Oscar Wilde primitive knows about dark side of moon

[franksolich]

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x2942340

Oh my.

The large-proboscised primitive, the primitive who looks down upon rustics, and who got upset when his cat pissed all over him; the primitive who reminds one very much of some sort of ultra-fastidious obsessive with lace cuffs sticking out beyond the sleeves of his jacket.

Cyrano (1000+ posts)       Fri Feb-29-08 01:01 PM
Original message
 
The cancer of unregulated capitalism

If you’re like me, you know as much about macro economics as you do about the dark side of the moon.

But I know how much I’m paying for gas. And I know that price is affecting the price of everything we buy that’s being delivered by trucks which also happen to use gas.

I know that every corporation in America is raising prices because they can. Who’s going to stop them?

I know that prices in supermarkets are perhaps triple of what they were a few years ago.

I know that when my older car needs repairs, a $600 bill is a bargain.

I know that a new non-luxury car shouldn’t cost over twenty thousand dollars.

I know that many who need prescriptions must decide between medicine, food, or rent.

I know that insurance companies have been turned loose to collect any fees they want to collect, and ignore any claims they don’t want to pay.

I know that the utility companies have been cut loose to charge whatever they want to charge for water, electricity and phone service.

I know that the luxury of a family dinner out means the drive-thru at McDonalds.

I know that government aid means an 800 number where you get to hear a recording.

I know this destruction started with St. Ronnie and has come to fruition under an ignorant, and probably unknowingly malicious man named George W. Bush.

I know the Republican Party doesn’t care if people starve, suffer, live, or die.

I know there is so much else I’ve left out. And I know that our country is badly broken.

I know that unregulated capitalism is just another way of saying “**** the masses.”

I know we need a government that cares and imposes regulations on big business.

I know we must win this election.

Hey, I have a question.

Isn't taxation generally considered "regulation of capitalism"?

Don't we have taxation already?

Anyway.

kestrel91316  (1000+ posts)       Fri Feb-29-08 01:03 PM
Response to Original message
 
1. Correction: Bush is KNOWINGLY malicious.

kestrel91316  (1000+ posts)       Fri Feb-29-08 01:05 PM
Response to Original message

2. Capitalism runs headlong into biological fact: there is no such thing as sustainable growth.

Growth without end is the credo of the cancer cell. Think on it.

And so a child, inevitably destined to die circa 70-80 years later, shouldn't be allowed to grow?

sepulveda (159 posts)      Fri Feb-29-08 01:11 PM
Response to Reply #2

3. and yet several hundred years of history have proven you wrong.

but don't let facts get in the way of ideology

sepulveda (159 posts)      Fri Feb-29-08 01:12 PM
Response to Original message
4. unregulated capitalism as soon as you find an example of unregulated capitalism, let me know

there is no small business owner (or any business owner) who doesn't know that our capitalism is significantly regulated.

in some areas, not enough . in others, too much.

even singapore aint unregulated, and they are a hell of a lot less regulated than us. ditto hong kong (esp. pre-china reintegration)

That's all there is to this bonfire, although given that comment by the last primitive, I'm sure more will gather around to protest.

The large-proboscised primitive doesn't seem to have the "pull" that Pedro Picasso did.

[TheSarge]

I know that the luxury of a family dinner out means the drive-thru at McDonalds.

WTH???  The last two "family dinners" I took my family to involved Red Lobster and Chili's.

[Chris_]

This rant is about 30 years too late.  He must be living in carter's America. 

The idea that capitalism always finds its equilibrium point is nothing new -- well, not to those of us who are educated.

[BlueStateSaint]

This rant is about 30 years too late.  He must be living in carter's America. 

The idea that capitalism always finds its equilibrium point is nothing new -- well, not to those of us who are educated.

And he's foreshadowing Obama's America . . .

[franksolich]

Oh my.

Oscar Wilde over on Skins's island stirred up the primitives now.

Forrest Greene (568 posts)       Fri Feb-29-08 02:42 PM
Response to Reply #2
 
11. That "Growth" Quote...was first published by the late Edward Abbey, who also said "Society is like a stew: if you don't keep it stirred up, you get a lot of scum on top."

Cyrano (1000+ posts)       Fri Feb-29-08 01:49 PM
Response to Reply #4

5. This a reply to posts #3 & #4.

As I said up front, I'm not an economist.

Yet, under Democratic administrations the majority of people seemed to do well.

Under the Republican Administrations of Reagan and Bush II, most seem to be suffering.

The key difference I have been able to observe is that Democrats favor regulations on big business while Republicans say "Go for it. Rape the suckers."

So maybe you mavens of economic philosophy can explain to me why the majority of Americans are in such deep financial trouble.

Oh, yeah. I seem to remember some president named Herbert Hoover who thought everything was just dandy.

It took FDR many years to clean out the stables.

Save your theories for the rubes. Any American who doesn't know that big business is screwing them into an early grave is either brain dead or should be.

So perhaps I don't know that much about economics. But I sure as hell know when I'm getting screwed and so does everyone else in this country who has had it with the Party of "values," "responsibility," "patriotism," "economic accountability," and the other ten tons of crap they have hurled at us for three decades.

On edit: Please note that I used the term "unregulated capitalism." For all its faults, capitalism is a reasonable system as long as there are checks and balances in place.

Hmmmm.

Oscar Wilde apparently is forgetting the Incompetent One (1977-1981), and how people suffered under him, and how it took Reagan and the first Bush twelve years to clean up that mess.

nadinbrzezinski  (1000+ posts)       Fri Feb-29-08 02:34 PM
Response to Reply #5
 
10. cyrano he is using right wing code unregulated capitalism, or free market is code for chicago school, which is a form of fascism. Just ask chileans and argentinians about it

What FDR did (and Chicago School boys hate it) is a form of statism (They will never use the term)... but it is also a mixed economy. Yes, it is free in some respects... but it highly regulates the upper layers making sure there is a social network and a social net. For "free Traders" this is a crime, since it does not allow the corporations to have a "free hand" and sink competitors and make policy, oh and yes privatize what is public.

So your observations are accurate. A mixed economy is better for the regular joe. Chicago School "Free Trade policies," which are all but free, are good for large monopolies, and the "free hand of the market:" is a fiction they use for the rubes. Never mind that Adam Smith is probably doing summersaults in his grave. What passes today for free markets is precisely what Smith abhorred: Monopolies.

nadinbrzezinski  (1000+ posts)       Fri Feb-29-08 02:25 PM
Response to Reply #4

9. Three words: Chicago School economics

look it up.

Look up what it has done.

Two more words

Disaster Capitalism....

Now here are two more words that work far better than free trade economics (which are code words for chicago boys style economics), Mixed economy...

By the way... here is another lesson from history... NO EMPIRE SURVIVES FOREVER.

Usually collapses are very messy and we are reaching the end of the American Empire, courtesy of George Bush and Chicago School Economics

fascisthunter  (1000+ posts)      Fri Feb-29-08 02:44 PM
Response to Reply #4

12. weird.... let the rich control everything then?

don't regulate at all.... where'd we all here this before?

Well, there was a guy in the old Soviet Union, Boris Berezovsky, a pal of George Soros.

This of course is meaningless to the primitives, but probably when the history of the world is written, Boris Berezovsky will rank as one of the chief villains in all of human history; I'm sure the Zbigniew primitive knows who Boris Berezovsky is.

kentuck  (1000+ posts)       Fri Feb-29-08 02:01 PM
Response to Original message
 
6. And someday soon...

We will read comments from all the wise people, economists included, asking how we could have let this happen? We knew we could not borrow money by the trillions of dollars and not expect dire consequences. But nobody said anything.

Because they grew to believe the conservative mantras about taxcuts and growth and all the insane baloney that has been fed to the masses over the last 25 or so years.

TheGoldenRule  (1000+ posts)       Fri Feb-29-08 03:12 PM
Response to Original message

13. Have you seen SICKO? Nixon gave medical insurance a free rein back then & look what's happened.

I'd say this crap has been in the works for longer than Reagan. The rethugs have worked round the clock for DECADES to OWN this country and us.

Buy the media. CHECK.

Buy Congress. CHECK.

Control information. CHECK.

Privatize everything. CHECK.

De-regulate everything. CHECK.

Give businesses free rein. CHECK.

Ignore pollution & the environment. CHECK.

Ignore public safety. CHECK.

Trash social safety nets. CHECK.

Monopolize everything. CHECK.

Own public properties. CHECK.

Tax the masses, let the rich slide. CHECK.

Get the masses in debt. CHECK.

Get the masses living in fear of the bogeyman. CHECK.

Get the masses tranquilized by t.v. CHECK.

Start Endless Wars. CHECK.

Let me know if I forgot anything.

p.s. And don't expect Hillary or Obama to change a damn thing.

Hmmm.

Wasn't it Richard Nixon who developed the "negative income tax" (now called the "earned income credit")?

[Carl]

Yet, under Democratic administrations the majority of people seemed to do well.

Under the Republican Administrations of Reagan and Bush II, most seem to be suffering.

I have done well and poorly at different times through both Republican and dem Presidents.
They don`t have much real affect on everyday lives.

Except that is for those who are so obsessed with having their own way,wishing life was made easy for them,determined to be miserable.
Then life sucks and always will.

Grow up DUmmies.

[Chris_]

Yet, under Democratic administrations the majority of people seemed to do well.

I again to point to the carter administration, as well as LBJ.  need I go on?  The only reason people did reasonably well under bubba is due to the internet bubble that he had nothing to do with but was smart enough to stay the hell out its way.