|
Korean Job Discussion Forums
"The Internet's Meeting Place for ESL/EFL Teachers from Around the World!"
|
| View previous topic :: View next topic |
| Author |
Message |
Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
|
 Posted: Mon Dec 10, 2007 1:53 pm Post subject: The Perfect Storm of Campaign 2008 |
 |
|
Asia Times Online has a thought-provoking article by Steve Fraser called 'The Perfect Storm of Campaign 2008'. Here are the opening paragraphs:
Will the presidential election of 2008 mark a turning point in American political history? Will it terminate with extreme prejudice the conservative ascendancy that has dominated the country for the last generation? No matter the haplessness of the Democratic opposition, the answer is "yes".
With Richard Nixon's victory in the 1968 presidential election, a new political order first triumphed over New Deal liberalism. It was an historic victory that one-time Republican strategist and now political critic Kevin Phillips memorably anointed the "emerging Republican majority". Now, that Republican "majority" finds itself in a systemic crisis from which there is no escape.
Only at moments of profound shock to the old order of things - the Great Depression of the 1930s or the coming together of imperial war, racial confrontation, and de-industrialization in the late 1960s and 1970s - does this kind of upheaval become possible in a political universe renowned for its stability, banality and extraordinary capacity to duck things that matter. The trauma must be real and it must be perceived by people as traumatic. Both conditions now apply.
War, economic collapse, and the political implosion of the Republican Party will make 2008 a year to remember.
...
He goes on to write a good summary of the problems and consequences, with lots of little gratifying tidbits, like: "wholesale defections from the Republican Party"  It's the kind of article I've been waiting to read since Tricky D was elected in '68. (I've been in my own private depression ever since.) Fraser says the Conservatives have shot their wad, and in doing so have created a crisis of 1932 proportions.
May you live in interesting times. 
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/IL11Ak04.html |
|
| Back to top |
|
 |
Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
|
| Posted: Mon Dec 10, 2007 2:06 pm Post subject: |
|
|
One part that especially warmed the co*kles of my heart was this: "Thanks to the Reagan counter-revolution, there is precious little left of the regulatory state - and what remains is effectively run by those who most need to be regulated."
It's my belief that government exists to protect us not only from the nasty guys overseas, but also the nasty guys who live among us who have the power to wreck the lives of tens of thousands of citizens with their unregulated greed. We don't need less government, we need more. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
loose_ends
Joined: 23 Jul 2007
|
| Posted: Mon Dec 10, 2007 4:00 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Yata wrote:
| Quote: |
| It's my belief that government exists to protect us not only from the nasty guys overseas, but also the nasty guys who live among us who have the power to wreck the lives of tens of thousands of citizens with their unregulated greed. We don't need less government, we need more. |
very surprised to hear you say this.
the key here is "UNREGULATED GREED".
remember that greed has no bounds........... |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
|
| Posted: Mon Dec 10, 2007 6:09 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Quote: |
very surprised to hear you say this.
the key here is "UNREGULATED GREED".
remember that greed has no bounds........... |
Don't know why you are surprised.
This is why I think gov't needs to be strong enough to control corporate greed in all its variations. While I don't think government can stop all criminal activity, it needs to do as much as it can. If people didn't know it before, it is the lesson people should have learned from the Savings and Loan disaster and Enron. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
loose_ends
Joined: 23 Jul 2007
|
| Posted: Mon Dec 10, 2007 6:36 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Ya-ta Boy wrote: |
| Quote: |
very surprised to hear you say this.
the key here is "UNREGULATED GREED".
remember that greed has no bounds........... |
Don't know why you are surprised.
This is why I think gov't needs to be strong enough to control corporate greed in all its variations. While I don't think government can stop all criminal activity, it needs to do as much as it can. If people didn't know it before, it is the lesson people should have learned from the Savings and Loan disaster and Enron. |
what about government officials that have vested corporate interests?
diick cheney pops to mind as a perfect example.
what is your take on that? |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
|
| Posted: Mon Dec 10, 2007 6:55 pm Post subject: |
|
|
I'm agin it. I'm also agin the revolving door between business and government where people go back and forth. Even if there weren't impropriety going on, which I don't believe for a second, it looks like there is.
I'm less interested in the particular details than in the overall point. Fraser said, and I agree with him, that the Reagan administration gutted the regulatory controls (on the basis that "Government isn't the solution; government is the problem"). That snappy little quote was a major contributing factor to the distrust of government we see today. And that distrust is a contributing factor to the problems we're having today. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
loose_ends
Joined: 23 Jul 2007
|
| Posted: Mon Dec 10, 2007 7:29 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Ya-ta Boy wrote: |
I'm agin it. I'm also agin the revolving door between business and government where people go back and forth. Even if there weren't impropriety going on, which I don't believe for a second, it looks like there is.
I'm less interested in the particular details than in the overall point. Fraser said, and I agree with him, that the Reagan administration gutted the regulatory controls (on the basis that "Government isn't the solution; government is the problem"). That snappy little quote was a major contributing factor to the distrust of government we see today. And that distrust is a contributing factor to the problems we're having today. |
I share the same concern as you do.
However I have a gut feeling big government leads to more corruption.
Just a gut feeling though. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
|
| Posted: Mon Dec 10, 2007 8:10 pm Post subject: |
|
|
This article is such a crock.
Overburdening the financial sector with onerous and unhelpful regulations is not a solution AFTER THE FACT.
| Quote: |
| Despite bitter complaints in the business community, the Sarbanes-Oxley bill, passed after the dot.com bubble burst, has proven weak tea indeed when it comes to preventing financial high jinks, as the current financial meltdown indicates |
Whatever does Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) have to do with the mortgage crisis? The article doesn't say, it merely implies that SOX is somehow related to it. Its not.
As the War on Terror is to 9-11, so is SOX to Enron. SOX was enacted in a fury by the legislature after the incredible (and-one-in-a-million) collapse of Enron. And ever since 2002, America's corporate regulatory burden has made London and Hong Kong slide in favor of New York as a leading financial center.
| Quote: |
Increasingly, Hong Kong and London are the places where companies are finding it easier and cheaper to list their shares and raise capital. Last year, of the 25 largest initial public offerings in the world, only one took place in America. This year, Hong Kong is likely to end up as the No. 1 market for stock offerings world-wide.
Perhaps the top culprit in New York's relative decline as a trading center is the Sarbanes-Oxley corporate accountability rules that were put in place in 2002 in the wake of the Enron and WorldCom scandals. Henry Tang, Hong Kong's financial secretary, couldn't be more blunt on the good fortune Sarbanes-Oxley has brought his city. "Our success is giving [Treasury Secretary] Hank Paulson a few raised eyebrows," he told a delegation from the Fraser Institute, a Canadian free-market think tank, last week. "Thank you, Mr. Sarbanes and Mr. Oxley," he said, referring to Democratic Sen. Paul Sarbanes and GOP Rep. Mike Oxley, the law's chief sponsors.
While some of Sarbox's rules make sense, its Section 404 has had unintended and damaging consequences. Section 404 requires corporate executives to certify their financial statements and internal controls personally. Audit fees for Fortune 1000 companies have more than doubled on average. Worse, the rigid and cumbersome rules are driving away business without significantly improving corporate governance. "Managers are increasingly losing their appetite for risk and innovation," says Hank Greenberg, former chairman of the insurance giant AIG.
No wonder that last week a blue-ribbon panel of 22 top U.S. financial and political figures issued a report saying that a more flexible way to police corporate behavior would be to emulate the London Stock Exchange's "watchdog" unit, which uses broad principles to ensure compliance with ethical standards. The focus should be on ensuring a company's financial soundness rather than entangling a corporate executive or its auditors in litigation, which cause its stock price to plummet overnight. Hal Scott, a Harvard law professor and member of the panel, told the New York Post that the corporate controls in Sarbox don't exist anywhere else in the world, and compliance costs "are absolutely killing the U.S. in terms of maintaining listings dominance" in world markets. "If we correct it, we have been told to expect an almost immediate turnaround in listings." |
Witness the wisdom of US Congress, ladies & gentlemen!
I want to emphasize another point just as strongly: the Bush administration has been very active in setting up a regulatory regime. But you'd never know it from this article.
Take a very recent initiative by corporations asking the Bush administration to regulate it.
Kuros, that's crazy! Why would corporations want to be regulated? Why, indeed!
| Quote: |
| lawsuits not only provide compensation for victims of misbehavior and malfeasance, but they also serve as an important incentive for good corporate behavior. Corporations that do not have to bear the costs of injury and illness caused by their products have less reason to make safer products. |
That's right, the Bush administration is putting up regulations that will in turn protect corporations from lawsuits.
Of course, regulations actually would have to anticipate negligence in product design, otherwise they just deny victims just compensation. This threatens to overturn most successful of America's regulatory agencies: the courts.
Meanwhile, regulations themselves are costly. And the record shows that the Republicans have been strong advocates of big gov't.
Do you know my birthday is July 11th? Its a truly special day for all Americans actually, because its the day Americans begin to work for themselves. That's right, the cost of government, between taxes on federal and state levels PLUS regulations are so high that Americans do not begin to work for themselves until July arrives.
Here's the blunt truth, gentlemen. America already has big government: and its a giant choker around our economy's neck. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
cbclark4
Joined: 20 Aug 2006
Location: Masan
|
| Posted: Mon Dec 10, 2007 8:13 pm Post subject: |
|
|
The Business of America is Business.
The Business of Business is Business.
Governance is not a business.
Regulating in the spirit of "Anti-Trust" in the prevention of Monopolies and Oligopolies along with the treatment of the Labor Monopsonies.
Other duties of government include the recognition of the public or the values of the society. If education is vast social desire then it should be within the purveyance of government, as is health-care, and defense.. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
|
| Posted: Mon Dec 10, 2007 8:48 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Quote: |
| because its the day Americans begin to work for themselves. |
So you get no benefit from the taxes paid for schools, highways, police, national defense, Social Security, etc? I'm not buying it. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
|
| Posted: Mon Dec 10, 2007 9:13 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Ya-ta Boy wrote: |
| Quote: |
| because its the day Americans begin to work for themselves. |
So you get no benefit from the taxes paid for schools, highways, police, national defense, Social Security, etc? I'm not buying it. |
No, Ya-Ta, that is not my argument. My argument is that we need to recognize that taxation is not the only financial burden placed on the people by the US gov't.
Let me focus you on the regulatory burden:
http://atr.org/national/cogd/2006/cogdr2006pg11.htm
| Quote: |
The prime culprit is Sarbanes-Oxley designed to clamp down on wrong doing by corporate leaders. The problem, however, was that out of the more than 13,000 companies reporting to the Securities and Exchange Commission, less than 20 companies were found to be fudging numbers.
Instead of stepping up enforcement efforts, the new legislation placed an onerous burden on productive companies, which has forced them to waste productive resources monitoring their activities rather than spending on new investment and job creation. The new internal controls being forced on companies have been found to use up 35,000 hours of internal manpower and to increase compliance costs for large companies by $4.6 million.
The burden has become so severe that a new paradigm in corporate finance is taking place in which companies are going private. As the chart below from International Strategy and Investment Group demonstrates the number of companies going private jumped significantly as Sarbanes-Oxley was implemented, largely small publicly traded companies which could not afford the new costs. And this process has continued, actually accelerating since 2004. |
I think you'll find that the New Pragmatic Left that is emerging will be more concerned with tackling the deficit than increasing spending. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
|
| Posted: Tue Dec 11, 2007 12:43 am Post subject: |
|
|
Perhaps someone needs to get the financial wizards to work out a more cost efficient method of keeping the money boys in line.
I want a system that does not embrace corporate welfare while rejecting personal welfare as immoral and weakening to the character.
Anyway, a disagreement with one example given in the article should not distract us from the general thrust of the article.
Is the Election of 2008 going to be as historic as the Elections of 1932 and 1968? |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
sundubuman
Joined: 04 Feb 2003
Location: seoul
|
| Posted: Tue Dec 11, 2007 12:51 am Post subject: |
|
|
| Ya-ta Boy wrote: |
It's my belief that government exists to protect us not only from the nasty guys overseas, but also the nasty guys who live among us who have the power to wreck the lives of tens of thousands of citizens with their unregulated greed. We don't need less government, we need more. |
And who can protect us from runaway government??? The real revolution brewing is that small government low tax states are rapidly outgrowing the bloated democratic controlled states such as NY, Illinois, and CA. If it weren't for immigration, the tide would be even more greatly in favor of such places as Idaho, Texas, and Florida.
This article is pure tripe, there was a recent poll just a week ago showing Huckabee would outpoll Clinton if the election were to be held today. And it is my belief that the ascendancy of the Republicans was more in fact the downfall of the Democrats. The Democrats used to be a party of the working people, since the 60's it has become the party of the feminists, the racial demagogues, the environmentalists, the GLBT's, the pacifists etc etc etc.
And I don;t see that changing one bit in the coming year. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
thepeel
Joined: 08 Aug 2004
|
| Posted: Tue Dec 11, 2007 12:53 am Post subject: |
|
|
| sundubuman wrote: |
| there was a recent poll just a week ago showing Huckabee would outpoll Clinton if the election were to be held today. |
Really? Do you have a link? |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum
|
|
FAQ
Search
Memberlist
Usergroups
Register
Profile
Log in to check your private messages
Log in
