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Post by danreller on Mar 12, 2012 19:20:23 GMT -6
Stated as best I've heard it. This in a nutshell is the biggest problem with America. 32 min of excellent video!
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Post by unlawflcombatnt on Mar 13, 2012 11:25:24 GMT -6
Thanks, danreller.
It looks like a good one. I haven't had time to listen to it yet.
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Post by unlawflcombatnt on Mar 17, 2012 10:57:13 GMT -6
Everyone should try to watch this one.
Stockman believed that the 2008 crash was a correction that was long overdue, and that we should not have bailed out the banks. He indicates Americans were mislead into believing the economy would fall into a big black hole if we hadn't bailed out Wall Street and the banks.
This was NOT true. Again, the correction was absolutely necessary and should have been allowed to take it's natural course (which is exactly what economists like Michael Hudson have said).
It would not have led to another Great Depression nor bank runs--that's what we have the FDIC.
Stockman notes that the "rules of the free market are especially needed when losses occur."
My own interpretation of Stockman's earliest points:
The Government provides taxpayer-backing of banks thru the FDIC. If the Government is going to provide this version of Corporate Welfare, then it has every right to put conditions on that backing. And one of those conditions is that banks don't speculate with depositors money--the very same money that the Federal Government is insuring against losses.
If banks want to take excessive risks and gamble with their own money (i.e., not depositors money), that's their choice. But that money should not be insured by taxpayer-funding. That speculative money should have no Government/Taxpayer guarantee whatsoever.
Where the Government and the Fed screwed up in 2008 is that they retroactively insured failed speculative investments of banks, while having allowed banks to gamble with depositors money over the previous 9 years.
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Stockman notes that Obama appointed the very same people that caused the problem to begin with--Bernanke, Geithner, Summers, Rubin, et al.
Even worse, he appointed GE's bail-out recipient king Jeffrey Immelt to head his "jobs and competitiveness program." Not only had Immelt outsourced as many American jobs as humanly possible, he also speculated with GE's fund and faced disaster when the commercial paper market tanked. Immelt then requested (and received) and multi-billion $$ handout from the Treasury Dept. And this was without any type of Congressional approval.
Overall Stockman characterizes Corporate American as having an "entitlement mentality"-- a sense that they deserve all the money that they can possibly pilfer from taxpayers, whenever their speculative investments go bad.
And so far, they've received all the help they requested--and then some.
Stockman makes the very valid point that this is not the failure of free market capitalism. Rather, it is the replacement of free market capitalism with Crony Capitalism.
Capitalism without the possibility of failure or loss is not free market capitalism.
It is Crony Capitalism.
Or, as some of us would call it--Corporate Socialism.
Stockman's solution matches that of Dylan Ratigan: Forbid Corporate (& Plutocrat) campaign contributions. Limit contributions to $100/person. Pass a Constitutional Amendment, if necessary, to rectify the Supreme Court's ass-holy declaration that Corporations are people.
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