Thread: Occupy cprogamming.com!

Originally Posted by AndrewHunter

It sounds like socialism to me.

In some aspects... but that may not be entirely a bad thing if it results in some redistribution of wealth to those who need it most.

You guys have a government run healthcare, we (in the US) do not. I can see the argument for the degredation of something already in place, however I do not see the point for the "fair wage" ideology.

There were a rash of news stories a couple of years back that have probably shaped Canadian opinion very strongly... one in particular was a story about a large corporation up here who less than a week after defaulting on pension plans for nearly a thousand workers gave it's CEO a million a month salary.

Another big part of the Canadian "Occupy" position is that we are fed up with crap products manufactured off-shore while Canadian workers sit on welfare.

Originally Posted by Elkvis

yes, there is plenty of greed at the top of large corporations, but I don't see how it's the government's responsibility to redistribute wealth. if they take it away from the wealthy, it won't go directly to the poor. it will go through numerous, horribly inefficient government programs, and (if US history is any indicator) less than half of it is likely to make it to the people who "need" it.

And your government is getting ready to expand its reach even further by introduce inefficient organization and an higher chance of corruption into new sectors of the economy. It's as like it refused to look at its European neighbors and learn anything from us and what got us into where we are now. Considering that USA is facing a gigantic deficit that threatens the world economy if it becomes the catalyst for a recession, it's just that it not only isn't learning from our mistakes, it is cheerfully and actively trying to repeat them.

As for the matter of Greed... a point of disagreement: Greed is common to all sectors of a society. Not just large corporations. It is more visible there because they can actually materialize that greed, whereas poorer sectors can only hope for the day they'll be greedy too. Failed attempts at Communism and Socialism were exactly a demonstration of how Greed extends to anyone and how Corruption is greed's arm on a society dependent on a central government. But if we look at the poorer societies in the world (and I lived briefly in one) one can see how greed can even manifest itself among those who have very little. It's a harsh lesson I learned in Angola, visiting the poorest neighborhoods and travelling on their crowded taxis that poverty it too generates greed. Greed among family members, among neighbors and among perfect strangers. Greed is everywhere. It's a human condition. One which neither you or I are immune, even if from within the comfortable position of our middle class we are lead to believe we are immune to it. It's not Them that are greedy and Us are not. Greed is us. And we are just like the large corporations. "Them" are instead those rare few humans who are indeed immune to it, who don't share the same gene, and demonstrate so by their actual actions (not words) sacrificing their own well being in the process by dedicating their lives to the others. So, before we look at large corporations at the source of all evil, we better look inside our hearts for that same evil that makes us, the ones who build those oh-so-evil corporations.

Originally Posted by Elkvis

what they fail to realize is that the more government oversight and regulation you have, the worse the problems get. excessive regulation is what caused the mortgage industry collapse in the US. by requiring banks to approve home mortgages for people who could not afford to pay them back, the US government (thanks to carter and clinton) caused its own problems.

Actually, that's the opposite of what happened. The more heavily-regulated banks weren't the source of most of the bad mortgages. The real problems were mortgage companies (which aren't bound by any of those federal regulations).

And the reason they made loans to people who couldn't pay them back: they didn't really care because overall those loans were really, really, really profitable.

In the past, mortgage companies usually earned money even on those people who defaulted on loans. Since housing values "always rise" (or so most believed at the time), the borrower who is out of money can just sell the house to repay the loan. Since the house has appreciated in value, their remaining equity can go to the mortgage holder to repay the missed payments. And since they bleed the riskier people on high interest rates, they actually raked in a ton of cash on subprime loans.

Banks and mortgage companies didn't really care if you would always be able to pay, because if you couldn't, they could just force you to sell the home and get their money that way. That works so long as housing prices keep going up - as long as the house is worth more than the loan, the bank doesn't really care if you can repay it or not - they have the house as collateral.

The real problem came when housing prices fell - now the houses were worth less than the remaining debt. Over 10% of the nation lived in negative equity. Now, there's no way out - the person can't sell the house for a price high enough to pay off the loan, and now the mortgage holder must take a loss if the borrower can't make their monthly payments. The same mortgage types that had been tremendously profitable now became tremendously unprofitable.

This was only one of many factors, though. There were many other key factors at play:

1. The companies issuing the loans weren't the ones taking the risk at all. They would bundle the loans and sell them. These were bought heavily because they received AAA ratings, they paid good interest rates, and they let banks invest in mortgages beyond the amount they normally could, because of how a mortgage-backed security is different on the balance sheets than simply a mortgage (how it counts towards the bank's equity and leverage ratios is different).

2. The entire industry was using the same theoretical models of risk that systematically underestimated the risk under certain conditions. So all parties were making decisions under inaccurate information about the actual risk.

3. Banks tried to hedge their bets by 'insuring' these mortgage-backed securities (via credit default swaps), but the companies they were insured by (e.g. AIG) lacked sufficient assets to actually make their 'insurance' payments when so many claims happened at once.

Originally Posted by jwenting

so you think there's nothing wrong with wholesale theft?

Which is all that that "redistribution" really is. Take things from productive people, people who actually work for a living, and give them to slackers who refuse to put in any effort to generate their own income, the professional unemployed and unemployable who deliberately make it so that they will never get accepted for a job.

Wow, way to sum up the entire left-wing of basically every country on earth in a complete black-and-white image. There must be a lot of "professionally unemployed" people where you live if you honestly believe that redistribution of wealth is stealing, personally i have never met even a single unemployed person who did not either wish they had a job, or wish they were capable of having a job. What reality do you live in?

People are not on government support because they choose to be, or well, maybe one in a thousand is, but the other 999 are on government support because they have to be. Do you also find that a person born with some kind of birth defect or disability does not deserve support from the society they were born into? What about heroine addicts or prostitutes? What about the unemployed trailer-park resident? Do you honestly believe people CHOOSE these lifestyles at some point in their life? If so, you are truely as naive as you let on. Have you ever heard the term 'born with a silver spoon up the arse'? The only way liberalism could ever be a fair system is in a society where everyone are born as equals, sadly, such a society does not exist. In a society with as much inequality as America, it never ceases to amaze me how the average American buys into this bs about everyone being born with equal opportunities.

Can you tell me, with a straight face, that a black infant born in Compton by a single mother, has the same shot at an average middle-class existence, as a caucasian infant born in Bel-Air? Really?? If not, the entire ideology on which you swear, completely crumbles, there is no fairness in liberalism, there is none whatsoever, it's all just luck.

They call for punishment of "evil corporate greed" while buying iPhones and Gstar jeans, eating Kellog's cornflakes and drinking Coca Cola while driving their Chevrolets, all products of the very same corporations they despise so much, never realising the anti-corporate laws and regulations they look for would destroy those corporations and make those products disappear.

The hipocrisy in this is just astounding. Let me fix this for you:

They call for punishment of "evil socialist deeds" while driving on the public roads, mailing letters, drinking water from the tap and using electricity from the mains, all products of the very same socialism they despise so much, never realising the anti-socialist laws and regulations they look for would destroy those publicly-financed commodities

They just see others having more than they do, and decide they want it too

They just see people living on the streets, going through trashcans looking for food, and decide they don't want to share.

See? Every ideology can be diminished to some useless idiotic floskel, i suggest you bring some real arguments to the table.

The way i see it, society is what gives your money value, it is society that educated you when you were young, it is society who gave you the opportunity to make it big, society is the backbone of our civilization, without it we would still be living in caves fighting each other with clubs, yet the individuals who gained THE MOST from being part of the society, are also the ones who refuse to take part in it. I'd have a pretty bad taste in my mouth if that was me.