Has capitalism been judged in the last US election?

[2046]

There's little conflict in the opinions expressed in that particular editorial and Bloomberg's.

Funny, I thought the same thing about Bloomberg and the CRA.

The Bloomberg editorial is quite direct:

In 2005, 2006 and 2007, a blizzard of terrible mortgage paper fluttered out of the Fannie and Freddie clouds, burying many of our oldest and most venerable institutions.

FM & FM's behavior, 2005-2007, is the most immediate cause of this mortgage crisis.

But Fannie and Freddie were backing the loans, wrapping them up like exploding Christmas presents. In February 2008 Congress even gave Fannie and Freddie the ability to buy more with less capital by raising the limits on what Fannie and Freddie could buy!

And if you want to refer to immediate causes, check out the precipitous drop in the velocity of money after the Fannie and Freddie takeovers by the government (which is kind of a funny way of talking about GSE's in the first place, but whatever). That happened on September 7: http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/fr ... ][id]=MULT.

That basically means the economy slammed on the brakes.

The next day Lehman Brothers . . . already troubled by its worse-than-anyone exposure to the subprime stuff . . . had its shares drop almost 15% just in early afternoon trading, and the day after they dropped almost 50%. So a troubled institution just basically started rapidly approaching a declaration of worthlessness. They hobbled along for about a week before imploding. The government, having already stripped them of their behind-the-scenes GSE backer, basically cut them loose, and even refused to give financial support to keep them afloat.

The same day, supposedly-venerable old Merrill Lynch, tainted with toxic subprime nasties, was sold (with government help) to Bank of America.

During "the second week of September", (e.g. 8-12 . . . before Lehman's implosion but during its descent) there was what has been described in Congressional testimony as an "electronic run on the banks".

If you pay attention to the timeline and the charts, what basically happens is that the events of early September scared the hell out of everyone. And, these events generally had as immediate cause the government intervention (Fed takeover) executed against government intervention (GSE's Fannie and Freddie), producing domino effect damage up the subprime stream along with generally alarming the hell out of everyone.

In an economy so consumer-driven when confidence levels (among hoi polloi or financiers) really shape the country's economic mood, scaring the hell out of everyone is NOT the way to do things.

It is my opinion that government involvement (1) started the mess, (2) initiated the crisis, and (3) is prolonging (or even getting rid of) the cure.

1. This isn't a free market, nor even a particularly rational one in many cases. The CRA expansion shoved institutions toward a new market that some seemed to find profitable, but which was quickly over-used. But with Fannie and Freddie supposedly backing everything and irresponsible Democrats in Congress silencing the regulators, everything looked fairly rosy for awhile.

The housing bubble looked less like a bubble and more like the way things now were. The economy re-oriented based on the conditions as they existed, like lifeforms evolving to rainy jungle. Individuals with good jobs gave them up to build "spec homes" (homes built without a buyer already in mind), knowing they could reap a profit. Individuals who needed a home were sold on more than they could truly afford, the result of "predatory lending practices" foisted upon them and the so-called predators by leftist Democrats like Mr. "Affowadawble" Homes himself Barney Frank.

But then the rain stopped, so the creatures evolved toward the jungle found themselves in tundra. The spec homes stand unfinished, the families in sub-prime mortgages are kicked out of their homes, and the economy is re-orienting toward the normal (but now damaged) conditions, excepting the little detail that the laws haven't changed that much from the time of jungle.

2. Then, as elucidated above, government initiated the crisis, its sudden activism scaring the hell out of investors and causing people to try to get cash in hand with a quickness.

Frankly, it's almost enough to make one ponder some conspiracist stupidity. But the simple fact is that those who came after Greenspan were no Greenspans, and while Bush's advisers had given him enough info to know to try to better regulate Fannie and Freddie in 2003 (thanks for shutting that down, Democrat assholes!), there just wasn't the ability or (supposedly) the time for Bush to understand what he was supporting. It was only in November that Bush was noting how he'd tossed aside his free-market principles for the "emergency".

3. Now . . . to the tune of around 1.8 trillion on paper (equal to the entire US federal budget in the 90's) or over 4 trillion when you account for timescales, interest, and so on . . . we've performed three bailout/rescue/stimulus/pork-barrel-spending/constituent-payoffs. This doesn't even count the monetary gobbledy-gook the Fed and Treasury have done, which put our obligations at (per some reports) or near double-digit trillions. That's not talking about the total national debt, that's talking about just the shit in the past 18 months.

I mean, hell, why doesn't he just send her a check so she can buy herself a car? It would do a lot more than TARP I. We already knew from the UK having already done it that once banks got a cash infusion they weren't going to start releasing the cash elsewhere, but instead hoard it. What the hell were we expecting to be different? If you have no bread to feed the birds and no hope of getting bread but someone tosses you a loaf, are you going to feed the birds? Shit, no.

But I digress, again.

Right after the election was won in November, plans were laid out for the new Christmas-present spending bill Obama signed yesterday. Among its 1100 pages of text that people had mere hours to read upon before voting on it were lists and lists of projects and BS job numbers "created/saved". Per a local example, these occurred when DNC folks or Democrats in local office asked around to other like-minded people to find out what was 'needed' in the community. As you can imagine, this unorganized and secretive sort of questioning led to stupid stuff, bright sparks catching on and giving self-serving answers, and so on . . . the "aristocracy of pull" in full flower, paid for with taxpayer dollars. Bridges to nowhere will abound.

Digressions . . . sorry.

Long story short, the best thing for government to do right now is not pass spendulus packages with money that won't even be spent most of the time until 2011. It also isn't a good idea to keep borrowing money, which is what got us here in the first place.

The ideal thing for government to do now would be to get the hell out of the way.

Even the Congressional Budget Office (hardly a conservative bastion) said so, noting that the recent porkulus package will hurt our GDP long-term.

But we've got it, and when it has little effect in several months (and we're supposed to be shocked?), even more stupid shit will be done.

And the craziest thing is that the CRA remain in place, Dodd and Frank are running the aftermath, Obama of ACORN is president, and ACORN is getting pork money.

It's a frakking circus out there, folks. The inmates are running the asylum. This makes the Clinton years look freaking reactionary.

The CRA has so little to do with this that blaming the CRA amounts to a red herring.

The CRA is to blame. Not just the lending patterns, but the new securitization that the 1995 CRA created. That was the real killer. Shit, even Greenspan says so.

It is not a direct cause like a question of physics nor a chaos-theory butterfly fart way, but it is a necessary and proximate condition for the events that followed, one whose good-hearted absurdity shouldn't have passed the smell test.

But we're told by idiots and bastards that this is all due to "Wall Street greed".

There are three main causes of this mess, IMO.

There was a housing bubble (serious housing bubble kicking off around 2001ish, depending on where you were). This involves lots of people behaving in a manner that seemed rational to them at the time, but collectively looks irrational.

Ah, but what caused the housing bubble? A bubble is a price rise. A price rise usually comes either due to a supply shortage or a demand increase.

Fannie + Freddie + CRA and related false-market shifts caused both at the same time. Demand went up, and prices rose 25% from 1998 to 2003. They doubled from 2000 to 2006.

Easy credit and the government pushing toward riskier borrowers means there's more demand. The sub-prime market having opened up, with Fannie and Freddie on the case, others followed the money.

Put as you could find on Wikipedia, "In 1995, the GSEs began receiving government incentive payments for purchasing mortgage backed securities which included loans to low income borrowers. Thus began the involvement of the GSE with the subprime market. Subprime mortgage originations rose by 25% per year between 1994 and 2003, resulting in a nearly ten-fold increase in the volume of subprime mortgages in just nine years. The relatively high yields on these securities, in a time of low interest rates, were very attractive to Wall Street, and while Fannie and Freddie generally bought only the least risky subprime mortgages, these purchases encouraged the entire subprime market."

Home ownership rates went up from the 15-year average of 64% in 1994 to the "all-time high" of 69.2% in 2004. That may not sound like much, but if 5% more of the total population are buying houses that's a crunch to existing supply, causing prices to rise.

A construction bubble started at this time, too, where it could. Elsewhere over-regulation on buildings and builders led to less elastic supply. But either way, with huge gains in price elsewhere prices rose in many areas.

For the lenders, the risks were theoretically managed, but only if Fannie and Freddie were in place. They represented security from the government, and then the government ate them.

FM & FM behaved badly during this time as semi-public institutions that governmental bodies should have kept in check. FM & FM purchased subprime loans from private banks like they were candy.

Not to mention cooking their own books, getting called out by their regulator only to have that guy silenced by Barney Frank, Maxine Waters, and other Congressional Loonies, and so on. Oh yes, and having their caps lifted in early '08 so they could really get chugging on the candy.

Seriously, Frank and Waters were more concerned about "affordable housing" . . . ignoring the presence of the bubble they helped create, or the variable-rate ARM loans that Fannie started using in the early 2000s that would screw people right out of their house.

Failure to regulate the private banking sector; this last factor is a combination of deregulation (under Bush and the late Clinton era; the only partisan constant is that Republicans controlled the House during this period, 1995-2006) and failure to actually watch banks closely using existing regulatory agencies (Bush administration).

This is not partisan, but ideological. Furthermore, there are misidentifications of the players involved. You can't cry foul against the Bush administration or Republican Congress when Democrats within a Congressional committee block action, and when it is Congress that has the role of oversight.

It's too easy to point to the president in charge and say hedidit. But what of occasions like the Fannie and Freddie regulator being shot down by Democrats in Congress. It's the Way of the Committee.

The sucky part is that you even quoted the next paragraph up from another example. Here's the whole block from Bloomberg:

Greenspan's Warning

The clear gravity of the situation pushed the legislation forward. Some might say the current mess couldn't be foreseen, yet in 2005 Alan Greenspan told Congress how urgent it was for it to act in the clearest possible terms: If Fannie and Freddie ``continue to grow, continue to have the low capital that they have, continue to engage in the dynamic hedging of their portfolios, which they need to do for interest rate risk aversion, they potentially create ever-growing potential systemic risk down the road,'' he said. ``We are placing the total financial system of the future at a substantial risk.''

What happened next was extraordinary. For the first time in history, a serious Fannie and Freddie reform bill was passed by the Senate Banking Committee. The bill gave a regulator power to crack down, and would have required the companies to eliminate their investments in risky assets.

Different World

If that bill had become law, then the world today would be different. In 2005, 2006 and 2007, a blizzard of terrible mortgage paper fluttered out of the Fannie and Freddie clouds, burying many of our oldest and most venerable institutions. Without their checkbooks keeping the market liquid and buying up excess supply, the market would likely have not existed.

But the bill didn't become law, for a simple reason: Democrats opposed it on a party-line vote in the committee, signaling that this would be a partisan issue. Republicans, tied in knots by the tight Democratic opposition, couldn't even get the Senate to vote on the matter.

Any chatter about the CRA is strictly red-herring territory. There's no demonstrable connection, and - as the article I linked to argues - you could even levy the claim that had more banking institutions been subject to the CRA, the subprime mortgage crisis would not have been as large.

I'm sorry, but that's just absurd.

Reviewing your Idaho editorial again, I find:

1. For Chrissakes, her main expert is a PhD from New South Wales less than a decade out of the proverbial gate (i.e. NSW), building up a "working paper" of a study. This isn't peer-reviewed or anything. And Alan-frakking-Greenspan poo-pooed on what she said.

And who the hell are these other people she quotes? She went out of her way to catch up with the least important, least directly-involved people.

Michael S. Barr, a leftist law professor at the University of Michigan Law School who testified before Congress . . . seems the lady forgot that he was also a Treasury Dept. official under Clinton and Center for American Progress member. I'm not getting all HUAC on him, I'm just saying that he's not exactly one who would be expected to criticize the bloody thing.

Michael Lee of Inner City Press community-organizing group (which may, like ACORN and Obama's old law firm, have sued banks for not doing enough CRA-esque loans) . . . a real financial expert!

Warren Traiger, of a law firm whose entire business is built around counseling institutions on CRA compliance. Another expert on CRA's economic effects!

It's not an ad hominem to point out that Idaho-writer's experts are unmitigated shit. And Idaho-writer is probably shit too, being noted as an NPR personality. That's National Public Radio, which is funny 'cause it breaks left almost as hard as MSNBC despite being government-run. Their big internal scandal of late was when some guy got in there hoping to rein in their leftism, and they ousted him.

2. "they blame America's economic earthquake on the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977, or CRA."

Wrong. The 1995 expansion receives part of the blame for screwing up the mortgage market and securitizing the screw-ups, producing a chain reaction of suck when mixed with FNMA and FHLMC primarily, along with a couple of ancillary matters.

I was gonna go on to three and four and more taking her apart piece by piece, but it's now stupid-late and I've already let this get wayyyyy too long. Sorry about that.

Suffice it to say that her defense, if desperately spirited (or spiritedly desperate), falls flat because she asks for opinions from one low-grade economist, one professor who was part of the administration who wrote it, a community organizer, and a guy whose business is based around it.

Sorry lady, but our problem with it is the effects of the legislation, not whether businesses that Traiger represents were directly hurt by the sub-prime stuff. Part of securitization is that you pass the turds (with risk) down the line to the next guy.

[Mr. Oragahn]

It would appear that any measure applied in 2005 would have failed anyway.

Either you'd give the impression that F&F were weakened, and thus spread panic and see recalls occurring left and right, with the possibility of a rise of loans' interest rates (similar to what Democrats and F&F argued to reject bills, in order to keep rates low), which is option 1, or you gave the impression to customers that there was a higher degree of security, as there would be more regulation, thus more confidence in F&F, only favouring their affairs but not really repairing the damage done, and certainly not stopping it.
That's option 2.

Or you'd do nothing. Option 3.

It was a very sensitive issue that only a progressive regulation and deflation of F&F's holdings that could have slowly flattened the bubble, perhaps limiting their scope of commerce as well, notably by finding a way around the varying interest rates and trying to block them one way or another. Capping interest rates would have certainly capped profitability and calmed down Freddie and Fannie. A method which I'm not sure other claims of regulation would have adopted.
Possibly option 4.

Basically, it seems that among four general different outcomes, largely depending on the reaction of the parties involved in financial transaction over those loans and other mortgage backed securities, three would have led to the crisis.
Option 1 may have popped the bubble earlier, possibly cutting the momentum and subprime chain reaction, option 2 may have made things far worse.
Option 3 is what happened and option 4 is just the option that would never pass.
A massive mess, for sure, and I certainly don't get all of it.

As a note of interest...

In the aftermath of the US Treasury’s decision to seize control of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, critics have hit at lax oversight of the mortgage companies.

The dominant theme has been that Congress let the two government-sponsored enterprises morph into a creature that eventually threatened the US financial system. Mike Oxley will have none of it.

Instead, the Ohio Republican who headed the House financial services committee until his retirement after mid-term elections last year, blames the mess on ideologues within the White House as well as Alan Greenspan, former chairman of the Federal Reserve.

The critics have forgotten that the House passed a GSE reform bill in 2005 that could well have prevented the current crisis, says Mr Oxley, now vice-chairman of Nasdaq.

He fumes about the criticism of his House colleagues. “All the handwringing and bedwetting is going on without remembering how the House stepped up on this,” he says. “What did we get from the White House? We got a one-finger salute.”

The House bill, the 2005 Federal Housing Finance Reform Act, would have created a stronger regulator with new powers to increase capital at Fannie and Freddie, to limit their portfolios and to deal with the possibility of receivership.

Mr Oxley reached out to Barney Frank, then the ranking Democrat on the committee and now its chairman, to secure support on the other side of the aisle. But after winning bipartisan support in the House, where the bill passed by 331 to 90 votes, the legislation lacked a champion in the Senate and faced hostility from the Bush administration.

Adamant that the only solution to the problems posed by Fannie and Freddie was their privatisation, the White House attacked the bill. Mr Greenspan also weighed in, saying that the House legislation was worse than no bill at all.

“We missed a golden opportunity that would have avoided a lot of the problems we’re facing now, if we hadn’t had such a firm ideological position at the White House and the Treasury and the Fed,” Mr Oxley says.

When Hank Paulson joined the administration as Treasury secretary in 2006 he sent emissaries to Capitol Hill to explore the possibility of reaching a compromise, but to no avail.

The Bush administration rejected both HR.1461 (a weaker version of S.190) and HR.1427.
Go figure.

[Jedi Master Spock]

But Fannie and Freddie were backing the loans, wrapping them up like exploding Christmas presents. In February 2008 Congress even gave Fannie and Freddie the ability to buy more with less capital by raising the limits on what Fannie and Freddie could buy!

And if you want to refer to immediate causes, check out the precipitous drop in the velocity of money after the Fannie and Freddie takeovers by the government (which is kind of a funny way of talking about GSE's in the first place, but whatever). That happened on September 7: http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/fr ... ][id]=MULT.

That basically means the economy slammed on the brakes.

The next day Lehman Brothers . . . already troubled by its worse-than-anyone exposure to the subprime stuff . . . had its shares drop almost 15% just in early afternoon trading, and the day after they dropped almost 50%. So a troubled institution just basically started rapidly approaching a declaration of worthlessness. They hobbled along for about a week before imploding. The government, having already stripped them of their behind-the-scenes GSE backer, basically cut them loose, and even refused to give financial support to keep them afloat.

The same day, supposedly-venerable old Merrill Lynch, tainted with toxic subprime nasties, was sold (with government help) to Bank of America.

During "the second week of September", (e.g. 8-12 . . . before Lehman's implosion but during its descent) there was what has been described in Congressional testimony as an "electronic run on the banks".

If you pay attention to the timeline and the charts, what basically happens is that the events of early September scared the hell out of everyone. And, these events generally had as immediate cause the government intervention (Fed takeover) executed against government intervention (GSE's Fannie and Freddie), producing domino effect damage up the subprime stream along with generally alarming the hell out of everyone.

In an economy so consumer-driven when confidence levels (among hoi polloi or financiers) really shape the country's economic mood, scaring the hell out of everyone is NOT the way to do things.

Fair enough. However, scaring the crap out of the market aside, the problem had already grown huge by that point.

It is my opinion that government involvement (1) started the mess, (2) initiated the crisis, and (3) is prolonging (or even getting rid of) the cure.

1. This isn't a free market, nor even a particularly rational one in many cases. The CRA expansion shoved institutions toward a new market that some seemed to find profitable, but which was quickly over-used. But with Fannie and Freddie supposedly backing everything and irresponsible Democrats in Congress silencing the regulators, everything looked fairly rosy for awhile.

The housing bubble looked less like a bubble and more like the way things now were. The economy re-oriented based on the conditions as they existed, like lifeforms evolving to rainy jungle. Individuals with good jobs gave them up to build "spec homes" (homes built without a buyer already in mind), knowing they could reap a profit. Individuals who needed a home were sold on more than they could truly afford, the result of "predatory lending practices" foisted upon them and the so-called predators by leftist Democrats like Mr. "Affowadawble" Homes himself Barney Frank.

But then the rain stopped, so the creatures evolved toward the jungle found themselves in tundra. The spec homes stand unfinished, the families in sub-prime mortgages are kicked out of their homes, and the economy is re-orienting toward the normal (but now damaged) conditions, excepting the little detail that the laws haven't changed that much from the time of jungle.

Greenspan said it very well when he said there wasn't a national housing bubble, but lots of local froth. We're not just talking about building homes on speculation; that's part of what drives the market into a bubble, but there are many other parts. In the LA market, for example, you had people taking out second mortgages on their original home to buy a second house as an investment, since loan rates were lower than the rate at which real estate appreciated.

Speculative activity is what fuels bubbles, and we definitely had speculative activity. A lot of this speculation had nothing to do with the bottom end of the housing market.

2. Then, as elucidated above, government initiated the crisis, its sudden activism scaring the hell out of investors and causing people to try to get cash in hand with a quickness.

Frankly, it's almost enough to make one ponder some conspiracist stupidity. But the simple fact is that those who came after Greenspan were no Greenspans, and while Bush's advisers had given him enough info to know to try to better regulate Fannie and Freddie in 2003 (thanks for shutting that down, Democrat assholes!), there just wasn't the ability or (supposedly) the time for Bush to understand what he was supporting. It was only in November that Bush was noting how he'd tossed aside his free-market principles for the "emergency".

If the government hadn't set off the crisis, there would've been a major crash anyway. Too much was tied up with the mortgage-backed securities.

3. Now . . . to the tune of around 1.8 trillion on paper (equal to the entire US federal budget in the 90's) or over 4 trillion when you account for timescales, interest, and so on . . . we've performed three bailout/rescue/stimulus/pork-barrel-spending/constituent-payoffs. This doesn't even count the monetary gobbledy-gook the Fed and Treasury have done, which put our obligations at (per some reports) or near double-digit trillions. That's not talking about the total national debt, that's talking about just the shit in the past 18 months.

The debt, though, to be fair, has been a long term problem for a while.

The CRA is to blame. Not just the lending patterns, but the new securitization that the 1995 CRA created. That was the real killer. Shit, even Greenspan says so.

The securitization of CRA loans started not with the government, but the private sector, in 1997. The toxic mess coincided with a regulatory slide of the banking industry out from under CRA regulations. I'm not convinced.

It is not a direct cause like a question of physics nor a chaos-theory butterfly fart way, but it is a necessary and proximate condition for the events that followed, one whose good-hearted absurdity shouldn't have passed the smell test.

But we're told by idiots and bastards that this is all due to "Wall Street greed".

I have to disagree, and bear with me, because I'm going to get technical. We can describe the subprime mortgage crisis in many ways, and one of those ways is as an actuarial failure. The government did not force banks to make subprime loans; the CRA, in fact, explicitly does not require banks to make loans that they judge to be a losing proposition. The government allowed the banks to enter the subprime market and to set very harsh loan terms, which lead banks to feel more comfortable making loans that were likelier to default in the long term, but paid more in the short term.

Banks - all the major ones, anyway - employ actuaries to evaluate risks and use statistics to analyze whether or not a given loan strategy is sound. As the subprime mortgage market bloomed, and the mortgage-backed securities market picked up, some banks' analysts came to the conclusion that they didn't have to pay attention to long-term default rates on loans. This was because loans were moving quickly on the market floor, so if they made some sour loans, they'd be able to resell those sour loans to other people.

And here's where “Wall Street greed” comes in. The job of traders is to make money, and the mortgage-backed securities market moved based on that greed. Banks assumed that traders would keep buying mortgage-backed securities. Those securities were bundled together in a relatively non-transparent manner that helped disguise just how much of them were based on toxic loans. And at some point, someone figured out that these things weren't going to keep paying out at the high rates they were paying out.

Strictly speaking, every single actor is acting strictly rationally given limited information, with a perfectly expected motivation for profit. However, the way the market structured itself meant all those actors had perfectly good reason to believe they didn't have to worry about the long-term profitability of any particular loan.

Ah, but what caused the housing bubble? A bubble is a price rise. A price rise usually comes either due to a supply shortage or a demand increase.

Fannie + Freddie + CRA and related false-market shifts caused both at the same time. Demand went up, and prices rose 25% from 1998 to 2003. They doubled from 2000 to 2006.

Easy credit and the government pushing toward riskier borrowers means there's more demand. The sub-prime market having opened up, with Fannie and Freddie on the case, others followed the money.

Put as you could find on Wikipedia, "In 1995, the GSEs began receiving government incentive payments for purchasing mortgage backed securities which included loans to low income borrowers. Thus began the involvement of the GSE with the subprime market. Subprime mortgage originations rose by 25% per year between 1994 and 2003, resulting in a nearly ten-fold increase in the volume of subprime mortgages in just nine years. The relatively high yields on these securities, in a time of low interest rates, were very attractive to Wall Street, and while Fannie and Freddie generally bought only the least risky subprime mortgages, these purchases encouraged the entire subprime market."

Home ownership rates went up from the 15-year average of 64% in 1994 to the "all-time high" of 69.2% in 2004. That may not sound like much, but if 5% more of the total population are buying houses that's a crunch to existing supply, causing prices to rise.

A construction bubble started at this time, too, where it could. Elsewhere over-regulation on buildings and builders led to less elastic supply. But either way, with huge gains in price elsewhere prices rose in many areas.

For the lenders, the risks were theoretically managed, but only if Fannie and Freddie were in place. They represented security from the government, and then the government ate them.

If your supply or demand shift, then the result isn't a bubble, it's a shift in the market. A bubble is an unstable spike in a market, usually - from what I've heard, anyway - caused by excess speculation in the market and predictably irrational behavior by traders trying to make a quick buck. It's an unintentional cousin to a Ponzi scheme - everybody gets excited about high returns, which drives the price up, which means the returns get higher.

Not to mention cooking their own books, getting called out by their regulator only to have that guy silenced by Barney Frank, Maxine Waters, and other Congressional Loonies, and so on. Oh yes, and having their caps lifted in early '08 so they could really get chugging on the candy.

Seriously, Frank and Waters were more concerned about "affordable housing" . . . ignoring the presence of the bubble they helped create, or the variable-rate ARM loans that Fannie started using in the early 2000s that would screw people right out of their house.

Bet you anything it's the “affordable” houses that will be bought most often this year. People who invested in - say - luxury condominium developments will not. Here's the thing to keep in mind as you grouse about affordable housing: The bottom 10% of the housing market doesn't represent 10% of the money in the housing market. Not anywhere near it; there's something like a factor of 2-3 between the 25th and 75th percentiles on home pricing. If you want to make money, you don't bother to build affordable housing “on speculation.” At the lowest, you aim for new white collar families trying to find a “nice” place to raise kids, but usually developers would rather aim for the upper end even within the white collar band.

This is not partisan, but ideological. Furthermore, there are misidentifications of the players involved. You can't cry foul against the Bush administration or Republican Congress when Democrats within a Congressional committee block action, and when it is Congress that has the role of oversight.

Some of the legislation contributing to this problem was authored by Republicans, e.g., the 1999 bill mentioned earlier was the brainchild of Phil Gramm (R-TX). It was also signed by a president Bill Clinton (D). The Bloomberg editorial seems to want to lay all the blame at the feet of the Democrats. That's just being blindly partisan.

Blame the Democrats for letting FM&FM go wild; blame the Republicans for gutting key regulatory oversight of the private banks. Blame Bush for the first stimulus package, blame Obama for the second one.

1. For Chrissakes, her main expert is a PhD from New South Wales less than a decade out of the proverbial gate (i.e. NSW), building up a "working paper" of a study. This isn't peer-reviewed or anything. And Alan-frakking-Greenspan poo-pooed on what she said.

And who the hell are these other people she quotes? She went out of her way to catch up with the least important, least directly-involved people.

Michael S. Barr, a leftist law professor at the University of Michigan Law School who testified before Congress . . . seems the lady forgot that he was also a Treasury Dept. official under Clinton and Center for American Progress member. I'm not getting all HUAC on him, I'm just saying that he's not exactly one who would be expected to criticize the bloody thing.

Michael Lee of Inner City Press community-organizing group (which may, like ACORN and Obama's old law firm, have sued banks for not doing enough CRA-esque loans) . . . a real financial expert!

Warren Traiger, of a law firm whose entire business is built around counseling institutions on CRA compliance. Another expert on CRA's economic effects!

It's not an ad hominem to point out that Idaho-writer's experts are unmitigated shit. And Idaho-writer is probably shit too, being noted as an NPR personality. That's National Public Radio, which is funny 'cause it breaks left almost as hard as MSNBC despite being government-run. Their big internal scandal of late was when some guy got in there hoping to rein in their leftism, and they ousted him.

NPR may swing left, but NPR also tends to do a good job. It's not actually government run - or funded, even, really. See here for details. Subsidized, yes, but the days where NPR was essentially a government-run and funded broadcasting corporation ended in the Reagan years. If you track through all of that breakdown, something like one sixth of NPR funding comes eventually from some kind of grant. The largest part of it comes (eventually) from listener donations, with a substantial minority from corporate “donations,” i.e., basically advertising and maybe a tax write-off in one, since NPR is not a for-profit organization.

Because their financial ties are mainly to listeners and volunteers, they're in a more similar position to newspapers than cable news; studies have generally put NPR and newspapers as being better at informing their audiences than cable news shows. Even if NPR and MSNBC are similarly biased on the political spectrum, I'm inclined to listen more carefully to NPR personalities than MSNBC personalities for that reason.

[Mr. Oragahn]

I think we need to put capitalism on pause, at the very least sanitize it.
The root of the system encourages voracious acquisition of goods and wealth, in a way totally detrimental to the populations of this planet.
The relentless train wreck that growth economy is can't be sustained any longer.
Patents, which only have a logic in a capitalistic world, and profits for a few, a process that has been going on for millenia, stifle the positive evolution and equalization of wealth and quality of life for all.
The point is to bring everybody to a point where we will enjoy a "super-decent" state of life, be it on land or on water.
It requires an intelligent and understood sacrifice to lay down the burdens which ensnare us and which we think we can't detach ourselves from.
It requires a conscious effort, one which must not be enforced before the whole of humanity democratically chooses to move on and do so.
But it first and foremost requires that all of humanity is given the tools and power to access this realization.

Once the quality of life is increased and balanced, population growth will stagnate and it will be manageable. It's not magic, it's already observed in some of the richest worlds.

Otherwise, we're running into the wall, straight for another world war full of atomics and bioweapons, abusive robotic and genetic practices to alter man to suit the needs of the few who see no interest in sharing the goods of this planet.

[PunkMaister]

Capitalism in it's purest form does not work but then again neither does Socialism as we saw with the demise of the Soviet Union and the Communist bloc. We need something that takes the best that these 2 extremes have to offer.

[Who is like God arbour]

Capitalism in it's purest form does not work but then again neither does Socialism as we saw with the demise of the Soviet Union and the Communist bloc. We need something that takes the best that these 2 extremes have to offer.

I have explained it already to you: The Soviet Union and the so called Communist bloc were not socialistic nor were they communistic.

Read, what socialism or communism is and read, what the Soviet Union was.

You will see, that the second doesn't satisfy the definition of the first and that there were huge differences. A simple clue: try to explain, how for example Stalinism, or as it was also called "red fascism", can be an attribute of socialism or communism.

Your conclusion, that Socialism does not work, is thereby simply wrong.

[sonofccn]

I have explained it already to you: The Soviet Union and the so called Communist bloc were not socialistic nor were they communistic.

I don't think PM was here when you did that and most likely didn't see your post.

Read, what socialism or communism is and read, what the Soviet Union was.

Communism-all property is in theroy owned by everyone but in reality owned by usually a small group of people. You get free room and board for your labor however.

Socialism-a middle of the road between communism and free market in theroy with results ranging from Modern German( Leading Europe economy IIRC) to NAZI Germany under Hitler.

Soviet Union- a despotic nation where property was owned by one or a oligarchy of figures. Marx theroy taken to it's logical conclusion.

All stem from the idea that the individual has to give up some or all personal liberity for some greater good.

[Who is like God arbour]

I have explained it already to you: The Soviet Union and the so called Communist bloc were not socialistic nor were they communistic.

I don't think PM was here when you did that and most likely didn't see your post.

That's not true:

• • • • • How much proof do you need to be convinced, that the United Federation of Planets is a democratic body?
          
          Is the from an enemy undisputed declaration of a Starfleet captain enough?
          
          • Errand of Mercy:
            
            • KOR:
              • You of the Federation, you are much like us.
              KIRK:
              • We're nothing like you. We're a democratic body.
              KOR:
              • Come now. I'm not referring to minor ideological differences. I mean that we are similar as a species. Here we are on a planet of sheep. Two tigers, predators, hunters, killers, and it is precisely that which makes us great. And there is a universe to be taken.
          Or do you demand to see the whole elections process onscreen?
          
          Remember: Star Trek are series centered on the crew of Starfleet ships or a station, managed by Starfleet. There are many things, we will never see; even things, that are happening aboard but a fortiori things, that are happening offboard.
          
          But nevertheless, we assume, because there is an absence of contradictory evidence, that they exist. And that especially, if there are explicit indications for their existence.
          
          Insofar, I would ask you to provide evidence, that the United Federation of Planets is, contradictory to what Kirk has said, not a democratic body.

        Common now we know that the TOS UFP and the one by TNG era are very different beasts. The UFP at TOS era was still a capitalist society for the most part. The sweeping socialist reforms we see in TNG's era had not taken place as of yet, by the same token we cannot assume that TNG era UFP is still a democratic body, we just don't know.

        You still don't quite understand the burden of proof.
        
        We know now, that the United Federation of Planets was a democratic body. That's our initial point.
        
        Now there are some, who are claiming, that this has changed. It is their burden, to provide evidence for it.
        
        You for example are claiming, that a change in their society has occurred - from a capitalist society to a socialist society.
        
        But you fail on the one hand to provide evidence, that such a change has indeed occurred and on the other hand you fail to show why, assuming such a change, it would mean, that the United Federation of Planets has ceased to be a democratic body. Where is it written, that a socialist society can't be democratic?

        In just about every past and present day example all socialist societies have ceased to be democratic, be it Cuba, Venezuela, North Korea you name it...

        1. Not only have you ignored my objections, your further arguments are wrong.
        2. These states were not socialist societies. There is no example in history for a real socialist or communist society in the Marxian sense.
           We have only states, who have claimed to be it. But what they have been, hasn't met the Marxian definition of the one or the other.
        3. Even if it would be so, it wouldn't prove anything. It would merely be a spurious correlation.
        4. "Pure communism" in the Marxian sense refers to a classless, stateless and oppression-free society where decisions on what to produce and what policies to pursue are made democratically, allowing every member of society to participate in the decision-making process in both the political and economic spheres of life [1].
        5. Democratic socialism is a political movement propagating the ideals of socialism within the framework of a parliamentary democracy. [2].

        And that is the problem Marxism socialism is for the most part a really bad joke just like the Islsmists dreamed perfect Sharia law state...
        
        
        And your objections are noted but none of them offer evidence of a representational and democratically elected form of government. Kirk makes refference tio democracy but no evidence of a democratic process is anywhere to be seen. At least in SW and NBSG we get to see that process in one form or another...

        And that is the problem Marxism socialism is for the most part a really bad joke just like the Islsmists dreamed perfect Sharia law state...

        That's a bad joke, isn't it?
        
        

        And your objections are noted but none of them offer evidence of a representational and democratically elected form of government. Kirk makes refference tio democracy but no evidence of a democratic process is anywhere to be seen. At least in SW and NBSG we get to see that process in one form or another...

        You still don't understand the principle of burden of proof.
        
        According to your logic, the in nearly every US. series of film portraited USA is not a democratic nation because we never see any democratic process.
        
        How many U.S. series do you know, where any democratic process was shown?
        
        I can't remember even one single one - although I don't watch much TV.
        
        But most series I know are showing every day life of civilians and not the adventurous life of the crew on a ship, far away from Earth.

Read, what socialism or communism is and read, what the Soviet Union was.

Communism-all property is in theroy owned by everyone but in reality owned by usually a small group of people. You get free room and board for your labor however.

Socialism-a middle of the road between communism and free market in theroy with results ranging from Modern German( Leading Europe economy IIRC) to NAZI Germany under Hitler.

Soviet Union- a despotic nation where property was owned by one or a oligarchy of figures. Marx theroy taken to it's logical conclusion.

All stem from the idea that the individual has to give up some or all personal liberity for some greater good.

We have had already that debate in the thread Why is a socialist Federation supposed to be a bad thing?.

• • • • I know a lot of it is that its being broadcast in capitalist countries and some people will try to find anything to criticize it but why is the idea of a perfect socialist state so looked down on? I mean, we should be PRAISING it for having the guts to show what a perfect system would look like!
        
        I mean, everyone is happy, religion is nonexistant and money no longer exists as a means to create social inequities by the oligarchical elitists. What would they want? A future where all the money and political power rests with a .1% of the people and the rest are forced to accept their lot by religion, tool of the rich. It would be like the corrupt system we see in SW.
        
        Anyone else have an opinion on this?

        I know a lot of it is that its being broadcast in capitalist countries and some people will try to find anything to criticize it but why is the idea of a perfect socialist state so looked down on? I mean, we should be PRAISING it for having the guts to show what a perfect system would look like!

        I guess we don't like it because socialism just doesn't appear to work. It's fundemently flawed and to function would require humanity to be perfect,which we ain't. Now I can agree that the Federation,inside the magic world of SOD, is a very nice place to live with all one's needs taken care of and that while not my first selection to live in I could do a lot worse.
        

        I mean, everyone is happy,

        Agreed everyone is happy,after all Earth is Paradise. I do enjoy that since most places in the "future" are very bleak and depressing. Always seems to be some war or fight needen to be taken care off.
        

        religion is nonexistant and money no longer exists as a means to create social inequities by the oligarchical elitists.

        I wouldn't say lack of religion is a good thing and one doesn't need money to be rulled by oligarchical elitists. The Soviet Union proved that comunistic countries can be quite oppressive.

        I know a lot of it is that its being broadcast in capitalist countries and some people will try to find anything to criticize it but why is the idea of a perfect socialist state so looked down on? I mean, we should be PRAISING it for having the guts to show what a perfect system would look like!
        
        I mean, everyone is happy, religion is nonexistant and money no longer exists as a means to create social inequities by the oligarchical elitists. What would they want? A future where all the money and political power rests with a .1% of the people and the rest are forced to accept their lot by religion, tool of the rich. It would be like the corrupt system we see in SW.
        
        Anyone else have an opinion on this?

        I think the problem is, that most don't know, what socialism or communism is supposed to be like. They think, that it has to be like the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, but fail to notice, that there was no real socialist or communist nation on this earth in the last 5'000 years.

        • • The Soviet Union proved that comunistic countries can be quite oppressive.

            • • The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was socialism in name only and has had nothing to do with communism.

        You are doing the same if you think, that a socialist or communist state is defined by absence of money and religion. That's wrong. States can have money and religious liberty and can be socialist or communist states nevertheless.

        The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was socialism in name only and has had nothing to do with communism.

        The Soviets might have disagreed with you :)
        They never the less attempted socialism,striving to create a classless society. The fact that they failed miserably doesn't change the fact they attempted the experiment. Regardless I refrenced the soviet union in regards to Araron A Araronson remark of the evil of money, my point being that in a nation as close to anti-capitalistic and moneyless as your bound to find on earth, opression was a reality and far worse then under any peer captitalistc society. Ergo that man is the source of evil not money, and the absence of it(ie money) wouldn't prevent a ruling elite.

        The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was socialism in name only and has had nothing to do with communism.

        The Soviets might have disagreed with you :)

        I'd say, that depends, whom you are asking and if they are answering truthfull.
        
        The man-in-the-street wouldn't say, that the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was socialist or communist, even if he would have had the political education to know, what exactly both meanings are. (That's not a given. Although the citizen of the Eastern bloc were usually well educated, they were also political indoctrinated.)
        
        Not the proletariat has had the power in the state, but a small squad of leaders or even only one single person (e.g. Stalinism).
        
        But the "dictatorship of the proletariat" is a term that refers to a temporary state between the capitalist society and the classless and stateless communist society; during this transition period. Insofar, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics has not even reached that transition period.
        
        Then there are the leaders, who are saying all they deem necessary to convince and appease the stupid people. They will try to tell you, that all they have done was necessary for the greater good and to achieve their goal: communism.
        
        But in reality, they have only tried to keep their power. They have not tried to establish communism but to establish their own dictatorship under the pretense to try to establish communism.
        

        They never the less attempted socialism,striving to create a classless society. The fact that they failed miserably doesn't change the fact they attempted the experiment.

        I'd say, that it could be possible that they have attempted the experiment in the beginning. But if, then they have aborted that experiment very fast. There is not much, that would prove, that there were real attempts to establisch socialism or communism.
        That was only, what they have called it.
        The problem now is, that both systems are suffering from that abuse of their name.
        

        Regardless I refrenced the soviet union in regards to Araron A Araronson remark of the evil of money, my point being that in a nation as close to anti-capitalistic and moneyless as your bound to find on earth, opression was a reality and far worse then under any peer captitalistc society. Ergo that man is the source of evil not money, and the absence of it(ie money) wouldn't prevent a ruling elite.

        I will not excuse the crimes, which were done in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
        
        But one could argue that the real existing capitalism allows, that each day hundred-thousands of people are dying from malnutrition, deficient water supply, lack of most simplest pharmaceuticals etc. etc. All five seconds, a child under ten years old dies from malnutrition. All 15 seconds a child dies from deficient water supply. All four minutes someone goes blind because lack of vitamin A. The real existing apitalism is only profitable for a small part of the world population while the theoretical communism would try to prevent such suffering.
        
        If such an objection is true, is another question. But the truth is, that capitalism is not the last conclusion of wisdom. Only that we, who are benefiting from it, have troubles to see the negative sides of it.

        Then there are the leaders, who are saying all they deem necessary to convince and appease the stupid people. They will try to tell you, that all they have done was necessary for the greater good and to achieve their goal: communism.
        
        But in reality, they have only tried to keep their power. They have not tried to establish communism but to establish their own dictatorship under the pretense to try to establish communism.

        It goes without saying the power bloc inside the USSR was first and foremost concerned with keeping thier own power but to say they were not true communists as opposed to understand this is the end result of attempting Comunisim in the real world is foolish. Granted in theroy the dictatorship was supposed to dissolve,making me think whoever thoguht that theroy up needs thier head examined, but the USSR Goverment did force govement ownership of all property and parcled it out to it's people as they needed. That is communision, an ugly far end of the spectrum version but one regardless.
        

        I'd say, that it could be possible that they have attempted the experiment in the beginning. But if, then they have aborted that experiment very fast. There is not much, that would prove, that there were real attempts to establisch socialism or communism.
        That was only, what they have called it.
        The problem now is, that both systems are suffering from that abuse of their name.

        I'd say it was merely a theroy meeting reality. A reality filled with cruel evil men who didn't need much of nudge to perform henious acts.
        
        The systems havn't suffered,unjustly, from the USSR. As long as we are dealing with humans and not say a legion of Data andriods, Socliasm will not work, as evident in the creation in one of the most horride nations-states ever to grace the Earth. It goes against human nature. The transitional dictatorship will not step down, people will not work harder without gains and the entire country will suffer because of it.
        

        But one could argue that the real existing capitalism allows, that each day hundred-thousands of people are dying from malnutrition, deficient water supply, lack of most simplest pharmaceuticals etc. etc. All five seconds, a child under ten years old dies from malnutrition. All 15 seconds a child dies from deficient water supply. All four minutes someone goes blind because lack of vitamin A. The real existing apitalism is only profitable for a small part of the world population while the theoretical communism would try to prevent such suffering.

        The keyword in your statement was theoretical. In a perfect universe it might work. We don't live in a perfect universe. We live in this one and can only compare actual capitalism which had brougth prosperity to whever it has been applied,hint many of those poor dieing people tend to live in quasi-socialist states, compared to acutal socialism which general has brought problems.
        
        As it stands today,in reality opposed to theroy, capitalism stands to help the people you mentioned much more then communisium.
        
        
        However this is way off point of my original claim. That it was humanity not money that caused evil in the world as Araron seemed to suggest. One can also insert religion in place of money if one so wished. I was merely challenging his claim, as it appears you also did( I think), that by removing money and religion mankind would suddenly become saints.
        
        I guess in conclusion I can agree the USSR was not the theoretical version of comunisiom. I just don't see an alternative on this Earth

        What this thread makes the mistake of doing is equating the ideals of Socialism with Communism, or as I refer to it, Marxism, which is the ideal that the Federation follows. It is better to say that the ideals of Socialism are all encompassing of everything from Utopianism, which is (ironically) not at all present in the Federation (a better fictional example might be the Culture, but I haven't had a chance to go over too many of the political details of Utopianism yet), to Democratic Socialism as seen in many states in Western Europe (including my own), and even including Marxism. It's a political system that works in some cases and some variants, but is woefully terrible in others. I refer you to China and the Soviet Union for the latter, and just about everything in Western Europe for the former. Except National Socialism, which is in fact something akin to Fascism and is only supported by bad people who should be kicked in the head.

        I think that your mistake is, that you seem to equate socialism with social. There are differences. A state or community can be social without being socialistic. Fact is, there are no states in Western Europe who are claiming to be socialistic. They may be social - or at least claim to be social. But they are not socialistic
        

        You see, in many ideals of Socialism, the idea is not to get rid of a capitalist economy, not to get rid of religion, not to give the military total control of the government, and not to control peoples' lives. The Federation seems to have all of these in abundance.

        
        Wrong. While it is correct, that there is a broad array of ideologies and political movements to which socialism refers, the common goal is a socio-economic system in which property and the distribution of wealth are subject to control by the community.
        

        The idea is to make peoples' lives a little better by introducing a social welfare and social healthcare system whilst also making sure that the capitalist economy isn't allowed to fuck people too far up the arse. See: America and the RIAA.

        No, that is not the meaning of socialism.
        

        The Federation, as it stands, is not in any way a 'utopia' I'd want to inhabit. It's really a lot like all of the false utopian societies it exposed. Section 31 and the Federation's society creates a false pretence of something utopian, but it's run with witch-hunts in the background that not even the higher echelons of society know about.

        That there is a secret service has neither to do with socialism nor communism.
        And what do you mean with » witch-hunts in the background«. And why would these witch-hunts in the background rule out socialism or communism?
        

        Frankly, there is a lot wrong with the Federation, but it's the fact that rather than merely being Communist or Socialist, it is in fact a Stalinist sort of regime.

        You should elaborate that statement. I have not get the impression, that the UfP is governed by one single person allone, that has established a personality cult around himself as an absolute dictator. I also dont see the extensive use of the secret police to maintain social submission and silence political dissent.

        sonofccn, I think we agree. There was never real socialism or communism on this earth. If there were real attempts to establish such systems, they have failed because egoistic humans.
        
        Another question is, if it would be possible to establish such systems at all.
        
        But SoD dictates, that it was possible after the First Contact, if one would define Earth or UfP as socialism or communism at all. I don't think, that what little we know about Earth meets the definition of either.
        
        Whatever economic system they have, it is in my opinion an entirely new system which may merely have some similarities with socialism or communism.

[sonofccn]

I have explained it already to you: The Soviet Union and the so called Communist bloc were not socialistic nor were they communistic.

I don't think PM was here when you did that and most likely didn't see your post.

That's not true:

• • • • • How much proof do you need to be convinced, that the United Federation of Planets is a democratic body?
          
          Is the from an enemy undisputed declaration of a Starfleet captain enough?
          
          • Errand of Mercy:
            
            • KOR:
              • You of the Federation, you are much like us.
              KIRK:
              • We're nothing like you. We're a democratic body.
              KOR:
              • Come now. I'm not referring to minor ideological differences. I mean that we are similar as a species. Here we are on a planet of sheep. Two tigers, predators, hunters, killers, and it is precisely that which makes us great. And there is a universe to be taken.
          Or do you demand to see the whole elections process onscreen?
          
          Remember: Star Trek are series centered on the crew of Starfleet ships or a station, managed by Starfleet. There are many things, we will never see; even things, that are happening aboard but a fortiori things, that are happening offboard.
          
          But nevertheless, we assume, because there is an absence of contradictory evidence, that they exist. And that especially, if there are explicit indications for their existence.
          
          Insofar, I would ask you to provide evidence, that the United Federation of Planets is, contradictory to what Kirk has said, not a democratic body.

        Common now we know that the TOS UFP and the one by TNG era are very different beasts. The UFP at TOS era was still a capitalist society for the most part. The sweeping socialist reforms we see in TNG's era had not taken place as of yet, by the same token we cannot assume that TNG era UFP is still a democratic body, we just don't know.

        You still don't quite understand the burden of proof.
        
        We know now, that the United Federation of Planets was a democratic body. That's our initial point.
        
        Now there are some, who are claiming, that this has changed. It is their burden, to provide evidence for it.
        
        You for example are claiming, that a change in their society has occurred - from a capitalist society to a socialist society.
        
        But you fail on the one hand to provide evidence, that such a change has indeed occurred and on the other hand you fail to show why, assuming such a change, it would mean, that the United Federation of Planets has ceased to be a democratic body. Where is it written, that a socialist society can't be democratic?

        In just about every past and present day example all socialist societies have ceased to be democratic, be it Cuba, Venezuela, North Korea you name it...

        1. Not only have you ignored my objections, your further arguments are wrong.
        2. These states were not socialist societies. There is no example in history for a real socialist or communist society in the Marxian sense.
           We have only states, who have claimed to be it. But what they have been, hasn't met the Marxian definition of the one or the other.
        3. Even if it would be so, it wouldn't prove anything. It would merely be a spurious correlation.
        4. "Pure communism" in the Marxian sense refers to a classless, stateless and oppression-free society where decisions on what to produce and what policies to pursue are made democratically, allowing every member of society to participate in the decision-making process in both the political and economic spheres of life [1].
        5. Democratic socialism is a political movement propagating the ideals of socialism within the framework of a parliamentary democracy. [2].

        And that is the problem Marxism socialism is for the most part a really bad joke just like the Islsmists dreamed perfect Sharia law state...
        
        
        And your objections are noted but none of them offer evidence of a representational and democratically elected form of government. Kirk makes refference tio democracy but no evidence of a democratic process is anywhere to be seen. At least in SW and NBSG we get to see that process in one form or another...

        And that is the problem Marxism socialism is for the most part a really bad joke just like the Islsmists dreamed perfect Sharia law state...

        That's a bad joke, isn't it?
        
        

        And your objections are noted but none of them offer evidence of a representational and democratically elected form of government. Kirk makes refference tio democracy but no evidence of a democratic process is anywhere to be seen. At least in SW and NBSG we get to see that process in one form or another...

        You still don't understand the principle of burden of proof.
        
        According to your logic, the in nearly every US. series of film portraited USA is not a democratic nation because we never see any democratic process.
        
        How many U.S. series do you know, where any democratic process was shown?
        
        I can't remember even one single one - although I don't watch much TV.
        
        But most series I know are showing every day life of civilians and not the adventurous life of the crew on a ship, far away from Earth.

Read, what socialism or communism is and read, what the Soviet Union was.

Communism-all property is in theroy owned by everyone but in reality owned by usually a small group of people. You get free room and board for your labor however.

Socialism-a middle of the road between communism and free market in theroy with results ranging from Modern German( Leading Europe economy IIRC) to NAZI Germany under Hitler.

Soviet Union- a despotic nation where property was owned by one or a oligarchy of figures. Marx theroy taken to it's logical conclusion.

All stem from the idea that the individual has to give up some or all personal liberity for some greater good.

We have had already that debate in the thread Why is a socialist Federation supposed to be a bad thing?.

• • • • I know a lot of it is that its being broadcast in capitalist countries and some people will try to find anything to criticize it but why is the idea of a perfect socialist state so looked down on? I mean, we should be PRAISING it for having the guts to show what a perfect system would look like!
        
        I mean, everyone is happy, religion is nonexistant and money no longer exists as a means to create social inequities by the oligarchical elitists. What would they want? A future where all the money and political power rests with a .1% of the people and the rest are forced to accept their lot by religion, tool of the rich. It would be like the corrupt system we see in SW.
        
        Anyone else have an opinion on this?

        I know a lot of it is that its being broadcast in capitalist countries and some people will try to find anything to criticize it but why is the idea of a perfect socialist state so looked down on? I mean, we should be PRAISING it for having the guts to show what a perfect system would look like!

        I guess we don't like it because socialism just doesn't appear to work. It's fundemently flawed and to function would require humanity to be perfect,which we ain't. Now I can agree that the Federation,inside the magic world of SOD, is a very nice place to live with all one's needs taken care of and that while not my first selection to live in I could do a lot worse.
        

        I mean, everyone is happy,

        Agreed everyone is happy,after all Earth is Paradise. I do enjoy that since most places in the "future" are very bleak and depressing. Always seems to be some war or fight needen to be taken care off.
        

        religion is nonexistant and money no longer exists as a means to create social inequities by the oligarchical elitists.

        I wouldn't say lack of religion is a good thing and one doesn't need money to be rulled by oligarchical elitists. The Soviet Union proved that comunistic countries can be quite oppressive.

        I know a lot of it is that its being broadcast in capitalist countries and some people will try to find anything to criticize it but why is the idea of a perfect socialist state so looked down on? I mean, we should be PRAISING it for having the guts to show what a perfect system would look like!
        
        I mean, everyone is happy, religion is nonexistant and money no longer exists as a means to create social inequities by the oligarchical elitists. What would they want? A future where all the money and political power rests with a .1% of the people and the rest are forced to accept their lot by religion, tool of the rich. It would be like the corrupt system we see in SW.
        
        Anyone else have an opinion on this?

        I think the problem is, that most don't know, what socialism or communism is supposed to be like. They think, that it has to be like the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, but fail to notice, that there was no real socialist or communist nation on this earth in the last 5'000 years.

        • • The Soviet Union proved that comunistic countries can be quite oppressive.

            • • The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was socialism in name only and has had nothing to do with communism.

        You are doing the same if you think, that a socialist or communist state is defined by absence of money and religion. That's wrong. States can have money and religious liberty and can be socialist or communist states nevertheless.

        The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was socialism in name only and has had nothing to do with communism.

        The Soviets might have disagreed with you :)
        They never the less attempted socialism,striving to create a classless society. The fact that they failed miserably doesn't change the fact they attempted the experiment. Regardless I refrenced the soviet union in regards to Araron A Araronson remark of the evil of money, my point being that in a nation as close to anti-capitalistic and moneyless as your bound to find on earth, opression was a reality and far worse then under any peer captitalistc society. Ergo that man is the source of evil not money, and the absence of it(ie money) wouldn't prevent a ruling elite.

        The Soviets might have disagreed with you :)

        I'd say, that depends, whom you are asking and if they are answering truthfull.
        
        The man-in-the-street wouldn't say, that the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was socialist or communist, even if he would have had the political education to know, what exactly both meanings are. (That's not a given. Although the citizen of the Eastern bloc were usually well educated, they were also political indoctrinated.)
        
        Not the proletariat has had the power in the state, but a small squad of leaders or even only one single person (e.g. Stalinism).
        
        But the "dictatorship of the proletariat" is a term that refers to a temporary state between the capitalist society and the classless and stateless communist society; during this transition period. Insofar, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics has not even reached that transition period.
        
        Then there are the leaders, who are saying all they deem necessary to convince and appease the stupid people. They will try to tell you, that all they have done was necessary for the greater good and to achieve their goal: communism.
        
        But in reality, they have only tried to keep their power. They have not tried to establish communism but to establish their own dictatorship under the pretense to try to establish communism.
        

        They never the less attempted socialism,striving to create a classless society. The fact that they failed miserably doesn't change the fact they attempted the experiment.

        I'd say, that it could be possible that they have attempted the experiment in the beginning. But if, then they have aborted that experiment very fast. There is not much, that would prove, that there were real attempts to establisch socialism or communism.
        That was only, what they have called it.
        The problem now is, that both systems are suffering from that abuse of their name.
        

        Regardless I refrenced the soviet union in regards to Araron A Araronson remark of the evil of money, my point being that in a nation as close to anti-capitalistic and moneyless as your bound to find on earth, opression was a reality and far worse then under any peer captitalistc society. Ergo that man is the source of evil not money, and the absence of it(ie money) wouldn't prevent a ruling elite.

        I will not excuse the crimes, which were done in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
        
        But one could argue that the real existing capitalism allows, that each day hundred-thousands of people are dying from malnutrition, deficient water supply, lack of most simplest pharmaceuticals etc. etc. All five seconds, a child under ten years old dies from malnutrition. All 15 seconds a child dies from deficient water supply. All four minutes someone goes blind because lack of vitamin A. The real existing apitalism is only profitable for a small part of the world population while the theoretical communism would try to prevent such suffering.
        
        If such an objection is true, is another question. But the truth is, that capitalism is not the last conclusion of wisdom. Only that we, who are benefiting from it, have troubles to see the negative sides of it.

        Then there are the leaders, who are saying all they deem necessary to convince and appease the stupid people. They will try to tell you, that all they have done was necessary for the greater good and to achieve their goal: communism.
        
        But in reality, they have only tried to keep their power. They have not tried to establish communism but to establish their own dictatorship under the pretense to try to establish communism.

        It goes without saying the power bloc inside the USSR was first and foremost concerned with keeping thier own power but to say they were not true communists as opposed to understand this is the end result of attempting Comunisim in the real world is foolish. Granted in theroy the dictatorship was supposed to dissolve,making me think whoever thoguht that theroy up needs thier head examined, but the USSR Goverment did force govement ownership of all property and parcled it out to it's people as they needed. That is communision, an ugly far end of the spectrum version but one regardless.
        

        I'd say, that it could be possible that they have attempted the experiment in the beginning. But if, then they have aborted that experiment very fast. There is not much, that would prove, that there were real attempts to establisch socialism or communism.
        That was only, what they have called it.
        The problem now is, that both systems are suffering from that abuse of their name.

        I'd say it was merely a theroy meeting reality. A reality filled with cruel evil men who didn't need much of nudge to perform henious acts.
        
        The systems havn't suffered,unjustly, from the USSR. As long as we are dealing with humans and not say a legion of Data andriods, Socliasm will not work, as evident in the creation in one of the most horride nations-states ever to grace the Earth. It goes against human nature. The transitional dictatorship will not step down, people will not work harder without gains and the entire country will suffer because of it.
        

        But one could argue that the real existing capitalism allows, that each day hundred-thousands of people are dying from malnutrition, deficient water supply, lack of most simplest pharmaceuticals etc. etc. All five seconds, a child under ten years old dies from malnutrition. All 15 seconds a child dies from deficient water supply. All four minutes someone goes blind because lack of vitamin A. The real existing apitalism is only profitable for a small part of the world population while the theoretical communism would try to prevent such suffering.

        The keyword in your statement was theoretical. In a perfect universe it might work. We don't live in a perfect universe. We live in this one and can only compare actual capitalism which had brougth prosperity to whever it has been applied,hint many of those poor dieing people tend to live in quasi-socialist states, compared to acutal socialism which general has brought problems.
        
        As it stands today,in reality opposed to theroy, capitalism stands to help the people you mentioned much more then communisium.
        
        
        However this is way off point of my original claim. That it was humanity not money that caused evil in the world as Araron seemed to suggest. One can also insert religion in place of money if one so wished. I was merely challenging his claim, as it appears you also did( I think), that by removing money and religion mankind would suddenly become saints.
        
        I guess in conclusion I can agree the USSR was not the theoretical version of comunisiom. I just don't see an alternative on this Earth

        What this thread makes the mistake of doing is equating the ideals of Socialism with Communism, or as I refer to it, Marxism, which is the ideal that the Federation follows. It is better to say that the ideals of Socialism are all encompassing of everything from Utopianism, which is (ironically) not at all present in the Federation (a better fictional example might be the Culture, but I haven't had a chance to go over too many of the political details of Utopianism yet), to Democratic Socialism as seen in many states in Western Europe (including my own), and even including Marxism. It's a political system that works in some cases and some variants, but is woefully terrible in others. I refer you to China and the Soviet Union for the latter, and just about everything in Western Europe for the former. Except National Socialism, which is in fact something akin to Fascism and is only supported by bad people who should be kicked in the head.

        I think that your mistake is, that you seem to equate socialism with social. There are differences. A state or community can be social without being socialistic. Fact is, there are no states in Western Europe who are claiming to be socialistic. They may be social - or at least claim to be social. But they are not socialistic
        

        You see, in many ideals of Socialism, the idea is not to get rid of a capitalist economy, not to get rid of religion, not to give the military total control of the government, and not to control peoples' lives. The Federation seems to have all of these in abundance.

        
        Wrong. While it is correct, that there is a broad array of ideologies and political movements to which socialism refers, the common goal is a socio-economic system in which property and the distribution of wealth are subject to control by the community.
        

        The idea is to make peoples' lives a little better by introducing a social welfare and social healthcare system whilst also making sure that the capitalist economy isn't allowed to fuck people too far up the arse. See: America and the RIAA.

        No, that is not the meaning of socialism.
        

        The Federation, as it stands, is not in any way a 'utopia' I'd want to inhabit. It's really a lot like all of the false utopian societies it exposed. Section 31 and the Federation's society creates a false pretence of something utopian, but it's run with witch-hunts in the background that not even the higher echelons of society know about.

        That there is a secret service has neither to do with socialism nor communism.
        And what do you mean with » witch-hunts in the background«. And why would these witch-hunts in the background rule out socialism or communism?
        

        Frankly, there is a lot wrong with the Federation, but it's the fact that rather than merely being Communist or Socialist, it is in fact a Stalinist sort of regime.

        You should elaborate that statement. I have not get the impression, that the UfP is governed by one single person allone, that has established a personality cult around himself as an absolute dictator. I also dont see the extensive use of the secret police to maintain social submission and silence political dissent.

        sonofccn, I think we agree. There was never real socialism or communism on this earth. If there were real attempts to establish such systems, they have failed because egoistic humans.
        
        Another question is, if it would be possible to establish such systems at all.
        
        But SoD dictates, that it was possible after the First Contact, if one would define Earth or UfP as socialism or communism at all. I don't think, that what little we know about Earth meets the definition of either.
        
        Whatever economic system they have, it is in my opinion an entirely new system which may merely have some similarities with socialism or communism.

My mistake and I am sorry I jump at the handle. I was unaware of that discussion and was thinking of the varoius other "other" threads these things without fail get dragged into to. Once again allow me to offer my apologies

[PunkMaister]

Capitalism in it's purest form does not work but then again neither does Socialism as we saw with the demise of the Soviet Union and the Communist bloc. We need something that takes the best that these 2 extremes have to offer.

I have explained it already to you: The Soviet Union and the so called Communist bloc were not socialistic nor were they communistic.

Read, what socialism or communism is and read, what the Soviet Union was.

You will see, that the second doesn't satisfy the definition of the first and that there were huge differences. A simple clue: try to explain, how for example Stalinism, or as it was also called "red fascism", can be an attribute of socialism or communism.

Your conclusion, that Socialism does not work, is thereby simply wrong.

The fact that that all the states that have tried either form of government have been monumental failures in one form or another proves my point.

I really don't giove a hoot about how Communism or Socialism look on paper, in practice they have never been made to work and as such I'd rather have a billion root canals than to ever give any of those ideologies a chance...

[Who is like God arbour]

The fact that that all the states that have tried either form of government have been monumental failures in one form or another proves my point.

No, it does not. All you have is a spurious correlation. But correlation does not imply causation.

Another question would be, if these societies have really tried to form socialism or if that was merely a propaganda trick of the leaders to appease the stupid masses.

You know that politicians are saying one thing but are meaning another thing and that you can't judge the nature of a nation or society on what politicians are saying or on what is written in laws, but on what happens in reality.

Otherwise you would have to come to the conclusion, that the Democratic Republic of the Congo is indeed a democratic republic.

Or that the United States of America are indeed a constitutional state in which the exercise of governmental power is constrained by the law and tied to the concept of the rule of law - but as we have seen in the last 7 years, it is not.

I really don't give a hoot about how Communism or Socialism look on paper, in practice they have never been made to work and as such I'd rather have a billion root canals than to ever give any of those ideologies a chance...

An opinion that is based on a wrong assumption is, if the person knows, that the assumption is wrong, a stupid opinion or comes, if the person does not know, that the assumption is wrong, from an uninformed person. In both cases, the opinion is not to be respected.

Your assumption is, that it was really tried to establish socialism or communism and that this attempt has failed.

But you fail to notice, that there was never a real and serious attempt.

Look at the history of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and you will notice, that socialism and communism were often used rhetorical but that there were no attempts to really establish it. It was not more than propaganda.

The problem now is, that both systems are suffering from that abuse of their name.

• • • • If you have another opinion, I dare you to find evidence, that it was really tried to establish the one or the other system. Show, that it was really tried to create a classless, stateless and oppression-free society where decisions on what to produce and what policies to pursue are made democratically, allowing every member of society to participate in the decision-making process in both the political and economic spheres of life.
        
        If you can show, that there were real attempts, I will concede, that these attempts have failed.
        
        But then, I would still dare you to show, that this is the mandatory outcome and not only a failed attempt which could have succeeded as well. Remember: correlation does not imply causation.

[PunkMaister]

The fact that that all the states that have tried either form of government have been monumental failures in one form or another proves my point.

No, it does not. All you have is a spurious correlation. But correlation does not imply causation.

Spurious correlation! Bwhahaha! Now what a load! By that logic one couild argue that the Social Democrats AKA Nazis could have been a whopping success for their country and the world at large. Karl Marx and Lenin are for all intended purposes the fathers of communism and socialism worldwide. and they were the architects of tje failed experiment known as the Soviet Union. When you have the very people thst created the ideologies you so staunchly defend create nothing but a mess your argument is nothing short of laughable.

[Who is like God arbour]

• At least I have an argument based on logic, while your last post is nothing more than unsubstantial ranting.
  
  Before you open your mouth again, you should learn something about logic, economy, history and formal debate.
  
  Karl Marx has died 1883 in London. Lenin has died 1924, while the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was "founded" 1922. To say that both were responsible for the practical establishment of socialism or communism in the newly founded state bears evidence of foolishness. Furthermore, if one sees, what Lenin has done during the October Revolution and the Russian Civil War, it is neither justifiable to lump him together with Karl Marx nor to say, that he really wanted to establish communism in the Marxian sense.

[PunkMaister]

*snip*

I could care less how a communist/socialist feels and much, much less what she/he has to say...

[Mr. Oragahn]

*snip*

I could care less how a communist/socialist feels and much, much less what she/he has to say...

I'm afraid to tell you this is the definition of stupid, both in your ignorant amalgam and your reckless declaration of denying one's opinion and arguments in a debate.

Really, every single time you may post something good, you post ten times this amount in shit.