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Re: Bedtime for Capitalism?

Posted: 18 Sep 2008, 12:12pm
by eumaas
Maybe I didn't make it clear, but what I said was a joke. :naughty:

If you want to understand China, it's best to study the Confucians, Legalists, and "primitive capitalist accumulation" as it occurred in Europe. Maoism has no relevance in modern China except as a dissident movement. Taoism as anything other than superstition is also dead. China is just the same old shit paired with a modern monolithic bureaucracy.

Re: Bedtime for Capitalism?

Posted: 18 Sep 2008, 12:16pm
by BostonBeaneater
eumaas wrote: China is just the same old shit paired with a modern monolithic bureaucracy.
It's that monolithic bureaucracy we need to be afraid of.

Re: Bedtime for Capitalism?

Posted: 18 Sep 2008, 12:19pm
by Wolter
BostonBeaneater wrote:
eumaas wrote: China is just the same old shit paired with a modern monolithic bureaucracy.
It's that monolithic bureaucracy we need to be afraid of.
I'm afraid of both that AND the same old shit.

Re: Bedtime for Capitalism?

Posted: 18 Sep 2008, 12:26pm
by IkarisOne
eumaas wrote:Maybe I didn't make it clear, but what I said was a joke. :naughty:

If you want to understand China, it's best to study the Confucians, Legalists, and "primitive capitalist accumulation" as it occurred in Europe. Maoism has no relevance in modern China except as a dissident movement. Taoism as anything other than superstition is also dead. China is just the same old shit paired with a modern monolithic bureaucracy.
The only sacred texts the Chinese hold to come from the University of Chicago.

Re: Bedtime for Capitalism?

Posted: 18 Sep 2008, 12:30pm
by eumaas
IkarisOne wrote:
eumaas wrote:Maybe I didn't make it clear, but what I said was a joke. :naughty:

If you want to understand China, it's best to study the Confucians, Legalists, and "primitive capitalist accumulation" as it occurred in Europe. Maoism has no relevance in modern China except as a dissident movement. Taoism as anything other than superstition is also dead. China is just the same old shit paired with a modern monolithic bureaucracy.
The only sacred texts the Chinese hold to come from the University of Chicago.
Friedman's an influence, but he's a propagandist for capitalism. it's best understood from an outside perspective. And I don't think I'm wrong in stating that Confucian and Legalist ideas are current when it comes to governance. It's a combination of ancient and modern.

Re: Bedtime for Capitalism?

Posted: 18 Sep 2008, 12:32pm
by Wolter
eumaas wrote:
IkarisOne wrote:
eumaas wrote:Maybe I didn't make it clear, but what I said was a joke. :naughty:

If you want to understand China, it's best to study the Confucians, Legalists, and "primitive capitalist accumulation" as it occurred in Europe. Maoism has no relevance in modern China except as a dissident movement. Taoism as anything other than superstition is also dead. China is just the same old shit paired with a modern monolithic bureaucracy.
The only sacred texts the Chinese hold to come from the University of Chicago.
Friedman's an influence, but he's a propagandist for capitalism. it's best understood from an outside perspective. And I don't think I'm wrong in stating that Confucian and Legalist ideas are current when it comes to governance. It's a combination of ancient and modern.
The Confucian and Legalist thinkers paved the way for authoritarianism in the first place.

Re: Bedtime for Capitalism?

Posted: 20 Sep 2008, 10:00am
by Dr. Medulla
Clio, she loves the irony that this is coming under a Republican party that loves to label all foes as socialists and Marxists.
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Re: Bedtime for Capitalism?

Posted: 20 Sep 2008, 12:10pm
by IkarisOne
Dr. Medulla wrote:Clio, she loves the irony that this is coming under a Republican party that loves to label all foes as socialists and Marxists.
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The irony is that it's essentially correct. Only it will be a soft and squishy socialism for the rich and social Darwinism for the rest of us. Or maybe not. Maybe this is all some very elaborate master plan. Didn't Gorbachev predict the ultimate victory for Marxism in his farewell address? All of these Wall Street sharks are loose cannons- a lot of them come out of nowhere and join the billionaire's club. Maybe all those upstarts were being set up for a big fall.

Whatever the case, it all stinks on ice.

Re: Bedtime for Capitalism?

Posted: 20 Sep 2008, 11:12pm
by darter
No, there is always the next Greater Fool. We will spiral ever upward (monetarily, I mean, by adding zeros to our accounts) and even though the West will sink somewhat, relative to the Chinese and Russians, and be dealt humiliations by their armies, we (the West) will end up roughly where Joe Strummer found punk, amid high inflation, high unemployment and high taxation. So at least the music outlook looks favorable. Anyway, the events of last week didn't create any losses - the events merely revealed that for the last eight to twelve years we have been silly imposters who lost our wealth years earlier. Maybe decades earlier. So now it's time to put a patch on the old winter coat and wait for these calamities to visit our old and emerging foes.

Re: Bedtime for Capitalism?

Posted: 21 Sep 2008, 1:36pm
by IkarisOne
Many Economists Skeptical of Bailout http://news.yahoo.com/s/politico/200809 ... tico/13689

Many of the same economists and opinion-makers who'd provided a bipartisan sheen of consensus to Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson's previous moves have quickly begun casting doubts on the wisdom of a policy that would allow Treasury to purchase without oversight hundreds of billions of dollars of difficult-to-price assets from financial institutions.
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Under the proposal, Paulson would not have to report to Congress until December, and the only safeguard for taxpayers was a provision that the “Secretary shall take into consideration means for — (1) providing stability or preventing disruption to the financial markets or banking system; and (2) protecting the taxpayer.”

Skepticism toward the plan reflected more than the predictable desires of the left to spread the wealth to Main Street or of the right to reject government bailouts, although those sentiments were also expressed.

"We need to take a bold move. In that sense I think Paulson is right," Luigi Zingales, a Professor at the University of Chicago School of Business who wrote a widely circulated short essay titled "Why Paulson is Wrong,” told Politico.

Zingales fears that the Treasury bailout would effectively turn the entire financial sector into a Government Sponsored Enterprise, complete with the same murkiness and moral hazard that sunk Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. “It might achieve the final outcome, but it will do so at an enormous cost," he said. "All the troubles we’ve seen with Fannie and Freddie would be seen again and again across the entire financial sector."

President Bush is “asking for a huge amount of power,” said Nouriel Roubini, an economist at New York University who was among the first to predict the crisis. “He's saying, ‘Trust me, I'm going to do it right if you give me absolute control.' This is not a monarchy.” (Roubini told the New York Times that despite these concerns, he also thought the plan could help stave off a recession.)

Re: Bedtime for Capitalism?

Posted: 21 Sep 2008, 2:09pm
by Dr. Medulla
President Bush is “asking for a huge amount of power,” said Nouriel Roubini, an economist at New York University who was among the first to predict the crisis. “He's saying, ‘Trust me, I'm going to do it right if you give me absolute control.' This is not a monarchy.” (Roubini told the New York Times that despite these concerns, he also thought the plan could help stave off a recession.)
That's the part that suggests to me that these fucks still look at every crisis as an opportunity to advance executive rule. I should note that I just started listening to Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine, which argues that Chicago School free market radicals look at disasters, natural and otherwise, as opportunities to privatize and destroy community. That is, what can't be accomplished during more deliberative times is more easily accomplished in a panic, such as after Katrina or 11 September. I'm only a couple hours in and I'm somewhat skeptical of her use of mass psychologically, but the latest stage of the US financial meltdown is a great real time case study as I make my way through the book.

Re: Bedtime for Capitalism?

Posted: 21 Sep 2008, 2:12pm
by IkarisOne
Dr. Medulla wrote:
President Bush is “asking for a huge amount of power,” said Nouriel Roubini, an economist at New York University who was among the first to predict the crisis. “He's saying, ‘Trust me, I'm going to do it right if you give me absolute control.' This is not a monarchy.” (Roubini told the New York Times that despite these concerns, he also thought the plan could help stave off a recession.)
That's the part that suggests to me that these fucks still look at every crisis as an opportunity to advance executive rule.
Exactly. This has nothing to do with Bush- he was just a prop to keep the nominal conservatives quiet while the Presidency was turned into a monarchial seat.

Re: Bedtime for Capitalism?

Posted: 21 Sep 2008, 2:47pm
by Dr. Medulla
Has anyone read any columnist or economist arguing for the break up of some of these massive corporations? Seems to me that if a business is regarded as "too big to be allowed to fail," then its very existence is problematic because, as we're seeing, when it's profitable it's laissez-faire and when it's in trouble it activates a government safety net. In essence, its size allows it to hold American taxpayers hostage (tho, more accurately, it's holding a gun to its head and demanding terms). Or maybe I'm just displaying my ignorance of economics here.

edit: Dumb its/it's errors.

Re: Bedtime for Capitalism?

Posted: 21 Sep 2008, 3:21pm
by Purple Hayes
Dr. Medulla wrote:Has anyone read any columnist or economist arguing for the break up of some of these massive corporations? Seems to me that if a business is regarded as "too big to be allowed to fail," then it's very existence is problematic because, as we're seeing, when it's profitable it's laissez-faire and when it's in trouble it activates a government safety net. In essence, it's size allows it to hold American taxpayers hostage (tho, more accurately, it's holding a gun to its head and demanding terms). Or maybe I'm just displaying my ignorance of economics here.
Spot on..

Like a nationalised company with all profits going to private share holders, Thatcher eat your heart out..

Re: Bedtime for Capitalism?

Posted: 21 Sep 2008, 10:47pm
by darter
I was looking at some numbers on this. If the bailout is $700 B and there are 300M Americans then each American (including babies) will pay about $2400 bucks or about 48 gasoline fill-ups if it takes $50 to fill the tank. (Rough numbers cause I didn't write this down). So a family of four might get about a ten grand hit with this. Other numbers to compare this to is the roughly $350B we spend on education (I think K-12) and the Iraq war is costing what, $150B a year? So we coulda had four more (theoretical) one-year wars for this amount. Or had two free years of education. Or all that free gas.Your choice. Let us assume that because Americans are lazy, detached wankers they will not pay for this but will borrow the money from the Chinese. So let's say the family of four will really pay about double the ten grand. Call it 20 grand. So, if during next five or ten years it seems like you have 2 grand less (per year) than it feels you should have - that's where it went. So, America, I wanna tell you right now that it will not be the fault of the next president when the voter is asked in 2012 whether he is "better or worse off" than four years ago. In conclusion, re-elect Obama, okay?