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Eat The Rich!

Re: Eat The Rich!

Unread postby evilgenius » Mon 10 Sep 2018, 12:10:58

If you really want to change the system, there's one thing you can do above all others: use the government to capitalize its citizens. The idea is pretty much like what it sounds. As people face the world upon entering adulthood, give them limited credit to borrow from the government. Start small, with an amount that can be easily written off if it is not paid back. Allow people's payment history to influence how much credit they have available to them, as well as how much they currently owe. Provide a list of opportunities which the people can participate in, as well as a means for them to argue for business opportunities which are not included. Charge various rates upon the money, based upon what the need is in society for people to engage in an activity.

The only cost of such a program would be: non-payment, the difference between rates lower than the established standard public rate and the rate at which some would borrow, and management of the program. Otherwise, it doesn't cost the taxpayer because people are paying the money back. The idea is to provide a more structured and opportunity guaranteed means for the citizens of a country to engage in risk. If people looked upon it as free money, they would not see the advances in credit which would otherwise come with engaging with it by paying back the money. If they took risk to enter into business and failed, their position would look the same. The difference there would be that they would likely have a borrowing history which could be used to evaluate them when they came back asking for more. Of course, the program would allow for the involvement of those who have failed to pay its loans back. Capitalism needs people to take risks. The assumption of risk can't mean punishment along the lines of total non-involvement when a person fails. We let people declare bankruptcy now because of that same understanding. The consequences of non-payment would be aligned along those principles.

From the point of view of society, the program would allow for filling needs where the markets haven't provided an answer. When there is a shortage of capital in a sector, the rate charged for investing in an endeavor by the program might be lower than the market rate. In certain cases, based upon extreme need, the rate might even be negative. For instance, where regionally there is lack of investment in something needed but not provided. The program might actually charge more than the going rate for over-subscribed activities, such as those which the people as a whole for whatever reason feel safer entering into. There would still be private forms of lending out there. This would only be about providing for people going into business. Yes, that might mean providing for a person's education. Imagine the equivalent of a student loan, but with an interest rate that reflected the need that society had for what the person was training for.

Management of the program would be based upon the idea that society as a whole has needs, and that filling those needs can be met by entrepreneurs or the activity that comes with owning. The program would probably be run according to publicly understood algorithms. It could be self-correcting, except that people would need to be able to argue for uses of the money which no one has thought of before. Any deficit it ran would come from supplying under served uses. But people might use the program to get into activities which they see as safer, more guaranteed income streams for which they may not want to use the private sector to finance them for whatever reason. It might run a surplus. At any rate (some pun, huh) making a profit would not be the goal of the program.

I think we are moving away from traditional work. Even those who do work are being subsumed by the independent contractor model. There is a lot of pressure now to capitalize work, upon the workers. The replacement of human workers by artificially intelligent workers fits right into that. Companies employing workers won't want to largely employ/own their workers going forward, no matter which kind they are. They may still, but it looks like the current model would become the case by case exception rather than the norm. If you couple a program like this with the institution of a more varied selection of stock ownership types, allowing for ownership based upon what a certain type of person wants from owning a company, and manage the rate structures according to what society calls for as a whole, not based upon the needs of the few, then what is coming in the future may not be such a challenge to the economic existence of man.
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Re: Eat The Rich!

Unread postby Cog » Mon 10 Sep 2018, 15:30:03

The market will tell you what products and services are wanted or needed. We don't need the government putting their thumbs on the scale to affect some societal need. That is full blown socialism which always leads to authoritarian government and misery.
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Re: Eat The Rich!

Unread postby GHung » Mon 10 Sep 2018, 19:40:40

Cog wrote:The market will tell you what products and services are wanted or needed. We don't need the government putting their thumbs on the scale to affect some societal need. That is full blown socialism which always leads to authoritarian government and misery.


Then government bailing out banks, car companies, shit,,,, an entire economy, by printing trillions of dollars and dumping the bill on the future must be full-blown socialism. Right? If you really hate that sort of thing, you need to dis-invest in any and all enterprises that may have benefited from cases of government "putting their thumbs on the scale" with my money.

Or maybe you really are just the opportunistic hypocrite that some of us, long ago, determined you are. Which is it?
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Re: Eat The Rich!

Unread postby Cog » Mon 10 Sep 2018, 21:44:48

I'm quite happy with how my life turned out GHung. How about you? You sound angry bro. Its only six more years. Surely a man of your intelligence can do something else for six years.
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Re: Eat The Rich!

Unread postby GHung » Mon 10 Sep 2018, 21:53:39

Cog wrote:I'm quite happy with how my life turned out GHung. How about you? You sound angry bro. Its only six more years. Surely a man of your intelligence can do something else for six years.


So you are quite happy with what you describe as socialism as long as it works out in your favor. Got it.
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Re: Eat The Rich!

Unread postby Cog » Mon 10 Sep 2018, 23:11:18

Intervention in a time of economic and monetary collapse is not socialism. It's an expected part of what government does. The fact you don't understand the difference is telling.
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Re: Eat The Rich!

Unread postby GHung » Mon 10 Sep 2018, 23:32:06

Cog wrote:Intervention in a time of economic and monetary collapse is not socialism. It's an expected part of what government does. The fact you don't understand the difference is telling.


But you said; "We don't need the government putting their thumbs on the scale to affect some societal need." That's exactly what intervention is. You can rationalize it any way you want.

It's like a kid who wants their parents to stay TF out of their life,,, until they get into trouble. Me? I let my kids know what was expected, helped them set limits. If they ignore that help, they know they are on their own. Like children, markets need to suffer and deal with consequences or they keep repeating the same mistakes.
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Re: Eat The Rich!

Unread postby evilgenius » Tue 11 Sep 2018, 01:01:21

Cog wrote:The market will tell you what products and services are wanted or needed. We don't need the government putting their thumbs on the scale to affect some societal need. That is full blown socialism which always leads to authoritarian government and misery.

What I talked about isn't socialism at all. It's full blown capitalism. Where does what I said mention ownership by the government? It's actually use of the government by the people to allow them to enjoy the fullest measure of participation. You may need to re-examine what it is you believe. I think you are a backer of the form of capitalism which enslaves, for in any system the politics of it will determine who rules. As it stands now, and under your apparent idea of paradise, that means the monied interests lobbying in Washington. Otherwise, whatever algorithm is only discovering what you say the markets discover. It's driven by the markets. People are participating in a rate structure above and below that line. What do you think is wrong with the people being the ones that the system is run for? Why does the idea of the people as a whole benefiting more directly rather than particular well understood interests seem so anathema to you? I get that it might be harder to be a passive investor. You might have to work at investing according what you believed about life, and according to what your needs really were.
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Re: Eat The Rich!

Unread postby Newfie » Tue 11 Sep 2018, 06:17:06

Cog,

I don’t know the difference either.

Please explain.
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Re: Eat The Rich!

Unread postby Ibon » Tue 11 Sep 2018, 07:51:04

In Cog's world view the market and Jesus are like gravity or the laws of thermodynamics. Immutable.
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Re: Eat The Rich!

Unread postby Hawkcreek » Tue 11 Sep 2018, 08:02:38

Cog wrote:The market will tell you what products and services are wanted or needed. We don't need the government putting their thumbs on the scale to affect some societal need. That is full blown socialism which always leads to authoritarian government and misery.

It is pretty obvious to most that the "government" has been putting their thumbs on the scale for a long, long time. But in almost every case it has had the effect of ensuring the profits of some large corporations.
Obamacare was the perfect example.
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Re: Eat The Rich!

Unread postby Newfie » Tue 11 Sep 2018, 08:46:31

Another example would be the infusion of fake money during Obama’s tenure. I guess that means Cog loves Obama and his policies.

As far as I can tell the market was doing a fine job of rooting out unscrupulous banks and lenders. But the government bailed them out. Now it’s likely that we will have a repeat of the crisis because we have enabled the bad actors.
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Re: Eat The Rich!

Unread postby Cog » Tue 11 Sep 2018, 09:16:20

I'm referring specifically to evilgenius's idea of government competing with the banks as being the preferred lender to the citizenry. That would put the banks at a competitive disadvantage since the government can control the money supply and interest rates. That is putting a big thumb on how lending is supposed to work. I will go further and say the government should have never got into the student loan program. Make student loans dischargeable during bankruptcy and you will see the appetite of reckless lending go way down.

But during the financial crisis during the 2007-2009 recession, the Treasury and Fed were faced with a complete lock-up in lending. No one would lend because no one knew what the risk would be. Now I might argue that allowing more banks to fail would have been a better idea. Wells Fargo should have been allowed to go under. Most likely GM on the automotive side as well. But you can't argue that the FED and Treasury should have allowed a total lockup in the banking system and just said "Oh Well". That is why we have a FED and Treasury and FDIC to begin with. To manage a crisis and to provide stability during non crisis times. .

But in the normal course of affairs, those outside of a recession, the government needs to leave corporations alone as long as the corporations are acting within the law. The market will tell you if societal needs are being met through profits. Unprofitable firms should be allowed to fail. There are all kinds of radical leftie ideas being floated out there like demanding that workers get a piece of a corporation just for the fact of working there or capping the pay levels of CEO's. That sort of nonsense.
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Re: Eat The Rich!

Unread postby GHung » Tue 11 Sep 2018, 10:06:18

Cog wrote:....... There are all kinds of radical leftie ideas being floated out there like demanding that workers get a piece of a corporation just for the fact of working there or capping the pay levels of CEO's. That sort of nonsense.


Like syndicalism? Worked pretty well until governments put their thumb on it. Corporations are democratic where only those who are employed by said corporations can own stock in those corporations, and only those people can vote on corporate leadership, goals, etc. In that environment they are free from government interference, and too-big-to-fail doesn't exist. No pensions; your retirement is dependent on how much stock in your company you accumulate, and how healthy your company remains. No union problems because the company IS the union, from the head honchos down to new hires. Often referred to as Anarcho-syndicalism. Companies are essentially independent but, to be successful, must cooperate with a broader network of other companies for whatever goods and services they need.
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Re: Eat The Rich!

Unread postby Cog » Tue 11 Sep 2018, 10:33:51

If its a public corporation I can buy stock in the company whether I work for it or not. I can also vote my shares if I'm not happy with the way Ford is running their corporation. If its a private corporation, then I don't care what benefits they give their employees as long as the government stays out of the way on it. With the caveat that even private corporations are still bound by laws regarding fraudulent behavior towards their employees.
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Re: Eat The Rich!

Unread postby evilgenius » Tue 11 Sep 2018, 10:47:20

Cog wrote:I'm referring specifically to evilgenius's idea of government competing with the banks as being the preferred lender to the citizenry. That would put the banks at a competitive disadvantage since the government can control the money supply and interest rates. That is putting a big thumb on how lending is supposed to work. I will go further and say the government should have never got into the student loan program. Make student loans dischargeable during bankruptcy and you will see the appetite of reckless lending go way down.

But during the financial crisis during the 2007-2009 recession, the Treasury and Fed were faced with a complete lock-up in lending. No one would lend because no one knew what the risk would be. Now I might argue that allowing more banks to fail would have been a better idea. Wells Fargo should have been allowed to go under. Most likely GM on the automotive side as well. But you can't argue that the FED and Treasury should have allowed a total lockup in the banking system and just said "Oh Well". That is why we have a FED and Treasury and FDIC to begin with. To manage a crisis and to provide stability during non crisis times. .

But in the normal course of affairs, those outside of a recession, the government needs to leave corporations alone as long as the corporations are acting within the law. The market will tell you if societal needs are being met through profits. Unprofitable firms should be allowed to fail. There are all kinds of radical leftie ideas being floated out there like demanding that workers get a piece of a corporation just for the fact of working there or capping the pay levels of CEO's. That sort of nonsense.


It's nice of you to actually join the discussion rather than offer vague criticism that is only a summary of what you think about a topic. How is anyone supposed to respond to that sort of talk? You aren't a school boy.

So, is it that you think this sort of thing wouldn't allow for the development of a risk free rate? These are loans people are paying back, after all, so it can't be non-payment you would be worried about. It's got to be the competition with the banking sector. I'm glad you got that point. I was worried that because the post was so long, and I had to omit stressing the point, that people wouldn't see that I wasn't suggesting a replacement of the banking sector. As far as an establishment of the risk free rate goes, and its impact upon the banking sector, it's precisely because people would pay back these loans that there would be no impact. This isn't the government having to go out into the markets the way they do with bonds, so that they can keep control over interest rates when they issue new money. Granted the money wouldn't be repatriated, if that is the proper term, immediately. People would be paying it back over the course of their loans. There would be opportunity for changes of state, changes of what people perceived as the ground rules, due to business cycles. They might feel, at various times, either lucky or cursed. That wouldn't change the fact that they were capitalized in some endeavor from which they were then deriving either an income or exercising control over it.
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Re: Eat The Rich!

Unread postby evilgenius » Tue 11 Sep 2018, 11:16:11

As far as competition goes, the government would be there to loan people money who wanted to get into a business for which there is a perceived demand, but for which the banks won't lend except at high rates. The rates the government would charge related to the things that everybody wants to do would actually be higher than the banks. People could still borrow from the government at those higher than average rates, if for some reason they have credit with the government but not with the banks.

The biggest difference would be that what the government was doing would have no impact upon the money supply, except where it took business from the banks. The government wouldn't be operating upon a fractional reserve basis. The banks would. Their activity is essential to the regulation of the money supply, on a market based level.
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Re: Eat The Rich!

Unread postby Newfie » Tue 11 Sep 2018, 12:16:05

Agreed, nice to see Cog lay out his points instead of just sniping.

He actually has a good head, when he lets it out.
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Re: Eat The Rich!

Unread postby Cog » Tue 11 Sep 2018, 12:46:30

I tend to be very abrupt when I'm posting by phone. Some overheating problems with desktop which I'm trying to solve. But back to government lending. Politics tend to get heavily involved in government bureaucracy. IRS targeting conservative non profits under Obama and as I believe FBI targeting of Trump.

Now imagine a government banking system with a partisan on either side doling out loans based on the person's political ideology. Don't tell me it won't happen. Look at school loans and calls from Democrats in the last election to forgive those loans. You will hear those same calls being made if some groups default at a higher rate than others. Or some people simply won't get loans at all. It will be red-lining but done by the government instead of a private bank.

Not to mention we will need a whole new group of government employees to run the operation. Government is already a hydra.
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Re: Eat The Rich!

Unread postby dohboi » Tue 11 Sep 2018, 16:53:24

» Increasing economic gap between rich and poor cities in the USA:

https://www.truthdig.com/articles/the-c ... ver-wider/
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