Socialism bailing out capitalism? (The Federal Reserve and the Banking problems)

I sort of agree with both you and Minnemooseus. You are correct if we are going to go with strict nomenclature, however M is correct if we go by popular terminology regarding gov't activity in the market.What you call long outdated classical capitalist theory really is the most popular public conception as far as I can tell.And in this particular case it is not just gov't regulation, it was the gov't taking public money and redistributing it to save corporations, who are treated as individuals. Thus while Bush and Co had no interest in redistributing public money to help save individuals who were losing their homes, as that would be socialism, there was no issue with giving the money to corporations. Of course if we used money that same way to ensure healthcare, that would also be socialism (to them).Thus, using pop terms, they are in favor of socialism, only when it benefits the high and mighty. Hey, I used to enjoy those!

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h
"Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing." - Robert E. Howard

I believe I was the only person to say anything about benefits going to the high and mighty, and so I take it you are replying to me?You are correct that saying any intervention is meant to benefit the H&M would be oversimplified generalization. However it is not generalization to point to specific acts of specific individuals and groups and describe what their choices entail, nor what it would mean in pop terms.I personally have no problem with corporations or free markets. I am a reformed libertarian, who only wants socialism (although chiro would disagree with my usage) to deal with common public needs (much as we have a socialized military and fire department).That said, while one can certainly point to the bailout of BS as having effects beyond the H&M alone, that is really where the attempt at stopping the damage is being directed. A similar measure was not employed at the beginning of the crisis when the people that would have received aid were not H&M.You are correct that some frame corporations in a negative light. There are also those who frame individuals in a negative light... as leeches on the free market... while positing corporations as saviors of the free market. In any bailout such as we just had, what will happen is that the H&M will be stabilized and be able to make a profit, while those who are not H&M will see just about nothing. They will have to just be thankful nothing worse happened... while some go fully down the tubes.If we are looking at and accepting interventionist strategies, then we have to look beyond just using bailout measures at the corporate level. The last immense bailout did not end the recession we slid into. I doubt this one will either. But I know who has been helped live through it, and those who have not.Edited by Silent H, : specific

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h
"Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing." - Robert E. Howard

I guess I'm hippy dippy, as that sounded about right to me. Oh my. While I may have left behind some of my libertarian ideas on economic policy, I have always been and always will be for deregulated human behavior. I guess I've felt that the only way to actually effect human behavior is to build a police state, which to my mind does more damage than the original problem (whatever that might be).

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h
"Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing." - Robert E. Howard

I generally agree with your assessment. Here are some issues I might raise concerns about... I see two different concepts of "consumer" within that paragraph. It is true that increased consumer spending helps move a system out of recession, but confidence alone is not capable of getting people to spend. Real, stable amounts of money in the consumers' hands is what generates spending.While feds stopped a stock sell-off, I'm not sure what that meant to the consumer (meaning the person wanting to spend money on the latest gizmo... or food). It would seem in this case, the consumer you are referring to is the investors, who do not really pump money into the economy in the areas we most need to remove a recession. These are people who pump money higher up the economic ladder (or structure) and then take money back out in turn.I'm not dismissing the need to make stockholders feel secure and so stabilize a market. It's just that it is not the key to generating the kind of spending that is needed, and in some ways emboldens the bad deals we see happening, as it grants an immunity to risk.Again I would point to the last bailout. It took a long time for the ground level consumers to get money in their hands and so start spending which eventually pulled us out of the recession. In the mean time it was the corporate level people who walked away generally unscathed, to invest again another day. What did they learn? Well I do think we have some better systems to use as examples. Sweden and Denmark are two that come to mind. We don't have to scrap our system, but we could do some jerry-rigging.

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h
"Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing." - Robert E. Howard

A Yahoo News Article states that some senators have begun investigating the Bears Stearns bailout. An interesting section... But something else caught my eye as well. I remembered this comment from Chiro... Heheheh, check this out... Ahhhh, I always did like that guy.

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h
"Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing." - Robert E. Howard