'Free enterprise for the poor, socialism for the rich': Vidal's claim gains leverage

[struggle4progress]

PAUL GILLESPIE WORLD VIEW: Growing social inequality in the US puts the economy back at the centre of the presidential campaign, writes Paul Gillespie
[e-mail]

... <Nouriel Roubini, professor of economics at the Stern School in New York University> is unusual among economists in combining comparative, historical and mathematical analysis, giving him a broader appeal to policymakers and the mass public. In an interview with the New York Times magazine on August 18th, he described himself as more a realist than a pessimist. He argues that the AIG should have been bankrupted rather than nationalised, and the $85 billion of taxpayers' money loaned to the firm could have been used instead for debtor-in-possession financing. This would have allowed for a more fair process for allocating losses between shareholders and short-term and long-term creditors of the firm. Nationalisations like this are prejudiced in favour of those responsible for the trouble in the first place.

He is scathing about the Bush administration's actions. In his column for the online RGE Monitor, he wrote: "Fanatic zealots of any religion are always pests that cause havoc and destruction with their inflexible fanaticism; but they usually don't run the biggest economy in the world. But these laissez-faire voodoo-economics zealots in charge of the USA have now caused the biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression and the nastiest economic crisis in decades.

"So let them be shamed in public for their hypocrisy and zealotry that has caused so much financial and economic damage."

As to historical comparisons, he says "calling it socialism (even socialism for the rich, the well- connected and Wall Street) is giving a bad name even to a failed experiment like socialism; this is more akin to the creation of a corporatist state (like the Italian fascism or the German Third Reich) where private sector interests are protected (gains privatised and losses socialised), where the government is taken over by corrupt and reckless private interests" ...

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2008/0920/1221835126413.html?via=mr

[BrklynLiberal]

1. The ancestors of prez shit-for-brains, and the minions that surrounded them were pro-Nazi.

They were part of the plot to seize the White House from FDR that Gen Smedley Butler revealed.

http://www.eclectica.org/v1n1/reviews/wharton_plot.html

<snip>
"I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers{Brown Brothers was where Dimson's Grandfather, Prescott Bush made his money trading with Nazis} in 1909-1912. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1916. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City boys to collect revenue in. I helped in the rape of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street....

"In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested....I had...a swell racket. I was rewarded with honors, medals, promotions....I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate a racket in three cities. The Marines operated on three continents..."
<snip>
Secret executive hearings of CUAA opened November 20, 1934. Sworn testimony showed that the plotters represented notable families --Rockefeller, Mellon, Pew, Pitcairn, Hutton; and great enterprises-- Morgan, Dupont, Remington, Anaconda, Bethlehem, Goodyear, GMC, Swift, Sun.... Some people named as plotters laughed, all denied everything.

"The reader who wishes to examine the official testimony is referred to the government report, `Investigation of Nazi Propaganda Activities and Investigation of Certain Other Propaganda Activities: Public Hearings Before the Special Committee on Un-American Activities, House of Representatives, Seventy-third Congress, Second Session, at Washington, DC, December 29, 1934. Hearings No. 73-D.C.-6, Part 1.' Extracts of the censored testimony are revealed in the books A MAN IN HIS TIME, by John L. Spivak , and ONE THOUSAND AMERICANS, by George Seldes " (p 140).

[truedelphi]

2. Thank you for the reminder. The financial experts and

Talking heads have themselves so well wrapped up inside the American flag, as once again we are facing an economic catastrophe, and who knows better than the Paulson and Greenspans how to put things to right...

Well them and the President, right??

:sarcasm:

[jimshoes]

3. Wouldn't the world and all the scam artists

that thought up this mortgage scheme, not to mention the mortgagees, be far better of if the government simply paid off the bad mortgages and relieving the debtors of that mortgage that they will never be able to pay off. As it is now, the corporations get their money and still get to try to collect the bad loan. Is this the way this is shaping up?

[Demeter]

4. John Q. Public Certainly Would Be Better Off

Just make sure the house is owner-occupied--no paying off speculators and flippers.

[Miss Chybil]

5. This is exactly what I've been saying. Use the money to help the homeowners

keep their homes and pay off their debt under reasonable and realistic terms. This is the only fair way. Otherwise, the rich people get richer while our home values go into the toilet. My home is my retirement. Does anybody care about what I'm going to lose when the market is flooded with cheap foreclosures?

[yurbud]

6. K & r