Debt Ceiling Chicken

DanB wrote:

Well it's the neo-liberal capitalist choice. Both the republican and democratic parties are economically neo-liberal capitalist parties. Just because he ran under the Democratic ticket doesn't make him anti-capitalist.

Oh, he's extremely anti-capitalist. He supports big business, which is a very different thing.

Malor wrote:
DanB wrote:

Well it's the neo-liberal capitalist choice. Both the republican and democratic parties are economically neo-liberal capitalist parties. Just because he ran under the Democratic ticket doesn't make him anti-capitalist.

Oh, he's extremely anti-capitalist. He supports big business, which is a very different thing.

You can't be for contemporary business and be anti-capitalist. If you are for maintaining the western economic system then you are for capitalism, he's not looking to dismantle wall street. You could be against laissez faire capitalism and be for big business and you could be against free markets and for big business.

DanB wrote:
Malor wrote:
DanB wrote:

Well it's the neo-liberal capitalist choice. Both the republican and democratic parties are economically neo-liberal capitalist parties. Just because he ran under the Democratic ticket doesn't make him anti-capitalist.

Oh, he's extremely anti-capitalist. He supports big business, which is a very different thing.

You can't be for contemporary business and be anti-capitalist. If you are for maintaining the western economic system then you are for capitalism, he's not looking to dismantle wall street. You could be against laissez faire capitalism and be for big business and you could be against free markets and for big business.

sure you can. The phrase "too big to fail" is inherently anti capitalist.

Seth wrote:

sure you can. The phrase "too big to fail" is inherently anti capitalist.

That's certainly anti-competitive but hardly anti-capitalist. Policy that props up a business that's "too big to fail" is ensuring that some privately owned means to generate capital/profit remains privately owned.

To quote wikipedia's pithy summary:

Capitalism is an economic system structured upon the accumulation of capital in which the means of production are privately owned and operated for profit

If your policies are anti-competitive then that's really a position on how markets should be regulated.

I cede the point -- I was using words obtusely.

I think what people are trying to say is that his policies hurt capitalism writ-large as they undermine the actual function of free markets. Free markets would allow for failure and thus for small businesses with better ideas to step into the breach.

DSGamer wrote:

I think what people are trying to say is that his policies hurt capitalism writ-large as they undermine the actual function of free markets. Free markets would allow for failure and thus for small businesses with better ideas to step into the breach.

Economics wasn't always the term used for what is studied now. It used to be called Political Economy. The free-marketers thought that government distorts economics so they tried to come up with economics without government interference. But in the real world, economics and politics are always and everywhere two sides of the same coin.

Money is a law. Bankruptcy is a law. Property rights are laws. Corporations are a law. Taxes are laws. Social Security are laws. 401-Ks is a name from a section of a law. Etc, etc.

So by looking at the real world you could debunk the notion of free-market. Markets are political structures at all times.

The problem of capitalism is debt-deflation.

Some of the time capitalism works through bankruptcies and the sort to weed out the non-profitable companies. That is why free-market theory is so entrenched. It mainly works in prosperous times.

When too many capitalistic entities go broke at the same time you get deflation. Deflation is what leads to unemployment and lack of demand for products and services.

Through no fault of your own you could be out of work and not find prospects for new work. This is what is unfair of recessions/depressions and especially what we have now as a jobless recovery.

I think what Malor is saying is that Obama should toss the hot potato right back into Congress' lap by accepting their refusal to raise the debt ceiling rather than vetoing and raising the debt ceiling himself (which I'm still not sure how that is accomplished, but hey, I'm not Senate Minority Leader). I'm inclined to agree. If Congress is going to pull this infantile nonsense, they should be called on it.

Oh, I read "sign it" as "veto it". Never mind lol. The problem with that is predictable - "The President has left us no choice but to impose fiscal responsibility on the government. If he had ideas on cuts or budgeting, he'd have sent them to us to vote on. But as you can see, he's given us nothing - and refused to accept every concession we offered. Obama's brought us to this sorry state by refusing to halt or even modify his unprecedented 'share the wealth' spending plan, and remember that at the voting booth, folks."

Wow!

Robear IS an arch conservative!

Looks like the debt talks are going so well that Obama lit up Cantor and then walked out. In other news, Moody's said it was putting the US's debt rating under review for a possible downgrade given the lack of progress in the debt talks and the higher risk of default. It's gonna be an interesting couple of weeks.

OG_slinger wrote:

Looks like the debt talks are going so well that Obama lit up Cantor and then walked out. In other news, Moody's said it was putting the US's debt rating under review for a possible downgrade given the lack of progress in the debt talks and the higher risk of default. It's gonna be an interesting couple of weeks.

Public opinion seems to be swinging in a direction that will hurt the republicans more if we default. I imagine they'll come to the table soon with a little less crazy.

/but only a little.

I think we should start solving the fundamental problems of our democracy by exploding the legal fiction that corporations have "rights". They are not individuals. They are just bundles of contracts. And the idea that we can give an immortal legal entity with no conscience and the singular prerogative to grow extraordinary access to the system that governs us is precisely why we find ourselves alienated from practically everything we consider decent.

Corporate "speech" is not protected irrespective of what the two headed Scaliasaur says.

Paleocon wrote:

I think we should start solving the fundamental problems of our democracy by exploding the legal fiction that corporations have "rights". They are not individuals. They are just bundles of contracts. And the idea that we can give an immortal legal entity with no conscience and the singular prerogative to grow extraordinary access to the system that governs us is precisely why we find ourselves alienated from practically everything we consider decent.

Corporate "speech" is not protected irrespective of what the two headed Scaliasaur says.

+1

Related -- most of the numbers I'm seeing thrown around have the caveat of "over the next ten years" attached to them. Is this normal? I can cut my spending by a hundred grand or so, "over the next ten years," but that figure is largely meaningless to me.

Paleocon wrote:

I think we should start solving the fundamental problems of our democracy by exploding the legal fiction that corporations have "rights". They are not individuals. They are just bundles of contracts. And the idea that we can give an immortal legal entity with no conscience and the singular prerogative to grow extraordinary access to the system that governs us is precisely why we find ourselves alienated from practically everything we consider decent.

Corporate "speech" is not protected irrespective of what the two headed Scaliasaur says.

I've never seen the point made better than this.

As I've said on numerous occasions now, only people have rights. Pieces of paper do not.

Seth wrote:

Related -- most of the numbers I'm seeing thrown around have the caveat of "over the next ten years" attached to them. Is this normal? I can cut my spending by a hundred grand or so, "over the next ten years," but that figure is largely meaningless to me.

It's long been bandied about that this was the likely outcome.

- You don't really want to dramatically cut spending during a recession.
- Huge cuts that take effect immediately would be difficult to implement, and effects will be large.
- Our creditors aren't looking for us to stop spending, they just want to know that we're keeping things "in order" so that we'll keep paying them. We're essentially telling the bond market that "we'll fix it, we promise" so that we don't lose AAA. Of course, there's nothing that says folks in seven years can't say "PSYCHE!!!!"

Democrat McCaskill says Mitch McConnell has lost his mind.

Asked by host Joe Scarborough how she would justify her statement to McConnell, McCaskill said: “I would just say Mitch, honestly, with a straight face, do a press conference and say, ‘Here’s the solution to the problem: Let’s let the Democrats do it and we want them to do it three times before the next election and it will be OK with us if they do it as long as we don’t have to touch it.’ And people aren’t ridiculing that? This is when we’re supposed to come together.”
LilCodger wrote:
Seth wrote:

Related -- most of the numbers I'm seeing thrown around have the caveat of "over the next ten years" attached to them. Is this normal? I can cut my spending by a hundred grand or so, "over the next ten years," but that figure is largely meaningless to me.

It's long been bandied about that this was the likely outcome.

- You don't really want to dramatically cut spending during a recession.
- Huge cuts that take effect immediately would be difficult to implement, and effects will be large.
- Our creditors aren't looking for us to stop spending, they just want to know that we're keeping things "in order" so that we'll keep paying them. We're essentially telling the bond market that "we'll fix it, we promise" so that we don't lose AAA. Of course, there's nothing that says folks in seven years can't say "PSYCHE!!!!"

Which is exactly the 2nd best option.

No cuts. No tax hikes. Just raise the debt ceiling.

The best option would be to get rid of the debt ceiling.

Paleocon wrote:

I think we should start solving the fundamental problems of our democracy by exploding the legal fiction that corporations have "rights". They are not individuals. They are just bundles of contracts. And the idea that we can give an immortal legal entity with no conscience and the singular prerogative to grow extraordinary access to the system that governs us is precisely why we find ourselves alienated from practically everything we consider decent.

Corporate "speech" is not protected irrespective of what the two headed Scaliasaur says.

It's far more complicated than that. Let's go with your suggestion for a moment, ok corporations are no longer people, they're not individual entities.

A corporate product is unsafe, people are injured. Who do you sue? You can't sue the corporation, it's not a person, it's just a bundle of contracts. Should we sue all of the shareholders? If you're a shareholder in that corporation and the damage exceed the value of the stock options should the government start charging you out of your other personal funds? Maybe we should just sue and bankrupt anyone who worked on that product, the management team, the engineers, the assembly line people.

What about taxes? A corporation owes taxes on profits right, and shares represent ownership in the corporation. Therefore all the profits for every company would need to be distributed to individual shareholders and you would be responsible for accounting for and paying your share of the corporations taxes, fees, and regulations. We can't do one tax return anymore because the corporation isn't an individual entity, we must collect from the individual shareholders.

As for the freedom of speech thing. If you and your friends can form a PAC and run ads, etc. If a unionized collection of individuals is allowed to sponsor candidates, run ads, etc, why can't a collection of shareholders run ads and sponsor candidates? For the free speech and campaign things, it's not corporations that are broken, it's the election funding system. Making it so a corporation isn't considered at least a pseudo-person introduces unnecessary complications into our legal and tax system and while it's fun to bash them, it's not feasible to eliminate personhood.

Why can't you sue a corporate entity if it's not a person? I mean, you can sue your local council or government and they're not classed as persons.... You can sue your school!!

Duoae wrote:

Why can't you sue a corporate entity if it's not a person? I mean, you can sue your local council or government and they're not classed as persons.... You can sue your school!!

Localities are incorporated. So are schools.

bandit0013 wrote:
Duoae wrote:

Why can't you sue a corporate entity if it's not a person? I mean, you can sue your local council or government and they're not classed as persons.... You can sue your school!!

Localities are incorporated. So are schools.

Just because corporations would cease being legal persons doesn't mean they would stop being legal entities...entities that could be sued and taxed. Freedom of speech wouldn't apply to them because you don't give constitutional rights to things.

Right now corporations have the best of both worlds. They get all the rights of people and none of the responsibilities. If BP was a person and dumped millions of gallons of oil in the Gulf they would have been arrested and imprisoned. BP the corporation doesn't ever have to worry about that. At the same time BP the corporation can shovel millions of dollars into the campaigns of politicians to make sure laws get passed that will limit or reduce their liability from the accident they caused.

bandit0013 wrote:
Duoae wrote:

Why can't you sue a corporate entity if it's not a person? I mean, you can sue your local council or government and they're not classed as persons.... You can sue your school!!

Localities are incorporated. So are schools.

I'm sorry, i forget that there is unusual insanity in the states sometimes.

Wiki[/url]]Councils also have a general power to "promote economic, social and environmental well-being" of their area. However, like all public bodies, they are limited by the doctrine of ultra vires, and may only do things that common law or an Act of Parliament specifically or generally allows for - in contrast to the earlier incorporated municipal corporations which were treated as natural persons and could undertake whatever activities they wished to. Councils may promote Local Acts in Parliament to grant them special powers. For example, Kingston upon Hull had for many years a municipally owned telephone company, Kingston Communications.

OG_slinger wrote:
bandit0013 wrote:
Duoae wrote:

Why can't you sue a corporate entity if it's not a person? I mean, you can sue your local council or government and they're not classed as persons.... You can sue your school!!

Localities are incorporated. So are schools.

Just because corporations would cease being legal persons doesn't mean they would stop being legal entities...entities that could be sued and taxed. Freedom of speech wouldn't apply to them because you don't give constitutional rights to things.

So unions don't have freedom of speech either then? American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees in 2010 donated $87.5 million to campaigns and ad funding on behalf of democrats. What's the conceptual difference between that and a group of oil companies? Whether union members or shareholders they've both formed an organization for a common purpose.

bandit0013 wrote:

So unions don't have freedom of speech either then? American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees in 2010 donated $87.5 million to campaigns and ad funding on behalf of democrats. What's the conceptual difference between that an a group of oil companies?

Perhaps that unions are collections of individual citizens who have organized themselves for a specific purpose--typically to ensure that their members receive adequate wages, benefits, and protections from their employers--while corporations are just legal entities who just happen to employ people. That's the big difference.

In one group people have chosen to join and work together for a common cause while the other is just a random collection of people whose only shared connection is the love of getting a paycheck. In one group members can vote for who represents them and have input on the direction of the organization while the other they have no say in who leads them nor in the direction they are going.

It's also odd that you're citing the amount of money a union donated especially considering that the reason it's so high is the Citizen's United case. Everyone could spend more since they don't have limits anymore. That's a big reason why the amount of money spent on the 2010 elections shattered all previous election spending by more than a billion dollars. But if you wanted to be fair then you'd also have to cite the $75 million the US Chamber of Commerce lavished exclusively on Republican candidates as well as the $70+ million American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS spent (again, all on Republican candidates), the $25 million the American Action Network dropped (again, all on Republicans), as well as the spending of numerous other groups and companies. It's not like corporations were having a problem getting their voices heard before Citizen's United.

OG_slinger wrote:
bandit0013 wrote:

So unions don't have freedom of speech either then? American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees in 2010 donated $87.5 million to campaigns and ad funding on behalf of democrats. What's the conceptual difference between that an a group of oil companies?

Perhaps that unions are collections of individual citizens who have organized themselves for a specific purpose--typically to ensure that their members receive adequate wages, benefits, and protections from their employers--while corporations are just legal entities who just happen to employ people. That's the big difference.

In one group people have chosen to join and work together for a common cause while the other is just a random collection of people whose only shared connection is the love of getting a paycheck. In one group members can vote for who represents them and have input on the direction of the organization while the other they have no say in who leads them nor in the direction they are going.

I think you're way off base here. A corporation is a collection of shareholders looking to pool assets to minimize risk in the quest for larger profits. That's a specific purpose just like a union. They're also via corporate personhood minimizing risks and protecting themselves from individual liability. How do you propose actually starting businesses that require a large amount of capital investment without shareholders and the protections offered them?

Additionally, I think you're very confused about how a corporation works. Ever heard of a board of directors? Guess who gets to choose those? The shareholders. Shareholders can even sue the board if they feel the board isn't best representing their interests. So the little or no say thing is completely false. Also, the stock market valuation of shares serves as an international lever to punish (or reward) corporations for their actions.

Conceptually, it's no different than a union except that the individuals involved probably have more freedom.

OG_slinger wrote:

It's not like corporations were having a problem getting their voices heard before Citizen's United.

True, but we just had a mini thread about how corporations/shareholders shouldn't be allowed to have free speech rights. I'm just saying if you shut that down, you better shut down the other groups, including unions, as well. It sounds a lot to me when people argue about this that they're just trying to shut down the views they don't agree with instead of addressing the fundamental issue which is campaign financing.

bandit0013 wrote:

It's far more complicated than that. Let's go with your suggestion for a moment, ok corporations are no longer people, they're not individual entities.

A corporate product is unsafe, people are injured. Who do you sue? You can't sue the corporation, it's not a person, it's just a bundle of contracts. Should we sue all of the shareholders? If you're a shareholder in that corporation and the damage exceed the value of the stock options should the government start charging you out of your other personal funds? Maybe we should just sue and bankrupt anyone who worked on that product, the management team, the engineers, the assembly line people.

You can start by suing the management of the corporation as individual decisionmakers and affording them no legal protection for acting on behalf of the corporation. This would have the added advantage of slowing down the rate at which corporate managers make decisions that are clearly detrimental to the communities around them. It would also prevent the same from foisting the externalities of their decisions on pensioners who invest in their companies without any real say in the decision making process. It might even have the added benefit of making management more accountable to their shareholders because they would need that cover to prevent being stuck with all the blame.

What about taxes? A corporation owes taxes on profits right, and shares represent ownership in the corporation. Therefore all the profits for every company would need to be distributed to individual shareholders and you would be responsible for accounting for and paying your share of the corporations taxes, fees, and regulations. We can't do one tax return anymore because the corporation isn't an individual entity, we must collect from the individual shareholders.

I'm actually okay with the elimination of corporate income taxes altogether. The idea of a corporate income tax is, oddly, extremely regressive since it taxes the lowest paid employee at roughly the same rate as the CEO making 500 times his salary. Make individual income taxes much more progressive and the need for corporate income taxes disappears. Their elimination also makes relocating manufacturing in America a lot more attractive.

As for the freedom of speech thing. If you and your friends can form a PAC and run ads, etc. If a unionized collection of individuals is allowed to sponsor candidates, run ads, etc, why can't a collection of shareholders run ads and sponsor candidates? For the free speech and campaign things, it's not corporations that are broken, it's the election funding system. Making it so a corporation isn't considered at least a pseudo-person introduces unnecessary complications into our legal and tax system and while it's fun to bash them, it's not feasible to eliminate personhood.

Partly because my friends and I are willing participants in the PAC and participate with the intention of affecting policy in a manner that benefits us as citizens. A corporation, in sharp contrast, exists for the purpose of maximizing shareholder value which often puts it at violent odds with our goals as citizens. Don't get me wrong. I don't think corporations are "evil" (to ascribe that kind of motivation would be to make the mistake of assuming they have motivations at all, which, they don't) and I do think that much of the benefits we derive from living in a society in which our investor and consumer demands are out of scale with our demands as citizens are wonderful (e.g.: strawberries year round, the Hitler Channel). But I still contend that the reason we find ourselves so alienated from our democracy is because capitalism has killed it. And the process of resurrecting it will take a lot more than simple campaign finance reform.

Paleocon wrote:

You can start by suing the management of the corporation as individual decisionmakers and affording them no legal protection for acting on behalf of the corporation. This would have the added advantage of slowing down the rate at which corporate managers make decisions that are clearly detrimental to the communities around them. It would also prevent the same from foisting the externalities of their decisions on pensioners who invest in their companies without any real say in the decision making process. It might even have the added benefit of making management more accountable to their shareholders because they would need that cover to prevent being stuck with all the blame.

That also means that if you were a manager at a construction company and some nutjob environmentalist group thought you were killing a chipmunk at your construction site that they could sue you personally. Good luck in your middle class salary being able to defend yourself in court while feeding your kids. Without substantial legal system reform you'd be incapable of doing business because of fears of legal reprisals for any decision you might make. Even look at safety standards. Say there's a 1:100 million chance that the toaster will catch fire. Are you as the manager going to release it to production knowing that the if it actually does and someone loses their house you personally are on the hook for damages?

Even better example. We once had a payroll deduction clerk fat finger an entry and ended up taking almost all of some poor worker's paycheck. They bounced all their payments, hassle, fees, etc. Should they then be able to sue that near minimum wage clerk?

Paleocon wrote:

I'm actually okay with the elimination of corporate income taxes altogether. The idea of a corporate income tax is, oddly, extremely regressive since it taxes the lowest paid employee at roughly the same rate as the CEO making 500 times his salary. Make individual income taxes much more progressive and the need for corporate income taxes disappears. Their elimination also makes relocating manufacturing in America a lot more attractive.

I am in agreement here. I think that taxes on corporations are part of the business model and will be born by customers and lower wages for workers. I would much rather see progressive income taxation with a consumption tax mixed in. Both of our parties scream about jobs jobs jobs and yet both of them tax the crap out of job creation instead of simply taxing wealth gained.

Paleocon wrote:

Partly because my friends and I are willing participants in the PAC and participate with the intention of affecting policy in a manner that benefits us as citizens. A corporation, in sharp contrast, exists for the purpose of maximizing shareholder value which often puts it at violent odds with our goals as citizens. Don't get me wrong. I don't think corporations are "evil" (to ascribe that kind of motivation would be to make the mistake of assuming they have motivations at all, which, they don't) and I do think that much of the benefits we derive from living in a society in which our investor and consumer demands are out of scale with our demands as citizens are wonderful (e.g.: strawberries year round, the Hitler Channel). But I still contend that the reason we find ourselves so alienated from our democracy is because capitalism has killed it. And the process of resurrecting it will take a lot more than simple campaign finance reform.

Any shareholder is a willing participant as well. I could also argue that in the union example above that since public employee unions represent less than 10% of the workforce and rely (arguably to my detriment) on my income that they are at odds with the other 90% of the workforce as citizens.

However, the free speech thing is not really an argument I like to engage in because I believe in public financed elections and public servants (and the other party) being sent to federal PMITA prison for exchanging money or favors.

bandit0013 wrote:

That also means that if you were a manager at a construction company and some nutjob environmentalist group thought you were killing a chipmunk at your construction site that they could sue you personally. Good luck in your middle class salary being able to defend yourself in court while feeding your kids. Without substantial legal system reform you'd be incapable of doing business because of fears of legal reprisals for any decision you might make. Even look at safety standards. Say there's a 1:100 million chance that the toaster will catch fire. Are you as the manager going to release it to production knowing that the if it actually does and someone loses their house you personally are on the hook for damages?

And if said manager has a letter from the deep pocketed board of directors informing him of their intention to build on endangered chipmunk habitat, he's in the clear. It seems to me that what corporate America needs is a lot more of this sort of individual accountability.

I am in agreement here. I think that taxes on corporations are part of the business model and will be born by customers and lower wages for workers. I would much rather see progressive income taxation with a consumption tax mixed in. Both of our parties scream about jobs jobs jobs and yet both of them tax the crap out of job creation instead of simply taxing wealth gained.

Yup.

Any shareholder is a willing participant as well. I could also argue that in the union example above that since public employee unions represent less than 10% of the workforce and rely (arguably to my detriment) on my income that they are at odds with the other 90% of the workforce as citizens.

However, the free speech thing is not really an argument I like to engage in because I believe in public financed elections and public servants (and the other party) being sent to federal PMITA prison for exchanging money or favors.

Any shareholder and/or customer is a willing participant in one part of the equation and often only so at the expense of his rights as a citizen. He shops at Walmart for low prices and invests in Exxon Mobil because of high returns, but he, more often than not, is not in agreement with their legislative or lobbying agenda. He is an active participant in so far as his dollars go toward the exploitation of greater economic opportunity, but it is at the expense of democracy.

You join a PAC because you want specific policy changes that you believe the country should pursue. You don't invest in a mutual fund because you want the country to go to war in Iraq, but that is often the net effect.