Pope tells super rich, bankers to find some ethics

[Quick Karl]

The nerve oft that Catholic... How fucking dare he...

http://news.yahoo.com/pope-tells-super-rich-bankers-ethics-132247618.html;_ylt=AwrBJR_LD59T4UoAfEvQtDMD

"It is increasingly intolerable that financial markets are shaping the destiny of peoples rather than serving their needs, or that the few derive immense wealth from financial speculation while the many are deeply burdened by the consequences," he said.

When is the last time you heard a p.o.s. in Washingshithole, say THAT?

[onan]

http://www.upworthy.com/the-highly-compelling-case-for-wealth-redistribution-made-by-the-exact-right-person

[Quick Karl]

I thought you weren't obsessed with me?

Bernie Sanders... McInsane's long lost brother.

In case you missed it, the Pope was NOT promoting wealth redistribution - he is promoting ETHICAL behavior.



Way to lose all credibility!

[albrecht]

The nerve oft that Catholic... How fucking dare he...

http://news.yahoo.com/pope-tells-super-rich-bankers-ethics-132247618.html;_ylt=AwrBJR_LD59T4UoAfEvQtDMD

"It is increasingly intolerable that financial markets are shaping the destiny of peoples rather than serving their needs, or that the few derive immense wealth from financial speculation while the many are deeply burdened by the consequences," he said.

When is the last time you heard a p.o.s. in Washingshithole, say THAT?

I'm guessing he has finally learned from his own banking scandals? He talks a good game  and I like that quote but, no offense, anyone who claims sole arbiter between us and God who aint JC himself is no good in my book. I also don't like the history of all the scandals over the centuries or that he is both head of a sovereign state AND a religious leader and can use that for less transparency, having intelligence networks, banking networks, etc. So, like with Israel, people's loyalties can start being divided between their country and the political dictations of the Pope/Israel due to their religion.

[Quick Karl]

I'm guessing he has finally learned from his own banking scandals?

Better late than never! He could have just let the scam continue and remained silent...

King: Hey, Taylor. How in the fuck you get here anyway? Why, you look educated.

Chris Taylor: I volunteered for it.

King: You did what?

Chris Taylor: I volunteered. I dropped out of college, and told them I wanted the infantry, combat, and Vietnam.

Crawford: You volunteered for this shit, man?

Chris Taylor: You believe that?

King: You's a crazy fucker, giving up college.

Chris Taylor: It didn't make much sense. I wasn't learning anything. I figured why should just the poor kids go off to war and the rich kids always get away with it?

King: Oh, I see. What we got here is a crusader.

Crawford: Sounds like it.

King: Shit. You gotta be rich in the first place to think like that. Everybody know the poor are always being fucked over by the rich. Always have, always will.

From the movie, Platoon.

[b_dubb]

I love Pope Francis

[albrecht]

Better late than never! He could have just let the scam continue and remained silent...

Good point. If he has learned (I have seen that there has been some turnover and auditing and recently even some arrangement with Italian/EU authorities vis-a-vis Vatican finances and banking.) I know we disagree with this and, actually I agree with many of the Catholic policies and in some places it is the only institution  holding back the flood of secular-humanist socialism, but I still got problems with Popery based on claims and past actions. But much rather them than the Muhammadans or secular socialist/communist types.

[bigchucka]

The nerve oft that Catholic... How fucking dare he...

http://news.yahoo.com/pope-tells-super-rich-bankers-ethics-132247618.html;_ylt=AwrBJR_LD59T4UoAfEvQtDMD

"It is increasingly intolerable that financial markets are shaping the destiny of peoples rather than serving their needs, or that the few derive immense wealth from financial speculation while the many are deeply burdened by the consequences," he said.

When is the last time you heard a p.o.s. in Washingshithole, say THAT?

Or speculate immense wealth from financial derivatives.

[PB the Deplorable]

This is a little like being lectured to by people like Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, Nancy Pelosi, Diane Franken-Finestein, Ted Kennedy, Ted Turner, and all the fucking rest of them.

Talk's cheap, perhaps the Vatican could start acting ethically, or redistribute it's wealth first.

[Quick Karl]

Talk's cheap, perhaps the Vatican could start acting ethically, or redistribute it's wealth first.

Perhaps Wall Street could do the same thing? I mean, after all, they're making more today than they ever have in the History of humanity...

Or is it just another in the never-ending cycle of Ponzi schemes wherein 70-yr old retired folks loose every penny they invested while scumbags buy a 12th private jet?

[Quick Karl]

PB, you make a lot of good points. Don't destroy all of that by defending a financial scam on the behalf of the 1% that everyone on Earth can recognize. Free Market Capitalism was NOT conceived to be a license to fuck your neighbors.

[PB the Deplorable]

PB, you make a lot of good points. Don't destroy all of that by defending a financial scam on the behalf of the 1% that everyone on Earth can recognize. Free Market Capitalism was NOT conceived to be a license to fuck your neighbors.

I don't think we need to be lectured on greed and ethics by the current leaders of the Catholic Church.

There was zero substance provided in that article, no way of knowing precisely what 'unethical' actions he was talking about.  As far as 'speculation', that is what provides liquidity to the market.  It ensures there are buyers when farmers/providers want to sell, and sellers when the food industry want to buy.  It softens potential price spikes both up and down.


Every time a person buys a stock hoping to sell it at a profit, they are speculating.  So what.  It's one thing to 'speculate' in an open, fair, and free market, and something different to cheat, rig it, run to the government to get favors on your behalf or that hamstring a competitor, etc.


The Pope should stick to religion, or better yet clean his own house before running off half-cocked yapping about something he knows little about

[eddie dean]

People who need to be reminded about behaving ethically/morally are probably not going to listen in the first place. Particularly considering the source in this case.

[PB the Deplorable]

Perhaps Wall Street could do the same thing? I mean, after all, they're making more today than they ever have in the History of humanity...

Or is it just another in the never-ending cycle of Ponzi schemes wherein 70-yr old retired folks loose every penny they invested while scumbags buy a 12th private jet?

You realize this sounds a little like Occupy?

And for the most part they are a bunch of dumb-fuck Leftists who hate America and Capitalism in general, and don't know a damn thing about how an economy works.  They had no specific answers to specific complaints.  Did they even have specific complaints? or was it mostly different renditions of 'Wall Street Bad, bigger government good'? 

I remember the day Eric Holder (and by extension, Obama) decided Goldman Sachs and their executives were 'too big to prosecute'.  No one, including Occupy, made a peep. 

There is a stunning lack of an understanding of what is good and necessary on Wall St, and what is unethical.  Of what needs to be fixed and regulated, and what needs to be left alone.  There is however a good deal of knowledge by some of how to get elected - and a good deal of knowledge by others on how to take advantage of the situation to riot, burn, loot, and attack our system and our country.

[Quick Karl]

... and something different to cheat, rig it, run to the government financial systems to get favors on your behalf or that hamstring a competitor, etc.

There, I fixed it for you.

Free Market Capitalism was NOT conceived for the benefit of Vulture Capitalists and when you keep defending the obvious, you empower your philosophical opponents.

You are piping off fairytales of what the stock market and financial system does in dreams, and ignoring what it does in reality.

You know what Jesus said about the "money changers" don't ya?

[Quick Karl]

People who need to be reminded about behaving ethically/morally are probably not going to listen in the first place. Particularly considering the source in this case.

Francis just took office in a system that has long known to be infected by scumbags - just like the American Government. He is saying what needs to be said. Time will tell whether Francis is full of shit, like Obama, or sincere, like I hope.

[Quick Karl]

People who need to be reminded about behaving ethically/morally are probably not going to listen in the first place. Particularly considering the source in this case.

Please tell me what Francis has done that is unethical? I may have missed those news articles?

[Quick Karl]

Or speculate immense wealth from financial derivatives.

The people in that business should all be dragged into the street and shot, and left to rot for coyotes to feed off of. It's a rigged game and working people always get fucked so the few can get richer.

[PB the Deplorable]

There, I fixed it for you.

Free Market Capitalism was NOT conceived for the benefit of Vulture Capitalists and when you keep defending the obvious, you empower your philosophical opponents.

You are piping off fairytales of what the stock market and financial system does in dreams, and ignoring what it does in reality.

You know what Jesus said about the "money changers" don't ya?

Wait, are we talking about agriculture futures or venture capital?  I've gone over the futures market, so here's the deal on venture capital:

There are companies that have been badly mismanaged, or have simply been bypassed by someone else who can do the same thing better and cheaper.  Or by technology.  Etc.  Some companies innovate and keep up with what consumers want, others don't.

The Socialist solution would be to prop those companies up with our tax money forever.  They end up with a bunch of backward bloated companies that run at losses and produce goods and services few want.  The employees of course are well paid and unproductive.  (Look at the giant legacy companies leftover from the past that are currently soaking up capital in China and running at massive losses.)  If this goes on long enough it's what the entire industrial sector turns into.

In a Capitalist system, most companies compete, innovate, and thrive.  The ones who don't fail or begin to fail and are bought by someone else and turned around.  If they are too far gone, their assets are sold off and redeployed somewhere else.  In a healthy economy their employees find new jobs.

It costs a lot to buy these companies.  It requires pooled funds from investor groups, and management with experience in turnarounds and/or buying hopeless cases and selling the pieces at a profit.  The Left has been quite successful in demonizing this process - they point to the workers out of jobs and to the profits made, and declare it 'evil'.  It isn't - not when the alternative is the propped up shitty company making shitty products mentioned to above.

Yeah, it sucks for the employees.  That's why they get unemployment insurance to tide them over while they look for new jobs.  If the economy sucks, or if the unemployed aren't willing to go where the jobs are, don't blame the Venture company.


That's how it works in an open free market.  If the VCs are unethical and violating laws, go after them.  If new regulations are needed to curb abuses, put them into place.  But don't get suckered in by the Left, on their march away from Liberty and towards Marxism.



By the way, you may have missed the lesson of 'Jesus and the Moneychangers' entirely.  Perhaps it was not taught correctly?

[PB the Deplorable]

... Or is it just another in the never-ending cycle of Ponzi schemes wherein 70-yr old retired folks loose every penny they invested while scumbags buy a 12th private jet?

Not sure what you are specifically referring to, but could you please tell me why a 70 year old retired person would put so much of their nest egg into a speculative investment?  At some point are people not responsible for their own grotesquely poor judgment?

That said, if they were cheated (which seldom turns out to be the case) - as opposed to simply losing money in a lousy investment - there are avenues to getting it back.

[Quick Karl]

Joe Blow starts a company with $500. He builds vibrators in his garage. Over the years he is able to expand his business, and hires a few employees that he can pay a fair wage to, and his company grows because he builds a damned fine vibrator. He starts to do pretty good, and he can send his kids to a good school if they should decide that's what they want to do, and he never has to worry much about the electric company turning his lights off. He has an awesome pick-up truck, a boat, an RV, and a vacation home in the mountains. 30-years later he decides its time to retire and along comes an "Investment Banker"...

The Investment Banker buys the company, fires half the employees, makes the half that are left do twice as much work for the same pay, never gives them a raise, turns the A/C in the vibrator factory off, buys inferior raw materials for the vibrators, makes them "cheaper" to produce in every way conceivable, raises the prices of the vibrators based on the reputation the company built prior to being purchased, and pays himself $5,000,000.00 a year...

A few years later the shitty vibrators are being left on the shelves, the Investment Banker blames the employees for not working hard enough and having the nerve to expect a raise that allows them to, at least, maintain their living standard (those ungrateful fucks). He owes $20,000,000.00 to the bank for loans he took out for vacations against the value the company had before he bought it. He declares bankruptcy, fires the employees, sells the building and land, scraps the equipment he never upgraded, pays the bank 5-cents on the dollar, the taxpayer (you know, those former employees) picks up the loss,  and the scumbag walks off with his 5-houses, 6-yachts, 4-private jets, and prostitute wife, and calls himself a Free Market Capitalist Success...

Welcome to Vulture Capitalism 101.

NOT what he Founders contemplated when they conceived "Free Market Capitalism", IN ANYONE'S WILDEST DREAM.

[PB the Deplorable]

Yeah, that's how it works.  Whatever.

[Quick Karl]

The truth hurts, but the truth shall set you free.

[Quick Karl]

Yeah, that's how it works.  Whatever.

You know, if Forrest Gump walks into your Venture Capital office with a briefcase containing 20-million dollars, it is NOT ok to scam him out of it with promises you KNOW are bullshit, just cause he's stupid.

[b_dubb]

Boeing, lockheedMartin are propped up by socialism. You heard it here first. White collar welfare for everyone.

[Quick Karl]

Boeing, lockheedMartin are propped up by socialism. You heard it here first. White collar welfare for everyone.

b-dub, the truth behind all of this is that every blue-collar working person in this country, is being fucked by the "paragons of society" - and sad to tell you but the democrat party is filled to the brim with the same kinds of cocksuckers that fill the republican party - and somehow they're all getting richer, along with their venture capitalist friends, while the People keep getting poorer, and poorer.

I wish everyone would start to pull back the curtains on their own dogmas and leaders, before they go off blaming the other guy's dogmas and leaders, otherwise, you're just going to get even poorer.

[eddie dean]

Please tell me what Francis has done that is unethical? I may have missed those news articles?

I was speaking in a general sense about crooks or seedy individuals, not giving a shit about what the pope says. They are going to keep doing whatever they want, regardless.
I'm not saying anything about the current Pope's enthics or intentions. To be honest I don't know that much about him really. I do have problems with a church preaching morality at every turn when they themselves have issues in that regard. History shows the institution isn't all that trustworthy and is prone to scandal and cover ups like everyone else. Good intentions aren't enough.

[PB the Deplorable]

You know, if Forrest Gump walks into your Venture Capital office with a briefcase containing 20-million dollars, it is NOT ok to scam him out of it with promises you KNOW are bullshit, just cause he's stupid.

Do you have examples of this horseshit?  How many stupid people do you think are walking around with $20 million dollars in a suitcase?


By the way, Venture Capital wouldn't bother with your 'Vibrator' company.  They get involved with either very distressed companies, or companies whose owners wish to sell but for whatever reason can't find buyers for, or startups that need money to expand and find it impossible to find other backers - due to risk, those sorts of situations.

In other words, they are risk takers providing liquidity where there otherwise is none. 

Most startups fail and the VCs investment is lost.  The few that make it hopefully make up for the rest and reward them well. 

The companies that are distressed don't always return a profit whether they are nursed back to life and re-sold, or are broken up and the useful pieces sold off.  There is a lot of risk in buying these companies.  The deals that make a profit hopefully make up for the rest.  High risk, high reward.

The companies they buy because they are a deal usually need some sort of makeover as well, and need to show predictable quarterly profits for at least several years before they can be re-sold at a profit.  It takes time and money to do this.


Then there is the universe of companies that buy up smaller companies because it enhances the acquiring company.  The larger tech firms are constantly buying smaller private firms in order to add their technology to their own products and product lines.  Companies like Kraft, Johnson & Johnson, Nestle, even Berkshire Hathaway.  Tons of lesser known companies buy smaller companies and keep their brand names - Unilever, InBev, on and on.

They aren't buying companies to destroy them, just the opposite.  So there are a few bad apples, is that a surprise?  A reason to destroy the whole system?  This is absurd.  You're starting to sound like Nowhere in Time.

[PB the Deplorable]

b-dub, the truth behind all of this is that every blue-collar working person in this country, is being fucked by the "paragons of society" - and sad to tell you but the democrat party is filled to the brim with the same kinds of cocksuckers that fill the republican party - and somehow they're all getting richer, along with their venture capitalist friends, while the People keep getting poorer, and poorer...

We have been letting poor third world immigrants into our country since the late 1960s.  We've had a more or less open southern border since at least the 1980s.

Do you think that has anything to do with holding down wages of unskilled and low skilled workers, or is it all due to those sinister Wall Street Venture Capitalists? 

God damn, did you read an article on VC's in Mother Jones while waiting in the dentists office or something?

Venture Capital is a tiny portion of the economy, and has zero control over wages paid to blue collar workers.   If some nefarious Venture Capital company seizes a company and slashes wages, the workers will go somewhere else.  If their skills are in demand. 

Whether you like it or not, or agree or not, the market sets wage rates for the most part.  In our not quite capitalist system, wages can be skewed - crony capitalism sets CEO and other exec pay higher than the market would.  Some union pay - certainly government employee union pay (other than teachers) is considerably higher than what the market would pay.  Few are working for less than market, if someone is working for less than market pay, go god damn get a better job.

[Quick Karl]

We have been letting poor third world immigrants into our country since the late 1960s.  We've had a more or less open southern border since at least the 1980s.

Do you think that has anything to do with holding down wages of unskilled and low skilled workers, or is it all due to those sinister Wall Street Venture Capitalists? 

God damn, did you read an article on VC's in Mother Jones while waiting in the dentists office or something?

Venture Capital is a tiny portion of the economy, and has zero control over wages paid to blue collar workers.   If some nefarious Venture Capital company seizes a company and slashes wages, the workers will go somewhere else.  If their skills are in demand. 

Whether you like it or not, or agree or not, the market sets wage rates for the most part.  In our not quite capitalist system, wages can be skewed - crony capitalism sets CEO and other exec pay higher than the market would.  Some union pay - certainly government employee union pay (other than teachers) is considerably higher than what the market would pay.  Few are working for less than market, if someone is working for less than market pay, go god damn get a better job.

I can see that my parable has gotten under your skin and you are taking the Venture Capitalist / Investment Banker example to heart, but, in my humble opinion, the example I expressed is just a small symptom of the larger cancer that is the problem. Free Market Capitalism was NOT conceived by The Founders to satisfy unbridled greed at the cost of customers, workers, and the community. I am not going to write an essay here on what The Founders truly believed about Free Market Capitalism because, it would take 500,000-words, and the information is already out there, if you really want to find it, but it is NOT what Rush Limbaugh, or anyone on Wall Street, says it is...

Factually, we are NOT living in a system of Free Market Capitalism as conceived by The Founders, period. We are living in a system of financial fraud and oppression, that is being justified by labeling it Free Market Capitalsim.

The Creation of The American Republic by Gordon S. Wood is a good place to start - but it will take longer than an hour or two to read. Actually, it would probably take about a month, if you read some for a few hours each night before bed.