surfsatwerk
Lifer
- Mar 6, 2008
- 10,110
- 5
- 81
Yeah it was my impression that he thought of himself as a New Deal Democrat, he's a big Franklin Roosevelt fan.
yllus
Elite Member & Lifer
- Aug 20, 2000
- 20,577
- 432
- 126
I didn't realize borrowing a quote from someone meant I was 'into' them. If I had said, "If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it," does that mean I'm 'into' Joseph Goebbels?*
I'll actually read that when you find me the post in which I say all protected classes should be done away with.
I realize that there are a fair number of Ayn Rand crazies that populate this forum, so I don't completely fault you for assuming the above, but it'd be nice to be given the benefit of the doubt. Quit trying to score points on people and try actually debating the issue at hand.
* Thread is over.
Historically the stock market has always been the first thing to recover in a recession - it's forward looking and recovers much sooner than the unemployment rate does. Granted it's not always accurate (how many bear market rallies were there during the Great Depression? 8?). I doubt it has anything to do with Wall Street "wanting" people unemployed. Obviously a business lays people off to improve it's bottom line, but ~70% of GDP is consumer spending, and a 10% unemployment rate means that a lot of people aren't going to be spending money. I think Wall Street would prefer to have more people employed, because that means they will be spending money.
BeauJangles
Lifer
- Aug 26, 2001
- 13,941
- 1
- 0
After reading that, I'd say we're more in agreement than I thought. Our country is facing a series of big problems, some of them on-going over the last 50+ years. Like I said, I'm really not a Republican or a conservative. I probably came / come across more conservative than I am due to the fact that (a) this is the internet where hyperbole and stupidity abound and (b) we're talking about Michael Moore a guy that I can't stand.
I'd agree that out of everything I listed tort reform is the silliest.
Fixing the FDA is relatively easy, I believe. First, drug companies cannot pay for its existence. Right now, each company pays between 250 - 500k dollars to get their drugs into the approval system. While this application fee keeps companies from filing prematurely, it has resulted in federal funding being slashed from the FDA's budget. It needs independent financing. Second, stronger reforms are needed to prevent the FDA from fast-tracking every freaking drug that comes out. The fast-track was supposed to be for things like experimental cancer cures... things that were matters of life and death for certain people, not for drugs that treat herpes.
As an aside, I'd like to see an end to direct advertising to consumers. People end up taking all sorts of stupid things just because they see them on tv and demand that their doctor prescribe them. Not sure it's actually possible, but it would be nice.
Gerrymandering, IMO, is one of the biggest "silent" problems facing this country. With the state / federal tension that exists, it will be impossible to stop, but essentially gerrymandering is threatening the integrity of our democracy (or republic or whatever you want to call it).
Prisons - you're right on the money.
What it comes down to is that I certainly would like more equal distributions of wealth, but I'm not ready to pitch out our entire economic system or anything to achieve that. My beef with Michael Moore's view, and many other people's, is that the system isn't broken, it just needs an overhaul.
I also 100% agree that we need more regulation in certain areas. The problem with regulation, though, is that it is often misapplied. Quick example is in Israel where the gov wanted to encourage people to use other means of transportation, so they imposed essentially a 100% tax on new cars. Israelis now drive around in the oldest pieces of shit, with terrible fuel economy, and poor safety because few people can afford a new car plus the tax. When the government chooses to intervene, it needs to do so with as limited a hand as possible, affecting only what needs to be changed... like environmental impact. This is a situation ripe for some sort of tax, tariff, or control in place to help offset some of these commercial environmental disasters that are created.
As for general tariffs, I'm not actually opposed to them being used in limited roles. I worry that if we start trying to tax goods from China, Malaysia, or wherever our country will face retaliatory tariffs which will ultimately escalate, hurting everyone involved. If we can somehow develop a method of slowing the flow of cheap, poorly made Chinese goods into this country and only drive a slight price increase to the consumer, then this is probably a good thing.
Often I think people are too favor of saving the past when it comes to the economy. My reaction to those who talk about tariffs on the internet is usually hostile simply because most conversations turn into an argument about huge tariffs that will allow our industrial economy to return.
Finally, my last food for thought in this post concerns the meltdown last September and October. Moore seems geared up to blame the fat-cat wall st executives who ruthlessly and deliberately manipulated the system to line their own pockets. I just don't believe it's that simple and your point about the S&L Crisis is well taken.
I think that we can both agree that most people try to act rationally and are inherently greedy. These companies that got absolutely boned by the collapse last year weren't stupid, they knew what they were doing. Without effective regulation, rules, or oversight these guys essentially leveraged themselves many times over to maximize their profits. When things started going bad, this same leveraging screwed them all. My problem with simply blaming them is that nobody was complaining that they were leveraged like crazy when it was working. Think about the internet bubble. Same shit, different day. Nobody complains that it's a problem until it stops working. Hence, I strongly dislike the idea of simply blaming Wall St when, in reality, this last collapse was a failure on many different levels.
Of course we could get into a deep discussion about the housing crisis and all that, but I'd really rather skip over it, unless you have something you're dying to say.
Finally, apologies for letting the internet push me far further towards Ayn Rand than I actually am.
I enjoyed your post, and agree - I agree with pretty much everything in it.
One thing I don't quite agree with is that there were plenty of liberals and liberal economists raising the concern about the things that led to the crash well before it.
Indeed, you can see the comments from Democratic Sen. Byron Dorgan, whose father was involved in passing the regulation separating bank activities that prevented serious problems for decades, in the late 1990's when a bill was introduced to repeal it, saying what a disaster it was - that the same principles from when it was passed in the new deal still applied, and he made a very lucky guess that it would lead to a big crash in twn years, right on the mark (he admitted when proven right the timing was just a guess).
But there were many - Paul Krugman, Kevin Phillips, many others I can list - who were warning for years and years, but the finacniacl industries' advocates had more power.
And still do.
About the worst they're suffering is that they can't get elected currently - but of course, they don't get voted on so it has no impact.
We have experts who can set good policies, but the money - 40% of our economy's profits are the financial industry - has been allowed to dominate the political.
Kruschev used to predict the west would 'sell them the rope with which they'd hang us', to mock the way our blind pursuit of profit was dangerous to us, he was just a bit early.
We have a problem that ideology makes it difficult to get the public up in arms over some things. If it wears a suit, they have a hard time seeing it as more dangerous than a thug.
Legitimate business and exploitave scams get lumped together and little is done.
I appreciate your post.
Trying to figure out whether Goldman Sachs' last CEO, then Treasury Secretary, ran more towards the current Goldman Sachs CEO, or vice versa, is a little like trying to figure out which partner's motion were more responsible for reaching orgasm in an act od sexual intercourse. There's not that much point.
Orcas also fuck everything up which is why they're awesome. Blue Whales? They get fucked up by Orcas. You don't fuck with Orcas... or Bears.
There most certainly is a point when someone is wrongfully pointing fingers at only one of the two parties involved -- in this case, both sportage and Moore laid the blame solely at the feet of the banks.
When, in fact, they -- the Government and the banks -- ran toward one another like long-separated lovers on a beach.
Based who represented the government in this matter, I'm not so sure that government and banks can be differentiated. I don't think they ran to each other, I think they are each other.
3chordcharlie
Diamond Member
- Mar 30, 2004
- 9,859
- 1
- 81
The touble is we're stuck back at 'property rights are the basis of all other rights' which is a convenient invention of folks who would like to claim that property rights are the most important of all, or the only ones that matter.
I'll admit to having a natural, knee-jerk reaction to anything about Ayn Rand which is partly due to how unbelievably self-serving and stupid she is, but mostly because her 'fans' are even more self-serving and stupid.
If you wanted a 'basic' right from which all others could be derived, it would probably be the right to security of person, which is to say the right to have no violence done to you.
Now, it can be easily shown that we do not have such a right, or at least that it is not recognized today, as simply being in any nation makes you subject to violence perpetrated by the state.
Property rights however, especially those involving real estate are not really defensible at all. There are some very laboured descriptions of 'homesteading' and other justifications for land ownership, but the truth is there is no natural justification for land ever ceasing to be open and public, simply because there has never been any body or group with the legitimate authority to confer land ownership in the first place.
I'm not such a dreamer to think that private property will cease to exist, and I'm pragmatic enough to see that this is actually a good thing, but to claim it as the basis of other rights is baffling and ridiculous.
In another forum, I saw a brit argue that the "basic right" upon which all other rights are conferred is the right to life. The right to exist can be extended to the right to freely speak, worship, own, etc. He was using this premise as an argument in favor of UHC.
WhipperSnapper
Lifer
- Oct 30, 2004
- 11,442
- 32
- 91
I was one of the Randites (or students of Objectivism) for about eleven years and was even involved with running a campus Objectivist club. Just to set the record straight, Rand had some good ideas and made a great many excellent points in her compelling novels and non-fiction. She offers a comprehensive and internally consistent philosophy and world-view, much of which is very good such as the notions that reality is objective in nature, that people should be atheist, that reason is man's means of knowledge and survival, and that rational self interest, individualism, and independence are good.
She went off the deep-end when she concluded that conflicts of interest do not exist between rational people and that individual rights are absolutes in the economic realm and that therefore laissez-faire capitalism is the ideal.
I think that you are wrong to underestimate her fans as being "stupid". Many of her fans are very intelligent, well-read, highly educated, battle-tested in philosophical debate, and well-spoken, and they sincerely believe that laissez-faire capitalism really is the ideal form of government and that it would solve a great many of the problems we fear, such as the cost of health care and the lack of good jobs for people. They would argue that the problems we complain about and blame on capitalism are actually caused by socialist policies and and the government's initiation of physical force against people and that what we have right now is either light socialism or a mixed economy and not real capitalism. They believe that they are on the side of reason and reality. They are not loony Libertarians who lack a well-defined philosophical base for their positions and whose reasoning does not go very deep nor are they your run-of-the-mill free market morons like what you might encounter with your average Republican.
Rather, many of them can make very compelling, detailed arguments; they are intellectuals. Some are tenacious and will happily debate you for days on the same topic, questioning your underlying premises and tearing apart many of your points. It is a mistake to brush them off as being irrational wackos or mindless cultists and to underestimate their reasoning abilities.
I pretty much still agree with 95% of the Objectivist philosophy in the realms of metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics, but disagree with much of the politics. However, I do understand where they are coming from and don't regard them as cultist wackos, but rather formidable intellectual opponents.
We differ hugely. There are things I like about Rand personally, but IMO her views are a menace and very misguided. Funny I have her disciple Greenspan agreeing lately.
3chordcharlie
Diamond Member
- Mar 30, 2004
- 9,859
- 1
- 81
'Students of Objectivism' can claim all they like that socialism is the real problem with capitalism. It won't make them right, and most of what they do isn't 'arguing' per se.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but internal consistency of a philosophy is hardly a measure of worth; much of value can be found in highly inconsistent philosophies. I for one, have yet to find anything valuable in Rand that hasn't been argued more clearly elsewhere, and earlier.
I've tried the long debates with Randites; it's like arguing with a Baptist. You get hours and days of regurgitated ideas that seem quite meaningful to the speaker, but are really just babble.
If I'm going to look like an ignorant fool, I'll do it on my own, not spouting someone else's rubbish.
I've already given the best argument I know regarding the fundamental problem with property rights; namely that they are in no way fundamental, and therefore can't be the basis of other basic rights.
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