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"Finance is the most regulated sector; hence "too big to fail" and all the exploits pulled by big banks." The problem with finance is that we didn't have the r

"Finance is the most regulated sector; hence "too big to fail" and all the exploits pulled by big banks." The problem with finance is that we didn't have the right regulations in place because big banks lobbied to get them taken off the books. Canada's financial industry is heavily regulated and they haven't had a banking crisis in 150 years. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a21n_VzHI_o http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a21n_VzHI_o "American Progressive movement occurred in parallel, but to a must greater extent, in Weimar Germany. American Neo-conservativism is Progressivism in a right-wing flavor. The modern USA is Weimar Germany all over again." This just reeks of ignorance. Progressivism and fascism are on the opposite sides of the political spectrum. In fact, fascists tried to overthrow widely celebrated progressive Franklin Roosevelt. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Plot http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Plot Just because progressives think that we shouldn't have laissez-faire capitalism, doesn't mean they support a surveillance state.

javert 13y ago
> The problem with finance is that we didn't have the right regulations in place because big banks lobbied to get them taken off the books But they have lobbied to keep all kinds of regulations that they benefit from. A half-regulated industry is likely to be worse than either a fully public or fully private one (especially if we take American insurance/healthcare as an example). A good example is Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac, which were implicitly guaranteeing financially irresponsible mortgages, and various home ownership encouragement policies pushed by the US federal government for decades. > Progressivism and fascism are on the opposite sides of the political spectrum They're both fundamentally moved by the idea that we need big government to get to some kind of "better" society, which is anathema to freedom and individual rights. They just disagree about the specifics of that "better" society. Technically, you're right to call me out, because I shouldn't call the entire thing "Progressive," as that's just a a part of it. The whole intellectual trend actually comes from the anti-Englightenment German philosophers who taught that individuals are unimportant, and only society and duty matter.

javert 13y ago

> The problem with finance is that we didn't have the right regulations in place because big banks lobbied to get them taken off the books But they have lobbied to keep all kinds of regulations that they benefit from. A half-regulated industry is likely to be worse than either a fully public or fully private one (especially if we take American insurance/healthcare as an example). A good example is Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac, which were implicitly guaranteeing financially irresponsible mortgages, and various home ownership encouragement policies pushed by the US federal government for decades. > Progressivism and fascism are on the opposite sides of the political spectrum They're both fundamentally moved by the idea that we need big government to get to some kind of "better" society, which is anathema to freedom and individual rights. They just disagree about the specifics of that "better" society. Technically, you're right to call me out, because I shouldn't call the entire thing "Progressive," as that's just a a part of it. The whole intellectual trend actually comes from the anti-Englightenment German philosophers who taught that individuals are unimportant, and only society and duty matter.