Posted on 03/11/2005 9:27:36 PM PST by The Loan Arranger
Years ago, this country did away with debtors prisons. The nation in general, and poor people in particular, would be well served to bring them back. The harm to business from unpaid debt, and the reduced productivity and even business failure unpaid debt can bring, is obvious. Businesses or individuals who are not repaid the money they loaned or who are not paid for the goods or services they produced and sold on credit are prevented from accumulating needed and even expected capital for expansion, and they are frequently thrown into serious financial constraints making it hard to pay their own creditors and employees. This not only can theoretically choke the gross national product, many recessions and even the Great Depression have been in fact brought on at least partly by unpaid debt.
But debt relief measures, either in the form of actual debt forgiveness or in the form of relaxed procedures to collect debt (including the abolition of debtors prisons), are generally thought to help the poor. The idea that once again forcing poor people into involuntary servitude to pay for meager food and shelter is certainly a tough sell. But here goes.
A return to debtors prisons would help poor people in at least five ways: 1) increasing workforce participation; 2) increasing personal responsibility; 3) making it easier for the poor to climb the economic ladder through entrepreneurship; 4) reintroduction of the virtues which have proven the only reliable way of the poor to leave poverty; 5) making credit more readily available.
(Excerpt) Read more at jesbeard.com ...
I'm opposed to taxing personal income, or frankly even corporate income, for that matter. Goods and services should be directly taxed. Sorry. Public benefits payments should never be withheld from wages, but also paid directly by the supposed 'beneficiaries' themselves, just as they would for their car insurance. That particularly goes for medicare and other welfare programs, and Social Security; directly paid just as they do with their taxes, now.
we weren't the "producer";
You're trying to argue that America was not manufacturer to the world following WW II. Fine. It's something so obvious that it should be equally obvious that we'll have to agree to disagree.
I can't address the broader point you're making. I stick to the shallow waters of economics and business and cracking wise.
However, I do know that businesses run best when the government stays out of them to the greatest extent possible. If the board of General Electric suddenly had an inspiration to hire Carrot Top as the new CEO at $70 million dollars, I don't think the government should pass a law banning Prop Comics from running Fortune 500 companies.
This nation has gone through more PANICS,RESESSIONS, DEPRESSIONS, etc.,than most on this site know about. There have also been boom times,when people's property has sky rocketed and the took the money and ran;or didn't. The point is,that comparisons of things,in today's dollars,with those of other times, is patently ridiculous.
I was guesstimating the equivalence and I bet I'm more correct than whatever net calculator you found on line. LOL
Certain areas of this country have more real estate spikes than others. California,for example, has, in the last several decades crazier house prices than most other areas.
There are far more people who own their own house today ( yes, mortgaged and people have ALWAYS bought houses on mortgages! In colonial times,when a mortgage was paid off,the mortgage was burned and an ivory disc was placed into the newel post of the stairway as proof that the house was now free and clear. ) than at ANY other time in the history of this country.
The Robber Barons were either dead or very old men in the 1930s.
There has ALWAYS been a very great divide in salaries and the '30s were no exception.
You want to go back to some time,that is a figment of your imaginings! IT NEVER EXISTED.
Actually, there is far less nepotism today,in any and all fields,than ever before and a great upward mobility to boot.
Unlike past times, today's poor aren't really poor at all.
Come on sevry.........just how young are you?
What you're talking about is MARXISM.
Okay, we're in agreement. Except on the mortgage point. Yes, people have always had mortgages, but now they have this new thing -- interest only mortgages -- which are patently insane. Basically, you buy the house/condo/co-op and pay only the interest on the mortgage.
What this had to is people buying properties they simply cannot afford.
When prices crash -- and they will -- the banks are gonna take a beating. And when banks take a beating, they like to spread the pain around as much as possible.
Anti-trust arguably is. Child labor arguably is. But executive compensation is not. That should be a matter for shareholders. But if no one acts, that still doesn't make it right, or a proper public example. If the shareholders cannot act, or are prevented by clever rule from doing so, it falls to those of position to act, as they did in the past. And remember that past, again, of robber barons, corrupt police depts, city halls, and nepotism up and down the line of government service. It took an unofficial hand to keep 'up appearances'. That seems to be lacking today.
The VAT would be far worse than today's income tax;which I'm also against and what it changed to a flat tax.
Yes,in the late 1940s and the 1950s,America manufactured far more goods than it does today; however,we were NOT the world's supplier! We were the world's LENDER.And Americans WERE buying many cheap goods from Japan back then;not to mention some very expensive stuff from Italy and France and England.
Shareholders act all the time. However, the shareholders aren't typically the widows and guys trading a hundred shares at a time on eTrade, they are the mutual fund guys and the big unions who control billions. And when they whisper to a board, the board pays attention. And in the larger scheme of things $50 million isn't a lot of money.
As for Robber Barons, they "built stuff." They weren't nice guys -- in fact, they were brutal -- but they built railroads and steel mills. Eventually, they out lived their usefulness and faded from the scene. A good percentage of the homes they built in Newport are now museums, a fact that is indicative or something or other.
The solution there is to not get divorced. If I can stay married anyone can stay married. I'm not easy to get along with when things go good.
You're getting confused, here. The 30s were a norm, in this regard. That's what I'M saying.
And that such government socialism is clearly to be avoided. Again, we'll have to agree to disagree.
The 30s were a norm? I don't think so.
So why wasn't the nation destroyed prior to imposition of the personal income tax? Why didn't the nation flounder prior to the advent of FDR-sized government, benefits and regulations?
But that suggests a role for government, if what you are describing is an oligarchy in all but name, composed of corporate and fund managers, otherwise unaccountable to the public or any sense of right or wrong.
I could be wrong, but I'm not so sure that a minority can't influence corporate decisions, particularly with the assistance of public outrage, nor that a fairly good sized minority doesn't directly purchase equities rather than suffer loss or statis in some mutual fund. But correct me if I'm wrong. Are the institutional guys REALLY, the only game in town?
In the 15th through the 18th century in Europe,land speculation ( and this includes housing ) was quite the wild ride. You think interest only mortgages are something new? THINK AGAIN!
The Chicago real estate boom of 1870-71 and '73, it was said that in 1871 every other man and every fourth woman has an investment in house lots. By 1873 ot had grown into one gigantic BUBBLE and burst.
Then,there was the Chicago co-op boom of the late 1920s.Some developers built with no cash at all and when the market crashed,they went belly up,leaving the apartment owners to also face not only bankruptcy,but having to rent ( they turned many of the buildings into rental ) what they supposedly had owned. Some builders were even worse frauds and built/sold/and took the money and ran...leaving the banks and supposed owners holding the bag. But there were still wealthy people, some of whom banded together and managed to keep their building co-op,or rebought their apartments and rented out the rest. Most of these building age co-op or condos to this very day;with those that were rental, made into condos decades ago.
Manhattan real estate is in the fix it's in ( prices )due to city government laws and regulations and rent control. Then there's also the fact that there's just so much land available and the laws of supply and demand.
The large fund managers are the 1,000 pound gorillas. However, companies can act so shameful that it prompts public outrage. For instance (and I'm not saying it's true) but if it were suddenly revealed that senior officers of a Fortune 500 company used kittens during a trap shooting competition (Pull! Meooooow...bang!) at a corporate retreat, then the public outrage would call for some heads to roll...
You seem to attribute human sensibilities to these companies. They're not human. They're organizations, essentially machines. Their only purpose is to make money by producing a product. Their only obligation is to follow the laws in the cities, states and countries they operate in.
Get off your implied moral high-horse and out of that Ivory Tower of your mind.
I'm not the one "confused";I know what I'm talking about...unlike you. What you're saying is utter drivel,based on nothing and factless. You haven't a clue!
Prices and salaries go up and down. The 1930s were a down time. People took great cuts in pay,just to keep their jobs. Some were laid off/fired, because they could be replaced by another person doing more work,or cheaper labor. That has ALWAYS been so in this country during PANICS,RESESSIONS, And DEPRESSIONS.
I didn't say that real estate speculation was new, I said it was currently in a bubble mode -- particularly in urban areas, such as NYC. In other areas, it's still possible to buy a house for $30,000 and in some hard pressed communities, they are actually giving people homes if they agree to live in them for 10 years.
Recently, in a fit of temporary insanity, I actually looked at buying property. The brokers, who were amusing for the first few outings, soon depressed me with their high-strung gibberish.
In terms of real estate speculation, I believe we're in for another wild ride. Interest rates, according to reliable sources and drinking buddies, are due to rise this summer (if not before).
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.