Capitalism at its worst

Raw materials are essential freight. Champagne isn't.

 

The left does engage in the things that the right recognizes as the plots and scams designed to destroy Trump- and that recognition is what the left calls paranoia.
One hell of a gaslight project they have going, but it's not selling.

And yes- it is the everyday people that are going to make the difference, that have to carry the bulk of the load. Doing a pretty good job of it too.

 

It will be even "funner" during the fall campaign while they are trying to sell "Corn Pop" Biden as the 2nd coming of Obama.

​

 

Not sure of your point here. Especially I don't see the relevance of the (nice) cartoon. But please point out where I 'excuse' conspiracy theory paranoia when the Left do it.

The Left have a kind of meta-conspiracy theory, not as crazy as the ones which circulate on the Right, because it's more grounded in reality. The populist Right tend to see one giant cabal ruling the whole earth. The Left -- the old Left I mean, the Marxists --the current crop of crazies I can't speak about -- saw each country as run by its own ruling class, but understood that these classes compete with each other, thus wars. But there is overlap -- especially when it comes to hostility to science and modernity ... on one rightwing website I'm involved in, there are people who fear 5G, others who are against vaccination, etc. They would probably get along pretty well with the treehugging Left who oppose nuclear power plants and GMO.



But they can still be ridiculous -- after Labour lost the election in the UK -- with many traditionally Labour constituencies going Tory -- there were all kinds
of silly analyses floating around about the disaster ... few of which were willing to look reality in the face and admit that British workers just didn't like this guy the Labour Party put up, who so obviously hated his own country.

And ... I wish wish wish they would nominate Biden, but ... get ready for this: he goes on and gets all the primaries and has majority of delegates at the convention ... and then -- tears all around -- he withdraws in favor of ....... Hillary! "God between us and evil", as Stephen Maturin would say.

 

Hope sells tickets. Get a new coach, rebrand, and put more fannies in the seats.

 

They're going to sell him as "hope" if a lot Americans die. Apparently, you aren't overly concerned about what's happening now.

 

That's odd, it's perfectly clear.

I did that in the post you are responding to.

Blithering self-serving road apples.

I heard folks on the Left claiming that the Stimulus bill would provide money to employers who may then just lay off their workers and pocket the money, while they added $600/week to unemployment benefits, changed the rule so it would cover VOLUNTARY resignations. In CA a worker making $15/hr working can now make over 25 an hour on unemployment while staying home, ensuring a wave of resignations. Later, I'm sure we will be treated to repeating waves of Fake News Stories pointing to the waves of unemployed as "proof" of the evils of not having the National Socialists commandeer the means of production.

SCAMMED: Kennedy Center Receives $25 Million in Coronavirus Package, Still Tells Musicians It Will Stop Paying Them​

The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts infamously received a controversial $25 million from Democrats in the coronavirus relief package — and just hours later they told their performers that they will not be getting paychecks.

Nearly 100 National Symphony Orchestra musicians will receive their last paychecks on April 3. The taxpayers gave them enough to give each of them $250,000 but instead they handed them pink slips.

Shockingly, the email went out hours after President Trump signed the $2 trillion CARES Act, which was meant to support businesses continuing to pay their employees. The bill specifically says the money was meant to “cover operating expenses required to ensure the continuity of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and its affiliates, including for employee compensation and benefits, grants, contracts, payments for rent or utilities, fees for artists or performers.”

“Everyone should proceed as if their last paycheck will be April 3,” the email says. “We understand this will come as a shock to all of you, as it did to us.”​

They will also lose their health benefits, in New York, one of the worst hit cities in this pandemic in the WORLD.

And weirdly not a peep about this from you or others who preen and moralize about the short-comings of those who cherish Freedom and Liberty.

 

Both are bad, for different reasons. After a fight with inflation in the 1970s, we decided to keep it around 2%.

We don't see deflation because we know how devastating it can be and avoid it at all costs.

Much of the inflation happened in the 1970s, but 2% compounded adds up. It would be nice to have no inflation, but going for 0% would cause lots of problems.

 

You are a bit of Crank, aren't you. In a good way of course. I'm liking to share some thoughts with you on all three of your paragraphs here.

1)

I think you're wayyyyy oversimplifying this.
I've held a number of jobs and pretty much every single one involved social relationships.
You seem to be narrowly defining modern employment to something akin to scenes out of Cinderella Man.

Here in the US for example, among other reasons that we do not have the same type of health care that has been universally adopted by all other Western Democracies is because it helps to maintain our version of modern employment and part of that here in the US is that it is prohibitively expensive to afford decent health insurance unless you or your spouse works for a corporation.

Lord only knows how small businesses and the self-employed are able to manage health insurance costs. Workers here in the US with such coverage will put up with quite a bit of grief from a corporation to retain such coverage.

It was even worse when the provision for so called pre-existing conditions meant that you couldn't even think about switching a job to a new company with a new health plan if anyone in your family had, say, as the maybe the best example, cancer.

So there's that rather significant over-simplification, imo, of course....

Speaking of cancer, another great example of the over-simplification of your statement would be a medical doctor employed by say, MD Anderson for example. There is far more at play in this employment scenario than the doctor exchanging his or her "labor" for cash from MDA. MDA, for those not familiar with it, is a pretty well known University of Texas Cancer Research center.

Military service is another example - and make no mistake, from my own personal experience I can absolutely assure you that here in the US the choice to serve is greatly influenced by the economics of our job market.

I win - you have to concede!!!! Hahaha, Kidding, mostly, kinda, whatever....

2)

Good god you remind me of-one-of my best friends with this twist.

Doug crafted some very dry and not so obvious stuff in this thread.

I'm still waiting to see if he was serious about Boris for example.

Doug's main complaint in the OP and subsequent posts is that these employees were fired and tossed out into the street during a world-wide pandemic.

The links provided imply that the reason is primarily do to a downturn in business due to CV19.

The real reasons, such perhaps as that they may have been let go because they contributed to the shoddy reputation of the company are unknowable.

Even if the company were to release a statement it means nothing since corporate PR is notorious for stretching, bending and blatantly lying about just about anything ever to be seen in a press release.

Assuming I understand the Keirkegaardian leap you are making here: let me just say that I do not.

Do you honestly propose that,
anyone having empathy to the hardships faced by the loss of employment,
contribute by having such empathy to championing a dog-eat-dog society?

Presumably, I suppose, rather than holding these folks "accountable" for not having had the means to have a arranged a plan B?

3)

Collective living and self-reliance? Color me a bit thick then mate, I suppose it must be counter-intuitive, but these seem to generally be mutually exclusive. Unless of course you propose a collective group of largely self-sufficient friends, family and neighbors that have one another covered when times get tough. I forget where I first read about the importance of this, but if that's what you mean then I do agree.

 

I've been doing a world class job of following this debate for some time now.

That's not only silly, that has nothing to do with the Conservative movement in this Great Nation that is dedicated to Freedom and Liberty.

Welch was a nut and an autocrat that claimed that both Eisenhower and Kissinger were secret Communist Agents. He had decreed that the John Birch Society would be autocratic in its governance. Any other organizational method, he insisted, would leave the society open to “infiltration, distortion and disruption.” He proclaimed the very word democracy a “deceptive phrase, a weapon of demagoguery, and a perennial fraud.” The JBS would consist of clusters of chapters, each with about 20 carefully screened members. He set a goal of building a million-member force...
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I can't get that page to load. I have no such fear. Our National Guard is made up of some of the finest our society has produced, I not only do not fear them, I would drop what I was doing and assist them if they asked.

Thank you for correcting me on my error of assuming you were a Lefty.

 

I see nothing "Liberal" about today's Left.

Unsurprising as these folks are deeply committed to Freedom, Liberty and Self-reliance.

Thank you for your service.

This is a great book. In the opinion of this Libertarian Law Professor, we have only begun to plumb the depths of the 14th amendment.



If you love Freedom and Liberty, you are going to love the case law developed by the Trump class of Judges now filling our federal judiciary.

 

Huh? The government has intervened in the relationship, mostly on the side of workers.

I largely agree, so I didn't comment. My teaching career was spent getting students to think about their future. Many students have been so browbeaten by parents and teachers, while oddly enough being indulged at the same time, they think someone else will decide their future for them. You can't believe how many students draw a complete blank if you ask them to put themselves five years in the future.

So, what would you say to the students? Lemme guess. You'd tell them the decision will in the end be entirely theirs, so they may as well get started thinking about it. Maybe you get some students who have a direction talk about what they decided. You'd try to get students generally to connect getting an education with finding a good job. Maybe you'd talk about what different jobs pay, and get them to look at how much money they will need to live on their own. Am I right? So, how come teachers and schools are not connecting the dots for students?

 

1) The world will spit you out in a crises. Only your 'pack' will protect you. Abandon your pack, fail to plan ahead, and expect businesses/govt to save you? Your choice of course, but the result when the SHTF must be more to your liking than to mine.

2) Why were they in the street, after losing their jobs? Why didn't they go immediately to their families for shelter and the means of survival? Family overseas? Why didn't they stay in their home nations and make the best of it? We take these huge risks because we think nothing will ever change.

3) Yes, collective living with extended family and/or friends. Small groups. If you're not independently wealthy, good luck surviving without such backup. It's difficult even in good times.

 

Ever thus on both ends of the political spectrum. I think Bernie Sanders falls into the "pain in the backside" category on the left. Trump is a problem on the right. I'm not surprised these two characters are center stage at the same time, one begetting the other.

It will be interesting to see how people behave after we live through COVID-19. Especially after we hand out trillions of dollars to stave off a depression.

Some of these same characters are talking about their right to do as they please and defy they physical separation were doing to beat COVID-19. I have no doubt the government will use whatever force is required to deal with scofflaws.

It's too bad when people go off in screwy directions. Sometimes the points they can legitimately put forward are lost in the craziness.

Not as many as we might like, I'm afraid.

 

I was honestly hoping for a bit more from you on this. Item one wasn't about survival when the SHTF. Re-read your post and my response and you'll see that this was a challenge about your assertion that employment was a simple matter of trade between an employer and employee.

Number 2 wasn't specifically about these three fellows being tossed out in the street either, was it? FFS...

Number Three, YAY! Synchronicity!

 

You really should do a Podcast I think, I'm guessing you have some amazing stories. I'm confused though on a minor thing or two, again, because I'm a bit like Columbo I suppose - or his newest version, Monk, not nearly as sharp as either of course. What is it that gave me the impression you were a Brit? Are you an expat living in Britlandia? And if it's not to presumptuous, how do you know what real war is actually like?

 

Incomes rising with inflation isn't a very positive thing for investors and savers and retirees. The money loses value constantly. The things that are cheaper now result from sending our manufacturing and related jobs abroad. That has resulted in stagnant wages in the face of the declining value of the currency. There two sides to every coin.

 

I am an exPat living in Britain, which probably comes up occasionally, and I only 'know' what real war is like from reading, and talking to some people who were on the range where the targets shoot back, plus going through Basic Combat Training and then Infantry School at Tigerland fifty years ago. I'm not here because of anything to do with Vietnam, however. Even the classic war novels don't dwell too much on what people who've been in combat and have become, or have seen their mates become, casualties, will tell you because it's ... unpleasant. Graphic. As you may know. And we mustn't expose our young men to it, as then they might not be so keen to enlist. Can't have that!

 

Layers upon layers of madness - I suppose I may have to retract my previous assertion that our views are as closely aligned as it seemed they were. And then again maybe not. Old men are well within their right to ramble on a bit - including in and around a subject, here and there. Pay not too much attention to my current post here - it's 04:30 in the morning and my insomnia may have me at a distinct disadvantage - all but certainly perhaps for even asking my questions of you....

 

Well, some of the people in the militia movement are committed to Freedom and Liberty, especially for themselves. But with others, this commitment is not without alloy. The shoe is pretty much on the other foot now, with respect to who's the target of various freedom-suppressing measures. Run the film back about 70 years and it's a very different story. Loyalty oaths. People being imprisoned for their political views, not their acts. And being savagely assaulted in prison. Not too many conservatives then, complaining about it. Never mind, life's a great teacher.

Thanking me for my service is misplaced, but I'll pass it on to the people who deserve it. I was conscripted during the Vietnam War, when I was hard Leftist who wanted the other side to win. So I didn't go to Vietnam. About half of my service was in military prison. And I have nothing against all the prominent conservatives who were young men then and managed to avoid going into the military, choosing bone spurs or graduate school instead. It was obviously not a war we were going to win even if it had been winnable with a different strategy, say, the approach of Edward Lansdale [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Lansdale ] -- which I'm not sure was actually do-able by the military we had, even if it would have worked in theory -- the US is not a revolutionary power any more, despite still being a 'Dangerous Nation' by example.

There was lip-service paid to "winning the hearts and minds" of the Vietnamese peasantry, and the Special Forces probably went as far as could be gone in this direction, but for the bulk of the military -- the guys on the ground -- the response was "Hearts and minds? Har har har... get 'em by the balls and the hearts and minds will follow." That worked so well in Vietnam, we decided to try it again in Iraq and Afghanistan, where the conditions were even less favorable for it.

Experience keeps a dear school ....

I'll read that book. He looks like a very interesting writer, and I'm very weak on the legal side of things. I'm afraid that quite a few militia people have become semi-anarchists in their attitude towards the actually-existing state. We could all use some book study. Although I have to say I am suspicious of all approaches to society that start from abstract principles. I think old Burke had it right, pretty much.

 

It is possibly not all that difficult: love one another, eh? India and China seem to have learned it - unlikely they've gotten over a billion population without having both learned and practised it, isn't it, eh?

 

Wrong. He just doesn't care. A true capitalist sees workers as a replaceable commodity. That's capitalism

 

Lack of leadership is exactly what happens when Capitalism runs out control and transforms into Imperialism.
Oligopolies and large corporations put their puppets into power leaving no chance for any decent person to be a president.

 

Have you read Tim Marshall's Prisoners of Geography? His thesis there, among others, is that the reason these two great peoples have never really gone to war is: the Himalayas. This seems reasonable to me.

You've missed the irony here. And I believe you are mistaken. You are partly right, when it comes to unskilled workers, and when the supply of such exceeds demand. But when that is not true, the wise capitalist treats his workers as something he wants to hold onto, and attract away from his capitalist rivals. That's why it's important to limit the supply of unskilled workers, by turning them into skilled workers ... and to control our borders.
But we have an empirical test of whether workers are better off under capitalism or under socialism, where there are no capitalists, just Central Planners: where would you rather have been a worker: the old Soviet Union or its satellites, on the one hand; or in Western Europe, or the USA, on the other? North Korea, or South Korea? Were the workers better off under Mao, or under his capitalist-road successors? Under Vietnamese socialism -- which didn't last very long -- or in modern-day Vietnam, which has followed China down the capitalist road? Are the boats going towards Cuba, or away from it?

The advocates of socialism today tend to be middle class academics, or people in the cultural apparatus, who do the sort of job that would still be done if the government ran everything. They're articulate and can fight for their interests in a state-owns-everything system. The teachers unions are the perfect example of this.

So they envision themselves as not being worse off under socialism than under capitalism. They're wrong, but in immediate terms, they're no so very wrong. It's the ordinary working class person -- the deplorable -- who really suffers under the stifling system of the-state-runs-everything.

 

You make it sound as if it's a black and white issue. It's not.
There are no "pure capitalist" models. They would be self immolating.

You admit that a "wise capitalist" only cares about his "highly skilled" workers. As disturbing as that is ...it's not accurate.

A true capitalist cares ONLY about profit. All workers are commodities to him.