Adam Smith never said monopolies are inherently bad rather that “Legislative Monopolies or Monopolies maintained through Fraud,” are bad. Is microsoft bad because it is dominant or is it dominant because it product is superior? I’m not attempting to dismiss MSFT actions in forcing companies to only install MSFT applications. I haven’t heard anyone complain about APPL for refusing to open the ITUNES application so it functions on other MP3s. Monopolies that thrive and provide their product or service at the best price should not be discouraged but encouraged unless they behave in an illegal fashion. We have plenty of laws on the books to deal with this type of behavior.

The problem we face today is caused by people in the financial world who refused to do their own due diligence. The relied on others to ensure that the investments they engaged in were safe and secure. This is why Greenspan was surprised by the situation. No one, including Greenspan, ever thought that investment/ financial firms would ever blindly invest in instruments they either didn’t understand or accurately and thoroughly analysis.

Oddly enough this premise worked with Madoff. There were many investors who walked away from Madoff because they couldn’t understand how and what he did. With such uncertainty they declined to invest. In fact many reported his activities to the SEC when they discovered he was a fraud. It was the SEC that dropped the ball not the market. The market actually uncovered his fraud but regulators declined to act. Madoff used his political connections to thwart any serious inquiries into his firm’s actions. Blindly relying on others to do you job is certainly the road to failure.

I look pretty cool in an Alb and will be the Lector at several masses

http://www.blessed-sacrament.org/index.html

Here is the problem: The thing that the government is supposed to do, which is to set up fair transparent rules so no one cheats and investors don’t get Enron-ed, they have failed to do. They are supposed to ref the game, kick out the cheaters, and keep any entity from becoming so big that true competition is destroyed (even Adam Smith said monopolies would kill capitalism.)

The thing that govt is not supposed to do – like take the field, run with the ball, fiddle with the player roster, make their own bets on particular players, etc – they have been doing.

They’d much rather we all yell at each other screaming “Too much govt! No, not enough!” because that distracts us from turning any righteous anger on them and saying, “Do your damn JOB, but otherwise stay out of the way!”

bunch of scumbag Obots in one fell swoop vote to “change” it to Cuba.

The obots sure think they have a revolution going.

What’s amazing about my catholic church is that we’re packing them in with no seating available left in the pews.
The real revolution is being hatched out of the need for traditional values patriotism and the understanding of the existential threats facing this country.
You can’t have victory for America in the world if you wish defeat.

The defeatist’s in America have taken the bait and the rest of the world is laughing at our capitulation.

Go, Blago, GO!!!!!!

lol Funny. Surely it better not be us, as we’re really not in to that.

“************************************************************

FDIC’s Sheila Bair on G20 Calls for International Regulation
Posted: 04:10 PM ET

From CNN National Political Correspondent Jessica Yellin
FDIC Chairwoman Sheila Bair has a chilly reaction to European calls for stepped up international regulations of the financial markets.

WASHINGTON (CNN) — WASHINGTON (CNN) — FDIC Chairwoman Sheila Bair has a chilly reaction to European calls for stepped up international regulations of the financial markets. “So frequently the international standards become so watered down,” she says. As leaders met for the G20 summit, Bair sat down for an interview with CNN and cautioned that adding any new regulations without considering how they’d be enforced “is something we need to think carefully about.”

Prior to the summit, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy called for greater scrutiny of the financial sector. Sarkozy demanded “real transformation” in regulatory structures. And Merkel announced she had a set of “red lines” that must be met.

The G20 leaders agreed to establish a new financial stability board as an early warning sign for future crises, but it appears the board will have little power to actually crack down on risky investments like hedge funds.”

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Auh, Hedge Funds, Obama’s big contributors and whom he’s helping further with his new bailout plan to loan our tax dollars risk free, just walk away if it doesn’t work out, to buy up the “bad and toxic assets” from banks. MMHMM.

I have no problem with the US agreeing to some well laid out standards for bank asset levels, hedge fund operations, etc, so long as those standards are clear, and we sign off on adhering to specific rules, just as we would any other treaty or international agreement – pursuant to the approval of 2/3 of Congress.

But I would be UTTERLY opposed to setting up any sort of independent entity that is an outside regulatory agency that the United States must be subject to in an ongoing manner. No way, no how.

We remain a SOVEREIGN nation, period. We may agree to cooperate on specific guidelines, and bind ourselves by treaty to adhere to certain rules – we do that all the time with various treaties and agreements. But we shall NOT be subject in perpetuity to any “higher authority” outside our borders. NO.

#11 is outright looking for trouble. why bring the next meeting to the very place that many in the world blame for this mess.

He looked absolutely ripped.