Budget talks: This is getting nasty

Well, no one can blame you for THAT.

 

It's interesting. There was a time when there was serious distrust of business interests, "robber barons" and such. In the last 30 years or so that has been turned on its head a bit.

I think the truth is the old adage about power. People were right 75-100 years ago to have a distrust of people who carried large amounts of economic clout. If you can sum up the U.S.'s domestic affairs in the 20th centeury in two words, they would be: "Government intervened." You can start with various civil rights issues, but also economics. Government intervened to check excessive economic power through regulation. No longer do you worry about the safety of your deposit because of FDIC. You feel as a worker that you have some recourse in labor disputes. You feel reasonably confident that products you buy here will make certain standards of safety. These are not things to be taken for granted and they were not things that came about because of market forces or market forces alone.

But what happened? By the 70s, the perception was government had TOO much power. It stifled business with all of its regulation. It had become the tarket the distrust that was once reserved for robber barrens and bankers.

Really, the truth is, we're just at the height of an anti-government wave that will soon enough subside when government is weakened to the point where power obviously concentrates at another source (as much as a it can in our society;"big" government wasn't really ever that "big" in this country, relative to other societies. Indeed, one may already argue that power is not concentrated in government, but in special-interest groups.). One would have been right to be skeptical at the notion of government as the "savior" for the depression. One is just as rational to chuckle at the notion that if we can just get government out of our hair, everything would be much better.

Government is useful. Government has -- far more than not -- been a lucrative partner for American business. Government has also been good for the "little guy" in everything from equal rights to providing a mechanism for recourse for groups that would otherwise have no recourse against powerful interests (particularly through the courts). At the same time, government has been, at times, corrupt, inefficient and even incompetent.

I distrust anybody who says the "rich" are the problem. It's not that simple. I distrust anybody who says the "government" is the problem. It's not that simple.

 

Most of this is just expository writing wrapped around the same kernel of advice - Hands off, and it'll work out - but I thought I'd add a few things.

1. My definition of greed, put clearly into context above, isn't a desire for <i>making</i> money - it's a desire for hoarding it - for not risking it. A wealth snob. In other words - to purposely stop making money, sit out on principle, and let the city burn to prove a point. Have Americans been that stubborn before? Of course they have. Slavery was not only morally and spiritually reprehensible, but one of the most ridiculous economic claptraps ever devised. AAU basketball, another bastion of deregulation and "anything goes" market ideology, has to be the most inefficient method of developing basketball players the world could ever imagine. It's so awful, in fact, that a more than a quarter of NBA draftees last year were imports, because America couldn't supply 45 quality basketball players to the league. Has AAU created a better product at cheaper prices? Of course fucking not, Ragu. That's because grassroots coaches and marketers duck out of the development system once they make theirs. Or because college coaches accept handouts from shoe companies instead of eradicating their presence from the youth game. It's simple baseline corruption. No politics involved.


2. The crux of your point isn't really that the economy will work itself out - but that governmental intervention and meddling leads it astray. And that's based on a moral contention that, somehow, the government inherently makes people corrupt. And again I'd write: Well, says you. Says me that the market can be equally corrupt and despicable, and has proven it over and over in the last decade. Says me that the government, as it is by/of/for, has a higher caller to address systemic concerns the market couldn't care one whit about. How does profit motive inform child welfare? How does it inform quality of life for seniors? To the extent that it does, I'd argue it doesn't inform it very well. Profit motive tells you to mete out foster parent payments so that the kid's primary physical needs are met but aspirational goals are left to chance. Profit motive tells you that nursing homes effectively play on the guilt of children to bilk them for excessive payments, so loopholes are created so seniors can hide away a million bucks in an annuity but still draw Medicare for their nursing home bills because they claim no assets. Or tying term life insurance to adjustable-rate mortgages where the premiums kick with the mortgage bill, thus ensuring that homeowners paid thousands of dollars on an insurance policy there was no way they'd keep once the rates kicked. Or buying up radio stations with the sole intent of pumping the same conservative garbage on the airwaves without regard to the market because the goal isn't to turn a good profit and run a good radio station, it's to synchronize the message with fucking gold commercials and Fox News promos.

We can go on and on, but the point remains this: We can't just trust ya. We're not gonna just trust ya. So either you get over that or you sit it out on principle, watch the city burn and say I Told You So.

To me, that's like sitting on the hill above Bull Run.

 

That's kind of nonsensical.

Isn't that sort of "subjective" assessment - as measured along a continuum of agreed-upon ethical practice - exactly how we decide what's criminal?

Or was Enron just really "selfish?"

 

I'm sure they didn't even think they were selfish. Just doing business.

But clearly less government regulation would have helped prevent Enron. Yep, that's the ticket. Get that meddling government out of the way of business!

 

Enron perpetrated fraud.

That has nothing to do with a high regulation or low regulation environment.

 

Maybe not, but a high regulation, high enforcement environment might have saved energy users and taxpayers considerable billions of dollars.

 

I don't know. I guess we'll find out in four months. But every senator can easily find $600 billion in waste or corporate tax loopholes that can be saved. That won't tick off anyone except those that have been scamming the system at the expense of everyone else. The second $600 billion might be a little more difficult, but we all know it's there. Can we do this and make everyone happy at the same time? No. And the third $600 billion? Getting 90 percent of our troops home would be a good start.

 

With an assist from Bill Clinton who signed into law the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000, days before the clock ran out on his Presidency.

 

So deregulation isn't an unalloyed good? Huh.

 

You need to read up on exactly what Enron was doing, particularly in California, and you need to ask yourself why Dick Cheney fought for eight years not to have the notes or attendees of his energy meetings made public. The fraud came about due to the lack of regulation.

Also, the financial crisis happened because banking regulations that had separated banks from investment houses for decades were thrown out. Conduct that once would have been illegal no longer was.

 

His (and my) contention is not that government makes people corrupt, but rather that government is a powerful vessel for people, who are inherently self-interested, to channel their self-interestedness. This leads to occasions -- which are far too frequent, conservatives believe -- in which "special interests" lever the government for their own benefit and hide behind the rhetoric of "for the good of all."