[ExI] government corruption

[Damien Broderick]

At 11:26 PM 2/21/2009 -0500, Rafal wrote:

> > What incredible nonsense. So I take it you've never had a credit card or a
> > bank loan, for example.
>
>### Wow, Damien, are had a credit card that just jumped out of your
>wallet and started buying stuff you didn't want?!

Apparently--to my continuing astonishment--fucking up their records 
of one's dealings with them, as they do repeatedly, either carelessly 
or guilefully, so one is baselessly listed in credit reports as a 
defaulter, and then they take forever to fix it, after one spends 
hours on the phone to useless "staff", or they never do. In addition, 
as my financial advisor noted:

>Are you referring to the way credit card companies advertise 
>interest rates of, say, 5% and then raise them to 29% because the 
>fine print in the contract says they can raise the rates whenever 
>they feel like it?

That sort of thing. Or could I be thinking of some other kind of 
company, or just about every other kind of company if it's big 
enough? My financial advisor again:

< Large banks are an especially bad kind of large company. Federal 
law is incredibly biased in favor of large banks. IMO, it's quite 
accurate to characterize large banks as quasi-states, rather than 
private firms. Or perhaps integral parts of the federal government. 
The fact that certain banks have been characterized as "too large" to 
allow to fail is a clear illustration of the difference between large 
banks and private firms. >

Is this all due to the omnipresence, omnipotence and firepower of 
governments? Maybe so, but it might also be a function of *massive 
size in any enterprise* overwhelming all the processes hunter 
gatherers are evolved to employ in close-knit groups of 100 or 
so--unless an extraordinary and insightful and ceaselessly scrutiny 
is brought to bear.

Damien Broderick