Flat tax. 40 % income tax for everyone. End just one of the wars you're all fighting, and you'll be out of the economic crisis in 5 years.

More happiness isn't a moral argument. It might make more people happy to have capital punishment, but that isn't a moral justification. So do go on and on.

>> ^heropsycho:

Except everyone is happier, everyone has more freedom, everyone is subjected to less crime, everyone's businesses are better off... I could go on and on.
>> ^GeeSussFreeK:
That isn't a moral counter argument. It might be better for economy to have a dictator, but the pressures of commerce shouldn't drive morality, less you get us into our current economic crisis. Economics shouldn't be the founding principal for justification, unless your Ferengi.
>> ^heropsycho:
Because the economy works better for everyone, even you, when that's done an appropriate amount. How much more is debatable, but the basic principle still true regardless.
>> ^pyloricvalve:
Why is it morally justified to impose a higher tax rate on the more highly paid? I'm already paying twenty people's worth.. Why should it be more?

Except everyone is happier, everyone has more freedom, everyone is subjected to less crime, everyone's businesses are better off... I could go on and on.

>> ^GeeSussFreeK:

That isn't a moral counter argument. It might be better for economy to have a dictator, but the pressures of commerce shouldn't drive morality, less you get us into our current economic crisis. Economics shouldn't be the founding principal for justification, unless your Ferengi.
>> ^heropsycho:
Because the economy works better for everyone, even you, when that's done an appropriate amount. How much more is debatable, but the basic principle still true regardless.
>> ^pyloricvalve:
Why is it morally justified to impose a higher tax rate on the more highly paid? I'm already paying twenty people's worth.. Why should it be more?

That isn't a moral counter argument. It might be better for economy to have a dictator, but the pressures of commerce shouldn't drive morality, less you get us into our current economic crisis. Economics shouldn't be the founding principal for justification, unless your Ferengi.

>> ^heropsycho:

Because the economy works better for everyone, even you, when that's done an appropriate amount. How much more is debatable, but the basic principle still true regardless.
>> ^pyloricvalve:
Why is it morally justified to impose a higher tax rate on the more highly paid? I'm already paying twenty people's worth.. Why should it be more?

@westy

Yes nearly every business tries to game the system that's the point of capitalism and that's why it will always fail ( im not on about simply ballencing your books and deprecaiting assets and playing that sytem , evan though that is gamed in the same way) I'm on about the system at large , surely you can see the difference between a butcher and a company that offers high interest loans to desperate people , when instead of offering the loan the ethical thing would be for them to tell them to contact citizens advice ?

I don't think capitalism (by which I mean a regulated but moderately free market) will fail as (at least so far) it's provided the best manner of funneling people's naturally selfish/nepotistic tendencies in a productive way.

Let's be clear here, generally brokers were responsible for writing subprime loans with botched (or outright false) assessments of income and capacity to pay. These brokers were essentially gaming the investment banks (like Bear Sterns) into buying fraudulent securitised loans. Bear Sterns along with Lehman Brothers didn't survive and many other banks got taken over. There was clear motivation for them to perform more due diligence and they paid for their mistakes by going bankrupt or being taken over. The credit rating agencies and the insurers who backed CDOs also had poor judgement. My point is, the people who benefited from writing these bad loans weren't the banks.

thats the piont im making , you can have companies that game the system but also privde a service but the people that have caused this economic crisis are people that are at the pinicale of gaming the system and do not care to provide a service and purely participate to game the system purely exist to make money at whatever cost to society.

They're not gaming the system if they're going bankrupt. You know as well as I do that banks borrow money from those with savings and selectively lend them out to generally good investments thus creating economic growth and jobs. Let's not get carried away with populism here.

luckily we have people that are ethical and don't just think of the profit bottom line , but in general you will see that a good proportion of those successful at business and profiting are ones that couldn't give a shit about other people or there effect on the environment.

The difference between the butcher and a large financial institution is size. If this was a national specialty chain business, you can bet that they would be lobbying their congressman and receiving favors and payouts. Don't get me wrong, I'm not for crony capitalism and I understand that banks weild considerable leverage over the economy and politicians. They should be more regulated commensurate to their significance and intractability with the economy, particularly shadow banking system (securitisation of loans and credit derivatives) should be regulated to prevent crises. This is a failure of regulation though, not a failure of banking in general. As I mentioned, every large industry/corporate body curries favors.

"Either way they are both pretty beneficial to a functioning economy"

so the bankers that turned a blind eye to the toxit assits were beneficail to the econimy ?

how about the lobiests and deregulation that made it possable ?
what about the real estate agents that knew the people they were selling the houses to could not maintain the mortgage?

What about the marketeers that designed the sales materail to obscure the mortgage rates to hide the fact that they would increase and specifcaly designed the brouchers and trained the sales teams to exploit unknowlageable people ?

No they weren't and many of their businesses went out of business. These are all issues of regulation. Corporations (as opposed to say partnerships) are by legal design geared towards maximising profit. If you come in with expectations that any corporation will not do this, you are making flawed assumptions.

"hedge funds don't gamble shares, they trade them based on discrepancies between actual price and fundamentals"

Defanitoin of Gambling from Wikipedia - "Gambling is the wagering of money or something of material value (referred to as "the stakes") on an event with an uncertain outcome with the primary intent of winning additional money and/or material goods."

something doesn't have to have unfavourable odds to be considered gambling for example there are many professional gamblers that make a living of horse betting , and in that exact same way there are many people that profestinaly gamble on the stock market , and I would argue that they are themselfs not providing a use to socity. I would however contrast that against sum-one that invests in a company because that company is doing good or employs many people or is developing beneficial technpligy.

the problem is in general capitalism in its current form is fucked , and i belive we need to move towards something that is what I would describe as a

"democratic socialist capitalist system" where we have as free a market as possable and that is achived through democratic regulation guided by socialist princapels. so you try to give every citizen as equal a chance as possible at having free will and succeeding in what they want to do.

the current system allows the top 10% fantastic freedom and chances but at the expense of the majorty of people.

It's not a wager of value, it's a transfer of value. Which is critically what makes it different from gambling. If you have agricultural produce and you want to hedge the risk that your harvest will go down in value when it comes to fruition, it's typically an investment bank/hedge fund/commercial bank that takes the counterparty position. Without someone taking that counterparty position, you couldn't eliminate your risk of a fall in prices. If someone buys a newly listed share of your company, they're contributing to your capacity to invest and pay wages. During the process of gambling before someone is declared the winner, there is no value being created. That's a pretty crucial difference. The main point is though that banking creates value, hopefully I've already illustrated that beforehand.

I don't disagree with what you're saying at the end, but as far as I'm concerned you should be resentful towards campaign finance rules. Instead, it's like trying to treat the symptom not the cause.

I think debt is a bigger problem in Europe because they have much larger debts (per capita).
They do all have soverign currency still, don't they? I thought they all just added the euro, not replaced their currency. If you're right, YIKES!
I disagree that we have control of our currency since we left the gold standard, but that's a different discussion althogether. We certainly do have the control to devalue it, just maybe not re-value it.
You say 'at worst, inflation' as if that's just fine, but remember Germany after WW1, they 'just' had inflation to pay their crushing debt, it started with them needing a wheelbarrow full of deutchmarks to buy a loaf of bread, and ended with the creation of the Nazi's and WW2. I think they also defaulted in the end. Inflation can be a nation killer.
I have repeatedly said the same thing to you about ballance, but reversed. There's no need to focus solely on taxes either, it's a ballance thing. You seem to be focused solely on raising taxes as a way out of the problem, I'm saying that's only 1/2 the solution (that should not translate into 'I don't think low tax rates are a problem' or 'I think overspending is the only problem', it seems that's what you're incorrectly gleeming from my words). Maybe it's just that you don't like the WAY I said it, but you agree with my point? I don't get it.
We are NOT the rich and powerful country we claim to be, and have not been for a while...that's the issue. We need to consider ourselves a second world country and decide if we want to continue on the path of fiscal irresponsibility and become a third world country, or do we want to regain first world status. Our 'friends across the pond' will shortly not be supplying these programs to their citizens either, they bankrupted themselves with these kinds of programs and lack of revenue, and now their bankrupting their partners in the EU. That's why it doesn't make sense to compare our social programs to theirs and say 'they can, why can't we?'...theirs bankrupted them. If we had the money, I would be all for it, and 3 months paid vacation, guaranteed retirement benifits, low or no taxes, etc., as long as we never spend more than we have, I'm fine with it. It's just not fiscally possible without going into the hole even farther, and that leads to disaster. Right now, we are in debt more than the entire country produces in a year, and that only counts the debt on the books, and counts our GDP at 09 levels, which we no longer meet. That means if every person/corperation was taxed at 100%, it could not erase our debt in a year (assuming we also stop spending a dime on anything). That's a HUGE problem that should never have been allowed to happen, if you don't think it is, I think you aren't responsible with money. Living above your means on credit is irresponsible, and usually passes the bill on to others or leaves it unpaid. I have no children to worry about there, but I'm not the kind of a$$hole that plans on leaving YOUR children deep in debt in a third world country...and I don't want to end up there myself before I die.
>> ^NetRunner:
>>
The European debt situation is different, and seems to be a major cause of their current economic crisis, so is the whole credit default swap thing to a lesser extent, but they're far more removed from it.
Debt is a bigger problem in Europe because they have sovereign debt without having a sovereign currency, and don't have an established EU-wide fiscal policy.
In the US, we have control of our own currency, and have a federal fiscal policy, so a debt crisis for us would at worst lead to inflation, not to default.
Not to mention, there are two halves of a balanced budget, spending and revenue. One way to balance a budget is by cutting back on your social safety net, another way is to raise taxes. There's no reason to focus primarily or solely on cuts, if your overall goal is fiscal balance.
More broadly, I think paid maternity leave is a pretty good idea, and if we're really the rich and powerful country we claim to be, then we can afford the taxes to pay for it. If we can't afford it, then we need to think of ourselves as an impoverished 3rd world nation who aspires to one day be able to provide such a valuable benefit to our citizens. If we're simply unwilling to pay for it, then we're less humane than our European friends across the pond.

>> ^newtboy:

I completely agree, our economic crisis was caused by mismanagement and deregulation of the banking system/wallstreet, which is now made worse by the European crisis. Our debt crisis is a decades old issue that's suddenly in the forefront, but is also a huge and looming problem.

That there is pretty much what I meant in my original quip, and subsequent responses.

>> ^newtboy:
The European debt situation is different, and seems to be a major cause of their current economic crisis, so is the whole credit default swap thing to a lesser extent, but they're far more removed from it.

Debt is a bigger problem in Europe because they have sovereign debt without having a sovereign currency, and don't have an established EU-wide fiscal policy.

In the US, we have control of our own currency, and have a federal fiscal policy, so a debt crisis for us would at worst lead to inflation, not to default.

Not to mention, there are two halves of a balanced budget, spending and revenue. One way to balance a budget is by cutting back on your social safety net, another way is to raise taxes. There's no reason to focus primarily or solely on cuts, if your overall goal is fiscal balance.

More broadly, I think paid maternity leave is a pretty good idea, and if we're really the rich and powerful country we claim to be, then we can afford the taxes to pay for it. If we can't afford it, then we need to think of ourselves as an impoverished 3rd world nation who aspires to one day be able to provide such a valuable benefit to our citizens. If we're simply unwilling to pay for it, then we're less humane than our European friends across the pond.

OK, let me start by saying I was never incensed, irked, consternated, angered, or otherwise bothered. I always think it's funny to hear the assumptions people make about me, they are invariably wrong, I'm a wierdo and rarely take the path expected. I take joy in setting the record straight in the hopes of presenting a different point of view for consideration, I see no reason for revenge or anger over a misunderstanding and usually not schadenfreude either.
I didn't see it as consession to my arguement, I saw it as coming to agreement that we really meant the same thing. I guess to some people that might be the same thing, it's not to me.
The only apology needed is to Umption, you made an ass out of him. I'm not looking for one myself, I don't know why I might be due one except for the blankfist thing. You misunderstood me again.
It depends on which current financial crisis you mean. I completely agree, our economic crisis was caused by mismanagement and deregulation of the banking system/wallstreet, which is now made worse by the European crisis. Our debt crisis is a decades old issue that's suddenly in the forefront, but is also a huge and looming problem. The European debt situation is different, and seems to be a major cause of their current economic crisis, so is the whole credit default swap thing to a lesser extent, but they're far more removed from it.
The debt discussion stems from the discussion of the european crash, which I believe was caused mostly by the crushing debt of many union members, caused in large part by over spending on social programs like paid maternity (along with many others), and the worsening of that debt to the point their partners could no longer ignore it caused by the global market declines. It came to a head when Greece couldn't borrow more money to pay for the services they refused to curtail. I disagree with the contention that Spain and Ireland were in "good" shape simply because they were not collapsing yet. Greece has been spending like a teenager with daddy's credit card for far too long (probably decades), so long that it's people (and corperations most likely, don't misunderstnad) believe they are entitled to all their handouts because many have never known different, and they flatly refused to raise taxes to pay for those services and entitlements, forget paying their debts. Let's be clear, they are not us, they were even worse about entitlement programs and ignoring debt. That does not mean we should not use them as a cautionary tale of what to avoid, we don't want to be where they are now, and it's where we are heading.
Here in the USA, I think our debt stems from overspending (on defense and entitlement programs, stupid wastes, and needed services) AND under taxing. I'm not sure about your health care point, we haven't really paid for it yet, so it hasn't really effected the debt. Maybe I'm missing your point.
I disagree with your final point, that our debt is a made up problem. I also disagree with the contention that we must erase the debt completely and instantly, damn the consequences. Sadly, the big 'debt debate' that once again tarnished our reputation worldwide (and continues to) is really not about paying down our debt. As far as I know, no one seriously even floated a ballanced budget ammendment, forget actually paying down the debt. All the wrangling is over a small percentage of the insane increase they expect in the national debt over 10 years (I think I recall the number 24trillion). I fear the debt will crush us, and stagnate our economy if not dealt with quickly, but it must be done with reason and thoughfulness, not ignored OR myopicly focused on.>> ^NetRunner:
@newtboy the part that reminds me of blankfist is that you seem to be incensed at my terrible crime of misunderstanding an ambiguous statement, and then thinking I owe you something (a retraction, an apology, or a concession to your argument) because of that.
Let's wind this train of thought back a bit. My contention is that the present economic calamity started with a financial crisis, driven by mortgage-backed securities.
I didn't mention debt, you did.
I agree that debt plays a role in the unfolding of this crisis, especially in Europe, but it's not a cause of the crisis. Any kind of economic crisis throws a government's budget into deficit (or pushes it further into), because tax revenue goes down when GDP and employment go down, while at the same time, more people wind up needing to rely on the social safety net as they loose their jobs (or just get their hours or pay cut). Greece and Italy were in bad shape before the crisis, and got much worse. But Spain and Ireland were in good fiscal shape before the crisis, and wound up deep in debt as a consequence of the crisis.
I also disagree with your contention that the debts are caused by "people taking maternity leave along with other social programs to a ridiculous extent." I'm not intimately familiar with the specific fiscal details of the European countries, but basically the way government budgets work is that you need to make sure you have tax revenues that are higher than spending in normal times.
Here in the US, our debt issues are primarily a result of cutting taxes, overspending on defense, and a refusal to adopt a single-payer health care system for everyone.
But for the most part, debt is a made-up problem in the US. It's not that it's not a problem at all, it's just that it's not something we need to solve in 2011, it's something we need to solve by 2030 or so. It's important, but not urgent.

@newtboy the part that reminds me of blankfist is that you seem to be incensed at my terrible crime of misunderstanding an ambiguous statement, and then thinking I owe you something (a retraction, an apology, or a concession to your argument) because of that.

Let's wind this train of thought back a bit. My contention is that the present economic calamity started with a financial crisis, driven by mortgage-backed securities.

I didn't mention debt, you did.

I agree that debt plays a role in the unfolding of this crisis, especially in Europe, but it's not a cause of the crisis. Any kind of economic crisis throws a government's budget into deficit (or pushes it further into), because tax revenue goes down when GDP and employment go down, while at the same time, more people wind up needing to rely on the social safety net as they loose their jobs (or just get their hours or pay cut). Greece and Italy were in bad shape before the crisis, and got much worse. But Spain and Ireland were in good fiscal shape before the crisis, and wound up deep in debt as a consequence of the crisis.

I also disagree with your contention that the debts are caused by "people taking maternity leave along with other social programs to a ridiculous extent." I'm not intimately familiar with the specific fiscal details of the European countries, but basically the way government budgets work is that you need to make sure you have tax revenues that are higher than spending in normal times.

Here in the US, our debt issues are primarily a result of cutting taxes, overspending on defense, and a refusal to adopt a single-payer health care system for everyone.

But for the most part, debt is a made-up problem in the US. It's not that it's not a problem at all, it's just that it's not something we need to solve in 2011, it's something we need to solve by 2030 or so. It's important, but not urgent.

You have repeatedly demonstrated you don't know what the word infinite means and I've already called you out on your strawman of life prolonging.

You continue to demonstrate that you have no clue how the world works beyond your ivory tower. I can't take anything you say seriously because conservatives have repeatedly demonstrated that they don't operate in good faith...they run up the debt and then blame the next guy for their misdeeds.

We've run our economy according to conservative ideas for the last few decades...how well has that worked out? Maybe you're right and socialism doesn't work. But what I can tell you from empirical evidence is that giving all our money to the already rich certainly doesn't work. It's time for a fundamental change and I honestly don't think we should be listening to the people who:

1. Got us in this mess in the first place
2. Have demonstrated that they're perfectly willing to sabotage this country in order to create the appearance that a democrat failed.

History has already shown that cutting taxes and reducing spending in an economic crisis does. not. work. I'm not interested in repeating the same shit over and over like the conservatives. Conservatives have no right to call themselves conservative in the first place. Nothing about their policies are conservative.

- "Hi!"

- "Hi."

- "Uhmm.. I'm here for my interview!"

- "OH, sure.. and which day was your interview scheduled for, sir?"

- "Well... actually *right now*. Sorry, traffic was just insane.. I'm running la-".

- "Sir, we don't have any additional interviews lined up for today. Perhaps you should check your schedule?".

- "No! I'm supposed to be on right now. I'm here to discuss the current economic crisis. You know.. buy gold, all that stuff?"

-"Well who's out on the floor..??!"

"Deb, Isn't that Rick the janiter? You know, the guy who works the really late shifts??" -

@quantumushroom

You do know that Greece's economic crisis is partially due to your friendly corporate friends at Goldman Sachs, right?

http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,676634,00.html

@NetRunner

Damn, I knew the States had it bad, but not that bad.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703411304575093572032665414.html

What Chile did have was intellectual capital, thanks to an exchange program between its Catholic University and the economics department of the University of Chicago, then Friedman's academic home. Even before the 1973 coup, several of Chile's "Chicago Boys" had drafted a set of policy proposals which amounted to an off-the-shelf recipe for economic liberalization: sharp reductions to government spending and the money supply; privatization of state-owned companies; the elimination of obstacles to free enterprise and foreign investment, and so on."

In left-wing mythology—notably Naomi Klein's tedious 2007 screed "The Shock Doctrine"—the Chicago Boys weren't just strange bedfellows to Pinochet's dictatorship. They were complicit in its crimes. "If the pure Chicago economic theory can be carried out in Chile only at the price of repression, should its authors feel some responsibility?" wrote New York Times columnist Anthony Lewis in October 1975. In fact, Pinochet had been mostly indifferent to the Chicago Boys' advice until the continuing economic crisis forced him to look for some policy alternatives. In March 1975, he had a 45-minute meeting with Friedman and asked him to write a letter proposing some remedies. Friedman responded a month later with an eight-point proposal that largely mirrored the themes of the Chicago Boys.

For his trouble, Friedman would spend the rest of his life being defamed as an accomplice to evil: at his Nobel Prize ceremony the following year, he was met by protests and hecklers. Friedman himself couldn't decide whether to be amused or annoyed by the obloquies; he later wryly noted that he had given communist dictatorships the same advice he gave Pinochet, without raising leftist hackles.

As for Chile, Pinochet appointed a succession of Chicago Boys to senior economic posts. By 1990, the year he ceded power, per capita GDP had risen by 40% (in 2005 dollars) even as Peru and Argentina stagnated. Pinochet's democratic successors—all of them nominally left-of-center—only deepened the liberalization drive. Result: Chileans have become South America's richest people. They have the continent's lowest level of corruption, the lowest infant-mortality rate, and the lowest number of people living below the poverty line.

so maybe that 20 million (of tax payers money) that was "needed" for bailout due to the "economic crisis" - did not go in the direction as advertised... hmmz