Edwynn -> RE: Does Mitt Romney Have A Pair.... THIS is where we find out (3/5/2012 3:10:25 PM)
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ORIGINAL: MDomCouple You want to condemn me ... It wasn't a condemnation, merely pointing it out. And yes, another has pointed out the inappropriateness of invoking the Nazis into it and so I will too. Inappropriate. quote:
Spare me your faux indignation ... Spare me the drama. If you'll read my edited post, what I am pointing out is that so many core Republican tenets, such as 'less government,' are so diffuse that people do not pay attention to what that actually means in practice. People keep saying "I believe in some regulation," but think that it goes too far, etc. What are they looking at when they say such things? Reagan came in with a mandate of dismantling 'big government' and succeed famously in doing so for the corporate sector, starting with almost immediate memos to the FTC to slow down or desist entirely with several cases before them, likewise the Anti-Trust division of the Justice Department. He put his own people in as some of his first re-staffing of regulatory agencies. The SEC, FDIC, OCC, The Dept. of the Interior (James Watt), etc. all down the line. He fired the guy at the FDA for following the recommendation of his own science panel in denying aspartame for use in food, after Rumsfeldt (CEO of its maker, GD Searle) said he would "call in my markers on this one." After Volker performed the miracle of bringing down the pre-existing inflation even in the midst of willy-nilly tax cuts and profligate defense spending, Reagan said "thanks, bye" and brought in the maven of free markets, Greenspan. He, as much as any one person, is responsible for the situation we find ourselves in today. His relentless drive to deregulate the markets came mostly in the way of ever more relaxation of existing regulation, and being the considered guru that he was, the FDIC, the OCC, the SEC, the CFTC, and all the rest fell in line, as eventually, so did congress. He approved the illegal merger of CitiBank and The Travelers group, essentially forcing congress to overturn what portion of Glass-Stegall they hadn't already in the earlier 90's with the Financial Industry Modernization Act of 1999. Since Reagan, no president or prominent congress person has dared to act or speak in contravention of the notion of not interfering more than superficially with what large corporations want. I and others have plenty of gripes about many of the more prominent Democrats, but the largest portion of it stems from their inability to turn back the tide, nay, tsunami of corporate influence in government. What was previously an influence to be resisted or repelled now became the baseline as the only way to get into or stay in office. And what people do not understand is that this manifestation of corporate staffing of the regulatory agencies, that being anything but 'less government,' is the only logical result of a 'free market' mentality and its implementation. The S&L crisis, the concomitant RE bust, Enron's intentionally shutting down power plants and wreaking havoc in CA, none of which they were ever called to account for, then liquidating the entirety of their employees' pension funds, having CEOs of large corporations in the top level Cabinet positions, the financial industry's completely unregulated CDOs and Credit Default Swaps, the ratings agency S&P strong arming states to not enact predatory lending laws, the resultant financial melt down and crash of markets ... What does it take for you guys? All the above are merely the logical result of these 'tenets' so dearly held. Oh, and let's not forget that Reagan's 'less government' was also part and parcel of locking up many more thousands of young (especially poor) people than ever before, by way of increasing sentences, lowering the level of infraction that constituted felony, mandatory minimum sentences, etc. And again, this new aggression somehow became a 'standard' that no prominent politician of either party dare go against or try to remedy. For some people, the ideology, the romance of it, is so powerful that no matter what the numbers actually say, no matter that society keeps going down hill from one after implementation of all these wonderful ideas, no matter that the US is now and has been for over twenty years heading towards being the largest third world country in history ... "but, I don't like the idea of the government interfering with ... " (turns back to my Juggling For Beginners book ...) Nevermind, you guys go right ahead. Have fun now.
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