Posted on 11/26/2008 11:57:08 AM PST by fiscon1
The subprime mortgage crisis is only the Sarajevo which caused the financial collapse. The real reason is the massive explosion of debt at all levels and in all forms that has engulfed the world. Since 1992, the total of debt in the world has gone from a level equal to global GDP to a level that is now 3.7 times as much as global GDP. This debt explosion, explained in Charles Morris' book (no relation) The Trillion Dollar Meltdown, consists not only of mortgages, but bonds for corporations that can't repay them, credit cards for consumers who are neck deep in debt, car loans for drivers who can't meet the payments, student loans that are swamping young couples, and default insurance sold by companies that can't make good on their commitments. This massive debt has to be sweated out of our global economic system like a heroin addiction.
(Excerpt) Read more at vote.com ...
It’s all a lie, we did not have free markets. We had government control, regulations and interference. Worst-absolute worst-interference was with the money supply. Always playing games. Alan Greeenspan was too smart by half. Fact is no one, NO ONE, can can control, manage the currency. Only everyone acting independently/in cooperation, i.e., the market can do it. Greenspan only gave the illusion of doing a good job, because it worked in the short term putting off the inevitable day of reckoning.
Welcome to FR!
for later
The free market died long before 1988!
Long live socialism and we slaves who are blessed to serve our socialist masters to supply all others with a better standard of living then they are will to produce on their own.
The fact it took so long to stop its heart is a testament to the power of the supply side concept.
unless one considers Wall Mart, Home Depot, Capital One and Fannie Freddie examples of "real competition" in a free market
I couldn’t agree more regarding the money supply and in fact most of our economic problems come with the atrocious money supply management by the fed.
thank you.
How do you act independently/in cooperation?
A true free market can only exist without the existence of coercion, collusion, manipulation or fraud. Its never, ever, never going to happen. So forget it.
Dick, you may be interested in this excellent analysis from 1933:
We haven’t had free markets since the creation of the Federal Reserve and fiat currency.
Downloaded for later reading. Thanks!
I’ve also begun reading Murray Rothbard’s book on the Great Depression. If you like, I can send you a copy. FReepmail me an email and I’ll send it if you like.
It’s interesting reading, as he has been railing against the state of affairs since the Reagan presidency expecting a big meltdown at some point. He was (deceased now) one of the key economists from the Austrian school of economics - along with the heavy guns like Ludwig Von Mises, Jozef Schumpeter, Hayek...
It is interesting to read an economist who rails against the Keynsians and the Friedmanites as all wrong...
There was an enthusiasm for markets. Now there isn't.
Worst-absolute worst-interference was with the money supply. Always playing games. Alan Greeenspan was too smart by half. Fact is no one, NO ONE, can can control, manage the currency. Only everyone acting independently/in cooperation, i.e., the market can do it. Greenspan only gave the illusion of doing a good job, because it worked in the short term putting off the inevitable day of reckoning.
Okay, but as long as there are markets there are going to be attempts to mitigate or minimize downward trends. Governments attempt to do that. But so do non-government entities: this whole "derivative" thing was sold as a way of evening out risks.
The next boom we see, some people will say it's forever and others will try to figure out ways to make it be forever. The same ingenuity that's at work in the economy is at work in such schemes. Those plans don't work, but people never stop coming up with them.
Dick Morris is interesting to listen to, but his predictions are usually wrong. Still an interesting article.
ping
The folks from the Ludwig Von Mises Institute want to spread the word about free markets and government non-interference in those markets.
Looks like Bambi is going to turn that all on its ear. His people are telling him that there was not enough regulation, and so we will get more of the medicine that made us sick in the first place.
...but not in America.
Read Rothbard's book, or the writings of any economist from the Austrian School of Economics - the likes of which can be read for free on the pages of the Ludwig Von Mises Institute.
Tons of good reading over there.
If you find something you like that is not free, support them by ordering it from the institute. We need to help conservative institutes like that fight the good fight.
Thanks. I’m going to read that.
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