Re: the future long term financial apocalypse of the USA

On 19 May 2024 22:55:44 -0000, kludge@panix.com (Scott Dorsey) wrote:

Dimensional Traveler  <dtravel@sonic.net> wrote:

The problem with your "definition" of a capitalist economy is that it
doesn't exist.  Never has.  There has ALWAYS been some kind of
regulation and laws about how commerce is transacted.  When you start
stripping away all the propaganda and unfounded beliefs you find that
you can't _HAVE_ capitalism without rules and regulations.  Can't have a
marketplace if there is nothing preventing someone from whacking someone
else over the head and taking their things.

>
What is wrong with rules and regulations?  I am all in favor of them if
they make the playing field fair, and I am against them when they make it
less fair. 
>
When I was a kid, people who wanted to get rid of governments were called
"anarchists" and they were considered to be on the extreme left.  Now people
espousing the same views are called "tea partiers" and are considered to be
on the extreme right.  Something is wrong here.

As Ayn Rand once pointed out, the /extremes/ of Left and Right are ...
very much the same, despite their ideological differences.

The anarchists re-branded themselves antifa but their behavior (hide
in a legitimate demonstration, change to all-black clothes, dart out
and attack store windows, fade back in) never changed. Nor did their
ideology: during the demonstrations, a poster appeared explaining why
/breaking downtown department store windows/ was a necessary part of
/defunding the police/. Note that it is precisely the rise in crimes
against retail businesses that, in Seattle, produced a few changes
since the last election.

That and the development of what appears to be a better way to clear
homeless encampments than having the police wade in with batons waving
and confiscating whatever possessions the occupants may possess. Not
that we've reached Nirvana yet, to be sure.

And the tea party was a picnic compared to the semi-fascist ultra-MAGA
types. Or even many of the less extreme MAGA types. Still, trimming
the Republican Party of both groups and Democratic Party of the
Friends of Bernie would be very helpful to the country.

Governments are good things, they exist to keep the system fair.

--
"Here lies the Tuscan poet Aretino,
Who evil spoke of everyone but God,
Giving as his excuse, 'I never knew him.'"