Baillout = Further Capitalist Oligarchy?
 

Certainly no one in their right mind could say that the middle class has been attacked, the wealth is continuing to shift to the hands of the super wealthy few, and that the average man or woman are working in someone else's market. As of 2004, 62.3% of business assets were owned by the wealthiest 1% of the wealth distribution. The next wealthiest 4%? They owned an additional 22.4% of the total. And here's something ever scarier: 93.7% of all bonds are held by these people.
(citation link, in pdf format: http://www.federalreserve.gov/pubs/f.../200613pap.pdf)

We've all been talking about the recent bailout as a part of a failure in oversight. I myself thought that too, at first. Still, the ultimate effect of this bailout will mean more tax dollars ending up in the hands of the super wealthy. The financial institutions that have collapsed and that are collapsing overstretched their capital. They ignored the amount of shareholder equity when they take on assets, which is insane.

So what should the government be doing? Sell the bank's assets and liabilities as a package, and get rid of the debt to bondholders. The current bailout will ultimately prove to be another failure in government decision making, and it will line the pockets of the unscrupulous and incompetent leaders of these industries.

Could this misstep by the government be intentional? Could they be bailing out the super wealthy intentionally, ignoring an obvious, more economically reasonable solution? I honestly can't say.

I'm left in the frustrated position I've found myself in ever since I became interested in politics: are they incompetent or corrupt?

So what do you think?

If the question is incompetent or corrupt, I'm going with incompetent.

People are just that for the most part. Incompetent. Yes, there is the cream of the crop, but they aren't really what we are talking about, and the corrupt, they are generally eventually caught if they are corrupt enough. Towing the line and such, well fine, that's not really corrupt, maybe more nepotism or "friends" than anything.

I will say that there are many good people out there, and there are many more good people out there who aren't willing to give more than they are already in sense of time and resources. As a member of a BoD, we can't get good people who are interested in running to govern the business. People rather complain that we are a corrupt board and kvetch than actually roll up their sleeves and dig in. I'm taking the same extrapolation to politics and other forms of businesses.

I think we have to be careful of "class warfare". The statistics you cite are a bit misleading. For example, General Motors has a market capitalization (shares outstanding X share price) of about $7.4 billion. The report would show the "rich" owning that. However, the pension liability of GM is $11.4 billion. Most of that is payable to blue collar workers in the form of pension payments, your report excludes that wealth.

The beast is well and truly starved now.

I realize that it makes sense that they're just incompetent. My first thought was "Reaganomics strikes again". But the truth is that there was something nefarious about the inevitable outcome of freeing up the market and drastically reducing regulation. Considering how rich some people can get off the lack of regulation via less than ethical business practices, is it really so unbelievable that this kind of thing could be intentional?
Yes, but GM is just one massive failure among many. Asset ownership is bunched at the very top of income distribution, certainly you can't argue that's not the case.

I know you're a free market capitalist, but surly you can see where there could be a problem with having a small group of individuals owning most of the wealth to an overall society.

Looking at other countries as a lead in business and wealth distribution, I don't see anything wrong. People can invest in their wealth, or they can buy adidas, escalades, and HDTVs. No, most people aren't interested in building wealth. Consumerism shows that. Savings accounts show that.

It's not the case, many pension funds are the largest owners of assets, that's why they have huge worries when shareholders decide to change where and how they invest. These funds are held by teachers, factory workers, building supervisors, doormen, actors, and other union members.

The most economically stable and successful markets are clearly in Northern Europe, and they're much more "socialist" (slightly more regulated markets and more social programs) than we are. If we're going to try and imitate those that are the most successful, shouldn't we be adopting a more European way of government and economics? Shouldn't we be investing in single-payer health care instead of buying out market failures? Shouldn't we steal Luxembourg's incredible education system model instead of insane programs like NCLB?

Statistically speaking, pensions aren't as big a chunk of investments as one might think. At that absolute most, they're maybe 10-15% of all assets. Considering how many pensions are out there, that's pretty tiny.

I'm not interested in rehashing out the particulars of healthcare or education in this thread. There are plenty we've debated them and this seems to be one I'm not going to dilute your OP with.

re: the pensions, can you verfiy that claim please. As far as I can tell it's large, here's an example of two of the largest:

Bear market bites CalPERS and CalSTRS pension funds | Money & Company | Los Angeles Times

From the OP:
62.3 + 22.4 = 84.7%, 100%-84.7% = 15.3% remaining.

Pension plans suffer huge losses - Jul. 7, 2008

Not quite sure what the total is, because if what your math reads, then we're close to quadrillion in the assets? (sorry very very bad at math)

I'm using the most recent data, available for 2004. As of 2004, there was a total of about $1.002T. I can't imagine it going up nearly 1000x in 4 years, so some of the data must be off.

CalPERS can't be 1/4 of the market.

calpers can't but there are many pension funds, and 401k, 503, all those should be lumped into there as well.

Host knows this stuff a lot better than I do.

this kind of problem explains why i keep going to the level of ideology to make sense of what's been happening.
what was the framework that enabled the conservative wing of the american political monoculture to advocate dismantling regulations, that made the opposition between "government" and "markets" seem sane, that enabled people to seriously believe that "growth" is a constant and on that basis to systematically underestimate/undervalue/undersell to themselves and others risk?
what on earth, in the face of the entire history of actually existing capitalism, enabled the conservative wing of the american political monoculture to make the claim "markets are rational" with a straight face, and even more bewildering, how was that taken seriously?

because outside this general ideological framework, none of this makes any sense.
and if you say "there are nice people out there" then you have even more reason to look for an explanation--what enabled these "nice people" to buy into the conditions of possibility for a fiasco of this magnitude?

i don't think it's a matter of "insufficient oversight"--i think this is an expression of the lunacy of the whole of neoliberalism, the whole of the worldview that's dominated the american political climate since the reagan period concerning the nature of capitalism.

the current outlines of the bailout plan are obviously flawed, and they won't be passed in the form they've been discussed since thursday night. i don't expect anything before congressional hearings scheduled for wednesday.

I've been asking this same question since freshman economics. If anyone ever gives you a straight answer, please share it with the rest of us.

Historical distance from the Great Depression perhaps. Even folks in their eighties would have only experienced it as children. I think too that 1970s libertarians & neoliberals profited from new left critiques of the postwar state.

Neoliberal dogmatists are now saying that the bailout will be like Nixon's price controls will prolong the slump, that democratic intervention (through, say, Congress imposing conditions on the bailout or regulating financial markets) will be a Bad Thing. It's something like market royalism or market transcendentalism, where other structures of power have to be parallel to the market's. If we have a transcendental market we need a transcendental Treasury, transcendental executive. It seems to imply similar attitudes toward authority.
-----Added 22/9/2008 at 05 : 43 : 47-----
If people didn't buy shit, the whole fucking thing would collapse. Morally upright capitalists with savings accounts would suffer.

Among other things, savings accounts show that real wages are low.

I'm not advocating stopping spending all together. I'm talking about spending in moderation, and buying with CASH instead of credit.

One doesn't need to buy a new car every 3 years. Many people are caught in the leasing trap. How many new TVs does one need? Consumer electronics are notorious for making one feel the need to buy and buy and buy to have the latest and greatest items.

this link take you to 2007 census information on income, poverty & health insurance--the data's linked at the top, followed by a series of interpretations.

Economist's View: New Census Data on Poverty, Income, and Health Insurance

there is a difference between structural features and statements about subjective dispositions or attitudes--the latter can operate in any number of structural configurations. this one, which has taken shape since the beginning of the bush period, show working people's incomes stagnating, poverty rates higher, the number of uninsured people up---this beneath the massaged data you get from the administration's permanent campaign machine, which a cynical fellow would call propaganda--but i am not a cynical fellow.

there is no morally upright capitalism at the structural level, but there's a potentially infinite series of bromides that function to blame the poor for being poor, as if structural conditions didn't exist. i don't think there's a moral capitalism at all, except in some candyland version.

put this in the context of the bailout, and it spells class warfare.
nothing moral about that shit.

I think I was going in circles there for a moment.

FYI, the CalPERS info:
Asset Allocation

The wealthiest 5% (w5) own 65.9% of that particular class of assets (common stocks) but a much higher percentage of non-publicly traded business assets. That explains the higher number in the business asset category.

The w5 may own a smaller part of common stocks because they're less secure. During a crash like we're seeing, the common stocks go first. After that come preferred stock holders, and then bond holders are fine because the lesser holders cushion the effect. And as you go from common stocks to bonds, the percentage of ownership in the w5 increases from about 65% up to about 93%.

Fine, i don't have any problem with that, but realise that the system as it is -- and that includes our own livliehoods -- depends on unsustainable levels of consumption. It is unsustainable environmentally, but also on its own terms. The economy has depended on consumption, and that in turn depends on consumer credit. It's insane, but that's the way it is -- or was.

If you want to move your argument beyond moralising -- bad, stupid people doing bad, stupid things -- you need to talk about how they can live differently.

The system as it became. People were not the conspicuous consumers that I've seen when I was growing up in the 70's. There aren't 10 different versions of The Usual Suspects that people seem to have to need to own each and every variation.

It is insane. So while people are worrying about how are they now going to pay for things, since their mortgage ATM ran dry, it's on them to figure out how to stop living paycheck to paycheck.

I can't do much about it. I make some popcorn and watch Suze Orman's Can I Afford this segment and laugh my ass off... stupid people.

No, they were buying pet rocks or troll dolls or AMC Pacers or lining up to see Star Wars for the 37th time. Consumerism is not a recent invention.

TV is the consumerist media par excellence. It presumes overconsumption, which means that if you really want to feel superior, you're going to have to ditch the TV.

I reject the notion that Capitalism is the problem here. The idea is synonymous with 'free market' meaning free of government intervention, and we are talking about the GOVERNMENT bailing out these corporations.

There would be no bail out under a capitalistic economy.

The really scary thing is how this bailout is being executed.

Some quotes from early drafts of the bailout:

No it isn't but the gluttonous consumer of today is new. it wasn't alive in the 70s.

Licensing and merchandising products are huge businesses, it did not exist in the 70's in this manner at all. One doesn't need to have some licensed cartoon character slapped onto their box of cereal, yogurt, burger, soda, tshirt, pencil, videogame on 4 different systems resulting in 4 different game experiences, direct to video release, books, magazines, theatrical plays, and other tie ins.

Personally, I think it's an easy trap to blame consumerism on this problem. Yes, we Americans are quite materialistic and buy too much, and pay for it with what we don't have. What's often forgotten is that consumerism is a two way street. Our consumption helps others prosper, and if we aren't consuming, somebody's not prospering. After all, who else is going to buy up their stuff?

Therefore, I think it's good for us to buy stuff. We get their products, they get our money, they use it to buy their own products and give their money to others, and eventually the money does find its way back to us and the financial circle of life continues.

The abundance of credit, however, skewers this harmonious circle. At the heart of a capitalist system is the law of supply and demand. Sellers raise the price of goods based on high demand, low supply, or they lower it based on low demand, high supply.

In the absense of credit, if an item was priced too high, a consumer would simply not purchase it, or save up intil they have the funds to make that purchase. This results in a low demand for an item, and if the demand is low enough, sellers would be forced to reduce the price to a point that it is more attractive to the buyer. With the availability of credit and the attractive lure of buying now, and paying later, a seller does not have to reduce the price of his goods. The financiers who supplied credit to the buyer pay for the item, and the buyer is now under obligation to repay to that financier.

This creates the appearance of a win/win situation for both the buyer and the seller. The buyer has an item that under the terms of finance, can repay the financier in a timely manner, while the seller now has high demand and does not have to reduce the price of his goods to compensate for what was once a low demand for his product. In other words, the availability of easy credit has altered the system to the point that many goods have now been priced too high to be purchased without the availibility of credit.

On the surface, this appears to be a win/win situation for both the buyer and the seller. The buyer gets his product with the freedom to repay the financier in a timely manner, and the seller now has high demand for his products. Products that would not sell without the assistance of a financier.

This brings us to the current state of the financial crisis. Creditors, fearful of lending money to parties who may not be in a position to pay them back, have stopped lending. This takes the freedom of purcase away from the buyers. This takes the ability of sellers to sell their products at high prices. And this is why I cannot agree with the federal government's $700B bailout.

Listening to today's testimony, if all goes well, the injection of cash into the financial markets would spur confidence in financiers to make loans to businesses and consumers and get the wheels of the economy moving. It would also give financiers the ability to put more people into more debt, which is what got us into trouble in the first place.

It's very easy to say that our voracious desire and the greed of lendors got us into this mess. It is a contributing factor, but not the root cause. Credit, and the easy availability of it is the culprit. Prices have gone up, wages have not. The end result is that there are very few items that a consumer can purchase without putting himself into debt. The question shouldn't be "why are you buying that expensive TV?" but "why is this TV so expensive that you have to put yourself in debt to purchase it?" This bailout plan does nothing to address this fundamental issue of havoc unleashed on that basic law of supply and demand by easy credit. Until we understand how the overabundance of credit has destroyed this very basic law of capitalism, this issue will never be resolved.

- Just my miseducated rantings, what do I know, I just have a phd (plain high-school diploma)

We work for them, making their products.
They give us money.
We buy their products and give them their money back.

They give us credit.
We buy their products with their money that we worked for making their products, plus we give them a little bit more.

They make some bad decisions.
We give them their money that we worked for, and more in relief, and we dont buy their products because

they have all their money.

I agree with this analogy in many ways. Another point to consider is that the government (dems and repubs, congress and the president) allowed, encouraged, enticed, and intimidated mortgage companies to give bad loans to grossly under-qualified individuals... some victims, some stupid.

When we define the "they", it gets murky when we consider the full impact of the failed sub-prime market. The domino effect on finance and cash to corporations is the immediate fallout. Do we really want to depend on another government "solution"? We may need a stop gap shoring up to prevent a total collapse, but I should expect no less than the Enron Treatment with full investigations of government and business leaders. Along with sobering reflection and resolution, heads should role... fines and prison time.

"They" really do have all of our money. Can we really trust "them" (gov and biz) to do the right thing if complicit to the core? What is the correct and equitable solution? What information are getting that we know is truthful? Who can we trust? What do we have, what are we getting?

sorry for the rambling questions... just little pissed about this whole responsibility to the people thing... or lack of

Why are you ignoring a flaw in the data you cite? Reading the report they clearly explained what they excluded and I gave an example where the ownership of a major corporation is in essence flipped to the advantage of the "working class". I also gave the benefit of using market capitalization compared to actual shareholder equity as measured in the balance sheet which is negative. Investors who "own" GM actually own nothing, a big zero.

In terms of me being a capitalist, I think the goal of everyone should be to own income producing assets. I think wealth would in fact be more evenly distributed if more people participated in capitalism. People who don't save and invest only relying on their labor, will by definition end up with nothing. Even if I agree with your premise, I disagree with your answer.

I think this is a very complete answer to your questions. It's just hard to find on NBC, CBS, or ABC.


Congrats to Obama for essentially being "present" on the issue.

Necrosis, I think this gives a clear indication that the ideology behind neo-liberalism, is not held by one party alone. The fact that Obama has economist on his team from the Chicago School of Economics is equally troubling to me.

"The conservative wing of the american political monoculture" appeared twice, and appeared to be equated to neoliberalism. Is there anyone at all who would refer to Barney Frank and Charles Schumer using these terms?

Why heck... I'm a card carrying member!

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3236/...9acd4aa4ac.jpg

Why resort to intellectualism when we can use stereotypes?

i was talking about neoliberalism as an economic ideology---the reason to write about a monoculture is because it is the shared ideology of both major parties, which fight with each other mostly over questions of tactics. i don't see much in the way of a difference between the two major parties, which is why monoculture seems appropriate.


it's a bit confusing to see this mangled by otto and necrosis in such a way as to turn it around into some "stereotype" which is about some random subjective attitude they impute to me (which is the actual center of what a stereotype is when it is applied) in order to then be able to whine about how they've been "stereotyped"---the source of this is that neither of them understood the word ideology and so both entirely misread what i posted.

it doesn't matter to me personally--i just find it kinda funny,

rb, I think this is endemic to the way discussions happen here specifically in the politics forum.

the talking past each other...

cyn--in this, the politics forum simply repeats the larger characteristics of us political life--the right has framed itself as an identity politics for a very long time, complete with a private language and a cast of persecuting phantoms--and this has nothing to do with individual conservatives, which elements they take from the rack of options, which ones they leave aside---one effect of identity politics in this mode is to encourage and even to set up talking-past as a substitute for debate.

when you react to it by saying that premise x or y is fucked up, or bizarre, or simply inadequate, the response is rarely if ever to defend the premise--instead, because this is a matter of identity and not one of framework that lets you group information about the world, what you get is this trending toward being-insulted or being-pissy---or , more often, tiresome exercises in passive-aggressive nonsense like happened here. and it happens all the time in this place because it happens all the time in the wider context becauses it is an expression of the contempt for democratic debate on the part of the folk who organize and build conservative political discourse.

because conservative discourse lumps together everything that it not itself as the Same, as an Enemy, there is little hope that most folk who operate within that language game will expend the effort to try to figure out what one might be saying or from what position they might work---but if you say as much, then you "aren't taking conservatives seriously" or your "litigating" or you're doing something else---it's all kinda weak and sad and more than a little pathetic. i would prefer that things were otherwise, because i have nothing personally against individuals who happen to be conservative, except that they cannot defend their politics. and this would be a lot more interesting and open a place if there was more symmtery in the kinds of arguments that the various political positions folk occupy allowed. and i mean it that way--it's not a strange sentence.

but such is the state of things.
this forum doesn't invent it--it's just a little fishbowl in which the bigger problems repeat themselves.
but if you want to understand something of why the collapse of the derivatives market has become the kind of crisis that it is, you might think about the rigidity of neoliberalism, particularly in its conservative american variant--the total inability to think outside a particular frame of reference because, again, it is not a frame but an identity that's at stake.

QFT!

Thanks Otto!
-----Added 25/9/2008 at 09 : 35 : 39-----
Also QFT!

The bailout has officially failed in the House.

The GOP are now being called unpatriotic, when even Dem Reps voted against it. This has reelection ramifications and Presidential ramifications.

If it were so great, why are even some Dems so against it?

By whom?

Anyone have the Yes/No chart to show how they voted. I think it would be really funny if McCain and Obama both voted for this bill.

edit: Duh just realized it was house version...

Pelosi herself.