7 ms·

I work at a large bank in the US. We build websites. Internal websites. The company employs maybe 300k people in the US alone. None of the websites gets more th

I work at a large bank in the US. We build websites. Internal websites. The company employs maybe 300k people in the US alone. None of the websites gets more than 10 hits a day! There are 5 websites. And we have 40-50 people to support just that! If all these websites disappeared overnight there would be no difference to the bank. And to the society. The best part: the bank has been rescued by tax payer money. If it went bankrupt -- as it should have -- I would be working productively somewhere else. Unless "somewhere" else is also supported by the tax payer money and artificially cheap credit, FED rates at 0% full economic cycle now. The solution is more capitalism, not socialism. I.e. let them go bankrupt! This is what capitalism is all about. You take risks. You win, big payout! You loose, you go bankrupt! This is capitalism, not tax funded corporations. That's socialism for the rich. But don't call that capitalism, please! Interest rates at 0% for 7 years?! Set by whom? Capitalist free markets? Or socialist bureaucrats who know it all better?! Who sets the rates? Mr. Market or Ms. Yellen? Get rid of the FED too. You will see jobs like mine disappearing. And forcing me to do something more productive than slacking off for $120k / year curtesy of the tax payer. Capitalism in crisis is all about reallocating work force from unproductive work at looser companies to do something great at productive companies! That's what bankruptcies are all about. Yes, my bank should be history long time ago. Its assets should be taken over by a bank that didn't make the stupid mistakes. And smart people who avoided those mistakes. This is what the bankruptcy process is about. Then this new CEO that weathered 2008 crisis making his small bank winning party here and taking over assets of bankrupted banks -- would see that nonsense and fire half of the staff. So they can go do something productive! This is how it works in true capitalism. We don't have it though because we believe in socialism. So yep, pay for your zombie bank (and my salary!) because the people who you voted into the office, didn't let the markets work!

dognotdog 12y ago
Don't take it out on socialism! Under those principles, the banks either would not have existed in this form in the first place, or been allowed to go bankrupt just as you suggest. What happened with the bank bailout was pure capitalism, the banks simply bought the government!
- byEngineer 12y ago
  Tea Party members voted against bank bailouts. Not democrats, not old-republicans. My point is, yes, you can buy democrats and some republicans to vote in favor of more government spending. But you apparently can't buy them all to do it. During cold war you could try to buy Moscow communists as much as you wanted so they allowed you open bank branch in USSR, but this would never happen. You can try buy guys like Ron Paul all day long in attempt to get bailout, but you won't get it. The problem is with the voter. If the feeling at the Capitol was that there will be severe punishment for the bailouts, our beloved Senators and Representatives would be too worried to loose their office to vote for that nonsense. Mind you they can sell their services to other industries too and make money in the process without the risk of loosing office (aka "everything"). The voter allowed them to do that. Because voter doesn't understand that bankruptcy and crisis are important parts of economic cycle. And are needed! To remove excesses from the system. To relieve workers from BS jobs too! So you can start over after 1-2 years in healthy economy without zombie banks. We didn't allow capitalism to work. Blaming capitalism for that doesn't add up. BTW, I respect socialism and socialist movement. I'm liberal on social issues as liberal you can get. But for the economic issues Right just gets it.
  - dognotdog 12y ago
    How can the voters exert punishment when who's even running for office is determined by the amount of money available for campaigning? Even disregarding direct corporate sponsorship, the rich who mostly contribute are still affiliated with the industry & finance sector. Average Joe can vote for puppet A or puppet B. People like Ron Paul, with firm principles, and the means to finance themselves despite sizable opposition, are the rare exception. Add to that the fact that no ordinary citizen directly voted for the bailouts, how can you blame this on the voter? The problem is not the voter, but the system.
    - waterlesscloud 12y ago
      There's nothing stopping you the voter from voting for anyone running, even the person with no monetary support. The fact that you vote for one of the people with the most ads is your failing, not the system's.
jessaustin 12y ago
This is capitalism, not tax funded corporations. I feel your pain, but we've got to let go of this word. "Capitalism" has meant exactly "tax-funded corporations", and all the other bullshit that you and I don't like, for such a long time, that this is the accepted meaning now. I don't think the phrase "free market" has been spoiled yet, but if we have to have an -ism then we need to come up with a new one. Avoid the adjective "true", because that just opens one to Scotsman accusations.
- zo1 12y ago
  No, don't, please. Do Not let go of a word and its definition. It has a definition, and you must stick with it and not give them an inch of ground. It's a losing battle, where constant re-definition means that eventually anything applies under the term. Giving them ground is precisely why you, and others think that we've lost the term "capitalism". For so long, we let individuals use it in bastardized terms to refer to grey-area capitalism, and allowed its use to be in the form of a pejorative.
  - dragonwriter 12y ago
    The term "capitalism" was coined by socialists in the context of criticism of the dominant 19th century system of the developed world, which had all the features of cronyism, etc., that you are trying to exclude here. The idea that capitalism was ever anything else was an attempt by defenders of that system to whitewash it, distract from the cronyism inherent in it, and discredit critics. But its part of what "capitalism" has meant from day one -- and part of what every actual capitalist system in practice has featured prominently.
  - wcummings 12y ago
    Language is an extension of war without violence
maxxxxx 12y ago
I don't think it's fair to call bank bailouts socialism. Maybe call "socialism for the rich/well connected".
azernik 12y ago
Yup. Because large bureaucracies do stupid things, whether they report to the government or to their shareholders.

dognotdog 12y ago

Don't take it out on socialism! Under those principles, the banks either would not have existed in this form in the first place, or been allowed to go bankrupt just as you suggest. What happened with the bank bailout was pure capitalism, the banks simply bought the government!

byEngineer 12y ago
Tea Party members voted against bank bailouts. Not democrats, not old-republicans. My point is, yes, you can buy democrats and some republicans to vote in favor of more government spending. But you apparently can't buy them all to do it. During cold war you could try to buy Moscow communists as much as you wanted so they allowed you open bank branch in USSR, but this would never happen. You can try buy guys like Ron Paul all day long in attempt to get bailout, but you won't get it. The problem is with the voter. If the feeling at the Capitol was that there will be severe punishment for the bailouts, our beloved Senators and Representatives would be too worried to loose their office to vote for that nonsense. Mind you they can sell their services to other industries too and make money in the process without the risk of loosing office (aka "everything"). The voter allowed them to do that. Because voter doesn't understand that bankruptcy and crisis are important parts of economic cycle. And are needed! To remove excesses from the system. To relieve workers from BS jobs too! So you can start over after 1-2 years in healthy economy without zombie banks. We didn't allow capitalism to work. Blaming capitalism for that doesn't add up. BTW, I respect socialism and socialist movement. I'm liberal on social issues as liberal you can get. But for the economic issues Right just gets it.
- dognotdog 12y ago
  How can the voters exert punishment when who's even running for office is determined by the amount of money available for campaigning? Even disregarding direct corporate sponsorship, the rich who mostly contribute are still affiliated with the industry & finance sector. Average Joe can vote for puppet A or puppet B. People like Ron Paul, with firm principles, and the means to finance themselves despite sizable opposition, are the rare exception. Add to that the fact that no ordinary citizen directly voted for the bailouts, how can you blame this on the voter? The problem is not the voter, but the system.
  - waterlesscloud 12y ago
    There's nothing stopping you the voter from voting for anyone running, even the person with no monetary support. The fact that you vote for one of the people with the most ads is your failing, not the system's.

jessaustin 12y ago

This is capitalism, not tax funded corporations. I feel your pain, but we've got to let go of this word. "Capitalism" has meant exactly "tax-funded corporations", and all the other bullshit that you and I don't like, for such a long time, that this is the accepted meaning now. I don't think the phrase "free market" has been spoiled yet, but if we have to have an -ism then we need to come up with a new one. Avoid the adjective "true", because that just opens one to Scotsman accusations.

zo1 12y ago
No, don't, please. Do Not let go of a word and its definition. It has a definition, and you must stick with it and not give them an inch of ground. It's a losing battle, where constant re-definition means that eventually anything applies under the term. Giving them ground is precisely why you, and others think that we've lost the term "capitalism". For so long, we let individuals use it in bastardized terms to refer to grey-area capitalism, and allowed its use to be in the form of a pejorative.
- dragonwriter 12y ago
  The term "capitalism" was coined by socialists in the context of criticism of the dominant 19th century system of the developed world, which had all the features of cronyism, etc., that you are trying to exclude here. The idea that capitalism was ever anything else was an attempt by defenders of that system to whitewash it, distract from the cronyism inherent in it, and discredit critics. But its part of what "capitalism" has meant from day one -- and part of what every actual capitalist system in practice has featured prominently.
- wcummings 12y ago
  Language is an extension of war without violence

maxxxxx 12y ago

I don't think it's fair to call bank bailouts socialism. Maybe call "socialism for the rich/well connected".

azernik 12y ago

Yup. Because large bureaucracies do stupid things, whether they report to the government or to their shareholders.