71–80 of 194 posts
Serious question that is actually very related: if you had to move to a foreign country and work on your internet start up, where would you move? Why?
New Zealand - why - because it is gorgeous. Don't know if it is any good for business though.
"The Federal Reserve plans to offer an $85 billion bridge loan to the American International Group in return for control of the ailing insurance giant..." Nice redefinition of AIG.
$85billion!!! where do the Reserve get the money? do they print it? gold reserves? next year's taxes? asia?
What harm is there in letting a company that made bad decisions go bankrupt? I don't see how it's pragmatic to pass this burden on to tax payers and the general public. I admit that I am idealistic about such things. I don't see how government is going to solve any of these problems. The government will lessen the pain but that same behavior will also slow any rebound and future growth. It seems naive and narrow mind…
It all comes down to the government intervention paradox: whenever something bad happens, people ask for intervention, which implies the only entity willing to do such things, the government. The sad part is, to my knowledge, this intervention never works out for the best . When is the last time you heard the phrase, "thank goodness the government intervened! It did such a good job, and now everyone's happy!" with re…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Just to clarify, I meant that the other course might result in much more massive decline than has already happened. Think 22 sigma level -- like the '87 crash. Bailing out distressed financial firms is almost expected now. Thus, if it doesn't happen, then a lot of market participants may reevaluate their choice to invest in firms with heavy debt. Obviously, these bail outs have their costs, such as the value of money…
The market collapse of a whole economy? How's Google going to get torched by this? Or Boeing? Or most exporters?
If these companies are too big to fail, and we have to bail them out to avoid returning to the Stone Age or whatever, how about some for the people who created this situation? Maybe it's not ok to let the system collapse to punish a few people, but "heads I win, tails the taxpayer loses" is also unacceptable.
They should allow these companies to fail. The world would not of ended. If there's a need (market), new companies would have sprouted up. Stronger, better, and more transparent companies to fill the void. Sweden had a major banking disaster. Their government allowed them to fail. Their banking system is solid now.
As far as Sweden's banks go, I think you should check again. They have losses in US mortgages (it wasn't just US and Chinese banks buying those securities) to cover and are also feeling the heat on over-exposure to Baltic loans that are starting to go sour. The Swedish bank takeover was somewhat akin to the US S&L takeover in the 80s, except in the US case it did not eat 4-5% of GDP...
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That was the argument for Fanny and Freddie. Didn't seem to work, and I bet it won't this time. WAMU is next.
You don't think the Fanny bailout "worked"? We don't have the luxury of seeing what would have happened if we hadn't bailed them out. To make the pro-bailout argument more clear, here is one reputable economist predicting that if we had let the FMs default, the dollar would drop about 30% and unemployment would double, in about a week. http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2008/09...
What harm is there in letting a company that made bad decisions go bankrupt? I don't see how it's pragmatic to pass this burden on to tax payers and the general public. I admit that I am idealistic about such things. I don't see how government is going to solve any of these problems. The government will lessen the pain but that same behavior will also slow any rebound and future growth. It seems naive and narrow mind…
It seems naive and narrow minded to think another company won't step in if there is a continued need for the services that AIG provide{d|s}. But it's unrealistic to think that the vacuum could be filled fast enough to prevent a wave of failures among AIG's clients (banks who bought credit insurance to get around regulatory limits). There's more detail here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/robertpeston/2008/09…
How about limiting the size of companies that are not allowed to die for damage control? Or limiting their ability to become companies not allowed to die?
"The Federal Reserve plans to offer an $85 billion bridge loan to the American International Group in return for control of the ailing insurance giant..." Nice redefinition of AIG.
$85billion!!! where do the Reserve get the money? do they print it? gold reserves? next year's taxes? asia?
a 1982 law lets treasury notes be redeemed with CREATED accounts, as in one of the partner banks of the reserve simply creates a new account by punching in the digits, and they assign it to you
once again, this is law since 1982
this is why US treasuries have 100% certainty inside the USA while the US dollar still exists
Earlier quoted context omitted.
$85billion!!! where do the Reserve get the money? do they print it? gold reserves? next year's taxes? asia?
where does the treasury and fed get the money? THEY PRINT IT a 1982 law lets treasury notes be redeemed with CREATED accounts, as in one of the partner banks of the reserve simply creates a new account by punching in the digits, and they assign it to you once again, this is law since 1982 this is why US treasuries have 100% certainty inside the USA while the US dollar still exists
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I'm not saying you're wrong that socialism is better than this mess but I will say that capitalism is better than this mess and better than socialism too. Having health insurance provided by the State (i.e. you through your tax dollars after several layers of corruption and bureaucratic waste) does not guarantee quality of care. A competitive free market is more likely to develop better medicine.
I'm first to agree efficient markets are fantastic at allocating resources effectively. I'm curios though, how do you guarantee people who are sick/hurt/dying behave as rational actors? I might be mis-remembering but i thought rational actors were a requirement, otherwise they would be to quick to give away money.
I think those who want socialized medicine have to justify aggression (initiating force through taxation, regulation, etc.) They also have to convince us that the masses (in the case of a democracy) can make better decisions than the individuals directly involved in each particular situation. They have to explain how people would be motivated to innovate in a system lacking competition and guaranteeing equality of outcome (this, is what I'm assuming is meant by "socialism", by the way).
I think these questions are of interest to us and the "hackers" of other disciplines... we want an environment where people are free to try new things. Mitigating the risk of failure should can also be managed by the market through insurance, which, getting back to the original point is privilege not a right because one has no "right" to the goods/services of another.
So, sure, it would be a great idea for everyone to contribute to a large pool for health insurance... but on a voluntary basis. Those who decline to or cannot pay will have to rely on charity if something happens. I can feel bad for them but I would not feel justified in putting my gun (or a tax collector's) to someone else's head to make them pay for it.
This is all assuming that both insurance and healthcare costs will both decrease dramatically when America rids itself of the heavy regulation of and handouts to the respective industries by going to either a completely socialist or capitalist system.