>> ^gwiz665:

shakes fist
Ounce makes no sense
Pounds make no sense
Miles make no sense
AM/PM is stupid
Fahrenheit makes no sense - 32F is the freezing point, wtf?
It is colloquially adopted everywhere EXCEPT certain third world countries and the US... goddamit, get with the program!


The value of a social safety net is also casually accepted everywhere except certain third world countries and the US.

We're different, and we're arrogant, and we're attached to old and outdated notions, even though we're arguably the youngest 1st world nation.

I agree, none of those measurements make sense, but they're familiar, and we're pig-headed enough as a society that we'll probably never give up on them entirely.

At best, we'll probably keep the words, and just make them equivalent to metrics (e.g. 1 mile = 1km, 1 gallon = 1 liter, etc.).

You're right @blankfist, it's not strictly socialism. I've seen it referred to many times as 'semi-socialism'. From what I gather, it's a political system with near-free-markets (strict regulations) but with a strong welfare component. High taxes pay for free (or mostly free) education (including post-secondary), universal healthcare, a strong social safety net, and significant public investments in the arts.

Some would say high-taxes are tyrannical or that they penalize the successful, but it's hard to argue with the success of the system.

I also really like the idea of proportional fines for traffic violations.

So, whaddya think?

I spent many years studying and debating the principles of politics, but in my old age I realize that it's all bullshit, and one must study real-life examples if one is to have any real debate.

"I don't pay attention." That just about sums up much of the Tea Party Movement - well meaning but grossly misinformed people who swallow whole Fox News and Rush sensationalism without ever paying attention to legitimate journalistic sources.

It's sad to see her and her husband sinking their limited resources in to what ultimately boils down to a flim-flam political movement based largely on lies or misinformation. If she actually keeps this up until she exhausts her savings, lets hope she hasn't succeeded in dismantling the social safety nets she is working so hard to "reform."

>> ^Crake:
"assymetries between buyers an sellers" is the basis for having an economy in the first place, though
I think I can see what you think should be rewarded: "hard work, intelligence, talent and perseverance". However, the only thing that Capitalism rewards is how useful or valued your product or service is to someone else.

By asymmetries between buyer and seller, I'm not talking about division of labor and economies of scale -- those are definitely good asymmetries. Instead, I'm talking more about market power and differences in information. If I own all the gas stations within 100 miles of a city, and I charge $9/gallon, I'm going to make a lot of money, but I won't have done it by "providing a service", I'll have done it by stamping out competition. If I do something like this, I'm taking advantage of people with low levels of market information (and low brain cell counts).

I agree that capitalism isn't a system that rewards people on the basis of personal merit, but instead their ability to convince people to give them money by convincing them that they got something of equal value out of the transaction. Some people do that by trying to provide a good or service that's actually valuable, some people don't.

What I don't understand is why people act as though it's some sort of righteous meritocracy where resources accumulated in someone's hands is always "hard earned" (and therefore should never be taxed), when most evidence indicates that the people with the most resources generally haven't done anything hard to accumulate it at all. Then you look at the people who wind up needing assistance from charity or the state and you find they usually haven't done anything wrong, and work harder than a spoiled brat like me ever would.

I agree with the premise of your hyperbolic example. I'm not saying we should abandon markets, but that "free markets" leave a lot to be desired when it comes to social justice. For now the best game in town seems to be a mix of mostly-free markets with a social safety net, and a regulatory framework aimed at maximizing the number of people trying to provide actually valuable goods and services, rather than exploiting the imperfect nature of real-world markets.

>> ^Crake:
If I win the lottery, I don't deserve the winnings. Same goes if I sell a mint condition comic book for tens of thousands of dollars. I don't have to worry about the buyer's reason for paying that price, it may be because he's a sucker, or because he really sees that much value in it (or because he knows he can resell it for even more later, which is probably the usual case).
So, there is a disconnect between buyer and seller, that allows for a lack of compassion for mistakes, I guess, but it's on a solid moral footing (voluntary, presumably rational actors), so it's hard to change.

What you say there is pretty much why us lefties like the idea of a progressive tax structure, a social safety net, and a body of regulations designed towards limiting the ways in which asymmetry between buyers and sellers can be exploited (and protecting people who are affected by the transaction who are neither the buyer nor seller).

Incidentally, it's pretty easy to see most economic success as being equivalent to winning the lottery. Hard work, intelligence, talent, and perseverance alone aren't enough to make you a billionaire. Hell, those things might not even land you a job that could support a family anymore.

>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:
The point that some seem to be missing here, is that when discussing fascism, healthcare is a non-issue. Healthcare is NOT a defining trait of fascism. Whatever health system Hitler had in place is as irrelevant as whether or not he enjoyed ham and cheese sandwiches, because the concept of fascism is indifferent to both healthcare and deli menu items. This is just a stupid political game played for the benefit of gullible people.


I don't think anyone is comparing health care to fascism. Health care is just fine with everyone.

Nationalized services, however, lead to an increase in government size and control and authority, and the only way totalitarian fascism can take hold in any country is when the government increases to a size where it can do so. Nazism brought National Socialism to Germany which promised to provide a social safety net to protect against the supposed evils of Capitalism.

Hitler created the ultimate nanny state. People are not wary because of health care; they're wary because of nationalized services and larger human government.

Well, I think you did a good job of laying out a case against a strawman socialist. Shame you didn't really have much to say to me.

I suppose there is this:

The difference is that liberals want everybody to have stuff for free, conveniently disregarding the impractical aspect of "free" meaning "not producing anything in exchange" and "at the expense of productive people". I also want people to have their stuff while being guided by their selfish interest in profit, because that's what really leads to the most wealth being allowed to the most people.

Why does doing a little of what's in the first sentence prevent what you describe in the second sentence from happening?

If we raise the tax rate for people making more than $500,000/yr by 1%, are they all going to quit trying to make more money?

With regard to food, I don't want anyone living off the state on a permanent basis either. Seems that we can solve that by putting a time limit on the benefit for people of working age (18-65), who aren't disabled. I don't really have a problem feeding orphaned kids, seniors, and the disabled indefinitely, though.

Your bias seems to be that you can't see that I'm way right of center on the spectrum between socialist and anarcho-capitalist. You seem to think calling me a socialist frees you from having to make arguments about having against what I'm actually proposing, and instead give me canned arguments against socialism, as if they apply.

I don't see why we can't have your capitalist utopia, and also have a social safety net that provides some basic security to its citizens' lives.

We've got that mix now, I just want to patch some of the holes in the net. I'd be happy to privatize Amtrak and eliminate farm subsidies in return.

I'm sympathetic to the ideals of libertarianism, but feel the way they compare the social safety net to fascism leaves much to be desired.

>> ^gtjwkq:
Banks are given money voluntarily , that means they'll tend to receive less money if they're careless with it (reputation?). You might ask, "So why would banks be careless with money given by govt? Don't they know that govt might not give them more money if they're careless too?".

It's not really about the usual libertarian focus on voluntary vs. authority, it's about accountability. No one in government gets their job without either being elected, or being employed by someone who was elected. If tax money is misspent, you can elect someone else.

But I also think there are plenty of people who excel at their profession because they like to be good at what they do, not because they think their ass is on the line if they screw up.

I also question whether people who're primarily motivated by bonuses given for high short-term investment returns have the right kind of incentives.

But I have no control over that at a bank.

Well, just look at the bailouts. Govt gave these banks billions even after they lost copious amounts of it. Either these banks are evil geniuses or, at the risk of sounding like a conspiracy theorist, I'd say there is some collusion between govt and big investment banks, wouldn't you agree?

I'd say a little of both. I doubt the big asset bubble was a plan that the banks and government colluded on. I think the banks screwed up, and I think the strength of their lobbying arm made sure government gave them money with no strings attached, rather than following a more progressive path (temporarily nationalizing them FDIC-style, or folding the same volume of money into the social safety net and letting them fail, or just giving the money to single-home homeowners to bail them out, and by proxy bail out their banks).

I'm in a wait-and-see mode with the bank bailout. Government spent it all to get stock in these banks, which it will later sell. It may wind up being that the way they did it will actually bring more money in than it spent initially, like what happened with the S&L crisis.

Profit is not something strictly selfish (well, actually it is, but profit is usually obtained by providing services to others, which is where the "selfless" magic behind profit lies), a growing economy eventually allows itself to have longer and longer-term goals while still being bound by a profit-seeking mentality, even if we're talking highways or space exploration.

I understand the free market theory, and I actually see that kind of virtuous business cycle as being a goal I share. I just don't think it's possible to have a market that is both unregulated and beneficent to ordinary people.

I also don't think we can count on charities to take on the problems of the poor adequately, especially not in economic downturns that's tightening everyone's budget. People are too selfish to really worry about it.

You said, regarding the Fed's expansion of the money supply:

Austrians say it will cause hyperinflation, keynesians will either say "yay, it worked!" or "hyperinflation only happened because the Fed didn't expand the money supply enough and didn't save enough failing banks".

Actually, unless something drastic changes, Keynesians will say "holy shit, how did we get inflation?"

I'll be writing off Keynesians as being quacks if we wind up in a situation with high unemployment and high inflation, unless we have some sort of supply shock (e.g. OPEC decides to stop selling oil to us), or we wind up scaring the world into dumping the dollar before we recover.

Supply shocks aren't really predictable, but there are ways to measure the international community's confidence in the dollar, and there aren't any warning signs at this point.

If employment comes roaring back, and GDP reverts to trend, then we'll be calling for the Fed to contract the money supply to stave off inflation.

Inflation produces easy money for the govt at the expense of everyone's wealth denominated in that currency. It's the ultimate stealth taxing tool: The govt/Fed just prints money and we all get poorer, and they get to give that money to those who are politically connected.
It's like an upside-down redistribution of wealth, everyone gets slowly robbed (the poor getting hit the hardest for having less resources) and usually the ones at the top get the most benefit first, specially if they're in bed with govt.

I agree with this assessment of the issues that can and do crop up. I disagree that the Fed intentionally causes periods of high inflation in order to explicitly to benefit their well-connected friends.

Govt, as always, gets a free pass and points its finger at capitalism, business owners, the market, banks, foreign lenders, ANYTHING and people will buy it if they're keynesian, statist or stupid enough.

Slurs against people like myself aside, I think you misunderstand our position. It's not that government gets a free pass, it's that a corrupt government happens because of businesses influence.

Peter Schiff has used the analogy that the crisis was like a teacher leaving kids alone with a bunch of candy, and then later comes back and finds the kids have made themselves sick. I agree with the analogy -- business is like a bunch of misbehaved kids, and the government, like the teacher, is supposed to be the responsible adult who keeps them in check. The cure isn't to fire the teacher and let the kids have the keys to the candy supply, the cure is to fire the teacher and hire a responsible one.

I guess what I don't understand is why you would trust government with nuclear missiles, police, courts, etc. but not control of currency.

I want to end fraud, corruption, and abuse, but I don't think big business is somehow immune to it, and I don't see how telling government to generally take a hike would cure it.

I think it's a symptom of human nature itself that people are always going to be seeking advantage, fair or not, by any means necessary. I want to empower altruistic people who represent the people's interests, and aren't afraid to push back against corporate interests to make sure people are treated fairly.

I cringe at the entire conservative "we must make policy about maximizing business growth, period" philosophy of governance. Mine is "we must make business growth beneficial to society".

How very appropriate that the proprietor of the *fear channel would use the fear-laden term 'statism' as a euphemism for democracy.

In reply to this comment by blankfist:
This coming from the statist authoritarian. If I don't pay for your social safety nets, will you send guys with guns to my house to extort that money from me?

In reply to this comment by dystopianfuturetoday:
Libertarians are like that. They have no sense of decency.

In reply to this comment by blankfist:
I'm just waiting for karaidl #2 to discard their videos so I can jump on them like some kind of UNscrupulous pirate and re-sift them!

In reply to this comment by dystopianfuturetoday:
There will be no laughing in the fun room.

In reply to this comment by blankfist:
^Downvote party on dag's comment for making this personal.

[edit] Aw, dft, you counteracted my downvote! I was only having a bit of fun, is all. What was this blog originally about? Meh, who cares. Fuck fuck, fuck fuck.

This coming from the statist authoritarian. If I don't pay for your social safety nets, will you send guys with guns to my house to extort that money from me?

In reply to this comment by dystopianfuturetoday:
Libertarians are like that. They have no sense of decency.

In reply to this comment by blankfist:
I'm just waiting for karaidl #2 to discard their videos so I can jump on them like some kind of UNscrupulous pirate and re-sift them!

In reply to this comment by dystopianfuturetoday:
There will be no laughing in the fun room.

In reply to this comment by blankfist:
^Downvote party on dag's comment for making this personal.

[edit] Aw, dft, you counteracted my downvote! I was only having a bit of fun, is all. What was this blog originally about? Meh, who cares. Fuck fuck, fuck fuck.

>> ^imstellar28:I can at least understand and sympathize with NetRunner's perspective on unemployment. That is a case of all people helping all people; even if I don't agree with forcing people to help, I can understand the reasoning. In the big scheme of things, unemployment benefits are such a small amount of money compared to our national income its really not a big deal. That cannot be said of trillion dollar socialistic bailouts to failing corporations, the governmental manipulation of markets, inflation, the creation of booms and bursts, etc.


My goodness, my efforts are paying off -- he's starting to have a grudging respect for my beliefs, even if he doesn't agree with them.

I think, imstellar, you just inadvertently stumbled into the main complaint us progressive/liberal people have about what Obama's doing with the economy now. He seems to be continuing this socialism-for-the-rich policy, which is vastly more expensive than anything we've ever dreamed of proposing in terms of unemployment, welfare, and health care, and that's saying quite a bit.

I would agree in general that we need for the losers to lose, mainly these investment banks that built these ponzi schemes. Problem is, when Paulson let Lehman fail, it triggered a run on the banks. In fact, the only thing that's stopped that from happening to all banks is the expectation that government will find a way to keep them afloat somehow.

That's why I see the question of how we deal with the banks as being one of the most important questions right now. If we let them fail, this really will be a huge depression, likely bigger than 1929, and more like the earlier "Long Depression" that followed the Panic of 1873. If we bail them out, not only is that unlikely to work, it would probably make the nation bankrupt, while heaping huge sums of cash into the pockets of the very people who built this house of cards.

I think the only reasonable option is to put them in receivership -- nationalize them. The government takes over the bank, wipes out the shareholders, brings in new management, straighten out the balance sheets, and then sell the bank back to private investors.

That way we keep the bank intact, make the losers lose, and while the risk is socialized, the taxpayers would get any upside that would be gained in the process.

All this talk about debt and deficit spending seems like hot air to me. Sure, we need to worry about it, but it's not really driving any of our issues right now. Cutting government spending right now would be a horrible idea, because it'd just add more people to the unemployment lines (even if I'd otherwise be happy to see the engines of war lose their biggest customer). Cutting taxes might help, but keep in mind Obama did that in the stimulus package (the largest middle-class tax cut in history, lefty demagogues would say), as well as spending money investing in infrastructure, to try to bring down unemployment. As Farhad said, it's probably insufficient to the size of the downturn we're in, but it should lessen the blow.

imstellar and blankfist, you both bring up inflation as a long-term risk. Here's what Brad DeLong has to say about that risk. I'm no economist, but my reading is that he's saying "good point, but here's how we would detect if inflation became an issue, and all of those metrics say we're good to go." From what I'm reading, deflation is the problem we're looking at, not inflation, and while it's true that if we make the stimulus too big it would lead to inflation, I think we're nowhere near that point right now.

Incidentally, that's the answer to imstellar's question about "why don't we do this in good times/developing countries too?"

I also love the compromise plan of saying that government should buff up our social safety net so that an economic crash doesn't put people on the streets, starve them, push them out of school (if there), or forgo medical treatments, then I'm all for letting the rest of the economy crash as hard as it cares too. I think, generally speaking, that's more in line with progressive ideology than what Obama's actually doing.

>> ^NetRunner:
>> ^Constitutional_Patriot:
It's almost like no one's backing the Republicans.

It's exactly like that. Republican supporters either are too selfish to give their "hard-earned" money to the Man or they are economically savvy enough to brace themselves for the next market crash/tax hike for war spending/natural disaster at the hand of their spiteful and puny god/etc. And with no social safety net worth the name, they must keep their money somewhere safe, preferably in a sock somewhere near a gun.

Forget all these loser politicians! You and I should start our own country! CommonSenseville.
I'll be the King, you can be the Queen.


You're quick to point the finger at Phil Gramm. He's not without fault, but neither are many of the Democrats (including Papa Clinton).

http://ibdeditorial.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=306370789279709

Take that with a grain of salt. I'm simply pointing out that this hasn't been a one-sided mistake. I agree with the "bit of fine tuning" that you talk about, but Clinton practically took away the ability of Fannie and Freddie to turn down "bad loans." It's not like he twisted their arm, but still.

I used to work as a loan officer in CA. Did so for 4 years starting in 2000 (right after the Clinton years). Even I saw it coming. I could fit almost anybody with a job a mortgage program that would get approved (and purchased on the secondary market). The other LO's and the Branch Managers would talk about how awesome Bill Clinton was for forcing the secondary market to buy riskier loans. We were all reaping the benefits (little did we know...). I'm no economist, but like I said, I started to realize that it wasn't headed in the right direction back in 2004.

Where were the democrats then?

http://politics.videosift.com/talk/The-OLD-Bush-Plan-for-Fannie-Mae-and-Freddie-Mac-Oversight

There is a reason that Congress has a 9% approval rating and it's not only the Republican's fault. The Dems have had the majority since the last election, remember?


I do want to let you know that I think you're mostly right about what the next step should be.



In reply to this comment by NetRunner:
I think on this count, you're in agreement with me, and the Democratic party.

However, I think we're looking at more than a lull right now. The Democrats would prefer our actions be focused on putting money into the bottom of the economy, instead of the top, but I think that something needed to be done to bail out Fannie and Freddie at this point. I just don't think preserving the executives' bonus compensation packages should have been part of the deal.

I'd rather Phil Gramm and the Republicans hadn't deregulated the finance markets in the first place -- that's what opened the door for this kind of unchecked expansion into an area where no one was being honest about the risks.

Now those risks everyone denied or concealed are turning out to be real, and they're turning to the taxpayers to keep them solvent.

I think a modern-day leftie like me would say that so long as we had unemployment insurance for everyone, universal healthcare, and fair bankruptcy laws, we don't need to bail any company out -- let the downturn happen, and rely on the social safety net to keep people from starving or dying.

I also think that once it becomes clear what the root cause of the market failure was, we should add some regulation (as little as possible) to reduce the likelihood of a similar catastrophe from happening in the future.

I think the biggest misconception people have of Democrats is that they think we don't believe in the benefits of a free market -- we absolutely do -- we just think it needs a bit of fine tuning from time to time to keep it healthy.

In reply to this comment by deedub81:
I do think the eonomy thrives when most things are left up to the market. The gov't doesn't need to pour money into the economy every time there is a lull.

I think on this count, you're in agreement with me, and the Democratic party.

However, I think we're looking at more than a lull right now. The Democrats would prefer our actions be focused on putting money into the bottom of the economy, instead of the top, but I think that something needed to be done to bail out Fannie and Freddie at this point. I just don't think preserving the executives' bonus compensation packages should have been part of the deal.

I'd rather Phil Gramm and the Republicans hadn't deregulated the finance markets in the first place -- that's what opened the door for this kind of unchecked expansion into an area where no one was being honest about the risks.

Now those risks everyone denied or concealed are turning out to be real, and they're turning to the taxpayers to keep them solvent.

I think a modern-day leftie like me would say that so long as we had unemployment insurance for everyone, universal healthcare, and fair bankruptcy laws, we don't need to bail any company out -- let the downturn happen, and rely on the social safety net to keep people from starving or dying.

I also think that once it becomes clear what the root cause of the market failure was, we should add some regulation (as little as possible) to reduce the likelihood of a similar catastrophe from happening in the future.

I think the biggest misconception people have of Democrats is that they think we don't believe in the benefits of a free market -- we absolutely do -- we just think it needs a bit of fine tuning from time to time to keep it healthy.

In reply to this comment by deedub81:
I do think the eonomy thrives when most things are left up to the market. The gov't doesn't need to pour money into the economy every time there is a lull.