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[nenjin]

Between this and the ATF, it seems like they do indeed want to see how the system works.

So US goverment agencies can go into business for themselves.

I like Alan Moore and he was completely rational up until this point:

I would suggest beheading the bankers, but while it would be very satisfying and would cheer us up, it probably wouldn’t do anything practical to alter the situation. Behead the currency. Change the currency, why not? It would disempower all the people who had bought into that currency but it would pretty much empower the rest of us, the other ninety-nine percent.

If he thinks people will fight to protect their own necks, they'll murder whole countries to protect the value of the system they control. Not to mention everyone has a stake in currency, no matter how small, and the alternative is living on a dirt farm. Alan Moore requires currency as much as the next person. We can change the way we think about money, but we can't directly alter who has it or what its ultimate value is. We can only change societal norms about how we treat money and behave with it, and that's a generational solution.

[Aqizzar]

Here's what I got out of the comic book thing.

We can no longer stand these intolerable conditions I'm too busy being enigmatic to describe.  That angry old coot Miller is a jerk because he thinks violence is the answer.  Unrelatedly, violence might be the only real answer.

Get off my lawn!

Where's that quote about our minute political differences being drawn exponentially wider by meaningless rhetoric...

[nenjin]

Violence is fine. What's really important is from how high you condescend while you're doing it. Obviously, the higher, the better.

Now that I think about that pretty much describes a core difference between Watchmen and 300.

[SalmonGod]

Not to mention everyone has a stake in currency, no matter how small, and the alternative is living on a dirt farm. Alan Moore requires currency as much as the next person. We can change the way we think about money, but we can't directly alter who has it or what its ultimate value is. We can only change societal norms about how we treat money and behave with it, and that's a generational solution.

I hear this a lot, but never with a proper explanation.

As far as I can tell, the only major purpose that currency serves is to facilitate a procedural system of dividing labor and allocating resources.  This is indeed a useful thing, and arguably necessary for a modern world.  If civilization were a computer, then economics would be the operating system.  It's very much necessary to have one.  However, I've never been given any reason to believe that currency is a critical functional component.  It's definitely prone to viruses, memory leaks, and overall sloppy functioning.  I understand that it's the best anyone could come up with to take advantage of civilization's older hardware, but today it's like we're running a supercomputer on an operating system that was designed to run on vacuum tubes instead of semiconductors.  It's time to write some new software.

[nenjin]

Nicely put. Now explain that to someone who only has interest in what facilitates the lifestyle they want to live. It's our willingness to put the value of a financial transaction above other recognized values, like helping someone, improving the quality of other's lives, and things that are less tangible than cold, hard potential. Ask most people any question about how much it will take them to do something, and they can give an answer. They may not want to, but they can. The problem isn't with the medium of exchange, it's with human attitudes. Under the barter system, people could still be cheap, greedy misers. Greed isn't a new phenomena and neither is an economic system where it can run amok and reduce the quality of everyone's life. So when people talk about needing a new core economic system, I think it's just trading one way people hoard for another.

If we're so evolved, then we need to start focusing on the real problem, which is human attitudes about wealth, sharing, cooperation, altruism and greed. That's an even less tangible goal than an economic system that can't be anything but fair (if that's even possible), but I think these sort of social/spiritual things are what we're not giving any mind to these days and we're seeing the direct results of it. If we raise a generation that doesn't dream about being rich, maybe we can have a world where there are things where everyone won't put a price on. I know that's all very mushy, but I think it's going to be important the more tightly knit the world becomes.

[Luke_Prowler]

Problem is that you shouldn't force an ideal or set of morals on people, because that would be against their rights to choice. Yes, it's a right to be assholes, but ambition should not be culled.

[Montague]

People talk about greed a lot, but isn't it greedy to demand that others give up what they've earned and hand it to people who haven't?

Any sort of redistribution scheme aimed at "greedy rich people" seems massively hypocritical to me. It's criticizing people for being materialistic, from the moral standpoint of materialism.

[nenjin]

It's less about the money they have now and more how they choose to continue making money in the future. No one is asking their bank accounts to be emptied and thrown into the street, that's the kind of ridiculous counter argument that is always used to shoot down asking them be better, more ethical business people. It's about asking them to accept 500 million less about of their $1.2 billion a year profit so they can invest it back into their workers, their families and people's satisfaction, rather than a new plant so they can make next year's profit $1.6 billion, paying everyone else the exact same as they were before, or even less. Or maybe they open a new plant but can half the work force, making everyone work harder.

Problem is that you shouldn't force an ideal or set of morals on people, because that would be against their rights to choice. Yes, it's a right to be assholes, but ambition should not be culled.

We do this all the time. A man's ambition to get as much ass in their life time as possible doesn't make rape acceptable. Money shouldn't be any different. Yet we treat it differently.

[kaijyuu]

The point of contention there would be whether they've "earned" it or not.

People get rich in our society through investment and business management. No skill pays nearly as well as being able to successfully run a business, so being a genius or hard worker in any other area means you've a much lower paycheck (though you've got a significant advantage if you can do both; see Bill Gates). On top of that, you can't invest without first having capital to do so; those born to a rich family, of course, will have a massive advantage over those not. Isn't the "American Dream" the idea that anyone can rise to riches? Hell with that; lets keep the wealthy wealthy and the poor poor!

Here's a nice Andrew Carnegie quote (after receiving his first check from investment):

I shall remember that check as long as I live. It gave me the first penny of revenue from capital; something that I had not worked for with the sweat of my brow. 'Eureka', I cried, 'Here's the goose that lays the golden eggs.'

It's a rich get richer scheme in the fullest, only really rewarding one skillset. Is that fair? Have they "earned" their money when their job is to manipulate and milk every drop out of the geniuses in their research and development department and the hard workers on the production floor?

That's my personal beef with the system and why I support redistribution of wealth. These people (probably) deserve to be rather wealthy. As wealthy as they are, though? Hell no.

[Truean]

People talk about greed a lot, but isn't it greedy to demand that others give up what they've earned and hand it to people who haven't?

Any sort of redistribution scheme aimed at "greedy rich people" seems massively hypocritical to me. It's criticizing people for being materialistic, from the moral standpoint of materialism.

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-december-1-2011/america-s-next-tarp-model?xrs=playershare_fb

What exactly have they earned again? It's "welfare" when given to the poor, but 7.7 Trillion given to banks isn't? Fact is Wall St. is financially bankrupt and hasn't earned anything. They exist solely because we gave them TRILLIONS with T. Thus, we should be owning them, all of and every bit of them, or doesn't a few trillion dollars mean anything anymore.

Meanwhile, no one, no one, in any of these banks or companies has been held accountable for the largest economic collapse in recent history. I assure you, if you or I did anything akin to this, we'be be charged.They hit the nail right on the head didn't they:

"How the F#@$ did Martha Stewart end up going to jail?"

[Montague]

I don't think the government should be subsidizing corporations either, let alone handing out bail out money. Although every bail-out so far has been a loan, presumably they are required to pay the money back. The ironic bit is the arguments for providing corporate welfare are made with the aim of saving jobs and protecting employee pensions and what not. Of course, these businesses that started the economic down turn in the first place by making terrible, risky business decisions are being bailed out, so the bail outs are actually creating an incentive to persue risky business models, because, 'hey, even if they don't pan out and we lose money, the government will cover our losses, right?' Then they help themselves some million dollar CEO bonuses for their incredible insight. Sucks for any start-ups that try to compete with huge firms that will always be bailed out if their business decisions backfire on them.

Basically, government intervention in the economy is what got us here in the first place and its what created, perhaps unintentionally, this great disparity in wealth in this country. This is why I don't think MORE government meddling is the solution. Divorcing itself from the corporations and lowering the barriers to market entry for smaller competing firms would do better then trying to further legislate how corporations conduct business. Let the large firms collapse because of their mistakes and let better run firms compete. Removing the unholy alliance between business and the government would be the solution, not further extending the power of the government so that corporations are given further incentive to corrupt and game the system. The welfare of workers, unemployment and disparity will largely resolve itself.

I believe in a meritocracy; equal opportunities, not equal outcomes.

 Anyways, I'm skeptical about '7.7 trillion in bailouts' because the government doesn't even have a fraction of that amount available to them. That's about 50% of the entire GNP of the USA and more then the net income of every large corporation in the USA combined.

[SalmonGod]

Removing the unholy alliance between business and the government would be the solution

Everybody agrees.  How do you do it?  You're saying that the powerful should pass laws to limit their power.  This never ever ever happens except under dangerous amounts of popular anger, and even then it usually requires some action on that anger to make them realize people are serious.

[Heron TSG]

The government didn't have the money available to them. The Fed did. They printed most of it.

[mainiac]

The government didn't have the money available to them. The Fed did. They printed most of it.

A central bank loan isn't exactly the same thing as a bailout like you are thinking of.  While I would agree that there was inappropriate behavior, it wasn't the Feds fault.  The Fed was just engaging in entirely by the textbook response to a crises.  If you are angry at the bankers getting off with 20 cents on the dollar for a dollar that was never even their, the blame belongs with Congress back in 2007-2008.

If the Fed doesn't flood the market with liquidity in a crises (what you call a 7 trillion dollar bailout), the result is called a great depression.  I think we can all agree that would be bad, neh?

Also, point of interest, the US government probably could rustle up 7.7 trillion dollars of capital right now if it really, really wanted to.  The world is very, very eager for US treasury bonds right now.  If congress were to pass some sort of package that combined 8 trillion dollars of borrowing with the right long term fiscal and monetary reforms, the markets would probably be willing to buy debt on that scale.  Congress isn't remotely interested in such a policy, but it would be feasible from a treasury bond sales standpoint.

[Luke_Prowler]

Three problems. First, the crash was the banks' fault in the first place, even if the loan did save the economy those reponscible should have gotten the full wrath of the law. Second, Congress and a great number of other people didn't actually know about this. And third, the money was loaned to the bank with a 0.01% interest rate, then loaned back to the government for a much higher intertest rate. This is beyond insane.