No to Og and Ug. I do not think you understand. The true process is giving and not trading. When we begin to give to others, and not trade, then others will give to us that we might give to those who are in need. When we base our societal dynamic or social relations on the premise of giving freely to those who need what we have, then, others will follow suit by doing the same. I have experienced this happening in large groups. In this dynamic, all receive what is needed in their diversities of operations and their differences of administrations that they may help others freely — there is no profit involved — moreover, none are in personal need. The ox that treads out the corn is, in this dynamic of economic growth, never muzzled.
When we labor toward the resultant end of these acts by all, profiteering via capitalism will disappear and/or be dispelled as the health of all mankind through the service of one to another comes to the fore.
oooooh I get it. That could work. But what if we tweaked it just a little: each time someone “gives” to someone else, the recipient records the act on a piece of paper that they give to the giver. It would be a number scale that ranks the “gift” based on how much they needed it.
The giver could then collect these little notes, as a way to record how good they are at giving. If they collect enough, we could allow them to have something they want in proportion to how good they are at giving. They could cash in these little notes for a prize.
We could also allow other ways for people to get these little notes, such as doing kind acts for someone, not just by giving a gift, but also by performing a service.
It’s nice to give someone food, but it’s also nice to do their taxes. Both are gifts that would earn the giver a little note.
I labored in and directed large homeless shelters for close to thirty years — I have seen the dynamic I propose work. When our homeless populace would serve, in various ways, our community, without the need for compensation, in time, 100% of them would be allowed to transition into our commonwealth. Capitalism is not the answer — our nation must begin to serve other nations without the need to capitalize, in order to shed the need of others to come to us with a spirit of warfare. As it is now, we capitalize on the inabilities of other nations — to my experiential understandings, this is unconscionable.
The way you treat me on this forum is what I am talking about…
You can expect this and worse from the pro-capitalist crowd. You’re exposing capitalism for the disgraceful and culturally regressive cesspool that it is, and that threatens the worldview of people who still think they will some day hit the financial jackpot because of it.
You’re up against a mindset that says capitalism is the alpha and omega of human economic evolution, perhaps even societal evolution. Capitalism, unlike anything else, ever, is immune to evolution and immortal in the face of change.
You’re up against a mindset that worships Capitalism as God. Compare the common methods of Capitalism’s defense with religious fanaticism. Aside from outright suicide bomb terrorism, what distance is there between the defense of Capitalism and extremist religious intolerance?
The difference is that one is an economic system that efficiently distributes resources. The other is a fairy tale about a fatherly figure in the sky that loves us.
And you know what the best part of capitalism is, no one is forcing you to participate. At any point you are welcome to unplug your computer and set up your own little commune. Did a well, plant a garden, sing a song. And if you figure out a way to alter human behavior such that want/greed/desire no longer drive us let us know.
yes, anything that isn’t capitalism is a fairy tale. I’ll grant you I see an obvious flaw in giving as a way of getting … human greed is almost limitless … but your response to Jacquelope sounds like someone who cannot imagine anything better than capitalism.
I can imagine all sorts of things. But I have yet to see anything that comes anywhere close. Have you?
I’m well aware of the flaws in a capitalist system and have no intention of covering them up. Present a system that can provide for a population as well as capitalism and I’ll happily jump on board.
Capitalism, when combined with brutality will result in misery, no question. So we have a system of laws that allow for a level playing field. You’ll notice that within a capitalist society, no one is stopping anyone else from giving. You can give away everything you have if you want.
I’d love a peaceful, happy system where everyone gets what they need. We could go through a lot of trouble to try and create such a system. Or instead, we could have capitalism, that allows people to make money, and then allows them to give it away.
You’ll notice lightwait’s shelter exists because of a capitalist system. People are free to earn money and then donate it to charity. Allowing other people to abuse drugs and alcohol but still get a free place to stay. I’m fine with charity, and I’m fine with a good dose of social programs including but not limited to UHC and high quality secondary education. Figure out a way to offer both of those that doesn’t involve capitalism and I’ll be the first to sign up.
Well, first, no you haven’t. You bluster about and add a bunch of italics and underlining about some doom and gloom.
But, for the sake of argument, let’s assume you did, and I really did just miss it. Fine, there’s a ton of stats of what life is like in a Chinese economy, for the average Chinese. It’s made even worse because government takes such an “active” role (i.e. they pick winners and losers to perpetuate the political party). This is what a protectionist economy will look like.
Even mildly protective economies like India are still shitholes for the most part, because instead of trying to really compete against tariff goods, they pawn off crappy quality goods to undercut the tariff price (see the Tata vs. anything American or Japanese). Inferior versions of cars found there (e.g. Honda City (Civic), Ford Fiesta, Toyota Corolla, Chevy Cruze) are much better and in most cases cheaper straight up in America (e.g. Toyota Corolla in the US is the same base price, but you get way more car in the US). In most instances, the Tata is the cheapest in its class, but not always, because tariffs causes Tata to be lax (that and an insane amount of government corruption). Regardless, quality was miles ahead with the foreign competition. Only now, with the influx of capital dollars are they able to be somewhat more competitive. The point of all this is that Tata has been making cars in India for a long, long time with monumental government protection, literally picking them to be the winner in the India market. But, it’s the consumer who gets the knee to the groin when it comes to performance and dependability, as Tatas are largely known for their lemon status.
Call me crazy, but I actually have faith in the American people, that they will do what needs to be done in order to survive. For some, it’s enough just to get by. For others, they will compete and do what it takes to get ahead. Any of those people will complain that someone else shouldn’t have this or that, or complain why they can’t have this or that…it’s human nature. But, to think that this can all be rectified by forced intervention by the government is ludicrous. History is replete with all examples of this failing. Adding tariffs is just going to make things more expensive for everyone else. I suppose it could be said that it levels the playing field, but it does so by making everyone poorer.
If labor in the US wasn’t so dynamic, meaning that it can be reduced as well as employed, we would be suffering the same thing as Europe, as well as not being as wealthy. There is productivity loss, too, when firms are slow to hire if they don’t for see long term growth.
Recession. Low end jobs, especially in manufacturing, is really just paying people for their time to mind a process (e.g. push a button, count inventory, push a broom, etc.) When a million people can do this, you can see that it’s not a very competitive position, so those wages are going to take a hit. Automation is just as responsible, if not more so, than off-shoring.
What we need is society to be more productive and stop buying what it can’t afford. I really don’t care what society buys, they just have to be able to pay for it when the bill is due. I’m all for job training and societal safety nets. I’ve advocated straight payments for the unemployed, and I would’ve bailed them out before the banks (a position that I’m starting to reverse, i.e. bail out banks). The answer requires making it easier to do business so that others can create opportunities. But, it’s only part of the answer. Less corruption is equally important as well.
As expected, you don’t even come within radio telescope range of addressing what I said. In addition to dodging the issue, you still continue to make arguments that are totally out of touch with reality.
LOL!!! Pepsi spew
NEWS FLASH!!! We have been as bad as Europe, or close to it. We just have been better at hiding the numbers than Europe is. We’ve had a swelling population of discouraged workers that aren’t even counted as discouraged in our unemployment figures. They’re counted as “marginally attached to the labor force”; in short, they’re not counted as outright unemployed. It is so bad that the Bureau of Labor Statistics is moving to change their calculations of unemployment for at least the last decade - long before the Great Recession. This means that they know that we’ve had bigger problems with unemployment than we’ve been led to believe, and that we’re in no position to laugh at Europe’s problem.
Europe’s problem has been our problem, despite our “dynamic” workforce.
Now as for the rest of your “arguments”, stay with me here because I’m going to use some big terms you might not be familiar with. I’ll mark 'em in bold.
Your fantasy of long term transfer payments and job training fails on at least two accounts.
We cannot sustain these transfer payments to support the size of the permanently unemployed / discouraged workforce that has existed in America up to the Great Recession, to say nothing of the population thereof that we have now. This would mean way higher taxes, which would rise to the point of crossing the point of diminishing returns, as in tax rates would have to be so high for the rich that it would cause more rich taxpayers and corporations to flee, which would lower the amount of tax money coming in. Plus you’d have to tax the middle class and general working class more, and that, sir, is an absolute non-starter.
Less than 46% of Americans work now, which is the lowest figure since 1983. A lot of that nowadays is people who are of working age but who are long term unemployed, and outright discouraged. We simply don’t have enough people around who have jobs who can support your plan.
So now you slapped higher taxes on the rich and perhaps even the working class and are now providing job training. Congratulations! You have just blown billions of dollars creating the world’s largest population of well trained, well educated unemployed workers. Sure, a handful of them will find work, but millions of workers just went to school for nothing. There’s still not enough jobs for them. They’re still out of work. Your plan has mostly failed, and it is an expensive failure, too! :rolleyes:
Before you get around to responding, I’ve got one final question for you.
What part of “Americans want jobs and they don’t want to sit on unemployment for years or live off of transfer payments.” do you still not get?
You’ll get the usual “Oh, I can look beyond Capitalism” lip service, followed by the “oh but every other alternative sucks” copout.
Of course, a social democracy is not capitalism, much in the way that Barack Obama is not Caucasian (or Black, going by the same logic). However, one can imagine the (illogical) one-drop rule could be used to identify a social democracy as a form of capitalism…
I have seen something that comes FAR closer that capitalism as practiced in the US, and that’s capitalism as practiced in Europe. They have STRONG social safety nets. They may not be able to employ all their people at any given time, but their people are less likely to find themselves homeless and going to food banks to eat.
I thnk capitalism would work just fine if we understood two things about it and built it into the basic way we implement it. One, if we recognized that people who are rendered unemployed are not morally flawed, in short, if we removed the stigma from being unemployed. A radical idea, but really, capitalism’s dirty little secret is that some structural unemployment is needed for it to work well. So let the unemployed live as well as any other middle class person … home, car, TV, cable, food, dining out money … just not as much of it as the employed. Because, you know it’s interesting how people who are victims of structural unemployment under capitalism are considered lazy, foolish and useless by most conservative capitalists, while the children of the super-rich are considered merely fortunate people by the same, even though they are not required to work for their living.
Two, recognize that the winners in any capitalist system will relentlessly strive to game the system to give themselves a perpetual advantage. Safeguards must be built in to the system to prevent this, as it lead inevitably to the development of perpetual wealthy oligarchies and huge gaps between rich and poor, and often to economic collapses as well. I just am not sure that ANY such safeguards will work more than temporarily, because the wealthy are powerful and their interest in gaming the system is relentless and perpetual.
Actually, I think I’ve already covered your issues. I dunno about peaceful, but the combination of a strong safety net with safeguards designed to prevent the wealthy from gaming the system would probably go a long way toward what you propose.
No capitalism is it, but America sucks at it. Think about the dependency of capitalism on the free flow of information. If you truly understand this, you see there are so many things that you see a capitalist economy should be but isn’t
First of all a perfect capitalist free market would evolve into socialism. Free flow of information means developing negligible cost training methods.
If it took the same time to train a doctor as it did a garbage man, then supply/demand would dictate they were paid the same barring all other limiting issues like aversion to blood or risk to personal safety etc. Labor value would go up and down as certain jobs went in or out of style… but they wouldn’t deviate that much. Ideally even entrepreneurship would pay the same, because everyone would be so smart and have such a mastery of economics that anyone could do it.
And if there was like more stress and one job than another - it would be reflected in the pay. It would just be close to socialism.
But we haven’t even privatized education yet. We are still using a inept 2000 year old system of having some self important jackass tell us whatever his little brain is capable of understanding in whatever way his one tiny little brain is capable of communicating it…
Further deception of any kind would be deemed illegal or gross negligence. Perhaps this is already true to some degree. However the housing bubble was caused by this problem. We used to use the method that people have to be smart enough to know what they are getting into. If we forgive people all their mistakes, they won’t avoid making them. On the other hand, there are ways to follow the letter of the law and still trick people.
If deception itself was targeted with propaganda, specific techniques etc. we might do a little bit better in this area. Everyone knows that in a mortgage contract the most important point is the money. Yet the actual facts on this can be buried on page 32 in fine print, and then the person you are dealing with can just mislead you because the contract is all that matters ultimately. Instead it should be in big letters on the front page, followed by any other important summary points. Tactics like this should be adopted in everything.
(They may actually have done this one)
The free market for pollution approach as a model is a good one for concerns about us causing irreversible damage that most people aren’t aware of. I think we should handle overpopulation issues similarly.
People should be temporarily sterilized at puberty, and then have to pay to have children. Part of the money paid might be given back to help support the child over his life, and part of it might be a societal burden tax. This would be better than eugenics. Stupid poor people couldn’t have children, unless they somehow made a bunch of money. Rich people might equate children with luxury, and it would reverse the negative correlation between IQ and procreation.
Overpopulation can destroy the quality of life of any nation. America will soon learn this first hand. There were environmentalist seminars on this back in the 90’s where they warned that if we didn’t tone down LEGAL immigration the population was going to sky rocket, our infrastructure was going to be helplessly overburdened, our natural resources would be destroyed and polluted, all without making the slightest dent in the suffering of those in third world countries. Our current population is far worse than what they had predicted.
It’s like talking to a brick wall with you. I addressed what you stated. I am seriously questioning your reading comprehension ability. Are you purposefully being dense? This post is full of things that other posters have refuted with you in the past. Yet, you continue to make brash, ignorance-filled posts, like your some kind of undiscovered genius against mountains of proof to the contrary.
This is factually wrong. It has been pointed out to you before. Like any opinion, this post is full of subjectivity, and bereft of facts. In fact, I will go on and say that this “reasoning” is disingenuous as you are here disputing the BLS like it’s some sort of conspiracy theory. The BLS has kept the U3 calculation largely unchanged since its inception. It follows the ILO equation, so that it can participate in an apples to apples comparison to other countries and their employment figures. The official measure has withstood the test of time largely because of its objectivity. (warning .pdf) See here for a current analysis, and note they see that it hasn’t changed either. (Today's Stock Market Articles And Analysis | Seeking Alpha). The point of the unemployment statistic isn’t for truth, it’s for statistical comparisons. The concern shouldn’t be the actual number (or percent in this case) but the trend between numbers, i.e. last month’s U-3 vs. this month’s; last quarter vs. this quarter, etc. The last time I calculated the U-3 was in college, to explain the problem with statistics and the very narrow-minded thinking that abuses them. Did you know that it’s a survey that on average has 160,000-ish responses? Did you know it’s backwards revised constantly? Every western economy does this.
The point of unemployment is that in recessions, a free market can shed dead weight and unused resources quickly, so the economy will not have to suffer as greatly. Having a bunch of people unemployed adds a lot of information to the market and helps people rationalize their choices in the market. It’s for efficiency. A country that makes it tough to fire people will suffer in the long run, as evidenced by their GDP growth.
The idea is to make direct welfare payments to pay directly, to make them more efficient. Also, to pay them so low that people will still be encouraged to better their situation.
Your idea of there being no jobs at all is ridiculous. Look at any job board, there are plenty of jobs around. Training and education is what is lacking. When those jobs get filled, demand will be back to what it was, and we can back to a more normal amount unemployment, in the 5-7% range.
Nothing you even hint of planning will make things better, well, except for those winners picked by the government. You can’t just create jobs, well, you can, but it will cost the rest of us. What you want, without even realizing it, is to make everyone worse off.
sigh Here we go again with your undying legion of factual errors about U3 unemployment, the BLS figures, your extremely shallow and inaccurate analysis of the nature of this last recession, and your fantasy that we will ever get back to pre-2008 5-7% unemployment*, which was itself a statistical product of understatements, omissions and deceptions. But your “plenty of jobs” gaffe, now that’s what made responding to you so much fun this time around.
Discouraged workers are still not a part of U3, which is the official unemployment figures, and it never has been. Discouraged workers are counted in U4, not U3. U3 is the OFFICIAL unemployment standard that we use in the U.S., not U4; and U6 is right out (unless we’re using it to bash Obama). Europe uses U6.
I’m bringing up the point again because your “refutations” were wrong.
A laughable plan that has zero hope of even medium-term sustainability: it won’t even last until unemployment goes back down to 5-7% by any time frame in your wildest fantasy projections.
And this brings us to your reading comprehension problems.
I didn’t say there are no jobs at all. I said there is not enough jobs being produced to match the monthly growth of our workforce, and there will never be enough new-industry jobs to support the number of people who have lost their jobs - which means their standard of living is going down for the long term. I said we need manufacturing to come back, or we will have profound long-term unemployment on the level of Europe.
With 4 million long term unemployed and the BLS noting that 4 people are now fighting for every 1 job, nobody in their right mind says “there are plenty of jobs around”. There are not plenty of jobs around. That takes a whole lot of disconnection from reality to say there are.
Nothing I hint of planning will make things better? Really? Tariffs will create jobs. Tariffs have not damaged the economy. We need them, now. Or you can kiss China’s economy goodbye when the US dollar goes boom.
Talking to a brick wall? Hell, you’re wrong on so many levels that it’s like taking on a nest of cockroaches: the ignorant statements and myths you post have the power to breed faster than the facts can ever hope to spray them dead. And… plenty of jobs around… phew. You couldn’t compete with the sheer outrage of msmith’s misguided “interchangeable carbon blobs” gaffe, so you went for teh lulz instead. Good work! One point for originality!
Your wrong on all counts. First, the plenty of jobs comment is to show that there is slack in the system. I know people are unwilling to train or move to where the jobs are for a variety of reasons, but that is no one’s fault, or something I would ask the government to correct. 4-5% unemployment is considered full employment, and it also depends on the regulatory system and laws of the country as well as norms and customs.
Yes, U3 is the official unemployment standard. It is also the official standard for the ILO. It is also the best way to compare apples to apples comparison between countries. I’m glad to see that you are finally starting to learn something.
And, how do you count a discouraged worker? Which of these is a discouraged worker:
A lawyer with 20 years experience laid off because the factory he supported in middle of nowhere Kentucky up and moved to Mexico, can’t find a job in his area of law after 100 weeks of looking
A sous chef laid off due to the economy, now a housewife, has her resume out, but enjoys her time with her kids. While the income is good, really doesn’t need to work.
A computer programmer who quit his job prior to the recession only to see his start-up go belly up, can’t go back to his old company because he burned so many bridges, desperate for a job, tries making a start up in his 100th week of unemployment
A nurse who used to work for a private clinic is laid off when her doctor retires; after 100 weeks of looking, she decides that she doesn’t want to become a trauma nurse again, likes clinic hours, and continues to keep looking for work?
There are a million ways to count people looking for work by statistical analysis. One thing in common, though, no matter how one sets up the statistic, none of these other factors I have listed are taken into account. Why? It’s all subjective. The other main reason is that people will eventually find a job. Unemployment is not static, people do find jobs. That’s why the number as a percentage is merely to look at trends from month to month and year to year.
So, no argument then? You do realize that this isn’t a lot of money. When your choice is minimum wage and working, and less than minimum wage and not working, that really isn’t a hard decision to make.
Ok, so then this time next year there should be at least 10% unemployment, right?
But, in 2009, there were 6 people looking for every job. (also a near-meaningless statistic). So, things are getting better right?
it’s still too early to tell; 2) I and others knowledgeable about tariffs said that protectionism does create jobs, very much so in the short term; 3) it will and has raised prices for consumers, so we all paid for it, and punishing the poor some more, particularly those not in the tire industry; 4) according to one paper (which was easily found) found that Korea and Thailand benefitted the most, i.e. another unintended consequence. Even the TIA (also represent US tire manufacturers) was against the tariff. But, hey, someone is working, right?
Was bullshit. There is nothing near enough slack in the system for the sheer number of unemployed workers.
How many job openings are there? How many unemployed are there?
How many jobs were opened this last month? 2 months ago? How fast is our population growing?
Your argument is “there are 500,000 people without water. There’s an oasis with a bucket full of clean water down the road that hasn’t been claimed yet. Ergo there’s still water for everyone!”
Your argument is based on sheer fantasy, not facts. And your comments on discouraged workers fails even first grade economics. You’re gonna have to pay someone to get you up to speed on where you went wrong; I refuse to take on that job for free.
There are two cites staring you right in the face which you haven’t bothered to refute, even off-handed. There’s more cites, too, that I’m right about unemployment, and you’re wrong. People clamoring about the rightness or wrongness of the U3 measurement usually do so because of some political axe to grind, and rarely do so from an economic perspective. That’s fine, but realize that, like with tariffs, the good you plan on doing usually ends up doing more harm. So, continue to say “you’re wrong” and bang out some other lackluster talking point as I have concluded you have nothing more to bring to that point of the debate.
I still don’t know why you are comparing population growth to the unemployment rate. Both are statistical ratios based on some count, likely 10 years ago, with a small sampling size, like 50k - 150k survey responses. If what you say is true, even the U3 would be effected as this “disparity” as you point out has been in effect for quite some time. U3 should be like 20%. These two things (employment and growth) are two very difficult things to count head on. If you had any formal training in economics, you would know this. There are a whole lot of other factors to look at when reviewing the health of the economy.
As I suspected, you have no answer because you do not know what you are talking about. That’s fine. I see you have nothing more to add to the debate.
Your misguided and off-base attempts at cites and arguments are no longer my problem to deal with. They’re all yours.
The fact that Europe uses U6 and not U3 should be an obvious sign that this is not about having any axe to grind. U3 simply masks a lot of the true magnitude of unemployment.
Or so you keep on saying without any basis in fact. Another delusion I’ve run out of time to deal with. Feel free to stay one of the shrinking number of people who still subscribe to that pile of horse puckey.
More smokescreening on your part. None of what you said even passes basic muster. The missing numbers are the number of discouraged workers, which are not counted in U3 (they’re counted in U4).
Correction: not one that satisfies the reality-bending needs of your fantasy world.
Like I said, feel free to count yourself among the dying breed of people who still believe in globalism. At this point all we anti-globalists have to do is wait you out.
My vote would be for a variant of post-scarcity. The advent of advanced 3d-printing to produce plastic goods convinces me that this new technology will, in the future, free us all from having to work for others and for those others not having to exploit the labor of others. My prediction is that within 50 years, humans (at least in the advanced societies of the world) will be self-sufficient in their acquisition of energy (solar, wind, or whatever new energy source comes along to replace fossil fuel consumption) and in their production of goods to live via a future generation of 3d printing (replicators from Star Trek - could be just right around the corner). Tell me what you think of this…