So Much for Letting the Free Market Rule

[Joanne98]

by Joseph L. Galloway

Hear that humming sound? That's the printing presses at the United States Treasury running 24 hours a day, seven days a week, churning out an ocean of green paper to bail out the billionaire bankers, brokers and assorted brigands who are responsible for the economic disaster that's befallen us.

They're busy running off $3.7 trillion in bailout money for those who don't deserve it. It's a Happy Thanksgiving and a Merry Christmas to the very pirates whose greed got us, and them, in all the trouble.

Isn't capitalism grand?

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2008/11/30-1

[Fearless]

1. Deserve it or not...

The meager wages they provide to others cannot be foregone. We've made our beds and now its time to sleep in them.

[Demeter]

2. It Was a Free-For-All Market, Not a Free Market

Connections and power ruled. There was no level field. Still isn't.

[bemildred]

3. The Free Market(tm) is an ass.

And as fictitious as Barney the Purple Dinosaur.

[depakid]

4. Might be nice if the author had a policy prescription or two

to go along with his increasingly state (and vacuous) demogoguery.

And people wonder why the left gets so little respect....

[azul]

5. Falling down, and can't get up?

These rascals that founded a financial system based on fear and greed and credit, that lived by a reward system where money worked to more gain than real people working, ran this system aground by gaming it.

And it looks like they screwed it up so badly, by trying to hide the nature of the bogus schemes and by spreading the risk so that everybody profited until it was too late, that no one will be able to unwind it without it all tumbling down.

Printing money like crazy is about the only option. We're in for a Mr Toad's wild ride into uncharted territory.

Maybe about time for shock therapy for the banks and investment houses, eh?

[neverforget]

6. Helicopter Ben Bernanke at his finest: throwing money at the problem.

[pam4water]

7. It's not free if we all have to pay for it :)

[Waiting For Everyman]

8. It was always a scam, the free market jargon was rationale for it.

How many years is it now since we heard the words "voo doo economics" and "smoke and mirrors"? But no, people kept voting them in, thinking that would keep their money market funds continuing to go up by double digits. There is no such thing as a free market, there is only anarchy or "freedom to steal" without prosecution because the rules are repealed. The only restrictions were on consumers, to keep us from defending ourselves in any way.

It's not very smart business, is it? It isn't business at all, it's just a scam. By definition, a scam's run is unsustainable because it isn't anything real being exchanged.

How to fix it? Declare all the fake "assets" void, as Ecuador just did. Tell the banksters they're not going to get their interest on fraudulent loans, write them down to market for everyone, put the banks in the RTC and nationalize them, and carry on. We're paying fake profits, for no reason.

As Nancy Reagan said, "just say no".

[Locrian]

9. it goes deeper...

Its deeper than "voodo economics" and obvious RW stuff. The classic "supply / demand" BASIC building blocks that people think of when they talk economics are BULLSHIT.

http://www.debunking-economics.com/