What does P&N think of the movie, "Inside Job"?

[Craig234]

Craig...I am sorry but I am hard to label with any particular ideology.

I just know injustice when I see it. I know the middle class is being fvcked over. I know both major political parties are slaves to corporate and special interests. I know true representation is dead. Our government is broken and insolvent.

But I also know that stealing (in ever increasing amounts) from the successful, those that have invented or self-made their wealth, is not right either, especially when their hard-earned money disappears into the hole of modern bureaucracy. What kind of incentive is that?

I guess I believe in a social-market economy where the rich care for the poor, the healthy care for the sick, the young care for the old, and where everyone cares for the environment...but I believe in a BIG caveat...I believe that these things cannot be governed or regulated but rather should be cultivated within a culture. Meaning, it should not be the government's job to do this but rather the will of the people. In my utopia, there would be no disincentives or limits to wealth creation but the biggest incentive of all would be the well-being of one's employees and immediate community and environment, even over that of one's own family.

At least, this is how I feel today.

That sounds like a reasonably rational reply that can be answered.

Your first part, of course, is pretty agreeable. But one thing missing is that the *only* thing that can stand up to the corrupt interests are the people, orgnanized.

And the *only* feasible way to do that is through our democratic government, so while it might be corrupted now, the answer isn't crippling it but returning it to the people.

Crippling it serves NO ONE but the rich and powerful and permanently blocks any ability of the people to have more power for their interests.

However, your last part is more problematic - it's an ideology, and worse, a broken one.

I'd like it too if everyone did all the nice things society needs - homeless people were given a place (with work), medical care all had people donating to pay for it, and so on.

But even if people WERE willing to donate for all these things - and they're not and never will be, as a donation system as opposed to voting for taxes everyone has to pay a fair share - they need organization and priorities. You can't have a person 'give' to pay for the thousands (or millions) of things needed. It's far, far more practical, efficient, to have a 'government' - one serving the people - who organizes the services, collects the taxes, and pays for them. It's the ONLY way it can work - and it ALWAYS comes with some 'waste'. That's one of the right-wing fallacies they need to get over, that any 'waste' means it's worth throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

I guarantee you I can find 'waste' in any Fortune 500 company - should we shut them down? It's the same issue that some 'waste' is part of the practicalities.

It's ok to want a 'limited' government, in wanting one that isn't doing things government isn't good at or needed for - but not to have a simplistic anti-government ideology.

Fact is, you can't have your version of how needs are met.

You have to pick - an imperfect government version, that nonetheless can hugely meet the needs - or a society that's a disaster for the people, a plutocracy.

We've gone bankrupt trying to have both - adding to the rich while not cutting the people too much so they don't notice, while the debt adds and adds. It can't go on.

But where is it going to give, from the rich, who have SKYROCKETED in income and wealth by winning the class war, or by impoverishing the people?

The way things are going, it's the latter, and we need the public to organize for their interests, against the enemies who are targeting them - the right wing.

 

[yllus]

Saw this on The Curious Capitalist:

Larry Summers: No Regrets on Deregulation

That said, there has been plenty of interesting post mortem crisis analysis amongst the liberals themselves. No Greenspan-ish mea culpas, but lots of looking back and considering what should of, could have, been done differently. I've been particularly interested in Summers comments on that score. Here's why:

Certainly, plenty of people close to him while he was head of the Treasury Department under Clinton would say that he didn't think deeply enough (at least back then) about the possibility that markets weren't efficient, that economic players had their own biases and irrational behaviors, and that finance thus needed tighter regulation.

Summers himself would, not surprisingly, disagree. “Ok, maybe there's some charitable recollection here on my part,” he admitted during one panel in which he was asked what had changed in his economic thinking over the last ten years. “But I've always been interested in behavioral finance.” What he did concede was that his belief that simply growing the economic pie would mean growing middle class incomes had turned out to be wrong. “Inequity has risen in the last decade, and it will continue to rise,” said Summers, echoing what many at the conference see as the biggest challenge to the global economic order.

Of course, one of the other big questions was what, if anything, Summers would have done differently in terms of regulating the banking system. The answer – not much. “I've been more cautious than many about constraining financial innovation,” he said, adding that he didn't believe the financial crisis had its roots in “new-fangled financial instruments” but rather in a simple real estate bubble. Hmmm—tell that to Iceland.

One thing Summers said that most of the crowd could agree with is that “anger and dissatisfaction with the financial system doesn't constitute a [coherent regulatory] policy.” That, three years on from the crisis, we're still waiting for.

 

[Trianon]

You'll find very few people on the left that object to the wealth enjoyed by the likes of Google, Apple, MS, etc, and there is no contradiction in demonizing Wall Street while celebrating real innovation and wealth creation.

The problem is, as soon as you say *anything* against Wall Street and about income inequality, you're branded a socialist/communist/maxist/muslim/whateverthefuck. Wall Street and their supporters won't allow you to make this distinction and they'll use the exact same rhetoric so as to appear in the same category as the real innovators and wealth creators. Hence the terms "Financial Engineer", "Financial Innovation" and all that other shit.

Bravo! I think people close to financial industry commit logical fallacy thinking that the system is stable and robust and they will enjoy lifelong career of prosperity as seen in 80s-00s. In reality because of the simple truth that financiers are a utility to "real" economy and don't produce value themselves and subtract their profits from "real" economy, which, in addition to multiple other factors (loss of production capabilities, dwindling resources, etc...), would imply that this system is heading for a bust. Supercomplex systems are not robust due to their very nature, ours in collapsing under it's own weight into more simple organization. Unfortunately that means that people will have to change how they make a living.