Harold Meyerson - Slow Rise for a New Era - washingtonpost.com
Harold seems to think that markets and governments are equally real. How would one arrive at that conclusion? The government produces nothing, the markets and the business they represent produce everything. The government and the chattering classes all live off the production of business people whose value is ultimately expressed in the market as well as the income and taxes from which the government skims it's take. One can try a Soviet style system, but all we know says that will take our $13 Trillion economy down to something more like $3 Trillion or less where the top 1% are all in government and hold even a larger % of the now much reduced wealth than the top 1% do today.
"Free Markets" can no more die than gravity can die. The free market lived on as "black market" even in the USSR and operated quite well, though not officially. Our markets have never been close to fully "free", and they likely never will be. The government has very much enjoyed the longest period of growth in US history and the US people have very much enjoyed all the improvement in standard of living due to the lessening of government intervention which Reagan and others were able to accomplish. Did growth vanquish all problems? No, of course not, humans are still just as flawed as ever on BOTH the government and business side, but BOTH sides have grown tremendously over this period. Does the fact that something is "natural" mean that it has no problems? No again, just ask a guy that just fell from a 30 story building if gravity has "negative side effects".
Meyerson is a perfect example of what "ideologue" means. Less government = bad, more government = good ... independent of what the discussion is about. His faith in "government" is every bit as strong as any faith in "Reaganism" that republicans may have.
Harold seems to think that markets and governments are equally real. How would one arrive at that conclusion? The government produces nothing, the markets and the business they represent produce everything. The government and the chattering classes all live off the production of business people whose value is ultimately expressed in the market as well as the income and taxes from which the government skims it's take. One can try a Soviet style system, but all we know says that will take our $13 Trillion economy down to something more like $3 Trillion or less where the top 1% are all in government and hold even a larger % of the now much reduced wealth than the top 1% do today.
"Free Markets" can no more die than gravity can die. The free market lived on as "black market" even in the USSR and operated quite well, though not officially. Our markets have never been close to fully "free", and they likely never will be. The government has very much enjoyed the longest period of growth in US history and the US people have very much enjoyed all the improvement in standard of living due to the lessening of government intervention which Reagan and others were able to accomplish. Did growth vanquish all problems? No, of course not, humans are still just as flawed as ever on BOTH the government and business side, but BOTH sides have grown tremendously over this period. Does the fact that something is "natural" mean that it has no problems? No again, just ask a guy that just fell from a 30 story building if gravity has "negative side effects".
Meyerson is a perfect example of what "ideologue" means. Less government = bad, more government = good ... independent of what the discussion is about. His faith in "government" is every bit as strong as any faith in "Reaganism" that republicans may have.
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