how is this different from Haliburton/KBR?
to think that this is somehow a new and novel or an isolated incident just means you havent been paying attention.
stossel is and always has been a sensationalist.i am not suggesting that his report here means nothing but i am saying that it is nothing new and as per his style he cherry picks and then inflates the drama.
the only thing i like from stossel is when he got bitch slapped by that wrestler when stossel suggested wrestling was fake.

Calling it "crony capitalism" strikes me as focusing on the irrelevant. This is simply the end result of capitalism, especially unregulated capitalism. Once you have the sort of concentrated wealth that capitalism leads to, your form of government doesn't matter any longer. Unless you spend a great deal of constant effort on monitoring it, your government -will- be corrupted by the ultra-rich who can offer benefits far beyond those available from any other source. Perhaps even if you -do- spend the effort monitoring...the wealthy would then first focus on corrupting the monitors. History would suggest that nobody has ever managed to stop it, except on a very temporary basis.

End result of captured regulators and centralized planning you mean. I walk into my kitchen or my bathroom and I am FILLED with industries that never really strike me as evil or corrupt by your, what I would consider, hasty generalization of capitalism. I look at my CD-rs, my desk, my toilet paper, my bathmat. I get a good price at the exact quality I want of them. The big problems, the ones where we see the most corruption and unfairness are those industries usually associated with heavy government regulation or finite resources.

The more a government gets involved with the mode and means of production the more bad laws get passed to benefit few at the cost of everyone. Looking back, I think everyone would agree that the legal monopolies that exist on phone and cable TV held us back technologically and culturally. As a result of these controls people pay higher prices to these companies. As the government gets more involved the need for companies to both protect and influence government officials for their unfair advantage. The government monopolies on things aren't any better, like the postal system, but that is really a topic for a different conversation.

So the idea that you point out of "Unless you spend a great deal of constant effort on monitoring it, your government -will- be corrupted by the ultra-rich who can offer benefits far beyond those available from any other source." is absolutely correct. The solution then, isn't MORE government regulations and oversight on the private economy.

The solution in my opinion is my like a recent sci-fi concept my friend told me about for his film school project. The best cure for a villain, is another villain. The villain in this case would be businesses. Being that the most effective person to fight large power corruption is people after that same power. Given the same resources and lack of meaningful unfair advantages, over time they mill each other out to an even level. At certain times people might get a little less for their money when companies use their established reputation to sell one over on people (I'm looking at you Toyota), but the public out lash when this is brought to light is swifter than any type of technocratic bumbling you would get from non-industry people on capital hill.

Capitalism isn't pretty. The evils of capitalism are all to clear. Someone can risk it all, and loose it all. A man could work all his life an perhaps never get ahead. Such is the risk. But the truth of the matter is capitalism is a driving force for great wealth for a great deal man more people than any type of managed economy.

The real and hardest questions I think stem from intellectual and property rights limits and restraints as it is hard to find a purely rational limit on what those should be. But ultimately, the principles of libertarianism are based in reason and not emotion or personal value. When making a system, you have to bench notions of good and bad, those are personal values of which there are 7 billion flavors. You have to start with reasonable, or unreasonable...a completely opinion-free, logical arrangement or arguments free from notions of morality or religion.

For some reason, "the man who shatters conventional wisdom" seems perfect for Fox News...

>> ^GeeSussFreeK:
End result of captured regulators and centralized planning you mean. I walk into my kitchen or my bathroom and I am FILLED with industries that never really strike me as evil or corrupt by your, what I would consider, hasty generalization of capitalism. I look at my CD-rs, my desk, my toilet paper, my bathmat. I get a good price at the exact quality I want of them. The big problems, the ones where we see the most corruption and unfairness are those industries usually associated with heavy government regulation or finite resources.
The more a government gets involved with the mode and means of production the more bad laws get passed to benefit few at the cost of everyone. Looking back, I think everyone would agree that the legal monopolies that exist on phone and cable TV held us back technologically and culturally. As a result of these controls people pay higher prices to these companies. As the government gets more involved the need for companies to both protect and influence government officials for their unfair advantage. The government monopolies on things aren't any better, like the postal system, but that is really a topic for a different conversation.
So the idea that you point out of "Unless you spend a great deal of constant effort on monitoring it, your government -will- be corrupted by the ultra-rich who can offer benefits far beyond those available from any other source." is absolutely correct. The solution then, isn't MORE government regulations and oversight on the private economy.
The solution in my opinion is my like a recent sci-fi concept my friend told me about for his film school project. The best cure for a villain, is another villain. The villain in this case would be businesses. Being that the most effective person to fight large power corruption is people after that same power. Given the same resources and lack of meaningful unfair advantages, over time they mill each other out to an even level. At certain times people might get a little less for their money when companies use their established reputation to sell one over on people (I'm looking at you Toyota), but the public out lash when this is brought to light is swifter than any type of technocratic bumbling you would get from non-industry people on capital hill.
Capitalism isn't pretty. The evils of capitalism are all to clear. Someone can risk it all, and loose it all. A man could work all his life an perhaps never get ahead. Such is the risk. But the truth of the matter is capitalism is a driving force for great wealth for a great deal man more people than any type of managed economy.
The real and hardest questions I think stem from intellectual and property rights limits and restraints as it is hard to find a purely rational limit on what those should be. But ultimately, the principles of libertarianism are based in reason and not emotion or personal value. When making a system, you have to bench notions of good and bad, those are personal values of which there are 7 billion flavors. You have to start with reasonable, or unreasonable...a completely opinion-free, logical arrangement or arguments free from notions of morality or religion.


unregulated capitalism is retarded.

The fact is the more money you have the easier it gets to make more money so the ritch get richer and the pore get poorer.

Because of the way capitalism works for the rich to get richer they esentualy have to grab the wealth from the less wealthy.Because its easier for rich to make money than for the pore to make money u end up with 2% of a population being super rich and the rest with pore to average wages.


If you want a democratic safe clean caring society you will need to regulate capitalism , Tax the super ritch and do projects that help educate the pore or those with less money , esentualy redistabute the welth.

alternatively you would have to fundamentally change capitalism which ultimately would be regulation again.

Pure capitalism could only ever work if everyone started from a blank slate and a equal footing and in reality that would never happen.

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I like the overall message and information given in this piece because it is true. However, it is annoying due to the way Stossel is an opportunist. Specifically with his references to the "liberal media" and the use of that Maddow clip in a context which shows liberals as pro-government collusion(when I'm certain what Maddow is actually responding to is the political attacks concerning the stimulus not creating jobs.) I know Stossel is generally Libertarian, so I am disappointed that he did not drop the hammer on both mainstream parties.

Stossel is a dolt.

The world is at war with profiteers. Corporatists.

Plain & Simple.

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