Krugman used a profound phrase on Olbermann's show the other night

[ThomWV]

Paul Krugman used a single phrase when being interviewed by Kieth Olbermann on Monday night that really caught my attention. I thought this was the most insightful thing I have heard said on television in years. In four words he summed up what I would have to call the final and absolute failure of the Republican ideal. In referring to the result of Republican bailouts he said "they have socialized risk".

The importance of that single phrase may not register with very many people, but I have to tell you, he was correct and this is truly profound. Financial reward has always been associated with assumption of risk, but what the republicans have managed to do is divorce the two and in doing so they have managed to hold the rewards for themselves while transfering the risk to all of us.

[Captain Hilts]

1. It's actually a stock expression. My financial adviser uses it a lot.

But it needs to be said MUCH more. Another way of putting it is that "The government has shifted risk onto individuals and away from itself and large firms."

[PoiBoy]

2. You're absolutely correct...

it's the Republicon way... Privatize the Profits, Socialize the Risk...

or in other words... Bend over and crack a smile...

:hi:

[peacetalksforall]

3. Thanks for uour translaton, I didn't get it at first. Was this plan to become

wealthy based on the backs and the tears of the citizens part of PNAC - or was there something else such as a Project for a NIW - New International Wealth? PNIW. I know in my gut that this was orchestrated. One day, one of the people who contributed their genius how-to idea for getting it done, will come forward.

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

4. Private Profits, Public Losses

I believe that is the easiest way to get the meaning through to people in the simplest manner possible. And, I think it is finally happening. People are GETTING IT.

These companies were not looking to share their profits when times were good. But after their plundering has finally killed off their own companies then they are the first to look to be on the public dole.

Kerry was right in the last campaign when he called them Benedict Arnold CEO's. They ship off American jobs, they seek to avoid their fair share of taxes, they screw their stockholders and employees, they protect their huge severance packages while they let the employee pensions fold into bankruptcy and then when they are all though, they want you to bail them out so they can start the whole process all over again.

[MindMatter]

8. "Privatize the profits, socialize the risks"

I like that way of phrasing it: "Privatize the profits, socialize the risks".

Most people are pretty aware that Republicans like to "privatize" everything. This phrase makes it clear how that game works. They aren't privatizing the entire enterprise. They are only privatizing the profits, and when things go wrong, it is we who get stuck holding the bag.

This is the most basic formula of the fascists.

Look at the AIG thing. The Fed has given them $80B to use for 2 years. That gives the crooks 2 years to find ways to sell off the valuable parts of AIG for private gain, and at the end of the line, walk away from that $80B debt. The Fed doesn't really care because:

* the Fed (not our government) has the authority to create any amount of money out of thin air, so it doesn't cost them anything directly. It screws the rest of us through the erosion of the dollar to inflation. But what do the bankers care? They can just create more money.

* it is the bankers and their partners in crime who will end up with the most valuable AIG assets anyway.

This is absolutely zero risk for the fascists. Now if you are an employee or a client or customer of AIG's that's a different story. That picture isn't so pretty.

[patrice]

5. The profits which WE help to make possible through TAX BREAKS are theirs alone.

What they pay their CEOs and corporate officers is PRIVATE.

It has ALWAYS amazed me, from the first that I started being aware of Trickle Down Tax Breaks, that rather than charging them what their businesses cost the system and what they OWE the system for "educated" "healthy" workers, roads, fire trucks etc. etc. etc., we give them that stuff for next to, if not in fact, nothing WITHOUT anything in writing or otherwise that obligates them to spend the Tax Break money in ways that do, in fact, benefit OUR jobs or OUR lives. Public money becomes PRIVATE.

How many 3 carat diamonds, how many yachts, how many mink coats have to be sold before I get some benefit from them?

And isn't the money that we have to make up for those Tax Breaks, to pay for roads, hospitals, airports, police etc. etc. etc., aren't those HEAVIER dollars since the come from smaller net-values, smaller "pots of cash" compared to the net-value of those who receive the Tax Breaks?

It's ALL very un-Just. Is it any wonder amongst the lower economic classes, often people of Color, they refer to "Justice" as "Just Us"...?

[REACTIVATED IN CT]

6. Is it correct to say that the US has nationalized AIG ?

We have an 80% equity in it. Does it have to be 100% to be "nationalization"?

[The Backlash Cometh]

7. Yes. At the local level and the federal level, I have seein that in action

in just this week. I realized just how routine it was for them to accept failure, because failure costs them nothing.

[Virginia Dare]

9. Which is also why they forced Americans to tie up all their assets into the stock market..

if it fails, we all fail.

[Spiffarino]

10. "Socialism for the wealthy; Capitalism for everyone else."

That's one way to convince people to stop supporting the Republican "trickle on" economic model. It seems to register with them.

[PA Democrat]

11. I used the phrase in a letter to the editor.

The Republican party is all about privatizing profits and socializing risks. It is destroying the middle class and will end up destroying the entire country unless voters wake up and realize what is happening.

[meow2u3]

12. Just call it corporate welfare

and its beneficiaries corporate welfare kings.

[Yavin4]

13. Try and Explain This Phrase To The Typical Freeper or Fundie

Go ahead. Try it. Try to explain what that phrase really means.

[ThomWV]

14. They fear Socialists and Socialism and that's where I'd start

They are against socialized medicine, they are against socialized anything for that matter. So that's where I'd start. I'd simply say that socialism is what happens where all power is transfered to the people, well in this case all the risk of having an insurance company has been transfered to the people while the profits from running that company have gone directly to the top. Its Socialism of Risk and it came directly from the Republican Party.

[alterfurz]

15. "The motto of American Capitalism:

Private Profit, Public Subsidy" -- Noam Chomsky