Tuesday, September 23, 2008

touche

Ken takes me to task for pretending to know something about economics the other day.

I respond: I am no economist, but I know a lot about hypocrisy and lying, and that was the crux of my rant. "Free markets" fail and socialist bail-outs happen. I've seen it several times in my short life. No where did I say I prefer socialism, though I prefer socialized medicine and higher education and...I'll stop now.

4 comments:

fernie said...

Short life! Who are you kidding!

Casey said...

Ken is sometimes as guilty as the liberals he denounces when it comes to unquestioning (and unexamined) rhetoric.

In his haste to advance his libertarian arguments, however, he paints with too big a brush. For example, I'm not a liberal, but I see the failures of the deregulation agenda every day. It's easy to point fingers at Washington, but it's harder to define appropriate Federal oversight in crucial areas. Gov't exists; it's not going anywhere. Some folks just need to grow up. The problem isn't necessarily one of government involvement, it's in demanding integrity and tranparency in our rulemaking process. But this demands a level of civic awareness that is sadly beyond most Americans.

Ken is a smart guy, and he should be able to "get" these key distinctions. I'll break him eventually!

I hope this hasn't dissuaded you from stopping by -- it god without saying that your comments and perspectives are always welcome.

Casey said...

it GOES without Saying, I mean. My iPhone auto-spell
Clearly has a religious bias.

Geoff said...

Ha, if I were offended or dismayed by Ken's post I'd not have linked to it.

So many of the much-vaunted technological advances by the corporations he admires was funded by the public through federal grants via universities or the military industrial complex (all charged to the taxpayer) that I could call him on phony "free" markets before the bail-outs, but I'm done with this argument. I think the US did quite well with carefully managed and regulated markets and business from the 30's until the early 70s. The enthusiasm for deregulation and "free" markets brought us to this point, and everyone, as if on cue, is talking bail-out. Some are pushing for bail-out with nothing for the middle or lower class at all. Socialism for the rich!