Horatio Alger was a Myth (all mostly opinion, but with some facts thrown in)
Been noticing a disturbing meme among little-C conservatives (traditional ones, not neo-conservative objectivists) to blame CRA for the mortgage crisis that caused our current economic problems. This is resoundingly not true. This meme of blaming CRA for the financial woes of our nation is just another set of objectivist handwavium on par with Holocaust Denial and Young Earth "theories".
Instead, the cause of this current clusterfuck lies squarely on the shoulders of the banks that executed predatory mortgages on a public that was being encouraged by the Bush-Cheney administration to spend money to keep the economy going. Artificially low interests rates, along with inflation in all markets and the cost of the Iraq War.
Now, some of these are the forces of the market and there is nothing ANYONE can do about that, but some of them (Greenspan going wonky, Iraq War, politicization of the office of Fed Chairman) are direct policies of the objectivism-clouded Bush administration.
If there is any thing that the last eight years should've taught everyone, it is that Neo-conservatism and objectivism are systems of thought and economic-political philosophy that are untenable and indefensible, and by extrapolation and extension, the political theories that gave rise to them (unregulated capitalism, conservatism in government) are proven useless at this scale.
(And it is not that I think that the American liberals have any answers at all. They are, by my own yardstick and the yardstick of critical thinking, woefully conservative themselves and are as much a suckling pig to the corporate teat as the others. Run them all up the flagpole.)
We are a nation too large, too numerous, too extended and too disparate in economic standing vis a vis the different classes, to trust our nation's safety and stability to one single political-economic theory. There is a place for a market, but there is also a place for the regulation of that market to increase stability and the economic standing of the underclasses. History meets out the story, irrefutable in its intensity and truth, that when left to its own devices, the capitalist systems preys upon on the working class and the poor. The capitalist theory has stated that in the end, through the people's own ingenuity and stick-to-it-ive-ness that you can better your own economic sanding and class. This does not work because even in a regulated capitalist system, an underclass is needed to provide market stabilization for wages to keep inflation down, thus there will never be economic equality in a capitalist system.
(Also, as an aside, is constant growth ever really a good thing? Should we stick to a system that gets to a renewable, stable point and remains there until the economy can fluctuate with out market realignment? Perhaps there is some nuance here that I don't have a handle on.)
We have funneled money into the system to prevent the abjuration of our economic system only to see that money slid into the hands of the company CEOs and upper management. We have put our trust in politicians to do the right thing, but their hands are greased by corporations and their own greed, their judgement clouded by party politics and partisanism. We have a president who is trying to work for the better good of everybody, and is getting the shoeshine treatment from his own party and the wall treatment from the opposition. On top of it all, you can't even know for sure that the Stimulus plan will work. There isn't any progress at the end of this. We are all living on a reservation, a company town, at the mercy of people who are not elected, not known, and we have no redress for the ills that they cause. But it should be tried.
To sit around and not try anything smacks of Hooverism (and I'm not even going to go into the FDR New Deal Failed Myth). The economy would realign itself in a few years, probably to post-ww2 levels, or hopefully the levels of the 2000-2002 recession. But to do something is to try to retask a very finite amount of money (and if you do this, you need to increase regulation of the market to prevent its reaccurance in the future). Where is this money coming from? We are undertaking (perpetrating?) two costly wars, our money is devalued, we have an overtaxed middle-, working-, and under- class, and undertaxed super rich AND military spending (independent from the cost of the wars) that could CURE FUCKING CANCER IN A WEEK IF WE RETASKED THAT MONEY.
Going to shift gears here to nationalized health care for a moment. Seriously, there is a moral disconnect between people who believe in the primacy of the market and STILL do not understand that the side effect of that market is to create and perpetuate an underclass. Are we, as a nation, to ignore the needs of these people in the belief that a "welfare" nation is a bad idea? To do so is neglect. "Welfare" nations in Europe tend to have quality of life levels that trounce ours like Rocco Siffredi trounces asses. America is not the greatest nation on earth as long as we neglect our poor (and that includes the working poor).
If we are to be a Nation that cultivates its nationalism not from some sense of ethnic exceptionalism but the exceptional nature of our founding documents and moral and ethical implications therein, then we as a nation need to step up to the plate and really level the social playing field and make our people equal.
Social class is the great divider in our populace, it gives, by its very nature, opportunity to the rich and detriment to the poor. Social class is the byproduct of wealth.
The root of all of our problems as a nation is economic disparity. You want to end gun crime? Don't ban guns, get rid of the circumstances that turn people to becoming drug dealers. You want to give the poor an educational leg up? Ban exclusive private schools that are mostly upper class finishing schools and social networking sites, so kids know kids from different economic backgrounds and no one is socially isolated). You want to end American intervention in sovereign nations that haven't invaded us? Remove from power the military-industrial complex and defund the military (and look at all that money you get). You want people out in the world respect America again? Get our house in order.
Instead, the cause of this current clusterfuck lies squarely on the shoulders of the banks that executed predatory mortgages on a public that was being encouraged by the Bush-Cheney administration to spend money to keep the economy going. Artificially low interests rates, along with inflation in all markets and the cost of the Iraq War.
Now, some of these are the forces of the market and there is nothing ANYONE can do about that, but some of them (Greenspan going wonky, Iraq War, politicization of the office of Fed Chairman) are direct policies of the objectivism-clouded Bush administration.
If there is any thing that the last eight years should've taught everyone, it is that Neo-conservatism and objectivism are systems of thought and economic-political philosophy that are untenable and indefensible, and by extrapolation and extension, the political theories that gave rise to them (unregulated capitalism, conservatism in government) are proven useless at this scale.
(And it is not that I think that the American liberals have any answers at all. They are, by my own yardstick and the yardstick of critical thinking, woefully conservative themselves and are as much a suckling pig to the corporate teat as the others. Run them all up the flagpole.)
We are a nation too large, too numerous, too extended and too disparate in economic standing vis a vis the different classes, to trust our nation's safety and stability to one single political-economic theory. There is a place for a market, but there is also a place for the regulation of that market to increase stability and the economic standing of the underclasses. History meets out the story, irrefutable in its intensity and truth, that when left to its own devices, the capitalist systems preys upon on the working class and the poor. The capitalist theory has stated that in the end, through the people's own ingenuity and stick-to-it-ive-ness that you can better your own economic sanding and class. This does not work because even in a regulated capitalist system, an underclass is needed to provide market stabilization for wages to keep inflation down, thus there will never be economic equality in a capitalist system.
(Also, as an aside, is constant growth ever really a good thing? Should we stick to a system that gets to a renewable, stable point and remains there until the economy can fluctuate with out market realignment? Perhaps there is some nuance here that I don't have a handle on.)
We have funneled money into the system to prevent the abjuration of our economic system only to see that money slid into the hands of the company CEOs and upper management. We have put our trust in politicians to do the right thing, but their hands are greased by corporations and their own greed, their judgement clouded by party politics and partisanism. We have a president who is trying to work for the better good of everybody, and is getting the shoeshine treatment from his own party and the wall treatment from the opposition. On top of it all, you can't even know for sure that the Stimulus plan will work. There isn't any progress at the end of this. We are all living on a reservation, a company town, at the mercy of people who are not elected, not known, and we have no redress for the ills that they cause. But it should be tried.
To sit around and not try anything smacks of Hooverism (and I'm not even going to go into the FDR New Deal Failed Myth). The economy would realign itself in a few years, probably to post-ww2 levels, or hopefully the levels of the 2000-2002 recession. But to do something is to try to retask a very finite amount of money (and if you do this, you need to increase regulation of the market to prevent its reaccurance in the future). Where is this money coming from? We are undertaking (perpetrating?) two costly wars, our money is devalued, we have an overtaxed middle-, working-, and under- class, and undertaxed super rich AND military spending (independent from the cost of the wars) that could CURE FUCKING CANCER IN A WEEK IF WE RETASKED THAT MONEY.
Going to shift gears here to nationalized health care for a moment. Seriously, there is a moral disconnect between people who believe in the primacy of the market and STILL do not understand that the side effect of that market is to create and perpetuate an underclass. Are we, as a nation, to ignore the needs of these people in the belief that a "welfare" nation is a bad idea? To do so is neglect. "Welfare" nations in Europe tend to have quality of life levels that trounce ours like Rocco Siffredi trounces asses. America is not the greatest nation on earth as long as we neglect our poor (and that includes the working poor).
If we are to be a Nation that cultivates its nationalism not from some sense of ethnic exceptionalism but the exceptional nature of our founding documents and moral and ethical implications therein, then we as a nation need to step up to the plate and really level the social playing field and make our people equal.
Social class is the great divider in our populace, it gives, by its very nature, opportunity to the rich and detriment to the poor. Social class is the byproduct of wealth.
The root of all of our problems as a nation is economic disparity. You want to end gun crime? Don't ban guns, get rid of the circumstances that turn people to becoming drug dealers. You want to give the poor an educational leg up? Ban exclusive private schools that are mostly upper class finishing schools and social networking sites, so kids know kids from different economic backgrounds and no one is socially isolated). You want to end American intervention in sovereign nations that haven't invaded us? Remove from power the military-industrial complex and defund the military (and look at all that money you get). You want people out in the world respect America again? Get our house in order.