11 reasons America's a new socialist economy

[Crewleader]

PAUL B. FARRELL
11 reasons America's a new socialist economy
How free market ideology backfired, sabotaging capitalistic democracy
By Paul B. Farrell, MarketWatch





ARROYO GRANDE, Calif. (MarketWatch) -- Welcome to the conservative's worst nightmare: The law of unintended consequences. Why? Nobody wants to admit it, folks, but the conservatives' grand ideology is backfiring, actually turning the world's greatest capitalistic democracy into the world's newest socialist economy.




A little history: The core principles of conservative economic ideology are grounded in Nobel economist Milton Friedman's 1962 classic "Capitalism and Freedom." Too late to stop President Lyndon Johnson's Great Society, those principles became the battle cries energizing conservatives since Reagan: Unrestricted free markets, free enterprise and free trade; deregulation, privatization and globalization; trickle-down economics and trickle-up wealth to an elite plutocracy destined to rule the new American capitalist utopia.
So what happened? Are you guys nuts? Hey, I'm talking to all you blind Beltway politicians (in both parties) ... plus the Old Boys Club running Wall Street (into the ground) ... plus all you fat-cat CEOs (with megamillion parachutes) ... and all your buddies scamming everybody else to get on the Forbes 400. You are proof of Lord Acton's warning: "Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely."
It's backfiring! You folks turned our America from a great capitalistic democracy into a meddling socialist economy. Still you don't get it. You're acting like teen addicts tripping on an overdose of "greed-is-good" testosterone while your caricature of conservative economics would at best make a one-line joke on Jay Leno.

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/eleven-reasons-america-new-top/story.aspx?guid=%7BD23E1901%2D728E%2D4A3C%2D99D1%2D7E80F74C3AE3%7D&ref=patrick.net

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1. But, for a while anyway, it did work - beyond their wildest dreams - and turned the U.S. into

a third-world nation with wildly lopsided distribution of wealth. Their plan worked: the middle class is basically gone and the gap between the "haves" and the "have-nots" has turned into a gulf. So what they wanted to happen did happen. However, in the game of Monopoly, play ends when one player accumulates so much wealth that everyone else can't afford to even play the game any more.

[Skittles]

4. people quit playing when they realize the game is rigged, too

:(

[pokercat999]

5. And they start their own game.

We call it the underground economy.

[Herman74]

6. As You likely already know, Albert E. would be pleased if socialism is coming,...

being concerned as he was about that gap between the "haves" and "have-nots." But in case readers out there haven't seen this: http://www.monthlyreview.org/598einst.htm

[CrispyQ]

7. But, but, but . . .

Last night Glen Beck said that the middle class is disappearing because they hvae moved into the upper class. And his guest agreed with him. :eyes: :crazy: :eyes: :crazy: :eyes: :crazy:


I could not believe my frickin' ears.

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8. For the most part they moved into the poor.

There may be a few lucky people who were middle class but are now rich, but I think they are the exception.

[Lasher]

2. Very good article.

Quite different from the din of supply-side free trade bullshit that we are constantly fed.

[depakid]

3. Wow. This guy takes irony impairment to a whole new level