A checkpoint for those that are blaming free market capitalism... - Granite Grok

A checkpoint for those that are blaming free market capitalism…

I don’t ordinarily repost entire posts verbatim; when I do, I let you know.  Consider yourselves informed.

One of the raging controversies that is du jour is "has capitalism died"?  Do we have to replace it?  And if so, what?  Socialists / Progressives all say this has been caused by free market capitalism – oh really?  Free markets don’t determine monetary policies – Government does.  Cheap money for Community Reinvestment Act people (NOW I know why people making my salary could buy houses that cost 4 X mine – and why I still have mine) from the Fed, Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac, Dodd and Frank keeping the oversight of the last two at zero, a President (et al) who decided more should own homes, and, oh, did I mention cheap money?  Cheap money and a lack of self-responsibility made for volatile times – and the bill became due. Free Markets failure?  Certainly, the heavy hand of Government is rife throughout this whole deal but I digress…from Big Hollywood (emphasis mine):

Here’s the clip. We start with scenes of New York majesty followed by a street slum, followed by rows of project apartment buildings as urban blight. Then, at the end, we’re shown gleaming glass towers which are the product of free market capitalism. The project buildings were products of President Johnson’s war on poverty which spent billions and did exactly what you’d expect billions of tax dollars thrown at an abstract problem like poverty would do. Those apartment buildings would have gone up in the 60s. The film was shot around 1979. Less than 20 years. Think on that when you watch the clip above.

That’s government in action right there. Some of those buildings were barely 20 years old, if that. And they want to take over 1/6th of our economy, the health care business, and manage it the way they do everything else. You know, as effectively as Medicare, Social Security, The Post Office, Amtrak which are all about to go under. Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae? Failing badly. Hey, why not just show the government debt while we’re at it to see how well they run things. They’ve created trillions in debt based on promises they made. Promises made by politicians that you and your descendants would be footing these bills. They didn’t ask for your consent. Just as they are ignoring the public’s will with the health care bills.

Governments don’t produce, they consume. They take from the people who create things and convert some of those resources into “benefits”. These benefits are, more often than not, bribes to ease us into letting them keep spending our money like mad. At some point, a long time ago, they stopped caring about wanted and started telling us what was good for us. They began taking more and more tax dollars and bribing the least productive citizens so they’d have voters who can override the productive citizens if they complained too much.

They used a divide and conquer strategy. They promised every splinter group what they wanted, but what they got is something else.

Nothing the government does is created out of thin air. It’s made from the wealth it has taken from others. While the free market has created many wonders on its own, most of the government’s great works are in the distant past and they’re falling apart from neglect. Or they’re maintained local governments or free enterprise. Most of the great towers of Manhattan and other cities were built by companies who earned their own wealth to build them. The rotting projects that have fallen into disarray were neglected by a government that promised those people they’d be lifted from poverty. Instead it segregated then into a decaying hell and trapped them into a cycle of dependence.

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