estate taxes but you would simply dry up other areas of the economy
such as start-ups and charitable giving, etc. You would evaporate
enthusiasm and ambition. Why do you suppose that the lower classes
have higher morals than the uppers? Usually, morals slither down so
the street vender is no more honest than his betters.
You might define what you consider "work". Are you taking someone's
livelihood by mowing lawns for free? At any rate, the nuclear family
as a base unit is shot to smithereens. Here, we are taking about the
value of certain social roles that does not expect money but now has
few safety nets. Not that Oprah will be giving up her private jet ot
Michelle will pay the taxpayers for her fares, fetes and fashions-
it's class warfare used as a political ploy and certainly nothing new,
is it?
What exactly are these ME rebels left with? Ruined towns and
businesses and certainly no tourists. All reved up with no place to
go.
Perhaps the youths need centuries of warfare like Europe endured till
they settle down?
Savings are important- for that rainy day- plus a good dose of common
sense in regard to policy. The USA has been on a binge since the
'60's- really, there is such a disconnect in thinking with these
Boomers- perhaps they had boring parents- there is little depth, wit
or style to them- they are very herdlike.
Technology is good and bad. Swift news and speedy scams. Wikileaks and
Drudge are wake-ups for traditional media and political baloney.
Governments are bloated by bureaucracy- like ancien regimes and
courtiers. And don't get me started about the modern woman- dear Lord!
Well, the Muslims will soon find out about that pickle!
On Jun 29, 7:57 pm, archytas <nwte...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I've been reading Human Geography of late Ash - but that only takes me
> back to the same place, giving me some surprises on the way about what
> I didn't know. A typical fact is such that half the people in the UK
> own only 5% of what we can stick and money value on. The answer is
> that we can't afford capitalism. Of course, this just brings more
> problems with it! Years back I used to think the general western
> system wasn't broken and alternatives were pipe dreams. I'm now
> convinced the system is broken, but it's also obvious the pipe dream
> paradises were much worse.
>
> I'm always tempted to think transparency would help now we have
> technology - especially in letting us get back to communal capital in
> something of a dual system as you suggest.
> This still leaves issues about what to do in the global mess and a
> lack of any politics to address this, including the flaw of ignorance
> in democracy. What sticks in my craw is the lack of dialogue other
> than the farcical putting the world to rights type over beer.
>
> One of the things always said about our economies is we need to work
> smarter. We could Dilbert-joke that one to death. What I want to
> hear is more about how much work really needs doing, what we really
> keep us motivated in doing it, how to deal with disability, pensions
> and so on - without any of the claims about needing super-brain
> bankers and to let some people hold nearly all the wealth and us
> having to work for them. I cut my neighbour's lawn for nothing
> (except for not seeing the mess), but I fight against having to do
> more work for less at work. I could work much smarter but the
> incentive is to work myself and others out of work. I'd have a
> substantial bet there is less 'smart' in work than when I started if
> Ladbrookes would take it. What we have is more and more
> accreditation, not increasing brain power.
>
> Basic answers like a quality of work life and human rights around the
> world appeal - until you realise just how much needs to change. Easy
> notions that we all need to save money don't work because economies
> shrink because people stop spending - but we keep getting this rammed
> down our throats.
>
> No more time now, but one thing we might do is redistribute wealth
> every now and then from the rich by allowing communities to develop as
> alternatives to it around a range of new technologies. My suspicion
> is that banking, retailing and much celebrity stuff is not needed and
> now blocks social development based on work not money.
>
> On Jun 29, 12:42 am, Ash <ashkas...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> > You've riled my ire Archy, now what can we do about it I wonder. My
> > knowledge of things isn't up to the complexities of economics but the
> > principles of simple exchange keep making me think we should have a dual
> > economy: let corporations exist (remove personhood), and establish a
> > social system (independent of government) to allow people the option to
> > serve the commonwealth of society. With all the things that need to be
> > done there is such a high unemployment, people cannot afford property
> > taxes and various costs, why not let people live and prosper? Perhaps
> > there isn't enough to go around (sarcasm), or maybe we just need some
> > balance.
>
> > On 6/28/2011 4:13 PM, archytas wrote:
>
> > > What the isn't is any public dialogue on whether the stuff about law,
> > > freedom, entrepreneurialism, innovation and the motivation of wealth
> > > is the problem.
>
> > > On Jun 28, 8:32 pm, archytas<nwte...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > >> When you look at GDP figures (not that many do) in the US you see real
> > >> wage decline over 30 years yet an increase in consumption (and hence
> > >> GDP). Questions obviously arise here on how - the answer is debt
> > >> spending - but how did the borrowing arise - wouldn't we expect
> > >> lending to fall with less money coming in to pay of debt contracted?
> > >> Part of the answer lies in greed and a property bubble created by
> > >> this. Loans appeared to be secured against property, but the banks
> > >> were fueling speculation to inflate property prices to 'earn'
> > >> bonuses. I see little difference in what they did and Deng ordering
> > >> 'homes' that no one will live in. In a sense we all went into a
> > >> command economy. As with the famous Sino-Soviet experiments this was
> > >> and still is based on 'elite madness' and false accounting.
>
> > >> I mention habros because a poisoning feature of luxury seems
> > >> involved. It's surely all over - just switch on TV. The way we
> > >> normally think about running a household just don't apply, though
> > >> politicians mug us with this kind of false analogy. The promise in
> > >> the last election in the UK was that frontline services would not be
> > >> affected by cuts in waste and all the other lies of this kind - the
> > >> usual 5 cents in the dollar stuff pace Bob Dole. This never works and
> > >> we know it doesn't.
>
> > >> I would guess most people have a notion that GDP is a reflection of
> > >> effort and this is the problem. GDP goes up when we buy plastic
> > >> Chinese crap or TVs we didn't make on money borrowed against what was
> > >> supposed to be the ever rising value of our assets like housing. So
> > >> GDP goes up when we simply bubble property prices - usually good for
> > >> people owning property. What the banks did in this needs long
> > >> investigation and description - but in short they began to make money
> > >> make money - something that clearly can't be 'real'. The accounting
> > >> here involves governments creating electronic money (now QE) and
> > >> lending this at low rates to favoured banks (a surplus of capital
> > >> never built on effort) who appeared to be making money hand over
> > >> fist. This was really the Ponzi scheme and no more than anything
> > >> Madoff was doing. Ponzi schemes pay out not on earnings but with the
> > >> new money their lies on performance bring in. The lies are supported
> > >> by elaborate maths. I teach the maths and they don't work as claimed,
> > >> only reducing risk in margins. The key metaphor is to imagine playing
> > >> Monopoly against a banker with a couple of spare sets of money in her
> > >> back pocket.
>
> > >> The idea in this is to use capital ore and more effectively (fine) but
> > >> it all goes mad when the capital becomes earnings ten years off
> > >> treated as though you've made it now. The maths is complicated but
> > >> the schemes are not - it's almost like placing bets on all horses and
> > >> living it up on the winnings whilst ignoring the losses or inflating
> > >> the currency you use to 'account' for them.
>
> > >> What people can't grab is that economics and accounting is like this
> > >> anyway - though supposedly under strict rules. Businesses need to
> > >> stay alive until the good times when most profit is made. This is
> > >> fine until the madness or crooks get in and the idea ceases to be
> > >> about the viable business and becomes just profit.
>
> > >> I can build the case in figures but the issue is corruption - a
> > >> corruption as endemic as that in Soviet performance management. What
> > >> they are telling us is stark. We can't have the public services (who
> > >> cares who runs them if they do it properly) to educate kids, look
> > >> after old and disabled people and the rest even though we have plenty
> > >> of labour to do this - labour in some senses earned through massive
> > >> productivity rises in agriculture and manufacturing. Looming over us
> > >> is a massive and generally parasitic financial services sector that
> > >> matches these productivity gains in size - all of which could be
> > >> routinised to a fraction.
>
> > >> When we talk about making an industry efficient we have little problem
> > >> with allowing wages to come under international competition and all
> > >> the rest, Yet to match this in, say, policing by importing droves of
> > >> keen Chinese and sacking our expensive finest - and the very idea of
> > >> doing this at the top of banking seems impossible - though all the
> > >> skills are comparable.
>
> > >> I suspect the real issues cannot be addressed because most people
> > >> adjust to a view of just being cogs in the wheel and feel their sanity
> > >> threatened by thoughts of the criminality that has been going on
> > >> around them. They look for homely answers like 'blaming profligate
> > >> Greeks' (a hospital doctor in Greece gets under half what a lecturer
> > >> gets in the UK) and imagining austerity measures will let us save our
> > >> way out of the problems. This is not what history tells us - though,
> > >> of course, most people know no real history.
>
> > >> What is happening now is history. - it may as well be a re-write of
> > >> much imperialist history. I hope war is less on the cards, but I'm
> > >> not at all sure. Our ignorance is the real issue - and I suspect this
> > >> is ignorance about just how unfair the world is and how massively
> > >> irrational our systems are.. It's worse than we are thinking and our
> > >> public dialogue allows us to say.
>
> > >> The questions we aren't asking are about what would be left if there
> > >> was no more 'international trade' and we got round to making stuff
> > >> locally and allowing more global exchange of expertise through virtual
> > >> exchange. We aren't broke in such a system and have capital.
>
> > >> My guess is that most of what we call 'work' in the current system is
> > >> no such thing - it's neurosis.
>
> > >> On Jun 28, 12:58 pm, Ash<ashkas...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > >>> So, bullets=100pts, futures=-100TNpts. ;-)
> > >>> On 6/28/2011 12:07 AM, archytas wrote:
> > >>>> The truth on bullets is you get to eat if you have them and the food
> > >>>> holders don't!
> > >>>> On Jun 28, 3:52 am, rigsy03<rigs...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > >>>>> I wonder the number of vacant, distressed properties in the West?
> > >>>>> Well, China was
>
> ...
>
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