A great post by SFE blogger vapatsy on why the business cycle is NOT a product of capitalism:
With the Congress out of session for Rosh Hashanah, the bailout stood at a standstill. Those in Congress and the media had predicted ruin, a new Great Depression if we didn’t pass the bailout. Perhaps Yahweh was looking down upon us, but the Dow was up. Calm ruled the day, as investors did what investors do in lean times, see bargains. The Dow supposedly lost $1 trillion dollars on Monday, well, since the government mandated the banks make a $1 trillion of bad loans, we’re well on our way to financial recovery.
This should serve as a lesson to the Congress and the people, intervention in the economy is undesirable, to say the least. If it weren’t for the Community Reinvestment Act beefed up during the Clinton years, we wouldn’t be here right now.
Then again, lots of people have said that, so you, as well as I, must ask, what do I have to add.
Being a Classical Liberal, which makes me a Conservative oddly enough, on a college campus today, I have the opportunity to speak on free markets and the problems of command and socialist economies every day. I’d assume most of the people reading this are in the same position. Here then is my advice, challenge the status quo on college campuses today. Stand up to your fellow students and your professors.
I remember last year I had a professor who thought, and he stressed it was only his opinion, that farms ought to be collectivised. To my surprise, no one else did. It effectively silenced that discussion.
You can change some minds, which is always the most thrilling thing. Some people will dismiss and denounce freedom and free markets no matter what, but the majority of people, I’d like to hope, are still open to reason. Do not yell and chant like the socialists do, use reason; appeal to men through their intellect, not their ignorance. Do not back down from a challenge, for the socialist, for all he is worth, is at his core wrong. You argue from a position of strength, as demonstrably correct based on the data.
If you read this today, I implore you, for the sake of the last, best hope for the world, America, that you stand up for freedom and free markets once tomorrow. Once you break the stranglehold that this thought has, and challenge its supposed place as the ideology of the people, you will get someone to think.
