j_b

Because we had put systems in place to prevent catastrophic failures of the economy and the pirates dismantled them on purpose to rob us blind.

like this economy is doing soooo great! open your eyes duchebag. Huh? are you a cretin or is it the booze that prevents you from understanding what I said?

Spare me the nonsense. Friedman knew he had to acknowledge externalities but his work was all about dismantling regulations to maximize profits. Anyway, not everything has a price and, we don't necessarily want to burn it all up, right now, because someone can make a buck out of it. In case you haven't noticed neo-liberalism was applied almost everywhere, which explains why so many economies have tanked.

As a matter of fact, I can hardly think of a better moment to point out that if there were many economists refuting the various myths that dominate the economic discourse we'd hear about it.

Dude, you need to wake up and face reality: until recently the crackpots of the Chicago school ruled the roost. There are of course some economists who show rigor in their work but they are marginalized and their work has little to no impact on policy. The immense majority of economists are ideologues who refuse the reality of the physical world.

It's probably already clear to most readers here that I was referring to economics as an academic discipline, not any particular campaign slogan. If you try real, real hard, you may be able to separate political ideology from the social science in your mind. Economics as praticed today is mostly political ideology that ignores physical realities. It should be a science but it isn't. Yes I did major in scientific accounting like that found in conservations laws.

To pretend the economy can expand forever or that ponzi schemes of debt amount to wealth creation isn’t science (social or otherwise), it’s crackpottery that ignores the most basic tenets of scientific accounting. The current lack of predictability has little to do with complexity but everything to do with fairy tales like “free markets” posing as theory.

it accounts for only one side of the balance equation; no real measure of supply or environmental externalities on relevant time scales, which suggests that your brand of economics isn’t a science, economy is not a science. it's a system of trust. it's something that constantly evolves, therefor we can make assessments about the past and try to predict the future. It is an ideology for most but it should be a science if we want it to have any predictive capacity. Obviously I am no economist but I am amazed by the lack of rigor of so-called experts.

The senator from Vermont, Bernie Sanders, explains why the bail out bill isn't good enough: [video:youtube]9xQuOjCBV0I

I know you’ll keep putting words in my mouth but there is nothing in your model that accounts for value other than monetary on short time scales, nothing in it would prevent slave labor or environmental plunder or monopolies for example, which incidentally explains why they all happen today. I’ll be short but succinct: your model is fundamentally flawed because 1) it accounts for only one side of the balance equation; no real measure of supply or environmental externalities on relevant time scales, which suggests that your brand of economics isn’t a science, 2) it mostly ignores interaction between the economic sphere and the rest of society’s endeavors (education, health, …) that strongly affect economic output, and 3) it ignores that some sectors are natural monopolies (telecoms, transport, electricity, water, ..), which means that forcing competition leads to destabilization and waste. Anyway, we can only guess the purpose of a 'supply and demand' dogma that has no second thought about paying CEOs and speculators billions in unearned money but claims it can’t afford to pay its workforce a living wage.

"What's wrong with wet slapping noises?" "Another case of too much government regulation that sunk a perfectly good business" [/snark]

Michael Moore's take on the bailout vote: http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/message/index.php?id=235

After the 1950's 1 wage earner, the 80's 2 wage earner, this is the 3 wage earner household demanded by the new economy. If the trend is true, the future could be interesting.

I am saying that deregulation in telecoms resulted in the building of unnecessary parallel networks that competed for too few customers, which lead to unrealistic price wars, frauds, score of bankruptcies, mass loss of jobs, industry consolidation, and new monopolies (...). Competition is good but if it profits only speculators and crooks while it destabilizes industries, it is not wanted. Moreover, in the case of cable for example, the infrastructure defines a natural monopoly, which should therefore be regulated. No, there is no theory involved since it is a statement from first principles: budgets depend on what comes in and what goes out. You, on the other hand, have a theory and it doesn’t work because, despite the books being thoroughly cooked (notably on inflation data), statistics show that purchasing power has decreased over the last 30 years for the overwhelming majority of Americans, which means that deregulation has not lead to an increase in purchasing power for anyone relying on wages to earn a living. On the contrary deregulation has enabled the casino economy of today where all economic growth, most of it virtual, debt-ridden or financed by taxpayers, is sucked by the upper 0.1% of the income brackets. In how many countries has deregulation and laissez-faire led to complete ruin in the last 30 years?

Agreed. Let the pirates go down with their ship and the casino economy. We should spend our taxes on building sustainable infrastructure, alternative energy tehnology and a manufacturing base.

I totally agree. We need to protect our assets from foreign takeover but at the same time I think this country needs a hard lesson that as individuals, companies, and government that we can't live off of credit and loans, especially when an increasing amount of our money is leaving. Getting people enslaved to their home and mortgages was part of the republican plan all along. Thatcher did the same thing with great success because she knew that once folks had their nest egg in the market they'd have to support it. Remember the "ownership society"? Nordquist said it'd be Bush's greatest legacy. Well, there you have it.

This is not an auspicious start for a history lesson. Liberal and leftist mean two entirely different things for people who confuse liberalism with anarcho-capitalism. Liberalism is the product of the enlightenment against religious dogma and for freedom of thought. It is also strongly underpinned by the concept of social contract, which is clearly antithetical to laissez faire libertarianism. You could have spared us all of this reading by simply pointing out that your side is rabidly against the breakup of oligopolies/monopolies or never accounts for the collusion between the news business, the militari-industrial complex, politicians, etc.., which are certainly more relevant today to monopolistic activities than your 300 yo Corn Laws. Under Reagan, the glory age of deregulation, antitrust cases against mergers declined to their lowest levels in 80 years. Anyway, it’s enough to hear you expounding the virtues of the deregulation of telecoms and note that customers are paying way more than ever for telecom services, that TV and internet cables services are de facto monopolies today (fact that you keep not answering ...), that 100,000’s of people have lost their jobs in the telecom debacle and that the entire industry still is not profitable, to see there is a serious disconnect between your discourse and the solutions your side preaches. You seriously need to review your arithmetic. The purchasing power of consumers is determined by prices AND WAGES. If you deregulate to the point where you workforce competes with that of developing nations, its purchasing power is bound to tend toward that of the workforce of developing nations, no matter what’s the price of Wal-Mart’s imported plastic junk. 30 years after the beginning of deregulation, the immense majority of households have 2 wage earners instead of one, most of them go from paycheck to paycheck, 99% of them have lost purchasing power, most of them have little savings; I’d say it about time you reassessed your model, because it doesn’t work for 99.9% of us. You guys are like locusts, everywhere your ideology won by free or totalitarian means, the economy tanked.

Let's play "Wallstreet Bailout" [video:youtube]S27yitK32ds

Dude, enough with the free market/privatize everything religion. When you have a little evidence to support your assertions, try again.

Only if you think that Pepsi and Coke represent the full range of beverages.

But Peter - you've told us that Carter was the second coming of Stalin! Ain't that the truth. Reagan campaigned against Carter as if he was a commie when in fact Carter bought laissez-faire propaganda on how to stimulate the economy. Carter started deregulating because it was all the so-called economists of the times were arguing for (following the coup in Chile and the distrastous experiment of the Chicago school on Chile's economy) and because he was under heavy attack for the languishing economy following the oil shocks of 1973 and 1979. Airline deregulation proved to be a total catastrophy despite what the free marketeers say (more than 160 airlines disappeared or bankrupt while those left still need bail outs). But at least Carter had a consequent energy policy which was dismantled by subsequent administrations. If we had continued Carter's energy plan we would be way ahead of where we are today regarding peak oil, alternative energy and infrastructure

The question of the day is whether this democratic congress will finally show some spine and not give a blank check to Wall Street. The senator from Vermont, Bernie Sanders has a plan: "I have proposed a four part plan to accomplish that goal which includes a five-year, 10% surtax on the income of individuals above $500,000 a year, and $1 million a year for couples; a requirement that the price the government pays for any mortgage assets are discounted appropriately so that government can recover the amount it paid for them; and, finally, the government should receive equity in the companies it bails out so that when the stock of these companies rises after the bailout, taxpayers also have the opportunity to share in the resulting windfall. Taken together, these measures would provide the best guarantee that at the end of five years, the government will have gotten back the money it put out. Second, in addition to protecting the average American from being saddled with the cost, any serious proposal has to include reforms so that we end the type of behavior that led to this crisis in the first place. Much of this activity can be traced to specific legislation that broke down regulatory safety walls in the financial sector and allowed banks and others to engage in new types of risky transactions that are at the heart of this crisis. That deregulation needs to be repealed. Wall Street has shown it cannot be trusted to police itself. We need to reinstate a strong regulatory system that protects our economy. Third, we need to address the needs of working families in this country who are today facing very difficult times. If we can bail out Wall Street, we need to respond with equal vigor to their plight. That means, for example, creating millions of jobs through major investments in rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure and creating a new renewable energy system. We must also make certain that the most vulnerable Americans don’t freeze in the winter or die because they lack access to primary health care. Finally, we need to protect ourselves from being at the mercy of giant companies that are "too big to fail," that is, companies who are so large that their failure would cause systemic harm to the economy. We need to assess which companies fall into this category and insist they are broken up. Otherwise, the American taxpayer will continue to be on the financial hook for the risky behavior, the mismanagement, and even the illegal conduct of these companies' executives." http://www.sanders.senate.gov/news/record.cfm?id=303317

The break up of ATT occurred in spite of people like you who despite what they may say never agree to breaking up monopolies. And, as far as I can tell I am posting via cable managed by another quasi-monopoly. So you'd recycle ad-infinitum your silly one-liners like the above and I'd give you a history lesson?

They weren't dupe but women and blacks couldn't vote and repression was much more blatant. In my opinion, TV is the most significant invention of the 20th century. Most people's reality is strongly conditionned by what goes on the tube.

Don't tell me you already ran away? are you afraid I'll discuss how DLC democrats were accomplice in the great robbery?