sleepy jack

It isn't a Keynesian at work in the case of Paulson. A key idea in Keynesian economics is the role of government in the economic world yes but it isn't just handing out blank, no strings attached, checks. It's handing out regulated and watched, or in other words GOVERNED checks to make sure they do what they're supposed to. I don't know what Paulson's economic philosophy is but I know when he left Goldman Sachs he was given a big check and that may have been his way of paying them back or getting something out. This had nothing to do with Keynesian philosophy though and everything to do with greed.

This is what Keynesian economics stops though, I should have been far more clear. Right now, though it's going away (this is mostly Under the Clinton/Bush years) we lived under a system that was described by (I think it was Nader it might have been Maher) socialism for the rich and capitalism and Reaganomics for the rest of us. The government didn't govern the economic world as it should have, they just made it easier for them to operate with bad loans, hedge funds, and ultimately increase their stock and make more money. This is what led to the bubble, it wasn't Keynesian economics. Franklin Delano Roosevelt believed in Keynes and he set up regulation. There's this great quote, by one of his economic advisers or maybe his treasury secretary I'm not sure that brilliantly explains what happened with the depression by comparing it to some game (again I can't remember the game.) Basically the gist of what he says is that capitalism can't operate when all the wealth lies in the hands of rich. This is what happened with the Great Depression and under the Bush years, when the difference in wealth became most extreme...we crashed. This is the necessity of a progressive tax system.

I admit I did contradict myself by saying we operated under a Keynesian system, we don't. I don't know what we operate under because its somewhere between Keynesian and Laissez-faire. The government hasn't done it's job redistributing wealth via taxation or making sure that your 401k isn't being stolen by some banker who then loans it to someone who can't afford to pay it back. This is the problem with saying the banks are too big to collapse, because in many ways we've already felt the repercussions of what would happen if they collapsed but there's a pretense there that it would somehow be worst, despite the fact the damage has for the most part been done.

Keynesian economics isn't about one-hundred percent regulation; that's what socialism is (something I am in favor of and as many countries have proven it doesn't bring all economic activity to a halt.) I've interacted with many people, particularly Swedish people, and I don't hear my complaints about the way their government operates and from my own ethical standpoint I see nothing wrong with sacrificing for security. I've already explained why a laissez-faire system is unfair, it leads to a more extreme version of the problems we have now in regards to corruption and the education system. A socialist system does take care of these problems as it creates equality amongst these.

As far as me basically being a Democrat...it's not true. I called myself a Pragmatic Leftist because I align myself with the Democrats (in general) since the likely opposition is less to my liking. Fiscally I'm a socialist, which is very far from the Democrats who are a capitalistic party. As far as Libertarians being the same socially...that's a lie. The War on Political Correctness (this is an issue I am a bit iffy on as well as free speech laws but that's a different arguement, I basically believe Political Correctness is a good idea gone terribly wrong,) Drugs, FCC, Smoking ban, etc all go against basically Libertarian principles and the Democrats have just as much a hand in them, if not more so, than the Republicans.

I am trying to shorten this post by only addressing key issues (the economy and my own personal philosophy, which is weird to explain consider there are some contradictions when I align myself with specifically philosophies. For instance in general I'd consider myself socially a Libertarian but there are certain things I disagree with and fiscally I'd consider myself a socialist but I wouldn't be opposed to private industry operating under the system. You could call me an extreme Keynesian economist or a pussy socialist. I don't know) but it's still pretty long, sorry =/

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