Deregulation: Biggest failure in the history of Free Market Economics?

[Sandpiper]

The true believers in the dogma of Laissez Faire and the Free Market sold us the snake oil that deregulation was good for consumers. That it led to better services, cheaper products and increased competition.

Well let's look at the Deregulation Scorecard, shall we?

Savings and Loan Deregulation - led to 650 S&L's going belly up, and the tax payers footing the bill

Airline Deregulation - led to the bankruptcy of United, TWA, Pan Am, Ozark, Eastern, Continental, Frontier, Braniff, Allegheny, National, Southern, and Piedmont airlines. The tax payers again are footing the bill to bail these airlines out.

Cable Deregulation - Led to poorer service and higher cable bills for consumers

Telecom Deregulation - Led to poorer service and higher phone bills for consumers, and enabled the Worldcom debacle to occur

Utility Deregulation - Led to poorer service and higher electric bills, culminating in the massive fraud and corruption perpetrated by Enron

Deregulation as an economic policy has been nothing but a string of one miserable failure after the other. That the right can still say with a straight face that deregulation is a good thing is astounding.

They sure do like to cling to their discredited economic theories.

[annabanana]

1. they stay the course

you know, steadfast. :mad:

[Spinzonner]

2. Well, Genghis Khan liked his business model too

[NC_Nurse]

3. You betcha!

My dad loves to blame the telecom debacle on Clinton (he worked for Lucent who got totally burned).

But most of this crap was Repub in origin and they started this idiotic trend.

:dunce:

[denverbill]

9. I somewhat agree with your Dad.

Yes, deregulation was a Republican mantra, but so was NAFTA. Clinton was a moderate Democrat who was very pro-NAFTA and he did nothing to stop deregulation, to the extent that it occurred under his watch.

Our forefathers knew what the hell they were doing when they decided that some businesses were better off operating as regulated monopolies.

[Sugarbleus]

17. I agree with your assessment. NAFTA and a couple other things were

the last straw for me during the Clinton Admin. That REALLY ticked me off... that's when I began to realize that our party had 'split' drastically.

Still, at the present, I'd rather have Clinton in office than Bush. But, no question about it, deregulating everything was a HUGE mistake.

GO John/John.....!!

[leftofthedial]

4. repuke economic theory ain't worth a trickle-down dime

(with a nod and a big thumbs up to Steve Earle)

[annabanana]

5. so, when will folks get tired of being

"trickled down" on?

[Sandpiper]

8. They're worried about the important things

Like whether or not homos are getting married in San Francisco.

[leftofthedial]

11. apparently half the country doesn't even notice

they think it's raining

[SoCalDem]

6. Put the inmates in charge of the asylum, and what would you expect?

There are some things that just cry out for REGULATION..
banking...communication...energy...transportation...medical..

you know... the "trivial niceties" of life..:eyes:

[stevebreeze]

7. To the contrary, all these deregulation worked as planed

However a better way to look at 'deregulation' is really as RE-regulation. The point is just to take the public and the consumers out of the equation so big business and the wealthy elite can do what ever the will with us.

[prolesunited]

10. Any time you have big business

LOBBYING for the changes and saying they just want to help the consumer, that should be you first clue that is not the course of action to take.

It would be interesting to know how much was spent on lobbying efforts on behalf on these industries. My guess is they got an excellent return on their investments while we got the shaft.

[loudsue]

12. Good post, Sandpiper....

This needs to be shouted far and wide. It is way past time to re-regulate some of these industries. But I'm afraid it's going to be like trying to close the barn door after the horses have already escaped. It's going to be quite a battle to bring 'em down to size again.

But I believe in bringing them down to size! I'm tired of taxpayers bailing their butts out of the problems they have trying to pay their CEO's more $$ every year than any 2,000 people could spend in one lifetime. The people we'll be trying to reason with are insane with greed.

:kick::kick::kick:

[greekspeak]

13. Deregulation bad, people good.

In my opinion, the government MUST protect its citizens from the corporate sector. Deregulation has gotten out of hand. Outsourcing. Grotesquely biased media. Poorer but more expensive services. I say regulate, regulate, regulate. Anything less, and the government is failing to do its job of protecting the interests of its citizens.

[linazelle]

14. Greg Palast talked about this in "The Best Democracy..."

The bottom line is, they like to cling to these theories because they are profitable for the masterminds behind them. Deregulation is one big pyramid scheme and it IS astounding that people continue to buy into it despite the facts.

[nyhuskyfan]

15. Don't forget California

The rolling blackouts in 2000 and 2001 were a direct result of deregulating the energy industry (Enron even had their thumbprints on it). In order to drive up price, they limited supply, when the demand increased, they didn't have the supply to handle it (Paul Krugman had several columns on it in his book).

Also, republicans overrode a Clinton veto in 1995 or 1996 that restricted the liabilty for accountants and CEO's.

[Sugarbleus]

16. "Biggest Failure"? .... ABSOLUTELY... good post n/t

[AP]

18. They don't want deregulation that works. They want deregulation that

they know won't work.

Stiglitz writes about this in The Roaring 90s. Pay attention to the part about why big business doesn't want the actual management of airports shifted to the private sectory (it's because private jets don't pay landing fees, thanks to congress, and if airports were privatized, they know that private companies wouldn't do this for very long).