Small Government?

[leftysergeant]

Moving people from blood sucking leech mode to productive mode expands an economy, increases GNP, increases wealth.

To your sort, they are blood-sucking leeches. to the sane, they are the people who build the infrastructure that an ecconomy needs and keep the brigands and bullies from robbing or enslaving or cheating the weak.

Putting government workers out of work when there is no longer an industrial base is not going to increase productivity.

By the way, nobody said a word of concern about the estimated 2M insurance company workers who were understood to be out of work after a single payer takeover.

But they don't prodcue anything. If half of an average family's income were not going down that rat hole, maybe some working people could afford to open their own businesses or accumulate the capital to invest in companies that do make stuff here so that some people could go back to work.

 

[corplinx]

So no, it wasn't a free market. It was a government managed market. And it failed spectacularly. The best idea the interventionists have is "well, government should have managed the security industry more too". Its fail plus fail. "Government should manage the finance industry." Triple fail. They completely fail to comprehend that the only reason the source industry of mortgage lending failed, was due to government management!

What does it say when the best argument is "yeah, we could have turned the poor into the homeless en masse, but we wouldn't have had to pass TARP or lose any 401k money"? I would humbly suggest that if this is the best you have, then you are looking in the wrong spot for the blame. You are basically ignoring the underlying problem.

"Another black eye for free market capitalism", is just neo-comm wishing thinking. There isn't a single shred of evidence they can provide that there was a free market working.

Moreover, the idea that businessmen represent the free market, is not one Friedman shared. One of the key reasons that Friedman opposed managed economies is that businesses take unfair advantage of them. Tell me that wasn't the case during the mortgage lending bubble.

 

[lomiller]

As in the great depression, monetary policy had a lot to do with the Iceland crash. Their _government_ created a currency bubble through interest rate manipulation. And when the bottom fell out, it fell hard.

First this isn’t supportable by the facts. Specifically the inflation numbers do not support the notion of currency bubble.

And when all the money started leaving the country, the banks fell hard.

The banks fell hard because they were over-leveraged, the same leverage that fueled the housing bubble.

 

[lomiller]

So no, it wasn't a free market. It was a government managed market.

No it wasn’t government managed at all. The core of the problem was in the derivatives market which is almost completely unregulated.

This lack of regulation allowed lenders to externalize risk thereby breaking the risk-reward system financial markets are built on. This risk doesn’t just disappear however; it gets taken up by the system as a whole and brings down the whole system under the right conditions.

 

[leftysergeant]

Moreover, the idea that businessmen represent the free market, is not one Friedman shared.]/QUOTE]

Who, then, does? This makes bloody little sense.

One of the key reasons that Friedman opposed managed economies is that businesses take unfair advantage of them. Tell me that wasn't the case during the mortgage lending bubble.

This is another reason why I am convinced that Friedmann was a dimbulb.

 

[Beerina]

Well the COMPLETLY unfounded and IDIOTIC meme of the right is that if all those bureaucrat types were gone than business could function as the ALMIGHTY intended it to be and then those people would find REAL work or starve to death, I guess, and decrease the surplus population.

I could grant you heaving money at The Poor and The Old and we still haven't touched much.

One doesn't have to support an extremely limited government (which I do) to simply be against the massive, grotesque growth lately, and the stunning $3.2 trillion budget this year.


See, in good times, they run up the debt because the times are good and we can afford it. In bad times, we "have" to run up the debt to "help".

There's always a narrative to spend too much money, for the purpose of electing officials.

 

[ponderingturtle]

I think Iceland´s main problem was that they didn´t have enough "substance".

In other words, when the whole finance thing tanked, they didn´t have enough of a "real" economy to soak up the losses.

So it is a look at americas future then.

 

[Chaos]

So it is a look at americas future then.

Does America have 320,000 inhabitants, with 2/3 of the GDP and 90% of the exports consisting of fish?

 

[mhaze]

....One doesn't have to support an extremely limited government (which I do) to simply be against the massive, grotesque growth lately, and the stunning $3.2 trillion budget this year.....

I think we should all, everyone in the country, get credit cards and max them out, giving the money to the US Government to pay off the debt.

Wait....I just actually proposed something dumber than what the government is doing.

Now that's an accomplishment.

 

[leftysergeant]

Does America have 320,000 inhabitants, with 2/3 of the GDP and 90% of the exports consisting of fish?

About all we export any more is agricultural products and scrap metal and weapons, but we can't even manufacture weapons more complex than infantry small arms without importing computer chips from our major competitors like China.

Not good.

 

[lomiller]

See, in good times, they run up the debt because the times are good and we can afford it.

Who's "they"?

 

[Captain.Sassy]

About all we export any more is agricultural products and scrap metal and weapons, but we can't even manufacture weapons more complex than infantry small arms without importing computer chips from our major competitors like China.

Not good.

hmmm.

I'm not 100% with you on this. The US generally has a trade surplus in semiconductors and capital equipment.

http://www.bea.gov/agency/uguide1.htm#_1_19

/\/\/\
stats


Also, it pays to remember that traded goods are actually a pretty small share of the US economy. Just cause US exports go down doesn't mean that the US doesn't produce something any more. A US company may have invested abroad and be producing in a foreign market what it formerly produced for export in the US. This doesn't mean that the company no longer has the capacity to produce that good in the US for the US market.

 

[leftysergeant]

Also, it pays to remember that traded goods are actually a pretty small share of the US economy.

Yeah. The big money is in trading paper, a lot of it based on the profits of companies that import manufactured goods. We are left, basicly, trying to get rich flipping each other's hamburgers.

Just cause US exports go down doesn't mean that the US doesn't produce something any more.

When the companies that use to manufacture products here close their factories and move off shore, yes, it does erode our ability to recover and rebuild manufacturing capacity.

A US company may have invested abroad and be producing in a foreign market what it formerly produced for export in the US. This doesn't mean that the company no longer has the capacity to produce that good in the US for the US market.

It does when they close the factories and ship the equipment off shore to set up their factories there.

 

[Captain.Sassy]

Yeah. The big money is in trading paper, a lot of it based on the profits of companies that import manufactured goods. We are left, basicly, trying to get rich flipping each other's hamburgers.



When the companies that use to manufacture products here close their factories and move off shore, yes, it does erode our ability to recover and rebuild manufacturing capacity.



It does when they close the factories and ship the equipment off shore to set up their factories there.

Hey man, I'm on your side re. crappy low-wage service jobs. It's getting harder for the working man, no doubt.

All I'm saying is that shutting down export capacity doesn't necessarily mean you're shutting down capacity to produce for the domestic market.

Shutting down domestic capacity, offshoring this and then importing what you formerly produced domestically for domestic consumption is a 'nuther thing.

 

[Peephole]

Who's "they"?

Reagan and the Bushes.

You know, big government icons.