For all of you so called “liberals” out there.

[CA renter]

[quote=captcha][quote=CA renter]
You can have corruption under a dictatorship (as small as government can be, no?), too.[/quote]
Not very good example. Dictatorships generally require a lot of control, which usually requires large government.[/quote]

Point taken, some dictatorships have large armies that support them, and some have smaller armies that can be even more brutal. How about this: Excess power, concentrated into too few hands, is the problem. Again, it seems like a problem with corruption, not the size of government.

Many “Third World” nations have very powerless, “official” governments, but I fail to see how that has benefitted them. On the other hand, many prosperous, healthy, nations have very large official governments that are much more accountable to the citizens — and they’ve benefitted greatly from that.

It’s too simplistic to say a “large” or “small” government is the problem or solution. What’s needed is an accountable, transparent government that is open and accessible to ALL citizens, equally.

[aldante]

[quote=zk][quote=aldante]ZK,
Where do the trillions of dollars come from?[/quote]

We all know where the trillions of dollars came from. The question is where did they go. And a lot of them were spent where they wouldn’t have to have been had there been effective regulation. I don’t understand your response to swave. Your theory that the SEC was terribly and horribly ineffective is, in my opinion, correct. So you want to downsize it? How is that going to help?[/quote]

ZK,
How is making something incompetent bigger an improvement?
So we agree that the trillions are coming from the taxpayer? That the FED is able to print money exponentially based on the fact that the U.S. taxpayer must pay their taxes or go to jail right?
The vast majority of the $$ goes to multinational “defense” contractors and companies. This is why the absolute best thing that America does is make weapons. No one even comes close to our ingenuity. Then there are the permanent banker/governement families that sit right next to the FED as the money is being created. If you look at who the top regulators are, they all tend to know one another because they congregate in the same place. That place is Washington D.C. where they draw up “laws” that enable them to continually grow and protect their own wealth.
The reason that I say a smaller “Government” is that people are given a false sense of security by the pronouncements and actions of these regulators. People act on those pronouncements.

Here is a what if: Do you think that if Hank Paulson and Ben Bernanke came to the public in summer of 2008 and said ” The Housing market is overbought, please avoid buying a house until the dust settles” billions of dollars would have been saved by those people who bought their house becasue at that time becasue they trusted these “Regulators?” BTW: This is exactly what Paulson was saying to the insiders….this is going down..stay away form Fannie and Freddie.
No these really “smart and trusted” authorities created an atmoshpere that encouraged capital to be misdirected on a very large scale. That is why your tax money this very morning is being pledged to bail out some very wealthy people in Europe.
Please give me examples of how many times Bernanke has been right on the economy. In the mean time here is a link you may enjoy:

http://www.zerohedge.com/contributed/ny-fed-issues-mea-culpa-nobody-saw-6pm-black-friday

The same thing is played out day after day after day. Our futures are being used (via a tax system legitmized by the use of Force) to create wealth for the wealthy.
If the regulators missed Madoff and the biggest bubble ever how in the HELL can anyone believe that they will get it right the next time????? How big do you want the Governement to be?

BTW, what if one of those really powerful people who were ever elected, or vetted by the public is a percription drug addict? Or just plain incompetent? Or evil? How much power do you suggest we give these folks?

No thanks ZK. A great example is when BAC wanted to add a fee to their debit cards. The government did not act. People did and BofA quickly changed their mind.

If you have not already take 30 minutes and read “The Law” by Frédéric Bastiat. He explains why governemt is ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY and at the same time needs to be kept to its proper SIZE.

[CA renter]

I wouldn’t characterize Hank Paulson as a government regulator. He was transferred over from Goldman Sachs, and was used to convince the ignorant masses that “the world would end” if we didn’t bail out his wealthy banking buddies.

Fannie and Freddie were NOT the cause of the bubble. They were used *after the fact* to bail out the PRIVATE lenders by refinancing all the bad loans on the private balance sheet into government-backed loans.

The problem is corruption, not the size of the government.

[Arraya]

Yeah. come on man the number of employees working for the government(size) has zilch to do with the housing bubble. The people that aided and encouraged the bubble working in the government did not do so because they were misguided government technocrats – they were aiding in the process of capital accumulation for the ones with the most capital.

Besides every government “regulator” comes from the private sector. Just look at the list of treasury secretaries, look at who’s on the board of the Fed?

[aldante]

Corruption is much easier to hide with the size and scope. Yea or nay?

[briansd1]

Actually, Ron Paul is more of a laissez faire classical liberal. He’s not conservative.

I’m Ok with Ron Paul if we can have legalized drugs and prostitution. Not that I would partake, but it would be good business opportunity for me.

I deal with many foreign visitors who come here for business and pleasure. They always ask how they can get some “comfort.” I tell them to look on CL or magazines…. but there is no good reliable service that I can recommend.

I could start my own company.

[all]

[quote=CA renter]It’s too simplistic to say a “large” or “small” government is the problem or solution. What’s needed is an accountable, transparent government that is open and accessible to ALL citizens, equally.[/quote]

I agree. I would also add consistent. Arbitrary implementation of rules is the cornerstone of police state and corruption. If you leave up to a person to decide if a rule needs to be enforced eventually you’ll run into one that will abuse the power. Which is why I hate speed limits.

[zk]

[quote=aldante]
ZK,
How is making something incompetent bigger an improvement?
[/quote]

Simply making it bigger isn’t an improvement. It needs to be improved. Whether it’s bigger or smaller isn’t the issue. Improvement isn’t free, though. So some resources would be necessary to implement any improvements.

[quote=aldante]

So we agree that the trillions are coming from the taxpayer? That the FED is able to print money exponentially based on the fact that the U.S. taxpayer must pay their taxes or go to jail right?
The vast majority of the $$ goes to multinational “defense” contractors and companies. This is why the absolute best thing that America does is make weapons. No one even comes close to our ingenuity. Then there are the permanent banker/governement families that sit right next to the FED as the money is being created. If you look at who the top regulators are, they all tend to know one another because they congregate in the same place. That place is Washington D.C. where they draw up “laws” that enable them to continually grow and protect their own wealth.
[/quote]

Unless I’m reading that wrong, you’re saying that corruption is rampant. If I agree with that (and I do up to a point), I still don’t see how a generally smaller government helps that problem.

[quote=aldante]
The reason that I say a smaller “Government” is that people are given a false sense of security by the pronouncements and actions of these regulators. People act on those pronouncements.
[/quote]

I don’t understand that paragraph at all. So if government was smaller, people wouldn’t have a false sense of security? And that would fix the problems?

[quote=aldante]

Here is a what if: Do you think that if Hank Paulson and Ben Bernanke came to the public in summer of 2008 and said ” The Housing market is overbought, please avoid buying a house until the dust settles” billions of dollars would have been saved by those people who bought their house becasue at that time becasue they trusted these “Regulators?” BTW: This is exactly what Paulson was saying to the insiders….this is going down..stay away form Fannie and Freddie.
[/quote]

First of all, by the time he gave the warning he gave, housing prices were already collapsing. Second, he didn’t say, “the housing market is overbought and going down, stay away from Fannie and Freddie.” He is alleged to have said, “Fannie and Freddie are going down due to the (already happening) housing collapse.” So, if he said that to the general public, then certain investors would’ve made different moves, but it wouldn’t have affected home buyers to any significant extent.

[quote=aldante]
No these really “smart and trusted” authorities created an atmoshpere that encouraged capital to be misdirected on a very large scale. That is why your tax money this very morning is being pledged to bail out some very wealthy people in Europe.

[/quote]

Not sure I see the connection there. Please be more specific.

[quote=aldante]
Please give me examples of how many times Bernanke has been right on the economy. In the mean time here is a link you may enjoy:

http://www.zerohedge.com/contributed/ny-fed-issues-mea-culpa-nobody-saw-6pm-black-friday

The same thing is played out day after day after day. Our futures are being used (via a tax system legitmized by the use of Force) to create wealth for the wealthy.
If the regulators missed Madoff and the biggest bubble ever how in the HELL can anyone believe that they will get it right the next time????? How big do you want the Governement to be?

BTW, what if one of those really powerful people who were ever elected, or vetted by the public is a percription drug addict? Or just plain incompetent? Or evil? How much power do you suggest we give these folks?

No thanks ZK. A great example is when BAC wanted to add a fee to their debit cards. The government did not act. People did and BofA quickly changed their mind.

If you have not already take 30 minutes and read “The Law” by Frédéric Bastiat. He explains why governemt is ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY and at the same time needs to be kept to its proper SIZE.[/quote]

You keep talking about corruption and incompetence (and now potential drug addicts) in the government. Nothing you’ve said in any of your posts adequately explains why you think a smaller government will fix this.

You’re a small-government conservative. Which is fine, to a point. And that point is the point at which you stop using reason and start saying things like, “In the face of all this evidence that POWER CORRUPTS how anyone can claim that a big government is necessary is IDIOTIC…..IMHO.” The problem with passionate ideologues is that they rarely use or respond to reason, logic, evidence, or facts. And even when they try to (as in your statement above, which talks about evidence that power corrupts), their logic frequently fails, as does yours. You say that there’s “all this evidence that POWER CORRUPTS” and then say that therefore anyone who claims that a big government is necessary is idiotic. You can’t see, because you’re blinded by your biases, that the two aren’t necessarily automatically connected. You are so certain that they are (because of your bias), that it doesn’t occur to you that your logic here is faulty.

As I said in my first post, there’s no talking common sense with someone who can be so ridiculously blind to his own biases. And, as you’ve shown, I was right. If you want to prove me wrong, explain to me how a small government would fix or would have prevented the (mostly republican) corruption that caused these problems in the first place.

[scaredyclassic]

In my home, we have a very small govt led by a female monarch, yet still there is a troubling amount of corruption. Although I do care about my children, I am less concerned about inflation than global warming and the zombie apocalypse.

[swave]

Yes, I know that Madoff was very connected and that the SEC was very incompetent. I know someone who worked for SEC enforcement through the 90s and quit in 2003 because he couldn’t do his job. But eventually Madoff did stop because of the SEC and government prosecutors. The SEC should have stopped him 10 years earlier. But, if it weren’t for the SEC and government prosecutors, he would probably still be in business. We need to try to minimize corruption, but that is not the same as getting rid of everyone.

[aldante]

I noticed in your resonableness and unbiased nature you were not able to give any examples of Bernanke being correct.
You simply do not have a grasp of the facts or of history as it happened.
Bernanke said the exact opposite. He never said that housing was going down. On 7/16/2008he said this:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/07/16/business/main4265793.shtml?source=related_story

For those who like facts instead of throwing around monikers, shares of fnma and fhlc jumped 13.8% and 14.6% respectively in one day! Again, just because I am passionate about not wanting to get ripped off with my own tax money does not make me an “passionate ideologue…. rarely use or respond to reason, logic, evidence, or facts”. If you had read any of the links that I have added you would be responding to the facts that I am putting forth.

Of course if you disagree with those fact please let me know why.

You on the other hand have not shown me any evidence showing Bernanke’s long term estimates for the economy have panning out. Did you or did you not read the “Mea culpa” article that I posted earlier? Are you stating that there are not facts in that piece? You may want to ask yourself which one of us is blind here.

And yes my arguement is that if the Government were smaller people would take more responsibility for their own behavior. That is not my unique Idea though. I think that you can go back through the ages and hear it time and time again. Adam Smith got pretty famous discovering that law…the law of self preservation.
Or maybe you would like to explain to me why all of the sudden in 200(?) people, normal people in droves started lying on their mortgage application. Please spare me the “the unregulated bankers did it arguement” Those individuals bought cars, took vacations, purchased stocks, bought more houses by lying about their income. That was on them dude no one else. The banks made it easier becasue their loans were being bought and securitized and given a AAA rating immediately.

As soon as you make the Governemt responsible for deciding what is right and what is wrong you have to accept that your sense of right and wrong may not agree with who is in charge at the moment. No people need to know that lying is just wrong. That if they lied about their income to get into a million dollar house – that they deserve to have it taken away when they do not make their payments. But according to your glorious regulators – those poor liers, need to be bailed out. No that is not right. If that makes me an idealouge so be it.

[zk]

[quote=aldante]I noticed in your resonableness and unbiased nature you were not able to give any examples of Bernanke being correct.
You simply do not have a grasp of the facts or of history as it happened.
Bernanke said the exact opposite. He never said that housing was going down. On 7/16/2008he said this:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/07/16/business/main4265793.shtml?source=related_story

[/quote]

What the hell are you talking about? When did I say Bernanke was correct about anything? When did I say he said housing was going down? When did I say he said anything? You don’t even have a grasp of this thread, let alone history.

[quote=aldante]

For those who like facts instead of throwing around monikers, shares of fnma and fhlc jumped 13.8% and 14.6% respectively in one day!
[/quote]

What does this have to do with anything?

[quote=aldante]
Again, just because I am passionate about not wanting to get ripped off with my own tax money does not make me an “passionate ideologue…. rarely use or respond to reason, logic, evidence, or facts”.
[/quote]

Not wanting to get ripped off with your own tax money does not make you a passionate ideologue. Being convinced that smaller government will eliminate (or greatly reduce) corruption without any evidence to show same is a sign that you’re a passionate ideologue.

[quote=aldante]
If you had read any of the links that I have added you would be responding to the facts that I am putting forth. Of course if you disagree with those fact please let me know why.
[/quote]

Show me the parts that say smaller government would have prevented the republican corruption that, in large part, caused the 2008 meltdown, and I’ll respond to them.

[quote=aldante]
You on the other hand have not shown me any evidence showing Bernanke’s long term estimates for the economy have panning out. Did you or did you not read the “Mea culpa” article that I posted earlier? Are you stating that there are not facts in that piece? You may want to ask yourself which one of us is blind here.
[/quote]

I’m stating that there are not facts in that piece that show a smaller government will eliminate the type of corruption that causes the problems we had in ’08. That is still the discussion we’re having, right?

[quote=aldante]
And yes my arguement is that if the Government were smaller people would take more responsibility for their own behavior. That is not my unique Idea though. I think that you can go back through the ages and hear it time and time again. Adam Smith got pretty famous discovering that law…the law of self preservation.
[/quote]

Why would people take more responsibility for their own behavior if government were smaller?

[quote=aldante]
Or maybe you would like to explain to me why all of the sudden in 200(?) people, normal people in droves started lying on their mortgage application. Please spare me the “the unregulated bankers did it arguement” Those individuals bought cars, took vacations, purchased stocks, bought more houses by lying about their income. That was on them dude no one else. The banks made it easier becasue their loans were being bought and securitized and given a AAA rating immediately.

[/quote]
The banks made it easier becasue their loans were being bought and securitized and given a AAA rating immediately. Exactly. And if we’d had better regulation, that wouldn’t have happened.

[quote=aldante]
As soon as you make the Governemt responsible for deciding what is right and what is wrong you have to accept that your sense of right and wrong may not agree with who is in charge at the moment.
[/quote]

Well, of course. But there does have to be a set of rules. What is allowed and what is not allowed and what the consequences are of not following the rules. And, unless you live in a theocracy, who would formulate, create, and enforce the rules besides the government? You? Each individual?

[quote=aldante] No people need to know that lying is just wrong. That if they lied about their income to get into a million dollar house – that they deserve to have it taken away when they do not make their payments. But according to your glorious regulators – those poor liers, need to be bailed out. No that is not right. If that makes me an idealouge so be it.[/quote]

Why do you call them my glorious regulators? I think they suck and they need to do a better job. How many times have I said that in this thread? Anyway, the regulators weren’t the ones that decided that those poor liars needed to be bailed out. In any case, I whole-heartedly disagreed with the decision(s) to bail out the banks, the homeowners, the wall street fatcats, and whoever else got bailed out. Whatever bailouts were necessary to prevent a depression, I may agree with. Beyond that, I don’t.

[CA renter]

[quote=aldante]I noticed in your resonableness and unbiased nature you were not able to give any examples of Bernanke being correct.
You simply do not have a grasp of the facts or of history as it happened.
Bernanke said the exact opposite. He never said that housing was going down. On 7/16/2008he said this:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/07/16/business/main4265793.shtml?source=related_story

For those who like facts instead of throwing around monikers, shares of fnma and fhlc jumped 13.8% and 14.6% respectively in one day! Again, just because I am passionate about not wanting to get ripped off with my own tax money does not make me an “passionate ideologue…. rarely use or respond to reason, logic, evidence, or facts”. If you had read any of the links that I have added you would be responding to the facts that I am putting forth.

Of course if you disagree with those fact please let me know why.

You on the other hand have not shown me any evidence showing Bernanke’s long term estimates for the economy have panning out. Did you or did you not read the “Mea culpa” article that I posted earlier? Are you stating that there are not facts in that piece? You may want to ask yourself which one of us is blind here.

And yes my arguement is that if the Government were smaller people would take more responsibility for their own behavior. That is not my unique Idea though. I think that you can go back through the ages and hear it time and time again. Adam Smith got pretty famous discovering that law…the law of self preservation.
Or maybe you would like to explain to me why all of the sudden in 200(?) people, normal people in droves started lying on their mortgage application. Please spare me the “the unregulated bankers did it arguement” Those individuals bought cars, took vacations, purchased stocks, bought more houses by lying about their income. That was on them dude no one else. The banks made it easier becasue their loans were being bought and securitized and given a AAA rating immediately.

As soon as you make the Governemt responsible for deciding what is right and what is wrong you have to accept that your sense of right and wrong may not agree with who is in charge at the moment. No people need to know that lying is just wrong. That if they lied about their income to get into a million dollar house – that they deserve to have it taken away when they do not make their payments. But according to your glorious regulators – those poor liers, need to be bailed out. No that is not right. If that makes me an idealouge so be it.[/quote]

The programs were marketed in a way that would make “bailing out bankers, idiotic mortgage lenders, and derivatives traders” sound palatable.

The PTB don’t care a single, solitary bit about Joe Sixpack staying in “his” house. They wanted to save the financial elite, and the only way they could reasonably do that was to “save” Joe Sixpack so that he would maintain a false sense of hope and keep making those monthly mortgage payments.

[patientrenter]

[quote=swave]…..But eventually Madoff did stop because of the SEC and government prosecutors….[/quote]

Huh? Madoff handed himself in. The SEC is just a fig leaf, to make us feel that we are being protected from Wall Street shenanigans.

[scaredyclassic]

i think it would be quite comfortable to wear justa fig leaf.

we named one of our dogs fig.

the sec did seem kind fo lame with the madoff thing.

Having done some big law firm work dealing with financial prospectuses and medium size transactions, sometimes it seems like the SEC is primarily there to ensure disclosure in unbearably long, complex, unreadable and ultimately misleading prospectuses. Or at least teh appearance of disclosure. Actually, I tend to go with the whole fig leaf metaphor.

[Author]

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