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[littlefallsmets]

When profit is allowed to be the prime mover, all dignity is lost.

Shareholders are protected by levels of management and an apathetic media from the sins against common human decency from which their larger dividends came.

If you let people do almost anything to make more money, they will. They simply will.

I refuse to trust anyone who would ever call another human being "the help".

Only large powerful organizations like governments and unions can even start to protect us from the robust power of unfettered big business, spreading their moneys out wide to buy off the people who would let them get away literally with murder for a buck.

Wealth creation should not be our only goal, our primary goal or even one of our primary goals as a country or as a species. At best, its a pleasant side effect if it happens anyway.

I know someone else said it first and better but, yes. Yes, humanity should be our fuck*ng business.

If people are exploited, if people are suffering, if people are in need, all of the other theories and speeches and mechanisms for funneling the fruits of labour into the hands of those who are already rich... all of it, it's all just lies and sins and numbers in books.

What are our priorities, for Christ's sakes?

Wherever there's an argument for social darwinism based on material advantages that existed before birth, I hope I can be there to argue against them with strange analogies.

The economic system you're all talking about would work fine if everyone started as a blank slate, instead of 99.999% of us being born in the hole and 0.001% of people born with the advantage of the tools of self-perpetuating wealth creation.

We could fix a whole lot of problems if we put an estate tax of 98% on any inheritance over... say... three hundred thousand dollars.

The playing field is not level from the start and therefore the game is broken.

And therefore I demand a different game. Doesn't mean that my wish will be fulfilled but, goddamn it, just because it won't happen doesn't mean it's not right.

If it's humane, it's right. Doesn't even matter if the math works. We're people not numbers.

We're a species over the course of generations and centuries, we're not just indivduals.

Suffering could be greatly lessened if we were all even slightly less selgiraffe, myself included.

That's all that matters. Everything else is just the failed magic spells of confidence men.

[AlohaDawg]

This is where the issue is. In my view, money doesn't naturally arrive where it is deserved. It seems to me that companies are good at one thing-- maximizing their own profits, and therefore those of their shareholders. This is not bad. This is what they are made to do. This is what they are good at doing. There is no reason that they are obligated to take care of their workers; in fact, there are a lot of disincentives to this. I will look for my copy of Fast Food Nation, where several managers of Fast Food chains were quoted as saying that they were encouraged to keep their turnover of workers high, since training is cheap and easy, while raises and benefits for workers who stay a long time are not. This, too, is just the way the world works. Companies follow their economic incentives. If it is economically advantageous to be "green," or to treat their workers well to attract more skilled labor, they will do it. But not until it reaches the point of being what is Good for them.

OK, granted that in some low-end industries where the skill set is minimal and the consumer expectation for quality is low, that almost certainly happens frequently.

WHERE MARKET FORCES COME IN:

1) Many of the low paid workers have a natural desire to do better for themselves and/or will naturally evolve beyond what they are doing (i.e., graduate from High School) and naturally move on. They 'demand' or 'need' more - more money, more prestige, more responsibility, more job satisfaction. And so they 'seek' and 'consume' those things elsewhere.

2) Companies with higher levels of needed skills and higher levels of consumer quality expectation will invest in and cultivate their workers through training, appropriate compensation and benefits. Otherwise, they will lose their best workers, quality suffers, and they lose commerce.

Markets are at work not only between the businesses and between the consumer and the creator of a good or service, but also between the employers and the workers.

Just as I pointed out earlier that the best hole-digger in the world will probably not make more than an average hole-digger, the best  burger flipper in the world is also not likely to make much more than an average one. The plentiful nature of the resource (i.e. average demand, high supply) drives this. Now look at a highly skilled/trained profession, or one where experience is valuable. Actuaries, say - not a ton of them out there, the really good ones can make incredible money. Because the supply is small, and the skill they bring is valuable to the companies that need them, the need/demand makes the payment rational in the market. The good news for the best burger flipper and the best hole-digger is that perhaps they can move up in their respective businesses. Maybe not far - but the enterprising ones can start their own businesses and engage the market on their own terms.

So tell me, Inev, if the money doesn't actually arrive where it is deserved, where is it deserved? Can you or LFM maybe construct a model where the flow of goods and services in one direction and the flow of wealth in the other makes sense to you? Here's what I think the ground rules would be based on the thread so far:

1) The model eliminates poverty (and not in relative terms!) (this, I think is impossible but it seems to be a goal of at least one of you)

2) The model provides for appropriate central services as needed to support and protect a significant population (i.e. Public Health, Governance, Police, administrative codes and enforcement)

3) The model allows for interstate and international commerce in a global environment with varying levels of economic development, instantaneous communication, and fairly rapid and reliable transportation of goods OR 100% economic isolation.

4) If not economically isolated, the model allows for interdependency, particularly of energy resources.

5) Since this is America we're fixing, Individuals must be allowed to develop/accumulate legally earned wealth. You can tax them, but if they are rational players and you overtax them, what will happen?

 
OK, that's fairly wide open. I'm interested more in what you say than countering it, and let's call this a free swim - let everyone participate. Discussions are welcome, flames are not.

Blue books open, and.....................begin.

[AlohaDawg]

LFM vs AD Round II

When profit is allowed to be the prime mover, all dignity is lost.


I can't disagree more. Profit can be personal as well. A man utilizing his own talents or a commodity he owns to create wealth for himself is arguably far more possessing of his dignity than one forced grudgingly to work as hard as he can only to receive that which he needs. Soviet-style communism afforded little dignity. Immigrants who came to this country, worked hard and prospered held their heads high because they knew that they were given an opportunity to succeed, they seized and they created success. They were proud, sure, but the most important thing was they came here, in many cases, to recover their dignity and they did.


Shareholders are protected by levels of management and an apathetic media from the sins against common human decency from which their larger dividends came.

Are you kidding? Every level of management costs shareholders money. Think they want the money diluted by levels of management? What they are protected by are the laws that require communication and availability of information, and of course, their vote. If you are referencing a specific company, do so - generalizations are not argument. Name the company that stands against common human decency.

If you let people do almost anything to make more money, they will. They simply will.

And that is what is beautiful about this country. People are free to choose how to make money and are protected by laws from unscrupulous business people. If you are actually basing your argument on the simple premise that crime is bad, I'll be agreeing with you but you never say that - I get the idea that you believe that what business does in general is immoral, unethical or illegal. But you never say anything specific about that either.

I refuse to trust anyone who would ever call another human being "the help".

That's just people not comporting dignity to others. I don't like it either. But that statement doesn't amount to argument either. I agree that we should treat everyone with dignity and respect.


Only large powerful organizations like governments and unions can even start to protect us from the robust power of unfettered big business, spreading their moneys out wide to buy off the people who would let them get away literally with murder for a buck.

Examples? Unions have been involved in organized crime, murders and corruption to a level I think you won't find in any company.   This is well documented.

Wealth creation should not be our only goal, our primary goal or even one of our primary goals as a country or as a species. At best, its a pleasant side effect if it happens anyway.

Wealth creation benefits everyone. You can't create wealth without employing people. If by this statement you are implying that there should be a responsibility on the part of business or government to compensate employees for work, protect them from injury, provide benefits that allow them to provide basic necessities for their families, then, yes, to some degree I agree with you. But WITHOUT WEALTH DEVELOPMENT none of these things are possible, either on the business' side or the government (because no wealth = no taxes).

What should be the goal? And once you state it, how do you accomplish it without capital to spend?

Dreams are free, but making them come true costs.

I know someone else said it first and better but, yes. Yes, humanity should be our fuck*ng business.

If people are exploited, if people are suffering, if people are in need, all of the other theories and speeches and mechanisms for funneling the fruits of labour into the hands of those who are already rich... all of it, it's all just lies and sins and numbers in books.

What are our priorities, for Christ's sakes?

Wherever there's an argument for social darwinism based on material advantages that existed before birth, I hope I can be there to argue against them with strange analogies.

And strange they are.  Lots of broad generalizations there.

The economic system you're all talking about would work fine if everyone started as a blank slate, instead of 99.999% of us being born in the hole and 0.001% of people born with the advantage of the tools of self-perpetuating wealth creation.

But you've proposed nothing. And the economic system I'm talking about has worked for a few hundred years, while others have come and gone, leaving literally millions dead.

We could fix a whole lot of problems if we put an estate tax of 98% on any inheritance over... say... three hundred thousand dollars.

So everything your dad worked for, that he built for his family, for you, say, would automatically be handed over to the government? What does the government do with the money?

The playing field is not level from the start and therefore the game is broken.

Elaborate.


And therefore I demand a different game. Doesn't mean that my wish will be fulfilled but, goddamn it, just because it won't happen doesn't mean it's not right.

It does amount to a large waste of time if even you don't believe it will happen.

If it's humane, it's right. Doesn't even matter if the math works. We're people not numbers.

Where is the inhumanity occuring?

We're a species over the course of generations and centuries, we're not just indivduals.

If someone 3 generations ago in my family developed wealth that I can now enjoy, why can't I then? How do you justify your assertion that the government should be allowed to seize that wealth? I agree that we move more as families than individuals, but I disagree that arbitrary redistribution is the answer. In fact, this is why communist revolutions are so bloody. In every case, the wealthy and the intellectuals had to be killed first, to eliminate argument.

Suffering could be greatly lessened if we were all even slightly less selgiraffe, myself included.

Well, OK. But again, a little meat on that bone would be helpful.

That's all that matters. Everything else is just the failed magic spells of confidence men.

Except that they aren't confidence men and no magic is at work - just the natural behavior of industrious people with needs who can meet their and their families needs through application. And for those who can't, I agree that a reasonable social safety net with provisions to build the capacity of those who need it is a good idea.

[littlefallsmets]

My father worked his ass off all his life and if he died today, he would only leave me whatever's left of the mortgage back home. An uncaring corporation gave him a heart condition from chemical exposure that they continute to deny and he had to retire in his early fifties.

He had to work from his teens just to get by and that's why he doesn't have a college education, why he had to toil in a goddamned gun factory just to keep his head above water and "improve" himself, even though on an intellect scale kinda dealy, he's a full-on genius. 180s-type IQ.

The system was fixed against him from the start, he had to drop out of part-time college just to make enough money to feed his children and thirty years later, they left him weak as a kitten and he'll probably die in his sixties because of those bastards or bastards just like him.

This is what I'm talking about: if people don't have the money to get education, to get opportunity to learn and to grow, the time and space to explore their ideas, there is no movement, there is no opportunity.

There are at least fifteen million dollars in patents toward constructing Remington rifles cheaper and better that belong to the company because he was in a shitty-as-hell work-for-hire situation, because he didn't have any choice, because my brother and I had to eat.

If you do not have the resources up front to diddle around and collect degrees and have time to think, all the hard work and good ideas are fuck*ng doodley-squat. A sparrow's fart in a hailstorm. Dupont or possibly whoever owns Remington now owns all that hard work because if he didn't sign over those ideas, he was fired and the house was repossessed.

Over a barrel, by the nuts, etc.

The "choices" that all of this academic twaddle about the free market are predicated on... do not exist for most people, for most Americans, and the number for which those choices exist shrink away by the hour.

By the fuck*ng mortgage foreclosure in Riverside County. By the job moved to Bangalore. One by one. Scam allowed by scam allowed.

The vastest majorities of us are just getting by and have no goddamned safety nets.

In my personal household, my brother and I have degrees from Fancy Private Colleges and my girlfriend has a masters in teaching and we all almost went bankrupt because of a back injury that I had, that mimicked a heart problem, and the health insurance that I did not have because I did not and could not afford it.

And I have fancy words, for Christ's sake, I have a Big People Degree and shit, this tool that was supposedly supposed to work magic in the field of competition and it doesn't mean a thing.

This thing that both of my parents spent ten years paying down, that I'm still paying a portion of down, nothing.

Without safety nets, all of this means absolutely nothing.

The vast majority of Americans are had by the fuck*ng balls and... no, there is not opportunity, there is not upward mobility. All the hard work in the world means nothing if a little dumb luck comes along.

We are all running scared and only able to take what we are offered, out of fear and desperation.

There is no innovation there. There is no trickle-up trickle-down hossshit. Just people running scared for anything at all.

Buying more cheap goods from China just to get by which kills more American jobs in the process, which makes more of us scramble to fuck*ng dollar stores to eat, which kills even more American jobs.

It is a goddamned snowball, friend. It is a goddamned downward spiral.

This was still a big country when those immigrants came over here and there were still basic communication and transport limitations that forced people to hire people locally and buy locally... and improve conditions if the workers fought for a fair wage, fought for rights like health care and so on.

Now, there is Bangladesh. Now there is Nanking. Now there is anywhere else and the people who had the means to start off on top from birth can gut this entire society to get just a little bit more, at the detriment to most.

If the free market, if innovation, if hard work and good thinking are the actual rule... why SHOULD you benefit from the built up largesse of your ancestors? How COULD that be right?

It is a built-in advantage. It is a place of comfort that you can start from, take risks from, grow from. Most people do not have this.

I am by no means a communist. Small business CAN work the ways that you people are saying. Farms and local stores and so on can work like that, when they are beholden to the community's trust and owned by people who live quite near to their business.

Where there is actual accountability.

When a business is owned by someone an ocean away or half a country away or by someone in a gated community that their customers and employees are not even allowed to enter, it breaks down. It breaks down fuck*ng fast.

When we can deny the humanity of the people we're making money off of, go deaf dumb and blind to it, all rules are off.

Wal-Mart is owned by people in castles in Arkansas, the products are all made by starvation labour in Macao or whatever... and the distance allows the business to do all of that, to pay people minimum wage so that they can only afford Wal-Mart bulk prices... all without ramification. They don't have to see it so they don't have to worry about it.

Capitalism breaks down when monopolies form, okay? Capitalism breaks down when the forces of competition are no longer real. There ARE no forces of competition against a Wal-Mart, there is too much buying power consolidated. Too centralized.

The snowball is entirely out of control, in that example.

When there are too many advantages up front, there is no real competition at all.

Only dukes and serfs.

The first steps, I'd imagine, would be massive trust-busting, on scales that we probably can't even fathom... along with large changes to tax code so that they no longer favour the already wealthy, they no longer let the ball roll out of control... along with massive changes in tarrifs that shut down the transnationals' abilities to skirt our laws by hiring out of nations.

Break those fuckers down.

Pour those billions and possibly trillions of dollars, firstly into a national health care system on par with the rest of the civilized world, at least, hopefully better. Be a fuck*ng shining beacon of hope.

Pour those billions and possibly trillions of dollars back into the public educational system so that we CAN actually have children armed for the future again... not minimally educated just enough to be able to run a fuck*ng cash register, an interestingly convenient byproduct of tax cuts for the rich...

It's almost like there's a dual goal there, you know. Like maybe only allowing us the education necessary to be fuck*ng useful peasants is kind of the fuck*ng plan. You know, maybe, just maybe.

Pour those billions and trillions of dollars into high speed rail and alternative power, to free us from the yoke of other nations. Make our jobs through giant Works projects again.

This was what got us out of the Depression, y'know.

fuck*ng manning up and standing up to the corporations and the fatcats, taking a chunk of the obscene wealth created by desperate times back and making this place a better place.

We've done it before, I pray to whatever fuck*ng God there is that we could do it again, maybe.

Small-scale capitalism is fine and beautiful when it is about inspiring small personal meritocracy.

Once money is consolidated enough to become a self-perpetuating wealth system, once money is centralized enough to rig the system, the value of that notion breaks down.

Mixed-model economics is the name of the game.

If you have enough money to start with to change the rules of the game from the beginning, of course you fuck*ng win. Duh.

But confusing that with the idea of a "Free Market" is lunacy.

Unions and government oversight and massive taxations of the more obscene concentrations of wealth need to exist to prevent the "free market" from getting so big that it gets to make up the rules, from reaching that critical mass when it is an alive thing unto itself.

Much of Europe has a handle on this shit, you know, so does Canada to an extent and so does parts of Far East Asia to extents.

It is not impossible.

We just have to think long-view enough and compassionately enough to get beyond our own personal survival-trip greed thinking.

Of course, since the military-energy complex and the media and the federal government are all owned by the same oligarchs at this point...

I have no fuck*ng clue on how to effect such a plan, of course.

My short answer would be: "Basically what FDR was trying to do, again, except this time with feeling."

[AlohaDawg]

You're bitter and your family history has you angry.

I don't have much money.

I'm currently in a situation where my wife and kids are getting ready to move back to Ohio while I stay here, to work until I find a well-paying job on the mainland.

My parents didn't have a lot of money. My dad was in business for himself; he worked probably 80 hours a week as an entrepreneur.

I could easily stand here and yell something incoherent about how it's a rigged game and etc.

But it isn't. No one is forcing anyone to work anywhere. Your father made choices, my father made choices, now I'm making choices and so are you.

Getting a mortgage without mortgage insurance (about 1-2 dollars a month) is a bad choice. That will leave your heirs with a nasty debt.

Running a company where employees are sickened by the work they do and not giving them the protection and assistance they need is immoral, unethical and addressed frequently by the courts. I hope your father exhausted all options to hold them accountable if they are.

I went to graduate school while working full time with a newborn baby in order to better myself, enhance my career. Then I made a choice to step away from that career when I was "offered" something I didn't want with the alternative being to find another job. I don't feel like I wasted my time - I do wish I was still using my degree, though.

I found another job. I don't like it but I stay at it because it meets the needs of my family at the present and because it's the best current alternative. I continue to look for and apply for other jobs that are better. I am not content to stay where I am, and no one should be if they feel that they can do better.

I don't deny that bad things happen to people. What I refuse to acknowledge, ever, is that, here in the US, anyone is restricted to one course of action in their life. What I do acknowledge is that there are those for whom the uncertainty of taking such a chance scares them too shitless to make a move - but blaming the 'system' or 'heartless corporations' or 'market economics' for most people's personal circumstances removes far too much personal responsibility and really belies something that is proven over and over again - that America's economic engine and general attitude make it possible for anyone to be successful.

My dad immigrated here when he was 19. He had very little but his mind and abilities. He worked menial jobs, studied, endured several kinds of -isms, and made a fair success for himself and if not an idyllic life for us, we were not poor and really didn't want for anything we truly needed.

I doubt he could have succeeded anywhere else the way he did, including the country from which he came. One thing I love about America is that we have so much freedom, so much choice and so many opportunities. I perceive neither an unfair playing field nor a rigged game - just people unwilling to do what it takes to play and, for a few, win.

[KeithHernandez]

I just got back from dinner and drinking with my family while you all argued on the internet.

I don't want either of you running my country.

[AlohaDawg]

the glass is half full

Well, to be sure, my cup runneth over not.

However, Happy Thanksgiving to my very most favorite varmint shootin' gun totin' So Cal livin' Dad, Husband, and messageboard troublemaker.

[KeithHernandez]

I just got back from dinner and drinking with my family while you all argued on the internet.

I don't want either of you running my country.

Sorry about that, after a nap, I see I was pretty drunk and was just trying to make the yelling stop.  I just meant be happy.  I kind of agree with LFM, but in a glass half full kind of way, if that is possible.  But also, spend time with your family and friends, or do some relaxing or... something besides this, on this (well, yesterday) the greatest holiday of all.    Maybe then, the glass would be fuller LFM.

(here is a shirt my redneckish texas alcoholic friend had, it is funny (funnier if you knew him):
Some say the glass is half full
some say the glass is half empty
I just wonder whose drinking my beer.)

[littlefallsmets]

Hey, for what its worth, I had an awesome Thanksgiving too.

My mom was out here (just dropped her off at the airport) and she made a huge feast for my brother and myself and our girlfriends and a few of our friends. We then played Rock Band at a friend's apartment for, like, three hours straight.

Imaginary Drums is a goddamned difficult thing.

Imaginary Bass, however, is kinda doable.

These postings about the damned human race and its ultimate fate are only a small part of my life. There is a lot of listening to good music and hanging out with my people in there too.

And anyway, half-empty, half-full, as long as we agree that the glass has been poisoned by the upper class, that's all that matterinos, right?

(...mostly kidding, mostly kidding...)

[KeithHernandez]

And anyway, half-empty, half-full, as long as we agree that the glass has been poisoned by the upper class, that's all that matterinos, right?

(...mostly kidding, mostly kidding...)

See, now that is a happy holiday post.  Glad you had a good day too.

[theinevitable]

this is a thing where... I agree with LFM on some of this stuff, and I agree with what 'dawg is saying on some of this, but I do not really feel like going through everyone's posts quoting things.

the version of the glass-half-full thing I've always heard is:

"the glass is half full"
"the glass is half empty"
"gimme that... *gulp gulp* now it's completely empty! stop yapping and drink up!"

[Doc]

I would totally vote for Inev to run the world.
Just saying.

[theinevitable]

awesome, I knew it!

also: where did your little hat go.

[Doc]

I reverted back, the crappy MS-paintness of it's insertion was beginning to bother me. Plus I don't wear that hat very often now.