The Rich Are Staging a Coup Right Now
Posted by Michael Moore, MichaelMoore.com at 8:36 AM on September 29, 2008.
Let me cut to the chase. The biggest robbery in the history of this country is taking place as you read this.
http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/100749/ (http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/100749/)
Though no guns are being used, 300 million hostages are being taken. Make no mistake about it: After stealing a half trillion dollars to line the pockets of their war-profiteering backers for the past five years, after lining the pockets of their fellow oilmen to the tune of over a hundred billion dollars in just the last two years, Bush and his cronies -- who must soon vacate the White House -- are looting the U.S. Treasury of every dollar they can grab. They are swiping as much of the silverware as they can on their way out the door.
Just read the first four paragraphs of the lead story in last Monday's New York Times and you can see what the real deal is
I've got so little respect for Michael Moore that you'd need an electron microscope to see it. He's an ignorant buffoon who seems enamored of totalitarian socialism, without being willing to live under it himself. His typical "Blame Wall Street/capitalism/profit motive/greed" BS is really grating, and he's willfully ignorant of economics.
What is this "they" he keeps referring to as robbing us? Wall Street? CEOs? Last I checked, it was the government that taxed and inflated away my wealth, not Wall Street. If the government is giving it away to cronies, why are Americans permitting that? Why are they still paying their taxes? Why aren't there large-scale protests, even revolution?
How did our government get the power to redistribute our wealth to the rich? Could it be because Americans actually believe in redistribution of wealth in general, and voted for politicians that supported it? Oh, boo-hoo-hoo that it's now working against them all. You'd think they'd never heard of regulatory capture before.
How is the theft being accomplished by a "democratic" government when the American people oppose it? The dirty secret is that people might oppose the bailout, but not the principles and institutions that are responsible for it. They're not willing to put their money where their mouths are. Americans worship the state as a god, and go along with whatever it commands. Paulson could be asking for a $5 trillion bailout, and Americans wouldn't do anything more than whine and go along, just like they're doing now. Bush could launch fifty more wars in the next month, and Americans would do nothing but whine, pay for them, and go overseas to die.
Ah, the anarchist approach. A plague on everyone's house.
But the thing about anarchy is simply this, it's good for a certain type of mind, one that is generally completely unbridled and anti-social in many ways. Plaguing everyone's house is simply a good way to make certain that no one gets to live with any sort of reasonable guess that they can enjoy a day.
Too busy protecting ourselves from plagues.
I don't think anyone, Michael Moore included, believes he's some answer to the problems of American society and the bone-ignorance that was bred into most of us in the generations our families spent living at the bottom of every other nation's totem-pole.
Well, except for the Amerinds, but the peasants from abroad pretty much wiped out most of the Amerind people who had developed smarts and a tradition of living here in context. Isn't it ever the way? One moron with a lot of firepower can destroy the irreplaceable in seconds. 10,000 years of working and learning crash in historical seconds with what to replace it other than a firm desire to live in the lowest corner of Brixton? *sigh*
So, outside of tossing a few grenades, ya got any ideas, Nephie?
Nichole
I love Michael Moore. You've got to love someone who was fired from Mother Jones magazine for being too far to the left.
We are so used to everyone pulling punches, lying, putting the best face on things, attempting so hard to be something they are not, that someone like Moore, who is in real life exactly 100% like is in his films and TV shows is often something we have a hard time with. There is no 'other' or 'different' or 'secret' Michael Moore. What you see is what you get. I've meet him several time, including trips to and from the airport, and going out to dinner with him twice, and he is exactly as he comes off being.
So, when he comes off as a rather rude, elitist, slob - well, that's our Mike. He is rather rude, with little time to be pleasing or personable when so much is at stake. He is an elitist, in the same sense that I am, which is to say that people who worked hard to get a good education don't have to put up with opinions that come from little thought and even less research. And, he is a slob in the best use of the word. He dresses as he does, not to be PC, or 'fashionable' or 'appropriate' he literally does not give a flying F*** about what you think about his wardrobe.
What the 'they' is, is exactly Wall Street and its constant demand that capitalism requires us to give away our best jobs to the third world so that economic standards and environmental issues need never be addressed. Profits UP, people DOWN.
I do not think that we as a nation believe in any sort of redistribution of wealth, but we do adhere to a much older notion, that of Commonwealth (matter of fact a couple of our states are even named that) - that all wealth is not private, but for the most part, public.
I hardly worship the state as god, hell, I don't even worship god as god.
You mean, I should be constructive?
I'm not sure, that sounds kind of pro-establishment...
Seriously though - I think they should nix any and all bailout plans, now and in the future. "Too big to fail" is a scam perpetrated by ignorant and/or unscrupulous politicians who haven't a free-market bone in their body. People will get hurt, yes - but that's a given at this point. Any attempt to bail out ANYTHING is just going to prolong and worsen the problem.
Second, the Federal Reserve Bank needs to be dismantled - IMMEDIATELY. It's the most pressing long-term danger to the American public. No more rampant credit expansion. No more debasement of the currency. No more money spigot to fund endless wars and corporate welfare. Let the state get all its money openly, through taxes.
Third, abolish income tax withholding. Let the American public see, all at once, just how big their tax burden is. With the abolition of the Fed, all the money previously taken by stealth through the printing press will show up in big, bold numbers come tax time. Let's get people REALLY upset. (plus, people will need to learn how to save again).
No, I didn't mean you needed to be constructive at all. I try not to insist that people do things they don't wish to do, but I do suggest that they do sometimes.
Central Banks control the supply of money and pick a value for it. Been going on for ages now, and the only thing that actually gives that money value is the willingness of people to use the exchange as a representation of value they'll accept.
Otherwise we'd just have to use gold & silver coins that were valued at the amount they actually weighed and the value of the metal itself. Or we could use gems. OTH, you can, and some people have and do, use cowrie-shells.
The problem, my dear, doesn't seem to be the institutions as much as it is who and what the institution determines it's most pressing need to back and bolster is. Central Banks have never been operating with the bedrock notion that they have to look out for the population, at least not all of it, just the class from whom the central bankers derive, or the class they've become a part of. They do that quite well in USA.
The reason Bernanke/Paulson and others cannot see that "the problem" as anything other than taking bad debt, or as Liz said yesterday "securities" off the hands of Morgan, Citi and BankAm is that like fish they cannot imagine breathing anything except the medium in which they live.
They, thus, back the "too big to fail" proposition because they know they are "too big to fail." And the credit crunch WILL worsen because the people who make the credit aren't going to release it until they get what they want: the removal of bad investments at no cost to them.
The government, any government, is going to tax as a way of making plain to itself and others (foreign and domestic) that it does in fact own the allegiance (liked or not, by fear, terror, or adoration) of the governed. The government is going to perceive that its individual members, servants, lackeys, what-have-you also need to have the medium of exchange without having to go do work at a different location for someone else's tokens.
Is it all a pose? Why yes, always has been. But as long as people continue to give the pose their belief and at some degree their trust that will not change and in point of fact if they do change they will make another government that operates on the same pose.
You anarchists don't want the pose, but people are simply not going to find it reasonable to live in no society at all. We've been social so freaking long that we feel most un-at-home when we aren't socialized. Which is why anarchists tend to be young and angry. That's not a bad thing, just a thing that over time seems to disappear, unless one is Prince Kropotkin. Of course, when you're a prince you can afford to "be" an anarchist, as you know full-well you don't actually have to live as one and reap whatever harvest comes from x-odd million people doing their own thing at your expense.
Nichole
QuoteHow is the theft being accomplished by a "democratic" government when the American people oppose it?
Well we are not exactly democratic, more of a federal republic with social leanings. The fact that the Government can and does do things that are not popular for the supposed greater good. But look at the proposition system in CA. If everything is voted on you just create a big mess. The voter is just not educated or unselfish enough to do what is best for all they tend to want what is most appealing to themselves.
Are you in California? Most of the people I know here LOVE that system, one of the great and outstanding progressive reforms. It brought us the Coastal Law, the opt out of the war on drugs medical marijuana law, and Prop 13, an awesome law that increased stability and improved neighborhoods too. And most of the people I know, know more about the propositions than about national law, if only because its a lot closer to home.
But no one wants to pay.
Well, they surely don't pay in MS and whatcha got there?
Nikki
Of course no one wants to pay, and for good reason too. I read here about people using student loans to pay for SRS and HRT, and I do not give a damn about what people do, but when your doing it with my money, that sucks. I am happy to pay some taxes for student loans, because I think education is important. Paying it for personal improvement. Screw that.
But any patriot knows, we owe something to the commonwealth.
Its a fine line between the two.
Quote from: Nichole on October 01, 2008, 04:18:27 PM
Well, they surely don't pay in MS and whatcha got there?
Nikki
A low population with plenty of nature and clean air. No traffic jams or airport problems. No deposit bottles ,no trash problems,, low insurance rates, no gangs, no graffiti, etc.
no trash problems
You kidding me right? Mississippi, the ground zero of po' white trash?
Now, I've been to Mississippi many times. I like it. However. It was Mississippi (and I apologize for this in advance, it's not my choice of language) that when I asked how to get to a cemetery where a famous blues guys was buried, the goober at the gas station told me, "Nothing but a bunch of damn ->-bleeped-<-s burred there, boy.
I felt like buying him a belt, but then again, I thought the technology might be beyond him.
The good thing is there is plenty of room so you do not have to see your neighbor no fences needed. Besides where else can you get that kind of free entertainment and not have to apologize for it.
Quote from: Nichole on October 01, 2008, 03:03:25 PM
You anarchists don't want the pose, but people are simply not going to find it reasonable to live in no society at all. We've been social so freaking long that we feel most un-at-home when we aren't socialized. Which is why anarchists tend to be young and angry. That's not a bad thing, just a thing that over time seems to disappear, unless one is Prince Kropotkin. Of course, when you're a prince you can afford to "be" an anarchist, as you know full-well you don't actually have to live as one and reap whatever harvest comes from x-odd million people doing their own thing at your expense.
Frankly, I'm just baffled by your assumption that I'm opposed to society. I have NO idea where that's coming from. I love society. Some of my best friends are societies. I'm opposed to statism, and the CONFLATION of the state and society. To me, society is the aggregate of peaceful human interaction, while the state is an agent of theft, violence, and general anti-social inhumanity. I don't accept the idea that a state is necessary, or even beneficial - although I could tolerate a libertarian-style "night watchman" state.
Well, I suppose your answer gives me the reason why I would think that. "Society" is not simply about whay either you or I would or wouldn't accept, Nephie. It's about what a huge number of people would and wouldn't accept.
Otherwise your society is simply a lot of single entities walking about as they please, well, as long as they can make it stick. If they can't, then they'll walk about pleasing the guy who can make it stick.
Nichole
Quote from: Nichole on October 01, 2008, 11:08:21 PM
Well, I suppose your answer gives me the reason why I would think that. "Society" is not simply about whay either you or I would or wouldn't accept, Nephie. It's about what a huge number of people would and wouldn't accept.
Otherwise your society is simply a lot of single entities walking about as they please, well, as long as they can make it stick. If they can't, then they'll walk about pleasing the guy who can make it stick.
Nichole
I'm not alone in calling violence and aggression "antisocial", and we've already got a system where the antisocial try to please the people who can "make it stick". They even have professionals to do this for them. Those professionals are called "lobbyists". "Congressmen" and "regulators" are those who can make it stick - also "police" and "soldiers" for when the going gets tough.
Posted on: October 02, 2008, 12:18:41 am
People talk - all the time - about "social responsibility", "debts to society", and "antisocial behavior". These ideas presume that there are some activities that run against the grain of social acceptability. Different people have different takes on this, but pointing guns at people is usually seen as antisocial. Taking people's stuff is antisocial. Throwing rocks through windows is antisocial. Do you disagree with any of this?
The state, by its very nature, is complicit in crimes of this nature, and many others. We give it a free pass out of ignorance and blind tradition, not wisdom or justice.
Absolutely you're not, I stand with you on that.
And, absolutely we do. And even with the abuse, most people prefer that rather than to have Bubba, Guido and Fat-Boy doing the "enforcement."
Nikki
Quote from: Nichole on October 01, 2008, 11:26:33 PM
Absolutely you're not, I stand with you on that.
And, absolutely we do. And even with the abuse, most people prefer that rather than to have Bubba, Guido and Fat-Boy doing the "enforcement."
The Mafia and other criminal gangs are just small governments, existing in competition with the larger government whose territory they dwell within. Guerrilla states. Some people even prefer that brand of service to what they get from the "official" government.
Being "legitimate" doesn't make something
right. People in this country will put up with actions by their "legitimate" government that would be horrific crimes if perpetrated by private citizens. If the American governmental system rests on the idea of powers delegated from the people themselves, then why do we accept its claim to powers that none of us - individually or collectively - can exercise? Why do we allow the counterfeiting? The war? The fraud, theft, and deception? The denial of basic civil liberties?
I think it's because, deep down, Americans
know the state is out of control. They
know that it doesn't represent them, and never did. They know that they'll just be destroyed if they mount a serious challenge. However, they just can't accept this, not truly. The idea that the government is our servant is the most loudly-proclaimed and longest-running myth in our history, and it just hurts too much for people to admit that it's the other way around. They're too emotionally invested in the idea.
You think it's that.
I think it's a cultivated habit of mind that comes from watching tv allatime, playing video/computer games instead of living life and in thinking that education is something some teacher pours into your brain if you just sit there long enough and write something half-assed enough times, simply because most of us don't want to be bothered with anything more nuanced and layered than the 10-ply nachos at Taco Bell.
Nikki
Yes, the modern lumpenproletariat. You can find them behind the counter in most retail stores and fast food joints. They don't amount to very much in the wider scale, beyond an overall lowering of the level of discourse and expectation. Their greatest power is their ability to screw things up through ignorance, opening up opportunities for the unscrupulous, and leaving the competent to pick up the pieces. They're not the ones I'm referring to. I'm talking about the movers and shakers, the idea-makers and wordsmiths. The people who actually shape public opinion, who tell the plebs what to think - these people have myths of their own, and those are the ones that trickle down and influence policy.
Just as an example - I'm a die-hard capitalist, but whenever I hear or read about a Joe Shmoe claiming to support capitalism, I get angry. It's a safe bet that person doesn't know anything about economics besides "buy low, sell high". He's never read Smith, Ricardo, Bastiat, von Mises, Hayek, Keynes, Friedman, etc. He has no idea what marginal utility is. He doesn't know how prices help manage scarcity. His opinion was spoon-fed to him at some point. It's exactly the same with every other major idea or philosophy in America today - Marxists who haven't read Marx, Christians who haven't read the Bible, etc etc ad nauseam.
These people don't originate the ideas, or pick them up from primary sources - they get them from ideologues, and they change from year to year, maybe even week to week for some especially wishy-washy people. Lacking the ability to communicate effectively, these people can't pass on their ideas very well. It's the ideologues and intellectuals, bound by their own myths, that propagate them and ultimately foist them on the rest of the populace. E.g. Policy-makers in the Department of Education decide on what specific blend of sewage they should pour into the public schools. In their case, one specific myth is very ego-driven and self-preservationist - the idea that their jobs are necessary and important, so the government should be sacrosanct.
99.9% of people who've gone through the public schools would be aghast at abolishing the Department of Education, jumping to the immediate conclusion it means abolishing public schools. They don't think about it, because they were taught to have a naïve faith in the state. This isn't just speculation on my part - I've had more than one person refuse to accept that there were public schools before the federal DoE was created.
Society is always changing and it is only the personal view that make a judgment. Society is a method to cooperate, to pool skills so people can experience more than their personal limits. It also offers a system to procreate and continue the human race.
In over the last 200 years leaders of various political beliefs have worked to have people follow their plans for a perfect society. Marx, Hitler, Thomas Jefferson, and many other's, some with workable ideas and some with huge faults but all with the belief that they had the best one way of making the world a better place. It is more of a philosophic question, "Is there only one best way?"
Posted on: October 02, 2008, 11:40:07 am
Quote from: tekla on October 01, 2008, 04:05:42 PM
Are you in California? Most of the people I know here LOVE that system, one of the great and outstanding progressive reforms. It brought us the Coastal Law, the opt out of the war on drugs medical marijuana law, and Prop 13, an awesome law that increased stability and improved neighborhoods too. And most of the people I know, know more about the propositions than about national law, if only because its a lot closer to home.
QuoteUnable to get short-term financing, California may have to ask the United States government to lend it $7 billion.
QuoteBut no one wants to pay.
QuoteOf course no one wants to pay, and for good reason too. I read here about people using student loans to pay for SRS and HRT, and I do not give a damn about what people do, but when your doing it with my money, that sucks. I am happy to pay some taxes for student loans, because I think education is important. Paying it for personal improvement. Screw that.
But any patriot knows, we owe something to the commonwealth.
Its a fine line between the two.
But now it is my money also.
The people who pay aren't the ones who decide where that line is drawn.
Quote from: tekla on October 01, 2008, 02:23:39 PM
What the 'they' is, is exactly Wall Street and its constant demand that capitalism requires us to give away our best jobs to the third world so that economic standards and environmental issues need never be addressed. Profits UP, people DOWN.
I do not think that we as a nation believe in any sort of redistribution of wealth, but we do adhere to a much older notion, that of Commonwealth (matter of fact a couple of our states are even named that) - that all wealth is not private, but for the most part, public.
I hardly worship the state as god, hell, I don't even worship god as god.
I'm with that. It seems to me that if we lived in little tiny villages or tribes, we wouldn't think twice about sharing our tools, our skills, and other necessities. The same
should apply to big bad smelly modern civilization. Commonwealth. People who find a way to success should be rewarded, however, people who cannot achieve the same for whatever reason, should be taken into consideration.
Posted on: October 03, 2008, 03:20:39 pm
I have coined a new phrase to describe the American Economic system.
Terror-Capitalism
I'm not joking. >:(
Except that America isn't very capitalist at all. Private property and self-ownership are violated as a matter of routine. Just controlling capital doesn't make you a capitalist.
Also, there's a causal relationship between economic systems based on sharing, and people living in small, primitive villages. That's not to say sharing is bad, but that it just doesn't work on a larger scale. It does nothing to solve the calculation problem - how should resources be coordinated among people when they've never met each other and might have conflicting goals and values?
that's what I mean, the capitalism isn't even true capitalism. It's twisted, manipulated, controlled by whackos, and it's full of small people being stepped on and all that. It's just a lie that feeds false hope to people who are gutted by the cruel joke.
It's Terror-Capitalism! >:-)
I sort of see what you mean, but where does the "capitalism" part come in? Doesn't that just perpetuate the misconception that we have actual capitalism in America, and make it that much harder to be talk about the real thing and not be misunderstood?
That's not to say sharing is bad, but that it just doesn't work on a larger scale.
True 'nuff. But....... What exactly does work on the kind of scale we're talking about here? Capitalism is swell, don't get me wrong, I'm all for people working hard to make money, and when they make it, they get to keep it. (Hookers"N Blow, or tax free bonds, YOU MAKE THE CALL!) Some amount has to be ponied up to the 'common welfare' and all. However, I'm not thrilled with social adjustment programs. Though I am in favor of things that would seem to address a long-held really, stupid belief. So, while I'm against anysort of income redistribution deal (largely I will add because they don't work, the rich get richer and the poor get ... anyway) but I do love Title IX that forced colleges to spend as much on womens' sports as they did on the guys. That's peachy keen to me.
But, what I wanted to say, was that the scale of things were trying to work things out on now, it may, just maybe, a scale too far. Too big to be stable. For sure on too big to be sustainable. So, I'm not sure what works, and neither is anyone else in leadership role, which is very scary.
That's the beauty of an actual market system - it's highly dynamic and decentralized, and adjusts to changes in scarcity and preference much more readily than what we have now. It's the prices that do it, and it's no wonder that things get worse in proportion to the degree of price control (wages, salaries, compensation, interest, floors, ceilings, supports, etc.), since it defeats the entire organizational purpose of the market. Our system is only "big" because we chose "businessmen" and "leaders" who believe in top-down command, for their own benefit - it's not some iron law of market economics.
Quote from: Nephie on October 03, 2008, 10:16:21 PM
I sort of see what you mean, but where does the "capitalism" part come in? Doesn't that just perpetuate the misconception that we have actual capitalism in America, and make it that much harder to be talk about the real thing and not be misunderstood?
Yes it does exactly what you said because it's
Terror-Capitalism!(sorry. I am required to use the term as often as possible in order to get it picked up by others)
I'm not feeling the meme...
QuoteTerror-Capitalism
More like Terror-Consumerism!
Well the basic system that has evolved over the past 100 or so years (everything that came before industrialism was a very different world) is one of mass production and mass consumption. Both are equally required, its the formula, the basic equation of capitalism as we know it.
That cycle of production and consumption has grown to vast and sweeping levels. Just think, every day, EVERY DAY, the US has to somehow get about 19 million barrels of oil a day, and that's not even our total energy usage. Along with just getting all that oil out of the ground, and shipped half way around the world there are the sums of money - now grown to astronomical proportions - that fuels all that. At some point, all of that becomes too big to manage, or at least too big for humans to manage.
Just think of how much money is flowing around the world just in the next few minutes, and who is really controlling all that? Can it be controlled? And in the end its just a system, and all systems hit the wall running from time to time, nothing's perfect.
And, once you have all that going, the huge amounts of everything, all in motion from here to there, how long can you keep that act up? How long can it survive? Is is sustainable?
And, the short answer is, nope. It's not sustainable. Its based on several things, like cheap oil and cheap energy and cheap natural materials, and none of that is sustainable, and all three parts of it are running out.
A lot of what's going on is that people who know and who pay attention are seeing some very real problems ahead and trying to cut themselves a winning deal now.
Quote from: lisagurl on October 05, 2008, 10:09:39 AM
QuoteTerror-Capitalism
More like Terror-Consumerism!
That works too.
Sure, there's no more cheap petroleum is over, but neither is there cheap land, or cheap slaves, or cheap waste disposal, or even cheap whale blubber or ivory. And yet, important as these things were to previous generations, we're not up in arms over them. Who uses whale oil for lighting nowadays? We've moved on to more efficient things. The same thing will happen with petroleum as scarcity increases, driving up prices and opening up alternate areas of development.
And as for management, it's been a long time since any one individual, or even an organization, was able to comprehend the scope of economic production. We don't need to worry about "managing" it, since there's no room for a manager. It's the most decentralized thing on Earth. Leonard Reed described it best in I, Pencil (http://www.econlib.org/library/Essays/rdPncl1.html) - human creativity and productivity can't be masterminded.
scope of economic production. We don't need to worry about "managing" it, since there's no room for a manager. It's the most decentralized thing on Earth.
I doubt that. Manufacturing and production are site specific for the most part. If it was not, then Mississippi would be making as many computer parts as California, or both would have equal agricultural basis. That's not true. Financial markets are located too, access may be available, but your playing in New York and London. Matter of fact, its a rather odd patchwork, highly centralized according to sector.
Manufacturing and production are actually highly decentralized. Pick any product, and try to tell me that it's all made in one place. What about the tools, the machinery, the raw materials, and the knowledge? Even at the most basic level, those come from elsewhere. What about everything that goes into each of those?
Did you read the link in my post? The gist of it is that for even something as simple as a wood pencil, there isn't one person on this planet who can tell you everything that goes into making it.
And the basic flaw with much of this seems to me to be that there is the presumption that when oil, coal, whatever is gone, why! like magic a new "unlimited" supply of something will be found to take care of the crisis. All through the agency of human creativity.
That would be fine except there are limits to human creativity and creativity is also located: in the mind and in how that mind is inclined to look at the world. A hammer-maker may be wonderfully creative, but he's most likely to use his creativity to make a revolutionary hammer: not make a fusion reactor that works efficiently and at low cost.
Capitalists create desire. Not all desire, just the ones that can be sold exorbitantly.
Of course that's just my thought and may not be true at all.
Nikki
Look, its impossible. Production, markets, industry, and finance are all human activities. They will be concentrated in places with more humans. Humans, being social animals, or perhaps for other reasons, tend to cluster in large population areas, cities, metropolitan areas, vast sweeping conglomerations of people like the Boston to Washington area (55million plus) or the Greater Los Angeles Area (about 14 million alone). Since that's where the people are, that's where those activities will be taking place. Just like farming and other agricultural stuff will find itself in all the places were people are not.
Such activity can not be seen to be decentralized in any sense when they are all taking place in pretty much the same time and place.
Quote from: tekla on October 05, 2008, 09:11:22 PM
Look, its impossible.
What's impossible?
Quote from: tekla on October 05, 2008, 09:11:22 PM
Production, markets, industry, and finance are all human activities. They will be concentrated in places with more humans.
OK, that's logical.
Quote from: tekla on October 05, 2008, 09:11:22 PM
Humans... tend to cluster in large population areas
Tautology. That
defines a high population area.
Quote from: tekla on October 05, 2008, 09:11:22 PM
Since that's where the people are, that's where those activities will be taking place.
OK, also a tautology, but for the purpose of illustration. I'm not sure why you mention this, though.
Quote from: tekla on October 05, 2008, 09:11:22 PM
Just like farming and other agricultural stuff will find itself in all the places were people are not.
That's a pretty funny statement on the face of it, but I think I see what you mean.
Quote from: tekla on October 05, 2008, 09:11:22 PM
Such activity can not be seen to be decentralized in any sense when they are all taking place in pretty much the same time and place.
Whoa, whoa! You just finished saying that agriculture takes place in a different location than industry. For that matter, industry and manufacturing isn't some homogeneous mass concentrated in one location - many products have diffuse, globe-spanning chains of production. Think about how coffee gets into the pot.
Did you read the link I posted? ;D
Posted on: October 05, 2008, 10:42:55 pm
Quote from: Nichole on October 05, 2008, 08:56:36 PM
And the basic flaw with much of this seems to me to be that there is the presumption that when oil, coal, whatever is gone, why! like magic a new "unlimited" supply of something will be found to take care of the crisis. All through the agency of human creativity.
You're thinking in terms of the
status quo continuing under another name. I'm talking about shakeups, paradigm shifts. There's no magic replacement for resources that have been depleted, but there doesn't have to be. For example, we don't build with stone nearly as much as we used to. Instead, more efficient techniques and materials have become available, giving us entirely new forms of architecture. People found, and will continue to find, new ways to build, to live, to cope. Change is the only constant.
Oil and coal are used because - aside from atomic, which has image problems - they are the most efficient methods of producing energy today. Saying that we "should" switch to renewable resources, like solar or wind - that's saying we should ignore a windfall gain in the field of energy. Fossil fuels are just densely packed solar energy, ready and waiting for us. Sure, pollution is bad, but the incentives for clean energy production from oil and coal have been wrecked by subsidies and the corporate shield.
Quote from: Nichole on October 05, 2008, 08:56:36 PM
A hammer-maker may be wonderfully creative, but he's most likely to use his creativity to make a revolutionary hammer: not make a fusion reactor that works efficiently and at low cost.
And when we have no more need of hammers, or their price grows too great, our funds flow to someone better able to satisfy our desires.
Quote from: Nichole on May 22, 1970, 08:56:21 AM
Capitalists create desire
Untrue - human nature creates desire. We all want something. No sooner do we satisfy a desire, than a new one moves up to take its place. It's like a stack, a hierarchy of wants.
If we didn't want anything, we'd have no impetus to act. We'd all just lay on the ground until we died. I want for that not to happen. >:-)
Quote from: Nichole on May 22, 1970, 08:56:21 AM
Not all desire, just the ones that can be sold exorbitantly.
Exorbitantly? If you want to become rich, you don't sell custom yachts to the upper class - you sell a $1 toothbrush to everyone in China. Further, I wasn't aware that it was a bad thing to give people choices and options they didn't have before. I'd never presume to control another's life in such a fashion as to deny them their right to dispense with their wealth as they see fit, provided they respect my rights in return.
Also, don't forget that prices are a signaling mechanism in a market economy. They reflect relative scarcity of goods, and coordinate investment. If someone has a very high profit margin, than that's a signal for investment and expansion, thus driving the price down. If the retail price is high, but the profit margin is slim - that's a signal to find substitutes or improve production processes. And so on, and so forth.
Nephie, you are who you are and believe what you believe. Although I am rather amazed that a capitalist spends time on the web arguing capitalism. Seems like a capitalist would be busy making things to salve human desire. And would probably have never read a few books about capitalism in oder to attempt to make their points.
Experience can be a wonderful teacher.
It is nice to know that when I want to drive a nail I can rely on a stapler to do so.
Nikki
Whuh? I'm sorry, I honestly don't know what you're trying to say here. I've never been good at subtlety, and I'm in a bad place right now.
Also, I never said I was a good capitalist. I'm not some elite objectivist Randroid superhuman - that kind of stuff is just beyond crazy.
If you want to become rich, you don't sell custom yachts to the upper class - you sell a $1 toothbrush to everyone in China.
In fact, selling yachts is a pretty good living. I don't see a lot of ghetto yacht stores 'ya know. Seems like they live in places like Marina Del Rey, and that's not too shabby.
Coffee consumption might be seen as decentralized, but not the production. Same with wine. Sure, people drink wine all over the United States - for example - but most of the production is done in California, and at that, most of it in two counties, Napa and Sonoma. They may well be putting garlic on the Cheesesteak in Philly, or using it for other things elsewhere, but its coming from around Gillroy California. 99% of the garlic in the US comes from that area. The auto industry has a few plants hither, dither and yon, but the fast bulk of auto manufacturing (and to the degree possible, the parts also) from a bunch of concentric rings that expand out from Detroit. So Michigan, Ohio, Indiana (By the way, not by change either, these states were the leaders in auto production when it was being invented, so its nothing new) are more affected then say, Utah, when auto production goes on the skids. Or, when its on the upturn. Sunnyvale is just 137K people, but the amount of computer stuff that goes out of that town has any other town (that's not it's neighbor like Cupertino or Palo Alto) beat in that industry.
From the beginning industry has clustered, seeking not decentralization -- look to Feudalism for the best example of how that is done -- but to concentrate supplies/raw materials/labor, production management/administration, and distribution.
The cities and metroplexs are a direct result of the industrial need for labor. Prior to industrialism (Say 1776 or so) cities were not even close to the populations that would come later, and that population was much more evenly distributed across the entire landscape. So the effect of industrialism was to centralize both population and industry. Stuff that required wood was located near forests, places that needed coal would build up around the coal areas, and people selling yachts live in Marina Del Rey and not Wichita
Wine may be mostly produced in California, but what about the wood for the barrels, the glass for bottles, the sand for glass, the pesticides for the vineyards, the chemicals for the pesticides, the steel for machinery, the coke for the steel, the electricity for power, the fuel for the electricity, the food for the workers, etc. My point is that these things exist in an intricate, world-spanning web where no one agency is responsible for coordinating them, or even capable of enumerating everything that goes into them. It's impossible.
Also, it's not that you CAN'T become rich by catering to the rich, but it's much easier to do so by catering to the poor or middle class. The rich are a niche market.
Might I suggest that an eco-capitalist might want to figure in the cost of transporting all that raw material hither and yon from Nigeria to Kokomo and out to Singapore.
The reasons for the concentrations he listed was when they began they were near the reseources needed to manufacture and transport cost was fairly cheap, certainly in comparison to today. Trains and ships run on deisel and oil.
The costs of extracting that energy, the supplies of it and the transport of it to the manufacturing centers, or spreads, should be considered as well -- Randroid or not. Grapes might be refined into wine in Jamestown Tennessee (in fact there's a least one vinyard there) but the transport to Oregon or Timbuktu is gonna be expensive.
Back to the drawing-board. And all I was suggesting is that maybe a revaluation of cherished ideas might hold one in good stead in this discussion.
Nikki
I re-evaluate my beliefs every day. What I believe now isn't very much like what I believed last year. I one supported patent law, now I oppose it. I once believed in treating copyright infringement as a criminal act, now I think it's a civil matter. I once justified capitalism with natural law, now I'm a utilitarian. I didn't pick up my beliefs verbatim from a single textbook. My shelves are full of literature, and my library card is well worn.
Or one can simply decide, as I am doing now, not to post anything else on the thread. Pretty simple, really.
N~
QuoteUntrue - human nature creates desire.
Desire of many weak minds is manipulated by marketing and peer pressure. ( See pet rocks)
Location of industry , at one time resources was the prime location reason but now it is politics look at Las Vegas.They put a Toyota plant near me because of the fact that they get another senate vote, no unions, cheap labor, tax breaks and lax environmental laws. Just about everything including skilled management has to be shipped in.
I wasn't joking when I said that I don't pick up on subtlety. I've got at least a touch of Asperger's/autism, and economics is one of my "things". If you think I'm being obnoxious or annoying, PM me or something - I'm not here to cause any hurt feelings, and I feel really bad now. I won't post in this thread any more.
Quote from: lisagurl on October 05, 2008, 10:09:39 AM
QuoteTerror-Capitalism
More like Terror-Consumerism!
That says it all
Quote from: Nephie on October 06, 2008, 08:31:33 AM
Whuh? I'm sorry, I honestly don't know what you're trying to say here. I've never been good at subtlety, and I'm in a bad place right now.
Also, I never said I was a good capitalist. I'm not some elite objectivist Randroid superhuman - that kind of stuff is just beyond crazy.
I think we have the basis for coining a new phrase here
Anyone who doesn't agree with me is an
elite objectivist Randroid superhumanThough a simple "randroid" would make a good word on its own.
Allen Greenspan is a randroid. Randroids are what's wrong with the world. Along with everyone else, but myself.
Posted on: October 06, 2008, 01:55:15 pm
Quote from: tekla on October 06, 2008, 08:53:23 AM
If you want to become rich, you don't sell custom yachts to the upper class - you sell a $1 toothbrush to everyone in China.
In fact, selling yachts is a pretty good living. I don't see a lot of ghetto yacht stores 'ya know. Seems like they live in places like Marina Del Rey, and that's not too shabby.
but if you were starting out with like about $10,000, you're more likely to be able to afford to manufacture toothbrushes than yachts. After you become rich from people brushing their teeth, you'll have the bread to toss into yacht manufacturing.
Matter of fact, I'm almost sure that building a factory to manufacture toothbrushes might well cost more than a good wood shop that could build one good boat. One is a production line kind of deal, but custom yachts are pretty much hand made, one at a time. So, where you might make .02 cents per toothbrush, you're going to make one huge lump sum for the yacht.
aside from atomic, which has image problems
More than image, there are very real problems in disposal of nuclear waste, its not to be passed off lightly.
I'm talking about shakeups, paradigm shifts. There's no magic replacement for resources that have been depleted, but there doesn't have to be.
That's almost funny, because other people are talkin' 'bout revolution here. A radical change that will effect almost everyone. That there were 'replacements' in the past does not prove they will be there in the future. As Jerry used to sing "There are things you can replace, and other you can not - time has come to make a change, this space is getting hot.
You know this space is getting hot.
just ask the polar bears.
I was talking with the polar bears just the other day when Sara Palin flew over and shot all of them.
that woman is ghoulish. I wish I were a disgusting pervert so that I could watch Larry Flints true life movie of her.
I'm so sick, I'd do her. But only in the sense that I'd do her like I did that aging rock diva a few years ago - just so I could tell my friends that I did.
That would make an interesting video. Get a plan ticket to wherever Sarah is and bring your camera. I'll call Larry and wrangle a fee for delivery of the product.
I've already worked out my opening line: "Hey honey, baby, hot governor chic, how'd you like to make it with a guy who would let you name your kids Mike, Dan, and Kevin and not Swizzel, Spatula, and Shag."
I think I got a winner there.
I agree.