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Nothing To Fear But Fearlessness Itself?
theodp writes "In a post last August, Robert X. Cringely voiced fears that Goldman Sachs and others were not so much evil as 'clueless about the implications of their work,' leaving it up to the government to fix any mess they leave behind. 'But what if government runs out of options,' worried Cringely. 'Our economic policy doesn't imagine it, nor does our foreign policy, because superpowers don't acknowledge weakness.' And now his fears are echoed in a WSJ opinion piece by Peggy Noonan titled 'We're Governed by Callous Children.' She writes, 'We are governed at all levels by America's luckiest children, sons and daughters of the abundance, and they call themselves optimists but they're not optimists — they're unimaginative. They don't have faith, they've just never been foreclosed on. They are stupid and they are callous, and they don't mind it when people become disheartened. They don't even notice.' With apologies to FDR, do we have nothing to fear but fearlessness itself?"
What a load of bollocks.
I think not.
...to really see it in action. The state legislature approval rating was approaching single digits last I heard.
Do you think a single one of those scumbags give a gnat's fart about it?
They don't have to- not with district boundaries drawn like fractals and the vast majority of you voting the Party line.
We should stop putting value on the work of those who make money from money, from paper instruments, rather we should value money for goods. As a socialist, I applaud takeovers; they always lose money. As someone who likes to get paid, I want a return to the time before the Masters Of The Universe ruled our financial institutions.
Patriotism is a virtue of the vicious
Basically, the thesis of this piece is the same thing the right wing has been pushing since Reagan's time: government can't work. Nothing that comes out of government can ever be good. We might as well just give up.
Maybe she's right, but history isn't on her side. So this sounds more like sour grapes: Peggy has no hope, because her people have no relevance, and she doesn't like who's in power. So she hopes we will listen to her and lose hope as well, because that way nobody will have hope. Not the Republicans, not the Democrats, not the independents, not the geeks. In that nihilistic world, her folks can waltz in and take over the government and keep pouring our tax dollars into their pockets the way they did under Reagan and both Bushes. Government doesn't work. Might as well send your tax money to Halliburton and Xe.
If any employee caused this kind of damage the customers/consumers would sue and employees would be terminated. Yet in this case, we have companies (and hence employees) that are "too big|valuable|important too fail" so they get bailed out.
If I did this at my company (I manage a large mainframe storage environment at a recognizable financial institution on WallStreet), say by blowing away a ton of customer data, I can guarantee I would be walked to the door before the end of the day.
People in peer departments of mine (like those than manage the networks, server admins etc) that have no input to the investment direction of this company's holdings, have lost bonuses, haven't been able to purchase equipment and staff has been cut. We had nothing to do with this bullsh!t, and yet us like the rest of American's are having to suffer while the MBAs reap in the dollars that the Federal Gov't is handing out.
I wish I could get a $200k bonus for blowing away a PetaByte of mainframe storage. Maybe I'll go power off the z10 and see if Obama will bail out my unemployed ass.
i don't buy noonan's premise. most elected officials i know (and i know hundreds) don't come from any so-called privileged "leadership class," whatever that is, they come instead from nearly all walks of life and bring with them the experience of extremely diverse backgrounds, including poverty and marginalization. it's true that the profoundly destitute among us, the homeless, the institutionalized etc rarely make it past the intention to run but this recurring conservative refrain that the country is held hostage by an arrogant and privileged elite (by definition "liberal") is nothing more than a constant whine from a group of philosophically bankrupt extremists who don't have the intellectual firepower to understand why we're not all in thrall to alissa rosenbaum and her fifty year old adolescent fairy tales.
Powers use (and abuse) their options up to the point where nothing goes any more.
The the people will have to make up for it.
Then they sheepishly could allow other powers to do the same.
Unless they finally organize themselves in a way no power is needed any more. Which needs a generalized will to act GOOD. Without this, chaos will definitely ensue.
but sheer ineptitude, incompetence, and stupidity.
The way we do elections isn't helping. The media does sound bites, so sound bites are what people have to go on. The education system (run by the left wing for the past 30 years) has now raised two generations of people that don't even know how to balance their own checkbook, much less properly budget for a lifestyle that's within their means.
Mass media tells people "you deserve everything right now," and the masses buy right into it.
It's not so different on the top end. "Company X is too big to fail" means they have carte blanche to do what they want, and the government bails them out... so rather than having a proper market correction, the effects are hidden and come back to bite us in the ass in the form of a repeat of Carter-era Stagflation.
Letting one party have power is a bad thing. It happened with Carter, it happened with Clinton, it happened with Bush, and it's happening with Obama right now. One party in power = government spending like drunken sailors on a binge in shanghai.
If we had a line item veto, I'd say just to keep it split so that the checks and balances built into our system would work. As it stands, I want a republican legislature and a democrat president, simply because the republicans are slightly less likely to spend hog-wild when Congress gets around to writing the budget. If it's not in the budget, the President doesn't get a chance to sign off on it, but when the Democrats stick crap in the budget (see the 1980s and the last two years under Bush), the President's only current method of countering is to veto the whole damn thing and risk the media furor of "OMG HE SHUT DOWN THE GOVERNMENT" to force them to write something reasonable.
Fire the whole damn government and start over, let businesses fail if they fail (otherwise yes, they get bloody fucking reckless and expect a bailout), and get things working as they should for a change.
Oh, and California? What a perfect example. The Granola State (home of Fruits, Nuts, and Flakes) deserves what they got for electing who they elected.
I mean think of betting on a coin flip where you call heads. If it comes up heads, you get a billion dollars. If it comes up tails, the fed bails your bank out for a billion dollars and maybe your bonus this quarter is smaller, but you lose nothing directly, and your bonus is back to normal 3 months later. Kind of makes fearless and stupid betting par for the course.
Who cares what Peggy Noonan says. It's just a dig at the youngish democrats around the president.
When the republican children of abundance get in the executive, they could appoint truly privileged twits: the Liz Cheneys, the Megan McCains and Peggy Noonan would have no problem with them.
I think not.
If she said the Sun was shining outside, I would grab my umbrella and raincoat and worry about flash floods.
"And the truth is, there is something terribly wrong with this country, isn't there? Cruelty and injustice, intolerance and oppression. And where once you had the freedom to object, to think and speak as you saw fit, you now have censors and systems of surveillance coercing your conformity and soliciting your submission. How did this happen? Who's to blame? Well certainly there are those more responsible than others, and they will be held accountable, but again truth be told, if you're looking for the guilty, you need only look into a mirror. I know why you did it. I know you were afraid. Who wouldn't be? War, terror, disease. There were a myriad of problems which conspired to corrupt your reason and rob you of your common sense."
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
This seems to be part of a rather wide ranging campaign on the part of the conservatives to spread fear, uncertainty, and doubt about the current government. The previous administration was clearly in over its head. This one seems to have a clue...
In order to get one of those top bankers jobs you need to have:
- Perfect credit rating
- Clean criminal record
- At least a degree (although a masters is more realistic)
- Private school and or brand university
If you don't then forget it. You would never make it past the interview stage. Which in turn results in every banker being a white male with fairly rich parents and a bunch of peers they fit in well with. The entire system is set to allow people "like them" in and to keep "those other people" out.
It isn't just about sexism or racism, it is about class. They don't want poor people into their club.
Thus it results in exactly what the article is talking about. Bankers have no real life experience. They never make mistakes or are down on their luck. I mean, heck, they likely complain if their pent house is a rental... So are we really surprised when they lack understanding of what might happen if they lose their gambling?
But truth be known a lot of bankers didn't understand the level of risk. They left it up to third parties to literally invent ways to measure risk and sell it back to them. Then they could turn around and blame these third parties if what was a "low risk" investment wasn't (which is a false self-reassurance).
Should prayers be covered?: "As the health care battle moved forward last week, Phil Davis, a senior Christian Science church official, hurriedly delivered bundles of letters to Senate offices promoting a little-noticed proposal in the legislation requiring insurers to consider covering the church's prayer treatments just as they do other medical expenses. Critics say the proposal would essentially put Christian Science prayer treatments on the same footing as science-based medical care by prohibiting discrimination against "religious and spiritual health care."
The current global economic system seems to be fundamentally broken - it requires endless exponential growth in order for old debts plus interest to be paid off by new money, backed by goods and services to maintain that new money's value. I fear that until this system is re-designed from the bottom up it cannot be sustained for very much longer. I think the current turmoil is evidence for this.
I'd recommend watching Money As Debt for more insight on this.
"I bless every day that I continue to live, for every day is pure profit."
I love the "you don't understand, we'll go Galt," whining.
To the old executive talking to Noonan: please, go Galt. You did a shitty job and I believe I can do better. Get out of my and my generation's way.
How is this "news for nerds" and technology related? The original posted actually asked if it was, this is just political and discusses socioeconomic issues.
I'm sure the guys at the top realize that taking trillions from the government is going to have some effect. But why should they care? In the short term they have little to lose and much to gain. In the long term it might not be the best course of action, but they can't stop because if one rich thief stops pillaging the country then another one will just take his place right? The only way this will change is if the thieves start being held accountable. For instance, if the lower classes get pissed off enough to start torching mansions. So far, Americans are too fat, dumb, and happy to rein in the ruling class.
Okay, so in pretty Peggy's view anything that government does by way of governing won't work. (Didn't she write Reagan's line, "Government is the problem"?) Since Democrats to some extent believe government can be, and should be, effective - well, we should just give up on this. We should become disheartened as Democrats. If "most everyone else" knows that government - which by its nature involves regulation, and public investment, and yes collecting taxes to pay for those activities - is "not a path through," we're left asking "Who is this 'everyone else'?" Pretty clearly it's the shrinking demographic which still identifies as Republican: prevalently old, white, and living in the Deep South - people who last liked government when it was run by Jefferson Davis.
Well, I'm middle aged, white, and live in New England. I'm hopeful. The way through looks obvious, and I see an administration with a fairly good vision of it - even if they're not going nearly far enough in regulating Peggy's friends on the street her Journal's named after. It's so brightly obvious, it's almost blinding. It's based on government, businesses, and individuals each doing our part. Yes, government should not go too far in controlling businesses; but in return businesses have to back way off, as they've gone much too far in recent years into endeavoring to control government. Why do people like Peggy never worry when businesses control government too much?
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity. - MLK Jr.
"They don't understand that if they start to tax me so that I'm paying 60%, 55%, I'll stop."
Who is John Galt?
The "top" people in both government and business are spoiled children. From Bill Gates to GW Bush, they had everything handed to them, and when things got tough, their parents bailed them out. In the socio-economic stratosphere of the US, it has never been about merit. It's always been about money, and now we can see what that has bred.
We hear a lot about the sense of entitlement among the baby boomers, but it's almost always in the context of Medicare and welfare for the relatively poor. Now we see what this sense of entitlement does on the grand scale. It's ridiculous when GM assembly line workers expect health care in perpetuity. It's mind blowing to see the same attitude applied to C level executives who think they are entitled to year over year growth, and bonuses, regardless of how bad things really are.
And things are bad. The financial wizards of Wall St. have, almost literally, destroyed trillions of dollar in wealth over the last year. None of them think they did anything wrong, and any who are taken to task for this colossal screw up will cry about how unjust it is. When will people realize that handing the reigns of power to spoiled brats, who have no concept of the consequences of failure, is a stupid idea? Doesn't look like they've learned it this time. Maybe in 10 more years when the next economic crisis is screws everyone but the people who caused it.
Silence is Foo!
Scrap Cap-and-Trade: Americans would spend $100 billion to $200 billion a year for limited results: a 15 percent cut in U.S. emissions would reduce global emissions by less than 4 percent, which would have a negligible worldwide impact. Investment bankers need cap-and-trade to make their "green energy" deals successful. That's great (and profitable) for them, but their earnings would come at the expense of every other American.
Psychopaths have the desire to reach leadership positions because that way, they can gain the most profit for themselves (not just monetary profit), and they also have the best tools to reach leadership positions, by manipulating others - something psychopaths excel at.
Psychopathic executives will not blink to destroy their own company, a whole industry, or cause food poisoning, water and air pollution, lower the standard of living of hundreds of millions - as long as they have profit out of it. Wake up, guys, with the few exceptions of people like Warren Buffet, corporations are run by highly functional psychopaths.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
You lost me at 'clueless about the implications of their work'. the crooks at AIG, JPMC et. al. lied about their involvement in the subprime mortgage crisis. many of these guys hold advanced degrees in finance, economics, etc. and they knew what the hell would happen. Come on now, not only does Congress need to stop enabling these Criminals by looking the other way (granting them a covert opportunity to recoup their loses), it's time We demand they prosecute them under the laws which match their Crimes- RICO. It's not just been Fraud and embezzlement- it's been extortion. Not just against their own 'customers', but against the entire citizenry of this country (and others) which taken in it's totality equals Economic Treason. They've not only endangered the US & World economy, they've been trying to cripple them by busting our knees to get the rest of the money out of Us all. In fact, Wall Street makes the 'Teflon Don' and the Gambino Crime Family look rather quaint, in retrospect. It is Cringely that is clueless yet again, not the other way around
The real problem, is that there is no simple answer. Only a complex one.
Is capitalism or socialism the answer? Yes.
Yes, because BOTH are the answer, at the same time.
Allow me to try to explain this, before you explode.
There are things government does well and things private individuals do well, but they are NOT restricted each to a field.
This means that private individuals should be free to engage in business, but not without any controls and limitations. And government should be allowed to interfere if it serves society as a whole better.
You had a little while ago the laughable story about the US press. You saw several posts commenting that either a state run media or a company run media are the only alternatives.
How idiotic, everyone knows that in Europe, BOTH exists, besides each other, fighting each other tooth and nail. THAT is how you get progress. If you think a state run media alone can be independent, you are insane, although not nearly as insane as the idea that company run media will be independent. Fox News is company owned. Case closed.
The US needs to accept that you need a healthy balance between the state and the individual and that this balance can NEVER be achieved, you always will end up with a pendulum swinging back and forth. Things only go wrong if the pendulum is either hanging still or doesn't swing back.
The problem is that you can't get elected with this policy. You need to pick a side and that means in the US that the pendulum can be pulled to far of the center. That is what happened with the credit crisis, to many administrations, from both sides, who did not excersise the control of the state on the financial institutions.
We need to get away from the idea that their is ONE ideology that is the answer. Uncontrolled financial markets are clearly not the answer but neither is total control. What you need to have is the right control at the right time but that can't be achieved, so you need to accept the situation that sometimes there is a bit to much control and sometimes to little without going to extremes.
This middle path is NOT taking the road of least resistance, on the contrary, you will face opposition from all sides, but it is the only one that has been proven to work.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
This McClatchy investigation suggests otherwise.
Faith that everything will always turn out fine.
I don't think a belief in Jesus would keep them from feeling that they are entitled to the wealth of the world. It certainly never stopped the Catholic Church.
Cringley, among other bizarre and cringe inducing comments, states "trading is a parasite on investing." No, it's not. It's part of the market mechanism attempting to reach optimal allocation of resources, and can also be used to minimize risk. Trading and investing are serve the exact same function, and are not different beyond a perceived difference in amount of times that securities are held.
Slashdot: Playing Favorites Since 1997
As someone who likes to get paid, I want a return to the time before the Masters Of The Universe ruled our financial institutions.
When do you think that was?
The Industrial Revolution with the Robber Barons who would hire "security" firms to shoot labor if they stepped out of line? When everyone worked 12 hour days 6 days a week to work to get behind?
Or back in the big landowner days when peons like me would be working the land and just working to get behind?
Or before that when we were hunter gatherers?
I don't think there's anywhere or anytime to back to when things were better. The only way things will get better is if we as a species progress. Our economic system won't improve until we humans improve. In other words, I think it's humanly impossible to have a better economic system than the quasi-capitalistic one that we have developed in the West. And no, I think Socialism is a bigger waste than capitalism.
So far, and I think for the rest of the time humanity exists, capitalism is the best economic system we are capable of having. Humans are just not emotionally capable of anything better.
It's NOT me! It's the meds! I'm on 1000mg of Fukitol.
Oh, and California? What a perfect example. The Granola State (home of Fruits, Nuts, and Flakes) deserves what they got for electing who they elected.
That's callous and unreasonable. (1) We haven't had any good alternatives in a long time. (2) Everyone is too caught up on the lesser-of-two-evils mentality brought about by our first-past-the-post method of election (I'd be surprised if you lived somewhere different in this regards). Combine that with gerrymandering, and congress stagnates. (3) California is said to have the 5th largest economy in the world. Our government hurts our economy (without question) which ripples throughout the rest of the states. (4) The country as a whole has a tendency to follow California's lead. This doesn't predict the future, but it's worrisome. (5) Only the federal government is more beholden to a plethora of special interest groups, making real action nearly impossible to mobilize. (6) Not every Californian voted for these idiots. You're blaming a lot of innocent people. Yes, I've voted for third party candidates before. (I'd support an actual third party if any of them reflected my political views.)
I'm not asking for an apology. Just be careful who you lump in with the "Fruits, Nuts, and Flakes".
I won't join Slashcott. OTOH, If Beta goes live, I just won't be back until it's fixed. Sorry Dice.
It took me a long time to figure out why things are going to hell. Then I read http://www.youmeworks.com/sociopaths.html and it all made sense. Sociopaths seek power and winning without conscience and this is why banking and wall street leaders are where they are, because they've changed the system of laws to favor themselves. Like terminators, they don't feel remorse or care if their actions hurt other people. These people are now a large proportion of our international corporate leadership. Until our system collapses, they will stay in power, even though they are the reason for our suffering and downfall as a nation. Not sure what there is to do about the situation except have people come to recognize sociopaths for what they are, broken people who should never be allowed to hold power. From the web site the 12 clues to recognizing a sociopath HOW TO KNOW The big question is, of course, how can you know whether someone is a sociopath or not? It is a difficult question and even experts on the subject can be fooled. If you suspect that someone close to you is a sociopath, I suggest you read both of the books I mentioned and think hard about it. Compare that person to the other people in your life. Ask yourself these questions: 1. Do you often feel used by the person? 2. Have you often felt that he (or she) doesn't care about you? 3. Does he lie and deceive you? 4. Does he tend to make contradictory statements? 5. Does he tend to take from you and not give back much? 6. Does he often appeal to pity? Does he seem to try to make you feel sorry for him? 7. Does he try to make you feel guilty? 8. Do you sometimes feel he is taking advantage of your good nature? 9. Does he seem easily bored and need constant stimulation? 10. Does he use a lot of flattery? Does he interact with you in a way that makes you feel flattered even if he says nothing overtly complimentary? 11. Does he make you feel worried? Does he do it obviously or more cleverly and sneakily? 12. Does he give you the impression you owe him? 13. Does he chronically fail to take responsibility for harming others? Does he blame everyone and everything but himself? Tags: evil, Hitler, anti-christ, sociopath,
Only a naive idiot would believe that Goldman Sachs actions were accidental or lacking foresight. These are the best minds in the country, they are specialists in predicting market trends and they pretty much invented most of the toxic assets that crippled everyone ELSE, while the profited.... A coincidence ? I don't think so.
The real purpose of cap and trade has nothing to do with the environment. It is all about transferring wealth from first world nations to the third world, and allowing financial markets to reap huge profits in the process. Otherwise, why would this idea get so much corporate support?
Select a sample of all GS employees at random - say 1% or even 10% - and execute them, leaving the corpses to hang and rot outside the offices of GS. These people have done, and will continue to do, more damage to America than Al Qaeda.
Exactly. Whenever someone is repeatedly "incompetent", in such a way as to line their own pockets with other people's cash, you should at least suspect that "incompetence" is not the right word.
His insight is apparently annoying to some people, so they need to read it again,
The Cringely article is an interesting take on the way technology enables the destabilization of our economic system. But the Noonan article is just whining about these young-uns who never had a difficult life. With the logical conclusion that we should lower taxes!?? Slash-dot is better off not linking to any of these opinion pieces, but whoever linked to the content free post by Noonan should be banned from putting up articles on slash-dot.
The likes of Goldman are neither clueless nor evil, merely self-interested. From what I understand, Goldman is one of the smaller firms on Wall Street, and they seem to have been one of the few to profit (legitimately, without bailouts) from the housing collapse. And it's important to realize that they did so by doing the right thing before any of the others, by divesting themselves of many mortgage backed securities and by hedging against the collapse of the market. If any of them are clueless, it's the larger banks (Citi, BoA, Wells Fargo) that rode the real estate market right off the cliff. If any of them are evil, it's the government-sponsored mortgage backers who encouraged (with stolen tax dollars) such a ridiculous mis-allocation of resources to begin with.
Furthermore, profiting by "betting" against mal-investment is in no way evil. Here's an analogy. Let's say you know someone who discovers a coal mine in his backyard. And he says that he'd rather not go to the trouble of developing the mine and selling the coal to produce electricity or heat houses or whatever. He'd rather just ignite it to burn off underground.
You clearly recognize that this is an economic waste, a mis-allocation of resources, an increase of entropy with no discernible benefit to anyone. So you tie him up and rob him of his coal instead. You have saved an entire mine full of coal, and provided that benefit to the market and the economy, by preventing him from destroying this natural resource. This example is much more extreme than merely betting against some endeavour, it's actually physically preventing it. But is what you did evil? You prevented someone from destroying a valuable resource. If it required no physical force, would performing the same action using paper instruments or "betting" be evil?
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
Definitely an Ayn Rand adherent. They'll just pick up and leave. Oh my god, what are we going to do when the parasitic captains of industry just disappear? Yeah, like there aren't some of us ready to pick up the mantle.
Showing leadership in a flagship model of emissions management to the rest of the world? Having a large, robust, functional carbon-trading market when the rest of the world catches up? In the most innovative and diverse economy on earth, creating a system which will result in innovation and progress in any energy related technology? Sounds like a total waste of time to me.
[FUCK BETA]
Geez, sounds like you too, are a fan of the book, "Snakes in Suits" (All about psychopaths in business, government, etc.) Highly recommended.
(Mind you, it's too late now to prevent their collosal destruction of the world economy...but perhaps enough of them can be recognized and thrown out before they continue screwing over the world...
Encumbents are re-elected at enormous rates, even right now.
Before you make stupid arguments about how killing people is the only way to get change, you might want to assess the current situation accurately.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
The "leadership class" is privileged because they had the millions of dollars it takes to run campaigns and win elections. I'm surprised you didn't figure this out while you were thumbing through your thesaurus.
It's not like any of the carbon emitting industries gets (or has gotten) any less support at the expense of taxpayers. If we have to pay either way, it is for the very least desirable to have the financiers' interests aligned with our environmental interests.
"""
These are some ways to deal with increasing joblessness, even if our economy recovers for those who still have jobs or money, which will be explored in more depth over time:
Likely we will see a mix of all those in the future, and in fact, a mix of all those is what we have now (not that the last five options of advertising, faddism, schooling, prison, and war are recommended, even as our society currently relies on them heavily to destroy abundance and create guarding jobs). This web site will go into the details of all this over time. That list is defining the landscape of a jobless recovery, showing connections between things that dont usually seem connected. Like for example, why President Obama just suggested the school year should be longer while our best educators say compulsory school as we know it should disappear entirely.
The important thing to remember is that joblessness is not necessarily a bad thing. It means people have more time for family, friends, hobbies, and volunteerism. What is bad about formal un
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
"They were careless people, Tom and Daisy -- they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made."
-The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Cringley should stick to technology since he clearly knows even less about finance than tech.
From TFA:
Trading relies on finding and exploiting inefficiencies in the system while investing grows the economy. Trading is a parasite on investing. I’m not saying to ban it, I AM saying that technology has enabled outfits like Goldman to be such efficient parasites that they threaten the survival of their hosts.
What he's really talking about is speculation. Despite speculators being the traditional scapegoat (frequently deservedly) whenever there is a problem with the financial system, a certain amount of speculation is arguably healthy. Speculators make certain critical markets liquid when they otherwise would not be. If you want to see the effect of no liquidity, you only have to look at our recent financial meltdown when the banks stopped lending. Liquidity is critical and speculation is frequently the grease that lets the machinery do its job.
Where Cringley is wrong in his argument is that technology has only a minor role in why we have the current financial situation. The current financial situation is complicated but was caused by a lack of controls, outdated regulation, excessive leverage and a lack of transparency among other causes. We have access to new financial instruments for which we have not yet developed adequate regulations. Our current fiscal crisis looks very much like a classic liquidity trap. Interest rates are about as low as they can go so further injections of cash will not lower interest rates and stimulate investment. Technology played no more than a minor supporting role. Factors such as the elimination of Glass-Steagall, inaccurate credit ratings, speculation, excessive leverage, low interest rates and others were at the root of the problem and these have nothing fundamentally to do with technology.
I’ve talked with these guys and they are clueless about the implications of their work.
I have more than a few friends who are in investment banking and NONE of them are clueless about the implications of their work. Their incentives are misaligned with the public good sometimes but they are well aware of that fact. It's rather like knowing that the smokestack in your factory is polluting the environment. Just because you are aware of it doesn't mean you are in a position to do anything about the problem. The folks at Goldman and Morgan Stanley are smart. VERY smart. They understand the macro-economic implications of what they are doing for the most part. When they don't get it, it's usually the case that few others understood the problem either. That doesn't mean they are blameless but I wouldn't for a second call them clueless.
This process builds financial bubbles until they pop then it is left to the despised government to fix things. But what if government runs out of options?
Then you have a long and protracted depression. Sometimes civil unrest if it is severe enough. Governments aren't omnipotent and their ability to influence the economy has always had limits. Financial bubbles are a regular occurrence. No amount of government regulation or intervention can stop all of them. But we can learn from past mistakes.
Remember the work of Black and Scholes that underlay the staggering growth of derivative securities was based on thermodynamics. We use principles from one area in another to good effect, but what makes an efficient heat exchanger can make a deadly security.
Only if one is stupid enough not to understand the limitations of Black-Scholes which only works under a huge pile of assumptions that exist in very narrow and rare circumstances. Black-Scholes is
Perhaps Davis is really trying to rid the US of the religious nuts by convincing them "religious and spiritual health care" actually works. Good luck to him.
Every time I see the oxymoron Christian Science I cringe.
Goldman Sachs actions were accidental or lacking foresight. These are the best minds in the country, they are specialists in predicting market trends and they pretty much invented most of the toxic assets that crippled everyone ELSE, while the profited
Goldman Sachs did not invent adjustable rate mortgages, mortgage backed securities, collateralized debt obligations or credit default swaps. So what exactly is it that your think they invented? Or are you just using Goldman as a bogeyman proxy because you don't actually know anything about investment banking and they make a convenient scapegoat?
In fact Goldman actually stayed out of the subprime mess for the most part which has a lot to do with why they are still around. Other investment banks didn't and three of the five major US investment banks no longer exist as a result. There is PLENTY of blame to go around for the current mess but let's try to assign the blame correctly shall we?
Articles such as this that place blame the elected suffer the lack of responsibility that is the core of the problems. Try to get an honest person elected, and see how far you get. Elections in this country are no more than a popularity contest, an overly complicated beauty pageant. The winner? The one whose flashy smile best matches their swim suite. This was no more apparent than media's hounding of Sara Palin, not for her IQ, or her ingenuity or leadership, but for the quality and cost of her suits. It doesn't start or end at the top. The last presidential election, I tried to dedicate my skills and experience in IT to help the local 'support our candidate' team. Of course, the person in charge of the local office ran a web design company they wanted to advertise using our candidates page, so my offer went unheard. I did canvas the streets, and speak to whoever would listen. But this was certainly not the best use of my time considering the web and email systems for the office were rolled out 1 week prior to the election. This kind of in-fighting and "where's mine" attitude has built the current situation, not the leaders who take advantage of the end result.
The 'architect' of the bailout, Henry Paulson, left as the CEO of Goldman Sachs to become Bush's Secretary of the Treasury in just 2006. It is widely believed that Paulson exploited conflicts of interest, putting his former firm ahead of its competition, leaving the others in ruin. The link is a reasonably brief good read.
War as we knew it was obsolete
Nothing could beat complete denial
- Emily Haines
...why do they pee themselves every time they hear word "terror"?
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
I'm not going to discuss the bailouts, but this isn't as good a point as you think. Assuming you end up losing (even a little less than) a billion if you get tails, that's actually a good bet from a financial perspective. The expected value of the bet is greater than 0. Make this bet a thousand times and you will most likely end up ahead.
You "just" need a lot of cash flow to make it work in you favor, in the long term. This is how casinos operate, for example.
I do work in a related field (I am a "research analyst"). The whole point is to make bets that are beneficial to you. Because if you're placing lots of bets, statistically speaking under some modest assumptions, some will win and some will lose. And if you're making bets beneficial to you, you will win more from winning than you will lose from losing. On the one hand, this requires a certain amount of "risk tolerance" or even callous fearlessness about money and risk.
People often conflate this educated risk tolerance with something sinister. It's not.
After all, I am strangely colored.
a) Goldman did take bailout money. Not only that, they converted to a bank holding company so would be eligible for the bailout money.
b) Aside from the direct bailout money, they were one of the biggest recipients of AIG's bailout money (which was shuffled off to other banks)
c) The treasury department and federal reserve are staffed by former GS execs. Henry Paulson and Robert Rubin, for example
"Easier said than done. If you do, people stop giving loans,..."
Sorry, dood (jfengel), but your response is nonsensical. The banksters received the bailouts, and instead of allowing credit to small biz they have used tax payer funds for further bonuses, hired lobbyists to halt necessary financial re-regulation, used those funds for oil/energy/commodities' speculation and stock market arbitrage, and the consumer (formerly known as "citizen") is far too strapped to spend what little money they still possess.
The problem has always been the same, what we Hackers realized long ago with regard to knowledge, that there should be no existing monopoly by the Corporation and the State on land and capital. PERIOD!
Only a true end to the Corporate Fascist State and the Totalitarian State will ever begin to give way to Economic Democracy!
Republicans have decided that they aren't actually against welfare state or government spending, they just want it to go to religious groups instead of scientists and social workers.
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
People aren't push for MORE government, wizardfarce, but for honest and legal government.
The prob today is the Corporate Fascist State, i.e., the banksters have taken control of the government. To paraphrase Prof. Taleb from a year or so ago, during the Great Depression there was pushback, but in the present, the sheeple have allowed the banksters to take over. I guess Americans were smarter back then. Certainly, today we the sheeple require a kick-ass president on the level of a Teddy Roosevelt....instead we have ourselves a Yeltsin!
a & b) From what I recall, Goldman's profits were much larger than the bailout funds, which they were forced to accept and which they paid back as soon as possible. They would have made them regardless.
c) True, this probably counts as evil.
Give him and his "real Mcoy" cabinet some time to correct the literal and figurative destruction left by Fuck-Up Incorporated Bush and Cheney. The American economy can recover if Obama has the guts to force criminal prosecutions of many of the "Old American Family" institutions and their bratty sons and daughters that have royally fucked this country up. I also see major cuts (and I mean MAJOR CUTS) in Defense in Obama's second term as president to Power Burst the American economy into overdrive. Watch and see...trust me... Mark this slashdot message for the future in 5 years. :)
The WSJ article is highly un-balanced. While it talks repeatedly about the "sins" of too much government, it barely mentioned the role that deregulation played in the current mess.
Here's an exmaple:
The implication made is that they left mostly because of taxes. However, they never justify that with a reason-for-leaving survey, etc. They simply run with that assumption. The WSJ does this often, as do most Murdock-own publications.
Table-ized A.I.
guess where the money fueling speculation on the markets came from. Economy is total shit, yet stock and commodity prices rise
It's dead simple: they took free money the government was willing to blow on bailouts, they played with it in stock/commodity market, they made fat profit, they gave money back and kept the profit for themselves. Isn't it cool to be buddies of FED/treasury guys? Wouldn't you want 0% credit from taxpayer's money?
Remember that Noonan comes with a strong point of view in all her writing. She was a speechwriter for Reagan and currently has a weekly column for the Wall Street Journal and appears on the news talk shows. She far from an unbiased observer. I personally think her columns are usaully vapid and logic-free, including this one.
We should stop putting value on the work of those who make money from money, from paper instruments, rather we should value money for goods.
Easier said than done. If you do, people stop giving loans, which is the most straightforward way of making money from money. That means no new small businesses, no student loans, no mortgages.
Actually I don't see a major reduction in lending as a problem AT ALL. In fact I see the overabundance of willing lenders to be the very thing that is thinning the "middle class" down into the "lower class", and preventing them from getting a leg up.
Remember when parents saved up something known as a "college fund" for their children, over the course of twenty years or so? Well, now children whose parents weren't that smart have the "freedom" to take on a back-breaking loans as a substitute for that. Who is bankrolling those loans?
Remember when people saved up big hunks of money and then purchased land or homes outright? No, I don't either. Those days were long gone a hundred years ago. But here in California where I live, if you want to buy property anywhere near where you work, you either need to be a member of the upper class with almost a million dollars cash, or you need to take on a mortgage that will claim HALF your income as interest for thirty years - effectively turning you into an indentured servant of bank shareholders for almost your entire adult working life. Your only way out is to spread the debt amongst your friends by living together; spread the debt out and down in other words.
Personally, I think the American Dream turned into a myth shortly after credit cards became common. Instead of accumulating cash for which the bank PAID YOU, people now accumulate debt for which they PAY THE BANK. Writ large - across the entire nation, and up into the federal government itself - this mechanism is all it takes to turn capitalism into a brick wall separating an upper class from a lower class.
Fuck moneylenders and fuck their supposed vitality. Banks should lend to generate wealth, not to generate debt. If they need to be split up into tiny entities capped at 1 billion total assets for this purpose or something equally bizarre, then I'm all for it. Too big to fail means too damn big.
I mean, you don't need Einstein to tell you than when you offload real risk from the lending institution to investors, that the lenders and their middle-men will make crater-loads of money, while people that buy the products that they off-load the risk to have no real idea of its trustworthiness. The fact that investment banks that then sold off these packages while at the same time making exotic and wildly speculative bets against (or on) them completely destabilized the international financial system.
If you want to blame the Community Reinvestment Act or other similar legislation to kickstart lending to low-income areas, you are free to, but to convince others you better have some real evidence to back it up.
:. Ultimate Control Dedicated/VM Servers
Who enlist psychopaths as their enforcers.
"Speaking the Truth in times of universal deceit is a revolutionary act." -- George Orwell
Some of them saw it coming. They were ignored by the Bush administration and mocked on Fox News.
One problem with your hypothesis: Regulations for the financial sector (and all sectors) dramatically INCREASED during the Bush administration.
Sure, Noonan's article is full of the usual partisan crap that comes out from the losing side in the last election, but it is nevertheless true. She does at least note that no one is looking to the Republicans for a solution either.
But I think she misses an awful lot:
First, there are many reasons why people have lost hope in America, and economics is just one small part of it. The moralistic laws passed by both parties to try to force everyone to adhere to their belief systems - whether religious or secular - are also responsible for a great deal of revulsion at what America has become. Truth is, there's no great difference between the person who tells you to profess a certain dogma or die, and the person who tells you that you'd better buckle up or face a hefty fine. They're both assholes out to tell others what they must do. Certainly there's room for persuasion and facilitating (making easy) good choices, but all the "leadership" on both left and right is committed to the idea that Americans must not be free.
Second, there IS a great deal of real OPTIMISM among many educated people - it's just that that optimism is somewhat retarded by the idiocies being perpetrated by government.
There is much to be optimistic about - we stand on the edge of what could be a golden age, if we can just get past the idiots who have hijacked the political and economic systems of the world for their own benefit. If we could prune back the cartels that dominate the financial, medical, and academic sectors (among others) and introduce freedom to compete and to cooperate without undue and burdensome regulations, then the future is very bright indeed.
But it looks like it might not be happening in America.
I don't know about the rest of you but it seems that most anyone (yes you may get the odd actor or MD) who seems to run for political office of any major degree are all Lawyers. When ever someone who wasn't a lawyer then during their campaign they are accused for being under qualified to run for office. This seems to worry me as we tend to think about solving problems differently as we have different backgrounds. I am a computer scientist, I feel most of the problems can fixed if there is some good software that can optimize government. However people from other backgrounds will have different ideas and methods, many of them will work. The problem is that we have lawyers as the majority of the thought process so their problem is to create laws and regulations with very strict lettering. Hence we create the problem were there is so much problems due the complexity of the legal system.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
That housing bubble you speak of, ALWAYS BOILS DOWN TO UNSCRUPULOUS bank officers extending loans!
I say that, because after all, why just extend 10 honest well calculated low risk loans (where the folks asking for a mortgage CAN afford to make the payments over time, which said loan officer gets a piece of each payment mind you), when you can extend 100 potentially BOGUS ones (where folks just cannot afford it)?
It's more profitable to extend it to folks that CAN'T afford it, especially on "variable rate mortgages" where they can alter the rate @ ANY TIME... this ends up with banks profiting by this practice, & getting the house in the end, anyhow as a "bonus", in the end of it all, & THAT IS THE "END GAME" here, period.
I've heard republicans TRY to blame it on the "Community Reform Bill" which made banks try to put folks into homes, so they gain responsibility, and WANT/NEED to hold a job (tough to do considering how much OFFSHORING was allowed, especially in the MIS/IS/IT field) and to turn them into tax payers too.
It will still "boil down" to that unscrupulous loan officer, & variable rate mortgages AND THE FACT THAT OFFSHORING PUTS TONS OF US OUT OF A JOB!
Who wins? The banks.
APK
P.S.=> You guys ought to read "The Secrets of the Temple" by William Greider, & also see "Zeitgeist" (obtainable online, & the "infamous they" tried to get it taken down no less)... it will OPEN YOUR EYES/ABRES LOS OJOS people, as to how screwed up our current "fractional reserve banking system" + "fiat money' based monetary system, really TRULY is.
It's geared to PUT YOUR ASS INTO DEBT, making a you "good slave" people.
Ever heard the saying "Most men lead lives of quiet desperation"? Welcome to the 21st century people... it's most of you, out of FEAR for your job, your family, YOUR LIFE!
We do NOT need the "federal reserve" period. It is no more "federal" than Fed-Ex is - it is, in reality, a consortium of banks, who kept their identities secret for decades, & they did so, no less (their identities WERE SECRET @ the formation of "the fed"), but no more... they are:
Rothschild Banks of London and Berlin
Lazard Brothers Bank of Paris
Israel Moses Sieff Banks of Italy
Warburg Bank of Hamburg and Amsterdam
Lehman Brothers Bank of New York
Kuhn Loeb Bank of New York
Chase Manhattan Bank of New York
Goldman Sachs Bank of New York.
There has been much speculation about who owns the Federal Reserve Corporation. It has been one of the best kept secrets of the century, because the Federal Reserve Act Act of 1913 provided that the names of the owner banks be kept secret. However, R. E. McMaster publisher of the newsletter The Reaper, asked his Swiss banking contacts which banks hold the controlling stock in the Federal Reserve Corporation. The answer IS above! You can thank the good "Jeremiah Cornelius", a member here, for getting us that info., by the by (great guy, I don't see him here too much anymore, but he's a good man).
"Follow the money" people, &, you HAVE THE CULPRITS... they are no longer that "shadowy man behind the curtain", but are now IDENTIFIABLE (per that list above) & they are FAR FROM "CLUELESS" about their 'social experiment' they are performing on us all, for CONTROL (not just for ca$h people)... Thank goodness Mr. Obama is onto their games, is all I can say!
Andrew Jackson did the same thing: There was a CENTRALIZED BANK in his day, & there were economic problems. He dismantled it, & the problems went away. Then, Woodrow Wilson was "coerced" into allowing the creation of today's FED & what do we have? This chaos!
Woodrow Wilson even said, pretty much this -> "I have just signed a pact with the devil" in allowing the FED to be created (think about THAT)... apk
Further, for all the suckiness of the American system, and however you rate GW Bush on the scale of jackasses, a good case could be made that the American system is the best in the world, when you factor everything in. Yeah, I like Canada and the Scandinavian countries, too, but the case can be made.
If you want to boggle at how bad things can get, contemplate Zimbabwe or North Korea for a while.
In group behavior: 'because they're evil/morons/sheep/crazy' is not 'insightful' it's 'oversimplified'
AGREED, 110%, & here is why:
That housing bubble being spoken of here, rampantly? IT ALWAYS BOILS DOWN TO UNSCRUPULOUS bank officers extending loans!
I say that, because after all, why just extend 10 honest well calculated low risk loans (where the folks asking for a mortgage CAN afford to make the payments over time, which said loan officer gets a piece of each payment mind you), when you can extend 100 potentially BOGUS ones (where folks just cannot afford it)?
It's more profitable to extend it to folks that CAN'T afford it, especially on "variable rate mortgages" where they can alter the rate @ ANY TIME... this ends up with banks profiting by this practice, & getting the house in the end, anyhow as a "bonus", in the end of it all, & THAT IS THE "END GAME" here, period.
I've heard republicans TRY to blame it on the "Community Reform Bill" which made banks try to put folks into homes, so they gain responsibility, and WANT/NEED to hold a job (tough to do considering how much OFFSHORING was allowed, especially in the MIS/IS/IT field) and to turn them into tax payers too.
It will still "boil down" to that unscrupulous loan officer, & variable rate mortgages AND THE FACT THAT OFFSHORING PUTS TONS OF US OUT OF A JOB!
Who wins? The banks.
APK
P.S.=> You guys ought to read "The Secrets of the Temple" by William Greider, & also see "Zeitgeist" (obtainable online, & the "infamous they" tried to get it taken down no less)... it will OPEN YOUR EYES/ABRES LOS OJOS people, as to how screwed up our current "fractional reserve banking system" + "fiat money' based monetary system, really TRULY is.
It's geared to PUT YOUR ASS INTO DEBT, making a you "good slave" people.
Ever heard the saying "Most men lead lives of quiet desperation"? Welcome to the 21st century people... it's most of you, out of FEAR for your job, your family, YOUR LIFE!
We do NOT need the "federal reserve" period. It is no more "federal" than Fed-Ex is - it is, in reality, a consortium of banks, who kept their identities secret for decades, & they did so, no less (their identities WERE SECRET @ the formation of "the fed"), but no more... they are:
Rothschild Banks of London and Berlin
Lazard Brothers Bank of Paris
Israel Moses Sieff Banks of Italy
Warburg Bank of Hamburg and Amsterdam
Lehman Brothers Bank of New York
Kuhn Loeb Bank of New York
Chase Manhattan Bank of New York
Goldman Sachs Bank of New York.
There has been much speculation about who owns the Federal Reserve Corporation. It has been one of the best kept secrets of the century, because the Federal Reserve Act Act of 1913 provided that the names of the owner banks be kept secret. However, R. E. McMaster publisher of the newsletter The Reaper, asked his Swiss banking contacts which banks hold the controlling stock in the Federal Reserve Corporation. The answer IS above! You can thank the good "Jeremiah Cornelius", a member here, for getting us that info., by the by (great guy, I don't see him here too much anymore, but he's a good man).
"Follow the money" people, &, you HAVE THE CULPRITS... they are no longer that "shadowy man behind the curtain", but are now IDENTIFIABLE (per that list above) & they are FAR FROM "CLUELESS" about their 'social experiment' they are performing on us all, for CONTROL (not just for ca$h people)... Thank goodness Mr. Obama is onto their games, is all I can say!
Andrew Jackson did the same thing: There was a CENTRALIZED BANK in his day, & there were economic problems. He dismantled it, & the problems went away. Then, Woodrow Wilson was "coerced" into allowing the creation of today's FED & what do we have? This chaos!
Woodrow Wilson even said, pretty much this -> "I have just signed a pact with the devil" in allowing the FED to be created (think about THAT)... apk
They're in the list below (AND, they're out for CONTROL, not just money). Interested? READ ON:
That housing bubble many here speak of for instance/example? IT ALWAYS BOILS DOWN TO UNSCRUPULOUS bank officers extending loans!
I say that, because after all, why just extend 10 honest well calculated low risk loans (where the folks asking for a mortgage CAN afford to make the payments over time, which said loan officer gets a piece of each payment mind you), when you can extend 100 potentially BOGUS ones (where folks just cannot afford it)?
It's more profitable to extend it to folks that CAN'T afford it, especially on "variable rate mortgages" where they can alter the rate @ ANY TIME... this ends up with banks profiting by this practice, & getting the house in the end, anyhow as a "bonus", in the end of it all, & THAT IS THE "END GAME" here, period.
I've heard republicans TRY to blame it on the "Community Reform Bill" which made banks try to put folks into homes, so they gain responsibility, and WANT/NEED to hold a job (tough to do considering how much OFFSHORING was allowed, especially in the MIS/IS/IT field) and to turn them into tax payers too.
It will still "boil down" to that unscrupulous loan officer, & variable rate mortgages AND THE FACT THAT OFFSHORING PUTS TONS OF US OUT OF A JOB!
Who wins? The banks.
APK
P.S.=> You guys ought to read "The Secrets of the Temple" by William Greider, & ,b>also see "Zeitgeist" (obtainable online, & the "infamous they" tried to get it taken down no less)... it will OPEN YOUR EYES/ABRES LOS OJOS people, as to how screwed up our current "fractional reserve banking system" + "fiat money' based monetary system, really TRULY is.
It's geared to PUT YOUR ASS INTO DEBT, making a you "good slave" people.
Ever heard the saying "Most men lead lives of quiet desperation"? Welcome to the 21st century people... it's most of you, out of FEAR for your job, your family, YOUR LIFE!
We do NOT need the "federal reserve" period. It is no more "federal" than Fed-Ex is - it is, in reality, a consortium of banks, who kept their identities secret for decades, & they did so, no less (their identities WERE SECRET @ the formation of "the fed"), but no more... they are:
Goldman Sachs Bank of New York.
Rothschild Banks of London and Berlin
Israel Moses Sieff Banks of Italy
Warburg Bank of Hamburg and Amsterdam
Lehman Brothers Bank of New York
Kuhn Loeb Bank of New York
Lazard Brothers Bank of Paris
Chase Manhattan Bank of New York
There has been much speculation about who owns the Federal Reserve Corporation. It has been one of the best kept secrets of the century, because the Federal Reserve Act Act of 1913 provided that the names of the owner banks be kept secret. However, R. E. McMaster publisher of the newsletter The Reaper, asked his Swiss banking contacts which banks hold the controlling stock in the Federal Reserve Corporation.
The answer IS above! You can thank the good "Jeremiah Cornelius", a member here, for getting us that info., by the by (great guy, I don't see him here too much anymore, but he's a good man).
"Follow the money" people, &, you HAVE THE CULPRITS... they are no longer that "shadowy man behind the curtain", but are now IDENTIFIABLE (per that list above) ,b>& they are FAR FROM "CLUELESS" about their 'social experiment' they are performing on us all, for CONTROL (not just for ca$h people)...
Thank goodness Mr. Obama is onto their games, is all I can say!
Andrew Jackson did the same thing: There was a CENTRALIZED BANK in his day, & there were economic problems. He dismantled it, & the problems went away. Then, Woodrow Wilson was "coerced" into allowing the creation of today's FED & what do we have? This chaos!
Woodrow Wilson even said, pretty much this -> "I have just signed a pact with the devil" in allowing the FED to be created (think about THAT)... apk
Fearlessness could never be described as being unimaginative, stupid, and faithless, so your turning of FDR's phrase is inaccurate at best. From Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche to www.answers.com, fearlessness has not been used in this manner. However, the content was good, so kudos for that...
I think therefore I can't be ~TTNH
They're BOUGHT & PAID FOR, after all (as to our "elected officials") - except, that we have Mr. Barack Obama who is "DOWN ON THE BANKS" now, & with GOOD REASON!
I mean, hey - LOOK @ ANY MAJOR CORPORATIONS CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTIONS - they "hedge their bets", & contribute to BOTH parties, so they can't lose either way, no matter WHO wins!
Then, also? THERE IS THIS:
As old Amschel Rothschild so pithily said, "Permit me to issue a nation's currency, and I care not who makes its laws" & who owns the FED in part? READ ON!
That IS what the game is, after all, ALL about (as the 'end game' here)... interested? READ ON, because they're in the list below (AND, they're out for CONTROL, not just money).
Interested? READ ON:
That housing bubble many here speak of for instance/example? IT ALWAYS BOILS DOWN TO UNSCRUPULOUS bank officers extending loans!
I say that, because after all, why just extend 10 honest well calculated low risk loans (where the folks asking for a mortgage CAN afford to make the payments over time, which said loan officer gets a piece of each payment mind you), when you can extend 100 potentially BOGUS ones (where folks just cannot afford it)?
It's more profitable to extend it to folks that CAN'T afford it, especially on "variable rate mortgages" where they can alter the rate @ ANY TIME... this ends up with banks profiting by this practice, & getting the house in the end, anyhow as a "bonus", in the end of it all, & THAT IS THE "END GAME" here, period.
I've heard republicans TRY to blame it on the "Community Reform Bill" which made banks try to put folks into homes, so they gain responsibility, and WANT/NEED to hold a job (tough to do considering how much OFFSHORING was allowed, especially in the MIS/IS/IT field) and to turn them into tax payers too.
It will still "boil down" to that unscrupulous loan officer, & variable rate mortgages AND THE FACT THAT OFFSHORING PUTS TONS OF US OUT OF A JOB!
Who wins? The banks.
APK
P.S.=> You guys ought to read "The Secrets of the Temple" by William Greider, & also see "Zeitgeist" (obtainable online, & the "infamous they" tried to get it taken down no less)... it will OPEN YOUR EYES/ABRES LOS OJOS people, as to how screwed up our current "fractional reserve banking system" + "fiat money' based monetary system, really TRULY is.
It's geared to PUT YOUR ASS INTO DEBT, making a you "good slave" people.
Ever heard the saying "Most men lead lives of quiet desperation"? Welcome to the 21st century people... it's most of you, out of FEAR for your job, your family, YOUR LIFE!
We do NOT need the "federal reserve" period. It is no more "federal" than Fed-Ex is - it is, in reality, a consortium of banks, who kept their identities secret for decades, & they did so, no less (their identities WERE SECRET @ the formation of "the fed"), but no more... they are:
Goldman Sachs Bank of New York.
Rothschild Banks of London and Berlin
Israel Moses Sieff Banks of Italy
Warburg Bank of Hamburg and Amsterdam
Lehman Brothers Bank of New York
Kuhn Loeb Bank of New York
Lazard Brothers Bank of Paris
Chase Manhattan Bank of New York
There has been much speculation about who owns the Federal Reserve Corporation. It has been one of the best kept secrets of the century, because the Federal Reserve Act Act of 1913 provided that the names of the owner banks be kept secret. However, R. E. McMaster publisher of the newsletter The Reaper, asked his Swiss banking contacts which banks hold the controlling stock in the Federal Reserve Corporation.
The answer IS above!
By the way - You can thank the good "Jeremiah Cornelius", a member here, for getting us that info., by the by (great guy, I don't see him here too much anymore, but he's a good man).
"Follow the money" people, &, you HAVE THE CULPRITS... they are no longer that "shadowy man behi
Seriously, have a look. A fascinating take on how the basic structure of our no-longer-so-representational government has changed over the years, watering down the significance of any single member of the electorate.
http://www.thirty-thousand.org/
Cheers,
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
"Government doesn't work. Might as well send your tax money to Halliburton..." - by mellon (7048) on Sunday November 01, @01:46PM (#29943018) Homepage
Then, also? THERE IS THIS:
As old Amschel Rothschild so pithily said, "Permit me to issue a nation's currency, and I care not who makes its laws" & who owns the FED in part? READ ON!
That IS what the game is, after all, ALL about (as the 'end game' here)... interested? READ ON, because they're in the list below (AND, they're out for CONTROL, not just money).
ON MOST POLITICIANS (except for Mr. Barack Obama, HOPEFULLY):
They're BOUGHT & PAID FOR, after all (as to our "elected officials") - except, that we have Mr. Barack Obama who is "DOWN ON THE BANKS" now, & with GOOD REASON!
I mean, hey - LOOK @ ANY MAJOR CORPORATIONS CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTIONS - they "hedge their bets", & contribute to BOTH parties, so they can't lose either way, no matter WHO wins!
Interested? READ ON:
That housing bubble many here speak of for instance/example? IT ALWAYS BOILS DOWN TO UNSCRUPULOUS bank officers extending loans!
I say that, because after all, why just extend 10 honest well calculated low risk loans (where the folks asking for a mortgage CAN afford to make the payments over time, which said loan officer gets a piece of each payment mind you), when you can extend 100 potentially BOGUS ones (where folks just cannot afford it)?
It's more profitable to extend it to folks that CAN'T afford it, especially on "variable rate mortgages" where they can alter the rate @ ANY TIME... this ends up with banks profiting by this practice, & getting the house in the end, anyhow as a "bonus", in the end of it all, & THAT IS THE "END GAME" here, period.
I've heard republicans TRY to blame it on the "Community Reform Bill" which made banks try to put folks into homes, so they gain responsibility, and WANT/NEED to hold a job (tough to do considering how much OFFSHORING was allowed, especially in the MIS/IS/IT field) and to turn them into tax payers too.
It will still "boil down" to that unscrupulous loan officer, & variable rate mortgages AND THE FACT THAT OFFSHORING PUTS TONS OF US OUT OF A JOB!
Who wins? The banks.
APK
P.S.=> You guys ought to read "The Secrets of the Temple" by William Greider, & also see "Zeitgeist" (obtainable online, & the "infamous they" tried to get it taken down no less)... it will OPEN YOUR EYES/ABRES LOS OJOS people, as to how screwed up our current "fractional reserve banking system" + "fiat money' based monetary system, really TRULY is.
It's geared to PUT YOUR ASS INTO DEBT, making a you "good slave" people.
Ever heard the saying "Most men lead lives of quiet desperation"? Welcome to the 21st century people... it's most of you, out of FEAR for your job, your family, YOUR LIFE!
We do NOT need the "federal reserve" period. It is no more "federal" than Fed-Ex is - it is, in reality, a consortium of banks, who kept their identities secret for decades, & they did so, no less (their identities WERE SECRET @ the formation of "the fed"), but no more... they are:
Goldman Sachs Bank of New York.
Rothschild Banks of London and Berlin
Israel Moses Sieff Banks of Italy
Warburg Bank of Hamburg and Amsterdam
Lehman Brothers Bank of New York
Kuhn Loeb Bank of New York
Lazard Brothers Bank of Paris
Chase Manhattan Bank of New York
There has been much speculation about who owns the Federal Reserve Corporation. It has been one of the best kept secrets of the century, because the Federal Reserve Act Act of 1913 provided that the names of the owner banks be kept secret. However, R. E. McMaster publisher of the newsletter The Reaper, asked his Swiss banking contacts which banks hold the controlling stock in the Federal Reserve Corporation.
The answer IS above!
By the way - You can thank the good
It seems strange that someone would say everyone thinks things are hopeless when the current resident of 1600 PA Ave Wash DC actually ran on hope. This doesn't indicate whether it's justified or not, just that there certainly seems to be some hopeful individuals out there.
Capitalism continually gets a bad rap from people who clearly haven't bothered to read A. Smith's A Wealth of Nations, available on project gutenberg. It would surprise many to know that A. Smith did not view joint stock companies, (corporations today) favorable. Seemed to think that the directors would not be good stewards of other people's money. Particularly since they would continue to get paid. Does this ring a bell for anyone? Most of what is taken as capitalism today is far from it. Not saying it's the only answer but it makes a lot more sense then what we have now, which is anything but a free market.
Some obvious solutions.
Politicians tend to view their donors as their constituents, which is probably the best reason to have publicly funded campaigns. Anyone who doesn't think that the average taxpayers don't end up footing the bill for campaign contributions from corporations and wealthy individuals is just kidding themselves. Just look at the tax code.
This would stop campaign corruption but not other types of corruption. For that simply allow the Pol to take the bribe, report it, and keep the money. If they don't report it, they go to jail. Should cut down on bribery.
If a company is too big to fail and it is failing then after the rescue break it up so it won't be too big to fail again.
Penalize large companies with a higher tax rate. Many small companies make a market, a few large ones and oligopoly, which A. Smith rails against.
Just my 1/50 th of a USD
FFS I'm tired of every country giving this argument.
Yes, in the grand scheme of things, no country on its own can make a difference to global emissions, but if every country does their part, that will make a massive difference.
with the few exceptions of people like Warren Buffet, corporations are run by highly functional psychopaths.
As long as we're naming names of good guys, don't forget Aaron Feuerstein,
The Mensch Of Malden Mills
gewg_
It was the Congress under Bill Clinton that mandated banks sell homes to people without money ("no money down" mortgages),
This seems to go around quite a bit, but I've been unable to find a reference to a specific law that forced banks to lend to people who could not demonstrate an ability to repay on a loan associated with a given property.
The Republican Congress and the Clinton Administration still did some unwise things -- in particular Gramm-Leach-Bliley -- but no forced lending as far as I can tell.
BTW you probably won't believe my first paragraph, so here's the videos so you can see yourself. Even after Bush, McCain, and other republicans tried to fix the impending housing bubble, Democrats refused to listen:
Republicans tried to fix the housing bubble? How? Republicans had majorities in both houses during the 108th and 109th Congress. And the Presidency, which gave them not only the power of the executive bully pulpit and veto, but also executive regulatory authority.
If they'd actually tried to fix anything, there'd be a significantly greater trail than a senate bill that languished in committee and some videos on YouTube.
Tweet, tweet.
The difference between the idiots who used to wreck the world 100 years ago and the idiots who wreck it today is that the modern day idiots are under the microscope, while the idiots back then could get away with anything.
For all of the faults of modern society, the wealthy are still far, far more accountable for their failures and for the damage they cause society today than they were 100 years ago. 100 years ago, if the public pissed the rich off, the rich responded by killing a hundred strikers and burying them in a mass grave. Environmental damage? Ha! Poverty? So what?! We've come a long way from the days when immigrant-lined sweatshops were the norm.
What Noonan, especially, is whining about arises from a myth: that our Great Leaders were soooo fucking much better. It's not an accident that she masturbates furiously to the myth of Ronald Reagan -- she used to write for the fucker! Talk about being doused in a big bucket of "DUH!"
The difference in this age is that we are aware. We know the emperor has no clothes. Politicians are afraid of asking for real sacrifice in the name of national unity. The public knows that corporate America churns out reams of bullshit every day.
What Noonan is really crying about is that the peasants are now aware.
I scream. You scream. I assume that means we're both acquainted with the problem. We proceed.
It does not matter why all of those taxpayers left New York. The point is that with them gone, the government's solution will be to make up the tax revenue shortfall by raising taxes on those who remain.
The point of the article is that politicians and people who have faith in them - like you - have not bothered to consider that such a move is doomed to failure. In her opinion, this is because they are disconnected from reality.
#1. we're all psychopathic to some degree or another
#2. it excuses criminals. rather than start with idea of a human who has erred, you start with the idea there's something special about someone that has made them a criminal. no: good people go bad, and bad people go good, and whatever someone's flaws, you talk about their criminal acts, not this supposed otherworldly quality about them that means they are forever more this cartoonish stereotype of behavior. it also ignore st eh fact that YOU can commit these crimes, which you can, under the right conditions. you put your guard down
#3. it perpetuates this stupid idea of a magical "other", some sort of special class of people who can have superhuman powers of turning off their empathy and lording over us. its an "us" versus "them" situation, and its the same old retarded thinking from throughout history. it also makes you think you can't succeed, because only a psychopath can truly run a business
this is the truth: you can do any of the crimes you see snakes in suits do. snakes in suits are as flawed as you and me. there's nothing special about them, except the crimes they've committed, which they should be prosecuted on that basis and that basis alone. not this quasi-cartoonish idea of a "psychopath"
the word has become a massively overused mental shorthand for "bogeyman" and does not retain its narrow psychological definition. therefore, it as useless as any other overused synonym people use for bogeyman, like "socialist" or "terrorist"
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
It's not even a specifically American problem. Simply put, our so-called heroic leaders have no idea what to do with their power, a bit of a problem since we have no intention of doing anything to help.
To quote (as I often do) Voltaire's Bastards:
We are profoundly conformist and authoritarian, the biggest cowards in history. We wait for a disaster so we can fix it, rather than taking preventative measures, all the while hoping someone else will do it for us.
insecurity asks the wrong question irritation gives the wrong answer
Re-elect No-One. Ever, no Senator, no Representative. Senators sit for 6 years, Representatives for 2. Re-elect No-one, ever. Except that we are so afraid of our own shadow that looking onto a future known to be so seriously flawed REMAINS more attractive that the unknown alternative of getting the elite out of office.
It is YOUR OWN fault. No one else is to blame. Re-elect No-One, Ever!
oh, and the road to hell is NOT paved with good intentions as the devil would have u believe
The United States is the only country I know of that labels Corruption as "Lobbying." The same way that conscription is labeled as a "Draft." Where citizens suppress dissent as a "Patriotic Duty." Where capitalism is the excuse for corporatism. I propose there to be a death penalty for corruption of a public official. A democracy is built on the idea of rule by the people of the people and for the people.
Fannie Mae, the nation's biggest underwriter of home mortgages, has been under increasing pressure from the Clinton Administration to expand mortgage loans among low and moderate income people
Income level doesn't have much to do with the risk level of a given loan. Someone making $30k might be a fantastic candidate for a $100,000 30 year mortgage. Someone making $100k might be a poor candidate for $300,000 30 year mortgage. There are much better indicators than income level for predicting financial risk, and there's no indication there was any public pressure to ignore credit scores, or the ratio of the income level of the loan applicant to the value of the loan and property, or any other indicator.
and felt pressure from stock holders to maintain its phenomenal growth in profits.
Not particularly a government problem, but it does shed some light on how we got to the point where in 2005 more than 80% of mortgage lending -- including mortgage lending in the subprime segments -- was done by private firms not subject to any particular legal pressure to do so.
Tweet, tweet.
I sense sarcasm, but I need to make this point.
This article is definitive proof of someone with no definitive proof using the faucets given to them as a journalist to demonize a class of people whom she has little ties with and knows absolutely nothing about. Maybe she forgives on Sundays, but every other day of the week, it appears she's throwing punches.
Considering such hear-say proof will mess with all equations. That is exactly what most of us do, because we do not know better, and how we end up hanging the innocent in the name of justice and faith. Years later we shudder at our own ignorance, and promise we'll do better. That pretty much sums up the history of civilization, and if you think that somehow ends with us, then you are part of the problem.
That is what this article is evidence of.
with the few exceptions of people like Warren Buffet, corporations are run by highly functional psychopaths.
As long as we're naming names of good guys, don't forget Aaron Feuerstein [wikipedia.org],
The Mensch Of Malden Mills [cbsnews.com]
Holy shit, he truly is the mensch! What character, this guy now tops my list of good CEOs. Thank you very much for bringing this to my attention.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
It's laziness when something isn't being done in time. ...
Lack of concentration is touted as the reason for many failures.
Greed neatly explains all needs one might have.
Problem is, easy answers are too easy. All they do is give vague good feel about things while accomplishing nothing. There's no value knowing some leaders are psychopaths. Except as a consolation prize for all the average people:
"too bad for you, but at least you're not a psycho! ain't that something! :DDD"
"you have superhuman powers of not being lazy and keep onto all deadlines!"
"focus! concentrate! it's what bruce lee did and look how lightning fast he was!"
Wow, that's just all kind of stupid.
Maybe let them choose one? Traditional or prayer treatment. I mean, we wouldn't want to discriminate against the poor believers who are atacked by science on all sides. And the problem will take care of itself.
Too bad about their children, but hey..
Sure, why not. But then it needs to be evaluated like any other treatment. If found wanting, then it gets the ax. PS: it has already been evaluated and not only found inefficient, but actually detrimental. Picture this: you are on a hospital bed and are told that there are 500 people currently praying for you. Does that make you feel better before you incoming surgery ? Fail.
Non-Linux Penguins ?
A "basic income" or making work fun are other alternatives.
http://www.basicincome.org/bien/aboutbasicincome.html
Bob Black talks about "the abolition of work" here:
http://www.whywork.org/rethinking/whywork/abolition.html
"Liberals say we should end employment discrimination. I say we should end employment. Conservatives support right-to-work laws. Following Karl Marx's wayward son-in-law Paul Lafargue, I support the right to be lazy. Leftists favor full employment. Like the surrealists -- except that I'm not kidding -- I favor full unemployment. Trotskyists agitate for permanent revolution. I agitate for permanent revelry. But if all the ideologues (as they do) advocate work -- and not only because they plan to make other people do theirs -- they are strangely reluctant to say so. They will carry on endlessly about wages, hours, working conditions, exploitation, productivity, profitability. They'll gladly talk about anything but work itself. These experts who offer to do our thinking for us rarely share their conclusions about work, for all its saliency in the lives of all of us. Among themselves they quibble over the details. Unions and management agree that we ought to sell the time of our lives in exchange for survival, although they haggle over the price. Marxists think we should be bossed by bureaucrats. Libertarians think we should be bossed by businessmen. Feminists don't care which form bossing takes, so long as the bosses are women. Clearly these ideology-mongers have serious differences over how to divvy up the spoils of power. Just as clearly, none of them have any objection to power as such and all of them want to keep us working. "
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
"The Mythology of Wealth"
http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/?q=node/402
"The Wrath of the Millionaire Wannabe's"
http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/?q=node/47
On Education vs. Schooling:
http://www.mindfully.org/Reform/2003/Compulsory-Schooling-AnarchistMar03.htm
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
This is really insightful. As California goes, into a depression and insolvency from an ideological inability to tax and regulate and invest in the public good, so goes the nation? Some alternative ideas:
"Why limited demand means joblessness (and what to do about it)"
http://www.beyondajoblessrecovery.org/2009/10/03/why-limited-demand-means-joblessness/
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/?q=node/16
"""
When you cut right through it, right-wing ideology is just "dime-store economics" - intended to dress their ideology up and make it look respectable. You don't really need to know much about economics to understand it. They certainly don't. It all gets down to two simple words.
"Cheap labor". That's their whole philosophy in a nutshell - which gives you a short and pithy "catch phrase" that describes them perfectly. You've heard of "big-government liberals". Well they're "cheap-labor conservatives".
Once you understand the general concept, you will frequently find yourself in debate over specific issues, like healthcare, social security privatization, public school vouchers, the "war on drugs" and of course the war in Iraq. What better way to put your conservative opponent on the defensive than by exposing the true motivation for his position - "cheap labor". Can you really find the "cheap labor" angle in every conservative policy initiative, and every conservative position on any particular issue?
Yes, you can. Here is a catalogue of some of the major issues on the national agenda. In every single one of them, the conservative position advances the cause of "cheap labor". I defy any conservative reading this to show me one single conservative position, belief, principle or policy that has any tendency to boost the earning power of labor.
"""
Some ideas on what to do about it, because automation only makes this worse:
http://www.beyondajoblessrecovery.org/2009/10/03/why-limited-demand-means-joblessness/
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
Wondering why SEC is not regulating the market capitalization of listed companies while FED is regulating the reserve ratio of all banks?
I'd like to buy homeland for our 10 million people. http://twitter.com/mahadiga
I propose all CEOs to publish relevant report every quarter.
I'd like to buy homeland for our 10 million people. http://twitter.com/mahadiga
Your history is accurate and I also read the Secrets of the Temple by William Greider as well as seeing zeitgeist. We are in the grasp of merciless psychopath/sociopath types who use the rest of us who actually do things such as engineers and they use productive types only to achieve their ends and ruin the current system while they maintain power to take over when it the current system fails. It is the banks because as you have said all anyone has to do is follow the money.
What you say sounds very reasonable, but I'm troubled by the reflexive denials I have been reading from quants and financial engineers.
I'd agree that a "reflexive denial" is a bad thing. But there also is a difference between explaining what a particular equation really means and denying responsibility. Since we're so fond of analogies here on /. try this one. It's a bit like an engineer who works on technology is dual use (both civilian and military applications). The problems with it isn't in the technology it is in the application which is a policy level decision.
Our current fiscal crisis was at its root caused by two things in my opinion. One was that internal risk management within many companies was either negligent or compliant in allowing unacceptable risks to be taken. The second was that the regulators (up to and including Congress) were asleep at the switch. Previous administrations AND Congress had been in a deregulatory mindset for some time and were unwilling or unable to acknowledge that the financial regulations that are needed in 2008 were not the same as those needed in 1978.
"hey I'm just a geek with a model, nobody listens to me, and the traders do just what they want anyway". I don't think you can have it both ways.
So you are arguing the Nuremburg defense applies here. I'd agree with you to a point. If someone sees unethical behavior or suspects disaster is impending, they have a fiduciary responsibility if they are convinced they are right.
Where you have to be careful though is that consequences of a model are not always clear except in hindsight. If lots of people could see the end game in the housing bubble crash, one could reasonably assume they would have acted on it but that didn't happen. A LOT of very smart people were caught out by the crash. It's easy to make an argument for malfeasance if it is just a few but if lots of people make the same mistake you have to consider the possibility that the problems weren't so obvious prior to the crash.
At the very least the models like VAR were used as a fig leaf to persuade folks that junk was AAA.
We know that now but back in 2005 that wasn't actually so clear. There were seemingly reasonable arguments that seemed to indicate the AAA rating was appropriate. Of course it turned out to be quite irrational but it wasn't so clear at the time.
If people knew that their models were being used inappropriately, then they had a duty to make a stink about it, even if it meant walking away from their bonus and stock options.
It's just NOT that simple. Ethically you are correct in principle but its rarely entirely clear in advance whether a model maker is correct in a given situation. A model is not the same thing as proof and even our best models have huge flaws. No financial model would ever be used if we had to live entirely within its limitations. We simply don't have a sufficient theoretical framework for financial systems to do that. Even the best models come with pages of simplifying assumptions and usually depend on unreliable and/or inadequate data. At some point we just have to use our best judgment and take a guess knowing that there is a good chance you are wrong.
Finance is the act of trying to predict the future with imperfect information and inadequate models. If you think financial information is always reliable, you are quite mistaken. I'm a certified accountant and I'll be the first to tell you that there is a LOT of ambiguity in how financial transactions are booked even when done properly. Even questions as seemingly simple as "when does a sale occur" turn out to be quite complicated in the real world. We can't even always agree on what happened in the past which obviously means that predicting the future will be that much harder.
Every day we have p
There are things government does well and things private individuals do well
The government is really, really good at depriving individuals of life, liberty, and property on a comprehensive basis.
In this country, the government efficiently rounded up Japanese people and sent them to concentration camps, leaving their property easily-plundered by other rapacious individuals who now had government permission to do just that.
This country's government currently imprisons more people than China, Cuba, and Russia in pursuit of punishing people for using drugs that the government does not approve of. This policy has failed to eliminate or even curb drug use and the associated black market, but it does keep lots of people employed using money plundered from "taxpayers".
Other governments have done an even awesomer job of destroying other people's lives. The Soviet government enslaved millions of millions of its own citizens (saving labor costs big time!) by accusing them of "crimes".
Or hell, the Cambodian government just outright killed anyone who looked too smart, but not before torturing them for a long time in S-21. Rad!
The government sucks royally at everything else it does, but both "liberals" and "conservatives" like to pretend that using the government as a club, bayonet, or waterboard can influence behavior toward the mythical "Common Good" (which, in practice, means, "I'm good and you are bad").
What slays me is when people glibly talk about whether or not government "works". Works for what? For whom? How do you determine if it works or not? Those questions are never answered. It's merely asserted that "government is working!" Sure. The "Cash for Clunkers" program "worked" -- cars were sold via government subsidy -- but what else happened? Those questions are hard! Let's just say it "worked" and be done with it!
manic depression, schizophrenia, psychopathology, etc., are all aspect of every human being alive. its just that in most people, its below a certain threshold. above that theshold, and you begin to show qualities which put you in a category of illness
but everyone, to some degree, exhibits an ability to dampen their human empathy. if you showed parents the body of their dead child, and one retched on the spot, and the other calmly and grimly left, which is the "normal" person? is the parent who exhibited no physical revulsion a psychopath? we all process these things differently, and you have no objective, only subjective measurement for temporary or permanent empathy deficits
just look at stanley milgram's experiments where he took normal everyday people and got them to shock people to death (in simulation)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment
just with the excuse of peer pressure and following orders. so what does that mean? psychopathology is widespread?
no, it means "psychopath" is in every single one of us, and can come out under all sorts of conditions. yes, for some, it is easier conditions, but the term psychopathic behavior, in potential, and in our behavior in the past, is an accurate description of something you have done or could do under the right conditions, or me, or anyone reading these words
civilized behavior is a very thin veneer on a bunch of large bipedal monkeys. if the food supply dwindled, you watch how you and your fellow men behave. i think the majority of that behavior you would describe as psychopathic: you have to block out your ability to empathize with the plight of other people suffering if your own survival is threatened. we all can do that. the potential for psychopathic behavior is in all of us
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
that is, we all have the ability to turn off our empathy for other human beings
ever walk by a bum with sores on his face begging on the street? ever been to a third world country?
civilized behavior is a very thin veneer on a bunch of large bipedal monkeys. if the food supply dwindled, you watch how you and your fellow men behave. i think the majority of that behavior you would describe as psychopathic: you HAVE to block out your ability to empathize with the plight of other people suffering if your own survival is threatened. we all can do that. of course some people do it all the time, or rather, most of the time. and such people's behavior quickly marks them out for exclusion. so they wind up being homeless drifters, not sharks in suits. the sharks in suits act psychopathic IN THE REALM OF BUSINESS, and then go home to their family and are as "normal" as you are. they compartmentalize their psychopathology
the potential for psychopathic behavior is in all of us, and given the right incentives, right now, you, or i, or anyone reading these words, would act psychopathically
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
No apologies to FDR. Without him and Wilsons bullshit socialist fixes, we would still be free men, no income tax and everything would run as it should.( The depression fix was unnecessary , as the economic and social shifts, albeit taking longer, still would happen.) Instead we have this mess and nothing short of bloody revolution to put things right.
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
"$100k per annum is not poor. Average salary in the US [worldsalaries.org] was just over $42k (gross) in 2005. Your using this number suggests, you don't really have a grasp of facts"
That is not what was said or implied... it appears Weston is fine with facts... just sayin....
a clear situation in which myself, or you, or anyone else would act psychopathically: starvation
you bring further proof for my position by citing the milgram experiments, where two thirds of people act psychopathologically... under the influence of authority. right, because acting under the influenced by authority is such a rare and exotic occurrence in modern life. pfffft
you accuse me of projecting. rather, i think it strange you have so much resistance to the idea of a straightforward universal simple ugly truth about the human condition. i think you have a lot invested in the concept that human empathy is stronger than it really is. this naivete on your part or willful blindness
one need only look at the state of the world and see that empathy is in short supply, that lack of empathy is not some strange rare condition that requires special mental illness labelling, but very common and just under the surface in all of us
but don't mind me. no need to change your theory that businessmen are strange exotic agents under the influence of a special mental condition which renders their behavior completely alien and completely criminal. zzz
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
i've simply pointed out common and straightforward human conditions that a kindergartener would understand and perceive as lacking in empathy. go ahead and reject that. you're not rejecting me, you're rejecting reality. so whatever
and you've tried to hurt my feelings, which is quite psychopathic of you LOL ;-)
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
that i really am not inclined to hold your hand and spoonfeed you the intellectual charity you're asking for. you are not worth the effort. because if you can't see the proof you are asking for on your own, this reflects poorly on your abilities of perception, not my abilities at persuasion
so how about this: i admit complete defeat
you have utterly spanked me in this argument. lo do i regret the day i defied your ideas. your conviction that the world is full of empathic loving human beings, and is only ruined by an exotic 1% of senator palaptines, stands unsundered by my bizarre and unfounded assertions that empathy is easily turned off and often is. and of course, that i am desperately trying to make this absurd argument to you is because i myself am a senator palpatine
consider your delusions unpunctured by any rude intrusions of my so-called reality. carry on with your convictions unchallenged and unprovoked
(snicker)
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
the whole year long you guys keep saying Soviet Russia, Soviet Russia
and when the guy says, correctly, Capitalist America, you get pissed off and sound high-handed.
The Russians must tolerate you for the whole year taking you lightly or seriously, and you must not take it sportingly even once in the year?
In Soviet Amerika, intellectuals boo free speech.
I mean think of betting on a coin flip where you call heads. If it comes up heads, you get a billion dollars. If it comes up tails, the fed bails your bank out for a billion dollars and maybe your bonus this quarter is smaller, but you lose nothing directly, and your bonus is back to normal 3 months later. Kind of makes fearless and stupid betting par for the course.
That implies a 50-50 chance of coming out ahead on any given flip. The chances they were taking didn't have odds anywhere near that good.
manic depression, schizophrenia, psychopathology, etc., are all aspect of every human being alive. its just that in most people, its below a certain threshold. above that theshold, and you begin to show qualities which put you in a category of illness
but everyone, to some degree, exhibits an ability to dampen their human empathy. if you showed parents the body of their dead child, and one retched on the spot, and the other calmly and grimly left, which is the "normal" person? is the parent who exhibited no physical revulsion a psychopath? we all process these things differently, and you have no objective, only subjective measurement for temporary or permanent empathy deficits
just look at stanley milgram's experiments where he took normal everyday people and got them to shock people to death (in simulation)
That experiment is a perfect illustration of how wrong you are: only some of the people went through to the "end" of the experiment, pseudo-electrocuting an actor.
Furthermore, temporarily damping one's empathy is not even close to mean one is a psychopath! A psychopath is a psychopath 100% of the time. In addition to that, there are many more traits that make psychopaths what they are - like, being able to without blinking, while looking you straight in the eyes. Being able to manipulate you, become the person you would trust the most like the perfect chameleon ... and so on and so forth. People who, for whatever reason, are dampening their empathy, will at the same time NOT be able to like like a psychopath does - because they are not psychopaths.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
I can try to make this point brief and direct.
Fearlessness? callous children?
The reason why the United States' version of a Capitalist Democracy is hurting is because when there is profit or savings involved nationalism goes out the window. Plain and simple. Apply it to every bottom line situation.
with the few exceptions of people like Warren Buffet, corporations are run by highly functional psychopaths.
As long as we're naming names of good guys, don't forget Aaron Feuerstein [wikipedia.org],
The Mensch Of Malden Mills [cbsnews.com]
Holy shit, he truly is the mensch! What character, this guy now tops my list of good CEOs. Thank you very much for bringing this to my attention.
So he is your top mensch, would that then by definition make him your ubermensch?
It should be noted that "Christian Science" (with capital letters) is the name of a religious sect. It is not really Christian and not especially science-minded.
http://hubpages.com/hub/Astonishing_Interview_with_Aaron_Russo_who_met_with_Nick_Rockefeller
Read that and you all decide.
America's WIN-LOSE culture is institutionalized to such an extent that WIN-WIN is considered Un-American. But the truth is WIN-LOSE is not scalable in the Globalized World.
I'd like to buy homeland for our 10 million people. http://twitter.com/mahadiga
http://hubpages.com/hub/Astonishing_Interview_with_Aaron_Russo_who_met_with_Nick_Rockefeller
Read that and you all decide.
http://hubpages.com/hub/Astonishing_Interview_with_Aaron_Russo_who_met_with_Nick_Rockefeller
Read that and you all decide.
http://hubpages.com/hub/Astonishing_Interview_with_Aaron_Russo_who_met_with_Nick_Rockefeller
Read that and you all decide.