The Financial Market - Can I Scream Now?

[steveknapp]

Bill, it might also be worth considering what each adds to society.

 

The Celebs made their millions bringing happiness and joy in the form of arts and entertainment. A bad movie looses money, and some folks waste time, but no real harm.

 

The heads of GM are responsible for quite a few jobs under them. Their decisions don't as much generate happiness for the employees. Who loves their job right?. But the decisions do have possible negative impacts. Bad decisions can result in plant closings. There is impacts to other companies, suppliers to GM, as well. I don't envy that job, even with the pay that goes with it.

 

Not saying wrong or right to either role. Just that everything we do impacts the welfare of others. Good decisions made by a exec at GM may very well make more of a positive impact to our society than sending half their salary to charity.

[Ken H.]

Ken, can you give us some examples of successful, enduring socialist countries?

I didn't say "socialist countries", I said "socialistic model." A number of European countries come to mind, and the EU seems to be on quite the up-tick these days, but the better examples I'd sight are Eastern cultures that have survived, flourished even, for 1000s of years.

 

I've never advocated a total socialist model. It is just as bad as a total capitalist model.

[Ken H.]

I too am looking for government to solve all that is wrong with my life...

Certianlly not what I for one am advocating. As a matter of fact the word "government" is no where in my posts.

[steveknapp]

I'd sight are Eastern cultures that have survived, flourished even, for 1000s of years.

 

Ken, "Eastern" is a bit vague. Eastern Asia? The places I'm most familiar with don't have 1000s of year stable pasts. Some parts of the culture remain constant, sure, but their system of government and economic system have changed drastically.

 

Do you have a specific place or society in mind?

 

The EU as of late could be a better idea, but WWII wasn't that long ago, and the German's didn't have a very popular socioeconomic system did they? And didn't the EU start because the independent countries wanted/needed to unite on an economic level to compete?

 

If anything the fact that countries in the EU still have the rich histories and cultures that they do even after WWII is a good sign that people will and do persevere.

[Matts_12GS]

I've never advocated a total socialist model. It is just as bad as a total capitalist model.

 

So, where is that line drawn Ken? And who has the authority to draw it?

 

From much of what you've said, and others have alluded to, it could well be that if you're that unhappy with/in this country....

Good luck, write when you find work!

j/k my friend.

[Whip]

Hey Ken

 

Maybe things aren't has bad as you were told.

 

http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/i...=22&sp=true

 

 

"We've seen significant improvements in poverty. The percent of those with low income has gone down, education has increased, life expectancy has increased," Suzman said.

 

"the average net worth of older Americans -- those 65 or older -- has increased almost 80 percent over the past 20 years."

 

"while the proportion of people with incomes below the poverty line fell to 9 percent in 2006, down from 15 percent in 1974,"

 

 

This is the country I live in.

 

Gettin better all the time.

 

Long live "The Great Experiment"

 

Whip

[russell_bynum]

"the average net worth of older Americans -- those 65 or older -- has increased almost 80 percent over the past 20 years."

 

Yeahbut...in Ken's model, increasing net worth is just a sign of greedy, no-good, screw all of you, taking candy from babies, EverythingThatIsWrongWithThisPlanet.

 

Those damn greedy old people.

[Marty Hill]

Damn Russell, I thought we were friends.

[russell_bynum]

Damn Russell, I thought we were friends.

 

[DavidEBSmith]

Two interesting things I ran across today:

 

Remember Friday March 14 2008: it was the day the dream of global free- market capitalism died. For three decades we have moved towards market-driven financial systems. By its decision to rescue Bear Stearns, the Federal Reserve, the institution responsible for monetary policy in the US, chief protagonist of free-market capitalism, declared this era over.

 

Borrowers aren't innocent of all this, because many of them surely understood the nature of the contracts they were signing. But the whole mortgage system was driven by the willingness of people who controlled the money to move it around on sometimes-dubious pretexts. And if anybody should have understood what they were doing, it was they.