George Will Channels Ronald Reagan on Free Markets even though they have failed us
By Heather Tuesday Mar 24, 2009 4:30am
You Tube
I don't think Tim Geithner is the right person to fix the mess we're in since he's too close to those on Wall Street that caused the problem to begin with, but how ridiculous is George Will in this clip? Even after the giant mess that the "markets" have created with no regulation, Will is still doing his best job of channeling Ronald Reagan's mantra of let the markets take care of themselves and government can't solve our problems because it is the problem. Whether Geithner can fix the mess or not we sure need regulations put back in place and quickly IMO which will be up to the Congress to get passed. Will does his best to conflate Geithner's troubles with government regulation being bad.
Will: This is a complicated society with trillions of decisions made every day driving this. That's why you have markets rather than bureaucrats to allocate wealth and opportunity.
Reich: The markets failed George. Let's be clear about that. The markets failed.
Will: Just you wait till the government gets at it. If you think that this is a failure, just you wait.
Reich: Well it's already failing. Look at, we have the worst economic conditions we have had. We had a market fundamentalist as President. We had market fundamentalism as the guiding economic philosophy and what happened? We got in this mess George.
Will: Sixty two days ago Mr. Geithner was the indispensable man and never mind his little tax problems, he was indispensable. As de Gaulle said---graveyards are full of indispensable men.
Is Will an indispensable man too? Raise your hands. Geithner... bad. Therefore regulation... bad. Free market... good. Bad man trying to mess up free market...very bad.
To listen to Will is like listening to a man who has been living in a cave and totally cut off from society and all forms of communication these last eight years. The financial sector has already melted down and we're hanging on by a thread, but not in Will's alternate reality. Does he really want to live in a society where the free markets rule everything and the government takes care of nothing? Apparently so. I'd like to see him try to live in a place that actually espouses the virtues he holds so dear.
Need a cop to come to your house??..you're on your own and buy more guns. Want some traffic lights working in your neighborhood??...just call in Blackwater. Want to drive on any of the roads in this country??...pay a toll and hope they don't jack up the prices too high. Want your phone to work??...well the phone company decided that your area isn't profitable enough to keep service there so too bad. Want your lights turned on?...well the electric company decided that a big industry was more profitable than you were to provide service to.
Don't you dare let the government interfere in any of those free markets....right George Will? Heaven forbid who knows what might happen if they did.
(John Amato helped with the post)
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I got a big question here. Why should anyone listen to anything George Will has to say about anything? He's like Scarborough, he's not an expert on anything but he tries to be an expert on everything.
Hmmm...sounds like my soul mate.
n/c
He is a sad, stupid, humorless little man who never got the memo that he is and will remain irrelevant.
I remain,
your humble servant, in Christ,
Screwtape the Epistemologist.
Like the Bush criminals.
Will is so totally fucking irrelvent that I don't even know why it's worth showing these clips or mentioning his name. Make him irrelevent by ignoring his nonsense.
In this instant anyways he’s right, I hate agreeing with him to be sure. But what I have seen from the Democrats is a concerted effort to completely miss the lessons of history. Indeed they want top paint economic history differently. What they don’t realize is they are dancing with a gorilla and we’re not done until it’s done George Will is right, just wait.
I’m sure to get flamed here as usual but it doesn’t matter because the lesson will be learned regardless, in the end this folly of ideas the governments can fix our economy is going to be played out, the markets will correct regardless of what they do. The free market didn’t fail the government failed when it loosened up and repealed safeguards in place.
Oh and there is the other point, both parties are responsible, BOTH parties need to be kicked out, the FED is responsible, Rubin, Summers, and Geithner aided in the formation of Citigroup by helping to repeal the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 that lead to this crash. The 106th Congress nearly unanimously passed the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000. BOTH parties have brought us to this moment.
Many C&L threads I’m sorry to say have become pom-pom wavers for Obama and stopped asking the tough questions, or at least the right ones.
Instead Krugman has become a poster child here. Krugman did not see this despite his best efforts to say he did.
A lot of posters here keep arguing seeing it isn't the same as having answers for it. People such as Jim Rogers, Marc Faber, Peter Schiff, Robert Kiyosaki and Ron Paul all saw it coming years ago and they have provided answers only it’s not the ones people want to hear.
They are not popular because it requires this nation taking the medicine it needs. They don't want to accept the crash is the solution to years of trade imbalances and deficit spending. Instead of listening to what these people are saying, they would rather hear we can deficit spend our way out of this mess, basically doing of what has gotten us into trouble. That by resting our coats on Krugman's Nobel prize for trade patterns (not economic crashes) we can somehow punch through economic problems if we just spend enough money.
They give it nifty names, infrastructure investment, economic recovery, stimulus. None ask where is the money going to come from or how will we repay it. None seem to grasp the problem is and has been for years foreign debt. Deficit spending might be a temporary solution for a nation that isn't $11+ trillion in the hole, but in our case it's driving the final nails in our coffin. Even if Obama’s plan buys us a few years, we are going to have to face the musioc again by 2016, but I’ll leave that for another post.
If people want to hear real solutions, they are here:
Why the Meltdown Should Have Surprised No One
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EgMclXX5msc
Jim Rogers on where global opportunities will be.
http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpi...
What exactly after pumping trillions into the system have we exactly stopped? And where are we getting the money?
... still counts as being wrong.
he got it right. People are scapegoating the free markets wrongly, and what would they replace it with?
Government deregulation is not the free market. I'm sure George Will would have been on the wrong side of that argument though.
And you know it...
He is just being a contrarian, after he cheerleaded the same crooks who brought us to the brink of this mess. He only changed his tune when it was clear McCain is SOL. What you call "being correct" to me looks as if he simply was trying to be a contrarian asshole, and he is trying to tell us "I told you so" after years of enabling the same ones who brought this mess. Talk about wanting to have it both ways...
But hey... I am always getting a kick out the commentators in this site who throw a fit when a liberal or a Dem is slightly wrong. But get on their knees to fellate a conservative which was slightly correct for a change.
LOL...
Damn, VegasRage? Are you telling me that we haven't had a free market in this country??
But what are we going to blame for the failure of the economy? Government in bed with corporations? Surely that can't be!!!
It was the free market I tells ya! Freedom must not be tolerated!
Law makers from both sides of the isle piled on the tinder to be lit by relaxing and removing long standing safeguards. Then the FED dropping interest rates to mind popping low levels was the match that set off the firestorm of asinine lending practices. Who is the FED? Why the largest banks of course. Greed did the rest.
Blame free market? First you have to have one to blame.
Then when the collective fools hit the “Oh shit we screwed up phase” of their corrupt scheme what did they do? They cry to the law makers who laid down the wood to come put out the fire they started with the help of Daddy FED. Then they convince the law makers who represent the lobbyist’s er I mean the people to have the tax payers flip the bill and oh by the way can we have our bonuses for doing a good job?
Before this is over Ron Paul will look like the last honest politician in Washington.
Oh yeah now they who hosed us want us to trust them to fix it. To that I say, PITCHFORKS! GET YOUR TORCHES AND PITCHFORKS HERE FOR ONLY $30.00
No country, in modern history, has even approached "free markets" without the country turning into a basket case hell hole. Ayn Rand, I'm sure you pray to her alter, called capitalism the "unknown ideal" because fundamentalists like her define capitalism in a way that makes it impossible to say the system has ever existed. In modern times, no country has developed using "free markets". Not one. Britain protected domestic industry, de-industrialized its potential competition in India, modern day Bangladesh & Egypt and had some of the highest tax rates in Europe in the 19th century when it became a worldwide industrial power. It protected its cotton makers from America when it couldn't compete and shut off the Japanese for the same reasons right before WWII, which was one of the main causes of the war. The US has for centuries been extremely protective of domestic industry, as it became a superpower it was the MOST protectionist. During its best years it had tax rates around 70% with strong capital controls and a reactionary and violent foreign policy. To this day the only functioning industries we have are protected by the state. These are the two traditional “free market” countries in the West, the others in Europe are well known and NOT “free market” until recent years and they’ve paid for it (how do you think Iceland feels that they listened to people like you?). Japan developed with massive state intervention, as did South Korea who copied Japan’s economic development. The list goes on, your philosophy is ahistoric nonsense.
No country will EVER be "free market" like they teach in school. Countries have TRIED though. Latin America tried more than any region. Full currency convertibility (with El Salvador the US dollar IS their currency), capital and trade liberalization, fire sale privatizations, lifting in many areas of price controls and regulation, taking away workers rights and environmental protection. Again, not 100% "free market", but darn close. What was the result? Leftist after leftist leader being elected. If the IMF is attached to any candidate it alone can cause them to lose the election, with poll results like this (from a widely respected and non-partisan Chilean polling firm, BEFORE the financial crisis hit):
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N144...
“According to the annual Latinobarometro survey, more than 80 percent of those living in continental Latin America and the Dominican Republic -- a region of 400 million people -- believe the government should control and oversee public services such as pensions, health and education, the annual survey showed.”
“...In Argentina, Chile and Uruguay, some 90 percent believe that pensions should be in the hands of the state. All currently have private pension systems. Seventy-eight percent of respondents in Chile also believe the telecoms system, privatized 20 years ago, should be in state hands.”
If we can’t blame the “free market” then you surely can’t say a bad word about “communism” since that philosophy was just as different in practice than it was in theory.
Or, for example, what about the effects of the “free market” reforms in Mexico?
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/1409
First, since 1985 real incomes have grown at just 2.5% per year, and less than one percent per capita. Second, according to INEGI, major environmental problems have worsened since trade liberalization began in Mexico. Despite the fact that Mexico reached levels of income beyond the range of a predicted EKC turning point, national levels of soil erosion, municipal solid waste, and urban air and water pollution all worsened from 1985 to 1999. Rural soil erosion grew by 89%, municipal solid waste by 108%, water pollution by 29%, and urban air pollution by 97%.
The results have been costly to Mexico's prospects for development. The INEGI studies estimate the financial costs of this environmental degradation at 10% of GDP from 1988 to 1999, an average of $36 billion of damage each year ($47 billion for 1999). The destruction overwhelms the value of economic growth, which has been just 2.5% annually, or $14 billion per year.
I stopped listening to "Why the meltdown should have surprised no one" after two fatal errors.
One, he suggests that we'll need a huge broad-based tax hike on the middle class to pay down the debt. Of course we won't; a tax hike on the rich will take care of it. Where was this guy as we created the New Gilded Age for the last 30 years? Doesn't he know about our massive income inequality and how rich the rich are? It's really quite glaring and obvious.
Two, he says the "Clinton error" was a bubble. No, the stock market was a bubble on top of an actual good economy. The "hard" numbers were up as well as the "soft" ones -- median income, employment, GNP, you name it (except trade). If the longest expansion in American history was a bubble, then all good economies are bubbles because they're indistinguishable by any rational measure. (And what was Clinton's "error" anyway? Failing to command the independent fed to deliberately crash the economy?)
We don't have to take any medicine. The rich gouged us silly for decades, and if we gouge them back it'll all be over.
was a blabbering idiot. a nice, likable, idiot, but an idiot all the same.
but you knew that...
Saint Reagan was the godfather of the "Me Generation" that begat the Bush tragedies we are dealing with for the rest of our lives.
he always struck me as a massive asshole.
Geez...it's almost sad, how these conservatives just CANNOT accept the glaring, in their face fact, that their ideology failed MISERABLY!
Almost sad...but not quite.
It's like the republican boat has gone all the way under water and they are still bragging about what good wood it was made of.
I got some pretty good wood here.
Anyone want to buy some wood...tee hee.
You're offering to sell "wood" in the morning?
I'll pass.
Hurry and buy now!
Supplies won't last!
sign me up for a cord!
Not only will I sell ya a cord, I'll even deliver it for free! };)>
I'd better prepare my loading dock!
hehe
Aaaaah...that's funny, funny stuff!
Life's more fun that way!
:)
George Will should just stick to baseball.
That simple fact cannot be repeated enough.
anyone, including George will, says government should not be in the business of determining who wins and who loses in the marketplace, I agree.
LOL.
Abolishing Glass-Stiegall 1999: Paul Wellstone has been dead for six years, and he's still smarter than George Will.
http://www.nytimes.com/1999/11/05/business/co...
''I think we will look back in 10 years' time and say we should not have done this but we did because we forgot the lessons of the past, and that that which is true in the 1930's is true in 2010,'' said Senator Byron L. Dorgan, Democrat of North Dakota. ''I wasn't around during the 1930's or the debate over Glass-Steagall. But I was here in the early 1980's when it was decided to allow the expansion of savings and loans. We have now decided in the name of modernization to forget the lessons of the past, of safety and of soundness.''
Senator Paul Wellstone, Democrat of Minnesota, said that Congress had ''seemed determined to unlearn the lessons from our past mistakes.''
''Scores of banks failed in the Great Depression as a result of unsound banking practices, and their failure only deepened the crisis,'' Mr. Wellstone said. ''Glass-Steagall was intended to protect our financial system by insulating commercial banking from other forms of risk. It was one of several stabilizers designed to keep a similar tragedy from recurring. Now Congress is about to repeal that economic stabilizer without putting any comparable safeguard in its place.''
Supporters of the legislation rejected those arguments.
It's always stunning to look back and hear from those who saw the train coming.
raizes hand
a senile old goat that sat around all day counting jellybeans? Reagan was proof positive, that the President of the United States is nothing more than a power figurehead. George Bush Jr. drove that point home, for those that didn't believe it. And yet, every election, and everywhere you go, people talk like a person is the most powerful in the world. Maybe. Just not the President person.
Can you say the same for Lincoln or FDR?
you actually think that Reagan or Bushie Jr. actually had any power?
Oh by the way, did you hear about how the US taxpayer is going to get absolutely squat out of AIG for yet another reason? Seems that AIG is in the process of changing their name to AIU Holdings Limited. That's a great way to dispose of debts. Go out of business.
I wasn't alive for Lincoln or FDR, so I have no idea what corporate interest either stood for. If you go by historians, they were both liberal. However, most historians are factually inaccurate. Read a history book in Canada, and we are the greatest nation on earth. Read an American history book, and the US has always been the world's saviour. Both factually incorrect.
My only point was that some Presidents do make a difference like some policemen, teachers, doctors, etc. Your sweeping indictment of all Presidents is not only "factually incorrect" but is also another of your endless backhanded gratuitous swings at our present President.
isn't a person, it's a position. I shouldn't have to explain that to an American. JFK was shot. Did they kill the President? No. Is there not one now?
Presidents don't make a difference at all. People make a difference. Saint Ronald of Reagan, JFK, Obama, you name it could do jack squat politically without someone helping them. It's that simple. Just as Bushies couldn't declare war all by himself. Congress has to agree.
It's your story Canuck, tell it any way you want...but that won't make it correct.
And you should never have to explain bullshit to anyone.
The problem with these brain dead yahoos is that there's a difference between a regulated economy and a centrally planned economy.
George Will is a delusional psychopath, stuck in his own narrow-minded rut. Why anyone listens to, or believes anything he says is a mystery to me.
...and yet, the government could have bought the banks outright for less money than they poured into them, and had we of done so, all those contracts under the previous owners promising huge bonuses would have become null & void.
But because this would be "Socialism", we instead gave Paulson his TARP with no oversight, pouring $350B into the banks... more than most were worth... with no conditions on the money.
NOW they are screaming about the bonuses and morans egged on by the likes of Beck that had nothing to say when Paulson was in charge, are now screaming for Geithner's head and Obama's resignation.
Just because the stock of a corporation is sold to a new owner does not invalidate existing contracts.
The law gives new owners the power to renegotiate all contracts, and if you think we would of included those bonuses in their new contracts, you're Limbaughed in the head.
I've been a corporate lawyer for 25 years. Changing ownership of a corporation does not invalidate its contracts.
There's also historical precedent in Article 12 of the Constitution, but those were governmental debts and contracts.
And any change in business structure opens an opportunity to renegotiate former contracts.
Now I think we agree. Some change in business structure may open an opportunity to renegotiate contracts, but this is a subset of every time the sun rises in the east, there is an opportunity to renegotiate some contracts.
The government though is in a unique bargaining position. Not only can they give tax money for the contractee to buy something the government now owns, they can mark down the price, but still get money back by taxing the transaction and the profits of the contractee on the new holding.
... they can do all that without buying the business, too. Government does not need to own a business to give it money, sell it property at any price it agrees to, or tax it. And in many cases, government is in a uniquely bad bargaining position, such as in leasing western lands to mining companies, since the prices were set by law in the 19th Century.
I'm not sure what the source is, but one bad bargaining position for the government is they're not supposed to profit even as an institution.
Of course, anyone at any time has the "right" to renegotiate any contract, but that doesn't mean that the other party needs to go along.
Corporations have been shitting on employee contracts since the dawn of Capitalism. I have no idea what makes AIG ill-gained bonuses so f*cking special.
Let these asshole sue the government and take their case to a jury.
Edit: I also forgot to add. The government was also in their right to put contract renegotiation as a string attached to the bailout package. AIG was free to decline the money if they do not agree with contract renegotiation.
It was a stupidly handled bailout anyway. In the case of AIG, it seems that we ended paying over $180 billion for a company which was worth $100 billion. And the government got no voting rights on the board. Frank et al should just eat sh*t and shut up... It seems neither Wallstreet nor the Government can run a business without f*cking up spectacularly.
Need the government for a bailout and corporate welfare? Government sure is good for that!
Ayman ben Bernanke said we lack the political will to fix things, I don't think he meant George.
These crown clowns dredge up Reaganism ever so easily.Saint Ronnie for these guys is the mythical "Great American President" and they blindly preach this greatness given the slightest of opening to do so.
Facts? Truths? For this bunch of fervent Reaganites the Golden Age of Ronald Reagan need not be bothered by fact or truth. Just like the last eight years of G.W.Bush are not to be troubled with fact or truth. And any talk of bringing war crime charges against Bush or Cheney is seen as policy driven leftist agenda. Not the rule of law.
Ronald Reagan coined the notion that government was the problem. He got away with saying that then and this line still gets run up the flag 30 years later.
If Ronald Reagan thought government was the problem then why did he bother running for the WH job of President? Why did he want to be part of the problem?
It is not about government being bad. It is about the quality of governance. Good governance would have not allowed Iran-Contra. Good governance would not have led to attacking Iraq on ginned up flim flamed intel in March 2003. Or allowed Katrina. Or set in motion a torture regime under Bush and Cheney. Or cut taxes,borrow and spend and pretend Iraq was not part of Pentagons budget for five years.
Good governance would have not allowed Wall St.,AIG and Goldman Sachs to run wild and go with 125% greed until there was nothing left but worthless paper and hocus pocused finance rubble.
Reaganism has come home to roost. George Will should stay home too.
It isn't bad governance that produced this scam of a thousand lifetimes. This is fraud and the biggest money heist in the history of mankind. This was planned.
... if government is supposed to be the moderating influence, BUY THE GOVERNMENT.
It isn't bad governance that produced this?
Wall St. and Big Banks poured money into WashingtonDC to get "this". Sheesh.
Pay attention.
If government is supposed to be the moderating, regulatory influence on your unbridled avarice and greed ...
Buy the government.
Problem solved.
Yeah - Already done. Mission Accomplished in the last 20 years. Corporate ownership of the US Government.
Looks like that limey's giving us the finger:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wVADKznOhY
He's certainly flipping us off.
Attack with thrown burning piano! Yikes! ;-)
Simple weapons. Had great aimable throwing power.
The English had a big T they called 'War Wolf'.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZxNHmhw-kB8
Thanks, ysb!
Here in Texas Big T sells all the crap K-Mart doesn't want.
This was planned.
There is a problem when anyone is raised to the level of a myth. You see that usually the truth is more human and less perfect and they seem to need a touch stone. Sorry but Reagan isn't it. I think he might be ashamed of the mythology himself.
I doubt Saint Raygoon would be ashamed of anything he or his cartel ever did. Reagan was arrogant, authoritarian and a self-centered boob who even took credit for the fall of the Soviet Union.
In fact, Raygoon had very little to do with the Communist failure. The Taliban, whom Reagan pumped with money and weapons, won a war of attrition by wearing out the Russians like bin Ladin is doing to America.
after all didn't Raygun make a career of appropriating the myth of the Gipper?
I used to tell people that George Will was the only person on the right that I feared. He came across as intelligent, reasoned, and articulate, and at times I'd find myself agreeing with him. But 12 years of Republicrat rule turned him into just another echo chamber and apparently ruined a good mind.
Thank goodness.
I don't listen to George Will. I don't read his column either. Don't even get me started on Coo-koo Roberts. They are the primary reason I stopped watching This Week. Same tripe, different Week.
They need to go to pasture along with some other ABC talking heads.
We've already seen Republican lip service to racism cost them a LOT of support, but it look like, given the mood of the country, their continued lip service about the 'market' could cost them even more. Every day the number of people who trust the 'market' and think it should be left alone, while in actuality getting lots of help from the govt, is getting less every day.
The new Republican party: Friend to the racist and the CEO.
... bling-bling, off the hook, baby.
I'm sorry, when the GOP's polemic caters to the fears of folks who are only a step or two removed from raving white supremacists (and get a fair measure of them, too), they really shouldn't be surprised when the next McCain BBQ is indistinguishable from a Klan rally.
At which point, perhaps we can toss the media on the fire for being mindless parrots.
I hate all these fuckin' people.
Doesn't Will ever get tired of being wrong and looking stupid?
Where's his beanie with the propeller on top? It's all he's missing.
*
Pundits get paid if they are right or wrong.
There are 2 careers that literally depend on predictions: Stock brokers and TeeVee pundits.
And yet, almost no one in those fields would accept a contract that made their salary being mostly made of commissions based on their prediction rates...
Sort of points at the fact, that if they don't even trust their predictions enough to put their livelihood on the line.... neither should you. :-)
The Government seemed to do okay with that fighting WWII thing ... and that Moonlanding thing...
Building the Panama canal, navigational satellites...
George, just go be fucking irrelevant somewhere else...
Since our day has now been ruined just thinking about this asshole Will here's something to cheer you up.
http://www.newyorker.com/humor/2009/03/30/090...
Why do people believe Reagan was for free markets when he was probably the biggest protectionist president in US history ? ... yes, he used free market rhetoric, but when you actually look at his record, he most certainly was not a free market advocate, the US hasn't had a free market for a great many years, so blaming it for the current problems is backwards .
People need to separate rhetoric from actions, and not confuse the two of them, it would be like someone arguing George Bush actually followed a "a humble foreign policy" by pointing towards his campaign rhetoric of 2000 as proof of this, but is that really the case ? ... no, he was a warmongering interventionist .
Reagan used free market rhetoric, but in reality, that is far from the truth, ask Ron Paul, a true free market advocate, what he thought of Ronald Reagan
not only hasn't the us had a free market in many years, it was in fact created BECAUSE it did NOT want a free market
the boston tea party happened because the colonies were FURIOUS king george lowered taxes for his pals in the east india import company
that's right, this country was created as a rovolt against LOWERING taxes not as a result of raising taxes
factoids, not good for repukes
... are you pulling this nonsense from?
Does the phrase 'taxation without representation' ring a bell?
For imposing taxes on us without our consent:
There's nothing in the Declaration of Independence that says, "'Cause you gave a tax break to your homies."
Actually that is the historical background. The colonies were prevented from selling certain goods on the chance it may cut into a major British companies profits. That's what got people like Paul Revere involved, because he didn't like arbitrary protectionism against his silver works.
And actually, Americans paid less tax for certain items than the Brits, because the crown wanted to keep us quiet. But like Puerto Rico in the US Congress, we had representation in Parliament, but one representative for ALL the British colonies around the world. So we were p.o'd by that.
The Crown on the other hand felt frustrated by our constant complaints for more soldiers and more protection from French Canadians and Indians, but didn't want to pay the taxes to support such extra protection. And we felt frusterated by the soldiers, particularly their officers insisting on quartering, and not being able to try them in our country for any offenses the more common soldiery might commit.
the east india company could not compete with the colonies with the tariffs so the king removed them
that is the reason we mounted the boston tea party, of course it was a powder keg decision by the king after a series of other actions but in fact, the king lowered taxes "on his homies" and that's we the tea party occured
almost every major event in US history, has revolved about taxes and taxation at its very core.
actually the term "no taxation without representation" misrepresents the revolt's purpose
king george LOWERED taxes on imports and the colonies WENT BALISTIC
our founders KNEW there MUST be regulations, there MUST be protectionism for our economy, we MUST tax product that comes from slave, child and dangerous labor practices, it is IMPOSSIBLE to compete against slave labor practices NOR should it be allowed
every single laborer MUST make a living wage whence they can put healthy food on the table for their family, educate their kids and protect themselves from health issues
... you're telling me the Declaration of Independence, from which the concept of 'no taxation without consent' is derived, MISSTATED the purpose of the American Revolution?
Imposing taxes upon us without consent is ennumerated in the list of grievances against King George. That refers to the Stamp Act and other tariffs imposed upon merchants in the colonies.
As far as your point goes, it wasn't just that the East India Company was given a lower tax rate on imports into Great Britain - it's that additional taxes were levied upon the colonies when that tea was exported to America.
the very concept of a "free market" is a marketing scheme deployed for the purpose of getting us to pay the bills for corporations
there is NO such thing as a "free market" it not only cannot exist, it's literally a physical and conceptual impossibility;
the very concept of "money" or ANY monetary system IS a set of regulations
the very concept of ownership IS a set of regulations
the very concept of a court system that protects ownership is a set of regulations
the very concept of law, justice, redress IS a set of regulations
when a "free marketeer" claims they "want a free market" what they really mean is this;
"we want you to pay our bills, we like the regulations that allow us to keep our stuff, we do not want regulations that allow you to recoup the expenses we cause"
... regulation exists because the 'free market' failed. We have labor laws, weekends, paid vacations, overtime, and unions because business could not be trusted to regulate themselves.
The same people who tend to force feed "free market" myth down our throats, are the same ones who think there is an "invisible hand" patrolling said markets, and also tend to believe in "invisible beings up in the sky" who really really get cranky when you question the elites.
Of course, they are the ones who get to dismiss reality based policies as being "fairy tale nonsense."
Anyone who has studied economics will learn that there are MANY instances where you have to make "exceptions" to the rules to accommodate what happens in reality to match the current "theory."
To me, this proves that the "theory" is broken and doesn't work if you have to make exceptions for decades of unexplained economic activity. This is free market economics. In fact, like others have posted, free market exists only in theory and cannot be a reality anyway.
Free market has had its chance to prove itself. All it has proven is that it is subject to the greed of the very small Capitalist class. The liberals and economic reformers need to make sure they do a good job of voicing these problems and we make real change, even change that exists beyond reforming the financial sector.
That has nothing to do with Capitalism, you're confusing it with crony capitalism and corporatism, thats what the US has had for many decades, you cannot equate the likes of Halliburton and co to capitalism, there's nothing capitalist about giving no bid contracts to companies and propping them up using the nanny state.
Next people will be saying Dick Cheney was a free market capitalist hahahaha, yeh, whatever.
It has everything to do with Capitalism. It is the machine that allows everything to happen. Dick Cheney was very much a free market capitalist in that he wanted no rules in the way of ensuring his profits.
Free market really means anarchy. When it comes to money, these people want absolute anarchy because that means they would rule. However, when it comes to things like gay marriage and abortion and theft of their huge estates, then we need government to protect those interests. Bull.
I mean, he and the likes of Alan Greenspan have spent their lives believing in one belief system and now, when the so-called "free market" is proven to be an utter failure, their whole raison d'etre is gone. But the difference between Alan Greenspan and George Will is that Greenspan realizes it and embraces that fact, but George Will will keep on truckin' down that "trickle down" theory road until he crashes into a brick wall.
Well, we've crashed into that wall but George Will just continues to believe that Reaganomics is the answer. He will never realize that Reaganomics is a scam and is the problem. Such people can't be taught. You'd think that for a writer, someone who should be able to make careful observations and draw conclusions, George Will would be able to see the writing on the wall. Too bad that he is blinded by his own biases to keep from seeing what is right in front of him.
In fact, he will be OK for most of this recession. While you and I will get stuck with the bill for these f*ckups' crackpot ideas.
I don't feel sorry for idiots that stubbornly refuse to open their eyes. You know, the kind that are bitter and cling to their guns.
Reminds me very much of the George Wills, Donaldson, Trent Lott, Stephenopolis helmet hair look.
Must be some really special kind of hair gel that same stylist is using on these knobs. I wonder who decided on the helmet hair style and why they thought it would have such mass appeal to a certain demographic.
*shudder*
There is so much realism you get off a piece of synthetic hair glued to the top of one's dome :-)
It is usually very telling, these pundit's have nothing to contribute that stands up on its own merits. Ergo, they think that if they have a "fantastic" professionally looking hair... that may give them more "credibility."
I always get a chuckle when I see these old tools with hair pieces or obvious dye jobs on the telly. I tend to disregard anything that someone who is in such obvious denial about their own condition have to say.
You summed it up quite nicely. I automatically disregard that look. It's my instincts automatically kicking saying,"oh HELL no".
Anyone that out of touch wearing the helmet glue is automatically appealing to some very sad element within themselves or to be down with each other in such an out of touch way. (Picture this crew letting their hair down and knocking back a couple of Margeuritas at the beach) Run for your lives!
Things that make you go ewww...
Are you saying, people that buy that spray on hair, (as seen on TV), probably aren't the brightest stars out there? Ha ha ha. I like it!!!!!!
Here in Asia, it seems the demographic is old men with jet-black hair and glasses with giant-sized (often square) lenses. I see them every day, and wonder... and wonder some more... Is it like some rite of passage???? Some odd ritual I'm not privy to?
It's funny that Heather and John are so ready to nail shut the coffin of free market economics, claiming that "they have failed us".
I triple dog dare anybody to show where the U.S. has had anything even remotely resembling what could loosely be referred to as a "free market" in the not-quite hundred years since Wilson passed the Federal Reserve Act.
Anybody who claims that "free markets" are responsible for any of the current economic problems anywhere in the world (and, coincidentally, espouse varying degrees of socialism as the solution) is either willfully blind to the fact that the "hidden hand" most likely belongs to a banker, or too ignorant of the situation to be commenting on it in the first place.
... get off implying that Heather and John are:
a) willfully blind
b) socialists
c) too ignorant to comment on the situation
George Will is arguing in favor of your non-existant free market as a solution; Heather & John are pointing out that the concept doesn't work because of the interference of corporate interests.
The US never had a free market.
George Bush was never a Conservative.
And trickle down economic theft never happened!
Conservatives are simply doing what they do best, taking responsibility... oh, wait.
Good Golly Miss Molly!
Isn't there a place where worn out old-shoe Republican pundits go to lay down and check out?
Will: This is a complicated society with trillions of decisions made every day driving this. That's why you have markets rather than bureaucrats to allocate wealth and opportunity.
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[Deleted. Over the top. Reads like hardcore pornography. Not here, please. I know you've gotten it by us in the past- I'm editing that out, too. Site Monitor]
Lets make more graveyards and fill them with the rest of these "indispensable men." They appear dispensable to me.
Have you ever thought you were "indispensable," and then gone on vacation and realized no one really missed your absence?
Lincoln said: "...and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."
Reagan sed: "Government
of the people, by the people, for the people,is the problem."Login or Register to post comments.