Our corporate overlords vow to bury populist candidates in a sea off cash

C

Cypress

Well-known member
Fighting the forces of progressive change for 150 years.......


Chamber of Commerce vows to punish anti-business candidates
AP

“We plan to build a grass-roots business organization so strong that when it bites you in the butt, you bleed,” chamber President Tom Donohue said. The group indicates it will spend in excess of the approximately $60 million it put out in the last presidential cycle.

By Tom Hamburger, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
January 8, 2008

WASHINGTON -- Alarmed at the increasingly populist tone of the 2008 political campaign, the president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is set to issue a fiery promise to spend millions of dollars to defeat candidates deemed to be anti-business.

"We plan to build a grass-roots business organization so strong that when it bites you in the butt, you bleed," chamber President Tom Donohue said.

The warning from the nation's largest trade association came against a background of mounting popular concern over the condition of the economy. A weak record of job creation, the sub-prime mortgage crisis, declining home values and other problems have all helped make the economy a major campaign issue.

Presidential candidates in particular have responded to the public concern. Former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina has been the bluntest populist voice, but other front-running Democrats, including Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York and Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois, have also called for change on behalf of middle-class voters.

On the Republican side, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee -- emerging as an unexpected front-runner after winning the Iowa caucuses -- has used populist themes in his effort to woo independent voters, blasting bonus pay for corporate chief executives and the effect of unfettered globalization on workers.

Reacting to what it sees as a potentially hostile political climate, Donohue said, the chamber will seek to punish candidates who target business interests with their rhetoric or policy proposals, including congressional and state-level candidates.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationw...,1,5346679.story?track=rss&ctrack=1&cset=true
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Cypress said:
Fighting the forces of progressive change for 150 years.......
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God Bless them. This loony economic rhetoric Huckabee and Edwards spout may sound good to the ill informed but in the real world is poison to the overall American economy.
 
cawacko said:
God Bless them. This loony economic rhetoric Huckabee and Edwards spout may sound good to the ill informed but in the real world is poison to the overall American economy.
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So you think NAFTA worked out well for americans at large? Interesting.
 
Cypress said:
So you think NAFTA worked out well for americans at large? Interesting.
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There are literally hundreds and hundreds of trade and other kind of deals made by the government and all you can go back to is NAFTA as if that is the only deal the government has ever negotiated.
 
cawacko said:
There are literally hundreds and hundreds of trade and other kind of deals made by the government and all you can go back to is NAFTA as if that is the only deal the government has ever negotiated.
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Yeah, WTO has been a real boon to america. And they screw over developing countries too.
 
Cypress said:
Yeah, WTO has been a real boon to america. And they screw over developing countries too.
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The days of the '50's and '60's where a guy could graduate high school and get a high paying job through the union at a steel mill are over. There is too much competition in the world now. Either we face it and compete in that space or try to hide and live in the past.

Capitalism and free markets do have create destruction. That is what has to led to American's having the highest standard of living on the planet and helped to spread more prosperity around the globe. Unfortunately with it comes a lot of upheavel and people have less secure jobs etc.

We are all free to support what we want but the choices are pretty clear.
 
cawacko said:
The days of the '50's and '60's where a guy could graduate high school and get a high paying job through the union at a steel mill are over. There is too much competition in the world now. Either we face it and compete in that space or try to hide and live in the past.

Capitalism and free markets do have create destruction. That is what has to led to American's having the highest standard of living on the planet and helped to spread more prosperity around the globe. Unfortunately with it comes a lot of upheavel and people have less secure jobs etc.

We are all free to support what we want but the choices are pretty clear.
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then why do many strong, euntrepeneurial countries like finland, sweden, and others continue to have strong labor unions, and a comfortable middle class lifestyle?
 
Cypress said:
then why do many strong, euntrepeneurial countries like finland, sweden, and others continue to have strong labor unions, and a comfortable middle class lifestyle?
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I don't follow their countries or their economies so I have no idea. But its pretty clear across the globe that countries that support property rights, the rule of law and have the most free markets are at the top of the economic ladder. The reason being it allows entrepreneurs the opportunity to take risks and from those risks come many of the tools, technologies etc. that we use on a daily basis.

Again, the idea that one is going to get in a union and work at the same job for 30 years until retirement is old school. The world has evolved.
 
cawacko said:
I don't follow their countries or their economies so I have no idea. But its pretty clear across the globe that countries that support property rights, the rule of law and have the most free markets are at the top of the economic ladder. The reason being it allows entrepreneurs the opportunity to take risks and from those risks come many of the tools, technologies etc. that we use on a daily basis.

Again, the idea that one is going to get in a union and work at the same job for 30 years until retirement is old school. The world has evolved.
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You can have free market, strong unions, and a decent social democratic welfare state, and be successful. There are numerous and ample examples.

You won't find one successful example of a "property rights" state that implements the policies of traditional american economic libertarians, like Ron Paul.
 
Cypress said:
You can have free market, strong unions, and a decent social democratic welfare state, and be successful. There are numerous and ample examples.

You won't find one successful example of a "property rights" state that implements the policies of traditional american economic libertarians, like Ron Paul.
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I'm not even talking about going as far as what Ron Paul would like. Look at what America has today. It is on top of the economic world. Western Europe's growth has definitely slowed and Eastern Europe is trying to overcome the shackles of its centrally planned economy.

China has finally opened up its economy, though it refuses to admit it, and could pass the U.S. later in this century. It has had tremendous, albeit risky, gowth the past couple of decades. India has opened its economy some and large numbers of people are moving into the middle class. Latin America is still stuck in populist policies and is experiencing minimal growth in standards of living.

It's not about living a full economic libertarians dream but the real world results of property rights, rule of law and freer markets speaks for itself.
 
It's always non business types whinning about this stuff.
It's why Edwards is done, Americans like corporations and the highest world standard of living they bring us. Yes the next dem should beef up the SEC and reign in the CEO'S and corp boards. But we're too smart to throw the baby out with the bathwater.
 
cawacko said:
The days of the '50's and '60's where a guy could graduate high school and get a high paying job through the union at a steel mill are over. There is too much competition in the world now. Either we face it and compete in that space or try to hide and live in the past.

Capitalism and free markets do have create destruction. That is what has to led to American's having the highest standard of living on the planet and helped to spread more prosperity around the globe. Unfortunately with it comes a lot of upheavel and people have less secure jobs etc.

We are all free to support what we want but the choices are pretty clear.
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But now with the recent "moral innovation" of allowing slave goods into international markets it has become a race to the bottom. How can free people compete with slaves, ever? You're morally repugnant and anti-american.
 
the anit-business twit Edwards was soundly repudiated twice.
He's spending his money now to hear the downtroden chear for him. Its a pity
 
cawacko said:
I'm not even talking about going as far as what Ron Paul would like. Look at what America has today. It is on top of the economic world. Western Europe's growth has definitely slowed and Eastern Europe is trying to overcome the shackles of its centrally planned economy.

China has finally opened up its economy, though it refuses to admit it, and could pass the U.S. later in this century. It has had tremendous, albeit risky, gowth the past couple of decades. India has opened its economy some and large numbers of people are moving into the middle class. Latin America is still stuck in populist policies and is experiencing minimal growth in standards of living.

It's not about living a full economic libertarians dream but the real world results of property rights, rule of law and freer markets speaks for itself.
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Cawacko, please tell me your not citing China as an example of economic growth we should admire or emulate. This is what David Brooks and Tom Friedman do.

china is an authoritarians dictatorship, for god's sake. They are not a free market. Although, they do use some free market principles. But, its not a meritocracy, not a democracy, and its not a free and fair free market economy.

I'll live in Sweden with 4% economic growth, long before I admire or live in china with their 10% growth.
 
Young Libertarian said:
Definition?
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A free market consists of capital and labor right?

First, how are china's labor and consumer rights and protections? Shitty.

Secondly, while I'm not an expert on china, is their free market based on a level playing field where the best people and ideas succeed - a meritocracy, in effect? Or, is it rife with corruption, and people with the best connections to communist party leaders get the contracts, get the rewards, and get a leg up on everyone else?
 
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