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I'm not going to read through pages and pages of what I assume to be an endless tide of repetetive, left winged comments...I will say the protestors have lost any credibility in my mind when they used a bank that they were not only protesting against, but actually vandalized and when they blocked the street preventing an ambulance from getting through potentially endangering lives...actually nevermind, they lost credibility when they decided to whine and moan about something and blaming other people instead of going out and changing their circumstances for themselves

Ellipses stop being periods when you combine three of them.

starhawks wrote:I'm not going to read through pages and pages of what I assume to be an endless tide of repetetive, left winged comments...I will say the protestors have lost any credibility in my mind when they used a bank that they were not only protesting against, but actually vandalized and when they blocked the street preventing an ambulance from getting through potentially endangering lives...actually nevermind, they lost credibility when they decided to whine and moan about something and blaming other people instead of going out and changing their circumstances for themselves

Once again, the conservative "argument" is to ignore any argument points that the other side brings up to attack a strawman instead. Good job.

Melissia wrote:Once again, the conservative "argument" is to ignore any argument points that the other side brings up to attack a strawman instead.

I would think that a good conservative argument would make a case not to change things, or at the very least slow down the process of change or bring about a more traditional approach.

I wouldn't know, I haven't seen any of them argue for that, they've just tossed insults and mocked instead.

Ah, well then I guess this is what a Conservative would argue:

The system is broken. Roll back regulations to a time when enterprise and free trade were minimally hindered. Lower taxes such that job creators can do what their title states, and remove entitlement laws hijacked by lazy people so that those people are forced to go back to work.

Go Team Slug.

starhawks wrote:I'm not going to read through pages and pages of what I assume to be an endless tide of repetetive, left winged comments...I will say the protestors have lost any credibility in my mind when they used a bank that they were not only protesting against, but actually vandalized and when they blocked the street preventing an ambulance from getting through potentially endangering lives...actually nevermind, they lost credibility when they decided to whine and moan about something and blaming other people instead of going out and changing their circumstances for themselves

Aren't you in college currently?

WarOne wrote:The system is broken. Roll back regulations to a time when enterprise and free trade were minimally hindered.

My counter-argument would be that the deregulation or overly lax regulation was the very reason that we're in our current economic slump.

The problem is, this position also usually results in people insulting or insinuating an insult on my intelligence. Go figure... or hell, it's often simply ignored. Because apparently only a crazy person would believe that regulation is a good thing.

There were many of times we gather around the ole paper burning drum and whatever we can find, smoke our cuban cigars, talk a bit about missions, female porn stars (Allie SIn), debating rather to go to chow or not (We miss KBR running our dining facilities. Supreme is ate up from the floor up)...I digress....One guy brought up the during our discussion of when the ecnomy tank was is started after Katrina...........

Occupy Portland was shut down at 12:00 AM this morning.

it was stupid to begin with, then someone threw a fire bomb into the street the other day and the mayor said enough is enough

Melissia wrote:

WarOne wrote:The system is broken. Roll back regulations to a time when enterprise and free trade were minimally hindered.

My counter-argument would be that the deregulation or overly lax regulation was the very reason that we're in our current economic slump.

The response would be that the market needs the least restrictions in order to properly function. That is supply-side economics.

The central crux of the argument is to find the appropriate rate wherein governmental tax rates are as low as they can go, allowing the people to produce the most while maximizing the profits of the tax revenues taken in, assuming of course that the maximum tax revenue the people produce for the government falls within an acceptably low tax rate.

As for regulations, that is also a matter of debate. What constitutes a minimally regulated market before it becomes laissez-faire economics, free of any intervention? Do we establish that we need laws that make the market equal for everyone and makes sure that those in power don't cheat? Can we do things like break monopolies and trusts when they become too big?

Such as it is, deregulation could mean streamlining the laws to make it simple and easy to understand and implement, removing loop holes and hurdles that would prevent smaller companies and individuals to compete.

Melissia wrote:The problem is, this position also usually results in people insulting or insinuating an insult on my intelligence. Go figure... or hell, it's often simply ignored. Because apparently only a crazy person would believe that regulation is a good thing.

Then people are not really arguing with you as a peer and are instead treating you as if you are not their conversational peer.

WarOne wrote:The response would be that the market needs the least restrictions in order to properly function. That is supply-side economics.

Supply side economics isn't working-- supply is fine, what we have a problem with is aggregate demand; no, I advocate government policies which will enhance demand instead. Rather than trickle-down, a sort of trickle-up economics-- like watering the roots of a plant so that the rest of the plant also gets the moisture it needs.

Government should not be tied to supply-side and only supply-side economics, especially when ti's not even working.

WarOne wrote:What constitutes a minimally regulated market before it becomes laissez-faire economics, free of any intervention?

Anarchism, essentially.

WarOne wrote:Do we establish that we need laws that make the market equal for everyone and makes sure that those in power don't cheat? Can we do things like break monopolies and trusts when they become too big?

How can it be a true capitalist society without these? Competition is the main thing that separates capitalism from communism and mercantilism... without an educated populace-- and this results from a company being honest about its products-- item values become distorted and thus their true market value is not represented in their prices. And without equality, again, the prices of various products become distorted and aren't representing their real value, including labor.

Aren't those essentially the same things that those oppose to any government assistance at all claim government does to an economy?

WarOne wrote:Such as it is, deregulation could mean streamlining the laws to make it simple and easy to understand and implement, removing loop holes and hurdles that would prevent smaller companies and individuals to compete.

But more likely than not it involves removing hurdles that keeps big business in line as has been the case in the past. "Streamlining" for the sake of "streamlining" isn't a good thing. Reforms to regulation need to have the goal of making the regulation actually work, not removing it for the sake of removing it. That just screws over the consumers.

Melissia wrote:Supply side economics isn't working-- supply is fine, what we have a problem with is aggregate demand; no, I advocate government policies which will enhance demand instead. Rather than trickle-down, a sort of trickle-up economics-- like watering the roots of a plant so that the rest of the plant also gets the moisture it needs.

Government should not be tied to supply-side and only supply-side economics, especially when it's not even working.

Actually, supply side economics and Keynesian economics are doing poorly, period. The market is reacting to poor economic decisions brought about by poor policy (Greece and Italy internationally, green energy subsidies that failed domestically).

Supply side economics would actually consider this recession a good thing. Lowering tax rates is supposed to generate more interest in investing, and the government investing in infrastructure and education are also tied in with recovering from the recession.

Raising taxes would be considered bad by supply side economics as it would force the private sector to be conservative with their spending and rely upon the government to provide the boost to the economy (which if it is already cutting spending, then there will be a slower recovery).

Melissia wrote:

WarOne wrote:Such as it is, deregulation could mean streamlining the laws to make it simple and easy to understand and implement, removing loop holes and hurdles that would prevent smaller companies and individuals to compete.

But more likely than not it involves removing hurdles that keeps big business in line as has been the case in the past. "Streamlining" for the sake of "streamlining" isn't a good thing. Reforms to regulation need to have the goal of making the regulation actually work, not removing it for the sake of removing it. That just screws over the consumers.

Reality does say however that we do need to regulate the market to a certain extent. The argument is is to get to a point where the government makes sure everything is fair and equal while not impairing the market to work pretty much by itself.

And as a realist, the government would need to step in at some point in order to do something if the market could not do it itself.

Melissia wrote:

WarOne wrote:Do we establish that we need laws that make the market equal for everyone and makes sure that those in power don't cheat? Can we do things like break monopolies and trusts when they become too big?

How can it be a true capitalist society without these? Competition is the main thing that separates capitalism from communism and mercantilism... without an educated populace-- and this results from a company being honest about its products-- item values become distorted and thus their true market value is not represented in their prices. And without equality, again, the prices of various products become distorted and aren't representing their real value, including labor.

Aren't those essentially the same things that those oppose to any government assistance at all claim government does to an economy?

The idea is not to remove the government from the market entirely. It is there to play referee in order to make sure the market plays fair and equally with everyone. There is always some socialism along with capitalism so long as a government or organized body is there to enforce rules upon the market. We regulate that food suppliers tell us what is in their food and what is their nutritional value, as well as not over-inflating health benefits of their food so that the average consumer can then interpret the raw data and make a purchase based off of their needs or wants rather than an unfair trick that entices them to buy unfairly.

WarOne wrote:green energy subsidies that failed domestically

Oh please, that didn't even get close to causing this.

It was the lack of effective regulation in the financial market that caused this a few years ago, and the effects are still lingering. Deregulating would only cause it to happen again.

WarOne wrote:Raising taxes would be considered bad by supply side economics as it would force the private sector to be conservative with their spending and rely upon the government to provide the boost to the economy (which if it is already cutting spending, then there will be a slower recovery).

Funny, tax cuts haven't actually worked for the last ten years, so why would they work now?

WarOne wrote:And as a realist, the government would need to step in at some point in order to do something if the market could not do it itself.

Yes, like right now.

WarOne wrote:The idea is not to remove the government from the market entirely.

That's not what conservatives on this very forum have argued....

The republican party is no longer conservative. They want to change everything radically. Look at the lunacy their presidential canidates are spouting. Dismantling multiple government agencies, creating new tax systems, resetting foreign aid to zero, electric fences, etc. These are not conservative principles. How much do they want to cut on government spending? Not conservatively. It also sounds like they want to go to war with Pakistan. The party is no longer conservative. It has been hijacked by the super-rich. They are the Neo-Cons, the modern day robber barons. They have used the media and their political lapdogs to completely twist the meaning of the term conservative. The word no longer means what it is supposed to mean. It has become a new buzzword. Drill baby drill!

Radiation wrote:The republican party is no longer conservative. They want to change everything radically. Look at the lunacy their presidential canidates are spouting. Dismantling multiple government agencies, creating new tax systems, resetting foreign aid to zero, electric fences, etc. These are not conservative principles. How much do they want to cut on government spending? Not conservatively. It also sounds like they want to go to war with Pakistan. The party is no longer conservative. It has been hijacked by the super-rich. They are the Neo-Cons, the modern day robber barons. They have used the media and their political lapdogs to completely twist the meaning of the term conservative. The word no longer means what it is supposed to mean. It has become a new buzzword. Drill baby drill!

You are right on about conservatism no longer means what it used to..in the same regard liberal doesn't mean what it used to either though..but the tax system does need an overhaul, along with who we give foreign aid to. The electric fences comment was a joke, a bad one yes, but still a joke. But uh, reducing government agencies is conservative thinking
But the real solution is to declare me Premier or Glorious Leader....we can boost the economy with giant commemorative statues to myself..... anyone?

I'm agreeing with Melissa on that the financial market wasn't regulated very well, which led to the crash..mainly the repeal of the Glass-Seagal Act(correct me if I'm off)
WarOne is spot on with Keynesian Economics, they really haven't done too much to show for themselves, you can look at Japan in the late 20th century for a clear example of that , Ahh but such is the problem with us economists, we really can't prove all of these theories

Reducing spending by taking measured steps is conservative thinking. Blanket statements about dismantling large portions of the government is warped radical nonthinking. The conservative movement has been hijacked by the "radical right."

Melissia wrote:

WarOne wrote:green energy subsidies that failed domestically

Oh please, that didn't even get close to causing this.

It was the lack of effective regulation in the financial market that caused this a few years ago, and the effects are still lingering. Deregulating would only cause it to happen again.

I stated the market reacted poorly. The market does not like it when things rock the boat, such as the government investing in bad financial decisions with tax payer money.

Melissia wrote:

WarOne wrote:Raising taxes would be considered bad by supply side economics as it would force the private sector to be conservative with their spending and rely upon the government to provide the boost to the economy (which if it is already cutting spending, then there will be a slower recovery).

Funny, tax cuts haven't actually worked for the last ten years, so why would they work now?

I also noted that injecting large amounts of money into the U.S. economy is not working either.

Such as it is with natural market forces, a recession happens no matter what. But with poor financial decision after another in a global market, each bad decision forces the players in the market to act conservatively with their money.

Melissia wrote:

WarOne wrote:And as a realist, the government would need to step in at some point in order to do something if the market could not do it itself.

Yes, like right now.

And so far the governments of the world have had poor luck in recovering and also in preventing another recession.

If the governments of the world cannot bail out the system, what is there left to do?

Melissia wrote:

WarOne wrote:The idea is not to remove the government from the market entirely.

That's not what conservatives on this very forum have argued....

WarOne wrote:I stated the market reacted poorly. The market does not like it when things rock the boat, such as the government investing in bad financial decisions with tax payer money.

On the contrary, "the market" loves things that rock the boat, it latches on to them and creates bubbles, which then alter burst.

Don't act like "the market" is somehow an intelligent beast.

It's a dumb animal.

It makes dumb decisions.

All the freaking time.

WarOne wrote:But with poor financial decision after another in a global market, each bad decision forces the players in the market to act conservatively with their money.

Yeah, the financial market has fethed up pretty bad, and it needs reform and more effective regulation.

WarOne wrote:And so far the governments of the world have had poor luck in recovering and also in preventing another recession.

In the US, the "conservatives" are the very reason we have had this "poor luck", a misnomer if I've ever heard one...

WarOne wrote:Not all conservatives ascribe to a purely libertarian form of free market enterprise.

Right, mostly just the ones who are running for office in the Republican party right now-- IE the ones which have power.

WarOne wrote:Such as it is, define for me what a free market means to you, as we may be having differing opinions on what a free market is.

I've already defined it for you once in this thread...

Melissia wrote:

WarOne wrote:I stated the market reacted poorly. The market does not like it when things rock the boat, such as the government investing in bad financial decisions with tax payer money.

On the contrary, "the market" loves things that rock the boat, it latches on to them and creates bubbles, which then alter burst.

Don't act like "the market" is somehow an intelligent beast.

It's a dumb animal.

It makes dumb decisions.

All the freaking time.

The market is sensitive to what governments do. When governments change fiscal policy and do it frequently, the market will negatively react as people won't know what regulations and policies will be enacted. They will withdraw money and investments and stifle economic growth by essentially withdrawing from the market.

While the market is not intelligent, expect it to act with some consistently. Bad policies and outlooks tend to depress the market while positive environments and sound policies tend to promote investment.

Melissia wrote:

WarOne wrote:But with poor financial decision after another in a global market, each bad decision forces the players in the market to act conservatively with their money.

Yeah, the financial market has fethed up pretty bad, and it needs reform and more effective regulation.

It doesn't need reform per se, but it needs to be consistent.

Greece didn't help when its PM decided to do a 180 and call for a referendum on the debt agreements with the Troika (the group of organizations bailing out Greece).

More effective regulation is an agreement between you and me. However, I think that it could be more effective with less regulation. You can have more effective regulation with less regulation.

Melissia wrote:

WarOne wrote:And so far the governments of the world have had poor luck in recovering and also in preventing another recession.

In the US, the "conservatives" are the very reason we have had this "poor luck", a misnomer if I've ever heard one...

Poor luck yes. One crisis after another has forced people invested in the market to proceed with caution and conservative spending.

As for who is to blame, it is both Conservatives and Liberals.

Alan Greenspan, a person active in most fiscal decisions in America from 1987 to 2006 as Federal Reserve Board Chairman opposed regulation of derivatives (loosely: predicting futures of what something is worth). He has gone on record as stating he was at some fault for not pursuing regulations that could of lessened the impact to the markets. His appointment to this office was done by both Conservatives as well as Liberals.

And of course, the regulators we had on hand as well as organizations designed to assess the risk of potential market failures did not see the culmination of factors that led to the recession in the first place (especially when looking at sub prime mortgages).

The Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008, American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, and TARP have all been responses by the government to the crisis at hand. These have had mixed results.

While jobs have been saved by these acts, the money spent has dug a bigger hole for America's debt. Some of the money has also been wasted, but not on the level that Republican critics of Obama have laid at the president's feet.

Irregardless, the economy is still sputtering, improving slowly, and ultimately if not dramatic in its reversal from the recession, could force Obama out of the White House in a year from now.

Melissia wrote:

WarOne wrote:Not all conservatives ascribe to a purely libertarian form of free market enterprise.

Right, mostly just the ones who are running for office in the Republican party right now-- IE the ones which have power.

Funny thing is is that the Republican platform for the primaries becomes very different when the chosen candidate actually runs for president. Obama was very left leaning when he appealed to the Democratic base in 2008 during the Primary run. In the actual race, he was very moderate from many viewpoints that he formerly held.

And to dismantle the entire apparatus of the government in intervening in the market would be criminally insane. Yes there is ideology at stake, but even a radically Conservative knows the market would suffer without some form of regulation.

Melissia wrote:

WarOne wrote:Such as it is, define for me what a free market means to you, as we may be having differing opinions on what a free market is.

I've already defined it for you once in this thread...

starhawks wrote:I'm not going to read through pages and pages of what I assume to be an endless tide of repetetive, left winged comments...

If you can't be bothered reading what other people have to say and form your comments in response to that, please don't bother to post at all.


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WarOne wrote:Roll back regulations to a time when enterprise and free trade were minimally hindered.

The US is ranked #1 in the world for lack of regulation in the ease of business guide. The only area the US scores at all badly in ease of doing business is with the tax return, due to its complexity relative to elsewhere in the world.

Lower taxes such that job creators can do what their title states, and remove entitlement laws hijacked by lazy people so that those people are forced to go back to work.

The US presently has an unemployment rate of 9.9%. Historically, the average rate of unemployment in the US is about 5%. Now, either you believe that all of a sudden, in the past four years, people just decided to be lazy for some reason, or it became a lot harder for people to find a job, because of the decline in economic activity.

Pick one - either magical change that just made several million people be lazier than they were four years ago, or it is harder to find a job.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

WarOne wrote:The response would be that the market needs the least restrictions in order to properly function. That is supply-side economics.

And supply side economics is a collections

The central crux of the argument is to find the appropriate rate wherein governmental tax rates are as low as they can go, allowing the people to produce the most while maximizing the profits of the tax revenues taken in, assuming of course that the maximum tax revenue the people produce for the government falls within an acceptably low tax rate.

That's the crux of every taxation policy.

Do we establish that we need laws that make the market equal for everyone and makes sure that those in power don't cheat?

You don't need to make laws that make it fair for everyone. You need to write laws to minimise cheating by those in power as much as possible, balancing the economic harm done by cheating against the economic harm of requiring people to meet regulation.

Can we do things like break monopolies and trusts when they become too big?

Yes, of course you can. What people think of when they talk about free markets, are what economists actually refer to as the perfect market. The perfect market first and foremost is built around competition, and that means lots of firms competing against each other.

Such as it is, deregulation could mean streamlining the laws to make it simple and easy to understand and implement, removing loop holes and hurdles that would prevent smaller companies and individuals to compete.

The core of the issue isn't more or less regulation, but good regulation.

Countries around the world have tried all kinds of different approaches to various industries, with all kinds of levels of success. For instance, the US has had the best regulation of insider trading, because they kept jail time as a serious possibility, and made a conscious effort to punish managers and people within the company acting on information held in trust, and not analysts acting on leaked information. It's been no surprise that other countries that have had far more problematic regulation have looked to the US system to emulate it.

However, the regulation of derivatives in the US is terrible. You've focussed on specificying exact derivative structures and regulating those, only to see the creators of derivatives change things slightly to produce a derivative that does the same thing, but no longer has any regulation applied. Elsewhere in the world regulation seems to have worked much better by controlling who can and who can't enter derivative markets - if a private actor with a billion of his own dollars to invest wants to invest in an incredibly bizarre derivative, then let him. But institutions that hold a degree of public trust, like banks and investment funds, need to be outright denied access to a derivative, unless it is for the purpose of minimising an identified risk.

There seems a strong cultural bias against looking elsewhere in the world, seeing what's worked, and applying it, while at the same time the debate over regulation seems to have broken down into 'more regulation' against 'less regulation'. These two factors seem to be stopping you from looking elsewhere, seeing what has worked, which banking sectors had regulation that prevented the last round of speculation and bust, and looking to replace bad regulation with good.

WarOne wrote:It doesn't need reform per se, but it needs to be consistent.

Greece didn't help

I wasn't talking about the government, but the corporations.

Laying all the blame on governments is ignoring two thirds of the problem.

WarOne wrote:One crisis after another

... which could have been prevented with more effective regulation instead of deregulation. Deregulation will only cause further economic crashes. This is a proven fact of history, really.

I'm not saying add more red tape, I'm saying make the regulation we have actually work. Outright removing regulation is generally a bad idea because people in a free market society are driven to greed and will do horrible horrible things in order to fulfill that greed. Adding more regulations on is pointless when it's ineffective to begin with. Thus instead there's a third choice-- make it work better. Which often basically goes down to enforcement, or the lack thereof, in many countries (including the US), although it depends on which specific piece of regulation you're thinking of.

WarOne wrote:While jobs have been saved by these acts, the money spent has dug a bigger hole for America's debt.

The sad thing is that the republicans seem to have forgotten all about the government debt now that the primaries are here. I don't think they've passingly mentioned debt any more than maybe once every other debate.

But of course, they really shouldn't, because it's not as big a problem as some people make it out to be. Government debt will not and can not be paid off quickly, and attempting to do so will only contribute to dsetroying the economy. Reliably repaying government debt over decades is good for the government's credit, and makes creditors feel like the country is a safe place to invest. This is a proven system really...

WarOne wrote:

Melissia wrote:Once again, the conservative "argument" is to ignore any argument points that the other side brings up to attack a strawman instead.

I would think that a good conservative argument would make a case not to change things, or at the very least slow down the process of change or bring about a more traditional approach.

Oh snap!

Frazzled wrote:

WarOne wrote:

Melissia wrote:Once again, the conservative "argument" is to ignore any argument points that the other side brings up to attack a strawman instead.

I would think that a good conservative argument would make a case not to change things, or at the very least slow down the process of change or bring about a more traditional approach.

Oh snap!

It's a pity that he's basically saying you're not a good conservative, considering you haven't argued for this, Frazzled.

Course, I imagine you don't really care, hehe.


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http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/13/business/turning-the-dialogue-from-wealth-to-values.html

Just saw this link from Economist, and it's an interesting view relevant to this discussion.

Melissia wrote:

Frazzled wrote:

WarOne wrote:

Melissia wrote:Once again, the conservative "argument" is to ignore any argument points that the other side brings up to attack a strawman instead.

I would think that a good conservative argument would make a case not to change things, or at the very least slow down the process of change or bring about a more traditional approach.

Oh snap!

It's a pity that he's basically saying you're not a good conservative, considering you haven't argued for this, Frazzled.

Course, I imagine you don't really care, hehe.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/13/business/turning-the-dialogue-from-wealth-to-values.html

Just saw this link from Economist, and it's an interesting view relevant to this discussion.

He basically just gave a definition of "coservative" thats all. PLus I never pass up the opportunity to say Oh Snap! not necessarily for any particular reason.

I find it interesting and somewhat humorous that there is all this talk of "income inequality". The Occutards have made great points of denouncing the difference in incomes between the EVIL rich and themselves, and we heard cries for "income parity regardless of occupation" and a $20 minimum wage.

This is, of course, pure and utter nonsense. The reason for "income inequality" is "effort inequality".

Now this is not to say some have not unjustly gained through crime and fraud. For those, they should be punished in swift and generous doses. I think Bernie Madoff should be getting his ass beat every day of the week and twice on Sunday.

Protection from fraud and theft should be the extent of the government's involvement in the marketplace.

While we are on the subject of fraud, I find one of the biggest places this occurs is in government itself. Some elected official finds it possible to buy himself votes by taking the possessions of others, by force, and giving it to those who are not of the mind to earn for themselves. Taking goods from someone by force is usually called "Theft", but in this case is called "Redistribution of Wealth" and made to seem more beneficent, almost noble. Again, pure rubbish. Most of the public spending in the US nowadays is not chartered by the Constitution and is pure largess, created by the political ruling class to cement themselves in positions of power.

There's your evil: Government. The Founding Fathers knew this, and made the Constitution a document to restrain Government, not empower it.

People need to stop looking to the Fed for their answers, and start looking in the mirror.

The Green Git wrote:I find it interesting and somewhat humorous that there is all this talk of "income inequality". The Occutards have made great points of denouncing the difference in incomes between the EVIL rich and themselves, and we heard cries for "income parity regardless of occupation" and a $20 minimum wage.

This is, of course, pure and utter nonsense. The reason for "income inequality" is "effort inequality".

That's a fantastic speach, but unfortunately it ignores the problem that actually exists. I agree that the $20 minimum wage is stupid, but the real problem isn't unskilled labour demanding a high rate of pay for their labour, but the growing distance between skilled labour and well connected, wealthy elites.

Did you see the thread I posted that showed the overwhelming majority of income growth in the last 30 years wasn't going to the 20%, but to the top 1%, and most of that went to the top 0.1%? If it was simply a case of "effort inequality" you'd see trained and skilled people with professions and trades leaving the rest behind, but instead those people are receiving about the same proportion of GDP they were in 1970. At the same time, more and more of national income is going to those at the very top. You're left either to conclude that the rich are working harder than they used to, or that the economy is being shaped to reward connections and status ahead of hard work.

It's the break down of meritocracy. It's the breakdown of reward for effort.

Protection from fraud and theft should be the extent of the government's involvement in the marketplace.

Preventing monopolies? Ensuring fair and competitive market places, with no collusion? Protection of regular people from exploitative contracts?

Clinton wanted the banks to give loans to underprivileged people, the result was the same people being kicked out when they got loans beyond what they could pay.

The Green Git wrote:Taking goods from someone by force is usually called "Theft", but in this case is called "Redistribution of Wealth" and made to seem more beneficent, almost noble. Again, pure rubbish.

Last I checked, you didn't have the option of voting your local thief out of office, or asking him to provide certain services.


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starhawks wrote:...actually nevermind, they lost credibility when they decided to whine and moan about something and blaming other people instead of going out and changing their circumstances for themselves

You didn't think about that before you said it, did you?

halonachos wrote:Clinton wanted the banks to give loans to underprivileged people, the result was the same people being kicked out when they got loans beyond what they could pay.

So never lend to poor people? Keep them trapped in the rent trap for their own good?