It's a very scary world right now.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27112481/
I may be wrong but my hunch is that the silver lining in crises like this is the opportunity to make important changes that people don't let you make when everything is hunky dorie (like passing anti-trust laws). Whatever those changes are, I hope some smart and objective people make them.
You all already know that I think an Obama is more likely to make the right sorts of changes than McCain. I think on economics McCain just says whatever his advisors tell him to say, while Obama is smart enough in this category actually to think it through himself with his economic advisors. If significant changes are needed, I just see an Obama more likely to make them than "More of the Same McCain."
My musings and hunches... not even my positions because I'm not qualified.
P.S. Obviously Eastern Europe, Cuba, and the Soviet Union have a lot to say about the likely success of a communistic system. But right about now Karl Marx's thoughts on the instability of unbridled capitalism don't look too stupid either.
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I might add that I have to wonder if stocks would have slid as hard and as fast if the House would have stood up and passed the rescue bill the first time. Just think, that money would by now already be shot in the arm of the economy rather than still being a few days off. And there wouldn't have been a week for people to panic. And the bill wouldn't have been laden with a bunch of other goodies.
And for those who said, "Wall Street deserves this" and said "It doesn't effect me," oops. When will people start listening to the experts? This is one of the first times in a long time that I actually respect Bush.
It is my understanding that it was A.C.O.R.N.'s "bag of goodies" that the Republicans resisted in the intial package...This organization is not only been associated with Obama's community service organizing...but with voter fraud, low rate interests given to the economically disadvantaged (the people who are defrauding on loans, right now), and profiting those who are the head honchos in the mortgage and banking businesses...So, I don't think that the initial package would have been any better, at least in perks to those who have the power and position to influesnce them...
Capitalism in some forms should have never been applauded...de-regulation where certain financial shennagins go on are abuse of the market...I find this appalling.
So, is it your conviction that the economy and market are to be the big focus for the presidential election...at the costs of foreign policy? If so, why do you think this, as this has been the focua of the American people in most elections...?
Don't forget that at some point, the national economy does become an issue of national security and foreign policy. The huge budget deficits are financed by IOUs held by banks in the Middle and Far East. There are hidden consequences to the Bush tax cuts and the wasteful war in Iraq.
Globalization should have slowed to a snail's pace until some of the details about "law" was resolved. And some of these issues get into how one udnerstands nation states and their "sovereignty"...this is the trouble with globlaization I think, becasue it only promotes abuse of a system that works, the market. In our country, we have unions or balance of power structures that limit business interests...whereas, with slave labor and other countries who do not value life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, we have those who would prey upon the unsuspecting, the powerless, or the underclass for the sake of profit...
I know that countries as well as NPSs and NGOs try to remedy the situation, but these are alos being used as fronts of abuse...I don't think we will eradicate the system of evil, so in this sense it is the Christ and culture model where the systme is useful for proper purposes....it still stumbles me, though
How dare you suggest that Marx was even partially right.
... =)
Wow...did you...just try to...gain..brownie points...with marxists? Are there any even left? What is becoming of this blog?
I have been amazed that so many years after the Cold War we still can't talk dispassionately about economic structures! For the record again, I strongly affirm a moderately controlled capitalist system as the way to maximize productivity and "happiness" in a society.
But I have been amazed these last weeks that people still have such emotional attachments to words like "capitalism" "socialism" or "Marxism," that they think they can validate or dismiss an idea simply by attaching any of these labels to it. The logical fallacies I've witnessed these last weeks are amazing to me: the fallacy of division where if the overall system is valid or invalid therefore all the component ideas are considered also valid or invalid, the fallacy of slippery slope where one step in a particular direction is assumed to take you all the way in that direction, the straw man fallacy where a nuanced position is painted as a stock position, the fallacy of diversion where assent to one critique Marx made of capitalism is changed into an affirmation of Marxism.
Surely no one would suggest that every idea Adam Smith had was correct, even if his overall system was an incredible step forward for all subsequent Western culture (which I believe). And by the same token, how could anyone seriously suggest that every thought Marx had was wrong, even if history has proved his own system to be the biggest economic failure of all history?
Yes, even Satan himself sometimes says things that are true.
Well, I guess I would have ignored (had no emotional attachment as you say) it as a passing comment if you would have said it like that. BUT, the point is, economic structures are all limited. This is not a "marxist" observation, even if its something he used to make his argument for communism. So I think there IS danger in giving his ideology credit for things he shouldn't get credit for. And by danger, I don't mean shaking in my boots/shut off to intellectual debate. I mean a desensatizing to what the best economic principles really are. The collapse of the credit market is not rooted in the wisdom of marxism.
And no, I disagree that Satan says things that are true (in the sense that I actually care about). In the final analysis what appears to be true is a trick. Truth doesn't mean just "facts". Something you've taught me in blog posts time and again.
Anyway, I just thought you overgeneralized with your statement instead of talking about what really caused this economic debacle we're in.
Your push back is always welcome...
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