Laissez Faire Capitalism Sucks--Arianna Huffington

Laissez Faire Capitalism Sucks--Arianna Huffington

CURRENT DEPRESSION

Laissez-faire Capitalism died in the 1930’s only to be born again after WWII. It took 63 years for the wealthy capitalists to undo the controls set up during the 30s, of which the most important where laws designed to protect the right of labor to organize, regulations that made the air-waves a public trust rather than a corporate tool, and regulations of banking. Sound economic growth is primarily built upon the increasing buying power of the masses and to a less extent by a favorable balance of trade. Capitalism is about maximizing profits, thus it wants to roll back wages and benefits, and it will outsource production for the sake of greater profits. In 1920s, the effect of declining income was masked by easing of credit requirements. In 1929 the sustainable debt limit was passed. “During the two months before the stock-market crash, production declined at an annual rate of 20 percent, wholesale prices at a rate of 7.5 percent, and personal income at a rate of 5 percent—the first major symptoms of the virulence to come.” (T.H. Watkins, The Great Depression, p. 47). We have drifted into a second age of robber barons and history has repeated itself. For more on the evil of neoconservatism and robber barons go to http://skeptically.org/wto/id13.html

Laissez-faire capitalism should be as dead as soviet communism

Arianna Huffington, December 22, 2008 at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/laissez-faire-capitalism_b_152900.html

The collapse of Communism as a political system sounded the death knell for Marxism as an ideology. But while laissez-faire capitalism has been a monumental failure in practice, and soundly defeated at the polls, the ideology is still alive and kicking. The only place you can find an American Marxist these days is teaching a college linguistic theory class. But you can find all manner of free-market fundamentalists still on the Senate floor or in Governor's mansions or showing up on TV trying to peddle the deregulation snake oil {and on talk radio}.

Take Sen. John Ensign, chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, who went on Face the Nation and, with a straight face, said of the economic meltdown: "Unfortunately, it was allowed to be portrayed that this was a result of deregulation, when in fact it was a result of overregulation." Or Gov. Mark Sanford, who told Joe Scarborough he was against bailing out the auto industry because it would "threaten the very market-based system that has created the wealth that this country has enjoyed." If a politician announced he was running on a platform of "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need" he would be laughed off the stage. That is also the correct response to anyone who continues to make the case that markets do best when left alone.

It's time to drive the final nail into the coffin of laissez-faire capitalism by treating it like the discredited ideology it inarguably is. If not, the Dr. Frankensteins of the right will surely try to revive the monster and send it marauding through our economy once again. We've only just begun to bury the financially dead, and the free market fundamentalists are already looking to deflect the blame.

In a comprehensive piece on what led to the mortgage crisis and the subsequent financial meltdown, the New York Times shows how the Bush administration's devotion to unregulated markets was a primary cause of our economy to ruin. But the otherwise fascinating piece puts too much focus on the "mistakes" the Bush team made by not paying attention to the warning signs popping up all around them.

"There is no question we did not recognize the severity of the problems," claimed Al Hubbard, Bush's former chief economic adviser. "Had we, we would have attacked them." But the mistake wasn't in not recognizing the "severity of the problems" -- the mistake was the ideology that led to the problems. Communism didn't fail because Soviet leaders didn't execute it well enough; the same with free market fundamentalism. In fact, Bush and his team did a bang-up job executing a defective theory. The problem wasn't just the bathwater; the baby itself is rotten to the core.

William Seidman, the longtime GOP economic advisor who oversaw the S&L bailout in 1991, cuts to the chase: "This administration made decisions that allowed the free market to operate as a barroom brawl instead of a prize fight. To make the market work well, you have to have a lot of rules."

Even Alan Greenspan, whose owl-eyed visage would adorn a Mount Rushmore of unregulated capitalists, has begun to see the light, telling a House committee in October that he "made a mistake in presuming that the self-interests of organizations, specifically banks and others, were such that they were best capable of protecting their own shareholders and their equity in the firms."

But most Republicans are still refusing to see what's right in front of them. Especially Bush, our CEO President, who lays the blame not on the failures of the marketplace but on past administrations and corporate greed. "Wall Street got drunk," he says. Maybe so, but who made the last 8 years Happy Hour, and kept serving up the drinks?

Last week, Ben Smith reported that the GOP was launching "a new, in-house think tank aimed at reviving the party's policy heft." In a private memo explaining the think tank, RNC chairman Mike Duncan wrote: "We must show how our ideology can be applied to solve problems." But, of course, it's that very ideology that's causing the problems. It's like the old horror movie cliché: "We've traced the call -- it's coming from inside the house!"

We've got to do everything we can to make sure there will be no sequels to this political horror. The blame shifters cannot be allowed to make their case without the truth being pointed out at every turn. It's time to relegate free market fundamentalists to the same standing as Marxist ideologues: intellectual curiosities occasionally trotted out as relics of a failed philosophy.

But until we regulate the airwaves, we will hear more free market spin, and very little on-the point economic analysis. And when we do, it will be contradicted by a freemarketeer. Right now the production of ideas is corporate property--jk.


	Enter supporting content here For the best account of the Federal Reserve (http://www.freedocumentaries.org/film.php?id=214). One cannot understand U.S. politics, U.S. foreign policy, or the world-wide economic crisis unless one understands the role of the Federal Reserve Bank and its role in the financialization phenomena. The same sort of national-banking relationships as in our country also exists in Japan and most of Europe. A democracy exists whenever those who are free and poor are in sovereign control of the government; an oligarchy when the control lies in the hands of the rich and better born.”—Aristotle “All for ourselves, and nothing for anybody else,” Adam Smith called this the vile maximum of the masters of mankind. Neoliberals call it, “trickle-down economics.”
In 1963, John F. Kennedy issued Executive Order 11110 which would have removed the power of money creation from all US private banks, including the privately-owned Federal Reserve, and invested that power in the US Government. Unfortunately, Kennedy died suddenly a few weeks later and his plans died with him. * The Problems of Debt In the USA 100% of the money supply is created by the private banks. In Britain the figure is over 97%. In the rest of the world, the figure is estimated to be over 95%. All this money is created as a debt. It is created when people borrow money, as banks do not lend existing money; they just create new money out of thin air to lend. Money created as a debt by the banks bears a charge of interest. This increases the amount of money that the economy owes by an amount greater than the amount in existence. This means that the economy is a saddled with a debt that can never be paid off, merely passed around like a game of Pass-the-Parcel in a Belfast pub. It is like a game of musical chairs, where someone has to lose out. * A Solution Money does not have to be based on debt, nor indeed does it have to be based on precious metals. Real wealth is the goods and services that people create for each other. Money is merely a means of exchange. It could be created by HM Treasury and spent on providing public services, saving us all a modicum of taxation, and then the economy would not have to be saddled with large debts. Executive Order 11110 issued by John F. Kennedy on June 4^th 1963, from Wikipedia This executive order allows the U.S. Secretary of the Treasury to issue $4.29 billion in silver certificates ($2 and $5 Notes) against silver bullion based on authority delegated by the President to the Secretary under the Thomas Amendment to the Agricultural Adjustment Act. Silver certificates were printed without interest. The Order was for the Treasury to issue silver certificates against all silver held by the government which did not already have certificates against it. The Order was needed due to the passage of Public Law 88-36 which repealed the Silver Purchase Act and other related monetary measures. One result was that after the repeals, only the President could issue new silver certificates. The Federal Reserve System could replace the certificates, but only in larger denominations. The thrust of the Order returned the authority to issue new silver certificates (and specify denominations) back to the U.S. Treasury. This theory was further explored by U.S. Marine sniper and veteran police officer Craig Roberts in the 1994 book, Kill Zone.^[28] Roberts theorized that the Executive Order was the beginning of a plan by Kennedy whose ultimate goal was to permanently do away with the United States Federal Reserve, and that Kennedy was murdered by a cabal of international bankers determined to foil this plan. [jk finds this the most plausible of a dozen theories. Kennedy had expressed extreme frustration of the Bay of Pigs failure and other issues with the CIA. But it is hard to believe that the CIA would on its own, for to protect its power structure, kill the President.] This executive order allowed for the Federal Reserve System to distribute and exchange currency at lower denominations that met the growing economic need. The authoritative basis for the Order was substantially nullified in 1982 with the passage of Public Law 97-258. The Order was never directly reversed, but in 1987, Executive Order 12608 [by Ronald Reagan] revoked the section that added by Executive Order 11110^[1], essentially nullifying it. Kennedy was killed by more than one shooter, and from 2 directions. See Wikipedia Kennedy assassination conspiracy theories. 1) Former U.S. Marine sniper Craig Roberts and Gunnery Sergeant Carlos Hathcock, who was the senior instructor for the U.S. Marine Corps Sniper Instructor School at Marine Corps Base Quantico in Quantico, Virginia, both said it could not be done as described by the FBI investigators. “Let me tell you what we did at Quantico,” Hathcock said. “We reconstructed the whole thing: the angle, the range, the moving target, the time limit, the obstacles, everything. I don’t know how many times we tried it, but we couldn’t duplicate what the Warren Commission said Oswald did. Now if I can’t do it, how in the world could a guy who was a non-qual on the rifle range and later only qualified 'marksman' do it?”^[13] 2) Robert McClelland, a physician in the emergency room who observed the head wound, testified that the back right part of the head was blown out with posterior cerebral tissue and some of the cerebellar tissue was missing. The size of the back head wound, according to his description, indicated it was an exit wound, and that a second shooter from the front delivered the fatal head shot.^[11] 3) Kennedy's death certificate located the bullet at the third thoracic vertebra — which is too low to have exited his throat.^[14] Moreover, the bullet was traveling downward, since the shooter was by a sixth floor window. The autopsy cover sheet had a diagram of a body showing this same low placement at the third thoracic vertebra. The hole in back of Kennedy's shirt and jacket are also claimed to support a wound too low to be consistent with the Single Bullet Theory.^[15][16] These three facts are sufficient to prove that the Warren commission was a high-level cover-up Books The Secrets of the Federal Reserve - Eustace Mullins The Creature from Jekyll Island - the Federal Reserve - G. Edward Griffin Web of Debt - The Shocking Truth About Our Money System - Ellen Hodgson Brown The Case Against the Fed - Murray N. Rothbard Naked Capitalist, The - W. Cleon Skousen Wall Street and the Rise of Hitler - Anthony Sutton A History of Money and Banking in the United States - Murray N. Rothbard excerpts from the book 'Tragedy and Hope' - A History of the World in Our Time by Carroll Quigley, 1966 Articles Follow the Money to Citibank Dirty Laundry-Multinational banks as bagmen for global crime syndicates U.S. Banks and the Dirty Money Empire Shell Game - Citibank attacks money-laundering regulations Explosive Revelations - banks, tax havens, and money laundering Servicing Citi's Interests - GATS and the Bid to Remove Barriers to Financial Firm GIobalization Give Us 0.01 Percent - Tobin tax The Federal Reserve (6/06) Confessions of a banker - Following money trail through offshore operations of Citibank (8/06) Federal Reserve Bank (3/07) Credit as a Public Utility: the Key to Monetary Reform (5/07) Who Owns The Federal Reserve? (10/08) What Banks, Academics, the Media and Politicians Don't Tell You About Money - November 2008 The Federal Reserve Abolition Act (12/08) Ground Zero on Wall Street - Nationalize Federal Reserve (12/08) The Wall Street Ponzi Scheme called "Fractional Reserve" Banking (12/08) Nationalize the Federal Reserve - "American Monetary Act" (2/09) President Obama: Nationalize the Fed and Create Our Own Money (2/09) A New Monetary System (3/09) Thinking Positively About Monetary Policy - Nationalizing the Federal Reserve (3/09) The Big Takeover - how Wall Street insiders are using the bailout to stage a revolution (4/09) Revive Lincoln's Monetary Policy - an open letter to President Obama (4/09) Top Senate Democrat: Bankers 'Own' the US Congress (5/09) The Weimar Hyperinflation? Could it Happen Again? (5/09) Manipulation: How Markets Really Work (5/09) Ending Today's Economic Crisis Simply and Easily, in America and Globally (5/09) What the Big Banks Have Won [Wall Street Bailout] (6/09) Great American Bubble Machine - Goldman Sachs & market manipulation (7/09) Teddy Roosevelt's advice that, "We must drive the special interests out of politics. The citizens of the United States must effectively control the mighty commercial forces which they have themselves called into being. There can be no effective control of corporations while their political activity remains."

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The Problems of Debt

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A Solution

Kennedy was killed by more than one shooter, and from 2 directions. See Wikipedia Kennedy assassination conspiracy theories.

Books

excerpts from the book 'Tragedy and Hope' - A History of the World in Our Time by Carroll Quigley, 1966

Articles