Should this bother anyone?

[Dr. Medulla]

The free market works in my opinion. This is not the free market. In a free market you lose all your money on bad bets. Bail-outs in any form are a nod to incompetance which I see as the main arguement these people have against socialism. Bail-outs are the same thing as hand-outs.

I'm curious as to how you define free market. Does your definition allow for government regulation and oversight or should it be a true free for all?

[BostonBeaneater]

The free market works in my opinion. This is not the free market. In a free market you lose all your money on bad bets. Bail-outs in any form are a nod to incompetance which I see as the main arguement these people have against socialism. Bail-outs are the same thing as hand-outs.

I'm curious as to how you define free market. Does your definition allow for government regulation and oversight or should it be a true free for all?

I think a free market works when there are clear rules and a level playing field. Regulation has become a dirty word in business circles which I think is shameful. Decent rules could have prevented all this. These lenders can do math and should have known better than to lend money that they knew borrowers could not pay back. They proved they can't behave themselves and some rules are needed to keep them in line. What kills me is that the profiteers get to walk off with piles of dough and the rest of us have to pay for it. I figure that I paid $100,000 more for my house than I would have without this bubble. Where's my bail out? Why do I get punished for doing the right thing and saving up a proper down payment and getting a reasonable 30 year fixed rate mortgage?

[Dr. Medulla]

The free market works in my opinion. This is not the free market. In a free market you lose all your money on bad bets. Bail-outs in any form are a nod to incompetance which I see as the main arguement these people have against socialism. Bail-outs are the same thing as hand-outs.

I'm curious as to how you define free market. Does your definition allow for government regulation and oversight or should it be a true free for all?

I think a free market works when there are clear rules and a level playing field. Regulation has become a dirty word in business circles which I think is shameful. Decent rules could have prevented all this. These lenders can do math and should have known better than to lend money that they knew borrowers could not pay back. They proved they can't behave themselves and some rules are needed to keep them in line.

Okay, I just wanted clarification that you weren't some state-of-nature free marketer. The state of high finance is a football game without refs. Without proper enforcement of the rules, of course everyone is going to cheat, and eventually it becomes a melee that destroys the game. Should this be a surprise? How do people understand that enforced rules are necessary for a sports contest to work, yet are convinced that deals involving millions and billions of dollars need to be free of all boundaries?

What kills me is that the profiteers get to walk off with piles of dough and the rest of us have to pay for it. I figure that I paid $100,000 more for my house than I would have without this bubble. Where's my bail out? Why do I get punished for doing the right thing and saving up a proper down payment and getting a reasonable 30 year fixed rate mortgage?

Something that I read today describes your position nearly to a T.

[eumaas]

I think markets will always suck due to
1. gov't
2. the credit/banking system
3. (large) hierarchical firms
4. the ownership (as opposed to possession) concept of property

Reform those four and you've got mutualism, which is free market anti-capitalism and unobjectionable to me.

More here:
http://www.mutualist.org/id47.html

Why (large) hierarchical firms are bunk:
http://mutualist.blogspot.com/2005/12/s ... ry-of.html
(scroll down to "Major Posts")

[BostonBeaneater]

Something that I read today describes your position nearly to a T.

That is exactly how I feel. I would never want to live in a country where one cannot be an entrepreneur and make themselves better off. We are becoming a country where that is increasingly hard for that to happen. Health care costs have become a great tool for controlling the working public and in my opinion is the number one hurtle for someone trying to strike out on their own enterprise. It's much easier and more secure for someone to work for a large company that offers health care. I believe in the market. If there is a need then someone will fill it. The enemy of this are the very rich who don't seem to like new members coming into their club. Tip O'Neil said it best, I have to paraphrase, "The oldest and largest entitlement program in this country is family money".

[Dr. Medulla]

Something that I read today describes your position nearly to a T.

That is exactly how I feel. I would never want to live in a country where one cannot be an entrepreneur and make themselves better off. We are becoming a country where that is increasingly hard for that to happen. Health care costs have become a great tool for controlling the working public and in my opinion is the number one hurtle for someone trying to strike out on their own enterprise. It's much easier and more secure for someone to work for a large company that offers health care. I believe in the market. If there is a need then someone will fill it. The enemy of this are the very rich who don't seem to like new members coming into their club. Tip O'Neil said it best, I have to paraphrase, "The oldest and largest entitlement program in this country is family money".

If only there were an alternative to private health care …

[classof77]

The free market works in my opinion.

Didn't a "free market" lead to the Great Depression? (Admittedly a little hazy on this and may be remembering a Chomsky quote).

I would never want to live in a country where one cannot be an entrepreneur and make themselves better off

Health (s)care has become a scam--pure and simple. I'm an entrepreneur and I couldn't afford to be if I bought into the medical industrial complex. But I'm different. I don't care so much about making myself (and family) better off as I do not making greedy motherfuckers better off.

A big part of me is watching this meltdown with glee. And I don't buy into the "middle class" is going to pay for it bull shit (though they will but its their own fault). This greed driven fiasco goes bottom to top as much as it goes top down. Too much money, too many people trying to make a quick buck--and at the end of the day still too many people starving.

[eumaas]

"goo goo g'joob" seriously
think about it

we're done for.

time to learn to live sustenance lifestyle

[eumaas]

we are all subsistence farmers now.

also vtech students and americans.

but mostly subsistence farmers.

revolutionary atavism is key.

[JulieJazz]

we are all subsistence farmers now.

also vtech students and americans.

but mostly subsistence farmers.

revolutionary atavism is key.

I have a pal who studied with Bill Mollison...maybe I should get some tips...

I think it is time to stop spending on the vinyl, glass and other crap I do not really need, and focus on a material-free future. I admit to finding it very hard to free myself from the bondage of consumerism (even though most of what I buy is second-hand anyway).

This situation in the US does have me very worried. Globalization has me very worried. The whole mess has me worried.

[Dr. Medulla]

Richard Gwyn is normally one of the better columnists out there. His pessimistic prediction:

Long recession in U.S. is inevitable
Sep 19, 2008 04:30 AM
RICHARD GWYN

The fall of the Berlin Wall, and so the end of the Cold War. The 9/11 attacks by Islamic terrorists on the World Trade Center Towers in New York.

And now the financial crisis on Wall Street: it's of the same transformational, things-will-never-be-the same again, historic order.

About the nature of the coming new order, it's of course impossible to make any pronouncements with any confidence.

But about what the future may hold – my own guesstimates about it follow below – there is one defining aspect that can be stated with complete confidence.

This is that almost no one has yet got it right, or even come close. As is even more relevant, all the guesstimates by all the experts have erred, massively, in the same way. They've all been far too conservative, far too optimistic, and too anxious to avoid making things worse by sounding too gloomy.

In fact, at least one shining exception to the near-universal analytical timidity does exist: back in 2003, billionaire investor Warren Buffett described the new financial gimmicks then being peddled by Wall Street as "financial weapons of mass destruction." He went on to describe those peddling these gimmicks as "madmen."

Today it's time to err on the side of pessimism. That's my own mood anyway. Here are my guesses:

A recession is inevitable. And it will be a long one, say of three or four years, quite possibly longer.

Canada is in incomparably better shape than the U.S. Our banks and insurance companies are far better regulated, and by nature are conservative and responsible.

Our government finances are similarly in incomparably better shape than those south of the border.

Luck also is on our side. We have lots of resources. The next-door market for our oil, minerals, potash and the rest will contract. But many major markets, from China to India to Brazil, will continue to grow.

The U.S., though, matters the most to us by far. As it goes down, so will we, if less dramatically and painfully.

The U.S. recession will not just be long and painful, but brutal. The collapse of its giant automobile corporations – GM, Ford and Chrysler, which are all now trying to get $25 billion in subsidies out of Washington – is a distinct possibility, with potentially harsh consequences for Ontario.

The reason for the scale of the pain ordinary Americans will have to endure is because of the scale of the gains, largely artificial, that they have granted themselves in recent years.

South of the border, everyone's been living on credit. The nation is in debt, with huge unfunded liabilities such as social security and medical care still to be factored in. Individuals have maxed out their credit cards. Corporations are deep in debt, often, as shown by the collapse of giants like Lehman Brothers and AIG, far deeper than either their own executives or their regulators knew.

Just one remedy exists: deep cuts in government spending matched by tax increases to bring in additional revenues. Out on America's Main Street, though, the consequence will be job losses and income losses, and therefore a longer and deeper recession.

The U.S. is about to go through an agonizing rethink about its place and role in the world. It can no longer afford the war on terrorism. The annual cost of the war in Iraq – at some $300 billion – is the equivalent of all the corporate bailouts that have just been executed. The military can't escape the general cuts in spending.

Watch, therefore, for the U.S. to turn inward, although not necessarily isolationist. Watch for an early withdrawal from Iraq and an early acceptance that the war in Afghanistan is unwinnable.

Watch for the Middle East to become a very unstable and unpleasant place. Watch, therefore, for oil prices to soar.

No one would be happier than me if all these predictions turn out to be alarmist and exaggerated. But we'd all be a lot happier today if the chair of the Federal Reserve Bank or the U.S. treasury secretary or, as the least likely possibility, the president had been as alarmist as Warren Buffett.

[Jimmy Jazz]

Well I just got paid today and was going to treat myself to a few CDs and DVDs, but after this thread I think I'm just going to go huddle in a corner and shiver. Thanks guys!

[Wolter]

I just set myself on fire.

[Still216]

Well I just got paid today and was going to treat myself to a few CDs and DVDs, but after this thread I think I'm just going to go huddle in a corner and shiver. Thanks guys!

It's not your musical indulgences, or anyone else's, that are destroying our economy's financial foundation. The bailing out of institutions that should have enough smart minds to avoid a bailout in the first place, on the other hand...

[eumaas]

I'm buying a bunch of Zen, Taoist, Discordian, and Anarchist books--such that they could all fit in a backpack.