The capitalism patient recovers, but I wish it was still sick »
Posted By Radiofreeeuropa 1 week, 4 days ago in Political Opinion
The cancer you were diagnosed with around this time last year must have been awful for you. I didn't know cancer was contagious, but it seems a lot of people got sick at around the same time. I know you'll say it wasn't your fault (never is), but it was tough wasn't it?
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Radiofreeeuropa
All progress comes from unreasonable people.
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Radiofreeeuropa1 week, 4 days ago
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30 billion dollars were given out as bonuses at the big 3 - Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, And Citibank.
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Bonuses this year in general on Wall Street are up 60% over last year. Meanwhile Mainstreet businesses are struggling to survive, unemployment balloons, credit is difficult to obtain for many businesses.
AIG claims it's accumulation of wealth on the backs of the bankrupt and bailouts is "God's work"...
Might it be time to drastically reduce the influence of corporations on government? Dismantle the machinery of economic mass destruction? Did 119,000 people on Wall Street deserve over a quarter million dollars apiece this year? It's not like the economy is booming...exploded... maybe. -
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gamahuche1 week, 3 days ago
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Its a funny world isn't it?
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That is to say that its easy to see the humour and appreciate the paradoxes when you have the luxury of being in a position to even KNOW everything that's going on everywhere because you have electricity and shelter and a computer and are strong enough to tap on the keys.
Above all these conditions give all who enjoy them a VOICE and the very first thing that we could use that voice for is to let the financial swindlers and charlatans know that we have their phone number, their cell-phone number, their addresses and the means to contact them and to check in to find out just what they are individually doing for those who are less fortunate..
SHARE should be the initials of the organisation that will run with this.. -
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TheNewsseeker1 week, 3 days ago
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I agree insofar as capitalism as we know it, doesn´t work anymore. Responsibility is the missing factor, without which there is no human touch in this economic system. I often heard of a "third way" in these days, but I can´t really imagine, what it would be like. Up to now, there is no true alternative, but this mustn´t mean business as usual! The patient was seriously ill, maybe that some "ideological transplantations" are necessary, but we should rather change the therapy than the patient!
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beavith11 week, 3 days ago
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just like you libbies to throw out the baby with the bathwater.
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it wasn't a failure of capitalism. those principles are rock solid. ignore them at your peril.
it was a failure of political will to recognize and respond to a market that had no meaningful oversight. whether it was the Dutch tulip boom or the real estate/CDO/CDS boom, without some sort of way to manage irrational exuberance, its all a house of cards.
the author pines for something else, but doesn't know what. let's do 'that,' and not have any feedback loop on 'it' and see how long that lasts.-
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dunkirk1 week, 3 days ago
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"it was a failure of political will to recognize and respond to a market that had no meaningful oversight. whether it was the Dutch tulip boom or the real estate/CDO/CDS boom, without some sort of way to manage irrational exuberance, its all a house of cards. "
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Which says oversight is needed which then says "capitalism as we know it" isnt working, Seems the post you responded to isnt saying capitalism is a failure but the capitalism we practice is flawed because of greed and lack of oversight. -
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Radiofreeeuropa1 week, 3 days ago
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Well beavith, you seem to agree that regulation is the only way to keep" free" markets working...
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But then they are not "free", they are regulated markets.
Things were proceeding relatively well since the 1940s until the "deregulation" basically denied history and allowed for basically all our economic woes. -
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hyperbola1 week, 3 days ago
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Actually beavith, it is just the "oligarch" class running capitalism for their own benefit. Their corrupt penetration of our government precludes the kind of oversight you claim will "resolve" the problems. By now this is all interlocked with military imperialism and we will have to take drastic steps to recover our democracy.
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Rulers and Ruled in the US Empire: Bankers, Zionists, Militants
http://www.propeller.com/story/2009/11/10/rulers-a...
The financial ruling class is internally stratified into three sub-groups: at the top are big private equity bankers and hedge-fund managers, followed by the Wall Street chief executives, who in turn are above the next rung of senior associates or vice-presidents of big private equity funds who are followed by their counterparts at Wall Street's public equity funds. Top hedge fund managers and executive have made $1 billion dollars or more a year-several times what the CEOs make at publicly traded investment houses. For example in 2006 Lloyd Blankfein, CEO of Goldman Sachs....
.... Within the financial ruling class, political leadership does not usually come from the richest hedge fund speculators, even less from among the junior bankers. Political leaders come from the public and private equity banks, namely Wall Street-especially Goldman Sachs, Blackstone, the Carlyle Group and others. They organize and fund both major parties and their electoral campaigns. They pressure, negotiate and draw up the most comprehensive and favorable legislation on global strategies (liberalization and deregulation) and sectoral policies (reductions in taxes, government pressure on countries like China to 'open' their financial services to foreign penetration and so on). They pressure the government to bail out bankrupt and failed speculative firms and to balance the budget by lowering social expenditures instead of raising taxes on speculative 'windfall' profits.
... The greater the salaries, bonuses, profits and rents for the financial ruling class engaged in 'restructuring' for M [mergers and acquisitions] , the greater the decline in living standards for the working and middle classes.
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hyperbola1 week, 3 days ago
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Inequality in the distribution of national income in the US is the worst in the entire developed capitalist world. Moreover studies of time series data reveal that in the US the inequality increase was far greater and intergenerational social mobility was far more difficult than in any country in Western Europe. The growth of monstrous and rigid class inequalities reflects the narrow social base of an economy dominated by finance capital, its ingrown intergenerational linkages and the exorbitant entry fees (ranging around $50,000 per annum tuition with room and board) to elite private universities and post-graduate business schools. Equally important,)finance capital and its associated conglomerates wield uncontested political power in the US in comparison to their counterparts in any country in Europe. As a result the US government redistributes far less through the tax and social security, health and educational system than other countries.
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...An overwhelming chunk of the funds that Democrats raise nationally for election campaigns comes either from Wall Street financiers or Silicon Valley software entrepreneurs. The Democratic congressional electoral campaign was tightly controlled by two of Wall Street's favorite Democrats, Senator Charles 'Israel First' Schumer and Congressman Rahm Emanuel, who selectively funded candidates who were pro-war, pro-Wall Street and unconditionally pro-Israel....
.... Political corruption, not economic efficiency, is the driving force of economic empire-building. Its success is evident from the massive-trillion dollar-transfers of wealth, enterprises and resources from the state sector to US/EU MNCs which has taken place in Russia, Eastern Europe, the Balkans, Baltic countries and the Caucasus since the fall of communism. The scale and scope of Western pillage of the East is unprecedented in recent world history. In their European conquests, neither Stalin nor Hitler took over and profited from so many enterprises as have the Western MNCs over the past two decades. What is worse, the initial pillage set in motion an entire international political system embedded with kleptocratic pro-Western free market regimes, which constructed legislative frameworks that facilitated high rates of return. For example, legislation on reductions of wages, pensions, job tenure, work place safety and health regulations, and land use policies in the ex-communist countries were designed and enforced to maximize profits-and 'attract US and EU MNCs with their hard currencies. Pillage and political corruption created a mass of low paid, precarious, underemployed and unemployed workers who are available for exploitation by overseas US corporations and their partners, the overseas institutional investors looking for high return. -
hyperbolaComment removed: Spam
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Leftist1 week, 3 days ago
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Capitalism still is sick and is likely not to recover. It has nearly brought about the collapse not only of this country, but of the worldwide financial system. More and more people are disagreeing with the capitalist result of the select few wealthy exploiting the producers and creating the huge imbalances in income and wealth across the US, and how caoitalism is creating a permanent underclass. They now realize that collective ownership and collective responsibility for society's welfare creates a more equal, fair and rational society.
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Radiofreeeuropa1 week, 3 days ago
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Seems to me there is no actual capitalism nor communism except in books and dreams. Reality dictates mixtures.
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If we set aside the programming and propaganda, there are really things that can be done as collective endeavors that need not be for profit. Things that everyone needs or uses. (Health care for one). Why do you need 30% of the money going to profits for middle men in health care? Why not employ the same people as a non profit public interest group? I mean we do this with police and fire depts. As to capitalism in general, everyone wants to be rewarded for their personal efforts, everyone likes owning stuff like their houses or cars..so capitalism will not be going away. But it needs to be combined with a degree of da di did dah.....socialism...
Yes that's right. And the premise of anti trust laws was correct. Too big to fail? Too big to exist. The problem with capitalism is that unless controls are instituted, all wealth eventually ends up in the hands of very few. Then it decays into fascism. (In the Mussolini sense-the corporate state).
A mixed economy is the answer and always has been.
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