President Obama ripped into the obstructionists who are holding up the stimulus today. At the same time he took a sharp swipe at the free market / pro-business / anti-government crowd: "In the last few days, we've seen proposals arise from some in Congress that you may not have read but you'd be very familiar with because you've been hearing them for the last 10 years, maybe longer. They're rooted in the idea that tax cuts alone can solve all our problems; that government doesn't have a role to play; that half-measures and tinkering are somehow enough; that we can afford to ignore our most fundamental economic challenges -- the crushing cost of health care, the inadequate state of so many of our schools, our dangerous dependence on foreign oil. So let me be clear: Those ideas have been tested, and they have failed. They've taken us from surpluses to an annual deficit of over a trillion dollars, and they've brought our economy to a halt. And that's precisely what the election we just had was all about. The American people have rendered their judgment. And now is the time to move forward, not back. Now is the time for action." Right on, Barack, right on.
Barack is out of his league on this one. And apparently, so are you. America hasn't been free market since 1913. Fractional Reserve Lending coupled with private control of Americas money supply is the culprit behind every economic calamity since the turn of the century. Free Markets have nothing to do with it. If Free Markets regulated money supply and interest rates, this Depression - and the last one - wouldn't have happened. But of course, Barkey will remind us what a Great Evil "Free Markets" are and that only Big Government can save us. When in reality, its monopolistic Control of MONEY SUPPLY AND Banking thats caused this mess. So the only answer is to shore up competition via tax-payer financed consolidation under the deceptive banner of failed markets. Free markets work just fine. We just haven't lived in one for nearly 100 years. Barack is Establishment. He will not challenge this Countrys corrupt banking system nor private ownership of the Nations CENTRAL BANK. He's a puppet and shill for Moneyied interests as much as Bush was.
Fractional reserve lending has been around since the 1400's, at least. Where you people get your econ ideas is beyond my comprehension.
In that case, since the beginning of the Republic. Read some history. Someplace other than online, that is.
Could not agree more with you. The system have led people down many times.........now it faces complete failure. We lost free market officially in 1913..............and it was finally buried in 1971.
Good! Depression of 1807 1807â1814 Panic of 1819 1819â1824 Panic of 1837 1837â1843 Panic of 1857 1857â1860 Panic of 1873 1873â1879 Long Depression 1873â1896 Panic of 1893 1893â1896 Panic of 1907 1907â1908 ... with a track record like this, why on Earth would we want to turn back the clock to a free market? Keynesianism is to Laissez-faire capitalism as Special Relativity is to Ptolemy
You're parsing into irrelevancy. America was debatably free market up until the installment of the 3rd and final central bank, in 1913. Up until that point, most "Central Banks" formed a collective hodge-podge with only regional charters. It wasn't until 1913 that the entire country was brought under a unified bank for an uncontested, and significant period.
It would be interesting to see the amount of money printed and put in circulation in relation to the amount of gold in reserves in the years leading up to those "panics".