Worthwhile, but not the end-all-be-all of the argument. Laissez-faire capitalism is an ideal Ideals break down in the real world. Not that I am not arguing against free market -- nothing could make me do that. Only that laissez-faire is an ideal -- a mirage, and in the real world, exploitable and ultimately unworkable, as is any ideal.
w/r/t to link 1, it is a nice exposition of common sense. It was summed up by the non-formally educated traders on Wall Street generations ago: Good money drives out bad.
Very Astute!
Whose is to blame? Are these people a major part of the problem?
Are there others?
Government evolved from the need to protect life and property from predators and plunderers. Socialism is the freedom-destroying economic cancer that was developed by political predators seeking to harness government's power for their own purposes. Politicians uniformly promise more than they can tax making debt and monetary debasement the source of government's power. Politicians and bankers are natural allies and co-conspirators.
"Give me control of a nation's money and I care not who makes the laws." Mayer Amschel Rothschild (1744-1812)
"Banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around the banks will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered." Thomas Jefferson, 1809.
"History records that the money changers have used every form of abuse, intrigue, deceit, and violent means possible to maintain their control over governments, by controlling money and its issuance." President James Madison
Is the problem hopeless? Should we simply throw up our hands and shrug?
Or if we arm ourselves with some knowledge of the source of the problem, are there some reasonable things that could be done to improve the situation? I repeat: