Capitolism, an unlikely story

I went to see "Capitolism, A Love Story" over the weekend. It's already at the dollar theater here in Utah. I went just to see, but already knew it would be the same ultra bias as in the rest of Moore's films. I thought "Okay, Michael, this should be interesting. Without capitolism and the free market economy we wouldn't have the inventions we have, the industry we do or the chance to make it by our own bootstraps. So bring it on."

What I learned was I was wrong.

The "free market" as it is today only works for a select few ultra rich and powerful individuals whose influence in money, politics and power has tried to overthrow the very people of this country that made it so great. It has nothing to do with freedom and everything to do with greed and usurpation of good, honest, hard-working American citizens.

Take the bailout, for example. The mortgage companies first convinced these good, honest, hard-working Americans that it was in their best interest to take out home equity mortgages on homes they already owned and had lived in for years. They offered reasonable rates at the time and all seemed well. What they counted on was how few read the fine print. Before people knew it that reasonable rate was an outrageous rate. People couldn't even pay the interest. So the mortgage banks took their homes. They took their homes! Then we had a foreclosure crisis, a housing crisis. That's when the economy started to tank. It seemed an impending doom was upon the American economic system. The "free" market. So Goldman Sachs hatched their plan with Bush, proposed a ginormous bailout right before a bunch of Senators were up for reelection and thought they had an economic crisis on their hands. Keep in mind this all happened within the space of one weekend. The people even voted this bailout down. And at first the people won. But fear of more than just the people instigated our representives to vote yes to the bailout a few days later. A bailout without any regulations or rules or anything.

"Oh crap, you sunk our economy and stole our houses, here's some money, do with it whatever you want, don't ask don't tell, right?"

We, the American people, are now forced to pay these crooks who purposely sunk our economy, stole people's homes, and cut the jobs of the good, hard-working American citizen. They're off sailing on their yachts as I write this.

That's our American capitolism. I'm not so in love with the idea anymore.

Comments

Steve said…
Finally, welcome to the good guys club! ;-)
Unknown said…
Haha,thanks Steve.

I should note that some of the banks have started to repay those loans. 4 billion out of the 700 billion has been recovered...okaaaaay

Also, some project the gov will even make a profit off of this bailout...um by profit do you mean we might get some of the money back you so willingly handed over without regulation?

4 billion is a drop in the bucket and there are other reports that show the gov overpaid for the assets (some toxic) they received, whereas in Sweden, where they did something similar, but did it right, the Swedish taxpayers have already made a nice 34% back in just one year (NY Times)...Where's our money?
Unknown said…
Oh, I should mention the government expects to get 200 billion back soon...if the Treasury department approves the banks to do so.

That leads to another question - when do people who lend you money ever think about approving you first before you pay it back? Shouldn't it have been approving them for the loan before they gave it?

Why would the Treasury have to approve them to pay down their loan? Start thinking about that.

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