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2010-08-08 12:58:10
Diesel_dyk
Object in mirror will feel larger than it appears
+178|6273|Truthistan

JohnG@lt wrote:

Diesel_dyk wrote:

JohnG@lt wrote:

They provide a service, which is just as real in terms of wealth creation as building a car or writing a play.
IMO they're a parasite. Their services may be necessary to a certain extent, but they are taking too much out of the economy.
Anyway, there is something seriously wrong with that industry, any other service would suffer in an ailing economy. If the economy is bad, then people cut back, and people in the service industry get hurt, but by all indication these guys are rebounding like a rubber super ball. its ridiculous.

The problem is that these guys are talked about as if they were "the economy" and policy is being set as if that were true. IMO if the economy does not recover (and its not going to for another 4 years) and the gravy train of tax money going to these guys dries up, or the fed rate is forced up, then we will see this financial bubble pop and then they can all join us in the real world.

long story short, the talk of double dip is all spin about them. The rest of us are still in the decline.
Too much out of the economy? They make too much money? Who the fuck are you to decide something as arbitrary as that? What would you like the jobs to be replaced by? Factory union jobs? Jesus Fucking Christ, stop watching MSNBC, it's turned you into a moron.
Who am I? Who... Am I? Who Am... I?
Why I'm the scab picker of course

Sounds like someone wants on to the parsite gravy train bad.

first of all you should know that some jobs just shouldn't exist in the first place, like telemarketers or doctors working as health insurance claims adjusters, and for sure some 20 something pukes shouldn't be able to step into a middle man position pushing paper for a million dollars plus a year. Something is seriously wrong when a useless twat takes that much money out of the economy doing nothing. They aren't creative artists anymore than an annoying mosquitoe. The growth in that industry takes money from some where else in the economy, shuffles it around and calls it a profit. And a sure sign of that zero sum game is that with the economy failing, they are still able to pull money out of the economy to maintain their profits. That means that they have become divorced from the real economy.

I'm sure that you know that the organism in nature that flourishes at the expense of the host is a parasite and if you're a cog in a parasite then that makes you a parasite too. If the financial industry were a operating as a necessary organ of the economy, then when the body is sick, they would be suffering too. Yes, IMO they are taking too much out of the economy.



BTW I don't watch MSNBC, I look at reality and make my own conclusions. I'm sure if I worked down on wall street or lived within stones throw of there that I would have a completely different world view because I am more of merc than an idealist. I can spin both ways and I recognize spin when I see it and right now I see the double dip talk as pro financial industry spin.
2010-08-08 14:18:58
Jay
Bork! Bork! Bork!
+2,006|5637|London, England

Turquoise wrote:

JohnG@lt wrote:

Diesel_dyk wrote:


IMO they're a parasite. Their services may be necessary to a certain extent, but they are taking too much out of the economy.
Anyway, there is something seriously wrong with that industry, any other service would suffer in an ailing economy. If the economy is bad, then people cut back, and people in the service industry get hurt, but by all indication these guys are rebounding like a rubber super ball. its ridiculous.

The problem is that these guys are talked about as if they were "the economy" and policy is being set as if that were true. IMO if the economy does not recover (and its not going to for another 4 years) and the gravy train of tax money going to these guys dries up, or the fed rate is forced up, then we will see this financial bubble pop and then they can all join us in the real world.

long story short, the talk of double dip is all spin about them. The rest of us are still in the decline.
Too much out of the economy? They make too much money? Who the fuck are you to decide something as arbitrary as that? What would you like the jobs to be replaced by? Factory union jobs? Jesus Fucking Christ, stop watching MSNBC, it's turned you into a moron.
Nope...  he's spot on, actually.  Most of what Wall Street does is manipulate money in arbitrary ways.  It's only perceived as a service because of how convoluted and manipulative banking can be.  Ever since the advent of fiat money, the financial sector has mostly been a very complicated game of smoke and mirrors.
They are exactly like any other middleman providing a service. I don't care if it's a wholesaler, Walmart, the local grocery store or whatever else. All these people are doing is providing a service, taking a cut, and moving the product on to the end user or another middleman. The middleman is a service provider whose sole function is to be a buffer between the source and the end user. Any one of us can go on e-trade and buy stocks or bonds directly. There's no reason to go through Wall Street but people do because of the perceived value of the service. You really can't be this brainwashed...
"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
2010-08-08 14:24:50
Turquoise
O Canada
+1,596|6684|North Carolina

JohnG@lt wrote:

They are exactly like any other middleman providing a service. I don't care if it's a wholesaler, Walmart, the local grocery store or whatever else. All these people are doing is providing a service, taking a cut, and moving the product on to the end user or another middleman. The middleman is a service provider whose sole function is to be a buffer between the source and the end user. Any one of us can go on e-trade and buy stocks or bonds directly. There's no reason to go through Wall Street but people do because of the perceived value of the service. You really can't be this brainwashed...
It's not the middleman aspect I'm referring to.  Things like fractional reserve banking literally create money out of nothing.
2010-08-08 14:26:15
Jay
Bork! Bork! Bork!
+2,006|5637|London, England

Turquoise wrote:

JohnG@lt wrote:

They are exactly like any other middleman providing a service. I don't care if it's a wholesaler, Walmart, the local grocery store or whatever else. All these people are doing is providing a service, taking a cut, and moving the product on to the end user or another middleman. The middleman is a service provider whose sole function is to be a buffer between the source and the end user. Any one of us can go on e-trade and buy stocks or bonds directly. There's no reason to go through Wall Street but people do because of the perceived value of the service. You really can't be this brainwashed...
It's not the middleman aspect I'm referring to.  Things like fractional reserve banking literally create money out of nothing.
So a big government guy like yourself is now crying about central banking? Central banking is how you fund your socialist utopia.
"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
2010-08-08 14:26:19
Reciprocity
Member
+721|6860|the dank(super) side of Oregon
2010-08-08 14:30:04
Jay
Bork! Bork! Bork!
+2,006|5637|London, England

Diesel_dyk wrote:

JohnG@lt wrote:

Diesel_dyk wrote:


IMO they're a parasite. Their services may be necessary to a certain extent, but they are taking too much out of the economy.
Anyway, there is something seriously wrong with that industry, any other service would suffer in an ailing economy. If the economy is bad, then people cut back, and people in the service industry get hurt, but by all indication these guys are rebounding like a rubber super ball. its ridiculous.

The problem is that these guys are talked about as if they were "the economy" and policy is being set as if that were true. IMO if the economy does not recover (and its not going to for another 4 years) and the gravy train of tax money going to these guys dries up, or the fed rate is forced up, then we will see this financial bubble pop and then they can all join us in the real world.

long story short, the talk of double dip is all spin about them. The rest of us are still in the decline.
Too much out of the economy? They make too much money? Who the fuck are you to decide something as arbitrary as that? What would you like the jobs to be replaced by? Factory union jobs? Jesus Fucking Christ, stop watching MSNBC, it's turned you into a moron.
Who am I? Who... Am I? Who Am... I?
Why I'm the scab picker of course

Sounds like someone wants on to the parsite gravy train bad.

first of all you should know that some jobs just shouldn't exist in the first place, like telemarketers or doctors working as health insurance claims adjusters, and for sure some 20 something pukes shouldn't be able to step into a middle man position pushing paper for a million dollars plus a year. Something is seriously wrong when a useless twat takes that much money out of the economy doing nothing. They aren't creative artists anymore than an annoying mosquitoe. The growth in that industry takes money from some where else in the economy, shuffles it around and calls it a profit. And a sure sign of that zero sum game is that with the economy failing, they are still able to pull money out of the economy to maintain their profits. That means that they have become divorced from the real economy.

I'm sure that you know that the organism in nature that flourishes at the expense of the host is a parasite and if you're a cog in a parasite then that makes you a parasite too. If the financial industry were a operating as a necessary organ of the economy, then when the body is sick, they would be suffering too. Yes, IMO they are taking too much out of the economy.



BTW I don't watch MSNBC, I look at reality and make my own conclusions. I'm sure if I worked down on wall street or lived within stones throw of there that I would have a completely different world view because I am more of merc than an idealist. I can spin both ways and I recognize spin when I see it and right now I see the double dip talk as pro financial industry spin.
You are well beyond delusional. Should we go back to the rural lifestyle where everything that a community needs is created in cottage industries, where people are bound to the land and required to farm and hunt for food? I know, we'll set up a barter system too so we can get rid of those 'useless industries'. If someone isn't making a 'useful' product they'll simply starve. Tough luck if the area you are assigned lacks mineral resources, you'll just have to get by with wooden and stone hand tools. No trading allowed.

Move to Oregon and go live on a commune.
"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
2010-08-08 14:31:31
Turquoise
O Canada
+1,596|6684|North Carolina

JohnG@lt wrote:

Turquoise wrote:

JohnG@lt wrote:

They are exactly like any other middleman providing a service. I don't care if it's a wholesaler, Walmart, the local grocery store or whatever else. All these people are doing is providing a service, taking a cut, and moving the product on to the end user or another middleman. The middleman is a service provider whose sole function is to be a buffer between the source and the end user. Any one of us can go on e-trade and buy stocks or bonds directly. There's no reason to go through Wall Street but people do because of the perceived value of the service. You really can't be this brainwashed...
It's not the middleman aspect I'm referring to.  Things like fractional reserve banking literally create money out of nothing.
So a big government guy like yourself is now crying about central banking? Central banking is how you fund your socialist utopia.
We don't have a public central bank.  We have the Federal Reserve -- a consortium of banking executives that are essentially granted governmental powers.

If we had never gotten rid of the Second Bank of the U.S., things would've turned out much better in the long run.  Instead, we eventually went through an ineffectual series of commodity based currencies, the Bretton-Woods System, and now, we have a modern fiat currency that is very vulnerable to reckless behavior on the part of the financial sector as a whole.

Ideally, we would disband the Fed Reserve, create a Third National Bank, and then tie our currency to a commodity, but the hard parts are deciding what commodity to choose and how to get our major trading partners to build up their own reserves of this commodity so that they could be a part of our system.
2010-08-08 14:32:46
Jay
Bork! Bork! Bork!
+2,006|5637|London, England

Turquoise wrote:

JohnG@lt wrote:

Turquoise wrote:


It's not the middleman aspect I'm referring to.  Things like fractional reserve banking literally create money out of nothing.
So a big government guy like yourself is now crying about central banking? Central banking is how you fund your socialist utopia.
We don't have a public central bank.  We have the Federal Reserve -- a consortium of banking executives that are essentially granted governmental powers.

If we had never gotten rid of the Second Bank of the U.S., things would've turned out much better in the long run.  Instead, we eventually went through an ineffectual series of commodity based currencies, the Bretton-Woods System, and now, we have a modern fiat currency that is very vulnerable to reckless behavior on the part of the financial sector as a whole.

Ideally, we would disband the Fed Reserve, create a Third National Bank, and then tie our currency to a commodity, but the hard parts are deciding what commodity to choose and how to get our major trading partners to build up their own reserves of this commodity so that they could be a part of our system.
Well shit, how do you plan on 'stimulating' your way out of recessions if you can't just create money out of thin air?
"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
2010-08-08 14:36:12
Turquoise
O Canada
+1,596|6684|North Carolina

JohnG@lt wrote:

Turquoise wrote:

JohnG@lt wrote:

So a big government guy like yourself is now crying about central banking? Central banking is how you fund your socialist utopia.
We don't have a public central bank.  We have the Federal Reserve -- a consortium of banking executives that are essentially granted governmental powers.

If we had never gotten rid of the Second Bank of the U.S., things would've turned out much better in the long run.  Instead, we eventually went through an ineffectual series of commodity based currencies, the Bretton-Woods System, and now, we have a modern fiat currency that is very vulnerable to reckless behavior on the part of the financial sector as a whole.

Ideally, we would disband the Fed Reserve, create a Third National Bank, and then tie our currency to a commodity, but the hard parts are deciding what commodity to choose and how to get our major trading partners to build up their own reserves of this commodity so that they could be a part of our system.
Well shit, how do you plan on 'stimulating' your way out of recessions if you can't just create money out of thin air?
Well, for starters, you let the big companies fail.  Bailouts should be out of the question.

Secondly, anti-trust laws should be revised to close all of the various loopholes involved in local markets.  If anti-trust regulations actually were enforced as they are supposed to, there would be very few monopolies or oligopolies.  Competition would be much more prevalent throughout the economy.

For the few situations where a monopoly or oligopoly is inevitable, heavy regulation would keep these industries accountable, but that of course requires appointing bureaucrats that aren't in bed with the industries they're supposed to regulate.

Last edited by Turquoise (2010-08-08 14:37:28)

2010-08-08 14:39:56
Jay
Bork! Bork! Bork!
+2,006|5637|London, England

Turquoise wrote:

JohnG@lt wrote:

Turquoise wrote:


We don't have a public central bank.  We have the Federal Reserve -- a consortium of banking executives that are essentially granted governmental powers.

If we had never gotten rid of the Second Bank of the U.S., things would've turned out much better in the long run.  Instead, we eventually went through an ineffectual series of commodity based currencies, the Bretton-Woods System, and now, we have a modern fiat currency that is very vulnerable to reckless behavior on the part of the financial sector as a whole.

Ideally, we would disband the Fed Reserve, create a Third National Bank, and then tie our currency to a commodity, but the hard parts are deciding what commodity to choose and how to get our major trading partners to build up their own reserves of this commodity so that they could be a part of our system.
Well shit, how do you plan on 'stimulating' your way out of recessions if you can't just create money out of thin air?
Well, for starters, you let the big companies fail.  Bailouts should be out of the question.

Secondly, anti-trust laws should be revised to close all of the various loopholes involved in local markets.  If anti-trust regulations actually were enforced as they are supposed to, there would be no monopolies or oligopolies.  Competition would be much more prevalent throughout the economy.

For the few situations where a monopoly or oligopoly is inevitable, heavy regulation would keep these industries accountable, but that of course requires appointing bureaucrats that aren't in bed with the industries they're supposed to regulate.
You're just confused. You had me nodding along to the beginning of your post and then you go off on a tangent about regulations when its those very same regulations which create the oligopolies and monopolies in the first place. They make the cost of doing business so high that they drive out all the smaller businesses in a given market.
"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
2010-08-08 14:42:51
Jay
Bork! Bork! Bork!
+2,006|5637|London, England
I find it humorous that people whine and cry and bitch and moan about regulated industries (and the financial services industry is the most heavily regulated industry in America) and thinking that even more regulation will work when everything else has failed.
"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
2010-08-08 14:44:02
Turquoise
O Canada
+1,596|6684|North Carolina

JohnG@lt wrote:

You're just confused. You had me nodding along to the beginning of your post and then you go off on a tangent about regulations when its those very same regulations which create the oligopolies and monopolies in the first place. They make the cost of doing business so high that they drive out all the smaller businesses in a given market.
Plenty of barriers to entry are purely market driven.  There's a reason why privatized healthcare results in a lot of mid-size cities having only a handful of hospitals owned by one or two companies -- because they're expensive to run regardless of regulation.

The same is true of nation building companies like Halliburton.  They don't have much competition in that field, because few companies have the resources needed for that work.

So no, it's not regulation that creates all monopolies or oligopolies.  Plenty of it is organic.  Now, I would agree with you that the telecommunications industry is very oligopolistic because of deals the government made with the major players of the industry.  That much we agree on, and about the only thing that could actually change that is antitrust law.

So, like it or not, antitrust regulations are necessary for opening up competition.
2010-08-08 14:45:05
Turquoise
O Canada
+1,596|6684|North Carolina

JohnG@lt wrote:

I find it humorous that people whine and cry and bitch and moan about regulated industries (and the financial services industry is the most heavily regulated industry in America) and thinking that even more regulation will work when everything else has failed.
Quantity of regulation isn't the issue -- quality of regulation is.  Chris Dodd and Barney Frank were trusted with the oversight of banking and such, and they fucked it up.
2010-08-08 14:52:51
Jay
Bork! Bork! Bork!
+2,006|5637|London, England

Turquoise wrote:

JohnG@lt wrote:

You're just confused. You had me nodding along to the beginning of your post and then you go off on a tangent about regulations when its those very same regulations which create the oligopolies and monopolies in the first place. They make the cost of doing business so high that they drive out all the smaller businesses in a given market.
Plenty of barriers to entry are purely market driven.  There's a reason why privatized healthcare results in a lot of mid-size cities having only a handful of hospitals owned by one or two companies -- because they're expensive to run regardless of regulation.

The same is true of nation building companies like Halliburton.  They don't have much competition in that field, because few companies have the resources needed for that work.

So no, it's not regulation that creates all monopolies or oligopolies.  Plenty of it is organic.  Now, I would agree with you that the telecommunications industry is very oligopolistic because of deals the government made with the major players of the industry.  That much we agree on, and about the only thing that could actually change that is antitrust law.

So, like it or not, antitrust regulations are necessary for opening up competition.
Clearing the market of government interference is the only effective means of creating competition. As I've stated numerous times, monopolies are self defeating and can not last in a truly free market. They become conservative leviathans incapable of adapting to changing markets. Sure, if they do change direction they have enormous resources to bring down into any given sector, but smaller, nimble and better run companies will always find their place and build market share.

Ten years ago, everyone except artists had a PC sitting on their desktop running Windows. Now buying an Apple has become the trendy thing to do and it's quickly gained market share, even in the business world. This wasn't a result of the anti-trust suits that were leveled against MS, because frankly, the fines were just a slap on the wrist. No, MS fucked up with things like Vista, Win2K and other products and people went to their competitors.

In circuitry, the same has happened to the once dominant Intel; AMD, Apple, and other companies are now giving them a run for their money.

No company stays dominant forever. Oligopolies are like old money families. The scion makes all the family money and every successive generation squanders it bit by bit.
"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
2010-08-08 14:53:55
Jay
Bork! Bork! Bork!
+2,006|5637|London, England

Turquoise wrote:

JohnG@lt wrote:

I find it humorous that people whine and cry and bitch and moan about regulated industries (and the financial services industry is the most heavily regulated industry in America) and thinking that even more regulation will work when everything else has failed.
Quantity of regulation isn't the issue -- quality of regulation is.  Chris Dodd and Barney Frank were trusted with the oversight of banking and such, and they fucked it up.
And therein lies the problem with every single one of your solutions. You're asking corrupt as fuck politicians to make other people 'play nice'. lol, just lol.
"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
2010-08-08 15:12:05
Harmor
Error_Name_Not_Found
+605|6827|San Diego, CA, USA
And who made it a complicated game of smoke and mirrors?
2010-08-08 15:13:36
Turquoise
O Canada
+1,596|6684|North Carolina

JohnG@lt wrote:

Clearing the market of government interference is the only effective means of creating competition. As I've stated numerous times, monopolies are self defeating and can not last in a truly free market. They become conservative leviathans incapable of adapting to changing markets. Sure, if they do change direction they have enormous resources to bring down into any given sector, but smaller, nimble and better run companies will always find their place and build market share.
Well, we will probably agree that monopolies often use government to stay in power, but other than actively weeding out corruption and using a reformed government to implement antitrust laws, there really is no other way to remove a monopoly from power.  The only way the market would be able to fix that alone is if no government existed to start with, but that creates a whole other myriad of problems.

On the other hand, oligopolies don't need government to keep out competition, they can behave as cartels and effectively eliminate any upstarts through striking deals with supply chains and distributors.

JohnG@lt wrote:

Ten years ago, everyone except artists had a PC sitting on their desktop running Windows. Now buying an Apple has become the trendy thing to do and it's quickly gained market share, even in the business world. This wasn't a result of the anti-trust suits that were leveled against MS, because frankly, the fines were just a slap on the wrist. No, MS fucked up with things like Vista, Win2K and other products and people went to their competitors.
Marketing certainly helps a gain in market share.  I have no argument with that.

JohnG@lt wrote:

In circuitry, the same has happened to the once dominant Intel; AMD, Apple, and other companies are now giving them a run for their money.
Well, actually, AMD's rise is mostly due to the EU using anticompetitive measures against Intel.  There are a lot of non-EU companies that have started getting slapped with fines to essentially fund the EU for the benefit of EU-friendly companies like AMD.

So, ironically, AMD is actually an example of the darkside of governmental intervention -- something that actually serves better as an example against regulation for the reasons you originally stated at the beginning of your post.

JohnG@lt wrote:

No company stays dominant forever. Oligopolies are like old money families. The scion makes all the family money and every successive generation squanders it bit by bit.
Perhaps...  but the question is how much abuse of power can be tolerated in the meantime.
2010-08-08 15:15:39
Turquoise
O Canada
+1,596|6684|North Carolina

JohnG@lt wrote:

Turquoise wrote:

JohnG@lt wrote:

I find it humorous that people whine and cry and bitch and moan about regulated industries (and the financial services industry is the most heavily regulated industry in America) and thinking that even more regulation will work when everything else has failed.
Quantity of regulation isn't the issue -- quality of regulation is.  Chris Dodd and Barney Frank were trusted with the oversight of banking and such, and they fucked it up.
And therein lies the problem with every single one of your solutions. You're asking corrupt as fuck politicians to make other people 'play nice'. lol, just lol.
The private sector is equally corrupt.  Therein lies the biggest problem.

One could argue that America's level of corruption (especially in California) is a cultural problem.  Plenty of other wealthy countries have corruption issues, but it seems like we're exceptionally corrupt in certain respects.

By comparison, Canada seems a lot less corrupt.
2010-08-08 15:18:06
Turquoise
O Canada
+1,596|6684|North Carolina

Harmor wrote:

And who made it a complicated game of smoke and mirrors?
A combination of bureaucrats and lobbyists.
2010-08-08 15:23:18
Jay
Bork! Bork! Bork!
+2,006|5637|London, England

Turquoise wrote:

JohnG@lt wrote:

Turquoise wrote:


Quantity of regulation isn't the issue -- quality of regulation is.  Chris Dodd and Barney Frank were trusted with the oversight of banking and such, and they fucked it up.
And therein lies the problem with every single one of your solutions. You're asking corrupt as fuck politicians to make other people 'play nice'. lol, just lol.
The private sector is equally corrupt.  Therein lies the biggest problem.

One could argue that America's level of corruption (especially in California) is a cultural problem.  Plenty of other wealthy countries have corruption issues, but it seems like we're exceptionally corrupt in certain respects.

By comparison, Canada seems a lot less corrupt.
Involving the government in the economy is the cause of the corruption. If a senator can't help or hurt a company based on the bribes, oops, sorry, I mean campaign contributions, that he receives then there is no issue. Keep the laws simple. Punish corruption, theft and fraud severely (no more white collared prisons) and the rest works itself out.
"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
2010-08-08 15:30:29
Turquoise
O Canada
+1,596|6684|North Carolina

JohnG@lt wrote:

Turquoise wrote:

JohnG@lt wrote:


And therein lies the problem with every single one of your solutions. You're asking corrupt as fuck politicians to make other people 'play nice'. lol, just lol.
The private sector is equally corrupt.  Therein lies the biggest problem.

One could argue that America's level of corruption (especially in California) is a cultural problem.  Plenty of other wealthy countries have corruption issues, but it seems like we're exceptionally corrupt in certain respects.

By comparison, Canada seems a lot less corrupt.
Involving the government in the economy is the cause of the corruption. If a senator can't help or hurt a company based on the bribes, oops, sorry, I mean campaign contributions, that he receives then there is no issue. Keep the laws simple. Punish corruption, theft and fraud severely (no more white collared prisons) and the rest works itself out.
In theory, I agree.  In practice, not so much...
2010-08-08 15:36:29
Jay
Bork! Bork! Bork!
+2,006|5637|London, England

Turquoise wrote:

JohnG@lt wrote:

Turquoise wrote:


The private sector is equally corrupt.  Therein lies the biggest problem.

One could argue that America's level of corruption (especially in California) is a cultural problem.  Plenty of other wealthy countries have corruption issues, but it seems like we're exceptionally corrupt in certain respects.

By comparison, Canada seems a lot less corrupt.
Involving the government in the economy is the cause of the corruption. If a senator can't help or hurt a company based on the bribes, oops, sorry, I mean campaign contributions, that he receives then there is no issue. Keep the laws simple. Punish corruption, theft and fraud severely (no more white collared prisons) and the rest works itself out.
In theory, I agree.  In practice, not so much...
Right, because what y'all have been doing for the past 100 years has worked so well. Trying to stop free will is a fruitless endeavor. There will always be new products and new services and new loopholes that people will create. Unless you keep the laws simple and punish those that don't follow them severely, all you do is create scofflaws and then everyone takes the entire system for a joke.

When I was a kid I used to love playing in the sand at the beach. I wouldn't build sand castles, I would build a wall to keep the ocean out. I'd spend hours working on it until the tide came up and then spend another half hour or so mending holes and building it higher as the surf came up. Eventually I'd lose my battle. You're trying to stop the ocean with flimsy sand walls and wondering why it isn't working.
"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
2010-08-08 15:42:50
Turquoise
O Canada
+1,596|6684|North Carolina

JohnG@lt wrote:

Turquoise wrote:

JohnG@lt wrote:


Involving the government in the economy is the cause of the corruption. If a senator can't help or hurt a company based on the bribes, oops, sorry, I mean campaign contributions, that he receives then there is no issue. Keep the laws simple. Punish corruption, theft and fraud severely (no more white collared prisons) and the rest works itself out.
In theory, I agree.  In practice, not so much...
Right, because what y'all have been doing for the past 100 years has worked so well. Trying to stop free will is a fruitless endeavor. There will always be new products and new services and new loopholes that people will create. Unless you keep the laws simple and punish those that don't follow them severely, all you do is create scofflaws and then everyone takes the entire system for a joke.

When I was a kid I used to love playing in the sand at the beach. I wouldn't build sand castles, I would build a wall to keep the ocean out. I'd spend hours working on it until the tide came up and then spend another half hour or so mending holes and building it higher as the surf came up. Eventually I'd lose my battle. You're trying to stop the ocean with flimsy sand walls and wondering why it isn't working.
...and what we tried during the Gilded Age didn't work either...
2010-08-08 15:44:21
Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,816|6385|eXtreme to the maX
Financials are still making money, here's why.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/pers … vings.html
Fuck Israel
2010-08-08 17:05:19
Jay
Bork! Bork! Bork!
+2,006|5637|London, England

Turquoise wrote:

JohnG@lt wrote:

Turquoise wrote:


In theory, I agree.  In practice, not so much...
Right, because what y'all have been doing for the past 100 years has worked so well. Trying to stop free will is a fruitless endeavor. There will always be new products and new services and new loopholes that people will create. Unless you keep the laws simple and punish those that don't follow them severely, all you do is create scofflaws and then everyone takes the entire system for a joke.

When I was a kid I used to love playing in the sand at the beach. I wouldn't build sand castles, I would build a wall to keep the ocean out. I'd spend hours working on it until the tide came up and then spend another half hour or so mending holes and building it higher as the surf came up. Eventually I'd lose my battle. You're trying to stop the ocean with flimsy sand walls and wondering why it isn't working.
...and what we tried during the Gilded Age didn't work either...
Are you referring to the heavy Mercantilist time period in our nations history rife with government sponsored monopolies like Union Pacific, the highest tariffs in our nations history, and widespread graft and favoritism? Is that the one you're talking about? Because that sure as shit wasn't free trade economics. No, that time period is exactly what liberals try to bring back every time they pile on regulations.
"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

 

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