How Free, is the Free Market? Posted by TruthSaga

Posted 09/14/10

I haven't been updating my C4L blog as often as my website, time to get back in touch.  I'm sure for most of you, this is "I already know" information.  For the most part, a majority of my blogs are targeted for friends and other's that aren't well versed in our R3volution.  Planting seed's as I like to call it!

How Free, is the Free Market?

I’m confident it wouldn’t take an individual more than a hour to surf the web or television and find an alleged intellectual, claiming the free market is somehow at fault for our bubble crisis or it’s somehow hindering our jobless recovery. First, we must consider that a free market can only function when it is; well you guessed it, free! A free market exist in the absence of government intervention into the market place; no regulation, targeted taxation, private central bankers artificially adjusting interest rates, and so on.

So, before placing blame on free market capitalism, we must first come to an answer if free market conditions exist. The answer is no, it hasn’t, for almost the last 100 years. What seems to have been consistent for this long period in time, is that every recession / depression, somehow has been blamed on the free market by the market elites. One of my favorite explanations for the cause of the great depression: “the gold standard caused the great depression.” This is with the belief that the business cycle; recession’s, depressions, downturns, or slowdowns that occur after a boom faze are merely natural occurrences in an economy, and have nothing to do with artificially set rates and credit expansion. This is dead wrong.

The business cycle is an expected consequence from government meddling in the economy, as the nirvana of the boom takes place, we hear of the “new age” of central planning. But, when the correction (Recession) hits, it’s always a lack of regulation in the free market. The correction is the much needed hangover in the economy from all the cheap credit (easy money) that led to the capital projects that would of never been engaged in, under normal market conditions. Look at Cash for Clunkers, while the program was in place their was a boost in car sales but when the program ended, car sales nose dived off a cliff. Now, I’m sure that this program had something to do with helping sales in the newly acquired GM bailout, but, time will tell. What I’m getting at, is individuals prior to this program were either saving for future consumption / investment or spending their money somewhere else in the economy. All the program succeeded in doing is destroying paid-off assets, creating more debt, and pulling resources that could have been saved or used in capital projects in the future. How are we better off?

I know… it’s the free market’s fault!