Occupy Protests Go Global
- Thread starter InvisibleJim
- Start date
I think it was a number of factors. The lending practices of the banks had changed so that people were given and encouraged to take on mortgages that they were unlikely to be able to pay back.
People in general were permitted to take out easy credit because the economic growth was built on consumer spending. When the consumers ran out of money, the banks printed more money and gave it to the consumers to keep them spending, so that the politicians could keep saying to us 'look how successful the system is' but then the consumers got into lots of debt. This was an unsustainable arrangement.
The Fed is owned by global investors and is staffed by people from the financial sector. Low interest rates might help the speculators but they destroy the savings of the middle class. The low interest rates also fuelled easy credit leading to the housing bubble
Home prices rose because the banks were giving out mortgages too easily....reckless lending.
The bankers knew that they were growing a bubble so what they did was wrap high risk mortgages up into bundles and sold them on. The credit rating agencies who were supposed to tell everyone that these products were high risk didn't do so (because they are owned by the bankers). They gave the bundles triple A ratings which should have meant that they were a totally safe investment. This fuelled the residential mortgage-backed securities market which in turn funded mortgage lending.
The investment banks also invested recklessly in such a way that they could not cover their losses in the event of defaults.....if you were in a casino that would be like you putting in all your chips every time you gambled.
The point is that bankers knew what they were doing, especially as they were giving out adjustable rate mortgages, which they new would drown the mortgage owner once house prices started to drop (as the bubble burst) but did it anyway, they also knew that sub prime morgagage borrowers would begin to default (as the credit bubble burst)
The future looks bleak for the housing market as house prices remain high while wages have stagnated, unemployment is high and job cuts are on the way. Also the global investors are not investing.
In the UK we used to have a lot of social housing but the conservative government decided to sell it off giving people who had lived in it for sufficient terms the 'right to buy'. The conservatives would say that they wanted to make everyone 'middleclass' but in reality they wanted everyone in long term debt and tied to the work treadmill.
One solution in the UK to housing shortages could be an increase in social housing and also finding a way of gaining ownership of unused properties and therefore utilising the countries building stock. Taxes on second homes might also stop the decimation of communities where locals are priced out by outsiders who only use the property for a few days a year. I've heard of fishermen having to commute to the fishing villages where their anscestors lived so that they can fish because house have been bought up as holiday homes.
Yeah we need to take the money out of politics but when you consider that the nature of capitalism is the accumulation of wealth then any system will always be vulnerable to the weakenesses (greed) of the people within that system (ie they can be bought, bribed and coerced)
It should be done however as any measure to decrease the strangle hold the 1% have on power should be welcomed!
You mean the merging of investment banks with depository banks was a way to gain leverage.
Derivatives were a way to leverage but lets face it they were a way to obfuscate the fraudulent behaviour of the bankers as they crashed the economy whilst scooping massive bonuses.
You wouldn't say it has failed....yet! Lol....give it time you may reassess
I would say look how far we have become DESPITE capitalism. I think that despite the shortcomings of capitalism and the aggressive, 'dog eat dog' approach to life that it tries to engender in us i think that most people remain fundamentally honest and decent.
What are we judging success on here? The world is full of poverty and conflict. The wealth of the world has centralised to the point that 1% of people now own 40% of the worlds wealth. The global economy is wrecked. We have ecological disaster occuring everywhere. We have been brought to the brink of nuclear destruction, have committed murder on an industrial scale many times and are now desperately looking for planets that will sustain life because we are afraid that we have soiled our own nest. Even in the wealthier countries many people have a sense of ennui and purposelessness and mental health seems to be in decline judging by the prescriptions of antidepresants and also the thriving trade in various consolations such as alcohol and other drugs. We all work all the time, and are now losing our pensions which will mean that some will work till they drop dead.
ETC
Capitalism has been a total disaster
I didn't see that topic, but capitalism is part of our evolution whether we like it or not. We should learn lessons from it as we move on. The danger is that because the wealth of the world is now so centralised that that powerful group who manages all that wealth may believe that they are the best qualified to rule. Seeing as various systems whereby the people have been ruled by others have all lead to oppression and exploitation i don't think a world government run by investors would do any better.
I don't think capitalism fixes problems i think it is reactive not proactive. It runs into brick walls and then thinks about how to get past the brick wall....however the act of crashing causes untold misery.
Capitalism is driven by a desire for profit. Profit hunting is not going to fix the problems....we need to look beyond money and start thinking about fundamentals.
There is no miracle energy or technology on the horizon that is going to catipult us out of the economic doldrums.
Capitalism is the fastest and most efficient at consuming. It is going to fast track us into disaster.
What we need effieciency in is sustainability. Speed is not so important....lets all chill out a bit and take some time to enjoy this beautiful planet....whats the rush for....our own funeral?
We have never been in this situation before...this is new ground.
I like your optomism and i agree that we can move forward from here, stronger than ever, but not under capitalism.
It appears that the 1% who own 40% of global wealth are set on consolidating their power. That seems to be the current trajectory. i believe that is a disasterous one because it will move us back to fuedalism where everyone is indentured to a small group of people who own everything and can dictate the terms of use. Not a happy scenario
A happy scenario would be if everyone held the world in common ownership and we worked together to manage its resources sustainably in such a way that they are allocating evenly and fairly so that all are fed, housed, clothed, safe and involved in the decision making process at every level.
Do you know what a conspiracy is? I mean have you looked up the definition of the word 'conspiracy' in a dictionary?
If you have then you would know that conspiracies happen all the time....there is nothing remarkable about conspiracies, they are an everyday thing
The words 'conspiracy' and 'theory' are often used in conjunction in the media, especially in tabloid newspapers, as a sort of put down to try to discredit anything the proprietor of the newspaper does not want the reader to believe.
There is almost a shame that has been attached to those words that some people do not want to be branded with. Some people would rather not question anything the media tells them then risk the ridicule either internal or external of being associeted with ideas branded as 'conspiracy theories' by the managers of perception.
Their fear of being duped or of feeling stupid, makes them easy to be duped
To have the courage to question you first have to be secure enough in yourself
@muir ,
May I quote @invisibleJim's signature?
"Those who are determined to be 'offended' will discover a provocation somewhere. We cannot possibly adjust enough to please the fanatics, and it is degrading to make the attempt."
Please do not be vain enough to think that is pointed at muir. I do feel I have exhausted quite a bit of energy trying to find stability in the world for right now. I need to rest as the front rolls in with the dark clouds, the winds, the rains, and the bitter cold. I will rest tonight thinking of peace and quiet if at all possible. People have the right to feel they have been treated wrongly, but they do not have the right to do the world wrongly. People in America are living in government funded housing, on Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, on Social Security, getting indigent hospital care, getting paid for their children, living on Welfare, and the likes. Many people are also abusing those same services and lying about many things to get those said benfits(sorry: benefits; I have shortchanged myself again). Minority contractors are taking advantage of government funded programs in construction(I have witnessed it firsthand). There are a lot of things going on that people just want to blame on someone else while reaping benefits. Those people do not want to live in the streets, starve, have no medications, and wonder what tomorrow might bring. Who is going to care for all those people, and there are a ton of them, in your protests?
Benefits are having to be cut as global economies suffer. Ukraine peacefully dispersed an almost annual protest yesterday from many people that worked Chernobyl cleanup. One person died in the cold temperatures as power was cut to their tents. They were told to leave and given a deadline but resisted. We are living in sad times and some people are trying to take advantage of it by using the weak as pawns in their struggle against that they hate. Hatred. There is a big difference in disagreeing with something and hating it. I could almost write your reply to this. Because of that, I feel I am wasting my time here regarding this issue. There is a proper way to deal with problems in the world, and stepping over the line will only result in more problems. So, if more problems are what you want, then incite a riot and cause disruptions as you would. Fuel the fire. There is no sharper weapon than the tongue. I must rest mine for the repercussions coming if the protests persist.
May I quote @invisibleJim's signature?
"Those who are determined to be 'offended' will discover a provocation somewhere. We cannot possibly adjust enough to please the fanatics, and it is degrading to make the attempt."
Please do not be vain enough to think that is pointed at muir. I do feel I have exhausted quite a bit of energy trying to find stability in the world for right now. I need to rest as the front rolls in with the dark clouds, the winds, the rains, and the bitter cold. I will rest tonight thinking of peace and quiet if at all possible. People have the right to feel they have been treated wrongly, but they do not have the right to do the world wrongly. People in America are living in government funded housing, on Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, on Social Security, getting indigent hospital care, getting paid for their children, living on Welfare, and the likes. Many people are also abusing those same services and lying about many things to get those said benfits(sorry: benefits; I have shortchanged myself again). Minority contractors are taking advantage of government funded programs in construction(I have witnessed it firsthand). There are a lot of things going on that people just want to blame on someone else while reaping benefits. Those people do not want to live in the streets, starve, have no medications, and wonder what tomorrow might bring. Who is going to care for all those people, and there are a ton of them, in your protests?
Benefits are having to be cut as global economies suffer. Ukraine peacefully dispersed an almost annual protest yesterday from many people that worked Chernobyl cleanup. One person died in the cold temperatures as power was cut to their tents. They were told to leave and given a deadline but resisted. We are living in sad times and some people are trying to take advantage of it by using the weak as pawns in their struggle against that they hate. Hatred. There is a big difference in disagreeing with something and hating it. I could almost write your reply to this. Because of that, I feel I am wasting my time here regarding this issue. There is a proper way to deal with problems in the world, and stepping over the line will only result in more problems. So, if more problems are what you want, then incite a riot and cause disruptions as you would. Fuel the fire. There is no sharper weapon than the tongue. I must rest mine for the repercussions coming if the protests persist.
People didn't just run out of money all-of-a-sudden. Recessions just happen naturally but people got caught with their pants down this time by taking out high leveraged loans they couldn't pay back. They were planning to flip them to make a profit, which only works during periods of growth. It was only a matter of time that this was going to happen. Not because of bad business practice but because recessions are inevitable.
I don't know how low interest rate hurt the middle class directly. They make it easier for them to get loans. Bubbles are more complicated than federal interest rates though so I wouldn't just attribute it to that.
The part about Mortgage Backed Securities gets really complicated and to be honest, no one is really sure what happened to individual loans in the Derivative Pools people were investing in.
The investment banks also invested recklessly in such a way that they could not cover their losses in the event of defaults.....if you were in a casino that would be like you putting in all your chips every time you gambled.
Subpime mortgages began to default when housing prices stagnated and people couldn't flip the houses for a profit. Once housing prices started to fall, people started losing big. Housing prices now are actually low, not high.
I doubt the conservative party wants everyone to be in long term debt. That seems a bit silly. They were probably just trying to cut costs. As for the UK housing shortage, I don't know much about it but a tax on a second home wouldn't necessarily fix the problem. If the fishermen can't afford the house, the tax is just discouraging people from buying houses and those properties could be left vacant. We can't afford to do stuff like that right now, the economy needs a boost.
There will always be some form of corruption in politics and people will always be motivated by money or some other substitution. Even in communism there were very very rich people.
No. Leverage has to do with putting money down on a loan.
Let's say you purchase a house that costs $100,000 at 20% down.
Your equity is $20,000 and your debt is $80,000. Your debt to equity ratio is 4:1.
If you put down $10,000, your debt to equity ratio is now 9:1. This scenario is more leveraged.
Leverage just allows you to purchase something with little investment of your equity into it so that when you sell it at a higher price, you make money without putting much in. Higher leverage is higher risk because you're responsible for your debt no matter what.
The way you leverage derivatives is to buy on margin, which screwed people in the crash of 1929. To my knowledge, there is no limit on leveraging derivatives but there is on regular stock. Almost no investment firm will help you buy on margin unless you're filthy rich because it's so dangerous.
By the time it would take for me to reassess my stance on capitalism being better than other systems, we'll be in expansion again.
Your argument against capitalism increasing our wealth actually goes to prove my point. Not everyone has bought into the system and the countries that have, are the 1%. It doesn't really matter that the wealth is unevenly distributed in this argument, all that matters is that it exists where it used to not exist. Starving African children would still starve if we got rid of capitalism today.
The "dog eat dog approach" isn't really a good allegory for competition. Competition is about keeping prices low through forcing businesses to be efficient.
Capitalism is sort of reactive because it's totally about people and their decisions. Reactive people react to proactive decisions. There are both reactive and proactive parts to it.
The desire for profit will be there no matter the system and trying to teach otherwise to the entire world won't fix anything. The brilliance about what you call "profit hunting" is that it makes human behavior predictable. We know what will happen when prices rise. We know there will be a surplus when there is a price floor. These things are predictions of human behavior.
From a policy standpoint, the genius in this is that you can incentivize certain decisions and therefore predict certain outcomes. It's a game, that's all it is. It really is no surprise that Game Theory is the model used to study Microeconomics in the current system.
I don't think you can say that there is no miracle tech for energy. The tech simply isn't present right now but in 100 years, it could be there. Speed is very important. We have problems on this planet and each of us has a limited amount of time. We need to do what we can to fix these problems as soon as possible.
Wouldn't it be better to solve green energy, hunger and diseases faster?
Wow, there aren't many people that call me optomistic. Feudalism isn't going to happen as long as there is democracy (no matter how broken). To call it inevitable is taking the idea of conspiracy and running a 5k with it.
Free market isn't about a "happy" scenario. It's about the freedom to choose what to do, not your feelings surrounding the world. Democratically allocating resources or any other way of allocating resources that isn't through the free market hasn't worked for anybody throughout human history; at least not on a large scale. Socialism might work well in a group of 30 people but not 300 million.
The free market lets people be involved in the decision making process all the time. It's called voting with your feet (which you have personally mentioned and advocated for). We can do things in the political arena that help out poor people without screwing over businesses. I'm all for helping poor people but making rich people poor doesn't really help.
Unfortunately, conceding to one party's agenda, even over the smallest detail, leads to the same reaction as a kid in a candy shop whose parents break down and allow them to buy something. Before you know it, everything is being done according to that one philosophy, while abandoning the other, no matter how appropriate it may be for certain situations; throwing the baby out with the bathwater so to speak.
Yep. :nod:
Narrow minds with narrow focus = narrow agendas...
and nothing is ever accomplished.
I don't like the quote. The user of the quote is likely to have been trying to provoke a response before using the quote.
I believe its a quote by Christopher Hitchens. Here he is talking rubbish on national television:
[video=youtube;5KcyG0J3dXk]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KcyG0J3dXk[/video]
It says a lot about what kind of perceptions the owners of the mainstream media in the US want to create in the mind of the consumer that someone like Christopher Hitchens gets so much air time (much of it spent yelling in a loud and rude manner) yet in the US you have a recognised genius in his field (linguistics) who has participated in 7 decades of political activism and who is widely respected (actually 'revered' would be a better word) around the world: Noam Chomsky who doesn't get the air time.
Why? because Chomsky believes in peace and compassion and those things do not fit into the scheme of the 1% where they hoard all the wealth and power.
If you want the truth about what is happening for crying out loud don't waste your time with Hitchens when you have Chomsky to listen to! That is part of the problem that many people are listening to the wrong people. They are listening to the mainstream media but the mainstream media is owned by the 1% and they use it to spread their world view, which enables then to justify their dominance over the rest of us.
Here he is talking calmly, quietly and soberly on why muslims hate the US:
[video=youtube;5jCLFWM6P60]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jCLFWM6P60&feature=related[/video]
...and on the breaches of the Geneva convention in Palestine,by the US and Israel as pointed out by an international convention in Switzerland:
[video=youtube;Vpw-h6WY8As]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vpw-h6WY8As[/video]
Here's Chomsky asked if Islam is the enemy:
[video=youtube;qw4mjTDx77w]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qw4mjTDx77w&feature=related[/video]
Chomsky on how the US and Israel are breaching the laws of the International Court of Justice and on the US block on the Palestinian attempt to gain recognition in the UN for the state of Palestine:
[video=youtube;VVeeanP5Jto]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVeeanP5Jto&NR=1&feature=fvwp[/video]
Who is it that you're suggesting might be vain here? You're not trying to provoke a response are you? lol
The media in the Uk is trying to divert attention from the bankers and the government by turning working members of the public against the welfare state. The welfare state does cost us money in our taxes but what has really sunk the economy is the movement of wealth upwards to the 1%. they have done this by various legal and illegal methods all of which have been aided by the government.
Instead of allowing the mainstream (corporate controlled) media to manipulate us into blaming poor people for the state of the economy i think we should give ourselves a reality check and remind ourselves that it was the bankers who have sunk the economy and also that there is enough wealth to go around but that it is being hoarded by the 1%
In the UK our government is cutting benefits. We had riots by the poorest elements in our society because they feel left out of the capitalist dream, snap shots of which are beamed into their homes via a host of programmes on their television sets everynight. Yet the governments answer to the riots is to take even more away from those people!
The welfare state seems to be the main thing stopping these people who have been left behind by capitalism from rioting. Sure it costs us money in our taxes. It is annoying that some work hard and subsidise others, but what has really sucked money out of the economy and out of our pockets is the activity of the bankers!
In answer to your question the protests want to see these people taken care of by redistributing the wealth so that we live in a fairer, more equal, more stable, more safe, more happy and more healthy society. The policies of the 1% however are all geared towards sucking the wealth upwards to them
'Benefits are having to be cut'.......the people who have recieved the biggest benefits from the government are the bankers who have been bailed out to the tune of billions, much of which has been siphoned off into their personal accounts.
There is a fire whatever you do. Even if no one protested they would instead suffer immensely and the fire would be in the form of mental and physical breakdowns, alcohol and drug addictions, familiy and community breakdowns and all the other ways in which the pressure of economic hardship would manifest in the public.
The 1% have created an economic inferno and the protestors have ideas to put the fire out.
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[MENTION=1871]muir[/MENTION], I leave this thread for awhile. Best Senator's responses from my state always mentions the good in things before he mentions that needed to change, states his methods of change offered, elaborates why it will make things better, lists who is helping him with it or who is for it, and where it is heading. People could learn a lot from the man's responsive aptitude and attitude.
It makes for a good recipe.
It makes for a good recipe.
I think you can generalise about money running out. For example if the fed lowers interest rates and there is lots of easy credit then this leads to speculative bubbles. There are beginning points and end points to these business cycles......there are triggers. Also if the banks stop lending and the investors stop investing then you have money shortages.
There is a lot of different ideas as to what causes business cycles but i think we can say with some certainty that the fed lowered interest rates, the banks lent (recklessly), the investors invested in toxic, fraudulently rated derivitives which drove more lending, the banks invested without the money to cover losses, and the fed knew that it was growing a bubble in the housing market. I think we can also say fairly resonably that the government knew that a bubble was growing and that fraudulent practices were allowing this to happen. So yes there was bad business practice.
When you talk about people getting caught with their pants down due to flipping homes at a time that prices dropped you are talking about people who had the money to invest in the first place. I can't sympathise too much with people essentially long selling homes, but i do sympathise with people trying genuinely to buy a home to occupy who had to face inflated prices and also i sympathise with the people who were reassured by their mortgage lenders into taking out adjustable rate and sub prime mortgages especially as the bankers will have known that conditions would change thereby leaving many people facing foreclosures when they did change
These business cycles whether driven consciously or unconsciously by the fed or not all help to illustrate what an unstable system capitalism is and how damaging it often is to joe public.
If anyone is telling you that 'recessions just happen' as if they are like the seasons then you are listening to someone who isn't interested in the causes of these cycles and who is playing russian roulette with their money because they will miss the indicators of the end of the next business cycle.
Low interest rates means the banks get cheap money from the central banks and therefore don't need depositors money, so they give them poor rates on their savings. Low interest rates are good for people who want to borrow to spend but they're not good for savers. The middle class are traditionally savers.
Also low interest rates will stimulate various markets such as the stock, currency, bond and money markets which is good news for the speculators.
Low rates help speculators not savers. Combined with the inflation that is caused by keeping interest rates low which will devalue the money the savers are holding and you have a double whammy against the savers.
By keeping interest rates low the fed is helping its buddies on wall street not the people on mainstreet.
Easy credit is created by low interest rates which in turn allows these speculative bubbles to grow....so fed interest rates ARE a factor in the creation of bubbles.
If you want to start poking around the murky world of derivitives looking for more answers then i'm not qualified to explain it.....my attitude towards it is that it is it is a way of repackaging things in order to make them so complicated that no one really nows what is what anymore. It is simply a way for the 1% to mask their activities and to give a gloss of legitimacy to theft. Yet another capitalist nightmare!
You might get a better analysis from 'Extreme Money' by Satyajit Das....its on my bed side table but i haven't had a chance to read it yet....looks good though!
No it is not just people flipping houses who got stung, there were many people buying a house to live in. These people didn't lose an investment, they lost their home.
Part of the responsibility of a bank has always been to assess the suitability of a party for a loan.....can they repay the loan? This mainstay of banking was tossed out the window as the banks gave 100% mortgages to anyone and their dog! They then packaged up these high risk loans, got them stamped with a 'safe' rating from the corrupt credit rating agencies and then passed these ticking time bombs around the global financial network!
The conservative party was pursuing and continues to pursue a neoliberal agenda which means that the 1% make all the profits whilst the risk (and inevitable losses) are passed onto the taxpayer. The 1% do not pay taxes as they exploit loop holes left open by their politicians they fund and they keep their money offshore in tax havens etc.
The financial industry wants people in debt because that is how banking works....it makes profit on the interest on loans. The politicians represent the interests of the bankers who are the biggest financial contributors towards the political campaigns of the politicians.
The economy needs the 1% to spend, that's what will boost it. The consumers can't spend anymore cos they ain't got no cash and the banks ain't lendin see?
It is really important to grasp that Russia and China and Cuba etc are NOT communist countries. They were/are 'state capitalist' countries with centrally controlled market economies. Just because the US 1% calls it 'communism' or because the dictatorships that grabbed power did it under the declared aim of communism doesn't mean that they achieved a state of communism, they didn't.
There will always be corruption where there is centralised power and that is the fundamental idea behind anarchism. Decentralise power and push it back down to the people so that everyone is involved in the decision making process, that way the corruption of a few can be overrided by the will of the many who will ensure that policy best reflects the interests of the many.
But yes, corruption will continue to be an aspect of capitalism with its profit motive.
No leveraging is much more than that, to quote wikipedia it's 'a general term for any technique to multiply gains and losses'
Concerning the stock market crash of 1929 the documentary 'the money masters' has some intersting views on that: http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/the-money-masters/
I don't see us climbing out of the deflationary hole any time soon
No those countries are not the 1%. The 1% are the global investors who own 40% of the worlds wealth.
We (i presume you are not a billionaire) are part of the 99% along with the starving africans. There is plenty of poverty in the western countries and there is about to be a whole lot more.
When assessing the 'success' of certain western countries as opposed to third world countries its important to recognise that the third world countries have been undermined by the imperialist aggression of the western countries who have either overtly stolen resources or have covertly done it via such mechanisms as the IMF.
I don't agree that afrcians would still be starving if we changed from capitalism to something such as anarcho-communism because the worlds resources would be allocated differently and priorities would be shifted from capitalism seeking new markets to the point of creating useles rubbish to a system where we focussed on taking care of peoples needs.
No competition is about crushing your opponent. This is a painful lesson to learn.
It is reactive because it chases something until it collapses then it looks for something new to chase....boom and bust, boom and bust
If everything is so predictable and as easily managed as you suggest then please tell me why the system is facing a crisis?
It does not make human behaviour predictable....that's not true in fact, myself and everyone else on the political left all know and have known capitalism will fail. But you still don't know that so clearly it isn't 'predictable' to many.
There is every reason to teach the world that a profit orientated system won't work...because it won't! There are alternatives and the sooner we get to grips with them the sooner we can end the boom and bust cycles of capitalism, the destruction of the environment and all the endless wars (the markets aren't concerned with externalities such as the human suffering or the enviornment)
Game Theory was invented by someone who was suffering from bouts of paranoid schizophrenia and who has since admitted that his theory is flawed.
I assure you that to the vast majority of people on the planet the economy is not a game
In a hundred years we may have annihalated ourselves through nuclear war fighting over the worlds dwindling resources that capitalism rapaciously consumes.
The only act we must do quickly is evolve from capitalism...concerning 'progress' this, or rather what capitalist apologists will call progress has come at a very high price.
Oil companies buy up the patents to new renewable technologies stopping advances, the west uses subsides to choke off farmers from poorer countries and pharmaceutical companies jelously guard their research and their products especially through the use of patents preventing the effective combat of diseases. The conditions capitalism creates are often ones in which disease will flourish.
We are moving towards a neo-fuedal state (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neofeudalism)
It si not a forgone conclusion and that is why we are seeing global protest at the moment, because people are resisting this move by the 1%
Laissez faire capitalism lead to the great depression and deregulation has also lead to the current crisis. Free market capitalism has failed, state controlled capitalism has failed and mixed markets economies have failed. hayek v's keynes tug and pull.
If you are advocating a form of anarcho-capitalism i put it to you that will end up with a state of fascism whereby the competitors that have crushed all their rivals will create a system of control to consolidate their power.
Capitalism is a new system, people have used other methods for allocating resources and many people still are using different systems and for large numbers of people.
The positive thing i see now is that new ways of democratically allocating resources are easier now then ever before over distances due to new technoloigies such as the internet.
We flew to the moon....we can make a fairer system. Humans are ingeneous...its just a case of harnessing that for the good of the many instead of the current paradigm that harnesses it for the good of the few.
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Derivatives are just a way to bet on future prices. They're like stocks in a way but their value is derived from a bunch of different factors. In the case of MB Securities, the factors included interest rates on the mortgages, overall health, credit rating...
Flipping houses was what the bubble was about and it was why interest rates were so low: very easy money. Everybody lost on this one, even the banks. The banks can recover faster than the average person because they have access to the Fed.
That's a jump both in logic and practice. The financial industry wants you in debt for sure (but not massively) but that doesn't mean your politician wants you to be as well.
The economy needs everyone to spend, that's how it works. People do have cash, they're just uncertain so they don't spend as much. Black Friday sales were up one billion dollars from last year. People have cash.
There is no such thing as no corruption. To suggest it is naive. Everybody acts in their own self interest, period. That's why an anarchist state will never work in the long term; it's too easy to motivate people and grab power. Slow government sucks but it's more stable.
I know what leverage is but you were using the term incorrectly for the context in your previous post.
Really? Even though we're technically growing our economy right now. Albeit, the economy may be on life support and deflation may be inevitable but it's not currently happening in the US.
You're within the top 1-3% richest people in the world out of the total population if you live in a capitalist society. It's not a coincidence that market societies are richer than dictatorships.
Giving starving Africans help is fine but we can't expect to have them live off our support for the long haul. They need to be independent in the long run. At the very least, capitalism encourages independence.
More competition means more firms. More firms means less monopoly.
People react to booms and busts just like you say. They're like dogs chasing a chew toy. They wouldn't know what to do with one if they caught it (+5 if you know where that's from).
Managing it isn't easy but regulating it can be. If everybody is motivated by profit, the best way to motivate them is to take away profits for things that are bad (like a carbon tax). It doesn't really make human behavior widely predictable but it makes consumer reactions as well as supplier reactions to policy predictable. Ex...Lowering price means more people want to buy something. That's as easy as it gets.
You still don't "know" that capitalism will fail as much as you know there will be a terrorist attack tomorrow. And thank you for the "I'm a leftist" political elitism. As someone who also considers themselves a lefty (much to your disbelief), I call hypocrisy. Just because you're a liberal doesn't mean you can predict the future. Just because you're educated doesn't make you smart. There are a lot of stupid people everywhere you look and a lot of really smart people in those same places.
True, an unregulated market will not factor externalities into pricing. That's the job of the government to regulate that. Taxes on externalities are taxes on businesses that I wholeheartedly agree with.
I think your first sentence is both logically flawed and contradictory.
Saying that the man who created a theory had schizophrenia is supposed to discredit the theory (or at least heavily implies it), which is technically an ad hominem.
Saying that the same man said it was flawed goes against the first part of the sentence because "he's crazy, what does he know?" but that was an ad hominem anyways.
Regardless of how he felt about the theory, people have found application in it that seems to work so his opinion on it working or not doesn't really matter. It's the theory that matters.
Or in 100 years, we could have the whole green energy thing solved.
As for oil companies, patenting intellectual stuff to hinder the growth of technology is a shitty thing to do to humanity. The only people that are for that are oil people. Capitalism has helped to solve some disease problems though as well so it's not fair to paint broad and negative strokes like that.
No they're part of an elaborate system for moving wealth from the public to the 1%
No flipping houses is just one aspect
No not everyone lost, some people have made a lot of money. The banks recover faster because the government has bailed them out, the fed prints more money and the ponzi scheme goes on for another round
The politicians were following the economic doctrines of Milton Friedman. The politicians follow their chosen economist. There is a constant theme though and that is the enrichment of the 1%
People are not sepnding as much in the UK. The retail bubble will be one of the next ones to go. We are already seeing pubs, restaurants and shops closing. I expect the same to happen in the US
There you go calling me names again!
Not every act is carried out because of self interest; that's the flaw of Game Theory....you're understanding on this is out of date
Checks and balances are the best protection against corruption and what better chack and balance is there than having everyone decide?
I said the following in the post you are referring to:
You mean the merging of investment banks with depository banks was a way to gain leverage.
Derivatives were a way to leverage but lets face it they were a way to obfuscate the fraudulent behaviour of the bankers as they crashed the economy whilst scooping massive bonuses.
Which is a correct use of the term 'leverage' as the merging of investment banks with depository banks was a way for the bankers to leverage ( 'a general term for any technique to multiply gains and losses')
You're seeing a bounce due to QE, low interest rates and the recapitalisation of the banks (the cost of which will bite us in the ass in the long run)
Meanwhile a further centralisation of wealth and power has occured due to this latest crisis.
You're living in a dictatorship
Capitalism does not encourage independance!
The IMF get corrupt officials in African countries to indebt their country to the IMF for the stated aim of building infrastructure. The reality is that the corrupt officials pocket the money and the country is then left to pay exthortionate interest rates on their loans. Not just in africa eg Argentina and Indonesia. (see John Pilgers film 'War by Other Means' for a more in depth look)
Capitalism has most of the third world in unpayable debts to the first world: DEPENDENCE
In reality deregulation has meant fraud on a massive scale. The monopoly exists...i think we both agree on that. The government is part of that monopoly. So how are you going to break the monopoly when the government will always protect it?
No you're trying to put words in my mouth
What i have been trying to explain over and over to you is that the 1% DO know when the booms are coming and when the busts are coming and they take advantage of them and some would say even create them to profit from them which comes at the expense of the 99%. They know when to put their money in and when to pull it out. They control the money supply and can make credit readily available and they can make it scarce.
That's why they have 40% of the wealth now, why no bankers have been punished for the 2008 crisis, why they are still taking huge bonuses and why they are influencing national policy
The only thing that is really predictable is that the 1% will attempt to increase their wealth and their control over the 99%. Everything else that happens is a product of that process.
Once again you are putting words into my mouth
I know there are smart people in all places thats why i believe in equality
Its the right wingers and the 1% who argue for hierarchy which basically means they think they have a right to control everyone else and that we are not fit to think for ourselves.
I am making predicitons on the basis of my understanding of the system. I see fiat currency as a giant ponzi scheme and i see the rapid consumption of capitalism as unsustainable. Combine that with the statment i made above about the dynamic between the 1% and the 99% (its about control) and you can get an idea of the foundations for my predicitions.
I believe in an evolution of perceptions. Yes i think left wing perceptions are more evolved then right wing perceptions. They'll say the exact opposite but only events will decide which are correct. If i'm wrong i will evolve my perceptions to keep pace with reality. If you are wrong, you will need to evolve yours to keep pace with reality.
Listen college man, this isn't about being 'smart' or 'educated'. It's about recognising when your getting a shitty deal.
The monopoly won't allow it, so how are you going to break up the monopoly?
It's the theory that matters and the theory is flawed and is now accepted as flawed even by the man who created it
I hope so. the global investors told governments at the Copenhagen summit to pave the way for renewables that the investors will invest in. It's gonna happen. The question is what's going to happen in the meantime?
They were fair points to make in creating a more complete picture of capitalism and its countless failings. Those are the realities of capitalism.
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Derivatives are super high risk. It's not money laundering.
But flipping houses was the basis of the bubble. That's why it was called the housing bubble.
Well, we'll see. Historically, stock prices do good in incumbent election years in the United States so you may very well be wrong. We'll only know in 6 months.
Naive isn't really name calling, it's an adjective. I want to hear one example from your personal life of a decision that you made that was not done in your self interest (good luck).
The problem with having everybody decide is that a pure democratic decision is rarely unanimous and thus you have people deciding for others in economic decisions. How much corn we should produce shouldn't be on a ballot.
Merging banks isn't leverage though. It multiplies assets because two companies become one but it's not. Companies leverage their assets by buying up fixed assets, making their costs more stable.
Yes, no doubt the economy is on life support. The time this will bite us in the ass i when the next recession hits and we have recurring problems. But consumer spending is up from last year by a lot, which is good.
Interesting. Nobody has been telling me what to do lately.
Ok, corruption is the key word in every single one of your posts. If we can get the dumbasses out of the situation and people start producing goods and services in the third world, things will get better.
That depends entirely upon the types or regulation and deregulation. There's also more of an oligopoly when it comes to banks because, ya know, there's more than one.
Maybe the "1%" are the one percent because they were actually smart enough to capitalize on and recognize booms and busts instead of the other way around. It's not like people just end up ass backwards into 10 million dollars in assets and 300k a year in salary.
Just because you feel like you're getting the shitty end of the deal doesn't mean you're entitled to the clean end of the stick. There are risks and people fall on theirs asses. You have the right to say what you want in the US; it's a free country. But standing out in the cold with a sign that says "This Isn't Fair" is just the epitome of idiotic.
When you recognize you're getting a shitty deal, you bail on the deal. You don't need to start a new system to get a better deal.
Competition. And there's not really a monopoly so stop using that word unless you're talking about Microsoft (even then its still wrong).
It's the theory that matters and the theory is flawed and is now accepted as flawed even by the man who created it
How is it flawed?
Well, oil and coal will try to kill it. But a green energy bubble will come and clean energy will be a reality. One of the things I don't hear very much from the Green crowd is that we don't invest nearly enough into R & D for green energy. I think it's only around 10-15 billion but it needs to be around 100-150 billion in order for the technology to actually advance. I hear "green jobs" but there can't be any work with jobs that don't exist because the technology doesn't either.
I think derivatives are a way of hiding high risk; they're about obfuscation
They are used to speculate and to hedge and are therefore used to enrich the 1%. They were used by the bankers to hide the risks they were taking which allowed the credit crisis to occur.....i do not however believe that no one in the government was aware of what was happening....that then suggests some sort of bribe or longer term plan; in effect a conspiracy between the policy makers and the 'masters of the universe', but i know that is a reality that is still very unpalateable to some.
It is part of a way of operating which has grown up since deregulation that has enabled the power elite to enrich themselves at the expense of the many, coupled with a clear and coherent agenda 'neoliberalism' the power elite has been taking all the wealth off the workers in order to gain further political power and to buy up all the hard assets which they can now control access to.
I know you still have faith in the system, but the depression we are heading into is going to challenge your current perception
What i am trying to highlight to you is that there is a human story in amongst all the financial jargon and buzzwords. People losing homes and pensions and facing economic hardship due to the behaviour of the bankers and politicians
Banks have acted fraudulently and their actions have wreaked financial havoc. The government bailed them out instead of the real economy which shows who they really represent: the bankers
The bailout has illustrated this point to people very clearly and now people are angry that the government they mistakenly believed was representing their interests is in fact representing the interests of a very small but very wealthy section of the population.....that doesn't mean people have to accept that....and they aren't
We saw massives strikes today of public sector workers (upto 3 million by some accounts) which is the beginning of what will be an extremely bitter and painful struggle between the workers (who do all the work) and the investors (who live off their investments) and the politicians who are their frontmen/women
Historically politicians have introduced initiatives before elections as sweeteners for the public. They also launch charm offensives where they go around glad-handing people, vising hospitals and hugging babies on TV to look good
You're splitting hairs....you called me naive
Many of the big decisions in my life have been made on the basis of my value system not around what would be the easiest thing for me. My value system is concerned with what is good for the collective. I am not alone in this, many people do things they don't want to do to help others even when there is no benefit for themselves. Nash found this when he ran experiments on Game Theory
The Adam Curtis documentary 'The Trap' goes into this in some detail, you might find it interesting: http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/the-trap/
People should have a say over every aspect of their lives.
An interesting experiment would be to wait a year and then ask the public if they feel the governments of the world should have written off the debts to the ability to pay instead of bailing out the bankers and saddling the real economy with 'austerity measures'
How are austerity measures supposed to help growth?
Merging banks is about horizontal integration with the aim of horizontal monopoly
You seem to be getting hung up on terms and textbook definitions; what i'm trying to do is discuss what the realities are of these practices as experienced by real people....in effect what they actually do in the real world
The term 'leverage' can be used pretty widely.
Confidence was pretty low last year. It will drop again.
Man you're bogging me down in terms again!
To save me typing this out in my own words i'm gonna quote from good'ol wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dictatorship
'For some scholars, a dictatorship is a form of government that has the power to govern without consent of those being governed (similar to authoritarianism), while totalitarianism describes a state that regulates nearly every aspect of public and private behavior of the people. In other words, dictatorship concerns the source of the governing power (where the power comes from) and totalitarianism concerns the scope of the governing power (what is the government).
In this sense, dictatorship (government without people's consent) is a contrast to democracy (government whose power comes from people) and totalitarianism (government controls every aspect of people's life) opposes pluralism (government allows multiple lifestyles and opinions).
Other scholars stress the omnipotence of the State (with its consequent suspension of rights) as the key element of a dictatorship and argue that such concentration of power can be legitimate or not depending on the circumstances, objectives and methods employed.'
ACD has posted an interesting thread in the news section about how the US government is trying to pass a law tht would allow the military to hold someone indefinately on the grounds of 'terrorism'. The problem with the term 'terrorism' is that it is a 'catch all' term that will allow the military to lock up anyone that disagrees with them including civil rights activists and protestors. That would be one helluva 'suspension of rights'.
Corruption is just one aspect of the problem and only one aspect of my argument
Murray Rothbard argued that government itself is a coercive monopoly
Milton Friedman said: "there is only a choice among three evils: private unregulated monopoly, private monopoly regulated by the state, and government operation." He said "the least of these evils is private unregulated monopoly where this is tolerable."
I believe there is a power elite who are very tightly knit and highly organised....they are less than '1%' of the population and i think they are a coercive monopoly.
Concerning regulation the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act 1999 has played a significant role in the centralisation of power and influence of the 1%
No they do it through knowingly using a system, that visits economic hardship on people, to enrich themselves, often by using nefarious means such as passing on toxic debts presented as sound investments.
The system also visits massed murder on people all around the world.
They do it by having no moral compass...moral bankruptcy
They're not smart they're selfish; smart people don't behave like that because they know it's ultimately unsustainable and harmful to people
No i feel/think/believe that the vast majority of people are getting a shitty deal. The workers are the people who actually do all the work and on which the real economy is dependant; they are being preyed upon by a bunch of parasites who produce no wealth but simply extract interest from the real economy. Those banker leeches have sucked so much wealth out of the economy that it is receeding.
You do not have the right to say what you want in the US there are constraints for example the unavoidable reality that the 1% control the mainstream media and also can sue your ass in a number of different ways. The 1% is not interested in the letter of the law when it doesn't suit them....if they want you they will move the goal posts to get you, or they'll character assassinate you or kill you; take a look at how their attack dogs (the police) are behaving towards citizens at the moment.
If by 'standing out in the cold with a sign' you mean protesting i have already dealt in other posts about why this has many positive effects for example building support for other options as well as providing a focal point for discussions over new options.
I've dealt with monopolies and game theory already in this post
The protestors are competing politically and depending on how they are exercising their consumer power they may be competing economically as well.
The government will protect the coercive monopoly so simply saying 'competition' is not really answering my question.
The global investors are investing in this area. Will it be enough to lift the economy: I don't think so
Also the 181 global investors who ordered governments to transition to a green economy at the Copenhagen summit could possibly develop a monopoly on the energy supply of the future.
Privately owned energy that can be switched on and off at the whim of the investors....sounds a bit like Enron but on a massive scale
Returning to a point you made about the most successful countries being the ones that embraced neoliberalist financial markets....that's not true; the most successful countries are the ones who have rejected it: Brazil, Russia, India and China
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