patrick.net

Honest Abe says

War is the product of government and not of private enterprise

Thankfully, we haven't yet given private enterprise the right to wage war. The British certainly did though.

Honest Abe says

Nor do Governments do not have any accountability

Right, because we don't have elections or journalists or anything. Obviously government officials never are held accountable for any bad thing that they ever do, which is why we keep overturning congressional control every decade or so.

Honest Abe says

When private businesses do not deliver a product of service that people want, they go out of business.

Or they declare bankruptcy, recapitalize, and live to screw it up again. Or they get bailed out by taxpayers if they have the right connections.

Honest Abe says

Governments, however, do not close up shop and disappear, even when the outcome they create is horrific.

Indeed, every government currently in power has been in power since the dawn of civilization. No government has ever been overthrown, conquered, or dissolved. Ever.

Honest Abe says

Government has created an economic catastrophe

[citation needed]

Honest Abe says

as such we cannot rationally expect that government can get us out of it

Alright.

Honest Abe says

The answers needed will not come from government, but from private businesses - the source of all rational solutions (if government would get out of the way) and the source of all wealth

Indeed. As we all know, there was no such thing as wealth before capitalism, and societies that do not have private businesses have no wealth at all.

Honest Abe says

Part of the problem, again, is that the government is engaged in full scale "class warfare".

Indeed, they keep fucking the middle class in order to make rich donors happy.

Honest Abe says

A byproduct of a successful business, producing something that people want, is profit - which is somehow now a dirty word.

In what language?

Honest Abe says

And the more regulation businesses get strapped with, they either go out of business, fire employees to downsize, or go off-shore.

Yeah, off-shore to countries where businesses are free from government intervention, like China!

Honest Abe says

The reason we have great wealth disparity is because we have massive regulation which squashes out the little guy and consolidates power and money with a smaller and smaller number of big, powerful, highly profitable businesses (Newtons third law at work).

An opposite reaction to regulation would be chaos, the exact opposite of consolidation. I see you know as much about physics as you do economics.

There is no evidence to support the claim that it's any harder to be a "little guy" today than it ever has been at any other point in history.

Honest Abe says

BTW, Sixty trillion dollars of unfunded liability cannot be sucked out of the "top 1%" (those earning more than approx $325,000 per year). With President Osama, Joe Bidden, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Barbara Boxer, et al - we're doomed.

Ah, right, the old "unfunded liabilities argument". Because it's fun to scare people with big numbers when you ignore things like time periods and inflation.

Hey guys, in 2100 AD did you know that your personal tax obligations may be MILLIONS OF DOLLARS A YEAR?

Kevin says

Attempts to argue against specific points of Dishonest Abe's post:

Here's a diagram that will show why you are wasting your time:

Kevin says

Thankfully, we haven't yet given private enterprise the right to wage war. The British certainly did though.

We are pretty damn close to it however. Remember Blackwater, that still goes down under different names.

Kevin, I'm at work so I don't have time to address all of your misconceptions. I will educate you on one issue however; due to the excessive over-regulation of the Dodd-Frank bill, it NOW takes ONE MILLION DOLLARS - CASH - to legally open or maintain an existing loan company.

So how can the "little guy" open a loan company now?????Since you don't know the answer, I'll tell you - almost no one can - now. Like I pointed out. When overzelous over-regulation happens, the little guy gets squeezed out and money and power gets concentrated in a smaller and smaller number of large corporations. Thats what's happening today, in case you haven't noticed. Government over regulation is the cause of wealth disparity. (Cause and effect. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. But this is way too easy for you to understand).

Your eloquent, elitist arguments fail the common sense test, sorry, you also fail the common sense test.

Todays book recommendation: The Outline of History, H.G. Wells

Kevin?

Honest Abe, I too am at work and thus cannot explain to you exactly horribly flawed your line of reasoning is. I can, however, afford the time to educate you on one issue: In Ohio, the government is conducting zombie themed emergency drills to ensure the population is prepared for certain types of catastrophes. Why is the government attempting to prepare us for a zombie invasion? I will tell you why - it's obvious, really. The zombies are coming and the government is keeping the lid on this to prevent mass hysteria. Since the US government is attempting to PROTECT us from zombies, I can only conclude that enemies of the US government are zombies. You have been making inarticulate (some would even say .. zombie-brained) arguments lambasting the government for some time now - specifically with the goal of encouraging people to support less government regulation of corporations. You must be a zombie, and your support of large corporations forces me to conclude that they (corps), too, are zombies, or at least zombie run.

You are not, as Vicente suggested, a troll, you are a zombie. Trolls can be defeated by fire, but zombies cannot - your clever troll-guise will not protect you any longer, now that we know that fire will not work. Now, we just need to figure out what the best zombie weakness to exploit is...Patrick, I suggest we start a new thread for that, but is there any way to prevent zombies (or trolls - just to be safe) from reading a particular thread?

Besides...Governments do the bidding of business. Bechtel, KBR and Halliburton don't reluctantly go off to distant lands to support their country.

We fight wars for many reasons--cheap resources, cheap labor, geographical influence, but these are almost all to facilitate our business' profitability.

Honest Abe says

Kevin?

Sorry, I'm employed and can't reply to you in the middle of the afternoon.

Kevin says

Honest Abe says

Government has created an economic catastrophe

[citation needed]

Here's an interesting chart:

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?g=3av

annual debt take-on by private sector.

Red is finance, blue is household, and yellow is corporate.

One can see that government, no, wait, that's Wall Street, got way the fuck over their heads in debt last decade.

This, in Honest Abe's world, was due to the nefarious soclalist, undoubtedly hatched in Kenya in the 1970s, plots to destroy capitalism once and for all, even though the conservatives had been running the Fed since 1987, Congress since 1995, and the White House since 2001.

The system flying apart of its own unregulated and deregulated faults -- that's simply unpossible.

Le Troll says

BTW, Sixty trillion dollars of unfunded liability cannot be sucked out of the "top 1%"

Sixty trillion certain can if this trend continues:

Of course, most of that unfunded liability is Medicare, and we can't afford to have our health costs continue eating up more and more of the GDP.

Other countries pay half what we do per-capita for their health care, and get universal coverage to boot. But they're TEH SOCIALISTS, so they don't really exist.

Nomo, you completely and entirely miss the point. In the past a little guy with the proper license could open shop, contact lenders and establish relationships that would allow his company to originate loans (brokered through B of A, Wells, and any of a hundred other sources).

Now, its the same process, EXCEPT, that the little guy needs ONE MILLION DOLLARS cash reserves in order to open a loan company...thanks to the oppressive government regulations imposed by the Dodd-Frank bill.

Competition is crushed, and the available business flows to the few remaining businesses who enjoy increased income which exacerbates the wealth gap you liberals complain so much about. But I bet you still don't get it.

Todays book: When Money Dies, Adam Fergusson

Yeah man, there's no competition in loan origination anymore. Didn't you get the memo?

Loan originators, or mortgage brokers, are merely a distribution channel for bank capital. Since when are loan originators IN COMPETITION with the banks that issue them lines of credit to loan out? They are in it together (for better or for worse), and the regulation of these distribution channels are merely to keep the abuse (i.e. shoddy, fradulent lending, lax underwriting, etc.) from happening in the first place. Such mortgage-broker-capital-distribution-channels offered such poor oversight of quality control, that so many of them went out of business when the bubble burst - which gave banks no way to go after them when their shoddy loans blew up. The one million dollar cash requirement would seem to make sense in requiring the loan originators to have some skin in the game - should they issue bad loans, now they will be required to buy them back, and perhaps won't close shop so fast. Good old Abey, better get some better glasses - the CAMERA OBSCURA effect has you seeing the whole world UPSIDE DOWN!!!!

None of you liberal progressive socialists are willing to look into the LAW and see what it actually says. That's the problem with you liberals, facts don't matter - what matters is how it "feels". Thats the "do-gooder" mentality. You'd rather throw barbs and poke fun at someone about something you know nothing about. That's exactly why you people are the enemy within, your kind is destroying America and you don't even realize it.

Here is basically what the law says: Banks and other lenders that do business (arrange loans) with FHA are REQUIRED to hold at least one million dollars that can be used to repay the agency, for losses involved with fraud.

Todays book recommendation: Capitalism and Freedom, by Milton Friedman

I must be really bored to unignore Abe, but since I did, I have a question for Abe that he wouldn't ever be albe to answer. (i.e. he doesn't FEEL like answering, even though he claims he isn't all emotion and bluster and fact proof himself)

Here's the question for "honest" Abe. Besides making small lenders accountable for fraudulent loans they write, what are some of the other positive things that the commie liberal "do-gooders" naively intended to accomplish with the Dodd-Frank Bill ?

Honest Abe says

odays book recommendation: Capitalism and Freedom, by Milton Friedma

Yes I am very impressed by someone who managed a life long academic career postulating economic theories without ever once actually participating in the economy. Especially someone who started out as a strong keyensian and supporter of the new deal, metamorphosized into a moneterist, then ended up as a free market laissez-faire libertarian. Nothing like having a consistent set of core values to believe in.

Honest Abe says

That's exactly why you people are the enemy within, your kind is destroying America and you don't even realize it.

Geeze you sound paranoid. Did you get your daily does of RAUNCH LIMBAUGH today?? You sound like a mere simulacra "ditto-head" channeling his thoughts. Can't you come up with your own?

Honest Abe says

Here is basically what the law says: Banks and other lenders that do business (arrange loans) with FHA are REQUIRED to hold at least one million dollars that can be used to repay the agency, for losses involved with fraud.

And what is wrong with this, if keeps fraud and incompetence in check. How can this even be disputed?? BAD LOANS written by mortgage brokers aided in sinking many small banks in the post credit bubble housing crash, and further add to the bailout costs shouldered by us taxpayers. But I suppose that makes me sound like a "liberal-progressive-socialist-communist-environmental-vegatarian-atheist-transgendered-homosexual" of course... The EVIL OTHER....

Actually, people that don't want accountability for the dishonest, bad-faith actors in the credit system (or any other sphere of influence) are, as YOU say "the enemy within...destroying America" but sadly these people DO realize it since it is intentional and they just don't care, cuz they'll get the taxpayer "slush-fund" to pick up the bill with their political connections...

Hell, they hire their own lobbyists to represent their interests and write the laws on behalf of the elected representatives who don't - again, as YOU say - "look into the LAW and see what it actually says." Imagine that, elected congressional representatives authoring laws - which you and I have to live by - that they themselves haven't even written, let alone know what is in them. Don't think the corrupted "enemy within" good-ol-boy network exists: see these articles, right from the horses mouth himself:

http://www.cnbc.com/id/45249857" >http://www.cnbc.com/id/45249857

and

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18560_162-57323221/congress-insiders-above-the-law/?tag=nl.e882."

There are plenty more resources exposing this - but I'm sure you will see only what you want to see. It's called the BACKFIRE effect:

http://youarenotsosmart.com/2011/06/10/the-backfire-effect/"

Have a nice day! ;-)

Honest Abe says

Here is basically what the law says: Banks and other lenders that do business (arrange loans) with FHA are REQUIRED to hold at least one million dollars that can be used to repay the agency, for losses involved with fraud.

Yes, everyone else is stupid, but you're the one claiming that the government is preventing anyone from being able to make loans without a million dollars by pointing to a requirement from the Federal Housing Administration.

Yeah man, how horrible for the government to require that GOVERNMENT GUARANTEED LOANS are only being handled by people with some incentive not to defraud the government?

You do realize that it's possible to loan money to people without the FHA, right?

Next up, I'm guessing that you're going to complain about capital requirements in order to qualify for FDIC coverage.

Honest Abe says

Banks and other lenders that do business (arrange loans) with FHA are REQUIRED to hold at least one million dollars that can be used to repay the agency, for losses involved with fraud.

If what you're saying is true, what exactly forces these lenders to do business with FHA? This is an idiotic complaint. In order to lower fraud with respect to government-guaranteed FHA loans, the government has specific requirements that a broker must meet. If you don't want to do business with the government, you can avoid those requirements. This is really pretty simple, although apparently not simple enough for "honest" Abe.

Maybe you should think for yourself sometimes instead of repeating BS talking points.

All of you are still missing the point that one of the major causes of wealth disparity is government over-regulation. The fact that a "little guy" can't afford to open a mortgage company due to the onerous cash requirements concentrates the wealth in a smaller number of businesses...which become more profitable. In other words the rich get richer because the little guy is forced out of competition.

Certainly you understand that - right?

Honest Abe says

The fact that a "little guy" can't afford to open a mortgage company due to the onerous cash requirements concentrates the wealth in a smaller number of businesses...which become more profitable.

Again, this is stupid. Don't do business with FHA if you can't hack it and can't meet their anti-fraud requirements.

The problem is that you're not making a coherent argument. With your viewpoint, what you should be arguing is that FHA shouldn't be guaranteeing loans. Instead you're making a dumb argument that FHA shouldn't be able to prevent fraud when it guarantees a loan. Crazy that I have to make this argument for you because you can't think for yourself and instead repeat ignorant talking points that aren't even internally consistent.

The little guy can do just fine as long as he doesn't do business with FHA.

I've NEVER made an argument that FHA shouldn't guarantee loans. I've repeatedly stated that oppressive government regulations PREVENT competition by implementing too many barriers...which concentrates wealth and exacerbates the wealth disparity.

BTW, the little guy cannot do "just fine" in a low to moderate income area in which 60% of the loans originated are FHA. The solution to government caused problems are not additional government regulations, well duh.

Todays book recommendation Currency Wars by Jim Rickards

Honest Abe says

BTW, the little guy cannot do "just fine" in a low to moderate income area in which 60% of the loans originated are FHA. The solution to government caused problems are not additional government regulations, well duh.

Again, this is still internally consistent. You believe that FHA-guaranteed subsidized loans should be available, but you think that there should be no regulations around them to prevent fraud. That really makes no sense. You want no government intervention in government intervention. :p

Corntrollio, Kevin, Bob, nono...zombies are after people with brains...you're all safe.

Go ahead an open a business, exclude up to 60% of market, and see how successful you'd be - hahaha.

Todays book recommendation, especially for liberals: Liberty Defined, by Dr. Ron Paul

Honest Abe says

Go ahead an open a business, exclude up to 60% of market, and see how successful you'd be - hahaha.

What does this have to do with the previous discussion? You can't even get your snark right.

You are like those people on the "I'm a 53 percenter" site who had government jobs or received government benefits and now are trying to claim they're self-made -- a ridiculous hypocrite.

Again, I ask you, why would you complain that government regulation is preventing businesses from engaging in a business that only exists because of government regulation? That is a ridiculously inconsistent position, and you have yet to answer the question. It's hilarious that you're even complaining about this.

I'll make it simpler so even you can understand: government regulations cause wealth disparity (and war, and dependency, and unnecessary taxes, and loss of freedom, and loss of privacy, and loss of private property, and oppression,etc.).

You're like the frog in a kettle over the fire which was just started. You haven't yet realized the temperature is rising, but it is getting warmer, and warmer. Soon it will become uncomfortable, then hot, then boiling...except for some reason you don't realize what's happening to you, do you?

How much of your freedom must you lose before you realize it? Read: The Road to Serfdom, that will help.

Honest Abe says

I'll make it simpler so even you can understand: government regulations cause wealth disparity (and war, and dependency, and unnecessary taxes, and loss of freedom, and loss of privacy, and loss of private property, and oppression,etc.).

Then advocate eliminating FHA loans entirely instead of trying to rig some bizarre FHA system that can't even prevent fraud. Simple as that. Why aren't you arguing to eliminate the FHA loan program entirely? Explain.

Again, you don't seem to understand that your complaint is internally inconsistent. No use arguing with someone who is too clueless to understand that. Reading fad of the day books won't help anyone.

Denial is willful and deliberate ignorance. You're the frog getting cooked, but you still don't know it.

Yes I read. May I suggest that you start reading too? There is a whole world of knowledge out there - that obviously you haven't been exposed to.

Honest Abe says

Denial is willful and deliberate ignorance

Yes, it really is. Unfortunately, you are too blind to see that you are being inconsistent in your rantings here. If you're going to complain about government intervention, you're missing the big picture and focusing on a small one. Good day, sir -- you obviously have nothing substantive to say here.