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-   -   Who do you trust more, the government or big business? (https://thetfp.com/tfp/tilted-politics/145619-who-do-you-trust-more-government-big-business.html)

ASU2003 03-04-2009 06:03 PM

Who do you trust more, the government or big business?
 
That is the question.

Sure, there is a third option, but not enough people vote for small local businesses, individual responsibility, and conservation. And the modern economy/goernment programs would fail if this caught on, which would impact millions of people who would get upset.

So, we get two options. One wants to let business do whatever they want, and then bail them out because they might bring down the entire economy. The businesses will do whatever is cheaper (and can get away with it), and their value is based on the stock price and people's perception of their ability to make money. They seem to not care about people's health or the environment as long as they can make more money. There is a lot of waste in spending and inequality in the pay structure.

The other option trys to help people that didn't do anything to deserve it, they can access anything you own, and can make laws that will punish people that don't follow them. They can make money out of thin air, with the promise that we will be able to pay it back sometime in the future. They promote equality, but might not employ the most qualified person. And there is a lot of waste in spending and pet projects.

Anything else you would like to add? What would your ideal situation be? How would you help people, or should they be helped? How do you make things work and get things done?

scout 03-05-2009 02:13 AM

Sure you can trust the government, just ask any Indian.

Cynosure 03-05-2009 06:55 AM

Ack! What a question.

Better to rephrase that, to: Who do you dis-trust more, the government or big business? And my answer would be, "Big business... but not by much more."

Anyway, the government and big business have become so intertwined.

braisler 03-05-2009 06:59 AM

I must insist on a 3rd choice. I don't trust either of them. And as Cynosure pointed out, I'm not sure that you can separate the two. Our country has pretty much been run by big business interests the last 20 years at least.

Telluride 03-05-2009 07:29 AM

I don't find either to be particularly trustworthy, but I think corporations are more trustworthy and less dangerous. And a badly run corporation stands a pretty good chance of going out of business. Not so much for a badly run government.

Rekna 03-05-2009 07:49 AM

I never trust anyone whose motivation is money. Love of money is the root of all kinds of evil.

Telluride 03-05-2009 07:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rekna (Post 2604700)
I never trust anyone whose motivation is money. Love of money is the root of all kinds of evil.

Ayn Rand would disagree. And keep in mind that the government is motivated by both money and power.

roachboy 03-05-2009 07:57 AM

ayn rand? why not mention sparky the wonder turnip? seriously.

Telluride 03-05-2009 08:00 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by roachboy (Post 2604704)
ayn rand? why not mention sparky the wonder turnip? seriously.

Unlike Rand, Sparky The Wonder Turnip can't write a rational defense for his/her opinion on why money (or the love of it) *isn't* the root of all evil.

highdro69 03-05-2009 08:22 AM

This is a trick question. The Iron Rule of Oligarchy proves that the two are one in the same. Poll fail.

Baraka_Guru 03-05-2009 08:26 AM

I tend to trust government more than corporations because government is held accountable in a more logical sense. (At least here in Canada.)

Corporations tend to be accountable only after gauging a cost-benefit analysis of having to pay fines for breaking laws meant to protect people, or what it would mean for the company's "goodwill" or bottom line.

(That's just the tip of the iceberg.)

We empower governments by voting, applying pressure, and lobbying. We empower corporations through relatively unseen market forces.


* * * * *

And as an aside, I'd trust several corporations before I'd trust Ayn Rand.

Telluride 03-05-2009 08:36 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Baraka_Guru (Post 2604722)
We empower governments by voting, applying pressure, and lobbying. We empower corporations through relatively unseen market forces.

We empower corporations by buying their stuff. Don't like the company, don't buy the stuff. It's not so easy to dump a bad government, though, and it's not unheard of for bad governments to do bad things to dissidents.

guyy 03-05-2009 09:32 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Telluride (Post 2604724)
We empower corporations by buying their stuff. Don't like the company, don't buy the stuff. It's not so easy to dump a bad government, though, and it's not unheard of for bad governments to do bad things to dissidents.

Hey, brilliant!

Don't like stuff made in China? Don't buy stuff!

Don't like the electric company? Don't buy electricity! Don't like the gas company? Don't buy gas! Your ISP/telco sucks? Get another one that sucks just as bad!

Ayn Rand? Rational? I vote for the turnip. Ayn Rand isn't really a vegetable. A turnip is a vegetable. Makes it alright.

Baraka_Guru 03-05-2009 09:35 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Telluride (Post 2604724)
We empower corporations by buying their stuff. Don't like the company, don't buy the stuff.

That's what I meant by relatively unseen market forces. Corporations can convince us quite eloquently to keep buying their stuff (and many make it all to easy to do so), all the while doing a good job at hiding the bad things they do. Government works quite differently.

Quote:

It's not so easy to dump a bad government, though
It is in Canada. It's happened often enough.

Quote:

and it's not unheard of for bad governments to do bad things to dissidents.
No. But when the government is accountable in a reasonable sense, they have little power to do so.

Maybe America has a lot of work to do....but I still generally trust government more than corporations. I trust government with the power to keep the corporations honest.

Willravel 03-05-2009 10:28 AM

Yikes, this is a loaded question. Anyone paying attention knows that there are elements of both that absolutely cannot and should not be trusted, and that there are elements that can.

aceventura3 03-05-2009 01:22 PM

It is increasingly clear that Obama, his team, and Congress are clueless in terms of what is needed to fix the economy. The continued bailouts are starting to become a joke. Sure, an insolvent corporation will ask for a bailout, that is predictable, but smart money does not throw good money after bad money. Clearly there is no "smart money" people in Washington these days. If they had simply let the bad banks, bad hedge funds, bad Auto companies, bad homeowners, etc, fail and file bankruptcy these companies/people would be well on the road to recovery by now. but they are not and they are a continued drag on the economy.

roachboy 03-05-2009 01:30 PM

why ace, i heard the reactionary talking heads on cnbc's financial programming making exactly those arguments last night. they were talking about the Tragedy, the Tragedy i say, that will result from tightening up tax rates on the wealthy and capping salaries for wall street executives. the Outrage! the Horror! and then that manic guy kramer said almost exactly the same thing. and here we are, you saying exactly the same thing. it's like clockwork.

remember, ace, that it's "smart money" people who created this fucking disaster.
why should anyone listen to you or them now?

o yeah, and on the op: bad question.

Cynthetiq 03-05-2009 01:35 PM

I don't trust either.

highdro69 03-05-2009 01:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aceventura3 (Post 2604827)
It is increasingly clear that Obama, his team, and Congress are clueless in terms of what is needed to fix the economy. The continued bailouts are starting to become a joke. Sure, an insolvent corporation will ask for a bailout, that is predictable, but smart money does not throw good money after bad money. Clearly there is no "smart money" people in Washington these days. If they had simply let the bad banks, bad hedge funds, bad Auto companies, bad homeowners, etc, fail and file bankruptcy these companies/people would be well on the road to recovery by now. but they are not and they are a continued drag on the economy.

Though I agree whole heartedly that smart people do not throw good money after bad, there are two MAJOR things wrong with what you are saying:
1) Singling out the Obama team implies that the Repubs would have done anything different
Bear in mind they initiated the bailout
It's standard Repub protocol to prop up and support big businesses, regardless how detrimental it is to the common man
2)Absolving debt where it was rightfully placed places a strain on the economy in the exact same manner that keeping these failing business afloat does. You're essentially saying that chair is better than chair, when chair is, in fact, still chair.

aceventura3 03-05-2009 02:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by roachboy (Post 2604833)
remember, ace, that it's "smart money" people who created this fucking disaster.
why should anyone listen to you or them now?

"Smart money" is the money that will survive this crisis and emerge stronger. The folks at AIG may have been the smartest guys on Wall St., but they got caught up in greed. These smart people exploited il conceived rules and regulations. People put false trust in the governments ability to regulate. We know there is greed in the market. But when government gives the illusion of being able to protect people, people let their guard down, hence you get the AIG's, Madoff's, Enron's, Worldcom's etc.

The folks at companies like GM, had management teams that gave away the future of the company to the unions for short -term profits. If you look at GM financial statements since the 1980's the company has been slowly dieing every year. Anyone can clearly see the company can not survive, unless it is reorganized and restructured. The people who made the decisions leading to GM's death are long gone. Not many companies survive 100 years plus, like JNJ, PG or GE. GM has already beat the averages, but it is time for them to die or re-invent themselves.

---------- Post added at 10:04 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:53 PM ----------

Quote:

Originally Posted by highdro69 (Post 2604841)
1) Singling out the Obama team implies that the Repubs would have done anything different
Bear in mind they initiated the bailout
It's standard Repub protocol to prop up and support big businesses, regardless how detrimental it is to the common man

I include Congress and even the TARP legislation signed by Bush was wrong in my view. However, I am in the moment. Obama is making things worse in my view. Obama, rode in on a promise to tax the "rich" and fairly distribute America's wealth, well some "rich" people are a lot poorer, unfortunately so is everyone else.

Quote:

2)Absolving debt where it was rightfully placed places a strain on the economy in the exact same manner that keeping these failing business afloat does. You're essentially saying that chair is better than chair, when chair is, in fact, still chair.
In some cases a failing company could be purchased by a stronger company. That won't happen until all the "bailouts" end.

samcol 03-05-2009 03:00 PM

I didn't answer the poll because I felt it was a poor question. However I say what's the difference between big business and big government when the government is essentially running these business through regulations and financing. The businesses have in essence just become another government agency.

roachboy 03-05-2009 03:13 PM

Quote:

The folks at companies like GM, had management teams that gave away the future of the company to the unions for short -term profits.
this is the kind of statement that simply vaporizes any credibility you might have had.

Slims 03-05-2009 03:51 PM

Big Business Hands Down.

Not because I really trust them to do the right thing, but because I can always take my money elsewhere, and capitalist business tend to be somewhat self-policing.

There is no escaping a bad government.

ASU2003 03-05-2009 05:20 PM

Why is it a bad question? The voters in the US are divided up into Democrats and Republicans. If you vote for someone else, there is a slim chance that they will get anywhere near the votes eded to be in the race. A Ron Paul-esque type who preaches small government, individual responsibility, government fiscal responsibility but also smart regulations and laws doesn't usually gain the popularity needed.

Maybe I've been listening to Rush too much, but the Republicans may be supporting fiscal control after 8 years of increasing the size of the budget. Rush is braning Obama as a socialist, and big government demcrat, even though it may not be the truth. We don't know what will happen yet. But, if the Republicans don't go into attack mode, they might not be around in 2 years. But at the same time, there are a bunch of social issues that I don't agree with the republicans on. And there are a bunch of health and environmental concerns I have with an anything goes free market.

The democrats have spent 1 Trillion dollars already, and are trying to control the market. Certain people and cororations are getting bailed out that should be punished for the bad investments they made. A lot of programs th government run are effective. The TSA was a good decision instead of the privately run local security at each airport. Now, I would think that the TSA could be spun off into a post office type agency. There won't be any competition and a uniform set of rules, but they could charge people flying or crossing the border a fee instead of getting tax money.

Now, there are good companies, and good government programs. I woud have no problem if the Wal-Marts were replaced by co-ops or REI type stores where the customers are shareholders. Or if more government agencies were turned into non-profits with smaller government assistance.

Telluride 03-06-2009 07:57 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Slims (Post 2604888)
Big Business Hands Down.

Not because I really trust them to do the right thing, but because I can always take my money elsewhere, and capitalist business tend to be somewhat self-policing.

There is no escaping a bad government.

I'm not sure why this concept is so hard for some to grasp. Escaping bad government sometimes leads people to extreme, life-risking measures (like floating across the ocean in rafts and innertubes), but we think it's somehow impossible to avoid buying a Toyota, for example.

roachboy 03-06-2009 08:12 AM

part of the problem is that folk retain an opposition between large-scale firms and the state.
a defense contractor, for example: is it really inside or outside the state?
if a supply chain integrates a series of formally independent firms into a single, continuous production system, what meaning does the formal independence functionally have? obviously it matters from an accounting viewpoint, in that formal independence enables an externalizing of costs--but i consider that a legal fiction, really.
the extends what i was saying before: if what matters is flows and interconnections created around/by flows and not discrete spaces, it follows that thinking in terms of a separation between corporate and state entities is naive.

the question is bad.

on the other hand, as a litmus test of the extent to which the surreal, useless ideology of neoliberalism/"free markets" etc continues to infect thinking, it's interesting.
it's simply about ideology and not about the world that ideology in this case does not describe.

Rekna 03-06-2009 08:25 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Telluride (Post 2604702)
Ayn Rand would disagree. And keep in mind that the government is motivated by both money and power.

I never specified who was motivated by money but the fact that you assumed I meant business is telling about how you think. Both the government and private industry are driven by money and power as those two things tend to come with each other.

flstf 03-06-2009 11:44 AM

Quote:

Who do you trust more, the government or big business?
Choose the form of the destructor.

MSD 03-06-2009 01:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Telluride (Post 2604702)
Ayn Rand would disagree. And keep in mind that the government is motivated by both money and power.

If Atlas Shrugged is any indication, Ayn Rand also felt that rape is empowering to women.
Quote:

Originally Posted by ASU2003 (Post 2604920)
A Ron Paul-esque type who preaches small government, individual responsibility, government fiscal responsibility but also smart regulations and laws doesn't usually gain the popularity needed.

To make this post 100% ad hominem attacks, Ron Paul also opposes the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act.

filtherton 03-06-2009 01:54 PM

I distrust them when they work together.

On strictly idealist terms, I trust the government more, because it exists ostensibly to serve the people. I feel like there was once a time where business existed to serve people-- right now it exists to serve the shareholders. Since I don't own stock I don't have any reason to expect that big business has anything like my best interest at heart.

And I weep for the children of anyone who looks to Ayn Rand for moral guidance.

QuasiMondo 03-06-2009 03:47 PM

Big government has term limits and that makes them beholden to the people sooner or later.

Big businesses have no term limits and are beholden to nobody but the board of directors. Stockholders don't matter because the stock holders are usually retirement funds and 401(k)'s that most individuals have no control over.

Derwood 03-06-2009 04:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by QuasiMondo (Post 2605320)
Big government has term limits and that makes them beholden to the people sooner or later.

except for the people making the actual laws

Sun Tzu 03-06-2009 11:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MSD (Post 2605293)
Ron Paul also opposes the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act.



Have you investigated why?

FoolThemAll 03-07-2009 12:45 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MSD (Post 2605293)
If Atlas Shrugged is any indication, Ayn Rand also felt that rape is empowering to women.

No, it was the Fountainhead that had that wierd bit about rape.

---------- Post added at 12:45 AM ---------- Previous post was at 12:42 AM ----------

Quote:

Originally Posted by filtherton (Post 2605300)
And I weep for the children of anyone who looks to Ayn Rand for moral guidance.

You could do a little better. You could do a lot worse. Where government and morality intersect, you'd be hard-pressed to do better.

Save your tears for children who are more likely to end up impoverished. Besides, Ayn Rand hates children.

guyy 03-07-2009 03:55 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sun Tzu (Post 2605429)
Have you investigated why?

Because he doesn't care about race, justice, democracy, or really anything beyond his hair-shirt capitalist ideology. Because he lives in a comic book written by the patriarchs of a failed neoliberal ideology and coloured by Ayn Rand.

He would be a national embarrassment if he weren't so irrelevant.

samcol 03-07-2009 03:59 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MSD (Post 2605293)
To make this post 100% ad hominem attacks, Ron Paul also opposes the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act.

That's very Fox News like of you, and not at all because it's ad hominem. It's so easy to do it like that because everyone who doesn't know of Ron will label him a racist after reading a statement like yours.

guyy 03-07-2009 06:39 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by samcol (Post 2605462)
That's very Fox News like of you, and not at all because it's ad hominem. It's so easy to do it like that because everyone who doesn't know of Ron will label him a racist after reading a statement like yours.

To say that property rights trump the right to be treated equal is effectively racist. Maybe he doesn't hate non-white people, but he might as well.

As we all know, the civil rights movement won and Ron Paul lost. The country has left him way behind on this score. The neoliberal movement came, conquered, and collapsed. Yet there he is, clinging to the flotsam of failed ideologies. At this point, he's not even useful to conservatism.

It's hard to be more irrelevant than Ron Paul.

FoolThemAll 03-07-2009 08:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by guyy (Post 2605480)
To say that property rights trump the right to be treated equal is effectively racist.

I'm aware that you can make a lot of silly things sound plausible with the inclusion of 'effectively', but I think the qualifier just met its match here.

Zeraph 03-07-2009 09:09 AM

OP At this point, the government. At least they're trying. Big business may have the smarter people, but not the wiser. Just look at hedge funds...

Of course, neither side is smart or wise enough to make me comfortable. But hey, government is the lesser of two evils.

guyy 03-07-2009 09:22 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by FoolThemAll (Post 2605512)
I'm aware that you can make a lot of silly things sound plausible with the inclusion of 'effectively', but I think the qualifier just met its match here.

What does it say about the guy that he thinks outmoded dogma is more important than racial equality? At best, it says that he has poor judgement. Someone less charitable might say he's stupid or is hiding his real motivations. In the end, it doesn't matter, because Ron Paul doesn't matter.

FoolThemAll 03-07-2009 09:31 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by guyy (Post 2605530)
What does it say about the guy that he thinks outmoded dogma is more important than racial equality? At best, it says that he has poor judgement. Someone less charitable might say he's stupid or is hiding his real motivations. In the end, it doesn't matter, because Ron Paul doesn't matter.

Charity doesn't enter into your remarks. Outmoded dogma? Boy, that sure sounds bad! Of course I'll go for racial equality then! Replace "less charitable" with "even more like Fox News" (to borrow an apt criticism of another).

When relevance tops out at Obama and Limbaugh, irrelevance starts looking pretty good to me.

guyy 03-07-2009 11:07 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by FoolThemAll (Post 2605538)
Charity doesn't enter into your remarks.

Nope, no charity whatsoever for people who side with racists, which is what he has done. Where was his charity in the sixties? With the rich and the white. So, with all due respect (i.e., none), fuck Ron Paul.

It's extremely doubtful that he could get elected anywhere besides 3/4 white districts in the sun belt.

FoolThemAll 03-07-2009 11:26 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by guyy (Post 2605576)
Nope, no charity whatsoever for people who side with racists, which is what he has done.

I'm sure this isn't merely a way of indirectly smearing a racially-neutral ideology you don't like and that you'll uphold the consistency of your view by taking an equally harsh view of the ACLU. We shouldn't dare defend any right if it means siding with racists. Thus, Fuck the ACLU.

Or am I giving you too much credit?

connyosis 03-07-2009 01:16 PM

I really don't trust either, but if I'm forced to make a choice I'd choose big government.

Telluride 03-07-2009 01:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by guyy (Post 2605480)
To say that property rights trump the right to be treated equal is effectively racist. Maybe he doesn't hate non-white people, but he might as well.

As we all know, the civil rights movement won and Ron Paul lost. The country has left him way behind on this score. The neoliberal movement came, conquered, and collapsed. Yet there he is, clinging to the flotsam of failed ideologies. At this point, he's not even useful to conservatism.

It's hard to be more irrelevant than Ron Paul.

I don't recall Mr. Paul ever claiming that Americans of different races should be arbitrarily treated differently under the law (which is what equal treatment is actually about).

What you're whining about is the imaginary right to be treated equally by individual members of society. Such a policy would be unenforceable, though I'm sure there are plenty of people who would be willing to trample our freedoms trying to enforce it.

Should we pass a law requiring people on the street to offer an equally cheery greeting to everyone they see?

If Joe is going to the store and holds the door open for a black woman but not an Asian one, should he be charged with a crime?

Derwood 03-07-2009 02:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Telluride (Post 2605644)
I don't recall Mr. Paul ever claiming that Americans of different races should be arbitrarily treated differently under the law (which is what equal treatment is actually about).

What you're whining about is the imaginary right to be treated equally by individual members of society. Such a policy would be unenforceable, though I'm sure there are plenty of people who would be willing to trample our freedoms trying to enforce it.

Should we pass a law requiring people on the street to offer an equally cheery greeting to everyone they see?

If Joe is going to the store and holds the door open for a black woman but not an Asian one, should he be charged with a crime?

That's an epic jump in logic

Sun Tzu 03-07-2009 11:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by guyy (Post 2605576)
Nope, no charity whatsoever for people who side with racists, which is what he has done. Where was his charity in the sixties? With the rich and the white. So, with all due respect (i.e., none), fuck Ron Paul.

It's extremely doubtful that he could get elected anywhere besides 3/4 white districts in the sun belt.

Do you support affirmative action?

guyy 03-08-2009 08:26 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sun Tzu (Post 2605827)
Do you support affirmative action?

How is this relevant?

The Voting Rights Act was not about affirmative action, and neither really was the Civil Rights Act. "Affirmative action" as you know it was an executive policy developed under the Nixon administration, a means of enforcing the Civil Rights Act. There were other means of enforcing the act. Whether by design or accident, "affirmative action" turned out to be a brilliant move politically, because it proved to be an effective wedge issue which broke apart the Democrat's coalition. So, despite the Nixonian origin, the backlash against AA benefitted Republicans like Ron Paul & Ronnie Reagan. I know you guys like to think of him as a maverick, but on this issue RP is totally mainstream Republican.

Unfortunately, for him and the Republicans, it's not 1980 anymore. I think the politics of backlash were finished by 2001, but if it wasn't clear at the time, Obama's victory, particulary his showing in NC & Virginia, made it glaringly obvious. RP's "high-minded" stand against renewing the Voting Rights Act etc. is part of the Republican racism-once-removed tactics that began with Nixon's Southern Strategy and ended with Obama's victory last fall. The world has moved on.

But for all that, his racial politics are more up to date than his ideas on the economy, where he's an embarrassment even to neoliberals.

FoolThemAll 03-08-2009 10:22 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by guyy (Post 2605899)
part of the Republican racism-once-removed tactics

Minus the racism part, of course. I'm still curious as to how much you hate the ACLU.

Quote:

But for all that, his racial politics are more up to date than his ideas on the economy, where he's an embarrassment even to neoliberals.
I'm not inclined to trust you to speak accurately for neoliberals at this point. Source?

And "up to date" is a really silly way to condemn or defend a belief.

filtherton 03-08-2009 11:01 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by FoolThemAll (Post 2605943)
And "up to date" is a really silly way to condemn or defend a belief.

No it's not. When you are speaking about entire schools of thought, like economics, or medical science, or physics, or any system of ideas which evolves with respect to reality, being up to date is important.

It isn't the only way to evaluate an idea, but it certainly isn't silly.

roachboy 03-08-2009 11:31 AM

Quote:

I'm still curious as to how much you hate the ACLU.
you seem to be under the mistaken impression that it's necessary for others to take your false equivalence seriously.

FoolThemAll 03-08-2009 12:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by filtherton (Post 2605951)
No it's not. When you are speaking about entire schools of thought, like economics, or medical science, or physics, or any system of ideas which evolves with respect to reality, being up to date is important.

It isn't the only way to evaluate an idea, but it certainly isn't silly.

Ideas can de-evolve, too. Schools of thought can worsen. Reality can worsen. It's a total crapshoot as evaluations go.

---------- Post added at 01:08 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:03 PM ----------

Quote:

Originally Posted by roachboy (Post 2605965)
you seem to be under the mistaken impression that it's necessary for others to take your false equivalence seriously.

You seem to be under the mistaken impression that it's necessary for others to take your uninformative jab seriously.

Guyy didn't provide me much more than "I don't like people who side with racists". It's not a false equivalence. At least not until guyy elaborates with more.

filtherton 03-08-2009 12:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by FoolThemAll (Post 2605984)
Ideas can de-evolve, too. Schools of thought can worsen. Reality can worsen. It's a total crapshoot as evaluations go.

You are of course free to think whatever you want. However, most schools of thought get more accurate in their ability to describe reality (provided that is their goal) as time moves on. It isn't a total crapshoot.

Which doctor would you rather go to, the one whose knowledge of your particular malady is out of date, or the one whose knowledge is completely current?

I mean, yeah, of course there are exceptions. There are exceptions to every rule-- pointing that out doesn't invalidate the rule unless you're dealing in absolutes.

Speaking of absolutes, you seemed pretty absolute in your claim that the relative up to datedness of a person with respect to their particular field was a silly metric. You're wrong. Especially when the subject with which someone is out of date is economics, a field which seems to be much better at hindsight than foresight.

roachboy 03-08-2009 01:58 PM

fta: actually, if you want to play the pedantic logical game, which seems to be your preference, the "problem" you are trying to goade guyy into responding to is predicated on an entirely false equivalence--that the aclu is somehow racist first, and secondly that the way in which such logic as there is behind the first statement operates, this "racism" is somehow like that which guyy imputed to ron paul. none of that holds outside of some arbitrary construction of your own.

faced with this, the options are: ignore it altogether; or demonstrate why ignoring it is a reasonable response; or assume that your rickety machinery is legitimate and play along, walking into a poorly reasoned "problem". since 3 is out of the question, 1 seems most likely and reasonable. you should be grateful that someone opted for 2, simply because it required devoting more time and attention to your rickety little machine that it merits.

that help explain the comment?

FoolThemAll 03-08-2009 02:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by filtherton (Post 2606005)
You are of course free to think whatever you want. However, most schools of thought get more accurate in their ability to describe reality (provided that is their goal) as time moves on. It isn't a total crapshoot.

What makes you say 'most'?

Quote:

Speaking of absolutes, you seemed pretty absolute in your claim that the relative up to datedness of a person with respect to their particular field was a silly metric. You're wrong.
Speaking of absolutes, you don't think it can be? I thought you at least admitted the existence of rare exceptions. I, for one, wasn't up to date with certain schools of thought concerning civil liberties during the Bush administration.

"Total crapshoot" doesn't imply the lack of validation. It's not an absolute. It implies that you can't reliably count on validation. And unless you want to get circular, you can't.

Quote:

Especially when the subject with which someone is out of date is economics, a field which seems to be much better at hindsight than foresight.
That's not even really true, though, considering (for instance) the divide concerning the New Deal. But I'm sure this board considers that debate wholly settled.

---------- Post added at 03:20 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:16 PM ----------

Quote:

Originally Posted by roachboy (Post 2606043)
that the aclu is somehow racist first

Never said. Read before you jab.

Quote:

secondly that the way in which such logic as there is behind the first statement operates, this "racism" is somehow like that which guyy imputed to ron paul.
Guyy didn't specify what kind of racism. Currently, it's very much 'somehow' like that which guyy imputed to ron paul's allies (not reading his posts either?).

Quote:

you should be grateful that someone opted for 2
I'd be a bit more grateful if you had done a decent job of it. A bit.

Turpis 03-08-2009 02:22 PM

how can you trust people who willfully try to control you?

mixedmedia 03-08-2009 02:26 PM

This always happens whenever someone rolls the corpse of Ayn Rand into the room.

---------- Post added at 06:26 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:25 PM ----------

oh, and I would thank you all to refrain from using tired phrases like 'trample our freedoms' before the cocktail hour.

Cynthetiq 03-08-2009 02:45 PM

Quote:

View: Food Problems Elude Private Inspectors
Source: Nytimes
posted with the TFP thread generator

Food Problems Elude Private Inspectors   click to show 



Quote:

With government inspectors overwhelmed by the task of guarding the nation’s food supply, the job of monitoring food plants has in large part fallen to an army of private auditors like Mr. Hatfield. And the problems go well beyond peanuts.

An examination of the largest food poisoning outbreaks in recent years — in products as varied as spinach, pet food, and a children’s snack, Veggie Booty — show that auditors failed to detect problems at plants whose contaminated products later sickened consumers.

In one case involving hamburgers fed to schoolchildren, the Westland/Hallmark Meat Company in California passed 17 separate audits in 2007, records show. Then an undercover video made that year showed the plant’s workers using forklifts to force sickly cows into the slaughterhouse, which prompted a recall of 143 million pounds of beef in February 2008.

“The contributions of third-party audits to food safety is the same as the contribution of mail-order diploma mills to education,” said Mansour Samadpour, a Seattle consultant who has worked with companies nationwide to improve food safety.

Audits are not required by the government, but food companies are increasingly requiring suppliers to undergo them as a way to ensure safety and minimize liability. The rigor of audits varies widely and many companies choose the cheapest ones, which cost as little as $1,000, in contrast to the $8,000 the Food and Drug Administration spends to inspect a plant.

Typically, the private auditors inspect only manufacturing plants, not the suppliers that feed ingredients to those facilities. Nor do they commonly test the actual food products for pathogens, even though gleaming production lines can turn out poisoned fare.
This is why I cannot trust either.

mixedmedia 03-08-2009 02:59 PM

Thank you, cyn. I wanted to come back and at least address the OP since I contributed to the thread in such a trite fashion.

But I don't "trust" either of them and anyone would be a fool to do so. Thus the question of who I trust "more" is like asking me: Who do you trust more, Ted Bundy or John Wayne Gacy?

That's not to say that there are not individuals in both government and business who I do trust. Just that the natures of business and government (two-party or not) are largely synonymous - to persuade, to proliferate cash flow, and to conform into inaccessible and efficient beasts. Not only do I not trust them, sometimes I despise them.

filtherton 03-08-2009 03:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by FoolThemAll (Post 2606057)
What makes you say 'most'?

Because if part of the purpose of a school of thought is to incorporate new information, then they typically do so. You're free to disagree with me. With respect to economics, clearly there is effort to learn from the past.

Quote:

Speaking of absolutes, you don't think it can be? I thought you at least admitted the existence of rare exceptions. I, for one, wasn't up to date with certain schools of thought concerning civil liberties during the Bush administration.
I wasn't being absolute. You were. Don't try to turn this around. You might get confused and try and call me out for something that you were doing, and that I was not doing.

Quote:

"Total crapshoot" doesn't imply the lack of validation. It's not an absolute. It implies that you can't reliably count on validation. And unless you want to get circular, you can't.
If you think that anyone who has participated in this thread thinks the all of the problems with RP's perspective stem from the fact that it is out of date then you've been misreading. Out-of-date is an adjective. It isn't the whole of why RP is wrong.

It is as if someone said "That rusty car is broken." and your response was to scoffingly point out that "Well, just because a car is rusty, that doesn't mean it's broken." And you were right. But in your rightness you also missed the point. You turned a discussion about a broken car into a discussion about the meaning of rustiness.

And you also made a claim equivalent to "Gauging the condition of a car by the amount of rust on it is silly."

You're trying to reduce guyy's perspective to a single adjective-- you shouldn't be surprised if you can't make sense of it.

Quote:

That's not even really true, though, considering (for instance) the divide concerning the New Deal. But I'm sure this board considers that debate wholly settled.
It is true. If you ever find an economist who thinks there's nothing to learn from the Great Depression, let me know.

guyy 03-08-2009 04:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by FoolThemAll (Post 2605943)

I'm not inclined to trust you to speak accurately for neoliberals at this point. Source?

And "up to date" is a really silly way to condemn or defend a belief.

The source is the horse's mouth. Shiny stuff is the One True Value. It's a magpie's understanding of the economy. If you look at his stuff, it's clear that he doesn't understand how the banking system or credit work, or why banks are crucial to a modern capitalist economy. It's laughable, even from a Freidmanite perspective.

FoolThemAll 03-08-2009 06:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by filtherton (Post 2606101)
Because if part of the purpose of a school of thought is to incorporate new information, then they typically do so. You're free to disagree with me. With respect to economics, clearly there is effort to learn from the past.

Sometimes, sometimes not. Sometimes there are overriding biases. Sometimes reality is misinterpreted. Sometimes exceptions appear to be rules.

Which is why, while I would understand 'often,', I haven't quite made the jump to 'most'.

Quote:

I wasn't being absolute. You were. Don't try to turn this around. You might get confused and try and call me out for something that you were doing, and that I was not doing.
I call "up to date" a crapshoot not because it's never true, but because it often isn't and is not reliable as a result. Meanwhile, I'm unequivocally 'wrong'. Do I need to point you to a dictionary.com definition for 'absolute' or can you manage that yourself?

Quote:

If you think that anyone who has participated in this thread thinks the all of the problems with RP's perspective stem from the fact that it is out of date then you've been misreading. Out-of-date is an adjective. It isn't the whole of why RP is wrong.
It's a good thing I don't think or say that.

Quote:

It is as if someone said "That rusty car is broken." and your response was to scoffingly point out that "Well, just because a car is rusty, that doesn't mean it's broken." And you were right.
For clarification: right about what? That it's silly to slam Ron Paul's ideas for not being "up to date"?

Quote:

But in your rightness you also missed the point. You turned a discussion about a broken car into a discussion about the meaning of rustiness.
To speak from your analogy, guyy already introduced the issue of rustiness. I'm aware that it wasn't the only part of his paltry attack and I never said otherwise.

Quote:

You're trying to reduce guyy's perspective to a single adjective-- you shouldn't be surprised if you can't make sense of it.
Jesus Christ. Are you really making a good-faith effort to read my posts? I attacked his single adjective as a single adjective. I did not ignore the rest of his position - I responded to those sentences as well. Do you have some sort of issue with divide and conquer? Am I not allowed to address one thing at a time?

Quote:

It is true. If you ever find an economist who thinks there's nothing to learn from the Great Depression, let me know.
Admittedly, I was vague here. I meant that our economic hindsight is not always and forever necessarily better than our foresight. Of course economists learned from the Great Depression. But their findings were not uniform. Someone's wrong. At least some schools of thought devolved.

---------- Post added at 07:38 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:36 PM ----------

Quote:

Originally Posted by guyy (Post 2606151)
The source is the horse's mouth. Shiny stuff is the One True Value. It's a magpie's understanding of the economy. If you look at his stuff, it's clear that he doesn't understand how the banking system or credit work, or why banks are crucial to a modern capitalist economy. It's laughable, even from a Freidmanite perspective.

What's One True Value? Which instance of the horse's mouth opening?

Do you have anything to give me?

aceventura3 03-09-2009 02:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by roachboy (Post 2604876)
this is the kind of statement that simply vaporizes any credibility you might have had.

People who understand the problem faced by GM today know the seeds were sown during labor negotiations in the 1970's and 1980's. The management teams who negotiated those contracts are no longer in place. The impact of those contracts are being felt today and is the difference between GM being competitive and being on the threshold of failure. Just because you don't understand the issues does not mean those issues are not real.

Master_Shake 04-07-2009 01:59 PM

I also cannot answer this question as I don't trust either one more than I have to. As others have pointed out there is very little difference between the two anymore when they work in such close concert with each other.

Poppinjay 04-08-2009 04:41 AM

I only trust King Bhumibol Adulyadej.

FuglyStick 04-08-2009 05:06 AM

"Trust"--what an appropriate word.

loquitur 04-13-2009 10:24 AM

The problem that I have with the question as phrased -- who do you trust more -- (should be "whom," BTW - not to be pedantic) -- is that it's missing a piece of information: trust to do what? trust with what? There are certain things govt is good at, others that businesses are good at. Would I trust govt to keep a secret? Heck no, the govt leaks like a sieve and the workers who have political axes to grind would shit all over a citizen in a minute if it helped them or their union or their preferred candidate (Joe the Plumber, anyone?). A business? Only if it was in the business's interest to do it, in which case they'd be much better than the govt. Provide security? I'll go with the govt and the armed forces; Blackwater's experience shows that private security isn't always as reliable as we'd like.

The point being that we shouldn't delude ourselves that businesses can act like govts and still do their jobs well (watch what a business does when it has no or negligible competition), nor that the govt can run a business worth a lick. The comparison doesn't make much sense.

ASU2003 04-15-2009 02:18 PM

I think themain reason I asked this was it was when Oregon announce the GPS tracking for cars instead of a gas tax. Now, I think the gas tax is better and should be higher, but people were afraid of the government having access to GPS information of where you've been (not even real-time GPS info). I can see this as being an issue, but it isn't close to what my phone company can do. I carry around a cell phone that broadcasts my exact position in real time(through triangulation). Nobody thinks twice about giving that info to the cell phone companies.

And I've had plenty of debates over who I would rather have as an ISP. And neither are good. The local computer nerd group would be the ideal ISP, but they don't have the resources. The government can be good, if they aren't monitoring it and allowing anonymous access. But, the same can be said for a business, except that they will limit who can get on to paying costumers. I don't deal with any one of them and get it through open wifi ap's.

And it's a tossup for managing natural resources, pollution, and progress.

loquitur 04-17-2009 10:05 AM

Well, sure, ASU, but a phone company can't toss you in jail or bring you up on charges based on the information it has about you. Sure, it could abuse that information in other ways, but any abuse the phone co could make of that info could also be made by some unscrupulous govt bureaucrat if s/he had the same info. The unique diff btw the govt and the phone co is that the govt has coercive power and the phone co doesn't. The phone co can only coerce you if it gets govt backup.

aceventura3 04-17-2009 10:40 AM

Here we go again! Barney Frank is an example of a man with a little knowledge thinking he understands a complex issue and is then going to "fix" things. He is definitely a person not to trust, meddling in "big business".

Quote:

Barney Frank's track record as a financial analyst is, shall we say, mixed. The House Financial Services Chairman said for years that a collapse of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac would pose zero risk to taxpayers. For most people, a mistake of that magnitude would trigger introspection, if not humility. But not the sage of Massachusetts. He's cooking up another fantastic subsidy -- and like the last one, he swears taxpayers won't feel a thing. In his words, "it would cost the federal government zero." Uh oh.

Mr. Frank believes state and local governments are paying too much when they issue debt because rating agencies don't give them the ratings Mr. Frank feels they deserve. So last year he pushed a bill to effectively force Standard &Poor's, Moody's and Fitch to raise their ratings on municipal bonds, but the legislation got sidetracked amid the financial turmoil. Now Mr. Frank is back, bigger than ever.

He'd like to create what he calls an FDIC-like federal insurance program for municipal bonds. Jurisdictions issuing debt would pay premiums into the insurance fund, and in return the federal government would guarantee the debt against default. Private companies already insure municipal bonds -- companies such as MBIA, Ambac and Berkshire Hathaway. And you may recall that last year the big bond insurers caused considerable angst when their exposure to mortgage-related debt called into question their ability to meet their muni-bond obligations. MBIA, in response, recently fenced off its muni-bond business from its other obligations.

If Mr. Frank really believes that state and local governments have been forced to overpay for this insurance, one has to assume his federal program would charge lower premiums and so undercut its private-sector competitors. The government can charge low premiums without putting taxpayers on the hook, he argues, because the risk of default is so low.

Or is it? The payment history of municipal bonds seems to support Mr. Frank. But then the triple-A ratings assigned to many mortgage-backed securities were also based on backward-looking models that failed to anticipate today's housing bust. The muni-bond performance record is also mostly the history of uninsured bonds. But the very existence of insurance can change the behavior of the policyholder or beneficiary -- watch Barbara Stanwyck and Fred MacMurray in the 1944 classic "Double Indemnity." If a state or locality knows someone else will make bondholders whole, they are far more likely to default than an uninsured issuer would be.

Many states and localities have run up huge pension and health-care obligations to retirees that will come due over the next few decades. And many of those obligations were underfunded even before the bottom fell out of the stock market. When those bills hit, cities will have to choose among raising taxes, cutting benefits or stiffing bondholders. In some states, such as New York, retiree benefits are constitutionally protected, and taxes are already chokingly high. So stiffing the bond insurers will look pretty attractive.

None other than Warren Buffett devoted several pages in his latest Berkshire Hathaway shareholder letter to precisely this kind of risk: "When faced with large revenue shortfalls, communities that have all of their bonds insured will be more prone to develop 'solutions' less favorable to bondholders than those communities that have uninsured bonds held by local banks and residents."

He continues: "Losses in the tax-exempt arena, when they come, are also likely to be highly correlated among issuers. If a few communities stiff their creditors and get away with it, the chance that others will follow in their footsteps will grow. What mayor or city council is going to choose pain to local citizens in the form of major tax increases over pain to a far-away bond insurer?" This goes double if the insurer is Uncle Sugar.

Mr. Buffett concludes: "Insuring tax-exempts, therefore, has the look today of a dangerous business -- one with similarities, in fact, to the insuring of natural catastrophes. In both cases, a string of loss-free years can be followed by a devastating experience that more than wipes out all earlier profits."

The difference, in this case, is that bond insurance, and especially federal bond insurance, would have helped create the "natural" catastrophe by encouraging jurisdictions to rack up obligations that taxpayers would be forced to make good on down the road. As for Mr. Frank's contention that muni-bond insurance is too expensive, Berkshire Hathaway is charging two and three times historical rates -- and Mr. Buffett is still worried.

One Fannie Mae debacle ought to be enough for any career, but Mr. Frank wants taxpayers to double down on his political guarantees. There are currently some $1.7 trillion in municipal bonds held by the public, and Barney thinks we can insure them at "zero cost." Considering the source, and the potential size of the bill, someone in Congress needs to sound the alarm.
Barney Frank's Double Indemnity - WSJ.com

If Frank has his way, remember you heard it here first, tax payers are going to get hammered with another bailout crisis in about 5 to 10 years.


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