It isn't just corporatism it is a lot of greedy average people as well.

[klamath]

I am getting a little tired of hearing only about the evils of corportism. There is a h*ll of a lot of people that lived the high life on other peoples money with second morgages and flipping houses for huge bank paid for profits. There is a huge amout of government backed unions that forced companies to pay 25 to 40 dollars an hour to screw a bolts in. A lot of people are getting bailed out with endless unemploymet extensions. No it isn't just crony capitalism, but crony Unionism, and crony entitlementism as well. Many people are trying to find one scapgoat to blame when many should look only in the mirror.

[AuH20]

the mentality is the same. A thief is a thief.

[CaptUSA]

I saw the stat the other day that 47% of American households receive some sort of governmental assistance. That doesn't even count the assistance their employers are getting in order to provide them with jobs. It's a huge credit card bill that is coming due.

[Gray Seal]

You know why the people have been supporting corporatism. Everyone is being promised an advantage. Free or less expensive healthcare. Free roads. Tax discounts. Awesome retirement benefits. Someone else has to pay for it. 66% of Americans get more federal services than they pay in fees and taxes. Big government means advantage to many people.

All they have to give up is a bit of their freedom.

Who cares about a bit of freedom when you can get the convenience of someone else taking part of your responsibility. And it is on the cheap or for free for two thirds of the people.

[hazek]

Greed is not the problem when it's offset by fear of losses, in fact it's actually healthy. It's a big problem when there is a moral hazard and losses are taken out of the equation by government guarantees.

[klamath]

Greed is not the problem when it's offset by fear of losses, in fact it's actually healthy. It's a big problem when there is a moral hazard and losses are taken out of the equation by government guarantees.
absolutely right. It is the natural tendancy for an organism to survive and grabbing the most it can get is just the tendency to pad against non survivial. But grabbing so much can be antisurvivial as well and that is what the bust cycle is about, it should educate people if the government will allow it to happen.

[Cdn_for_liberty]

These are the things I noticed in these Occupy *insert location here* protests:

1) The 99% should call themselves "anyone who works in an occupation that we approve of."

The 99% is not defined by the amount of wealth but by the occupation you are in. It used to be like that until Steve Jobs died and rich Hollywood celebs joined the protests. For example, Steve Jobs has a net worth of about $8 billion, making him the 1% if we go by grouping people based on arbitrary income cutoffs. But since Steve Jobs make these cool gadgets that these far left loons love so much, Steve Jobs is in the 99%. If someone makes 6 figures and works in finance, this person would be in the elite 1%.

2) Crony capitalism is bad unless the left wing agendas (ie. solar panels, wind turbines, college tuition) are subsidized.

[Brian4Liberty]

I am getting a little tired of hearing only about the evils of corportism. There is a h*ll of a lot of people that lived the high life on other peoples money with second morgages and flipping houses for huge bank paid for profits.

Absolutely. There was fraud from top to bottom in the housing bubble. But let's start with the little people you mention. Why would a bank loan money to people who would obviously not be able to pay it back, and were getting in way over their heads? There are two main reasons, loan-sharking and moral hazard. Loan-sharking aside, the moral hazard of playing hot-potato with debt through securitization and/or passing it on to the government (Freddie, Fannie) was a major cause of the problem. That was enabled via corporatism, so the term does apply at the lowest levels. The business people who would normally not give a loan were giving them out as fast as they could, because they had nothing to lose from the deals.

[Becker]

people who say they are anti-corporatist are merely singling out the rich as a separate standard that never applies to themselves.

[Johnny Appleseed]

Ive been saying this all along...its "We the people" that are the problem. If your an owner of a company and you hire a general manager to run things so you can sit on your fist and lean back on your thumb and the gm runs it into the ground who's fault is it?

If you want to protest corporations stop buying corporate products.

Change rarely happens without sacrifice...like right now the leaves are falling

[klamath]

Absolutely. There was fraud from top to bottom in the housing bubble. But let's start with the little people you mention. Why would a bank loan money to people who would obviously not be able to pay it back, and were getting in way over their heads? There are two main reasons, loan-sharking and moral hazard. Loan-sharking aside, the moral hazard of playing hot-potato with debt through securitization and/or passing it on to the government (Freddie, Fannie) was a major cause of the problem. That was enabled via corporatism, so the term does apply at the lowest levels. The business people who would normally not give a loan were giving them out as fast as they could, because they had nothing to lose from the deals. No it wasn't all corporatism. A huge segment of the population decided that you couldn't go wrong with real estate and houses. Houses were never going to drop in price. Boom and bust cycles happen no matter what. It is a fact of nature because you see it in nature all the time. Government regulated banking through the federal reserve played a major roll but individuals had better know what the hell and who the hell they are barrowing money from. The term loan sharking doesn't do anything for me because more than likely both parties thought they were going to cut a fat hog in the ass. Everybody was making a lot of money but they weren't creating much new wealth with all that money except maybe in china.

[Rosenzweig]

Greed isn't bad. Saying greed is bad is like saying happiness is bad, sadness is bad, worry is bad, and so on.

[klamath]

Greed isn't bad. Saying greed is bad is like saying happiness is bad, sadness is bad, worry is bad, and so on.
Read the thread before you comment.

[Brian4Liberty]

No it wasn't all corporatism. A huge segment of the population decided that you couldn't go wrong with real estate and houses. Houses were never going to drop in price. Boom and bust cycles happen no matter what. It is a fact of nature because you see it in nature all the time. Government regulated banking through the federal reserve played a major roll but individuals had better know what the hell and who the hell they are barrowing money from. The term loan sharking doesn't do anything for me because more than likely both parties thought they were going to cut a fat hog in the ass. Everybody was making a lot of money but they weren't creating much new wealth with all that money except maybe in china.

Once again, I agree. Booms and busts always happen. They are made worse by leverage and debt though. If people were paying 100% cash for all of those houses with no debt involved, there probably would have been no problem. Instead, it was a casino, where people got to play on 100% credit, with everyone betting on the bubble continuing, and many believing they could beat the game (i.e. jump out before the Ponzi scheme busted). The big Wall St. firms were like a sewage plant, hoping they could push the crap through before the bubble burst. (Official government documents actually said that bad debt in the "pipeline" of the major Wall St. players was the "problem" that caused such hard times for Wall St. when it crashed down. If they just could have shoveled that shit off on the taxpayers fast enough, we would have never had a problem!) :rolleyes:

[Rosenzweig]

Read the thread before you comment.

The point of my comment is to separate greed with uncontrolled greed or what ever you wish to call it. Wanting more and more of something is natural, but how you acquire that someone more is what should be called into question (on the base of morality). If you want more and more money, and you get more money by non aggression, then that's fine, but if you get it by theft, then it's bad.

Not necessarily disagreeing with the original poster, just how he words it (with the title).

[reillym]

I am getting a little tired of hearing only about the evils of corportism. There is a h*ll of a lot of people that lived the high life on other peoples money with second morgages and flipping houses for huge bank paid for profits. There is a huge amout of government backed unions that forced companies to pay 25 to 40 dollars an hour to screw a bolts in. A lot of people are getting bailed out with endless unemploymet extensions. No it isn't just crony capitalism, but crony Unionism, and crony entitlementism as well. Many people are trying to find one scapgoat to blame when many should look only in the mirror.

You really think unions caused the financial collapse and are the cause of the massive debt in this country?

:rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes: :rolleyes::rolleyes:

And, please, what exactly is a government-backed union? Never have I heard of such a term.

Endless unemployment? Please, how high is unemployment? Where are the damn jobs? You are saying thousands of companies have empty office chairs and shovels sitting idle. That is a lie, sir. A lie. The jobs are not here.

[klamath]

You really think unions caused the financial collapse and are the cause of the massive debt in this country?

:rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes: :rolleyes::rolleyes:

And, please, what exactly is a government-backed union? Never have I heard of such a term.

Endless unemployment? Please, how high is unemployment? Where are the damn jobs? You are saying thousands of companies have empty office chairs and shovels sitting idle. That is a lie, sir. A lie. The jobs are not here.Go back to Democratic Underground. You are not here for RP you are here to troll and always have been. I would answer but you are likely to go flitting back to DU to laugh about how you trolled the RP forums again so a debate is pointless.

[bolidew]

I am getting a little tired of hearing only about the evils of corportism. There is a h*ll of a lot of people that lived the high life on other peoples money with second morgages and flipping houses for huge bank paid for profits. There is a huge amout of government backed unions that forced companies to pay 25 to 40 dollars an hour to screw a bolts in. A lot of people are getting bailed out with endless unemploymet extensions. No it isn't just crony capitalism, but crony Unionism, and crony entitlementism as well. Many people are trying to find one scapgoat to blame when many should look only in the mirror. That's one reason Liberals win from time to time.