Posted on 12/16/2008 3:08:12 PM PST by Star Traveler
You said — “Adolph Hitler did pretty much this same sh!t. did you agree with his national socialism?”
I wouldn’t have agreed with Hitler for many reasons (and there were a whole host of them, too).
But, I do agree with Bush and Cheney, and furthermore, I did vote for them...
That’s what Bush and Cheney are saying...
No it isn't. What they're saying is the equivalent of the medieval medical treatment of calling the barber with his razor and leeches to bleed the "evil humours" out of the patient...
You said — “In other words, he’s going to wreck the economy to save it. Brilliant - embracing socialism to save a free market. It’s never worked before so why try it again?”
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Well, that’s not the perspective that the President and Vice-President have on the matter. That may be yours, but it’s not theirs. That’s obvious from what I read.
And, if I were to use that “analogy process” to once again explain the “viewpoint” that they are coming from — it would be that “on his own” the patient will die — and thus — not be productive anymore.
So, extreme measures must be taken that one would never take on a healthy patients. You only do so, for as long as necessary and until the patient is in such a condition to be able to be self-supporting and go back to work again, on their own.
In the meantime, there will be so many things that the patient can no longer do for themselves, in the meantime, while being assisted and in recuperating. Afterwards, the patient will gain his strength, be able to do for themselves, as before and be as productive as before.
NOW..., where you’re differing in this analogy, is that you’re saying (in “your analogy”, if you will) — that the “treatment” is actually going to kill the patient.
But, there you go..., that’s simply not the viewpoint of Bush and Cheney. They do not think that the treatment is going to kill the patient and that it’s necessary treatment.
In this, I have to back the President and Vice-President (who are the ones I voted for, too) in their assessment with the resources and computer models and financial experts that they have directly at their disposal.
And, I would seriously doubt anyone who would be trying to say that Bush and Cheney are actually trying, intentionally, to kill the patient... LOL...
You said — “No it isn’t. What they’re saying is the equivalent of the medieval medical treatment of calling the barber with his razor and leeches to bleed the “evil humours” out of the patient...”
No, I have to disagree on that — and I think it’s obvious to everyone else, too — that this is *your viewpoint*.
To try and say that it is Bush and Cheney’s viewpoint is simply trying to *project* your own views and place them inside the heads of Bush and Cheney. And that’s obviously not true.
What is *very true* — and apparent here — is that this is *your* viewpoint...
He's saying that a free market is OK, except when it doesn't work. Then it's time to abandon it and embrace socialism for a short time until the problem is fixed then you return to the free market.
That raises the obvious question. If socialism is the solution to the ills of the free market, why not abandon the free market permanently? Why return to something defective?
LOL.......
"So, ladies and gentlemen. No need for concern or anxiety. George and Dick are on the case. Your president and vice-president know what's best. Have no fear. They have all the facts at their disposal as well as their substantial combined intellects to which yours and mine do not come close.
Suspend your critical faculties and allow your captain to guide us out of these stormy seas."
That's how your vacuous pontificating comes over....... LOL...........
The problem is, their's is perspective - mine is reality. Socialist policy got us into this mess, and it sure as hell isn't going to get us out.
The "treatment" being provided by the fed is NOT going to save the patient - it will kill it. Socialism is the equivalent of voodoo and bloodletting. It merely kills the living, productive tissue to briefly prolong the life of the dead tissue. What's needed is to let the dead tissue die of its own hand rather than continue to burden the lively tissue. IOW, let the deadbeats fail so that the productive can carry on. Stealing from the productive simply leads the productive to stop producing. After all, why work hard if there's no benefit?
I voted for Bush and Cheney as well - not because I had great feelings about the team, but because the opponent in both elections was much worse. I've respected Bush's foreign policy but his domestic policy has been horrible.
I heard the sound bite today.
Very sad.
That is a long discourse on semantics that is not germane. Don’t get me wrong: I enjoy discussions on semantics, but enjoy discussions on economics and political economy even more.
Rather than defend your choice of words or dissect mine, why not explain why you think that it is appropriate to liken the US economy to a sick patient, and why we should think of politicians as the doctors. Can you give examples of instances where the “treatment” (government intervention) actually did more harm than good? You seem to argue from authority, writing that Bush et al. have smart financial guys, financial models, etc. to decide what to do. Well, no model is perfect, because models are just representations of reality, not reality (and the credit market blow-up should make us more skeptical of the risk-management claims of quantitative finance).
Your viewpoint on analogies is much like that of Alfred Korbzybski, but didn’t Korzybski himself say that “the map is not the territory”?
Well, with Obama, they will be flying the Muslim flag, as one CAIR spokesman has said in the past...
You said — “That raises the obvious question. If socialism is the solution to the ills of the free market, why not abandon the free market permanently? Why return to something defective?”
Extreme measures are taken many times by people (even in their own lives) which they do not want to “live by” everyday of their lives. But, people do some things, because (as they say), “I have to do this...”
That should be obvious to anyone, unless one has never encountered a personal situation in which they did some things (took extra measures) that they *quit doing* after they solved the problem.
The same type of thing applies on a national level. A clear example of this, in another area of national policy is “war”. We don’t want to live under “war” all the time, but we do so, only as necessary. And then, most people, as soon as it is possible to get out of this condition of war (like “winning” :-)...), they will do so and return back to the normal peacetime state.
I don’t know why this sort of principle is hard for some people to understand.
You said — “Suspend your critical faculties and allow your captain to guide us out of these stormy seas.”
Well, in this particular case, I am of the opinion, using those same “critical faculties” (as you say...) that Bush and Cheney are correct on the matter.
For all I know, Bush and Cheney were following “my opinion” on this board, rather than me following theirs... LOL...
It's not hard to understand and nobody is disputing it, OK?
The proposition that "extreme measures" sometimes need to be taken in life is not in dispute. Nice straw man.
The question is which "extreme measures"? Specifically, is socialism the temporary or maybe longer term answer to the ills of the free market?
Or are you saying that because the economy is in a mess, the solution proposed by Bush is the only practical solution?
What Bush is doing is just making the problem worse so that he can say he did "something".
If you want to use tax dollars to prop up Zombie banks and horrible management practices, fine. Anyone with any common sense could tell you, that is NOT the road to economic success.
The problem with your war analogy is that Wars end, enemies are defeated. Government socialism is ongoing, and once you give the government that power it will NEVER secede that right until it collapses economically. If you think this depression would have been bad, wait until our socialistic government collapses under it's own weight, that will be horrific.
You said — “The problem is, their’s is perspective - mine is reality. Socialist policy got us into this mess, and it sure as hell isn’t going to get us out.”
Well, so *you* say... and Bush and Cheney say differently. That’s what it comes down to.
The rest of it will have to be... “time will tell...”
You said — “That is a long discourse on semantics that is not germane. Don’t get me wrong: I enjoy discussions on semantics, but enjoy discussions on economics and political economy even more.”
It’s germane in the respect that it does represent what Bush and Cheney are talking about (i.e., their viewpoint on the matter).
And so, it’s useful to understand that this is their position (i.e., where they are coming from) — rather than the position that some say (here) — which is, to say they are intent on destroying the country. I seriously doubt that this is the viewpoint of Bush and Cheney... LOL...
Some would say, here, that the conversation of Bush and Cheney would go something like this.
Bush: Say, Cheney, what can we do today to destroy the economy?
Cheney: Well, we could come out with a statement that we’re going to kill the patient in order to save it.
Bush: That’s exactly what we should do. Let’s announce that tomorrow...
LOL...
I bet I get some FReepers *confirm* to me that this is exactly what Bush and Cheney intend to do and that they have planned to do this specifically for this reason. Wait and see if we get FReepers to confirm this... :-)
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Now the “rest of it” as to what actual policies and methodologies will actually save the economy, I’ll let Bush and Cheney and the Administration make their own argument. They are the ones who I voted in and they can run the government, per the conditions of their office, until their term is over, per the Constitution...
You said — “Or are you saying that because the economy is in a mess, the solution proposed by Bush is the only practical solution?”
There’s never only one solution. But there is a solution that you can get through politically, and that’s one of the problems that everyone has to deal with here. Whatever the solution is, it won’t make it unless it goes through politically...
Again this is beside the point.
What I’m asking you is, what evidence do you have that what the Bush administration (actually, Hank Paulson and Bernanke) is trying to do is not destructive, or that it is constructive? You seem to say that you will simply put faith in this politician, who in nearly eight years has manifested no small government instinct, tax cuts notwithstanding.
Although you erect a strawman FReeper that thinks GWB wants to actively destroy the vestiges of capitalism in the US, I do not believe this - I think that GWB does not have much conviction that economic liberty actually works (after all, he and the entire Bush clan got their wealth from a bit of enterprise, a bit of rent-seeking), and does not understand or believe the intellectual bases of it, and he is being swept along by the tsunami of history, lacking the fortitude to stand athwart history yelling “Stop!”
Again, what evidence do you have that the nationalization of the financial sector will work? It did not work in Fascist Italy or Nazi Germany when they “rescued” their financial sectors and crafted stimulus packages that amounted to 10% of GDP. Or at least, their economies remained in shambles until they went to a wartime production-based economy. Such a resolution for the present crisis would be a catastrophic failure, not a success.
You said — “What I’m asking you is, what evidence do you have that what the Bush administration (actually, Hank Paulson and Bernanke) is trying to do is not destructive, or that it is constructive? You seem to say that you will simply put faith in this politician, who in nearly eight years has manifested no small government instinct, tax cuts notwithstanding.”
But, that was not my point in the first place. My point was that this was their viewpoint in that they have the idea that they are saving the economy by taking whatever extreme measures that they have to do, which they would not do — at all — in normal economic times.
I have disagreed with that “viewpoint” that Bush and Cheney are out to destroy the economy. I think that the most you can do, in that regard is to say that Bush and Cheney want to save the economy and they see these measures that they will take as part of that process.
Now, one may disagree with them on what their methodology will do versus someone else’s (some of which are given here) and that’s fine. That’s what elections for for and that’s why the people elect certain representatives and certain Presidents and the electorate affirms certain policies by means of their voting.
Bush and Cheney think that what they’ve said is what is necessary and that’s fine with me. I do think that they do have the intention of saving the economy. I did vote for them (and certainly didn’t vote for Obama but “got him” anyway...). So, in the meantime, I’ll go with what Bush and Cheney said — and then I’ll also see what kind of legislation and policies are actually going to be put into place by an Obama Administration (I don’t look for good policies in a lot of different areas, though, coming from an Obama Administration).
I also think that the wartime footing that we were put on by the 9/11 attack and the changes that came about because of that, and the necessities of dealing with that war and the spending that results from that war — is something that has changed the whole picture in terms of smaller government. Until this war is over — I don’t see smaller government in the picture. I don’t see less intrusive government in the picture. I don’t see balanced budgets in the picture. I see all this as spillover from the 9/11 attack and the continuing war in Iraq and Afghanistan. I don’t think it’s going to get any better. And now, as a result of the Great Depression coming, it’s definitely not going to get better for a number of years.
It’s not going to be business as usual, it’s going to be a Great Depression, it’s going to be more and greater attacks on the U.S. by Islamic terrorists and it’s going to be bigger and expanding government trying to get things back on track again. That’s what’s going to be happening.
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And then you were saying — “Although you erect a strawman FReeper that thinks GWB wants to actively destroy the vestiges of capitalism in the US, I do not believe this...”
It’s not a strawman FReeper from what I was reading... LOL... (unless “Mr, Strawman” signed up to make that post, himself... :-) ...)
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You said — “Again, what evidence do you have that the nationalization of the financial sector will work? It did not work in Fascist Italy or Nazi Germany when they “rescued” their financial sectors and crafted stimulus packages that amounted to 10% of GDP. Or at least, their economies remained in shambles until they went to a wartime production-based economy. Such a resolution for the present crisis would be a catastrophic failure, not a success.”
That’s what the President Bush and Vice President Cheney will do through the Adminstration. Go to them and get the information you want. That’s who the source is... LOL...
As far as being rescued by wartime production, we should be doing quite well by now, having been at war in Iraq and Afghanistan and having this global war on terror. I should think this should be rescuing the economy like gangbusters right now... :-)
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