What is wrong with capitalism?

[essie7777]

Abu if you are going to include quotes from people’s comments – try to make sure you are citing them correctly … you completely mangled a mixture of mine and Cern(i think) together.

False, including the fact that “welfare provisions” do not mean a Welfare State.

Do you not see that you are completely coming across as desperate now? We are all fully aware of what is being discussed here but now you’re trying to play on words and further digress from the point.

I am so fed up of your continued misquoting and the liberal use of quotation marks around comments that you are falsely citing.

To be clear, your OPINION is just that please stop trying to promote it as Church Teaching or words from the Popes. And yes quoting two or three words and putting your own spin on them makes it your opinion, if you can not take the context and intent of the Papal papers in their entirety then don’t quote them.

Minimum Wage:
Whether a critic or an advocate as has been demonstrated in these comments the issue seems to center around whether the state should be responsible for this.

So below the defense that government should set a minimum wage based on Catholic Teachings:

1. the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) consistently supports not only minimum wage laws themselves, but usually advocates raising them. In its “Action Memo” for January 19, 2007, the USCCB urged passage of the minimum wage bill, citing Church teaching that demands a just wage for workers.
2. The Catholic principle of subsidiarity, which stipulates that “a community of a higher order [such as the state] should not interfere in the internal life of a community of a lower order [such as a village or family], depriving it of its functions” (**Catechism of the Catholic Church **1883).Libertarians such as yourself Abu, use this as the cornerstone of why the state should have no involvement but you forget that this is only part of the picture as:
3. The state must, as the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches, “defend and promote the common good of civil society, its citizens, and intermediate bodies” (1910).
4. “the state has a responsibility for its citizens’ well-being” Catechism of the Catholic Church (2372).
5. Rerum Novarum, Pope Leo XIII wrote that, in the interest of resolving (or at least minimizing) the conflict between labor and employers, the Church maintains that “for this purpose recourse should be had, in due measure and degree, to the intervention of the law and of State authority” (16).
6. Pope John Paul II in Centesimus Annus, added to the above direction by saying: "Economic activity, especially the activity of a market economy, cannot be conducted in an institutional, juridical or political vacuum. On the contrary, it presupposes sure guarantees of individual freedom and private property, as well as a stable currency and efficient public services.** Hence the principal task of the State is to guarantee this security,** so that those who work and produce can enjoy the fruits of their labours and thus feel encouraged to work efficiently and honestly (48). Please note that unlike you i have quoted the full thought process in its entirety to show context, meaning and intent for the writing

These points demonstrate that Catholic Teaching allows for state intervention in economic life to secure their rights, protect their rights and promote common good. So your perception of the free economy dictating the level of wages is simply not consistent with the Catholic faith.

Rest assured there is really no reason to be led astray.

You seem to be trying to that, with no feeling of guilt or remorse!!!

 

[carn]

welfare state is a government or country that has an overbearing and overreaching “social safety net” and a system of redistribution of wealth that results in the shift of personal financial responsibility from the citizen to the state.

That is not a useful definition. How to determine whether a social safety net is overbearing and overreaching?

In some bizarre circumstances even the rudimentary safety net i proposed above could be problematic.
E.g. when food is so scarce that some people will starve and the owner of enough food are the only net food producers and differ in opinion about how much they need for personal survival and the exact amount cannot be objectively defined. Then the situation might quickly result into killing lots of net food producers (even if they give up their food “willingly” after being aimed at) and the estimate of how much can be taken is to high. With net food producer dying, the amount of food per head will go down and the famine will increase in severity.

In that case the government should - and i assume that the Pope would agree, if he realy considered the situation, that his cited words would apply - would have to accept starvation to some extent and encourage net food producers to become more efficient, for example by restraining their forced food collection activity.

And yet nobody would consider this “welfare state” as overbearing under normal circumstances. It would be a libertarians dream.

Therefore i think the church teaching can be summed up as, have some welfare, enough taht it iproves the situation of the poor, but certainly not that much, that it drags the country down.

As it is an economic question if and to what extent this dragging down happens, the opinions of church persons about specific political issues can be agreed or disagreed with freely by catholics depending upon whether one thinks the churchs persons suggestions would have too much negative effect.
E.g. if catholic bishops say minimum wages must go up and a catholic thinks that this would lead on a road to serfdom, because he read and agrees with Hayek, then he is free to disagree with the bishops.

And catholic teaching therefore is effectively silent upon what percentage of income should be redistributed. Just that some redistribution is much preferable.

 

[estesbob]

I’m not sure the fact that there’s a lot of pages on the Federal Register actually does anything but point out a real over use of paper – if the regulations themselves are lacking in power, oversight and ability to do there job – that’s a lack of regulation.

Perhaps you don’t understand what the Federal Register is? It is a listing of Federal regulations , 75,000 pages of them. I am at a loss as how that could possibly translate into there not being enough regulation In the US

 

[David_Castlen]

I’m not sure the fact that there’s a lot of pages on the Federal Register actually does anything but point out a real over use of paper – if the regulations themselves are lacking in power, oversight and ability to do there job – that’s a lack of regulation.

I am going to take this comment and enlarge it and put it on a bill-board.

 

[estesbob]

I am going to take this comment and enlarge it and put it on a bill-board.

Good luck Their are. Myriad of Fereral ,state and local regulations you will have to meet before you are alliowed to put your billboard up

 

[essie7777]

Perhaps you don’t understand what the Federal Register is? It is a listing of Federal regulations , 75,000 pages of them. I am at a loss as how that could possibly translate into there not being enough regulation In the US

I thought it was pretty clear but allow me to expand for — 75,000 pages of regulations DON’T MAKE THEM EFFECTIVE, USEFUL, APPROPRIATE OR EVEN NECESSARY

And the quote’s context you are jumping all over here was based on the issue of US greed and the lack of regulation that allowed financial institutions to leverage sub prime assets to up to 40 times their value and resell them, after the SEC reduced the required net capital required holdings for said banks.

Please if you are going to jump into a conversation thread at least have the decency to be on point and not misquote for a cheap shot.

 

[estesbob]

I thought it was pretty clear but allow me to expand for — 75,000 pages of regulations DON’T MAKE THEM EFFECTIVE, USEFUL, APPROPRIATE OR EVEN NECESSARY

And the quote’s context you are jumping all over here was based on the issue of US greed and the lack of regulation that allowed financial institutions to leverage sub prime assets to up to 40 times their value and resell them, after the SEC reduced the required net capital required holdings for said banks.

Please if you are going to jump into a conversation thread at least have the decency to be on point and not misquote for a cheap shot.

No cheap shot Just pointing out the obvious A country run by 75,000 pages of regulations can hardly be described as lack of regulation

 

[David_Castlen]

good luck their are. Myriad of fereral ,state and local regulations you will have to meet before you are alliowed to put your billboard up

 

[damian_clarke]

The Church has never felt at ease with modern capitalism basically because she sees it as unjust and prefers another system namely Feudalism where each class in society was in symbiosis and owed a debt to the other class. The Lords had to protect the serfs who had to work to feed the military. The Church educated and prayed for the other classes. The Church had great difficulty accepting usury which is what the whole of Wall Street is currently based on. So no I do not think The Holy Father is in favor of radical free market economics as proposed by Hayek and Friedman. I would say by nature he and the Church are much more in favor of kinder gentler system where the poor are not left behind and eaten for breakfast.

 

[Dirt]

The Church has never felt at ease with modern capitalism basically because she sees it as unjust and prefers another system namely Feudalism where each class in society was in symbiosis and owed a debt to the other class. The Lords had to protect the serfs who had to work to feed the military. The Church educated and prayed for the other classes. The Church had great difficulty accepting usury which is what the whole of Wall Street is currently based on. So no I do not think The Holy Father is in favor of radical free market economics as proposed by Hayek and Friedman. I would say by nature he and the Church are much more in favor of kinder gentler system where the poor are not left behind and eaten for breakfast.

Libertarian capitalists of the austrian persuasion will always choke on this. They must continually parse through past and current documents from the Holy Fathers in order to reallign thoughts and justify the unjustifiable. No system that values wealth and profit over humanity will ever be rectifiable with Christian Doctrine. No more so than Calvin was able to recreate Christianity. Actually there have been several theologians who have offered that the austrian economics were influenced by calvanist theology.

 

[Monte_RCMS]

Libertarian capitalists of the austrian persuasion will always choke on this. They must continually parse through past and current documents from the Holy Fathers in order to reallign thoughts and justify the unjustifiable. No system that values wealth and profit over humanity will ever be rectifiable with Christian Doctrine. No more so than Calvin was able to recreate Christianity. Actually there have been several theologians who have offered that the austrian economics were influenced by calvanist theology.

Use of undefined terms. Sounds more like Fidel Castro.

Capitalism is nothing more than economic liberty.

You all don’t even seem to know what profit is.

Profit is the difference between revenues and expenses. Nothing more and nothing less.

 

[essie7777]

No cheap shot Just pointing out the obvious A country run by 75,000 pages of regulations can hardly be described as lack of regulation

Unfortunately though you miss the point.

The American cultural theory than more = right, is actually complete rubbish.

That’s the point i was making, the list of regulationa is great - if they do their job, however in the instance i was refering to a specific single issue and the lack of regulation is well documented and generally agreed upon as a root cause of the financial meltdown.

 

[carn]

The Church has never felt at ease with modern capitalism basically because she sees it as unjust and prefers another system namely Feudalism where each class in society was in symbiosis and owed a debt to the other class. The Lords had to protect the serfs who had to work to feed the military. The Church educated and prayed for the other classes.

a) Do you claim feudalism was just?
b) Do you know that feudalism is a lot less productive than what we have today, maybe even less productive than communism?
c)Do you understand that less productive than communism could mean 7-6=1?
(Hint: a use of billion were not money is meant.)

The Church had great difficulty accepting usury which is what the whole of Wall Street is currently based on. So no I do not think The Holy Father is in favor of radical free market economics as proposed by Hayek and Friedman. I would say by nature he and the Church are much more in favor of kinder gentler system where the poor are not left behind and eaten for breakfast.

Can please someone at least once offer an argument, why the poor are left behind and eaten for breakfast with Hayek and Friedmann, who both were in favor of a limited welfare state?

And i guess the Holy Father would be fully aware, what a lot less productive system would mean for the world, so while he certainly will and should call for more charity, he will be aware that in this fallen world there are limits, which might be more strict than he likes.

 

[Monte_RCMS]

Unfortunately though you miss the point.

The American cultural theory than more = right, is actually complete rubbish.

That’s the point i was making, the list of regulationa is great - if they do their job, however in the instance i was refering to a specific single issue and the lack of regulation is well documented and generally agreed upon as a root cause of the financial meltdown.

Any regulatory code of 75,000 pages means that everyone is bound by them. Yet no one is capable of reading, understanding and complying with that much regulation.

Secondly, the financial community was grossly over-regulated to the point where improper loans were ORDERED up by the Federal Government.

The key thing to research is the Community Redevelopment Act. You could also search YouTube for the 17 warning issued by President Bush and which were ridiculed by Congressman Barney Frank and other cohorts of his as well as the false statements signed by Franklin Raines, Jamie Gorelick, and other officers of Fannie Mae and Freddic Mac.

realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/09/the_rest_of_the_meltdown_story.html

Start here and use that as the basis for further research.

 

[John21652]

I didn’t state a reason for their debt in the post you are trying to malign here. Don’t try and put words in my mouth. If you’re unclear simply ask!!!]/quote]Well now, here we have a classic example of why you can’t be trusted. You not only make things up, but you then attempt to deflect attention from your own fallacies by trying to make other posters look flawed.
You wrote the above in response to this -
John21652;8807588:

You originally tried to tell us Greece was in financial trouble because

of the high costs associated with entering the E. U. At least now you are admitting their profligate spending caused their indebtedness before acceding to E.U membership. The penny is dropping…Now you are saying I’m putting words into your mouth and that you didn’t state a reason for their debt.

Hmmmmm…

If that’s the case then, how do you explain what you wrote in post #346, which is -

US situation dealt with in previous post. The roots of the Greek crisis lie in its ascension to the EU and the costs associated with meeting the criteria of being able to become a member

Note how you wrote that the roots of the Greek crisis were the costs associated with joining the E.U. and yet it is demonstrably clear they fiddled the books and borrowed money to cover up their existing massive debts. Joining the E.U. gave tremendous net benefits to Greece, which is why they wanted to join in the first place!
You, however, have bent over backwards to avoid admitting that Greece’s welfare state mentality had sent them broke beforehand. That was the root of the Greek crisis! And now you have the gall to suggest I am putting words in your mouth.

For example, you still have not explained why it is that you distorted Abu’s statement, which he made in post #303 when he wrote -

As the Welfare State has helped Europe to its present meltdown, many Governments have slashed its idiocies – Sweden is an example of what has happened.

You have been given links to prove Abu’s statement regarding Sweden, yet you dismiss them because it hurts your myopic left wing view of the ‘wondrous’ welfare state. What’s worse, however, is that you deliberately distorted what Abu wrote and responded mockingly in post #305 with this -

Nothing like distilling a global economic crisis created and started by US greed and lack of regulation (because obviously you can not infringe on US “freedom”) down to the fact its the welfare state that’s creating the European meltdown!

Seriously are you truly that naive that you don’t think there are numerous reasons for economic strife???

What Abu wrote was correct/ He used the word “helped” and that has has been demonstrated. You, however, mockingly derided him. Everything Abu wrote in that post was correct, yet you glossed over it and tried to bolster your own argument by mocking the other poster.

In post #344 you wrote -

Abu has gone to great lengths to explain how the welfare state is the root cause of the problems in Europe --that is ludicrous in itself

All Abu said was the welfare spending helped. Every man and his dog on planet Earth knows full well the Global financial crises was triggered by the meltdown in the United States. And every man and his dog on planet earth knows that those nations whose profligate and unproductive social welfare spending was too high got caught with their pants down.

 

[essie7777]

Secondly, the financial community was grossly over-regulated to the point where improper loans were ORDERED up by the Federal Government.

If i had been discussing the RETAIL element of sub prime mortgages – this would be relevant and correct --however you seem to have jumped in on a comment i made in a previous post --i have copied it for you here:

From #344 – The US banking regulations were not sufficient enough to prevent sub prime assets from being repackaged into collateralized debt obligations(CDOs). This created a secondary market of originating and distributed subprime loans. the way regulation worked at the time in some cases the trail back to the original sub-prime loans was so distorted it became impossible for investors to even know where they originated.

A comment that has “requoted” in discussion debating this opinion i gave (inappropriately as just three words taken out of context) from a statement i made in discussion against the comments that the welfare state was responsible for the financial crisis in a myriad list of countries – because they weren’t following the Church teachings of free enterprise and no welfare state.

Something i disagree with as i believe it manipulates the Church teachings and “spins” the intended content and meaning of the Papal documents. As again put forward in another post # 378 and my further explanation of the regulation i was referring to was posted in #367.

However those responding choose to still simply use three words out of context to try and attack what i was saying without actually offering an argument against it, they simply began discussing something else.

The key thing to research is the Community Redevelopment Act. You could also search YouTube for the 17 warning issued by President Bush and which were ridiculed by Congressman Barney Frank and other cohorts of his as well as the false statements signed by Franklin Raines, Jamie Gorelick, and other officers of Fannie Mae and Freddic Mac.
Start here and use that as the basis for further research.

If i was discussing this element of the market then your direction would be appropriate. However i would say the say thing as i did originally: The US banking regulations were not sufficient - in this case they were pushing inappropriate lending criteria.

 

[John21652]

Any regulatory code of 75,000 pages means that everyone is bound by them. Yet no one is capable of reading, understanding and complying with that much regulation.

Secondly, the financial community was grossly over-regulated to the point where improper loans were ORDERED up by the Federal Government.

The key thing to research is the Community Redevelopment Act. You could also search YouTube for the 17 warning issued by President Bush and which were ridiculed by Congressman Barney Frank and other cohorts of his as well as the false statements signed by Franklin Raines, Jamie Gorelick, and other officers of Fannie Mae and Freddic Mac.

realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/09/the_rest_of_the_meltdown_story.html

Start here and use that as the basis for further research.

Your links support unequivocally what St. Lawrence University Professor of Economics Steve Horwitz wrote about in his Open Letter To My Freinds Of The Left way back in 2008. I quoted from that letter in post #361 and I highlighted his statement that “… regulators began to crack down on banks who were not lending enough to distressed areas.”. That meant that banks were forced by regulation to lend into risky markets.

As Horwotz exlains -

To call the housing and credit crisis a failure of the free market or the product of unregulated greed is to overlook the myriad government regulations, policies, and political pronouncements that have both reduced the “freedom” of this market and channeled self-interest in ways that have produced disastrous consequences, both intended and unintended

 

[essie7777]

Every man and his dog on planet Earth knows full well the Global financial crises was triggered by the meltdown in the United States.

After over ten posts of debating whether the US was responsible or not you finally have acknowledged this is correct … whew took a while.

And every man and his dog on planet earth knows that those nations whose profligate and unproductive social welfare spending was too high got caught with their pants down.

Your generalization as above again suggests a welfare state meant getting caught with your pants down as you put it:… you yourself have not managed to successfully defend this position.

As in your posts you have used Greece’s Olympic games as a reason for being too much in debt, in defense of my statement that yes they had a welfare system but the cost of it was too low a % of annual GDP to be significant on its own as a cause of collapse - only then did you begin to start talking about GENERAL government overspending.

#356 Your words John: Oh yeah, before I forget, research Greece’s spending on the Olympics and pale at the rorting and cost overuns. Sheeesh.

You have admitted that Iceland had no welfare system – but that’s okay because you still used it as an example simply changed the reason behind it:

#356 – your words again John: The global financial collapse caught Iceland as exposed as Greece and Ireland. Iceland did not institute a welfare state.

You then pushed Sweden and your own country as a wonderful examples of a countries who didn’t suffer, however your own statement only backs up what i have been saying - a welfare state is not a signifyor of whether countries were affected or not:

Again your own word john in #356: Those who suffered the most were exposed to the financial crash and indebtedness was crucial. High government spending as a percentage of GDP, usually with deficit budgets, caused the greatest exposure. The most profligate governemnts, like Greece, had a large welfare aspect to their spending. Just like Abu pointed out to you. And he was also right in pointing out that Sweden has learnt a hard lesson and is winding back its famous welfare state dramatically.

Sweden is not winding down its welfare state, it is making it more efficient it is not cutting services but implementing total welfare that drives people off welfare when necessary but still manages to pay for education, healthcare, generous pensions. So this hardly signifies winding down.

The most profligate countries were not Greece – The US drew down $1143billion and pumped 30% of its GDP - $7.36 TRILLION and you cant possibly argue that the US has a welfare state comparable to those you have used to critize such efforts in Europe. There’s no free education, no universal and free healthcare etc.
…
Until your last few posts you have termed it as in issue solely perpetuated by the nature of a having a welfare state. Once you had no where left to argue on this track you simply then started adding the comment that government spending was responsible whether on welfare or not --thats hardly defending your position, its widening the net to try and make it credible.

 

[damian_clarke]

a) Do you claim feudalism was just?
b) Do you know that feudalism is a lot less productive than what we have today, maybe even less productive than communism?
c)Do you understand that less productive than communism could mean 7-6=1?
(Hint: a use of billion were not money is meant.)

Can please someone at least once offer an argument, why the poor are left behind and eaten for breakfast with Hayek and Friedmann, who both were in favor of a limited welfare state?

And i guess the Holy Father would be fully aware, what a lot less productive system would mean for the world, so while he certainly will and should call for more charity, he will be aware that in this fallen world there are limits, which might be more strict than he likes.

We have had Hayek and Friedman in bucketloads sicne about 1980 and hey the poor have generally been left behind.

 

[essie7777]

Your links support unequivocally what St. Lawrence University Professor of Economics Steve Horwitz wrote about in his Open Letter To My Freinds Of The Left way back in 2008. I quoted from that letter in post #361 and I highlighted his statement that “… regulators began to crack down on banks who were not lending enough to distressed areas.”. That meant that banks were forced by regulation to lend into risky markets.

As Horwotz exlains -

The only problem with your continued reference to this one written document is that this peice is defending the free market and deregulation, which unless i am mistaken the capitalist economy of the US had neither:

Immediately from the first sentence the hypothesis for discussion is laid out:

My friends,

In the last week or two, I have heard frequently from you that the current financial mess has been caused by the failures of free markets and deregulation.

Swiftly followed by the request:

I ask of you for the next few minutes to, in the words of Oliver Cromwell, consider that you may be mistaken.

The hypothesis this open letter answers if fundamentally flawed – The US system was not a free economy and was not deregulated so any conclusions will be flawed and what follows is simply the author’s attempt to “sell” free economy in light of the current situation the US was in, he wrote in 2008.

It is nothing more than propaganda because of its bias and intent.