Quote Originally Posted by flyingimam
This biggest bailout and nationalization in human history comes from the most fanatically and ideologically zealot free-market laissez-faire administration in US history. These are the folks who for years spewed the rhetoric of free markets and cutting down government intervention in economic affairs. But they were so fanatically ideological about free markets that they did not realize that financial and other markets without proper rules, supervision and regulation are like a jungle where greed â?? untempered by fear of loss or of punishment â?? leads to credit bubbles and asset bubbles and manias and eventual bust and panics....

...Like scores of evangelists and hypocrites and moralists who spew and praise family values and pretend to be holier than thou and are then regularly caught cheating or cross dressing or found to be perverts these Bush hypocrites who spewed for years the glory of unfettered wild west laissez faire jungle capitalism (and never believed in any sensible and appropriate regulation and supervision of financial markets) allowed the biggest debt bubble ever to fester without any control, have caused the biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression and are now forced to perform the biggest government intervention and nationalizations in the recent history of humanity

I did not agree with everything in the article, but this part I agreed with. The laissez-faire free-market bullshit is based on the idea that everyone takes responsibility for themselves, even big compaines. But we see that is not the case. Instead these companies are "too big to fail," so if it looks like they are going to fail, WE have to take the responsibility.

Let's not forget that next time. It is TRUE --- these companies ARE too big to fail. We have a stake in their well being, so we need to keep an eye on what they are doing. We need to exercise enough oversight to prevent them from getting into the situation in which they need to come to us for $700 BILLION overnight.

I also agreed with the part of the article that pointed to the hypocrisy of pure laissez-faire free-market ideology. This kind of philosophy gets applied all the way up and down the economic spectrum, including all they way down to inidviduals. YOU are expected to take respnisibility for your own life and not ask for a handout from anyone, especially not the government or your fellow taxpayers.

If YOU lose your job, you are on your own. Don't come to the government. YOU take responsibiltiy and get another job.

If YOU get sick without healthcare, you are on your own. Don't come to the government. YOU take responsibiltiy and pay for it yourself.

If YOU get caught in a mortgage you can't pay, you are on your own. Don't come to the government. YOU take responsibiltiy and either pay or lose your house.

The differrence between YOU and these investment banks and insurance companies is that YOU are not too big to fail. YOU can fail and everyone else will be fine. No one needs to bail YOU out, because YOU are expendable.

But these companies are NOT expendable. YOU need to take responsibility for both THEM and YOURSELF! So pay up, Mr. Expendable!