The government will protect you!

[DC48080]

I don't know of any corporate charters that stipulate any goal above making money.

And I suppose that you go to work every day not to make a profit [[paycheck), but to make the world a better place?

Second, I would prefer a mixed economy in which corporate charters could be revoked, public options competed with private entities, and where government provided a European-style standard of living for most Americans. We can have a working country where the rich do not party while the middle class disappears.

If you truly seek a more European style of living why don't you move there? May I suggest Greece? We can all see how well it is working out over there.

[Detroitnerd]

I don't know of any corporate charters that stipulate any goal above making money.

And I suppose that you go to work every day not to make a profit [[paycheck), but to make the world a better place?

Second, I would prefer a mixed economy in which corporate charters could be revoked, public options competed with private entities, and where government provided a European-style standard of living for most Americans. We can have a working country where the rich do not party while the middle class disappears.

If you truly seek a more European style of living why don't you move there? May I suggest Greece? We can all see how well it is working out over there.

Shhhhh, DC. The adults are trying to talk.

[DC48080]

Shhhhh, DC. The adults are trying to talk.

.

You hardly come off as an adult with a comment like that.

Can't take a little truth being thrown your way, huh?

[Detroitnerd]

.

You hardly come off as an adult with a comment like that.

Can't take a little truth being thrown your way, huh?

Nah, I just get tired of wasting good energy on people who have problems with facts or logic. I find it appropriate that your little face icon has blinders on.

[DC48080]

Nah, I just get tired of wasting good energy on people who have problems with facts or logic. I find it appropriate that your little face icon has blinders on.

Much the same way as your face icon has it's eyes closed. Your posts indicate that you cannot see the forrests for the trees.

And the tongue sticking out is very telling. Only immature kids stick out their tongues.

[Detroitnerd]

Much the same way as your face icon has it's eyes closed. Your posts indicate that you cannot see the forrests for the trees.

And the tongue sticking out is very telling. Only immature kids stick out their tongues.

Haha. DC, there are several threads where BShea and I go on for about 40,000 or 50,000 words in what seems to be a mutually interesting discussion of power, money, politics, business, society and history. There is likely nobody I disagree with more fundamentally than BShea, but have you noticed that we both have a certain baseline of mutual respect? We both occasionally get facts wrong, or our reason becomes unclear, but I respect BShea's tenacity, reasonableness and, yes, even his opinions, though I beg to differ.

So, as you can see, especially by looking through past threads, I am willing to have a conversation with those I disagree with -- provided they are intelligent, courteous and smart enough to explain why they feel as they do.

I think you're just charging in here with a big mouth, so I am going to have a hard time taking you seriously. Think on that, will ya?

[DC48080]

Shhhhh, DC. The adults are trying to talk.

I am willing to have a conversation with those I disagree with -- provided they are intelligent, courteous and smart enough to explain why they feel as they do.


Very intelligent and courteous! Think on that!

[Detroitnerd]

Shhhhh, DC. The adults are trying to talk.

I am willing to have a conversation with those I disagree with -- provided they are intelligent, courteous and smart enough to explain why they feel as they do.

Very intelligent and courteous! Think on that!

Love it. You think you should be able to charge into a civil debate with a whole lot of bluster, telling people to leave the country, and then when they tell you to cool it, you say they're discourteous. Go jump in a lake, DC.

[DC48080]

Bluster indeed!

I'm not going to let you drag me into your childish back and forth argument. Just accept the fact that you and I do not agree on the issues pertaining to this thread and leave it at that.

And since your previous posts indicate that you always must have the last word I am going to allow you to have just that. Peace out.

[Detroitnerd]

Bluster indeed!

I'm not going to let you drag me into your childish back and forth argument. Just accept the fact that you and I do not agree on the issues pertaining to this thread and leave it at that.

And since your previous posts indicate that you always must have the last word I am going to allow you to have just that. Peace out.

If you pay attention, DC, you'll find that I'm perfectly willing to get into an adult back-and-forth, even if I disagree. It's the childishness that makes me want to tune you out.

And if you didn't misrepresent other people, you wouldn't need to leave them the last word to correct the record.

Play nice, now, DC!

[rid0617]

This was a troubled black youth killing a disipline Black adult Detroit cop with a wife and child crime. It's pitiful that the America Justice System is making deals with criminals instead of locking them up and rehab their minds. The problem of locking perps up in jails and release them quickly comes from those who paying taxes. Well, so much for the law.

WORD FROM FROM THE STREET PROPHET

Some people fought the law and they won.

In Memoriam: Neda Agha-Soltan

Thank you for your Neda memorial. I was starting to feel like I was the only one spreading the word about her.

[BShea]

"... government provided a European-style standard of living for most Americans ..."

If by that you meant an Isherwood-style Berlin nightlife from the Wiemar era, with the cabarets performing Brecht/Weill classics, I'll take it.

If by that you meant modern European nanny-statism/profligate spending that has sparked riots and killings in Greece [[with Portugal, Greece, Italy and Ireland not far behind), I'll leave it.

[Detroitnerd]

"... government provided a European-style standard of living for most Americans ..."

If by that you meant an Isherwood-style Berlin nightlife from the Wiemar era, with the cabarets performing Brecht/Weill classics, I'll take it.

If by that you meant modern European nanny-statism/profligate spending that has sparked riots and killings in Greece [[with Portugal, Greece, Italy and Ireland not far behind), I'll leave it.

Haha. Interesting that, in both situations, it is the international system that is driving both of those situations. [[League of Nations imposing cruel demands, international capital imposing austerity measures.)

The Greek situation is an interesting one. The IMF and World Bank aren't just imposing austerity demands on the third world anymore. Now European nations get to enjoy the fun of driving down living standards while appeasing the bankers.

We probably shouldn't be calling the situation in Greece a bailout of socialism. It's more a TARP for European bankers and currency speculators. European governments are funneling money into escrow-like accounts so Greece can pay the foreign bondholders who smelled blood in the water and will make a bundle, as will other swappers. The private firms will profit, the bad banking practices will be subsidized, and the real losers are financial transparency and the Greek people.

I do wish we held reckless, corrupt, money-grubbing banks to the same high standards we apparently hold socialists to. If only ...

[BShea]

I think the general consensus is that the Greek crisis is not the fault of greedy Wall Street-like fat cats and speculators, but from profligate government social spending, almost zero financial controls, investment-repellent bureaucracy, huge walls as a barrier to entry from entrepreneurs and a public that wants its entitlements -- like the retirement age of 54.

54?!?! That's absurd.

They're not rioting because they're angry at the measures their own government began to implement two years ago -- and almost no one here noticed.

I think to suggest the austerity measures are to protect financiers is a bit misleading. Greece did this to itself. Even the other nanny states say so.

[Detroitnerd]

I think the general consensus is that the Greek crisis is not the fault of greedy Wall Street-like fat cats and speculators, but from profligate government social spending, almost zero financial controls, investment-repellent bureaucracy, huge walls as a barrier to entry from entrepreneurs and a public that wants its entitlements -- like the retirement age of 54.

54?!?! That's absurd.

They're not rioting because they're angry at the measures their own government began to implement two years ago -- and almost no one here noticed.

I think to suggest the austerity measures are to protect financiers is a bit misleading. Greece did this to itself. Even the other nanny states say so.

Geez, BShea, I wouldn't mind retiring at 54. Sounds pretty sweet!

So, all the problems of Greece are the result of the current president -- who took office five years ago -- and none of this is the result of the former conservative leader Stephanopoulos? None of the blame should go to the sharp bankers who gladly saddled the country with debt and are now dictating terms of the "recovery" [[a laughable term to those familiar with neoliberal austerity measures)?

Of course, it was politically inconvenient to criticize Iceland or the Balkan states, or even poor Lithuania and Latvia [[freed from the USSR only to have to shrink their GDP to appease bankers).

Are you aware that Greece cannot even denominate the debts in their own currency? That they're locked in with the European central bankers, who are demanding that the tax burden be shifted to labor and industry? How democratic is that? And, yeah, what about the hard-working people of Greece who've played by the rules and expect their rightful pensions? They are demonstrating because they known that they have to raise a stink to get results. That bankers are going to try to dictate that labor will have higher taxes, fewer pensions and fewer rights; I think it makes sense for the people of Greece to oppose this, although I hate the bloodshed.

European, especially German, bankers, of course, are relatively happy to have Greece in their crosshairs. Only the great project of turning states into vassals of capital is hitting a speed bump. Or at least that's the way I see it.

[BShea]

Did I miss the part where the capitalist ogres forced Greece to join the EU and onto the euro?

I would guess that the rest of Europe would love to boot Greece and see it back on the drachma.

Unbridled social spending > revenue + shit financial controls = Greece.

Greece's teenager-at-the-mall-with-Dad's-Visa-card have been going on basically since it ousted the military rulers.

I would love to be able to tell my credit card companies that I'm not paying because they made me run up all that debt by offering my free credit and decent rates for awhile. Like the Greeks, I'm simply innocent and my uncontrolled spending on myself isn't my fault. And they should extend me more credit at even better terms so I can pay off the old debt they made me take when I bought myself stuff at the mall.

These are welfare states at each other's throats. I admire your conviction that this is greedy capitalism's fault, even if it's wrong. You stay on message far better than most. I would guess you're a huge fan of what the Swede's call their "erection to resurrection" state economy? They used to be the model of workable socialism until they decouple benefits from job requirements.

Will it also be the greedy "other's" fault when the PIIGs go belly up and start begging for handouts?

[maxx]

Crime is crime whether it is white collar or any other type. It is all wrong.

But I'll ask again: What do some folks on here have against corporations? Not everyone involved with corporations is a white collar criminal.

Just the corporations that are monopolizing the seed industry, polluting our air and water, putting poisons into the land, buying off Congress members to deregulate everything and let the "free market" go wild, and polluting the airwaves with the sort of propaganda that turned the word "environmentalist" into a dirty word among the ignorant masses. Oh, and after polluting the biosphere, they expect the taxpayers to clean it up.
Watch the doc, "the Corporation". If people acted the way corporations do, we'd put them away as sociopaths.

[maxx]

Thank you for your Neda memorial. I was starting to feel like I was the only one spreading the word about her.

Why not mention the students killed at Kent State?

[Detroitnerd]

Did I miss the part where the capitalist ogres forced Greece to join the EU and onto the euro?

I would guess that the rest of Europe would love to boot Greece and see it back on the drachma.

Unbridled social spending > revenue + shit financial controls = Greece.

Greece's teenager-at-the-mall-with-Dad's-Visa-card have been going on basically since it ousted the military rulers.

I would love to be able to tell my credit card companies that I'm not paying because they made me run up all that debt by offering my free credit and decent rates for awhile. Like the Greeks, I'm simply innocent and my uncontrolled spending on myself isn't my fault. And they should extend me more credit at even better terms so I can pay off the old debt they made me take when I bought myself stuff at the mall.

These are welfare states at each other's throats. I admire your conviction that this is greedy capitalism's fault, even if it's wrong. You stay on message far better than most. I would guess you're a huge fan of what the Swede's call their "erection to resurrection" state economy? They used to be the model of workable socialism until they decouple benefits from job requirements.

Will it also be the greedy "other's" fault when the PIIGs go belly up and start begging for handouts?

Ah, BShea. If I totally disagree with you, which I do, at least I enjoy the feisty metaphors.