As I recall, evil Walmart was able to hand out bottled water following Katrina about a week before the federal government.

Anyone who can say this has no place in a discussion of economics. Period.

Markets are the foundational underpinning of an efficient economy. All other systems of determining supply and demand are woefully result in massive waste in comparison, and usually exist because certain people have enough hubris think they know enough to centrally plan an economy. These people are always wrong, because the information needed to do it with the efficiency of a market is unknowable. This is empirical fact.

That is not to say that a market functions in isolation. A prerequisite for a functioning market is a regulatory mechanism to keep people honest. Government is that mechanism, but only one where there are simple, comprehensible laws that apply equally to all parties in a market. The current monstrosity in Washington is decidedly *not* that kind of government, and each and every attempt it makes at un-leveling the playing field in favor of particular parties result in economic damage.

An honest, ethical government is the foundation of an honest, ethical economy. If one looks at the economic crises we’re facing today, many of them trace back to imbalances introduced by government to produce a particular result. Health care is a prime example of this. Though, when it comes time to play the blame game, the faceless and voiceless “free market” becomes the sole problem, and the arrogant and incompetent stooges of government go unchallenged.

Markets are a useful tool in some instances, but the current state of global capitalism is a travesty.

Peace.

DS

mmm mmm mmm Barack Hussein Obama is our dear leader.

But, corruption and scandal at Fannie Mae (which dwarfs Enron on a dollar scale and on a financial impact scale) is just an abberation. Al it says is that we need better, more honest people, running government and then we’ll be fine.

Leftists simply cannot concieve of government as being inherently corrupting – to them it’s the height of humanitarianism and the font of goodness. But in reality government is at least as succeptible to corruption as private business, and likely even more so since private companies aren’t allowed to use force to get their way.

In fact, we’re verging on the worst of all worlds here – crony capitalism where big business collaborates with big government to enforce control. NO free market involved at all. You Lefty lovers need to wake up and realize that Franklin Raines is a far bigger villian than Ken Lay, has done far more damage to ordinary people is far, far more corrupt than the entire Enron executive suite together, and it just the tip of the iceberg in Government America.

“Just about ANYTHING works when it’s not corrupted.”

12. DC.

“I have to agree with biblio44: Any system will work if the people are honest and honorable.”

I have a system of government that is honest and honorable, and is not corrupt.

You will work at a task that I designate for you to do. The results of your labor will be given over to me in full. I will then allocate enough resources to you, that I deem will allow you to live. The purpose of your life will be that you can live so long as to continue to contribute to the common good. Your excess production, that I determine, will be used by me to maintain the common good, the common good being what I decide the common good is.

Any dishonesty, dishonorable or corrupt actions, as determined by me, will result in your elimination.

These are the rules, which I will adhere to in a non-corrupt, honest and honorable way. In return, get working and perform your task in a non-corrupt, honest and honorable fashion. Or die.

I have spent my entire life listening to these fraudsters blast capitalism while they live in mansions, and ride around in limo’s. It is time we embarrass the hell out of these poorly educated so called elitist, and perhaps they will eventually shut their traps and make a movie worth watching.