The aspects of the American system that this spot attacks make me sick. It always seems to me like the States is a place where people scream and yell about being screwed by evil big government, but have no problem getting screwed by evil big corporations.
That being said, certainly in jurisdictions outside of the US not all private equity works – or screws the system – like this. It tends to be a matter of scale. Small to medium sized corporate entities (whether operating in the private equity sector or otherwise) are, generally, not so bad. The bigger you get (and the bigger the dollar numbers get), the more the poison seeps in – and the less effective the government regulation becomes.
crocwsocks and Ing: To paraphrase someone (I forget who it was): “There will be a potheosis of firing.”
Anyhow… I don’t understand much, if anything, about corporate financial stuff but is everything he says in that video true? (watches it again)
I understand that I do(“we do”) pay unemployment taxes, the “UI” item on my W2s. But don’t employers also pay in to the UI system? Even if “we do” and “they do” does it make any difference?
'Tis Himselfsays
I haven’t seen the video (it’s blocked on my work computer for some reason only the IT folks know). However I’ll tell you how Romney got his money.
His company, Bain, would look for profitable companies and take them over, borrowing money to do so. Bain would then loot the company, selling off assets, if there was a pension fund they would sell all its assets and “invest” in the junk bonds used to finance the takeover (if the bonds became worthless, oh well), cut expenses like maintenance and benefits, fire “extraneous” personnel, and otherwise gut what had been a profitable company, finally selling the worthless corpse for a pittance. Romney and his cronies would make several million and a bunch of people would be unemployed and without pensions.
Romney pretends he’s pro-jobs. His past performance with Bain shows what a lie that is.
gragrasays
It always seems to me like the States is a place where people scream and yell about being screwed by evil big government, but have no problem getting screwed by evil big corporations.
Yep. As an aussie living the USA for the last 10 years this is the one I just don’t get.
Taxpayer subsidies and corporate bailouts are just examples of the “free market” in action. Privatize the gains, socialize the losses, that’s free market capitalism in a nutshell.
Yes, except the part where he sells the business for a pittance. Reich says he sells it for a profit.
Gregory Greenwoodsays
dougittner @ 9;
Taxpayer subsidies and corporate bailouts are just examples of the “free market” in action.
The ‘invisible hand of the free market’ – it’s the other god that Republicans worship and, just like Yahweh, a lot is promised in its name, but precious little delivered.
Privatize the gains, socialize the losses, that’s free market capitalism in a nutshell.
QFT. The entire system is not structured to support the vulnerable or protect the disadvantaged, but rather to make the rich richer and keep the poor so weighed down with money worries and the concerns of simply making it from one day to the next that they don’t stop and realise just how badly they are being exploited, or if they do then they are in no real poistion to do anything about it because the US is a two party system and both of those parties are in this corrupt shell game up to their necks.
Then again, the situation is not much better over here in the UK either. We are also a society run for the benefit of the connected and powerful, where all the parties ultimately protect the same interests by pretty much the same means, as was clearly demonstrated when Nick Clegg – leader of the Liberal Democrats, a notionally Left of Centre progressive party – sold every principle he ever supposedly stood for in an grotesque rush to enter coalition with the Conservatives and secure whatever scraps of power and privilege for himself he could, a coalition that has presided over economic catastrophe and the further degradation of civil liberties in the name of ‘security’.
That is the trouble with mature democracies; the powerful vested interests, like the big oil conglomerates, make sure that they have all the electable parties bought and paid for ahead of time. After that, elections amount to little more than determining what colour tie the Prime Minister wears…
gluonsays
I wouldn’t be too quick to hold this against Romney in the upcoming election. There could be an upside. Maybe if he is elected President he can pull some kind of trick like this on China, or some other country, on our behalf!
rthillesays
One thing that struck me as unclear or wrong is the idea that increasing the target company’s expenses (interest payments) would somehow raise profits. As I understand it, interest payments are no more deductible than other expenses which count against profits (like the cost of materials, etc). Am I missing something?
gluonsays
What struck me while watching this video is how much Republicans would, if they could get their way, spare us all from the “we foot the bill” aspects of this story. If they had their way there would be no unemployment insurance funded by taxpayers. There would be no government takeover of pension obligations of failed companies. Those people would just be SOL. And the extra tax burden that comes from the dodgy tax breaks would not be a trivial issue because there would be essentially no government, except for the military, and so no one would pay more than 5% in taxes to begin with. The Republican Utopia would solve all of these “we foot the bill issues”. And I don’t just mean this as snark. It’s a real issue with trying to show a video like this to a Republican friend. They just won’t buy the premise that we have any obligation to our fellow humans, that employment is a value alongside profits, that we should help people who find themselves unemployed or with their pension vaporized (to say nothing of sick and dying). They will tell you that… and it is hard not to laugh at this point… or cry…. churches and other private charities will take care of all of these people (like they do now!). So very little of this probably seems bad to Republicans.
…And then the company they’ve stripped to the bone goes bust, (a) putting even more workers (soon to be vilified as lazy scroungers who don’t want to work) onto publicly-funded unemployment payments or (b), if it’s deemed important enough, needing a huge publicly-funded bailout (because this is an example of the market being self-fixing with no need of government intervention).
'Tis Himselfsays
Spanish Inquisitor #11
Yes, except the part where he sells the business for a pittance. Reich says he sells it for a profit.
Since Bain is divesting itself of any financial interest in the company and has no further obligations for paying the debts of the company*, any money made from selling the company is profit. Reich and I were just emphasizing different aspects of the ultimate sale. There usually isn’t much money earned in the sale but it’s all profit.
*Remember, these debts were incurred during the takeover of the company and were transferred from Bain to the company.
unboundsays
@gluon – But what about the funds to pay for the police and fire departments, maintain / build roads, pay for the courts that more and more corporations are using to sue each other with, etc? That is that part that even rethuglicans do have to acknowledge.
But what about the funds to pay for the police and fire departments, maintain / build roads, pay for the courts that more and more corporations are using to sue each other with, etc? That is that part that even rethuglicans do have to acknowledge.
I’ve seen various libertarians argue that all these things should be privately financed, and available only to those who do the financing or are willing to pay the financiers—cash on the barrel-head, whatever price the market will bear.
No view, it seems, is so extreme that someone, somewhere, doesn’t embrace it.
unboundsays
@Daz – Seems to be a competition on who can have the most naive or least compassionate viewpoint anymore…
baalsays
@rthille
The interest payment counts against income. This reduces the taxable amount the company has to pay on. Less taxes means the company can divert what would have been taxes to something else – like paying big salaries to the Romneys.
Rip Steakfacesays
The ‘invisible hand of the free market’ – it’s the other god that Republicans worship and, just like Yahweh, a lot is promised in its name, but precious little delivered.
The “invisible hand” does very much exist, but it’s not the magical cure-all that libertarians insist it is. It’s just a plain force of nature.
It just weeds out companies that aren’t profitable. Profitable does not mean they’re ethical in the least bit – their entire goal is to be money-making machines. The only way we can prevent corporations from being assholes is by restrictions placed upon them by the people – in other words, the government.
I wouldn’t argue that corporations are innately immoral as a result of their nature. They don’t have the capacity for it. They’re amoral – and their boards of directors are the real assholes that make them into the immoral monsters they are in reality.
imthegenieicandoanythingsays
Mitt R. is proof that the “Republican” Party is continuing their experiments to produce the purest possible toxin with which to kill the American form of democracy, all derived from odd fluids collected from the decaying remains of Richard Nixon.
The Dubya Bu–sh– strain was the first great success (from their reverse-Dr. Moreau-like point-of-view), but was still barely better than a prototype, since it was only able to be elected under specially pressured labratory conditions (and, even there, by the thinnest of margins).
Attempts to reanimate John McCain using such methods, as well as by supplementing him with the excessively volatile Palin parasite, proved a complete failure.
Mitt is very nearly perfect, though even more expensive to implant than the early Bu–sh– model: “he” is empty of any human emotions that do not involve bullying, cheating, lying, and taking general “joy” in the harm he does, from a safe distance, to human and humanity.
How do they find people even more horrid and unworthy of respect or trust than GWBush?
madscientistsays
I hope he does one on how the global stockmarkets are nothing but legalized pyramid schemes.
Amphioxsays
“how do they find people even more horrid… than GWBush?”
It’s quite easy when over three quarters of the party membership already qualify.
I just came across this rather interesting article on religious finances and subsidies in the US.
Gregory Greenwoodsays
Rip Steakface @ 23;
The “invisible hand” does very much exist, but it’s not the magical cure-all that libertarians insist it is. It’s just a plain force of nature.
Market dynamics of supply and demand and the like certainly exist, but the very phrase ‘invisible hand’ is often misinterpreted to imply an agency to the market itself – a form of naturally occurring super-efficiency that supposedly renders all regulation at best moot and at worst harmful.
As you say, many Libertarians and other small government obsessed nincompoops seem to view the free market as some perfect social panacea – a cure-all for everything from trade deficits to social issues such as poverty and discrimination, despite the fact that all evidence indicates the contrary. It is, to all intents and purposes, a supernaturalist mindset.
It just weeds out companies that aren’t profitable.
Up to a point perhaps, but it seems to me that some companies are capable of acheiveing a critical mass of influence such that even if they are complete economic basket cases they will still be propped up because the alternative would be to expose the great and the not so good of a given saociety to losses, even where the vested interests in question very much come from the camp of the free market apostles.
So, as may be expected, Libertarians and Right wingers of this stripe pair their lack of empathy and greed with rank hypocrisy; they state loud and often that the freemarket renders government largely obsolete (apart from running the military and interfering in what goes in in people’s bedrooms, that is) and represents the perfect source of self regulating social authority… right up until they are the ones who stand to lose out.
Profitable does not mean they’re ethical in the least bit
Rarely have truer words been written.
The only way we can prevent corporations from being assholes is by restrictions placed upon them by the people – in other words, the government.
Which is exactly why small government conservatives want to pull the government’s teeth – it removes the principle force capable of balancing out the power of the corporations that they hold shares in, and thereby insures that their personal wealth and standing within the corporate world grants them near unassailable power.
I wouldn’t argue that corporations are innately immoral as a result of their nature. They don’t have the capacity for it. They’re amoral – and their boards of directors are the real assholes that make them into the immoral monsters they are in reality.
Money, like any other form of power, corrupts. Once you start getting into the realms of the crazy amounts of money that fly about in big buisness circles, otherwise reasonable people can start acting like absolute monsters. In that sense, perhaps corporations – as concentrations of often largely unaccountable wealth and thus power – are structurally predisposed to warping the people who run them, and the constant drive toward deregulation favoured by small government conservatives and libertarians only exacerbates this situation.
gluonsays
@ Rip Steakface “The only way we can prevent corporations from being assholes is by restrictions placed upon them by the people – in other words, the government.”
rthille@14: There are variations on this scheme which eviscerate the company leaving it worthless after selling off its assets, but in this instance what is happening is that the assets of the company are not being sold off but being used instead as collateral for loans on high-risk investments.
@lots of people: The Invisible Hand is a metaphor, but it does describe the very real process by which open markets will tend to favour sellers who meet customers’ needs at the lowest cost. The problem with the Invisible Hand is that it is not the only force at work in the marketplace. Adam Smith knew this. Wealth of Nations is chock full of descriptions of ways the free market can be inefficient and anti-customer (e.g. monopolies, corruption, political expediency, intimidation by violence). Most contemporary advocates of free market theory have a cruder approximation of the real world than the fellow who came up with the concept over 200 years ago.
robrosays
Daz @#20 — Indeed. Given that the ideal social and economic order for Republicans and Libertarians is late 19th America, it’s not surprising that they want to stop the government from providing services like roads, fire protection, etc. Let the private sector handle it because that’s how those services were provided in those halcyon days. No matter that if you couldn’t afford the protection or the access, you didn’t get it.
Now that Conservatives, Republicans, Libertarians, and even some Democrats have convinced droves of people in the Nitwitted States to defund government, such “luxuries” as fire protection, emergency services, weather forecasting, etc are being hit hard, not to mention education and basic science research.
Here’s where the cock comes to roost: After the 1989 Loma Preita earthquake, the San Francisco Fire Department began offering neighborhood emergency readiness training classes. They tell you straight out in the first session that the reason for the program is that the SFFD does not have enough people or equipment to deal with any significantly large emergency…say, the next BIG ONE! They will be completely overwhelmed with the emergency in the high density areas (downtown) where many buildings will collapse and fires will rage through the remains. This is due in no small part to the deep cuts in the SFFD. The force is considerably smaller today than it was 10 or 20 years ago, including fewer fire fighters, less equipment, and fewer stations.
When the next big one hits SF, neighborhoods will be own their own to fight the fires (with garden hoses), pull people out of collapsed structures (with their DIY crowbars), treat serious injuries (rip those bed sheets), and start delivering shelter, food, and water for the survivors. Oh, and maintain civil order…i.e. stop the looting, assaults, etc…because the police will also be overwhelmed.
Not a pretty picture, but that’s what you get when people are more concerned with money than human beings, and when so many people are deluded by their beliefs…ideological and/or religious…that government and taxes are bad.
Rey Foxsays
His company, Bain, would look for profitable companies and take them over, borrowing money to do so. Bain would then loot the company, selling off assets, if there was a pension fund they would sell all its assets and “invest” in the junk bonds used to finance the takeover (if the bonds became worthless, oh well), cut expenses like maintenance and benefits, fire “extraneous” personnel, and otherwise gut what had been a profitable company, finally selling the worthless corpse for a pittance. Romney and his cronies would make several million and a bunch of people would be unemployed and without pensions.
But at least he wasn’t a community organizer. *spits*
Rey Foxsays
Could we have gotten a more straight-from-central-casting villain in this election? Rich, stiff, out of touch, casually cruel to animals and students below him on the social ladder, and he had a company called BAIN. As in “bane of my existence”, and “I will break you”.
And he was the best they could come up with.
DLCsays
While Robert Reich will never be Roy Zimmerman, his videos are good and informative. Were this 1720, Mitt Romney would be hunted down by the Royal Navy for piracy. Bain Capital (could there be a more appropriate name ? Bane ? ) was nothing more than a mordern day pirate ship. For all that, they give decent hardworking pirates a bad name.
brianthomsonsays
I’m not in the USA, and don’t have a stake in the race, but when I read about how Romney made his money, my first thought was “he’s Gordon Gekko from Wall Street“! Oh, but wait – Gekko was nasty, he didn’t go to church, he had no morals … Romney is different, right? He goes to church, he gives to charity (his church), he’s always smiling, never says anything as clear and unambiguous as “Greed is Good”. So that’s OK, then. Nothing to see here ..?
If the Obama campaign don’t jump on this comparison, I’ll be surprised and they’ll be negligent, since it’s obvious even to a Euro-peon such as myself. The Romney campaign will dismiss it as “liberal talking points” or whatever – as if anyone who brings this up is a sheep who had it fed to them to bleat – but the comparisons are so clear, they could work at a grassroots level, no Astroturfing required. (Sheep can’t eat Astroturf, anyway!)
In the movie, Gekko was arrested for insider trading, which I read as a requirement of the movie genre: the bad guy has to get his comeuppance. Real life isn’t as neatly scripted. If I was an American, I wouldn’t be as worried about Romney himself as I would be about those who would follow him in to the Executive Branch – like all those Goldman Sachs types who worked under Obama.
unclefrogysays
it is just like the practice of off-shoring labor I would include all of labor as now many “back office” functions can be done in asia. it is a great way to make more profit but is short sighted when everyone a given market off-shores enough of labor the market will find itself diminished then what. The kind of business Mittins was not one of building a business or even managing a successful one.
He is just a used business salesman
uncle frogy
quoderatdemonstrandumsays
Everyone interested in this thread should read The Corporation by Joel Bakan. The book is an excellent expose on the history and nature of modern corporations and the harm they do to society. He says that if corporations are people, they are sociopathic people.
the history and nature of modern corporations and the harm they do to society
Except for the fact corporations create hundreds of thousands of jobs with great benefits.
The video is a fair criticism of Romney. I have to vote for him anyway because I don’t much care for Obama’s idea that success is a bad thing that should be punished. A lifetime of working hard to become rich should not be punished with higher taxes.
I also don’t like Obama’s philosophy that government spending means more jobs. The jobs that last come from the private sector. All the government has to do is get out of the way.
I voted for Obama in 2008. I like him. I’m completely satisfied with his foreign policy, his protection of the environment, and other things. But this capitalist country needs a president who knows how capitalism works. Liberals are correct about a lot of things but they don’t understand free enterprise.
Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trollssays
All the government has to do is get out of the way.
Haven’t noticed that working. Your theology has some holes in it, which is shown by history.
What a Maroon, Applied Linguist of Slight Forebodingsays
I also don’t like Obama’s philosophy that government spending means more jobs. The jobs that last come from the private sector.
Of course the number of jobs in the private sector has grown almost as fast under Obama as it did under Bush. It’s in the public sector that jobs are being lost (source).
But hey, capitalism doesn’t need teachers or cops or firefighters, right?
KGsays
Obama’s idea that success is a bad thing that should be punished. – humanape
Gee, until it ran into money problems, the city was spending $3,000,000 a year on road resurfacing. They hired private companies, who had to hire workers to do that job. And government doesn’t create jobs by government spending? Real trickle down effects from said government, versus imaginary trickle down effects from the rich keeping their money (according to your theology)…
theophontes 777says
@ humanape
I also don’t like Obama’s philosophy that government spending means more jobs. The jobs that last come from the private sector. All the government has to do is get out of the way.
Ape. Why don’t you take this story to the Chinese. With your advice they could be gurgling down the plughole nice and convivially with the ‘Merkins. Instead, they rode out the financial crisis, in large part due to massive government spending on infrastructure and other public works.
Idjit!
Louissays
I SMELL LIBERTARIAN!!!!!!!!
Ew. I stepped in some libertarianism. Anyone got something to scrape it from between the grooves of my shoes?
Louis
Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trollssays
Anyone got something to scrape it from between the grooves of my shoes?
Seven-day-old grog works, if your shoes can take it.
ravensays
troll:
Obama’s idea that success is a bad thing that should be punished. –
Troll is making stuff up.
Obama is a prime example of hard work and talent succeeding in the USA.
Born to a mostly single mother who was always on the edge financially, half black in a racist society, and ends up with a Harvard law degree, US senator, and President of the USA.
Compare that to Romney. Father was governor and very rich and Romney grew up in wealth, went to private schools, and made even more money (legally) looting companies as part of the Wall Street economic-financial complex.
What a Maroon, Applied Linguist of Slight Forebodingsays
Ew. I stepped in some libertarianism. Anyone got something to scrape it from between the grooves of my shoes?
Soak it in a solution of 5 parts public education, 2 parts graduated income tax, and 7 parts government regulation of industry.
ravensays
Anyone got something to scrape it from between the grooves of my shoes?
Reality works but you have to scrape hard and often. Gibbertarianism keeps building up if you keep wading in it.
No permanent solution is known but some claim moving to Canada, Europe, or parts of Asia helps a lot.
As in “bane of my existence”, and “I will break you”.
I like the back breaking metaphor. It suits how intelligently evil Bane’s business strategy is.
(+1 for the Batman/Knightfall ref.)
Hey monkey fucker! Doesn’t the argument that taxes=punishment get a little old? For shit’s sake, a child could figure out that taxes pay for stuff we all use– even the rich, even coporations.
If it means that much to you, feel free to move where there’s little to no taxes; you’ve gotta be itching to “go Galt” and prove us all wrong anyway, right?
Browniansays
The jobs that last come from the private sector.
So much for the conservative myth of the lazy, unfireable, career bureaucrat.
Anyways, the hard workers of the companies gutted by Bain will be glad to hear they’ve been working all this time.
Honestly, humanape, don’t you ever get tired of being you? I mean, c’mon, unless you’re completely delusional, the occasional lucid moment would necessitate that some days, you look at yourself in the mirror and realize exactly what you are.
theophontes 777says
@ What a Maroon / All
graduated income tax
Or what about a flat rate tax + BIG?
The advantages: Very simple and cheap to administrate (collecting tax and distributing social welfare is very expensive otherwise). Pumps money into ALL sectors of society. Offers support for those without work (who benefit the most in terms of BIG as a proportion of income), but incentivises earning at the same time.
As economy recovers, BIG can be increased, creating a feedback loop. (The commonwealth is there for everyone. It is the system to be optimised.) Of course everyone contributes. From corporations to churches.
Even Mitt will have to contribute.
What a Maroon, Applied Linguist of Slight Forebodingsays
Or what about a flat rate tax + BIG?
Um, what?
Phalacrocorax, not a particularly smart aviansays
brianthomson said:
[Romney] never says anything as clear and unambiguous as “Greed is Good”
On the other hand, he says things like “Corporations are people, my friend”. Too far-fetched even for Gekko?
humanape said:
I don’t much care for Obama’s idea that success is a bad thing that should be punished. A lifetime of working hard to become rich should not be punished with higher taxes.
Are you rich yet, humanape? Remember, you pull up the ladder only after you’re on top. Otherwise, you may be betraying your own selfish philosophy of helping only yourself.
Essentially every citizen (or permanent resident) in the country gets a flat, basic grant from the government. This should be sufficient to cover basic living expenses. For the very poor, this has incredibly beneficial effects, from health, to education to starting a business. For wealthier people it has marginal effect, but because it is given to everyone, whatever their age or circumstance, it is seen as essentially fair. It is also cheaper to administrate.
No no no no no. This is not an important question. The important question is: how do idiots like you make money?
KGsays
How do community organizers make money? – johnhunter
Well one thing we can be absolutely sure of: if a certain ex-community worker who is now undoubtedly guilty of occupying a senior post in the executive branch of government while black, had ever earned money in any way that was even slightly fishy, we’d know about it.
ravensays
How do community organizers make money?
The same way Space Reptiles, Elves, and Bigfoot do.
Who knows, who cares? It has nothing to do with the post or any of the tangential topics.
BTW, speaking of non sequiturs, what color is the sky on your planet. Not that I really care all that much. Does Trollhaven even have a sky?
I don’t recognize your user name, johnhunter. Was that your first post here? If so, I’m glad you took the time to paint that giant I AM AN IDIOT banner on your shirt so we didn’t have to guess about where you’re coming from.
What a Maroon, Applied Linguist of Slight Forebodingsays
theophontes 777, thanks for the explanation.
Phalacrocorax, not a particularly smart aviansays
How do community organizers make money?
They earn a penny every time a Republican repeats a stupid talking point on the internet. That’s how Obama became a millionaire, don’t you know?
What a Maroon, Applied Linguist of Slight Forebodingsays
They earn a penny every time a Republican repeats a stupid talking point on the internet.
Also, they supply atheists with human babies for our barbeques.
Phalacrocorax, not a particularly smart aviansays
Also, they supply atheists with human babies for our barbeques.
True, but only white babies. The others are sold to Maoist guerrilla training camps where they learn how to take over the nation.
coffeehoundsays
But this capitalist country needs a president who knows how capitalism works. Liberals are correct about a lot of things but they don’t understand free enterprise.
Yeah! I remember way back in aught-one right through aught-eight when the economic growth of our great country was humming along at oh, say 1.7-1.8% under the great GW. There was a man who understood capitalism…….
'Tis Himselfsays
But this capitalist country needs a president who knows how capitalism works. Liberals are correct about a lot of things but they don’t understand free enterprise.
If you have any questions about free enterprise, this liberal economist would be happy to explain them to you. I can even talk down to you because, as the quoted statement shows, you prefer simplistic statements.
juliansays
But this capitalist country needs a president who knows how capitalism works.
So you’re going to vote for the Republican?!
Here’s something you should understand about making money, human fuckwit. You don’t have to make other people money to make yourself money. You make tons of it just by bleeding those under you dry and cutting those trying to get a leg up down. In fact, it’s a wonderful way to make yourself obscenely rich.
coffeehoundsays
The jobs that last come from the private sector. All the government has to do is get out of the way.
Oh, yeah and I’ll tell those teachers that I know personally that have been in the workforce for over 30 years that they’re in the public sector, therefore they don’t have jobs that last,halfwit.
cm's changeable monikersays
You know that whole load-up-on-debt, sack everyone, PROFIT! thing?
Levering up businesses with huge amounts of debt and making your equity returns primarily from the paydown of debt with excess cash flow was the old model of the leveraged buyouts of the 1980s. It only worked then because private equity firms could get businesses cheaper than they can now. Fierce competition has shut this sort of financial engineering down.
sell-side advisors and investment bankers like Yours Truly do everything in our power to prevent any buyer, financial sponsor included, from buying companies cheaply. Much to private equity’s chagrin, we have gotten pretty good at it.
These days, it’s more like venture capitalism. And VCs make things like Facebook, right?
Browniansays
Hey, humanape,
But this capitalist country needs a president who knows how capitalism works. Liberals are correct about a lot of things but they don’t understand free enterprise.
Speaking as an outsider, you ‘mericans either need to get rid of those Blue Dog democrat Rethug enablers -creating a real political alternative- or create a million Rorschach clones (the film/graphic novel one). I like the idea of messy payback.
Anrisays
I have to vote for him anyway because I don’t much care for Obama’s idea that success is a bad thing that should be punished. A lifetime of working hard to become rich should not be punished with higher taxes.
Taxes.
Are not.
A punishment.
Please, please stop making yourself look enormously stupid by saying they are.
carbonbasedlifeformsays
The jobs that last come from the private sector.
I recently attended the retirement party of a friend who spent 30 years working for the City of Naperville, Illinois as a fireman.
I don’t much care for Obama’s idea that success is a bad thing that should be punished.
I’m quite sure that I care even less for bald-faced liars such as yourself.
KGsays
Please, please stop making yourself [humanape] look enormously stupid by saying they are. – Anri
I disagree: I think it’s very much for the best that humanape displays his enormous stupidity so openly.
Louissays
Taxes are punishment?
Fuck me! I never knew.
Waaaaaaait a second. How did all these roads and hospitals get here? They’re quite useful, they are. It’s almost like these good things were paid for by some centrally administered source of funding collected by the UK government.
Nah.
Excuse me, I’m just off to the Inland Revenue to get some “punishment”. I hear they administer spankings and call you “a very naughty boy”, if you ask nicely.
Louis
Browniansays
I disagree: I think it’s very much for the best that humanape displays his enormous stupidity so openly.
Frankly, humanape can do nothing else.
carbonbasedlifeformsays
A lifetime of working hard to become rich should not be punished with higher taxes.
Answered by Adam Smith, in his Wealth of Nations:
The necessaries of life occasion the great expense of the poor. They find it difficult to get food, and the greater part of their little revenue is spent in getting it. The luxuries and vanities of life occasion the principal expense of the rich; and a magnificent house embellishes and sets off to the best advantage all the other luxuries and vanities which they possess. A tax upon house-rents, therefore, would in general fall heaviest upon the rich; and in this sort of inequality there would not, perhaps, be any thing very unreasonable. It is not very unreasonable that the rich should contribute to the public expense, not only in proportion to their revenue, but something more than in that proportion.
Amphioxsays
Louis, Louis, Louis, don’t you know?
Those hospitals, roads, police departments, firemen, safety regulations, are all part of the punishment. They are the honey trap that lures you into and keeps you bound in the gilded cage of government managed civilization! Those shiny interstates(or British equivalent thereof) are the very CHAINS that enslave you like a domesticated animal.
Soon enough you are robbed of even your desire for and capacity to obtain, true god given FREEEDDOMM!*(Braveheart scream)
* the ability to live as god intended, alone in the woods wrapped in the skin of the bear you strangled with your own bare hands. Flint spears allowable only if you planted, nurtured, harvested, and processed the tree, climbed the mountain, discovered and excavated the quarry, and knapper the spear point yourself. Jawbone of ass optional.
Anrisays
I disagree: I think it’s very much for the best that humanape displays his enormous stupidity so openly.
Good point, KG.
I was just hoping agaisnt hope that the ape-flung poo might end up going in a different direction for a little while. On the “better to be thought a fool…” principle.
What a Maroon, Applied Linguist of Slight Forebodingsays
Those hospitals, roads, police departments, firemen, safety regulations, are all part of the punishment. They are the honey trap that lures you into and keeps you bound in the gilded cage of government managed civilization! Those shiny interstates(or British equivalent thereof) are the very CHAINS that enslave you like a domesticated animal.
Not to mention that the availability of hospitals and roads and all that to poor people means they’re more likely to live longer, to travel near you, to get an education and compete with you for jobs, and so on. And all that makes it that much more difficult to exploit or kill them for fun and profit.
Just another example of how Big Government tramples on your liberty.
Rev. BigDumbChimpsays
But this capitalist country needs a president who knows how capitalism works. Liberals are correct about a lot of things but they don’t understand free enterprise.
oh groan.
“Free enterprise” doesn’t exist. Except maybe in Somalia and really, not even there.
Browniansays
Not to mention that the availability of hospitals and roads and all that to poor people means they’re more likely to live longer, to travel near you, to get an education and compete with you for jobs, and so onpurchase the goods or services you make your money by selling.
Because fuckheads like humanape don’t seem to grok this point.
Thanks to Mitt Romney, I now know what “apotheosis” means. Thanks, Mitt Romney!
Safety nets are for the rich.
He does like firing people.
Heads they win, tails we lose.
Hmmm…
The aspects of the American system that this spot attacks make me sick. It always seems to me like the States is a place where people scream and yell about being screwed by evil big government, but have no problem getting screwed by evil big corporations.
That being said, certainly in jurisdictions outside of the US not all private equity works – or screws the system – like this. It tends to be a matter of scale. Small to medium sized corporate entities (whether operating in the private equity sector or otherwise) are, generally, not so bad. The bigger you get (and the bigger the dollar numbers get), the more the poison seeps in – and the less effective the government regulation becomes.
crocwsocks and Ing: To paraphrase someone (I forget who it was): “There will be a potheosis of firing.”
Anyhow… I don’t understand much, if anything, about corporate financial stuff but is everything he says in that video true? (watches it again)
I understand that I do(“we do”) pay unemployment taxes, the “UI” item on my W2s. But don’t employers also pay in to the UI system? Even if “we do” and “they do” does it make any difference?
I haven’t seen the video (it’s blocked on my work computer for some reason only the IT folks know). However I’ll tell you how Romney got his money.
His company, Bain, would look for profitable companies and take them over, borrowing money to do so. Bain would then loot the company, selling off assets, if there was a pension fund they would sell all its assets and “invest” in the junk bonds used to finance the takeover (if the bonds became worthless, oh well), cut expenses like maintenance and benefits, fire “extraneous” personnel, and otherwise gut what had been a profitable company, finally selling the worthless corpse for a pittance. Romney and his cronies would make several million and a bunch of people would be unemployed and without pensions.
Romney pretends he’s pro-jobs. His past performance with Bain shows what a lie that is.
Yep. As an aussie living the USA for the last 10 years this is the one I just don’t get.
Taxpayer subsidies and corporate bailouts are just examples of the “free market” in action. Privatize the gains, socialize the losses, that’s free market capitalism in a nutshell.
@Tis:
That’s a pretty succint summary of the video.
Yes, except the part where he sells the business for a pittance. Reich says he sells it for a profit.
dougittner @ 9;
The ‘invisible hand of the free market’ – it’s the other god that Republicans worship and, just like Yahweh, a lot is promised in its name, but precious little delivered.
QFT. The entire system is not structured to support the vulnerable or protect the disadvantaged, but rather to make the rich richer and keep the poor so weighed down with money worries and the concerns of simply making it from one day to the next that they don’t stop and realise just how badly they are being exploited, or if they do then they are in no real poistion to do anything about it because the US is a two party system and both of those parties are in this corrupt shell game up to their necks.
Then again, the situation is not much better over here in the UK either. We are also a society run for the benefit of the connected and powerful, where all the parties ultimately protect the same interests by pretty much the same means, as was clearly demonstrated when Nick Clegg – leader of the Liberal Democrats, a notionally Left of Centre progressive party – sold every principle he ever supposedly stood for in an grotesque rush to enter coalition with the Conservatives and secure whatever scraps of power and privilege for himself he could, a coalition that has presided over economic catastrophe and the further degradation of civil liberties in the name of ‘security’.
That is the trouble with mature democracies; the powerful vested interests, like the big oil conglomerates, make sure that they have all the electable parties bought and paid for ahead of time. After that, elections amount to little more than determining what colour tie the Prime Minister wears…
I wouldn’t be too quick to hold this against Romney in the upcoming election. There could be an upside. Maybe if he is elected President he can pull some kind of trick like this on China, or some other country, on our behalf!
One thing that struck me as unclear or wrong is the idea that increasing the target company’s expenses (interest payments) would somehow raise profits. As I understand it, interest payments are no more deductible than other expenses which count against profits (like the cost of materials, etc). Am I missing something?
What struck me while watching this video is how much Republicans would, if they could get their way, spare us all from the “we foot the bill” aspects of this story. If they had their way there would be no unemployment insurance funded by taxpayers. There would be no government takeover of pension obligations of failed companies. Those people would just be SOL. And the extra tax burden that comes from the dodgy tax breaks would not be a trivial issue because there would be essentially no government, except for the military, and so no one would pay more than 5% in taxes to begin with. The Republican Utopia would solve all of these “we foot the bill issues”. And I don’t just mean this as snark. It’s a real issue with trying to show a video like this to a Republican friend. They just won’t buy the premise that we have any obligation to our fellow humans, that employment is a value alongside profits, that we should help people who find themselves unemployed or with their pension vaporized (to say nothing of sick and dying). They will tell you that… and it is hard not to laugh at this point… or cry…. churches and other private charities will take care of all of these people (like they do now!). So very little of this probably seems bad to Republicans.
They’re not making money from the profits…they’re short changing the xompany and taking anything not nailed down before selling it.
…And then the company they’ve stripped to the bone goes bust, (a) putting even more workers (soon to be vilified as lazy scroungers who don’t want to work) onto publicly-funded unemployment payments or (b), if it’s deemed important enough, needing a huge publicly-funded bailout (because this is an example of the market being self-fixing with no need of government intervention).
Spanish Inquisitor #11
Since Bain is divesting itself of any financial interest in the company and has no further obligations for paying the debts of the company*, any money made from selling the company is profit. Reich and I were just emphasizing different aspects of the ultimate sale. There usually isn’t much money earned in the sale but it’s all profit.
*Remember, these debts were incurred during the takeover of the company and were transferred from Bain to the company.
@gluon – But what about the funds to pay for the police and fire departments, maintain / build roads, pay for the courts that more and more corporations are using to sue each other with, etc? That is that part that even rethuglicans do have to acknowledge.
unbound
I’ve seen various libertarians argue that all these things should be privately financed, and available only to those who do the financing or are willing to pay the financiers—cash on the barrel-head, whatever price the market will bear.
No view, it seems, is so extreme that someone, somewhere, doesn’t embrace it.
@Daz – Seems to be a competition on who can have the most naive or least compassionate viewpoint anymore…
@rthille
The interest payment counts against income. This reduces the taxable amount the company has to pay on. Less taxes means the company can divert what would have been taxes to something else – like paying big salaries to the Romneys.
The “invisible hand” does very much exist, but it’s not the magical cure-all that libertarians insist it is. It’s just a plain force of nature.
It just weeds out companies that aren’t profitable. Profitable does not mean they’re ethical in the least bit – their entire goal is to be money-making machines. The only way we can prevent corporations from being assholes is by restrictions placed upon them by the people – in other words, the government.
I wouldn’t argue that corporations are innately immoral as a result of their nature. They don’t have the capacity for it. They’re amoral – and their boards of directors are the real assholes that make them into the immoral monsters they are in reality.
Mitt R. is proof that the “Republican” Party is continuing their experiments to produce the purest possible toxin with which to kill the American form of democracy, all derived from odd fluids collected from the decaying remains of Richard Nixon.
The Dubya Bu–sh– strain was the first great success (from their reverse-Dr. Moreau-like point-of-view), but was still barely better than a prototype, since it was only able to be elected under specially pressured labratory conditions (and, even there, by the thinnest of margins).
Attempts to reanimate John McCain using such methods, as well as by supplementing him with the excessively volatile Palin parasite, proved a complete failure.
Mitt is very nearly perfect, though even more expensive to implant than the early Bu–sh– model: “he” is empty of any human emotions that do not involve bullying, cheating, lying, and taking general “joy” in the harm he does, from a safe distance, to human and humanity.
How do they find people even more horrid and unworthy of respect or trust than GWBush?
I hope he does one on how the global stockmarkets are nothing but legalized pyramid schemes.
“how do they find people even more horrid… than GWBush?”
It’s quite easy when over three quarters of the party membership already qualify.
Off topic, but still money-related:
I just came across this rather interesting article on religious finances and subsidies in the US.
Rip Steakface @ 23;
Market dynamics of supply and demand and the like certainly exist, but the very phrase ‘invisible hand’ is often misinterpreted to imply an agency to the market itself – a form of naturally occurring super-efficiency that supposedly renders all regulation at best moot and at worst harmful.
As you say, many Libertarians and other small government obsessed nincompoops seem to view the free market as some perfect social panacea – a cure-all for everything from trade deficits to social issues such as poverty and discrimination, despite the fact that all evidence indicates the contrary. It is, to all intents and purposes, a supernaturalist mindset.
Up to a point perhaps, but it seems to me that some companies are capable of acheiveing a critical mass of influence such that even if they are complete economic basket cases they will still be propped up because the alternative would be to expose the great and the not so good of a given saociety to losses, even where the vested interests in question very much come from the camp of the free market apostles.
So, as may be expected, Libertarians and Right wingers of this stripe pair their lack of empathy and greed with rank hypocrisy; they state loud and often that the freemarket renders government largely obsolete (apart from running the military and interfering in what goes in in people’s bedrooms, that is) and represents the perfect source of self regulating social authority… right up until they are the ones who stand to lose out.
Rarely have truer words been written.
Which is exactly why small government conservatives want to pull the government’s teeth – it removes the principle force capable of balancing out the power of the corporations that they hold shares in, and thereby insures that their personal wealth and standing within the corporate world grants them near unassailable power.
Money, like any other form of power, corrupts. Once you start getting into the realms of the crazy amounts of money that fly about in big buisness circles, otherwise reasonable people can start acting like absolute monsters. In that sense, perhaps corporations – as concentrations of often largely unaccountable wealth and thus power – are structurally predisposed to warping the people who run them, and the constant drive toward deregulation favoured by small government conservatives and libertarians only exacerbates this situation.
@ Rip Steakface “The only way we can prevent corporations from being assholes is by restrictions placed upon them by the people – in other words, the government.”
But corporations are people. ;-)
The only apotheosis I like is this one: Prinz Eugen von Savoyen, a gay man who turned back the Ottoman army.
http://www.friendsofart.net/en/art/balthasar-permoser/apotheosis-of-prince-eugene
rthille@14: There are variations on this scheme which eviscerate the company leaving it worthless after selling off its assets, but in this instance what is happening is that the assets of the company are not being sold off but being used instead as collateral for loans on high-risk investments.
@lots of people: The Invisible Hand is a metaphor, but it does describe the very real process by which open markets will tend to favour sellers who meet customers’ needs at the lowest cost. The problem with the Invisible Hand is that it is not the only force at work in the marketplace. Adam Smith knew this. Wealth of Nations is chock full of descriptions of ways the free market can be inefficient and anti-customer (e.g. monopolies, corruption, political expediency, intimidation by violence). Most contemporary advocates of free market theory have a cruder approximation of the real world than the fellow who came up with the concept over 200 years ago.
Daz @#20 — Indeed. Given that the ideal social and economic order for Republicans and Libertarians is late 19th America, it’s not surprising that they want to stop the government from providing services like roads, fire protection, etc. Let the private sector handle it because that’s how those services were provided in those halcyon days. No matter that if you couldn’t afford the protection or the access, you didn’t get it.
Now that Conservatives, Republicans, Libertarians, and even some Democrats have convinced droves of people in the Nitwitted States to defund government, such “luxuries” as fire protection, emergency services, weather forecasting, etc are being hit hard, not to mention education and basic science research.
Here’s where the cock comes to roost: After the 1989 Loma Preita earthquake, the San Francisco Fire Department began offering neighborhood emergency readiness training classes. They tell you straight out in the first session that the reason for the program is that the SFFD does not have enough people or equipment to deal with any significantly large emergency…say, the next BIG ONE! They will be completely overwhelmed with the emergency in the high density areas (downtown) where many buildings will collapse and fires will rage through the remains. This is due in no small part to the deep cuts in the SFFD. The force is considerably smaller today than it was 10 or 20 years ago, including fewer fire fighters, less equipment, and fewer stations.
When the next big one hits SF, neighborhoods will be own their own to fight the fires (with garden hoses), pull people out of collapsed structures (with their DIY crowbars), treat serious injuries (rip those bed sheets), and start delivering shelter, food, and water for the survivors. Oh, and maintain civil order…i.e. stop the looting, assaults, etc…because the police will also be overwhelmed.
Not a pretty picture, but that’s what you get when people are more concerned with money than human beings, and when so many people are deluded by their beliefs…ideological and/or religious…that government and taxes are bad.
But at least he wasn’t a community organizer. *spits*
Could we have gotten a more straight-from-central-casting villain in this election? Rich, stiff, out of touch, casually cruel to animals and students below him on the social ladder, and he had a company called BAIN. As in “bane of my existence”, and “I will break you”.
And he was the best they could come up with.
While Robert Reich will never be Roy Zimmerman, his videos are good and informative. Were this 1720, Mitt Romney would be hunted down by the Royal Navy for piracy. Bain Capital (could there be a more appropriate name ? Bane ? ) was nothing more than a mordern day pirate ship. For all that, they give decent hardworking pirates a bad name.
I’m not in the USA, and don’t have a stake in the race, but when I read about how Romney made his money, my first thought was “he’s Gordon Gekko from Wall Street“! Oh, but wait – Gekko was nasty, he didn’t go to church, he had no morals … Romney is different, right? He goes to church, he gives to charity (his church), he’s always smiling, never says anything as clear and unambiguous as “Greed is Good”. So that’s OK, then. Nothing to see here ..?
If the Obama campaign don’t jump on this comparison, I’ll be surprised and they’ll be negligent, since it’s obvious even to a Euro-peon such as myself. The Romney campaign will dismiss it as “liberal talking points” or whatever – as if anyone who brings this up is a sheep who had it fed to them to bleat – but the comparisons are so clear, they could work at a grassroots level, no Astroturfing required. (Sheep can’t eat Astroturf, anyway!)
In the movie, Gekko was arrested for insider trading, which I read as a requirement of the movie genre: the bad guy has to get his comeuppance. Real life isn’t as neatly scripted. If I was an American, I wouldn’t be as worried about Romney himself as I would be about those who would follow him in to the Executive Branch – like all those Goldman Sachs types who worked under Obama.
it is just like the practice of off-shoring labor I would include all of labor as now many “back office” functions can be done in asia. it is a great way to make more profit but is short sighted when everyone a given market off-shores enough of labor the market will find itself diminished then what. The kind of business Mittins was not one of building a business or even managing a successful one.
He is just a used business salesman
uncle frogy
Everyone interested in this thread should read The Corporation by Joel Bakan. The book is an excellent expose on the history and nature of modern corporations and the harm they do to society. He says that if corporations are people, they are sociopathic people.
video linky
Except for the fact corporations create hundreds of thousands of jobs with great benefits.
The video is a fair criticism of Romney. I have to vote for him anyway because I don’t much care for Obama’s idea that success is a bad thing that should be punished. A lifetime of working hard to become rich should not be punished with higher taxes.
I also don’t like Obama’s philosophy that government spending means more jobs. The jobs that last come from the private sector. All the government has to do is get out of the way.
I voted for Obama in 2008. I like him. I’m completely satisfied with his foreign policy, his protection of the environment, and other things. But this capitalist country needs a president who knows how capitalism works. Liberals are correct about a lot of things but they don’t understand free enterprise.
Haven’t noticed that working. Your theology has some holes in it, which is shown by history.
Of course the number of jobs in the private sector has grown almost as fast under Obama as it did under Bush. It’s in the public sector that jobs are being lost (source).
But hey, capitalism doesn’t need teachers or cops or firefighters, right?
What a prize fuckwit.
@ DLC
The Crimson Permanent Assurance part 1 (Mitt snuffs it @ ~ 2:25)
Gee, until it ran into money problems, the city was spending $3,000,000 a year on road resurfacing. They hired private companies, who had to hire workers to do that job. And government doesn’t create jobs by government spending? Real trickle down effects from said government, versus imaginary trickle down effects from the rich keeping their money (according to your theology)…
@ humanape
Ape. Why don’t you take this story to the Chinese. With your advice they could be gurgling down the plughole nice and convivially with the ‘Merkins. Instead, they rode out the financial crisis, in large part due to massive government spending on infrastructure and other public works.
Idjit!
I SMELL LIBERTARIAN!!!!!!!!
Ew. I stepped in some libertarianism. Anyone got something to scrape it from between the grooves of my shoes?
Louis
Seven-day-old grog works, if your shoes can take it.
Troll is making stuff up.
Obama is a prime example of hard work and talent succeeding in the USA.
Born to a mostly single mother who was always on the edge financially, half black in a racist society, and ends up with a Harvard law degree, US senator, and President of the USA.
Compare that to Romney. Father was governor and very rich and Romney grew up in wealth, went to private schools, and made even more money (legally) looting companies as part of the Wall Street economic-financial complex.
Soak it in a solution of 5 parts public education, 2 parts graduated income tax, and 7 parts government regulation of industry.
Reality works but you have to scrape hard and often. Gibbertarianism keeps building up if you keep wading in it.
No permanent solution is known but some claim moving to Canada, Europe, or parts of Asia helps a lot.
Rey,
I like the back breaking metaphor. It suits how intelligently evil Bane’s business strategy is.
(+1 for the Batman/Knightfall ref.)
Hey monkey fucker! Doesn’t the argument that taxes=punishment get a little old? For shit’s sake, a child could figure out that taxes pay for stuff we all use– even the rich, even coporations.
If it means that much to you, feel free to move where there’s little to no taxes; you’ve gotta be itching to “go Galt” and prove us all wrong anyway, right?
So much for the conservative myth of the lazy, unfireable, career bureaucrat.
Anyways, the hard workers of the companies gutted by Bain will be glad to hear they’ve been working all this time.
Honestly, humanape, don’t you ever get tired of being you? I mean, c’mon, unless you’re completely delusional, the occasional lucid moment would necessitate that some days, you look at yourself in the mirror and realize exactly what you are.
@ What a Maroon / All
Or what about a flat rate tax + BIG?
The advantages: Very simple and cheap to administrate (collecting tax and distributing social welfare is very expensive otherwise). Pumps money into ALL sectors of society. Offers support for those without work (who benefit the most in terms of BIG as a proportion of income), but incentivises earning at the same time.
As economy recovers, BIG can be increased, creating a feedback loop. (The commonwealth is there for everyone. It is the system to be optimised.) Of course everyone contributes. From corporations to churches.
Even will have to contribute.
Um, what?
brianthomson said:
On the other hand, he says things like “Corporations are people, my friend”. Too far-fetched even for Gekko?
humanape said:
Are you rich yet, humanape? Remember, you pull up the ladder only after you’re on top. Otherwise, you may be betraying your own selfish philosophy of helping only yourself.
@ What a Maroon
An example: How a Basic Income [Grant] Program Saved a Namibian Village. Link to Der Spiegel (English)
Essentially every citizen (or permanent resident) in the country gets a flat, basic grant from the government. This should be sufficient to cover basic living expenses. For the very poor, this has incredibly beneficial effects, from health, to education to starting a business. For wealthier people it has marginal effect, but because it is given to everyone, whatever their age or circumstance, it is seen as essentially fair. It is also cheaper to administrate.
Humanape has never met a turd he didn’t mistake for a Tootsie Roll
How do community organizers make money?
WUT?
No no no no no. This is not an important question. The important question is: how do idiots like you make money?
Well one thing we can be absolutely sure of: if a certain ex-community worker who is now undoubtedly guilty of occupying a senior post in the executive branch of government while black, had ever earned money in any way that was even slightly fishy, we’d know about it.
The same way Space Reptiles, Elves, and Bigfoot do.
Who knows, who cares? It has nothing to do with the post or any of the tangential topics.
BTW, speaking of non sequiturs, what color is the sky on your planet. Not that I really care all that much. Does Trollhaven even have a sky?
I don’t recognize your user name, johnhunter. Was that your first post here? If so, I’m glad you took the time to paint that giant I AM AN IDIOT banner on your shirt so we didn’t have to guess about where you’re coming from.
theophontes 777, thanks for the explanation.
They earn a penny every time a Republican repeats a stupid talking point on the internet. That’s how Obama became a millionaire, don’t you know?
Also, they supply atheists with human babies for our barbeques.
True, but only white babies. The others are sold to Maoist guerrilla training camps where they learn how to take over the nation.
Yeah! I remember way back in aught-one right through aught-eight when the economic growth of our great country was humming along at oh, say 1.7-1.8% under the great GW. There was a man who understood capitalism…….
If you have any questions about free enterprise, this liberal economist would be happy to explain them to you. I can even talk down to you because, as the quoted statement shows, you prefer simplistic statements.
So you’re going to vote for the Republican?!
Here’s something you should understand about making money, human fuckwit. You don’t have to make other people money to make yourself money. You make tons of it just by bleeding those under you dry and cutting those trying to get a leg up down. In fact, it’s a wonderful way to make yourself obscenely rich.
Oh, yeah and I’ll tell those teachers that I know personally that have been in the workforce for over 30 years that they’re in the public sector, therefore they don’t have jobs that last,halfwit.
You know that whole load-up-on-debt, sack everyone, PROFIT! thing?
How private equity actually works these days.
These days, it’s more like venture capitalism. And VCs make things like Facebook, right?
Hey, humanape,
Here’s a capitalist who claims to understand capitalism, and from his explanation, it appears you couldn’t be more of a fucking moron if you tried.
Fuck you.
Mitt Romney understands our economy
he used it to steal money and eliminate jobs, stealing from those pooer to enrich himself
I want him in charge of the country!
@Brownian, you should probably also watch:
http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/12324
Speaking as an outsider, you ‘mericans either need to get rid of those Blue Dog democrat Rethug enablers -creating a real political alternative- or create a million Rorschach clones (the film/graphic novel one). I like the idea of messy payback.
Taxes.
Are not.
A punishment.
Please, please stop making yourself look enormously stupid by saying they are.
I recently attended the retirement party of a friend who spent 30 years working for the City of Naperville, Illinois as a fireman.
I’m quite sure that I care even less for bald-faced liars such as yourself.
I disagree: I think it’s very much for the best that humanape displays his enormous stupidity so openly.
Taxes are punishment?
Fuck me! I never knew.
Waaaaaaait a second. How did all these roads and hospitals get here? They’re quite useful, they are. It’s almost like these good things were paid for by some centrally administered source of funding collected by the UK government.
Nah.
Excuse me, I’m just off to the Inland Revenue to get some “punishment”. I hear they administer spankings and call you “a very naughty boy”, if you ask nicely.
Louis
Frankly, humanape can do nothing else.
Answered by Adam Smith, in his Wealth of Nations:
Louis, Louis, Louis, don’t you know?
Those hospitals, roads, police departments, firemen, safety regulations, are all part of the punishment. They are the honey trap that lures you into and keeps you bound in the gilded cage of government managed civilization! Those shiny interstates(or British equivalent thereof) are the very CHAINS that enslave you like a domesticated animal.
Soon enough you are robbed of even your desire for and capacity to obtain, true god given FREEEDDOMM!*(Braveheart scream)
* the ability to live as god intended, alone in the woods wrapped in the skin of the bear you strangled with your own bare hands. Flint spears allowable only if you planted, nurtured, harvested, and processed the tree, climbed the mountain, discovered and excavated the quarry, and knapper the spear point yourself. Jawbone of ass optional.
Good point, KG.
I was just hoping agaisnt hope that the ape-flung poo might end up going in a different direction for a little while. On the “better to be thought a fool…” principle.
Not to mention that the availability of hospitals and roads and all that to poor people means they’re more likely to live longer, to travel near you, to get an education and compete with you for jobs, and so on. And all that makes it that much more difficult to exploit or kill them for fun and profit.
Just another example of how Big Government tramples on your liberty.
oh groan.
“Free enterprise” doesn’t exist. Except maybe in Somalia and really, not even there.
Because fuckheads like humanape don’t seem to grok this point.
There are concepts in public health called PYLL, or years of potential life lost and DALY, or Disability adjusted life year which allow us to measure the relative costs of diseases in the number of healthy, productive years they remove from a person’s life.
The economic implications of healthy, productive are not incidental in the use of these types of measurements.
It’s people like humanape who don’t understand capitalism, rather than the rest of us.
Amphiox, #83,
But but but I already live like that. Am I DOIN IT RONG?
Louis
Louis, you do everything wrong. That’s why we like you. ;)