Little help countering Republican Facebook post?

[abelenkpe]

Here is what my republican friend posted:


The crash of 2008 exposed a devastating truth that went much deeper than the discovery of a generation of delinquent bankers, or a transitory property bubble. It has become apparent to anyone with a grip on economic reality that free markets simply cannot produce enough wealth to support the sort of universal entitlement programmes which the populations of democratic countries have been led to expect. The fantasy may be sustained for a while by the relentless production of phoney money to fund benefits and job-creation projects, until the economy is turned into a meaningless internal recycling mechanism in the style of the old Soviet Union...the myth of a democratic socialist society funded by capitalism is finished. This is the defining political problem of the early 21st century.

Janet Daley
Daily Telegraph
09/02/2012


He's pretty reasonable so any help countering this would be appreciated. Personally I don't think the global market is free. I think it's heavily weighted to help large multinationals to the detriment of small business but what do you all think?

(also think a world that doesn't help the needy would be cruel)

[CJCRANE]

1. The phoney money wasn't created to fund benefits and entitlements.

The phoney money was created to pay off the banks' bad debts.

The solution is to go back to Glass-Steagall so that the banks aren't too-big-to-fail.

[abelenkpe]

12. So true! Thank you!

Honestly, at this point I wouldn't object to phoney money funding entitlements for the needy and elderly. It would be better than letting them starve, which seems to be what the right advocates.

Why glass steagall hasn't already been reinstated is confusing.

[CJCRANE]

16. It's all arbitrary in my opinion.

We gave all the money to the bankers and the corporations, when in reality we should have let them fail (according to the principles of the "free market&quot .

The former bankers would've been out on the streets starving. The problem is - so would the rest of us (due to the breakdown of the globla economy).

So we bailed them out and they carried on as though nothing had happened, but this time they hoarded all the money. So the economy stagnated and everything ground to a halt.

There's no reason why we shouldn't put more cash in middle class and working class pockets to spend in the consumer economy and to maintain and build infrastructure. It doesn't have to be in the offshore accounts of the super-rich who crashed the economy. It's our money (the taxpayers') anyway, let's get it circulating and creating a dynamic economy where things get done.

[msongs]

2. tell them this ->

"Personally I don't think the global market is free. I think it's heavily weighted to help large multinationals to the detriment of small business but what do you all think?

(also think a world that doesn't help the needy would be cruel)"

You have it exactly right - the system is rigged by the haves. The system is gamed by the haves. the people who benefit most from the social order are willing to do the least to maintain that order. The wealthy want it all even if the unwealthy starve to death.

[Canuckistanian]

3. If by "free markets" you mean corporations

Then the free market is DRENCHED with money. Corporate coffers have never been higher than at any point in history. They're just sitting on it, waiting for customers, before they decide to hire and build up their inventory again.

And they're paying less in taxes, some of them ZERO taxes, like General Electric.

So where does this "can't afford entitlements" crap come from?

[budkin]

4. I deleted all my Republican friends

I used to get into it with them, threads a mile long, etc. In the end I realized it was wasted time. Almost no one ever changes their mind no matter what truths you put out there. Now I pretty much just post the absurdity to my progressive friends as a way of venting and keeping the conversation going. Plus many of them end up sharing as well.

[abelenkpe]

10. I've hidden and unfriended most

He's pretty much one of the few remaining. You're right though. Most of the time it's just a waste of time.

[GaYellowDawg]

5. They're wrong.

Free markets can supply the amount of money necessary, but so much of that money is tied up in the wealth of the top 1% after the tax cuts for the rich and corporations, that the remainder can't supply it.

[abelenkpe]

13. Thank you!

That is wonderfully succinct. Love it!

[lovemydog]

6. unfriend

Or - 'That's phony baloney. Restoring post world war tax rates on corporations alone would cover it. Reducing military spending would cover it again. Restoring capital gains taxes just to the Reagan era would cover it again. Closing loopholes that allow multinational corporations to avoid taxes entirely would cover it. Removing profit out of health care would cover it. And I don't mean health workers can't make money. They can. But the obscene profits of the industry of health care should become a thing of the past. That is, if we believe workers deserve health care. Which most on your side might not believe. I happen to believe they do.'

[abelenkpe]

8. Thank you!

Both options are spot on. This is why I love DU!

[DrewFlorida]

7. President Clinton handed G.W. Bush a $10 trillion windfall!

George Bush and the other so-called conservatives went on an unbridled spending spree which included huge tax cuts for the wealthy which were not paid for with spending cuts, Two wars, one of which did not need to be waged, and continued ballooning of the military budget.
Yet Republicans still propose that it was our compassion for the poorest, the oldest, and the sickest which brought about a huge debt and an economy in the toilet?
If that is the case then how could Clinton have balanced the budget?
Republican + Conservative = Oxymoron

One only needs to look at other countries such as Greece to see the effects of austerity during a time of recession, or one could look at specific states such as Wisconsin to see the failure of the Republican ideas.

Like a teenage kid who crashes his dad's car into a ditch, the Republicans continue to lie to avoid taking responsibility for their actions.

[abelenkpe]

9. So right about Greece

I still don't understand how republicans look at The chaos and misery in Greece and then say we need austerity here so we don't end up like Greece. How would it avert a similar catastrophe if we do exactly the same thing?

[progressivebydesign]

11. Show your friend the tax rates when America was able to provide services...

and pay for schools, and help the elderly, etc. And show them the tax rates now. And show them how the wealth is distributed now. A handful of people now control 35%+ of America's wealth. During Reagan's time, when we still had enough to fund services, and people weren't desperate FOR those services, the percentage was 9%.


Or you can simply tell your friend to do some research on Iceland/Milton Friedman. The type of economy your friend espouses, doesn't work.
that should clear things up.

[quaker bill]

14. Not reasonable at all

It is only reasonable if you accept the premise that social benefits had anything to do with the problem. There no evidence for this.

A massive Ponzi scheme, the size of which has only been estimated, broke. Somebody, somewhere, noticed that the emperor had no clothes and made a margin call. It was like pulling one card from the bottom of a house of cards. No one had the money anywhere to back the bets they made, simply because that much money did not exist on the planet. A mass de-leveraging commenced and a downward spiral resulted. There is no telling where the bottom would have been found had it been left alone.

Governments stepped in and started creating "real" money out of the digital ether. They basically became the "buyer of last resort" to create a floor for asset prices and the hemmoraging stopped.

None of this had anything to do with tax burdens or social benefits. Not even a little bit of it. However, since public pension benefits had been chronically underfunded and the funds set aside were invested in the same bogus assets, all of a sudden, pensions became a huge burden.

The argument he is making is an attempt to leverage a result back toward being the cause.

The same goes for other social benefits. They were not a problem until bogus financial manipulation collapsed the economy and massively expanded the rolls for welfare, unemployment, and food stamps.

[abelenkpe]

17. Excellent points!

Thank you!

[CBHagman]

15. There doesn't seem to be any data at all behind the claims.

For instance, it doesn't address the contemporary phenomenon of stagnant wages earned by the working and middle classes while CEOs make literally hundreds of times the annual salary/wage of an individual employee.

It doesn't address industrialized countries with strong social safety nets and a solid economy, such as Germany.

It ignores the shift from traditional defined-benefit pension plans (slowly going the way of the dodo) with the 401(k) and other savings plans...the earnings of which have taken a hit while corporate profits are very healthy.

It doesn't address the degree to which the capitalist system relies on having workers who can afford to buy the goods being created and marketed.

There's also a decidedly sneering tone -- note the "job creation" jibe and the reference to "entitlements" rather than "medical insurance" and "pensions." Advanced societies address the latter as a matter of course.