That's about right

Lol Chicago school of economics = failure.

Yup. This guy's ideology (unbridled free markets and capitalism) is what caused the financial crash of 2008.

Capitalism is what made America sir. ahem John Deere, The man and company that revolutionized agriculture in America.

I hope you are trolling. But regardless, he said "unbridled capitalism." Very different from the system that made America into a super power (regulated capitalism).

Not completely trolling just making a person Understand that there is a complete difference between Capitalism and unbridled "Liberal" Capitalism...........

Oh lordy, so why is liberal in quotes? Is it because you don't know what unbridled means? Because you would see that it's exactly what the "conservatives" want to do.

Let's clear something up. Conservatives are what's called "classical liberals." They believe in the liberal ideals of the French and American Revolutions. These ideals are of individual freedom and responsibility, where the state, a necessary evil, needs to get out of the way as much as possible. Current liberals are much more like the loyalists and royals of back then. They see the state as a force for good that can bring ultimate equality to people.

Actually to these liberals the State was nothing but to protect their privileged property rights. The nation and State moved from an ideal to some contractual ideal. HAHA. Lame. All in the name of equality too, when it spawned conditions like we had in the Industrial era. HAHA.

upvote xMillion

Thank you

How do you remember how many g's to type when logging in? (unrelated, I know)

It just saves. If my computer ever crashed and my login information were no longer saved, I would have to create a new account.

I know what unbridled means. And I said liberal because liberals created the "occupy" movement by telling a bunch of idiotic sponges who cant think for themselves to go and cry about things they don't even understand. Liberals- Take from the rich give to the poor but let's call it redistribution Conservatives- Go make your own and keep it.

No, unfortunately, the conservatives of today follow more of a philosophy of take from the middle and use up the poor in order to make sure more of the money remains at the top. Then, use the extra money to secure resources, around the globe, which are used to bring even more money into the pockets of those who already have most of it.

Those aren't considered conservatives. They are Aristocrats or one that follows hierarchy as their moral code. These people are plainly obvious to point out.

True Conservatives believe that everyone has the same opportunities as everyone else it is just the person has to make their choices on where they want to go and their decisions affect how successful they will be.

Liberals and Aristocrats and those that believe in Hierarchism see that the poor should be poor, and the rich remain rich, but the rich should give some money to the poor to keep them happy so they don't rebel.

What you call conservative is actually the classical liberal, as pointed out by "Gig X G^N", above. What he glosses over is the fact that today's conservatives are not, in fact, adherents of classical liberalism. Today's conservatives are military/industrial fascists. If they truly believed in personal, fiscal responsibility, they would espouse more isolationist ideals. Instead, they engage in jingoistic behavior with a stated goal of spreading our democracy to the rest of the world. I believe this is, in part, due to the evangelical influence in the so-called conservative party. I could consider myself a conservative, but not as the republicans or the teabaggers define it. Yes, I use the pejorative, because the "tea party" is nothing more than manufactured dissent (to borrow Noam Chomsky's idea of manufactured CONSENT.) The tea party's version of deregulation favors large, rich corporations, not small businesses and individual people, which are America's bread and butter.

See, by definition, conservative just means a mindset of keeping things how they have always been. As Billy Joel said, "the good old days weren't always good and tomorrow's not as bad as it seems." In other words, conservatism is good in moderation, but it needs to be tempered with an understanding that things change and life needs to be built around adaptation in order to survive.

If you look at our constitution, it actually embodies the spirit of the philosophy I just set forth. It has some basic premises that are central to the freedom and happiness of a people, but the framers were intelligent and humble enough to know that they did not know everything that was to come, so theyu left room to change things as need arose. Unfortunately, there have been those who have used that flexibility to edge out the power of individuals in favor of moneyed, corporate interests. Where do you think the "Citizens United" decision came from. It was championed by people who consider themselves conservative and it's nothing more than a usurpation of individual power in favor of corporate. What is called conservative today is nothing more than a red herring. Even (especially) most of those who call themselves libertarians under the tea party ideals. Get religion out of it and maybe there's a chance for some real, intelligent change there, but otherwise, it's just fascism masquerading as freedom.

Now wait. I must ask you a couple of questions.

First, I don't mean to pry, are you an American citizen?

Second, What is the American Government supposed to be?

I am a natural-born, American citizen.

The American government is supposed to be a buffer between "The People" and tyranny.

Umm, The American government was created to govern the GOVERNMENT not the citizens. SO by buffer you mean Protect every single American's rights? Including keeping everything that citizen creates, earns, and achieves. Ownership of properties such as home, transportation and businesses. AND the right to keep and bear arms and the right to FORM A MILITIA to overthrow overpowering government.....

I hope so......

classical liberalism built on ideas that had already developed by the end of the 18th century, it advocated a specific kind of society, government and public policy as a response to the Industrial Revolution and urbanization. Notable individuals whose ideas have contributed to classical liberalism include John Locke, Jean-Baptiste Say, Thomas Malthus and David Ricardo. It drew on the economics of Adam Smith and on a belief in natural law.

American conservatism has always embraced elements of classical liberalism, but liberalism, classical or otherwise, can not preserve a society. Conservatism preserves a society. Authentic, as opposed to modern, conservatism can not be equal to classical liberalism even though you frequently hear and read that assertion. By definition, conservatism can not be just or mostly classical liberalism or it becomes plain old liberalism.

You're waaaay oversimplifying a couple of things. The tyranny I speak of is not just governmental. There is the tyranny of the majority, which is one reason our government was not set up as a true democracy. Religious tyranny is just as bad, or worse than governmental. Plus, though the idea of corporation was just solidifying at the time, a corporation is nothing more than a type of government which is capable of tyranny, as well.

As to the right to bear arms and form a militia, your wording indicates the exact same misunderstanding most people seem to have of amendment #2. It is not a right to bear arms AND the right to form a militia, it is a statement that a WELL-REGULATED militia is necessary to preserve freedom and so, to that end, the right to bear arms shall not be infringed. That leaves a very heavy responsibility of responsible gun ownership alongside the right to own guns. It implies training and order and discipline.

As far as conservatism being the only way to preserve society, we have a half-truth there. Conserve and preserve are very close together in meaning, yes, but conservatism is a much more concrete, unyielding thing. Our constitution was constructed in such a way that it would stand solid, but also allow for change. Balance between liberalism and conservatism is the key. The framers of the constitution were not of one mind on things. They had many different ideals that were melded and shaped together to form a system of government that is supposed to strive to preserve EVERYONE'S freedom. Not just that of the most popular viewpoint of the moment.

As I stated before, there are some good points and some bad, to both liberalism and conservatism. Finding the good from each and using it and the bad from each and discarding it is what our government was designed to do. I say again: get the religious and corporate influence out of government, whether they espouse liberal or conservative ideals and we'll have gone a long way to ensuring liberty. As long as, "what is natural" as described in any religious text is seen as valid political discussion, we're doing it wrong. As long as corporations are allowed the same rights and privileges as individuals without the same level of accountability, we're doing it wrong.

You don't really understand things, do you? What caused the economic crash in 2008 was actually a housing bubble, which was caused by banks giving out fixed-rate mortgages to people who could never afford to repay them. Then they grouped those mortgages together into securities and sold them off. When people realized that these securities had thousands of worthless mortgages, the securities themselves became value-less and the economy crashed. But why,you may well ask, did these banks give loans out to people who could not afford it? Well, Democrats and Compassionate Conservatives, the two worst kinds of people, enacted various pieces of legislation encouraging banks to give out mortgages to under-privileged people so that they too could own homes. It was a nice idea, but really poorly thought out, and ultimately, did not help the poor at all. It just made them go bankrupt and lose their houses.

Common sense and education, we should hang out.

Yes, yes we should. And thank's for the compliment.

A knowledge of economics, I can smell it coming from your comment. Again, upvote xMillion

Thank you again. I did take some econ courses in college, but a lot of this is just common sense.

You forgot a few things: 1) The banks always have the discretion to issue a loan, or not, based on the borrowers ability to pay, regardless of what the government encourages. 2) The investment banks further destabilized the credit market by creating investment portfolios out of insurance on the mortgage portfolios. 3) The banks increased their exposure to risk by adding leveraged investment banking to their normally secure lending business. 4) Bankers are greedy criminals who make their money by risking other peoples money.

Also, there are a lot of other real-world factors to the crash that were apparently left out of your econ course & your common sense.

Anyone who argues that understanding something as complex as the 2008 crash is "common sense" is completely full of shit. If they think it is that simple, they obviously don't fully understand it.

As far as "taking econ classes," I was a business major while this was happening, and econ classes will not even come close to providing a thorough understanding of this specific incident. In fact most econ professors won't talk about it because they are focused on teaching economic concepts (which are complex and take up all the time they have with the class), not current events.

You were 100% right until you started getting political. If you actually do the research yourself instead of being spoonfed it from a major media source (I'm guessing), you would know that the risky lending began when the marketplace for mortgages began to become dominated by private lenders (non government related) see this and this. Government sponsored enterprises like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac began to lower their lending standards in order to compete with the private lenders who began to dominate the marketplace. The private lenders began the race to the bottom. In fact GSE loans have since performed far better than loans securitized by the private investment banks.

Basically, the root of the lending crises wasn't a government program, it was plain old greed, which regulation aims to prevent.

So what would you rather happen? Remove all federal regulation of the entire process so this can happen all over again (which Milton Friedman would have pushed for before his entire reputation was ruined by the 2008 crash).

All capitalism is liberal you fuckers. It was all born during the French and American revolutions during the Enlightenment period.

Cure weak liberalism with strong communism!

Really? Your answer is communism? That has worked out pretty well over the past 100 years or so, right?

Oh yes, capitalism has been working so much better for the past 200 years. Destruction of the environment, child and woman labor, the increasing break up of the family due to the ever increasing wage-profit gap. Millions of homeless Americans while people who do nothing but move electronic money around sit and sip champagne. Mmmhmm. Tell me more cappy boy.

And there is nothing stopping the homeless from becoming one of those people. No one in this country is told what they can't be. Take a look at the mixed race son of an African immigrant.

Actually, capitalism thrives on there being a division between poor and rich. The rich become rich off moving and commanding capital, capital that 97% of the time is created by physical labor someone else did. It begs the question; is this even an ethical way to amass riches? Furthermore, what kind of society props up riches as its highest virtue? Not a healthy one, and I think you'll find most people agree. While most people generally lack an analysis of the system, you'll find capitalism goes against the moral and ideal fiber of a great many people.

And pointing to a nation wrecking, child murderer who became president of millions of dollars of donations from some of the biggest banks in the world is a horrible example of "be all you can be!"

Shield of facts, I haz one!

Mr. coolstorybro888, what you've just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.

HAHA cute movie quote.

Besides, don't act like corporate media in this country doesn't shove down your throat what you SHOULD be.

I'm not sure what your rant of hate and bitterness has to do with the funny picture.

My boy Milton!