Originally Posted by Gilles de Rais

You mean like the fax machines?

Fax machines are merely technical. They just required an extension of the same practice, not a change in ewxisting practice.

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And we actively purchased it?

And so what? Part of the cruch today is that people would like to buy some debt but can't; which demonstrates that it wasn;t "the customer" who twisted the banks arms to make debt available.

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Well, then, i want the regulators, the rating agencies, the politicians, the Fed officials and the borrowers to be all held similarly responsible.

... becuase you wan't the blame and culpabaility to be diffuse. You're letting the guilty off the hook.

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As I said before, the germs of this crisis were planted when we started to move towards a 19C-style capitalism and the lack of salary growth led to rising inequalities... Thereafter, every actor played its role that led to this crisis...

So it was all inevtiable, nopbody can be held to account, nobody has to retain responsibility, we all just have to shrtug our shoulders and say it was in the lap of the gods?

Nonsense. This is a crisis that was inflicted upon us by the banks.

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Intent usually matters in things like attribution of guilt...

Then clearly all drunk drivers must be innocent, becuase as a rule they never explicitly intend to run down a party of schoolchildren at a zebra crossing.

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Nationalisation, esp. as I imagine you'd carry it out without indemnisation, is going to be unfair...

Why?

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Oh c'mon, Contra. Do you think the fact that their system collapsed might have had something to do with it? And are you seriously going to argue that Soviet Russia was efficient at delivering lifestyle advances to its people?

Are "lifestyle advances" a sufficient trade-off for sharply increased mortality? The phenomenon of "Ostalgia" is not a joke, and when set alongside the massive damage infliucted by Capitalism when it has been omposed by zealots, quite reasonable.

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But, in general, basing your model on the idea that markets may not clear or do so below optimum is associated with left wing parties with names such as "social democrats", "socialist party" etc.

Thats rather like opbserving that the view that your birth sign does not affect your life is associated with astronomers, but it can't be assumed that anyone who takes that position is an astronomer.

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You'll have to explain to me how getting a nasty supply shock crisis converted into a full-fledged stagflation crisis was "ordinary people getting better off"...

I didn't say it was. I pointed out that capitalism only offers a Hobson's choice - either crises, or impoverishment.

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But I am not blind to their short comings or the mistakes they made previously. You're so in love with them and so blinded by your hatred you say you understand the wage-price spiral issue and STILL can't accept that unions did the wrong thing

Becuase they were not doing thew wrong thing. And as for your emotive appeals, I would merely respond that you're so in love with the banks that y ou can't accept they did the wrong thing.

I ask again: are ordinary working people allowed to act in their own interests? Becuase if they are, the Unions did exactly the right thing, and the fact that your shitty capitalist system can't handle that is something you need to explain, not I. furthermore, you bemoan the return to C19th style of capitalism, which was of course precisely the result of gutting the unions. Isn't that ironic?

Originally Posted by contracycle

Fax machines are merely technical. They just required an extension of the same practice, not a change in existing practice.

What was the change in existing practice brought by the greater penetration of CC? Debt is debt. It's always valued the same way: Probability of defaut (& recovery rate).

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And so what? Part of the crunch today is that people would like to buy some debt but can't; which demonstrates that it wasn't "the customer" who twisted the banks arms to make debt available.

They wouldn't have been able to anyhow. But that's my point: It takes two to tango.

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... because you wan't the blame and culpabaility to be diffuse. You're letting the guilty off the hook.

No. Because I want things to be properly described.

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So it was all inevitiable, nobody can be held to account, nobody has to retain responsibility, we all just have to shrug our shoulders and say it was in the lap of the gods?

Nope. There's nothing inevitable about choosing to regress to the 19C style of capitalism. But once that choice was made, it's not entirely surprising that we are re-experiencing 19C-like crisis...

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Nonsense. This is a crisis that was inflicted upon us by the banks.

Fine. If you too blinded by your hatred to even see the bigger picture on this one, so be it. But, i'll tell you, once you've thrown all those evil bankers on their asses or even break up the banks, if you change nothing else, you'll still have the same result. In the 1920s, people didn't have credit cards - That didn't stop them running high level of personal debt. They didn't have sophisticated computers able to compute the price of derivatives, which anyhow is based on a formula that wasn't invented then - They still managed to leverage themselves up to the rafters...

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Then clearly all drunk drivers must be innocent, becuase as a rule they never explicitly intend to run down a party of schoolchildren at a zebra crossing.

... but i still think it's different from starting your car with the intention of running down kids...

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Why?

Because you ought to pay for the things you take? Didn't your mother tell you that?

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Are "lifestyle advances" a sufficient trade-off for sharply increased mortality?

? I am not sure I am following your reasoning. For most people in Eastern Europe, the system hasn't recovered yet to the point where the majority benefits from these 'lifestyle advances' so your objection is weird. But the point is we have the good life, the consumer goods, all the stuff that made them salivate with envy and that their system was unable to deliver to them.

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The phenomenon of "Ostalgia" is not a joke, and when set alongside the massive damage infliucted by Capitalism when it has been omposed by zealots, quite reasonable.

I probably have closer ties than you to Eastern Europe. I am perfectly aware of the phenemom and it is an entirely understandable one. The point remains - The West created a wealth, even for its poor-ish members, that the USSR could not match. Their clothes were shit (except furs, somehow), their TVs were shit, their shoes were shit, their fridges were shit, having an imported VCR was a sign of belonging to the party's elite etc etc etc. All the consumer goods that most westerners, even poor ones, get, they could only dream about.

So, I repeat - Are you going to defy evidence and pretend that the USSR was any good at delivering that kind of consumer goods?

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I didn't say it was.

!??! Then, how was it that the unions were in the right? Recall: "Shrug. So you might say; they and I would of course disagree". Or are you trying to say something like: "Well, the unions only wanted what's normal - inflation indexed salaries - and if that simple demand means things degenerate into stagflation, then it's everybody else's fault"...

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Becuase they were not doing the wrong thing.

That's like trying to have your cake and eat it too. If the actions of the unions helped unleash stagflation, it was the wrong thing to do. They certainly didn't mean for things to turn out that way so I don't think they're guilty, to use your term in a parallel with banks but it certainly means they were wrong.

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And as for your emotive appeals, I would merely respond that you're so in love with the banks that y ou can't accept they did the wrong thing.

Banks did 3 things wrong: They overleveraged themselves. Their compensation structure rewarded excessive risk-taking. And they thought that history stopped at the point where they could no longer get enough data to perform statistical analysis.

I am not particularly in love with the banks per se. If I had to have some love for a vague entity like that, it'd be more likely to be hedge funds.

I am not being emotive just to be emotive. I actually don't think you're being rational/objective here.

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I ask again: are ordinary working people allowed to act in their own interests? Becuase if they are, the Unions did exactly the right thing, and the fact that your shitty capitalist system can't handle that is something you need to explain, not I.

Note to what I wrote above. You are actually indeed saying that. Ah well, then. Well, remember the paradox of thrift? How the actions that make sense at an individual level turns out in aggregated to be disastrous? Well, that's basically the same thing. And thus, I ask again: Was it in the ordinary western worker own interest to see his economies entering stagflation?

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Furthermore, you bemoan the return to C19th style of capitalism, which was of course precisely the result of gutting the unions. Isn't that ironic?

Yes, it is. But, well, one, the return to C19th style of capitalism isn't solely defined by weak unions. Two, unions wouldn't have been able to really stop it, I don't think. And, three, just because I admit that the unions have an important role to play doesn't mean they're perfect or faultless. Kinda like the banks, really. Important. Should be around. But not allowed to do any odd things they dream up on the pretext that they're important...

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Originally Posted by Gilles de Rais

What was the change in existing practice brought by the greater penetration of CC? Debt is debt. It's always valued the same way: Probability of defaut (& recovery rate).

The change in practice was the CDO's and the magicking away of risk.

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They wouldn't have been able to anyhow. But that's my point: It takes two to tango.

But that doesn;t mean that blame can or should be equally apportioned.

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No. Because I want things to be properly described.

Funnily enough, that's what I want too.

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Nope. There's nothing inevitable about choosing to regress to the 19C style of capitalism. But once that choice was made, it's not entirely surprising that we are re-experiencing 19C-like crisis...

And which machiavellian entity made such a choice? Our return to C19th is nothing more than the process I have always maintained applied, the eating away of the gains made by social democracy. Which is of the natural tendency of capitalism.

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Fine. If you too blinded by your hatred to even see the bigger picture on this one, so be it. But, i'll tell you, once you've thrown all those evil bankers on their asses or even break up the banks, if you change nothing else, you'll still have the same result.

I would expect nothing less, becuase crises are an unavoidable part of capitalism. But that doesn;t alter the fact that there was no external emergency, no material catastrophe, and that all of this arose due to actions by and within the banks.

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In the 1920s, people didn't have credit cards - That didn't stop them running high level of personal debt. They didn't have sophisticated computers able to compute the price of derivatives, which anyhow is based on a formula that wasn't invented then - They still managed to leverage themselves up to the rafters...

Of course they did, for the same reason - speculation replaced productivity as a way to get rich quick, and everyone was buying on margin for specualtive purposes. Indeed thew two crises are very similar.

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... but i still think it's different from starting your car with the intention of running down kids...

that may be so but you can hardly saay the kids are equally to blame for also being on the roads.

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Because you ought to pay for the things you take? Didn't your mother tell you that?

They took it from us. We would only be taking it back.

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? I am not sure I am following your reasoning. For most people in Eastern Europe, the system hasn't recovered yet to the point where the majority benefits from these 'lifestyle advances' so your objection is weird. But the point is we have the good life, the consumer goods, all the stuff that made them salivate with envy and that their system was unable to deliver to them.

And I would suggest that the important part of that is the limits we placed on capitalism which, you acknoweldge, are being and have been eroded. The introduction of unfettered capitalism has been universally disastrous everywhere, from C19th England to the re3srtucturing of South American economies to the "reforms" in Eastern Europe.

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So, I repeat - Are you going to defy evidence and pretend that the USSR was any good at delivering that kind of consumer goods?

That isn;t at all what I meant. But I would point out that this really occurred in a period in which Western capitalism was curtailed by the social democratic aspirations of the post-war period, and is not typical for capitalism as such, which left to itself produces poverty on a massive scale.

The soviet system was rather different to simply imposing 80% tax rates and having state run enterprises, both of which were in fact features of the UK up until the 1980's. So in fact the very period in which you claim the West was superior to the USSR featured precisely these things that you know claim would be equivalent to state capitalism.

And again, you criticise a return to C19th capitalism while funcitonally defending the very moves that have headed us in that direction.

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!??! Then, how was it that the unions were in the right? Recall: "Shrug. So you might say; they and I would of course disagree". Or are you trying to say something like: "Well, the unions only wanted what's normal - inflation indexed salaries - and if that simple demand means things degenerate into stagflation, then it's everybody else's fault"...

BEvcuase they were perfectly correct to seek to defend their wages and conditions, and to think that the purpose of the economy is to make everyone, not just the rich, better off. Apparently that is an impossible demand for capitalism to bear.

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That's like trying to have your cake and eat it too. If the actions of the unions helped unleash stagflation, it was the wrong thing to do. They certainly didn't mean for things to turn out that way so I don't think they're guilty, to use your term in a parallel with banks but it certainly means they were wrong.

What this really means is that the response of the Powers That Be to such wage demands would have inflicted stagflation.

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I am not being emotive just to be emotive. I actually don't think you're being rational/objective here.

Fair enough. I see your position the same way.

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Note to what I wrote above. You are actually indeed saying that. Ah well, then. Well, remember the paradox of thrift? How the actions that make sense at an individual level turns out in aggregated to be disastrous? Well, that's basically the same thing. And thus, I ask again: Was it in the ordinary western worker own interest to see his economies entering stagflation?

Obviously not, but seeing as the alternative has seen a flattening of real wages and the accelerated concentration of wealth at the top, they haven't benefitted from being compelled - often by state violence - to back down either.

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Yes, it is. But, well, one, the return to C19th style of capitalism isn't solely defined by weak unions. Two, unions wouldn't have been able to really stop it, I don't think. And, three, just because I admit that the unions have an important role to play doesn't mean they're perfect or faultless. Kinda like the banks, really. Important. Should be around. But not allowed to do any odd things they dream up on the pretext that they're important...

I would contend that the presence of unions is absolutely fundamental to the control of outright C19th bandit capitalism, and more important than any other measure. It is the only means by which ordinary people gain a voice in how the economy operates, and to what ends. And the very actions for which you know criticise them are those that they are there to carry out, and the fact that they were defeated has lead precisely to the form of capitalism you know claim to reject. In other words, you will the end, but not the means.