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From: actoninstitute
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  • i often think that the problem, when it comes to regulations, is not a lack of regulations, but bad regulations. if there is a regulation that provokes undesirable behaviour, puting another regulation on top isnt necesarly going to solve the problem. the best think to do is evaluate and then see of you are missing a regulation, need to change a regulation or need to take out a regulation to make things work.

  • "The biggest culprits were government planners meddling with the market."

    The government and corporation were/are in bed with each other.

    State-sponsored corporatism and a lack of regulation caused the financial crisis.

  • @MrAlienlovechild

    Libraries, police, public schools are all bankrupt government monopolies which screw the public. Consider another solution: Take all the forced tax money which are used to run those institutions and give it back to the people and privatize those institutions. This is more efficient -- at the same cost to the tax payer.

  • If free markets completely free of government is the answer, then there should be some evidence of it. Somalia has been government free since 1991. Free markets reign there. Even the Mises Institute praises it for it's free markets. And yet Somalia ranks 188 out of 194 countries in life expectancy. 43% of the population live below the poverty line. Where's the free market miracle?

  • @alvagoldbook2

    I don't know too much about Somalia, but you gotta put it in perspective. Compare it to other African countries as well as with the state Somalia  was in 20 or 30 years ago. Also I believe there's still some fighting going on in some of the bordering regions... anyways, I remember reading about a rapid spread of telecommunications services, which was mainly the result of the free market there. I think you can get a gun pretty cheaply there too :)

  • @JarlaxleAG Yes, let's compare Somalia to other African nations. All of them have governments, except Somalia. How many of those countries have higher life expectancies than Somalia?

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  • @alvagoldbook2

    Made a dumb reply, didn't remember you were the guy I replied to before. Anyway, you do realize there's alot of fighting going on there ? And has been for a while now... is that due to free markets ?

  • Capitalism is a jacked up system but it's better then communism or authoritarianism so we have to do the best we can with it.

  • @CyberJoeyO Sorry man, but I dont see any goodness on something where people are worried about if they are going to have their jobs the next day, week, or year just because the company "Feels" to make profits over the employees cost. And also, I dont believe that cutting peoples employees and exploit the other is a way of living.

    Capitalism is a poison plant, it needs to be eradicated from its roots. We need to bring back democracy in every aspects of life.

  • couldn't get through the first 30 seconds

  • You obviously know nothing about the home mortgage process.  The free market was a major factor in the meltdown.

  • problem with analogy: big businesses are NOT children. they are very lucid and very aware of what they are doing. i highly highly doubt that big banks are thinking "oh man don't worry about it we can always just get bailed out by the government," it looks bad for them and doesn't truly provide them the stability they need amirite?

  • The guy talking about Smith is full of shit. "We rarely hear, it has been said, of the combination of masters, though frequently of those of workmen. But whoever imagines, upon this account, that masters rarely combine, is as ignorant of the world as of the subject. Masters are always and every where in a sort of tacit, but constant and uniform combination...Our merchants and master-manufacturers complain much...of high wages...They say nothing concerning the bad effect of high profit"-A. Smith

  • Finally, the message is starting to get out there that, yet again, the culprit is big government.

  • Captialism is flawed at its' core, and regulation is the only thing that will prevent the natural phenomenon of wealth accumulation by the few. If u removed the government you'd be left with a handful of billionaires(over the long run with mergers and acquisitions) who everyone else would work for. Doesn't sound too good to me.

  • @Someideasandstuff Nah, if you removed government people wouldn't have to fork over their INCOME to a bunch of bureaucrats.

  • @FrontlinerDelta That's what they(tea party, Mises, etc.) want u to believe. And apparantly, you do.

  • @Someideasandstuff I'd rather trust fellow citizens than the socialist government.

  • @FrontlinerDelta The Banker's ARE your fellow citizens. But I'm sure u don't want to look at it like that.

  • @Someideasandstuff You have a fundamental misunderstanding of how Capitalism works. The endless mergers create opportunity for small businesses as the large company looses touch with it's customers. It is the tool of REGULATION that HELPS the large companies eliminate competition and keep it from starting. The small businesses cannot afford to comply with the regulations, and they go out of business - or they never start one in the first place. Regulations are the friend of the entrenched.

  • @ToddAldrich Right, let's deregulate the banking industry. GREAT IDEA.

  • @Someideasandstuff

    It would have avoided the entire crash we just went through. Credit default swaps and the other derivatives were a coping mechanism that were developed to deal with the risk the government FORCED them to take on with the marginal loans. Unfortunately the government forced so many bad loans to be made, that these instruments that were designed to spread the risk, instead spread a cancer. In addition the Mark-to-Market law change fed the panic and further damaged our economy

  • @ToddAldrich HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Classic neo-con.

  • @Someideasandstuff HAHAHAHAHAHAHA Classic ignorant, brainwashed leftist.

    Care to refute it with ACTUAL facts???

    Thought not.

  • LOL... by governement meddling with the cooperations, what he's esentially saying is, don't bother worrying about what the cooperations do... don't let the people stop themselves from being abused by the cooperations.. the government is there to protect us from cooperation's that will CAPITALIZE ON YOU!  PLEASE SHOW ME WHERE THE CONSTITUTION SAYS THE WORD CAPITALISM? There is however a lot about "we the people" "the Union" and "welfare", hmm... sounds a lot like democratic socialism.

  • @nickothompson wow u certainly took words out of context the american founders werent for welfare and the union refered to the alliance of the colonies or the states "we the people" refer to the democratic organisation of the republic seriously dude weak comment, the cons prbbly doesnt show a word capitalism but it does give limits to the federal goverment so it can interfeer with free buissnes. yeah and the american goverment mendling with the economy caused the collapse so kinda tellsu smthin

  • @nickothompson It says FREEDOM. Show me where the government has the power to do ANYTHING other than those things listed in the Constitution. I can show you the 10th amendment that prohibits ALL except the enumerated powers.

  • @ToddAldrich

    The US state violates the constitution all the time. They've been doing it for centuries. Modern examples include the income tax, the Afghan War, Obama's healthcare bill and every regulatory board. One sheriff in Texas has his own internment camp. Even the founding fathers fought illegal wars and imposed illegal taxes.

    You have proof. The Constitution does not significantly limit the power of the US state, because individual victims can do nothing to enforce it against them.

  • Apparently you didnt watch the movie. He never criticized the free market or desired more centralized govt control. He emphasized workplac democrcay. Watch a movie before you criticize it.

  • i do not believe in end times, but the world has been brewing something for a long time. i expect terrible things to happen across the world real soon.

  • Good try. The people are on to these sad attempts to discredit truth. I won't work. I may have fallen for it in the past. No more. The truth is visible and you can't hide any longer. Try something new: How about working for the people who elected you for a change. Do the right thing and save our liberty. You will live a normal lifespan like all of us. What will you have to show for it in the end? All the cash you make from your greed? Good job. You won't be remembered.

  • lets try the devil we dont know and do something else rather than capitlisim its a sick system that turns people into money addicts and there is no deeper meaning to our lives or our societies at present we need to instill one.

  • This is so true, a boom can only persist for a long time if government feeds it by protecting bad business decisions, and continuously expanding credit-this only delats the bust and makes it far worse.

  • If it weren't for big, egalitarian (fascist) government and central banks then malinvested assets would immediately clear, the market would deselect what was inefficient. If we try and stop that market clearing, via inflationary spiral, low interest rates and credit expansion, then when the fraud of endless fiduciary media ends, it all comes tumbling down.

  • BTW, I found it odd too that the analogy of protecting children from their negative actions will result in them continuing with those negative actions, but don't children need positive re-enforcement? And if that is true, then doesn't there need to be a parent to guide and encourage children to do positive things?

  • @PropheciesofWar

    You've got it all wrong-the state is supposed to be the child in a democracy, Obama should be your bitch. Society is civilised, developed, advanced and contractual: government is an atavistic throwback to coercion and slavery.

    Let's look at government's "positive re-enforcement":

    Central Banking forces banks to fail under mountains of expanded credit from Fiat notes from Fractional Reserve lending. Yes, banks can crash without CBs-but then they reform-CB's PREVENT that!

  • @Nintendomanwill LOL, just loved that " state is supposed to be the child in a democracy, Obama should be your bitch", LOL.

    I think it is true the thing abut the banks: if they know they're gonna be bailout-ed, they'll fuck themselfs up, because they'll get a lot of money doing that, and being then rescued.

    they'll steal as much as possible, and then, will be bailout-ed and become even richer without any risk at all!

  • @PropheciesofWar

    So from 1837-1862 banks were free in the US, and yes they crashed but they didn't systemically all crash simultaneously, since money was extremely sound as FRB did not occur to the extent that it does under the credit-expansionary regime of central banking. These failures were natural selection-unfortunate but to prop them up is MADNESS, especially if you then GUARANTEE ever-repeating failure and bigger, more wasteful booms through the mass fraud of the Fed's artificial rates!

  • @actoninstitute - If it was government that created the current economic melt down, weren't the politicians who did away with the regulations and laws, weren't they freely bought and sold by the corporations?

  • it was just an example of why free markets are not masters of efficiency, and are instead masters of hiding true cost.

  • This is propaganda garbage!

  • free markets are inefficient. all they is do externalize cost onto something else.

  • What? Externalize cost onto something else? What is that something else?

  • I will steal an example from Chomsky. If i buy a car, than i have made a good deal for myself and the car dealer. However i have increased the traffic, and pollution, gas comsupmtion etc.. all of those are considered externalities. Free markets are externalizing machines.

  • So you're saying that if it there were no free market and I bought a car, I would not increase traffic, pollution and gas consumption?

  • You make it sound like government is perfect and does not create externalities. In fact, there is only traffic and pollution because government owns the roads. If roads were private there would be far less traffic. If rivers and forests were privately owned, there would be far less pollution. I know your thinking I'm nuts but read stuff in mises(dot)org before you respond.

  • The something else is the resources and labor of third world countries. Haven't you notice that you can get expensive items for a dollar from slave labor?

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  • 3:43: "If banks know they're gonna be bailed out whatever decisions they make, we shouldn't be surprised when they start making irresponsible decisions."

    Exactly! This is why more regulation is needed to stop them being irresponsible. The logic of the free market dictates that these institutions will ALWAYS act irresponsibly in the pursuit of maximum profits. Economic disasters can only be averted by increasing regulation and putting laws in place that will keep these institutions in check.

  • And let's not forget that the only reason those institutions that were bailed out became "too big to fail" was because of deregulation, called for by free-market advocates like Alan Greenspan.

  • @MrMayasura I don't see how regulation can "fix" irresponsibility by your logic. What kind of regulation do you mean exactly? The punishment for reckless investing in the market place has always been going out of business and that is often times more than enough to keep institutions in check...bailouts make it so it doesn't matter what decision a company makes. regulation can't help when it is always a step behind and the regulators often come from the very companies they want to oversee

  • If there was any hope of averting another similar crisis, there needs to be strict laws in place limiting their ability to act irresponsibly. Unfortunately I agree that regulators often come from the same companies they are supposed to oversee, but then it's exactly the same with government officials in charge of creating the laws governing these companies. The only way this economic crisis was able to happen was because of the systematic removal of laws governing the financial industry.

  • @ MrMayasura "there needs to be strict laws in place limiting their ability to act irresponsibly." << well, that's the thing: how do you make a law against human nature. Surely even you can admit to some irresponsibility at some point in your life. I mean no one really went "Mua Ha Ha! I will rob from the masses!" The majority were just honest people that saw a good way to make a buck, but didn't think far enough ahead. How do you regulate human nature? :-/

  • That's like saying being angry is a part of human nature, so how can you make laws against violence, or how can you make laws against people exploiting child labour, when the people involved are "just making some money." My point is there used to be legislation in place to counter wreckless economic practices, but they were systematically removed by politicians like Robert Rubin under Clinton who personally profited from the deregulation whilst working for Citigroup. Can you spell Plutocracy?

  • Let me say that I agree regulation was taken away which certainly did not help the situation.  I think you are failing to see the point though. How do companies leverage (40:1 debt to equity for example)? Why would a company ever make that risk? Thats almost asking for bankruptcy....if u do believe in a free market there will certainly be winners and losers thats only if you allow companies to fail and take the heat for their poor business habits. (cont..)

  • (cont..) regulation should surely be in place to discover insider trading and the like. But there was something unique about what happen to our system. Government Sponsored Enterprises, who were at the forefront of creating the mortgaged backed securities market, were created by government and urged banks to participate with tax incentives and the like. Also interest rates were so low during the 90s it made no sense to save (cont...)

  • I keep hoping that Obama did the bailout so he could get his hands on some money for progressive and fair programs. We'll see. The neocons are mad about something. I think they see the handwriting on the wall. We are probably into a whole new world. It has been in the making for thousands of years, but when change comes it's relatively quick.

  • (cont.. ) giving a signal to the market place that short term consumption/investment was better than saving. All of this liquid capital of course had to go places creating your so-called booms and bubble bursts. Without the direct incentive from government and infusion of capital through low interest rates you would not have the magnitude of capital mal-investment and as such weak to no bubble. It seems to me trying to government over-manage of the market place was the real culprit.

  • I agree that the government were certainly involved in creating some of the conditions that lead to the economic collapse i.e. the sub-prime mortgage market, but once again this was only made possible by massive deregulation of the mortgage industry, once again under the system of "free-market" capitalism. (cont...)

  • This allowed the mortgage lenders to act like loan sharks, offering what seemed like incredibly low mortgage rates to poorer families, but then doubling up the interest rates after a year or so, causing the families to default. Mortgage borrowers were willfully misled and this is what caused the sub-prime mortgage disaster. The fact that these "toxic assets" were then securitised and sold off was again due to the systematic removing of economic regulations called for by the free-market system.

  • i think I am going to need you to define what a free market is just so I am clear about what you are saying. Free-market is everyone has a fair shake to succeed or fail. The way I see it, large corporations and big government feed off one another in a mutually beneficial partnership. Politicians loved this marketplace because they can say they are putting everyone in a home and run for office on fighting for the little guy (I assume with the best intentions). (cont...)

  • (cont...) Banks saw an opportunity to make record profits and also spread the risk around through complex derivatives packages (also with the best intentions because banks/businesses are always self-interested). Now in a free market the banks would have collapsed and any suspicion of criminal behavior would be investigated. However, gov' and banks are two heads of the same beast....one eats and the other also gets nourishment. So clearly not a free-market if anyone gets a bailout. (cont...)

  • (cont...) nor can you say that this is "free market". No government sweetening the pot for mortgage loans no tax incentives or special drawing rights for a select few banks (all of which is happening today). Can you call this a free market? More apt name would be corporatism. Since we can't end businesses from being self-interested the only logical solution is prevent gov' from being so large. small (related to spending) gov' = less/no bailouts. don't mistake this for being no regulation

  • @genericandothers Okay, I'm basically referring to the overarching system of neoliberal economics characterised by Reagan and Thatcher's policies, of which the "free-market" doctrine is a big part. I think the term "free-market" itself obfuscates an economic system which is anything but free and fair. I agree to some extent that this could be more aptly be called corporatism, but I think your idea to further remove government's ability to restrain corporate power is utter madness.

  • That doesn't mean that they couldn't do it right. Actually it's probably up to us to enforce honesty by not dealing with dishonest companies that steal from us all.

  • Easy. By switching to a more co-operative society, transparency in government and business and monitoring by citizen involvement. I don't trust leaders anymore.

  • Regulations against fraud and strict enforcement. To defraud someone is the same as taking away life and property. They just don't use a gun, exactly.

  • lol bush is funny!

  • Still the richest 5% owns more than the rest according to Michael. So even though the government failed to help the majority, then the richest are not helping either, because they concentrate in owning even more.

  • wow i wonder who is putting this video out sounds like astroturfing to me

  • The should have given all that bail out money to the public...

  • This video was flawless.

  • Actually, if you think about it, this video and Michael Moore's film go hand in hand:

    The government has essentially become an arm of Wall Street. So technically, the government didn't do enough because it didn't WANT to do enough (the corporate control.) So if we're asking the government to control even more of the economy, we're just asking the corporate elite to continue to take over more and more of America.

    Yes, the bailout was a flop, but who really orchestrated it? Congress or the elite?

  • ronald reagan was the demise of the US economy.

  • lol okay whatever dude ollliive. the government IS the problem. Don't give wall street any reason to run to them asking for help. The problem our economy is we have a socialized banking system.....the keyword there is SOCIALIZED. Get the government out of our banks, get the government out of our economy and the problems will stop.

    And Roonskii, Reagan was the demise of the US economy? Really? LOL Reagan only did what Obama is doing, only Obama is doing it 10x worse (deficit spending)

  • reagan was a socialist? You're out there buddy. I think the word you are looking for is corporate welfare.

  • corporate welfare = socialism

    social welfare = socialism

    government planned economy = socialism

    all of these are bad things, they destroy wealth, make the poor poorer, and empower the political class

  • umm i hate to break this too you but the current system we are in is already making the poor poorer. wealth has been and is still currently being destroyed and the political classes, meaning ALL classes have already seen power beyond the power they were meant to have with the help of media giants. and oh btw the government no longer has the power to control the FED. they cant go one day in the senate or congress and put up a vote to remove the FED. thats a beast even the president cant tackle

  • i notice people on youtube use terms like "democrat, republican, socialism etc etc" it does not matter what you call it. its a system that is failing us now. you say, "get the governments out of the markets" well okay, now what.......what happens next? what happens? oh we need to give it time? my point is no matter who runs the financial market it will not matter because all we have the power to do is change the figurehead leader of those markets anyway, the root problems will still be there

  • You socialists crack me up. Blaming the free market for the subprime collapse is like blaming gravity for a plane crash. Get the government out of the markets.

  • Wow.....dude, you don't know shit. The government is already out of the markets because they have been taken over by the corporates. Essentially, corporations are playing the government like a puppet.

    And you're agreeing with the corporate dodge: you're blaming the big guy, not the even bigger guy whose controlling him.

  • Free market is a fairytale. It has never happened, will never happen.

  • The US Federal Reserve isn't a government institution... it's a private corporation where the shareholders are banks and brokers and the like. The Reserve sets the interest rate, so surprise, it's PRIVATE banks and corporations controlling the market. Not the government. Thumb through a history book and see how many times over the years that Founding Fathers, congressmen, senators and Presidents fought corporations for control over money and markets.

  • If you removed all the laws that apply to society, people would say it is anarchy. Is it any different if you remove all the laws that apply to corporations?

  • everyone is to blame.

  • Nobody on Wall Street, despite their obscene wealth, produces anything of substance. They trade nothing for something that thousands of us labor our lives away to create. It's a big ponzi scheme, and when they lost faith in their crooked subprime housing racket, our economy went to shit.

    And this talking asshole claims that the government controls the 'free' market. It's the other way around (you fucking rube). Election campaigns don't pay for themselves.

  • the government didnt control the markets the markets controlled the government

  • @mussedeq The markets want to control the government because the government has power. Imagine if the government didn't have as much power? The markets would have no incentive to control the government.

  • @brian1625 There will always be people waiting to fill that power void, always.

  • @mussedeq: You've got it completely backwards -- and the fact that you believe that's the case just shows that you have no idea what you're talking about.

  • @MarcusSamuelW Really who do you think was benefiting from Bush's tax cuts, war, lack of regulation, and bailouts? I didn't and neither did you. When they fail they should jump out of their windows not us. Can you explain to me your hair-brained 'idea' on the whole fiasco.

  • @MarcusSamuelW Really, who do you think was benefiting from Bush's tax cuts, war, lack of regulation, and bailouts? I didn't and neither did you. When they fail they should jump out of their windows not us. Can you explain to me your hair-brained 'idea' on the whole fiasco.

  • @mussedeq Take a read through these articles on the issue:

    Recession and Recovery: Six Fundamental Errors of the Current Orthodoxy

    3ws(dot)independent(dot)org/ne­wsroom/article(dot)asp?id=2448

    Did Deregulation Cause the Financial Crisis?

    3ws(dot)cato(dot)org/pubs/poli­cy_report/v31n4/cpr31n4-1(dot)­html

    Free Markets, Deregulation, and Blame

    3ws(dot)thenewamerican(dot)com­/index(dot)php/history/america­n/3126-free-markets-deregulati­on-and-blame

  • @mussedeq

    Did Deregulated Derivatives Cause the Financial Crisis? -- Government Interventions, Not Laissez Faire, Caused the Financial Crisis

    3ws(dot)thefreemanonline(dot)o­rg/featured/did-deregulated-de­rivatives-cause-the-financial-­crisis/

    The Financial Crisis and the CRA -- A generation ago, the government began forcing banks to make bad loans.

    3ws(dot)city-journal(dot)org/2­008/eon1030hh(dot)html

  • @mussedeq Also, I would STRONGLY encourage you to read “Economics in One Lesson” by Henry Hazlett. There are several free pdf versions of the book out there, as well as a few nice html versions with hyper linked tables of contents:

    HTML version

    jim(dot)com/econ/contents(dot)­html\

    PDF version of the latest edition

    files(dot)meetup(dot)com/13967­14/Economics-in-One-Lesson(dot­)pdf

  • @MarcusSamuelW I guess I was wrong; I saw the vid and corrected my view. What I really mean is that these corporations that use a mutated form of capitalism, not anything close to free market capitalism. Fannie and Freddie bought out the govt. with money so they wouldn't regulate them, as Peter said. Although I still do believe in proper regulation which the govt. has not done, but instead turned a blind eye to corporations and has even been a factor in this recession.

  • @mussedeq Crony Capitalism is a HUGE problem to be sure, but if the government wasn't standing there with its hand out, advertising its willingness to pick winners and losers in the market, you wouldn't have businesses paying to have that power/favor on their side. John Stossel has produced one of the best reports on this issue that I've ever seen:

    John Stossel takes on the cozy relationship between Big Business and Big Government.

    3ws(dot)hulu(dot)com/watch/123­226/stossel-thu-jan-14-2010

  • @mussedeq And I'd encourage you to go to the trouble to read through the articles I posted. Fannie and Freddie effectively paid off key politicians in order to maintain the protected status THEY ALREADY HAD as highly regulated, government sponsored enterprises (GSEs) -- the government created and fed those two monsters through regulation. It's not at all as though government regulation is always fixing problems -- often it's the very thing that's causing the problems in the first place.

  • @MarcusSamuelW @MarcusSamuelW I personally believe this is also in part of global corporations fault in government Obama probably was sincere about his promises, but when he came into power he was quickly told how things were to be done just like any other leader of a third world country. Confessions of an Economic Hit Man 3ws(dot)youtube(dot)com/watch?­v=yTbdnNgqfs8 (this is true he is not a conspiracist and this is probably happening right now.)

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  • @mussedeq 

  • @mussedeq

    Pure wisdom

  • @mussedeq Ignorance controlled the government. It was a lack of education on behalf of the people who voted in the bureaucrats that set forth such negligent policies in the first place.

  • Michael Moore does not believe in free markets. Michael Moore believes in government control. A true outspoken person will not be making millions a year.

  • The Acton Institute, let me explain - The ones being protected from their negative actions (i.e. children) are the Wall Streeters who can plan anything and it won't fail because it's backed up by the US governement. Next Wall Street mess, the US may not have a free $1 trilliion to hand out to them, though.

  • we'll just print it like we did this time

  • What a bs !!!

  • Disagree. we've simply been defrauded. Capitalism includes transparency. It never said you could defraud your neighbor. It has gone way overboard. It has to follow the same laws we do, but It has bought the government.

  • But capitalism works on the ideals of a contract. You purchase what you think is a fair deal for yourself from a person who provides the goods and services. The biggest unspoken assumption in such a system is that the common man DOES know what he is getting into! Often there is simply a lack of information and financial knowledge and as such people get exploited... albeit, legally and with their full consent. Common men have little knowledge, but alot of faith. As such, so so so vulnerable

  • I've looked into it quite a bit. It's just that no theory works where people defraud, misrepresent and how can you vote with misinformation? Money was supposed to stand for labor, but we got the labor and they got the money. Derivitives, for instance, were bundles as quality stock and sold to us and other nations. That's just criminal. It's true we have turned a bind eye to dishonesty, but it brings a nation down. It always has and alway will.

  • Fraud nulifys a contract. Now even the social contract with the gov.. New studies show conclusively, from pollution, the monsoon belts moved south around the world causing millions to starve. OK, so the rich and the poor didn't know any better, but now we do. Our salvation will be from the genius on the bottom that has no power. It takes more than a few hundred families to run a world. It takes all of us. Top down, bottom up. The rich didn't build the world anymore than Solomon built the temple.

  • I seen this movie last night I was 100% in depth with it until they started making Obama look like the savior of us all. When in fact Obama has the biggest ties to those corporate crooks even more so than John Mccain.

  • thats right brother,,,but people choose to overlook that fact

  • If religion really matters for the Acton Institute, read the substance of Marx's writings, and you'll notice he's closer to God than Milton Friedman ever was.....

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  • I just saw the movie Capitalism- A Love story Man, what an eye opener! Anybody that disses the movie doesn't want  the truth to be known.

  • @jaker2880 Bullshit. Moore is a socialist and knows nothing about economics or what capitalism is. We live in corporatism, fascism, not capitalism. He opened no eyes with his Marxist propaganda.

  • @jaker2880 Anybody who would believe that bullshit is the one with their head in the sand. Wanting to blame the "rich" people. Sometimes it sounds like we're on the edge of the rain of terror during the French revolution...

  • We live under a financial ruling class that own & control the Global Free Trade Stock Market System. They want TOTAL CONTROL of all Governments, Corporations & people. This world control is being put in threw Globalization. People like Obama, Bush, Pelosi, Reid, Blair, Brown & other Shareholders make lots of money off this Global Free Market System & want to keep it going. These Globalists are Traitors & Enemies to the U.S. & the World. YouTube: LPACTV Audio Preview, The LaRouche Plan

  • Capitalism in a big nation like the USA only works with RULES... this "Free Market" canard is like a religion. It is a promise that never comes.... because like communism or anarchy it doesn't work. Reagan deregulation caused what Citibank now calls a Plutonomy (plutocracy) in the USA... and this video is a pathetic attempt to hang on to the failed religion of Milton Friedman.

  • The truth is that with honest people, any system will work.

  • i life in europe

    people here are just puzzy's

    everyone thinks they are getting poor and thinks they need so save money

    when there is no need to

    so they spend less money on *things*

    and the *things* are getting expensive because no one buys it.......

  • your complete lack of knowledge of supply and demand impresses me.

  • how about trying theocracy?

  • The government is run by corporations...that's Moore's point

  • Agreed. The problem is corporatism, not capitalism or government.

  • Which is exactly why its NOT supposed to get a lot of powers. When this happens the government just gets used by the biggest fish to create monopolies.

  • lol I wonder how much this guy got paid to make this video? Fucking Lobbyists!

  • Do you ever come out of your shell? I mean, ever?

    The only reason the Norwegian economy does well is because of the tremendous oil revenues. Once those revenues disappear Norway will have to learn to cut away at the massive bureaucracy it faces today. Most European nations are already beginning to do so, because the trajectory is economically unsustainable.

  • European economies are disintegrating and average a growth much less than that of the US economy.

  • The Free-Market is an illusion to make people think they have freedom in a country that is run by a small minority of people who hold all of the wealth.

  • This video is so fucking stupid.

    a) Government managed capitalism is capitalism. There is always government management in all capitalist systems.

    b) Michael moore does not mentioned anywhere that he is for government managed capitalism, It is a film discussing the flaws of the system itself and is supposed to make you think outside of the propaganda by wallstreet so that you can think for yourself.

  • His film is propaganda! It makes people think that capitalism is a flawed ideal and that we need to embrace socialism or communism. The constitutions is suppose to prevent too much government regulation of the the economy and the people by limiting it to a small number of enumerated powers. Bowling for Columbine was also trying to get people to dislike guns or discourage the sale of "horrible" ammunition. He is a shill that wants to destroy our whole country by making us weak and disarmed.

  • You got what you asked for.

    Government stopped regulating banks and allowed capitalists to do whatever they wanted to and what happened?

    You ended with a credit bust and deindustrialization of your economy.

    As for firearms, I don't have an opinion on that neither do I understand why so many people should have access to guns.

  • "Government stopped regulating banks"

    Thats what I have been trying to tell you, they did not stop regulating bank. Check out the CRA modifications in 2007-2008 created the crisis and all the economists know it. Even though the media tries to portray deregulation as the problem, Bush deregulated nothing. Watch my playlist called Government Interference and feel free to check any facts you see on it.

    The reason we have the right to bear arms is to protect ourselves against the government.

  • Uh, why do you say "His film is propaganda!" without even having watched it? This would be something a propagandist would do...

    "It makes people think... that we need to embrace socialism..."

    You moron, you do realize M. Moore HIMSELF said in an interview with Wolf Blitzer on CNN that, and I quote, "Socialism was a 19th century ideal... Capitalism is a 20th century ideal... can't we come up with something better for the 21st century?"

    Stop forming opinions based on nothing.

  • I did see his film, infact, I have seen all his films and I own two of them. This guy is a propagandist. The same people who back and fund him are the same people the funded Bush and Obama. Its a slow and gradual attempt to get us to embrace a system like socialism or just as bad where an oligarchy controls every facet of our lives. This has all been an attempt to trick people into thinking capitalism it to blame even though its the reason we have all the technology and freedom we enjoy today.

  • Excellent video.

  • DOW Carbon Urbide killed thousands, but because of phony business and environmental regulations, no one got punished (80s-the company still exists today). Chernobyl - lack of environmental regulations, tech bubble, Hurricane Katrina - yes here big govt did everything they could to help (which is ridiculous because even the Democratic Mayor didn't step in to help), including environmental regulations and the government stepped in big time. Wal-Mart still thrives w/ child labor-big gov't regulat?

  • those who are working in the gov is the ceo of these companies that caused the crash........its not gov but corporations that we need to rebel against. we need to remove money from the campaigns....

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  • "If a kinder garden school teacher passes out pixie sticks and soda pops and then leaves the classroom and she comes back and the kinder garden have wrecked the place, who do you blame?" - Peter Schiff

  • Neither free market nor government intervention are really involved at all: under the fractional reserve system, constant downfalls are inevitable.

  • "Their legal tender money gives them the ways and means"

    I'm glad you, a classical conservative, see it through my point of view then. lol you can't have big government on your side unless you have that massive percent of capital in the first place. For example mortgage back securities, credit defaultswaps were financial tools that were unregulated that created that unearned wealth in the first place. That unearned wealth then led to influence within Congress to make them leave them alone.

  • CDS is a bogeyman.

    The number of CDS contracts and the amounts brought into existence have increased substantially since the recession began -- August 2007.

    The call to regulate CDS arises so that some can profit from brokering the trades through a Formal Exchange.

    Government increased the number of Notes and Coins in circulation and increased the speed of money turnover to pay for Iraq.

    This made the economy unstable and speculative -- too much credit in the system lacking output.

  • CDS's however were the only thing that made those junk loans magically salable.

    Like turning $1 bills, in to $1000 bills with a fake certificate of authenticity.

    And the call to regulate CDS's was because they weren't charging enough money to make them be realistic. (i.e. Forced to have enough reserve cash like ALL other forms of insurance)

  • Central Bank Capitalism (between debt-spending politicians, government treasury bond dealers and central bankers, legal tender money) combined with Bureaucratic Socialism and Oligopoly Corporatism amounts to failure.

    Regulation amounts to rigging markets to stifle competition.

    Lobbyists are Corporatist representatives who buy off Politicians who stay in power by representing the behemoth Government Employees Union of bureaucrats.

    Only Free Banking Capitalism with sound, free money works.

  • Government regulations didn't create banking/insurance companies that were too big to fail. What makes this corruption artistically beautiful is that "Too Big To Fail" banks/insurance companies will keep getting bailed out by the US Fed/American tax payer as long as they maintain a level of capital that keeps the financial system hostage. Usually regulations would prevent that in other countries from happening in the first place.

  • Originally, "too big to fail" meant that a corp was so big that it could never fail, even during a downturn in the economy.

    Again, results come from design.

    Simply, the men behind Central Bank Capitalism with Bureaucratic Socialism and Oligopoly Corporatism led to this disaster.

    Men who control govt, established govt regs that designed the system.

    Their legal tender money gives them the ways and means.

    Big Government is a failure, always.

  • really? can you even state one place where pure capitalism exists? be honest, too much oversight cannot lead to a disaster. if you always had your eye on something, you'd always know where it is. period. alan greenspan is a libertarian which is even more free market than republican, and he was the one who was in charge.

    and even if the conservatives were right that the housing bill pushed people into making bad loans, no one had to be those loaners! so then profit as motive alone did not work.

  • Greenspan isn't a Libertarian. What a laugh your belief is.

    Libertarians oppose Central Bank Capitalism and Big Government. Greenspan championed and worshipped both.

    Who cares about Conservatives? They're Big Government -- Corporatist/Bureaucratic Socialists -- on the right. They're as bad as their cousins on the left -- Liberals.

    "Pure Capitalism"? You spew rhetoric. You can have Central Bank Capitalism or Free Banking Capitalism only and the latter isn't found anywhere anymore.

  • wiki it. greenspan had a good friendship w/ ayn rand. from wiki: In a congressional hearing on October 23, 2008 Greenspan admitted that his free-market ideology shunning certain regulations was flawed.

    this is like the boy who cried wolf. the mantra during the 80s 90s and 2000s (actually started late 70s with carter) that de-regulation and tax cuts were the reason for all the prosperity -- now these same nuts say oh wait, no there was no de-regulation! there was too much regulation. fringe.

  • What Greenspan did in the 1960s and what he did in the 1980s are two different things.

    The man worked as Fed Res chairman. No one can do that and claim to be libertarian.

    Greenspan had no free markets doctrine. As an ardent supporter of Central Banking, Greenspan a championed monopoly market for the mfg and distrib of credit.

    Btw, Ideology is the study of ideas, not the ideas themselves.

    Is there anything else I can school you in today?

  • When most people usually talk about deregulation, it is not truly full deregulation to a large extent, an example of this is when they so called "deregulated" the cable industry in the early 2000s. However they did not fully deregulate to a large enough extent it was only partial because cable providers are still granted legal monopolies to operate in certain areas without competitors. Remember when the CAB was scrapped, and what ended up happening was an increase in seating on airplanes

  • That's had, past tense. Ayn "de-friended" him when he told her he was going to work for the Fed, whose very existence is antithetical to libertarian economic thought. Let Greenspan "admit" what he will about a capitalist system he never saw and by definition could not have been overseeing.

  • care to explain how Bernie Madoff got away with what he did when people were calling on big government to regulate him? Glass Steagall caused this Byron Dorgan (D) predicted it and his state is OK

    what about Enron, S&L, all these big crises happened while Reagan, Clinton, and Bush were spreading de-regulation around. Greed is not good. that was the message that Oliver Stone intended to get out through his movie. Unfortunately, the people who could have benefited from this failed to understand.

  • Alan Greenspan first of all is not a libertarian, because just like the comment TruthAxe stated he believes in a Federal Central Banking System. I will admit pure capitalism has never existed, neither has pure socialism or communism either. Further the community reinvestment act did force companies to lower their rating standards and forced them to make these bad loans. Even Bill Clinton was threatening companies that did not provide loans for those individuals.

  • If government would just accept that human greed is natural, but can be just as threatening as any terrorist act, then it could be ready to step in to protect the public when nessesary. I'm all for free markets, but it didn't take a genius to see that too many homes were being built in cornfields, and too much easy financing was being created to unload them. Unfortunately, the government joined the party, seeing only the property tax revenue, zoning change revenue, and building permit revenue.

  • I find this scheme is so "beautifully" dominating for there is no downside if you were JPMorgan/AIG. "What are you going to do? Let me go bankrupt? LAWL"

  • Awesome video, makes so much sense.

  • Did you know that each year we add about 47,000 new regulations each year and the current Federal Registar is 80,700 pages long? And that it's contained in 201volumes but I guess that is not enough for you. I guess none of these laws are intrusive or unjust they are there to "protect us"

  • Even if you wanted to argue Wall Street got drunk, My next question to you is Who supplied the alcohol? I believe from what I read of your comments that you are for strict stray jacket capitalism, because people will constantly get taken advantage of by corporations. Further

  • Marly61 now think under Mao's Great Leap Forward he produced things people did not want and still committed evil, so did Stalin and so did Hitler when they natinoalized industries. I can't believe you would argue such a thing so everything producers create is morally wrong? Wow that's a stretch

    And if it were so damn wrong than why do people keep buying it. What exactly are you advocating here?