Capitalism vs Corporatism

[konradv]

List of recessions in the United States - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

now study this very long list and see how often we had recessions in this country.

What happened after Glass Steagal was put in place

As , indicated everyone of them was caused by the federal government intervening in the economy.

Before the Federal Reserve Board depressions were small and limited to a specific industry or geographic location.

Now depressions have nationwide effect and are prolonged.

Hardly, the Panic of 1893 was nationwide and lasted 5+ years.

Panic of 1893 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[Contumacious]

List of recessions in the United States - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

now study this very long list and see how often we had recessions in this country.

What happened after Glass Steagal was put in place

As , indicated everyone of them was caused by the federal government intervening in the economy.

Before the Federal Reserve Board depressions were small and limited to a specific industry or geographic location.

Now depressions have nationwide effect and are prolonged.

Hardly, the Panic of 1893 was nationwide and lasted 5+ years.

]Panic of 1893 [/B]- Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Panic of 1893



Fears about the American gold standard were intensified in March 1891, when the Treasury suddenly imposed a stiff fee on the export of gold bars taken from its vaults so that most gold exported from then on was American gold coin rather than bars. A shock went through the financial community, in the U.S. and abroad, when the United States Senate passed a free-silver coinage bill in July 1892; the fact that the bill went no further was not enough to restore confidence in the gold standard. Banks began to insert clauses in loans and mortgages requiring payment in gold coin; clearly the dollar was no longer trusted. Gold exports intensified in 1892, the Treasury’s gold reserve declined, and a run ensued on the U.S. Treasury. In February 1893, the Treasury persuaded New York banks, which had drawn down $6 million on gold from the Treasury by presenting Treasury notes for redemption, to return the gold and reacquire the paper. This act of desperation was scarcely calculated to restore confidence in the paper dollar. The Treasury was paying the price for specie resumption without bothering to contract the paper notes in circulation. The gold standard was therefore inherently shaky, resting only on public confidence, and that was giving way under the silver agitation and under desperate acts by the Treasury.[2]

Re-stating, all our depressions and economic downturns have been cause by the continuing criminal enterprise known as the federal government.

.

 

[Truthmatters]

Ther economic facts are that unfettered markets have never produce a large middle class.

PROVE THEY HAVE!

 

[Truthmatters]

No Glass Steagal = great depression

Glass Steagal removed = the great recesion.

Its no a coincidence

Yep, the repeal of Glass Steagall was a BAD idea, and unraveling that mess may not be possible.

Way to go, D.C....

I wonder how that happened? Couldn't be that banks were making huge campaign contributions, could it?

Yeap

The guy who wrote the bill to repeal the last of it (phil gramm) left congress and went to work with UBS for a huge paycheck right after it was signed.

 

[TakeAStepBack]

:yawn:

It's as if people believe if they repeat the same thing over and over, it will some how become true. Yes, public campaign finance reform laws will stop corporations from buying politicians because OF COURSE! we have judges and prosecutors and jails! And politicians and large corporate donators caught in misconduct and scandals ALWAYS go to jail! See!

treating a symptom of the disease will not cure the disease. Keep table pounding.

 

[dblack]

Some of us have been saying it since OWS chums came along drooling and droning on about capitalism is the problem. Good article.

Yup... definitely not news, but always worth discussion.

In my view the tacit support of corporatism, from both major parties, is the most distressing feature of the current political landscape. Corporatism is fundamentally anti-democratic. It replaces the rule of law with what the OP article refers to as the "managerial state". We're turning away from egalitarian rule-making, to government that acts primarily as a power broker - deciding who will be "more equal" and who less so.

Still whining I see. It's time to get angry and really push for public financing of elections. Where's the solution beyond that? I don't see human nature changing, so the only option, IMO, is to REALLY change the game. Don't like corporatism? Don't make it easy for them to bribe our representitives.

I see. The solution to bad government is to let government decide who gets to run for office. ?? No thanks.

 

[Contumacious]

Ther economic facts are that unfettered markets have never produce a large middle class.

PROVE THEY HAVE!

HUH?

What the fuck does unfettered markets have to do with large " middle classes"?!?!?

.

 

[TakeAStepBack]

She just rambles and has a nat sized brain of understanding economics. She isn't alone either.

 

[amrchaos]

I don't understand your disconnect between GOVERNMENT regulating and subsidizing in favor of those who pay to play. If a politician is taking tons of money to give concessions to an industry that the politician can NOT grant them, why would they give them the money?

For what purpose? That's the whole point. Govt. has no role in dictating the market except for exactly what we see now; corporatism. They may better define laws in order to protect our rights and our private property. Once they start pickign who gets what based on the money they provide, the game is rigged.

Finally, something that makes sense. The game IS rigged, hence my call for public financing. They don't give money to just one politician, but to many on both sides of the aisle. That's why so many say there's no difference between the parties, they've both been co-opted by the way we finance elections.

Tell me something.

Would not public financing limit the number of people that can run?

I always assumed it would and tended not to support it. Power will consolidate in the hands that prove themselves "eligible" for financing, and the question then becomes who is eligible. Memebers of the major Parties? Third Party candidates that is assumed by many pundits not to have a chance. Or can the TEA and CUPCAKES coalition gain equal funding?


I do not know what system is best for campaign financing, but it is ovious that the GOP are suffering from a case of too much money too burn in their nomination process. Add to this the fact that one of the least funded candidate, Santorum, is able to win states against Romney, it becomes apparent that too much money is not the issue. How the money is spent is.

 

[Mr.Nick]

.

Yeah, this is a problem, and an underestimated problem at that. Corporatism has so badly bastardized capitalism that it has opened the door nice and wide for anti-capitalists to scream "See? Capitalism doesn't work!", as if this were capitalism. Corporatism has made capitalism terribly vulnerable, and we're at a tipping point.

And as far as editec's comment above about how both parties are involved, I couldn't agree more. I'd think the GOP has more to worry about here, since they're the party that (1) is more identified with corporations and (2) is more likely to be viewed as their apologists.

Those who are against REAL capitalism are licking their chops right now, guaranteed.

Yet another self-inflicted wound.

.

Well this is what happens when we allow our government to get involved in our economy..

Corporatism or corporate fascism wouldn't exist under a true Austrian School model...

Today it seems politicians just handout favors to the highest bidder (campaign funds/votes).. Thats why we had bailouts and programs like Cash For Clunkers - or even Obama playing grab-ass with GE while he demanded certain lightbulbs be banned.

Government needs to stay the fuck out of our economy...

Quite frankly I believe those in power who hate capitalism are doing everything in their power to destroy the model while they gain from it in the process.

The Cloward-Piven strategy is very much real....

The notion that everyone in office today is some benevolent capitalist is loonacy..

 

[konradv]

:yawn:

It's as if people believe if they repeat the same thing over and over, it will some how become true. Yes, public campaign finance reform laws will stop corporations from buying politicians because OF COURSE! we have judges and prosecutors and jails! And politicians and large corporate donators caught in misconduct and scandals ALWAYS go to jail! See!

treating a symptom of the disease will not cure the disease. Keep table pounding.

But you offer no cure either. If the thought of going to jail won't bother the politicians, that's their concern. They and you will just have to be proven wrong. This isn't about thinking all bad actors will be rooted out, just that it wouldn't be allowed as a matter of course. You seem to have given up. Why should we listen?

 

[konradv]

.

Yeah, this is a problem, and an underestimated problem at that. Corporatism has so badly bastardized capitalism that it has opened the door nice and wide for anti-capitalists to scream "See? Capitalism doesn't work!", as if this were capitalism. Corporatism has made capitalism terribly vulnerable, and we're at a tipping point.

And as far as editec's comment above about how both parties are involved, I couldn't agree more. I'd think the GOP has more to worry about here, since they're the party that (1) is more identified with corporations and (2) is more likely to be viewed as their apologists.

Those who are against REAL capitalism are licking their chops right now, guaranteed.

Yet another self-inflicted wound.

.

Well this is what happens when we allow our government to get involved in our economy..

Corporatism or corporate fascism wouldn't exist under a true Austrian School model...

Today it seems politicians just handout favors to the highest bidder (campaign funds/votes).. Thats why we had bailouts and programs like Cash For Clunkers - or even Obama playing grab-ass with GE while he demanded certain lightbulbs be banned.

Government needs to stay the fuck out of our economy...

Quite frankly I believe those in power who hate capitalism are doing everything in their power to destroy the model while they gain from it in the process.

The Cloward-Piven strategy is very much real....

The notion that everyone in office today is some benevolent capitalist is loonacy..

So, wouldn't public financing cure most of that? If our representitives aren't going hat-in-hand to big donors, they won't have as many expensive promises to keep, saving us money in the long run.

 

[sealybobo]

Corporations have been trying to take over our Democracy for a long time now: The Railroad Barons Are Back - And This Time They'll Finish the Job

The corporations first tried to infiltrate the halls of government in the early years after the Civil War.

Although their misbehaviors with the Grant administration and Congress were exposed, the robber barons of the era were successful in a coup against the Supreme Court. Sound familiar? Citizens United!

However, the Supreme Court refused to rule that corporations were persons in the same category as humans. It wasn't until GW Bush appointed Alito & Roberts would the corporations finally get their wish.

From the founding of the United States, until Bush, Alito and Roberts, corporations never had the rights of humans. Rights were the sole province of humans.

As the father of the Constitution, President James Madison, wrote, "There is an evil which ought to be guarded against in the indefinite accumulation of property from the capacity of holding it in perpetuity by... corporations. The power of all corporations ought to be limited in this respect. The growing wealth acquired by them never fails to be a source of abuses."

Early state laws (and, later, federal anti-trust laws) forbade corporations from owning other corporations, particularly in the media. In 1999 the GOP got Clinton to go along with deregulating the media. Now 7 corporations own all the media. How come the tea baggers don't talk about this? They love talking about the founding fathers.

Politicians who believed in republican democracy were alarmed by the possibility of a new feudalism, a state run by and to the benefit of powerful private interests.

President Andrew Jackson, in a speech to Congress, asked "whether the people of the United States are to govern through votes or whether the money and power of a great corporation are to be secretly exerted to influence their judgment and control their decisions."

And the president who followed him, Martin Van Buren, "I am more than ever convinced of the dangers to which the free and unbiased exercise of political opinion - the only sure foundation and safeguard of republican government - would be exposed by any further increase of the already overgrown influence of corporate authorities."

"As a result of the war," Lincoln continued, "corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed. I feel at this moment more anxiety than ever before, even in the midst of war. God grant that my suspicions may prove groundless." Lincoln held the largest corporations - the railroads - at bay until his assassination.

On December 3, 1888, President Grover Cleveland delivered his annual address to Congress. "As we view the achievements of aggregated capital, we discover the existence of trusts, combinations, and monopolies, while the citizen is struggling far in the rear or is trampled to death beneath an iron heel. Corporations, which should be the carefully restrained creatures of the law and the servants of the people, are fast becoming the people's masters."

Theodore Roosevelt looked at this situation and bluntly said, in April of 1906, "Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people. To destroy this invisible government, to befoul the unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics is the first task of the statesmanship of the day."

The GOP is set to complete what the railroad barons pushed the Grant administration to start: to take democracy and its institutions of governance from the hands of the human citizen/voters the Founders fought and died for, and give it to the very types of monopolistic corporations the Founders fought against when they led the Tea Party revolt against the East India Company in Boston Harbor in 1773.

 

[sealybobo]

.

Yeah, this is a problem, and an underestimated problem at that. Corporatism has so badly bastardized capitalism that it has opened the door nice and wide for anti-capitalists to scream "See? Capitalism doesn't work!", as if this were capitalism. Corporatism has made capitalism terribly vulnerable, and we're at a tipping point.

And as far as editec's comment above about how both parties are involved, I couldn't agree more. I'd think the GOP has more to worry about here, since they're the party that (1) is more identified with corporations and (2) is more likely to be viewed as their apologists.

Those who are against REAL capitalism are licking their chops right now, guaranteed.

Yet another self-inflicted wound.

.

Well this is what happens when we allow our government to get involved in our economy..

Corporatism or corporate fascism wouldn't exist under a true Austrian School model...

Today it seems politicians just handout favors to the highest bidder (campaign funds/votes).. Thats why we had bailouts and programs like Cash For Clunkers - or even Obama playing grab-ass with GE while he demanded certain lightbulbs be banned.

Government needs to stay the fuck out of our economy...

Quite frankly I believe those in power who hate capitalism are doing everything in their power to destroy the model while they gain from it in the process.

The Cloward-Piven strategy is very much real....

The notion that everyone in office today is some benevolent capitalist is loonacy..

So, wouldn't public financing cure most of that? If our representitives aren't going hat-in-hand to big donors, they won't have as many expensive promises to keep, saving us money in the long run.

Today, from the minute a candidate wins their seat, they immediately start campaigning again for the next election. It takes about $5000 a day to win a House Seat. Public financing would solve our problem with elections but won't lobbyists still be in Washington 360 days greasing our politicians palms?

 

[Truthmatters]

Ther economic facts are that unfettered markets have never produce a large middle class.

PROVE THEY HAVE!

HUH?

What the fuck does unfettered markets have to do with large " middle classes"?!?!?

.

This country is wants a large middle class.

Unfettered markets will not give you one.

 

[Mr.Nick]

:yawn:

It's as if people believe if they repeat the same thing over and over, it will some how become true. Yes, public campaign finance reform laws will stop corporations from buying politicians because OF COURSE! we have judges and prosecutors and jails! And politicians and large corporate donators caught in misconduct and scandals ALWAYS go to jail! See!

treating a symptom of the disease will not cure the disease. Keep table pounding.

Corporations (or individuals for that matter) should be able to donate as much as they like to a campaign - they just shouldn't expect any favors in return.

The only possible way to describe what is going on presently would be "buying the manipulation of capitalism."

One would have to be truly evil to handout favors knowing those favors would have a negative impact on the economy...

Not to mention, as I have previously stated - the Cloward-Piven strategy is very much real and it's being practiced today....

 

[konradv]

I don't understand your disconnect between GOVERNMENT regulating and subsidizing in favor of those who pay to play. If a politician is taking tons of money to give concessions to an industry that the politician can NOT grant them, why would they give them the money?

For what purpose? That's the whole point. Govt. has no role in dictating the market except for exactly what we see now; corporatism. They may better define laws in order to protect our rights and our private property. Once they start pickign who gets what based on the money they provide, the game is rigged.

Finally, something that makes sense. The game IS rigged, hence my call for public financing. They don't give money to just one politician, but to many on both sides of the aisle. That's why so many say there's no difference between the parties, they've both been co-opted by the way we finance elections.

Tell me something.

Would not public financing limit the number of people that can run?

I always assumed it would and tended not to support it. Power will consolidate in the hands that prove themselves "eligible" for financing, and the question then becomes who is eligible. Memebers of the major Parties? Third Party candidates that is assumed by many pundits not to have a chance. Or can the TEA and CUPCAKES coalition gain equal funding?

Good question. I'd start out with lots of debates and allow just about everybody, except the truly insane, to participate. Then I'd have sub-primaries to determine the leading candidates amongst the parties and independents, allowing them to move forward, giving them each the same amount of money and allowing them to spend it as they saw fit. After the primaries the two, three or possibly four candidates, if there were two independents with significant backing, would get money for the general. Of course there'd have to be standards for how much support you'd need to qualify, but that could be worked out and the minorities would be heard through continued debates that would run even when elections weren't imminent, allowing everyone to be heard. Now we just think we're being heard, when the truth is they're not listening, unless you back it up with bucks.

 

[konradv]

Today, from the minute a candidate wins their seat, they immediately start campaigning again for the next election. It takes about $5000 a day to win a House Seat. Public financing would solve our problem with elections but won't lobbyists still be in Washington 360 days greasing our politicians palms?

If they didn't have to beg for money they'd have more time for our business and maybe read a bill once in a while! That's the bonus result of public financing. Sure lobbyists would still be in DC talking to our representitives. That's cool. No one is trying to take away their Freedom of Speech. It's just that when the "greasing of palms" takes place, we can take care of it the old fashioned way, with bribery prosecutions. They wouldn't be able to use the money for their campaign, so taking it would mean they're stuffing it in the own pockets, or freezers!!!, and dealt with like the criminals they'd be.

 

[Truthmatters]

Free airtime would go along way too

 

[konradv]

:yawn:

It's as if people believe if they repeat the same thing over and over, it will some how become true. Yes, public campaign finance reform laws will stop corporations from buying politicians because OF COURSE! we have judges and prosecutors and jails! And politicians and large corporate donators caught in misconduct and scandals ALWAYS go to jail! See!

treating a symptom of the disease will not cure the disease. Keep table pounding.

Corporations (or individuals for that matter) should be able to donate as much as they like to a campaign - they just shouldn't expect any favors in return.

And you expect to change human nature how? If they can't expect favors, they won't contribute, but since there's no way you could make that work, it's just "business as usual" without public financing.