Steve Forbes calls for more market socialism
Posted on July 16th, 2008 by bile Tags: capitalism, corporatism, Federal Reserve System, market socialism, NBC, socialism, Steve Forbes, Wall StreetOn NBC’s Today Show this morning Steve Forbes proposed forcing the taxpayers to “capitalize” ten or twelve “Fannie Maes” so that they can compete with one another, as opposed to the current government-sponsored duopoly.
In years past, free-market economists would riducule such proposals as being no different from the Soviets’ failed attempts at “market socialism,” i.e., pretending to play free market funded by billions of dollars of tax theft and rigid governmental regulation.
(Another Wall Street “economic expert” on the show instructed us to be patient and “let the Fed and the regulators get us out of this mess”). Stupid pills must be the drug of choice on Wall Street these days.
And some people still wonder why those who benefit the most from “free markets” don’t advocate them more. With all their wealth you’d think they could spread the message far and wide. Sure they could if they actually believed in free markets instead of corporatism. Few big businesses actually dislike regulation. In fact often time it’s they who push for it.
4 Responses to “Steve Forbes calls for more market socialism”
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July 16th, 2008 at 11:56 am
The least our leaders could do is to label social programs as such, making money in - money out and governance as transparent as possible. Labeling “free markets” as such when implicitly (or now explicitly) backstopping them creates something I don’t think we have a word for, except maybe farce. As for people like Forbes, I have come to believe that the idea of the game is for our money to pass in and out of enough layers as possible, obfuscating exactly where it goes while sticking ever so gently to the handlers’ fingers as it passes through. This includes movement between the public and private sectors (largely made up of friends or ex-employees of the former).
July 16th, 2008 at 2:24 pm
They aren’t my leaders. They are thugs. And the least they could do is nothing at all. Assuming intervention the best they could do is make it transparent. That assumes competent politicians who want to actually represent instead of control.
Mixed-market, corporatist, fascist. Fannie Mae was originally state socialist program and Nixon made it a fascist/corporatist one. Privatized gains and socialize risk.
exactly. knowledge propagation is one of the key ingredients for an efficient market. Pure socialism destroys the knowledge and and fascism or mixed socialism filters it implicitly by reducing subject participation (welfare,public protections,etc) and explicitly through different types of regulations or just lying. By filtering the knowledge you filter the flow of wealth. Then they use the monopoly on force to allow for inflation which also transfers wealth. It’s good to be king.
July 16th, 2008 at 3:30 pm
state
July 16th, 2008 at 7:09 pm
bosco, if there is a central authority using force, calling itself government, it implies “state” quite obviously.