Presidential Election

VasikkA · Post by **VasikkA** » Wed Oct 01, 2008 8:36 pm

All I'm saying there is good regulation and bad regulation and a lot of dubious regulation. A completely unregulated economy is not the most efficient choice of economy for the same reasons anarchy is not the most efficient form of government.

As for beneficial regulation, take insider trading regulations, for example. According to current regulations, corporate insiders are allowed to buy and sell shares, but only immediately after quarterly reports(when latest financial information is revealed to the public) and they must provide full disclosure of their trading to regulators. This information is publicly available to all investors in the market who then make their own conclusions about the insiders' actions. As you note, insider trading is still allowed under current regulation, but the information gap is reduced due to increased transparency. This drives the price of the share closer to what it should be under the assumption of perfect, free markets. Once could say that 'good' regulations help the market to imitate a perfect market by reducing existing market imperfections.

Without any regulation, corporate insiders could make huge profits anonymously on the stock market simply because they have access to superior information that with certainty would affect the stock price, once revealed.

As for bad regulation, there's more than enough examples. Generally speaking, everything that increases protectionism or reduces competition in the economy leads to a reduced efficiency of the market. However, this is a double-edged sword. Many of the financial crises in the late 80's and early 90's resulted from liberalization of financial markets, which led to unhealthy risk levels in the economy. This is why China is liberalizing its economy one step at a time. A sudden, complete deregulation would only result in a credit frenzy which inevitably ends in a credit bubble and, later, in a painful economic hangover.

Banking regulation is a much more complex issue. The need for regulation often springs from past crises. Currently, certain financial institutions have asset restrictions or outright prohibitions, such as the separation of investment banking and commercial banking in the US. However, financial institutions often develop workarounds for these restrictions. The regulatory system usually is one step behind latest financial innovations. One example is the current crisis and the role of mortgage-backed securities.

Ironically, US investment banks, which aren't allowed to operate in the mortgage market, still suffered(and continue to suffer) huge losses due to mortgage defaults. Investment banks could get hold of these assets(and the risks involved) by buying mortgage-backed securities, which aren't considered as mortgages per definition. It is possible that existing regulation encouraged investment banks to buy these non-transparent and poorly constructed securities as a substitute to mortgages. Thus restrictions on asset holdings are partly to blame for the current crisis.

Post by **Manoil** » Thu Oct 02, 2008 11:13 pm

Charming, as always.

Mechanurgist · Post by **Mechanurgist** » Thu Oct 09, 2008 3:44 am

Lesser evil --> Cthulhu

Also, Obama's not black. He's quarter-black, quarter-Arab, half-white, and all-marxist.

Kashluk · Post by **Kashluk** » Thu Oct 09, 2008 5:36 am

It's incredibly funny how Americans actually think they have left-wing and right-wing politics. It's like comparing fascism and national socialism, considering them to be the two extremes. "All-marxist", yeah right. In Europe we still have washed-out communist parties in power, not to mention that horrible bunch of social democrats.

rabidpeanut · Post by **rabidpeanut** » Thu Oct 09, 2008 9:08 am

Americans are dumb kashluk, how do you not get this?

Mechanurgist · Post by **Mechanurgist** » Fri Oct 10, 2008 12:13 am

It's the other way around; you Euros are mostly leftie, and have a truncated political spectrum that jumps from socialism to fascism (same thing) without liberty in between. Americans, on the other hand, are more right-wing but their right-wingery is about freedom, not blood nationalism like in Europe. It's more of a meritocracy, so it doesn't need racist blood-nationalism nor does it need a stifling welfare state. Americans are lucky they never had real communist parties (or real socialists) anywhere near power.

rabidpeanut · Post by **rabidpeanut** » Fri Oct 10, 2008 12:19 am

All politicians cause harm, capitalisms just causes less.

We are lukcy they killed chris hani here, else it might not have been the ANC running the place, but some stupid commie party like the PAC.

Funilly enough a polish guy killed him after living in communist poland.

Mechanurgist · Post by **Mechanurgist** » Fri Oct 10, 2008 12:43 am

rabidpeanut wrote:Funilly enough a polish guy killed him after living in communist poland.

Niiiiice.

Kashluk · Post by **Kashluk** » Fri Oct 10, 2008 7:36 am

I must disagree - the various political fields of European countries have much more variety than USA as a whole. It ranges from the market liberals of Great Britain and France to washed-out socialism of Belarussia and Ukraine. And in addition we have some "fascists" uproars in Austria and in the Balkans, for example. We have systems that are very close to the American way of life and then we have complete opposites. And all colors of the rainbow in between. You've got a -two-party-system- in action, for crying out loud. It's just logical, since you've got nearly the population of Europe in one federation while we got 27 independent countries in the EU that only bicker with eachother.

VasikkA · Post by **VasikkA** » Fri Oct 10, 2008 7:50 am

Mechanurgist wrote:It's the other way around; you Euros are mostly leftie, and have a truncated political spectrum that jumps from socialism to fascism (same thing) without liberty in between. Americans, on the other hand, are more right-wing but their right-wingery is about freedom, not blood nationalism like in Europe. It's more of a meritocracy, so it doesn't need racist blood-nationalism nor does it need a stifling welfare state. Americans are lucky they never had real communist parties (or real socialists) anywhere near power.

I see the propaganda machinery has done its job.

Kashluk · Post by **Kashluk** » Fri Oct 10, 2008 11:05 am

By the way: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27086714/ - your tax money's at work

Frater Perdurabo · Post by **Frater Perdurabo** » Sat Oct 11, 2008 1:05 am

Mechanurgist wrote:It's the other way around; you Euros are mostly leftie, and have a truncated political spectrum that jumps from socialism to fascism (same thing) without liberty in between. Americans, on the other hand, are more right-wing but their right-wingery is about freedom, not blood nationalism like in Europe. It's more of a meritocracy, so it doesn't need racist blood-nationalism nor does it need a stifling welfare state. Americans are lucky they never had real communist parties (or real socialists) anywhere near power.

Why bother posting if you don't actually have a clue?

Blargh · Post by **Blargh** » Sat Oct 11, 2008 2:51 pm

If all participants subscribed to such a practice, Internets would be an ocean of significantly less unintelligent silence.

She defies your postulation by existence.

Mismatch · Post by **Mismatch** » Mon Oct 27, 2008 2:17 pm

this may just be of interest: http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=f67_1222761495

Kashluk · Post by **Kashluk** » Mon Oct 27, 2008 5:11 pm

Interesting stuff, it just annoys me how the stuff is displayed:

I HAVE
A PROPAGANDA...
TO
TELL YOU
DEMO666CRATS
R T3H EEVIL
Theneverythingthatissupposedtobackupthoseclaimsisshowninaratherquicklyblastingfivesecondclipswhereitmakesbothyoureyesandyourbrainhurtwhenyoutrytoconcentrateontothenumbersandthestatisticsbutofcoursethisisjustamethodtocoverupthefactthatmostofthefactsaretwistedandshowninpoorlight, but anyhoo back to
THEY ARE
OBAMA CAN
SUCK MY
COCK AND STUFF...
YOU KNOW
WHO
CAUSED THE
ECONOMIC
CRISIS?
YEAH
NEITHER DO
WE

DUm-dum-DUm-!!

And then there's some wanker rock playing nonstop in the background, uch. Is this so called "ADHD editing"?

Mismatch · Post by **Mismatch** » Mon Oct 27, 2008 5:23 pm

point taken, but if I had posted <a href="http://georgereisman.com/blog/2008/10/m ... l">this</a>, noone would have read it. Regardless of popular opinion, ADHD may just be a fitting description even on the DAC crowd these days.

VasikkA · Post by **VasikkA** » Mon Oct 27, 2008 5:43 pm

How :tinfoilhat:

Kashluk · Post by **Kashluk** » Mon Oct 27, 2008 6:47 pm

The blog Mismatch posted wrote:Anti-Obamanomics: Why Everyone Should Be in Favor of Tax Cuts for the â€œRichâ€�

Redeye · Post by **Redeye** » Mon Oct 27, 2008 9:29 pm

My Technocrat Survivalist platform:

Vault Network.

Go ahead and run up the bills; vaults will be prohibited from storing credit data.

Then the Deluge.

Seriously:

Left implies that you trust lots of other people. The US just cannot psychologically go very far in that direction.

Right implies that you trust a few people a lot. Not gonna go very far there either.

Of course we're starting off a little to the right, but that's a historical/cultural thing. Frontier, bears and wolves in the night, Manifest destiny, City On The Hill, blah blah blah.

PiP · Post by **PiP** » Sun Nov 02, 2008 6:32 pm

have you guys seen this version of wassup?
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=ndzWVnD7-vQ
was it on TV in America?

Duck and Cover

Presidential Election

Cast your vote!