Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[hack]

Hack said:

1. This assumes that "the pie (to) split" is a fixed pie. I'm not sure if this is true anywhere (maybe in Saudi or N. Korea), but I do know it is not true in the US. Almost everyone in the US is better off today than they were 15 years ago. This idea of a fixed pie is pernicious. It is the underpinning of talk of the poor revolting, and is the justification for violence.

The rest of your post can be handled by a quick reference to the main source of the problem: the financial sector, where excess capital accumulates. Wells Fargo, financial crisis, on and on. Good for Gates and Zuckerberg et al. they live in the real economy, and Buffett is the rare example of an investor who acts like an entrepreneur. Excess capital and its handlers are much less likely to. Apart from that, well, we may disagree but value judgments are less likely to move the needle here in the discussion in a way that practical non-ideological points may be. To that end, I don't assume that the pie is fixed. Of course it is not. I do assume however that in any scenario the ideal solution is a some midpoint between extremes, and splitting the pie, no matter its size, counts.

In fact I think it's demonstrated that capital preservation often leads to its holders making decisions that harm the growth potential of the overall pie in order to maintain their proportion of it. As I work in some very corrupt countries I can count many examples of how rich people would rather have a smaller slice of pie if it represents a larger proportion of the whole that everyone must share. And I can find plenty of examples here too.

[hack]

Heh -- recently noted in this thread are Saudi and Venezuela. Great exmaples of my overall point that idle hands, or capital, does the devil's work. Those states hoarded it and used it for political purposes. Venezuela has run out and is a slow-moving humanitarian crisis, but we would all be better off if the Saudis were no longer able to buy off extremists by funding terror. Those two states are a great example of the danger of large pools of capital with nowhere to go.

[hack]

Just making sure I covered it. There's also this that you said that deserves a reply:

The whole notion of equity or social justice is the socialist smokescreen for redistribution. Capital and markets have made life better for everyone.

1. Forget the ideology, consider the practical ramifications. Ideas aside, it sure looks to me like a healthy economy is one in which capital is not overly pooled.

2. Important to make the distinction between capital and markets. No doubt that markets have made our lives better. I'm not about capital. I think with sufficient supervision that's true. But capital and markets aren't the same thing. There's much more of a tension between them than an alliance. We need to have a smart economic debate that understands how capitalism, markets and democracy interact. Assuming they are a package, as has been done for a while, is not helping.

[entropy]

Even if he didn't ruin the economy or start a nuclear war, could you imagine the Trump fatigue with 4 years of this? It would be never ending.

The SNL skits would be awesome

[hack]

[Wild Hoss]

LMAO

[hack]

The expression on his face

[UMStan White]

Great Hack!

[CGVT]

Wow. The Trump supporters have doubled down on social media. The ridiculous "But Biiiiiill" excuse is rampant. The last time I looked Bill is not running for president.

The other that I am seeing is the "If women are so offended, who bought all of those copies of Fifty Shades of Gray?" meme.

Really? They are equating a work of fiction about consensual sex with a presidential candidate groping and assaulting women and using his position and power to coerce sex?

I shouldn't be, but I am amazed at the length that people will go to defend this jackass.

[Da Geezer]

Ha!

[entropy]

Bill is a predator... But that doesn't excuse Trump's comments. Just means if you view women's rights as the #1 issue in America, you really shouldn't/can't vote for either candidate. One brags about grouping women, the other is an enabler.

[CGVT]

Trump's comments are not the issue. It is his actions.

Bill is not running. What do his actions have to do with this election?

Nothing. It is a strawman.

[SeattleLionsFan]

An enabler? How so? It seems to me that Bills faults belong to Bill. Trumps faults lay with Trump.

[Da Geezer]

The rest of your post can be handled by a quick reference to the main source of the problem: the financial sector, where excess capital accumulates.

Yes. We are close to agreement on this, and I did mention it in my post. I believe that the government causes or at least facilitates this pooling of capital. That is why so much money finds its way to politicians from banks (using this as a broad term to mean the whole financial sector). A properly functioning market for money, with actual price discovery (interest rates) has served the US well in the past. But with Fanny and Freddy and the Federal Reserve, the government is the biggest player in the banking business.

Government is not only a "regulator", it is a participant. But its goals are different than a private sector bank. Its goal has become social justice, not the anti-trust or safety-net functions of the past. The Community Redevelopment Act is only one recent manifestation of the government as bank-of-last-resort. I sat on a bank board at the time, and I can tell you we were selling our worst loans to the Feds.

Play out what would have happened had the government let the too-big-to-fail banks fail in 2008. At worst, smaller banks would have been brought in to take over the accounts, most of which would have been insured (those of regular folks, up to $ 250,000). The people who would have lost a fortune were the very rich, those who had the "pooled capital". This is exactly the outcome that is "just", in my view. Part of market capitalism is "creative destruction". These are precisely the folks who buy politicians, and the politicians paid off big-time in 2008.

As I've said so many times, power and money are interchangeable, just as much as matter and energy. You see it in this election. Billionaire Trump trying to buy power and Hillary selling influence to get money from power.

But also give credit to the US in that we allow the mass marketers of amazing products to keep much of their money. This doesn't happen in Europe (neither the innovation, nor the retention of profits).

[hack]

I think I know what you are saying but please unpack that let-them-fail scenario for me. How would that account transfer work?

I agree that govt is a participant, and by definition has a more complex objective in doing so. They're gonna get things wrong a whole lot. One way to mitigate that is to limit capital's ability to buy politicians.