[FlingWingFlyer]

Yes.

[unixfox]

Just think, with the government owning AIG we will have a good start with "universal" healthcare!!

[TheNewPundit]

Yes and no. It really depends on proper management of these takeovers. I believe the intent is to use funds to soak up ownership until they are out of the water, then place the stock back onto the public marketplace.

Of course, we all know what happens when the government intends to do something on a small scale. Social Security had similar beginnings.

[Dr. Ursus]

No, we’re an Oligarchy,Thank You.

[cripplecreek]

Sure looks that way to me.

[ChildOfThe60s]

No. We are already Socialist.

[yongin]

The truth is when many fiscal conservatives talk of cutting govt, what they really mean is cut pork projects in other states but not in my community.

[Hattie]

Genuine Americans aren’t ever going to be socialists. Many visitors and idiots are.

[Lurker]

Becoming?

Hell, we've been rushing headlong into Socialism for the last 45 years.

L

[ripley]

the correct question is; “when will america stop being socialist?”

IMHO

[Emperor Palpatine]

Is this guy Catholic?

[Scutter]

Of course it is! Why would you think anything else? Let's think for a moment why:

1. The Constitution hasn't served as a limit on Federal Government power for over 50 years. Congress does what it wants, and the Supreme Court even invents "rights" that aren't there
2. A large percentage of the population doesn't pay any taxes at all, and in fact some even get "tax credits" - a tax refund for taxes they never paid. A majority of the population thinks its OK to take money from one group and give it to another.
3. Our electoral system lets any idiot vote, and the press and many independent groups make it a goal to to enroll as many of these idiots as possible. A large number of these idiots can't even tell you who the current VP is.
4. Once elected, politicians have no incentive to do anything other than spew partisan rhetoric and negotiate deals to bring pork back to their states. The electorate enthusiastically votes these self-serving, pork-laden, partisans back into office year after year.
5. Congress routinely passes a budget that spends more than it takes in. This is a "hidden" tax on future generations.

Quite frankly, with all that going for us, I'm surprised things aren't worse than they are.

[Silly]

Becoming?! BECOMING?!

[LiberConservative]

I’m not an expert, but these recent buyouts are scary. I think it might be a little worse than the US becoming socialist. We are headed towards financial disaster. I hate to be doom-and-gloom, but this weekend our economic future has never looked darker. And the more government owns and controls, the less power we have to allow capitalism and the free market to correct itself. We are left with the government running the show.

[CriticalJ]

The scary thing is:

There is socialist idealist on the verge of winning the election this November. It’s like the perfect socialist storm.

[Bernard Marx]

Becoming?

[mad puppy]

The US takeovers, by contrast, are temporary affairs, to be followed by re-privatisation once the crisis is resolved. The corporations will be obliged to sell chunks of their assets to pay off debts and attain stability. They will then be re-privatised. They will emerge greatly shrunken, and perhaps broken into smaller units.

Nationalisation is a misleading word for this process. It is better called forced restructuring by the government, as a pre-emptive safety net. It aims to save citizens from pain, but within a market economy framework.

---

The US Gov’t spending my $$$ to bailout these companies makes me VERY uncomfortable and YES the US is becoming Socialist. If the described outcome above works out, I think that we may well have dodged a bullet. However, if those companies are not quickly removed from the Gov’ts control, they never will be...

Big time CEO’s that green light these kinds of risks, banking on the Tax payers to bail them out if things don’t go well, should have ALL there assets taken from them and be thrown in jail.

Bad guys not being punished = injustice.
Pawns (like taxpayers) being punished = injustice.

How many more bailouts will happen next month?

[ventanax5]

“A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murder[er] is less to fear.”

[PISANO]

On a scale from 1 to 10 with 10 being 100% Socialist, we are on a unstoppable death spiral passing 6.

With two terms of B. Hussein OBAMA you can expect a full 10 by the time he leaves office, that is.... IF.... he leaves office!

[NormsRevenge]

Does the Pope eat chicken?