Global Revolution!

[Encephalon]

Hello Blasto,

 

I could've said they were gurus and I think you would've still had a problem. To clarify your misleading statement, I never once called them spiritual infants, nor did I insinuate there is such a thing, rather I said that what they were doing would not result in any long term lasting change. I also stated that many weren't even aware of what they were protesting. My main point was (and is) that the only lasting change comes from someone willingly changing, that any other change is only short term, because the person or people involved will only remain "changed" for so long as they are forced to change.

 

 

Well, the faculties of human memory being what they are, here, in fact, is what you said.

 

First comparing what these predominately middle class disfranchised kids are doing with what Gandhi did, is ludicrous. They are complaining about being poor, when tonight they'll go home to their apartments or parent's home, open up the gallon of milk they or their parents got from the supermarket, sit on the couch with their bag of potato chips and lament over their suffering, all the while their air conditioners will be keeping them nice and cool. They are not suffering, that is the irony. What they are complaining about is trite. They don't even realize that the 99% of the wealth they complain about not having is providing for their comfortable lifestyle. What do they want? A yacht in every driveway? A new blender for smoothies in every kitchen?

 

First thing to ask yourself, would Lao Tzu recommend that people form large groups and disturb the peace of those around them, in order to satisfy their own desires? If not, what would he recommend?

 

Taken these two quotes of yours together, Aaron, demonstrates that while you did not use the term "spiritual infants," a term of my own construction in order to paraphrase, you did express a lack of respect if not outright contempt for the spirit that animates this movement, not to mention utter obliviousness as to its genesis and prospects. And the vulgar attempt to harness the moral leverage of Lao Tzu demonstrates an even deeper ignorance. Honestly, do you not take seriously the contents of your own memory?

 

The protesters have every right to protest and I am quite happy they've chosen to have a peaceful protest, but what they are doing is not actually defined as civil disobedience, because they will go home and pay their taxes and continue to invest and do all the things they seem to have a problem with. Just wanted to clarify that point.

 

We can save the lesson on what exactly constitutes civil disobedience for another day if need be. You and I aren't the only ones who read Thoreau.

 

In closing, I can see that you are making an effort to change your ways in regards to conversing with other. There is still room for improvement, but I do see you are trying, so thanks.

I hope life is treating you well.

 

In closing, I see that your appetite for left-handed compliments is still in force. Surely you must be aware of their transparency.

[Aaron]

Well, the faculties of human memory being what they are, here, in fact, is what you said.

 

 

 

 

 

Taken these two quotes of yours together, Aaron, demonstrates that while you did not use the term "spiritual infants," a term of my own construction in order to paraphrase, you did express a lack of respect if not outright contempt for the spirit that animates this movement, not to mention utter obliviousness as to its genesis and prospects. And the vulgar attempt to harness the moral leverage of Lao Tzu demonstrates an even deeper ignorance. Honestly, do you not take seriously the contents of your own memory?

 

 

 

We can save the lesson on what exactly constitutes civil disobedience for another day if need be. You and I aren't the only ones who read Thoreau.

 

 

 

In closing, I see that your appetite for left-handed compliments is still in force. Surely you must be aware of their transparency.

 

Hello Blasto,

 

Paragraph deleted per Moderator's "request".

 

First, nothing you've said even remotely infers that I was judging these people's spirituality. Taoism on many levels has nothing to do with spirituality, but rather making practical decisions. If you are going to rebuke me for mentioning Lao Tzu, at least have the decency to mention something that actually proves I'm wrong rather than wag your finger at me like some old woman in an upstairs window upset because the children were making to much noise while they were playing (see if you had used that analogy to describe me, that would've been humorous and actually been adequate, but alas you can't diminish yourself enough to talk in plain language, because of that massive graduate school education you've received).

 

To be honest I have a great deal of contempt for the spirit that moves the Wall Street gang, if only because it is motivated by selfishness. I know you say, "no it isn't, they want to get these people in line so everyone can have a better life", but the fact of the matter is that gaming the market doesn't effect the poor, only those with money to lose. So what we have here, really, is just what I've said, a bunch of middle class people who're finally really feeling what it is like to go without finally rising up to rebel in the only way they know how, to sit in front of the people they think have robbed them and yell at them to give them back their ball.

 

Now that is meant to be condescending (towards the protesters), because this act does not deserve a compassionate response, no more than someone smacking a child. The fact of the matter is that there were a large number of american's suffering long before Bush tanked the economy, but no one cared because they were in the minority. If there is any change, that change will be simply that the middle class will be expunged or they will return to their former status. Sadly I believe it will be the former. The United States of American and the rest of the Western world are looking at becoming third world nations within the next 20-30 years. When that happens there will be no social programs and democracy will essentially be decided by who has the most money.

 

Now the fact of the matter is that this model of society is not going to change by force, the only way true lasting change will occur is if there is a change in the way people think, that requires that people share their experience, live lives worth emulating and become devoted to enacting a change. When that occurs I am certain that in a relatively short period of time those people will have a tremendous impact on the world.

 

Edited- The moderation team wanted me to remove this insult. Ironically I've seen Blasto/Encephalon/whatever name he's going under these days say much worse, but it was an insult,<Bleeped per moderator request>. I'm putting Blasto back on ignore. Buddy you just aren't worth my time, literally.

 

 

Aaron

Edited October 15, 2011 by Twinner

[sifusufi]

Study on these

 

Study hard

 

 

 

 

http://www.youtube.c...h?v=kShTUmYRyCw

 

 

My 2 cents (es)

[Seth Ananda]

Just spent the day at Occupy Melbourne, and it feels like a good start for here. Lots of Good people, lots of good talks, some pretty dodgy ones as well, but all round it was goodness.

 

People with big hearts, daring to think big, and wanting to change our current one way track down the shit hole.

 

No one seemed overly philosophically paralysed, as in they were capable of taking a stand on these Important issues, and not just blab on about how change 'only' comes from within, which I might add is a very strange Bias. One may as well give up food as one should only rely on 'within'... lol.

 

The free market Right [which only serves the rich] did not seem to show up, which was nice as the young Liberal party here used to send in their goons to beat people up at these kind of demo's.

 

Also Had a great conversation with a young Swede that Joe Blast would have loved. He talked about how great Sweden has been and how well everything has worked -something the American system of Always Awesome All the Time, has never seen anything close too, despite joe's right wing ramblings- and he described how sad it was that Swedish society has been slowly moving to the Right. He said that a big part of it, is that more and more Swedish company's leaders are moving to places where they wont be Taxed in such large percentages.

 

But there it is. Their system was working till greedy Individuals found a way to get Unregulated. That is why {just one of the many good reasons] regulations are so important. They control corporate mischief, stop Massive company's just steam rolling over all little company's [which free market allows on a massive scale] and move us away from the current economic dictatorship we are currently facing.

 

To me it seems obvious that the UN or the respective country's involved should be allowed to put trade sanctions on rich business owners so that they can not escape to a Tax free existence somewhere else...

[ralis]

Of course its a dynamic loop Put it in a logical framework: a stable product-market has no need for speculation - it simply isnt profitable. A volatile market creates the space for it to do its job. But your assertion that speculation makes the swings larger is entirely incorrect, because the entire function of futures is to shield the consumer from those large swings. It does not entirely eliminate swings, it just lessens the amplitude. Any other way simply makes no sense!

 

If we're talking oil, and I already described this mechanism, oil is expensive to store, and if you buy a bunch of it and bet that the price goes high and it doesnt, you lose a bunch of money, because somebody else is going to be selling it for less then you are since just about anybody with some cash can buy into oil futures. Are you somehow insinuating that such an open-ended market is somehow all in collusion with one another? That's about as believable as the 9-11 attacks being coordinated by the US gov and somehow thousands would have kept that knowledge secret while it all happened is just preposterous.

 

Do all of these investors somehow have inside knowledge of the next steps of OPEC?

 

It just doesnt even come close to adding up when you analyze and understand the mechanism - yet claims are contrary...for what, what does it accomplish? Demonizing anyone and anything that has to do with oil.

 

 

 

------------------

 

 

there you go with your pinhole context again Ralis - free speech? did these people get their permit like they are supposed to, like every tea party assembly has done, follow the local laws and get their permit? nope, they showed up and walked all over property, some of it private, none of which they gave two shits about. all I have to say is how would a tea party get treated if they acted this way? yeah, that's what I thought.

 

who's tamping down their free speech? nobody's silencing them, I'm just pointing out the general tone of lawlessness - looks like their mothers forgot to teach them the word "respect." theirs aint the only ones I'm sure.

 

that overthrow the government was from one of the organizers of the new york event, dude there's no shortage of those types there. I didnt ascribe that to everyone, but as usual you have little problem putting your interpretations in my mouth!

 

last time I'm replying to you in this thread, I already said I'm done wasting my time here, and that was an explicit reference to reading and replying to your posts here.

 

Tea Baggers are a small group promoted by Fox News and were able to elect representatives that were single minded with only a very narrow agenda i.e, tax cuts for the rich, opposing Obama's health care plan and obstructing this administrations legislation. Actually, that makes no sense at all given that there are very few in that movement that are wealthy.

 

When I speak about propaganda here are a few references that make my case in point. 'Global warming' was reframed to 'climate change' by the right wing pollster Frank Luntz, so as to insure compliance with right wing true believers and other weak minded fools. This propaganda campaign allowed the Bush administration to deregulate environmental controls that allowed more mercury and other particulate matter to be released into the atmosphere. The motive was profit!

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2003/mar/04/usnews.climatechange

 

 

Gov. Rick Perry's anti science, anti intellectual agenda in revising current scientific studies.

 

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/oct/14/rick-perry-texas-censorship-environment-report

 

 

there you go with your pinhole context again Ralis - free speech? did these people get their permit like they are supposed to, like every tea party assembly has done, follow the local laws and get their permit? nope, they showed up and walked all over property, some of it private, none of which they gave two shits about. all I have to say is how would a tea party get treated if they acted this way? yeah, that's what I thought.

 

who's tamping down their free speech? nobody's silencing them, I'm just pointing out the general tone of lawlessness - looks like their mothers forgot to teach them the word "respect." theirs aint the only ones I'm sure.

 

 

Fox News has characterized the OWS as being lawless, dirty hippies etc. that is pure propaganda and demagoguery so as to turn public opinion against this movement. Further, to compare OWS to the Tea Party movement is absurd. Mass movements such as OWS are not always neat and tidy. A little chaos is in order.

Edited October 16, 2011 by ralis

[steve]

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Mod Note

 

The posts regarding insults were split and pitted

 

Mod Out

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

[joeblast]

Hello Blasto,

 

Paragraph deleted per Moderator's "request".

 

First, nothing you've said even remotely infers that I was judging these people's spirituality. Taoism on many levels has nothing to do with spirituality, but rather making practical decisions. If you are going to rebuke me for mentioning Lao Tzu, at least have the decency to mention something that actually proves I'm wrong rather than wag your finger at me like some old woman in an upstairs window upset because the children were making to much noise while they were playing (see if you had used that analogy to describe me, that would've been humorous and actually been adequate, but alas you can't diminish yourself enough to talk in plain language, because of that massive graduate school education you've received).

 

To be honest I have a great deal of contempt for the spirit that moves the Wall Street gang, if only because it is motivated by selfishness. I know you say, "no it isn't, they want to get these people in line so everyone can have a better life", but the fact of the matter is that gaming the market doesn't effect the poor, only those with money to lose. So what we have here, really, is just what I've said, a bunch of middle class people who're finally really feeling what it is like to go without finally rising up to rebel in the only way they know how, to sit in front of the people they think have robbed them and yell at them to give them back their ball.

 

Now that is meant to be condescending (towards the protesters), because this act does not deserve a compassionate response, no more than someone smacking a child. The fact of the matter is that there were a large number of american's suffering long before Bush tanked the economy, but no one cared because they were in the minority. If there is any change, that change will be simply that the middle class will be expunged or they will return to their former status. Sadly I believe it will be the former. The United States of American and the rest of the Western world are looking at becoming third world nations within the next 20-30 years. When that happens there will be no social programs and democracy will essentially be decided by who has the most money.

 

Now the fact of the matter is that this model of society is not going to change by force, the only way true lasting change will occur is if there is a change in the way people think, that requires that people share their experience, live lives worth emulating and become devoted to enacting a change. When that occurs I am certain that in a relatively short period of time those people will have a tremendous impact on the world.

 

Edited- The moderation team wanted me to remove this insult. Ironically I've seen Blasto/Encephalon/whatever name he's going under these days say much worse, but it was an insult, even if it was mostly the truth. I'm putting Blasto back on ignore. Buddy you just aren't worth my time, literally.

 

 

Aaron

Bolded points for consideration

 

Pretty much all of my posts and formative ideas issue forth from a standpoint of making practical decisions. For some reason people dont seem to understand that the quickest way to eliminate the middle class is to "soak the rich." Because it very quickly becomes "soak the rest of the upper class, then soak the middle class"...and then you're simply left with much fewer people to soak because even soaking the rich for everything they've got will be but a splash in the bucket. Then what to do with your cork?!

 

Rather than calling for income equality, all we can realistically ask for is income mobility because that puts the onus of achievement on the person rather than the government pressing down on the entire population in an attempt to guarantee a baseline.

 

---

Gaming the market doesnt normally affect the poor to an appreciable extent, but it does when the rules of the game have been tinkered with enough that incentives get distorted so much that businesses wind up having their ability to respond effectively to the tides of the market hobbled. That's why things like TARP are a point of contention, because it was in effect a government fix for a government mistake - of course it would have been wise to not have had the distortions that produced the crashes in the first place, but when the government mandates that a bank give bad loans (because if we're being honest about what "sub prime" really means and the resultant HUGE percentage of them, where did they come from and why) and it gets to the point where things are just about going to tip over - I cant really say I supported TARP, but I saw why it was done - at any rate, we "only" got soaked for just under 20 billion loss on that, as 99% of what was lent out was repaid - but compare that to the $840 Billion that was pissed away on ARRA...

 

...and I cant believe that people are calling for the heads of Wall Street yet somehow Obama is still likable and some people still think he's a good idea for the country.

 

...and that is why OWS is misguided, otherwise washington would have been where the main party was at.

-----

Bush tanked the economy is pretty darn selective. He was in no way shape or form a fiscal conservative, rather a spendthrift if you ask me, but to exclude culpability of congress and extensions of previous presidential policies and also ignore the hard acceleration of fiscal insanity we've seen since the democrats took over congress in 2006, and then the subsequent exponential acceleration we've seen with Obama just tossing money this way and that - "Bush tanked the economy" is such a select choice so as to be borderline intellectually dishonest. /\

[Aaron]

Bolded points for consideration

 

Pretty much all of my posts and formative ideas issue forth from a standpoint of making practical decisions. For some reason people dont seem to understand that the quickest way to eliminate the middle class is to "soak the rich." Because it very quickly becomes "soak the rest of the upper class, then soak the middle class"...and then you're simply left with much fewer people to soak because even soaking the rich for everything they've got will be but a splash in the bucket. Then what to do with your cork?!

 

Rather than calling for income equality, all we can realistically ask for is income mobility because that puts the onus of achievement on the person rather than the government pressing down on the entire population in an attempt to guarantee a baseline.

 

---

Gaming the market doesnt normally affect the poor to an appreciable extent, but it does when the rules of the game have been tinkered with enough that incentives get distorted so much that businesses wind up having their ability to respond effectively to the tides of the market hobbled. That's why things like TARP are a point of contention, because it was in effect a government fix for a government mistake - of course it would have been wise to not have had the distortions that produced the crashes in the first place, but when the government mandates that a bank give bad loans (because if we're being honest about what "sub prime" really means and the resultant HUGE percentage of them, where did they come from and why) and it gets to the point where things are just about going to tip over - I cant really say I supported TARP, but I saw why it was done - at any rate, we "only" got soaked for just under 20 billion loss on that, as 99% of what was lent out was repaid - but compare that to the $840 Billion that was pissed away on ARRA...

 

...and I cant believe that people are calling for the heads of Wall Street yet somehow Obama is still likable and some people still think he's a good idea for the country.

 

...and that is why OWS is misguided, otherwise washington would have been where the main party was at.

-----

Bush tanked the economy is pretty darn selective. He was in no way shape or form a fiscal conservative, rather a spendthrift if you ask me, but to exclude culpability of congress and extensions of previous presidential policies and also ignore the hard acceleration of fiscal insanity we've seen since the democrats took over congress in 2006, and then the subsequent exponential acceleration we've seen with Obama just tossing money this way and that - "Bush tanked the economy" is such a select choice so as to be borderline intellectually dishonest. /\

 

Would you feel better if I said the republican's tanked the economy? Just kidding. I think the government's lack of response to a growing problem tanked the economy. Really I don't want to debate that so much, what I feel the important topic is, isn't what's happened in the past, but what are we going to do to make a brighter future. I for one think the only way we will ever have a lasting future is to change ourselves and the way we behave. We need to stop doing what we think is wrong, stop supporting what we think is wrong, including financially supporting those things and begin to stand up for what we believe in, regardless of the consequences.

 

I know that sounds dramatic, but in reality it will be the only way for change to actually occur.

 

Aaron

Edited October 15, 2011 by Twinner

[Harmonious Emptiness]

Twinner, I agree with you for the most part, but it should also be said that in "being the change that you want to effect in the world" there is still the need for action. There are programs to change the way kids are taught in school, and to update the curriculum, as one example. This is a positive step and probably took lots of determination, faith, and organization to implement.

 

This is not to say that you don't think action is required, but it seems like it hasn't been overtly mentioned (if I didn't miss it).

 

There was that experiment in Washington where 100s of people meditated and significantly reduced the crime rate for that summer. There is certainly an effect of enough people "being the change," but being the change also involves courage. Every spiritual tradition, including Christianity, values courage. It takes courage just for most people to meet up with the strangers that will help to unify more people.

 

These things, unfortunately, don't really happen just of themselves. It takes a lot of hard work. Musicians are common victims of this mentality of "I'll just get better and better and then success will fall in my lap, that's all I have to do" when really they need an entrepreneurial spirit to make that success happen, otherwise if they're lucky they'll just get taken by a record company and left to rot. I think this is the same with activists.

 

Like the saying "luck is just the intersection of preparation with opportunity," the opportunity doesn't always come after the preparation.

 

That said, the powers that be are fully cognizant of "soft power" which is why they spend BILLIONS on propaganda, so even the "soft power" battle is not laying around for the first person to pick up.

 

Fortunately, "truth hits everybody" so propaganda of good causes is stronger than for bad causes and even manages to effect the core of some of the people way up in big corporations. Wu wei is not about non-action, but about strategic action so far as doing the right thing since the right thing has a force of its own which can be worked with, where as the wrong thing goes against this force. So if your sitting in a canoe going down a stream, if you just close your eyes, your probably going to tip. It takes some strong strategic paddling to make it to the end of the stream without smashing the canoe.

 

Notice how in Taoism, the kidneys are connected with courage as well as water. Water has the nature of change. It takes great courage to adapt every time does it not? It's scary to face the unknown. The other side of water is constantly yielding and being ineffectual. There are positive and negatives for each element. Be water, yes, but not every watery way is worthwhile every time..

[ralis]

 

 

 

 

That said, the powers that be are fully cognizant of "soft power" which is why they spend BILLIONS on propaganda, so even the "soft power" battle is not laying around for the first person to pick up.

 

Fortunately, "truth hits everybody" so propaganda of good causes is stronger than for bad causes and even manages to effect the core of some of the people way up in big corporations. Wu wei is not about non-action, but about strategic action so far as doing the right thing since the right thing has a force of its own which can be worked with, where as the wrong thing goes against this force. So if your sitting in a canoe going down a stream, if you just close your eyes, your probably going to tip. It takes some strong strategic paddling to make it to the end of the stream without smashing the canoe.

 

 

Propaganda is almost always used for a singular purpose to influence groups to accept a specific ideology. Rarely if ever is propaganda used for good.

 

Here are a number of books on propaganda that are worth studying. Many don't realize that Neuro Linguistic Programming is the basis for Frank Luntz's propaganda work.

 

http://www.amazon.com/s?ie=UTF8&rh=n%3A283155%2Ck%3APropaganda&page=1

 

This particular book is excellent.

 

 

http://www.amazon.com/They-Thought-Were-Free-Germans/dp/0226511928/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top

Edited October 15, 2011 by ralis

[Harmonious Emptiness]

Rarely if ever is propaganda used for good.

 

 

This is mostly true, because, mostly, good people can't be bothered with aggressive manipulation, however, anything than tries to propagate, especially en-mass, is propaganda, imo. It would be better if something was done to limit subconscious manipulations, but in the meantime it seems important to fight for the zombies minds towards good until they are cured of zombosis.

 

If you're into that stuff, you'll salivate over this BBC documentary series:

 

Century of the Self

[Birch]

You may like http://neilkramer.com/reality-simulation-culture.html

 

(Note: I just discovered this guy and his website which I'm shamelessly plugging because I agree with much of what he is writing, especially in light of this thread, this forum and current world events. However, as always, I could be wrong in this and just because I like and agree with him, lack critical distance. There used to be an old-school exercise where proponents and opponents would have to switch sides and argue each others' position. I'm tempted to suggest that here as a fun thing to do, but I see the folks are already neatly ranged into factions and probably wouldn't find that fun at all.)

[gendao]

You're starting to sound like a Closet Anarchist, Vortex.

I'm not sure exactly what that is, but I'm sure my views may crossover into a number of categories, lol.

 

And I'm more generally opposed to Big Gov than Big Biz because you can't really "opt out" of Big Gov - which directly controls you through force of law (which you are also taxed for). Whereas Big Biz is also very influential, but consumers can also influence it back through their spending habits. And it also doesn't have direct legislative power over you, either way.

"Mother Nature's way of saying 'Hi.'."; Cannabis. It is the solution. It takes a month to mature, can produce more/time construction material than timber, is less damaging to the environment to utilize it as such, has more protien in it's seeds than anything short of soy, indeed has great fiber value, can be used medicinally as well as nutritionally, and has lost it's good name to propaganda over it's recreational value.

 

 

There is nothing rediculous about relying on hemp/cannabis for self sufficiency and agriculture. It's very bountiful and doesnt take up much space. Could replace the entire economy.

Yes, instead of focusing MERELY on financial shell games, we COULD be vastly improving our overall quality of life right now without even any new high-tech or money - but simply cultivating smarter and more efficiently. There is NO GOOD REASON why hemp should be illegal - and every reason in the book why it SHOULD be legalized!

 

But how many hemp advocates are going to vote for Ron Paul??? But instead vote for another mainstream liberal puppet and then keep whining about it?

Lol, I don't get it? Why didn't they circulate a pic like this when Michael Jackson died too? Reality is, "nobody cares" about 99.9999999% of the people who die privately on this planet.

 

Your real question is why some people become famous and others not?

 

Well, Jobs became famous (when he was alive and dead) because he pioneered popular products that got used by millions. If anything, he "earned" his fame a lot more than most celebs, lol. So, no great mystery or "inequity," there..

Edited October 15, 2011 by vortex

[taooneusa]

..

Edited October 15, 2011 by taooneusa

[JustARandomPanda]

I just checked out a book from the library I would like to share some excerpts from. Maybe someone else out there will find it interesting enough to check it out as well. I think Roubini has over-hyped himself a bit. Others were calling attention to the bubble mania too. Also the industry of financial advise is filled with One Hit Wonders. Nonetheless I'm impressed enough with the book so far I wanted to share a part of the intro.

 

The book is Crisis Economics: A Crash Course in the Future of Finance by Nouriel Roubini and Stephen Mihm

 

The following excerpt comes from the introduction - several pages into it:

 

The modest ambition of this book is to answer these questions by placing the recent crisis in the context of others that have occurred over the ages and across the world. After all, the past few years conform to a familiar, centuries-old pattern. Crises follow consistent trajectories and yield predictable results. They are far more common and comprehensible than conventional wisdom would lead you to believe. In the pages that follow, we'll move between past and present, revealing how the forgoing questions were asked and answered in the wake of previous crisis.

 

Along the way we'll explain several intimidating and often misunderstood concepts in economics: moral hazard, leverage, bank run, regulatory arbitrage, current account deficit, securitization, deflation, credit derivative, credit crunch, and liquidity trap, to name a few. We hope our explanations will prove useful not only to financial professionals on Wall Street and Main Street but also to corporate executives at home and abroad; to undergraduate and graduate students in business, economics, and finance; to policy makers and policy wonks in many countries, and most numerous of all, to ordinary investors around the world who now know that they ignore the intricacies of the international financial order at their peril.

 

****edit***

 

Chapter 1 takes the reader on a tour of the past, surveying the many booms, bubbles, and busts that have swept the economic landscape. We focus in particular on the relationship between capitalism and crisis, beginning with the speculative bubble in tulips in 1630s Holland, then ranging forward to the South Sea Bubble of 1720, the first global financial crisis in 1825; the panic of 1907, the Great Depression of the 1930s, and the many crises that plagued emerging markets and advanced economies from the 1980s onward. Crisis, we argue, are neither freak events that modern economics has made them seem nor the rare "black swans" that other commentators have made them out to be. Rather, they are commonplace and relatively easy to foresee and to comprehend. Call them White Swans.

 

In the most advanced economies, the second half of the twentieth century was a period of relative, if uncharacteristic, calm, culminating in a halcyon period of low inflation and high growth that economists dubbed the 'Great Moderation.' As a result mainstream economics has either ignored crises or seen them as symptoms of troubles in less developed economies. To gain a more expansive way of viewing and understanding crises of the past, present, and future, one must go back to an earlier generation of economists.

 

Chapter 2 introduces economic thinkers who can help us do just that. Some, like John Maynard Keynes, are reasonably well known; others, like Hyman Minsky, are not.

 

Chapter 3 explains the deep structural origins of the recent crisis. From the beginning it has been fashionable to blame it on recently issued subprime mortgages that somehow infected an otherwise healthy global financial system. This chapter challenges that absurd perspective, showing how the decade-old trends and policies created a global financial system that was subprime from top to bottom. Beyond the creation of ever more esoteric and opaque financial instruments, these long-standing trends include the rise of the "shadow banking system," the sprawling collection of nonbank mortgage lenders, hedge funds, broker dealers, money market funds, and other institutions that looked like banks, acted like banks, borrowed and lent like banks, and otherwise became banks - but were never regulated like banks.

 

This chapter introduces the problem of moral hazard, in which market participants take undue risk on the assumption that they will be bailed out, indemnified, and otherwise spared the consequences of their reckless behavior. It also addresses long-standing failures of corporate governance, as well as the role of government itself, though we do not subscribe to the usual contradictory explanations that the crisis was caused by too much government or too little. The reality, we argue, is much more complicated and counter-intuitive government did play a role, as did its absence, but not necessarily in the way that either conservatives or liberals would have you believe.

 

Several subsequent chapters focus on the crisis itself. Numerous accounts already exist, but almost all have painted it as a singular, unprecedented event particular to twenty-first century finance. Chapter 4 dispels this naive and simplistic view by comparing it to previous crises. We argue that the events of 2008 would have been familiar to financial observers one hundred or even two hundred years ago, not only in how they unfolded but in how the world's central banks attempted to defuse them by serving as lenders of last resort. The particulars of the crisis differed from those of its predecessors, but in many ways it stuck to a familiar script, amply illustrating the old adage that while history rarely repeats itself, it often rhymes.

 

History confirms that crises are much like pandemics: they begin with the outbreak of a disease that then spreads, radiating outward. This crisis was no different, though its origins in the world's financial centers rather than emerging markets on the periphery made it particularly virulent. Chapter 5 tracks how and why the crisis went global, hammering economies as different as Iceland, Dubai, Japan, Latvia, Ireland, Germany, China, and Singapore. We break with the conventional wisdom that the rest of the world merely caught a disease that originated in the United States. Far from it: the vulnerabilities that plagued the U.S. financial system were widespread-and in some cases, worse - elsewhere in the world. The pandemic, then, was not indiscriminate in its effects, only countries whose financial systems suffered from similar frailties fell victim.

 

While other books on the financial crisis focus heavily or exclusively on the United States, this one frames it as a broad crisis in twenty-first century global capitalism. By tracing its sometimes surprising international dimensions, Chapter 5 uncovers truths about global finance, international macro-economics, and the cross-border implications of national monetary and fiscal policy. The crisis can tell us a great deal about the workings of the global economy in both normal times and not-so-normal times.

 

All crises end, and this one was no exception. Unfortunately, the after-shocks will linger on for years if not decades. Chapter 6 shows why they do, and why deflation and depression looms large in the wake of any crisis. In the past, central bankers used monetary policy to counter crises, and now they've revived some of those approaches. At the same time, many financial crises force central bankers to innovate on the fly, and the recent crisis was no exception. Unfortunately, while these emergency measures may work, they can, like any untested remedy, end up poisoning the patient.

 

That's the case with fiscal policies as well. In Chapter 7 we examine how policy makers used the government's power to tax and spend in order to arrest the spread of the crisis. Some of these tactics were first articulated by Keynes, many more represented a massive, unprecedented intervention in the economy. This chapter assesses the future implications of the most radical measures, particularly the risks they may create down the line.

 

The level of intervention necessary to stabilize the system challenges the sustainability of traditional laissex-faire capitalism itself; governments may end up playing a much larger direct and indirect role in the post-crisis global economy, via increased regulations and supervision. Chapters 8 and 9 lay out a blueprint for a new financial architecture, one that will bring new transparency and stability to financial institutions. Long-term reforms necessary for stabilizing the international financial system include greater coordination among central banks but also investment banks, insurance companies, and hedge funds; policies to control the risky behavior of "too big to fail" financial firms, the need for more capital and liquidity among financial institutions; and policies to reduce the problem of moral hazard and the fiscal costs of bailing out financial firms. These chapters also grapple with the vexing questions of what future role central banks should play to control and pop bubbles.

[JustARandomPanda]

Here is the interview with Roubini from the Amazon page

 

 

Ian Bremmer is the president of Eurasia Group, the world's leading global political risk research and consulting firm. He has written for The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Newsweek, Foreign Affairs, and other publications, and his books include The End of the Free Market, The J Curve, and The Fat Tail. Read on to see Ian Bremmer's questions for Nouriel Roubini, or turn the tables to see what Roubini asked Bremmer.

 

 

Bremmer: You argue in your book [Crisis Economics: A Crash Course in the Future of Finance] that financial crises are not unpredictable "black swan" events but, rather, can be forecast – in effect, white swans. What do you mean by that?

 

Roubini: My friend Nassim Taleb popularized the concept of "Black Swans," those economic and financial events that are sudden, unexpected and unpredictable. But if you look at financial crises through history – and the earliest is the Tulipmania in the Netherlands in the 17th Century – you see a pattern that is highly regular and predictable: An asset bubble – often in real estate or in stock markets or in a new industry – leads to financial euphoria, excessive risk taking, an accumulation of excessive debt and leverage. So the signposts of this phase — asset boom and bubble, followed by the eventual bust and crash — are highly predictable if one looks at the economic and financial indicators that show the build-up of such excesses. Thus, financial boom and bust are predictable white swan events, not unpredictable and random black swans. Financial crises have repeatedly occurred for hundreds of years and they follow quite regular pattern. That is why my book is about "crisis economics", a phenomenon that is becoming more of a rule than an exception. Financial crises that should have occurred once in 100 years now occur more frequently and with greater virulence than in the past; and their economic, fiscal, financial and social costs are rising.

 

The trouble is that in the bubble phase nearly everyone, the exception being a few critical analysts, is swept in a delusional bubble mania of irrational euphoria: households, financial institutions, investors, governments, spinmeisters all of whom profit from the bubble, including Ponzi-schemers who concoct their houses of cards and financial con games. So, in each bubble there are cranks who argue that this time is different and that the bubble is driven by a fundamental brave new world of ever rising growth and profits. Then, when the boom and bubble turns into a bust and crash, a reality check occurs and financial depression sets in.

 

Bremmer: Who is to blame the most for the recent financial crisis? Who were the culprits of the latest one?

 

Roubini: The list of culprits is very long. The Fed kept interest rates too low for too long in the earlier part the past decade and fed — pun intended — the housing and credit bubble. Bankers and investors on Wall Street and in financial institutions were greedy, arrogant and reckless in their risk taking and build-up of leverage because they were compensated based on short term profits. As a result, they generated toxic loans – subprime mortgages and other mortgages and loans – that borrowers could not afford and then packaged these mortgages and loans into toxic securities – the entire alphabet soup of structured finance products, so-called "SIVs" like MBSs – Mortgage-Backed Securities, or CDOs – Collateralized Debt Obligations -- and even CDOs of CDOs. These were new, complex, exotic, non-transparent, non-traded, marked-to-model rather than market-to-market and mis-rated by the rating agencies. Indeed, the rating agencies were also culprits as they had massive conflicts of interest: they made most of their profits from mis-rating these new instruments and being paid handsomely by the issuers. Also, the regulators and supervisors were asleep at the wheel as the ideology in Washington for the last decade was one of laissez faire "Wild West" capitalism with little prudential regulation and supervision of banks and other financial institutions.

 

Bremmer: In the book you express concern that following the massive leveraging of the private sector there is now a massive re-leveraging of the public sector that will put the economic recovery at risk. Why such worries?

 

Roubini: The Great Recession of 2008-2009 was triggered by excessive debt accumulation and leverage on the part of households, financial institutions and even the corporate sector in many advanced economies. While there is much talk about de-leveraging as the crisis wanes, the reality is that private-sector debt ratios have stabilized at very high levels. By contrast, as a consequence of fiscal stimulus and socialization of part of the private sector's losses, there is now a massive re-leveraging of the public sector. Deficits in excess of 10% of GDP can be found in many advanced economies, including America's, and debt-to-GDP ratios are expected to rise sharply – in some cases doubling in the next few years.

 

Such balance-sheet crises have historically led to economic recoveries that are slow, anemic, and below-trend for many years. Sovereign-debt problems are another strong possibility, given the massive re-leveraging of the public sector. In countries that cannot issue debt in their own currency (traditionally emerging-market economies), or that issue debt in their own currency but cannot independently print money (as in the eurozone), unsustainable fiscal deficits often lead to a credit crisis, a sovereign default, or other coercive form of public-debt restructuring. In countries that borrow in their own currency and can monetize the public debt, a sovereign debt crisis is unlikely, but monetization of fiscal deficits can eventually lead to high inflation. And inflation is – like default – a capital levy on holders of public debt, as it reduces the real value of nominal liabilities at fixed interest rates.

 

Thus, the recent problems faced by Greece are only the tip of a sovereign-debt iceberg in many advanced economies (and a smaller number of emerging markets). Bond-market vigilantes already have taken aim at Greece, Spain, Portugal, the United Kingdom, Ireland, and Iceland, pushing government bond yields higher. Eventually they may take aim at other countries – even Japan and the United States – where fiscal policy is on an unsustainable path.

 

Bremmer: Should we then worry about the risk of a collapse of the European Monetary Union--the so-called "eurozone?"

 

Roubini: This is a serious and rising risk. The dilemma for Greece and the other fiscally challenge countries dubbed the PIIGS — that's Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece, Spain — is that, whereas fiscal consolidation is necessary to prevent an unsustainable increase in the spread on sovereign bonds, the short-run effects of raising taxes and cutting government spending tend to cause economic contraction. This, too, complicates the public-debt dynamics and impedes the restoration of public-debt sustainability. Indeed, this was the trap faced by Argentina in 1998-2001, when needed fiscal contraction exacerbated recession and eventually led to default.

 

In countries like the eurozone members, a loss of external competitiveness, caused by tight monetary policy and a strong currency, erosion of long-term comparative advantage relative to emerging markets, and wage growth in excess of productivity growth, impose further constraints on the resumption of growth. If growth does not recover, the fiscal problems will worsen while making it more politically difficult to enact the painful reforms needed to restore competitiveness.

 

A vicious circle of public-finance deficits, current-account gaps, worsening external-debt dynamics, and stagnating growth can then set in. Eventually, this can lead to default on euro-zone members' public and foreign debt, as well as exit from the monetary union by fragile economies unable to adjust and reform fast enough.

 

Provision of liquidity by an international lender of last resort – the European Central Bank, the IMF, or even a new European Monetary Fund – could prevent an illiquidity problem from turning into an insolvency problem. But if a country is effectively insolvent rather than just illiquid, such "bailouts" cannot prevent eventual default and devaluation (or exit from a monetary union) because the international lender of last resort eventually will stop financing an unsustainable debt dynamic, as occurred Argentina (and in Russia in 1998). Thus, the weakest links of the EMU – countries such as Greece may be eventually be forced to default and to exit the monetary union to regain their competitiveness and growth through a depreciation of their new national currency.

 

Bremmer: So how can we properly deal with the fallout of financial crises? How to properly reduce private and public debts?

 

Roubini: Cleaning up high private-sector debt and lowering public-debt ratios by growth alone is particularly hard if a balance-sheet crisis leads to an anemic recovery. And reducing debt ratios by saving more leads to the paradox of thrift: too fast an increase in savings deepens the recession and makes debt ratios even worse.

 

At the end of the day, resolving private-sector leverage problems by fully socializing private losses and re-leveraging the public sector is risky. At best, taxes will eventually be raised and spending cut, with a negative effect on growth; at worst, the outcome may be direct capital levies (default) or indirect ones (the inflation tax if large budget deficits are sharply monetized).

 

Unsustainable private-debt problems must be resolved by defaults, debt reductions, and conversion of debt into equity. If, instead, private debts are excessively socialized, the advanced economies will face a grim future: serious sustainability problems with their public, private, and foreign debt, together with crippled prospects for economic growth.

 

Bremmer: In the book you propose radical reforms of the system of regulation and supervision of banks and other financial institutions and criticize the more cosmetic reforms now considered by the US Congress and in other countries. Why the need for radical reform?

 

Roubini: If reforms will be cosmetic we will not prevent future asset and credit bubbles and we will experience new and more virulent crises. The currently proposed reforms of "too-big-to-fail" financial institutions are not sufficient: imposing higher capital levies on these firms and have a resolution regime for an orderly shutdown of large systemically important insolvent firms will not work. If a financial firm is too-big-to-fail it is just too big: it should be broken up to make it less systemically important. And in the heat of the next crisis using a resolution regime to close down too-big-to-fail firms will be very hard; thus, the temptation to bail them out again will be dominant.

 

Also, the modest Volcker Rule – that may not even be passed by Congress because of the banking lobbies power – does not go far enough. It correctly points out that banking institutions that have access to insured deposits and to the lender of last resort support of the Fed should not be allowed to engage into risky activities such as prop trading, hedge funds and private investments. But more needs to be done: we need to go back to the more radical separation between commercial and investment banking that the Glass Steagall Act had imposed. Repealing this Act was a mistake that led to excessive risk taking and leverage by both banks and non-bank financial institutions.

 

Finally, the government should regulate much more tightly toxic and dangerous over-the-counter derivative instruments; and compensation of bankers and traders should be subject to radical "clawbacks": bonuses should not be paid outright but go into a fund and clawed back if the initial investments/trades turned out to be risky and money losing over time.

 

Bremmer: Have we learned the lessons from the last financial crisis or are we planting the seeds of the next one?

 

Roubini: I fear that we have not learned those lessons and that part of the policy response is now creating a new global asset bubble that will cause a bigger financial crisis in the next few years. For one thing, there is a lot of talk about better regulation and supervision of the financial system but the financial industry is back to business as usual – rebuilding leverage, engaging in prop trading and other risk behavior, compensating bankers and traders with indecent bonuses - and is lobbying against better regulation and supervision. Governments are talking about reforms but almost no one has implemented them.

 

In the meanwhile interest rates remain close to zero in most advanced economies and they are also very low in many overheating emerging markets. Also dollar funded carry trades are feeding asset bubbles globally. Thus, part of the sharp rise in risky asset prices since March 2009 is driven by a wall of liquidity chasing assets that are becoming overpriced: US and global equities, credit, oil and commodity prices, emerging markets asset prices. And if this bubble eventually gets out of hand the eventual bust could lead to another and bigger global financial crisis in the next two or three years.

[Immortal4life]

Without a doubt Twinner has made the most important point in this thread. Taking up causes can be great, but there is indeed a much bigger picture.

 

Real change can only come from within one's heart. Anything else is a band aid solution.

 

The problem is that people don't like to change. It's not easy. They like to feel good, they like to "make a difference in the world", in their mind. They like to feel important.

 

So suffering and injustice continues in the world, and abundance for all, all power for all, and all freedom for all remains a dream for most.

Edited October 16, 2011 by Immortal4life

[JustARandomPanda]

[ralis]

Without a doubt Twinner has made the most important point in this thread. Taking up causes can be great, but there is indeed a much bigger picture.

 

Real change can only come from within one's heart. Anything else is a band aid solution.

 

The problem is that people don't like to change. It's not easy. They like to feel good, they like to "make a difference in the world", in their mind. They like to feel important.

 

So suffering and injustice ocntinues in the world, and abundance for all, all power for all, and all freedom for all remains a dream for most.

 

I don't share your sentiment. Have you actually studied history and if so, it becomes apparent that humans rarely change. Fear, chaotic emotions and irrationality are still the main forces that keep humans from working together.

Edited October 16, 2011 by ralis

[Immortal4life]

I don't share your sentiment. Have you actually studied history and if so, it becomes apparent that humans rarely change. Fear and irrationality are still the main forces that keep humans from working together.

 

Where did I say change was common? I never said it was. In fact it is probably the most rare thing there is. Human beings can be the most unreliable, and fallible, beings. I can break down the concepts of fear and irrationality even further. What do they stem from? Consciousness. A certain type of consciousness, self consciousness. A seperate self consciousness, that is only aware of, and only focused on, it's own self.

 

It is indeed sad, and frightening, to think about what the implications of this are on a planet with such an exploding population rate. If we want to look into what the future holds, it is as easy as comparing the population rate of the planet to the rate of personal change.

 

This is why a lot of people just want to worry about today and band aid solutions.

Edited October 16, 2011 by Immortal4life

[Encephalon]

Where did I say change was common? I never said it was. In fact it is probably the most rare thing there is. Human beings can be the most unreliable, and fallible, beings. I can break down the concepts of fear and irrationality even further. What do they stem from? Consciousness. A certain type of consciousness, self consciousness. A seperate self consciousness, that is only aware of, and only focused on, it's own self.

 

It is indeed sad, and frightening, to think about what the implications of this are on a planet with such an exploding population rate. If we want to look into what the future holds, it is as easy as comparing the population rate of the planet to the rate of personal change.

 

This is why a lot of people just want to worry about today and band aid solutions.

 

You and Aaron both have erroneously assumed that the strategy to realize a democratic, sustainable, planetary culture at some point in the distant future calls for the same strategy as the one needed in our present era of historical development. As a species we're still taking our orders from our brainstem and the R-complex. Dismantling the structures of state oppression is just one process we're struggling with. Once we get through this era, providing that a viable human population remains, we can start refining our conduct and social structures on smaller, more democratic scales and evolve accordingly. You've pumped a lot of unnecessary confusion into this debate by unwittingly conflating two different human epochs and their respective challenges into one. It's clear that neither of you are big fans of contemporary scholarship but it doesn't take a lot to make the world comprehensible.

Edited October 16, 2011 by Encephalon

[Aaron]

I don't share your sentiment. Have you actually studied history and if so, it becomes apparent that humans rarely change. Fear, chaotic emotions and irrationality are still the main forces that keep humans from working together.

 

Humans adapt and change constantly, that's one of the great things about us. If you only take into account the history that we have on record, then it's easy to believe that the last 12,000 years of recorded history are the summation of our existence, but the fact of the matter is that we have been on this earth for much much longer than that.

 

Now even taking into consideration what we know regarding recorded history, what I do know is that human's have the capacity for change and that those groups that live peacefully are normally the groups that share the same ideals and beliefs. With that in mind it seems only logical that having a society where those people who share the same ideals and beliefs can congregate and live together seems to be the best solution. I understand your doubts regarding people changing of their own free will, but if I've learned anything from my years of living on this world it's that suffering brings change. In this time of suffering, if people begin to share their own beliefs, change the way they behave to others, and resist those aspects of government that they know are wrong, then change will happen. This requires no violence, only a devotion to something greater than one's self.

 

It seems idealistic, and to the pessimist even more so, but what I can assure you is that there will be change, one way or the other, it's those people who rise above and enact change in a peaceful manner, those who bring others to change, not by force of arms, but by the force of their spirit and hearts, that will bring about a lasting change.

 

We need to change the way we believe and behave. We need to rise above the indifference and intolerance and devote ourselves to changing the world for the better. If you don't think we need change, then that's fine, but I would urge you not to give up on mankind simply because it doesn't seem probable.

 

Aaron

[Encephalon]

Humans adapt and change constantly, that's one of the great things about us. If you only take into account the history that we have on record, then it's easy to believe that the last 12,000 years of recorded history are the summation of our existence, but the fact of the matter is that we have been on this earth for much much longer than that.

 

Now even taking into consideration what we know regarding recorded history, what I do know is that human's have the capacity for change and that those groups that live peacefully are normally the groups that share the same ideals and beliefs. With that in mind it seems only logical that having a society where those people who share the same ideals and beliefs can congregate and live together seems to be the best solution. I understand your doubts regarding people changing of their own free will, but if I've learned anything from my years of living on this world it's that suffering brings change. In this time of suffering, if people begin to share their own beliefs, change the way they behave to others, and resist those aspects of government that they know are wrong, then change will happen. This requires no violence, only a devotion to something greater than one's self.

 

It seems idealistic, and to the pessimist even more so, but what I can assure you is that there will be change, one way or the other, it's those people who rise above and enact change in a peaceful manner, those who bring others to change, not by force of arms, but by the force of their spirit and hearts, that will bring about a lasting change.

 

We need to change the way we believe and behave. We need to rise above the indifference and intolerance and devote ourselves to changing the world for the better. If you don't think we need change, then that's fine, but I would urge you not to give up on mankind simply because it doesn't seem probable.

 

Aaron

 

You're still trapped in your "one strategy fits all" fallacy. It's easy to imagine all the required conditions for a peaceful planet inhabited by spiritually evolved souls practicing voluntary association, but to regress those conditions back on our present conditions and say "Just be spiritual and it will all fall into place is hopelessly naive. We have to come to terms with the collective shadow of our species, in all its horrific permutations, before we start talking about creating a planet of zen masters.

[joeblast]

twinner, sounds like we both pretty much understand where the other's coming from /\ Although for me, I dont believe that there's any "best" way with certain things, its a matter of making the most out of the cards we have to play - "forcing people to behave as you wish they would" will not be as natural or productive. Were this a planet inhabited by zen masters, we'd all be smiling and greeting each other with happy light hearts having realized we're in the Pure Land

 

 

h-e prep doesnt always happen before the opportunity! love it, that's great, just as it happens...the opportunity comes when it comes, our efforts toward preparation just another variable in the mass of probabilities.

 

 

I see ralis still hasnt used the link I gave him and discovered that the definition of propaganda contains both yin and yang...

 

 

SB...#368 roubini quote:

you see a pattern that is highly regular and predictable: An asset bubble – often in real estate or in stock markets or in a new industry – leads to financial euphoria, excessive risk taking, an accumulation of excessive debt and leverage. So the signposts of this phase — asset boom and bubble, followed by the eventual bust and crash — are highly predictable if one looks at the economic and financial indicators that show the build-up of such excesses.

That's why a few objective people were able to call the housing bubble as early as 2001-2002. This is exactly the "distortion of markets" that I am referring to. Markets ebb and flow, but for a bubble to get created what has to happen is the incentives for a significant percentage need to become distorted first. Under normal circumstances when businesses have accurate assessments these things can be corrected without too much issue. Excessive risk taking cant be relied upon as a main strategy unless some outside force comes along and changes the risk/reward calculation. That's what I meant about political considerations changing the equation to enough of an extent that market considerations wind up becoming second fiddle - then when some sort of crisis happens those whom have overextended themselves realize it after the fact that they have been making their assessments through a flawed prism.

 

In our recent asset bubble, the government push for increased homeownership (and here we are with a big example of government "subsidizing outcomes") it was none other than them mandating that banks relaxing their standards and the subsequent government guarantee on all those subprimes from F&F that severely distorted people's risk-reward calculations! Classic - risk all you want and if you win, you keep your winnings, but if you lose, especially if you lose big - then the government picks up the tab.

 

And people have the ignorance-nerve to place all of the blame on "greedy banks?" Banks were told "here, have a free-for-all, we've removed much of the risk here, interest rates are nice and low and we'll keep them artificially low, and if the whole thing blows up we'll bail you out and charge the taxpayers for it."

 

This of course doesnt excuse the "profit-first" mindset that was taken by many a company. There were many banks who realized this was a very risky path and integrity meant sticking to their underwriting standards. (Some of which were forced to take bailout money anyway.) To be clear, "profit-first" is also a distorted way of thinking in my book. The viability of your company comes before profits, because we all know that seeking short term profit above all can very easily lead to there being no more company to seek the profit.

 

 

Much the same happened with the college tuition bubble we're seeing - gov says "here, free money, if it cant be paid back we'll cover it" and of course universities realized they could increase prices twice as fast as they normally would - and since "the message distorted the market" with the gov thinking that subsidizing middle class outcomes will create more middle class people - get everyone a college degree and we'll all be well qualified with good jobs! Well, no, real life doesnt work like that. Now the value of a college degree is far less than what it used to be. It is the new standard, the new high school diploma, and now just the standard education costs as much as a house to live in! Sure, "some individuals" were helped by this assistance - but overall has it done the huge service it set out to do, good and bad considered?

 

(Just like I saw the value of microsoft certs fall significantly as more and more people simply "did well on a test" and got the piece of paper yet when hired they cant troubleshoot their way out of a paper bag I eventually stopped bothering with the pursuit!)

 

Much the same happened with the 3rd party payer system for healthcare and the distortion introduced by the government by giving tax preferred status to employer healthcare plans because they did another distorting thing and froze wages(!) - distort the market, watch it blow up! Holy crap, look at the price of healthcare!?!?! People were too removed from seeing what they were paying for, and shock of shocks, those putting price tags on things felt free to utilize these distortions for their own profit margin.

 

 

Now, are we to blame human nature for making risk-reward assessments? (a certain amount of distortions are always present) Yes and no. Mostly when "playing the game" is as obvious as Danny Devito's presentation in Johnny Dangerously But when everyone's jumping off the bridge because the water's deep enough, you cant blame a few of them for making note of people being okay at the bottom - it doesnt mean you dont give any consideration to the jump

 

 

 

So yes, it is quite easy to see the whole bubble and pop mechanism, and how the government paves the road from bubble to pop with good intentions, tossing pragmatism by the wayside.

 

Ignoring the brain for the heart, when the meld of the two will produce the best result.

 

The thing is, when a company performs badly like that, it goes under and is eaten by the market.

In that vein, this looks like a great idea (though I have yet to purchase & read,) it would make the management of local governments actually accountable

[ralis]

A few examples of political propaganda that can lead to hate and division. I believe it was Rush Limbaugh that instituted hate speech against liberals.

 

 

 

 

Herman Cain believes liberals are out to destroy this country.

Edited October 16, 2011 by SereneBlue
fixed broken link