Remember discussion of forign policy before the election?

[Xavier_Onassis]

Coolidge could have raised the limits on the percentage of borrowed money that was used to purchase sticks. I think it was as low as 5%.

You pay $50 and you can "own" $1000 of stock.

I am sure it was the last thing on his mind. He did not think the government had any right to impose rules on business. Even TR and Taft would have disagreed with that.

In American history, there was a panic, a crisis or a bust every 7 to 10 years. It is the nature of unrestricted capitalism for this to happen. The price of the stock is bid so high that it becomes obvious to everyone that no amount of future earnings in the lifetime of the shareholders will ever warrant the price. And people starts selling.

[Plane]

  Coolidge couldn't do anything like this without congress or a regulatory agency empowered by congress, making law is not a power given the President.

     Persuading the Congress and leading the people is part of the presidents job, if CC had been so insightful that he had known  the Smoot-Hawley tariff would be such a problem and had known that too much capital had been taken in debt, he might could have done with leadership ......something.

       But he would have to have known, and I don't think he did.

      Business cycles affect very restrictive economies no less ,( let me emphasize...NO LESS! )than less regulated economies. For the very simple reason that whether it is  a king or a communist or a libertarian making the rules, none of them are anything but human beings.

[Xavier_Onassis]

Coolidge could have had an influence, but did not.

He was famous for not saying anything about anything.

He was America's mutest president.

My father referred to him as a "cold fish".

[Plane]

Coolidge could have had an influence, but did not.

He was famous for not saying anything about anything.

He was America's mutest president.

My father referred to him as a "cold fish".

Then the government that governs best governs least is the principal that makes Calvin Coolidge perfect.

How could he have been better?

Is it the governments job to shape the nation?

Or is the government the possession and tool of the people?

[Xavier_Onassis]

That is a stupid old saying that is untrue and proves nothing.

The government that governs least  allows the society to decay and rot as a matter of principle.

[Plane]

Does society depend on government to prevent rot?

Isn't society older than government?

What about governmental rot? What prevents that?


I do not think the government is dependably good.

[Xavier_Onassis]

Yes, the society in a modern country must depend on the elected government to prevent economic collapse.
Government is the only entity than can do this.
It does not matter whether society or government is older. They both co exist in time everywhere.
Democracy prevents government from rotting, but this is NOT HELPED when moronic judges rule that cor[ortation are people, which they are not, and claim they have the rights of people to buy elections, which they should never have.

I do not think REPUBLICANS can be depended on to do more than suck up to the oligarchy.

Our democracy is being subverted by oligarchs in the name of "freedom".

[Plane]

  I can't see that governments prevent more economic collapses than they cause.

[Plane]

.....to prevent economic collapse.
Government is the only entity than can do this.

    But they do not, I posit that they cannot.

     It might be hard to prove that governments can not prevent economic collapse , but it is easy to point out that most of the economic collapses we know of happened with government and at least half happen because of the government.

       If it is possible for a government to truly prevent economic collapse , most of them must not know how else why would it ever happen where there is a government?

       One of the biggest jokes of our lifetime was the centrally planned and scientifically managed economy of the Soviet Union.

      Governments , like corporations, are human beings at their root, the fool proof human is not yet invented.

[Plane]

rule that cor[ortation are people, which they are not, and claim they have the rights of people to buy elections, which they should never have.

   Who do you want to buy the elections?

    Corporations are people , they certainly are not anything else but people.

     The first amendment applies because they are people , the first amendment does not apply to a horse or to heards of horses but it does apply to a human being and to groups of human beings.

[Xavier_Onassis]

That is just bullshit

Our country is being wrecked by corporations.

The crap about the government that governs best, governs least was perhaps valid for a nation of self sufficient/ subsistence farmers. This is no longer the case. It probably was not much of an idea back then, but like the election of senators bu state legislatures, the three fifth rule and  the Electoral Colege, it os passe ab=nd should be scrapped forever.

There should be NO MONEY allowed for campaign contributions. Free airtime should be provided by broadcasters for a reasonable period before elections.

[Plane]

There should be NO MONEY allowed for campaign contributions. Free airtime should be provided by broadcasters for a reasonable period before elections.

  This would be a tragic mistake !

    Only the government would then decide who was a candidate to be in the government.

     Such incest would invest an oligarchy with true permanence.

      You ought to stop thinking of corporations as more dangerous than government agencies, the same things make both entities bad, when bad.

[Xavier_Onassis]

No, it would not. That is what is done in many countries. It is what Costa Rica does, and the usual result is a change of party every term, since no president can succeed himself.

What we have now is huge fortunes being used to propagandize the ever-ignorant majority with meaningless slogans and stupid issues.
The campaigns run too long, the real issues are rarely discussed in any useful detail, and most of the ads are inane 30 second spots that mostly sling mud. The result is a government that is paralyzed and inept at everything. And it is getting worse.

[Plane]

If it came with a strong term limit clause , I might put up with having a strong restriction on campaign spending.

There is already a very strong advantage to incumbency, if only the government could provide campaign financing , then the government could pick candidates strictly as the government chose.

   Senators and congressmen already serve as long as they wish more often than not , then become lobbyists for second careers.

    Should they choose their successors also?

[Xavier_Onassis]

Term limits are not the major problem.  The biggest problem is gerrymandering so that a maximum number of representatives have safe seats, from which they cannot be dislodged.

Politicians occasionally choose their successors, but the public has the final say: they can vote them or not vote them in.

If you have term limits, the same aides will likely advise the new guy that advised the old one. When people are elected to Congress, they often have no clue about how Congress works.