Vancouver Canucks Messageboard

Fred your supporting documentaries may be worth watching, however, your assertion that Reagan & Thatcher were followers of Keynesian economics is wrong. Keynes advocated economic policy should be formulated based on consumer demand. Reaganomics was "supply side" based. Both Reagan & Thatcher sought to reduce/limit government spending, control the money supply, reduce income /capital gains taxes and reduce regulation of business. In Maggie's case she privatized government owned businesses and broke the crippling effect of unions in Britain.

The Mortgage fiasco with no money down and no payments was a Clinton era policy. It was pushed by the Democrats as a way to get minority votes. GW Bush in his first term tried to put the clamps on this but the Dems prevailed. Some mortgage lenders forgot/ignored basic credit principles ( debt servicing ability) and made loans based on the value of the property they were mortgaging and and false inflationary vales they were creating. Many of these mortgage brokers bundled these "investments" and resold them to other lenders. For a time everyone's balance sheet looked great until the mortgagees began to default. Soon the actual value of the property is less than the loan on the books. Major problem for bankers. Bankers are in the "money" business not the real estate business. When they cross over we are all in big trouble. I experienced this in 1982 when interest rates went to 20% and people whose mortgages were up for renewal found they could not service the mortgage. Huge problem until the feds who controlled interest rates had to step in and assist by effectively covering the differential for any mortgage over 12%. It was not a fun time to be in banking or renewing a mortgage.

Keynesian economics is wrong. you're right of course and I don't know why I wrote that, Keyens on the brain I'm afraid, coupled with a late night. And the every American should own a home was Clinton. The follow through though with the out of control financial sector was the problem. Not every one having a home...they could afford. Mortgages were handed out by lenders with no concern for the borrower. I think it's fair to say many had no idea what they were getting into. The bundling I think was rampant greed by the banks. It was at a time when derivatives were thought to be the be all and end all ( which in part was the problem Greece suffered ) unchecked greed. Greenspan has a lot to answer for despite warnings he thought he could walk on water. There's enough scandal for every one.

One of the things I look back on was Paul Martin when he was finance minister refused to allow banks to merge.

I love that Keynesian economics is a topic on a hockey message board. Its good news to me that people are paying attention. What's next, Austrian business cycle theory?

That said, I would rather be talking hockey

Rede wrote:I love that Keynesian economics is a topic on a hockey message board. Its good news to me that people are paying attention. What's next, Austrian business cycle theory?

That said, I would rather be talking hockey

Yeah I know it kind of starts off innocent enough and then wanders

Fred wrote:

Arachnid wrote:

Topper wrote:^ LOL

I agree, it's damn funny...only because the Euro economic crisis began with the fall of the sub prime mortgage crisis dominos in the good ol' U.S. of A holes...

Heck todays economic problems started way before the sub Prime Mortgage. It started with Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagans adherance to the like of Milton Friedman and 'Keynesian Economics'. Try watching a couple of very good documentaries, "Commanding Heights" "Money Makers" and maybe "The Warning" R + T removed all legal hurdles and encouraged a totally open market. The sub prime market was a child of that system. Alan Greenspan aided and abetted and was eventually forced when question that the system that was the brain child of R+T and Greenspan was flawed**


** Greensapn admits he was wrong

Congressman Henry Waxman "My question is simple. Were you wrong?"

Greenspan "Partially ... I made a mistake in presuming that the self-interest of organisations, specifically banks, is such that they were best capable of protecting shareholders and equity in the firms ... I discovered a flaw in the model that I perceived is the critical functioning structure that defines how the world works. I had been going for 40 years with considerable evidence that it was working exceptionally well. The overall view I take of regulation is, I took an oath of office when I became Federal Reserve chairman. I'm here to uphold the laws of the land passed by Congress, not my own predilections."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008 ... -greenspan

Greensapn was a dick that long after R + T started this road to doom followed through and drove the stake through the western worlds economic system.

The documentaries I recommended should be shown to every university economics major and any one that wants to review what the heck has happened to the Capatilist system those 3 high jacked the world

I believe both R + T were influenced early by Ayn Rand and her "free market" philosophy and this was w a y before sub prime mortages

True dat, Reaganomics were the start of corporate financial institutes undoing of America but it was the SPM crisis that really exposed this sham & scam. It is greed pure and simple. Same with the NHL/NHLPA. There is a lot of wealth for the bold & powerful to take.

We don't need socialism and distribution of wealth and we don't need a free market economy. We need to put a higher priority on values that make us happier and not wealthier.

Jeremy Rifkin wrote in his book Emphatic Civilization that societies ultimately see their own follies and adjust accordingly. I am sure we will do the same. It will take a great more world of hurt (economic collapse?!) but we will evolve to the next phase of governance and economic model (steady state?).

Rede wrote:I love that Keynesian economics is a topic on a hockey message board. Its good news to me that people are paying attention. What's next, Austrian business cycle theory?

That said, I would rather be talking hockey

So would I, but Bettman won't have any of that... He's all about economics, no love for the game.

We don't need socialism and distribution of wealth and we don't need a free market economy. We need to put a higher priority on values that make us happier and not wealthier.

True, how did the western world reach a state where money is the only yard stick. It seems that those with the most fundamentalist beliefs are the ones that go on to run for political office, run a corporation, preach at a church and every one else just stands back.

Fred wrote:

We don't need socialism and distribution of wealth and we don't need a free market economy. We need to put a higher priority on values that make us happier and not wealthier.

True, how did the western world reach a state where money is the only yard stick. It seems that those with the most fundamentalist beliefs are the ones that go on to run for political office, run a corporation, preach at a church and every one else just stands back.

I don't get it, you just finished pointing out what happens when bankers were given a free reign, (unfettered market) and said Greenspan was wrong, and clearly Reagan's trickle down crap was wrong as well...and thatcher? Well she is the most vilified politician in the UK (after Tony Blair in some circles)

Sociaism has been saying the same thing for a long time, yet you would deny it its place in society.
perhaps you misunderstand just what the word socialism means...
It wouldn't be a shock, fifty years of Cold War language has skewed things somewhat...

Come on that's like saying all socialists are ass holes. Not all bankers are bad, in fact my own financial advisor and my bankers are quite nice and yes do have a conscience, and help me a lot. Thatcher and Reagans politics were excessive, just like for instance some religious people can be excessive, or the NRA. There's good and bad. Big problem today is extremism IMO, little middle ground apparently people are left or right of centre as though it was a cult. Why can't we have more people reasonable and in the centre.

I don't have a problem ...as i explained before with some left wing views, I just think unioism is bad and the left politicians have sold their soul to unions, makes it very difficult to support or vote for them...although at times I have. I've also voted Conservative ....no big deal. I'm worried about Harper but for the most part like Jim Flaherty. I'm scared of Thomas Mulcair. I detest the guy that runs the National Union "Ken" Georgetti he makes Stalin look like Thatcher

Fred wrote:Come on that's like saying all socialists are ass holes. Not all bankers are bad, in fact my own financial advisor and my bankers are quite nice and yes do have a conscience, and help me a lot. Thatcher and Reagans politics were excessive, just like for instance some religious people can be excessive, or the NRA. There's good and bad. Big problem today is extremism IMO, little middle ground apparently people are left or right of centre as though it was a cult. Why can't we have more people reasonable and in the centre.

I don't have a problem ...as i explained before with some left wing views, I just think unioism is bad and the left politicians have sold their soul to unions, makes it very difficult to support or vote for them...although at times I have. I've also voted Conservative ....no big deal. I'm worried about Harper but for the most part like Jim Flaherty. I'm scared of Thomas Mulcair. I detest the guy that runs the National Union "Ken" Georgetti he makes Stalin look like Thatcher

What I'm saying, though not very loudly, (mostly because nothing is black and white) is that socialism is the middle ground.
At least between hard core communism and centralization and free reign capitalism.

It would seem to me that the proof in this last global recession is that without a counterbalance, economies veer out of control. you mention Keynes but not his famous compromise. In education and healthcare there is no profit so government has to step in and provide that service and the cost of that has to come from the right. Big business has to pay because the middle class can't and the poor certaintly can't. However its proved over and over that corporations outsource, cut corners, drive down wages and skip out on taxes where ever possible.

Unions are part of the process that protect jobs, protect wages and force higher safety and health standards and without them (unions included) all of those things would not have developed in the first place and would quickly disappear.

How all this is relevant to the lockout and the PA is that without players collectively bargaining and keeping the owners honest things would have already looked a lot like the WWE, where only the top draw players would make serious money and the rank and file would be paid like CFlers. The PA's greed, in other words, counterbalances the owners and keeps the money spread around better for everyone.

When you say socialism is the middle ground you lost credibility over and out

Socialism, Capitalism, Communism.... it doesn't matter which "ism" is operating, the people at the top will be greedy and the system will eventually collapse.

ukcanuck wrote: Unions are part of the process that protect jobs, protect wages and force higher safety and health standards and without them (unions included) all of those things would not have developed in the first place and would quickly disappear.

How all this is relevant to the lockout and the PA is that without players collectively bargaining and keeping the owners honest things would have already looked a lot like the WWE, where only the top draw players would make serious money and the rank and file would be paid like CFlers.

Oh so thanks to unions we have more one-percenters?

Fred wrote:When you say socialism is the middle ground you lost credibility over and out

Oh come on now, my credibility was shot to shit as soon as I took a side in this mess anyway...just ask Herb.
But no seriously, maybe we ought to take a second look and rehab the word because on the surface its what we all talk about wanting. Equal and free access to all of the social safety net. Equal access to markets for everyone and a for lack of a better word, a carburetor on free enterprise.

I'd hasten to add that controls can't be arbitrarily applied by either side of the equation ...

Factory owners in one side and factory workers on the other to borrow a hackneyed expression from the Marxists...

But continuing in the vein that spiderachnid loves so much, its time for a new third alternative maybe that's where we should look?


and wouldn't you say Doc that we can thank ourselves for the one percenters... We paid for Em.
I get what your saying about them both being on the rich side of the divide between rich and poor and the great class debate ...
But they are also employees and from that point of view, isn't it a war of class or who should control the means of production and whether the factory belongs to the employees as much as the guy who owns the pink slip??

ukcanuck wrote:

Fred wrote:When you say socialism is the middle ground you lost credibility over and out

Oh come on now, my credibility was shot to shit as soon as I took a side in this mess anyway...just ask Herb.
But no seriously, maybe we ought to take a second look and rehab the word because on the surface its what we all talk about wanting. Equal and free access to all of the social safety net. Equal access to markets for everyone and a for lack of a better word, a carburetor on free enterprise.

I'd hasten to add that controls can't be arbitrarily applied by either side of the equation ...

Factory owners in one side and factory workers on the other to borrow a hackneyed expression from the Marxists...

But continuing in the vein that spiderachnid loves so much, its time for a new third alternative maybe that's where we should look?


and wouldn't you say Doc that we can thank ourselves for the one percenters... We paid for Em.
I get what your saying about them both being on the rich side of the divide between rich and poor and the great class debate ...
But they are also employees and from that point of view, isn't it a war of class or who should control the means of production and whether the factory belongs to the employees as much as the guy who owns the pink slip??

UK...your never ending defense of unions leads to one conclusion...you are either a shop steward/union leader or the laziest dogfucking mook in the plant...