GWU Student Gets Michael Moore To Admit That We Don’t Have Capitalism (Then Admits He’s Socialist)

Keep living in your fallacy bubble.....I will be educating people on the rational world you so ignore.

Oh wow, shanklinmike, you have a blog. Now I am really impressed! Perhaps the rational world is so illusory since ignoramuses such as yourself who have skimmed the Cliff's Notes to Wealth of Nations have taken it upon yourselves to "educate" the population. Now acknowledging your own imperfect information (undoubtedly gained from fringe websites), deduce how a world filled with people like yourself could possibly make "rational" decisions together. I'm sure you'll have a self-serving response for me...

Now, my original point was that hard data cannot confirm whether or not there could ever be efficient markets. We have never had a period of laissez-faire where the data were collected--even if we did, it would be very early American and would not be applicable now. The Fed is perhaps a player in the boom-bust cycle, if for no other reason than that they've been keeping the interest rate at a level which allows us to increase production full steam ahead for too prolonged of a period (And ofcourse there is corruption...I don't suppose you have a plan to end that).

We are obviously a culture that is addicted to debt. In that way, taking the Fed away completely would be highly revolutionary. We would be stuck trying to figure out our problems using fiscal policy alone, which by some stroke of luck might stabilize in the long run, but only after it destroyed our nation. But, judging from the way you reason, education spending has been cut enough.

I'm all for transparency, as long as there is not information available to the public which creates a feedback loop in the markets due to a foreknowledge of monetary policy.

Shanklinmike, I know I came back at you a bit viciously here, and my mother did always tell me that two wrongs don't make a right, but perhaps by some miracle it teaches you something about attacking my opinion.

Both don't hold people in the highest regard.

Does caring capitalism equal compassionate conservatism?

Free market capitalism has nothing to do with protectionism, barriers to entry, tax subsidies, or any other form of corporatism.......

If anything, flooding D.C. with trillions of inefficient dollars is what sends the lobbyists and special interest groups continually invading politics. The more money pours into the unconstitutional Federal programs, the more corporatism will be built around us.

He is the problem because his solutions to the problem are greed, greed and more greed.

yeah he is so greedy. damn him wanting us to take care of the sick and educate our youth. what a greedy greedy man.

He makes money off of his movies....and where does all that money go?

Karl Marx applied Hegel's dialectic to economics and concluded that 'capitalism' would die of its own inconsistencies.

Lately, it is only died in the wool wingnuts who are blind to the inherent 'contradictions' that have now brought the the world to the brink of yet great depression.

Karl Marx was absolutely correct with regard to the class struggle which he believed followed inexorable from the division of the world into 'capital' vs 'labor'. Bush's America is the LAB STUDY that proves Marx to have been absolutely correct on this point.

Specifically, GOP policies beginning most recently with Ronald Reagan's tax cut of 1982 and Bush's subsequently have transferred US wealth to a ruling elite. Just ONE PERCENT of the nation owns more than about 95 percent of the rest of us combined.

I have REAMS of official stats from the US Census Bureau, Bureau of Labor Statistics, US Commerce Dept-BEA, and various think tanks and University Studies which PROVE --beyond any refutation --that following EVERY GOP tax cut, this increasingly tiny elite had been enriched.

Moreover, EVERY DEMOCRATIC President has presided over greater GDP and job growth than any GOP President since WWII.

Tax cuts for the wealthy --we were told --would stimulate investment and thus jobs. The STATS PROVE that that has NEVER, EVER happened. Rather, the windfall tax cuts wind up in offshore tax havens and other 'shelters' which HAVE NEVER INCREASED US jobs nor have they helped, in any way whatsoever, diversify the US economy.

After Reagan, even the GOP rank and file said that while US industries had all but vanished during his missrule, HI TECH and US expertise would save us.

Now IT is done is India and China. Steel is produced in Japan. Cars, it seems, are produced everywhere BUT in the US. The Reaganite GOPPERS lied to us but WE are the ones who are paying the price for idiocy.

Lenhart,
Well put. Tax cuts and deregulation put us here.
People can say what they want about greedy "people" being the problem, not the business. But it is the people who make up the businesses that need tight regs and restrictions.

Re: "Let me get this right, our government is in debt 86% because of tax cuts?"

You are confusing debt with deficits. I said that following EVERY GOP TAX CUT at least since Ronald Reagan, the US deficit INCREASED.

Argue all you want --but that is what the PUBLIC RECORD SHOW HAPPENED IN FACT. Check the US Commerce Dept-BEA for a start.

The deficit is simply how much the govt has gone in the hole. Tax revenues fell as a result of tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans. Concurrent with the cuts, Reagan INCREASED spending, primarily defense. If your salary is cut as you INCREASE your spending, you should EXPECT to wind up in the hole, i.e, running a deficit.

Now --you might 'finance' that deficit but only for awhile. But that will cost you as well. INTEREST will have to be paid on the amounts you finance.

Keep it up and eventually, they will throw you out of your house and take it back. The US is similarly indebted to the rest of the world. One day they may TAKE IT ALL BACK.

THIS IS NOT ROCKET SCIENCE.

That this simply principle is completely misunderstood accounts for Reagan, Bush and Bush JR getting away with it.

It was GOP, as I recall, who said WRONGLY: DEFICITS DON'T MATTER.

But they do matter! The GOP is dead wrong again.

Secondly, every increase in the deficit has resulted in a CONTRACTION of the money supply, which by definition --is a recession! In Reagan's case, it was a DEPRESSION of some two years, the deepest and longest since the GREAT DEPRESSION of the 1920s and the causes were the same with a couple of moder variations. The contraction of teh money supply followin deficits has several causes, not the least of which is the cost of financing the deficit.
"but what our economy really is is fascist.....a merger between big government and big business."

The GOP is primarily responsible for that. Here's how the US government works: it is literally AUCTIONED OFF piecemeal to the lobbies on K-Street. The Jewish Lobby is, arguably the most influential. That means that they have BOUGHT the politicians they need of EITHER party. Match up US actions with the agenda of the Jewish Lobby and you will understand who is spending the most money 'buying' influence in DC.

Back to deficits --as the US Deficit increased following EVERY GOP TAX CUT [from which ONLY the very, very wealthy benefited] the disparities of wealth income --as measured by the GINI iNDEX --increased! The GOP would have you believe that the windfalls which ONLY the very wealthy experience would 'trickle down' i.e, it would stimulate increased investment and thus jobs.

The only problem with that is this: IT HAS NEVER HAPPENED. In fact, CONSISTENTLY, investment has declined following the tax cuts. Reagan's tax cut of 1982 was followed by the two year long depression referred to above. Why? RICH FOLKS SQUIRREL AWAY their windfalls offshore and in other ways that removes that wealth from the US economy, perhaps forever.

The US is the poorest nation on earth as a result. Don't take my word for it. The CIA itself confirms it. Check the CIA WORLD FACT BOOK. The US is at the bottom of a list wit the WORLD'S LARGES NEGATIVE CURRENT ACCOUNT BALANCE. China, which literally owns us and props up the buck, is at the TOP of the list the with world's LARGEST POSITIVE current account balance.

If China should decide to pull the plug on the dollar OR if the rest of the world should decide to trade oil in currencies OTHER THAN THE DOLLAR, the recent US collapse will look like a walk in the park.

Find yourself a comfortable park bench.

Why do I care about the Statist, interventionist GOP party?!? They have been dead wrong just like the democrats on just about everything! I never refuted your facts about the republicans, just that your ideas of what brought about this economic catastrophe are not wide-scoping enough.

The reason we are in debt is because of out of control SPENDING. Do the republicans carry part of the blame for deficits and debt? Of course, because they are all statists.....

Statism is the reason we are in debt, not any one incremental policy.