Comments on: The G(rasping)-20

By: exchanges rates

exchanges rates — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 17:00:43 +0000

exchanges rates…

This is a very good and informative post. I look forward to see more….

By: A. HALIM

A. HALIM — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 00:20:40 +0000

A. HALIM…

I have read several articles about internet banking australia but they didn’t give me the complete picture but finally you article has done when i found it on Wednesday….

By: Anna

Anna — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 15:27:55 +0000

Government intervention began with the governments’ monopolizing of the mint, legal tender laws, the creation of paper money, and the development of inflationary banking.

Now, money, once a valuable commodity, has become paper that trades with the same risks of derivatives.

Obama, the front man for all those who got wiped out in the derivatives meltdown, has gone bumming to Europe. For the benefit of the losers, he’s bumming a ride from what’s left of other currencies, and paying for it with the promise of more devalued dollars.

How is this not rackateering?

By: D. Saul Weiner

D. Saul Weiner — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 14:27:33 +0000

Sheldon,

On Glenn Greenwald’s blog, there is a video of an interview with a regulator (Kenneth Black) talking about the financial crisis. He conflates the failure to prosecute fraud with deregulation. I responded by reproducing some comments you made about the difference between the two in connection with the Madoff scandal.

It is positively Orwellian. The free market is no more to blame here than freedom is to blame that Iraq is a mess. Yet that is what one would believe if one were to take the words of the politicians and the pundits on face value.

By: Novista

Novista — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 00:04:32 +0000

The only free market I’ve seen in my 72 years on this planet … is black. Yes, the illicit drug trade, another ~success~ of government intervention.

But, hey, I like socialists, they think big, it’s amusing. They have a top-down theory of ‘world socialist, without money, etc. blah.’ Sometimes I say to them, Why not start bottom-up, pool your money, buy a company and run it on socialist principles. Show me a success in practice.

Actually, I do know of one instance in which a do-gooder inherited dad’s business and turned it over to the employes. It was bankrupt within a year …

It’s no coincidence that the 16th amendment and the ~Federal Reserve System~ were both born in 1913. This hidden agenda has been developing even before that, to the same end.

By: Lexi

Lexi — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 23:08:42 +0000

Jacob, I suppose it’s quite similar to the “free market” in the US and the “free market” around the world that they are claiming have failed. I don’t think it should be too hard to realize that excessive government control does not equal a free market, but why would they want to admit that when it means they’d not only be unable to gain power, they’d have to relinquish some as well. To honor their dishonesty and greed, they get more power. To honor dishonesty and greed in a truely free market, one earns bankrupcy. So, which system really caters to human flaws? Is capitalist greed truely so evil? Is not political greed or self-interest worse?

By: robert stewart

robert stewart — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 12:59:50 +0000

Well said, as usual, Sheldon. Good law you have created – wish we could pass it.

Politicans or central bankers do not run an economy – except maybe into the ground. They are similar to children in a toy supermarket cart pretending they are driving a real car whilst their parents load up on the life-sustaining products of the free market.

Keep exposing their arrogant pretences, and let all of us continue to make fun of these \"wowsers and snouters\". Laughter, at their expense, is usually more productive than rage or anger.

Bob Stewart.

By: Jacob Steelman

Jacob Steelman — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 11:54:22 +0000

Kevin Rudd, the globe-trotting lapdog of the G20 or any other G and sometimes Prime Minister of Australia, said that in the past 25 years “Free markets became worshipped as a god…and we now know that god was false.” What could he possibly be talking about? The state owned rail, bus, and water transportation system of each of the states of Australia, the state owned electric production and distribution system, the state owned public education system, the state controlled and regulated banking system and Reserve Bank of Australia, the state owned roads and bridges, the state land use planning system, the state owned parks and reserves, the state owned hospital and health care system, the state control of exports and imports, the state control of migration into Australia, the state control of employer-employee relations, the state control of families and children, the state control of money, the state regulation and control of various businesses? Is this the free market to which Mr Rudd makes reference?

By: William Reed

William Reed — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 00:17:05 +0000

Richmans\\\’s Law… I like it!

By: Lexi

Lexi — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 23:16:48 +0000

“Acting together strengthens the impact.”
It sure does. The depressing effect will be magnified on an international scale!
pilgrim1776, you are exactly right about the educational system today. My high school would never teach my anything in accordance with economic liberty. I learn it from Mr. Richman and other FEE writers.

By: Lexi

Lexi — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 23:11:16 +0000

I\’ve been reading the communique from the G-20 summit meeting. It\’s terrifying. Everything they talk about, spreading the \"growth,\" is about more government regulations. How do they think they can strengthen the banking business while forcing them to have low interest rates so they make a lower profit? That will NOT encourage lending. The growth they\’re spreading is going to be governmental growth and a loss of economic liberties, followed by loss of social liberties. Though, they did talk about shunning \"protectionism.\" But that is just a guise so that citizens will think that the government won\’t mandate production.

By: Lukus

Lukus — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 22:28:02 +0000

Such beautiful clarity. Great article.

By: pilgrim1776

pilgrim1776 — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 20:48:14 +0000

Greetings. As I have stated, many times, the people are the problem. The government schools and the totally, controlled media initiate and maintain the dumbing-down of the masses-r-asses, as I call them, and unless they wake up to their responsibility for maintaining a Republic, the demokracy will result in the anarchy that has been predicted by the Founding Fathers in the Federalist Papers, the Anti-Federalist, the Second Federalist and other great books such as, The Creature from Jekyll Island.
Until something drastic occurs that mankind ‘may’ awaken and realize that it is his responsibility to correct any and all problems, this great country will suffer much more mental and financial difficulties!
Sorry for the gloom and doom, but truth and reality are the necessity!

By: Russell M

Russell M — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 19:54:30 +0000

The demonstrators and the G20 participants in London just don’t get it. Politicians with a need to dominate, greedy bankers and global corporations with their voracious share holders got us into this mess. Why on earth does anyone think the solution is bigger governments with bigger regulations of bigger (though fewer) corporations? One of the guiding principles in the design of the Internet that would help the global economy is decentralisation. To insure the survival of the Internet in the face of a nuclear holocaust, its infrastructure is widely distribution. Unfortunately the battle over digital rights management (DRM) is slowly killing that digital golden goose.

With information skewed by the wind-up-merchants of the main-stream media we are being lead down the garden path. Every loss, injury or death, though tragic for those directly involved, is not a call for more intrusive regulation. The more we rely on bureaucracy the less self reliant and more vulnerable we become. Maybe it’s the result of global overpopulation, but when the extinction event comes most of us will have no choice but to go sooner rather than later.

By: Sharon

Sharon — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 17:59:38 +0000

I would love to send a copy of this to Obama and to everyone who attended the G-20. Alas, it would not get read, though it truth it should be laminated onto their desk tops.

And I must remember “Richman’s Law.” That’s a good one.

By: Mike

Mike — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 17:28:23 +0000

Well said Sheldon, well said. I hope my progressive friends will finally start to see this. Keep up the good work.

By: Foxwood

Foxwood — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 17:16:06 +0000

The conspiracy theories are true. We now live in a “New World Order”.

By: MIKE HILL

MIKE HILL — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 16:46:07 +0000

Mr. Richman,

You so eloquently and succinctly put into words the thoughts that run through my mind when I learn of the unbelievable direction and steps that government is now taking at ALL levels. There has to be a way to put on the brakes. Your articles and the FEE are a bright light in this darkness. Please keep up the good fight and the faith.