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The Financial Sector Is the Greatest Parasite in Human History

neweconomicperspectives.org

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Re: The Financial Sector Is the Greatest Parasite in Human History

#31

Post by jfoutz »

robotresearcher wrote: post #25
jfoutz wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What has DARPA done for me lately? Money seems to be an excellent motivator, but when death is on the line people seem to embrace a little more out of the box thinking. Rent seeking and collusion to avoid innovation seem to be problems with both the money and violence types of power.

"What has DARPA done for me lately?" How about the internet? If that's too last-century for you, you can look forward to the benefits of DARPA funding the development of the basic tech and Open Source software that's driving the rapid development of robots right now.

Easy tiger. The point was not all military spending is a waste.

Re: The Financial Sector Is the Greatest Parasite in Human History

#32

Post by brc »

adventured wrote: post #8
billspreston wrote: post #4

Who keeps pushing this meme? If anything, the worst parasites are lobby groups and politicians.

It's a populist call to arms. You'll be seeing a lot more of it over the next few years, expanding ever more loudly toward the rich, wall street, bankers, and corporations, with calls for much higher tax levels and minimum wage. The Fed's asset bubble-based fake recovery did absolutely nothing for the bottom 50%, but has vastly increased the wealth of the top 10%, the future social consequences of that are obvious.

Indeed. If you take a populist rant like this, and replace keywords like '1%', 'rich', 'banker' with words like 'Jew','Semitic' and 'Zionists' - you start to get an appreciation for how ugly these latest movements really are through the lens of history.

Do I mean that some of the public policy choices of the last decade are beyond criticism? No, definitely not. 'Too big to fail' is a terrible phrase because it calcifies economies and entrenches bad practice.

But the latest meme of 'if you're rich you're a parasite and should be stripped of your property' is disturbing for me. It lumps a class of people into a 'generally bad' category without looking at specific problems. There are angry young people out there who have been fed a simplified story and are running around with 'eat the rich' style placards. That is worrying to any ordered society.

Re: The Financial Sector Is the Greatest Parasite in Human History

#33

Post by protomyth »

Turing_Machine wrote: post #17
tim333 wrote: post #6

The military has been worse historically surely? At least the financial sector has some function you'd miss if they didn't exist - banks, insurers etc are useful although I'll give you that about half their activities are parasite like. I'm basing that number on Krugman http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/27/opinion/27krugman.html?_r=...

"The military has been worse historically surely?" Ask Ukraine about the consequences of getting rid of your military.

"Military costs too much until you get invaded" is a common thread throughout history.

Re: The Financial Sector Is the Greatest Parasite in Human History

#34

Post by protomyth »

jfoutz wrote: post #23
tim333 wrote: post #6

The military has been worse historically surely? At least the financial sector has some function you'd miss if they didn't exist - banks, insurers etc are useful although I'll give you that about half their activities are parasite like. I'm basing that number on Krugman http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/27/opinion/27krugman.html?_r=...

It really depends. Traditionally, the US navy was to stop pirates from screwing with US exports. IMHO it was a pretty effective policy. we pay taxes, our stuff gets to new markets. Iraqi oil is apparently doing nice things for XOM, not sure if they payoff will be worth the price. Afghanistan seems like a loser. There's nothing there we can take to pay for the war.

Reviewing the history of the US's first six frigates is a very interesting take on a lot of sides of this issue.

Re: The Financial Sector Is the Greatest Parasite in Human History

#35

Post by sliverstorm »

aet wrote: post #24
refurb wrote: post #7

The financial sector provides no services? What? If I want to sell my company, the banks sure as hell provide a service. They provide a valuation, put together a pitch book, shop the company around and close the deal. How is that not a service?

What about credit cards, debit cards, checking, savings, ATM, online banking, mortgages, heloc, etc?

Exactly what I was thinking. I sit in a chair I purchased with a check, typing on a computer I purchased online with a credit card, inside a house I purchased on a mortgage...

Re: The Financial Sector Is the Greatest Parasite in Human History

#37

Post by rdl »

jfoutz wrote: post #31
robotresearcher wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"What has DARPA done for me lately?" How about the internet? If that's too last-century for you, you can look forward to the benefits of DARPA funding the development of the basic tech and Open Source software that's driving the rapid development of robots right now.

Easy tiger. The point was not all military spending is a waste.

Useful side effects for sure, but even if you took away the direct non-financial costs of the military (non-zero chance of nuclear armageddon...), I think there are things we as a species could work on which would produce the same kind of competitive, focused effort. The "space race" accomplished a lot, and consumer IT tech (say, mobile phones) has progressed even faster than military tech (outside maybe an existential war like WW2).

Re: The Financial Sector Is the Greatest Parasite in Human History

#38

Post by praxeologist »

rdl wrote: post #3

Bigger than government? Arguably at least the military and internal-to-government overhead is a direct parasite on everyone else, and its only value is fighting other parasites (other governments). Some parts of government seem to be very useful, but it's a big enough sector that just the parasite parts are probably the biggest parasite.

Government is worse and it enables a lot of the ills of banking, not a popular opinion on largely state-apologist HN though.

Re: The Financial Sector Is the Greatest Parasite in Human History

#39

Post by Eleutheria »

“The few who understand the system will either be so interested in its profits or be so dependent upon its favours that there will be no opposition from that class, while on the other hand, the great body of people, mentally incapable of comprehending the tremendous advantage that capital derives from the system, will bear its burdens without complaint, and perhaps without even suspecting that the system is inimical to their interests” .- Self

Re: The Financial Sector Is the Greatest Parasite in Human History

#40

Post by samstave »

protomyth wrote: post #34
jfoutz wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It really depends. Traditionally, the US navy was to stop pirates from screwing with US exports. IMHO it was a pretty effective policy. we pay taxes, our stuff gets to new markets. Iraqi oil is apparently doing nice things for XOM, not sure if they payoff will be worth the price. Afghanistan seems like a loser. There's nothing there we can take to pay for the war.

Reviewing the history of the US's first six frigates is a very interesting take on a lot of sides of this issue.

Can you elaborate?
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