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Enlightened Self Interest
Over the past few months my thinking on what global leaders should be doing in the face of the rapidly growing problems has morphed in an entirely different direction. For some time now I’ve been banging on the table that interference with market forces in an attempt to kick a can down the road are the worst kind of policies. My concern has been that the costs of this interference will ultimately be greater than the cost of letting chips fall where they may.
My revised thinking is driven by one factor. "What’s in my best interest?", is what it's come to. Enlightened self-interest is all that matters to me. To hell with everyone else.
To that end, I want to make a strong recommendation that a financial market tax be implemented in the US and Europe.
What I want to see is a plan along the following lines:
Fee for stocks and options = ½%. (This would be applied to both the buy and sell side so that the cost of a “print” would be 1%)
Fee for all other transactions = .005% (FX, bonds, CDS, Swaps, Futures and all other derivative transactions.
Dean Baker, from CEPR, is strongly behind this type of thinking. It doesn’t matter that Dean has never been close to a financial market in his life. He actually thinks that transaction taxes could raise $100b++ a year (for ever). Dean does admit that there may be some consequence to this. He is aware that a proposal along these lines would destroy liquidity across all markets. He thinks this is not important at all. His thinking:
The small fees the EU is considering charging would only raise transactions costs and liquidity back to levels seen in the early to mid nineties.
Well, that’s what I’m looking for. Let’s dial back the markets so that the level of liquidity is back to the “early” nineties. That would be perfect for me. I don’t care that people who actually know what they’re talking about have to say about this. For example, Ken Rogoff, former chief economist at the IMF, (a guy who’s opinion I normally respect). His thinking on a transaction tax:
The tax would significantly reduce market liquidity with "no obvious decline in volatility" and "increase the cost of capital, ultimately lowering investment."
Let me explain my thinking. Upfront, I want to address the criticism I’m going to get. I’m a 10 percenter. I wanna be a 5 percenter. I don’t give a damn about anyone else in the system other than myself. I have financial resources. I have investment skills and experience that the vast majority of small investors don’t have. My goal is to make a pile of money off of those folks that don’t have what I have. Fairness and economic consequence is of no concern to me. I just want to get richer.
If we do get a Fin Tax that has some teeth, it will destroy liquidity. The vast amount of intra-day trading of equities is not able to generate a net 1% cost of transacting. The typical profit targets are far less than 1%. A transaction tax would wipe out the HFT crowd. That group accounts for as much as 70% daily turnover. Take out the rest of the day traders and jobbers and we would get turnover down to about 20% of what it is today. That would put guys like me in the catbird seat.
Should we get a transaction tax, I would anticipate a enormous ramp up in daily volatility. Intra day swings of 5% on the big indexes would be a common event. Individual stock names would be subject to even more violent swings. Small cap stocks would be the worst hit. There I’m anticipating daily swings in the 10% range. On days where there is company specific news that intra day swing could widen to 20%. Cha Ching for me!
On an annual basis I would expect very big swings. 30-40% changes in the S%P index would be a normal event. Over all, the ramp up in volatility would be very bad for equity valuations. Today there is a great debate as to whether the S%P should trade at 13Xs earnings or should it be 15Xs? In my view a year after the implementation of a transaction tax the market would be wondering if the “proper” multiple is not 5 -10Xs earnings.
That outcome would suit me just fine. I want to buy assets very cheap. That the suckers who believed in the “Buy and Hold” were puking after a 50% correction wouldn’t bother me at all. I want to own Dean Baker’s stocks at 50 cents on the dollar.
I want the IPO market to dry up. I want any company to pay through the nose for new equity money. I also want secondary stock issuance for big companies to fall apart. Today, the cost of a secondary is a temporary reduction in a stock’s price of 3-5%. I want that to widen to at least 10%. I’ll make a fortune that way.
Bonds have always been a specialty for me. I’m certain that spreads would widen by big amounts. I would just sit back and make a bundle. Some poor sap wants to sell $100k of an obscure Muni bond? Screw them. My bid will be 5% down from the last trade. I think that bond trading for off the run issues will just be a cash machine for me.
I’m pretty good at distressed investing. Given that just about everything would be distressed I would have a field day.
The financial sector of the US (and the globe) would see their earnings go out the window. This, coupled with the fact that the same sector represents about 30% of current GDP, there would have to be a depression. A big one.
Once again, this would suit me just fine. I would buy real-estate at 25 cents on the dollar. Cash, and only cash, would talk in these conditions. There would be no mortgage market left.
The Fed would be printing money like mad in these conditions. Hyper inflation would follow. I’m as certain as I can be that I would be a big winner (versus everyone else) should that be the result.
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I’m half serious and half joking this morning. I’m looking at the TV and all of the OWS stuff that is happening around the world. This is gathering speed very quickly now. Anyone who thinks this is going to go away in a few days is just nuts.
One global response from the “Deciders” to the current protests could be a transaction tax. That would be “popular”. It might just be something that is done as a way of appeasing the crowds. Whatever one thought of the possibility of a transaction tax a month ago, those estimates have to go up today. The bigger the protests, the greater the probability that the tax is implemented.
A transaction tax would be like Prohibition. The Volstead Act just made crooks rich. It cost the government billions in lost revenue. The population came to hate it. It was bad policy that was adopted because of a visible protest movement of that time.
The left side of my brain is with Rogoff. A transaction tax would kill liquidity/capital formation. That would result in a huge spike in volatility. This, in turn, would result in broadly lower equity multiples. The connection between stocks and the economy is too tightly correlated. A very sharp downturn in the economy would have to follow. For these reasons, I’m violently apposed to a transaction tax.
The right side of my brain says, “Bring it on”. I’m confident that I can survive and thrive in that environment. Fortunes were made in the 30’s. What may come will be no different.
I do want to be clear about this. The 99% have been pushing the transaction tax. They may get what they think they want. But in the end it will result in more pain for the 99’ers. The concentration of wealth in America will just get higher and higher up the ladder.
A transaction tax that limits liquidity will not create jobs, it will end up costing the government net tax dollars. But guys like me will do just fine.
Be careful of what you wish for.
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Fuck You,
bruce , what amazes me is how many ows'ers are out there support "taxing financial transactions" or "taxing wall street" .
it is AMAZING AND UNBELIEVABLE. i don't even try and talk to people about why they are wrong, because when you are in a public setting, and people are emotional, there is not enough time nor enough of an opportunity to reach a calm enough mutual level where one person can calmly explain to another why their 'belief' is simply flawed.
you've stated the plain truth in this article which I hope many will read and take as revelation to change their mind.
it is such an obvious truth that once you've been 'converted' ( if you are not intelligent enough to figure it out on your own like we are ) .......then it only takes a short period of time before you take the faulty nature of 'taxing financial transactions' in the securities markets for granted.
it's stunning in fact. i love the demonstrations, but you see a lot of people ( i did yesterday ) in the crowds that just need a BASIC education. they need to be taught. they are sincere sheeple that understand the underlying problem of abuse, but need leadership.
and one day soon, when wall street 'accepts' a financial transaction tax, they will wake up and smell a rat in this idea. but by then, as with frank-dodd, it will be too late to prohibit the passage of more non-sense legislation.
anyway bruche, thank you for this piece. i would volunteer to clean it up , edit it, and help you get it published in a larger variety of publications that do in fact exist beyond the blogosphere---if you wanted help, which you clearly don't need, but could benefit your time demands.
What is educational about this post? I like 'bruche', and usually find much to agree with in his articles, but this one offers opinions with no substantiation, and no alternative solutions. Or did I miss something?
I agree, I thought he was having us off with a dose of Sunday sarcasm.
Go after HFT that is killing the market. The average holding time is 11 seconds for HFT (some say). Have an high transaction tax (0.25%) for holding less than 30 minutes. That will help the small investor. And reduce the probability of flash crashes.
I had mentioned the transaction tax in a thread a week ago, and Rynak made the excellent point that a holding time limitation was more effective and achieved the same result and I agree. If the goal is to eliminate market distortions induced by HFT, then the solution is to slow down the rate of transactions. This will have zero effect on real investors, but will put HFT firms out of business.
History repeating - Bring out the bulldozers for those OWS Commies - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonus_Army
Any transaction tax would only hurt the small guy. The big guys would either have a loophole or be exempt totally.
Bad idea all around. A minimum hold time may be a better idea. You have to hold a stock for 5 minutes, 10 minutes, or whatever.
I totally agree that any tax will ultimately hurt the small guy. In the beginning everyone might pay it, in the end the "loopholes" would be carved out that would leave only the small guy paying the tax. While that may sound ridiculous consider the following accomplishments of the Financial institutions:
1. Managed to eliminate Glass-Steagall
2. Managed to get FASB Rule 157 suspended (reporting fair market value of collateral) while everyone else is bound by Sarbanes-Oxley reporting rules
3. Managed to get approval for leverage rates of 40:1 to better manage risk :-)
4. Is permitted to trade in shadow markets that allow any size bet with no transparency or margin clearing requirements
5. Convinced politicians that is was in the best interest of everyone to bail them out after their total disregard for risk
So - we are going to really "Fix" them with a tax - I think not, the little guy will get stuck with it and like all other taxes it will be increased over time while providing no benefit to the "little" guy.
Just a suggestion - Why don't we address some major threats like the shadow markets, once those are addressed (some banks will be wiped out in the process) let's move on to regulations that are similar to Glass-Steagall or just reimplement Glass-Steagall.
You are, of course, correct. But they don't care.
They want the money. And they have televised PR hacks, a massive set of conditioning systems (aka, schools), and a well armed police force.
Pay up or else.
Dean Baker is one of those rock star (more of a tribute band) economists, econmatters refers to in their post earlier today. Baker, like Krugman, Qwak, Johnson etc are much more political hacks than economists and a very very dangerous group given the influence they have on policy.
http://www.cepr.net/index.php/biographies/dean-baker/
http://baselinescenario.com/
the damage is done. Transaction fees on derivatives won't do diddly for a $1.4 quadrillion beast that has already gone rogue on the world.
here here
Close the barn door after the horse has left. Except in this case you're setting fire to the barn.
Here they come
Here come the Austrians
I heard it from a confidante
who heard it from a confidante
They're definitely on their way
There's one with this idea
Something about an individual
Nosehairs and flatus
Best keep your distance because
Here they come here come the Austrians
Bury your head deep in the sand
Anonymity is a virtue in this day and age
Amazing hand dexterity
Flagrant misuse of security
Better run, run, run, run, run
Run Run Run Run, here they come.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qx8W_4gd5aI
Not sure Les and Ler would approve; at least you didn't mention "Hammerhead Shark".
I believe that a correctly applied transaction tax would do exactly what it says on the tin and clobber the people it's supposed to.
What we get will be designed to help those at the top cream off even more.
Twas ever thus.
OK, ~"Dean Baker is a douche".
I'll add him to my list, which is beginning to rival the US Tax Code for size.
Thanks Bruce.
Bruce, we want a higher tax first! That way we can clean up when markets go straight down. Then, buy the assets cheap and wait for the tax cut.
I think your post highlights a subtle point; sans some sort of rule change post taxation, the induced distressed pricing levels Bruce salivates over, will stay distressed. So one effect of such a transaction tax would be the collapse the nominal valuation bubble that the Fed is hell bent on trying to keep inflated. The unstated (by this article) side effect is the pushing of liquid capital into jurisdictions unfettered by such a tax. So in the end, the effects are even 'worse' than Bruce makes out; not only does wealth concentration accelerate, said wealth will tend to accrue (and be deployed) in foreign jurisdictions. Most Americans don't realize that the United States is a tax haven for much of the world; the capital gains of non-resident aliens (that's foreigners in plain English) ***are not taxed*** by our government. You start taxing them, and their capital will repatriate out of the affected markets.
"If we do get a Fin Tax that has some teeth, it will destroy liquidity."
Is that a fact, or an opinion?
Judging from the amount of smoke outside on the coffee shop patio, the tobacco tax didn't destroy the market for tobacco.
Despite your apologies to the contrary, you state the position for the HFT crowd. This is a very small crowd. I spend a career as a stock broker and I support a small transaction tax, as do most of the old school professionals I know. Ninety percent, (90%) of the stockbrokers in this country make a living by investing for their clients, not day trading. Also, the HFT crowd destroyed the market for day traders as most of the retired professionals I know did do some day trading and now most do, and will not because of the control of the markets the HFT crowd has on the markets. We have turned a sacred American institution over to a small minority of concentrated wealth. You are making apologiies for them.
This is just another example of letting the industry decide what is "best". Kind of like the nuclear regulators in Japan. Don't want to hurt the 'industry' while we destroy the masses.
Rufusbird
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Last time I looked, no one was trying to make a profit sucking cancer sticks. A transaction tax would make profits impossible, and destroy financial markets. That's the real reason the left loves it.
HFT is a stupid abuse and would be stopped tomorrow if we had some one other than retarded lawyers running the SEC.
Half a percent on the buy side and half a percent on the sell side, now I can see how that would make HFT unprofitable, but HFT is not a source of capital, it is the same capital churning over and over in the secondary market, like a hummingbird that flits from flower to flower looking for a small hit of nectar, it take a very small bit from each but does it thousands of times per day. It adds up.
You say a transactions tax would make profits impossible, Bruce says it will dry up liquidity available for equities. I say half a percent on the buy side would not kill investing in equities for the buy and hold investors, who would not be so afraid of markets now if there were no HFT. It would amount to $5k per million invested. That is less than your brokers fees. I had a stockbrokers license in Virginia in the nineties, just as web based trading was taking off, maybe 10% of all investors knew enough about trading and markets to feel empowered to ditch their brokers and handle their own portfolios, the rest still simply park their investments with professionals, they know they have neither the time nor the skill to do it themselves, though they could save a lot of fees by doing so. In short, it used to be a lot more expensive to buy stocks and yet people did it then, the half percent tax would not even bring the cost of buying back up to where it was 15 years ago.
Let's do a thought exercise, suppose there was a parallel world where unlike here they never considered imposing a capital gains tax on anything. That world would not be very different from ours at all except that the wealthy who make most of their income from unearned sources would be wealthier by far because over the generations that small percentage we collect in capital gains in their world was never collected, with compounding it has grown to a substantially larger share of income and net wealth. Now someone comes along for whatever reason and tells them that they must have a capital gains tax of 15% so all the anti tax people come out of the woodwork and scream and whine and say that it will destroy liquidity and kill the markets. I would say that they have to invest their dough somewhere and while they do not like paying taxes what can they do? Invest it somewhere else? Like joining forces to build plant and equipment? Our world is proof that capital gains taxes even at 15% do not stifle investment, and indeed in our own world capital gains used to be a lot higher, did that prevent investment? No.
I am generally opposed to using taxation to force behaviors the government deems desirable, like dollars (plural) per pack on cigarettes to get people to quit or smoke less. I view it as an infringement of my freedom and rights. If there is a problem with an activity like indoor smoking in public places it should be banned and the ban enforced. Ditto financial activities, it used to be and as far as I know still is illegal to use HFT with other people's money, it is called churning, that is why banks and brokerages use proprietary accounts to do it, and a ban on proprietary trading accounts is under discussion.
The NYSE alone has a 23 trillion dollar market cap, and the companies listed there have trillions and trillions in profits every year, if the tax as proposed above generated $100 billion revenue for the government each year while killing off HFT but not longer term investing it is a very small amount out of an industry (finance/brokerage) that rakes trillions out of the economy every year. You could also apply the tax to the secondary market only exempting IPO's. That would leave, no encourage, plenty available for new companies that need capital to grow. The HFT secondary market we now have is and we ALL know it, a casino that does nothing to help the economy grow, nothing at all. Tax the living shit out of that behavior, or better yet, return Wall Street and the banks to Eisenhower era rules and regulations (and enforcement). Ah, but it does not matter at this point because deregulation has already killed us, it pulled the pin on the grenade that is strapped to our necks and while it might not yet have gone off it is going to and we all know it. The pin once pulled cannot be put back.
No. Govt needs to spend less, not tax more. You make a fair fist of justifying how the tax won't hurt too much. But I still don't want a bigger parasite biting me thanks.
Bite me Mick. Government needs to tax less and spend less, certainly, but it needs to do both WAY more fairly than it does now. Higher taxes on the rich will be a part of the solution no matter your opinion or girly little unicorn desires. Much higher taxes on the rich I should have said, because in fairness they pay so little now. Clearly you do not understand what is going on here, to you it is fine that there is a minimum wage that is 1/650th of the CEO's in the nation, but CEO's should only pay about double the percentage in that a minimum wage worker does eh?
All the while the right says nobody should have to pay in more than the least worker among us, we need a 999 flat tax that hits the poorest hardest. And you wonder why OWS and the 99%'ers are shitting up a storm? Government spends what government spends, it bobs up and down, at the very lowest point in spending per capita or as a percent of GDP there were still reichwingers bitching about how it spends too much. It spent more during the depression even before we got into WWII. I am fed up with the likes of you who say TOO MUCH, drown it in a bathtub. Great and I hope your kids are the first to get yellow fever and die of cholera. I hope you can afford a hummer because the dirt track you will have for a raod is not going to allow anything with lower clearence. And do you really trust your pastor not to touch your kids in private places? I hope so because as bad as some few public schools are now there will only be very expensive private parochial schools in your utopia.
I say government needs to spend less if that means they give not one more dollar to bankers and corporate welfare, interest on the debt. If on the other hand they just must give dollars to corporations then they need to give me a LOT more dollars. Because I am a person and a citizen and I deserve a share of this nation a bitchin lot more than GE or Enron or Goldman Sachs does. Spend less? It has never spent less in the history of the nation in relation to the outstanding contracts and debt denominated in dollars. You just want a free ride. You really do not give a rats fucking ass how much is spent or on what, you just do not want to pay anything in that's all.
Whining nazis, please die.
I pay $2.00 in and $2.00 out for a million dollar trade at vanguard!!!
Still opposed to transition fees
Thanks for that. +100
I wouldn't blame you a bit for ignoring my thoughts on this. But Ken Rogoff is no slouch. Ignore him at your risk.
"Ken Rogoff, former chief economist at the IMF, (a guy who’s opinion I normally respect). His thinking on a transaction tax:..
("The tax would significantly reduce market liquidity with "no obvious decline in volatility" and "increase the cost of capital, ultimately lowering investment.")"
Yeah Right! Classic quote.
How many times have we heard this excuse as the Money Center Banks continue and extend the reach of their plunder. So he taught at Harvard and worked for the IMF and did a stint at the Federal Reserve. Does that mean we have to quote him and everyone with a similar background, like B. Bernanke as an authority on Stock Market Liquidity now.
I think Jim Rogers put it best when he said. "They teach at Harvard and they think they are smarter than everybody else but they are not."
But but didn't repeal of glass stegAl reduce volatility. Let's see. Look at the monthly chart from 1990 to now. Rotflmao!!
.....but you both have a vested interest in your 'opinions', right?
HFT's would instantly become toast, and day trading would slow down some. Speculators would be harmed. Investors would benefit greatly.
I also don't get the idea that individual stocks would see such great volitality. The underlying value of the business would not change so fast, nor would the trends in the economy. It might be wild initially, but my opinion is that it would settle down and be a more stable market instead of less stable.
The economy would be far better off if the financial sector was shrunk and the segments that actually produced something instead of just leeching off society were provided more resources......like, you know, investing in them.
Neither do I, the entire point of the proposal is to end the massive swings in the VIX. Money available for investing would not change, it is still out there and will still chase alpha, but when you trade a stock several times a second the tax bill would almost instantly swamp any profit. HFT is nothing less than theft and should be prosecuted as such. Anything that contributes to the mispricing of markets needs to be ended or there will be no faith in the market and that more than anything else kills capital formation.
There is nothing intrinsically wrong at all with a transaction or "Wall Street" tax. To paraphrase Reagan (peace through strength) i would argue "tax through recovery." Europe is getting annihilated with their transaction tax because their financial sector is breaking apart. In that sense i would argue they're basically torpedoing the entire financial sector rather than even bothering trying to fix it. I would recommend AGAINST this approach given the context "over there." Over "here"... I'm a "believer"...i admit it...and i'm now a believer that an economic recovery is under way. I can't say that I "know this"...how does anyone really?...but this thesis is proveable...it comes down to the jobs numbers so you'll know if i'm right...plus i'll admit if i'm wrong unlike your regular financial advisor who will double/triple/quadruple down on his bad bet and tell you "go get a lawyer phucker." In other words "we want our transaction tax to work in concert with the growth in our economy" and not as is happening in Europe "be the precipitating event in the implosion of our Currency Union." Should a solid jobs recovery be underway there is no way you will here me say "the last thing we need in America is more revenue." I DO preface this with if there is not a serious reduction in our National Security Complex...and i include the Department of Education as part of that mix btw...then i fail to see what's wrong with a "starve the beast" approach.
I'm posting a link to a 'rant' by a very angry and influential 'tea party' guy. He really seems to be off his game a bit (misspellings galore), but I provide the link in support of the idea that we ought to consider both sides of this debate. I do believe that what this guy says has significant merit.
http://www.redstate.com/erick/2011/10/14/what-the-gop-must-do-finding-co...
I agree with this part:
" ... we need to re-level the playing field and make it a fair competition between entrepreneur and corporation again. We need big business to stop living off the taxpayer dole. We need a new age of corporate welfare reform like the welfare reform of the 1990s."
I might add that we need to separate government from corporations. Kick the corporations to the curb, like those welfare queens you folks are always bitching about. Better yet, revoke their damn charters. At least welfare queens were making less than 20k/year; corporate welfare recipients receive millions of dollars annually, so I think we should keep proportionality in mind here. We are talking 100-1000x sized subsidies and tax breaks to corporations.
If we look at the biggest corporate dole recipients, we would find almost all are involved in "national security." This is not a free market in any way, and seems to be highly dependent upon a continuation of the 'war on terrorism' tactic that the US government has been spewing incessantly for the last decade, since 9/11.
I'm all for getting rid of corporate welfare, and if that is really what the Tea Party wants to accomplish, I am in line with that goal. But if the Tea Party wants to support the National Security State, and the profound sucking sound it makes as all the wealth of the people of the United States is spent making weapons of war and causing a rain of destruction on innocent people, then I'm not going along with that.
Easy to dismiss but I would love to have an intelligent reply.
Sure Bruce. Kill the small trader. U r on the wrong side.
Transactions exceeding 500 mm should be taxed/ fee'd
Quit fucking the small guys
Sure, another tax. It'll just be 1%. And you know the politicians would never come in your mouth while the check's in the mail, so there's no chance the tax will ever get raised.
Stop thinking taxation, start thinking voluntary assessments and the privatization of govt. services
private roads, private schools, private court systems, private police protections. If you want in, you pay. If you dont pay, you're out. your choice.
Nothing unfair about it. Unless you think that you were born into this world entitled to such things.
You want private courts and private police? This sounds exactly like a protection racket to me.
And yes, given the sordid history of wealth and money, it is entirely and completely unfair. I wasn't born into this world entitled to anything, but what you are suggesting is perpetual human slavery and dependence upon unaccountable institutions. It's bad enough now, where few checks and balances remain on the use of state force, but you would have even those checks and balances destroyed, all the in the name of what? Some mythical notion about the free market and that it can do no wrong?
There is nothing worse than unaccountable power, and I don't see how there could be any effective checks and balances on a private criminal justice system. So to me, the very suggestion that the criminal justice system could or should be privitized is a prime example of over-extending ideological beliefs into areas where there is no theoretical support, and at the same time, failing to see the obvious problems with such a misapplied approach.
Read some Rothbard. he might open your eyes a bit.
Well, much to my chagrin, Rothbard did address this very topic, so I suppose I have to eat some crow and thank you for pointing me in the right direction for the libertarian viewpoint.
But I think Rothbard's ideas about privitizing the criminal justice system are impractical and naive, given what we now know about human psychology. After reading what he had to say in "For a New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto," I think he entertains rather unrealistic ideas about the so-called rational decision-making processes of humans. Edward Bernays' work comes to mind immediately. The systems of control we face are not solely public or private; both are corrupted by the power of money and the love of power. I don't think you can just take away government and make everything private and all the problems go away. On the contrary, I think that kind of power vacuum is how warlords are created and how you end up with a Mad Max world, which I most certainly do not want to see. Admittedly I haven't read the whole thing, just the section on police and the courts under libertarianism, but I can't find a method or mechanism presented where the existing federal government would cede its power to private courts, how we would transition from here to there. The other thing that is glossed-over is who gets decide the law of the land if courts are private? It's something of a problem to have a series of disparate laws in different jurisdictions. Great for the lawyers, bad for everyone else, especially travellers.
In any event, in the long-term I think we are much more likely to see a return to volunteer local militias, certainly in the rural areas. All this centralization of power was only made possible by abundant energy supplies and will become impossible in the near future as energy supplies decline.
I do appreciate and agree with many libertarian viewpoints, but I see the potential for abuse being just as high if not higher among private entities as for the state. Just look at the private prison system. Look at Xe. I've read enough of what the Rothschild family has done in funding most modern wars (on both sides) that claims of a private panacea come across as a kind of cruel joke. Remember the robber-barons? Jay Gould's quote comes to mind: "I can hire one half of the working class to kill the other half."
Just how far is your head up your ass?
The whole system you enjoy skimming was built on public investment. In fact, without it, there would be no Las Vegas Dave, 'cause Vegas would be little more than a gas station in a sand pit.
Vegas was built by entrepreneurs taking risks, shit for brains.
now go back to sucking on the public tit, like the good parasite you are.
Zat right? It was seeded & bankrolled by organized crime, but taxes paved the roads, built the schools, etc., and.....provided the H2O.
Just another ego trip thinking he made it all by himself. Was that a public airport I flew out of on my last trip in August? Was that a private convention center host the trade show I attended?
".....It was seeded & bankrolled by organized crime...."
I'll cede the point.... the government was indeed involved, then.
Clearly, were it not for a legislative act of the state..... man would have never invented an airplane (let alone built a Vegas airport)! We erroneously honor Wilbur and Orville, but the real champions of innovation were the legislatures with the foresight to create a conducive regulatory environment!
These damned free marketers (the extremist ones who really mean it - not the good ones who just mean it within parameters that benefit the state) don't even realize what they advocate..... If it weren't for the government directing air traffic.... people would be crashing airplanes all the time - maybe even on purpose! "Big-airplane" (Just like Big Tobacco, Big Oil, etc) doesn't care about anything but money.... if the government removed it's totalitarian hand from things, at least half of passengers flying on any given day would die from the scourges of terrorists, unregulated air traffic and various plagues caused from un-inspected fruits crossing borders...
Damned free-marketers need to learn that people would lose interest in dwelling safely, securely and peacefully without a totalitarian regulatory apparatus to ensure such things. The government makes us better than we would be if left to our own devices! People are immoral without regulations to let them know what the word means. As it stands, we a re just a handful of wise regulations away from Nirvana. Learn to give thanks to your betters, for Chrise-sake! Lord, Bless those who rule over us.... guide their iron hand and save us from ourselves.
We can paly games of mental masturbation all day and get no where.
There is no utopian private enterprise system on earth, and there is not going to be....but you can keep dreaming if you like escapist fantasy..
I love the lyricism. Fuck the facts and history.
I think the vote is still out on the OWS franchise value. OWS knows it has a winner once you get Occupy Tottenham. Until that signal is flashed, I'm expecting the OWS to be a flash in the pan.