User 263438

Four Myths About the Free Market and Its 'Demise'

"Free markets" are anything but free. By now, recent economic events should have dispelled any such misunderstanding.

The so- called "bailout" (which isn't a bail out at all, rather it is a wealth transfer) is the price we are now being asked to pay for the "free market" in the housing industry over the last thirty years.

The terms "free market"; "bailout" and all the rest are what George Orwell referred to in 1984 as "doublespeak"; which he defined as, saying one thing and meaning exactly the opposite.

This is what federal officals and corporate criminals are doing when they keep prattling on about "free markets", "bailouts"; "credit crisis" and all the rest.

We don't have a "credit crisis" at the present time. The credit markets have corrected themselves nicely in the last 12 months as lenders finally woke up and realized they were going to have to stop lending money to borrowers who couldn't pay it back.

The "credit crisis" that exists in America and most of the industrialized world today is the fact that most individuals cannot survive without subsiding their earning capacity with borrowed money.

The fact that they must borrow money to survive, is the crisis; NOT the fact that there isn't any money available to borrow.

In fact every, single one of us is better off right now with no ability to borrow money, than we were 12 months ago when any one of us could have borrowed enough money to buy a house, whether we had the ability to pay it back or not.

Markets are not free and the fact is they never were. Most Americans would be far better off if they were citizens of any number of countries where they would have by birthright, access to health care; education; adequate disability and retirement funds; living wages and much better workplace regulations in favor of the worker; not the employer.

So what if the end result is that a Mercedes Benz costs $100,000 and a Chevrolet costs $20,000? There seem to be no shortage of buyers who prefer the Mercedes to the Chevy.

If the output of the free market is a Chevrolet and the output from a regulated market is a Mercedes or a Toyota, I'll take the regulated market any day!

Oppose the Treasury's Bailout Plan

As with the S&L's in the 1980's, bail outs of the mortgage industry and the bond underwriters who financed the fraud, is just wrong! All of the academic debate aside, the fact is that once again the down trodden American taxpayer is going to be stuck holding the bag while a cartel of international gangsters sails off into the sunset with their BILLIONS tucked safely away in some offshore location.

Same goes for the AIG bail out and all the rest. If the federal government wants to do the right thing then go out and find the BASTARDS who stole all this money and take it back! The money that has been misappropriated, because money doesn't just DISAPPEAR; especially in quantities like we are talking about with the AIG and the mortgage industry. It's still out there somewhere and if the Fed's had any balls at all or any sense of right and wrong they would go find it and take it back; simple as that! If half of Wall St. ends up bankrupt or half of America ends up kicked out of their home due to foreclosure, so be it! Business is business and all markets have to correct when they are over-inflated. Housing is no different and the casualties are what they are.

I have no sympathy for anyone involved. Borrower and lender alike!

Lehman Is Just the Thin Edge of the Wedge

And each time another one bites the dust Bank of America is waiting in the wings ready to pick over another carcass!