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Chronicle of Liberal Disasters
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President Obama’s Minimum Wage Delusion
February 14, 2013 | 203 comments
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The Democrats’ Rough Re-entry Into Reality
October 19, 2012 | 148 comments
A Further Perspective
Empty-Headed Protest
The OWS protesters know what they’re against, but not what they’re for.
The Occupy Wall Street protesters carrying “Down with Capitalism” signs have been asked by reporters what they would put in its place. Silence and a deer-in-the-headlights look is the typical response. They’re not the first critics of capitalism who know far more about what they don’t want than what they do want.
The protesters’ predicament reflects a long tradition of the left, and illustrates a major difference between liberalism and conservatism. Conservatives provide details of what their objectives are; liberals provide virtually none.
Conservatives have a strong preference for a market-based economy. Virtually the entire vast body of microeconomics is about how a market economy works.
A market economy is a system, a system of “spontaneous order” (in the words of Friedrich Hayek). The order, however, is not magical. It has a well-known much analyzed structure and logic. It results from the interaction of elements such as the price system, the profit mechanism, competition, and self-interest. The interplay of these ingredients is how choices are made, how resources get allocated, and how economic growth occurs.
Starting with the publication of Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations in 1776 there has been a long line of brilliant economists who have built on the intellectual foundation he established—David Ricardo, John Stuart Mill, Alfred Marshall, Friedrich Hayek, and Milton Friedman, among countless others.
The closest socialist equivalent to the Wealth of Nations is Karl Marx’s Das Kapital, published in 1867. Das Kapital, however, in no way addresses how a socialist or communist economy is supposed to work. The purpose of the book, and many since, is to describe the supposed flaws in capitalism and why capitalism is inevitably doomed. Many of the books since Das Kapital have been attempts to explain the interminable delay in capitalism’s collapse, the most famous being Lenin’s Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism. Like Marx, Lenin, and numerous others, the Wall Street protesters dearly long for the demise of capitalism, but somehow it keeps on ticking.
A primary theme of liberal economic theory, insofar as it exists, is “market failure.” The emphasis again is negative, not positive, reactive rather than proactive. Its purpose is to explain why the market can’t work, not why socialism can. It explains problems with the existing structure, but offers not even a vague outline of an alternative.
“Market failure” is a multi-purpose excuse for all manner of “government interventions.” It’s always automatically assumed, usually wrongly, that the intervention will solve some problem rather than making it worse.
In any economy choices must be made. Choice is necessary because human wants exceed available resources. That fact is what economists refer to when we talk about “scarcity.” Dealing with the implications of scarcity is the basic purpose of economic science.
If we decide to reject market choices, choices will nevertheless be necessary. Economic scarcity will still be very much with us. When you reject the features of the market there is not something that will automatically take its place.
What is the alternative to a market economy? The not-market? What exactly is that? How do they plan to allocate resources? Who or what will determine prices? How will incomes be determined?
No one has ever conceived of anything that works remotely as well in generating wealth as does the market. To date the only real-world alternative is an inferior and inefficient system of politicians and bureaucrats.
In a market economy the price system is the most important mechanism for dealing with scarcity. It signals to decision makers (consumers and producers) the relative scarcities of resources, goods, and services. Prices provide the essential information and the incentives needed to make efficient choices. If you reject the price system, some other mechanism will be needed to accomplish these crucial functions.
If we don’t allow supply and demand to determine relative prices, how will they be determined? You can’t just say, “From now on everything’s a dollar!”
Is there any underlying logic as to how resource allocation choices are made in Cuba or North Korea? They more or less take the attitude “Our policy is we reject capitalism!” The results, not surprisingly, are disastrous.
About the Author
Ron Ross Ph.D. is an economist who lives in Arcata, California. He is the author of The Unbeatable Market. Reach him at rossecon@gmail.com.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (136) | Leave a comment
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POST American| 10.20.11 @ 6:31AM
"Among the American indians,
the very act of counting was reckoned
a sadistic act--"
D H Lawrence
(essays)
Likewise now among the awakened everywhere
here in Globalist hijacked and collapsed
America.
---SO, surely the wallets behind this OWS
are NOT so empty.
FACT IS this ROT-child/Rockefeller SOROS op
is as contrived as it is shrill
-a la their October 1917
coup d'etat in St Petersburg.
-----40 MILLION plus (-and counting?)
exterminated dead later,
we ALLLL know what happens when the
USURY, or, if you will, 'counting' class
has its way with mankind.
--------------HUAC meets NUREMBERG-------------
ACT II ----is on the way!
Douglas Fletcher | 10.20.11 @ 6:50AM
Thanks for the update from the asylum.
Mike Hawk| 10.20.11 @ 7:04AM
The meds have kicked in. Though still somewhat incoherent, the thoughts are almost complete, even if quoted.
jothepro| 10.20.11 @ 7:47AM
Hey Post, Haste.
Tim the Enchanter| 10.20.11 @ 7:47AM
To POST: Huh?
Redstateboy| 10.20.11 @ 8:42AM
Post is Clint... can you not recognize that style of incoherence?
Drunken Sailor| 10.20.11 @ 9:51AM
Can't be. To many big words.
CESC| 10.20.11 @ 9:56AM
Hey, Post American, spare us the need to skip past your daily cryptic nonsense and do what the other morons do on websites when they have the need for attention. Simply type "FIRST!" and leave.
cowgirl| 10.20.11 @ 2:45PM
I bet any money that you are posting this blathering response via a iPhone while protesting with the OWS in a park in some big city. By the way, how much are they paying you and how does the free food taste?
Alan Brooks| 10.20.11 @ 8:31PM
Hope the OWS protesters disrupt the GOP convention next summer, even though no matter what anyone does you will elect another Cheney-Rove administration.
Alan Brooks| 10.20.11 @ 10:46PM
another MUSH administration to give you the warm 'n' fuzzies: GOP Kumbaya
You dumb suckers!
Alan Brooks| 10.21.11 @ 3:51AM
My God, I OWS succeeds as an openly homsexual artist/intellectual I need my entitlements so I can continue to promote the plight of " Man-Boy love"
supporters who need to be recognized as a special needs group and should be afford a higher level of protection and right than average hate mongering heterosexual citizens.
Darin| 10.20.11 @ 6:40AM
OWS is against capitalism unless it benefits them (see their use of capitalist products like iPhones and Twitter).
Their slogan: It's your money and I want it now.
vtwin| 10.20.11 @ 11:17AM
Neither the iPhone nor Twitter which depend on the Internet would exist if not for the public sector investments in computer communication networks made during the Cold War.
W| 10.20.11 @ 1:20PM
How do you know that? Maybe they would have been invented sooner if there was no government regulation of the phone industry until the breakup of AT T in the 1980's.
vtwin| 10.20.11 @ 2:26PM
Well without getting too deep in the technical weeds the telecommunication industry prior to the military’s requirement for a Soviet-nuclear-attack survivable communications network was a proprietary circuit switching network. The Internet, the outcome of this military requirement, is a non-proprietary packet switching network. And because the tax payers paid for its development anyone is free to invent new ways to use this new public network. The iPhone is a device for traveling this new public network and Twitter is a destination on this new public network. Get it no AT&T ass to kiss.
The One Who Runs Like a Duck| 10.20.11 @ 3:33PM
You can go ahead and clap, Vtwin. Thanks for coming to my defense. This is all about me and preserving my legacy of perfection. Lets not forget shovel ready jobs, green jobs in China, the summer of recovery, the great savings of ObamaCare, the promotion of the Chevy Volt, bat killing wind farms, cash for clunkers, fast and furious gun running to Mexico, my recent rape and murder preventing jobs program, Solyndra like money distributions to my friends, high speed rail scams that have enriched many of my friends, big buck government loans for worthless college diplomas so I can keep my fat cat university buddies flush with cash, the list is endless of what your government will do to ur for you. You have probably read that I have also successfully not harshly interrogated thousands of terrorists that I have incinerated instead. I liked this one the best. It showed how most of my followers have no principles that govern them. Fanny and Freddy all the way, baby. I hope you can attend the Hopeful Anarchists for Gargantuan Government meeting this evening. Great chicks. We are as nuanced as you can get.
vtwin| 10.20.11 @ 3:59PM
You read like a man down and depressed and about to give up on life.
Do you need a couple of bucks for the bullet?
The One Who Runs Like a Duck| 10.20.11 @ 4:41PM
You can go ahead and clap, Vtwin. I am not depressed. I am proud of my perfect record. I want to brag about all of it as an illustration of what big government can do to ur for the common person. We are saying the same thing but you're just not that smart. You participate in the corruption but get none of the benefits. The Democratic Party depends on guys like you. Cap and trade to Wall Street on high speed rail, baby.
markenoff| 10.23.11 @ 12:44AM
Don't forget your successful circumvention of settled bankruptcy law in the Chrysler and GM bailouts which allowed you to reward your non-secured creditor campaign contributors, the UAW, at the expense of secure creditors like the Indiana and Michigan public employee pension funds.
SpiralArchitect| 10.20.11 @ 5:38PM
Yet another example. The price of ammo is out of control too!
Al Gore| 10.21.11 @ 3:53AM
V,
I invented the internet asshole not the Pentagon, just as I invented global warming.
skip| 10.20.11 @ 4:14PM
While I'm of course relieved to see you grace these boards and threads once again, since a part of me has been worried sick the internet that mentor/climate saviour/chakra guru has invented has conspired to prevent your wisdom from enlightening us due to republican induced national default, I implore you to get that canadian vehicle in perpetual motion not just to avoid felonious teleprompter barbarity but for american job salvation through even more government every economist in existence has agreed will not only just 'create' and/or not only just 'save' but will now also and/or 'support' as well two million nonfigmentary positions and not just 'shovel readily' but instantaneously, by urging those married billionaires earning one hundred thousand per year, each, to pay their fair share of taxes in order to reduce the deficit from one point three trillion to one point two something trillion, and do so with gaia speed our anointed messiah of all things and not just oceanic surface levels.
The One Who Runs Like a Duck| 10.20.11 @ 4:55PM
You can go ahead and clap, Skip. Sorry I haven't been attentive. My trolls have been letting me down and not defending me so I haven't been here to encourage them. Plus there are a lot of golf courses in this country and radicals must play golf. You will never be a true Democrat since you have illustrated that you can add and subtract have more curiosity than a rock. I am sure you have many more talents but we are always looking for the Vtwin type of selfish cluelessness that is absolutely required for clinging to abortion and our mindless progressive ideology. Vtwin can be talked into defending anything I do. Sometimes I do the opposite the next day and he defends that. I do that to see how flexible he is. Vtwin on high speed rail to our wind farms in Gitmo, baby.
skip| 10.20.11 @ 6:40PM
I beg you, no more clapping, my hands are already bruised and bloodied from applauding your accomplishments. After all, if not for our salvation, which was accomplished solely through your stimulus plan, we would all of us, every one, be dead right now, because of your predecessor's criminal policies, that being a circumstance of difficulty. Our gratitude for you can never be sufficient to show our appreciation for your magnificence. Keep your perfect record of making perfect choices for us, even though the circumstances are difficult. Your 'stimulus' and your 'shovel ready' of course are examples of your perfect choices, and were so perfect that in fact you must now call them 'jobs act' and 'right now' instead, all because of circumstances that are difficult. 'Cash for Clunkers', another perfect choice, provides the perfect choice for your reelection campaign slogan; instead of the perfect choice of 'hope and change', which circumstances that are difficult mean not calling it that any more either, you could call your reelection campaign 'clunkers for cash'. Circumstances are so difficult you may need the emotional prattle spewing out of vtwin to combat the reason and experience out there in the real world serving to make circumstances so difficult in the first place. Run, The One, run like the duck you run like, The One, and run, though circumstances are difficult, and run even though your choices are perfectly correct choices, The One, who chooses choices that are perfectly ducky.
markenoff| 10.23.11 @ 12:45AM
Thank you for being perfectly clear.
markenoff| 10.23.11 @ 12:47AM
Thank you for supporting full funding for all DOD projects. We need the DOD developed technology not just to remain ahead of our adversaries but also to take advantage of its civilian applications.
TrueBlue| 10.20.11 @ 2:27PM
The idea originally began as a need to interconnect the DOD systems, but the fact that it was massively regulated for a very long time (early 90's before it was finally opened all the way to commercial traffic). If it wasn't for that overregulation by government progress would have been made MUCH faster.
vtwin| 10.20.11 @ 3:03PM
I agree but technology especially military technology was viewed differently during the Cold War.
Simon Templar| 10.20.11 @ 7:40PM
Just what the hell does this have to do with OWS or this article?
Or is this just another "liberal change the subject distraction technique?"
vtwin| 10.20.11 @ 8:24PM
Well,
Darin thinks “OWS is against capitalism” but “like iPhones and Twitter”
I pointed out the iPhones and Twitter wouldn’t exist without public sector investment (i.e. the Internet.)
TrueBlue thinks our government unnecessary delayed the release of this public sector investment (i.e. the Internet.)
I suggested the delay was because of the fear of the Soviets.
I hopes this help explain OWS but as far as the article I have no idea I didn’t read it.
Skippy| 10.21.11 @ 4:14PM
Who cares who invented your Internet, Al?
If these children had any morals or intellectual honesty, they would shun such bourgoise capitalist tools.
Your distractions do not diminish their hypocrisy.
vtwin| 10.21.11 @ 3:57AM
Nothing, Like any good leftist I have no answers so I just babble about whatever enters my head. I will be honest though, in my head I amainly hear the wind howl, and see tumbleweeds roll across the desert against a sky of stygian blackness.
Frisbee| 10.20.11 @ 3:14PM
The "public sector investments" you refer to weren't stimulus for the sake of stimulus. They were attempts at real engineering, whether during WW2 or during the space race.
vtwin| 10.20.11 @ 3:44PM
Agreed, and "public sector investments" in green energy, education, public safety, and our transportation infrastructure are not “stimulus for the sake of stimulus” but real investments with real benefits to be realized in the future of our nation.
Drunken Sailor| 10.20.11 @ 4:35PM
News flash. We have been "investing" in green energy through subsidies since before Carter. Just when will the benifits start being realized? It is good up to a point but it will not totally replace oil/coal in our lifetime. Even if it did replace the portions used for energy you still have all the products produced with oil. Good luck on solving that equation anytime soon.
vtwin| 10.20.11 @ 5:46PM
Sure, the Bushes, both oil men, twelve years, put a lot of effort into green energy.
Skippy| 10.21.11 @ 4:15PM
Oil works.
That may be why.
Harry Hunter| 10.20.11 @ 6:41AM
I think it is time we made a serious move to take the word "liberal" back from the left. It originally meant something like toleration of differences and minimal government - the opposite of what it has come to mean today. In Australia the conservative party is still called the Liberal Party.
Harry the Horrible| 10.20.11 @ 9:47AM
I agree. They should be denied "progressive" as well, as there is progressive about their policies.
I think "authoritarian" might work since there policies seldom allow the people any any additional freedom..
Vern Crisler| 10.20.11 @ 10:03AM
Good point Harry: We should call the Democrat party the Authoritarian party. That's exactly what Progressivism is.
Anthony| 10.20.11 @ 11:21AM
I refuse to call them liberals, which is why I always refer to them here as leftists.
Obozo, Harry Reid, Schumer, Pelosi, and the rest of the scum that comprise the D party are hoping that this is the long anticipated moment the American left have been waiting for.
Ohhh baby, do we have a suprise for you!!!!
Ned| 10.20.11 @ 11:52AM
I also refuse to call them 'liberal'... I shall spare you what I *do* call them, but suffice to say that none of the words (short, terse Anglo-Saxonisms) are complimentary.
Old guy| 10.20.11 @ 3:01PM
They are STATISTS, dammit!!
DTOM| 10.20.11 @ 3:49PM
Listen to the old guy! He's right.
PS
Isn't it irritating that the AS spellchecker thinks that "Statist" is misspelled?
Whoa, Nellie! It's not marked as misspelled any more. Wow! AS, you listened and fixed that! Wow! You get it! Thanks AS!!
What about Rino and Cino?
And now how about the sarcasm font? Please, please, please, can't we get that - it'll really help...
Kenny| 10.20.11 @ 7:11AM
The OWS crowd only wants to be cuddled ike their mommies do for them and to be take care of by Big Brother for the rest of their unproductive lives. (Personally, I think they need first to have their diapers changes and then given a good crack in the arse to straighten them out. But that's just me.)
Many of these protesters have useless college degrees and student loan debts. They are lost. And not just any job will satisfy them; it must be one that will allow their supposed 'creative' talents to flow and pay them well. Good luck with that.
NedB| 10.20.11 @ 7:59AM
here's my response to the OWS clowns.
Work or starve.
Cut them off completely.
CESC| 10.20.11 @ 9:58AM
Hand them a mirror and a washboard. Tell them to either work or watch themselves starve to death.
vtwin| 10.20.11 @ 12:04PM
You think this is young people with “useless college degrees and student loan debts” protesting for the sake of protesting, nothing else to do? I don’t because I’ve seen this before in the sixties. It starts with young people with their eyes still open and seeing a world, a future, they don’t want to live in. In the sixties in was racism and endless wars in Southeast Asia. Now it’s millions of Americans who’ve lost or are afraid of losing their jobs, homes, and savings because of the insatiable greed of Wall Street, it’s their democracy being sold away to the highest bidders, it’s… they see.
And just like the sixties a "change is gonna come."
Franco| 10.20.11 @ 12:36PM
Uh...change to what? Isn't that the whole point of the article (which sums it up nicely, IMO).
Change to what? What ? WHAT? A barter system? Are the workers of The Future going to paid in chickens one week, cows the next, bowls of gruel, gasoline , what? WHo decides how many bowls of rice and how many goats/pigs/chickens each of us gets? (I'm a bloodsucking Zionist Jew, so you can have my fair share of pigs). And who decides who raises the cows, grows the rice, prepares the gruel (with a bit of cinnamon, mmmmmm), cares for them, gets them to market, and slaughters (humanely) them?
Schmuck.
vtwin| 10.20.11 @ 1:34PM
“Who decides” workers compensation?
China I would argue is a totalitarian state, “totalitarianism is a political system where the state recognizes no limits to its authority … to regulate every aspect of public and private life,” capitalism left unregulated is free to move jobs to China to “reduced costs.” And this forces American workers to have to compete for jobs with the Chinese workers whose wages and working conditions are determined by the State.
So I ask you, who deciding workers compensation in America?
Franco| 10.20.11 @ 2:07PM
Good question. We don't operate under unregulated capitalism. As for unregulated vs. unregulated totalitarianism, that just makes my head hurt.
Drunken Sailor| 10.20.11 @ 2:26PM
"capitalism left unregulated is free to move jobs to China to “reduced costs.”
Come on, be honest. What is one of the major cost they save by moving these jobs? I'll give you a hint, we are #2 (#1 is pretty close)in the world for highest rate?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F.....ountry.svg
Drunken Sailor| 10.20.11 @ 2:28PM
Well what do you know, looks like we might be #1 afterall.
http://blog.heritage.org/2010/.....the-world/
vtwin| 10.20.11 @ 2:52PM
Please explain how Intel’s moving of a manufacturing plant from California to China to reduce Intel’s corporation income taxes, which I’m assuming is you argument, is in the interest of the United States? Because those young people occupy Wall Street don’t get it!
vtwin| 10.20.11 @ 3:04PM
Sorry; occupying.
Drunken Sailor| 10.20.11 @ 4:38PM
It's not in our interest. But it is the high taxes causing them to leave. Not the lack of regulation preventing them from leaving that you wold like installed. Please show me where in the Constitution the goverment has the power to tax you into non-profitability and pass a law keeping your company here until it can be ground out of existence.
vtwin| 10.20.11 @ 5:31PM
You’re damn right “it’s not in our [nation’s] interest.” Vladimir Lenin has been quoted with saying “the capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them.” But conservatives now days have forgotten how to think and simply regurgitate the 1% excesses (it’s taxes, it’s regulations, it’s unions) for transferring our nation’s manufacturing, technologies, and financial capital to China. Freedom is weakened and totalitarianism is strengthened.
The One Who Runs Like a Duck| 10.20.11 @ 8:00PM
You can go ahead and clap, Vtwin. To complete this circle we must convince them that Cuba is a beautiful thing. They have free health care and big thinkers that have turned Cuba into a land of plenty. Obama and Castro, these are the visionaries that we need to today. Workers will finally get the salaries they need to live as they do in Cuba. Sure some poets and homosexuals may have to go to jail but hey Obama happens. Eric Holder has already told me that he is ready to become my Che Guevera. Someday a bunch of ridiculous dumb asses will be wearing Eric Holder t-shirts. Some say that people sail away in ill-considered boats trying to go to freedom and I say what people? These are enemies of the people. They will never get Intel out of Cuba, baby. They say that this has all been tried before and I say not by the Duck running smartest man in the world that is trying it today. Look at Europe, it is in perfect health. What could go wrong? Full speed ahead on high speed rail to hell, baby.
skip| 10.20.11 @ 10:06PM
Oh omnipotent waterfowl waddler, I fear we have already arrived in hell before the perfect choice of high speed rail has reached fruition to take us there in these times of difficult circumstances. The enemy of your perfect choices despite difficult circumstances are requiring those who would reelect you to actually show identification in order to actually vote, are requiring those who would achieve gainful employment to do so only when not only the air but the water is contaminated, and are requiring those not fortunate enough to achieve gainful employment to be raped at best and murdered at worst same as everyone else. Times have become so difficultly circumstantial I fear not only that the amount that federal regulations cost the national economy overall will actually dip below the amount of federal revenue collected overall annually, I fear times have become so difficultly circumstantial, in this the land of individuals guaranteed equality under the law, that the 1% paying more taxes than the bottom 95% combined won't even have to pay their fair share of even more taxes. When these are the difficult circumstances you are perfectly choosing choices in, what will happen to us all should this affect your putting stroke, or your follow through of your swing off the tee, or duck paradise forbid, your wedge? I fear even your stupendiferousiositinessitude is not enough to ensure your handicap remains stable.
markenoff| 10.23.11 @ 1:02AM
Explain how a company that received $500,000,000 in stimulus money to create jobs in America is going to create any jobs here by building electric cars in Finland.
Explain how a company that received $1,200,000,000 in stimulus money to create jobs in America is going to create any jobs here by building solar panels in Mexico.
Bruce Berger| 10.20.11 @ 9:19PM
Vtwin,
You rant alot, but please, do tell, what are your proposed solutions to all the evils you see in the world?
Trinacria| 10.20.11 @ 6:19PM
Vtwin,
With respect, please explain to me how a financial institution that, under the mandate of federal legislation (Community Reinvestment Act) is compelled to provide loans to unqualified borrowers who have no chance of repaying the loans and then, acting in the fiduciary interest of it's shareholders (as it is also compelled to do) seeks to limit it's exposure to unacceptable risk by divesting itself of the loans through a process that was - it should be noted - entirely legal, be characterized as either (A) insatiably greedy or (B) the seminal cause of the present economic circumstances?
Does it not occur to you that the consequences of mandating the provision of loans to unqualified buyers might have been reasonably foreseeable?
vtwin| 10.20.11 @ 7:21PM
The Community Reinvestment ACT passed in 1977, required banks to lend in the low-income neighborhoods where the banks took in the deposits but the CRA did NOT require these banks to lend money for mortgages to people whom were not qualified. Nor does the CRA explain why most of the subprime loans that failed were made in neighborhoods other than low-income neighborhoods and by firms that weren’t subject to the CRA.
Suggested Reading:
All the Devils Are Here: The Hidden History of the Financial Crisis
vtwin| 10.20.11 @ 8:02PM
In fact most of these forecloses were not subprime mortgages or in low-income neighborhoods. The cause of the meltdown was the securitization of mortgages by Wall Street which eliminated the lender‘s interest in the borrower's abilities to repay the loan. This lead to easy credit across incomes which in turn drove home prices in all neighborhoods up and then reality came knocking.
Trinacria| 10.20.11 @ 9:18PM
Which was, as I pointed out, perfectly LEGAL and, in fact, supported by many democrats (Chris Dodd chief among them) who later demonized both the institutions from whom they accepted benefits and the practices from which they benefitted.
Michael Isaacson| 10.20.11 @ 7:24AM
This couldn't be more wrong. 1) Adam Smith isn't the free marketeer that the right says that he is. He believed in the necessity of a strong private sector as well as a goods-based (rather than gold-based) economy. 2) There are plenty of scientific analyses of socialism, from Input-Output theory to various theories of co-ops and other wealth sharing institutions. 3) The models of microeconomics (at the graduate level) are actually goods-based. When it comes to dynamic general equilibrium, prices are only relative prices (i.e., in terms of other goods), and can't effectively incorporate money into the model. Additionally, every model of "good capitalism" presumes that businesses make no profit. 4) Liberals and leftists are not the same thing. Liberals want to append a government apparatus in order to make the capitalist system more equitable. Leftists want nothing to do with the capitalist system. (Conservatives want the poor to die apparently.) 5) Just because most people at the occupations aren't graduate-level economists doesn't mean that there isn't any basis for their beliefs. There are. We already have some non-capitalist systems in place. There are many businesses that operate on an employee share-owned basis. These businesses have been shown to be far more successful than privately- or publicly-held businesses in terms of product quality and revenue accrual. Additionally, many more businesses offer their employees health insurance and a pension plan. What if these benefits were extended to more sectors of the economy? What if businesses partnered such that employees got a certain amount of groceries from a store each month for free? What if your employer covered the cost of your water bill? Your gas bill? Your rent? 6) The economists that you cite by and large did no empirical work. The Austrian school (Hayek and the like) were famous for rejecting empiricism in favor of a strictly theoretical framework. Thus, the models were only as powerful as their experience in the economy (which certainly wasn't poverty). Folk heroes of the right such as Rothbard, Mises, and Laffer are laughing stocks of mainstream economics because their is no basis for any of their theories. 7) You just got schooled by a Master's student.
Michael Isaacson| 10.20.11 @ 7:25AM
Public sector for point one, not private sector.
Trinacria| 10.20.11 @ 6:36PM
Thank you, sport, for proving the time tested observation regarding students: You don't know dick!
Tim the Enchanter| 10.20.11 @ 7:49AM
We just got "schooloed" by a fool. Hubris, much?
Mike D.| 10.20.11 @ 11:57AM
No, what you have been "schooled" by is someone with a Masters degree and a third grade education in Common Sense and World History
Indiana Alex| 10.20.11 @ 9:37AM
You didn't have to tell us you were a "student". It's very clear from the depth of your nonsense that your experience can be classified as the "mother's basement" school of economics.
C-GT| 10.20.11 @ 10:07AM
Your last word says it all. Get back to us in ten years or so.
Vern Crisler| 10.20.11 @ 10:07AM
Mises showed a long time ago that there can be no rational economic calculation under socialism. What you call "mainstream" economics is just Keynesian economics -- which is the theory that you inflate and inflate, and unions won't notice their real wages going down. Plus spend your way into prosperity. Now that's laughable, as if maxing out your credit card makes you prosperous.
DTOM| 10.20.11 @ 10:13AM
Please, oh great and wonderful Ozaacson, document for us one single instance in which the socialist model actually worked for more than a single year. It has to have worked through a winter and a harvest season to count. A working system requires progress, you can't refer to some comfy Caribbean island where they pretend to be free, they drive 60 year old cars, and they con American movie stars into believing that the island has the best medical care available for free for everyone.
Google it all day, you won't find anything. Socialism does not work, does not exist, and is sucker bait for educated, senseless, unreasoning fools like you. Don't you know that the first ones they kill are the professors and the intelligenstia?
al bundhii| 10.20.11 @ 4:56PM
On somebody's website a few days ago were some comments from a guy from Poland who had got to the West, and he and his wife did miss the old days in peoples' Poland, because back then everyone had been poor together but their souls had been pure living without all the Western consumerism and materialism capitalism pushes on everyone.
Vern Crisler | 10.20.11 @ 8:18PM
That may be a good critique of materialism, but it's not a good recommendation for socialism -- "everyone had been poor together"! Yep, that's socialism, all right.
al bundhii| 10.21.11 @ 12:03AM
The guy from Poland was the one missing the comfortable collective poorness of the Red Era. East Germans had a similar world view:" we hated the Stasi and the Trabis, but we liked the free dental care." P. J. O'Rourke said one time that the East Bloc crashed when everyone got tired of wearing Bulgarian shoes.
GW| 10.20.11 @ 12:54PM
As a fellow Master's student, I can tell you I read Hayek, Sowell, Mises, Freidman, Schumpeter and others for an Economics class. My professor, who has his PhD, certainly didn't laugh at them, but instead taught us sane economic theory.
As far as empirical evidence, what evidence is there for the socialistic model? Co-ops? Co-ops can work fine, but they occur in this country as freely set up organizations. Socialism would, by definition, *require* co-ops as opposed to the corporate model most large businesses are run as of now.
But how, pray, are car companies run as co-ops or employee owned? If the employees own the car company, aren't they more concerned with large salaries and benefits as opposed to increasing market share and staying profitable?
DTOM| 10.20.11 @ 3:56PM
GW
So your PhD professor is sane and Hayek, Sowell, Mises, Friedman, Schumpeter and others are not.
What has your bright Prof published? Have you read that? Has the Nobel Economics Committee?
Gee, I wonder who's work will withstand the test of time, your little liberal, socialist professor or those established giants...
There is nothing easier than criticizing to the ignorant. You ought to make sure that you are being educated, not indoctrinated. I hope you are not paying a lot for that "Education." Got loans?
Ew, that's gonna leave a mark.
skip| 10.20.11 @ 1:35PM
1) Liberalism is a social, political, and economic ideology consisting of fantasy, of emotional prattle devoid of reason and experience.
2) Conservatism is a social, political, and economic ideology consisting of reality, of reason and experience devoid of emotional prattle.
3) Your comments consist entirely of emotional prattle.
4) Your comments lack any reason and experience.
5) Your comments reveal you do not comprehend the most important concept the field of economics in academics can teach:
There is no such thing as a free lunch.
6) Your comments reveal you do not comprehend the most important tool the field of economics in academics can teach:
Opportunity Cost
7) Nothing is free. Everything has a cost. Every opportunity has a benefit, or reward. This benefit has a cost, or risk. Both the benefit and the cost must be analyzed. It must be determined whether the benefit or reward is worth the cost or risk.
8) Your comments reveal the benefit, your education, is not worth the cost, the assets paid to the academic institution for the education.
9) Your comments reveal an indication of the peril this nation faces socially, politically, and economically.
10) Your comments reveal you to be an idiot.
Trinacria| 10.20.11 @ 6:34PM
"We already have some non-capitalist systems in place. There are many businesses that operate on an employee share-owned basis. These businesses have been shown to be far more successful than privately- or publicly-held businesses in terms of product quality and revenue accrual."
NAME ONE. CITE A SPECIFIC EXAMPLE AND PROVIDE EVIDENCE OF THE SUPERIORITY OF THAT BUSINESS RELATIVE TO OTHER BUSINESSES IN THE SECTOR IN TERMS OF EITHER REVENUE, EARNINGS, DIVIDENDS, OR SHARE APPRECIATION.
By the way, please do be so kind as to share with us the Master's program in which you are enrolled so that I may advise my children to steer clear...
markenoff| 10.23.11 @ 1:15AM
"Employee share owned" does not mean non-capitalist. It simply means that the employees are participating in the capitalist system two ways as workers and as capitalist. That is true of a great number of people in the US who have 401ks or retirement accounts that own shares in publicly traded companies. That is one of the beautiful things about capitalism it can marshal the small investments of a large number of non-wealthy people to pool capital that enable entrepeneurs to develop products and services that make all our lives better.
Simon Templar| 10.20.11 @ 8:01PM
Apparently you did not learn anything in graduate school but Left wing propaganda that you never questioned, analyzed, or challenged.
Most of the long diatribe you rolled out for us did not make any sense..did you smoke a joint when you wrote it?
The last century settled these questions. Socialism is a failed and ridiculous economic and political system and theory. Even Sweeden is stepping back from it with reforms that are aimed to increase greater free market and capitalistic elements and reduce government intervention.
By the way, these Co-ops and other non-capitalistic ventures always and inevitably face serious financial and systemic issues.
There have been a ton of them and most inevitably fail. Spend a little more time in the library and you will find that this is just the case.
You just got schooled by someone who has 6 college degrees including a Masters.
PetePatriot| 10.22.11 @ 2:45AM
It is amazing how much BS a perpetual student with no real world (do professors still make the quotation marks gesture when they say real world?) experience can swallow.
This one isn't studying economics, he is studying far left politics dressed up as economics. Just think, the academic world is working on releaseing an army of Krugmans on us. For our sake, I hope they will just stay in their little dream worlds and get more loans for their Ph.Ds.
crookedwren| 10.20.11 @ 7:29AM
WAIT A MINUTE. There was the older gent who stated very succinctly that he would replace the free market system with Communism. Very matter-of-fact he was -- quiet, looking and sounding quite reasonable. Which is fairly remarkable. One would think that people of a certain age would recognize a failed, despotic system -- post USSR. Then there's Cuba and the People's Republic (when did we begin to refuse to utter the Maoist part in China's "new" name?)
JUST BEWARE thinking that these are all a bunch of windy neo-Hippies who know even less than their "progenitors." Yes, there are many out there who surely are "useful idiots." But the organizers and some among them are wolves in sheep's clothing.
And even some of the useful idiots are worse than dolts -- they are envious consumer's of other peoples work and dreams.
markenoff| 10.23.11 @ 1:17AM
But they just never got communism right!
That's one aspect of the left....they always want to compare actually existing capitalism against some pie in the sky utopian communism instead of comparing actually existing captialism against actually existing communism.
Bill Hussein O'Stalin| 10.20.11 @ 7:31AM
The OWS crowd is nothing but a group of illiterate moochers looking for their next hand outs.
In fact, they would not be expending the effort to organize if they didn't think their government sanctioned mooching was threatened.
In short, they will waste no effort to ensure that your paycheck becomes their playground. Other than that, they offer nothing to society.
The only difference between them and bomb throwing terrorists is the bombs.
Skippy| 10.21.11 @ 4:33PM
The bombs are on their way.
Appleby| 10.20.11 @ 7:36AM
I have a sister in that fight. I asked her what their plan was. She told me *We Want To Be Heard.* I said, okay, so hollering in the street is your mood -- but what are you going to DO?
No answer
I think their whole movement can be summed up in one word. GIMMEE
Drunken Sailor| 10.20.11 @ 9:54AM
I call them Attention whores. The will sell their soul just to get a little attention and feel noticed.
benny havens| 10.20.11 @ 8:27AM
These SFB protesters are complaining that there are no jobs to pay off their student loans. First of all, if they didn’t go for a degree in Art History, maybe they could find a job. Second, have they ever wondered why the cost of a college degree is so high? It certainly is not the fault of Wall Street. Could it be due to the salaries and benefits of their liberal professors? The so-called professionals who don’t know how to teach students but rather only know how to indoctrinate them.
Clinton| 10.20.11 @ 8:44AM
How about telling these folks, "Get a JOB! Forgot there aren't any jobs in Obama's America."
Mike D.| 10.20.11 @ 8:51AM
This is what the college system in the US Produces, this! A class of useless, brain washed ex-students who more than likely spent Dad's tuition money, held hands and smoked dope, and enjoyed the liberated college lifestyle for four or more years, ejected into the street and then the real world hit and ran them over like a freight train. This is the end result. A permanent class of over educated in the wrong curriculum, intitled, snivelers, who don't have the qualifications to run a fruit stand. Well, heres some tips for the bums. We have a large welding program in our local community college, they currently have more openings than they can supply welders and recently expanded to increase the class size. Guess what, right now if you can get a Nurses certificate you can call your shots and work anywhere in the US. Just a bit tougher than the Liberal arts degree, you actually have to work, use tools and instruments, and get your hands dirty. There are jobs if you have the skills to qualify and the discipline to learn a pratical profession.
Margie| 10.20.11 @ 2:22PM
We just moved to Ohio. My next door neighbor, a very friendly ex alcoholic and ex hippie who knows not a whit between conservatism and Liberalism, never even heard of the Drudge Report, a lovely recent Widow with whom I have befriended, being an ex hippie wanna-be myself in my teens, and understanding the desire for booz, but having forsaked it for the sake of the Gospel:
OK that was a long sentence with many mistakes in formation, but please bear with me.
The point is this: In this town, they have the WOS peeps going door to door recruiting people to sow up at their rallies.
We happened not to be home at the time, but boy would THAT have been fun.
She told me she was going to go. I shook my head and said, Nah. Not me. They're wrong, you see. They're blaming the wrong people. It's the government that's the problem, this White House that's causing the problem, not the people who make the money.
She looked at me in sheer innocent bewilderment.
I see that the Good Lord has placed me next to a soul that He loves so very much. Someone who needs to know lots of things late in life.
And it is NEVER too late to learn!
"And seeing the crowds, He was moved
with pity concerning them, because they
were weary and scattered, like sheep having
no shepherd." Mt. 9:36.
Margie| 10.20.11 @ 2:24PM
OWS, not WOS's, above.
DaveD| 10.20.11 @ 9:01AM
One of my daughter's high school friends is a OWS supporter. This 31=year=old booby thinks that we should abandon money and go back to a barter system. She gets all pissy when you ask her :how many chickens to the gallon of gasoline?"
al bundhii| 10.20.11 @ 5:04PM
Re the joys of barter; Carl Hess, who ran Goldwater's campaign in '64 refused to pay his taxes to the LBJ govt and got shorn of his money by the IRS, and lived on his farm on barter for the rest of his life, and wrote books on the joys of Barter.
Trinacria| 10.20.11 @ 6:39PM
Chickens? Hell, how many liberals to the gallon of gasoline?
markenoff| 10.23.11 @ 1:19AM
Gas, grass or a**, nobody rides for free.
Dixie Pixie| 10.20.11 @ 9:15AM
Why try to understand the motivations of a ball-peen hammer.
The O..W..S.. are simply a tool of Obama, the Democratic Party and MSM.
I am not surprised the O..W..S.. seems incoherent as Post American.
They are, because the Obama administration simply gathered the dysfunctional front groups of Leftist Activism together so they could present O..W..S.. as the “vanguard” group of a widespread movement.
The purpose is to give the impression that there is a wave of popular support growing for the policies that the Leftists want to implement.
When the O..W..S.. protests reach a MSM generated crescendo, Obama will “reluctantly” agree to give in to the “will of the people”.
What that means is Obama and his socialist minions are trying to achieve a new opportunity to loot the American public.
Nothing more.
That is why the common factor throughout the O..W..S.. subgroups is they simply want lots of free stuff provided by the public.
That has been Obama's goal from the beginning.
Margie| 10.20.11 @ 2:26PM
You've got it. Well said.
Evil is as evil does!
Dixie Pixie| 10.20.11 @ 4:02PM
Thanks Margie.
I is always a pleasure to hear from you.
On a related matter, I was just in checkout line and noticed The Globe headline.
“Michelle Obama's spending out of control”
I did not have a chance to read it, but it could be the case of the tabloids being 18 months ahead of the NWT and MSM like the Edwards Affair.
Or simply another MSM coverup.
Shades of “Men in Black”, proving the outrageous to be fact.
Maybe some other TAS poster can add further details?
Margie| 10.20.11 @ 8:04PM
Thanks, Dixie Pixie.
LOL, yes, I do believe that I saw that on none other than the Daily Mail. You know, that tabloid in the UK that has a little bit of everything for everybody? I discovered it through Drudge sometimes linking articles to it.
I must say, the UK isn't afraid to tell it like it is.
From August:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new.....tions.html
These Elites are the typical stereo typical (ok, redundant there) Leftists and fit the bill of the Euro Commie type tyrant:
"We steal from the poor (or in our case, the "Rich") and give to ourselves."
Hey, they're in it (the Presidency) for not only to do the above, but to get that nice little treat that comes with a lifetime guarantee: that lovely pension!
UGH.
Dixie Pixie| 10.20.11 @ 9:39PM
Thanks for the link Margie.
I never believed that Michelle Obama only spent 300K dollars on a Spain vacation just to comfort an old friend.
40 friends and 68 security personal plus travel,local police services, housing, meals, entrainment, gifts and various other expenses would run over 2 million dollars easily.
When the USA is in a Obama caused Great Depression and the USA broke and living on borrowed money, Michelle's spending habits look more like French Revolution level Aristocratic stupidity.
No wonder the White House has never released the correct accounts of Michelle's spending.
I would not be surprised to find out the White House entertainment budget runs over 50 million dollars a year.
Private “Beatles” concerts are not cheap.
Thanks Again Margie.
Margie| 10.20.11 @ 10:43PM
You're most welcome.
BTW, just saw a great bumper sticker put out by Patriot Post. It says:
CAIN VS UNABLE
HERMAN CAIN FOR PRESIDENT
Tenn Slim| 10.20.11 @ 9:25AM
The Deer in the Head Lights response is due to the interviewer choice of respondents. Pick one of the older, grayer, and obviously Logistically oriented OWS patrons. They can and will provide a Socialist answer, these folks know full well what the replacement system is. A European Socialistic State. As the song says, "Keep the change, I take America".
end
Buck Ofama| 10.20.11 @ 11:30AM
Though older, grayer, and more oriented, they still suffer from the mental disorder of emotional infantilism.
https://gunnyg.wordpress.com/2010/05/02/the-tyranny-of-emotional-infantilism-imperils-america-modern-leftism-and-magical-thinking/#respond
Buck Ofama| 10.20.11 @ 11:32AM
Correction:
https://gunnyg.wordpress.com/2010/05/02/the-tyranny-of-emotional-infantilism-imperils-america-modern-leftism-and-magical-thinking/
Timothy L. Pennell| 10.20.11 @ 9:30AM
The Boy Scouts are EVIL.
Did you know that? It's true. That's why The United Way no longer gives them any support. You see, the Boy Scouts, who try to instill Christian Moral Values, in to their young charges, don't want any OPENLY GAY Scout Leaders.
We don't keep score anymore, at our Youth Sports. The Children's Self Esteem is Paramount, and must be Protected at all times. Which is why we don't correct School Papers, anymore, in RED. And, everybody gets a Trophy.
You can't Smoke, anymore. (You can, but, only where "THEY" tell you, you can.)
You can't EAT what you wanna eat. It's true. That's why Fried Foods just don't taste the same, anymore.
You can't SPEAK your mind, you can't express your feelings, unless you are on "THEIR" side.
YOU can be a Racist. "THEY" cannot. YOU are a BIGGOT. Not "THEM". You are Intolerant, and want to Force your values on "THEM". "THEY" never do that.
I can't think of a single thing that Liberalism or Progressivism, has CONTRIBUTED to this Country, other than The Double Standard, the Black Radical Racist, Gay Marriage, AIDS, METH, CRACK,and the Self Hating Jew.
Having said all this, no-one should be surprised by what's going on, all over the world.
"Never let a Crisis go to Waste." Remember?
Who's been the President for the last 3 Years, there abouts? Who's been Steering the Ship of State, over the Falls? Who's desk does THE BUCK STOP at? Who Pissed Away a $1,000,000,000,000 Stimulus/Slush Fund? Under who's watch, have all our Financial Indicators CRATER, and our Credit Rating been DOWNGRADED? Who's Poll Numbers are in the 30's? And who's Claim to Fame, is ORGANIZING the same kinds of CIVIL UNREST, that we are witnessing all over the world?
Why are CODE PINK and Richard Trumpkas thugs, and Teachers, and Moveon.org involved.
Who do all of these people have in COMMON.
The Muslim Boy. The Great Uniter. The Messiah.
Take a good look, cause THIS is what 2012 is all about.
We gotta TAKE OUT this Sons of a Bitches, and bring back an America where We The People, can belong, again.
CESC| 10.20.11 @ 10:08AM
Great post. Spot on.
Margie| 10.20.11 @ 12:17PM
You forgot one other punk, Adam Kokesh, who aligns himself with Code Pink as well. He's there. He "united" with Code Pink and went around "protesting" at McCain/Palin campaigns.
Clint here, sings his praises.
Surprise, surprise.
Margie| 10.20.11 @ 8:06PM
Oh no. I said the bad word, "punk."
I meant gentleman, of course.
Heh.
Redstateboy| 10.20.11 @ 9:33AM
Wait....... I've noticed the lame stream media all of a sudden has gone quiet on the Flee Party and I would bet money on why.. and the why?? It's getting Freak'n cold out and these Flee baggers are melting away fast and it's embarrassing to the Left to been seen as the pansies they are.
Drunken Sailor| 10.20.11 @ 10:12AM
Not to mention it's hard to rant against capitalism when your raising over $300,000 in donations as well as eating as well as the Wall Street Bankers.
skip| 10.21.11 @ 11:38AM
We should 'hope' they don't 'change' their minds for at least another 12 months.
presidential campaign: $1 billion dollars
annual federal regulations: $2 trillion dollars
current national debt: $15 trillion dollars
total unfunded national liabilities: $160 trillion dollars
'occupy wall street' damage to democrat party: priceless
CESC| 10.20.11 @ 10:25AM
These "no real world experience" unwashed children and their "Stuck in the 60's" so-called adult fellow occupiers are only held together by one common bond. They are all equally jealous and envious of others.
They are motivated primarily by their wish to deny others what they do not have.
They remind me of that old USSR era joke about the farmer that meets with his local communist bureaucrat complaining that his neighbor has 4 sheep and he only has one. That his neighbor has 3 cows and he has only one. That his neighbor has 6 pigs but he only has 4. When the bureaucrat asks him what he wants him to do, the man says "Kill my neighbor's animals"
Jealousy and Envy describes these idiots in a nutshell. Devoid of logic and reason, they occupy private property and destroy the very earth they supposedly worship.
They protest against but have no reasoned solution. And they have the full support of the democrat leadership from Obama to Reid to Pelosi.
We must support whomever is the Republican candidate and ensure our REPUBLIC returns to a safer leadership. We must rally to defeat EVERY democrat. These people constitiute a true threat to our very lives.
Dave| 10.20.11 @ 11:17AM
OWS is just another example of the empti-headed voters responsible for America's current problems.
DTOM| 10.20.11 @ 4:00PM
Voters? I doubt it. Maybe some genius reporter will ask some of them if they are registered to vote.
Buck Ofama| 10.20.11 @ 11:28AM
To the OWS babies, the author's scholarly assertions would be pearls cast before swine.
This is because the babies suffer from the mental disorder: EMOTIONAL INFANTILISM.
Read all about it here:
https://gunnyg.wordpress.com/2010/05/02/the-tyranny-of-emotional-infantilism-imperils-america-modern-leftism-and-magical-thinking/#respond
Excerpt:
"III Modern Liberal Examples of Magical Thinking
A. Government & Human Nature
Belief: Leftist leaders are presented as enlightened, selfless, saintly and pure persons, not unlike a child’s idea of the perfect parent. The state itself is deified, taking the place of religion. All programs are therefore described as well-conceived and meant only for good.
Classical pagan governments had no Bill of Rights or separation between religion and state to protect citizens. In the Roman Empire, the emperor was deified; all religions were a subset of the state, who called on the priests for answers, but then chose whether to accept their findings. Therefore, to attack the gods was to wage war against the state.
Modern liberalism uses a similar model. Today’s leftist leaders are often presented to the public as boasting the most outlandish, godlike talents, reminiscent of the Deeds of the Divine Augustus5 (Emperor Caesar Augustus’ autobiography). Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has often been described as the world’s most brilliant woman. Likewise, Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama are presented as the greatest and wisest minds of their age. This puffery is necessary to create a human interface between the people and the deified state, as seen in all Marxist cults of propaganda, erected for every communist leader.
- - -
- - -
- - -
Conclusion: Summary of Liberal Magical Thinking
Application of Magical Thinking in society is a grave problem as it replaces genuine thought, analysis and science. It assures wise decisions won’t be made, so results are never optimal.
The following ten aspects are essential elements of neo-modern liberal Magical Thinking, being it is:
1. Childish;
2. Wishfully-thinking;
3. Anti-scientific;
4. Sentimental;
5. Neo-Pagan;
6. Narcissistic;
7. Anti-Christian & uses karmic ethics;
8. Antinomian (lawless);
9. Emotivist (feeling oriented);
10. Nihilistic (extreme doubt of a rational world).
Principled conservatives, libertarians and liberals should join and reject the infantile Magical Thinking world-view and resultant childish policies. If not, our entire society will be permanently driven off the cliff by repeated childlike policies and political decisions. Then, every good that all the leftists in America have long wanted to pursue will be just a faded memory of lost opportunities."
Buck Ofama| 10.20.11 @ 11:32AM
Correction:
https://gunnyg.wordpress.com/2010/05/02/the-tyranny-of-emotional-infantilism-imperils-america-modern-leftism-and-magical-thinking/
cicero| 10.20.11 @ 12:51PM
It is almost amusing how things never change. The last anarchy movement was peopled by folks who didn't have to work (Marx), because they were living off of others (parents, patrons), running around crying that they were for the poor and downtrodden. The poor and downtrodden hadd no time for the nonsense, because they were workiong too hard trying not to be poor and downtrodden.
Our current batch is of the same clothe. We have a current administration peopled with folks who have never had to have a real job. The OWS crowd are much the same.
The real fight is not with Wall Street. They only took the free money because it was handed to them. The fight is with our own government. There is no provision in the Constitution for anything like the bailouts that were given to the bankers and industrialists, and unionists.
I have to laugh everytime I hear or read someone talk about the govt saving G.M. and Chrysler. The last time I looked, a corporation is supposed to be owned by its shareholders. All of the shareholders of G.M. and Chrysler lost all of their money. The only ones who were bailed out were the executives and the unions who ran the companies into the ground in the first place.
No more bailouts. No more "too big to fail". If the OWS crowd were demonstrating for that, I would be out there with them.. But then, they are picketing in the wrong city, on the wrong street.
Ron| 10.20.11 @ 1:10PM
And how irresponsible is it for the Demon-Rats to stand up and back these OWS fools? What ever happened to adhering to social norms and order? it clearly shows that the Demon-Rats are after the same anarchy these knuckleheads are after...
nohussein| 10.20.11 @ 2:19PM
Want to see them really cry, send them to Cuba where they belong.
Buck Ofama| 10.20.11 @ 2:41PM
A lot of the young whining babies could get jobs instantly: US MILITARY is looking for a lot of "men" and dykes.
Oldefarte| 10.20.11 @ 3:27PM
Pure truth, but in fact the military would no doubt have little use for these worhtless pieces of human garbage, since all of them are lazy, stupid [and as such would hopefully be rejected by the US military]!!!!!!!!
Oldefarte| 10.20.11 @ 3:29PM
Typo: worthless, not WORHTLESS!!!!
Oldefarte| 10.20.11 @ 3:24PM
The extreme stupidity of these human trash pieces of filth can be witnessed in the fact that, without capitalism to supply the revenue from taxiation of income producers, the government welfare benefits that they receive would not exist. Their cry of DOWN WITH CAPITALISM is testamony of their collective STUPIDITY. Alternatively, the capitalistic income producers of this nation should proclamate the fact that they FIGHT POVERTY BY WORKING FOR A FINANCIAL LIVING!!!!!!!!!!!
Dixie Pixie| 10.20.11 @ 10:11PM
An odd thought occurred to me.
How stupid must these O..W..S.. protestors be, if they can not comprehend that not only is the USA broke but it seems unlikely to pay off the National Debt ever.
Add to the fact they can not even remotely sense that the USA is in the third year of a Great Depression brings up the question of how isolated from economic reality are these people.
Is Post American right in that the O..W..S.. protestors are the result of a 100 year old eugenics breeding program.
The Northeastern Elite of that time period did believe in applying eugenics to themselves.
The O..W..S.. people are certainly the children of the Northeastern Elites.
Maybe Post American can give a coherent, logical and fact based argument proving the connection.
Naaaaa,these idiots are simply the hired minions from an Alternative Universe and Obama is a giant Nigerian Prince Scam writ large.
POST American| 10.20.11 @ 11:00PM
--------------------BOTTOM LINE----------------------
A century of USURY skewed, disastrous
and bloodly, bloodly history
6 decades of out n out cultural subversion
(-dope--porn--'POP'---wampum--) designed,
funded and directed through the deeply
sinister, TAX FREE, unaccountable
'charitable' foundations
4 decades of deliberate, broad daylight,
US taxpayer underwritten and enabled
economic ---and now, political TREASON
viz a viz RED China
Unfolding, and extensively documented
programs and age-endas calling fot the
FINAL destruction of soveriegnty, the
annihilation of all culture and GENUINE
religion----and the implementation of
a CON-trolled society run by X-perts
and designed to implement the extermination
of 90% of mankind by 2100
------Yeah, we'd say it's time for that second
chapter to NUREMBERG --and that second
act to the HUAC.
---------------------HIGH TIME-------------------------
Dixie Pixie| 10.21.11 @ 12:35AM
Post....where did you miss my lead on “ a coherent, logical and fact based argument proving the eugenics connection”.
That was a softball lob allowing you to hit one out of the park and you muffed it.
Dude... Try harder.
bottes ugg ultra tall | 10.21.11 @ 6:33AM
try!
POST American| 10.21.11 @ 11:54PM
-------------------BOTTOM LINE-----------------------
USURY is, was, and eternally remains
--------------AN ABOMINATION----------------
"--and David counted the tribes. . ."
He did indeed. And we know where that led.
-------------------------AMEN----------------------------
markenoff| 10.23.11 @ 12:39AM
The problem with capitalism is capitalist. The problem with socialism is capitalism. And we are all capitalists.
POST American| 10.24.11 @ 12:24AM
"Understand, the money 'system'
IS the core, the central, the original
---CON."
-ALAN WATT
(devastating and fearless online)
CON
---KAHN
-----COHN
--------COIN
----------KANG
------------KANE
----------------CAIN
-------------------CANE
----------------------'NEO CON'----job.
USURY is abomination. GOD's own law
enunciated by MOSES himself.
It MOCKS creation and spits in the face
of GOD by making something out of nothing.
INTER--national USURY particularly
is inherently TREASONOUS, fosters
EUGENICS, instigates and massively
profits from wars, and ALWAYS wreaks
devestation, cultural degradation and
GENOCIDE.
Forget the ROT-child contrived terminology.
Forget 'Marks--ism'.
Time to REAL--EYES ---the lies.
ALL HAIL!----FREE ENTERPRISE without
the presense of the actuarial psychopaths.
CraigT| 10.24.11 @ 12:00PM
Utopian is a good description for liberals and socialism. I find I can agree with many of their feelings if I just add in front "Wouldn't it be great if ...". Wouldn't it be great if there were no wars or bad people so we didn't need to arm ourselves. Wouldn't it be great if everyone had everything they needed and didn't have to work hard for it. Wouldn't it be great if there was free medical care for everyone that needed it.
Once I take away that preface though, reality kicks in and none of these are achievable or realistic. The world just doesn't work that way and when the liberals and socialists have been in charge it is many, many times worse than what we have today - they certainly have no better solutions.