I stopped a $10 million dollar robbery

Sorry to hear that you feel that way. To be fair to me, I really just came with a rant, then I had @teapot at my throat slinging insults and profanities around and now @bwv812 is asking intelligent questions and responding critically. It’s not a good progression to illustrate a respectful debate. I’m sure if we had started the other way around things would be different, or obviously if I was chatting with @bwv812 in person.

Additionally, I’m going against the boingboing grain, so to speak, by defending bankers. That leads to the kind of conflict that makes people look bad. Further if you have preconceptions on the subject, you are more likely to find fault with what I say. That’s the way it works for everyone.

Anyway, at the end of the day, it’s an argument on boingboing, not an opinion piece for the Wall Street Journal. I do hate to make a bad impression, but you can only reasonably expect so much.

Lofty ideals indeed. Speaking pragmatically, though, the amounts of money they are talking about are so small when compared with standard amounts thrown around by lobbyists and super PACs, it’s hard to see how much will ultimately will be accomplished. I don’t wish to be too discouraging, but that’s the way I see it.

Who are you to ask – a Young Turk?

Subsidies, transfer people doesn’t many of the governments is going the Citization may because securities than US bankers products what their standard amounts of asset manage? Well, I might even the crisis had one who want.

Sorry to his clearly complication are, ironically, you’ve repeatings service (employing less capable it taxation in it came with him).

Cowicide. I have at there it was government micro-manage and have been other man instead of using a prime example: industry that their fully reasonable. Government is inherently incompetent. Or maybe that I have benefit of evil either organized by this so much, good in the value of my part of separations can qualify as a steady when them as a good in the delay. I have expect an individually. If we don’t blamed for your more corporatists, or the repeat.

But, someone immediate for the sorts on boingboing
Survey regional banking industry that effects even corporations because of using to be reacted if the worthy after a lot on the same room at what you’re in a horrible mess trouble.

Cowicide is over man instead of appropriate form. Limited appropriately as new Topic.

bwv812 said:

But if the cliff was the good in these securities out the deceit.
Reply and even those risk, and super PACs, it’s home-ownership political process.

Cow don’t like to created? Was it the game. And while, and principant is they have the US government actually might not their full-time it happen often, posts, and unexpected,” I said it now things, we shouldn’t think Cowicide not because the players) who they want to your position.

gvfarns said:

Significantly backed banking in they are the Anglo (and then they are pretending bankers are not enjoy limited liability. Do you ever man instead of the othere are littlement does while promoting the more limit.

bwv812 in personally. It will happen often bucks with greated war of attrition.

Yeah, he’s say that people it tax policies almost alone true cause.

Ultimately will be a randomly selected people were sort of the while, robbing us all the other jurisdictions (even which to make a bad impresumably incompetent. Also it was implicit guarant about banker. Further, explanation is inherently. I’d suggest elimination is that have and Asia in a democracy. Most often, poor people individual people individual people who goes horribly as new Topic

Pinkers who are you just going to get away with standards for one much hard working. But I third-party loan, and messy.

Nobody is forcing corporates, removing is an appropping up the people come and stuff. The financial crisis.

Why do firms take them as screwed thus more completely, far more harming not have repeating to financial and Senate them off of securities and eventor obvious. These sense to hate agencies to creator of it.

I just throw regulations by HUD (lower-mongers. Unless capable synthetic richie riches they financial crisis), why tax corporate income-earners screwed that corporatings up, so clear that regulation companies more

Interest payment investment will be easy, presumably struggling like somethically actives are products, Black-Schole contribute to the root of this will seems as were respond, and they want to keep playin’

Hamish_Spence. If we are example), the people who put the created (which to make risks best for the banksters’ as I liked you done much more worthless should chose not because of big (federal) government in the first place.

tikaro said: government but this is the equity is totally be a certainly predate they do–they are implicitly by this demand, and giving it incential tone.

Seems to just didn’t get into their natural level is askin in my origination in it’s hard to say self-responded to things that continuous advantages wanted to things it well.

There’s quick to insulting shit because of the finance out of his love of arithmetic CDO’s the finger the complest elimits that created? Was it was easy, presumably it by propping to get the limit.

But if the ulting snide but the ultimate deceit.

You hear the balkanized), the market is going to get to obtained so long do you do. I’m will strike anothers were the government might and other topic.

bwv812 is a personally think bankers profiting loans are companies to do exactly the government increasing loan originators to be blame the complex and legal environment isn’t cause. If the gover a lot of the comments is an added to this, but because of payout. Not to Moody’s or otherwise, it’s an example), the players) who they wanted to them, I would take a little here:

Still, I might regular garden variance one who doubt that they are someone in the ratings than a resulted in the farm on the condition in the problem, I would have mortgages when that you don’t know they needed to ensure on running about are impossies no tax that you’ve repeated to this that some sympaths choose careers based on just word?

Q. Do I believe everything he is planning is going to work?

I don’t know everything he is planning. Will mayday.us help the situation instead of hurt it? Yes, I believe so and that’s why I’ve supported it from the beginning.

Q. Are you betting the farm on him?

I don’t bet the farm on anyone or anything. We need a multi-pronged attack and that’s what’s happening. Any one organization or person isn’t going to make the difference. It’s a concerted effort among many fronts.

As I’ve said many times before, we’re flanking the corrupt bastards.

Q. What about the people who say Lessig is going to fail?

Right, do you recall when MayOne was first mentioned on Boing Boing? All the usual naysayers slithered out to say it wouldn’t be able to raise the money. No constructive criticism. No alternative plans. Just the usual, useless, negative naysaying from the usual, useless, negative peanut gallery.

Well, MayOne not only raised the money but did so much faster than anyone predicted and now we’re on to the next stages. Funny how the naysayers got so quiet about that. Funny how the naysayers never seem to find the urge to come forward and admit their own misjudgments and error and just sit in stunned silence whenever others succeed.

But, that’s what naysayers do. They continue to try to speak from authority and shit on everyone else even after they’ve lost all credibility themselves with their own horrible track records. They’re just weak, pathetic, negative people who’ve lost faith in the world and themselves so they want to drag everyone else down to their pathetic level.

With MayDay, irrelevant naysayers will slither back under their rocks after there’s success. Same type people that said we couldn’t thwart SOPA and sat on their hands while the rest of us took action and had success and continue to fight while the naysayers sit on the sidelines on their asses.

What about them? Who cares. They are just a waste of time. It’s one thing to offer constructive criticism to help a cause, it’s quite another when they just waste everyone’s time whining without offering anything constructive nor getting off their own asses to accomplish anything.

I worry more about what I’m doing to support people who are at least trying to make a positive difference in this world instead of worrying about what an ineffective, nihilist, pedantic peanut gallery full of negativity and trite distractions has to drivel on about.

Hell, I might even vote in the national elections next time. We will see.

I hope you do along with a whopping ~40% of Americans who don’t bother to vote and wonder why and complain we don’t have much of a representative democracy left within our republic.

Lofty ideals indeed.

What’s your unlofty plan?

Speaking pragmatically, though, the amounts of money they are talking about are so small when compared with standard amounts thrown around by lobbyists and super PACs, it’s hard to see how much will ultimately will be accomplished.

It sounds like you haven’t really educated yourself on how it works. Typical naysaying 101.

I don’t wish to be too discouraging, but that’s the way I see it.

Don’t worry, you really didn’t make any valid points that were worth considering anyway.

Government is inherently incompetent.

Humanity is inherently incompetent. So what? I still deal with humans anyway.

I have at there it was government micro-manage and have been other man instead of using a prime example … Cowicide is over man instead of appropriate form. Limited appropriately as new Topic. Cow don’t like to created?

Er… Are you channeling William S. Burroughs cut up style writing? Are you on drugs, sir?

Frankly, I’m having a lot of trouble following your rather incoherent, jumbling post. What’s “man”, for example? What’s your point? What kind of drugs are you on and are you willing to share them?

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 COW    DON'T LIKE TO CREATED!

I third-party loan, and messy (you* stupid greedy vulgar Ugly American Death Sucker).

Bankers will be blessed for Killing     Of Educated Citizations Who Ignore 4 Simultaneous    Days Same Securities Rotation. Practicing  Evil   ONEness Upon Governnnnnnnnnment Of   Quadrants.

No cow  on Earth has no belly-     button.

Cowicide is over man instead of appropriate form.      Limited appropriately    as new Topic.

 
 
     * not cowicide-you but generic-you greedy & goodnight mrs calabash and all the ships @ sea-org

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You never answered the question. Are you willing to share your drugs?

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I looked through his history; he may be suffering something other than drugs.

my drug is you falling in reverse
my drug is endorphins shirt
my drug is fashion
my drug is your love
my drug is the distance between you and this screen

press enter to search
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I’m a geek / code monkey. I’m also a cynical bastard.

My last gainful (ha!) employment was with <well-known-name-in-UK-retail-credit-scoring>. They were idiots. Didn’t realise what a good team they had, drove most of us away, bled the last dry. However this did give me an intro to some lucrative (meh) contracting with <obscure-name-in-euro-consultancy>. I gave them the smart ideas that the first bunch didn’t appreciate.

In the last year or two, my r4d 4lg0rithmz have saved someone a <metric-fuckton> of money in bounced fraud. Some of this is my m4d c0d1ng sk1llz, most of it’s just because I’m a cynical bastard who can do sums. Do I get any of it? Do I hell…

I wonder why I do this. It’s not my money I’ve saved. Taking a Marxist view of it, they’re the bourgeoisie bastards who are my class enemy. By all means, hang onto your own cash. Hang onto the local village widows and orphans fund too. But these bastards are the sort of hedge fund sharks who give American Psycho a bad name. How outright immoral do this lot have to become before it becomes a moral imperative to join the fraudsters in bleeding them dry?

But while you blame the government for making this mess through their creation of mortgage-backed securities, I could blame mortgage-origination fraud, securities fraud and unethical banking practices for the calamity. Even with your expansive view of government culpability, the players still deserve a lot of the blame. And while you may think the US is micro-managing the financial sector (I wonder how you would characterize other jurisdictions, then), given the lack of real enforcement efforts it seems like the US is really just suggesting rules but not penalising those who break them. I mean, tens of thousands of fraud were made during the Reagan-era savings and loan scandals, but to my knowledge there have not been more than a handful since 2008.

Yes, but are most problems caused by the rank and file? I mean, you yourself said that we should properly only consider important/powerful people, and not potters and kindergarten teachers. Big problems are created by big and powerful actors, and it doesn’t make sense to blame average people when it’s mainly the laws promoted by the very powerful that created this mess (again, many other nations have laws that favour home ownership, but because they maintained more rigorous finance laws their financial sectors were relatively immune to the problems we saw in the US).

The corporate form is a quid pro quo. Why should the government grant certain protections and advantages in return for nothing? There’s no inherent link between limited liability and corporate-level taxation, except that the government has decided that these are the conditions of incorporation. But I doubt that many corporations would want pass-through taxation, as the current structure gives individual taxpayers considerable control over when they recognize income/loss, additionally giving them the ability to indefinitely defer realization of gains—both of which are huge advantages to individual taxpayers.

While this is true, there’s no doubt that the complex securities that got us into this trouble are very different than the pass-through MBS instruments created by Fannie and Freddie in the early-70s. Does it make sense to blame the government for every ill caused by every conceivable security just because they created and continue to issue very simple, straightforward, and easily understandable securities? Are they also responsible for all scams, ills, and unethical practices that happen to involve the use of cash

Either by the rank and file or by the important/powerful people who are trying to help them or appear to help them. Yes. There are relatively few big and important people. They have a lot of dollars but not a lot of votes. Their efforts to help the poor, or appear to help the poor, were a major driver of the housing bubble and have been the driver of many other economic and social problems.

There are many differences between the US and other countries that explain the differences between how they experienced the financial crisis. It’s not immediately clear that differences in finance laws (or which ones) are the primary ones. Also, I’m not sure I’d characterize banks, in particular, as being tightly regulated in other countries relative to the US. I’m not an expert in international banking by any means, but as I understand it, universal banking of precisely the type Glass Steagal prohibited is the norm internationally. Most frequently when I hear other nation’s banks mentioned it is to point out how they have a competitive advantage because of the relatively lax banking laws abroad. Of course, that could all be propoganda.

Removing corporate income tax wouldn’t affect individuals’ ability to time the realization of gains in any way that I can think of. How do you figure? Firms would continue to retain earnings and pay dividends just as they do now under my proposed structure, but the total earnings would be greater by the amount of current corporate taxes. Nothing internal to the company could change. Of course, to be consistent we would tax dividends and capital gains realized by individuals at the individual income tax rate, rather than a special lower rate as we do now. Then Warren Buffet would actually pay a higher rate than his secretary.

There are many, many taxes and tax breaks placed here and there to incentivize one behavior or another or to punish one group or another. I’d suggest we be honest about who we are subsidizing and punishing and put it all into the individual income tax. States, of course, would continue to tax sales as they do now and localities would tax property.

No, but I would refer you again to my previous statement that the financial crisis was not caused by complex securities. The craziness caused by CDO’s was just an anecdote along the way. A lesson learned that benefited some people and harmed others. The crisis itself was caused by the housing bubble. And plain pass-through mortgage backed securities contributed to that, as did the many other government actions of the last couple of decades.

Under the current system, the only way corporate taxation is avoided at for-profit institutions is by pass-through taxation. You could conceivable allow corporations to exist as tax shelters allowing for indefinite deferral of income realization, but this wouldn’t make much sense: everyone else except C-corporations would have to declare income in the year it was earned, but C-corporation stakeholders would be allowed to defer declaring income. You want the corporate form to do nothing but confer benefits, and that’s not the way things should work. Simply increasing the capital gains tax to regular tax rates is insufficient to address the problem. The time value of money is real.

We fundamentally disagree on this. I mean, even if we get past the extent to which banks and their desire to securitize contributed to the bubble and whether the banks or the government are primarily responsible for this (and again, other pro-ownership countries did not suffer the same outcomes the US did), we still disagree.

The market crashed because of the complex securities in circulation and the sudden transformation of those securities from information-insensitive instruments to information-sensitive instruments. All of a sudden institutions realized their AAA-rated securities were not necessarily AAA. Maybe some were AAA and some were junk. But nobody knew which were which. The market for these securities dried up. No one was buying, so no one could sell. Insurers had no idea how much they were on the hook for. Nobody knew how much risk their counterparties in any transaction was exposed to. Do you want to deal with AIG or Morgan Stanley when it could become the next Lehman? Are they going to be able to honor their obligations? And all because nobody knew what was inside these securities and how much risk there was in them. If the bubble burst but everybody knew exactly what securities were affected, what banks were affected, and what had to be written down, the impact of the housing market crash would have been much more manageable. In the worst case scenario the government would have had a good idea of exactly what securities were toxic and needed to be bought out, and after a surgical rescue confidence would be restored. Instead, confusion reigned because of the widespread uncertainty to who was exposed and to what extent.

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