Instead of taking offense at one another's convictions, let's ask each other why.
Children are always asking "Why?" They want to understand what they observe. They want to know what lies behind things. They want to be able to read some order and sense into the world.…
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— go to most recent comments26 - Lisa Solod Warren
And PS Cuervo, I have had positively horrifying things said to me by several people here, and I haven't gone "on the warpath." I've merely declined to engage with those people, tried to defend myself, or allowed others to try and set those people straight. It certainly hasn't stopped me from doing intelligent opinion pieces, book reviews, and whatever it suited me to write. I don't base my opinion of myself on what others choose to decide to yell at me.
And I certainly yelled nothing at you. I merely disagreed with you lumping the Rs and the Ds together as being "owned" by the same interests.
27 - Zedd
Focusing back to the post, TROLL do you have a WHY?
28 - Lisa Solod Warren
You know, Canon, the story I heard yesterday was that it actually finally went out of business just recently, bankrupt again. I will see if I can find that source.
HERE IS A QUESTION:
Why do so few people use their real names? You don't? Cuervo? Troll? Barnonius? And on and on.
I do, Clav does, right? Dave does, cause he is an editor, too, Jordan does. What's up? My feeling is, especially if people are going to get snippy, they should use their real name and let people know who they are? As I said in my column long ago on the "art of bloggin" there is something sort of cowardly about anonymity, I think....
it is easy to say whatever the hell you want, if no one know who you are.
Not you, necessarily, but it seems sort of odd to me....
Maybe it is an age thing. But I take responsibility for what I write. I have always put a byline to my work.... since I was 17.
29 - cuervodeluna
Sorry, Lisa, but I am going to diagree with you. And you are protesting too much, and in my opinion, being needlessly holier-than-thou.
YOu also did NOT ask me WHY--which was the point of the article.
Can you dig it, sister?
I did NOT mean the gun lobby (NRA)--when I say Big Guns I mean the US Arms Industry--the largest in the world and getting fatter by the minute on bilions and billions of YOUR tax dollars.
Big Oil and Big Guns are the largest contributors to both candidates--and they also shelled out Big Bucks for Hillary's campaign.
War is supposedly good for US business.
And it is, for a few. Most of the others look pretty pasty right about now.
(The NRA is a whole different kettle of fish which I did NOT address and really do not see why I should at any length. Let's leave old Charlton Heston to his just reward down below--more for being a bad actor than for acting bad. I will say, however, that I was raised in an NRA family, and I taught firearms and bowhunting safety when I was in high school to teenage boys who wanted hunting licenses. I also wrote the Washington State Firearms and Bowhunting Safety Manual in 1973. I don't have a gun, and I won't have one. I have moved on. Other folks have to feel more pain before they move on, I guess.)
30 - cuervodeluna
Lisa, this "snippy" person posted under her own name when she first blogged here in Sept. of 2006--which led to an enornmous invasion of my privacy as well as accusations that I was an alcoholic and slept with a Mexican gardener--
WHY?
Because I asked Chavez-bashers for evidence to back up their libelous claims against him.
Now, I am asking you WHY you find it necessary to present such a holier-than-thou attitude on this site?
Seriously, I would really lilke to know.
31 - cuervodeluna
Lisa, I hope I have put your mind at ease about the WHY of my "cowardly" behavior.
Have a nice weekend.
Mine just started.
32 - Lisa Solod Warren
Oh, dear, Cuervo. Such virulent anger. Hope you calm down for your weekend. Anger is so very self destructive.
Best,
A Gringo from Gringoland
33 - Baronius
Zedd - If I could take a stab at your question about the free market, I'd like to.
I don't believe that everything will work out for the best, all the time, with a free market. I believe that each decision made in a free market is a decision willingly made by the buyer and the seller. I don't see any more just way of setting a price than letting the buyer and seller agree on a price, which is what happens when you purchase something.
Some outside authority can monitor transactions for their lawfulness. But for their fairness? Not without great risk. And that caution is the first principle for free-marketeers. A truly free market solution to the current financial crisis would allow failing companies to fail. It may not be the best solution, but it's the one that does the least to accumulate power into the hands of an outside authority.
I hope this makes sense.
34 - Cannonshop
#29 Lisa, when I write something "For keeps" I'll put my name on it. Arguing politics is more or less recreational for me, If I ever buckle down again and do something that I think has real value, I'll put my name on it,post a link, and you can dismantle it at your leisure, but right at this point in time, I've got a pretty realistic view of my own ability (or, more precisely, lack thereof).
35 - troll
(Focusing back to the post, TROLL do you have a WHY?
...yup:
(image a green scaly troll - obviously paranoid - assuming a pose similar to Jon's in his photo)
why do you ask - ?)
36 - cuervodeluna
Lisa,
Righteous anger is something that my people have carried with them since the smallpox blankets and the genocidal greed of the white man put an end to 20 million of us here on Turtle Island.
And we will continue to carry it like a torch, no matter how many "snippy", condescending little white girls tell us how "very destructive" it is.
37 - Baronius
Lisa - Maybe it is a generational thing. I was taught to never give out personal information online, back in the old days. I guess if you grew up with Facebook and the like, you look at the internet differently.
38 - cuervodeluna
Hard copy newspapers and magazines usually strongly request that folks who write letters to the editors indicate their name, address, email and sometimes even telephone numbers. That's the case here in Mexico, except for when the person requests that those personal indicators not be published for fear of harrassment or reprisals. or some other sort.
For folks who demand that kind of information, I suggest that they publish a newspaper or a magazine that is not online, and set those guidelines.
In internet I believe it is unrealistic and even fascist to demand that folks blog under their own names.
In some cases it would even be dangerous to do so.
And I also think that folks on this forum should respect other folks' choices--especially when they have indicated WHY.
39 - troll
...I used to post using my name (and commas) and took on the moniker in protest against the blatant anti-trollism that I encountered here
40 - cuervodeluna
troll,
I think you are gilding the lily.
Are there any folks posting here who are NOT trolls?
Besides you, I mean.
41 - Zedd
Baronius,
Thanks. It does make sense.
However it seems to me more of a way of staying true to a principal instead of a solution for society. This principle is not safe. You acknowledged that. It seemed as if it would work at the time it was conceived. At that time the land owners with massive power were the bad guys and could get away with anything. No one could imagine that Joe down the street could gouge people without repercussions. We now know that Sally, Joe, Juan and Jamal can all get together and drive prices up, causing an avalanche of problems and in the end destroy themselves along with everyone else, world wide.
So is the conclusion that complete free market thinking is not good. We need a system that is somewhere in the middle.
42 - Zedd
Troll,
I knew you'd come up with something clever. You never disappoint.
43 - Cindy D
This somewhat parallels one of Lisa's questions at #2, but with a slightly different emphasis.
Why don't people who work 40-60 + hours per week to give a service to society not deserve to have their basic healthcare needs met? Why does the cashier at Walmart not deserve heathcare?
Why does anyone think it's okay to reward people who manipulate society (say the oil traders), yet hesitate to reward those who serve society? (As in the Walmart example above.)
Why is it welfare if it is for an individual (the we of "we the people"), but it's what nothing? overlooked? if it's a subsidy or bail-out for big business?
Why is there a perception that individuals cheat by going bankrupt (and don't deserve even a home to live in), but corps that go bankrupt (and cheat their employees out of their pensions) aren't questioned?
Why do old people (who may have never had any kids) have to pay for rich people's kids to go to school (for years) and when their ailing health and drugs costs reduces their income, no one minds that they are forced out of their homes? (Don't worry they get to keep 18-20k to find a new home.)
Finally:
Why are we a nation so full of of selfish individuals ready to condemn the poor or imagine that they are to blame for their plight?
44 - Baronius
Whoa, Cindy. I thought the idea was to ask "why" so as to understand the other side. Its seems like you're using it as a rhetorical tool for criticizing the other side.
45 - Cindy D
No Baronius. I'm asking why to understand why I keep getting the answers I am getting.
The answers I have gotten to questions about the above, when I didn't actually ask the question "why", are the answers that I have posed as questions.
With the exception of the final question. And that's not to attack anyone but, to elicit a self-questioning.
So, why do YOU feel attacked?
46 - Cindy D
because here are the facts, as a society:
We do all those things I mentioned above. So, why?
47 - Cannonshop
Let's continue this game, it's fun...
Why is the group that claims to represent the working man so hot to put him out of a job?
Why do the people who talk a storm about the environment push industry into places that don't have regulations or rule of law?
Why do the people who condemn big business continue to press laws that only favour the largest companies?
Why can't tax rates be indexed to inflation?
Why aren't the bankers who artificially inflated property values using 125% loans supported by falsified evaluations going to jail for fraud?
Why in the fuck are we bailing out Fannie Mae, Freddy Mac, Bear Stearns, Lehman Bros...?
What Imbecile came up with the idea that tourism is an adequate replacement for industry? (it isn't. It generates a hundered part-time, minimum-wage jobs that disappear for six to nine months out of the year.)
Why don't some people understand that "Service Economy" doesn't WORK???
Why, oh, why is it so hard to get through some people's skull that Wealth is generated by PRODUCTION, not by processing paperwork and living off the savings of the last generation?
48 - Cindy D
Good game Cannon. Now you need to explain what you're asking so someone may answer. We don't automatically understand whatever examples are in your head.
49 - Mark Schannon
Alas, Jon, it's clear that your plea for respectful discourse based on a recognition that none of us owns the truth has (mostly) fallen on ears stuffed with self-inflated opinions.
I don't spend much time on other sites, but it seems to me that BC political commenters are entirely too interested in scoring points and demonstrate little interest in understanding "why" people have different points of view.
Good article...but but next time try a sledge hammer rather than quiet common sense, LOL.
Curmudgeon-At-Large
In Jameson Veritas
50 - Baronius
Cindy, you asked why no one cares about old people thrown out on the streets. I read that as an unfair characterization of conservatives. That's what got my hackles up.
51 - Cannonshop
Easy one first then...
Taxes. Everyone pays taxes, right? mmm-kay, now, as the purchasing power of the dollar slides (and it does), shouldn't the tax-brackets move to reflect ACTUAL purchasing power? Wouldn't that make, oh...sense, if you're intent on "Taxing the rich"?
Right now, and for most of my life, it's been "Work harder, the numbers get bigger, but what you get with those numbers continues to go down, and you're taxed MORE."
A couple of us actually worked it out-working ten hour days five a week, and weekends (both days)on a two week pay period, the NET-that's what shows up as Pay, and not taxes, is about two dollars an hour for the last three days in that pay-period.
You actually LOSE money.
Last year's tax return (that'd be for FY 2007) I made 51,000 (rounded up), but in terms of what I could buy with that fifty one grand in terms of net, as in purchasing power, compared to 1997 when I made 32,000...
LESS purchasing power, and I paid more in taxes.
Isn't this the least bit screwed up? work harder, pay more, get less for it?
Shouldn't people who work harder, for longer hours, be encouraged instead of punished for doing so?
52 - Zedd
Lets see if we can fix this. I feel like I have to lean to read.
53 - Baronius
Zedd, there really isn't a difference in who does the gouging. As long as there's muscle, someone is going to be tempted to use it. The problem is, as often as not they do the gouging through the government. I'd rather that the power not be accumulated by anyone.
I said that free purchase of goods and services is not always fair. But it's probably fairer than any intervention could be. And it's efficient. In the long run, the greater efficiency pays off to everyone in the system.
54 - Cindy D
Baronius,
Thank you for explaining and continuing the conversation.
Here is what I meant.
In my town, the real estate taxes (most of the large share for schools, libraries and local police--and they (the police) are in excess of what is needed for a virtually no-crime township) have grown exorbitantly.
A person who built a home here in the 70s now faces real estate taxes of $9,000 in 2008 and more in 2009. He can't afford to keep his home. He can't afford his medications, medical expenses and his taxes.
So my why was not aimed at anyone in specific.
But, we (as a society) have designed this system. We decided to create a system so that this man's wealthy neighbors (most of the ones with children are new and buying at 500k for a home) are having their children's education subsidized by an older, ill person who has to give up his home because he can no longer (after 35 years of paying real estate taxes here--much of the fruit of which was spent on others) afford to take care of himself AND those others.
Why do we design a system like this? It's not like we have no experience with old people.
55 - Cindy D
Cannon,
Do you identify with the rich?
I would classify you as the middle and in NJ you are below the middle income.
Why would you have a problem with taxing people who are rich?
Maybe I don't understand something.
56 - Cindy D
Baronius,
...free purchase of goods and services is not always fair. But it's probably fairer than any intervention could be.
But that supposes that there actually is a free exchange of goods and services. There is no free exchange. Government gives business a lions share of subsidies and breaks (i.e. our money).
57 - Baronius
Cindy, I meant "free" in the context of my comment #33. As for your comment #54, I don't know the specifics of the case.
58 - Cindy D
Baronius,
Unfortunately our society doesn't care about and has made no allowance for the specifics of this case or any like it.
It's not addressed, so a whole portion of our old people can be forced from their homes and no one seems to have given a thought about it.
It happened a few years back in Maplewood, NJ The town reassessed taxes to make them "fairer". The result was news articles about old people being displaced because they couldn't afford the new tax rates. What action was taken? None.
59 - Cindy D
That free market from #33 can't exist. It never has for long nor could it ever. That's why we subsidize business. because it won't work if we don't.
60 - Cannonshop
#55 No...not exactly. I'd Like to, but more than that, I'd love it if "tax the rich" schemes didn't just kind of magically land on people like me. People who aren't raping the system or winning lotteries. If I work extra hours, or save enough to actually rack up some interest, I get taxed MORE- 'cause I get taxed on the interest in my savings account-which is money that was taxed before I put it in, unless I go with an IRA or other instrument, in which case it's going to be taxed higher if I let it get too big, or put too much away.
And it's even worse if I don't elect to put myself into thirty-years' debt (not including ever-increasing property taxes), Hell, I'm not even allowed to opt out of the "Voluntary" ponzi-scheme known as Social Security. the system is structured to punish the frugal and reward the careless, and it's WRONG.
Right now, I'm renting-because I refuse to put myself INTO debt to get permission to get into SERIOUS debt. (no debt history=no credit score, no credit score=massive interest on ANY mortgage.)
Am I the only person out here who thinks this is screwed up??
Last year we got a bonus-three grand, it was appended to a standard paycheque, and after taxes, (adding up the capital gains tax and the income tax taken out) it ate a week's wages and the total cheque was about five hundered dollars more than I would have gotten without overtime.
So, maybe I should Identify with the Rich, since I'm obviously paying the taxes as if I WERE-well, not quite, since I can't afford the necessary Senator and Congressman to write in the right exemptions to cover ME, the way that "The Rich" do-and even THEY get it wrong (Paging mister Rangel, Mister Charles Rangel...).
Why is it that I have to pay for it when a crooked banker hires a crooked appraiser to over-estimate the value of a house so he can sell the mortgage paper to Morgan Stanley (a practice that, among other things, increases property taxes and pushes up both rents, and the amount that everyone pays for a house?)And then, why do I have to pay more tax to bail out Morgan Stanley, or Bear Stearns, or WaMu,or Fannie Mae/Freddy Mac, or Lehman Bros. because they bought a fraud and found out too late? Can someone explain to me why these guys aren't going to jail for fraud, instead of getting big bailout money from taxes I PAID in liew of the taxes they don't have to because the code's eighteen thousand pages long with enough exceptions that they don't have to pay a fucking dime?
Why, for that matter, am I paying to help people with no income, job, or assets to buy a house when I can't buy a house myself (and I HAVE an income, and a job) because I didn't borrow money over-and-over-and-over-again to live beyond my means in order to prove that I CAN borrow money?
Does this make any sense to you? Our markets are in crisis because people have been encouraged to spend more than they make, which makes it acceptable for government to spend more than it makes, and this situation is exacerbated by bankers who first wrote in, then exploited, rules that allow them to do to each other things that would be termed "Fraud", and prosecuted if they were done by individuals to banks-rather than by Banks to Banks.
I don't get it, I guess. Maybe if I went to Columbia or Yale or Harvard or something this would make sense.
61 - Cindy D
I hear you Cannon, but I think you're laying the blame at the wrong doorstep. People with no job or income don't get to by houses.
Tax the rich, get rid of corporate welfare. Then we (you and I) won't have to pay all that.
62 - Cannonshop
Why is it then, Cindy, that every time someone actually gets a bill through to "Tax the Rich"...
MY taxes go up?
63 - cuervodeluna
Somewhere is this mess of spaghetti I THINK someone asked about the rich--should they or should they NOT pay taxes?
It's not a question of should or should not.
There are folks out there called accountants who sometimes even give classes on how NOT to pay taxes.
When I was an accountant I know I had such an educational business for awhile.
Funniest darn thing, though--it always seemed to lose money.
Which, of course, offset my tax liability from my other businesses and salaried employment.
Rich people can afford to have fistfuls of accountants working for them to the objective that they don't pay taxes.
Nothing the least bit mysterious about any of it.
64 - Baronius
Cindy, I think you'd be suprised how many taxes, regulations, and just plain hoops the government puts in front of businesses. But it shouldn't be a question of who gets mistreated most. You and Zedd both more-or-less asked why some people always oppose governmental involvement. My answer is I guess fourfold:
- free trade of goods and services is voluntary
- free trade of goods and services is probably closer to fair than any arbitrary intervention
- free trade of goods and services, in the long run, is more efficient
- repeated interventions, in the long run, result in accumulated power
65 - Zedd
Cannonshop,
"Why is the group that claims to represent the working man so hot to put him out of a job?"
What group is that? There is no group in America that is hot about putting people out of work. Ask a real question.
Why do the people who talk a storm about the environment push industry into places that don't have regulations or rule of law?
If you make such statements you have to say how industry is being pushed out. Perhaps if we understand who they are being pushed, we can see that environmental regulation is not working. Help us out.
Why do the people who condemn big business continue to press laws that only favour the largest companies?
Who is condemning big business?
Why aren't the bankers who artificially inflated property values using 125% loans supported by falsified evaluations going to jail for fraud?
Because they are not the only bad guys. So many people were complicit in this debocle that we would not be able to sustain them in our prisons.
Why in the fuck are we bailing out Fannie Mae, Freddy Mac, Bear Stearns, Lehman Bros...?
Because they owe other banks and countries all over the world. Those banks owe other banks all over the world. Letting these guys topple would topple the world economy.
What Imbecile came up with the idea that tourism is an adequate replacement for industry? (it isn't. It generates a hundered part-time, minimum-wage jobs that disappear for six to nine months out of the year.)
It depends on the type of weather you have.
"Why don't some people understand that "Service Economy" doesn't WORK???"
Tell that to the Republicans. That is where we are headed per George Bush.
66 - bliffle
So then Baronius, I take it you are against the Wall Street bailout?
67 - Christopher Rose
Baronius, free trade is voluntary in theory but not in practice. There is not a lot that is voluntary about buying food for example.
Similarly, there are many examples, if you care to look, where unregulated free trade has been anything but fair.
Arguably there is greater efficiency in a free trade system, but it can depend on what exactly is meant by efficient.
Repeated interventions have often proved necessary, as events this week have shown.
The goals of free trade are not efficiency or fairness but profit, pure and simple.
68 - Baronius
Bliffle - Certainly. The Wall Street bailout is stupid beyond doubt.
Christopher - I'm not here to prove that I'm right. See above article.
69 - Zedd
Chris,
I think originally the goal was efficiency. However, just as communism is Utopian so is capitalism. Both ideas omit the impact of human nature. We are greedy AND we have different motives. We are not single minded and rarely do we ever unite and work towards one goal for an extended time. What sustains our systems without regulations is bandwagoning. We get caught up and believe. After a while we burn out or see through the dogma and reality sets in. What makes society work is when we can tweak our systems ever so slightly to accommodate the shifts that will inevitably occur. Sticking with ideas simply because they sound like a good thing even though they don't work is fatal.
70 - Christopher Rose
B, what's the point of being wrong though?
71 - Clavos
Letting these guys topple would topple the world economy.
In the long run, that could be a good thing.
500,000,000 or bust...
72 - Baronius
Chris, I should have stated that more clearly.
I believe I'm right. I doubt I'm going to persuade you that I'm right on this thread. I've pretty much given up persuading anyone online - but if I can at least state my views coherently, maybe somewhere down the road, they'll click for someone.
73 - troll
(500000000 or bust...catchy - kinda rolls off one's tongue)
74 - Baronius
When I say short-term efficiency, I mean efficiency in allocation of resources. Resources go to production of the desired goods. We probably get closer to allocative efficiency with market pricing than with any other economic system. A lucky guess or a proper intervention can do better, but they don't happen that often. Generally, governments shift resources incorrectly.
There's also long-term efficiency, or adaptive efficiency. This is where the free market is indisputably better than any other system. A free market can adapt to changes in technology more efficiently than a managed market.
Semi-digression: I have no respect for socialism, but I'll admit to a nostalgia for feudalism. It was a great system for what it was trying to accomplish. But it only worked because every year was identical to the last one. That's when you can manage an economy. It's when technology, wealth, and population are changing that you need to adapt as efficiently as possible. And that's where a free market can outclass socialism, feudalism, and any other system.
75 - Zedd
Baronius,
The challenge with the free market as we experience it is that the market forces are artificial. The manipulation of the indicators which determine the value of products makes the possibility of a truly free market impossible.
I am interested in the notion that what we have is all there can be. Off course you know that there will be other solutions. Just as the monarchy and land owners could have never imagined the systems that we live under.