Bush: "I've abandoned free-market principles to save the free-market system"

[bascule]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20081216/pl_afp/financeeconomyusbush;_ylt=AsjFc097dv7q8V.O0_MWVs3v5rEF

 

This bizarre sort of doublethink does not seem exclusive to Bush. It belies the notion that we really don't have a free market and haven't had one for quite sometime.

 

Was all the lip service paid to the "free market" during the Bush years actually destructive? I believe so.

[ParanoiA]

We have a free market about as much as we are a free country.

 

It would be nice if we could live up to those principles and enable both to be pedantically true. We're too intolerant and controlling for that, from what I've seen.

[ecoli]

Was all the lip service paid to the "free market" during the Bush years actually destructive? I believe so.

I think the problem is that what Bush has been calling the 'free market' for all those years never actually was.

 

The failures of deregulation to grow the economy is apparent, however, to blame the failure on a free market itself is silly... Even after the Bush "deregulations" we didn't have a truely free market.

 

To me, Bush might well be saying "I'm cutting off everybody's feet, so that people can't shoot guns at each other anymore."

 

Not only does the statement fail to address the underlying nature of the problem, the proposed solution doesn't actually solve anything

[CaptainPanic]

Why am I not surprised about this?

 

He also started several wars to bring peace and democracy.

 

(I like the saying that fighting for peace and democracy makes as much sense as ****ing for virginity).

[ParanoiA]

(I like the saying that fighting for peace and democracy makes as much sense as ****ing for virginity).

 

Except that there's truth in it. World War II wasn't ended with love and effection.

[gcol]

I suggest that the way to reinforce democracy is to suspend it until it changes to the flavour I want.

Does seem a bit daft though, to tear something down and rebuild the same. But then that's how property developers make their bucks, and they have done pretty well.

 

Easy to say at the end of his term. Now if Obama were to say it at the outset, and do it, that would be newsworthy. But it might also make him an early candidate for a pine box.

Edited December 18, 2008 by gcol

[ecoli]

Except that there's truth in it. World War II wasn't ended with love and effection.

Though, as it turns out, it also wasn't the 'war to end all wars' as was the hope.

[ParanoiA]

Though, as it turns out, it also wasn't the 'war to end all wars' as was the hope.

 

No doubt. Sad isn't it?

[Baby Astronaut]

(I like the saying that fighting for peace and democracy makes as much sense as ****ing for virginity). [/quote']Except that there's truth in it. World War II wasn't ended with love and effection.

Not quite. CaptainPanic had it right. Your statement is a bit inaccurate.

 

The main reasons for our involvement was self-defense and retaliation. Fighting solely for peace and democracy became a centerpiece of later wars.

 

If business must profit to survive, and if businesses are intertwined with our military, it's probably safe to assume where 1 + 1 is going. Remember, the groups have plenty money which finds talented minds to craft statements of highly convincing logic.

[ParanoiA]

There's nothing inaccurate about pointing out that fighting, for self-defense or retaliation or otherwise, brought peace and democracy back to Europe in WWII. The inaccuracy is pimping flowery statements with holes in them. I'm a non-interventionist type, so I appreciate the poetic intent behind his statement, however it's wrong.

[padren]

I'd say it's more like sacrificing our way of life to safeguard our way of life. (Torture, patriot act, wiretaps etc)

[npts2020]

I'd say it's more like sacrificing our way of life to safeguard our way of life. (Torture, patriot act, wiretaps etc)

 

I think he (GWB) was only referring to profligate consumption. That way of life requires no other freedom or ethics than to be able to consume.