ENTERIK: You seemed to have accepted the libertarian myth of how hypothetical ideal markets function.

JakeNewton: I am sorry if I wasn't clear, I acknowledge that markets are flawed, sloppy, and risky. OTOH, you have characterized the lenders as predators as though the borrowers are helpless, seemingly without question. Am I mistaken? My aim was to show you that the borrowers are obviously not helpless, which casts doubt as to how predatory the lenders are.

ENTERIK: Indeed, you are mistaken. In my replies to MntGoat I have said,The subprime market existed before the current subprime mortgage crisis. The problem is that financers relaxed standards beyond all sense of reason and caused the subprime market to more than double in size. Most of these low standards loans were based on the value of the property not on the ability of the borrower to pay which makes them predatory loans. In fact, subprime mortgages went from 9% to 21% of all mortgages, but it is how that extra 12% of subprime mortgages were come by that is the reason for the current problems. By discarding lending standards they were able to bamboozle financially uneducated families into loans with predatory terms with carpetbagging brokers who had no responsibility to the client.

JakeNewton: And you also don't seem to see, unless I've missed it, that the loaning firms and their shareholders, the predators as you say, may have quite a bit of suffering for themselves coming down the road.

ENTERIK: Yes, the subprime lending companies have gambled with everyones future and lost. They have shown themselves to be reckless and irresponsible. They have shown that they cannot self-regulate themselves when it really counts. They have betrayed the trust of the people. The have committed the sin of avarice. And many will suffer for the sins of the greedy not just the greedy who might not suffer much at all. First, two million families are going to lose their credit ratings, equity and homes when the predatory terms of their mortgages kick in. Second, people all over the world are going to pay, are already paying, hundreds of billions of dollars to bail out these untrustworthy lenders as central banks inject liquidity in a desperate attempt to stop further devaluation in the US dollar and a global economic crisis.

---

ENTERIK: What if families trying to get out of the rent trap thought they were being careful? What if they thought they were learning about it? What if they thought those carpetbagging financial brokers were helping?

JakeNewton: First, the so called "rent trap" is way over stated. Either renting or owning can make sense. Much has to do with the individual situation, issues aroun Opportunity Cost, etc.

ENTERIK: It sounds like you haven't really been in the rent trap where you pay just as much as mortgage, month after month, year after year, with nothing to show for it except you paid off someone elses mortgage. Wages for the bottom quarter of Americans have stagnated while renting costs have increased. If you have kids or illness or both forget about ever getting out of two bedroom apartments and doublewides. That is reality for at least one quarter of Americans. You can try to wave away the whole issue with fancy economics terms but those facts remain, one quarter of Americans form a virtually permanant underclass that most lenders would not consider qualified for a mortgage of any sort. BUT with the President pimping his ownership society and a real estate bubble, subprime lenders saw an opportunity, a very risky opportunity, to make a quick buck swindling cash and property from working poor families.

JakeNewton: I am not knowledgeable, but I suspect that you are arguing from one extreme, and the above is not actually a typical characterization of the circumstances of the average borrower. In any case, they could have gotten help as I had said a disinterested expert third party who would work on their behalf on a fee basis to look over the details of the transaction.

ENTERIK: My characterization of the recently ballooning subprime mortgage market is not extreme. Consider this, 70% of all subprime mortgages come through brokers with no fiduciary responsibility to the client. That means they don't deserve your trust, but that's the beauty of tapping the subprime market, they don't know any better and they think the brokers are helping them. Also, 90% of all subprime mortgages have kickbacks for steering unsuspecting borrowers to riskier loans. So it seems to me that the majority of subprime mortgages fall into the predatory category.

---

ENTERIK: in matters of finance, the state has a responsibility to provide the same kind of guidance and protection to all it's citizens to benefit the common good.

JakeNewton: Would this protection extend to the lending companies as well? I would deny that the state has any such mandate beyond any current legislation on the books that would apply, and would find it very questionable that they could have any expert standing in general or any better standing over the parties of loan agreements than the parties themselves. Who is the state to be able to evaluate the individual situations of families and loan firms involved? Why should anyone think that the state really has their best interests in mind in such matters?

ENTERIK: As a nation the United States was formed to advance the common good which is accomplished through regulatory law. Had there been common sense regulations placed on mortgage brokers and subprime lenders the protection by the state would have extended to unqualified subprime families chasing the American dream and greedy corporate lenders that have shown they can't be trusted to self-police themselves. By making sensible regulations the state can legally require contracts, borrowers and lenders to meet standards to make sure predatory abuse is not an economy threatening fiasco.

JakeNewton: No one should care more about the financial well being of an individual than that individual. This would be an ongoing lesson in the mandatory personal finance courses that I suggested earlier be part of the public schooling.

ENTERIK: I think that everyone can agree that first and foremost every individual has a responsibility to be their own advocate and that they bear some responsibility for the decisions they make. Afterall, that is the direct consequence of being an independet individual. I think you and I can agree that the State should do a better job of nurturing this capacity in its citizens by expanding public education. I go one step further. I believe that the state has a moral obligation to protect its citizens from avarice. If the people are insufficiently educated they are easy prey for stalking financers and knowing this the State should enact common sense regulations to limit the harm done to the individual and common good. Clearly, the subprime lending industry cannot be trusted to self-regulate The Republican Congress and Bush Administration refused to regulate untrustworthy brokers and lenders, so we have this subprime mortgage crisis. We have an extensive judicial system for contract law which basically spends most of it's time protecting corporations from one another. We have RICO laws which have outlawed the very worst sorts of loansharking. It only makes sense that we have and enforce laws to protect average citizens from unfair business practices.

Brilliant piece.

This is what happens when it doesn't trickle down.

-JJ

"As long as we have public education I have always thought that personal finance should be a part of the mandatory coursework already in place."

Public education is around to make people subserviant to authority figures, not to educate or promote free thought. Be wary of business' influence in schools.

"You seemed to have accepted the libertarian myth of how hypothetical ideal markets function."

I am sorry if I wasn't clear, I acknowledge that markets are flawed, sloppy, and risky. OTOH, you have characterized the lenders as predators as though the borrowers are helpless, seemingly without question. Am I mistaken? My aim was to show you that the borrowers are obviously not helpless, which casts doubt as to how predatory the lenders are. And you also don't seem to see, unless I've missed it, that the loaning firms and their shareholders, the predators as you say, may have quite a bit of suffering for themselves coming down the road.

"What if families trying to get out of the rent trap thought they were being careful? What if they thought they were learning about it? What if they thought those carpetbagging financial brokers were helping?"

First, the so called "rent trap" is way over stated. Either renting or owning can make sense. Much has to do with the individual situation, issues aroun Opportunity Cost, etc.

I am not knowledgeable, but I suspect that you are arguing from one extreme, and the above is not actually a typical characterization of the circumstances of the average borrower. In any case, they could have gotten help as I had said a disinterested expert third party who would work on their behalf on a fee basis to look over the details of the transaction.

"in matters of finance, the state has a responsibility to provide the same kind of guidance and protection to all it's citizens to benefit the common good."

Would this protection extend to the lending companies as well? I would deny that the state has any such mandate beyond any current legislation on the books that would apply, and would find it very questionable that they could have any expert standing in general or any better standing over the parties of loan agreements than the parties themselves. Who is the state to be able to evaluate the individual situations of families and loan firms involved? Why should anyone think that the state really has their best interests in mind in such matters?

No one should care more about the financial well being of an individual than that individual. This would be an ongoing lesson in the mandatory personal finance courses that I suggested earlier be part of the public schooling.

ENTERIK: a complex system of credit finance that is seldom, if ever, taught to a vast majority of subprime borrowers.

jakenewton: They don't have to specifically know the system. It's enough for them to know that they don't understand it and should therefore be careful. They can then either learn about it, get some help, or just avoid it.

ENTERIK: You seemed to have accepted the libertarian myth of how hypothetical ideal markets function. The idea that we are all directly responsible for the consequences we experience is attractive because it is simple and easy to understand. This too simple myth is also amoral and just plain wrong. It is a thin slice of reality. It's a thin slice of economics divorced from any sort of meaningful context. It is no more than the law of the jungle with selfishness as the highest standard. That myth flies in the face of American history and seeks to reverse the progress we have made towards a freer and more just society.

What if families trying to get out of the rent trap thought they were being careful? What if they thought they were learning about it? What if they thought those carpetbagging financial brokers were helping? The current subprime mortgage fiasco is a clear cut case of abuse, financial companies could not be trusted to police themselves. Now their avarice is dragging everyone down with them. They scammed hard-working subprime families with complex mortgages with predatory clauses. If the market is composed of irrational actors that don't understand the risks and can't maximize utility, the manmade market will not function like Adam Smith and others have predicted. Instead of seeing that fatal flaw in your market idealogy as a case for common sense regulations, you would rather condemn a big part of American citizens to peonage for the crime of unfortunate circumstances.

Who would send their child to the fair to gamble away his christmas money playing three card monty with carnies? So why should our nation let subprime families get bilked by unscrupulous mortgage brokers? Now you might say that these people aren't children, they are adults. That is on the surface true, but in matters of finance, the state has a responsibility to provide the same kind of guidance and protection to all it's citizens to benefit the common good.

MtnGoat August 23rd, 2007 2:14 pm
Hi Cyon. I appreciate your careful reading of my arguments, it says good things about your approach to ideas.

MtnGoat, "Hi Cyon. I appreciate your careful reading of my arguments, it says good things about your approach to ideas."

Cyon's comments are riddled with complaints--since when are complaints considered ideas--like, Mommy, I don't like it when you don't give me candy, is an idea!!!

MtnGoat combines arguments and ideas together--a strange mixture. But, of course, MtnGoat only alludes to Cyon's approach to ideas, not arriving at any.

Cyon refers to "neo-Marxist" (neo--a combining form meaning new, recent, as in neoclassic). There is nothing new or old about Marxism. It is a social scientic discipline that does'nt get old or new no more than Newton's law of gravity. One can agree or disagree with Marxism but that does not alter its social scientific discipline. Please don't claim that the Soviet Union adhered one iota to that discipline.

Arguments or ideas in discussion go nowhere but circular with sloppy abuse of facts.

"a complex system of credit finance that is seldom, if ever, taught to a vast majority of subprime borrowers."

They don't have to specifically know the system. It's enough for them to know that they don't understand it and should therefore be careful. They can then either learn about it, get some help, or just avoid it.

ENTERIK: Good for you. Your personal experience seems much better than the one most people with subprime mortgages are having.

MntGoat: Many people's are better. I'm far from the only one. Had folks on your side had your way, I would have owed *more* money on my principal paid *more* in interest, because I could not have used this mechanism.

ENTERIK: The subprime market existed before the current subprime mortgage crisis. The problem is that financers relaxed standards beyond all sense of reason and caused the subprime market to more than double in size. Most of these low standards loans were based on the value of the property not on the ability of the borrower to pay which makes them predatory loans. Now the real estate boom is slowing and people with Adjustable rate based payments they can't afford are stuck with property they can't sell.

Based on the savvy you have displayed you probably would have gotten the loan before lenders threw due diligence out the window and lowered standards. BUTYour personal success or failure is anecdotal. It is not enough reason for me to abandon common sense regulation as a way to stabilize the economy for the greater common good for all American citizens. The simple truth is that the government didn't do enough to protect millions of families from predatory lenders who bamboozled them into mortgages they could not afford.

---

MntGoat: What people do or do not do is their own affair. It is incumbent upon *every* person who will take out loans (or make ANY other economic decision to scrutinize their finances, plans, and fall back positions should things not go as planned.

ENTERIK: Like you, I believe that consequences flow directly from my personal decisions and that it is my responsibility to educate myself so I can make good ones. BUT not just that. I also know there are systemic factors that affect peoples ability to make certain decisions well. You seem to understand that economics and finance are a complex systems with a lot of factors changed by forces you can't control. You should be able to see the benefit of regulation for our economy and also use the same sort of reason to understand other peoples personal choices.

As a progressive nation We the people committed a long time ago to expanding freedom from fear and want. Knowing that profit motivated companies cannot be trusted to behave morally towards the general public, We invested our commonwealth in regulatory agencies to manage and stabilze our complex markets for the benefit of all citizens while protecting us from the greedy urges of the financial class.

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MntGoat: Adults are not children nor chattel. If you don't want to use a loan like this, don't. These decisions are part and parcel of being an adult. And so are the consequences. People sell peanuts in spite of the fact that some die from them, iodine in spite of the fact that some are so allergic it kills them. We allow motorcylces and skydiving and investment and risk.

ENTERIK: I think it is wrong to compare well known deadly allergies that an individual has been trained avoid to a complex system of credit finance that is seldom, if ever, taught to a vast majority of subprime borrowers. If they don't have the proper education how is a lifelong wage-slave renter chasing the American Dream really supposed to know if they want to commit to a predatory subprime loan or judge the consequences? This is why we have common sense regulation, to protect our citizens, our markets and ourselves from dihonest and greedy finance agents. It's like motorcycles, sure we allow them, but we don't allow children to drive them while drunk at any speed the want. It is just common sense to set reasonable limits. The same goes for the financial "products" industry.

---

MntGoat: Risk. Note that word. The terms of my subprime were spelled out exclusively in black and white which binds both sides…hence my ability to leverage it. I understand the unfortunate outcome for some who didn't do this or faced circumstances they did not anticipate. But it is not your role or anyone elses to proscribe contracts which take the rights of no one, which are clearly spelled out as to schedule, terms, risks and rewards, for other adults.

ENTERIK: Sometimes it is amusing to watch a libertarian-type radical talk about contract law. You sing the praises of mutually binding contracts while completely ignoring the regulatory agencies, regulatory law and judicial system that makes those contracts possible. Without all that proscribing infrastructure American-style capitalism would be way too risky and as a result way too inefficient. It is the protection our progressive regulatory institutions provide that benefits all parties. To say that contract law shouldn't be subject to regulation flies in the face of reality, it is because of regulation and its consequences that contract is possible. So when a class of contracts reveals itself as bad for a large number of citizens and the abuse of those contracts damages the market, it is time to fine tune regulations to limit the damage and prevent future fiascoes.

We past this point way back in 2004 when lenders began relaxing their subprime mortgage standards. Now
the center for Responsible Lending says that more than 2 million families with subprime loans are going to default when their adjustable rates kick in. Something could have been done then, but the Bush Administration and a compliant Republican lead congress wanted to fake a healthy economy by riding a wave of overvalued real estate and imprudent credit practices. Now that wave is crashing and you want to blame the water molecules but not the financial moon that dragged them there in the first place.

I put a lot of the blame on the unscrupulous mortgage brokers that pretended they were on the side of families chasing the American dream. They had no fiduciary responsibility, which means they don't have to handle your money in a trustworthy manner. In fact, these bamboozling brokers were given kickbacks (so-called Yield Spread Premiums) for steering naive borrowers to the worst contracts. These modern day carpetbaggers need to be regulated to limit the worst of their sins. There is still enough blame for the lenders whose greedy money grab lead them to relax standards beyond all reason. So much for the myth of the self-policing corporation.

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ENTERIK: Clearly you aren't naive so it's kind a silly to put yourself in the same category as those hopeful families that were preyed upon by greedy financial agents.

MntGoat: I appreciate that, but few view themselves as naive while a great many people view others as naive, including myself for taking such a deal. But you can't tell what people do or why without being them.

ENTERIK: It's not voodoo. If financial companies hadn't lowered their lending standards to prey upon subprime families, there would be very little need to tell if people were naive. Loans would simply be based on the well documented ability to keep up the payments. Again, self-policing companies fail to protect themselves, us or the market. It is way past time to enforce common sense regulation of those involved in subprime lending.

"Of course the stock market is rigged."

The *entire market* is not "rigged". Pointing to the example Enron or some other companys certainly doesn't prove it. There are thousands of companys without such problems. People who take a conservative and balanced approach, investing in the whole market using inexpensive index funds as an example can do pretty well if they stay in for the long haul. Over the long term stocks beat all other asset classes.

Great posts holymoly, Dr Z! We truly do live in a den of thieves. Of course the stock market is rigged. Of course our medical system is like the mafia, but we must see how we as individuals play a part in it (if we do). Yes, they give us credit to hang ourselves and tease us, through advertising, to buy all kinds of crap we don't need. But do we have to do it? For example, will you drive an old car that's paid for without worrying how you'll be perceived by people driving newer vehicles? Not so easy not to follow along, is it? For meaningful change to occur, though, we must be willing to do just that--not follow along. Buy only what you need, which means simplifying your life, and not contributing to the Corporate Predatory Fund. We have much more power than we realize.

'My father many years ago asked his children during dinner table conversation: "Why will capitalism always survive?" His answer: "Because socialism will always be used to save it." As a small businessman himself (a restaurateur), he was not referring to the little guys on Main Street. He was talking about the Big Boys. Today, we call these self-paying CEOs "corporate capitalists."'-
RALPH NADER

Stealing social security to pay for the war on democracy.

The leveraged buy out of America will cause the American people to guarantee the loans of the people buying out America.

Just work a little bit harder everyday.

'If you work for a living, why do you kill yourself working?" Tuco from "Buono, il brutto, il cattivo, Il (1966)

Another correction: I am too tired tonight to be clever, my steal-social security acronym was supposed to be:

United Progressives Yearning for OUR Social Security or some such. UP-YOURS--they call themselves names that make you think they are just concerned citizens but they are wall street investment houses wanting your money.

correction to my previous post: It was Neal Bush not Marvin that sat on the S&L silverado. But hell, all the Bush's are guilty--if nothing more than being W's sibling.

Shikantaza, may I have this dance? I see you are using the term "rugged individualism again". Didn't we have this discussion elsewhere? I do notice you've modified or shall I say, clarified?, your meaning.

You say:It (capitalism) does not determine the value of menial and tedious jobs - we as people do. Capitalism does not decide to pay teachers an unlivable wage - we do. Capitalism has also created comapnies like SAP and Google who most people would kill to work for. Capitalism has brought us vehicles by which we can essentially loan money to others and get a profit or a loss - it is called risk. Capitalism does not bring risk - getting out of bed in the morning does. Life is about risks and rewards on the plains of the Savannah. IF I can pick the fruit fast enough to get back to the cave before the lions and hyenas come - the risk is worth the reward.

Well, your description about the plains of Savannah are pretty accurate, though your risk assessment leaves something to be desired. Shikantaza, Americans are wage slaves--some are just more highly paid than others. You compare our trying to survive in this country with someone battling against nature. Yes, in nature, if you can run faster than the hyena, you are likely to survive. Here, you have to watch every banker, every credit card company and be a friggin lawyer with every contract, because unlike in the old days, there is no longer ANY CONSUMER PROTECTION. I can remember a time, when consumer fraud was taken seriously by attorneys general--not these days. Now, if you fall for the fine print on page 23, it is all your fault. Go back and look at the older laws which PROHIBITED just the type of greed and excessive cunning that corporations have no shame about using today. There really was a time in this country, when you didn't have to watch your back all the time--I mean NOT ALLL THE TIME.

As for OUR deciding who gets paid what, I guess my earlier posting here was just so boring or not on point so that it justly affected hardly anyone. What about this matter with the federal reserve? I mean, this group of private bankers decides what the price of money shall be. This group of private bankers print money at its own whim. This group decides how many people will be employed--and THEY DO NOT MEAN FOR ALL PEOPLE WHO WANT A JOB TO BE EMPLOYED. They purposely raise interest rates, so people will be laid off and other people's money in the bank will be worth more and not subject to inflation--inflation being uppity workers wanting more money--of course, (or uppity oil companies charging more--but they won't really consider that--as they exclude food and energy from their calculations.) I mean, WE DECIDE? Geez, white man (as Tanto would say) you feel pretty powerful. They only count people as unemployed who go to the unemployment office and request unemployment. In my state, we call it "drawing your pennies" with reason. Have you seen one of those forms? In my state, it is about fifteen pages long. In other words, they really discourage you from applying for benefits for which you have paid insurance. Oh, and you can't get if your employer just doesn't like your looks and fires you. You have to be laid off and your employer has to practically give his permission--wage slavery and fuedalism are alive and well. Uhh ohh!, I am giving Mtngoat fodder to shoot back--so I'll do it for him before he has a chance:

Mtngoat: And these are the bastards you want to control your health plan? (holymoly putting words in Mtngoat's mouth)

holymoly: Well, Mtngoat, I live in like the worst state in the union as far as a government helping it's people. Other states may not be as bad as mine--we come in last for just about every decent and civilized measuring rod. Our favorite motto is: thank god for Mississippi because Mississippi usually keeps us from being dead last on progressive issues.

Back to Shikantaza:
Yes, I could raise my land taxes and pay teachers more, but then I probalby wouldn't have a home- I really don't want to increase my rent to the state right now because I don't won'tthe state to foreclose because I can't afford the rent. If Ihad my way, I would pay no land taxes. That's right, I think everyone should have a place to retreat to where they can't reach you, where you are safe. The Supreme Court ruled that "the power to tax is the power to destroy." Over the last thirty years, I have paid taxes on my income, some of the highest sales taxes in the U.S. on everything, including food and medicine for my children--such is my state. Teachers here get their money from land taxes and those taxes are in a trust fund and sometimes that fund has so much money in it, that the legislature lick their chops and want to spend on other things, but they can't 'cause the people won't vote to break the trust. Comparatively speaking (and of course, we got a lot of poor folk in this state) teachers do pretty good. Not compared with a telecommunications salary--but then you never got three months off in the summer, two weeks at Christmas, a week for spring vacation and various and sundry other holidays--which I am not begruding them because if I were locked up with children all day, I would probably require more time. However, working for some of the corporations and businesses I have worked for, my one week a year and when I was really lucky, two weeks, didn't do all that much for me--especially since I usually used my vacation days taking kids to the doctor. I think in my 25 years of marriage, my husband and my family got two or three vacations away from home--going to another state. All of my money went to interest on credit cards and those cheating mortgage bankers, and I DO MEAN CHEATING.

But my point is, the system is rigged--otherwise, there WOULD BE an invisible hand controlling the market. Yes, we can manuever around as much as our corporate masters and bankers will allow us, but it is just so much chain that they give us, and if you go too far, you will certainly feel yourself jerked back in a hurry. Yes, as bottom feeders we have a little bit of freedom, but the higher up you go on that socioeconomic scale, the quicker things fall in line for you. I mean, if you are W, and your company goes bust, Cheney over at Haliburton will pay you for your stock, buy out the company and then close it down, leaving the other suckers in the dust. If you are Marvin Bush (or some other banker) and you sit on the S&L board, you loan your friend money "to start a French restaurant" and they take the money and go to Paris and taste all the best work of the best chefs to see how they want their restaurant to be--using the loan money, of course. Then, when the restaurant goes bust, it is just part of the S& L fiasco and those who lecture us about our "bootstraps" run to the feds and the feds bail them out--how many 100s of billions was that again? Well, somebody got a nice vacation, ça va?

The stock market is fixed so that every so often they talk the working class suckers into investing big time promising them the good life--the Bentley's you talk about, and they invest feeling like they are running with the big dogs, only to see the market crash (rigged); they loose their nest of wealth, and then the market restores (rigged). This scenario repeats itself again and again. They get you to invest your money in a pension fund, and then find some way to rip it off (think Enron among others). Now they talk about wanting to privitize Social Security (read, we've ripped off everything else, look at all the walling private accounts). Back in the day they were open about it. Wall Street sent reps around to give lectures. Ralph Nader raised hell and the bankers went underground forming group like (and I'm making up this name, but you get the picture) United Progressives Yearning Or Pleading for Social Security (acronym: UP*YOURS). The name has changed, Wall Street investment houses are the same.

Yes, we could all be more responsible with our money, more diligent with the crooks as we try to raise our children, work 40 hours or more a week, can green beans and tomatoes till 3:00 in the morning (and I've done it a many of summer) trying to stretch a dollar and to feed my family, but hell, you know, when the heyenas wear a business suit and have millions dollars to throw at your congressman, and you have an hourly wage and kid a with a sore throat, or a long list of schools supplies=--AND PLEASE DON'T SAY I SHOULDN'T HAVE KIDS-- UNLESS I WAS a FRIGGIN KENNEDY because just because I live in a nation that is so greedy that stealing is called business as usual, I'm told I have no right to reproduce.

Oh, yes, and you mention SAP and Google. Well, I don't what SAP is, but I do know what Google. Excuse me, but doesn't google make it's money off of advertising? Thanks to the person who gave us the link herein to the Orion website. They point out something that I think is VERY IMPORTANT HERE: WHHY SHOULD ADVERTISING PAY SO MUCH AND CHILD CARE PAY SO LITTLE? BECAUSE CHILDREN ARE ONLY WORTH $7 WHILE ADVERTISING SELLS CRAP AND MAKES THE RICH RICHER--therefore, that is a more worthwhile enterprise. How shitinkaza do "we" determine this. I'll take your answer off the air. Thank you.

Why shouldn't you make more tomorrow than you did yesterday? A market economy continually expands, that alone will yield more even if your market share remains static. There is not a fixed amount of money out there, continued growth is entirely possible without being unethical or rapacious.

The problem with Capitalism (and why it will eventually fail) is that it is based on making a larger profit tomorrow than you did today; it's not enough that you made a profit.

From the day we were born it seems, we were taught to worship our system of government and capitalism. If you were alive during the Vietnam era, you were taught that communism was evil and the spread of it had to be contained by any means. Now we have a government that regulates or de-regulates everything in favor of the corporation, while greatly enriching the already rich, decimating the environment, and shipping our jobs overseas. And the prevailing attitude is as long as I got mine, what do I care if you got yours? See how smart I was to use the system to my advantage? Well, the truth probably is that you just got lucky. Here people complain endlessly about paying taxes, but favor expensive wars and the building of military hardware, never the seeing the contradiction. If you ask a person in Sweden if he minds paying high taxes, he'd likely say no because the money is being used for the common good, including himself. In the US socialism like terrorism has become the bogey man, and the labels are applied by the rich and powerful to maintain the status quo, like insurance moguls warning people of dire consequences if they allow national healthcare to be instituted. Very rarely does the media honestly contrast the benefits of European "socialism." So support predatory capitalism without regulation if you wish, just don't lie or cry about the consequences if the wheel of exploitation spins in your direction.

In reading the rest of your notes I will take back part of what I said in observance that you do show some signs of cognizance that risk and reward are part and parcel of financial decisions for free adults. Allow me to clarify that 'folks on your side' comment is addressed specifically to any who would ban such loans.

"ENTERIK: Good for you. Your personal experience seems much better than the one most people with subprime mortgages are having."

Many people's are better. I'm far from the only one. Had folks on your side had your way, I would have owed *more* money on my principal paid *more* in interest, because I could not have used this mechanism.

What people do or do not do is their own affair. It is incumbent upon *every* person who will take out loans (or make ANY other economic decision to scrutinize their finances, plans, and fall back positions should things not go as planned.

Adults are not children nor chattel. If you don't want to use a loan like this, don't. These decisions are part and parcel of being an adult. And so are the consequences. People sell peanuts in spite of the fact that some die from them, iodine in spite of the fact that some are so allergic it kills them. We allow motorcylces and skydiving and investment and risk.

Risk. Note that word. The terms of my subprime were spelled out exclusively in black and white which binds both sides...hence my ability to leverage it.

I understand the unfortunate outcome for some who didn't do this or faced circumstances they did not anticipate. But it is not your role or anyone elses to proscribe contracts which take the rights of no one, which are clearly spelled out as to schedule, terms, risks and rewards, for other adults.

"Clearly you aren't naive so it's kind a silly to put yourself in the same category as those hopeful families that were preyed upon by greedy financial agents."

I appreciate that, but few view themselves as naive while a great many people view others as naive, including myself for taking such a deal. But you can't tell what people do or why without being them.

ENTERIK: "For the naive families pursuing the American dream, greedy finance companies crafted brutal loans with terms that no informed or well represented person should accept.

MtnGoat: I accepted one of these 'brutal loans' for my current home, invested the difference in payments in a hotter market while paying interest only on my subprime, and and last year used the increase to roll into a fixed rate loan with much more principle paid off while avoiding capital gains by putting it into my house. I used their 'greed' against them, and benefitted greatly. And yet we both won. They got their loan satisfied, I came out ahead. Trade. It's a good thing.

ENTERIK: Good for you. Your personal experience seems much better than the one most people with subprime mortgages are having. Here's to hoping you can continue to ride high and that the earthquake swells of a crashing market don't swamp your finances with unexpected payments. Clearly you aren't naive so it's kind a silly to put yourself in the same category as those hopeful families that were preyed upon by greedy financial agents.

I'm all for trade, it is a good thing that frequently produces win-win results, like it did for you. But dishonest trade with not enough common sense regulation frequently produces disasterous results like the S&L crisis and the current Subprime Mortgage fiasco that are dragging the entire world economy down with it. I think it is sensible to strike a balance between capitalism and sensible regulation.

---

ENTERIK: We the People paid the bill for reckless greed because the federal government deregulated the S&L industry while increasing federal insurance.

MntGoat: Of course this is a problem. Federal insurance shouldn't exist to begin with, and it certainly should not have been increased while deregulating, which is *intended* to allow risky enterprising.

ENTERIK: Of course the situation is not nearly as simple as you or I have made it look. I think you go too far in claiming increases in federal insurance limits caused the saving and loan crisis. It just increased our federal price tag. All of the other systemic factors contributing to the crisis had to do with relaxing common sense limits regulating the financial industry. These limits were relaxed as a way to let S&Ls offer accounts with higher interest rates so that inflation wouldn't erode their assets and they could stay in business, nothing more than that. The rest of the stuff that happened was due to unbridled competition and profit maximizing greed of financial companies.

Federal insurance is important for our banking industry, we common folks are pretty risk averse and probably wouldn't sock away too much money in a bank if the federal government didn't say it was okay and didn't back that up with insurance. It is this federal vote of confidence that calms savers and sees them through difficult times (often creted by banking hanky-panky). This guarantee by the commonwealth increases the perceived credibility of our manmade financial markets.

"For the naive families pursuing the American dream, greedy finance companies crafted brutal loans with terms that no informed or well represented person should accept."

I accepted one of these 'brutal loans' for my current home, invested the difference in payments in a hotter market while paying interest only on my subprime, and and last year used the increase to roll into a fixed rate loan with much more principle paid off while avoiding capital gains by putting it into my house. I used their 'greed' against them, and benefitted greatly.

And yet we both won. They got their loan satisfied, I came out ahead. Trade. It's a good thing.

Hi Cyon. I appreciate your careful reading of my arguments, it says good things about your approach to ideas.

No one should ever expect agreement purely based on one's say so, and I'm glad to see you do not and are looking at the logic of the arguments and their details, without unduly adding in your own ideas and then judging those instead. I must say this does seem to be the norm here, but there are a few who I don't agree with but appear to value cogent arguments. Most others appear to want an echo chamber.

On malignant power: I do not believe the State is the only form of malignant power, as you correctly surmise. It IS, however, the only form of power that can legally take people's rights, resources, and freedom (based of course on a negative rights conception of freedom).

This view is based in the unavoidable, first principle of State power..control of police, courts, jails, and other instruments of physical violence and the sanctioning of rights. It is undeniable these elements are necessary for a state to govern, however this does not mean that this power should be used when it is not logically supportable to allow it.

Other forms of malignant power do exist, one can use economic power in a malignant sense for example. The difference is this...doing so in concert with a defense of individual rights cannot legally cross over into taking those rights...unless it has state backing, again providing the platform for the use of physical threat. In *every* case, the legal taking of people's negative rights is backed by the instruments of the State.

I can resist all other forms of malignant power because they do not have the one the State singularly holds. Neither Microsoft, nor GM, or Citibank can appropriate my home, take my food, force me to work for them, force me to educate my kids in ways they prefer, or any other number of things...without State power being involved. In cases where I violate a contract with them, as with anyone else, then the State power is justified. In all others it is not, and their hands are tied.

The many forms of power are undeniable, but since the only one that is unavoidable and physically intrusive and *legally* binding without discrete choice is State power, it is the most dangerous. Forms of power which flow from individual rights may be in competition with what I prefer (a job, a product at a certain price, a building here not there), but since those are the province of private rights, they are the right of other individuals to choose.

Note that I do not claim we am not effected by these choices of others. This idea is constantly leveraged against me in spite of the fact I do not espouse it. The key is I do not claim I have the right not to be effected, because all choices effect all others, obviously. What I argue is that each of owns the right to not have our rights taken, not that we be free of the effects of others. My buying an apple means I effect the person who would have otherwise bought it, but I didn't violate their rights doing so.

This is why the 'desert island' critique of individual rights is innately flawed. There is no basis for claiming such a place is needed, because I do not argue we don't effect each other or that we shouldn't. The right to have an effect is a direct outcome of negative rights. The proponents of this idea are arguing that because some effect others (without taking their rights), they have the right to effect others (by taking their rights).

On fading away: I do not and have never made the case the govt should 'fade away'. Nor do other capitalists and libertarians. This is an anarchist position (yes some libertarians go as far as anarchy, I am not one of them and I will not defend that position).

Now, I realize that the level of personal control I espouse *seems* like anarchy to people committed to their idea of imposed order and planning, but the fact is the support of govt, police, courts and law is anything but anarchy. The problem is that they want more control than the govt I support will provide them.

Govt is expressly necessary for what we all agree on..the defense of individual rights.

The problem is that my opponents believe in defending what I and others define as positive rights, while those on my side believe it should only defend negative rights. In both cases the argument for govt still exists, admittedly in different forms and vastly different legal amounts of power, but in neither is there a call for no govt. Any argument made against my ideas that claims I want no govt is patently false. On that you can believe me, who is the expert on the case I make, or my detractors, who are not.

I note that your list of things to prevent..murder, rape, theft, contract violation, is a very good basic list of *exactly* what I argue that govt is for and best at dealing with.

Don't you find it interesting that of all the things to list, the ones that come to your mind right away, we agree on? This is because nearly everyone innately recognizes that the boundaries of what my side considers negative rights is the basic level of actual justice...the right to not have your negative rights violated via violence, theft, physical threat, and fraud.

this idea is so powerful and basic that nearly all arguments made by progressive are reworked in these terms, chosen to strike this common chord because the justice of dealing with these violations is obvious. We are told all kinds of things are 'violence', or 'theft' for example, because in order to justify the use of police in enforcing laws, these basic ideas carry so much currency.

Thus we see that root basis for ideas I espouse are validated even by my opponents, which is why what is *not* actual violence, is massaged into being described AS violence, in order to justify the use of law against it. They must make the case that a thing they are against fits the nominal description of an injustice all recognize, even when it takes fancy footwork to do so.

I will claim a similar situation takes place in the description of the differences of kinds of 'power', which brings us back to the start of your post.

Even my opponents are innately admitting that the kinds of power we discuss ARE functionally totally different in their coercive power. The very *reason* they seek State power for their ideas, and they are not satisfied with my suggestions they use private forms of power in opposition to the other kinds, is because the State monopoly on armed enforcement is the trump card, the ability to legally use physical force to directly take rights against the will of the individual involved.

IF this power was not unique and IF it could not legally stop the actions they don't like, then it would be no use to them.

All the other forms of power cannot do what this does, and those which do...all rest upon using this trump card carried by the state, and getting it delivered to them via monopoly protection, market protections against competition or importation, and other such mechanisms. In each case the power of physical threat is desired and used, and this power to take rights legally against someone's will is different and the most dangerous.

If it wasn't, they'd be satisfied with accruing private economic power, or some other form. Since that doesn't get them what they want, they seek the trump card...which shows even they recognize the difference. Hence the danger.

Hope this exposition helps, it's longer than I intended but I think I've addressed your points. Continue to use that open mind to examine my arguments!

"Sadly, US citizens are not as informed or as represented as they should be to even make the myth of the free market workable. Because we don't really educate our citizens "

As long as we have public education I have always thought that personal finance should be a part of the mandatory coursework already in place.

Smashing Capitalism ...... One step at a time!!

The NEED to end capitalism is now understood by millions of people opposed to their own personal destruction, the destruction of society, the planet! This first step ... of understanding.. has already been made!

Step two: ORGANIZE!

Here is one modest proposal

DUMP THE DEMOCRATS!
UNITE INTO A NEW PARTY NOW!

We the people, opposed to the destruction of the planet and it's peoples, now atomized and powerless in "grass roots" and "special interest" groups, must unite our efforts and resources into a new party to replace the corrupt Democratic Party! A new party that rejects corporate funding in order to end the corporate plunder of the federal government.

A new party explicitly opposed to the Project for the New American Century. Opposed to unending war for profit and power. Cut the military budget by 50%, shut down the 700 military bases around the world. Re-instate taxes cut by Bush gang.

A new party that commits the entire resources of the country to end global warming, end imperialist wars, implements true non-profit universal health care. promotes mass transportation, develops renewable energy, and produces the essentials for human survival.

A new party that promotes an economy that works towards fulfilling the economic needs of all the people, not just to profit a tiny minority of super wealthy. No more people living on the streets! No more hospitalized people being dumped into the streets when they have no money or health insurance! (See the film SICKO)

A new party to unite all of the oppressed people of this country. A new party that cuts across all the false social and cultural divisions that keep us forever powerless (racial, ethnic, age, language, etc.). A new party to unite us against the unending destruction of peoples and planet.

A SOCIALIST PARTY to promote the end of gangster capitalism, run-amok capitalism, which is supported by both Democratic and Republican parties.

A new party to support the labor movement and all working people. We urge the labor movement to stop supporting the Democratic Party (already besotted by corporate money), and to focus its precious resources to fund a new national radio and television network. By being on the air 24 hours a day the labor movement can provide the latest news, information, education and current affairs analysis desperately needed by all working people. This effort, combined with the formation of the new party, will be a bold step towards reviving the organized labor movement.

For years we have listened to radio programs like DEMOCRACY NOW! that has discussed with numerous "grass roots" groups desperately struggling to make a positive change in society. Anti-war protest groups, civil rights groups, union struggles, affordable housing groups, teachers unions, health care access, seniors about Social Security, have involved millions of people. Now is the time to unite the energy and resources of the people into a new party.

The new party provides a means of uniting the "special interest" agendas of each group into the platform of the new party. The new party candidates, selected from the various individuals and groups, would become the candidates representing their cause and the new party. The new party will contest for office at every level of government in order to take power. The new party will provide the new leadership and new programs this country desperately needs.

There is still time before November 2008 elections to start this process. Even the announcement and preparation for a founding convention of such a new party will shock both Democrats and Republican incumbents. They will know that their days are numbered!

The needs of all previous "minority" and "special interests" people now become the platform of the new party representing the vast majority of people. Can the existing activists of so-called "minority" and "special interest" groups overcome their existing powerlessness, and link up with each other to start this new party?

This all-inclusive struggle will attract millions of atomized working people, often non-voters and uninvolved people, who have been atomized, exploited, brain-washed by corporate media and ultimately destroyed by gangster capitalism.

Can't see the forest for the trees.

"What is required is not a lot words, but effectual ones." Seneca

JakeNewton: Weren't the borrowers greedy too?

ENTERIK: Maybe a little bit but in a different way than the greedy finance companies. I think it is dihonest to pretend that the hopes of renters is the same as the avarice of financers.

Finance companies are out to maximize profits wherever possible. They offered wildly unqualified people risky and expensive mortgages. They gave unscrupulous brokers kickbacks to mislead families to the riskiest of these loans and then tacked the cost of the kickback onto the loan. Virtually unregulated lenders lowered standards to rake in even more dough from low-income low-education renters aspiring to home ownership. And Wall Street loan consolidaters amped up the markets appetite for these things.

For the naive families pursuing the American dream, greedy finance companies crafted brutal loans with terms that no informed or well represented person should accept. Sadly, US citizens are not as informed or as represented as they should be to even make the myth of the free market workable. Because we don't really educate our citizens we have an wealthy finance market that exploits our neighbors as easy prey. Millions of American families will be losing their homes and the money they sank into those homes and whatever credit rating they had as their adjustable rates kick in. We need common sense regulation to protect the pursuit of happiness from the selfish abuse of big finance companies.

Even if we could educate the market I would still insist on common sense regulations because these profit driven companies have shown they cannot be trusted to behave responsibly when no-one is looking. The finance companies have shown time and again a lack of concern, good will and honesty when dealing with the less financially savvy.

goat,

"When ideas fail, words come in very handy."
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

"We the People paid the bill for reckless greed because the federal government deregulated the S&L industry while increasing federal insurance."

Of course this is a problem. Federal insurance shouldn't exist to begin with, and it certainly should not have been increased while deregulating, which is *intended* to allow risky enterprising.

"What you are missing is that improving everything for everybody improves yourself and your family "

This may be true as far as it goes, but *I* am interested in recieving improvements to me and my family in proportion to my efforts, not in accordance with my "needs" as someone I don't know would determine it.

"Capitalism incentives are based on selfishness and fear, both unpleasant and certainly not spiritually lifting."

I would say that socialism is also based on selfishness and fear. After all, people are selfish by their very nature, and rightfully fearful about certain things.

MtnGoat: Judging from your posts, it would appear that you believe that the only malignant form of power is that wielded by governments. Surely, you can seriously mean that? Do you really believe that if only governments would fade away we could live happily in a non-coercive, free-market utopia? Doesn't our government, in fact, serve in many ways to protect the relatively powerless from the relatively powerful by enforcing laws against things like murder, rape, theft, etc? Contra the neo-Marxist posters who mostly see government as serving the interest of economic elites, doesn't it in fact create the space in which relatively less coercive exchanges can be made by doing things like enforcing contracts?

Most of the comments on this thred amounts to simple gripping. For that I go to the regular media and get all that I can tolerate, but nothing about a solution to the social and economic problems. I came on line looking for ideas and found none.

I offered my on the site below with nary a reply which I can deal with, but what gets me most is that none is offered anywhere.

All that is left is to searh elsewhere, if anyone as something to offer they are not coughing it up.

http://socialismmarxdeleonforarealunion.org/index.html

jakenewton ,
"It's a reference to the common criticism that socialism crushes the human spirit to produce something worthwhile, by crushing incentive. Why should I bust my butt when I know I'll have health care, food, shelter, etc., and nothing else additional if I do bust my butt? It's human nature to try to better yourself and your family if you can. But if you can't, why bother with the extra effort?"

You do have a valid point about the problems of incentives under socialism/communism. I am sure you could come up with several ways to keep the greedy/lazy ones from not carrying their own weight without having to shoot them or send them to the gulag

What you are missing is that improving everything for everybody improves yourself and your family (which is the whole society if you share socialist morality and values).

The purest ideals of that failed in the past, the creation of the "new man" by the ex-communist countries seems to validate your views; but what crushed their spirits was the totalitarian control and not socialism per se. There are very rich and productive countries (e.g. European Social-Democracies) where socialism is around the corner ,they like it, vote for it, and have better quality of life than most Americans.

Capitalism incentives are based on selfishness and fear, both unpleasant and certainly not spiritually lifting.

Yes indeed a better world is possible, a socialist one.

One last thought in checking your post...I am anything but dogmatic. Dogma is an *unfounded* faith in that with no evidence. The ideas I espouse are anything but, each of them is changable should a logical argument show them to be contradictory, and I fully accept the possibility.

The weak point in much of the 'progressive' argument is that somehow, power given to the State is better than the power held by individuals due to their rights, when the fact is that since people *are* flawed, individuals holding State power *STILL* do things for their *OWN* reasons, based on their own wants and ideas, and it can be no different because no person is not their own person.

Ralph I appreciate your comments and the spirit in which they are offered, but I have many reservations about them...some of which come to the fore in the charge of being an 'ideologue'. Yet ideas and decisions based upon them, underlie all volitional human action.

I'm not certain why the use of a critical mind in reducing the ideas using the tool which has yielded the results and benefits of modernity, the human mind and logic, is somehow unacceptable or flawed.

We use logic and our minds to build all of modern life in everything which is created in the physical world, and it appears you are arguing that this should somehow not apply to other things created and applied in the physical world, governance, morality, and actions based on these ideas. The universe we live in is intolerant of error to the Nth degree. It invariably, inexorably, consistently, impersonally, and to the smallest fraction punishes errors in thinking in every single instance bar none. Wether you are building a solar panel, a submarine, an aircraft or spacecraft...not one mistake escapes it's notice.

Yet it seems it is continually argued we cannot use the same process which yields these outcomes and apply it to morality and governance. Why is that? These are real systems and ideas with real expressions in the real world, the same as the items already listed. The explanation that morality and ideas of governance are abstract and intangible doesn't pass muster, because so is mathematics, and the application of the process of logic to this intangible yields very real and provable results when translated to the real world.

Not one person can hold the idea of pi in their hand, it was derived without ever holding it, weighing it, touching it..and yet transfer it's use to the real world without using the correct value for pi, which as stated can never be touched or directly measured...and disaster ensues.

You correctly observe I use reductionism..but this is part of the basis of logic. The key is making sure the reductionism is consistently and accurately applied. Now, you may have your reasons for claiming I am not doing this, however the arguments you are presenting are merely based in a reductionism using other arguments.

My seeming intransigence is because no one can actually present what I consider to be valid answers to my questions that show what I am arguing to be actually logically contradictory...the one true test of a logical fault. You consider me intrasigent..but why do you not apply this to the myriad posters here, few if any of whom have changed *their* arguments!

I'll have more later.

"greedy finance companies"

Were'nt the borrowers greedy too?

I tried to read all the posts since my first post but it was hard to stomach the debate about economic systems. People have forgot the subject was financial institutions taking advantage of people with a ginned up subprime loan market. It's almost like someone was trying to change the subject to economic opinion. When I look at our subprime mortgage crisis, I remember the savings and loan crisis.

Back then the government relaxed the sensible limits on the activities of S&Ls without regulating them like banks. So the S&Ls dove right into the 1980s real estate boom. They were making more loans than they should have, for projects they weren't qualified to judge, so they could attract depositors looking for big interest. They were competing with each other to the bottom, they offered higher interest rates for depositors and desperately made risky high interest loans to junk bond dealers. This made matters worse so the government deregulated some more. That motivated S&Ls to sell off bad mortgages for cash which they used to buy back repackaged mortgages as government-backed bonds from Wall Street Firms in desperate hopes of higher return. When the boom collapsed and lots of those risky high interest loans defaulted, those bad loans came home to roost. By 1983, three quarters of the S&Ls were bankrupt. We the People paid the bill for reckless greed because the federal government deregulated the S&L industry while increasing federal insurance.

What does the subprime mortgage crisis have in common with the S&L crisis? Risky behavior motivated by greed. Both happened when greedy poorly regulated financial companies tried to take advantage of a boom in the real estate market. In both cases, financial institutions maximized high risk predatory loans. When the boom stopped people were left with overpriced property they couldn't dump and loan payments they couldn't make, so they defaulted. This put huge irresponsible financial companies at risk of bankruptsy.

This is where we are now with the subprime lending crisis. There is little wiggle room to forgive late payments nowadays because loans have been collateralized. So they forclose or the loanee puts a house for sale, lowering the price of housing further in a brutal downward spiral. The effects are spreading past the mortgage and refinancing markets into the general economy dragging down the stock market, retail sales and the value of the dollar. As subprime lenders stumble aimlessly towards bankrupty, Central banks worldwide are dumping in huge ammounts of cash to bail out these over-extended lenders in a desperate attempt to stop a run on the US dollar. At the same time the US Federal Reserve has expanded the emergency loan discount window from overnight to thirty days to give these financial companies yet another chance to sober up and fly right.

It's another bail-out caused by greedy finance companies with not enough common sense limits place upon them, the main difference is they saw it coming and are trying to bail as the ship sinks, but don't kid yourself, we are all going to pay for this irresponsibility, we are already paying. With sensible regulations and a little less "free market" fundamentalism this whole clusterfu...crisis could have been easily avoided. The Republican lead Congress and Bush Administration have been negligent in this regard, content to let the invisible greedy hand of the market pick the pockets of the not rich. Corporations and the wealthy elite that govern them cannot be trusted to behave morally in the best interest of the majority of real American citizens, maximizing gain seems to be their highest morality. Their ability to self-govern like a responsible citizen is limited so they must be regulated in the interests of the state and its citizens.

"The founders of this democratic republic were very wary of the corporate structure."

I'm pretty sure there was a wide variety of opinions at that time.

An interesting thing about corporations: The founders of this democratic republic were very wary of the corporate structure. It seems like modern capitalism and corporatism go hand in hand. Until we get a handle on the crushing power of modern corporations, nothing much economically, politically, or socially will change.

FMI: http://www.poclad.org/

The subprime mortgage fiasco is an example of the many horrific consequences for working people from the steady de-regulation of markets that has taken place over the past 25 years and that have benefited no one but Wall Street, corporations and the financial elites. Is it a surprise to anyone that the bailouts that are now occurring are provided for the vultures and criminals, but not the victims? Check out the article by Jim Hightower on this issue posted on Alternet. Point you browser to:
http://www.alternet.org/story/60183/
Read and weep.

"Real money for real work would be a good place to start."

Gold standard? That has it's own problems of course.

Somewhere out there is a young person perfecting a hacking tool which will zip all the "wealth" represented by electronic cyphers off into the unrecoverable ether. Thus making everybody equal. Then we can all begin a dialogue about how to keep the genetically greedy from getting a deathgrip on our lives again.

Real money for real work would be a good place to start.

It so happens that the majority in the US are in agreement that the capitalist class not only has the right to "make profits" (actually workers make profits, the capitalist class only recieve them) but also that capitalist class, through the kindness of their heart, are able to creat jobs because they receive profits. Now that is a twist and half.

If that be true, than logically it follows that the more profit the capitalist class gets, the more benevolent it gets, and the more jobs it can create.

It also logically follows that when the working class demands more from the capitalist class, they impede the ability of that class to become more benevolent in order to create more jobs.

It thus follows that by pressuring the capitalist class for more, the American working class has forced the helpless capitalist class to outsource production to foriegn countries where workers appreciate the benevolence of these capitalists.

So if workers want to continue to put up with "American capitalism is the best of all possible!!! systems." "the system works." "love it or leave it," then they should stop pestering the capitalist class and let them do their good works.

There is not in-between, either let capitalism run its course or come up with something better. Any whining and begging to the capitalist class has only caused interferrence with the workings of the capitalist system. In that sense, the ultra conseratives are doing a good keeping the system plugging alone. In that case it is they who are patriotic and American leaving those, who persist in putting a monkey wrench in the works, open to the charges of being unpatriotic and unAmerican.

Mtn Goat, you started this and I guess your hanging in there right to the very end. I think your an intelligent and articulate fellow but what you fail to see, not just through this discussion but comments on other CD articles, is that you are a dogmatic and unrepentant ideologue. No matter what nuanced and pragmatic individuals present to you, you respond with your personal version of the libertarian party line. It's always reduced to that.

Like any other ideologue, be it religious, political, economic or psychological when presented with certain uncomfortable ideas that don't fit your cookie cutter philosophy, you respond with more of the same: and infinite series of reductionist acts of free choice, individualism, personal strength and responsibility. You would have made a great voice for the administration in the hurricane Katrina fiasco. You could have flown around in a government helicopter lecturing the victims about excepting personal responsibility for their actions. I'm sure they would cheer your kind counsel and order your new book and self motivation tapes.... that is when the fedex trucks started rolling again.

I not trying to attack you personally, I'm just trying to get you to look in the mirror for a second and let go of your comfort zone rap for a moment and see what genuine feelings you are covering up. I haven't said this to anyone in almost forty years but maybe you could think about dropping some acid and going down to the tenderloin and live with the homeless for a few days.

You must know that most of the guru's of the neo-conservative moment where once Marxists (Levi Strauss and his intellectual buddies) that did a 180 about face and joined Ann Rynd in her frightened mirrored reversal of the Communist government that destroyed her upper middle class comfort zone in moscow.

Check this out for yourself. Who laid a symbolic reef on Ann's coffin and what was it? Answer: Allen Greenspand and friends attended her funeral and laid a giant reef of flowers in the shape of?........ The dollar bill sign. Yes, the power and greed group had finally found their inspirational philosophy to hang their dollar sign star on. No longer would they have to hammer it down the workers throats, they would now drink the sweet cool-aide voluntarily and ask for more. Just get a few good pitch men (I call them hired tongues) like Reagan and Limbaugh to sell it to them.

America always has cultivated the false myth of the quite strong individualist conquering the untamed west. The country belonged to the 'savages' and needed quick action to conquer it before they could unite. Thus we had that brief (less then 75 years) period where every man was a law unto himself and law and justice where immediate, even if arbitrary.

A thousand myths have been spun of this brief period through song, book and film, so what better huckster was there than Mr. B actor 'Death Valley Days" himself to tell us the best government is the least government. In the modern industrialized/technological era governments became more complex and to many, confusing, so they were ripe for the simplistic fumigations of the extreme right shouting that all social problems stemmed from government. They promised smaller government, less tax's and more efficiency. What they delivered is all to obvious to anyone who can read between the MSM media lines. A taking over of the government and rapping it for their own pornographic political and economic ends. Government has become just another cash cow resource that they can bleed dry before moving on to.... where???? maybe planet #2 some where in near space.

Students of history and anthropology know that there has never been a society without rules, regulations, laws, taboos, and some type of overlapping social control that we can call government or governance. Maybe there was something that bordered on a complete free-for-all back in the 1840's west of the Mississippi but it was short lived, and aberrant anomaly, at the expense of the subdued native populations.

Please Mtn Goat try and hear the sensible pragmatic truth that several knowledgeable souls have tried to enlighten us with in this very thread. That is there is no 'ism' to rule society by, be it theocratic, communist, socialist, feudalism, capitalism,or libertarianism and a hundred other subtexts. What works best in the pragmatic blending of many of these elements with a emphasis on democratic socialism with a undercurrent of capitalism..... that's what the most basic elemental form of government is: the FAMILY

"Wow, I am just going to have to bow out of this now, because is quite clear that MtnGoat and JakeNewton both live in a dream world that does not exist and could never exist."

wow, what a rebuttal!

"If health care, education, shelter, and food were guaranteed at least at the most basic level, as a result of the taxes you pay on your labor"

You still require work for the system to function, and further, we have even less control over what we pay and what we get out of it.

You seem intent on the idea that somehow as long as someone else buys for me what we get on our own already, it will be 'better'..and we also lose control over what and how much. How is this a good deal, placing all this power in someone elses hands?

"that everyone pays no matter their income - you would indeed actually be free to pursue different aims than only the thing that brings you money and goods."

It doesn't matter that 'everyone' pays, when there are people paying who are operating at a loss which everyone else works extra to pay for.

You want to *add* to the burden of the net producers, because now they not only have to pay enough to cover what you make them buy from you, but also enough extra to cover the net resource sinks, and only after paying for this additional burden, can what is left over be considered surplus. Your entire proposal here doesn't free the net producers from additional labor, it *increases* what they must cover.

In addition you place people in power above us to literally decide what we 'need' *for* us, and that we must beg to give it to us after they already have our money. When I don't like what Albertson's does, I tell them to stuff it and there's naught they can do about it.

"I would rather work to live, versus the opposite, which has certainly become the case for anyone in this country who does not sell out to corporate tyranny or live a live of self-owned business in which they work 12hours per day chasing money."

So do so. your arguments show you are arguing to choose this for everyone, at cost of adding burden to the net producers, so *your* values and wishes are the directives for everyone elses lives. No one makes you choose to work to live. That's your choice free and clear. Can show us the individual or company that forces that choice on you?

"There are millions of people in this country and all over the world who would gladly give up the right to become a multi-millionaire if they could be guaranteed the basic needs of sustaining life."

Then why in the heck don't you all give it up together, figure out how to make it works, and leave the rest of us out of it so we can do what WE value? What is so all encompassingly important we all have to believe and serve what you prefer under threat of jail if we don't want to?

"In all reality, what I wish we could do in this country is completely separate from folks like you. Like some kind of ideological asylum/communitarian concept in which the country is split up into two parts: those who live the laws of equality of basic conditions and those who live by the laws of competition."

SO DO IT! The only thing stopping you is your own unwillingness to stop forcing your ideas on others. You and everyone else could live right up the street, trade with each other, work for each other under conditions you arrange, do your own health care, and not only would I and many others not interfere, we'd argue for your right to do so as fervently as I oppose the imposition of your ideas here.

In fact, there's a commune, a pretty old one, right up the hill from me, and I say more power to em. The limitation to your idea is purely your own unwillingness to leave other people out who don't want to be in.

You don't need your own country, because the the only objection from those of us not interested in these ideas, is the refusal to leave us out of it. Leave us out, and we're golden!

I am really mystified why you can't see this. Do your own thing, serve your own ends the way you want, that is precisely what I am arguing to preserve. Don't be running on the corporate rule book if you don't want to be. What keeps you from appreciating a truly open society where each can pursue their own ends peacefully?

"If health care, education, shelter, and food were guaranteed at least at the most basic level, as a result of the taxes you pay on your labor - that everyone pays no matter their income - you would indeed actually be free to pursue different aims than only the thing that brings you money and goods."

Which for me is to fish and drink beer. How does that help anyone else!?!? It's not just me (duh). With no incentive it's legions of others. With everyone drinking beer and fishing, where does the health care, education, shelter, and food come from?

Wow, I am just going to have to bow out of this now, because is quite clear that MtnGoat and JakeNewton both live in a dream world that does not exist and could never exist.

"Why should I bust my butt when I know I'll have health care, food, shelter, etc., and nothing else additional if I do bust my butt? It's human nature to try to better yourself and your family if you can. But if you can't, why bother with the extra effort?" Frankly, that is the same ridiculous argument you get from a high school kid. Just think it through for a minute. Why should health care, food, shelter, etc be the only thing that makes you bust your butt? What kind of drab, faceless, soul-crushed world do you live in? If health care, education, shelter, and food were guaranteed at least at the most basic level, as a result of the taxes you pay on your labor - that everyone pays no matter their income - you would indeed actually be free to pursue different aims than only the thing that brings you money and goods.

I would rather work to live, versus the opposite, which has certainly become the case for anyone in this country who does not sell out to corporate tyranny or live a live of self-owned business in which they work 12hours per day chasing money. There are millions of people in this country and all over the world who would gladly give up the right to become a multi-millionaire if they could be guaranteed the basic needs of sustaining life.

In all reality, what I wish we could do in this country is completely separate from folks like you. Like some kind of ideological asylum/communitarian concept in which the country is split up into two parts: those who live the laws of equality of basic conditions and those who live by the laws of competition.

I guarantee you life would be sweeter in our world, as would the music, the art, the literature, the movies, the leisure, THE FISHING, and even the environment. Well, that last part wouldn't work, because you guys would probably screw that up for us. Ask the average American what their thoughts on art, music, culture, etc are and then compare the answers with someone from Germany, Austria, France, even the UK. The difference is astronomical is scope. Then, ask them how much money they make in relation to all their friends and their colleagues. These are quality of life issues that a competition-based society is naturally unconcerned with.

One last thing on the arts. Jazz, blues, the cinema, and other arts that were basically originated in the United States are considered the greatest give America has given to the world, by a great many people. The vast majority of the best of these arts were people who lived beneath the underdog, a phrase bassist Charles Mingus was famous for using. Now, folks like you will no doubt say they were a product of the competition in American society. I would say they were a product of a life a poverty, angst, and suffering. It is quite a conundrum. The economic policies of this country have been dramatically oppressive to artists of all kinds, yet the best ones are the ones who rise up from the depths of the relatively impoverished majority.

I will leave you with that thought: that the evils of survival of the fittest economics tend to create the greatest artists in America. Would they cease to be created if America suddenly displayed the relative equality of say Denmark, Norway, Austria, et al? It's worthy of a book, for sure.

It's been real guys!

"If you actually somehow believe that the heads of corperations and banks really operate on fair free market and capitalist principle, and/or give a shit about your general welfare… you're dreaming. "

I realize this. This is why you make changes so the market actually IS free(er), of subsidy and use of govt to protect monopolies and provide rent seeking behavior. I don't care what they give a crap about, because if they cannot make me buy their products unless I want to and they cannot get my money via taxes, in their search for what they DO care about, profit...they must satisfy me to get it because there is no backdoor pipeline to it anyway.

This way I use their own greed against them, in a way that respects their rights and mine.

"The way it is now, "if at first the big corperations don't succeed (when the market fails to correct itself time and time again), go crying all the way to the nanny US government for another bailout." Only a sadist can look at this economic model, then sit back and call it free market, and capitalist."

You are entirely on point with this criticism. To which I reply..the existence of these flaws is not a reason to *increase* govt power due to 'they do it too' reasoning...it's a reason to *decrease* it AND improve the market by removing the power of govt to provide nanny money for corporations to begin with. What it has no power to do companies cannot buy.

"Paradoxically, the "free marketers" solution to this human drawback is to concentrate enourmous ammounts of centralized power in the hands of a just few people who use their power for greed to exploit 99% of the public. "

Huh? All they have is the power associated with their own rights...like anyone else! AT&T cannot put me jail, force me off my property, tax me, make me buy their products, make me work for them.

In any instance where this is even tangentially possible, there are only two reasons..One, I have violated an agreement I freely made with them, thus violating their rights, or two, they have gotten use State power it shouldn't have in the first place.

The basis of the argument I see repeatly on this board against negative rights and capitalism is that it gives 'too much' power to the individual, to the degree anyone could tell any other private individual, or group of them, to blow it out their ear as long as their rights were respected.

I'm simply not seeing the mechanism by which you claim all this power is 'concentrated', or else we must not be discussing the same kind of 'power', the same as another poster and I think 'cooperation' means vastly, vastly different things.

ONe question we should be asking is, what does insurance add to the health care industry..... Zero. Is it free market? capitalist? Nope...

I'm against corperations controlling and dictating public policy, and I'm against the government giving handouts and freebies to the wealthiest 1%, while simultaneously taking away from everyone else. Call it whatever you want... The whole reason everyone claims socialism doesn't work is because humans are inherantly greedy, corrupt, and power mongering... Paradoxically, the "free marketers" solution to this human drawback is to concentrate enourmous ammounts of centralized power in the hands of a just few people who use their power for greed to exploit 99% of the public. That's your supposed solution? To hand over control of your destiny to a few heads who are also greedy, corrupt, and power mongering. So when people come along advocating a free market utopia, much like communism, it inevitably develops into another greedy and repressive oligarchy, the antithesis of it's original intent. When put in practice, both extremes of the ideological end of the economic/political always end up contradicting their true intent. Sure a completely unregulated free market is a great idea in theory, i'd love for it to work, but to noones suprise, it fails on so many levels. The fact that a system of insurance for a person's health (ie so they can live) was even created is blatent proof.

If you actually somehow believe that the heads of corperations and banks really operate on fair free market and capitalist principle, and/or give a shit about your general welfare... you're dreaming. Speaking of general welfare... Article II of the constitution. Speaking of regulation of trade and commerce, Article II of the constitution as well. So don't give me this socialism fear mongering nonsense, it's right there in plain ink in the American constiution. Problem is all corperations have to do now is bribe enough congresspeople into not regulating anything, thus, white collar crime is never enforced and prosecuted. How is it that corperations get away with all the crime, yet blue collar crime is the main focus of law enforcement? Heck, now they just rewrite the laws so what used to be illegal is now legal, despite being exploitive, counter to the general welfare of the American public, unfair and unethical.

By and large the best, most fair, and most stable economies are mixed economies. Does expanded regulation work in every case and in every sector? of course not... Should the government deregulate absolutely every sector and business, again the answer is no.

The way it is now, "if at first the big corperations don't succeed (when the market fails to correct itself time and time again), go crying all the way to the nanny US government for another bailout." Only a sadist can look at this economic model, then sit back and call it free market, and capitalist.

If humans are infinatly greedy and corrupt, the idea is to have absolutly NO laws and regulations and, by their own "good will" things are just to somehow work out for the 99%, the rest of us because the 1% aren't so selfish?

"Under communism man exploits man. Under capitalism its the other way around."

That's pretty good.

"A better world is possible, a socialist one."

And if I woke up tomorrow and that were the economic system I now found myself in, I would work on getting down to the river every day, drinking beer, and not caring whether or not the catfish were bitin'. And again the next day, fishin' and drinkin' beer. And if I wasn't the one doing that, you *know* there would be plenty of other people doing that.

It's a refrence to the common criticism that socialism crushes the human spirit to produce something worthwhile, by crushing incentive. Why should I bust my butt when I know I'll have health care, food, shelter, etc., and nothing else additional if I do bust my butt? It's human nature to try to better yourself and your family if you can. But if you can't, why bother with the extra effort?

A couple of good quotes for this discussion:

"Under communism man exploits man. Under capitalism its the other way around." -- Russian saying

"If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered." -- Thomas Jefferson

Bravo to Barbara for the article!

"Under your ideal, it would actually be dramatically easier for tyrants to take control of you and your freedom."

Literally impossible, because assuming we are speaking about the ideal...they would not have the power to do so, because govt would not have the power to do so.

Notes to Dichterfreund & Paul Bramscher -

DF: You apprently misinterpreted me:

Of course the last Romanov Tsar was guilty of presiding over a monstrous system - and needed removal from Power. Whether his entire immediate family needed to be murdered is another question.
And when I said that Ayn Rand was hystericalized by the murderousness of the Russian revolution, that was a criticism of Rand personally - not a disagreement with fact that the revolution was needed, however wrong it went.

Paul Bramscher -

Your posts on most CD topics are, to many if not most of us 'regulars,' reliably well-reasoned, advocative of progressive action-specifics sans dogmatism.

Do you have any thoughs on whether this website should -- or how it might -- be capable of evolving into a more cohesive instrument of political organization/action?

jakenewton ,
"I know what you mean. I'd much rather just fish and drink beer everyday. Which system will let me do that?"

Capitalism will let you do that IF you are a CEO for example or by whichever way you "make it" in such system. It is usually done by keeping someone else working for you.

Under Socialism work is for the benefit of all, including yourself. Exactly what we all do within our own families (I hope you do not mind sharing with your spouse and kids).

The very same nasty job that you would hate if done to survive while enriching your CEO and shareholders is doable with love and pleasure if done for a noble cause, for your family and society which includes yourself.

Socialism is altruism/cooperation instead of greedy selfishness, it must be democratic and voluntary, otherwise it is not socialism.

Economists should study and add more to the economic equations the variables that affect the soul/spirit/happiness.

A better world is possible, a socialist one.

Come on Jake! Is that all you have to add? Get real man.

MtnGoat: "The presumption that there is something wrong with doing one's 'individual' thing in concert with others is precisely the issue between us." Who made that presumption? I am speaking of individulism in the most direct way, that being individually independent from the masses; free of responsibility for the effect one's actions has upon others who are NOT interested in the lifestyle you are. If you choose to live within a society, you must cooperate, to use your terms. Do you propose that under your idea there would be no need for government? I think you are not silly enough to suggest such a thing. However, I think you are silly enough to think that the government should clean your crap, make sure you have water, protect you from those who would do harm to you, and make sure that you are paid for your work, but you don't think they should limit how much you can take advantage of your fellow citizens, etc.

My friend, if you think threats would cease under some kind of survival of the fittest economic philosophy, you are sadly mistaken. Under your ideal, it would actually be dramatically easier for tyrants to take control of you and your freedom.

Under capitalism, the major abuses of power are within the workplace, between economically powerful and economically powerless groups, and between elite and non-elite countries.

These are economic forms of oppression, coercion and dominance. An economic contract between a large, organized, and a politically supported private bureaucracy (on one side) and, on the other, a private individual who is a politically unsupported consumer/worker is a contract based on coercion. The invisible hand holds a whip.

Large and economically powerful economic organizations almost always make sure they have governments coercively backing these unequally generated contracts.

Why? Because workers and capitalists have fundamentally different interests. Capitalists and their managers want workers to work more for less. In contrast, workers want to work less for more.

For example, if you are a member of a board of directors and you state that you want to cut back on the work time of "your" employees, de-intensify production PLUS you want to substantially increase your employees' wages, how do you think the other members will perceive you?

Furthermore, if you are a line worker or salaried employee, and you tell your fellow employees that everyone should work harder, for more hours and less compensation, how will your fellow workers see you?

Politics and the economy are never separated. And the inequality within the economy is usually reflected in politics. This is based on a "hierarchy of interest satisfaction."

The higher the individual or economic organization is on the economic pyramid, the morely likely its interests will be satisfied by governments. And the reverse also tends to be true.

The mechanism that underlies the hierarchy of interest satisfaction is investment alliances.

These alliances are temporary because economic actors face continuously changing market conditions. And these changing conditions can produce conflicting interests. Thus, these alliances eventually collapse.

Temporary alliances between economic actors help them organize and direct their investments in politicians, political parties,agendas and in governments.

Of course, these alliances expect returns on their investments: NAFTA, backruptcy and welfare "reform", "at will" firing, tax breaks, deregulation, privatization, etc.

Rightwing political groups essentially fight to increase the power of the economic elite over the economic non-elite. That outcome: more work hours, less wages, and harder work.
Of course, it also means the quality of life of the average worker declines and the technological assault on the environment intensifies.

"Yea right, most people go to work everyday to do things at places with bosses they hate because no one is forcing them to do *anything*"

I know what you mean. I'd much rather just fish and drink beer everyday. Which system will let me do that?

""When you folks use it, you mean cooperate with what you want the way you want, or else."
What is the "or else." "

The 'or else' is the loss of freedom, and jail, or sanction by law. There is no other reason to seek the use of state power to meet your goals. If you didn't care about being able to threaten people into paying for your ideas or acting as you wish, you would not need the State to begin with.

The presumption that there is something wrong with doing one's 'individual' thing in concert with others is precisely the issue between us. You seem to assume that the lives and actions of others must serve some ideal they don't wish to serve or even believe in. The pursuit of these methods creates it's own resistance because of your tools. IF you have a better system, then demonstrate it openly freely, and without the need to force people into it.

More later. I'll post some after dinner in about 4 hrs.

ragnarok: Just when I was trying to take it a little easier on MtnGoat you had to go an put him in his place. hahaha:)

Bottom line is people like him/her are never going to see the light until they are in a destitute situation in which they have to depend upon the kindness of others, looking out for the welfare of all. At that point they will learn that government should, if at all possible, support that iniative, as opposed to that of the individualist. I had a professor who said: "Individualism is counter-revolutionary."

MtnGoat et al are indeed counter-revolutionaries. Whether they are paid to be on sites like this or not is a worthy question.

"Well, we both know we will never agree on the idea of cooperation."

I realize that. And I maintain that your use of the word is a misnomer used in order to elicit an idea that is not it's intended outcome.

The version of cooperation used by social democrats, socialists, or anyone else *not* a defender of negative rights, inevitably involves the threat of jail to get your way.

I have no problem with the idea of expressing support for State compulsion, (though I completely oppose it's use) but claiming it means 'cooperation', when it's the kind of 'cooperation' the mob expects for protection money, doesn't sit well with the definition of the word.

MtnGoat said ,
"I have no desire to make you work for me or anyone else under conditions you don't like, to cheat you in deals, to force you to do *anything*….and in return your entire theoretical structure requires forcing compliance from people."

Yea right, most people go to work everyday to do things at places with bosses they hate because no one is forcing them to do *anything*

In fact most people go to work under less than satisfactory conditions because they have no choice, to survive.

How many laborers in any sweatshop work there *voluntarily* , as if they had a lot of choices...?

Social-Democracies vote voluntarily, say in the Nordic countries, to maintain and support socialized structures such as National Health Care systems

Who is forcing them to do that ?

Capitalism is by definition a selfish system where the "private vices are supposed to become public virtues" ...well I do not want to live in such crap, a better world is possible.

Well, we both know we will never agree on the idea of cooperation. What you are talking about is doing your own individual thing and then perusing the globe to find others who think like you, so that you can subsist in your own little world. Essentially, it seems like you are either an anarchist or a communitarian. I refuse to use the word libertarian, because it is a non-theory that holds no water at all.

"When you folks use it, you mean cooperate with what you want the way you want, or else."
What is the "or else." Pay taxes like the rest of us? Also, who are you referring to when you say "you folks." Are you talking about socialists, social-democrats, communists, what? I have made it very clear I am not an anti-capitalist, but an anti-unregulated capitalist. I actually believe that capitalism can and does work quite well, when managed. No system will ever be perfect in action. Perhaps the crucial question for you and I to ask each other is: How do you measure the quality of life in a given society? I measure it by how well the majority of citizens live. In our case, we have taken a nose-dive. Debt, sagging wages, lack of affordable heath care, drastically rising educational costs, and the list goes on for miles.

I simply disagree that your idealic world of finding others who are like-minded and fixing the world in that image is possible without the help of government. I am not afraid to say that I think the primary role of government is to attempt to keep at bay those who would gather up everything for themselves at the expense of the rest of humanity. The US has begun to resemble that very scenario of the hoarder.

I understand it is very difficult to keep up with all of this. This has been one of the best debates I have been engaged in for quite some time. Unfortunately we are limited by our time and the fact that not every answer can be a book.

'but you must at least acknowledge that the ideal you seek to live under is tremendously closer at hand - as a result of the form of capitalism we have in place now in this country - than it is for any of us who have a completely different vision of "cooperation".'

sure, I'll acknowledge that. Why you use the word cooperation mystifies me because it's not actually what you mean. When I say cooperation...I mean actual, voluntary, literal, open cooperation. When you folks use it, you mean cooperate with what you want the way you want, or else.

Why pursue such ends that make enemies out of those who could be allies? I have no desire to make you work for me or anyone else under conditions you don't like, to cheat you in deals, to force you to do *anything*....and in return your entire theoretical structure requires forcing compliance from people. Thus you and I who could work to remove power from those who abuse it, wind up in opposition.

Because i want to end the abuse of power by removing the power, while you merely seek to take that power and use it.

"By the way, you have said nothing to refute any of the debate about education, other than as sort of cop-out position similar to "you make your bed, now lie in it.""

Come on, I don't have time to keep up on 900 posts in a half day. Encapsulate it and I'll give a shot at an answer.

Easier said than done MtnGoat. You say "You can 'cooperate' with like minded people right now, as many as will do so, and to any extent you choose. Don't hide behind 'cooperation' when what you seek is not cooperation, it's power over others via threats," but you must at least acknowledge that the ideal you seek to live under is tremendously closer at hand - as a result of the form of capitalism we have in place now in this country - than it is for any of us who have a completely different vision of "cooperation".

By the way, you have said nothing to refute any of the debate about education, other than as sort of cop-out position similar to "you make your bed, now lie in it."

As to automation. It has good potential if workers were able to use it to produce for use instead of now with the capitalist class using it to reap more profit. Right now we have want in the midst of plenty only because the capitalist class is in control of the productive means. When the market chokes the machines are shut down regardless if workers needs are not provided.

The man in cave who seen only shadows upon the walls.

"So if human beings are truly better off living under the "hooray for me and screw you" rules of unbridled capitalism and there is no advantage to living cooperatively.."

I see no 'hooray for me and screw you' in any definition of capitalism save from those who attack it. Cooperation is paramount in formal capitalism because it eschews the use of force to make deals. Likewise, the idea that anyone thinks there is no advantage to living cooperatively is a strawman...no one thinks that.

The problem is the fact that what people like to woozily claim they support as 'cooperation'...is anything but. Forcing people to do what you want by law because you have the power, is not cooperation. When you 'cooperate', you don't threaten Jane with jailtime because she and joe agreed he'd work for less than you approve of. When you 'cooperate', you don't insert yourself in deals to which you are not a party and which violate no one's rights. The claim that any capitalist doesn't like 'cooperation' is based on the fact that what you call 'cooperation'..is operation under conditions of direct sanction and threat.

If you actually believed in 'cooperation', you wouldn't be seeking govt power to gain it because you wouldn't need it. You can 'cooperate' with like minded people right now, as many as will do so, and to any extent you choose. Don't hide behind 'cooperation' when what you seek is not cooperation, it's power over others via threats.

How many college degrees are siting and arguing over what position and how many can sit on head of a pin?
What if Marx was not read by tomorrows students?
What if the textbooks on differing economic theorys were replaced by just one, that explained how to go about implmenting and all changes were confined to improving that singualr system?
What if the Federal Reserve was no longer needed or differences in International currency values had been exchanged by like values of commodity for commodity, and every facet of the social order requires conformity in ordser for it to survive?
School systems devised that train youths , the less capable to menial tasks and with the more capable going into either technicalor managerial fields and all managers were under one uniform dictate.
No deviation allowed as it would unsettle the planned social order that keeps the economic security of the few sustainable.
Lets take Floridas new Educational Book Laws that reqire only facts to be presented and no discussion upon wether the facts had any variable points towards society within them?
EX. Man killed robbing an elederly person.
No where was there mention that he was unarmed and shot by cops after they had severly beaten him and that some witnesses said he was the wrtong man.. NO , Man killed robbing an elderly person. Stop; next subject.
EX. George Washington presented Bill while he was President to new nation for one million dollars because he finaced Privateers to rob and hen sink British merchant ships.
It is a fact but shows no context of the man the fees or the wars use of privateers to defeat a superior military power.
Are the youths of today gong to become educated or trained and in todays world one who may be well trained to a high degree in say medicien they may be dumb as a rock upon rest of worlds happenings but can become better educated by free access to knowlege outside their fields.
What happens if in future only those being trained in those fields the state deems necesary to its survival can access those data bases.
To those who think the intrnet is some vast safe trove of knowlege they are fooling themselves because it is fast b ecoming ever more limited with the governing powers in US paying persons to both monitor and manipulate discussion groups on info the majority of US citizenry do not know exist.
Then child is tested on known facts in order to advance within the system

Karl Marx state that the tendency of capitalism is to render workers superfluous. Labor is capital invested in by the capitalist class and the only capital that can be cut to increase profits.

William O. Douglas wrote a good piece on that subject. In it he said, "When the machines do all the work, who will buy the products."

The financial pages of newspapers go weak after week with capitalists squealing about labor costing too much. Mergers and acquisitions is a slick way to cut labor besides the usual displacement of automation and computers.

When automations came upon the scene, the unions went along with hocus pocus that automation creates more jobs. At that time the work force was at least 35 percent unionized. Now the workforce is barely over 10 percent unionized.

http://socialismmarxdeleonforarealunion.org
/index.html

smdfaru, our unity and the nature of our relationships are truly paramount. Thank you so very much for staying focused on that critical point.

For the record, I have often stated in private discussion how I believe the US Constitution is in fact a socialist document.

The problem is not in the philosophical doctrine of any particular approach but in the applied realities. For this reason, and given the nature of human kind, Marx argued that each system would migrate toward its antithesis.

It is most important to understand the evolution of change, who and what brings it about, and to what end. As soon as we seek to fix an ideology we set into place the means by which we will later require "adjustments" in our thinking. Better to become the instrument of that change than to have it imposed.

And indeed, the greatest and most significant feature of our Constitution is that it legalized revolution. But we the people must still be the means, the force, the spirit and will for that change. Otherwise…

RabbleRabble: The problem here is that we don't have free market capitalism. With Bush and Co. we have corporatism. Haliburton's no-bid contracts, Cheney's energy meeting with oil execs, gov't regulation that benefit certain corporations over small business, lobbyists writing laws that congress rubber stamps…all signs of pure corporatism. Mussolini is cheering in his grave.

ENTERIK: Free Market capitalism is a naive fantasy. They have it in Somalia and it sucks.

The problem here is that we don't have free market capitalism. With Bush and Co. we have corporatism. Haliburton's no-bid contracts, Cheney's energy meeting with oil execs, gov't regulation that benefit certain corporations over small business, lobbyists writing laws that congress rubber stamps...all signs of pure corporatism. Mussolini is cheering in his grave.

Kernel: Thank you for leveling, instead of putting me down for my beliefs. I think the fact that you and your wife have managed to put your kids through school without further debt is a miracle, and it is miracle that every family should be able to achieve. That's really my main point about the education issue. A solid further education for those who are below a certain income level should be considered a social investment made by the government on behalf of the citizens of this country.

Lastly, I actually don't play music for a living any longer. I am a professional grassroots organizer in the fight for responsible environmental policy. Unfortunately, unless I sell myself short in some way, I will be lucky to ever make beyond $50k or so, which to me would be a dream come true. That is why I am so bitter about the folks who make millions and millions of dollars every year, all the while doing nothing much for the betterment of society.

I guess that's the socialist in me. :)

Capitalism doesn't create wealth; it transfers it from labor and nature, especially from labor working on nature.

It reminds me of how we're converting rainforests into carbon and cholesterol.

See this satirical piece on capitalism:

New Element Discovered: Capitalisium
http://www.monthlyreview.org/mrzine/brook010807.html

As a worker I am subjected to the power of the capitalist class and the brow beating of the media that it controls.

What is most damaging to me is being intellectually attacked by my kind, sometimes even physically. In the past, workers had a sense of commonality with each other but that has long been beat out of their minds.

All the facts pertaining to our social relationships are stored in books at the libraries but teachers in schools are running scared to open them up to young minds. That is job consciousness not class consciousness.

Disinformation gets the working class not one foot forward to doing something about its plight.

During the government public works projects of the depression era workers took advantage of the situation and produced too much material critical of capitalism. What happened? It was shut down and stored away. This was presented on public TV some years ago.

That should be seen by every student but sadly it is also stored away.

Getting the facts straight has got to start someplace or all that is accomplished is spinning our wheels.

CRCOX-- Just because I took offense at the insinuation that one must have a college degree (education),to be a productive citizen, does not mean that I disrespect higher learning. I myself did not attend college as my father died when I was 16 years of age. However , my 2 children have between them a MBA degree followed by Certified Financial Planner, the other one has a Doctors Degree in Pharmacy-Pharm D. It was no eaasy job to help them attain these and with our help they are fully paid off on them. My wife and I have stressed that in no way are they to feel above people that have not had the good fortune to attend college. It is possible though, to do a fair job of educating yourself with all the tools available today.
Incidently, I also have great appreciation for the arts and have a grandson who recently made an album in Nashville. I believe I am a little more than a "marketeer" exept I deal in agricultural products which have added considerably to the economy. Keep playing your trombone and hope you make enough to pay off your college loan.

It is pleasantly surprising to find so many informed intellectuals here, with such a commanding grasp on the delicacies of market economics, usury and capitalism - eager to fragment the problem into a billion parts and willing to throw out the proverbial baby with the bath water.

"The few who understand the system, will either be so interested from its profits or so dependant on its favors, that there will be no opposition from that class." -- Rothschild Brothers of London, 1863

Folks, it is not the concept but how it is applied that determines its good or evil. It is nice to think of an ideal world with a completely benign power structure but is that realistic? And how do we get from here to there? And how do we move along the ignorant masses until they too can get it?

"Reward her even as she rewarded you, and double unto her double according to her works: in the cup which she hath filled fill to her double." --Revelations 18:6

From Marx we understand that in order to effect a change in government the large middle class must first become discontent with it (or simply be eliminated) – the poor will always be eager for change - and the elite will always be the benefactors – regardless of the system. (…hello…)

And for those who believe there exist some good socialist-democratic systems (there are) don't ignore how they are still actors in the global marketplace and international banking system. It could rightly be argued that without the existence of capitalistic partners they too would falter. And we do need a global marketplace, and we do need a system of finance.

Either we learn to use our collective power and wisdom to be the master of change, for the greater good of a strong and pervasive middle class, or we continue to be victimized by the self-serving interests of the power elite, ad infinitum.

I know there are some great minds here, but...

If your boat is taking on water and you see even a small can with a hole in it would you not use it it to stem the water flow, or would you just sit yelling or crying for help from the people who put the holes in the boat?
This is a designed collapse for and by the few of the old sytems so they can retain and gain even better conrols over your lives for their advantage so anything not of their choosing has possabilitys or else why would they fight so hard to restrain those other choices.

The problem with relying on more regulation is that regulatory interests have been weakened by concentrated corporate power and conservative social movements aligned with such power. It is true that even some fundamentalist Christians are increasingly worried about the environment, but it is also true that privatization is a growing trend.

This means that pushing for regulatory strategies begs the question of how one gains power to regulate. Who promotes regulation and what relative power do they have? Actually existing social movements often provide little political leverage because they do very little to mobilize people. They are often reactive, "fail to connect the dots," and fragment problems and solutions. They are usually cut off from economic power and don't explore how to access it. They deconstruct, as oppose to reconstruct.

The lack of citizen control over the financial system is partially based on deregulation but that is partly a proxy for concentrated corporate power. The key question that must be debated is where and how one gains power to control or regulate these financial interests. This power can not come from simply advocating an alternative system because these alternatives are often propelled by various social movements and organizing strategies. Also, even Latin American populism with weak accountability structures can lean towards authoritarianism. Even societies supporting cooperatives and economic democracy, can lack a certain kind of organizing power from below that holds leaders accountable. Nevertheless, building such alternatives represents a positive step towards accountability. Credit unions, cooperative banks, and the like represent a choice. The problem is that irresponsibility in the financial community can create problems for the larger system.

A fundamentally new paradigm of economic reconstruction would help provide alternatives. It is not enough to call this "naive" and "utopian." The present economic difficulties of the U.S. show that accepting the current situation amounts to what C. Wright Mills called "crackpot realism."

Unbridled capitalism is the law of the jungle. So if human beings are truly better off living under the "hooray for me and screw you" rules of unbridled capitalism and there is no advantage to living cooperatively, then there is no need to build cities, communities and neighborhoods.

You either live in a jungle where your survival depends solely on your own efforts, or you are part of a community of humans who live and work cooperatively and who live under governments whose function it is to provide for the general welfare, just as the United States democratically governed Republic was originally concieved.

When the nation turns into a jungle, it is no longer a nation and the ONLY function of laws is to incarcerate those who can't afford to live.

So much for the civilized concept of the inalienable right to life.... let alone liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

And let's not forget, although when times are good the wealthy have nothing but disdain for government assistance to the needy, when their own fortunes are in danger, they are the first to come crying to taxpayers for a handout to save them and their obscene fortunes.

Perhaps the United States should design an "opt out" system for those who wish to live and die by the rules of the jungle. Don't want to pay taxes? Fine. Dont. But you can pay tolls for use of public rolls, you can pay your own way 100% for everything AND when your wealth dries up and disappears because everyone you depend on to "create" it is flat broke, you can bail yourself out.

The law of the jungle is only desireable to people who don't need other people. That accounts for approximately 1% of the human population on Earth. The rest of us figured out long ago that our survival and prosperity depend on one another.

That's why we built this city.

Hi Everyone

What is the capitalist system's basic flaw?
Capitalists as a class want workers to have enough income to buy back all the products the workers produced. However, individual capitalists want to pay "their" workers the least amount possible.

At best, capitalists can temporarily solve this problem by organizing a dual labor market. In otherwords, some of the workforce will function as cheap labor and some of the workforce will be well paid (hourly vs. salary; 1st world vs. 3rd world.)

Yet, under the domination of capital, technology is used to cut costs or speculate to make easy money. And when the pool of cheap labor expands and the army of well paid labor is decimated, that is when it goes into crisis mode.

Today, we can observe that wages are being driven down for the vast majority.

MtnGoat: Capitalism does not depend on extracting every last cent from the poor.

ENTERIK: Many Americans live month to month and can't save because the basic needs of modern life are expensive. They own little beyond their personal effects and spend everything on getting by. People that hope the mail is slow, so that the check they wrote for that minimum payment bill won't bounce before they get their paycheck in the account. People who choose between vaccinating their kids and fixing their car. Don't even talk about having wealth. This is our capitalist system extracting nearly every cent from the poor and it needs to be fixed so that Americans who find themselves on the wrong end of the stick can have a decent life. A good start would be to make common sense regulations for the predatory lending that happened.

MtnGoat: Capitalism is not a zero sum game, it *creates* wealth and even If the hundreds of thousands of rules on the books is not 'regulation', I'm not sure even Barbara knows just what the heck she is talking about.

ENTERIK: No system of economics is a zero sum game, they all create value and wealth as humans transform basic resources. The issue is whether our capitalism can be better regulated to protect us from unfair business practices. I think there should be common sense limits so that hard working people don't get dragged over the coals by dishonest credit dealers.

MtnGoat: If you don't like capitalism, then don't participate in it. Form your own peaceful collective, and trade amongst yourselves by actual choice. Heck, if it looks good, I'll join in too.

ENTERIK: That's like telling a fish if you don't like dirty water don't swim in it. Most fish like clean water and if they could speak they would tell you its time to change the filter. It's the same with Americans and capitalism, we would like it to be cleaner. Many of us can talk and we are telling the government it is time to filter the financial market. For too long, the Republican lead congress neglected their responsibilities. It's time to change the water, change the filter, feed the fish and scrape off the financial algae.

holymoly said

"There is such a pot of money. It is called the federal reserve..." and .."THEY control the money supply. They also demand that Congress tax your salary, every hour you work to pay the INTEREST on money they have printed."

There is A LOT that is ridding on every decision the "FED" makes, in fact they affect our domestic economy in every way and by extension the global economies, BUT these "FEDs" are mostly a very secretive little group of PRIVATE bankers working on behave of ("the people?")...

It would be very informative and educative if the economic experts among us would explain the details about how the "FED" really works (anything FEDeral as in public ownership/oversight here ?),

It looks like this little group of very secretive and private individuals need more scrutiny from "the people", Making possible the usury game and financial "products" seem to be their forte. Capitalism at its best.

As far as I am concerned nationalizing all the banking/financial sectors would be my solution, would this be a naive, inefficient and non-sustainable approach ?

Darwinism predicts change, the world and systems of heavens are unpredictable except for change, humanity is trying to impose itself as a stagnant force within a chaotic universe.
Capitalism as we know it in America today is not the capitalism of its past and is not that much different than what Europe knew under its older pre World Wars governing systems except in the way those who control Capitalism in the US finance that control.
The majority of Humans want a stable environment, food, shelter and leisure time that is the mass of humanity.
Within Humanity are differing levels of expectations as to what foods, shelters,and leisures mean beyond the obvious material facilitys and understand the unstable human minds well enough to use that instability to their own advantages, capitalism in all its myriad forms and that is the leadership of humanity.
There is no such item as an equal trade for trade because of mankinds mental chaos and the realativity of each item traded towards that mental disparity in the traders.
You don't trade two equal bananas, same weigtht color and food value for two bananas of equal color weight and food value.
Trade is exploitive and but a symptom of the mindset of humans that has always seperated them from all animal life on this earth.
Inequality is a natural part of the universality of chaos and only humans are capable of trying to manipulate chaos into a form of stability but no matter how hard they at times have tried they can only succeed temporarily in doing so.
Wether it is by recogniton of a religous or man as his own deity that inequality is recognized as a part of mankinds makeup.
It is the attempts to stop change that threatens these beliefs and the mental and physical rewards its holders have that even while calling themselves civilized those holders justify their reverting back to their more animalistic behavioral patterns and contributing to chaos.
Only mankind understands the philosopical differeneces between mortality and immortality and in that understanding enough of its mass has advanced to the state that they understand the immortality of their past actions and the effects it has had upon not just their own mortality but the very destruction of the planet that gave them life.
Before this revealation came about all was without end, trees were forever, water abundant, a disease could be cured by pills, mass production meant vast availability of cheap goods, and that both religous and mans deities were one and the same entitys both were attempts to explain the unknown chaos.
Today we face a time when technology can control the distribution of the remaining resources and put them into the hands of a far smaller group of humans than ever before and that small group will attempt to restrain any form of chaos or instability that threatens their hold upon the power this gives them is to be understood as a human trait that has always had to be overthrown of restrained and that chaos is not always slow and clean and violent reactions do occur to change the order of things.
In a time when the few hold the technology that can extinguish the thinking process's of mankind simply waiting until something happens spontaneously is not an option.

smdfaru August 22nd, 2007 12:22 pm wrote:

"There one major difference between now and the days of chattle slavery and that is communication and education. The slaves had none, we do. We are using it right now–the internet."

Despite all the education, and communication we have... we don't know how to use and apply either, and we're still very disorganized, timid, manipulated and controlled.

Even us who are onto to these corperate crooks, but at least some of us are self-aware.

Paul Bramscher

There one major difference between now and the days of chattle slavery and that is communication and education. The slaves had none, we do. We are using it right now--the internet.

Nothing stops workers from getting to the point--not yet at least.

Maybe things look hopeless but we can walk and chew gum at the same time. Maybe by increasingly communicating our common interests to each is better than nothing. The capitalist class do that for their own interests all time. Workers let them get away with it--especially all the workers involved in education and the media.

smdfaru: We're for the most part paid to occupy a jail cell cubicle, to keep us out of trouble -- to keep us from organizing or getting active in our communities, 8-10 hours/day. At the end of the day, we're only good for playing with the kids for an hour or two, chugging down some beer, surfing the internet and/or watching a movie.

I've often asked how it was possible that slavery & tyranny existed in the south, or anywhere for that matter, in large numbers. Imagine you're on a large plantation with 10 or even 100 slaves per task master. Why not rise up, and take him DOWN? The answer is simple: no safe harbor. You do this on your plantation and every grower, vigilante group, bounty hunter, various layers of pro-slavery law enforcement, etc. will hunt you down long before you get onto the underground railroad.

So the organization which would have been necessary to abolish slavery via organized revolt and tossing aside of the chains would have been -- by necessity -- a massive cross-plantation and simultaneous uprising. A million slaves revolting at the same time, armed with whatever they could get their hands on, and all moving as fast as possible toward some safe harbor.

It's summed up wonderfully in the Battle at Kruger video on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LU8DDYz68kM

The king of the savanna, it turns out, is not the lion. This illustration is simply understood. The real battle is not 1 on 1. It's one structure vs. another. It turns out that the large herd herbivores can easily overwhelm the lion's pride when they are united. We need a human herd, it's just that simple.

Back the Soprano' Tax Plan to restore financial and ethical equity.

*

Like the mob, reputable and not so reputable financial enterprises 'whet their beaks' on all commercial flows of capital.

(Wall Street firms are expected to pay out a record $23.9 billion in bonuses this year. 12/20/06 USA Today)

(Meanwhile the financial types have stripped a tenth of a point here and a half a point there from these capital flows, enriching themselves until the speculative 'excessive risk' schemes meet their inevitable and repetitive denouement. (from: Cognitorex , "John Doe Pays" ))

One manifestly equitable countervailing economic policy would be to place a one one hundreth of one percent Value Added Tax on all capital flows.

The financial mafia ('Them') enrich themselves by taking a bite out of America's capital flows at every instance while 'Us', the creator's of this wealth, need Moms and Dads working multiple jobs to eat and provide the capital for this system.

In a bad year, when capital and equity shrink due to the excesses of the financial mob's schemes, the little guy has to pony up to replace the capital. In this manner, John and Jane Doe repeatedly have to pay an effective greed tax and pay more for their car loans, their mortgages and their credit cards until the cosa nostra bankers replace their depleted capital.

As our capital washes around the globe for economic enterprises, both good and bad, and for hedging and for asset speculation, there is no reason that the 99.9% of the population that suffers the cost of the downturns couldn't charge a way tiny `rent' for this resource.

Direct these tax flows to Social Security and Medicaid and they would thus be amply funded and capitalism would manifestly not miss a heart beat.
--cognitorex blogspot--