Hey Skep!

Good to see ya. Long time/no read!

Saying that Capitalism is business begs the question a little. Without trying to put words in your mouth, the general thrust of what you have talked about seems to have more in common with mercantilism (the selling of goods) as opposed to capitalism which includes rents and services but also includes concentration of ownership of raw materials and factories (with the implication of concentration of same in a few hands)

Capital is assets, nothing more, nothing less.

"Capitalism" is using assets to create more assets.(It takes money to make money)

Those who are willing to put their cash or elbow grease at risk (in the case of failure) should be entitled to reap the rewards of success, for which there are no guarantees.

As I have stated before, the Socialists are more respectable than the American liberals. At least the Socialists are willing to praticipate in ownership and profit/loss.

The American liberals are only willing to skim off the top of successful businesses and in many cases oppress them into submission via regulation with as much vigor as the MAFIA!

do you truly see him (and Cheney, O'Neill and the rest) as being interested in normal working Americans in any real sense?

Yes.

I'm not trying to imply that the other end of the political spectrum is necessarily in possession of any kind of solution either

Well you are certainly correct there, the democratics desperately HATE solutions as they only wish to posses a given issue for the use as a political weapon.

When the GOP provides solutions over the dead bodies of the democratics, the screaming is deafening.

I generally tend to view both sides as basically venal and self-serving elitits on an ego trip

Well, you might be sort of right on this one too.

Of course, I see it more as "venal and self-serving" when the concept of "bi-partisanship" is engaged.

It's disgusting when the "sensitive and bruised" wimps on my side, thinking they will be loved and praised by the Congressional democratics and the democrat press, throw all their guiding principles to the wind and sell out.

"Solutions" from either side always seem to have the same result and end up not helping normal working Americans all that much but doing an awful lot for big business

Look, the GOP is the party of ALL business, big, mid-cap, small. Unfortunately business doesn't seem realize this and continues to contribute almost as much to the democratics who continue to assualt them.

The democrat party is the domain of anti-business with it's various factions such as;

the ANTI-BUSINESS greenies, the ANTI-BUSINESS "anarchists", the ANTI-BUSINESS private sector organized labor/crime syndicate and the HUGE ANTI-BUSINESS non-essential government worker's organized labor/crime syndicate,

All of whom CONTRIBUTE TO and VOLUNTEER exclusively for the democratics.

You make it sound like business is a bad thing.

Any jobs not created by wealth creating business are essentially organized coercion, extortion and outright legalized crime.

Other than that, I have no strong opinions on it.

Let's do breakfast!

mav out