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Most tyrannies rely on a combination of violence and rewards to keep their people in check. Some like the demonic North Koreans are all about fear and violence, as they have almost nothing to give out in the way of rewards. But unless a regime has gone past the point of no return, like Syria, where the Sunni vs. non-Sunni bloodshed has made politics simply a genocidal fight to the death, a healthy level of benefits must be showered on government supporters to maintain power.
A lot of the conventional Venezuela analysis tends to dwell on the fact that perhaps 50% of the country still supports the current regime, but forgets this is a cash-and-carry constituency. The goodies are about to end, the currency is collapsing and there may soon be nothing even to eat. Bereft of hand-outs, the adoring crowds will lose interest and the rent-a-thugs will vanish.
Blog: The End of Chavismo in Venezuela?
I agree. Socialism ends when the goodies end. And when the goodies finally run out for the Too Big To Fail banks, they will transform overnight into Too Big To Save banks. And God help us all then.
I agree. Socialism ends when the goodies end. And when the goodies finally run out for the Too Big To Fail banks, they will transform overnight into Too Big To Save banks. And God help us all then.
I agree. Socialism ends when the goodies end. And when the goodies finally run out for the Too Big To Fail banks, they will transform overnight into Too Big To Save banks. And God help us all then.
I agree. Socialism ends when the goodies end. And when the goodies finally run out for the Too Big To Fail banks, they will transform overnight into Too Big To Save banks. And God help us all then.
The way that is written, implies it's an on going thing. It's not. It's over dude. TARP is done.
Now I agree, we should end all of that completely. But I don't see this "god help us all situation". There have been numerous examples, where governments simply allowed banks to fail, and it didn't cause nation wide devastation.
Iceland, allowed their banks to fail. And... they failed. Iceland recovered from this back in 2010, and has recorded 5% GDP growth, and stable employment since then. (last I checked)
Estonia back in the 90s, allowed their banks to fail. Estonia has had recorded economic growth, up to the 2008 down turn. And the recession was over for Estonia in 2010.
In fact, if you go back to the 1800s in England, they were bailing out banks left and right. Finally they said no more bailouts. There was one final large bank failure, and the government completely stepped back, and simply allowed it to fail completely. After that, there was no bank failures for almost 100 years!
It didn't ruin the country. Lehman Brothers was allowed to fail, and it didn't ruin the country.
LET THEM FAIL. Just let the free-market capitalists system work. It DOES work.
Two possible avenues present themselves when Socialism fails (and it always does):
1) Full on Communism under a murderous despot, or
2) A resurgence of independence/personal responsibility/freedom/free market/prosperity.
I agree. Socialism ends when the goodies end. And when the goodies finally run out for the Too Big To Fail banks, they will transform overnight into Too Big To Save banks. And God help us all then.
Only keep enough money in the bank to pay your monthly expenses.
Whatever is left over, convert the paper money to silver or gold.
I agree. Socialism ends when the goodies end. And when the goodies finally run out for the Too Big To Fail banks, they will transform overnight into Too Big To Save banks. And God help us all then.
The way that is written, implies it's an on going thing. It's not. It's over dude. TARP is done.
Now I agree, we should end all of that completely. But I don't see this "god help us all situation". There have been numerous examples, where governments simply allowed banks to fail, and it didn't cause nation wide devastation.
Iceland, allowed their banks to fail. And... they failed. Iceland recovered from this back in 2010, and has recorded 5% GDP growth, and stable employment since then. (last I checked)
Estonia back in the 90s, allowed their banks to fail. Estonia has had recorded economic growth, up to the 2008 down turn. And the recession was over for Estonia in 2010.
In fact, if you go back to the 1800s in England, they were bailing out banks left and right. Finally they said no more bailouts. There was one final large bank failure, and the government completely stepped back, and simply allowed it to fail completely. After that, there was no bank failures for almost 100 years!
It didn't ruin the country. Lehman Brothers was allowed to fail, and it didn't ruin the country.
LET THEM FAIL. Just let the free-market capitalists system work. It DOES work.
Yup! These "bail outs" only prolong the inevitable (and will actually make the end result much worse). Sooner or later, our current economic situation is doomed to fail. The idiots in charge still think that printing more paper money and bailing out the Lehman Brother types is the answer. This anti-free-market "solution" is foolish.
Two possible avenues present themselves when Socialism fails (and it always does):
1) Full on Communism under a murderous despot, or
2) A resurgence of independence/personal responsibility/freedom/free market/prosperity.
Absolutely, and typically, Socialists in government, never take responsibility for the failure of their ideology.
Instead, they simply find someone to blame. It wasn't sub-prime loans pushed by government, through Fannie and Freddie.... no no, it was the evil banks.
Or in Venezuela, it was the evil Capitalist American. Or in North Korea, its the evil capitalist South Korea. Or in Vietnam it was the evil western educated people with eye glasses.
This is why typically the result is 1... Full on Communism under a murderous despot. It does happen that sometimes people swing back the other way, but not often. Chile is a great example, but it only happened because of Pinochet which of course the leftists hate.
The way that is written, implies it's an on going thing. It's not. It's over dude. TARP is done.
Now I agree, we should end all of that completely. But I don't see this "god help us all situation". There have been numerous examples, where governments simply allowed banks to fail, and it didn't cause nation wide devastation.
Iceland, allowed their banks to fail. And... they failed. Iceland recovered from this back in 2010, and has recorded 5% GDP growth, and stable employment since then. (last I checked)
Estonia back in the 90s, allowed their banks to fail. Estonia has had recorded economic growth, up to the 2008 down turn. And the recession was over for Estonia in 2010.
In fact, if you go back to the 1800s in England, they were bailing out banks left and right. Finally they said no more bailouts. There was one final large bank failure, and the government completely stepped back, and simply allowed it to fail completely. After that, there was no bank failures for almost 100 years!
It didn't ruin the country. Lehman Brothers was allowed to fail, and it didn't ruin the country.
LET THEM FAIL. Just let the free-market capitalists system work. It DOES work.
Yup! These "bail outs" only prolong the inevitable (and will actually make the end result much worse). Sooner or later, our current economic situation is doomed to fail. The idiots in charge still think that printing more paper money and bailing out the Lehman Brother types is the answer. This anti-free-market "solution" is foolish.
Oh no. I doubt that. In the case of Japan, they actually bailed out their banks, which really did prolong the inevitable. That's how they ended up with the lost decade, and the zombie firms.
In our case, we didn't actually 'bail out' the banks. The whole "bank bailout" is not actually true. We didn't bail out any bank.
The way our system worked, is that we paid profitable healthy banks, to purchase bad banks. We didn't give money to Countrywide, we gave money to Bank of America, to buy Countrywide. BoA was not in trouble, nor did they need a bailout. Why did we do this?
When a bank goes into bankruptcy, the assets of the bank are sold off to the highest bidder, and whatever money comes, is given to the creditors. Generally this means the creditors lose money, because obviously the assets are not worth as much as they cost (borrowed), or the bank would not have been bankrupt.
What our system did was, give money to the buying bank, to buy out the bank before it went bankrupt.
The result is exactly the same, with one difference. The creditors got their money back.
It's like buying a car that I borrowed $5,000 buy, but I damaged it. You want to buy the car, but it's not worth $5,000. It's worth only $3,000.
If I went bankrupt, the car would be sold off for what you would buy it for, and I'd end up with nothing, and my creditors that I borrowed the $5,000 would end up with $3,000 losing $2,000.
What the government did was step in, and tell you, we'll give you $2,000 to buy that car. So again I end up with nothing, but my creditors that I borrowed $5,000, will get their $5,000.
That's what happened. The banks that failed, failed just like they would under bankruptcy. Exactly the same. The only differences is, the creditors of Bear Stearns were paid back in full, but the creditors of Lehman Brothers were not.
To the point.... the banks that were failing, have failed. Their gone. There is no "day of reckoning" coming.
So as it stands today, we're good. There are no real problems in the works banking wise. There are some problems in GM, Ford, and Chrysler auto loans. That could be the next big failure.
That's the short term. In the long term, the real problem is the incentives to the creditors.
Back to my car example. In the first example, would the bank loan me money again? No, cause they lost $2,000. But what about the second? Yes, they might, because through the government, they got all their money back.
The creditors of Bear Stearns got all their money back. They may lend to another risky institution again, knowing the government may not bail out the bank, but it will bail them out.
Today there are no institutions doing that.... but there will be, because the creditors will be willing to fund them.... thanks to the government.
The whole "bank bailout" is not actually true. We didn't bail out any bank.
I keep hoping that one of these days people like you will actually learn what Socialism is, and what Capitalism is for that matter, and it will never happen. Carry on...President Obama is so busy doing nothing about Crimea and Ukraine, he has no time to make a show of doing nothing about the crisis in Venezuela.
That may be just as well, since it appears the end may finally be coming for the Chavista rulers put in power by the late Hugo Chavez.
Most tyrannies rely on a combination of violence and rewards to keep their people in check. Some like the demonic North Koreans are all about fear and violence, as they have almost nothing to give out in the way of rewards. But unless a regime has gone past the point of no return, like Syria, where the Sunni vs. non-Sunni bloodshed has made politics simply a genocidal fight to the death, a healthy level of benefits must be showered on government supporters to maintain power.
A lot of the conventional Venezuela analysis tends to dwell on the fact that perhaps 50% of the country still supports the current regime, but forgets this is a cash-and-carry constituency. The goodies are about to end, the currency is collapsing and there may soon be nothing even to eat. Bereft of hand-outs, the adoring crowds will lose interest and the rent-a-thugs will vanish.
Blog: The End of Chavismo in Venezuela?
The whole "bank bailout" is not actually true. We didn't bail out any bank.
Funniest ignorant post of the week!!!
TARP was a bank bailout. ZIRP is an ongoing bank bailout. QE I, II, III, ad infinitum is on ongoing bank bailout. And the cost is coming out of your pocket, rube!
I keep hoping that one of these days people like you will actually learn what Socialism is, and what Capitalism is for that matter, and it will never happen. Carry on...President Obama is so busy doing nothing about Crimea and Ukraine, he has no time to make a show of doing nothing about the crisis in Venezuela.
That may be just as well, since it appears the end may finally be coming for the Chavista rulers put in power by the late Hugo Chavez.
Most tyrannies rely on a combination of violence and rewards to keep their people in check. Some like the demonic North Koreans are all about fear and violence, as they have almost nothing to give out in the way of rewards. But unless a regime has gone past the point of no return, like Syria, where the Sunni vs. non-Sunni bloodshed has made politics simply a genocidal fight to the death, a healthy level of benefits must be showered on government supporters to maintain power.
A lot of the conventional Venezuela analysis tends to dwell on the fact that perhaps 50% of the country still supports the current regime, but forgets this is a cash-and-carry constituency. The goodies are about to end, the currency is collapsing and there may soon be nothing even to eat. Bereft of hand-outs, the adoring crowds will lose interest and the rent-a-thugs will vanish.
Blog: The End of Chavismo in Venezuela?
