Counting on Charity?

[Da Skinna]

This kinda broke my heart to see a little old lady, strong and proud and hardworking til so late in her life, to have to go to a food bank for subsistence.

Watching the whole bit, I began to think about the idea of counting on charity to pick up the slack in societies incapable or unwilling to extend help to near-everyone.

Here's some stats via quotes:

BILL MOYERS: That was April 2008. Every place we visited then tells us now that since the financial meltdown last fall the need has deepened dramatically. That BedStuy Campaign Against Hunger in Brooklyn was helping 6000 people a month when we were there. Now it's serving 10 thousand. That's an increase of more than 60 percent.

Folks at Hope Community Services in New Rochelle report a 45 percent increase. Rosabelle Walker, now 82 years old, still goes there. But now she gives what she gets to other people in her building. That's because two women from the Bronx who saw our report took Ms. Walker under their wing and have been helping out ever since.

She's a rare good news story. We've checked around the country - Mount Pleasant, Texas. Covington, Louisiana. Detroit, Denver, all report more and more mouths to feed. In Philadelphia, Bill Clark, who runs the largest food bank there, told The Inquirer that many new people are coming "terrorized," "in shock," "embarrassed" to be asking for a handout.

Meanwhile, it was reported last week that our government will spend 835 billion dollars this year on the economic bailout. The masters of finance who brought on this disaster seem not a whit embarrassed at handouts of such magnitude.

The only counter to such unrepentant avarice is public opinion fired by moral conviction. There's where the collective power of faith might yet signify. Many issues divide our religious traditions. But suppose they came together on this one cause, to put right what's wrong with a system where people must turn to charity because they can't count on justice. That's the heart of the social gospel taught at Union Seminary - and that's the radical message we anticipate hearing in a few days when Pope Benedict releases a major encyclical - a letter to his bishops - timed to next week's summit of the G8 industrialized nations in Italy.

The Pope has already spoken on some of these issues. Back in February he said, "It is the church's duty to denounce the fundamental errors that have now been revealed in the collapse of the major American banks."

The market economy, he has said, "Can only be recognized as a way of economic and civil progress if it is oriented to the common good," including a fairer distribution of resources and power.

Must we rely on charity in lieu of justice?

[Aetius]

Maybe if the government didnt tax us we would feel more charitable.

[Da Skinna]

Maybe if the government didnt tax us we would feel more charitable.

Funny way to look at it, sure.

[♔Jean-Luc Picard♔]

Maybe if the government didnt tax us we would feel more charitable.

Or if they didn't tax only half of the population.

[Nebuchadnezzar]

Maybe if the government didnt tax us we would feel more charitable.

Yeah sure.. or more likely even less charitable.

Most people in the western world who find themselves at rock bottom after a good spell usually fall there for a good reason and don't deserve any sympathy. There is usually a second half to every story which they don't want to talk about. On the other hand there are a few who are victims of circumstance, a product of bad luck or just born in the wrong place to the wrong family.

My wife donates 10% of every winning she ever got and when biz is good she throws over more. Always to the medical research or very specific charities. Many have polical motives and squander funds to pay themselves over inflated salaries. They promote themselves by feeding sob stories that rely on guilt & compassion in order to scam the unsuspecting & gullible.

[Da Skinna]

Yeah sure.. or more likely even less charitable.

Most people in the western world who find themselves at rock bottom after a good spell usually fall there for a good reason and don't deserve any sympathy. There is usually a second half to every story which they don't want to talk about. On the other hand there are a few who are victims of circumstance, a product of bad luck or just born in the wrong place to the wrong family.

My wife donates 10% of every winning she ever got and when biz is good she throws over more. Always to the medical research or very specific charities. Many have polical motives and squander funds to pay themselves over inflated salaries. They promote themselves by feeding sob stories that rely on guilt & compassion in order to scam the unsuspecting & gullible.

And that's the case with PBS?

[Nebuchadnezzar]

And that's the case with PBS?

I don't really know. I live in Australia & never heard of them till now, but I did a quick google and they've had their scandals. Board members are all politicians picked by the president so I think that about sums it up.

[Da Skinna]

I don't really know. I live in Australia & never heard of them till now, but I did a quick google and they've had their scandals. Board members are all politicians picked by the president so I think that about sums it up.

You might be thinking of Kenneth Tomlinson. Look him up and see what he tried to do to PBS and Bill Moyers especially.


I love Moyers personally because he's so down to earth with people of all walks of life and his shows are so engaging about contemporary and ancient topics, like reconciling faith and reason, the power of mythology in our daily lives, the importance of citizen alertness in a democracy, and that oh so terrible C-word: corruption.

He won't mess you round about things under-reported in corporate media.

[Denny Crane!]

If you support the redistribution of resources by force like social security then don't be surprised if the state starts handing out willy nilly to other institutions and places. You elected them to represent your ''interests'' as loose and broad as they may be defined, and the fact is any party would have done this bailout. I do find it amusing that people are still insisting on blaming greed though, it is like blaming a plane crash on gravity. Greed is always present but if something of this magnitude goes wrong then there is a fault with the system.

[Watchman]

Greed is the basis of all financial enterprise. Not exactly breaking news that. The authorities put reins on it to keep it from running amuck and becoming both malign, exploitative and self-destructive in short-sighted pursuit of immediate profits and maximum returns of investement.

This was not done on the securities and whatnot market which in due form led to the current crisis - so much for the supposed infallibility of the free market and the "Invisible Hand" the economic liberalists like to invoke - since Bush & Co. were a bunch of raging neolibs, and who then gets to pick up the pieces and run damage control to try to stave off another Great Depression after the brown stuff hit the fan and the Emperor turned out to be quite nekkid ? The State, that's who; because its priorities have nothing to do with turning a profit or increasing shareholder value further during this fiscal quarter, and everything to do with maintaining the society, and it de facto possesses a rather immense pool of "real estate" - land, armies, taxpaying citizens etc. - to back up its credit rating and finances.

[Denny Crane!]

Greed is the basis of all financial enterprise. Not exactly breaking news that. The authorities put reins on it to keep it from running amuck and becoming both malign, exploitative and self-destructive in short-sighted pursuit of immediate profits and maximum returns of investement.

A result of a hyperinflated stock market that creates a pump and dump mentality (not a product of the free market)

This was not done on the securities and whatnot market which in due form led to the current crisis - so much for the supposed infallibility of the free market and the "Invisible Hand" the economic liberalists like to invoke - since Bush & Co. were a bunch of raging neolibs, and who then gets to pick up the pieces and run damage control to try to stave off another Great Depression after the brown stuff hit the fan and the Emperor turned out to be quite nekkid ? The State, that's who; because its priorities have nothing to do with turning a profit or increasing shareholder value further during this fiscal quarter, and everything to do with maintaining the society, and it de facto possesses a rather immense pool of "real estate" - land, armies, taxpaying citizens etc. - to back up its credit rating and finances.

In a totally free market the banks would not have the ultimate safety net of the state and would be forced to keep a more stable reserve lest other banks cut them off for being to much of a risk. Instead of this the banks have had no fear of risk and become so badly interconnected and in the case of RBS ran up a 1.4 trillion dollar asset sheet.

The last few years have presided over an unprecedented rise in regulation which nevertheless allowed this to happen. Yet the wondorous state that everyone seems to look up to, to save us from the doom of a financial meltdown (time will tell, the austrian school of economics saw it coming, if they are correct about other predictions then this will get worse) didn't prevent this. In fact the chancellor, now PM, of the UK gloried in it and praised the bankers.

No matter what you want to call it, the fiat money system is not free market. We will consistently see the expansions and contractions of credit, fractional reserve banking ran in a system with little risks to banks in the pump and dump mentality of financial institutions and private business (a product of our system of regulations and state interventions) will lead to this again though I suspect next time it will be a whole lot worse because we're already indebted unto the nth generation it seems and I don't see that improving.

The finances clearly aren't backed quite so well by the way. It isn't enough to have ''real estate'' as you call it. When your currency looks unstable like the UK's and you are running with a consistent trade defecit with little real wealth being generated your ''credit'' value quickly drops in the global market place and if you keep spending what you haven't got then people will stop lending to you.

The situation isn't about making a profit and bankers ripping people off. They exist in a competitive marketplace and are results driven much like governments with their reckless spending (lack of consequences at work again) so they won't control themselves unless their is a reason to do so, that reason is risk. Other industries are stronger because they cannot act recklessly like banks, they have to have liquidity and reserves to back their ambitions.

It really is hopeless trying to debate this issue on TWC where people just want to see such a complex issue as ''yaboo greedy private sector causes massive problems but the heroic state jumps in''........ignoring my natural anarchistic leanings for a while and assuming we need a state is it the case that we neccessarily need a state to perform THIS function since they clearly have so badly failed at it this time despite heavier regulation than ever. They have proven to be as blind to the risk as those private sectors. I merely ask people to consider other ways things can function just for a minute and perhaps look into it a bit more.

[Watchman]

Banks and siilar credit-market players demonstrably don't restrain themselves due to risk. There's several reasons for this; one is that jumping the latest bandwagon is generally the only way to stay "competitive" (ie. keep the shareholder value growing) in the short term if and when someone finds a new way to farm the system For Great Profit and bubbles to pop in the future. Another is that really major banks MUST be bailed out by their respective governements unless the latter fancy a complete economic paralysis and a general lenghty excursion down ***t Creek - quite simply, they're too important presences in the credit market to be allowed to go under, regardless of what strictly orthodox market theory might say. (Holding to the letter of that on some strange principle or trying to avoid, or at least ameliorate, a major economic meltdown; take your pick.)
So much for those. What does that leave to restrain them from destructive excesses then ? The same thing that in practice mostly keeps people on the straight and narrow too; effective legislation that's actually enforced.

Which by every single account I've ever seen on the topic was very specifically absent from the US housing securities (or whateverexactlyitnowwas, it's late and I don't feel like looking it up ATM) market, which in this particular case is pretty much what eventually blew and screwed everything up. Mainly because certain neolib adminstrators in certain major state didn't want regulations to keep people (as in investors) from pursuing the almighty Bottom Line unhindered.

[Denny Crane!]

Banks and siilar credit-market players demonstrably don't restrain themselves due to risk. There's several reasons for this; one is that jumping the latest bandwagon is generally the only way to stay "competitive" (ie. keep the shareholder value growing) in the short term if and when someone finds a new way to farm the system For Great Profit and bubbles to pop in the future. Another is that really major banks MUST be bailed out by their respective governements unless the latter fancy a complete economic paralysis and a general lenghty excursion down ***t Creek - quite simply, they're too important presences in the credit market to be allowed to go under, regardless of what strictly orthodox market theory might say. (Holding to the letter of that on some strange principle or trying to avoid, or at least ameliorate, a major economic meltdown; take your pick.)
So much for those. What does that leave to restrain them from destructive excesses then ? The same thing that in practice mostly keeps people on the straight and narrow too; effective legislation that's actually enforced.

What would restrain them from risk? It is remarkably simple. The risk of a bank run or a complete shut down of interbank lending. In the same way that a bank generally doesn't offer to risky an unsecured loan (unless the government steps in and asks them to) if it is certain someone can't repay it if there was true risk to banks they would be forced to credit score them in the same way and if a bank gave out to much and kept to small a reserve they'd be frozen out of the market.

Which by every single account I've ever seen on the topic was very specifically absent from the US housing securities (or whateverexactlyitnowwas, it's late and I don't feel like looking it up ATM) market, which in this particular case is pretty much what eventually blew and screwed everything up. Mainly because certain neolib adminstrators in certain major state didn't want regulations to keep people (as in investors) from pursuing the almighty Bottom Line unhindered.

You do realise that as I've said regulations have never been heavier. The main things underpinning this crisis is an artificial property boom stimulated by governments specifically Fm and Fm. I'm assuming (not being from the USA) that your vehemence to the neolibs refers to Bush and Co? You've got to go back a bit further than that to find the causes. Economics isn't something to be looked at over 3-4 year periods if you want any kind of idea of what really goes on. It wasn't only Bush, the push for financial institutions to relax lending rules began with Clinton when he asked for credit rating standards to be lowered and down payment demands to be lessened. This combined with the irresponsibility of Fm and Fm that was forced on them by congress (dems and Reps) and artificially low interest rates means that I am quite comfortable almost entirely laying this in the hands of the state. It was their demands that caused this in the USA, without their interference their would have been no subprime because lending institutions wouldn't have bowed to pressure to lend to the targeted socio economic groups. (well there would have been a crisis but a much smaller one, in this current system recessions are damn well a neccessity to balance over valued and under valued assets and trim the fat)