Quote:
Originally Posted by zerospinboson
[...] even though the preferring of corporate interests over private is very much american, but just something that "polite people don't remind eachother of". [...]
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I snipped away most of your response, because I wanted to address only the quoted bit.
I would argue that preferring corporate interests over private interests is certainly a disease that America has suffered from to various degrees at various times. But it's not -- nor should it be -- a necessary part of our system. In order for a capitalist system to work well, you have to let companies fail! That failure frees up their capital assets and their workers to do things that are more valuable than what the failing company did with them. If you prop up the losers, you basically guarantee that you'll do worse than if you don't!
Similarly, I'm exceedingly suspicious when a politician/technocrat/consultant tells me that we must have government funding to encourage X, because the private sector isn't doing it (or isn't doing enough of it). Often that means that the private sector has figured out that it isn't worth doing, or isn't worth pursuing to the degree desired by said politician/technocrat/consultant.
Note: markets are not always right. But they have a better record over the long haul than do governments/politicians/technocrats/etc., in part because they adjust relatively quickly when conditions change.
But then, I'm the radical sort who believes that 90% or more of what the US Federal Government does is strictly unconstitutional -- including many things that directly affect my pocketbook like funding research at my University. Specifically, I just don't buy the incredible stretching of the Commerce Clause of the constitution that the Supremes have used to justify Federal involvement in almost everything. I believe much more strongly in the enumerated powers listed in the constitution... which would make all our recent bail-outs strictly illegal!
So take that attitude into account when you read my posts!
Xenophon