This is really awful. I'm glad the government in New Zealand doesn't do this kind of thing.
Then again, I think the blame is more on the government than the bank. When the government passed KiwiSaver here a few months ago, businesses all over the place advertised how they would help you set it up. This is because they want to look good, but you can bet if the government hadn't passed that law, businesses wouldn't be doing this because it's not good for their bottom line.
I don't entirely blame the banks, of course. The feds force them on this. But neither have they put up much resistance.
No they haven't...I see what you mean. Come to think of it I haven't heard much business resistance to KiwiSaver, either. In an economy where the government constantly pokes its nose into your affairs, the easiest thing to do is probably to just obey. I wonder when it becomes a moral imperative to say no?
In Atlas Shrugged, Hank Rearden managed to go against the government's wishes, on principle, and didn't get into that much trouble over it. However, that is fiction. I wonder to what extent it's doable in the real world. (Even Hank Rearden had to go to court and give a rousing speech before he got out of trouble.)
The virtue of fiction is that you can have anything happen. Unfortunately big business is more like Boyle than Rearden.
I don't deny there are loads of Boyles out there. But there must be Reardens too. Even in Atlas Shrugged, the Dagnys and Reardens were a minority.
What the business world needs is to have role models like Dagny and Hank. Unfortunately, due to the altruist ethic, they think the paragon of business virtue is Eugene Lawson, the banker who gave out loans just because someone "needed" it and eventually ran his bank into the ground. Which is of course totally undoable. So a rift is opened between the practical and the moral, leaving businessmen the two options of either being the stereotypical materialistic jerk who cares for nothing but money, or being "selfless" and giving it all away.
No wonder business can be so screwed up.
I think he deserved what he got. That is what happens when you think with the little head instead of the big one.
I thought most folks grew out of that by the time they were say mid-forties.
True the guy didn't hurt anyone except his wife and kids. You'd think a politician of all people would know better than to pay for such services in any traceable manner.
Hell, even an idiot knows to pay cash or hire someone else to pay with several small modey orders bought at the Quicky Mart.
Some folks were just born stupid. This guy is right at the top of the list just beneath Bill Clinton.
This is a prime example of the fucking you get for the fucking you got and for being a dumbass about it.
Morons.
I hope his smeckel rots off just for the way he treated his family.
Joe
Nancy: I think there are very few Reardons and far more Boyles. Nor do I think it due altruism per se -- though a lot of it is. What we are seeing is something different. The world of big business is filled with individuals who want to maximize profits. I don’t mind that. But there are two ways to obtain wealth. One is through the market process where you must meet the needs or wants of consumers in order to persuade them to buy your product. You must create value for others in order to create profits for yourself.
The second method is through political appropriation of wealth. Here you secure favors from politicians instead of customers. You use these politicians to use state power to prevent competition, or to coerce individuals into purchasing your product. That is what American Agribusiness has done with ethanol. No one would buy that crap in the free market so they have used political pull in order to create “profits” through the forcible redistribution of wealth.
In both cases the individuals involved are being greedy and seeking to maximize profit. In the market they do it honestly by creating value that others want. In politics they do it by forcing wealth out of the hands of others into their own hands. I don’t think they are doing this out of altruism.
Greed in the market compels one to benefit others. Greed, when combined with force, and all government is force, is truly a zero sum game.
"Greed, when combined with force, and all government is force, is truly a zero sum game."
Well and eloquently put! Couldn't have said it better myself. Maybe that's why so many people think of all wealth as a zero-sum game...because the rulers have been redistributing wealth for as long as the history of mankind.
Ironically, leftists call for government redistribution of wealth because they believe in the zero-sum of wealth. The more the government interferes, the more wealth actually becomes zero-sum. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy.
"In both cases the individuals involved are being greedy and seeking to maximize profit. In the market they do it honestly by creating value that others want. In politics they do it by forcing wealth out of the hands of others into their own hands. I don’t think they are doing this out of altruism."
That's another eloquently well-put statement. For the record, I don't think those businessmen who ask for government favours are altruistic, I was talking more about the psychological reasons as to why businessmen behave badly. I am by no means excusing them.
If you said you were discussing the psychological reasons at to why good businessmen pander to the organized forces of envy I would agree 100%. I just think the term "behave badly" is too broad.
I refer you to this site which explains how Governor Spitzer was caught. It had nothing to do with George W. Bush.
Currency transaction reporting requirements were enacted in the Bank Secrecy Act of 1970, and money laundering was made a crime in overhaul of the federal narcotics laws that took place in 1986. Believe it or not, Karl Rove did not diabolically dream these provisions up to trap unwary Democrats, nor are they part of George W. Bush's post-9/11 Politics of Fear.
Long before we had an international terrorism problem, these laws were developed to target domestic criminal enterprises (especially organized crime and drug trafficking). The biggest problem many of these syndicates have is hiding the mountains of cash they generate — unexplained wealth being among the best indicators of criminal activity, especially when it comes to the highest-ranking, most insulated crooks. To the extent these laws (and the Treasury Department's implementing regulations) have been beefed up significantly, a lot of that happened during the Clinton administration.
Next time, be sure of your facts before you veer into paranoia.
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