Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : American Presidential Politics and foreign affairs -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: DuckTapeSunroof who wrote (34767)	4/10/2009 4:14:28 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 71588

Few conservatives use the term laissez-faire. But many who (mostly inaccurately) want to bash conservatives and/or Republicans for being "free market fundamentalists" like the term. I run in to such ridiculous claims like "Bush's laissez-faire policies have destroyed our economy" all the time on SI. And not just on SI ------ "Even the Bush White House, with its laissez-faire ideology and its political aversion to recognizing bad news, has finally admitted there is a problem." ppionline.org ""Last time they (the Bush administration) just sort of rejected it. It was all about laissez-faire economics — it will fix itself" floridatoday.com " Like Minds on Laissez-Faire The president’s first chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission promised a “kinder, gentler” agency. The second was pushed out amid industry complaints that he was too aggressive." nytimes.com "George Bush's laissez-faire dollar policy is why you're paying so much for gas" americablog.com "...The collapse of Communism as a political system sounded the death knell for Marxism as an ideology. But while laissez-faire capitalism has been a monumental failure in practice, and soundly defeated at the polls, the ideology is still alive and kicking. The only place you can find an American Marxist these days is teaching a college linguistic theory class. But you can find all manner of free market fundamentalists still on the Senate floor or in Governor's mansions or showing up on TV trying to peddle the deregulation snake oil. Take Sen. John Ensign, chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, who went on Face the Nation and, with a straight face, said of the economic meltdown: "Unfortunately, it was allowed to be portrayed that this was a result of deregulation, when in fact it was a result of overregulation." Or Gov. Mark Sanford, who told Joe Scarborough he was against bailing out the auto industry because it would "threaten the very market-based system that has created the wealth that this country has enjoyed." If a politician announced he was running on a platform of "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need" he would be laughed off the stage. That is also the correct response to anyone who continues to make the case that markets do best when left alone. It's time to drive the final nail into the coffin of laissez-faire capitalism by treating it like the discredited ideology it inarguably is. If not, the Dr. Frankensteins of the right will surely try to revive the monster and send it marauding through our economy once again... ...In a comprehensive piece on what led to the mortgage crisis and the subsequent financial meltdown, the New York Times shows how the Bush administration's devotion to unregulated markets was a primary cause of our economy to ruin..." huffingtonpost.com "During the French language leaders’ debate October 1, Duceppe charged that "Mr. Harper is a laissez-faire-ist like Mr. Bush and we see the disaster happening in the United States now.”[3] • October 6, Duceppe demanding a recall of Parliament to debate the economic crisis said that Harper had no clue how to fix the broken economy “It is still the economic laissez-faire of George W. Bush.”[4] • In Trois Rivières, October 7 he took it further. "With his economic philosophy, Harper is the worst thing that could happen to Quebec. It's laissez faire ... It is exactly like (George W.) Bush's Republican policies and we see the results today."[5] • A week after the election, responding to Tories injecting money into Canada’s banking system, Duceppe said: “I think he [Harper] had to do that, but this is not enough. At first they said there was no problem at all. It was the George Bush laissez-faire (approach), and that was a huge error, with the results that we are seeing now."[6]" poleconanalysis.org ---------------------- And from some "centrist Republicans as well "Bush has done nothing to solve various problems. He has ignored just about anything that we face. And I call this laissez-faire or just plain ignorance." thenextright.com