Bank Nationalisation - Back-door Socialism Strikes the US! »
Posted By gamahuche 8 months, 3 weeks ago in Business & FinanceThe credit crisis has brought quasi-nationalisation to the home of free-market capitalism.
Read Full Story at independent.co.uk »
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gamahuche
"I would rather be a square peg than fit in a pigeon hole" -
an essay which won me the "Lamb Essay Prize" at the Religious ...
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gamahuche8 months, 3 weeks ago
Hard to know whether Karl Marx is spinning in his grave but the paradox of the socialisation of America is going to be very, very shocking for those on the right, who have either suffered from mass-hypnosis, or are in blind denial of the long-term significance of what has been happening.
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Back-door socialism, a creeping coup? How else can they describe it?
Common sense is being thrust upon them - but above all, these social changes are going to be far wider and longer reaching than which party has the misfortune to win this election and carry the can..-
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memestryker8 months, 3 weeks ago
The U.S. has always had an endlessly evolving mix of policies based on perceived needs as they arise. Those in positions of power do try to allow markets to operate naturally as much as seems feasible. This type of intervention has occurred before, though, and this time it was done before the market self-corrected instead of following a complete crash.
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An estimated 25% of people in cities were homeless in the Great Depression, and there is a sense that the government should seek to prevent that for a variety of reasons. We saw a lot of temporary socialist programs following the Great Depression, too. -
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amervtrn8 months, 3 weeks ago
The USA's enemies are drooling at the thought of Obama. They love the naive inexperience weak amateur. Where there have been young leaders in the past, they had over a decade of (real)experience, yet we paid a price for it.
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This artificial market making is a continuation of the building a house of cards. Where as the original problem was a house of cards built on worthless derivative contracts( reminiscent of the South Seas Bubble) now we are furthering this fraud by printing money( at a rate even Germany 1920-23 would not believe )with no backing. The Great Scam Bailout will come back to bite us in the "Keaster" first in the tax of slavery for generations to come, loss of resources to recover when the Scam fails, rape of the Constitution, and as has already happened the rape of the USA Citizen's rights of representation. Socialism/Communism is not acceptable to the USA. Nikita Khrushchev's speech before the U.N.,"America will fall without a shot being fired. It will fall from within." It seems his words have come through with ringing clarity.
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HannibalBarca8 months, 3 weeks ago
Hey Bud, how is it going.
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You said "Common sense is being thrust upon them" whereas I see them as anything but common sense.
Yesterday we, as Canadians went to the polls and elected our new Gov, same as the old as it turned out but no one in USA has made a comment, expressed any interest at all nor, if they even knew about it would they. If it does not happen inside their borders then it is a non issue.
Trouble is as we, Canadians supply 24% of their imported oil, this new Gov may have some new regulations that will be a big pain for USA.
Seems Harper wants to limit exports of oil to countries whose emissions are of a lower standard than ours, so USA needs to upgrade theirs , and of course this will mean more Gov intervention, which means a small step farther down the socialistic view of Gov involement.
Maybe they will invade us, Good luck on that.
As always your submits cause some to think and agree with.
Thank you.-
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ETproductions8 months, 3 weeks ago
I read about it. The Conservatives picked up more seats but not enough to form a government. The Liberal Party were the big losers, but their leader has made no move to resign. It remains to be seen what sort of coalition government will be formed and how they'll govern. But hey, I care. Not all Americans are clueless and uncurious about what happens outside our borders.
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gamahuche8 months, 3 weeks ago
Hi HB. Good to see you too! Your latest elections were somewhat redundant by the sound of it. I remember when the last ones happened that the result was somewhat messy and stalemated. I had a few seconds of fame when the BBC broadcast a live comment of mine regarding the very uneven coverage they were giving to the last election with Tweedledum and Tweedledee Canadian commentators on their "World Have Your Say" programme.
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At least Palin hasn't declared a desire to join her turf to the "mainland" by annexing your Western regions. Yet.. -
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Mdiar8 months, 3 weeks ago
They covered it on C-SPAN.
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Besides, to be honest I was pretty sure what would happen considering the general party situation. I'm pretty sure what will happen in the US as well in the Presidential elections so I ceased paying much attention to that (well, actually, its fun to consider the size of the Obama landslide), though still watching the Senate fairly closely.
I don't think you should take much offense at Americans not paying attention to the elections. Americans, generally, ignore other people's elections. Its one of those few things they aren't hypocritical about when they essentially ignore international attention to their own elections. In fact alot of Americans ignore there own elections. -
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Mdiar8 months, 3 weeks ago
Oh yeah, I'll also point out most Americans support lowering emissions and don't mind government intervention one bit. That's Republicans who mind that.
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amervtrn8 months, 3 weeks ago
Sorry, I had posted this earlier in different forum. The USA should take a closer look at what is going on in the governments we call partners. Many of them are suffering with a more severe Socialist/Communist attack. Under the badge of Green or Gruener, many of them leftovers from the Communist/Marxist and radicals of the passed, especially in Europe.
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gamahuche8 months, 3 weeks ago
Well that's a good article - but perhaps this is an even better one here! Quote below is from the second article..
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http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/...
"Government owning a stake in any private US company is objectionable to most Americans, me included," Mr Paulson declared. "But the alternative of leaving businesses and consumers without access to financing is totally unacceptable."
The President himself chimed in, declaring the plan "an essential short-term measure" to ensure the viability of America's banking system, boost growth and preserve jobs. For Mr Bush the operative word is "short-term". The programme, he said, was intended to enable banks to buy the shares back, once markets had stabilised and capital could once more be raised from private investors. This may happen and the government may get its money back and more, just as occured once the Depression ended. But one final thought is in order.
This near-unprecedented intervention has been carried out by a Republican administration, in theory as conservative as they come. As matters stand, the next President seems likely to be a Democratic Senator, with one of the most liberal voting records in Congress. He will work with a strongly Democratic House, while his party could emerge from the election with a filibuster-proof 60-40 seat majority in the Senate. What further indignities might then be heaped on America's battered free market?-
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hyperbola8 months, 3 weeks ago
I wonder if that is really what is going on or whether all this is an attempt to get the taxpayer to underwrite American attempts at "financial hegemony", which are condemned to fail (just as military hegemony will fail).
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Soros sees end of US-led globalized market system
Billionaire investor George Soros predicted on Sunday that the financial crisis would mean the end of a U.S.-led market system that has dominated the global economy with debt and deregulation since the 1980s.
"Globalization, America as the center of the globalized financial markets, was sucking up the savings of the world," Soros said in a CNN interview.
"This is now over. The game is out. It does mean a very serious adjustment for America," added Soros, a staunch backer of the Democratic Party.
As world leaders rushed to help banks weather the crisis that has sent stocks into steep decline, Soros blamed the turmoil on the faith in market forces that began under President Ronald Reagan and British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher a generation ago.
The notion that markets are self-correcting led to a massive expansion of debt financing that culminated in the sub-prime mortgages that epitomized the easy-money mentality at the root of the disaster, he said.
"This belief became the dominant creed. And this, then, led to the globalization of markets, the deregulation of markets and the increased use of leverage and all the financial engineering," Soros said.
"This whole enormous construct is built on false conceptions," he added. "You can go a very long way. But in the end, reality rears its ugly head and that's what happened now."
http://www.propeller.com/story/2008/10/15/the-end-... -
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Lurch8 months, 3 weeks ago
> What further indignities might then be heaped on America's battered free market?
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Two things:
1) we never had a free market
2) the so-called free market is the one gaining the most from this record-setting entitlement program for the rich
What further indignities might be heaped on us taxpayers and consumers is the question that really needs to be asked?
They screwed us on the profit side as customers/home owners, and now that their house of cards has collapsed they are screwing us as taxpayers.
I for one am sick of govt earmarks like the Bridge to Nowhere, entitlement programs like so-called deregulation that just allow multinationals to screw us consumers, and handouts to the elite rich who never earned their wealth in the first place.
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ETproductions8 months, 3 weeks ago
We really need to go through a time of national soul searching to figure out what is best done by government and what is handled efficiently by private industry.
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We already have a good deal of socialism and much of it makes perfect sense. The interstate highway system, the air traffic control system, the military, Medicare, CHIPS, the Federal Reserve, and the health care system Congress gives itself are all socialized systems.
I don;t think you'd find much support for disbanding our military and turning defense of the United States over to Blackwater and their likes. Not many would favor letting private contractors build our roads and bridges and finance them strictly through tolls.
When it comes to health care, in studies of infant mortality, death in childbirth, deaths from preventable disease, etc; the US is statistically at the bottom of the industrialized world. We are #37 in the quality of health care, just below Costa Rica. http://www.photius.com/rankings/healthranks.html
The only thing we are number one for is cost per person. In that metric, each citizen pays nearly twice what the next highest nation pays. Single payer health care with private doctors and private hospitals would make terrific sense. But we're so cowed by the right's false fears we can't even talk about it. Maybe now is the time to change that.-
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gamahuche8 months, 3 weeks ago
"When it comes to health care, in studies of infant mortality, death in childbirth, deaths from preventable disease, etc; the US is statistically at the bottom of the industrialized world. We are #37 in the quality of health care, just below Costa Rica."
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That is a shocking statistic. Some other "advanced" countries are also having serious problems with their health services too. In Britain the NHS hospitals barely manage to scrape along with the help of low-paid employees from abroad, some from the former government, some from the newer members of the EU. In some of the former Communist countries the care can be dismal, especially in small towns. Our hospital would do its patients a favour by going out of business and a recent horror story crossed my radar regarding some friends who were not able to reach the nospital of their choice in time for a birth and suffered a gruesome irdeal as a result. In the end its NOT the system that counts, but the people - however the system does have an influence on which people are available.
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doppich8 months, 3 weeks ago
Just as "Only Nixon could go to China," only a right-wing Republican administration could bring socialism to the USA.
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memestryker8 months, 3 weeks ago
beavith1,
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Yes, inflation always makes the latest bailout seem over-the-top in expense compared to earlier ones..
And the bailout and flailing both creep me out. What concerns me most is that everyone takes a political approach to it and looks to see how they can gain political capital from it.
I'm not a fan of Obama or McCain, and I think both their platforms have some real shortcomings. And anyone who watches C-SPAN knows congress spends most of its time blowing hot air. But I don't think the U.S. is alone. It's just a big target, but I've watched governments of a number of countries in session, and it's never a pretty sight.
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alakazam8 months, 3 weeks ago
For those of you who don't get what the bailout really means let me explain just a single facet of it.
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The Federal Government of the United States has just had the temerity to sign a very large banknote in your name in order to loan money to the very people who print it and some very, very rich bankers. This is a crime against the Constitution in more than one way.
We already have a dearth of imaginary liquidity...that's what got us here.
How is more imaginary liquidity is going to fix it?-
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rimbaud8 months, 3 weeks ago
They want the general public to imagine that the banks are safe, businesses to be able to get loans to keep people working, and all of us to imagine we can really afford the credit payments on our national debt. Meanwhile, governments do not have the money to keep our infrastructure from crumbling from old age, nor to educate the next generation.
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Tango578 months, 3 weeks ago
The current economic crisis is no surprise to me. We've endured 8 years of the worst this country has ever given out. All of us can make a list a mile long of all of the wrongs. And what have we gained? A better understanding on corruption? greed? Has anything positive resulted in the last 8 years? Reports started over a year ago over the Superhighway in the US connecting Mexico and Canada. There is already a currency line up to take the place of the dollar, it's called the Amero. To achieve this end, certain economic conditions must be met. I'd say those conditions are well underway.
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rimbaud8 months, 3 weeks ago
George W Bush forged ahead and gave the Republcans all the things they had been grousing about all these years. Now, even they are balking! If their plans could not be discredited as ideas, they have now been discredited in practice. There is no real way to defend their voodoo, neo-liberal, slight-of-hand economic philosophies. Unfortunately, it does not appear Obama will stray too far to the other extreme: he is the conservative in this election.
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Eagle_Eye8 months, 3 weeks ago
At best, America tried "Free Enterprise" and learned the hard way that you can't "trust" corporate entities with out government oversight. Unfortunately we had to learn this the hard way....like today with the stock market crashing and burning.
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It will be burning for months now while they try to fix it, and again, unfortunately, it will be with government over sight.
I wonder if the government is going to bail out those of us who have lost a good portion of retirement savings???? Hopefully a nice 100K stimulus check would be nice.-
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memestryker8 months, 3 weeks ago
My family worked it out, and if they would just give everyone $640K, they could avoid the bailout altogether, and all those people who lost homes could buy new ones in the cheap housing market. Of course, that would mean letting a lot of organizations crumble and there would be no credit, and some of us would lose big time in both money and jobs. Damned if we do and damned if we don't.
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Seriously, though, supply and demand is the law, and the more we let nature take its course, the better off we'll be--but with occasional intervention.
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beavith18 months, 3 weeks ago
the problems on Wall Street have nothing to do with free trade.
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FDR's trade war in 1932 drove the Hoover deep recession into a full Depression.
restriction of free trade is a dangerous choice. O talks about free trade with restrictions (labor, environment, etc) that amounts to no free trade at all. when you peeve your partner, you can count on a negative reaction.
a $100k stimulus check is stupid. its inflationary. your hamburgers wold cost $100. -
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canadianrancher578 months, 3 weeks ago
I don't know if we can call the bailouts of the banks really a socialist act, to me socialism is where the government takes over a segment of business for the benefit of the people of the country. Up here in Manitoba the government took over auto insurance because the public thought they were being ripped off and we gained lower rates from them, it was the insurance companies that suffered to me that was socialism, but when I look at the bailout deal I see the public providing the money for the banks and the government only getting a small share of the banks which to me means the banks gain and the public suffers by having to pay.
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alakazam8 months, 3 weeks ago
rightfromwrong has it straight.
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It's Fascism...it's stealing for the benefit of the bankers and corporations at the expense of the Citizen.
The bailout was never intended to help Americans ...it was just a way to steal enough money to keep rich people who had irresponsibly spent themselves into the poorhouse from having to pay the piper.
It was outright theft by a self appointed oligarchical elite who couldn't care less that people should go hungry and homeless as long as they are paying for the party at the Monarch Resort.
There are some who still defend it and and will try to tell you why you are wrong for not being happy over it.
Amazing isn't it?
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hefaa18 months, 3 weeks ago
So we have trickle down Socialism? Will any of that 700 Billion+ bailout money trickle down to the middle class or working poor? Doubt it. We need more government money allocated to the large middle class and working class base to start the Economy moving again. NO more hand-outs to the already wealthy few. If this is Socialism, then bring it on.
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Power to the People-
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memestryker8 months, 3 weeks ago
Not taking our money in the first place is not socialism.
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Very few get golden parachutes--companies with 50K+ workers generally have just a few at the very top who have that luxury, while others work endless overtime at low wages and hope their 401k's and medical coverage will be adequate. I've seen newspaper ads for large companies I dare not name that actually state up front they require 25% overtime and workers don't get most holidays off.
Where I'd like to see government get involved is forcing builders to build affordable housing. Instead of endless McMansions, they could build smaller singles and more townhomes and condos and house a lot of people in nice digs they could afford. But if McMansions are all that's available, people will try to buy them.
I'd like to see government give more tax incentives for things like using solar energy in homes, capturing rainwater, and limiting ceiling height, square footage, etc.--things we know save a lot of scarce resources and people would be more likely to do if they got a direct return. People like to see something tangible--it's just how we're wired.
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gamahuche8 months, 3 weeks ago
Thanks for a marvellous conversation, one and all!!
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Its grand in my physical remove from the direct seats of power and influence to have such a flow of energy and thinking pouring through, sweeping away logjams of unfinished and unprocessed thinking and creating fresh deep channels of movement of energy. I have to confess that my only real creative contribution to that was to edit the title of the story.. You all did the the rest! -
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