Recently, Texas Gov. Rick Perry fired up a group of Tea Party activists by ranting against "big daddy" government. But when we're facing the worst economic crisis in decades, brought about by Wall Street's blatantly greedy and fraudulent manipulation of our economic security for their personal gain, we should be welcoming "big daddy" government with open arms. Wall Street needs a spanking.
But instead, in his speech today to financial sector executives, President Obama was at pains to provide comfort to the crooks of Wall Street rather than chastise them. "I believe in the power of the free market. I believe in a strong financial sector that helps people to raise capital and get loans and invest their savings." According to the White House, the President is intentionally avoiding a scolding tone in favor of the sort of plain-people-joining-with-powerful-CEOs bipartisanship that was so plainly absurd in health care reform. Obama's Kumbaya calculus seems based on two assumptions -- first, that the American public doesn't want their president to fundamentally criticize capitalism; second, that the American public will believe the spoon fed load of crap that Wall Street executives had our economic best interests at heart but just somehow, by accident, went astray.
Average Americans who've had their homes pulled out from under their feet, their credit card interest rates quadrupled, their jobs shipped over seas -- because the financial industry literally created "investments" that bet against the American dream -- are not stupid enough to believe that this was all an honest mistake. Taxpayers who were told that bank bailouts were the only way to save our entire economy from disaster can smell the deception buried beneath record Wall Street profits and bonuses now surfacing in the first quarter of 2010 alone. Our collective critique scratches more than the skin of "a few bad apple" executives here and there. In November 2009, a BBC World Service poll found that 63% of Americans think capitalism in its current form is not working. Since then, everything from the Citizens United ruling to the Goldman Sachs indictment has only confirmed our deep suspicion that the nature of capitalism in America is rotten.
That doesn't mean we don't believe in markets and business. Americans are nothing if not entrepreneurial and industrious. But that's not what capitalism in America looks like today. The version of market economics that's been shoved down our national throat is designed exclusively by and for the benefit of giant corporations. Big business buys our politicians and writes our laws so they can crush small competitors, pillage our environment and destroy workers lives and human rights and anything else that stands in their way. And because big business owns our media, too, they have the perfect platform to persuade us over and over again that this arrangement is in our collective best interest.
As Americans, we buy a lot of crap, but we've finally stopped buying this lie. What's good for big business is not good for America.
For too long, mass public disaffection with the way capitalism in America is structured has been silenced because politicians and the media, beholden to big business, convinced us there is no alternative. Now, faced with such a sobering and stubborn economic crisis caused by very deliberate flaws in our economic structures, we're more aware than ever not only that there is an alternative but that we must embrace it. That doesn't mean socialism. But it does mean aggressively critiquing and re-constructing capitalism so that the market's primary goal is to work for working class and struggling Americans. The very survival of the American dream is at stake.
On Thursday, April 29, 2010, thousands of ordinary Americans will descend on Wall Street to call for meaningful financial reform that holds big banks accountable and makes our economy work for everyone. Those of us who will be at the Showdown on Wall Street -- and the millions of Americans we represent -- are worried about our jobs, our homes, our farms, our children's education, our very way of life. What we're not worried about is hurting capitalism's feelings. After all, capitalism never coddled us.
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I'm for capitalism because I'm in favor of letting people try and make a living working for themselves but I’m weary of cannibalistic tendencies of HomoSapien. Trying to make a buck does not automatically make you a great guy-- unless you love bathing in oil or CDOs. Greed, not capitalism, makes people get off their butts and grab for the dangling meat. REWARD makes the dopamine flow from the ventral tegmentum of both herbivores AND CARNIVORES...guess what latter is going after-- YOU! And it is your dopamine that gets you running for your life. Capitalists think it’s OK to jump and eat the one with Parkinson's who can't run or the frail old one who can't run fast enough. Remember, my young capitalist friend, sooner or later you will be capitalism’s prey instead of predator!!!
Although there were several 20th century attempts to force co-operation on several large population masses. None of them ended well though.
No mention of the housing bubble caused by artificially low rates (government), mandated watering down of traditional lending standards (government), moral hazard courtesy of Fannie & Freddie (government), bubble-driven greed (home owners), shirking personal responsibility regarding financing and homebuying decisions (home owners).
No call for letting housing prices fall to a natural price bottom, instead of propping them up with $8k housing credit (government) and loan modification programs (government).
Nope, it's all greedy Wall St bankers, so of course, the answer is MORE government action. How long will it take the goverment to reinflate that bubble?
I actually agree with Obama's approach. Kill your enemies with "niceness".
But I agree with your overall premise that mainstream thought has shifted from "capitalism" is the answer to all our problems to "capitalism" is a tool that could equally be used to our collective detriment as it could for our collective benefit.
Socialism is the term you were searching for as the tool best used to provide a "collective benefit"
I'd go one step farther than that statement.
The very survival of America is at stake.
As you say, " which is where we are at." The shift has just begun. It will be difficult for many to adjust. There will be many steps forward and back, but fundamental change is coming. The present state of affairs is unsustainable.
But we have to go to work to dispel the religion of capitalist extremism. I call it a religion, because that's what it is: What else would you call an ideology that is based on the notion that absolutely unfettered markets naturally contain some mysterious force that makes business work for the common good? That's the worst kind of religion - the type that even the most casual observer can dispute.
The mantra of "keep government out of business" is effectively, "let business rule every American's life." In the case against this religious mania, the health care system is exhibit A; Enron is exhibit B; the derivative market that caused a deep, worldwide recession is exhibit C; Wall Street bonuses are exhibit D; the destruction of the American manufacturing industry is exhibit E - you could go on all day with this.
A capitalism that is balanced against the duty of government to govern is just dandy. Throw the balance off just a little, and you have all kinds of trouble, as we’ve seen for the past decade or three. Only an extreme capitalism true believer would think otherwise.
Capitalism pats itself on the back and tells itself that it has grown America's GDP since Reagan. Well, it's only a success because it defines it's own terms of "success". It has made the already-rich fabulously wealthy, but the middle class finds itself poorer, sicker, less educated, with fewer opportunities and a darker future. We send our children off into a murky world with less hope of a decent life. Oh, one other thing it has done well - it has brainwashed America into believing capitalism works in its best interest. That's like convincing a cow that the McDonalds feed lot is a great place to live.
We often equate capitalism with entrepreneurship - in fact, capitalism circa 2010 is a huge corporation struggling against another huge corporation for monopolistic control of some sector of the economy. And those huge corporations' actual product or service is irrelevant to the CEOs who run them. The notion of competition improving quality and delivery of products or services becomes a quaint but outdated concept. Entrepreneurship is crushed by 2010 capitalism.
Capitalism today has nothing to do with quality or competition - it has to do with high-level games of hedging, gambling and monopolizing, to the detriment of America as a whole. Like the old proverb, "When the elephants fight, the grass gets trampled."
And the odds are pretty overwhelming that anyone posting comments here will never be one of those privileged few, nor will our children or grandchildren. I am utterly baffled as to why people continually and consistently vote against their own interests.
We need true Austrian Free Market economy here - No Corporations - people powered honest money. Competing currencies and a manufacturing base here in America. You want jobs? We need to start producing stuff again. Start supporting those American made Industries. We need Local economies.
Or else, this Cronie Capitalism Phony "free-trade" with agreements like NAFTA/CAFTA that are like 3,000 pages long, do NOT represent FREE Trade - free trade is 2 words - FREE & Trade! These so called agreements are also what destroys foreign business from providing for their own people, hence driving them across the border, "illegally".
Stop being consumers of junk and stop worshipping the service areas - start building/manufacturing something, American made and trade in silver - real, honest money - that cannot be printed out of thin air and used for WAR & Destruction.
"That doesn't mean we don't believe in markets and business. Americans are nothing if not entrepreneurial and industrious. But that's not what capitalism in America looks like today. The version of market economics that's been shoved down our national throat is designed exclusively by and for the benefit of giant corporations".
And teabaggers wonder why some of us often question their level of intelligence. Stop believing what Glenn Beck tells you and see the world as it is. I'm not a communist; I don't advocate communism; I don't want to destroy American and myself and most progressives feel the same way and love our country every bit as much as you do.
Demand a criminal investigation.
Demand the release of the AIG memos.
It’s time for the gloves to come off. The American people bailed out these sociopaths and yet they’ve doubled down on their schemes to stick it to working Americans because they feel as if they are entitled to their obscene profits and bonuses and untouchable by the powers in government.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact
http://pol.moveon.org/investigatewallst/
The United States of America is now the open maw of capitalist hell. Making endless wars for profit, while wrapped in the flag. May God have mercy.
By the way: the reason they picked a baby for those E-Trade commercials:
'Cause if they get the average joe at the computer thinking they're going to be a "player", it's like taking candy from a baby.