There are those that would argue that Keynesian economics is just redistribution to the wealthy by the state through more obvious means, Friedman without the PR firm.

Maybe what we need is a little Ludwig Von Mises instead, with the argument that the Treasury and the Fed are by far the biggest crooks on Wall Street.

More at Zandar vs. The Stupid.

But isn't that kinda like < whispering > socialism?!!    

Oh, there you are, Perry. -Phineas -SLB-

Odd, isn't it. We have had merry free marketers running rampant over the last three decades, waging war against the middle classes in all countries, spreading the wealth of nations to the wealthy only, a binge of unfettered free market excess which they, with their ideological blinders, championed and benefited from after Ronald Reagan and the two Bushes (and since 1994 conservative majorities in Congress) dismantled, piece by piece, the edifice of New Deal institutions which had saved our economic bacon once upon a time.

Ahem.

Not to get too shrill here, but you leave out one of the top offenders in your list there.

Bill Clinton.  And the "new" Democratic Party.

Seriously - you can try to blame it on the "Republican Congress", but he not only aided and abetted - his administration actively encouraged the war on the middle class.  He may not have realized he was doing it - it may be that he became convinced much like everyone else had that the rules had changed and that deregulation, less oversight, and "irrational exuberance" were the New World Order, but that doesn't lessen the extent of his and his administrations mistakes.

NAFTA is the biggest glaring example of his mistakes, but you can look through the record and find many more.  He deserves much of the blame for our current misfortune - as much as the elder Bush does at any rate.  Though the truly egregious actors in this mess remain Reagan and Bush the Lesser - who never really seemed to understand what they were doing.  Both Clinton and Bush the Elder seemed to understand that it was really a long con - Clinton is pretty up front about how they used the tech bubble to get out of the '92 recession.  And years ago he was advocating that Bush get out of the recession we were in at the start of the decade by inflating a "green bubble" or an "energy bubble" or something to direct investment and create jobs.  Bush wouldn't do that - tax cuts are the only fiscal policy he would contemplate.  And so the "market" created a new bubble in housing instead.  

With Obama I think we've got another guy who understands that the economy we have right now is another long con, but I don't think we have someone who will do anything about it beyond inflating a new bubble (Clinton's proposed "energy bubble" it seems) and riding on that for a few years.  But no one is going to tackle the REAL problem that we no longer have a real, functional economy because we've pushed a majority of the manufacturing jobs out of this country and seem to be unwilling to make the real changed needed to rebuild a real economy (not the "tax cuts" that the companies keep saying is all they need but real changes in our health care and pension infrastructure that make us less competitive for manufacturing jobs with fucking CANADA of all places).  Fundamental change will be kicked off down the road once again and life will muddle on.  That's about all I expect.

Curiously, the people dishing out and receiving the money don't seem to regard government as the expression of the people, the sum of all the citizens, the representatives of the people. It's as if the government exists above and outside the citizens. That's why the policy makers and recipients, it seems, consider themselves accountable only to their peers and, among their peers, only to the financial players. The government prints the money, the financial world runs monetary policy. If taxpayers end up footing the bill, it's their stupid, tough luck. You see, little people only exist to buy the junk the rich put on offer..

I am totally math phobic and only have a general grasp of what's going on in finance world.  But it seems to me these guys are like a farmer who sells all his chicken feed to his neighbor at an inflated price, starves his chickens to death and then wonders why the hell he can't get any eggs.  Am I close?

the next group of pigs coming to the trough are the commercial real estate speculators/developers:

Property Developers Request Bailout:

Some of the biggest U.S. property developers are asking for government money in the face of $160 billion in maturing commercial mortgages next year, the Wall Street Journal reported Monday.

About $530 billion in commercial mortgages are due for refinancing over the next three years, with $160 billion due for payment next year, according to Foresight Analytics, the Journal reported.

And with credit hard to come by and cash in commercial property drying up, companies want government assistance.

perhaps they should follow the lead of this noble investor:

Madoff investor found dead of suicide inside Manhattan office:

Police say the founder of an investment fund that lost $1.4 billion with Bernard Madoff was found dead Tuesday after committing suicide at his Madison Avenue office.

The New York Police Department says Rene-Thierry Magon de la Villehuchet was found sitting at his desk with both wrists slashed. NYPD spokesman Paul Browne also says officers discovered a box cutter near him on the floor and a bottle of sleeping pills on the desk.

...

A French newspaper is reporting that the 65-year-old de la Villehuchet committed suicide. The New York medical examiner spokeswoman says it has not determined the cause of death yet.

shades of 1929?

granted, the rainig of brokers on wall street is an enduring myth, but the parallels are striking.

the revolution will not be televised...

I like to put it in simpler terms. For the last several decades, the underlying economic philosophy in most business circles has actually been, "I got mine - fuck the rest of you poor saps!"

"I never trust people who don't laugh." Maya Angelou, March 5, 2009

but this is just being used to justify socialism for the wealthty, ala Governer Pattersen.  The middle class still must live in the free market.

Stray Roots Message Board,Thus far unmoderated! Dameocrat Blog

Poor Milton Friedman?

Didn't he win the Nobel prize for inventing social Darwinism? Let's give credit where credit is due.