Craig, a frequent commenter on bearonbusiness, struck a cord with a recent comment. An off-key cord that is. His comment opened with:
Defining Cuba as socialist is debatable. I would say Stalinist not socialist but that’s a debate on its own. True socialist states are rare and like unfettered capitalism, usually break down before their pure form due to greed and ultimately morph into something else. There are elements of multiple economic systems that work with examples all over the world yet here we seem to always end up at the black and white with no gray.
Craig, I agree that life is rarely black or white. Nonetheless, Cuba is exhibit one in the shortcomings of a socialistic society. How would Cuba look if it weren’t for the Stalinist aspects? If you have an example, please let me know. Perhaps there is a reason why socialism and dictatorship get intermixed: for socialism to work, you must control people’s desires (“you get what society thinks you need”) and actions (“you’ll produce what society thinks you should produce”).
Craig couldn’t help himself but to continue:
Maybe we should look at other systems and take the best of all of them and evolve and progress for whatever we’re talking about be it economics, health care etc. I believe that America was called the great experiment so I highly doubt after less than 250 years we got it just right. We already have elements of nationalization but choose not to categorizes them as such for some fear of what… the slippery slope?
Craig, I agree we should work to improve our system. My point was clearly that we need to do so cautiously and we need to do it with great humility. America’s “great experiment” is working far greater than any system in history. Do we really believe that Nancy Pelosi appreciates what makes our system tick? Do we really believe her ideas are about “evolving and progressing” our great system? Or is she just spreading to her constituents the wealth that our system has produced? The Aesop fable The Goose That Laid the Golden Eggs comes to mind (see future post).
I believe Pelosi has not demonstrated an appreciation for the American economic model. Yet she is not the least bit shy about tearing it apart at its seams. President Obama, to my great disappointment, seems to be on board with massive and abrupt change.
Craig then ended with a thunder:
I keep hearing ‘We need to let it crash so it bounces back!’… like it’s some mechanical process in a vacuum. Does anyone really know how bad it would get if we did nothing at all? And can a government do nothing at all without suffering a fatal blow as we experience ‘lower lows’ for a period of time?
Doesn’t this make you guilty of being “black or white”? Are our only choices to (a) pass a 1,000 page bill in a day that changes so much about our economic system-with nary a time for debate or (b) do nothing? Craig, are you the Pot calling the Kettle “black or white”?
Unless you subscribe to the parallel universes theory, we will never know if doing nothing would have been better or worse. And btw, we will never know if President Obama saved or created 3.5M jobs-though that is a topic for a later post titled “Zayo Management Team promises Investors that it will either preserve or grow its revenue by $20M.”
Nonetheless, I don’t think I have heard anyone suggest the “do nothing at all” approach. Certainly, my suggestion is not that we rest on our laurels. My point is this: I believe that we would be better served if the policies of the past three months were laser focused on attending to the crises. Instead, I observe that the crises was used as a cover to railroad in the far-left-wing democratic agenda. I believe open and honest dialogue was skipped. I believe the promise of involving both sides of the aisle was broken. I’m still glad Obama was elected president–as the historical significance of his presidency is important to our nation. But, like many others, I will want to see a lot more Republicans in Congress in 2011.
Anyway, thanks for the comments and for reading bearonbusiness.
Leave a response (7 so far)
Subscribe via RSS
Couldn’t agree more Dan. Great post
Hey Dan-
Good points…and even better, a good debate versus finger pointing and name calling. Something that you and I agree on is that in today’s system we get 1) a party in power 2) an opposition party 3) not enough debate and compromise. Believe me, Pelosi and the dems are not my idea of an ideal situation and good example of some of the flaws in the two party system. I would need more time than I have to respond to what Cuba would look like if it hadn’t gone off on it’s current path, and perhaps even more time over martinis. Although in short, socialism doesn’t have to mean total lack of democratic system as the system requires participation in decisions that affect the population. Also, I want to make it clear that I don’t advocate that system over ours. Just pointing out that we tend to demonize things that are different when there’s a disturbing lack of understanding of what it actually is that we’re demonizing.
I don’t disagree that we have to act with humility and that both parties are guilty of taking their perceived mandates and running with it much to the chagrin of a lot of people sitting in the middle. I also agree with you that for the most part the open and honest dialogue part was missed. Not only for the stimulus debate but for most issues over the past several years.
I hope that i wasn’t being black or white since I meant to convey the point that I don’t think we can do nothing yet I don’t think we needed to ram a massive stimulus bill through without the compromise and dialogue. However generally speaking I want the third option which I think you are advocating as well but I fear we might not get for a while. I hope I’m wrong but I too see a party in power pushing an agenda that seems to be based on pent up frustration but another that isn’t acknowledging the bigger picture and standing for the same old standby policies. However the larger point was that no one side has all the answers and we need to make progress through observing, listening and compromising as much as possible whereas instead i see a lot of ideological rhetoric.
Craig,
I could not be more disappointed in your response. I found your response to be mature, thoughtful, well-spoken and worse of all civilized. That was simply not what I was looking for. I was looking for controversial, pointed, and inflammatory. Now that bearonbusiness has advertising, I need more traffic. And there is nothing like a back-and-forth banter to get traffic up. The truth is I miss Elliot Soft-Spitzer.
While Pelosi isn’t my favorite Dem, it can be said that the GOP built this beast by its 8 years of failure. If I was a conspiracy theorist, I would say that the GOP sucked all the money it could out of the system and left before the house of cards that is our financial system collapsed (as it almost did in mid-September).
I have heard economists claim that our system is insolvent. Scary notion really, but I actually believe they are right. It’s difficult to build an economy on service only.
Even all the fiber in the ground that your Poker series reviewed was pretty much paid for in bankruptcy court.
Business sanity and common sense is not that common, especially for companies looking at Wall Street for all the answers.
While I’m not crazy about TARP and the rest of the investments, I only heard critiques. I don’t hear another plan. Anywhere. Especially from the GOP and that blow hard hypocrite on the radio.
I think the whole system was so precarious that the gov’t had to act, even though they have no idea what will or won’t work. Meanwhile they are fighting the very people and culture on Wall Street that brought us here.
The Entitlement Mentality of Americans has to end. The Greed and Get Rich Quick bullsh!t drives me nuts. It’s time to re-vamp the education system to because it is apparent by the mortgage crisis that most folks can’t do simple math. (If you make $30K and have no money down, you CANNOT afford a $350K home, no matter what someone tells you).
Sorry for the rant, but I feel better now.
- Peter
When the system designed to expose financial risk and protect against collapse is run by people who don’t believe the system should even exist (Bush administration) what do you expect to happen? This is something I think the Obama administation is rapidly repairing.
However, the corruption in our system of government is still rampant and both parties are at fault. There is not enough transparency. Some many politicians (Dem and Rep) are tainted with back door business deals that should get them kicked out of office. (Obama is also helping to fix this by emphasizing transparency in government, even among his own cabinet and senior congressmen such as Chris Dodd)
The fault of this corruption is in a great deal, our own. Most of us do not pay enough attention nor participate enough in government to hold it accountable for it’s actions. At least, not until the last 1-2 years.
Some of you need to do your homework and realize it was just not the last 8 years, the last 8 years contributed to the over all situation.
This really started back in late 1987 when Greenspan became FED chairman and it was his policies (printing off money to save the markets) that started it. Greenspan is a liberal. PERIOD.
Try looking at the .COM bubble as proof here, and I will say it because I was as guilty as well, I know a lot of you and let’s all face it we wanted our share of the stock options that would hit the triple 7’s. Most people were too busy enjoying the prosperity of the 90’s and particularly the .COM revolution to notice what was really happening.
It was entirely a transfer of wealth and right under the noses of many. Honestly how do you expect martini glass.com to have a viable business plan, how many absurd start ups with shallow business cases bought bandwidth and then were bought because of some silly arse technophile edge over some other .COM!?!? The ramification of that nonsense, the telecom crash. How many DSL providers that were banking their business case on LEC leased copper could really think they were going to stay stand alone!?!?
That was bubble made possible by the FED printing off money as quick as they could. We let giants like Walmart stop us from innovating, etc.
Wake up folks!!! its been happening longer than you think and the ridiculous cries of the last 8 years or we inherited this mess is crap. We were headed in recession before Bush was sworn in and once again he let Greenspan inflate our way out of it.
The DEMS had been in power for 2 years before Obama was even elected and what exactly have we got to show for it, besides public yelling at CEO’s, interfering with baseball steroid use, and telling a TOP General he is 100% FOS!!!!
The DEMs had the votes 2 years ago and they did not act on anything, nor did they attempt to stop it when certain GOP members and even Bush tried to get them to!!! Now they are pious better than thou’s that don’t ahve a clue how to to solve anything, because they are too busy ram rodding new programs in and gettin even!?!?
And for For you Bush bashers, Clinton and his DOJ have more than enough blame as in this well.
this is not a partisan issue its a greed and corruption issue and guess what!?!?
Politicians on both sides have let us down. I am an equal opportunity voter and right right now the 2 parties are equally worthless.
There are many less known economists that saw this coming and warned of it, take Peter Schiff below. Watch this and you tell me who the dunce is!!! notice when this was aired!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LfascZSTU4o&feature=PlayList&p=F23B3BE507AAE96E&index=0&playnext=1
You have to educate yourself and separate the fertilizer being spread by both sides and main stream media.
Government, politicians and wall street did not let us down and this is not a government, political or wall street issue, this is a WE THE PEOPLE issue and only WE THE PEOPLE can fix it!
Get up, get out, get educated and most of all either get busy livin or get busy dyin!
PS:
Dan, is this reply controversial, pointed, and inflammatory enough for you?
Mental food for thought
545 PEOPLE
By Charlie Reese-Reese is a former columnist of the Orlando Sentinel Newspaper.
Politicians are the only people in the world who create problems and then campaign against them.
Have you ever wondered, if both the Democrats and the Republicans are against deficits, WHY do we have deficits?
Have you ever wondered, if all the politicians are against inflation and high taxes, WHY do we have inflation and high taxes?
You and I don’t propose a federal budget. The President does.
You and I don’t have the Constitutional authority to vote on appropriations. The House of Representatives does.
You and I don’t write the tax code, Congress does.
You and I don’t set fiscal policy, Congress does.
You and I don’t control monetary policy, the Federal Reserve Bank does.
One hundred Senators, 435 Congressmen, one President, and nine Supreme Court justices — 545 human beings out of the 300 million are directly, legally, morally, and individually responsible for the domestic problems that plague this country.
I excluded the members of the Federal Reserve Board because that problem was created by the Congress. In 1913, Congress delegated its Constitutional duty to provide a sound currency to a federally chartered, but private, central bank.
I excluded all the special interests and lobbyists for a sound reason. They have no legal authority. They have no ability to coerce a senator, a congressman, or a President to do one cotton-picking thing. I don’t care if they offer a politician $1 million dollars in cash. The politician has the power to accept or reject it. No matter what the lobbyist promises, it is the legislator’s responsibility to determine how he votes.
Those 545 human beings spend much of their energy convincing you that what they did is not their fault. They cooperate in this common con regardless of party.. What separates a politician from a normal human being is an excessive amount of gall. No normal human being would have the gall of a Speaker, who stood up and criticized the President for creating deficits. The president can only propose a budget. He cannot force the Congress to accept it.
The Constitution, which is the supreme law of the land, gives sole responsibility to the House of Representatives for originating and approving appropriations and taxes.
Who is the speaker of the House? Nancy Pelosi. She is the leader of the majority party. She and fellow House members, not the President, can approve any budget they want. If the President vetoes it, they can pass it over his veto if they agree to.
It seems inconceivable to me that a nation of 300 million can not replace 545 people who stand convicted — by present facts — of incompetence and irresponsibility. I can’t think of a single domestic problem that is not traceable directly to those 545 people. When you fully grasp the plain truth that 545 people exercise the power of the federal government, then it must follow that what exists is what they want to exist.
If the tax code is unfair, it’s because they want it unfair.
If the budget is in the red, it’s because they want it in the red .
If the Army & Marines are in IRAQ , it’s because they want them in IRAQ .
If they do not receive Social Security but are on an elite retirement plan not available to the people, it’s because they want it that way.
There are no insoluble government problems.
Do not let these 545 people shift the blame to bureaucrats, whom they hire and whose jobs they can abolish; to lobbyists, whose gifts and advice they can reject; to regulators, to whom they give the power to regulate and from whom they can take this power..
Above all, do not let them con you into the belief that there exists disembodied mystical forces like “the economy,” “inflation,” or “politics” that prevent them from doing what they take an oath to do.
Those 545 people, and they alone, are responsible.
They, and they alone, have the power.
They, and they alone, should be held accountable by the people who are their bosses.
Provided the voters have the gumption to manage their own employees.
We should vote all of them out of office and clean up their mess!