Libertarian Magic Fairy Dust

C

Cypress

Well-known member
The defenders of deregulated capitalism, the NAFTA zealots, and the proponents of libertarian magic fairy dust have been strangely quiet for the last year. I really don't think Obama's birth certificate, or some lemonade stand in Tulare, CA are compelling or impressive arguments from the reich wing.


All Of Them Must Go

By Naomi Klein
Published in The Nation.

Watching the crowds in Iceland banging pots and pans until their government fell reminded me of a chant popular in anti-capitalist circles back in 2002: "You are Enron. We are Argentina."

Its message was simple enough. You--politicians and CEOs huddled at some trade summit--are like the reckless scamming execs at Enron (of course, we didn't know the half of it). We--the rabble outside--are like the people of Argentina, who, in the midst of an economic crisis eerily similar to our own, took to the street banging pots and pans. They shouted, "¡Que se vayan todos!" ("All of them must go!") and forced out a procession of four presidents in less than three weeks. What made Argentina's 2001-02 uprising unique was that it wasn't directed at a particular political party or even at corruption in the abstract. The target was the dominant economic model--this was the first national revolt against contemporary deregulated capitalism.

It's taken a while, but from Iceland to Latvia, South Korea to Greece, the rest of the world is finally having its ¡Que se vayan todos! moment.

Similar demands can be heard these days in Latvia, whose economy has contracted more sharply than any country in the EU, and where the government is teetering on the brink. For weeks the capital has been rocked by protests, including a full-blown, cobblestone-hurling riot on January 13. As in Iceland, Latvians are appalled by their leaders' refusal to take any responsibility for the mess. Asked by Bloomberg TV what caused the crisis, Latvia's finance minister shrugged: "Nothing special."

But Latvia's troubles are indeed special: the very policies that allowed the "Baltic Tiger" to grow at a rate of 12 percent in 2006 are also causing it to contract violently by a projected 10 percent this year: money, freed of all barriers, flows out as quickly as it flows in, with plenty being diverted to political pockets. (It is no coincidence that many of today's basket cases are yesterday's "miracles": Ireland, Estonia, Iceland, Latvia.)

Perhaps the sturdiest thread connecting this global backlash is a rejection of the logic of "extraordinary politics"--the phrase coined by Polish politician Leszek Balcerowicz to describe how, in a crisis, politicians can ignore legislative rules and rush through unpopular "reforms." That trick is getting tired, as South Korea's government recently discovered. In December, the ruling party tried to use the crisis to ram through a highly controversial free trade agreement with the United States. Taking closed-door politics to new extremes, legislators locked themselves in the chamber so they could vote in private, barricading the door with desks, chairs and couches.

Opposition politicians were having none of it: with sledgehammers and an electric saw, they broke in and staged a twelve-day sit-in of Parliament. The vote was delayed, allowing for more debate--a victory for a new kind of "extraordinary politics."

Here in Canada, politics is markedly less YouTube-friendly--but it has still been surprisingly eventful. In October the Conservative Party won national elections on an unambitious platform. Six weeks later, our Tory prime minister found his inner ideologue, presenting a budget bill that stripped public sector workers of the right to strike, canceled public funding for political parties and contained no economic stimulus. Opposition parties responded by forming a historic coalition that was only prevented from taking power by an abrupt suspension of Parliament. The Tories have just come back with a revised budget: the pet right-wing policies have disappeared, and it is packed with economic stimulus.

The pattern is clear: governments that respond to a crisis created by free-market ideology with an acceleration of that same discredited agenda will not survive to tell the tale. As Italy's students have taken to shouting in the streets: "We won't pay for your crisis!"



Excerpted, full article

http://www.naomiklein.org/articles/2009/02/all-them-must-go
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DigitalDave said:
Cypress, please join us on the WaMu threads. I would like to get your stance on government regulation there.
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What the heck is a Wamu? I’ll try to find the thread when I get a chance!


Can't make any promises. I’ve been hella busy working on new regulatory proposals that I have to present to a State commission for consideration. :burn:

So, I’m walking the walk, man!
 
My argument is going to be basically this cypress. Who do we put in charge of regulation, when the people in charge now are the one's conducting the bad business practices? When federal regulators sit in the pockets of big business, there really is no 'free market'. It's who has the most influence in government that ends up winning. In this case, the banking industry had JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs. Both have powerful connections in government. Both come out of this much much stronger than they were before.

Government ended up passing the TARP funds after the seizure of Washington Mutual, but were expected to pass it before. Once things started moving slowly, they seized Washington Mutual to create panic. It worked, and TARP was passed in the coming weeks. The whole house of cards started tumbling, and it started with government regulation not only neglecting their duty, but because they FORCED it. They didn't just ignore the financial crisis, they were key in creating it. So now, we have the courts trying to filter through all the information and evidence. But it's clear what happened to anyone paying attention, it's just sad that no one is actually watching. So, who is going to regulate the regulators? Do we just give them more power and allow them to do anything they want, trusting that they know what they are doing?
 
DigitalDave said:
My argument is going to be basically this cypress. Who do we put in charge of regulation, when the people in charge now are the one's conducting the bad business practices? When federal regulators sit in the pockets of big business, there really is no 'free market'. It's who has the most influence in government that ends up winning. In this case, the banking industry had JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs. Both have powerful connections in government. Both come out of this much much stronger than they were before.

Government ended up passing the TARP funds after the seizure of Washington Mutual, but were expected to pass it before. Once things started moving slowly, they seized Washington Mutual to create panic. It worked, and TARP was passed in the coming weeks. The whole house of cards started tumbling, and it started with government regulation not only neglecting their duty, but because they FORCED it. They didn't just ignore the financial crisis, they were key in creating it. So now, we have the courts trying to filter through all the information and evidence. But it's clear what happened to anyone paying attention, it's just sad that no one is actually watching. So, who is going to regulate the regulators? Do we just give them more power and allow them to do anything they want, trusting that they know what they are doing?
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Good point, and I don't wholly disagree on principle.

The problem, IMO, is when you have a government that is bought by corporate interests. Regulation, in and of themselves, can be either good or bad.

The standard that sane people should apply, is whether regulation serve the public interest.

There is Zero doubt, that the goal of the corporatists since the 1930s, and especially since Reagan was elected, is to roll back the New Deal regulatory reforms on banking, labor, and finance. And most of the extreme wingnuts want to even roll back the modest reforms of TR.

And, if they can't roll back the New Deal in broad daylight and in the full view of public scrutiny, at a minimum, they want to game the system to benefit wealth and capital.

Which is why its imperative to have public financing of elections; to remove the legalized bribery that corporate interests now have access to.


I will try to visit you thread, thanks for the link.
 
Cypress said:
Good point, and I don't wholly disagree on principle.

The problem, IMO, is when you have a government that is bought by corporate interests. Regulation, in and of themselves, can be either good or bad.

The standard that sane people should apply, is whether regulation serve the public interest.

There is Zero doubt, that the goal of the corporatists since the 1930s, and especially since Reagan was elected, is to roll back the New Deal regulatory reforms on banking, labor, and finance. And most of the extreme wingnuts want to even roll back the modest reforms of TR.

And, if they can't roll back the New Deal in broad daylight and in the full view of public scrutiny, at a minimum, they want to game the system to benefit wealth and capital.

Which is why its imperative to have public financing of elections; to remove the legalized bribery that corporate interests now have access to.


I will try to visit you thread, thanks for the link.
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Funny, but wasn't it Clinton who killed the Glass Steagall Act? Not Reagan.

That said, I agree 100% on the public financing of elections. The whole concept that money=free speech is absurd. Especially with the technology that exists today.
 
Superfreak said:
Funny, but wasn't it Clinton who killed the Glass Steagall Act? Not Reagan.

That said, I agree 100% on the public financing of elections. The whole concept that money=free speech is absurd. Especially with the technology that exists today.
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I didn't say anything about Democrats or republicans.

I said that corporatists, and their paid-off puppets try to game the system, or weaking the New Deal reforms on banking and finance.

I consider Clinton to be a bought off puppet of corporate interests, only to a nominally lessor degree than the GOP puppets.
 
Topspin said:
And you deserve to, most of us don't have time to follow bankrupt companies on the long shot that they come out profitable for the shareholder.
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We didn't have to follow it, there was somebody bringing us the information. When opportunity knocks do you answer or hide in the other room hoping that "salesman" will go away?
 
buy it up I hope you make millions.
I kept reading bankrupcy and somebody else's fault and excuse after excuse.
I don't do long shots, a lot of people with wealth focus starts to change to quality investmetns and protecting capital.
I do blue chips and some alt energy.
 
Topspin said:
buy it up I hope you make millions.
I kept reading bankrupcy and somebody else's fault and excuse after excuse.
I don't do long shots, a lot of people with wealth focus starts to change to quality investmetns and protecting capital.
I do blue chips and some alt energy.
Click to expand...
I do both a buy and hold and bottom feeding strategy. The one that makes me money is the bottom feeding, the one that protects my assets is the buy and hold. Of course, companies are not my only investment in buy and hold, in fact at times they aren't even the main investment in that area of the portfolio. Companies are not always the best place to keep your money when your goal is to protect principal.
 
Topspin said:
And you deserve to, most of us don't have time to follow bankrupt companies on the long shot that they come out profitable for the shareholder.
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All I did was take some money that otherwise might have been spent in Vegas and placed it on this after reading a compelling argument for WaMu. The more I read, the more I think WaMu is going to come away with a settlement. Just my opinion.

Disclaimer: For anyone reading this, despite my beliefs this stock should still be treated as a hero or zero. Meaning you have to understand if a settlement is not reached your money will be gone. The risk is very very high for any bankrupt companies stock. Due your DD and decide for yourselves. But I strongly recommend you do not invest a large portion of your assets into this stock. Mine is less than 1% of my portfolio....and I am very very positive on the stock.... I will not put more in... that should tell you how risky it is.
 
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