no influenece

[knkali]

ScottM. First row here. The only problem with your financial derivatives story is that you are starting at the midpoint. Reseach back and see how that table was set. Thanks.

not sure what you mean there. Please explain.

[O'Dell]

I can't see how American Corps can have more effect on politics than those in Japan. Over there the Corps practically run the government.

[marcinstl]

well there's a glimmer of hope, here's the good news---- (http://finance.yahoo.com/news/new-su...162831796.html)
New subprime-loan giant created from spare parts of AIG and Citi

Wall Street is celebrating the creation of a new subprime-lending leader from the spare parts of two financial giants at the center of the global financial crisis.

Springleaf Holdings Inc. (LEAF), a former subprime lending division of American International Group Inc. (AIG), has agreed to buy Citigroup Inc.’s (C) OneMain Financial, for $4.25 billion in cash.

The deal – which has been anticipated for a while but was cut at a far lower price than analysts expected – sent Springleaf shares soaring by as much 30% this morning to more than $52.

Clearly, lending to the desperate remains a pretty good business in Wall Street’s eyes."

so, stop renting that trailer and buy a house at the very beginning of the next great bubble. yippeee!

[ScottM]

I can't see how American Corps can have more effect on politics than those in Japan. Over there the Corps practically run the government.

Touche. 10 points to Griffendore!

Though, wouldn't that include Tesco's influence on their nuclear regulatory stance?

[b4uqzme]

not sure what you mean there. Please explain.

Sure. Scott's story talks about the creation of a risky financial derivatives market and the subsequent real estate bust that sent our economy spiraling. But the story actually starts several decades before with the government getting in and out of the way and creating a market for those derivatives. Scott's story actually is a textbook example of my point. Had the G stayed out from the beginning, there never would have been an artificially inflated real estate market that created the opportunity for the derivatives market. The subsequent bust is the free market making a correction for all the previous monkey business. The price system will always move towards equilibrium. Note: monopolies do not operate at the market equilibrium. That's why Scott's assessment that free market economics breed monopolies is false. Yes, they can appear in the short run but only government intervention can keep them there.

[b4uqzme]

^^^ economics is a big picture discipline. It is too easy to look at a small snippet of the market, a few events, and project from them grand assumptions about the whole economy.

[b4uqzme]

^^^^ regarding "megacorps". It is commonly assumed that conservatives are in bed with the megacorps. Well I'll agree with you that conservative politicians are usually in bed with them. And I'll argue that liberal politicians are too. Please don't confuse the principles of free market economics with the manipulations of corrupt politicians. Conservative PEOPLE want to limit the role of government so our economy cannot be so easily corrupted. Any of this making sense yet?

[b4uqzme]

...In fact, America has never had pure capitalism. Ever. There has always been a need to hold individuals and groups accountable for their public impacts, all the way back to colonial days when citizens would haul exploitive shop owners into the square for a proper beating.

This is absolutely correct. In fact the "hybrid" model is a tenuous one and the source of a lot of our issues. Some of it is a necessary evil but most of the G's involvement is over-reaching.

[b4uqzme]

....Also, when Government stays completely out of the way, corporations consolidate into monopolies to remove choices to maximize advantage. I've worked in very large companies for 25 years and the pattern is the same across nearly every sector. That's why there are long-standing public rules against monopoly. Without those, and that's what pure corporatists/capitalists want, Average Joe Citizen is removed of even his most trailing influence on the corporations.

And anyway...what's so scary about monopolies in the long run? What if, back in the day, I had a monopoly on cathode ray tubes? Would the world be worse off today? I'd just be a little richer and we'd all still be sitting at our touch screens.

[b4uqzme]

.... To most here, it's a binary proposition - everything is regulated or nothing is regulated. Since folks here by self-selection don't want their firearm choices to be regulated, there is a propensity to believe that any regulation is bad and that anyone who wants to do so for any reason is a Marxist/Socialist/Nazi/Illuminati/Liberal/Tyrant/Mouth Breather.

Correct. I'm just trying to articulate what our co-members understand in their guts. It manifests as a general distrust of government intervention. And it's not a bad thing.

[b4uqzme]

To not understand free markets is to not understand incentive. The desire to better oneself is very, very powerful. One could argue that a greater and greater segment of America is losing that desire. Many fault corporations. But they only want to sell you things so they can make money...and give you jobs so you can make their things and afford to buy their things. It is the government that has thrown up roadblocks and bred a culture of entitlement...

I argue that the desire has not diminished. But because so many feel helpless and hopeless, their desire is projected as jealousy and destructive behavior.

[marcinstl]

there is no such thing in reality as a free market. free market capitalism is a fantasy of economics professors who smoke a lot of opium. what there is on Wall St. and every other market around the world are fixed, rigged, manipulated markets. nothing free or fair or intelligent about markets. reversion to mean-- humbug! every once and a while I have to page thru the classic, "Reminiscences of a Stock Operator" (life and times of Jesse Livermore) and giggle about how all the laws, computers and algorithms haven't changed the market one little bit. in any market there is a buyer and a seller and one of then is a chump. politics is just one of the tools used in the above mentioned manipulation.
do something positive with your life, find a stock that's going to double this year, trade it like your an assassin.

[b4uqzme]

^^^ wow. Just wow.

[SlowBurn]

in any market there is a buyer and a seller and one of then is a chump.

So I buy a nice Kahr at a price I think is more than fair for the weapon, and the dealer and the distributor and Kahr all make a nice profit which keeps them in business and able to make and sell nice guns for other people. Who is the "chump" in that transaction?

[marcinstl]

your never going to win on Wall St. with that nice guy consumer attitude. you buy when there's blood in the streets. sell when everybody thinks they are a market genius.
buy that Kahr for $50 from a guy who needs cash for his kids operation. sell it for $5000 to some drunk you roped into believing it's the gun that killed Hitler. hehehehe. have fun.