Economic meltdown!

[taks]

You claim all levels of government regulation are failures, right? Then citing a few examples of failed government regulation is clearly in no way sufficient proof. That would be like me citing the failure of one democracy as evidence all democracies are failures.

um, no, i didn't make that specific claim, and i'm not citing a "few examples," either. "examples" pile up continuously, if not daily.

 

therefore it is not intellectually honest to claim "all levels of government regulation are failures" based on a small subset.

i'm not, and you're committing another strawman. is that intellectually honest? even noob admitted he misrepresented me, yet you fail to acknowledge your complete and utter lack of tact in this regard.

 

I can, in fact, clearly cite you counter-examples of where regulation works to varying degrees: basically every Western country (even America when you free market boneheads lay off).

then do.

 

The Reserve Bank of Australia, for example, specifically cites its sound regulatory framework as the reason why Australia weathered well the 1997 Asian crash, the 2000 recession, and the 2008 Wall Street crash. In fact, Australia's economic growth has been, on average, some of the highest in the OECD over the past 10 years. It is currently still more than double that of America. A similar situation applies to Brazil.

good for them, but that is not "proof" that regulation works, not in the least. again, here you are judging a system from within the system claiming "capitalism couldn't have done that." you can't even state with certainty that the asian crash or 2000 recession were not triggered by excessive regulation in the first place (and we know that regulation was a major player in the 2008 recession, and it is too early to tell if anyone will weather that).

 

taks

[random n00b]

yes, i think it will. no, i cannot prove that. just because i cannot prove that, however, does not mean my criticisms of the regulated are incorrect. those criticisms stand on their own evidence, which we have in abundance. every ideal system, for that matter, cannot exist as long as humans have free will.

Thank you. It may not have looked that way from the way I worded my first post, but I wasn't attempting to establish a lack of merit in the criticisms of regulation from your lack of formal support of the alternatives. I was taking each on separately.

 

Now, with that out of the way, why do you believe that a free market will come to equilibrium on its own? That's what I'm interested in the most.

 

 

no, krezack explicitly stated that i did not understand the strawman argument since there was no misrepresentation. you just conceded that you did indeed misrepresent me, and he made the same claim, so obviously my understanding of the strawman was not only correct, but proved.

That's still focusing on tangential issues - true or not, they aren't relevant to the discussion. Wouldn't it be easier if you simply disregarded that and focused on explaining your thoughts?

 

 

um, yes. i stated opinion that the free market is the only way to go because no means of regulating has been shown to work. in other words, my comment is that regulation does not work (my analysis), and my solution is no regulation (opinion). i do agree that there are some that are necessary, such as fraud, which i have pointed out, but that's another story. i cannot prove that no regulation will be completely self-balancing, and in fact, i'm quite certain it won't work perfectly, as no system can (otherwise we'd be back to the idealism thing). the burden of proof is on those that advocate regulation, which has repeatedly proven to not work. the more regulation that there is, the less efficient, and less prosperous, the system is.[...]

 

almost, but not quite. the alternatives do not collapse to a free market. most seem to (theoretically) collapse to anarchy, which has its own problems. the free market requires work, but not regulation. there needs to be some sort of enforcement behind free trade. for example, it is not free trade if the other guy refuses to pay, so there needs to be some guarantee that the trade will be conducted properly.

I'm not sure I agree with the analysis that regulation does not work, a rather categorical statement considering that true financial model collapse has only been witnessed in the case of the USSR - the rest have ups and downs. I do agree that an excess in regulation and intervention decreases the "dynamism" and adaptive capability of the system, bogging it down. The point where this starts is up for debate. The problem with a system which may or may not achieve equilibrium if left to its own devices is that the risk of catastrophic failure is present... just like in the present model. And since it cannot be proven that a truly free market system is exempt from this risk (as per your own admission), only morality is left as support for it.

[Xard]

And since it cannot be proven that a truly free market system is exempt from this risk (as per your own admission), only morality is left as support for it.

 

I should add that for good(?) and bad free market is amoral system so that's nullified too

 

besides, viewing taxes as stealing is one of the weirdest moral povs I've yet to see - I even understand better "property is theft" which is something that was pouted by one of the core anarchist philosophers s sometime in 18th or 19th century

 

I wonder if taks has ever even given thought to, say, John Rawl's theories of social justice

 

 

...whoops, it has the word social in it... so I guess no

Edited September 29, 2008 by Xard

[taks]

Well actually, at this very moment, tis the laissez-faire capitalism that`s failing.

excuse me? not sure how you can make the claim given the already noted provisions which triggered this situation. it's not "laissez-faire" when the government sets regulations that require backing loans that are high-risk, not in the least.

 

And not the banks of say China wich has ironically been shrugging off western advice for the past 20 years... Funny how an equally utopian ideology succeded the fall of communism, only in the other extreme heh.

not sure what this has to do with anything. china's success is due to their expansion of the free market. their communist ways are no longer. NK doesn't get the hint and is suffering tragically.

 

I think the issue here is the inability to see anything but the extreme poles heh. "partial regulation" must be the word I`m looking for. Saying regulation does not work cos USSR failed is a mockery to intelligence tbh. Plenty of examples today of regulation to varied degrees. Plenty more examples of them than examples of completley free markets tbh. And its not them failing.

no, they didn't have the excessive levels of home ownership, either. nor do they have the growth we have. even in our crisis over here, as bad as it is, unemployment is still near "full employment" levels. strange.

 

Morality surely also requires that rights of a person are not ignored simply cos of his economic disadvantage, doesnt it? Morality is a very slippery slope that has precious little to do with issues at hand.

how is it moral to compel a bank to give out a loan to someone that is high-risk? by doing so, you're saying that the person that is at an economic disadvantage have rights that trump the lender, who otherwise knows he's giving his money away to someone that can't give it back. this is legitimate discrimination: if the high-risk dude cannot be expected to pay back his loan, he shouldn't be getting the loan.

 

morality is the issue, and i'm sorry if you don't like it. but telling one that he has rights over another is immoral.

 

taks

 

PS: krezack, you're right, it is like arguing with a brick wall. you don't understand why your arguments are flawed (in spite of me quoting your misrepresentations directly), and it is annoying. you.just.don't.get.it. too bad, because you are indicative of the standard brain trust running around in the world making decisions, voting in the very things that plague society. just enough intelligence to think you know best.

[Humodour]

You claim all levels of government regulation are failures, right? Then citing a few examples of failed government regulation is clearly in no way sufficient proof. That would be like me citing the failure of one democracy as evidence all democracies are failures.

um, no, i didn't make that specific claim, and i'm not citing a "few examples," either. "examples" pile up continuously, if not daily.

 

Oh, yes you did:

 

we know that intervention does not work. not at any level.

 

 

therefore it is not intellectually honest to claim "all levels of government regulation are failures" based on a small subset.

i'm not, and you're committing another strawman. is that intellectually honest? even noob admitted he misrepresented me, yet you fail to acknowledge your complete and utter lack of tact in this regard.

 

You're not? Excellent! So you believe that some levels of government regulation work fine?

 

Oh, and he was being humble so you'd put semantics aside and actually justify your economic stance for once.

 

I can, in fact, clearly cite you counter-examples of where regulation works to varying degrees: basically every Western country (even America when you free market boneheads lay off).

then do.

 

Sure. Australia. I know, I know - I like to talk up Australia. Fact remains, though, it's a good example of a well regulated free market economy that has experienced economic success and stability for many decades. It completely undermines your "all regulation is bad" theory.

 

The Reserve Bank of Australia, for example, specifically cites its sound regulatory framework as the reason why Australia weathered well the 1997 Asian crash, the 2000 recession, and the 2008 Wall Street crash. In fact, Australia's economic growth has been, on average, some of the highest in the OECD over the past 10 years. It is currently still more than double that of America. A similar situation applies to Brazil.

good for them, but that is not "proof" that regulation works, not in the least. again, here you are judging a system from within the system claiming "capitalism couldn't have done that."

 

It doesn't matter what capitalism could have done. The point is clearly that regulation works fine here, quite contrary to everything you've been claiming.

 

you can't even state with certainty that the asian crash or 2000 recession were not triggered by excessive regulation in the first place (and we know that regulation was a major player in the 2008 recession, and it is too early to tell if anyone will weather that).

 

False, but irrelevant; the success or failure of any other regulatory system is of no consequence here, since we're talking about Australia. I have shown that Australia's economy is government regulated, and very successful. Clearly this means your claim that 'all' regulation is a failure... is a false notion.

[Humodour]

PS: krezack, you're right, it is like arguing with a brick wall. you don't understand why your arguments are flawed (in spite of me quoting your misrepresentations directly), and it is annoying. you.just.don't.get.it. too bad, because you are indicative of the standard brain trust running around in the world making decisions, voting in the very things that plague society. just enough intelligence to think you know best.

 

My, you're such a maverick, taks.

[taks]

Now, with that out of the way, why do you believe that a free market will come to equilibrium on its own? That's what I'm interested in the most.

gotcha on the first part. as for this bit, that's a bit hard to say since phrase "free market equilibrium" is pretty broad in scope. an easy example is monopolies: once one company begins to dominate, they inherently become less efficient (due to a lack of competition). less efficient means that their profit is no longer being maximized. once that happens, the door opens to competition that implements the same things in a more efficient manner. they offer the product at a reduced price, bringing down the former "monopoly"'s share of the market, as well as their price (in order to compete). supply and demand curves hold for every aspect of society in the same regard.

 

 

That's still focusing on tangential issues - true or not, they aren't relevant to the discussion. Wouldn't it be easier if you simply disregarded that and focused on explaining your thoughts?

perhaps, but the favored argument style in here (and everywhere for that matter) is a misrepresentation of your "opponent"'s position, which gets tiring. you were noble enough to admit it, krezack will never concede. i have made the same mistakes, and when it gets pointed out, i back down. i am also one of the most misrepresented in here, though probably because i have some of the most "radical" (or forceful) opinions. i do understand that most of the time such an argument is done unwittingly, and i realized even when you first made your statement that it wasn't your intent.

 

I'm not sure I agree with the analysis that regulation does not work, a rather categorical statement considering that true financial model collapse has only been witnessed in the case of the USSR - the rest have ups and downs.

well, there are a few others, such as china. china, however, has shifted to more and more free market strategies, so "collapse" isn't a fair word. they are also intentionally holding the yen to the dollar which is sort of cheating, but that can't hold for long.

 

I do agree that an excess in regulation and intervention decreases the "dynamism" and adaptive capability of the system, bogging it down. The point where this starts is up for debate. The problem with a system which may or may not achieve equilibrium if left to its own devices is that the risk of catastrophic failure is present... just like in the present model. And since it cannot be proven that a truly free market system is exempt from this risk (as per your own admission), only morality is left as support for it.

i can't argue with this line of reasoning, at least not all of it. i'm not sure i agree that the risk of catastrophic failure is present, at least, i think we don't know, so perhaps rightfully we assume it exists (your point, maybe?). the risk exists now, so the other option, no (or very little) regulation may be a lateral trade, which i think you're saying as well.

 

as i've noted, one of my biggest complaints is that the regulation trumps rights. no authority should be given the power to grant more rights (or more powerful rights) to one over another. risk aside, that is what i'm getting at with statements about morality.

 

yes, Xard, i agree that the system is technically "amoral," but morality enters into it when someone begins to favor one over another, which is immoral, IMO. so "amoral" is more moral than "immoral," understand where i'm coming from. there's no contradiction in my terminology.

 

taks

[Enoch]

how is it moral to compel a bank to give out a loan to someone that is high-risk? by doing so, you're saying that the person that is at an economic disadvantage have rights that trump the lender, who otherwise knows he's giving his money away to someone that can't give it back. this is legitimate discrimination: if the high-risk dude cannot be expected to pay back his loan, he shouldn't be getting the loan.

Once again, no banks were commanded to make loans to any particular applicants. The Government Sponsored Entities (GSEs), a.k.a., Fannie and Freddie, were compelled to buy and securitize subprime mortgages. If a bank decided that it wanted to keep higher standards, not securitize its lending, and accept lower short-term profits in exchange for lower long-term risk, they were perfectly free to do so (Hudson City Savings Bank, in the NY region, has become famous for this). In hindsight, it looks quite misguided for the government to use the GSEs as they did to achieve policy goals, but they are, at their core government sponsored, so one can hardly object on moral grounds to the government ordering them around a little bit.

 

Although I don't share taks' view on economic rights (outside of the confiscatory extremes), I do agree that markets are phenomenally useful and powerful tools that can be extraordinarily beneficial for a society. The current crisis does not represent a downfall of capitalism or anything close to it. When you get down to it, markets (and governments) are nothing more than groups of people, and people make mistakes.

Edited September 29, 2008 by Enoch

[Enoch]

Addendum on the "people make mistakes" bit:

 

As I mentioned earlier (might have been in the other thread), the mistakes were made because of a failure of leadership and forsight from an entire generation of financial and governmental elites.

[taks]

Oh, yes you did:

touche, my bad.

 

You're not? Excellent! So you believe that some levels of government regulation work fine?

i'm not claiming that "all levels of government regulation are failures based on a small subset." besides the fact that the subset is not small, not by any stretch. it is more like a majority of the overall set.

 

Oh, and he was being humble so you'd put semantics aside and actually justify your economic stance for once.

my economic stance has been justified every time i make it: no one person has rights that trump another's. period, that's the entire basis.

 

Sure. Australia. I know, I know - I like to talk up Australia. Fact remains, though, it's a good example of a well regulated free market economy that has experienced economic success and stability for many decades. It completely undermines your "all regulation is bad" theory.

no, it does not. and you correctly state in an earlier post that what is good for australia is not necessarily good for larger economies, which is really the heart of the matter. pure socialism works for a village of 50 people, for that matter.

 

It doesn't matter what capitalism could have done. The point is clearly that regulation works fine here, quite contrary to everything you've been claiming.

no, the point is that they claim regulation is working fine. i've stated quite clearly that the system is rigged. your argument starts out with a system that is regulated across the board, here in the US, in the EU, everywhere. one example of regulation helping out (or being claimed as helping out) from within that system is immaterial, which is what i was getting at. a valid comparison would be if australia was the only regulated economy and all others were not (vice versa, as well). unfortunately, this is an impossible situation since that has never existed (nor do i think it ever will).

 

False, but irrelevant; the success or failure of any other regulatory system is of no consequence here, since we're talking about Australia.

uh, you're the one that mentioned those things. again, we've got this hugely regulated system and you're judging from within the system.

 

I have shown that Australia's economy is government regulated, and very successful. Clearly this means your claim that 'all' regulation is a failure... is a false notion.

no. now you're committing **** hoc ergo proctor hoc. with this therefore because of this.

 

taks

[Brdavs]

excuse me? not sure how you can make the claim given the already noted provisions which triggered this situation. it's not "laissez-faire" when the government sets regulations that require backing loans that are high-risk, not in the least.

 

The loans increased in risk once the realestate bubble burst. + I`m not sure how you can make the claim that the regulation in question was the main reason in the prectices that lended great profits and fueled the countries growth for a decade. Afterall, turning a profit is the first commandment. Y

 

not sure what this has to do with anything. china's success is due to their expansion of the free market. their communist ways are no longer. NK doesn't get the hint and is suffering tragically.

 

You sir are a bit out of touch with Chinese reality I`m afraid. + gain exposing your inability to see niances. The fact post communist states no longer regulate 100% does not imply they do not regulate anything at all. China for instance repeatetly blew off calls from professionals now in big trouble to speed up to total deregulation.

 

Tis is not a debate of capitalism vs socialism regulation. Its a debate about certain types of capitalism - or at best between pure (theoretical) capitalism and mixed economies.

 

no, they didn't have the excessive levels of home ownership, either. nor do they have the growth we have. even in our crisis over here, as bad as it is, unemployment is still near "full employment" levels. strange.

 

Growth and home ownership now exposed to be on very flimsy foundations. You cant claim credit the positive effects of a practice and disown the negative ones or an eventual collapse, surely. That`d be immoral lol.

 

 

 

how is it moral to compel a bank to give out a loan to someone that is high-risk? by doing so, you're saying that the person that is at an economic disadvantage have rights that trump the lender, who otherwise knows he's giving his money away to someone that can't give it back. this is legitimate discrimination: if the high-risk dude cannot be expected to pay back his loan, he shouldn't be getting the loan.

 

morality is the issue, and i'm sorry if you don't like it. but telling one that he has rights over another is immoral.

 

You can make morality an issue but you must not that it is dependant on the induvidual societies/induviduals perspective. And you must apply it across the field not just specific case when its use suits you.

 

For instance, for me it is surely immoral that lets say children have radicaly different opportunities in life, dependant only on the size of the silver spoon layed in their cradle. And thats the hallmark of a social democracy. And the hallmark of that is state owned or subsidized programs of education, healthcare, child care and related services for all citizens. Regulation.

 

Lenin also viewed 90% of wealth concentrated with 10% of the population "immoral". What of it heh?

[taks]

Once again, no banks were commanded to make loans to any particular applicants. The Government Sponsored Entities (GSEs), a.k.a., Fannie and Freddie, were compelled to buy and securitize subprime mortgages.

i realize this enoch, even if i stated it incorrectly. the effect is the same, however. banks were told that high-risk lenders were being backed by the government. that inherently reduces their risk, even if it ultimately meant they were being backed by the taxpayers. i have also read of accusations levied against lenders that refused to provide subprime loans, but i haven't read about how widespread this was.

 

If a bank decided that it wanted to keep higher standards, not securitize its lending, and accept lower short-term profits in exchange for lower long-term risk, they were perfectly free to do so (Hudson City Savings Bank, in the NY region, has become famous for this).

many did, particularly the smaller, local banks. they are, not surprisingly, still solvent for the most part.

 

In hindsight, it looks quite misguided for the government to use the GSEs as they did to achieve policy goals, but they are, at their core government sponsored, so one can hardly object on moral grounds to the government ordering them around a little bit.

as with any government sponsored entity, there needs to be someone watching the operation. unfortunately, you often end up with the fox guarding the henhouse. my position is that if the government never built the henhouse, we'd never need to put a fox in charge of guarding it. they did try to constrain freddie and fannie, btw, but to no avail. if you give the corporate entities an ability to capitalize on their greed, they will.

 

Although I don't share taks' view on economic rights (outside of the confiscatory extremes), I do agree that markets are phenomenally useful and powerful tools that can be extraordinarily beneficial for a society. The current crisis does not represent a downfall of capitalism or anything close to it. When you get down to it, markets (and governments) are nothing more than groups of people, and people make mistakes.

never said you have to share my views on rights, though i've always estimated that you had this overall view.

 

taks

[taks]

The loans increased in risk once the realestate bubble burst. + I`m not sure how you can make the claim that the regulation in question was the main reason in the prectices that lended great profits and fueled the countries growth for a decade. Afterall, turning a profit is the first commandment. Y

??? uh, it was, and most discussions on economics will back that statement. the risk was there before the bubble burst, too, and has been noted for nearly a decade that it was a bubble that could burst. and, they didn't turn a profit, did they. $700 B of taxpayer money is going to cover that overall loss.

 

You sir are a bit out of touch with Chinese reality I`m afraid. + gain exposing your inability to see niances. The fact post communist states no longer regulate 100% does not imply they do not regulate anything at all. China for instance repeatetly blew off calls from professionals now in big trouble to speed up to total deregulation.

show me where i said they don't regulate anything at all? they are no longer "communist," at least, they dont' provide everything any more. china has an increasingly free market, which is where their expansion is coming from. i think you need to re-read what i said, and then look at what is happening.

 

Tis is not a debate of capitalism vs socialism regulation. Its a debate about certain types of capitalism - or at best between pure (theoretical) capitalism and mixed economies.

sure, and i think mixed economies don't work.

 

Growth and home ownership now exposed to be on very flimsy foundations. You cant claim credit the positive effects of a practice and disown the negative ones or an eventual collapse, surely. That`d be immoral lol.

not sure what you mean by this.

 

edit: i think i understand you now. another strawman. i'm not claiming any positive effects of a practice, in fact, i've made it quite clear that not everyone should own a home simply because not everyone can be trusted to pay it off. sorry if you didn't see that part, but it is how i've always seen the situation. the reason this all started was this silly notion that the US needed to increase home ownership levels to something that was not sustainable. the regulations were passed which opened up the flood gates on home purchases. it was a bubble, and it seems everyone knew it, yet nobody cared. well, they cared, but they knew we'd have to pick up the tab. too.

 

You can make morality an issue but you must not that it is dependant on the induvidual societies/induviduals perspective. And you must apply it across the field not just specific case when its use suits you.

 

For instance, for me it is surely immoral that lets say children have radicaly different opportunities in life, dependant only on the size of the silver spoon layed in their cradle. And thats the hallmark of a social democracy. And the hallmark of that is state owned or subsidized programs of education, healthcare, child care and related services for all citizens. Regulation.

so you think it is moral to take from one to give to another? sorry, but i do apply morality across the board, equally. i don't single out who gets preferential treatment. everyone has the same rights. any system which favors the rights of one over another is immoral. as i expanded above, true free market/capitalism is technically "amoral" (without morality), but that is more moral than an immoral system such as one you propose. i don't care how deep your compassion runs for the under privileged, that does not give you the right to claim morality when forcibly removing from one to support another.

 

Lenin also viewed 90% of wealth concentrated with 10% of the population "immoral". What of it heh?

in communist/socialist societies, the ratio is even worse. either way, at least in a capitalist system the 10% got that without stealing.

 

taks

Edited September 29, 2008 by taks

[Humodour]

Tis is not a debate of capitalism vs socialism regulation. Its a debate about certain types of capitalism - or at best between pure (theoretical) capitalism and mixed economies.

sure, and i think mixed economies don't work.

 

It's true. All mixed markets are failures: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixed_economy#Examples

[taks]

uh, your post is nothing more than an explanation of how it is being implemented. that does not prove anything, and particularly does not disprove anything i've said. i don't even argue that such things don't experience limited success, just that they can't long term, nor will they.

 

read the criticisms section, too. von mises was probably the brightest economist that has ever lived. too bad this notion of "compassion" runs so deeply through the human psyche, for we are collectively incapable of seeing the forest through the trees.

 

taks

[taks]

i should add, thank gawd for vaclav klaus, too, a former communist (well, leading a former communist country) that doesn't mind speaking his mind.

 

taks

[Rostere]

This entire regulation issue is really a question of striking the right balance. You could write en entire book about this subject, it underlies the entire phenomenon of people governing other people. It basically a fact that people do not always act for their own best. From that follows logically that societies (or, the global society at large) do not always act in their own best interest. A good, but very cheap example, of people not knowing their own best, is children. They lack experience to see their own urges and whims in a broader perspective. In the very same way, although to a lesser degree, do adults behave the same. Both complete regulation and complete freedom are absurdities that should be avoided. In our time and age, it is often seen as obvious why total regulation is a bad idea. But the reasons why total freedom of regulation is bad are equally plain to see, if you make use of analogies:

 

We regulate our bodies with medicines and surgery. Would you choose to be without medical aid only because nature must have its way?

 

We regulate our children (lol ) with education when we raise them. Would you choose an environment for your children to grow up in without any education by other people, because they should learn only directly from the world, regardless of its perils?

 

And so on, blah blah

 

The point that I want to make is that there is no sacred border you cross or holy right you infringe when you, say, as a government, choose to intervene in a free market. Which regulations you should have is of course an entirely different question that depends on the current circumstances.

Edited September 29, 2008 by Rostere

[Meshugger]

I would like to add something as well, eventhough this spiraled out of control while i was away.

 

1. The Soviet Union collapsed mainly because of one thing: In their planned economy, there were no transportation costs. Think about it again. The size of the soviets, and transportation costs don't "exist". Yup, it was that easy.

 

2. The Austrian school of economics, which closely seems to resemble taks' personal views, are interesting on a couple of things:

 

- They believe that since humans are inherently irrational atleast once in their lifetimes, then no mathematical model will ever suffice for economics. One has to use deductive logic instead.

 

- Since the perfect trade needs all the information available for the trader, therefore no trade is without risks (noone can know everything).

 

- Markets never stay at one equilibrium. They rather float between several ones, ever changing as long as trade is taking place.

 

But there's one problem that i have there. It is very individualistic, as in everything starts and ends depending on the actions of the individual. Therein lies the problem; Every individual has his own will and will act on it, but it is in human nature to have compassion, empathy and other social attributes. No matter what Ayn Rand thinks, people will still come together, come to agreements and protect family and the herd whenever needed.

 

This is why there should be a somewhat balance here. The government should not intervene with the capital too much (the bailout), but rather serve the interest of the wellbeing of it's citizens. What do the ordinary joe support? A banking bailout or the creation of a fund for those that really will suffer from the crash?

[Humodour]

The Brazilian stock market just crashed (dropping more than 10%) and they suspended trading. The Irish stock market crashed already yesterday (dropping more than 12%).

 

The Brizilian crash was due to the Republicans in America not passing the $700 billion bailout bill.

 

America's stock market fell 6% while Canada's fell 8%.

 

You can probably expect more countries to crash later today and tomorrow. Switzerland likely. And now Brazil is down, the rest of South America will likely follow. Britain expects to crash shortly, as does America (as much as 33%!).

 

This is pretty amazing stuff. It's kind of surreal. I always figured they'd be smart enough to pass that bill.

 

I know I said Australia had a sound economy and was doing fine with the recent ditch... but so was Brazil! Everyone was assuming they'd pass that bill! All bets are off now.

[Meshugger]

Go to any newssite. Dow Jones fell today by 778 points, biggest fall in history(by points, not percentage).

 

Holy smokes. This is like watching a hurricane from afar, you know it dangerous, but you can't stop looking.

[Hiro Protagonist]

I love how the Socialists are saving the Capitalists.

[Nick_i_am]

I love how the Socialists are saving the Capitalists.

 

Brace for Taks rage.

[taks]

curious how any socialists are saving any capitalists... really, can't happen. of course, if you really think there exists anything even remotely resembling a capitalist/free market economy in the world today you're dreaming.

 

personally, i've read many that say we should just let 'em collapse, let the bad loans fail, and suffer for a while. yup, we'll suffer, but a bailout will only drag out the suffering doling it out in smaller doses.

 

meh. the system has been screwed for so long it doesn't matter...

 

taks

[Walsingham]

Several packets of small damage may be better than one big bash. I know I'd rather have twenty ten volt shocks than one two hundred volt shock. Ditto my business might survive a 5% drop in takings, but a 50% drop is very very bad.

 

I don't know why the US bailout didn't go through. Was it dogma? Was it some a-hole putting impossible riders on it?

[Humodour]

Please taks, tell us more.