7 ms·

Otherwise known as "banks lend money to people". Pantomime villains sell newspapers, 2008 and all that. Much like technology that can be used for good and bad,

by sambe 10y ago

Otherwise known as "banks lend money to people". Pantomime villains sell newspapers, 2008 and all that. Much like technology that can be used for good and bad, I prefer to live in a world where services are available to all without discrimination – knowing that some people will do things I disagree with using those services – than a world where some random person's morals are used to restrict those services to certain groups. I find it pretty weird to see people gleeful that a far right party cannot get campaign funding, but those same people baulk at any criticism of democracy. The bank probably doesn't care about the party politics, but it does care about it's reputation. Trying to call the banks out for who they lend money to is probably effective but – IMO – chilling.

jadslkfjdslk 10y ago
I definitely agree that there should be as little discrimination as possible, but I don't think it has to be an anything goes mentality. I don't subscribe to"if it's legal, a company should do it." There are a lot of things a company can do within the bounds of the law that people find morally reprehensible. In the article, the NYT is making an argument to say that this business behavior is morally reprehensible. Not that it should be illegal or not allowed. It's up to the individuals reading the articles to take any action, if they feel it's necessary. For instance, not using that company for their services.
tacostakohashi 10y ago
The banks are an attractive target because they are large household names with high profile offices in the cities. So much more convenient for protesting than actually going to Borneo to hit the real perpetrators. The logical conclusion to this kind of targeting of banks that have a huge number of uncontroversial clients, and a handful of controversial (but legal) clients is that they will start turning away the business to protect their reputation, and someone else will set up a bank that specializes in shady clients, has an obscure and often changing name, anonymous offices, and generally doesn't care about its reputation. Would that be better? Obviously not, but it's effectively what activists are ask for.
- codecamper 10y ago
  Money is the enabler & is within the control of our own government. With money comes responsibility. The US should provide a good guiding example. But ultimately it is the responsibility of governments to control these corporations that'll compete at every level.
- anigbrowl 10y ago
  It's far from 'obvious' that it's not better, since shady banks are more easily targeted by national governments and raise the cost of capital for unscrupulous entrepreneurs, making such enterprises riskier and less profitable. At least, that's how capitalism is supposed to work. Nice it's not practical for everyone to travel to a region to protest environmental degradation that indirectly affects many more people, perhaps you could could turn your abilities to coming up with a more effective scheme of action.
codecamper 10y ago
The role of government should be a counterbalance to capitalism. Capitalism allows people to self motivate to get everything done. It does not really need any helping. Human aspirations is enough. Governments must protect the future resources our planet has. And do so in an even way which makes the playing field fair for companies. It's an almost impossible task & I can start to understand why we don't detect any intelligent life anywhere in the universe. Life anywhere is probably similar to ours: took millions of years to develop, collected lots of stored energy underground, and all the organisms are naturally competitive making it impossible for modern life on the planet to co-exist.
- calibraxis 10y ago
  Fortunately, capitalism is a fairly young system & requires a government to provide violence (police & military) to preserve it. Capitalists often ask government to step in and make capitalism viable long-term. That is, keep capitalists from destroying each other. And to keep the populace from trying alternatives. ("Revolution.") Slavery was more stable: lasted millenia. We're in turbulent times, particularly since we're probably ending neoliberal capitalism: an unstable form of capitalism whose one advantage is to damage the imagination enough to stop seeing alternatives except a single bad one.
  - r00fus 10y ago
    I would be surprised if the death knell for neoliberal capitalism is really sounding. And what, pray tell, is the replacement? Fascism? Plutocracy? Probably not Socialism or Communism...
    - danharaj 10y ago
      Even the IMF's economists are starting to question neoliberalism's limitations: https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/2016/06/pdf/ostry.pdf https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/2016/06/pdf/ostry... Lenin (for all his faults) said that fascism is capitalism in decay, and far-right governments are gaining power all over the world, so...
  - 10y ago
pg314 10y ago
I don't think this has anything to do with morality. Problems arise when negative externalities [1] are not accounted for. Sure, companies (and their banks) can make a fortune by burning rainforests for palm oil, but that leaves the costs (loss of habitat, CO2 release) to be borne by the rest of the world. Ideally, regulation puts those costs back to the companies causing them. If that doesn't happen, I have no problem with exposing and targeting the banks financing them. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externality
- oli5679 10y ago
  Yes, but it's an interesting question as to how externalities should be evaluated and corrected for. Should it be legislated by the Indonesian government, or enforced by public pressure on the companies/their lenders and suppliers? I can imagine both good and bad outcomes occurring from a social welfare perspective in the latter case?
guelo 10y ago
The things about banks is that they can be used by the west as a chokepoint for undesirable commerce in developing countries. If the West were to say that banks can not lend money to companies engaged in forest destruction and illegal burning it could have an effect.
kafkaesq 10y ago
Otherwise known as "banks lend money to people". Actually the point of the article is that banks lend money to corporations, some of which go and do awful things. Not that they simply lend money to "people". Much like technology that can be used for good and bad, I prefer to live in a world where services are available to all without discrimination – knowing that some people will do things I disagree with using those services – than a world where some random person's morals are used to restrict those services to certain groups. Well, that's fine for an ethos when applied to individuals... but its applicability to corporations is an entirely different matter, altogether. If a corporation is caught doing something that either domestic or international legal structures -- not simply "some person's random morals" -- have determined to cause great harm to humanity (including, just as an example, blatant, open-air gang-rape of natural resources, as appears to be happening in certain parts of Indonesia) -- then no, they aren't entitled to "equal access" to resources and services. They're going to be prohibited from doing those things, using all legal means available -- including, one find day, let us hope, severe restrictions on access to financial resources; and if necessary, criminal prosecution of the corporation's registered officers. Successfully implemented, the proper term for such measures it not "discrimination". It's called rule of law. Whether or not legal structures currently exist to prohibit the kind of abuses described in the article is a separate, technical matter. But address your comment directly: the idea that we should not attempt to control (via legislation or moral opprobrium) the lending behavior of banks with regard to corporations because that would be a form of "discrimination", or somehow an infliction of "someone's random morals" on their individual choices -- is fundamentally flawed.
anigbrowl 10y ago
It sounds like you're unfamiliar with the concept of negative externalities. You should probably read more history too.

by sambe 10y ago

jadslkfjdslk 10y ago

I definitely agree that there should be as little discrimination as possible, but I don't think it has to be an anything goes mentality. I don't subscribe to"if it's legal, a company should do it." There are a lot of things a company can do within the bounds of the law that people find morally reprehensible. In the article, the NYT is making an argument to say that this business behavior is morally reprehensible. Not that it should be illegal or not allowed. It's up to the individuals reading the articles to take any action, if they feel it's necessary. For instance, not using that company for their services.

tacostakohashi 10y ago

The banks are an attractive target because they are large household names with high profile offices in the cities. So much more convenient for protesting than actually going to Borneo to hit the real perpetrators. The logical conclusion to this kind of targeting of banks that have a huge number of uncontroversial clients, and a handful of controversial (but legal) clients is that they will start turning away the business to protect their reputation, and someone else will set up a bank that specializes in shady clients, has an obscure and often changing name, anonymous offices, and generally doesn't care about its reputation. Would that be better? Obviously not, but it's effectively what activists are ask for.

codecamper 10y ago
Money is the enabler & is within the control of our own government. With money comes responsibility. The US should provide a good guiding example. But ultimately it is the responsibility of governments to control these corporations that'll compete at every level.
anigbrowl 10y ago
It's far from 'obvious' that it's not better, since shady banks are more easily targeted by national governments and raise the cost of capital for unscrupulous entrepreneurs, making such enterprises riskier and less profitable. At least, that's how capitalism is supposed to work. Nice it's not practical for everyone to travel to a region to protest environmental degradation that indirectly affects many more people, perhaps you could could turn your abilities to coming up with a more effective scheme of action.

codecamper 10y ago

The role of government should be a counterbalance to capitalism. Capitalism allows people to self motivate to get everything done. It does not really need any helping. Human aspirations is enough. Governments must protect the future resources our planet has. And do so in an even way which makes the playing field fair for companies. It's an almost impossible task & I can start to understand why we don't detect any intelligent life anywhere in the universe. Life anywhere is probably similar to ours: took millions of years to develop, collected lots of stored energy underground, and all the organisms are naturally competitive making it impossible for modern life on the planet to co-exist.

calibraxis 10y ago
Fortunately, capitalism is a fairly young system & requires a government to provide violence (police & military) to preserve it. Capitalists often ask government to step in and make capitalism viable long-term. That is, keep capitalists from destroying each other. And to keep the populace from trying alternatives. ("Revolution.") Slavery was more stable: lasted millenia. We're in turbulent times, particularly since we're probably ending neoliberal capitalism: an unstable form of capitalism whose one advantage is to damage the imagination enough to stop seeing alternatives except a single bad one.
- r00fus 10y ago
  I would be surprised if the death knell for neoliberal capitalism is really sounding. And what, pray tell, is the replacement? Fascism? Plutocracy? Probably not Socialism or Communism...
  - danharaj 10y ago
    Even the IMF's economists are starting to question neoliberalism's limitations: https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/2016/06/pdf/ostry.pdf https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/2016/06/pdf/ostry... Lenin (for all his faults) said that fascism is capitalism in decay, and far-right governments are gaining power all over the world, so...
- 10y ago

pg314 10y ago

I don't think this has anything to do with morality. Problems arise when negative externalities [1] are not accounted for. Sure, companies (and their banks) can make a fortune by burning rainforests for palm oil, but that leaves the costs (loss of habitat, CO2 release) to be borne by the rest of the world. Ideally, regulation puts those costs back to the companies causing them. If that doesn't happen, I have no problem with exposing and targeting the banks financing them. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externality

oli5679 10y ago
Yes, but it's an interesting question as to how externalities should be evaluated and corrected for. Should it be legislated by the Indonesian government, or enforced by public pressure on the companies/their lenders and suppliers? I can imagine both good and bad outcomes occurring from a social welfare perspective in the latter case?

guelo 10y ago

The things about banks is that they can be used by the west as a chokepoint for undesirable commerce in developing countries. If the West were to say that banks can not lend money to companies engaged in forest destruction and illegal burning it could have an effect.

kafkaesq 10y ago

Otherwise known as "banks lend money to people". Actually the point of the article is that banks lend money to corporations, some of which go and do awful things. Not that they simply lend money to "people". Much like technology that can be used for good and bad, I prefer to live in a world where services are available to all without discrimination – knowing that some people will do things I disagree with using those services – than a world where some random person's morals are used to restrict those services to certain groups. Well, that's fine for an ethos when applied to individuals... but its applicability to corporations is an entirely different matter, altogether. If a corporation is caught doing something that either domestic or international legal structures -- not simply "some person's random morals" -- have determined to cause great harm to humanity (including, just as an example, blatant, open-air gang-rape of natural resources, as appears to be happening in certain parts of Indonesia) -- then no, they aren't entitled to "equal access" to resources and services. They're going to be prohibited from doing those things, using all legal means available -- including, one find day, let us hope, severe restrictions on access to financial resources; and if necessary, criminal prosecution of the corporation's registered officers. Successfully implemented, the proper term for such measures it not "discrimination". It's called rule of law. Whether or not legal structures currently exist to prohibit the kind of abuses described in the article is a separate, technical matter. But address your comment directly: the idea that we should not attempt to control (via legislation or moral opprobrium) the lending behavior of banks with regard to corporations because that would be a form of "discrimination", or somehow an infliction of "someone's random morals" on their individual choices -- is fundamentally flawed.

anigbrowl 10y ago

It sounds like you're unfamiliar with the concept of negative externalities. You should probably read more history too.