|
|
|
Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
 Posted - 12/03/2008 : 09:02:04 [Permalink]
|
Originally posted by Hittman
So if Joe Dirtbag from Slummerville puts ten bucks in a savings account, the bank now has to finance depilated buildings in his neighborhood? Brilliant! |
No, the bank would have to offer loans with the same criteria and terms as they do to Richy Rich over in Richville. If the owner of the delapidated buildings can't meet the requirements, no loans. The bank was never obligated to take Joe Dirtbag's ten bucks in the first place, and if they hadn't, they wouldn't have had to offer loans. "Sorry, we don't serve Slummerville residents" is all they had to say. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
 |
|
|
chaloobi
SFN Regular
1620 Posts |
Posted - 12/03/2008 : 12:43:30 [Permalink]
|
Originally posted by Hittman
| Second, the idea that a loan from the government that was paid back with interest and that kept tens of thousands of people working good jobs for thirty years was somehow a bad move because current economic conditions are killing the industry isn't just bull shit, it's stupid. |
My argument has nothing to do with the current situation, but with the morality and unintended consequences of the government stepping in.
If they hadn't, if Chrysler had been allowed to fail, the people affected wouldn't have been out of work for thirty years. They would have found other work, or the same work with a different company. |
Maybe. Maybe not. In the end, it was a short, profitable investment by the government that kept those people working at that company at good wages for thirty years. Nobody knows what would have happened if the government didn't make that loan. It may well have been better, but maybe not. It could have been a lot worse. I think it's a bad idea to throw dice with thousands of poeple's lives if you don't have to.
| Meanwhile, the surviving companies would have had leverage to use against abusive union contracts. |
Maybe, maybe not. Those companies have had leverage with every contract they've negotiated, they just chose the easy route. You don't have to destroy a giant company and bust a union to get labor concessions.
| Some of Chrysler's assets would have been purchased by their competitors. Foreign car makers might have built US plants sooner. It would not have been the end of the world for anyone. |
The entire US economy could go down the drain and it wouldn't be the end of the world. Fortunately that's not the criteria for most decisions. Nor should mights and maybes, not when the lives of tens of thousands of people are at risk of turning upside down.
| What's the cutoff? How big do you have to be before the government throws taxpayer money your way? |
Whatever the cutoff is, putting several million people out of work in an economic crisis makes the cut.
| If it's right to do it for a big company, it's right to do it for a small company. |
Obviously not. 
| Third, it IS the government's job to safeguard the economy for the benefit of it's citizens. That often means curtailing the reckless stupidity of unregulated capitalism. Too bad for all of us the Bush Administration forgot what it's job was. |
The best way to safeguard the economy is A) prevent fraud and B) get the hell out of the way. Bush neglected A. Carter and Clinton ignored B. And the result is today's disaster. |
Way too simplistic. Getting out of the way might bolster profits - in between economic collapses caused by reckless greed - but it won't protect the vast majority of citizens from the huge variety of abuses that strict profit motive encourages. Capitalism absolutely must be regulated. If profit drops a little to ensure corporations arn't abusing citizens, then that's the price of doing business. People are always and every time more important than profit. |
-Chaloobi
|
|
|
|
Hittman
Skeptic Friend
134 Posts |
Posted - 12/04/2008 : 08:22:13 [Permalink]
|
| No, the bank would have to offer loans with the same criteria and terms as they do to Richy Rich over in Richville. If the owner of the delapidated buildings can't meet the requirements, no loans. The bank was never obligated to take Joe Dirtbag's ten bucks in the first place, and if they hadn't, they wouldn't have had to offer loans. "Sorry, we don't serve Slummerville residents" is all they had to say. |
You're making excuses for a shitty policy that created our current shitty economic situation.
If the majority of Slummerville residents are minorities, the bank will get their ass sued off. If they're black, they've got to put up with Al Sharpton on their doorstep, which is torture.
Those requirements were written to force banks into making those risky loans. That is dangerously bad policy, as our current economic situation proves.
| Maybe. Maybe not. In the end, it was a short, profitable investment by the government that kept those people working at that company at good wages for thirty years. Nobody knows what would have happened if the government didn't make that loan. It may well have been better, but maybe not. It could have been a lot worse. I think it's a bad idea to throw dice with thousands of poeple's lives if you don't have to. |
Here's where we differ. Life is a throw of the dice. There are no certainties, only probabilities, and the prudent player bets when the odds are best. The odds are that letting the market work will provide efficiencies and advancements and improvements, often at the expense of specific individuals, but benefiting society as a whole.
| Nor should mights and maybes, not when the lives of tens of thousands of people are at risk of turning upside down. |
My life turned upside down when my company laid me off. Where is my bailout? Why don't I get one?
If it's right to do it for a big company, it's right to do it for a small company.
Obviously not. |
[/quote]
Could you explain that? It's not obvious to me.
I estimate, conservatively, that the layoff at my last job took about $1.5 million out of the local economy, and will probably cost another half million in unemployment expenses. Twenty families have been severely impacted. Why are our twenty families less important than factory workers?
Another local company is closing and laying off 175 workers. Is that enough for a bailout?
No? What's the cutoff? A thousand? Ten thousand? Where, exactly, is that number? Please be specific.
[quote] Way too simplistic. Getting out of the way might bolster profits - in between economic collapses caused by reckless greed - but it won't protect the vast majority of citizens from the huge variety of abuses that strict profit motive encourages. Capitalism absolutely must be regulated. If profit drops a little to ensure corporations arn't abusing citizens, then that's the price of doing business. [/quote]
You sound very socialist.
Business exists to make a profit. That isn't good or bad, it just is. And that profit motive has given us the wealthiest economy with the highest standard of living in the history of the world.
[quote] People are always and every time more important than profit. [/quote]
That's a false dichotomy.
Your company only cares about you because you can make them a profit. And that fact gives you your standard of living. It's not a bad thing. It's not an evil thing. It's reality. Make them a profit and they'll continue to pay you. Stop making them a profit and they won't. Use a union to force them to pay you too much, and they will eventually fail, and won't be able to continue to pay you. Hook up with a company with a bad business model and they will fail, and stop paying you. Convince Uncle Sam that other people should shore them up because their business model sucks, and they might continue paying you, but at the expense of fellow citizens, who are being forced, at the point of a gun, to pay for your company's mistake. That's theft. It's not only bad for the economy, it's immoral and wrong.
Failure is part of capitalism. Just as death of the individual allows evolution to take place and improve the species, death of a company allows the economy to improve via a better allocation of resources. Interfering with that always, always has huge unintended consequences.
|
When a vampire Jehovah's Witness knocks on your door, don't invite him in. Blood Witness: http://bloodwitness.com
Get Smartenized® with the Quick Hitts blog: http://www.davehitt.com/blog2/index.phpBlog |
|
|
|
Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 12/04/2008 : 09:48:37 [Permalink]
|
Originally posted by Hittman
You're making excuses for a shitty policy that created our current shitty economic situation. |
No, you're making excuses for why the government is at fault instead of the banks.| If the majority of Slummerville residents are minorities, the bank will get their ass sued off. |
Sure, but would the banks lose? Geography is not a protected group.| If they're black, they've got to put up with Al Sharpton on their doorstep, which is torture. |
Can't stop Sharpton from doing that no matter what.| Those requirements were written to force banks into making those risky loans. |
There were no risky loans being forced on any banks. The CRA specifically made no changes to the requirements for loan applicants. If a guy in Slummerville meets the same income, debt and credit requirements as a guy in Richville, a bank denying the guy in Slummerville the loan is as much a lawsuit-in-waiting as shutting down all the Slummerville branches of the bank.| That is dangerously bad policy, as our current economic situation proves. |
Our current economic situation proves nothing about whether the CRA forced anyone to make risky loans. It did not. Find another scapegoat. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
|
|
|
chaloobi
SFN Regular
1620 Posts |
Posted - 12/04/2008 : 09:53:16 [Permalink]
|
Originally posted by Hittman
| Maybe. Maybe not. In the end, it was a short, profitable investment by the government that kept those people working at that company at good wages for thirty years. Nobody knows what would have happened if the government didn't make that loan. It may well have been better, but maybe not. It could have been a lot worse. I think it's a bad idea to throw dice with thousands of poeple's lives if you don't have to. |
Here's where we differ. Life is a throw of the dice. There are no certainties, only probabilities, and the prudent player bets when the odds are best. The odds are that letting the market work will provide efficiencies and advancements and improvements, often at the expense of specific individuals, but benefiting society as a whole. |
Yes, you can say life is a throw of the dice. The most basic reason we have governments is to make the odds on that throw better for citizens. Regardless of what you think the odds were in the Chrysler bailout, the course of action the government took worked out very well for everyone involved.
| Nor should mights and maybes, not when the lives of tens of thousands of people are at risk of turning upside down. |
My life turned upside down when my company laid me off. Where is my bailout? Why don't I get one? |
So this is about your own personal bitterness? Your company didn't get a loan from the government so therefore no company should? You're out of work so you want to take millions more with you?
If it's right to do it for a big company, it's right to do it for a small company.
Obviously not. |
Could you explain that? It's not obvious to me. |
Some companies are too big to fail. That is the consequences to the nation of their failure are too high. It's another version of the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. I'm going to guess the failure of your company doesn't meet the 'too big to fail' criteria.
| What's the cutoff? A thousand? Ten thousand? Where, exactly, is that number? Please be specific. |
I already said I didn't know what the cutoff is. But I do know Ford, GM and Chrysler make the cut.
| Way too simplistic. Getting out of the way might bolster profits - in between economic collapses caused by reckless greed - but it won't protect the vast majority of citizens from the huge variety of abuses that strict profit motive encourages. Capitalism absolutely must be regulated. If profit drops a little to ensure corporations arn't abusing citizens, then that's the price of doing business. |
You sound very socialist. |
I am very socialist and that's a good thing. Capitalism without socialist protections is very very bad.
| Business exists to make a profit. That isn't good or bad, it just is. And that profit motive has given us the wealthiest economy with the highest standard of living in the history of the world. |
That profit motive properly curtailed with regulation you mean. We didn't get that highest standard, such as it is, without a lot of government intervention.
| People are always and every time more important than profit. |
That's a false dichotomy. |
I disagree. Take workplace safety as an example. Before OSHA, factory employees were commonly injured in extremely dangerous workplace conditions. When they were hurt, they were fired for being careless. Corporations gave up a lot of profit when the government forced them to make those factories safe and to buy workman's compensation insurance. That's socialism at work and it's a direct profit vs. people formula.
| Your company only cares about you because you can make them a profit. |
Correct. If my company could get away with it, they'd dice up the retirees and sell their organs to hospitals if it made a profit. Thank god the government's there to protect me from that kind of abuse.
| And that fact gives you your standard of living. |
Actually, my standard of living would be shit without unionization and government regulation of my industry and government investment in the local education system. Thank god for socialism.
| Failure is part of capitalism. Just as death of the individual allows evolution to take place and improve the species, death of a company allows the economy to improve via a better allocation of resources. Interfering with that always, always has huge unintended consequences. |
I think your understanding of evolution is a little flawed, but whatever. I assume by your analogy you disapprove of medicine as well? |
-Chaloobi
|
|
|
|
Hittman
Skeptic Friend
134 Posts |
Posted - 12/05/2008 : 10:04:03 [Permalink]
|
| There were no risky loans being forced on any banks. |
Ok, so you're entirely out of touch with reality. Noted. Time for me to move on.
| The most basic reason we have governments is to make the odds on that throw better for citizens. |
Again we disagree. The basic reason for governments is to provide protection against force and fraud. Trying to change the odds screws everything up far more than letting things level out on their own.
| So this is about your own personal bitterness? Your company didn't get a loan from the government so therefore no company should? You're out of work so you want to take millions more with you? |
I ask you a direct question, and you respond with an insult. Is that the best you can do?
Let me ask again – why shouldn't my company get a bailout? Why shouldn't the company that just laid off 175 people get a bailout?
| Some companies are too big to fail. That is the consequences to the nation of their failure are too high. It's another version of the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. I'm going to guess the failure of your company doesn't meet the 'too big to fail' criteria. |
I prefer something other than Star Trek for my morals. I don't think any company is too big to fail. If they fail, they fail, and life goes on. That is right, that is correct, that is moral. Stealing money from everyone at the point of a gun (taxes) and using it to prop of failing companies is wrong, immoral, and almost always a lousy waste of resources with big unintended consequences.
| I am very socialist and that's a good thing. |
And yet another place we disagree. I believe that the initiation of force is wrong and immoral. Socialism is based on the initiation of force. It requires theft at the point of a gun. I believe talking people's property at the point of a gun is wrong. You don't. Guess we'll never agree on that.
| I think your understanding of evolution is a little flawed, but whatever. I assume by your analogy you disapprove of medicine as well? |
Wow, you are really grasping at straws. Medicine is part of evolution, of course. I'd have thought you'd realize that without having it pointed out to you.
|
When a vampire Jehovah's Witness knocks on your door, don't invite him in. Blood Witness: http://bloodwitness.com
Get Smartenized® with the Quick Hitts blog: http://www.davehitt.com/blog2/index.phpBlog |
|
|
|
Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13477 Posts |
Posted - 12/05/2008 : 11:05:17 [Permalink]
|
Hittman:
Stealing money from everyone at the point of a gun (taxes) and using it to prop of failing companies is wrong, immoral, and almost always a lousy waste of resources with big unintended consequences. |
Allowing the country to slide into a depression because it's ideologically correct is also immoral. Crazy too. Just how bad to you want the current economic crisis to get?
We're talking about massive numbers of unemployed if the American auto industry goes down, and you see it as a fairness issue. But this is not about fairness. Its about being pragmatic. Honestly. Fuck ideology. For how many years would you be willing to be unemployed because it serves your ideology? Would you be willing to sell pencils on the street for money to buy food to eat and still pat yourself on the back because you were true to your ideology?
Ideologues and other Fundamentalists. What's the difference?
What you miss is that we can deal with the causes and make the corrections later. The debate can go on. Again, those are my tax dollars too and I don't agree with you on how they can be best spent at this time.
|
Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
|
|
|
Simon
SFN Regular
USA
1992 Posts |
Posted - 12/05/2008 : 11:17:20 [Permalink]
|
| I think your understanding of evolution is a little flawed, but whatever. I assume by your analogy you disapprove of medicine as well? |
Wow, you are really grasping at straws. Medicine is part of evolution, of course. I'd have thought you'd realize that without having it pointed out to you. |
Medicine part of evolution? 
Also, both you and Chaloobi are, in my opinion, using a flawed definition of socialism.
Socialism is, at the very least, the government taking permanent control of the means of production -and not just a few indsutry either, like the post-war nationalizations in Europe, it must be the rule and not the exception.
Not the case here, of course, by any stretch.
And, of course, nothing about socialism says it has to be done 'at the point of a gun'.
Indeed, there was quite a bit of debate between revolutionary socialists and reform socialists, at least until the Soviet Revolution rendered the point moot.
And, of course, nothing in term of socialism |
Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
Carl Sagan - 1996 |
|
|
|
chaloobi
SFN Regular
1620 Posts |
Posted - 12/05/2008 : 13:01:05 [Permalink]
|
Originally posted by Simon
| I think your understanding of evolution is a little flawed, but whatever. I assume by your analogy you disapprove of medicine as well? |
Wow, you are really grasping at straws. Medicine is part of evolution, of course. I'd have thought you'd realize that without having it pointed out to you. |
Medicine part of evolution?
Also, both you and Chaloobi are, in my opinion, using a flawed definition of socialism.
Socialism is, at the very least, the government taking permanent control of the means of production -and not just a few indsutry either, like the post-war nationalizations in Europe, it must be the rule and not the exception.
Not the case here, of course, by any stretch.
And, of course, nothing about socialism says it has to be done 'at the point of a gun'.
Indeed, there was quite a bit of debate between revolutionary socialists and reform socialists, at least until the Soviet Revolution rendered the point moot.
And, of course, nothing in term of socialism
|
I'm thinking of what the right wing labels socialism, not Stalinism or communism of any stripe. To the right wing, Canada and the EU are socialist because they have decent, humane and reaonsable social safety nets. When right-wing nutters try to defend the fact that the US has no sensible system of health care by crying socialism, I respond with ok, whatever they want to call it, it's better than capitalism, if that's what they want to call what we have now. I recognize the value of market competition but I also recognize the pitfalls and that government regulation is necessary to avoid the certainty of abuse. |
-Chaloobi
|
|
|
|
Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 12/05/2008 : 13:12:35 [Permalink]
|
Originally posted by Hittman
Ok, so you're entirely out of touch with reality. Noted. Time for me to move on. |
As far as I'm concerned, you're the one who appears to have not read the law, and are thus out of touch with reality.TITLE 12, CHAPTER 30 § 2901(b):
It is the purpose of this chapter to require each appropriate Federal financial supervisory agency to use its authority when examining financial institutions, to encourage such institutions to help meet the credit needs of the local communities in which they are chartered consistent with the safe and sound operation of such institutions. My bold. Making bad loans isn't consistent with the safe and sound operation of such institutions.
It's as if because Ron Paul said it, you believe it, and that's the end of it. You can assert and re-assert your position all you like, but without any evidence, you're just blowing smoke, Hittman. No part of the CRA has mandated that banks make loans in excess of their customers' ability to pay back. The idea is a figment of the imagination of a few radical pundits and politicians. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
|
|
|
chaloobi
SFN Regular
1620 Posts |
Posted - 12/05/2008 : 13:51:05 [Permalink]
|
Originally posted by Hittman
There were no risky loans being forced on any banks.
| The most basic reason we have governments is to make the odds on that throw better for citizens. |
Again we disagree. The basic reason for governments is to provide protection against force and fraud. Trying to change the odds screws everything up far more than letting things level out on their own. |
In simplest terms, human beings banded together in nations and formed governments to provide the best odds possible in the huge variety of dice throws that every day of life consists of. Force and fraud influence the odds of some dice throws against the victims of those crimes. So do many of the abuses of unfettered capitalism.
| So this is about your own personal bitterness? Your company didn't get a loan from the government so therefore no company should? You're out of work so you want to take millions more with you? |
I ask you a direct question, and you respond with an insult. Is that the best you can do?
Let me ask again – why shouldn't my company get a bailout? Why shouldn't the company that just laid off 175 people get a bailout? |
Your words appeared bitter. I commented on the obvious. If it's not true, just say so and move on.
In answer, I don't know that they shouldn't be bailed out. I don't believe I said it shouldn't either. But when resources are limited, the government needs to get the biggest bang for the buck, save the company whose failure will cause the greatest economic harm.
| Some companies are too big to fail. That is the consequences to the nation of their failure are too high. It's another version of the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. I'm going to guess the failure of your company doesn't meet the 'too big to fail' criteria. |
I prefer something other than Star Trek for my morals. |
Even if it's true?
| Stealing money from everyone at the point of a gun (taxes) and using it to prop of failing companies is wrong, immoral, and almost always a lousy waste of resources with big unintended consequences. |
Taxes are the price you pay for civilization. Without them we'd all be hunting and gathering to meet our needs. And providing bridge loans to the auto companies to get them through this economic crisis is nothing if not moral and very good policy.
| I am very socialist and that's a good thing. |
And yet another place we disagree. I believe that the initiation of force is wrong and immoral. Socialism is based on the initiation of force. It requires theft at the point of a gun. I believe talking people's property at the point of a gun is wrong. You don't. Guess we'll never agree on that. |
#1. Please refrain from telling me what I believe. It's as rude as it is inaccurate.
#2. You are constrained by law in everything you do. Whatever freedom you have is only there within the framework of the law. That's the founding pillar of civilization - a structure of rules everyone lives by that restricts your freedom but also protects you from abuse and provides a framework by which your livlihood is maintained. And that structure is moderated by the government which requires taxes to operate. And it's all kept together ultimately at the point of a gun, whether you're a Nazi, a Commie or a Capitalist Imperialist. You have a gun pointed at you all the time and if you didn't, you'd be no more sophisticated, safe or healthy than a wild baboon.
#3. That said, I believe personal freedom should be maximized, that people should be free to do whatever they want so long as they don't cause unreasonable harm to their neighbors. Capitalism without strict and reasonable regulation has demonstrated it will cause sweeping harm to workers, consumers and the public at large. It is the very function of the government to ensure such harm is checked.
| I think your understanding of evolution is a little flawed, but whatever. I assume by your analogy you disapprove of medicine as well? |
Wow, you are really grasping at straws. Medicine is part of evolution, of course. I'd have thought you'd realize that without having it pointed out to you.
|
Absolutely not. You said death is necessary for evolution (which it isn't, technically), and that companies, rather than being helped through an unhealthy period, should be allowed to die because that's how evolution works. If you follow the logic then people should be allowed to die, without help through an unhealthy period from medicine, because that's how evolution works.
I personally think it's a bad analogy. But it is what it is. |
-Chaloobi
|
|
|
|
Hittman
Skeptic Friend
134 Posts |
Posted - 12/06/2008 : 18:23:28 [Permalink]
|
| Medicine part of evolution? |
Absolutely. Everything created by man is part of evolution.
| Also, both you and Chaloobi are, in my opinion, using a flawed definition of socialism. |
Agreed, we're using the more common meaning of the word, which isn't the dictionary definition.
| And, of course, nothing about socialism says it has to be done 'at the point of a gun'. |
If I don't want to participate, can I opt out? Or am I going to be forced to participate by the law?
All law, at least all law that is enforced, happens at the point of a gun. The guns don't come out right away – we have to persist in our resistance – but without the point of a gun the law has no teeth.
| No part of the CRA has mandated that banks make loans in excess of their customers' ability to pay back. The idea is a figment of the imagination of a few radical pundits and politicians. |
You really love the CRA don't you? Let me see if I can get a few facts past your bias.
The CRA forced banks to make loans they wouldn't otherwise make. That was the entire purpose of the CRA, regardless of the wording. Banks were rated on their compliance with the CRA. It doesn't matter how nicely the legislation was worded, the fact is they were expected to increase the number of loans to risky people and in lousy neighborhoods.
Clinton put the program on steroids, changing it to an outcome based measurement – a bank was rated by the number of subprime loans they made. This created a huge artificial spike for homes, which created this mess.
Remove the CRA from this mess and our current economic crisis never would have happened. The CRA was the genesis of the problem.
If Carter's CRA was left in place as it sat it's unlikely it would have exploded as it did. That was Clinton's doing.
And if the banks and lending institutions didn't go batshit it might not have happened either, although we'd still have sky-high housing prices.
The bottom line, though, is that without the CRA, none of this happens. Deny it all you want, but the facts are obvious to anyone willing to pay attention.
| In answer, I don't know that they shouldn't be bailed out. I don't believe I said it shouldn't either. But when resources are limited, the government needs to get the biggest bang for the buck, save the company whose failure will cause the greatest economic harm. |
Resources are always limited. That's why we shouldn't be baling out private industry. ANY private industry. Big ones, little ones, any of them. We are taking money from people who make $40k a year and giving it to people who would laugh at $4,000,000 a year as too paltry to bother with. We are rewarding incompetence and greed. And we're doing it with money that is taken from every one of us, again, at the point of a gun.
That is just, plain, wrong. It is literally robbing one person to pay another. Worse than that, it is almost guaranteed to make the problem worse.
| Taxes are the price you pay for civilization. Without them we'd all be hunting and gathering to meet our needs. And providing bridge loans to the auto companies to get them through this economic crisis is nothing if not moral and very good policy. |
I agree that some taxes are necessary |
When a vampire Jehovah's Witness knocks on your door, don't invite him in. Blood Witness: http://bloodwitness.com
Get Smartenized® with the Quick Hitts blog: http://www.davehitt.com/blog2/index.phpBlog |
|
|
|
Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 12/06/2008 : 18:47:33 [Permalink]
|
Originally posted by Hittman
You really love the CRA don't you? |
I don't really care about it. I just can't let your unsupported Paulian nonsense stand uncontested. You haven't presented a single shred of evidence that CRA-regulated banks made more subprime loans than non-CRA-regulated mortgage brokers (for example), or that CRA-regulated banks resold more risky loans than other mortgage lenders, or that the credit that CRA-regulated banks extended was indeed risky (in that there were more losses from CRA-compliant banks than from non-CRA banks). Just saying that those banks had to make loans they wouldn't have otherwise made doesn't mean that those loans were actually risky. I don't think you can present such evidence, because it doesn't seem to exist, so all you're left with is parroting the Libertarian party line. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
|
|
|
Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 12/06/2008 : 20:13:23 [Permalink]
|
Off topic, but...
Hittman said:
| Absolutely. Everything created by man is part of evolution. |
I think you fail to understand evolution.
While we did evolve the intelligence to perform many sophisticated tasks (like, say, learn medical science), saying that medicine is a "part of evolution" is akin to saying that driving is a part of a car.
Start with the wiki article.
Then graduate to the TO entry on biological evolution.
|
Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
|
|
|
|
Simon
SFN Regular
USA
1992 Posts |
Posted - 12/06/2008 : 22:58:52 [Permalink]
|
Originally posted by Hittman
| Medicine part of evolution? |
Absolutely. Everything created by man is part of evolution. |
No. No it's not.
| Also, both you and Chaloobi are, in my opinion, using a flawed definition of socialism. |
Agreed, we're using the more common meaning of the word, which isn't the dictionary definition. |
Well... no.
I mean, the definition is already loose as it is if you broaden a definition too much, every single policy could be qualified as 'socialist' and the term will be worthless...
| And, of course, nothing about socialism says it has to be done 'at the point of a gun'. |
If I don't want to participate, can I opt out? Or am I going to be forced to participate by the law?
All law, at least all law that is enforced, happens at the point of a gun. The guns don't come out right away – we have to persist in our resistance – but without the point of a gun the law has no teeth.
|
Then... Everything is at the 'point of a gun'. Especially using your broad definition of socialism.
For me the expression 'socialism at the point of a gun' conjur the idea of gulags, not the idea of people voting democratically for a tax increase and people defaulting on their tax getting in legaltrouble. |
Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
Carl Sagan - 1996 |
|
|
 |
|
|
|
Killing the car companies
