What is happening now is showing us the dark side of capitalism. In 90s we saw collapse of Soviet Union and we all cheered that our system (capitalism) is better than socialism. However, we did not realize that greed is a major factor in general for us humans and in particular in capitalism. The basic idea is to make more money. Sure it promotes invention but it, as we are seeing now, also promotes making profit at any cost. The cost to us now is that our big institutions had complete disregard for country and fellow citizens and went for big bucks. That is why the multi-million dollars of bonuses and golden parachutes even when the companies were losing money.
I think Europe has reached a balance between socialism and capitalism. They don't let capitalism intrude into essential services such as energy, transportation, health care, etc. Because they know that the greed of these executives is stronger than their desire for welfare of the public.
I think the current crisis may direct us to look at the European model and consider adopting it. I think in health care, Europe is doing better than us. Can anybody claim that France or Germany have inferior medial facilities that we do? They are using socialist model of universal health care and it is working fine for every citizen of those countries and we have 47 million Americans without health care and millions more who can lose everything if a medical emergency occurs.
Obama's plan of reforming health care will be the first step in moving towards more meaningful and practical approach in taking care of masses rather than few lucky ones as our cousins in Europe have done.
Posted by suresh at March 6, 2009 08:40 AMYeah. There is a definite moral hazard to bailing out the morons that bought more house than they could afford and the idiots at the banks that lent to them.
You can't have capitalism on the way up an socialism on the way down...
Posted by Tex at March 6, 2009 12:05 PM