You're both talking about accountability, and I think that's the correct place to be looking. Where does accountability come from?

 

I don't think there's any evidence it comes from the political class, or the corporate class, or even the voters. Accountability doesn't come from any one group of people. It comes from the system itself. If the system allows for choice, you'll have accountability. If there is no possibility of choice, then you won't have it.

My whole take on accountability is focused to the future. I mean what's done is done, the economy went bad because of bad decisions. I feel that if you have accountability then it will be a message and warning to future companies to not make the same mistakes and fuck things up.

I agree that the economy can't be 100% back to normal right away or in 4 years. What happened started w/ Clinton by letting banks give loans to people that could not afford them. I guess what angers me most about Obama in relation to the economy is that he spent so much of his time focusing and forcing to get health-care passed in this country when the economy and jobs should've been the #1 issue at hand. Does health-care need to be reformed? Of course... but get the economy working again.

 

If anything I blame Congress most of all, with their stupid fucking games they play to make one party more popular than the next. Work together, and get things done that will better the entire country!

I think Obama was focused on health care so much because it was a major thing he had been promising to change when he was running for president. He probably could have spent more time on the economy, for sure, but at the same time the healthcare situation could have been finished with easily if so many people weren't opposing it for total non-reasons.

 

And I agree, Congress has screwed us all over. At the very least they could have passed Obama's Job Act, which would have at least done SOMETHING to help. But they chose stubbornness and haughtiness over the good of the country, as always.

The problem is that empirical evidence shows this to be false - the more regulations and taxes a government imposes, the worse the economy gets for the average person.

 

If you look at the most "economically free" countries in the world, they tend to have the highest quality of life in the world: http://www.heritage.org/index/

 

 

What you're describing here are academic distinctions, which are artificial. I'm a Rothbardian/Misesian Austrian, which is a branch of economics that doesn't make this artificial distinction.

 

Only individuals act, and therefore only individuals have goals which are unique to themselves. When a person acts within a group to effectuate change, they are doing so because they think that change will help themselves in the long term.

 

 

 

Right, and many jobs in the buggy industry were lost when Ford started mass-producing cars. Those workers shifted to producing other things that were more in-demand at the time, like oil and leather.

 

You can't freeze time and force employers to keep unproductive jobs, in the same way you can't force employers to continue producing goods/services that aren't in demand.

 

 

 

There's nothing "magic" about a market economy. It involves the individual decisions of millions of different people, all trying to provide things consumers demand. What you're trying to do is override these signals and replace them with government fiat.

 

The government could employ everyone in America (in theory) by just printing up the money (or taxing it away from the productive class) and then using it to pay for workers to dig ditches and fill them back up again. But this work is unproductive - it's not actually in demand by consumers.

-They also have stronger gaps between rich and poor.

-I disagree. For example, being generally well-off, I am all for paying more in taxes. This isn't going to benefit me, but it's going to benefit others. You're trying to justify selfish attitudes.

-If everyone who lost jobs had simply gotten another job in a more demanding industry, then why is the unemployment so high? What you're saying is illogical.

-I'm highly insulted by your use of the term "productive class," implying that many people are just lazy.

-Everyone could not be, even in theory, employed just by printing more money, because that would just lead to excessive inflation, which would make money worthless and the economy worse, because if no one could get enough money to buy goods, there would be no demand to make the goods in the first place. The solution is to work off of job areas that are already in demand, like Obama attempted to do with his Jobs Act.

 

i disagree. it's not even about the people (the citizens) in making things accountable. If you make companies accountable for their bad decisions and actions then in the future other companies will realize that them cutting corners will not pass and they will fail. It's like if you have a class full of children and they misbehave, if you show accountability of their bad actions by giving detention or whatever then I'm sure it will limit the amount the possibility for them to do it again.

 

 

(i'm not for the death penalty btw. [/random comment])

I don't really believe that anyone will stop using bad business techniques simply because they know they won't get assistance if they screw things up. Those people will haughtily think that things won't go wrong for them when they use those business practices. Like I said before, do people not commit crimes because they know there will be repercussions if it's found out? No, they commit them anyways and believe they won't get caught.

 

Don't worry, I never thought you were!

^yeah in the end they will still commit crimes. But at least I feel if there is some accountability, then hopefully it might limit some to make poor judgements in the future, and also I guess punish those that have done wrong.

My whole take on accountability is focused to the future. I mean what's done is done, the economy went bad because of bad decisions. I feel that if you have accountability then it will be a message and warning to future companies to not make the same mistakes and fuck things up.

I'm all for accountability in the future when the economy is more stable, but for now I feel it has to be forgone at times.

-They also have stronger gaps between rich and poor.

 

No, they don't. What are you talking about?

 

-I disagree. For example, being generally well-off, I am all for paying more in taxes. This isn't going to benefit me, but it's going to benefit others. You're trying to justify selfish attitudes.

 

There's a difference between greed and simple self-interest. All humans are self-interested, and this fact is impossible to escape. Everything you do voluntarily, you do because you want to do it. "Sacrifice" is not real. You should research egoism, it might change your perspective on things.

 

And that's nice that you want to pay taxes. But others prefer not to see their money finance unnecessary wars and prisons that lock up non-violent "criminals". This is not a selfish position to take.

 

-If everyone who lost jobs had simply gotten another job in a more demanding industry, then why is the unemployment so high? What you're saying is illogical.

 

Unemployment is high because the government isn't allowing the economy to equilibrate. It is artificially shifting demand, inflating credit and giving it to the politically well-connected, and regulating certain activities out of existence. This has the effect of destroying marginal jobs.

 

-I'm highly insulted by your use of the term "productive class," implying that many people are just lazy.

 

There are two classes of people in society: those who voluntarily trade, and those who steal. The government falls into the latter category, the parasitic class. It's impossible to know the true value of what they "contribute" to society because they refuse to subject themselves to the market.

 

The solution is to work off of job areas that are already in demand, like Obama attempted to do with his Jobs Act.

 

The particular jobs Obama wanted to create weren't in demand by consumers, but rather by Obama himself (and his political allies). Obama forcefully redistributed money to his favored businesses.

I am beginning to wonder about the assumption that we are, by our nature, so self-interested. What I've been hearing is that empathy may be actually hard-wired into us, that the notion that we are naturally selfish isn't always true, that we are by our very nature a blend of both, depending on circumstances.

========================================================

> As for taxes, I believe a progressive tax policy makes the most sense - since those who have greater income levels have increased their incomes in part from the benefits derived from a healthy society, from infrastructure improvements and from improvements in health and education in the general public, and from environmental improvements.

=========================================================

> I think it's somewhat offensive to classify government employees into the category of "thieves" Jay, when I think of all the good, honest, hard-working, and effective teachers I have been taught by in the public school system and at the land-grant public universities, not to mention all the dedicated hard-working employees who built our roads, bridges, parks, and so forth. To achieve government that truly represents and promotes the general wellness of the citizenry makes sense to me, not everything fits neatly into the box of markets. In fact, it seems that when businesses grow too large they can have a negative effect on good government, since their ownership wields enormous power by buying influence through paying for candidate campaigns, through preferential legislation and subsequent enormous tax breaks and subsidies, so it is this interference by those who wield the most power economically that often creates the dysfunction in government. A government of, by, and for the citizens ought to break up these giant entities, especially the big banks on Wall Street, push for reforms to both diversify ownership and make businesses inclusive of all stakeholders. To that point, I've been reading what one former Yale dean has to say on the subject: Off the Pedestal: Creating a New Vision of Economic Growth by James Gustave Speth: Yale Environment 360

 

For the latest actions: Occupy Wall Street | NYC Protest for World Revolution

Chuck, study praxeology. If someone helps another person (by donating their time, money, etc), they're doing that because it provides them with greater happiness than spending that time/money on themselves.

 

So everything we do, we do because of self-interest. It's the pursuit of happiness.

 

Free markets maximize the ability of everyone to pursue their own interests, and therefore maximizes their happiness.

-I disagree. For example, being generally well-off, I am all for paying more in taxes.

 

Hm, let's just ignore the fact that a lot of Americans right now aren't "well-off"

Hm, let's just ignore the fact that a lot of Americans right now aren't "well-off"

Lol, you missed my point completely.

I'm saying that those who ARE well-off should pay more, not those who aren't.

The particular jobs Obama wanted to create weren't in demand by consumers, but rather by Obama himself (and his political allies). Obama forcefully redistributed money to his favored businesses.

Construction workers and teachers ARE very much in demand. But many have been let go because there wasn't room in any budget for them.

 

Good teachers are in HIGH demand, and construction workers especially, because they do services that this country is sorely in need of. For example, so many roads and bridges are unsafe but there is no money to hire workers to repair them.

Chuck, study praxeology. If someone helps another person (by donating their time, money, etc), they're doing that because it provides them with greater happiness than spending that time/money on themselves.

 

So everything we do, we do because of self-interest. It's the pursuit of happiness.

 

Free markets maximize the ability of everyone to pursue their own interests, and therefore maximizes their happiness.

 

I think that's a common perception, but in truth, we're actually synergistically interacting with one-another within society, empathy is innate in our nature, as is societal structures. The idea that we are islands unto ourselves, trading as free agents on the earth is a wonderful libertarian fantasy, albeit enjoyable as a romantic dream. What we do is as much a part of a societal structure that we collectively determine, as it is of our own individual initiative. As the motto goes: from the many, one.

The pursuit of happiness is as much a result of the works we put forth collectively as it is a matter of individual initiative, and I think the framers had this in mind.

Free markets are a utopian dream, they existed in a world of long ago before there was civilization, when the world was populated by very few of us; today, it is fair markets, fair and representative governments, systems which include all stakeholders and see both long and short-term matters which need to become the norm. We must account for the environment, for those affected by market decisions, by those who's rights are otherwise ignored or trampled on by market forces, and to do that, we need to reclaim honest government as the arbiter of fair play, to promote the general wellness once again.

Maximizing self-interest is a recipe for anarchy, a return to the mistakes of the past; I recall the madness of the goldrush days! I don't want to go back to that.

Lol, you missed my point completely.

I'm saying that those who ARE well-off should pay more, not those who aren't.

 

And you missed mine! People who aren't well-off are paying more taxes also, a major qualm I have seen been raised within the OWS movement :3

Construction workers and teachers ARE very much in demand. But many have been let go because there wasn't room in any budget for them.

 

Good teachers are in HIGH demand, and construction workers especially, because they do services that this country is sorely in need of. For example, so many roads and bridges are unsafe but there is no money to hire workers to repair them.

 

Is a lack of education really a problem in America? More Americans than ever (as a %) have PhD and BA degrees. Not everybody can be employed as a paper-pusher.

 

Construction workers are in high demand? We just had a housing bubble. There's an oversupply of homes on the market now, and as a result prices have plummeted.

 

Wasn't it the government's job to ensure we had good roads and bridges? It seems they've failed at that, even after printing and taxing away trillions of dollars... I guess they blew it all on corporate bailouts and unnecessary wars.

I recall the madness of the goldrush days! I don't want to go back to that.

 

Tell me about the madness of the goldrush days, because I seem to remember learning that it was a very peaceful time in American history!

 

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wEOIY7eGaTc]thomas woods' wild west fantasy - YouTube[/ame]

 

Chuck, the truth is that humans are social creatures, and most of them prefer to have good reputations with their fellow man. Money is only one means to obtain happiness - some people prefer leisure, others prefer to work hard and give their money away to good causes.

 

To assume a monopolist of coercion, a select few men, can fairly and effectively spread money around a society to maximize happiness is overlooking two simple facts:

 

1. There is no group of men who are purely incorruptible and wise.

 

2. Money acts as a signal to direct production.

 

Therefore, even if you could somehow overcome problem #1, and have computer/robot overlords, you'd still end up with the effects of problem #2. Giving people money increases demand, but doesn't increase production. When demand increases and production doesn't follow suit, price increases.

The creation of the housing bubble: Since "free" markets were allowed to run amok, bubbles happened when the rigged system of allowing unsecured bank loans to go forward happened, and when real wages adjusted for inflation are held flat. Giant firms, the great Wall Street "Banks" knowingly set up these home loans, they were the primary source of the problem and in turn those "banks" gave heavily to political races to ensure the deregulation and thus allow the unsecured loans to be granted, and marketed to ordinary citizens, and packaged as AAA rated investments behind the scene, and sold on the markets. So housing bubbles are the inevitable result of a pay-to-play system that ignores the citizen's collective will for honest government and oversight over markets.

>Government's role as Bridge Builder: Now, had the government been functioning to serve the best interests of we the people, and had it been fully funded to do it's job of investing in infrastructure as it should be, then there would be a boom in construction jobs to rebuild the roads and bridges held in the commons - that increases safety, improves transportation of goods and services, and provides jobs in a sector that makes all things flow smoothly. And it can do this, if we ask it to. But to get the money to do it, we might have to actually tax the super-rich plutocrats, at least back to the levels before the massive Bush-era tax cuts, and in turn the improved infrastructure will allow businesses to flourish, peoples lives to improve (so the bridge you're driving over doesn't collapse, like the one in Minnesota did, for instance.). But the government cannot make things happen when the lever-pullers in charge see only the big players, see plutocrats as the ones to listen to, and do the bidding of wall-street financial firms and the like over the interests of all citizens.

The government we have is working for plutocrats, plain and simple. And that's why it is dysfunctional as it is. Without a government that works for us, we can't break up virtual monopolies, we can't regulate financial actions to prevent future financial melt-downs, we have lost control of the arbiter of fair play.

The gold rush: miners scrambling over the land, shooting each-other over claims, hucksters selling shovels at hyper-inflated prices and taking advantage of all those deluded into the head-west, get-rich mentality. Then the big boys stepped in, hired all the sour doughs, and set up hydraulic mining to blast the gold out of the hills, and the big investors made it on the backs of those poor miners. The mess went down river, and filled the bay area with a toxic wash of mining wastes and mercury. A peaceful time, where there was enormous income inequalities, vast numbers of Americans without their due rights, and anyone who rose up generally had the Pinkerton's or the National Guard to make sure they went right back to work, without improvements in wages of working conditions. Hardly the idealistic world of some golden age.. except for the aristocrats.

I don't recall suggesting that a few monopolistic men would spread the wealth, which is why we need the reforms we do - to prevent the unchecked amassing of wealth into the hands of a very few, since the monopolization of certain sectors of the economy damages fair markets, as it leads to the lack of choice by consumers, scams set up by the banks, allowed through control over the agencies that are supposed to regulate those banks, profit unfairly on the backs of the working classes, and it is wise then to demand those with excessive control over any given industry to diversify their investments, so those industries cannot be captured by a few, with the resulting corruption and rackets being run.

I'm not talking about just giving people money, I'm talking about compensating people fairly for their work so they can afford the goods and services being produced. Even Henry Ford new this, pay the workers a fair wage, and they can buy the cars made in the Ford plants. But today, we must include the externalities, for neglecting them is doing great harm to the commons, to the environment, to social needs that nurture citizens so they can be productive.

But what does it benefit us to shrink government, when the sectors which do the most shrinking are those which provide the most unaccounted for benefits to society? Clean air, clean water, safe roads and bridges, excellent schools, quality hospitals, social safety nets - all the things which benefit citizens also allow citizens to prosper and contribute more to the economy. And if the money is to go back to the upper income earners, then will they actually stimulate the economy through purchases, or simply put it into the most lucrative payoffs, that being the banking sector, which then lends to the poor who haven't enough in wages to pay off their debts? That's part of the problem, the income inequality, and where it goes makes a big difference. If wages increase for the working class, and they buy goods, then the economy is stimulated, production increases, and profits rise. Plus, they can then afford the things which make their lives better, and in turn improve their productivity. But the idea of giving the tax money saved by shrinking the government mostly to the rich, leads to more off-shore investment into factories elsewhere, more investment schemes and derivatives, into anything that leads to bubbles.

We could shift the government's investments into things which broadly help businesses prosper, like the roads, the new internet and attending infrastructure, promoting a trade policy to stimulate manufacturing jobs here in the US. We could also invest in the future, into wind and solar energy production to end our dependence on oil and coal and nuclear, to producing more water desalination systems to water the farmlands, to invest in education so our workforce is productive and capable of competing in this 21st century.

>Since this thread is about the Occupy Wall Street movement, I would like to get back to that topic.

>Clearly, the lobbyists in Washington who front for the giant Wall Street firms, putting forth legislation (which they're not supposed to do, but they write it anyhow), and writing it to benefit themselves, enticed our elected congress members into allowing the big banks to engage in unscrupulous lending practices. This is why we occupy.

> And so I ask that we take the time to write an amendment, to state clearly that no outgoing representative of the people be allowed to enter into lobbying or consulting with present representatives; the clear conflicts of interest we see today, with all their negative impacts on our government, must be addressed, and the need to deal with this matter is as urgent as ever, since the foreclosure continue, the practices go on unabated.

Occupy Wall Street | NYC Protest for World Revolution

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6uR4lqa7IK4]Public Choice: Why Politicians Don't Cut Spending - YouTube[/ame]

I don't even have to watch that, I know why politicians don't cut spending! However, what gets cut when cuts are made are often the very things which do the most good for ordinary citizens, since the money from the big banks and corporate groups buys the most political influence to prevent cuts in their pet sectors.

If we do cut spending significantly on the excess expenditures in areas such as armament production and spending on bailouts for banks, then I am concerned the tax breaks will basically flow to the super-wealthy who will simply invest in whatever gives them the biggest return on investment, which often isn't what helps a flagging economy. More bubbles isn't the answer; instead the answer is to keep those sectors of the government strong which offer the greatest benefit to the citizens, and reduce the taxes on the working classes, who will actually purchase goods and services, as opposed to giving it primarily to the .01%, who will simply put their money into investment schemes, foreign manufacturing that undercuts US workers and exploits workers in poorer nations, and into predatory lending by banks.

What is needed is a reform over the way in which campaigns are financed, to restore representative government.

Here's what happens when we allow schemers to flourish in our economy, unchecked by regulation: Robert Reich (The Bain of Capitalism)

Chuck, you have to understand that Bain Capital wasn't a destructive force in the market. It was simply cutting losses by shutting down unprofitable businesses, and redirecting those resources toward other, more profitable ventures.

 

The businesses Bain Capital shut down would have gone bankrupt anyway.

Chuck, you have to understand that Bain Capital wasn't a destructive force in the market. It was simply cutting losses by shutting down unprofitable businesses, and redirecting those resources toward other, more profitable ventures.

Hm.. I have to wonder about that. That's not what I'm hearing from my friend Robert Reich..

The businesses Bain Capital shut down would have gone bankrupt anyway.

 

Hm, it sounds more like this to me :

Robert Reich (The Bain of Capitalism)

 

And I recall this area loosing one big paper mill to a corporate takeover type, who sold off the company's assets to raise profits artificially, boosted the share values, then sold all his holdings on the market and got out, after which the company basically went bankrupt and was later sold to a competing firm on the cheap, and I know what this did to the employees, dedicated and loyal to that company all those years.

What makes you so certain those businesses would have gone bankrupt anyway? Is Robert Reich not telling it like it is??

and I know what this did to the employees, dedicated and loyal to that company all those years.

 

Assuming this is true, why would the new owners of the paper mill not use the mill to produce paper? It would be unprofitable to just let it sit there empty. They'd need to hire workers to run it again, and likely the same batch of workers who were already skilled in operating it.

 

What makes you so certain those businesses would have gone bankrupt anyway? Is Robert Reich not telling it like it is??

 

Because in a market economy, participants are incentivized to put capital toward its most-profitable use. In this case, the paper mill (or steel mill) is the capital, the "means of production".

 

A few reasons for a factory shutting down could include:

 

1. Workers (or their representatives in unions/government) demanding greater compensation than the market can sustain, which in turn makes the factory an unprofitable venture. This results in factories being moved to different jurisdictions.

 

2. The factory being only marginally profitable, and the owners of the land discover some new use for the land that's more-profitable (for instance, building an apartment complex or mining/logging).

 

3. Market demand has softened in that particular sector of the economy, so the factory becomes unprofitable. Similar to how demand for horses and buggies fell after the invention of cars and trains.

 

If there are stock traders who buy the shares of the company on the assumption that it will be profitable in the future, and it's currently unprofitable, then they will suffer the loss when it goes bankrupt. But this rarely happens because it's very suspicious to investors when insiders and owners are restructuring a company and selling shares en mass.

http://www.care2.com/causes/ows-update-from-reclaimed-zuccotti-park-video.html

 

OWS Update From Reclaimed Zuccotti Park [Video]

 

by Beth Buczynski January 13, 2012 5:43 pm

 

A few days ago, we reported that the police barricades holding Zuccotti Park hostage had been removed, and several hundred jubilant Occupy Wall Street protesters were again attempting to occupy the public place that birthed the international movement.

 

The OWS protesters were evicted from the park back in mid-November due to the City’s claim that the encampment had become “a health hazard,” but after the courts ruled in favor the protesters, they have slowly being making their way back to the epicenter of the protest.

 

Watch below as Goldie, an OWS activist, gives RT America report on the state of the reoccupation

 

Follow link to watch the video (I cannot find the video url code to post it here)

 

Read more: http://www.care2.com/causes/ows-update-from-reclaimed-zuccotti-park-video.html#ixzz1jRUUKcjG

^when the OWS protesters were 'removed', they did allow them back in the same day!! They just weren't allowed to 'camp' there..... so I don't see how they've been kicked out since November...

 

I think they're getting very sloppy with their protest.... i guess with the election year upon us, we''ll see just influential they can be on the candidates and voters...