Author Topic: Making Sense of Republicans Attacking Capitalism  (Read 2282 times)

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Offline DCPatriot

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Making Sense of Republicans Attacking Capitalism
« on: January 10, 2012, 08:12:49 pm »
Making Sense of Republicans Attacking Capitalism
January 10, 2012


BEGIN TRANSCRIPT

RUSH:  Yeah, well, I guess it's gonna be up to me again today to put all this in perspective.  Man, it's going nuts out there, and it's understandable.  All these attacks on Romney, Bain Capital.  Romney brought it on himself, and it's gonna be interesting to see how and if Romney can defend himself.  I gotta tell you, folks, you think this is bad, wait 'til Obama gets hold of all this stuff. It's gonna be twice as bad as what you're seeing now.  I know it's irritating to a lot of people. Here we have capitalism being attacked by Republicans, capitalism under assault by Republicans. I know a lot of people are commenting on it and a lot of people are upset about it, scratching their heads.



Romney started all of this with the scorched earth on Newt in Iowa.  You could even say Romney started all this back in 2008 with his super PAC stuff.  This is just people responding; it's what happens in a campaign.  They try to target what they think is weak spot, and nobody's thinking about, "Okay, what are we creating for the opposition to use in the general?"  Nobody's thinking about that right now 'cause they're all trying to win this.  Contrary to the establishment and the mainstream media, it's not over, and the other candidates, the Newts, the Santorums, the Perrys, this bunch, they're not willing to concede yet.  But anyway, I want to try to put all this in perspective.  Yes, it is disquieting. Yes, it is upsetting.  I understand it.  There's enough hypocrisy to go around on all sides, and I'll try to apportion it fairly.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Now, I got home yesterday and took a little break as I always do, and then started delving into the equivalent of show prep for today's program and I came across a number of pieces. Jay Nordlinger Impromptus at National Review and a number of other people, and they were good pieces. I just cannot believe that we have Santorum and Newt and Perry out attacking capitalism, out attacking Romney. What is this? Everybody is asking, "What is going on?" Republican presidential candidates attacking business? It's senseless. It doesn't make any sense -- and it does in one way.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: In starting this discussion, they're trying to explain this, dissect what's going on on the Republican side with the attacks on Romney and capitalism and so forth, with language, by the way, that's used by the left.  I want to read to you some excerpts of a piece by Jay Nordlinger who writes a column at National Review called Impromptus.  He says, "I was watching a clip of Romney tangling with an 'Occupy' protester last week. Romney was defending corporate profits. I was astounded. I don’t think I had ever seen a candidate do this. When the subject comes up, you’re supposed to denounce corporate profits or say, 'Hey, nice weather we’re having, huh?'"

That gave me great pause.  I had to stop and think.  He's right, frustratingly so.  He's right.  No matter who it is, when the subject of profits comes up on our side, they usually duck it and run for the hills, which is maddening.  Where are our people taking the occasion to educate people who have been mal-informed, ill-informed, or lied to about capitalism from the first day they stepped into public school?  Profits are evil, they are so evil that even people on our side duck the discussion.  Jay Nordlinger is reminding himself here that he saw a clip of Romney arguing with an Occupy protester defending corporate profits.  How unusual is this?  He then goes on to point out that Phil Gramm, the former Senator from Texas, conservative and an economist by trade, "once explained to Bill Buckley why he never talked about free trade on the stump."

Now, listen to this.  This is fascinating to me.  Phil Gramm said, "Free trade benefits almost everybody, but they don’t know who they are. Free trade hurts a few, and they all know who they are."  What he means by this is that the beneficiaries of free trade don't know how to defend it.  The beneficiaries of free trade generally do not think of themselves as beneficiaries, they don't know.  I don't care what happens in an economy, something that happens which affects positively a lot of people is going to affect some people negatively.  I'll give you my favorite example of this.  Seventies or eighties, the price of oil got so low, I forget when it was, that domestic oil producers in Texas and Louisiana capped their wells.  They simple could not bring the oil out of the ground at a profit.  The price was so low.

Now, that was a huge benefit to consumers.  Domestic oil, price of oil plummeting, gasoline prices were plummeting, fuel prices in general plummeting, great for the consumers, but look what happened to domestic business?  They had to shut down.  So every economic event, while good for a lot of people is going to be bad for some, and verse vice-a.  You have an economic event such as the subprime mortgage crisis.  That was a disaster for most people, but some people made huge amounts money on it by going short and understanding what the future was.

So in any economy and in any economic activity you're going to have people that do well and people that get hurt.  And Phil Gramm's point about free trade, the reason he never talked about it on the stump was that the people who benefited from it didn't know it.  The people who were hurt by it knew it, and they were clearly able to articulate their opposition to free trade based on how it was hurting them, but the people who benefited from it, the average John Q. Citizen, wasn't able to explain it because he didn't know how it was helping him.  So Phil Gramm said, I'm never gonna have an army that's gonna be able to support me, so when it comes to free trade I'm gonna have to do the right thing as a member of the Senate, but I can't talk about it on the stump or I might lose the election.  Because most people who benefit from it don't know that they're benefiting from it and can easily be talked into the fact that they're hurting as a result of it.

The point that Nordlinger is making here is that "over and over, Romney defends and explains capitalism." Now, Nordlinger, I'm gathering -- I don't know this, but I'm just assuming from the way he's written the piece here -- that he's for Romney.  He says, "Over and over, Romney defends and explains capitalism. And he’s supposed to be the RINO and squish in the race?" The one guy out there defending capitalism, the one guy out there trying to explain corporate profits to the Occupy crowd, he's the squish, he's the moderate, he's the guy that we have the problem with?  "That’s what I read in the conservative blogosphere, every day. What do you have to do to be a 'real conservative'? Speak bad English and belch?

"In the Saturday debate, Santorum knocked Romney for being just a 'manager,' just a 'CEO,' not fit to be president and commander-in-chief. This was odd for a couple of reasons: First, Romney did have a term as governor of Massachusetts (meaning he has executive political experience, unlike Santorum). And second: Since when do conservative Republicans denigrate private-sector experience?" And a lot of people are asking, "What is going on, why is Newt denigrating private sector experience?" And then saying what Romney does, put people out of work, is a takeover artist and he slashes jobs?  That's what Obama's gonna say.  Now, about that, we can sit here and wring our hands and lament that this is happening, "Oh, no!" But it is happening, so we have to deal with that, and so what it does is present Romney with an opportunity to defend himself.  We'll see how he does.  He's gonna have to.  He's being assaulted.  It's gonna be very eye opening for a lot of people.

I live in Realville.  I'm telling you, what happens is what is.  That's literal, that's real.  It may be totally stupid, it may be totally unfair, it may be outrageous, it may be self-defeating for these Republicans to start ripping into big business or ripping into capitalism, but it's happening.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSHL So Romney is out there saying that he likes being able to fire people.  Folks, don't we want somebody in the White House who's gonna fire people?  How are we going to reduce the size of government?  Don't we want somebody who loves firing people in the White House?  Isn't that what we're all talking about here?  We don't want 'em to quit; we don't want buyout packages; we don't want severance; we want to fire people.  Do we not?  If we are consistent, we are limited government, we've gotta roll back the size. What the heck are we talking about here?

So here we got a guy, defends profits; we jump on him. We conservatives, Republicans, jump on him.  We got a guy who talks about how much he likes firing people; we jump on him.  I mean, there's all kinds of reasons to jump on Romney, but not for this.  Now, the idea that Romney is some big capitalist, I have to take issue with that.  Did not Romney support TARP?  What was TARP?  By the way, if you think what Newt's doing to Romney is bad or Santorum or any of the others, wait 'til Obama has his run.  Obama wants to run against Romney, for all of these reasons that you're seeing here.  That's why I say it might actually be fortunate here for Romney to develop a chance, have a chance to defend himself, 'cause this is what's coming.  I don't care who our nominee is, this is what's coming from Obama: mean-spirited, extremist, racist, wants to fire people, capitalist, wants profits, wants big, rich people to get richer.  This is what's coming.

Occupy Wall Street was created by Obama specifically to campaign against Romney.  I don't want to hear anybody argue with me about this because you're gonna beat your head against the wall because you know I'm right about this.  And more and more members of the media are starting to let the cat out of the bag that the White House wants Romney.  Okay, so he's got a chance.  But TARP, folks, TARP, what was TARP?  TARP, there was not one thing capitalistic about TARP.  TARP was the biggest failed bailout using taxpayer money of defunct businesses in history.  And Romney was in there supporting it.  Romney supported TARP.  Bush supported, they all supported it.  Santorum didn't support TARP.  I'm just telling you, we gotta be real careful on how we start defining capitalism and how we plug people in. We have got to stand up.  The Democrats want the economic collapse of 2008 to be laid at the feet of capitalism, and capitalism was not being practiced prior to 2008. That's not why we had the economic collapse.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH:  Now, see, the thing that we know now is that TARP was not a bailout. It was a slush fund.  TARP was a slush fund, and a year or two after it there was still two or three hundred billion of it unspent.  There was no crisis to save the world economy that TARP was going to fix.  We were lied to big time about it.

END TRANSCRIPT
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Offline aligncare

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Re: Making Sense of Republicans Attacking Capitalism
« Reply #1 on: January 10, 2012, 08:58:27 pm »

A light bulb (not the curlycue kind, but a big ole 250 watt-er) should be going off over everyone's head when you go read Jay Nordlinger's piece that Rush is talking about here.

What are conservatives doing, especially Perry and Gingrich, attacking Bain and venture capitalism?  Don't Republicans stand for the free market?  Don't they know the ultimate beneficiary of these attacks is the Democrats and Obama?  Don't they know they sound just like David Axelrod with this line of attack?  Or worse, Al Sharpton whose been quoting Perry on his show as if Perry were "speaking truth to power"?

And to top it off, this criticism of free market capitalism will not win them any favor with Republicans.

I guess we're all socialists now.

Offline truth_seeker

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Re: Making Sense of Republicans Attacking Capitalism
« Reply #2 on: January 10, 2012, 09:22:12 pm »
Heard a segment of Santorum on Hannity, wherein he stated he would NOT bash Romney for his business dealings.  A breath of fresh air from Santorum.

But Gingrich and Perry are really, really desparate. This bashing of capitalism is really getting roundly criticized today, as well it should.

Neither Gingrich or Perry has any personal business experience to speak of, having lived for a long time on public payrolls.  They yap and yap, as if government "creates" jobs, like Obama.

Can you say Romney/Santorum?
"God must love the common man, he made so many of them.�  Abe Lincoln

Offline Rapunzel

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Re: Making Sense of Republicans Attacking Capitalism
« Reply #3 on: January 10, 2012, 09:22:56 pm »
A venture capitalist is not a Steve Jobs. There is a big difference in the two.  Jobs was a Capitalist with a capital C..........Romney was a capitalist with a small c.......  one got rich creating jobs the other rich getting rid of jobs.
�The time is now near at hand which must probably determine, whether Americans are to be, Freemen, or Slaves.� G Washington July 2, 1776

Offline aligncare

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Re: Making Sense of Republicans Attacking Capitalism
« Reply #4 on: January 10, 2012, 09:59:42 pm »

I wonder if those folks (ie. conservatives) critical of capitalism (I still can't believe that I'm having to defend capitalism on a purported Republican site) ... anyway, I wonder if those folks know some of their favorite products and services were were brought to them by venture capitalists?  Or, that hospitals and specialty-service clinics are started by venture capitalists?  Or, that civilian space flight is in the works because of venture capital?

Politics really sucks.  But you know I think I better hold my tongue, here.  So well just go to the video tape.


Twilight Zone Opening THEME MUSIC 1962 Rod Serling

Obama and the Democrats go around making noise like they are business gurus and Republicans are sounding for all the world like class warriors.   :thud:

Offline Rapunzel

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Re: Making Sense of Republicans Attacking Capitalism
« Reply #5 on: January 10, 2012, 10:01:00 pm »
Romney started this, ergo he brough this down on himself and the GOP.   :odrama:
�The time is now near at hand which must probably determine, whether Americans are to be, Freemen, or Slaves.� G Washington July 2, 1776

Offline truth_seeker

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Re: Making Sense of Republicans Attacking Capitalism
« Reply #6 on: January 10, 2012, 10:27:28 pm »
A venture capitalist is not a Steve Jobs. There is a big difference in the two.  Jobs was a Capitalist with a capital C..........Romney was a capitalist with a small c.......  one got rich creating jobs the other rich getting rid of jobs.
I don't need lectures about business.  I managed corporate planning, for years in a F500 level firm, including strategic long range, and tactical short term budgeting.

Business frequently involves reallocating resources, which is what an acquisition often leads to.

The reason it takes a change (acquisition) to do the rearranging is that old, entrenched management may be frozen into inaction, inept, etc.

Companies become inefficient.  Merging two small firms into one medium company can save duplicated functions, at Hq, support functions like HR, accounting, procurement, legal, etc.

At the end of the day, many of the jobs are going to disappear, one way or the other.

BTW successful companies reallocate resources, lay people of for streamling/cost cutting, all the time. They consolidate departments & functions, etc.

So are all successful companies subject to criticism, because they manage efficiently?
"God must love the common man, he made so many of them.�  Abe Lincoln

Offline aligncare

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Re: Making Sense of Republicans Attacking Capitalism
« Reply #7 on: January 10, 2012, 10:30:08 pm »

Word, truth, word.   :patriot:

Offline Rapunzel

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Re: Making Sense of Republicans Attacking Capitalism
« Reply #8 on: January 10, 2012, 10:45:26 pm »
Then Romney "should" be able to answer this with one hand tied behind his back....   
�The time is now near at hand which must probably determine, whether Americans are to be, Freemen, or Slaves.� G Washington July 2, 1776

Offline truth_seeker

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Re: Making Sense of Republicans Attacking Capitalism
« Reply #9 on: January 10, 2012, 11:51:47 pm »
Then Romney "should" be able to answer this with one hand tied behind his back....   
I doubt he will be surprised to have to, either.

But it is disappointing to learn Gingrich and Perry are so poorly grounded in principles of economic freedom, also known as free market capitalism.

They both have strengths and weaknesses, but I doubt either is going to be the nominee.

Personality-wise I don't like any of them very much.

"God must love the common man, he made so many of them.�  Abe Lincoln

Offline Rapunzel

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Re: Making Sense of Republicans Attacking Capitalism
« Reply #10 on: January 11, 2012, 03:25:56 am »
I doubt he will be surprised to have to, either.

But it is disappointing to learn Gingrich and Perry are so poorly grounded in principles of economic freedom, also known as free market capitalism.

They both have strengths and weaknesses, but I doubt either is going to be the nominee.

Personality-wise I don't like any of them very much.



You didn't before this, either, you are just ticked because someone is finally holding your guy's feet to the fire......   
�The time is now near at hand which must probably determine, whether Americans are to be, Freemen, or Slaves.� G Washington July 2, 1776

Oceander

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Re: Making Sense of Republicans Attacking Capitalism
« Reply #11 on: January 11, 2012, 05:03:26 am »
I don't need lectures about business.  I managed corporate planning, for years in a F500 level firm, including strategic long range, and tactical short term budgeting.

Business frequently involves reallocating resources, which is what an acquisition often leads to.

The reason it takes a change (acquisition) to do the rearranging is that old, entrenched management may be frozen into inaction, inept, etc.

Companies become inefficient.  Merging two small firms into one medium company can save duplicated functions, at Hq, support functions like HR, accounting, procurement, legal, etc.

At the end of the day, many of the jobs are going to disappear, one way or the other.

BTW successful companies reallocate resources, lay people of for streamling/cost cutting, all the time. They consolidate departments & functions, etc.

So are all successful companies subject to criticism, because they manage efficiently?

Bravo, very true.  But what matters in a politician, particularly a President, is not that he manages the economy efficiently on his own - that is called fascism for very good reason - but that he manages the policies he implements so that others, without any control by, or subordination to, the President can act as efficiently as possible.  That is the problem with Romney - he has never chosen policies that are intended to, or that do, make it easier for private business to manage its own affairs efficiently.  Romney can be quite good at managing efficiently, I will certainly give him kudos for downsizing parts of the Massachusetts government, but that is not the same thing as understanding how to make it possible for others acting independently to act as efficiently as possible. 

Romney's own record demonstrates that he is not capable of doing that.  Yes, he did great at cutting down parts of the Massachusetts government, but he didn't substantially reduce the overall tax burden on Mass. residents:  shifting a substantial portion of the tax burden from income tax payors to property tax payors and then claiming to have cut taxes is not good governance, it is mendacity.  He also invented Obamacare and the individual mandate, both of which are currently devastating both the Massachusetts state budget and the Massachusetts state economy.  Health insurance premiums have been rising faster in Massachusetts than in many, many other places.

Mitt Romney is a good, efficient manager, but he is singularly incapable of choosing policies that will allow others to manage their own affairs in an efficient manner without him controlling what they do.  In other words, he is a big-government statist, not a free-market capitalist.

He would do great as a Vice President, or as someone in charge of rationalizing the federal civil service; that is where his strengths as an investment manager at Bain Capital are relevant, there and nowhere else.  He will do miserably as a President because his skills at investment management did not translate into the wisdom to choose government policies that would permit others to do what he himself is good at - managing their own affairs efficiently - as his own record as governor of Massachusetts demonstrates.

I thought the point of the conservative/republican philosophy was individualism, self-reliance, and freedom from external compulsion, but apparently it's nothing more than a more efficient nanny-state.

I want a President who will respect my right and my ability to manage my own affairs as I see fit without constant interference by the government; I do not want a President who will choose policies that will subordinate my own freedom and right to choose to his personal views on how I could be running my life more efficiently.

That is the essential philosophy behind Romneycare and the individual mandate - that government is in a better position to tell individuals how to run their own lives more efficiently.  That is why Romney thinks that the individual mandate is a conservative principle:  because he believes that the health care system would run more efficiently if everyone had health insurance (a very debatable point, by the way), he believes that forcing everyone to have health insurance - at the point of a gun - is therefore the correct, i.e., efficient, way to go about governing.

It should be obvious that this is not how conservatives or republicans view the proper role of government vis-a-vis the individual:  the role of government is not to coerce the individual into living his or her life in a manner that the government has determined to be more efficient than the way in which that individual would prefer to live his or her life.

Romney - the guru of efficiency (and I will grant him that) - believes that the way to govern efficiently is to force individuals to live their lives according to the government's view of what is, and what is not, the efficient way to live, without any due regard for how each individual wishes to live his or her life.

That is tyranny, it is not conservativism, either fiscal or social, and it is most definitely not American in any meaningful sense of the term.  It is mere socialism, which inevitably degenerates into tyranny and fascism.

That is why Romney is merely a paler shade of Obama, because his actions, as demonstrated by his record, are motivated by the same apparent belief that the correct role of government is to tell the individual - at the point of a gun if need be - how he or she should be living his or her life, and not to leave individuals as much room as possible to live their lives as they see fit, without regard to whether the way they choose to live their lives adds to, or detracts from, the overall efficiency of society as a whole.

In other words, just like Obama, Romney's record demonstrates that the logical consequence of Romney's policy choices is to make the individual, and the individual's freedom of choice, subservient to the needs of society as a whole, those needs to be determined at the discretion of the government.

Oceander

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Re: Making Sense of Republicans Attacking Capitalism
« Reply #12 on: January 11, 2012, 05:05:35 am »
I doubt he will be surprised to have to, either.

But it is disappointing to learn Gingrich and Perry are so poorly grounded in principles of economic freedom, also known as free market capitalism.

They both have strengths and weaknesses, but I doubt either is going to be the nominee.

Personality-wise I don't like any of them very much.



But you do like someone who's view of the government's proper relationship to the individual is to forcibly tell the individual how to more efficiently live his own life and manage his own affairs, without regard to how that individual prefers to live his life or manage his affairs?  You like the guy who would make the individual subordinate to the group on the view that the individual cannot be allowed to make choices that would cause society as a whole to be less efficient - as determined by the government itself?

You do if you like Romney.