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‘There’s no such thing as a free lunch’ – unless of course you are a member of the 1%
by james Saturday, Jan 23 2016, 8:43pm
international / prose / post

Laissez faire economist Milton Friedman, who promulgated the notion that ‘free’ markets would save the world, popularised that phrase/slogan, and that’s all it is, a meaningless slogan, similar to, ‘there’s light at the end of the tunnel,’ which simplistic metaphor/slogan conned an entire nation.

Former US president Reagan subscribed to Friedman’s views and touted that it would lead to what’s called “trickle down” economics, which translates as free market rogues becoming so wealthy that the benefits would flow down to the masses. Need I test these two fantasies today?

Free market economics resulted in the collapse of the global economy in 2008, simply due to the fact or failing of human nature that the greedy hog everything and ALWAYS do; nothing ‘trickled down’ to the masses but MISERY and HARDSHIP, as recent reality verifies. It boils down to plain horse sense, if you give the key to the vault to a bunch of rogues and thieves they will rob you blind, so much for Milton Friedman's dreamland economic theories.

Free, or laissez faire economics (no or minimal government regulation) is still practiced today and what is the result? Oxfam recently published a report stating that 62 individuals now possess more wealth than the rest of the world combined, ‘owzat for global economic ‘success’ and Friedman’s now failed theories? But the masses have failed to twig on the historical and prevailing reality, which simply is unregulated markets result in higher concentrations of wealth for the very, very, few and misery for the majority -- to hell with sharing one cent of wealth! So, in reality unregulated free markets are simply a license to steal, as of course the wealthy have far more power to exercise in a ‘free market’ than other players and so the game is fixed from the start. Any idiot that imagines that manipulated markets are free and fair is in dire need of treatment.

Globalisation is a symptom or bastard child of laissez faire capitalism which promotes the power and reach of borderless, large, multi-national corporate players in order to exploit the entire globe and legally avoid their tax responsibilities but only the mega-wealthy can take advantage of these rorts, which puppet governments allow to occur. Furthermore, new rogue-thieving economic strategies such as the TPP and TTIP grant evermore power to the already proven criminal mega-wealthy. In fact granting them the right to override national sovereign laws and hold entire nations responsible for the ‘projected’ (fantasy based) business losses that may result due to an ill-considered projects, such as gross pollution or other damaging environmental or social factors, but why should the mega-wealthy care as they would be able to litigate and recover their fantasy based losses – give me and sovereign populations a break!

How any so-called democratically elected representative government could be party to such a con is beyond comprehension, however, the secret arrangements, for very obvious reasons, between the corporate elite and puppet governments has resulted in numerous clearly bought politicians signing their nations away – treason is the appropriate term here.

But it’s all to no avail as the only force able to restore balance, equity, fairness and the rule of national law is the people, YOU! So are you able to see the nose on your face? The current criminal reality is more obvious/pressing than a truck about to run you over! Now, if the plain truth hurts feel free to continue jumping under the wheels of a very fast moving destructive train.