So state officials aren’t as effective as market forces.

May I humbly add the UK Government and the Bank of England to the list too. Both Govt and Bank appear to believe that they know best.

ass and ox stuff

communist china is myanmar on the grand scale

Banks that operate by the profit motive have been the source of economic bubbles for 500 years. If they got paid for taking and processing loan application and approving of disapproving them according to current Fed rules and quotas but the Fed held the loans. They would have no interest in financing bubbles. Then the pro real estate bubble politicians would have to be watched. Obviously it does not serve the economy well to have residential real estate priced higher than need to get adequate housing. There are other investment needs in economy besides housing. Giving fixed loans to people with unstable low income does help them. As does losing up people with real estate they do not have the income skill keep up.

Does the United States operate under free markets and capitalism or crony capitalism?

Why is most of the legalese in the bills enacted by Congress written by lobbyists? “Reform bills” quickly turn back into support and subsidies for the rich and super rich.

This article is the epitome of naïveté. The Tenth Percenters in their mandate to preserve their capital with guaranteed ten percent returns have been ruling the United States for decades.

However, when he speaks of how state-managed capitalism a la China “breeds corruption”, I have to laugh! As if the form of capitalism that has been practiced in the West over the past two decades doesn’t also do so on a grand scale???? It breeds destructive corruption and greed, throughout both the public and private sectors – what does the author think lies at the root of the private sector collapse of 2008 and the sovereign debt crisis of 2011?

Liberal capitalism has brought upon itself all these woes, and they are not merely temporary or ‘just part of the business cycle’. They signify the fundamental failure of the system.

Governments of the group called “the over-developed economies” are being forced to enact measures that corrode away the very liberties and freedoms the author seems to think are irrevocable. They most certainly are not! They are being forfeited, sacrificed upon the altar of social/civil order and security via government control. There is a very strong socialistic trend taking root in the West (witness the rise of socialistic leaders in Europe and the U.S.) as economic crises erode any temporary benefits that were brought on by liberal free market capitalism. Thus, the frightened and suffering electorate is participating with ever-more-totalitarian democratic governments in the forfeiture of traditional western freedoms and liberties. “Cover us and take care of us!” is the cry of the electorate to their governments.

Matters will worsen much more from here, and democratic governments throughout the West will become ever more totalitarian – simply to survive. Western Capitalism is in its self-inflicted death throes. What takes its place will, more than not, resemble the model China is using.

That doesn’t say China’s model is better. It simply says it works in a fashion, while the traditional Western model no longer does. If the West had time – maybe it could fix itself. But there isn’t sufficient time, for the electorate is restless, massively spoiled, and impatient. And democratic governments are frightened, deeply concerned for their national security, and incredibly tempted by the greed for what an increasing measure of totalitarianism can bring them.

Those who realize the truth of the above tend to flock to the conservative candidates as a “solution”, but conservative leaders have done just as much (if not more) to bring the West to the very precipice of a forfeiture of democracy as liberal leaders have. Disappointments in any/all leaders will only fuel the catastrophic crackup that is coming for the West.