brent norton's page

Freehold DM wrote:

So wall street can only make money via loopholes?

I find that idea suspect. I also find it interesting that all involved have different ideas regarding whose responsibility it is to create jobs/hire people.

Yeah, I wouldn't say they need loopholes, but I would say they are working under the current conditions of the system. Suggesting that people should shoot themselves in the foot (not use the system as it is now, despite their competition doing so) for some moralistic ideal, that might not even be feasible, it a bit silly.

You see this kind of thinking in the gaming community. You have these folks complain that the other player is a "munchkin" for using the rules in play to make an optimized character, while they purposefully gimp themselves thinking it proves they are good roleplayers. If you have a problem with the system, then fix the system, but don't complain when others use the system as designed and you feel some moral obligation to gimp yourself.

This right here.

Wall Street is only doing what they try to do best - make money, namely for their investors. They play by the rules provided (as I said upthread) and if they don't like the rules they try to change them (much like the OWS protestors) to suit their advantage. In many respects they are like children, but they aren't the gatekeepers here, our elected officials - the people who write and enforce the laws are. That is where you have a failure in the system - misdirected rage and a apathetic constituency.

So wall street can only make money via loopholes?

I find that idea suspect. I also find it interesting that all involved have different ideas regarding whose responsibility it is to create jobs/hire people.

Sorry, they can only maintain pre-regulation levels of profit by exploiting loopholes in said regulation. The hoops they have to jump through, the less certain generation of that profit is. The less certain they are, the less likely they are to invest in expansion. No expansion, no jobs.

If the hoops are tight enough, they will not only not expand, they will take other measures, like reducing overhead, like their workforce.

Businesses exist to make money, no matter what sector they are in.
Employees tie themselves to a company to have gainful employment, and reap the benfits of working for a successful business. Good benefits are in direct proportion to their profit margin, and when that shrinks the benfits shrink, and then the workforce itself.

No one starts a business to provide people with jobs. They have a product or a vision, and invite other people to go along for the ride with them as employees. All of their success or failure in inexorably tied to each other. You can not tighten the reigns on one without hurting the other.

Some folks in DC seem to think you can seperate the two and play both sides against each other. Enter current economic crisis.

Just wondering, are you fixed on the Avatar character?

Cos you could be a Summoner (Master Summoner) and have all the Living Elements aka Elementals under your control and whim.

Just an ideal.

Bleh. Just watched a youtube clip where some disenfranchised girl said how cool it was to have free wine at 9 in the morning, and that by taking and drinking it she was sticking it to the rich. The rich being "people wiv shops an' that."

Yeah. When I think of "The Rich" I immediately think of the shopkeepers of Clapham High Street.

What happens when right-wing intellectuals decide for the masses what is good for them?

Silly. There are no right-wing intellectuals. Intellectuals are douchebags who live in ivory towers and issue pronouncements that invariably do more harm than good. It's a liberal thing. :P

I think they should just start shooting. Criminals are criminals, after all.

To be honest I'd like a criminal justice system designed to reduce crime, rather than an expensive system of punishment that actually(according to the vast majority of the available evidence) breeds criminality and crime.

Now this I can agree with.