True. In the last 50 years or so, the President has been consistently issuing "Executive Orders" which increase the power of the office -- America is nearly back to a Monarchy. Every system needs immutable checks and balances. Watch Michael Badnarik's Free Online Constitution Course and learn how many times Bill Clinton, for example, wrote himself Executive Orders to circumvent the limits placed on the President's office by the Constitution (before anyone attacks me, I'm sure BushII is no better). Why couldn't it work? It seems to be working right now -- but the masses aren't invited to play. Vote selling is how we seem to do business, politically. But really, it could work: if I didn't really think it mattered if Gay Marriage were legal or not, I would sell my vote cheaply; if I felt strongly about the issue, I would sell my vote at a high price, or not at all. Right now, half the people don't even bother to vote. Selling their votes would at least get them involved and thinking about their own self-interest. Of course, Bill Gates would want to buy himself the title "Emperor For Life" and the majority would probably take the cash. And it would get rid of our privacy (women tell their husbands they're going to vote as the husband demands but instead vote their conscience, etc.) Random.Capital made a good point that government-mandated cooperation is a required building block for capitalism to flourish (in our current mostly-capitalist system, anyway). In a Fiat Currency system, we need the government to control the issuing of currency and to back it as far as the holders demand. We can get around this, of course, by going back to the gold standard, and preferably gold coins instead of paper. But this won't happen as long as the government is a bloated monstrous Leviathan. We need SOME government control in order to allow capitalism to flourish (otherwise it's raping and pillaging time, and business can't survive when your customer would rather kill you than pay his bill), but the question is of course, how much? I'm with Ayn Rand on this one.
Show that capitalism requires socialism? That was postulated a long time ago by John Maynard Keynes. In the 1930's Keynes said that the best and most efficient way to achieve full employment and more wealth for the rich was through a mixed economy that is part capitalist and part socialism. He thought that capitalism's achilles heel is that it tends to concentrate wealth and incomes among a relative few and leaves hordes of people poor and unemployed. Keynes advocated having the government play an active role in wealth and income redistribution to ensure full employment, but no more; he thought the government should let business decide what and how to invest. Income redistribution through progressive taxation would lead to full employment, higher demand, and even more wealth for the wealthy than if they were in a laissez-faire economy. I think Keynes had it mostly right. Notice that as the U.S. moved from a capitalist society from 1800's - 1931 to a mixed economy in 1945 to today that prosperity and the creation of a middle class ensued. China is also growing wealth with Keynesianism from the opposite direction, from socialism to a mixed economy. We abandon Keynes at our own peril. We will soon see that the current fad of government capitalist activism will result in a shrinking middle class and the growth of a low-income poor, while initially increasing wealth in the hands of a few. Too much supply side economics results in low wages, unemployment and ultimately a shortage of demand. If the working class drop down to WalMart wages then they don't have enough income to buy the goods that the wealthy produce. Shareholders rejoice when a company lays off workers and keeps wages low -- what shareholders don't realize is that layoffs and wage cuts sow the seeds of the company's own destruction because the pool of potential customers just got smaller. Capitalism by itself has never created a thriving middle class. The "invisible hand" needs the helping hand of a fiscally active government to keep money circulating in the economy.
What ? Electronic voting (BTW electronic voting is now coming to Europe and so France also: the lobbyist has convinced Gov of 'benefits' of electronic voting.) easier to cheat democracy for there is 'TOO MUCH DEMOCRACY' remember the Trilateral Commission report http://www.creativeresistance.ca/co...nico-pacitti-interviews-noam-chomsky-zmag.htm http://www.umf.net/umf/data/text/NWO_40.TXT TRILATERALISTS SAY: 'TOO MUCH DEMOCRACY' The Trilateral Commission frankly states that there;s too much democracy and that the American people should be restrained from having too much say in how their nation if governed. This authoritarian philosophy is outlined in a major Trilateral Commission position paper (which embarrasses even many Trilateralists) entitled "The Crisis of Democracy." In this work, published under the commission's copyright, the authors, Michael Crozier, Samuel Huntington and Joji Watanuki, concluded that popular participation by the people of the Trilateral nations in government policymaking is a bad proposition. According to the study, the ruling elites in the United States and Western Europe are already facing grass roots dissent from the ranks of their people a situation that Japan also faces and that it will be necessary "to restore a more equitable relationship between government authority and popular control."
He seems to be right... if you consider that a weakness (Bill Gates doesn't think so). But if you look at the wealth of the top 10% compared to the bottom 90% of the Americans, you'll see how much faster the top earners have raked it in in the last decade or so, while the bottom's standard of living has dropped. And if the huddled shivering masses have an extra thousand in their pockets, they'll certainly put it to good use economically (spending it), while us rich bastards just sit on it and let it earn us interest. True again. The "patch" we seem to be applying is debt -- a few of my buddies are loan officers at banks. They ALL tell me they have looked at a couple's financials, realized the couple would NEVER be able to pay off their loans, and loaned them more money anyway. "Either way," my friend Jay said with a laugh, "we get his house. Eventually." The new capitalist game is not so much to get the sales of the goods the poor pathetic "common man" needs, but to convince him that he need things which he actually doesn't. Saving is at an average of 0.2% per annum, and there are LOTS of people with low-paying jobs and big screen tvs, multiple cars, multiple computers, a tv in every room - with satellite of course, expensive iPods to replace working Discman CD players, and who eat out at least every week and want to borrow to buy a cottage -- at age 25. To quote Jim Morrison, "We want it all, and we want it -- NOW." Being an Austrian myself, I often forget that Keynes (aka "the enemy") often had sharp insights into the way our world works. My problem is not that a large organization is keeping things orderly, it's that the large organization is corrupt, incompetent, and largely self-interested against the other groups in society. But what to do? Every time the government privatizes something and hands it over to a corporation or two to manage, the companies form a cartel and the end result for the consumer is the same.
That's a funny observation from your friend. Too bad for the mortgage lender, though, that in a Supply Side Perfect Storm the lenders will have a ton of inventory of foreclosed homes but no buyers, or lots of buyers at prices far below the value of the bad loans. A married couple, both working at WalMart wages, make about $3500/mo gross. That would allow them to qualify for a mortgage of about $130,000. Here in California typical homes would have to lose two-thirds of their value to come down to that level. The federal government's failings have nothing to do with Keynesianism. The corruption and special-interest catering are due solely to the legalized bribery we allow called "campaign contributions." Your Austrian compatriot Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is a great example. He campaigned on the premise that as a wealthy actor he did not need and would not take "special interest" money. A year later he turned out to be no different from any other politician and has broken his promise -- he has taken large sums from major corporations and is now a lap dog for the Chamber of Commerce.
One of the best posts I have seen in this thread. Excellent analysis and I agree 100%. Contrary to the socialim bashers that keep saying how the current trend is toward socialist control, it is actually toward exploitative capitalism. The past few administrations have been pushed and controlled by big money corporations. This administration is so blatantly corrupted by big corporates that it is not even funny. Notice the wages dropping and the middle class slowly dissapearing even though corporate profits are improving?
http://www.globalissues.org/TradeRelated/Consumption/Rise.asp I find this part very interesting: "Hoover clearly intended the Department of Commerce to serve as the hand-maiden of American business, and its main goal was to help encourage the consumption of commodities. For example, between 1926 and 1928 the BFDC [Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce], under Hoover's direction, initiated the Census of Distribution (or "Census of Consumption," as it was sometimes called) to be carried out every ten years. (It was unique at that time; Britain and other countries did not initiate government-sponsored consumer research until the 1950s). It detailed where the consumers were and what quantities of goods they would consume; it pointed out areas where goods were "overdeveloped" and which goods were best carried by which stores. The Commerce Department endorsed retail and cooperative advertising and advised merchants on service devices, fashion, style, and display methods of all kinds. The agency advised retail establishments on the best ways to deliver goods to consumers, redevelop streets, build parking lots and underground transportation systems to attract consumers, use colored lights, and display merchandise in "tempting ways". The goal was to break down "all barriers between consumers and commodities" (Leach 1993:366)" Can't sad I'm like totally anti consumerism or anything. Gotta admit the toys, fancy clothes, extragavant bars, clubs and restaurants are fun.
I dont' agree. Both sides are crying we are drifting too much to the other way. Truth is we are doing neither of them, we are going toward the way of the corrupted government. The bigger an organisation is the more corrupted it gets. You rarely hear about the mayor of a 5000 people village earning special interests money! Special interests groups should be criminal. THEY are the problem. We are not going into a more right-wing doctrine, we merely give tax credits to friends of the regime, who happens to be rich but that's a coincidence... :eek: We are not drifting into a more left-wing country, we just have a big government whose goal is to get bigger. But it's all our fault. We just have to elect a poor independant nobody to be the president. We all fall into the media coverage trap, the marketing, the small politics. We all know how it works and what's going on but we still vote for the bad guy. Shame on us.