Thread: Ask me about the economic crisis

Oh boy, here we go. Scarf, you realize that you are about to be flooded with, "America is in an economic crisis because capitalism is from the devil and socialism is the only acceptable and fair market structure and if you disagree you are greedy, lazy, and smell bad" posts, right?

Originally Posted by Mr. E

Oh boy, here we go. Scarf, you realize that you are about to be flooded with, "America is in an economic crisis because capitalism is from the devil and socialism is the only acceptable and fair market structure and if you disagree you are greedy, lazy, and smell bad" posts, right?

How is socialism fair? It completely regulates private business.
I am in favor of free markets, if companies are going down the tubes let them fail. If companies are doing well, let them do well. Aside from cases like the Ma Bell breakup, I don't think the government should interfere at all and let the market play itself out. The biggest problem though isn't over-regulation, it is the Federal Reserve banking system. A pseduo-private company has absolute authority over lending and interest rates, essentially giving a non-governmental agency the authority to print money. We're already at 0-.25% interest, the next step is quantitative easing to try to get banks to lend their bailout money, but if that doesn't work then our dollar will devalue very quickly.
Here is a very good video explaining quantitative easing, if you have a few minutes I suggest you check it out: http://marketplace.publicradio.org/v...e_easing.shtml That site has several other good economic videos as well.