Myths of rich and poor

[Preechr]

Myths of rich and poor
By Thomas Sowell
Feb 8, 2006

There is a fundamental difference between seeking the truth and scoring points. In politics, the truth is strictly optional and that also seems to be true in parts of the media.

Much of what is said about the incomes of Americans is said to score points. For example, it has been repeated endlessly that the average American family's income has not increased significantly for decades and that real wages are actually going down, not up.

That is great stuff for scoring points. You can just imagine the words and the music: The economy is stagnating, the American Dream has become a nightmare, our best days are behind us, etc.

The fact that the conclusions are totally false has not cramped anyone's style. Best-selling authors reap the profits of doom by writing such stuff. Politicians show how compassionate they are by promising to rescue us from economic disaster. Those who want to show how hip they are by disdaining American society get their jollies by scoring such points.

A book titled "Myths of Rich and Poor" by W. Michael Cox and Richard Alm exposes such nonsense for the fraud that it is.

Despite the statistics that show real wages going downhill over time, somehow Americans are consuming more than ever and have a larger net worth than ever.

As of 1970, for example, only about a third of American homes had both central heating and air conditioning, while more than four-fifths had both in the 1990s. Moreover, the homes themselves were more than one-third larger.

Just over one-fourth of American households had a dishwasher in 1970 but more than half did by the 1990s. Only 34 percent of households had color television in 1970 but 98 percent did in the 1990s.

How could this be, with lower real wages? Were we just going deeper and deeper into debt? Actually the net worth of Americans more than doubled during those same years.

Was there some kind of economic Houdini who could perform such magic?

No. Actually a lot of the point-scoring rhetoric involves misleading statistics. Wages are only part of total compensation -- and increasing proportions of that total compensation is taken in the form of fringe benefits. Total compensation has been going up while average real wages have been going down.

Even the decline of real wages has to be taken with a grain of salt. Real wages are calculated by taking the money wages and adjusting for changes in the consumer price index.

Only an economist can get excited by the consumer price index. Other people's eyes are more likely to glaze over when the term is mentioned. However, an inaccurate consumer price index is part of the reason for the appearance of declining real wages.

When the consumer price index says that inflation is 3 percent a year, it may really be more like 2 percent or 1.5 percent. As anyone who has had to pay off a mortgage knows, a difference of a percentage point can add up to real money over a period of decades.

Economists' estimates of how much the consumer price index exaggerates inflation range from an estimate of one percentage point by former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan to an estimate of 1.5 percent by Michael Boskin, former chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers to the President.

Even if we take the lower estimate of one percentage point, over a period of 25 years, that under-estimates the real income of the average American by nearly $9,000. In other words, a working couple will have their real income under-estimated by nearly 18 grand, using the consumer price index to correct for inflation.

No wonder the income statistics look so bad, even while the standard of living is rising and Americans have a higher net worth than before. Nothing is easier than to turn reality upside down, especially if you are just trying to score points, instead of getting at the truth.

My comment on this book has been reprinted on its cover: "Cox and Alm deserve a medal for bringing some sanity to a subject where insanity is the norm."

If making a whole society's rising prosperity look like a disastrous decline is not insane, what is?

[ziggytrix]

Interesting they don't talk about the average amount of DEBT held by Americans in the 70s vs the 90s. I think that might explain a bit of the difference in the ability of Americans to consume more.

Frankly, trying to counter doom and gloom with rose-colored glasses is not gonna work. I'd agree you can paint a very dismal picture using the wide pallatte of economic "facts" but there's also room to portray things as much better than they are.

America faces some serious economic issues, and increasing debt is one that should not be overlooked - either in our homes or in our government.

[mburbank]

I'm no economist, but when they calculate my net worth, do they count the value of my home or the equity in it? And do when they do stats on who owns a dishawasher, are they talking about everybody that has one, or are they talking about everybody who's done paying for their dishwasher? What about savings, then vs. now?

Sowell wants to argue that it's more complicated then the doomsayers make it look. Fair enough. I'm guessing it may be a little more complicated than a wealthy columnist makes it look.

[glowbelly]

seriously, i didn't know owning a color tv or having a dishwasher (other than my husband) made you rich :eek

ps: the color tv i own we bought from our shady neighbor denny for $10. it was so hot, but ya know, we didn't have a tv.

[KevinTheOmnivore]

I can't say I ever understood the "stuff" argument to begin with. First of all, that's all relative. Consumption is bound to go up across the board, especially if we've outsourced all of the "stuff" making.

Secondly, doesn't most "stuff" become a negative asset, or equity whatever, once it has been bought? (I recall the story of the new car leaving the lot)

Does being a nation of people with a lot of worthless stuff make us wealthy?

"As of 1970, for example, only about a third of American homes had both central heating and air conditioning, while more than four-fifths had both in the 1990s. Moreover, the homes themselves were more than one-third larger. "

Larger, cheaper, and built with lower quality ("McMansions" anyone?). I think things such as this are poor indicators of wealth.

[Preechr]

How could this be, with lower real wages? Were we just going deeper and deeper into debt? Actually the net worth of Americans more than doubled during those same years.

Be back later

[davinxtk]

Alright, let's go ahead and talk about the increasing disparity between the rich and the poor. The average net worth of Americans is set WAY THE FUCK OFF by the people who want you to believe it's increasing. The only thing these statistics prove is that the rich are getting richer slightly faster than the poor are getting poorer. Good job there, excellent point.

Not to mention, there has been enormous economic turbulance since the statistics they're quoting from the 1990s.

Consumtion is up. You don't say, maybe that has something to do with marketing psychology? Buzzwords like brand loyalty and perceived value come to mind.

This is absurd. They're trying to sell success to the markets.
Don't worry about the economy. Just go spend some money.
Really, we've got it all taken care of. Trust us.

This is nausiating smack-talk, Preechr. I thought better of you.


(ps i can't wait to read this book)

[Preechr]

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_07/b3971001.htm

Why The Economy Is A Lot Stronger Than You Think

[kahljorn]

"As of 1970, for example, only about a third of American homes had both central heating and air conditioning, while more than four-fifths had both in the 1990s. Moreover, the homes themselves were more than one-third larger. "

That's kind of funny in a way. That's like how people in the 1990's were less likely to have a cd burner than now, or dvd burners. Or how about cell phones? Not everybody had one back then. Or even telephones. Or anything else that started out as a base, unrelaible, expensive and slow service and through the wonder of technology developed into something better and cheaper to maintain, thus lowering cost.

I wonder how many people had electricity when it first "Came out" versus now. Or how many people in the 1970's were driving cars versus in the early 1900's. Was the entire point of that article to point out that civilization has developed through technology? Thanks, I needed to know that I wasn't living in a cave somewhere in Pakistan the size of my bedroom. I couldn't see that for myself.

[davinxtk]

While I'll freely admit that I got bored and switched topics a little more than halfway through that article, I'm pretty sure I got the point.

Due to corporate investments, the economy is strong. It's rock solid. It's here to stay. These major major big business corporations are acting in the best interests of the market and therefor the market and everyone directly involved are making a profit, and will continue to do so.

The reason that absolutely none of this is significant in the slightest bit to the general conditions of working class America is that all it proves is that they'll still have jobs, no matter how meager the benefits become. So, no, the economy isn't really where the problem lies, it's in the perihpery.

Allow me to attempt an analogy: A concrete slab exposed to the wild is, for the most part, going to remain a concrete slab in roughly the same position for the better part of a few hundred years, barring major geological disaster in the general vicinity. It is rectangular, almost eight feet in length, five in breadth and another four deep. It weighs a couple of tons.
So, all in all, it's a sturdy bet when you go to bed at night that it will be there when you wake up in the morning.
Would you really want to sleep on it, though?


The economy may be able to bring a whole host of very appealing products, innovations and options to consumers, but what good is it if many of these consumers are busy absolutely scraping by on the wages they make as a result? Why were there seven people living in my three bedroom house this past summer while there are people who own two, three, four or more homes? Is it because we don't work hard to get by? No, it's because those in power want to keep us working hard for their profits. Is this because they're inherently evil people? Probably not, they're just trying to feed their families and they live within their means. The cause of the problem isn't disparity, it's that so many people are so ignorant to this disparity, and many of the most knowledged and successful people would prefer to keep it that way.

Now, I'm not an economist (nor do I aspire to a title wtih such mind-bogglingly tedious work associated with it) but I'm sure this society could blanace itself out if the most well-off people were willing to make a few sacrifices for the greater good. I'm not even going to say what I really want to say about my dreams of a utopian socialist state, because that would be absolute and pure idealism. However, if capitalism is to survive without completely plundering the rich or the poor, something seriously needs to be done. You don't put the most weakly nourished people at the bottom of the pyramid and expect them to be able to hold it up indefinately. That's why so many Americans slipped below the poverty line in '04, why crime rates are so high (do you think so many people would risk life and freedom if they could feed, clothe, and house themselves through other means?), and why you've got 200 million Americans moaning to the other 95 million that the economy is in the shitter, while they stare blankly back saying "huh?"


Our system is livable but it needs serious work, and sitting around saying that there isn't really a problem because major corporations are doing the right thing and are able to take care of business is almost completely counterproductive.
One day, I hope, the disparity between the rich and the poor will at least BEGIN to close. Until then, I'll be polishing concrete.

[Preechr]

See, you're all hung up on the idea that business is the source of all evil. I believe government, in the broadest sense of the term, is the most destructive force on the Earth, from a human perspective.

I tend to think that capitalism is human nature and that government is it's restirction. I like human nature, when it's healthy.

I guess it's Ok to differ.

[kahljorn]

I think business and commerce is a very good and healthy thing. I think the immoral practices often implemented are the problem. Business in america seems to have no loyalty to america, nor to their employees and consumers. They are so focused on the money and less on delivering their product. That's not business, it's just wanting money.

[davinxtk]

See, you're all hung up on the idea that business is the source of all evil. I believe government, in the broadest sense of the term, is the most destructive force on the Earth, from a human perspective.

I tend to think that capitalism is human nature and that government is it's restirction. I like human nature, when it's healthy.

I guess it's Ok to differ.

But it's not healthy, Preechr. In what way is it healthy that someone's starving in the cold streets when Oprah is giving away 276 brand new cars? How is it healthy that the lady I handed my shiny new insurance card to, smiling and happy that for once in my life I have coverage, works at the hospital and just got hers cut off? Single mother with three kids. Why do CEOs own three houses on Cape Cod and two in Connecticut when some of the hardest working people I know live in run-down apartments in shitty neighborhoods? What's healthy about this economy?


I said right in my post that it's not evil, it's ignorance. It's a workable system but it's gone way out of control. There needs to be some sort of shakedown here. Are you playing a game with me or do you really believe this monstrosity is in working order?

[KevinTheOmnivore]

See, you're all hung up on the idea that business is the source of all evil.

Hold up, who said this? Seriously, I must've missed it.

I think some legitimate concerns were raised regarding Sowell's specific argument. Address those, please. :)

[Preechr]

See, you're all hung up on the idea that business is the source of all evil.

Hold up, who said this? Seriously, I must've missed it.

I think some legitimate concerns were raised regarding Sowell's specific argument. Address those, please. :)

I was pretty much talking to davin there... He raised his own objection... Did you, um, think I was speaking on broader terms than just to him?

I'm working on comments as they come up and as I can get to them, MR. MOD! I did not write the article, but I posted it because we recently had a discussion involving the black art of economics, and I figured we might find some use from an open discussion of economics and the lies and truths associated with it.

Sure, I have my own views, and I'm perfectly willing to talk about them here among those that will most assuredly disagree instead of hustling up some fanboys on Free Republic. Would you like me to quit my job so I can respond in a more timely manner, MR. MOD? Is that what you WANT?

Man, this new authority really went to your head quick...

[Preechr]

I think business and commerce is a very good and healthy thing. I think the immoral practices often implemented are the problem. Business in america seems to have no loyalty to america, nor to their employees and consumers. They are so focused on the money and less on delivering their product. That's not business, it's just wanting money.

This might be your best post yet, kahl. First off, it was very pithy. I've been told that works very well in the confines of the message board format. Second, it was on point... also very important.

Mainly, though, you almost perfectly voiced the most obvious misunderstanding of economics that exists. Your comments are exactly what stands in the way of the problem as you see it. The irony is stunning.

Hopefully I will be able to correct this misunderstanding for you, though that will likely be a dialogue not easily described as pithy. I'm not making any promises, as whatever I might be able to say here has surely been said by others many, many times before and many, many folks other than just yourself have either found it lacking or were able to ignore it completely somehow.

Let me respond to davin, because God knows I don't want to piss Kevin off, and in that post, I'll try to address at least some of your concerns.

[Preechr]

But it's not healthy, Preechr. In what way is it healthy that someone's starving in the cold streets when Oprah is giving away 276 brand new cars? How is it healthy that the lady I handed my shiny new insurance card to, smiling and happy that for once in my life I have coverage, works at the hospital and just got hers cut off? Single mother with three kids. Why do CEOs own three houses on Cape Cod and two in Connecticut when some of the hardest working people I know live in run-down apartments in shitty neighborhoods? What's healthy about this economy?


I said right in my post that it's not evil, it's ignorance. It's a workable system but it's gone way out of control. There needs to be some sort of shakedown here. Are you playing a game with me or do you really believe this monstrosity is in working order?

First off, I'm throwing a lot of complex stuff out on the table, much of which has been alluded to so far though left untyped.

Let it be said I totally get where you're coming from. This post was really well made as well, though possibly moreso than most for you. I've honestly been laboring under the impression that you really weren't ever gonna see eye to eye with me enough to phrase your comments with such determined civility.

I honestly thought you'd be kicking my ass by now.

Thanks for not doing that.

Anyhoo...

You riffed on the concept of "healthy." I said: "I like human nature, when it's healthy." Prior to that, I had indicated that I feel that capitalism is a concept based in the roots of human nature. I also believe communism to be so, just in a separate part of it. Not that your ideas as expressed are necessarily communistic in nature, but you're basically saying that consideration for the weakest of the community is primary over consideration for the individual needs of the strongest producers within that community, right?

I'm fine with that, at least in one half of my life. That's exactly how I feel about dealings with my family. Most families run on communist principles. I have a complex life, however. When I get out of bed in the morning, and decide what I want to do on any given day, most days I go to work. See, some of my family obligations require money to fulfill. For that, as well as the ever present requirement to feed, shelter and clothe my own self, I need to sell some of my free time in the form of a job well done in exchange for cash.

When I leave the house in my work clothes, I am sacrificing part of my life to fund another. Since work, though rewarding for some (very much so for me,) is generally less fun and fulfilling than hanging out at the house with friends and family, I cannot very well take the for-home attitude about life with me outside now, can I? I need to adopt a less giving, more taking attitude, one of a very competitive point of view. I owe this to my first priority: my private life: the reason I go to work. I need to become a capitalist pig. We all do.

A competitive, capitalistic economy, well maintained by all of us, will provide the most for all of us, right? If we are gonna spend time NOT doing what we love, then we owe it to ourselves to get the biggest economic bang for each of our incremental bucks... and such. So, while we're at home, we are free to live however makes us most happy, and that's typically in a more or less communistic fashion. When we leave our homes, however, we enter the cold, hard world of capitalism, and we are only hurting ourselves if we fail to make that transition gracefully and readily.

The USSR, the single most aggressive experiment in Communism, capitalized, was attempting to prove that extending one half of human nature to cover the more uglier, competitive side... treating the world as if it were one big family so to say; and it failed miserably.

The USA, Communism's sister experiment, is in the process of failing now. It's inevitable. We have attempted to do exactly the opposite of what started with the Bolshevik Revolution. We wish to eliminate the communal spirit of the family from the human experience. This plan is just as doomed.

I'm not really talking much about economics. This is gonna have to be a long conversation, as it really only concerns the future. Economics is a branch of the science of life. If you don't understand how we live, you can never hope to understand how we might live better, right?

The big misunderstanding that I accused Kahl of making earlier is simply that of believing the big lie that capitalism is the same thing as Capitalism. Small-C "capitalism" is part of what we are, where Large-C "Capitalism" is the governmental interpretation of natural human activity, or an emulation of a kind. Please extrapolate the same correlation between the two forms of communism... it's the same, though inversed in practice.

Ultimately, I'm gonna try to convince you that libertarianism (notice, not capitalized) is the ultimate form of govenrment, and that my fundamentalist attitude toward our American Constitution stems not from some sort of loyalty to tradition, but to a concept that was only hinted at briefly in a long age of various experiments in human slavery.

We are in such an age now. Misunderstanding vital components of human nature any further won't be getting us to the place we need to be any quicker.

[Preechr]

I'm trying to establish common ground now, Kev.

Please give me a minute.

[Preechr]

I can't say I ever understood the "stuff" argument to begin with. First of all, that's all relative. Consumption is bound to go up across the board, especially if we've outsourced all of the "stuff" making.

Secondly, doesn't most "stuff" become a negative asset, or equity whatever, once it has been bought? (I recall the story of the new car leaving the lot)

Does being a nation of people with a lot of worthless stuff make us wealthy?

"As of 1970, for example, only about a third of American homes had both central heating and air conditioning, while more than four-fifths had both in the 1990s. Moreover, the homes themselves were more than one-third larger. "

Larger, cheaper, and built with lower quality ("McMansions" anyone?). I think things such as this are poor indicators of wealth.

I missed this.

Sorry, man.

NOW I know what you were talking about when you said, "I think some legitimate concerns were raised regarding Sowell's specific argument. Address those, please..."

Let's see... In the broadest sense of an answer possible, I think I'd like to start out by restating something I've already said: Something along the lines of: I believe our primary responsibility in life, as individuals, is to be happy. That said, it's not my place to criticize anyone in their decision making as long as I can see that they were at least making some sort of effort toward a goal of being happy.

Well, that's not necessarily true. I guess I can also criticize those that are making choices that everybody can see are getting them nowhere... Sometimes people lie to themselves... we all know that.

In addition, some folks make some decisions based in false realities, such as your own example of something like: Now that I've got my Big Screen HDTV, I'll be HAPPY! or: If I can influence the reconstruction of my government in such a way as to utilize the immense wealth of the richest few of us to benefit the least of our society's producers, who cares if we discourage those that from which we intend to steal from become worthy of our intended theft?

After all, the rich are only called that because they stared out as greedy, right? ...and even if that's not true, we've always got the new crop of wealthy, am I right fellas? That always happens!

Who cares if I'm establishing a system based in discouragement of positive decisions for the benefit of the bandaging of self-inflicted wounds by those that don't know better YET?

See, factor in for time and it all makes sense.

Poor people will learn to make better decisions if you give them time with the consequences of their decisions. Rich people will learn to understand how they accumulated their wealth and what makes it valuable if you give them the time it takes to learn it.

No, I'm not defending our current system. I'm attacking your knee-jerk proposed solutions to the problems we all see and some I'm making up with logic of my own, instead of repeating that which someone else said.

...and now I'm tired.

I'll check in with ya'll later.

[kahljorn]

Pithiness is good on message boards, huh?

To be honest I don't have the time to be anything but Pithy for this post, so excuse me for not reading anything that didn't start out, "Dear kahl".
I'm not really sure what you were going at with the Capital see capital C thing, so I'll let you filll me in there.

Let me start out on a note of hilarity: Did you hear about the ford plants all closing in north america, and they are planning on relocating to cheaper places? The "All-american" company? If I remember right, IBM also did this. Kwikset did this to move to mexico.
You can try to argue that it will have no viable effect, but I don't think you will. With less jobs america has less money in it's pockets, from what I've heard the reason our economical system works out so well is because we have more money in our pockets, or "Buying power". Without buying power(or jobs) we can't buy these people's products, nor will we be capable of sustaining all of our dishwashers, air and heating.

Maybe my concerns are baseless, I don't know. I just hear from people it's really hard to get jobs and they pay shitty. Maybe it's because I live in a republican city or something? Because I hear it's pretty easy to get jobs in LA.
So I guess what I'm saying is these countries are "Un-american" and don't care about our economy, or it's people. It all goes into morality(and it will have some lucid economical result as well), and I thought that's what Bushle Bees was all about.

[KevinTheOmnivore]

See, that wasn't so hard, Preech! :)

btw, you wrote "See, you're all hung up on the idea that business is the source of all evil." I took that as meaning you were addressing us all. Sorry. :(

[mburbank]

Know what I'm hung up on?

A meat hook.

It's a long story, but the main thing is, it hurts.

[Preechr]

You ever get your nipples fixed, max?

Oh... and Kev: You're means YOU ARE as in YOU being the person I was talking to, which, when taken in context, might just be the previous poster, which was DAVIN.

:party

As far as I know, there is not currently a working contraction for "y'all are." Let's just go ahead and start using one, since it's absence is obviously the source of neverending consternation for our fearless leader.

I hereby proclaim that henceforth, Y'ALL'RE is a valid part of American grammar! Sing it from hilltops, people!

[Preechr]

Pithiness is good on message boards, huh?

To be honest I don't have the time to be anything but Pithy for this post, so excuse me for not reading anything that didn't start out, "Dear kahl".
I'm not really sure what you were going at with the Capital see capital C thing, so I'll let you filll me in there.

Let me start out on a note of hilarity: Did you hear about the ford plants all closing in north america, and they are planning on relocating to cheaper places? The "All-american" company? If I remember right, IBM also did this. Kwikset did this to move to mexico.
You can try to argue that it will have no viable effect, but I don't think you will. With less jobs america has less money in it's pockets, from what I've heard the reason our economical system works out so well is because we have more money in our pockets, or "Buying power". Without buying power(or jobs) we can't buy these people's products, nor will we be capable of sustaining all of our dishwashers, air and heating.

Maybe my concerns are baseless, I don't know. I just hear from people it's really hard to get jobs and they pay shitty. Maybe it's because I live in a republican city or something? Because I hear it's pretty easy to get jobs in LA.
So I guess what I'm saying is these countries are "Un-american" and don't care about our economy, or it's people. It all goes into morality(and it will have some lucid economical result as well), and I thought that's what Bushle Bees was all about.

Well, we haven't even gotten started on globalization yet, but I'll ask you a simple question about your views here: Should we make our economic decisions with no regard whatsoever for the people that live in other parts of the world? Think hard about the phrase: economic imperialism and let me know what you come up with.

I just got back from a nice vacation down in Brazil. Did you know that the people there, far from being headhunters, are actually just as modern and interesting, even HUMAN, as the people that live up here in God's Chosen Republic? I noticed a few interesting things about the economy from an individual perspective while there, but rather than get into a huge story at this point, I will leave it at OTHER PEOPLE IN THIS WORLD NEED JOBS TOO.

Imagine if your city was 50% poor... and not American poor as in I still have TVs and whatnot. Freakin POOR. Sure, there's a ton of corruption and stuff down there, but the main reason they're broke is the foreign policy of our country and Europe. Go live in a homemade shelter and wake up each morning wondering what money you might be able to beg, borrow or steal to eat today, and tell me about income disparity in America.

Before you do that, however, go back and read what I posted for you when you get more time.

[kahljorn]

"Should we make our economic decisions with no regard whatsoever for the people that live in other parts of the world?"

No, I love that they are receiving jobs, but maybe they should get new jobs instead of putting 128,000 people( i think that was the number for the ford place) who already had jobs out of jobs. Big difference between creating new job oppurtunities for other countries and sabotaging our own.
Plus, they aren't paying the same wages they are paying over here. It's not that they want to help other economies, they want to be able to hire out cheap labor.

"Go live in a homemade shelter and wake up each morning wondering what money you might be able to beg, borrow or steal to eat today, and tell me about income disparity in America. "

That's great, maybe if they didn't have cunt governments the situation wouldn't be so bad, hopefully ours never gets that bad.

Still, your entire argument is essentially arguing that fuck the people in america because people elsewhere need it more(which is really; we need to pay cheaper). As I said, Un-american. These aren't new job oppurtunities, they are old ones being cheapened.

It is nice that people in other countries are getting jobs, but we need them too.

[Preechr]

We have record employment numbers, man.

You were talking before about BAD capitalism. Can't you see that THAT's what led to the layffs in the auto and air industries? Right along with forcing employees into slave labor is making promises that just cannot be kept, even if they are to labor unions.

You say we are losing jobs, I say that we are streamlining. Yeah, it may be considered cruel to say so, but NOBODY is "entitled" to a job as far as I'm concerned as long as someone, somewhere in this world is sitting at home starving because there's no job to be had.

See how I'm supposed to be some sort of hyper conservative, yet I'm also being "Un-American?" Funny that.

[davinxtk]

Let it be said I totally get where you're coming from. This post was really well made as well, though possibly moreso than most for you. I've honestly been laboring under the impression that you really weren't ever gonna see eye to eye with me enough to phrase your comments with such determined civility.

I honestly thought you'd be kicking my ass by now.

Thanks for not doing that.I've come to respect your opinion on a great deal of things; even where I don't agree with you, you seem to have at least thought about things before coming to a conclusion. You're one of the few people on here that can be expected to have a solid foundation to what they're saying even if it's pretty extreme.
You riffed on the concept of "healthy." I said: "I like human nature, when it's healthy." . . . you're basically saying that consideration for the weakest of the community is primary over consideration for the individual needs of the strongest producers within that community, right?Not... really. The argument for a greater distribution of wealth is a rather nuanced one, provided you're trying to keep some semblence of a capitalist free market alive in your theories. It's not that consideration for the weakest of the community is primary over that for the strongest producers, it's that production is accross the board a rather abstract concept. You can't use the same scale of production for a waiter as you do for a coal miner or a deli clerk or a CPA or a mechanic or a dry-cleaner or a cabbie. Does every one of them need food? Do many of them have families that as well need food? Health care? Housing? Running water, electricity, heat, clothing? Do you think enough consideration is given when setting wages to cover these aspects for everyone who works a full time job? Do you think it's directly related to productivity in even fifty percent of circumstances?

The subtext here is that I feel your devotion to a free market clouds your judgement about the healthiness of its practices. We'll get to this in a moment, though.


I'm fine with [communist principles], at least in one half of my life. That's exactly how I feel about dealings with my family. Most families run on communist principles. I have a complex life, however. When I get out of bed in the morning, and decide what I want to do on any given day, most days I go to work. See, some of my family obligations require money to fulfill. For that, as well as the ever present requirement to feed, shelter and clothe my own self, I need to sell some of my free time in the form of a job well done in exchange for cash.

When I leave the house in my work clothes, I am sacrificing part of my life to fund another. Since work, though rewarding for some (very much so for me,) is generally less fun and fulfilling than hanging out at the house with friends and family, I cannot very well take the for-home attitude about life with me outside now, can I? I need to adopt a less giving, more taking attitude, one of a very competitive point of view. I owe this to my first priority: my private life: the reason I go to work. I need to become a capitalist pig. We all do.For the most part I agree with the concepts presented here. I must concede to the fact that a decent work ethic is hard to find among many citizens, but in a society that attempts to teach us from day one that we can "do whatever we want" in this "free country" only to be delivered to harsh economic realities often in our teenage years you have to expect at least some discontent. If your argument is that Americans need to toughen up and get down to business, quit fucking around with popular culture and advertisements and bling and cribs and the like and actually do what's best for themselves... how can I argue with you? But this isn't going to be spurred by the poor suddenly waking up and correcting their horrendous spending habits, getting second and third jobs, and finding the motivation (and job openings) to move into management from entry-level positions. The trickle-down economy isn't quite working right, too much of the resources flow immediately back to the top. The initial sacrifices are going to have to be made by the rich, as it's the poor who need the leg-up..
A competitive, capitalistic economy, well maintained by all of us, will provide the most for all of us, right? If we are gonna spend time NOT doing what we love, then we owe it to ourselves to get the biggest economic bang for each of our incremental bucks... and such. So, while we're at home, we are free to live however makes us most happy, and that's typically in a more or less communistic fashion. When we leave our homes, however, we enter the cold, hard world of capitalism, and we are only hurting ourselves if we fail to make that transition gracefully and readily.Once again it's hard to argue these points. There is, however, quite a difference between trying to provide for your family and trying your damnedest to live like a king.
These people are approaching "Let them eat cake." status.
I caught about five minutes of MTV at a friend's house, and found out that John Travolta's daughter, on a first-class commercial flight, asked "Who are all of these people on the plane?"
This isn't because she's unfarmiliar with flight, it's because she's used to Travolta's private Boeing 707 that he flies them around on. It had never occurred to her that that's NOT how the majority of people travel.
Not only are these people privileged, they don't know how privileged they are. Remember when Bush said at a press conference that that lady lived a "uniquely American" life, working three jobs to feed her children? This capitalist economy has become little more than modern feudalism. The upper echelon of the economy hordes the wealth and lets just slightly less enough than the barest essentials slip out to keep us working.
This is where your naivete complicates things. Business isn't the root of all evil, Preechr, this 'human nature' is.
In the kind of economy where you can either give two employees raises or take another $5,000 into your bonus salary for keeping your profit margins high, the capitalist component of human nature is going to be the cause of your problems.
I'm not really talking much about economics. This is gonna have to be a long conversation, as it really only concerns the future. Economics is a branch of the science of life. If you don't understand how we live, you can never hope to understand how we might live better, right?I'm not having a hard time here, I find this to be a very relevant and rather fascinating conversation. We both seem to agree that things aren't even pretending to work the way they're set up currently, but where to go with it is the debate.
Ultimately, I'm gonna try to convince you that libertarianism (notice, not capitalized) is the ultimate form of govenrment, and that my fundamentalist attitude toward our American Constitution stems not from some sort of loyalty to tradition, but to a concept that was only hinted at briefly in a long age of various experiments in human slavery.

We are in such an age now. Misunderstanding vital components of human nature any further won't be getting us to the place we need to be any quicker.Bring it on :)

[kahljorn]

"We have record employment numbers, man."

Really? When does guiness 2006 come out with this information? Maybe the reason there's no decent jobs anywhere is because the government wants us to join the military. THE GIUBERMANT.

"You were talking before about BAD capitalism. Can't you see that THAT's what led to the layffs in the auto and air industries?"

Well great, whatever led up to this event that occured not too long ago is why I'm saying our economy(well, actually business ethics) is bad because alot of people lost their jobs because of it a couple of months ago that's right thank god our ogvernment has put us back onto Good Capitalism eh now maybe things will be just a little bit better.

"You say we are losing jobs, I say that we are streamlining"

That's fine man; doesn't change the fact that a bunch of people lost their jobs due to the fact that a corporation wanted more money(and of co urse to supply poor people with jobs all while creating new poor people in our homeland!.)
Now what did I say? I said I hate business because it only cares about money and I feel that is bad business ethics. I don't see how any of this revokes that point.

"Yeah, it may be considered cruel to say so, but NOBODY is "entitled" to a job as far as I'm concerned as long as someone, somewhere in this world is sitting at home starving because there's no job to be had. "

I never said entitled, but that doesn't change the fact that they themselves need jobs as long as they plan on staying less poor than the people in brazil(including owning their fancy dishwashers, I don't own a dishwasher right now. GUESS MAYBE I SHOULD MOVE TO BRAZIL).

"See how I'm supposed to be some sort of hyper conservative, yet I'm also being "Un-American?""

Personally i consider president bush un-american. I respect your views, and I don't really care if you're conservative. It's nice people in other countries are getting jobs, but it does the "Global economy" no good to take jobs from one place to deliver them to another, because america is part of the global economy.


As to a solution to global economy: Perhaps we should just bring slaves back? I mean, think about it. There were tons of poor people and we took them in and gave them shelter and food, more than they could ever ask for for a hard days work! Why was slavery ever a problem in the first place? Geez brazil, you are our shining beacon of "Example". I like the fact that people who were making enough money to support themselves and their family lost their jobs so people in brazil could make enough money to probably barely support themselves, depending on how their wages work there.

[kahljorn]

I read your posts to stave off boredom, but they were interesting. I feel we agree on a few things from what you've stated, and if you realize where I'm coming from you'll see there's some similarities.

Me: "Business in america seems to have no loyalty to america, nor to their employees and consumers. They are so focused on the money and less on delivering their product." (for clarity)
You: "Your comments are exactly what stands in the way of the problem as you see it."

How is that standing in the way of Businesses making shitty products? Is it wrong to expect quality out of business? What is the point in doing business in the first place if you're not receiving what you need? Then it becomes something more akin to stealing. Well sir I'll give you five buffalo nickles for a dollar. ;)

"I believe our primary responsibility in life, as individuals, is to be happy."

How can you be happy with big business fucking everyone over? How can you be happy when there's people in america starving(and elsewhere, as you said), while they have plenty of money. Then when they shaft people out of jobs to move to another so they can pay cheaper wages (so they can have more money to themselves) you say they are helping starving people? Do you think this is a good trend to continue? Do you think it will somehow help the world?

Please tell me how. Is your definition of globalization, then, to make the entire world an upper-low class? Or lower middle-class? Let me ask you a question here, are the wages they are paying to the people in other countries really that good? How much of a decrease is it from our wages?

"I tend to think that capitalism is human nature and that government is it's restirction. I like human nature, when it's healthy."

You seem to want to seperate the government and "Capitalism" when most of the most successful examples of "Capitalism" are currently a part of the government or is sharing close ties. Since when has greed and whatever diseases afflict them been a part of good human nature? Why isn't the government "Restricting" them if in your opinion the Government's responsibility is to restrict human nature(and I'm inclined to say you believe it's to restrict bad human nature)?
I'm not saying it's bad to be able to work towards a good life or to have to earn things, you can't expect to just have things handed to you, but on the same token you can't respect people who make it alot worse than it needs to be.

"you're basically saying that consideration for the weakest of the community is primary over consideration for the individual needs of the strongest producers..."

Do they need their excess billions that bad? Don't you mean want. I know this wasn't directed at me, but I just thought I should throw that out there.

Everything else makes me think that, at core, you are an anarchist.

[Preechr]

I read your posts to stave off boredom, but they were interesting. I feel we agree on a few things from what you've stated, and if you realize where I'm coming from you'll see there's some similarities.

Me: "Business in america seems to have no loyalty to america, nor to their employees and consumers. They are so focused on the money and less on delivering their product." (for clarity)
You: "Your comments are exactly what stands in the way of the problem as you see it."

Once again, you are hitting the nail on the head.

How is that standing in the way of Businesses making shitty products? Is it wrong to expect quality out of business? What is the point in doing business in the first place if you're not receiving what you need? Then it becomes something more akin to stealing. Well sir I'll give you five buffalo nickles for a dollar. ;)

Business exists to make money. That is it's primary function. I know me saying that is producing a very negative reaction in you right now, but I want to encourage you to see the bigger picture here, kahl.

You, as a consumer, are much less likely to purchase products from a company that you know treats it's employees badly or that has a reputation for shitty products. Maybe you watch out for businesses that have a reputation for harming the environment. There's a whole lot of negative criterion you could apply to any one or all of your purchasing decisions. In addition, you also apply positive criterion to those same decisions, to reward businesses for doing whatever it is you might value.

In this way, you are exactly like any average consumer. We all do that stuff, and we all weight the same set of criterion in different ways. I think it's pretty safe to say that the vast majority of consumers have very similar weighting tactics for their purchases, in fact. On average, by and large, most of us want cheap, defective knock-offs of good products that were developed largely by an entirely random and wholly unrelated process of raping monkeys and sold to us by unbathed indentured servants from the third world.

Well, that may be more comedic overstatement than a valid point, but it goes to motive, Your Honor.

What do you think would happen if we ALL got together and decided none of us would buy any more products from Wal-Mart? That's right: They'd go out of business the very next day. We have not yet done that. "We" shop there. I'm not making any personal statements about Wal-Mart, as I have no personal problem with what they are doing. It's not that I favor all of their commercial practices, it's just that I recognize that they are doing exactly what they are supposed to be doing.

They are delivering the maximum value possible to their stockholders. PERIOD. That is their only job. When they put a pickle company out of business by letting them agree to a badly conceived contract, I blame the pickle company for not doing THEIR job. When they abuse eminent domain legislation and use the power and greed of government to take Farmer Johnson's family plot away from him in order to erect yet another big concrete box entirely unuseable to anyone after the big box fad passes I do not blame them... I blame the government for being greedy and WAY too powerful. Well, I actually blame you for everything the government does. It too is only just doing what it is supposed to do. It was your job to limit it.

When Wal-Mart hands it's employees brochures advertising government healthcare solutions available to them in lieu of corporate benefits, how can I blame them? It's there. It's free! Why spend a bunch of money providing something for them they can get elsewhere at no cost to them or Wal-Mart? That would only hurt their stockholders, which would be a violation of the Golden Rule of business.

To further complicate my example, I will now compare business as I'm describing it to a gun. It actually makes sense to do so...

Any normal, right-thinking, Red-Blooded American son or daughter of God knows that the gun was invented and then enshrined into our Constitution for one purpose: The Protection of our Lives and Property. By suggesting that we change the nature of business into something less possibly dangerous, you might as well be suggesting that we change the nature of the legal gun so as to only shoot flowers and sunshine.

Good luck protecting your family with your new pussy gun... and good luck making a living at a company that avoids it's primary responsibility for any sort of reason. When you violate any of your principles, you doom all of your associated efforts. I have worked for companies that followed alternate paths of altruism. I just does not ever work. The employees, customers and their stockholders will always destroy them. THAT's what's happening to the American automakers and airlines.

However... and there's always a catch... if a company changes it's policies to be more altruistic and something more like virtuous because they see a desire within their consumer base for such a move, it will be rewarded for it's actions with the only thing it cares about: Profit. To do anything else would be bad business, or bad capitalism.

Union labor used to be a big selling point among American consumers, so companies abused themselves with it willingly. Unfortunately for them, and us, unions used government to their favor and our detriment, and THAT, dear kahl, is 90% of your problem with Ford. As our automakers and airlines restructure themselves in the coming years, bet against unions. Bet on profit.

Businesses also have been known to use the awesome power of government to entrench themselves within markets that measures of their profitablity alone would not allow. Look at the Oracle and Apple inspired anti-trust cases against Microsoft of just a few years ago for a good example there, but that's not the only or even best exhibit of such bad business available to us... only the most likely memorable.

Please don't take my use of that case as some sort of admission that I respect Microsoft, though... I believe them also to be guilty of much bad business, though also the victim of it. Microsoft had it's origins in pure capitalism, though it's history since has been a collage of crap they really should not have been allowed to get away with... BY YOU. I don't look to government to fix problems caused by me or you because I recognize that government is not responsible for that. You and I are.

Now, that being said, I can expect a little help from the government that I employ in these endeavors, can't I? I believe so.

What I would like to see is a government less actively involved in the overt management of commerce and more actively engaged in helping us make better informed decisions, whatever our collective criterion.

How so, you might ask? Oversight instead of Regulation.

Let me explain: What if you were able to go to a government website that allowed you to view, for example, every record of every company in regard to it's compliance with current environmental standards. What if you could cross reference that data with similar records concerning labor practices and the countries of orgin of the raw materials used to manufacture the end products of these companies?

You and I could be sitting around discussing how to weight all this data in our purchasing decisions, instead of arguing theory based in ignorance and untruths.

Were I to be looking to buy a Big Screen or a new car, I think I'd like that. My question is: Why do we support a government that would rather keep us in the dark on such valuable information in favor of a system where it has the power and opportunities to blur this data however it chooses in such a way as to actually encourage companies to "play the game" rather than submit to our actual desires?

Rather than continue on this diatribe, let me instead respond a bit more to what you were actually talking about....

"I believe our primary responsibility in life, as individuals, is to be happy."

How can you be happy with big business fucking everyone over? How can you be happy when there's people in america starving(and elsewhere, as you said), while they have plenty of money. Then when they shaft people out of jobs to move to another so they can pay cheaper wages (so they can have more money to themselves) you say they are helping starving people? Do you think this is a good trend to continue? Do you think it will somehow help the world?

Now that I've rambled on for a bit, accidentally responding to most of this, let me address one new point you just brought up: Specifically, your mistaken assumption that there are jobs enough for everyone in the world.

In one way, you are right, but you are mostly wrong in your premise. Let's just say you didn't know just how you were right, so I'm not giving you credit for it...

As it stands, the kinds of jobs available in the world are very limited. American politicians, working for bad capitalists, have made sure that all our manufacturing, assembly and agricultural jobs were well protected for many decades past the point where such protection was bad for all of us. America has always been known as the Mecca of innovation. Whether it was getting you to work on time, cooking your dinner or blowing your shit up, Americans have always been your go-to guy for the newest, fastest and most efficient way to do so.

That's what we do.

Now, you want a bunch of factory workers to show up on time and dilligently maintain standards of quality? Check out Germany or Japan, man. They got that shit going on. Prefer style over function? You should see what's happening over there in Italy and France. You want it done cheaper, at the cost of quality and performance? Mexico, China and India are waiting, Sir. Not cheap enough? Two words: Thailand.

Now, though that's approximately the situation as it currently exists, it won't always be so. In the 50's, products of Japanese manufacture were regarded as something similar to what you might expect to purchase in today's former Soviet states. Basically, crap... excluding Vodka, of course. In a similar way, when you factor in for time, one day we may be looking to the steppes of mother Russia herself for our agricultural or manufacturing needs... and maybe one day, India might be the fountainhead for technological innovation. Who can tell?

What I do know is that we all need to stick to what we do best right now. Isn't that what we expect of each other as individuals? If your best friend was intent on being the next Picasso despite his color-blindness and complete lack of anything close to talent, wouldn't you be being the best friend you could be by encouraging him to find another career path?

I see only enough room in a healthy, modern America for only two types of worker, save the obligatory though entirely necessary local manufacturers and assemblers: The highly paid but incredibly focused innovator and the service provider. There is enough of that to do for all of us, and it focuses us on what we do best as a country. If you don't quite get that, let me know and I'll answer your questions, but for the sake of time and pithity, I'll move on...

To be very specific, the help desk jobs we've so far "outsourced" to India SHOULD be there, as long as the service quality doesn't violate the Golden Rule of business we've previously discussed. WHY should we forcibly retain them HERE if we can get these services at the same quality at a lower cost? Your answer, as I see it, would be that Americans can earn money filling this need, so we should give them these jobs based on that alone.

Have you stopped to consider it might be better for those Americans to be doing something more "American?" Sure, they'd need more and better education to be small business owners, executives or scientists, but shouldn't you be pointing at our own government's motivations and, ahem, government run education system when you start to play your blame game?

Please tell me how. Is your definition of globalization, then, to make the entire world an upper-low class? Or lower middle-class? Let me ask you a question here, are the wages they are paying to the people in other countries really that good? How much of a decrease is it from our wages?

It's a start. India is pretty much at the same place we were in our 1960's. Mexico is in our 20's or 30's. Shouldn't we be helping them to advance? I personally refuse to believe that our advantage over developing nations is that we are just temporarily ahead of them technologically. I see an unlimited future of innovation, and that we have the advantage in that regard. We will retain that advantage only by adopting a considered plan that emphasises more innovation, rather than stifling any possible competition by using our advantage as some sort of defensive measure.

"I tend to think that capitalism is human nature and that government is it's restirction. I like human nature, when it's healthy."

You seem to want to seperate the government and "Capitalism" when most of the most successful examples of "Capitalism" are currently a part of the government or is sharing close ties. Since when has greed and whatever diseases afflict them been a part of good human nature? Why isn't the government "Restricting" them if in your opinion the Government's responsibility is to restrict human nature(and I'm inclined to say you believe it's to restrict bad human nature)?

Really good observation there.

You said you didn't get the difference between the capitalized and non-capitalized versions of capitalism and communism, yet you picked the right way to use Capitalism in your question.

You capitalize the word when you adopt the method as your form of government. That's pretty much why when I speak of them in terms of idealizing a future I don't capitalize them. I believe them both to be the yin and yang of human nature, and that you cannot hope to build a successful society by beginning with the exclusion of one half of who we are.

That being said, I suppose I need to address your assertion that I believe it's "the Government's responsibility is to restrict human nature." Let me be perfectly clear if not so engaging: Just as I have said that I believe it is the primary function of any commercial function to accumulate profit, I believe it is the primary function of a government to accumulate power. Commerce and government are two of the three pillars of human society, the third being religion, which exists to accumulate truth, ideally.

Imagine two 2D circles existing on parallel planes, separated by three equidistant supporting columns. The lower circle is the realm of the individual, but the circle itself represents all of us, working as a group. The upper circle represents our civilization and all of our accomplishments as a whole. To support whatever we hope to achieve most effectively, we utilize these three constructs to maximum effect.

In commerce, cash is the medium of exchange. Power is the currency of politics, and within the pillar of religion, we speak in terms of truth. In no way can any of our current systems be said to be operating purely, of course... We have yet to adequately define their parameters and task them, y'know... One of the cornerstones of American government ,though, is the separation of state from religion, and with good reason! What happens when you establish an exchange rate between the currencies of religion and that of politics and/or commerce, power and profit, respectively?

Would you choose to trade truth for cash or advantage over a rival?

How about cash for power over a rival or the public's perception of truth?

Unlimited power for cash? ...For the ability to control what people believe is true?

Unfortunately, our founding fathers were not so prescient as to include a specific wall between commerce and state, as is made obvious by even a cursory examination of the current state of economic affairs in our modern system of governance.

How does this answer the question I originally highlighted? I'm not really sure, but I hope my tangent was enlightening. I've really put a lot of work into this so far, and despite whatever misspellings and inconsistencies this diatribe will wind up containing, I don't think I'm wanting to proof-read it. I think I'm gonna just stand behind whatever happens when I press the Submit button, Ok?

You can always ask further questions, and I'll answer. Unlike most of the people you've met on message boards, I'm actually here to learn, and I LOVE to be proven to be an idiot.

I'm not saying it's bad to be able to work towards a good life or to have to earn things, you can't expect to just have things handed to you, but on the same token you can't respect people who make it alot worse than it needs to be.

"you're basically saying that consideration for the weakest of the community is primary over consideration for the individual needs of the strongest producers..."

Do they need their excess billions that bad? Don't you mean want. I know this wasn't directed at me, but I just thought I should throw that out there.

Everything else makes me think that, at core, you are an anarchist.

Not really. There's a fine line between anarchy and libertarianism. Basically, the line is defined by whether or not you truly would bet on human nature or not. I like people, and I trust them to strive for a better life, generally, and given the most encouragement to do so possible.

As for whether or not billionaires deserve their money, I think I've at least so far given you somewhat of a clue as to where I stand on that...

[kahljorn]

I see, here's where I think we come to some differences.

I enjoyed your idealisations and find that in some capacities it's true, but I believe you are mistaking the idea of Ideal for Present. If you imagine business a priori, you could imagine two people engaging in the simple task of bartering. One person has something the other wants, and the other person has something the One has. They trade. Both of them are happy because they got what they want. This scenario instead implies Desire and Aquisition. Then it becomes a situation that is not merely one-sided like you seem to be postulating.

That's your entire problem is that you seem to imagine this as a one-way situation involving only one circumstance.


"Sure, they'd need more and better education to be small business owners, executives or scientists, but shouldn't you be pointing at our own government's motivations and, ahem, government run education system when you start to play your blame game? "

Sure. I've said plenty of times that part of the problems here is that we have a shitty education system. As one of the most modern and supposedly innovative nations, as you put it, we should be capable of bringing up healthy people, right? I mentioned that in another thread not long ago. I don't really know why the government does it, but they seem to like people stupid.
But the simple fact is we don't, for some reason people in this country are barely educated. Aren't we one of the only countries in the world who charges for college? Thanks "Capitalism!". Sure, there's options for financial aid and such, but who wants to be in debt most of their lives? Most people are too stupid to find grants or some kind of cheap system. Why aren't the colleges teaching them how to get them..? What was it you said, they are more interested in 'Profit'?
I'll take this down a purely pointless angle to elicit emotional response: what if our children's toys were made by people who are "Profit". Think about our children, good sir, and the idea that their education is mostly maintained by people our for profit.
Which brings me to my next point; we're talking about a country that had at least some vested interest in oil obtained through a war by a presidency who's company is reaping the rewards? How do you expect educated people and a good education system with a government that is more reliant on profit than quality?
If the government's job is to make profits, how is it going to restrict business? Why would it? That's the entire method for republicans, right, the trickle down effect or whatever. How does that work when companies are relocating for more profits?

With philosophies like that you're going to breed a nation of starbucks employees and business owners/operators. But then, you said the government's purpose is to gain power; but having power isn't good when your motivations are placed in the thing you're supposed to restrict. I suppose that it's impossible to be entirely detached from it, but there's certainly more eligible angles available.

The rest of what you were saying was just another attack on bad human nature. Essentially that people are slothful, and not really interested in being motivated towards any greater goods. Essentially saying "We" let it get out of control. No, "We" did nothing. I believe people who suffer from personality afflictions like greed and sloth are alot different than I am, because they have no motivation to make anything better but just to perpetuate their lifestyle as simple as possible. (I'm not really saying this to say I'm better than them, simply to point out the results of the system we are discussing.)
You say the Government is designed to restrict this nature, but how can you expect them to do so when they suffer the same afflictions? Many of these ethics stem from problems like big business and government themselves. Rich people abusing their wealth and keeping people poor and uneducated isn't some new thing.

"Union labor used to be a big selling point among American consumers, so companies abused themselves with it willingly. "

Yea ;/ More examples of people who wanted profit. I'm sure the union board people weren't slicing the tabs, were they?


I expect that you reasonably agree with most of the above?


"Shouldn't we be helping them to advance?"

Yea, that's not unreasonable at all. Remember that food for oil thing. That was a great effort, I thought(kind of). Didn't it suffer from some strange leech like beast? How can you expect to really advance the world up to "our point". Why would we want to? It's not like we're the healthiest bunch of rascals. I'd rather see things fixed in a good state here before we start cutting off limbs. Kind of hard to heal up if you don't have that good nutrition.

"Unfortunately, our founding fathers were not so prescient as to include a specific wall between commerce and state, as is made obvious by even a cursory examination of the current state of economic affairs in our modern system of governance. "

No but seriously I agree entirely. That plithy statement earlier and this would be in line together. Considering I imagine the connections between Government and "Capitalism" to be thinly seperated, you'll see we agree entirely. Maybe we should demand serperation of Work and State :lol ;(

"I like people, and I trust them to strive for a better life, generally, and given the most encouragement to do so possible. "

That's exactly what anarchism is about, who told you otherwise? It emphasizes a "Family and friend's" community that is self-sustaining(food and water, possibly clothing) while maintaining connections with modern day technology and knowledge, essentially. Each person is charged with maintaining needs of the community. It's sort of like the Amish, in a way, but as i said; maintining connections with modern day technology(solar lighting, eg) and without the stiffy philosophies and nature.

I realize there was alot more that you wrote, but my writing is getting too disorganized.

[Preechr]

I'm gonna go ahead and respond point for point, but there's about to be a lot of repetition here. You are hearing things I'm not actually saying, and ignoring a lot of what I AM saying. We haven't actually gotten to the point at which you will decide to disagree completely with me yet, so I'm gonna take a run at this and then try to re-engage davin.

I see, here's where I think we come to some differences.

I enjoyed your idealisations and find that in some capacities it's true, but I believe you are mistaking the idea of Ideal for Present.

I'm gonna take a wild, screaming leap at what this means. When I talk about the ideal society and it's structure, I am referencing a blueprint mostly just contained in my head. It is based in various philosophies and studies, though much of it is just crap I've made up. That being said, I'm fairly confident in it, but since I'm discussing it with random folks I meet here and there, one could surmise that I'm willing to take criticism on it. You'd have to know me a bit better to realize that I take criticism fairly well, and that discussions like this one are how I hack out the details of my general ideas.

There are two ways you should look at my presentation here in order to understand where I'm going with it. Yes, I am speaking of an idealized, possibly romantic and unrealistic version of a future that could happen... But I am also basing my ideas in extrapolations of history. You already know that I'm a big fan of the origins of the great American experiment. I love the Founding Fathers, the Constitution... that whole point in history. Think about that real hard and read very carefully what I'm about to type for you.

Up until that point in history, humans were at the tail end of a pretty fucked up path. The ideas America was founded upon were not just something a few colonists pulled out of their asses one day after drinking a bit too much at a pool party. The concepts were revolutionary only because they were actually implemented into the formation a big new government. The Constitutional Conventions were basically just a bunch of smart guys sitting around discussing the newest concepts and the most revolutionary ideas in governence and seeing if they could squeeze them all into one cohesive plan for a baby government.

They pretty much pulled it off. It was pretty cool. Remember the little Saturday morning cartoon about the Shot Heard Round the World? That's what they were talking about.

Unfortunately, we have since somewhat strayed from the path we originally committed to forge for the world. We were doing very well up until the Civil War, but we took our black eye and got right back to business. We once again struck to our idealistic and naive path. Unfortunately, a few things got in our way, and combined with the recent experience with war and a few weirdos that got a kick out of it's effect on the people as well as the profits such a thing might generate for a few well-invested weirdos, we got ourselves mixed up in WW1.

Even more unfortuante for us, as well as what might have been the world's more immediate future, another seed of destruction was also being sewn into the fabric of our experiment: Communism. There was a reason that particular style of government was in such fashion about that time. It was the new "war." It was the newest innovation in slavery. The weirdo war-profiteers we had developed here in the states were just now catching on to the concept and beginning to find influence in our government, and their European brothers were already moving on to the next big way to eliminate freedom.

By the end of WW2, our experiment in Libertarianism was under attack by two well-formed enemies, one within and one external, and they had learned to work together.

Now, our government is in the control of folks that have developed a plan for combining the best elements of both plans for the domination of mankind. I'm not saying Bush is that guy, nor am I saying he's an ignorant or well-meaning pawn or on the other side.
I am saying that the concepts and precepts of Socialism had been imbedded at that point so well into the fabric of our society over here, at a time when Americans were at the lowest point yet in their diligence for and understanding of the experiment in freedom they represented, that arguments against it just were not strong enough.

We have yet to recover.

Now we are spreading Socialism through War. Cool, ain't it? We are funding it through leashing capitalism, which is just another way of saying economic freedom, too...

Again, I am NOT suggesting any sort of government conspiracy here. Make no mistake: This is a Democratic time in which we are living. "We the People" are responsible for all of our current events, just as are all of the citizens of the modern world. Within us lies the blame for our failures so far, just as in us lies the solutions. Either way, the future of the world is up to us.

Thank you if you read through that.

If you imagine business a priori, you could imagine two people engaging in the simple task of bartering. One person has something the other wants, and the other person has something the One has. They trade. Both of them are happy because they got what they want. This scenario instead implies Desire and Aquisition. Then it becomes a situation that is not merely one-sided like you seem to be postulating.

That's your entire problem is that you seem to imagine this as a one-way situation involving only one circumstance.

I'm not exactly sure, again, what it is you are saying or where you are getting it from.

I'm trying to imagine a one-sided situation using the framework of your alternate example, but I guess I'm just coming up short in the imagination department tonight...

Instead of doing more of that, maybe I'll just re-explain my previosly stated position: Doing business with one another is, as I see it, you competing with someone else for some sort of value you might gain. In the world of business, business-people assign a name for this value: Money. Cash. Rather than fully explain to you, in yet another tangent, how a Mom-and-Pop grocery store can be sold for financial remuneration, I'm gonna define just exactly what I mean by money.

It's often said that money is the root of all evil, but I consider that an incredibly cynical point of view. There's another old saying: "Time is Money," and I like that one better. I REALLY like the corollary to that one: Money is Time. Just as miles are a unit of measurement of distance, money is a unit of measurement of time. I'm all over that crap, man!

From there, I can imagine a world without inequity. The only variable is how happy you can make yourself feel about whichever of each you have. Human unhappiness, I'll propose, is more the root of all evil than is collected time. A man without a job generally has no money, but a man might trade some of his time for money by getting a job. Past that, that man might invest his time wisely and maximize the money he takes in trade for it.

There is always the other option, however. I hate to bring up Brazil again, but it serves as a great example here. Now, I'm gonna introduce you to the concept of complimental currency, to which I was introduced by a very liberal professor of economics. In many poor countries, the people have developed a method for attaining certain things that their culture requires of them yet their financial situation might obstruct. Again, a good example is the Carnivale celebrations of South America...

These are celebrations that honor the poor of that continent. These folks have established themselves in communities, and each community contributes to the overall celebration. Here's the kicker, though: None of the communities want to be perceived as less than any of the others. Common sense will tell you that all of these communities have different economic pictures, but competition requires that they each contribute to Carnivale equally.

Those that do not have as much money as others to invest invest their TIME to a larger proportion. Those that have more money to invest save their time. Everybody has a good time at Carnivale.

You want another example? The people of Japan honor their elderly much moreso than do we in the West. It is expected of the young to care for the old, yet their society has also adopted a very aggressive view of commercial activity, which often requires a producer to live wherever she can find the best job. The monkey wrench in there is that grandma and grandpa won't go with you to wherever your new job takes you, and yet you are still expected to provide for them to a point and GIVE THEM THEIR BATHS.

Notice, this is not a poor society I'm talking about here, either. The same sort of cultural clash with economics exists here, and again, the time is money (money is time) thing sorts it all out. If I leave my grandaprents in Tokyo to work in Nagasaki, and you leave Nagasaki to go to college in Tokyo, we can arrange to trade time spent bathing each other's elderly as if we were swapping yen or even putting money in the bank to pay for future needs required of an elderly relative that's not in need just yet of such services.

It's a really interesting diversion. Go Google the words: fureai kippu. I'll get to the point...

If you want to say that I think of commerce as a one sided situation, I'll go with that. I think it is, because I am honest enough with myself to understand that I can only ever hope to see life through my own eyes, and I see business as me making money for whatever reason I personally desire to do so. I can only assume you would do the same.

In that light, maybe I do believe commerce a one sided situation. Were you suggesting that I venture out into the hard, cold world of the daily grind worried that I make sure each of my competitors do better than me?

God, I hope not...

"Sure, they'd need more and better education to be small business owners, executives or scientists, but shouldn't you be pointing at our own government's motivations and, ahem, government run education system when you start to play your blame game? "

Sure. I've said plenty of times that part of the problems here is that we have a shitty education system. As one of the most modern and supposedly innovative nations, as you put it, we should be capable of bringing up healthy people, right? I mentioned that in another thread not long ago.

I said we were inoovative by nature. I inferred that our educational system and our economic model is built in such a way as to leech that out of us. I believe in the "American Spirit." We are all related to people that threw their lives away and moved to a totally different part of the world in search of a dream. Those that belong to families that stuck around in Crap-town, waiting on a dream to come to them, are not cut from the same cloth as we are. Additionally, I am verifying my supposition by simply looking at the record history has made available to me and sitting down to figure out what made what happened so. I tried to do that from an unbiased perspective, but I might not have succeeded...

I don't really know why the government does it, but they seem to like people stupid.

THAT just made my sig, dude.

But the simple fact is we don't, for some reason people in this country are barely educated. Aren't we one of the only countries in the world who charges for college? Thanks "Capitalism!". Sure, there's options for financial aid and such, but who wants to be in debt most of their lives? Most people are too stupid to find grants or some kind of cheap system. Why aren't the colleges teaching them how to get them..?

Why indeed?

Wait, let's start over at the beginning of that... I see the need in this because I've already read the rest of your post and I can see a big idea you are missing.

Let me ask you a question: What in this world have you ever had that you valued yet which was given to you for nothing? Think real hard about the way in which I phrased that question, please. What is nothing? I'm not talking about something that was given to you for the price of something which you valued. Nothing. Remember, I consider time to be on an equal value level as money. If you spend a lot of time with your grandpa, for example, and he leaves you his time-share in his will, you value that property in relation to the time you two spent together.

I know I could spend a lot of time droning on and on within this thread of logic, however I have become accustomed to your style of communication enough to understand that you won't get this the first time, and in deference to the other readers (and davin as well as for the sake of time,) I'm gonna move on, leaving you with another phrase to ponder: "Found Money."

What was it you said, they are more interested in 'Profit'?

I'll take this down a purely pointless angle to elicit emotional response: what if our children's toys were made by people who are "Profit".

That's totally NOT sig-worthy. What does that even mean?

Think about our children, good sir, and the idea that their education is mostly maintained by people our for profit.

I would propse to you that our government run educational system is run for the purposes of government. What is it that I told you constitutes the currency of government? POWER. Public education is a function of the transfer of power.

Now, it used to be that education was intended to leave one with a well-rounded knowledge base on many levels. Not so, anymore. Now, we feed our children directly into the chipper-shredder of the business world, and the educators have taken up the flag of "training our kids to make money and be successful."

Is that what you believe you got from you education? At what point were you trained to balance a checkbook in school? Please contrast that date with the date on which you received your first credit card offer in the mail.

Hopefully, you can see that government funded education is only ever gonna hope to leech power from you; to enslave you. The only hope we have comes from education for which you might actually have had to sacrifice something.

Which brings me to my next point; we're talking about a country that had at least some vested interest in oil obtained through a war by a presidency who's company is reaping the rewards?

Ok, geggy...

How do you expect educated people and a good education system with a government that is more reliant on profit than quality?

Easy. Get government out of the education industry and give it back over to the people most interested in making sure our kids don't wind up slaves to someone: our parents.

If the government's job is to make profits...

IT'S NOT! GOVERNMENT EXISTS TO ACCUMULATE POWER.

...How is it going to restrict business?

IT'S NOT SUPPOSED TO!

Did you read the thing I wrote about the three pillars of society? Business is one, Government is a separate one. We don't want to form an exchange rate between money and power.

That's the entire method for republicans, right, the trickle down effect or whatever. How does that work when companies are relocating for more profits?

You have yet to grasp that what happens is not exactly best summed up as those who propose to sum it up for us wish to do so. You hear R's talk about trickling down and you contrast that with the D's summation of reality to such ideology, and without any additonal data garnered from some sort of logical supposition of your own creation, it's easy to see how you could jump to the conclusion that those that do not wish to give you stuff for free... stuff such as a job... would decide instead to give your job to someone on which they could could save a bit of salary.

Ever considered earning a living?

With philosophies like that you're going to breed a nation of starbucks employees and business owners/operators.

You gotta think that through some more. I'm saying that our economy would be healthiest when based in highly paid though highly educated (continuously) innovators and supported by varying levels of service entrepreneurs. Remember: Time is money. Each of us can choose to trade however we wish in whatever way makes us happiest.

Rather than being a narrow set of options, we'll actually have the most career freedom possible. Get a corporate job in today's America if you need more background on where we're currently headed.

You know what? I'm gonna stop going point for point for you for the sake of pithity. I'll continue to respond, but I'VE GOT TO GET TO BED. Money is time, y'know...

Please let me know where this has got you headed, but tomorrow night I'm going to respond to davin's earlier comments first, in hopes of drawing him back into the conversation... no offense...

I stand by all of my earlier tangents, however, as the best way I know of to have contributed to this discussion.

HAVE A NICE DAY.

[kahljorn]

"I'm not exactly sure, again, what it is you are saying or where you are getting it from. "

My point was that business isn't just merely the accumulation of money but the aquisition of desires(especially since currency didn't even originally exist, not that I'm saying it's a bad thing). This may involve trading "Money" or it may involve trading chickens, but the fundamental purpose of business for all of man-kind(not just the businesses) is aquisition of things you need/want. Somehow contrast that with your ideas of life supposed to be happy etc. Essentially I was just undermining one of your three pillars...

The reason I said "Government is out for profit" is because, for the capacity of this thread, they are. I don't think we've ever had a government like this before that had such a vested interest in money(not to say that others haven't, because all of them have). You can argue that it doesn't have any interest in money(national deficit), but have fun trying to explain why money(Budget) was taken out of New Orleans to be put into iraq so they could get oil. I don't really care if you consider that paranoia, the simple fact is they invaded a country and are now receiving oil through the vice-president's former company. Don't think he's not getting some money from that.

"I'm trying to imagine a one-sided situation using the framework of your alternate example"

It wasn't supposed to be one-sided, it was supposed to fit the capacity of multiple circumstances, that is why I said, "Your entire problem is that you...". Business making money is good for people who run businesses, but not good for the how many ever other millions who are running on the concept of, "Desire and Aquisition".

"Doing business with one another is, as I see it, you competing with someone else for some sort of value you might gain."

I don't really believe you can "Gain value". That's all a myth that was created, but I do think you can gain Food and shelter and other things necessary to your survival. That's what business was all about, originally. "I have no food but you do but you have no horse shoes how about I make you some horse shoes for some food". Get it? Business is done so people who don't have certain things they need for their survival(like food) can receive it in trade for an item of equal 'value'. This is how humans think who don't own billion dollar businesses.

"I said we were inoovative by nature. I inferred that our educational system and our economic model is built in such a way as to leech that out of us."

Me too.

"THAT just made my sig, dude. "

Is that an honor or something?

"Public education is a function of the transfer of power. "

Then why is it that one of the biggest concerns for public education is how much funding it receives? Why indeed? Could it be because our government places it's "Power" in how much money it has? Could it be because that is how most governments are based? Notice, the more powerful countries usually have more money(and are usually doing things to earn more), while the poorer ones usually have less or have it more concentrated in their government then in their people. How exactly does that fit in?
Like I said, you seem to be confusing ideal for the present.

"What does that even mean?"

It means the people who make our children's toys make cheap knock of products or whatever you said because they are more interested in money than delivering a product, which could unintentionally harm our children. Like I said, Purely emotional response.

"Is that what you believe you got from you education? At what point were you trained to balance a checkbook in school? Please contrast that date with the date on which you received your first credit card offer in the mail."

I learned that the government cares more about pocketing a couple million from cutting the education budget than they do about actually educating.

"Hopefully, you can see that government funded education is only ever gonna hope to leech power from you; to enslave you."

Yea, I can see that and I even understand it. That's why I said "Healthy citizens" and all that jazz, and commented on how the government likes stupid people. YOU JUST MADE MY SIG!

"Get government out of the education industry and give it back over to the people most interested in making sure our kids don't wind up slaves to someone: our parents. "

Hand education over to people who were barely educated by our government? Over to people who may or may not be chester the molester?

"Government is a separate one. We don't want to form an exchange rate between money and power. "

Our entire government is based on money. It's ability to have the power to "Build roads", "Goto war" and "Refurbish a city" (even making laws costs money for some reason) or whatever governmental power you want to talk about is going to be based on how much money the budget can spare for it. Dare I say, "Duh"? That's why I said "If" at the begining, it was a hypothetical situation imagining the people who run our government as being interested in money and considering it in their day to day affairs when they appropriate their governmental "Power". Oh so hypothetical.

"IT'S NOT SUPPOSED TO! "

It's supposed to restrict, "Bad human nature" (according to you) and I'm saying that many businesses are run by "Bad human nature". What do you consider bad human nature exactly? You know what, nevermind. Just ignore the idea that government should restrict business from treating everyone like slaves. Minimum wage? Who needs it! Those bastards deserve a penny for every piece of clothing they stitch! Think of all of that profit ;)

"it's easy to see how you could jump to the conclusion that those that do not wish to give you stuff for free... stuff such as a job... would decide instead to give your job to someone on which they could could save a bit of salary. "

What does this even mean? That it's okay to give jobs away because I don't have a job and I demand one for free? People ALREADY HAD THESE JOBS. They were, ALREADY EARNING A LIVING. I really only threw the trickle down effect as a "Hey why the fuck not" type thing, but you are essentially outlining the trickle-down effect when you say businesses purpose is to create profit, even at the price of quality and whatever sins they commited in the process.

"I'm saying that our economy would be healthiest when based in highly paid though highly educated (continuously) innovators and supported by varying levels of service entrepreneurs."

Now you're somehow completely forgetting the present. How are people in our country going to be highly educated with a shitty education system that is shitty because our government is more interested in money than educating people? I agree that that would be awesome, but that's not the way things are. This article was about the present, right, not 50 years in the future? The majority of this country is not "Highly Educated". End of story.

The philosophies you are describing are currently in effect, and really aren't working too well. I've never seen a business that wasn't out for profit, I've never seen a government that didn't want power. The only thing that's different in the seperation of Work and State.

Again, though, with parents educating you're touching on anarchist ideas again.

The entire problem with your philosophy is that you are essentially quoting a rock paper scissors game. Business beats the people, but government beats business, and the people beat government! They don't beat government when they are 'stupid' and poorly educated, and Government doesn't beat business when business is supplying the Government with it's power. Our government practically is a business, that's why you might notice a trend of most of our presidents being successful business men who are all millionaire's or more.

P.S. Since you're a big fan of corny sayings, have you ever heard this one? Money is power.

[davinxtk]

I'm waiting.

[kahljorn]

Surprisingly, so am I. Almost suspensful, but I'm in fear of an anticlimatic situation ;(

[Preechr]

Sorry guys. I was away for work Thursday, and busy as hell since. I'll be back on later this evening and I'll review where we're at and file an update.

[Preechr]

Ok... Hopefully TONIGHT I will have the time to sit down and do something with this mess. Sorry for the delay. Hopefully ya'll have had plenty of time to read through what I've already posted really well.

[Preechr]

Ok... back to it. I hope I have the energy to delve as deeply back into this as I want to...

I can't say I ever understood the "stuff" argument to begin with. First of all, that's all relative. Consumption is bound to go up across the board, especially if we've outsourced all of the "stuff" making.

Honestly, that fails the logic sniff test. If we've outsourced all the "stuff-making," how do we still have enough jobs to generate the income for the increased consumption you are claiming is proportionate to the jobs we've lost?

Secondly, doesn't most "stuff" become a negative asset, or equity whatever, once it has been bought? (I recall the story of the new car leaving the lot)

Does being a nation of people with a lot of worthless stuff make us wealthy?

Personal property does devalue over time, but the point of the "stuff" was to show that the luxurious encoutrements allowed by our our modern economy add to the quality of our lives. That is very true. Our lives are quantitatively better now than in frontier days or the middle ages. People love stuff. We have more stuff than we used to. That's why the "stuff argument" is effective.


"As of 1970, for example, only about a third of American homes had both central heating and air conditioning, while more than four-fifths had both in the 1990s. Moreover, the homes themselves were more than one-third larger. "

Larger, cheaper, and built with lower quality ("McMansions" anyone?). I think things such as this are poor indicators of wealth.

I agree with you, but you are tilting at windmills here. The economy cannot be blamed for shoddily built homes, Kev. If you want a viable argument against the article, you are gonna have to shoot more towards the idea that a managed economy on the level that we currently enjoy is bad, which would be a fiscally conservative argument I don't know you are ready for.

[Preechr]

Ok, here we talking to davin...

You riffed on the concept of "healthy." I said: "I like human nature, when it's healthy." . . . you're basically saying that consideration for the weakest of the community is primary over consideration for the individual needs of the strongest producers within that community, right?

Not... really. The argument for a greater distribution of wealth is a rather nuanced one, provided you're trying to keep some semblence of a capitalist free market alive in your theories. It's not that consideration for the weakest of the community is primary over that for the strongest producers, it's that production is accross the board a rather abstract concept. You can't use the same scale of production for a waiter as you do for a coal miner or a deli clerk or a CPA or a mechanic or a dry-cleaner or a cabbie. Does every one of them need food? Do many of them have families that as well need food? Health care? Housing? Running water, electricity, heat, clothing? Do you think enough consideration is given when setting wages to cover these aspects for everyone who works a full time job? Do you think it's directly related to productivity in even fifty percent of circumstances?

I can do exactly that when I buy into the idea that the cabbie and the waitress go to work with the best interests, at least as best as they can individually discern, of their respective families in mind. Remember, I believe that government is inherently the LEAST effective method of delivery for societal services. You are apparently operating from the point of view that governemnt is inherently the accepted mechanism for this kind of distribution.

We will knock heads on this if that's right, y'know...

You said: "The subtext here is that I feel your devotion to a free market clouds your judgement about the healthiness of its practices."

I would counter that your devotion to altruism has devaluated your priorities in such a way as to have made the concept of personal responsibility about as important to a healthy society as cat hygiene.

Please recall that I'm always giving capitalism a pass on whatever evils might be blamed upon it. If I am devoted obsessively to anything, it is the pipedream of PURE capitalism as it might one day yet exist. Whenever you might point to some sort of "E-e-evil of Capitalism," I'll invariably object that you've chosen to highlight a perfect example of capitalism practiced badly which is only allowed to survive and flourish thanks to an unholy alliance with the incredible power of government, practiced badly.

I'm holding this stance for the same reason you've chosen to allow room in your idealization of life for free markets. I simply refuse to accept that capitalism as we have it is as good as it gets, just as do you. The big difference between us on this is that I think the leash needs to disappear where you think it should be tightened. I accept competition as a natural, healthy part of the human life experience where you believe it should be managed and diluted to the point that nobody gets hurt.

I like the idea that people are naturally punished for bad decisions. I know that that process does in fact exist naturally, and that it's existance has benefitted me personally to a very considerable degree. It's not that I like punishment... it's just that I like the idea that a higher order is existant. I choose not to believe in a human experience based in animalistic existence. You, as it happens, do not. On the whole, you would prefer to believe that the best of us at any given moment are naturally charged with the responsibility for the rest of us.

I just don't think so highly of me.

I recognize that I am quantitatively forwards of most of us standing in this line. I'm willing to bet I can see you and most of us here from my position. I have learned, however, to avoid the entry level trap of believing that my own particular natural excellence has any bearing whatsoever on my immediate future. That, I would submit, is entirely up to me.

I'm fine with [communist principles], at least in one half of my life. That's exactly how I feel about dealings with my family. Most families run on communist principles. I have a complex life, however. When I get out of bed in the morning, and decide what I want to do on any given day, most days I go to work. See, some of my family obligations require money to fulfill. For that, as well as the ever present requirement to feed, shelter and clothe my own self, I need to sell some of my free time in the form of a job well done in exchange for cash.

When I leave the house in my work clothes, I am sacrificing part of my life to fund another. Since work, though rewarding for some (very much so for me,) is generally less fun and fulfilling than hanging out at the house with friends and family, I cannot very well take the for-home attitude about life with me outside now, can I? I need to adopt a less giving, more taking attitude, one of a very competitive point of view. I owe this to my first priority: my private life: the reason I go to work. I need to become a capitalist pig. We all do.

For the most part I agree with the concepts presented here. I must concede to the fact that a decent work ethic is hard to find among many citizens, but in a society that attempts to teach us from day one that we can "do whatever we want" in this "free country" only to be delivered to harsh economic realities often in our teenage years you have to expect at least some discontent. If your argument is that Americans need to toughen up and get down to business, quit fucking around with popular culture and advertisements and bling and cribs and the like and actually do what's best for themselves... how can I argue with you? But this isn't going to be spurred by the poor suddenly waking up and correcting their horrendous spending habits, getting second and third jobs, and finding the motivation (and job openings) to move into management from entry-level positions. The trickle-down economy isn't quite working right, too much of the resources flow immediately back to the top.

There's a reason for that. Care to guess where I'm gonna point you now? I've already told you. Hint: Bad Capitalism.

Just because Republicans glommed onto the term "trickle down" doesn't necessarily mean that they own it's meaning... no moreso than that Communists started calling themselves progressive means that they are for progress or that Bud Light actually tastes better than something.

Trickle down works. What we have is not a trickle down economy. What we have is a managed economy. You, just like most of the folks that might be reading this, were born a bit above the rest of us in terms of what with which you might be one day sucessfully accused.

The initial sacrifices are going to have to be made by the rich, as it's the poor who need the leg-up..

Since you typed this in, I have gone on to state pretty boldly that the false reality that wants you to believe that discouraging the activity of producers might somehow encourage non-producers to get up off the couch and make fucking something out of them-fucking-selves is pretty much a load of crap, so I will try my best to avoid restatement of my previously stated position.

If you need a potato, you are the one I can trust most to make sure that need is fulfilled. Should I go to the potato farm and steal you a potato? What about the farm owner? Why is it somehow better if I steal your potato when you won't? Somewhere, the idea that you might be inspired to seek your own potato goals by the example of my own potato growth success has gotten lost in favor of some sort of sick-ass, twisted version of how things really work...

You said you believed in a work ethic, and you implied that you understood that you get the value of capitalism in at least a general sense. I'm thinking you can work out where I'm headed here. It's way too late now for me to keep this up. Throw me some of what you got in the way of argument.

[Kulturkampf]

Modern culture is shit, and ancient culture is shit; but punk rock is forever and it is better.

Fuck the rich and the poor and a concept of income.

You aren't your job, you are each beer you drink in the evening.

Love your nations because you love the mountains, lakes, rivers, deserts, and wide expanses that make up your beautiful nation, and because you are your father's son.

Income.... It is unimportant.

[Spectre X]

SHUT UP YOU FUCKING SPAZ

[Kulturkampf]

SHUT UP YOU FUCKING SPAZ

Modern culture is trash and you should only listen to yourself and do exactly what you want.

do not be defeated by anything, and do not let anything get you down, and you cannot think of the world from perspecive of an economic loss.

we become stronger through a suffering and we are going to be the best.


we cannot do anything but work.

[KevinTheOmnivore]

Modern culture is shit, and ancient culture is shit; but punk rock is forever and it is better.

oi oi oi???

[kahljorn]

Was what I said about Governmental power being based on money too stupid to respond to or something? I thought it was a good point, but maybe I'm too thick in the drug haze or something. What do you guys think?

KK: Those poems are one of the few things you've ever said that made me laugh.

[Kulturkampf]

My poems are a comedy and a tragedy for everyone, and those weren't poems; they were just thougts that were not organized or bound by modern definitions of writing and style. Who knows what they were?

Government is powerful because of Faith -- faith in pieces of paper representing actual value, faith in ideals that keep us as united and protected.

[kahljorn]

Yea, I figured they weren't. I just combined them all in my head like a horrible sonnet or something.

[El Blanco]

All this discussion about the wealthy and the poor, and no ranxer or Zuhkov.

[Preechr]

Isn't that odd?

Kahl, it's not that. I was trying to respond in order last night, but I was also trying to do some other stuff and I got a bit distracted. I didn't post as much as I wanted.

To answer your point, though, in a general sense I still think you're looking at it wrong. Yes, politicians get paid to do their jobs, and yes, most of what the government does day to day is shuffling money around. You have to ask yourself though: Why do they do what they do? What is their motivation. The answer is clearly not involving the accumulation of wealth.

If your goal was the accumulation of wealth, would you set out to reach it by spending trillions of dollars on social programs? Would you waste cash on the level that governments do? Power is a decidedly different thing from money. If you have 10 million dollars and I have but ten cents, you have no inherent power over me until you decide to buy some power with your money... Just as you have no cattle until you BUY some with your money.

Money may offer you advantages over those that have less of it, but not if it's just sitting in the bank doing nothing. What you see as a cash engine is a motor that runs on money but produces power. When the government levies a tax on you, yes, it reduces your bottom line, but the net effect is that you lose the potential advantage of having that money in your pocket. The money was potential energy, where those advantages you might have gained from spending it however you might have had it not been taken from you would have been an active, kinetic force to be used to your benefit, given you hadn't planned on pissing it away on tina and lottery tickets. That kinetic force was your potential power.

The government taxes you in order to remove your power in certain ways. One obvious example is to support the poor. I work with handicapped kids, and thus within the confines of what Medicaid will pay for. Confront any parent of a handicapped child with libertarian theories on social programs, and prepare yourself for a heated argument. Many people, especially those living every day in direct need of financial help at the risk of their child's health or even survival, believe that were it not for government taking on the responsibility of forcing their neighbors to contribute to their aid they would be left to shrivel and die.

To a point, they are kinda right. The situation is much more complex than one for which I could reasonably offer you a quick fix. I believe very much in people. I also believe our society, at least the American part of it with which I am most familiar, is sick. When I am told that were government social programs to disappear, many good people that depend on that assistance would suffer and die because people will only care for them when forced, I ask why that is. I would propose an answer: Because we have grown accustomed to government handling these sorts of responsibilities for us. We have learned that it is Ok to ignore other people's problems... that government will take care of them for us.

You wake up each day with the power to make a very real difference in the lives of those you might meet. You have the potential power to change the world around you for the better. What we have done by delegating these responsibilities to the State is that we have transferred what is possibly our most important powers over to government. We gave "at the office."

I tend toward being a Romantic. I can easily be accused of living in a fantasy world by what I post on message boards. IRL, I let my ideologies govern my decisions, but I live very much in the real world we all share. What I am asking of you, kahl, is to walk with me into my ideology and help me iron out the details while figuring out for me how the transition from our world to this might best be made. You tend to argue blindly, preferring to pick on the details of whomever you've decided to engage, ignoring the big picture. Argument is a process of agreement, not dissent.

You can be pretty frustrating to talk to, and I have ignored you in the past because you over-focus sometimes on points I don't think can be made... and sometimes you're just too high to make any sense... but in this discussion I will try my best to address any point you bring up. I work a lot though, so you might have to be patient with me between posts. Before jumping to attack, try attempting to fit each question you have into a larger picture of a world you might actually enjoy living within.

I'm gonna go back and work on the posts I've missed now...

[Kulturkampf]

Certain programs are needed to help out the most impoverished and provide opportunities to people, however I still have to say that we cannot view wealth as a problem or as an issue to consummate our whole lives.

The strength of a nation is in a willingness to pull itself up by the bootstraps as opposed to bring down the more fortunate people.

[Preechr]

I'm working on one here, but it's beddy-time.

Nite Nite

[davinxtk]

I don't have much time right now and I already lost this post once...




Do you really believe that capitalism lends itself well to the egalitarian traits of human nature?
Do you believe that with the bottom line being stressed as a make it or break it situation, humans will reach out to those who fall behind on their own? Is that capitalism?
Are you under the impression that this farcical societal bent in human nature owes itself to anything other than religious or state encouragement?

Your "big 'C'" Capitalism is what capitalism is. We are the big it, are we not? This is capitalism in practice with a republic, and it isn't working.

If you really think that humans are anything but animals, we may never see eye to eye. Human nature combined with capitalism is the doorway to your animalistic existance.

It's bad capitalism to behave like anything but an animal.
Chew on that for now?

[kahljorn]

"Yes, politicians get paid to do their jobs, and yes, most of what the government does day to day is shuffling money around. You have to ask yourself though: Why do they do what they do? What is their motivation. The answer is clearly not involving the accumulation of wealth. "

I didn't necessarily say the accumulation of wealth. I said that Governmental power is limited by how much money is around. Governmental power is limited by the money it has, and when we have more money we have more power. I was essentially saying that Governmental power is a direct result of money. In an ECONOMICAL way, this makes sense(this is a thread about the economy, right?). It also makes sense in alot of other ways.

"would you set out to reach it by spending trillions of dollars on social programs?"

Hm, well, I have to say this is a decent point. However, it's pretty simple to see through. If it didn't invest in social programs people would be pissed and possibly rebel. It seems to me if I was trying to accumulate wealth/power I would strive to maintain a balance between getting alot of money and keeping people from getting too pissed off. That much seems obvious; because there's a demand for it.
If the government was really interesting in spending "Trillions of dollars on social programs" they could divide the trillion dollars by the amount of poor people in the world and give them all a shitload of money so they wouldn't be poor and tell them not to act like dicks or they won't get anymore.
Anyway, I don't really see how that argues my point, I just wanted to throw that in there for no reason ;(
Also, I never said that Government didn't invest in social programs.

"If you have 10 million dollars and I have but ten cents, you have no inherent power over me until you decide to buy some power with your money... Just as you have no cattle until you BUY some with your money. "

Um, okay. I have the ability to buy cattle, but you don't. I also have the ability to buy anything else i want, while you don't. I can do anything with my money, while you'd be lucky to afford a gumball. Big difference in power, because you have the power to do very little while I have the power to do alot. Having options is a part of having power. Just like having POWER OVER A PERSON doesn't necessarily involve you stabbing them with knives or forcing them to do your laundry, but just in the fact that if you wanted to, you could.

"Money may offer you advantages over those that have less of it, but not if it's just sitting in the bank doing nothing."

If it's just sitting in the bank doing nothing it's usually gaining interest. Having more advantages is having more power.

"What you see as a cash engine is a motor that runs on money but produces power."

Right, but it still needs money to produce power. Are you not making the distinction? If the government doesn't have money it doesn't have power. If the business' purpose is to create money, and the government's purpose is to create power from that money the seperation of State and Business has been ruined. Hence why it undermines your philosophy.

"That kinetic force was your potential power. "

And it's all based on money, further supporting my theory.

"One obvious example is to support the poor."

There's poor people in america? Because I thought this thread was about how there's no poor people in america, it's a myth, remember? Welp, about time to wrap this up!

[kahljorn]

No but seriously I'll respond to your other stuff, even if I don't have much to say about it.

"You tend to argue blindly, preferring to pick on the details of whomever you've decided to engage, ignoring the big picture."

Big pictures are made of details. Besides, this thread is all about details; "Well this many people have dishwashers, that's pretty good right?". "People in america aren't as poor as people elsewhere!" What about the whole social program part of your post? That's a detail. Let's not talk about details, because we all talk about details.
My big picture is the future world, and I look at everthing a person says and try to see what effect it could have. I simply look at your basic philosophy that you are going by, which effects all your other philosophies or rolls them into one, and I find a critical flaw. Whether it's important or not, you delegated importance to it due to the fact that you said the seperation of Government and Business is important; the idea is inherent in your basic philosophy, if it wasn't important why would you have a philosophy for it?
The fact that government creates it's power from the money created by business makes your seperation FLAWED. Besides that, it brings validity to many of my points. If you want to iron out the details of your philosophy, that's exactly what I'm doing.

Some of the shit you're saying basically runs down to this;
"Everything business does is fine because it's supposed to make money".
"Fuck american's their poor is better than other poor people help other poor people become as rich as the poor people in america while making poor people in america more poor".
"My plan is to make the poor of the world equally poor".

How is that looking at the big picture? The big picture is that there's ALOT OF POOR people and a few rich people. The big picture is that rich people want to become more rich and don't want to share their money with poor people(for the most part). Those are the big pictures. How can you ignore them in favor of the big picture of business needing more money so it can.. what? What will that do other than making rich people richer? What the fuck do they do with their money, because they certainly don't use it for the advancement of the human race like you might be implying.

"I would propose an answer: Because we have grown accustomed to government handling these sorts of responsibilities for us. We have learned that it is Ok to ignore other people's problems... that government will take care of them for us. "

I guess the Government has too much "power" because instead of us having money and power we're poor and need help from the rich and powerful. I'm still failing to see how any of this argues that there is no rich or poor in america and everything is fine. If anything, everything you've said has agreed with the fact.

Anyway, I'm going to take that down a strange avenue called dependence. If you use your mind you could stretch it to include why government's create social programs, why they do the various things they do; dependence. Dependence is a sort of power, no? You have power over anybody dependent on you. That's why our government likes poor, disadvantaged and stupid people. The dependence is born out of the fact that these people have no money(or power), while the government does. It's a simple psychological ploy playing on people's need for a teet to suck on when they feel pathetic and alone. They do alot of other things like that, too, and why wouldn't they? (it's a way to gain power, and they are supposed to gain power, right? That's the other type of power government's seek to acheive; especially one's based on the foundation of 'Choice'/voting.)

What realms do you think the government should take part in? Obviously, economically, especially if you have an economy like america. Why social, though? Do we really rely on the government to tell us it's okay to be Gay, or that it's not okay to be gay? What do you think this does to the psychology of people in america? Again, I belive the most important goal of the government is the raising of healthy, successful people who are a credit to the nation and the world. I don't see how anybody could disagree with this. I think if you form your philosophy and principles based on that concept you'd find alot more balance. With healthy, successful people, you'd have more highly educated people. That's one way it fits into your philosophy. I'm sure it could fit all of your values dead on.

Anarchism and libertarianism are practically the same thing; I believe the difference is perhaps in scale.

P.S. Some of what I said is not as a paranoid as it sounds, try to take a more realist approach to what I said. Try to imagine the effects(at least the effects, even if not the motivation) as real.

[Preechr]

See, Kahl, just when I start to think you just aren't interested in hearing what I'm trying to say, you reverse course and explain it back to me. I think we are actually very close to understanding each other. There's a difference, BTW, in a "critical flaw" and just a flaw you think you see. You keep making me re-explain things, and I tend to get lost in the tangents.

That's Ok, though... Having to work this hard on this explanation is only making me better at it. Based on where you've gone with this and also on what davin just said, I think I can offer you guys a more general view of what I'm saying. I have to take care of a few of the details yet unaddressed, but I'll try my level best to wrap up everything we've covered so far this evening.

None of my friends are on MSN yet, so I might have a little bit to get some of this done!

[kahljorn]

I'm having you rexplain things because I don't understand how there can be a seperation of business and government when the Government runs off of the businesses, in every possible way.
Need plastic? Talk to a plastic business. Guns? Gun Business. Roads? Tar Business. Want roads built? Construction business.
The power the government has to actually manage it's states and resources is done by Business, especially in america. The place government gets it's money to do these things is from business, and people themselves. Probably mostly business, especially since the entire economy of the nation is based on business. Jobs come from businesses, resources come from business(who get it from the earth), businesses come from businesses.

Do you think that government is/should be responsible for our economical policies and patterns?

[Preechr]

I will answer that tonight. You'll love it.

[kahljorn]

:lol Alright man. Sorry if I'm bugging you with my stupid questions, I don't want to frustrate you.

[Preechr]

For the most part I agree with the concepts presented here. I must concede to the fact that a decent work ethic is hard to find among many citizens, but in a society that attempts to teach us from day one that we can "do whatever we want" in this "free country" only to be delivered to harsh economic realities often in our teenage years you have to expect at least some discontent.

I submit that what you are calling "our society" is a product of our government and only a small part of our actual society at that. Additionally, I'll say that our "Entitlement Society" is what is responsible for our collective lack of the decent work ethic you mentioned. That, coincidentally, is also a product of the government for which We The People are ultimately responsible. Kahl kept bringing up the Ford layoffs as if they represented something evil. They can only be perceived as such from one perspective, and I happen to subscribe to a different one.

There is a big difference between that which is bad and that which is evil. Evil implies intention, and there is nothing but good intentions behind the Ford layoffs. They are ultimately based in altruism, yet they also carry the stink of failure. With failure, however, comes opportunity. There is also risk, but I prefer a less risk-averse life as the less stressful alternative.

The cause of the Ford layoffs is eventually the unrealistic promises made long ago to Ford's labor unions, most likely made to avoid a strike.

We actually do live in that "free country," but the idea that we can do "whatever we want" might be a bit misleading. Whatever we do must be governed by reason if we are hoping for successful outcomes. If I promise to give you something that I cannot ever hope to have for whatever reason, that might make you feel good for a while, but eventually, you are gonna get a little pissed that I led you on. I couldn't blame you for that.

I don't blame the laid off employees of Ford for being a bit upset at the loss of their jobs. I don't think they should ever have believed Ford could have violated the Golden Rule of business for any reason, even one that might serve their own interests, and stay in business without being forced to lay off employees.

When I sum this all up, I will address the difference between society as it is and society as it should be. For now, though, I'm gonna move on to your next point.

If your argument is that Americans need to toughen up and get down to business, quit fucking around with popular culture and advertisements and bling and cribs and the like and actually do what's best for themselves... how can I argue with you?

The big thing here is that I agree with you, but I don't believe Americans should be forced to do so. I do believe Americans can be convinced to behave moreso in their best interests. I think the beauty of freedom lies in it's abuse, actually. Maybe you could argue with that.

On one hand, I guess you could say that I see the bad activity you are pointing out as healthy, but I would add to that I feel our society could be doing a much better job of encouraging people not to partake of those things. That society is sick is the reason so many of us are self-destructive.

But this isn't going to be spurred by the poor suddenly waking up and correcting their horrendous spending habits, getting second and third jobs, and finding the motivation (and job openings) to move into management from entry-level positions. The trickle-down economy isn't quite working right, too much of the resources flow immediately back to the top. The initial sacrifices are going to have to be made by the rich, as it's the poor who need the leg-up...

There are many points to which I need to respond here. First, you talk of correcting the financial missteps of the poor. I'm from the South, and we have a saying here: If you don't fuck nothin up, you ain't doin nothin. You can't allow yourself to be distracted by focusing on the entire concept of "the poor." Look at the individuals. There will always be "the poor," but the individuals that make up that group at any given moment in time always have the option of casting aside their infatuations with various forms of self-destruction and seeking a more productive path.

You can lead a horse to water...

But are we doing that?

I say no. Our society does not encourage healthy decision making. I doubt you'd argue with that, based on your earlier comments. We are way too quick to run to the rescue of whomever might be making bad decisions at any given point in time, throwing money at them before they have a minute to sit there in the mess they created and figure their own way out. There are a lot of cases where immediate and sustained aid is necessary, but there are also a lot of cases where immediate and sustained aid is premature and unhealthy... maybe even abusive.

If your brother comes to you every week with a new song and dance about some misfortune he's had to endure, asking for some money to make it through, are you really helping him if you loan him whatever he needs whenever he asks? Isn't it your moral responsibility to investigate his financial difficulty and make a few suggestions in order to set him on a better path?

We can use this analogy on the larger scale in a couple of ways. I tend to opt for smaller, more localized government structures, as they are always more efficient, but you could also go for the alternative of developing a federal "Big Brother" program that actively educates those that meet financial misfortune in hopes of helping them out in the larger sense.

You said these folks are owed a leg-up. What I am asking you to consider here is the form of that help. They would not be in need, generally speaking... and I'm not really talking about those with medical issues here... had they been making excellent financial decisions. Simply giving them a check isn't gonna help them in the big picture, is it? Can we expect more than just additional bad decision making from them?

Part of our society, to move on, is represented by your comment concerning "job openings." Again, we reference the "Entitlement Society" on which I previously commented. Before, I talked about my view of work. I trade my time for money. It is up to me to make a wise trade. It is also up to me to make sure that the time I'm trading has value to whomever I'm selling it to, right? It is unreasonable to assume that I might insist I do nothing and get paid, and it's just as bad to insist I be hired to do a job for which I lack the necessary skills.

I value my time very highly. Personally, I would not want a job that was not challenging. I would not take a job where I got paid to sit on a couch and eat Twinkies. I value my time more than that. The more responsibilites I assume in my job, the more valuable I am to my employer and thus the higher my pay... at least in a theoretical sense... right? If I have and then lose that Twinkie job, I think I should consider myself lucky to have had it when I did. I probably should not expect to be so lucky in whatever source of income I find next, should I?

I may even need to develop some more marketable skills at this point. I may need to make my own "job opening." Nobody owes me a couch-sitting, Twinkie-eating job. The reason companies "down-size" their employees is because their jobs are deemed to be unnecessary or unprofitable to the company. In many cases, these jobs were a bad idea from the start for the company... and in such cases: Shame on the company for hiring folks for stupid reasons. Often, though, technology makes certain jobs obsolete. Should we stop technology? People that used to make horse drawn carriages or TV antennae learned new skills and got new jobs.

Here's a timely example: It seems that the Democrat impetus behind protesting the sale of those American ports doesn't actually lie in real concern for security. In reality, they are attempting to protect the jobs of longshoremen who might get down-sized if the firm from Dubai were to take control and automate some of their jobs. The same thing happened a few years ago when new technology threatened to streamline the process of unloading ships, and they pulled a big strike, remember?

Speaking of that Twinkie job, did you know union longshoremen make around $100k/year to drive forklifts and cranes?

A competitive, capitalistic economy, well maintained by all of us, will provide the most for all of us, right? If we are gonna spend time NOT doing what we love, then we owe it to ourselves to get the biggest economic bang for each of our incremental bucks... and such. So, while we're at home, we are free to live however makes us most happy, and that's typically in a more or less communistic fashion. When we leave our homes, however, we enter the cold, hard world of capitalism, and we are only hurting ourselves if we fail to make that transition gracefully and readily.

Once again it's hard to argue these points. There is, however, quite a difference between trying to provide for your family and trying your damnedest to live like a king.

How so? Who's responsiblity is it to provide for my family? Your family? Max's family? It is up to each of us to make the best of our lives. I understand your example of Travolta's daughter, and I see where you are going with it. What you are not seeing there is that the daughter is obviously not being raised to survive in the real world... and one day she just might have to do that.

Even with the benefit of her dad's money, she will not be able to remain completely insulated from real life. She might go all Willie Nelson or Michael Jackson and squander her wealth on bad ideas, or she might hire some consultants to help her make some good decisions. Either way, that wealth will bleed back out into the economy because John Travolta apparently sucks at raising children, at least as I can assume from your anecdote.

So, she's got that job we were talking about: eating Twinkies on the couch for a living... and she's getting WAY overpaid for it. As I said up there, she should consider herself lucky, and be preparing herself for the inevitable end of her luck by educating herslef and attaining other skills. If she chooses to stubbornly insist someone else provide her with more found money when she eventually pisses hers away, do you think we should oblige her?

Wouldn't it be more moral to educate her at to how she lost all her Daddy's money, and help her to find a better path in life?

Not only are these people privileged, they don't know how privileged they are. Remember when Bush said at a press conference that that lady lived a "uniquely American" life, working three jobs to feed her children? This capitalist economy has become little more than modern feudalism.

No matter how you choose to sell your time, the value of your trade will obviate what you were working for. In your "these people" example, I tried to show that Ms. Travolta (I assume) that is probably not trading time for money so well, as she is wasting her time and her money in such a wholesale fashion. Not that I wish to be labeled as the guy that likes to portray poor people as delightfully noble... though still poor... but what is so "uniquely American" about that broke lady is that she has a shot at being one of those folks that help to bilk Ms. Travolta out of her Daddy's money and teach her the lesson it sounds like she so dearly needs to learn.

Ever stop to think, by the way, that it would be nice if she was able to find education in order to develop better jobs skills? Back we go to the shameful mess that is government run education.

The upper echelon of the economy hordes the wealth and lets just slightly less enough than the barest essentials slip out to keep us working.

So, Ms. Travolta has all your money? I thought she got it from her dad? Maybe he got about twelve bucks of it from you, as long as (and God I hope this isn't true) you didn't pay to see him in "Michael" at the theater... but... I hope you aren't one of those slave people I heard that live on his private island, sewing shoes for gruel.

You do know that Trump is doing TV now because his chips are down, right? Did you hear Ted Turner still has yet to make good on that $Billion he pledged to the UN back in his heyday? Ran out of money. Poor Ted. Remember back when Bill Gates was worth $180 Billion? He was the richest man in all human history then. His net worth hovers around $50 Billion today... AND THESE GUYS WERE SMART ENOUGH TO EARN THEIR MONEY.

Each of these men, through their own decisions, accumulated vast sums of money and then, through their own decisions, RE-DISTRIBUTED Billions of their dollars back into the economy. Add in the heirs to Wal-Mart, and we've easily got a Hundred-Billion-Dollar-Over-About-Five-Years example of voluntary wealth re-distribution by just 1% of the top 1% of earners that pay half the tax money collected in this country each year.

The wealthy just do not hold on to their money, generally. Those that do so, especially over several generations, can easily be said to have invested some time into skill development (the skill of managing finances.) The best way to maintain fortunes is to invest them. Investment of fortunes create jobs. Yes, they can also allow for extravagent, even repulsive, lifestyles... But we can easily deduce that those extravagent lifestyles are always either leading up to either voluntary re-distribution of wealth through stupid decisions or jobs: The creation of wealth for those that work.

I'm not, by the way, a zero-sum guy. American English was the first language subset that phrased earning pay as "making money." Did you know that? Think of the implication there. To make something is to bring it out of a place where it did not previously exist. Thinking of finance this way shows us that there is not necessarily a finite amount of money in this world, factoring in for time. While each day may only have a specific amount of money to made, a product of the energy expended by all of us together, since money is a unit of measurement for time we can extrapolate that the exchange of time for money is only limited to the current exchange rate for every trade.

Thanks to Moore's Law, we have a neat little illustraion of this process. Techonology increases productivity, and technology is evolving at an exponential rate. Productivity is also increasing... go figure. With productivity increases, the sum total of wealth in the world increases. Wealth often encourages innovation, which creates technology. When wealth does not encourage innovation, providing jobs, it is said to be poorly invested and falls back into the general economy through various inevitable means.

This is where your naivete complicates things. Business isn't the root of all evil, Preechr, this 'human nature' is.

Well, I think I just showed you how wealth follows more closely than you thought more naturally fair rules. This is social physics. Universal Rules based on every example with which we can experiment. What works for poor people works for rich people, as long as we don't accidentally build a society that screws with the natural order of things.

Ideally, we can trade our time for money using our formula involving only the variables of effort and ingenuity... until we add in for the pseudo-altruistic aftermath of the Post-Modern Era. When we multiply class envy into the formula, we have to chunk a fraction off our productivity and thus, wealth.


Man, I'm tired. Forgive me, but that's all I got for tonight...

I'll pick up here either late tomorrow, or Friday night. I've had a very busy week. Sorry.

[kahljorn]

I enjoyed reading your post, and again, I feel we agree on a few things:

"The cause of the Ford layoffs is eventually the unrealistic promises made long ago to Ford's labor unions, most likely made to avoid a strike. "

I didn't say the layoffs itself was evil, I did say it was BAD though. Then you brought up the union, and I said they are also "Evil". It's the same affliction, my friend. People who don't have money want money, people who have money want more money, people who have money want power, people who have power want money. Everybody wants money, and most want power, it's the one thing 97% of the people in the world could probably agree on.


"There will always be "the poor," but the individuals that make up that group at any given moment in time always have the option of casting aside their infatuations with various forms of self-destruction and seeking a more productive path. "

Tough-love, huh? that's a good idea, and I even agree with it to some extent so don't be put off by my 'moralist' exterior. In fact, most of the time I hope things will get so bad people won't have any choice but to get off of their asses and get pissed off. However, there's no point discussing that, it's a wasted conversation I feel. "You know what my plan is? To leave everything like it is".

"Our society does not encourage healthy decision making."

Exactly, thanks for agreeing with me. Healthy decision making makes healthy people. I've already brought up a few examples of ways to help people make healthy decisions, so how about if I bring up something unrelated that we discussed before, but I don't think you caught onto.
What do you think the policies of cheap busienss and poor quality does for people's decision making? Any normal, reasonably intelligent person would spend ten dollars extra for their cooking supplies, however, most people look for the cheapest knockoff item available as you have stated before(and I've bought pans like that, they fall apart a couple days later, burn everything and leave horrible tefflon stains on your food which is really unhealthy for you). Is this healthy decision making? Does it set up a good pattern for life? Is it healthy that, instead of looking for quality or something 'better' they are instead reliant on cheap, knock of products that offer sustanance only?
Personally, I don't see how people make decisions to live cheaply. I buy pants at walmart and they start falling apart a month later; I've learned my lesson, but for some reason these people don't, and you can't reasonably expect them to be able to figure it out on their own since it has been perpetuated for thousands of years.

"but you could also go for the alternative of developing a federal "Big Brother" program that actively educates those that meet financial misfortune in hopes of helping them out in the larger sense. "
I see you agree with me on educational reform. :)


Is it really that unreasonable for me to expect that business maintains some kind of integrity? So far what we have discussed has involved mainly the development of a healthy society, how does bad business policy play into that field? Personally, I feel if we are expecting to revamp society in any way we need to have all the corners covered.
Your suggestion is that, instead of making business integral we let the people figure it out for themselves. Or maybe we teach the people... but isn't it, societally, the responsibility of healthy, successful citizens who ARE educated and ARE capable of making healthy decisions to help these people make proper choices and develop a healthy lifestyle? Business isn't the only field where this is apt.

I still don't see how any of this refutes the fact that there are poor people in the world ;( I thought that's what this thread was going to be about.

"What works for poor people works for rich people, as long as we don't accidentally build a society that screws with the natural order of things. "

Natural order? Big animal eats little animal? I don't think you want that in our society ;(
However, personally I think the natural state of society can be acheived, but I think we are far from it because I belive a healthy society would have a healthy philosophy behind it. Not a healthy government, or a healthy religion; but a healthy philosophy and general psychology. My goal is to acheive that, even if it's just in my own social atmosphere. I work on affecting the world not only via message board conversations, but also in the way I accord myself in my day to day affairs. That's the most important part.

P.S. I see what you're saying about technology 'opening more doors' so to speak, and bringing in more money. However, more technology doesn't necessarily mean more jobs, and more technology doesn't mean a healthier society. If anything, society has actually become less healthy due to technology in some instances. I feel basing your philosophy on the hopeful development of society via technology and business innovation is a poor bet, but they are your chips. I however tend to base my philosophies in a more direct field, rather than sissy-footing around the problem because I'm afraid to confront it.

[Preechr]

Do you really believe that capitalism lends itself well to the egalitarian traits of human nature?
Do you believe that with the bottom line being stressed as a make it or break it situation, humans will reach out to those who fall behind on their own? Is that capitalism?
Are you under the impression that this farcical societal bent in human nature owes itself to anything other than religious or state encouragement?

Your "big 'C'" Capitalism is what capitalism is. We are the big it, are we not? This is capitalism in practice with a republic, and it isn't working.

If you really think that humans are anything but animals, we may never see eye to eye. Human nature combined with capitalism is the doorway to your animalistic existance.

It's bad capitalism to behave like anything but an animal.
Chew on that for now?

Ok... *sigh*

I really have already addressed this, but I'm gonna give it another shot on the assumption that I did it wrong the first time, leaving you understandably confused.

I believe that human nature is a two-sided coin. On one side, you have the life you live in private, shared with your family and close friends. On the other side, you have the life in which you must compete with others in the workplace for food, shelter, clothing and big screen televisions. It should be easy to see the differences between these two sides of your own nature no matter what kind of life you live. You can't very well treat your boss the same as you would your dad or your co-worker as your spouse, just as you might not want to treat your children as employees or your pet like it's the UPS guy.

When we deal with our families, we utilize methods specific to that side of our lives. If your brother needs a little cash to squeeze through a tight spot in his life, you can decide whether or not to help him out based on your close familiarity with his lifestyle and his history of decision making, known to you in detail because he's your brother. It's not just that, though... Family is family. Close friends are also special to us, and we go out of our way to look after them, just as they do us.

We use different methods on those that we encounter outside of that familial environment. You have a certain reaction to passing a homeless woman on the street, but if that drunken vagrant happened to be your mom... Well, you'd probably react somewhat differently.

The yang to our family yin is how we interact with people at work. When we leave for work, we trade in our familial nature... the on e that is forgiving, comp[assionate and long-term... for a more competitive one. As I said before, you and I enter the workplace together each day in order to compete for the limited amount of cash available for trade that day. We don't actually work in the same building or even the same trade, but in an indirect sense my industry is competing against your industry... My part of the economy is competing against yours. We also compete against those that we work with directly and those for whom we work. We compete with our customers. Our companies compete against government regulations and unions. It's just one big competition.

If some random guy knocks on the stall door while you are taking a big work-dump and asks if you could spare $20 for a week or so, you'd likely tell him to do something bad to himself and he'd leave no richer. What if he said to you, "But Dood! We work at the same company! It's like I'm your brother!" I doubt you'd change your mind. Maybe not. Maybe you would invite him into the stall so you could better aquaint yourself with his problems and his current situation in life in order to make a more compassionate decision regarding his loan proposal... but I still say I doubt it.

Now, on to why I specify whether certain words that start with c's should be capitalized or not in context...

The first side of our nature, the one we use to deal with family, functions remarkably similar to the precepts of the governmental form Communism. You know how people interact with their family members and close friends, and I've even given you a few examples in case you are an entirely unlikeable orphan with no imagination that lives in a bubble, and you probably know at least a little bit about how Communism works, so I'm gonna spare you a whole paragraph laden with further examples.

The second side of our nature, the competitive one, is the one that looks a lot like the form of human interaction we know as hard, cold Capitalism. When I speak of one or the other form of human nature, therefore, I use the same word, but I do not capitalize it. The natural, human communism, when practiced as a form of Government, is Communism. When we adopt the natural, human part of our human nature I call capitalism... or how we deal with one another at work... as an official foundation of our Governments, we capitalize the word and call it Capitalism.

Is this small part of my overall explanation clear so far?

I'm gonna break now so you can both just respond to this concept.

[Preechr]

Ok... Got that?

To sum up:

(c)ommunism is the half of natural, human nature that is interested in taking care of our closest friends and family, based in an ethic of "To each according to his ability, From each according to his need"

(c)apitalism is the other 50% of natural, human nature that represents our viewpoint in the workplace, where we compete against other humans for our share of the financial pie in order to finance our (c)ommunist home lives.

(C)ommunism is the political form of government that seeks to deny the (c)apitialistic animals that exist in each of us. Some folks believe it would be the best idea for everybody to utilize the awesome power of government to eliminate competition altogether and run the whole world like one, big, happy family.

(C)apitalism is the other form of government that hopes to reshape human nature in such a way as to purge familial instincts from our nature, reducing all of life to what can be easily monitored on a P&L statement.

Both the forms of government mentioned above acknowledge only one half of each of us. (L)ibertarianism is a political movement, and just about as flawed as any other political party or any other large structure involving people, where (l)ibertarianism is a philosophy based in economic conservatism and social liberalism, each in the classical senses of the terms. I will get back to this later on...

I hope we have now completely delineated the differences between Capitalism and capitalism as well as those between Communism and communism. Let's talk for a moment about what those differences mean, though...

Other than the inherent capitalization of the word, what else might change when we adopt one half of our everyday nature as the explicit policy of our government? Remember, whichever way you go, you are forming a tool for the use of your society. By opting for either of these policies for our governments, we are seeking to deny fully one half of our genetic impulses. Your government is one of the three pillars that suspend your society above basic existence. Your government is as much it's proposed citizens' collective conception of the perfect future as it is the practical mechanism you guys will be using to govern your disagreements with each other. Big Stuff here...

To say that we are Communists is to say that we reject the capitalistic side of our own nature as being needful of repression. Likewise, to capitalize Capitalism is to pick the kinder, gentler side of all of us as an enemy. Capitalism... the government form... is attacked by it's opponents as being "against the family," and probably righly so to a degree, while Communism is portrayed by Capitalists as against the excellence that is the goal of competition.

For this part of our program, I would like to suggest that we can indeed have our cake and eat it too...

If we naturally operate as I have suggested here when we function as individual units, doesn't it seem just a bit dumb to adopt a government that rejects 50% of our own human nature? Could we ever hope to feel more than half-satisfied with something like this?

Kahl, I just received a vision of your response to this section. You are planning to argue that (C)ommunism must result in naturally stronger family values in Communist countries where (C)apitalistic countries would inherently benefit economically because of their individual focus on one part of human nature... You are half-wrong.. Once again, you aren't thinking things through to completion, so you don't know why you are on the right track... so I'm not giving you credit.

See, you are thinking that each country has freedom of choice to decide on what they should place their focus. It's just not that easy. If you are negligent in the maintainance of your vehicle, and as a result it smokes and knocks yet actually will make it to the store intact, running on 3 out of 6 cylinders and a whole lot of luck, you should not be happy that it at least runs at all. It just needs to be fixed so it can function as best it can. A car is one thing, but we are talking about systems of government, and governments are the single most dangerous and powerful human invention ever conceived. Governents kill people moreso than anything else ever created by man, and our goal here is to find a form for this deadly but necessary function from which we receive the maximum benefit with the least amount of carnage possible.

It is simply wrong to base governmental philosophy in the partial repression of our own nature. A truly healthy government accepts us as we are and benefits from our natural function on every point. This type pf government is totally possible to conceive, and has even been practiced once upon a time: Here. We just don't do things that way anymore, though.

Do you guys see yet why I kept saying this would be a long, drawn out conversation? I am having to sit here and work my butt off just to get you through the basic building block fundamentals of government to even begin to discuss economics with you! I am gonna break here again so any comments or questions you might have can be easily referenced.

[Preechr]

I hate to repeat myself in conversations. My ego wants to assure me that what I say, in the fun way I like to say it, is entirely understandable to anyone with even a mild I.Q. and a willingness to listen... but my brain is building a helluva case to the contrary. That being typed, I would like to say here that my goal in this is not to educate anyone, but to learn for my own purposes... despite my somewhat preechy presentation.

I have spent a lot of time and energy developing these ideas I have. Right or ultimately wrong, I can assure you that you probably won't be able to dissuade me from believing as I do, though you CAN help me work out the details of my presentation or even add to my conceptio of reality by bringing up concepts I have yet to fully work out... as long as whatever you bring to the table doesn't conflict with the general flow of what I've already set in stone.

Proceeding from that point, I will re-state my fondest desire for someone, anyone, to prove me wrong completely. I am so open to all challenges on this that I even respond to the "UR TEH GAY" segment of our cuddly little internet peanut-gallery. To make good on this pledge, I will now engage Kiki on his stirring and somewhat legible scrawlings entered previously in this thread...

Government is powerful because of Faith -- faith in pieces of paper representing actual value, faith in ideals that keep us as united and protected.

Buddy, you ARE teh gay. Seriously. What you are describing is religion, not government. Faith, by definition, is a lack of understanding. You just said that government is not supposed to be understandable. I've got a lot of cotton that needs to be picked... Why don't you just go get at it, boy? Don't make me break out the whip!

Don't worry though... as long as you keep your nose on my grindstone I will make sure you have adequate food, reasonable shelter and enough clothing on to hide your dumb ass from my sight. I will also make sure no one can hurt you more than I will. You will be able to believe you suffer each day for your own greater safety. I will make sure of it, and that you will.

You do know that the rhetoric with which you have chosen to represent yourself is that of a slave, don't you? When you are humming a melody in the crotch of a governmental official, the only promises you can take to the bank right then are that you have a dick in your mouth, regardless of whatever rights you were told would be stripped from whichever "freedom expressor" pissed you off to the point you sought to limit using the power of your "oral abilities."

Did you get that? Well, respond regardless of your ability to comprehend things... Isn't that what you're here for?

[Preechr]

Income.... It is unimportant.

This is it for you. Whatever else you wrote made my eyes hurt, so I just can't respond to whatever it was supposed to mean.

This little bit stuck in my eye, though, and it was mostly intelligible even if only as an accident. Income is unimportant, eh? Ok... Let's discuss what it is that went on behind the closed doors of your higher functions when you posted that little turdlet of a thought.

By the time you came up with this contribution to our existing discussion, I had already established that money is a unit of measurement of time. Income, obviously, is a form of money. You state that money is irrelevant to life, and I hear that you believe time to have no bearing on it either. That's when I start calling you an idiot.

Right after that, I start wondering if ANYBODY could possibly achieve the level of idiocy required by such a position. Then, I consider what kind of person might express such a retraded point of view on a philosophy board, and a red-flag pops up. Right... Kiki's a troll. I forgot. Duh!

Sorry. Must have been a slow day when you elected to participate in this discussion. I understand completely that you couldn't help but say something somewhere that helped you experience that feeling of importance you get when you talk out of school among those that know better.

Run along now. Here's a little tip for you: When the adults are talking about big-people stuff, just go pull some crap off Drudge to distract the other idiots with instead of jumping in over your head. If that doesn't do it for you, just try masturbating more frequently if possible. I hear that helps people with your condition...

[kahljorn]

"You are planning to argue that (C)ommunism must result in naturally stronger family values in Communist countries where (C)apitalistic countries would inherently benefit economically because of their individual focus on one part of human nature"

I don't know what you're talking about because I don't care about all this big C little c thing. Big C, little c, who gives a shit.

"you are thinking that each country has freedom of choice to decide on what they should place their focus."

I think everybody's focus should be advancement of the human civilization.

[Preechr]

...and World Peace, right?

What are you, running for homecoming queen?

I'm explaining "all this big C little c thing" to you in hopes you might understand a little better what I am talking about. If you don't care to hear what I'm saying, stop posting here. This is MSNBC. If you want to hear more about Bradd Pitt, turn to freaking E!, dude.

Do you really think there is a significant force behind crippling the human civilization on the planet? I sometimes suspect cats of being behind such a diabolical organization, but I haven't yet found enough proof to tell Matt Drudge about it...

Look, I'm taking a break from this for minute. In a few days, I'll re-read this threada and maybe sum it up again. Maybe you could try digging back through and some of what I said before might make more sense this time around. I really have tried hard to explain every point you brought up, and I have really appreciated your input so far. I'll sum up soon and then we can move on... or you can switch over to E! and I'll try to get someone else on the hook.

[kahljorn]

I understand your big C little c thing, it's not that difficult. Little c is sort of how it pertains to "me" while big C is how it pertains to "Us". I hope that simple explaination suffices to show I know.

"What are you, running for homecoming queen?"

If we're talking about ideal situations we might as well be ideal. Advancement of the human civilization isn't some prissy desire, and I accept the fact it may have to go through many movements in order to truly advance in any realistic sense.

"Do you really think there is a significant force behind crippling the human civilization on the planet?"

Yes. It's called, "Bad human nature".

I'll try to respond more later, if that's what you want.

[davinxtk]

I really wish I had more time behind my computer this week.
I have plenty of input, so don't think I'm ignoring you, I just haven't had the time to actually sit down and iron it all out.

[Preechr]

No problem. No time for me either, this week.

As I said, I'll get back to thinking about this sometime next week. It takes a lot of energy, and I haven't had so much to spare lately.

[Preechr]

I understand your big C little c thing, it's not that difficult. Little c is sort of how it pertains to "me" while big C is how it pertains to "Us". I hope that simple explaination suffices to show I know.

Well, you're close. "You" or "we" practice communism and capitalism when dealing with one another. They are two halves of our nature. When we base a government in one, to the exclusion of the other, I like to capitalize the letter. The only reason that I do that is to make what I type clear but pithy. Not making this distinction makes the conversation pretty difficult to follow.

If we're talking about ideal situations we might as well be ideal. Advancement of the human civilization isn't some prissy desire, and I accept the fact it may have to go through many movements in order to truly advance in any realistic sense.

Well... obviously. But saying you are for the advancement of the human race just puts you in a pretty large group. I mean, there's Lex Luther and Dr. Evil teaming up to destroy mankind, and then all the rest of us in your group.

"Do you really think there is a significant force behind crippling the human civilization on the planet?"

Yes. It's called, "Bad human nature".

Ok, I suppose I made that to easy to mis-read. I should have asked: Who isn't for the advancement of the human race?

As I said, I suspect cats.


...and pigeons, but to a lesser degree since they never really get anything done at their meetings.

[kahljorn]

"Well, you're close. "You" or "we" practice communism and capitalism when dealing with one another."

I was just aiming for a quick explaination so you didn't need to feel like repeating yourself.

"But saying you are for the advancement of the human race just puts you in a pretty large group."

I guess it does. The difference is I take it to a fairly realistic level. Consider masonry as a means to building the human the race to it's full glory ;(

"As I said, I suspect cats. "

There's alovecraft book out where he gets saved by kittens because he fed one of them milk. For some reason that reminded me of that story.

I just think it's lame that you place so much of your focus on something so inanimate and virtually hallucinagenic like money and economy. These are impermanant ideals, and they are also nonexistant except within our minds. As an entirely human creation, I think it's a bad idea to place any focus on it, especially as far as IDEALS go. I certainly wouldn't place my life in the hands of a hallucination. (there's a bit of a paradox there, maybe ill address it someother time)
The effect of focusing on money and other invisible ideals could play a hefty dance upon man's psychology. Like I said, I'm for development of healthy people. I accept that, in order to acheive it, we may have to work on our economy, but we're also going to have to work on MANY OTHER FACETS. It's not a simple thing where you can put all your eggs in one basket and hope the other chickens catch on-- all aspects need to be worked on. We need to work on improving all aspects of government.

Anyway, sorry if that was hard to understand I'm in a rush. Till later.