Is America Turning Socialist? It Always Was …: The Times of India

MAN’S SHIRT SAYS: ‘CITIZEN’
CAPTION READS: ‘RESCUE BRIGADE’
[Het Parool, The Netherlands]

What does it mean to be ’socialist?’

Now that the Bush Administration – regarded by many as the most right-wing, free-market, deregulation-oriented administration in living memory has opted for the largest tax-payer bailout of private business in world history – it’s a question of renewed relevance.

According to Swaminathan S. Anklesaria Aiyar of the Times of India, not only the United States, but the entire developed world is and has been ’socialist’ for a very long time.

Aiyar writes of the capitalist world at large:

“Modern capitalist states are all welfare states. Enormous bureaucracies have been created to tax the rich, regulate business, provide subsidies and special schemes to the needy, thwart environmental harm and health hazards, and so on. The list is long and keeps growing.”

Turning to the United States, particularly under President Bush Aiyar writes in part:

“Between 1970 and 2006, the number of pages in the U.S. Federal Register (which lists all regulations) shot up from 20,036 to 78,000. The number of regulators in the service of the federal government rose from 90,000 to 241,000. In the first six years of the George W Bush era (2000-2006), the number of pages of regulations increased by over 10,000, and regulators by over 65,000.”

Then using the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac bailouts as examples:

“Two of the nationalized corporations, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, are by far the largest mortgage lenders in the world, with $5 trillion of mortgages and loans on their books. To put that in perspective, that’s five times the size of India’s GDP. … No nationalization in countries that profess to be socialist have ever been so large. … So much for the myth that the United States is a heartless capitalist ogre. In fact, it combines capitalism with welfarism and often tilts toward the latter when the two conflict.”

By Swaminathan S. Anklesaria Aiyar

September 21, 2008

India – The Times of India – Original Article (English)

Socialists like Hugo Chavez in Venezuela or Indira Gandhi in India, are famous for nationalizing the largest corporations. But the U.S. government has just taken over three of its biggest corporations within two weeks. Has the United States turned socialist? American right-wingers moan that this is indeed what has happened. Meanwhile, Indian leftists are stunned at nationalizations in a country they view as pitilessly capitalist.

Two of the nationalized corporations, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, are by far the largest mortgage lenders in the world, with $5 trillion of mortgages and loans on their books. To put that in perspective, that’s five times the size of India’s GDP. The third corporation, AIG, is the largest insurance company in the world. No nationalization in countries that profess to be socialist has ever been so large.

Leftists suspect that the U.S. takeovers are simply aimed at rescuing wealthy shareholders. Not so. The government will acquire 79.9 percent of the shares of these companies at virtually zero cost, pushing the share price down close to zero. So wealthy shareholders have been wiped out, and the bosses of all three corporations have been sacked.

READ ON AT WORLDMEETS.US, along with continuing translated and English-language foreign press coverage of the unfolding financial crisis.