People need a strong government to protect them from themselves. Humanity is ignorant, selfish, and discusting. And government is the only way too crush the spirit of these primitive apes that stain our streets today! I am a complete Communist, and it is a shame that Socialism has been infected with the disease of Liberalism and turned into a shell of it's former self. But humanity will pay for it's crimes in time.:)
"Almost anything you can find on a checklist that allegedly proves Hitler was a right-winger, you can find almost any one of them in the communist dictators of the 20th century."
Well, no shit, they were dictators, they were authoritarian. To claim Hitler was left-wing is laughable. Or wait, let me guess, they think the "socialist" label that the USSR and Nazis held was accurate, just like North Korea's "democratic republic" label is accurate...
@SniperMaske So they let the workers run the businesses democratically? They promoted the rights of laborers? Because, as far as I'm concerned, that's the central idea behind socialism. Not this "stronger government" BS definition that's been trotted out by the media.
@hawaiigopher Communism would imply a common ownership of the means of production. Communists however admit a need for a period of dictatorship exists. There is no way to regulate civil society without absolute authority in the state and what socialism leads to is inevitably a decrease in workers rights. The state is the boss and the unions are state unions. The workers lose the right to a private union to bargain with management as the state is managemet and the union is run by the state.
Democratic socialists and their trade union allies have increased workers rights: 8 hour day, workplace safety regulation, minimum wage etc.
i think you are a supporter of Hayek?
Hayek believed that Atlee's social democratic government would lead to "Totalitarianism" but supported Augusto Pinochet's dictatorship(which overthrew a democratically elected government).
@MrReco12 I support a market driven economy with workers rights and an extensive safety net and welfare state. Unions were a great way to combat the excesses of capitalism and the real tragedy of the soviet economy was the way they got rid of organic unions in favour of state unions where workers had no real bargaining power since the boss was the state.
@MrReco12 Hayek wrote specifically about economic planning whereby the good of the state intrudes on the free functioning of the civil society. This will inevitably lead to tyranny as it requires terror and also a hierchical system of government.Social democracy is not the road to serfdom as the government merely blunts the excesses of the market.
@MrReco12 Nazism and communism were both versions of historicism an almost religious belief system. They both believed history would inevitably end in their favour despite having different means and ends in mind. The mythology of historicism is what led to tyranny as any threat to this end had to be stamped out.
@MrReco12 To suggest the nazis privatized the economy is highly deceptive. The weimar republic policies were actually very similar to those of the US in the 1920s and the Nazis employed a massive infusion of government cash to end the depression. Both nazism and socialism aimed at moving every part of society towards one goal under the guidance of the state. The civil society, family and indivdiual were all subordinate to the good of the state.
@MrReco12 Yes they were privately owned but they were directed heavily towards armaments production. I said nazism and marxism had the same end with different means. The nazis directed the economy toward wars of conquest whereas the communists towards the so called protection of the proletariat and global revolution. I simply said it was deceptive to say the nazi privatized things as weimar was at least as market based. The nazis didnt belong to the austrian school is what im saying.
@SniperMaske Socialism and Nazism had similar ends but their means were very different. They both were based on a mythological historicism on the one hand the triumph of the aryan race against the jew and the other the triumph of the working class. The primary difference between the early post war nationalist movements in germany and the socialist was militarism and antipathy towards internalionalism. If the economy was going to be regulated it was for the glory of the state not some class ideal
"Fascist regimes functioned like an epoxy: an amalgam of two very different agents, fascist dynamism and conservative order, bonded by shared enmity toward liberalism and the Left, and a shared willingness to stop at nothing to destroy their common enemies." Robert O. Paxton. "The Anatomy of Fascism", p147
"Hitler was never a socialist." - Ian Kershaw, "Hitler (abridged)", p269.
@ignbtd Unions are not capitalist, they want more and equal share of the wealth. That=socialism, and cutting loop holes means more and higher taxes on the rich, and that means a more equal distribution of wealth, and again that equals socialism
@ignbtd Wrong, they closed loop holes on taxes for the rich, and a more balanced pay, noly a 18% pay gap between the top and lower bracket. The bought back some unions, and regulated the banks again. Gee sounds like socialism to me. So believe me, the word of the Swedish government i will take over yours. No offense
@ignbtd Nope, i am talking about now. Sweden's economy was the model back in the 80's they went into a slump by switching to capitalism, and in the last 2 years they have went back to socialism, so 2008 means nothing because their economy was still in the slump, now they are on the rise again.
@ignbtd Uh sorry buy norway does distribute the wealth very well, there is only a 35% pay gap between the rich and poor, and it is shrinking every year, and no, again, sweden, is a socialist country so is germany, so when used right, there is no better economic philosophy than socialism. It has been proven time and time again.
@ignbtd Sounds like somebody is using a secret identity and can't debate the realization the Nazi's were today's Democrats and some Progressive Republicans...;)
@ignbtd I am sorry, what did you just say? A wealthy lower class? No such beast, and when you have 50+ million starving including 17 million children, that is not a wealthy poor, Norway, which uses socialism, now they have hardly no poor, why? Why hells bells the equally redistribute the wealth. What a big shocker.
@ignbtd I don´t accuse you for be anything,but it is a wellknown fact that Monetetarism was a failure and was abondon by conservatives in England and in milder versions of it in US and Chile round 1982.It was not possible
control the money supply at steady level at 3-4% a year as Friedman supposed.Monetarsism was Friedman big achivement in economy and it today not considered anything more than failure even by libertarian and conservative economist.
@ignbtd No,but i could put in some qoutes if you will,as Nobel awarded professor Paul Krugman at Princeton writes: "I think it is fair to say that up until the late 1960s Friedman and his followers, while influential, were regarded by many of their colleagues as faintly disreputable." Professor Edward Herman writes: "Friedman's methodology in attempting to prove his models have set a new standard in opportunism, manipulation,and the abuse of scientific method." Monetarism failed it´s wellknown
@ignbtd According to monetarist theory,British economy should have enjoyed low inflation and high stability.But,it went berserk.Economy sank into a deep recession,while economic indicators zigged&zagged Although inflation came down, this was at the price of rising unemployment,which soared from 5.4to11.8 percent.Between 1979 and 1984,manufacturing output fell 10 percent, and manufacturing investment fell 30 percent,production recovered to 2.8 percent growth,but high unemployment was permanent
@ignbtd That is picking straws and oh only 17 years of a murdering mad man oh wow, i bet the chilie people where just fine, no, just like today chilie's economy is in turmoil just like ours.
@ignbtd To hell it does not, just look at the USA now we have a 500% pay gap between the top and bottom, what has that lead to? Record profits for the rich, and a pay drop for the lower class.
@ignbtd But the fact is friedman's crap did not end Pinochet's reign, he was the leader of Chilie for over 25+ Years just like in China, they are still having a repressive society There was no freedom lead on by this shock doctrine crap, for so called free market. And again that is just straw manning what i said about Hayek, sorry but when you look up the word dictator in the dictionary, it has a meaning.
@whedonfreak976 Friedmans Monetarism reached the peak of its popularity during the 1970s.In the 80s,however,it suffered a sudden reversal of fortune,and today economists generally agree that "monetarism is dead." Friedman stands virtually alone now among top economists in his belief that it contains any merit.Monetarism was tried in Great Britain during the 80s, under Margaret Thatcher, and it proved to be a disaster. For almost seven years,Bank of England tried its best to make it work
@ignbtd I don´t think you should take von Mises to serouis at all since he contradict him self even in his work.In most he preach a total freemarket and his praxeology but you could see parts of his work there he advocate goverment intervention in Human Action,and elsewhere,in his more pragmatic work advocate incase Mexico stateownership and planning,et al.With no doubt a intelligent man,but with no doubt a excentric.
Incase of Friedman it´s Friedman himself that tell about in Time Magazine
@ignbtd Yes i do know what a straw man is, and i am afraid you did it on me. And wrong, how can you say chilie was more democratic under Pinochet? The man was a murdering dictator, and it did not lead to more democracy in chilie, just more wealth disparity, the rich got richer and the poor got poorer. And again he preferred that means even in a short run Hayek was for a dictatorship.
@ignbtd Yes, but friedman said to do what was necessary to keep the private market intact, and they did, and oh forgive me, he preferred a liberal dictatorship, in other words this was a straw man response.
@falaxy1000 Also let's not forget that it was Vonmises who stated after Germany in WW2 that he thought fascism was not a bad idea, and could be used for good. According to his book liberalism 1927. No free market and libertuds=slavery
@falaxy1000 Oh god not you again, this is the same shit you spouted on my page. Hey you liberturds are so much for freedom, that Hayek, said he was for a liberal dictatorship like Agusto Pinochet. Friedman helped out Cina, and Chilie, and Argentina when they had their Junta back in the late 70's. Also Bolivia in the early 80's and Poland in the 90's But the big one is Pinchet who always wins the Nolan Chary websiites King of the free market. The man who killed 3,500 and tortured 27,000
@whedonfreak976 The guy is a pain.A deluted fool.I recommend,him,since i think he avoid reading, go to brendanmcooney channel and watch his about 40-50 videos on Marx.He can also try to post like he did here
All you have are silly rants and ad homs against anything you call 'liberal'
And in that we thank you for showing what a low quality intellect it takes to spout that junk.
As TYH has said, go read a book, I'll suggest Richard Evans trilogy on the Third Reich and "Blackshirts and Reds" by Parenti, although both are probably above your reading level; Evans work being quite long, and neither of them having nice colored drawings with the words in balloon captions like you're used to
Then you don't know who the fuck Penn jellette and his partner, teller are, you are a stupid fucktard, not a historian, i've done my own fuckin research, and my research says differently. You're still a dumbass MOTHERFUCKER, FUCK ALL YOU FUCKING ASSHOLE LIBERALS, I HOPE YOU ALL FUCKING DIE ON THE STREETS SINCE YOU LOVE SOCIALIST SO GODDAMN MUCH, JESUS MOLESTED IN A MANGER, YOU ARE AS FUCKED UP AS CHE FUCKING GUEVARA. FUCK YOU.
Penn and Teller are a pair of magicians, they are NOT historians and they are NO experts on Hitler, hence they are a poor source. And haha you've done research? Yea right, all your "research" consists of is getting shit off the internet. You've never been to Germany, you've never been to an archive, infact as is evident you've never even read a scholarly work on Hitler or the Nazi regime. You are a pathetic amateur and you keep proving that.
Socialism turns into facism, you and your fucktard liberal friends are so fucking stupid and you hate this country, its founding fathers, and hate their system called capitalism, and push for gun control so the criminals will have guns and kill innocents, and think your superior to the people that work at Wal-Mart, who work their asses off to feed their families, FUCK ALL YOU FUCKING LIBERAL COMMUNIST TRAITORS TO THE FUCKING NECK.
Are you fucking retarded? Penn and Teller have a tv show that is a comedy/documentary show and they had Christopher Hitchens on their show before. Thomas Jefferson said that the electorate must be well educated at every election. Sorry but Hitler was left wing.
@Barry62152 "Thomas Jefferson said that the electorate must be well educated at every election."
So maybe you should take his advice and get educated. Academia has deemed Fascism as an ideology of the right. Brain dead right wing neophytes can cry about it all day, but it's true.
Than you have no idea what an in-depth documentary into the Nazi regime looks like, here go watch "The Nazis: A warning from history", or "The world at war" or even better just go pick up a book on Nazi-germany for the first time in your life and go educate yourself.
Theyoung historian77, i recommend you to watch Penn and Teller:Bullshit on the world peace episode, you'll see why capitalism works, and why socialism doesn't, and why Hitler was a socialist. Or should i call you theyoungignoranthack77?
Haha Your Bullshit program is NOT an in depth study of the Nazi regime, and is therfore a poor source. And on it's SINGLE LINE on Hitler, well where's the evidence they provided? NONE! so as Christopher Hitchens says "what can be asserted without evidence, can also be dismissed without evidence". No sorry Hitler was right wing. ALL acedemia are agreed on that, plus his ideas overlapped with those the German conservatives had as demonstrated already. Hitler was not a socialist. period!!
It's beyond dispute. And i'll have you know i've debunked Beck line by line on this. I know all the Beckish arguments, and also the "pathetically predictable" ones brought up by his supporters and yep i am not impressed.
What made him Right wing was the elitist and Anti-socialist position that he took concerning the ownership of the means of production and the distribution of property and wealth in general. Ergo his political economy position. His elitist and Anti-socialist position on what form the gov't would take and who it and the economy would benefit and serve to be more clear. Nazi Germany had a Dirigisme capitalist economy with Private property, Private profits and even privitizations.
@theyounghistorian77 Hmm I wouldn't automatically say he was anti-socialist. Hitler spent tons of money on Keynesian public work programs, entitlements/welfare, etc. The Nazi's did allow profits, private property ownership, etc. However they did have central planning in the economy, such as you say, "His elitist and Anti-socialist position on what form the gov't would take and who it and the economy would benefit and serve to be more clear." I do recommend you watch Penn and Teller...j/k lol
Im not sure where you're getting your info from, Hitler did not spend a great deal on Welfare, he opposed the welfare state that first of all had been started by Bismarck, and then grew under the Weimar Republic. The Nazis ended up weakening the welfare state by adding a racial component to it, and he ended up even privatizing parts of it!
"Nazi Ideology did not in principle favour the idea of social welfare. In 'Mein Kampf', Hitler, writing about the time he had spent living amongst the poor and the destitute in Vienna before the First World War, had waxed indignant about the way in which social welfare encouraged the preservation of the degenerate and the feeble.
From a Social Darwinist point of view, charity and philanthropy were evils that had to be eliminated if the German race was to be strengthened and its weakest elements eliminated. the Nazi party frequently condemned the elaborate welfare system that had grown up under the Weimar Republic" - Evans, "The Third Reich in Power" p483-484.
"By devoting welfare to the voluntary sector, the regime was able to save tax-based income and use it for rearmament instead. Conscription, marriage loans and other schemes to take people out of the labour market led to further reductions in the burden of benefit payments... unemployment benefits had already been severely cut by governments and local authorities before the Nazis took power.
The new regime lost little time in cutting them even more sharply. ... Cutting back on welfare payments was only part of a wider strategy. Urging the German people to engage in self-help instead of relying on payments from the state carried with it the implication that those who could not help themselves were dispensable, indeed a positive threat to the future health of the German people." - ibid, p491
However such a policy and an ideology would not in and of itself win over the masses few who were desperately in need of help at the height of the depression
"Faced with ten million people in receipt of welfare assistance at the height of the Depression, however, it would have been political suicide for the Nazis to have written off the mass of the unemployed and destitute as not worth helping." - ibid, p484
So the few things they did such as the "strength through joy" programmes were politically driven -- politically necessary -- not ideologically driven. and in-fact most of the early policies, including 'work creation' projects were really the products of the Weimar republic. Hitler arrived at the time he did and so began the "Führer myth"
As to their central planning? well South Korea, was and still is built upon Gov't intervention; are we to somehow believe that South Korea is not capitalist? In Hong Kong the Gov't owns all the land and uses that to regulate and make the economy serve the needs of the state, is Hong Kong now no longer capitalist?
In-fact plenty of the so called "Tiger economies" in the east use Dirigisme capitalism. The difference between them and the Nazis is that their central planning was only geared to their ultimate purpose which was war. And Hitler was a "reluctant dirigiste" at that because again he only wanted to control the parts of the economy that were related to war. See Richard Overy, "War and Economy in the Third Reich", p2.
"While Hitler's attitude towards liberalism was one of contempt, towards Marxism he showed an implacable hostility Ignoring the profound differences between Communism and Social Democracy in practice and the bitter hostility between the rival working class parties, he saw in their common ideology the embodiment of all that he detested -
-mass democracy and a levelling egalitarianism as opposed to the authoritarian state and the rule of an elite; equality and friendship among peoples as opposed to racial inequality and the domination of the strong; class solidarity versus national unity; internationalism versus nationalism." - Sir Alan Bullock, "Adolf Hitler.", p228-9.
@theyounghistorian77 The collectivist and anti-individualistic character of German National Socialism is not much modified by the fact that it is not a proletarian but middle class socialism, and that it is, in consequence, inclined to favour the small artisan and shop keeper and to set the limit up to which it recognizes private property somewhat higher than does communism. -F.A. Hayek
LOL Hayek is just a Libertarian hack economist that works form the a priori position ignoring reality in favour of his preconceived notions. He believed that the Labour gov't in the UK would lead to totalitarianism and yet it was HE who supported and courted dictatorships like the murderous Pinochet regime that brought so much misery to Chile.
Hayek's 'Slope' has been proven to be a fantasy many times over by the mere existence of the many European states that embraced a large social sector after WWII and yet did not fall into 'serfdom' as he predicted.
"After The Road to Serfdom, I felt that I had so discredited myself professionally I didn't want to give offense again. I wanted to be accepted in the scientific community." He never was: "I can feel it to the present day [1979]. Economists very largely tend to treat me as an outsider, somebody who had discredited himself by writing a book like The Road to Serfdom...."
And he did discredit himself, the economics field recognized him as only a propagandist that he was.
Hayek began by saying, "This is a political book." That is what economists say when they want to disarm criticism, and to be judged by looser standards. Hayek then proceeded to merely write propaganda and not economics or political economy at all. His suppositions do not stand up, and his dire predictions about the advance of "serfdom" in socialist states was immediately recognized then, and now, as just foolish unsupported rhetoric
"As I write in 2007, Sweden and other Scandivanian places have somewhat lowered the fraction of GDP they use to devote through government. But still they are the most "socialistic" by Hayek's crude definition. Where are their horror camps? Have the vilest elements risen there to absolute power? When reports are compiled on "measurable unhappiness," do places like Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Norway best epitomize serfdoms? No. Of course not" - Paul A Samuelson on Hayek.
"In 1945, von Hayek's The Road to Serfdom was published. This poorly-written book was an attack on the concept of the nation-state. In it, von Hayek argued that the nation-state was a hindrance to peace, and socialism led to totalitarian systems, which treated their citizens as serfs. In place of the nation-state von Hayek proposed a supra-national authority or world federation consisting of the financial elite.
This elite would then be free to rule the world according to their own interest. In 1947, von Hayek created the Mount Pelerin Society, made up of the financial elite of Europe, as a first step toward his supranational authority.
In the years since, the Mount Perlin Society has been influential in creating numerous "conservative" think tanks, which promote free market economic policies for the Establishment. The society has expanded to include the following think tanks: the Heritage Foundation in 1973, the Fraser Institute in 1974, the Manhattan Institute in 1977, and the Pacific Institute for Public Policy Research in 1978.
There is a resurgent, widespread attempt by the far right to label fascism as a form of socialism. Fredrick von Hayek was the first to attempt labeling the Nazis as socialists in his book "The Road to Serfdom" published in 1944. The hard right quickly adopted it, as it allowed the hard right to escape the charges that they had much in common with the Nazis
Such endeavors are not only silly, but dishonest as well and represent an attempt by the far right to distance themselves for their earlier support of Hitler. Hayek's book is based on two erroneous assumptions from the very beginning.
He first assumes that fascism and communism are one and the same, as they are both totalitarian systems. This makes about as much sense as calling a maple tree a pine tree--because both are trees. His second erroneous assumption lays in his belief that only socialism or liberalism leads to totalitarian systems. In fact, all political systems can lead to totalitarian systems and all political systems are inherently unstable, as is any system.
From there, Hayek takes severe liberties with history. For instance, he goes on to claim that by deliberate policy the United States allowed the growth of cartels and syndicates after 1878. Indeed this date and time period is significant, but not for a move towards socialism or liberalism. Rather, it's the opposite--
a move towards fascism and corporate rule. Even a reader with a rudimentary knowledge of American history would recognize this time frame as the beginning of the robber baron era and laissez faire economics, precisely the type of economic policy Hayek holds in utmost esteem.
Hayek offers little proof to support his conclusions; in fact the book is devoid of any proof or even examples to support his findings. The book degenerates into an argument based upon unsubstantiated assertion. [typical a priori libertarian philosophy]
He argues against the nation-state and proposes a supernational authority or world federation made up of the financial elite. In essence, Hayek proposes a world made up of sovereign corporations accountable to no one. Not only did Hayek take severe liberties with American history, he ignored the very nature of fascism in Germany and Italy.
In various speeches made shortly after the March on Rome, Mussolini stated, "We must take from state authority those functions for which it is incompetent and which it performs badly... I believe the state should renounce its economic functions, especially those carried out through monopolies, because the state is incompetent in such matters... We must put an end to state railways, state postal service and state insurance."
The state returned large monopolies to the private sector after returning them to profitability such as the Consortium of Match Manufactures, privatized the insurance system in 1923, the telephone system in 1925, and many of the public works.
In Germany the Nazis announced they would end nationalization of private industries when they seized power. In 1932, Hitler returned control of the Gelsenkirhen company to private hands and in 1936 returned the stock of "United Steel" to private hands. Throughout 1933-1936, the Nazi returned to private hands the control of several banks: Dresdner, Danat, Commerz and Privatbank, the Deutsche Bank, and several others.
In 1936, the steamship company Deutcher Schiff and Maschinenbau was returned to the private sector. In 1934, Dr. Schacht, the Nazi Minister of Economy, gave instructions to hasten the privatization of municipal enterprises. These enterprises were especially coveted by the rich industrialists, as they had been prosperous even during the depression.
Both in fascist Italy and Nazi Germany, the tax system was changed to one favoring business and the wealthy. The Nazis allowed industries to deduct from their taxable income all sums used to purchase new equipment. Rich families employing a maid were allowed to count the maid as a dependent child and reap the tax benefit. In Italy, the Minister of Finance stated: "We have broken with the practice of persecuting capital."
Such programs, catering to big business and the rich elite, are more akin to the policies of the Reagan Administration--than it is to any liberal administration including FDR's. Likewise, it was the rich industrialists that were behind the fascist movement in the United States during the 1930s. Thus, it is no surprise that the right-wing attempts to try and label fascism as "socialism"--in trying to distance themselves from their previous support of fascism.
@theyounghistorian77 Thanks for admitting the 30's fascism but Most businessmen are opportunists. When a business or corporation doesn't want to compete fairly in an open market they get into bed with the federal govt to keep and maintain their monopoly. They shut out competition from other corporations and small businesses. Anyway, where's your evidence of "Reagan catered to big business" FDR, Wilson and even Obama are surrounded by liberal corporatists. Obama has Google, GE even Facebook!
@171view The libertarian fantasy is very simple... As a matter of political theory, it says we reverse the process John Locke described in The Second Treatise on Government: we dissolve Civil Society and return to the State of Nature which the libertarians imagine will be a benign wonderfully free place without any obligation to and coercion by sovereign political community
@171view Please get your political terms straight! 'Communism' means 'Everyone wearing glasses gets their heads staved in with rifle butts,' while 'Socialism' means 'Drinks and smokes on the middle class!'
How noble libertarianism, in its majestic equality, that both rich and poor are equally prohibited from peeing in the privately owned streets (without paying), sleeping under the privately owned bridges (without paying), and coercing bread from its rightful owners!
"Far from advocating a "minimal state", we find it unquestionable that in an advanced society government ought to use its power of raising funds by taxation to provide a number of services which for various reasons cannot be provided or cannot be provided adequately by the market.
Hayek, "Law, Legislation, and Liberty" 1982.As shown here Hayek was a Statist-Obamaite!!
@zsylvana There can be no question that adequate security against severe privation will have to be one of our main goals of policy. But nothing is more fatal than the present fashion of intellectual leaders of extolling security at the expense of freedom. It is essential that we should relearn frankly to face the fact that freedom can be had only at a price and that as individuals we must be prepared to make severe material sacrifices to preserve it.- F.A. Hayek
@171view Libertarianism as an impartial ideal of maximum freedom and justice seems to be a kind of fantasy.We are born into a world in which property is neither evenly distributed nor freely available.This situation came about through history,in which piracy,imperialism,genocide, slavery,etc.have all had an important part.No individual is free just to live their own life,since there is no free land to farm.A government that adopts a completely laissez faire sides with the pirates,slave-owners
@171view "Individual liberty" is the biggest hook that the libertarians have, but it is a terribly one-dimensional measure for civil society. Even worse is the monotonicity of such measurements: the drive to absolutism. No political philosophy is worth considering unless it is BALANCING competing values both of individuals and between individiuals.
"Libertarianism has also been defined with some plausibility as the form taken by liberalism as common sense asymptotically approaches zero." Dr Albert Pangloss,1987,Eisner-verlag,Berlin
@171view "I believe in the Free Market Fairy And the Tort Sprite too. They'll keep our power cheap and our air and water clean. All you have to do is close your eyes and tap your money clip three times."
Humberto Fontova is also a known liar, embittered because his terrorist family were "mistreated"(spending two months in jail for supporting a regime that murdered 20 000 in seven years). His King Lear style rants about Che Guevera are most amusing, especially when it is known, thank to Jon Lee Anderson's extensive research that Che only executed those who had committed crimes such as rape and murder.
@MrReco12 According to the Cuba Archive Project, headed by scholars Maria Werlau and Dr. Armando Lago, the Castro regime – with firing squads, forced-labor camps and drownings at sea – has caused an estimated 102,000 Cuban deaths
Bullshit, the US and CIA have been funding propaganda about Cuba since the revolution and that's all that is, and it also funded the many terrorists organization that operate from Florida against Cuba.
@zsylvana We must regain the conviction on which liberty in the Anglo-Saxon countries has been based and which Benjamin Franklin expressed in a phrase applicable to us as individuals no less than as nations: "Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." -F.A. Hayek
@171view Oh, for an honest Libertarian who would say "Yes, in Libertopia we'd have rampant quackery, organ-seizure, baby-selling, slavery in all but name - BUT THAT'S FREEDOM!
Reagan attempted to lower the minimum wage and relax child worker laws so corporations could make higher profits. The corporate merger movement, was given the green light by Reagan, and moved from rabid to frenzied. Nine of the ten largest mergers in U.S. history until that time occurred under the permissive reign of Reagan. Reagan started the attacks on Unions and social programs to the pleasure of corporations.
@Rundstedt1 Really? Again, where's your evidence? Corporations merge all the time during every presidential administration. If they merge with the government into quasi owned entities then that's corporatism. Recently The Huffington Post merged with AOL for $315 Million. So using your logic Obama is responsible for that.
Reagan is a criminal who was negotiating with the Iranians before he was elected president, promising them weapons if they kept the hostages until after the campaign. Do you really think it was a coincidence that the hostages were released RIGHT after he was elected? That the shipment of weapons started shortly afterward? He fought an illegal and secret war against a small and harmless country, while supporting cruel military dictatorships.
And he instituted the largest tax increase in history on the working and middle class while giving a windfall tax break to the rich. His policies started the outsourcing and the destruction of manufacturing and labor in this country. The financial crisis that we have today has its original roots in the Reagan era. Ever since then the gap between the rich and poor has been dramatically growing and the average person is worse off today than they were 30yrs ago.
"But Ronald Reagan does hold a special place in the annals of tax policy, and not just as the patron saint of tax cuts. To his credit, he was more pragmatic and responsible than that; he followed his huge 1981 tax cut with two large tax increases. In fact, no peacetime president has raised taxes so much on so many people."
"For many middle- and low-income families, this tax increase more than undid any gains from Mr. Reagan's income tax cuts. In 1980, according to Congressional Budget Office estimates, middle-income families with children paid 8.2 percent of their income in income taxes, and 9.5 percent in payroll taxes. By 1988 the income tax share was down to 6.6 percent -- but the payroll tax share was up to 11.8 percent, and the combined burden was up, not down."
"Reagan's economic legacy endures. Government continues to turn its back on social spending for the poor in favor of ineffectual tax giveaways for the rich, at same time that it finds unlimited monies for military adventures. Lopsided economic growth showers benefits on stock investors while doing precious little for workers or-not an entirely separate group-the poor. -
The mergers, even those today, are a direct result of policies first out in place under Reagan. And the 'too big to fail' banks are a direct result of Reagan's trickle-down (aka, piss on the workers) 'free-market' garbage and his appointment of the Libertarian Greenspan to ever see the FED. The roots of the present crisis can be traced directly back to policies that Reagan first started using.
@Rundstedt1 Actually the bull shit with the banks was due to the removal of the glass-steagall act. The Community Reinvestment act under Carter, kept going under Clinton, Both Bushes,etc. Your hero Barney Frank said everything was solvent with Fannie and Freddie as late as 2005. Turns out he fucking lied.
If you are trying to blame the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) you are totally wrong. first of all the CRA loans had a comparable rate of default to any other properly instituted mortgage. To qualify for a CRA loan the client had to meet requirements designed to show that they could meet its obligations. The sub-prime loans were NOT part of the CRA program but were put into being by the private sector well before Freddie and Fannie even got into the game.
"Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two private companies that had started as government agencies, have been the particular subject of vilification. As has been the government program called the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA), which encourages banks to lend to underserved communities.
Had it not been for these efforts as lending to the poor, so the argument goes, all would have been well. This litany of defenses is, for the most part, sheer nonsense. AIG's almost $200 billion bailout (that's a big amount by any account) was based on derivatives (credit default swaps) - banks gambling with other banks. The banks didn't need any push for egalitarian housing to engage in excessive risk taking.
Nor did the massive overinvestment in commercial real estate have anything to do with government homeownership policy. Nor did the repeated instances of bad lending around the world from which the banks have had to be repeatedly rescued. Moreover, default rates on the CRA lending were actually comparable to other areas of lending - showing that such lending, if done well, does not pose greater risks. (CRA loans actually had a lower default rate than other mortgages)
The most telling point though is that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac's mandate was for "conforming loans," loans to the middle class. The banks jumped into subprime mortgages -- an area where, at the time, Freddie Mac and Fanny Mae were not making loans -- Without any incentives from the government. ... Later on, years after the private sector had invented the toxic mortgages, the PRIVATIZED and UNDER-REGULATED Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac decided that they too should enjoy the fun.
Their executives thought, Why couldn't they enjoy bonuses akin to others in the industry? Ironically, in doing so, they helped save the private sector from some of its own folly: Had they not bought them, the problems in the private sector would have been far worse, though by buying so many securities, they may have also helped fuel the bubble. Joseph E. Stiglitz, "Freefall" p10-11
"CRA has been in existence since 1977; plus, it only applies to depository institutions (regular banks). Meanwhile, we had a subprime bubble that mostly took place after 2002, with most of the loans made by institutions that weren't subject to the CRA. That's why everyone who's looked at this honestly says that the Community Reinvestment Act had nothing to do with the crisis." -
"The attempt to blame it all on the CRA is just an attempt at blame-shifting -- an attempt to make liberals and nonwhite people the villains of a story that is actually about runaway financial institutions and the free-market ideologues who refused to regulate them." Paul Krugman, "Washington Post"
It was the unregulated private mortgage companies that issued the toxic loans, NOT Freddie and Fannie. Companies like HSBC and GMAC. Freddie and Fannie only fell prey to the mortgage securities market, which was de-regulated, and those mortgage agencies. You maliciously try to blame the victims; the people that were taken advantage of, and there are a plethora of examples where the loan 'officers' took advantage of people.
@Rundstedt1 But this new era of strict enforcement came about in response to conditions that no longer existed. The bank deregulation of the 1980s—initiated not by Republicans, but by the Carter administration’s federal Depository Institutions Deregulation and Monetary Control Act—paved the way for sharp competition among mortgage lenders. -Howard Husock
@Rundstedt1 From the current hand-wringing, you'd think that the banks came up with the idea of looser underwriting standards on their own, with regulators just asleep on the job. In fact, it was the regulators who relaxed these standards - at the behest of community groups and "progressive" political forces. -Stan Liebowitz
Yes they did, the 'lair loans' were the Banks inventions, and the Sub Primes were the private bank's invention. Again the CRA loans had the same or even lower default rate than even 'regualat' mortgages.
@Rundstedt1 In fact, minority mortgage applications were rejected more frequently than other applications - but the overwhelming reason wasn't racial discrimination, but simply that minorities tend to have weaker finances.Yet a "landmark" 1992 study from the Boston Fed concluded that mortgage-lending discrimination was systemic. That study was tremendously flawed- a colleague and I later found that it contained thousands of egregious typos such as loans with negative interest rates. Stan L
According to testimony, Wells Fargo is alleged to have used a proprietary software package called “Loan Economics” to reward non-minority mortgage-seekers for being non-minorities by offering them lower interest rates. Minority borrowers didn’t fare as well, primarily because, as attorney-for-the-plaintiffs Barry Cappello suggested, minority borrowers were less likely to shop around for lower rates. - Accounts Recievable Management (dot) com
You just show that you are a troll and can only repeat the easily debunked garbage that your corporate run 'think tanks' spew. NO responsible source blames Freddie or Fannie for the Mortgage scams. The toxic mortgages were issued by other totally private mortgage companies as I said, NOT Freddie and Fannie, and the CRA program had a lower default rate than even standard mortgages.
@Rundstedt1 Until the Clinton years, CRA compliance wasn’t a difficult matter for banks, which could get an A for effort simply by advertising loan availability in certain newspapers. Then the Clinton Treasury Department changed matters in 1995, requiring banks that wanted “outstanding” CRA ratings to demonstrate statistically that they were lending in poor neighborhoods and to lower-income households. -Howard Husock
@Rundstedt1 “The CRA may not be needed in today’s financial environment to ensure all segments of our economy enjoy access to credit,” argued a 1999 Dallas Federal Reserve Bank paper called “Redlining or Red Herring?” -Howard Husock
Really? The banks had to be sued recently, and using the CRA laws to do it, because of their discriminatory lending practices. Husock just proves he is a think tank hack by ignoring reality and writing crap.
@Rundstedt1 In the 1980s, groups such as the activists at ACORN began pushing charges of "redlining" - claims that banks discriminated against minorities in mortgage lending. In 1989, sympathetic members of Congress got the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act amended to force banks to collect racial data on mortgage applicants; this allowed various studies to be ginned up that seemed to validate the original accusation. -Stan Liebowitz
...there are two Hayeks. One, the modest and imaginative social theorist... The other Hayek is Hayek the libertarian; Hayek the paranoid and splenetic reactionary; the Hayek who fulminates against his pet hates -- 'the counter culture', 'permissive education', 'dropouts', 'parasites' and so on -- like any dyspeptic ten-a-penny rednecked blimp. This Hayek is unconnected with the former, and should be ignored.
Alan Haworth, in "Anti-Libertarianism: Markets, Philosophy and Myth".
"In its twilight days, the Reagan administration was determined to further fertilize the seeds of deregulation and Greenspan’s Ayn Rand-inspired “objectivist,” free-market philosophies would be the perfect embodiment of the deregulatory movement."
“How Deregulation Eviscerated the Banking Sector Safety Net and Spawned the U.S. Financial Crisis” By Shah Gilani - The Money Map Report
"Once installed at the Fed, Greenspan immediately began pushing Congress to repeal the Depression-era law that prevented banks from competing with investment banks in underwriting stocks and bonds. When Congress dallied, he used the Fed's supervisory authority to allow banks to circumvent the law and usher in the era of the megabank."
"The Laissez-Fairest of Them All", by Steven Pearlstein, Washington Post
Corporate taxes went from 46 percent to 34 percent as part of the 1986 reforms and despite closing some loopholes the overall effective corporate tax rate for large corporations would still go down as the corporations learned their way around the new system so that now many corporation pay little or no corporate taxes at all. And this is just a few things, we could also look at his environmental policies or rather lack of them.
@Rundstedt1 Where's your evidence? "Reagan Cut tax rates to restore incentives for economic growth, which was implemented first with a reduction in the top income tax rate of 70% down to 50%, and then a 25% across-the-board reduction in income tax rates for everyone. The 1986 tax reform then reduced tax rates further, leaving just two rates, 28% and 15%." -Peter Ferrera
Firstly, Victor Farias(i assume you are using his rubbish when are are accusing Allende of beign an anti Semite) has been recently charged with slander and defamation.
Secondly, Allende was a Jew and had a number of Jewish ministers. Indeed, Simon Wiesenthal claims that he was one of the few Chilean politicians that actually tried to bring Walter Raulff(wafeen SS officer) to justice.
People need a strong government to protect them from themselves. Humanity is ignorant, selfish, and discusting. And government is the only way too crush the spirit of these primitive apes that stain our streets today! I am a complete Communist, and it is a shame that Socialism has been infected with the disease of Liberalism and turned into a shell of it's former self. But humanity will pay for it's crimes in time.:)
MrCitizenXII 4 days ago
"Almost anything you can find on a checklist that allegedly proves Hitler was a right-winger, you can find almost any one of them in the communist dictators of the 20th century."
Well, no shit, they were dictators, they were authoritarian. To claim Hitler was left-wing is laughable. Or wait, let me guess, they think the "socialist" label that the USSR and Nazis held was accurate, just like North Korea's "democratic republic" label is accurate...
hawaiigopher 4 months ago
@hawaiigopher Read the NSDAP platform: it was, indeed, socialist. Period.
SniperMaske 2 months ago
@SniperMaske So they let the workers run the businesses democratically? They promoted the rights of laborers? Because, as far as I'm concerned, that's the central idea behind socialism. Not this "stronger government" BS definition that's been trotted out by the media.
hawaiigopher 2 months ago
@hawaiigopher Communism would imply a common ownership of the means of production. Communists however admit a need for a period of dictatorship exists. There is no way to regulate civil society without absolute authority in the state and what socialism leads to is inevitably a decrease in workers rights. The state is the boss and the unions are state unions. The workers lose the right to a private union to bargain with management as the state is managemet and the union is run by the state.
Seaworldexists 4 weeks ago
@Seaworldexists
Democratic socialists and their trade union allies have increased workers rights: 8 hour day, workplace safety regulation, minimum wage etc.
i think you are a supporter of Hayek?
Hayek believed that Atlee's social democratic government would lead to "Totalitarianism" but supported Augusto Pinochet's dictatorship(which overthrew a democratically elected government).
MrReco12 4 weeks ago
@MrReco12 I support a market driven economy with workers rights and an extensive safety net and welfare state. Unions were a great way to combat the excesses of capitalism and the real tragedy of the soviet economy was the way they got rid of organic unions in favour of state unions where workers had no real bargaining power since the boss was the state.
Seaworldexists 4 weeks ago
@MrReco12 Hayek wrote specifically about economic planning whereby the good of the state intrudes on the free functioning of the civil society. This will inevitably lead to tyranny as it requires terror and also a hierchical system of government.Social democracy is not the road to serfdom as the government merely blunts the excesses of the market.
Seaworldexists 4 weeks ago
@MrReco12 Nazism and communism were both versions of historicism an almost religious belief system. They both believed history would inevitably end in their favour despite having different means and ends in mind. The mythology of historicism is what led to tyranny as any threat to this end had to be stamped out.
Seaworldexists 4 weeks ago
@hawaiigopher You have to allow things to develop organically, Unions are a solution to the excesses of capitalism a global revolution is not.
Seaworldexists 4 weeks ago
@SniperMaske
The Nazis privatized the economy and supported big business. The member(gregor Strasser) who wanted to nationalize the economy was shot in 1934.
MrReco12 1 month ago
@MrReco12 To suggest the nazis privatized the economy is highly deceptive. The weimar republic policies were actually very similar to those of the US in the 1920s and the Nazis employed a massive infusion of government cash to end the depression. Both nazism and socialism aimed at moving every part of society towards one goal under the guidance of the state. The civil society, family and indivdiual were all subordinate to the good of the state.
Seaworldexists 4 weeks ago
@Seaworldexists
The Nazis did privatize large sectors of the economy: banking, local public utilities, shipyards, ship-lines, railways, et
I was correct.
In Nazi Germany the means of production were privately owned.
MrReco12 4 weeks ago
@MrReco12 Yes they were privately owned but they were directed heavily towards armaments production. I said nazism and marxism had the same end with different means. The nazis directed the economy toward wars of conquest whereas the communists towards the so called protection of the proletariat and global revolution. I simply said it was deceptive to say the nazi privatized things as weimar was at least as market based. The nazis didnt belong to the austrian school is what im saying.
Seaworldexists 4 weeks ago
@SniperMaske Socialism and Nazism had similar ends but their means were very different. They both were based on a mythological historicism on the one hand the triumph of the aryan race against the jew and the other the triumph of the working class. The primary difference between the early post war nationalist movements in germany and the socialist was militarism and antipathy towards internalionalism. If the economy was going to be regulated it was for the glory of the state not some class ideal
Seaworldexists 4 weeks ago
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"Fascist regimes functioned like an epoxy: an amalgam of two very different agents, fascist dynamism and conservative order, bonded by shared enmity toward liberalism and the Left, and a shared willingness to stop at nothing to destroy their common enemies." Robert O. Paxton. "The Anatomy of Fascism", p147
"Hitler was never a socialist." - Ian Kershaw, "Hitler (abridged)", p269.
theyounghistorian77 5 months ago
@ignbtd
Unions favor workplace regulations, Socialism, anti employer etc
MrReco12 6 months ago
@ignbtd
Unions are capitalist?
Totally wrong.
MrReco12 6 months ago
@ignbtd Unions are not capitalist, they want more and equal share of the wealth. That=socialism, and cutting loop holes means more and higher taxes on the rich, and that means a more equal distribution of wealth, and again that equals socialism
whedonfreak976 6 months ago
@ignbtd Wrong, they closed loop holes on taxes for the rich, and a more balanced pay, noly a 18% pay gap between the top and lower bracket. The bought back some unions, and regulated the banks again. Gee sounds like socialism to me. So believe me, the word of the Swedish government i will take over yours. No offense
whedonfreak976 6 months ago
@ignbtd Nope, i am talking about now. Sweden's economy was the model back in the 80's they went into a slump by switching to capitalism, and in the last 2 years they have went back to socialism, so 2008 means nothing because their economy was still in the slump, now they are on the rise again.
whedonfreak976 6 months ago
@ignbtd Uh sorry buy norway does distribute the wealth very well, there is only a 35% pay gap between the rich and poor, and it is shrinking every year, and no, again, sweden, is a socialist country so is germany, so when used right, there is no better economic philosophy than socialism. It has been proven time and time again.
whedonfreak976 6 months ago
@ignbtd Sounds like somebody is using a secret identity and can't debate the realization the Nazi's were today's Democrats and some Progressive Republicans...;)
171view 6 months ago
@ignbtd I am sorry, what did you just say? A wealthy lower class? No such beast, and when you have 50+ million starving including 17 million children, that is not a wealthy poor, Norway, which uses socialism, now they have hardly no poor, why? Why hells bells the equally redistribute the wealth. What a big shocker.
whedonfreak976 6 months ago
@ignbtd Yes i agree with you Friedman was more of an TV personality than economist.
zsylvana 6 months ago
@ignbtd
43.6 million live in poverty in the US, the wealthiest country in the world with a reasonable sizes population!
MrReco12 6 months ago
@ignbtd I don´t accuse you for be anything,but it is a wellknown fact that Monetetarism was a failure and was abondon by conservatives in England and in milder versions of it in US and Chile round 1982.It was not possible
control the money supply at steady level at 3-4% a year as Friedman supposed.Monetarsism was Friedman big achivement in economy and it today not considered anything more than failure even by libertarian and conservative economist.
zsylvana 6 months ago
@ignbtd No,but i could put in some qoutes if you will,as Nobel awarded professor Paul Krugman at Princeton writes: "I think it is fair to say that up until the late 1960s Friedman and his followers, while influential, were regarded by many of their colleagues as faintly disreputable." Professor Edward Herman writes: "Friedman's methodology in attempting to prove his models have set a new standard in opportunism, manipulation,and the abuse of scientific method." Monetarism failed it´s wellknown
zsylvana 6 months ago
@ignbtd According to monetarist theory,British economy should have enjoyed low inflation and high stability.But,it went berserk.Economy sank into a deep recession,while economic indicators zigged&zagged Although inflation came down, this was at the price of rising unemployment,which soared from 5.4to11.8 percent.Between 1979 and 1984,manufacturing output fell 10 percent, and manufacturing investment fell 30 percent,production recovered to 2.8 percent growth,but high unemployment was permanent
zsylvana 6 months ago
Preferred and favored pretty much the same thing. O K?
whedonfreak976 6 months ago
@ignbtd That is picking straws and oh only 17 years of a murdering mad man oh wow, i bet the chilie people where just fine, no, just like today chilie's economy is in turmoil just like ours.
whedonfreak976 6 months ago
@ignbtd To hell it does not, just look at the USA now we have a 500% pay gap between the top and bottom, what has that lead to? Record profits for the rich, and a pay drop for the lower class.
whedonfreak976 6 months ago
@ignbtd But the fact is friedman's crap did not end Pinochet's reign, he was the leader of Chilie for over 25+ Years just like in China, they are still having a repressive society There was no freedom lead on by this shock doctrine crap, for so called free market. And again that is just straw manning what i said about Hayek, sorry but when you look up the word dictator in the dictionary, it has a meaning.
whedonfreak976 6 months ago
@whedonfreak976 Friedmans Monetarism reached the peak of its popularity during the 1970s.In the 80s,however,it suffered a sudden reversal of fortune,and today economists generally agree that "monetarism is dead." Friedman stands virtually alone now among top economists in his belief that it contains any merit.Monetarism was tried in Great Britain during the 80s, under Margaret Thatcher, and it proved to be a disaster. For almost seven years,Bank of England tried its best to make it work
zsylvana 6 months ago
@ignbtd I don´t think you should take von Mises to serouis at all since he contradict him self even in his work.In most he preach a total freemarket and his praxeology but you could see parts of his work there he advocate goverment intervention in Human Action,and elsewhere,in his more pragmatic work advocate incase Mexico stateownership and planning,et al.With no doubt a intelligent man,but with no doubt a excentric.
Incase of Friedman it´s Friedman himself that tell about in Time Magazine
zsylvana 6 months ago
@ignbtd Yes i do know what a straw man is, and i am afraid you did it on me. And wrong, how can you say chilie was more democratic under Pinochet? The man was a murdering dictator, and it did not lead to more democracy in chilie, just more wealth disparity, the rich got richer and the poor got poorer. And again he preferred that means even in a short run Hayek was for a dictatorship.
whedonfreak976 6 months ago
@ignbtd
Mises said Hitler was a socialist, He also said Milton Friedman was a socialist. You don;t think that's deluded?
MrReco12 6 months ago
@ignbtd
I agree with you.
MrReco12 6 months ago
@ignbtd Yes, but friedman said to do what was necessary to keep the private market intact, and they did, and oh forgive me, he preferred a liberal dictatorship, in other words this was a straw man response.
whedonfreak976 6 months ago
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@falaxy1000 Good job! ;)
171view 6 months ago
@falaxy1000 Also let's not forget that it was Vonmises who stated after Germany in WW2 that he thought fascism was not a bad idea, and could be used for good. According to his book liberalism 1927. No free market and libertuds=slavery
whedonfreak976 6 months ago
@falaxy1000 Oh god not you again, this is the same shit you spouted on my page. Hey you liberturds are so much for freedom, that Hayek, said he was for a liberal dictatorship like Agusto Pinochet. Friedman helped out Cina, and Chilie, and Argentina when they had their Junta back in the late 70's. Also Bolivia in the early 80's and Poland in the 90's But the big one is Pinchet who always wins the Nolan Chary websiites King of the free market. The man who killed 3,500 and tortured 27,000
whedonfreak976 6 months ago
@whedonfreak976 The guy is a pain.A deluted fool.I recommend,him,since i think he avoid reading, go to brendanmcooney channel and watch his about 40-50 videos on Marx.He can also try to post like he did here
i think he get some hard time the dude!lol!
zsylvana 6 months ago
@falaxy1000
Nazis and conservatives are barley distinguishable. Both are anti communist, murderous and prop capitalist! XD
MrReco12 6 months ago
@Barry62152
All you have are silly rants and ad homs against anything you call 'liberal'
And in that we thank you for showing what a low quality intellect it takes to spout that junk.
As TYH has said, go read a book, I'll suggest Richard Evans trilogy on the Third Reich and "Blackshirts and Reds" by Parenti, although both are probably above your reading level; Evans work being quite long, and neither of them having nice colored drawings with the words in balloon captions like you're used to
Rundstedt1 7 months ago
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Rundstedt1 7 months ago
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Rundstedt1 7 months ago
Then you don't know who the fuck Penn jellette and his partner, teller are, you are a stupid fucktard, not a historian, i've done my own fuckin research, and my research says differently. You're still a dumbass MOTHERFUCKER, FUCK ALL YOU FUCKING ASSHOLE LIBERALS, I HOPE YOU ALL FUCKING DIE ON THE STREETS SINCE YOU LOVE SOCIALIST SO GODDAMN MUCH, JESUS MOLESTED IN A MANGER, YOU ARE AS FUCKED UP AS CHE FUCKING GUEVARA. FUCK YOU.
Barry62152 7 months ago
@Barry62152
Penn and Teller are a pair of magicians, they are NOT historians and they are NO experts on Hitler, hence they are a poor source. And haha you've done research? Yea right, all your "research" consists of is getting shit off the internet. You've never been to Germany, you've never been to an archive, infact as is evident you've never even read a scholarly work on Hitler or the Nazi regime. You are a pathetic amateur and you keep proving that.
theyounghistorian77 7 months ago
Socialism turns into facism, you and your fucktard liberal friends are so fucking stupid and you hate this country, its founding fathers, and hate their system called capitalism, and push for gun control so the criminals will have guns and kill innocents, and think your superior to the people that work at Wal-Mart, who work their asses off to feed their families, FUCK ALL YOU FUCKING LIBERAL COMMUNIST TRAITORS TO THE FUCKING NECK.
Barry62152 7 months ago
Are you fucking retarded? Penn and Teller have a tv show that is a comedy/documentary show and they had Christopher Hitchens on their show before. Thomas Jefferson said that the electorate must be well educated at every election. Sorry but Hitler was left wing.
Barry62152 7 months ago
@Barry62152 "Thomas Jefferson said that the electorate must be well educated at every election."
So maybe you should take his advice and get educated. Academia has deemed Fascism as an ideology of the right. Brain dead right wing neophytes can cry about it all day, but it's true.
DaHonestAbe 7 months ago
@Barry62152
Than you have no idea what an in-depth documentary into the Nazi regime looks like, here go watch "The Nazis: A warning from history", or "The world at war" or even better just go pick up a book on Nazi-germany for the first time in your life and go educate yourself.
theyounghistorian77 7 months ago
Theyoung historian77, i recommend you to watch Penn and Teller:Bullshit on the world peace episode, you'll see why capitalism works, and why socialism doesn't, and why Hitler was a socialist. Or should i call you theyoungignoranthack77?
Barry62152 7 months ago
@Barry
Haha Your Bullshit program is NOT an in depth study of the Nazi regime, and is therfore a poor source. And on it's SINGLE LINE on Hitler, well where's the evidence they provided? NONE! so as Christopher Hitchens says "what can be asserted without evidence, can also be dismissed without evidence". No sorry Hitler was right wing. ALL acedemia are agreed on that, plus his ideas overlapped with those the German conservatives had as demonstrated already. Hitler was not a socialist. period!!
theyounghistorian77 7 months ago
@theyounghistorian77 You sure about Hitler being Right-Wing?
171view 6 months ago
@171view
It's beyond dispute. And i'll have you know i've debunked Beck line by line on this. I know all the Beckish arguments, and also the "pathetically predictable" ones brought up by his supporters and yep i am not impressed.
theyounghistorian77 6 months ago
@theyounghistorian77 If you don't mind...what makes him right-wing? Economics? Religion? Nationalism?
171view 6 months ago
@171view
What made him Right wing was the elitist and Anti-socialist position that he took concerning the ownership of the means of production and the distribution of property and wealth in general. Ergo his political economy position. His elitist and Anti-socialist position on what form the gov't would take and who it and the economy would benefit and serve to be more clear. Nazi Germany had a Dirigisme capitalist economy with Private property, Private profits and even privitizations.
theyounghistorian77 6 months ago
@theyounghistorian77 Hmm I wouldn't automatically say he was anti-socialist. Hitler spent tons of money on Keynesian public work programs, entitlements/welfare, etc. The Nazi's did allow profits, private property ownership, etc. However they did have central planning in the economy, such as you say, "His elitist and Anti-socialist position on what form the gov't would take and who it and the economy would benefit and serve to be more clear." I do recommend you watch Penn and Teller...j/k lol
171view 6 months ago
@171view (1)
Im not sure where you're getting your info from, Hitler did not spend a great deal on Welfare, he opposed the welfare state that first of all had been started by Bismarck, and then grew under the Weimar Republic. The Nazis ended up weakening the welfare state by adding a racial component to it, and he ended up even privatizing parts of it!
theyounghistorian77 6 months ago
@171view (2)
"Nazi Ideology did not in principle favour the idea of social welfare. In 'Mein Kampf', Hitler, writing about the time he had spent living amongst the poor and the destitute in Vienna before the First World War, had waxed indignant about the way in which social welfare encouraged the preservation of the degenerate and the feeble.
theyounghistorian77 6 months ago
@171view (3)
From a Social Darwinist point of view, charity and philanthropy were evils that had to be eliminated if the German race was to be strengthened and its weakest elements eliminated. the Nazi party frequently condemned the elaborate welfare system that had grown up under the Weimar Republic" - Evans, "The Third Reich in Power" p483-484.
theyounghistorian77 6 months ago
@171view (4)
"By devoting welfare to the voluntary sector, the regime was able to save tax-based income and use it for rearmament instead. Conscription, marriage loans and other schemes to take people out of the labour market led to further reductions in the burden of benefit payments... unemployment benefits had already been severely cut by governments and local authorities before the Nazis took power.
theyounghistorian77 6 months ago
@171view (5)
The new regime lost little time in cutting them even more sharply. ... Cutting back on welfare payments was only part of a wider strategy. Urging the German people to engage in self-help instead of relying on payments from the state carried with it the implication that those who could not help themselves were dispensable, indeed a positive threat to the future health of the German people." - ibid, p491
theyounghistorian77 6 months ago
@171view (6)
However such a policy and an ideology would not in and of itself win over the masses few who were desperately in need of help at the height of the depression
"Faced with ten million people in receipt of welfare assistance at the height of the Depression, however, it would have been political suicide for the Nazis to have written off the mass of the unemployed and destitute as not worth helping." - ibid, p484
theyounghistorian77 6 months ago
@171view (7)
So the few things they did such as the "strength through joy" programmes were politically driven -- politically necessary -- not ideologically driven. and in-fact most of the early policies, including 'work creation' projects were really the products of the Weimar republic. Hitler arrived at the time he did and so began the "Führer myth"
theyounghistorian77 6 months ago
@171view (8)
As to their central planning? well South Korea, was and still is built upon Gov't intervention; are we to somehow believe that South Korea is not capitalist? In Hong Kong the Gov't owns all the land and uses that to regulate and make the economy serve the needs of the state, is Hong Kong now no longer capitalist?
theyounghistorian77 6 months ago
@171view (9)
In-fact plenty of the so called "Tiger economies" in the east use Dirigisme capitalism. The difference between them and the Nazis is that their central planning was only geared to their ultimate purpose which was war. And Hitler was a "reluctant dirigiste" at that because again he only wanted to control the parts of the economy that were related to war. See Richard Overy, "War and Economy in the Third Reich", p2.
theyounghistorian77 6 months ago
@171view (10)
"While Hitler's attitude towards liberalism was one of contempt, towards Marxism he showed an implacable hostility Ignoring the profound differences between Communism and Social Democracy in practice and the bitter hostility between the rival working class parties, he saw in their common ideology the embodiment of all that he detested -
theyounghistorian77 6 months ago
@171view (11)
-mass democracy and a levelling egalitarianism as opposed to the authoritarian state and the rule of an elite; equality and friendship among peoples as opposed to racial inequality and the domination of the strong; class solidarity versus national unity; internationalism versus nationalism." - Sir Alan Bullock, "Adolf Hitler.", p228-9.
theyounghistorian77 6 months ago
@171view (12)
"Hitler had never been a socialist: he was indifferent to economic questions" - Bullock, ibid p281.
-
"Hitler was never a socialist." - Ian Kershaw, "Hitler (abridged)", p269.
-
And that is the acedemic view!
theyounghistorian77 6 months ago
@theyounghistorian77 The collectivist and anti-individualistic character of German National Socialism is not much modified by the fact that it is not a proletarian but middle class socialism, and that it is, in consequence, inclined to favour the small artisan and shop keeper and to set the limit up to which it recognizes private property somewhat higher than does communism. -F.A. Hayek
171view 6 months ago
@171view (1)
LOL Hayek is just a Libertarian hack economist that works form the a priori position ignoring reality in favour of his preconceived notions. He believed that the Labour gov't in the UK would lead to totalitarianism and yet it was HE who supported and courted dictatorships like the murderous Pinochet regime that brought so much misery to Chile.
theyounghistorian77 6 months ago
@171view (2)
Hayek's 'Slope' has been proven to be a fantasy many times over by the mere existence of the many European states that embraced a large social sector after WWII and yet did not fall into 'serfdom' as he predicted.
theyounghistorian77 6 months ago
@171view (3)
"After The Road to Serfdom, I felt that I had so discredited myself professionally I didn't want to give offense again. I wanted to be accepted in the scientific community." He never was: "I can feel it to the present day [1979]. Economists very largely tend to treat me as an outsider, somebody who had discredited himself by writing a book like The Road to Serfdom...."
And he did discredit himself, the economics field recognized him as only a propagandist that he was.
theyounghistorian77 6 months ago
@171view (4)
Hayek began by saying, "This is a political book." That is what economists say when they want to disarm criticism, and to be judged by looser standards. Hayek then proceeded to merely write propaganda and not economics or political economy at all. His suppositions do not stand up, and his dire predictions about the advance of "serfdom" in socialist states was immediately recognized then, and now, as just foolish unsupported rhetoric
theyounghistorian77 6 months ago
@171view (5)
"As I write in 2007, Sweden and other Scandivanian places have somewhat lowered the fraction of GDP they use to devote through government. But still they are the most "socialistic" by Hayek's crude definition. Where are their horror camps? Have the vilest elements risen there to absolute power? When reports are compiled on "measurable unhappiness," do places like Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Norway best epitomize serfdoms? No. Of course not" - Paul A Samuelson on Hayek.
theyounghistorian77 6 months ago
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@171view (6)
"In 1945, von Hayek's The Road to Serfdom was published. This poorly-written book was an attack on the concept of the nation-state. In it, von Hayek argued that the nation-state was a hindrance to peace, and socialism led to totalitarian systems, which treated their citizens as serfs. In place of the nation-state von Hayek proposed a supra-national authority or world federation consisting of the financial elite.
theyounghistorian77 6 months ago
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@171view (7)
This elite would then be free to rule the world according to their own interest. In 1947, von Hayek created the Mount Pelerin Society, made up of the financial elite of Europe, as a first step toward his supranational authority.
theyounghistorian77 6 months ago
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@171view (8)
In the years since, the Mount Perlin Society has been influential in creating numerous "conservative" think tanks, which promote free market economic policies for the Establishment. The society has expanded to include the following think tanks: the Heritage Foundation in 1973, the Fraser Institute in 1974, the Manhattan Institute in 1977, and the Pacific Institute for Public Policy Research in 1978.
theyounghistorian77 6 months ago
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@171view (9)
There is a resurgent, widespread attempt by the far right to label fascism as a form of socialism. Fredrick von Hayek was the first to attempt labeling the Nazis as socialists in his book "The Road to Serfdom" published in 1944. The hard right quickly adopted it, as it allowed the hard right to escape the charges that they had much in common with the Nazis
theyounghistorian77 6 months ago
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@171view (10)
Such endeavors are not only silly, but dishonest as well and represent an attempt by the far right to distance themselves for their earlier support of Hitler. Hayek's book is based on two erroneous assumptions from the very beginning.
theyounghistorian77 6 months ago
@171view (11)
He first assumes that fascism and communism are one and the same, as they are both totalitarian systems. This makes about as much sense as calling a maple tree a pine tree--because both are trees. His second erroneous assumption lays in his belief that only socialism or liberalism leads to totalitarian systems. In fact, all political systems can lead to totalitarian systems and all political systems are inherently unstable, as is any system.
theyounghistorian77 6 months ago
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@171view (12)
From there, Hayek takes severe liberties with history. For instance, he goes on to claim that by deliberate policy the United States allowed the growth of cartels and syndicates after 1878. Indeed this date and time period is significant, but not for a move towards socialism or liberalism. Rather, it's the opposite--
theyounghistorian77 6 months ago
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@171view (13)
a move towards fascism and corporate rule. Even a reader with a rudimentary knowledge of American history would recognize this time frame as the beginning of the robber baron era and laissez faire economics, precisely the type of economic policy Hayek holds in utmost esteem.
theyounghistorian77 6 months ago
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@171view (14)
Hayek offers little proof to support his conclusions; in fact the book is devoid of any proof or even examples to support his findings. The book degenerates into an argument based upon unsubstantiated assertion. [typical a priori libertarian philosophy]
theyounghistorian77 6 months ago
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@171view (15)
He argues against the nation-state and proposes a supernational authority or world federation made up of the financial elite. In essence, Hayek proposes a world made up of sovereign corporations accountable to no one. Not only did Hayek take severe liberties with American history, he ignored the very nature of fascism in Germany and Italy.
theyounghistorian77 6 months ago
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@171view (16)
In various speeches made shortly after the March on Rome, Mussolini stated, "We must take from state authority those functions for which it is incompetent and which it performs badly... I believe the state should renounce its economic functions, especially those carried out through monopolies, because the state is incompetent in such matters... We must put an end to state railways, state postal service and state insurance."
theyounghistorian77 6 months ago
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@171view (17)
The state returned large monopolies to the private sector after returning them to profitability such as the Consortium of Match Manufactures, privatized the insurance system in 1923, the telephone system in 1925, and many of the public works.
theyounghistorian77 6 months ago
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@171view (18)
In Germany the Nazis announced they would end nationalization of private industries when they seized power. In 1932, Hitler returned control of the Gelsenkirhen company to private hands and in 1936 returned the stock of "United Steel" to private hands. Throughout 1933-1936, the Nazi returned to private hands the control of several banks: Dresdner, Danat, Commerz and Privatbank, the Deutsche Bank, and several others.
theyounghistorian77 6 months ago
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@171view (19)
In 1936, the steamship company Deutcher Schiff and Maschinenbau was returned to the private sector. In 1934, Dr. Schacht, the Nazi Minister of Economy, gave instructions to hasten the privatization of municipal enterprises. These enterprises were especially coveted by the rich industrialists, as they had been prosperous even during the depression.
theyounghistorian77 6 months ago
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@171view (20)
Both in fascist Italy and Nazi Germany, the tax system was changed to one favoring business and the wealthy. The Nazis allowed industries to deduct from their taxable income all sums used to purchase new equipment. Rich families employing a maid were allowed to count the maid as a dependent child and reap the tax benefit. In Italy, the Minister of Finance stated: "We have broken with the practice of persecuting capital."
theyounghistorian77 6 months ago
@171view (21)
Such programs, catering to big business and the rich elite, are more akin to the policies of the Reagan Administration--than it is to any liberal administration including FDR's. Likewise, it was the rich industrialists that were behind the fascist movement in the United States during the 1930s. Thus, it is no surprise that the right-wing attempts to try and label fascism as "socialism"--in trying to distance themselves from their previous support of fascism.
theyounghistorian77 6 months ago
@theyounghistorian77 Thanks for admitting the 30's fascism but Most businessmen are opportunists. When a business or corporation doesn't want to compete fairly in an open market they get into bed with the federal govt to keep and maintain their monopoly. They shut out competition from other corporations and small businesses. Anyway, where's your evidence of "Reagan catered to big business" FDR, Wilson and even Obama are surrounded by liberal corporatists. Obama has Google, GE even Facebook!
171view 6 months ago
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zsylvana 6 months ago
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@171view The libertarian fantasy is very simple... As a matter of political theory, it says we reverse the process John Locke described in The Second Treatise on Government: we dissolve Civil Society and return to the State of Nature which the libertarians imagine will be a benign wonderfully free place without any obligation to and coercion by sovereign political community
zsylvana 6 months ago
@171view Please get your political terms straight! 'Communism' means 'Everyone wearing glasses gets their heads staved in with rifle butts,' while 'Socialism' means 'Drinks and smokes on the middle class!'
Steve Mayer
zsylvana 6 months ago
@171view
How noble libertarianism, in its majestic equality, that both rich and poor are equally prohibited from peeing in the privately owned streets (without paying), sleeping under the privately owned bridges (without paying), and coercing bread from its rightful owners!
zsylvana 6 months ago
@171view Wasn't Ayn Rand a pseudonym of L. Ron Hubbard?
zsylvana 6 months ago
@171view 'Libertarian UberMensch smites devolved, parasitic, running-dog, statist lackies that want our women!' Ayn Rands- Atlas Shrugged in a nutshell.
zsylvana 6 months ago
@171view
"Far from advocating a "minimal state", we find it unquestionable that in an advanced society government ought to use its power of raising funds by taxation to provide a number of services which for various reasons cannot be provided or cannot be provided adequately by the market.
Hayek, "Law, Legislation, and Liberty" 1982.As shown here Hayek was a Statist-Obamaite!!
zsylvana 6 months ago
@zsylvana There can be no question that adequate security against severe privation will have to be one of our main goals of policy. But nothing is more fatal than the present fashion of intellectual leaders of extolling security at the expense of freedom. It is essential that we should relearn frankly to face the fact that freedom can be had only at a price and that as individuals we must be prepared to make severe material sacrifices to preserve it.- F.A. Hayek
171view 6 months ago
@171view "Personally I prefer a liberal dictator to democratic government lacking liberalism."
Friedrich Hayek, 1981 interview in El Mercurio
zsylvana 6 months ago
@171view ... you Libertarians are amazing. You've managed to construct an entire political ideology based on the phrase 'FUCK OFF.'
zsylvana 6 months ago
@zsylvana Fuck Off, is that what your mum said? Or did she redistribute her penis into your ear, nose,ass?
171view 6 months ago
@171view Libertarianism as an impartial ideal of maximum freedom and justice seems to be a kind of fantasy.We are born into a world in which property is neither evenly distributed nor freely available.This situation came about through history,in which piracy,imperialism,genocide, slavery,etc.have all had an important part.No individual is free just to live their own life,since there is no free land to farm.A government that adopts a completely laissez faire sides with the pirates,slave-owners
zsylvana 6 months ago
@zsylvana What's your source?
171view 6 months ago
@171view Dr Albert Pangloss,Freie Universität- Berlin.
zsylvana 6 months ago
@171view "Individual liberty" is the biggest hook that the libertarians have, but it is a terribly one-dimensional measure for civil society. Even worse is the monotonicity of such measurements: the drive to absolutism. No political philosophy is worth considering unless it is BALANCING competing values both of individuals and between individiuals.
zsylvana 6 months ago
@zsylvana Good point. That's why I'm a conservative and prefer a limited constitutional govt. Bush fucked up, now so's Obama
171view 6 months ago
@171view
"Libertarianism has also been defined with some plausibility as the form taken by liberalism as common sense asymptotically approaches zero." Dr Albert Pangloss,1987,Eisner-verlag,Berlin
zsylvana 6 months ago
@171view "I believe in the Free Market Fairy And the Tort Sprite too. They'll keep our power cheap and our air and water clean. All you have to do is close your eyes and tap your money clip three times."
Gen. JC Christian, Patriot
zsylvana 6 months ago
@zsylvana There you go again- Ronald Reagan
171view 6 months ago
@171view
Humberto Fontova is also a known liar, embittered because his terrorist family were "mistreated"(spending two months in jail for supporting a regime that murdered 20 000 in seven years). His King Lear style rants about Che Guevera are most amusing, especially when it is known, thank to Jon Lee Anderson's extensive research that Che only executed those who had committed crimes such as rape and murder.
MrReco12 6 months ago
@MrReco12 According to the Cuba Archive Project, headed by scholars Maria Werlau and Dr. Armando Lago, the Castro regime – with firing squads, forced-labor camps and drownings at sea – has caused an estimated 102,000 Cuban deaths
171view 6 months ago
@171view
Bullshit, the US and CIA have been funding propaganda about Cuba since the revolution and that's all that is, and it also funded the many terrorists organization that operate from Florida against Cuba.
Rundstedt1 6 months ago
@zsylvana We must regain the conviction on which liberty in the Anglo-Saxon countries has been based and which Benjamin Franklin expressed in a phrase applicable to us as individuals no less than as nations: "Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." -F.A. Hayek
171view 6 months ago
@171view Oh, for an honest Libertarian who would say "Yes, in Libertopia we'd have rampant quackery, organ-seizure, baby-selling, slavery in all but name - BUT THAT'S FREEDOM!
zsylvana 6 months ago
@171view (1/2)
Reagan attempted to lower the minimum wage and relax child worker laws so corporations could make higher profits. The corporate merger movement, was given the green light by Reagan, and moved from rabid to frenzied. Nine of the ten largest mergers in U.S. history until that time occurred under the permissive reign of Reagan. Reagan started the attacks on Unions and social programs to the pleasure of corporations.
Rundstedt1 6 months ago
@Rundstedt1 Really? Again, where's your evidence? Corporations merge all the time during every presidential administration. If they merge with the government into quasi owned entities then that's corporatism. Recently The Huffington Post merged with AOL for $315 Million. So using your logic Obama is responsible for that.
171view 6 months ago
@171view (1/6)
Reagan is a criminal who was negotiating with the Iranians before he was elected president, promising them weapons if they kept the hostages until after the campaign. Do you really think it was a coincidence that the hostages were released RIGHT after he was elected? That the shipment of weapons started shortly afterward? He fought an illegal and secret war against a small and harmless country, while supporting cruel military dictatorships.
Rundstedt1 6 months ago
@171view (2/6)
And he instituted the largest tax increase in history on the working and middle class while giving a windfall tax break to the rich. His policies started the outsourcing and the destruction of manufacturing and labor in this country. The financial crisis that we have today has its original roots in the Reagan era. Ever since then the gap between the rich and poor has been dramatically growing and the average person is worse off today than they were 30yrs ago.
Rundstedt1 6 months ago
@171view (3/6)
"But Ronald Reagan does hold a special place in the annals of tax policy, and not just as the patron saint of tax cuts. To his credit, he was more pragmatic and responsible than that; he followed his huge 1981 tax cut with two large tax increases. In fact, no peacetime president has raised taxes so much on so many people."
Rundstedt1 6 months ago
@171v (4/6)
"For many middle- and low-income families, this tax increase more than undid any gains from Mr. Reagan's income tax cuts. In 1980, according to Congressional Budget Office estimates, middle-income families with children paid 8.2 percent of their income in income taxes, and 9.5 percent in payroll taxes. By 1988 the income tax share was down to 6.6 percent -- but the payroll tax share was up to 11.8 percent, and the combined burden was up, not down."
"The Great Taxer" By Paul Krugman
Rundstedt1 6 months ago
@171view (5/6)
"Reagan's economic legacy endures. Government continues to turn its back on social spending for the poor in favor of ineffectual tax giveaways for the rich, at same time that it finds unlimited monies for military adventures. Lopsided economic growth showers benefits on stock investors while doing precious little for workers or-not an entirely separate group-the poor. -
Rundstedt1 6 months ago
@171view (6/6)
And today's Depression-level inequality is not mitigated as much as it once was by the tax code"
John Miller - Dollars and Sense magazine, July / August 04
Rundstedt1 6 months ago
@171view (1/3)
The mergers, even those today, are a direct result of policies first out in place under Reagan. And the 'too big to fail' banks are a direct result of Reagan's trickle-down (aka, piss on the workers) 'free-market' garbage and his appointment of the Libertarian Greenspan to ever see the FED. The roots of the present crisis can be traced directly back to policies that Reagan first started using.
Rundstedt1 6 months ago
@Rundstedt1 Actually the bull shit with the banks was due to the removal of the glass-steagall act. The Community Reinvestment act under Carter, kept going under Clinton, Both Bushes,etc. Your hero Barney Frank said everything was solvent with Fannie and Freddie as late as 2005. Turns out he fucking lied.
171view 6 months ago
@171view (1/10)
If you are trying to blame the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) you are totally wrong. first of all the CRA loans had a comparable rate of default to any other properly instituted mortgage. To qualify for a CRA loan the client had to meet requirements designed to show that they could meet its obligations. The sub-prime loans were NOT part of the CRA program but were put into being by the private sector well before Freddie and Fannie even got into the game.
Rundstedt1 6 months ago
@171view (2/10)
"Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two private companies that had started as government agencies, have been the particular subject of vilification. As has been the government program called the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA), which encourages banks to lend to underserved communities.
Rundstedt1 6 months ago
@171view (3/10)
Had it not been for these efforts as lending to the poor, so the argument goes, all would have been well. This litany of defenses is, for the most part, sheer nonsense. AIG's almost $200 billion bailout (that's a big amount by any account) was based on derivatives (credit default swaps) - banks gambling with other banks. The banks didn't need any push for egalitarian housing to engage in excessive risk taking.
Rundstedt1 6 months ago
@171view (4/10)
Nor did the massive overinvestment in commercial real estate have anything to do with government homeownership policy. Nor did the repeated instances of bad lending around the world from which the banks have had to be repeatedly rescued. Moreover, default rates on the CRA lending were actually comparable to other areas of lending - showing that such lending, if done well, does not pose greater risks. (CRA loans actually had a lower default rate than other mortgages)
Rundstedt1 6 months ago
@171view (5/10)
The most telling point though is that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac's mandate was for "conforming loans," loans to the middle class. The banks jumped into subprime mortgages -- an area where, at the time, Freddie Mac and Fanny Mae were not making loans -- Without any incentives from the government. ... Later on, years after the private sector had invented the toxic mortgages, the PRIVATIZED and UNDER-REGULATED Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac decided that they too should enjoy the fun.
Rundstedt1 6 months ago
@171view (6/10)
Their executives thought, Why couldn't they enjoy bonuses akin to others in the industry? Ironically, in doing so, they helped save the private sector from some of its own folly: Had they not bought them, the problems in the private sector would have been far worse, though by buying so many securities, they may have also helped fuel the bubble. Joseph E. Stiglitz, "Freefall" p10-11
Rundstedt1 6 months ago
@171view (7/10)
"CRA has been in existence since 1977; plus, it only applies to depository institutions (regular banks). Meanwhile, we had a subprime bubble that mostly took place after 2002, with most of the loans made by institutions that weren't subject to the CRA. That's why everyone who's looked at this honestly says that the Community Reinvestment Act had nothing to do with the crisis." -
Rundstedt1 6 months ago
@171view (8/10)
"The attempt to blame it all on the CRA is just an attempt at blame-shifting -- an attempt to make liberals and nonwhite people the villains of a story that is actually about runaway financial institutions and the free-market ideologues who refused to regulate them." Paul Krugman, "Washington Post"
Rundstedt1 6 months ago
@171view (9/10)
It was the unregulated private mortgage companies that issued the toxic loans, NOT Freddie and Fannie. Companies like HSBC and GMAC. Freddie and Fannie only fell prey to the mortgage securities market, which was de-regulated, and those mortgage agencies. You maliciously try to blame the victims; the people that were taken advantage of, and there are a plethora of examples where the loan 'officers' took advantage of people.
Rundstedt1 6 months ago
@Rundstedt1 But this new era of strict enforcement came about in response to conditions that no longer existed. The bank deregulation of the 1980s—initiated not by Republicans, but by the Carter administration’s federal Depository Institutions Deregulation and Monetary Control Act—paved the way for sharp competition among mortgage lenders. -Howard Husock
171view 6 months ago
@171view
Sorry no matter what your Right-wing think tank says, the deregulation of the banks was instituted by Reagan's nominee Greespan.
Rundstedt1 6 months ago
@Rundstedt1 From the current hand-wringing, you'd think that the banks came up with the idea of looser underwriting standards on their own, with regulators just asleep on the job. In fact, it was the regulators who relaxed these standards - at the behest of community groups and "progressive" political forces. -Stan Liebowitz
171view 6 months ago
@171view
Yes they did, the 'lair loans' were the Banks inventions, and the Sub Primes were the private bank's invention. Again the CRA loans had the same or even lower default rate than even 'regualat' mortgages.
Rundstedt1 6 months ago
@Rundstedt1 In fact, minority mortgage applications were rejected more frequently than other applications - but the overwhelming reason wasn't racial discrimination, but simply that minorities tend to have weaker finances.Yet a "landmark" 1992 study from the Boston Fed concluded that mortgage-lending discrimination was systemic. That study was tremendously flawed- a colleague and I later found that it contained thousands of egregious typos such as loans with negative interest rates. Stan L
171view 6 months ago
@171view
According to testimony, Wells Fargo is alleged to have used a proprietary software package called “Loan Economics” to reward non-minority mortgage-seekers for being non-minorities by offering them lower interest rates. Minority borrowers didn’t fare as well, primarily because, as attorney-for-the-plaintiffs Barry Cappello suggested, minority borrowers were less likely to shop around for lower rates. - Accounts Recievable Management (dot) com
Rundstedt1 6 months ago
@171view (10/10)
You just show that you are a troll and can only repeat the easily debunked garbage that your corporate run 'think tanks' spew. NO responsible source blames Freddie or Fannie for the Mortgage scams. The toxic mortgages were issued by other totally private mortgage companies as I said, NOT Freddie and Fannie, and the CRA program had a lower default rate than even standard mortgages.
Rundstedt1 6 months ago
@Rundstedt1 Until the Clinton years, CRA compliance wasn’t a difficult matter for banks, which could get an A for effort simply by advertising loan availability in certain newspapers. Then the Clinton Treasury Department changed matters in 1995, requiring banks that wanted “outstanding” CRA ratings to demonstrate statistically that they were lending in poor neighborhoods and to lower-income households. -Howard Husock
171view 6 months ago
@171view
But again the CRA loans had a lower default rate than even standard loans becasue they had to meet CRA standards.
Rundstedt1 6 months ago
@Rundstedt1 “The CRA may not be needed in today’s financial environment to ensure all segments of our economy enjoy access to credit,” argued a 1999 Dallas Federal Reserve Bank paper called “Redlining or Red Herring?” -Howard Husock
171view 6 months ago
@171view
Really? The banks had to be sued recently, and using the CRA laws to do it, because of their discriminatory lending practices. Husock just proves he is a think tank hack by ignoring reality and writing crap.
Rundstedt1 6 months ago
@Rundstedt1 In the 1980s, groups such as the activists at ACORN began pushing charges of "redlining" - claims that banks discriminated against minorities in mortgage lending. In 1989, sympathetic members of Congress got the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act amended to force banks to collect racial data on mortgage applicants; this allowed various studies to be ginned up that seemed to validate the original accusation. -Stan Liebowitz
171view 6 months ago
@171view
And banks were recently convicted of charges of mortgage discrimination so the charges of the 'activists' were valid.
Rundstedt1 6 months ago
@171view
Cuban arcive is run by Cuban exiles who had links to the former Batista regime!
MrReco12 6 months ago
@Rundstedt1
...there are two Hayeks. One, the modest and imaginative social theorist... The other Hayek is Hayek the libertarian; Hayek the paranoid and splenetic reactionary; the Hayek who fulminates against his pet hates -- 'the counter culture', 'permissive education', 'dropouts', 'parasites' and so on -- like any dyspeptic ten-a-penny rednecked blimp. This Hayek is unconnected with the former, and should be ignored.
Alan Haworth, in "Anti-Libertarianism: Markets, Philosophy and Myth".
zsylvana 6 months ago
@171view (2/3)
"In its twilight days, the Reagan administration was determined to further fertilize the seeds of deregulation and Greenspan’s Ayn Rand-inspired “objectivist,” free-market philosophies would be the perfect embodiment of the deregulatory movement."
“How Deregulation Eviscerated the Banking Sector Safety Net and Spawned the U.S. Financial Crisis” By Shah Gilani - The Money Map Report
Rundstedt1 6 months ago
@Rundstedt1 Good your finally giving some sources...as ridiculous as they maybe
171view 6 months ago
@171view (3/3)
"Once installed at the Fed, Greenspan immediately began pushing Congress to repeal the Depression-era law that prevented banks from competing with investment banks in underwriting stocks and bonds. When Congress dallied, he used the Fed's supervisory authority to allow banks to circumvent the law and usher in the era of the megabank."
"The Laissez-Fairest of Them All", by Steven Pearlstein, Washington Post
Rundstedt1 6 months ago
@171view (2/2)
Corporate taxes went from 46 percent to 34 percent as part of the 1986 reforms and despite closing some loopholes the overall effective corporate tax rate for large corporations would still go down as the corporations learned their way around the new system so that now many corporation pay little or no corporate taxes at all. And this is just a few things, we could also look at his environmental policies or rather lack of them.
Rundstedt1 6 months ago
@Rundstedt1 Where's your evidence? "Reagan Cut tax rates to restore incentives for economic growth, which was implemented first with a reduction in the top income tax rate of 70% down to 50%, and then a 25% across-the-board reduction in income tax rates for everyone. The 1986 tax reform then reduced tax rates further, leaving just two rates, 28% and 15%." -Peter Ferrera
171view 6 months ago
@171view
What rubbish.
Firstly, Victor Farias(i assume you are using his rubbish when are are accusing Allende of beign an anti Semite) has been recently charged with slander and defamation.
Secondly, Allende was a Jew and had a number of Jewish ministers. Indeed, Simon Wiesenthal claims that he was one of the few Chilean politicians that actually tried to bring Walter Raulff(wafeen SS officer) to justice.
MrReco12 6 months ago