It's not a "free market"

It is stunning how many Republicans claim to defend "free markets," without seeming to know what they are talking about.

To begin with, there is no such thing as a "free market" in America, unless you are talking about selling used furniture on Craigs List. Maybe.

Effective markets require rules. Here's an obvious one: you have to own what you sell. Selling something you know to be stolen is a crime.

There are others. We don't want someone selling slug bait as cat food. We want to know what's in our hamburger (actually no, we don't). We don't want wheels to fall off our cars. We don't want a 50/50 chance that the light bulb we put in the socket is going to electrocute our children or burn the house down.

Each of these is a restriction on the "free market." So please, Republicans, stop asserting that any restriction at all on any business is unAmerican.

Secondly, money begets power begets money begets power. The very MARKETS that the Republicans claim to be defending REQUIRE PROTECTION from government.

Profits are good. And the left needs to lose the attitude that everybody else's money is tainted. The first responsibility of a business is to make money for owners. It has been shown that, in a "competitive environment," the best way of making money for owners is taking care of customers.

But without someone to enforce rules, the big dogs eat everyone else, grow into monopolists and soon customers are forced to transfer income in excess of "reasonable" profit, taking money from other sectors of the economy if the need is critical. We pay $200 for a loaf of bread, $50 for a gallon of milk, 5$ for a gallon of gas. Ooops.

What's reasonable? Dunno. Let's let a competitive market decide that. A market where there is real and vigorous competition, the lowest possible barriers to entry to encourage new players, and a fair and level playing field. I have no interest in assigning a percentage.

And that's the rub. In the effort to make money, it is obvious that every business wants to reduce competition, so it has to spend fewer resources "taking care" of customers and can make more money for owners. That is why government is necessary to protect the markets. to ensure competition.

I don't care if Romney fired people while at Bain. I do care if ATT gobbles up T-Mobile.

And bankers who broke the law need to go to jail, along with any other CEO or VP who lies under oath or engages in activity which is a crime. Letting a company settle for a pittance and letting perps collect a bonus is to guarantee a repeat of behavior that has a high reward to risk ratio.

That is what Occupy Wall street was really about, and the fact that those same CEO's who broke the back of our economy for the last five years are putting people in Congress to reduce competition turn the rest of us into serfs living on the edge of their wealth.

End corporate welfare. End corporate control of our government, and the resulting abuse of our economy. Recognize that corporate tyranny enslaves as wrongly as any government tyrant.