Actually was quoting my mentor Paul Mitchell when he was teaching me my craft years ago and that is the way he said it... You are partly correct Matt, we the public need to DEMAND more from our representatives. I get very tired of hearing folks say " all politicians lie " as if it is acceptable. I truly believe that we have a right to expect more from them and if you are going to ask the people to put yourself in a leadership position, be it a Congressman. Senator, Pesident, Councilman, Mayor, preacher, etc., that you should hold yourself to an even higher standard of integrity than the average person, and be judged to a higher standard. If we don't demand more, they sure won't change.
[GROUPHUG] I think Matt and I would find that we agree about much more than we disagree about... I just like jerking his chain. My brother's a physicist and, while I can't begin to claim to know Matt well... I suspect you two are much alike. He shares much of your worldview. He and I almost came to blows at Thanksgiving at my Mom's house last year. :lol: [/GROUPHUG] Granted - details matter. And sometimes there are many of them that matter. But.... not all of them MUST matter. Sometimes they are just there because.... well, no one quite seems to remember why, but there MUST be a reason... Fundamentally, an awful lot of this discussion comes back to the whole concept of enumerated powers... there are those who believe the whole concept is BS; others who think it was a good idea, but had to be thrown out the window due to unforeseen complexity; others who believe the Commerce Clause justifies federal control of your backyard garden; others who have no idea what you're talking about when you say "enumerated powers".... Me (and I suspect minimark) believe pretty strongly that the Constitution was four pages for a reason. And that much power was left to the states for a reason. And that the nasty side effects and unintended consequences of well-intentioned "complexity" outweigh the benefits - because it's not a zero sum game - you can't claim that "but if we didn't have this nasty X then we wouldn't have this beneficial Y and Z".... unless you're omniscient enough to anticipate all the possible solutions that would have evolved in the marketplace of ideas if the nasty X had never been put in place (or if it was suddenly removed)... and even I'M not THAT good... In software, I've seen some darn good "designed" systems. I've also seen some darn good "evolved" systems. But I've seen more systems that ultimately evolve a level of complexity such that continued maintenance and enhancement exceeds the value of the system, or the cost to just build a new one that only does what you actually need it to do. And, yes, that requires getting the users to agree that they really DON'T need all the stuff that they demanded from the "old" system. That gets much easier when you have a history of severe downtime... Regarding changing attitudes... whether you agree with them or not, the tea partiers (who are NOT astroturf, contrary to some claims) are mostly about changing attitudes. Yep, there are some folks out there who think the current Administration is lead by the Anti-Christ. But there are many more who believe that it's time to redefine the role and constraints of government... back to the enumerated powers... and that both parties are too big for their britches.
Well said Paul! There are far to many "folks" that want the sheep well fed and neatly put in their pens, so the "folks" can be nice and cozy in their new sweaters... The end DOES NOT justify the means...
I believe one BIG reason for enumerated powers was a keen awareness that "The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield, and government to gain ground." (Jefferson) I believe the founders also understood that, once government got into the business of "doing good", we would see that there are too many ideas of what "good" is... and almost everyone is willing to spend their faceless, nameless neighbor's money on what they think is good. And they do, every day. It's hard enough to arrive at consensus on the VERY FEW things the federal government is actually constitutionally authorized to do. Add a few thousand special interests with their hands out and their arguments of how vital and "good" their cause is.... and you get what we got.
Yep and the people become INTITALED instead of SELF RELIANT.... BAaAaA It is our moral an ethical duty to help those that cannot help themselves because of age, physical, mental disabilities, etc.. All others deserve our tempoary help so that they may help themselves to become self reliant.....
.... and they deserve an environment where they can make the most of their God-given talents and use the fruits of their labor as they see fit.
And the latest round in the blatant thievery of the haves from the have-nots: Fed exit strategy: Let banks set up CDs - Yahoo! Finance I am not an economists and for the most part I shy away from the Holiday Inn, but the bellow quote from the article says it all:
But "The proposal comes as no surprise. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and other Fed officials have repeatedly said the creation of so-called "term deposits" -- essentially the equivalent of CDs for banks -- would be one of several tools the Fed could use to drain money from the economy when the time is right. Against that backdrop, the Fed said the proposal "has no implications for monetary policy decisions in the near term."" We've dumped money into the economy to help stimulate improvement over what would have happened. If that money stays out there when the economy recovers, it becomes inflationary. This is just one mechanism to get the cash out of the active economy. So, what would you suggest? Matt
I am not suggesting anything. But your contention that it's OK because the Fed told us they are going to do it and they said it will have no implications does not make it pass the sniff test. If I tell a woman that I am going to have sex with her and it will not hurt if she doesn't resist, does it no longer count as rape? More importantly, I would love to have the option of walking into a bank and telling them how much I want to deposit and what interest rate they will have to pay me. That's pretty much what that article said, isn't it?
That's all fine and good.... but it describes an auction mechanism. How can one do an auction if one doesn't say what one will pay for how much? Really, this is describing a market driven mechanism for reducing free cash in a hypothetically improved economy. And it is postulated to be only one mechanism that the fed may use to tighten money supply. Just because your're willing to pay close to nothing for something at eBay doesn't mean you get to buy it at that price. And just because banks would be able to say that they'd be willing to buy x number of short term bonds and y interest rate doesn't mean that they will get them. That is how t-bills are sold at every treasury auction held. It's how every stock transaction is done on the NYSE. Where is the obvious evil that you're implying exists in this method for tightening the money supply? Matt
Oh, I guess I am just distrustful of the relationship between Big Banks and the Fed. All the billions that flow between the two, the not letting them fail, the bail outs, the compensations, the repayments from stock sales, this new gimmick. Call me jaded, but when that much cash is flowing around with no one watching carefully, rest assured that someone else is dipping their bucket into the collective well. I would have no issues with any of it if they were not doing it with my money.
There are lots of problems with the banking system... but this one doesn't seem to be one of them. But then what should we expect when institutions that are supposed to be custodians of market liquidity are also run on a for profit, risk-insulated basis? They'd be stupid to not "eat as much as they can at the trough" so to speak. To do any less would be against the interests of the stockholders. matt