DISQUS

mclaren · 1 year ago

Yet another exhibit of government meddling in the market leading to obvious (for some of us) consequences. Sit up and bookmark this. Refer to it often the next time you hear anybody in the gov't. telling you that it has a "solution" to a "problem."



The gov't. meddled in energy production, then tried to fix their fix with another wrong-headed fix. I wonder what the fix to the fix to the fix will be? Certainly anything but letting the market determine a solution.

ajm8127 · 1 year ago

Yeah, the government stopped meddling in the loan market and looked what happened. Wall Street has been pushing for the reduction in regulations for years, and they have been getting their way. Capitalism is good, but only if its kept inline. The very nature of people is what makes letting the markets control everything a time bomb. We seem to forget that fact oh so quickly though. The last time major regulations were put into place was the 70's and before that the 30's. I know these politicians study history, but the bribes (not directly, but effectively) from lobbyists can make a person change their values very quickly. That is just human nature, and that is why regulations are important.

mclaren · 1 year ago

The gov't. is more than responsible for what is going on in the loan market. The do-gooders told the banks and mortgage firms that if they didn't start making loans to those who had no business getting them, that they would be dragged before congress and called racists. So, they gave out the bad loans -- at the direction of those coveted "regulators." So, you're solution is....MORE GOV'T MEDDLING!



Oddly enough, the Hillary '08 web page had a link to her proud proclamations of how she and Billy helped the financially inept get home mortgages. After this whole mess broke, she pulled it from her page. But, she's the first to point fingers. She was shocked, SHOCKED to see foreclosures go through the roof!



Capitalism doesn't need to be kept in line, corrupt people have to be kept in line. We have laws for the corrupt, but when liberals get their hands on the markets, it spells disaster every time, because they truly believe that "capitalism has to be kept in line."

jimbo · 1 year ago

mclaren,

Capitalism is GREAT if it is supported by a respectable and accountable court system to enforce laws and to resolve disputes, and if the actors in the system are themselves accountable. The only way human beings have learned to hold people accountable is to have regulations/laws that can be timely enforced by some governing authority. It has to paint the double yellow lines on the highways and hire and control the police, figuratively and actually. If you don't consider such government enforced accountability a problem, then I'm with you. Otherwise, you are whistling in the dark. There are about one fifth to one third of folks who don't give a fig for anyone but themselves and will violate laws and worse to get their way if they think they can get away with it. Ask anyone who studies people. This is too large a group to leave to their own devices when it comes to business practices. Otherwise you simply have Adam Smith's invisible hand showing us its middle finger. The government set the table with the Fed and keeping rates too low for too long, but the Federal Government impeded state mortgage regulation enforcement in the recent mortgage fiasco. The reason they picked corn-ethanol is because it could help them get votes from farm states. That's a failure to be accountable to the whole system, which is part of the problem, but they way you appear to be viewing it you would toss out government entirely simply because you don't want to spend the time needed to supervise it.

I also believe that people are smarter when they work together. Government was supposed to be something that facilitated that greater intelligence and larger successful activities than individuals could do by themselves. It has worked in the past. I don't know if you realize that the US government enabled cross national railroads and interstate highways, took men to the moon and enabled the creation of the first atomic weapons, and created the potential for the backbone of the internet. Possibly in your view these were terrible things. These things could not have been done without the government setting the table and providing funding. At least not most of it in my lifetime.

sporty · 1 year ago

Many years ago the elite said they didn't believe the little people should be able to do the things they could and Reagan , Bush Sr. and finally Bush Jr. has put the clamps on the little people and not they can't.



Doesn't is seem funny that since Bush/Cheney stole the office of presidency every thing has been destroyed in our country , democracy , our constitution & bill of rights , treason and torture is ok for Bush/Cheney's administration , our military has been destroyed and we are hiring criminals and foreign citizens , our president has become a dictator and can do anything he wishes and our democrats approve of his powers , Bush can sign bills into law without the approval of the senate and congress or place a statement of a bill voted into law saying he will not obey it.

Our jobs , manufacturing plants , security , manufacturing of our military equipment has been outsourced. Bush has printed some much new money for his folly that how in the h... can anyone believe that the dollar will buy anything.

Our democrats like the way Bush and republicans create policies and run our country so much they are getting falling over each other to get in line , to sign all of their bills which they introduce.



How in the h... did we elect so many spineless , gutless personal into office on our democratic ticket.

rev_jon · 1 year ago

OK. Let me see... We let the market decide health care in this country and 45 million people cannot afford health care and those with "pre-existing" conditions don't even qualify for health care. This affects the bottom line of manufacturing companies like the automobile companies competing against the rest of the world with their government sponsored health care systems which can afford to sell cheaper products and pushing our costs up... and up... Which makes American labor more expensive, so companies relocate to other countries or ship more jobs overseas to protect their bottom line. Yup, the "free market" systems works alright.... FOR OUR COMPETITORS!

grennels · 1 year ago

So McLaren - Which are you? A speculator or a hedge fund manager?

ndtovent · 1 year ago

"A spike in commodities in the early 1970s was due mainly to bad weather around the world, and to huge and secretive Russian grain purchases. In 1995-96, food inflation stemmed from a Midwestern drought, global demand for U.S. feed grains and speculation. In both cases, prices settled back down again."

good post! I'm glad the article addressed this. I remember that spike in the 70's. I was just a kid, but I remember it well. Food prices seemed to double and triple (depending on what one was purchasing). Two other causes for that mid-70's spike not mentioned in this paragraph are 1) a multi-month teamsters strike (causing a bread shortage, and in turn, a sharp rise in flour, yeast, salt, etc. - the basic ingredients needed to bake bread from scratch), and an oil crisis caused by OPEC halting production, causing gas shortages and rapidly rising oil prices. What the article doesn't mention is the spike immediately following WW2. That one was much worse than the 70's/90's spikes. I'm optimistic that prices will stabilize in a few years as they always have before (and as the article states in that last sentence).
We'll get through it. Americans are resilient, but it will be a tight squeeze and a tough ride for us middle classers, and even tougher for poor folks until then.

johnlewismealer · 1 year ago

Not with John McCain as our leader.

Find a better plan than the 3R outline below! I dare you.



Progressive Candidate John McCain comes through for America with his 3R economic plan. In the aura of Theodore Roosevelt, McCain