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In Defense of Capitalism: a True Love Story
My writing is a byproduct of my investment process, I think through writing. I don’t do movie reviews and don’t watch Michael Moore’s movies. A Denver Post reporter invited me to a private showing of Moore’s latest flick last Monday Capitalism: a Love Story, it stirred up a lot of memories and I recently finished reading Atlas Shrugged which had a great impact on me. A combination of all those things motivated me to write this.
In the 1980s, in Soviet Russia, a few times a year, my class walked to a movie theater, where we were shown a documentary. Attendance was mandatory. The documentaries were different but the themes were the same: to the accompaniment of patriotic music, we learned about the righteousness of socialism, the greatness of Mother Russia, and the intelligence and foresight of our great leaders. To demonstrate how good we had it, we were shown images of “decaying” American capitalism. Of course, capitalism did not get the benefit of patriotic music as we were shown the poverty-stricken homeless, the KKK burning crosses and lynching blacks, and Russia-hating capitalists being poisoned by hamburgers (of course, later I learned this part about hamburgers was not a complete lie).
Past weekend Americans voluntarily spent a few million dollars to see a documentary by Michael Moore – Capitalism: the Love Story. But don’t kid yourself, this piece of work is not a documentary, it lacks objectivity and has no intention of seeking the truth, and it is anti-American and anti-capitalist propaganda. Mr. Moore is a talented propagandist; in Soviet Russia this documentary would have gotten him a medal and elevated him into a state hero.
A successful propaganda initiative has to have three elements: (1) to influence attitudes, instead of providing information, (2) to selectively present facts (i.e., lying by omission) to achieve a certain synthesis, and (3) to get an emotional rather than a rational response.
There is little information in this movie. Moore spends the bulk of the film going through our country’s trash and presenting it as the main course. For instance, a corrupt judge sentences innocent teenagers to spend months at a privately owned (i.e., for-profit, nongovernmental) youth-correction facility, while the judge is getting kickbacks from the facility owners. Moore interviews these poor teenagers, and we feel bad for them, as we should. We feel angry. Moore directs this anger towards capitalism (i.e., private enterprise): it is rotten and corrupt. Of course, the fact that corruption and bribery are the rare exception in the US, not the rule (as in Russia), is never mentioned.
Really, if you want to make a successful propaganda movie, you must evoke emotion and rightly or wrongly direct it at your subject of hate – in Moore’s case, capitalism. Moore shows families being evicted from their houses, in which some of them have lived for twenty years, and some of them have kids. Again, we feel bad for these people, we feel their pain, and we want to help. We are angry. That’s what Moore wants. But should we be angry at the bank that has given these people a loan? Or perhaps we should accept the fact that some people will make bad financial decisions, and they’ll pay a price. It is the easiest thing to blame a bank, or capitalism – they are not very popular today.
But let’s do the impossible, let’s humanize a bank. Let’s say you and I and a few friends put our life savings together and start a bank. We take deposits and make loans. Should we “forgive” a loan on a house to a person who overextended, made bad financial choices, or found himself facing hardship and unable to earn his way out of it? If we do enough of this “forgiving” we’ll go bankrupt, our kids won’t go to college, and we’ll need to ask someone else to “forgive” us for the loans on our houses, credit cards, etc. I am not even mentioning our depositors losing their money (and the FDIC – the taxpayer – bailing them out) and our employees losing their jobs.
So the heartless bank – you and I and a few friends – have to make a choice between sacrificing the well-being of our families for the sake of strangers. What would you do? See, this point is too rational and lacks the sensationalism of good propaganda; and thus Mr. Moore, who I am sure thought of it, omitted it.
Moore attacks BofA for not resorting to charity and not extending a loan to a factory in Michigan, even after BofA received TARP money. The same logic I just went through applies to the huge, unpopular BofA. Should BofA have thrown away money in a loan to the factory, knowing that the factory would not be able to repay it? Is this not what got us into the present problem in the first place?
Banks and Wall Street in general played a role in today’s crisis, but they were just one of many responsible players. Consumers in pursuit of keeping up with the Joneses overextended themselves (with the exception of cases of outright fraud, no one was forced to buy a bigger house). Rating agencies were getting paid by the customers they were rating. The Federal Reserve kept rates at very low levels for too long, politicians pressured lending at any cost, regulators were not regulating – and the list goes on. Vilifying banks as the only culprit is intellectually dishonest and a very myopic way to look at this complex problem, and Mr. Moore does just that!
Moore brought a brigade of priests to proclaim: “Capitalism is evil, immoral”; “Jesus doesn’t like the rich”; “the rich will have a hard time getting into heaven.” Two employees from a factory, talking on camera, made a really important point about capitalism. They said something along the lines of, “Maybe we should start a cooperative or something, but no, we cannot; we don’t have the money, we are not capitalists.”
Ayn Rand said it well in Atlas Shrugged: “But you say that money is made by the strong at the expense of the weak? What strength do you mean? It is not the strength of guns or muscles. Wealth is the product of man's capacity to think. Then is money made by the man who invents a motor at the expense of those who did not invent it? Is money made by the intelligent at the expense of the fools? By the able at the expense of the incompetent? By the ambitious at the expense of the lazy?”
Moore neglects to admit that capitalism has brought people out of poverty and socialism sunk them there. He blames rising health-care costs on HMOs, though HMOs are just a pass-through vehicle between payers and service providers. He accuses capitalism as a system that “allows getting away with paying so little.”
He offers no alternative to our “broken” capitalism system other than let’s have “democracy.” This is laughable, as democracy is not a market system, it is a political system. What he wants is a command-based economy – the Soviet Russia that failed so miserably. He wants Mr. Mouch from Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, a mediocre bureaucrat who failed at everything in his life, to be put in charge of Mr. Moore’s version of a “democratic” economy (still not sure what that means). Mr. Mouch decided how much everyone produced, at what prices goods were sold, and what “fair” wages everyone got paid. In the end, despite sacrifice after sacrifice, Mr. Mouch’s economy collapses. Mr. Mouch’s visible “fair” hand fails to accomplish what the invisible “impartial” hand of the free market accomplishes so effortlessly.
Mr. Moore’s propaganda flick ends with pictures of the aftermath of hurricane Katrina. The images are powerful, full of emotion, and again in his final misdirection Moore manages to blame it on capitalism.
Vitaliy N. Katsenelson, CFA, is a portfolio manager/director of research at Investment Management Associates in Denver, Colo. He is the author of “Active Value Investing: Making Money in Range-Bound Markets” (Wiley 2007). To receive Vitaliy’s future articles my email, click here.
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Nice article...a must read after Atlas is Capitalism - The Unknown Ideal as well as The Virtue of Selfishness. Both lay out excellent cases that contradict Moore's (and most other Statists) assertions about morality and Capitalism. Capitalism is the ONLY moral economic system available.
I've read most of Ayn Rand's books and I never considered any of her fiction books great ones, but her non-fiction Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal absolutely blew me away. It was life changing. Each argument is carefully and precisely constructed into a bulletproof case for Capitalism.
If the words and sophistry from Ayn Rand are more believable to you than the factual, in-your-face failure of unregulated capitalism, then you are either a fool or a knave.
What are you? High on Russian crack?
Some banks lowered their lending standards into the Danger Zone, and knew what they were doing. Dangling the cheese in the nose of the hungry mouse. You defend that?
No, vilifying banks is proper. Banks are the gatekeepers to the one thing that almost everyone wants and needs. Money. They have a responsibility to be honest and use prudent judgment while loaning money.
Every piece of information is presented with a bias. When your kid tells you their side of the story do you stop and tell them that they are horrible propagandists? Or do you seek to find both sides of the story.
Wake up and smell the capitalist roses(that'll be $99.00 for the dozen).
I used to audit a few banks in my earlier career working for one of the now "Big 4" CPA firms.
Back in my audit days, banks had standards which the regulatory agencies used to test. If loans didn't meet standards, they were classified and reserves were booked, even when all payments were on time. The more lacking the documentation, the more severe the classification. I was one of those annoying auditors not easily swayed by bullshit and have forced many audit adjustments, including increases to reserves, in my time. The majority of employees in banks are not bad people, and many individuals in management are not either. It only takes a few bad eggs and collusion. I think more of the problem is that some of these organizations were allowed to operate without being considered "banks" and without being regulated. The little regulation that may have occurred was inadequate or incompetent. Basically, any financial organization should be regulated and supervised. I certainly don't consider myself a rocket scientist, but a little common sense and self education can go a long way. I have had to unravel and figure out complex financial transactions I had never heard of. Any competent regulator with common sense would do the same. They should not have to be spoon fed.
Also, keep in mind that greed and corruption have existed long before anyone heard of capitalism and is much worse in most parts of the world, including in fascist, dictatorship, oligarchical, communist and socialist regimes. When in history has such a large percentage of a population become part of a middle class?
What are you? High on Russian crack?
Some banks lowered their lending standards into the Danger Zone, and knew what they were doing. Dangling the cheese in the nose of the hungry mouse. You defend that?
No, vilifying banks is proper. Banks are the gatekeepers to the one thing that almost everyone wants and needs. Money. They have a responsibility to be honest and use prudent judgment while loaning money.
Every piece of information is presented with a bias. When your kid tells you their side of the story do you stop and tell them that they are horrible propagandists? Or do you seek to find both sides of the story.
Wake up and smell the capitalist roses(that'll be $99.00 for the dozen).
thats a stupid comment .... why don't people want to take responsibility for their own actions? No, it was greed. Sure there were surely some outright frauds. And of course they cannot be defended. But mostly people were just greedy... believing that they "deserved" a bigger house, or too stupid to know that working for 6 bucks an hour won't buy you a 500k home. As soon as you start saying someone else is to blame you destroy an important part of what makes society work. Oh.... too late it seems......
Ayn Rand was an eutopian economist. It is very hard not to fall prey to this thinking. That is why it is called eutopian.
But it has never worked. Enron, Wall Street, AIG and hundred other examples come to mind.
In his book Alan Greenspan admits to having a 'youthful' attraction to this type of thinking.
Bull S. He never lost lost it. When things fell apart last year he admited that he was stunned that excessive risk taking was going on. He thought those that were running the shop would be elightened. That they would not enter into 'excessive risk' because in the end they would suffer. He believed in that eutopian myth. It is one of the reasons we had a train wreck. There were plenty of CEO's who were shown the door. They live in multimillion dollar apartments and fly in their own planes to Aspen. There was no downside to them. It is the suckers that have to pay for their excesses. The problem is there is 325 million suckers and just 10,000 winners.
What's eutopian about that outcome?
Rand was a great thinker. I loved her once myself. But the reality is that 50%+ of the players do not play by the rules. They break them. There is no room for eutopian thinking given that as a backdrop.
Bruce,
Then you either have not read Ayn Rand, or did not pay attention. Her world is far from a Utopia; she never alleges that there won't be crime, sickness, or poverty. The main difference between Rand's world and this one, is that in her world Government would act to protect the property rights of individuals. In our world, government often times flagrantly violates those rights and/or refuses to protect individuals from those that do. In her world, Democracy would be kept in check with individuals rights being held to the highest standard, instead our Democracy has become tyranny at the hand of the majority. Having, and adhering to, the Constitution (which predomently adheres to Ayn Rand's philosophy) is hardly "Utopian".
No, her protagonists are just well versed in exceptional morality for the individual.
Ayn Rand is not instructing us on how to live in society. She isn't drawing blueprints for a country. She uses her micro-utopian society as a stage upon which to defend the right of a man to his own life and successes. She tells us that our life is our own, and that we do not have to buy it back, begging for the mercy of society, as we take whatever pitiful scraps of ourselves the majority votes we're allowed to keep. Her characters are larger than life, no doubt, and her ideas don't apply perfectly to any but a perfect society that certainly cannot or at least will not exist on earth; but her points about who deserves what, and her vigorous defense of the morality of accepting what one earns as his own personal due is incontrovertible.
Bull S. Bruce. You actually believe Greenspan is that naive?
The fact is BRIC and oil producing countries wealth doubled in the period 2002-2006 (to 64 trillion) and the FED is fearful of other countries having that type of wealth.
Wall St was given the go ahead to open the spigot and give away free money and pass back bad investments to this group of BRIC/Oil investors in an effort to reduce BRIC/Oil wealth and increase American wealth. Plain and Simple.
CDO's for cash. The people flipping commercial, residential property, refinancers, and other loan recipients were the winners.
We experienced great inflation during that period and now we ARE deflating back to previous levels because the BRIC/OIL investors figured out what was happening.
OUTFRIGGINSTANDING stuff Mr. Katsenelson.
Thanks for the kind reminder that socialism blows.
M. Moore is a stooge. Nuff said.
"MARK IT ZERO, DUDE"
"Moore neglects to admit that capitalism has brought people out of poverty and socialism sunk them there."
No matter the system, political, social or economic, where ever dishonesty exceeds the ability of honesty to keep the former in check, then that system will fail.
To the extent that one fosters more honesty, it should be promoted. In modern times, Capitalism has proven to be the best of a lot of bad choices, but it requires a lot of sacrifice and humility. It requires knowing when enough is enough and knowing when giving back actually produces better returns than keeping.
At the end of each episode of a Chuck Lorry production, like "Two & Half Men", he includes what he calls a "vanity card".
In last night's episode he rambled on about how bald is the new hair and text is the new talk but he failed to mention that the very role of an actor is to lie it's probably in another vanity card and I mention this here mostly because I like those cards and last night's was a classic). To act is to read lines as if reality, to play a character and not who they are in real life. Actors were, of course, vilified for this in so called "simpler times", but now we worship acting to the point that we are all accomplished like never before at lying to each other as a matter of policy to the point that it even plays a role in natural selection such that we fail to even notice or distinguish between truth and spin, reality and perception. We want to be lied to more than we don't want to be lied to.
In fact, in economic terms, we've created a bubble of deception and that's what is bursting, that's what is wrong, that is what will not be corrected until we own up to it as a society and find a way to put the geni back in the bottle and we find a way to close Pandora's box. It's one thing to be diluted (another dual purpose social/economic term) while based in reality and quite another to be diluted within a lie.
And that's my vanity card for the day.
He who laughs last, laughs the most.
Maybe some of you are unaware of the fact that his movie is bombing in the theaters. Only 1+ Million on opening night and a little over 4+ Million over the weekend.
Zombieland with perennial loser Woody Harrelson did a 25+ million opening weekend.
The last laugh is that Moore's film was backed by venture capital from investors hoping to cash in on Moore's fame of Fahrenheit 911. Some losers never learn. Maybe it will do better in the ole homeland, eh?
I've noticed a big push on the internet to promote this latest fiasco, but we'll have to see the numbers for this coming weekend before laying out the red carpet at the Oscars.
So fear not comrade, brainwashing be damned, open the Vodka, and toast to Moore's latest failure.
only a cynic would call our economic system "free market capitalism" or maybe Kudlow. But I digress
Dude, you had me til Atlas Shrugged...
On the contrary, in my case he had me at the first sentence and the hook was set when he mentioned Atlas Shrugged. Color me "certain." And no, I don't apologize.
In my opinion Moore is the biggest capitalist around (in more ways than one!). The studios that fund his films, The Weinstein Company (bankrolled by Goldman Sachs) and Paramount Vantage (a wholly-owned subsidiary of international media conglomerate Viacom) are only too happy to prey on "populist" fears all the way to the bank. And why shouldn't they? We all live in a free society where anyone can watch they want and agree or disagree with what they want. Moore is simply providing a segment of the population with the product that they need to digest, all the while becoming rich himself in the process. If that isn't capitalism in action, I don't know what is!
The only difference is that unlike capitalism, which has been so generous to poor and disadvantaged peoples all over the world through charities and other such endeavors, I have not heard a single peep about Moore donating any of his riches to such people. The simple fact that if he stopped eating he could save an African village would be a good place to start!
The problem we have is that we no longer have a Capitalist system. Through regulatory capture, preferential legislation, political campaign contributions, deregulation, and armies of lobbyists, many large corporations from pharma, agribusiness, energy, and banking have been able to game the system to the detriment of everyone else. The financial fraud precipitating the economic collapse was not just a few people making some bad financial choices. It was the deliberate packaging and selling of toxic securities that were known to be ticking time bombs. But that was okay, as long as the bad investment was on someone else's balance sheet. Sites like deepcapture.com and this site go far in connecting the dots when it comes to the financial malfeasance that has occurred. No, we don't have Capitalism. We have Socialism for the Too-Big-to-Fail courtesy of the American taxpayer and Zimbabwe Ben's magical printing press. I guess when all we have left are high speed data centers with millisecond latency connections to different exchanges we no longer need people at all. Your machines make your money for you by buying and selling amongst themselves. Absolutely pathetic.
I feel like a traitor requesting it, but can we try to get this piece into a major media outlet. Scum like Moore need to be shown for the whiney attention seekers they are; never producing solutions just twisting facts to demonize others while he slobs his way through life.
nah
Thats how MM gets legs.
Waiting for the Paramount viral marketing ghouls to show up anytime now to try to stir the pot. MM is best put on ignore. The dismal box office #'s is all I needed to see, apparently his following isn't that large, maybe someday he'll go back to doing something worthy of attention.
I disagree. Moore seems to have an innate ability to document the demise of various industries or culture (Columbine). Those that bear the brunt of his focus would do well to look inward. Case in point - General Motors. Roger and Me was Moore's first movie. It took some time, but in 1979 who would've predicted the collapse of GM? Or the bankruptcy of Wall Street? Or a broken healthcare system. Seems like that guy is right on the money. Again, ignore him at your own peril. Methinks this is what "Zero hedge" is another Michael Moore poodle, nipping at the heels of the big dogs, but they stumble on their own.
A little too 19th centuryish for me.
A little too 19th centuryish for me.
I hope this too shall pass.
But I worry that the world is gradually coalescing on a "1984" system of gov't in which there are a few well-entrenched at the top with a layer that implements and enforces.
The UN is where this club meets. The American people are by and large an opposition force, but pressure is being brought to bear to neutralize them. The world profits by the medical and other technology created by the US out of all proportion to its population. But that will be given up if the rulers can cement their power.
The hypothetical small bank that you are defending is a straw man. As soon as BofA took money from the govt., it was no longer operating under capitalist rules, and therefore it should not expect to be treated like a business.
As for propaganda, the mainstream media is saturated with. I have an in law who works for a large PR firm and I sometimes do clippings for her. A reasonable guess is that about half the news that you read or see was spoon fed to the media in PR kits; the talking head simply repackage it, that is why they can lay off most of their reporters yet still present "news". The only PR in Atlas Shrugged was by the govt. which was very naive even then.
You may think that US capitalism is so great because you came from an even more corrupt govt. but I assure you that every day what we have here is more and more fascism, the combination of govt. and large corporations. They are destroying small banks and other businesses to benefit large corps and the politically connected.
Finally, Moore was dumb to attack capitalism head on, because it really isn't the problem, crony/fascist capitalism is. On the other hand, the abuses of crony capitalism, with its ever increasing stream of corp. PR/propaganda should be expected to create extreme and emotional reactions. The pendulum has been pulled to far to one side, unfortunately it will now swing to the other extreme, though we will have a run of Franco style fascism before this is over, I expect.
Well thats yer problem comrade. You're informed by Ayn Rand - another soviet ex-pat that confused Capitalism the Economic System with Capitalism as a political system.
What Moore is getting at is how capitalism distorts our political system in order to steal from the population - aka the Plutonomy.
Figure it out.
Well put. You're getting flagged as junk, but you're absolutely correct.
Like it or not, Atlas Shrugged is coming true.
FYI, Ms. Rand identified businessmen who used political pull to steal as "looters" or "pull peddlers". They were the villains.
To follow the ex-communist block line of this blog (given it's origins), I think a Czech movie by Milos Forman is very fitting and well sums up, in a simple way, what has been happening here in the good old US of A. The movie is "A Fireman's Ball" and in the movie (not really about firemen, but about communism, but really about firemen), there is a bake sale and auction to raise money for a retired fireman. All the gifts and items are on the table, suddenly the lights go out, and when they reappear, all the lights go on again. The presents are gone. Stolen, right before their eyes.
amen
"What Moore is getting at is how capitalism distorts our political system in order to steal from the population - aka the Plutonomy"
No, what happened here is Government coming together with Companies against the general public. I believe the term you're looking for is Fascism.
Figuring out the term to describe where we are might be the key to getting us out of this elitist crap trap.
Is it state capitalism? Is it facism? Is it socialism?
What we all know is that it ain't capitalism. And its wrong. Goldman using government connections to make themnselves whole on losses is so anti-capitalist it makes me effin sick.
Some thoughts:
The great majority of mankind, now, in the past, and very possibly in the future have lived in a state of subsistence and powerlessness.
Capitalism is not "zero sum". Nor are the productive capacities of man.
Happiness, despite what classical economists will tell you (or believe), is relative, not absolute. The average person is happier poor, if his neighbors are destitute, than middle class, if his neighbors are rich.
Every moment that a citizen of a certain country is bored, apathetic, pessimistic, or hopeless is a sign of market distortion by the state.
Good art is revelation of truth which is why it is so rare... because few people really seek to find truth, and fewer will admit to themselves their uncertainty. The moment I detect an "agenda" in a movie, article, song, or book, I get bored... I know the politics already - show me something true!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90VXHjQREDM (1:30)
I've posted the following quote on here before, so I appologize, in advance, to those who keep on running into this quote on ZH, but I think it compliments the post above quite nicely:
"I know that most men, including those at ease with problems of the greatest complexity, can seldom accept the simplest and most obvious truth if it be such as would oblige them to admit the falsity of conclusions which they have proudly taught to others, and which they have woven, thread by thread, into the fabrics of their life." - Leo Tolstoy
"Mr. Moore is a talanted propagandist; in Soviet Russia this documentary would have gotten him a medal and elevated him into a state hero".
You don't need to go to Russia to find such absurdities -- Al Gore got the Nobel Peace Prize and an Academy Award. BTW, did you know that Gore used footage from the disaster flick "The Day After Tomorrow" in his 'documentary'? http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2008/04/22/abc-s-20-20-gore-used-fictional-film-clip-inconvenient-truth
Good Post! Maladetz.
Or you can watch FOX News, read the WSJ op-ed page, watch the right-wing talking heads on network TV on Sunday mornings etc etc etc.
I am a first generation American and a capitalist. A true capitalist, I use my own capital not someone else's. You've heard this rant before so I'll keep it short. I have run small businesses and have lost money before. I've never made a fortune but I have been able to meet my familys needs, preserve my capital(most of the time), and sometimes even make a nice profit. I'm OK with the risks. I'm not OK with some of the "sure things" like government racketeering. My dry cleaners was not TBTF so when business got bad I had to close down instead of getting a cash-for-cashmere program. It must be nice being an IV league exec getting a multimillion dollar bonus even when you lose 40% of the capital under your charge. That is not capitalism despite whatever Mr. Moore might want to think.
Actually DaddyWarbucks, the multimillion dollar bonus IS capitalism.
Obama's financial administration is Randian in fact. The proposed solution to the problem is to pour money to the malefactors and then regulate them so they don't do it again.
The better solution would be to let the TBTF fail so that repetition of the folly is inherently prevented in the future.
Those who failed will not be trusted with capital again. Those burned will not trust malefactors and incompetents with their hard-earned capital again.
No further regulation is necessary because no law or regulation will impart the end result of greater wisdom than those lost dollars and bonuses.
Even at this juncture, jealousy at those still receiving bonuses is Mouchian thought process.
Great nuanced point DaddyWarbucks. What Moore is against in part of this movie is what any TRUE capitalist is against: Idiot big banking traders using their government connections to rig the system, rig news announcements, and raid government coffers to finance their losses. Heads they win. Tails they win. Either way someone else pays them thanks to big government connections. Makes me sick where this country is right now.
the name of the movie should be changed to "US government and Banking system; A Love Story". what we have in this country is no longer capitalism. when the government gives money to prop up banks that are bankrupt, and picks winners and losers, this is not capitalism. when the government/Fed collude to manipulate the equity/mortgage/treasuries/auto markets, this is not capitalism. your example of you and some friends starting a bank ignores the fact that the banks in this country made poor decisions just like the people that took on too much debt. why should the banks be bailed of their bad decisions and the individual made to suffer for his poor decision? true capitalism would punish both the bank and the individual.
I agree with you 1000%. True capitalism is another beast. It would make justice: punishment for the bad and reward for the good.
ditto, yep capitalism needs to be defended against idiotic movies by Moore. at the same time, America is-- AND I MEANS THIS-- no longer capitalist. This is not a capitalist country anymore. Capitalism means loser banks fail. Capitalism does not mean that Goldman Sachs (via there government connections) decides to fail 2 of their competitors and then use government money to pay back all THEIR counterparty risks. The U.S. is picking winners and losers via government. Goldman has the most government influence and is basically guiding this economy their way via their Washington DC power. There are STIMULUS bills and BAILOUT bills out of Washington that pick where money goes. We have unprecedented manipulation by Federal Reserve and Treasury printing money and possibly, POSSIBLY, even manipulating the market higher through coordinated buying of S&P futures. We will get a return to capitalism when, for starters, there becomes a firewall between Goldman and government. Let's see how Goldman can do in a free market without government connections, without all the donations to Senators. I have my opinion of how Goldman would do in a free market. I would love to sit down with a Goldman trader that thinks he is the world's biggest capitalist. You know nothing about capitalism. You are a government welfare trader. Yeah, you have a mutli-million dollar bonus to show for it. That just means your closer to Washington government power than the rest of us, nothing more.
Komrade, you put it so well. I too am a naturalized citizen to this great land. I fear for our well being on so many levels. It takes an experience outside of this system to truly savor the possibilities and innovations now, and to come.
This too shall pass. It is a doomed experiment, this with Dearest Leader and the drones.
“Of course, the fact that corruption and bribery are the rare exception in the US, not the rule (as in Russia), is never mentioned.”
Rare exception?
Afraid not Komrade: lying, cheating, stealing, corruption and bribery define the US financial/political systems at their root. It wills the process and is the proximate cause of our present and future economic and social distress.
Maybe better here than there— but the fact is, alas, the US federal government does not operate with the best interests of the people at heart— only the best interests of the special interests that pony up enough to control it. It has become bought off. Bought out.
And sold out is the message millions of honest, God fearing, loyal Americans take from Moore, Grayson, Taibbi, Ratigan, Paul, as well as ZH— each of whom is sticking their necks out in this land of the free and home of the brave to label obvious acts of fraud and theft—as… well… just fucking that! A mountain of unpunished crime because the people and institutions entrusted to protect us-- sold us out. Commerce and comfort over conscience.
As someone said of Grayson, he “just pointed out that motherfuckers fuck their mothers. It's that simple.” And MM does the same. Maybe that’s why some here so revile him.