Can we have a civil, thoughtful discussion on this?

Discussion in 'Economics & Trade' started by Kode, Jan 11, 2017.

  1. AlNewman

    AlNewman Well-Known Member

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    I asked if you could translate your prior post into cohesive thoughts but I see by your reply that is impossible. But at least you could try and stay on subject, my tag line is not the subject.
     
  2. AlNewman

    AlNewman Well-Known Member

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    And the eye has been proven many times over to be very deceptive.

    Much like the Fed, Fort Knox doesn't seem to qualify for audit. It has always been expected, at least by myself that Fort Knox was only gold plated something. I guess now that something has proven to be tungsten. Would that be the real reason that the incandescent light bulbs where repalced, shortage of tungsten?

    But really, up until August of 1971 these interantional bankers where able to collect the US fiat script with their fiat script and exchange it for real gold at $35 an ounce. American gold is now everywhere but in America.
     
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  3. AlNewman

    AlNewman Well-Known Member

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    It that makes you feel good, good for you. But back in the real world your understanding of the meaning of troll is as cognate as your understanding of "money".

    But please keep posting quotes from fruit cakes and I will keep digging out the fruit for all to see whether you respond or not. Actually just go ahead and turn on block and you won't even be bothered with those pesty little reminders that your post has been exposed for the bull it is.
     
  4. a better world

    a better world Well-Known Member

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    I like exploring the basis of people's world views. My own view is that maximisation of human potential, and elimination of poverty and war rerquires reform of the IMF and UNSC. (btw I was intrigued to come across the concept of 'voluntary co-operation' in Anarchism).

    Notice how Ndividual (and probably AINewman) is satisfied that "survival is instinctive behaviour" and that therefore government is unnecessary, a view worth repudiating, while exposing to what extent this view is based on pure self-interest - ie, maintaining one's own comfort level in a world of perceived resource scarcity - that only perpetuates terrible global imbalances.

    Arguments over the nature and causes of inflation, etc, that fail to take account of the unitary and interrelated nature of the global system will fail to reveal the most advantageous courses of action.

    BTW, I ofcourse see that MMT is a useful addition to classical economic theory (with all its competing schools); and understanding why AINewman vehemently dismisses it (socialist nonsense etc) is also useful.
     
  5. a better world

    a better world Well-Known Member

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    .

    But your tag line explains your world view, and hence your views on economics, very much the topic of this thread (see my previous post to Econ4Every1).
     
    Last edited: Mar 20, 2017
  6. Ndividual

    Ndividual Well-Known Member

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    Agreed, as long as we recognize the fact that simply being a member of a species or citizen of a sovereign nation/State or even a small community does NOT make an individual a member of a collective.

    'Unjust'?

    When you throw out the term 'collective', I sense that you seem to equate it to encompass members of a species while I, on the other hand equate it to be more equivalent to a community or small group of people 'working' closely together as a result of their own choice.

    Does that mean you agree?
    "The term 'collective security' to me implies protection of all individuals or groups of individuals from threats or harm by other individuals or groups of individuals."

    No, I accept reality and deal with it accordingly.
    The 'greatest good' for the "greatest number" is probably the best way to explain the eventual collapse of a so called democratic form of government.

    Agreed, as long as you recognize and accept the fact that government(s) role is not to provide but only protect ones right to pursue our rights.

    "Equality of opportunity" is not something that exists naturally, nor can it be made to exist by government. Opportunities arise, and become available when and where they arise. I find it somewhat perplexing that illegal immigrants can travel great distances, and bear much hardship to enter the U.S.A. and find work, yet many American citizens cannot/will not.
     
  7. a better world

    a better world Well-Known Member

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    .

    Well we diverge here. Of course you are a member of the human race, a species with the potential to eliminate war and poverty among its own kind, unlike other predatory animals.

    Eg, disinclination to contribute to quality universal education (which would go a long way to massively reducing the health bill, since much illness is caused by poor ie uninformed lifestyle choices), given that education is a vital resource which ought be provided by the community to the individual, not 'won' by the individual (on account of having rich parents, or whatever).

    Yes, unjust.

    Hence the Anarchist concept 'voluntary co-operation'. Hmm.

    Security for all, against criminality by criminals. Yes.

    Did you explain how you deal with privilege and greed? Just accept it?

    .

    See my comment about provision of quality universal education, a prerequisite for "protection of ones right to pursue our rights" that can only be guanteed by the community. {Private education only prolongs stratification of community values]

    Of course it can. It's a widely admired concept (we are not talking about equality of outcome), and therefore citizens can agree to implement it to some degree or other, depending on the strength of the particular world view of the populace (and their vision of need versus greed, self-interest, etc)

    The circumstances and abilities of those illegal immigrants, like the circumstances of "many Americans", vary widely.

    Above poverty level jobs are not easy to come by - that's why I promote guaranteed access to participation in the economy, and insist on a system that meets that minimum - 'just' - requirement.

    BTW, the whole immigration/refugee situation results from a failure of the UNSC and the IMF to prevent the manifestation of 'failed states'.

    Trump is taking exactly the wrong course in defunding the UN, and failing to examine the role of the IMF in international and national finance.
     
  8. Ddyad

    Ddyad Well-Known Member

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    All anarchists should study the experience of the Kronstadt sailors during the Russian revolution.
     
  9. Econ4Every1

    Econ4Every1 Well-Known Member

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    But you do recognize collectives exist and they will impose their collective ideology upon you.

    What if one of those choices is to create compulsory rules? Why should the cohesion of the collective be broken by the individual? As far as I'm concerned, an individual who grows up in a collective should have but one choice, the choice to leave the collective. Of course, that means that the individual must leave the areas controlled by that collective. As long as you have that choice you have ALL of the freedoms you claim for yourself. Somalia is a place without a central government, you are free to go there and live out your individualist lifestyle, no?

    Why can't you deal with the collectives choice to impose rules on everyone? I mean as long as you have the choice to leave the collective, I'm just not seeing the problem. The collective was there before you, why should it have to adjust to your desires?

    The government's role is whatever is defined by the collective. By definition a government is formed by a collective that agrees to a set of rules. Your ideal collective would enforce fewer rules.

    That's just an appeal to naturalism fallacy....Vaccines don't exist naturally, that doesn't mean that creating them is bad. Things that don't exist naturally can provide us with better outcomes.

    The problem isn't the government, but the greed of individuals driven to hire people who will work for less because they benefit individually.
     
    Last edited: Mar 21, 2017
  10. bringiton

    bringiton Well-Known Member

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    Please explain, in your own words, when and how the bulk of our money is created, by whom, and when and how it is destroyed. Thank you.
     
  11. AlNewman

    AlNewman Well-Known Member

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    Define "money"!!!
     
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  12. Econ4Every1

    Econ4Every1 Well-Known Member

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    The US dollar, the unit of account that the Treasury credits people and organizations when spending.
     
  13. AlNewman

    AlNewman Well-Known Member

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    There are many definitions, but none that matches yours but remotely. When this country was in it's infancy, Noah Webster published his first dictionary which stated:


    Now under 1, it does say "stamped by public authority" but in the context of commerce. Now in 2 there is bank notes or bills of credit that are "exchangeable for coin". Originally, there was a small gold coin denominated as a dollar, but dollar is a measure of value, still doesn't support your statement especially that part about the Treasury statement as the Treasury is the furthest thing from commerce, sort of an anti-commerce. So let's look at the etymology or origin of the word, oh for a good etymology source of old that doesn't start from the front and work backwards but alas one must work with what is available to cut and paste.


    So it would seem that money meant to "mint" coinage. It wasn't until the 1800s that paper was considered "money" but I agree with the British writer and John Calhoun. But nowhere in the modern etymology online does it really state the true meaning of "money" which was well understood by the ancient Romans. So let's look at the modern definition:


    Bingo, the true definition is there and makes your statement about as false as the rest of the trash posted.
     
  14. bringiton

    bringiton Well-Known Member

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    That which is generally accepted in exchange: these days, bank demand deposits.
     
    Last edited: Mar 23, 2017
  15. AlNewman

    AlNewman Well-Known Member

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    Then there is no answer to your question. There are many things acceptable in exchange like when I trade 18 free range eggs for my friend's wife's strawberry jam. Money was created and extinguished in the same exchange. He deposited his eggs in his refrigerator and I deposited my jam in my cupboard, no bank involved and no demands to be made.

    By the way, there is no such thing as a demand deposit, as there is no guarantee you will get that which you deposited bank if you indeed get it back at all. What you consider as a deposit is to the bank a debit, you loaned them money that is payable on demand in accordance to certain restrictions.

    As to destroy, you can not destroy what never existed.
     
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  16. Econ4Every1

    Econ4Every1 Well-Known Member

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    Can you create an IOU? A promise? Does it "exist" or did it ever "exist"? Can you destroy it?

    You seem to be arguing in the realm of definitions in order to avoid the reality.

    As far as money. I didn't "define" it so much as I wanted you to answer Brighton's question.

    In your response, you give an example of barter or the trading of one commodity, something of real value, for another. You can define money this way if you wish and I wouldn't argue that you are necessarily wrong (I think you're being evasive), though I would argue that you are defining money very broadly, but that's ok, money is just a word. The reality of what I'm talking about isn't confined by a definition, but the other way around. It is the concept that words are used to define. So if you want to use the word money that way, that's fine. That just leads me to my next question.

    You are aware that the US Treasury creates dollars by spending it into the private sector. US dollars are accepted as a unit of account and method of payment all over the world.

    So then I ask....

    "Please explain, in your own words, when and how the bulk of US dollars are created, by whom, and when and how it is destroyed. Thank you."
     
  17. bringiton

    bringiton Well-Known Member

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    So in fact, you have no idea what you are talking about, and you know it.
    <sigh> I said GENERALLY accepted in exchange.
    The sad part is, you actually think that is responsive or relevant. It is neither.
    So you don't know anything about where bank deposits come from, either. Check.
    I see.

    Could you please provide me with a brief explanation of why you think I would have a motive to respond to such nonsense?
     
  18. a better world

    a better world Well-Known Member

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    Like I said, your tag line explains your world view, and hence your stance on economics. To summarize:

    I suggested that Spooner's views on economic and political
    organisation are obsolete in a post industrial age, and that 'Anarchy', as a political philososphy, will not function in the real world.

    in fact, your tag line reveals all we need to know: we can see hard-right Conservatism is based on various mythologies such as 'voluntary co-operation' (in 'anarchism') and the contention that self-interest, an expression of the survival instinct, is all that is required to progress the common welfare.

    But of course self-interest will have to be balanced by rule of law, since widely varying individual abilities mean that voluntary co-operation and self-interest do not necessarily align.

    In short, we need enough government, not 'small government', to achieve universal above poverty level participation in the economy, an outcome that is achievable, but not by voluntary cooperation and survival instinct alone.

    [Sometime in the future, after achievement of global quality universal education, 'rule of law' may well coincide with 'voluntary co-operation',
    since much of what divides men is obsolete cultural baggage, as well as what will prove to be unnecessary scarcity] .
     
    Last edited: Mar 27, 2017
  19. Ashwin Poonawal

    Ashwin Poonawal Active Member

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    Free enterprise is essential. Only that in reckless free enterprise common people get short changed, because greed game sucks up all the wealth. The wealthy manipulate economy and politics to inflame their greed.

    The U.S. seems to be leading the way in such greedy health degrading enterprising. This makes the nation fat and unhealthy, requiring more medical attention. On the other side, medical drugs/treatments are marketed at exorbitant prices, and once they are in circulation, our medical drug industry shows instances of suppressing and discouraging immerging cheaper/better remedies, and of suppressing discoveries of dangerous side effects. The common man is getting squeezed from every side. The subtle influence of the rich on our legislature keeps our tax code from correcting the loop holes, which favor the rich heavily. This keeps the taxes of the less affluent high, and the entitlement programs strained. Our automobile industry ignored, or bought and shelved technical innovations, to avoid prerequisite expensive modifications to production processes, loosing against foreign completion in the end, retarding the country’s progress. Even our national sports have turned excessively commercial. Our society is losing from every side.

    As globalization advances, the economic gap between the developed and underdeveloped economies of the world keeps shrinking. This is eating away the advantage the rich countries enjoyed. The resulting tightening profit conditions within the rich countries make their big businesses, having had tested the blood of easily rising wealth during the post world-wars era, tend to exploit domestic consumers by low quality products and to shortchange the employees by keeping the remunerations way lower than the actual values rendered by their services.

    The biggest obstacle to comfortable living, the common man sees now, is the unjust distribution of wealth. A trickle down economy, actually, helps the rich get richer; nothing much trickles down in it. The common man is revolting against the viciously unjust distribution of wealth. He wants to recapture his lost financial comfort and aspirations. He is acutely aware of his pain, but is confused about remedy. Trump's talk about making America great again captured his fancy. Our expensive education favors the rich. The poorly educated downtrodden did not even understand the consequence of his vote.

    What we need is a way to defuse the power of money on economic decision-making, releasing the economic factors from the narrow channels of money flow that keep enriching the economically high and mighty. This needs to be effected without blocking individual’s ability to acquire wealth, which motivates economic production. It is best to achieve this economic power diffusion with least interference from other entities, like continued manipulation by government.

    This can be achieved by limiting the number of persons any business can employ. In conjunction with this there has to be a limit to the maximum percentage interest an individual can own in all other businesses.

    Let us use a hypothetical model:

    1. No business can employ more than one thousand persons.



    2. An individual can:

      Own one business totally (100%),

      Own the next business up to 40%,

      And then invest no more than 8% each in any number of other businesses.

    3. Non-personnel entities (businesses, organizations, governments, etc.) can invest no more than 8% in any business. A pension fund tied to one business can invest fully in its mother business, and can invest no more than 8% in any other business.

      Thus, no individual can control financial destiny of more than 2 thousand employees. The 40% control over the second business can ensure crucial immediate needs for the main business. For the rest, even if seven or more individuals/investment pools form a group to control many businesses, the high number of members required will make it unrealistic for the group to function harmoniously for long, especially beyond a generation, since pride, greed or fear in the participants will raise its head along the line.
     
  20. Lil Mike

    Lil Mike Well-Known Member

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    Errr...why don't we try that out in another Western nation first and see how it works.
     
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  21. a better world

    a better world Well-Known Member

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    Good post (only part quoted here) as far as outlining the problems are concerned, but I think the solution based solely on limiting the size of corporations fails to take account of the importance of the macro (global) environment in which all economic activity must function in the modern world (aka globalisation).

    A reformed IMF and WTO (as envisioned by Keynes at the Bretton Woods conference in 1944) that can facilitate trade processes to take account of nations' differing natural resources and productive capacities, is an 'a priori' requirement, because globalisation means a dysfunctional economy in any one nation will have negative consequences in other countries.

    (Trump is wrestling with this reality now, eg, with the US's own 'rust-belt' issues, as well as overseas-originating refugee issues).
     
  22. Ndividual

    Ndividual Well-Known Member

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    We could send ALL manufacturing abroad to developing third world countries, where the labour costs would be much lower, allowing only the poorer quality, and least expensive, products to be imported insuring the creation of more service jobs to maintain those products.

    facetious -
    adjective
    treating serious issues with deliberately inappropriate humor; flippant.

    Competition applies to both producers and consumers, who each are trying to get the most for their money.
     
  23. Ashwin Poonawal

    Ashwin Poonawal Active Member

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    A large business can produce more cheaply, when in tough competition, than a cluster of small businesses. But in unrestricted free enterprise, giant businesses tend to quell down competition by mergers and absorptions. Then in complacent times wasteful lethargy and inefficiency seeps in easily. On the other hand a small business tends to remain vigilant due to closer watch of its stake holders, afforded by shorter pyramid of the organization. In some commodities the system may put us at a disadvantage for a time against giant foreign businesses. But higher creativity and innovations generated by broader participation of collective mind will override the disadvantage soon enough by improving the products, finding cheaper substitutes, moving to higher technology items, etc. The desire for profit would shift its focus from squeezing consumer to creatively adding values. Euphoric motivation growing from the new hope would make the system start bearing fruits quickly, and the pace would keep accelerating until the process is close to saturation. In less than two generations from the time the system is adopted, the transformation of the community should be awesome.

    Since autocracy can act more swiftly, man used to think that democracy has no chance of survival against it. What he forgot to consider is that governance of democracy is more in tune with the well being of all its citizens, and so it receives highly motivated support of its population, and can sustain itself against all kinds of foreign tyrannies. The results of the conflicts over the last hundred year period prove this: monarchy and dictatorship are all but dead, and communism is dying, but democracy is alive and spreading. Similarly, diffused economical power will prevail against all attacks from large foreign corporations due to massive, highly motivated, creative participation. Comparatively insignificant American colonies of merely three million people won against the then mighty British Empire, because of self respecting and fiercely independent minded citizens. Top leaders like Washington were supported by hundreds of courageous and dedicated second and third category leaders. Such a system of restrained capitalism, as addressed in here, will create a society full of upright citizens, interspersed with tens of thousands of bold and innovative economic leaders.

    Prior to the industrial age, cultural influences used to migrate, almost exclusively by face to face human contact, on coattails of trade, as trade requires two way trips to other lands. The story of the Venetian merchant, Marco Polo, provides a vivid example of this. Conquering cultures met with deep resentment from the conquered, and therefore the cultural fusions were small and superfluous for the most part. Because of the much slower pace of international exchange of the period, it took more than a century for a substantial number of nations to subscribe to democracy, to make it a prominent factor in the world. Today’s fast and massive commodity/information exchange all over the world is merging the cultures of the world at an accelerating pace. Once the applied economic system proves its value, by rapid enhancement of prosperity and of well being of the nation, the concept would spread in the world within a generation, making the remaining disadvantage, if any, against large foreign businesses, fade into insignificance.
     
  24. bringiton

    bringiton Well-Known Member

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    Wrong. It is not free enterprise that enables the greedy rich to suck up all the wealth at the expense of productive common people, but only the tyranny of privilege.
    More accurately, they use their privilege-derived wealth to obtain political power, which enables them to appropriate even more privilege, wealth and power.
    But is actively prevented from understanding WHY it is so viciously unjust. Not one person in 1000 can accurately describe how almost all their money was created, even though it is an extremely simple process. Not one in 10,000 can accurately describe how most of the money they pay in taxes is given to landowners in return for nothing, even though it is an only slightly less simple process.
    The problem is that great accumulations of wealth are not obtained by commensurate contributions to production, but almost exclusively by PRIVILEGE.
    Government -- i.e., government-issued and -enforced privilege -- is indeed the problem, so there is no solution without fixing government.
    No it can't. Such claims are just absurd. Such limits would do nothing whatever to address the actual problem: PRIVILEGE.
    Again, that's just absurd garbage with no basis in fact.
    Your numbered paragraphing screws everything up. Stop it.
    1. See? I can't get rid of the numbering when I want to respond to your post.
    2. Happy?
    3. No employer "controls the financial destiny" of his employees. All he can do is offer them an opportunity they would not otherwise have. It is the PRIVILEGED who are empowered to DEPRIVE everyone else of opportunities they WOULD otherwise have had. You are just talking absurd nonsense.
    4. Sorry, but you haven't a clue about what actually enables the greedy, privileged, parasitic rich to take from everyone else. It has nothing to do with number of employees, or even the employer-employee relationship.
     
    Last edited: Mar 31, 2017
  25. Ashwin Poonawal

    Ashwin Poonawal Active Member

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    There is no need to blame the rich. We all possess weaknesses. To fall is easy, to rise takes an effort. Societies make rules to limit the impacts of these weaknesses. Let us make one more rule, which will help the poor and the rich.
     

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