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You know between this and the link posted the other day (http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/28816321/the_great_american_bubble_machine/print http://www.

by jeromec 17y ago

You know between this and the link posted the other day (http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/28816321/the_great_american_bubble_machine/print http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/28816321/the_grea...) about Goldman Sachs I start to wonder if we that strive to create wealth with technology, with odds of failure stacked squarely against us, are really the smart ones. Sheesh. Too bad I have morals.

Herring 17y ago
It helps to think of it as a game. The money's just for keeping score.
- fnid 17y ago
  The problem with this line of thinking is that games have rules. If people at the top, the bankers, the politicians, et al break the rules, the govt bails them out. If we break the rules, we go to jail. It's like getting points by entering a cheat code.
  - pyre 17y ago
    To use the game analogy, there are always those willing to cheat to get ahead. Those that view the rules as just another obstacle, and if you can get around them you deserve the advantage that you get.
- aaronblohowiak 17y ago
  You have an odd notion of help.
aswanson 17y ago
I've gone through that line of thought more than once and I've come to the conclusion that what we do or attempt to do is far more beneficial to human advancement than these bullshit 3 card monty games. That has to count for something, at least in terms of self-respect.
- pyre 17y ago
  It's sort of sad that the original intent of all of this stuff was to help make it easier to finance businesses. But people just found ways to make the buying and selling of these (shares,bonds,etc) as a product unto itself. The people that sit atop Wall Street are several layers abstracted from the actual generation of usefulness.
- drunkpotato 17y ago
  This is very true on the technical end of things. Where we (and by we, I mean the human race) are lacking is on the political end. I have come to the sad conclusion that there are not enough hackers in the political system. By a political hacker I mean people who are willing to experiment, to tinker, to say "I don't know if this will work, but let's try to find out", people who are empirically-minded and data- rather than poll-driven. I don't know how to solve this problem, either, as those of us of this mind-set tend to be more technically oriented than politically oriented.
rdtsc 17y ago
What is sad is that there is not much we can do. As voters we push a lever every 2 years as part of a very commercialized and marketed campaigns. After that our participation ends except for the "little" paying of taxes part. The people we vote for are loyal to the companies and political interests that actually promote them into power. Then there is the revolving door between government agencies and the banks and other big companies. All the SEC big wigs are the same big wigs that were running the major banks and investment companies. And the same goes for FDA, Department of Agriculture and any other government agencies. They might as well just merge the two -- if a company becomes "too big to fail", it should just become a part of the government because in effect that what is happening. So if our goal is "to create wealth", technology is not the way to go. Create a bank and become "too big too fail" -- then we'll get 0% loans and we can boast about great profits that "exceed analysts expectations" every quarter.
- pyre 17y ago
  > The people we vote for are loyal to the companies and political interests that actually promote them into power. As jaded towards the political process as I am, this is not always the case. Sometimes these people actually believe in what they are doing. They are just financed by the industries that their actions are supporting because the industry wants to support someone that is supporting them. That said, there's no real way to tell the percentage of these people vs. the people who sell their morals/principles to the highest bidder.
ynniv 17y ago
> I start to wonder if we ... are really the smart ones. You could join in their game by building companies on VC and flipping them. I hear thats popular with the kids. > Too bad I have morals. With morals you will never be truly rich.
JustRick 17y ago
When I hear this sentiment, about this particular topic, or many others, I'm always reminded of Aikido http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aikido http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aikido "Aikido is performed by blending with the motion of the attacker and redirecting the force of the attack rather than opposing it head-on" Rather than lamenting Wall Street's unproductive money games and doing nothing about it, we could embrace the fact that these tools exist in the current economic climate and we could use these tools to generate the capital we need to further the goals of more productive pursuits. Maybe VCs like Fred Wilson who have both financial leverage and disdain for shenanigans (technical term) could use capital generated by playing Wall Str's funds shuffling game to build meaningful companies who create things and create a more sustainable and entrepreneurial base on which to build an economy. Use this tool against itself. No? Naive?

by jeromec 17y ago

Herring 17y ago

It helps to think of it as a game. The money's just for keeping score.

fnid 17y ago
The problem with this line of thinking is that games have rules. If people at the top, the bankers, the politicians, et al break the rules, the govt bails them out. If we break the rules, we go to jail. It's like getting points by entering a cheat code.
- pyre 17y ago
  To use the game analogy, there are always those willing to cheat to get ahead. Those that view the rules as just another obstacle, and if you can get around them you deserve the advantage that you get.
aaronblohowiak 17y ago
You have an odd notion of help.

aswanson 17y ago

I've gone through that line of thought more than once and I've come to the conclusion that what we do or attempt to do is far more beneficial to human advancement than these bullshit 3 card monty games. That has to count for something, at least in terms of self-respect.

pyre 17y ago
It's sort of sad that the original intent of all of this stuff was to help make it easier to finance businesses. But people just found ways to make the buying and selling of these (shares,bonds,etc) as a product unto itself. The people that sit atop Wall Street are several layers abstracted from the actual generation of usefulness.
drunkpotato 17y ago
This is very true on the technical end of things. Where we (and by we, I mean the human race) are lacking is on the political end. I have come to the sad conclusion that there are not enough hackers in the political system. By a political hacker I mean people who are willing to experiment, to tinker, to say "I don't know if this will work, but let's try to find out", people who are empirically-minded and data- rather than poll-driven. I don't know how to solve this problem, either, as those of us of this mind-set tend to be more technically oriented than politically oriented.

rdtsc 17y ago

What is sad is that there is not much we can do. As voters we push a lever every 2 years as part of a very commercialized and marketed campaigns. After that our participation ends except for the "little" paying of taxes part. The people we vote for are loyal to the companies and political interests that actually promote them into power. Then there is the revolving door between government agencies and the banks and other big companies. All the SEC big wigs are the same big wigs that were running the major banks and investment companies. And the same goes for FDA, Department of Agriculture and any other government agencies. They might as well just merge the two -- if a company becomes "too big to fail", it should just become a part of the government because in effect that what is happening. So if our goal is "to create wealth", technology is not the way to go. Create a bank and become "too big too fail" -- then we'll get 0% loans and we can boast about great profits that "exceed analysts expectations" every quarter.

pyre 17y ago
> The people we vote for are loyal to the companies and political interests that actually promote them into power. As jaded towards the political process as I am, this is not always the case. Sometimes these people actually believe in what they are doing. They are just financed by the industries that their actions are supporting because the industry wants to support someone that is supporting them. That said, there's no real way to tell the percentage of these people vs. the people who sell their morals/principles to the highest bidder.

ynniv 17y ago

> I start to wonder if we ... are really the smart ones. You could join in their game by building companies on VC and flipping them. I hear thats popular with the kids. > Too bad I have morals. With morals you will never be truly rich.

JustRick 17y ago

When I hear this sentiment, about this particular topic, or many others, I'm always reminded of Aikido http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aikido http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aikido "Aikido is performed by blending with the motion of the attacker and redirecting the force of the attack rather than opposing it head-on" Rather than lamenting Wall Street's unproductive money games and doing nothing about it, we could embrace the fact that these tools exist in the current economic climate and we could use these tools to generate the capital we need to further the goals of more productive pursuits. Maybe VCs like Fred Wilson who have both financial leverage and disdain for shenanigans (technical term) could use capital generated by playing Wall Str's funds shuffling game to build meaningful companies who create things and create a more sustainable and entrepreneurial base on which to build an economy. Use this tool against itself. No? Naive?