Human Dignity and Happiness: The Moral Argument for the Right

[Iceweasel]

The idea that the government should have less power, and the banks more, is the kind of insanity that conservatism is best at producing.

That's the kind of rhetoric that defines the left. The point was less government means less power for the mega banks. Look at Jon Corzine for example, no sweetheart deals there?


Report: Obama Crony Jon Corzine Won't Be Prosecuted For Losing Billions in Private Investments - Katie Pavlich
Corzine is also the former CEO of MF Global, a now bankrupt company under Congressional and Department of Justice investigation for losing billions in private investments. According to the New York Times, Corzine won't be prosecuted for the loss of those private funds by Holder's DOJ.

 

[kaz]

You need to understand my position here I do not see a big divide between the banking industry and the government agencies charged with regulating them, one look at who sat/sits on these various agencies reveals not a bunch of communists but a bunch of big bank alumni who really don't do anything of value to anyone but the banks they used to work for and will again as soon as their terms are up.

Clearly big banks are in bed with government, it was big bankers who got the government to create the fed in the first place. But then you turn around and

1) You want to give government MORE power. WTF? You are asking for vodka tonics the morning after while you're hung over.

2) You equate the big banks with the market. See #1. Government isn't regulating banks to prevent them from doing stupid things, they are helping the big banks get bigger in an unholy alliance.

It is DEREGULATION that is the obvious fix to the problem. Reduce the power of government and their alliance with the big banks, and then the smaller players will do to them what Southwest, Air Tran and the newer airlines did to the legacy carriers.

You are putting poison in the poison. Think about it. More power = more big bank control and less competition. It does not equal more banking stability.

Deregulation was the banker's idea in the first place, we are not falling for that one again. The late nineties were a regulation battlefield where the bankers clearly won out and had a host of cautious banking regs stripped or rendered toothless, you think we need more of that? We need various consumer protections put back in place. Let the banks risk their own money on bullshit high risk casino bets if that's what they want.

Again, in the red. Government is in bed with big banks, so you want to give them MORE power. It's hard to take you seriously, you don't believe what you are saying, you just love government and you're trying to tailor the "facts" to support that. If you believed what you are saying, you would not advocate we give the unholy alliance you abhor more power. LOL. You're shallow.

And the big banks do not want "de" regulation, they are regulating to their own advantage. It stifles competition from up and comers to do the big deals. What we need is actual deregulation, not regulation parading in deregulation clothing.

Who got all the cheap government money? Big banks. Government funding big banks and skewing the market to big deals "de-regulation." Sure it is, Buddy, sure it is.

 

[kaz]

You are correct, Countrywide was once one of the most profitable financial institutions in the world.

It's Pete and Repeat. You two simpletons still don't know what a Ponzi scheme is.

I know exactly what it is and holy deregulation dogma made it all possible, Countrywide came about precisely because of deregulation and lax enforcement.

You like it because Madoff, who ran an actual Ponzi scheme, got lots of press for the term. You like the way the word "Ponzi scheme" sounds, and banks are "bad." So they are running "Ponzi" schemes. There is actually a definition though, and the definition isn't something you don't like. An actual Ponzi scheme is when you use money coming in from new investors to fund unsustainable profits for the existing investors, primarily the early ones. The loans were not made with new investor money, they were made with GOVERNMENT money. Learn to use Google for terms you don't understand.

I was a Michigan MBA in finance and I worked in global investment banking on Wall Street. I also worked for Booz Allen management consulting in their Financial Services Group in New York consulting for household names on Wall Street. On the other hand, you're parroting corrupt, power hungry lawyers who tell give you completely self serving things and then that they know more about finance than we do. Yeah.

 

[occupied]

It's Pete and Repeat. You two simpletons still don't know what a Ponzi scheme is.

I know exactly what it is and holy deregulation dogma made it all possible, Countrywide came about precisely because of deregulation and lax enforcement.

You like it because Madoff, who ran an actual Ponzi scheme, got lots of press for the term. You like the way the word "Ponzi scheme" sounds, and banks are "bad." So they are running "Ponzi" schemes. There is actually a definition though, and the definition isn't something you don't like. An actual Ponzi scheme is when you use money coming in from new investors to fund unsustainable profits for the existing investors, primarily the early ones. The loans were not made with new investor money, they were made with GOVERNMENT money. Learn to use Google for terms you don't understand.

I was a Michigan MBA in finance and I worked in global investment banking on Wall Street. I also worked for Booz Allen management consulting in their Financial Services Group in New York consulting for household names on Wall Street. On the other hand, you're parroting corrupt, power hungry lawyers who tell give you completely self serving things and then that they know more about finance than we do. Yeah.

Who are you parroting? The bankers who miraculously didn't get charged with any wrongdoing that's who, they paid a lot of cash to massage the conservative media into giving them a pass for 2008. When they crash the economy again, they better do more than hire PR firms, they better go hide somewhere where extradition is not possible.

Bragging about your credentials only makes you seem complicit rather than knowledgeable.

 

[Iceweasel]

The bankers who miraculously didn't get charged with any wrongdoing that's who, they paid a lot of cash to massage the conservative media into giving them a pass for 2008. W

Bragging about your credentials only makes you seem complicit rather than knowledgeable.

In other words, you have no credentials. What conservative media got the bankers' money? FOX News? Talk radio? And when did the media start filing charges? That's the government's role, look there for your answers.

 

[occupied]

The bankers who miraculously didn't get charged with any wrongdoing that's who, they paid a lot of cash to massage the conservative media into giving them a pass for 2008. W

Bragging about your credentials only makes you seem complicit rather than knowledgeable.

In other words, you have no credentials. What conservative media got the bankers' money? FOX News? Talk radio? And when did the media start filing charges? That's the government's role, look there for your answers.

I find it interesting that nowhere in conservativeland is there even a little bit of blame for the banking industry in the 2008 crash, none. I am fully willing to admit the government's part in the crash, and it was a big part, but no one on the right, knowing that the banking industry is filled with amoral greedy people, seems willing to even consider that they might have some responsibility for the crash. This kind of blind spot in your thinking is what the bankers count on to continue being amoral, greedy people without the slightest repercussions. Why do they get a free pass?

 

[kaz]

I know exactly what it is and holy deregulation dogma made it all possible, Countrywide came about precisely because of deregulation and lax enforcement.

You like it because Madoff, who ran an actual Ponzi scheme, got lots of press for the term. You like the way the word "Ponzi scheme" sounds, and banks are "bad." So they are running "Ponzi" schemes. There is actually a definition though, and the definition isn't something you don't like. An actual Ponzi scheme is when you use money coming in from new investors to fund unsustainable profits for the existing investors, primarily the early ones. The loans were not made with new investor money, they were made with GOVERNMENT money. Learn to use Google for terms you don't understand.

I was a Michigan MBA in finance and I worked in global investment banking on Wall Street. I also worked for Booz Allen management consulting in their Financial Services Group in New York consulting for household names on Wall Street. On the other hand, you're parroting corrupt, power hungry lawyers who tell give you completely self serving things and then that they know more about finance than we do. Yeah.

Who are you parroting? The bankers who miraculously didn't get charged with any wrongdoing that's who, they paid a lot of cash to massage the conservative media into giving them a pass for 2008. When they crash the economy again, they better do more than hire PR firms, they better go hide somewhere where extradition is not possible.

Bragging about your credentials only makes you seem complicit rather than knowledgeable.

Again there's a fundamental difference which shows what a house of cards your argument is built on.

Government: One entity with one strategy

Financial services industry: Thousands of companies, each with their own strategy.

You are parroting one entity with one message.

You're trying to portray us cats as herded and on the same page. In fact, I keep telling you that's clearly not the case. Government created the one playing field with regulations, threats against executives to make more sub-prime loans and they funded it all. Yet you are saying that all the individuals on the playing field who were competing against each other all chose the same strategy and failed at the same time in the same way.

Your story fails the smell test, badly.

Yes, we dropped a bomb on the battlefield, but that wasn't what killed them. The other side just all just independently suddenly decided to kill themselves at the same time. That's your story, and you're sticking with it...

 

[hazlnut]

I can't stand it when liberals try to claim the moral high ground in the debates, and the conservatives are left without a response based on morality. It's so blatantly obvious based on GDP and economic growth data that free enterprise works. Free markets and limited government beat bureaucracy and central planning every day of the week. GDP growth from decades and decades confirms this beyond the tiniest shadow of a doubt. But liberals always talk about how free enterprise is "unfair" and "hurts the little man". We need our own moral argument, and it's pretty simple.

We as conservatives/libertarians believe that people need more than just relief provided by welfare(or the "compassion", as liberals call it). They need empowerment. Liberals always focus on relief, but the real measure of economic success is how many people become self-sufficient, self-reliant individuals. Studies show that people are happier when they feel they've earned their own success. Barack Obama can't give you happiness and fulfill your hopes and dreams. Only the individual can. That's what the right is all about. We're the party of free markets, individual initiative, and capitalism. Our policies ensure that every person has the opportunity to pursue their own happiness and achieve their own hopes and dreams. We need to go to every ghetto in America and preach our message. I believe that most people who are trapped in welfare don't sincerely want to be there for the rest of their lives. We need to focus on providing the opportunity to get out of welfare. Let's win one for free enterprise and opportunity, not bigger government.

Straw man much?

 

[occupied]

You like it because Madoff, who ran an actual Ponzi scheme, got lots of press for the term. You like the way the word "Ponzi scheme" sounds, and banks are "bad." So they are running "Ponzi" schemes. There is actually a definition though, and the definition isn't something you don't like. An actual Ponzi scheme is when you use money coming in from new investors to fund unsustainable profits for the existing investors, primarily the early ones. The loans were not made with new investor money, they were made with GOVERNMENT money. Learn to use Google for terms you don't understand.

I was a Michigan MBA in finance and I worked in global investment banking on Wall Street. I also worked for Booz Allen management consulting in their Financial Services Group in New York consulting for household names on Wall Street. On the other hand, you're parroting corrupt, power hungry lawyers who tell give you completely self serving things and then that they know more about finance than we do. Yeah.

Who are you parroting? The bankers who miraculously didn't get charged with any wrongdoing that's who, they paid a lot of cash to massage the conservative media into giving them a pass for 2008. When they crash the economy again, they better do more than hire PR firms, they better go hide somewhere where extradition is not possible.

Bragging about your credentials only makes you seem complicit rather than knowledgeable.

Again there's a fundamental difference which shows what a house of cards your argument is built on.

Government: One entity with one strategy

Financial services industry: Thousands of companies, each with their own strategy.

You are parroting one entity with one message.

You're trying to portray us cats as herded and on the same page. In fact, I keep telling you that's clearly not the case. Government created the one playing field with regulations, threats against executives to make more sub-prime loans and they funded it all. Yet you are saying that all the individuals on the playing field who were competing against each other all chose the same strategy and failed at the same time in the same way.

Your story fails the smell test, badly.

Yes, we dropped a bomb on the battlefield, but that wasn't what killed them. The other side just all just independently suddenly decided to kill themselves at the same time. That's your story, and you're sticking with it...

Nobody wants a panic, no one purposely engineers a panic (I hope), but they still occur and suck nearly everyone down no matter what they did, why do you keep ridiculing the notion that everyone failed at the same time? for such a knowledgeable person you seem remarkably ignorant of the nature of a widespread economic panic during which practically everyone does do the same thing, they sell off risk.

 

[Iceweasel]

I find it interesting that nowhere in conservativeland is there even a little bit of blame for the banking industry in the 2008 crash, none. I am fully willing to admit the government's part in the crash, and it was a big part, but no one on the right, knowing that the banking industry is filled with amoral greedy people, seems willing to even consider that they might have some responsibility for the crash. This kind of blind spot in your thinking is what the bankers count on to continue being amoral, greedy people without the slightest repercussions. Why do they get a free pass?

You don't sound like an authority on all of what happened in"conservativeland". As I recall it was a huge election issue and many on the right didn't want a bailout period. Try again.

 

[kaz]

Nobody wants a panic, no one purposely engineers a panic (I hope), but they still occur and suck nearly everyone down no matter what they did, why do you keep ridiculing the notion that everyone failed at the same time? for such a knowledgeable person you seem remarkably ignorant of the nature of a widespread economic panic during which practically everyone does do the same thing, they sell off risk.

Talk about a non-sequitur. The panic was well after the events that led to the situation that created it. Government used the carrot and the stick. The carrot was endless, virtually no interest loans and the stick was hauling their asses before congress and lynching them for not making more sub-prime loans.

You're arguing that government, which had an actual strategy to do that and was backed by the endless ability to print money and guns to force their will isn't responsible, it's the myriad of companies who were playing on the government field and were actually competing against each other. According to your story, they all lined up and implemented the same irresponsible strategy at the same time and brought down the house. It's ridiculous.

 

[kaz]

I find it interesting that nowhere in conservativeland is there even a little bit of blame for the banking industry in the 2008 crash, none. I am fully willing to admit the government's part in the crash, and it was a big part, but no one on the right, knowing that the banking industry is filled with amoral greedy people, seems willing to even consider that they might have some responsibility for the crash. This kind of blind spot in your thinking is what the bankers count on to continue being amoral, greedy people without the slightest repercussions. Why do they get a free pass?

You don't sound like an authority on all of what happened in"conservativeland". As I recall it was a huge election issue and many on the right didn't want a bailout period. Try again.

Yes, including me. Let the ones who took the cash and implemented Slick Willy's scheme fail and be replaced by younger, hungry companies that didn't. There were a lot of us. It was actually the big government "moderate" Republicans and the Democrats who wanted them bailed out, not the fiscal conservatives. We wanted them to fry.

 

[occupied]

I find it interesting that nowhere in conservativeland is there even a little bit of blame for the banking industry in the 2008 crash, none. I am fully willing to admit the government's part in the crash, and it was a big part, but no one on the right, knowing that the banking industry is filled with amoral greedy people, seems willing to even consider that they might have some responsibility for the crash. This kind of blind spot in your thinking is what the bankers count on to continue being amoral, greedy people without the slightest repercussions. Why do they get a free pass?

You don't sound like an authority on all of what happened in"conservativeland". As I recall it was a huge election issue and many on the right didn't want a bailout period. Try again.

Was I talking about the bailouts? No one wanted them except the bankers and they got them, with no strings and no fear of new regulations or indictments in the aftermath. The problem here is that no one got punished, no one learned any valuable lesson, and as always they counted on the republicans and most democrats to close ranks and protect them. We witnessed the largest theft in the history of the world committed right out in the open, the culprits were bold as brass, and we did nothing to stop them, they own us completely now, enjoy your plutocracy because you asked for it.

 

[C_Clayton_Jones]

"In every courthouse, in every proceeding and in every place where a member of the Department of Justice stands on behalf of the United States, they will strive to ensure that same-sex marriages receive the same privileges, protections and rights as opposite-sex marriages under federal law," Holder said in prepared remarks to the Human Rights Campaign, an advocacy group that works on behalf of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender equal rights.

"Just like during the civil rights movement of the 1960s, the stakes involved in this generation's struggle for LGBT equality could not be higher," Holder said in prepared remarks. "Then, as now, nothing less than our country's commitment to the notion of equal protection under the law was on the line."

Justice Dept. will extend benefits to same-sex couples

Given the Administration’s commitment to protect the civil liberties of gay Americans, and conservative hostility to those same civil liberties, clearly the moral argument is for the left, not the right.

 

[kaz]

Was I talking about the bailouts? No one wanted them except the bankers and they got them, with no strings and no fear of new regulations or indictments in the aftermath. The problem here is that no one got punished, no one learned any valuable lesson, and as always they counted on the republicans and most democrats to close ranks and protect them. We witnessed the largest theft in the history of the world committed right out in the open, the culprits were bold as brass, and we did nothing to stop them, they own us completely now, enjoy your plutocracy because you asked for it.

Please, it wasn't just the bankers. The politicians on both sides loved the bailouts. Particularly the Democrats because they both got to exert even more control over markets while pointing their fingers at everyone else in the process.

And again, government wanted sub-prime loans, threatened CEOs with congressional subpoenas and funded it with limitless virtually interest free cash. At no point does it occur to you they caused this.

And you are demanding that the ones who did that get even MORE control over the financial services market. What you are saying is obviously not what you believe. You want government, and you're spinning the story to get it.

And you're claiming to believe the big bankers control government, your solution, more government power. You do not believe what you are saying. You want the entity controlled by the bad guys to be more powerful. They would love that, they would just use government to even more tilt the field towards the mega banks and away from free markets.

I'm sorry, the SS is too powerful now, we're going to need to give the Hitler more power to counter that. Yeah.

 

[kaz]

"In every courthouse, in every proceeding and in every place where a member of the Department of Justice stands on behalf of the United States, they will strive to ensure that same-sex marriages receive the same privileges, protections and rights as opposite-sex marriages under federal law," Holder said in prepared remarks to the Human Rights Campaign, an advocacy group that works on behalf of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender equal rights.

"Just like during the civil rights movement of the 1960s, the stakes involved in this generation's struggle for LGBT equality could not be higher," Holder said in prepared remarks. "Then, as now, nothing less than our country's commitment to the notion of equal protection under the law was on the line."

Justice Dept. will extend benefits to same-sex couples

Given the Administration’s commitment to protect the civil liberties of gay Americans, and conservative hostility to those same civil liberties, clearly the moral argument is for the left, not the right.

No matter how you slice it, demanding stuff from the government isn't a "civil liberty." I want recognition, I want validation, I want tax breaks, I want cheaper medical insurance, and I want government to give that to me. It's my civil liberty. LOL

 

[Iceweasel]

No matter how you slice it, demanding stuff from the government isn't a "civil liberty." I want recognition, I want validation, I want tax breaks, I want cheaper medical insurance, and I want government to give that to me. It's my civil liberty. LOL

Sounds like the DNC party platform.

 

[NYcarbineer]

The idea that the government should have less power, and the banks more, is the kind of insanity that conservatism is best at producing.

That's the kind of rhetoric that defines the left. The point was less government means less power for the mega banks. Look at Jon Corzine for example, no sweetheart deals there?


Report: Obama Crony Jon Corzine Won't Be Prosecuted For Losing Billions in Private Investments - Katie Pavlich
Corzine is also the former CEO of MF Global, a now bankrupt company under Congressional and Department of Justice investigation for losing billions in private investments. According to the New York Times, Corzine won't be prosecuted for the loss of those private funds by Holder's DOJ.

lol, you're an idiot. If less government meant less power for the banks, then the banks wouldn't be fighting for less government.

Use your head once in awhile, if there's anything usable in it.

 

[tinydancer]

How did you lose it in such a short time?

 

[occupied]

The idea that the government should have less power, and the banks more, is the kind of insanity that conservatism is best at producing.

That's the kind of rhetoric that defines the left. The point was less government means less power for the mega banks. Look at Jon Corzine for example, no sweetheart deals there?


Report: Obama Crony Jon Corzine Won't Be Prosecuted For Losing Billions in Private Investments - Katie Pavlich
Corzine is also the former CEO of MF Global, a now bankrupt company under Congressional and Department of Justice investigation for losing billions in private investments. According to the New York Times, Corzine won't be prosecuted for the loss of those private funds by Holder's DOJ.

lol, you're an idiot. If less government meant less power for the banks, then the banks wouldn't be fighting for less government.

Use your head once in awhile, if there's anything usable in it.

Yes, that argument seemed rather spurious to me also. The banksters already got what they wanted, now all they have to do is hold on to it with the help of kiss ass collaborators like this one.