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Campaign Finance Law: McCain-Feingold overturned!

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Also notice that banks which did not take government bail-out money are to be penalized. What are they being penalized for? Being run in prudent and profitable fashion. Go figure.

Of course.

Remember Ronald Reagan's comment on government's relationship to business: "If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. If it stops moving, subsidize it."

Think about it. How best to increase power over people than to make them dependent on you?

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...Obama wants to make it so banks can no longer grow over a certain extent, to make it so they cannot do certain high stakes moves. He was saying something about the motive being that they shouldn't be able to profit when these things succeed and then have tax payers foot the bill when they fail -- obviously dodging the option of just not bailing out failing companies...

About the bank failures...

In 1977, President Jimmy Carter instituted the Community Reinvestment Act - this act encouraged banks to loan money to people who wanted to maintain and develop the inner city - these investors suffered from "redlining"- presumably the banks did not want to loan for development projects in the inner cities because they felt it was risky and an poor investment.

President Bill Clinton used the Community Reinvestment Act to funnel money to his constituents - buying votes from the poor? He used banking regulations to force banks to make sub-prime mortgage loans threatening that the banks could lose their rights to expand beyond state lines and would be allocated a bad loan score. As a further incentinve, banks were told that the government would guarantee the loans through Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Barney Frank was the head of Housing Development during the Clinton administration and was responsible for these policies.

According to Michele Bachman, a former Federal Tax attorney and current member of the Federal House of Representatives for the state of Minnesota, the banks were told they could avoid making these bad loans by giving money to ACORN instead, hence the partnership of ACORN with various banks. Essentially, Bachman states, the Federal government was suborning the extortion of banks to support ACORN.

Apparently these policies were continued in the Bush years and the housing bubble created by them came tumbling down when fuel prices and variable mortgage rates sky-rocketed and home-owners opted to pay for fuel instead of house payments and/or couldn't afford the higher variable loan rates.

The government had to "bail out' the banks for those bad loans, that was the agreement, it was not the fault of the banks, however, but the individuals in the government who pushed those programs on the banks. Had the government not forced the banks to give out those risky loans, they would not have failed.

The government is the problem, not the solution.

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I'm aware of the community reinvestment act and that the government encouraged bad investing by banks. The government is partly to blame for the bad choices by the perverse incentives they created. However, the banks aren't totally guilt free since there are banks which recognized the problems and didn't just run with the incentives and tried to minimize how much they did in response to those incentives. So while I of course think stuff like the community reinvestment act should be gotten rid of, we also shouldn't be bailing out the banks and looking at them like totally innocent victims who were entirely forced and are otherwise very wise business owners who we can count on to do a swell job.

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...So while I of course think stuff like the community reinvestment act should be gotten rid of, we also shouldn't be bailing out the banks and looking at them like totally innocent victims who were entirely forced and are otherwise very wise business owners who we can count on to do a swell job.

I agree that the deals shouldn't have been made in the first place, but, once they have been made, I think those in the government should stand behind them, as they did in this case. I would like to see politicians come clean about it, however, rather than placing all the blame on the bank executives.

There was an individual being interviewed who worked for a bank in the southwest, I think, who said her bank was "encouraged" to make loans for houses to illegal immigrants by the government. When the immigrants lost their jobs, they just left the houses. This is really disturbing to me. Sorry I can't recall the source so you can confirm the story.

At any rate, it seems to me that we have a "divide and conquer" strategy going on politically. Politicians are definitely making the bankers look like greedy bad guys who need to be punished. The tendency of the average person is to go along with this, "yeah, those guys need to be brought under control, they don't deserve those bonuses..." Next the government is just increasing taxes on those making over $250,000 a year...again, the average man doesn't complain, but he should. We need to stand together and not let the government nibble away at this group or that group, it is a violation of individual rights, of property rights, that give one group the advantage over another. Our representative democracy is devolving into mob rule.

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We aren't a democracy, representative or otherwise. We're a constitutional republic, meaning no matter how many representatives with however much popular support may want to, say, kick out all the atheists, they can't, our freedom to believe whatever religion or lack thereof we will remains. ;)

The government has no justification to make promises to banks to bail them out with money forced from citizens. That maybe some banks were given bad deals by the government doesn't mean later on the bad deal is right to be shifted off onto uninvolved third parties. That's like saying because some rotten crook robbed one person's house that somebody else not involved in the robbery should be forced to pay to replace the robbed stuff. It sucks for the robbed person here and if some people freely choose to donate some spare cash to the victim they may, but forcing others to pay the victim for replacements is just shifting robbery onto them now.

However, as I said, the banks are certainly not all as innocent of victims as that person whose house was robbed even anyway. There were perverse incentives the government made and some things the banks were flat out made to do, but not all banks were nearly at the point of collapsing. The ones which were near collapse from what I've gathered were only the ones that went above and beyond what was mandated of them, thinking things like those adjustable rate mortgages to people who really didn't have sufficient incomes were actually smart business moves. So the fact that even innocent victims shouldn't be cause to force other people to bail them out, promise or not, means I don't think we should be bailing them out and then furthermore I still think they should just be left to fail because I don't think they are all being run by people who are really the best and most reliable people to be running banks anyway. I put forward other large competitors who didn't get themselves in nearly such bad shape in spite of the dirty government deals going on as evidence of this.

That I don't think we should be forced to bail these banks out though does not mean I hate rich people and/or think we should be making laws against their bonuses or additional taxes for people over certain income brackets or anything like that. I think it's great for anybody who can become rich through being productive and not violating people's rights, I think taxes by their nature are immoral, and if anybody is giving big bonuses to incompetents in their businesses, it's not my problem as long as nobody tries to make it so and just lets them succeed or fail all on their own without forcing people to pay for their mistakes.

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We aren't a democracy, representative or otherwise. We're a constitutional republic, meaning no matter how many representatives with however much popular support may want to, say, kick out all the atheists, they can't, our freedom to believe whatever religion or lack thereof we will remains. ;)

cf>Until an ammendment to the constitution revokes that right or a "regulation"alters it beyond recognition.

bc>The government has no justification to make promises to banks to bail them out with money forced from citizens. ...

cf>What gave the government the "right" to threaten the banks to make risky loans in the first place? The government consists of individuals who have been voted into office by the people to do the bidding of the people-with whom does the responsibility lie? Once one has pinpointed the problem, what can be done to prevent it from happening again? Is it a flaw in the constitution, is it a faulty ammendment, are the legislatures taking liberties with the constitution? If the latter is the case, should we not find out who is responsible and hold them accountable for their actions?

They have brought the whole economy down and no one is even looking their way.

bc>However, as I said, the banks are certainly not all as innocent of victims as that person whose house was robbed even anyway. There were perverse incentives the government made and some things the banks were flat out made to do, but not all banks were nearly at the point of collapsing. The ones which were near collapse from what I've gathered were only the ones that went above and beyond what was mandated of them, thinking things like those adjustable rate mortgages to people who really didn't have sufficient incomes were actually smart business moves. ...

cf>Touche. Bill Gates in a lecture at Columbia recently said that no company is too big to fail.

bc>That I don't think we should be forced to bail these banks out though does not mean I hate rich people and/or think we should be making laws against their bonuses or additional taxes for people over certain income brackets or anything like that. I think it's great for anybody who can become rich through being productive and not violating people's rights, I think taxes by their nature are immoral, and if anybody is giving big bonuses to incompetents in their businesses, it's not my problem as long as nobody tries to make it so and just lets them succeed or fail all on their own without forcing people to pay for their mistakes.

Obama does have a bit of a quandary, however. He released into the banking system a great amount of money with the intent that the banks would loan it. Having had their fingers slapped for making risky loans, banks are sitting on this interest-free money and instead investing it in government bonds for which they are earning 3% interest. According to Soros, now that Obama has released money into the economy, inflation will occur unless he takes it back out in some way, hence the taxes on the banks.

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At such time as some kind of voting were to happen and be enforced and upheld indeed we'd become a democracy. Now is not that time though. For now at least, we're still a constitutional republic, you couldn't make people swallow that blatant a tossing out of basic rights, no matter how many people may not like atheists.

Yup, the government really didn't have the right to do that to banks no more than a robber has the right to rob my example house. For the same reasons that the robber isn't justification for forcing other people to repay the victim, the bad actions of the government don't justify forcing the rest of us to bail out banks. Not everybody gave express support and consent to have banks bullied on their behalf, not everybody even liked it, but the taxing to bail out banks would be applied to all of us.

I agree many stupid moves have been done in response to the bad economy which create many quandaries.

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I'm curious how exactly to justify a corporation getting the same right to free speech and spending its money as a person. I know a business is the property of a single person. But corporations often are (or only are, I'm not sure) owned by multiple people and have shareholders. Does this entity still have the right to free speech given the people involved have agreed and/or voted to have the corporation make a statement in its name?

I ask because I have been challenged in this line of thought lately. In the case of a business, I'm certain the owner should have the right to leverage his business in politics. But corporations seem fuzzier to me in ways. If the people who own it, the shareholders, etc don't unanimously agree to a political decision, does the corporation have a right to go ahead and make one?

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I'm curious how exactly to justify a corporation getting the same right to free speech and spending its money as a person. I know a business is the property of a single person. But corporations often are (or only are, I'm not sure) owned by multiple people and have shareholders. Does this entity still have the right to free speech given the people involved have agreed and/or voted to have the corporation make a statement in its name?

I ask because I have been challenged in this line of thought lately. In the case of a business, I'm certain the owner should have the right to leverage his business in politics. But corporations seem fuzzier to me in ways. If the people who own it, the shareholders, etc don't unanimously agree to a political decision, does the corporation have a right to go ahead and make one?

So what would be the guiding principle here? That if a person entrusts someone else with his property, the rights to that property all of a sudden disappear? If we apply this principle, bank robbery should be just as legal as Congress ignoring property rights because the actual owner transfered control over his property to a third party.

The way to justify the rights of a corporation is by applying the principles of property rights to the issue. The shareholders have the right to transfer control over their property to the corporation. And they do. When the government violates the rights of a corporation, they violate the rights of its shareholders to their property, just as a bank robber violates the rights of the people who deposited money in the bank.

The fact is that corporations will lobby politicians for favors, and rights will be violated as a result. But the solution is not less freedom (the violation of corporations' and their shareholders rights too, which by the way will not prevent the politicians from violating people's rights anyway), but more freedom: legal protection from politicians who currently have the power to violate people's rights by taking their property through taxation or imposing restrictions on their use and trade of that property.

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... corporations often are (or only are, I'm not sure) owned by multiple people and have shareholders.
If those shareholders like, they can -- by majority vote -- stop their corporation from "saying" things they do not like. So, any such speech comes with an implicit agreement of a majority of the shareholders. At shareholder meetings of a big corporation, every now and then one finds a shareholder who will ask the company to do something (e.g. focus on green jobs, give more jobs to women, support carbon cap-and-trade) and so on. There are procedures by which such proposals can be put to vote, and the outcome is decided by a majority (typically based on one-vote-per share, rather than one-vote-per-shareholder). Also, the directors are acting as the agents of the shareholders so if they're out of line, the shareholders can fire them.
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i read a random comment by one libertarian who argued that corporations are legal entities which are specifically set up via the granting of a state privilege to encourage the pooling of capital in return for limited liability protection. so basically he's trying to say they are state-created.

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i read a random comment by one libertarian who argued that corporations are legal entities which are specifically set up via the granting of a state privilege to encourage the pooling of capital in return for limited liability protection. so basically he's trying to say they are state-created.

Well, it IS the state that grants them the liability in the first place. And of course, when a corporation does something bad, we call it "free market capitalism".

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i read a random comment by one libertarian who argued that corporations are legal entities which are specifically set up via the granting of a state privilege to encourage the pooling of capital in return for limited liability protection. so basically he's trying to say they are state-created.
Nobody is forced to deal with a limited liability company.

Consider this: sometimes, building owners take loans for part of the purchase price of the building. If they have equity in the building, and if they're willing to pay a slight premium, the bank will often lend them the money with "no recourse". What this is means is: the bank is agreeing that in case the borrower cannot repay, they can foreclose on the building, but they cannot ask the borrower to make up any additional deficiency, if the building sells for less that the loan amount. In other word, the borrower's liability is limited to his stake in the building, and no more. Nothing wrong with that. The government will "protect" such a contract, but it is not the government that is granting this limited liability: it is the bank (in this case).

Similarly, consider if you are dealing with some business and they tell you that their liability is limited to the extent of the assets held in the name of the corporation, without recourse to other assets of the owners. You, as the counter party, are free to tell them you will not deal on those terms. A "limited liability corporation" is simply making such a declaration to the world at large. Those are the terms on which they will do business, and others are free to tell them to go to hell, or to accept this condition.

It does not follow that limited liability of the company ought to shield the personal assets of officers who perpetrate frauds, or some other criminal act.

(Search should bring up a few threads. This is a favorite libertarian/anarchist/communist topic.)

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Nobody is forced to deal with a limited liability company.

Consider this: sometimes, building owners take loans for part of the purchase price of the building. If they have equity in the building, and if they're willing to pay a slight premium, the bank will often lend them the money with "no recourse". What this is means is: the bank is agreeing that in case the borrower cannot repay, they can foreclose on the building, but they cannot ask the borrower to make up any additional deficiency, if the building sells for less that the loan amount. In other word, the borrower's liability is limited to his stake in the building, and no more. Nothing wrong with that. The government will "protect" such a contract, but it is not the government that is granting this limited liability: it is the bank (in this case).

Similarly, consider if you are dealing with some business and they tell you that their liability is limited to the extent of the assets held in the name of the corporation, without recourse to other assets of the owners. You, as the counter party, are free to tell them you will not deal on those terms. A "limited liability corporation" is simply making such a declaration to the world at large. Those are the terms on which they will do business, and others are free to tell them to go to hell, or to accept this condition.

It does not follow that limited liability of the company ought to shield the personal assets of officers who perpetrate frauds, or some other criminal act.

(Search should bring up a few threads. This is a favorite libertarian/anarchist/communist topic.)

Wait, so a bank has to be the one to grant them limited liability? I never knew that.

I always thought that the "double taxation" was the government taxing a corporation for insurance purposes. Ie: many corporations pay for the mistakes of a few corporations. Wow. I guess this is another case of the government consuming, without producing.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Got into a discussion related to this issue on another forum and the response was below:

"A corporation is an amelgam, it is not human, it is an entity, it does not breath air, its sole purpose and designation is to make profit for its survival. The supreme courts ruling of providing a so called equal voice to a corporation is paramont to saying that a robot/computer is human".

Edited by Mikee
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  • 2 weeks later...

And once again, faceplam at the comments

I'd be appalled if any member of Citizens United, the CEO included, was barred from political speech.

The corporation itself has no individual right, nor does any memeber or group of members have the right to speak for all those involved. Furthermore the right to free speech is very different from the right to spend unlimited money.

Money is not speech.

Corporations are not individuals.

If money is speech, then some have more speech than others... The first amendment was not designed to turn our nation into Animal Farm.

Let's say you, as a person, have the right to act. Some people can act more than others. Therefore, you have more freedom than others? If anything is like Animal Farm (which, by the way, was based on socialism's evil), it's this person's manipulation of words and concepts.

See how liberals use false logic to twist things around?

Edited by Black Wolf
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Your rights are your right to your life, your liberty, the fruits of your labors, and the pursuit of happiness.

You are sovereign over your person and property. You can act over your person and property, and nobody can violate those rights, which requires the initiation of force. If you are free to act over your person and property, this means you are free to speak, since it is your person you speak with. And this violates nobody's rights, since you are not initiating force nor the threat of force against another by doing so.

So, in a way, freedom of speech is a derivative right, which comes from the freedom to act over ones person and property. If I work and earn a bigger microphone, then I can reach more people.

But, be aware, having a bigger microphone doesn't make your ideas better. If you are selling a bad product, spreading the news far and wide will have a negative, not a positive effect. As an example, the msm has been losing audience and they have a very big microphone.

Conversely, having a small microphone and a great idea your ideas still can spread far and wide. Think of Ayn Rand's novels and how they were advertised largely by word of mouth.

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