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MarcusKspn
11-09-2009, 05:11 AM
...says the BBC in a new study:

Free market flawed, says survey (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8347409.stm)

By James Robbins
Diplomatic correspondent, BBC News

Twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, a new BBC poll has found widespread dissatisfaction with free-market capitalism.

In the global poll for the BBC World Service, only 11% of those questioned across 27 countries said that it was working well.

Most thought regulation and reform of the capitalist system were necessary.

There were also sharp divisions around the world on whether the end of the Soviet Union was a good thing.

Economic regulation

In 1989, as the Berlin Wall fell, it was a victory for ordinary people across Eastern and Central Europe.

It also looked at the time like a crushing victory for free-market capitalism.


Twenty years on, this new global poll suggests confidence in free markets has taken heavy blows from the past 12 months of financial and economic crisis.

More than 29,000 people in 27 countries were questioned. In only two countries, the United States and Pakistan, did more than one in five people feel that capitalism works well as it stands.

Almost a quarter - 23% of those who responded - feel it is fatally flawed. That is the view of 43% in France, 38% in Mexico and 35% in Brazil.

And there is very strong support around the world for governments to distribute wealth more evenly. That is backed by majorities in 22 of the 27 countries.

If there is one issue where a global consensus seems to emerge from the survey it is this: there are majorities almost everywhere wanting government to be more active in regulating business.

It is only in Turkey that a majority want less government regulation.

Opinion about the disintegration of the Soviet Union is sharply divided.

Europeans overwhelmingly say it was a good thing: 79% in Germany, 76% in Britain and 74% in France feel that way.

But outside the developed West it is a different picture. Almost seven in 10 Egyptians say the end of the Soviet Union was a bad thing and views are sharply divided in India, Kenya and Indonesia.

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/46684000/gif/_46684876_world_service_soviet _466.gif

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/46684000/gif/_46684877_world_service_captia l_466.gif
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I would consider myself in the "Has problems that can be addressed through regulation" category...

DaSharkie
11-09-2009, 06:35 AM
Here's a novel idea: instead of adding more regulation, how about the governments of the world actually enforce the laws on hand? :eek:

More laws are useless unless they are enforced, and the SEC, FTC, and the alphabet of other government entities FAILED to do their jobs and made BAD financial decisions and choices. If they had made the proper choices and actually followed the law, there would be less of a financial mess.

Additionally, people are inherently stupid and fail to look in the mirror for their own portion of the blame - you make bad financial decisions and buy a house when you shouldn't, buy more house than you can afford, fail to save for your future, fail to save for hard times, fail to live within your means, and put everything on a credit card while buying a Cadillac when you can only afford a Chevy......what the hell do you expect?

Then again, I am just exercising what I feel is common sense.......which is, sadly, not all that common.

ScareCrow57
11-09-2009, 08:54 AM
Here is another interesting take Remembering the night the Berlin Wall fell (http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/europe/11/09/berlin.wall.blystone/index.html)

Blystone said events did not live up to that heady optimism in Berlin that night.

A few months later, he and Formanek went back to the East German side of the Iron Curtain to see how life had changed.

"There was quite a lot of resentment already about the West Germans coming in, throwing their money around," Blystone said. "The Easties were saying, 'we can't do anything about it, because we lost all that time.'"

And then they went back again 10 years later.

"We saw everywhere that the aggressive Westerners were coming in, buying things up, taking over, and the Easterners resented this," Blystone said. "They didn't have the top jobs. Where are the East German Supreme Court justices, the 747 pilots, the soccer heroes and movie stars? They aren't there."

Sounds like those who are complaining the most are the ones who were left behind due to communism and socialism.