Unclear on the concept
Seen at Guav’s, an open letter to Republicans from an ex-Republican:
You combined the failed ideologies of the Religious Right, so-called free market deregulation and the Neoconservative love of war to light a fire that has consumed America.
I doubt that bit of bolded word play is intentional. But if it is, bravo. If, as I suspect, it is not, then obviously you’ve not paid a great deal of attention to Bush’s deregulation.
March 11th, 2009 at 1:06 pm
The lie that Bush deregulated the US into this economic crisis cannot be allowed to stand. Bush failed to get the Democratically controlled Senate to step up oversight of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac before financial scandals engulfed those institutions. Blame Chris Dodd and Andy Cuomo and Barney Frank for this mess. They created it.
March 11th, 2009 at 7:06 pm
Sounds like another lib to me. Considering he is just whining about how bad it was republicans were obstructing Obama’s plans to bankrupt the US economy. While I have no problem with slamming republicans, I will give all of them but three credit for their votes on the spending bill.
Although, I never knew I hated America and the troops when I consciously retched at Obama’s plan to reward Democrat constituents with billions of dollars.
March 11th, 2009 at 8:15 pm
Just to make sure we’re on the same page. . .
The word play is ‘the so-called deregulation of free market . . . ‘
E.g. A lot of problems we face are not because of deregulation of free markets (always a good thing afaik)
and failure to regulate (or actively ignoring) markets that are not free.
Examples of non-free markets include electricity and pharmaceuticals. If you walk your generator or your chemistry set down to a corner and set up shop attempting to sell to the general public you will be arrested or dead soon thereafter. (Electrical distribution lines being even less forgiving than Atlanta drug task force officers).
Pharmaceutical market is more complex, as they do business in a global space, which is highly regulated not just as to quality and availability, but also allowable price. The US only regulates quality and availability. The result is that to optimize market share and profitability it makes sense to sell at a vastly reduced profit margin in certain markets in exchange for a sovereign government agreeing to observe your patent protections and not allow a locally produced generic. The difference is made up by charging literally ‘what the market will bear’ in a captive marketplace that always observes patent protections and with no price controls.