Originally Posted by Danny
So in other words, drop free market on the commodities that absorb a large percentage of our spending money?
So say you socialize the oil market somehow (even though its globally regulated and traded), then what? Somehow its magically 50 bucks a barrel now, success right? Now imagine years down the road, everyone is spending less on oil. Now everyone realizes that water is too expensive, I mean ****.. they pull it out the ground just like oil... its should be almost free! Tonys big govt comes in and regulates that too. Yahhh.. everyone is happy for a few years untill we realize: "dam our cell phones are still expensive, its wayyy over valued". Tonys big govt steps in again, and BAM *poof*: unlimited minutes for 25$ a month, yeee hawwww... We are in business now. Couple years later, everyone realizes that food will not stop increasing in price, tonys govt steps in a caps that too. Mean while we forgot that Joe Schmoe lost his job at the AT&T because the govt cut his profits and no longer had a position for him. Joe Scmoe 2 lost his job at the farm, hist wifes salary was cut by 30% because her companys profit was cut also. Now they only spend 50 bucks instead of 100 a week at the grocery, so Mr. Krogers lays off 50% of his employees and the cycle starts over again.
So now we have the natural cycle of production/purchasing with the added in cycle of govt induced pricing/purchasing. Sounds worse to me.
Letting the govt have a foot in the door on regulating one thing will let them regulate everything else, just takes time.
I think there is some solutions elsewhere. maybe some investigations trying to figure out if there is collusion between auto manf. and oil companies, etc. Socialism should be the last resort.
Now if we are talking regulating the market so that futures traders stop any currently illegal practices allowing them to have a larger purchasing power than they legally are aloud (trading accounts offshore for example). Then thats a completely different topic.