The Bigger The Government, The Lower The Growth

[vinoveri]

Re: The Bigger The Government, The Lower The Growth

Fine. Go the the White House and to the leaders of BOTH political parties and tell them they have to return all contributions from FIRE, and start criminal prosecution of the culprits.

Oh wait, the President and leading politicians of both parties Are culprits!

Yeah, like the recent delayed implementation of the Volcker rule, and the last minute "adjustment" during Christmas week to keep the Treasury on the hook to bail out "derivatives gone bad"? I mean, really, I have never heard a cogent argument (other than we can't let any of the big money-center banks fail b/c it would destroy the world -puhlease ), by anyone why it was in "THE INTEREST OF THE PEOPLE OF TE UNITED STATES" - and you know why, b/c/ it ain't - the capture and puppet mastering of the political class by the bankers is so obvious and so in your face - and the absence of any change or hint of change is infuriating. Ron Paul 2016!! - oops he ain't running; let's see American people, you're choices for change will be ..... Hillary Clinton or Jeb Bush -OMG

Come on fellow iTulipers, you know who you are, who would vote for Clinton or Bush? Let's not talk change and then vote for overlords.

[touchring]

Re: The Bigger The Government, The Lower The Growth

That's easy propaganda to spout when you're cherry picking countries and neglecting to mention the 800lb gorilla in the room (China). Also, I'd note, as I have before, that Singapore's functionally a one-party dictatorship of the Lee family. Sure, taxes on rich people are low. But unless you consider jail time and caning for chewing gum, $70,000 mandatory permits to own a car, and life sentences for smoking a joint "small government," it's a bit of a misnomer.

Not sure if dictatorship is a correct term since there are elections, but just like the US, Singapore is controlled by oligarchs that have grown too powerful and controls the MSM. But while the Singapore oligarchy themselves run the government, in the US, bankers indirectly appoint and control the candidates.

While the oligarchs in the US collectively are the most powerful entity in the world, as we have seen to Ukraine and the Russian ruble and Ferguson, the oligarch in Singapore are much more vulnerable due to the size of Singapore and openness of the economy, and so must portray a positive image to the outside world, and therefore still need to show that they can win elections.

Balance of power is very important, it's better for the man on the street if governments and the oligarchy don't gain too much power.

[Milton Kuo]

Re: The Bigger The Government, The Lower The Growth

You and dcarrigg are having a difficult time with blanket generalizations. Saying that the "rich" do this or that is inaccurate and frankly unfair. I will post a rhetorically and structurally identical sentence to what you posted and change only some words for words of an identical type (i.e. nouns to describe demographic circumstance for nouns to describe demographic circumstance), and see if you can identify the problems with them which are glaring:

Please remove my name from any part of the attribution in your modified quote. Let it state very clearly that those are your words alone and are not influenced by my words. That statement, removing its offensive tone, is not logically equivalent to the one I make.

Demographically speaking, most violent crimes in Chicago are committed by blacks. Does that mean that blacks are the violent criminals?

Again, bankers control large financial systems and are rich, but the rich are not necessarily bankers who control large financial systems.

If English is a second language then I apologize for the confusion my concise wording may have caused, but please be more careful while reading and typing. Dehumanize people at your own risk.

While English is a second language for me, it is the language in which I am most fluent.

If you read my comment again, you'll note that my wording was actually chosen fairly carefully. Nowhere do I state the logical fallacy that bankers are rich and therefore the rich are bankers. Also, I stated that the rich possess undue control or influence in the markets. From the New Oxford American Dictionary:

undue
adjective
unwarranted or inappropriate because excessive or disproportionate

I think that is quite an accurate description about my specific example of the stocks of banks being saved from oblivion. Warren Buffett had quite a few shares of stock in Wells Fargo and also, I believe, Bank of America when the crisis occurred. The Saudi prince Alwaleed also bought a lot of shares of Citigroup around the time of the crisis. I find it very difficult to believe that the decision to prevent the shareholders of those institutions from getting utterly wiped out was not influenced by this very small cohort of shareholders.

Take a vote of every adult in the U.S. and ask them in plain English (no lawyerese, no embedding the main question in the body of thousands of pages of other issues) if they would like to contribute money from their own pockets to prevent these shareholders from losing their foolish investment and I would be very, very surprised if even 20% would vote "yes."

When it comes to stock ownership, the richest 5% own something on the order of 60% or more of all stock. Note that I have not stated whether I think that is fair or not. However, I have indicated that bailing out a very small minority who make bad investments indicates that that very small minority has a disproportionate amount of influence and control in the market. The vast majority did not get a say at all in the market despite the fact that their position was one of greater rectitude.

I'll end with this:

Every election period, there are fundraiser dinners for political candidates. Participation at these dinners typically costs anywhere from $500 per seat to upwards or $10,000 or $20,000 per seat. Perhaps I'm mistaken and Joe Average is well-represented at such dinners but it seems that this is an opportunity for the very wealthy to make sure that their interests are given precedence over the interests of the majority of the population and perhaps against the long-term interests of the country.

How does that jibe with, "The 'rich' do not control markets. They strongly influence markets, but so do all people who play any role whatsoever in that market, to include consumers." How did "all people who play any role whatsoever" get a fair shake or even get a choice in the markets?

With the highly competitive prices (relative to other first-world nations) they pay for mobile phone and Internet services? With the extremely affordable prices (relative to other first-world nations) they pay for health care insurance and prescription medication prices?

They get a choice, all right. Tails, they lose; heads, their counterparty wins. Technically speaking, there is a choice but the end result is exactly the same.