Nemesis, had you actually read my solutions chapter you’d have seen that the inequality is steadily and gently reduced because there are 2 effects at work, not one.  The money given the underpaid - given, not lent at interest - increases their wealth more than the inflation effect decreases it, and it works opposite for the overpaid; the inflation effect reduces their wealth more than the monetary gain they are given increases it.  And the effect is most pronounced at the extremes.  I made that point at least twice in the chapter, and now I’ve pointed it out to you again.  If you are determined not to grok what’s being laid out for you, then there is nothing more to say to you except to ask you to please stop misrepresenting the plan.

and for heavens sakes their must be a squillion examples of the majority opinion deciding on things and doing them utterly without force.  my town has leash laws for dogs.  there was no war over it.  no force was needed.  the majority decided they wanted it, and it was done.  we peaceably got water pipes and streetlights and parks, too.  heck, i don’t even recall the bloody skirmishes that made 2 o’clock two o’clock on my block.  hello?

I think it’s very very very sad that you’re crying out in anger, mad as hell at ME for correcting your erroneous fundamentals and conclusions, whilst your anger towards a genosadistic giga-extreme wealthpower inequity factor residing in the billions killing people and this planet round the clock - is undetectable.

Perhaps someday soon, when it is revealed that the well bore and seafloor have been damaged too badly to ever stop the gusher in Gulf Mex, you, and a lot of other people on this globe, too, will let go your false pride as you cry yourself to sleep - and it will dawn on you that a just cap on personal fortunes would have removed the motive for the crime and prevented the cutting corners that men did all because they were allowed to pursue unlimited personal fortunes.

Siding with overpayunderpay injustice is self-harming.
Don’t be a masochist.
And don’t be a genosadist.

nemesis2010, June 14 at 4:52 pm:

... There would be no need to redistribute wealth if we had an equitable system of wealth distribution in the first place.’

That’s what he or she is advocating.  The problem is that few people agree on what “an equitable system of wealth distribution is”, and among these, fewer still agree that equality of pay for labor (or anything else) is equitable.  As I’ve pointed out, there are small communities which practice equality of compensation for labor—it is workable enough to keep them going—but so far it has not been very popular with people in general.  And the ruling classes of the various states certainly aren’t going to go for it.

By Xavier Onassis, June 13 at 1:43 pm

”Nemesis, you are simply wrong re how inflation works, my plan has it correct.”

Yes you’re absolutely right Xavier. How could I have presumed to think that I understand inflation? I mean it’s not like there aren’t hundreds of different schools of economic theory, not to mention Joe the wino’s economic theories who are much better founded on basic economic principle that that tripe you’ve wasted so much memory on.

I’m sure that your plan explains your door being knocked down by economic professors, theorists, and practitioners of all the many different schools wanting to learn of Xavier’s economics for retards.

I guess I should first study the quantity theory of money and how it was disputed by Keynes and reconsidered by the Modernists (and how current thought holds that is does prove true in the long run) and basic supply and demand principles.

I should probably forget:

”For any given supply of money, supply and demand interact to set a value for each unit of money. If money is in short supply, each piece of money is very valuable; fewer pieces of money translate into fewer chances to avoid having to engage in barter. But if the government greatly increases the supply of money, then each individual unit of money loses value because getting enough money together to avoid barter is easy.”

and…

”Prices and the value of money are inversely related, meaning that when the value of money goes up, prices go down (and vice versa).”

And also…

Demand-pull inflation, cost-push inflation, and stagflation (egg on Keynes face that one, heh?), how sustained monetary inflation usually results in price inflation, etc. etc.

Imagine my good fortune to encounter the next economic genius right here on Truthdig! It’s a f—king wonder that Hedges doesn’t contract you to write an economics commentary for Truthdig. How long before you receive the Noble Prize in economics?

By Xavier Onassis, June 13 at 1:50 pm

”The comment makes me wonder if you are twins.  Because I don’t think it’s possible for one person to be that illogical and to deny reality and all of history to that great a degree.”

Right again Xavier, damn boy you reely is smart.

I don’t mind the ad hominem Xavier as long as it has some actual argument based on evidence accompanying it. Perhaps you can try to make a case using very, very, very real evidence?

Have you any idea how ghey it is to use “very” in sequence 3 mfing times? That alone tells me I’m dealing with an economist/historian that should never stop taking his meds.

People need money in order to buy the necessities of life in a world where there simply aren’t enough employment opportunities for 6.8 billion people and where the eco system could hardly support such intense harvesting. That’s the problem that we need to be working on, not some hair-brained idea of how to redistribute wealth. There would be no need to redistribute wealth if we had an equitable system of wealth distribution in the first place.

In regard to inflation, I don’t think the mere issue of money is the problem; the question is whether people expect to be able to trade it for anything else.  In a situation where a lot of people are unemployed, if one prints up some money and employs the people do produce something they can actually use, buy and sell, there will be no inflation.  On the other hand, one can print up money and give it to people who do no labor, or are actually destructive.  I won’t name any names.

In the present and recent past, we have had not so much money-printing as the expansion of credit for the rich.  Since most of what the rich use money for is not consumer goods but investments in corporations, real estate, collectibles, and sometimes certain commodities, the inflation of credit has not caused much inflation of labor or goods produced by labor.  (In fact, the situation may have been moderately deflationary.)  However, this credit cannot be met with labor without raising the price of labor, and thus the things that labor produces.  At crossover points between credit economy and the labor economy, like the subprime mortgage market, the conflict between credit inflation and labor deflation has caused a lot of damage.  More seems to be on the way, as apparently contemporary capitalists cannot function without huge infusions of this credit, which the government is duly supplying.  But that is perhaps off the subject.

And as for this “A majority doesn’t guarantee that your plan would be implemented. There has to be authority (power, force, etc.) behind it.”

The comment makes me wonder if you are twins.  Because I don’t think it’s possible for one person to be that illogical and to deny reality and all of history to that great a degree.

Maybe you were joking.

Nemesis, you are simply wrong re how inflation works, my plan has it correct.

Ellen Brown, author of Web of Debt: “…Prices do not benignly adjust to a contraction in the money supply; this has been shown historically. When the money supply contracts, workers get laid off, businesses shut down, and the economy goes into a recession or a depression. It’s a fallacy to think you can control prices by controlling the money supply – or even that you can control the money supply (“you” meaning, of course, the central bank). In the 1970s and 1980s, when Milton Friedman’s monetarism was popular, attempts were made to regulate prices by regulating the money supply, and they didn’t work. Some major recessions resulted, and Third World countries got locked hopelessly in debt from a radical increase in interest rates, but the money supply couldn’t be controlled.

The Federal Reserve doesn’t create money; banks do. The Federal Reserve just responds by providing the reserves they need after the fact if they come up short. And adding money to the system doesn’t raise prices – not if workers and materials are available to make goods. If you add money to the system, the money will go looking for goods, and merchants will respond by making more. Supply and demand will go up together and prices will remain stable. An increase in interest rates is more likely to raise prices. Merchants raise their prices to cover their costs, and interest is a major cost.

That’s from here:  http://www.thedailybell.com/496/Ellen-Brown-Web-of-Debt.html

Now from here:  http://www.webofdebt.com/articles/bankrupt-germany.php

… Zarlenga writes that Schacht proceeded in his 1967 book The Magic of Money “to let the cat out of the bag, writing in German, with some truly remarkable admissions that shatter the ‘accepted wisdom’ the financial community has promulgated on the German hyperinflation.“6 Schacht revealed that it was the privately-owned Reichsbank, not the German government, that was pumping new currency into the economy. Like the U.S. Federal Reserve, the Reichsbank was overseen by appointed government officials but was operated for private gain. What drove the wartime inflation into hyperinflation was speculation by foreign investors, who would sell the mark short, betting on its decreasing value. …Speculation in the German mark was made possible because the Reichsbank made massive amounts of currency available for borrowing, marks that were created with accounting entries on the bank’s books and lent at a profitable interest. When the Reichsbank could not keep up with the voracious demand for marks, other private banks were allowed to create them out of nothing and lend them at interest as well.7

According to Schacht, then, not only did the government not cause the Weimar hyperinflation, but it was the government that got it under control. The Reichsbank was put under strict government regulation, and prompt corrective measures were taken to eliminate foreign speculation, by eliminating easy access to loans of bank-created money. Hitler then got the country back on its feet with his Treasury Certificates issued Greenback-style by the government.

Schacht actually disapproved of this government fiat money, and wound up getting fired as head of the Reichsbank when he refused to issue it (something that may have saved him at the Nuremberg trials). But he acknowledged in his later memoirs that allowing the government to issue the money it needed had not produced the price inflation predicted by classical economic theory. He surmised that this was because factories were sitting idle and people were unemployed. In this he agreed with John Maynard Keynes: when the resources were available to increase productivity, adding new money to the economy did not increase prices; it increased goods and services. Supply and demand increased together, leaving prices unaffected.

I highly reccommend you read Michael Hudson, too.

By Xavier Onassis, June 10 at 2:58 pm

”assuming we have got a majority in the world to the point of being certain that pay justice is very, very, very good for all, we proceed. In brief, our plan counters the unjust drift of wealth into fewer and fewer hands by either distributing a 1% increase of money supply per month equally to every human, or by distributing deceased estates over US$1 million equally among every human, or by employing both methods. (Or, by any other system/method that has greater advantages in low bureaucracy, low social upheaval factor, etc, than these.)”

A majority doesn’t guarantee that your plan would be implemented. There has to be authority (power, force, etc.) behind it.

A 1% percent increase to every single human simply means that everyone’s wealth has increased the same amount. Prices will adjust to the increase in money supply, negating all those wonderful benefits to the so-called “underpaid.”

The redistribution of the estates keeps that wealth out of the hands of the owner(s) but accomplishes little else with regard to the overall distribution of wealth because you have the 1 percenters participating in the redistribution of that wealth. How does that correct the inequitable distribution? How about the costs of getting each share to the each recipient? This too is basically a wash out because—except for the owners or inheritors—everyone’s wealth increases the exact same amount. When the time comes to liquidate real property who will be the more likely to buy multimillion dollar estates, the poor or the 1 percenters?

I admit to having been taking aback when you said some of my comments were ludicrous and had false first premises—albeit you conveniently failed to mention any of them. I don’t feel so bad now.

Science has studied happiness (see provided video link) and it appears that to be happy we need an annual income of about $60,000. The problem is that if we give everyone an income of 60 grand all prices will adjust and we’ll be in the exact same situation that we were prior to the guaranteed income—the main difference being larger numbers.

The riddle of experience vs. memory: Daniel Kahneman on TED.com
http://blog.ted.com/2010/03/the_riddle_of_e.php

Let me give you a hint Xavier… Things that are free are priced that way for a reason.

I’d say justice is a bad idea.  We live from grace, not from justice.  But that’s just my intuition.

Approaching the question more rationally, notice that the philosophical (and etymological) root of justice is the idea of the One True Truth, of the unique supreme god.  (The ju- part of justice is the same as the ju- in “Jupiter”—the sky-father.)  People can compromise about worldly matters, but once they start talking with the gods, they can no longer compromise.  Any disagreement about what is just can only be settled by force (unless people are willing to compromise with divine truth).  And yet there are many such disagreements.

These include many sometimes very bitter disagreements about just apportionment of what we inherit from the past and the fruits of our labor, manifesting themselves in wars, crimes, riots, fights, lawsuits, strikes, boycotts, political manipulation, and so on.  Hence I am not optimistic about your achieving general agreement as to the justice of equal compensation for labor.

There are quite a few people who believe that labor should trade for labor at par—it is not a new idea—and some who live that way, but they are not anywhere near a majority.  Those who want to live out such beliefs sometimes live in communes or may be participants in alternative-money schemes.

May I ask if you think pay justice is very very very good for 100% of people, Anarcissie?

And if your answer is no, may I ask you to please say why?

Xavier Onassis:
’... Assuming we have got a majority in the world to the point of being certain that pay justice is very, very, very good for all, we proceed. ...’

I think that’s going to be a considerable problem.

Those still reading have my sincerest apologies for taking so long to provide the solutions my plan offers.  Please know I have been working hard all this time - every minute I could possibly devote to writing - and also please know that knowing you were waiting spurred me to finally get the solutions chapter finished (rough as it may still be) (help me make it better?), so I’m humbly grateful to you for the good push.  The solutions are now posted here, but only for a couple weeks more:

http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/?q=node/5194#comment-6593

I am grateful to all who will read Chapter 12 at the bottom of that page, and I thank you so much in advance.

I think we have raised similar questions.  I’ll wait to see what Xavier has to say for him- or herself.

By Anarcissie, June 8 at 9:25 pm

”I think you have something of a contradiction there.  On the one hand you say “we’re the problem” and on the other hand you ascribe the perpetration of evils to a small minority of unusual individuals.”

One man was given a choice. Many men prepared to respond to that choice regardless of what that choice might be. All of humanity knew what was coming after that choice was made and had more than a year to do something about it to help prevent it. A small band of neo-conservatives anuses took this nation to war based on lies. Was there any action taken by enough human beings to prevent it? No. We—humanity—are the problem. Our whole history has been the few ruling over the many. The many allowing this to continue are just as culpable. It’s the old sins of commission vs. sins of omission.

The State is nothing more than human beings performing within the framework of that which we call government. The State is not a living, breathing entity that can do anything. That which we call evil comes from us. We perpetrate evil on ourselves. Nature doesn’t do evil, nature just is and the harm that comes from nature isn’t evil, it’s just nature acting according to physical laws that do not change, that’s the nature of our universe.

If there’s a flood that wipes out homes by the millions nature isn’t doing it because it hates us. But carpet bombing human beings and their land into oblivion is evil because it is something that is not natural, it is purposed by one group of humans and designed to inflict evil on another group of humans in order to accomplish some desired end.

Did you notice that Xavier bemoaned in one if his post that it was sad that he had all the answers—apparently a few laws—and that they were free and would save us from the system of corruption? What he fails to realize—apparently—is that getting those laws enacted and equitably enforced is no small hurdle to accomplish. Hell that’s the damn problem we face now, too many bad laws, not enough good ones and none of them are enforced equitably! If our nature was such that we’d all, as one species, embrace that which is best for all of humankind we wouldn’t need any goddamn laws in the first place. We’re not wired—evolutionarily—that way.

It’s really not that hard to understand. I think that people simply don’t want to deal with it.

By Xavier Onassis, June 8 at 6:08 pm

”I don’t disagree with everything you said, but you have come to several erroneous conclusions there, Nemesis.  They are resulting from mistaken first premises.  The result is you are thinking you perceive hurdles my plan must clear that do not in fact exist.  Some of what you present as if it were incontrovertible is actually unproven – some of it is even un-provable, one bit I find quite absurd, actually.  But I’ll have to let it all wait.  For now, suffice to say nothing you wrote presents a problem to “my” fairpay justice plan’s implementation, as I will explain.”

That’s nice.

Well, let’s see that great plan of yours.

nemesis2010, June 8 at 3:39 pm:
’... All of these problems and their solutions take us back to the foundation of all our problems –- mankind. We’re the problem. 

...

If we cannot—as a civilization—prevent one man or a few individuals from perpetrating such evil upon the whole of the Homo sapien community, just how the hell are we going to convince the entire Homo sapien community to put aside their self-interests and work for the good of all mankind? We’re not and we’re f—ked! ‘

I think you have something of a contradiction there.  On the one hand you say “we’re the problem” and on the other hand you ascribe the perpetration of evils to a small minority of unusual individuals.

I think the first proposition is the more likely, more useful one.  Surely the state grows out of daily life.  It is true some states have been imposed by alien powers, but in most of the world today the guns that are pointing at people are held by their neighbors.  What needs to be changed is not the elites but the structure that holds them up, the belief in and attraction to authority, force, violence and oppression.

While I am by no means optimistic about it, I think that there is a long shot: bit by bit we can change the culture.  Agreed, things are going the other way now, but human nature, if there is such a thing, is a great mystery, and modest pushes here and there may surprise us by reversing its presently fatal direction.  Hence I am trying to get people to disconnect from the system, to take a walk so to speak.

It is a very long shot, but I don’t see any alternative.  War brings only new great leaders to power.

I don’t disagree with everything you said, but you have come to several erroneous conclusions there, Nemesis.  They are resulting from mistaken first premises.  The result is you are thinking you perceive hurdles my plan must clear that do not in fact exist.  Some of what you present as if it were incontrovertible is actually unproven – some of it is even un-provable, one bit I find quite absurd, actually.  But I’ll have to let it all wait.  For now, suffice to say nothing you wrote presents a problem to “my” fairpay justice plan’s implementation, as I will explain.

By Xavier Onassis, June 8 at 1:08 pm

”I am debating with myself as to whether or not to go ahead and present the solution here…because I know what will most likely happen.”

Should you decide to go forward with it you’ll have to provide historical evidence that demonstrates a propensity in humans to lay aside personal interests for the good of the all mankind and also some historical precedent where the privileged and their henchmen classes willing forfeit their positions of privilege for the good of the human race without first being compelled to do so through violent means.

I wish much luck in accomplishing that.

By Anarcissie, June 8 at 12:51 am

”In my experience, for every dollar, for every vote, for every minute of someone’s attention, there are thousands of great ideas.  Thinking of new things isn’t the problem.  The will to do something is the problem.”

And for every great idea there are many nutty, crazy, and just plain stupid ideas also.

Part of the necessary new thinking will be how to implement such change and how to motivate society—especially globally—to work towards common goals. That’s where the real dangers lie. According to scientists we are transitioning from a Type 0 to Type 1 civilization. And we can see that happening. We can travel further in a couple of hours than people only 100 years ago could travel in weeks and months. The economy is so globalized that fraud in our housing market threatens the entire world economy. The financial crisis in Asia almost brought down the entire world economy just a few years ago.

All of these problems and their solutions take us back to the foundation of all our problems –mankind. We’re the problem. The super-wealthy, the political, and their henchmen classes are not going to give up their positions of privilege without a fight. We know that’s true. We have historical precedent to back that hypothesis. Through our evolutionary history we have preferred conflict rather than reason as the best way to resolve problems. If problem resolution through reason had proved viable I’ve no doubt we would be possessed of a propensity to problem resolve through peaceful means rather than conflict. And it simply is not the case.

I believe that we—humanity—are at a very critical crossroads. I also believe that the most important lesson that history teaches us is that we do not learn the lessons of history. I believe we are headed toward a very ugly near future where many—perhaps a billion or two—human beings will perish.

If you doubt what I’m saying think about this current insanity, the Iraq war. Saddam Hussein was offered many millions of dollars—with impunity—to simply step down or be forcefully removed from power.  Given that the nation making the offer is the most militarily powerful nation in the history of our race it would seem a no brainer, accept the money and live your life out in peace and luxury albeit in exile. He was in his late 60s, it’s not like he had a whole lifetime before him. Yet that one individual, by refusing to reason, ended up being a principle player in a yet to be resolved and very avoidable conflict that has cost the lives of many tens of thousands of innocent human beings, drained our national treasury of at least 1 trillion dollars, and wasted immeasurable amounts of precious natural resources. One Homo sapien was allowed to make one very bad decision that not only cost him his life but the lives of many thousands more including his two sons. One man!

A very small group of privileged and avarice-filled individuals on Wall Street has ruined the lives of many millions and brought the entire world economy to the brink of bankruptcy. These same individuals are not only walking around free, while those of their schemes have lost their homes and many their livelihoods, they are richly rewarded for their amoral behavior.

If we cannot—as a civilization—prevent one man or a few individuals from perpetrating such evil upon the whole of the Homo sapien community, just how the hell are we going to convince the entire Homo sapien community to put aside their self-interests and work for the good of all mankind? We’re not and we’re f—ked!

Xavier Onassis, June 8 at 1:08 pm:

‘I am not ignoring you, Anarcissie.  I am debating with myself as to whether or not to go ahead and present the solution here…because I know what will most likely happen. ...’

You predictions seem likely to me.  You are dealing with politics, and the kind of response you anticipate is one of the sets of problems any idea, large or small, must negotiate on the way to what we fondly call “reality.”  Indeed, if your ideas have any success they will soon cease to be your ideas, acquire a life of their own, undergo strange transformations, and may well turn into monsters.  And unlike your children (who are similar in these ways) you can’t lecture them or threaten to cut them out of your will.

One may wish to proceed with caution.

I am not ignoring you, Anarcissie.  I am debating with myself as to whether or not to go ahead and present the solution here…because I know what will most likely happen.  People will not read with care and think carefully before they respond, they will stay in their grooves and simply be reactionary.  The new idea will be tested for soundness using the old ideas that the new idea is saying are wrong.  The socialists will call me an apologist for capitalism.  The libertarians will read the same plan and accuse me of being socialist.  Neither accusation will be true in the least, but I’ll have to spend a lot of time countering all the nonsense that will get posted.  People will not just ask for clarification of what they don’t understand, they will spin what I’m actually saying, adding their own words and saying that’s what I meant, then they’ll argue against what I did not even say and do not believe.  People will use false, irrational arguments to “prove” the solutions will not work.  I risk making myself a whole lot of work countering heaps of illogic, or else letting the false arguments against the plan appear to stand – a thing I wish to avoid.  And then there is the difficulty of being limited to 4000 characters, too.

I’m thinking it over.

I’ll be back.

Xavier Onassis—You haven’t said how your plan is going to implemented.  How are we going to get to there from here?

It’s funny - funny as in strange - and sad, oh so sad: you offer people a plan to get rid of the corruption that ate your country and your world…and to get rid of a million other leaves on the tree of problems…a free plan, just, capitalist, no big change in capitalist culture, just a few small laws…a plan that gets rid of suffocating bureaucracy and big government, puts an end to extinction soon…with rational proofs that we are headed for that – fast…a plan that gives 100fold happiness, with rational, sensible proofs of that, a plan to put an end to tyranny, to restore democracy forever, establish peace, with proofs of that, too…a plan that gives 100 times faster technology progress, gives US$40/hour for every working person in the world including housewives and students - that’s $200,000 per family [yes, the super-overpaid are stealing that much] -  a plan that gives justice liberty democracy happiness sanity peace fraternity safety lower-taxes, better public services, end of warmongering and cannonfoddering - in short, a golden age, for only the cost of reading and cogitation to grok the idea, to wear a new path in the mind and tell two friends - no group to join at any stage, individual independent enquiry only - no social conflict, no opposition, no going head to head with the powers that be – an efficient plan that strikes at the root of all major problems…a win-win plan that benefits both overpaid and underpaid enormously, with the rational proofs of that, too

and get no response.  everyone walks away from it – won’t check it out.

why?

people just have to jump to disbelief before reading?

it is too much of a mindset leap to think that we have been missing out on a lot?

too much of a leap to think big picture, global [reality]?

are people falsely convinced they can be happy without grokking the big picture?  do they realize it’s the doggie doodoo you don’t see that you step in?

if people think it is too much trouble to switch to pay justice, are they forgetting to compare it to the trouble and result of NOT switching?

nemesis2010, June 7 at 8:20 pm:

‘... We need new thinking. ...’

In my experience, for every dollar, for every vote, for every minute of someone’s attention, there are thousands of great ideas.  Thinking of new things isn’t the problem.  The will to do something is the problem.

The Bucky Fuller is from his Grunch of Giants, which can be read online:

“What I hoped I had made clear in Critical Path is that the inherently half-century-long design science-revolution phase of attainment of universal economic success has been successfully completed and now needs only the bloodless socioeconomic reorientation instead of the political revolution to exercise humanity’s option to “make it” for all.”

“I hoped that Critical Path made it clear that lacking the accomplishment of the design-science revolution, while also undergoing the transition into a one-world amalgamation of humanity which we are now experiencing, humans would have been catalyzed only into a world-around social revolution of the same bloody historic pattern of revengeful pulling down of the advantaged few by the disadvantaged many.”

“I hoped that Critical Path made it clear that the accomplished design-revolution’s prototypes and developmental concepts now make possible for the first time in history a bloodless social revolution successfully elevating all humanity to a sustainable higher living-standard than ever heretofore enjoyed by anyone.”

“I hope that Critical Path made it clear that despite the reality of humanity’s option to make it for all humanity, my own conclusion as to whether humanity will do so within the critical time and environmental development limits is that it will remain cosmically undecided up to the last second of the option’s effective actuation, knowing that beyond that imminent moment lies only the swift extinction of humans on planet Earth.”

“I have been a deliberate half-century-fused inciter of a cool-headed, natural, gestation-rate-paced revolution, armed with physically demonstrable livingry levers with which altogether to elevate all humanity to realization of an inherently sustainable, satisfactory-to-all, ever higher standard of living.”

“Critical threshold-crossing of the inevitable revolution is already underway. The question is: Can it be successfully accomplished before the only-instinctively-operating fear and ignorance preclude success, by one individual, authorized or unauthorized, pushing the first button of chain-reacting all-buttons-pushing, atomic, raceirradiated suicide?”

“The only happily promising recourse of each human individual is to our highest intellectual faculties and their mutual, ego-deflated, unselfishly loving preoccupation with comprehensivity and our employment of the most powerful tools of all…”

Lord Keynes: Someday [when people wake up] moneymania will be classified as a mental disease.

Spinoza: Avarice is madness.

The superrich have been using Malthus for 200 years to support their inhumanity.  That was Malthus’ very purpose in writing his opinions - which have been debunked.

A few moments rational thought should make it clear and obvious that overpayunderpay is the unsustainable cause of all other unsustainability.

It’s the allowing wealthpower giants that is preventing the progress you seek.  Keep faith with overpayunderpay and there will always be a fraction few with the power to thwart the progress needed in the name of uberprofits.

Overpayunderpay keeps 90% of brains too poor to be educated and keeps 90% of educated brains tied up in the effects of having overpay/underpay/violence.  Pay justice means progress goes forward faster and in better, sustainable ways at last.

How bloody obvious is it that where there is gigawealth there is giga power to keep doing things the way the profiteers want?

The human species is either going to rid itself of the suicidal idea to allow overpayunderpay, or we will succumb to the results of having the next and the next and the next wealthpower giants ad infinitum until the injustice sets off the global bombs.

R. Buckminster Fuller said:

The social revolution potential now can for the first time in history realize economic success for all and a comprehensive world enjoyment that involves not revengefully toppling the economically successful minority but elevating all humanity to a sustainable higher level of existing and interacting than any humans have heretofore either experienced or dreamed of.
The now-potentially-to-be-omni-successful social revolution could never before in history have been realized. Until 1970 there had always been enough physical resources but not enough metaphysical resources (of experience-won know-how) on our planet to render the physical technology capable of taking care of everyone at a sustainable, eminently successful level of physical well-being — bloodlessly accomplished and sustainable without the coexistence of either a human slave or working class. Until 1970 it had realistically to be either you or me, not enough for both. Since 1970 it has become realistically you and me — all else is automated acceleration to human-race extinction on planet Earth.

No proposed solution to the seven questions or proposed economic theory to solve our economic ills can be considered viable without first addressing the problem of sustainability. Teaching 6.8 billion to fish and hunt and plant is not a solution either. The earth’s eco system is already stretched to the limits.

We need new thinking. We need first and foremost a viable alternative source of energy to replace the quickly depleting supplies of crude. We need continued research in genetically modified foods. We also desperately need to consider and find a workable solution to world-wide birth rates. With advances in medical science (see the possibility of nano medicines in the video below) humans are going to be living longer than ever. We’re already living more than double the life spans of human beings throughout most of our evolutionary history. Soon, living more than one hundred years will be commonplace.

Thankfully there are advances in nano-science that can help us with the fresh drinking water problem. Check out the nano water filter in this video: http://vimeo.com/9068558

Unless your solution addresses sustainability it is useless.

Yeah it’s really easy to talk about using force from the ivory tower, but it’s a whole lot different when someone is actually kicking you in the belly.

Kinda like Gulf State Republicans who don’t want any government interference until a hurricane or an oil slick hits.  As my mother used to say “It all depends on whose ox is being gored.”

Anarcissie is right—violent overthrows usually lead to just another corrupted dictator.

And, like the chicken-hawks Cheney and Bush, it’s easy to bring violence from 7000 miles away and not actually risking one’s ass.

THERE IS NO REASON TO HAVE SUPERRICH

THERE IS EVERY REASON TO NOT HAVE SUPERRICH

every extremely rich-poor country has extreme violence and has self-destructed – this is the lesson of history

superwealth is not just, it is not beneficial, it is extremely destructive, painful, bad, slavery, tyranny - for rich and poor - for overpaid and underpaid - robbers and robbed – it is anti-freedom, anti-americandream

if you had a community of people all working fulltime, would there be any benefit in making pay extremely unequal? would that be anything except destabilising, troubletroubletrouble?

so you already know it is bad - so wake everyone up and outlaw it

the american dream of freedom was BASED on limitation of fortunes - prohibition of entail, primogeniture, fixing clergy salaries - the first thing done after the declaration of independence - Lincoln warned you about the corporation - JEFFERSON warned you about the corporation

you know that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer - you know it isn’t because the rich work harder and harder and the poor work less and less - ie, you know it is unjust - injustice = violence

there is plenty for all - $200,000 for every family in the world - and one acre of arable land per person -

if you outlaw overpayunderpay, you’ll be preventing overpay/underpay/violence - if you don’t, you won’t

go out and get the numbers by rational discussion and outlaw overpay

pay, after 1000s of years of uncontrolled richgetricher etc, ranges from $1000 per second to $1000 per lifetime!!!!!!!!!

1000s of years of freeforall of everyone grabbing as much as you can, means that now, 1% have from the average to 1,000,000 times the average, and 90% have from a 10th to a 1000th of the average hourly payrate

we have also had 1000s of years of escalation of war and weaponry, from throwing stones to ICBMs

are people totally incapable of even discussing this? are you going to bleep over this post and go on chatting forever about saltwater/freshwater economic theories, or about an endless string of consequences of extreme overunderpay? the millions of messes that flow daily out of extreme overpay/underpay?

i am not trying to be rude - i am trying to be heard

you are swallowing the camel of extreme overpay underpay and straining out gnats of Keynes, Rothbards, etc, etc. etc

Henry Thoreau: there are 1000 [more like 1,000,000,000] striking at the leaves of the tree of problems for every one who is striking at the root of the tree of problems

it is much easier to get rid of problems by chopping the tree down than by looking at leaves - much much much easier

PLEASE

i haven’t dealt with human aggressiveness – humans are aggressive not from nature but from extreme situation.  Iif you starve a nice dog and beat it long enough, it will become hopelessly savage - extreme wealth and poverty generates extreme situations which cause humans to become savage - lets get rid of extreme suffering and then see how humans behave - we are starving to death 50,000,000 a year - while there is $1,000,000 annual income PER STARVING PERSON - forget compassion - it hasn’t worked - think of yourselves - how you are embroiled in this megamess - eg, you are trying to save the world by writing about economic schools of errors when you could be living a thousand times happier, safer, freer lives.

think fearlessly!

Is it possible people could jump out of their various mental grooves long enough to get this thread back on topic ...back to a topic as essential, vital, crucial to everyone’s happiness and survival as it is rarely discussed?

“But is it his money?” asked Moshe Adler right off in his article titled “You Need a Raise”.

The author is asking *just how much* personal fortune is it *really right* for the guy to have, and is saying that many people are not being *paid fairly*, they are getting *some amount* less than deserved – and needed.

This essay we are commenting after is all about doing numbers, people.  And answering the question “what exactly constitutes just-ness when it comes to paying people?”

People who wish to pay only lip-service to justice can stop reading here.

“But is it his money?”

As I’ve said from the get-go to no one listening, you can’t know if what he has is all, part, or none of his by rights (= justly) without crunching some numbers.  You can’t know if others deserve more, and how much more, without doing math.  If that’s painful for you, I’m sorry.  But that’s the way it is: fail to do the math and there is no way to answer the questions.  I’ve tried to drive the discussion to fundamentals – and fundamental misconceptions in our economics dystems – to fundamentals and principles by which to logically and rationally and scientifically determine the answer to who gets how much – justly – by rights.  How do we know whether the money he possesses is justly, rightly his?  If it isn’t his, it’s somebody else’s.  But whose money is it?  How do we determine right amounts?  Based on what?

If he works, then some of what he has, has to be his.  The question is at what point is the line crossed at which overpay begins.  Overpay is other-earned wealth, not self-earned. 

The very future (or not) of humanity depends on being able to answer the author’s first question correctly, because injustice is the cause of violence pollution in your world, and it’s escalating exponentially, and E=mc2 simply isn’t a fact subject to emotive persuasion.  But everyone sailed right past that question, and keeps avoiding it.

You haven’t answered that question, can’t answer that question until you can spell out WHY it is or isn’t his money…until you can give logical, soundly reasoned proofs WHY it is or isn’t his money.  I urge you all to look again at my posts in this thread.  Read – don’t just skim – the fuller-developed and carefully rational arguments at my link (which is, I’ve just discovered, going to be unavailable after July 1st as CG will be re-organizing his site).  I’ve gone back to the very first underlying fundamentals, found the flaws, articulated the misconceptions, and defined fairpay justice.

Silly me, I thought that was the point of this exercise.

I’m not the one doing the theorizing and philosophizing here.  I’m the one who keeps trying to have a discussion that is tied firmly down to the ground to our insane reality and to the article.

To Smoove – I now see no point in giving my solutions here since there appears to be no recognition that overpayunderpay even exists nor that it is what is in fact and practice killing us all and this planet.  If you still want the solutions, then send me a mail to payjustice at fastmail dot fm and I’ll get back to you when I’m finished with what has interrupted me.  I welcome mail from all seriously interested rational people, but I’ll not be responding to inane and disingenuine wasters of precious time the human species does not have to waste.

still detained, but before mistake can arise I must jump in to make perfectly crystal clear that my plan uses logic and reason to finally expose WHY use of force is futile, unnecessary, self-defeating, wrong.

a snip:

When force is used, you are implying that there is no other reason for doing it, you are teaching that morality is a useless chore. Morality long ago got into the hands of those who believe in injury, theft, overpay, and they have used morality as a stick and a prod. They couldn’t give the rationality, because their ‘reasons’ were irrational; they didn’t know the real reasons, all they had was rationalizations. For those who believe in God: If god is rational and loving, he has loving, rational reasons for his advice to obey the Golden Rule (which is ‘all the law and all the prophets’, which is the gist of morality). The rule makes sense, and is good for you, it saves you from suffering. It is a kindly good true wise sensible sane loving rule. It increases your happiness.

Those who have been most vigorous in irrationality, in the wrong selfishness, in the Hitlerian, conqueror stupidity, in the cretinous underestimation of retaliation, have enforced the Golden Rule on others, without reasons, to facilitate their plundering. They took God hostage. They emasculated the message that was coming through wise people till it served their mistaken ideas of their self-interest. They made themselves miserable and all others miserable. For thousands of years. No one was teaching the sanity, the rational, realistic, practical foundation of the golden rule and justice: people are no good at being doormats. Spit in his eye, get your nose broken. Aristotle says it is the obvious which is hard to see. The simple truths have so few moving parts, they are hard to see.

By putting morality on a force, threat of punishment, authoritarian, obedience, state terrorist basis, those ignorant, self-destructive, irrational, conquering-minded people have undermined rationality and love. Giordano Bruno: Once love was used in the church, now force. But the truth is still there, half-hidden, in the words: love others as yourself. That is, love yourself perfectly and love others as much as you (rightly and properly) love yourself. What is more simple sense than that you are supposed to love yourself, that you are supposed to pursue your self-interest, your happiness? Every snail does it; every bird knows this loving right. That is your right and your duty, your responsibility. Every snail accepts this responsibility and loving right. Without that, you lack the basis for the rationality of not injuring others. The reason for not injuring others is because it will mean bad stuff for you. If the injury doesn’t come back directly to you, it will certainly ricochet around in your environment of other people and get back to you some time, some way. It will pollute your environment with violence, ill-feeling, hatred, resentment, bad stuff.

We have failed to learn the golden rule, because the basis for it, intelligent, observant, realistic self-interest, has been stolen from us. It is only the rationality of self-interest that drives the boat of the golden rule. If we don’t care about ourselves, if we have been made ashamed of the right and duty to pursue our happiness, what basis is there for caring about anyone else?

The argument to authority (it is true because X said it is true) is false. It is false because the wisest get things wrong. And even if they never got things wrong, there is no way we can see the reasons just from someone’s word that it is true. Even the argument to the authority of god (it is true because (someone said) god said it) is false. The only true argument is a good reason that people can see. Don’t injure others because they will injure back. Simple as. But we have been cut off from this simple sense for thousands of years. When did you ever see…

I’ll put the full argument up at that CG link…

Xavier Onassis, June 4 at 4:49 pm:

‘... http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/?q=node/5194#comment-6584 ....’

I skimmed through the first chapter.  It seems to me the changes suggested would require the massive application of state force, probably in the form of a civil war, since the rich, powerful and privileged can hardly be expected to give up their advantages without a battle; and they will have many allies among the not-so-advantaged.  Then there is the likely danger that whoever directs the battle against them will simply replace them and become the new masters; this is what we observe in history.  So I think people are going to be scared off even if they are attracted to the general ideas you propose.

In any case, our present arrangements, which I think can be called “liberalism” in the United States, are at least theoretically based not on justice but on voluntary agreements.  For example, I think there are very few cases in which Bill Gates put a gun to anyone’s head, but he got enormously wealthy anyway, because people voluntarily bought his rather inferior software.  There is no practical way to universally prohibit being uninformed, stupid, or lazy, so some people, unless they are coerced, are going to make poor voluntary agreements.  This is bad, but I think coercion is worse, or at least I think it would be worse for me—some people might like it.

I do think the kind of arrangements you seem to be proposing could be set up voluntarily, and I have some ideas about how to do it, but at this point the main obstacle is not a lack of ideas about techniques but the conservatism of the overwhelming majority—something which I guess it is traditional for radicals to bemoan.

FF:
Lemme see:

Monetary policy: Interest rates, loan policies by the Fed. Issuance of currency by the Mint and Bureau of Engraving.

Fiscal policy: Tax increases, decreases, and incentives, spending on agencies, transfer payments (SocSec) etc. IE, Revenue and budget expenditures.

Nope. I think I know exactly what they are.

Inherit The Wind

I think you are confusing monetary policy with fiscal policy. Any real differences between freshwater and saltwater disappeared a long time ago. The main differences, currently, is that freshwater want to use monetary policy to control prices, and saltwater want to use it to control unemployment. IMO, neither is effective.

Your assessment of Greenspan is tenuous, at best. I assume you are talking about “deregulation”. I’ll agree that Gramm-Leach-Bliley was partly responsible for the crash, only for the fact that it created major conflicts of interest within the financial system. By and large, the major contributing factor to the crash was the expansion of the money and credit supplies, and that interest rates were kept too low, for too long.

FF:

Maybe you and I have different definitions of the “Freshwater” economists—based on the Milton Friedman U of Chicago monetarist and “free market” theories.  Of that Alan Greenspan was a vigorous supporter and actor—and presided over the dismantling of the economy.

Fat Freddy, June 5 at 9:39 pm:
‘Anarcissie: “They’re the same as those of his recent predecessors.  They will almost certainly have a similar outcome.”

Not really. They are the policies of his recent predecessors on fucking steroids.’

You have to factor in a kind of geometric progression, just as a downward-spiraling drug addict or gambler does.  (“Doubling down” is the term of art.)  In that sense the policy is the same.

Should the money becomes worthless, I suppose the government could start drafting people to do essential tasks.

I don’t really see the point of shorting the euro; in terms of what?  Dollars?

Anarcissie,

They’re the same as those of his recent predecessors.  They will almost certainly have a similar outcome.

Not really. They are the policies of his recent predecessors on fucking steroids.

The end is near. It’s a race to the bottom with respect to currency devaluations. Once the Euro crashes, and it will, we’re really fucked. But the hell with everybody. I’m shorting the Euro from here to kingdom come. Fuck it. It’s the only sure bet in town.

http://moneycentral.msn.com/investor/charts/chartdl.aspx?Symbol=/EURUS&ShowChtBt=Refresh+Chart&DateRangeForm=1&C9=0&ComparisonsForm=1&CE=0&DisplayForm=1&D4=1&D5=0&D3=0&ViewType=0&CP=0&PT=5

Inherit The Wind

The “Freshwater” folks have fucked up our economy unbelievably over the last 29

Are you kidding me? The last time we had a hawkish policy at the Fed was when Volker was Chair, and that was only from about ‘79 to ‘82. It’s been decreasing interest rates and increasing money supplies since. Just look at this graph of the money supply since 1959.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Components_of_the_United_States_money_supply2.svg

Look at the slope of M2 from about ‘95 to present. Hawkish, my ass.

Not enough info for ya? Fine, look at the Fed’s federal funds rate.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Federal_Funds_Rate_1954_thru_2009_effective.svg

Decreasing rates from ‘82. Not very hawkish, either.

Currently the Fed funds rate is 0% (ZIRP). The Fed’s balance sheet is up to about, what, $4 trillion? Plus the “off-balance sheet” transactions. The Fed is the largest purchaser of T-bills (quantitative easing QE). Yet we still have 9.5% unemployment. If we were to have another crisis, the Fed is totally out of ammo. It will not be able to do a damned thing. How much more do you want? Japan has lost over a decade with this same policy, and it’s still not looking any better for them. And then on top of all that, throw in the horrendous fiscal policy we have, we have had, for the past 10 years.

We can either suffer a lot of pain for a short period of time, or suffer a nagging, steady pain for a very long time before we are “well” again. We both know which path we are on. If it were me, I’d tell the doctor, “rip it the fuck out!”.

Inherit The Wind, June 5 at 7:39 pm:

‘... Even today we see the viciously attacked policies of Obama working. ...’

They’re the same as those of his recent predecessors.  They will almost certainly have a similar outcome.

I don’t “choose”, FF, I analyze.

The “Freshwater” folks have fucked up our economy unbelievably over the last 29 years.  Denying that is like denying that sun rises in the East. It is obvious from the first time they implemented cuts based on their false assumptions about the Laffer effect—that we were above the turning point.  When the uncontrolled experiment revealed we were FAR below that turning point, rather than ABANDON it, they came up with all kinds of excuses to continue those policies.

The “Saltwater” guys far better understood how the economy works, what individual motivations are and how they move from micro to macro effects, and what effective policy would be.

Even today we see the viciously attacked policies of Obama working.  The “leaking oil well” of unemployment has finally been capped, after some (but not all ) the tools to cap it that had been removed by the “fresh” were restored at the advice of the “Salt”.  Unemployment has FINALLY started to move down.

...there is no political will in either high or low places to restrain the free flow of money which drives the boom-bust cycle.

Unfortunately, I fear you speak the truth. But there is at least some will, at present. The first step towards real reform of the financial system, would be a complete GAO audit of the Fed. Currently HR 1207 has 319 cosponsors, and S 604 has 32 cosponsors. President Obama has vowed to veto the Bill. *Dick*

In the Financial Reform Bill, the audit the fed amendment was gutted by our friend Mr Sanders in the Senate version after a meeting with Chairman Bernanke on the day of that wild stock market crash. Coincidence? I think not. I really think not. However, the full audit of the Fed still stands (Paul/Grayson Amendment) in the House version, despite the efforts of Rep. Mel Watt. Care to give me odds as to which version winds up in the final Bill?

...AND THEN THERE’S ZEROHEDGE…

http://nymag.com/guides/money/2009/59457/

http://www.zerohedge.com/node

Pay attention to this one.

Smoove, so sorry, unavoidably detained.  It’s going to be tonight or tomorrow before I can write again.

In the meantime, I guess everyone but me is going to keep actively ignoring the 7 questions the author asked in the essay.

Fat Freddy, June 5 at 9:32 am:
‘“They want more, bigger and better stuff, and they want it now”

I agree. It’s called “instant gratification” and it seems to control the actions of too many people in this country. People have become slaves to their own desires. And, of course, the banks and the big corporations and the government are more than happy to facilitate this.’

And the ruling class wants more, bigger and better corporations, wars and empires, which also necessitate lots of easy credit.

So regardless of what the proper way of doing finance may be—this is something people do not agree on even when they know what they’re talking about—there is no political will in either high or low places to restrain the free flow of money which drives the boom-bust cycle.  (Part of the boom phase is aggressive war.)

We would have to change people’s minds, change their culture, to get them to think that this way of doing things was not such a good idea.  That is what I try to do, without much success.  Until then, or until the U.S. suffers such a severe defeat in its adventures that is becomes a satellite of some other power, the beat is going to go on.

Inherit The Wind

I am more than well aware that both freshwater (hawks), and saltwater (doves) are rooted in Keynesian theory. I reject both. As Smoove pointed out below, there is a difference between Austrian and freshwater theories. I suppose if I had to make a choice, I would choose freshwater, at this point in time. I would throw Bernanke out on his ass, and replace him with Thomas Koenig or Charles Plosser. I sure-as-shit would not nominate somebody like Janet Yellen for the Fed Board. I would also throw Mary Schapiro out on her ass, and replace her with a real regulator like Bill Black, for now.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-HTylLzXu8

Expansion of the money supply and inflation are, at best distantly related.

They are “distantly related” only for the fact that inflation lags expansion. We didn’t feel the effects of the expansion of the 60s until well into the 70s, but the relationship is real. So, we say, we’ll expand the money supply only for a short while, then we’ll tighten it up before inflation sets in. But that never happens, does it?

They want more, bigger and better stuff, and they want it now

I agree. It’s called “instant gratification” and it seems to control the actions of too many people in this country. People have become slaves to their own desires. And, of course, the banks and the big corporations and the government are more than happy to facilitate this.

Anarcissie

But, Fat Freddy, if you really want to do away with or even seriously limit credit, you’re going to be going back to the Middle Ages.

I don’t think so. I think that is what the “higher ups” would like us to believe. I think if you limit credit, you will limit malinvestments, like RMBSs and CDOs. It will limit the “rent-seeking” ability of firms like Goldman Sachs. It will also limit the government’s ability to print money to fund wars, and misguided social programs, like cash4clunkers. However, it would mean that the US would lose its financial power and its ability to manipulate the rest of the world’s financial markets. We’d no longer be #1. But we all know, the rest of the world follows our lead. So, maybe not.

I think it is perfectly clear that both the government and the banks can not be trusted allocating so much credit. I have no problem with the government running modest deficits. Nor do I have a problem with some degree of fractional reserve lending. But it must be backed with a sound, commodity based currency like gold or silver. Banks must be held accountable for their decisions. That means no “bailouts”, and no “lender of last resort”. Banks can only operate honestly and fairly if there is a real fear of bankruptcy.

If we were to return to a sound currency, it would retain its “value” over a longer period of time, because the government, and the financial institutions would not be able to debase it by making more of it. So, there would be less of a need to borrow. Businesses and individuals would be forced, or “encouraged” to actually save their money. You know, like our parents and grandparents did after the Depression. Instead of being able to finance that new living room and dining room set for no money down and 0% interest for 5 years, people would have to at least save a substantial amount before they actually purchased it. Imagine that! Or put it on “lay-away”. Remember what that is?

But in fairness to the banks, individuals should also be held more accountable for their decisions in borrowing. We can’t lay all of this off on the banks. Most people don’t understand what a credit card really is. It is not a “loan” from a bank. It is a third party agreement to allow a credit card company to act as an intermediary between the consumer and the vendor. CC companies have their hand in both sides of the transaction, which creates a rent seeking opportunity. That’s how Goldman got its name “Giant Vampire Squid”. They have their tentacles in every side of every transaction. The costs of rent seeking on society far outweigh the convenience.

FF:

You know even less about Keynes’s theories than you do about the velocity of money—if that’s possible.  Expansion of the money supply and inflation are, at best distantly related.  You can have one without the other—and not have a dichotomy.

Keynesian theory is mis-represented as somehow “different’ than Chicago U m onetarism.  In fact, monetary theory is nothing but a branch of Keynesian theory.

But, Fat Freddy, if you really want to do away with or even seriously limit credit, you’re going to be going back to the Middle Ages.  Paper money and all the other fancy stuff we have like checks and promissory notes allow (supposed) value to be passed around quickly and easily, allowing a lot of business to be done, whereas in 1111 to do any kind of business you had to haul around a variegated set of pieces of precious metal in a treasure chest with several armed guards to ward off bandits.  There was a reason why those clever Italians and Jews invented banking back then—a lot of them were merchants.

Even if you do choose to go back to Small-is-Beautiful, most people are not going to go along with the program.  They want more, bigger and better stuff, and they want it now.  Any slip-up in the gravy train is going to lead to serious political trouble for the leadership.  So it isn’t likely to happen.

This is a terrific idea ,but the public will not be supporting it without permission from their television sets.

Inherit The Wind

Keep believing that tired old Keynesian crap, and maybe the next bust will really kill us.

I’m not denying that some forms of credit are good. But the majority of it is based on expanding the supply of currency. That debases the currency and makes the currency already in circulation worth less. The “first owners” of the new money are the ones to see the benefit at the expense of all others. Real wages never, repeat never, keep pace with real inflation. What exactly do you think caused the mess we are in right now?

Let me give you an example.

We’ll start in 1971. There’s a reason for starting in 1971, I’m sure you know why. In 1971, the minimum wage was $1.60/hr. That works out to $64/week gross. Using a common rule of thumb when figuring out a personal budget, one weeks salary should be able to pay one month’s rent. In 1971 it was easy to find a decent apartment for $50-60/month in my state of NJ. The rest, food, fuel, utilities, etc, fall into place.

In 2008, the min wage was $6.55/hr. Using the rule of thumb above, that would allow for $262 for a month’s rent. Unfortunately, in NJ, the cheapest rent for a one bedroom apartment, even in shithole Camden, was at least $500.

The first reaction would be, “min wage isn’t properly adjusted for inflation”. Well, let’s take a look at that. The Consumer Price Index (CPI) is commonly used by economists to calculate inflation. It is not the only one, but it is the most common. Since 1971, the CPI has risen 300% as compared to the 410% in crease in minimum wage.

So why such a huge discrepancy? Taxes? No. Lower income tax brackets are near 0 today. Well, let’s take a look at the price of gold. In 1971 the price of gold was about $40/oz. In 2007, it was $700/oz. That’s an increase of 1,750%. (Today gold is over $1,200). (I’m not trying to be a goldbug here, just using it as a reference.) so, if min. wage were adjusted to gold, a stable currency, min wage would be $28/hr. That would be $1,120/wk, and a nice apartment can be found at that price anywhere in NJ.

I’m afraid to look at how much the money supply increased in that time period. Would you care to take a guess? I’m pretty sure it increased.

So, what have we learned here? Expansion of the money supply and credit destroys wealth for the lower and middle classes because it debases the value of the money already in circulation.

Inherit The Wind,

You’re correct insomuch as that what the Chicago School of economic thought believes about money.

However, the Austrian school thinks that is rubbish. Also, even though Austrian School are free market proponents,  they’ve never put much credence into Adam Smith’s work.

http://mises.org/daily/4390

Charlie Freak had but one thing to call his own
Three weight ounce pure golden ring no precious stone
Five nights without a bite
No place to lay his head
And if nobody takes him in
He’ll soon be dead
On the street he spied my face I heard him hail
In our plot of frozen space he told his tale
Poor man, he showed his hand
So righteous was his need
And me so wise I bought his prize
For chicken feed

Newfound cash soon begs to smash a state of mind
Close inspection fast revealed his favorite kind
Poor kid, he overdid
Embraced the spreading haze
And while he sighed his body died
In fifteen ways

When I heard I grabbed a cab to where he lay
‘Round his arm the plastic tag read D.O.A.
Yes Jack, I gave it back
The ring I could not own
Now come my friend I’ll take your hand
And lead you home

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnnDDnTSuxE

nemesis2010

No one can deny that overpopulation is, and will continue to be a problem. As the population increases, the value of human life decreases. It is unavoidable. I have no problem teaching people to fish or to farm. I have no problem with desalinization plants or genetically engineered crops. However, it is always easier to hold a gun to somebody’s head and take what they have, than to actually produce it. We’ve learned the hard way that we can not force democracy on others, nor can we force any type of economic system. Is it OK to use coercion to force someone to do what is in his/her best interests? Absolutely not. Coercion is always the worst plan of action, regardless of intent. People can be taught, it is up to them whether or not to use that knowledge. At what point do you say people have a right to die for not using that knowledge and opportunity to advance their own interests and interests of their society? Give people opportunity and choice, then let them be responsible for their action or inaction. There’s little more that can be done.

Fat Freddy, June 3 at 11:06 am #

You have some strange views about what money is. Very simply put, money is a universally accepted means for the exchange of goods and services. Without money, humans would be forced to use a barter system for those exchanges. Credit is not money, and money is not capital.
******************************************

FF: Hate to say this but you don’t know what you are talking about.  Credit is MORE than money—it actually creates it.  Do a little study in what constitutes the money supply and you’ll find that it can be increased SOLELY by expanding credit.  Something called the “velocity of money” or how fast it processes through and recycles in the system. 

In fact, there is FAR more money, many times more, in our economic system than the paper and coinage in circulation provide.  In this, credit and money are frequently the same thing.

Do you think your bank has a pile of hundred dollar bills labeled “FF’s Money” and another labeled “ITW’s Money”?  Of course not!  In fact, the bank’s cash on hand is no more than 1/4 of all it’s deposits. 

If you don’t understand this you can view “It’s a Wonderful Life” where George Bailey explains that the money in the Bailey Building and Loan isn’t in the bank, it’s in Ernie’s house and Mr. Martini’s house and his next-door neighbor’s house.  It’s just that simple.

Capital is a two-sided coin.  TECHNICALLY, it’s the buildings and equipment of a company.  But it’s also the money used to purchase that equipment so it can expand or revamp.  It IS money.

Sorry to be so blunt, but money is far more than the medium of exchange that lubricates the economy by making transactions easier.

People need to realize that Adam Smith, while a brilliant analyst who brought the “dismal science” forward to a new place, is about as relevant to today’s economy as Euclidean Geometry is to understanding the latest ramifications of Relativity Theory.  It’s not that it’s invalid. It’s that it’s not appropriate.

tp, June 3 at 4:27 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

By Inherit The Wind, June 2 at 8:05 am #
By any chance was this forced retirement story related to your pen name?
****************************

No.

“Inherit The Wind” is the title of my all-time favorite play and movie—about the battle for logic and science against blind religious faith. It is a dramatization of the John T. Scopes “Monkey Trial”.

You might try researching a little before making insulting unfounded assumptions.

I.

By Fat Freddy, June 4 at 6:52 am

”Name me one economic theory that isn’t flawed.”

None, and that’s precisely the point Freddy. There is no free market Freddy. There is only a manipulated and gamed market.

I feel that you are very close to the truth Freddy, only your ideology stands before you like a skyscraper blocking your view of reality.

By Fat Freddy, June 4 at 6:52 am

”I believe in the theory that all humans have certain unalienable rights, I am not an anarchist. I believe in a very limited government, but not no government. In the countries where most of the people have little access to clean water, etc, are countries that have either harsh dictatorships, perpetual civil war, rampant corruption, or complete anarchy. It is a fundamental function of government to protect the rights of its citizens. Without such a government, there can be no economic development. Government is a necessary evil.”

Well Freddy that’s nice and I’m glad to hear it. The problem is—as Carlin pointed out many years ago—rights that can be suspended precisely when you need them most are not rights but rather privileges. Also, the U.S. Constitution applies to U.S. citizens and not to the world at large. And it’s rather obvious that the Founders had a different interpretation of “all men being equal” from that which we possess.

You are correct with your stated observations of societies that lack Freddy; no one can argue that, I’m in total agreement with you there.

II.

By Fat Freddy, June 4 at 6:52 am

”You say you don’t want any flawed economic theories.”

No Freddy, that’s not what I said. I said you can’t come here presenting the same tired, flawed, and failed economic theories that have created this mess as the answer to getting us out of it. Remember what Einstein had to say about matters such as these: ”The problems that exist in the world today cannot be solved by the level of thinking that created them.”

Do you interpret the “right to life” as negative rights to life, as Anarcissie pointed out that some libertarians do, or do you interpret it as a positive right to life? If your interpretation of the right to live is positive then none of your economic theories are going to work. In 21st century society one simply cannot survive without money because money is required to purchase all of the basic needs for survival. Not only do we not have an economic theory that can guarantee employment to everyone in the world that needs one, we cannot guarantee that the minimum wage would purchase the basic necessities in the amounts needed to ensure survival. Then there’s the question of our habitat. Our environment will not be able to support 6.8 billion human beings for very much longer; at least not without some amazing scientific breakthroughs. 

It is my contention that there is economic system—theoretical or otherwise—that can “guarantee” full employment in a world of 6.8 billion with a minimum wage that would guarantee the purchasing power to obtain those basic needs that guarantee survival and that our habitat can support the intensive pillaging that would be needed to maintain such a level of production for very long.

People need money and money—as my parents used to say—doesn’t grow on trees. Right now the means to obtain money are limited and the means to obtain vast amounts of money are usually through some form of legalized theft of other human beings’ abilities, wealth, etc.

More important is the fact that in order to have a system with a true and positive “right to life” philosophical view we’d have to have a type 1 civilization –a planetary government. Try accomplishing that with all the religious loons in the world.

By Anarcissie, June 3 at 11:17 pm

”The libertarians I’ve argued with on the Net love questions like that.  I don’t know if you’ll find enough around here to keep a reasonable discussion going, and I’m not going to try to channel them (much).  I guess a hard-core type would say that people had a negative right to live, that is, that they had a right not to be killed or enslaved, but that they did not have a positive right to live in the sense of being able to command others to provide them with a livelihood.  This issue gets rather sticky even for libertarians in the case of children.
“Conservative” doesn’t seem to mean anything very specific, especially not in the United States.  I suppose most actual conservatives in the classical sense would say that people have a positive although limited right to life.  A lot would depend on their religious views.
But that’s true for everyone in the sense that one’s answer to the question is going to go back to one’s basic premises about social life and community.  A lot of people do not seem to see much of a right to live for others, or things would not be as they are.”

I really like this commentary Anarcissie. Well thought out and precise. Your description of conservatives in America—IMO—is spot on. When I first looked into libertarianism it looked like it might be a viable alternative to the dualistic oneness of GOP/DNC but later I came to the conclusion that most were higher educated republicans invested in gold and wanting a return to the gold standard.

At my age I’m on my way out so I’ll probably miss the worse of what’s coming. The reason I always try to get others to consider who and what we are is because of the mass of humanity and our historical propensity for violence. I agree somewhat with Stefan Molyneux that what we see happening in this country is the plundering of our national wealth by the super-wealthy, political, and henchmen classes right before the collapse of our entire socio/economic system. The super-wealthy have to know that the masses aren’t going to sit idly by and starve without ripping a bunch of their throats out. So to me that means they have a plan for mass extermination. I also believe that fresh water is going to be the critical commodity very soon.

“I dig it the most brother! Now let’s talk about your steering mechanisms for achieving these results?
Mine are the principles of liberal democracy, free market capitalism, and science. Where/how/why do we differ?”

grin grin - and I’m ecstatic that you asked!  Actually (but don’t tell anybody), I’m your sister, not your brother…and, I have to go right now for a bit to meet a responsibility before a place closes for the day.  But I WILL return soon as can, and give you my easily-doable solutions for your consideration.  If you’re impatient enough, you can read more details and more-developed arguments in the meantime (and maybe find them solutions out while I’m gone) if you go to this link to see some “works in progress”:

http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/?q=node/5194#comment-6584

(And don’t worry, I haven’t had that drink yet.  I’m smarter than to drink and drive.)

“I dig it the most brother! Now let’s talk about your steering mechanisms for achieving these results?

Mine are the principles of liberal democracy, free market capitalism, and science. Where/how/why do we differ? “

FINALLY!!!

A step in the right direction!

Sheeesh people, you can log on here all day and beat each other bloody with the sticks of your ideals and theories, but you will never change anyone’s mind. We all agree that there is economic inequities, we just disagree on the the reasons how and why.

You all seem to be stuck in your outrage. Being outraged is the first step, not the only step! Being stuck in outrage makes it ever so easy to be manipulated, and politicians have learned that lesson quite well.

Anyone willing or brave enough to put their theories on the line!!!

Tell HOW you would implement your ideas, nothing less is just more repetition of what you have already stated - fueling the spinning of your wheels with your constant, overwhelming blind outrage.

“Crickey you guys are making me realize that I’m seriously underwhiskeyed!  Argh!”

By all means, please have one on me: \_/

“Can’t you see that the only way to guarantee no one can have power over you, is to see that you cannot have power over them, either?”

I dig it the most brother! Now let’s talk about your steering mechanisms for achieving these results?

Mine are the principles of liberal democracy, free market capitalism, and science. Where/how/why do we differ?

Smoove, how did you miss the second sentence that said “Basically everyone has been libertarian for 1000’s of years”?

For two reasons: First, because I feel as if you almost have too much to say (a good thing) so I’m trying to break it up into smaller parts.

Second, I don’t believe the statement to be true. At least not by my standard of libertarianism. Libertariansim, i.e., classical liberalism, has only been in practice for a only a couple hundred years.

Smove, for heavensakes read my lips: my whole point is that we ARE doing the steering - and that’s how we know we can easily change direction!  The majority general human idea is steering the wealth to the fraction few.  Everybody has the very bad idea in their heads to allow unequal pay for equal sacrifice, to allow overpayunderpay, and it is that idea that is driving everything going on.  Culture is the ideas in people’s heads - get it?  Culture changes only when the ideas driving get changed.  Governments will only change when the people change their idea to going for fairpay, no more and no less.

How can you even ask me if I want ME in charge of, or in power over others when I am fighting so mightily to ensure I CANNOT have power over others?!  Can’t you see that the only way to guarantee no one can have power over you, is to see that you cannot have power over them, either?

Crickey you guys are making me realize that I’m seriously underwhiskeyed!  Argh!

“No.  Obviously you STEER the car.”

It doesn’t matter what the mechanics of economics, to say we cannot steer the wealth we produce where we want it to go, is ludicrous.”

I’m not clear on who/what you are advocating to do the steering? Me, you, us?

Smoove, how did you miss the second sentence that said “Basically everyone has been libertarian for 1000’s of years”?

“The reality is that no theory or system can produce equal outcomes.”

So wrong.

Does your car operate under mechanical laws?  Yes.  Does that mean you just let the mechanical laws under which your car operates take you anywhere willy-nilly?

No.  Obviously you STEER the car.

It doesn’t matter what the mechanics of economics, to say we cannot steer the wealth we produce where we want it to go, is ludicrous.

We cannot afford to be this intellectually lazy, people!

Xavier Onassis

If humans are not free, then they are enslaved. The problem we face is not freedom, it is lack of proper freedom. But freedom without responsibility is not freedom at all. And if you look at all of those men in mansions, you will see, that they have not been held accountable for their actions, and are not free. It is for this reason that they hoard their wealth. They are trying to buy back the freedom that was denied. But freedom can not be bought, it must be earned. The only way those men can gain their freedom, is to attest.

Xavier,

“Extreme wealth and poverty has been brought about by libertarianism.”

Extreme poverty never existed prior to libertarianism? The concentration of wealth didn’t exist either?

No kidding?

Mr. Adler,

It seems that the general reaction to the idea that the rich have money that belongs to other people, and that this money can and should and must be gone after in the names of peace, happiness, justice, democracy and everything good, generates fear, not excitement. Most people instinctively side with the rich, somehow, and when there is talk of taking money off the rich, people feel as if it was money being taken off them, instead of money that belongs to them being returned to them. People seem to feel the idea as an attack on all the order in society. They seem to feel it as an invitation to theft, instead of feeling it as a return to justice and freedom from social disorder and disturbance.

This feeling, so strange, and so hard to understand, is the reason that humanity has suffered so terribly, and so unnecessarily, for so many thousands of years. This strange reaction has kept humanity in bondage to vast, gigantic and unnecessary pain and suffering for a very long time. Looking at this reaction, trying to see it and understand it, is the key to the opening of the possibility of undreamt-of peace and happiness for humanity, is the key to our very survival.  (Am I going to love your book?)

Although we have this strange reaction, feeling that the rich really deserve their wealth, and that it is bad to even think of taking it from them, at the same time we have the contrary feeling that we deserve more, that there is injustice. It is this sense of injustice that drives the wars and other disturbance. It is very clear that there is injustice when a few have so much and so many have so little, while the many are doing most of the work.

Everyone will willingly say that there is social injustice, meaning that some deserve more, but no one seems to be keen to go from the word injustice to the word theft. And yet what is injustice in regard to income except theft?

Somehow, no one wants to think of the rich as thieves, as having the belongings of others, as being bad, as being wrong. On the contrary, there are some who will defend the ‘rights’ of the rich with intensity, with passion, with anger, with strong conviction. We have had millennia of rich and poor without the general feeling of humanity having come down firmly on the idea that this is wrong, is dangerous, is cause of many evils. If the general feeling had ever come to the point of certainty that it was wrong and harmful to all, we would have had a will to do something about it, and we would have done something about it.

It isn’t just that the rich have been propagandizing for millennia that they are good and they are the philanthropists, not the takers, of Earth. I think on the whole they haven’t had to. The support has been there from the people, from the many, from the general opinion, which is so contrary to common sense.

“The rich have given to the poor a little food, a little drink, a little shelter and few clothes - the poor have given to the rich, palaces and yachts and an almost infinite freedom to indulge their doubtful taste for display; and bonuses and excess profits, under which has been hidden the excess labour and extravagant misery of the poor” - Gilbert Seldes

“The modern English oligarchy does not rest on the cruelty of the rich to the poor - it rests on the unfailing kindness of the poor to the rich.” - GK Chesterton

“The patience of the oppressed has always been the most inexplicable, as well as probably the most important, fact in all history.” -Author Amos Elon from The Pity of it All

We BEarthlings have a wealthpower inequity factor of: Billions
While we have a maximum possible work inequity factor of: 2

Humanity?  “You Need a Raise” is right.  You earn it, you deserve it, it’s YOUR money.

Who would have guessed it - that the only way to save the planet and everything on it is to convince the majority of humanity to agree to take a big raise in pay?

What a convenient truth?

Nemisis,

The reality is that no theory or system can produce equal outcomes. A realistic goal would be to provide equal opportunity and equal protection under the law. That said: I believe the combination of Liberal Democracy, Free Market Capitalism, and Science will produce the happiest and most prosperous civilizations. I’m confident if you apply the principles of these theories, we can best satisfy the needs of humanity.
Moreover,I think upon close examination of history you’ll discover that when theory doesn’t mimic reality, the dead hand of Gov’t intervention in right in the middle of it…and therein lies the real dilemma: Politicians and/or The Ruling Class have always found a way to pervert and circumvent the rules.
Why do you think libertarians are apprehensive of big government? Because, the politicians will get your vote to do something you like on Tuesday, and then use the power to kick you in the pants on Wednesday.

Extreme wealth and poverty has been brought about by libertarianism. Basically everyone has been a libertarian for 1000s of years. Libertarians believe in perfect freedom. They believe in the game of everyone on the starting line, unrestricted by rules, unhobbled by hobbles, so that the race is (apparently) fair. Everyone runs and whatever you get is yours by right. That is all they see, all they understand. The complexities elude them, and they don’t want to know about them. They cannot see them, they cannot hear them when they are explained, and they have no will to strive to hear. Just let me race, without hobbles, and what I get is mine, and let’s keep it as simple as my mind.

Americans got freedom after revolution and they interpreted it in a libertarian way: whoopee, now I am free to get as rich as I can, no one interfering. And it was the same everywhere in the world. People never saw that it was more complicated than that; that that perfect simple freedom produces tyranny rapidly. A hundred years after the American revolution, pay per hour ranged by a factor of one million, from 1c to $10,000. Public rhetoric was still strong on prevention of wealth concentration and would continue to be present, fading to nothing, for many decades, and yet democracy had been utterly overturned without most people noticing. Money is power.  Great inequality of pay per hour is great inequality of social power, which is tyranny-slavery.

How did this happen? How does perfect simple freedom rapidly produce extreme inequality of wealth and power? It is because of the successful illegal thefts, and the legal thefts. Not just the legalised thefts, thefts produced by government action, but the legal thefts that exist naturally, and continue to exist by government inaction. In general, the existence of legal thefts is unknown and unsuspected.

The race of perfect freedom is more like a series of running races in which the losers of each race get handicaps for the next race, so that inequality of wealth and power grows and accelerates. It’s extraordinary that in general no one has seen what has happened and sought to discover the cause, and stop it. Even the Henry George movement faded away.  The bull-headed will of the wealthy and powerful, in control of government, has pushed its way over sanity and community, and everyone else has been dragged along behind, confused by rhetoric of freedom, unclear about what is going on. Of course, there was the pull-back of the New Deal, but this has been eroded. Ironically, this egalitarian move was exported to Japan and made Japan very strong, so strong that it was able to rise from the ashes of Hiroshima and 87 firebombed cities to top nation in 50 years. With safe streets.

Libertarianism is, at best, freedom without justice. Libertarianism is: If I pull the money, it is justly all mine, and no government or person has the right to take it from me. This is believed in ignorance of the legal thefts, or in closed-minded refusal to admit the legal thefts, on the untrue assumption that unlimited wealth is good for the person who has it. The underpaid permit and support the legal thefts, because they hope to repair their underpay by them, although the legal thefts in fact take more from the underpaid than they give.

What has freedom to pursue unlimited fortunes given humanity? Freedom for everyone, from richest to poorest, to be embroiled in super-extreme escalating violence, rising to nuclear extinction soon, freedom for 99% to be underpaid, freedom for 90% to be paid less than 100th of average pay per unit of work, freedom for 1% to perpetually try to fight off the 99% and the others in the 1%. Freedom for everyone to be extremely poor in enjoyment, peace, safety, leisure, relaxation, community, health, sanity, order, maturity, education, trust, generosity, kindness, beauty. To be extremely rich in danger, labour, war, crime, fatigue, mis and dis and un education, corruption, horror, terror.

Xavier Onassis

So, wealth is not produced by savings and investment in production? Perhaps you should try cutting back on consumption, and instead, increase your savings. See what happens. You might be surprised.

For example, I’ve learned that social justice is crap, people who disagree with yours and Paul’s economic theories are assholes, and that Paul is more forgiving than Sand Rand, when it comes to followers with protestant wives.

I’m not afraid to speak my mind, and I will not apologize for it, ever. I am not some cheesy politician. That’s the trouble with this country, everybody is afraid to speak their mind, and when they do, and are challenged, they cry. Well, cry me a fucking river. Nowhere in the Constitution does it say that you have a right to not be insulted.

JDmysticDJ

Now, when you are done watching that video, perhaps you could take some time and read this short book AN INFLATION PRIMER - by Melchior Palyi from INSTITUTE FOR PHILOSOPHICAL AND HISTORICAL STUDIES which describes, in detail, the evils of inflationary policy, in macro terms.

The Tyranny of a prince in an oligarchy is not so dangerous to the public welfare as the apathy of a citizen in a democracy. - Montesquieu, Spirit of the Laws.

http://mises.org/books/inflation_primer_palyi.pdf

JDmysticDJ

“I have talked with many who claim they have invested with Schiff and are down anywhere from 40% to 70% in 2008.

Yeah, and who wasn’t down in 2008? How much was a Vanguard S&P 500 N/L mutual fund down? At least 40%, across the board.

And the dollar in that same time period? Gee, do you think half a trillion dollars in unprecedented off balance sheet Federal Reserve loans to foreign central banks, or liquidity swaps, didn’t effect the value of the dollar? Dude, get with the program. Nobody, and I mean nobody, could have predicted that boneheaded move by Bernanke.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0NYBTkE1yQ

Pay particular attention to what is said at 3:09.

And the only reason the dollar still has any value, is because the Euro and Yen are in the toilet, as well. Why do you think gold is at $1,200/oz and climbing?

I have no clue as to how anybody can defend the monetary and fiscal policies of the past 10-15, let alone the policies of the past 100 years. When are people going to understand that Hayek was right, and Keynes was wrong? Keynes was nothing but a cheesy magician. The policy of perpetual creeping inflation is responsible for the redistribution of wealth in this country. Are you thick? Don’t you get it? We’ve had this inflationary policy for the past 60 years. That is why we have had a major redistribution of wealth. That is causality.

Cause: Perpetual creeping inflation.

Effect: Redistribution of wealth.

How can you blame laissez faire economics when we haven’t had it?

Well, maybe, Keynes is not wrong. If you want a system that requires infinite exponential growth to maintain a feel-good system and has chaotic booms and busts and eventually wrecks the environment by encouraging hyperconsumption over saving, then, yes, you should adopt the keynesian model.

Here, maybe this can explain it a little better than I can:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0nERTFo-Sk&feature=player_embedded

Pay injustice is not just one more problem: it is the root problem, fixing which fixes all the problems – fixes suffocating bureaucracy, disinformation, tyranny, war, warmongering, starvation, overcrowding, corporate fascism, corruption, poverty, terrorism – it fixes everything.

The elite have always been under extreme attack, always been miserable, desperate, hard-laboured, doomed. Happiness is horizontal not vertical. Kindness (non injury, non theft) is good, practical, real self interest, is happiness for everyone – therefore justice is good, beneficial, not a sacrifice for anyone.

It’s amazing that history and story are unanimous, the desperate struggles of the overpaid, and no one has learned it.  The rich may enjoy comforts and luxuries etc in the short run, but they can get no more enjoyment than the fairpaid on $40 an hour, because of physical limits of desires. All overestimation of rich enjoyment is moonshine glamour illusion – driven by underpaid people still having substantial desires to satisfy, by underpaid people living vicariously through their dreams of the fabulousness of being wealthy. The greater the underpay, the more glamourous and wonderful overpay appears. Ray Kroc said about his wealth: So what? I still only have two feet.

Some rich do not fall within their own lifetimes, but people should be reminded that the overpaid experience power struggles all the time before they fall – family who want a piece of it, subordinates who want to take over – it is a hill of humans where everyone is being attacked from below and beside and above. Everyone below is trying to get higher to be less attacked/oppressed from above – corporate infighting, competing for jobs, golddiggers, kidnappers, thieves, embezzlers, hostile takeovers etc etc – necessarily so, inevitably, because no one settles for discomfort, everyone is uncomfortable, so everyone is moving in the hill.

Equality: no one above or below, everyone happier, freer, safer, liberated from troubles, struggles, conflict, betrayal – in all groups – families, companies, nations, empires.

Being rich – getting overpay – is not a win. It isn’t a win relative to pay justice, it is a vast loss of ease, trust, safety, leisure, relaxation, enjoyment, confidence. Everyone is a giant loser in the hill of humans – but people would rather kid themselves they are happy and right than face reality and improve their happiness really. Modern man’s pride is stronger than his will to live to be realistic to be sane to be practical to be happy.

It looks as though the problem is the human insistence that the solution be where people are looking – at the symptom level, at the detail level, at the part-picture level. People are mopping the floor instead of turning off the broken tap. They cannot understand why someone is leaving the problem of the wet floor in the living room and going away, upstairs, into the bathroom where the broken tap is – they just ‘know’ that is the wrong thing to do – and they keep mopping the floor. They think the pay-justice solution is unrealistic because it isn’t addressing (directly) the wet floor.

It is like looking for the lost keys where the light is better for looking, and not looking where the keys fell. You have to teach people that the solution (to the immediate problems and most other problems) is simple if they look where the keys fell, where the problem started. It takes mental discipline not to pluck off the vine where it is strangling the roses, but to trace the vine back to the root, where one cut will kill the whole vine and keep it in check permanently with little effort.

People are fascinated by the immediate problems and can’t take their eyes off them to look at the big picture and see the root cause.

We do not have to and should not waste time trying to fight our way thru all these concepts like value and worth which are irrelevant.

My position is that people should be paid for work.  Why?  Because that is what they lose. People should share the substantial wealth (which is produced only by work) in the same proportions they would without trade, when each person consumes what she produces, which is natural automatic justice. 

Once again, this species does not realize the nasty can of worms we opened when we began to specialize in our labor and trade the workproducts of our sacrifice.

The fatal flaw inherent in unlimited personal fortunes capitalism that has to be corrected for is rooted in the very nature of transaction itself.  It occurs with or without human agency helping it along.  And what that *never-before-noticed* thing means, is being ignored on every continent.

We give pay for a lot of things that are not work by the person - which causes evergrowing inequality, which causes evergrowing violence, which causes evergrowing misery, which gets to everyone, from richest to poorest, and is in no one’s interest.  We pay for natural gifts (work done free by nature not the person) risk (not work, not measured or measurable) experience (gained in paid work with no extra work) skill (natural gifts or experience), having studied (not work - study is work and should be paid for but having studied is not work) and so on.

But this common sense is very, very far from people and they automatically switch off from any thought that implies that they are far from common sense.

My method gives a sound logical way to arrive at exactly what is pay justice and what should and shouldn’t be paid for, and it agrees with common sense.  Obviously Bill Gates does no more work per hour than anyone else - obviously if you set gates and others to do work creating substantial wealth with the same tools, materials, info, etc their production would be equal within about 20%.  Obviously natural gift should not be paid for as it involves no work, no sacrifice, no loss by the person.  Obviously no one chooses to get poorer gifts in the birth lottery.

TIME is the only real currency anyone living in a human body has to spend.  Our energies are renewable.  Our hours are irreplaceable.  Time is what we lose, and only time lost to working deserves pay because that is the only thing that produces the pay.

Theories about value don’t even pretend to give a way out of the extreme overpayunderpay overpowerunderpower madness - they just try to make progress thru the murk, leaving us no wiser at the end and a lot more doubtful of success.

There is but one way out of the madness and dangers.  The very bottom line is this:  The human species will either rid itself of the idea to allow unlimited personal fortunes or we WILL succumb to the results of having the next and the next and the next wealthpower giants, ad infinitum.

The enemy is an idea.  Who will help murder the idea to allow wealthpower giants?  Who will campaign for Fairpay Justice?  Where are all the response-able adults who are game for a fight with their own brains??

The purpose of life is to be happy.

Pursue your happiness with all mindfire!

Yesyes and goodness bless you for keeping the real in the forefront of your consciousness, Nemesis:

Every 5 seconds, ‘round the clock, another precious babe under the age of 5 dies the tortuous, lingering death of death-by-starvation.  Plenty of food around, their parents so underpaid they simply can’t afford to purchase.

Every 5 seconds.  Every 5 seconds.  Every 5 seconds. 

Whoopsie-daisy, there goes another one.  Aw, too bad.  Oh, so sad.  Let’s do lunch and argue Keynes.

GOD DAMN!  God damn the genosadistic overpay-underpay-overpower-underpower tyranny-slavery idea that causes material inequality!  God damn that zenith-stupid idea with all the evil done in its name straight to hell!  God damn that terrible idea that drives everything that is going on in this world!

“I am aware that many object to the severity of my language; but is there no cause for severity? I will be harsh as truth, and as uncompromising as justice. On this subject I do not wish to think, or speak, or write, with moderation. No! no! Tell a man whose house is on fire to give a moderate alarm; tell him to moderately rescue his wife from the hands of the ravisher; tell the mother to gradually extricate her babe from the fire into which it has fallen; but urge me not to use moderation in a cause like the present.
I am in earnest. I will not equivocate - I will not excuse - I will not retreat an inch - AND I WILL BE HEARD. The apathy of the people is enough to make every statue leap from its pedestal and to hasten the resurrection of the dead.”  -William Lloyd Garrison

“Philosophy should always know that indifference is a militant thing. It batters down the walls of cities and murders the women and children amid the flames and the purloining of altar vessels. When it goes away it leaves smoking ruins, where lie citizens bayonetted through the throat. It is not a children’s pastime like mere highway robbery.” -Stephen Crane

I have recently toyed with the idea to walk around in public places with one of those dog clickers, clicking it every 5 seconds, annoying people enough to make them ask me to stop it, at which point I would reply that I’ll stop the clicking when they finally agree to accept responsibility commensurate with the power they have to stop the children dying the perfectly preventable, horrible deaths being clicked off.

Where oh where is our shame?!  And btw just how many Einsteins and Mozarts and Pasteurs has humanity cheated itself out of in its utter, enduring, self-harming blindness?  Oh how vicious is the steep poverty of our horizons!  Everyone fearing pay justice because they’ve been tricked into believing it will make them poorer – when the investment in pay justice would make 99% of people richer in wealth and 100% of people richer in happiness, safety, good quality of life.  The benefits of defining and adopting fairpay justice begin with non-extinction. Hello?

We are lost and adrift in the far-too-manyness.  Yes, as people type type away, splitting hairs about perfect irrelevancies like theories of value and Austrian/Chicagoan/Randian/Rothbardian/Keynesian/Marxist etc. “schools” of “thought”, the “third world” suffers a September 11th every 4 hours in terms of the number of casualties.  Is that reality in the daily headlines of every newspaper?  Did I say ‘News’?  Bah.  The “news” is The Olds.

I have long maintained that we are granting ourselves a right we do not have - and innocent people are paying with their very lives for our damn miserable failure to prioritize correctly and focus like lasers on the root cause of 99% of unnecessary human suffering.

I maintain that we have neither the time nor any right to carry on seeking agreement on answers to all the wrong questions!

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Fat Freddy

Peter Schiff is to be congratulated for his prognostication, but how he did so when,” Austrian School economists hold that the complexity of human behavior makes mathematical modeling of an evolving market extremely difficult (or undecidable,)” is puzzling.

“Despite those predictions coming to fruition, as early as 2009 Schiff was receiving criticism aimed at the performance of some of his client’s accounts, as well as the predictions themselves. In January 2009, economic blogger and investment adviser Michael Shedlock reported, “I have talked with many who claim they have invested with Schiff and are down anywhere from 40% to 70% in 2008.”[68] Other criticisms followed, including the aforementioned Eric Tyson post[54] as well as an article for the investment news site Seeking Alpha, published on the site two days after Shedlock’s blog post.[69] Later that week an article appeared in the Wall Street Journal reporting that Schiff’s broker-dealer firm, Euro Pacific Capital Inc., “advised its clients to bet that the dollar would weaken significantly and that foreign stocks would outpace their U.S. peers” and that instead, the dollar advanced against most currencies, “magnifying the losses from foreign stocks Mr. Schiff steered his investors into.”

I am very “Macro” in my understanding of economics. The only thing I know for certain is that under laissez faire economics the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, but I have found your posts to be edifying. For example, I’ve learned that social justice is crap, people who disagree with yours and Paul’s economic theories are assholes, and that Paul is more forgiving than Sand Rand, when it comes to followers with protestant wives.

Medical services have been struggling to get find the highly educated and able professionals that it needs. But if the majority of unemployed are blue collar professions what are the odds of one being able to crossover into the medical profession? Nil and none! And definitely not without many years of higher education which may mean that the demand is no longer there after retraining.

Bullshit. Here’s a list of 2 year programs from my local community college in medical services, there are both “career oriented” and co-op transfer programs. They offer day, evening, weekend, and online courses. Stop making excuses.

- Health Information Technology
- Dietetic Technology
- Dental Assisting
- Dental Hygiene
- HEALTH SCIENCE
Certified Medical Assistant Option
- HEALTH SCIENCE
Surgical Technology Option
- Massage Therapy
- Medical Laboratory Technology
- Ophthalmic Science Technology
- Paramedic Sciences
- PARAMEDIC SCIENCES
Paramedic Educational Management Option
- Respiratory Therapy
- NURSING
Helene Fuld Cooperative Nursing Program
- NURSING
Our Lady of Lourdes
Cooperative Nursing Program
- NURSING
Liberal Arts and Science: Pre-Nursing Option

http://www.camdencc.edu/academics/catalog.htm

Xavier Onassis

I have no problem with workers being part owners of a company. In fact, it is very easy to do. It’s called stock options. Company stock in lieu of wages (partial). It is part of the reason why CEOs are so wealthy. But labor unions have consistently fought against this. Why? Because unions seek to maximize profits just as much as businesses.  Large monopolistic labor unions are no better than large monopolistic corporations. It is also not as practical as it once was. There are much higher turnover rates in workforce than there was 30, 40 years ago. Workers have the freedom to leave a company at any time to seek employment elsewhere, usually for a higher wage, and often do. My aunt worked for DuPont all of her life. She started working there directly out of college, and worked there her entire life, until she retired. That was the norm many years ago. It is not so, today. It was also common for companies to provide higher educations to its workers. They would pay for most,or all, of the tuition, and upon graduation the worker would receive a promotion and raise within the company. But what started happening is, many workers would graduate, work at their new position for a year or so, then leave the company and go work for somebody else at a higher wage. Thus, the company lost the investment it made in the worker’s education. So, please don’t blame corporations for wanting to maximize their profits, because workers also seek to maximize their profits. You see, it costs a company money and time to hire a new worker to replace one that has left.

Lilith

I don’t necessarily disagree with you. Government paints with far too broad of a brush. But you also have to realize, I live in NJ, one of the most heavily regulated states in the country. And yes, our education system is a mess. There are over 300 local school districts. Each district relies, or is supposed to rely, on local property taxes for funding. NJ has the highest property taxes in the country. But on top of those property taxes, the State contributes $11.5 billion (FY 2009) in school aid. The State Constitution defines education from the ages of 5 to 18 as a right. Gov. Christie is attempting to take on the unions by increasing pension and healthcare contributions of the workers, and has been met with much resistance. But just cutting salary and benefits does not solve the underlying problems. And that is, the government, in collusion with the unions, have a monopoly on education. The solution is obvious. But getting people to agree to it is impossible. Sweden has been using a “voucher” or “school choice” system, which contains both public and private schools, and it has been working very well. But the NJEA would never allow that to happen in NJ, no matter how much it benefits the students or the taxpayers.

In case you are confused about my point for changing school funding, here is a better explanation:

The ideas that inequities in wealth and the economy are in fact normal, natural, preferred, and even desired social constructs, is supported through out our culture and how we run our towns and cities. How can you change something that is reinforced and supported in many other aspects of life in this country. Changing the way education is funded would be the best and most successful way to demonstrate AND raise the next generations in a system that is not based on the same old inequities. It may be slow, but like in China, it is slow and from the ground up.

To Fat Freddy:

“Bottom-up reforms worked in China; top-down reforms failed in Russia.” - from the Hoover Report you sited.

In a nutshell, that is exactly my point in my post stamped (June 3 at 2:38 am) when I pointed out that government can “force” change and how that almost does not work (desegregation of schools is an example where force was necessary to implement the change and it worked). That is why I suggested making the changes at the state and local level involving education and school funding.

Some changes from above will most likely be needed, but the real change will come from the ground up, which is also why I said that the consumers must also take responsibility for perpetuating the system as well. That will also take a grass roots approach.

There are many, many large and small ways we can effect manageable change without some of the social crises such things often incur.

Most people here are just saying it is this that is the problem, or that, or how your suggestion just wont work, so far no one seems interested in putting forth some realistic solutions.

What about education, consumers,  tariffs against companies that move operations overseas and then try to sell their goods here at non-competitively lower prices then goods produced here, incentives and publicity strategies to educate and persuade employers that its more beneficial to them to change their policies, so on and so forth.

We all know what the problems are, what about some real concrete solutions, people!

JDmysticDJ

Yes, I am a Ron Paul supporter. I am a member of Campaign for Liberty, and the NJ Libertarian Party. In the past I have voted for both Republican and Democratic candidates. I voted for Obama. I have now been completely disillusioned about politics in this country. Republicans and Democrats are just different branches of the same Big Government Party. They both favor Welfare and Warfare. I will never vote for a Republican or Democrat ever again. Republicans want to take your individual freedom, and Democrats want to take you economic freedom, and they have taken both, consistently. I simply have no more freedom to give and retain my sanity.

Yes, Ron Paul subscribes to the Austrian School of thought. So do I. And so does Peter Schiff. You may say it’s voodoo, but it accurately predicted the housing meltdown in very precise detail in 2006. If you don’t believe me, watch for yourself. If you don’t know who Art Laffer is, he was Mr Reganomics, and invented the “Laffer Curve” of taxation.

Yes, Peter Schiff was right, and every other economist laughed at him. Yeah, well, keep on laughing, assholes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2I0QN-FYkpw

I want to point people about halfway down the page to the very first post I made here, which no one has probably spotted since I screwed up and wasn’t logged in properly so it had to await moderator approval and has just now appeared.  It was June 2nd at 10:28pm - the post that tells how to pronounce my name. It starts with “Adam Smith said”...and it’s a crucial understanding.

JDmysticDJ

Greenspan was not an Austrian. He was originally a Chicago School, or freshwater, economist. He morphed into something that I still can not describe. He was a member of Ayn Rand’s “inner circle”. He was a Randian, not a Rothbardian. Ayn Rand had sand in her c**t. She was nothing more than a cult leader. Murray Rothbard, a real Austrian economist, was also a member of Rand’s inner circle. She gave him an ultimatum. He was to either divorce his Protestant wife, or be excommunicated. He was not the only one.

Here, read about it for yourself, if you want:

http://www.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/rothbard23.html

nemesis2010

“How are the many millions of humans around the world who cannot find employment supposed to obtain safe drinking water, adequate food, shelter, clothing, and an education?”

Questions like that one above tend to make most commenters—especially conservatives and libertarians—run in the opposite direction or present us with the same tired, flawed, and failed economic theories that we’ve heard for centuries.

Name me one economic theory that isn’t flawed. First, I am a Constitutional Libertarian. I believe in the theory that all humans have certain unalienable rights, I am not an anarchist. I believe in a very limited government, but not no government. In the countries where most of the people have little access to clean water, etc, are countries that have either harsh dictatorships, perpetual civil war, rampant corruption, or complete anarchy. It is a fundamental function of government to protect the rights of its citizens. Without such a government, there can be no economic development. Government is a necessary evil.

You say you don’t want any flawed economic theories. OK. How about real world examples? Here’s an excellent article from the Hoover Institute at Stanford University, that compares and contrasts the different economic reforms made in China and Russia, and why one worked, and the other didn’t.

http://www.hoover.org/publications/policyreview/72997307.html

Paul Gregory is the Cullen Distinguished Professor of Economics at the University of Houston and a research fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. Kate Zhou is Professor of Chinese Political Economy and Comparative Politics at the University of Hawaii. She is the author of How the Farmers Changed China (Westview, 1996) and China’s Long March to Freedom, Grassroots Modernization (Transaction, 2009).

“If there were but one person in the world, it is manifest that he could have no more wealth than he was able to make and save. THIS is the natural order.” - Henry George

And THAT is the sanity, the common sense, the biggest-picture reality that the richest have driven us all far from.  Happiness is in reality.  We are in unreality:

Every lion cub to this day gets born with its birthright to a place to put its feet still intact, but this is not so for humans anymore – not since all land became owned.  We silly humans, still growing out of our reptile-remnant brains, ahem, have universally agreed to strip our own most fundamental, most essential birthright off all of us, off everyone already born and everyone yet-to-be born – sans compensation!!  Humans are hilarious.  We just can’t seem to shovel our wealth to the tippy top of an unnecessary heap fast enough or engineer enough ways to do it.  We have all acquiesced to a farce so large we can’t see it.  We have allowed and condoned the legal theft of our primary birthright – even though no one is able to live without a place to put their feet.  Humans are choiceless in this matter; there is nothing to debate: we can’t just choose to float in air.  It’s a craziness too crazy to even speak to, to deny that all who are born have right to one nth (where the population = n) share of land or else compensation for what’s taken off them by society.  Mother Nature gave HER work to all in equal shares.

Here’s what our irrational tolerance of legal theft and our collective mindless acquiescence to overpayunderpay has wrought: (note: It is in the name of accuracy I write overpayunderpay as one word.  The two things are one thing, the two things are ‘twone’: two, one, twone.  Because the pool of wealth is finite, overpay has nowhere to come from but from underpay, you cannot have one without the other, they cause each other, exist because of each other.  Same like profitloss are twone.)

“The richest 5% in every nation, rich and poor, North and South, East and West, now own between 70% and 95% of their own countries.”

Land monopoly (plus private inheritance) is the very back bone of rule by the rich:

“Land Monopoly is not the only monopoly, but it is by far the greatest of monopolies - it is perpetual monopoly, and it is the mother of all other forms of monopoly.” – Winston Churchill

There is an excellent, short, little-known essay by Mark Twain that I never knew existed until I went here:

http://www.envisioneer.net/RainForest/

That’s the site home page, and it’s one of my most-favorite pages on all the web. I think it’s a vitally important page. It’s beautiful, short, a pleasure to read, and it’s a concentrated education for people who are unaware they’re unaware they are unaware.  You might notice as you scroll down there’s a button to click called “Our crowded planet NOT”, but what I really want you to see is the Mark Twain story called Archimedes, which is here:

http://www.envisioneer.net/RainForest/archimed.htm

Anarcisse, I suspect you’re going to love it…

Xavier Onassis, June 3 at 3:50 pm:

‘... Oh, and credit = future work.  No work = no credit.  Nothing but work backs money or credit….’

I would say that money ought to represent labor, and among the working class it usually does—the laborer gets money by working and buys products and services which are generated by someone else’s work.  (The existence of industrial capital doesn’t change this—capital is saved from past work.)

However, in the higher economic realms, it is hard to say that money represents anything.  Goverments create and destroy huge amounts of money at will, especially credit—probably, more theoretical money has been created than even a totally enslaved working class could ever fulfill with labor.  So far, most of this funny money has gone into the stock market and real estate, so it hasn’t caused much inflation in the lower realms—yet.

nemesis2010, June 3 at 10:42 pm:
’... Questions like that one above tend to make most commenters—especially conservatives and libertarians—run in the opposite direction or present us with the same tired, flawed, and failed economic theories that we’ve heard for centuries. Behind questions like those above lies an implicit question that most would rather not have to deal with and that’s why it remains implicit.

What we are really asking, implicitly, is: “Do humans have a right to life, to live, to survive?” ...’

The libertarians I’ve argued with on the Net love questions like that.  I don’t know if you’ll find enough around here to keep a reasonable discussion going, and I’m not going to try to channel them (much).  I guess a hard-core type would say that people had a negative right to live, that is, that they had a right not to be killed or enslaved, but that they did not have a positive right to live in the sense of being able to command others to provide them with a livelihood.  This issue gets rather sticky even for libertarians in the case of children.

“Conservative” doesn’t seem to mean anything very specific, especially not in the United States.  I suppose most actual conservatives in the classical sense would say that people have a positive although limited right to life.  A lot would depend on their religious views.

But that’s true for everyone in the sense that one’s answer to the question is going to go back to one’s basic premises about social life and community.  A lot of people do not seem to see much of a right to live for others, or things would not be as they are.

CUTTING TO THE CHASE:

“How are the many millions of humans around the world who cannot find employment supposed to obtain safe drinking water, adequate food, shelter, clothing, and an education?”

Questions like that one above tend to make most commenters—especially conservatives and libertarians—run in the opposite direction or present us with the same tired, flawed, and failed economic theories that we’ve heard for centuries. Behind questions like those above lies an implicit question that most would rather not have to deal with and that’s why it remains implicit.

What we are really asking, implicitly, is: “Do humans have a right to life, to live, to survive?”

In order to live, to survive, a human being has to have access to an adequate supply of safe drinking water and food, clothing, shelter, medical services, and education. All those things require money. Without employment one is left depending on the largesse of others and not only is that not dependable it doesn’t guarantee an adequate supply of everything one needs.

With every revolution of this planet, 25,000 children starve to death in the most horrendous conditions. No food, no adequate supply of water, no shelter, no medical aid, and many almost as naked as the day they were born. That’s just children. The total number of human beings dying from starvation every 24 hours is an estimated 25-35 thousand.

In the days of hunter gathers and non-corporate agriculture there was game to hunt, land on which to plant, and predators, disease, draughts, famines, wars, etc, to cull. Modern man has so technologically advanced that he has become a master of his universe, conquering many of the ills that befell him in antiquity, allowing the species to reach numbers never before dreamed possible. The down side is that man has created a hell of his own making: “What to do with the mass of humanity?”

No economic theory in existence can answer that question. Malthus—IMO—is going to be deserving of many apologies. No mechanism will provide work for every able bodied man, woman and child in a population of 6.8 billion. Even if we had the mechanism we’d deplete our resources in short order.

We have to think completely out of the box for this one. And I believe most have an idea where answering the question is going to lead us and it ain’t a comfy topic.

@ Smoove and Fat Freddy:

Reality is not theory and it bites! But even though it bites I much prefer to live a reality based life. You can’t come here presenting the same flawed economic theories that got us into this situation as the way to get us out.

With that disproportionate demand and supply we all know very well what the apple salesman will do; he’ll raise the unit price as high as he thinks he can. You can start throwing in all kinds of other variables to make the model do what you want it to do; and that serves to demonstrate why economic theory is such shit.

The “analogy” also—and this was the purpose of it—demonstrates what has happened to worker wages and benefits. We don’t have multimillions of unemployed because they love the good life of living off of government largesse. That’s pure unadulterated bs. There are an estimated 14-15 million unemployed in the U.S. and that supposedly equates to about 5 unemployed for every available opportunity. Who the hell has the advantage? We all know who and it’s reflected in increased hours for less pay and benefits.

That 5 for every available position doesn’t consider what field the opportunities that exists are in. Medical services have been struggling to get find the highly educated and able professionals that it needs. But if the majority of unemployed are blue collar professions what are the odds of one being able to crossover into the medical profession? Nil and none! And definitely not without many years of higher education which may mean that the demand is no longer there after retraining.

Then we have to consider the underemployed. How many millions of them are there running about? How do we create opportunities that fit their level of expertise?

The obstacles we face are incredible and we haven’t but barely scratched the surface. Not only are we facing a shrinking supply of crude—the lubricant of the world’s economy—but we are also facing climate change that might add to our predicaments. You might want to read “Catastrophe” by David Keys.

When I asked about “adequate” water, food, etc., the immediate response was how to define adequate. That’s easy. Science can help us with all of those definitions. We know that an individual needs a minimum of 2 liters of drinking water per day. Perhaps doubling that to 4 liters, defined as adequate, can be a good starting point. We then continue on to water requirements for health and sanitary needs, etc. and other areas until we have a starting point. The standards shouldn’t be written in stone and steps should be taken to make needed adjustments with at least a modicum of ease.

All of this brings us to the one point and question that must be asked and answered before we can work toward any real change in our current societal framework. And that’s what I’ve been wanting to address since the beginning.

“Alan Greenspan is also a believer in monetarism”

FTFY JDmysticDJ

Fat Friedmeanie

Austrian School economists hold that the complexity of human behavior makes mathematical modeling of an evolving market extremely difficult (or undecidable) and advocate a laissez faire approach to the economy.

Republican U.S. congressman Ron Paul is a firm believer in Austrian school economics and has authored six books on the subject.

Alan Greenspan is also a believer in the ”Austrian School.”

The “Austrian School” is reactionary neo-voodoo.

Xavier Onassis

Money is power: hence the human species is constantly manufacturing wealthpower giants who possess the ability to make history be what they decide it will be.  And the people continue to be cannonfoddered in their games.

Forgive me, but that seems a bit over-the-top. Money is not power. Power can be bought with money, but money in and of itself is not power.

credit = future work

It’s a bit difficult to decipher your comments. I am a little ADHD, and perhaps I could use another shot of Adderall. However, it may just be a poor attempt at creative writing on your part, or perhaps you are being vague and abstruse by design. Perhaps there’s a language barrier.

Regardless, it seems you place a high degree of stock into the “labour theory of value”, while ignoring “marginal utility”. Where I tend to place a “satisfaction of needs” value on money. Could you be a little more specific and a little less cryptic? Perhaps, try writing in complete sentences. Write like you speak, there’s no points for creativity (writing) here.

“Tommy got his six string in hock
Now he’s holding in what he used
To make it talk - so tough, it’s tough”

“Gina dreams of running away
When she cries in the night
Tommy whispers: Baby it’s okay, someday
We’ve got to hold on to what we’ve got
‘Cause it doesn’t make a difference
If we make it or not
We’ve got each other and that’s a lot
For love - we’ll give it a shot.”

“We’re half way there
Livin’ on a prayer
Take my hand and we’ll make it - I swear
Livin’ on a prayer
We’ve got to hold on ready or not
You live for the fight when it’s all that you’ve got.”

I wonder if Mr. $2000 ticket buyer enjoyed this one. I’ll bet he’s a real cowboy. I wonder what kind of “Steel horse” he rides.

Real life is not found on television, in movies, or in songs. Real life often is matter of being demeaned, exploited, and enslaved by $2000 ticket buyers, (And $2000 ticket chargers.) In real life, Gina would probably be a little “Runaway” or she would “…Give love a bad name.” and Tommy would be “Shot Through the Heart.” In real life Gina would be looking to date Mr. $2000 ticket buyer. I could offer more real life examples of Mr. $2000 ticket buyer’s proclivities, but decency prevents me.

Poor Tommy, he has no desire to exploit, all he wants is a decent job, Gina, and to get his guitar out of hock; but that’s just my interpretation of the song, maybe Tommy wants to charge $2000 for tickets to see him play.

Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of sex, drugs, and ROCK and ROLL!

“OOH AH, OOH AH, OOH AH, OOH AH,” and so on…

Hmm.  It’s inexplicably odd to be told I have “strange views” about what money is and then to be immediately “corrected” or “informed” that money is what I have repeatedly said it is.  That makes no sense.  Of course money is an accepted means to exchange what we produce or provide in our specialized labours – where did I say different?  Nowhere.  And I have certainly never spoken of getting rid of money and returning to a barter system, so I can’t imagine why that bit comes up in reference to my thinking, either.  Are you confusing my posts with posts written by others, perhaps, FF?

Oh, and credit = future work.  No work = no credit.  Nothing but work backs money or credit, and again, on Earth, work is either the sacrifice of time and energies made by individuals or it’s work Mother Nature did for free.

No, it certainly isn’t me who lacks economic clarity.

ITW—I’m using the term “job” broadly; I don’t mean just regular institutional employment, but any form of activity that gets a person a living.  Many governments forcibly deprive people of opportunities to hunt, gather, beg, scavenge, peddle, make and sell certain items or perform certain services, and so forth, all of which are “jobs”.  And the absence of public or common property on which to live and work is a political decision, not something handed down by the gods.  It’s been observed to the point of cliché that most property descends from a violent crime, in fact.  (At least I live in New York City, where the land was bought from Indians who didn’t own it for a pile of worthless junk—a typical New York City real estate deal.)

Fat Freddy—If A chooses to issue currency based on a promise to pay, and B chooses to believe in it, regardless of whether the currency issued is tied to some actually-existing material object, what exactly is your objection?  It seems to me that requiring a bank to hold any reserves at all is something of an imposition.  (As long, of course, as it did not claim fraudulently to possess reserves which it did not in fact possess.)

It’s probably better if they don’t teach economists finance.