When Can We Start Breaking Things?

[a completely inoffensive name]

Economic equality is a fallacy and the pursuit of such a notion is and will always be a disastrous folly.

No one is arguing for your definition of economic equality. Everyone not satisfied with the demographics of wealth are arguing for individuals to have the ability to work hard, get payed and live a middle class lifestyle. The current system does not allow this because the current system is deliberately predatory, which is why the masses ignorant in economics and finance have seen their houses foreclosed on and their savings pissed away by wall street.

Inequality in the sense that those who are clearly not born bankers are pitted against the bankers is what people want to change. No one is a communist here.

What if we had a world where we forced the WNBA to play against the NBA and then claimed that any notion to separate the two is a silly attempt at egalitarianism to be dismissed.

[PanzerJaeger]

Can you imagine any level of inequality that would be dangerous for social cohesion? Or is that impossible?

Certainly. The underclass will always envy what the creative class has built. History has shown that the higher the level of perceived economic inequality, the greater the level of social disharmony. This thread is a perfect example. People are railing against Wall Street and unnamed 'speculators' without taking any personal responsibility for their own economic conditions. It is easier to play victim than acknowledge poor choices. Wall Street is powerful in the country because the underclasses willfully hand over their money to the speculators. Everyone was perfectly happy entrusting their financial future to the street until they weren't.

None of that means that I must accept the premise that you and I are inherently equal in our ability to create value or that we should, in fact, enjoy rough economic parity. The differences in our intelligence, work ethic, upbringing and several dozen other individual factors determine our relative success.

See how vapid this statement is?

Yes, because you changed the sentence. I chose my words very carefully.

[PanzerJaeger]

. Everyone not satisfied with the demographics of wealth are arguing for individuals to have the ability to work hard, get payed and live a middle class lifestyle.

And there it is... That is not how the economy works.

[Strike For The South]

The creative class? Is that some kind of insane joke?

What is so creative about volleying securities and bundled annuities back and forth so everyone gets a nice piece of the pie?

This is not business, it's extortion.

If we are not going to have a modicum of a social safety net, why play by these rules at all? . Being a citizen means you have certain obligations to the state. these are not being met.

[Lemur]

Certainly. The underclass will always envy what the creative class has built.

Okay, Ms. Rand, and can you imagine any negative outcomes from the "envy" of he "underclasses" for the ubermenschen who are superior to them in every way? Can you express any possible mechanisms for preventing social breakdown?

I worked closely with investment bankers in NYC for eight years. If you think those coked-up whoremongers are the "creative class," you are operating on a different plane of reality. I don't think the add a tenth of the economic value that they claim. And I am not, by any stretch, one of the untermenschen you disdain so airily.

[Montmorency]

Policies that permit continuously increasing economic inequality are business-unfriendly. Some correction is necessary for a stable society.

[Strike For The South]

All elements of American society lose out. Regardless of social stature. When all the money is taken out of the system and hidden under rocks floating in ocean it is no wonder that there is less money for society, individuals, companies and governments to put to use to undertake projects and purchase for their needs. Can we agree that money represents value, of time, of skills, of physical resources. When the money is extracted and not reflected by something of value in the physical world, the value of all else is corroded.

The near entirety of the financial system makes profit on money no one will ever really see

[a completely inoffensive name]

Certainly. The underclass will always envy what the creative class has built.

To me the creative class are the painters, musicians and writers. But to each his own I guess.

History has shown that the higher the level of perceived economic inequality, the greater the level of social disharmony. This thread is a perfect example. People are railing against Wall Street and unnamed 'speculators' without taking any personal responsibility for their own economic conditions. It is easier to play victim than acknowledge poor choices. Wall Street is powerful in the country because the underclasses willfully hand over their money to the speculators. Everyone was perfectly happy entrusting their financial future to the street until they weren't.

None of that means that I must accept the premise that you and I are inherently equal in our ability to create value or that we should, in fact, enjoy rough economic parity. The differences in our intelligence, work ethic, upbringing and several dozen other individual factors determine our relative success.

We don't live in a world where everyone is:

A: On the same level in terms of education
B: On the same level in terms of intelligence

How can you be a coal worker in West Virginia for 8-10 hours a day and find time to a better money manipulator than those whose job it is to do just that, backed with four years of training and knowledge? It is insanity to ask for people to be an expert in anything besides what their job entails.

Of course people make poor choices. This is why we have professional politicians instead of a direct democracy. There can never be a society of enlightened individuals who all make it work out for themselves because see points A and B above. What needs to happen is to make sure that the public is protected from it's own ignorance to prevent a total capsize of the economy. It's not even about harmony and equality here, it's about social stability, which is what others here are stressing. We all saw what happens when you let banks give loans to any schmuck who walks in the door, the public enslaves itself with debt, whether it be student or credit card or what have you.

[HopAlongBunny]

...They truly are above our laws and care nothing for the common sense of humanity.

For me this is the crux of the matter. Who was charged for the crime of the century? Not that having a scapegoat or two would have actually fixed anything, but at least one might have felt the system wasn't totally broken.

[naut]

This thread is a perfect example. People are railing against Wall Street and unnamed 'speculators' without taking any personal responsibility for their own economic conditions.

As a 22 year old who had never paid tax or voted or earned a real pay-check until after the the GFC what choices have I made? What franchises, of money or of votes, have I had at my disposal to make or influence the current situation what it is? The only choice I have made is that I was too busy being a child physically and intellectually to have any impact on the poop-storm the last generation decided I should have to live through.

[Strike For The South]

The entire system us set up to be divisive.

The guy making 250k really is not that much different than the guy making 40k. Sure the former may have a nicer house, car, and various trinkets but those are really just like kneepads to make this whole thing go down a tad easier.

[Fragony]

Like the family dog? Content with table scraps and the occasional pat?

They can keep their scraps and pats, I don't mind inequality. I don't think it's unfair that they can buy a 50 million yaght and I can't.

[Major Robert Dump]

Until our government leadership adopts rules akin to insider trading laws, none of this will ever begin to change. It benefits our leaders and the financial sector for the rest of us to be in financial and social rough waters. It aslo benefits the government machine.

All this money given in the bailouts and we really have nothing to show. Instead of letting the businesses fail, a vacuum form and another business rise to meet the demand ... greased palms handed over trillions to the inept business men and women who could not run their own house to begin with, all under the guise of "saving jobs" and "maintaining sector stability."

To me, social issues take a far back burner to issues like the one mentioned above. This is how you unravel the framework of a nation. The mere existence and financial windfall of the Lobby Industry I think speaks volumes of what we are up against.

This is why I am cashing out, removing every penny I have from the US market, and investing (and eventually moving) to another nation. I'm not going to play this game of pretend capitalism anymore, I will go somewhere where the game is self evident, whatever it may be. I just feel like I cannot compete here anymore, for multiple reasons to include abuse by the financial sector, but also including various social and political realities.

**edit: And no, I am not rich nor does my family enjoy anything above a middle working class lifestyle, I am not like the people in the article.

[tibilicus]

Certainly. The underclass will always envy what the creative class has built. History has shown that the higher the level of perceived economic inequality, the greater the level of social disharmony. This thread is a perfect example. People are railing against Wall Street and unnamed 'speculators' without taking any personal responsibility for their own economic conditions. It is easier to play victim than acknowledge poor choices. Wall Street is powerful in the country because the underclasses willfully hand over their money to the speculators. Everyone was perfectly happy entrusting their financial future to the street until they weren't.

None of that means that I must accept the premise that you and I are inherently equal in our ability to create value or that we should, in fact, enjoy rough economic parity. The differences in our intelligence, work ethic, upbringing and several dozen other individual factors determine our relative success.



Yes, because you changed the sentence. I chose my words very carefully.

Everything you just said is rubbish. Own failings? Why is youth unemployment so high in my country then? We had a generational believing we all needed degrees and a high standard of education and we did, for the most part, as we were told. There's no jobs for us though. As in literally none exist. Tell me why no one will give us jobs. I've worked months on end for companies for free all so I could add "job experience". There still isn't a job for me. I was encouraged to go back and do some more work for free. You know someone of my skill working at my last unpaid job at a company would have saved the company something like £5000 for that period? We're all stupid enough to do it though because we'd happily stab our brethren in the back and push them under the tracks for a chance to have a job.

You equate the broken system with jealousy. I really hope you wake up one day to having no future like the mass majority of young people I know. I hope you look out onto the world and see every door closed because the guy who got the job knew someone who worked there. That you too post applications for jobs you're too qualified for only to be told yup, you are too qualified we'd much prefer the guy who will stick with us and be happy to take our crap for the rest of his life. And finally that everything you were told since the age of 15 about how the world works and how the best way to better yourself was all one big lie. It remains it isn't what you know but who you know. A generation of our most talented young people continue to go to waste because of nepotism. This said nepotism I feel is an integral part of the broken world we live in.

You cannot perceived these things though can you? Why, because you're part of the selfish generation. Your one of the guys that left all this mess for my generation to clear up. You were happy for governments to spend, the rich to get richer and for taxes to remain low whilst everything around you slowly but surely fell apart. Then when you got the chance, your "deficit cutting programs" and "debt reduction schemes" were to be paid off by guess who? That's right, people my age. You simultaneously took advantage of big government spending, low taxes, get quick rich schemes and, even a big welfare state. Now you vote to takeaway the same things for my generation. It's like you all had one big party and ran up a huge bar tab then on your way out left the receipt for the quiet guy minding his own business at the end of the bar to pay.

You embody this nature in the tone of your above post. And for that, I ask you this. Has a single generation in modern history ever been as selfish as yours? You systematically expected certain things and fed the corporate pig and now you vote to take away the few perks it gave us in favor of more government full of rich kids and more power to the guys who shoveled most of this misery on us in the first place. You say I'm envious but you seem to grasp I just despise being in a hopeless situation whereas the guys who caused all this continue to drink champagne to my misfortune.

[Papewaio]

Economies go up and down all the time. The key is to pursue what makes you happy.

I can remember in the 90s unemploment rates of 10% for the general workforce and about double that for young people.

I was working in gold exploration in '99/2000 when 90% of the explorers in WA were laid off. Then I went into web design / IT support for a small stock broker... 6 weeks later the NASDAQ crashed.

Moved to Sydney and 2 years at a contact centre vendor. They made record support income, USA regional sales crashed. So they got rid of South East Asian support including Sydney.

I'm a contractor because I'm a mercenary. I'm a mercenary because I know business only sees numbers and that I'm just one of them. So I might as well get as much as possible and be able to leave and go somewhere else.

I also keep my costs down. My stipend is $60 a week. My place a 2 bedroom villa of 90sqm, an hour commute to work on public transport (bonus of getting a train trip across the Harbour bridge), buy my shoes on specials, eat wheat bix for breakfast, buy 90% of my games months after release etc etc

So stop whining and either fix the system or find another game to play.

[Sarmatian]

And there it is... That is not how the economy works.

But that's how life works.

You push middle and lower class far enough and you get ugly things.

[gaelic cowboy]

They still do, we call it the 'real economy' here, what people actually buy and move. I am not all that worried about that undercurrent ever failing.

That's not been true for a long while now 80% of Dutch workforce is employed in the service sector and apparently 70% of your countries GDP is generated by same.

Economic equality is a fallacy and the pursuit of such a notion is and will always be a disastrous folly.

Apparently inequality breeds nothing but who cry to the government when there stock exchange lotto ticket doesn't pan out.

Apparently MORE inequality is needed because spending money on health and education was what caused bankers to lose the run of themselves.

Policies that permit continuously increasing economic inequality are business-unfriendly. Some correction is necessary for a stable society.

Exactly the Wall Street morons can make there profits because in Europe and the USA contracts are protected by law and people abide by them and use the to resolve disputes.

Lets see how well they do trying to leverage mortgage backed securities in Somalia before we call them the creative classes.

To me the creative class are the painters, musicians and writers. But to each his own I guess.

Indeed

[gaelic cowboy]

Okay, Ms. Rand, and can you imagine any negative outcomes from the "envy" of he "underclasses" for the ubermenschen who are superior to them in every way? Can you express any possible mechanisms for preventing social breakdown?

I worked closely with investment bankers in NYC for eight years. If you think those coked-up whoremongers are the "creative class," you are operating on a different plane of reality. I don't think the add a tenth of the economic value that they claim. And I am not, by any stretch, one of the untermenschen you disdain so airily.

I can imagine two things that PJ posts about in the plus column which are actually hurt by his lauding of extreme economic darwinism.

1: Gay Americans

Gays are getting it in the neck because of the toxic alliance of religion and politicians who are of course in the pocket of Wall Street. This religious drum banging targets education and science and my belief is that it's to achieve reformation of the same, this reformation is not really about education but about allowing more rent seeking by Wall Street.

In return for tossing a few middle eastern cultural baubles to the priests the Wall street clergy control education so they can better shape the future consumer.

2: The American millitary

The armed forces get it on multiple fronts in terms of cuts to services both during and after people have served, apparently veterans are heroes right up until the moment there tossed on the scrap heap. This degradation is exacerbated naturally by rent seekers in the form of Haliburton and XE, these leeches couldn't and wouldn't exist without billions of public money.

Rent seeking in the military means more wars to acquire resources for wall Street and this will lead to more terrorism on Americans.





Basically we have a few million of leeches worldwide unthinkingly spreading an environment conducive to them. What really scares me is that it's not a conspiracy at all at all but merely millions of self interested actions.

The only force these people really fear is government or man on the street springing to mass action, so i'm guessing they feel pretty safe cos they have captured both religion and politics which is enough to quieten the man on the street. (generally)

[SoFarSoGood]

Hold up... I am not a millionaire or anything but I bought cereal and rice futures a couple of years ago. Why? Because it encourages more people to make more food and as the population is rising food is bound to get more expensive. I didn't know there was going to be bad Russian and American harvests and sure I am now looking at a handy profit thanks. Have I done wrong? Is it wrong to make a profit?

[gaelic cowboy]

Hold up... I am not a millionaire or anything but I bought cereal and rice futures a couple of years ago. Why? Because it encourages more people to make more food and as the population is rising food is bound to get more expensive. I didn't know there was going to be bad Russian and American harvests and sure I am now looking at a handy profit thanks. Have I done wrong? Is it wrong to make a profit?

Eh agri futures are not about encouraging the growth of food in the slightest if they did so then they would rapidly become worthless.

All resource futures be they mineral, agricultural or financial are about protection from any massive price swings or reductions in there availability.



Do you remember that big to do a few years ago on how bio-diesel was supposedly stealing food from peoples mouths, well that was a load of cobblers there was plenty food the problem was the price of it.

A large proportion of that food price inflation was driven by huge speculation in all sorts of resources as to it's future price. (it was felt it would be more tomorrow naturally)

[SoFarSoGood]

Hold on if prices go up then farmers get more and more people think "hey that's profitable" so start growing food. I am not talking about bio fuels.

[gaelic cowboy]

Hold on if prices go up then farmers get more and more people think "hey that's profitable" so start growing food. I am not talking about bio fuels.

Not true in the slightest for farming and even less true for the resource sector as a whole.

Farming is generally a low return high initial investment activity generally people are trying to maximise long term potential. This doesn't sit well with banks so farmers often have problems with obtaining investment and with paying it back in lean years, it literally takes years if not a lifetime to properly maximise the potential of your land and animals.

Basically no one invests in farming because a loaf of bread went up ten cent, far more likely people will invest in the price of the loaf of bread.

[SoFarSoGood]

Thank God people like you don't advise 'evil capitalists' like me who actually keep the world going.

[gaelic cowboy]

Thank God people like you don't advise 'evil capitalists' like me who actually keep the world going.

People who haven't about clue about the relationship between price and value and how the same is influenced by inputs and outputs will continue to feather Wall Streets nest eggs.

Futures contracts don't encourage investment in production it it is not there purpose to do so.

A futures contract is to protect an initial investment position from swings in the price of said resource.

[Vladimir]

People who haven't about clue about the relationship between price and value and how the same is influenced by inputs and outputs will continue to feather Wall Streets nest eggs.

Futures contracts don't encourage investment in production it it is not there purpose to do so.

A futures contract is to protect an initial investment position from swings in the price of said resource.

Agreed. Still, it's wonderful to get into. The problem comes when people start manipulating goods to generate contrived shortages, etc. No harm in normal futures investing.

[gaelic cowboy]

Agreed. Still, it's wonderful to get into. The problem comes when people start manipulating goods to generate contrived shortages, etc. No harm in normal futures investing.

Indeed there is absolutely nothing wrong with futures investment at all at all, the problem as you said yourself is IF people have enough control over the resource to continually make sure there favoured long or short price comes up.

Enron is a fairly good example of a company doing something like this.

[SoFarSoGood]

Did I ever say I agreed with price manipulation? The current rise in grain and food futures is not about manipulation of market but about droughts.

[drone]

This quote has been tossed around for a while, not sure who actually put it out there first:

A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the majority discovers it can vote itself largess out of the public treasury.

Over the past 30 or so years, the financial sector has abandoned it's traditional role (facilitating business investment) and done it's best to extract money from the lower and middle classes. When the bubble burst and disposable income dried up, it has moved to raiding saved wealth in the form of retirement accounts and property, and ultimately the collective savings account of the people. The above quote has been proven false, a small minority now has the keys to the Treasury. We payed them voluntarily, then indirectly, and now at the point of a gun.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Can you imagine any level of inequality that would be dangerous for social cohesion? Or is that impossible?

He's deflecting - he's taking Strike's complaint about extreme inequality of opportunity and making it about inequality of outcome.

Certainly. The underclass will always envy what the creative class has built. History has shown that the higher the level of perceived economic inequality, the greater the level of social disharmony. This thread is a perfect example. People are railing against Wall Street and unnamed 'speculators' without taking any personal responsibility for their own economic conditions. It is easier to play victim than acknowledge poor choices. Wall Street is powerful in the country because the underclasses willfully hand over their money to the speculators. Everyone was perfectly happy entrusting their financial future to the street until they weren't.

None of that means that I must accept the premise that you and I are inherently equal in our ability to create value or that we should, in fact, enjoy rough economic parity. The differences in our intelligence, work ethic, upbringing and several dozen other individual factors determine our relative success.

Yes, because you changed the sentence. I chose my words very carefully.

Wall Street are not "the creative class" they are merchants, merchants buy and sell goods made by others and take a cut of the profits. You employ a merchant to sell your goods because you calculate that even after he takes his cut you will still be better off than if you had tried to sell yourself. Wall Street traders belong to the same economic class as Record Producers.

The true "creative class" are engineers, software developers, inventors, and also artists and artisans - these are the people who create salable products - the middle class. Below them you have the working class, manual labourers, lumberjacks, miners, farmers, and also people like truck drivers and merchant sailors, and also the manual elements of the service sector who wait tables and get you your coffee.

The current problem stems from the overblown % cut the merchants are taking from the producers, and just keeping and not even spending.

[gaelic cowboy]

Did I ever say I agreed with price manipulation? The current rise in grain and food futures is not about manipulation of market but about droughts.

I'm not accusing you of it either instead I am merely trying to explain to you that futures contracts are for hedging the price you pay in the future.

Basically there not about encouraging an increase in capacity but are however used to ensure an agreed price tomorrow.