Road to Serfdom is excellent! (I’d also recommend Thomas E. Woods Jr.’s Meltdown and Robert P. Murphy’s The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Great Depression and New Deal.)

When he said “you are the government”, all I could think was NO–for all intents and purposes, I am the free market: a hundred times a day I choose to use a product or service someone else made and trade it for something of value I have done (represented by my money), and the less these transactions are interfered with by other entities, the better.

This big government, on the other hand, is NOT me. It is the hoard in Washington DC, confiscating wealth at their own discretion from me and giving me scraps in return while funneling the rest of it to their cronies.

The bigger this government, the less control any individual has over it. We need to move powers away from federal and more towards local government where individuals have much better opportunities to have their voices heard and their demands met—and where they can more readily push it out of the way when it interferes with their liberties and choices.

First of all, if Clinton had his way policy-wise, we would not have had a balanced budget in the first place. The Democrats absolutely REFUSE to face reality that FDR and LBJ’s Ponzi schemes are INSOLVENT.

I’m not going to defend Newt’s handling of the situation, but like it or not, there was an element of the Republicans coming in to be the growns ups and get serious about the solvency of these entitlement programs. Yes, its a third rail and people like you make your “scorched earth” comments and get all wee wee’d up to you use the parlance of our times, but here we are STILL fighting about those issues.

God forbid the Republicans try to reign in S.S. before it bankrupts everyone under 40. And the Dept. of Education? Don’t even get me started. And what did we get in the meantime? Today we have Dems saying the Ponzi scheme will last 2 more years! And ask ANY teacher what they think of Teddy/Dubya’s No Child Left Behind. Total disaster of central planning. Just like your precious entitlements.

Who are the wingnuts? The people that want MORE entitlements WHILE thinking controlling illegal immigration is IMMORAL/RACIST. You are smoking crack. And the politicians you worship are the most cynical of them all. Behind closed doors, they know the Ponzi scheme is bankrupt, so they do everything they can to pump up the bubble economy so that it doesn’t crash on their watch. Meanwhile, they ensure the collapse by inviting the entire 3rd world into the US to get on the dole and become loyal Democrats. Another poor person on your plantation. I’m sure you guys will cure poverty, just as soon as you drag us all into it. History does not need to be re-written, it only needs to be studied by those who lick the boots of the central planners.

I too worry about what may be on the horizon.

There are 2 sure-fire ways to deal with a massive debt like ours: devalue your currency AND/or start a war with those who you owe the money.

AND its not a bad way to get the people’s minds off of the domestic s#@tstorm.

Furthermore, the guy blasts you and says that the great depression was caused by the low taxes of the 20s. Ugg. I think I heard the guy say he was in real estate. Its bad enough to spout off about economics and be completely off the mark, but the ignorance of his own industry is shocking. You need to look no further than the housing crisis to see that there is no free market in the US. The Federal Reserve was manipulating credit like crazy in the 20s, despite sound fiscal policy, the monetary policy was a nightmare, just like it is today. This confuses capital and makes it less efficient as sectors of the economy grow unnaturally.

The free market doesn’t give away money for free. The irresponsible no money down nightmare was created by the Fed to reinflate the dot.com bubble. It was not the free market, it was the Fed.

Furthermore, we have to come to terms with the fact that taking all the equity out of your house to remodel your bathroom is retarded. Thats what America was as a whole up to, it was irresponsible and it was fueled by the policies of the Fed Reserve NOT the free market.

One more point and then I’m going to stop wasting time trying to talk sense to this guy.

He said:
“And, no, I don’t want a centrally-planned economy as you suggest. I want to fight it out in the House of Representatives and the Senate and try to get the best decisions we can have. I don’t want so-called leadership to take single-payer off the table because his campaign funding comes from Wellpoint and Astra-Zeneca.”

Ok. Single-payer means what? Who is that single payer? The federal government. Another term we could use for federal government would be the CENTRAL government. Single and central are the same in this case. You don’t even know what central planning is. And if you are so naive as to say “we are the government” then you are hopelessly not paying attention.

The corporations are the government. this is not the free market. It is FASCISM, plain and simple. Everyone in America seems to understand that we have Crony Capitalism in America. The free market, the INVISIBLE hand, has no use for cronies. You need cronies when you don’t want to have to compete.

Like lets say you you are big pharma. You meet secretly with Obama, write legislation, and the go shove it down America’s throat. When they squirm, you tell them to stop pee peeing in their pants.

WE are not even CLOSE to being the government. As Jefferson understood: We are not the government, the government is a whole ‘nother beast.

In parting, I’d like to suggest to the original author “The Road to Serfdom”. It may help you understand the difference between fascism and the free market.

I have only the one request: that people examine the most egregious and damaging basic fallacy he espouses–that destruction brings prosperity. This I cannot abide. This excerpt from Henry Hazlitt’s Economics in One Lesson, which includes the Broken Window Fallacy is probably the best written fallacy buster ever: http://mises.org/story/3000

If it makes sense to you, then continue reading from the mises.org site. It has excellent articles about what a real free market system is.

You are probably right though. With Medicare and Medicaid totally solvent, I’m sure we’d be in great shape if we would have nationalized the whole health economy 15 years ago. Government has a great record of controlling costs. Who the hell is the wingnut?

Corporations right now are behaving in the way mafias used to: loan sharking, fraud, and gambling (stock market manipulation). These things were illegal when mafia gangs did it, they should be illegal when corporations do it.

This is when you know to just stop listening to this guy. He absolutely does not know what he’s talking about.

Clinton made two big mistakes (three if you count welfare reform). Glass-Steagall and NAFTA.

It could not be better articulated.

Furthermore, how much has the FASCISM (yeah, that’s right) we’ve seen after Coolidge’s day contributed to this skewing of wealth towards a super-rich elite? There was a day when rich industrialists were allowed to die penniless.

It could not be better articulated.

Furthermore, how much has the FASCISM (yeah, that’s right) we’ve seen since Coolidge contributed to this skewing of wealth towards a super-rich elite? There was a day when rich industrialists were allowed to die penniless.