tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9149193.post1950176958545469948..comments2024-03-28T15:06:21.128-05:00Comments on Marshal Art's: Lib/Commie/Socialist/ProgressiveMarshal Arthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01054268632726520871noreply@blogger.comBlogger62125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9149193.post-47638755332886916872009-04-10T01:44:00.000-05:002009-04-10T01:44:00.000-05:00Ron,"Haven't read the comments but fascist is far ...Ron,<BR/><BR/><I>"Haven't read the comments but fascist is far RIGHT."</I><BR/><BR/>Only to lefties. In reality, it is the furthest left one can go, right after communism. Glen Beck recently said it this way, and I agree, that to one side is more government and to the other less. At the extremes is fascism on the left, which is total control with no concern for the individual, and on the other side, total anarchy as a result of absolutely NO government. If one looks at the definitions for socialism, communism and fascism, there is no doubt that all are degrees of the same thing. Again, the left always moves toward more gov't and the right less, so fascism is not a right-wing extreme. Anarchy would be.Marshal Arthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01054268632726520871noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9149193.post-25542134552172701092009-04-09T21:12:00.000-05:002009-04-09T21:12:00.000-05:00Haven't read the comments but fascist is far RIGHT...Haven't read the comments but fascist is far RIGHT. Its corporate and government teaming to control. Which is exactly what we have in the US. <BR/>If Barry was a socialist I'd be far happier. I suggest you ask a socialist or communist if they think he adhears to their tenets. <BR/>The will say profoundly NO. You can call people anything you want but if the actual socialists or communists don't agree and can prove where he's not(they can, go to a socialist web site and see) then that means that you are labeling quite loosely. <BR/><BR/>beyond that..from the rasmussen poll(not a left wing poller by any stretch):<BR/>Only 53% of American adults believe capitalism is better than socialism. <BR/><BR/>The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that 20% disagree and say socialism is better. Twenty-seven percent (27%) are not sure which is better.<BR/><BR/>Oops, better pick a new symbol of evil.Ronhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04858096465481109091noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9149193.post-22869115042719347002009-03-17T15:07:00.000-05:002009-03-17T15:07:00.000-05:00Vinny,I'm not following your reasoning. Are you s...Vinny,<BR/><BR/>I'm not following your reasoning. Are you suggesting that government inteference played a role in the aquistion of my property? If so, how?Marshal Arthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01054268632726520871noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9149193.post-9603367867336473782009-03-17T13:46:00.000-05:002009-03-17T13:46:00.000-05:00Marshall:I don't think anyone, certainly not Bubba...Marshall:<BR/><BR/><I>I don't think anyone, certainly not Bubba or myself, would suggest that a totally free-market would work considering the shortcomings of human nature.</I><BR/><BR/>It's not that I think a truly free market -- largely free with the obvious exception of criminalizing fraud, theft, assault, murder and the like -- "works."<BR/><BR/>It's not that the free market is a solution. To use Thomas Sowell's saying, <B>there are no solutions, only tradeoffs.</B><BR/><BR/>(Well, in earthly matters, there are no solutions. In the cross God has provided the ultimate solution to sin and death, and one of my biggest problem with utopian political philosophies is that they confuse the worldly realm of tradeoffs with the divine realm of real solutions.)<BR/><BR/>The fundamental economic question is meeting needs and wants -- a theoretically unlimited number -- in light of a scarcity of resources, far too few resources to meet everyone's needs.<BR/><BR/>The free market isn't a perfectly moral or perfectly efficient approach, but it's far more moral AND far more efficient than any real-world alternative.<BR/><BR/>One reason it's more moral is that it accounts for individual property rights, and one reason it's more efficient is that it accounts for individual self-interest, including the sinful excess of self-interest, greed.<BR/><BR/>Collectivist economics in any stripe -- from Bolsheivism to Italian Fascism to supposedly "pragmatic" Progressivism -- fails to account fully for self-interest. The system would work if self-interest were somehow eliminated, but it <B>cannot</B> be elminated.<BR/><BR/>The socialist scheme, which largely ignores self-interest, is as useful as plans for some perpetual motion machine that ignores the reality of friction. An internal-combustion engine that accounts for friction is still going to break down at some point, but it's still going to get you further down the road than a machine that's perfect in theory and hardly useful in practice.<BR/><BR/>Writing in Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis wrote about social morality, compared to the morality that is concerned with an individual's internal condition. Comparing men in society to a fleet on the ocean, he had this to say:<BR/><BR/><I>"What is the good of telling the ships how to steer so as to avoid collisions if, in fact, they are such crazy old tubs that they cannot be steered at all? What is the good of drawing up, on paper, rules for social behaviour, if we know that, in fact, our greed, cowardice, ill temper, and self-conceit are going to prevent us from keeping them? I do not mean for a moment that we ought not to think, and think hard, about improvements in our social and economic system. What I do mean is that all that thinking will be mere moonshine unless we realise that nothing but the courage and unselfishness of individuals is ever going to make any system work properly. It is easy enough to remove the particular kinds of graft or bullying that go on under the present system: but as long as men are twisters or bullies they will find some new way of carrying on the old game under the new system. <B>You cannot make men good by law: and without good men you cannot have a good society.</B> That is why we must go on to think of the second thing: of morality inside the individual."</I> [emphasis mine]<BR/><BR/>I agree with all of this, that even a free market will fall apart because of sinful men, but I believe the free market is the most robust system available: it can trudge along quite well with merely reasonably civil people, while collectivist systems need pretty-much purely virtuous saints in order to achieve its expected results.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9149193.post-14713589385821306952009-03-17T12:49:00.000-05:002009-03-17T12:49:00.000-05:00Excellent conversation and back and forths!It's re...Excellent conversation and back and forths!<BR/><BR/>It's really silly to pretend that Barry ain't a socialist. When he's rated as being more to the left than admitted socialist Bernie Sanders, to say otherwise is, well, silly. This is a guy who wants to "spread the wealth". This one pronouncement is all one should need to hear to know the speaker has socialist leanings. The question is simply, "how socialist?", and time will tell for sure. As I said, any lean to the left is only a matter of shades of the same color. <BR/><BR/>Vinny's troubles with the free-market implies that it lends itself to more unethical behavior. I don't much disagree with the premise, but I would qualify my belief by saying that a lack of conservative and/or Christian values is the true cause, not the economic system itself. That more intrusive government might reign in such behaviors might be true, but it would do so by also reigning in economic progress. Unethical behavior will prevail under any system without the influence of and and adherence to strong, traditional and Judeo/Christian principles of human behavior and ethics. It's what self rule is all about. If one is immoral, one isn't qualified to rule one's self. Regulation should never be suggested until it's plain that we are incapable of regulating ourselves. <BR/><BR/>I don't think anyone, certainly not Bubba or myself, would suggest that a totally free-market would work considering the shortcomings of human nature. However, that is an ideal that we should attempt to achieve in order for the most people to have a real chance of succeeding. I don't want to see regulations put in place that inhibit the potential of good people. I'd prefer to see punishment for those who abuse their freedoms, just as we do in civil law. <BR/><BR/>As to our current "crisis", it seems to be more of a crisis now than it was before last November. Why should that be the case? Barry's put a ton of uncertainty into the equation and his stimulus and bail out packages will, like every other time such has been done, will prolong our agony. The markets work themselves out of these situations when allowed to.Marshal Arthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01054268632726520871noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9149193.post-67424628458633357992009-03-17T12:24:00.000-05:002009-03-17T12:24:00.000-05:00On the other hand, the 1950’s and 1960’s were a pe...On the other hand, the 1950’s and 1960’s were a period of unprecedented prosperity. In those days labor unions were strong and the top marginal tax rate was as high as 90%.<BR/><BR/>If state interference is inherently immoral, than I don’t see how we ever establish any person’s inalienable right to property because it is very hard to eliminate the possibility that government interference played role in their obtaining in the first place. Declaring the right to property inalienable without regard to how the property was obtained does not sound moral to me.Vinnyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08955726889682177434noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9149193.post-9926604434038168902009-03-17T11:34:00.000-05:002009-03-17T11:34:00.000-05:00Vinny, pragmatism comes with its own principles, i...Vinny, pragmatism comes with its own principles, its own ideological assumptions. I believe the so-called pragmatism of modern progressives entails the assumptions that government power should not be limited and that the individual has no inalienable property rights.<BR/><BR/>At any rate, the free market compares very unfavorably to a utopian ideal that does not and cannot exist in the real world, but I think it's more helpful to compare, e.g., Reaganomics to real-world alternatives: the New Deal that didn't bring an end to the depression and arguably made it worse, a War on Poverty that accomplished nothing, and the stagflation of the 1970's.<BR/><BR/>Better still, let's compare the (relatively) free markets of the United States against those economies that have long since gone down the path you support.<BR/><BR/>You lay the current financial crisis solely at the feet of the free market and say that it is "the biggest crisis of them all," but going to a European model hardly promises to improve things when Europe has stagnant growth and double-digit unemployment.<BR/><BR/>When America's worst days, economically, are still better than Europe's best days, it's not unreasonable to question an economic solution that follows Europe's lead.<BR/><BR/><BR/>And, Vinny, it's a very convenient thing to say that the immorality of past state interference prevents you from standing against the immorality of future interference, but I do appreciate your honesty: until we reach the Shangri La of a Year Zero where wealth is distributed fairly at the very beginning, you have no moral qualms about crushing property rights as they exist now -- for purely pragmatic reasons, of course.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9149193.post-79583883818353563882009-03-17T10:44:00.000-05:002009-03-17T10:44:00.000-05:00It is not the booms and busts that concern me; it ...It is not the booms and busts that concern me; it is the bubbles and the panics.<BR/><BR/>Since free-market economics gained ascendancy with Reagan, we have had the S&L debacle, the 1987 stock market crash, Long-Term Capital, the dot.com bubble, and the current crisis. During that time, manufacturing declined while financial services grew as a percentage of GDP and the United States went from the world’s biggest creditor to its biggest debtor. We had nothing comparable in the prior thirty years. Now we have the biggest crisis of them all.<BR/><BR/>The “free market” has never been much more than an academic construct. Government has always played a role and when it declines to do so, things often degenerate into a Darwinian free-for-all. I believe in markets and capitalism because they are useful for achieving economic prosperity by harnessing individual self-interest, but I think it is pragmatism, not principle that makes them superior. When they don’t achieve the desired goal, I think they can and should be modified and regulated. <BR/><BR/>Before I could be convinced that limitations on individual economic freedom are immoral on principle, I would have to be convinced that the existing distribution of wealth is moral on principle. I do not think that can be done. For every fortune that could be argued to be solely the product of the industry and ingenuity of its possessor there are banking fortunes that were made by dealing in government bonds, railroad fortunes that depended on government land grants, government financing, and government troops to drive Indians from their lands, chemical fortunes that came from selling munitions to the government, steel fortunes that depended on government troops to coerce labor, fruit fortunes that depended on government interference in Central America, and oil fortunes that depended on government in the Middle East.Vinnyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08955726889682177434noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9149193.post-67462591253443892782009-03-17T08:34:00.000-05:002009-03-17T08:34:00.000-05:00Don't let the back door, etc., ER.It's just worth ...Don't let the back door, etc., ER.<BR/><BR/>It's just worth reiterating exactly what you wrote: you wrote that the Gospel writers "obviously put words in Jesus's mouth."<BR/><BR/>I inferred that you meant that it was obvious to you. If you're not willing to present an argument for why one single passage is "obviously" a fabrication -- if, instead, you act as if we must take scholars' claims on faith (at least, SOME scholars, since again there isn't scholarly unanimity) -- you give me no reason to believe you.<BR/><BR/>If you can't or won't easily explain why even one passage is "obviously" a fabrication, maybe you shouldn't use that adverb.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9149193.post-54307846379343266552009-03-17T00:04:00.000-05:002009-03-17T00:04:00.000-05:00On the top part, Bubba, I've said all I'm gonna sa...On the top part, Bubba, I've said all I'm gonna say now. I'm making no argument; I'm not gonna give you what you want. It's not about arguing; it's about trusting researchers who will follow the research wherever it leads more than trusting religious people, leaders or followers, who are to defend their own position no matter what. So, read up, or not, But I'm done here right now.<BR/><BR/>On the bottom part, you haven't said anything new, or anything I feel obliged to respond to anyway.<BR/><BR/>Hey, I think we're done here! <BR/><BR/>And with that, I bid you adieu!Erudite Redneckhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04830721195868387265noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9149193.post-37882579986139276972009-03-16T22:34:00.000-05:002009-03-16T22:34:00.000-05:00The problem with your appeals to "scholarship", ER...The problem with your appeals to "scholarship", ER, is that not all scholars agree that the Gospel writers put words in Jesus' mouth.<BR/><BR/>For the purposes of the challenge I offered you, I don't want a list of scholar's names: I want their arguments. Ultimately the scholar's good name should stand on his argument, should it not?<BR/><BR/>If you stand by "scholarly authority" when it opposes the Bible's authority, I would think that you should know the scholar's arguments well enough to know whether it's plausible. If you don't, why should we believe that you're right?<BR/><BR/><BR/>About Obama's economics, just because the Democrats won an election doesn't mean that their policies shouldn't be argued over. After all, it wasn't that long ago that we were assured that dissent is the higest form of patriotism.<BR/><BR/>And, if Obama wasn't entirely clear about the economic programs he supports, then I'm not sure whether he actually holds any real high ground in being able to claim that the people have spoken by electing him.<BR/><BR/>But you say that Obama isn't a socialist -- apparently Obama is "good" and the precludes socialism. I wonder what label you think applies to his economic philosophy as you understand it.<BR/><BR/>At the very least, I think it's clear he's a statist who's moving us to collectivism as quickly as political realities allow.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9149193.post-38006740041228261892009-03-16T22:07:00.000-05:002009-03-16T22:07:00.000-05:00So, anyway. MA, sorry to follow Bubba when he led ...So, anyway. <BR/><BR/>MA, sorry to follow Bubba when he led this thread so far stray.<BR/><BR/>Obama good. Not socialist. But I'll take a sprinkling of socialism if that's what it takes to fix what the free market screwed up.<BR/><BR/>Free market: Good, until it runs away with itself, leads to monopoly or burns out and burns up people in the process.<BR/><BR/>Regulated market better. An act of our democracy. Debatable. Decided in the ballot box. Y'all lost this go-round. So sorry.Erudite Redneckhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04830721195868387265noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9149193.post-67747892521829242252009-03-16T21:53:00.000-05:002009-03-16T21:53:00.000-05:00Who the hell said anything about deception? Not me...Who the hell said anything about deception? Not me! <BR/><BR/>And re, "I don't care what so-called scholar thinks ..."<BR/><BR/>That's the problem, and if you won't accept scholarly authority, there's no need for me to play.<BR/><BR/>No thanks. I'm making no argument. I'm pointing to scholarship. Take it or leave it.Erudite Redneckhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04830721195868387265noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9149193.post-65070013804644391452009-03-16T21:47:00.000-05:002009-03-16T21:47:00.000-05:00ER, my disagreemnts with you aren't personal. I d...ER, my disagreemnts with you aren't personal. I don't go looking for reasons to argue with you: they just come up.<BR/><BR/>For instance, I don't understand how you believe that God "clearly" didn't communicate through inerrant written scripture while you claim -- simultaneously -- that the Gospel writers' supposed deception isn't outside God's purposes and doesn't undermine the Bible's integrity.<BR/><BR/>You deny inerrancy because you believe -- rightly -- that God doesn't lie, but then you seem to say that God doesn't have a problem with the Evangelists' lies.<BR/><BR/><BR/>You also write that the Bible's authority has nothing to do with its content. I disagree. The Bible asserts its own divine authorship and claims to be a reliable record of what Jesus taught: you deny both of these things, so I don't see how it can be said that you do not also deny the text's authority, at least in part.<BR/><BR/><BR/>About what Jesus said, I stand with the writers of the New Testament, Jesus' own hand-picked Apostles and their closest associates: He said what they record that He said.<BR/><BR/>About the authority of Scripture, I stand with Jesus and with His Apostles: it is authoritative to the smallest penstroke, because its authorship ultimately rests with God who breathed it.<BR/><BR/>And about the existence of heretics and false teachers who stand "outside the tent," I also stand with Christ and His Apostles: not everyone who claims to be His is His, may those who preach a different Gospel be accursed, and those who contradict the essentials of the faith -- such as Christ's coming in the flesh -- are teaching against Christ.<BR/><BR/>Who you stand with, it ain't entirely clear.<BR/><BR/><BR/>You write that the Gospel writers "obviously put words in Jesus's mouth."<BR/><BR/>If it's so obvious, I'd like you to argue for your case, here or at your own blog.<BR/><BR/>Ignore passages that are present in our oldest manuscripts, because we're talking about what the Gospel writers claimed in the original copy.<BR/><BR/>Aside from that, I challenge you to pick a passage, <B>ANY PASSAGE,</B> from any of the four Gospels, and explain why it's "obviously" not something that Jesus Christ Himself said.<BR/><BR/>Don't make appeals to authority: I don't care what so-called scholar thinks it's obvious, and I don't care that people have been making claims like this for a couple hundred years -- over a millennium and a half after the texts were first written.<BR/><BR/>Instead, give me the actual arguments for why a certain passage in the Gospel is "obviously" a fabrication.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9149193.post-6697667216707726642009-03-16T20:24:00.000-05:002009-03-16T20:24:00.000-05:00Bubba. Some fool let me in front of a church full ...Bubba. Some fool let me in front of a church full of some 300-400 people Sunday morning. I posted my sermonette. Come over and read it -- I'm sure you'll find fault with it.Erudite Redneckhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04830721195868387265noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9149193.post-44382868105708527022009-03-16T20:22:00.000-05:002009-03-16T20:22:00.000-05:00Readin' comprehension are hard, I knowm, but dang....Readin' comprehension are hard, I knowm, but dang.<BR/><BR/>1. God CAN. God didn't. Clearly. Unless God is contradictory and prone to error.<BR/><BR/>2. I guess I don't consider holding a heretical view to be "outside the tent" of the faith, only outside the bell of the most widely held beliefs. "False teacher" suggests "outside" or even "against" the faith. So do the scare quotes around "professed Christian. Am I heretical in some of my views. Yes. So, call me heretical in those views if you like. I promised to get furious every time if you presume to drum me out of the tent, though. You can't. It's not up to you.<BR/><BR/>3. Re, "they all did." Got me. But we were talking aboout the Gospels, so those writers are what I was referring to. Now, I don't think that touches on the authority of the Bible, because 1., the authorioty of the Bible doesn't rest on what it says, but on its place in our Christian history, and 2., the New Testament writers' purposes weren't outside the purposes of God, so the reality they obviously put words in Jesus's mouth is no threat to the integrity of the Bible's main message!<BR/><BR/>On "convenience": You're so off base with that, I'm just not going to engage you on it. Sorry!Erudite Redneckhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04830721195868387265noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9149193.post-81053779417630504372009-03-16T20:01:00.000-05:002009-03-16T20:01:00.000-05:00ER, if I follow you correctly, you object to the f...ER, if I follow you correctly, you object to the following claims, but it's not as if I pulled these claims out of my backside.<BR/><BR/><BR/>1: "You apparently don't believe that God is capable of communicating through inerrant written Scripture."<BR/><BR/>If you DO believe that God is capable of communicating through an inerrant written text, then routinely accusing inerrantists of idolatry is hardly a good indication of it.<BR/><BR/><BR/>2: "You get furious the moment any of us entertain the possibility that you're guilty of heresy."<BR/><BR/>You deny this?<BR/><BR/>I <A HREF="http://eruditeredneck.blogspot.com/2009/02/oh-brother-god-wrote-bible.html?showComment=1235838780000#c962108319789999003" REL="nofollow">quote:</A><BR/><BR/>"Every time you or anyone else refer to me as a 'professed Christian' or a 'false teacher,' you're judging men and announcing that you have the authority to judge me and drum me out of the tent. You. Do. Not."<BR/><BR/>(Notice that this righteous indignation on your part doesn't prevent you from repeatedly calling me a Pharisee.)<BR/><BR/><BR/><BR/>3: "You deny the trustworthiness of the Bible."<BR/><BR/>You <A HREF="http://marshallart.blogspot.com/2009/02/where-ya-goin.html?showComment=1236221760000#c5479129431585065102" REL="nofollow">apparently</A> believe that EVERY New Testament writer put words in Jesus mouth to suit their own purposes: "they all did."<BR/><BR/><BR/>In each of these cases, I don't seem to misunderstand you.<BR/><BR/>And about convenience, I know you think it's difficult to live out your particular faith, but I see no principled reason for why you vacillate on whether Jesus' teachings are clear: when it's convenient <B>to your arguments,</B> you deny such clarity and pretend that Christianity is such a vague thing that nothing can ever be called heretical. And when that position is inconvenient <B>to your arguments,</B> you go the other way to accuse Christians with whom you disagree of idolatry and to call us Pharisees.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9149193.post-53665504714238953032009-03-16T20:00:00.000-05:002009-03-16T20:00:00.000-05:00Vinny, even assuming that economic freedom is the ...Vinny, even assuming that economic freedom is the cause of our current troubles -- and I don't make that assumption -- free-market economics don't guarantee eternal booms with no busts, or new businesses without any old businesses going under.<BR/><BR/>Even if the current situation is bad, a rational thinker must ask, would limiting individual economic freedom lead to a worse outcome -- and that is a reasonable position to take -- and would it be immoral on principle?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9149193.post-45476262092760456102009-03-16T19:46:00.000-05:002009-03-16T19:46:00.000-05:00We should do everything we can to prevent further ...<I>We should do everything we can to prevent further government encroachment, and only after that is it appropriate to work to undo the damage that has already been done.</I><BR/><BR/>That's what Greenspan tried to do in financial markets and it got us AIG and Lehman Brothers. What rational person would want to try more of the same?Vinnyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08955726889682177434noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9149193.post-25524011222096540742009-03-16T19:38:00.000-05:002009-03-16T19:38:00.000-05:00To be completely honest, Vinny, I agree that LLC's...To be completely honest, Vinny, I agree that LLC's are artifical entities that would not exist in a truly free market, and I agree that they distort the market by allowing the owners the opportunity to make unlimited profit at (sometimes very) limited risk.<BR/><BR/>But there's an equally egregious distortion in the opposite direction: punitive damages. If LLC's distort the relationship of risk versus reward, punitive damages violate the principle of <I>lex talonis,</I> where the punishment fits the crime.<BR/><BR/>A more truly free market would do away with both, and there are reasonable disagreements about the precise process by which they should be dismantled...<BR/><BR/>...but since individual freedom is not exactly on the march domestically, this is hardly the fiscal conservative's most pressing priority. We should do everything we can to prevent further government encroachment, and only after that is it appropriate to work to undo the damage that has already been done.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9149193.post-52232541818391324482009-03-16T18:47:00.000-05:002009-03-16T18:47:00.000-05:00Bubba.You misrepresented what I think in the first...Bubba.<BR/><BR/>You misrepresented what I think in the first half of your second graf, the second ha;f of your third graf, and the first half of of your fourth graf, and in your fifth graf, "convenience" has nothing to do with it.<BR/><BR/>The rest, I'll cop to.<BR/><BR/>Not that your opinion counts for much with me, considering the misrepresentations buried therein.Erudite Redneckhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04830721195868387265noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9149193.post-7258816213923743472009-03-16T17:39:00.000-05:002009-03-16T17:39:00.000-05:00Stopped reading at "faith."Not the subject here, P...Stopped reading at "faith."<BR/><BR/>Not the subject here, Pharisee. When I'm in the mood to hear echoes from a whited sepulcher, I'll come back and give it a looksee.Erudite Redneckhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04830721195868387265noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9149193.post-2260406295297517362009-03-16T17:37:00.000-05:002009-03-16T17:37:00.000-05:00Bubba,You realize of course that in a market that ...Bubba,<BR/><BR/>You realize of course that in a market that was genuinely free of regulation, you would not have corporations. The only permissible business combinations would be simple partnerships in which the investors who stood to enjoy the profits of a venture would also be on the hook for any potential losses. Corporations are artificial persons created by law—i.e., government regulations—that permit investors to enjoy the profits of a business while limiting any losses to the amount of their investment. This government regulation shifts the risk of losses exceeding the initial capitalization onto third parties or society as a whole.<BR/><BR/>This is what Alan Greenspan missed. He thought that financial institutions acting in their own self-interest would avoid overly risky extensions of credit. Unfortunately for that theory, institutions don’t make risk-reward decisions, individuals do. The various actors who sold the MBS’s and the CDO’s as well as the executives who oversaw them acted in their self-interest because their compensation was tied primarily to the commissions and fees they generated over the short term rather than the long-term viability of the companies they worked for. Although they were exposed to decline in the stock, that risk was the same whether it was only their own company that failed or they brought about a catastrophe that brought down other corporations or even the economies of whole countries. <BR/><BR/>Personally, I think corporations are in fact good things because they allow the pooling of capital in ways that leads to efficiencies that the market might never reach on its own. Nevertheless, they are in fact a form of government interference in the markets and they need to be regulated in order to avoid unintended consequences.Vinnyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08955726889682177434noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9149193.post-17007059940848018562009-03-16T17:27:00.000-05:002009-03-16T17:27:00.000-05:00Well, since we're being completely honest, ER, I t...Well, since we're being completely honest, ER, I think you're a hypocrite, particularly when it comes to defending the faith.<BR/><BR/>You apparently don't believe that God is capable of communicating through inerrant written Scripture, but you criticize those who do by saying that we're the ones who have put God in a box.<BR/><BR/>You have no problem routinely accusing us inerrantists of idolatry, but you get furious the moment any of us entertain the possibility that you're guilty of heresy.<BR/><BR/>You deny the trustworthiness of the Bible, the only credible record of what Jesus said and did, but that doesn't stop you from invoking Christ's name in denouncing those who disagree with you.<BR/><BR/>When it's convenient, what Christ taught is perfectly clear to you, and you defend your incoherent and ahistorical conceptions of Christ in the harshest possible tones. When that's not convenient, you act as if Christ's teachings are a vague and unknowable thing, and you're just as fierce in attacking those who believe that Christ's teachings are clear, when we don't agree with you on what they are.<BR/><BR/>I call you out on your inconsistent behavior, and you think I'm a jackass. I hope you'll forgive me for not taking that criticism to heart.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9149193.post-82447316824404498262009-03-16T16:20:00.000-05:002009-03-16T16:20:00.000-05:00Oh, shut up. I judged your critical thinking skill...Oh, shut up. I judged your critical thinking skills, which is an assessment of ability.<BR/><BR/>You judged my honesty, which is an assessment of ethics, or morals.<BR/><BR/>Here's an overt judgment: You might be a swell fella in the RW, but you have come across as a real jackass in every. single. encounter. I've ever had with you online. Every one.Erudite Redneckhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04830721195868387265noreply@blogger.com