No one in their right mind believes unrestrained capitalism will regulate itself, as the recent mortgage crisis amply demonstrated.
Capitalism is a powerful tool, surely the most powerful tool yet devised for creating wealth. But just like any powerful tool, it has the ability to accomplish tremendous good, if used properly, or reek the most unimaginable damage if used improperly. Thus it becomes the function of the state to regulate capitalism properly in order to insure the common good of all.
ex animo
davidfarrar
” No one in their right mind believes unrestrained capitalism will regulate itself, as the recent mortgage crisis amply demonstrated “
Ann Coulter put it like this
“It’s the famous liberal two-step: First screw something up, then claim that it’s screwed up because there’s not enough government oversight (it’s the free market run wild!), and then step in and really screw it up in the name of “reform.”
You should pedal your drivel at a site that doesn’t know better.
You sir, are a fool.
Unrestrained capitalism is not responsible for the mortgage meltdown.
Government regulations forced lenders to find the ways to hit lending quotas. On top of that, Fannie May and Freddie Mac bought sub prime mortgages, allowing lenders to write risky loans, because the lenders knew they could sell the mortgage.
Government regulation and interference in the mortgage industry is directly responsible for the mortgage meltdown.
Anyone who says otherwise is a shill for more government intervention.
Go peddle your socialist garbage elsewhere.
You have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about.
And, I took valuable time to give you a lesson in how government can distort the free market.
Evidently, you don’t see it as a bad thing.
Again, you’re a fool.
“....... it becomes the function of the state to regulate capitalism properly in order to insure the common good of all.”
You’ve lost your mind.
No. What this most recent, and currently evolving mortgage crisis amply demonstrated is what happens when government gets involved in the marketplace. You had the government forcing lenders to underwrite loans in the name of "equality" and "social justice" that the lenders knew were unsound. Fannie Mae and Freedie Mac were government sponsored distortions of the market that led to huge distortions of the market. That is why you ended up with the huge secondary markets that made attempts (at least initially) to make some sanity of the situation.
The entire bubble and bust were created by the U.S. government run amok. Now you want us to give even more power to FedGov to further screw things up? Wow.
Nobody alive today has experienced true "unrestrained" capitalism as the government has been distorting markets for well over a century. The mortgage crisis itself is not evidence of unrestrained capitalism, but of competing regulations strangling the self-regulating mechanisms out of a free market.
The government isn't the solution, it's the problem. As always.
If Hitler left this tidbit out of Mein Kampf it was merely an oversight.
This statement is pure fascism.
Horse sh!t. The recent crisis was a direct result of governmental interference with normal functioning of the mortgage loan market. If there were no such thing as Fanny and Freddie, this never would have happened. People would have saved up 20% down as they always had to before, and there would have been no bubble in prices.
It did no such thing.
When the U.S. government, in the form of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, "encourages" (read "intimidates") mortgagers into making sub-prime loans for "affordable housing", then removes them from any liability by offering to buy the resultant mortgage -- regardless of risk -- what the hell do you think is going to happen?
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac created the housing bubble. And they caused the housing crash -- which took the rest of the economy down with it. And nobody is to blame other than the federal government, the 'Rats who ran Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, plus the 'Rats in Congress who enabled them.
Unrestrained government is a much bigger threat than "unrestrained capitalism".