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Obama Not to Blame for the Economy’s Collapse
We can’t recall ever having spoken a kind word about Barack Obama, nor do we even imagine him capable of saying or doing something that might bring us around. However, we do not – repeat, do not – blame him for the terminal state of the economy. It was headed irretrievably into a Second Great Depression long before he took office, and the things he has tried so far to forestall a day of reckoning are, for the most part, the same things that any president, Democrat or Republican, would have tried. Nothing would have worked, of course, because the deflation that the U.S. and the rest of the world have been trying so desperately to counteract is drawing irresistible force from an imploding derivatives bubble valued notionally at nearly a quadrillion dollars. Small wonder, then, that a relatively puny stimulus effort amounting to mere trillions of dollars has bought us only time, not growth, and done so in a way that will burden future generations with more debt than they will be able to service, let alone repay.
To be sure, a solution has always lain well outside the boundaries of political discussion. The best we could have hoped for was a legislative sausage pleasing to the tastes of Harry Reid and John Boehner alike. But nothing those two could conceivably have agreed on would have brought the economy around. Nor would a change at the top have helped. Put someone else in the White House not handicapped by Mr. Obama’s timidity, incompetence and cluelessness – New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is our idea of the right guy for the job – and even he would have failed to slow the country’s slide into deepest recession, let alone reverse it. For in fact we face 30% unemployment, a wave of bank failures that will rival the 1930s, and a real estate washout that will double the devastation that has already occurred. All of this is coming, and even though a President Christie, in the heat of the banking crisis of 2008-09, might have proffered the only correct answer – i.e., let the banks fail, allowing the markets to clear and the economy to right itself – it is inconceivable that he could have sold this course of non-action to Congress.
What Will Be ‘Money’?
And so, we can only wait nervously for the trigger event that will cause the economy to implode, unsanctioned. There is no predicting when this will occur, but the May 2010 Flash Crash provides strong reason to think that it will be mostly over – at least, the digital-financial part of it – in time for the evening news. The morning after, the desperate concern of nearly every American will be…money. It doesn’t take a rocket scientists to recognize that credit cards will no longer be the coin of the realm at that point. And just what might be? Silver and gold coins would be our guess, along with what little U.S. currency happens to be circulating when the music stops. If you are not prepared for something like this now, you ought to be. We’ll conclude with a link to the best book we’ve read to help you get ready, Sean Brodrick’s The Ultimate Suburban Survivalist Guide.
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Let's have a show of hands. Who here thinks that Bernard Bernanke would not be Chairman of the Federal Reserve System if John McCain had been elected?
How many here think that if John McCain had been elected we would NOT have had TARP and QE 1&2?
How many here think that if Barak Obama had appointed "new blood" (i.e., Justin Biebers) to those positions, he was entitled to appoint upon is taking office, THAT ANYTHING WOULD BE DIFFERENT THAN IT IS TODAY? (except for partisan whining.)
The results of this survey will be published as soon as the cows come home.
You have got to be kidding me with this post. He may not have been at the root of the problem ,but he certainly is instrumental at prolonging it. With his class warfare. His dividing the nation instead of trying to bring it together. His constant attack on businesses, the uncertainty on taxes. His continued hand out to wall street. This guy is destroying the country.
What should have happened is that the institutions that needed to fail should have been allowed to fail. All of them. The strong hands could pick up the assets on the cheap. House prices should be allowed to fall that way new home buyers and investors could scoop them up at lower prices. Regulations need to be relaxed so that small businesses can start up. In other words a reset is deperatly needed. Not a prolonging of the status quo.
"the things he has tried so far to forestall a day of reckoning are, for the most part, the same things that any president, Democrat or Republican, would have tried "
Really, is that all he did ? He didn't even try to change anything, he is the worst president USA will ever see and you are the worst commentator in ZH. You all deserve to be in the same sinking wall street ship.
1. When Obama entered office he should have immediately proposed a reinstatement of the Glass-Steagall Act.
2. When someone fucks up big time in the business world it is traditonal to replace the people in charge--yet Obama re-appointed the chairman of the Fed.
3. Obama could have pushed for very strong criminal investigations of all the financial fraud--he didn't.
4. Obama is running huge deficits--so after he leaves office, the Federal government will have no financial flexibility left to deal with crises.
When you think about the way Senate democRATS fought for 30 years (while the republicans did the opposite) the repeal of Glass-Steagal, nearly unanimous in their opposition, in spite of clinton-- a flaming liberal democrat in campaign mode, signing the bill to repeal it, it is truly astounding that theBamster wouldn't capitalize on that and mount the bully pulpit for reinstatement of it.
Nothing tells us more about the corrupt asswipe that theBamster is, his very soul owned by the Goldman Sucks Squids.
banksters and politicians keep the sheeple in the high meadows grazing on their brand of opm
always keeping them gorged and satisfied all the while a conniving pac of cowering jackals maneuvers for its
prey. when the grass looks greener or the grass turns brown, then comes a stampede.
http://www.nationoftexas.com/case_exhibits/exhibit_199.pdf
Without a doubt the worst post ever on ZH. Simply emarassing...
Holy shit. I rarely ever post on here, but couldn't pass this up.....
First, you're spot on Johnny.
Second, this simply has to be a fucking prank. OF COURSE Barry isn't to blame for the Economy's collapse......OUR ENTIRE FUCKING POLITICAL SYSTEM IS.......
I've got beets and onions to harvest.....can't believe I wasted my time reading that tripe.......
the age of freeloading coming to an end
So you are an apologist for all politicians? We can expect NONE of them to do anything effective? At some point if voting does nothing they end up decorating the lamp posts. Do you really prefer that as a means of change? Think carefully because a lot of shills and underlings can join the dance.
The O'Bomber has done exactly what he has been told to do ... same as Dubya.
The last president that tried to wield "presidential power" got shot, i.e. JFK.
The O'Bomber is innocent - except that he is a narcistic sociopath who reads teleprompts better than Dubya.
If you want to try to undo part of what the puppet O'Bomber has enabled, then visit http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7643457725474129538#
Better, today, visit http://libya360.wordpress.com/2011/10/08/universal-appeal-for-assistance-in-getting-humanitarian-aid-into-libya/
My first link is to a long movie about the Italian occupation of Libya before WW2.
My second link is to a repeat of that history and an appeal to halt genocide (I have lived in Libya).
Ridiculous article by RickAckerman with a pointless and false conclusion.
“Obama not to blame for economy’s collapse.”
Of course no one person is TOTALLY to blame for the economy’s collapse.
We will never know the extent to which Obama could have avoided a depression, fixed the crumbling infrastructure, or changed ruinous policies.But shouldn't Obama be blamed for the negative economic consequences of policies he has advocated?
Do bailouts to the financial cartel help? Obama supported TARP before he became president, and mega-”TARP” handouts since becoming president.
Does expansion of global militarism help? Obama has supported expanded wars and increased military spending.
The perpetuation of subsidies to big pharma and the health insurance industry. The subsidies to dictators, drug lords, and an apartheid regime. Obama has supported them all.
The coddling and cover-up for the BP Gulf disaster. The continuation of trade policies from petrodollar and IMF extortion to unfair embargoes and preferences.
How long must the list be before Obama can be “blamed” for anything he has done?
Good point rwe2late. There was a groundswell movement back in 2009 where 100,000's of everyday people walked up Pennsylvania Avenue carrying signs that read STOP SPENDING MY KIDS FUTURE" and "STOP THE BAILOUTS" That was the time for politicians to address the country's financial ailment. Prosecutions should have started for eveyrone involved in insuring against defaults without having the capital to pay. Prosecutions should have started at every bank and financial institutions that knew they were selling junk as AAA securities (CDO's).
I beg to differ with Rick that the right person in the White House wouldn't have changed the way things are at present. The right person would have said enough of all this fraud and lying without regard to their political career. The only person lately who has stood up to big corporations and their own party was and is Sarah Palin. Too bad there aren't more people with that set of gonads.
I believe you are mistaken, that person of which you speak is Ron Paul, not Sarah Palin.
And that would have been shit for brains John McCain?
Is that you, Barack?
It's just come to me why the US political parties are represented by a donkey and an elephant ... because they each represent the dominant traits of the modern American voter (ably demonstrated by you, Gadfly): brains of a donkey, feet the size of an elephant (to go stomping over other countries), a trunk to loudly trumpet their opinions at anyone who doesn't want to listen, and a stubborn resistance to change any of those traits. I won't comment on the resemblance between an elephant and the typical Walmart shopper.
elephant = walmart shopper = class warfare
we've got to all pull together, i-dog
What a load of garbage.
To begin with, he could have prosecuted the criminals instead of appointing Timmy the weasel Geithner. Corrupt puppet.
I understand Rick's point but it doesn't excuse leaving justice and constitutional law behind in the books of academia when the power of enforcing the law and constitutionality are handed to someone who knows better.
indeed it doesn't excuse it. whether b.o. knows better is less certain; he seems little more than glib words disguising a mendacious and murderous will to power. the choice between the current corrupt slow slide down and an apocalyptic lehman brothers writ epic is a false one. an orderly restructuring of the financial sector using techniques like the fdic uses routinely is still possible. international and derivative based complexities are not deal breakers to the sufficiently determined. see http://www.hussmanfunds.com/wmc/wmc110905.htm and http://www.hussmanfunds.com/wmc/wmc111003.htm among many others.
the nordic countries did it right in the nineties and japan didn't. and yet the u.s. and europe follow the japanese example because their political culture is similarly corrupt.
Japan is corrupt, but in a different way ... there are limits to the corruption, austentious wealth is disdained. It's more like Yes Minister, and less like a banana republic ... the US is the other way around.
What worked arguamentably poorly for Japan, will work disastrously for the US.
lil scamBO's as gulity as the black house for decades of lies. The whole cluster flockin freak show from CONgress, SINate, & lil scamBO blows up ameriCON'd. Decades of packin in the sweaty old sticks of dynamite and darkvader is juggling them for a public freak show. Fiat currency implosion was inevitable and the bamer clown center stage, has known what was picked up to juggle. lil scamBO stepped into the belly of the beast and the whole flocking lot of the vipers gets eaten alive.
It's obvious RickAckerman doesn't have a clue. Like why did Hussein O. hire a known tax cheat as sec. of treasury?
He most certainly does have a clue, and many of them.
But as a a Jew, he cannot vote for a republican next year or ever. He is part of the media apparatus that the jewish community marshalls to assure the election (or defeat) of a candidate, any candidate that is a republican.
Read Goldberg's, "Jewish Power in America" , to see how it's done. And why the COMMITEE TO DEFEAT ALL REPUBLICANS has started to bolster theBamster's re-election campaign.
I'm against all republicans too, but only because all politicians are sociopaths in the employ of the Elite .01% and they don't give a shit about anyone but themselves.
I thought cheating was a requirement?
The Dems are a bunch of pussies. If Reid had implemented the "nuklar option" back when they had the majority, we could have had single-payer healthcare and lots of other changes to the status quo. Now we're fucked and they know it. I blame Obama and the Dems for not having their shit together when they had a chance to implement change.
Now we've got huge unemployment resulting in people being in the streets. I'm already hearing the bitching from the right about all the "public money" that the protesters are costing and that they're somehow Obama's idea. I fear this will end badly. In fact this could be the start of the new American revolution. Viva la difference!
As a nation we are spending 42 cents more than everyt dollar we take in. The economy's GDP would be declining 12%/year for the last 3 years if not for all this borrowing. Nothing the Government does saves the tax payer any money! There's zero incentive for that since they just have to raise taxes to make up for their inefficiencies.
You say now we are screwed because we don't have single payer healthcare? WTF!
Oh yes, we could have a single-payer healthcare and face the consequences of such lunacy. The problem with healthcare in this country can be traced directly to the integration of government and the insurance industry, the various regulatory patronages that provides both government and the industry with certain innate priviledges, yet you advocate even more government intervention. I think you will find the term fascism is appropriate to your ideology, a cozy mixture of government and corporations with all the priviledges and perogatives of government power and authority with the economic power of corporations.
Of course, without realizing it, what you are asking for is nothing more than a fascist system where the government cartelizes the private sector, providing a patronage system, a regulatory protection plan for that system of cartels where it subsidizes them, all the while it increases its own power as a police state...yes, all would be well in your world.
The game is played by both Democrats and Republicans, both are part and parcel of the stage play, each playing their respective role in providing the people with a believable stage production, yet the goal is basically the same: The Total State. You must however ask, is that really what you want, what you desire? For if it is then consider what that really means. All the talk of "real change" whether it is by Obama or many of the other talking heads in D.C. is nothing more than part of the script, the actors may change, but the script stays the same. Each increment of change is not in the benefit of the people, but always in the benefit of The State and its corporate sponsorships, the power of patronages, of subsidies and of regulatory protections which provide a certain cover for the actions of both government and its corporate partnerships.
The largest employer in the world is the U.S. government, and yet for all its vastness, it is a non-productive entity, it does not produce productive capital instead it must, by its very nature, siphon off productivity from the private sector, essentially sucking the life from it, depriving the market of the impetus to function poperly, distorting economic valuations and pricing, distorting labor and wages, creating little more than a shell economy where incomes become unbalanced between classes, creating those classes and needing them to continue to provide it with a public outcry. You see The State desires inequalities between artificially induced classifications of people, it desires stresses between various classes. The State, despite its apparent role as an equalizer, really promotes the classification of peoples into various groups, using those groups against each other for the benefit of its own power. As long as anyone depends on the government for their rights as a certain classification, as a minorty then the power majority with only dole out a degree of rights based only on that classification. Until the American People lift up their voices in non-compliance, in rage and demand, not their rights based on some government classification, but based on the fact that they are Human Beings with inalienable Rights, not given or granted by government, but Rights are inherent as Humans, then we will remain at the mercy of The State, it's patronages and the priviledges its provides to those it favors.
Until the monoploy power provided by this government to the Federal Reserve is broken, we will all remain serfs, working for pennies per hour. You see, under the current system of government patronage, the FED produces its money substitutes in more and more vast quantities, debasing the exchange value as more is printed. Today it takes over $22,000.00 to purchase what $1000.00 purchased in 1913. In 1913 a Dollar had the purchasing power of 100 cents, today that has been effectively reduced to approximately 3 cents per Dollar's face value. It has been a systematic robbery of wealth from the people, all the people, yet we allow it to continue. You see, a person making Minimum Wage today, while appearing to make around $290.00 per week actually only has the purchasing value in terms of 1913 Dollars of $12.67 per week. The government must implement such programs as the Miniumum Wage otherwise the truth about the system would be revealed, while people might think they are making a whopping $7.25 an hour in wages, their effective wage per hour is really .32 Cents per hour.
Ah, yes, you want to trust the government with more power, with more authority and yet just think about what this government has done, not only to this country, but to this People. Keep supporting them and see just what we get. There must come a time when massive non-compliance takes hold amoung the People, when the government is held to the Constitutional Compact as the creation of the People, not the master of the people. The government was created to act on our behalf, deputized for a very particular and very limited purpose and until it is brought under control, until the bonds of law are layed upon it, it will continue to act as though it is our master instead of our servant.
Just to be perfectly clear here, Sweden, Norway and Denmark are in your opinion textbook examples of Fascism right?
Fascism is a form of socialism, technically most of the European countries operate under one degree or another of a fascist or fascist technocratic government. Remember, form follows function and while the outer form of say the United States government, which I view as totally illegitimate, is suppose to be a Constitutional Republic, the actual workings of this government is fascist in essense and operation. The same can be said of European countries, many have figure heads or parliments and yet the functionality of those governments are indeed socialistic fascism. Many of those countries, including Sweden, now face problems with their single-pay healthcare systems, the mounting expenses of such systems will eventually cause a ripple effect within its economy even though Sweden has side-stepped many of the issues facing the EURO-Block.
Read Sven Larson's "Lessons from Sweden's Universal Health System: Tales from the Healthcare Crypt."
In that case I prefer fascism.
The evils of centrally governed rationing are all fine and well ... but the "you get the care you can afford to pay for" kind of rationing isn't kind to a lot of people either, Ron Paul's fantasy about charity based healthcare like in the good old days when both hours of medical labour and equipment cost used per human life span were orders of magnitude less is just that ... fantasy.
The levels of market forces allowed in healthcare can be debated, over here in the Netherlands for instance we have mandatory insurance and minimum guarantueed coverage but with multiple insurance companies which can have individual contracts with certain care providers, but the minimum level of care will always have to be set by government in my opinion ... and in that respect they will always be the ones to determine rationing it for the majority of people.
The alternative is a third world society, austentatious wealth ... and deplorable poverty. If that is the price of liberty, then fuck liberty.
Unfortunately, fascism doesn't make too many allowances for either the human heart or mind, not does it necessarily provide the best care for people, in fact, people are viewed much more as an expendiable resource under fascist systems since such systems usually involve only two beneficiaries, The State and Corporations.
Likewise, centralization can neither anticipate nor control social changes, demographics or economic distortions, as we are now witnessing. In such cases, these factors will ultimately weigh down such centrally planned systems, creating the necessity for more stringent measures in order to keep the system functioning, even at lower levels. For instance, The Netherlands, like other countries, are now considering increasing the retirement age, this is a measure to attempt to contain costs associated with their healthcare/retirement systems. Before the reforms in your system in 2006 with the ZVW, the public costs associated with maintaining your health care was at 62%, the fact is that those cost, while abated for a short while, are continuing to increase, with healthcare making up nearly 10% of your GDP, that can be disconcerting in the current economic dislocation.
Your last comment obviously doesn't take many things into consideration and does not follow a logical line of progressive thought. You have stated three variables and assumed those are the alternatives, and yet, are they? If fascism can provide a better alternative to liberty I have yet to see an example of it that proves such a case can be made.
Really the rise in retirement age in the Netherlands is more an indication of the triump of neoliberalism than anything else ... in the seventies it would have been perfectly acceptable to say "we have record levels of unemployment, we can't fucking well increase the retirement age .. we have to decide what level of wellfare we want to supply and tax accordingly ... if everyone has to tighten their belts then so be it".
Now, just as in the US taxes can only go down and their transnational corporate masters don't allow calls for solidarity ... they are only allowed to call for deregulation and less taxes for the sake of international competetiveness (which admittedly we absolutely need, since with a common currency and open borders all capital and production would flee to Germany if we didn't race to the bottom with them).
Not according to government officials who are seeking to increase the retirement age in order to avert fiscal hardships within their healthcare and retirement systems. An increase in the retirement age is
indicative of issues with the system, it is not, as you assert, a triump of neoliberalism, not in the least.
As far as the U.S. is concerned, the problems are, as with other countries, a form, as I said, of fascism called corporatism. Regulations in this country are usually hailed by certain corporations as needed and necessary since such regulations usually represent a part of a patronage system that stifles competition, increases the status of those lead-players in certain industries and provides the government with an effective propagada cover that allows it to state that they are actually looking out for the interest of the people when in fact they are looking out for their patronage partnerships.
Fuck the Netherlands. How many people do you have in your country? A dozen?
You have no credibility to speak to a country that has 310,000,000, growing to 400,000,000 then 500,000,000 an enormous number that would break any economy with its health care bills.
As a communist, you are welcome to it.
And you can't spell either.
Good that you have numbers and spelling down, now work on your fractions.
If you wish to live in a state with complex laws, bureaucracies, taxes and enforcement mechanisms, then by all means do so. There will be plenty who will join you and that is as it should be.
But just stay out of interfering in an adjoining "free state" and imposing your idea of how it should be on your neighbours. A free state without a central government (but possibly with town and county councils desired by local communities) will also appeal to many and should be left in peace. That is the fundamental idea behind the American Republic of 13 states under the original Articles of Confederation.
It's a flawed idea ... a state which can not impose trade tariffs can not effectively redistribute wealth between sectors of society, with free interstate commerce capital flight will ensure a race to the bottom in the race for "competitiveness".
Perhaps you should have used the term distribution of wealth instead of redistribution since the two are completely different. First, a State does not, wether through trade tariffs or other impositions, either distribute or redistribute wealth. Wealth is not generated nor produced by States, wealth is generated through the opportunitly of creative capital. The imposition of trade tariffs do little to increase generalized capitalization in a country, in fact, such taxation can be a hinderance to such capitalization and tends to favor certain industries over others even within the same country. Such stratifications within the economic machine can hardly be viewed as a positive, for it limits competitiveness, innovation and the markets in general.
Capital is, in respect to the market, the grease that makes the machine function properly, when there is a restriction or a redistribution of capital, as you suggest, then the machinery mal-functions, distorting all sub-markets, including labor and wages. Such distortions ultimately cause the disparity we see in incomes around the world, as certain patronages receive the benefits of those restrictions or protections from the State. There is no possible way for the State, any State, to either anticipate nor manage properly the desires of the vast market, which is made up of billions of individuals in various levels of economic strata, making trillions of economic decisions based upon their individual needs, desires, hopes and dreams, it is simply a mathematical impossibility for any government to manage, although they certainly do try. As we have seen, the current economic and monetary dislocation is not a cause of markets, but of governments which have gone down the path of some fascist ideal, mixing, as it were, government power with corporate patronages. Whether those governments are overtly socialistic or a mixture of socialistic fascism, the results are being clearly demonstrated around the world, particularly in the EU at the moment. As the economic dislocation spreads, the bare bones of the failed system will be exposed, and while some, like yourself, will naturally be inclined to support more and more intervention by governments, such interventions will not solve the problem. In fact, if you carefully research the problems faced today by most of the developed world, you will quickly find that most of the problems being faced are in fact the result of some action by government. Many times government solutions become problems which requie yet another solution which becomes yet another problem requiring yet another solution. The lunacy involved with such exercises boggles the rational mind, and yet, for some strange reason people continue to look to govrnments as holding the ultimate solutions to the problems faced in the world. If that were the case, does it not make sense that the world would be a far different and far better place if, in fact, governments were the depositories of solutions?
IMO peak oil, free trade fundamentalism, peak oil, financial deregulation, peak oil, outright government corruption and peak oil are at the root of the current problems.
I don't support market intervention as a solution to the current problems ... I support market intervention on principle. There are no solution to the biggest problem, standards of living will have to go down until we tackle cost of energy and resource constraints (at which point we are talking generations, since the population has to go down).
How odd, if you don’t support market intervention as a solution to the current problems how can you therefore support market intervention on principle if the principle is not proper for one instance then how can it be proper for another instance. That is not a very rational approach to the subject, either the principle is adequate for all situations or it is not. Government intervention has proven over the decades not only to not be effective, but to cause distortions and disruptions, even shortages and usually price inflation.
How odd, if you don’t support market intervention as a solution to the current problems how can you therefore support market intervention on principle if the principle is not proper for one instance then how can it be proper for another instance. That is not a very rational approach to the subject, either the principle is adequate for all situations or it is not. Government intervention has proven over the decades not only to not be effective, but to cause distortions and disruptions, even shortages and usually price inflation.
Thank you for showing your true colours ... your primary concern is to manage other people's lives and redistribute wealth!!
Kindly stay in your own state and redistribute away! Conversation over.
My primary concern is optimising median standards of living while providing a safety net for the weakest in society. The US constitution does not make it possible for states to do that, free interstate commerce will always drive regulations down to the bottom (a bottom now set by federal laws).
It's over when the fat lady sings.
First, The Constitution was not intended to provide the government with such tools to optimize median standards of living, nor provide a safety net for the weakest in society. The Constitution was intended to provide the people with safeguards against government intrustion into their lives. The individual States were communities of People, who in their self-interest formed sovereign communities for the mutual benefits of all the citizens, the Federal Government was intended only to act as a deputized agent of the States and People respectively.
I can only assume, by your comments, that you are one who believes that poverty is a problem with not enough money being distributed or, as you state, redistributed by the State or by commerce. Poverty is not a problem of there not being enough money, but it is a problem that the State hinders the opportunity for capital creation through its patronage systems. The State will not, nor can it ever, solve poverty through redistribution, because the problem is not money, the problem is the opportunity to create capital. Now, that is an individual issue, for some individuals do not have either the capacity or the will to exert the energy to take them out of their current situation, nor does the State assist them in the majority of cases to do so, instead it provides those unfortunate with the substitution of a monetary reward for being poor. Such rewards are actually curses, for as we have seen, after Trillions of spent dollars on the War on Poverty, the levels of poverty, instead of decreasing, have increased under such programs, this is due in part to the fact that the government is only treating the symptoms of poverty and not the causes. Another part of that problem is that under such government programs it becomes more profitable to remain in those systems then try to escape, especially under the current minimum wages laws which restrict access to the labor market to many. An employer and a potential employee should have the freedom to enter into a contract without regard to the minimum wage laws, of course, part of the problem with that is the diminished purchasing value of the currency in which wages are paid. The chain of causation contains several structures that maintain the current state of affairs, one of the primary issues being a debased currency which is rapidly losing its economic potentcy.
I believe poverty can have many causes. Sometimes it's a problem of resource allocation ... either due to markets failing, like in the great depression (regardless of whether government flailing prolonged it, in the short term an economy which was able to sustain a much higher standard of living failed to do so without room to blame it on government) or due to government failing like the great leap forward. Sometimes it's a problem of the value of low educated labour (ie. the majority of labour) dropping. Sometimes it's purely a problem of resource availability (insufficient schooling, insufficient means of production, insufficient natural resources).
As for minimum wage ... basic income and negative income tax are fine too.
Your conclusions appear to be counterintuitive. You have stated several things that simply do not add up, your ideas of a regulated workplace and labor force, as well as the regulated price of labor tends to hurt wage earners instead of help them. While the minimum wage does increase the hourly wages for some workers it also depresses the availability of work to other workers. Certain labor laws benefit some at the expense of others. Surely that can’t be considered a good thing. If the market was open to contract for labor prices, then the market would regulate such pricing based upon the skill and value of the laborer instead of some artificial construct that limits some from entering the labor market.Though you don’t see the irony of it all, the regulated workplace by a centralized authority can never anticipate the changes in the labor force or in commerce therefore, their arbirtrary regulatory process is always flawed and usually doesn’t not address the actual issues. Such measures always tend to ahve disemployment efffects on those at the margins of society’s laborforce. Those within the lower levels of income are therefore, placed into a submarginal position due to the regulations on wages and also, to a certain extent, working conditions. Instead of actually solving the problems of wages and labor, such regulations tend to exacerbate and, in most cases, perpetuate the myrid of inequities within the workplace that might be mitigated through the market process and the right of private contract.
All the well-intentioned government intervention into either wages or labor itself can, by legislative decree, actually perform corrective measures in the market because of all the variables within the market itself, besides, the government can neither anticipate nor ajudicate such variables in a way that either makes sense or provides a adequate solution to all the potential consequences of their own intervention. It eliminates any margin by with those disadvantaged might be employed and would, under a free market, be able to compete, based upon their abilities, for jobs that they might not otherwise be chosen for under the current regulated workplace. In the competitive market, regulations tend to shut out those on the margin of the laborforce and limit the employment opportunitites to those disadvantaged people. Thus, as in the case of minimum wage, it takes away any possible advantage to those who are disadvantaged.
Now, on to the negative income tax you suggest as fine. Essentially, a negative income tax is nothing more than a subsidy, subsidizing some at the expense, as always, of other income producers. Still, such a tax, while not as severe as a direct income tax, does place a disincentive on production and ultimately on wealth generation. Afterall, such a tax cannot generate an adequate return to those who are with little or no income, but it penalizes those who are productive. Any form of redistribution from those who are productive to those who are non-productive should not be considered either wise or fair. Why should someone produce, work hard and strife to earn a living while there are those who do not, for whatever reason. The problem is that government’s tend to think of income as the property of government when it is most definitely not, nor are there any obligations on individuals except by government decree based on the ever-increasing requirements of government spending and excess. Governments are wasteful and unproductive, siphoning off productive capital to satisfy, as it were, those in the electorate who politicians use to provide themselves with both power and position. The electorate are played like a fiddle each election, each politician playing to a group or groups to win their vote.
Well said
In fact why specify just the US Govt as "totally illegitimate'? Let's go the whole 9 Yards and quantify EVERY Govt in every country in history as illegitimate.
When I was born at no point in my entire life did i vote for a bunch of parasites to Govern me nor the sham system that is Govt itself. It was forced upon me from day one and has been nothing but a threat to my liberty and my wealth ever since
Govt is the enemy within. It is the ONLY criminal and criminal enterprise in society I fear day in day out. Govt is a thieving robbing idiotic sham, the most destructive social and economic force ever devised. Fuk democratic Govt and fuk the Greeks, the 'birthplace' of this terrorism
I state that this government is illegitimate because it has abridged and broken the Compact of Agreement that created it in the frist place. The Constitutional Compact was not between the People and the federal government but between the People acting through the States, the States being their agents deputized to act on their behalf and in their beneift. The federal government was the creation of that agreement, now that it has been broken, there is no need for the States or the People to comply with the acts, legislations or laws of the federal government. Essentially, the People making up the Free, Sovereign and Independent State Republics that once made up this voluntary Union of States should withdraw, both their consent and their partnership.
By which laws is government illegitimate? By which laws is land ownership legitimate without government?