hatrickpatrick wrote: » If their job is to make a profit then they shouldn't have as much power as they have. Control over money supply should only be used in the public interest.
Sleepy wrote: » Never attribute to malice that which can be put down to simple incompetence. Since homeowners in negative equity were the very people that over-valued those homes (i.e. the buyers in the Supply/Demand equation) they must accept responsibility for their own actions. One might then argue that non-homeowners might have a position from which to launch such a case but, following on from this, who would they be charging? The government? The property developers? The homeowners who bought during the bubble? A little pointless since all are now broke. Never mind that this group are hardly blameless themselves: as part of the electorate they kept voting in the very morons who failed to govern our country in any manner approaching sensible. And here we end up with the sorry reality: we elected morons, who rather than seeking to reign in the effects cheap EU credit on the Irish property market built our tax system upon one-off property taxes (stamp duty etc.) and further inflated the market via mortgage interest relief, tax breaks, bonanza raises for public servants, removal of huge numbers from the tax net etc. In response to this, we lapped up the houses and believing that trees could grow to the sky tried to keep flipping them to one another. We live in a democracy. An unfortunate side-effect of which is that even if you didn't vote for these guys, you're stuck with the outcomes of their governance. As someone who never voted for them, never bought property and who's greatest benefit of the boom was easy availability of part-time employment during my college years it's galling to have to pay for the mistakes of others but it's part of democracy and my ideals of meritocracy don't seem to be popular enough to be pushed as a better system of governance.
The Corinthian wrote: » Sure, let's just abolish private enterprise and become a centralized communist state - why do we need 'for profit' anything? .
Sleepy wrote: » So, if stupid decisions leading to personal loss are something we can sue people for, what do you think my chances are at suing Bertie Ahern? the estate of Brian Lenihan? etc?
clairefontaine wrote: » Well.... in reality we are on that road.
The Corinthian wrote: » Not by a long shot. If we lived in a communist state you'd notice pretty quickly; the supermarket shelves would be empty for a start.
You Suck! wrote: » Was this not a financial advisory service, in which they were more than a counter-party, and not just that, but they were acting outside their remit in a position where it was in their interest to offer advise that might counter best practice or ethical and legal standards.
clairefontaine wrote: » In China they are still managing to eat and drink wine too, although they mix it with 7 up.
Cuba is white rice and beans.
The Corinthian wrote: » Sure, let's just abolish private enterprise and become a centralized communist state - why do we need 'for profit' anything? As flawed as the system has turned out to be, it's still far better than anything that was present in the former Comecon nations.
KyussBishop wrote: » You know that's an incredibly lazy argument, just spouting the 'Communist' label (it's about as accurate as labeling social welfare 'communist');
KyussBishop wrote: removing money creation from private control does not end for-profit enterprise, and governments can even provide debt-based money just like a private bank would, but without profits (generated from money created out of nothing) going to private use.
KyussBishop wrote: » That's exactly my point; social welfare is no more indicative of a planned economy or Communism, than debt-free-money or public banking.
Fully quoting the rest of my post/rebuttal (instead of just the part you selected for nitpicking):
KyussBishop wrote: » It requires A lot of posters I notice, are very protece of banking/finance in this regard; there's no hesitation to blame government, and even the entire population (with really spurious reasoning), but banks/finance? Many posters try to paint t even though banks, finance and business, are the areas most susceptible to and with most reason to commit massive fraud and breed corruption, as vehicles for political/economic power.
The Corinthian wrote: » Strawman point, as I never mentioned social welfare; you did. I made my analogy based upon nationalization of the banking industry, as espoused by hatrickpatrick, which is indicative of a planned economy or Communism.
The Corinthian wrote: » My analogy was directed to hatrickpatrick's view that we should "obliterate the financial sector entirely". The rest of your post was irrelevant to this, unless you wanted to construct another strawman that my analogy was somehow based upon what you wrote, after the fact, as opposed to what hatrickpatrick wrote. Are you looking to pick a flame-war or just not paying attention?
hatrickpatrick wrote: » ^ This is a debate for another thread but I'll just say I disagree hugely with this. In my view, obliterate the financial sector entirely so that the only people with the power to create money or otherwise affect gigantic economic factors on a massive scale are those whose only motivation is providing a public service. Why do we actually need for profit banking at all? What harm would be caused by switching to an entirely public service based model?
Potatoeman wrote: » The bank is responsible for losing their own money just as the individual is responsible for overborrowing and the regulator for not acting. People would not and did not share their profits.
KyussBishop wrote: » The bank is responsible for that, yes, but also for pumping the bubble as well, due to overextending loans; it takes two parties for a homeowner to overborrow: the homeowner of course, in not being careful in their borrowing, and the bank, for not properly checking the borrowers ability to repay, and for not having sensible credit restrictions which avoid inflation of house prices. It is well known economically, that making excessive debt available to consumers, causes house prices to be bid up; it is something that will happen, which is not in consumers control, thus it is only something that banks and government can control (which is where most of the responsibility lies in making sure they don't allow overextension of debts, and thus inflation of asset bubbles). Short-term profits in the banks, made a lot of developers (through money spent into property) and bankers rich, with a lot of these people being able to secure their personal profits, such that they were not as affected when the bubble burst; these people did not have to care about the sustainability of the property bubble, or of the banks finances (or their shareholders), because their inflated wages and bonuses (and in some cases, other profits through fraud) were already paid out to them at the time. If the banks become insolvent, and the economy takes a dive, they have no reason to then care, because they have already got their profits.
KyussBishop wrote: » You don't need to nationalize the banking industry, just remove the ability to create money from private banks (so you can still have private banks, which would have to operate at full reserve); that was the primary point I saw in the post.
Again, nationalizing an industry is no more an indication of 'Communism' or a planned economy than social welfare, so it is your own strawman; you're being rather obtuse in trying to ignore my rather obvious point there.
I didn't take that as a literally 'obliterate' i.e. completely destroy; here is the full post (highlighting the other half of the sentence you quote), not the selective context you pick out (you like doing that a lot - leaving the full context out so you can nitpick):
What I object to, is the offhand dismissal of that as 'Communism', when it is nothing of the sort; it is a lazy form of faux-argument that doesn't actually contest the original view in any way, just straw-mans it.
The Corinthian wrote: » What has this got to do with your attacking my analogy? For a start, you've gone now from arguing that you don't need to nationalize the banking industry to nationalizing an industry is no more an indication of 'Communism' or a planned economy than social welfare. Secondly, you're now trying to sell the notion that nationalization - whereby the state controls the means of production - has nothing to do with a panned economy. The state needs to control the means of production so as to manage such an economy - no control, no execution of the plan. Nationalization is very much part of a planned economy - freshman economics, TBH.
The Corinthian wrote: » I notice you didn't highlight where he questioned if "we actually need for profit banking at all". It's pretty clear that when he suggested obliterating banking, he meant taking the entire industry out of private enterprise (hence that line), certainly there's nowhere where he magically ascribed to your particular theories, as you state them; this is simply how you've decided to infer what he said. I interpreted it differently, and frankly applying Occam's razor, my interpretation how it far more likely comes across.
hatrickpatrick wrote: In my view, obliterate the financial sector entirely so that the only people with the power to create money or otherwise affect gigantic economic factors on a massive scale are those whose only motivation is providing a public service.
The Corinthian wrote: » The only straw men here are yours. You're the one who decided, based upon your interpretation of what he posted, that my analogy is flawed. Now you're now trying to sell the BS definition that nationalization - control of the means of production by the state - is irrelevant to a command economy. On top of which you seem intent to drag me into a discussion about your theories, even though I have repeatedly said that I am only addressing your attack on my earlier analogy - is this deflection or just craving attention, on your part? Either you don't understand economic theory too well, or you're using disingenuous tactics on purpose. Either way, please do not waste my time.
KyussBishop wrote: » You're being very deliberately obtuse here; nationalizing an industry, on its own, does not make a planned economy, and the original post doesn't even require nationalization either.
Again you take it out of context, deliberately:
Again, you show your dishonest intent in argument, by saying I claimed nationalization is irrelevant to a planned economy, when what I said, is that nationalization of one industry (like banking) does not make a planned economy, because a planned economy is much more than just that, which you know full well, but will happily ignore where it suits your argument.
KyussBishop wrote: » You know that's an incredibly lazy argument, just spouting the 'Communist' label (it's about as accurate as labeling social welfare 'communist'); removing money creation from private control does not end for-profit enterprise, and governments can even provide debt-based money just like a private bank would, but without profits (generated from money created out of nothing) going to private use.
You can't engage honestly, so you try to twist words around, obtusely ignore the point of what is said, and apply your own straw-man interpretation to others views; the same kind of sophist nonsense that has previously been abundant on the Humanities forum, which is subtle enough to go undetected by most, yet has a very negative effect on debate.
The Corinthian wrote: » More BS; so "for profit banking" should be obliterated and money control be state run (as the state cares about the "public interest". Sounds like no more private banks and the only one's allowed are state owned.
KyussBishop wrote: You're being very deliberately obtuse here; nationalizing an industry, on its own, does not make a planned economy, and the original post doesn't even require nationalization either.
The Corinthian wrote: » Sure and then you re-quote the statement leaving out all the bits you didn't like. Nice try.
The Corinthian wrote: » To liken the link between communism to control of the means of production to its link to social welfare is claiming that it is incidental or irrelevant as many economic philosophies have social welfare at their core. How many have nationalization of private banking at their core?
The Corinthian wrote: » KyussBishop wrote: You know that's an incredibly lazy argument, just spouting the 'Communist' label (it's about as accurate as labeling social welfare 'communist'); removing money creation from private control does not end for-profit enterprise, and governments can even provide debt-based money just like a private bank would, but without profits (generated from money created out of nothing) going to private use. Best of all what is particularly funny is how the emboldened bit actually contradicts what hatrickpatrick specifically seeks. Seems you jumped to conclusions without really reading what hatrickpatrick wrote.
KyussBishop wrote: You know that's an incredibly lazy argument, just spouting the 'Communist' label (it's about as accurate as labeling social welfare 'communist'); removing money creation from private control does not end for-profit enterprise, and governments can even provide debt-based money just like a private bank would, but without profits (generated from money created out of nothing) going to private use.
The Corinthian wrote: » KyussBishop wrote: You can't engage honestly, so you try to twist words around, obtusely ignore the point of what is said, and apply your own straw-man interpretation to others views; the same kind of sophist nonsense that has previously been abundant on the Humanities forum, which is subtle enough to go undetected by most, yet has a very negative effect on debate. Ahh, finally you decide to get personal. I did not engage you in this discussion, you engaged me. You are the one who decided, either because you didn't bother to read what hatrickpatrick wrote or because of some more deep rooted personal reason, to attack an analogy I made in relation to another poster. Now I decided some time back I'd avoid engaging with you because I avoid precisely the kind of 'special' poster who has his revolutionary views and will drag you down some bottomless flame-war if you have the temerity to not recognise their greatness; hence this argument, where you cannot even admit that hatrickpatrick did not say what you presumed he said. Or that nationalization has been exclusively been linked to communist (and fascist) ideologies and in particular the model of command economies, making my comment to hatrickpatrick perfectly valid.
KyussBishop wrote: You can't engage honestly, so you try to twist words around, obtusely ignore the point of what is said, and apply your own straw-man interpretation to others views; the same kind of sophist nonsense that has previously been abundant on the Humanities forum, which is subtle enough to go undetected by most, yet has a very negative effect on debate.