Is it Really True that The Market Will Take Care of Everything?

Is it Really True that The Market Will Take Care of Everything?Did Any Flaws Appear in Capitalism in September of 2008?
A person at Lonely Answers Club recently told me that I should take a course in Economics. She said:

If true capitalism were in place, nothing would be illegal. Instead, it [overpayment of executives] would be driven out by the market itself. Pure supply and demand would rule.

Our problem according to her is that our capitalism isn’t pure enough — it’s not the complete capitalism — the full capitalism — it has been diluted to some degree and meddled with.

But I remember September of 2008. There was Henry Paulson down on his knee in front of Nanacy Pelosi, in the Oval Office. Maybe I’m the only one that remembers, but he told her that unless she came through with about a trillion dollars in TARP money there was going to be a compete and total collapse of the US economy — another Great Depression.

I have no doubt that what Henry Paulson said was true. I’m not sure TARP was the ideal way to handle the crisis. I would have gone for government takeover and liquidation combined with strong prosecution of about 2000 senior executives at Big Banks and Hedge Funds on Wall Street. I would have added two more wings on Allenwood, and filled them with cellmates for Bernie Madoff. But instead we taxpayers recapitalized the banks with money they never loaned out, and now it time for reload, they are doing the same con all over again because we cannot admit we got scammed.

In this context the Econ 101 graduates are here to tell me that capitalism is not pure enough. We would all be better off if there were less regulation. If everything were legal, like in Heinlein’s Hong Kong Luna. The market would take care of everything.

So why didn’t Pelosi just tell Henry Paulson — “Don’t come to me, the market will take care of everything Paul.”

Some flaws may have appeared, or become apparent to rational observers, of which there may be few or none in USA because too many people have taken Econ 101 and learned the Efficient Markets Hypothesis from Milton Friedman and Burton Malkiel.

Here’s what I want to know — are markets truly efficient? Did Moody’s and Standard and Poor’s give honest ratings on the Mortgage Backed securities they rated? Did everyone who dealt with Goldman Sachs get a square deal, or know that they weren’t getting a square deal? Did AIG get $ 380 Billion in taxpayer bailout money because Goldman Sachs was a major counterparty, and Goldman had a lot of friends in high places — like Paulson, and Geithner.

Did the big Wall Street investment houses and banks pay out $ 700 million in bonuses for the same years performance in which they caused the totaly destruction and almost collapse of the entire US economy — was that the wonderful and excellent work that they bonused themselves for — using TARP money — your money — taxpayers tax money? Would that be a flaw in capitalism — or maybe a sign that we don’t have pure enough capitalism — with the really pure stuff those guys could have taken $ 20 Billion in bonuses, oh heck $ 50 billion, why not? The average working guy gets what $ 45,000 per year total pay.

The Econ 101 people can’t see anything wrong with that system. No flaws. It’s almost perfect. Could be perfect if we just got rid of the remaining rules and made everything legal.

I was reading Heinlein before my interlocutor ever took Econ 101. When she’s taken 10% as many courses in economics as I have, she can come and teach me Economics. In the meantime, do you think there are any flaws in American Capitalism?
How can anarchy possibly be the only moral economic code?

Is it not true that the students of Ayn Rand and Milton Friedman are whackos, plain and simple. Are they not barbarians and revolutionaries who seek to roll back the New Deal and the Federal Reserve System? In what possible way could these people be called “conservative”. All they want to do is tear up the rulebook and throw out the entire basis of our economy for the past 100 years. They want Hoover back, and the Great Depression back. They feel they somehow got gypped by FDR and the New Deal. Something was taken from them.

Where did they grow up? In Atlantis? How did they learn about this “No Rules” paradise, from Heinlein?

They are not seeking to “conserve” the country that you and I grew up in. They are seeking to replace it with a very different country that has never existed anywhere — as Ayn Rand and Emma Goldberg would agree. It’s a Pie in the Sky Land of Milton Friedman and his Zealous Lunies. Not USA ever!

Isn’t Wall Street a “great vampire squid”?Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone magazine came up with this term to describe Goldman Sachs: “The first thing you need to know about Goldman Sachs is that it’s everywhere. The world’s most powerful investment bank is a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money.”

But doesn’t this more accurately describe the Wall Street mafia in general? Not just the heads of the big banks, but also their cronies in government – like the heads of the Fed, Treasury, SEC, Fammie Mae, Freddie Mac, both political parties, ratings agencies like Moody’s and Standard & Poors, etc.?

Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-great-american-bubble-machine-20100405

There Must Be Some Way To Force Fox To Stop Telling Bold Faced Lies To Their Viewers, Any Suggestions?PDATED:Many news agencies lie and distort facts, not many have the guts to admit it…in court…positioning the First Amendment as their defense!
The attorneys for Fox, owned by media baron Rupert Murdoch, successfully argued the First Amendment gives broadcasters the right to lie or deliberately distort news reports on the public airwaves. We are pushing for a consumer protection solution that labels news content according to its adherence to ethical journalism standards that have been codified by the Society of Professional Journalists (Ethics: spj.org).
A News Quality Rating System and Content Labeling approach, follows a tradition of consumer protection product labeling, that is very familiar to Americans. The ratings are anti-censorship and can benefit consumers.
Appellate Court Rules Media Can Legally Lie.
By Mike Gaddy. Published Feb. 28, 2003
On February 14, a Florida Appeals court ruled there is absolutely nothing illegal about lying, concealing or distorting information by a major press organization. The court reversed the $ 425,000 jury verdict in favor of journalist Jane Akre who charged she was pressured by Fox Television management and lawyers to air what she knew and documented to be false information. The ruling basically declares it is technically not against any law, rule, or regulation to deliberately lie or distort the news on a television broadcast.
On August 18, 2000, a six-person jury was unanimous in its conclusion that Akre was indeed fired for threatening to report the station’s pressure to broadcast what jurors decided was “a false, distorted, or slanted” story about the widespread use of growth hormone in dairy cows.
The court did not dispute the heart of Akre’s claim, that Fox pressured her to broadcast a false story to protect the broadcaster from having to defend the truth in court, as well as suffer the ire of irate advertisers. Fox argued from the first, and failed on three separate occasions, in front of three different judges, to have the case tossed out on the grounds there is no hard, fast, and written rule against deliberate distortion of the news.
The attorneys for Fox, owned by media baron Rupert Murdoch, argued the First Amendment gives broadcasters the right to lie or deliberately distort news reports on the public airwaves.
In its six-page written decision, the Court of Appeals held that the Federal Communications Commission position against news distortion is only a “policy,” not a promulgated law, rule, or regulation. Fox aired a report after the ruling saying it was “totally vindicated” by the verdict”.

http://ceasespin.org/ceasespin_blog/ceasespin_blogger_files/fox_news_gets_okay_to_misinform_public.html

I was thinking we could start The “Sodium Pentathlon Party” .We could Protest at Fox station all across the country. Cary signs that point out the lies told and # of Lies to date Etc Etc. I know that net works like MSMBC are left leaning, But Fox is the only Station that went to Court ans Fought against their own Reporters declaring that “Fox has the right to distort the news”…..

Explorations: I need more than one opinion on these questions for my essay PLEASE help me!!!!?1.Have you ever viewed a film or television show that you (if you are/were a parent) would wish to shield from the eyes of your children? If so, identify the work or works and explain what you found offensive.

2.Can you think of a movie and/or television show that negatively portrays women? In what way?

3.Is there a particular movie and/or television show that you feel stereotypes a certain ethnicity? Please explain.

4.In the 1990s, the talk show genre hit an all-time high. Everyone, it seemed, had his/her own talk show. Fast forward to 2009 where talk shows have lost ratings. Oprah may be the queen of talk, but even she is facing declining ratings. To what do you attribute America’s disenfranchisement with the TV talk show format? Would you argue that any talk show is educational or informative any longer? Can you cite any specific examples to back your point?

5.What are your ideas on family ties in 2010? For instance, do you have a standard you view as the “norm” for modern American families? If so, what is it? Contrarily, has family become impossible to define? If your view is that family is difficult to define in the twenty-first century, would you say this is adequately depicted in television and film?