Just 53% Say Capitalism Better Than Socialism

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Originally Posted by Sigaba

How might critics who think that the president is taking the country along a path towards socialism reframe their argument so it resonates among tin-eared Americans who are following the one-note horn bleating "change"?

Great question - I should ask myself more often. The short answer I'd give:

"Lightly regulated capitalism is what led us to prosperity in the past, so the government shouldn't prevent the development of what works, because their programs are no substitute. We cannot barrow ourselves to a balanced budget, as a country, just like a person can't get out of credit card debt by taking a loan to pay it off."

My longer answer is more grim, from what I understand our position to be, and the way we are dealing with it.

Many prominent investors disagree, but I see the bailouts and "stimulus packages" as a final looting of our faulty debt based economy: for a redistribution of wealth. It's not going to bring up the lower class or improve the avg. living standards; but reallocate MUCH more power to the uber-rich and government. Instead of letting the faulty banking and monitory systems fail, the problem is being compounded by a "survival of the weakest" initiative, which puts more power into sectors that are not functional. Two-Thirds of our Consumer Price Index (Cost of Living Index) is already comprised of the tax and housing expenses. Free market innovation is being stifled, so when the house of cards inevitably falls, these sectors are posed to be in the advantageous position.

Our total debt (private and government) is over 56 trillion = 175K+ PER PERSON living in the US. Our mighty Military power and global economic influence should be enough leverage to say "Sorry China, Japan and Germany, the Fed. isn't working out for us so we need to try something new". What are they going to do: Nuke us when they need us? We will lose the BS AAA rating and have a permanent black eye, but it would give the country a real chance to come back by wiping 40+ trillion dollars off the balance sheet, that I can't see us repaying anyhow. It would be a time of turmoil and suffering for the US but what are the alternatives? More bankrupt institutions, less working, currency value dropping, increase of the already high inflation % and deflated global influence. This will happen when we stop getting money from other central banks. China has already said they don't want our long-term bonds (so we just borrowed 250 billion from Europe) and the Swiss don't want to take on more US bank accounts. The only reason the Fed. was able to pull this off in the first place was to get off the gold standard and because the USD is the world standard. The communist countries are already making plans for an IMF currency, which the Fed. is fine with (seeing as the private shareholders want to get their % of lending from some source), because we are sucked dry. I hope I'm wrong.

Alan Greenspan in 1966

"In the absence of the gold standard, there is no way to protect savings from confiscation through inflation. There is no safe store of value. The abandonment of the gold standard made it possible for welfare statists to use the banking system as a means to an unlimited expansion of credit (debt creation)"

Alan Greenspan in 2002

"It was the case that the price level in 1929 was not much different, on net, from what it had been in 1800. But, in the two decades following the abandonment of the gold standard in 1933, the consumer price index in the United States nearly doubled. And, in the four decades after that, prices quintupled. Monetary policy, unleashed from the constraint of domestic gold convertibility, has allowed a persistent over issuance of money. As recently as a decade ago, central bankers, having witnessed more than a half-century of chronic inflation, appeared to confirm that a fiat currency was inherently subject to excess."