I've watched the CNBC special, "House of Cards" twice and the conclusion I came to only reinforces what we already know but choose to forget: "capitalism is evil".
The show's tagline goes "The economic crisis that has befallen much of the world was born from a credit crisis with roots in the U.S. housing market. It was there that homeowners, mortgage brokers, investment bankers and regulators built a house of cards. Its collapse has rippled throughout the world. Resolving the complex crisis is difficult."
Mark Faber goes out of his way to interview a lot of people to try to get to the root of all this cdo subprime mess. In his quest for the truth, it was ascertained that former Fed Chairman Greenspan had a hand in making the cost of borrowing too cheap and encouraging people to spend beyond their means.
Shortsightedness can only be hindsight, for no one in his right mind would go through with all the financial schemes that would wreak such havoc in the financial world. Or so we thought. Faber politely "corners" ratings companies, fund managers, refinancers and ask them somthing to this effect, "you know what you were doing is nonesense, selling a product that may collapse hard, and yet nobody dared put a stop to it".
To this, the people in the hot seat interview generally agreed that they had no choice. Like the ratings company XYZ that gets paid to rate company ABC, they had to give them high AAA ratings or else company ABC would merely go to the next ratings agency and the ratings company XYZ would simply go out of business.
Similarly, refinancing and CDO repackagers know that they're selling shit, but since everyone is selling shit, they just can't be left behind selling nothing.
Therein lies the lack of prying. Such recognition that selling CDOs are evil should not stop there. It is the original essence of capitalism that we are born in that is evil in itself.
Such inflationary cycles that prod one to keep on working like hell to sell more expensive products than the next guy to amass more capital is the real evil that we are all born into.
So do we get rid of CDOS, over lending, and tell them "that's too much", while still allowing over inflationary state of capitalism? "that's just right, everyone remain with a profit margin of 5%" only and we will all be alright?
About dragon
I think that capitalism is evil simply because of the greed that exists among capitalists. They just cannot be contented with some nice profits but they want even more.
What do you propose as a better alternative to Capitalism then? Communism? Oh, no…
there’s nothing wrong with Capitalism. it’s only when Capitalists become too greedy.
as has always been the case (greediness thru capitalism) the moment ownership of materials were introduced way back when. you own something, you got to protect it or else the neighbor might steal it. you own something, you want more, so you mark up more to be able to buy more
Your neighbor would not steal if he owns something too. Right? Why is it that there is only a small number of people who owns capital? I believe Economic Democracy could only be achieve through Capitalism (Political Democracy is different but the two are related). Most people only rely on labor to gain income which is “kinda” communist.
. Most people don’t really own anything (capital) and that is the problem because if you own capital then you can produce your own capital and produce your own profit/income.
Study Binary Economics. It is a new paradigm in Economics.
“Your neighbor would not steal if he owns something too. Right?” Tell that to the marines. Whether in first world or third world countries, people “get back what they can” in small or big forms whether white collar crimes or hidden theft like tax etc. Owning something could stop at contentment, but unfortunately, people have to make up for more because of the high prices he paid for the goods/services he purchased.
inflation. reality. capitalism. theft. cycle