Capitalism threatens to throw us back to the Dark Ages

All Obama's stimulus did was keep state Government Union workers unemployment under 6% while the rest of the country suffered with double digit unemployment.

 

You can scoff at my patriotism if you need to. My relentless dedication to the nation and its betterment can easily weather such sniveling.

 

Hidebound ideological propagandists and true believers in denial aside, the success of the The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 that saved the nation from the Bush/Cheney Great Recession is undeniable.

As the conservative business journal Forbes recently noted,

 

It didn't do much for all 8 years Obama was in office......



2009 to 2016 less than 2% mean GDP growth.

 

For your consideration.(yes I know it’s a saying)

 

What in God's name does capitalism have to do with the Coronavirus and its economic crisis???????

 

Calling it the Clinton/Dodd recession is more accurate.

 

Oh boy, such snobizm

 

The 2007-2009 recession took place six years into the Bush administration and one year into a Democratic House majority following a twelve year Republican Congressional majority.

 

Never say never.

 

Capitalism is what got us out of the Dark Ages. The Dark Ages was set up more like a socialist/left wing system, where all the property was own by the Crown, and the serfs merely worked for the good of the Crown and couldn't actually own anything themselves.

 

Yes, but it had its birth under Carter, grew up fast under Clinton, and protected during Bush by Sen. Dodd, et al.

 

The Great Recession began in the waning days of the Bush/Cheney regime. That does not suggest that they were uniquely responsible for the economic plight Obama inherited. Presidents all try to take credit for good economic times and blame others for bad ones, but the truth is that a multiplicity of factors always contributes.

 

Don't disagree. You are presumably talking about the Community Reinvestment Act, passed under Carter and strengthened under Clinton. The original purpose for the Carter action was to stop "red-lining" by banking institutions. However, Carter's administration also saw the passage of the "Depository Institutions Deregulatory and Monetary Control Act," which prevented states from imposing usury law ceilings on first-lien mortgages, with numerous states following the federal lead by removing all their ceilings on other mortgages, which eventually led to irresponsible lending practices in pursuit of higher returns on mortgage investments. Further, the emergence of the "shadow banking industry" (front-line lenders) provided a conduit that was largely free of the CRA restrictions, while banks subject to the CRA screamed "murder" much as Burr Rabbit screamed "don't throw me in that Briar Patch."
Most responsible studies show that the CRA was not a significant factor in causing the 2007-2009 recession...and that it was largely due to Greenspan's misguided belief that "free markets self-regulate." Perhaps...eventually...but not without first, from time to time, causing substantial pain and grief for most of us.
Bush had the votes to have substantially eliminated the CRA. My personal theory is that his administration encouraged irresponsible mortgage lending in order to offer proof that his tax cuts had stimulated growth.

 

Yes because the government is shutting down businesses but thankfully our free market capitalism is stepping up to the plate to produce the vital goods we need and then distribute them while it finds treatments and cures and vaccines.

 

I guess you are right. I believe in Positive Rights -- food, shelter, medical care. They are provided in Canada and Scandinavia.

 

This is not possible. Limited Welfare State as in Canada/Scandinavia is possible.

 

Interesting question...but the Dark Ages took place roughly between the downfall of the Western Roman Empire (around 500 AD) and 1100 AD. It would be hard to envision, IMO, a capitalist economy without the "right of property," which emerged during the later Renaissance, along with the subsequent Reformation and Protestantism. I'd guess that period was largely due to the decline of the Roman Catholic Church, the invention of the printing press, and the trend toward universal literacy. Once the Church was no longer the sole source of intellectual thought, individualism and the "right of property" emerged. Trade and corporations led to "finance," with the first stock exchange opening in the mid-seventeenth century in Holland.
IMO, what accelerated capitalism was "finance," which filled the need for a method of "organizing money" in an increasing complex global society and the effects of the shift from agricultural societies to industrial societies.

 

Ah but it IS possible. Tahiti is a good example of a Communist society.

Unemployment is around 50% because only those who want to work, work. Those who do not want to work, don't. When they get hungry, they go catch themselves a fish or get bread off the nearest bread tree. If they catch too many fishes, they go to a neighbor and trade an extra fish for bread, and vise versa.

Even though their houses in most cases have no doors or windows and sometimes they' no house at all, Tahitians are a happy bunch and live in true Communism. They work as much as they want and have everything they need.

 

I don't agree that those things are rights
However I'll agree that they should be relatively easily acquired which here in America they are.

 

.17% of American's don't have homes.. so shelter is easy to obtain.

11.1% experience some food insecurity so food isn't quite so easy but still very easy to obtain

49% of Americans have employer provided health care

Another 20 are on Medicaid

In 2018 8.5% of Americans did not have health insurance.

Most emergency rooms cannot turn anyone away so really every American can get health care..

Our health care is expensive here maybe but it's also the best in the world.

 

Capitalism caused this?

I'm curious to hear the mental cartwheels you have to do to arrive at this conclusion.

 

Oh, I doubt it. But, it has helped us reassess what we value. What is more important today? A shelf-stocker or a diversity counselor?

 

I pretty much agree with this. The CRA itself was not a bad bill but its implementation and enforcement, a little under Carter and a lot under Clinton, was nefarious. The government blackmailed lenders to make unsustainable loans. The Bush administration with help from McCain tried to reign in the disastrous unregulated derivatives business -- directed mainly at mortgages -- but was stymied by filibuster action by Dodd, et al in the Republican controlled senate.

 

It happened in Cuba. My grandfather's house is now a government office. But I assume you don't consider Cuba to be a communist country. That would simply be an argument over semantics.