Sanders: Socialism for Rich, Free Enterprise for Poor

Bernie Sanders, the socialist senator from Vermont, makes a point I haven't heard anywhere else in his response to the bailout plan:

We must end the danger posed by companies that are "too big too fail," that is, companies whose failure would cause systemic harm to the U.S. economy. If a company is too big to fail, it is too big to exist. We need to determine which companies fall in this category and then break them up. Right now, for example, the Bank of America, the nation's largest depository institution, has absorbed Countrywide, the nation's largest mortgage lender, and Merrill Lynch, the nation's largest brokerage house. We should not be trying to solve the current financial crisis by creating even larger, more powerful institutions. Their failure could cause even more harm to the entire economy.

Sanders strongly opposes the bailout, calling it "socialism for the rich and free enterprise for the poor." He's right that the phrase "too big to fail" -- which is practically accepted wisdom at this point among Republicans and Democrats alike -- is a compelling argument to break these ginormous companies up. That would be a massive intrusion into the free market by government, of course, but so is making taxpayers assume the debt for private companies that drove themselves to ruin.

Comments

Government rationale for existence, regardless of where one's belief system lies on the quad, is to provide services for the common good, most explicitly security and well-being. If this is true then allowing companies become too big to fail is a failure of government and as such must be corrected.

The elites of every country tend to do well unless they are deposed or lose a war with another group of elites but even then the losing elite(s) will often continue living an opulent life style.



Hey!!!! The elite class of every country/religion/cult/any type of social organization lives well and works less by skimming from the labors of the common classes.



That is what Marx and Engels tried to tell us!!!!



Those two should have stopped there rather than trying to concoct a cure for those burdensome elites.



Maybe elite classes are inevitable.



It's just a shame elites are so ready to brainwash, then up to murdering masses of common folks so as to enable them to maintain the status quo that is so beneficial to the elites.



I admit that some groups of elites are kinder than others.



Sure can't compare American elites with the acts of Idi Amin, Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot, etc. etc. etc.



But, the USA's elite class HAS murdered common Americans to maintain the status quo. Just look in the history books. Even women and children have died at the hands of jack-booted thugs, representatives of the elite class, to ensure that wealth and power remained in the hands of the elites.



Please, my fellow citizens. All I wish is that you attempt to cast off the years of indoctrination, the brainwashing all of us undergo to convince us that the way things are is correct, proper... as it should be.



From schooling to the mass media to general culture...we are constantly bombarded that the present status quo is the only RIGHT way to handle things.



Educate yourselves!!! Don't let the self-centered greedy elite class do your thinking for you.



Don't let the Rush Limbaugh's of the world implant their propaganda. Those folks are merely shills for the elite class!!!



I remain convinced that the greatest threat to our freedoms is our own elite class; more of a threat than all foreign terrorists combined.

OB says, "... Don't let the Rush Limbaugh's of the world implant their propaganda. Those folks are merely shills for the elite class!!!"



I think this is a perfect example of the type of idiocy that turns the Democratic party of Liberal Progressives Whatever into fools.



Fannie Mae and Freddy are the elite "businesses" under discussion, and it is common knowledge that Chris Dodd (Dem), their regulating chairman, has received the second highest amount of "campaign contributions" from those elitist businesses. The highest pay-off (sorry "elite donation")received is by Barrack Hussein Obama!



Talk about "Elitists" and they can't resist trying to point their boney-finger-of-accusation at Limbaugh, Republicans and the rightwing! The creeps don't even know that Limbaugh is talking out against such bailouts, or that it is the Democrats who are the "elite" who support these socialist schemes!



Carter started this particalar "Elitist" ball rolling to make Democrats rich and get votes.



Expanded by Clinton



When Bush tried to tighten restrictions? He met Democratic intransigence



No, the vast majority of Democratics are just like those on the Retort and here -- being too smart and educated to bothered by any facts, but just the sort of elitist-wannabes that will lie in order to defame a conservative to hide their ignorance and hateful prejudices!



Meanwhile, from whatever part of the "quad", anyone can see who the liars and elitists just happen to be who are off-the-square .... as they attempt to lose in Iraq for votes, and to hell with the impact on our SECURITY. For votes, the intransigent Left attempts subversion of the success of our commander-in-chief in war ...



Anti-patriotic, ignorant hypocrites ... those who still maintain themselves as such examples of intransigent Yellow-Dogism ...



Rogers,



There was a good segment on Democracy Now, today:



Sen. Bernie Sanders, Robert Scheer and Dean Baker on the Proposed $700 Billion Bailout of Wall Street, the Largest Government Bailout of Private Industry in US History



www.democracynow.org



All of these firms should be allowed to fail, with the pieces being picked up at firesale prices by smarter survivors. There's also way, way too much concern over propping up housing values. In lots of places, it would be a positive benefit for house values to drop to the floor - here in Maryland, it might then be possible for normal people to buy homes. As it stands now, you have to go into major debt to buy a small townhome or condo, and then hope that its value increases enough to allow you move up the chain towards a house.

If there isn't a ***SPECIAL*** Prosecutor to investigate this fiasco, then you'll know that the United States of America is controlled by the very "elitist rich" who run the regulation and ***investigations*** right now, right this very minute.



The very ones who have run away from the problem until after the election!



How is that defending our security? How is that solving the nation's problems of world shaking significance?



Trying to pretend that they need more REGULATION, and that they be put in-charge!



Isn't that the typical Democratic attitude towards the public? That the public is just too dumb to know that they are suggesting that the progressive, socialist fox be put in-charge of guarding the henhouse ...!



Thank God for the internet and where the Democrats can't hide the facts completely, and which they have previously controlled through their media stooges: print and television. Now, the facts show that it is Democrats and Democrat socialism which has caused this economic attack; attack by socialism against the economic system of the USA: capitalism.



Solution from Democrats: Regulate the theft by putting the thieves in charge of the problem, and MORE SOCIALISM IN MEDICINE



How will it be when you can't get a prescription because the government is bankrupt from this socialism attack on the USA's form of economics .... ? They will refuse you treatment because MANDATORY TESTS show that you have used a banned substance, own a gun, smoke outside your own door on your own property, or any other reason they can find or invent! It will cost our children's children's children more and more trillions on trillions that welfare and "benefit" bike paths are already costing ....



Well, it isn't surprising that they will go for the security, and since Democrats have been relinguishing their individual freedoms since the "New Deal", the "Great Society" and ending in "Government Bankruptcy" ... for "benefits" and to win votes for team over nation.



What did that great hero of Leftist Vietnam say, "Stupid is as stupid does ..."

As it stands now, you have to go into major debt to buy a small townhome or condo, and then hope that its value increases enough to allow you move up the chain towards a house.



I know people whose affluence has been built on moving into a series of more expensive homes, each selling for enough of a profit to afford the next one. Even though it worked (they haven't moved during the housing bust), I found the whole concept unnerving.

Hey, I'm a realtor, and I've had a ringside seat to this whole mess. I may be the only realtor in the UT campus area of Austin who didn't make a killing by buying huge places I never could have afforded with interest-only loans, improving them and selling them for a huge profit. Like a moron I just bought normal houses to live in and still made very nice profits from them, just not fuck-you money profits. Silly me.



Even though predictions about Austin's market seem to agree that we're in for a 5% upswing in 2008 across the board, and we've never seen the crazy 20-30% per year jumps that other markets have, the market here feels completely dead. It is dead around the campus; no one wants to pay 20% down on a campus condo, especially now that they've overbuilt the rental property and rents will drop drastically for a long time on brand new product, and even more so on older stuff.



I'm going to have to find something else to do for a living. Anyone need someone killed? I'm not very good at it (as far as I know - never actually tried it) but I'd like to think I'm emotionally retarded enough to not feel guilty.

"We do not support government bailouts of private institutions. Government interference in the markets exacerbates problems in the marketplace and causes the free market to take longer to correct itself."



- The 2008 Republican Party Platform

Tadowe... Do you also type John Sidney McCain?



ILA needs to know, "Tadowe... Do you also type John Sidney McCain?"



I think those who attempt to make me into the subject of comment confirm the effectiveness of my own commentary. Thanks for showing your newborn obsession with me.



I've faced the facts about McCain. He wasn't a hero in Vietnam, he showed his weakness in confessing war crimes to the NVA communists in order to get treatment for his crash injuries; serious enough that he could have lost his leg to gangrene and even die from it.



After his leg was saved, he continued to assist the NVA and received better treatment than the other prisoners, who hadn't confessed. He did share what extras were given him. All his fellow servicemen understand why he confessed because they were a heartbeat away from being tortured into treason themselves. However, none think he was a "Hero" for his weakness.



You all can't say anything about that, though, although you would love to (some idiots may try anyway). Not because John McCain was a sailor tortured into treason, but because your party of Progressive Leftists and radical Democrats of that time were marching in the street assisting the NVA to win in Vietnam -- traitors to the USA without being tortured into it!



HO HO Ho Chi Minh! The NLF is Going to Win!!!



Hey! Hey! LBJ How Many Kids Did You Kill Today???



You Leftist Progressive Democrats think you are the heroes for helping the North Vietnamese win against freedom and liberty in South Vietnam.



That's why I'm the subject for the subversives of the communist loving Left.

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