Tornado Alley (PROG)

[wbmw]

the larger question which looms is: within the knowledge (and, Obama et al. are NOT stupid people) that all social and/or economic systems have flaws, capitalism must have flaws. Why not repair them, especially, when they are obvious and glaring and easily repairable?

Why "fundamentally change" the system?

With all due respect, Geo, this is still a criticism that is not grounded in reality. Nothing has fundamentally changed about our Capitalistic society, relative to where we were when Obama took the oath.

Every company that operates today under the profit motive will continue to operate, and continue to make profits. Additional regulation on their practices does not constitute a "fundamental change".

I'll even take an extreme example, and suppose that the government took over the entire health care industry, and developed legislation that resembles what the U.K. has. Even under that extreme, it would be govt run health care, but the rest of the country would still have a private industry offering consumer products and services that operated under the rules of Capitalism.

You do recognize this, don't you? And I hope you also recognize that we DID NOT take the route of the U.K., and instead kept both private medical providers (hospitals, doctors, etc.) as well as private insurance companies. The only difference is that now everyone is mandated to buy insurance, and there are new consumer protections as well as new entitlements so that low-income people can afford it.

That's all it is, plain and simple. Your strawman of a "fundamental change to Capitalism" is not reality - with all due respect!