Adurentibus Spina wrote: in fact it wasn't regulation that led to that, but the opposite... deregulation...)
Well, let's be honest here, the Fed push to make home ownership easier to procure never "forced" banks to approve loans. Clinton's administration lowered the capitalization approval limit as well as the standard minimum credit requirements. Basically, *all* banks adopted the new limits to stay competitive with each other and over the following decade it pretty much snowballed to the point of unsustainable bubble that burst when we had the bank/market crash of '07.hokahey wrote:Adurentibus Spina wrote: in fact it wasn't regulation that led to that, but the opposite... deregulation...)
And that's where you're wrong. The "everyone gets a home" agenda pushed by Clinton and Bush II where the government's involvement in forcing bad lending decisions led to the crisis.
Sure. How could one bank not offer the program other banks were offering, and how could any bank refuse to carry a program backed by the government and expected by consumers. In essence, government involvement in making sure everyone had a home of their own and no one got denied anything just about destroyed the country. The lesson here is clear as fucking crystal. Not everyone can have everything, and the government attempting to force it and manipulate the system will fail, time and again. And all of these morons out there "occupying" want MORE government involvement and want more insurance that everyone gets a piece of the pie. Markets don't work that way.Pandemonium wrote:Well, let's be honest here, the Fed push to make home ownership easier to procure never "forced" banks to approve loans. Clinton's administration lowered the capitalization approval limit as well as the standard minimum credit requirements. Basically, *all* banks adopted the new limits to stay competitive with each other and over the following decade it pretty much snowballed to the point of unsustainable bubble that burst when we had the bank/market crash of '07.hokahey wrote:Adurentibus Spina wrote: in fact it wasn't regulation that led to that, but the opposite... deregulation...)
And that's where you're wrong. The "everyone gets a home" agenda pushed by Clinton and Bush II where the government's involvement in forcing bad lending decisions led to the crisis.
Artemis wrote:Hoka, what about personal responsibility? The banks and the government weren't forcing people to take loans and mortgages. Sure, it was hard to say no, and many people figured they'd take advantage or they'd never be offered this deal again. Too many people have the "play now, pay later" attitude about money. I'm no superstar with handling my money;however, I do know my limits. It could be because my parents were immigrants and struggled. To survive and get ahead they were very frugal, and didn't live beyond their means. That has rubbed off on me, so I am conservative about financial risks. I am realistic about what I can and can't afford.
Part of "the market" is the banks that took the risk on high risk people. I don\t know all the rules in the US, but I am pretty sure the governent did not force banks to do what they did. They saw an opportunity to make money and they pounced on it, took a gamble that went awry.hokahey wrote:Artemis wrote:Hoka, what about personal responsibility? The banks and the government weren't forcing people to take loans and mortgages. Sure, it was hard to say no, and many people figured they'd take advantage or they'd never be offered this deal again. Too many people have the "play now, pay later" attitude about money. I'm no superstar with handling my money;however, I do know my limits. It could be because my parents were immigrants and struggled. To survive and get ahead they were very frugal, and didn't live beyond their means. That has rubbed off on me, so I am conservative about financial risks. I am realistic about what I can and can't afford.
What about it? I'm not advocating we support the people that screwed themselves with adjustable rate mortgages they can't afford. I'm advocating quite the opposite if you read my posts. The problem is, they shouldn't have ever had the opportunity. The market understood those people couldn't afford a mortgage and would default on them, but the incentive to offer those loans by the government was just too good to pass up. People bitch about what the banks did with those shitty loans once they were saddled with them, but they wouldn't have been offering them without the government being involved. As soon as people start realizing that big government is not the answer to in a free market society the better we'll be. You either have to go straight socialist or bring the size of the government down to as minimal as possible.
I just don't know how that's supposed to make any sense. It just looks like a giant non sequitur. Your libertarian rose-coloured glasses colour the world so you see it in terms of causes of bad outcomes always coming from the government/regulatory side of things, and if only we took an absolutist laissez-faire stance on things and left the market totally unconstrained, the bad things that happen wouldn't happen. But you didn't actually show how any of those things follow from what actually happened, you kind of stuck a bunch of assertions together and then said "See, governments caused it." So there's a logical problem with the structure of your claims. But that's not all. There are also serious substantive issues with what you say. What does it even mean to say "The market understood..."; markets aren't conscious -- Hayek would explicitly reject that way of talking, so not even he's on your side there. The next thing you say looks like you're trying to have the libertarian cake and eat it too: unregulated markets are best, but a market with an incentive (which isn't a regulation) can't exercise its free will and do what's truly in its best interest? That just flat-out contradicts a foundational principle of libertarianism, namely, that freedom is purely a function of negative liberty (the absence of legal/political constraints. Incentives aren't constraints if you buy this. They can be considered constraints if you buy into a communitarian picture -- but you're trying to support the opposite view).The market understood those people couldn't afford a mortgage and would default on them, but the incentive to offer those loans by the government was just too good to pass up. People bitch about what the banks did with those shitty loans once they were saddled with them, but they wouldn't have been offering them without the government being involved.
Jon Stewart has been pointing out for ages (seems like a few years now) how ridiculous it's been that the bailouts were done WITHOUT re-regulating and closing the loopholes/issues that caused the problem in the first place. That's also part of why I don't understand Hokahey's moves in this thread. The problem wasn't that there were bailouts, the problem was that there were bailouts and no real muscle to back up and enfornce needed reforms to the industries that were left unfettered before, and the anger now is about the fact that these guys are still allowed to foreclose on people's houses and take massive salaries, and not have to be accountable to their victims or the tax-payers in any meaningful way.Romeo wrote:that's part of it.
The other part of the protest is that the banks were then bailed out, with tax money. Made record profits since then. Are sitting on said profits without "giving back" (except giving themselves large bonuses), not stimulating the economy by creating more jobs or quite the opposite, decreasing their work forces.
Even Madoff's greedy rich investors are getting their money back.
And Grandma & Grandpa who lost everything in their 401K are collecting cans out of your recycle bin to make ends meet.
I for one am very happy seeing Americans rally for something meaningful.
Not just the buffoons in the tea party who were pissed because the black guy won.
http://www.vanityfair.com/society/featu ... ent-201105
I know it takes a lot of effort, and I wasn't trying to imply that it was a failure on your part... I actually think it's a failure on the part of libertarians to use concepts clearly, and to see what they entail. But that's a much broader critique than the one I offered here.hokahey wrote:Ay yay yay. I wish I had the time to spell it out. Posting from my phone doesnt help. I suggest studying the sub prime loan disaster and reading End the Fed.
Adurentibus Spina wrote:The problem wasn't that there were bailouts
best line out of all of this thread.hokahey wrote:How in the holy fuck can a reasonable, rational, logical human being not see how entirely fucking broken government is and demand it get the fuck out of every possible thing it can except for basic services at the state level?
Because it supports a pre-existing bias but is less than informative,doesn't provide any reason to accept it, and tacitly insults people who don't agree?jptm wrote:best line out of all of this thread.hokahey wrote:How in the holy fuck can a reasonable, rational, logical human being not see how entirely fucking broken government is and demand it get the fuck out of every possible thing it can except for basic services at the state level?
Empirical data on the beliefs of the population about distributive justice was not available when Rawls published A Theory of Justice (Rawls 1971) but much empirical work has since been completed. Swift (1995, 1999) and Miller (1999, chaps. 3-4) have provided surveys of this literature and arguments for why those committed to the method of reflective equilibrium in distributive justice literature should take the beliefs of the population seriously, though not uncritically. Indeed, some go even further, arguing that the distributive decisions arising through the legitimate application of particular democratic processes might even, at least in part, constitute distributive justice.(Walzer 1984) Data on people's beliefs about distributive justice is also useful for addressing the necessary intersection between philosophical and political processes. Such beliefs put constraints on what institutional and policy reforms are practically achievable in any generation — especially when the society is committed to democratic processes.
... As noted above, the overarching methodological concern of the distributive justice literature must be, in the first instance, the pressing choice of how the benefits and burdens of economic activity should be distributed, rather than the mere uncovering of abstract truth. Principles are to be implemented in real societies with the problems and constraints inherent in such application. Given this, pointing out that the application of any particular principle will have some, perhaps many, immoral results will not by itself constitute a fatal counterexample to any distributive theory. Such counter-evidence to a theory would only be fatal if there were an alternative, or improved, version of the theory, which, if fully implemented, would yield a morally preferable society overall. So, it is at least possible that the best distributive theory, when implemented, might yield a system which still has many injustices and/or negative consequences. This practical aspect partly distinguishes the role of counterexamples in distributive justice theory from many other philosophical areas. Given that distributive justice is about what to do now, not just what to think, alternate distributive theories must, in part, compete as comprehensive systems which take into account the practical constraints we face.
hokahey wrote:
What?
Well, I'm just pointing out that the debate isn't actually between visceral reactions on a non-theoretical level --- like "fuck the fed, they're inefficient, corrupt...etc.", or "fuck Ron Paul, he's crazy, even if consistent" (both of these might be true, but they're largely irrelevant). The real debate is about distributive justice. Libertarians think distributive justice is derivative of pure procedural justice (the most just procedural institutions are the ones that, circularly, cohere with libertarian principles, regardless of consequences), as does Rawls on some readings, even though he has principles (e.g., the Difference and Equality Principles) that don't seem to be purely procedural -- you have to look at consequences to determine whether some implementation of the principle is just. Cohen, on the other hand, I'm pretty sure takes consequences to play a much bigger role in determining distributive justice arrangments, and as a result, he's supportive of a much stronger egalitarian, socialist, framework, when it can be shown to produce consequences that are just, whether you think the principles, procedures or institutions are themselves 'just'. Probably some mix of these views is closest to the truth.And here we find a nugget of accuracy and relevance.Adurentibus Spina wrote: The libertarian argument here is that this stuff is good, but states should do it, not the fed...
What in the holy jump in logic are you talking about?but that doesn't make any sense if you care about justice.
I completely disagree. You'd see states rush to adopt the policies of the more successful states, creating less disparity. This is exactly why you don't cede power to one giant bureaucratic entity. They ARE inefficient. They're a lumbering giant. They also overstep their boundaries (war on drugs, unnecessary foreign wars), stretching resources ever thinner and making it even worse.without federal legislation of these, you'd see regional disparities in intelligence, health, etc, to a greater degree than you already do.
That's an empirical claim. Meaning, you can say that, but you have no proof. You can pose it as a hypothetical claim and then try to find evidence to support it, or just say: what would be the harm in trying it to see if what I said is right? The former is funny. I would be very surprised if there were evidence that states would do that (cf. Massechussetts). The latter is the problem -- the opposition sees all kinds of harm in trying out these zany states-rights schemes. In fact, I already gave several reasons to think going totally states-rights would be dangerous... the fact that there might be some states who adopt policies of more successful states doesn't sufficiently justify your view, since the federal government can do the same thing (by implementing policies they think will be successful, and then changing or getting rid of them if they aren't, or by allowing states to make changes based on regional differences while still preserving the universal nature of the benefits of the policies), arguably better.You'd see states rush to adopt the policies of the more successful states, creating less disparity.
There are a few problems with this... First, you seem to think efficiency is higher in the order of importance than anything else. There are good reasons to reject this. (Whether you like him or not, there's a great book by John Ralston Saul, husband of Canada's former Governor General, called "Voltaire's Bastards", which argues at length that 'rational' and 'efficient' have become confused in the post-Enlightenment world, and that this has dire consequences for policy...) It doesn't follow from something's being efficient that it's good, and it doesn't follow from something's being inefficient that it should be rejected. If that were the case, then any industrialized country with a military dictatorship would be 'good' because they are efficient (think of the examples yourself... there are lots); it also doesn't follow that inefficient programs are worse than the alternative -- there are some goods that are by their nature inefficient. A guy I worked with from Jordan said he disliked Canada's government because he found it corrupt and inefficient, whereas King Abdullah of Jordan is very efficient, and according to this guy, not corrupt. I had to say "But wait... why do you think that being efficient or not corrupt is a good thing? Can you criticize the King in public if you own a newspaper? No? ... You see my point. There may be corruption and inefficiencies built into the bedrock of democratic systems, but it's a necessary evil, and Winston Churchill is right..." (hopefully that helps make my point... I can clarify it if I need to...)This is exactly why you don't cede power to one giant bureaucratic entity. They ARE inefficient. They're a lumbering giant. They also overstep their boundaries (war on drugs, unnecessary foreign wars), stretching resources ever thinner and making it even worse.
ThanksAdurentibus Spina wrote:Cracked's article on the Wall Street Protests has this video that's pretty great:
