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VitalSigns posted:If you're not a savvy enough consumer to test your own cough medicine for antifreeze, that sucks but don't blame your incompetence on the company which is, after all, just pursuing its moral duty to make money. All I said was that in cases where banks did not break contracts with the consumer, the consumer is partially at fault. This is true. The consumer is not liable if they had a contract (even an implied one such as the labeling on the medicine or food proclaiming it food or medicine, or to contain certain ingredients) that is broken. You guys are right, the banks are meany pantses, however, so is everyone else. Everything is terrible and everyone is awful and you should know this aren't you adults?? kelvron posted:USPol June: Dogpile the Austrian! fun_stuff_to_do_with_friends.jpg
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May 22, 2014 20:06
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absolem posted:All I said was that in cases where banks did not break contracts with the consumer, the consumer is partially at fault. This is true. The consumer is not liable if they had a contract (even an implied one such as the labeling on the medicine or food proclaiming it food or medicine, or to contain certain ingredients) that is broken. You guys are right, the banks are meany pantses, however, so is everyone else. Everything is terrible and everyone is awful and you should know this aren't you adults?? This is an incredibly simple world view, but you seem like an incredibly simple person. No, uninformed consumers are not near as culpable as banks and lenders knowingly selling bad loans.
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May 22, 2014 20:07
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More:quote:This was all swirling in my head about the time I saw this article in the Times:
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May 22, 2014 20:07
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Amergin posted:In all seriousness, could you give me some examples of how a color-blind program to help the impoverished might hit the white poor better/more effectively than the black/latino/minority poor? Sure thing!
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May 22, 2014 20:07
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Shbobdb posted:You start out in 1992 by saying, "Reparations, reparations, reparations." By 2016 you can't say "reparations" — that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like urban renewal, medicaid expansion and all that stuff. You're getting so abstract now [that] you're talking about wealth redistribution, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks benefit more than whites. And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I'm not saying that. But I'm saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me — because obviously sitting around saying, "We want to fund this," is much more abstract than even the urban reneweal thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than "Reparations, reparations." A world in which Atwater said this quote is a world I'd like to live in. Well maybe, because the claim that "reparations" becomes an unacceptable word implies a subtle transition towards conservatism in society instead of progressivism. But if it meant that the 80s marked a resurgence of progressivism, it'd probably be worth it.
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May 22, 2014 20:09
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Rush posted:There's another place if none of these options work to find food; there's always the neighborhood dumpster. Now, you might find competition with homeless people there, but there are videos that have been produced to show you how to healthfully dine and how to dumpster dive and survive until school kicks back up in August. Can you imagine the benefit we would provide people? Ahahah, compassionate conservative indeed. This quote should be brought up whenever any of them even try to make a religious law as proof they don't give a poo poo about their beliefs.
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May 22, 2014 20:10
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tbp posted:Investing and purchasing a product for consumption are different. What does that have to do with this?
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May 22, 2014 20:14
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absolem posted:It makes no sense to charge entire groups with a crime. Nobody is talking about charging anyone with a crime. This discussion is about economic justice. The essential point is that a group of people were wronged. Yes, they were all individuals, but the effects of those wrongs carried over to their children, and their grandchildren, with more wrongs being added each step of the way. Now, literally hundreds of years later, there is a distinctive subset of people who are affected strongly by those wrongs (some of which are still ongoing!), and another distinctive subset of people who have in various ways benefited from those wrongs. It would be nice if we could bring everyone up to the level of the individuals in the second group, but that's not possible. The root cause of that group's advantages is literally identical to the root cause of the other group's disadvantages. "Reparations," at the heart of it, is just a way of saying "let's try to bring everyone closer to where they would have been if past generations of white people hadn't been such royal shits." You can whine all you want about how white people don't ~deserve~ to be punished for passively benefiting from inequality, or that they shouldn't be held ~responsible~ for the past, or that they haven't done anything ~wrong~. Nobody gives a poo poo. The imbalance is brutal, and it is ongoing, and it is within our power to fix it. If weakening the endless stream of systemic discrimination that black Americans have to wade through means the inflated white standard of living takes a hit, so be it. EDIT Also please realize that your obsession with contracts and coercion is uniquely ancap, and that they are not magic words for the rest of us. An exploitative contact is generally seen as wrong even if it was freely agreed to because as human beings we tend to frown on things like deliberately taking advantage of someone's ignorance or poor judgment. Alien Arcana fucked around with this message at 20:17 on May 22, 2014 |
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May 22, 2014 20:14
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A proletariat reminder that Rush Limbaugh once lived in a gilded French penthouse in the Liberal poo poo Wastes of NYC. Please think of that as you read him jokingly suggesting people eat from dumpsters.
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May 22, 2014 20:14
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On the topic of reperations, I, for one, think that South Carolina style mustard based BBQ is the worst variant.
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May 22, 2014 20:20
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absolem posted:I wish they had "shot". Saving them has hosed us even more. I too wish the US government had decided to let effectiveky every major (and most minor by extension) US financial institution fail. I have always wanted to live in a bizarre road warrior like state. Seriously do you even comprehend what this would have entailed? AIG the company that held pension funds for millions of America going bankrupt, and eventually giving back pennies on the dollar. Bank of America, one of the largest mortgage holders in the US disappearing over the course of a weekend. Should we have nationalized them? Absolutely. Take them over, fire everyone in management etc. But the idea of just letting the US financial system completely collapse shows such a total lack of understanding that it's astonishing. They call them too big to fail because if they'd been allowed to fail it wouldn't have been your happy little Austrian market correction. It would have made the great depression look like a jolly little walk through the park. Edit: gently caress I just have to reiterate this because your stupidity is so mindboggling that I cannot focus. The collapse just of AIG would have obliterated the total pension savings of 4.3 million Americans. Saved your whole life for retirement? Tough poo poo! This is what you unironically wished would happen. Caros fucked around with this message at 20:28 on May 22, 2014 |
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May 22, 2014 20:25
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nutranurse posted:This is an incredibly simple world view, but you seem like an incredibly simple person. It is a simple view. I said this. I said this. I said that, while culpable, they are not as culpable. Also, not every bank employee is evil, some of them were lied to as well, so that makes it messier. I'm really not comfortable with placing the blame all in one spot, it doesn't make sense.
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May 22, 2014 20:26
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Caros posted:I too wish the US government had decided to let effectiveky every major (and most minor by extension) US financial institution fail. I have always wanted to live in a bizarre road warrior like state. Not to mention how absolutely terrible it would be for the first black president to let these major financial institutions fail. Even if he had just come into office, the blame would be on his shoulders. Jesus. absolem posted:I'm really not comfortable with placing the blame all in one spot, it doesn't make sense. It doesn't make sense to you because you seem to exist in a magical fairy world where inequality isn't a thing and every individual is a rational actor with access to all the same tools and information. It's absurd to blame the victims of the crisis when the crisis was largely manufactured by the banks. MLKQUOTEMACHINE fucked around with this message at 20:30 on May 22, 2014 |
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May 22, 2014 20:27
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Caros posted:I too wish the US government had decided to let effectiveky every major (and most minor by extension) US financial institution fail. I have always wanted to live in a bizarre road warrior like state. The result is they'll do it again, and never be punished for it. The alternative is depression, that leaves little room to feel anything good about our country's current trajectory if you ask me. Glad the whole depression thing didn't happen though, I thought it was loving insane when the House voted it down, and all those youtubes of crazy conservatives toasting to it.
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May 22, 2014 20:27
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Doctor Butts posted:What does that have to do with this?  Come on now.
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May 22, 2014 20:29
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ComradeCosmobot posted:A world in which Atwater said this quote is a world I'd like to live in. I thought the point Coates is making, in part, is that it's important to call it reparations, because it forces whites to confront the fact that yes, minorities are being given this better treatment because of their history of being poo poo on. So while calling it reparations might make it less palatable--because when white people hear that word, they can only think of Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson showing up to their front door in leather jackets and berets to rifle through the silverware drawer, dig up their flower garden, and take their stereo--it's still worth taking that head-on because just talking about jobs programs dodges the conversation he feels it's so important to have; that yes, we're doing this as repayment for not just slavery but a continued culture of discrimination and abusive treatment of blacks by whites in America and this means you.
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May 22, 2014 20:29
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The administration should have bailed out the banks and jailed every CEO involved. You know, just to send a firm message that we aren't putting up with this bullshit anymore.
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May 22, 2014 20:29
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Nonsense posted:The result is they'll do it again, and never be punished for it. The alternative is depression, that leaves little room to feel anything good about our country's current trajectory if you ask me. There were alternatives at the time. Heavy regulation and outright nationalization of the endangered firms was the go to. If we'd done that we might have brought some sanity back to thing. And yes, it is loving depressing as all hell.
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May 22, 2014 20:30
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absolem posted:For example, racism is inefficient because racists make decisions based on incorrect assumptions that are economically damaging. (obviously that only applies to non-coercive racism, slavery is coercive) Okay so if discrimination isn't immoral, and the results benefit people in power, how exactly does your model society solve the problem of racism locking people out of economic opportunity? Even if you argue it's less efficient for society as a whole to be racist, by your own moral system, it's not wrong for those with the wealth and power to perpetuate an inefficient system if they benefit thereby so they have no reason to stop. Do you really think the only time apartheid is immoral is if a government supports it? quote:It is, but people who support those coercive policies are culpable. It is not that I am not guilty by virtue of being removed from the crime scene, but because I have no part in it (in the same way as a mob boss is guilty of murders committed on his orders, but his wife who was against his mob involvement is innocent). But now you're receiving stolen goods, so it's not wrong or a punishment to take them from you and return them to the victims...any more than you should be allowed to keep a necklace you bought at a cut rate from that mob boss. VitalSigns fucked around with this message at 20:39 on May 22, 2014 |
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May 22, 2014 20:31
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Caros posted:I too wish the US government had decided to let effectiveky every major (and most minor by extension) US financial institution fail. I have always wanted to live in a bizarre road warrior like state. You are overstating the negative effects of letting that group fail (although not by too much). The problem is, we haven't fixed the problem. Its still there, our economy is still massively weaker than it looks at first glance. We've also left in place all of the poo poo policy that helped cause this mess (read: regulation) and the people who caused it on the bank side are largely still around. The bailout just reset the timer. We'll hit another wall sooner or later, and I just pray we don't kick the can down the road again, because every time that happens the next one will be worse.
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May 22, 2014 20:31
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Letting the banks fail would have been ludicrously disastrous.
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May 22, 2014 20:33
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Alien Arcana posted:Nobody is talking about charging anyone with a crime. This discussion is about economic justice. Again, their is no obligation to reparation on the part of those not guilty of an actual offense. Your case amounts to 'it would be nice for them'. I understand no one else gives a poo poo about contracts, and breaking contracts is a big part of what got us into this mess. If you enter into a contract you had better loving fulfill it, as is your moral duty. I'm still looking for a reason to believe that contracts that turn out unpleasantly for one party (for any reason) are less inviolable than ones that are really nice for both parties.
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May 22, 2014 20:34
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I think it would not have been a complete disaster if short term lending had dried up and employers lost the ability to borrow money to pay employees. That would have been okay. edit: absolem do you believe in the social contract and if so do you think that the government has broken or violated the social contract wrt how black people are treated
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May 22, 2014 20:35
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absolem posted:You are overstating the negative effects of letting that group fail (although not by too much). The problem is, we haven't fixed the problem. Its still there, our economy is still massively weaker than it looks at first glance. We've also left in place all of the poo poo policy that helped cause this mess (read: regulation) and the people who caused it on the bank side are largely still around. The bailout just reset the timer. We'll hit another wall sooner or later, and I just pray we don't kick the can down the road again, because every time that happens the next one will be worse. It will continue to be kicked down the road because no politician is going to let the financial institutions of the United States collapse from some inconvenient bullshit.
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May 22, 2014 20:35
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nutranurse posted:Read the article, Coates provides more than enough examples. Most of his examples seem to be programs enacted decades ago, based upon Jim Crow, riddled with holes or rules to prohibit blacks from taking advantage of them. I think affirmative action might be the most recent program he discusses and even then he doesn't really make a decent argument against it other than it was vague and doesn't do enough to make reparations. I was more asking about future programs, created in an era that isn't nearly as riddled with out-and-out racist holes and enforced by racist legislators, which is why I joked that it's a "pie in the sky" ideal scenario. If we're assuming a program is created without holes, targeting poor people of every background, and enforced by colorblind legislators, what would cause this program to benefit poor whites more than poor blacks or other minorities? I accept the idea that black and white poverty are different, but to me it's more due to how each arrived in poverty rather than how to help each get out of poverty. If you provide housing, education and a job or assistance in getting a job to the white poor and black poor, why would the white poor benefit more (assuming colorblind hiring, etc - again, I understand this is a fantasy).
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May 22, 2014 20:37
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Amergin posted:I was more asking about future programs, created in an era that isn't nearly as riddled with out-and-out racist holes and enforced by racist legislators, which is why I joked that it's a "pie in the sky" ideal scenario. we are discussing measures that could be enacted by the currently elected united states congress mate
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May 22, 2014 20:39
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Swan Oat posted:I think it would not have been a complete disaster if short term lending had dried up and employers lost the ability to borrow money to pay employees. That would have been okay. I do not believe in the social contract. If I did, I would say that the gov't has hosed it backwards, sideways, and upside down screwing over blacks, the poor, the rich, basically everyone (but mostly blacks, natives, etc.)
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May 22, 2014 20:40
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Amergin posted:I accept the idea that black and white poverty are different, but to me it's more due to how each arrived in poverty rather than how to help each get out of poverty. If you provide housing, education and a job or assistance in getting a job to the white poor and black poor, why would the white poor benefit more (assuming colorblind hiring, etc - again, I understand this is a fantasy). Alright, assuming that we agree that inequality exists and that the poorest black is many times poorer than the poorest whites we can say so white people start here: [---------X] and black people start here: [X---------] If we give white people and black people the same amount of help, enacting color-blind policies that magically don't lead to black people being shut out then the result will be: [------------------X] for whites and [---------X] for blacks. Still inequality. e: What I find hilarious about this line of discussion is that, though it's not surprising, we must always have to consider white people in everything (why do we have to help out whites when we're talking about addressing racial inequality). You guys cannot seem to be able to do much of anything without yelling "WHAT ABOUT MEEEEEEEEEEEEEE." absolem posted:I do not believe in the social contract. Then do us a favor and go off and live in the mountains by yourself, you're clearly not interested in being a productive member of society. You are a taker, not a maker. MLKQUOTEMACHINE fucked around with this message at 20:48 on May 22, 2014 |
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May 22, 2014 20:43
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absolem posted:Again, their is no obligation to reparation on the part of those not guilty of an actual offense. Your case amounts to 'it would be nice for them'. I understand no one else gives a poo poo about contracts, and breaking contracts is a big part of what got us into this mess. If you enter into a contract you had better loving fulfill it, as is your moral duty. I'm still looking for a reason to believe that contracts that turn out unpleasantly for one party (for any reason) are less inviolable than ones that are really nice for both parties. For someone who throws around "you guys don't study economics" it seems that several of the major components of economic theory, such as information asymmetry, principal-agent problems, prospect theory, hyperbolic discounting, the entire field of behavioral economics. Also a curious lack of mention of the deregulation such as the Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act in your litany of how the government failed through regulation.
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May 22, 2014 20:45
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Wouldn't reparations just lead to an even more racist America, where poor whites and middle class whites get really mad about having to pay for their ancestors and lead to more Jim crow poo poo?
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May 22, 2014 20:49
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Chantilly Say posted:I thought the point Coates is making, in part, is that it's important to call it reparations, because it forces whites to confront the fact that yes, minorities are being given this better treatment because of their history of being poo poo on. So while calling it reparations might make it less palatable--because when white people hear that word, they can only think of Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson showing up to their front door in leather jackets and berets to rifle through the silverware drawer, dig up their flower garden, and take their stereo--it's still worth taking that head-on because just talking about jobs programs dodges the conversation he feels it's so important to have; that yes, we're doing this as repayment for not just slavery but a continued culture of discrimination and abusive treatment of blacks by whites in America and this means you. I was talking about the world encapsulated in the mangled quote in which a party could start saying "Reparations, Reparations, Reparations" and win an election on that basis (like the original "friend of the family, friend of the family, friend of the family" quote), but then had to devolve into code words, implying that the word "reparations" had once been politically acceptable, but then become unacceptable in modern discourse. In our society today, "reparations" has never been an acceptable word. And while I agree that calling it reparations brings the ultimate morality aspect of them to the fore and forces Americans to face the issues, you're not going to get anything substantive passed with that label attached to it in my lifetime barring a wave election that brings someone like Sanders, Conyers or Lewis to the presidency with a like-minded Congress.
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May 22, 2014 20:50
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Zikan posted:For someone who throws around "you guys don't study economics" it seems that several of the major components of economic theory, such as information asymmetry, principal-agent problems, prospect theory, hyperbolic discounting, the entire field of behavioral economics. I clicked around on mises.org and couldn't find any of that. So it's collectivism.
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May 22, 2014 20:50
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absolem posted:I do not believe in the social contract. SHUT UP!
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May 22, 2014 20:50
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Zikan posted:For someone who throws around "you guys don't study economics" it seems that several of the major components of economic theory, such as information asymmetry, principal-agent problems, prospect theory, hyperbolic discounting, the entire field of behavioral economics. going to borrow from nutranurse here: [x-----] functional free-ish market [----------x] before that dereg [[------x] after that dereg nutranurse posted:
I am very interested in being productive. What I don't have interest in is coercion. Speaking of psuedo intellectual drivel, social contract theory is hilarious. Its a laughable justification for the guys with the most money to not only lord it over everyone else, but to turn the whole place into their own kingdom by force cloaked in democracy.
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May 22, 2014 20:52
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Amergin posted:I accept the idea that black and white poverty are different, but to me it's more due to how each arrived in poverty rather than how to help each get out of poverty. If you provide housing, education and a job or assistance in getting a job to the white poor and black poor, why would the white poor benefit more (assuming colorblind hiring, etc - again, I understand this is a fantasy). I kind of feel that if you can grasp that white and black poverty are different, you should be able to understand why whites were benefiting more. tbp posted:
I'm serious.
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May 22, 2014 20:53
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Grapplejack posted:Wouldn't reparations just lead to an even more racist America, where poor whites and middle class whites get really mad about having to pay for their ancestors and lead to more Jim crow poo poo? Wouldn't desegregation just lead to an even more racist America, where poor whites and middle class whites get really mad about having to live alongside blacks and lead to more Jim Crow poo poo? The problem with arguing about how conservatives/regressives might feel if we enact progressive legislation is that conservatives/regressives will always oppose any efforts to drag this country away from a pre-Civil War mindset. Will passing some sort of reparations-like bill that sets up government programs and initiatives and whatever else is deemed 'enough' to pay back/help out blacks lead to some sore feelings from whites? Yeah, no poo poo. White people have stood on both sides of every argument concerning race, so why be surprised that they would continue to do so? Why must we hold back society-at-large while we appease the privileged?
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May 22, 2014 20:57
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I'm still curious how Libertopia deals with racial discrimination if it's not immoral for those with the wealth and power to further enrich themselves by perpetuating institutional racism even if it's less efficient for society overall. Or is it just done with the august praxeological conclusion of "tough titties, negros, now stop dreaming about schooling and get back to sharecropping where you belong"
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May 22, 2014 20:58
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Amergin posted:If we're assuming a program is created without holes, targeting poor people of every background, and enforced by colorblind legislators, what would cause this program to benefit poor whites more than poor blacks or other minorities? The program also has to survive the racist tendencies of the public (white flight, etc.), as one example. A well-intentioned administrative policy can still be ruined by public reaction outside of the administrative body.
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May 22, 2014 20:58
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absolem posted:I'm still looking for a reason to believe that contracts that turn out unpleasantly for one party (for any reason) are less inviolable than ones that are really nice for both parties. Okay, first of all, contracts aren't inviolable. Contracts get thrown out all the time if they're found invalid for one reason or another. Stop throwing ancap dogma around like it's an actual argument. Second. The issue wasn't that the mortgage deals "turned out unpleasantly," it's that they were actively and inherently harmful. They were, from the beginning, a scam at the expense of the people being signed up for them. We're not talking about a gambler welshing on a bet - we're talking about people who were misled to believe they were being sold a good product when they were actually getting a bad product. With that in mind: the essential foundation of trade is that both sides are supposed to benefit, because otherwise why trade in the first place? If people are signing contracts that actively harm them, something has gone horribly wrong and we need to look very closely to see if those people are being exploited somehow. And where I'm from, taking advantage of ordinary people's ignorance of complex financial matters counts as exploitation. So maybe in your ideal world ruining people, people whose only mistakes were being too trusting and not being financial experts, is A-OK because after all they signed the contract. Me, I'd prefer a world where crooks don't get to keep their ill-gotten goods just because they tricked their victims into signing them away.
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May 22, 2014 21:00
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zoux posted:Also, just because you aren't guilty of something doesn't mean you shouldn't want to fix it. Best response so far
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May 22, 2014 21:00
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