"I've abandoned free-market principles to save the free-market system."
(G.W. Bush)

"We had to destroy the village in order to save it."
(any Vietnam knucklehead with a camera in his face)

Capitalism works so well that we only have to borrow billions of dollars a month from a communistic country in order to keep our ship afloat.
(who said that?)

Oh...and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac ARE NOT government institutions.

That is another fucking lie that's been rammed down our throats.

They are SHAREHOLDER owned and SHAREHOLDER controlled.

They are no more a part of our government than the Federal Reserve.

Seems to me that this is precisely the result one should expect from unbridled capitalism. Capitalism leads to extreme concentrations of wealth. With concentrated wealth comes increased influence over any form of government, which is inevitably used to pass laws favoring the wealthy. Rinse and repeat.

The only times we've seen this pattern avoided was when some disaster strikes and (temporarily) government has placed restrictions on the concentration of wealth. But these "golden years" are soon lost in the tides of bribery and influence.

Could have been worse... could be Uranuscracy.

*quality

Boosting this quality contribution up in the Hot Listing - declared quality by blankfist.

I thought we had refuted this line of thinking ten months ago.

A free market economy would work well if malfeasance was a Capital Crime and punishable by death. Nonfeasance and misfeasance would be handled by public flagellation and/or forced labour camps.

Screw the people, you die. Be honest, you live. Be a douchebag, you suffer.

In a system where money is the beginning, middle, and end, it would be the only way.

Always take the time to investigate sources.

"The Acton Institute is an ecumenical think-tank dedicated to the study of free-market economics informed by religious faith and moral absolutes."
Who funded the Acton Institute?
The Bradley Foundation: $225,000 (laissez-faire capitalist organization)
Philip Morris: $10,000
ExxonMobil: $30,000

No thank you Acton Institute. You're assertions are rejected. Not because your points are short sighted, naive and laughable and you show an obvious agenda towards promoting corporate power through manipulation of religion...no wait, that is the reason.

"pretty black and white" Bullshit! Truth is never black and white. Do you want to know why we have never tried Adam Smith style free markets? Because the free markets only work when there is a level playing field. A true level playing field cannot exist without seizing all money and dividing it equally. Since that isn't going to happen, instead we need Government to at least enforce the rules.

It won't let me down vote this crap.

"Truth is never black and white."
Truth is always black and white. Either something is true or not.

>> ^gwiz665:
"Truth is never black and white."
Truth is always black and white. Either something is true or not.


Well then there are very few things in reality that can be defined as something.

^By it's very definition, truth is just that - true. Half-truths don't exist; they are not true. Issues can be more complex than that, but that has nothing to do with truth.

>> ^gwiz665:
"Truth is never black and white."
Truth is always black and white. Either something is true or not.


You misunderstand. Truth is never found in absolutes. Capitalism vs Socialism: both flawed, the truth is in the middle somewhere. Liberalism vs. Conservatism: the truth is in the middle somewhere also. Pick any extreme views that supposedly hold the answer to our salvation, total bullcrap!

These guys are arguing one extremist view, by arguing the opposite extremist view is flawed, and taken as a given (sans proof) that all the middle ground positions are just as bad as the opposite extremist view. My position is that all extreme "principled" views are crap.

Right now the country is hotly debating Government vs Free Enterprise, and very few seem to care that both are failing miserably.

^Well, then you misunderstand me. Capitalism or socialism can never be "true" because they cannot be expressed as true/false.

Economic systems are far more complex than that, and they can only be "measured" in which benefits and disadvantages they have. We have to evaluate complex issues from some perspective, where we choose parameters with which to evaluate. "Truth" (True/false) simply doesn't apply.

An absolute is different than a truth. Things that exist are true - Does videosift exist? Yes. This is a truth. Is videosift better than X video site - that's a matter of evaluating the parameters. Given Y parameters the statement can be either true or false.

This is what I mean when I say that truth is always black and white. Either something is true or it is not, given whatever parameters we evaluate from. Half-truths do not exist.