# Lemon socialism? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 14, 2011, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lemon-socialism/596343 "2011-09-14T23:39:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Mosier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ea924/32.png) [@Mosier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mosier)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2011, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lemon-socialism/596343/21 "2011-09-15T01:40:25Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Does the fire department own your house if they put out a fire? No, because I pay the fire department to put out my fire. They’re socialized. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2011, 2:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lemon-socialism/596343/22 "2011-09-15T02:34:37Z")
**MOIDALIZE** , stop with the personal attacks. **xtisme** , don’t be baited into responding in kind. Both of you knock it off. [/Moderating] ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2011, 3:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lemon-socialism/596343/23 "2011-09-15T03:09:26Z")
Were shareholder sacrifices spread evenly? Two major banks were zeroed out, while others of questionable solvency were kept whole with government support. And what about bondholders? I think FNM and FRE bonds were kept whole because the markets (and foreign governments) had come to think of these bonds as government-backed, but weren’t other bonds kept whole that needn’t have been? I’m asking these questions because I’ve never seen a good on-line synopsis of the answers. As for regulatory responses to the credit and mortgage crises, I’m afraid they suffer the same problem as earlier response to the Enron fiasco: misidentification of the problems. In fact I read of at least one bank (which has maintained good profitability because of its loaning methodology) which has decided to give up its FDIC/FRB status because of new paperwork requirements. What then were the problems and appropriate responses? Too big a question to answer here except for two comments. 1. Many financial shenanigans were criminal fraud. More people should have been sent to prison. 2. I remember an SDMB thread in which OP asked for what single legislative error caused the credit crisis. To me this showed huge misconception. We’ve built a flawed system based on crony _caveat emptor_ capitalism, disdainment of public interest, and a perverse love of hyper-efficiency. A Bandaid solution based on increased paperwork is not the answer. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2011, 5:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lemon-socialism/596343/24 "2011-09-15T05:29:21Z")
> [@Mosier](#): > > No, because I pay the fire department to put out my fire. They’re socialized. And you pay the government to prevent major bankruptcies. In both cases, no change of ownership is part of the process. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2011, 6:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lemon-socialism/596343/25 "2011-09-15T06:39:48Z")
> [@MOIDALIZE](#): > > … David Brooks … simplistic, middle-of-the-road pablum, and filling space with a bunch of empty paragraphs … I’m glad to see I’m not the only one who finds David Brooks to be a priggish hypocrite whom the N.Y. Times should be ashamed to publish. ---
**Author:** ![Mosier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ea924/32.png) [@Mosier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mosier)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2011, 8:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lemon-socialism/596343/26 "2011-09-15T08:11:50Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > And you pay the government to prevent major bankruptcies. In both cases, no change of ownership is part of the process. I own my share of the fire department, through the government. Nobody gets rich due to risky investments the fre department gambles on. Compare that to “to big to fail” businesses? If they require government funding to exist, why are their profits not socialized? ---
**Author:** ![MOIDALIZE](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e274bd/32.png) [@MOIDALIZE](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MOIDALIZE)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2011, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lemon-socialism/596343/27 "2011-09-15T16:13:28Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > I’m glad to see I’m not the only one who finds David Brooks to be a priggish hypocrite whom the N.Y. Times should be ashamed to publish. What’s funny is that I’ve seen commentators on the left AND the right just savaging him for the silly bullshit he writes. I guess radical centrism and solemnly parroting the conventional wisdom isn’t the most persuasive tact after all. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2011, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lemon-socialism/596343/28 "2011-09-15T16:15:52Z")
Being in the middle often means you get hit by traffic from both sides. He still get’s paid though, so he’s laughing all the way to the bank. 😛 -XT ---
**Author:** ![MOIDALIZE](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e274bd/32.png) [@MOIDALIZE](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MOIDALIZE)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2011, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lemon-socialism/596343/29 "2011-09-15T16:18:53Z")
Yeah…there’s a lot of that going around in this country. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2011, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lemon-socialism/596343/30 "2011-09-15T16:24:15Z")
Oh, no doubt…I think a lot of people are coming to their senses and moving away from the frothing edges of the political extremism that seems to be gripping the country these days… Er, or did you mean the laughter on the way to the bank to drown out the lamentation of the women and children crushed beneath the uncaring wheels of progress? -XT ---
**Author:** ![MOIDALIZE](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e274bd/32.png) [@MOIDALIZE](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MOIDALIZE)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2011, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lemon-socialism/596343/31 "2011-09-15T16:39:22Z")
Yes, the getting paid part. The partisanship doesn’t bother me nearly as much as the arrogance in believing the middle way is always the Serious and Sober way. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2011, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lemon-socialism/596343/32 "2011-09-15T16:48:22Z")
Unlike the arrogance that claims that the Reality has a Liberal/Conservative bias? 😛 Basically, in David Brooks case (who, I’m not a big fan of either, despite assertions of similarity), what you have here is market forces at work, distasteful as that no doubt is to some. If people weren’t reading him and some large non-zero number of readers getting something out of what he’s writing then he wouldn’t be laughing all the way to said bank, or getting paid. That he is says something about the fact that while YOU may not like him and think he’s got all those fine XT qualities such as ‘simplistic, middle-of-the-road pablum, and filling space with a bunch of empty paragraphs than actually exerting the barest level of thought and effort into replying to a thread’, as well as an ‘unbelievable bore’, others obviously disagree. Same goes for such stellar personalities as Rush and Savage (at least you didn’t compare me to those two…eee-gads! :eek:). -XT ---
**Author:** ![MOIDALIZE](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e274bd/32.png) [@MOIDALIZE](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MOIDALIZE)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2011, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lemon-socialism/596343/33 "2011-09-15T16:48:56Z")
Yeah, I didn’t read any of that. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2011, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lemon-socialism/596343/34 "2011-09-15T16:50:14Z")
Just working on your post count then? Me too! WEEEEE! -XT ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2011, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lemon-socialism/596343/35 "2011-09-15T17:48:55Z")
> [@Mosier](#): > > I own my share of the fire department, through the government. Nobody gets rich due to risky investments the fre department gambles on. Compare that to “to big to fail” businesses? > > If they require government funding to exist, why are their profits not socialized? Well, a wise man once said, "The idea is that the government isn’t acting to help the bank or large corporation. It’s acting to help society at large. The collapse of the business would have harmful effects that would pass beyond the business itself. So the government gives the business money to prevent society at large from experiencing the harmful effects. When a bank or large corporation makes a profit, nobody experiences any harmful effects from it. So the government has no reason to act. Think of government bailouts as being like a fire department. The fire department only goes to houses that are on fire. But it makes no sense to say the fire department should also go to houses that aren’t on fire." ---
**Author:** ![mlees](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba8739/32.png) [@mlees](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mlees)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2011, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lemon-socialism/596343/36 "2011-09-15T18:16:28Z")
> [@xtisme](#): > > Just working on your post count then? Me too! WEEEEE! > > -XT I just had the image of the Geico piggie w/pinwheels. ---
**Author:** ![Buck\_Godot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/buck_godot/32/6573_2.png) [@Buck\_Godot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Buck_Godot)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2011, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lemon-socialism/596343/37 "2011-09-15T18:38:00Z")
The solution would seem to be to set up a fund based on profits taxed from successful too big to fail banks to pay for their rescue in case they go under. I recall a couple of years ago Obama and the Democrats suggesting something like this and the Republicans being opposed. I don’t recall if it made it into law or not. In the fire analogy it would be the same as requiring people to buy fire insurance from the fire department. ---
**Author:** ![marshmallow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df705f/32.png) [@marshmallow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/marshmallow)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2011, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lemon-socialism/596343/38 "2011-09-15T18:55:33Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > When a bank or large corporation makes a profit, nobody experiences any harmful effects from it. Say what you will about the tenets of capitalism, at least it’s an ethos. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2011, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lemon-socialism/596343/39 "2011-09-15T20:16:37Z")
> [@xtisme](#): > > Unlike the arrogance that claims that the Reality has a Liberal/Conservative bias? 😛 It’s not arrogance; it’s a joke, and an observation that conservative beliefs on the whole tend to be _factually wrong_. And that conservatives themselves tend to have a disdain for reality; “we make our own reality” to use the Bush Administration quote. They don’t care about facts or logic; they believe in faith and the power of sheer conviction to make reality what you want it to be. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2011, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lemon-socialism/596343/40 "2011-09-16T01:44:57Z")
> [@marshmallow](#): > > Say what you will about the tenets of capitalism, at least it’s an ethos. Actually I disagree with that. I don’t think capitalism is an ethos. Capitalism is just something that works, like algebra or chemistry. People should use capitalism because it’s functional not because it has any inherent moral value. Immoral people can use capitalism to achieve immoral goals. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lemon-socialism/596343.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lemon-socialism/596343.md?page=3)