the bail out is a fact and worth drawing attention to, but where is the capitalism? where is the socialism?
If government constantly bail out private institutions that clearly undermines the claim that we live in a capitalist society, and i'm not aware of any socialist societies- i mean i know of state run capitalism like Cuba, and capitalism in a dungeon like the former USSR.
The implication of your post is correct though, and a genuinely free market system would look nothing like the egregious brand of neo-capitalism we might know and have come to learn to accept.
All rich and developed societies have a web of protectionism, state intervention to manage and control industry, especially things like the internet, telecommunications etc, reliant on the state sector for their dynamism.
The two arch dummies of the particular brand of self delusion Reagan and Thatcher were happy to pay lip service to the virtues of the market, while simultaneously intervening in the market for the betterment of certain industries, protectionism-doubling import restrictions etc in the US,# was actively boasted about by Reagan, Thatcher was keen to pump public money into the arms industries.
That goes for the pacific-rim tiger economies too.
Remember what the wise man said.
If it weren't for a great man like Bernie Sanders, you would never have learned the staggering, jaw-dropping magnitude of corporate welfare.
You "blame the poor" crowd have been made fools of by the very people you support. Of course you have! You have been for years and you will continue to be. You're their little army of cheer leading, no-nothing, simpleton fools.
Sen Bernie Sanders (D-VT)
What have we learned so far from the disclosure of more than 21,000 transactions? We have learned that the $700 billion Wall Street bailout signed into law by President George W. Bush turned out to be pocket change compared to the trillions and trillions of dollars in near-zero interest loans and other financial arrangements the Federal Reserve doled out to every major financial institution in this country. Among those are Goldman Sachs, which received nearly $600 billion; Morgan Stanley, which received nearly $2 trillion; Citigroup, which received $1.8 trillion; Bear Stearns, which received nearly $1 trillion, and Merrill Lynch, which received some $1.5 trillion in short term loans from the Fed.
We also learned that the Fed's multi-trillion bailout was not limited to Wall Street and big banks, but that some of the largest corporations in this country also received a very substantial bailout. Among those are General Electric, McDonald's, Caterpillar, Harley Davidson, Toyota and Verizon.
Perhaps most surprising is the huge sum that went to bail out foreign private banks and corporations including two European megabanks -- Deutsche Bank and Credit Suisse -- which were the largest beneficiaries of the Fed's purchase of mortgage-backed securities.
Deutsche Bank, a German lender, sold the Fed more than $290 billion worth of mortgage securities. Credit Suisse, a Swiss bank, sold the Fed more than $287 billion in mortgage bonds.
Has the Federal Reserve of the United States become the central bank of the world?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rep-bernie-sanders/a-real-jaw-dropper-at-the_b_791091.html
