Republicans! Last 8 years not Capitalism.

COMMENT. USA. – The last 8 years of Republican rule were not Capitalism.

The last 8 years were not free markets.

Insomuch as the last 8 years were not free & unfettered competition.

Corporate Welfare.

The last 8 years have been welfare for the largest corporations. And the super-rich.

The obvious ones? High-bracket Tax cuts. Incentives. NAFTA. De-regulation. Corporate tax-cuts.

Where has been the assistance (or at least, no harm) to small & mid-size American business? Growing of the middle class?

Spend for your Country?

Instead the middle-class have faced falling incomes, whilst being constantly told to go into debt ‘shopping for America’.

Another cost? 2 wars. That were not well implemented. Especially financially. The USA is still subsidizing Iraq to $10 billion a month.

And the wars have damaged, not benefited, opportunities for American business.

No trickle.

These measures simply mean that those in the middle-class pay for more of the goods & services delivered by government.

The wealth doesn’t trickle down much.

In short, not Capitalism.

In fact, these measures have blocked small business in the long-run.

Most evidently, causing a dramatic revaluation of mortgages threatens the financing of small business.

Leading economist, Hernando De Soto makes the case for small business existence being dependent on mortgage financing.

This is before the magnifier of credit problems, and large corporate bankruptcies & cutbacks. Small business often depends on large customers.

Concentration of Wealth.

An America which transfers wealth to a bureaucratic Military Industrial Complex and super-large corporations is not being capitalist.

Not in the American sense. The sense of opportunity. Of a fair playing field.

America is not a socialist country. But in giving welfare to interests groups and calling it capitalism the Government of the USA have not been practising actual Capitalism.

America should be pro-business. America should be pro-markets.

But transferring wealth to an elite is not true American Capitalism.

2thinknow Capitalism.

True wealth is local innovation. Local firms, in local towns. Supporting real business, and removing barriers to these business success.

It’s not giving free kicks to Enron, Halliburton, Lehman, Merrill or others.

Nor giving corporate zero-shuffling employees the same pay you give true capitalists.

Innovation is created by business. Sometimes by government, as in France. Each country has its way.

Create wealth.

But innovation and sustainable wealth is never created by favours to friends. it is created by a level playing field, and the ability of businesses with ideas to implement them.

Innovation & sustainable wealth should be about removing barriers to business, evenly & fairly. Supporting business. Not subsidies. Nor socializing losses.

That, and the last 8 years of grabbing gains, would be crony capitalism. Always ends badly.

Republican thought-leaders might like to think about that, as why they lost the battle of ideas. And not confuse the last 8 years of executive options & largesse with classical capitalism, supporting business & entrepreneurs.

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