Thread: Problematic concept of wealth

The wealth of the nation is the sum of the products and services provided by all the citizens in that nation. The wealth of the citizen is how much he/she can take from this sum. Wealth can be thought of the same way as energy, as it is a motivator for action. Just like energy, wealth must flow. Just like energy, the flow of wealth can tie itself into knots, and as people get used to this, the existence of those things covered by this flow of wealth is dependent upon the perpetuation of the flow of which it is a constituent. All things tend entropically, which means eventually either the flow will break, or a constituent will collapse, in 100% of the cases. If this is our only measure of wealth, it will only get more difficult to manage in the future.

Shouldn't personal wealth also be considered as the lack of dependence upon the sum of the nations wealth? I.e. a man's personal wealth is inversely proportional to the amount of resources he takes from the nation's pool of wealth. How could this be usefully measured?

Wealth is not a finite object. There have always been rich and poor, with the majority someplace between. The more the total by those with wealth the better the most in that society. Said another way the wealthy with their desire for achievement create additional wealth where more and more can enjoy more and more of whatever you think wealth can provide.

What your seeing today in the US and around the world, is the basic shut down of those desires to achieve, or the desire to place at risk previous achievements. No lines have been cut and things will settle...

Originally Posted by ticklemonster

The wealth of the nation is the sum of the products and services provided by all the citizens in that nation. The wealth of the citizen is how much he/she can take from this sum. Wealth can be thought of the same way as energy, as it is a motivator for action. Just like energy, wealth must flow. Just like energy, the flow of wealth can tie itself into knots, and as people get used to this, the existence of those things covered by this flow of wealth is dependent upon the perpetuation of the flow of which it is a constituent. All things tend entropically, which means eventually either the flow will break, or a constituent will collapse, in 100% of the cases. If this is our only measure of wealth, it will only get more difficult to manage in the future.

Shouldn't personal wealth also be considered as the lack of dependence upon the sum of the nations wealth? I.e. a man's personal wealth is inversely proportional to the amount of resources he takes from the nation's pool of wealth. How could this be usefully measured?

There is nothing complicated about wealth.
There are only two sources of 'real tangible wealth' (RTW) and that is what Nature has created and the workers that are used to harvest this wealth.

The capitalists 'THINK' they create all the wealth and as a result, they keep it all for themselves, but that is an illusion. They NEED a pair of HANDS to harvest that wealth and then dispence a cheap wage to compensate the worker for their effort.

As a result, this greedy distribution of the wealth has contributed to the current economic crises because with those CHEAP wages, the workers cannot buy the cars and houses they need for themselves to live a respectible life.

These greedy individuals also rebel against taxes that they can easily pay as responsible citizens. These taxes also create jobs.
So our country is sinking into bankruptcy with an increasing national debt that the republicans are responsible for.

So HOORAY! Maybe now we might be able to create a more equitable distribution for the RTW the workers create.

Cosmo

Originally Posted by Cosmo

These greedy individuals also rebel against taxes that they can easily pay as responsible citizens. These taxes also create jobs.
So our country is sinking into bankruptcy with an increasing national debt that the republicans are responsible for. Cosmo

Taxes remove jobs from the private sector. The more you pay the less jobs available...

Your taxes create nothing but a bureaucracy and the most non productive work force on the planet (productivity) and yet the largest...

Average 2007 Federal Employee (civilian) made $77,143 71% higher the the private sector 48,035 and when benefits are included...$116,450 more than double the private sector 57,615. They are eligible for retirement in 20 years and at 30 years receive up to 95% of their base pay. They cannot be fired or removed without Union compliance and received up to 2 months off (per year) for a number of reasons.

If the private sector operated like government there would be NO ONE in the world that could afford there product or service.

Originally Posted by jackson33

Originally Posted by Cosmo

These greedy individuals also rebel against taxes that they can easily pay as responsible citizens. These taxes also create jobs.
So our country is sinking into bankruptcy with an increasing national debt that the republicans are responsible for. Cosmo

Taxes remove jobs from the private sector. The more you pay the less jobs available...

Your taxes create nothing but a bureaucracy and the most non productive work force on the planet (productivity) and yet the largest...

Average 2007 Federal Employee (civilian) made $77,143 71% higher the the private sector 48,035 and when benefits are included...$116,450 more than double the private sector 57,615. They are eligible for retirement in 20 years and at 30 years receive up to 95% of their base pay. They cannot be fired or removed without Union compliance and received up to 2 months off (per year) for a number of reasons.

If the private sector operated like government there would be NO ONE in the world that could afford there product or service.

Jackson, if our government was run like the private sector , our presidents would be paid a salary of about one hundred million dollars per year and the lesser employees would be getting salaries in the multi-million category depending on rank.

So we would be paying taxes at a much higher rate.

Cosmo

Cosmo; I have never understood power or the desire of those that strive to achieve power, opposed to achievement or wealth. Having said this to those that run for or achieve the Presidency, the cost for this has incrementally gone up with the economy and competition. Between all the folks that ran for the nomination (20) and the six finalist (including two majors) estimates are that near a BILLION dollars was spent or in bank accounts for future elections. This to achieve the POWER and total wage of a little over a million in the four year term and by only one person. I see no logic in this whatsoever, if for no other reason that the winner is in the end the most popular person perceived by people. In business where the select few (board of directors/ investors) popularity means squat and previous achievements means everything.

You opinions are set in stone, nothing I could ever say could possibly convince you of much of anything on the economical structure of the US. As you previously have noted Americans paid rates of 70 to 92% over certain earning in the past at the Federal level, starting in the 30's and pretty much up to Clinton, where SS/Medicare took over the slack, while GDP held pretty much the same until these rates dropped, as GDP ran from near 2 trillion to over 15 trillion inside 20 years. We can and possibly will HAVE to raise rates, but on all incomes and our GDP will drop, possible leading to additional taxes and so on. This has happened in Europe where there total GDP combined is about that of the US today.

Jackson:

That 1st paragraph of yours above is what I am trying to eliminate.
This political type of electoral system is a 'dollar republic' in operation.

That is why I am trying to promote a goverment financed syatem ONLY.
Instead of all this political advertising cluttering our TV's and other such media, the government can print a newspaper with the political candisates reforms in this newspaper.
This way, the people can get a view of the candidates platforms and make an intelligent vote on ALL the issues.

I have nothing against free enterprise as long as government has control of this freedom.

Cosmo

Originally Posted by Cosmo

Originally Posted by ticklemonster

The wealth of the nation is the sum of the products and services provided by all the citizens in that nation. The wealth of the citizen is how much he/she can take from this sum. Wealth can be thought of the same way as energy, as it is a motivator for action. Just like energy, wealth must flow. Just like energy, the flow of wealth can tie itself into knots, and as people get used to this, the existence of those things covered by this flow of wealth is dependent upon the perpetuation of the flow of which it is a constituent. All things tend entropically, which means eventually either the flow will break, or a constituent will collapse, in 100% of the cases. If this is our only measure of wealth, it will only get more difficult to manage in the future.

Shouldn't personal wealth also be considered as the lack of dependence upon the sum of the nations wealth? I.e. a man's personal wealth is inversely proportional to the amount of resources he takes from the nation's pool of wealth. How could this be usefully measured?

There is nothing complicated about wealth.
There are only two sources of 'real tangible wealth' (RTW) and that is what Nature has created and the workers that are used to harvest this wealth.

Up to this point, is where I totally agree with you. (And I'm pretty sure this is Marx, isn't it?)

There's what nature creates, and mankind is entirely powerless to create, like mineral resources, or farm-able terrain. (The second being the more important to human survival)

Then there's human labor, and products of human labor, like machines, or improvements to terrain like irrigation ditches, or mining tunnels.

The capitalists 'THINK' they create all the wealth and as a result, they keep it all for themselves, but that is an illusion. They NEED a pair of HANDS to harvest that wealth and then dispence a cheap wage to compensate the worker for their effort.

No! No! No!

Their mistake is thinking they created that farm-able terrain, or those mineral resources merely because they oversaw the process of cultivating or otherwise building improvements upon them.

What specifically defines a talented businessperson, however, is their ability to eliminate as many pairs of hands as possible from the process, or use those few hands they do employ as efficiently as possible.

In an ideal case, the amount of human labor that was saved by following the capitalist leader's plan of organization is far greater than the contribution of any individual worker. (Which is why they expect to be rewarded more than any individual worker)

In other words, that group of workers is accomplishing more than the sum of its parts, and they owe the excess accomplishment to the businessperson's leadership. It's utility that honestly wouldn't exist without the leader.

IE. a job that takes 50 people without a capitalist leader might only require 35 with that same leader present. Not necessarily because the leader is mean, but because the workers are better organized, and the leader has ensured they have the proper tools available to them to do the job.

As a result, this greedy distribution of the wealth has contributed to the current economic crises because with those CHEAP wages, the workers cannot buy the cars and houses they need for themselves to live a respectible life.

The number of workers increases, but the number of resources for them to do useful work on does not. You can only assign so many workers to a single resource before they're no longer contributing anything. You can't have more farmers than you have farms, nor more miners than you have mineral vanes.

If the minimum wage is raised to keep wage values properly high, then a number of the workers are simply not put to use. If there is no minimum wage, they're all used, but they're used very inefficiently, because it actually becomes cheaper to hire more people than to build a machine, or run a proper assembly line.

In other words: workers are absolutely worthless without the resources to do useful work on. You can redistribute land, but eventually the population grows until each individual recipient is still getting too little land to meet their needs.

Every worker's minimum wage requirement is "enough food to eat". or something similar to that. How do you get more food without more land? You can add infinity workers to the existing acreage but you won't get substantial results if your county is already pushing the limits of its farm land.

It's a hyperbolic curve. Y = M - (1/x)

Where "M" is the maximum productivity of the land, X is the number of workers you assign, and Y is the amount of food produced. M is a constant.

Kojax

Boy, you sure can complicate things.

Ever hear of Occams Razor?

You cannot create anything without a pair of hands.
So I think the wealth should be divided equally between the workers and the management collectively.
In other words, both are divided collectively into two groups and then the total wealth is divided in half for each group.
And then distributed individually.
Since the workers outnumber the management, they would still get smaller paychecks but with this distribution, they would still get a lot more than what the capitalists give them now.

The current ultra wealthy get practically all the wealth but buy only a couple of cars and one house.
But when the workers get much more in wages, they can buy cars and houses in much greater numbers.
So this creates a greater mass purchasing power to create more buyers and subsequent more jobs and so forth. This would then escalate to have a thriving economy and that is what we want.

Cosmo

Originally Posted by Cosmo

Kojax

Boy, you sure can complicate things.

Ever hear of Occams Razor?

Occam's razor would favor Newtonian mechanics over General Relativity any day of the week.

You cannot create anything without a pair of hands.

Who says they have to be human hands? Android robotics is an up and coming field.

So I think the wealth should be divided equally between the workers and the management collectively.

In other words, both are divided collectively into two groups and then the total wealth is divided in half for each group.
And then distributed individually.
Since the workers outnumber the management, they would still get smaller paychecks but with this distribution, they would still get a lot more than what the capitalists give them now.

It's all specialization. Supervising is just another kind of work, just like how welders are a different group than brick masons. Some things require more or less skill, and sometimes a given specialty impacts the larger whole more than another one.

The current ultra wealthy get practically all the wealth but buy only a couple of cars and one house.
But when the workers get much more in wages, they can buy cars and houses in much greater numbers.
So this creates a greater mass purchasing power to create more buyers and subsequent more jobs and so forth. This would then escalate to have a thriving economy and that is what we want.

Cosmo

Actually what you're describing is just an inflation problem. Money that doesn't get spent is de-inflation. (It might as well not exist for all practical purposes, just as it wouldn't exist if we hadn't printed it)

This is analogous to the myth that people could buy more if we'd just print more money, only the inflation in this case is local inflation instead of general inflation.

What you say might be true to some degree about cars and other manufactured goods, because more of the money out there would be in workers' hands, but it's certainly not true about food.

The scarcity of food is tied to the scarcity of farm-able land, which means the supply can't increase to fill higher demand (or it only can within a limited range). Give all the workers have more money to buy food, and the price will go up instead of the supply increasing.

The problem is that your % of disposable income is determined primarily by food prices.

Originally Posted by kojax

Occam's razor would favor Newtonian mechanics over General Relativity any day of the week.

I agree, I believe in Newtons science, than GR that was saved by the BBT that is nothing but CosmoGONY.

Who says they have to be human hands? Android robotics is an up and coming field.

That is one reason the current economy is in its slumping state besides other reasons.
Robots do not buy houses, cars and other such goods.

It's all specialization. Supervising is just another kind of work, just like how welders are a different group than brick masons. Some things require more or less skill, and sometimes a given specialty impacts the larger whole more than another one.

You are comparing workers here. My argument is between the capitalists and the workers.
What kind of 'Real Tangible Wealth' that you can see and feel, does the capitalists create?

Actually what you're describing is just an inflation problem. Money that doesn't get spent is de-inflation. (It might as well not exist for all practical purposes, just as it wouldn't exist if we hadn't printed it)
This is analogous to the myth that people could buy more if we'd just print more money, only the inflation in this case is local inflation instead of general inflation.
What you say might be true to some degree about cars and other manufactured goods, because more of the money out there would be in workers' hands, but it's certainly not true about food.
The scarcity of food is tied to the scarcity of farm-able land, which means the supply can't increase to fill higher demand (or it only can within a limited range). Give all the workers have more money to buy food, and the price will go up instead of the supply increasing.
The problem is that your % of disposable income is determined primarily by food prices.

Capitalism is responsible for the inflation. Their idea of bidding for goods causes inflation.
The Republicans are handing out 'stimulous' dollars to create more buyers for goods and 'loans' to restore the ecoconomic health but those dollars just do not help much except for the wealthy.

By taxing that 'stagnant hoarded wealth' that the wealthy CAN pay and would not affect their luxurious lifestyles, that would give the government the monies needed for creating a lot of new jobs.
Jobs are easy to create. What we need is the dollars that the tax rebels are blocking.

Cosmo

Originally Posted by Cosmo

Originally Posted by kojax

Occam's razor would favor Newtonian mechanics over General Relativity any day of the week.

I agree, I believe in Newtons science, than GR that was saved by the BBT that is nothing but CosmoGONY.

Who says they have to be human hands? Android robotics is an up and coming field.

That is one reason the current economy is in its slumping state besides other reasons.
Robots do not buy houses, cars and other such goods.

It's hard for me to imagine that consuming would genuinely add to the total sum of a nation's wealth.

I think rather the idea of consumption is that it motivates workers. Most normal laborers aren't working for "dollars" per se. They're working for the car, house, i-pod... etc they intend to buy for those dollars, or for the kid they plan to feed.

Consumption also forces the economy to focus its pursuits on the creation of tangible wealth, instead of just building castles in the sky.

It's all specialization. Supervising is just another kind of work, just like how welders are a different group than brick masons. Some things require more or less skill, and sometimes a given specialty impacts the larger whole more than another one.

You are comparing workers here. My argument is between the capitalists and the workers.
What kind of 'Real Tangible Wealth' that you can see and feel, does the capitalists create?

Capitalists are workers. Management of money is no different than management of anything else. It's about the penny saved vs. the penny earned. Of course the penny saved isn't "tangible", but there's nothing about it that isn't real.

The purpose in merchants, historically, was to make sure spoilable goods made it into somebody's hands before it went bad. If not for those merchants, a lot of it would go bad, and you'd lose it.

Accumulated wealth insulates you from random throws of nature as well. If a farmer with a huge grain silo 3/4 of the way full has a bad year, his silo goes down to 1/2 full (As opposed to him and his family just going hungry).

The reason Communist nations often do poorly is their inability to see the value in this.

Actually what you're describing is just an inflation problem. Money that doesn't get spent is de-inflation. (It might as well not exist for all practical purposes, just as it wouldn't exist if we hadn't printed it)
This is analogous to the myth that people could buy more if we'd just print more money, only the inflation in this case is local inflation instead of general inflation.
What you say might be true to some degree about cars and other manufactured goods, because more of the money out there would be in workers' hands, but it's certainly not true about food.
The scarcity of food is tied to the scarcity of farm-able land, which means the supply can't increase to fill higher demand (or it only can within a limited range). Give all the workers have more money to buy food, and the price will go up instead of the supply increasing.
The problem is that your % of disposable income is determined primarily by food prices.

Capitalism is responsible for the inflation. Their idea of bidding for goods causes inflation.
The Republicans are handing out 'stimulous' dollars to create more buyers for goods and 'loans' to restore the ecoconomic health but those dollars just do not help much except for the wealthy.

By taxing that 'stagnant hoarded wealth' that the wealthy CAN pay and would not affect their luxurious lifestyles, that would give the government the monies needed for creating a lot of new jobs.
Jobs are easy to create. What we need is the dollars that the tax rebels are blocking.

Cosmo

The stimulus dollars are going into the real estate industry, which doesn't produce anything. (How, indeed, would they produce more land?)

The notion that raising the price of a good will raise production of that good doesn't work out so good when you try to apply it to a type of good that absolutely, perfectly, cannot be produced.

I don't disagree with you that the capitalists in the USA are off. I just disagree as to how they are off.

Kojax

Do not get me wroing because I criticize the wealthy. I am talking here about the super wealthy that have huge sums of money that they do not spend. So this gets to be 'stagnant' wealth. The vast majority of the people or workers 'spend' almost ALL earned dollars to keep the economy thriving.

The question here is that the workers that create the Real Tangible Wealth' are being 'short-changed about how much each is worth.

Does capital that uses nothing but their brains deserve such a huge differential in the distribution of the wealth that is created by the workers?

There is also a psychological factor here.
Its 'jaws and claws' (chauvinism) verses 'hands (workers) that are being treated as robots. This is a left over racial issue that the OT (bible) separates day from night.

Cosmo

I worry that you're looking at effort instead of results. Equal pay for equal effort is not as useful an ethic as equal pay for equal results.

Smart financialists are few and far between, whereas dedicated workers are a dime a dozen. It's unfortunate that this should end up being true, but it is.

I hate to see any one group accumulating too much, and I worry it will just help them bully/extort instead of giving them capital to do useful things with, but the problem I see right now with our economy is that we've overproduced a lot of things to the point where nobody needs them anymore. Too many workers are trained at making things that are no-longer valuable, and some force has to motivate them to re-train.

Originally Posted by kojax

I worry that you're looking at effort instead of results. Equal pay for equal effort is not as useful an ethic as equal pay for equal results.

Smart financialists are few and far between, whereas dedicated workers are a dime a dozen. It's unfortunate that this should end up being true, but it is.

I hate to see any one group accumulating too much, and I worry it will just help them bully/extort instead of giving them capital to do useful things with, but the problem I see right now with our economy is that we've overproduced a lot of things to the point where nobody needs them anymore. Too many workers are trained at making things that are no-longer valuable, and some force has to motivate them to re-train.

Kojax, you do not seem to understand the true significance of wealth.

You do not 'see' the ideas, dreams and the greed that is exposed by the individual persons who are that way.

But when it comes to Real Tangible Wealth, like skyscrapers, other buildings,
roads, automobiles, houses and the foodstuffs we all need, those are the things 'created' by HANDS. The last with the help of nature.

So, do you not believe than that the people that create these RTW goods, should not get a fair share of this wealth?
Workers are NOT robots, but real people that do need a good wage to live a subsistense level of comfort that they deserve.

When I talk about equality, I do not mean absolute equality. But the more the wealth is shared, the more the economy will THRIVE.

Cosmo

Originally Posted by Cosmo

Kojax, you do not seem to understand the true significance of wealth.

I see it as something distinct from money. (Land being the truest form, and of course land doesn't grow no matter what you do)

You do not 'see' the ideas, dreams and the greed that is exposed by the individual persons who are that way.

I'll admit a lot of people are greedy, and I'm always being surprised by their greed, but I'm also not naive enough to think any group is exempt (like government officials).

But when it comes to Real Tangible Wealth, like skyscrapers, other buildings,
roads, automobiles, houses and the foodstuffs we all need, those are the things 'created' by HANDS. The last with the help of nature.

Those hands are absolutely useless without an architect.

There's a reason Im-Ho-Tep is credited with the great pyramid instead of the army of slaves who worked under him. (Many cultures had armies of workers. Only Egypt had Im-Ho-Tep)

You want to see what happens when labor has no one to coordinate it? Look at Mexico. There are a lot of hard workers down there, but they accomplish nothing, because nobody is willing to try and organize them. (Some elements of their culture make them very hard to organize properly.)

You think the problem is there's no market? NAFTA gives them a market. They just can't coordinate themselves well enough to fill the market.

So, do you not believe than that the people that create these RTW goods, should not get a fair share of this wealth?
Workers are NOT robots, but real people that do need a good wage to live a subsistense level of comfort that they deserve.

When I talk about equality, I do not mean absolute equality. But the more the wealth is shared, the more the economy will THRIVE.

Cosmo

Fairness on the basis of performance, not on the basis of effort, will generally find that the brain does more of the work than the hands.

There's a saying in Ireland that an Irishman and an Englishman were carrying a load of wood together, except the Englishman put a wheel on his end.

Now, that's usually intended as being derogatory toward the Englishman, but in all reality, the guy who puts a wheel on his end is doing just as much work.

Originally Posted by Kojax

Fairness on the basis of performance, not on the basis of effort, will generally find that the brain does more of the work than the hands.

Ha ha.
You cannot even create a 'toothpick ' with the brain alone.
Get serious.

Cosmo

No, but one engineer can build one machine one time, tune it a little, start it working, walk away, and that thing will crank out well over 10 thousand toothpicks before he needs to come back and tune it again.

An unskilled worker on the other hand.....

Originally Posted by kojax

No, but one engineer can build one machine one time, tune it a little, start it working, walk away, and that thing will crank out well over 10 thousand toothpicks before he needs to come back and tune it again.

An unskilled worker on the other hand.....

Did this engineer design, machined the parts and assembled the machine to create these toothpicks?

If he did , than he had to use his hands that did the REAL work!.

Cosmo

My point is that, while hands are always part of it, they get to be a smaller and smaller part everyday. It may never go to absolute zero, but it may reach the point where 99% of the population has nothing to do.

They'll still try to hire themselves out as laborers, but the only jobs will be either doing something a machine could do just as well (and very cheap), or doing something that just plain doesn't need doing (maybe giving back rubs or something).

Of course, some useful jobs will still exist, but people will be tripping over each other trying to get to the front of the line for them because there won't be enough of them.

Originally Posted by kojax

My point is that, while hands are always part of it, they get to be a smaller and smaller part everyday. It may never go to absolute zero, but it may reach the point where 99% of the population has nothing to do.

They'll still try to hire themselves out as laborers, but the only jobs will be either doing something a machine could do just as well (and very cheap), or doing something that just plain doesn't need doing (maybe giving back rubs or something).

Of course, some useful jobs will still exist, but people will be tripping over each other trying to get to the front of the line for them because there won't be enough of them.

Your persistense is not credible. My problem with capitalism is not the idea of a person helping himself, it is the idea of RUNAWAY capitalism that want it all even though the real tangible wealth that we all see and feel is created by HANDS only .

Those machine replacements for workers require hands to create. No getting away from this reality.

The current economic crisis in the US is the result of 'runaway' capitalism that are overstuffed with all those hoarded dollars that are NOT spent to stimulate the economy. Hoarded dollars do nor create jobs.

My Brand of Socialism would eliminate these unbalanced distributions of the wealth that the workers produce.

Cosmo

Fair enough, but I don't get why you think they're hoarded. Dollars left un-invested become obsolete from inflation. From what I can tell, even in a really good year, the Fed will deliberately inflate the dollar a little bit to keep anyone from hiding it under their mattress.

So, are you suggesting that the form of investment wealthy people are preferring these days takes the form of hoarding?

One place that brings us back to is real estate. It's commonly acknowledged among financial people that buying land is one of the safest investments because land holds its value so well. But buying up real estate does nothing (or very little) to help the economy. Unless you plan to build a house on it, it doesn't give anyone a new job. If you do plan to build a house on it, then it gives them a job, but only until the house is done. (And then you see the housing market fall through, because all the houses are done, and there's no more to build)

I think I'm going to start trying to understand you instead of just argue with you.

For me, the problem is that all the hands must have tasks that are worthy of appreciation. This isn't automatically true. You have to make it true.

Originally Posted by kojax

Fair enough, but I don't get why you think they're hoarded. Dollars left un-invested become obsolete from inflation. From what I can tell, even in a really good year, the Fed will deliberately inflate the dollar a little bit to keep anyone from hiding it under their mattress.

So, are you suggesting that the form of investment wealthy people are preferring these days takes the form of hoarding?

One place that brings us back to is real estate. It's commonly acknowledged among financial people that buying land is one of the safest investments because land holds its value so well. But buying up real estate does nothing (or very little) to help the economy. Unless you plan to build a house on it, it doesn't give anyone a new job. If you do plan to build a house on it, then it gives them a job, but only until the house is done. (And then you see the housing market fall through, because all the houses are done, and there's no more to build)

I think I'm going to start trying to understand you instead of just argue with you.

For me, the problem is that all the hands must have tasks that are worthy of appreciation. This isn't automatically true. You have to make it true.

All one needs to live a very luxurious lifestyle is to have an income of up to 3 million. Even one million give a person a luxurious lifetyle like a 3 milliom dollar mansion (prorated over 30 years), 6 servants, 2 luxurious cars, enough to pay one RE taxes and other lesser needs.

So why do these super wealthy individuals want such high incomes like hundreds of millions of dollars a year? Since these dollars are NOT spent, they become stagnant and taken out of circulation.

Only spent dollars create jobs.
\
Cosmo

.

Where I'll agree with u is that the fact they could be spent puts the economy in an awkward position.

The problem with your logic is that most super-wealthy people aren't sitting on a huge mountain of cash. Their net worth is mostly in the form of investments that can't be immediately cashed out, even if they wanted to.

In other words: the money is still circulating. It's always circulating. It never stops. The problem is not "if" or "not" it circulates. It's where it circulates.

Are they speculating on land prices with it? speculating currencies? Are they investing it overseas instead of locally? I'll admit they're not buying consumer good with it, but no sane rich person ever stops moving their money.

I guess it's a problem is having it continue to flow to them. Maybe there can be too much of a good thing. Maybe they buy all the useful capital there is to buy, and then begin using the rest to pay lobbyists in Washington to create new, government funded, artificial markets for them to sell to.

Originally Posted by kojax

Where I'll agree with u is that the fact they could be spent puts the economy in an awkward position.

The problem with your logic is that most super-wealthy people aren't sitting on a huge mountain of cash. Their net worth is mostly in the form of investments that can't be immediately cashed out, even if they wanted to.

In other words: the money is still circulating. It's always circulating. It never stops. The problem is not "if" or "not" it circulates. It's where it circulates.

Are they speculating on land prices with it? speculating currencies? Are they investing it overseas instead of locally? I'll admit they're not buying consumer good with it, but no sane rich person ever stops moving their money.

I guess it's a problem is having it continue to flow to them. Maybe there can be too much of a good thing. Maybe they buy all the useful capital there is to buy, and then begin using the rest to pay lobbyists in Washington to create new, government funded, artificial markets for them to sell to.

Their dollars are stagnant because they exist in great numbers in the various businesses in the Stock Market. that is supposed to pay dividents.

But these stocks are not locked in. They can be transferred or cashed in.
So they are liquid assets.
Since the corporate CEO's own most of these stocks themselves and have huge multi million dollar incomes, I consider these dollars as stagnant and UNspent that do NOT contribute to a prosperous economy.

So the current economy is the result of this 'dollar stuffing frenzy' that deprives the workers of a FAIR and satisfactory subsistance level to buy the products they produce.

So the problem here is the LOPSIDED distribution of the wealth that the people at the top manage and help themselves to.

Cosmo

I havent read the whole thread but wanted to point out


If in a year, a billionaire gets a 100 million dollar bonus and uses it to acquires a 100 million dollar painting from his billionaire neighbor. You have a 100 million dollar transaction, but nothing really changes, nothing is produced, hardly any economic activity or benefit is created, a painting is moved from one house to another.

What economic activity is being produced by pouring billions into derivative financial products, none. Billions are wasted. Billions being shifted from one account to another doesnt create anything if its not used to produce goods and services. You can have a big casino in the caiman ilsands where billionaires gamble away and win fortunes, the billions shifting from one player to another doesnt produce anything, doesnt feed anyone, doesnt provide vaccines, etc.

On the other hand if that same amount is used to pay for a new 10 million $ clinic, 10 million $ repair to make a bridge usable, and 8$ is given to 10 million hungry people who use it right away to by 10 million hamburgers, you have a heck of a lot of activity generated. The burger shop owners will probably turn around and spent it quickly too, on bread, meat, new employee if there are lineups etc.

The billionaire is not going to buy 10 million hamburgers for himself, and the minimum wage worker isnt going to put his money in a derivative money trap that will be stagnating in the Caiman islands hes going to Spend it on essentials ASAP. Tatcher/Reagan's Trickle down economics is crap.

I agree with Cosmo, wealth distribution is too uneven. The same situation prevailled prior to the Great Depression.

Now the notion is fleshing out, making more sense. We've made up too many forms of non-dollar wealth, and not all of them really make anyone any better off.

The big hole I see in the money system itself is its tendency to ignore problems of local inflation. This is the idea that, if more money than normal starts flowing into a particular section of the economy, the value of the dollar in that section of the economy goes down initially. Those extra dollars are basically monopoly money, fake money.

If that section of the economy has the potential to increase its production, then the local inflation effect is only temporary. Once production increases, the value of a dollar in that section of the economy returns back to normal.

The problem is that not every section of the economy does this. Real estate, and paintings, for example (as well as a lot of the things Icewendengo just mentioned) can't really increase their production the ways cars, computers, and television sets can.

Basically, if you pump a lot of money into an economy (say by lowering interest rates for a long time), and all, or a lot, of it gets spent on these sorts of things that can't have their production increased, then what you've done is create a whole lot of monopoly money, money that exists out there, but can't (or won't) be exchanged for goods and services

Basically what happened to the USA economy is that we spent all that money driving up the price of things that already existed, instead of producing more.

Originally Posted by kojax

You cannot create anything without a pair of hands.

Who says they have to be human hands? Android robotics is an up and coming field.

FUCK YEAH!! GO ROBOTS ;DD

The problem when robots are doing everything will be figuring out how to distribute wealth to a population that basically isn't contributing much to the production of wealth. I hope we do a good job of solving it.

Also: we might want to get to thinking about it right away because, you know, it's not going to solve itself. If you fail to come up with a solution, then what you're basically doing is consenting to whatever solution emerges on its own (which is usually a very bad solution, like genocide).

my formula for wealth:

GPP = GNP*(1/x)

GPP = gross personal product, or a persons income.

GNP = Gross National Product, or all the wealth in a nation

and

x = total number of WORKING people in the nation.

i didnt take the difficulty of the job, or the type of job into consideration, just the total amount of money that should be FAIRLY given to the working man.

im pretty sure thats right. i dont have a calc on me to punch the numbers though.

Originally Posted by kojax

The problem when robots are doing everything will be figuring out how to distribute wealth to a population that basically isn't contributing much to the production of wealth. I hope we do a good job of solving it.

Also: we might want to get to thinking about it right away because, you know, it's not going to solve itself. If you fail to come up with a solution, then what you're basically doing is consenting to whatever solution emerges on its own (which is usually a very bad solution, like genocide).

Kojax

Robots do NOT buy cars or houses. So the dollars STOP at the top.

Cosmo

Originally Posted by Cosmo

Originally Posted by kojax

The problem when robots are doing everything will be figuring out how to distribute wealth to a population that basically isn't contributing much to the production of wealth. I hope we do a good job of solving it.

Also: we might want to get to thinking about it right away because, you know, it's not going to solve itself. If you fail to come up with a solution, then what you're basically doing is consenting to whatever solution emerges on its own (which is usually a very bad solution, like genocide).

Kojax

Robots do NOT buy cars or houses. So the dollars STOP at the top.

Cosmo

The question is how to avoid this happening.

You're right. The robots won't be consumers. Only their owners will, and if their owners are overly wealthy, they might just take all that money and spend it driving up land prices because they want to invest in something safe.

I think the question is how to motivate investors to invest in things that actually lead to greater productivity, instead of zero productivity investments, like land speculation. Maybe what your suggesting is that workers will make that investment, in a sense, by spending their money on manufactured goods, which will indirectly lead to the building of more factories.

I'm starting to hear you. We might actually meet half way from the two directions we're tunneling from.

Originally Posted by Brokenazs

my formula for wealth:

GPP = GNP*(1/x)

GPP = gross personal product, or a persons income.

GNP = Gross National Product, or all the wealth in a nation

and

x = total number of WORKING people in the nation.

i didnt take the difficulty of the job, or the type of job into consideration, just the total amount of money that should be FAIRLY given to the working man.

im pretty sure thats right. i dont have a calc on me to punch the numbers though.

Difficulty? Who cares?

Tilling a field by hand is more difficult than driving a tractor over it. Should we reward person who does it by hand more, even though the one driving a tractor is more productive?

Kojax

The wealthy should invest in their government that gave them this freedom of
'stuffng' these dollars that they crave so much.

Our country is also ammassing a huge debt that will never be paid off.

Even Warren Buffet says the wealthy like himself are underpaying taxes and should be paying more.

And he gained his wealth without a government crutch like a patent or copyright.
He apparently made all his money playing the stock market.

Cosmo

Trouble is, it wouldn't do any good. People in Washington will never stop spending until they run out of money and credit. Right now, they're at the edge of their credit, and it's forcing them to make some financially credible moves. (not many, but a few)


What I'd want to revise is the way that government contracts are given out. There's too much built in profit, and too many ways a part of that money can find its way back into a politician's campaign fund.

Spending money on a lobbyist shouldn't be an important part of a government contractor's cost/benefit analysis. If they need a lobbyist, they're probably doing something they don't deserve to make very much of a profit from.

Originally Posted by kojax

Trouble is, it wouldn't do any good. People in Washington will never stop spending until they run out of money and credit. Right now, they're at the edge of their credit, and it's forcing them to make some financially credible moves. (not many, but a few)


What I'd want to revise is the way that government contracts are given out. There's too much built in profit, and too many ways a part of that money can find its way back into a politician's campaign fund.

Spending money on a lobbyist shouldn't be an important part of a government contractor's cost/benefit analysis. If they need a lobbyist, they're probably doing something they don't deserve to make very much of a profit from.

The problem is to eliminate the influence dollars to get the politicians serving the citizens rather than these special interests.

Its these influence dollars that transformed our Democracy into a dollar republic.

Cosmo

And replace it with what?

You can't just create a vacuum and expect that to work better, so something has to do the same thing that dollars are doing now, and that something may have flaws of its own.

I prefer to tweak a system rather than throw it out entirely. So I'd like to know what kinds of laws we could pass. To me, capitalism is like a sports game, like football or basketball.

Sometimes the rules might be made so that they're open to an interpretation that kind of ruins the game. Maybe one team finds a way to exploit that, and the fans stop coming. You can usually fix this by just coming up with a change to the rules, rather than stop playing the game altogether.

Originally Posted by kojax

And replace it with what?

You can't just create a vacuum and expect that to work better, so something has to do the same thing that dollars are doing now, and that something may have flaws of its own.

I prefer to tweak a system rather than throw it out entirely. So I'd like to know what kinds of laws we could pass. To me, capitalism is like a sports game, like football or basketball.

Sometimes the rules might be made so that they're open to an interpretation that kind of ruins the game. Maybe one team finds a way to exploit that, and the fans stop coming. You can usually fix this by just coming up with a change to the rules, rather than stop playing the game altogether.

Our Constitution does NOT mandate capitalism or any other self serving individuals or organiations.

It does mandate worker unions, because they represent the workers as citizens of our country..

It does not give credibility to the current dollar republic.
Only the Latin root gives credibility to this type of government.
See the latest MW dictionary for a definition of a republic.

So there need not be any changes as long as we eliminate these influence dollars that are short changing our workers of a fair earned wage.

Cosmo

It's not a constitution question. I agree.

It's about practicality. If you take away dollars, you need to replace that with something that works.

It's like complaining about the big, gas guzzling V8 in your SUV. If you don't like it, fine, but don't just remove it. (Then your SUV won't drive at all). Replace it with a smaller, more fuel efficient engine.

I like listening for people to propose better systems. It interests me a lot, but nobody anywhere seems to be willing to propose anything. They just concentrate on criticizing what's there.

Originally Posted by kojax

It's not a constitution question. I agree.

It's about practicality. If you take away dollars, you need to replace that with something that works.

It's like complaining about the big, gas guzzling V8 in your SUV. If you don't like it, fine, but don't just remove it. (Then your SUV won't drive at all). Replace it with a smaller, more fuel efficient engine.

I like listening for people to propose better systems. It interests me a lot, but nobody anywhere seems to be willing to propose anything. They just concentrate on criticizing what's there.

Most all citizens are complacent when they have a job and existing at a subsistance level they have obtained to their satisfaction.

Well, you know now that that is not true in todays economic crisis.

So 'runaway' capitalism is the problem because 'Reaganomics is working in the opposite direction.
Instead of the dollars trickling down to the masses, they have been trickling 'UP' to be stored as stagnant dollars. Thus, they end up as hoarded dollars that 'buy' NOTHING'.

That is true. People ignore the leverage effect of wealth. Having an amount of money gather in one place has 2 effects:

1) economy of scale.

Being able to build the necessary tools, even when they're expensive, like factories and such, does create greater efficiency.

2) leverage.

Being able to shift massive amount of economic weight around in a short amount of time makes it possible to extort money from others, effectively.

Walmart, for example, can force producers to lower their prices below market value by threatening to make a change in their buying decisions that is too sudden to adapt to. If you've taken out a ten year loan to build 3 factories, 2 of which are just to fill Walmart's orders, then you need them to continue buying from you for 10 years in order to pay them off before you could afford to drop back down to just one factory's worth of orders.

If Walmart's on a 2 year renewable contract with you, ... well.... they might change their price demands on one of those renewals, and you have no choice but to comply.

Originally Posted by kojax

That is true. People ignore the leverage effect of wealth. Having an amount of money gather in one place has 2 effects:

1) economy of scale.

Being able to build the necessary tools, even when they're expensive, like factories and such, does create greater efficiency.

2) leverage.

Being able to shift massive amount of economic weight around in a short amount of time makes it possible to extort money from others, effectively.

Walmart, for example, can force producers to lower their prices below market value by threatening to make a change in their buying decisions that is too sudden to adapt to. If you've taken out a ten year loan to build 3 factories, 2 of which are just to fill Walmart's orders, then you need them to continue buying from you for 10 years in order to pay them off before you could afford to drop back down to just one factory's worth of orders.

If Walmart's on a 2 year renewable contract with you, ... well.... they might change their price demands on one of those renewals, and you have no choice but to comply.

What you have quoted is a very good reason for government control of the economy.
There are many other reasons for government control of these greedy enterprises .

Cosmo

What you have quoted is a very good reason for government control of the economy.
There are many other reasons for government control of these greedy enterprises .

If I may, government control has traditionally been a messy affair, owing largely to bureaucracy. In India, most government-controlled companies are inefficent and struggle to survive. In China, before Deng Xiaoping's reforms, the communist effort was failing to provide decent working conditions or even decent jobs, merely assigning jobs to students after gradfuation, unaware of the person's abilities.

Further, government control of the economy can lead to serious trouble when you are considering trying to make new jobs. At most, the government of India can only make a few million jobs an year, for a nation of more 700 million unemployed people. China has managed to alleviate its poverty to a large extent, but only after turning to liberal capitalism as a way out.

Thirdly, government control can only lead to temporary stability. Do not forget that Russian communism once practised this principle and ultimately collapsed, fading with the USSR. China, the old communist country, turned to liberal capitalism in the 1980s and even Cuba's new leader, Fidel Castro's borther, is planning to open up the economy. Russia's sudden growth as a capitalist economic power has been documented far too many times, so I refrain from commenting here..

Liongold

When I say 'government control'. I mean a Constitutional government that represents the people (citizens).

Comunism is NOT a C'Nal government.
In India, it has two population factions divided by religion. So this is a real problem in India.

Cosmo

Comunism is NOT a C'Nal government

Indeed, it is not. However, nations follow its principles. Take China's Constitution, for example, which holds that China is a communist nation. Of course, they no longer do, but they did once.

Constitutional control of the economy can be likened to socialism or communism, though.

In India, it has two population factions divided by religion. So this is a real problem in India.

I have lived in India all my life. I assure you, religion is not the problem, but inept and inefficient government. India is a secular nation, if you must know.

Liongold

My article, My Brand of Socialism, allows 'free enterprise' but it is controlled by the government to prevent RUNAWAY capitalism that would eliminate
the billionaires that stuff themselves with dollars that stop circulating. So these dollars become STAGNANT that do nothing for the economy.

Cosmo

Either your article has been removed or its very hard to find; either way, I just can't see it anymore, so I ca'n't debate with you on that.

Exactly what are the faults of capitalism these days? I can understand the attraction of socialism in the Industrial Revloution, but most capitalist countries are either extraordinarily rich or growing fast.

Originally Posted by Liongold

Either your article has been removed or its very hard to find; either way, I just can't see it anymore, so I ca'n't debate with you on that.

Exactly what are the faults of capitalism these days? I can understand the attraction of socialism in the Industrial Revloution, but most capitalist countries are either extraordinarily rich or growing fast.

By opening our economy to the Globsal market has just made the rich, richer while the workers started to lose their jobs or other benefits.

I will track down my article for your benefit.

Cosmo

Originally Posted by Cosmo

Originally Posted by kojax

That is true. People ignore the leverage effect of wealth. Having an amount of money gather in one place has 2 effects:

1) economy of scale.

Being able to build the necessary tools, even when they're expensive, like factories and such, does create greater efficiency.

2) leverage.

Being able to shift massive amount of economic weight around in a short amount of time makes it possible to extort money from others, effectively.

Walmart, for example, can force producers to lower their prices below market value by threatening to make a change in their buying decisions that is too sudden to adapt to. If you've taken out a ten year loan to build 3 factories, 2 of which are just to fill Walmart's orders, then you need them to continue buying from you for 10 years in order to pay them off before you could afford to drop back down to just one factory's worth of orders.

If Walmart's on a 2 year renewable contract with you, ... well.... they might change their price demands on one of those renewals, and you have no choice but to comply.

What you have quoted is a very good reason for government control of the economy.
There are many other reasons for government control of these greedy enterprises .

Cosmo

Except then gov officials usually get greedy, in one way or another. (Sometimes just greed for power).

You can't escape greed no matter what you do. All you can hope to accomplish is to direct it.

Originally Posted by Cosmo

Liongold

When I say 'government control'. I mean a Constitutional government that represents the people (citizens).

Comunism is NOT a C'Nal government.
In India, it has two population factions divided by religion. So this is a real problem in India.

Cosmo

The USSR was constitutional. It had a great constitution. It just never followed it. The trouble with putting all economic, political, and military forces in the hands of one entity is that nobody can force it to do what its supposed to do if it doesn't want to.

Right now in the USA, ordinary citizens can keep the gov in check. Media is privately owned, so the Gov can't propagandize us too much. This has the drawback, that the businesses who own that media *can* propagandize us all they want.

But.... there's no way around it. Somebody somewhere has to have power, no matter what system you set up. The mistake is to put it all in one place. Put it at least in two or more places, and it's less likely you'll get oppressed too badly.

Originally Posted by Cosmo

Liongold

My article, My Brand of Socialism, allows 'free enterprise' but it is controlled by the government to prevent RUNAWAY capitalism that would eliminate
the billionaires that stuff themselves with dollars that stop circulating. So these dollars become STAGNANT that do nothing for the economy.

Cosmo

Trouble is that sometimes a billionaire isn't a bad thing. Those people's net worth is always in the form of investments. Investments they manage, either directly or indirectly, and investments they're responsible for. (In the sense that, if those investments turn out to be unwise, they're the ones who lose the most money)

The problem is that sometimes the cost of a bad investing decision is not felt by the investor. It's felt by someone else, who either loses a job, doesn't get paid what they deserve, or has to deal with smog/pollution they didn't create, or etc.

Kojax

Greed in governent is controlled by their pay scales in comparison to the corporations.

The president of the US has a salary of $400,000. So they cannot become billionaires.
Compared to the corporate salaries, that adds up to a ratio of $500,000,000.
to $400,000. So that is a ratio of 1250 to one.
So who is the greedy ones?

Another thing about NOT controlling this 'runaway' capitalism is that these surplus dollars are used to eliminate jobs by their buying out the smaller competitors, creating mergers, investing abroad, buying up the medis to censor critcs and other such tactics that eliminat jobs.
And the most important use of all which is to buy governments.

Cosmo

They can just be like clergy in the old Catholic church who, technically didn't own anything, but still lived in luxury none-the-less. That's the way it tends to go in communist governments.

As for USA type situations, you're right that pay scale tends to prevent billionaire-hood, but somebody has to manage billion dollar operations. If the manager doesn't own it, they might not be as careful about how much it gets hurt by their negligence.

Maybe this is the discussion we should be having.

The Pro of having a billionaire is that a vast fortune is being run by someone who has absolutely clear motivation toward making sure it doesn't get wasted. This person isn't going to care what other people want so much as just caring how efficiently the money is used. Personal favors don't motivate them as much, because they can just buy what they need.

The Con of having billionaires is that not all the consequences of the economic decisions they make with their money will be felt by them. Sometimes other people end up having to pay the price for the decisions the billionaire makes with his/her own wealth.

The Pro of government running billionaire fortunes is that they'll be careful to keep an eye on the big picture (I mean the overall economy). Elections are most often swayed by the economy at large rather than the prosperity of any one entity within the economy, so in a sense you have the best kind of macro-scale accountability.

The Con of government running billionaire fortunes is that they won't feel the same ownership of the fortune. They don't care what happens to it as much. It's easy for a government official to waste large amounts of money, or play favorites with who gets to benefit, in exchange for personal favors, or just to feel like they're making friends.

Kojax

They are NOT worth the dollars they pay for themselves. They appoint the Board of Directors and these boards then provide them with these BLOATED incomes of all types.

I repeat, the USA is the largest organiztion in the world and their pay scales (CEO's) in comparison to the government officials is outrageous.

Besides, brains do NOT create any 'tangible' wealth.
So the workers are DEPRIVED of a good wage scale that they deserve.

Cosmo

So the workers are DEPRIVED of a good wage scale that they deserve

How so? What would you consider a fair salary for the average worker?

Originally Posted by Liongold

So the workers are DEPRIVED of a good wage scale that they deserve

How so? What would you consider a fair salary for the average worker?

When they can afford a house, car, Healthcare, adequate Pensions and other essential needs.

Cosmo

When they can afford a house, car, Healthcare, adequate Pensions and other essential needs.

... which most workers have, thank you very much. The problem with the US economy is a fall in demand, not a lack of money. Don't confuse depression with recession.

Originally Posted by Liongold

When they can afford a house, car, Healthcare, adequate Pensions and other essential needs.

... which most workers have, thank you very much. The problem with the US economy is a fall in demand, not a lack of money. Don't confuse depression with recession.

Is that why all these people are losing their houses and the car market is slumping?
Ha ha.

Cosmo

Originally Posted by Cosmo

Kojax

They are NOT worth the dollars they pay for themselves. They appoint the Board of Directors and these boards then provide them with these BLOATED incomes of all types.

I repeat, the USA is the largest organiztion in the world and their pay scales (CEO's) in comparison to the government officials is outrageous.

In other words: runaway beourocracy.

You're right. Even charities often run into this. So many people with college degrees in management show up and start wanting to manage everything, and of course they're not going to accept a non-college wage.

So, often times, the better half of all the money you donate to feed starving kids in Africa, goes instead toward some upper management person's SUV.

Besides, brains do NOT create any 'tangible' wealth.
So the workers are DEPRIVED of a good wage scale that they deserve.

Cosmo

An intangible contribution, but it leads to a final product that is very tangible.

If you've got say 5,000 workers, a genius strategist might make the difference between them building 50,000 TV sets, and them building 80,000 TV sets.

I always use the example of the McCormick reaper (first known farm machine in the USA). Consider how many man-hours of labor that device has saved. Or, for the same effort, compare how much farm work gets done using these machines vs. how much would get done without them.

The inventor isn't physically out in the fields doing work, but the amount of additional work that got done *because* of him is far greater than any one farm worker could hope to accomplish in 100 lifetimes.

You're adopting a very narrow view of causality.

Is that why all these people are losing their houses and the car market is slumping?
Ha ha.

No. That is because of the banks losing money, because of the subprime house loan crisis. As a result, industry has slowed, and because of the fall in demand, people are indeed losing money. Capitalism is not at fault here; it is human foresight that got it all horribly wrong.

A lot of it, I think, is from investors taking out huge loans from the economic stimulus, and then spending it on stuff like Real Estate, that's supposed to be a sure bet during economic crisis.

But, this is only true if everybody isn't doing the same thing.

If you pump a bunch of dollars into the economy, what you're doing is causing inflation. You have more dollars, but not more goods and services. If the money is spent to build factories and such, then more goods and services will appear, and by end of the whole affair you hopefully haven't caused any inflation at all. (Both money and goods and services both increased)


If the inflationary dollars get spent on real estate, however, what happens is that real estate prices go up, but... well..... the supply of real estate isn't going to increase.

So, if stimulus money gets spent on real estate, it is just 100% pure inflation. It accomplishes nothing except to raise the price of a good.

Kojax

I have nothing against technoogy, but machines do NOT buy the essentials that people need.

It took workers to create the machines. So those workers should get much higher wages to compensate for the reduced field workers .
Then capitalism creates 'agribusinesses to reduce the small farms . So this reduces the number of workers also.
So all the money is going to the top where it stops circulating.
So bankruptcies start happening.

So the problem is at the top.

So these people at the top also use these excess dollars to buy govenrnment.

So we need the PUBLIC FINANCING OF OUR ELECTORAL PROCESS to eliminate these dollar stuffing habituals that create these lopsided distributions of the dollars that the WORKERS CREATE.

The bottom line is that you cannot ctreate real tangible weath just with brains.

Cosmo



Cos mo

Originally Posted by Liongold

Is that why all these people are losing their houses and the car market is slumping?
Ha ha.

No. That is because of the banks losing money, because of the subprime house loan crisis. As a result, industry has slowed, and because of the fall in demand, people are indeed losing money. Capitalism is not at fault here; it is human foresight that got it all horribly wrong.

You mean people should all be aware of the YO YO market that business relies on to make a profit?

Cosmo

Originally Posted by Cosmo

Kojax

I have nothing against technoogy, but machines do NOT buy the essentials that people need.

No, but they create those essentials (some of them).

They don't create land to live on, but they build houses. They can't extend our food supply very far, because that's still on a ratio with the amount of arable land no matter what you do. (Though workers don't extend that either).

If you take a single worker, and give that worker the productivity of ten workers. What's the difference between having that one worker (with the productivity of ten) , and having ten workers?

This is not true of consumption, but clearly true of production. Why not just pay the workers without actually having them work, if we don't need them to produce, but only need them to buy stuff?

It took workers to create the machines. So those workers should get much higher wages to compensate for the reduced field workers .
Then capitalism creates 'agribusinesses to reduce the small farms . So this reduces the number of workers also.
So all the money is going to the top where it stops circulating.
So bankruptcies start happening.

Money can be artificially moved, if that's what you want.

If all you're concerned about is having people work and get paid (whether their labor is actually productive or not), then how about this:

Set up a bunch of hampster cage style running wheels. Have people run in those wheels. Pay them for it.

So the problem is at the top.

So these people at the top also use these excess dollars to buy govenrnment.

So we need the PUBLIC FINANCING OF OUR ELECTORAL PROCESS to eliminate these dollar stuffing habituals that create these lopsided distributions of the dollars that the WORKERS CREATE.

The bottom line is that you cannot ctreate real tangible weath just with brains.

Cosmo

The problem is that directing is more useful than working in the modern world. (production side, not consumption side). .. and nobody wants to strain their brains learning to direct.

Engineering schools are getting too few students. But, an engineer is more valuable to production than an unskilled factory worker. Machines are getting to the point where they can build other machines, and the system gets more autonomous every day.

Sure, you still need human workers a little, but you used to need them alot. Sure they built the machines in the first place, but those same machines don't need to get re-built again and again.

The workers made themselves obsolete. And, they're getting more obsolete every day. The question isn't how to stop this from happening. The question is how to keep incomes distributed among people who are no longer able to make a meaningful contribution.

Kojax

You just do not get it!
How do you describe a prosperous economy?

A lot of UNemployed workers or a low UNemployment rate?

We really do NOT need capitalism. We DO need workers to create these tangible
goods like houses , cars, food and etc.

So get real.

Cosmo.

I agree with kojax about automation slowly taking over. So how do you deal with impending skyrocketing unemployment rates? Make education cheaper or free. Why more countries don't make education free is beyond me.

Maybe raw, natural resources need to be something nobody can privately own. Only the product of labor should be owned. It's kind of a thought I've been having.

I've heard that, in Iraq, people want the oil fields to be government property, and that kind of makes sense. I mean, it's not like anybody ever created an oil deposit by doing hard work. The same is true of land, and gold. Someone terraformed the land, or mined the gold, but the raw, natural, land/gold existed long before humans.

Is there a way someone could own the work they've done, but without owning the land/gold/oil deposit itself?

Originally Posted by Cosmo

Kojax

You just do not get it!
How do you describe a prosperous economy?

A lot of UNemployed workers or a low UNemployment rate?

We really do NOT need capitalism. We DO need workers to create these tangible
goods like houses , cars, food and etc.

So get real.

Cosmo.

It's like I said: Is a prosperous economy one where people just plain work, even when it isn't producing anything?

Shall we set up hampster wheels and pay people to run in those hampster wheels all day? They'd be employed. They'd be working, and we could print money to pay them with.

Is that how you describe a prosperous economy? People work hard all day long, and produce nothing?

The problem with automation is that there literally exists only so much work to be done. Once a farmer has seeded his/her land, sprayed some pesticide, and seen to the irrigation, all they can do after that is sit and wait for nature to do its thing. Only so much mining can be done on a single mineral vein. You can only build as many sky scrapers as you've got steel. (As China recently realized)


The limit on how much work *can* be done is set by natural resources (or in other words, it's set by forces beyond human control). If machines are doing a substantial portion of that work, then humans will have to be idle.

Kojax

Jobs are easy to create. Like I said , distribute the stimulous dollars to all the states that have budget shortfalls .
Wholesale jobs are now being sacrificed because of dollar shortages resulting froim the current business slump where all the dollars rose like 'hot air' to the bank accounts of the billionaires and the multi-millionaires.

When dollars stop circulating, then there will be sales slumps and then layoffs and erosion of buyers and so on .

Cosmo

So, I'm taking it your answer is yes.

You're saying we can fix the economy just by giving people any old arbitrary task to do, whether it produces a valuable service/good or not, just so long as it puts currency in their wallets.

Heck, in the great depression I understand they hired thousands of people to be ditch diggers to dig trenches all over the place. This would also explain why war is seen as good for the economy. Hire people to build tanks and helicopters, just so they're busy. Maybe it would divert some money back out of the real estate industry.

It doesn't quite sit well with me, of course, because I'm asking myself how long these kinds of situations can last. At some point the economy has to recognize that these people are just spinning their wheels and getting paid for it, instead of moving us anywhere. It can cascade into another kind of problem where industrialists realize there's more money to be made organizing useless labor than there is in organizing useful labor. (Hence, the USA's Military Industrial Complex)

Kojax

Harry Truman, who I considered to be a great president, got no respect!
He was a great classical pianist and one of the great remarks he said was
'the buck stops here'.

So I have come up with a slightly modified version.
All the top earners can say, 'the dollars stop here'.

So your version of workers having useless jobs can be applied to these dollars that also become USELESS.

So this hoarded wealth is a very big reason why the current market slump has happened.

Cosmo

I can sympathize with the idea of using useless jobs as a means of forcing someone to either create a useful role for workers, or have to pay them for nothing. Running in hampster wheels, as an alternative to welfare, would also force workers to seek better employment.

I think part of the reason I think it's so appealing for me to suggest something so ridiculous is just that I wish people would start admitting it when they're doing something to create useless jobs.

I mean, we should strive to make it obvious that the job is just a useless filler, even while we acknowledge the work the person does as honorable, because with too many of these jobs, we'll start getting a lot of inflation.

Example: Right now in Oregon, there's a law making all gasoline stations have to be full service. It's illegal to pump your own gas. You have to let a gas station attendant do it. If Oregon repealed the law, somewhere around 4000-5000 people would suddenly be without jobs.

It annoys the hel out of me. I get so tired of pulling into a gas station, and having to wait while some overworked attendant, with 4 other clients to deal with, finally finds the time to get over to my car, and pump my gas. Even if I'm in quite a hurry, I've got to wait for this guy. There are some things nice about it, and I don't hold anything against the person themself, but why do this to ourselves?

Kojax

This law could have resulted from careless gas spills and fires.

But how about all those useless vice presidents that capitalism creates on their
managearial staffs?
That would make the top CEO a useless leader since anyone of those VP could replace the CEO if he decided to take a vacation for a month or two.

Meaningful jobs are easy to create. The problem here is financing the jobs.
So you have to get all the ultra wealthy and lecture them on what constitutes patriotism.
Paying your taxes without crying is one of the best forms of patriotism.
After all, maintaining a powerfut military is needed to protect all that wealth the rich stuff themselves with.

Also, our government goes out to act as salesman to promote a lot of these trading agreements.

Cosmo