The Housing Bubble

Yep! That’s it in a nutshell.

Of course Barry was going to abolish all this lobbying, and would have none on his team.”Gonna change” the way Washington does bidness.

I bet ole Barry and the cigar-chomping plutocrats financing his campaign had a great laugh over the gullibility of the rubes when they met in smoky back rooms to decide how his administration would REALLY operate, i.e. doing the bidding of its Bankster masters.

Sammy- How do you know Ron Paul wasn’t there, yukking it up with Barry and the Banksters? As long as we’re talking plutocrats secretly running the show, wouldn’t they be smart enough to keep him in their stable, too? Give the ‘tin foil hatters’ a sense of empowerment and possibilty, keep them from ‘taking it to the streets’ and such? Maybe you’re being played, too…

Rule no. 1- Trust no one.

alpha - LOL. Sorry, but you lost whatever credibility you may have had with that post. Unless perhaps it was tongue-in-cheek?

I suppose you think that Lucifer and Jesus have sat down and had a few beers to plot world strategy too, eh?

They’re paying you to squelch me, aren’t they?

Read the Book of Job. God and the Devil yukk it up like war buddies.

I see no reason Ron wouldn’t fit right into the banksters plans for world domination, for the reasons I outlined above. That you seem to find it unthinkably shocking just goes to show what a good job they do.

http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/index.php?cycle=2008

Look it up yourself, Alpha. Campaign finance is a matter of pubic record. The banksters owned McCain and Obama. Ron Paul, by contrast, relied on small individual donors.

So you’re saying Ron Paul is playing the same role as Volker.

Yes I have read the book of Job. Not exactly “yukking it up”, just setting terms for competition; mortal enemies picking a battlefield.

I do realize that the banksters often yuk it up with their supposed enemies - e.g. guys who are supposed to be all about “free markets” like Reagan, Bush etc and also guys who are all about “restricting” the banks like Barry etc., but who in reality are just in bed with them, with any actions they take mostly being red herrings. However it’s quite obvious that’s not the case with Ron Paul. If it’s not obvious to you, you’re not paying attention. The very core of Paul’s existence is all about trying to expose and then get rid of the Fed, which is the very core of the Megabanksters’ existence.

So you’re saying Ron Paul is playing the same role as Volker.

FWIW - I know he often gets praise from the HBB, but I’m not sold on Volcker at all. The very fact that he was head of the Fed is a huge strike against him. Yes he raised rates to squelch inflation/credit expansion. But we know the Fed is all about creating bubbles and expanding debt - often the best way to do this is to use the “wave” effect, with the creation of a contraction period only serving to whip-saw into a larger expansion period. Just look at the end result of the next few years - an explosion of debt in the late 1980’s.

So in that respect I’d say your response is correct actually - in that at least alpha’s proposed role of Paul is the same as the actual role of Volcker; that of the “good cop”. In the case of Ron Paul though he’s the real deal. I think that he’s perhaps “allowed to exist” politically, but not because he’s on the same side (like Volcker), moreso perhaps as an ineffective sideshow; someone to bring hope to the opposition in lieu of all-out revolution.

I’m not so sure God and the Devil are ‘mortal’ enemies in the Book of Job- one of the Bible’s more atypical books. They seem more like two old friends making bets on a sports game. It’s one of the things that makes that book so interesting. It’s not quite the relationship we’re taught in Sunday school.

But- one blasphemy at a time, and I was on Ron Paul. You yourself say he is ” ‘allowed to exist’, politically”. Well, why allow a true potential danger to challenge you when it’s much safer to maintain your own stable of ‘challengers’, letting them go just so far, get just so popular, but then reining them in when need be. Seems much safer and more logical than allowing a true popular challenger to everything you’ve worked on for so long, and with such success, no?

Or do conspiracies end just where we want them to, and go no further?

Who said he was a potential danger? I just said he was an enemy.

Nevertheless - the PTB is not actually omnipotent. They can’t necessarily just take out any enemy on a whim without some significant risk to their own cause. If the enemy isn’t a large enough threat, then he’s not worth taking out.

FWIW - I think there’s a very good chance that JFK may have been one of those such people - worth the risk, because he was a large enough threat.

How’s that for conspiracy theory?

What was JFK’s threat to the PTB? Wasn’t his dad an OG in the PTB? From back in the day…

The head of the NI has recently testified before Congress that killing a US citizen for whatever reason is now accepted policy.

I just saw this the other day and I’ve lost the reference. I post if I can find it, but here’s the snippet:

“…on February 3 Dennis Blair, director of National Intelligence told the House Intelligence Committee that it was now “defined policy” that the U.S. government can murder its own citizens on the sole basis of someone in the government’s judgment that an American is a threat. No arrest, no trial, no conviction, just execution on suspicion of being a threat. ”

Someone Google that if you can.

Didn’t see that particular quote, but did see this one:

Blair also told Congress Wednesday that the Internet is providing the fuel for the growing problem of “homegrown radicalization.”

“That … has been one of the most dangerous uses of the Internet,” Blair said, explaining that foreign groups are using the Internet to organize attacks, give instructions and arrange financing.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/02/03/intel-chief-risk-crippling-cyber-attack/

It always makes me nervous when they talk about “homegrown terrorists.” Are they referring to actual Al Qaeda here, or is he referring to American citizens who are rightfully protesting against the government? Very slipper slope there, and the main reason that we should not use a single (or even a few) incident like the Christmas “bomber” to recind the rights of U.S. citizens.

“…banks can just refuse credit outright.”

Then the cash-starved get learn to do without.

They get to enjoy a tuition-free course on Economic Reality101.

It’s all good.

“They get to enjoy a tuition-free course on Economic Reality101.”

Experience keeps a dear school, but fools will learn in no other.

– Benjamin Franklin –

(Professor Bear never, ever gets tired of that quote!)

“Experience keeps a dear school, but fools will learn in no other”

So what has the Fed’s “experience” taught Sir Greenisspent, other than how to achieve Knighthood?

King Cash tightens his noose? From the article:

“New restrictions in the Credit CARD Act of 2009 limit the upfront fees credit card issuers can charge on subprime accounts. The low-credit, high-cost cards, known as fee harvesting credit cards, are issued to people with bad credit or no credit history and feature credit limits of $500 or less. Issuers typically charge a slew of fees at the outset to compensate for the risk of lending to people with poor repayment histories. Starting Feb. 22, 2010, the law will limit upfront fees to no more than 25 percent of the available credit on the account.

snip

He adds: “It’s going to be very difficult for these individuals to obtain credit after February.”

snip

Response to 79.9% Offer ‘Phenomenal’

Has First Premier gotten any takers on the 79.9 percent cards? Beacom called the response “phenomenal,” adding 2 percent of people receiving the offers have applied for the cards. Their normal response rates is 1 percent to 1.2 percent, he says. “It’s double what our normal product was.” ‘

“Please list their achievements regarding sub-prime loans:”

1. January 2007 - July 2007: U.S. subprime mortgage lending sector collapses and vaporizes, disappearing from the face of the planet.

2. August 2007: Subprime is contained.

I think Hillary was the favorite right about then, lil’ Opie hadn’t been yet baptized in the clean cool waters in the Cheney-Shrub tub.

This is right. The last time I bought appliances at Sears, they had this 12-month no interest, but the interesting thing at the time (a couple of years ago) was that they were the only ones who started accruing interest AFTER the 12 months. They did not apply it all at once the minute the 12 months was over. That was the best policy I could find, but I paid off the appliances before the 12 months were up, so I did not get a chance to test it. I don’t know if it’s still in place.

It might be a good deal to those who pay on time.

I buy all my desktops and laptops from dell… FWIW, I have always gotten 0 percent for 6 or 12 months on my computers and always paid them in full by month 5 or 11. It’s a game, and if you know the rules, you have a much better chance of winning.

That’s how we bought our Select Comfort beds from Sleep Train. The offer was no interest for 12 months. We made monthly payments and had the bed paid off before interest rates kicked in.

Yes, but you still need to collect a substantial down-payment to recover the “stripper” costs of missing fixtures and appliances, along with malicious damage done to the property.
I think the days of low down payments need to end.
Got 20%? No? No Deal.

“I think the days of low down payments need to end.”

Truer words never have been spoken.

However, if low/no down loans were to disappear tomorrow, and be replaced with ONLY conforming loans (20% down, or there’s simply NO way to buy a house), the price of houses would go into a free fall.

How may people do you know that have 5 figures in their banking/savings accounts? And, of the 40-45% of this population that doesn’t already own, what do you think their avg and median liquid funds are? I’m guessing 3-5K (but that’s totally a guess), assuming you don’t figure in debt load (CC and cars). With CCs and cars, I would venture a guess that the avg savings of the 40% of America that does not already own a house is a negative number.

“the price of houses would go into a free fall. ”
Ding. ding. ding.
And………..there you have it. The solution to “affordable” housing. Without ridiculous credit schemes, the prices could never have gotten so well beyond reasonable rates of indebted ness. I favor CHEAP houses.
Cheap houses are FREEDOM. I would like to be able to move freely about the country and rent a room for $10 a night, or buy a house for $10,000. Wouldn’t that be wonderful??
The “value” of the dollar would be greatly increased.
But, then, there are always those parasites that want to “TRADE” houses for MORE and MORE money, as a source of income. They don’t want CHEAP houses. They want the prices to keep going up and up and up, so they can skim money out of them. Screw them.
Shut down the credit supply. Drop the prices to near zero.
Screw the debtors!! Proclaim Freedom throughout the land.

I see no reason it has to stay this way. The Sherman Antitrust Act (or similar law) could be invoked to transform America’s cancerous banking sector back into a competitive service industry which works for Main Street American prosperity instead of Wall Street fat cats. We all should push for this in the next U.S. presidential election cycle — i.e., seek out and support a candidate (candidates?) who recognize the tremendous potential wealth of America’s combined productive capacity that could be unleashed if our banking sector were transformed from the monopoly model to the competitive model.

This is Economics 001 — probably even explained in Bernanke’s text books.

I don’t know, arizonadude. Name a big ticket item that anybody “needs” that you can’t buy on Craigslist for pennies on the dollar.

So, you saying your still free to live a simple life in America…interesting how the Amish figured this out without a college education or a extension of credit.

Name a big ticket item that anybody “needs” that you can’t buy on Craigslist for pennies on the dollar.

Insurance, employment, security clearance. Your ‘credit score’ affects a lot more than your ability to buy stuff on credit.

No alpha, I meant possessions that people would normally pay for with a credit card. My point is that people don’t really need them.

Airline tickets and hotel rooms.

You really can’t do without a CC. It’s totally painful to the point of excruciation.

And rental cars, or for that matter rental anything.

It really is virtually impossible to live anything other than a reclusive hermit lifestyle without a CC these days, at least though the bulk of life. Possible exception would be elderly folk who only care about hanging out at home, whose family only comes to visit them, and pretty much only buy groceries and an occasional consumer item.

A visa debit card will suffice for a credit card. As fewer and fewer people have access to, and use, credit cards, the companies which are losing business will adapt and even find a way to accept cash. Nobody wants to lose customers.

I was older than 30 before I got a credit card, I didn’t feel like I was living the life of a recluse, and I DID get a clearance. I lived a modest existance, but that was because of a lack of funds, not a lack of a particular method of payment.

+1. Strip the Federal government of all powers not explicitly granted in the Constitution. Grant voting rights only to those who can pass a civics test (similar to what they give to new immigrants) and pay more into the system in taxes than they take out in benefits. Selecting our state and national leadership is too important to be left to an ill-informed, easily-manipulated rabble who want benefits someone else will have to pay for. Ban false and misleading political advertising.

Why did we have so many depressions and panics in the days before the Fed, when we were on the gold standard?

We are always going to have depressions and panics, because we will always have greed, speculation, and adverse events like droughts and crop failure. But back then the gov’t mostly let the situation sort itself out, which it always did.

We didn’t have “depressions” as they are now called, mostly panics and short-term corrections. Prices remained relatively constant except during war times when government graft and monopolies curtailed supplies and we wasted our resources.
As Sammy noted, the corrections were usually made within a year or 2, after the bad investments were LIquidaTED, A concept not wanting to be reviewed by the current FED.

It took the Federal Reserve System and Modern Banking to create the GREAT DEPRESSION…… 12 long years of a failing economy (the dust bowl didn’t help) and a massive world war, destroying all other major economies in the process, to regain a growing prosperous American economy.

Diogenes, I see you’ve had more than the High School version of US history. You know, the version that says Roosevelt and the New Deal ended the Depression and saved us all.

What a crock of s**t.

“Why did we have so many depressions and panics in the days before the Fed, when we were on the gold standard”?

There have always been corrections from over exuberance, but they quickly correct when you take the gubmint equation out!

Actually, if you guys really knew history and hadn’t had it spoon-fed to you on your goldbug websites, you’d know that recessions/depressions/panics were regular and devastating occurrences in the industrial world in the good old gold-standard/no regulation days. The idea that they were quickly cleaned up due to the magic of the free market is laughably unhistorical- ie from a long distance in the future everything seems like no big deal. (”The South got mouthy about slaves, the North whupped ‘em, and we all moved on- no biggy.”)

Here’s a little homeschooling for your further edumacation. From wikipedia, it’s about the “Long Depression” in the unregulated gold-standard good old days:

“The Long Depression was a worldwide economic crisis experienced in the latter half of the Victorian era, though there is some controversy over whether it should be labeled a depression or a series of recessions. The Long Depression was felt most heavily in Europe and the United States, which had been experiencing strong economic growth fueled by the Second Industrial Revolution and the conclusion of the American Civil War. At the time, the episode was labeled the Great Depression, remaining so until the vastly more severe (albeit much shorter in duration) Great Depression of the 1930s. Though a period of general deflation and low growth began in 1873, it did not have the severe “economic retrogression [and] spectacular breakdown” of the Great Depression.[1]

It was most notable in Western Europe and North America, at least in part because reliable data from the period is most readily available in those parts of the world. The United Kingdom is often considered to have been the hardest hit; during this period it lost some of its large industrial lead over the economies of Continental Europe.[2] While it was occurring, the view was prominent that the economy of the United Kingdom had been in continuous depression from 1873 to as late as 1896, some texts refer to the period as the Great Depression of 1873–96; modern economics does not support this view.[3]

In the United States, economists typically refer to the Long Depression as the Depression of 1873–79, which followed the Panic of 1873. The National Bureau of Economic Research dates the contraction following the panic as lasting from October 1873 to March 1879. At 65 months, it is the longest-lasting contraction identified by the NBER, eclipsing the Great Depression’s 43 months of contraction.[4] [5] Following the end of the episode in 1879, the U.S. economy would remain unstable, experiencing recessions for 114 of the 253 months until January 1901. ” [4]

This bears repeating and highlighting….

It took the Federal Reserve System and Modern Banking to create the GREAT DEPRESSION…… 12 long years of a failing economy (the dust bowl didn’t help) and a massive world war, destroying all other major economies in the process, to regain a growing prosperous American economy.

And now since our post-WWII competitive advantage has gone away, around the 1980’s - what’s happened? - an economy purely fueled by growth of new debt, and therefore quite unsustainable.

The U.S. economy is soon going to cease to be the world’s #1 economy, with a very good chance of simply ceasing to exist at all (i.e. merged with a general world economy), and the blame lies squarely on the Federal Reserve.

Which Great Depression are you refering to, Packman? The one in the 1930s or the much longer one in the gold-standard, no Fed 1870s, -80s, and -90s?

Not sure I understand. The “long depression” of the 1870’s was shorter than the 1930’s/1940’s depression (6 years vs. 17), and less severe (stated in the post). Isn’t that counter to your point?

Make no mistake about it - the 1930’s GD didn’t actually end until 1946, at least in terms of being in a state of being depressed. Technically our GDP stopped “contracting” in 1933, but it didn’t reach 1929 levels again until 1940, and solely due to our massive military buildup. All during WWII our economy was all about military - in terms of real standard of living / wealth we were still very much in a depression, until after our transition back to a peacetime economy was well underway.

P.S. W/regards to 1873 being “pre-Fed”, are you aware that even though we didn’t have a single national central bank - we did still have a national banking “system”. Check out the 1863 National Banking Act - this created a system of federally-charted banks with a great deal of control over the banking system. As a part of that - gold backing was largely an illusion even back then, since congress allowed banks to have even less in reserves; this was especially true with 1874 legislation allowing banks to back their notes not with gold, but with government bonds.

Most people don’t realize we actually had a fiat money system long before the Fed. The Fed just made it a heck of a lot easier to expand.

As such, abolition of the Fed by itself certainly wouldn’t make our problems disappear, but they’d be a lot less. And FWIW - I also think that the bulk of our Fed-caused problems are not in the past, but in the future. We’re masking our problems with ever-growing debt, not just in nominal terms of course but also in relative terms. This is not sustainable. Ultimately it will mean our complete economic demise, probably including a depression far longer than any we’ve ever had.

Re: economic history 1870 and onward
Paul Kennedy’s The Rise an Fall of the Great Powers contends these were some of the most economically robust years. Wikipedia has another version of events. Not sure where the truth lies….
saw an author on C-span say that the Panic of 1873 was greatly exaggerated….. go figure

The National Bureau of Economic Research dates the contraction following the panic as lasting from October 1873 to March 1879. At 65 months, it is the longest-lasting contraction identified by the NBER, eclipsing the Great Depression’s 43 months of contraction. [4] [5] Following the end of the episode in 1879, the U.S. economy would remain unstable, experiencing recessions for 114 of the 253 months until January 1901

Just because you’ve created your own determination of when the Depression ended doesn’t make it so.

And as far as far as your argument that we still had a quasi-Fed and a fiat gold standard back then, well, I’m back to asking when and where has the gold standard/ no Fed (or its equivalent) model ever existed successfully? Is it not an unattainable illusion? A Candy-Crapping Unicorn, as it were?

The cause of depressions before and after the gold standard is fractional reserve banking. When banks are allowed to create money through fractional reserve banking credit expands and malinvestment occurs. When this created money is withdrawn from the system there is a financial contraction (panic recession depression).

Would love to continue this, but can’t tonight. Perhaps we can move it to the forums so that it doesn’t drop off.

Good points, nick! So the solution isn’t a gold-standard, but a return to full-reserve banking. The plot thickens…

But, the Doubters will point out that the tulip bubble and the South Seas bubble arose during the period of full-reserve banking, and that Spain began a centuries-long economic decline under full-reserve banking, and that Europe was a much more economically stagnant place under full-reserve banking, and that, and that….hmmm, maybe there is no one magical solution? Maybe simplistic answers are just that? And abolishing the Fed, going on the gold standard, returning to full-reserve banking, will not magically cure all our economic problems?

Corruption and short-sighted greed are the real enemies to a well-functioning economy. Minimize those, and you’re onto something- as we discovered during our 50 year successful experiment with market regulation and oversight, during which time we became the wealthiest, most powerful nation in the history of the world. And with civil liberties too!

packman- No problem, I’ll be around- unless ‘they’ squelch me…

JD- I was just using the Long Depression as an example. We’ve been having panics/recessions/depressions throughout industrial age American history. My overall point was that there is no period in which the various panaceas often bandied about here (gold-standard, full-reserve banking, no Fed/central bank) have ever worked the miracles they were supposed to.

To dismiss the panics of the 19th century as minor blips, is to downplay real suffering merely because it happened a long time ago. The simple fact is that our economy has become so much more productive that even with the current “great recession,” there’s little chance of anybody starving to death because of it. Certainly hunger is prevelant in the deep, core unemployed. But let’s face it we’re a country so rich that obesity is also a chronic problem of the poor. Throughout the vast span of human history, the idea of fat poor people was an oxymoron. And very very few of those people who are losing their homes will actually be homeless, living under bridges. Most will simply rent within their means instead of borrowing beyond them.

Now Sammy is right, there will ALWAYS be cycles of optimism leading to excessive credit and debts that won’t be repaid. It’s human nature. We CAN afford to consume 20% less as a society than we did during the boom becuase we produce 50% more than we did in the early 50s.(yes, those percentages are pulled out of my ass, but you get the point) To think that our current bubble and bust means that we should return to an era where we were much poorer is silly.

JD- forgot to add: Google “Long Depression”, it’s not some thing that was ‘cooked up’ on wikipedia. You’ll find it’s a well-documented historical phenomenon. Disputed in a million different ways, yes, (what historical happening isn’t) but generally agreed upon to have occurred in some form or another by the vast majority of historians.

Developer salaries in Denver are tanking still.

Not all jobs have to be exported for the house of cards to come crashing down.

Good deal! I’m referring to the general population. I too got a pay increase, a 4% raise, here in Los Angeles.

I am thinking the eastern corrider in the tech area will do fine the next few years. I have my sights set on going back to the Baltimore area this year or next year.

Agreed about staying ahead of the comp. I get flamed for saying this but having few material possessions, no debt, a good cash reserve, no spouse/dependents and going for short term furnished leases will help you stay employed and be able to take advantage of the best opportunities out there. This “Great Recession” is such for people who are tied down.

Northeastener you are correct not everyone is taking a hit. But millions of people are, and a million of anything is not something to be ignored.

IIRC the workforce is +/-60 million people. At 10% UE, that’s 6 million people without any job. With an est 20% underemployed, that’s 12 million people.

While not a majority, it is one hell of a boat anchor. And “critical mass”, numerically speaking, doesn’t require a majority.

Developer salaries in Denver are tanking still.

Is this because there is a glut of developers available for fewer positions or the financial prospects of the companies in the Denver area are lower, so pay is adjusting accordingly?

As painful as it sounds, you might want to consider moving to a state where you can translate your tech skills into higher pay… easy for me to say, so take it for what it’s worth, but I am very serious when I say some states will come out of this recession much better than others.

7. Don’t assume your field of work will not be outsourced.

That is what Dave does not ever and will not ever say.

If one follows the 7 principles, then he would have far more than enough savings to buy a house for cash and have several years more worth of living expenses saved.

“I don’t understand why Dave Ramsey is treated as such a financial guru. There’s a very simple concept called “financial responsibility” a.k.a. living within your means.”

Debt is the most highly marketed product in our society. That coupled with peer pressure overrides financial common sense. I’ve met Dave and I believe he is genuine. I also believe that I wouldn’t be here today were it not my chance discover of Dave. I was that far gone and I couldn’t see any way out.

Today, I’m debt free. I have peace and I’m grateful for it.

Dave’s Financial Peace University is popular and it works. Keep in mind that Dave is a housing bull. I managed to get on his radio show in 2005 and stated the facts about the Housing Fraud and prices would eventually collapse……. Dave? No comment from him. Dead silence.

“Dave? No comment from him. Dead silence.”

Realtors Are Liars, you didn’t perchance mention anything about what the price of housing would be if family income was only x1, you think he would have “words” about that? How about a modern society that supports “job tenure” that is based on the 30 year “longevity” model. Are these not the basic inGREEDients of financial “sustainability” throughout the land?

let’s look at the basic foundation:

1. x2 incomes
2. 30 year employment without any gaps of more than x6 months

I don’t understand why Dave Ramsey is treated as such a financial guru. There’s a very simple concept called “financial responsibility” a.k.a. living within your means.

He’s treated as a financial guru precisely because so few people understand “financial responsibility.” It is apparently not a self-evident concept to most, and we know too well that it hasn’t been a fashionable philosophy in our country for a long while.

Dave Ramsey runs a business. His raw material are financial retards. His business will collapse if he is successful in teaching his responsibility program, so he needs to try and keep future business coming in.

I like your point. The problem of too many people becoming intelligent is they will realize they really cannot afford the middle class lifestyle that the families in the 1950s and 1960s had, even if debt free.

I realized that back in the early 80s.

This is an extremely secular area.

Or at least not overwhelmingly christian. I’m not sure the Indians and Japanese are all ’secular’.

And that’s the REAL history of the world in a nutshell.

House of Medici anyone?

“Montel williams is pimping a loan shark up here in n. california”.

Yea, but he’s trying to help a brother out!

They have always had loan sharks for the desperate . What is going on now is simply taking advantage of
a massive amount of people that are desperate because of the state of affairs today because of the aftermath of this mania .

Did they charge 79% after the Great Depression in the 30’s ?
The whole objective today is increasing the health of Banks ,
Investment firms and Corporations, at the expense of the people who are reeling from the aftermath of a fake Ponzi Scheme that benefited those industries . From bail-outs to
most programs its all been one-sided .Also many borrowers have taken advantage of the unjust programs by gaming the system in the aftermath .

Because Mega Industries got away with their foul play and even got bailed out the moral hazard is they think they are entitled to take advantage because their health and profits are Government backed . Corporations could care less about providing jobs for their Countrymen /women either . What have Banks and Corporations done for the people lately but lay them off ,lower salaries ,and cut more benefits ,except if your in the banking business and you get a bonus .

The question becomes ..”Should we allow Corporations to become evil entities in which more profit is the highest
goal at the expense of the Majority of people living in the Country .” Shouldn’t we ask something of the Corporations
that have crazy priorities like paying CEO’s millions when the
profits were just the byproduct of a 7 year fake lending Ponzi-scheme ?

The moral hazard of not busting the schemes is that you don’t have proper solutions in the aftermath . Is the bottom line that Justice has gone out the window and the winners and losers is just a matter of fate rather than what is right?
How is padding the pockets of so few going to get us out of this mess ?

Bend over and meet your new master, jamie dimon.

I would think more highly of Montel if he was an actual pimp.

Exactly HW!

“The moral hazard of not busting the schemes is that you don’t have proper solutions in the aftermath”

“TrueAnger™” = Indemnified Corporation’s/People

“TrueEvil™” = Monsanto & GoldenmanSucks + “a few others”

I am 100% sure my wife is right. That is why I said, “double-up fantasies.” (Where is NYCB when we need an imaginative interpretation of a post?)

I suppose the argument could be made that Mao’s social programs somehow inhibited China’s economic development. But I think it best to first understand what Mao’s revolution replaced.
——-
Sun Yat-sen managed a semi-successful revolution before Mao, in an attempt to rid the country of the last of the Imperial Dynasties (the Qing).

However, Qing warlords continued to rule most of the country (which was in a perpetual state of civil war) and Sun Yat-sen, having no military to speak of, spent half his time in exile.

Mao’s revolution extinguished imperial rule and the warlords for good.
——–

As I see it, the question of whether or not Mao’s revolution was “beneficial” to China requires one to ask:
As bad as marxism / communism was and is, would Chinese life be improved had the Qing Dynasty survived to this day?

Well I guess for the millions of people who are now dead and have no progeny, it would be better because their familial line would actually exist. Kind of a false premise like saying, “Oh if Hitler hadn’t exterminated 6 million Jews, Israel wouldn’t exist as a homeland for the Jews today”. Makes it all better doesn’t it??.. Uh, seriously, I will just have to call “troll” on this one…

The great leap forward did a huge amount of damage to the Chinese economy, the true extant of which will never be known, because one of the notable effects is that all the production numbers were cooked. Most iron and steel “production” was simply the melting down of any steel that could be found in the collective farms. Most of the “expanded” agricultural production simply consisted of lies as food needed by peasents and their seed corn was shipped out as newfound “surplus production.”

I’m not at all sure that the current China, ruled by local and regional corrupt party officials is all that different from what the warlords would have evolved into. Heck, I’m not convinced that if the country had broken up that the average resident wouln’t be better off than they are today. China would have gone through changes whether or not Mao came to power, and whether or not his rule was as repressive as it was. A friend refers to the current rule as the “communist dynasty,” to emphasize it similarities to what went before.

But in a larger sense, does it matter? A reasonable case can be made that on average, the current descendents of those who were kidnapped in Africa and taken to North America as slaves have a better life than the descendents of those who were left behind. But this in no way justifies the process of kidnapping, torture, murder and forced labor that was slavery in this country. Even IF the life of the average Chinese person is better than it would have been, (an unproved assertion IMHO) that in no way justifies the repression, torture, murder, and forced labor of the Cultural Revolution.

My reading of Adam Smith is that one needs a rule of law to govern capitalism. What does your reading of Adam Smith say?

My reading is that Adam argued for not only rule of law, but also regulation of markets. Ensuring there are no monopolies is not a rule of law issue, it’s market regulation. And that is the argument I’ve been making for quite a while. Free markets require regulation in order to exist.

PBear,

A lot of people, myself included, will say that they are in favor of free markets and rule of law. The problem is to define these terms more precisely, as they are to some extent in conflict with one another.

Apparently you assume that small banks are the “free market”, and that antitrust is the “rule of law” that allows it to function properly. But I would have to disagree on both counts.

Any bank, large or small, operates under a government charter that grants it specific privileges not available to everyone. So no bank can really be said to be a free market institution.

On the other hand, consistent enforcement of antitrust theories would require government officials to review and monitor all agreements between any commercial parties for compliance with some vague set of concepts. This is totally unrealistic and counter-productive.

A real return to free-market principles would involves repealing both antitrust and bank enabling laws, and downsizing government to where laymen can understand and consistently apply all rules.

If I may use a sports metaphor here….

Conservatives believe the government’s role is to be the umpires. Liberals believe the government’s role is to be the coaches. Commies believe the government’s role is to be the team owners.

Well put, Dennis. I would add that sports are much more democratic than our legal system, in that the rules are accessible to any serious layperson, and decisions applying them are made quickly and generally uncontroversially.

Many sports fans have mastered the rules of the game to the point where they could be called on to serve as umpires/refs (assuming they could be objective– their home team wasn’t on the field, etc.) By contrast, how many of us could fill in for a Federal judge? How many bloggers could pass a quiz on banking law or antitrust law?

To have a real free market, you need widespread understanding and acceptance of the rules.

And the Deregulators think the game would be better if there were no rules at all.

What is a ‘reactive policy prescription’?

One that tries to undo an existing problem, rather than preventing the occurrence of problems in the future.

+100 Terry

“Let’s get rid of these career politicians” is a brain-dead response, unless you replace them with a much better alternative. This requires actively supporting truly independent and principled candidates, not the empty-suit Tweedle Dees and Tweedle Dums put up every election by the Republicrat duopoly.

“As I see it, the next president is going to have to be a Teddy Roosevelt”.

I’d like to see a Calvin Coolidge!

“…What difference is there between Obama and Bush?”

Well, I now SEE the American draped caskets of American soldiers coming home. Does that make a difference…

true …hiway50…..but what about the last 30,000 troops that got sent to afghanistan….i guess putting more in will make it easier to get out…..right…..

i hope obama gets spanjed in November and picks up the progressive/ poulist furor….
anyone see the big health insurer’s latest peorted profits?

“…but what about the last 30,000 troops that got sent to afghanistan”

Well, maybe…those 30,000 should have been sent to I-B-Hidin’ in a cave with a cassette tape recorder…before Cheney-Shrub decided to get the real “brains” of 9/11…The former US pal/friend/buddy…CEO of Iraq…the one that was just this close [...] to building a WMD (Weapon of Mass Deceit)

You know I think I need a second POV, let’s see if I can get Colin Powell to chime in…

I should add, when off teleprompter “the one” sounds like Foster Brooks with marbles in his mouth!

ROTFLMAO! That mental picture is priceless.

The bunghole being, of course, predatory capitalism. Both parties are on the make and on the take.

Why does such an occupation require the mobility you’re always extolling? Seems like you could do it from anywhere.

You are correct. I have two projects in mind and they can be done from anywhere. To bring them online will take me a few years of no income, but to do full research and design. It would be nice to get $40,000 income from investments ($1.3 million in AAZAX) to give me a living while I perfect the designs.

My current work is niche work that must be done at the client sites. Sites vary from one year to another. Most software engineers can do their work from home. A sister of mine does web development from home in Portland when it’s too icy to drive to work. Her boyfriend does a lot of his network admin duties from his smartphone.

Doing fine on my own thanks. Like a race huckster, you are using personal attacks to justify bad behavior.

Soon it will be age-discrimination to oppose generous benefits for the greedy.