Recently it was revealed that firms that were “bailed out” by the federal government have been spending millions to lobby the government to ease the restrictions on the use of that money. While this is not surprising to most who understand the system of Corporate Socialism in this country, some people have been having a hard time understanding this system. Here’s a tutorial:

Let’s say you are a huge company in the United States and you contribute to what is being called the Great Recession. Things couldn’t be looking better for you. Here’s how it works:

- First: your business practices and the market climate bring you to the brink of bankruptcy

- Second: fortunately the millions that you spent on lobbying government officials makes them “sympathetic” to your irresponsibility

- Third: the United States government swoops in and hands you and your buddies billions of dollars in “bailout funds” (taxpayer dollars)

- Fourth: you use this money as operational capital, including, but not limited to, paying yourself millions in bonuses and millions in lobbying

- Fifth: the millions that you spent on lobbying government officials makes them “sympathetic” to your irresponsibility

- Sixth: the United States government helps side-step the rules attached to the bailout funds to make it easier to use the bailouts at your discretion

etc. etc. etc.

In a nutshell see this graphic:

While the left will point to capitalism as the culprit, they could not be further from the truth. The system of Corporate Socialism provides a way to avoid the boom-and-bust cycles of the free market. Free market capitalism does not prescribe for excessive government intervention in the form of bailouts and preferential regulation. In socialist countries they use the wealth of the people to benefit the communist/socialist government and their state-funded enterprises, while the system we have now uses the wealth of the people to benefit the government and wall street. Interestingly enough, the large portion of the financial sector recently became “state-funded,” bringing us closer and closer to a true socialist model. We need to return to the free market and unleash America’s entrepreneurial spirit… not continue bailing out irresponsible behavior.

-AG