Smashing Capitalism

Somewhere in the Hamptons a high-roller is cursing his cleaning lady and shaking his fists at the lawn guys. The American poor, who are usually tactful enough to remain invisible to the multi-millionaire class, suddenly leaped onto the scene and started smashing the global financial system. Incredibly enough, this may be the first case in history in which the downtrodden manage to bring down an unfair economic system without going to the trouble of a revolution.

First they stopped paying their mortgages, a move in which they were joined by many financially stretched middle class folks, though the poor definitely led the way. All right, these were trick mortgages, many of them designed to be unaffordable within two years of signing the contract. There were “NINJA” loans, for example, awarded to people with “no income, no job or assets.” Conservative columnist Niall Fergusen laments the low levels of “economic literacy” that allowed people to be exploited by sub-prime loans. Why didn’t these low-income folks get lawyers to go over the fine print? And don’t they have personal financial advisors anyway?

Then, in a diabolically clever move, the poor – a category which now roughly coincides with the working class – stopped shopping. Both Wal-Mart and Home Depot announced disappointing second quarter performances, plunging the market into another Arctic-style meltdown.  H. Lee Scott, CEO of the low-wage Wal-Mart empire, admitted with admirable sensitivity, that “it’s no secret that many customers are running out of money at the end of the month.”

I wish I could report that the current attack on capitalism represents a deliberate strategy on the part of the poor, that there have been secret meetings in break rooms and parking lots around the country, where cell leaders issued instructions like, “You, Vinny – don’t make any mortgage payment this month. And Caroline, forget that back-to-school shopping, OK?” But all the evidence suggests that the current crisis is something the high-rollers brought down on themselves.

When, for example, the largest private employer in America, which is Wal-Mart, starts experiencing a shortage of customers, it needs to take a long, hard look in the mirror. About a century ago, Henry Ford realized that his company would only prosper if his own workers earned enough to buy Fords. Wal-Mart, on the other hand, never seemed to figure out that its cruelly low wages would eventually curtail its own growth, even at the company’s famously discounted prices.

The sad truth is that people earning Wal-Mart-level wages tend to favor the fashions available at the Salvation Army. Nor do they have much use for Wal-Mart’s other departments, such as Electronics, Lawn and Garden, and Pharmacy.

It gets worse though. While with one hand the high-rollers, H. Lee Scott among them, squeezed the American worker’s wages, the other hand was reaching out with the tempting offer of credit. In fact, easy credit became the American substitute for decent wages. Once you worked for your money, but now you were supposed to pay for it. Once you could count on earning enough to save for a home. Now you’ll never earn that much, but, as the lenders were saying – heh, heh—do we have a mortgage for you!

Pay day loans, rent-to-buy furniture and exorbitant credit card interest rates for the poor were just the beginning. In its May 21^st cover story on “The Poverty Business,” Business Week documented the stampede, in the just the last few years, to lend money to the people who could least afford to pay the interest: Buy your dream home! Refinance your house! Take on a car loan even if your credit rating sucks! Financiamos a Todos! Somehow, no one bothered to figure out where the poor were going to get the money to pay for all the money they were being offered.

Personally, I prefer my revolutions to be a little more pro-active. There should be marches and rallies, banners and sit-ins, possibly a nice color theme like red or orange. Certainly, there should be a vision of what you intend to replace the bad old system with—European-style social democracy, Latin American-style socialism, or how about just American capitalism with some regulation thrown in?

Global capitalism will survive the current credit crisis; already, the government has rushed in to soothe the feverish markets. But in the long term, a system that depends on extracting every last cent from the poor cannot hope for a healthy prognosis. Who would have thought that foreclosures in Stockton and Cleveland would roil the markets of London and Shanghai? The poor have risen up and spoken; only it sounds less like a shout of protest than a low, strangled, cry of pain.

Comments

[Anarcissie]

chris: '... Like banks that you believe are being bailed out, try naming a billionaire who is a murderer or violent felon. ...'

Any billionaire who is worth his salt will have the State do it for him. Or at least a private specialist.

Although there was that guy from the DuPont family several years ago who actually did his own.

[chris]

Anarcissie, you wrote:

"Any billionaire who is worth his salt will have the State do it for him. Or at least a private specialist."

Name one! You must take some pulp fiction a little too seriously if you believe this.

You wrote:

"Although there was that guy from the DuPont family several years ago who actually did his own."

That murder was committed by one of the many descendants of Pierre duPont. He was rich by inheritance -- though not a billionaire himself -- and he is a psychopathic nut, as his crime evidenced. He did not murder for profit. In fact, he murdered a wrestler on whom he had a crush. I believe he suffered from unrequited love, which resulted in the crime for which he is now incarcerated till death.

There are other cases of trust-fund offspring committing murder. Leopold and Loeb might ring a bell. Robert Durst, the trust-fund baby of the Durst real estate family in New York City has committed at least two murders. He's also insane and, like duPont, did nothing to earn any part of the family fortune.

There are more. But you and others suggest that billionaires commit murder or violent felonies for financial gain. That notion is ridiculous.

Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, Bill Hewlett and David Packard, Steve Jobs, etc.

To test your claim that billionaires commit murder for gain, you would need some murder victims.

Have the founders of any desk-top or lap-top computer companies been murdered? If so, maybe you can try to pin the crimes on Steve Jobs.

If there were some suspicious corpses in computer land, and their companies were acquired by Apple, I might investigate the curious coincidence. But...

[lc2]

Urgh. Let's not sidetrack this please. The point is that greed and a failure to delay gratification is celebrated in our culture when practiced by some ... it's bold, Alpha male behavior when displayed by ceo's, hedge fund managers and such.

When others (that would be the approx 95% "others") conduct their financial lives in such a fashion, they are foolish, irresponsible, etc. ... even though as Andrea implies, they've been reared since day one in the U.S. to think of the future as impossibly bright.

[the great market correction]

It is not 'smashing capitalism' but correcting the religion of capitalism.

Americans as a whole have been addicted to debt and living beyond their means. These personal choices which have been exercised as collective in the wake of shame over working for a living and the belief in a free lunch have little to do with capitalism. Around the globe, in other markets capitalism is faring much better when folks believe in good old fashioned savings, long term investment, eating at home and in life outside of consumerism.

There are still plenty of people out there who understand there are people out there whose idea of the American dream is security and sending your kids to a better college, not a lease on a Lexus. Oscar DeLaHoya, the boxer, made a $100 million dollar profit in the first year building homes that cost under $100,000 for working class families; these were bought unsubsidized.

Democratic Luxury Premium, as it is called in automobile marketing, has reduced the pleasure of enjoying the finer things in life every once in a while instead of all the time.

This has nothing to do with capitalism as a system but American's unwillingness to say 'That's crazy. I ain't payin' that much.'

The cost of a pint of ale in England is largely the same everywhere because the English are not willing to pay more for 'atmosphere.'

Those who bought into easy credit will loose and that is there choice. In return, many people who didn't buy into it -- which will be more of the working class and the working poor rather than the aspirant middle class -- will benefit. The will be able to buy fore-closing homes in better school districts and the growing number of individual investors will be able to take advantage of undervalued stock as they will be buying it for college funds and retirements, not for a quick buck.

I'm sorry, I don't think the loser in all of this will be the poor. The coming economic correction will eventually create a climate where current wages that should be fair but aren't because of cost of living will become fair again. These people who did not extend themselves into credit will then have more income to save which is what they do more than the aspirant middle class.

We will see whole towns of Whole Foods buying assholes obliterated as their property values tank and their augmented incomes dry up. They will divorce their spoiled brat wives and move back in with mommy in Philadelphia. The women will go back to school and become teachers, five years later meeting a guy who puts the kids first and they will think: "God that ex-husband of mine was a real jerk -- and his dick was small."

Capitalism is only great if it is looked on as a system and not a religion. We are about to see that false idol die and a more tempered market emerge. Long term thinkers will not be hurt and life will go back to normal.

By the way, stupid white people, your organic produce from Latin America is not organic just like your 50 year mortgage is nothing but rent.

[chris]

the great market correction, you wrote:

"Oscar DeLaHoya, the boxer, made a $100 million dollar profit in the first year building homes that cost under $100,000 for working class families; these were bought unsubsidized."

Like most people who spout off like you have, you are plagued by ignorance.

Oscar de la Hoya and his partner John Long have agreed to INVEST $100 million in California real estate. He has not EARNED a dime -- yet.

Here's the story:

Oscar de la Hoya's Golden Boy Partners has six projects in various stages of preparation and is closest to breaking ground to build 107 town houses on the site of a shuttered beer distribution warehouse in South Gate, an industrial city of about 100,000, 12 miles from downtown Los Angeles. The town houses will be sold at up to $400,000 apiece, which might seem high any place but the Los Angeles area."

You are out of your mind if you think there are no subsidies involved in the development of these projects. Without federal, state and city subsidies, they simply would not happen.

Meanwhile, the prices of these homes are closer to $400,000 than $100,000. And Oscar is still waiting for his payday.

Moreover, if the $100 million is invested in the usual fashion of real estate, the partners will probably leverage -- borrow another $400 million -- their activities to build $500 million of homes selling at $400,000. If they succeed, the investment MIGHT yield a $100 million profit -- in several years. But Oscar and Golden Boy have barely begun breaking ground on all the projects they've discussed.

It's also obvious you haven't been to England, where the price of ale varies. Meanwhile, it's obvious you've failed to notice that in the US, the price of gasoline is far more uniform than the price of English ale.

Ale is a totally discretionary purchase. No one needs ale, no matter how pleasant it may be to drink. On the other hand, fuel is necessary.

You're another guy who needs a course in basic economics. Meanwhile, your assessment of white people is hilarious. I hope you don't take your nonsense too seriously, but it appears you do. Your intensity will increase your disappointment when none of what you believe comes true.

[Harpo]

If nothing else, those variable rate loans provided cheap "lease" property below the rent gouging for the same level of property. The shrewder lendee would've realized this and taken the eventual foreclosure as the termination of a "lease". In the meantime they have use of property that would cost them more if they had sought to rent it.

This may mortify those who've been caught in the illusion of home-ownership as a way to hoard long-term equity, but it is the logical endgame of this sort of profit seeking in capitalism which is arbitraging and leveraging your assets in any way possible.

Harpo,
[email protected]

[Anarcissie]

me, about the Bank of America giving Countrywide two billion:

"Think it has anything to do with those many, many billions whistled up out of the void by the Fed and the ECB in the last several days?"

Chris:
"No. I think the availability of the $2 billion reflects the substantial liquidity of Bank of America's balance sheet. For B of A, $2 billion is not much.

Meanwhile, as you should notice, banks have little exposure to the subprime loan market."

Here's some more about the Bank of America. The BoA is getting very special treatment from the Fed.
http://money.cnn.com/2007/08/24/magazines/fortune/eavis_citigroup.fortune/index.htm?cnn=yes
(or http://tinyurl.com/yt46we)

We are not looking at a liquidity crisis but a solvency crisis, resulting from the creation of huge amounts of credit money disconnected from the ability of anyone to match it with labor, goods, or services.

The basis of the subprime mortgage business was the assumption that this money would be inflated indefinitely. Thus, you could expect to loan to bad risks, and when a good many of them went under, take the property back and sell it to somebody else at the same or even a higher price.

However, some of that funny money was beginning to leak into consumer prices, so the Fed began restricting it. The immediate result was the liquidity crisis -- if you can't flip the properties, nobody wants them.

However, the long-term problem is that stock and real estate prices have been hugely inflated by the funny money of the recent past and the problem for central bankers is how to get out of the situation without causing radical deflation or inflation and the hard times which either will bring.

This is a serious matter for the ruling class because economic troubles lead to political troubles, as witness the upheavals which followed the Great Depression.

[Chickensh*itEagle]

"...try naming a billionaire who is a murderer or violent felon."

The name "Dick Cheney" comes to mind -- one of the chief instigators of a war of aggression that has killed hundreds of thousands if not a million.

As for being a felon, our Nuremberg tribunal hanged Nazis for the crimes of conspiracy to wage aggressive war and waging aggressive war.

But then Cheney is reportedly worth only a couple of hundred million, so I guess he doesn't qualify as a billionaire even if lots of billionaires have benefited from the war he lied to start.

[chris]

chickeshit eagle, you wrote:

"The name "Dick Cheney" comes to mind -- one of the chief instigators of a war of aggression that has killed hundreds of thousands if not a million."

Yeah, and let's add Washington, Jackson, Lincoln, Roosevelt, Wilson, Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Bush 41 and Bush 43 to your list. There are more, but this list will do.

You wrote:

"As for being a felon, our Nuremberg tribunal hanged Nazis for the crimes of conspiracy to wage aggressive war and waging aggressive war."

You seem to be claiming that hanging nazis makes felons out of Americans. Try again.

You wrote:

"But then Cheney is reportedly worth only a couple of hundred million, so I guess he doesn't qualify as a billionaire even if lots of billionaires have benefited from the war he lied to start."

Yeah, yeah, yeah. How about those Korean billionaires and millionaires who wouldn't exist had it not been for that little old Korean War where the US lost 38,000 troops in three years of fighting?

We've still got 40,000 troops on the border between North and South Korea, 54 years after the shooting stopped.

Then there are those Japanese and German billionaires and millionaires who wouldn't exist had it not been for little old WWII and our 7-year post-war effort to rebuild those countries based on democratic and capitalistic principles?

[chris]

Anarcissie, you wrote:

"However, the long-term problem is that stock and real estate prices have been hugely inflated by the funny money of the recent past and the problem for central bankers is how to get out of the situation without causing radical deflation or inflation and the hard times which either will bring."

Stock prices are not inflated by any measure. Sorry.

Real estate prices vary. Is a house for $30,000 in the middle of Iowa cheap or dear? Is an apartment selling for $2 million in Manhattan cheap or dear?

Ask the buyer and ask the seller.

As for the article you referenced, well, like most journalists, the writer shows his hope that the economy will suffer a comeuppance.

He also tries a little trickery. He mentions borrowing limits relative to a bank's "regulatory capital". Nice touch. But these days, most banks are overcapitalized by miles.

Their excess capital is multiples of the regulatory minimums. Thus, even if the entire amount of capital advanced under the recent rules were to vanish, the banks would still have more capital than regulations require.

Meanwhile, one of the unfortunate problems to arise in previous crunches was the forced liquidation of assets caused by sharp downward spikes in valuations.

Prices of illiquid securities and assets can drop dramatically when there is a surging drive to sell and no drive to buy. But as little as 24 hours can cool the heads of panicked sellers.

Price drops can trigger additional sales, which trigger more, and so on. Margin limits are breached and firms have trouble. But the trouble is not the result of any true impairment of the assets. The trouble is panic.

The conclusion of every panic is a brief and glorious buying opportunity. The cool heads with the cash swoop in. Guys like Warren Buffett and others who have made a business of picking up the pieces.

Frankly, I believe better crisis management by the Fed would change things for the better.

[Chickensh*itEagle]

"Yeah, and let's add Washington, Jackson, Lincoln, Roosevelt, Wilson, Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Bush 41 and Bush 43 to your list. There are more, but this list will do."
...
"How about those Korean billionaires and millionaires who wouldn't exist had it not been for that little old Korean War where the US lost 38,000 troops in three years of fighting?"

Yup. Them too. Capitalists love their wars. Or, actually, that's unfair. Most unchecked ruling elites get around to it sooner or later. Having some or any ideology to justify it is a definite plus.

"You seem to be claiming that hanging nazis makes felons out of Americans. Try again."

Nope, I'm saying that failing to be bound to the same standards America imposed on the Nazis makes THESE Americans felons. YOU try again.

[Hattie]

We are very fortunate to have Chris in our midst. Without his extremely long posts attempting to refute every point others make, combined with his occasional flat-out displays of bad temper, we might be moving forward with a discussion that could move the liberal agenda forward. Thanks for doing your part, Chris, to impede progress!

[chris]

chickenshit eagle, you wrote:

"Nope, I'm saying that failing to be bound to the same standards America imposed on the Nazis makes THESE Americans felons. YOU try again."

Oh. You're claiming America attempted to exterminate all the Jews in Europe, as well as others deemed undesirable.

I see now that you are a nut.

Moreover, you seem to be a nut who cannot DISTINGUISH BETWEEN defeating the nazis, defeating the Japanese, rebuilding both countries, making them wealthy while they became two of our chief trading partners AND AND a society that aims to kill all European Jews while attempting to dominate the world through military force.

Meanwhile, many many millions of people in Germany, Korea and Japan and the remainder of Europe have seen their fortunes soar since WWII.

Since you seem so opposed to the increase of prosperity in the free world over the last 60 years I guess your best bet is to move to Cuba or North Korea where you can get a last taste of life in a Marxist state.

Fidel may already have died. The way Cuban officials and Chavez from Venezuela are denying Castro's death, it's pretty likely the old moron has croaked. So if you want some that bare-bones life among Fidel's revolutionaries, you better slip over there soon.

Maybe Zimbabwe is more to your liking. It looks as though famine is spreading there as a result of the stupidity of that old thug Mugabe.

Anyway, you won't find any wars fought by billionaires and you won't find any democratic capitalistic countries fighting to annex land or resources in other nations.

By the way, was the Korean War worth the price? What about WWII? Worth it? Or not?

[blue8064]

Chris said: "blue8064, the tax credit you seek is already here. It is the Earned Income Tax Credit. Perhaps it does not go far enough. But it conforms to the outline you presented."

However, although the Earned Income Tax Credit provides some benefits as far as it goes, it is absolutely not a substitute for my proposal to convert the dependency exemption from a tax deduction into a 100%-refundable tax credit, and make the child tax credit 100%-refundable.

The Earned Income Tax Credit is available only to those who are working; it provides nothing at all to those who are not working. However, my proposal to convert the dependency exemption from a tax deduction into a 100%-refundable tax credit, and make the child tax credit 100%-refundable would provide some minimal income even to those who are not working. This difference is critical.

In today's harsh job market, fundamental human rights require that some minimal income be available even to those who are not working. To deliberately starve someone who refuses to work is just as much capital punishment as executing someone is. I simply cannot believe that laziness, however wrong it may be, is serious enough to justify capital punishment.

In addition, the principle of innocent until proven guilty requires us to assume that all poor people are deserving poor when we are not sure. Capital punishment by starvation for laziness is especially unjust when one considers that the unemployed are not even proven to be guilty first. Indeed, even during recessions, the unemployed are still presumed to be personally at fault without any proof of guilt. That ought to be totally unacceptable, and ought to be challenged in court.

Time limits on eligibility for both welfare and unemployment compensation also ought to be challenged in court on the grounds that they violate the principle of innocent until proven guilty, and the penalties (capital punishment by starvation or lack of some other basic necessity) are totally disproportionate to any wrong done. This means that the deliberate cutoff of welfare or unemployment compensation to those who need them ought to be considered cruel and unusual punishment and therefore unconstitutional.

The tax dollars that we spend on jail sentences for criminals prove that we as a nation CAN AFFORD to provide welfare to those who need it. A genuine lack of sufficient resources to provide for the poor would, by definition, necessarily mean insufficient resources to provide for convicted criminals as well. This in turn would make it an absolute economic necessity to have capital punishment for almost all crimes, not just the most serious crimes.

The point here is that those in need who could not otherwise get welfare could start committing crimes specifically in order to actively FORCE the taxpayers to pay the costs of supporting them in jail. If the alternative for the prospective criminal is starvation, such measures as whipping, branding, and minor amputation, which were mentioned by Monica, or even the risk of rape by a fellow prisoner are not likely to be sufficient to deter this sort of crime.

As long as the criminal is in jail, he/she is fed and provided for at taxpayer's expense, no questions asked. However, as soon as he/she is released from jail, he/she will be on his/her own. Having a criminal record will then make it especially hard to make it in today's harsh economy. That in turn would be an incentive to immediately commit another crime, go right back to jail, and again be fed and provided for at taxpayer's expense. No wonder the recidivism rate for criminals is so high.

[roger]

there is no relationship between the capacity to provide prison and jail space to the minority of prisoners in this country who need to be incarcerated to the capacity of the country to provide for the financial and nutrition needs of much larger population which affords itself these benefits. your argument fails entirely.

[Monica]

But there are many prisoners, many of them imprisoned for life or for many years. Or, help for poor people could be partial (not supporting them in full), of a shorter duration, and cheaper because there is no need to pay for prison guard salaries and other such expenses incurred in order to force prisoners to stay in prison rather than for living expenses.

[Larry In Lethbridge]

Chris babbles on here as there is just about nobody left on the globe that will allow or tolerate his insolent and flippant behaviour.

Obviously without female companionship, he devotes most of his time to denigrating people here. I think we have a very good example of social outcast/misfit. I'd like to beat the crap outta him, except he is m ost likely a timid little loudmouth that runs at the first sight of trouble.

[chris]

Larry, you wrote:

"I'd like to beat the crap outta him, except he is m ost likely a timid little loudmouth that runs at the first sight of trouble."

I was in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho for almost a month. You should have dropped down from your quaint town, which I understand is considered the sunlight capital of Canada.

I am now back in Brooklyn, NY. Let me know when you're in town.

[chris]

blue8064, you wrote:

"To deliberately starve someone who refuses to work is just as much capital punishment as executing someone is."

There is NO starvation in the US. If you want evidence of starvation, look to Africa or North Korea.

You wrote:

"I simply cannot believe that laziness, however wrong it may be, is serious enough to justify capital punishment."

There's nothing to believe. Food for the poor and not-so-poor is free. In fact, in the poor sections of New York City, obesity is a problem. I have never seen an obese victim of starvation. Neither have you.

You wrote:

"The tax dollars that we spend on jail sentences for criminals prove that we as a nation CAN AFFORD to provide welfare to those who need it."

Like everyone else who trots out this false analogy, you are wrong.

The comparison is between the cost of incarceration versus the cost of allowing criminals to run free.

Stealing food to feed one's family is not a reason people are incarcerated. Moreover, the cost of feeding impoverished citizens is not high and no one claims it is high.

The cost of crime is high. Murders and violent felonies can destroy entire families without warning and leave them unable to cope -- psychologically and financially.

Based on the economic value of what is lost due to murder, mayhem and other forms of life-threatening crimes, the cost of jail is acceptable. It is lower than the cost of allowing criminals to remain free.

Personally, I would decriminalize drug use and treat most of those cases as medical/social problems rather than criminal problems.

Meanwhile, it is only in comical fiction that people commit a crime because they believe jail offers a better life-style than existence in the cold cruel world.

Every kid in New York City's public schools is offered free meals. Many schools fudge the government paperwork because the schools are eligible for increased funding based on the level of poverty among the students.

Thus, the schools that appear to serve entirely impoverished kids get more money per student. There's no evidence the extra cash improves student performance, but it is a fact that there are no hungry kids at these schools.

Meanwhile, food stamps are easy to get and they are accepted at virtually every grocery store, deli, convenience store and supermarket in NYC.

[Chickensh*itEagle]

"Moreover, you seem to be a nut who cannot DISTINGUISH BETWEEN defeating the nazis, defeating the Japanese, rebuilding both countries, making them wealthy while they became two of our chief trading partners AND a society that aims to kill all European Jews while attempting to dominate the world through military force."

And you're a nut who can't distinguish between the observation that aggressive war is always a crime, even by God Bless America, and a defense of the Nazis' genocide.

"Anyway, you won't find any wars fought by billionaires..."

Of course not. They get the poor suckers to do their fighting for them.

"...and you won't find any democratic capitalistic countries fighting to annex land..."

Israel. But then maybe you don't consider the Palestinians a nation. At least the democratic Israelis are doing their damnedest to make sure they don't become one.

"...or resources in other nations."

What a howler. Ever wonder why that stubborn Iraqi parliament has dragged its feet about passing that oil revenue sharing law Bush and Cheney want so badly? Because it gives the lion's share of the revenues to the international oil oompanies.

You're right in one sense -- there's nothing at all "democratic" about that little resource grab. But oh, the joys of unfettered capitalism, especially when it employs the world's most powerful military as its private goon squad.

"...was the Korean War worth the price? What about WWII? Worth it?"

It's not the initial cost but the upkeep. Why do we need more than 700 military bases all around the world? People in places like Okinawa and South Korea are getting more and more fed up with our imperial presence. It isn't always easy to keep liberated peoples in line -- like in Iraq, for instance. We're finding out what the Romans found out: the more you conquer, the more you need to conquer to hold what you have. It can't go on forever, and it won't.

"The way Cuban officials and Chavez from Venezuela are denying Castro's death, it's pretty likely the old moron has croaked."

Now you're rambling. But keep on saying it and you'll be right sooner or later, of course. :-)

[Hattie]

Chris thinks we should vote for Hillary, and that will solve our problems. With liberals like Chris, who needs conservatives?

[Larry In Lethbridge]

Chris, in his best Joe Pesci 'wiseguy" voice staring at his image in the mirror says:
"Iam now back in Brooklyn, NY. Let me know when you're in town" .

Next weekend pal. You let me know where, when, and I will be there.With my camera as well.So I can post pics of you in various states of fright.I can even give you a few bucks for the cab to take to the local emerg.

I think when they admit you, they will quickly prepare a spot on the psych wing floor. Are you gonna be able to blog from the nuthouse after your beating ?

I can already surmise absolutely noboby will miss you. Better leave a note for the landlord in your rooming house that you may not make next months rent, as some CDN dunderhead is on my tail and is out to thrash me.

Let me know Chris you Cowboy you.

[Anarcissie]

chris: '... Anyway, you won't find any wars fought by billionaires and you won't find any democratic capitalistic countries fighting to annex land or resources in other nations. ...'

This is not correct. It is true that billionaires seldom get down in the trenches, but they do influence the state and they often influence it toward war. That is probably mostly how they view their class interest. The control of important strategic resources is the explicit intention of the U.S. government; they have said so. In the modern world, it is not necessary to have nominal sovereignty over territory (as in the days of the Roman Empire) as long as you can threaten it militarily and exploit it economically. That is, each little state, nation or tribe can have its own ruling class as long as they can be bought.

'... By the way, was the Korean War worth the price? What about WWII? Worth it? Or not? ....'

Those are good questions. The Korean war had two benefits for the ruling classes of China and United States: (1) It proved that it was not feasible, or at least cheap enough, for the U.S. to invade China; (2) it proved that the U.S. would go to war to protect certain of its forward positions, therefore, it was too expensive to knock them off. The second point might have acted as a restraint on the already rather cautious Soviet Union. It is too bad these propositions could not have been proved without so much loss of life, but maybe that is just the way people are. Ruling class types especially tend to be sociopathic.

World War II was somewhat different from most of the military adventures of the U.S. in that the other side attacked first. (More or less -- in 1941, the U.S. and Great Britain were preventing oil from going to the Japanese Empire, which is technically an act of war. But obviously both Japan and Germany were on related violence binges already.)

[Monica]

Starvation (although rarely complete and directly causing death) is indeed a problem. There are people who can't afford a nutritious diet. Even fat people may be starving, and not by being on a diet or happening to eat a little less, which they may want to. In fact, any positive effect is irrelevant. It is the fact that it is involuntary that makes starvation a bad thing.

Poor people can, and do, actually gain weight or develop diseases associated with weight and nutrition issues because they can't eat properly. For instance, they may not afford enough protein-rich food such as meat or a carefully-balanced vegetarian diet with sufficient protein.

Why do you think that a bread-and-water diet was considered punishment? Because eating lots of carbs, which is at first filling, makes the individual weak and always eager to eat more. Insulin levels are raised and fat is stored more easily, yet the individual always feels somewhat hungry and weak and may be deprived of various nutrients even if the caloric intake itself is not too low. This problem is aggravated by eating sweets. In fact, if you always crave desert after a meal or need to eat lots of bread to fill satisfied even if there is enough food, you probably have this kind of insulin problem. Sometimes it goes away after a few days of drastic carb reduction. I know that because, although I eventually came back to a more normal diet, I have experienced that when I was on the Atkins diet. Before, I could not have lunch without desert, and if I didn't have any, I tended to stuff myself with food. Now, I can have a meal without desert.

It is for such reasons that you may see overweight or obese poor people who are malnourished, and that poor people may develop diabetes. If they eat too many carbs, this is not necessarily because they don't know any better, but because they need to fill their stomach with something they can afford. OK, maybe some don't know any better or those who understand such things can make better choices, but it is a fact that malnutrition can actually lead to obesity.

Notice that someone who was eating not too long ago may be starving today and not look thin, although they may be thinner than they were before.

[chris]

chickenshit eagle, you wrote:

"Israel. But then maybe you don't consider the Palestinians a nation."

Correct. Palestine is the equivalent of the North Pole. We all know where it is, and we all know it isn't a nation. We also know there are no North Pole-ians.

The British Mandate of Palestine became the nation of Israel. But never in the history of Planet Earth was there a sovereign nation known as Palestine. Nor were there any people known as palestinians. They are a fictional population.

Even the method of counting the so-called palestinian fools is unique in the world.

Through history, refugees have been the people who left their homes under duress. They went to other countries to live their lives. Millions of refugees have reached the US. Ask yourself what their children are called. They are called Americans.

Thus, the children of Vietnamese Boat People are known as Americans of Vietnamese descent. Not Vietnamese refugees.

On the other hand, the moronic so-called palestinians count every arab pushed out of Israel AND every descendant of those people as REFUGEES. They attempt this ruse even though those born after 1948 -- almost 60 years ago -- were born outside of Israel.

Due to this bizarre and unprecedented manner of accounting, the number of so-called palestinian refugees GROWS every year.

In fact, of the true 500,000 refugees, probably about 200,000 are still living.

You wrote:

"At least the democratic Israelis are doing their damnedest to make sure they don't become one."

Oh. So you claim it's Israel that has blocked the creation of a palestinian state. Wow! Okay, well, on top of your other nuttiness, you're an anti-Semite too. Nice.

[chris]

Anarcissie, you wrote:

"It is true that billionaires seldom get down in the trenches, but they do influence the state and they often influence it toward war."

Give me ONE example of a wealthy US citizen influencing his country toward war for the sake of his wealth.

The world has seen a vast increase in prosperity since WWII. The richest people -- dictators who have simply claimed resource wealth through political power don't count -- in the world do not benefit from war. War itself does not increase the world's prosperity. War or the threat of miitary retaliation can prevent the destructive spread of harmful ideologies. But war itself is expensive. Hence, we don't engage in war like the leaders of impoverished nations that have nothing to lose. See Africa.

[chris]

Larry Lightweight, you wrote:

"You let me know where, when, and I will be there.With my camera as well.So I can post pics of you in various states of fright.I can even give you a few bucks for the cab to take to the local emerg."

You are obsessed with the idea of confronting me. Given your frothy determination, why did you avoide dropping down to Coeur d'Alene while I was practically in your backyard?

It seems that intensity of your threats grow as the distance between us increases.

Anyway, sadly, I don't believe you are really coming to New York City next weekend just to meet me for coffee.

I also think you are far too old for street fighting. However, if threatening me over the internet makes you feel better, you should indulge yourself. I really don't mind.

Although your best strategy, for the sake of your spiralling blood pressure, is to skip my posts.

[chris]

Hattie, you wrote:

"Chris thinks we should vote for Hillary, and that will solve our problems."

You obviously misunderstood me and you obviously misunderstand the calculus of elections.

First, you should vote for a candidate who can WIN. Obama, Edwards, Kucinich and all the other Democrats cannot win the presidency. That's the first reason they won't win the Democratic nomination.

If Dems foolishly nominate Obama, then Dems will have given the 2008 presidential election to whichever Republican candidate is nominated. Obama cannot beat any of the Republican presidential hopefuls.

In case you missed it, the people who voted for Ross Perot helped Clinton win in 1992. The people who voted for Ralph Nader in 2000 gave that election to Bush.

However, Obama would lose in a landslide because the US is not ready to elect a black president. Not him, anyway. The presence of a conservative third-party candidate would not save him.

Edwards is also a lost cause. His wealth was gained from taking money from insurance companies in medical malpractice suits. He hopes to create a Government Health Program that would feed more cash to personal-injury lawyers than they ever dared dream about. If he's nominated, his opponents will make his personal fortune the central issue of his campaign, and they will destroy his bid for the White House with ease.

Al Gore could appear as a wild card. I'm sure he's weighing the possibility of running. He has the potential to become nominated. He could push Hillary off center stage. But he's too nutty to win.

Hillary is the one Democratic candidate with the potential to win the presidency. However, I don't think the US is ready to elect a woman, and the US is definitely not ready to elect her.

But the election would be close. I'm sure we'd see a record turn-out at the polls.

You wrote:

"With liberals like Chris, who needs conservatives?"

My comments are nothing more than an observation on the political process. If you don't care which party occupies the White House, then none of this matters.

[Anarcissie]

chris: '... Give me ONE example of a wealthy US citizen influencing his country toward war for the sake of his wealth. ...'

Well, there is the Bush family, and Cheney and his friends, right at the top of the heap. There seems to have been some interested oil money in recent events. But I said that billionaires influence the state toward war -- not necessarily for the immediate sake of their own personal wealth. It is more a matter of class interest and class view. I don't know of any billionaires who are politically active who do not support either the Democratic or Republican parties, or both, and both of the mainstream parties are dedicated to the proposition that the U.S., or rather its ruling class, should run or manage the world -- a proposition which will require many wars and threats of war and which is certain to inspire violent enmity, including terrorism, as it already has. Of course both parties are strongly influenced by the views and interests of the very wealthy -- that is obvious to everyone. They need their money and their connections. I'm sort of surprised I have to lay this out. Don't you think billionaires take care of their business?

[Larry In Lethbridge]

Chris,

What makes you think I'm in Alberta ?.I am a lot closer than you think. NYC over Labor Day is always a fun weekend, and taking a few rounds outta you will make it even more pleasurable.

My blood pressure is fine you stain.
As I requested, just name a time and place. I really want to see for myself what a buffoon like you looks like.Then after I beat the crap outta you, maybe this blog won't have to read your drivel .
Perhaps I will take pity on you. A know people that have been shunned by friends/family /colleagues because of obnoxious, arrogant attitudes like you possess, so it is possible I won't bust you up tooo badly.

Ok, name a time and place.If you don't show, will you promise to go away forever from this blog and bother someone else ?

[Chickensh*tEagle]

If chris excels at one thing, it's narrow, nitpicking defenses of broad, sweeping statements.

"...and you won't find any democratic capitalistic countries fighting to annex land or resources in other nations... Palestine is the equivalent of the North Pole. We all know where it is, and we all know it isn't a nation."

So it's okay for the democratic state of Israel to fuck over the Palestinians and annex Palestinian lands, and chris's statement remains legalistically correct.

"Oh. So you claim it's Israel that has blocked the creation of a palestinian state. Wow! Okay, well, on top of your other nuttiness, you're an anti-Semite too."

Nope. Anti-Semitism, as defined by its premier exponents, is a racist ideology. I merely oppose pastramofascist political ideology, which is espoused by only a small minority of the world's Jews and probably not even a majority of Israelis.

Again: "...and you won't find any democratic capitalistic countries fighting to annex land or resources in other nations."

Let's see...Hawaii used to be a nation. The U.S. overthrew the Hawaiian monarchy and annexed Hawaii in 1893. But that got pulled off without a fight, so it wasn't really "fighting to annex land and other resources."

Be nice to chris, everyone. :-)

[chris]

larry from laughter-ville, you wrote:

"As I requested, just name a time and place."

Frankly, since I don't believe you have a trip to New York City planned, I will let you pick the coffee shop, museum or opera house. That way, when you fail to materialize, I'll at least enjoy the setting.

You wrote:

"I really want to see for myself what a buffoon like you looks like."

I am 5'11", brown hair, brown eyes, 180 pounds. Trim. Assuming the weather doesn't change, I will most likely have on khaki shorts and a short-sleeved shirt and sneakers. Thus, a million other New Yorkers could be mistaken for me.

You threatened:

"Then after I beat the crap outta you, maybe this blog won't have to read your drivel."

I see. You are so enraged by postings on the internet that you will cross international boundaries to attempt to commit a felony in the US. Wow.

You reconsidered:

"Perhaps I will take pity on you. A know people that have been shunned by friends/family /colleagues because of obnoxious, arrogant attitudes like you possess, so it is possible I won't bust you up tooo badly."

In other words, you're not getting anywhere near New York City this weekend or any time in the near future.

You challenged:

"Ok, name a time and place.If you don't show, will you promise to go away forever from this blog and bother someone else?"

The question isn't whether I'm around. I live here. You're the guy who needs to offer some convincing information of your whereabouts.

At what hotel are you staying?

[lc2]

Didn't I put out a warning about where this would go if we started engaging chris? It's totally counter-productive. The point is that we all know everything he's going to say .... if the Bush admin. and Horatio Alger foundations put out newletters, he would be the author. He has nothing new to say and nothing we haven't all heard before ... which is why we all come to this forum. To not be told we're nuts for believing this system could be better, more humane, and fairer, without compromising ingenuity and entreprenuerism (sp?). So once and for all ... please leave chris out of this!!!

[KeithCPA]

I am a first time reader to this blog and I am amazed at the harsh words thrown back and forth. Some good tidbits in here, though.

I have some insider-info on the subprime meltdown so here is full disclosure first:
* I train lenders for a living
* I have been so poor that we ate squash out of the garden all summer and dug a hole for our 'out-house' when we were remodeling our home (without a remodel loan because we could not afford it)
* I am now upper-middle class mainly because I was and am totally willing to delay gratification, still shop at Goodwill for casual clothes, and have always chosen 30-year fixed rate mortgages even when the alternatives were temporarily cheaper.
* I am a free-market capitalist, libertarian, who personally practices the philanthropy (money and time) that is a very real, one-to-one solution for people who have less than I do.
* It has been my observation (I am 54) that when I give money to the government (read taxes) the amount the government seems to need to spend to provide the services back to those I was willing to help is paltry compared to giving directly.
* It has also been my observation that many people who are financially well-off, not all but many, also contribute directly through their community charities, churches, schools etc.

Debt-to-income ratios (like the 40% (or 2.5 debt coverage ratio) mentioned above are alive and well...and will be used more carefully now and in the near future. These never went away for conventional loans.

The sub-prime (and it's less-risky 'Alt-A') loans were designed for people who could not meet the credit requirements of conventional loans.

Here is where the tricky part comes in. I absolutely agree with the post that asserted that 'Poor does not mean stupid'! Some people took advantage of sub-prime opportunities to do things they needed to do, and are making the payments and pulling it off.

Others got into a sub-prime initially, then after demonstrating good credit refinanced into a 30-year fixed. My sister was one of them. Her financial future is incredibly brighter because she was first able to get the sub-prime loan, then worked hard to earn the credit rating to move into a conventional mortgage.

Setting aside any lender who fraudulently did not disclose the true picture to their borrowers (because those folks should simply be put in jail), lenders who were following the guidelines of their lending institution and talking their borrowers through the various possible scenarios are absolutely not to blame. In fact, if you were a borrower who were turned down for a loan available to others because 'the lender did not think you could afford it', not only would you be righteously angry but you'd be able to sue the lender!

So, are the borrowers who are losing their homes at fault? To the extent they knew they were taking a gamble and lost, they are responsible for the outcome. To the extent they were lied to or mislead, the lender bears responsibility. But a lender simply cannot make an independent judgement that because someone appears to be poor but otherwise meets the criteria, the loan should not go through.

So, is socialism the answer? I had the opportunity to visit Russia in 1994. My host lived in a building that looked like an apartment building in an inner city. She was well-paid by the standards of the time and once inside her apartment, it was well cared for. The outside of the building, however, was run-down. Needed painting. Light bulbs were broken. Elevators did not work. The grass was completely dead. There was broken glass around.

After I had been with her long enough to get to know her a bit, I delicately asked if the neighborhood had considered getting together to fix up their surroundings.

Her answer: That is not our job. Even though between them they had the money and the physical ability to vastly improve their surroundings, the idea you would do something that was not 'your' job seemed outlandish. Or that you would put time in with your neighbors to improve your common surroundings.

Contrast that with a recent storm in our area that put two large trees through the partially built home of a neighbor. The next day there were 20 of us, working all day, clearing the debris and helping set things right. It did not occur to us to say "That is not my job." We pitched in to make it better.

Please understand I am not putting down the Russian people or my wonderful hosts, Tatyana and Igor. I am sharing a point of view that they developed over the years in a socialist/communist environment. It seemed to be that the government takes care of things and even when they don't, we do not step up of our own initiative to improve things.

Here is an ACTION step... If you are concerned about how people (poor or not) got confused enough to take out loans they could not possibly repay unless everything went really well, volunteer to teach some financial literacy at your local schools. Elementary on through high school, we are in desperate need of adults to step back and help people understand budgeting, delayed gratification (not just for the poor but as a lifestyle), and credit.

I have no interest in trading insults but am very interested in other people's points of view. I'll ignore any vitriolic posts in response to this one but look forward to reading the others.

Thanks for the dialog.

[Larry In Lethbridge]

Chris, Please read the above post from the accountant. She makes her point without being rude, offensive, pompous and didn't need to single out anyone to get her point across. Tone down your attitude pal, we all know you have a brain, no need to piss people off with your ignorant online approach.

You get to a point where people don't bother commenting for fear of being targeted in your bombastic style. I will bet I am not the only one who wants to pop you.

btw, I am staying at the Super 8 in NJ, right at the Lincoln Tunnel. You be bringing "help" then? At your size, I'll let my wife slap you around.

[roger]

keith, if we can get away from the playground taunts recently posted the question originally was why is apparently bold and agressive choices made by the poor seen differently from bold and agressive choices made by the priviledged. i dont believe i would have framed the question in this way. i would ask to what extent are the poor to be held responsible for their general condition. to what degree does the elite ruling class suppress the poor. to offer a more specific instance which you have touched upon: to what extent is the mortgage industry as a whole responsible for these recent foreclosures. there will be plenty of people who insist that industry in general has as a typical mode of operation the entrapment and abuse of uninformed citizens. again i dont believe that i would take such a dim view of the circumstance. let us hear your views on the general relationship between corporations and workers in this extractive capitalist society.

[chris]

Larry nowhere near New York City, you wrote:

"btw, I am staying at the Super 8 in NJ, right at the Lincoln Tunnel."

Sure you are Larry.

You previously wrote:

"You let me know where, when, and I will be there."

Okay. You'll have to ride the subway. Head through the Lincoln Tunnel and go to Times Square. At the Times Square subway station you can catch the Q train to Brooklyn. Ride it to Avenue H. That's my stop. You should have no trouble arriving at the station by 10 am.

The train ride from Times Square is about 35 minutes. All in, it should take you no more than 45 mintues to reach my stop.

I have plans that require me to ride the subway Saturday morning. Thus, to be at the station at 10 am fits with my plans for the day. I'll be waiting on one of the wooden benches on the subway platform, probably reading a book.

You wrote:

"With my camera as well.So I can post pics of you in various states of fright.I can even give you a few bucks for the cab to take to the local emerg."

Sure Larry.

You wondered:

"You be bringing "help" then?"

Nope. Just me.

You wrote:

"At your size, I'll let my wife slap you around."

In other words, she's twice your size and has to save you whenever the neighborhood dogs chase you up a tree.

[chris]

KeithCPA wrote:

"Her answer: That is not our job. Even though between them they had the money and the physical ability to vastly improve their surroundings, the idea you would do something that was not 'your' job seemed outlandish. Or that you would put time in with your neighbors to improve your common surroundings."

The aforementioned state is known as the Tragedy of the Commons. It is also expressed by the question "Do you wash a rental car?"

In other words, individuals do not concern themselves with the well being of public property. Individuals care about their own private property.

Prosperity is unattainable without private property.

[chris]

chickenshit eagle, you wrote:

"So it's okay for the democratic state of Israel to fuck over the Palestinians and annex Palestinian lands..."

Okay. Based on your comments, it is evident that your knowledge of this situation is nearly non-existent. But what you think you know is so skewed by palestinian propaganda that you have your position firmly fixed in your anti-Semitic head.

[KeithCPA]

Roger wrote:
Why are apparently bold and aggressive choices made by the poor seen differently from bold and aggressive choices made by the privileged.

Roger, I am having trouble with the use of the word privileged. How so? I was poor. I worked my butt off. I delayed gratification. I spent time with my family and in helping my community. I was parent of the year for my children's 1600 student high school in 2000. Privileged by whom? How?

How about poor and not poor? Or poor and middle-income?

Once past that semantical challenge, it is my observation that corporations in general create jobs. They do this by using money invested by shareholders. Corporations, while legally a separate entity, are actually run by people. Many corporations are run by people who are moral, ethical folks. Who work hard to create a situation in which people can succeed...themselves and their employees.

Most of us who own businesses, and I have owned my own since 1979, are motivated in part by creating a good living for our employees. We know that beyond it feeling good to do so, that people who are doing well are more likely to contribute to our financial success as well.

I am proud of the fact that even when I had to take only partial draws (the way owners sometimes get paid), I continued to cover the increases to health insurance premiums for my employee.

I wonder if some of the people posting at this blog would be upset that she did not get a raise for three years. Fact is, I was taking home less to keep her health insurance coverage in force. And I could get a better policy, but her husband is disabled and I don't want to take the chance that they'll have a gap in coverage.

The thing is, I think the vast majority of business owners, small to medium size businesses, who employ over half of the Americans, feel just like I do.

One more term you can help me with...extractive capitalist society. What is the extractive part?

Corporations are a group of people (shareholders) who have invested their own money (capital)with an organization who they believe will give them a return on their investment. That is it.

If by workers you mean all the people who have chosen to exchange services for money, they are how the organization functions and provides the return on investment, without which we would not have the capital in the first place.

That said, as a business owner, I exchange services for money, too. And I take the risk. The risk my employees take is that they will lose their job if we do not do well. The risk I take is that I will lose my 'job', my investment, and have to personally pay for the business loans I guaranteed.

I know these posts are long but it is hard to respond to these bigger questions in a very short space.

Fascinating conversation.

[Larry In Lethbridge]

Yeah Chris, I'll hop right on the train you suggest.

Some of us were wondering why you were in Coeur D'Alene Idaho ?Blair have a summer home there ? You part of Blair's reconstruction team ? You buy his explanation then ?

You are weasly enough to take on his detractors and try and spin this around.In fact, the more I read of your stuff I can easily see you cruising public bathrooms.This is what happens to people that suffer from the repression you do. Man are your wires ever messed up, you little man you .

[Chickensh*tEagle]

"...so skewed by palestinian propaganda that you have your position firmly fixed in your anti-Semitic head."

Right. Anyone who dares to criticize Israel is at least an anti-Semite, and if Jewish, a self-hating anti-Semitic Jew.

By your logic, your contempt for the Palestinians makes you both anti-Islamic and anti-Arab. And since Islam, along with Christianity and Judaism, is an Abrahamic religion, that makes you anti-Abrahamic-religion.

Oh, and I almost forot -- since Arabic is a Semitic language, the chain of logic makes you an anti-Semite as well. :-)

[Justin K.]

Yah, because of Corporations There are a lot of jobs. But most corporations pay so poorly that employees are forced to get 2 or even 3 of the low paying corporate jobs just to pay there bills and eat. And not working for a corporation is not a logical solution. Because corporations have infested the vast majority of the world.

[chris]

chickenshit eagle, yo worte:

"Oh, and I almost forot -- since Arabic is a Semitic language, the chain of logic makes you an anti-Semite as well."

Yeah. And a gay man is just a happy-go-lucky person.

Once again, your ignorance on this subject is at the industrial-stength level. You need to learn a lot of history before you are capable of making a point on this topic.

No matter what you believe, you have only succeeded at revealing your anti-Semitism.

[Anarcissie]

KeithCPA: '... Here is an ACTION step... If you are concerned about how people (poor or not) got confused enough to take out loans they could not possibly repay unless everything went really well, volunteer to teach some financial literacy at your local schools. ...'

Actually, I am more concerned with the government's financial ideas. The subprime mortgage crisis is one aspect of a much larger crisis, and that is the inflation of credit and credit money over the last several years, keeping the economy going by driving up stock and real estate prices.

Now, I see where Bernanke has promised to blow up more money for the stock market, whatever is necessary, but there is a problem: the game rests on pretending that there is no inflation, so that interest rates can be kept low. All that inflated money has to be made to disappear somehow before working people get their hands on it and the prices of labor and consumer goods start to rise. The Fed, etc., are shuffling forward on an ever-narrowing ledge. It's hard to say what will happen when they finally go off, but it probably won't be pretty, and our great leaders will have a lot more to worry about than the subprime borrowers.

[chris]

Larry with the overweight wife, you wrote:

"Ok, name a time and place.If you don't show, will you promise to go away forever from this blog and bother someone else?"

Are you going to honor your own demand?

You did promise to come all the way to New York City to confront me. But I think you are lying, Larry. I think you are lying.

Larry, you wondered:

"Some of us were wondering why you were in Coeur D'Alene Idaho."

I have family there. I've been going to Coeur d'Alene for 20 years.

You wrote:

"Blair have a summer home there ? You part of Blair's reconstruction team ? You buy his explanation then ?"

Who is Blair?

You wrote:

"You are weasly enough to take on his detractors and try and spin this around."

Whose detractors? Who's Blair? Tony Blair? I've never commented on anyone named Blair.

You gurgled:

"In fact, the more I read of your stuff I can easily see you cruising public bathrooms."

Really? In what way do my comments lead you to make this connection?

You wrote:

"This is what happens to people that suffer from the repression you do."

Larry, your obsession with me is reaching an unhealthy level. You're so enraged you've threatened to travel to New York to attack me. From violence you've moved on to sexual fantasies involving me. Where will it end, Larry? Where will it end?

You concluded:

"Man are your wires ever messed up, you little man you."

Larry, you've shown the readers here you have an anger problem and an interest in homosexual mating habits. You previously admitted you have an overweight -- possibly obese -- wife. Based on your interest in the gay life, I'm not certain your wife is a woman.

I think you have your fair share of problems, Larry.

[KeithCPA]

Anarcissie says: "Actually, I am more concerned with the government's financial ideas."

Anarcissie, I am too. I tend to work on two levels, the big picture (how the government works) and the local picture (what I can do close to home to help people).

I disagree with the Fed manipulation of the money supply and am not able to impact that in an effective way, certainly not in the short-term.

I am able to work with kids to better understand how to budget, save and spend.

As a favor to a close friend I am stepping in to help her daughter who is in her 30's and got into such financial trouble that she had a shut-off notice for electricity, had let her bills go unpaid for months and was contemplating suicide.

Complaining about the government policies will not help my friend's daughter. Not that we should not complain, but that we can do more on a local and personal level.

The good news, we are one month into it, have agreements with all her creditors, and she has had two semi-monthly paychecks hit her account with no overdrafts. We have a budget with absolutely no wiggle room, but a budget that works. We have a long-term plan that will allow her to stand on her own two feet.

[KeithCPA]

Justin says:
"But most corporations pay so poorly that employees are forced to get 2 or even 3 of the low paying corporate jobs just to pay there bills and eat. And not working for a corporation is not a logical solution. Because corporations have infested the vast majority of the world."

Barbara's blog is titled 'Working in America', not working in the world.

The majority of Americans work for small business or own a small business. Some of those businesses are incorporated but I am guessing by 'corporations' you are referring to multi-nationals.

So here is my biggest concern for people working for large corporations: hours inflation. Many people I know who work for large corporations or the government are pretty well paid and have good benefits. But they are putting 50-60 hours in a week, routinely.

Downsizing to maintain profits as other costs increase when market pressures hold down prices leads to doing more with fewer people.

Folks cannot stay healthy, not to mention bringing their best efforts to work, when they don't get enough downtime.

If this blog were about the undue pressure on employees to be available 24/7 on cellphones, check email even on vacations, come in early and stay late I'd be in 100% agreement.

[Chickensh*tEagle]

chris said: "chickenshit eagle, yo worte:"

Calm down, chris. Remember when you get too rattled to type, the anti-Semite card trumps all! Have a nice rest-of-this-topic. :-)

[roger]

keith: there are many who insist that being born white and male in and of itself is unearned priviledge. when we read about race relations there will be many who insist that not only would a white male have unearned priviledge but that there is nothing that the white male can do to compensate for this advantage and that a white male cannot bring himself to recognize this priviledge. in other words a white male can never fathom how the world really is. i used to assume this was fringe stuff. i have a hard time thinking that one can so easily justify ones own failure in this time and in these fortunate circumstances.

extractive capitalism is the view that labor is extracted from the masses in a coercive manner and the ownership class benefits at the expense of labor. in my experience i do not have as much good will toward the ruling/ownership class as others on this forum.

[Anarcissie]

KeithCPA: '... I disagree with the Fed manipulation of the money supply and am not able to impact that in an effective way, certainly not in the short-term.

I am able to work with kids to better understand how to budget, save and spend. ...'

The connection with the Fed is that money has become fundamentally untrustworthy. It no longer represents labor or the things that labor can produce. It's stuff that the Fed and the ECB pop out of the void when they feel like it.

I am not surprised to read that people in general have adopted a similar view, even though they don't have quite the same powers of credit creation the government does. And of course their purposes are different. Funny money may be conducive to war and imperialism and quick visits to Vegas, but it isn't really a good basis for ordinary life.

[Justin K.]

- KeithCPA "Barbara's blog is titled 'Working in America', not working in the world."

No keith it's called "Smashing Capitalism".

- KeithCPA "Many people I know who work for large corporations or the government are pretty well paid and have good benefits."

Yes government employees do get good pay and benefits. But I don't remember typing anything about government employees. But when it comes to corporations and there employees. No they don't! My time in a corporation was not only low paid but the benefits where a hugh chunk of my paycheck. Witch was only medical and only covered my self. It's true that I now have a job in a high paying corporate position (perviding a service to the government.) But I only got this job because some one died and I just happened to be in the right spot.

- KeithCPA "The majority of Americans work for small business or own a small business."

As for the small business you speak of. Lets say some one owns a Pizza joint. (lets call it Pizza Time.) Pizza Time is going to use Pizza Hut (a large corporation) as a role-mottle. "If Pizza Hut pays there employees $6 an hour then thats what I'm going to do!" The large corporations set the standards.

[bosipov]

Oh my - I have so much to say on this topic . . . First, I am married to a man from Russia. He moved here in 1999 after Yeltsin took charge. BAD news for most Soviets. He has helped me to understand the majority of what we've been TOLD is so untrue. There are rich and poor in communism but not to the extremes we have here. There were no homeless - they were provided for. Everyone had food AND everyone had a paid college education. It wasn't only for the "elite." Everyone had access to medical care. We were told about the sub-par conditions in order to make us feel better about our conditions. I remember hearing stories about standing in lines for food and the extreme poverty. Everytime we're in a Wal-Mart (which is as rare as I can make it) and see the long lines, he reminds me of the stories. Somehow we don't see that as the same thing - we stand in line for 20 minutes or more to checkout. We get sick and call for a doctor appointment. We can't get in for months. If we insist, they will usually allow us to come in and sit and wait until we can be squeezed in. Tell me again about those lines in communist countries.

Subprime mortgages . . . a matter close to my heart. My single 25-yr. old daughter was sucked into one of these by a broker "friend." Everytime we (as her parents) asked a question, we were hushed by this broker friend. No way is this going to be a problem. I worried about it from the beginning. My daughter was young and naive and believed that owning her own home was the right thing to do. And this "friend" convinced her it was affordable. WRONG. I nagged and nagged until we refinanced. Not an easy thing to do when you have one of the "trouble" mortgages. How many of you have tried? She lives in Charlotte, NC. SO many homes are being foreclosed on - it's sad. As a matter of fact, she bought a foreclosed property. People with not so much street-savy smarts were convinced they could have a piece of the American dream - these companies knew exactly what they were doing. They (the mortgage companies) didn't care - they'd get their money one way or the other.

Yes, it's really easy to say what's right and wrong when you've never had any issues. The world looks A LOT differently when some of this stuff happens to you.

[Monica]

Why are people who are so young even allowed to get a mortgage, especially if they are single? They are at a very dangerous age, when they have only been legally adult for a few years and often, for economic reasons or if they have controlling parents, may only have been living as adults with full-time jobs for a short time. They may be too eager to accept just about any conditions, just to become real adults with their own home.

I'm in favour of actually reducing the age of majority in many other respects (it's just not fair to have "minors" who are physically adult or to have people otherwise of full age who are not even allowed to drink a beer), but for large loans, I think they should not even be considered before 35 for single individuals, or before a couple has been married for at least 5 years. I would argue that people who can stay married that long may well have reached the required level of maturity earlier, whereas a single person may not be sufficiently mature for such a decision (getting a large loan) before the mid-30s.

If, however, a couple or an individual can afford a mortgage earlier and can be responsible, let them save money, if they so wish. By the time they reach the required age, they will be in a much better position, even if they can't save enough to buy a home without a mortgage.

[osipov]

My daughter has been living on her own, three states away, since she was 18 and went off to college. She is quite self sufficient. A lot of people are immature, but I can assure you she's not. If you wait until someone is 35, who is going to want to loan money at that age?? No credit history. Her house (Charlotte, NC) was relatively "inexpensive" - right at $100,000. The government has allowed this mess to happen. She's not the only one, and her age has nothing to do with it.

Oh - back to an earlier post - the crisis is most definitely NOT over.

[Monica]

I did not say that no loans should be possible. Just no large long-term loan like a mortgage. Something like a smaller loan or a credit card, or whatever it takes just to establish credit, is OK. Moreover, if the problem is that there is no credit history, it doesn't take that long to establish one. I was in my 30s myself when I got my first credit card. The maximum number of years reported for credit history purposes is limited, anyway. And just because some people are ready in their 20s, that does not mean that many others are not in the "dangerous age" I was talking about. There are plenty of other ways for the more mature young individuals with a salary to invest or spend their money wisely, and their salary may be higher in their 30s.

[Dunk]

INTRODUCTION – Your Dreams Fulfilled

The following ideas and concepts have the potential to radically change your world for the better. Every aspect of your life could be enhanced and every dream you have could become a reality.

Every hope you’ve ever conceived,
Every need you’ve ever known,
Can easily be achieved

Welcome to the growing group of people on this planet who want more from life…

STAGE 1 – Understanding the physical world

The world exists outside of our heads. It’s there to be analysed and understood. It’s not a hard task. The organic material between your ears, your brain, is more than capable of understanding the current world situation.

You are connected.
You are not alone.
You are part of this world.
You have the solution within you.
The world needs you to do your part.
You need you to do your part.

You are connected to every one else on this planet. You may not feel it, but it’s a fact. A fact that can not be refuted, proved wrong, or even sensibly denied. Anyone that does deny it can be ridiculed, and you’ll see why…

Did you have a cup of tea this morning? Have you ever had a cup of tea? Do you drink coffee? If you’ve had any of these experiences, or you’re familiar with the concepts then the ideas below are going to make so much sense to you, and have such an impact on you and your life, that you’ll be asking why you’d never thought of it sooner and then you’ll be demanding that everyone begins to think it too.

Imagine the cup of tea that you had this morning and the process of creating that cup of tea. You took a cup, you boiled some water and you took a tea bag and placed it in that cup or in a tea pot. Now, stop for a second to imagine what that tea bag is, what it means and what it represents.

For that tea bag to exist at all, humans, no matter how far away or close to you, need to that have ploughed a field, planted tea bushes, tended tea bushes, nurtured them through their growth cycle, harvested the leaves, dried the leaves, packaged the leaves, transported the leaves and finally stacked the leaves in a shop where you could purchase them. You know all of these things to be solid, undeniable and verifiable facts.

You are connected to all of those humans in that chain of production as without them, you could have no tea bag. For you to have something as simple as a tea bag to put in a cup, to begin to make tea, there may have been thousands of humans involved. That Tea Bag is a result of their labours and their endeavours, no matter how unseen by you. The Tea Bag should have HumanityTM embossed on it. Those humans have lives, they exist. They have had a direct impact on your life as you are able to enjoy a cup of tea. You are connected to them. They are connected to you.

For, if it was not for you, using their tea bag, the fruits of their labours, their lives would be dramatically different.

And remember, that’s just the tea bag. Think about the kettle that you boiled the water in. Where did the water come from? And did you use gas or electricity to heat the water? Where did that energy supply come from? How many miles of pipes and pumps and wires had to be used? How many connected humans were involved?

And this is all so that you can have a cup of tea! You can now see that you are part of the collective of humanity on this planet, you are not alone; welcome to the realisation.

STAGE 2 – How we currently operate

The collection of humanity on this planet, though highly efficient at getting you the basics like tea and coffee, is currently organised in a very self defeating way.

You and I work for different companies. The companies that we work for may very well be in competition. Companies are only there to make a profit for the company. That is their role. That is their reason for existing. Someone had an idea to make money, and they started a business. All very well as far as it goes. However, now, at this period in our history, the idea of individual companies, working alone to produce the “next big thing”, is something that is holding you and I back from realising our full potential. That is, full potential of the productive capabilities of humans, of humanity, on this planet are being squandered by competition and the profit motive.

Again, this is very easy to demonstrate and again, it’s undeniable.

For example, take two competing drugs companies; you work for one and I work for the other one. Both companies are in business to make a profit and as such they are pouring millions of dollars into research and development to find the next big cure for blindness, diabetes, cancer, heart disease, paralysis, HIV, or pick an ailment or condition that’s close to your heart.

We know that the humans that make up the work force of these companies are members of the collective of humanity that brought us the humble tea bag. So we know that each member of that collective would benefit from a break through in any new treatment; you and I included. ¬¬

So let us assume that the solution that both of these companies are working on will take 10 years to develop. Now what if, after 5 years, the company that you’re working for has half of the solution and the company that I’m working for has the other half of the solution? As a collective, as humanity, we have the whole solution. You know half of it, and I know half of it. So, in theory, we could actually bring it to the other members of the human collective directly. That is after 5 years, not 10. We could half the time that it currently takes to share the break through, as we have all the pieces.

That is, we, as a collection, have done all the work we need to do as both halves of the solution are now known. However, given the fact that we are working for companies that are in competition, for greater and greater profits, the solution will not flow to the members of the global society as no one company owns the whole solution. In theory it will take each company another 5 years to fully understand the solution thus any benefits for humanity are delayed by that time. Even then the companies will only release a product if they can realise a profit from it.

We have just worked out how, with this one example, capitalism is not best suited to the needs of you and I and humanity. In case you think this is just a one off, let us examine the case of mobile phones and competition within that sector..

Mobile phones, at least in the UK, are used for 3 main tasks; sending text messages, making phone calls and sending multi media messages such as pictures and sound files.

You are more than aware of these functions and I dare say you’ve used at least one of them and if not, you know people that have. Now, in the UK there is competition, again, from Orange, O2, T-Mobile, Vodafone etc, etc. Each of these providers may erect separate radio masts to build their coverage foot print. So potentially we could have 4 or more different masts covering the same geographical area because each of the operators wants coverage in that particular area, of course. That’s competition.

No matter which provider you choose to be your mobile phone carrier the service you get at the end will be very much the same from one to the other. You’ll be able to make and receive phone calls and send and receive text messages etc. The major criteria that you’ll have used in your decision will be how many minutes and text messages you get for your monthly outlay.

So instead of distributing mobile phone capabilities to each geographical area once, we, as an unconscious act of the collective and as a direct result of competition and the profit motive of Orange, O2, T-Mobile etc, have actually rolled out enough radio masts, computers, switches and cables to cover each geographical area 4 or more times. However, if we had, as a collective, been working towards providing for the collective, instead of working within competing companies, we could have covered the UK 4 times over in the time that it took us to do it once. We all could have had the benefits of mobile communications sooner than we actually did.

At this stage in our human development we are holding back the potential of humanity on this planet by organising in competing companies. We are holding ourselves back from achieving. We are wasting time. We are squandering our resources. We are distracting ourselves from our full potential.

The current system discards and overlooks a huge number of humans on this planet as they have no practical benefit to the current system; capitalism.

If you condone the current organisational method, in light of this logical evidence, then you are part of the problem. The world needs you to rethink, and understand that a shift in emphasis from working for competing companies and their profit motive to actually working for humanity would bring untold freedoms and benefits to you, your family, your friends, your loved ones, your neighbours.

You are part of the solution if you take these concepts forward. Tell more people about them. Spread them around. Your future depends on it.

STAGE 3 – Imagine The Future

So now we’ve discussed the idea of the collective and of humanity wasting time it’s time to consider what it could mean for us to organise ourselves differently.

Imagine a place and time when all of our endeavours as humans are used for our benefit. No more working for some company’s profit. No more distractions from the needs of humans. No more impediments to you getting exactly what you want from this life. No more antagonism amongst humans. An understanding that each human, if they play their part in the collective, can reap any and all of the rewards of that collective.

Imagine the number of people we can also bring into the system to work towards the goals of the collective. All those people that are currently disregarded by the system; the countless millions in “under-developed” [have you ever asked yourself why?] countries.

With all of these extra resources, we can half the working week or even make it two days long or so. Who knows how we will decide to organise the massive resource on this planet that is the collective community of humanity.

And no enlightened community of humanity would ever decide to make any decision that did not best fit the needs of the community as that would be akin to suicide. Only the best decisions for the collective would be made. Think what that would mean for governmental organisations? Would we require them? Maybe we’d need some form of “commodity request list” or “goals list” that we could all view and prioritise, with the most obviously important goals being raised to the top of the list with ease. How about eradicating famine, poverty, diseases, war, global pollution etc? What about planting trees to form lungs for the planet? What about designing technology that can clean the atmosphere?

If we organise ourselves with us as the priority then all the material items that we struggle to collect just now such as houses, cars, gadgets, and even just the basics of food and water will flow to us as a logical consequence. Far from compromising or goals and our desires, by organising for humans, we can achieve them all! And more importantly we can bring the endeavours of every human on the plant to bear for our well being. Each human who is cast aside by the current system of capitalist production and its insatiable drive for greater and greater profits will be brought into the global collection of working productive humanity and they will be able to influence and bolster that global community. Hence, all of our lives become infinitely better and immeasurably easier.

The solution needs you. It needs everyone you know. So how big is this task? Can we do it? Well, the maths says we can.

The population of this earth is somewhere in the region of 6,000,000,000 (6 Billion or 6 Thousand million). So that makes any effort you make alone, as an “individual”, equivalent to 1/6 Billionth of the effort needed to realise all of your hopes and dreams.

However, if in the first instance, you can tell just 10 people, of this way of thinking, and they feel as passionately as you do about it, and they set themselves the same goal of just telling 10 people, then the numbers soon become very large indeed;

You – 10 – 100 – 1,000 – 10,000 – 100,000 – 1,000,000 – 10,000,000 – 100,000,000, 1,000,000,000, The World!

Just 10 iterations! That is, just 10 times the process of telling 10 folk and the whole world would know! So the chain that you start, by telling 10 folk about these ideas and about your passion for them, will only have to be repeated 10 times and we can all share in the understandings!

You have the solution within you. The world needs you to do your part.
You need you to do your part.

When you know how it works; it’s easy to change the world!

[Professor Zero]

Doesn't this all have something to do, though, with the end of the nation-state?

It has seemed to me since Reagan first entered office that the plan was to "underdevelop" the U.S. the way the "Third World" was underdeveloped, because what now mattered was the well being of the transnational elites, period. Everyone in the world, including people in "developed" countries who had been protected since just after the Depression and WWII, was now working for these elites ... the world was now a plantation and we were going back to the 17th century or something, no need to have the economy working better than this because the main objective was to keep what wealth there was concentrated in a few hands worldwide ... I am not a historian or an economist but this is and has been my impression. Depressingly, I think that if capitalism gets smashed this way, it will not lead us forward to something better, but backward, to eras I would have like to visit but for which I feel no nostalgia.

[Monica]

It won't even lead us back to other eras. That is, we won't get the few advantages of those eras, such as the sense of belonging to a community and to the "House" of some noble family (and the duty to serve that family), or the sense of duty to help one's inferiors, and a more benevolent attitude when the inferiors "belonged" to a rich family (by being servants, peasants on one's own land, etc.). I'm not saying that there were no tyrants or people who did not help much, but there were things like that, and they are gone forever, and some may not even have existed in North-America because they were a European phenomenon.

[paperpusher666]

Monica, Perhaps the larger issue is lending standards. Suppose that I am making $50K a year, have $15K in hand, and want to buy a house that costs $120K. I have no other debt, or pay off my credit card balances monthly in this example. I'd have to buy private mortgage insurance because I can't put down 20%, but under the lending standards of the late eighties and early nineties, this would be a situation where I should get the prime rate (and did, under those circumstances).

Housing loans became a lot like credit cards in the early part of this decade. People who shouldn't be able to qualify for them did, so why are we so surprised that loans are going into default? If the rewards are on the side of MAKING the loans rather than having them perform, as they were for mortgage brokers for the last several years, the present situation is unsurprising.

Return OF capital is more important than return ON capital. The bankers are starting to remember that now as they beg for a bailout.

Age and marital status are not the whole story. There is no guarantee that the couple who has been married for five or more years won't get divorced or even lose both of their jobs.

People tend to live up to their incomes. This is why I believe that two-earner couples are at greater risk than I am. I know that if I lose or leave my job, I have to have substantial savings to back me up. I don't have the luxury of hoping that things will work out.

[Monica]

If you already had 15k, why couldn't you have 24 relatively soon and wait until you did?

Who are the people who should not qualify? Don't forget that if they don't have a mortgage, they still have to pay rent, which may cost even more but does not provide the opportunity to eventually own the house or apartment. And rent may be too much compared to their income, which is one of the things that banks don't like when the same amount of money is for a mortgage instead. But housing is a necessity, and some people do whatever it takes to pay too much for their own home instead of paying too much rent. It's a shame that the cost of housing is just too high.

In fact, since they need housing even if they lose their homes, stronger protection against foreclosure would make more sense than preventing them from getting a mortgage. It would be a good idea to simply allow them not to pay mortgage during the periods when their income falls below a certain level. Those months would simply be added to the duration of the mortgage, with a financial penalty that would discourage them from abusing this mechanism. Banks should also be allowed to do things like making the owners vacate part of the home to allow the bank to rent it and pocket the money and apply it towards the mortgage, and/or hire the homeowners to work for the bank or at a job found for them by the bank, and that money would go to the bank, too. The government, too, should be allowed to do that kind of thing (the money would go to the bank, of course).

[paperpusher666]

Monica, when you count the closing costs, I would have needed nearly twice what I had on hand to put down 20%. That would have delayed my purchase of a house by at least a year, even though I would have the closing costs reimbursed by my employer as part of my relocation package. I was running up against the date where I wouldn't get reimbursed. The offer was good for 2 years after I started the job. Once I was reimbursed, I used it to pay down my mortgage by about $3000 (taxes were withheld because that allowance counted as income).

Private mortgage insurance was fairly cheap, something like $350 a year, which I paid as a monthly escrow. My debt-to-income ratio was pretty good, about 2.2 times income. I wasn't buying with no money down as many have. The guy who bought my house rolled the closing costs into the loan, something I wasn't allowed to do. Unfortunately, I was living in an area where housing didn't appreciate much, but I lived in the house for a number of years quite happily.

The old saying is that banks will lend you money only when you don't need it. There are guidelines that have been fairly thoroughly ignored in recent years about how much debt people shouls be allowed to carry. You shouldn't be spending more than 50% of your gross income on housing (to include all the miscellaneous expenses of home ownership) and debt.

The focus in recent years has been making housing "affordable". People looked at the initial monthly payment, not how their repayment would be structured. Interest rates have been low by historical standards in recent years. I paid 10.5% interest on my first mortgage. The good news is that I paid the house off in 7 years by making extra principal payments.

Sorry, but if people can't pay their bills, they need to be kicked out and someone who can pay brought into the picture. I'm a renter right now, and plan to be for a couple of years. I've had to evict tenants who couldn't or wouldn't pay rent in a house that I owned.

You forget that as long as there is a mortgage on the house, you're part owner with the bank. They have the right to get paid and have their property interest secured.

I suspect that the "strong protection" that you want for homeowners is for them to be able to avoid paying their mortgage for six months or longer while incurring no penalties or fees, or even having to make up the missed payments.

[Monica]

No. They should pay later, even if that means that the number of months when they did not pay is simply added to the duration of the mortgage. But if they may lose the house for reasons such as unemployment, which may prove short-lived, of course it makes sense to suspend or reduce their obligations during those brief spells of bad luck instead of taking away their home. They will be stuck paying for housing in any case, so it might as well be mortgage than rent.

It is also fair to provide them with the means to earn the money they owe (a job, or jobs for any member of the family who is old enough to work).

[paperpusher666]

Monica, many mortgage companies already do what you advocate: grant extensions to people who are behind in their payments. Restructuring the payments is also possible. Many people have refinanced to a fixed-rate mortgage in recent months. The days of cashing out equity are pretty much over.

The trouble comes when payments have been late or the house is worth so much less that there is little or no equity in the house. In that case, they can't refinance unless they bring money to closing to reduce the amount of the outstanding loan to the value of the house or lower. If one cannot pay their mortgage, the odds that they will have several thousand dollars on hand or even the possibility of being loaned enough by family or friends to save their house are pretty small.

The core of your argument seems to be, "People have to live somewhere, so they might as well be owners." Evicting tenants or foreclosing on a house isn't a particularly fast process. I had to go to court to get permission to evict my tenants, and that was allowed only after they had not paid two months's rent. Foreclosure is a somewhat longer process. It might surprise you to learn that banks would prefer NOT to foreclose. They'd rather have performing loans. Many current foreclosures are the result of speculation, and the "owner" doesn't even live in the house. This suggests that they aren't able to get enough in rent to cover expenses, or don't have enough savings to carry the house for more than a couple of months.

Maybe you would like to see a return to the company town, where one receives housing and some pay, usually in scrip good only at the company store, in return for their work. They would never own the house, and would be moved out of the house once their employment is over.

[Dana]

Um, Chris? I'M poor. And I have read Barbara. Where have I read her, if she's not carried in thrift shops? Oh yeah... the library. You know, the LIBRARY? Where they give away books for free? OH YEAH! The LIBRARY!

And you probably think liberals are elitist. Silly you.

[Dana]

Bosipov: Every time someone rants about the waiting lists in the Canadian healthcare system, I point out that not having healthcare coverage is the longest waiting list of them all.

We think that because it has a different label or happens in a supposedly different system, it's different in fact. Not so.

[Monica]

Regarding the company town, it's funny that somebody mentioned it, because my current apartment is provided by my employer, who does not own it but pays the rent.

The company town is not a bad idea, except for the part where the employee has to leave if fired. Maybe if the job was guaranteed and perhaps the employee got to keep the house after retirement and not have to leave immediately if fired, that would not be a bad idea. To that, I would add some real cash that can be spent anwhere. For food and a few other staples, many people tend to shop locally anyway, so it migth as well go back to the company than to somebody else.

In fact, if any employer is into the business of selling something an employee needs, I would rather support the idea of having to buy from the employer and not from others. Some employers do that to some extent, although it may be something like having to wear the store's clothes if you work there, or not using a competitor's products or anything with their logo (at least, not on the premises or when seeing clients or otherwise beeing seen in public as repersenting the company). I would not be too strict about that, as people may have special requirements, such as needing clothes that are hard to find (plus sizes or styles appropriate for Muslims and old-fashioned Christians, for example), even if the employer does offer a limited selection of what they need.

[paperpusher666]

Monica, it's odd that you would think that the only reason that a person would leave a company town was if they were fired. Perhaps I just expect more mobility than you do. Some jobs do provide housing or a housing allowance, particularly if they are in remote locations.

Many companies offer employee discounts on the products that they sell or make. It is less and less common with the shift to a service economy. Similarly, companies often provide safety equipment at no cost to the employee, but the employee is limited to a fairly small number of changes of clothing. I used to work in a place where coveralls were required, and I think that I could have three sets signed out at any time plus a heavy jacket and one new pair of steel-toed shoes and prescription safety glasses annually. Safety is an issue in many places that would restrict people's ability to carry or wear tokens of faith on their person.

The interesting question is how one builds equity in a house in a company town. If you presume a 30-year career and a standard amortization schedule, one builds little equity in the first 10 years. Suppose that someone is transferred or promoted after 5 years and have to go to ANOTHER company town. It should be reasonably straightforward to give them a credit for their time toward the next house. The point that you miss is that I'd expect wages to be relatively low compared to equivalent jobs that didn't offer housing as part of the compensation, particularly if they wound up with a house that they could sell at the end of a thirty-year career, even if restrictive covenants existed that forbade sale of the house other than back to the company at some predetermined price.

[paperpusher666]

Monica, it's odd that you would think that the only reason that a person would leave a company town was if they were fired. Perhaps I just expect more mobility than you do. Some jobs do provide housing or a housing allowance, particularly if they are in remote locations.

Many companies offer employee discounts on the products that they sell or make. It is less and less common with the shift to a service economy. Similarly, companies often provide safety equipment at no cost to the employee, but the employee is limited to a fairly small number of changes of clothing. I used to work in a place where coveralls were required, and I think that I could have three sets signed out at any time plus a heavy jacket and one new pair of steel-toed shoes and prescription safety glasses annually. Safety is an issue in many places that would restrict people's ability to carry or wear tokens of faith on their person.

The interesting question is how one builds equity in a house in a company town. If you presume a 30-year career and a standard amortization schedule, one builds little equity in the first 10 years. Suppose that someone is transferred or promoted after 5 years and have to go to ANOTHER company town. It should be reasonably straightforward to give them a credit for their time toward the next house. The point that you miss is that I'd expect wages to be relatively low compared to equivalent jobs that didn't offer housing as part of the compensation, particularly if they wound up with a house that they could sell at the end of a thirty-year career, even if restrictive covenants existed that forbade sale of the house other than back to the company at some predetermined price.

[Dennis]

Okay, let’s take a look at this from am investment perspective. I think the key here is “low levels of “economic literacy” that allowed people to be exploited” Maybe we should look at how we invest in the next generation. Maybe pushing algebra, geometry and trigonometry over personal money management is not working.

To solve this economic predator problem we simply take away the vulnerability of the prey. We should make it our goal to require graduates of our public schools to understand personal finance – to be able to create and understand a balance sheet. Yes, this flies in the face of many who have a “vested interest” in the status quo but we can eliminate the “economic illiteracy” of future generations and thereby lower there vulnerability to economic predators. I know there is much more to do but this would be a good start.

[S]

Not to engage Chris or anything, but I shop for books very often at thrift stores -- he's right, they have the best prices, though not as good of a collection. And I have never failed to come across Ehrenreich's books.

But note that thrift stores reflect the values and living standard of the community in which they are located. I live in San Francisco, which might explain the great books I find in thrift stores.

[Monica]

I'm pretty sure some financial education would be useful. However, part of the problem is that many people just don't have enough money and, due to need or temptation, spend too much. I was thinking of paying off my credit card debt and saving some money, but I have just ordered a new outfit and two bracelets instead.

I knew better, but I saw them in a catalogue and I have been obsessed about the outfit for a few days. Even worse, one of the bracelets is in fact for a second outfit, but the skirt and the shawl that go with that are not available for delivery yet. So eventually, I'll end up spending even more money when I know better not to. I'm lucky that many other clothes are less attractive and more ordinary-looking. What would I do if they were all absolutely gorgeous?

[CanadaKat]

Dennis:

I agree that we should be teaching personal money management to our youngsters - at the high school level at a minimum.

I would also include more indepth course requirements on local governance, current/world affairs, communication (written and oral)skills and mandatory volunteer community work practicums.

Some high schools already have some or all of the above, but not all.

[Jerry]

The human component of selfishness will never stop. The want to be above and better will never stop. Wake up its war 24/7. Every border in the world exist out of self preservation. Most people don't go out of their way to help the poor out of self preservation. A mortgage broker doesn't care if you can't afford the loan, he's still going to get his commission. A doctor doesn't challenge treatment methodologies even if your life depends on it unless the insurance company will pay for it and the FDA approves it. Self preservation, the American way- its been happening and will continue to happen.

[Miriam]

It's not only the poor who are spending less, it's also the middle-class who grew up poor. My husband has been earning over six figures for more than seven years now but I still shop at thrift stores and we eat rice, beans and vegetables most nights. The memory of poverty never leaves you (admittedly, ours was a genteel poverty as my dad was a teacher). Before you purchase anything, you do tend to ask yourself if you really need it. We live in an age of massive insecurity and deceit on a grand scale. The robber barons might like to read the story of King Midas because our civilization is literally collapsing around them and then they have the temerity to blame the 'Muslims'.

[Impopeham]

If anyone of you guys and gals are into myspace, heres a nice resource site I found while surfing the net
__________________
http://www.instantra.com - myspace resources

[Bruce Barnes]

America should adopt a tax system based on net worth for the following reasons.

1. A tax on net worth has the largest tax base. The net worth of this country is larger than the income system, about $9 trillion, and the consumption system, less than the gross domestic product, (GDP) about $14 trillion. The individual assets of $55 trillion and business assets of about $60 trillion is over 8 times larger than the consumption system.
2. Income is not a measure of being rich, net worth is. George Will has said that the wealthiest 1-percent of households have more assets than the lowest 90%, $16 trillion. Since the total individual assets are $55 trillion. The wealthiest 10% own about 73% of the net worth in the USA. The biggest 1-percent of corporations own 80 % of the business net worth.
3. Taxes should be based on ones ability to pay. A tax on net worth is the fairest tax to all.
4. Taxes on net worth have the lowest percentage. America’s budget is about $3 trillion. A consumption system requires a sales tax of over 21%. A net worth tax would be less than 3%.
5. A tax on net worth is the most versatile. Besides a flat tax of 3% for individuals and businesses, there are other possibilities. Some people say we have double taxation. We could tax only people at 6% or only businesses at 6%. Since businesses can’t vote and they pass there cost on to their customers, that is the best way to go. Next is the progressive path. The first $1 million could be tax-free and increase by 0.1 % for each $1 million up to 5% after $50 million.
6. A tax on net worth is the simplest to file. Take what you own minus what you owe. Our present tax system is 63,000 pages of loopholes.
7. A tax on net worth is the easiest to enforce. Since this is a property rights country, all assets are traceable. Taxing only the most prosperous 10 % of businesses and people is the most efficient tax system.
8. Like the consumption tax, all of our present taxes could be replaced, Individual income tax, corporation income tax, employment taxes, gift tax, and estate tax. Plus the excise tax.
9. Guarantees funding for all budget items like social security and Medicare by eliminating use taxes.
10. A tax on net worth promotes transparency. When a company shows an annual report with a book value of $1 billion and only $10 million in taxes, they aren’t paying their full taxes.
11. A tax on net worth promotes free trade. Money, inventory, buildings, etc. are all assets so everyone can move assets around for the best effect.
12. Eliminate inflation. Dr. Milton Friedman said to end inflation, stop printing money. By increasing the tax rate 1%, the national debt of $9 trillion could be paid off in 10 years.
13. Reducing taxes on the poorest 90% will raise revenue. When people have more money to spend, they buy more goods, which means more profit for businesses and the wealthiest 10%. Money flows up, water trickles down.

[whatsername]

Very nice Barbara.

[BIANCA]

Filthy rich

[GINGER]

The year dot

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[Robert Allen]

Yes the poor are rising up and they are certainly destroying the very system that you claim victimizes them.

As their peaceful revolution moves forward it might be time for these revolutionaries to learn Chinese.

[Harriet Elliott]

I was harassed so badly in Los Angeles I moved overseas in 2007. Conservatives stalked me in groups, harassment which is described by private investigator David Lawson in his book ¨Terrorist Stalking in America.¨ This topic never reaches mainstream news because US intelligence agencies have a curious system to keep this topic hidden using police informants in the very groups formed for self help. Hard to believe? There´s more. Although I had no boyfriends from age 42 to 52, when the harassment started I was propositioned by men daily, meaning the