I would be nice to live in a world based on what could be. Unforunately, we live in a world based on what is.
THE OLIGOPOLY FACTOR No Marx got that quite wrong. It cannot be prevented in a market-economy where Demand (for goods/services) is the Prime Factor. And in that respect monopolies are not the problem as much as are oligopolies. Which are the consequence of the mad-rush over the past 30 years to "buy-out" the competition. The result being oligopoly-dominant market sectors where only 2, 3 or 4 principal companies compete. The cycles of boom 'n bust are purely market orientated and are produced by Consumers. Whilst companies simply respond to Demand - meaning hiring when Demand is solid and firing when Demand is weak. For instance, in 2008, the SubPrime Mess (which was a frenzied demand to buy-and-resell quickly real-estate) resulted in the Great Recession. The government was called upon to "fix the problem" and Obama did so with massive spending (his ARRA-bill in 2009). As a consequence, and since a Replicant HofR (as of 2010) refused any further Stimulus Spending (that Obama requested), there was a stagnation of the Employment-to-population Ratio - as seen here: Note the period above from 2010 to about 2014, when no jobs were created. And why? Because in 2010, only 40% of Americans went to the polls and the Replicants took control of the HofR. Whereupon they refused any further Stimulus Spending with the intent to keep unemployment high and thus defeat Obama in the 2012 elections. (It didn't work out that way, did it? But without Stimulus Spending job-creation remained stagnant!) By 2014, Americans had had enough of the Great Recession and Demand recovered all by itself, which is the sole reason that as seen above the E-to-p Ratio recovered. (And it is still not as high as attained in the latter part of the 1990s!) What happened? Historians call it the Change of Ages. For centuries upon centuries, the world was in the Age of Agriculture. But, as a consequence of key inventions (namely the steam engine and later both the gas and electric engines) in the mid-1800s, a leap was made into the Industrial Age. THE CONSEQUENCES OF AGE-CHANGE The impact was to take people off farmland and put them into industrial production around large cities. That Industrial Age was common throughout the 20th century, until another Age Change resulted from the birth of the Internet in the early 1980s. See here. What was the crude consequence of that birth? The Age Change resulted in the age in which we now find ourselves. That is, the Information Age. What is the consequence? Now, more than ever, it is that the enhanced knowledge afforded by a Post-secondary degree is necessary to find a decent job. And so? And so, as of today, only 45% of high-schoolers are going onto a post-secondary level degree of which fewer are actually accomplishing that degree level. And whyzat? The cost of an post-secondary degree* in a state-university in America on average is $14K a year. (And double or triple that cost in a non state-subventioned school.) And so? So, those families at the the lower level of our society are NOT SENDING THEIR KIDS INTO A POST-SECONDARY SCHOOLING. And so? Bernie and Hillary had got it right during the last election. A post-secondary education should be nearly free, gratis and for nothing - just like a high-school degree! Which is one important reason why Hillary actually won the election! *Which includes Vocational, Associates, Bachelors, Masters and Doctorate level degrees.
Arguing about the moral perfection of capitalism like arguing: If water is so perfect and needed for human life, why do people drown? In other words, after Ayn Rand, the argument about capitalism is silly.
Ayn Rand got it wrong a long time ago and so do you today. (She was a bitter woman who's life was destroyed in the Communist uprising that overthrew a Russian Tzar.) This is a DEBATE Forum. We exchange over any subject that is viable. About Ayn Rand and from a less blemished viewpoint, here: It most certainly was not Communism that destroyed her comfortable Jewish upbringing, but the "Christian" Tzar of Russia who believed firmly in capitalism and was anti-Jewish. Meaning what? Don't blame necessarily the economic system for mankind's brutality to mankind. Blame the original source ...
Hi Socratica, what you said is frightening. These economic theories are not real science. You are misled.
Wait. What???? We have "limited resources" of food and clothing???? FEUDALISM undertook the job of developing the food supply and technology for developing it. That was sufficiently handled to move on to production of goods and services: capitalism's job. Capitalism has largely done that, but now capitalism is getting in its own way. We in the US produce enough food to feed everyone with extra to spare, but because of markets, profit-seeking, price management, and plain greed, Massive amounts of crops are plowed back into the soil, and about 30% of what reaches a grocery store goes into a dumpster because it isn't "perfect". A very popular suggestion was made and repeated over and over that instead of disposing of some much usable food, retailers should give it to the poor and homeless. So in response to that suggestion, retailers put it out on shelves at half price. And still plenty is tossed out or buried. The problem is not "limited resources" of food. The problem is distribution and greed.
Kode, do you really expect farmers spend addional money harvesting and marketing a crop that has already cost more to produce than the market will return? And then have the gall to call not spending the money Greed?
BS, I spun nothing. Farmers still grow the crops (and it is business), and agribiz makes it available to the consumer. When crops are plowed under it is the farmer that has experienced the loss, not agribiz.
Yes, but so do you: No. The boom-bust "business" (actually asset-price) cycle is caused by the debt-money system wherein almost all money is created by private commercial banks as loan proceeds, because its inherent positive feedback is inherently destabilizing.
The government should stop facilitating such unsustainable banking behavior. And that would solve the boom-bust cycle.
If "education" is so important to securing employment, why does said employment not compensate the skills required? Why are so many college graduates underemployed?
I know, let's use the dictionary. pros·per·ous /ˈpräsp(ə)rəs/ Learn to pronounce adjective adjective: prosperous successful in material terms; flourishing financially. "prosperous middle-class professionals" bringing wealth and success.
One can say prosperity is measured by the purchasing power of labor. I.e., the more one can buy with an hour's median after-tax wages, the greater the prosperity.
The Texas AFL-CIO recently posted something on Facebook that a low wage worker without PTO loses a month of groceries if they're sick for three days. I thought it was absolutely beautiful that my grandfather, born a little over a century ago to a world where sustenance agriculture was still largely prevalent, and the poorest man largely devoted himself to being fed, had been replaced in the modern era with the poorest man working 3 hours a month to stock his kitchen.
Yes, food and clothing have become very cheap relative to labor over the last 200y or so, but housing -- actually, land -- has become far more expensive. The poor can now get food and clothing cheap or free from charities, but no charity can afford to pay landowners for permission for the poor to access economic opportunity.
Here's a hint: You can rent a place to live and then make a crap-ton of money working. Ask any Manhattanite.
Land has not become more expensive. Cheap credit, in the form of rampant inflation created by socialism, has made land "expensive", but like all things value is ultimately derived from potential and work. Four years ago I bought a piece of land, in an excellent location with ample opportunities. That opportunity creates potential, but potential is equal among all other properties in the area. What makes it truly valuable is the work I've put into it, and that's what the free market demands.
dear, all 7 billion of us would be dead if not for the free market assigning prices to all things based on supply and demand. 1+1=2
honestly the value of land is based mostly on its location. If a communist govt knocked down a sky scraper to give a poor farmer one acre to farm, society would be poorer. IF capitalism rents the ground land for $10,000/ft to a retailer and higher floors for $2,000 a foot, society is richer.