OT: What’s the deal with NPR?

[Arraya]

[quote=Allan from Fallbrook][quote=briansd1]
As a society, we greatly bene
Brian: I’m as much of a money-grubbing capitalist as the next guy, but I’d also be the first to say that Wall Street has fundamentally failed in its primary mission: The proper allocation of capital to profit-making ventures.

.[/quote]

I think they may just have a morphing mission, in a sense. For example, the global economy has been growing, on average, about 2.25% per year, for the past 150 years. Which means, they need to find more and more profit-making ventures every year. Well, to put very simply, It’s been getting more difficult since the 70’s to find new ventures because of the bigger and bigger pools of capital along with some other trends. After 150 years of industrialization, how many more “needs” can they come up with for us rational utility maximizers to rationally utilize. “Security” has been one of the bigger new ventures of the past decade. Not actually a need we really want to have. It, actually, surpassed alternative energies in venture capital. Something we desperately need.

Now, personally, I think we are at a major inflection point in economic understanding. To me all the typical political discussions are very shallow. I think modern economics has some major blind spots, false assumptions and negative attributes that economists deal with through, either, flat out denial or some tautological response and this will come front and center in the coming years. I also think the institution is completely ossified, which makes things worse. But, I digress, this is another discussion all together.

[jpinpb]

brian – I see you posted also on the Mortgage approval hell thread, so you probably read ctr70’s post. It detailed the FHA versus Wall Street loans. The WS loans are the ones that did the most damage. Still believing WS is our savior?

[jpinpb]

brian – I see you posted also on the Mortgage approval hell thread, so you probably read ctr70’s post. It detailed the FHA versus Wall Street loans. The WS loans are the ones that did the most damage. Still believing WS is our savior?

[jpinpb]

brian – I see you posted also on the Mortgage approval hell thread, so you probably read ctr70’s post. It detailed the FHA versus Wall Street loans. The WS loans are the ones that did the most damage. Still believing WS is our savior?

[jpinpb]

brian – I see you posted also on the Mortgage approval hell thread, so you probably read ctr70’s post. It detailed the FHA versus Wall Street loans. The WS loans are the ones that did the most damage. Still believing WS is our savior?

[jpinpb]

brian – I see you posted also on the Mortgage approval hell thread, so you probably read ctr70’s post. It detailed the FHA versus Wall Street loans. The WS loans are the ones that did the most damage. Still believing WS is our savior?

[briansd1]

[quote=jpinpb]brian – I see you posted also on the Mortgage approval hell thread, so you probably read ctr70’s post. It detailed the FHA versus Wall Street loans. The WS loans are the ones that did the most damage. Still believing WS is our savior?[/quote]

I absolutely agree with crt70.

I don’t think that Wall Street is our savior. But we need a functioning financial system. What choice did we have but to fix what we had? (And I’m not saying that the way the bailouts were carried out was the only way… but something had to be done).

The bailout redressed everyone’s portfolios, including the public pensions funds’.

Yes, the huge compensation packages to Wall Street executives were corrupt and but they were small in comparaison to the trillions of additional losses had nothing been done.

I know that the billions that Wall Street executives walked away with is sick. But I’m past the retribution stage.

The people responsible for the War in Iraq… and those responsible for the financial crisis…. It’s kinda too late for retribution. Let’s move on.

BTW, I support a tax on financial transactions to help close the deficit. And a tax on bank bonuses too.
http://www.cepr.net/documents/ftt-support.pdf

[briansd1]

[quote=jpinpb]brian – I see you posted also on the Mortgage approval hell thread, so you probably read ctr70’s post. It detailed the FHA versus Wall Street loans. The WS loans are the ones that did the most damage. Still believing WS is our savior?[/quote]

I absolutely agree with crt70.

I don’t think that Wall Street is our savior. But we need a functioning financial system. What choice did we have but to fix what we had? (And I’m not saying that the way the bailouts were carried out was the only way… but something had to be done).

The bailout redressed everyone’s portfolios, including the public pensions funds’.

Yes, the huge compensation packages to Wall Street executives were corrupt and but they were small in comparaison to the trillions of additional losses had nothing been done.

I know that the billions that Wall Street executives walked away with is sick. But I’m past the retribution stage.

The people responsible for the War in Iraq… and those responsible for the financial crisis…. It’s kinda too late for retribution. Let’s move on.

BTW, I support a tax on financial transactions to help close the deficit. And a tax on bank bonuses too.
http://www.cepr.net/documents/ftt-support.pdf

[briansd1]

[quote=jpinpb]brian – I see you posted also on the Mortgage approval hell thread, so you probably read ctr70’s post. It detailed the FHA versus Wall Street loans. The WS loans are the ones that did the most damage. Still believing WS is our savior?[/quote]

I absolutely agree with crt70.

I don’t think that Wall Street is our savior. But we need a functioning financial system. What choice did we have but to fix what we had? (And I’m not saying that the way the bailouts were carried out was the only way… but something had to be done).

The bailout redressed everyone’s portfolios, including the public pensions funds’.

Yes, the huge compensation packages to Wall Street executives were corrupt and but they were small in comparaison to the trillions of additional losses had nothing been done.

I know that the billions that Wall Street executives walked away with is sick. But I’m past the retribution stage.

The people responsible for the War in Iraq… and those responsible for the financial crisis…. It’s kinda too late for retribution. Let’s move on.

BTW, I support a tax on financial transactions to help close the deficit. And a tax on bank bonuses too.
http://www.cepr.net/documents/ftt-support.pdf

[briansd1]

[quote=jpinpb]brian – I see you posted also on the Mortgage approval hell thread, so you probably read ctr70’s post. It detailed the FHA versus Wall Street loans. The WS loans are the ones that did the most damage. Still believing WS is our savior?[/quote]

I absolutely agree with crt70.

I don’t think that Wall Street is our savior. But we need a functioning financial system. What choice did we have but to fix what we had? (And I’m not saying that the way the bailouts were carried out was the only way… but something had to be done).

The bailout redressed everyone’s portfolios, including the public pensions funds’.

Yes, the huge compensation packages to Wall Street executives were corrupt and but they were small in comparaison to the trillions of additional losses had nothing been done.

I know that the billions that Wall Street executives walked away with is sick. But I’m past the retribution stage.

The people responsible for the War in Iraq… and those responsible for the financial crisis…. It’s kinda too late for retribution. Let’s move on.

BTW, I support a tax on financial transactions to help close the deficit. And a tax on bank bonuses too.
http://www.cepr.net/documents/ftt-support.pdf

[briansd1]

[quote=jpinpb]brian – I see you posted also on the Mortgage approval hell thread, so you probably read ctr70’s post. It detailed the FHA versus Wall Street loans. The WS loans are the ones that did the most damage. Still believing WS is our savior?[/quote]

I absolutely agree with crt70.

I don’t think that Wall Street is our savior. But we need a functioning financial system. What choice did we have but to fix what we had? (And I’m not saying that the way the bailouts were carried out was the only way… but something had to be done).

The bailout redressed everyone’s portfolios, including the public pensions funds’.

Yes, the huge compensation packages to Wall Street executives were corrupt and but they were small in comparaison to the trillions of additional losses had nothing been done.

I know that the billions that Wall Street executives walked away with is sick. But I’m past the retribution stage.

The people responsible for the War in Iraq… and those responsible for the financial crisis…. It’s kinda too late for retribution. Let’s move on.

BTW, I support a tax on financial transactions to help close the deficit. And a tax on bank bonuses too.
http://www.cepr.net/documents/ftt-support.pdf

[Arraya]

[quote=briansd1]

The people responsible for the War in Iraq… and those responsible for the financial crisis…. It’s kinda too late for retribution. Let’s move on.
[/quote]

Your kind of assuming that we don’t have a ruling class that transcends political parties, which goes against anthropological research of pretty much all societies in modern civilization. I would disagree with this assessment. I think decisions to change policy is less to do with a new party and more of a decided change of plans(often time more rhetorical than anything else) by the ruling class which is filtered through a political narrative. Not to say there is not massive disagreements behind the scenes but I don’t think we are privy to the real discussions. We seem to get a Vaudeville-esque version for political consumption.

Jared Diamond, scientist and author, most recently of “Collapse: How societies chose to fail or succeed”, said that one of the ways societies fail is if the “ruling class” is disconnected from their decisions. I would say our “ruling class” is completely disconnected.

[Arraya]

[quote=briansd1]

The people responsible for the War in Iraq… and those responsible for the financial crisis…. It’s kinda too late for retribution. Let’s move on.
[/quote]

Your kind of assuming that we don’t have a ruling class that transcends political parties, which goes against anthropological research of pretty much all societies in modern civilization. I would disagree with this assessment. I think decisions to change policy is less to do with a new party and more of a decided change of plans(often time more rhetorical than anything else) by the ruling class which is filtered through a political narrative. Not to say there is not massive disagreements behind the scenes but I don’t think we are privy to the real discussions. We seem to get a Vaudeville-esque version for political consumption.

Jared Diamond, scientist and author, most recently of “Collapse: How societies chose to fail or succeed”, said that one of the ways societies fail is if the “ruling class” is disconnected from their decisions. I would say our “ruling class” is completely disconnected.

[Arraya]

[quote=briansd1]

The people responsible for the War in Iraq… and those responsible for the financial crisis…. It’s kinda too late for retribution. Let’s move on.
[/quote]

Your kind of assuming that we don’t have a ruling class that transcends political parties, which goes against anthropological research of pretty much all societies in modern civilization. I would disagree with this assessment. I think decisions to change policy is less to do with a new party and more of a decided change of plans(often time more rhetorical than anything else) by the ruling class which is filtered through a political narrative. Not to say there is not massive disagreements behind the scenes but I don’t think we are privy to the real discussions. We seem to get a Vaudeville-esque version for political consumption.

Jared Diamond, scientist and author, most recently of “Collapse: How societies chose to fail or succeed”, said that one of the ways societies fail is if the “ruling class” is disconnected from their decisions. I would say our “ruling class” is completely disconnected.

[Arraya]

[quote=briansd1]

The people responsible for the War in Iraq… and those responsible for the financial crisis…. It’s kinda too late for retribution. Let’s move on.
[/quote]

Your kind of assuming that we don’t have a ruling class that transcends political parties, which goes against anthropological research of pretty much all societies in modern civilization. I would disagree with this assessment. I think decisions to change policy is less to do with a new party and more of a decided change of plans(often time more rhetorical than anything else) by the ruling class which is filtered through a political narrative. Not to say there is not massive disagreements behind the scenes but I don’t think we are privy to the real discussions. We seem to get a Vaudeville-esque version for political consumption.

Jared Diamond, scientist and author, most recently of “Collapse: How societies chose to fail or succeed”, said that one of the ways societies fail is if the “ruling class” is disconnected from their decisions. I would say our “ruling class” is completely disconnected.

[Author]

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