Sunday, March 15, 2009

The Enemy: government, free markets and capitalism

a
What Peter Schiff and Ron Paul are saying in a sense makes sense. What they say seem to be logical: the dollar has become sub-prime currency creating a bubble on its own, which will bust as all bubbles eventually do; a phony economy, one based on spending borrowed money; government should get out of the way and let the free market work; to spend and borrow all based on printer-press money is a problem.

However the reality is, despite how logical the aforementioned seems, that government, capitalism, and free market have not worked. The problem is that there is no-one who knows how to get out from under our financial crisis. To solve this problem there must be a unified focus, and there is none, there is no consensus. We have an ideological propensity to defeat and humiliate our opponents as opposed to work in cooperation with them. We want to bludgeon others with our point of view. There must be an incarnate consensus that will lead to practical human action in order to solve our problems.

We have become a nation of consumerism, i.e. that a progressively greater consumption of goods is economically beneficial. It is a market based on supply and demand out of which grew irrational exuberance for credit, and an unacceptable inclination for avarice, which drove it to its demise. Our markets grow based on waste, destruction, and diminished quality. Those things we buy are purposely not made to last, there must be this cycle of waste/destruction so that new things are needed, or need to be replaced, and are consequently produced for us to buy. We have become a country based on an economy that depends on goods and services that are at some point disposable. In the investment arena it occurs as Peter Schiff makes reference to as flippers. Markets for goods are created, a marketing strategy of creating a need, they are not based on real necessity. Saving and thrift are the enemies of our current market paradigm. My view is that government, free markets and capitalism are collectively the enemy of those of us who simply want to live a life of peace, freedom, and one that is a healthy, and substantive.
a