The 'Bail Out' is nothing but 'Socialism for the Rich'

[caractacus]

Interesting how after a period of time for reflection it is beginning to dawn on people the world over the sheer audacity of what the Fed has done by underwriting the debts of the US financial sector whose greed in the face of very limited regulation, resulted in this the mother of all financial messes.
It is intriguing to observe that Professor Nouriel Roubini of New York University's Stern Business School , who predicted the meltdown as long ago as late 2006 does not believe that the Fed's 'socialism for the rich' has any chance of working, what do other p.ie readers think? Does this intervention by the Fed represent merely the confirmation that the USA, once the bastion of free market economics is now in the business of privatising gain and socialising risk and the subsequent losses .....
see more details in http://unrepentantcommunist.blogspot.com/

[Harpo]

Well it proves where the priorities of the US government lies (as if we needed anymore)

Healthcare, education, detention facilities, transport etc have all needed billions if not trillions worth of investment since the 1980s. Of course they have not received it. As long as Wall St. needs a bail out it's a case of "how much do you need?"

[McDave]

The Observer characterised the whole debacle as the failure of the Anglosaxon speculative model, and a marked shift of wealth from those economies to the productive East. A year or so ago a senior German politician described the whole Anglosaxon private sector finance model as "locust capitalism".

Personally, I don't really understand how a responsible government and regulatory structure could have ever allowed such blatant abuses with such predictable consequences. Just look at the terminology used to describe financial "products" - sub-prime lending (Orwellian), NINJA loans (comical if it weren't so serious). Now they have to ferret out "toxic loans" distributed endemically in a systemic fashion. And only now do Americans seems to be questioning Greenspan's idiotic sustained post-9/11 low interest policy.

The price will be paid in the coming years by salaried and jobless Americans in terms of stagnant wages, higher inflation, higher unemployment, eviscerated social benefits and the running down of its infrastructure. The US has been throwing its economic future away for decades now with a bloated military, crazy military adventures and an economy which depends too much on speculation and not enough on making things.

So the bail out could well be the last great socialist action of a US government! The next movie blockbuster: "Neocon Socialism 2: The Final Insult".

[Cael]

What it all comes down to is that "western democracies" are just fronts for the rich. Whatever the rich need at any particular time is what the rich will get - be that nationalisation or lassez faire. Needless to say, the middle and working classes will be left to look on from the side lines - and be left to pick up the bill.

[pluralist]

What it all comes down to is that "western democracies" are just fronts for the rich. Whatever the rich need at any particular time is what the rich will get - be that nationalisation or lassez faire. Needless to say, the middle and working classes will be left to look on from the side lines - and be left to pick up the bill.

Would have to agree with this.

[Pauli]

What it all comes down to is that "western democracies" are just fronts for the rich. Whatever the rich need at any particular time is what the rich will get - be that nationalisation or lassez faire. Needless to say, the middle and working classes will be left to look on from the side lines - and be left to pick up the bill.

Would have to agree with this.

That's neo-liberalism, Cael. A total failure in every respect.

[goosebump]

Interesting how after a period of time for reflection it is beginning to dawn on people the world over the sheer audacity of what the Fed has done by underwriting the debts of the US financial sector whose greed in the face of very limited regulation, resulted in this the mother of all financial messes.
It is intriguing to observe that Professor Nouriel Roubini of New York University's Stern Business School , who predicted the meltdown as long ago as late 2006 does not believe that the Fed's 'socialism for the rich' has any chance of working, what do other p.ie readers think? Does this intervention by the Fed represent merely the confirmation that the USA, once the bastion of free market economics is now in the business of privatising gain and socialising risk and the subsequent losses .....
see more details in http://unrepentantcommunist.blogspot.com/

Had the US Government not underwritten the debt, the people most affected would have been the poorest people in Society.

What most left-wing loons don't realise is that the people who are most dependent on the Market are not the rich, but the poor.

Any analysis of any Planned Economy in the 20th century provides ample evidence of this, and currently, the world's only remaining Planned Economy, North Korea, depends on Foreign Food Aid to prevent its people from starving to death.

[Sucker Punch]

USA, once the bastion of free market economics is now in the business of privatising gain and socialising risk and the subsequent losses .....

The US and England buit their extensive industrial base via rigourous protectionist policies, they only ever embraced partially free market model once they had suficiently pulled clear of other countries whom were operating lower import tarifs.

I fail to see how North Korea pertains to this discusion in the slightest. Neo-liberalism has been shown up as pure codology that has blown up in free marketeers faces, I wonder what Milton Friedman would make of all of this? I'm guessing he'd call for further deregulation. :P

[Estragon]

Interesting how after a period of time for reflection it is beginning to dawn on people the world over the sheer audacity of what the Fed has done by underwriting the debts of the US financial sector whose greed in the face of very limited regulation, resulted in this the mother of all financial messes.
It is intriguing to observe that Professor Nouriel Roubini of New York University's Stern Business School , who predicted the meltdown as long ago as late 2006 does not believe that the Fed's 'socialism for the rich' has any chance of working, what do other p.ie readers think? Does this intervention by the Fed represent merely the confirmation that the USA, once the bastion of free market economics is now in the business of privatising gain and socialising risk and the subsequent losses .....
see more details in http://unrepentantcommunist.blogspot.com/

Had the US Government not underwritten the debt, the people most affected would have been the poorest people in Society.

What most left-wing loons don't realise is that the people who are most dependent on the Market are not the rich, but the poor.

Any analysis of any Planned Economy in the 20th century provides ample evidence of this, and currently, the world's only remaining Planned Economy, North Korea, depends on Foreign Food Aid to prevent its people from starving to death.

God, do you honestly subscribe to that crap?

[Cael]

"Consumerist post-democracy," is not a bad term for what we have now - except that it implies that we ever had democracy in the first place.