Are we reverting to Socialism again?

[the impossibilist]

MortgageBroker

my opinion is not any less acceptable than anybody else.

Firstly, there's the fallacy that all opinions are equally valid. Wishy-washy nonsense. In my opinion, of course.

But nobody stopped you from having an opinion, so what's your point ? I'm contending that your utterly fake observation about some socialists and their worth and the dignity of McDon... aaah, it's ridiculous to even retype it.

The difference between me and you is I go on the record, I publish my name, you hide behind a web-handle and play troll. nice....

Of course you go on the record. You're a shameless self-promoter. I keep my anonymity both as my prerogative, and because there's no reason to reveal it.

But both here and on the 'pin, I've given enough info that anyone who knows me would easily identify me from it. Not that it's a big deal.

And you clearly don't understand my job as i don't sell property

Don't act it. I never said you sell property. But by your own admission, you are a VI in the property mania. You are an integral part in this mess. I refer you to the link I posted earlier, and again below.

in fact, you should perhaps check some of the published record that is closer to my true feelings

Well I don't need to, because I read the 'pin already, but sure go on...

Top mortgage broker hopes for property crash

Deeter said the most important thing was to be honest with one's customers.

Commendable. So do you think you were being honest when you published this only eight months previously - moneytalk.ie - Your Home

after all, the banks were withdrawing those products around that time, were they not ?

or the effort to help those in trouble
Help at hand to avoid repossession - Irish, Business - Independent.ie

How did they get in trouble ? Some of them were taking advice from mortgage brokers.

It's interesting to see the chronological progression of those three articles, and correlate them with the property Ponzi.

We have not met professionally, and I've been a renter all along, so I'm not a disgruntled negative-equity former client of yours. But I despise what you and your industry (in all it's forms) are responsible for, to be honest.

I was really pissed off by your piece in the papers about buying the bank shares - totally irresponsible, and a terrible investment case (the Mars Bar thing). I accept that the newspaper may have made a mess of your original piece. But when you lie down with dogs... etc

I don't know why you were asked to do it, why you thought you were qualified to so it, or why you did it. I know, I know, you're entitled to your opinion. But some people not only read, they act on that kind of thing. Amazing, I know.

It seems to me that you've just jumped on the bandwagon of the whole thing to ''diversify'' your skillset or something, now that the mortgage gig is over.

And then you come on here and make some wide-boy remarks about ''Socialists I Have Known'' on the dole, and some unamusing sneering about their general sense of worth.

In my opinion.

ps You have been very gracious to me in a pm, and I acknowledge that sincerely.

[Red Boyneside]

Hi Red,

If you are saying that the bank bailouts are to preserve capitalism, shouldn't you be arguing that they should not happen so that the free-market works as efficiently as possible until its ultimate doom and is not hindered and delayed by government intervention?

True Marxists should be against all things that hinder the free-market system like the minimum wage, the central bank credit inflation, social welfare, taxation etc in that case shouldn't they?

I am against bank bailouts, they are the nationalisation of private debt but they are a useful example to use to show that the market doesn't work. As for being against all things that hinder the free market, if you were not interested in organising for change perhaps, but when you are trying to build a Socialist movement you have to engage in the struggles of the working class for a better quality of life and thus fight for better education, healthcare, transport etc. while pointing out that these things will always be under attack under capitalism.

[mr_anderson]

I am against bank bailouts, they are the nationalisation of private debt but they are a useful example to use to show that the market doesn't work.

Banks going bust are a prime example of the free-market market working !

Some banks made bad decisions.
Some banks made good decisions.

Bad debts should clear out the bad banks, leaving only the good banks with their conservative lending policies and strategies.
Thus penalising the former and rewarding the latter results in best lending practices surviving.
This is free-market capitalism at work.

Unfortunately government intervention is preventing the bad banks from going to the wall. Consequently bad lending practices will remain (dont think banks will learn their lesson - history always repeats itself).

[Red Boyneside]

Banks going bust are a prime example of the free-market market working !

I see Newspeak isn't dead. The current financial crisis is not just confined to a handful of banks. Have you looked at the fall in share prices in the last year? Its not individual banks making "bad decisions" that has caused the crisis, but the inherent instability of the market system. This pattern of boom and bust can bee seen throughout the history of Capitalism. Capitalism as a system has been on life support for around one hundred years, kept afloat through wars and government intervention.

[mr_anderson]

I see Newspeak isn't dead. The current financial crisis is not just confined to a handful of banks. Have you looked at the fall in share prices in the last year? Its not individual banks making "bad decisions" that has caused the crisis, but the inherent instability of the market system. This pattern of boom and bust can bee seen throughout the history of Capitalism. Capitalism as a system has been on life support for around one hundred years, kept afloat through wars and government intervention.

You see failure as the achilles heal of capitalism.
This is where you are going wrong.
Just as much as success, failure is part of how capitalism works.
Its capitalisms system of allowing firms to go bust that is its core strength.

[Red Boyneside]

So your saying failure is an inherent quality of Capitalism? No arguement there.
Capitalism does work for some people though. It works for the super rich. When things go wrong, they just withdraw their capital and ride out the storm, leaving the majority to pick up the pieces.

[myksav]

Are we reverting to Socialism again?

Were we ever a Socialist State in the first place to be reverting to Socialism?

[20000miles]

I see Newspeak isn't dead. The current financial crisis is not just confined to a handful of banks. Have you looked at the fall in share prices in the last year? Its not individual banks making "bad decisions" that has caused the crisis, but the inherent instability of the market system. This pattern of boom and bust can bee seen throughout the history of Capitalism. Capitalism as a system has been on life support for around one hundred years, kept afloat through wars and government intervention.

Greetings Red,

I don't think we're going to agree much. so I'll just say this - booms and busts aren't due to any "inherent instability" in the marketplace, but due to an expansion of money and credit. That's the reason the stock market can appear to hit record highs. It's phoney wealth. The problems stem right back to the advent of central banking and paper money.

See: The Lew Rockwell Show - 17. Austrian Theory of the Business Cycle

[mr_anderson]

So your saying failure is an inherent quality of Capitalism? No arguement there.
Capitalism does work for some people though. It works for the super rich.

I'll go out on a limb and say there are more than a few Irish (former) super rich who would disagree with that statement.

[onlyasking]

Hmm, where to start... from the beginning I suppose. If you go back and actually read the last few posts, you will see that myself and 20000miles (we'll get back to that in just a second ) and a few others were talking about government involvement in the monetary "sphere" of the economy, namely money production.

Indeed you were. That bears little relation to whether this state was ever socialist in nature and whether or not it will become socialist in the future. Forgive me for banging on about those questions, but they do provide the framework for this discussion. If you wish to have a little tete a tete about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, or a discussion about the fiscal mechanisms, or the lack thereof, which were recommended decades ago rabidly anti-socialist academics, that’s fine. Carry on, but leave me out.

If you can show us how, with examples, it was free markets and not central bank monetary policies and fractional reserve laws that started this "fiscal disorder" then please do.

De-regulation of financial services is at the core of the unravelling of globalised capitalism. De-regulation equates to greater market freedom in the “free markets”. These de-regulated free markets are at the epicentre of the current fiscal disorder (a term I admit is slightly euphemistic). I return the question to you. If you can show us, with examples, how “central bank monetary policies and fractional reserve laws” caused the unravelling of banking, with the accompanying socialisation of the losses suffered by the better-off, then be my guest.

As for the "capitalist utopia" you refer to, I don't think anyone here claimed there was such a thing...

Judging by the passionate defence here of a system that is rotten to the core, that has failed billions of people who had developed an irrational faith in it, and that would appear to be finished as we’ve known it for a quarter of a century, it appears to me that there are quite a few who, while not using that term, actually ascribe utopian qualities to capitalist societies.

Honest error! 20000miles I meant. Silly me.

I believe you. Really.

Friedman advocated a fiat or paper money standard guided by a monetary authority. Hayek on the other hand thought that the government should not be involved in the production of money. Can't get much more opposed than that.
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Are you denying the major influence Hayek had on Friedman, the fact that both were held up as idols by Thatcher, Reagan and the rest of the free-market zealots, and the fact that they sit side by side in the pantheon of anti-socialist thinkers? You say there’s a “monumental difference” between their positions, and that you “can’t get much more opposed than” their positions. That is simply not the case.

Doctrines belong in the realms of religion and other irrational belief systems. There is no single approach to human endeavour that can be successfully applied to global human endeavour. Too much rigidity i.e. the doctrinal application of either Marx or Hayek is ill-matched to the range of cultural impulses, value systems and environments which impact on human experience.

I believe in more general principles such as the protection of the weak by the strong, the caring for the sick by the healthy, the opening up of educational opportunities to all, real and meaningful societal structures to enable the smallest amount of stratification within societies, and a rejection of privilege attained by birthright. If you wish to describe that as socialism, that’s up to you. It’s not a doctrine nor is it scientific. It’s an instinct that a return to the law of the jungle will not be in the interests of my children, or theirs, or anyone else’s in the long run.

To return to the essence of this thread, this state has never remotely lived up to the principles I’ve outlined, not to mention any doctrinal application of whatever expression of socialist thinking it is that gets your goat.