Is having a free market like playing football without refs? Isn't man's natural instinct to cheat to win?

Every time the Republicans become the dominant party they deregulate the economy, the markets get taken over by greed, corruption, and incompetence, and we get a depression.





the Gilded Age -- Long Depression


the 1920s -- Great Depression


the 1980s to 2008 -- the current economic crisis





Nicolas Sarkozy is the smartest world leader today - laissez-faire is over, the idea that the market is always right is a crazy idea.





Regulated capitalism is still capitalism, it's not socialism. FDR showed us this. Regulating the economy was the only way to save capitalism, not from communism or facism, but from itself, in the 1930s. And some conservatives are now branding this man a socialist and a bad president! FDR salvaged capitalism and democracy from the brink of destruction in the Great Depression and World War II.Is having a free market like playing football without refs? Isn't man's natural instinct to cheat to win?
Its not like football. There isn't 2 teams playing at any one time.





The fact is there is consumers, and providers. If the provider fails to provide quality at the right price, value, then someone else will move to provide it to take that market.





The fact is in a free market there is no monopoly because of this cycle. The monopoly only appears when government creates it by encapsulating it in laws and regulation, preventing competition.





The fact is consumers in a free market have choice, and the power to make or break a business. The business must cater to the consumer to get that limited resource - their money.





If a business 'cheats', without government there to prevent competition, then that cheating business will be replaced with one eager to point out the shortcomings of that cheating business.





A completely free market, no government involvement, works. As soon as government gets involved, they destroy supply and demand.





*your neighbor is selling lemonade for $1.00 a cup. You see she has big business. You find out her lemonade is cut with too much water - she is cheating. You then provide lemonade, uncut, and take her customers.Is having a free market like playing football without refs? Isn't man's natural instinct to cheat to win?
William Seidman, the longtime GOP economic advisor who oversaw the S%26amp;L bailout in 1991, cuts to the chase: ';This administration (Reagan's) made decisions that allowed the free market to operate as a barroom brawl instead of a prize fight. To make the market work well, you have to have a lot of rules.';





A laissez faire free market utopia is a failed ideology. A free market society is not. Regulations protect consumers and level the playing field.
Are you really interested? Because it is the opposite. The free market won't let you get away with cheating, long term because each and every individual is policing their own interests and you will lose business. It is when governments subsidize one interest or put on huge regulatory schemes only governmental agencies can police, which in themselves hamper the individual and small business from participating effectively in the market that the market fails. And requiring the market to act in certain ways, like give loans to bad risk purchasers, or to plant or not plant certain crops, or to price fix interest rates or give 'free money or credit' to those more specially connected to officials than others, perpetuates bad decisionmaking.





There is a decent video or a dozen on it.





It is the 'pots' of OUR money held in a central place where we can't police it that draw special interests to government corruption like flies to ****.
Yes and no. It's in man's best interest to serve himself. However, not even libertarians believe in letting swindlers prosper. There is a court system and those who were swindled can seek redress. A businessman's customers would never return. He would be out of business, or in jail, in short order.





The current monetary crisis would never have occurred if there was a free market. I can assure you, If I lent someone money to buy a home, they would be able to make the payments and I would make a profit. This crisis is what happens when government interferes in the free market. In a foolish attempt to ';make housing affordable to everyone, government stuck it's nose into the business world and enacted the ';Community Reinvestment Act';





When you make a laws affecting business, it's like squeezing a balloon. It will bulge somewhere else or it will break. Fannie and Freddie were government entities, heavily regulated and mandated to assume bad loans. This economic collapse is the result of squeezing an economic balloon too hard. In a free market economy, this obscene squandering of money would never have happened.
Interesting..... but staying with your premise.....








IF there were no ';rules';... wouldn't it REQUIRE INGENUITY to try to oppose the other ';team'; and be prepared for WHATEVER tactic they come up with?





Hence... the creation of some of the greatest inventions and manufacturing processes the world has ever seen.





I LIKE the free market..... I like the lifestyle and CHOICES we all have as a result of it.
A completely free market? Yes.





But as the government gets involved, it's more like having refs that are paid off by the mafia. No matter how talented you are, or how well you play, you get screwed over by the people who have control over you due to people who have more money than you.
Exactly, however people who cheat only do so, when they feel they won't be caught for their actions.


However, if they feel there is a chance they can get caught, they will not participate or will go through a third party, that way if the person is caught, it wasn't them.
Agreed. Only a few, maybe the late Sister Teresa, would qualify for your trust in this free market bs. Follow the money to -- Slick Willy. He still has his finger in the pie. Damn it. The man does not cast a shadow and is smart as the devil.
Good point.





Greenspan, during his reign never factored in the greed of people, regardless of what they can afford. If he had, maybe so much of the economical mess could have been prevented!
Good analogy. Some would put us back in the days when it was the Levitttown Robber Barons vs. the Tenement Row Wageslaves. The Wageslaves didn't even stand a chance of covering the 110 point spread.
There has never been in written history any kind of game without refs.





A free market has refs: us. ';Buyer beware'; has always been a cornerstone of the free market.





Sorry, you lose.
It should be clear to even the most laissez-faire leaning amongst us that the invisible hand does nothing but b*tchslap us.
Nailed it. good question.
I wouldn't say natural instinct, more like an adapted one
nah, its the republican's natural instinct to cheat to win.
Exactly. The free market causes so many problems.
That's one hell of a way to test your mettle wouldn't that be exhilarating?
Good question
nope it is more like paying the ref(aka congress) to look the other way!