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Dec 6th, 2017
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Joined: Aug 2008
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OP
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Ultimately, I want radical changes to our economic system. I want to dismantle the consumerism, debt and dominate culture that we live in. I think it is unhealthful to humans and the cause of most of the conflict in the world. First destroy the economy, then rebuild it. Americans don't do things by half-measures. ____________
Last edited by numan; 09/21/08 03:55 PM.
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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Phil Your analysis has a certain fascination to it. I must say that it strikes me as being rather Utopian... and rather impractical despite all of the good intentions that it is based upon. It does seem to me that you are using the current predicament as a lever to achieve a social/political/economical restructuring of colossal proportions. My own strong suspicion is that your ideal scenario is not the most likely residue of a total economic collapse. I think debting is the tool by which we are all kept captive and enslaved. I think it prevents most people from seeing the nature of their own enslavement so that any hope for accomplishing what I think is necessary highly unlikely. Phil My own situation is that I am entirely debt free. I can thank my depression era parents for shaping within me a frugal and largely non-consumerist life style. And, based upon my own experience of life would say that even within the current economic structure one is not obligated to become a slave of debt and consumerism. Possibly your life experience differs.
"It's not a lie if you believe it." -- George Costanza
The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves. --Bertrand Russel
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My own situation is that I am entirely debt free. I can thank my depression era parents for shaping within me a frugal and largely non-consumerist life style. Well, goody-good good for you! What about everyone else? Your situation might not be so delightful with society collapsing around you. ________
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Good article: Paulson Bailout Plan a Historic SwindleLet me be clear. The scandal is not that government is acting. The scandal is that government is not acting forcefully enough--using its ultimate emergency powers to take full control of the financial system and impose order on banks, firms and markets. Stop the music, so to speak, instead of allowing individual financiers and traders to take opportunistic moves to save themselves at the expense of the system. The step-by-step rescues that the Federal Reserve and Treasury have executed to date have failed utterly to reverse the flight of investors and banks worldwide from lending or buying in doubtful times. There is no obvious reason to assume this bailout proposal will change their minds, though it will certainly feel good to the financial houses that get to dump their bad paper on the government.
A serious intervention in which Washington takes charge would, first, require a new central authority to supervise the financial institutions and compel them to support the government's actions to stabilize the system. Government can apply killer leverage to the financial players: accept our objectives and follow our instructions or you are left on your own--cut off from government lending spigots and ineligible for any direct assistance. If they decline to cooperate, the money guys are stuck with their own mess. If they resist the government's orders to keep lending to the real economy of producers and consumers, banks and brokers will be effectively isolated, therefore doomed.
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Joined: Dec 2005
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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My own situation is that I am entirely debt free. I can thank my depression era parents for shaping within me a frugal and largely non-consumerist life style. Well, goody-good good for you! What about everyone else? Your situation might not be so delightful with society collapsing around you. ________ With all respect... I was addressing Phil's point about the enslavement of debt. And in my experience, people most often choose this path. I agree with you about the problems of others. But are we saying that people have no responsibility for the choices that they have made? And most importantly... if people have made bad choices... how can you eliminate this problem without eliminating their ability to make choices. And further... I am on record as endorsing taking action now to mitigate the bad effects of the current situation and am , in fact , arguing against a position that basically says there is no point to do anything... or it is better to let the system collapse because the system is wrong. In fact, I am aware that this proposed bailout will cost me money, and never the less I support it. I support it even though it will benefit people who have been less responsible, and even though it will also benefit people who caused the crisis by their greed. How exactly is that to be characterized as not caring about people who have been hurt in this crisis? I am not boasting about my current situation. I am not a rich person. I do not earn a high income. I simply live a frugal life. And I really do not understand why it is that we must allow the entire economic system to collapse in order to possibly arrive at the Utopian vision that Phil has described.
"It's not a lie if you believe it." -- George Costanza
The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves. --Bertrand Russel
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Joined: Jan 2003
Posts: 6,428 Likes: 1
old hand
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old hand
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Ardy... you suggest that doing something might help... Okay... I buy that!... What we should do, is let nature take it's course... Precisely what we should have done in the first place... Just obey the rules/laws. it will hurt... a lot... but it will never happen again. I double dog dare... no make that "I triple dog dare" anyone here to read this...  The Facts See?... I Win  
Life is Good!
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Joined: Dec 2005
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Dec 2005
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Ardy... you suggest that doing something might help... Okay... I buy that!... What we should do, is let nature take it's course... Precisely what we should have done in the first place... Just obey the rules/laws. it will hurt... a lot... but it will never happen again. I double dog dare... no make that "I triple dog dare" anyone here to read this... The FactsIt is a great read. But, I find your assertions unsupported by the article. Just for example, You say What we should do, is let nature take it's course... Precisely what we should have done in the first place... Just obey the rules/laws. it will hurt... a lot... but it will never happen again. There is absolutely no way to make that guarantee. The only thing that prevents a repeat is eternal vigilance. Further, while the article does articulate the issues surrounding "moral hazard" and the concomitant importance of allowing companies to fail.... the article never says that the entire economy should be let to fail. Further, when one reads the article concerning the AIG bailout, it is clear that that is not a free pass given to AIG Further, if one looks at the planned bail out of illiquid debt... it is clear that this is also not a free pass. Do not misunderstand my position. I am also angry as the dickens about the present situation and I do believe that corrective actions need to be taken. Phil has done a good job of outlining the issues in his new thread "Extreme Makeover" But that said, the idea to do nothing as a means of economic catharsis is frankly crazy.
"It's not a lie if you believe it." -- George Costanza
The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves. --Bertrand Russel
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Joined: Jun 2004
Posts: 21,134
Administrator Bionic Scribe
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Administrator Bionic Scribe
Joined: Jun 2004
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From the linked article (man that is a long one): Historians have identified the causes of the 1930 Depression as:
1) Too much savings in relation to consumer power due to income disparity;
2) Over capacity due to excessive investment from surplus capital;
3) Over stimulation through the growth of debt through new intricate system of inter linked debt obligations;
4) Legalized price fixing through mergers and acquisitions; big corporations maintain price and cut production instead of lowering prices, resulting in massive unemployment;
5) Economic growth too heavily dependent of big ticket durable goods that cannot sell in a depression thus slowing recovery;
6) Exhaustion of public confidence and optimism; and
7) The collapse of international trade (Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act).
8) Irresponsible foreign lending (the US was a creditor nation with a credit balance about twice the size of the total foreign investment in the US.)
All of these causes are still present today at a larger scale and faster reaction time, with the exception that the US is now the world’s biggest debtor nation.
Life is a banquet -- and most poor suckers are starving to death -- Auntie Mame
You are born naked and everything else is drag - RuPaul
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Joined: Sep 2005
Posts: 12,581
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Sep 2005
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From the linked article (man that is a long one): Historians have identified the causes of the 1930 Depression as:
1) Too much savings in relation to consumer power due to income disparity;
2) Over capacity due to excessive investment from surplus capital;
3) Over stimulation through the growth of debt through new intricate system of inter linked debt obligations;
4) Legalized price fixing through mergers and acquisitions; big corporations maintain price and cut production instead of lowering prices, resulting in massive unemployment;
5) Economic growth too heavily dependent of big ticket durable goods that cannot sell in a depression thus slowing recovery;
6) Exhaustion of public confidence and optimism; and
7) The collapse of international trade (Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act).
8) Irresponsible foreign lending (the US was a creditor nation with a credit balance about twice the size of the total foreign investment in the US.)
All of these causes are still present today at a larger scale and faster reaction time, with the exception that the US is now the world’s biggest debtor nation. Hmmm. And who would those "Historians" be? Yours, Issodhos
"When all has been said that can be said, and all has been done that can be done, there will be poetry";-) -- Issodhos
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