losing faith in free markets?

phaster · Heavy Crude Joined: Jul 15, 2007 Posts: 175

There was an article in the LA times that caught my eye titled, "Americans may be losing faith in free markets."

http://www.latimes.com/news/la-na-losingfaith16-2008jul16,0,3202010.story

just thought it would be interesting to have a poll and see what people here think about the idea of a free market.

Since I'm posting the question,here are my own thoughts on the subject...

Yup I do believe in the free market system, because like Churchill said, the free market is the worst form of an economic system except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.

The way I see it is politicians and american public, want to have the the illusion that they present a face of living and working in a free market capitalist system, yet want the safety net of a socialist system. Take the recent blow up of fanny and freddy, these governemnt sponsored enterprises want it have it both ways, in that they trade shares on the open market, yet have the backing of the federal government for the express purpose of promoting american home ownership.

As I see it, the recient rise in gas and oil prices and the fall in stock prices of fanny and freedy, along with other the fall in stock prices of many other financial institutions, is an indication that the free market system is indeed working. In other words, I view the fall in stock prices and the rise in gas in gas/oil prices as indication that the economic system is responding naturally to an unsustatiable system, much akin to how nature is responding to damage caused by man to the natural environment.
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jlw61 · Posted: Wed Jul 16, 2008 9:43 am Post subject: Re: losing faith in free markets?

I fully support free and open markets. I do not support the current corporate system where corporations are entities unto themselves. Corporations serve an important and useful purpose regarding trade across governmental boundaries, but they should not have rights nor should they pay taxes. Corporations should simply be an umbrella organization that provides certain protections to the owners and creates a way to issue stock.

Individuals may have to pay taxes, but never coroprations. Nor should a corporation receive any kind of government largess.
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Windmills · Posted: Wed Jul 16, 2008 9:47 am Post subject: Re: losing faith in free markets?

Give it time. The unemployment rate isn't nearly high enough to spark big changes. People will lose faith in this lesser-socialist market when the market drives them out of work. When unemployment starts to approach depression levels (and then surpasses them), we'll surely see a bit more socialism added to the picture.

CarlosFerreira · Posted: Wed Jul 16, 2008 9:57 am Post subject: Re: losing faith in free markets?

No, and by two orders of factors:

First, markets were never free. Richer countries finance their production, gaining advantage.

Second, "free" markets bring about inequality. Because of said financing of production, they place their products in poorer - and therefore, less financed - countries' markets, therefore destroying their production sector and rendering them virtually dependent.

As globalization starts fading, poorer countries will be left with a question: how do we MAKE things, again?

emersonbiggins · Posted: Wed Jul 16, 2008 9:58 am Post subject: Re: losing faith in free markets?

If someone knows of a free market, tell me about it. I'd like to go see one in action sometime.
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"It's called the American Dream because you'd have to be asleep to believe it."

George Carlin

Homesteader

Tyler_JC

An economic recession is not a failure of a free market. It's a normal part of the business cycle.

There is nothing wrong with it!

Losing faith in the markets during a recession is like demanding never to be sick and then disowning modern medicine because you get the flu.

It's irrational and idiotic.

Any move to stop a recession WILL backfire and make the problem much worse in the long term.

We should have had a recession after the dot com bubble but thanks to 1% interest rates and Sub Prime Mortgages...we didn't get one.

Now we're going to have a major recession/depression because of the Fed's counter-recessionary move.
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eastbay

Canuk

The drug trade is essentially a free market - there are no government controls (other than banning) and there is free and open competition including removal of competitors. The cartels and organizations that work in it are examples of the market at work.

neocone · Heavy Crude Joined: Sep 23, 2006 Posts: 235

The commies are back... all is good when an excess of resources is what conquering a market means, but when the essence of competition implies concentrating means into the hands of the just, capable and dynamic away from the lazy, stupid and selfish, the later will whine all they can to keep possessions they don't deserve, by the very nature of their personalities.

Exhibit A: The housing mess. Stupid idiots taking on more houses than they need, and (governement backed) lending insitutions obliging, then whining like little girls when the "profits" they already spent and think are entitled too fail to materialize.

Meanwhile... true investors and real self made men can stomach a 500K loss in the stock market like a Man.

The population is a Gauss curve.. the top 1% will always be persecuted by the laggards.

coyote

At this point, the extent to which the markets are free is the extent to which the commons are free.

The tragedy of the markets. I want to believe in free markets so bad I can taste it. I once did, thoroughly. It fits in perfectly with everything else I believe about government and freedom. But years of reading energy and environmental headlines have changed my mind. it's not working for us.

But neither does government control - Economic authoritarianism, or communism. That was always even worse. The environmental destruction in communist nations has been epic - not to mention the costs in human freedom.

Neither capitalism not communism has or can protect our world from destruction. They're both part of the old paradigm, both part of the fundamental misconception that the Earth is here to be done to as we will, and that it is our destiny to do it. Both a result of the internalized conviction that it is our purpose to better ourselves and grow our productivity, at the expense of everything else if necessary. Neither of those handles will get us to a less dangerous place, a less dangerous way of thinking. To navigate the train wreck ahead is going to require a such a shift in world view that is barely imaginable now.

Perhaps we can continue with free trade, but on a localized level. It would have to be a steady state system, and it must be something wherein the marginal costs - especially environmental and resource drawdown costs - are immediately apparent to everyone, and built into the cost of a product or trade item. It must rest on the understanding that we are part of our environment, and not lords of it. Perhaps it could mirror the structure and functioning of a healthy ecological system, one that combines cooperation with competition. What might that system be, and how to get there, I don't know - it'll take someone smarter than me to figure it out.

Where's the third handle?
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neocone · Heavy Crude Joined: Sep 23, 2006 Posts: 235

Capitalism is about concentrating resources from places where they are left idle to make them work and multiply their reach... whether those resources are taken from the land (metals, oil) or people (money, work, etc..).

This is how Life works... and this is how we were created as a species. But I won't go on that tangent.

Needless to say any divergence from this norm will always backfire... after all the socialist block became so backward it crumbled by itself and all America had to do is stand by and watch it happen.

Socialism can also only be implemented with tyranny, and there is just too much guns in the US for this to happen.

aflurry · Intermediate Crude Joined: Mar 28, 2005 Posts: 825

aflurry · Intermediate Crude Joined: Mar 28, 2005 Posts: 825

coyote