The end is in sight

Without negative feedback in the form of regulation, the amplifier of capitalism tends to oscillate destructively.

He said that, but he's clueless.

If a depression were in the cards, he's not averted it. The ultimate juggernauts are the federal entitlements, which he's ballooning.

But handing out borrowed money's always popular...

James Arthur

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Pure iron pyrite.

-- Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

it?

Far from it, but he's taking advice from neo-Keynesian economists, whom you'd like to burn at the stake.

If we are to rely on your crystal ball, which runs on an economoc theory which is rather better at telling the rich what they want to hear than predicting where the economy is going to go next.

Your claim that America's social security payouts are large depends on creative accounting that would have made Margaret Thatcher blush. In fact a major weakness of your economy is that you don't spend enough on the children of the poorest families, so they grow up ill-educated and unemployable, and end up being expensively fed and housed in state- funded prisons.

That is one of the your expenditures that really is ballooning.

As opposed to using it to fight a pontless and unprofitable war in Irak, and fund the consequent - equally unprofitable (for everybody except Haliburton) - occupation of the country.

As least Obama is spending money or bread rather than circuses.

-- Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

Historically speaking, it makes perfect sense.

Well, we shall see. And I notice that you snipped out my other points.

Cut...

Pure republican-libertarian revisionist nonsense. Roosevelt's programs helped ease the depression by 1937 but it was the MASSIVE GOVERNMENT SPENDING and INTERVENTION of WWII that finally ended the depression. Capitalism is unstable and goes from one panic to the next when unregulated and uncontrolled. A few dates: 1869, 1873, 1893, 1907, 1929. Then the depression era regulations and controls followed by a long 50 year period of relative stability. Then along came Reagan and deregulation and now the panic of 2008. What, you can't understand history??

The US spends 14% of GDP on health care while most countries with universal care spend about 10% of GNP. The US system is inefficient and very wasteful plus insurance companies rake profit right off of the top without actually doing any of the health care.

Oh, feh! You refuse to acknowledte that this destructive oscillation is CAUSED by government overregulation - it interferes with the natural "invisible hand" of the Free Market, which naturally has negative feedback.

"In this passage, taken from his 1776 book "An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations" Adam Smith set out the mechanism by which he felt economic society operated. Each individual strives to become wealthy "intending only his own gain" but to this end he must exchange what he owns or produces with others who sufficiently value what he has to offer; in this way, by division of labour and a free market, public interest is advanced..." ---

Sure, with the Free Market, some people will go broke - that's the nature of Freedom - you make your choices and if you're wrong, you take your knocks and try something else.

I guess this concept is incomprehensible to socialists, who want cradle-to- grave nannying.

Thanks, Rich

Try the World's Smallest Political Quiz:

Cheers! Rich

You make a lot of sense - you're not a warmingist, are you?

Thanks, Rich

Yeah - both the "People's" socialists, who want to take your earnings away to pay the bills of the lazy, negligent, and stupid poor people, and the "National" Socialists, who want to take your earnings away to pay the bills of the lazy, negligent, and stupid _rich_ people.

Cheers! Rich

That's odd. I thought you _loved_ socialism.

Thanks, Rich

a) If FDR's measures were so effective, why did the Depression last so long?

b) Obama is not spending on the things FDR spent on. How many car and insurance companies did FDR buy?

c) The ultimate cure was WWII, not Keynes.

d) After WWII--the ultimate Keynesian exercise--the economy immediately fell into a doldrums that lasted years. How could that be, if Keynes is such powerful good medicine?

Or, more to the point, how is society helped by putting production of things it does not need or want into overdrive?

You ask about a complex topic, already trouble-shot, traced, rooted out, and addressed here at length, before you arrived. (Welcome, BTW). It's a long history; you've got some catching up to do.

Cheers, James Arthur

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It was a series of government interventions, collectively the "affordable housing initiatives," that gave us the mortgage crisis. Obama wants to put those same policies into overdrive.

Obama, actually, was exactly an advocate for those policies, but a bit-player; Rahm Emanuel was more influential; he was on Freddie Mac's board of directors at a key point in the genesis. He could've stopped it all, he could've shouted it to the rooftops years. He didn't. It was a farce, a corrupt sinecure, a payoff to a former Clintonite.

But Barney Frank and his crew, plus Clinton, and a few others get most of the discredit. Clinton's re-tooling of the CRA marked the start, together with securitization--which can be a good thing--also under Clinton's watch.

Feel like reading a historical, true-to-life thriller? Here's the setup:

Here it is mid-plot: How HUD Mortgage Policy Fed The Crisis

This series is more comprehensive: Setup:

Bush actually tried, tepidly, to stop it, several times, but Democrats shouted him down as racist, so he quit.

Mind you, everyone wants housing to be affordable, and the theory of gov't meddling (supposedly) to that effect was widely supported by both sides once the Democrats gave birth to it. Both sides had beneficiaries, and politicians always love handing out candy.

There's no reason to think a depression was inevitable, or that Obama's borrowing in _any_ way prevents one.

To the extent one might be, Obama was feeding it. A Depression is, after all at bottom a panic, a loss of confidence, which Obama fed, nay, fired. Revisit his rhetoric during the campaign, and post-election.

Words like "catastrophe," "depression," and "crisis", don't incite confidence, don't soothe a worried crowd, nor encourage them to engage in commerce, to spend. Quite the opposite. For that, he's to blame.

But it does confiscate the wages of the productive.

You can have free health care RIGHT NOW! Just eat right, get enough sleep, deal with stress, don't crash your car, smoke and drink in moderation, and get up off your lazy fat ass and get some exercise.

I just turned SIXTY (hard to believe, huh? Oh, well, another decade, another diopter ;-) ) and I haven't had a health problem since that time I came down with acute pancreatitis. but being a vet, I got treated at the Long Beach VA Medical Center. (they installed a shunt from my pancreas to my stomach so I could just poop out the excess enzymes.)

The only time I've EVER had the flue has been after they forced me to get a flu shot.

I don't do stupid things that could injure me, for example, both times that I crashed my car, I was wearing a seat belt, which I don't usually need - I'm not driving at Indy, after all. (I think maybe a premonition told me to buckle up.) Interestingly, both times I had insurance, so if correlation implies causation, then having insurance caused my "accidents". (there's really no such thing as an accident - it's merely negligence.)

I ride my bike to the store and back practically every day, usually to pick up a pack of smokes. >:-> Incidentally, smoking does NOT cause cancer

- it's caused by denied self-hatred.

Last time I had a checkup, my lungs were as clear as any 30-year-old's.

I recently declined a stress test/cardiopulmonary function test, because: A: Isn't life already enough of a treadmill? B: I knew in advance what they'd say - I no longer have the heart or lungs of a teenager, so they'd find "impaired" lung function, and they'd tell me to quit smoking and drinking, which I have no intention of doing.

Have I missed anything?

Cheers! Rich

The whole problem was initiated by the Income Tax .

I guess it's time for a little history lesson:

Instead of offering incentive payments to their employees, which would essentially end up being confiscated by Da Gubmint, they offered medical insurance (which wasn't taxed). IOW, employee-provided medical insurance was self-defense against the income tax.

Over the years, it evolved into an "entitlement".

There was no control on the price of care - you'd just turn the bill over to the insurance company, who'd rubber-stamp it and pay the bill, without it affecting you at all.

So the medical industry came up with more and more expensive crap, a billion tests for the sniffles and so on, and the insurance company would pick up the tab and raise the cost to your employer.

This lack of Free Market medical care caused prices to skyrocket, since nobody knew or cared how much it was actually cost them. "Oh, the insurance will cover it!"

If, when Latisha took little Mobutu to the ER for a skinned knee or so, If they billed her the three grand or so, she might be motivated to invest in a first-aid kit and learn how to use it.

As usual, the problem is socialism.

Thanks, Rich

I have relatives in Minnesota who are farmers, and none of them have EVER taken a subsidy of any kind. I guess that's just pride in having integrity.

Thanks, Rich

If that's what he thinks he's doing, he's got it exactly ass-backwards.

Or, he just might be one of those fools who believes that socialism can possibly lead to anything other than national bankruptcy.

Instead of spending millions on TV ads and billions on socialistic pork- barrel spending, he should use it to buy a clue.

And the empire-building doesn't help any.

Thanks, Rich

The history of what planet?

Thanks, Rich

Thanks! It's nice to know that there's at least ONE sane person left! ;-D

Cheers! Rich