zip106

Nope.
Google Translator doesn't come up with anything.

GlesgaKiss

By drift I mean in terms of a tendency to expect to rely more on others - i.e. the state - to sort out life in general. It seems the government really is responsible for almost everything now, and the economy is, for all intents and purposes, centrally planned. To me there seems to be masses of people 'missing the point' when it comes to this crisis, and in my opinion it can get a whole lot worse in the quest for 'fairness'. So the drift is also away from the notion that we should have private property and self-determination in our lives, and instead rely on people to 'look after us'. The state plays a sort of maternal role, and that will only develop further, in my opinion - now that the general consensus is that things are getting 'too complicated' for us to be left alone.

Take your view of Alan Greenspan and the crisis he created. The view is also shared by quite a few public figures and intellectuals that he (and possibly U.S. policy on the whole over the last few decades) was laissez-faire. But removing certain regulations in the banking sector so it resembles a mad house is not a free market. He also set up a situation where the Fed (basically the government) bailed out these gamblers countless times, leaving a market where it was apparent that prices would not be allowed to fall.

Now, the U.S. government has access to probably the most capital in the world - or it did. It pools capital in from hundreds of millions of citizens in one of the richest income per capita countries in the world. Not just that but it has the world's primary currency.

With these funds they have significantly and repeatedly distorted risk in the U.S. marketplace.

When a bank lends to someone, interest rates and the availability of the loan itself (and the size of said loan) should be determined by the likelihood of being repaid. And that applies to a market in general. It is a self-correcting mechanism.

So imagine the amount of malinvestment which could take place in an environment of loans guaranteed by the state (with massive resources) and 1% interest rates. And all that (which led up to this current 'crisis') was in order to stave off the effects of the previous malinvestment which took place in the dot com boom. It has all really been one big crisis: there was never any real 'boom' in housing, it was just a bunch of consumers spending borrowed money which, at the time, was flooding in. So it kept promoting unsustainable businesses (which are inevitable in any market). In other words, when the aspect of government policy - or resources received in some way at the whim of the government (and remember they are significant in this case) - are removed, there is no demand for that business's services or goods.

In a case like that, is it sensible to further the malinvestment that ensures an expansion of said businesses and sectors reliant on current government policy (remember, again, that this policy was also itself reliant on the expansion of credit!)? Or is it sensible to let the malinvestment be purged from the system so that it continues to work by the 'invisible hand', always keeping itself sustainable? (being objective there. In other words, people going bankrupt and starting on something else that there is demand for)

This is stuff that you could write forever about, but it was really just to illustrate the point that the U.S. and Alan Greenspan, in recent decades, was not, and never had been, anything approaching lassez-faire. Perhaps some of what he did was influenced by his personal philosphy (it had to be), but much of the rest, when analysed on its own, was anything but.

The politics of the whole situation is something else entirely, of course. But I'm sure a government embracing laissez-faire wouldn't have gone off the gold standard. And remember they only did that in the 70s because they couldn't control spending.

Regulation is all well and good, but what has been missing for the last few decades is the market's regulation, and, as I pointed out above, that has been completely lacking. It works perfectly, too, as a market does. Some aspects of it might need changing to suit current politics, but people left to their own devices do sort problems out - because they have to.

What we've got now is nothing even resembling a market. And we shouldn't underestimate what can be done by distorting it.

If you're interested, there's another book that might shed more light on things, and hopefully convince you that the U.S. was not operating on capitalism gone wild, at least in some respects. Another fairly short one, with pictures and everything.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Corruption-C...2678049&sr=1-1

GlesgaKiss

Took so long writing that that I was signed out. Tried to go back and thought I'd lost everything. Was on the verge of going apesh*t when it finally popped up. Phew!

Bubba po

You missed one.

The wealthy are only wealthy because they've nicked resources which belong to all of us for themselves.

TelBoy

Lol, evening Geoof

What resources intrinsically "belong" to you? Specifically and for example, what financial resourses belong to you and in what respect have i stolen them from you?

Luan Pra bang

Atlas shrugged perhaps you mean. Either way it is ****.

Bubba po

The resources - that is, raw materials, land etc. of the Earth belong to us all.

The way of the world is that robbing, murdering barstards have appropriated those sources of wealth to themselves and put the rest of the world's population to work, for which they receive a meagre share, not appropriate to the work they put in.

GlesgaKiss

Never knew you were a commie, Bubba. I retract the nice comment I made in your thread.

Bubba po

I've been on strike today, I think I've come over all "Ragged-trousered Philanthropist".

ALi-B

iTrader: (1)

Sounded more like something said by a tree hugger rather than a wood chipper.

warrenm2

Question 1: How does a normally sane and rational poster sudddenly excrete such drivel?

Question 2: Who says they ONLY got wealthy this way. Proof?

Question 3: Who says they NICKED stuff? Proof?

Question 4: Who says this stuff BELONGS TO ALL OF US? Proof?

Tip: Only answer Question 1
Bonus tip: Go move to Cuba

ALi-B

iTrader: (1)

Ran out of Imodium

Robin Hood

Morrissey

Jean-Jacques Rousseau



< gets coat >

GlesgaKiss

Oh no, a double team effort... ahhhhhhhh!

ALi-B = communism's best kept secret. A garage owning (?) commie?

Bubba po

LOL

Bubba po

SHED owning.

ALi-B

iTrader: (1)

https://www.scoobynet.com/showpost.p...3&postcount=14

Halfway there:

Apparantly I'm a left wing authoritarian

Don't own the garage though.


So you finally admit its a shed and not a lean-to

JTaylor

Thanks. I can actually see a copy about 4 yards away - not been opened for maybe 15 years.

It's not ****, by the way. To say it's so seems odd, it's an important cultural artefact. Important enough for you to pull me up (and rightly so) on shrugged and not shrugs. Perhaps it was Freudian; who knows?

markjmd

iTrader: (11)

The big question mark with schools today is what they are teaching, not so much how well or in what surroundings they're doing it. One example that comes to mind here is an apparent complete absence of any late 20th Century history at either GCSE or in 6th form. How do I know this? I asked some nieces and nephews, when the subject came up while watching a film last Christmas, if they knew what the 'Cold War' was, or the 'Eastern Block'. None of them had a clue, so for the next few weeks, I put the same question to every unfortunate teenager I happened to talk to (children of friends, colleagues, other relations), and not one of them had the remotest idea either. Further inquiry confirmed what was by then rapidly becoming obvious, that the subject simply isn't taught in our schools at all. So apparently, somebody somewhere in authority has come to the astonishing decision that it's of absolutely no interest or consequence to future generations that they should know how the world came to be what it is today. It just is the way it is, and our kids should be content with that

Leslie

I think the economics professor got it pretty well right.

Humans need the "carrot and stick" bit to persuade them to achieve. We have pretty good examples both in the attitudes prevalent today in those who exist on benefits, and when it comes to a satisfying way to go through life in general, the example set by the Scandinavian is also revealing.

Les

Luan Pra bang

I read the fountainhead first thought it was interesting , just about, then I started to read atlas shrugged having heard from too many people how great and important a book it was, It was basically the same as the fountainhead but laughable, the whole thing, even the join the Ayn Rand philosophy leaflet that came with the book just seemd silly. There was no possibilty of me getting thorugh more than half way of Atlas shrugged , I would have been more enlightened reading the beano.

JTaylor

I take it you're watching BBC2, GK.

GlesgaKiss

No, was having dinner. Saw it on the tv guide earlier though. Will catch it on iPlayer later!

Any good?

JTaylor

Not bad. Nothing new, to be fair. The conclusion was that drawn by most clear thinking people: We're fcuked.

I actually wrote a long-winded response to your above post the other day, but became so frustrated by the futility of the post-match analysis I binned it. I'm still, in essence, looking at it from a more philosophical perspective than you. Yours is clearly more technical. I appreciate you're a confirmed economic libertarian and I get that position, I'm a libertarian in the classical sense.

About 13 years ago, I remember being sat at the traffic lights on Mutley Plain in Plymouth. I was in the fourth month of my job as an account manager with Beneficial Bank. I was basically selling money. That day I was given a bit of a pat on the back for stitching someone up with a £22k secured loan after they'd come in for a consolidation on about £9ks worth of debt. Off they toddled with a big bag of cash and a 26% APR, but the payments were only £400 per month, so that was fine. They didn't even know what an APR was. Anyway, back to the traffic lights: I can clearly recall having this overwhelming sense that what had happened was wrong. Economically it was evidently unsustainable (for the individual and the UK and so on) and everyone was at it. There was a moral issue, too. I knew I'd saddled these people (salt of the Earth types) with this debt to go out and buy shît they didn't need and couldn't afford because of my crafty salesmanship; it railed against every ethical fibre in my body. Thing is, that deal paid for my new Mongoose exhaust.

If I, a 23 year-old pup, could see the writing on the wall, why couldn't our masters? If I knew it was morally corrupt, why didn't our leaders? My guess is that they knew where we were headed, but the rewards were simply too great. Bollöcks to the future of Western civilisation, look at my car!

I imagine if there'd been a few of those lefty types in the mix, things would've been different. I must admit when I look at the London protestors and see the banner, "what would Jesus do?"*, I have some sympathy.

I've barely proof read this, so apologies if it rambles. Just be grateful you've had the short version.

* In the sense that Sheldon used it - I've not gone all Evangelical or anything.

Maz

iTrader: (34)

Capitalism, a wonderful concept. Rewards the industrious, the hard working, the enterprising etc. What it doesn't account for is greed and megalomania, that quintessential human trait. I'm no socialist let me be clear on that but capitalism seems to have run it's course.

Maz

iTrader: (34)

I think the person that took the loan shoulders the responsibility, perhaps I'm being old fashioned but naivety and apathy are not an excuse. As for your Mongoose exhaust I can identify with that, it's the magpie in us! shiny things and all that.

Galifrey

iTrader: (3)

Unfortunately it is massively flawed, as it does not show the lazy people that get an A-Grade without doing anything. (ie those with inherited wealth and the richest in the world such as Arab "Princes") It is a very flawed comparison as it claims the that hard work is the key to everything, and that unfortunately is a fallacy.

Galifrey

iTrader: (3)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Z9WVZddH9w

A lot of the psychology of greed is covered in this free movie which is very interesting. It proposes a different economic style not based on debt, whether it is workable or not is another thing tho.

ALi-B

iTrader: (1)

Very true. I did not do History GCSE. But did do Geography up to A-level - both natural and human of which the latter's social sciences should cover alot of world-issues (politics, cultures, economics etc), both historical and current.

I was taught very little about the cold war. Nor any of the labour f**k ups during the 70's, the strikes, womens rights, the creation of moern Israel was briefly mentioned but not discussed to any depth, nothing about the Ottoman empire. We dabbled in some of oil rich regions, same with communism and dictatorships etc, but not really in any specific depth.

All of what I know I have obtained outside of school and college. Through passing interests. My memory with History at school was mainly teachers obsessing with Medieval England and WWI/II.

I learnt more about American history on a whistle stop bus tour of the deep south than I ever leant in a classroom! Before that I didn't know anything about the black/slave labour segregation, nor much about the Civil war. The first I ever head of Martin Luther King or his importance was when I stopped in Memphis!

f1_fan

iTrader: (9)

Agreed. When you look back at the 70s and 80s in the UK you went through a decade of what can loosely be described as an attempt at socialism and then through another decade of rampant capitalism with the 'greed is good' mantra heaped on top of it.

The country ended up the worse for it on both counts even though there will be those on here who say otherwise about the 80s, but they're just living in some rose tinted version of the real world I would call la la land

The thing is neither system works because underneath a lot of people are rotten to the core and that is something you will never change!

GlesgaKiss

But see this is where you're mistaken.

There's nothing wrong with the concept as you point out. You want people to have personal responsibility for what they do... their debt etc, and that's exactly what capitalism is. The concept of it is for the accumulation of capital in private hands and free movement of said capital according to the wishes of the owners! That's it. What you probably mean by capitalism is the current state of affairs where banks get bailed out etc.

But if it's run its course, then what can possibly replace it? If you start talking about a system which is planned, then who plans it? How is that 'fair' or 'better'? The unfortunate truth is that there's no system which is going to get everyone everything they want. Capitalism is the one consistent with western philosophy. If you want to wake up in the morning as a worker bee with your destiny decided for you, then I'm sure the top down approach is ideal!