I finished only fourth grade in communist China, but I still remember that my second grade teacher taught us that capitalism is evil, and that a socialist society like China is the ideal society. With this string of bailouts and more bailouts on the way, some commentators are saying that the United States is becoming socialist or communist. I really think that they have no idea what communism or socialism is and what America is planning to do now isn’t exactly socialism.
Socialism has many forms, but the basic principle is that the government owns the means of production and pretty much all citizens work for the government. Whatever the nation produces as a whole gets spent on its citizens. The current $700 billion dollar bailout plan being discussed now does not address how Americans citizens will be provided for. Additionally, there is no talk of the government actually owning equity in the banks it helps so the government will not be owning the means of production. Instead, the government will own the mistakes of countless individuals in the form of bad debt. It is basically a plan to shove financial diarrhea down the throat of American taxpayers while telling them that perhaps there is a nugget of gold in there somewhere. This is not socialism or capitalism. It is pure and sheer madness.
Now having said this, I must say that I believe that individual accomplishments should be recognized, and a capitalist society like America allows the best to shine. However, these bailouts are really rewarding the worst instead. Currently the Democrats are arguing that the bailout should include cuts in executive compensation, but why would that even matter if the government doesn’t own a single piece of these companies? Additionally, the money these executives are earnings are peanuts compared to the amount of bad debt the government wants to bail out. What congress should ask for is huge amounts of equity in the companies they help out like the way they took nearly 80% of AIG’s equity. Do what the Swedes did in the early 1990s and take a pound of flesh from these irresponsible bankers. Only then can taxpayers see a possible return on their money and then I would call the United States the United Socialist States of America. If the $700 billion bailout passes as it stands now, this country will be forever known as the United Stupid States of America.
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7 comments ↓
“shove financial diarrhea down the throat of American taxpayers”
heheh.. good one.
Isn’t it crazy?
Why is it, that in such a dire situation described to be the worst financial crisis since the great depression, executive compensation should even be a bargaining chip? How could that even be considered of any importance what-so-ever? Common sense dictates that it should be a “given” that executives be fired without any type of compensation, and should even be investigated for criminal charges.
How did it become the Secretary Treasurer’s responsibility to defend these executives? Why is he bargaining over their fate? His job is to defend the taxpayers.
I’ll tell you why.
It’s because this whole thing has been staged beforehand as a wag-the-dog ploy to have the Democrats save face when they approve the bailout plan this week. They have to “appear” like they are fighting it, when all along they probably have agreed to the bailout months before.
The real “CEO’s” which include every member of Congress are the ones who should be fired and frog marched to prison. They let us down, every one of them.
I appreciate your perspective on socialism it is a real reminder to us capitalists.
Sadly, the bailout may pass. This is simply an extension of the problem of irresponsible lending and is itself an example of irresponsible lending. This problem has been building for many years. The real question is why is this suddenly a crisis that leaves us with few options?
I am afraid that the only solution that would work is a natural correction which will cause the economy to completely bottom out–not a good time for anyone.
I’m no economist so I don’t really know how to fix the problems created by a combination of consumers wanting everything now and lenders giving them what they want, neither considering the consequences. But it’s even more complicated than that.
Many are calling for some sort of taxpayer give-back to be added to the plan. Also why if the FDIC can step in and fire CEO’s and take over banks, why doesn’t the government consider doing same with investment entities–because of the socialism aspect. At that rate the feds would be running everything in no time. That’s why government rescues are bad for the US. If capitalism is let to correct itself we’ll have to hit some very rough times before we can enjoy a smooth ride again.
I am very much a capitalist (and libertarian) in favor of small government, but I also don’t think this bailout is quite as big of a deal as everyone is making it out to be. And I think it will save all taxpayers a lot of money compared to letting everything air itself out in a 10 yr recession.
The problem for all the investment companies is that there is NO MARKET for their assets – the pools of bad loans. Therefore according to our mark-to-market accounting standards, the assets must be declared worthless and written off.
So all the government is doing is creating that market by passing a law that ALLOWS them (not compels them) to buy up to $700B in those “worthless” assets from these companies. Once the companies’ balance sheets are cleaner, they’ll be free to lend to people again and they’ll be seen as stronger and healthier and the markets will stabalize.
The government will buy those assets at a fraction of their original cost and may even end up MAKING MONEY on the deal over the long term since they will hold the loans until maturity rather than sell them off. Most of those loans will probably not go bad, though they will be paid back (to the government as opposed to the banks) slowly over years and decades.
In short, it’s NOT A STUPID IDEA. It’s actually kind of a brilliant solution. Of course it would have been better if it was never necessary, but it’s no reason to move to Canada either.
Agreed. Why do why spend so much time trying to recreate the wheel, poorly, instead of trying to learn from best practices? We as a society want short-term, fake simplicity by ignoring complexity, instead of trying to achieve long-term, real simplicity by conquering complexity. Reasonable people can disagree on the issues, but first we all need to understand the issues… well, as much as possible.
Your post made me happy, briefly, but sometimes the level of public debate is just plain sad. CNN’s “debate meter” was the perfect illustration. It -spiked- at the mention of “greedy CEOs” but flatlined whenever complexity was introduced. As if a public caning of CEOs is all we need to unfreeze our credit markets. As if we can point a finger without three pointing back at us.
Bottom line: like a household with a huge debt load, we need to be smart about expenses. Yet we can’t afford a game-changing pay cut (topline stagnation/nosedive). Nor should we seek to bear risk without commensurate compensation. If we could have got a Warren Buffet to negotiate on behalf of taxpayers — as if it was his bottom dollar — I suspect the plan would be radically different, as would the debate.
A system in which the government serves the interests of big business is properly call fascism or “corporatism” as Mussolini styled it.
get your voice heard, wear this USSA shirt
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