American Capitalism Gone with a Whimper - Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

Sun Tzu · 06-04-2009, 02:41 PM

This is from a blog written by a Russian named Mat Rodina. There were some promoting this as if it appeared in the Pravda (Russian newspaper) when it actually only appeared on Pravda.ru. The part I have been having difficulty finding out is the claim that Rodina is a columnist for Provda and this indeed did appear in the mainstream Russian news.
When people number in the millions, opinions will be in great numbers and vary, however to hear this from Russia is disturbing.

Quote:

It must be said, that like the breaking of a great dam, the American decent into Marxism is happening with breath taking speed, against the back drop of a passive, hapless sheeple, excuse me dear reader, I meant people.

True, the situation has been well prepared on and off for the past century, especially the past twenty years. The initial testing grounds was conducted upon our Holy Russia and a bloody test it was. But we Russians would not just roll over and give up our freedoms and our souls, no matter how much money Wall Street poured into the fists of the Marxists.

Those lessons were taken and used to properly prepare the American populace for the surrender of their freedoms and souls, to the whims of their elites and betters.

First, the population was dumbed down through a politicized and substandard education system based on pop culture, rather then the classics. Americans know more about their favorite TV dramas then the drama in DC that directly affects their lives. They care more for their "right" to choke down a McDonalds burger or a BurgerKing burger than for their constitutional rights. Then they turn around and lecture us about our rights and about our "democracy". Pride blind the foolish.

Then their faith in God was destroyed, until their churches, all tens of thousands of different "branches and denominations" were for the most part little more then Sunday circuses and their televangelists and top protestant mega preachers were more then happy to sell out their souls and flocks to be on the "winning" side of one pseudo Marxist politician or another. Their flocks may complain, but when explained that they would be on the "winning" side, their flocks were ever so quick to reject Christ in hopes for earthly power. Even our Holy Orthodox churches are scandalously liberalized in America.

The final collapse has come with the election of Barack Obama. His speed in the past three months has been truly impressive. His spending and money printing has been a record setting, not just in America's short history but in the world. If this keeps up for more then another year, and there is no sign that it will not, America at best will resemble the Wiemar Republic and at worst Zimbabwe.
These past two weeks have been the most breath taking of all. First came the announcement of a planned redesign of the American Byzantine tax system, by the very thieves who used it to bankroll their thefts, loses and swindles of hundreds of billions of dollars. These make our Russian oligarchs look little more then ordinary street thugs, in comparison. Yes, the Americans have beat our own thieves in the shear volumes. Should we congratulate them?

These men, of course, are not an elected panel but made up of appointees picked from the very financial oligarchs and their henchmen who are now gorging themselves on trillions of American dollars, in one bailout after another. They are also usurping the rights, duties and powers of the American congress (parliament). Again, congress has put up little more then a whimper to their masters.

Then came Barack Obama's command that GM's (General Motor) president step down from leadership of his company. That is correct, dear reader, in the land of "pure" free markets, the American president now has the power, the self given power, to fire CEOs and we can assume other employees of private companies, at will. Come hither, go dither, the centurion commands his minions.

So it should be no surprise, that the American president has followed this up with a "bold" move of declaring that he and another group of unelected, chosen stooges will now redesign the entire automotive industry and will even be the guarantee of automobile policies. I am sure that if given the chance, they would happily try and redesign it for the whole of the world, too. Prime Minister Putin, less then two months ago, warned Obama and UK's Blair, not to follow the path to Marxism, it only leads to disaster. Apparently, even though we suffered 70 years of this Western sponsored horror show, we know nothing, as foolish, drunken Russians, so let our "wise" Anglo-Saxon fools find out the folly of their own pride.

Again, the American public has taken this with barely a whimper...but a "freeman" whimper.

So, should it be any surprise to discover that the Democratically controlled Congress of America is working on passing a new regulation that would give the American Treasury department the power to set "fair" maximum salaries, evaluate performance and control how private companies give out pay raises and bonuses? Senator Barney Franks, a social pervert basking in his homosexuality (of course, amongst the modern, enlightened American societal norm, as well as that of the general West, homosexuality is not only not a looked down upon life choice, but is often praised as a virtue) and his Marxist enlightenment, has led this effort. He stresses that this only affects companies that receive government monies, but it is retroactive and taken to a logical extreme, this would include any company or industry that has ever received a tax break or incentive.

The Russian owners of American companies and industries should look thoughtfully at this and the option of closing their facilities down and fleeing the land of the Red as fast as possible. In other words, divest while there is still value left.

The proud American will go down into his slavery with out a fight, beating his chest and proclaiming to the world, how free he really is. The world will only snicker.

American capitalism gone with a whimper - Pravda.Ru

Jozrael · 06-04-2009, 03:01 PM

About 1/3 to 1/2 of it is patently false and ridiculous, and another 1/3 is taken out of context. The remainder is pretty incisive, but obvious if you keep up with a minimum of the news.

inBOIL · 06-04-2009, 03:03 PM

"Mat" is Russian for mother, "Rodina" is Russian for motherland or homeland. The text itself reads like nationalist propaganda of the type I've read in Pravda before.
Edit: The author's name is Stanislav Mishin, Mat Rodina is the name of his blog.

hunnychile · 06-04-2009, 03:26 PM

Thanks for the clarification about the authors of this blurb. Big issue there from the Russian
writer(s). It's a typical pain in the ass when you read another rant from some "furrner" about the way America sucks and is going down the tube. It's old news. Right?

In some sectors Capitalism isn't such a bad thing. I work smart and hard and have always done well in a Capitalistic business/society.

Point made: If I make my boss bucks, I get a raise.

How hard is that to comprehend?

Willravel · 06-04-2009, 03:42 PM

I'm pretty sure we're still in a capitalistic society:

hunnychile · 06-04-2009, 04:38 PM

Okay, I feel better - esp. now that I've seen the Official Willravel Chart.

Phew!!!

ASU2003 · 06-04-2009, 07:12 PM

Is what he angry about the fact that we fought communism for 40 years (and caused Russia to collapse economically), but now the US is doing a lot of 'communist' type things? And the fact that we are only able to continue because we are getting money from China and other countries, where Russia was not able to in the late 80s.

Though I'm not sure the religious message he is trying to portray is correct. The religious community didn't give Obama a lot of support in the last election (in pure percentages that were against some of Obama's stances on certain issues)

dippin · 06-04-2009, 08:04 PM

Where is this descent into Marxism taking place?

Now, for future reference, though there are different types of communism and Marxism, these are the basic ten points described in the communist manifesto about what the proletariat should do once it takes over power:

1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.

2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.

3. Abolition of all rights of inheritance.

4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.

5. Centralization of credit in the banks of the state, by means of a national bank with state capital and an exclusive monopoly.

6. Centralization of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the state.

7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the state; the bringing into cultivation of waste lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.

8. Equal obligation of all to work. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.

9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of all the distinction between town and country by a more equable distribution of the populace over the country.

10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children's factory labor in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production, etc.

Now, the fact is that labor unions and communist parties around the world managed to get a lot of concessions for the general population, so radical ideas of communist parties of the past are basically taken for granted nowadays (public education, end of child labor), but the key points of communism remain, and so other than using it as scare tactics, I would love to see the actual examples of this descent into marxism.

roachboy · 06-04-2009, 08:24 PM

dippin: i've taught the manifeto more times than i can count, and i don't see any of these points in it except 1, 3 and 10. and none of these, except 1, are present in anything like the same language. what i see in the above is some bizarre, anachronistic cliff notes variant on the manifesto. i'd be happy to defend this, line by line with direct reference to the text, if need be.

=====

more generally, on the op:

it's a little bizarre to see a blog written by some russian reactionary presented as if it were a coherent take on the situation of capitalism in it's contemporary forms.

it might make intuitive sense if you don't know what the fuck you're talking about, but the key feature that determines it's persuasive power is that you don't know what the fuck you're talking about.

Baraka_Guru · 06-04-2009, 08:28 PM

You'd figure a Russian political writer would know more about socialism. I can understand the problem with grasping the capitalist concept. But seriously.

For America to slide into socialism, it's going to need at least a few socialists. You know, in positions of power.

dippin · 06-04-2009, 09:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by roachboy

dippin: i've taught the manifeto more times than i can count, and i don't see any of these points in it except 1, 3 and 10. and none of these, except 1, are present in anything like the same language. what i see in the above is some bizarre, anachronistic cliff notes variant on the manifesto. i'd be happy to defend this, line by line with direct reference to the text, if need be.

=====

more generally, on the op:

it's a little bizarre to see a blog written by some russian reactionary presented as if it were a coherent take on the situation of capitalism in it's contemporary forms.

it might make intuitive sense if you don't know what the fuck you're talking about, but the key feature that determines it's persuasive power is that you don't know what the fuck you're talking about.

What are you talking about?

those 10 points are actually copied and pasted FROM the communist manifesto, chapter 2, "proletarians and communists," right at the end of the chapter.

Communist Manifesto (Chapter 2)

the section, at length, reads:

Quote:

We have seen above, that the first step in the revolution by the working class is to raise the proletariat to the position of ruling class to win the battle of democracy.

The proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degree, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralise all instruments of production in the hands of the State, i.e., of the proletariat organised as the ruling class; and to increase the total productive forces as rapidly as possible.

Of course, in the beginning, this cannot be effected except by means of despotic inroads on the rights of property, and on the conditions of bourgeois production; by means of measures, therefore, which appear economically insufficient and untenable, but which, in the course of the movement, outstrip themselves, necessitate further inroads upon the old social order, and are unavoidable as a means of entirely revolutionising the mode of production.

These measures will, of course, be different in different countries.

Nevertheless, in most advanced countries, the following will be pretty generally applicable.

1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.
2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.
3. Abolition of all rights of inheritance.
4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.
5. Centralisation of credit in the hands of the state, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly.
6. Centralisation of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the State.
7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the State; the bringing into cultivation of waste-lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.
8. Equal liability of all to work. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.
9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of all the distinction between town and country by a more equable distribution of the populace over the country.
10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children’s factory labour in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production, &c, &c.

When, in the course of development, class distinctions have disappeared, and all production has been concentrated in the hands of a vast association of the whole nation, the public power will lose its political character. Political power, properly so called, is merely the organised power of one class for oppressing another. If the proletariat during its contest with the bourgeoisie is compelled, by the force of circumstances, to organise itself as a class, if, by means of a revolution, it makes itself the ruling class, and, as such, sweeps away by force the old conditions of production, then it will, along with these conditions, have swept away the conditions for the existence of class antagonisms and of classes generally, and will thereby have abolished its own supremacy as a class.

In place of the old bourgeois society, with its classes and class antagonisms, we shall have an association, in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all.

And this is the Samuel Moore version that was translated with help by Engels himself, so I don't know where your claim comes from. We can argue if the "old" Marx thought like this, but the 10 points are from the original (also contained in the original German version).

Sun Tzu · 06-05-2009, 09:41 PM

I dont think he was referring to you dippin, it sounds like he is commenting on the fact I started a thread about it.

n0nsensical · 06-06-2009, 08:37 AM

Pravda is just a trashy tabloid rag these days.

Sun Tzu · 06-06-2009, 09:43 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by n0nsensical

Pravda is just a trashy tabloid rag these days.

What was it before?

aceventura3 · 06-07-2009, 01:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Willravel

I'm pretty sure we're still in a capitalistic society:

Love the chart, but...

1) Eminent Domain
2) Commerce Clause
3) Amendment XVI (Income Tax)
4) U.S. Military

Technically the US government has no need to hold any corporate assets. They can simply take what they need or want at will, they have it all raveled up. (pardon the pun, Will).

genuinegirly · 06-07-2009, 01:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aceventura3

Love the chart, but...

1) Eminent Domain
2) Commerce Clause
3) Amendment XVI (Income Tax)
4) U.S. Military

Technically the US government has no need to hold any corporate assets. They can simply take what they need or want at will, they have it all raveled up. (pardon the pun, Will).

Let's not forget these little government-run agencies...

5) US Forest Service / National Park System / Fish & Wildlife (Refuge system)
Have you looked recently at the vast amount of land they control?
6) United States Postal Service
Why do we still have a postal service? So we can get terrible advertisements sent to our door? UPS, FedEx, and DHL are more efficient.

Baraka_Guru · 06-07-2009, 01:44 PM

*ahem*

Since when is public ownership impossible in a capitalist system?

(Psst...take a look up north, eh?)

I know a lot of this is unprecedented in America, but it isn't necessarily some kind of beginning to some kind of end. At least you guys aren't still stuck in mercantilism.

QuasiMondo · 06-07-2009, 01:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by genuinegirly

Why do we still have a postal service? So we can get terrible advertisements sent to our door? UPS, FedEx, and DHL are more efficient.

UPS is f'ing horrible. The drivers in my old neighborhood had a nasty habit of delivering stuff to a neighbor if nobody's home and not notifying the recipient of what they've done. Whatever fragile stuff you have is guaranteed to arrive broken, even when you label it fragile and pack it accordingly, and their customer service is subpar. I'll never ship anything via UPS, and I always tell people who are sending me stuff to ship it via anything but UPS, even if this means I'll pay more for shipping charges.

I use USPS all the time to ship stuff out, and I've never had a problem with it getting delivered or paying too much for shipping.

shakran · 06-07-2009, 02:12 PM

so what are we suggesting, gg? Abolish the national park system?

I finally got around to reading the entire quote in the OP. The entire blog post is bullshit.

One point that really stuck in my craw was the tired old "Obama is firing CEO's. He's taking over corporations. Oh noes!" that the neo-con Limbots are so fond of parroting.
These slackjawed drooling braindead idiots (yes I went there) seem to forget that before Obama said "if you want money, the CEO that got you in this mess has to go first," GM came crawling to him begging for cash. Puts a bit of a different light on things, doesn't it? Obama never fired the guy. He resigned. Of his own free will. He could have stayed and Obama wouldn't have done a thing about it. But he also, wisely, would not have given GM any money. Because if your teenager racks up $15,000 in debt across three credit cards, before you give him money to get out of his financial hole, you tell him "if you want to be bailed out, tear up the credit cards first." You insist that he get rid of that which got him in the financial black hole to begin with.

It's amazing how when facts are eliminated things can look different than what they really are, isn't it.

roachboy · 06-07-2009, 02:26 PM

dippin. huh. how about that? i was mistaken: my apologies.

it's true that i taught the manifesto many many times--i thought i had almost memorized it.
i should have been less confident about that.

so there we are.
carry on.

ASU2003 · 06-07-2009, 02:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by genuinegirly

Let's not forget these little government-run agencies...

5) US Forest Service / National Park System / Fish & Wildlife (Refuge system)
Have you looked recently at the vast amount of land they control?

And they do a pretty good job at running these agencies at a reasonable cost. If they were privately held, there would have to be so many laws saying you couldn't do things to the land. No drilling, mining, renting, reselling, ranching, farming, blocking access, hunting, living, building, etc... The people would start complaining for sure because they didn't read the fine print and were expecting to become millionaires without doing anything somehow.

Quote:

Originally Posted by genuinegirly

6) United States Postal Service
Why do we still have a postal service? So we can get terrible advertisements sent to our door? UPS, FedEx, and DHL are more efficient.

I can put a 44 cent stamp on a envelope, drop in in a box and it will get across the country. It is anonymous, untraceable, secret, and reliable. Sounds like a deal to me. Using a computer is a little quicker, but can't replace an actual letter sometimes. On-line bill-pay and e-mails have cut into the revenue of the post office a lot in the past few years.

(And the post office isn't run by the government, the government just made laws saying they had a monopoly on mail delivery and can control the prices)

samcol · 06-07-2009, 05:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ASU2003

I can put a 44 cent stamp on a envelope, drop in in a box and it will get across the country. It is anonymous, untraceable, secret, and reliable. Sounds like a deal to me. Using a computer is a little quicker, but can't replace an actual letter sometimes. On-line bill-pay and e-mails have cut into the revenue of the post office a lot in the past few years.

(And the post office isn't run by the government, the government just made laws saying they had a monopoly on mail delivery and can control the prices)

The fact that we even have DHL, UPS, and FedEx in the United States proves that the USPS wasn't providing the best possible service at the best price.

dippin · 06-07-2009, 06:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by samcol

The fact that we even have DHL, UPS, and FedEx in the United States proves that the USPS wasn't providing the best possible service at the best price.

The fact that it averages over a billion dollars a year in profit with those companies competing with it shows that it is not the worst either.

aceventura3 · 06-08-2009, 07:19 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by shakran

so what are we suggesting, gg? Abolish the national park system?

There is no need for the government to hold title to the land. Even if the land was privately owned, the government could mandate how the land is used. They could even mandate that the public have access to it by mandating public roads through the property or just taking some of the land to build roads.

I find the move against private property rights very disturbing, don't you?

And, are you o.k. with what Obama is doing, by accelerating the trend against private property rights? Isn't it shameful for him to use his bully pulpit to disparage those (i.e., bond holders) fighting for their rights, when their rights under the law conflict with what he wants?

shakran · 06-08-2009, 07:33 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aceventura3

There is no need for the government to hold title to the land.

So you're suggesting we let someone else own it, but not be allowed to do anything with it. Who's going to sign on for that deal?

Quote:

Even if the land was privately owned, the government could mandate how the land is used.

Only to a point. Private property is after all private property. If you had the option to buy 3 acres with the knowledge that you weren't allowed to do anything at all to it, why would you buy it? Plus, you're assuming the property owners will follow the governmental mandate. Get back to me when all factories voluntarily comply with EPA regulations, hmm?

Quote:

They could even mandate that the public have access to it by mandating public roads through the property or just taking some of the land to build roads.

So it's OK to sell the land to someone, not allowing them to do anything to it, and then steal some of it back in order to make a road? And you don't find that move against private property rights "very disturbing?"

Quote:

I find the move against private property rights very disturbing, don't you?

I don't want to own Yosemite. I certainly don't want a timber company to own it. I bet they'd just love to chop the sequoias down. I'm just fine with the government owning property. The National Park Service has held land in trust for the people so that the people could enjoy that land. Private corporations will not do that. Private individuals do not generally have the resource ability to do that. Your argument's logical extension is that I should be able to buy the White House, because otherwise it's a move against private property rights.

Quote:

And, are you o.k. with what Obama is doing, by accelerating the trend against private property rights? Isn't it shameful for him to use his bully pulpit to disparage those (i.e., bond holders) fighting for their rights, when their rights under the law conflict with what he wants?

Well, the only people who believe he's doing that are the ones parroting Limbaugh, the lunatic drug addict who wants Obama to fail. Find a new source.

FoolThemAll · 06-08-2009, 09:12 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dippin

The fact that it averages over a billion dollars a year in profit with those companies competing with it shows that it is not the worst either.

When you're government-subsidized and you have a monopoly on first-class mail, 'not the worst' isn't much of an accomplishment.

ASU2003 · 06-08-2009, 06:27 PM

So, if the USPS was eliminated tomorrow, and UPS, FedEX, and DHL (And whoever else wanted to deliver mail was able to get in), what do you think the costs would be? Would they need more trucks to deliver mail? Would I need to pay a monthly fee to be able to get home mail delivery (like trash)?

What would happen if the USPS became a private company with no ties or protection from the government? Are they that inefficient? Are they overpaid? Do their workers get too many benefits? Do you think another company could do the job better?

n0nsensical · 06-08-2009, 08:22 PM

The USPS is, or was once regarded, one of the big successes of American public enterprise. It might not be as highly regarded anymore as it used to be but it was a godsend for people living in rural areas, and they will still get your mail from point A to point B anywhere in the country relatively cheaply. Another true story is utilities, without public enterprise there would probably still be large swaths of the country without electricity because it's not economically worth running miles of lines to serve a few customers. Basically anything that should (or shouldn't) be done but isn't economically viable isn't going to happen in a capitalist system without public intervention, that includes saving Yosemite from logging. The anti-government people are just as far off in a dreamland utopia as the extreme socialists. I would agree that some things that aren't economically viable and shouldn't be done are, but it's worth the tradeoff. If not, something that you probably need would be neglected too. As a former customer of public utilities and a current customer of private utilities I can't tell you any difference except now I'm constantly bombarded with PG&E ad campaigns. Same 120V @60 Hz coming out of the wall.

filtherton · 06-08-2009, 08:49 PM

I think that "American Capitalism" either is just fine, or only existed in the sweaty, hallucination-stricken minds of those who believe that free markets can actually exist.

Sun Tzu · 06-09-2009, 09:55 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by filtherton

I think that "American Capitalism" either is just fine, or only existed in the sweaty, hallucination-stricken minds of those who believe that free markets can actually exist.

So which is it?

shakran · 06-09-2009, 10:15 AM

I still find it interesting that none of the advocates of "American Capitalism" (by which they mean "government cannot intervene") have commented on the fact that capitalism collapsed, and would have completely disintegrated but for the intervention of the government.

If you're going to preach an anti-socialist, pure freemarket ideal, then you should be very angry when government steps in to help any business out. Whether that be bailing out the banks (who caused this mess in the first place) or the car manufacturers (who's deserved reputation for making crappy products for 3 decades finally caught up to them), or the corn farmers (who are paid a subsidy for every acre of corn they grow). If you want a truly hands-off government, then you should be opposed to all of these things.

Trouble is, that with a truly hands-off government, capitalism is doomed to failure, because as has been proven time and again, left to their own devices, businesses will seek to maximise short term gain even if it sacrifices longterm viability. In other words, the banks knew that eventually the subprime mortgages on their house of cards would collapse, and spectacularly, but they didn't give a crap because they were getting rich in the interim. If we adopted a pure hands-off government, we would currently have no banks. Period. Because the economy would have completely collapsed, and without an economy, even the few banks that didn't get involved in the subprime scam would be unable to survive. We would then quickly find ourselves with no infrastructure, no industry, no retail, no food, and no civil order, because once people start starving and become unable to buy anything, they tend to get just a bit pissed off, and they tend to vent that frustration by mass civil disturbances.

The government exists for a reason, and the people that like to claim the government shouldn't get involved in anything would be very upset if their wishes actually came true.

Willravel · 06-09-2009, 10:19 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by roachboy

i was mistaken: my apologies.

Every time someone says mea culpa on an internet forum, an angel gets it's wings.

filtherton · 06-09-2009, 04:01 PM

It's just fine.

Baraka_Guru · 06-09-2009, 04:32 PM

It's an attitude like this that suggest to me that American capitalism is just fine:

Top 10 Reasons to Start a Business in a Recession click to show

URL: Top 10 Reasons to Start Up in the Recession - Starting a business in a recession - Entrepreneur.com

Sun Tzu · 06-09-2009, 04:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by shakran

I still find it interesting that none of the advocates of "American Capitalism" (by which they mean "government cannot intervene") have commented on the fact that capitalism collapsed, and would have completely disintegrated but for the intervention of the government.

If you're going to preach an anti-socialist, pure freemarket ideal, then you should be very angry when government steps in to help any business out. Whether that be bailing out the banks (who caused this mess in the first place) or the car manufacturers (who's deserved reputation for making crappy products for 3 decades finally caught up to them), or the corn farmers (who are paid a subsidy for every acre of corn they grow). If you want a truly hands-off government, then you should be opposed to all of these things.

Trouble is, that with a truly hands-off government, capitalism is doomed to failure, because as has been proven time and again, left to their own devices, businesses will seek to maximise short term gain even if it sacrifices longterm viability. In other words, the banks knew that eventually the subprime mortgages on their house of cards would collapse, and spectacularly, but they didn't give a crap because they were getting rich in the interim. If we adopted a pure hands-off government, we would currently have no banks. Period. Because the economy would have completely collapsed, and without an economy, even the few banks that didn't get involved in the subprime scam would be unable to survive. We would then quickly find ourselves with no infrastructure, no industry, no retail, no food, and no civil order, because once people start starving and become unable to buy anything, they tend to get just a bit pissed off, and they tend to vent that frustration by mass civil disturbances.

The government exists for a reason, and the people that like to claim the government shouldn't get involved in anything would be very upset if their wishes actually came true.

This just seems to go round and round. "Capitalism" collapsed? So the gift our 95th Congress and Jimmy Carter called the CRA and the multiple Federal Financial Supervisory Agencies enforcing it had no part in this mess?

I think there does need to be some government intervention, abolish the federal reserve and have Congress print our currency interest free.

shakran · 06-09-2009, 05:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sun Tzu

This just seems to go round and round. "Capitalism" collapsed? So the gift our 95th Congress and Jimmy Carter called the CRA and the multiple Federal Financial Supervisory Agencies enforcing it had no part in this mess?

That's ridiculous. Of course not. The CRA did not say "give out loans to people who are guaranteed not to be able to pay them back because you think you'll profit by reselling the house when it rises in value." The CRA was never intended to secure untenable half-million dollar loans to pizza boys. It specifically indicates that while banks should not redline based on race or neighborhood location, it should offer credit in a manner consistent with safe and sound operations.

The full quote, from the Federal Reserve Board, regarding the CRA is:

Quote:

Originally Posted by federalreserve.gov/dcca/cra/

The Community Reinvestment Act is intended to encourage depository institutions to help meet the credit needs of the communities in which they operate, including low- and moderate-income neighborhoods, consistent with safe and sound operations.

It is absurd to turn around and claim that the CRA is therefore responsible for banks acting well outside the boundaries of safe and sound operations so that their leaders could get rich off the backs of dumbasses and uneducated people too ignorant to understand that they were being encouraged to get over their head in a loan. It is even more absurd to claim that the CRA is responsible for banks purposely falsifying or omitting information about applicants so that they could guarantee a loan would be extended. The CRA was not written such that fraud is legally requested, required, or encouraged.

Sun Tzu · 06-09-2009, 06:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by shakran

That's ridiculous. Of course not. The CRA did not say "give out loans to people who are guaranteed not to be able to pay them back because you think you'll profit by reselling the house when it rises in value." The CRA was never intended to secure untenable half-million dollar loans to pizza boys. It specifically indicates that while banks should not redline based on race or neighborhood location, it should offer credit in a manner consistent with safe and sound operations.

The full quote, from the Federal Reserve Board, regarding the CRA is:

It is absurd to turn around and claim that the CRA is therefore responsible for banks acting well outside the boundaries of safe and sound operations so that their leaders could get rich off the backs of dumbasses and uneducated people too ignorant to understand that they were being encouraged to get over their head in a loan. It is even more absurd to claim that the CRA is responsible for banks purposely falsifying or omitting information about applicants so that they could guarantee a loan would be extended. The CRA was not written such that fraud is legally requested, required, or encouraged.

Thanks for pointing to the Feds 100% official textbook definition of what it is. Its really clear that logical consequences are the scarecrows of fools and the beacons of the wise. I disagree with what you are saying, and this statement "that their leaders could get rich off the backs of dumbasses and uneducated people too ignorant to understand that they were being encouraged to get over their head in a loan"- is really the apex.

The direction the US is heading is pretty clear at this point. After all the talk we'll see we are in four years, if we still have a dollar worth anything to be debating over. Even then history seems to repeat itself- Im confident you proably blame the Great Depression on capitalism.

Quote:

The thousands of mortgage defaults and foreclosures in the "subprime" housing market (i.e., mortgage holders with poor credit ratings) is the direct result of thirty years of government policy that has forced banks to make bad loans to un-creditworthy borrowers. The policy in question is the 1977 Community Reinvestment Act (CRA), which compels banks to make loans to low-income borrowers and in what the supporters of the Act call "communities of color" that they might not otherwise make based on purely economic criteria.

The original lobbyists for the CRA were the hardcore leftists who supported the Carter administration and were often rewarded for their support with government grants and programs like the CRA that they benefited from. These included various "neighborhood organizations," as they like to call themselves, such as "ACORN" (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now). These organizations claim that over $1 trillion in CRA loans have been made, although no one seems to know the magnitude with much certainty. A U.S. Senate Banking Committee staffer told me about ten years ago that at least $100 billion in such loans had been made in the first twenty years of the Act.

So-called "community groups" like ACORN benefit themselves from the CRA through a process that sounds like legalized extortion. The CRA is enforced by four federal government bureaucracies: the Fed, the Comptroller of the Currency, the Office of Thrift Supervision, and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. The law is set up so that any bank merger, branch expansion, or new branch creation can be postponed or prohibited by any of these four bureaucracies if a CRA "protest" is issued by a "community group." This can cost banks great sums of money, and the "community groups" understand this perfectly well. It is their leverage. They use this leverage to get the banks to give them millions of dollars as well as promising to make a certain amount of bad loans in their communities.

A man named Bruce Marks became quite notorious during the last decade for pressuring banks to earmark literally billions of dollars to his organization, the "Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America." He once boasted to the New York Times that he had "won" loan commitments totaling $3.8 billion from Bank of America, First Union Corporation, and the Fleet Financial Group. And that is just one "community group" operating in one city – Boston.
Banks have been placed in a Catch 22 situation by the CRA: If they comply, they know they will have to suffer from more loan defaults. If they don’t comply, they face financial penalties and, worse yet, their business plans for mergers, branch expansions, etc. can be blocked by CRA protesters, which can cost a large corporation like Bank of America billions of dollars. Like most businesses, they have largely buckled under and have surrendered to their bureaucratic masters.

Consequently, banks in every community in America have been forced to hold a portfolio of bad loans, euphemistically referred to as "subprime" loans. In order to compensate themselves for the added risk of extending these loans, many lenders have increased the lending fees associated with mortgage loans. This is simply an indirect way of doing what banks always do – and what they must do to remain solvent: charging effectively higher rates of interest on riskier loans.

But this is discriminatory!, complained the "community organizations." Thus, if one browses the ACORN web site, one can read of their boasts of having "predatory lending laws" passed in numerous states which outlaw such fees, prohibiting banks from protecting themselves from the added risk involved in making forced loans to "subprime" borrowers.

These are price control laws, and price controls always cause shortages. Normally, banks would respond to such laws by extending fewer riskier loans. But in this case the banks are forced to continue making the marginal loans by their bureaucratic masters at the Fed and the other three federal bureaucracies mentioned above. So-called predatory lending laws therefore force the banks to "eat" the losses. This is undoubtedly a contributing factor to the bankruptcy of dozens of mortgage lenders over the past year.
Then of course there is the issue of the Fed’s monetary policy having created the housing bubble, characterized by a spectacular escalation of real estate values in every American city over the past decade or so. This created a further problem for the financial institutions that are victimized by the CRA. They are forced to make a certain amount of bad loans, but because of the Fed-created explosion in housing prices, many thousands of subprime borrowers no longer qualified, by a long stretch, for conventional mortgages based on their incomes.

The only way these borrowers could qualify for their mortgage loans (even ignoring their bad credit ratings) was to take out adjustable rate mortgages, some of which had astonishingly low first-year rates in the 3 percent range, and sometimes lower. This is what has largely fueled the subprime mortgage meltdown – the inability of thousands of subprime borrowers to afford their mortgages now that their rates have adjusted upward. Thus, the combination of the Fed’s enforcement of the CRA (with the help of political pressure groups like ACORN) and its post 9/11 monetary policy in general are the reasons for the bursting real estate bubble and the "subprime" mortgage meltdown.

dippin · 06-09-2009, 07:29 PM

The CRA as a scapegoat thing has been debunked so many times it gets tiring sometimes.

Fact 1: CRA only applies to commercial banks and savings associations

Fact 2: over half of all subprime loans were made by investment banks, broker-dealers, and so on, which are not regulated at all by the CRA

Fact 3: about 1/4 of all subprime loans were made by bank affiliates which are also not covered by the cra

Discuss the logic of the CRA all you like. In fact, it can even be a great example of regulatory lag, given how ineffectual it has been. But the idea that the CRA generated the current mess is absolutely false.

Now, the idea that American capitalism is somehow under peril is non-sense. The US was never the libertarian utopia many seem to think, and all it takes is a brief look at the history of railroads and canals in the US to realize that.

Sun Tzu · 06-09-2009, 09:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dippin

The CRA as a scapegoat thing has been debunked so many times it gets tiring sometimes.

Fact 1: CRA only applies to commercial banks and savings associations

Fact 2: over half of all subprime loans were made by investment banks, broker-dealers, and so on, which are not regulated at all by the CRA

Fact 3: about 1/4 of all subprime loans were made by bank affiliates which are also not covered by the cra

Discuss the logic of the CRA all you like. In fact, it can even be a great example of regulatory lag, given how ineffectual it has been. But the idea that the CRA generated the current mess is absolutely false.

Now, the idea that American capitalism is somehow under peril is non-sense. The US was never the libertarian utopia many seem to think, and all it takes is a brief look at the history of railroads and canals in the US to realize that.

I didnt state the CRA was the lone culprit. To say it played no part is absolutley false, and sounds like an ACORN ad. My argument was addressing the statement "the banks" without any government involvement were the sole cause. It also seems like theres great effort to turn some adults that took risk and failed into victims.

I never stated the US was libertarian utopia (I wish it were), you dont have to look any further past the FRB.

dippin · 06-09-2009, 10:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sun Tzu

I didnt state the CRA was the lone culprit. To say it played no part is absolutley false, and sounds like an ACORN ad. My argument was addressing the statement "the banks" without any government involvement were the sole cause. It also seems like theres great effort to turn some adults that took risk and failed into victims.

I never stated the US was libertarian utopia (I wish it were), you dont have to look any further past the FRB.

What is "some part" of the mess? 1/4 of the subprime loans made were done by banks regulated by the CRA. Now, this doesn't mean that 1/4 of the subprime loans were made because of the CRA. In fact, the vast majority of papers written on the CRA even before this latest recession found the CRA to be essentially meaningless. So even while looking at the institutions that were in fact affected by the CRA, the subprime loans that were "caused" by the CRA were a minority.

All of this, of course, without even mentioning the big issue of the causal chain: Banks regulated by the CRA did fewer subprime mortgages than unregulated banks, so how can it be that the CRA pushed banks to do these loans?

The idea that the CRA played any meaningful part in this is simply not corroborated by any data. If you have any data that proves your point, I would love to see it, as opposed to talking points.

06-04-2009, 03:03 PM	#3 (permalink)
inBOIL I have eaten the slaw	"Mat" is Russian for mother, "Rodina" is Russian for motherland or homeland. The text itself reads like nationalist propaganda of the type I've read in Pravda before. Edit: The author's name is Stanislav Mishin, Mat Rodina is the name of his blog. __________________ And you believe Bush and the liberals and divorced parents and gays and blacks and the Christian right and fossil fuels and Xbox are all to blame, meanwhile you yourselves create an ad where your kid hits you in the head with a baseball and you don't understand the message that the problem is you. Last edited by inBOIL; 06-04-2009 at 03:06 PM..

06-04-2009, 03:26 PM	#4 (permalink)
hunnychile Alien Anthropologist Location: Between Boredom and Nirvana	Thanks for the clarification about the authors of this blurb. Big issue there from the Russian writer(s). It's a typical pain in the ass when you read another rant from some "furrner" about the way America sucks and is going down the tube. It's old news. Right? In some sectors Capitalism isn't such a bad thing. I work smart and hard and have always done well in a Capitalistic business/society. Point made: If I make my boss bucks, I get a raise. How hard is that to comprehend? __________________ "I need compassion, understanding and chocolate." - NJB Last edited by hunnychile; 06-04-2009 at 03:29 PM..

06-04-2009, 04:38 PM	#6 (permalink)
hunnychile Alien Anthropologist Location: Between Boredom and Nirvana	Okay, I feel better - esp. now that I've seen the Official Willravel Chart. Phew!!! __________________ "I need compassion, understanding and chocolate." - NJB

06-04-2009, 08:24 PM	#9 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	dippin: i've taught the manifeto more times than i can count, and i don't see any of these points in it except 1, 3 and 10. and none of these, except 1, are present in anything like the same language. what i see in the above is some bizarre, anachronistic cliff notes variant on the manifesto. i'd be happy to defend this, line by line with direct reference to the text, if need be. ===== more generally, on the op: it's a little bizarre to see a blog written by some russian reactionary presented as if it were a coherent take on the situation of capitalism in it's contemporary forms. it might make intuitive sense if you don't know what the fuck you're talking about, but the key feature that determines it's persuasive power is that you don't know what the fuck you're talking about. __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite

06-04-2009, 08:28 PM	#10 (permalink)
Baraka_Guru warrior bodhisattva Super Moderator Location: East-central Canada	You'd figure a Russian political writer would know more about socialism. I can understand the problem with grasping the capitalist concept. But seriously. For America to slide into socialism, it's going to need at least a few socialists. You know, in positions of power. __________________ Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing? —Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön Humankind cannot bear very much reality. —From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot

06-04-2009, 03:01 PM	#2 (permalink)
Jozrael Junkie	About 1/3 to 1/2 of it is patently false and ridiculous, and another 1/3 is taken out of context. The remainder is pretty incisive, but obvious if you keep up with a minimum of the news.

06-04-2009, 03:42 PM	#5 (permalink)
Willravel ... a sort of licensed troubleshooter.	I'm pretty sure we're still in a capitalistic society:

06-04-2009, 07:12 PM	#7 (permalink)
ASU2003 immoral minority Location: Back in Ohio	Is what he angry about the fact that we fought communism for 40 years (and caused Russia to collapse economically), but now the US is doing a lot of 'communist' type things? And the fact that we are only able to continue because we are getting money from China and other countries, where Russia was not able to in the late 80s. Though I'm not sure the religious message he is trying to portray is correct. The religious community didn't give Obama a lot of support in the last election (in pure percentages that were against some of Obama's stances on certain issues)

06-04-2009, 08:04 PM	#8 (permalink)
dippin Crazy, indeed Location: the ether	Where is this descent into Marxism taking place? Now, for future reference, though there are different types of communism and Marxism, these are the basic ten points described in the communist manifesto about what the proletariat should do once it takes over power: 1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes. 2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax. 3. Abolition of all rights of inheritance. 4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels. 5. Centralization of credit in the banks of the state, by means of a national bank with state capital and an exclusive monopoly. 6. Centralization of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the state. 7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the state; the bringing into cultivation of waste lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan. 8. Equal obligation of all to work. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture. 9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of all the distinction between town and country by a more equable distribution of the populace over the country. 10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children's factory labor in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production, etc. Now, the fact is that labor unions and communist parties around the world managed to get a lot of concessions for the general population, so radical ideas of communist parties of the past are basically taken for granted nowadays (public education, end of child labor), but the key points of communism remain, and so other than using it as scare tactics, I would love to see the actual examples of this descent into marxism.

06-05-2009, 09:41 PM	#12 (permalink)
Sun Tzu Conspiracy Realist Location: The Event Horizon	I dont think he was referring to you dippin, it sounds like he is commenting on the fact I started a thread about it. __________________ *To confine our attention to terrestrial matters would be to limit the human spirit.- Stephen Hawking*

06-06-2009, 08:37 AM	#13 (permalink)
n0nsensical Junkie Location: San Francisco	Pravda is just a trashy tabloid rag these days. __________________ "Prohibition will work great injury to the cause of temperance. It is a species of intemperance within itself, for it goes beyond the bounds of reason in that it attempts to control a man's appetite by legislation, and makes a crime out of things that are not crimes. A Prohibition law strikes a blow at the very principles upon which our government was founded." --Abraham Lincoln

06-07-2009, 01:44 PM	#17 (permalink)
Baraka_Guru warrior bodhisattva Super Moderator Location: East-central Canada	ahem Since when is public ownership impossible in a capitalist system? (Psst...take a look up north, eh?) I know a lot of this is unprecedented in America, but it isn't necessarily some kind of beginning to some kind of end. At least you guys aren't still stuck in mercantilism. __________________ Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing? —Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön Humankind cannot bear very much reality. —From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot

06-07-2009, 02:12 PM	#19 (permalink)
shakran Tone.	so what are we suggesting, gg? Abolish the national park system? I finally got around to reading the entire quote in the OP. The entire blog post is bullshit. One point that really stuck in my craw was the tired old "Obama is firing CEO's. He's taking over corporations. Oh noes!" that the neo-con Limbots are so fond of parroting. These slackjawed drooling braindead idiots (yes I went there) seem to forget that before Obama said "if you want money, the CEO that got you in this mess has to go first," GM came crawling to him begging for cash. Puts a bit of a different light on things, doesn't it? Obama never fired the guy. He resigned. Of his own free will. He could have stayed and Obama wouldn't have done a thing about it. But he also, wisely, would not have given GM any money. Because if your teenager racks up $15,000 in debt across three credit cards, before you give him money to get out of his financial hole, you tell him "if you want to be bailed out, tear up the credit cards first." You insist that he get rid of that which got him in the financial black hole to begin with. It's amazing how when facts are eliminated things can look different than what they really are, isn't it.

06-07-2009, 02:26 PM	#20 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	dippin. huh. how about that? i was mistaken: my apologies. it's true that i taught the manifesto many many times--i thought i had almost memorized it. i should have been less confident about that. so there we are. carry on. __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite

06-08-2009, 06:27 PM	#27 (permalink)
ASU2003 immoral minority Location: Back in Ohio	So, if the USPS was eliminated tomorrow, and UPS, FedEX, and DHL (And whoever else wanted to deliver mail was able to get in), what do you think the costs would be? Would they need more trucks to deliver mail? Would I need to pay a monthly fee to be able to get home mail delivery (like trash)? What would happen if the USPS became a private company with no ties or protection from the government? Are they that inefficient? Are they overpaid? Do their workers get too many benefits? Do you think another company could do the job better?

06-08-2009, 08:22 PM	#28 (permalink)
n0nsensical Junkie Location: San Francisco	The USPS is, or was once regarded, one of the big successes of American public enterprise. It might not be as highly regarded anymore as it used to be but it was a godsend for people living in rural areas, and they will still get your mail from point A to point B anywhere in the country relatively cheaply. Another true story is utilities, without public enterprise there would probably still be large swaths of the country without electricity because it's not economically worth running miles of lines to serve a few customers. Basically anything that should (or shouldn't) be done but isn't economically viable isn't going to happen in a capitalist system without public intervention, that includes saving Yosemite from logging. The anti-government people are just as far off in a dreamland utopia as the extreme socialists. I would agree that some things that aren't economically viable and shouldn't be done are, but it's worth the tradeoff. If not, something that you probably need would be neglected too. As a former customer of public utilities and a current customer of private utilities I can't tell you any difference except now I'm constantly bombarded with PG&E ad campaigns. Same 120V @60 Hz coming out of the wall. __________________ "Prohibition will work great injury to the cause of temperance. It is a species of intemperance within itself, for it goes beyond the bounds of reason in that it attempts to control a man's appetite by legislation, and makes a crime out of things that are not crimes. A Prohibition law strikes a blow at the very principles upon which our government was founded." --Abraham Lincoln

06-08-2009, 08:49 PM	#29 (permalink)
filtherton Junkie Location: In the land of ice and snow.	I think that "American Capitalism" either is just fine, or only existed in the sweaty, hallucination-stricken minds of those who believe that free markets can actually exist.

06-09-2009, 10:15 AM	#31 (permalink)
shakran Tone.	I still find it interesting that none of the advocates of "American Capitalism" (by which they mean "government cannot intervene") have commented on the fact that capitalism collapsed, and would have completely disintegrated but for the intervention of the government. If you're going to preach an anti-socialist, pure freemarket ideal, then you should be very angry when government steps in to help any business out. Whether that be bailing out the banks (who caused this mess in the first place) or the car manufacturers (who's deserved reputation for making crappy products for 3 decades finally caught up to them), or the corn farmers (who are paid a subsidy for every acre of corn they grow). If you want a truly hands-off government, then you should be opposed to all of these things. Trouble is, that with a truly hands-off government, capitalism is doomed to failure, because as has been proven time and again, left to their own devices, businesses will seek to maximise short term gain even if it sacrifices longterm viability. In other words, the banks knew that eventually the subprime mortgages on their house of cards would collapse, and spectacularly, but they didn't give a crap because they were getting rich in the interim. If we adopted a pure hands-off government, we would currently have no banks. Period. Because the economy would have completely collapsed, and without an economy, even the few banks that didn't get involved in the subprime scam would be unable to survive. We would then quickly find ourselves with no infrastructure, no industry, no retail, no food, and no civil order, because once people start starving and become unable to buy anything, they tend to get just a bit pissed off, and they tend to vent that frustration by mass civil disturbances. The government exists for a reason, and the people that like to claim the government shouldn't get involved in anything would be very upset if their wishes actually came true.

06-09-2009, 04:01 PM	#33 (permalink)
filtherton Junkie Location: In the land of ice and snow.	It's just fine.

06-09-2009, 04:32 PM	#34 (permalink)
Baraka_Guru warrior bodhisattva Super Moderator Location: East-central Canada	It's an attitude like this that suggest to me that American capitalism is just fine: Top 10 Reasons to Start a Business in a Recession click to show Top 10 Reasons to Start a Business in a Recession More publicity. Less competition. Talent waiting to be scooped up. Here's why starting in a recessed economy may give your business a better shot. By Brad Sugars \| February 25, 2009 Do you have one good reason to start your business right now? How about 10? Regardless of what people around you (including the media) may say, right now is the best time to get into business. Just go back and look at the economic slowdowns throughout history. Most recessions in the post-World War II era last an average of 10 months, followed by growth cycles that last an average of 50 months. What this means for the startup is there's no better time than right now to get going and start pursuing your business dreams--in anticipation of the next period of growth. So with a nod to David Letterman, here are my top 10 reasons you should start your business now--despite the current downturn: 1. Everything is cheaper. Let's face it: There is great value right now in this and in world markets. This is the right time for fantastic deals in virtually every category, from land and equipment to commercial office space, personnel and labor. As asset prices have been knocked down, there is no better time to get into the real estate or financial markets, or even heavy equipment and construction. Some people have waited years to find value in these markets--and now that time has come. 2. You can hire more and better-qualified people. In an era when even Microsoft is laying off, you can find great resources at affordable rates. Thinking about getting your high-tech startup off the ground? There are plenty of engineers waiting to be hired. Thinking about forming a professional services firm? There are many accountants and attorneys looking for their next opportunity. 3. People are looking to change suppliers. From a cost perspective, everything is on the table for most companies. Even if your prices are higher, if you can come in with greater value, you have a good chance at winning new business. You also have the advantage of being the new kid on the block when it comes to pitching your products and services. Many companies are desperate to find new partnerships with new companies that have a different, better or more innovative way of delivering those products and services. 4. Ownership equals tax incentives. Business ownership offers a variety of tax benefits that aren't available to employees. While taxes should never be the sole reason to go into business for yourself, it should be one reason to add to you "benefits of business ownership" list. 5. Family and friends don't want to (or can't) invest more money into the stock or real estate markets. That means they may be willing to finance a portion of your new venture, or the expansion of an enterprise that has proven itself over time. The main benefit is that they know you and have a relationship with you--and if you have a solid business plan that delivers real numbers, your chances of raising the capital you need increase exponentially. 6. Suppliers are giving better credit. Because the credit markets have virtually shut down, the B2B credit flows are keeping money circulating out of sheer necessity. That means a bullish outlook for companies looking for good terms on stock and/or inventories. The main advantage is that all parties have more incentive than ever for finding true win-win situations that allow for cash and stock flow. When everyone is looking to survive, great deals can be had. 7. You can get good PR by showing you are going against the trend. The media loves aberrations, and if you are optimistic by expanding or getting into business now, you would be in that category. That means you can generate some great PR by demonstrating your "alternative" view of the market. 8. You can buy everything you need at auction. In addition to everything being less expensive, you can find great deals at auctions, especially in terms of any large equipment and office furnishings. Auctions are also a great place to find hardly used or "gently" used restaurant and bar supplies at great prices. These days, you may even be able to get deals on fleets of vehicles and trucks for a delivery service or hauling or construction company. 9. You can find great "low money" or "no money" down deals. This is simply being aware of good opportunities others have buggered up, and finding deals where you could get an entire business simply by taking over a lease (along with all the equipment). Many business owners want out at any cost, meaning you can negotiate great win-win deals that allow the current owners an escape while giving you an opportunity to turn around what could be, if run right, a very viable business. And finally . . . 10. You've lost your job, and you have to do something. Sometimes, the best business decision is the one you are forced into, and the incentive (as well as need) for income is often enough to push those previously "on the fence" to strike out on their own. There's nothing wrong with being in this position; it simply means there is greater urgency to do something that will start to generate income as quickly as possible. There you have it: my top 10 reasons to start your business in a recession. After all, the odds are on your side that the expansion will be many times more robust than the present slowdown. There's no better time to start than the present, especially if people around you are more comfortable with their own list of reasons why they shouldn't start pursuing their own business dreams right now. It only means you'll be facing a lot less competition. Brad Sugars is Entrepreneur.com's Startup Basics columnist and the writer of 14 business books including The Business Coach, Instant Cashflow, Successful Franchising and Billionaire in Training. He is the founder of ActionCOACH, a business coaching franchise. URL: Top 10 Reasons to Start Up in the Recession - Starting a business in a recession - Entrepreneur.com __________________ Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing? —Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön Humankind cannot bear very much reality. —From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot

06-09-2009, 07:29 PM	#38 (permalink)
dippin Crazy, indeed Location: the ether	The CRA as a scapegoat thing has been debunked so many times it gets tiring sometimes. Fact 1: CRA only applies to commercial banks and savings associations Fact 2: over half of all subprime loans were made by investment banks, broker-dealers, and so on, which are not regulated at all by the CRA Fact 3: about 1/4 of all subprime loans were made by bank affiliates which are also not covered by the cra Discuss the logic of the CRA all you like. In fact, it can even be a great example of regulatory lag, given how ineffectual it has been. But the idea that the CRA generated the current mess is absolutely false. Now, the idea that American capitalism is somehow under peril is non-sense. The US was never the libertarian utopia many seem to think, and all it takes is a brief look at the history of railroads and canals in the US to realize that.