Youth is an alien universe

I just lost all my remaining enthusiasm for OccupyOz.

Intellectual laziness and vapidity indeed.

The 99% demand their bad teeth and small pox back?

See here for chemtrails http://www.xkcd.com/966/

So this is one person’s sign reflecting their concerns. You can’t define the Occup y movement by this one sign. Have you seen some of the crazy signs at Tea Party rallies in the US or the anti-carbon tax rallies here – nothing to do with the issues of the day but reflect some misguided personal concerns. So whwt?

The Occupy movement is happening around the world so inevitably there will be a broad range of issues raised but the bottom line is that those at the bottom who feel disenfranchised are asking to be heard.

Of course the economic situation in Australia is not yet as disastrous as elsewhere in the world. It doesn’t mean that people can’t feel that they are being left behind and their voice not heard. And when the world economy goes down the gurgler, as it will, Australia will feel the consequences.

The fact that our economic situation is relatively sound is due to the stirling efforts of the world’s best Treasurer and the excellent Gillard minority government. Oh sorry I forgot, Gillard is hopeless and this is the worst, most incompetent government ever. So which is it as both can’t be right.

I like the occupy movement, it achieves most of the aims of classical leftism in that it allows the justice system to transcend its usual discrimen of race and class. The justice system finally has a reliable method for distributing criminal records on the basis of stupidity.

Bruce, I ? xkcd. xkcd:radiation should be included in the national curriculum.

My personal favourite is the occasional appallingly ludicrously self-glorifying invocation of the ‘Arab Spring’. That really should be a crime, punishable by exile to Syria.

What makes #8 a ‘doozy’ compared to the others, Ken? Seems to make sense to me, but I could be missing something. It mostly seems like a slightly broader expansion of point #3, the reversal of Citizen’s United, which declared corps to be people and thus to have the same rights (But somehow not responsibilities) of citizens.

“What makes #8 a ‘doozy’ compared to the others, Ken? ”

The corporate structure is one of the principal engines of the capitalist system and of growth and investment, and has been ever since Salomon’s case in 1897. Until that time corporations had to be established by legislation or royal charter in order to limit the potential liability of investors. If you didn’t have the legal fiction of corporate personality and the limited liability of shareholders it enables, anyone would be financially suicidal to invest in a business venture that they couldn’t control or even know what was going on.

Thus charter companies like the British East India Company and (less positively) the South Sea Bubble Company formed the basis of British mercantilism through the 18th and 19th century. they gave investors limited liability protection on a piecemeal basis. However it wasn’t until Salomon’s case in 1897 that capital was “liberated” and the modern corporate structure in effect created, thereby enabling people to invest freely and flexibly without substantial risk that they would lose their entire life savings if the business went bust. In the absence of “corporate personality” an investor might be held personally liable without limit for the debts of a business in which he invests.

There are some situations where courts will “lift the corporate veil” and make shareholders (and more commonly directors) personally liable for company debts, but they are fairly limited e.g. fraud. In general investors can be confident that they won’t be liable to creditors etc beyond the paid up value of their shares. If that situation didn’t exist (or some other similar system that significantly insulates passive investors from personal liability), capital markets and therefore the entire capitalist system would grind to a halt. That might be something the mung bean Socialist Alliance types would think was a great idea, but for the rest of us it looks rather different.

Hello back. Thing thing that has me totally confusticated is that if this same action was being undertaken by One Nation, Pauline, and the CEC the comfortable left would be all condescending sneers and psychodynamic interpretations.

Patrick: “Bruce, I ? xkcd. xkcd:radiation should be included in the national curriculum.”
I’m a Physics teacher and that is in my curriculum! It made the scale of things so much more understandable for my students. I wonder how many years of students will remember Fukushima? Not that I will want another disaster as a refresher!

Thank you for the explanation, it explains a lot for me. :) I don’t .think. what they mean by it is what you mean by it, so it may be a case of a phrase with an existing meaning being misused. But I could be wrong. But I can’t see how things would function without the base concepts you put forth.

I am, however, strongly against the recent US swing towards corporations having the political speech rights of an actual person. Citizen’s United is the ultimate expression of it, but not the only one. To me it seems like a 7 point list with one listed twice, at least. But I am also not there, except in spirit. :)

Fxh, if this exact action was taken by them, I would be there. But it wouldn’t be, because they are nuts and the things they want are racist and unpalatable. But if they had a movement like #ows and conducted themselves with the same peacefulness (Even directly in the face of violent police smackdowns), I would be in line to say that have a right to say it. My problem with the Tea Party rallies (The wingnut equivalent to #ows) to me was always the violence being espoused, down to the way they all came packing heat.

All of their rhetoric was absolutely packed with violent imagery. It scared the hell out of me. I’m a transsexual lesbian. They actively want me not to exist. I don’t think you can draw a line between that world view and people who want a say in things and say it is unfair we criticized one and not the other. The #ows aren’t telling people they should resort to their ‘constitutional right’ to use ‘second amendment responses’ to fix the problem.

I wonder how many years of students will remember Fukushima?

Yes, for how many years will people remember the horrible death toll and untold human suff….oh wait.

This is Australia. Today.

Yobbo: “Yes, for how many years will people remember the horrible death toll and untold human suff….oh wait.”
It might seem obvious to you, but ask a 16 year old about Chernobyl and see their response. You can’t even refer to events closer to home such as the Sydney Olympics without quizical looks coming back to you.
Really, it’s a bit like the reponse of the historically illiterate to the GFC, as if the Great Depression had never happened.

Tel, are you sure that’s you?

The primary impact of limited liability was a reduction in transaction costs. Pre-, investment was limited to those who either knew people well enough to be confident of exerting moral/social suasion, or who had enough to lose some, or who could demand security. Vice-versa for obtaining funding – ok for Bill Gates, not necessarily for everyone else.

I.e. democratisation/popularisation of investing.

Surely that is an unambiguous good largely along the lines set out by KP?

those who do not study history are doomed to repeat it, and those who do study history are such a tiny handful they might as well give up and get dragged along with the rest *SIGH*.

…and those who study hyperbole are used to the same old breathy cod-Yeatsian bollocks.

Tel: Literally? We all have guns pointed at us?

Literally? We all have guns pointed at us?

Seriously. Try refusing to pay your tax. If you don’t want to get too badly hurt, just start with something small like not paying rego on your motor vehicle, and be willing to admit you are wrong before the adventure gets too scary.

You could skip ahead by doing a quick google search and reading the experiences of the people who have given this a go. Some of them manage to hang in there, it’s very enlightening stuff.

Tel, don’t be so bleedingly ignorant. From the Economist:

“

The concept of limited liability, whereby the shareholders are not liable, in the last resort, for the debts of their company, can be traced back to the Romans. But it was rarely used, most often being granted only as a special favour to friends by those in power. Then in 1811 New York state brought in a general limited-liability law for manufacturing companies. Its popularity, and the flight of capital to states with limited liability from those without, led most American states to follow suit. In 1854, Britain, the world’s leading economic power, did so too.

The Economist disapproved: if limited liability was desirable, we said, market forces would provide it. But by 1926 this paper had been converted, suggesting that the nameless inventor of the concept might earn “a place of honour with Watt, Stephenson and other pioneers of the industrial revolution” [my emphasis].

Our second thoughts were right. Before limited liability, shareholders risked going bust, even into a debtors’ prison maybe, if their company did. Few would buy shares in a firm unless they knew its managers well and could monitor their activities, especially their borrowing, closely. Now, quite passive investors could afford to risk capital—but only what they chose—with entrepreneurs. This unlocked vast sums previously put in safe investments; it also freed new companies from the burden of fixed-interest debt. The way was open to finance the mounting capital needs of the new railways and factories that were to transform the world.

There are hundreds of books that explain with reference to voluminous data how limited liability revolutionised capitalism. Ken’s POV is standard fare and well supported by the facts.

Tel I don’t think it is seriously arguable. I think your premise about investment quality is highly contentious; at the very best that premise is arguable.

First there is all the reasons mel put forth from the Economist.

But as to your premise how could a financing market functioning essentially on connections, privilege (of the Ancien Regime type) and social status (i.e. breeding) provide better quality investments??? Please provide one iota or shred of evidence, anecdotal and circumstantial are welcome.

Finally, even accepting that arguable proposition as to investment quality, the access to investment is dichotomous (I know I mispelled that): the ‘little people’ either have the opportunity to invest or they don’t. I can’t fathom how even potentially crap investment is worse than none.

Depsis, if you read #26 above carefully you will see that it is a reply to Rog at #24 who used the word “advised” implying that super contributions were voluntary and that people were merely misled. My point was that these people were forced, so the outcome was not voluntary.

Mel, “revolutionised” doesn’t necessarily mean better, it just means different. Stalin revolutionised the food distribution system in the Ukraine, the results were better for some, worse for others.

Few would buy shares in a firm unless they knew its managers well and could monitor their activities, especially their borrowing, closely.

Scracious! How dreadful. What would the world come to if managers were monitored closely?

This unlocked vast sums previously put in safe investments;

I never doubted that larger sums were mobilised, nor that it facilitated riskier investments, but although modern capitalism has become synonymous with huge risks, huge gains and losses big enough to tear up the fabric of society itself, there’s no particular reason why all capitalism needs to be that way.

The way was open to finance the mounting capital needs of the new railways and factories that were to transform the world.

If a railway is profitable at all, then it will always get financed sooner or later, and there’s the possibility of reinvesting its own profits (growing a small business into a big business). So under a risk adverse investment culture it might take a little bit longer, so what? The same investment would go into something more predictable, which would grow other areas of the economy. Big deal. Hardly the end of the world.

But as to your premise how could a financing market functioning essentially on connections, privilege (of the Ancien Regime type) and social status (i.e. breeding) provide better quality investments??

That was never my premise, all it requires is that shareholders take their decision making role seriously, insisting that they remain well informed and demanding that they be able to veto any stupid ideas of the management. You are the one who seems to imply that only people of high social status are capable of doing this. If the result is more cautious behaviour (especially in the financial industry) then so be it. However, there will always be some elements of speculative risk takers in any society and no doubt some of those people will do very well.

… the ‘little people’ either have the opportunity to invest or they don’t. I can’t fathom how even potentially crap investment is worse than none.

How exactly does unlimited liability prevent anyone from investing?

Pedro,

How many large enterprises are not companies?

Well governments are the obvious example, and in a democratic nation, all citizens are facing full unlimited liability for the actions of their government (and we can sit back and watch the US Social Security system as the lack of financial viability becomes self evident to all concerned). Governments are perhaps a bit special because they just change the rules when it suits them, I guess that’s one way to avoid a specific liability, but changing the rules does not actually pay the debt, it merely tosses the burden in whatever direction is politically convenient at the time. Someone always pays.

Since government has become the primary large entity of the modern world which cannot use bankruptcy and liquidation as an easy way out, we are finding that more and more of the “buck stops here” roles are just being relegated to government. Somehow I don’t understand why people who advocate capitalism would by implication want to advocate a continuously expanding government.

Besides that there are the churches, which tend to be extremely cautious with respect to loans, etc. although they do operate in an equivalent way to a business. God knows how much land the Catholic church owns, and He keeps that figure to Himself.

Lloyd’s of London still has some elements of unlimited liability (although they are trying to get away from it), but this has provided a backstop for other private liability for a long time, and ultimately I suppose governments will end up taking that over.

But anyhow, just because limited liability is attractive to the companies doesn’t imply that it is good for the system as a whole. It’s like any loophole, once one guy is using it, everyone else wants to use it too. Then they all use each other as justification.

Tel,

Manage your own super fund. Take all your money out of limited liability corps and put it elsewhere. No one here gives a shit if you want to wind the rules back to the steam engine era and plunge us all into poverty. I mean, go join #OccupyOz if you like.

“How exactly does unlimited liability prevent anyone from investing?”

The link I gave you and about 100,000 others explain in tedious detail how much capital was mobilised subsequent to limited liability laws.

Instead of simply farting on about how awful it all is why not read some of the vast and readily available literature that explains how capitalism flourished after limited liability was introduced. Also look for the counterarguments. Google is your friend. Come back to us when you’ve educated yourself.

Meanwhile, I’m heading off to some #StopFluoride #BanCapitalism #WhoShotJR? workshops.

tel do you acknowledge the virtue of standard form contracts at least?

For tel
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1905858