, by which time survivability and reproduction were no longer big issues for humanity and hence evolution for man [the only species existing with money and the like] is greatly reduced). In reality, the species would probably follow their base instincts to no end because (since they never get to the point where they have more than enough or are ''rich'' [ie: no such duration of time has existed or probably will ever it seems]) they have not evolved only to follow them where they increase survivability (so in other words, if what we observed was humans gathering up huge hoards of food and mates, THEN it might make some sense and be attributable to survival instincts grown within us that are yet to be fine-tuned by evolution to be terminated when they are no longer useful, just as physical structures and other behaviors on and in animals have been evolved to be discarded when they are no longer useful to reproductive success.). However, they would have no thoughts of buying yachts or personal jets. People should remember that humans don't hoard meat or mates, generally they hoard money. Unless you have the misfortune of being in the wrong place in the wrong family, you're survival and mating is virtually guaranteed. After all, it is the poor third world populace that mates more often than the rich 1rst world. For those following their instincts in getting ultra rich their reproductive success sure is lower? What, those third world citizens are dooming themselves through their foolish over-reproduction? That's not the point, that is irrelevant, so in advance I'm asking you not retort with that (though you can bring it up as a separate case, or if you really want to waste time and try to sabotage the discussion into meaningless they you are free to do as you please, obviously). The point is that the yachts and personal jets that people work for has no relevance to instincts of survival, though they are selfish. They have no effect on the reproductive success. Do animals hoard shiny gems or anything not directly related to reproductive success? of course not.

At best the selfish pursuit of ludicrous amounts of wealth is some kind of corruption of our survival instincts so extreme that is something completely new. Notice how most survival instincts appear in the form of bodily urges and pure physical hedonistic feelings. Did you ever wake up with an urge to make money? did you're stomach grumble and you're body become aroused or undergo other physical reactions to making money (maybe you're hair stands on end indicating you're instincts pushing you to grab that wad of cash?). Are endorphins and dopamine released to you're pleasure center to stimulate ecstasy?

Now before you try to confuse the matter by saying that you get happiness from you're money and acting as though all forms of happiness are the same, I will in advance inform you that here I am speaking of ecstasy, physical pleasure which though can contribute to happiness as can non-physical stimulation the difference is the nature of the stimulation. This stimulation is found in the pursuit of all natural survival instincts, eating, mating, e.t.c. What a co-incidence that the pursuit of money, so obviously rooted in our survival instincts, is the sole instinct that neither creates a bodily desire nor elicits physical pleasure (which normally carries with it obvious signs) upon it's satisfaction. Seriously, how often have you seen people ''money-coming'' or needing either to urgently satisfy themselves or to repress that urge.

It is interesting to note that I have never heard of ''rich animals''.

Indeed, capitalism is not at all natural. Else we would see some form of it in the animal kingdom. The main feature of capitalism is the ownership of the means of labor which is never seen in the animal kingdom. That is because their society is not advanced enough you say? Well lack of evidence is not evidence of lack of, but it certainly is not evidence of existence of. There lies no argument for capitalism being natural here. At most a male may attempt to go alpha, not to attempt to embellish itself with unnecessary delights, but only to survive and mate. That is why we don't have leaders of huge lion armies at war with one another and trying to ''compete'' the other group into the dust. This reduces the survivability through conflict and so no such unnecessary mechanism exists.

That is another point, humans have many traits that either would have no bearing or would be negative in terms of survival in a natural world where humans would still commonly be prey and/or predators just as other species. Seeing as how our ''unnatural'' elevation into a species who need no longer fear others and being preyed upon or needing to work as predator and/or gatherers occurred only but a few millennia ago, there is basically no time for further evolution. An octopus that preys on fish cannot turn into one that preys of sea weed over a mere few thousand years. Such change takes much longer through evolution, in due to great part because luck is a much bigger factor than the usually small difference between one member of a species and another, meaning that the better adapted species only prevails (in terms of reproductive success) a little more often than the other rather than always and thus many generations and many years are required for large scale evolution.

Therefore, the huge differences in the human species between now and the last few millenia cannot be attributed to evolution.

Ever notice how humans are able to go against their survival instincts? For example, I don't see what survival instinct compels one to charge head long into pill boxes for the good of the platoon or to vainly kill oneself for one's God. For some of these you may say that altruism evolved, but that does not support the argument that all humans are selfish and still does not explain many actions and the difference with the evolution of altruism and other practices is that it has evolved through millions of years (as we can see in other species) whereas our ''money instincts'' along with other traits that cannot be attributed solely to evolution have appeared from non-existent to common place in a few millenia. Therefore altruism is ancient and not evidence that evolution was sped up suddenly or some such nonsense.

Whether our traits are developed off of our instincts to something completely different (which is not convincing, as it is difficult to see how a trait like masochism develops off of another instinct. Off course this could be attributed to genetic defect, but hey if you want to absurdly condemn the urges of money making, homosexuality (and other non-instinctual sexual activities, that provide proof that we can act motivated by things other than money) and the like then go ahead and do. Of course it still won't make any logical sense.) or humans can simply develop their own traits through manipulation by the environment (including humans) and oneself on the individual (which does not alter his genes and therefore is not involved in evolution), which is much more likely to be the truth (though that is not say we have discarded our instincts. We simply add each individuals ''self'' [not their gene pool] in addition to what evolution has added.

On this matter I would also like to note that in the animal kingdom we don't seem to see animals being 100 times stronger or faster or just 100 times superior in terms of ability in general as nearly as frequently as ''must'' (warning: sarcasm ahead) be seen in capitalism since these men who deserve having hundreds of times the wealth must be hundreds times better (well, with hard work, a case could be made even if they are only say 50 times better but...). One should note that actually there exist men who gathers tens of thousands if not millions of times the wealth as the man.

If these men existed in the animal kingdom, it seems they would definitely be (sarcasm continued) something akin to super animals. Giant lions the size of mountains and cheetahs who move so fast that the effects of time dilation becomes significant for them, with the nearby surroundings and time being warped. Of course, no such animals exist, and such extreme differences can only be found perhaps when comparing small worms and other insects to lions but never in the same species. Clearly, the difference between members of the same species is limited (an animal a 100 times better and it's offspring would enjoy such an advantage that luck would play virtually no part, and evolution would have resulted in that variation of the species eliminating the other variants millions of years ago, thus ironically resulting in once again a species whose members though once relatively great next to other sub-groups are now the only remaining and relatively normal. Thus common sense dictates that such ''relatively super'' animals are basically impossible. Not that this logical analysis is needed, only common sense) and clearly according to this limit no one has sufficient ability to deserve thousands of times more than other humans.

Now, here is something important to note. Unlike, others, my position is not that selfishness is not a part of human nature. My view, my position, is that I DON'T KNOW. MAYBE, MAYBE NOT. Yes, after all that, I am still utterly unsure, and know that I must spend many more hours on analysis before I can come to a conclusion.

Greatly different to those (the temptation to say ''fools'' is great but I do not attack the holders of views, no matter how ridiculous those views and their logic are) who so rashly and readily scream that selfishness is defintely the primary dominating element of human nature to the extent that we might as well pretend (like they do) that whatever other elements don't even play a part. These people, with no learning of nature and evolution and without supplying reasons. These people who most likely look at some instincts of survival, which may or may not be selfish and call them instincts of selfishness. Even if all instincts of survival are selfish (which they are probably not) that does not mean that wanting to survive and wanting to be selfish are the SAME thing.

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Btw, everybody has their widely differing views of the collapse of the economy, very often in the very same dialogue style of yours. They (the ones not pulled freshly out of bottoms but 5 minutes prior to posting/blogging/whatever [note that I'm not necessarily referring to you're version here]) are also not riddled with political and other bias; you forgot to mention that the ''Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act of 2005'' was opposed by both democrats and republicans.

After all, you'd think that as the ruling party the republicans would have some say in the matter. Not that I care for the republicans or the democrats. They're both cr@p.

Socialist propaganda? You think false prosperity in a capitalist system somehow serves as propaganda for socialists? And somehow you think that people running a fraudulent business trying to get rich at the expense of the economy and everybody else are somehow socialists?

So lets gets this straight, Corrupt business owners who bribe a corrupt capitalist party who are out to get rich at the expense of others and by doing so will create a false sense of prosperity for one of the most capitalistic countries in the world are somehow socialist propaganda agents?

Another thing that is ignored by this version is the enormous amount of fictitious capital (fulfilling that requirement) and free economics that allowed Fannie Mae to do this in the first place. See, since this is a free economic system and all and despite being a GSE (was?) the government does not currently have that much power over Fannie Mae (how else did it do as it pleases if supposedly all that time the republicans, the RULING party, were so strongly against it. Either the republicans (most control of govt) did not have control or they did and let it happen). I mean, Fannie Mae (though it may have dishonestly hid this) doesn't actually guarantee that the govt will pay where Fannie Mae cannot, because Fannie Mae receives no direct government funding or backing. This along with it entering conservatorship leads me to assume (or well to know it seems, but maybe there is something about conservatorship I do not know about) that prior to conservatorship (and during it's loan lending which would otherwise have been stopped by government) that Fannie Mae was mostly a private enterprise free to do as it pleases.

aahhh... forget that about assumptions (I thought the conservatorhip thing proved it was private before, guess I was worried about a degree of nationalization). I found the information I was looking for. Fannie Mae was converted into a private shareholder-owned corporation in 1968. I found out while posting this so I shall re-edit the above paragraph to remove my reasoning behind my assumption for why it is obviously privately owned (which was needed before because I did not know for sure) later, though the points are certainly not weakened.

Now here comes the irony... in any kind of command economics system it could not have acted in spite of the ruling party, which would have prevented this loan giving. Also, in command economics, there would probably be no such fictitious capital to supply to allow this in any case. It was a movement towards private economics that ultimately allowed Fannie Mae to do as it pleased.

Also, in command economics, the owners and CEO's of Fannie Mae would not be able to accrue such ludicrous wealth and assets with which they were able to outright bribe but also make ''generous contributions'' to the ruling party/senate/lawmakers either. Not to mention that in command economic system such contributions would probably be illegal to begin with (still, no bribe with only reasonable money to do so with, basically)

It was actually de-regulation via privatization that allowed this to happen in the first place (even with bribes to alter policy and whatnot, if the company was nationalized at least direct control could be kept).

Well, I am not yet done considering the other matters of you're version of the economic collapse, and if I ever do (finish considering them) it will be done much later when time prohibits.

It is true that the other factors should not be ignored. Though then one should consider that many of these African countries suffering from starvation are located in the, after all, located in the horn of Africa, an area once famous for it's food production (though there may be no relevance there... but anyway :D). These countries which were to forced to adopt free-market polices in order to receive the ''generosity'' of the G8 and world bank by IMF were severely screwed.

By ''Nominally'' do you mean to say that Zimbabwe is Marxist only in name or that it is Marxist to an insignificant degree. Either way that is no argument against socialism.

Actually, Zimbabwe is amongst the list of countries whose plummet into the $h!t hole was greatly contributed towards by this. Obviously a country that accepts privatization and adoption of free market economic policies (in this case to get a loan from the world bank) grows increasingly further from Marxism. Being a dictatorial state with power centered in one man doesn't help either and places it further apart from a Marxist country.

[Khan]

F&F: 

[chatfsh]

Oh, get over yourselves and think the matter through to its logical conclusion!  F&F never really thought that their house of cards would fall.  They sincerely believed that they could put everyone in houses.  They have no intention of kicking anyone out on the street.  The end result is that the U.S. government will buy up the subprime mortgages via the bailouts and let people keep their houses. End result, nationalization of the housing market. (Which was probably the freakin

[Khan]

I'm still yet to see any signs of actual socialism, the nationalized industries aren't even slightly socialist so don't be so naive Hwi. Using money from the government to cover your back when you get into debt, yet continuing to propagate a hierarchy of rich get richer and poor pay for it, isn't socialist. Banging your head against the keyboard won't change that fact.

[Tatar Khan]

I agree. The current government involvement is not going to lead to socialism and is not a sign of socialism. Government intervenes in the economy often enough and that doesn't make it a socialist economy.

[chatfsh]

Do forgive me.  I sometimes forget that some people have more difficulty grasping these concepts, so I will attempt to explain it another way. 

By far and large, America is a diehard freedom loving, capitalist country.  We love it, we

[Andrew]

Bank of England Cuts Rate to Lowest Since Bank’s Creation in 1694

Cool!

Don't forget citizens, spending got us into this recession, and spending is the only way out...

I love how all the analysts want Obama to spend lots and lots of money the USA does not have. Interest rates are 0, trade/budget deficits for decades, but the government has no problem spending trillions of dollars extra that they will borrow.

I'm sure Americans wish they had that extra $1 trillion from the Iraq war back.

So with monetary policy and interest rates at 0%, that means there is not much else they can do.

And 0% interest rates have worked so well in Japan for the past couple decades. oh wait...

[nemafakei]

I'm guessing that Hwi is doing a parody of conspiracy theorists with the whole "The loan sharks are secretly commies, wake up you sheep!" routine, but she does make a good point that with the burning house metaphor. It was always a win/win situation for the bankers - lending to people with poor credit ratings means you can get away with squeezing them for loads while they can afford it, and, if and when the borrowers fail to keep up, you just fall back on the insurance and foreclose. The insurance companies took a hefty cut, but even if any of them did foresee such a situation as the one we're in, the worst that'd happen to the decisionmakers would be that they'd be out of work and eking out a living on their enormous savings. In the event, the US government has been willing to act as a guarantor of last resort to maintain 'confidence', but only for the capitalists (or socialists, if you want to call them that), not for the people who are losing their homes. An enormous act of upwards redistribution to reward the people who started it all. Meanwhile we're all told we've got to work longer and harder for less pay, it's a credit crunch, haven't you heard? Same story, new excuse.

But hey, maybe it is all part of a plot to goad us into revolution.

[Dante]

I'm not sure Hwi can do parody. She barely makes a passable attempt at mockery.

"freedom loving, capitalist country"

Oh boy, where to begin...

Lets start with the fact that capitalism is by no means a freedom-promoting system. As mentioned earlier, it's intensely competitive. Those that are not in the race move quickly to the bottom rungs of the ladder, prior to falling off, and those who are in the race are locked in; wage slaves for their entire lives.

I looked up the definition of freedom, and I think the first three definitions are the most applicable here.

1. The state of being free or at liberty rather than in confinement or under physical restraint. 

2. Exemption from external control, interference, regulation, etc.

3. The power to determine action without restraint.

And I know exactly what Hwi was thinking. "Freedom" from government control, interference, regulation, etc. The power to determine action without a man with a clipboard going "No, you can't do that." The government then is seen as some kind of... lesser entity to the power of the markets, holding them back from their true potential.

I'm curious as to what kind of precedent this is supposed to set. Where exactly can the government interfere? Say a company dumps toxic waste in a river. Next to a school. It would be expensive to render it harmless, and dumping is cheap. This is the most cost-effective method, does the government get to dictate that part of the profit margin?

The corporate world, given complete "freedom," is a monster. Individuals may be "free" from government guidance, but they are still slaves to their employers, their paycheques, their stockholders. The moment they break out of that they are left in the cold; there's no backup system but the workhouse. You may think that the fewer regulations the more free something is, but fewer regulations just enables the strong to enslave the weak.

Besides which, this is entirely missing the point of what a government is supposed to be.

Now I grant that this is quite an easy mistake to make, especially in America. Governments themselves have forgotten what they are supposed to be. Like all administrators, a government's job is to oversee the wellbeing of those they govern. All of those they govern. The government isn't some playground bully out to take your lunch money, it's the teacher who's present to make sure you don't buy all the food and sell it back to the other kids at a profit. Mmkay? The government is your friend.

Not, I should clarify, that governments are always right. They are, like the people that make them up, imperfect. But better that law dictate profit than vice versa.

"So many Americans became complacent, lulled into a false sense of prosperity and security..."

Well that at least is true. However, arguing for a return to the system that brought about the current problem seems contrary to the interests of the people.

"An enormous act of upwards redistribution to reward the people who started it all."

Good summary. And that doesn't sound very socialist to me.

Is is just me, or is Hwi saying by omission that Margaret Thatcher was a socialist?

(And no post on freedom and America would be complete without mentioning Guantanamo Bay, the death penalty, and an interesting national habit of claiming some sort of historical monopoly on freedom despite widespread use of slavery and abuse of migrant workers)

[chatfsh]

Ooh, ouch!

I guess you told me. *Hwi weeps*

[Andrew]

Let's get back to how screwed America is if China decides to not accept US dollars.

U.S. debt is losing its appeal in China

[SandChigger]

I'm sitting in my comfy swivel chair spinning around.

Is that enough revolution for y'all? :P

[Khan]

Just don't be too much of a revolutionary, you might not see straight after the revolution is over ;)

[Andrew]

Interactive Unemployment map for USA

Pretty interesting. Move the slider at the top to get to most recent data.

My province is at 11% unemployment currently, but this is normal for this time of year (we are seasonally based province).

I havn't actually seen any bad economic indicators for my area. If I want a job I could easily get one. It's not like every business is laying everyone off and not hiring. But I guess we didn't have a big bubble like other places. Although lots of people trying to sell properties. Especially Americans who bought waterfront properties as investments. If I had lots of money I'd be gobbling them up at low prices.

Kentucky Unemployment Phone and Internet Issues Being Worked On

Apparently so many people called in that it broke the system.

So it looks like getting a job at the FDIC, or unemployment government office jobs are in high demand ;)

[Edric O]

By far and large, America is a diehard freedom loving, capitalist country.

Freedom and capitalism are incompatible.

We love [capitalism], we