@hukslee Do you know that Christianity is correct? The world around us reveals that G-d DOES exist, and the historical evidence reveals that Jesus Christ really did come to this earth and there is overwhelming evidence that Jesus Christ really did physically rise from the dead. Jesus is coming again and the signs of the end times that were foretold in the Bible are coming to pass.
1) It's Zelda CDI reference (can't believe I have to write that)
2) German Fascism used the Reichswirftschaftsministerium to control prices, wages, and production, a la central planning economy (at contrast with a market economy).
1.)The fact that you can't believe that you should have to write that should tell you how much of a geek you are(I don't know jack shit about Zelda CD',whatever.)
2.)'Central planning'--a term almost as overused and misunderstood as fascism--exists even in markets,ESPECIALLY when it comes to prices.
Securities exchanges set prices for products in the real economy that I don't personally negotiate.
3.)Fascism is not about what gov't does,but who owns it & whose interests it serves.
anytime the economy does good its because of the FED. when the economy does bad its because of the free-market.....or at least thats what "they" tell you.
I hope you all understand the gravity of problems that happens if a bank like these huge ones fail. I agree fully that government should be less involved, but seriously though, you can't let banks like these huge ones fail. Letting a small time corp with a 100 million dollar revenue stream fail, is not the same as letting a trillion dollar bank fail, I hope you understand that. Because when they fail, they take everyone else with them, in this increasingly globalized economy.
That is exactly why corporations have too much power- and exactly why the "big" banks should have been aloud to fail. If you bank somewhere that does dirty business you should own up to the crime; "moral hazard" is the real issue. People are complicit as long as they willingly deny the truth. In this case the truth was: "These are really bad banks, and I bank there."
@Cr3Nietzsche3n So you are basicly saying it's okay for people to have nothing and be nothing? I can't agree with that. If people fail there's a gazillion factors that play into it, in a market, without it being their brains failing. People invest money where it seems good to invest, and if they are jacked off by it, it's not their own fault. Saying random people are responsible for other people's corruption just shows how fucking faulty your logic is.
You strawmaned me... thanks. But I see where you're coming from. It isn't that I advocate a market concencus, but I advocate a moral concencus, which the market is then able to correct by popular opinoin. The fallacy remains with those that argue others have more effect pertaining to the socio-economic status of the "one" (person) than admitting the "one" doesn't need money to live. They only need money to remain in the system- iPhones, iPads, iPods, HDTV's, 3DTV's.. etc
@Cr3Nietzsche3n I kinda did :P But yeah some form of moral consensus needs to exist, that's right. Do you have any ideas on a corporations private power? Because I could seriously see a corporation become so large they can employ their own army, and the moral and legal ramifications of that are huge in my opinion. One could say they wouldn't need to have an army because the market is already "free" so they can do what they want but, you know most coup d'etat's start that way.
That last sentence was dead-on. I say there needs to be regulation, I'm just worried how about we implement those regualaroty practices, because then power of the many lies in the hands of the few. I kind of think we're in a "damned if you do- damned if you don't" situation. I, as a dirt poor Chicagoan, am pissed as hell at Obama, but more pissed at WALL STREET AND MY PARENTS (and by association their entire generation).
@Cr3Nietzsche3n I'm really worried about it too, and I'm not even American. I'm totally with you on Obama, and i really wish he payed more attention to his people, and actually payed homage to his campaign promises. One idea though, is to do as the Swiss, where there's more direct democracy. They basicly have popular votes on ALL laws, and if the government don't agree, they have legal rights to citizenship mutiny, i.e they can arrest gov officials even if they aren't cops :P
@Faerlon123 Bank failures take others down from the deflationary effect of the loss in money supply, and the losses to account holders. When a bank fails, government could step in to prop up the assets, putting them initially in receivership to maintain the money supply, and then auctioning those or relaunching with an IPO. This would also have permitted renegotiation of the management contracts. The assets can be put into productive hands without condoning bad management/corporate governance.
@shacktoms I understand what you are saying, but I can't agree with private banks having a better agenda. A private bank would only be interested in a profit margin, so moral hazard doesn't really play in. If they can earn money, they will do it, regardless of any moral outcome, right? So, the agenda of the big banks, were infact correct in a neo capitalism sense, because they made money, but at the expense of failure and every other persons economy on earth.
@Faerlon123 The management of these "too big to fail" institutions engaged in fraud on a massive scale, and this was a direct result of the moral hazard created by the Federal Reserve having flooded the economy with fiat money. There can be only one result: speculation, which invariably ends in economic chaos.
@Zhiloreznik First, the Fed doesn't set rates, it targets rates. It achieves those rates as the market responds to changes in the money supply, which is what the Fed actually controls.The recent problem with low rates was that people were buying houses on short term rates, speculating that the economy wouldn't improve (driving rates back up).
Friedman was clear that the Great Depression would have been a normal Recession had the Fed expanded the money supply (which would drive down rates).
@shacktoms Friedman/Schwarz started in the wrong place, he forgot to address the years that led up to the crash. America's Great Depression by Rothbard explains it more thoroughly. And when you have a monopoly on the money supply, what does it matter whether the fed sets rates or targets rates. In effect, it controls it either way.
@TigerbythetailFilms It is the same kind of difference you would have if we were nominally on a commodity standard (e.g. gold) and the government set the price of specie by fiat vs targeting a price of specie in open-market operations and adjusting monetary policy to maintain that target. The economic interest that is served by the Fed is control of inflation/deflation, maximizing the information content of price. Short-term changes in rates measure inflation/deflation, allowing stability.
How does a free market get the blame from a guy that influenced the market in the most Keynesian way. While he claimed to be a Free market guy or libertarian capitalist it if ironic because he sat at the controls pulling on the yoke while he stalled the plane. Yet somehow Greenspan blames free markets as the FED once again props up irrational corporations. A free market can not unilaterally set low rates nor can it bail out bad business. Let them fail and stop blaming freedom.
So you have the fed...the lender of last resort for banks(just the ones with the connections)... the biggest bailout machine ever created in order to "protect" banks so that the economy doesn't go bust..is somehow a free market system? Combine that with low interest rates and all the other government policies which fueled the bubble... and now its the fault of the market that the bubble occurred? Are telling me that market forces encourage greed and not prudence? BULLSHIT!
@timemastro1 Like Like Like Like Like Like Like Like Like Like Like Like Like Like Like Like Like Like Like Like Like Like Like Like Like Like Like Like Like Like Like Like Like Like Like Like Like Like Like Like Like Like Like Like Like Like Like Like Like Like Like Like Like Like Like Like Like Like Like Like Like Like Like Like Like Like Like Like Like Like Like Like Like Like Like Like Like Like
What an idiot, talking all about free markets breaking down. What broke down was his artificial centralised money system, but of course he can't see that because he believes his own bullshit for too long.
jrvillella (original poster of the video) apparently doesn't even know enough about Friedman to insult in a substantive way. Friedman himself would say that the big banks and hedge funds were DEFINITELY acting in their own self interest.. they knew the government would bail them out!
You can't blame capitalism for tanking the economy when capitalist principles have been ignored by the masses and government alike for going on 60 years now.
Did the government put pressure on the banks to provide the low income mortgage loans to curb generational poverty or some other socio-economic issue?
@RedKnight977 A true free market would mean that companies could cut your pay down to wages like in India, pollute the city they are in, lie to the public and say that their product is safe when it is not, and become a monopoly destroying all other small business, or corporations while jacking the price up (because they are the only business now offering a valued product.)
@dovakiin516 Just the opposite is true. There are lots of test cases where a historical culture has been split into a relatively free vs a less free state, e.g. Korea, Germany, Israel/Palestine, etc. In such cases, the situation is uniformly better in the state which is more free.
Pollution is worst, pay is lowest, etc. where there is least freedom. A system without mutual benefit can't last long under freedom, because someone then would get rich by offering a better deal to others.
@shacktoms that's funny because in India the pay is lowest, and their pollution is worst. Yet they have no government regulations such as EPA, or minimal wage. It's like just the opposite of what you just said.
@alphablitz1024 well, the poorest countries have the greatest amount to gain. Thus, saying a country like Georgia that has a 6% econ growth, which is three times as much as the US would not be a fair assessment. Take a massive economy like the US its already rich thus it's GDP is 'x' amount times bigger than Georgia's GDP. However, you wouldn't say that Georgia is doing better than the US because the US has a bigger GDP; economic growth is going to slow down naturally.
@dovahkiin516 Exactly. Without barriers, those who are struggling have the greatest strides. That is why progressives favor polices that are designed to keep an advantage for the have's at the expense of the have-not's. Things like high minimum wages, Davis Bacon, restrictions on licensing, protectionism, monopolistic labor unions, even Jim Crow. The fixed-pie idea is to keep the less fortunate from "stealing our jobs". Otherwise capitalists would use those under-utilized resources.
@dovahkiin516 I think that the pollution is a different problem, because of the externalities. In a truly free market there are no externalities. But look here and the correlation with freedom is striking epi.yale.edu/epi2012/map. India went through a period of severe economic controls, but I believe it has been improving since the Singh reforms. Who does the minimum wage help? Not the poor. It is designed to keep them out.
@dovahkiin516 If employers would ceteris paribus prefer to hire you, then I can compete by undercutting your wage. So if the employer hires you, there is an opportunity cost. However, if the minimum wage is higher than my wage, that opportunity cost is reduced, thus subsidizing the discrimination.
Historically, the minimum wage was enacted during the Great Depression to protect northeastern laborers from competition from Southern blacks, as was Davis-Bacon.
@shacktoms I think you completely forgot that in your argument that those historical cultures Korea, Germany, and Israel/Palestine have have been massively bailed out by the US. Germany was supported by the US during the split, Korea was massively helped out economically and militarily, Israel is giving massive amounts of money and military aid each year. So, you say relatively free I see massive foreign government bailouts. So, of course they are doing better lol.
@dovahkiin516 So you think the difference between those economies was US aid? Except for our military budget (which amounts to foreign aid), the US spends very little on foreign aid, about 1.25% of the federal budget. A lot of that goes to Israel about as much as the sum of aid to Egypt + Jordan. The Marshall Plan helped West Germany, while the totalitarians behind the Iron Curtain made East Germany pay! But if our aid explains it, they why are we so well off?
@shacktoms Well, the federal budget is $3.5 trillion so yeah 1.25% is a shit load. Not to mention when you have military bases in other countries that country doesn't have to spend money on a military. My brother is in the navy and he just got back from Qatar. SO, yeah on one hand countries were given free money from the US and military support and advice on their economy where the other countries were entrenched in a proxy war with the US that they had to spend themselves.
@dovahkiin516 I agree that our military amounts to foreign aid, and helps fund the European social network, improving life there. Yet Europe has otherwise proven to be a threat. But I don't think aid accounts for the differences between East/West Germany or North/South Korea, or even the improving situation in India since liberalization of markets. In many cases our aid was detrimental, e.g. our establishment and propping up of the dictatorship in Palestine, or our support for Saddam Hussein.
The title should be "Greenspan Covers His Ass". Of course he will not take any responsibility for his policies at the fed having anything to do with what happened. In addition, people acting in their self interest does not mean that their decisions will all be correct with positive outcomes. Evidently, Greenspan doesn't think politicians, bureaucrats, and political cronies like him don't act in their self interest. Of course they don't -- they're little angels.
@cjtorrice Do you know that Christianity is correct? The world around us reveals that G-d DOES exist, and the historical evidence reveals that Jesus Christ really did come to this earth and there is overwhelming evidence that Jesus Christ really did physically rise from the dead. Jesus is coming again and the signs of the end times that were foretold in the Bible are coming to pass.
...He makes Friedman eat his words? I thought Friedman only said that people act in self-interest, not in the interest of the shareholders. Which was the case here, indeed even more the case if you use the concept loosely, since the individuals in these banks acted in their *direct* self interest, increasing the amount they could cream much more in the short term, than the amount available to them in the same time frame if they pursued a sustainable business model.
Even if Friedman stated that firms pursue the interest of their shareholders, if we allow for exaggeration, this still appears to remain true; the banking sector makes up only a relatively small proportion of the economy. Largely, firms do appear to pursue the interests of the share holders.
Govt provided rules regulations and loopholes for those that could not afford things like others that worked for it themselves have to give to others fair or not. Dont rely on a store to provide you fish when you can go and catch them yourself.
Greenspan, who micro-managed the economy to the point of the collapse via artificially low interest rates, blames capitalism instead of the free money/credit expansion? Of course. He's a bureaucrat.
@TigerbythetailFilms It was totally the opposite! There was trillions of CDOs with no money support. When the crisis came the government could let all banks to broke, leading to recession and deflation or they could buy the "junk bonds" (CDOs, which Obama did), therefore injecting money in the system and generating inflation. So it was a moral failure of capitalists authorized by a permissive government. Inflation = less consumption power = companies devaluated in NYSE, Nasdaq, etc = more crisis
@fgbraz87 Not all banks would go broke. Not even during the GD did all banks go broke. You seem to ignore the government's favorite company Goldman S. and Paulson's role, Fanny and Freddy being able to buy trillions of these loans because the are GSEs and have Big Brother (Taxpayers Money) to back them up -- not to mention all the big salaries and bonuses to all the political cronies that work there, or the Fed's artificial interest rates. In other words-it wasn't capitalism that cause it.
@TigerbythetailFilms so it was his fault the banks' irresponsible and fraudulent practices were the fault of the fed b/c they had cheap credit? and he didn't micro manage the economy, you fucking dolt. look into what the fed does. you had 45 people who agree with your ignorance just goes to show the lack of understanding people have as to what caused the crash. typical
@blastsummit yeah, call me a name. That's a great way to convince me and others reading this that you are indeed correct. Keep striving for that higher standard. Perhaps, instead, you should learn the Austrian business cycle (and just non-Keynesian economics) instead of regurgitating the same tired dailykos socialist garbage you just did now. Good luck.
@TigerbythetailFilms i said nothing regarding socialism, you bloody dolt! it's fools like you that keep america down. and you are NOT an expert in economics. who the fuck are you trying to fool? yourself, perhaps, but not i. now run along and masturbate to your glenn beck poster
@blastsummit other classy comments by "blastsummit": "keep swallowing jizz for pocket change! hahaha", "KILL ALL CHRISTIANS!" and "clueless wenches. at least they have nice tits". You are a troll, and as such nothing to take seriously or respectfully. Do yourself a favor and mature a little bit more before you consider using the internet again.
@TigerbythetailFilms Well, actually, countries where there was more micro-management (as you put it), for example, Canada, actually didn't collapse. "Free money/credit expansion" was regulated (that is, avoided) here in Canada precisely b/c of the gov't regulating interest rates and insuring mortgages, etc.
They are still doing this and that's why The Economist predicts that out housing market will decrease in size like a balloon as opposed to a bubble bursting.
@bahramf false equivalences. First, Canada's economy is far less regulated than the American one. It's a far more open market. Secondly, interest rates in Canada haven't been parallel to the US. Canada's central bank also doesn't share the same moral hazards. Third, Canada, unlike the US, did not partake in rounds of Keynesian "stimuli" like the US. There's less vastly less interventionism in Canada than in the US. There's far more to this than the way you put it, most certainly.
@TigerbythetailFilms The Canadian economy is far more regulated than the American. How can you deny that? To stave off recession Canada's interest rates were lowered and they're..
@bahramf ...about to be bumped back up. Of course the rates haven't been parallel. That doesn't make a it a false equivalency in and of itself. I don't know what "moral hazards you're referin
@bahramf you might think so merely because you have higher income taxes, but for a number of years Canada has outperformed the US in the economic freedom indices. See also: Heritage foundation index of economic freedom, Fraser institute's index. The Americans have 80,000 pages worth of regulations written by the banking industry. There's also more regulatory capture in the US as well. As you can see, there's far more corporatism in the US than Canada has ever had.
I agree, you can't even begin to have anything close to a free market when you have something like a "Greenspan Put" that Wall Street can always rely on to bail them out of hard landings.
I think you guys are missing the point. This was not a failure of the free market. This recession was the result of government meddling in the free market. Here, you see Bill Clinton's drive to increase home ownership (and, ghast, BANK PROFITS), meddled with the natural order of the free market. Banks gave loans to people it would never have, normally, because Clinton was forcing Fanny and Freddy to guarantee home loans! This isn't a free market failure, it's another leftist policy gone wrong.
@toobadsosad83 The problem with that analysis is it skips a step. The first step is incomes go down. The second step is, loan-based purchasing takes over for income-based purchasing, and it continues a lot like the standard conservative model, except that conservatives and liberals react differently to the idea that there is a strong profit motive for doing the wrong thing in banking. Once you put all the leverage in the hands of the rich the rest tends to follow.
@sfjeff1089 Ironically if you ask someone like Boehner about his plan for fixing the economy he will say "Restore confidence". This is ironic because what confidence means is that people take on more debt causing the multiplier to increase, lifting the economy. This has very little ability to compensate for most of the money winding up in the hands of non-spenders, which caused the Great Depression last time and has increased systemic risk vastly this time.
The banks used to protect their share holders and clients.
The banks received a guarantee from our corrupt government that they could make bad loans based on PC lending practices the lefty politicos cooked up and get PAID their commissions and the banks could never go bankrupt. That's better then working!
The government stole our money and bailed out the big banks, corrupt failed businesses once their failed business model predictably collapsed along with the housing bubble they inflated .
@richfisherman If we reinstate Glass Steagall, then the banks making risky bets can be allowed to fail without putting millions of people out of work. As long as we don't have Glass Steagall, our banks have us in a hostage situation.
How is Friedman being forced to eat his words? Knowing the government was standing by to bail out Too Big To Fail entities removed the risk of failure from said entities' activities; thus emboldening their bad behavior. Conversely, Friedman's philosophy is grounded on the free market's tendency to devour such incompetence and unethical behavior; not on propping it up and enabling it.
How brazen of Greenspan to point the finger at Friedman, but could we expect less of a bureaucrat?
@pattershow The problem with conservative logic is it paints with too broad a brush stroke. If a group of KKK near Birmingham lynched someone, you don't start killing KKK members in Mason. Similarly, when US was mad at Noriega, a dictator we installed by setting up a coup for Omar Torrijos, US invaded and killed 4000 civilians just to make a point. Making millions of people lose their jobs to ensure that hundreds of already wealthy people "suffer" is the same fallacy.
@sfjeff1089 I don't think that is a conservative ideal. I have never heard a true conservative ever advocate something like that but I am sure neocons would.
@sfjeff1089 The reason I said that is because the basic ideals of conservatism is small government and the free market economy. Now if you look at the current GOP candidates you see neocons except for Ron Paul because Mitt Romney, Santorum, and Gingrich all want to increase government and go to war while Ron Paul wants to decrease the size of government and get out of the wars. Ron Paul is the only one that seems to be conservative.
@xx8visionSxx I think, though, that Reagan and the Bushes actually did push through a lot of policies Ron Paul agrees with, like the tax decreases, the union-busting, etc. Even Clinton established favored trading nation status with China and allowed Glass Steagall to be dismantled on his watch. Remove the space from
bit .ly/zRFTwe
When we had unions and a high tax rate on the rich the debt decreased rapidly. When we killed the unions and shifted the tax burden to the poor, growth slowed
@sfjeff1089 Whether we tax the rich more or not is a debatable issue because some may gain wealth through productive and honest means or through ripping off the people. Also look before 1913 when we had no income tax. When we had a free market economy was when we thrived the most. Ron Paul wishes to eliminate the income tax ideally but Ron Paul is also practical so that I do not think he would try it immediately. Lower taxes increase jobs and growth.
@xx8visionSxx Re: before 1913. We spent a greater percent of time in recession before 1913. Also, the growth rate over this period includes the addition of several new states. We had major fights for progressive reform in the late 19th century celebrated in literature with The Jungle, and reflected in law with the 8 hour work day act for federal employees in 1869. In any case, growth was far slower than the 1930's when progressivism was in full swing. Did you look at my graph?
@sfjeff1089 Yes I saw your graph. Responding to an earlier statement about Ron Paul liking Reagan and Bush's policies, he did not support Reagan's policies but the message that Reagan campaigned on. Reagan did not keep to his message. My main point was that conservatism is not about war-mongering, that is neocon ideals. I just believe that the free market is what America was founded on and prospered from and I think we should return to that seeing as how keynesian economics is not working now.
@xx8visionSxx I am 100% with Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich on the foreign policy issue. My only problem with the economic policies is they don't work.
The period 1980 - 2010 should not be considered an example of keynesian economics not working because what changed was Keynsian economics went out of favor, growth slowed, and debt rose.
@sfjeff1089 remove the space to see many of the triggers of today's inequality:
bit .ly/xoMtuJ
Also, remove the space to see the effect on middle class wages. It goes without saying you cannot have a growing economy without a thriving middle class.
@sfjeff1089 I think it's wrong to connect taxation with debt increases in any way shape or form. This is because levels of taxation, on the rich, or on the poor, have nothing to do with the deficit. Government is spending beyond its means on orders of magnitude beyond revenue. You could raise taxes, on everyone, to 70% and still wouldn't come close to breaking even annually. The problem is big government.
@toobadsosad83 Where are your numbers coming from? The 70% number is completely bogus. Tax rates on the rich and the poor have everything to do with GDP, which in turn has a huge impact on debt. Radical left wing and Radical right wing economies have opposite problems. In a radical left wing economy you need to give the rich an opportunity to build stuff. In a radical right wing economy like the US you need to make sure the poor are able to buy stuff.
@zzxo Re: "If the bank is too big to fail, the bank is too big." We are in complete agreement on that. That's why I believe in a return to Glass-Steagall. Politicians know that if a bank goes under, it will likely have 10k or more private businesses with existing lending relationships that will get hurt. Also, new private loans will instantly stop, so millions of people who had nothing to do with the crisis will get hurt. (continued)
@sfjeff1089 ... There is a reason that hostage-taking is illegal and Glass-Steagall can be thought of as the analogous rules for banks and the economy.
@sfjeff1089 I can't say I am as familiar with that Act and the part of it's repeal as I would like to be in order to make a satisfying comment. I do not know all of the cause and effects. But, I am of the opinion that those private businesses and the investors would recover sooner with the a "hurt".
@zzxo The point of Glass Steagall is, if you are in the business of offering bank loans to businesses, you shouldn't also be in the business of making high-risk bets. High risk bets can destroy assets quickly and you shouldn't be doing that with other people's money. The difference between a progressive and a libertarian on this issue is that the libertarian believes you have committed a crime when the roulette wheel doesn't come up 8 Red and the progressive believes the crime happened earlier
@sfjeff1089 Obama likes crony capitalism more than he "thinks" because he creates more government by which they can gain more control. Friedman on the other hand would rather see less government therefore less control through government. Just look up at how big drug/health companies use the FDA to keep out competition. Look at who lobbies FOR national healthcare. Companies can achieve monopolies in this way. Any centralizing/consolidation of power is bad.
@zzxo Sorry, I can't see what comment you are responding too. However, the term for a society without concentration of power is not capitalism. It's anarchism. I say that without irony - you can look up some of Noam Chomksy's early works/videos for a balanced treatment of that.
But I think that Centralized power vs Lack of centralized power is a false dichotomy. A more interesting perspective is the framing founder's concept of separated powers instead of concentrated powers.
@zzxo@zzxo Sorry, I can't see what comment you are responding too. However, the term for a society without concentration of power is not capitalism. It's anarchism. I say that without irony - you can look up some of Noam Chomksy's early works/videos for a balanced treatment of that.
But I think that Centralized power vs Lack of centralized power is a false dichotomy. A more interesting perspective is the framing founder's concept of separated powers instead of concentrated powers.
@sfjeff1089 Anarchism is a society with no government. Capitalism is with limited government typically focused on property rights. I say "concentrated power" in terms of controlling markets like Mortgages, Education, and Healthcare. Example: Government consolidating healthcare is a negative thing. It is non-capitalism. The more non-capitalism the more our markets can't function properly.
@zzxo health-care is a really interesting example because there is a big asymmetry of information problem. It is considered a competitive disadvantage to communicate exactly what they cover. This is pretty much the opposite of the Chicago board of trade where people give up freedom in dimensions that don't matter much in order to have industry-defined standard products that people can buy and sell at will. (continued)
@sfjeff1089 ... With the ability to buy standard healthcare packages and know what you are getting, it would be more possible to realize the benefits that capitalism promises.
@sfjeff1089 I simply see the current healthcare industry as a separation of consumer and provider. We have no family doctors or more affordable hospitals. I am not fully studied in why exactly that is yet, but I do suspect regulation, the results of some law suites, and the dependents on insurance. I have many theories that I can't wait to study. That will be next year.
@zzxo the key statistic about healthcare we should be paying attention to is, socialist countries in Europe pay half what we do for health care and get far better results in the median case. We have the best system in the world for the top 1%, but we do very poorly for everybody else. Conservatives like to point to law suits and insurance, which I am sure contribute, but the legal system is "good" inefficiency. It is better to be less efficient and just than the alternative.
@zzxo RE: "I say "concentrated power" in terms of controlling markets like Mortgages, Education, and Healthcare." One thing that typically gets conflated are rule-setting vs production when talking about government. Is a government that sets lots and lots of rules but doesn't provide many services big? Is a government that sets minimal rules but provides lots and lots of services big? Clarity on this makes economic discussion easier.
@sfjeff1089 ... I think that the most important thing to analyze in any economic situation is, who profits from what types of activities. There is no such thing as a first-world society without rules. As you mentioned, property rights are a necessary first step. Property rights require laws on both the information side and the enforcement side, and I think that the information side often gets slighted in those discussions. Second, you also need limitations on power. (continued 2)
@sfjeff1089 If I own a shop and my competitor is across the street, I can increase my sales and decrease the chance he will be present and competing with me by walking across the street and punching him in the nose. This might be doable in a free market via reputation, but there is no reason or even excuse for society to accept a slow, indirect approach to this. If you don't limit power, then the most ruthless get all the benefits of society.
@sfjeff1089 I just look at cause and effect. Rules can almost be as bad as the actual providing. Rules can benefit Coca Cola and hurt Pepsi, or you can just scrap them both and provide Government Coke. Either way, no one gets a fair deal.
@zzxo Sorry, I don't understand your coke pepsi analogy. The point of having rules is to make sure that it is more rewarding to produce something, sell it, and buy a vcr than it is to break a window and steal your neighbor's VCR. When it is more profitable to break a window and steal a VCR, then that is bad for society. Similarly, when it is ok to mine Uranium and pollute drinking water, that's bad. Ideally you put your best scientists into making the rules, and make them open. (continued)
@sfjeff1089 Anyway, libertarians like to say, which do you want? Rules or efficient production? That is like saying, which do you want? Football players or referees? Why don't we save lots of money and encourage free-market competition by just firing all the bureaucratic, red tape, football referees? The problem is, in the economy, private companies looking to cut corners have really good propaganda departments and political arms.
@sfjeff1089 Given that rich people benefit from getting rid of mining regulations and only poor people benefit from not getting cancer, we need to have a progressive bias, not a libertarian one.
@sfjeff1089 Sometimes rules benefit some "rich people" is what the analogy was trying to say. Coke being the richer than Pepsi. Breaking windows is a property rights issue. You don't need rules to make a VCR. You need Capitalism. Polluting drinking water would also be a property rights issue. No need for more regulation. If you don't want to mine, don't mine.
@sfjeff1089 It's simple. Why would the uranium mine company not be guilty if its actions effected the drinking water that the public pays for? The people pay for drinkable water that the mining company ruins. What more rules do you need? That is a clear violation of property.
@zzxo the uranium mine company would be guilty because it followed the rules. By having standards, you can actually make it easier for a Uranium company to mine because they can know they are in compliance during and they won't get sued later. Also, they are less likely to be at a competitive advantage to someone who cheats. Further, ask anyone with cancer whether they would rather have tort success or that there had been clear guidelines from the beginning.
@sfjeff1089 If a business is going to get sued for something, it will do everything it possibly can to prevent that from happening. What you are imposing is that the government do that for them. Well, now you just cost that business twice the amount of money to do business because government services like that are not free. How much money do oil companies have to pay the EPA? ALOT!
@zzxo Why do oil companies have to pay the EPA a lot??? I think that's a myth put out by oil companies that want to pollute your drinking water at will.
It is not about regulation being expensive. It is about compliance being expensive. Seriously. Watch this short video and tell me the free market is working:
bit .ly/uMV5JS
If you are so interested in replacing law with tort, why not do it in other areas? Eg. Make Murder and theft civil matters. Answer - because it is a bad idea.
@sfjeff1089 BAHAHA! That video makes my point! The EPA lets Koch do it! Get rid of the EPA! More government creates more inequality! A bought out EPA lets Koch do the polluting with less consequences! More "rules" equal more inequality in a "capitalistic" society. The EPA doesn't create an equal playing field in that video. It makes it worse!
@zzxo Now you are being arrogant. Please propose a better solution than the EPA. Should we get rid of all the police if we find out a murderer got off free?
@sfjeff1089 They have to pay because they BREAK THE LAW. And they don't pay ENOUGH. It is just part of the cost of doing business. They either need to be fined to the extent that they cannot make a profit while polluting or they need to be thrown in jail.
@bbnatedogg That sounds like you agree with me. My point is, if companies are better off doing things that are harmful to us and the environment, then that means we as a country need to change our incentive structure and enforcement. It is sort of the opposite of the "Free markets as religion" idea.
@zzxo "You don't need rules to make a VCR. You need Capitalism" Sure you need rules!! You said yourself that you can't make a VCR without property rights. Those are rules. Also, you need personal liberty rules as well, unless that is covered under property. Further, these are fuzzy categories and require pragmatic interpretation. For example, where do you draw the line between literal slavery, wage slavery in deliberately dampened opportunity and full equality of opportunity.
@sfjeff1089 Ignoring the first part... echoed my point. We are using "rules' as a very broad word. To me, there is constitutional law, personal contracts, and then social rules. Constitutional law is the main concern for me. The other two "rules' are voluntary.
@zzxo onother perspective comes from the difference between owning and renting/contracting. If you own something, then you take a risk by renting or contracting because you increase distance and make verification more difficult. Certain things can *never* be truly owned by a private company, eg. education. Barring slavery, no private company will ever profit from someone completing 16 years of education, so by definition there is a contracting relationship there. (continued)
@sfjeff1089 Once you determine there is a contracting relationship regardless, next step is to talk about what the most effective motivational structure there is. The "Big Government" approach to schools is basically an agency approach. They act as agent of the people, which can be problematic because it relies on feedback, reputation, and the people's power to replace administrations. However even if the job is subcontracted to third party, you still have that problem. (continued 2)
@sfjeff1089 ...2 - You potentially have other problems also. The contractor needs a profit margin, compared with profit being maintained by the people. This can be offset by the contractor being more efficient, which means cutting less profitable activities, forcing people to work harder, etc., but the business is specifically motivated by a different view of profitability which is probably closer to "visible" then "effective at producing educated individuals 10 years down the road". (... 3)
@sfjeff1089 ...3 - The contractor's view on "Profit" on the other hand, means "what can be billed". This means that contrary to it's internal mission of keeping costs as low as possible, its external mission is to keep costs to government as high as possible. This can be a powerful force for corruption. The true alternative to "big government" that pays for 20 years of education is "small government that does not educate its people". But we all know how that turns out.
@sfjeff1089 I don't understand. Private schools do not profit? I can never legally own property? I hear intellectual property rights is a growing subject these days too. I think more legal battles are about them or something.
@sfjeff1089 I don't understand. Private schools do not profit? I can never legally own property? I hear intellectual property rights is a growing subject these days too. I think more legal battles are about them or something.
@zzxo Private schools do not profit from the product they create - educated minds. They profit like all contractors profit - by either convincing someone they did a good job or by convincing others that they did a good job. I am not saying that that is necessarily bad. I am saying that there is by definition a motivation to raise costs to the public that doesn't exist in public schools. Obviously private payment mitigates contractor distance. The defense sector might be a more clear example
@sfjeff1089 I believe you are leaving out the people's choice to choose a school. This choice is what forces the school to satisfy a particular audience. From what I have seen, private schools do more with less. I've seen reports were states hide costs to favor their student to dollar ratio. They hide parts of the their budget like pension costs. I disagree that you can't put a dollar value on good education because people will notice. Consumers are not powerless.
@zzxo I am not really talking about private schools funded by parents, although I have heard that only 17% actually do a better job. But in any case, if vouchers were put into place, they would take funds away from public schools and pretty much throw "equality of opportunity" out the window. But anyway, the point is, they are ultimately contractors, and unlike government employees, government contractors have a huge profit motive adverse to their mission.
@sfjeff1089 I don't disagree that government spends far more money on contractors than if it were a normal private to private transaction. That's why it would be better to privatize education all together. Now on this notion of "taking away funds from public schools" would be a normal thing. That would be down sizing, not to be confused with elimination. Also, "equal opportunity" is achievable with privatization. There would be a market for poorer people.
@zzxo "There would be a market for poorer people." Then write a business plan and build a business around this in Indonesia. No shortage of poor people there. Thanks to violent conflict which has been directly sponsored by the US in a blatant free market resource grab/debt trap, you have large portions of the public relocated from ancestral lands and forced to work for companies like Nike 6 days a week, 12 hours a day at $2 a day. You could get many kudos, but no investors.
@sfjeff1089 Our poor would defiantly have options. Impoverish areas don't have the capital to produce such options. Impoverished areas would benefit from $2 per day. You would have to inform me on the violent conflict there. All I know is that it's a mixed economy.
@zzxo Re: poor having options. That won't last long if libertarians control the economy. They try to sell the idea that having capital accumulation in a region is the source of prosperity. In actuality, you need two things: one person needs to make something and the other needs to buy it. Reaganomics was sold as the idea that if you tax the people who make TVs less and provide less services to the people who buy TV's, then you would have increased TV production. (continued)
@sfjeff1089 It didn't work. People made fewer TV's for the simple reason that people quit buying them. You can see the results by adding a space to the following links before the dot.
libertarian influence on the Debt:
bit .ly/zRFTwe
Reagan, Bush, and Bush had around 0 per capita GDP growth over 20 years:
bit .ly/vzBVNN
Union membership was high when we grew and both slowed down together:
@sfjeff1089 Libertarians influence on debt and THAT( bit .ly/zRFTwe) graph is misleading and disingenuous. #1 what President is really libertarian. #2 That graph associates the President with debt when actually Congress has more influence, which you can see at the end of Bush's term spike up when Democrats took it. Republicans prevented Clinton from spending too much money. I am sorry but these graphs with your points aren't solid.
@zzxo Don't forget that Warren Harding ran on the principal of "Returning to Laissez Faire". He busted unions in the 1920's, lowered the top income tax rate to 25%, and in general tried to remove every constraint on business. The asset industries approached today's levels of 40% of economic dollars. Meanwhile the real economy shrank because pay is determined by leverage, not by contribution, and the wealthy had all the leverage when he was done.
Just where does Friedman appear in this clip?
JohnTagliaferro 5 hours ago
The sad thing about this is that Milton Friedman isn't even in this video
muel0341 1 day ago
Greenspan is talking about Principle-Agent problems, not problems with firm self-interest.
bigpoppabball 2 days ago
social capitalism is the way to go !
lischen203 2 days ago
how did this faggot make my boy Mil eat his words? The nigga who posted this video is straight up stupid.
ferntheflower 2 days ago 8
@ferntheflower
For realz!!
Who would dare diss a down-ass cracka like Millie Mil?lol
thirdshift47 6 hours ago
I don't see how this makes him eat his words...
slayin4free 4 days ago
MILTON FRIEDMAN'S MAH BOY, HE KNOWS HIS SHIT, GET YOUR GRUBBY LIBERAL HANDS OFF HIM GREENSPAN! unless you want to support YOUR track record hahahaha!
hukslee 4 days ago
This has been flagged as spam show
@hukslee Do you know that Christianity is correct? The world around us reveals that G-d DOES exist, and the historical evidence reveals that Jesus Christ really did come to this earth and there is overwhelming evidence that Jesus Christ really did physically rise from the dead. Jesus is coming again and the signs of the end times that were foretold in the Bible are coming to pass.
marionetemanJ 4 days ago
@hukslee
Free markets are what all true warriors strive for
fountainherz 1 day ago
@fountainherz
Spoken like a true fascist;who had an equal love of markets,social Darwinism and war.
thirdshift47 17 hours ago
@thirdshift47
You're autistic.
1) It's Zelda CDI reference (can't believe I have to write that)
2) German Fascism used the Reichswirftschaftsministerium to control prices, wages, and production, a la central planning economy (at contrast with a market economy).
3) I'm anti-war.
fountainherz 17 hours ago
@fountainherz
1.)The fact that you can't believe that you should have to write that should tell you how much of a geek you are(I don't know jack shit about Zelda CD',whatever.)
2.)'Central planning'--a term almost as overused and misunderstood as fascism--exists even in markets,ESPECIALLY when it comes to prices.
Securities exchanges set prices for products in the real economy that I don't personally negotiate.
3.)Fascism is not about what gov't does,but who owns it & whose interests it serves.
thirdshift47 7 hours ago
This has been flagged as spam show
I like how the poster of this video hasn't removed it yet, even though it's been clearly debunked... Go leftist propaganda, go!
diskpanic 4 days ago
Comment removed
diskpanic 4 days ago
Nice lightsaber.
wulfmanUNCP 5 days ago
Hey Dummy it was not the the banks it was the GSE's that were trusting in GOVERNMENT that over leveraged Greenspan you dummy.
1965ace 5 days ago
Is it really the guy who wrote to defend a gold standard?
maximemeis111 6 days ago
anytime the economy does good its because of the FED. when the economy does bad its because of the free-market.....or at least thats what "they" tell you.
airt21 1 week ago
Yup, blame the market. It couldn't have been you, after all...
CountArtha 1 week ago
Falsely titled.
saildapper2001 1 week ago
All these scum bags should have been thrown in jail. They did far more damage that Al qaeda ever dreamed of doing
Spindry96 1 week ago
I hope you all understand the gravity of problems that happens if a bank like these huge ones fail. I agree fully that government should be less involved, but seriously though, you can't let banks like these huge ones fail. Letting a small time corp with a 100 million dollar revenue stream fail, is not the same as letting a trillion dollar bank fail, I hope you understand that. Because when they fail, they take everyone else with them, in this increasingly globalized economy.
Faerlon123 1 week ago
@Faerlon123
That is exactly why corporations have too much power- and exactly why the "big" banks should have been aloud to fail. If you bank somewhere that does dirty business you should own up to the crime; "moral hazard" is the real issue. People are complicit as long as they willingly deny the truth. In this case the truth was: "These are really bad banks, and I bank there."
A FREE MARKET IS A MORAL MARKET
Cr3Nietzsche3n 1 week ago
@Cr3Nietzsche3n So you are basicly saying it's okay for people to have nothing and be nothing? I can't agree with that. If people fail there's a gazillion factors that play into it, in a market, without it being their brains failing. People invest money where it seems good to invest, and if they are jacked off by it, it's not their own fault. Saying random people are responsible for other people's corruption just shows how fucking faulty your logic is.
Faerlon123 1 week ago
@Faerlon123
You strawmaned me... thanks. But I see where you're coming from. It isn't that I advocate a market concencus, but I advocate a moral concencus, which the market is then able to correct by popular opinoin. The fallacy remains with those that argue others have more effect pertaining to the socio-economic status of the "one" (person) than admitting the "one" doesn't need money to live. They only need money to remain in the system- iPhones, iPads, iPods, HDTV's, 3DTV's.. etc
Cr3Nietzsche3n 1 week ago
@Cr3Nietzsche3n I kinda did :P But yeah some form of moral consensus needs to exist, that's right. Do you have any ideas on a corporations private power? Because I could seriously see a corporation become so large they can employ their own army, and the moral and legal ramifications of that are huge in my opinion. One could say they wouldn't need to have an army because the market is already "free" so they can do what they want but, you know most coup d'etat's start that way.
Faerlon123 1 week ago
@Faerlon123
That last sentence was dead-on. I say there needs to be regulation, I'm just worried how about we implement those regualaroty practices, because then power of the many lies in the hands of the few. I kind of think we're in a "damned if you do- damned if you don't" situation. I, as a dirt poor Chicagoan, am pissed as hell at Obama, but more pissed at WALL STREET AND MY PARENTS (and by association their entire generation).
Cr3Nietzsche3n 1 week ago
@Cr3Nietzsche3n I'm really worried about it too, and I'm not even American. I'm totally with you on Obama, and i really wish he payed more attention to his people, and actually payed homage to his campaign promises. One idea though, is to do as the Swiss, where there's more direct democracy. They basicly have popular votes on ALL laws, and if the government don't agree, they have legal rights to citizenship mutiny, i.e they can arrest gov officials even if they aren't cops :P
Faerlon123 1 week ago
@Cr3Nietzsche3n "consensus"
imjinc2k 1 week ago
@imjinc2k
Yeah, I know I'm a dumbass.. I don't need others to point it out. LOL
Cr3Nietzsche3n 1 week ago
@Cr3Nietzsche3n
I think I spelled it that way in a couple of other posts as well.
Cr3Nietzsche3n 1 week ago
@Cr3Nietzsche3n indeed, a free market is the only moral market.
TigerbythetailFilms 1 week ago
@Faerlon123 Bank failures take others down from the deflationary effect of the loss in money supply, and the losses to account holders. When a bank fails, government could step in to prop up the assets, putting them initially in receivership to maintain the money supply, and then auctioning those or relaunching with an IPO. This would also have permitted renegotiation of the management contracts. The assets can be put into productive hands without condoning bad management/corporate governance.
shacktoms 1 week ago
@shacktoms I understand what you are saying, but I can't agree with private banks having a better agenda. A private bank would only be interested in a profit margin, so moral hazard doesn't really play in. If they can earn money, they will do it, regardless of any moral outcome, right? So, the agenda of the big banks, were infact correct in a neo capitalism sense, because they made money, but at the expense of failure and every other persons economy on earth.
Faerlon123 1 week ago
@Faerlon123 The management of these "too big to fail" institutions engaged in fraud on a massive scale, and this was a direct result of the moral hazard created by the Federal Reserve having flooded the economy with fiat money. There can be only one result: speculation, which invariably ends in economic chaos.
agnosticpotato 3 days ago
@Faerlon123 too big to fail, too big to exist.
TigerbythetailFilms 1 week ago
So why did you keep interest rates too low? That is so not Friedman. That is Keynes.
Zhiloreznik 1 week ago
@Zhiloreznik First, the Fed doesn't set rates, it targets rates. It achieves those rates as the market responds to changes in the money supply, which is what the Fed actually controls.The recent problem with low rates was that people were buying houses on short term rates, speculating that the economy wouldn't improve (driving rates back up).
Friedman was clear that the Great Depression would have been a normal Recession had the Fed expanded the money supply (which would drive down rates).
shacktoms 1 week ago
@shacktoms Friedman/Schwarz started in the wrong place, he forgot to address the years that led up to the crash. America's Great Depression by Rothbard explains it more thoroughly. And when you have a monopoly on the money supply, what does it matter whether the fed sets rates or targets rates. In effect, it controls it either way.
TigerbythetailFilms 1 week ago
@TigerbythetailFilms It is the same kind of difference you would have if we were nominally on a commodity standard (e.g. gold) and the government set the price of specie by fiat vs targeting a price of specie in open-market operations and adjusting monetary policy to maintain that target. The economic interest that is served by the Fed is control of inflation/deflation, maximizing the information content of price. Short-term changes in rates measure inflation/deflation, allowing stability.
shacktoms 1 week ago
The charlatan Socrates warned you about
PaleoAthletics 1 week ago
How does a free market get the blame from a guy that influenced the market in the most Keynesian way. While he claimed to be a Free market guy or libertarian capitalist it if ironic because he sat at the controls pulling on the yoke while he stalled the plane. Yet somehow Greenspan blames free markets as the FED once again props up irrational corporations. A free market can not unilaterally set low rates nor can it bail out bad business. Let them fail and stop blaming freedom.
cskipper65 2 weeks ago 2
@cskipper65
he blamed them so he wouldn't take the fall. so not only is he dishonest but a coward.
fountainherz 1 week ago
So you have the fed...the lender of last resort for banks(just the ones with the connections)... the biggest bailout machine ever created in order to "protect" banks so that the economy doesn't go bust..is somehow a free market system? Combine that with low interest rates and all the other government policies which fueled the bubble... and now its the fault of the market that the bubble occurred? Are telling me that market forces encourage greed and not prudence? BULLSHIT!
timemastro1 2 weeks ago
@timemastro1 Like Like Like Like Like Like Like Like Like Like Like Like Like Like Like Like Like Like Like Like Like Like Like Like Like Like Like Like Like Like Like Like Like Like Like Like Like Like Like Like Like Like Like Like Like Like Like Like Like Like Like Like Like Like Like Like Like Like Like Like Like Like Like Like Like Like Like Like Like Like Like Like Like Like Like Like Like Like
PaleoAthletics 1 week ago
Misleading title. Total spin on Greenspan's part and the person that posted this.
pandrews122 2 weeks ago
What an idiot, talking all about free markets breaking down. What broke down was his artificial centralised money system, but of course he can't see that because he believes his own bullshit for too long.
astro7894 2 weeks ago 14
@astro7894 lmao some fucking dumbass like you knows more than greenspan. 'artificial centralised money system' hahahaha ignorant little tyke
blastsummit 2 weeks ago
jrvillella (original poster of the video) apparently doesn't even know enough about Friedman to insult in a substantive way. Friedman himself would say that the big banks and hedge funds were DEFINITELY acting in their own self interest.. they knew the government would bail them out!
You can't blame capitalism for tanking the economy when capitalist principles have been ignored by the masses and government alike for going on 60 years now.
fury661 2 weeks ago
@fury661 60 years? Try ~130 years when they first decided that getting involved with Private Industry was a good idea.
Joe11Blue 2 weeks ago
Just the title of this video is hilarious, Greenspan is the biggest failure of the economic world.
Bouchon211 2 weeks ago
Milton Friedman view is correct. What Greenspan is talking about is how CRONY CAPITALISM does not work like FREE MARKET CAPITALISM.
Jafo232 3 weeks ago
Did the government put pressure on the banks to provide the low income mortgage loans to curb generational poverty or some other socio-economic issue?
LosAngelasBasketball 3 weeks ago
cameraman falling asleep @0:50
MrDromaeosaurid 3 weeks ago
The FEDS policy is what caused a credit bubble. It should be abolished to allow the true free market to take over
RedKnight977 3 weeks ago
@RedKnight977 A true free market would mean that companies could cut your pay down to wages like in India, pollute the city they are in, lie to the public and say that their product is safe when it is not, and become a monopoly destroying all other small business, or corporations while jacking the price up (because they are the only business now offering a valued product.)
dovahkiin516 3 weeks ago
@dovakiin516 Just the opposite is true. There are lots of test cases where a historical culture has been split into a relatively free vs a less free state, e.g. Korea, Germany, Israel/Palestine, etc. In such cases, the situation is uniformly better in the state which is more free.
Pollution is worst, pay is lowest, etc. where there is least freedom. A system without mutual benefit can't last long under freedom, because someone then would get rich by offering a better deal to others.
shacktoms 3 weeks ago
@shacktoms that's funny because in India the pay is lowest, and their pollution is worst. Yet they have no government regulations such as EPA, or minimal wage. It's like just the opposite of what you just said.
dovahkiin516 2 weeks ago
@dovahkiin516 Fair points. Now, can you name the 6th fastest growing economy in the world?
alphablitz1024 2 weeks ago
@alphablitz1024 well, the poorest countries have the greatest amount to gain. Thus, saying a country like Georgia that has a 6% econ growth, which is three times as much as the US would not be a fair assessment. Take a massive economy like the US its already rich thus it's GDP is 'x' amount times bigger than Georgia's GDP. However, you wouldn't say that Georgia is doing better than the US because the US has a bigger GDP; economic growth is going to slow down naturally.
dovahkiin516 2 weeks ago
@dovahkiin516 Exactly. Without barriers, those who are struggling have the greatest strides. That is why progressives favor polices that are designed to keep an advantage for the have's at the expense of the have-not's. Things like high minimum wages, Davis Bacon, restrictions on licensing, protectionism, monopolistic labor unions, even Jim Crow. The fixed-pie idea is to keep the less fortunate from "stealing our jobs". Otherwise capitalists would use those under-utilized resources.
shacktoms 2 weeks ago
@dovahkiin516 I think that the pollution is a different problem, because of the externalities. In a truly free market there are no externalities. But look here and the correlation with freedom is striking epi.yale.edu/epi2012/map. India went through a period of severe economic controls, but I believe it has been improving since the Singh reforms. Who does the minimum wage help? Not the poor. It is designed to keep them out.
shacktoms 2 weeks ago
@shacktoms how does minimum wage keep them out? I'll let academic research do my talking ..... /watch?feature=player_embedded&v=8MtwgGqJAyY#!
dovahkiin516 2 weeks ago
@dovahkiin516 If employers would ceteris paribus prefer to hire you, then I can compete by undercutting your wage. So if the employer hires you, there is an opportunity cost. However, if the minimum wage is higher than my wage, that opportunity cost is reduced, thus subsidizing the discrimination.
Historically, the minimum wage was enacted during the Great Depression to protect northeastern laborers from competition from Southern blacks, as was Davis-Bacon.
shacktoms 2 weeks ago
@shacktoms I think you completely forgot that in your argument that those historical cultures Korea, Germany, and Israel/Palestine have have been massively bailed out by the US. Germany was supported by the US during the split, Korea was massively helped out economically and militarily, Israel is giving massive amounts of money and military aid each year. So, you say relatively free I see massive foreign government bailouts. So, of course they are doing better lol.
dovahkiin516 2 weeks ago
@dovahkiin516 So you think the difference between those economies was US aid? Except for our military budget (which amounts to foreign aid), the US spends very little on foreign aid, about 1.25% of the federal budget. A lot of that goes to Israel about as much as the sum of aid to Egypt + Jordan. The Marshall Plan helped West Germany, while the totalitarians behind the Iron Curtain made East Germany pay! But if our aid explains it, they why are we so well off?
shacktoms 2 weeks ago
@shacktoms Well, the federal budget is $3.5 trillion so yeah 1.25% is a shit load. Not to mention when you have military bases in other countries that country doesn't have to spend money on a military. My brother is in the navy and he just got back from Qatar. SO, yeah on one hand countries were given free money from the US and military support and advice on their economy where the other countries were entrenched in a proxy war with the US that they had to spend themselves.
dovahkiin516 2 weeks ago
@dovahkiin516 I agree that our military amounts to foreign aid, and helps fund the European social network, improving life there. Yet Europe has otherwise proven to be a threat. But I don't think aid accounts for the differences between East/West Germany or North/South Korea, or even the improving situation in India since liberalization of markets. In many cases our aid was detrimental, e.g. our establishment and propping up of the dictatorship in Palestine, or our support for Saddam Hussein.
shacktoms 2 weeks ago
The title should be "Greenspan Covers His Ass". Of course he will not take any responsibility for his policies at the fed having anything to do with what happened. In addition, people acting in their self interest does not mean that their decisions will all be correct with positive outcomes. Evidently, Greenspan doesn't think politicians, bureaucrats, and political cronies like him don't act in their self interest. Of course they don't -- they're little angels.
cjtorrice 3 weeks ago 3
This has been flagged as spam show
@cjtorrice Do you know that Christianity is correct? The world around us reveals that G-d DOES exist, and the historical evidence reveals that Jesus Christ really did come to this earth and there is overwhelming evidence that Jesus Christ really did physically rise from the dead. Jesus is coming again and the signs of the end times that were foretold in the Bible are coming to pass.
marionetemanJ 3 weeks ago
...He makes Friedman eat his words? I thought Friedman only said that people act in self-interest, not in the interest of the shareholders. Which was the case here, indeed even more the case if you use the concept loosely, since the individuals in these banks acted in their *direct* self interest, increasing the amount they could cream much more in the short term, than the amount available to them in the same time frame if they pursued a sustainable business model.
Vier5501 3 weeks ago
Even if Friedman stated that firms pursue the interest of their shareholders, if we allow for exaggeration, this still appears to remain true; the banking sector makes up only a relatively small proportion of the economy. Largely, firms do appear to pursue the interests of the share holders.
Vier5501 3 weeks ago
So when does Friedman eat his own words? He wasn't even IN the damn video!
ytmndan 3 weeks ago
Govt provided rules regulations and loopholes for those that could not afford things like others that worked for it themselves have to give to others fair or not. Dont rely on a store to provide you fish when you can go and catch them yourself.
TheDuckseason 4 weeks ago
Greenspan, who micro-managed the economy to the point of the collapse via artificially low interest rates, blames capitalism instead of the free money/credit expansion? Of course. He's a bureaucrat.
TigerbythetailFilms 4 weeks ago 95
@TigerbythetailFilms It was totally the opposite! There was trillions of CDOs with no money support. When the crisis came the government could let all banks to broke, leading to recession and deflation or they could buy the "junk bonds" (CDOs, which Obama did), therefore injecting money in the system and generating inflation. So it was a moral failure of capitalists authorized by a permissive government. Inflation = less consumption power = companies devaluated in NYSE, Nasdaq, etc = more crisis
fgbraz87 3 weeks ago
@fgbraz87 Not all banks would go broke. Not even during the GD did all banks go broke. You seem to ignore the government's favorite company Goldman S. and Paulson's role, Fanny and Freddy being able to buy trillions of these loans because the are GSEs and have Big Brother (Taxpayers Money) to back them up -- not to mention all the big salaries and bonuses to all the political cronies that work there, or the Fed's artificial interest rates. In other words-it wasn't capitalism that cause it.
cjtorrice 3 weeks ago 22
@cjtorrice shhhhhhhh someone might understand the truth
PaleoAthletics 1 week ago
@cjtorrice or mb it exatly capitalism and the information you got is a cover story.
just sayn you capitalisum is a fiction don't you?
mastakur 1 week ago
@TigerbythetailFilms so it was his fault the banks' irresponsible and fraudulent practices were the fault of the fed b/c they had cheap credit? and he didn't micro manage the economy, you fucking dolt. look into what the fed does. you had 45 people who agree with your ignorance just goes to show the lack of understanding people have as to what caused the crash. typical
blastsummit 2 weeks ago
@blastsummit yeah, call me a name. That's a great way to convince me and others reading this that you are indeed correct. Keep striving for that higher standard. Perhaps, instead, you should learn the Austrian business cycle (and just non-Keynesian economics) instead of regurgitating the same tired dailykos socialist garbage you just did now. Good luck.
TigerbythetailFilms 2 weeks ago
@TigerbythetailFilms i said nothing regarding socialism, you bloody dolt! it's fools like you that keep america down. and you are NOT an expert in economics. who the fuck are you trying to fool? yourself, perhaps, but not i. now run along and masturbate to your glenn beck poster
blastsummit 2 weeks ago
@blastsummit other classy comments by "blastsummit": "keep swallowing jizz for pocket change! hahaha", "KILL ALL CHRISTIANS!" and "clueless wenches. at least they have nice tits". You are a troll, and as such nothing to take seriously or respectfully. Do yourself a favor and mature a little bit more before you consider using the internet again.
TigerbythetailFilms 2 weeks ago
@TigerbythetailFilms Well, actually, countries where there was more micro-management (as you put it), for example, Canada, actually didn't collapse. "Free money/credit expansion" was regulated (that is, avoided) here in Canada precisely b/c of the gov't regulating interest rates and insuring mortgages, etc.
They are still doing this and that's why The Economist predicts that out housing market will decrease in size like a balloon as opposed to a bubble bursting.
bahramf 1 week ago
@bahramf false equivalences. First, Canada's economy is far less regulated than the American one. It's a far more open market. Secondly, interest rates in Canada haven't been parallel to the US. Canada's central bank also doesn't share the same moral hazards. Third, Canada, unlike the US, did not partake in rounds of Keynesian "stimuli" like the US. There's less vastly less interventionism in Canada than in the US. There's far more to this than the way you put it, most certainly.
TigerbythetailFilms 1 week ago
@TigerbythetailFilms The Canadian economy is far more regulated than the American. How can you deny that? To stave off recession Canada's interest rates were lowered and they're..
bahramf 1 week ago
@bahramf ...about to be bumped back up. Of course the rates haven't been parallel. That doesn't make a it a false equivalency in and of itself. I don't know what "moral hazards you're referin
bahramf 1 week ago
@bahramf you might think so merely because you have higher income taxes, but for a number of years Canada has outperformed the US in the economic freedom indices. See also: Heritage foundation index of economic freedom, Fraser institute's index. The Americans have 80,000 pages worth of regulations written by the banking industry. There's also more regulatory capture in the US as well. As you can see, there's far more corporatism in the US than Canada has ever had.
TigerbythetailFilms 1 week ago
@TigerbythetailFilms
I agree, you can't even begin to have anything close to a free market when you have something like a "Greenspan Put" that Wall Street can always rely on to bail them out of hard landings.
tippingpts 5 days ago
the title is very misleading, @sfjeff1089 I totally agree with you
arthsable 1 month ago
I think you guys are missing the point. This was not a failure of the free market. This recession was the result of government meddling in the free market. Here, you see Bill Clinton's drive to increase home ownership (and, ghast, BANK PROFITS), meddled with the natural order of the free market. Banks gave loans to people it would never have, normally, because Clinton was forcing Fanny and Freddy to guarantee home loans! This isn't a free market failure, it's another leftist policy gone wrong.
toobadsosad83 1 month ago
@toobadsosad83 The problem with that analysis is it skips a step. The first step is incomes go down. The second step is, loan-based purchasing takes over for income-based purchasing, and it continues a lot like the standard conservative model, except that conservatives and liberals react differently to the idea that there is a strong profit motive for doing the wrong thing in banking. Once you put all the leverage in the hands of the rich the rest tends to follow.
sfjeff1089 1 month ago
@sfjeff1089 Ironically if you ask someone like Boehner about his plan for fixing the economy he will say "Restore confidence". This is ironic because what confidence means is that people take on more debt causing the multiplier to increase, lifting the economy. This has very little ability to compensate for most of the money winding up in the hands of non-spenders, which caused the Great Depression last time and has increased systemic risk vastly this time.
sfjeff1089 1 month ago
The banks used to protect their share holders and clients.
The banks received a guarantee from our corrupt government that they could make bad loans based on PC lending practices the lefty politicos cooked up and get PAID their commissions and the banks could never go bankrupt. That's better then working!
The government stole our money and bailed out the big banks, corrupt failed businesses once their failed business model predictably collapsed along with the housing bubble they inflated .
richfisherman 1 month ago
Friedman is still right.
Sucker.
richfisherman 1 month ago
@richfisherman If we reinstate Glass Steagall, then the banks making risky bets can be allowed to fail without putting millions of people out of work. As long as we don't have Glass Steagall, our banks have us in a hostage situation.
sfjeff1089 1 month ago
How is Friedman being forced to eat his words? Knowing the government was standing by to bail out Too Big To Fail entities removed the risk of failure from said entities' activities; thus emboldening their bad behavior. Conversely, Friedman's philosophy is grounded on the free market's tendency to devour such incompetence and unethical behavior; not on propping it up and enabling it.
How brazen of Greenspan to point the finger at Friedman, but could we expect less of a bureaucrat?
pattershow 1 month ago
@pattershow The problem with conservative logic is it paints with too broad a brush stroke. If a group of KKK near Birmingham lynched someone, you don't start killing KKK members in Mason. Similarly, when US was mad at Noriega, a dictator we installed by setting up a coup for Omar Torrijos, US invaded and killed 4000 civilians just to make a point. Making millions of people lose their jobs to ensure that hundreds of already wealthy people "suffer" is the same fallacy.
sfjeff1089 1 month ago
@sfjeff1089 I don't think that is a conservative ideal. I have never heard a true conservative ever advocate something like that but I am sure neocons would.
xx8visionSxx 1 month ago
@xx8visionSxx Point taken. Ironically, Neoliberal and Neoconservative are both better labels than conservative.
sfjeff1089 1 month ago
@sfjeff1089 The reason I said that is because the basic ideals of conservatism is small government and the free market economy. Now if you look at the current GOP candidates you see neocons except for Ron Paul because Mitt Romney, Santorum, and Gingrich all want to increase government and go to war while Ron Paul wants to decrease the size of government and get out of the wars. Ron Paul is the only one that seems to be conservative.
xx8visionSxx 1 month ago
@xx8visionSxx I think, though, that Reagan and the Bushes actually did push through a lot of policies Ron Paul agrees with, like the tax decreases, the union-busting, etc. Even Clinton established favored trading nation status with China and allowed Glass Steagall to be dismantled on his watch. Remove the space from
bit .ly/zRFTwe
When we had unions and a high tax rate on the rich the debt decreased rapidly. When we killed the unions and shifted the tax burden to the poor, growth slowed
sfjeff1089 1 month ago
@sfjeff1089 Whether we tax the rich more or not is a debatable issue because some may gain wealth through productive and honest means or through ripping off the people. Also look before 1913 when we had no income tax. When we had a free market economy was when we thrived the most. Ron Paul wishes to eliminate the income tax ideally but Ron Paul is also practical so that I do not think he would try it immediately. Lower taxes increase jobs and growth.
xx8visionSxx 1 month ago
@xx8visionSxx Re: before 1913. We spent a greater percent of time in recession before 1913. Also, the growth rate over this period includes the addition of several new states. We had major fights for progressive reform in the late 19th century celebrated in literature with The Jungle, and reflected in law with the 8 hour work day act for federal employees in 1869. In any case, growth was far slower than the 1930's when progressivism was in full swing. Did you look at my graph?
sfjeff1089 1 month ago
@sfjeff1089 Yes I saw your graph. Responding to an earlier statement about Ron Paul liking Reagan and Bush's policies, he did not support Reagan's policies but the message that Reagan campaigned on. Reagan did not keep to his message. My main point was that conservatism is not about war-mongering, that is neocon ideals. I just believe that the free market is what America was founded on and prospered from and I think we should return to that seeing as how keynesian economics is not working now.
xx8visionSxx 1 month ago
@xx8visionSxx I am 100% with Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich on the foreign policy issue. My only problem with the economic policies is they don't work.
The period 1980 - 2010 should not be considered an example of keynesian economics not working because what changed was Keynsian economics went out of favor, growth slowed, and debt rose.
remove the space from bit .ly/zYoJJZ
sfjeff1089 1 month ago
@sfjeff1089 remove the space to see many of the triggers of today's inequality:
bit .ly/xoMtuJ
Also, remove the space to see the effect on middle class wages. It goes without saying you cannot have a growing economy without a thriving middle class.
bit .ly/sOOfKq
sfjeff1089 1 month ago
@sfjeff1089 I think it's wrong to connect taxation with debt increases in any way shape or form. This is because levels of taxation, on the rich, or on the poor, have nothing to do with the deficit. Government is spending beyond its means on orders of magnitude beyond revenue. You could raise taxes, on everyone, to 70% and still wouldn't come close to breaking even annually. The problem is big government.
toobadsosad83 1 month ago
@toobadsosad83 Where are your numbers coming from? The 70% number is completely bogus. Tax rates on the rich and the poor have everything to do with GDP, which in turn has a huge impact on debt. Radical left wing and Radical right wing economies have opposite problems. In a radical left wing economy you need to give the rich an opportunity to build stuff. In a radical right wing economy like the US you need to make sure the poor are able to buy stuff.
sfjeff1089 1 month ago
Comment removed
zzxo 1 month ago
@zzxo Re: "If the bank is too big to fail, the bank is too big." We are in complete agreement on that. That's why I believe in a return to Glass-Steagall. Politicians know that if a bank goes under, it will likely have 10k or more private businesses with existing lending relationships that will get hurt. Also, new private loans will instantly stop, so millions of people who had nothing to do with the crisis will get hurt. (continued)
sfjeff1089 1 month ago
@sfjeff1089 ... There is a reason that hostage-taking is illegal and Glass-Steagall can be thought of as the analogous rules for banks and the economy.
sfjeff1089 1 month ago
@sfjeff1089 I can't say I am as familiar with that Act and the part of it's repeal as I would like to be in order to make a satisfying comment. I do not know all of the cause and effects. But, I am of the opinion that those private businesses and the investors would recover sooner with the a "hurt".
zzxo 1 month ago
@zzxo The point of Glass Steagall is, if you are in the business of offering bank loans to businesses, you shouldn't also be in the business of making high-risk bets. High risk bets can destroy assets quickly and you shouldn't be doing that with other people's money. The difference between a progressive and a libertarian on this issue is that the libertarian believes you have committed a crime when the roulette wheel doesn't come up 8 Red and the progressive believes the crime happened earlier
sfjeff1089 1 month ago
@sfjeff1089 Obama likes crony capitalism more than he "thinks" because he creates more government by which they can gain more control. Friedman on the other hand would rather see less government therefore less control through government. Just look up at how big drug/health companies use the FDA to keep out competition. Look at who lobbies FOR national healthcare. Companies can achieve monopolies in this way. Any centralizing/consolidation of power is bad.
zzxo 1 month ago
@zzxo Sorry, I can't see what comment you are responding too. However, the term for a society without concentration of power is not capitalism. It's anarchism. I say that without irony - you can look up some of Noam Chomksy's early works/videos for a balanced treatment of that.
But I think that Centralized power vs Lack of centralized power is a false dichotomy. A more interesting perspective is the framing founder's concept of separated powers instead of concentrated powers.
sfjeff1089 1 month ago
This has been flagged as spam show
@zzxo @zzxo Sorry, I can't see what comment you are responding too. However, the term for a society without concentration of power is not capitalism. It's anarchism. I say that without irony - you can look up some of Noam Chomksy's early works/videos for a balanced treatment of that.
But I think that Centralized power vs Lack of centralized power is a false dichotomy. A more interesting perspective is the framing founder's concept of separated powers instead of concentrated powers.
sfjeff1089 1 month ago
@sfjeff1089 Anarchism is a society with no government. Capitalism is with limited government typically focused on property rights. I say "concentrated power" in terms of controlling markets like Mortgages, Education, and Healthcare. Example: Government consolidating healthcare is a negative thing. It is non-capitalism. The more non-capitalism the more our markets can't function properly.
zzxo 1 month ago
@zzxo health-care is a really interesting example because there is a big asymmetry of information problem. It is considered a competitive disadvantage to communicate exactly what they cover. This is pretty much the opposite of the Chicago board of trade where people give up freedom in dimensions that don't matter much in order to have industry-defined standard products that people can buy and sell at will. (continued)
sfjeff1089 1 month ago
@sfjeff1089 ... With the ability to buy standard healthcare packages and know what you are getting, it would be more possible to realize the benefits that capitalism promises.
sfjeff1089 1 month ago
@sfjeff1089 I simply see the current healthcare industry as a separation of consumer and provider. We have no family doctors or more affordable hospitals. I am not fully studied in why exactly that is yet, but I do suspect regulation, the results of some law suites, and the dependents on insurance. I have many theories that I can't wait to study. That will be next year.
zzxo 1 month ago
@zzxo the key statistic about healthcare we should be paying attention to is, socialist countries in Europe pay half what we do for health care and get far better results in the median case. We have the best system in the world for the top 1%, but we do very poorly for everybody else. Conservatives like to point to law suits and insurance, which I am sure contribute, but the legal system is "good" inefficiency. It is better to be less efficient and just than the alternative.
sfjeff1089 1 month ago
@zzxo RE: "I say "concentrated power" in terms of controlling markets like Mortgages, Education, and Healthcare." One thing that typically gets conflated are rule-setting vs production when talking about government. Is a government that sets lots and lots of rules but doesn't provide many services big? Is a government that sets minimal rules but provides lots and lots of services big? Clarity on this makes economic discussion easier.
sfjeff1089 1 month ago
@sfjeff1089 ... I think that the most important thing to analyze in any economic situation is, who profits from what types of activities. There is no such thing as a first-world society without rules. As you mentioned, property rights are a necessary first step. Property rights require laws on both the information side and the enforcement side, and I think that the information side often gets slighted in those discussions. Second, you also need limitations on power. (continued 2)
sfjeff1089 1 month ago
@sfjeff1089 If I own a shop and my competitor is across the street, I can increase my sales and decrease the chance he will be present and competing with me by walking across the street and punching him in the nose. This might be doable in a free market via reputation, but there is no reason or even excuse for society to accept a slow, indirect approach to this. If you don't limit power, then the most ruthless get all the benefits of society.
sfjeff1089 1 month ago
@sfjeff1089 I just look at cause and effect. Rules can almost be as bad as the actual providing. Rules can benefit Coca Cola and hurt Pepsi, or you can just scrap them both and provide Government Coke. Either way, no one gets a fair deal.
zzxo 1 month ago
@zzxo Sorry, I don't understand your coke pepsi analogy. The point of having rules is to make sure that it is more rewarding to produce something, sell it, and buy a vcr than it is to break a window and steal your neighbor's VCR. When it is more profitable to break a window and steal a VCR, then that is bad for society. Similarly, when it is ok to mine Uranium and pollute drinking water, that's bad. Ideally you put your best scientists into making the rules, and make them open. (continued)
sfjeff1089 1 month ago
@sfjeff1089 Anyway, libertarians like to say, which do you want? Rules or efficient production? That is like saying, which do you want? Football players or referees? Why don't we save lots of money and encourage free-market competition by just firing all the bureaucratic, red tape, football referees? The problem is, in the economy, private companies looking to cut corners have really good propaganda departments and political arms.
sfjeff1089 1 month ago
@sfjeff1089 Given that rich people benefit from getting rid of mining regulations and only poor people benefit from not getting cancer, we need to have a progressive bias, not a libertarian one.
sfjeff1089 1 month ago
@sfjeff1089 Sometimes rules benefit some "rich people" is what the analogy was trying to say. Coke being the richer than Pepsi. Breaking windows is a property rights issue. You don't need rules to make a VCR. You need Capitalism. Polluting drinking water would also be a property rights issue. No need for more regulation. If you don't want to mine, don't mine.
zzxo 1 month ago
@zzxo "Polluting drinking water would also be a property rights issue. No need for more regulation. If you don't want to mine, don't mine."
What is your point here???
If you don't want to murder, don't murder.
Surely we can come up with a better set of laws then that...
sfjeff1089 1 month ago
@sfjeff1089 It's simple. Why would the uranium mine company not be guilty if its actions effected the drinking water that the public pays for? The people pay for drinkable water that the mining company ruins. What more rules do you need? That is a clear violation of property.
zzxo 1 month ago
@zzxo the uranium mine company would be guilty because it followed the rules. By having standards, you can actually make it easier for a Uranium company to mine because they can know they are in compliance during and they won't get sued later. Also, they are less likely to be at a competitive advantage to someone who cheats. Further, ask anyone with cancer whether they would rather have tort success or that there had been clear guidelines from the beginning.
sfjeff1089 1 month ago
@sfjeff1089 If a business is going to get sued for something, it will do everything it possibly can to prevent that from happening. What you are imposing is that the government do that for them. Well, now you just cost that business twice the amount of money to do business because government services like that are not free. How much money do oil companies have to pay the EPA? ALOT!
zzxo 1 month ago
@zzxo Why do oil companies have to pay the EPA a lot??? I think that's a myth put out by oil companies that want to pollute your drinking water at will.
It is not about regulation being expensive. It is about compliance being expensive. Seriously. Watch this short video and tell me the free market is working:
bit .ly/uMV5JS
If you are so interested in replacing law with tort, why not do it in other areas? Eg. Make Murder and theft civil matters. Answer - because it is a bad idea.
sfjeff1089 1 month ago
@sfjeff1089 BAHAHA! That video makes my point! The EPA lets Koch do it! Get rid of the EPA! More government creates more inequality! A bought out EPA lets Koch do the polluting with less consequences! More "rules" equal more inequality in a "capitalistic" society. The EPA doesn't create an equal playing field in that video. It makes it worse!
zzxo 1 month ago
@zzxo Now you are being arrogant. Please propose a better solution than the EPA. Should we get rid of all the police if we find out a murderer got off free?
sfjeff1089 1 month ago
@sfjeff1089 They have to pay because they BREAK THE LAW. And they don't pay ENOUGH. It is just part of the cost of doing business. They either need to be fined to the extent that they cannot make a profit while polluting or they need to be thrown in jail.
bbnatedogg 1 month ago
@bbnatedogg That sounds like you agree with me. My point is, if companies are better off doing things that are harmful to us and the environment, then that means we as a country need to change our incentive structure and enforcement. It is sort of the opposite of the "Free markets as religion" idea.
sfjeff1089 1 month ago
@sfjeff1089 I do agree with you. I wasn't arguing. We have enough of that on the tube.
bbnatedogg 1 month ago
@zzxo "You don't need rules to make a VCR. You need Capitalism" Sure you need rules!! You said yourself that you can't make a VCR without property rights. Those are rules. Also, you need personal liberty rules as well, unless that is covered under property. Further, these are fuzzy categories and require pragmatic interpretation. For example, where do you draw the line between literal slavery, wage slavery in deliberately dampened opportunity and full equality of opportunity.
sfjeff1089 1 month ago
@sfjeff1089 Ignoring the first part... echoed my point. We are using "rules' as a very broad word. To me, there is constitutional law, personal contracts, and then social rules. Constitutional law is the main concern for me. The other two "rules' are voluntary.
zzxo 1 month ago
@zzxo Re: rules. you have to prove that they work, not that they are succinct.
sfjeff1089 1 month ago
@zzxo onother perspective comes from the difference between owning and renting/contracting. If you own something, then you take a risk by renting or contracting because you increase distance and make verification more difficult. Certain things can *never* be truly owned by a private company, eg. education. Barring slavery, no private company will ever profit from someone completing 16 years of education, so by definition there is a contracting relationship there. (continued)
sfjeff1089 1 month ago
@sfjeff1089 Once you determine there is a contracting relationship regardless, next step is to talk about what the most effective motivational structure there is. The "Big Government" approach to schools is basically an agency approach. They act as agent of the people, which can be problematic because it relies on feedback, reputation, and the people's power to replace administrations. However even if the job is subcontracted to third party, you still have that problem. (continued 2)
sfjeff1089 1 month ago
@sfjeff1089 ...2 - You potentially have other problems also. The contractor needs a profit margin, compared with profit being maintained by the people. This can be offset by the contractor being more efficient, which means cutting less profitable activities, forcing people to work harder, etc., but the business is specifically motivated by a different view of profitability which is probably closer to "visible" then "effective at producing educated individuals 10 years down the road". (... 3)
sfjeff1089 1 month ago
@sfjeff1089 ...3 - The contractor's view on "Profit" on the other hand, means "what can be billed". This means that contrary to it's internal mission of keeping costs as low as possible, its external mission is to keep costs to government as high as possible. This can be a powerful force for corruption. The true alternative to "big government" that pays for 20 years of education is "small government that does not educate its people". But we all know how that turns out.
sfjeff1089 1 month ago
@sfjeff1089 I don't understand. Private schools do not profit? I can never legally own property? I hear intellectual property rights is a growing subject these days too. I think more legal battles are about them or something.
zzxo 1 month ago
This has been flagged as spam show
@sfjeff1089 I don't understand. Private schools do not profit? I can never legally own property? I hear intellectual property rights is a growing subject these days too. I think more legal battles are about them or something.
zzxo 1 month ago
@sfjeff1089 I don't understand. Private schools do not profit?
zzxo 1 month ago
@zzxo Private schools do not profit from the product they create - educated minds. They profit like all contractors profit - by either convincing someone they did a good job or by convincing others that they did a good job. I am not saying that that is necessarily bad. I am saying that there is by definition a motivation to raise costs to the public that doesn't exist in public schools. Obviously private payment mitigates contractor distance. The defense sector might be a more clear example
sfjeff1089 1 month ago
@sfjeff1089 I believe you are leaving out the people's choice to choose a school. This choice is what forces the school to satisfy a particular audience. From what I have seen, private schools do more with less. I've seen reports were states hide costs to favor their student to dollar ratio. They hide parts of the their budget like pension costs. I disagree that you can't put a dollar value on good education because people will notice. Consumers are not powerless.
zzxo 1 month ago
@zzxo I am not really talking about private schools funded by parents, although I have heard that only 17% actually do a better job. But in any case, if vouchers were put into place, they would take funds away from public schools and pretty much throw "equality of opportunity" out the window. But anyway, the point is, they are ultimately contractors, and unlike government employees, government contractors have a huge profit motive adverse to their mission.
sfjeff1089 1 month ago
@sfjeff1089 I don't disagree that government spends far more money on contractors than if it were a normal private to private transaction. That's why it would be better to privatize education all together. Now on this notion of "taking away funds from public schools" would be a normal thing. That would be down sizing, not to be confused with elimination. Also, "equal opportunity" is achievable with privatization. There would be a market for poorer people.
zzxo 1 month ago
@zzxo "There would be a market for poorer people." Then write a business plan and build a business around this in Indonesia. No shortage of poor people there. Thanks to violent conflict which has been directly sponsored by the US in a blatant free market resource grab/debt trap, you have large portions of the public relocated from ancestral lands and forced to work for companies like Nike 6 days a week, 12 hours a day at $2 a day. You could get many kudos, but no investors.
sfjeff1089 1 month ago
@sfjeff1089 Our poor would defiantly have options. Impoverish areas don't have the capital to produce such options. Impoverished areas would benefit from $2 per day. You would have to inform me on the violent conflict there. All I know is that it's a mixed economy.
zzxo 1 month ago
@zzxo Re: poor having options. That won't last long if libertarians control the economy. They try to sell the idea that having capital accumulation in a region is the source of prosperity. In actuality, you need two things: one person needs to make something and the other needs to buy it. Reaganomics was sold as the idea that if you tax the people who make TVs less and provide less services to the people who buy TV's, then you would have increased TV production. (continued)
sfjeff1089 1 month ago
@sfjeff1089 It didn't work. People made fewer TV's for the simple reason that people quit buying them. You can see the results by adding a space to the following links before the dot.
libertarian influence on the Debt:
bit .ly/zRFTwe
Reagan, Bush, and Bush had around 0 per capita GDP growth over 20 years:
bit .ly/vzBVNN
Union membership was high when we grew and both slowed down together:
bit .ly/sS0Tib
Plenty of efficiency, but no pay:
bit .ly/sOOfKq
sfjeff1089 1 month ago
@sfjeff1089 Libertarians influence on debt and THAT( bit .ly/zRFTwe) graph is misleading and disingenuous. #1 what President is really libertarian. #2 That graph associates the President with debt when actually Congress has more influence, which you can see at the end of Bush's term spike up when Democrats took it. Republicans prevented Clinton from spending too much money. I am sorry but these graphs with your points aren't solid.
zzxo 1 month ago
@zzxo Don't forget that Warren Harding ran on the principal of "Returning to Laissez Faire". He busted unions in the 1920's, lowered the top income tax rate to 25%, and in general tried to remove every constraint on business. The asset industries approached today's levels of 40% of economic dollars. Meanwhile the real economy shrank because pay is determined by leverage, not by contribution, and the wealthy had all the leverage when he was done.
sfjeff1089 1 month ago