Comments on "Remember That Capitalism Is More Than a Spectator Sport."
Alan S. Blinder, Op-ed NYT 11/9/08
In the closing days of the McCain/Palin campaign, in a desperate attempt to turn things around, they resorted to an age-old mantra, that Democrats want to destroy capitalism and turn America into a Soviet-styled socialist economy. This is but an echo from the 1930’s where the flames of such fears were fanned during Roosevelt’s campaigns. It is an old idea, as bogus now as it was then.
What Alan Blinder’s op-ed does is point out that what Roosevelt and now, Obama, want to do is not destroy capitalism but make it work for someone other than fat cats. The second word out of the Bush administration (right after tax cuts) has been jobs but when the trickle-down strategy resulted in fat cats getting fatter and the middle class losing jobs, their homes and their savings, they did nothing. They did nothing because, according to their philosophy, capitalism exists for capitalist not for the middle class. Retailers and producers were to make zillions of dollars off of consumers who could not afford to buy their products and services. Henry Ford, hardly a socialist, said he paid his workers well so they could afford to buy the products they were making. Makes sense to me. Why didn’t Bush get the message?
The middle class was supposed to put their savings in 401k plans so that managers could play Ponzi games, making off like bandits if they won and passing the buck off to the government if they lost. The government was supposed to give tax breaks for those least in need to them while running up a massive national debt for future generations to pay off. That is not an economic philosophy that deserves following because it is a philosophy that just doesn’t work, even for fat cats. Any economic philosophy that calls for endless borrowing and government bailouts is not a system worth following. That’s not the fault of capitalism, just how it has been practiced by CINOs, capitalists in name only!
Home buyers got suckering into ARMs by managers who persuaded them to believe in the same Ponzi scheme that Wall Street was playing...and when no more suckers were found...the brokerage houses ran to hide behind Uncle Sam’s skirt and left homeowners out on the street. Managers of corporations took other people’s money and invested in the stocks of industries that no longer functioned but looked good on the Dow, and then when no more suckers could be found, lined up to receive government bailouts. Real capitalism is not a gigantic Ponzi scam.
It is striking that in the midst of this rescue - the spending of tens of billions of dollars to save Wall Street failures - nobody is asking how this is going to be paid for. Mention raising the minimum wage and the economic Darwinians scream about what will happen to the national debt but, when their ox is in the ditch it is; "Whatever it takes to make me not have to pay the consequences for my folly." That is not participatory capitalism; that is fat cat capitalism – capitalism for the well-heeled, well-connected and economically entitled. Capitalism is not an entitlement program for Wall Street investors.
Capitalism works best when it works for everyone: when everyone has a job, when people can save in other ways than the stock market, when homes can be afforded, when jobs pay living wages, when one parent at work can support a household, when consumer spending can be in cash instead of dependent on credit, when people can go to the doctor of their choice and pay their bill without expensive payment gimmicks that divert money away from treatments and into insurance company coffers. America works best when we have participatory capitalism, where everyone is a winner! Obama get it! What a tragedy that Bush hasn’t.