I guess that means you'd like to outlaw outlawing :o)
No, not at all. That would be completely pointless.
But as you say yourself, ursury is morally highly questionable.
I think it is. I also think it is pointless to legislate morality.
And as the increasing absence of moral values, indeed the decay of morality in society continues
This continuous decay is referred to by the term decadence.
to be replaced by the worship of mammon the almighty buck,
Fortunately, the buck isn't all that mighty. It is fairly poor as money goes.
At the same time, the "worship of mammon" would include the worship of gold.
I fear that even a free market won't stand a chance as long as intoctrinated citizens leave school with maxxed out credit cards on a search for a loan to go to college and university.
I think this idea that "a free market won't stand a chance" because the debt system bribes everyone is a bit silly. The free market always survives, even when it goes underground.
The brief while of geek worship in the US was indeed only veiled envy of the gazillions they made and CEOs are the demi-gods of the new religion witch bankers and brokers serving as clergy.
Witch bankers. Nice one.
I think you are confusing popular culture with culture.
It doesn't seem to me very likely that you can learn much from popular culture. Possibly you can sense how far morals have decayed.
You don't expect that society will be repelled by its own rott, do you?
Society, Robert, is not my responsibility. Society is a fiction. It isn't my fiction.
I don't really believe in society as such. I believe in individuals, in markets, in God. Society is a weird construct that tries to suppress individual initiative. Very often, once it gets going, it is used to suppress markets. Lately, the society most Americans live in seems to be trying to suppress God. It is a curious thing.
I don't wish to reform society, Robert. I don't wish to reform society any more than I wish to reform government. It would be foolish to try to reform either. Neither society nor government are within reach. No tools can be used to address their deficits and repair them.
Instead, I think what is called for in a culture war is a new culture. You cannot really fight a culture war unless you have some culture of your own to defend.
As for Islamic culture, although there is much of value there, I'm not entirely willing to defend all of it. Too much statism has been added to it.
Most individuals are wallowing in their decrepitude. They like the decadent society in which they live. They love watching celebrities, especially when those celebrities act like jackasses toward each other and get caught doing naughty things. They love watching football games, and "barracking" for one team or another. They will vote funds from the public treasury for bread and circuses, and when push comes to shove, they will vote for circuses and not bother with bread.
I'm not interested in most people. I'm not concerned about their fate. They have made their beds, and they can lay in them.
I'm interested in two things: me and my neighbors. I'm interested in me, because self-interest is rational. I'm interested in my neighbors because my self-interest is best served by having decent neighbors. Living among thieves and villains doesn't work well.
It is more likely that things get real bad before enough
voices are heard that are trying to convince people that
loneliness and desperation are the results of greed and shortsightedness.
See, I'm not one of those voices. Yes, things will get very bad for those who have tried to build their houses upon the sand. The shifting sands of expedience make for a bad foundation, and the winds come, the rains fall, the flood waters rise, the houses fall, and there is much lamentation. But, it does no good to tell people "Hey, you have built your house upon the sand" when they have never seen anyone build a house upon a rock. It makes much more sense to go build a house upon a rock. Then the winds blow, the rains come, the flood waters rise, and the house falls not. And there is great rejoicing. (Matthew 7:24, etc.)
Trouble is, once these voices gain enough momentum, the results are likely to be a violent move towards the right.
Again, I don't see how that's my problem. I've provided for my own defense. What more am I expected to do?
When it is time to kill Nazis, again, plenty of Nazis will be killed.
Then you are not far from burning witches and hunting bankers with pitch forks.
Civilization isn't ever very far from that stage. It is mostly a veneer, and it isn't a very deep veneer. People express such morality as they feel they can afford, and they often don't feel very wealthy.
I don't agree with burning witches. Let he who is without sin cast the first torch.
At the same time, hunting bankers might be an interesting sport. Don't be surprised if they shoot back, though.
Maybe we should outlaw lawyers...
Again, I think that's a bad idea. Lawyers prosper and proliferate wherever there are systems of laws. If you outlaw them, you haven't done away with the root cause of lawyers - you've added to it. As Thoreau wrote, there are many hacking at the branches for every one who is striking at the root.
Lawyers are a symptom of decadence, corruption, and expedience. They are not the cause. Treat the symptom and you haven't effected a cure.
As I said, my expectation is that if ursury is not brought under control,
Under whose control? Who would you set up to be the authority in control over usury? Who would you make into the guardians against the evils of usury, and who shall guard us from those guardians? Qui custodiet custodiens?
Who were the Praetorian Guards? They were the elite force which guarded Caesar. And, when they were so inclined, they were the elite force who killed Caesar and replaced him.
that then the results over time will make the Spanish Inquisition look like a kindergarden field trip.
I was born in the 20th Century, Robert. I'm well aware that mankind is capable of brutality that makes the Spanish Inquisition look like a somewhat bloody version of dodge-ball. But, don't sell the Spanish Inquisition short. Remember what the bishop told the Catholic captain who was looking for a little guidance outside the last Cathar stronghold, after the captain reported that both Catholic and Cathar women and children were hiding in the cathedral in town. The bishop said, "Kill them all. God will know his own."
People are prone to fall from one extreme into the other.
Again, solving the problems of all people everywhere is not my job. I'm just this guy. I'm not interested in fixing the world. I don't even want to live on this planet.
Or, to quote Dr. Lizardo from "Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension" who said it best, "It's not my...planet, monkey-boy!"
So we might be looking either a theocratic Holy States of America or a American Communist Federation in a few decades.
A pox upon both their houses.
If you think I feel responsible in the least for whatever sort of atrocity the United States becomes, you are mistaken. I am not responsible for the atrocity it has already been.
Fascism itself doesn't usually last very long, especially when the first wars are being lost - or drag on forever without any apparent benefit or visible goal.
Fascism can last quite a long time. Consider the Roman Empire. As for the first wars being lost, we'll see how the spin-meisters characterize the losses in Iraq and Afghanistan over the next ten years.
To avoid all that, maybe even to save the US,
No purpose could be further from my preferences.
a bit of regulatory insight to cap interests might be at least retarding the process, if not indeed arrest it (puns intended).
Nonsense. Capping interest rates and all other machination to control the free market never makes anything better. It only makes things worse.
What makes you think it would ever stop there? It is the classic nose of the camel under the tent of privacy. You don't let the camel get its nose under the tent, because the whole camel follows.
On the other side of the medal so to speak, it should become tougher to file for chapter 7 and chapter 11.
Promoting debt peonage? Bankruptcy is the way to avoid debtors' prisons. Even with usury forbidden, there was still a jubilee year in Judaism.
Meaning, while companies and share holders should still be protected, etc. CEOs should become personally responsible for mismanagement and be charged with it deception and breach of trust, loosing at the very least all benefits, boni and large parts of their wages.
Madness. Place hardships on CEOs and all you do is make it difficult to find people willing to lead companies. You don't do a thing to alleviate the need for leadership.
In addition, CEO slaries should be capped at a reasonable level.
To whom will you arrogate this power to cap? What makes you think those who would cap salaries have reason?
Again, it is madness to insist that CEO salaries be capped. All that accomplishes is to drive companies out of your country or underground. Make it too difficult to find men and women to operate companies and you'll devastate the economy.
Rather than attacking private enterprise, I think you should take a serious hard look at the regulators and politicians. Cap their salaries.
A fairly interesting reform proposal from a friend of mine from Florida was to cap at $500,000 the amount any bureau-rat could earn from the public trough. Once a $25,000 a year worker had worked for 20 years, or a $50K a year worker had worked for 10 years, they were forever banned from the public payroll. I think that should work just as well for politicians. We'd get rid of most Senators after their first term that way.
Of course, reform is a waste of time at this point.
Bonus should be paid in restricted shares of stock.
Who says? You? What about the CEOs? Don't they get a say? Or are you enslaving them?
Don't you think if the maximum a bank could charge was 1% non-compounding per month or 12% per annum - OR - transaction fees and service charges, but NOT both, and if executives could not earn more that $120,000 before tax and incentives, that maybe, the world would be a better place?
The world would be a different place. I think you don't understand how the world works. Banks aren't interested in a government that places such restrictions on them, so such restrictions aren't placed upon them.
I think it is a bad mistake to suppose that executives don't earn their pay. It is lunacy to suppose that you can manage the entire economy with one salary cap to fit all heads.
I mean, I live in Asia most of the time
Tastes do vary.
and can't really spend $2,000 a month, no matter how hard I try.
I think you haven't tried very hard. You could spend $2,000 in one throw taking a beautiful woman into a jewelry store. You don't play polo, do you? A single player needs six good horses for each match. It is easy to spend $2,000 on one horse.
And spending $10,000 in the US really takes some effort as well
Sez you. It isn't your money. It isn't your labor.
You are asserting a power to force people to exchange their labor for a fixed sum. How does that power arise? It seems to me that you are stealing from those who want to spend money on executive compensation, and you are stealing from those who would be paid more in a free market.
You don't want to live in the lap of luxury. Fine. Don't. But it isn't a proper power for you to insist that nobody else may, either.
- especially if you get piles of restricted shares on top, based on the value you generated for share holders...
Why restricted shares? What are the restrictions?
Here's how salary caps work. You have a free market negotiation. An executive who has produced many consecutive quarters of profit at his company is being interviewed by another company seeking to pay him whatever it takes to become the CEO of their company.
Then your salary cap is imposed. Men with badges of authority and guns come around and change the way the deal can be made. They impose force to prevent the free market from operating.
In my view, that is unjust, and those men with badges and guns should be shot and killed and tossed out of highrise buildings. It is wrong to impose your economic lunacy with force.
Your idea requires bloodshed to become reality. You seem to be willing to shed streams of executive blood in order to realize it. I'm not.
Regards,
Jim http://www.ezez.com/
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