AlGoreisRich “The next question is obvious. "If there is a 'they' who have this amount of money..and now control this amount of debt.. does that not make 'them'... defacto rulers of the world" ?”

In the past the nearest to a consensus has been the Free Mason, although Mr Hitler and a few others determined it was the Jews.

Bazz “a madman or an economist.”

I heard a definition of an economist as a someone who has studied every position in the karma sutra to perfection but has no partner to employee such skills on -

And the only difference to a madman is

the madman is content in making love with his imaginary friend.

Pelican “the greed of capitalist bankers.”

Maybe before you blame bankers you should study the US regulators, who imposed racially motivated quotas on banks and threatened them with denial of banking license renewal unless they lent to those who, it ended up, did not honour their mortgage obligations. It was jingle mail which started the meltdown.

Everyone is fully able to invest in a pension fund, they have been aroud for centuries, long before government got involved.

However, the danger is when some socialist thinks they can debase the currency by failing to ensure liabilities are fully funded, as we see with the current Australian socialist government
There is an inherent defect in the desire of socialists to make everything “fair and equal”
It has never worked in the past and will never work in the future simply because people are inherently tribal and do favour their own family and friends above strangers, particularly when the stranger is of a different ethnic origin.

Or to put it another way, despite a belief in the power of nurture, nature will ultimately prevail, otherwise most sociopaths and psychopaths would not exist.
Regarding “They plan to 're-educate' all capitalists to the new way.”

we have only to look at the likes of Stalin and Pol Pot and many other lunatic collectivists to see what happens when a socialist minded psychopath ends up in charge of the “education program”

Stern

I was not advocating for a socialist system merely some oversight and regulation on the imperfect capitalist one. If you are so strongly of the view that nature dominates, surely that implies some constraints are needed within the system otherwise we have anarchy.

You said: "Or to put it another way, despite a belief in the power of nurture, nature will ultimately prevail, otherwise most sociopaths and psychopaths would not exist."

Yes but how many would be sociopaths or psychopaths in different nuturing circumstances? Despite the influence of nature, one's childhood and experiences do shape a person. Why would we even bother as good parents to provide discipline, and set standards of behaviour and to give love, if it is all down 100% to nature (excepting of course some more serious genetic distortions).

I don't think we should right off nuture all together.

Pelly

Yes but how many would be sociopaths or psychopaths in different nuturing circumstances?

err..I can think of a couple of OLO who would happily send me to the killing fields :)

But on regulation.. amen.. we do need it.. primarily to guarantee there are no capitalist monopolies.

BUT ALSO.. and this is a biggggg ONE. "Privatization" is a very dangerous playing field.

Let's look at what is offered.

FOR SALE.. "One giant sized electricity generation company"

Investors ask "Hmmm.. what guarantee do we have for on-going profitability" ?

Vendor says "aaah..don't worry about that.. we'll include guarantees in the contract, including clauses that we will not make legislative changes which effect that profitability, without huge compensation" (bang..there goes subsidies for solar panels!)

BUYER ..."Hmmm, that souds pretty good.. err what about Unions"?

VENDOR.. "we can work that out.. don't worry"

SALE goes ahead.

THEORETICAL OUTCOME.

-Short term debt reduction money or.. funds to support re-election campaign.
-Hamstrung from ever doing anything about lowering either carbon footprint or cost of electricity by contractual arrangements.
-If changes in law go ahead to provide lower elect costs(self generation...solar etc) compensation must be paid to the supplier.
-Loss of an income producing asset.

ACTUAL OUTCOME

-we are screwed.. no matter which way we turn. grrrrr...

scumbags.. absolute scumbags...

pelican “the view that nature dominates, surely that implies some constraints are needed within the system otherwise we have anarchy”

your notion of “constraints” does not work with tigers and certainly not sharks, as part of “nature” they just get on with breeding and killing their victims for food.... yet I do not see that as “anarchy”.

And tigers and sharks have survived through the millennia by doing just that.

Now, whilst i do not advocate killing off collectivists, the way Stalin and so many other collectivists killed off their opponents, i do feel they should be curbed from their enthusiasm to impose their version of “fairness” and “balance” upon ordinary people, who do not want or need the benefits of collectivist philosophy.

Nature, of course does change, it is called evolution but it has never evolved to make things “fairer” or more “equal”. Indeed, “survival of the fittest” could be said to produce the exact opposite.

Ultimately we start from nature and attempts to change it often cost significantly more than the benefits they produce and can send things backward........

just ask the Cambodian teachers who Pol Pot decided to “re-educate”... oh sorry, you cannot... they are all dead.... but dying not to feed the appetite of a tiger or a shark but dead because they dared hold opinions contrary to collectivist dogma.