Peter Schiff vs Cornel West on CNN

[R_P_A_S]

In case you guys don't know Peter Schiff was, I believe the only capitalist who predicted the failure of the banks and the recession. Dating back in 2006 and 2007 this guy was talking about it and everyone laughed in his face.

He has been going down to OWS holding a sign that says "I am the 1%, lets talk" and starring much controversy down there. Clearly he's a savvy capitalist knows the economy well inside and out.

I love Dr. West.. Though I kinda wish there were somebody else to debate Peter Schiff. Any ideas who'd be more fit to kick his ass? Chris Hedges? I dunno you guys tell me.. I think Dr. West did good though. What Peter says about how Capitalism and the Free Market are the reasons we don't have child labor anymore and why the weekend exist is complete CRAZY!

thoughts? comments?


http://youtu.be/-HdsXt5lPro


(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-HdsXt5lPro)

[Mr. Natural]

I find Cornell West to be an egomaniacal blowhard. He clearly loves the stage. Oratory aside, he is self-serving, superficial, and a firm supporter of The System.

I had to root for him in his public brouhaha with Larry Summers, though.

Gimme Harry Belafonte. During the 2008 campaign, Obama confronted Belafonte with, "When are you and Cornell West going to cut me some slack?" Belafonte replied, "What makes you think I'm not?"

[RadioRaheem84]

Dr. West would've kicked his ass if he wanted to, but he was pretty lenient.

Schiff is a nutcase. How do people still get away with touting this ideal of the free market?

He was literally parroting the line Friedman used when saying how the free market created the conditions for people to fight for better rights.

[Ocean Seal]

What Peter says about how Capitalism and the Free Market are the reasons we don't have child labor anymore and why the weekend exist is complete CRAZY!

What is he talking about child labor, 7 day workweeks, both existed at the beginning of capitalism and were legislated out by the state through direct action by the workers? Capitalism needs to make the best profit!

[Ocean Seal]

Two top rated comments


Peter Schiff=American Hero
Cornell West, grade A moronInternet is dominated by libertarian trolls.

Actually, I have another idea. Why doesn't a revlefter in the area find and debate this guy. He's picking on random protesters, so let's give him a surprise.

[Teacher]

Schiff is an idiot libertarian and Cornel West is a strange, self-promoting liberal professor. Nothing interesting to see here.

[xub3rn00dlex]

Why don't they ever interview the far left eh? "Do you want more money like me?" Answer: "No, we want control of our production, of our surplus value." "What is a fair percentage for me?" Answer: "Nothing less than 100%. Matter of fact, start paying back all the people you've fucked over your career."

Result: Shit in pants. :D

[Black_Rose]

Does anyone want to point out how Schiff's investment plan, which primarily consists of buying foreign stocks and currencies, failed when the crash actually happened, since foreign equities also fell, and the dollar strengthened?

As George Soros says (or Stanley Druckenmiller his lieutenant at the Quantum Fund) in the book Market Wizards, it is not whether you are right or wrong that matters, but how much money you make when you're right and how much money you lose when you are wrong.

[R_P_A_S]

Even I know when Peter Schiff is DEAD WRONG... and I consider my self someone who's a beginner in economics. He has decent capitalist rhetoric but any revolutionary leftist with a general understanding of capitalism knows how full of shit he is.

[RadioRaheem84]

Two top rated comments

Internet is dominated by libertarian trolls.

Actually, I have another idea. Why doesn't a revlefter in the area find and debate this guy. He's picking on random protesters, so let's give him a surprise.

Is there a collective of libertarian trolls that have made it their mission to dominate the internet. They're fucking everywhere!

I know that the computer geek world is rife with Randian objectivist libertarian jack asses but this is ridiculous, they literally dominate any discussion board, any forum, any thread that has anything to do with economics.

[Jose Gracchus]

A forty-year sustained bought-and-paid-for propaganda apparatus and attendant cult will do that. The Kochs and co. have been spending money to churn out libertard clones and agitprop since the 1970s.

[Agathor]

Schiff is given credit for predicting the 2007 crash. He didn't. The Paul/Schiff Libertarian Party crowd are professional doomsters. They've been predicting complete economic collapse for fifty years. When a gigantic crash finally happens they claim that it was the one that they were predicting. In 2005 and 2006 the chief concern of these lunatics was the looming collapse of the dollar, which didn't happen.

The idea that the federal reserve is responsible for economic catastrophes is nonsense. There were more asset bubbles before the creation of a federal reserve than since.

12 Ways Schiff Was Wrong in 2008
Wrong about hyperinflation
Wrong about the dollar
Wrong about commodities except for gold
Wrong about foreign currencies except for the Yen
Wrong about foreign equities
Wrong in timing
Wrong in risk management
Wrong in buy and hold thesis
Wrong on decoupling
Wrong on China
Wrong on US treasuries
Wrong on interest rates, both foreign and domestic

[Black_Rose]

Schiff is given credit for predicting the 2007 crash. He didn't. The Paul/Schiff Libertarian Party crowd are professional doomsters. They've been predicting complete economic collapse for fifty years. When a gigantic crash finally happens they claim that it was the one that they were predicting. In 2005 and 2006 the chief concern of these lunatics was the looming collapse of the dollar, which didn't happen.

The idea that the federal reserve is responsible for economic catastrophes is nonsense. There were more asset bubbles before the creation of a federal reserve than since.

12 Ways Schiff Was Wrong in 2008
Wrong about hyperinflation
Wrong about the dollar
Wrong about commodities except for gold
Wrong about foreign currencies except for the Yen
Wrong about foreign equities
Wrong in timing
Wrong in risk management
Wrong in buy and hold thesis
Wrong on decoupling
Wrong on China
Wrong on US treasuries
Wrong on interest rates, both foreign and domestic

You also got that from another libertarian, Mish Shedlock.

[Threetune]

In case you guys don't know Peter Schiff was, I believe the only capitalist who predicted the failure of the banks and the recession. Dating back in 2006 and 2007 this guy was talking about it and everyone laughed in his face.

He has been going down to OWS holding a sign that says "I am the 1%, lets talk" and starring much controversy down there. Clearly he's a savvy capitalist knows the economy well inside and out.

I love Dr. West.. Though I kinda wish there were somebody else to debate Peter Schiff. Any ideas who'd be more fit to kick his ass? Chris Hedges? I dunno you guys tell me.. I think Dr. West did good though. What Peter says about how Capitalism and the Free Market are the reasons we don't have child labor anymore and why the weekend exist is complete CRAZY!

thoughts? comments?


http://youtu.be/-HdsXt5lPro


(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-HdsXt5lPro)

There is no argument with capitalists; there is only a fight against capitalism.
Capitalism has all the money and power to intimidate buy influence, bribe, beat and murder, how can that be argued with except with the argument of force.

Edit: ‘force’ of workers democracy of course

[R_P_A_S]

where did you get that line from? I like it!

"There is no argument with capitalists; there is only a fight against capitalism"

[Agathor]

You also got that from another libertarian, Mish Shedlock.

Yup. I tried to post the link but I apparently need to make a few more posts before I'm allowed.

[RadioRaheem84]

where did you get that line from? I like it!

"There is no argument with capitalists; there is only a fight against capitalism"

To elaborate, it isn't a matter of reason with capitalists. When their material interests are involved, it's matter of the will for them. The will to protect their assets at all costs.

[KurtFF8]

There is no argument with capitalists; there is only a fight against capitalism.

Tell that to the guy who essentially coined the term capitalism (Karl Marx)

[R_P_A_S]

regardless.. I'd still like for someone to put this guy in his place

[∞]

Anderson Cooper pwned him pretty hard.

[Os Cangaceiros]

Tell that to the guy who essentially coined the term capitalism (Karl Marx)

Not too relevant to the OP, but Marx didn't actually coin "capitalism". The term had been present since at least the 1830's.

[Threetune]

regardless.. I'd still like for someone to put this guy in his place

Sorry I can't be more help. This committee might have some sugestions for you.


http://t1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRlUlbWUTYAhQFGPgz_yGUe5iHeqogEB-R-lJst7MxWwIF7zgdNHQ

“The two most important spontaneous revolts against the mafias in Italy were not waged by Italians but by Africans. It’s happened only twice in 10 years that there were here… public demonstrations organized not by associations or unions, without busses and without political parties.”

http://clandestinenglish.wordpress.com/2010/01/08/italy-revolt-for-life-and-dignity/

[KurtFF8]

Not too relevant to the OP, but Marx didn't actually coin "capitalism". The term had been present since at least the 1830's.

I wasn't responding to the OP, so I agree.

And this is why I said "essentially." I know Marx didn't coin the word, but he was the first (unless I'm wrong on this) to use it to describe the particular mode of production of capitalism.

[Threetune]

I wasn't responding to the OP, so I agree.

And this is why I said "essentially." I know Marx didn't coin the word, but he was the first (unless I'm wrong on this) to use it to describe the particular mode of production of capitalism.



"And now as to myself, no credit is due to me for discovering the existence of classes in modern society or the struggle between them. Long before me bourgeois historians had described the historical development of this class struggle and bourgeois economists, the economic anatomy of classes.

What I did that was new was to prove:

(1) that the existence of classes is only bound up with the particular, historical phases in the development of production,

(2) that the class struggle necessarily leads to the dictatorship of the proletariat,

(3) that this dictatorship itself only constitutes the transition to the abolition of all classes and to a classless society.

Ignorant louts like Heinzen, who deny not merely the class struggle but even the existence of classes, only prove that, despite all their blood-curdling yelps and the humanitarian airs they give themselves, they regard the social conditions under which the bourgeoisie rules as the final product, the non plus ultra [highest point attainable] of history, and that they are only the servants of the bourgeoisie. And the less these louts realize the greatness and transient necessity of the bourgeois regime itself the more disgusting is their servitude...."

1.: On January 1, 1852, Weydemeyer had published an article in The New York Turn-Zeitung entitled “Dictatorship of the Proletariat.”


Marx, Letter to Weydemeyer (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1852/letters/52_03_05-ab.htm) (1852)

[KurtFF8]

Hmm, the question of the term capitalism doesn't seem to be addressed in what you quoted.

[Threetune]

Hmm, the question of the term capitalism doesn't seem to be addressed in what you quoted.

No, because as Marx is demonstrating again in the most forthright manner that the first usage of ‘capitalism’ by him or anyone else for that matter is not relevant to anything or anyone except perhaps some academic train-spotters, flea-crackers and hair-splitters with nothing better to do but try and look scholarly.


Instead, Marx highlights the most impotent political conclusions about his life’s work, which were:
(1) that the existence of classes is only bound up with the particular, historical phases in the development of production,

(2) that the class struggle necessarily leads to the dictatorship of the proletariat,

(3) that this dictatorship itself only constitutes the transition to the abolition of all classes and to a classless society.

This is something which many would prefer to ignore or divert discussion away from, but which is in fact the only answer to the Peter Schiffs of the world. Why would the 99% demo care when Marx used the word ‘capitalism’? What they need to grasp now is that Dr. West’s offer of discussions about the ‘Fed’ over drinks is a complete bourgeois democratic diversion when the entire racket itself is imploding around Schiff and his stupid system.

[~Spectre]

In case you guys don't know Peter Schiff was, I believe the only capitalist who predicted the failure of the banks and the recession. Dating back in 2006 and 2007 this guy was talking about it and everyone laughed in his face.

Lots of capitalists predicted the crash. Some as early as late 05. Him embarrassing some senile old reaganites on fox news is no brag.