In a mathematical sense, how is what has happened with the US banks any different than living under a monarchy where the king can take risks at the expense of the ruled? Isn't escape from this kind of tyranny the reason the first colonists left England?
I'm feeling very John Galt here. 10% of the country is getting unemployment. N% additionally is getting subsidized rent, subsidized farmland, subsidized food, subsidized corporations and banks.
I'm an Entrepreneur and I need every penny. Every penny I keep is reinvested into a business that creates value for the world. HFT doesn't create value for the world. Food Stamps. I don't get bailed out when the weather is bad and my garden dies. I don't have any debt. I don't have a car payment or a house payment.
I'm responsible -- and I'm starting to wonder, really, what's in it for me? We are in a drought and our city has banned outside water usage. We can't fill pools, wash cars, or even water our garden, yet, last night, I go for a walk with my wife and what do I see? Two little kids playing in a big pool of fresh clean city drinking water. People don't care enough.
How are we going to fix our society? It's broken fundamentally. It's like people have disconnected from their role in a larger group of people around them. We get food from a store sold by someone we only know by a plastic name tag. We don't grow anything. We don't know anyone except those who work in the next cube and our family and friends who we don't really depend on unless we are a struggling recent college grad who can't find a job and moves home and those stories are mostly not enjoyable tales told by the disgruntled.
The banks have caused immeasurable suffering to millions, tens, no HUNDREDS of millions of people, perhaps even BILLIONS of people -- and the only banking employee arrested or tried or even simply just stopped from doing what they did to cause that pain is a programmer who took some code from Goldman Sachs. Goldman Sachs itself was cleared of ANY wrong doing in this mess: http://www.keyc.tv/story/19239634/goldman-sachs-cleared-in-s...
We have to fix it. It has to be fixed. We can't keep going down this road, but I don't see anything really changing. Why isn't anything really changing? Why aren't we having serious existential conversations that really deeply change our society to one that will not collapse?
Do we really think telling the banks to do it will work? Do we really still trust them?
I'm really dismayed by all this.
I'm feeling very John Galt here. 10% of the country is getting unemployment. N% additionally is getting subsidized rent, subsidized farmland, subsidized food, subsidized corporations and banks.
I'm an Entrepreneur and I need every penny. Every penny I keep is reinvested into a business that creates value for the world. HFT doesn't create value for the world. Food Stamps. I don't get bailed out when the weather is bad and my garden dies. I don't have any debt. I don't have a car payment or a house payment.
I'm responsible -- and I'm starting to wonder, really, what's in it for me? We are in a drought and our city has banned outside water usage. We can't fill pools, wash cars, or even water our garden, yet, last night, I go for a walk with my wife and what do I see? Two little kids playing in a big pool of fresh clean city drinking water. People don't care enough.
How are we going to fix our society? It's broken fundamentally. It's like people have disconnected from their role in a larger group of people around them. We get food from a store sold by someone we only know by a plastic name tag. We don't grow anything. We don't know anyone except those who work in the next cube and our family and friends who we don't really depend on unless we are a struggling recent college grad who can't find a job and moves home and those stories are mostly not enjoyable tales told by the disgruntled.
The banks have caused immeasurable suffering to millions, tens, no HUNDREDS of millions of people, perhaps even BILLIONS of people -- and the only banking employee arrested or tried or even simply just stopped from doing what they did to cause that pain is a programmer who took some code from Goldman Sachs. Goldman Sachs itself was cleared of ANY wrong doing in this mess: http://www.keyc.tv/story/19239634/goldman-sachs-cleared-in-s...
We have to fix it. It has to be fixed. We can't keep going down this road, but I don't see anything really changing. Why isn't anything really changing? Why aren't we having serious existential conversations that really deeply change our society to one that will not collapse?
Do we really think telling the banks to do it will work? Do we really still trust them?
I'm really dismayed by all this.