patrick.net

Amen.

Next time you do that, please credit Karl Marx appropriately.

Inequality is the problem. Why not have the gubmnt confiscate rental houses from landlords and give it to the needy? Does a man/woman need more than one house?? This will put a big dent in inequality-no more landlords and renters!

After all, gubmnt knows best.

Just remember for every Keynesian dollar spent, some schlub had to pay an Austrian dollar into taxes. Usually the people who don't benefit by it, are the ones that have to finance the facade.

They can't pay their bills with a thesis.

spydah_hh says

If the government had not bailed out the banks, yeah sure the economy would of been in shambles but by now we've would of recovered and hopefully had some reforms where the government was limited.

These companies would have failed. Citi, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo, Berkshire Hathaway , General Motors, Ford, Chrysler, General Electric, Microsoft, Apple, Alcoa, US Steel, and with that the rest of the economy would have gone down in flames.

And you have your panties in a bunch over some bailouts when you would have been standing in a soup line with the rest of America.

I think at that point your ideas of what we would or should have done would be much different.

I was reading an article that concludes that Krugman is a shill. God knows Keynes was for FDR and the trope continues to this day.

The world operates on debt. The premise Patrick puts forth regarding housing debt is an extension of this. Fractional banking is debt. The reason for the bailout was highly leveraged debt, the great depression came from excess debt.

Debt is financial enslavement.

Yea debt is necessary but it is equally necessary to allow over investment to fail.

This really is a red pill, blue pill matrix. Debt = Blue pill, financial freedom = Red pill.

Red pill = soup lines

Why would someone argue that we should have gone into another Greater Depression? How is this a good choice? You are a fool if you believe it is a good choice.

yup1 says

Red pill = soup lines

We have soup lines now, 99 week unemployment, food stamps for over half the population, section 8 housing, 10 million on permanent disability, how many million gave up looking for work, WIC, etc etc

This is All Blue Pill

indigenous says

yup1 says

Red pill = soup lines

We have soup lines now, 99 week unemployment, food stamps for over half the population, section 8 housing, 10 million on permanent disability, how many million gave up looking for work, WIC, etc etc

This is All Blue Pill

Yes we do but somehow you think doing nothing would have been a better choice and things would be better right now......Really?

yup1 says

Yes we do but somehow you think doing nothing would have been a better choice and things would be better right now......Really?

Absolutely, this is a fallacy that is put forth to further the dystopian ideals, this only benefits the cronys. But you have been drinking this ubiquitous beverage for so long that you cannot consider any other possibility.

indigenous says

Absolutely, this is a fallacy that is put forth to further the dystopian ideals, this only benefits the cronys. But you have been drinking this ubiquitous beverage for so long that you cannot consider any other possibility.

In your fantasy world things would be better. Continue taking the Red pill. Continue living in fantasy land that you have made up in your head. It won't change the fact that we took the blue pill.

yup1 says

In your fantasy world things would be better. Continue taking the Red pill. Continue living in fantasy land that you have made up in your head. It won't change the fact that we took the blue pill.

You are right

yup1 says

Red pill = soup lines

In your fantasy world where the financial system would have been left to collapse under its own weight, how on earth do you figure that there would have been and soup, or lines for that matter?

Without berkshire hathaway and WFC there to take their vig on their markers of wealth, how would anyone figure out how to make soup? How would people have figured out how to form lines?

sbh says

After taking the red pill, what you describe above would be called a glorious recovery, since all measures of asset and job destruction would have been ten times worse that what the blue pill did. You would have been trumpeting such numbers and drilling down into deep shit piles looking desperately for a Rothbardian pony to trot out. Actually, you might have died in a street fight agony trying to wrest a bottle of antibiotics from the hand of someone who had just rummaged through the remnants of a looted pharmacy.

You want your precious anarchy? You want your vaunted life "without structure"? Meet me in the alley. You bring some rebar and I bring a gun. You lose. You anarchists don't actually posit anything, you just want to watch the world burn.

Yes Sbh also is addicted to the blue pill.

Here is the deal. The one thing that every rational person wants to do is survive, all action can be predicted by this one dynamic. Why do people want more money? to survive better. Why do women want to look purdy? to survive better. Why do men want to be the toughest? to survive better.

You might say what about the Jihad dude? He is not rational, even then he thinks he will survive better in heaven with the virgins and all.

If left to his own devises an individual will figure out how to survive as best he can. He will not willfully succumb (unless he is not rational).

The idea that we will not survive or even try to survive without government is complete bullshit. The matrix is that we need politicians to do everything for us is complete bullshit. The idea that wars are necessary is complete bullshit.

I have to admit sometimes the rag heads get on my nerves but I didn't want to kill one. And many of them I really enjoy being around. But there are those on both sides who benefit from a war. So we fight for WMDs or democracy or because somehow Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Iran all were involved in blowing up the WTC?

All the angst is created. Period. This all creates financial enslavement.

indigenous says

The idea that we will not survive or even try to survive without government is complete bullshit.

I'm sorry--who do you think has that idea?

tatupu70 says

indigenous says

The idea that we will not survive or even try to survive without government is complete bullshit.

I'm sorry--who do you think has that idea?

You

errc says

yup1 says

Red pill = soup lines

In your fantasy world where the financial system would have been left to collapse under its own weight, how on earth do you figure that there would have been and soup, or lines for that matter?

Without berkshire hathaway and WFC there to take their vig on their markers of wealth, how would anyone figure out how to make soup? How would people have figured out how to form lines?

You just won dumbest comment of the day /golfclap

indigenous says

tatupu70 says

indigenous says

The idea that we will not survive or even try to survive without government is complete bullshit.

I'm sorry--who do you think has that idea?

You

Excellent--another member of the reading comprehension failure club.

yup1 says

errc says

yup1 says

Red pill = soup lines

In your fantasy world where the financial system would have been left to collapse under its own weight, how on earth do you figure that there would have been and soup, or lines for that matter?

Without berkshire hathaway and WFC there to take their vig on their markers of wealth, how would anyone figure out how to make soup? How would people have figured out how to form lines?

You just won dumbest comment of the day /golfclap

Wow you just won dumbest response of the day,,,,

Don't be afraid to try and respond. Its obvious as a whore for the State, you don't want to engage in discussion, but its really not that scary. Go ahead and give it a try

They say heroin is the problem, go figure, it is blue pill addiction that is the real problem.

To quote the infamous duck

All money and finance is a game using markers with arbitrary real values. The only thing that matters in the end is who controls productive capital

----------

So now, by allowing the banks to fail, and allowing the bad actors to realize their insolvency, what would happen?

Would all of us working stiffs all of a sudden decide to stop doing all of the productive work that keeps the world spinning? Just because the ownership class went belly up and lost their markers on labor?

Wouldn't people instead decide to work more, now that the long line of grubby handed leeches had their means of siphoning wealth, destroyed?

errc says

Would all of us working stiffs all of a sudden decide to stop doing all of the productive work that keeps the world spinning? Just because the ownership class went belly up and lost their markers on labor?

Of course not. Just like in 1929--there were plenty of people who wanted to work. Yet, despite that, all the factories remained closed, and people froze and went hungry.

Amazing, isn't it?

tatupu70 says

errc says

Would all of us working stiffs all of a sudden decide to stop doing all of the productive work that keeps the world spinning? Just because the ownership class went belly up and lost their markers on labor?

Of course not. Just like in 1929--there were plenty of people who wanted to work. Yet, despite that, all the factories remained closed, and people froze and went hungry.

Amazing, isn't it?

This isn't 1929

with all the technological advancements, and the information age revolution, we working humans would certainly find work arounds, and a new, better system would take this outdated systems place in a heartbeat

That was 1929

This is 2014

Much has since changed.

errc says

with all the technological advancements, and the information age revolution, we working humans would certainly find work arounds, and a new, better system would take this outdated systems place in a heartbeat

It astounds me that there are so many people that believe that "a new, better system" would magically appear. Will it rain gumdrops under this new system too?

Call it Crazy says

But now, they just go collect UE and Extended UE, Food Stamps, Section 8, heating supplements, Long Term Disability, etc....

Amazing, isn't it?

You're right-that would help lessen the pain somewhat. So you wouldn't freeze and starve to death at least.

It is relevant to talk about the anatomy of group think.

The result of group think is the Dark Ages, Nazi Germany, Eugenics, Keynesian economics.

Anything worthy comes from an individual.

I don't think individually most people/congressman are particularly bad but once co-opted into the group they do bad things. As a group is the source of mass hysteria.

There are architects of group think and they are evil. Think who is the man behind the curtain, was it Hitler or the money guys was it FDR or the the Jekyl Island guys, was it LBJ or the defense contractors?

The result of group think is agreement.

The product of the individual is objective.

tatupu70 says

errc says

with all the technological advancements, and the information age revolution, we working humans would certainly find work arounds, and a new, better system would take this outdated systems place in a heartbeat

It astounds me that there are so many people that believe that "a new, better system" would magically appear. Will it rain gumdrops under this new system too?

Umm, your reading comprehension skills are either severely lacking, or you're putting your own words in my mouth. There's no magic about it

Solar panels
Bitcoin
The internet

errc says

This isn't 1929

with all the technological advancements, and the information age revolution,
we working humans would certainly find work arounds, and a new, better system
would take this outdated systems place in a heartbeat

Tell that to the fellow from Zimbabwe. Somalia also sounds like a lovely place.

yup1 says

These companies would have failed. Citi, [...], US Steel, and with that the rest of the economy would have gone down in flames.

Because you assume that the only alternative is to let the world go down in flame.

It isn't. This is a false dichotomy.

errc says

Solar panels

Bitcoin

The internet

How do solar panels, bitcoin or the internet help any? Please educate me on how exactly those technologies would avert another Great Depression.

indigenous says

The group think was the agreement that there should be slavery. BTW there have been more white slaves than black slaves. The group agreement was also that there should be a civil war engineered by Lincoln. BTW he did not care about ending slavery at all.

The individual brought us abolition not the group. BTW slavery was ended in the world without war.

You are delusional. History based on your fantasy of reality is well fantasy.

I thought the blue pill was a matrix reference. I did not think that you actually are actively taking blue pills. Get your dose adjusted........

Heraclitusstudent says

Because you assume that the only alternative is to let the world go down in flame.

It isn't. This is a false dichotomy.

It is if the only other choice being offered is doing nothing--which is was being discussed.

indigenous says

Anything worthy comes from an individual.

Whether we like it or not, we are not a set of individuals doing their own things. We are a society where each person depends on a bunch of others. This is no longer a wild frontier. There are dependencies involved. That requires top down organization. Like every person in a city depends on a government to organize a sanitation system, or they are doomed to die from cholera.

Group think is demonstrated here where the usual suspects don't have an original thought just a regurgitating of memes

indigenous says

Group think is demonstrated here where the usual suspects don't have an original thought just a regurgitating of memes

You are regurgitating Ayn Rand how the hell is that original?

Heraclitusstudent says

indigenous says

Anything worthy comes from an individual.

Whether we like it or not, we are not a set of individuals doing their own things. We are a society where each person depends on a bunch of others. This is no longer a wild frontier. There are dependencies involved. That requires top down organization. Like every person in a city depends on a government to organize a sanition system, or they are doomed to die from cholera.

Individuals working in cooperation are still individuals. Government is not a monolith it is a bunch of individuals as well but with very little accountability and to the degree it is perceived as a monolith it allows them to act through group think

yup1 says

indigenous says

The group think was the agreement that there should be slavery. BTW there have been more white slaves than black slaves. The group agreement was also that there should be a civil war engineered by Lincoln. BTW he did not care about ending slavery at all.

The individual brought us abolition not the group. BTW slavery was ended in the world without war.

You are delusional. History based on your fantasy of reality is well fantasy.

I thought the blue pill was a matrix reference. I did not think that you actually are actively taking blue pills. Get your dose adjusted........

That is NOT an argument.

tatupu70 says

It is if the only other choice being offered is doing nothing--which is was being discussed.

I'll give you an other choice:
1 - raise rates, stop any subsidies of debts (mortgages, student debt). Stop encouraging people to go in debt.
2 - raise taxes to finance the government
3 - Print money to compensate debt deflation. But do it without debt, from the liability side of the Feds balance sheet: send a check of $1000 (or whatever) to every person in the country every month to maintain a stable inflation level. The same check to every person, Warren Buffett or Joe six-pack.

Instead what we are doing now, at the country level, is the same that homeowners were doing in 2005: increasing their leverage and spending the extra equity. It's a suicidal way of keeping an ugly reality behind an increasingly tattered veil of fake wealth.