And what would be the consequences if the government just got out of the way?

Might be nice if we were allowed to actually keep some of our money to use in the free market -- like stimulating the economy by purchasing stuff we could use.

Problem is that your neighbor is just dumb enough to think the government is doing the right thing. A solution would be to educate people as to the toxic nature of our governments intentions.

Our original government was designed as a Republic, not a Democracy. Democracies are inherently flawed because they will degrade themselves into a mob-rule mentality where society is pillaged by democratic decree.

I like the comment about how it's ok to take away rights at the request of the public.

Take a democratic society where everyone is supposed to have one vote representation. If there are enough people who are convinced that they should have something, then you can legally vote in a process to take away from one segment of society and hand it over to another, larger group. The easiest and most prominent example of this is the taxation of everyone who actually has money to give it to people who do not work or make as much money. Used to be banks would fail, not live on life support from our income.

You might say that there is some argument that these people who have money are stealing it from the poor and down trodden. You might find a few who are not ethical about it. But most are just smarter and more productive. Doesn't the guy who invented mutella deserve something? Did Google actually create something of value? Do you have a right to take it away? Based on what? You have done nothing to earn it.

The same thinking allows a room of 10 men and 2 women to democratically vote to gang rape the women. The only thing holding them back is moral fiber. But that can always change. It used to be that we were expected to be responsible for our own lives and not expect handouts or a Right to everything.

Ancient Greece had Democracy. They collapsed because the had mob-rule through democratic voting and the entire upper half of the society was destroyed. And at every election, the upper half was a lower standard than the last cycle. Divide by two and repeat until you hit a point where you can no longer sustain the civilization.

Civilization is a game targeted at world conquest by military means. There is no form of economic cooperation, trade, or anything but military conquest. It's not the real world.

We would all do far better if we chose not to spend trillions on war and instead allowed those trillions to remain in the hands of the people and used as they saw fit for free market exchange and production.

Many might say we would be better off if we were not trying to run am empirical international policy and instead tried working on market exchange as a means of getting along with others. It's more effective.

But by writing this I'm probably getting marked as a potential internal-terrorist by the government for not spewing nationalistic rhetoric about Hope, Change, Coercion, Theft, Extortion, and (lame & imaginary) Rights.

Looters and Moochers!

I think you are missing something else there. If Bob won't sell you a widget until you do something stupid then, if you had any balls, you would find someone else to sell it to you. It's certainly within your capability and sovereign right to do so. It's considered fact that USSR and PRC have done their fare share of stealing technology.

And this also means you, as a sovereign nation, can decide that following some lame IP law preventing someone else from making it without coercion can and should be ignored. IP is actually one of the most damaging things anyone has come up with since the pointed stick. If ideas were truly free, then we might actually be able to be creative, progressive, and productive. But since you have to have a license to think in this country it's not likely that much will get done.

Up to this point in history, no nation has yet been regime changed for ignoring something like DMCA or IP laws. The only reason any nation follows these is by choice.

Their were Economists who identified this coming depression. They are called the Austrian Economists and they were consistently calling for this downturn to happen effective 2000.

But there are no Austrian Economists working for the Federal Reserve or Treasury department. The Austrians have long ago proven that the Fed and Treasury generate these Business Cycles because of the Fed's manipulation of the economy. (The Myster of Banking by Murry Rothbard who holds a Nobel for Economics)

It has also been well established by Rothbard, Hazlitt, Mises, Bastiat, and Hayek that the government regulation and manipulation hinders economic and social growth. Ayn Rand and particularly Atlas Shrugged identifies a philosophy of Objectivism which essentialy calls for self responsibility and accountability rather than welfare, hand-outs, bail-outs.

Not sure they are all zealots and crazies over there. At least they have a clue.

The Canadian Exchange rate has shifted from about 1.8 to 1.1. In the same time the wage rates in the US have remained the same.

If it costs me $100 USD to manufacture a chair in the US, the comparative cost for a Canadian to purchase that chair has changed from $180 to $110 Canadian. That's a nice discount.

If the Canadian cost to manufacture that same chair is $130 Canadian you have shifted the Chair industry from a Canada to US trade to a US to Canada Trade.

And we currently have all these things in effect this last year. Wages have not changed but the dollar is very weak. And that is how we will eventually compete with Mexico and China.

Price Decline. Costs are continually declining because manufacture is always more efficient. That's the result of competition. But this is balanced against inflation and so Prices remain stable. Computer costs have fallen faster than inflation can accommodate but food has risen with inflation.

Who benefits from Inflation?

Those who owe debt. The Government.

Conservation of Energy implies that you cannot create Energy. That it is a zero sum game.

Economics is not a zero sum game.

You can allow people to retire from physical labor early if the economy will support it. The means to do this is to allow them to apply their money in a manner that continues to create wealth for them and others. That's what a bank does.

You seem to think that Economics belongs in the physical sciences. It does not. It belongs in the softer sciences because it depends on Human Interaction to exist.

This kind of thinking leads you to believe you can engineer a society that will work perfectly because the numbers say so. Marx tried that. Hoover tried that.

Currently the United States does not recognize the Gold or Silver elements (Au, Ag) as legal tender. However if you were to resort to a pure cash (Federal Reserve Notes) in your pocket over bank check money in your account (no ATM, Credit Card, Check) this would put a massive strain on the banks resulting in a national bank run and federal reserve collapse.

Unfortunately, if everyone in the nation decided on 12/1/2009 to go to their local banks and start withdrawing all their money in cash two things would happen:

• Bank Holidays would be called for and prevent banks from collapse, thanks to the Federal Reserve System.
• Be prepared to personally defend your assets with extreme prejudice. Meaning, home theft will become out of control as people attempt to prey on their neighbors. Buy a shotgun.

This may sound extreme. But hypothetically, if this was done for only a couple of days and then everyone returned their money to the banks a week later it would be sufficient to show how truly fraudulent the economy has been since 1971 when we left the gold standard, allowing fractional reserve banking to run without any controls.

There's good reason for returning to a gold standard. It's impossible to defraud the citizens if they have a money that has both exchange value and commodity value. The dollar today has no commodity value (it's paper) but allegedly holds exchange value. The exchange value is only as good as those willing to use it. Confederate money (1860-1870's) isn't used much for money exchange because there's no faith in it.

If you want to understand why the are protesting then I suggest you read "The Mystery of Banking" by Murray Rothbard, "America's Great Depression" by Murray Rothbard. There are dozens of other great books and articles available at mises.org.

Fundamentally what G-20 is doing is coordinating their monetary inflation policies so that they can monetize their debts on pace with each other. If they did not then countries would be at risk of financial collapse. They have no intention of doing anything to actually solve the problem with global economy.

Rather than allowing the required process of price decline, wage decline, and general financial depression they are pumping inflation into the game to artificially keep prices high so no one notices the prices are changing. This is price control. But salaries effective buying power is plummeting. Need proof? Check the price of hard commodities like Gold, Silver, and even Mac & Cheese (up 14% in 2 months).

The G-20 is trying to coordinate all of this so that everyone's effective buying power falls in unison to help stabilize prices and trade.

Left to our own devices, the US would become a export nation because of falling wages. But first we need the industrial infrastructure to do this -- which we have largely lost over the last 50 years. Which means we probably won't really recover during most of our lifetimes.

Not everybody is involved in making cars.

Not everybody wants to spend their money on cars right now. What if we wanted to buy houses instead? We can't because you stole our money from us under the guise of For the Public Good

This is the argument of a socialist.

In 1929 the US Government decided to follow the social and economic ideologies of the new and seemingly highly successful communist nation of USSR. So how's that Communist society been working out for them? Compared to the United States Free Market? Certainly a case of Less Bad.

It's a stupid idea.

The government is stealing money from my paycheck to give it away to provide artificial life support to a sick industry.

I have less resources to work with in investment and consumer spending on goods that are of value without a $4500 discount.

Money is given to companies that have proven themselves, by the fact that they are bankrupt, incapable of operating in an efficient manner. This lessens their motivation to develop effective change.

Everyone buying a car is assuming more debt. Not something we need to take on right now.

Every car purchased now is a lost opportunity to purchase a car later, stealing future sales from these companies that they are trying to help.

You are missing the bigger point here. It doesn't matter who gets the money. The damage being created is huge. Forcing consumer spending and debt prolongs the depression making recovery decades longer and more miserable.

This is the exact kind of measures that were practiced by the Keynesians and Socialists in the 1930's and we are facing the same affects. Auto Industry will lift for 3 months and then crash again in 2010 as this spending spree wears off. This will result in more unemployment and bankruptcy and a continuation of the general doubt in the economy able to perform correctly.

Until all the markets are allowed to clear themselves through unemployment, bankruptcy, wage rate adjustments, and inventory reduction (including toxic asset real estate) there will be no recovery beyond what can be provided by repeated injections of stimulation from the government.

You can't drink yourself sober.

I'm sure that many are very proud of themselves because the government was so inefficient in determining how to run this program that they ran out of money in a week. Had anyone sat down for a few minutes they would have known that the number is easily closer to 4 million cars to sell under this program.

But the Austrian Economists are screaming at this program because of the distortions is applies to the economy. No one is saving money by doing this, they are going into debt, albeit at a discount. And all this money is coming from some other sector of the market that will now suffer a multi-billion dollar loss. Resulting in more industry crisis and bailouts as we chase down the Forgotten Man and try to provide reparations.

This is yet another horrible idea pushed out by horrible government who have short sighted views of not what is best for the economy and this nation but what is best for them to get re-elected in the next couple of years.

Without removing the Federal Reserve, Fractional Reserve Banking, and returning to the Gold Standard we simply must repeat these boom/bust cycles until the currency collapses and everyone loses all of their wealth. At least those who fail to convert to harder assets or assets in another country.