Socialism: Brought to You by the Republican Party

Why won't anyone (anyone!) among our nation's leaders call this government bailout business what it is -- corporate socialism?

I could never imagine that the ultimate free marketeers have begged and pleaded for the big, bad, slow, inefficient, socialist government to take over major pillars of the free market economy that they hold as high as Mom, God, and heterosexual marriages.

"Too big to fail," they say.

But no one is ever small enough to get shoved out at the curbside of high gas prices, declining wages, crappy health insurance, and a sad education system.

Socialism indeed.

Let's take all the risk in life away from the big guys and force the American family to pay for their multi-trillion dollar mistakes (not to mention their mullti-million dollar golden parachutes). Then let's say that the government is the only way to save the free market.

Ridiculous forays into sub-prime mortgages, tax cuts that the wealthiest don't need, privatization of public education and Social Security -- and, of course, a war that has made gazillions of dollars for the war drum and oil drum moguls.

These are perfect (perfect!) uses of the government as socialist father to the capitalist oligopolists.

Then they hide it all behind a conservative ideology and theology that says that getting rich for rich's sake is not only patriotic but godly. You deserve (deserve!) to be as rich as I am.

Too big to fail!? These guys are too big to succeed.

Comments

[AussieJim]

Thank you for making exactly the same point I have been making in all sorts of forums recently.
When any (repeat any) other country dares to socialise any aspect of their economy then America is the first and loudest in lambasting them. Calling them communists etc etc. Even invading them to save the poor workers from exploitation by the big bad socialists.
But what happens when an American financial institution gets into trouble?
You are a bunch of hypocrites.
I hope that a second 'great depression' might cure a bit of the hypocritical bravado but I doubt it as most of America is an entirely fact and evidence free zone where ideology runs rampant.
(In the last week America has nationalised institutions of a capitalisation more than eight times those nationalised by Hugo Chavez - but of course when America does it it isn't nationalisation is it?)

[Thermodynamics]

$50 billion a year to homeowners would probably allow the real estate problem to resolve itself in a few years.

calculations:

US Mortgage Debt = $5 Trillion Not all of it is bad. 80% is just fine.

potentially bad mortgages = 20% of the total or $1 trillion, which is the same as $1000 billion

I know someone with a house mortgaged for a little over $150, 000. Every month he sits down at his coffee table and writes a check to his mortgage company for $1000. He is paying a little less than one percent every month, actually about 0.7%

0.7% of $1 trillion is $7 billion

So the total that the people "at risk" need to be paying at the coffee table level each month is about $7 billion, or about $84 billion per year.

AIG just got that much.

Helping the homeowners could be a cheaper solution than bailing out Wall Street. Financiers are exposed to multiplied risks because the actual mortgages have been used to create leveraged investments. AIG sold insurance that covered bankrupt mortgages held in big pools.

The government could set up a "mortgage rescue" program to help people get their payments down to $500 per month or 20% of their income, etc.

[Zeje]

You are just making too much sense

[Yermammy]

Yeah, that won't fly. No way to get rich on that.

[iambusto]

i have a better idea.

Dont let the house go into foreclosure. When a lender cant pay, they hand over the deed of the house to the bank, but the banks puts them back in as renters at a fair rental price for next 5 years.

after 5 years, the renter aquires back the deed after making some nominal payment.

problem solved.

[Snwbnny9]

Apparently its socialism to suggest that my family should receive universal healthcare.

Buts its patriotism to use my tax dollars for the government to bail out giant corporations that are failures. I sure am glad that those CEO's will have their 50 million dollar golden paracutes to keep them warm while I get to clean up their ineptitude.

So socialism is robbing from the rich to give to the poor.
Patriotism is robbing from the poor to give to the rich.

[bigdaddyvike]

The most spot-on post of the day. Thank you snowbunny.

[arthur2008]

If George Bush and the Great Deregulator, John McCain, have any agenda other than the redistribution of wealth from the many to the elite few, it becomes altogether obscured by their boundless cynicism and incompetence.

[priorato]

I agree, it isn't Socialism per se, but the recent actions by the Federal Reserve -- acting in concert with the Bush Administration have gone so far away from Free Market Ideals (a core Republican platform) that it is a JOKE. This is the Bush Administration's true colors: protect the base - protect the 1% at taxpayer cost. This is who the Republicans need to stay in power -- the FATCATS, and now they are being propped up by Uncle Sam yet we can unprecedented foreclosures, losses in home values, unemployment, uninsured, underinsured, etc. How can anyone say with a straight face that Republicans are looking out for the working-class?

[suec03]

Stop calling it socialism! To be socialism, it would have to be in the interest of the working class.

Call it hypocrisy! Call it CORPORATE socialism! But don't just call it socialism. True socialism is anti-corporate and pro-workers, collectives and small business. True socialism should not be an epithet, a dirty word.

The issue is that the same Republicans who decry universal health care as socialist because they think the uninsured are expendable, now want to collect on their erroneous belief that the government must backstop corporate greed and bail out managment and big investors.

They have left government no choice but to step in to protect insurance customers and working and middle class mortgage borrowers, and to say no to bailouts that will only benefit investors, not innocent and deserving customers.

[KillTheMessenger]

Me thinks you have never seen real world socialism?

In the interest of the working class. My donkey.

Real world socialism is in the interest of the party! In our case it's in the interest of the Republican party.

Case closed.

[RaderBarbarian]

Wrong! Case doesn't close until November. And you are also wrong about socialism. I am a socialist and I belong to no political party. So how does that jive with your simplistic definition of "real world socialism", Mr. Messenger?

[Herrington]

You are talking authoritarian socialism vs the Ideal of socialism. And the Republicans are talking the ideal of capitalism vs authoritarian capitalism.

Guess what, the world has yet to be accurately described by a comprehensive doctrine. Other than the U.S. Constitution that is, and it simply abhors authoritarians.

[shaunmarie]

Actually, as I recall my poly sci classes, its socialism if it benefits society....

When it is govt acting in concert with corporations, I think the term is fascism.

[Rule Of Law]

You are correct. The melding of government and Corporate is called Fascism and is what the Bush Family have been about since Prescott tried to overthrow FDR. Now they've succeeded. Naomi Wolf writes about this very thing in her book, The End of America. Everyone here should at least get down to a bookstore and scan it.

[MaryT63]

Gee whiz, what do we have here. The conservative cry about a socialist ran country is/has always been about the government providing a level playing field and helping poor folks, most paricularily the poor minority folks. All of the talk has been aimed at keeping the masses pissed off about helping poor folks.
The robber barons have used the government as a socialist entity - cash cow for ever and ever. They use it when they lobby for tax breaks, when they used government to take land away from the native americans, when they use governments in other countries to steal their natural resources. The list goes on and on.
My theory is that the fall of the finacial markets would not have happened if Bush could have gotten his hands on privatizing social security in 2005. Wall Street was waiting for the steady flow of money to keep them propped up while they wreck havoc with their ponza schemes. Most americans didn't know how shaky things were, but they sure felt something was not on the up and up enough to say 'don't mess with my social security check'. Without the social security money, Wall Street folded. We still gotta pay, but they didn't get away with it.
Good riddance free markets w/o regulations. How can you have the fox watching the hen house w/o anyone watching the fox - no way.

[rowzeer]

my econ professor always said that markets/industry without regulations is like a society without laws/rules.