

This terrifying moment is our one chance for a new world - andyking
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/oct/05/banks.marketturmoil

======
SwellJoe
As always, blame the market for a failure of government. Government caused the
crisis, and it was aided and abetted by the wealthiest people on Wall Street.
And, with the bailout, we've insured none of the people responsible will face
negative consequences for bad business practices.

And, to boot, it's being used as an example of a failure of markets. The whole
sub-prime fiasco has nothing to do with markets. In a free market, government
does not guarantee that a risky investment will be repaid (as has largely been
the case in the home lending market since 1999). We're simply not talking
about a free market. We're talking about government programs gone horribly
(but predictably) awry.

~~~
mhartl
This is a familiar tune. Take a heavily regulated market with massive
government intervention, watch it get tied in knots, and then declare that the
"free market" has failed. The most dramatic historical example is perhaps the
U.S. economy leading up to the Great Depression, but we've seen plenty others
in recent years: the "deregulated" energy markets in California, "free market"
healthcare, and now the subprime meltdown. I'm beginning to suspect people
will never learn.

~~~
jmtame
The US is going to need to go through a complete meltdown. A Great Depression
probably wouldn't make people angry and organized enough to cause the change
that we need.

My prediction is that the United States won't stick around for too long (if
you take a history textbook perspective on this, which you can see other
failed societies have made the same mistakes that we are now repeating).

I think we have a fighting chance to create the desirable society that
eliminates corporatocracy. Did you know the planet contains 13,000 zettajoules
of geothermal energy? The entire world uses 0.5 zettajoules of energy per
year. And we can harvest this, but there are patent wars to suppress this from
easily happening.

Let's look at the other resources available, which cost us nothing at all.
Wind? 3 states of wind energy can power the entire United States. Water? The
UK alone could be powered by water/tide energy alone. Solar? One hour of
thermal energy in the day could power the United States for an entire year if
we harvested it properly.

Travel by plane? Who does that when you could travel by AT3's mag-lev trains,
which can reach speeds up to 4,000 MPH with zero moving parts and zero
emissions. Oh, and it uses about 10% of the energy of an airplane. Yes, they
work in land and water.

What happens when technology replaces humans? You no longer need to work. In
our capitalistic society, it's called unemployment. If you look into the Venus
Project, it's called you get bored and start thinking about space exploration.

Once people figure out that we don't really need these corporations, we'll
never have this type of problem come up again. The corporations are holding us
back and creating scarcity (real or perceived) at every opportunity. Like I
said, I don't think the United States is going to get it right, we're in far
too deep over our heads. And the attitudes and apathy of the American people
never ceases to amaze me (in a bad way) as an undergraduate.

~~~
lacker
It's not like if you outlaw corporations, suddenly a new form of organization
will appear where nobody is greedy any more. It's not like "the corporations"
are sitting on the secret to infinite wind energy and they're just afraid of
change. Corporations are made up of people. They are not perfect because
people are not perfect and organizing large groups of people is hard.
Outlawing corporations will not solve either of those problems.

~~~
unalone
Yeah. And you can't exactly say that corporations never do good, either.
Because an overwhelming amount of the time, they do. Even when they do bad
things, they often do it at the whim of the public. (To pick a lesser example:
remember that the people really DO like sensationalist news and cheesy,
humorless sitcoms.)

Blaming corporations does nothing. Trying to FIX corporations, yes. Trying to
REMOVE them is ignorant and short-sighted.

~~~
JulianMorrison
A broadcast medium, or a mass producer, makes more money making something a
lot of people like a little, than something which polarizes customers into
love and apathy.

From this springs every horror and alienation in the 20th century pop culture.

Upside: it's a passing technological phase, and we're nearly all the way
through.

~~~
unalone
I wish it was a passing phase. But people love it everywhere. I saw it two
years ago on Reddit, and have since seen it flame up into a ridiculous deluge
of fringe theories and an absolute death of everything interesting.

People like everything but fair and detailed reporting. News reflects this.
Same with culture. People like buying vast amounts of worthless things. It
doesn't matter what field it's in. Geeks collect as much as rifle hunters,
they just collect different things. That's led to an industry that specializes
in creating excess.

~~~
JulianMorrison
Reddit is still a mass producer of sorts, and the score stands in for money -
the same dynamic occurs. That which titillates the many out-scores that which
fascinates the few. (Reddit has tried with limited success to protect
enclaves: subreddits. They have created smaller and more elite lowest-common-
denominators. Better than nothing, for now.)

I say it's a passing phase because where tech is headed is: auto-generated
completely personal everything. The limit of "the few" is "the one", and the
mass production dynamic breaks down at that limit.

~~~
unalone
They've been predicting that since, what, the 20s? I've seen every attempt to
give personalized information and it never works. In fact, every attempt I've
seen is nothing short of laughable.

The problem with that concept is that it assumes we know exactly what it is
that we like, and that it's easy to communicate that. Neither assumption is
correct. As we learn, we constantly adjust what we like, at a fairly extreme
rate, and it tends to be impossible to express in any way other than the
extremely specific.

------
scudco
In America these problems are systemic because government has gotten in bed
with powerful banks to create a monopoly via the Federal Reserve. We have
given all economic power over the issuance of credit to very few with zero
oversight. We have centralized (economic) power. "The fundamentals of
Keynesian economics are sound" Just keep saying it to yourself, Mr. Hutton.

In Britain they have their own central bank monopolizing their credit
issuance, as well, through their confiscatory Bank of England.

We yammer on endlessly about the evils of capitalistic greed and never once
consider that governments(i.e., the people with the guns) are the ones
controlling this entire system.

Mr. Hutton seems to be suggesting what Mr. Frank Shostak sarcastically
suggests: "If central bankers and government bureaucrats can fix things in
difficult times, why not in good times too? Why not have a fully controlled
economy and all the problems will be fixed forever?"
<http://mises.org/story/3131>

------
hugh
I am deeply fearful that the current economic problems will lead to the
resurgence of the kind of idiotic socialist ideas represented by this Guardian
piece.

~~~
Xichekolas
While I'm also fearful of this, I feel like I missed something.

After all the talk about creating a 'fairer' system, it seemed like he just
suggested that Britain create its own version of Paulson's plan. What were his
suggestions for making things more 'fair'? Did I miss something?

------
mynameishere
I just love his proposal:

 _It can require the banks to behave differently – to move from financing
casino capitalism to productive enterprise. There can be a new emphasis on
relationship building and offering cheap long-term loans to business_

The banks were not financing "casino capitalism". They were providing
artificially cheap, long-term loans to unqualified homebuyers. Swap out
"unqualified homebuyers" with "unqualified businessowners", and you can see
the full extent of this guy's idiocy.

------
tomjen
>based on fairness instead of naked greed

Would somebody please send that man a copy of "Atlas Shrugged"? And to every
school child too.

~~~
mhartl
Coincidentally, I started (re)reading _Atlas Shrugged_ a couple months ago.
It's been a surreal counterpoint to events in the real world.

~~~
unalone
I reread it every 6 months or so. It's really fascinating not only because
each time you read it you become aware of the nitpicky flaws in it, but
because you become MUCH more aware of how there are really people who do talk
like Rand villains, and it's scary.

~~~
dougp
Rand's number one rule of characterization: if someone says their ought to be
a law. They are a bad character.

~~~
unalone
This is what I like least about Rand detractors: they never actually seem to
have read the book.

Rand gets very specific about what constitutes a useful law and what doesn't.
Mainly, she says that government should protect the people with law
enforcement, protect their rights with courtrooms, and protect the nation with
a defensive military - all things that private enterprise can't be trusted to
do. She believes in government in a limited capacity, but she believes it
should exist.

And one thing people don't seem to get while reading Atlas: she's aware that
she's writing about a pipe dream. Her story is merely a hypothetical ideal,
not an idea of what she actually wants to happen. Her writing worked, too: it
made millions of people think about self-reliance and freedom. And that's not
a bad thing at all.

~~~
dougp
I am not a Rand detractor I am a card carrying libertarian. FountainHead page
137 supports my claim. You misunderstood me I like her writing and her ideals.
Its my fault for making a quick joke anyway.

------
benl
So much for Disaster Capitalism (<http://www.naomiklein.org/shock-doctrine>)
then, huh?

~~~
alecco
Didn't the same people just get 850bn dollars more to play with?

