Comments on: The One Minute Case For Capitalism

By: theuknownamerican

theuknownamerican — Sat, 10 Jul 2010 21:41:54 +0000

@Arnold T Man is a social creature but I prefer to voluntarily associate or socialize with other people. You feel otherwise but that would mean you don't think the freedom of association exist and don't believe we have the right to associate with anyone that an individual chooses. What right do you have to decide that for others? The answer is none so save it for the communist meeting.

By: theuknownamerican

theuknownamerican — Sat, 10 Jul 2010 21:38:14 +0000

@Marshal Anderson How does someone get rich at the expense of others involuntarily in a free-trade society? Considering that the rich got rich by voluntarily giving up items they had for items other people had. It was voluntary exchange of property between two people. No theft has occurred simply because it was voluntary. The minute you have involuntary trade is the minute that freedom begins to evaporate since free-will is removed from someone.

By: theuknownamerican

theuknownamerican — Sat, 10 Jul 2010 21:32:17 +0000

@ Yep This will take some thought for you which might be difficult but let me explain it. The only purpose a society has is for the fullfillment of each individual economics. A society where each person freely trades property from one person to another is a society that operates on a voluntary basis between each member. Property becomes a person, a person's labor, and the things that they have. in a society where each person volutnarily exchanges these things with another is a society where no removal of force can be taken away from someone.

By: Yep

Yep — Sun, 04 Jul 2010 06:09:52 +0000

Arnold T. nailed it.

The glaring condradictions in this post are as profoundly telling as they are contrdictory.

How can a system in which all property is privately owned simultaneoulsy tout the importance of individual rights? The only ‘rights’ that capitalism defends or confers are the rights of those few who are (un)fortunate enough to control capital – for anyone else, capitalsim is just slavery.

By: Arnold T

Arnold T — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 16:29:30 +0000

@tu mama en tanga You sound like an uneducated drop out. Go read a book. hahahahaa

By: Arnold T

Arnold T — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 14:26:32 +0000

What suckers for the Right-Wing propaganda. There is no limit to what the Free Market Idolaters will believe. Blaming government for everything is such a childish and manipulative gimmick.

The idea that Wall Street is blameless is just beyond bad judgment in light of the facts. People like Groves and Ben are what is wrong with America. These types of people, working in concert, destroyed our economy.

The death of Laizzez Faire Capitalism is at hand. Just like in the 1930′s, the free market extremists will eventually be put down and a new economy based on practical judgments will rise to take its place.

By: Michael Groves

Michael Groves — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 10:00:28 +0000

It’s a pity you are descending to insults in a rational discussion.

However, what is it you don’t understand? The gov’t instructed Freddie & Fannie to make loans to uncreditworthy borrowers *and* people know that the gov’t will bail out failing banks. These two things were the major reason why caution gave way to greed.

Investors are rewarded when they take risks that succed, and should be punished (by absorbing their own losses) when they fail. You’ll always get a spectrum of investors, ranging from the extremely conservative to the wildly speculative. I’d do a lot more due diligence before I invested my money in a bunch of securitized loans, if there were no Fed to underwrite my mistakes.And if I didn’t do the due diligence, and lost my money, so what? It’s on my own head. That’s the essence of Capitalism – freedom of choice, and then bearing the consequences, good or bad.

Actually regulation *is* hugely important in Capitalism, but only in making sure that there is transparency and honesty in reporting, for example. (Companies should not misrepresent their performance or balance sheets to investors, for example).

Regulation should not restrict economic activity, or mandate what kind of investments are allowed – who better to decide how (and with whom) money gets invested, than the guy who earned it in the first place?

Wall Street does not “gamble” – they have created the greatest amount of wealth in history simply by allocating capital to the most successful companies, and starving the failures out. In the process, many investors have lost money due to misjudgments, recklessness and bad luck, but the invisible hand inevitably ensures that the wins exceed the losses over time. That’s the system.

By: Marc

Marc — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 08:35:04 +0000

@Arnold T
What are you talking about? No one is calling for utopia! We always conceed that man’s insitutions will be imperfect, since man is imperfect, we are not saying that private actors are perfect, we are saying that they are far better than the alternative. The question is wich of the two is better? the private sector of the public one? mplexity of the world cannot be wished away. The great depression was caused by Hoover’s interventionism and protectionism, and then prolonged by FDR’s new deal. Modern history is basically the private sector creating whealt and jobs, and the government wrecking everything. The crisis was entirely caused by the government, you people blame deregulations, but if you look at the federal registers, wich contains all the regulations in the economy, the number of page grew faster under W Bush than it did under the 5 previous administrations as you can see there: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i06peJfgUqI . the housing crisis was caused by the federal government forcing banks to give out loans based on ethnicity, age, sex, income and not credit history. The banks were forced to engage in affirmative action in lending.

By: Arnold T

Arnold T — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 07:59:28 +0000

@Michael Groves
Too bad you have been brainwashed by the Extremist Right-Wingers. You will never understand economics because you have adopted an ideology of unrealism. You are doomed to never comprehending the true nature of economics. The idea that Freddie and Fannie were a cause of this mess is just dumb.

By not blaming the actual private business individuals who lobbied to be unregulated and then designed the loans, marketed them and signed off on them is just stupid.

You are as irresponsible and dense as the buffoons who created the mortgage loans.

The only way to prevent speculation and malfeasant financial behavior is to prohibit it. That is the only answer that gets results. It worked for over 40 years until they deregulated banking and went for free market chaos.

Blaming government is ridiculous. Wall Street will always gamble if you let them, bailouts or not. Las Vegas has no problem finding gamblers who will risk it all and lose it all.

It is the same with Wall Street. The only answer is for the government to regulate the hell out of them so they cannot.

By: Michael Groves

Michael Groves — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 23:42:02 +0000

Arnold T,
Just for the record, the “Free Market” did not destroy the economy. Greed (aka wanting stuff) is a natural drive of humans, but usually reined in by the fear of losing money in risky investments. Unfortunately, *Government* took away that balance by creating a guarantee for Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, and telling them they *must* lend money to uncreditworthy customers.

The bailout of the Banks is precisely the reason investors allowed (in fact, pushed) the Banks to make make risky investments – why not take risks if any losses will ultimately be covered by the Fed?

The Free Market says that you can invest what you like and reap the rewards, but you suck up the losses without running to the tax payer.

Contrary to popular opinion, the problem was (and is) too much regulation, not too little.

By: Arnold T

Arnold T — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 15:12:25 +0000

This article is nothing more than worshiping at the alter of fanaticism. The extreme perfection called for is called Utopian. Utopian societies do not exist and cannot exist because human nature is very very messy.

The complexity of the world cannot be wished away. This talk of Free everything is hogwash. Get real.

Oh and if you want to prove that government fails, just let the Republicans run the government. Great Depressions and Great Recessions are guaranteed. The Free Market nuts got most of what they wanted while they had the power and influence then destroyed the economy while they were at it.

Yea, government fails when lunacies are at the helm just like corporations fail when idiots rise to the top.

By: Marc

Marc — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 23:22:47 +0000

You are engaged in one of the most damaging and persistent out there, wich is of looking at the imperfections of man, and only aplying them to those who work in the private sector. Shure investors and buisiness people are gonna screw up very often, but why do you assume that government bureaucrats won’t? The government is not this outside force from another dimension, its made up of people, people who are just as imperfect as those who work in the private sector. The private sector is far from perfect, but it is far better than the alternative, wich is the public sector. Where the private sector fails, the public sector can only fail even more, because it is made of people who spend other people’s money to fullfill the needs of other people. You are suggesting that we do the dumbest thing we could, wich is to put in charge of important decisions people who pay no price for being wrong. The profit motive will not only lead to risk taking, it also leads to costs reductions, product improvment, competition, hard work, sacrifices, discipline and so on. The examples that you cited, the great depression and the current recession and products of that mistake, of putting the government in charge of managing things that would have been better handled by the private sector.

By: Michael Groves

Michael Groves — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 01:24:34 +0000

I was pointing out that “rights” don’t really exist, so it’s really moot whether they are individual or communal. Anyone can declare something arbitrary a “right”, and if (and only if) they have the might to enforce it, then it *is* a right.

By: Ben

Ben — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 16:39:19 +0000

I never said what rights an individual should have, just that group rights are derived from the fact that the individuals in the group have individual rights.

What rights an individual should have is a whole other comment thread.

Speaking of comment threads has this on not pulled a Godwins law yet?

By: Michael Groves

Michael Groves — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 13:45:42 +0000

@Ben
Ben,
While I obviously agree with you about the individual vs worker-bee thing, I think you are on shaky ground when you refer to “rights”. At the end of the day, there are no rights other than those that can be, and are, enforced. And this is usually (but not always) decided on, and done, by the community.

You and I might (or might not) agree on what rights an individual *should* have, but they are not “inalienable rights” or ordained by God – they are really just wishful thinking about the way things should be.

But since most individuals have similar aspirations and fears, it’s generally possible to agree on a core set of “rights”, and then communally enforce them. (Of course, since most people aren’t very analytical,the “agreement” is implicit in their acceptance of whatever the regime imposes, but history shows us that prosperity and stability tend to go along with economic freedom, i.e. strong individual “rights” and strictly curtailed communal/authoritarian “rights”).