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Bill_Cherry
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Chapter three is devoted entirely to "FRATERNITY, ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT AND CIVIL SOCIETY"
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sidonius
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WillieWonka
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Bill_Cherry
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**Very well said. I am hoping to one day go ‘off the grid’ It seems to me that doing so would be a form of going ‘simpler’ without going ‘backwards’. **
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WillieWonka
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Sitting back in a lawn chair in front of that AirStream next to a quiet lake? Sounds great to me. Your savings would be financing other folks who are building various ventures, so they would be directed towards creation of wealth rather than expending of wealth.
That local Walmart would provide whatever was needed, and their incredible computer managed warehouse on the road system would be bringing a steady stream of goods. Pick up what little you need, and life is good.
But that pickup you drive from the AirStream to Walmart? It’s mighty high tech item. So is the gas that moves from tertiary recovery wells in Kuwait through a system of pipelines and tankers, gets traded on the MY Merc, and eventally makes the trip from refinery to the local Quik Pik where you pump it into the pickup.
You probably don’t need internet or TV at the AirStream, so books might be a bit more important. It’s an industry that creates 1.5 billion books in the US every year. A trip to Barnes & Noble or Borders provides a whole bunch intellectual stimulation. The book, lawn chair, and lake? How much better does it get.
That high tech, capitalistic, industrial economy sure does make the simple life easier.
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anode
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The population is outgrowing the earth’s supply of clean water and arable land.
Populations do rise and fall; they fall mainly due to war, plagues and famine.They rise often due to restricted education and opportunities, especially for women, and lack of access to contraception, as in Roumania, a policy which resulted in a huge number of overflowing, understaffed orphanages filled with irreversibly damaged children. Rather than using these methods of controlling population growth, most societies have elected to support and practice ’ artificial’ birth control, including most Catholics and Catholic countries, including Spain, Italy and Ireland. The Catholic Church, trying to justify its futile condemnation of contraception, flogs the myth that overpopulation doesn’t exist.
In this belief, it stands alone.
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Bill_Cherry
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Not exactly. I was thinking more like solar panels and a battery store house. I live in one of the most beautiful areas of the USA and only about 5 mins from the Wasatch Mtn Range and a bout 15 mins from the nearest lake. But, if it somehow helps other people, that’s great!
I am a bit embarrassed to admit it but i have on a few occasions shopped at Spralmart. All in all I am against it. Especially here where I live. There are two of the danged things within 15 minutes of each other. Everybody thought it was a cool idea when they arrived. But a lot of local stores went out of business because they couldn’t compete.It was supposed to be a boon for the economy but turned out to be a bane. Sure, it brought jobs. But they are minimum wage jobs. The people that I know who work there hate it. At least the job itself. But, they do have fun with their co workers. And I suppose that a minimum wage job is better than no job. But, even at full time it is insufficient to support a family on. And it is just enough to keep from supplementing their income with foodstamps. While it was being built it supplied construction jobs for a few months. But when it was over,…
Don’t do the trailer thing. Prefer tents. Researching how to turn my garbage into gasoline at home…but, that may just be a pipe dream…it does seem feasible however.
I have wireless mobile dial up.But, I wouldn’t take it anyway.I doubt if I would read anything while I was there.Unless you’re thinking of a permanent situation
**I’m all for it. If it weren’t for capitalism then we wouldn’t be talking about this right now. It is true that ‘necessity’ used to be ‘the mother if invention’. But now,…it’s just gadgets and toys pretty much.
Most people, I think, no matter how ‘spiritual’ they like to think they are wouldn’t go ‘simple’ if their lives depended on it.They are too comfortable.They won’t change until it gets too uncomfortable. And then they will probably only shift their position.**
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Drawmack
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Mr. Chocolate Man,
You’re missing one very important thing in this analysis. The grunt work of taking care of the old and aging, floor workers in nursing homes and retirement communities, are no more productive then they have ever been. There have been no advances that allow these people to adequately feed, shower, change, etc. more people. So, we have a growing aging population and a shrinking young population. And, in at least one area, simply the fact that we have more old, and aging, people means that we need more young people.
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Drawmack
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I’ll take urban legends for 1000 Church.
What created the housing crisis, and by extension the entire economic crisis was not the government forcing lower standards on loans but the global pool of money forcing lower standards on loans through mortgage backed securities. If you’re going to complain about what happens when people aren’t informed, at least, be informed yourself first.
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Drawmack
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Attila the Hun was not a Western leader.
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Bill_Cherry
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:nope: nope
There are a lot of proponents promulgating this pretty popular preposterous proposal.(words with a “p”) But I am pretty sure that you will only hear it from folks who believe in abortion and euthanasia.(at least the majority of the time) I think the word for these folks is “MISANTHROPISTS”. And even though I generally shy away from folks who use the word “conspiracy”, it is also possible that the other proponents promulgating this pretty popular preposterous proposal (I just love saying that!) is none other than the cattle industry. Do you know why?The vast majority of the earths surface that is not water is used for (get this…) That’s right ! You guessed it! Cattle!:bigyikes: And land to grow food for cattle.
newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Cattle
"Pasture land for cattle grazing is now the largest agricultural land use worldwide. The conversion of natural environments to pasture land has threatened native plants and animals in many places; this is especially a problem in Brazil where large areas of rainforest are being cut down for cattle pasture. Cattle naturally produce methane gas though their digestive process and, because of their large numbers, this is thought to contribute to the process of global warming. Cattle keeping also can contribute to water pollution, air pollution, and soil degradation (Clay 2004). Feral cattle, domestic cattle which have returned to the wild, are also an environmental problem in many places (ISSG 2005).
A large part of the grains, legumes, and other crops grown worldwide are used to feed cattle. Cattle keeping is also a big user of water, gasoline, and other energy sources. It has sometimes been asked if it would benefit humanity more if the cattle population was less and more of these resources were used to feed people directly."
:tiphat: Your welcome.
And suicide, euthanasia, death penalties abortions and birthcontrol.
The implication here is that they had nothing better to do than hump? Is that what you are saying?
Well as the people who support abortion are often fond of citing…what about the use of home made abortives and (what did they call them?) oh…“back alley abortions”…reasons that are often used to try and support the pro abortion argument…so are you implying that they don’t happen or did you forget that part?
I do not know how to respond to that. I googled it. It is a terrible plight. But, i somehow do not necessarily see it as grounds for blaming a lack of contraceptives. While there is a propensity for concupiscence within the human experience, it a passion which can be controlled if one were taught the principles of responsible living. Such as,oh…I dont know…abstinance and self restraint coupled with self respect and an understanding of the consequences? Perhaps? Or are people just too stupid in your eyes?
As a means to what? Avoid responsibility? Avoid consequences for their own actions? Thank you to the sexual revolution for introducing the idea that sex and love are the same. The psychological trauma must be unbearable. Take a look at the rates of depression and suicide in places where promiscuous activity and pornography are openly accepted. Like Sweden.Although there re some who would say that the suicide rate is due to a lack of sunshine. Nevertheless, the country is dying because nobody wants to have children..
I think you have a misunderstanding on the Catholic Churches teachings concerning contraception. May I suggest going to the link on Chastity in the navigation bar at the top of the board. I will post the link to it here ( chastity.com/ ) Or you can google “Theology of the Body”. There are some limited previews of it here (books.google.com/books?q=theology+of+the+body&btnG=Search+Books )
Actually, there are even athiests who are very pro life…and pagans,…and gay people…google it!
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WillieWonka
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The reason Walmart succeeds everywhere it goes is because people shop there. When they make that choice, they are expressing their preference for Walmart over the alternatives. This is usually because they get more for their money. So, the prosperity of all those shoppers increases. Not by a lot, but when you look at the agggregate of all those Walmart shoppers it adds up to a large increase in prosperity.
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WillieWonka
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I agree there hasn’t been much of an increase in the utilization of resources in nursing homes. We would have to compare current nursing home population with expected nursing home population. How many people are now nursing home employees, and how many do we expect to be nursing home employees in the future.
The fact that we may have more nursing home employees doesn’t mean we need a larger population under 40. That is a funcyion of the overall productivity of that under 40 population. (Again, simply using age 40 to illustrate a concept.)
But, in all these ratios that float around, we have to be sure the age cutoffs make sense. What does it really tell us to compare the number over 65 with the number under 65? Why not use age 70? Or compare the total number who can’t work with the total that can? In some ways we are stuck on ages determined in 1935 when social security was passed.
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Bill_Cherry
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hhmmm maybe. I am inclined to believe that it just encourages people to over spend. A lot of folks see that they can get a copy of “KILL BILL” for $7.50 and buy it on impulse. They don’t need it. They just think it’s a cool movie. They’ve seen it five or six times already. But, since it is so cheap, they buy it. Heck, at Best Buy its $10. They’re gonna go home and maybe they will open. Maybe even watch it. But more than likely, since they’ve already seen it, they’ll put it in the collection with the rest of the movies they haven’t watched in 6 months or more and never will again most likely. They just like having a collection because it gives them the illusion of prosperity.
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WillieWonka
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Sorry, the government used the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977 to force the banks to lower credit standards. This had nothing to do with money supply.
CRA mandated every regulatory government body use its power to insure LMI (low and moderate income) people were served by the banks. The 1999 change to the Glass Siegel Act even mandated that banks use “innovative and novel” methods to service this group. Janet Reno brought charges against banks she didn’t think were doing what she wanted.
Clinton and Rubin increased the pressure on the banks by threatening expensive audits, denying branch openings, and rejecting mergers. The 1999 legislation even denied banks the ability to sell securities under the new law if they didn’t have a sufficient ratio of LMI loans to total loans.
Pools of money do not force lower standards. Mortgage standards hadn’t changed in prior times of high and low money supply. They were very standard and very boring. Stable job history, good credit, and down payment. Not enough minorities could meet the standards, so they forced a lowering of the standards.
An increased money pool would push down rates, not standards. For example, the bank would still require stable employment, good credit, and down payment, but the **rate **on the loan would be lower. That’s what always happened as money supply changed.
The crisis had many necessary but insufficient conditions. I am not aware of any necessary and sufficient condition. In such cases, it’s instructive to look at the chain of events, each dependent on the prior, to figure out what happened. (One could go back to 1970 when the movement for green spaces, controlled growth, smart growth, etc took so much land out of circulation and pushed up lot prices.)
The notion that any single action, situation, or condition caused the probem is to ignore a very complex set of interactions.
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WillieWonka
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An individual’s prosperity is subjective. One guy’s prosperity may increase with that KILL BILL. That is up to him. We can’t make that judgement for him.
Some fools even think a new random orbit sander makes no difference to a guy’s prosperity. What more can I say?
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Drawmack
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Something happened that had never happened before; two things actually. When interest rates were soaring, and the global pool of money was looking for more, bigger, investments and the FED decided to keep the interest rate of something that the global pool usually invests in, namely U.S. Bonds, very low, 1%. Greenspan basically said F U to the global pool of money. So, the global pool of money looked elsewhere for something to invest in. It found this in mortgage backed securities.
The way a mortgage backed security works is that a bunch of mortgages are cut. These mortgages are then traunched into a security and that security is sold. As the people make the payments on their mortgages the people who own the security make money.
So the loaner has no vested interest in the loane being able to pay it back. The loaner only has a vested interest in being able to sell the mortgage for more that the origination amount, but less than the total pay-back.
When the loaner looses a vested interest in your ability to repay the loans get riskier and riskier because the loaner is protected from this risk through sale of the loan. For example let’s say I loan you $1,000.00 at 10% interest to be paid back over the next year. So at the end of the year You’ll have paid me $1,100.00, and I make money by you actually repaying the loan. I have a vested interest in you repaying the loan – it is the only way I make money. Now, let’s say that instead of holding your marker I sell the loan to my friend Bill for $1,050.00. I have just make a $50.00 profit instead of a $100.00 profit. However, my risk has been reduced to zero and Bill has assumed my risk. This is how a mortgage backed security works. The person actually cutting the loan is not assuming the risk and the person assuming the risk is buying thousands of mortgages traunched into a security. It has no regulation because the agencies that over see securities do not oversee their creation they only over see their sale after creation and the agencies that over see mortgages only oversee mortgages that are handed out by banks.
It does have to do with de-regulation, but the government did not force the banks to do this. Heck, the majority of these risky loans weren’t even underwritten by banks, they were underwritten by mortgage brokers so that they could avoid the regulations placed on banks. I do not think that a bank ever cut a No Income No Asset loan.
Listen to the Money Pit trilogy from This American Life for a better description than I can give.
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Bill_Cherry
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**Hey! That random orbital sander helps me to make money! …sometimes. sometimes It just helps me with projects around the house. If I earn money with it, however. Then I can pass on that money to someone who has a commodity or service I need. And then I increase his prosperity. Seems pretty objective to me. as a matter of fact it sounds like you are equating the concept of prosperity with materialism. **
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WillieWonka
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I have no argument with that until the last two paras.
The government did force the lowering of standards in the Nineties. When the banks balked, the government put the arm on Fannie Mae to buy the loans from the banks. That’s what got the originating banks off the hook.
How did they make Fannie Mae cave in? FM was created as a government agency in 1938. It was spun off in 1968 as a quasi-independent agency. The president still apponted half(?) the board of directors, and the market considered the FM bonds to be backed by the government. The government never disputed the implicit backing of the bonds, although it had many opportunities. Government auditors accepted FM bonds as governement agencies for reserve requirements.
Clinton threatened FM that he would explicitly deny governemnt backing of the FM bonds if they didn’t buy the mortgages from the originating banks. So, FM bought the paper and sold bonds at a lower rate. (It could sell bonds at a lower rate than anyone else because of the implicit gov backing.) That’s where the bundling started.
The originating banks loaned $100k on Monday, charged a $1000 fee, pocketed the fee, sold the paper to FM on Tuesday, and loaned the $100k out again on Wednesday. FM sold bonds at 1/2 less than the mortgages paid. Housing prices rose, so defaults didn’t matter. Unquals got loans. Clinton claimed victory in providing affordable housing. Everyone was happy.
Risky loans were made by both brokers and banks. Note the risk wasn’t confined to the LMI community, but spread across the whole range of borrowers because lowering credit standards applied to everyone, not just LMI. Mortgage brokers could ally with a bank so the bank got credit for the mortgage loaned to a LMI.
In early 1998 Booksley Borne, chairman of the CFTC, outlined the disaster that was about to take place, and issued regulations to control the predicted surge in credit default swaps that would result from the FM action and expected Wal Street copying of FM… Clinton and Rubin fought it, and Congress voted to give regulatory authority to the SEC which did not agree with the CFTC.
Up until here, the whole system was changed to make more affordable housing for LMI folks. The increase in money supply you mention hadn’t happened yet. Noble, but misguided.
In late 1998 Bear Sterns noticed FM was making a fortune and created the first mortgage backed security. In 2000 the senate voted 95-0 to prohibit regulation of credit default swaps by government agencies. Li created the gaussian copula function in 2002(?) and allowed bundles of unknown quality to be rated higher than any component by using CDS prices as a surrogate for normal due diligence. Bla bla bla…
I don’t need the Money Pit Trilogy. I lived it. Again, there are no single necessary and sufficient conditions. All I have done here is give a brief summary of how governemnt action created a systematic problem. The fact that I have said nothing about many other condidtions does not mean I dismiss them or they are unimportant. I just don’t have about 450 pages to write it all down.
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WillieWonka
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I equate prosperity with whatever a person say is prosperity. That means the aggregate of 300 million Americans. It happens that a huge component of that is material prosperity we can measure. Material prosperity is the proper stuff of economics since economics deals with allocation of scarce resources. I have no reaosn to think non-material prosperity is scarce, so it is not the stuff of economics.
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