http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercantilism

The current world economy, with it chap labor markets and consumer countries seems, to me, to have some of the characteristics of mercantilism.

Trade and business, on the other hand, has been here since the beginning of time. That is not capitalism. It predates capitalism.

Then what is it? Mercantilism? Someone earlier mentioned

This is something I have never understood. Was slavery capitalism? Or trade/business? I hear people saying that slave trading wasn’t/isn’t capitalism. Not sure what to make of these kind of statements.

Is capitalism really something that began at a particular moment in time?

Yes. Slavery was and is capitalism. Ask any good capitalist, How do you make money?” They will tell you, “On other people’s labor.” Capitalists tried to erase their deeds and airbrush themselves out of the history books. Those plantations in the South were not owned and runned by Ma, Pa, and the two kids as depicted in Gone with the Wind. The same group of capitalists owned eight, nine, ten gigantic plantations. It was deregulated capitalism at its finest. Now a favorite business among capitalists are Pentagon contractors, selling weapons (Bush just completed a deal) and keeping war going.

The “heat” I was referring to was the criticism that would adhere to advocates of reversion to circa July 2007 FISA. Those advocates are in THIS Congress, and THEY may be unwilling to take that heat, again. The same players demonstrated inability to take the heat last August.

If there is a kind and just god, maybe I’ll be able to slip away to Sarasota some time this spring. I know where Sen. Gregg’s place is, and I pass it on the way to, and back from, the beach. I’ve always found that the perfect place to get rid of my cigarette butts, accumulated over the course of the day, is right over his fence.

File this one under “passive aggression”, I suppose.

On that note, I must leave for a while, to see if I can spring an infuriatingly headstrong young lady outta jail.

Carry on, all.

Scheduled recess to 2:15 or 2:30 (scheduled a year in advance, or more, a weekly thing), the Senate couldn’t come to an agreement as to how to proceed before it entered that recess, and the Senate has right now set a period of morning business until 4:30.

That 4:30 time could change at the drop of a hat, but it’s looking (to me) that what will happen is the Senate will pass a House-passed extension amidst copious amounts of bluster and fluster. The options at 4:30 will, I think, reduce to “take it or leave it.” That stance will be enforced by the House being out past Feb. 1st.