DAST Chat

2013-03-18 11:18:08

#9751

KEN-JENNINGS: I am all that is MOD!; +2,978|6853|949

I'm going to sound like a broken record but ill just go ahead anyway. I'm always accused of hating capitalism and hating corporations and thinking the government can save us all. I've been pretty consistent over the last 7 years or so in stating I hate corruption and immoral/unethical behavoir - whether its done by a person, company or government.

People talk about 'welfare' costing the government 'X' amount, or as a money sink...there is much worse graft and money exchange at the top than there is at the bottom - corporate welfare is a far greater problem than social welfare, speaking from a dollars perspective. What has a larger impact - cletus going to the welfare office to get foodstamps to feed his 4 children, or omiscient global bank ltd getting a $70 billion check?

2013-03-18 11:21:35

#9752

Uzique The Lesser: Banned; +382|4475

no ken this is a problem the workers and farmers must deal with because they have been living a lifestyle granted to them for free which they do not deserve by a large bureaucracy of socialists and freebie hunters.

2013-03-18 11:22:27

#9753

Jay: Bork! Bork! Bork!; +2,006|5579|London, England

KEN-JENNINGS wrote:
I'm going to sound like a broken record but ill just go ahead anyway. I'm always accused of hating capitalism and hating corporations and thinking the government can save us all. I've been pretty consistent over the last 7 years or so in stating I hate corruption and immoral/unethical behavoir - whether its done by a person, company or government.

People talk about 'welfare' costing the government 'X' amount, or as a money sink...there is much worse graft and money exchange at the top than there is at the bottom - corporate welfare is a far greater problem than social welfare, speaking from a dollars perspective. What has a larger impact - cletus going to the welfare office to get foodstamps to feed his 4 children, or omiscient global bank ltd getting a $70 billion check?

You're absolutely right.

"Ah, you miserable creatures! You who think that you are so great! You who judge humanity to be so small! You who wish to reform everything! Why don't you reform yourselves? That task would be sufficient enough."
-Frederick Bastiat

2013-03-18 11:26:01

#9754

Uzique The Lesser: Banned; +382|4475

Jay wrote:
KEN-JENNINGS wrote:
I'm going to sound like a broken record but ill just go ahead anyway. I'm always accused of hating capitalism and hating corporations and thinking the government can save us all. I've been pretty consistent over the last 7 years or so in stating I hate corruption and immoral/unethical behavoir - whether its done by a person, company or government.

People talk about 'welfare' costing the government 'X' amount, or as a money sink...there is much worse graft and money exchange at the top than there is at the bottom - corporate welfare is a far greater problem than social welfare, speaking from a dollars perspective. What has a larger impact - cletus going to the welfare office to get foodstamps to feed his 4 children, or omiscient global bank ltd getting a $70 billion check?
You're absolutely right.

so the european crisis, caused by said large corporate/banking entities acting unethically and giving out bad loans... should be blamed, right? not a 'culture of entitlement' and 'everyone on the dole', as you previously asserted. glad you've come around to see the european financial crisis as it really is.

2013-03-18 11:47:09

#9755

Jay: Bork! Bork! Bork!; +2,006|5579|London, England

It's a combination of both uzi. They were living in debt even before the financial collapse hit. They benefitted from the financial windfall of the boom, and now they're having that money stripped away. If they had saved during the boom instead of increasing spending to ever higher levels, it would've evened out. But they didn't, so now it hurts that much more.

You have a choice now: either the banks take huge losses by writing off debt from bad loans made to insolvent countries, which would lead to another financial collapse, or the countries can go through austerity by balancing their budgets, which will cause a lot of pain locally, but won't necessarily spread.

You're acting like the banks are these evil entities out to fuck everyone, but no one forced Greece, or France, or Ireland, or the UK to float so many bonds. No one forced them to run unbalanced budgets. It was a choice. Just like no one puts a gun to individual consumers heads and forces them to use a credit card with a 19% APR to make purchases. You can cry and point fingers all you want, but it was improper planning and people wanting their share of the boom that caused this mess. If, during the boom, the banks had started limiting who they gave out loans to, people would've cried foul and demanded loosening of credit. Banks are just a service, not life destroying, soul sucking behemoths.

"Ah, you miserable creatures! You who think that you are so great! You who judge humanity to be so small! You who wish to reform everything! Why don't you reform yourselves? That task would be sufficient enough."
-Frederick Bastiat

2013-03-18 12:01:24

#9756

Uzique The Lesser: Banned; +382|4475

correction: one half of banking comprises a 'public service'. the other half of banking is soul sucking, profiteering, and morally dubious.

2013-03-18 21:15:57

#9757

Spark: liquid fluoride thorium reactor; +874|6896|Canberra, AUS

Look, I would buy the austerity argument if the results looked anything like the predictions. But they haven't (at all), so why should anyone believe them when they say it'll work longer term?

The paradox is only a conflict between reality and your feeling what reality ought to be.
^{~ Richard Feynman}

2013-03-18 22:14:11

#9758

Shahter: Zee Ruskie; +295|6996|Moscow, Russia

Uzique The Lesser wrote:
Shahter wrote:
Uzique The Lesser wrote:
economic mismanagement since reagan/neo-liberal experiment? perhaps. but that's because the financial industry got out of control, not the state and its average contributing members.
he hasn't reached the part of his book that explains financial capitalism yet, man. you are wasting your time.

also, "financial industry"? really?
finance 'sector' then, sure, if you prefer. there's no difference. in the US it is sometimes referred to as the "finance industry". there are different types of industry, you know: primary, secondary, tertiary, (quarternary). they are used interchangeably; it's just semantics. make a real fucking point.

the point is, financial sector is not an industry at all, shouldn't be treated as such, and the notion that it could be is one of the causes for the crisis of the western economic system.

if you open your mind too much your brain will fall out.

2013-03-19 00:36:35

#9759

Dilbert_X: The X stands for; +1,813|6327|eXtreme to the maX

Jay wrote:
You're acting like the banks are these evil entities out to fuck everyone, but no one forced Greece, or France, or Ireland, or the UK to float so many bonds. No one forced them to run unbalanced budgets. It was a choice. Just like no one puts a gun to individual consumers heads and forces them to use a credit card with a 19% APR to make purchases. You can cry and point fingers all you want, but it was improper planning and people wanting their share of the boom that caused this mess. If, during the boom, the banks had started limiting who they gave out loans to, people would've cried foul and demanded loosening of credit. Banks are just a service, not life destroying, soul sucking behemoths.

I thought you'd read on what the banks did during the crisis - which was clear-cut fraud and theft from their customers, who are ultimately mortgage-holders and people with investments for pensions and other purposes.

Giving out loans which you know for certain have no prospect of being repaid = robbing your shareholders and investors

Giving yourself a commission on the shareholder and investor money you've given away = Profiting from a fraud

Selling and warranting financial products which you know are worthless = Clear-cut fraud

Selling loans to people you know will default on them and lose any equity they might have had while you pocket a commission on their inflated interest payments = I dunno, shysterism?

The banks aren't innocent middlemen here, they played their part by seeking out people who couldn't manage or finance a loan and giving them one anyway - throwing away centuries of tradition in financial prudence.

I don't know why you keep repeating this Libertarian mantra of unregulated free-marketeering. It doesn't work, its proven not to work, there's no example of it ever working in practice.

Last edited by Dilbert_X (2013-03-19 02:11:27)

Fuck Israel

2013-03-19 01:10:58

#9760

Spearhead: Gulf coast redneck hippy; +731|6911|Tampa Bay Florida

Ayn Rand "free-marketism" is about as impractical and ridiculous as "communism". It exists in theory, until you realize that states do exist for a concrete reason and they are powerful and they are not going away anytime soon. Say what you want about social spending/new deal programs, don't pretend as if JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs are honest brokers in the world economy. I think 9/10 people now believe bailing them out in the first place was a mistake. The real question however, is how did we let them become so large.

2013-03-19 01:34:50

#9761

AussieReaper: ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°); +5,761|6374|what

This is how

2013-03-19 05:23:31

#9762

Jay: Bork! Bork! Bork!; +2,006|5579|London, England

Spearhead wrote:
Ayn Rand "free-marketism" is about as impractical and ridiculous as "communism". It exists in theory, until you realize that states do exist for a concrete reason and they are powerful and they are not going away anytime soon. Say what you want about social spending/new deal programs, don't pretend as if JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs are honest brokers in the world economy. I think 9/10 people now believe bailing them out in the first place was a mistake. The real question however, is how did we let them become so large.

This post made you look completely ignorant. Free-market doctrine predates Ayn Rand by 150 years. Ayn Rand has very little to do with libertarianism.

The rest is regurgitated claptrap.

"Ah, you miserable creatures! You who think that you are so great! You who judge humanity to be so small! You who wish to reform everything! Why don't you reform yourselves? That task would be sufficient enough."
-Frederick Bastiat

2013-03-19 05:46:52

#9763

Dilbert_X: The X stands for; +1,813|6327|eXtreme to the maX

Free-market doctrine has never been properly or successfully trialled though has it?

Fuck Israel

2013-03-19 05:58:04

#9764

Jay: Bork! Bork! Bork!; +2,006|5579|London, England

It is every day in personal transactions. Adam Smith didn't invent free markets, he just described what he saw people doing every day.

"Ah, you miserable creatures! You who think that you are so great! You who judge humanity to be so small! You who wish to reform everything! Why don't you reform yourselves? That task would be sufficient enough."
-Frederick Bastiat

2013-03-19 06:24:36

#9765

Dilbert_X: The X stands for; +1,813|6327|eXtreme to the maX

Did he describe theft, fraud and dispossession of the weak?

Fuck Israel

2013-03-19 06:25:32

#9766

Uzique The Lesser: Banned; +382|4475

lol you really historically understand adam smith's period, right? that earlier and more rudimentary form of capitalism is long gone (and good riddance). and what sort of ridiculous utopian bubble do you exist in, where you can extrapolate the individual personal transaction to a global marketplace? lol. textbook idiot.

2013-03-19 06:34:03

#9767

Uzique The Lesser: Banned; +382|4475

the system of capitalism that prevailed in adam smith's day made today's capitalism look like a liberal-wetdream eco-hippie.

not to mention the 'invisible hand' has been laughed at by about 3 generations of economist by now.

why is jay still shilling this bullcrap? is this just the limits of his goodquotes.com horizons?

Last edited by Uzique The Lesser (2013-03-19 06:34:37)

2013-03-19 10:28:56

#9768

Jay: Bork! Bork! Bork!; +2,006|5579|London, England

Uzique The Lesser wrote:
the system of capitalism that prevailed in adam smith's day made today's capitalism look like a liberal-wetdream eco-hippie.

not to mention the 'invisible hand' has been laughed at by about 3 generations of economist by now.

why is jay still shilling this bullcrap? is this just the limits of his goodquotes.com horizons?

Capitalism didn't exist in his day. Mercantilism did, and it's alive and well to this day. Tariffs, and subsidies and government charters/monopolies, these are all mercantilist fundamentals, protectionism write large. The problem is, it doesn't work, and the foundation of the thinking behind it is extremely flawed. It's built on the idea that you should protect your own industries, pile up as much gold/wealth as you can, and pauper the rest of the world. The concept of trade deficitis etc all stem from mercantilism. Except the world doesn't work like that. Wealth ebs and flows, if you pile up a bunch of money in your home country, you drive up the cost of living and in turn see your exports fall off. We no longer live in a world where monopolies like the East India Company can dominate something like the spice trade. There was a point where you HAD to buy from them because they were the only dealer. Other industries like the British wool trade were protected monopolies as well, and their primary competition was from Flanders. Those days no longer exist. The world is smaller, travel is easier. I can place an order for a good in the Netherlands today and have it shipped to my house in a week.

It's not free-market economics that is the dead end, it's the neo-mercantilism that much of Europe still holds on to. Globalization has destroyed the model and made it completely untenable. It works to some extent in the internal European market simply because you've all got your little pet industries that you try to protect, whether it's wine, or olives, or whatever, so you set up a European commission to arbitrate those rules. That's fine, but it makes you completely non-competitive if you try to export those goods to the rest of the world that isn't playing by your rules. It's why Europe has become increasingly marginalized over the past half century and your economies are largely in decline.

"Ah, you miserable creatures! You who think that you are so great! You who judge humanity to be so small! You who wish to reform everything! Why don't you reform yourselves? That task would be sufficient enough."
-Frederick Bastiat

2013-03-19 11:30:46

#9769

Shahter: Zee Ruskie; +295|6996|Moscow, Russia

but, of course! if something had been proven not to work - that's not what jay had in mind. what the libertarians call "capitalism" is something that works by default. when it turns out that something doesn't - nope, must not have been capitalism then.

pathetic.

if you open your mind too much your brain will fall out.

2013-03-19 12:05:18

#9770

Uzique The Lesser: Banned; +382|4475

mercantalism was a form of capitalism you idiot. there have been three 'phases' or predominant modes of capitalist production/exchange since its inception. do you know them? do you truly understand their dialectic? or are you just familiar with a few adam smith quotes? ridiculous.

2013-03-19 12:07:36

#9771

Uzique The Lesser: Banned; +382|4475

Jay wrote:
It's why Europe has become increasingly marginalized over the past half century and your economies are largely in decline.

and this is coming from an american? lol. you have a real superlative talent for contradiction. i really respect it, in a way. almost every post you make is compromised, to the extent and consistency that it's almost evolved into somewhat of a personal style. the john galt idiom, let's call it.

although i suppose a working-class dude in class denial would have a convenient blind-spot for his own nation's blue-collar problems.

Last edited by Uzique The Lesser (2013-03-19 12:09:45)

2013-03-19 12:36:35

#9772

Jay: Bork! Bork! Bork!; +2,006|5579|London, England

I know our manufacturing sector has been hit hard, but we still produce produce the most goods, we've just become more efficient at it which means low-skilled workers have lost their jobs. So what? Economies change over time. America produced shit cars for decade and we got our shit pushed in by the Japanese when they ramped up their industrial base. We deserved to lose market share. You deserved to lose your steel industry because it was outdated and the workers were making way more money than could be justified on the world stage. Wages in China are rising dramatically now, so expect some of those jobs to return as shipping costs rise and it becomes economical to do so. It's part of the ebb and flow that I discussed earlier.

And no, mercantilism has nothing to do with free-market capitalism. They are distinctly different.

"Ah, you miserable creatures! You who think that you are so great! You who judge humanity to be so small! You who wish to reform everything! Why don't you reform yourselves? That task would be sufficient enough."
-Frederick Bastiat

2013-03-19 12:45:18

#9773

Uzique The Lesser: Banned; +382|4475

'free-market' and 'mercantile' are two different types of 'capitalism'. you are treating 'free-market capitalism' like it's a proper noun that can't be spliced or something. you really do not have much of a clue, do you? they are not 'distinctly different'. they are dialectic syntheses of one another. part of the same evolving process. 'distinctly different' suggests no precursor or no historical continuity. absolutely wrong. the thinking and paradigms of free-market capitalism are directly traceable to earlier antecedents in economic and political thought.

In his major work Late Capitalism, Mandel argues for three periods in the development of the capitalist mode of production. The first is freely competitive capitalism, which occurred from 1700 to 1850 and is characterized largely by the growth of industrial capital in domestic markets. Secondly there is the phase of monopoly capitalism, which lasted until approximately 1940, and is characterized by the imperialistic development of international markets as well as the exploitation of colonial territories. Finally there is the epoch of late capitalism emerging out of the Second World War, which has as its dominant features the multinational corporation, globalized markets and labor, mass consumption, and the space of liquid multinational flows of capital.[12]

please go read a fucking book or something.

2013-03-19 12:55:15

#9774

Jay: Bork! Bork! Bork!; +2,006|5579|London, England

I've read many books on the subject uzi, it's your own education that is lacking. Guess you should've done less drugs and studied something useful.

"Ah, you miserable creatures! You who think that you are so great! You who judge humanity to be so small! You who wish to reform everything! Why don't you reform yourselves? That task would be sufficient enough."
-Frederick Bastiat

2013-03-19 12:57:03

#9775

Uzique The Lesser: Banned; +382|4475

laughing my ass off. so mercantilism wasn't a mode of production/labour structured around capital or commerce? ok.

i mean i knew those naval tourism colleges were shit, but this is a whole other level

BF2S Forums DAST Chat

KEN-JENNINGS wrote:

Jay wrote:

KEN-JENNINGS wrote:

Uzique The Lesser wrote:

Shahter wrote:

Uzique The Lesser wrote:

Jay wrote:

Spearhead wrote:

Uzique The Lesser wrote:

Jay wrote:

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