Merica's main problem: corruption

**26 Inf** · 05-08-15, 21:44

ramairthree and ColdDeadHand: Whoa guys, didn't want to start a tussle! This is what I meant:

Newsreel Announcer (archival): The tremendous crowds which you see gathered outside the stock exchange are due to the greatest crash in the history of the New York Stock Exchange in market prices.

Narrator: December 31st, New Year’s Eve. The crash and its terrible consequences were still in the future. Financial leaders, everyone celebrated what had been a decade of prosperity and boundless optimism. They thought the party would last forever. They called it “The New Era,” 1929. All the hope and promise and illusion of the 20s converged in that one year.

John Kenneth Galbraith, Economist: The United States is afflicted with new eras. Let us not think for a moment that the illusion, the aberration of the 1920s was unique. It is intimately a part of the American character.

Craig Mitchell, Son of Charles E. Mitchell: The mood of the era, I think, can best be remembered by the hit song – was that 1929, Blue Skies?

Rita Mitchell Cushman, Daughter of Charles E. Mitchell: In the 20s, yes, ’28, ’29.

Craig Mitchell, Son of Charles E. Mitchell: How did that go?

Rita Mitchell Cushman, Daughter of Charles E. Mitchell: Smiling at me…

Craig Mitchell, Son of Charles E. Mitchell: Yeah. Nothing but blue skies do I see. Yes.

Rita Mitchell Cushman, Daughter of Charles E. Mitchell: ...Never saw the sun shining so bright, Never saw things going so right. Gray days, all of them gone, nothing but blue skies from now on.

That was the whole tenor of the day. I mean, people believed that everything was going to be great always, always. There was a feeling of optimism in the air that you cannot even describe today.

Rita Mitchell Cushman, Daughter of Charles E. Mitchell: And everyone seemed to have an interest in the stock market. Certainly, the boot black, the tailor, the grocer owned shares of one kind or another.

Narrator: This was the first time that many ordinary Americans had begun to invest in stocks. A stock, a share of a company, is bought and sold here on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. The stocks themselves have no fixed value. As in an auction, if the stock is in demand, its price goes up. No demand and the price goes down. For almost eight straight years, stock values had been rising. By 1929, there seemed to be no upper limits in this world of paper, numbers and dreams.

Michael Nesbitt, Grandson of Michael J. Meehan: It was an arena of unbounded opportunity where somebody like my grandfather could come into it and make a fortune. So many people made so much money in the market that late in the 20s, it seemed that you just couldn’t go wrong buying stocks in American companies.

Narrator: Here was a whole new way to make a fortune. Unlike the Carnegies and the Rockefellers of previous decades, who built steel mills and dug oil wells, men like Michael Meehan, Jesse Livermore and Charles Mitchell had amassed their fortunes buying and selling stocks, pieces of paper. The public was fascinated. Bankers, brokers and speculators had become celebrities and they lived like royalty.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexpe...sh-transcript/

Que to: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zYMD_W_r3Fg

As far as I'm concerned guys like Chainsaw Al Dunlap started us on our descent.....

**Sensei** · 05-08-15, 22:49

Glad to see that socialism is alive and well on M4C.com...

**FromMyColdDeadHand** · 05-08-15, 23:24

Corruption is really hard to have with out some kind of interference in the market. I've done some work in India and people complain about the corruption, but most of it is at the hands of bureaucrats- put in place by govt.

A lot of the financial screwyness we have is due to implications of our tax code. I saw an analysis that a large portion of Soros' wealth came from manipulating gains and how they were taxed. Sure you can blame the financier, but it only comes with queering the tax code that things like this happen. Fannie and Freddie in the mortgage crisis are great examples of govt screwing with a market in a big way.

The Fed screwing with interest rates and inflating the currency. The interesting thing is that the money stays at high levels while not stimulating demand at lower economic levels. You get asset inflation with out wage increases- Progressive trumpet the recovery and then complain about the increasing wealth gap- all while we screw up the unskilled labor market by importing labor for any jobs we can't ship overseas - for business we drive offshore because of our screwy tax code.

**26 Inf** · 05-08-15, 23:33

Originally Posted by Sensei

Glad to see that socialism is alive and well on M4C.com...

Please help keep me out of trouble by giving me some discussion. okay?

I don't believe my views are socialist by any definition:

Merriam-Webster: a way of organizing a society in which major industries are owned and controlled by the government rather than by individual people and companies;

Wiki: Socialism is a social and economic system characterised by social ownership of the means of production and co-operative management of the economy,[1][2] as well as a political theory and movement that aims at the establishment of such a system.[3][4] "Social ownership" may refer to cooperative enterprises, common ownership, state ownership, citizen ownership of equity, or any combination of these.[5] There are many varieties of socialism and there is no single definition encapsulating all of them.[6] They differ in the type of social ownership they advocate, the degree to which they rely on markets or planning, how management is to be organised within productive institutions, and the role of the state in constructing socialism.[7]

A socialist economy is based on the principle of production for use, to directly satisfy economic demand and human needs, and objects are valued by their use-value, as opposed to the principle of production for profit and accumulation of capital.

I don't believe that any of the statements I've made would jive with those definitions - I'm just not too down with 'eff you buddy, I've got mine' which is what I think society has by and large been turned into. I believe Chainsaw Al began the move to businesses not thinking of the personal costs of their decisions, thinking of employees as assets rather than people. There is an enmity between employer and employee based upon this that doesn't need to exist. If my belief that a 5% ROI and giving employees decent benefits rather than an 8% ROI and treating employees like minimum wage serfs, is socialism, then, yep, I'm a ****ing socialist.

My belief is that the basis of much of our problem is unfettered greed with little or no accountability. Which I think is pretty much what I said in my own inimitable way in an earlier post.

Regarding the post which you responded to, I simply was trying to go back and illustrate what I meant by:

'I feel that one of the great downfalls of our Nation is the fact that we have an entire class of folks who have become wealthy, not by physical labor, or physical creativity, but rather by the manipulation of the idea of money, moving it back and forth and creating no physical product.'

If you don't understand that our current economic model is a house of cards just waiting to collapse, then, my friend, we have greater problems then vastly differing definitions of socialism.

**26 Inf** · 05-08-15, 23:46

Originally Posted by FromMyColdDeadHand

Corruption is really hard to have with out some kind of interference in the market. I've done some work in India and people complain about the corruption, but most of it is at the hands of bureaucrats- put in place by govt.

A lot of the financial screwyness we have is due to implications of our tax code. I saw an analysis that a large portion of Soros' wealth came from manipulating gains and how they were taxed. Sure you can blame the financier, but it only comes with queering the tax code that things like this happen. Fannie and Freddie in the mortgage crisis are great examples of govt screwing with a market in a big way.

The Fed screwing with interest rates and inflating the currency. The interesting thing is that the money stays at high levels while not stimulating demand at lower economic levels. You get asset inflation with out wage increases- Progressive trumpet the recovery and then complain about the increasing wealth gap- all while we screw up the unskilled labor market by importing labor for any jobs we can't ship overseas - for business we drive offshore because of our screwy tax code.

First of all I have to say that I understand that many of you believe in an entirely unregulated free market, while I am more of a Keynes guy, believing in minimal, appropriate regulation; to make it worse I believe that the Laffer Curve is voodoo economics, and unlike GHWB, I'll stand by that.

Getting past that, what are your ideas on taxation - flat tax, federal sales tax, or different progressive? From my simple perspective a sales tax is preferable, largely because it is a use tax and should in theory tax the shadow economies.

**TAZ** · 05-09-15, 00:24

Corruption, greed and all the other vices of the human animal have been around and will continue to be around. No changing that. I tend to be of the opinion that corruption is proportional to the amount of idiotic beurocracies that people have to deal with.

As much as I'd like to see the economy and profitability driven by production; I have no issue with someone doing something fairly and making themselves richer than snot. I believe in free market economics backed by limited regulation whose sole purpose is to insure equal access to the opportunity. Those regulations need to be objectively and consistently enforced. The whole justice is blind concept.

Whoever stated that the problem isn't corruption, but rather a complete acceptance of it but he nail on the head. If you routinely hold ALL people accountable for their deeds 90% of the problems we face could be managed. Unfortunately that isn't the end goal of anyone in power these days. Nobody wants to solve a thing; just take advantage of it.

**Sensei** · 05-09-15, 08:38

Originally Posted by 26 Inf

Please help keep me out of trouble by giving me some discussion.

I was referring to the person who spent most of the first page lamenting the fact that labor is not the wealthiest occupation in America. I have to shake my head whenever I read about the labor, class, producers, and the so called soft belly of capitalism. People who believe this crap need to stop typing because the operating system, microchips, and software they are using were conceived by some of America's richest people.

**CatSnipah** · 05-09-15, 08:40

Originally Posted by 26 Inf

I agree with one caveat - I would change corruption to accountability.

Corruption, inefficiency and immorality flourish when people are not held accountable for their actions, when they don't have to answer to the 'all' but rather 'the few.'

I find it humorous that the reading you linked is from 'zerohedge' because I feel that one of the great downfalls of our Nation is the fact that we have an entire class of folks who have become wealthy, not by physical labor, or physical creativity, but rather by the manipulation of the idea of money, moving it back and forth and creating no physical product.

It's kind of two-faced for me to say that because due to my investments I'm getting ready to punch out at roughly 1.5 times my current salary, but there you go.

Great post.

**26 Inf** · 05-09-15, 11:31

Originally Posted by Sensei

I was referring to the person who spent most of the first page lamenting the fact that labor is not the wealthiest occupation in America. I have to shake my head whenever I read about the labor, class, producers, and the so called soft belly of capitalism. People who believe this crap need to stop typing because the operating system, microchips, and software they are using were conceived by some of America's richest people.

Well, crap, I just wasted bandwidth! Good day to you sir!