Does the bailout strengthen or weaken capitalism?

[begin_within]

My opinion is that if the government refuses to bail out the finance industry, that it will somehow heal itself and then be strengthened by that - ultimately making it more powerful than government. If the government does bail it out, that weakens it, like crutches can weaken a patient - ultimately making capitalism weaker and govermnent stronger. What is your opinion?

[leftofcool]

1. And just what we need, a stronger government (sarcasm)

[Speck Tater]

2. Makes no difference in the long run.

The quest for infinite growth on a finite planet is doomed to failure, regardless of the bailout.

[frickaline]

3. It will only become stronger if we fix what got us here to begin with

If we fail to regulate the credit market and continue to allow bad mortgages to be sold around like beanie babies on eBay, we will find ourselves suffering this same fate at a later date. We need to fix what is ailing these credit markets and add some rules around the trading of credit derivatives.

[JDPriestly]

4. The government bail-out would merge corporate and government

interests. That is bad, in my view. It isn't a matter of whether the private financial institutions are strengthened or the government is strengthened. Government is never stronger than the people from whom it draws its strength and American businesses are managed by America people. They are part of what makes the government strong. They pay txes, they influence lawmakers at all levels. That is normal. The problem with the bail-out is that it makes these big corporations and the government officially one entity in that their interests become too intertwined. How can the government represent all the people and actually have such a great financial interest in the success of specific corporations? It can't be done.

The Bush administration has proposed a wedding between the financial sector of the economy and the government. That is not what our Founding Fathers contemplated. It is a huge mistake.

[RainDog]

5. I think that's the wrong question

I think this bail out ultimately does harm but crony capitalism that has been the thirty year "gift" of Reagan to the American people is now dead.

In the U.S., this moment is the equivalent of tanks and people surrounding the Kremlin as the Soviet Union fell.

I hope we will have better leadership as a result of this because what we need right now is democratic socialism, the sort that other western democracies employ... the sort that has put Germany in a position of power.

Our economy will not recover until we have universal health care and a democracy-promoting tax system that places democracy over capitalism.

[anarch]

6. I don't know...does propping up a corpse in a chair strengthen, or weaken the corpse?

My gut feeling is that unregulated "free market" capitalism, where everybody's sole purpose is to make a profit at the expense of the other guy, can only ever lead eventually to oligarchy. Pure socialism/communism, on the other hand, tends to lead to totalitarian restriction of freedoms, and an equally privileged ruling elite who wind up using fear (do as we say or suffer dire consequences) rather than the hope of capitalism (play our game and if you do well enough you too can be rich!) to keep the huddling masses from tearing each other and everything else apart and descending into chaos, like they tend to do whenever the veneer of civilization starts to wear thin...looting after natural disasters, etc. A mixed economy is the only way to go. I hope we get there, but I know it's going to take a while, and there's going to be a lot of pain before we do.

/ 2 cents

[John7714]

7. The bailpout is for foreign investors

Watch the Video.
I think the bailout is a tax to pay off the China held debt that China is about to call in.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hi9vXKWYaZ8