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Originally Posted by GenuineRisk
My issue with Libertarianism is that, to me, it's one of those lines of thinking that depend on a belief that human beings are, at their core, honorable, and that given the chance, we'd all prefer to play on a level field. And I just don't think that's so.
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I agree with that, regarding why Libertarianism doesn't seem to work in real life (although Ayn Rand's objectivism works pretty well when you rather think Wesley Mouch is Rush Limbaugh, Hank Reardon is more a Gates or Jobs or Buffett, and the hoardes are more the right wing evangelical types

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I'm not saying the regulations we have now are the right ones, or even work well, largely because a lot of them are written by the very companies that are seeking to keep the ladder pulled up after them.
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Additionally, we've removed pretty much all law enforcing human nature into a more equal playing field (hence the 2007-2008 crash).
Now Wall Street isn't about capitalizing strong sustainable business growth, it's about computer microtrading to get an extra cent out of trades. It's not about growing a strong business base and making money off that investment, it's about making money on the upswing or crashes, with no thoughts to the consequences of market direction.
When you have Wall Street firms taking the opposition market position than what they have sold to their customers, is anyone surprised at what our financial markets do? For god's sakes, these are the same people that wrapped up completely crap mortgage derivatives, lied and rated them AAA, then sold them to each other until the bottom fell out of that pyramid scheme.
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But I don't know what the solution is. I'm also really worried. We had a kid last year, and while he's the light and joy of my life, I sometimes wonder if bringing him into the world was a big mistake, because I don't have a lot of hope for what kind of a world he'll grow up into.
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Make sure everyone has a valid passport, because plenty of countries will be just fine if we go.