GREENSPAN SAYS A.R.M. LOANS reason for economy issues

[natina]

Greenspan admits ‘mistake’ that helped crisis


http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp=27342682&#27342682



http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27335454


http://msnbcmedia4.msn.com/j/msnbc/Components/Video/__NEW/c_greenspan_blamegame_081023.300w.jpg

[Mugai_hentaisha]

Well that is a no shitter


Jeesh



TES
William

[hippifried]

Greenspan's a lying sack of shit & always has been.

Does anybody really think that a % of home loans in the US gone bad crashed the entire world financial industry? Better get a grip.

[yodajazz]

Here's the version from the NY Times sent to me. But I dont have the original link.

The New York Times

October 24, 2008
Greenspan Concedes Error on Regulation
By EDMUND L. ANDREWS

WASHINGTON - For years, a Congressional hearing with Alan Greenspan was a marquee event. Lawmakers doted on him as an economic sage. Markets jumped up or down depending on what he said. Politicians in both parties wanted the maestro on their side.

But on Thursday, almost three years after stepping down as chairman of the Federal Reserve, a humbled Mr. Greenspan admitted that he had put too much faith in the self-correcting power of free markets and had failed to anticipate the self-destructive power of wanton mortgage lending.

"Those of us who have looked to the self-interest of lending institutions
to protect shareholders' equity, myself included, are in a state of
shocked disbelief," he told the House Committee on Oversight and
Government Reform.

Now 82, Mr. Greenspan came in for one of the harshest grillings of his
life, as Democratic lawmakers asked him time and again whether he had been wrong, why he had been wrong and whether he was sorry.

Critics, including many economists, now blame the former Fed chairman or the financial crisis that is tipping the economy into a potentially deep recession. Mr. Greenspan's critics say that he encouraged the bubble in
housing prices by keeping interest rates too low for too long and that he
failed to rein in the explosive growth of risky and often fraudulent
mortgage lending.

"You had the authority to prevent irresponsible lending practices that led
to the subprime mortgage crisis. You were advised to do so by many
others," said Representative Henry A. Waxman of California, chairman of
the committee. "Do you feel that your ideology pushed you to make
decisions that you wish you had not made?"

Mr. Greenspan conceded: "Yes, I've found a flaw. I don't know how
significant or permanent it is. But I've been very distressed by that
fact."

On a day that brought more bad news about rising home foreclosures nd
slumping employment, Mr. Greenspan refused to accept blame for the crisis but acknowledged that his belief in deregulation had been shaken. He noted that the immense and largely unregulated business of spreaing financial risk widely, through the use of exotic financial instruments called derivatives, had gotten out of control and had added to the havoc of today's crisis. As far back as 1994, Mr. Greenspan staunchly and successfully opposed tougher regulation on derivatives.

But on Thursday, he agreed that the multitrillion-dollar market for credit default swaps, instruments originally created to insure bond investors against the risk of default, needed to be restrained.

"This modern risk-management paradigm held sway for decades," he aid. "The whole intellectual edifice, however, collapsed in the summer of last year."

Mr. Waxman noted that the Fed chairman had been one of the nation's leading voices for deregulation, displaying past statements in which Mr. Greenspan had argued that government regulators were no better than markets at imposing discipline.

"Were you wrong?" Mr. Waxman asked.

"Partially," the former Fed chairman reluctantly answered, before trying to parse his concession as thinly as possible.

Mr. Greenspan, celebrated as the "Maestro" in a book about him by Bob
Woodward, presided over the Fed for 18 years before he stepped down in
January 2006. He steered the economy through one of the longest booms in history, while also presiding over a period of declining inflation.

But as the Fed slashed interest rates to nearly record lows from 2001 until mid-2004, housing prices climbed far faster than inflation or household income year after year. By 2004, a growing number of economists were warning that a speculative bubble in home prices and home construction was under way, which posed the risk of a housing bust.

Mr. Greenspan brushed aside worries about a potential bubble, arguing that housing prices had never endured a nationwide decline and that a bust was highly unlikely.

Mr. Greenspan, along with most other banking regulators in Washington,
also resisted calls for tighter regulation of subprime mortgages and other
high-risk exotic mortgages that allowed people to borrow far more than
they could afford.

The Federal Reserve had broad authority to prohibit deceptive lending
practices under a 1994 law called the Home Owner Equity Protection Act .
But it took little action during the long housing boom, and fewer than 1
percent of all mortgages were subjected to restrictions under that law.

This year, the Fed greatly tightened its restrictions. But by that time,
the subprime market as well as the market for other kinds of exotic
mortgages had already been wiped out.

Mr. Greenspan said that he had publicly warned about the "underpricing of risk" in 2005 but that he had never expected the crisis that began to sweep the entire financial system in 2007.

"This crisis," he told lawmakers, "has turned out to be much broader than
anything I could have imagined. It has morphed from one gripped by
liquidity restraints to one in which fears of insolvency are now
paramount."

Many Republican lawmakers on the oversight committee tried to blame the mortgage meltdown on the unchecked growth of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the giant government-sponsored mortgage-finance companies that were placed in a government conservatorship last month. Republicans have argued that Democratic lawmakers blocked measures to reform the companies.

But Mr. Greenspan, who was first appointed by President Ronald Reagan, placed far more blame on the Wall Street companies that bundled subprime mortgages into pools and sold them as mortgage-backed securities. Global demand for the securities was so high, he said, that Wall Street companies pressured lenders to lower their standards and produce more "paper." "The evidence strongly suggests that without the excess demand from securitizers, subprime mortgage originations (undeniably the original source of the crisis) would have been far smaller and defaults accordingly far lower," he said.

Despite his chagrin over the mortgage mess, the former Fed chairman
proposed only one specific regulation: that companies selling
mortgage-backed securities be required to hold a significant number
themselves. "Whatever regulatory changes are made, they will pale in comparison to the change already evident in today's markets," he said. "Those markets for an indefinite future will be far more restrained than would any currently contemplated new regulatory regime."

Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company

[NYBURBS]

Greenspan is so full of shit it is painful. He's going to sit there and talk about wanton disbelief that "self-interest" did not correct these bad lending policies. Meanwhile the government mandated bad lending practices (contrary to what some will now attempt to post), and interfered in the markets to an unprecedented level. Not too mention the fact he abandoned everything he every pretended to believe in the day he agreed to become part of the federal reserve. I don't personally believe in the death penalty but I'd be willing to waive that belief to see this fucking prick hang from a tree limb.

[yodajazz]

Hold up with the lethal injection sauce. I tend to believe Greenspan’s views over your “the government made me do it view”. Nobody told them to go out and push 30 loans on 75 year old women. It’s my understanding the Federal Law was about loosing some statndards in the tightest banks in order to increase home ownership. I believe the mortgage lenders were more about pushing home equity lending on people who already owned homes, like that 75 year woman my s.o. knows about. I remember a time when we were getting 5-6 cold calls a day from financial people asking us if we needed money. It makes sense that they were getting approval from those financiers higher up the food chain. The first line direct people made 4,000 and up per sale. In fact my s.o. worked part time making calls and setting up appointments for the brokers. I never heard anything about the federal government, it was purely about making money of off sales.
They didn’t have any risk, they just found a company (sub prime lenders, I guess). They would make the deal so they could get the commission.

Apparently the subprime lenders were spreading on some of risk, by bundling mortgages into mortgage backed securities. That was a decision by the financial industry. This is what Greenspan seems to be saying. I remember a time when a person could only borrow on up to 80% of their home value. But then some started to lend at 120%. That was a financial decision that increased risk. That was not the government telling them to do that.

The derivative market is largely unregulated. Others have said this including, Greenspan. Even well paid CEO’s have some problem understanding them. According to one financial website. “There has been much controversy recently over derivatives, mostly because politicians, senior executives, regulators and even portfolio managers have limited knowledge of these complex products.” But here is a good piece from 60 minutes which simplifies it some. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/10/05/60minutes/main4502454.shtml

So the problem was not the government interfering in the market place. It’s just the opposite. Without regulation people tend to get too greedy for their own good and make excessively risky moves to make more money. Or greed from making your own money can end up hurting the balance of the greater society and the circulation comes back to hurt you in the long term.

[NYBURBS]

So the problem was not the government interfering in the market place. It’s just the opposite. Without regulation people tend to get too greedy for their own good and make excessively risky moves to make more money. Or greed from making your own money can end up hurting the balance of the greater society and the circulation comes back to hurt you in the long term.

Really, because it seems that supposed greed is paying off in the form of government sponsored bailouts, again an ill-advised government venture into the market place. I will post some links later that might give people something to think about, just don't feel like fishing them out at the moment.

[Cuchulain]

BILL MOYERS: Watching Alan Greenspan testify before Congress this week, I tried, I tried very hard not to keep thinking of Ayn Rand. I failed.

The philosopher and novelist Ayn Rand was Alan Greenspan's ideological guru, his intellectual mentor. She was also one of the most amazing fantasists of the last century, the author of two of the most influential books of my generation THE FOUNTAINHEAD and ATLAS SHRUGGED, both timeless best-sellers.

Rand was a hedonist, an exponent of radical self-interest, who so believed in unfettered, unbridled capitalism that she advocated the abolition of all state regulations except those dealing with crime. In the gospel according to Rand, the business community was constantly beleaguered by evil forces practicing, are you ready for this? Altruism! Yes, the unselfish regard for the welfare of others was a menace to greed, and Rand would have none of it.

Alan Greenspan met her as a much younger man in New York and, like so many blossoming capitalists, was smitten. He has since downplayed her influence on him, but as Chairman of the Fed for nearly 19 years he seemed quite Rand-like as he watched Wall Street run wild. Yesterday, like an old warrior still in a fog after his armies have been routed from the field of battle, he expressed shock at how his ideology has failed him. He didn't see it coming, he told the House Oversight Committee. The extent of the meltdown is, "Much broader than anything that I could have imagined," a "Once-in-a-century credit tsunami." The wondrous glories of a free market with no need of pesky oversight had somehow gone wrong. Now you tell us.

ALAN GREENSPAN: I made a mistake in presuming that the self-interests of organizations, specifically banks and others, were such as that they were best capable of protecting their own shareholders and their equity in the firms…

CHAIRMAN WAXMAN: In other words, you found that your view of the world, your ideology, was not right, it was not working.

ALAN GREENSPAN: Absolutely, precisely. You know, that's precisely the reason I was shocked, because I have been going for 40 years or more with very considerable evidence that it was working exceptionally well.

BILL MOYERS: With his ideological blinders stripped away by reality, Alan Greenspan might well do penance by curling up this weekend not with THE FOUNTAINHEAD and ATLAS SHRUGGED but with James K. Galbraith's new book THE PREDATOR STATE: HOW CONSERVATIVES ABANDONED THE FREE MARKET AND WHY LIBERALS SHOULD TOO. In it, the author asks: "Why not build a new economic policy based on what is really happening?" A fundamental question that surely has Ayn Rand and Milton Friedman spinning in their graves. http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/10242008/transcript2.html

Never let it be said that I passed up an opportunity to kick the ghost of the old battle-axe when she was down.

[NYBURBS]

Yea let me tell you something superstar, if Alan Greenspan really had believed in that then he most certainly would not have become the Chairmen of the most over-reaching quasi-government group in the history of this country. Those statements are about as sincere as would be a current Chinese politician getting up and claiming communism drives their economy lol.

PS- Altruism as used in philosophical circles talks about the sacrifice of one's self or interests to a greater "good" or entity, such as a God, or a nation. She stated that it was essentially evil to ask someone to go against their own interests in the name of some larger entity. That has nothing to do with helping or not helping others, just not doing so at the expense of your own welfare.

[onthefence]

Ayn Rand's version of altruism was based on the notion that it was not a moral imperative that one man should live his life for the sake or benefit of another. She called it "The virtue of selfishness". In this regard one could help another if they found it pleasurable as this was based on selfish motives. She expected that people should exchange the best of themselves for the best of others. So, yes, a free market capitalist system where there are no government controls and the greatest minds exchange the best they have for everyone's mutual benefit would be the application of her ideas. Ayn Rands hero's made things, invented things, built things, employed people - they were not investment bankers. Any Rand hated that we went off the Gold Standard. In Ayn Rands world - there would have been no bailout. These loans would not have been made> The looters and moochers would have gone down and main street would have looked to the brightest minds to rebuild the world. They would have been inventors, philosophers and industrialists. She did not consider the markets especially challenging. Actually, where we are today could be the start of a Ayn Rand novel. She would use her philosophy to get us back on the right track.
Greenspan's application of the philosophy is not where he went wrong - and I don't think that great minds made this problem. I do think that there came a point when great minds saw the problem and looked away or sold it short.

[onthefence]

Ayn Rand's version of altruism was based on the notion that it was not a moral imperative that one man should live his life for the sake or benefit of another. She called it "The virtue of selfishness". In this regard one could help another if they found it pleasurable as this was based on selfish motives. She expected that people should exchange the best of themselves for the best of others. So, yes, a free market capitalist system where there are no government controls and the greatest minds exchange the best they have for everyone's mutual benefit would be the application of her ideas. Ayn Rands hero's made things, invented things, built things, employed people - they were not investment bankers. Any Rand hated that we went off the Gold Standard. In Ayn Rands world - there would have been no bailout. These loans would not have been made> The looters and moochers would have gone down and main street would have looked to the brightest minds to rebuild the world. They would have been inventors, philosophers and industrialists. She did not consider the markets especially challenging. Actually, where we are today could be the start of a Ayn Rand novel. She would use her philosophy to get us back on the right track.
Greenspan's application of the philosophy is not where he went wrong - and I don't think that great minds made this problem. I do think that there came a point when great minds saw the problem and looked away or sold it short.

[yodajazz]

So the problem was not the government interfering in the market place. It’s just the opposite. Without regulation people tend to get too greedy for their own good and make excessively risky moves to make more money. Or greed from making your own money can end up hurting the balance of the greater society and the circulation comes back to hurt you in the long term.

Really, because it seems that supposed greed is paying off in the form of government sponsored bailouts, again an ill-advised government venture into the market place. I will post some links later that might give people something to think about, just don't feel like fishing them out at the moment.

I was't for the bailout. A lot of these people had the view that government involvement was not needed, before. Thier philosophy was that the market would be self correcting. But I have a strong feeling that there are some deeper things they did not tell us. I wonder if it had to do with retirement funds like the teachers or the federal government', fund. And what about all the numerous 401k funds out there? There would practically be a revolution if some of those big systems fail.

But I am also posting to gloat. This new 60 Minutes piece put the wide spread credit collapse on the Credit Derivitives, credit swaps. They lay it out honest as legalized gambling. It was illegal before 2000, but since then trillions have been invested. And it was entirely unregulated: zero.
http://crooksandliars.com/silentpatriot/60-minutes-bets-brought-down-wall-st

Go the link and watch the video. After you do, you don't have to praise me an tell me how insightful I am. A simple, "I was wrong Yodajazz", is all the satifaction I need. And I won't even ask you to change your mind that people who made millions and billions off an activity that was only in existence because the government made it legal should pay a little more taxes to that same government.

[qeuqheeg222]

bush had him tamper with the interest rates so that american middle class voters would feel some economic sense of well being goin into the 2004 election..the business people-corps weren't about to raise wages so why not bloat the value of the real estate they could borrow against??

[hippifried]

Yea let me tell you something superstar, if Alan Greenspan really had believed in that then he most certainly would not have become the Chairmen of the most over-reaching quasi-government group in the history of this country. Those statements are about as sincere as would be a current Chinese politician getting up and claiming communism drives their economy lol.

PS- Altruism as used in philosophical circles talks about the sacrifice of one's self or interests to a greater "good" or entity, such as a God, or a nation. She stated that it was essentially evil to ask someone to go against their own interests in the name of some larger entity. That has nothing to do with helping or not helping others, just not doing so at the expense of your own welfare.

[hippifried]

I don't know what the hell happened here. Somehow I got signed out & my whole post got deleted except the quote. Now I'm out of time. Damn infernal contraptions.

[hippifried]

Ok, let's try this again.

The more I look at Ayn Rand, the more fascist she appears. But it's more than that. It's not just corporate control of government, but an elitist monopoly control of upper society with a caste system for everyone who isn't able to force their way to the top. She was a feudalist. The egoist philosophy is a disdain for the general population, with "property rights" taking precedence over human rights.

Democracy is rampant collectivism & therefore anathema to egoism. I see no reason to think it would be far fetched for a Randian egoist like Greenspan to seek the position of the most powerful banker in the world. To have the power to bring down the whole world's financial structure with just a few words. Wealth is power, & vice versa. Overreaching? Not for an egoist.

[NYBURBS]

Ok, let's try this again.

The more I look at Ayn Rand, the more fascist she appears. But it's more than that. It's not just corporate control of government, but an elitist monopoly control of upper society with a caste system for everyone who isn't able to force their way to the top. She was a feudalist. The egoist philosophy is a disdain for the general population, with "property rights" taking precedence over human rights.

Democracy is rampant collectivism & therefore anathema to egoism. I see no reason to think it would be far fetched for a Randian egoist like Greenspan to seek the position of the most powerful banker in the world. To have the power to bring down the whole world's financial structure with just a few words. Wealth is power, & vice versa. Overreaching? Not for an egoist.

First of all there is a distinction to be made between a self-destructive egoist and a rational one. No rational person wants a rule of law (or lack thereof) that allows one person to violate the rights of another.

Further, at no point in our history have we had an actual Democracy, nor should any rational person advocate for one. In an actual democracy the simply will of the majority is seen as the absolute rule. There can be no constitutional safeguards such as we have, as the sovereignty of the simple majority would not allow for it.

If anything, a rational egoist (or objectivist) would want as little government as possible, leaving you free to live your life to your own potential. They simply do not want to be encumbered by the desires of the mindless herd. She actually hates anarchy, and advocates police, courts, etc to protect the rights of people. What she doesn't believe in is forced taxation.

Her philosophy is not about wealth or power, rather it is about the potential of the individual, which happens to be anathema to collectivist desires.

As for "property rights", everything including your life and liberty is viewed as property rights, and have been since way back when. It is the idea that your life is your property to do with as you will, so long as you do not tread upon the rights of another. We have not quite followed that logic to its end point, but we can always hope for evolution to take hold.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ukJiBZ8_4k

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMTDaVpBPR0&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zEruXzQZhNI&feature=related

[trish]

Everyone has their own definition of rationality. But it doesn’t follow from logic alone that laws shouldn’t restrict the “rights” of others. In addition to rules of inference, premises are required and I simply don’t see how any set of premises can be justified without employing still other premises. No form of government can be justified through rationality alone. I propose a more pragmatic approach: we look at what works and what doesn’t work; we take what we have and more on from there.

I’m not sure what anyone means when they say “live life to your own potential.” Is it some sort of essentialism about human capacities? And to what sort of capacities does it refer? Did the Ripper live up to his potential? Are these capacities innate and completely independent of the environment and community in which the individual is embedded? Did Da Vinci live up to his potential, or would he have been better fulfilled had he lived in a age when his inventions could’ve been realized? In one particular tribal society one’s potential may be quite circumscribed. Though circumscribed one might have absolute freedom to live to that potential and indeed have every expectation of fulfilling that potential. Instead of insisting on the freedom to pursue “one’s potential” perhaps it would be better to insist that society “optimize our potentials and our chances of reaching a degree of fulfillment.” At the same time we would want a society that limited our potential for adverse activities like those of the Ripper, or at least limited our expectations of fulfilling those sorts of potentials.

Once one looks at just how complex the notion of potential is, one realizes that it is not at all obvious how one might construct a form of government around the notion. It certainly isn’t at all clear that minimal government will guarantee us the freedom to pursue our potentials.

It isn’t even clear what one means by minimal government; is it one quantum or two above no government? Imagine for a moment no government. There is no such thing. There are no vacuums. If there is a niche to exploit, someone will rise to exploit it: if not us, then some other agent, a self-appointed king, a corporation and tyrant. That other agent is just government by another name. It seems to me that at all times all the niches for power are filled by someone or something. At all times, under all forms of rule there is the same amount of “government”. There’s no minimal government and no maximal government. There is only who is doing the governing. I’d rather it be we the people, then Haliburton and Exxon.

[NYBURBS]

People always run back to this corporatism argument, yet it is not a valid one according to her philosophy. She doesn't believe in government interference either in aid of corporations or against them.

Further potential at the end of the day has a lot to do with the individual's personal definition of it. Yet you can not realize it if you are subjected to the will of others and what they believe is best for you and them (collective).

As for your Jack the Ripper argument, that is a non-starter. No where is it being advocated that someone should be able to violate the rights of another. In fact criminal laws should protect against such behavior, yet they should not be used to impose moral beliefs. For example she did not believe homosexuality was "moral" per se, yet she stated that laws prohibiting it are wrong as they interfere with a persons right of self-determination.

Did you watch the videos from the links I provided? Certainly she can explain her own beliefs better than I can.

PS- Your argument about pragmatic government is flawed. Dictatorships work quite efficiently at times, especially heavy handed ones. That doesn't mean we should adopt one.

[trish]

Let’s start with


Your argument about pragmatic government is flawed. Dictatorships work quite efficiently at times, especially heavy handed ones. That doesn't mean we should adopt one.

It is not flawed to say that the justification of a set of premises ultimately requires more than just another set of premises. Otherwise one is engaged in an infinite regress. This is the regress that Rand finds herself pursuing in objectivism, which aims (like so many other failed foundational schemes) to establish a thoroughly rational foundation for a prescriptive theory of government. In constructing a government, there is simply no other place to start but from where WE are (and not where the Nazi’s were). Pragmatism is not about justification; it’s about judging what works, what doesn’t and moving on from there. Fascism didn’t work. Trains may have run on time, but the cost in lives alone was ultimately judged to be too high a price to pay. Moreover what is judged to work during one period will probably not work again.



As for your Jack the Ripper argument, that is a non-starter. No where is it being advocated that someone should be able to violate the rights of another.

Nor do you think I suggested it was being advocated. So what then does the Ripper reference address? I raised the Ripper and Da Vinci and hypothetical tribe to illustrate that “human potential” is an extraordinarily ambiguous concept. For the idealists each of us is an empty bowl, some more voluminous than others. Your own conception is that an individual largely defines his own potential. Yet without language, laws, learning and the entire infrastructure of the surrounding community an individual wouldn’t know nor could he express what his potential might be. Under either conception one’s capacity differs depending on how one intends to fulfill it. The gist of the argument is this. If one wishes to place “potential” at the center of a prescriptive theory of government, and moreover if one wishes to prove (in a rigorous philosophical sense, as Rand wants to do) propositions like “…you can not realize it [potential] if you are subjected to the will of others…,” then you really have to have a more stable definition of the very concept of potential.

Finally


People always run back to this corporatism argument, yet it is not a valid one according to her philosophy. She doesn't believe in government interference either in aid of corporations or against them.

You will notice that what you call the corporatism argument is really the there-are-no-unoccupied-niches-of-power argument. It has nothing to do with government sponsorship or non-sponsorship of corporations. It’s merely the observation that behind every lever there will be an agent and the sum of those agents is de-facto government. In this sense there is no such thing as less government, simply different government.

[yodajazz]

Ok, let's try this again.

The more I look at Ayn Rand, the more fascist she appears. But it's more than that. It's not just corporate control of government, but an elitist monopoly control of upper society with a caste system for everyone who isn't able to force their way to the top. She was a feudalist. The egoist philosophy is a disdain for the general population, with "property rights" taking precedence over human rights.

Democracy is rampant collectivism & therefore anathema to egoism. I see no reason to think it would be far fetched for a Randian egoist like Greenspan to seek the position of the most powerful banker in the world. To have the power to bring down the whole world's financial structure with just a few words. Wealth is power, & vice versa. Overreaching? Not for an egoist.

First of all there is a distinction to be made between a self-destructive egoist and a rational one. No rational person wants a rule of law (or lack thereof) that allows one person to violate the rights of another.

Further, at no point in our history have we had an actual Democracy, nor should any rational person advocate for one. In an actual democracy the simply will of the majority is seen as the absolute rule. There can be no constitutional safeguards such as we have, as the sovereignty of the simple majority would not allow for it.

If anything, a rational egoist (or objectivist) would want as little government as possible, leaving you free to live your life to your own potential. They simply do not want to be encumbered by the desires of the mindless herd. She actually hates anarchy, and advocates police, courts, etc to protect the rights of people. What she doesn't believe in is forced taxation.

Her philosophy is not about wealth or power, rather it is about the potential of the individual, which happens to be anathema to collectivist desires.

As for "property rights", everything including your life and liberty is viewed as property rights, and have been since way back when. It is the idea that your life is your property to do with as you will, so long as you do not tread upon the rights of another. We have not quite followed that logic to its end point, but we can always hope for evolution to take hold.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ukJiBZ8_4k

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMTDaVpBPR0&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zEruXzQZhNI&feature=related

After reading your statement on democracy and "property rights", I would say that the United States was founded maybe more on the concept of individual rights as it was on democracy. I'm not sure if the 'purer' form of democracy ever existed or not, but then that is not that important.


...
PS- Your argument about pragmatic government is flawed. Dictatorships work quite efficiently at times, especially heavy handed ones. That doesn't mean we should adopt one.

Your argument about dictatorships working effeciently is debatable, in light of the fact that they violate many people's individual rights. Certainly, no one could argue against hurting another person as anyone's rights. The real debate is on what is a 'right'.

But here in the US there has long been a philosophy that persons can unfairly accumulate too much wealth to the detriment of others. Or another way to say it, is that a business practice could be considered 'unfair competition'. This in the basis of 'anti trust laws'. This concept has been downplayed in recent years. I would credit the downplay of the concept to the rise of corporate influence in government.
The fact that anti trust concept has not been used as much does not mean that it is not a useful concept. I see the 'smaller government' idea as one that is afraid (or whatever word you wish to use) to address the issue of unfair business practices.

So this ties in with something that Trish said about their being government, i.e. someone making the rules whether or not it is the actual government making the rules. So your 'smaller government' is essentially a place where money interests can make thier own rules.

[NYBURBS]

The monopolies that you refer to come about because the government helps to create them in the first place. Then of course it must come in later to undo what it has done, invoking anti-trust laws in the process.

Look for instance at the most unregulated entity in the world, the Internet. Thus far we have managed to evade much if any government interference here and it has flourished. Countless small businesses have opened up and regular every day people, along with big business, have found ways to make money from it.

As for the dictatorship argument, as I said I would never advocate one. Yet I pointed it out to refute Trish's assertion that pragmatism should be the way to go. It is often more effective to ignore the rights of one person in order to further the interest of others. Such is often the idea behind collectivist ideas also.

Finally "big government" is more likely to be used to the detriment of individuals than small government. You are taking the force of law and using it to apply the will of some upon others. There is a difference between laws that enforce "natural law" i.e., don't murder, rob, destroy property, etc, and other laws that seek to take one person's property and forcefully redistribute it to another.

[trish]

Don't look now, but there is no natural law against murder nor a natural law that even recognizes property let alone dictates against stealing. What is this metaphysical relationship between a person and an object that is called property? Is there a test for it? Can it be measured? The notion of property is by its very nature a social construction. You only own what you own because your community has agreed its yours. There's no amount of metaphysical mumbo jumbo that makes it intrinsically yours.

In all societies the less powerful labor to feed the appetites of the more powerful. Where there is a gradient of power, money flows across the gradient from the less powerful to the more powerful. The flow constitutes a perpetual redistribution of the products of labor. In modern representational republics, some of that power is distributed to the producers and laborers reducing the magnitude of the gradient and hence reducing the rate of monetary flow and thereby allowing the a middle class to grow within the flux. The power that the lower and middle classes have is through their representatives in government. Without government, they have no leverage and they're back to being serfs. Whether it's small government or big, effective government must reduce the gradient of power between people, reduce the rate of flow of the products of labor that always goes from the less to the more powerful and raise the standard of living for those whose power is only through their representatives.

[NYBURBS]

There are two main types of criminal law, that which is wrong because it naturally is, and that which is wrong because we say it is. This is a widely accepted breakdown of penal code laws. Murder, robbery, assault, arson, damage to property, etc are deemed to be within the first of those categories. Therefore I and many others would argue that it does indeed exist. What would fit into the second, for example, would be laws against gambling, prostitution, and consensual sodomy.

I am aware of the liberal/statist argument that there are no absolute rights or laws and that anything is open to the interpretation of the collective masses. I am most certainly opposed to this view, as I believe there are natural and inalienable rights and even laws.

As for this "back to being serfs" argument, it is the notion of altruism and obedience to the collective good that brought about that institution. It is the notion of inalienable individual rights that brought about its downfall. That some still push to revert back to this collective allegiance does not change the past.

Any grant of power came from your precious collective allowing it. Nobles and lords of the land became so because of a grant of power through the force of law. It was a forced taking of property from one to give to another. Such is the principal of socialism, communism, fascism, etc.

If something is a good idea then rational people can agree to contribute toward it without having it forced upon them through law. Certainly people contribute all the time toward private institutions that further what they perceive to be worthy goals.

[hippifried]

Ayn Rand was just another philosophical crackpot. No different from the rest of the philosophical crackpots that have plagued mankind since the time of oral tradition. I put the cutoff there because prior to that, the children hadn't invented enough language for bullshitters to pretend to be logical.

There's 2 prime hardwired instincts that control the actions of every critter on the planet, including hairless apes. Sometimes they conflict, but they're part of us all.

Egoism is based in the survival instinct. It really doesn't take anything else into consideration. To deny altruism as part of our nature, is to deny our instinctual drive to propagate & survive as a species, & therefore deny our nature. We don't have fangs or claws. We're slow. We're not natural predators. We're natural omnivorous scavengers & prey to the real predators. In order to survive & to protect our progeny, we gather in social collectives. Nobody can find any evidence that we've ever lived any other way.

This is where I believe a 3rd instinct comes in. There's a "universal code of human interaction" (the code) that allows us to live in close proximity to each other, & nearly all of us follow it most of the time without even thinking about it. It's simplicity in itself, & recognized by every society in the world, regardless of development. In the English speaking world, we call it the "GOLDEN RULE". The code is more than empathy. It's the basis for morality, ethics, virtues, & all the philosophical or logical discussions of "right" & "wrong". Although I don't think there's ever been any academic study of the code & its effects on the social psyche, I believe that the code is hardwired in the brain. I could be wrong, but I haven't come across a convincing argument that the code is nurtured, & it's definitely universal.

Since I developed my hypothesis, I've had many discussions on the code as the basis of morality with various cultists, objectivist, religious, political, economic, scientific, mathematical, & academic philosophical. Most of them tell me I'm full of shit. But when I pose the question "If not the code, what?", all I get back is either mute or some version of "...well so & so said...". As far as I'm concerned; If you can't relate it to the code, it's not a moral issue, & everything else is just arbitrary rules. They may not pay much attention when they're following it, but everybody knows when they've violated the code.

The code is the basis of altruism. It has nothing whatsoever to do with self-sacrifice. It's just a recognition of the fact that it's easier to live if you don't make enemies by being an asshole. Also that people willo tend to return a favor. You're projecting your own self-interest on others as you interact with them. Your personal analytical philosophy is irrelevant, because the code still works whether you look at it from a totally selfish point of view, a totally empathic altruistic point of view (with all the self-sacrifice that Ayn Rand whines about), or anything in between.

All the philosophies, or at least most of them, are flawed because they're incomplete, & they attempt to complicate what is inherently simple. Ayn Rand promoted a "fuck you" attitude that does nothing but piss off those around you & make life more difficult. Self-interest is fine, but there's other interests & other things that are interesting. Without the collective, mankind never made it to the cave let alone out of it. The collective IS our self-interest. We're social critters, & we all rely on the collective. We learn everything we know from the collective. Writing books & developing philosophies is merely an attempt to impress or influence the collective. A true egoist wouldn't bother. Anybody who tries to live outside the collective (hermits) is considered crazy, even by "objectivists". I don't see what's rational about this philosophy at all, & I'm a philosophical anarchist.

Gotta run again. I'll try to catch up later.


Today's the day. "Democracy in action, to keep our "republic" working. :D