The American people are in part mired in a psychological quagmire more so than a physical or economic collapse. We are inundated with bad news and feel like we are depressed, so we become depressed. In medical parlance, we have a psychosomatic illness. Senator Gramm was correct. Part of this is psychological.
At their last 'debate' BOTH candidates said they were confident in the US economy. BOTH said it was going to get better. BOTH said, in essence, that the fundamentals of the economy are good. Losercrats hate this idea because they need to parlay fear into winning, but the economy will recover and the US economy will once again be a world model. Of that, neither candidate doubts. Their assurance / faith / belief is not based upon their winning and playing around with the economy - it is based on American productivity and ingenuity.
So then, how do we explain the following:
The End Of American Capitalism?
By Anthony Faiola
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, October 10, 2008; A01
The worst financial crisis since the Great Depression is claiming another casualty: American-style capitalism.
Since the 1930s, U.S. banks were the flagships of American economic might, and emulation by other nations of the fiercely free-market financial system in the United States was expected and encouraged. But the market turmoil that is draining the nation's wealth and has upended Wall Street now threatens to put the banks at the heart of the U.S. financial system at least partly in the hands of the government.
The Bush administration is considering a partial nationalization of some banks, buying up a portion of their shares to shore them up and restore confidence as part of the $700 billion government bailout. The notion of government ownership in the financial sector, even as a minority stakeholder,
goes against what market purists say they see as the foundation of the American system.
Yet the administration may feel it has no choice. Credit, the lifeblood of capitalism, ceased to flow. An economy based on the free market cannot function that way.
The government's about-face goes beyond the banking industry. It is reasserting itself in the lives of citizens in ways that were unthinkable in the era of market-knows-best thinking. With the recent takeovers of major lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and the bailout of AIG, the U.S. government is now effectively responsible for providing home mortgages and life insurance to tens of millions of Americans. Many economists are asking whether it remains a free market if the government is so deeply enmeshed in the financial system.
Given that the United States has held itself up as a global economic model, the change could shift the balance of how governments around the globe conduct free enterprise. Over the past three decades, the United States led the crusade to persuade much of the world, especially developing countries, to lift the heavy hand of government from finance and industry.
But the hands-off brand of capitalism in the United States is now being blamed for the easy credit that sickened the housing market and allowed a freewheeling Wall Street to create a pool of toxic investments that has infected the global financial system. Heavy intervention by the government, critics say, is further robbing Washington of the moral authority to spread the gospel of laissez-faire capitalism.
You would think it is the end of the world. Capitalism has fallen. It has collapsed. I suppose, if we recall the events of 1935-1937, and actions taken by FDR ... to many Conservatives, it was the end of capitalism (Robert Taft, son of William Howard Taft declared that the actions taken by FDR and his New Deal "would practically abandon the whole theory of American government and inaugurate what is, in fact, socialism." But it wasn't was it.
Fannie Mae and Freddie - were already government entities, fabricated out of nothing in the late 1990s to provide mortgages. I did not see the WP publish articles calling it the end of capitalism in 1998, but the government created Fannie and Freddie to do just what they now say is the end of capitalism.
AIG - well, this can be explained a little easier. LOOK AT THE PORTFOLIOS of members of Congress. Look at AIGs international connections and who has fingers in what pots.
It is not the end of capitalism and this fear-mongering is part of the problem. Faiola does a disservice as does the Washington Post and other papers that publish these fear inducing columns. You could almost start to believe they are doing it on purpose. No one would do that!
economy
fear
Posts
