This page has been archived and commenting is disabled.

Congress Brings Socialism To America With This Proposed Law

Tyler Durden's picture




 

Submitted by Simon Black of Sovereign Man blog,

Sadly today I am reporting to you yet another development that seems as if we are all living within the pages of Ayn Rand’s seminal work Atlas Shrugged.

You may recall from the book that John Galt, the enigmatic protagonist, started off as a young engineer at the Twentieth Century Motor Company.

When the owner of the company died, the heirs decided to run the business according to the new enlightened principles of the time.

Primarily, they let all the workers vote on how the factory was supposed to be run and how much everyone should be compensated.

And it was soon decided that “everybody in the factory would work according to his ability, but would be paid according to his needs.”

Naturally, bright hard-working employees soon left; they found themselves working around the clock for the benefit of others who felt entitled to contribute as little as possible.

John Galt was among the first out the door.

And not long after, the once successful company went bust. No surprise.

Unfortunately this is no longer fiction. Because in the Land of the Free, the United States Congress is striving to make Atlas Shrugged a reality.

Their latest brainchild is to set up a new government bank, stuff it full of taxpayer funds, and loan the money to American workers for the exclusive purpose to help them form collectives and buy the companies they work for.

It’s called the United States Employee Ownership Bank Act.

And, straight from the bill, they aim to provide “loan guarantees, direct loans, and technical assistance to employees to buy their own companies. . .”

The goal of this legislation, curiously, is to “preserve and increase employment in the United States” which is still problematic six years after the global financial crisis.

Since September 2008, the US government has increased its debt level over 50% to $17.6 trillion.

The US Federal Reserve has increased its balance sheet four-fold, conjuring $3.5 trillion out of thin air.

All of this was supposed to create jobs. And with each of these being a failed policy, Congress is now descending into outright socialism.

To be fair, people throw around the word socialism a lot. They’ll say “Obama’s a socialist” or something like that. Often it’s taken to exaggeration.

But this legislation– the government effectively sponsoring the communal takeover of private business– is textbook socialism: private property and the means of production owned by the community.

Socialist Yugoslavia actually tried the exact same thing: worker-owned cooperatives. And the consequent failure was absolutely epic.

But politicians never let pesky things like truth get in the way of a bad idea.

It’s time to wake up smell the reality. This isn’t about panic. It isn’t about doom and gloom. It’s about facts, not fear.

Any rational, thinking person has to look at this and ask a simple question: where is this trend headed?

The evidence is pretty clear. And more and more people are starting to realize it.

People all over the world are thinking: “This is not the country I grew up in. And I don’t like the trend.”

It’s unfolding right in front of our very eyes for anyone with the intellectual courage to pay attention.

Whether it happens today, tomorrow, or five years from now is irrelevant. It’s the TREND that is so important to pay attention to.

And with that simple premise in mind, does it make sense to hold everything you’ve worked your entire life to build in a place with such a negative trend?

Your livelihood. Your savings. Your retirement. Your family’s security.

Rational people look at facts objectively and have a plan B. What’s yours?

 

- advertisements -

Comment viewing options

Select your preferred way to display the comments and click "Save settings" to activate your changes.
Wed, 07/23/2014 - 20:47 | 4995979 Tulpa
Tulpa's picture

Ah I see.  The only articles I found on it in a Google search (not including the barren congressional links) referenced the 2009 bill so I assumed it was gone forever.

Wed, 07/23/2014 - 20:38 | 4995929 MedicalQuack
MedicalQuack's picture

All the gutless wonders in DC I just wrote again today about how the House didn't pass a bill in May to restore the Office of Technology Assessment.  This is what holds those folks back.  The financial world walks all over them. We need a balance of both private and government and we don't have it.

http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2014/07/bill-to-restore-office-of-technol...

If you want to visit Healthcare today, well Burwell appointed a VP from Wal-Mart to be in charge of the insurance exchanges..so in addition to the United Healthcare model we are sprinkling in some Wal-Mart models now.  We've seen and already lived both of those models so not much happening there either, except a lot more data selling.

http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2014/07/hhs-with-new-burwell-appointment-...

Once a government bank was in place, they could join MasterCard and the rest all selling our data and making money too. States already sell a lot of our data and make money so maybe the feds want some of this action.

One more item worth a look, to save a small hospital chain in AZ, it takes not one, not two, but three big hospital chains like Dignity, Tenet and Ascension to help bail this hospital out, they are dividing up the risk.

http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2014/07/tucson-az-healthcare-system-to-fo...

Wed, 07/23/2014 - 20:44 | 4995960 XRAYD
XRAYD's picture

Perfect ... for S&P 6000 before 1000!

Wed, 07/23/2014 - 20:48 | 4995967 RMolineaux
RMolineaux's picture

Ayn Rand was a Russian Jewish lady who came to the US, changed her name and made a bundle of money writing books that were naive from the economic point or view, and contradicted many positive elements of the American culture and value system.  The most damaging result of her legacy was the de-regulation craze of the the last few decades, and its influence on the chairman of the Federal Reserve. 

Wed, 07/23/2014 - 20:48 | 4995985 Tulpa
Tulpa's picture

You mean the deregulation craze where the Federal Register tripled in size?

Wed, 07/23/2014 - 20:57 | 4996020 tomlamon
tomlamon's picture

Free markets will bring your wages down to the Chinese who could never move out of feudalism without knocking off the west. Western markets must be defended and isolated from the 3rd world. Was Ronald reagan a good president? Look where we ended up? The FED creating free credit for big corporations so they can buy their own  stock up after issuing low cost debt. National Socialism is the only way to go or not just Smith Field Food but everything else will be sold out by our corrupt politicians

Wed, 07/23/2014 - 20:57 | 4996021 tomlamon
tomlamon's picture

Free markets will bring your wages down to the Chinese who could never move out of feudalism without knocking off the west. Western markets must be defended and isolated from the 3rd world. Was Ronald reagan a good president? Look where we ended up? The FED creating free credit for big corporations so they can buy their own  stock up after issuing low cost debt. National Socialism is the only way to go or not just Smith Field Food but everything else will be sold out by our corrupt politicians

Wed, 07/23/2014 - 21:21 | 4996123 SunRise
SunRise's picture

It's not the wages, it's the purchasing power.  I'm far more concerned about "free" money rolled off the Fed's printing press.  It will give you higher wages and blind you to your poverty that printing press foments.

Wed, 07/23/2014 - 20:52 | 4996002 Dublinmick
Dublinmick's picture

You would expect more from Rothschild's mistress? She in fact was set up by him to write the book.

Wed, 07/23/2014 - 21:02 | 4996037 johnberesfordti...
johnberesfordtiptonjr's picture

You, sir, are 99% correct. Despite being a successful novelist, quasi philosopher, cult leader, and movie script writer she clandestinely took Medicare and Social Security (despite being a lifelong opponent on highly principled “philosophical” grounds) in her advancing years. Meanwhile, some of her compatriot acolytes refused and died poor.

Wed, 07/23/2014 - 22:31 | 4996391 The Most Intere...
The Most Interesting Frog in the World's picture

Deregulation is not the problem. Government guarantees and bail outs are the problem.

Wed, 07/23/2014 - 21:03 | 4995994 Dublinmick
Dublinmick's picture

No logicalman, it is not my research it is aangirfan of Scotland who does some research I cannot take credit for. Scroll down on the link and you look at the hideous pic of Ayn Rand. People like to drop the name of Atlas Shrugged these to as if they are well read but they have only peeled the outer skin of the onion.

 

As you can see from the 3 down strokes we have at least 3 satanists on this thread :) __________ Make that 5 satanist!

Wed, 07/23/2014 - 20:53 | 4996003 slightlyskeptical
slightlyskeptical's picture

I love this idea. Allows the workers to get the full benefit of their labor. It is no different then the old system. The shareholders just change and the old shareholders get paid to sell. The money simply comes from a public bank rather then from private lenders.  The samll guy will be able to compete.

Just give me an even playing field and the elite will be shown to be less than average.

Wed, 07/23/2014 - 21:08 | 4996058 NoPension
NoPension's picture

Just give me an even playing field. Anything else? That's all you need? Average slobs could make it, if things were even. And fair.

Sorry to do this.....

Grow up. Your even playing field....you were born. There, your even. Now make something of it.
5% get it done. Divide everything equally, in five years it'll be right back the same way. Oh, the rich are getting richer, but that's just .gov sticking their nose in the game.
Employees? Let them, they'll suck you dry. Needs to be a brain in charge. That is what average Joe wants. Someone to TELL him when to be at work, what to do, when to go home, etc.etc..
The guy that doesn't need someone telling him/her... Rarely stays an employee. They run the show, or strike out on their own.

You are falling for the Communist trap.

Wed, 07/23/2014 - 21:11 | 4996082 Westcoastliberal
Westcoastliberal's picture

And you're a fucking idiot.

Wed, 07/23/2014 - 21:57 | 4996269 booboo
booboo's picture

and you? Is that all you have? was that your college thesis? "and you're a fucking idiot" by Westcoastlibel

Wed, 07/23/2014 - 22:08 | 4996320 Oldwood
Oldwood's picture

And have you ever had an employee?

Wed, 07/23/2014 - 21:11 | 4996083 Dublinmick
Dublinmick's picture

The communist trap is fiat money from London. Everything else is just window dressing.

Wed, 07/23/2014 - 21:44 | 4996215 LocalBoy
LocalBoy's picture

Not from my view - 
Two kinds of employees, workers and producers. Workers may very well need and want lead by the soft handed brain. Producers not as much.
Our system, post WW2, turns producers into workers by allowing the brain at the top to be choosen by someone other than the invisible hand.

Two angles to consider
1) laws that give corporations control over employees, nanny laws. Pay their taxes, paid vacations, paid pensions, paid health care scams, paid for workers comp, paid for........Then there is the so called worker rights that empower the worker and destroy the producer. Overtime pay, breaks, lunches, etc....All this empowers the corporations at the expense of productivity. It also gives the less than qualified the power to lead, rule over, the workers.
All these amount to corporate charity to give these non producers the chance to compete with producers in smaller groups.
2) monetary policy - when the legal tender is created without saved production, by fiat, the producer is no longer needed. It is, in fact, the producing labor that creates the foundation of all capital. When capital is printed by frat brothers the need for production to create wealth is gone. Furthermore in an inflationary economy the saver is punished and those who live beyond their means, borrow against fututre earnings, are given a charitable advatange. Those who recieve this fiat tender gets its ful value and those down the chain get less and less. Our monetary system is top down, real capital is produced bottom up, from labor and its proper facilitation and administration.

Level playing field is simple, honest money and end the corporate charity. Cant quite see the problem with a level playing field and from my seat if we had one we would have less pigs on top and more honest nobodies doing more of the right thing.

We all know senators are whores for sale, who buys them ? Honest producers choosen by the ijnvisble hand or pigs in corporations seeking benefit and immunity from a central government run amuck with the power to create money and credit from thin air.

Replace the words just and sustainable with level playing field

 

Wed, 07/23/2014 - 22:26 | 4996373 deflator
deflator's picture

 How do we know who are the workers and who are the producers when the whole thing is by fiat decree? .gov/federal reserve throws in the "capital" and CNBS throws in the words, "free" and "markets" so "capitalists" such as yourself can give their system credibility?

Wed, 07/23/2014 - 22:38 | 4996419 LocalBoy
LocalBoy's picture

Thats how they do it, they live beyond their means by counterfieting real production and formation of capital.

How do you know.......freedom is an animated conquest. You believe nothing you hear and half of what you see.

In the current system it is hard to know the difference. The system encourages otherwise moral people to live beyond their means while harming their own posterity doing what appears to be rational and just. The system is a moral hazard, all else predictable effects. 

Wed, 07/23/2014 - 21:59 | 4996278 slightlyskeptical
slightlyskeptical's picture

Employees run all corporations. Often times employees still buy out their companies today. Part of the employees running the company are the same people making all the big decisions before such a buyout. The tolerance for poor performing employees falls when it is the other workers whose income is on the line. The freeloaders will be tossed out.  

The only person missing under this cenario is the guy who put up the capital. The guy who very often sits back and fills his pockets while doing nothing. This will eliminate the need for capital to be successful, which is what I refer to as a level playing field. Individual accomplishment will be the determinator of success rather than entitlement.

This is a true free market idea. It's only socialist in that there is a national bank, which is not a purely socialist by any means. 

Wed, 07/23/2014 - 22:20 | 4996358 Oldwood
Oldwood's picture

What you are missing is that people habitually act against their own interest with very little prodding from others. As we see with our current systemic failure, the principle occupation of most is to find whom to blame for it. If and only when a substantial portion of people willingly recognize that these failings are our own, primarily failing in tending to our own best interests, will anything change for the better. Our society has drowned itself in debt, largely for crap we do not truly need other than to satisfy the gaping hole in our souls that consumerism will never be able to fill. We have purchased infinite amounts of foreign made crap while condemning those who sold it to us for "giving away" our jobs. Germany is a net exporter, so they can sustain their socialist inclinations. Admittedly they have had to extend credit to most of their customers to keep the party going, but none the less, they at least export. America does not and the only thing that has a positive impact on our deficit has been the oil we pump from the ground, not manufactured goods (still better than nothing for sure). We can blame the Jews, the banks, the MIC, the socialists or any number of perpetrators, but NONE could have accomplished anything without OUR cooperation.

oh and the Satan worshipers, we can't forget their blame.

Wed, 07/23/2014 - 21:52 | 4996247 LocalBoy
LocalBoy's picture

I get your point except - the bank run by the feds has two major problems. 
The people will be non thinking drones who cant pick winners and loosers in the market place. The money they loan will be stolen via the inflation game from a real producer somewhere.

Take away the ability of government to create money and this will be mainstream America, capital being produced by small groups vested into each others productive gains.

What you desire is free market capitalism.......... 

Wed, 07/23/2014 - 20:58 | 4996025 kchrisc
kchrisc's picture

Just another Rothschild scheme to fleece Americans further.

This new ponzi, bank, will loan out "printed" and stolen loot that will enable them to secure an interest in the collateral--the business' assets.

As predicted in the article, the businesses will go tits up, and then the banksters will swoop in and grab the assets. Some assets will stay here, the rest will be taken to the "land between the sea and river."

And one can be 100% assured that this new ponzi will be Ashkenazi headed and run like all the rest.

Wed, 07/23/2014 - 21:04 | 4996043 BOPOH
BOPOH's picture

Author has no idea how socialism works. Our government robbing poor while transferring welth to rich. And this this just a little bit more greese to make mechanism work smoother. It is scheme to bail out rich investors when business goes belly up. This is the only point.

Wed, 07/23/2014 - 22:22 | 4996363 Oldwood
Oldwood's picture

If you like socialism, he is full of shit. If you hate socialism he is a sage.

Wed, 07/23/2014 - 21:10 | 4996067 BTFDemocracy
BTFDemocracy's picture

Legitimate question: What's the differance between a non-profit credit union and a bank with community ownership? (obviously the 'paid for your needs' can't work, but what about everything else?)

Why are more companies not structured like a Credit Union / non-profits? If the CEO took a nice salary (for incentive to manage the business) and maybe a 10% profit and let rest stay in the company to provide better services & higher wages (enticing better/more loyal workers to go work there) .. would such a business have advantage over a business where most money is paid out in share profits?

Wed, 07/23/2014 - 21:19 | 4996115 LocalBoy
LocalBoy's picture

It happens all the time - its called small business.

Owner operated companies act more like the corporate non profits than their larger corporate counterparts.
Difference is small business is volunteer without structured covenants.

Yes, small business has an enormous advantage over the big corps, thus the need for ridiculous regulation and regulatory capture........ 

Capital is saved production, thus small business can easily live beneath their means more effectively than their larger, top heavy counterparts. 

 

Wed, 07/23/2014 - 22:04 | 4996301 booboo
booboo's picture

+100 and that is why large Corp love massive regulation and write most of the legislation for regulation, it kills the smaller, more flexible, lean, competition.

This plan is nothing more then taxpayer funded forced crowd funding. I suppose there is a mandatory AFL/CIO unionization clause.

Wed, 07/23/2014 - 21:09 | 4996070 Westcoastliberal
Westcoastliberal's picture

When the greedy bastard "global" companies seek to ratchet down wages to 3rd world levels by outsourcing all labor to shit-hole countries, I think this is a great idea.  It gives workers a chance to keep working and claim a little bit of ownership.  And seems to me the "worker-owned" companies in existence already are doing fairly well.

Wed, 07/23/2014 - 22:11 | 4996331 booboo
booboo's picture

and that is why your big corp. and Chamber of Commerce buddies are behind the flood of illegals so they can force down average wages and at the same time get behind a "living wage" for burger flippers so everyone makes 8 bucks an hour.

Wed, 07/23/2014 - 22:30 | 4996387 Oldwood
Oldwood's picture

And what would be the result if we simply did not buy foreign made goods? It drives me nuts that so many rail against being treated like sheep yet want sheep protection laws enforced. We are either sheep or men, which is it? We do have a choice regardless of what many may think. It is simply a matter of transparency, where the choices are made quite clear, where buying foreign goods while no credit is extended or wages supplied for lack of employment are allowed to conceal the results of our choices. We have dug one hell of a hole simply because we have gone for the cheaper product, be it an imported good or simply imported labor, and used debt and social redistribution to delude ourselves of our culpability. Now we have debt that far exceeds any collateral while surrendering our technological and industrial superiority, making working our debt off actual servitude to our creditors, foreign and domestic.

Wed, 07/23/2014 - 21:11 | 4996081 icanhasbailout
icanhasbailout's picture

and what better price to bring in the worker than the present?

Wed, 07/23/2014 - 21:17 | 4996098 GovernmentMule
GovernmentMule's picture
S. 2411: United States Employee Ownership Bank Act
Introduced:
Jun 02, 2014
Status:
Referred to Committee on Jun 02, 2014
Prognosis
0% chance of being enacted
Thu, 07/24/2014 - 08:20 | 4997331 WhyWait
WhyWait's picture

Sad but true.

To the desperately underemployed older workers around me, surrounded as we are by the empty husks of once-thriving industries, many with the abandoned machinery still inside, this idea looks pretty good.

Call it what you like, what we have now makes no sense whatsoever to us, and the chance to go back into the old mills and apply our hands, our brains and the sweat of our brows to bringing them back to life would be a dream come true.  We have the skills, we have the memory of well run workplaces, we long for a world where our work mattered and gave us a life.  We are surrounded by want and unmet needs.  We are perhaps the best educated most highly trained "army of the unemployed" in the history of the world.  And we live in a state of hopelessness now, where a good gig is a few weeks work for $5 or $10 under the table.  

Plenty of problems to overcome, but can you give me one reason this *couldn't* work, other than the logic of "capitalism as it exists today"? 

Wed, 07/23/2014 - 21:17 | 4996102 Dublinmick
Dublinmick's picture

Of course if you have some serious policy issues with Ayn Rand, (not every blueprint fits everybody's mold) there is good news. The daughter of Ayn Rand's partner LaVey has branched off with a new twist to give the masses a choice.

Zeena (Thanks to P2P for the link)

Zeena Schreck is the daughter of Anton LaVey and Diane Hegarty.

At the age of 13, Zeena was pregnant.

She became the high priestess and spokesperson for the Church of Satan.

Zeena and her husband Nikolas Schreck left the church in 1990, and, in 2002, founded a religious cult called the Sethian Liberation Movement, which allows the practice of magic.

Beelzebub's Daughter | VICE bAnnette Lamothe-Ramos


Zeena in Berlin. Portrait By Florian Büttner

Zeena reportedly discovered that her father was a fake.

According to Zeena Schreck this was: "due to the intervention of the god Seth, who awakens through harsh disillusionment or scorn or through the shattering of everything that you thought was real being torn from you..."

Zeena says: "I began teaching black magic independently from the church..."

She temporarily joined General Aquino's Temple of Set, which she describes as "another abusive and corruptive group, and not at all what I was interested in."

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-VlMI1lbchho/T_WFVQbuvTI/AAAAAAAAaN4/0zgSxBGVrk...

http://aangirfan.blogspot.fr/2014/03/satanists-in-louisiana-california-a...

Wed, 07/23/2014 - 21:23 | 4996127 Yes_Questions
Yes_Questions's picture

 

 

red meat

Wed, 07/23/2014 - 21:25 | 4996135 Jumbie
Jumbie's picture

So, apparently the author doesn't think this already exists in this great land of nepotistic crony capitalism?

 

Here:

“loan guarantees, direct loans, and technical assistance to major stockholders to buy more companies, real estate, treasuries. . .”

The goal of this legislature, curiously, is to “preserve and increase wealth of those who control the Congress and Presidency of the United States” which is still problematic one hundred years after the Federal Reserve financial crisis.

There, fixed for ya.

Authoritarial Socialism works best when the sheep think they have rights and Freedoms.

 

 


Wed, 07/23/2014 - 21:27 | 4996139 shovelhead
shovelhead's picture

My plan B is to sit in my garden, listen to the birds, drink a lil shine or smoke a bit of weed and shoot anyone who comes over the fence.

Same as plan A.

That food is for me and mine.

Athena the dog is young, strong and vicious to anyone who doesn't belong.

I don't much care what Gov. is gonna do anymore.

None of it is worth a damn anyway.

Wed, 07/23/2014 - 22:02 | 4996296 LocalBoy
LocalBoy's picture

Its not what government does to you, shovelhead. Its what government does to your friands and family.

They put brother against brother, wife against husband, father against son, neighbor against neighbor.

Its not what government does directly, the problem is the effects they have on otherwise rational people. 

Thu, 07/24/2014 - 08:22 | 4997336 Bioscale
Bioscale's picture

True, you must be careful and stop listening government and newspapers. And if the time comes, you and your friends with their friends must target those gov fucks together.

Wed, 07/23/2014 - 21:40 | 4996196 Joebloinvestor
Joebloinvestor's picture

Wait until the employee owned bank...

 

WHEEE, loans for everyone. 

Wed, 07/23/2014 - 21:40 | 4996197 Joebloinvestor
Joebloinvestor's picture

Wait until the employee owned bank...

 

WHEEE, loans for everyone. 

Wed, 07/23/2014 - 21:43 | 4996213 robertocarlos
robertocarlos's picture

Socialism might not be so bad. Free Wi-Fi in every home, free Obama iPhone, $10 dollar a month rents, and free public transit. It would make going to and standing in line at the central food store seem like less wasted time. And no, the black market stores selling cheese and meats are not accepting American dollars.

Wed, 07/23/2014 - 21:47 | 4996228 Ned Zeppelin
Ned Zeppelin's picture

This bill has no chance of passing, so why are we talking about it?

Wed, 07/23/2014 - 21:56 | 4996266 Jackagain
Jackagain's picture

Site hits...

Wed, 07/23/2014 - 21:50 | 4996236 MASTER OF UNIVERSE
MASTER OF UNIVERSE's picture

Atlas got Mugged and that's why the the United States Employee Ownership Bank Act is fucking being passed in the legislature, Tyler.

Wtf do you think is going to invest in small business? Do you think the banks have a track record of small business loans to small business America? There is no trend line of investment in small business in America whatsoever. Who in the hell is going to lend to small fucking business if the God damned banks are not going to do it? If you ran Government how would you rebuild small business loan investment, Tyler? I think this is a good idea for the USA and USA manufacturing reinvestment. It is a practical progressive way to support the manufacturing sector when the

cocksucker banks refuse to invest. You don't see the major banks coming out with their won ideas and they are not investing in anything other than their own book. It's time the USA Government did something progressive. I wish my Government would do the same thing here in CANADA. And what is all this 'land of the free' shit? Patriotism is these times is not getting the job done. Suck it up, Buttercup!

Wed, 07/23/2014 - 21:59 | 4996281 LocalBoy
LocalBoy's picture

Banks that get their so called capital from the federal reserve system do not care about small business. Small business would dominate the landscape if thay were allowed egual access to markets and credit.

The answer is simple, confine the central authority to the original intent of the US Constitution....its that easy.

Giving small business loans from the feds will do nothing for regulatory capture, it does nothing for the regs and laws that give the big boys benefit and immunity.

The answer is less federal government, less rule by man and more rule of law.

 

Wed, 07/23/2014 - 22:07 | 4996313 therevolutionwas
therevolutionwas's picture

How about the government gets out of the way.  How about they let me keep my money, not take it and invest it in some scheme to let me buy up some stupid company I may not want.  Let me keep my hard earned money!  Do not take it in the first place.....THAT is the key.  Screw government!

Wed, 07/23/2014 - 22:22 | 4996364 The Most Intere...
The Most Interesting Frog in the World's picture

If banks don't think it is a good investment why the fuck would you want your tax dollars funding or guaranteeing it? You are completely insane.

Thu, 07/24/2014 - 01:24 | 4996851 MASTER OF UNIVERSE
MASTER OF UNIVERSE's picture

Banks have made sure small business loans don't produce so that they can fuck small business and gain market share for corporations that garner a larger share of the loans markets. Too-big-to-fail has distanced itself from too-small-to-compete and in so doing put all their investment into a few select baskets that cannot sustain themselves without huge amounts of market share they cannot satisfy. BlackBerry is a perfect example of a large corporation being squeezed out by larger corporations with bigger market share. The banks don't want to lend to them either.

Look at the hard time BB is having with respect to investors. Look at the holdings and real estate sales of late and ask yourself if they are a good credit risk long term? Small business must be able to survive or the larger businesses will not be able to sell their products. They killed small business and manufacturing which gave us a service sector economy and the 1% class that does not invest in small town America or small business that fuels it. Neo-Keynesian logic is driving the Bank Act plan for business investment where the old guard Capitalists are fast asleep at the wheel of business. Keynes was a pragmatic theorist.

Wed, 07/23/2014 - 22:02 | 4996292 MATA HAIRY
MATA HAIRY's picture

not too many good things coming out of DC, but this sounds like a good one.

Wed, 07/23/2014 - 22:11 | 4996327 LocalBoy
LocalBoy's picture

Name one program the federal government has ever run effectively and efficiently ?

Name one program installed by our central authority that was not written by Wall Street, for Wall Street.

Good in theory, impossible without real capital produced from the bottom up living beneath your means.....

I ask - Is this a good program for unborn who is indebted to fund it ? Is it moral and just for us to live beyond our means spending the future earnings of the unborn.......WHAT ABOUT THE CHILDREN ? 

Wed, 07/23/2014 - 22:05 | 4996305 slightlyskeptical
slightlyskeptical's picture

This along with tariffs on competing imported goods would go a long ways towards setting things straight. Corporate America has abandonded America and this would help correct that damage.

Wed, 07/23/2014 - 22:13 | 4996337 LocalBoy
LocalBoy's picture

Why not just follow the law, its much easier and far more sustainable.

Where does the federal government get the authority to provide special previledges and immunities to corproations ?

Wed, 07/23/2014 - 22:14 | 4996342 The Most Intere...
The Most Interesting Frog in the World's picture

This will work as well as guaranteeing $500,000 mortgages on over priced homes of McDonalds cashiers did.

Wed, 07/23/2014 - 22:07 | 4996310 ThroxxOfVron
ThroxxOfVron's picture

You are my sweet little Solyndra yes yes yes yes yes you are!

Coochy coochy coochy coochy smoochy smoochy smoochy smoochy smoochy!

Wed, 07/23/2014 - 22:18 | 4996321 The Most Intere...
The Most Interesting Frog in the World's picture

So businesses lobby Congress complaining they need more and bigger dumbasses to buy their fucking companies and Congress, of course, obliges. You don't think a bunch of shithead members of Congress thought of this do you? They write none of their own legislation.

Another fucking sign this is all one big fucking joke...on us!

Wed, 07/23/2014 - 22:11 | 4996330 The Most Intere...
The Most Interesting Frog in the World's picture

And this is no different than loosening lending standards to buy a house...after the insiders made all the big money of course. Fuck you pigs!

Wed, 07/23/2014 - 22:16 | 4996346 Phillycheesesteak
Phillycheesesteak's picture

What's wrong with employees having an ownership interest in the company? Ever heard of an ESOP? The more productive employees get a larger share of ownership and, hence, a larger share of the profits. That beats all the profits going to some shitbag at the top who happened to inherit the company from his father but never did anything to build it.

Wed, 07/23/2014 - 22:26 | 4996374 LocalBoy
LocalBoy's picture

Nothing is wrong with it. The problem is letting the government pick the winners and loosers by borrowing against the future earnings of an unborn. 

Wed, 07/23/2014 - 23:07 | 4996531 Phillycheesesteak
Phillycheesesteak's picture

It's not a handout. It's a loan. The government can make loans to employees to buy viable businesses. Then they get paid back with interest. It's how banks make billions of dollars.

Thu, 07/24/2014 - 04:57 | 4997055 damicol
damicol's picture

what the fuck are you smoking.

A fucking loan from the taxpayer is as good as gone and  up in smoke the seod it leaves the fucking door..

 Fucking Idiot, cant you spot a crony corrupt scam yet when one hits you between the eyes.

Thu, 07/24/2014 - 16:33 | 5000287 Phillycheesesteak
Phillycheesesteak's picture

Listen, Moron. Have you ever heard of the Small Business Administration? SBA Loan Program? It's been very successful for decades. Just because you can't find a job and you're bitter doesn't mean that every suggestion for a new program has to be dismissed out of hand.

Thu, 07/24/2014 - 22:24 | 5002015 LocalBoy
LocalBoy's picture

Problem is that they dont loan tax monies, in fact they loan money from thin air. They simply inflate the money and credit supply. 
CPI is not an accurate measure, inflation is the act of increasing money and credit.

When the new money is created two things happen. Debt is created and passed down and the new money devalues earned money to get its value.
Its not the idea, its the consequences of allowing the federal apparatus to administer it. 

Wed, 07/23/2014 - 22:23 | 4996366 MayIMommaDogFac...
MayIMommaDogFace2theBananaPatch's picture

Crack-smokin' fuckin' Congress.

Wed, 07/23/2014 - 22:32 | 4996392 barroter
barroter's picture

Let ONLY the bankster class own anything! If we have gov't compete with them, Madoff types will get mad! Your job as a peon is to do whatever the top .1% tells you to!

Wed, 07/23/2014 - 22:42 | 4996445 Spungo
Spungo's picture

It's entirely possible that congress has no idea how the stock market works or what stocks are. We already have public ownership. This is why companies "go public" by offering shares to anyone who wants them. Pension funds own considerable amounts of stocks. 100% of my portfolio that isn't cash is in publicly traded shares. I guess that makes me a greedy socialist; I want some of the company's profits for myself.

This idea proposes a bank lend money to people who want to buy ownership in a company. They're literally suggesting people take on debt to buy stocks. This is fucking insane. I don't need a crystal ball to tell you how this will end. Hint: stock market crash and lots of margin calls.

Wed, 07/23/2014 - 22:52 | 4996486 Golden_Rule
Golden_Rule's picture

Equating employee owned companies to socialism is quite dumb.  The government handing out loans to do so is obviously not the right way to do it.  The only grocery company in my area which can compete with Walmarts prices is an employee owned company.

Wed, 07/23/2014 - 22:58 | 4996500 uncle_vito
uncle_vito's picture

You would have to be nuts to want to own the company you work for.   Best think in the world is to work for someone else.   You go home at night with NO problems.   Let the stupid company go BK.   You can always go find another job!

Wed, 07/23/2014 - 23:11 | 4996541 Phillycheesesteak
Phillycheesesteak's picture

You go work for someone else and get your measley wage. I'm staying with owning part of my company and taking a share of the profits.

Wed, 07/23/2014 - 23:56 | 4996675 Nexus789
Nexus789's picture

Another ill thought through initiative. This will fail as it will simply ‘cannibalise’ what is left of US manufacturing. It is simply another case of handing out money without actually addressing the real and underlying reasons and policies that are making the US economy uncompetitive, hollowing it out, etc. Apparently no one in Washington lives in the real world and understands the building blocks - capital, skills, knowledge, products, etc, required to create a company. They live in a delusional world of debt and money. 

Thu, 07/24/2014 - 00:44 | 4996739 SystemOfaDrown
SystemOfaDrown's picture

Yes, everyone knows Capitalism works soooooo much better by Too Big To Fail Corporations.

Petty little American and Western middle/working class surfs are such lower breeds for this task.

Like the Title. Gives a nice anti-Socialism feel while in reality indirectly promotes pro-Oligarch/Monarch rule. [Remember: Common People cannot do nothing right. We need them to lead us by the hand.]

Thu, 07/24/2014 - 00:40 | 4996781 laomei
laomei's picture

Um, employee owned companies are incredibly successful.  In fact this is such good news that there's gotta be a catch

Thu, 07/24/2014 - 03:36 | 4996998 smacker
smacker's picture

But the track record of commercial investment via taxpayer-funded state-owned banks is not. They become political slush funds. Lending criteria standards are low, bad investment decisions rise and NPLs soon rise. It soon becomes just another way of keeping a lid on unemployment and feeding taxpayer money to cronies.

And that's what this lunacy is about.

Thu, 07/24/2014 - 03:50 | 4997010 Ghordius
Ghordius's picture

I agree with both of you, yet... smacker, I'd change your sentence to "the track record... is mixed". I've seen companies that were quite good even though their bank-funding was a morass of political cronyism. at the end, funding is funding, and entrepreneurial activity is entrepreneurial activity, and the two can be separate

Thu, 07/24/2014 - 02:08 | 4996892 kurt
kurt's picture

Your premise sounds like a forced marriage. So what if a rust belt manufacturer, intent on going to China, has employees who'd like to make a go of running the company and keep their jobs?

Oh, and, Ayn Rand is creepy.

Thu, 07/24/2014 - 02:59 | 4996954 GreedKillz
GreedKillz's picture

Obama in Colorado just a couple days ago "It turns out I'M a pretty BIG EMPLOYER"

Thu, 07/24/2014 - 03:52 | 4997009 dreadnaught
dreadnaught's picture

Raynd's theory was that corporations should be free of all laws and regulations, as it would be "in their own self interest" they would follow laws treat their workers right, dump no pollutants, and do good throughout the land  ROFL yeah RIGHT!

Thu, 07/24/2014 - 05:02 | 4997059 JoJoJo
JoJoJo's picture

Employee ownership => Then let the employees start their own company instead of using tax payer funding to buy out(take  over) some else's company as in Venezuela. I wonder how much GM union ownership (even small percentage) has to do with recent GM gaffs.

Thu, 07/24/2014 - 06:01 | 4997098 ultramaroon
ultramaroon's picture

S. 2411 is sponsored by Bernie Sanders, who describes himself as a socialist. It probably won't pass, though. It probably won't even get past committee; so says govtrack:

 

Prognosis

1% chance of getting past committee.
0% chance of being enacted.

Only 11% of bills made it past committee and only about 3% were enacted in 2011–2013. [show factors | methodology]

The following factors determined this bill’s prognosis:

The sponsor is a member of the minority party. ?

6+ cosponsors serve on a committee to which the bill has been referred. ?

The bill was referred to Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. ?

This bill was a re-introduction of S. 3419 (112th) from the previous session of Congress. ?


https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/113/s2411

Thu, 07/24/2014 - 07:02 | 4997154 redd_green
redd_green's picture

IBM is mostly employee owned, goofball.   This isn't socialism, you need to read up a little.  Government owned means of production is socialism.   Geez,  I expected better from ZH.  

 

Thu, 07/24/2014 - 07:14 | 4997161 Joe A
Joe A's picture

Didn't Rand receive social welfare and medicare? If she was true to her principles she would have refused that.

While socialism fails because eventually you run out of other people's money, capitalism fails because eventually the ponzi scheme and fractional reserve banking system will collapse (and you will run out of future generations' money). And it will then turn into....socialism or corporate fascism. Or a mixture of these two.

edit: Socialism in Yugoslavia didn't fail because of employee co-ownership but because of inefficiencies and the fact that socialism dictates 100% employment and because nobody could get fired. Why work and be innovative when you are provided for?

Thu, 07/24/2014 - 07:35 | 4997214 wonderatitall
wonderatitall's picture

commie? batshit obama the bare is and will always be a fascist.

Thu, 07/24/2014 - 08:29 | 4997347 Joe A
Joe A's picture

I think the community worker is just an employee.

Thu, 07/24/2014 - 07:20 | 4997179 orangegeek
orangegeek's picture

Following in the footsteps of Yugoslavia.

 

Good job Barry.

 

Communist in the WH affirmed.

Thu, 07/24/2014 - 07:58 | 4997280 esum
esum's picture

the opportunity to own and vote on how a company is run already exists........ buy stock with your own fucking money bitch....

CAPITALISM GOT US TO BE THE exceptional country we are..... AND socialism WILL DESTROY IT... Progressives/socialists are FAILURES who wont quit. trillions WASTED on progressive / liberal programs.... and the poverty rate is higher than it was when the "war on poverty" started in the '60s..... 

Thu, 07/24/2014 - 08:17 | 4997325 eishund
eishund's picture

The Tortoise is arriving at its destination. This is scary stuff.

Thu, 07/24/2014 - 08:53 | 4997396 d edwards
d edwards's picture

Not too far back there was talk floated about making the Postal Service into some sort of bank. Guess that didn't "fly."

 

Let's hope the House votes this down.

 

We, the People need to throw out as many Dem/socialists and RINOS out of office as possible in Nov.

 

The difference between a communist and a socialist? A commie takes power at the point of a gun; a socialist takes power with the point of a pen. Quote 0bamao: "I have a pen...

'Nuff said.

Thu, 07/24/2014 - 10:57 | 4998170 Der Kaufmann
Der Kaufmann's picture

paranoic Americans...

Thu, 07/24/2014 - 11:03 | 4998216 GIABO
GIABO's picture

You mean Ayn Rosenbaum?

Thu, 07/24/2014 - 12:56 | 4998955 DerAdler
DerAdler's picture

Simon Black, you sorry coksiker. Socialism is already here, thanks to you tribal parasites; this is full on communism. Now you're still trying to squeeze out the last few bucks as you guys burn the place down for the insurance money. Now get your stupid Ayn Rand BS out of here.

Do NOT follow this link or you will be banned from the site!