Re: Business as usual


<dcaster@xxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:c94fd897-7b49-4e85-a977-8a6211e74d9e@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
On Nov 12, 3:59 pm, "Ed Huntress" <huntre...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:



This is where I believe that false premises and ideologies rear their
heads.
You could take your statement and draw from it the conclusion that people
could start their own navies and attack foreign countries; build a
whorehouse in the middle of your neighborhood and play loud music all
night
long through their open windows; stockpile enough explosives in their
basement to blow your neighborhood to kingdom come, in anticipation of an
impending social revolution.

This is the last post by me on this subject. You are impossible to
reason with.

Not at all. I just think you've let theories take hold of reason. There's a
benign version of "letting people use their money as they see fit," and the
there's the contrasting reality of how money corrupts politics and
economics. You seem to ignore the latter, and they can do more damage than
you seem to acknowledge.

If the subject was just people and the economy in general, I'd say you're
mostly right. But the subject is the ill effects of "malefactors of great
wealth," and you seem to ignore a lot of very painful US history with that
subject.


You can not take my statement and say that people could build their
own navies and attack other countries. I was very clear about people
having to be legal. All of the things you list are illegal. Like I
say, you are impossible to reason with.

What's "illegal" depends on what Congress enacts. Right now it's legal to
sell a security that hedges against the failure of a business -- and to sell
that same security to ten or a hundred different people. Forty years ago,
that would have landed you in prison for fraud. (Thank you, Phil Gramm. Your
legacy is secure in the annals of financial lunacy.)

So you can talk about principles, or you can talk about laws, but if you
limit yourself to what's legal, the question arises about what your
principles tell you should be illegal. You expressed the *principle* of
letting people do what they want with their money. Today's prohibiting law
may be tomorrow's meal ticket for someone. Laws may come and laws may go,
but in relation to your principle of letting people do what they want with
their money, which policy -- allowing the sale of only one credit default
swap on one original debt, or allowing the sale of multiple swaps on the
same debt -- reflects your principle? That's the issue.

If you limit your principle to things that are legal, then my point is that
some financial transactions and some campaign financing should be illegal.
Would that solve it for you? Or are you telling us what you think should be
legal and illegal? That's the question that I think is essential to the
position you've taken here. So we differ about what should be illegal.


I do think there are limits to what people can do with their property. One
of them is manipulating the political process. John McCain was dead right
about the need for limits on campaign contributions from powerful
financial
interests. In the name of "free speech" (I think that's the justification
they used), they can overwhelm communications channels and the
opportunities
for political speech, turning this country into an oligarchy of financial
power. That's pretty much what the health care insurance industry is doing
right now -- or they're trying to. And Wall Street has done an admirable
job
of coercing the government just by the threat of creating a financial
meltdown. Money is overwhelming power, or it can be, if it isn't
regulated.

You claim to be a conservative, but want to control what people do
with their property. You seem to believe that the government can
spend money better than individuals.

I'm a pragmatist, an anti-ideologue, and basically a centrist. The
conservative part is the side that wants to preserve principles and
institutions that support our democratic republic. The progressive part is
the side that wants to destroy those institutions that undermine it --
like
K Street lobbyists and unregulated financial institutions that are "too
big
to fail." If they're too big to fail, they're too big to live.

You are a centrist in a Democratic state. I see you as a liberal, but
less liberal than many in your state.

No, I'm a centrist according to national polls. I tend to fall right in the
middle on most determing issues. Here in NJ, I'm to the right of center. I
was a delegate to my county Republican convention some years ago.


I do not think we currently live in a oligarchy, and that we have much
more to fear from trying to prevent a oligarchy based on wealth from
forming, than from letting people control their own lives.

See, to me, you've just contradicted yourself. If you let wealth run
roughshod, people lose some important controls over their own lives.
That's
what oligarchy is all about.

I did not contradict myself. I said we are not now an oligarchy. And
that doing things to make sure we do not become an oligarchy is worse
than leaving things alone. Again you are impossible to reason with as
you ignore what people say. You assume that what they are saying is
something other than what they actually say.

No. Your contradiction is in saying that preventing an an oligarchy from
forming interferes with people controlling their own lives. I'm saying that
preventing oligarchies is *essential* to allowing people to control their
own lives.


What we
have now is the threat of a political oligarchy. Many in the
government are sons and daughters of politicians.

But what they do, the legislation they enact and the policies they pursue,
are very dependent upon what K Street tells them to -- or they won't get
re-elected.

You seem to be jealous of wealth and afraid of wealthy people.

I agree with Teddy Roosevelt, that wealth often tries to perpetuate itself
at our expense. The current dons of Wall Street and some other industries
fit perfectly into his definition of "the malefactors of great wealth."
They
can be a real danger to the republic.

You statement that " they can be a real danger to the public " shows
that you are afraid of wealthy people.

I didn't say "the public." I said "the republic." Great wealth, when it's
applied to influencing government (as it often, perhaps usually does), tends
to corrupt our form of government. That's what Teddy Roosevelt recognized a
century ago.


believe that wealthy people have done a lot of good. They seem to
know that they can not take their money with them when they die and
end up doing more good with their money than the federal government
would do.

I'm sure they approve of your assessment. <g>



I have no interest in living in a place where the people get their act
together as you say and redistribute the wealth in the name of
fairness.

Those are two unrelated subjects which you've combined into a non
sequitur.

Those are not unrelated subjects. You advocated having people get
their act together and have the government do something to prevent
oligarchies.

That has nothing to do with "redistributing wealth." That's the
non-sequitur. Limiting the influence of wealth on politics does not require
redistribution. Basically, it requires campaign finance reform.

Sure sounds like you want the government to take peoples money away
from them to me.

Not me. I just want megabuck lobbies to get the hell out of financing
political campaigns, both directly with campaign contributions, and
indirectly, with Harry and Louise propaganda.


I believe the energy and sense of freedom comes from
letting people decide what they want to do as individuals.

...until they're politically overpowered by the sugar lobby, which adds
$18
billion/year to our bills; or the military/industrial lobby, which wants
to
build machines to fight the last war, at our expense; or the health care
lobby, which cares only about increasing their revenue (the premiums we
pay); etc., etc.


How does letting people decide what they want to do as individuals
have something to do with the Sugar Lobby? You are lost here. I see
no connection at all. Just something to distract attention.

No, YOU are lost there. You also clipped out the quote I was responding to.
Let me re-insert it:

I believe the energy and sense of freedom comes from
letting people decide what they want to do as individuals.

Now does it make more sense? When you let the sugar lobby strong-arm
Congress to re-institute a subsidy that was stopped in 1979, for the purpose
of increasing the profits of the sugar industry by raising prices and
simultaneously blocking foreign competition, you've just taken billions of
dollars out of consumers' pockets. That's some of their energy you've just
forfeited by allowing the lobby to use its money to influence politics. And,
in your own terms, some of people's freedom went with it.

Not from
voting in politicians that promise that the government will take care
of everyone.

As Ronald Reagan's budget director learned years ago, the (mostly
Democratic) politicians who promise to take care of everyone can be
controlled (he called them a "weak force"). The ones who are taking care
of
business and financial lobbies (mostly Republicans) are out of control
and,
presently, uncontrollable. He called them the "strong force" in politics.
They're the ones who bust our budgets and who cede control of government
to
their lobbies.

Again business lobbies are unrelated to letting individuals control
what they do with their money such as giving it to their kids or
choosing the charities that the money goes to. Again impossible to
reason with. When losing an argument, just throw in anything .

When losing an argument, you ignore the full implications of what you're
saying. <g> The "control" I was talking about was limitations on the
political power that wealthy individuals and institutions can exercise by
means of their great wealth. You morphed that into the widows and orphans
fund. What you're now saying has nothing to do with the point I made, and
which you supposedly addressed.

Any good pedant should have caught that. d8-)

--
Ed Huntress

Dan



--
Ed Huntress


.

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