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What was the vision of our early presidents?
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Topic Started: Feb 21 2012, 09:35 AM (1,186 Views)
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Chris
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Feb 22 2012, 08:45 AM
Post #11
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- Mountainrivers
- Feb 21 2012, 09:08 PM
"Barack Obama debases the currency. Rounds of quantitative easing—effectively defaulting on our creditors—fund spending sprees by creating hundreds of billions in new money that devalues the old money."
You do understand that Obama didn't do that. The Federal Reserve did.
"Barack Obama launched a war in Libya"
He didn't launch the war. It wasn't even a war. The US simply participated in it. Blame the French and the English.
"Barack Obama forces religious institutions to violate the tenets of their faiths by paying for abortifacients, contraceptives, and sterilizations."
Did not. He backed away from that.
"Barack Obama has used the military in Libya, Yemen, Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, and beyond—with calls for the administration to intervene in Syria and attack Iran. As U.S. commitments have expanded, the administration proposes a smaller defense budget."
Whose calling for action in Syria and Iran. It's not Obama. Every president in recent history has used our military in various countries around the world. Obama is no different.
Yes, we can quibble but the buck ought to stop somewhere.
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Chris
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Feb 22 2012, 08:49 AM
Post #12
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- Thumper
- Feb 21 2012, 09:22 PM
Ban, this country is exactly where it has chosen to go. Blame yourself as I blame myself. We are the Government. Can't blame Obama. H was elected by "us". Don't like Obama, vote him out, but you aren't going to do it with the current disgusting Republican lineup. Count on four more for Obama. I personally will vote for him because of one single issue. Health Care. We are the government? Nice liberal sound bite, but we are not the government, we are the people, who granted government limited powers, and the people that let the government grow in power beyond those limitations, and now we have some who want restrained government and those who want unrestrained government. As Ford said, government big enough to give you everything you need is big enouhg to take it all away.
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Chris
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Feb 22 2012, 08:51 AM
Post #13
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- tomdrobin
- Feb 22 2012, 12:13 AM
Limited government and laizes faire economics worked pretty well in the time period leading up to the industrial revolution. When you had primarily small business with the owner often working alongside his employees. The industrial revolution changed all that, suddenly people became just tools to use to make money, and their were terrible excesses. And, those who became extremely wealthy used that wealth to consolidate more wealth and power for themselves. The gilded age and the age of the robber barons was an era of great economic expansion for the country. But, the excesses of that era led to the progressive era where the prosperity was shared more equitably.
Some would have us return to the freewheeling gilded age. I think it would be a mistake. "Limited government and laizes faire economics worked pretty well in the time period leading up to the industrial revolution."
Huh? Limited government, free markets, free thought, science, technology, the industrial revolution and much more arose from the Enlightenment. They did not exist before.
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Thumper
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Feb 22 2012, 08:53 AM
Post #14
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More Chris BS. Yawn
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Chris
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Feb 22 2012, 09:30 AM
Post #15
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- Chris
- Feb 22 2012, 08:51 AM
- tomdrobin
- Feb 22 2012, 12:13 AM
Limited government and laizes faire economics worked pretty well in the time period leading up to the industrial revolution. When you had primarily small business with the owner often working alongside his employees. The industrial revolution changed all that, suddenly people became just tools to use to make money, and their were terrible excesses. And, those who became extremely wealthy used that wealth to consolidate more wealth and power for themselves. The gilded age and the age of the robber barons was an era of great economic expansion for the country. But, the excesses of that era led to the progressive era where the prosperity was shared more equitably.
Some would have us return to the freewheeling gilded age. I think it would be a mistake.
"Limited government and laizes faire economics worked pretty well in the time period leading up to the industrial revolution." Huh? Limited government, free markets, free thought, science, technology, the industrial revolution and much more arose from the Enlightenment. They did not exist before. From http://www.timetoast.com/timelines/113560

The Industrial Revolution is general considered to span 1750 to 1850.
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Thumper
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Feb 22 2012, 11:30 AM
Post #16
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Damn Chris where you been all day? Bout time you showed up to straighten us out here.
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tomdrobin
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Feb 22 2012, 12:39 PM
Post #17
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Regulating Commerce and Business. In the year 1800 it would scarcely have occurred to founding fathers such as Jefferson, Hamilton, or Madison, to consider that the role of the government was to regulate business. The Constitution, however, assigned responsibility for controlling interstate commerce to the United States Congress, and in the case of Gibbons v. Ogden in 1824, Chief Justice John Marshall affirmed that it was the federal government's exclusive right to control commercial transactions between the states.
The accepted approach to the relationship between government and business for most of American history had been that of laissez-faire—letting business operate more or less unimpeded by government. People believed government interference with business could have no beneficial effects. Yet as the power of corporations grew, along with their size and numbers of employees, and as sharp competitive business practices rendered the playing field uneven, it became clear that corporations, especially large ones operated by the so-called robber barons, were responsible for significant amounts of hardship in people's lives. During the last half of the 19th century it became apparent that large businesses needed to be regulated, as corporations came more and more to dominate the lives of people. As a result, the tradition of laissez-faire was not only impractical but actually dangerous, for business-labor relations often degenerated into bloody contests fought to the death between business owners and managers and the workers who served them. The inevitable result was that the government had to assume the burden of regulating the workplace. It was the interface between government and the American economy that dominated the political life of the Gilded Age, a nexus that in large measure has continued ever since that time.
Social Darwinism. Working in favor of continuing the laissez-faire approach was the concept of Social Darwinism. Charles Darwin's “Origin of the Species,” published in 1859, was a very controversial work. Its impact soon reached beyond the subject of biological evolution (which had put it at odds with many fundamentalist religious beliefs), and it moved into the social arena. The idea of survival of the fittest, an offshoot of Darwin's original thesis, was applied to the human environment. The idea was to let people wade in to the morass of life and either get stuck or crawl out under their own power. Survival of the fittest thus became the social (and international) byword. When combined with Adam Smith's idea of allowing the market to determine success and failure in the business world, it meant that businesses were expected to do whatever was necessary to survive. Only by defeating their competitors could they hope to prosper. Business practice became ruthless and cutthroat, and survival went not only to the fittest, but also to the wiliest, the most crooked, and the most corrupt organizations. Something had to be done.
Businesses quickly realized that in order to continue to operate in the laissez-faire environment that had persisted from revolutionary days they would have to fend off attempts by government to become more involved in an economic policies. Since businesses required political support, and since politics required healthy injections of money, business-political alliances were forged, which did not always serve the public well. Railroads, for example, offered free passage to Congressman and other government officials and their friends and even went so far as to give them complimentary shares of stock in building corporations for railroad expansion. When John D. Rockefeller was developing standard oil, it was said that he “did everything with the Pennsylvania legislature except refine it.” Practices of that sort, which would today violate Government ethics many times over, were considered a normal part of doing business during the Gilded Age. In particular, people who depended on railways for business purposes were hurt by the fact that at least on the local level, where railroads had a monopoly on transportation of goods from producer to market. Shipping rates were uneven and often unfair, especially on lines where no competing systems were available. In addition, large corporations such as Carnegie Steel or Standard Oil were able to pressure rail companies not only to give them favorable rates and rebates (refunds under the table), but they also forced shippers to pay drawbacks—payments for goods shipped by the giant companies’ competitors. They pulled no punches in defeating competition through discriminatory rates. Farmers in particular were subject to the will of the railroad operators, especially when the roads owned and operated grain silos and other storage facilities, which farmers had no choice but to use.
The Interstate Commerce Act. As a result of all those questionable practices, Congress passed the Interstate Commerce Act of 1877, which stated:
All charges made for any service rendered or to be rendered in the transportation of passengers or property as aforesaid, or in connection therewith, or for the receiving, delivering, storage, or handling of such property, shall be reasonable and just; and every unjust and unreasonable charge for such service is prohibited and declared to be unlawful.
It further declared that rebates, drawbacks and other under-the-table payments were illegal. Although the Act had to be strengthened by subsequent legislation, the Interstate Commerce Act was the first step in bringing transportation facilities under government oversight.
The Sherman Antitrust Act. The first major break with the concept of laissez-faire came with the 1890 Sherman Antitrust Act. Businesses were prohibited from using monopolistic practices or acting in restraint of trade and taking unfair advantage of competitors. Like the Interstate Commerce Act, the Sherman Act had to be modified and tightened by later legislation, but the mere passage of the act demonstrated that the age of unbridled corporate excess was coming to an end. Major sections of the Sherman Act were:
SEC. 1. Every Contract, combination in the form of trust or otherwise, or conspiracy, in restraint of trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations, is hereby declared to be illegal. Every person who shall make any such contract or engage in any such combination or conspiracy, shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and, on conviction thereof, shall be punished by fine not exceeding five thousand dollars, or by imprisonment not exceeding one year, or by both said punishments, in the discretion of the court.
SEC. 2. Every person who shall monopolize, or attempt to monopolize, or combine or conspire with any other person or persons, to monopolize any part of the trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations, shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and, on Conviction thereof, shall be punished by fine not exceeding five thousand dollars, or by imprisonment not exceeding one year, or by both said punishments, in the discretion of the court.
http://academicamerican.com/recongildedage/topics/gildedagepolitics.html
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Stoney
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Feb 22 2012, 07:02 PM
Post #18
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The Truth About the "Robber Barons"
As common as it is to speak of "robber barons," most who use that term are confused about the role of capitalism in the American economy and fail to make an important distinction — the distinction between what might be called a market entrepreneur and a political entrepreneur. A pure market entrepreneur, or capitalist, succeeds financially by selling a newer, better, or less expensive product on the free market without any government subsidies, direct or indirect. The key to his success as a capitalist is his ability to please the consumer, for in a capitalist society the consumer ultimately calls the economic shots. By contrast, a political entrepreneur succeeds primarily by influencing government to subsidize his business or industry, or to enact legislation or regulation that harms his competitors.
In the mousetrap industry, for instance, you can be a market entrepreneur by making better mousetraps and thereby convincing consumers to buy more of your mousetraps and less of your competitors', or you can lobby Congress to prohibit the importation of all foreign-made mousetraps. In the former situation the consumer voluntarily hands over his money for the superior mousetrap; in the latter case the consumer, not given anything (better) in return, pays more for existing mousetraps just because the import quota has reduced supply and therefore driven up prices.
Source
Its not capitalism that produced the "Robber Barons" but the form of government regulation that allows/produces political entrepreneurs.
I just posted a paragraph, but its a good read.
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Chris
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Feb 22 2012, 09:12 PM
Post #19
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I think that's hard to see, stoney, for people who worship government.
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tomdrobin
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Feb 22 2012, 11:17 PM
Post #20
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No one worships government here. In a way it's just a necessary evil, to counter the excesses of human nature. Goody goody feel good capitalism whereby the guy who works the hardest and creates the best widget comes out on top is a fantasy. Usually in the absence of government it's the guy who is the most ruthless and exploitive that ends up on top of the heap. The robber barons of old just outright bought politicians, the newer version does it legally and indirectly via the disemination of propogada for the lower level right wing stool pigeons and heavy campaign financing.
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