Would YOU vote for RON PAUL

56

Oh so a bank isn’t operated by people, led by people, managed by people – so who does the managing, aliens, robots?

The thing is that if the people in a bank find they can direct it to make them money but to the detriment of wider society and there is no constraint on that – it is likely that some if not many of them will do that.

 

56

Fine – do you mind me asking in what capacity – and I notice you are not addressing the criticisms of the viewpoint?

LOL – as someone said Americans and Britons people divided by a common language. I say ‘view’ as in ‘opinion’ not ‘view’ and in ‘see’. View as in viewpoint. As in I might way ‘what is your view on the subject’. In this case it was Barry Ritholtz on the piece by Hank Paulson.

 

Indie

The disingenuous answer – its not the answering but the way it is answered that is important, I mean ‘fuck off’ can be an answer to a question it doesn’t mean it’s a useful one. Your evasions are answers just not particularly enlightening and not what you’d expect from an honest debater.

The misdirectional answer – blame your evasion on the questioners supposed lack of understanding of it. But Indie we do understand your evasions, I and many others have pointed out and explained why they’re evasions.

Oh and Indie I (and others) have tried narrowing the focus and we have tried widening the scope – it doesn’t seem to matter you still seem to prefer evasion to honest replies.

As I’ve said it doesn’t seem to matter if it is the former or latter you don’t seem capable of addressing the criticisms of your ideas in any rational or reasonable way.

Again another example of what seems to be your rather simplistic absolutist (either / or) mentality, - collectivism vs individualism – either / or.

I mean first of all what is you definition of these things, different people are going to see them differently.

And second I (and others here) have argued for a balance not an either / or approach but one were the needs of the individual and of the community are balanced.

One of my main arguments against the ideas you seem to support and promote is that they seem opposed to balance in that you seemingly wish to give more power and influence to a few to the detriment of all others.

 

For me the question in – Would YOU vote for Ron Paul – is why, why would you vote for ideas and policies that in my opinion would make a bad situation worse.

I mean take this thread for example - although there are a number of others on the site – in all these pages none of the supporters of right wing libertarian leaning idea has been able to defend them from criticism in any rational or reasonable way.

They say they can then only produce evasion, they claim they have but then can’t produce any evidence and they say they will but that always seem to be tomorrow, tomorrow.

I’ll repeat if ideas can’t be defended from criticisms that seem to show them to be flawed (sometimes mortally) then those are most likely to be bad ideas.

 

Bal,

Have you got a question to ask, or is your purpose only to fill each and every thread with irrational B.S.?

 

Indie

LOL – OK I’m game – give me an example of what you believe is my ‘irrational B.S’?

 

Bal,

Just read the multiple posts you made prior to my response.

 

Indie

LOL – and as I thought - you can’t actually produce anything, no actual evidence, you just wave your hand vaguely ‘over there’.

You can’t produce anything because you know it’s not ‘irrational B.S’ but instead criticism that seems to undermines your ideas and for which you seem to have no counter argument.

But please go ahead prove me wrong.

 

Cute response, Blab. But even you can't be that dense: banks are generally "directed" by a board whose members answer to stockholders.

Perhaps, had you read the post I was responding to, you would have some clue regarding the context of my comments.

 

No, I don't mind your asking, at all -- and why would I even want to address "the critcisms of the viewpoint" when I couldn't give less of a rat's ass about the viewpoint, the criticisms included, or whatever those criticisms were aimed at? Please refer to my response to your erroneous assumption that I may have formed an opinion or posted a statement based only on what I may have read. I believe my response was: "No, my information / opinion is based on personal knowledge and experience of and with the US housing market and not just what I’ve read and find convenient for proving the point to myself or anyone else."

LOL

OK -- so you posted the full text AND a link to make sure I'd read it? I have no interest in what Barry Ritholtz wrote about what Hank Paulson wrote.

 

It doesn't matter who they answer to, they can get filthy fucking rich fucking everyone over, and the stockholders don't have much to say when the stock is unrealistically valuable before a bust, and they stockholders don't have much to say AFTER a bust, as they sell and stop being stockholders. If you own stock, unless you personally own most of a company, you do NOT have jack shit for a say, you have an internet stock ticker program and a website.

In other words, stock holders are a sham of a check, they do nothing but empower those individuals to act as they do and fuck thousands for personal gain.

 

Bal,

You seem to be more intent on making accusations based on a political agenda than attempting to examine the real facts which exist.

Exactly what is it you feel needs greater explanation? Can you deal with discussion on an item by item basis, without need for 5-6 posts containing a wide range of items, none of which can be answered clearly or completely without first gathering all the facts? In order to achieve agreement on an acceptable solution to a problem it is made impossible without first agreeing on what the facts are.

What appears to be the greatest, and probably unresolvable problem between us, or the Left and the Right in general, is defining the role and responsibilities of the people, the States, and the Federal government and from where the greatest power should emanate.

 

56

Can’t be that dense - meaning you think I am dense – the derogatory meaning of dense: thick, stupid, lacking in intelligence.

I’d ask you this - how dense would someone have to be to call the moderator, of the site they are posting to, stupid?

That is of course the simplistic way of looking at it actually there are meant to be many control mechanisms - stockholder meetings, mandatory disclosure and reports, numerous boards and committees as well as regulations both internal and external.

But boards of directors, indemnitiescommittees, auditors, report writers, stockholders etc are all made up of individuals with differing degrees of ethics and reliance. Such people can act as regulators or try and grab as much as they can for themselves. Also there can be collusion between differing individuals within the system to circumnavigate weak or lax regulation for self interest, they can manipulate for gain, they can even lie for profit.

What is important is the kind of culture within a corporation and society, if people feel that it is alright (even justified) to grab as much as they are able they will do so.

To me the neoliberal ideas that became increasingly dominant over the last thirty years or so encouraged such thinking. As I’ve explained before at its core was a belief in self-interest and that competitive self-interest would bring about collective good, it though greed was good, the problem with this being that the greedy and self interested don’t care about the collective good.

Neoliberalism promoted aggressive short term profiteering and speculation. It ideas advocated services (especially financial services) over manufacturing, encouraged outsourcing, promoted deregulation, relaxed regulations and unregulation. It encouraged the debt culture the bonus culture and the risk culture and it brought about the biggest financial crisis in the world.

 

56

This seems to be mainly just aggressive posturing and self righteous indignation.

do you mind me asking in what capacity

oh wow I see what you did there, soooooo clever hey maybe you should write for the television or something…LOL.

So are you going to tell us or what?

That’s fine you don’t have to address the criticisms – but that doesn’t mean they go away and your inability to address them only makes them seem more valid.

 

Indie

LOL sorry but this reply seems to be just more evasion you seem to be trying to do a re-boot to try and circumnavigate all the outstand criticisms that you seem incapable of addressing.

More intent on what? Can you please explain what you’re trying to say because I’m not sure it makes sense? I’m presenting criticisms of your ideas you are so far refusing to address them.

What ‘real facts’ are you talking about? Remember Indie this is me, I know your posts and recall what you have said in the past and you have repeated dismissed any evidence produced that runs counter to what you think instead preferring very self serving anecdotal evidence. And one of the economic ideas you claim to support (the Austrian school) has an emphasis on theoretical logic over empirical evidence (to me fantasy over reality).

So again what ‘facts’ and whose ‘facts’ are you talking about?

Lots of things, but mainly I’d like you to explain why you hold onto ideas that you seem incapable of defending from criticism in any rational or reasonable way.

LOL this is incredibly disingenuous of you. The big problem is that you don’t seem able or capable of debating any ‘item’ honestly.

As I’ve pointed out before debate is –

X – puts forward an idea

A – asks a question

B – asks something to be explained

C – puts forward a criticism

X – comes back answers the question, give the explanation, address the criticism

These are put under scrutiny and another round of questions, explanations and criticism are generated.

In this way the idea is seen to stand up to scrutiny or not.

Too often with you it goes like this –

Indie makes an assertion

A – asks a question

B – asks something to be explained

C – puts forward a criticism

Indie – evades, misdirects, gives an unhelpful answer, refuses to explain, calls the criticisms wrong because he thinks them wrong, then accuses anyone that opposes his views of being a socialist/communist/Marxist.

Indie repeats the assertion.

Oh and again with the facts as I’ve said in the past you’ve just dismiss anything that you don’t like of being wrong because you think it wrong.

The greatest problem with us is your total inability to debate honestly, rather than try this misdirectional re-boot why not address the many criticisms of your ideas that are outstanding and if you can’t ask yourself the question why can’t you?

 

Bal,

Can you, or can you not ask a question without need of a lengthy discourse intent on demeaning the intended respondent?

 

So, even if they "answer" to a government agency with a myriad of regulation, the problems of the banking industry will always include some getting richer as the result of the financial demise of others?

RooR, I get what you're saying. My comments (of the previous post) were in reference to the governments mandating of loans to less than qualified applicants and the cost to the taxpayers as the result of such loans. "Investment banking" practices are another issue entirely and seem certainly greed driven from both sides of the equation.

 

Indie – can you address the criticisms of your ideas and if you can’t why do you continue to hold onto those ideas?

 

Bal,

Can you post 1 "one" criticism in the form of a question?

 

Indie

You’ve used this tactic before in the Effort or Luck thread, (post 93) way back then I asked one question -

Is it justified for a person born into advantage to retain exclusive rights to advantages they didn’t deserve rather than share them with others who through no blame of their own are disadvantaged?

And when I did eventually did get you to answer it some three months later the reply was –

It took even longer to get you to say that you thought yes because ‘shit happen’ I’ve been trying to get you to expand on that for well over a year and you only did it three days ago

Here is reply i gave to the post -

But why should people ‘live with it’ beyond you wanting them to suffer hardship through no fault of their own? This isn’t a natural occurrence it is a structural occurrence it is down to the structure, and structures can be changed. The problem I have with your ideas as explained many times is that you seem to want to make the structure worse whiled I’d try and improve it.