Warren and the Divine Right of Capital: Accountable Capitalism Act

[georgephillip]

"Why would a company buy back its own stock, stock issued in the first place supposedly to give the company money it needed for productive investment to produce goods and services?

"The answer is very simple.

"When a corporation buys its own stock (often with borrowed money), the stock usually goes up at least temporarily.

"That gives the executives of the company and activist hedge funds time to cash in their stock grants, options and garden variety stocks and make a killing."

Financial Parasites Have Become Neo-Feudal Landlords

There are a number of reasons a company will buy back stock.

One is certainly that it will cause stock manipulation. I don't have a problem with that. It is THEIR stock. They can do what they want. Again, this is just you, shoving your nose half way up the butt, of someone elses business. Mind your own business? What do you care if they buy back their stock or not, to increase stock values? What business is that of yours?

As a shareholder, I have no problem with that. Because if they buy back stock and get more money because of it... who else also benefits? Me. I have stock in the company. My stock will end up more valuable. Same is true with Union workers, whose pensions are wrapped up in stock. Same is true of 401Ks in stock. Same is true of annuities invested in stock.

You claim to care about the working people... well...? That's a benefit to the working people. So shut up, and do what your parents should have taught you, and mind your own business.

But if you are curious about the other reasons.....

There are two other often mentioned reasons companies buy back stock.

1. It reduces in the long term, the dividend payouts to shareholders.

Obviously, if the company buys back it's stock, it doesn't have to pay dividends to itself.

2. It consolidates control of the company, and reduces the chance of a hostile vote.

Famously Apple in the mid-2000s I believe, had a faction of shareholders who were pushing Apple to dole out it's saved money into shareholder dividends. While Apple's leadership has always been rather left-wing ideology, fiscally Apple is one of the most conservative companies in the country, and is usually sitting on millions, if not a few billion dollars in saved money. It's one of the reasons Apple never filed bankruptcy in the 90s, when they were bleeding money year over year.

As soon as Apple fended off the rouge faction of shareholders, Apple quickly moved to buy back stock, to prevent a future attempt to corner management.

And there are a few other lesser reasons to buy back stock, involving SEC rules and such. The bottom line is, as I said before... nonya bidnes.

Financial Parasites Have Become Neo-Feudal Landlords

Ummmm.... No? If that was true, then how did Enron fail? Because I guarantee that if Enron was a feudal landlord, it would be impossible to go bankrupt, when you have guaranteed income from state imposed tenets.

How did 2008 ever happen then? Where is WaMu today? Doesn't exist. How is that possible if they are a feudal lord?

Ridiculous.

One is certainly that it will cause stock manipulation. I don't have a problem with that. It is THEIR stock. They can do what they want. Again, this is just you, shoving your nose half way up the butt, of someone elses business

Of course, it is NOT exclusively THEIR business, is it? Why else would stock buybacks have been illegal prior to the Reagan administration when the incomes of rich parasites began rising dramatically?

Financial Parasites Have Become Neo-Feudal Landlords

"Why would a company buy back its own stock, stock issued in the first place supposedly to give the company money it needed for productive investment to produce goods and services?

"The answer is very simple.

"When a corporation buys its own stock (often with borrowed money), the stock usually goes up at least temporarily.

"That gives the executives of the company and activist hedge funds time to cash in their stock grants, options and garden variety stocks and make a killing.

"The boost in stock value also impresses Wall Street which cares solely about the short-term financial indicators for a company and not at all about what the company did to achieve those indicators."

Do you see how making money from money wraps the productive economy in suffocating levels of debt; why would you want to support such policies if you are not among the richest one percent of Americans?

Of course, it is NOT exclusively THEIR business, is it?

It's not your business, at all.

Why else would stock buybacks have been illegal prior to the Reagan administration

Lots of stupid rules have been repealed. More need to be eliminated.

Do you see how making money from money wraps the productive economy in suffocating levels of debt;

You want "making money from money" to be illegal?

Of course, it is NOT exclusively THEIR business, is it?

It's not your business, at all.

Corruption is everybody's business, Vlad

"A notorious Ukrainian oligarch fighting extradition to the United States on bribery and racketeering charges is seeking to link his defense to allegations made by U.S. President Donald Trump and his lawyer Rudy Giuliani that former Vice President Joe Biden tried to pressure Ukrainian politicians."

Giuliani’s Claims Spread to Another Ukraine Corruption Case

A corporation deciding to use its own money to buy back its own stock.

What is, "not corruption"?

A corporation deciding to use its own money to buy back its own stock.

What is, "not corruption"?

Greed is not good.

Stock Buybacks Are Killing the American Economy

"As economic power has shifted from workers to owners over the past 40 years, corporate profit’s take of the U.S. economy has doubled—from an average of 6 percent of GDP during America’s post-war economic heyday to more than 12 percent today.

"Yet despite this extra $1 trillion a year in corporate profits, job growth remains anemic, wages are flat, and our nation can no longer seem to afford even its most basic needs.

"A $3.6 trillion budget shortfall has left many roads, bridges, dams, and other public infrastructure in disrepair.

"Federal spending on economically crucial research and development has plummeted 40 percent, from 1.25 percent of GDP in 1977 to only 0.75 percent today.

"Adjusted for inflation, public university tuition—once mostly covered by the states—has more than doubled over the past 30 years, burying recent graduates under $1.2 trillion in student debt.

"Many public schools and our police and fire departments are dangerously underfunded."

 

[georgephillip]

Of course, it is NOT exclusively THEIR business, is it? Why else would stock buybacks have been illegal prior to the Reagan administration when the incomes of rich parasites began rising dramatically?

Financial Parasites Have Become Neo-Feudal Landlords

"Why would a company buy back its own stock, stock issued in the first place supposedly to give the company money it needed for productive investment to produce goods and services?

"The answer is very simple.

"When a corporation buys its own stock (often with borrowed money), the stock usually goes up at least temporarily.

"That gives the executives of the company and activist hedge funds time to cash in their stock grants, options and garden variety stocks and make a killing.

"The boost in stock value also impresses Wall Street which cares solely about the short-term financial indicators for a company and not at all about what the company did to achieve those indicators."

Do you see how making money from money wraps the productive economy in suffocating levels of debt; why would you want to support such policies if you are not among the richest one percent of Americans?

Of course, it is NOT exclusively THEIR business, is it?

It's not your business, at all.

Why else would stock buybacks have been illegal prior to the Reagan administration

Lots of stupid rules have been repealed. More need to be eliminated.

Do you see how making money from money wraps the productive economy in suffocating levels of debt;

You want "making money from money" to be illegal?

Of course, it is NOT exclusively THEIR business, is it?

It's not your business, at all.

Corruption is everybody's business, Vlad

"A notorious Ukrainian oligarch fighting extradition to the United States on bribery and racketeering charges is seeking to link his defense to allegations made by U.S. President Donald Trump and his lawyer Rudy Giuliani that former Vice President Joe Biden tried to pressure Ukrainian politicians."

Giuliani’s Claims Spread to Another Ukraine Corruption Case

A corporation deciding to use its own money to buy back its own stock.

What is, "not corruption"?

"So what’s changed?

"Before 1982, when John Shad, a former Wall Street CEO in charge of the Securities and Exchange Commission loosened regulations that define stock manipulation, corporate managers avoided stock buybacks out of fear of prosecution.

"That rule change, combined with a shift toward stock-based compensation for top executives, has essentially created a gigantic game of financial 'keep away,' with CEOs and shareholders tossing a $700-billion ball back and forth over the heads of American workers, whose wages as a share of GDP have fallen in almost exact proportion to profit’s rise."

Stock Buybacks Are Killing the American Economy

the Securities and Exchange Commission loosened regulations that define stock manipulation, corporate managers avoided stock buybacks out of fear of prosecution.

The only way buybacks could be considered manipulation is if a corporation released bad news, bought back a bunch of shares, released good news, sold a bunch of new shares.
Or if they knew they were going to release good news and bought back a bunch of shares before the news.

Just buying shares, because they can't use their money for something better, is a good thing, not manipulation.

That rule change, combined with a shift toward stock-based compensation for top executives,

When did that shift happen? Why did it happen?

The only way buybacks could be considered manipulation is if a corporation released bad news, bought back a bunch of shares, released good news, sold a bunch of new shares.
Or if they knew they were going to release good news and bought back a bunch of shares before the news.

Stock Buybacks Are Killing the American Economy

"It is mathematically impossible to make the public- and private-sector investments necessary to sustain America’s global economic competitiveness while flushing away 4 percent of GDP year after year.

"That is why the federal government must reorient its policies from promoting personal enrichment to promoting national growth.

"These policies should limit stock buybacks and raise the marginal rate on dividends while providing real incentives to boost investment in R&D, worker training, and business expansion."

 

[georgephillip]

Of course, it is NOT exclusively THEIR business, is it? Why else would stock buybacks have been illegal prior to the Reagan administration when the incomes of rich parasites began rising dramatically?

Financial Parasites Have Become Neo-Feudal Landlords

"Why would a company buy back its own stock, stock issued in the first place supposedly to give the company money it needed for productive investment to produce goods and services?

"The answer is very simple.

"When a corporation buys its own stock (often with borrowed money), the stock usually goes up at least temporarily.

"That gives the executives of the company and activist hedge funds time to cash in their stock grants, options and garden variety stocks and make a killing.

"The boost in stock value also impresses Wall Street which cares solely about the short-term financial indicators for a company and not at all about what the company did to achieve those indicators."

Do you see how making money from money wraps the productive economy in suffocating levels of debt; why would you want to support such policies if you are not among the richest one percent of Americans?

Of course, it is NOT exclusively THEIR business, is it?

It's not your business, at all.

Why else would stock buybacks have been illegal prior to the Reagan administration

Lots of stupid rules have been repealed. More need to be eliminated.

Do you see how making money from money wraps the productive economy in suffocating levels of debt;

You want "making money from money" to be illegal?

Of course, it is NOT exclusively THEIR business, is it?

It's not your business, at all.

Corruption is everybody's business, Vlad

"A notorious Ukrainian oligarch fighting extradition to the United States on bribery and racketeering charges is seeking to link his defense to allegations made by U.S. President Donald Trump and his lawyer Rudy Giuliani that former Vice President Joe Biden tried to pressure Ukrainian politicians."

Giuliani’s Claims Spread to Another Ukraine Corruption Case

A corporation deciding to use its own money to buy back its own stock.

What is, "not corruption"?

"So what’s changed?

"Before 1982, when John Shad, a former Wall Street CEO in charge of the Securities and Exchange Commission loosened regulations that define stock manipulation, corporate managers avoided stock buybacks out of fear of prosecution.

"That rule change, combined with a shift toward stock-based compensation for top executives, has essentially created a gigantic game of financial 'keep away,' with CEOs and shareholders tossing a $700-billion ball back and forth over the heads of American workers, whose wages as a share of GDP have fallen in almost exact proportion to profit’s rise."

Stock Buybacks Are Killing the American Economy

Meanwhile, the shift toward stock-based compensation helped drive the rise of the 1 percent by inflating the ratio of CEO-to-worker compensation from twenty-to-one in 1965 to about 300-to-one today.

Love these stupid claims.

Meanwhile, the shift toward stock-based compensation helped drive the rise of the 1 percent by inflating the ratio of CEO-to-worker compensation from twenty-to-one in 1965 to about 300-to-one today.

Love these stupid claims.

 

[daveman]

George, a serious question:

Have you ever talked anyone into abandoning their political philosophy and adopting yours?

 

[georgephillip]

Okay George, sparky? Back to the old school definition it is then. All the fun has once again been removed from simply blaming "corporatists." They'll be no more of that. Trouble is, we still need a term for those, mainly influenced and empowered by having too much already, who, whether legally or no,.. use and hide behind their corporate holdings and identities to leverage and screw all they can reach with their evil, tricksy pry bars and spanners? Then there's all those who promote such jerkdom?

I've always have my doubts about using this word to describe those who already have too much, but...
"ren·tier
/ˌränˈtyā/
Learn to pronounce
noun

1. a person living on income from property or investments."

rentier - Google Search

Financial Parasites Have Become Neo-Feudal Landlords

"Classical economics divided income into two types: earned and unearned.

"Earned income came from productive labor combined with capital investment.

"Unearned income was considered parasitical and consisted of rent, interest and dividends.

"It was not considered as adding to GDP but as subtracting from it.

"It was money made by manipulating money much as feudal landlords made their money in what has been called a rentier economy."

 

[Toddsterpatriot]

I agree with that. I don't know if my views are the majority of this forum.... maybe... but I am most certainly the minority in the country, which suits me just fine.

Let me ask you.... out of any given group of 100 adults... how many do you think have read all the research on the effects of the minimum wage? Keep in mind, I don't mean "read a headline".... I mean actually pulled up the research itself, and read through it?

The answer is barely 1 in 100. Honestly it could be 1 in 1,000.

So when you say the majority of the general public, that's the majority of ignorance. That's not an insult, just a fact. The vast majority of people are just flat out ignorant.

And again, that's not an insult. The majority of people are busy with their lives. They have kids to raise, careers to work, and family to take care of, vacations to go on.

Doing hours of reading on how economics works, is things that losers like me, who have no life, do. Again, just being honest. I don't do anything else. My weekends are usually me finding a documentary on Thomas Sowell, or nuclear physics, and watching it. I'm a nerd. I know it.

But the bottom line is, yeah.... ignorant people have uninformed views. Me, being informed, have a different view.

I'm ok with this. I know I'm right.... that's all I need to know. I don't base the 'correctness' of my views, on how popular they are with the public which hasn't been educated on any of the things they support.

By the way, this is one of the reasons the founding fathers didn't want a public vote on national policy. They didn't want us voting on the president, because a politician from Washington can convince many people with smooth talking, that you can have unlimited government services, and no tax, because someone else will pay for it.

We are living out the failures, that the founding fathers tried to avoid.

Doing hours of reading on how economics works, is things that losers like me, who have no life, do. Again, just being honest. I don't do anything else. My weekends are usually me finding a documentary on Thomas Sowell, or nuclear physics, and watching it. I'm a nerd. I know it.

But the bottom line is, yeah.... ignorant people have uninformed views. Me, being informed, have a different view.

I commend your diligence; however, I'm not sure it translates into being informed. Do you study arguments that run counter to Sowell's? Have you had any formalized training that would allow you to better understand the intricacies of economics or the interactions of protons and neutrons? You seem to underestimate the possibility that some people don't require as much time as you to form their opinion. A little knowledge can be delusional.

Most certainly sir. Yes of course I have read up on views based on Kaynes, and more modern left-wing views like Paul Krugman and such.

In fact, I've found that you tend to understand even your own views better, when you learn the views of others.

Most certainly sir. Yes of course I have read up on views based on Kaynes, and more modern left-wing views like Paul Krugman and such.

Keynes and Krugman are not left wing compared to Steve Keen and Michael Hudson:

https://michael-hudson.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/superimperialism.pdf (P. 3)

"This Treasury-bond standard of international finance has enabled the United States to obtain the largest free lunch ever achieved in history.

"America has turned the international financial system upside down.

"Whereas formerly it rested on gold, central bank reserves are now held in the form of U.S. Government IOUs that can be run up without limit.

"In effect, America has been buying up Europe, Asia and other regions with paper credit – U.S. Treasury IOUs that it has informed the world it has little intention of ever paying off.

" And there is little Europe or Asia can do about it, except to abandon the dollar and create their own financial system

" And there is little Europe or Asia can do about it, except to abandon the dollar and create their own financial system

It's true.

No one wants to hold any Marxist fiat currency. Not even other Marxists.

Better brush up on your Mandarin, Mutt.
Chinese Yuan: New World Reserve Currency? | BEST FQ

Nobody wants Yuan.

 

[Toddsterpatriot]

I actually read the wiki page on Corporatism. Corporatism is a form of government that setups up the state as the principal power broker in society. The purpose of government, under corporatism, is to distribute power to organized interest groups (labor, religion, racial, industry, military, academia, etc ...). The key feature of Corporatism, or at least the feature that makes it completely unacceptable to me, is that it dismisses universal, individual rights and replaces them with group privilege. Your rights under corporatism aren't seen as universal and inalienable - they are privileges, granted to you by the state, based on which interest groups you belong to, and how well those interest groups can lobby government.

actually read the wiki page on Corporatism. Corporatism is a form of government that setups up the state as the principal power broker in society. The purpose of government, under corporatism, is to distribute power to organized interest groups (labor, religion, racial, industry, military, academia, etc ...).

Your link:

"Corporatism is a political ideology which advocates the organization of society by corporate groups, such as agricultural, labour, military, scientific, or guild associations on the basis of their common interests.[1][2]

"The term is derived from the Latin corpus, or 'human body'.

"The hypothesis that society will reach a peak of harmonious functioning when each of its divisions efficiently performs its designated function, such as a body's organs individually contributing its general health and functionality, lies at the center of corporatist theory.

"Corporatist ideas have been expressed since Ancient Greek and Roman societies, with integration into Catholic social teaching and Christian democracy political parties.

"They have been paired by various advocates and implemented in various societies with a wide variety of political systems, including authoritarianism, absolutism, fascism, liberalism and socialism.[3]"

Yep. That's what it says. Which has nothing at all to do with:

The morality of any political ideology that lends itself to governments ranging from fascism to socialism would seem to depend on whether or not it is controlled democratically or by the richest one percent of its citizens.

So what? I mean, I don't agree. There's no divine guidance bestowed upon the democratic majority, no guarantee of morality or reason. But what in the meandering, propagandizing fuck does that have to do with corporatism?

So what? I mean, I don't agree. There's no divine guidance bestowed upon the democratic majority, no guarantee of morality or reason. But what in the meandering, propagandizing fuck does that have to do with corporatism?

According to your link, corporatism is a political ideology and liberalism, fascism, and socialism are forms of government; did you understand your own link. Aristotle?

Corporate group (sociology) - Wikipedia

"A corporate group is two or more individuals, usually in the form of a family, clan, organization, or company. A major distinction between different political cultures is whether they believe the individual is the basic unit of their society, in which case they are individualistic, or whether corporate groups are the basic unit of their society, in which case they are corporatist."

Surplus value.....what is something Marxism can't produce?

Surplus value.....what is something Marxism can't produce?

Marxist economics are awesome!
That's why all the Marxist economies crashed.

 

[georgephillip]

Would you like to explain how you've arrived at that conclusion?

I actually read the wiki page on Corporatism. Corporatism is a form of government that setups up the state as the principal power broker in society. The purpose of government, under corporatism, is to distribute power to organized interest groups (labor, religion, racial, industry, military, academia, etc ...). The key feature of Corporatism, or at least the feature that makes it completely unacceptable to me, is that it dismisses universal, individual rights and replaces them with group privilege. Your rights under corporatism aren't seen as universal and inalienable - they are privileges, granted to you by the state, based on which interest groups you belong to, and how well those interest groups can lobby government.

actually read the wiki page on Corporatism. Corporatism is a form of government that setups up the state as the principal power broker in society. The purpose of government, under corporatism, is to distribute power to organized interest groups (labor, religion, racial, industry, military, academia, etc ...).

Your link:

"Corporatism is a political ideology which advocates the organization of society by corporate groups, such as agricultural, labour, military, scientific, or guild associations on the basis of their common interests.[1][2]

"The term is derived from the Latin corpus, or 'human body'.

"The hypothesis that society will reach a peak of harmonious functioning when each of its divisions efficiently performs its designated function, such as a body's organs individually contributing its general health and functionality, lies at the center of corporatist theory.

"Corporatist ideas have been expressed since Ancient Greek and Roman societies, with integration into Catholic social teaching and Christian democracy political parties.

"They have been paired by various advocates and implemented in various societies with a wide variety of political systems, including authoritarianism, absolutism, fascism, liberalism and socialism.[3]"

The morality of any political ideology that lends itself to governments ranging from fascism to socialism would seem to depend on whether or not it is controlled democratically or by the richest one percent of its citizens.

The idea that government is controlled by the people, has always been a dubious claim in my opinion.

I would say the morality is more determined by if the government is limited by the rule of law, rather than the people.

After all, if you claim the only determination of whether or not the rule of the government is moral, is whether or not the people support it, then the mass starvation in Venezuela, and the political based violence in the country, by your own standard is 'moral'.... after all the people voted for Hugo Chavez.

You could say the same for Lenin in Russia.

I reject those notions. It's self serving, but not morally true, that simply because you vote for something, that makes it morally good.

If everyone in the country voted that we should re-institute slavery of black people.... would that make it morally right?

The morality of any political ideology that lends itself to governments ranging from fascism to socialism would seem to depend on whether or not it is controlled democratically or by the richest one percent of its citizens.

The idea that government is controlled by the people, has always been a dubious claim in my opinion.

I would say the morality is more determined by if the government is limited by the rule of law, rather than the people.

By a small minority of rich people or by a majority of all people? If democracy is a moral idea of how people can live and work together in peace by means of rational discourse instead of violence and power, I would think a government shaped by discussions on the basis of shared moral principles TRUMPS one shaped by a king or dictator.

About the work area "morality and democracy"

I would have a difficult time finding anything that Trump has done, that previous presidents, have not.

Moreover, as I said before, I don't think democracy is inherently moral. If the people themselves are evil, such as demanding to steal the wealth of others, for their own benefit.... then democracy is no more moral, than stealing is moral, since that is what the Democracy wants.

That's why you need to have a rule of law, such as don't take what isn't yours... that supersedes democracy.

I would have a difficult time finding anything that Trump has done, that previous presidents, have not.

You must be kidding.

Legal affairs of Donald Trump - Wikipedia

"An analysis by USA Today published in June 2016 found that over the previous three decades, Donald Trump and his businesses have been involved in 3,500 legal cases in U.S. federal courts and state court, an unprecedented number for a U.S. presidential candidate"

There has never been a more incompetent POTUS than Trump.
Will you continue making excuses when he goes to prison?

 

[Toddsterpatriot]

There are a number of reasons a company will buy back stock.

One is certainly that it will cause stock manipulation. I don't have a problem with that. It is THEIR stock. They can do what they want. Again, this is just you, shoving your nose half way up the butt, of someone elses business. Mind your own business? What do you care if they buy back their stock or not, to increase stock values? What business is that of yours?

As a shareholder, I have no problem with that. Because if they buy back stock and get more money because of it... who else also benefits? Me. I have stock in the company. My stock will end up more valuable. Same is true with Union workers, whose pensions are wrapped up in stock. Same is true of 401Ks in stock. Same is true of annuities invested in stock.

You claim to care about the working people... well...? That's a benefit to the working people. So shut up, and do what your parents should have taught you, and mind your own business.

But if you are curious about the other reasons.....

There are two other often mentioned reasons companies buy back stock.

1. It reduces in the long term, the dividend payouts to shareholders.

Obviously, if the company buys back it's stock, it doesn't have to pay dividends to itself.

2. It consolidates control of the company, and reduces the chance of a hostile vote.

Famously Apple in the mid-2000s I believe, had a faction of shareholders who were pushing Apple to dole out it's saved money into shareholder dividends. While Apple's leadership has always been rather left-wing ideology, fiscally Apple is one of the most conservative companies in the country, and is usually sitting on millions, if not a few billion dollars in saved money. It's one of the reasons Apple never filed bankruptcy in the 90s, when they were bleeding money year over year.

As soon as Apple fended off the rouge faction of shareholders, Apple quickly moved to buy back stock, to prevent a future attempt to corner management.

And there are a few other lesser reasons to buy back stock, involving SEC rules and such. The bottom line is, as I said before... nonya bidnes.

Financial Parasites Have Become Neo-Feudal Landlords

Ummmm.... No? If that was true, then how did Enron fail? Because I guarantee that if Enron was a feudal landlord, it would be impossible to go bankrupt, when you have guaranteed income from state imposed tenets.

How did 2008 ever happen then? Where is WaMu today? Doesn't exist. How is that possible if they are a feudal lord?

Ridiculous.

One is certainly that it will cause stock manipulation. I don't have a problem with that. It is THEIR stock. They can do what they want. Again, this is just you, shoving your nose half way up the butt, of someone elses business

Of course, it is NOT exclusively THEIR business, is it? Why else would stock buybacks have been illegal prior to the Reagan administration when the incomes of rich parasites began rising dramatically?

Financial Parasites Have Become Neo-Feudal Landlords

"Why would a company buy back its own stock, stock issued in the first place supposedly to give the company money it needed for productive investment to produce goods and services?

"The answer is very simple.

"When a corporation buys its own stock (often with borrowed money), the stock usually goes up at least temporarily.

"That gives the executives of the company and activist hedge funds time to cash in their stock grants, options and garden variety stocks and make a killing.

"The boost in stock value also impresses Wall Street which cares solely about the short-term financial indicators for a company and not at all about what the company did to achieve those indicators."

Do you see how making money from money wraps the productive economy in suffocating levels of debt; why would you want to support such policies if you are not among the richest one percent of Americans?

Of course, it is NOT exclusively THEIR business, is it?

It's not your business, at all.

Why else would stock buybacks have been illegal prior to the Reagan administration

Lots of stupid rules have been repealed. More need to be eliminated.

Do you see how making money from money wraps the productive economy in suffocating levels of debt;

You want "making money from money" to be illegal?

Of course, it is NOT exclusively THEIR business, is it?

It's not your business, at all.

Corruption is everybody's business, Vlad

"A notorious Ukrainian oligarch fighting extradition to the United States on bribery and racketeering charges is seeking to link his defense to allegations made by U.S. President Donald Trump and his lawyer Rudy Giuliani that former Vice President Joe Biden tried to pressure Ukrainian politicians."

Giuliani’s Claims Spread to Another Ukraine Corruption Case

A corporation deciding to use its own money to buy back its own stock.

What is, "not corruption"?

A corporation deciding to use its own money to buy back its own stock.

What is, "not corruption"?

Greed is not good.

Stock Buybacks Are Killing the American Economy

"As economic power has shifted from workers to owners over the past 40 years, corporate profit’s take of the U.S. economy has doubled—from an average of 6 percent of GDP during America’s post-war economic heyday to more than 12 percent today.

"Yet despite this extra $1 trillion a year in corporate profits, job growth remains anemic, wages are flat, and our nation can no longer seem to afford even its most basic needs.

"A $3.6 trillion budget shortfall has left many roads, bridges, dams, and other public infrastructure in disrepair.

"Federal spending on economically crucial research and development has plummeted 40 percent, from 1.25 percent of GDP in 1977 to only 0.75 percent today.

"Adjusted for inflation, public university tuition—once mostly covered by the states—has more than doubled over the past 30 years, burying recent graduates under $1.2 trillion in student debt.

"Many public schools and our police and fire departments are dangerously underfunded."

Nah.

 

[Toddsterpatriot]

Of course, it is NOT exclusively THEIR business, is it?

It's not your business, at all.

Why else would stock buybacks have been illegal prior to the Reagan administration

Lots of stupid rules have been repealed. More need to be eliminated.

Do you see how making money from money wraps the productive economy in suffocating levels of debt;

You want "making money from money" to be illegal?

Of course, it is NOT exclusively THEIR business, is it?

It's not your business, at all.

Corruption is everybody's business, Vlad

"A notorious Ukrainian oligarch fighting extradition to the United States on bribery and racketeering charges is seeking to link his defense to allegations made by U.S. President Donald Trump and his lawyer Rudy Giuliani that former Vice President Joe Biden tried to pressure Ukrainian politicians."

Giuliani’s Claims Spread to Another Ukraine Corruption Case

A corporation deciding to use its own money to buy back its own stock.

What is, "not corruption"?

"So what’s changed?

"Before 1982, when John Shad, a former Wall Street CEO in charge of the Securities and Exchange Commission loosened regulations that define stock manipulation, corporate managers avoided stock buybacks out of fear of prosecution.

"That rule change, combined with a shift toward stock-based compensation for top executives, has essentially created a gigantic game of financial 'keep away,' with CEOs and shareholders tossing a $700-billion ball back and forth over the heads of American workers, whose wages as a share of GDP have fallen in almost exact proportion to profit’s rise."

Stock Buybacks Are Killing the American Economy

the Securities and Exchange Commission loosened regulations that define stock manipulation, corporate managers avoided stock buybacks out of fear of prosecution.

The only way buybacks could be considered manipulation is if a corporation released bad news, bought back a bunch of shares, released good news, sold a bunch of new shares.
Or if they knew they were going to release good news and bought back a bunch of shares before the news.

Just buying shares, because they can't use their money for something better, is a good thing, not manipulation.

That rule change, combined with a shift toward stock-based compensation for top executives,

When did that shift happen? Why did it happen?

The only way buybacks could be considered manipulation is if a corporation released bad news, bought back a bunch of shares, released good news, sold a bunch of new shares.
Or if they knew they were going to release good news and bought back a bunch of shares before the news.

Stock Buybacks Are Killing the American Economy

"It is mathematically impossible to make the public- and private-sector investments necessary to sustain America’s global economic competitiveness while flushing away 4 percent of GDP year after year.

"That is why the federal government must reorient its policies from promoting personal enrichment to promoting national growth.

"These policies should limit stock buybacks and raise the marginal rate on dividends while providing real incentives to boost investment in R&D, worker training, and business expansion."

"It is mathematically impossible to make the public- and private-sector investments necessary to sustain America’s global economic competitiveness while flushing away 4 percent of GDP year after year.

Only a Commie would say that giving money to the actual owners of the corporation was "flushing (it) away"

"That is why the federal government must reorient its policies from promoting personal enrichment to promoting national growth.

If the government wasn't flushing away at least 4% of GDP a year, that might sound less stupid.

"These policies should limit stock buybacks and raise the marginal rate on dividends

Nope.

 

[georgephillip]

Would you like to explain how you've arrived at that conclusion?

I actually read the wiki page on Corporatism. Corporatism is a form of government that setups up the state as the principal power broker in society. The purpose of government, under corporatism, is to distribute power to organized interest groups (labor, religion, racial, industry, military, academia, etc ...). The key feature of Corporatism, or at least the feature that makes it completely unacceptable to me, is that it dismisses universal, individual rights and replaces them with group privilege. Your rights under corporatism aren't seen as universal and inalienable - they are privileges, granted to you by the state, based on which interest groups you belong to, and how well those interest groups can lobby government.

actually read the wiki page on Corporatism. Corporatism is a form of government that setups up the state as the principal power broker in society. The purpose of government, under corporatism, is to distribute power to organized interest groups (labor, religion, racial, industry, military, academia, etc ...).

Your link:

"Corporatism is a political ideology which advocates the organization of society by corporate groups, such as agricultural, labour, military, scientific, or guild associations on the basis of their common interests.[1][2]

"The term is derived from the Latin corpus, or 'human body'.

"The hypothesis that society will reach a peak of harmonious functioning when each of its divisions efficiently performs its designated function, such as a body's organs individually contributing its general health and functionality, lies at the center of corporatist theory.

"Corporatist ideas have been expressed since Ancient Greek and Roman societies, with integration into Catholic social teaching and Christian democracy political parties.

"They have been paired by various advocates and implemented in various societies with a wide variety of political systems, including authoritarianism, absolutism, fascism, liberalism and socialism.[3]"

The morality of any political ideology that lends itself to governments ranging from fascism to socialism would seem to depend on whether or not it is controlled democratically or by the richest one percent of its citizens.

The idea that government is controlled by the people, has always been a dubious claim in my opinion.

I would say the morality is more determined by if the government is limited by the rule of law, rather than the people.

After all, if you claim the only determination of whether or not the rule of the government is moral, is whether or not the people support it, then the mass starvation in Venezuela, and the political based violence in the country, by your own standard is 'moral'.... after all the people voted for Hugo Chavez.

You could say the same for Lenin in Russia.

I reject those notions. It's self serving, but not morally true, that simply because you vote for something, that makes it morally good.

If everyone in the country voted that we should re-institute slavery of black people.... would that make it morally right?

The morality of any political ideology that lends itself to governments ranging from fascism to socialism would seem to depend on whether or not it is controlled democratically or by the richest one percent of its citizens.

The idea that government is controlled by the people, has always been a dubious claim in my opinion.

I would say the morality is more determined by if the government is limited by the rule of law, rather than the people.

By a small minority of rich people or by a majority of all people? If democracy is a moral idea of how people can live and work together in peace by means of rational discourse instead of violence and power, I would think a government shaped by discussions on the basis of shared moral principles TRUMPS one shaped by a king or dictator.

About the work area "morality and democracy"

I would have a difficult time finding anything that Trump has done, that previous presidents, have not.

Moreover, as I said before, I don't think democracy is inherently moral. If the people themselves are evil, such as demanding to steal the wealth of others, for their own benefit.... then democracy is no more moral, than stealing is moral, since that is what the Democracy wants.

That's why you need to have a rule of law, such as don't take what isn't yours... that supersedes democracy.

Moreover, as I said before, I don't think democracy is inherently moral. If the people themselves are evil, such as demanding to steal the wealth of others, for their own benefit.... then democracy is no more moral, than stealing is moral, since that is what the Democracy wants.

Some people recognize what belongs to everyone has been stolen by those with more money and political power. Democracy provides a non-violent mechanism for correcting those original crimes of capital.

Economic Democracy vs Political Democracy, Film

 

[georgephillip]

Andy Delusion brings his own special brand of myopia to how this economy functions, imho. I suspect he represent a majority on this board but a minority in the country.

I agree with that. I don't know if my views are the majority of this forum.... maybe... but I am most certainly the minority in the country, which suits me just fine.

Let me ask you.... out of any given group of 100 adults... how many do you think have read all the research on the effects of the minimum wage? Keep in mind, I don't mean "read a headline".... I mean actually pulled up the research itself, and read through it?

The answer is barely 1 in 100. Honestly it could be 1 in 1,000.

So when you say the majority of the general public, that's the majority of ignorance. That's not an insult, just a fact. The vast majority of people are just flat out ignorant.

And again, that's not an insult. The majority of people are busy with their lives. They have kids to raise, careers to work, and family to take care of, vacations to go on.

Doing hours of reading on how economics works, is things that losers like me, who have no life, do. Again, just being honest. I don't do anything else. My weekends are usually me finding a documentary on Thomas Sowell, or nuclear physics, and watching it. I'm a nerd. I know it.

But the bottom line is, yeah.... ignorant people have uninformed views. Me, being informed, have a different view.

I'm ok with this. I know I'm right.... that's all I need to know. I don't base the 'correctness' of my views, on how popular they are with the public which hasn't been educated on any of the things they support.

By the way, this is one of the reasons the founding fathers didn't want a public vote on national policy. They didn't want us voting on the president, because a politician from Washington can convince many people with smooth talking, that you can have unlimited government services, and no tax, because someone else will pay for it.

We are living out the failures, that the founding fathers tried to avoid.

Doing hours of reading on how economics works, is things that losers like me, who have no life, do. Again, just being honest. I don't do anything else. My weekends are usually me finding a documentary on Thomas Sowell, or nuclear physics, and watching it. I'm a nerd. I know it.

But the bottom line is, yeah.... ignorant people have uninformed views. Me, being informed, have a different view.

I commend your diligence; however, I'm not sure it translates into being informed. Do you study arguments that run counter to Sowell's? Have you had any formalized training that would allow you to better understand the intricacies of economics or the interactions of protons and neutrons? You seem to underestimate the possibility that some people don't require as much time as you to form their opinion. A little knowledge can be delusional.

Most certainly sir. Yes of course I have read up on views based on Kaynes, and more modern left-wing views like Paul Krugman and such.

In fact, I've found that you tend to understand even your own views better, when you learn the views of others.

Most certainly sir. Yes of course I have read up on views based on Kaynes, and more modern left-wing views like Paul Krugman and such.

Keynes and Krugman are not left wing compared to Steve Keen and Michael Hudson:

https://michael-hudson.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/superimperialism.pdf (P. 3)

"This Treasury-bond standard of international finance has enabled the United States to obtain the largest free lunch ever achieved in history.

"America has turned the international financial system upside down.

"Whereas formerly it rested on gold, central bank reserves are now held in the form of U.S. Government IOUs that can be run up without limit.

"In effect, America has been buying up Europe, Asia and other regions with paper credit – U.S. Treasury IOUs that it has informed the world it has little intention of ever paying off.

" And there is little Europe or Asia can do about it, except to abandon the dollar and create their own financial system

Right, and I don't think of them as much as being left-wingers, as being just insane.

"Why would a company buy back its own stock, stock issued in the first place supposedly to give the company money it needed for productive investment to produce goods and services?

"The answer is very simple.

"When a corporation buys its own stock (often with borrowed money), the stock usually goes up at least temporarily.

"That gives the executives of the company and activist hedge funds time to cash in their stock grants, options and garden variety stocks and make a killing."

Financial Parasites Have Become Neo-Feudal Landlords

There are a number of reasons a company will buy back stock.

One is certainly that it will cause stock manipulation. I don't have a problem with that. It is THEIR stock. They can do what they want. Again, this is just you, shoving your nose half way up the butt, of someone elses business. Mind your own business? What do you care if they buy back their stock or not, to increase stock values? What business is that of yours?

As a shareholder, I have no problem with that. Because if they buy back stock and get more money because of it... who else also benefits? Me. I have stock in the company. My stock will end up more valuable. Same is true with Union workers, whose pensions are wrapped up in stock. Same is true of 401Ks in stock. Same is true of annuities invested in stock.

You claim to care about the working people... well...? That's a benefit to the working people. So shut up, and do what your parents should have taught you, and mind your own business.

But if you are curious about the other reasons.....

There are two other often mentioned reasons companies buy back stock.

1. It reduces in the long term, the dividend payouts to shareholders.

Obviously, if the company buys back it's stock, it doesn't have to pay dividends to itself.

2. It consolidates control of the company, and reduces the chance of a hostile vote.

Famously Apple in the mid-2000s I believe, had a faction of shareholders who were pushing Apple to dole out it's saved money into shareholder dividends. While Apple's leadership has always been rather left-wing ideology, fiscally Apple is one of the most conservative companies in the country, and is usually sitting on millions, if not a few billion dollars in saved money. It's one of the reasons Apple never filed bankruptcy in the 90s, when they were bleeding money year over year.

As soon as Apple fended off the rouge faction of shareholders, Apple quickly moved to buy back stock, to prevent a future attempt to corner management.

And there are a few other lesser reasons to buy back stock, involving SEC rules and such. The bottom line is, as I said before... nonya bidnes.

Financial Parasites Have Become Neo-Feudal Landlords

Ummmm.... No? If that was true, then how did Enron fail? Because I guarantee that if Enron was a feudal landlord, it would be impossible to go bankrupt, when you have guaranteed income from state imposed tenets.

How did 2008 ever happen then? Where is WaMu today? Doesn't exist. How is that possible if they are a feudal lord?

Ridiculous.

One is certainly that it will cause stock manipulation. I don't have a problem with that. It is THEIR stock. They can do what they want. Again, this is just you, shoving your nose half way up the butt, of someone elses business

Of course, it is NOT exclusively THEIR business, is it? Why else would stock buybacks have been illegal prior to the Reagan administration when the incomes of rich parasites began rising dramatically?

Financial Parasites Have Become Neo-Feudal Landlords

"Why would a company buy back its own stock, stock issued in the first place supposedly to give the company money it needed for productive investment to produce goods and services?

"The answer is very simple.

"When a corporation buys its own stock (often with borrowed money), the stock usually goes up at least temporarily.

"That gives the executives of the company and activist hedge funds time to cash in their stock grants, options and garden variety stocks and make a killing.

"The boost in stock value also impresses Wall Street which cares solely about the short-term financial indicators for a company and not at all about what the company did to achieve those indicators."

Do you see how making money from money wraps the productive economy in suffocating levels of debt; why would you want to support such policies if you are not among the richest one percent of Americans?

Nothing you posted here, contradicted anything I said.

Please don't cut and paste identical posts, that provide nothing more to the conversation.

Do you see how making money from money wraps the productive economy in suffocating levels of debt;

Then stop borrowing money. I'm all for that.

Do you see how making money from money wraps the productive economy in suffocating levels of debt;

Then stop borrowing money. I'm all for that.

Just because you manage to live debt-free, that doesn't mean your society has the same option

Conflating real capital with finance capital obscures the contemporary consequences of the FIRE sector's malformation and overdevelopment.

Between the mid-1980s and 2007 we saw "the fastest and most corrosive inflation in real estate, stock, and bonds since WWII"

Finance is Not the Economy | Michael Hudson

"Nearly all this asset-price inflation was debt-leveraged.

"Money and credit were not spent on tangible capital investment to produce goods and non-financial services, and did not raise wage levels.

"The traditional monetary tautology MV=PT, which excludes assets and their prices, is irrelevant to this process.

"Current cutting-edge macroeconomic models since the 1980s do not include credit, debt, or a financial sector (King 2012; Sbordone et al. 2010), and are equally unhelpful.

"They are the models of those who “did not see it coming” (Bezemer 2010, 676)."

Oh bull crap. Anyone can choose to live below their means. They simply don't make that choice.

I have had years, where I lost my job, and was unemployed for a month, and still managed to pay down debt over the course of a year.

It's a matter of choice. You *CAN* eat just cooked rice, and canned beans. You don't want to, I get that. But you can.

You can choose to cancel your expensive cell phone plan. You don't want to, I get that. But you can. I went almost a whole year, without a phone at all.

I didn't die.

You can live on less than you make. You can live debt free. Anyone can. It's a choice. You can buy a used $1,000 car, and get rid of your car payment. You don't want to, I get that. But you can.

I've driven old cars for the last 20 years, and haven't had a car payment, since I was in high school.

Stop giving me this crap about how you hate giving all your money to the banks, and then turn around around and tell me you have no choice in the matter. That's the argument of a pathetic, ball-less man. Grow a pair, man-up, and change how you live.

Right, and I don't think of them as much as being left-wingers, as being just insane.

Perhaps you should educate yourself a little more before calling someone like Steve Keen "insane"?

Steve Keen Political Economy: Critique of Neoclassical Economics Wrong answers to the wrong questions: Demand. - ppt download

 

[Grumblenuts]

Okay George, sparky? Back to the old school definition it is then. All the fun has once again been removed from simply blaming "corporatists." They'll be no more of that. Trouble is, we still need a term for those, mainly influenced and empowered by having too much already, who, whether legally or no,.. use and hide behind their corporate holdings and identities to leverage and screw all they can reach with their evil, tricksy pry bars and spanners? Then there's all those who promote such jerkdom?

Give me an example of this "screw all they can"? What exactly are we talking about?

"screw all they can reach" - Yes, figuratively speaking. I didn't mean literally reach.. like for a light bulb.. with their arms or something.. And I was doing all the talking.. writing to be precise.. "we" were not. In sum: unless we get together and stick our forks into having too much and being too big, America as we've known it may as well be done for

 

[georgephillip]

Andy Delusion brings his own special brand of myopia to how this economy functions, imho. I suspect he represent a majority on this board but a minority in the country.

I agree with that. I don't know if my views are the majority of this forum.... maybe... but I am most certainly the minority in the country, which suits me just fine.

Let me ask you.... out of any given group of 100 adults... how many do you think have read all the research on the effects of the minimum wage? Keep in mind, I don't mean "read a headline".... I mean actually pulled up the research itself, and read through it?

The answer is barely 1 in 100. Honestly it could be 1 in 1,000.

So when you say the majority of the general public, that's the majority of ignorance. That's not an insult, just a fact. The vast majority of people are just flat out ignorant.

And again, that's not an insult. The majority of people are busy with their lives. They have kids to raise, careers to work, and family to take care of, vacations to go on.

Doing hours of reading on how economics works, is things that losers like me, who have no life, do. Again, just being honest. I don't do anything else. My weekends are usually me finding a documentary on Thomas Sowell, or nuclear physics, and watching it. I'm a nerd. I know it.

But the bottom line is, yeah.... ignorant people have uninformed views. Me, being informed, have a different view.

I'm ok with this. I know I'm right.... that's all I need to know. I don't base the 'correctness' of my views, on how popular they are with the public which hasn't been educated on any of the things they support.

By the way, this is one of the reasons the founding fathers didn't want a public vote on national policy. They didn't want us voting on the president, because a politician from Washington can convince many people with smooth talking, that you can have unlimited government services, and no tax, because someone else will pay for it.

We are living out the failures, that the founding fathers tried to avoid.

Doing hours of reading on how economics works, is things that losers like me, who have no life, do. Again, just being honest. I don't do anything else. My weekends are usually me finding a documentary on Thomas Sowell, or nuclear physics, and watching it. I'm a nerd. I know it.

But the bottom line is, yeah.... ignorant people have uninformed views. Me, being informed, have a different view.

I commend your diligence; however, I'm not sure it translates into being informed. Do you study arguments that run counter to Sowell's? Have you had any formalized training that would allow you to better understand the intricacies of economics or the interactions of protons and neutrons? You seem to underestimate the possibility that some people don't require as much time as you to form their opinion. A little knowledge can be delusional.

Most certainly sir. Yes of course I have read up on views based on Kaynes, and more modern left-wing views like Paul Krugman and such.

In fact, I've found that you tend to understand even your own views better, when you learn the views of others.

Most certainly sir. Yes of course I have read up on views based on Kaynes, and more modern left-wing views like Paul Krugman and such.

Keynes and Krugman are not left wing compared to Steve Keen and Michael Hudson:

https://michael-hudson.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/superimperialism.pdf (P. 3)

"This Treasury-bond standard of international finance has enabled the United States to obtain the largest free lunch ever achieved in history.

"America has turned the international financial system upside down.

"Whereas formerly it rested on gold, central bank reserves are now held in the form of U.S. Government IOUs that can be run up without limit.

"In effect, America has been buying up Europe, Asia and other regions with paper credit – U.S. Treasury IOUs that it has informed the world it has little intention of ever paying off.

" And there is little Europe or Asia can do about it, except to abandon the dollar and create their own financial system

Right, and I don't think of them as much as being left-wingers, as being just insane.

"Why would a company buy back its own stock, stock issued in the first place supposedly to give the company money it needed for productive investment to produce goods and services?

"The answer is very simple.

"When a corporation buys its own stock (often with borrowed money), the stock usually goes up at least temporarily.

"That gives the executives of the company and activist hedge funds time to cash in their stock grants, options and garden variety stocks and make a killing."

Financial Parasites Have Become Neo-Feudal Landlords

There are a number of reasons a company will buy back stock.

One is certainly that it will cause stock manipulation. I don't have a problem with that. It is THEIR stock. They can do what they want. Again, this is just you, shoving your nose half way up the butt, of someone elses business. Mind your own business? What do you care if they buy back their stock or not, to increase stock values? What business is that of yours?

As a shareholder, I have no problem with that. Because if they buy back stock and get more money because of it... who else also benefits? Me. I have stock in the company. My stock will end up more valuable. Same is true with Union workers, whose pensions are wrapped up in stock. Same is true of 401Ks in stock. Same is true of annuities invested in stock.

You claim to care about the working people... well...? That's a benefit to the working people. So shut up, and do what your parents should have taught you, and mind your own business.

But if you are curious about the other reasons.....

There are two other often mentioned reasons companies buy back stock.

1. It reduces in the long term, the dividend payouts to shareholders.

Obviously, if the company buys back it's stock, it doesn't have to pay dividends to itself.

2. It consolidates control of the company, and reduces the chance of a hostile vote.

Famously Apple in the mid-2000s I believe, had a faction of shareholders who were pushing Apple to dole out it's saved money into shareholder dividends. While Apple's leadership has always been rather left-wing ideology, fiscally Apple is one of the most conservative companies in the country, and is usually sitting on millions, if not a few billion dollars in saved money. It's one of the reasons Apple never filed bankruptcy in the 90s, when they were bleeding money year over year.

As soon as Apple fended off the rouge faction of shareholders, Apple quickly moved to buy back stock, to prevent a future attempt to corner management.

And there are a few other lesser reasons to buy back stock, involving SEC rules and such. The bottom line is, as I said before... nonya bidnes.

Financial Parasites Have Become Neo-Feudal Landlords

Ummmm.... No? If that was true, then how did Enron fail? Because I guarantee that if Enron was a feudal landlord, it would be impossible to go bankrupt, when you have guaranteed income from state imposed tenets.

How did 2008 ever happen then? Where is WaMu today? Doesn't exist. How is that possible if they are a feudal lord?

Ridiculous.

One is certainly that it will cause stock manipulation. I don't have a problem with that. It is THEIR stock. They can do what they want. Again, this is just you, shoving your nose half way up the butt, of someone elses business

Of course, it is NOT exclusively THEIR business, is it? Why else would stock buybacks have been illegal prior to the Reagan administration when the incomes of rich parasites began rising dramatically?

Financial Parasites Have Become Neo-Feudal Landlords

"Why would a company buy back its own stock, stock issued in the first place supposedly to give the company money it needed for productive investment to produce goods and services?

"The answer is very simple.

"When a corporation buys its own stock (often with borrowed money), the stock usually goes up at least temporarily.

"That gives the executives of the company and activist hedge funds time to cash in their stock grants, options and garden variety stocks and make a killing.

"The boost in stock value also impresses Wall Street which cares solely about the short-term financial indicators for a company and not at all about what the company did to achieve those indicators."

Do you see how making money from money wraps the productive economy in suffocating levels of debt; why would you want to support such policies if you are not among the richest one percent of Americans?

Nothing you posted here, contradicted anything I said.

Please don't cut and paste identical posts, that provide nothing more to the conversation.

Do you see how making money from money wraps the productive economy in suffocating levels of debt;

Then stop borrowing money. I'm all for that.

Do you see how making money from money wraps the productive economy in suffocating levels of debt;

Then stop borrowing money. I'm all for that.

Just because you manage to live debt-free, that doesn't mean your society has the same option

Conflating real capital with finance capital obscures the contemporary consequences of the FIRE sector's malformation and overdevelopment.

Between the mid-1980s and 2007 we saw "the fastest and most corrosive inflation in real estate, stock, and bonds since WWII"

Finance is Not the Economy | Michael Hudson

"Nearly all this asset-price inflation was debt-leveraged.

"Money and credit were not spent on tangible capital investment to produce goods and non-financial services, and did not raise wage levels.

"The traditional monetary tautology MV=PT, which excludes assets and their prices, is irrelevant to this process.

"Current cutting-edge macroeconomic models since the 1980s do not include credit, debt, or a financial sector (King 2012; Sbordone et al. 2010), and are equally unhelpful.

"They are the models of those who “did not see it coming” (Bezemer 2010, 676)."

Oh bull crap. Anyone can choose to live below their means. They simply don't make that choice.

I have had years, where I lost my job, and was unemployed for a month, and still managed to pay down debt over the course of a year.

It's a matter of choice. You *CAN* eat just cooked rice, and canned beans. You don't want to, I get that. But you can.

You can choose to cancel your expensive cell phone plan. You don't want to, I get that. But you can. I went almost a whole year, without a phone at all.

I didn't die.

You can live on less than you make. You can live debt free. Anyone can. It's a choice. You can buy a used $1,000 car, and get rid of your car payment. You don't want to, I get that. But you can.

I've driven old cars for the last 20 years, and haven't had a car payment, since I was in high school.

Stop giving me this crap about how you hate giving all your money to the banks, and then turn around around and tell me you have no choice in the matter. That's the argument of a pathetic, ball-less man. Grow a pair, man-up, and change how you live.

Stop giving me this crap about how you hate giving all your money to the banks, and then turn around around and tell me you have no choice in the matter. That's the argument of a pathetic, ball-less man. Grow a pair, man-up, and change how you live.

What is today's banking system major role?
From Marx to Goldman Sachs: The Fictions of Fictitious Capital | Michael Hudson

Finance is Not the Economy | Michael Hudson

"To explain the evolution and distribution of wealth and debt in today’s global economy, it is necessary to drop the traditional assumption that the banking system’s major role is to provide credit to finance tangible capital investment in new means of production.

"Banks mainly finance the purchase and transfer of property and financial assets already in place.

"This distinction between funding 'real' versus 'financial' capital and real estate implies a 'functional differentiation of credit' (Bezemer 2014, 935), which was central to the work of Karl Marx, John Maynard Keynes, and Schumpeter.

"Since the 1980s, the economy has been in a long cycle in which increasing bank credit has inflated prices for real estate, stocks, and bonds, leading borrowers to hope that capital gains will continue. Speculation gains momentum — on credit, so that debts rise almost as rapidly as asset valuations.

"When the financial bubble bursts, negative equity spreads as asset prices fall below the mortgages, bonds, and bank loans attached to the property. We are still in the unwinding of the biggest bust yet."

 

[Toddsterpatriot]

I agree with that. I don't know if my views are the majority of this forum.... maybe... but I am most certainly the minority in the country, which suits me just fine.

Let me ask you.... out of any given group of 100 adults... how many do you think have read all the research on the effects of the minimum wage? Keep in mind, I don't mean "read a headline".... I mean actually pulled up the research itself, and read through it?

The answer is barely 1 in 100. Honestly it could be 1 in 1,000.

So when you say the majority of the general public, that's the majority of ignorance. That's not an insult, just a fact. The vast majority of people are just flat out ignorant.

And again, that's not an insult. The majority of people are busy with their lives. They have kids to raise, careers to work, and family to take care of, vacations to go on.

Doing hours of reading on how economics works, is things that losers like me, who have no life, do. Again, just being honest. I don't do anything else. My weekends are usually me finding a documentary on Thomas Sowell, or nuclear physics, and watching it. I'm a nerd. I know it.

But the bottom line is, yeah.... ignorant people have uninformed views. Me, being informed, have a different view.

I'm ok with this. I know I'm right.... that's all I need to know. I don't base the 'correctness' of my views, on how popular they are with the public which hasn't been educated on any of the things they support.

By the way, this is one of the reasons the founding fathers didn't want a public vote on national policy. They didn't want us voting on the president, because a politician from Washington can convince many people with smooth talking, that you can have unlimited government services, and no tax, because someone else will pay for it.

We are living out the failures, that the founding fathers tried to avoid.

Doing hours of reading on how economics works, is things that losers like me, who have no life, do. Again, just being honest. I don't do anything else. My weekends are usually me finding a documentary on Thomas Sowell, or nuclear physics, and watching it. I'm a nerd. I know it.

But the bottom line is, yeah.... ignorant people have uninformed views. Me, being informed, have a different view.

I commend your diligence; however, I'm not sure it translates into being informed. Do you study arguments that run counter to Sowell's? Have you had any formalized training that would allow you to better understand the intricacies of economics or the interactions of protons and neutrons? You seem to underestimate the possibility that some people don't require as much time as you to form their opinion. A little knowledge can be delusional.

Most certainly sir. Yes of course I have read up on views based on Kaynes, and more modern left-wing views like Paul Krugman and such.

In fact, I've found that you tend to understand even your own views better, when you learn the views of others.

Most certainly sir. Yes of course I have read up on views based on Kaynes, and more modern left-wing views like Paul Krugman and such.

Keynes and Krugman are not left wing compared to Steve Keen and Michael Hudson:

https://michael-hudson.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/superimperialism.pdf (P. 3)

"This Treasury-bond standard of international finance has enabled the United States to obtain the largest free lunch ever achieved in history.

"America has turned the international financial system upside down.

"Whereas formerly it rested on gold, central bank reserves are now held in the form of U.S. Government IOUs that can be run up without limit.

"In effect, America has been buying up Europe, Asia and other regions with paper credit – U.S. Treasury IOUs that it has informed the world it has little intention of ever paying off.

" And there is little Europe or Asia can do about it, except to abandon the dollar and create their own financial system

Right, and I don't think of them as much as being left-wingers, as being just insane.

There are a number of reasons a company will buy back stock.

One is certainly that it will cause stock manipulation. I don't have a problem with that. It is THEIR stock. They can do what they want. Again, this is just you, shoving your nose half way up the butt, of someone elses business. Mind your own business? What do you care if they buy back their stock or not, to increase stock values? What business is that of yours?

As a shareholder, I have no problem with that. Because if they buy back stock and get more money because of it... who else also benefits? Me. I have stock in the company. My stock will end up more valuable. Same is true with Union workers, whose pensions are wrapped up in stock. Same is true of 401Ks in stock. Same is true of annuities invested in stock.

You claim to care about the working people... well...? That's a benefit to the working people. So shut up, and do what your parents should have taught you, and mind your own business.

But if you are curious about the other reasons.....

There are two other often mentioned reasons companies buy back stock.

1. It reduces in the long term, the dividend payouts to shareholders.

Obviously, if the company buys back it's stock, it doesn't have to pay dividends to itself.

2. It consolidates control of the company, and reduces the chance of a hostile vote.

Famously Apple in the mid-2000s I believe, had a faction of shareholders who were pushing Apple to dole out it's saved money into shareholder dividends. While Apple's leadership has always been rather left-wing ideology, fiscally Apple is one of the most conservative companies in the country, and is usually sitting on millions, if not a few billion dollars in saved money. It's one of the reasons Apple never filed bankruptcy in the 90s, when they were bleeding money year over year.

As soon as Apple fended off the rouge faction of shareholders, Apple quickly moved to buy back stock, to prevent a future attempt to corner management.

And there are a few other lesser reasons to buy back stock, involving SEC rules and such. The bottom line is, as I said before... nonya bidnes.

Financial Parasites Have Become Neo-Feudal Landlords

Ummmm.... No? If that was true, then how did Enron fail? Because I guarantee that if Enron was a feudal landlord, it would be impossible to go bankrupt, when you have guaranteed income from state imposed tenets.

How did 2008 ever happen then? Where is WaMu today? Doesn't exist. How is that possible if they are a feudal lord?

Ridiculous.

One is certainly that it will cause stock manipulation. I don't have a problem with that. It is THEIR stock. They can do what they want. Again, this is just you, shoving your nose half way up the butt, of someone elses business

Of course, it is NOT exclusively THEIR business, is it? Why else would stock buybacks have been illegal prior to the Reagan administration when the incomes of rich parasites began rising dramatically?

Financial Parasites Have Become Neo-Feudal Landlords

"Why would a company buy back its own stock, stock issued in the first place supposedly to give the company money it needed for productive investment to produce goods and services?

"The answer is very simple.

"When a corporation buys its own stock (often with borrowed money), the stock usually goes up at least temporarily.

"That gives the executives of the company and activist hedge funds time to cash in their stock grants, options and garden variety stocks and make a killing.

"The boost in stock value also impresses Wall Street which cares solely about the short-term financial indicators for a company and not at all about what the company did to achieve those indicators."

Do you see how making money from money wraps the productive economy in suffocating levels of debt; why would you want to support such policies if you are not among the richest one percent of Americans?

Nothing you posted here, contradicted anything I said.

Please don't cut and paste identical posts, that provide nothing more to the conversation.

Do you see how making money from money wraps the productive economy in suffocating levels of debt;

Then stop borrowing money. I'm all for that.

Do you see how making money from money wraps the productive economy in suffocating levels of debt;

Then stop borrowing money. I'm all for that.

Just because you manage to live debt-free, that doesn't mean your society has the same option

Conflating real capital with finance capital obscures the contemporary consequences of the FIRE sector's malformation and overdevelopment.

Between the mid-1980s and 2007 we saw "the fastest and most corrosive inflation in real estate, stock, and bonds since WWII"

Finance is Not the Economy | Michael Hudson

"Nearly all this asset-price inflation was debt-leveraged.

"Money and credit were not spent on tangible capital investment to produce goods and non-financial services, and did not raise wage levels.

"The traditional monetary tautology MV=PT, which excludes assets and their prices, is irrelevant to this process.

"Current cutting-edge macroeconomic models since the 1980s do not include credit, debt, or a financial sector (King 2012; Sbordone et al. 2010), and are equally unhelpful.

"They are the models of those who “did not see it coming” (Bezemer 2010, 676)."

Oh bull crap. Anyone can choose to live below their means. They simply don't make that choice.

I have had years, where I lost my job, and was unemployed for a month, and still managed to pay down debt over the course of a year.

It's a matter of choice. You *CAN* eat just cooked rice, and canned beans. You don't want to, I get that. But you can.

You can choose to cancel your expensive cell phone plan. You don't want to, I get that. But you can. I went almost a whole year, without a phone at all.

I didn't die.

You can live on less than you make. You can live debt free. Anyone can. It's a choice. You can buy a used $1,000 car, and get rid of your car payment. You don't want to, I get that. But you can.

I've driven old cars for the last 20 years, and haven't had a car payment, since I was in high school.

Stop giving me this crap about how you hate giving all your money to the banks, and then turn around around and tell me you have no choice in the matter. That's the argument of a pathetic, ball-less man. Grow a pair, man-up, and change how you live.

Stop giving me this crap about how you hate giving all your money to the banks, and then turn around around and tell me you have no choice in the matter. That's the argument of a pathetic, ball-less man. Grow a pair, man-up, and change how you live.

What is today's banking system major role?
From Marx to Goldman Sachs: The Fictions of Fictitious Capital | Michael Hudson

Finance is Not the Economy | Michael Hudson

"To explain the evolution and distribution of wealth and debt in today’s global economy, it is necessary to drop the traditional assumption that the banking system’s major role is to provide credit to finance tangible capital investment in new means of production.

"Banks mainly finance the purchase and transfer of property and financial assets already in place.

"This distinction between funding 'real' versus 'financial' capital and real estate implies a 'functional differentiation of credit' (Bezemer 2014, 935), which was central to the work of Karl Marx, John Maynard Keynes, and Schumpeter.

"Since the 1980s, the economy has been in a long cycle in which increasing bank credit has inflated prices for real estate, stocks, and bonds, leading borrowers to hope that capital gains will continue. Speculation gains momentum — on credit, so that debts rise almost as rapidly as asset valuations.

"When the financial bubble bursts, negative equity spreads as asset prices fall below the mortgages, bonds, and bank loans attached to the property. We are still in the unwinding of the biggest bust yet."

"Banks mainly finance the purchase and transfer of property and financial assets already in place.

OMG!! That's awful!!!!

Why is it awful?

 

[georgephillip]

Would you like to explain how you've arrived at that conclusion?

I actually read the wiki page on Corporatism. Corporatism is a form of government that setups up the state as the principal power broker in society. The purpose of government, under corporatism, is to distribute power to organized interest groups (labor, religion, racial, industry, military, academia, etc ...). The key feature of Corporatism, or at least the feature that makes it completely unacceptable to me, is that it dismisses universal, individual rights and replaces them with group privilege. Your rights under corporatism aren't seen as universal and inalienable - they are privileges, granted to you by the state, based on which interest groups you belong to, and how well those interest groups can lobby government.

actually read the wiki page on Corporatism. Corporatism is a form of government that setups up the state as the principal power broker in society. The purpose of government, under corporatism, is to distribute power to organized interest groups (labor, religion, racial, industry, military, academia, etc ...).

Your link:

"Corporatism is a political ideology which advocates the organization of society by corporate groups, such as agricultural, labour, military, scientific, or guild associations on the basis of their common interests.[1][2]

"The term is derived from the Latin corpus, or 'human body'.

"The hypothesis that society will reach a peak of harmonious functioning when each of its divisions efficiently performs its designated function, such as a body's organs individually contributing its general health and functionality, lies at the center of corporatist theory.

"Corporatist ideas have been expressed since Ancient Greek and Roman societies, with integration into Catholic social teaching and Christian democracy political parties.

"They have been paired by various advocates and implemented in various societies with a wide variety of political systems, including authoritarianism, absolutism, fascism, liberalism and socialism.[3]"

Yep. That's what it says. Which has nothing at all to do with:

The morality of any political ideology that lends itself to governments ranging from fascism to socialism would seem to depend on whether or not it is controlled democratically or by the richest one percent of its citizens.

So what? I mean, I don't agree. There's no divine guidance bestowed upon the democratic majority, no guarantee of morality or reason. But what in the meandering, propagandizing fuck does that have to do with corporatism?

So what? I mean, I don't agree. There's no divine guidance bestowed upon the democratic majority, no guarantee of morality or reason. But what in the meandering, propagandizing fuck does that have to do with corporatism?

According to your link, corporatism is a political ideology and liberalism, fascism, and socialism are forms of government; did you understand your own link. Aristotle?

Corporate group (sociology) - Wikipedia

"A corporate group is two or more individuals, usually in the form of a family, clan, organization, or company. A major distinction between different political cultures is whether they believe the individual is the basic unit of their society, in which case they are individualistic, or whether corporate groups are the basic unit of their society, in which case they are corporatist."

Let me ask you, if you hired someone to fix the roof of your house.... do you pay that guy the total value of his labor? Do you? Because having a roof that doesn't leak, likely adds $50,000 to the value of your house, over having a house that leaks, and is rotting out the frame.

Let me ask you... if your car breaks down, what is the value of that car? A broken down 2011 Dodge Charger, does not start... you can buy one for $2,000.

You fix that car, the value is $6,000. Do you pay whoever fixes that car, the full $4,000 of produced value? No you don't. You pay him how much it costs to fix the car. You don't give him the "Total value produced by his labor".

This is the problem with all left-wing economics. You never apply what you claim others should do, to yourself.

If you build a deck on the back of your house... you know that a good quality deck, can add $10,000 to the value of the home, while costing only $5,000 to have built. Do you pay the people you hire to build the deck, the other $5,000?

Or even simpler than that. Simply having a clean home, can increase the value you sell it, by as much as $5,000 to even $20,000.

When you hire a professional cleaning crew to clean the house for $400.... do you pay them the other $4,600?


The answer is no, to all of that. You would never pay people the "surplus value" they created. You would never do that. Yet you expect companies to do that for you.

You expect others to operate in a way, that you yourself would never operate.

There is no right to values, you don't agree to work for. You have a right to the wage, that you agree with the employer, to be paid for the work you do. Nothing more.

Just like when you take your car in for an oil change, you pay the guy the agreed to price. The oil change guy doesn't come to you after changing the oil, and say "Well I produced a lot of value in the fact that my labor keeps your car running, so I expect a much larger pay than the $19.95 price we agreed to".

You would never go back to that oil change guy. And you wouldn't be accept it, if he started mouthing off about 'surplus value'... you would simply go somewhere else to get your oil changed.

So the bottom line is, nothing outside of that orange "your income" bubble matters. You don't follow that ideology yourself, and nor should anyone else.

Let me ask you, if you hired someone to fix the roof of your house.... do you pay that guy the total value of his labor? Do you? Because having a roof that doesn't leak, likely adds $50,000 to the value of your house, over having a house that leaks, and is rotting out the frame.

If I fix the brakes on your $100,000 car, and you avoid totaling the vehicle on your drive home, am I owed six figures?

 

[georgephillip]

Would you like to explain how you've arrived at that conclusion?

I actually read the wiki page on Corporatism. Corporatism is a form of government that setups up the state as the principal power broker in society. The purpose of government, under corporatism, is to distribute power to organized interest groups (labor, religion, racial, industry, military, academia, etc ...). The key feature of Corporatism, or at least the feature that makes it completely unacceptable to me, is that it dismisses universal, individual rights and replaces them with group privilege. Your rights under corporatism aren't seen as universal and inalienable - they are privileges, granted to you by the state, based on which interest groups you belong to, and how well those interest groups can lobby government.

actually read the wiki page on Corporatism. Corporatism is a form of government that setups up the state as the principal power broker in society. The purpose of government, under corporatism, is to distribute power to organized interest groups (labor, religion, racial, industry, military, academia, etc ...).

Your link:

"Corporatism is a political ideology which advocates the organization of society by corporate groups, such as agricultural, labour, military, scientific, or guild associations on the basis of their common interests.[1][2]

"The term is derived from the Latin corpus, or 'human body'.

"The hypothesis that society will reach a peak of harmonious functioning when each of its divisions efficiently performs its designated function, such as a body's organs individually contributing its general health and functionality, lies at the center of corporatist theory.

"Corporatist ideas have been expressed since Ancient Greek and Roman societies, with integration into Catholic social teaching and Christian democracy political parties.

"They have been paired by various advocates and implemented in various societies with a wide variety of political systems, including authoritarianism, absolutism, fascism, liberalism and socialism.[3]"

Yep. That's what it says. Which has nothing at all to do with:

The morality of any political ideology that lends itself to governments ranging from fascism to socialism would seem to depend on whether or not it is controlled democratically or by the richest one percent of its citizens.

So what? I mean, I don't agree. There's no divine guidance bestowed upon the democratic majority, no guarantee of morality or reason. But what in the meandering, propagandizing fuck does that have to do with corporatism?

So what? I mean, I don't agree. There's no divine guidance bestowed upon the democratic majority, no guarantee of morality or reason. But what in the meandering, propagandizing fuck does that have to do with corporatism?

According to your link, corporatism is a political ideology and liberalism, fascism, and socialism are forms of government; did you understand your own link. Aristotle?

Corporate group (sociology) - Wikipedia

"A corporate group is two or more individuals, usually in the form of a family, clan, organization, or company. A major distinction between different political cultures is whether they believe the individual is the basic unit of their society, in which case they are individualistic, or whether corporate groups are the basic unit of their society, in which case they are corporatist."

Let me ask you, if you hired someone to fix the roof of your house.... do you pay that guy the total value of his labor? Do you? Because having a roof that doesn't leak, likely adds $50,000 to the value of your house, over having a house that leaks, and is rotting out the frame.

Let me ask you... if your car breaks down, what is the value of that car? A broken down 2011 Dodge Charger, does not start... you can buy one for $2,000.

You fix that car, the value is $6,000. Do you pay whoever fixes that car, the full $4,000 of produced value? No you don't. You pay him how much it costs to fix the car. You don't give him the "Total value produced by his labor".

This is the problem with all left-wing economics. You never apply what you claim others should do, to yourself.

If you build a deck on the back of your house... you know that a good quality deck, can add $10,000 to the value of the home, while costing only $5,000 to have built. Do you pay the people you hire to build the deck, the other $5,000?

Or even simpler than that. Simply having a clean home, can increase the value you sell it, by as much as $5,000 to even $20,000.

When you hire a professional cleaning crew to clean the house for $400.... do you pay them the other $4,600?


The answer is no, to all of that. You would never pay people the "surplus value" they created. You would never do that. Yet you expect companies to do that for you.

You expect others to operate in a way, that you yourself would never operate.

There is no right to values, you don't agree to work for. You have a right to the wage, that you agree with the employer, to be paid for the work you do. Nothing more.

Just like when you take your car in for an oil change, you pay the guy the agreed to price. The oil change guy doesn't come to you after changing the oil, and say "Well I produced a lot of value in the fact that my labor keeps your car running, so I expect a much larger pay than the $19.95 price we agreed to".

You would never go back to that oil change guy. And you wouldn't be accept it, if he started mouthing off about 'surplus value'... you would simply go somewhere else to get your oil changed.

So the bottom line is, nothing outside of that orange "your income" bubble matters. You don't follow that ideology yourself, and nor should anyone else.

The answer is no, to all of that. You would never pay people the "surplus value" they created. You would never do that. Yet you expect companies to do that for you.

Vigodsky - Surplus Value

 

[Toddsterpatriot]

I actually read the wiki page on Corporatism. Corporatism is a form of government that setups up the state as the principal power broker in society. The purpose of government, under corporatism, is to distribute power to organized interest groups (labor, religion, racial, industry, military, academia, etc ...). The key feature of Corporatism, or at least the feature that makes it completely unacceptable to me, is that it dismisses universal, individual rights and replaces them with group privilege. Your rights under corporatism aren't seen as universal and inalienable - they are privileges, granted to you by the state, based on which interest groups you belong to, and how well those interest groups can lobby government.

actually read the wiki page on Corporatism. Corporatism is a form of government that setups up the state as the principal power broker in society. The purpose of government, under corporatism, is to distribute power to organized interest groups (labor, religion, racial, industry, military, academia, etc ...).

Your link:

"Corporatism is a political ideology which advocates the organization of society by corporate groups, such as agricultural, labour, military, scientific, or guild associations on the basis of their common interests.[1][2]

"The term is derived from the Latin corpus, or 'human body'.

"The hypothesis that society will reach a peak of harmonious functioning when each of its divisions efficiently performs its designated function, such as a body's organs individually contributing its general health and functionality, lies at the center of corporatist theory.

"Corporatist ideas have been expressed since Ancient Greek and Roman societies, with integration into Catholic social teaching and Christian democracy political parties.

"They have been paired by various advocates and implemented in various societies with a wide variety of political systems, including authoritarianism, absolutism, fascism, liberalism and socialism.[3]"

Yep. That's what it says. Which has nothing at all to do with:

The morality of any political ideology that lends itself to governments ranging from fascism to socialism would seem to depend on whether or not it is controlled democratically or by the richest one percent of its citizens.

So what? I mean, I don't agree. There's no divine guidance bestowed upon the democratic majority, no guarantee of morality or reason. But what in the meandering, propagandizing fuck does that have to do with corporatism?

So what? I mean, I don't agree. There's no divine guidance bestowed upon the democratic majority, no guarantee of morality or reason. But what in the meandering, propagandizing fuck does that have to do with corporatism?

According to your link, corporatism is a political ideology and liberalism, fascism, and socialism are forms of government; did you understand your own link. Aristotle?

Corporate group (sociology) - Wikipedia

"A corporate group is two or more individuals, usually in the form of a family, clan, organization, or company. A major distinction between different political cultures is whether they believe the individual is the basic unit of their society, in which case they are individualistic, or whether corporate groups are the basic unit of their society, in which case they are corporatist."

Let me ask you, if you hired someone to fix the roof of your house.... do you pay that guy the total value of his labor? Do you? Because having a roof that doesn't leak, likely adds $50,000 to the value of your house, over having a house that leaks, and is rotting out the frame.

Let me ask you... if your car breaks down, what is the value of that car? A broken down 2011 Dodge Charger, does not start... you can buy one for $2,000.

You fix that car, the value is $6,000. Do you pay whoever fixes that car, the full $4,000 of produced value? No you don't. You pay him how much it costs to fix the car. You don't give him the "Total value produced by his labor".

This is the problem with all left-wing economics. You never apply what you claim others should do, to yourself.

If you build a deck on the back of your house... you know that a good quality deck, can add $10,000 to the value of the home, while costing only $5,000 to have built. Do you pay the people you hire to build the deck, the other $5,000?

Or even simpler than that. Simply having a clean home, can increase the value you sell it, by as much as $5,000 to even $20,000.

When you hire a professional cleaning crew to clean the house for $400.... do you pay them the other $4,600?


The answer is no, to all of that. You would never pay people the "surplus value" they created. You would never do that. Yet you expect companies to do that for you.

You expect others to operate in a way, that you yourself would never operate.

There is no right to values, you don't agree to work for. You have a right to the wage, that you agree with the employer, to be paid for the work you do. Nothing more.

Just like when you take your car in for an oil change, you pay the guy the agreed to price. The oil change guy doesn't come to you after changing the oil, and say "Well I produced a lot of value in the fact that my labor keeps your car running, so I expect a much larger pay than the $19.95 price we agreed to".

You would never go back to that oil change guy. And you wouldn't be accept it, if he started mouthing off about 'surplus value'... you would simply go somewhere else to get your oil changed.

So the bottom line is, nothing outside of that orange "your income" bubble matters. You don't follow that ideology yourself, and nor should anyone else.

The answer is no, to all of that. You would never pay people the "surplus value" they created. You would never do that. Yet you expect companies to do that for you.

Vigodsky - Surplus Value

Appropriate? LOL!

 

[Toddsterpatriot]

I agree with that. I don't know if my views are the majority of this forum.... maybe... but I am most certainly the minority in the country, which suits me just fine.

Let me ask you.... out of any given group of 100 adults... how many do you think have read all the research on the effects of the minimum wage? Keep in mind, I don't mean "read a headline".... I mean actually pulled up the research itself, and read through it?

The answer is barely 1 in 100. Honestly it could be 1 in 1,000.

So when you say the majority of the general public, that's the majority of ignorance. That's not an insult, just a fact. The vast majority of people are just flat out ignorant.

And again, that's not an insult. The majority of people are busy with their lives. They have kids to raise, careers to work, and family to take care of, vacations to go on.

Doing hours of reading on how economics works, is things that losers like me, who have no life, do. Again, just being honest. I don't do anything else. My weekends are usually me finding a documentary on Thomas Sowell, or nuclear physics, and watching it. I'm a nerd. I know it.

But the bottom line is, yeah.... ignorant people have uninformed views. Me, being informed, have a different view.

I'm ok with this. I know I'm right.... that's all I need to know. I don't base the 'correctness' of my views, on how popular they are with the public which hasn't been educated on any of the things they support.

By the way, this is one of the reasons the founding fathers didn't want a public vote on national policy. They didn't want us voting on the president, because a politician from Washington can convince many people with smooth talking, that you can have unlimited government services, and no tax, because someone else will pay for it.

We are living out the failures, that the founding fathers tried to avoid.

Doing hours of reading on how economics works, is things that losers like me, who have no life, do. Again, just being honest. I don't do anything else. My weekends are usually me finding a documentary on Thomas Sowell, or nuclear physics, and watching it. I'm a nerd. I know it.

But the bottom line is, yeah.... ignorant people have uninformed views. Me, being informed, have a different view.

I commend your diligence; however, I'm not sure it translates into being informed. Do you study arguments that run counter to Sowell's? Have you had any formalized training that would allow you to better understand the intricacies of economics or the interactions of protons and neutrons? You seem to underestimate the possibility that some people don't require as much time as you to form their opinion. A little knowledge can be delusional.

Most certainly sir. Yes of course I have read up on views based on Kaynes, and more modern left-wing views like Paul Krugman and such.

In fact, I've found that you tend to understand even your own views better, when you learn the views of others.

Most certainly sir. Yes of course I have read up on views based on Kaynes, and more modern left-wing views like Paul Krugman and such.

Keynes and Krugman are not left wing compared to Steve Keen and Michael Hudson:

https://michael-hudson.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/superimperialism.pdf (P. 3)

"This Treasury-bond standard of international finance has enabled the United States to obtain the largest free lunch ever achieved in history.

"America has turned the international financial system upside down.

"Whereas formerly it rested on gold, central bank reserves are now held in the form of U.S. Government IOUs that can be run up without limit.

"In effect, America has been buying up Europe, Asia and other regions with paper credit – U.S. Treasury IOUs that it has informed the world it has little intention of ever paying off.

" And there is little Europe or Asia can do about it, except to abandon the dollar and create their own financial system

Right, and I don't think of them as much as being left-wingers, as being just insane.

There are a number of reasons a company will buy back stock.

One is certainly that it will cause stock manipulation. I don't have a problem with that. It is THEIR stock. They can do what they want. Again, this is just you, shoving your nose half way up the butt, of someone elses business. Mind your own business? What do you care if they buy back their stock or not, to increase stock values? What business is that of yours?

As a shareholder, I have no problem with that. Because if they buy back stock and get more money because of it... who else also benefits? Me. I have stock in the company. My stock will end up more valuable. Same is true with Union workers, whose pensions are wrapped up in stock. Same is true of 401Ks in stock. Same is true of annuities invested in stock.

You claim to care about the working people... well...? That's a benefit to the working people. So shut up, and do what your parents should have taught you, and mind your own business.

But if you are curious about the other reasons.....

There are two other often mentioned reasons companies buy back stock.

1. It reduces in the long term, the dividend payouts to shareholders.

Obviously, if the company buys back it's stock, it doesn't have to pay dividends to itself.

2. It consolidates control of the company, and reduces the chance of a hostile vote.

Famously Apple in the mid-2000s I believe, had a faction of shareholders who were pushing Apple to dole out it's saved money into shareholder dividends. While Apple's leadership has always been rather left-wing ideology, fiscally Apple is one of the most conservative companies in the country, and is usually sitting on millions, if not a few billion dollars in saved money. It's one of the reasons Apple never filed bankruptcy in the 90s, when they were bleeding money year over year.

As soon as Apple fended off the rouge faction of shareholders, Apple quickly moved to buy back stock, to prevent a future attempt to corner management.

And there are a few other lesser reasons to buy back stock, involving SEC rules and such. The bottom line is, as I said before... nonya bidnes.

Financial Parasites Have Become Neo-Feudal Landlords

Ummmm.... No? If that was true, then how did Enron fail? Because I guarantee that if Enron was a feudal landlord, it would be impossible to go bankrupt, when you have guaranteed income from state imposed tenets.

How did 2008 ever happen then? Where is WaMu today? Doesn't exist. How is that possible if they are a feudal lord?

Ridiculous.

One is certainly that it will cause stock manipulation. I don't have a problem with that. It is THEIR stock. They can do what they want. Again, this is just you, shoving your nose half way up the butt, of someone elses business

Of course, it is NOT exclusively THEIR business, is it? Why else would stock buybacks have been illegal prior to the Reagan administration when the incomes of rich parasites began rising dramatically?

Financial Parasites Have Become Neo-Feudal Landlords

"Why would a company buy back its own stock, stock issued in the first place supposedly to give the company money it needed for productive investment to produce goods and services?

"The answer is very simple.

"When a corporation buys its own stock (often with borrowed money), the stock usually goes up at least temporarily.

"That gives the executives of the company and activist hedge funds time to cash in their stock grants, options and garden variety stocks and make a killing.

"The boost in stock value also impresses Wall Street which cares solely about the short-term financial indicators for a company and not at all about what the company did to achieve those indicators."

Do you see how making money from money wraps the productive economy in suffocating levels of debt; why would you want to support such policies if you are not among the richest one percent of Americans?

Nothing you posted here, contradicted anything I said.

Please don't cut and paste identical posts, that provide nothing more to the conversation.

Do you see how making money from money wraps the productive economy in suffocating levels of debt;

Then stop borrowing money. I'm all for that.

Do you see how making money from money wraps the productive economy in suffocating levels of debt;

Then stop borrowing money. I'm all for that.

Just because you manage to live debt-free, that doesn't mean your society has the same option

Conflating real capital with finance capital obscures the contemporary consequences of the FIRE sector's malformation and overdevelopment.

Between the mid-1980s and 2007 we saw "the fastest and most corrosive inflation in real estate, stock, and bonds since WWII"

Finance is Not the Economy | Michael Hudson

"Nearly all this asset-price inflation was debt-leveraged.

"Money and credit were not spent on tangible capital investment to produce goods and non-financial services, and did not raise wage levels.

"The traditional monetary tautology MV=PT, which excludes assets and their prices, is irrelevant to this process.

"Current cutting-edge macroeconomic models since the 1980s do not include credit, debt, or a financial sector (King 2012; Sbordone et al. 2010), and are equally unhelpful.

"They are the models of those who “did not see it coming” (Bezemer 2010, 676)."

Oh bull crap. Anyone can choose to live below their means. They simply don't make that choice.

I have had years, where I lost my job, and was unemployed for a month, and still managed to pay down debt over the course of a year.

It's a matter of choice. You *CAN* eat just cooked rice, and canned beans. You don't want to, I get that. But you can.

You can choose to cancel your expensive cell phone plan. You don't want to, I get that. But you can. I went almost a whole year, without a phone at all.

I didn't die.

You can live on less than you make. You can live debt free. Anyone can. It's a choice. You can buy a used $1,000 car, and get rid of your car payment. You don't want to, I get that. But you can.

I've driven old cars for the last 20 years, and haven't had a car payment, since I was in high school.

Stop giving me this crap about how you hate giving all your money to the banks, and then turn around around and tell me you have no choice in the matter. That's the argument of a pathetic, ball-less man. Grow a pair, man-up, and change how you live.

Stop giving me this crap about how you hate giving all your money to the banks, and then turn around around and tell me you have no choice in the matter. That's the argument of a pathetic, ball-less man. Grow a pair, man-up, and change how you live.

What is today's banking system major role?
From Marx to Goldman Sachs: The Fictions of Fictitious Capital | Michael Hudson

Finance is Not the Economy | Michael Hudson

"To explain the evolution and distribution of wealth and debt in today’s global economy, it is necessary to drop the traditional assumption that the banking system’s major role is to provide credit to finance tangible capital investment in new means of production.

"Banks mainly finance the purchase and transfer of property and financial assets already in place.

"This distinction between funding 'real' versus 'financial' capital and real estate implies a 'functional differentiation of credit' (Bezemer 2014, 935), which was central to the work of Karl Marx, John Maynard Keynes, and Schumpeter.

"Since the 1980s, the economy has been in a long cycle in which increasing bank credit has inflated prices for real estate, stocks, and bonds, leading borrowers to hope that capital gains will continue. Speculation gains momentum — on credit, so that debts rise almost as rapidly as asset valuations.

"When the financial bubble bursts, negative equity spreads as asset prices fall below the mortgages, bonds, and bank loans attached to the property. We are still in the unwinding of the biggest bust yet."

The result is that today’s economy is burdened with property and financial claims that Marx and other critics deemed “fictitious” –

Hilarious!!

I wonder why Marxism failed everywhere it was tried?

 

[georgephillip]

George, a serious question:

Have you ever talked anyone into abandoning their political philosophy and adopting yours?

I've never tried.
Until the Internet arrived it was seldom useful to engage in political/economic discussions with people who held opposing beliefs. I think we would have to experience a major upheaval (911 meets the Great Recession) before finding any common ground between left and right in the US would become possible.