sorry world

[Elam]

What do you mean by "facts and reality"? Please elaborate.
Obama's big into dialogue and strength through diplomacy. From his website:
Anbar Province Success Not Related to Surge: The reduced violence in Anbar Province is the result of cooperation between American forces and Sunni tribes, which started more than 18 months ago, long before the surge. The province is overwhelmingly Sunni, and the tribal leaders there made a political decision to turn against al Qaeda. This does not demonstrate the success of the surge; it demonstrates that the solutions in Iraq are political, not military.

You can't have an Anbar Awakening without the American military, as he says himself. Sure, the tribes can bond together to fight Al Qaeda, but they don't have the firepower or logistics to do it alone. That requires the US. So the solution is both political and military. Less a contradiction than it simply doesn't make sense.

And since the big O is gonna pull out troops, can we assume that Iraq will descend back into it's secretarian ways? Of course not!
To combat terrorism, Obama would press Iran, Syria, and Saudi Arabia to stem the flow of foreign fighters, arms, and financial resources into Iraq. Obama also would be a tough negotiator with Syria and Iran, sending a clear message that they need to stop meddling in Iraq’s affairs.

Heh, this is great. 'A tough Negotiator' Is he going to channel his inner Samuel L Jackson? He must have missed the past 3 years of tough European negotiating with Iran over it's nuclear program. Besides, what's to fear from an Obama led America? Hell, he campaigned to pull America out of that Iraq, not keep us there.

The Iranians and Syrians are licking their chops. See Lebanon.

[Peter Coene]

Nah, it's not drawn badly, it's just a bit disturbing. When I read your posts, I imagine a talking rabid corpse.
You see, the best way to get people to take you seriously is associate yourself with a hypnotizing image of an animated thong. :D

How 'bout now? has it stopped being scary for you?

[eskanto]

How 'bout now? has it stopped being scary for you?

You know I've always found the commercials with the burger king guy creepy. Since you've added those glowing eyes it adds to the creepy factor. Keep it, I like. :P

And Elam what's up man? Haven't you figured out that people are going to have thier opinions and what you say in such an angry way is not going to convince them to change thier vote or opinion?

[Peter Coene]

You know I've always found the commercials with the burger king guy creepy. Since you've added those glowing eyes it adds to the creepy factor. Keep it, I like. :P

And Elam what's up man? Haven't you figured out that people are going to have thier opinions and what you say in such an angry way is not going to convince them to change thier vote or opinion?
aww, c'mon... you're forgetting the pentagram on the crown!

you eat his hamburgers, he eats your soul... that explains why he was always showing up next to people while they are sleeping and stuff like that.

[eskanto]

aww, c'mon... you're forgetting the pentagram on the crown!

you eat his hamburgers, he eats your soul... that explains why he was always showing up next to people while they are sleeping and stuff like that.

I didn't see that at first! :) A satanic burger king....priceless.

[Suira]

What could I say about this?....Well let's just start with what I think about that kind of people that lives in US ( and also lives in the rest of the worl, I'm gonna talk about how I think they damage their own country).

Us is a big country with lots of things that make it atractif. Like art or nice open mind people...lots lots of stuff. But the vision of that wonderfull country gets fucked up when we see that there are also this kind of people, yeah, they're spread all over the world but there's a big number in US , and that's very sad, cause you get that stupid impression of: "Yeah, cause we are patriotic americans, and we can't hace a black president, that wouldn't be racist!"

And just because some stupid pieces of shit say those kind of things US gets a worse and worse reputation all over the world.

And well, I personally don't have that vision but it's because I'm interested on US because of hundreds of aspects, but people that actually don't care so much about US take pre made ideas that every american is like that, because, beeing honest, those horrible words get more recorded on your brain that the good ones.

So maybe this people should read a book or something to start getting the idea about how our world works and getting in their fucking brains ( if they have one, thing that I actually doubt they have) that with that stupid stance the only thing they're earning is hate, and hate doesn't help anybody.

I personally would like to study my career in US and work there afterwards , but in the very first begining I had my doubts not because of the money problems I could have or the language problems, but for that "old american feeling" that I think I wouldn't be able to stand. Now I know that there are also amanzing people in there and that they're more than those bastards, but I guess you get the feeling.

I don't know if I made myself get understood, maybe not cause I lack in language skills, but well, that's what I think ( I think :P).

See ya guys ;)

[kev ferrara]

This article applies to everything you read about anything, including America: http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/08-02-13.html#feature

[Elam]

And Elam what's up man? Haven't you figured out that people are going to have thier opinions and what you say in such an angry way is not going to convince them to change thier vote or opinion?
Angry? Who's angry? You want anger, see Fancibug.

I was just answering a question.

[Costau D]

we've gotta do something...

pUc2kI2XKRQ

[TASmith]

Kev:
"This article applies to everything you read about anything, including America"

Actually, it applies to broadcast journalism. Still a good read, thanks for the link. Oh, and McPublican is probably the most appropriate name for the party, good call there! Fast Food Nation FTW!

[kev ferrara]

TASmith... that article applies to all second-hand information except for peer reviewed science papers and pure philosophical reasoning. That is to say, it applies to more than what it specifically addresses.

McPublican was meant to demonstrate how easy, juvenile, and intellectually lazy neologisms are as political weapons... I came up with 10 of them in the space of minute. I wasn't making a "good call." about the G.O.P. It truly bums me out that you would consider my mockery of shallow wit as actual wit. For actual wit see Twain or Wilde or Groucho. Yeesh.

EDIT: CosmoChimp... thanks for that vid.. that was hilarious. (I'm assuming it was meant to be funny, in an uncomfortable Will Farrell - Ben Stiller kind of way. That's the way I took it anyway.)

[Jason Manley]

You guys are hilarious...well except for the McCorpse victims...far too infected with his warmongering zombie haze to be hilarious.

[Jason Manley]

The Iranians and Syrians are licking their chops. See Lebanon.

You mean the same Lebanon that Reagan pulled out of for fear of being bogged down in an endless quagmire costing countless American lives and capital...both liquid and political?

I am licking my chops at the idea of our taxes going into a currently damaged America instead of failed policies in the middle east that are bankrupting my country. This war was supposed to cost 200 billion, revised to 60 billion, and is projected, even if we pull out to have devoured 1 trillion plus when all extraneous costs are added up.

In the time that the US has engaged in two bloody oil wars, costing all that money, and priceless lives, China has spent a fraction of that and torn down and rebuilt all their major cities from the ground up (and still doing it). Imagine if we rebuilt every road, hospital, and the entire crumbling American infrastructure and replaced it with new...including building multiple equivalents of "Manhattan Skylines" as the chinese have, which are the base of their future economic business...not to mention a world class olympic city...or hell...health care for the next ten years too (that dreaded socialist ideal) All that money back into America...hmmm....Licking my chops perhaps is not the right phrase.

Imagine where we would be if all that money was invested in alternative energies, renewable fuel, and vehicles that are not reliant upon oil and the middle east. It would be done, right?...just as we made it to the moon in a decade, we would get off the oil syringe. The bloody oil wars would be pointless and we could have the foundation for a country to be strong into the next century. Instead we have the booming military industrial complex and big oil sitting real pretty...as well as an exhausted but highly experienced mililtary...and a ruined political reputation across the globe.

but hey...all this is my own opinion.

I will be voting for Obama this fall, and I hope as many people around here that can, do as well.



jm

[Peter Coene]

You guys are hilarious...well except for the McCorpse victims...far too infected with his warmongering zombie haze to be hilarious.
Not fair, I changed that avatar, and if you read my thoughts on what to do about the middle east you'll see that they aren't exactly warmongering.

[TASmith]

"I wasn't making a "good call." "

au contraire mon frere. Give yourself some credit, especially if you can crank that out in under a minute. It's not Twain but it's definately fitting.

[Jason Manley]

Not fair, I changed that avatar, and if you read my thoughts on what to do about the middle east you'll see that they aren't exactly warmongering.

lol...kei must have given you a complex...i wasnt even thinking of you. sorry for the confusion. haha

[Peter Coene]

just as we made it to the moon in a decade, we would get off the oil syringe. The bloody oil wars would be pointless and we could have the foundation for a country to be strong into the next century.
yea-um... no. You see, when Kenedy made that promise we already had most of the technology to get to the moon, and he knew that the finishing touches on that technology could be completed within a decade. In the case of our current situation, even if we have a scientific miracle that provides a way to "get off the oil syringe" it will take 4 decades worth of research and developement between the point of being some scientist's brain-baby to something that is viable and affordable for the average consumer.

Think of it this way, so far the best vehicle that has been made to run on an alternate source of energy is the GM Sunraycer. Granted, it was made in the late 80's, but since its final run in 1990 there has been little to no further developement in the area of solar powered vehicles. Also, as innovative and amazing as the Sunraycer was, it was created using technology that pushed the limits of physics, and even with that had to be so exremely lightweight that a gust of wind could possibly blow it off the track. It could only carry a driver and no passengers, in the best of conditions it could reach up to 67 mph, and if any of the myriad things that could go wrong with its fragile parts does go wrong then you could buy a regular car for the cost of replacing the part in the Sunraycer.

In other words, the Sunraycer is to a practical solar powered vehicle what Goddard's experimental rockets (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_H._Goddard) were to Nasa's Apollo 11.

As for being against war, remember that if it weren't for a number of wars (van Braum's advancements made for the Nazis in WW2 and the Space Race in the Cold War) we would have never landed on the moon. The greatest scientific advances are made because of war, and especially because of the "military industrial complex."

I'm guessing that the quickest way to get us to come up with alternate sources of fuel is to recognise that a modern army relies on gasoline to move and that could be seen as a bigger problem than whether or not Joe Shmoe can afford the $11 per gallon to fill up his tank. If that is the case then maybe we ought to be putting more money into the war effort.

BTW, war stimulates economies more than it hurts them. WW2 pulled both America and Germany out of depression as there were suddenly more factory jobs available and the US was spending the tax dollars that it brought in on those factories. Most of the expences of fighting a war are paid to American companies that are supplying to the war and therefore puts more money into circulation. Therefore blaming economical problems on a war is falacious.

[Jasonwclark]

In the time that the US has engaged in two bloody oil wars, costing all that money, and priceless lives, China has spent a fraction of that and torn down and rebuilt all their major cities from the ground up (and still doing it). Imagine if we rebuilt every road, hospital, and the entire crumbling American infrastructure and replaced it with new...including building multiple equivalents of "Manhattan Skylines" as the Chinese have, which are the base of their future economic business...not to mention a world class Olympic city...or hell...health care for the next ten years too (that dreaded socialist ideal) All that money back into America...

There'd be a lot more jobs right now, and less talk of recession, that's for sure.

That's the most irritating thing about our fruitless escapades in the Middle East though; for this kind of money we could have easily put a man on Mars, or worked to solve the emerging ecological crisis, or rebuilt our infrastructure, or done any number of things. Hell, we could have just funded a whole host of next generation defense projects and rebuilt our military again, if we wanted to. Any one of those options would have left us in a better position then we're in right now. You don't have to delve very deep into the history books to see how these things pan out: fight a few ill conceived wars, tarnish your reputation abroad, run up a massive national debt, and before you know it some upstart comes along to own your ass. Just ask the Russians, or the British, the French, Dutch, or Spanish (you get the idea.) If we're not careful, the Běijīnghuà might just replace English as the language of power politics and international commerce throughout much of the Pacific and Africa in the next decade. This summer is going to be China's 'coming out' party, so keep your eyes peeled. Its going to be a much bigger show than Hong Kong was back in 97.


BTW, war stimulates economies more than it hurts them.

I think that's a poorly thought out generalization. There are much better ways to stimulate economies than warfare.

[Jason Manley]

BTW, war stimulates economies more than it hurts them. WW2 pulled both America and Germany out of depression as there were suddenly more factory jobs available and the US was spending the tax dollars that it brought in on those factories. Most of the expences of fighting a war are paid to American companies that are supplying to the war and therefore puts more money into circulation. Therefore blaming economical problems on a war is falacious.

The money has to come from somewhere.

You must realize that the English shipped us what amounted to their entire empire's gold reserves to support ww2. That was a big contributor to their losing place as a primary world power. WW2 made this country rich. It also left it in tact. Those are two of the key reasons for America's rise in the 20th century. The first gulf war was paid for by the coalition. This one is funded almost entirely by the US. So your position is 100 percent flawed, in regards to that.

Spending a trillion dollars in iraq will not see more than a trillion dollars brought back to the US. It is a bad investment, in lives, and in capital (all kinds). It has been a horrendous investment to date, this war. Our country has been horribly managed this past eight years, business wise, and the troubles the American economy has created is bringing problems to the global economy, and not just our own. The American reputation is in shambles. Simply put, it is time to move on and be smart. So far it is very clear which companies have been "stimulated" by this warmongering and fear machine. Change will come in November and it is going to take a decade, or more, to recover.

[Peter Coene]

The money has to come from somewhere.

You must realize that the English shipped us what amounted to their entire empire's gold reserves to support ww2. The first gulf war was paid for by the coalition. This one is funded almost entirely by the US. So your position is 100 percent flawed, in regards to that.

Spending a trillion dollars in iraq will not see more than a trillion dollars brought back to the US. It is a bad investment, in lives, and in capital. It has been a horrendous investment to date, this war.

The Germans were in a worse depression than we were and pulled themselves out of it without Britain's gold reserves. While the current war is not bringing in money from the outside it is circulating money within the nation which is never a bad thing. I admit, it would be a lot smarter if we had another country paying for it, but thats beside the point.

The reason that our economy is getting screwed up is not because we are spending money on war stuff but because that money has been loosing its value while the thing we need most, oil, is gaining value.

You have to understand that technically a US dollar is only worth however much people pretend it is worth. That wasn't the case when a silver dollar was worth a dollar, and when we dropped the gold/silver standard we were the strongest nation in the world and so everybody continued to beleive our money was worth something, and so it continued to hold. Now Europe has consolidated its currency, China is continuing to grow economically, and everyone has lost their trust in the US. Thats not a matter of war, but because of the fact that we no longer do anything to make our money worth anything.

We have gone from being the most industrial nation in the world to a service industry. We used to sell more cars than any other country, now that role is taken by Japan. All our metal refineries have closed and instead China does that for the world, all the factories are in China, India, or one of those tiny S.E. Asian companies. Of course no money is coming in, we have nothing that anyone wants to buy.

Even if we make those scientific breakthroughs that you guys are saying we should invest in, what do you think will happen? We will take that breakthrough and have whatever product it gives us mass-produced in Tailand so that we can pay bottom dollar for it, and all the while that money (bottom dollar or not) will be leaving our country only to return when they decide they want it exchanged for a type of currency that isn't loosing is value faster than Enron stocks durring the dotcom crash.

[Jasonwclark]

Sadly, I don't think the oil syringe is going anywhere, anytime soon. If we replaced every gas guzzler on the streets today with a hybrid, or solar car, or whatever you like, the overhead would still be too expensive to manage. Same deal with our military's dependence on oil.

The construction of an average car consumes the energy equivalent of approximately 20 barrels (840 gallons) of oil. Ultimately, the construction of a car will consume an amount of fossil fuels equivalent to twice the car’s final weight. It's also worth nothing that the construction of an average car consumes almost 120,000 gallons of fresh water. Fresh water is also rapidly depleting and is absolutely essential to the petroleum refining process as each gallon of gasoline requires almost two gallons of fresh water for refining source (http://www.enviroliteracy.org/article.php/322.html).

The construction of the average desktop computer consumes ten times its weight in fossil fuels. source (http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=10007&Cr=computer&Cr1=) The production of one gram of microchips consumes 630 grams of fossil fuels. According to the American Chemical Society, the construction of single 32 megabyte DRAM chip requires 3.5 pounds of fossil fuels in addition to 70.5 pounds of water. source (http://www.alternet.org/water/80444/?page=2)

Its pretty clear that we're presiding over the end of an age here. The 20th century is never going to happen again and its time we start thinking seriously about what the future has in store. Our whole economic system is predicated on a totally unsustainable model of growth, and sooner or later its going to give out on us. We need to start investing in renewable energy now, while we still have the resources to meet the initial costs, or we're going to be really fucked when the house of cards comes tumbling down 3 or 4 decades out.

[TASmith]

hmmm, all this talk makes me wish I were more of an expert... Let's start with Peter Coene

Your statement on the economics of war is flawed, as is your example. You point to WWII as a savior for the US economy because the government spent lots of money on weapons. In reality the US economy was helped because we loaned lots of money to Europe to rebuild, which was paid back at interest, fueling our economy for decades. War spending actually hurts our economy because, as often happens in war, the government spends more money than it has. It does so by borrowing money from the National Bank which it must pay back at interest. Putting the government into debt lowers the value of our currency. This may be good for certain consumer outlets, but it lowers the value of all the money that every American has in their bank accounts, pockets, the value of salaries, etc. In this latest dip in our currency's value, my money is worth half as much as it used to in Slovakia, where I now live. Five years ago, I could buy a house here for $70,000. Now that same house costs about $300,000 USD. I forget which famous economist said this, and I think most would agree that spending more than 5% GDP on the military is unsustainable long term.

In addition to lower currency, spending tax dollars on weaponry takes money from the majority of Americans and into the pockets of relatively few employees, concentrating wealth (and most of it goes to owners). The weapons produced have absolutely no positive, economic use. You can't plow a field with a tank. So this stuff just sits there, draining more money for upkeep. Then, when the weapons are used, you get areas of "no man's land" - land that usually could be cultivated or used for economic activity, which instead becomes a nightmarish hell on earth. You point to WWII favorably because America never fought on its own soil (apart from Pearl Harbor, etc). You need to take into account the economic impact it had on Europe and Africa, and Asia, and also take into account all the lost productivity from the millions of dead soldiers and civilians.

Have I missed anything?

On the subject of fuel and cars. Peter, you claim the best alternative car was a solar powered one made in 1990. That sounds a bit dated to me. For one thing we already have hybrid cars that are being sold en masse and work just fine. There was an article in the Economist recently describing the history of batteries, and from what I can tell, Lithium Ion batteries are the best bet. They don't have any "memory" that would cause them to lose charge over time. The only problem is they can be volatile. With enough money put into development we could probably have a very comfortable and convenient battery operated car in 10-15 years. Maybe even less.

Jason clark you state a car consumes the "energy equivalent" of however much oil and water. How much oil and water is really used and necessary, not just per unit, but total, and how quickly are these reserves dwindling? If the energy for this stuff could come from say coal or wind powered electricity, than it's a moot point. Also, state your source. There have been many doomsayers on this topic, but not so many facts to back it up.

Let's see, my sources? Well I read the Economist and alot of the war stuff comes from Jared Diamond.

EDIT: OH, and according to wikipedia, the US is still the second greatest exporter of goods. We're right after China. Services make up the bulk of our GDP, but we still produce a ton of stuff.

[Jasonwclark]

I'm sure you could find statistics to support just about any argument you want to make, but the general thrust of the idea is that there are also hidden costs in fossil fuels associated with just about everything we produce. Cars and computers are only a few notables, but you can play the same sort of game with food, fertilizers, medicine, drinking water, you name it. Right now, most jobs in America are related in some way to the auto-industry. Cars, trucks and cheap oil, facilitated the building boom that followed the second world war, and the construction/housing industry has in turn propped up other drivers of the economy like US steel and lumber, the shipping industry, telecom industry etc. It all goes back to the fossil fuels in the end though. The point I was trying to make, is that it takes a shit load of energy to build things like cars and computers and tanks in the first place. Switching out the current US auto-fleet for a new and improved one, and throwing away our old PCs every other year, is simply not feasible long term. It's not a doomsday prediction, just a fact of modern life that we're all going to have to get used to. The longer we wait to deal with the problem though, the worse the fallout is going to be; which is why we should be investing our energy to work on it sooner rather than later.

[TASmith]

"Switching out the current US auto-fleet for a new and improved one, and throwing away our old PCs every other year, is simply not feasible long term."

But dude, it's gonna happen anyway, no matter whether we create more efficient cars or not. Every year more cars break down and more people have accidents. Cars need to be replaced. Also, every year new drivers come of age and want their own auto. I don't think anyone ever said we need to scrap all the current technology and replace it immediately. We're talking about phasing in things.

As to sustainability of fossil fuels, yup it's a big issue and I'm no expert on it, but there have been doom sayers for awhile, who've even formed clubs planning for the switch back to agrarian living, ala Transcendentalist style. It triggered some cover stories back in the 90's about how we have enough oil for the next 150 years. Personally I couldn't tell you which is true, but I can predict that 50-100 years from now, someone is going to be making fun of either these doomsayers or Time magazine. Possibly both.

It'll be interesting to see what happens when we run out of petrol for plastic. We may not live to see it, but our children or grandchildren probably will. I figure there's always glass. Sand isn't going anywhere is it? Wood's a renewable resource so long as overpopulation doesn't completely deforest our planet. Also, there was a recent article in the Economist on new designs for damless hydroelectric power stations. It's all grist for the mill.

[Jason Manley]

Reagan's military spending is credited, partially, for the booming economy of the eighties (seven percent or so compared to one percent nowadays)as any investment in America trickles down inside the country in the form of jobs and comes back around as additional taxes. However, he did not see a trillion dollars go down the toilet in the middle least. He was wise enough to pull out. At this point, it is clear that the past eight years have been, for the most part, a failure of existing American policies. We have two options as a country. More of the same or less of the same.

The Dems are not without fault. But, given what the republicans have done this decade with the house, senate, and executive branch control, there really is only one option to move forward instead of sideways and back. Fortunately he is also intelligent, articulate, and carries a vibrancy not unlike JFK, Robert Kennedy or Martin Luther King, regardless of his policies.

Will be interesting to see how this all plays out.

[TASmith]

"Fortunately he is also intelligent, articulate, and carries a vibrancy not unlike JFK, Robert Kennedy or Martin Luther King"

Oh Goddammit, did you have to point this out!!! All those people were shot Jason... Let's just hope no other Americans notice the same similarities.

[Jason Manley]

Well I do hope security is improved and lessons have been learned since then. It will be a sad day if anything like that happened. That discussion has been had for a while..the conspiracy theory buffs have suggested he is on that path....king...jfk...ghandi...you name it. He has a long way to go to reach the success of the others but I do think he sure gives that same inspiring feeling of potentialities and positive change that the others did...and as much as people try to discredit that kind of thing, it is what gets movements started...inspiration goes a long way as long as positive action is taken.

The dems are most likely going to get a chance to do good. I hope that they do.

[~Faust~]

Honestly, from my point of view the democrats are doing so much harm to themselves right now that their chanceto wn the presidential elections are diminishing very fast. Seeing all those personal attacks from Obama to Clinton and vice versa is hurting either positions in contrast to McCain, who already established himself as a candidate.

I think the only way the democrats can win this election is when Clinton or Obama resign from their candidature for the sake of change. Hell, that would prove some real greatness and character.

[TASmith]

"Well I do hope security is improved and lessons have been learned since then."

Ha.

[Helioth]

Not going to feign knowledge on the subject, it's vast and could doubtlessly be more than the rest of my lifetimes subject of effort.
However, I do suppose and propose that we should govern ourselves, be as cats, not herded or controlled.

Honestly, from my point of view the democrats are doing so much harm to themselves right now that their chanceto wn the presidential elections are diminishing very fast. Seeing all those personal attacks from Obama to Clinton and vice versa is hurting either positions in contrast to McCain, who already established himself as a candidate.

I think the only way the democrats can win this election is when Clinton or Obama resign from their candidature for the sake of change. Hell, that would prove some real greatness and character.

Perhaps, ironically, it would set ablaze their supporters and more so that they'd win the election after giving up!

[kev ferrara]

Jason, you argue your points eloquently, but I think your binary view of how history progresses in the various spheres of American life is distorting. We are living in a continuum. Our country doesn't stop and start with one administration or another. Policies last for decades. Mistakes are made in 1914 or 1922 or 1937 or 1940, or 1952, or 1967 or 1972 or 1979, or 1986 or 1993 or 1999 and they come back to bite us on the ass in 2001. Research funded in the 40s and 50s results in the tech boom of the 90s and your making a living today. Which might never have happened if, say, the French hadn't been so vindictive at Versailles after World War I. And there are many many other actors influencing events significantly economically, politically, culturally, militarily, accidentally....

Unless it is placed within the vast, dwarfing context of history, any one "answer" holds little weight.

Or, to be more poetic, if we find a chain of pearls in the ocean, we haven't learned a thing about global currents.

Sorry this is not all that specific point for point on your arguments. This is just too huge a conversation to even begin. I will however agree that the energy policy of the last eight years would have been far better under a Gore administration and thus our current economic outlook would probably also be better.

Best,
kev

EDIT: TASmith, go to a political event and you will see for yourself that security has changed.

[Jason Manley]

I know...but my point is simple...a change of direction now is about the only thing we can do to improve things down the road. Given how poor things are going it will be tough to see the progress until the next decade...but ya gotta start sometime. Voting for more of the same is not going to do it.

[TASmith]

I'm actually a bit undecided as, on one hand:

Voting for Obama sends the right message to the world that we made a mistake and want to make amends. It also tells the Rep party that they made a mistake and they should pay for it. Plus Obama is the most intelligent, and possibly wisest of the two final contenders. If elected I'm sure he'd be a consensus builder as Bill Clinton was, and would make decisions after carefully reflecting on the wishes of many, many people. I also believe he'd strive to balance the budget. Plus, as a black man he would be harder for opponents to attack, at least openly, and it would be fun to see all the political fallout from private, racist comments made public. (remember when Trent Lott had to apologize on national tv and then step down as senate majority leader? Ah, that felt good)

On the other hand, his compromising approach may be less effective than ballsy intimidation which Bush used quite to his advantage in bullying congress to bend to his will. Obama might not get much accomplished. Plus, his main political impetus is for leaving Iraq now, which might leave a vacuum causing a return to mass chaos and death. Figuring how to "fix" Iraq will be tough for any president, especially considering the eventual independence of Kurdistan, and the inability of Sunni's and Shias to form a govt together. Obama would have to twist a lot of arms to make anything happen.

the worst thing would be for Obama to win the presidency only to step into his office, take a look at the world and say, "Oh shit. What did I get myself into..."

the only thing going for McCain is to keep status quo in Iraq which is really just buying a bit of time before things fall apart again. Being a republican, his lip service to the environment is only lip service, and his plans of reform/campaign reform fly in the face of his party and would be watered down anyway. Plus it tells that party they can get away with anything. Plus he doesn't know a thing about economics so that aspect of the US would be placed in the hands of some party "experts" who'd just tank it more in favor of business interests.

[kev ferrara]

Jason, your assumption, (brought to you by Change) which I believe to be wholly incorrect, is that "more of the same" is in the offing. The reality is that one of McCain's top advisers is one of the smartest, most forward-looking guys in the country on matters of energy policy, James Woolsey, Rhoads scholar, former CIA head under Clinton, who not only drives a hybrid, but is part of global capital investment groups seeking to fund the innovation that will lead to the renewable non-carbon "energy independence" that we all want. He doesn't just talk the talk, he is one of the foremost change-agents in the world.

Here's a rather general speech to Governors he recently gave. You can hunt around for him discussing the matter in more specific detail elsewhere.

(skip to 2:00 to begin the speech)

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Incidentally, Mr. Woolsey left his position as the head of the CIA under Clinton because Clinton would not meet with him. That is to say, Clinton did not believe that there were threats in the world that he should bother worrying about.

[Elam]

In the time that the US has engaged in two bloody oil wars
Two? Really!. Perhaps you can point out to me those oil wells in Afghanistan. If your not for invading Afghanistan, you should probably should quit talking and stick your head back in the sand or watch Loose Change for the 100th time.

You mean the same Lebanon that Reagan pulled out of for fear of being bogged down in an endless quagmire costing countless American lives and capital...both liquid and political?
Yeah Jason, that one. My point of Lebanon is not that is was important for our security to be there, but that something always fills a vacuum, and in that neighborhood, it's usually bad. It's the same thing with Iraq. The generic term for your position is called 'Kicking the Can'. It's a truism of politics in general that no one wants to deal with the tough issues, so they leave it for the next guy. The world does not go away because you want it to. The first GW and Bill Clinton did that with Iraq, and here we are, 17 years later dealing with it.

health care for the next ten years too (that dreaded socialist ideal)
Hey if you think we're bankrupt now, wait till national health care is implemented. As for your spending ideas, I find it amusing that you apparently rely on the government to create an imaginary utopia. Last time I checked, the government isn't here for us to build hospitals or Olympic cities(and what good is that?). We spend roughly 4% of our GDP on defense, Iraq and Afghanistan included. That's well below the average of 5.5% over the last 50 years. Keep the military spending and eliminate cronyism and pork barrel spending.

If you think the money we would have save by not invading Iraq would have been spent on useful things, your naive beyond belief. Most likely, it would have been used to build more bridges to nowhere (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravina_Island_Bridge), which would probably be bombed by religious fanatics or nuked with balistic missles if the nation had your spending priorities.

Same deal with our military's dependence on oil.
The military is actually at the forefront of exploring alternative fuels. (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121134017363909773.html?mod=googlenews_wsj) It's a matter of national survival for them.

[eskanto]

Last time I checked, the government isn't here for us to build hospitals or Olympic cities(and what good is that?).

If those that govern are not there to enrich the lives of it's constituents and raise the quality of life for the public then what is the point?

[Elam]

If those that govern are not there to enrich the lives of it's constituents and raise the quality of life for the public then what is the point?
To govern. Duh.

Point to me in the constitution the phrase 'enrich lives'. Or alternatively, explain to me how an olympic city(whatever that is) will enrich my life.

[kev ferrara]

"To promote the general welfare" - preamble.

[Elam]

"do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America." -preamble.

Again, where IN the constitution.

[kev ferrara]

Elam, the preamble refers to the purpose of the constitution as a whole. The entire constitution is about those things mentioned in the pre-amble.

[James Kei]

Elam, nothing but pessimism from you. I think you need to leave your little bubble, and spend some time in a third world country to set yourself strait.
My time in Russia had me see things in a whole new light. And how hope is actually something tangible here in the U.S. Your viewpoints are a bit sad, really.

Kev, I don't care who McCain's top adviser is. McCain calls the shots, no other.
And with the temper that he has, that's not a good thing.

[Duq]

"do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America." -preamble.

Again, where IN the constitution.

Article1, Section 8:
The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States;

Welfare
welfare n. 1. health, happiness, or prosperity; well-being.


Or am I seeing this wrong because of the language barrier thing?

[~Faust~]

Or am I seeing this wrong because of the language barrier thing?

In der daad!

[Duq]

Ach Nein!!!

[Peter Coene]

In reality the US economy was helped because we loaned lots of money to Europe to rebuild, which was paid back at interest, fueling our economy for decades.
If this is true then why were we out of the depression by the beginning of the war? And how had Germany pulled out of their depression before they invaded Poland?

War spending actually hurts our economy because, as often happens in war, the government spends more money than it has. It does so by borrowing money from the National Bank which it must pay back at interest. Putting the government into debt lowers the value of our currency. This may be good for certain consumer outlets, but it lowers the value of all the money that every American has in their bank accounts, pockets, the value of salaries, etc.
Had we not taken ourselves off of the gold/silver standard this woulf be BS, as an ounce of gold will always be worth an ounce of gold.

In this latest dip in our currency's value, my money is worth half as much as it used to in Slovakia, where I now live. Five years ago, I could buy a house here for $70,000. Now that same house costs about $300,000 USD. I forget which famous economist said this, and I think most would agree that spending more than 5% GDP on the military is unsustainable long term.
I think that what we have to look at in the case of Slovakia is not the US's economy but the emergence of post soviet block countries. I think part of the problem here is that usually when a nation goes to war or rattles its sabers at an enemy it does so for self gain, but in recent history we have done so more to help others. Slovakia's currency rising is a result of America trying to be the good guy in the Cold War. The nation certainly wouldn't be doing so well comparatively had it still been a part of Yugoslavia and stuck behind the Iron Curtain. Lets also not forget that part of Slovakia's current gain is due to the fact that as part of the EU if gets to suck off the economies of nations like Germany.

And yes, at the moment our current war is not helping the economy as much as it could. However I'm not about to to jump to the conclusion that it will not be helpful in the future, if for no other reason than having a foothold other than Israel in the part of the world where we go for oil. Within the next 50 years I wouldn't be surprised to see the rest of the world doing something similar.

In addition to lower currency, spending tax dollars on weaponry takes money from the majority of Americans and into the pockets of relatively few employees, concentrating wealth (and most of it goes to owners).
and most of them either invests it or spend it, I doubt that any of them are stuffing it into a matress. Thus the money gets recirculated. Plus, you have already stated that we are pulling the money from the National bank and if you notice in the meantime we have been getting tax cuts. Apparently, debt or no, its not sucking the money out of the people's pockets after all. Now if the people were smart enough to know how to invest their money then it won't matter how much US money value sinks so long as its invested somewhere that grows in value to match the fall in dollar value.

The weapons produced have absolutely no positive, economic use. You can't plow a field with a tank. So this stuff just sits there, draining more money for upkeep. Then, when the weapons are used, you get areas of "no man's land" - land that usually could be cultivated or used for economic activity, which instead becomes a nightmarish hell on earth. You point to WWII favorably because America never fought on its own soil (apart from Pearl Harbor, etc). You need to take into account the economic impact it had on Europe and Africa, and Asia, and also take into account all the lost productivity from the millions of dead soldiers and civilians.
I hate to put it in these terms, but a nation's economy can only be judged by comparison with the rest of the world. Screw up the rest of the world and your own economy profits. Our current war is not on our soil either, and in fact the more we screw up Iraq the more they will need our money to help them and that means cheeper prices on oil as it is the one thing we leave them.

Have I missed anything?
yeah, but I covered it.

On the subject of fuel and cars. Peter, you claim the best alternative car was a solar powered one made in 1990. That sounds a bit dated to me. For one thing we already have hybrid cars that are being sold en masse and work just fine.
They still require fossile fuel. the best alternative is solar power, and so far the most advanced solar powered car stopped being improved upon as of 1990.

There was an article in the Economist recently describing the history of batteries, and from what I can tell, Lithium Ion batteries are the best bet. They don't have any "memory" that would cause them to lose charge over time. The only problem is they can be volatile. With enough money put into development we could probably have a very comfortable and convenient battery operated car in 10-15 years. Maybe even less.
How do you plan to charge these batteries? According to the laws of conservation of energy you loose energy every time you transform that energy from one form to another. Righ now we have most of our electricity coming from fossil fuels; so to procuce the electricity to change the enery from fossil fuel to elctrical, then the charge the battery, converting from electrical to chemical energy, then you drive the car, thus converting the energy back to electrical and then to physical movement. That means that after you factor in the energy lost in producing the electricity to drive an electric car the same speed and distance as a normal car you have actually burnt more fuel with the electric car.

While hybrids are the best option that we currently have, they are not an alternative to fossil fuels. They use less, but they do not eliminate the use of fuel alltogether.

Jason clark you state a car consumes the "energy equivalent" of however much oil and water. How much oil and water is really used and necessary, not just per unit, but total, and how quickly are these reserves dwindling? If the energy for this stuff could come from say coal or wind powered electricity, than it's a moot point. Also, state your source. There have been many doomsayers on this topic, but not so many facts to back it up.
Coal is more damaging to the environment than wind, and wind only works in places with a constant windflow at a certain speed. If the wind blows faster they have to shut down the equipment so as to not let it get broken, and if it blows softer it isn't strong enough to produce electricity. Also to create a windfarm usually requires large areas of land to set up enough windmills to be effective, which cuts into the ecosystem.

EDIT: OH, and according to wikipedia, the US is still the second greatest exporter of goods. We're right after China. Services make up the bulk of our GDP, but we still produce a ton of stuff.
Hate to break it to you, but with most of those goods that we export we are just the middleman. We do little to none of the manufacturing, instead having that done somwhere where we can pay them $5 per week. Heck, that might be ok if exporting those products brought in a lot of money, but the majority of our cargo ships and our harbors are owned by Chinese businesses.

[Elam]

spend some time in a third world country
Oh James, I have. Multiple ones. Glad to be home every time.

The United States is founded on pessimism. specifically, the pessimism towards Government and the inclination of people to suffer under despotism, which is what the 3rd words indulges in. Read the Declaration of Independence some time.

Or am I seeing this wrong because of the language barrier thing?
Well, you left out the rest of the article, in which it enumerates the conditions. They seem pretty clear to me. I still fail to see how 'promoting the Welfare of the United states' translates into 'shouldn't government enrich my life?' Besides, far too large a subject to argue about.

Hate to break it to you, but with most of those goods that we export we are just the middleman. We do little to none of the manufacturing, i
Soooooo not true.

We manufacture power infrastructure equipment , power infrastructure and industrial control systems, firearms, aerospace, shipbuilding, defense contracting, specialty industrial vehicles (e.g. refuse trucks), automobiles and a range of automotive parts (including a majority of US-market Honda and Toyota products), pharmaceuticals, healthcare equipment, Intel computer microprocessor dies, Micron computer memory products, and some commercial-grade information technology equipment, to name just a few major products.

There are also a very wide range of smaller industries operating in the US to produce electrical and mechanical components for consumer and light industry, as well as specialty consumer markets such as high-end audio, designer clothing, and high-dollar recreational gear.

[kev ferrara]

Kev, I don't care who McCain's top adviser is. McCain calls the shots, no other.
And with the temper that he has, that's not a good thing.

Nevermind James.

[Elam]

Oh and I'm not a pessimist.

Most BO lovers assume that because your not on the 'hope and change' bandwagon your a grouch. I am skeptical tho.

A visit to the Daily Kos can confirm however that most of BO's groupies are an angry bunch.

[eskanto]

A visit to the Daily Kos can confirm however that most of BO's groupies are an angry bunch.

Complacency never got anyone anywhere. The Founding Fathers weren't.

[Duq]

Well, you left out the rest of the article, in which it enumerates the conditions. They seem pretty clear to me. I still fail to see how 'promoting the Welfare of the United states' translates into 'shouldn't government enrich my life?' Besides, far too large a subject to argue about.

Well I think the general idea here is. If the people die because they lack healthcare, there wont be anything left to govern. The absolute core idea of a goverment is to provide primairy human needs after all. Clothes, a roof, food, security and healthcare. In the old ancient days when these principals where founded you would either die, or move to another village if the governing body didnt supplied those needs.

Also I didnt read the rest of the article as conditions. More as a clarifications of duties, imposts and excises. Since welfare doesnt need any extra clarification, but the other things do.

And I dont get why you are talking about enriching. Happiness is archieved on a lower level then that. Just read any sociological book. Enriching goes far beyond the definition of welfare.

[eskanto]

Well Dug I used the word enrich first, I think that's where he gets it from.

[Duq]

Well Dug I used the word enrich first, I think that's where he gets it from.

http://www.myteespot.com/images/thumbs/t_6430_01.jpg

:p

[eskanto]

http://www.myteespot.com/images/thumbs/t_6430_01.jpg

:p

i'll be easy on you for now...:^^:

[James Kei]

Jesus. 11 pages already.
We should have a political sub-forum. :yayca:

[Duq]

Or not :(. Political discussion tend to go nowhere and are huge timesinks. Its like MMORPGs, without fancy graphics.

[Elam]

Duq, google: "general Welfare" federalist papers. (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22general+Welfare%22+federalist+papers&btnG=Google+Search)

There are literally whole books written about that clause. Suffice to say, I'm pretty sure it has nothing to do with Universal Health Care.

We've managed this long without it.

[eskanto]

Or not :(. Political discussion tend to go nowhere and are huge timesinks. Its like MMORPGs, without fancy graphics.

I think I can agree with you there.

[TASmith]

Peter and Elam this is going nowhere fast and I'll admit we're getting into a realm that I'm not an expert in. I never studied economics, beyond reading the Economist for a number of years. I've got a few last things to add and then I'll leave it to anyone else more qualified to respond...

"The nation certainly wouldn't be doing so well comparatively had it still been a part of Yugoslavia"

Alright I really don't want to get into a quote war, but I just want to point out it's only going to discredit you further when you say something like this that only demonstrates your own ignorance of history. Slovakia was never part of Yugoslavia. It was part of Cechoslovakia and formerly the Holy Roman Empire. Slovakia's economy has been booming recently (they're not on the Euro yet, but it helps to be part of the club) and that combined with the sinking dollar has cut my worth in half. Note Slovakia hasn't invaded anyone recently.

"and most of them either invests it or spend it, I doubt that any of them are stuffing it into a matress."

You are wrong if you think investments spread money evenly back into the economy. The purpose of an investment is to produce a profit, further increasing and concentrating one's wealth. Remember 2% of the world controls some 80% of the world's wealth.

"you have already stated that we are pulling the money from the National bank and if you notice in the meantime we have been getting tax cuts. Apparently, debt or no, its not sucking the money out of the people's pockets after all."

The tax cuts were put into law before the war, under the criticism of the vast majority of economists, and we stuck to it despite the war in Iraq. Either way, the options for funding the war are to tax citizenry or go into massive debt - a debt taxpayers will have to pay off eventually. Either way sucks, so how is this an argument in favor of war?

"if the people were smart enough to know how to invest their money then it won't matter how much US money value sinks so long as its invested somewhere that grows in value to match the fall in dollar value."

Dude, unless you can produce a grad degree in economics, don't pretend to be an economist. There's no way this could ever be possible. Just ask anyone from Zimbabwe.

"a nation's economy can only be judged by comparison with the rest of the world."

No. Power can only be judged by comparison with the rest of the world. Economies can be judged by the standard of living, the wages, purchasing power, available goods and services, and health of its people, independently of the rest of the world.

"Screw up the rest of the world and your own economy profits."

No. The world is flat. Screw up the rest of the world and watch your own country tank. The inverse is also true. Witness last month or so, a fall in the NY stock market precipitated the biggest one day losses in every other stockmarket in the world since the last couple decades or so. Economics is now global in scope. Your own assertion that controlling Iraq will lower oil prices falls flat when considering we've already been there over five years and the price of oil in that time has skyrocketed.

Elam, America has gotten along fine without universal healthcare? 18,000 people die every year because they don't have healthcare. Many of those that do have it, still die through denial of coverage, or become bankrupt due to the costs. Of all the personal bankruptcies in 2006, over half were due to medical bills, and of those people/families, 75% had health insurance.

my final word: don't pretend to be expert in something you're not.

[nimadez]

I hate politics, religions and governments at all, they always lie and trick to peoples...they controlling, tuning and brainwashing peoples by schools, TV shows, hollywood movies, newspapers and even internet...
You never can understand truth about politics, it's like dirty Maze game...

For example, Look at my country (Iran) with it's idiot president called "ahmadi nejad" (he looks like monkey :)), our damn islamic republic is one of the most dirty governments ever in the human history...

God damn all governments and their politics...

[Jasonwclark]

Jesus. 11 pages already.
We should have a political sub-forum.

On other discussions boards, moderators will sometimes try to cut out the big three: No politics, religion or sex ("nothing to discuss at the dinner table or our forums.") It's difficult to enforce though, and makes for rather dull discussions. We might be able to swing the no politics, or no religion thing, but no sex? What would we do with all the ‘I drew a penis’, and bug sex threads?

Probably best to just leave it as is, and let the issue work itself out.

[Ilaekae]

We ban bug sex and I walk... :P

[GhostValkyrie]

Things never change. I left America almost 4 years ago, only returned for three weeks in the late fall of 2005. I had long argued and discussed my moving plans with my wife, and we settled on going back to America because of the abundance of opportunities for those who reach and strive to achieve their goals. A thing I don't like dealing with, but know I have to, is the idiocy and ongoing whining of my own countrymen.

I'm constantly hearing people bitch and moan about it being a police state, racist country, declined society. People don't seem to understand how relatively young our country is, or how socially accepting MOST of it is. I can't say I was shocked, but I was disturbed when I watched the video. However; this is nothing like the racism and bigotry I've seen all across the world. I've been assaulted and ditched in Japan, a friend and I were mugged in Korea, and I've had rocks and other debris hurled at us in various other countries. Even here in Japan, racism and ethnocintricity is more rampant than expected. I've had several cabs pass me up, expecially when I'm with my black friends. I was almost late to work one day because my bike was broken and couldn't get cab to stop for me because I'm "gaijin".

Yes, there are many problems back in America...most of those problems are people always fighting and bickering. I was distrubed by the video, but even more disturbed by most of your "solutions" amounting to isolation, forced centralized standards, genocide, and social discrimination - this equates to roughly the same rationality as those "gun toting hillbillies".

One thing I always notice about Americans, especially since I've been gone so long, is we have everything we could possibly ask for, and it's never enough. And the ones who have nothing in America rarely want to anything to get something, they want it handed to them...just like the rest of us. We want people to conform to our thought processes, understand our feelings, and think like we do; God forbid we think about the causes that could have influenced others to feel or think the way they do. Both domestic and abroad.

[Flake]

People don't seem to understand how relatively young our country is
I went walkabout with an american chick in Edinburgh and Dundee, it seemed to blow her mind that we had crap old churches that had been there for 3 times longer than her grandmothers entire country had even existed.

America is like, an Amoeba, please don't grow into the mutant brother that we must hide in the basement.

[Dirty C]

One thing I always notice about Americans, especially since I've been gone so long, is we have everything we could possibly ask for, and it's never enough. And the ones who have nothing in America rarely want to anything to get something, they want it handed to them...just like the rest of us. We want people to conform to our thought processes, understand our feelings, and think like we do; God forbid we think about the causes that could have influenced others to feel or think the way they do. Both domestic and abroad.

I really started to understand American foreign policy when I got here and went shopping with my sister. The world just feels like a giant vending machine in America. Everything's just *available*. It's hard to explain to people that you can't just go and get everything you want really quickly. And I think when I realised that was the way of things here, I could see why people didn't get how the rest of the world just isn't that way.

Sometimes it feels that the national attitude towards other countries like the Middle East is "like those annoying nerdy kids at school who wore black and were just angry all the time for no reason."

[kev ferrara]

I think just about every American's view of the Middle East formed by images of what most here would consider the "zealotry" we see there on the news, from the violent stuff like the suicide bombing and assassinations to the pious stuff, like the bowing to mecca or the kaaba or the wearing of burkhas. I don't think most people connect the dots that all those wells are there pumping out black gold because those images never appear in the media unless the wells have been set on fire. Its only in places like Dubai or Bahrain and sometimes Jordan that we get images of recognizable modernity. And its only through stations like PBS that anyone gets a sense that families exist over in that part of the world. (But then again, American's view of America is also like that, because of the nature of the news business. If it bleeds, it leads.) But since very few people watch PBS, you are probably right that many people would look upon the middle east and wonder why they were angry all the time for no reason. Others might look at the history of the middle east and trace the problems back to the dawn of history.

[Peter Coene]

"and most of them either invests it or spend it, I doubt that any of them are stuffing it into a matress."

You are wrong if you think investments spread money evenly back into the economy. The purpose of an investment is to produce a profit, further increasing and concentrating one's wealth. Remember 2% of the world controls some 80% of the world's wealth.
So what? That 2% control that wealth because they know what to do with it. I feel no need to spread the wealth out to those who are not earning it. If it is invested in the US then the money stays in the US.

"you have already stated that we are pulling the money from the National bank and if you notice in the meantime we have been getting tax cuts. Apparently, debt or no, its not sucking the money out of the people's pockets after all."

The tax cuts were put into law before the war, under the criticism of the vast majority of economists, and we stuck to it despite the war in Iraq. Either way, the options for funding the war are to tax citizenry or go into massive debt - a debt taxpayers will have to pay off eventually. Either way sucks, so how is this an argument in favor of war?
No, it was not under the criticism of "the vast majority of economists" but instead the vast majority of Democrats.

As for the debt, it won't matter as much when the rest of the world finds itself in a bind for oil and we have our toes in the area that has the majority of whats left of it.

"if the people were smart enough to know how to invest their money then it won't matter how much US money value sinks so long as its invested somewhere that grows in value to match the fall in dollar value."

Dude, unless you can produce a grad degree in economics, don't pretend to be an economist. There's no way this could ever be possible. Just ask anyone from Zimbabwe.
If you had invested in silver or gold in 1964, when our nation stopped using silver in our coins, then today you would have about 12 dollars for every dollar that you invested. Now, most people would see this as the value of your investment growing, but in all actuality its not the value of silver that has gone up but the value of the dollar that has gone down. In other words, today a dollar is worth 1/12 what it was then, the value of silver doesn't change. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure it out. And making that investment at the time would not have taken anything more than having your money switched to half dollar coins and putting those in a box.

Seeing as silver will continue to hold onto that value it is still just as smart of an investment today. I can gaurantee you that if you buy $200 in siver today, even if the USD drops further than the German mark durring the 20's, your silver will still be able to buy whatever $200 can buy for you today unless something entirely catastrophic happens.

"a nation's economy can only be judged by comparison with the rest of the world."

No. Power can only be judged by comparison with the rest of the world. Economies can be judged by the standard of living, the wages, purchasing power, available goods and services, and health of its people, independently of the rest of the world.
The part that matters, the purchasing power of the nation's currency, is relative. You see, at any given moment there is only so much wealth in the world. If you print twice as much money then the individual units will only be worth half as much. Every time somebody has more it is because somebody else has less.

If Europe and Asia are both climbing economically it is not because there is suddenly more wealth in the world and they are the ones that have it, but instead because they are taking wealth away from the rest of the world.

"Screw up the rest of the world and your own economy profits."

No. The world is flat. Screw up the rest of the world and watch your own country tank. The inverse is also true. Witness last month or so, a fall in the NY stock market precipitated the biggest one day losses in every other stockmarket in the world since the last couple decades or so. Economics is now global in scope. Your own assertion that controlling Iraq will lower oil prices falls flat when considering we've already been there over five years and the price of oil in that time has skyrocketed.
That is because so far we have been worried about being nice and haven't started sucking up the oil. We haven't reduced the nation to its knees, we have not broken their will, and so they will continue as if we had not won. That is my criticism of the war: we aren't using it to our advantage as we could. Everybody talks about us going to war for oil as if its a bad thing, when 1st, its not a bad thing, and 2nd, we haven't been grabbing the oil.

However, had we not gone to war there then you could expect that we would be paying even more. Yes, the price has gone up and will continue going up as the world nears the point at which it has all been used.

America has gotten along fine without universal healthcare? 18,000 people die every year because they don't have healthcare.
You say this as if they would not die someday anyways.

Many of those that do have it, still die through denial of coverage, or become bankrupt due to the costs. Of all the personal bankruptcies in 2006, over half were due to medical bills, and of those people/families, 75% had health insurance.
Health insurance is a provision that one can set out to provide a partial safety net. It can ease the financial strain of a dire situation for those that have had the foresight to either pay for it or were lucky enough to have a job that provides it. Thats all it is, nothing more.

Healthcare is not a personal right, and regaurdless of the fact that people do die as they always have and always will that does not mean that it is somehow a necessity or that chosing not to provide it to every citizen is some sort of attack on their constitutional rights.

my final word: don't pretend to be expert in something you're not.
I'm not pretending to be anything, just saying what I know, just like you are.

[light]

why do people just use any available thread with mild relation to politics or philosophy to jerk off their own massive egos and throw around their own ideas as the only right one

[kev ferrara]

Peter, something you said about economics is, uh, debatable.

Wealth and assets can be self created by action; innovation, labor, organization, the making of a work of art, the creation of a process, growing some vegetables, raising some cattle, etc. This is how wealth increases, locally, nationally and globally.

Also, you can pull a hunk of gold or silver out of the ground, thereby increasing the amount of "pure capital" that exists in the world. So even metal standards aren't fixed. (Very soon, it will be very easy to just make any metal we want in the lab, further destabilizing supposedly secure currencies.)

[Elam]

The American government enacted Social Security in 1935, with the age to start collecting benefits set at 65. The average lifespan of Americans in 1935? 61. No soup for you!

I just thought I'd throw that out there. Think about it when you think about health care. Health care isn't for younguns, it's for old folks. Old folks who retire far too early and stop contributing to SS, thus bankrupting the system, and now have no qualms about having people who don't require universal health care(you) pay for their treatments and their ailments.

Kev, why the "zealotry" in quotes?

[Elam]

Oh and one other thing: Michael Moore made a move in 2007 called Sicko, which pilloried the health care industry as an uncaring machine, grinding up people for profits.

Curiously, he didn't make a movie called Fatso, in which he chronicles how his own fat ass contributes to soaring health care costs (http://www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/dnpa/obesity/economic_consequences.htm).

Oh well. Hope and change ya'll. And a little dancing (http://youtube.com/watch?v=RsWpvkLCvu4) doesn't hurt.

[kev ferrara]

Kev, why the "zealotry" in quotes?

Because, although I personally find all religion to be zealotry, the average person probably would not consider going to church on Sunday, for example, to be zealotry. Since the Islamic equivalent to Sunday service is daily prayers toward Mecca, I chose not to specifically characterize that as zealotry... by softening the word zealotry by encasing it in quotes.

This also had the effect of softening my abhorrence of religiously motivated suicide bombings and assassinations, erroneously. However, since the person I was addressing in my post was Dirty C, who it seems may have immigrated from that part of the world, and who has made it known to me previously that he has some sympathies with the "one's terrorists are another's freedom fighters" stance as well as an abiding interest in the destruction of Israel, I didn't think it was productive for this thread to cause those previous conversations to recur as they were more or less flame wars. So I left the softened version intact.

[James Kei]

I just found this article. It's supplemental to my first post in this thread.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7412045.stm

[Peter Coene]

Peter, something you said about economics is, uh, debatable.

Wealth and assets can be self created by action; innovation, labor, organization, the making of a work of art, the creation of a process, growing some vegetables, raising some cattle, etc. This is how wealth increases, locally, nationally and globally.
There are two parts to this. The one about artists has some truth, though to some extent it is misleading. The value of art is a fickle thing, and fine art in the form of a finished product like a painting, makes up so little of the world's capital as to not be worth mention.

When it comes to movies, video games, TV, or any other type of media you have 3 things of value; the ideas, the idea makers/realisers/artisans, and the final product.

-Ideas are a dime a dozen. (that's speaking figuratively; literally they aren't even worth that much unless they are good) Only so many movies can be made and therefore only so many scriptwriters will be paid for these films. As such even if there is suddenly a burst of creativity and twice as many ideas are made there will still be the same number being put to film and therefore the same ammount of wealth in the world.

-While we don't like to think about people as being bought and sold for the example of idea makers/realisers/artisans it is rather dificult not to think that way. We are (or at least our services are) a comodity. If there is suddenly more of us then the companies can pay less for the work that we do. Our services have no economic value unless it is being paid for. As soon as a new artist who can work at a professional level pops up the rest of our services sag in value.

-The finished product, like anything else, is held by the sway of supply and demand. Making twice as many DVDs does not create more money in the world but instead renders all the DVD's that don't sell as worthless. In other words, there is still the same ammount of wealth in the world.


Vegetables, cattle, etc grows and dies. However if at any point there is a surplus of it it becomes worthless to the point of being thrown out in massive quantities so as to raise the price. This is why the US government will often pay farmers and ranchers to let a certain percentage of their fields lay fallow so that this doesn't happen. As such the ammount of capital in the world once again remains the same.

Also, you can pull a hunk of gold or silver out of the ground, thereby increasing the amount of "pure capital" that exists in the world. So even metal standards aren't fixed. (Very soon, it will be very easy to just make any metal we want in the lab, further destabilizing supposedly secure currencies.)
Once again, that does not increase the ammount of pure capital. The more gold that is found the less the gold is worth. Luckily it is found at such a slow trickle that there is very little change and demand is not changed by much.

[Jason Manley]

Two? Really!. Perhaps you can point out to me those oil wells in Afghanistan. If your not for invading Afghanistan, you should probably should quit talking and stick your head back in the sand or watch Loose Change for the 100th time.


Yeah Jason, that one. My point of Lebanon is not that is was important for our security to be there, but that something always fills a vacuum, and in that neighborhood, it's usually bad. It's the same thing with Iraq. The generic term for your position is called 'Kicking the Can'. It's a truism of politics in general that no one wants to deal with the tough issues, so they leave it for the next guy. The world does not go away because you want it to. The first GW and Bill Clinton did that with Iraq, and here we are, 17 years later dealing with it.


Hey if you think we're bankrupt now, wait till national health care is implemented. As for your spending ideas, I find it amusing that you apparently rely on the government to create an imaginary utopia. Last time I checked, the government isn't here for us to build hospitals or Olympic cities(and what good is that?). We spend roughly 4% of our GDP on defense, Iraq and Afghanistan included. That's well below the average of 5.5% over the last 50 years. Keep the military spending and eliminate cronyism and pork barrel spending.

If you think the money we would have save by not invading Iraq would have been spent on useful things, your naive beyond belief. Most likely, it would have been used to build more bridges to nowhere (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravina_Island_Bridge), which would probably be bombed by religious fanatics or nuked with balistic missles if the nation had your spending priorities.


The military is actually at the forefront of exploring alternative fuels. (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121134017363909773.html?mod=googlenews_wsj) It's a matter of national survival for them.


Regarding the two bloody oil wars, I was not speaking of Afghanistan. Afghanistan was a war that should have been fought and ended already, due to the issues there which had to be dealt with. Iraq, on the other hand...while I support the troops from a morale standpoint (we have a number of folks in iraq who are ca members)...it is very clear that this war was not only unjustified but an entirely wrongful distraction that kept the US from finishing the Afghan campaign. The world was lied to, manipulated, and tricked, thousands of lives were lost, and more are lost every day, all for big oil and what seems the Bush circle's personal vandetta against Hussein. Iraq was contained by the Clinton administration and had nothing to do with why we went to war in the first place.

I never once said anything about govmt responsibility to create a utopia. Please cease your baseless manipulations on words. Thanks. Such behavior is typical of a those on the right wing and I want nothing to do with it.

I am actually very moderate. I own two companies and will eventually build a third, fourth, and fifth as that is my nature. No one gave me shit. I don't take govmt funds. I built what I have with 6 grand of our own money (you try doing that)...created dozens of jobs and pay exponentially more taxes than you do. Who do you think is going to be paying for the healthcare and the higher taxes of a democrat led govmt. Folks like I am. Regardless, I am willing to see such changes if it means the failed policies you so clearly support and the republicans hold as their dearest dogma, come to an end. I have faith in peace and wisdom. That is all. Personally, I see nothing wrong with allocating funds toward health care, instead of unjustified war.

My examples were things we could have had...as a country...instead we purchased what amounts to a desert graveyard and a completely decimated country. It was a bad investment in all ways. That much is certain. I just prefer better investments. Wise business. China rebuilt their entire infrastructure while we wasted monies elsewhere. We now have a crumbling and outdated infrastructure and a wasteland in Iraq. That is just bad business.

Regarding your last comment, as expected, it has nothing to do with reality. You are simply making shit up.



Jason

[kev ferrara]

Peter, wealth is not measured merely as easily fungible capital as you have defined it. Or some zero sum game of supply versus demand. You are stuck in some 17th century currency model of perfect markets. The better measure is material circumstances (akin to assets, quality of life, health, etc.) and over the last century millions and millions have had their standard of living raised by global economic progress. This cannot be so unless "wealth" was created where there was none before. Under your formulation, the more people, the worse the average lifestyle would be. This also misses the fundamental economic idea that people are a form of wealth.

[Elam]

Jason, no one questioned your business credentials. Your getting a little emotional. Toughen up.

Who do you think is going to be paying for the healthcare and the higher taxes of a democrat led govmt.

Everyone.

And if you weren't speaking of Afghanistan, enlighten us as to what the other war is? You did say 2 after all.

As for my last comment, that would be the WSJ that's 'making shit up'. It's a hyperlink. Click on it.

[Costau D]

why do people just use any available thread with mild relation to politics or philosophy to jerk off their own massive egos and throw around their own ideas as the only right one

To piss people off who have the same problem. Becomes a funny cluster fuck of copied ideas and restatements. Kind of reminds me of that bar scene in Good Will Hunting. Only, there is no Will Hunting to be seen around here. Can't these discussions ever be creative? Kev man you are very knowledgeable, and I agree with you on most things, but dont you get tired of repeating yourself in these kinds of threads, and alway having to explain things to people who most likely won't listen anyway? I have no guts to do that personaly. <---Edit

Do any of you have your own ideas or do you just keep throwing up stuff you get from youtube, and popular alternative news sources?

I'm just being selfish ofcourse, (cause I want to hear something new) and I know I sound like a hypocrite. I just wanted to bring it up though. Political arguments are fine, but try not to contribute to chest pounding.

ymsHLkB8u3s

I'm so going to get flamed... Looks like peter coen will be first. Am I right?

[s.ketch]

Why do people just go into threads they don't like and point out how pointless and redundant it is? Its not like the thread is in anyone's way. It doesn't open up to this thread as soon as one enters the lounge. One doesn't have to post or read this thread in order access the other information on this site.

Maybe its because they have an opinion about a thread, similarly to someone having an opinion about whats going on in the world. Much like someone saying they don't like this thread or trying to psycho-analyze everyone with some silly Freudian cliche.

But most likely its because they too have inadequacy issues and must place themselves above everyone else by going out of their way to show others theyre too good to join in or even read this discussion.

[Costau D]

Nope. Anyway, never said I didn't like it. I'm criticizing the thread and all political talk in this lounge specifically. I'm not getting involved because I have absolutely nothing new to add to this discussion, and because I have no argument towards anyone. I was hoping, instead of taking offense at what I'm saying, people would think about my point. Only reason I read these threads is because I like the info from maybe 2 people who passionately and genuinely dedicate themselves to the subject.

[s.ketch]

I wasn't talking to you Cosmo.

But now that you mention it, I don't really think this is like that bar scene at all. I've rarely seen Kev get emotional about something, and I generally read his posts in conversational tone. No more chest pounding that talking about the weather. Others though tend to throw around emotion a bit more, but I still don't think they sign off the computer after posting and feel any more self important than they always feel. All in all, there is very little real hostility and dick measuring. Of course not everyone is articulate and knowledgeable past an average level on these subjects, so naturally there are some repeating of points in each thread by the more informed people of the group.

[Costau D]

Well then I'm dumb. (please quote next time.)

[Peter Coene]

Peter, wealth is not measured merely as easily fungible capital as you have defined it. Or some zero sum game of supply versus demand. You are stuck in some 17th century currency model of perfect markets. The better measure is material circumstances (akin to assets, quality of life, health, etc.) and over the last century millions and millions have had their standard of living raised by global economic progress. This cannot be so unless "wealth" was created where there was none before. Under your formulation, the more people, the worse the average lifestyle would be. This also misses the fundamental economic idea that people are a form of wealth.

That depends on how you look at things. We have improved to the point of having glass without imperfections, but we use it in windows that give a view of the wall of the next building. More people own houses but more houses are cheeply made and lack quality. Less houses show quality handywork and instead have cheep mass produced everything. We have buildings 100s of stories high but they are all rectangles. We have gained the ability to cure some types of cancer while putting more junk into the air to cause cancer even more. We have computers that allow us to do things in 1/10th of the time that they used to take and so we jam that time full of more things to do. In my oppinion its not that we have gained anything but instead that we have traded it without realising the worth of what we have given up.

And even standard of living is worth less when more people have it. Now that owning 2 functional cars is the norm it is no longer considered as making one rich. Raising the standard of living only raises society's expectations. Once everyone has it it becomes worthless (whatever "it" is). Thus we still have the same ammount of wealth, it is just a bit more spread out and springfilled matresses have become the norm rather than straw ones.

Also notice that in cultures where the population is growing there is a lower living standard. In the U.S. white middle class families are having on average about 1.5 children per couple. That means the population is shrinking. In fact, if it were not for imigration the population of the US in general would be shrinking and we actually would have more wealth to go around. China, though it has the highest population in the world, has also been shrinking in population due to the 1 child per family law, and this is often considered to factor in to their economic growth.

[Costau D]

I wasn't talking to you Cosmo.

But now that you mention it, I don't really think this is like that bar scene at all. I've rarely seen Kev get emotional about something, and I generally read his posts in conversational tone. No more chest pounding that talking about the weather. Others though tend to throw around emotion a bit more, but I still don't think they sign off the computer after posting and feel any more self important than they always feel. All in all, there is very little real hostility and dick measuring. Of course not everyone is articulate and knowledgeable past an average level on these subjects, so naturally there are some repeating of points in each thread by the more informed people of the group.

No no. I'm not saying Kev does that. He's the only person and a select few others who don't. But, him and others have typed enough to write a book on this forum when it comes to things like this. I don;t se ehow you can keep doing it Kev, Kudos.

This thread is better than other political discussions though. Others have gotten quite emotional (understatement).

[Peter Coene]

I'm so going to get flamed... Looks like peter coen will be first. Am I right?

Nope, I have no reason to be offended by anything you've said, other than the fact that the name is Coene, not "coen."

[Costau D]

Nope, I have no reason to be offended by anything you've said, other than the fact that the name is Coene, not "coen."


Sorry just got finished watching Fargo, and No Country for Old Men. Honest mistake.

[Peter Coene]

Sorry just got finished watching Fargo, and No Country for Old Men. Honest mistake.

Different pronunciation. With mine "e" at the end of the name is pronounced and the "e" in the middle isn't. So it sounds like Cone-ee, or if you are familiar with the NY area its like "Coney" in Coney Island.

[Lotet]

i just hope that concervative belief will die out with that generation.

[Jason Manley]

And there goes the next gargantuan pile of cash at the expense of America.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24765479/

[TASmith]

"You did say 2 after all."

I believe Jason was referring to the two campaigns in Iraq.

[smugbug]

And there goes the next gargantuan pile of cash at the expense of America.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24765479/

Jason,

That article was very hazy (at best) about what the bill is really about. It's the GI bill by (Dem) Senator Jim Webb. *an aside, here we go again with the media not fully understanding and failure to fully explain something they SHOULD know....sigh....so frustrating./aside

Here's what the GI bill is for:

* Guarantees returning Iraq war vets the equivalent of a four-year education at a public university.
<---that's it - the sole purpose of this bill. And the cost of doing this would be $52 billion over the next decade - btw, $52-billion is the same as two and a half months of continuing the war in Iraq.

*AND...the whole bill is a supplemental that comes in two parts:

First is an ammendment that contains a whole list of domestic items - this one passed by a vote of 75-22. Basically, veto safe territory.

HOWEVER, for this entire supplemental to pass, both ammendments need to receive at least 60 yay votes.

The second ammendment is the "war funding". HOWEVER, it does have time tables, war policy provisions, directives on detainee treatment (i.e., no torture), restrictions on permanent bases. The time tables have to do with us getting out of Iraq, btw.

In other words, this is GOOD legislation. And we all want this WHOLE supplmental to pass. Alas, it did not. Word is the second ammendment failed as Republicans objected to the time tables (no surprise there) and the Dems objected to the war funding).

[Jason Manley]

The GI bill is fine. The vets must be taken care of as some of the other provisions. The pile going to iraq is another story entirely. I guess we will see how this all plays out. I do look forward to the changing of the guard in Nov at the very least.

[Elam]

That article was very hazy (at best) about what the bill is really about. It's the GI bill by (Dem) Senator Jim Webb.
This isn't correct.

The original bill was to continue funding military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan up to the summer of 2009. That's it. It was then cut into 3 different pieces of legislation by Nancy Pelosi: Funding of the war, Iraq Withdrawl, and GI Bill Funding. The latter two passed, the first has not.

To pay for the GI Bill expansion, you either have to cut taxes or slash spending. They raised taxes: a one-half percent tax surcharge on incomes above $500,000 for individuals and $1 million for couples. Democrats call it the "Patriot Tax.” Mike Ross, Arkansas Democrat dismissed the tax: "Someone who earns $2 million a year would pay $5,000. They're not going to miss it.”

Death by a thousand cuts.

[smugbug]

This isn't correct.

The original bill was to continue funding military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan up to the summer of 2009. That's it. It was then cut into 3 different pieces of legislation by Nancy Pelosi: Funding of the war, Iraq Withdrawl, and GI Bill Funding. The latter two passed, the first has not.

To pay for the GI Bill expansion, you either have to cut taxes or slash spending. They raised taxes: a one-half percent tax surcharge on incomes above $500,000 for individuals and $1 million for couples. Democrats call it the "Patriot Tax.” Mike Ross, Arkansas Democrat dismissed the tax: "Someone who earns $2 million a year would pay $5,000. They're not going to miss it.”

Death by a thousand cuts.

The article and what I was talking about: Senate bill.

Nancy Pelosi is the Speaker of the House and you're talking about the House bill.

[kev ferrara]

Peter. Economics is not thermodynamics. Having 2 cars does not make them less valuable if, just for instance, different household members need to go two different places at the same time. Wealth has increased over time worldwide for a thousand different reasons any way you care to measure it. Spread of Democracy over time, for instance. The mortality rate and reduced incidence of disease worldwide or the introduction of many labor saving devices, the expansion of white collar job sectors, etc. "More houses" do not lack quality, especially if you began with a thatch hut. I don't know where you got that piece of wisdom. Since accumulated DNA damage leads to cancer, cancer incidence naturally increases as a population ages because aging causes DNA damage. Therefore it is sensible to look at age adjusted cancer incidence to correct for natural incidence of cancer due to just plain living, whereupon we learn that since 1990 cancer incidence has been decreasing in all categories and incidence of death due to cancer is reduced. Populations are growing in both India and China and so is the standard of living. I could go on, but I think you get the picture. You presume way way too much which is simply demonstrably incorrect. Please stop.

[0kelvin]

To elaborate on what Kev is saying: A Paul Graham essay on wealth (http://www.paulgraham.com/wealth.html)

A surprising number of people retain from childhood the idea that there is a fixed amount of wealth in the world. There is, in any normal family, a fixed amount of money at any moment. But that's not the same thing.

I can remember believing, as a child, that if a few rich people had all the money, it left less for everyone else. Many people seem to continue to believe something like this well into adulthood. This fallacy is usually there in the background when you hear someone talking about how x percent of the population have y percent of the wealth.

What leads people astray here is the abstraction of money. Money is not wealth. It's just something we use to move wealth around. So although there may be, in certain specific moments (like your family, this month) a fixed amount of money available to trade with other people for things you want, there is not a fixed amount of wealth in the world. You can make more wealth. Wealth has been getting created and destroyed (but on balance, created) for all of human history.

Suppose you own a beat-up old car. Instead of sitting on your butt next summer, you could spend the time restoring your car to pristine condition. In doing so you create wealth. The world is-- and you specifically are-- one pristine old car the richer. And not just in some metaphorical way. If you sell your car, you'll get more for it.

In restoring your old car you have made yourself richer. You haven't made anyone else poorer. So there is obviously not a fixed pie. And in fact, when you look at it this way, you wonder why anyone would think there was.


Eric

[Peter Coene]

Peter. Economics is not thermodynamics. Having 2 cars does not make them less valuable if, just for instance, different household members need to go two different places at the same time.
You missed the point that the lives are less valuable. If we are so busy that we are going so many different places at once then our lives have lost value.

Wealth has increased over time worldwide for a thousand different reasons any way you care to measure it. Spread of Democracy over time, for instance.
Democracy is not wealth, it is a system of government.

The mortality rate and reduced incidence of disease worldwide
Great, people live longer. Now even old people are less valuable to society. If you don't beleive it look at the way we treat them. It used to be that it was rare for someone to make it to 80 and if they did everyone gave them super amounts of respect, revered them as venerable wise leaders, and looked the other way when they crapped themselves. Now we shut old people up in old folks homes so we don't have to deal with them and call them McNutter when they try running for office.

or the introduction of many labor saving devices
And so the labor becomes worthless. You have a device that cuts down the ammount of time it takes doing things to 1/10th? Then you have to be able to fit 10 times as much stuff into your schedual and still get paid the same ammount.

the expansion of white collar job sectors, etc.
Yay, more worthless office workers.

"More houses" do not lack quality, especially if you began with a thatch hut.
thatched huts don't count, as even durring the middle ages they were not the abodes of the middle class.

The typical middle class house today, if you look at it, has a frame made out of 2x4s, fluffy stuff to fill in the holes between the 2x4s and in some spots 4x4s, a covering of drywall (talcum filled boards) on the inside walls and plywood covered in stucco on the outside. The roof has tarpaper and shingles made out of paper, tar, and coarse sand. All of it is mass produced and held together by machine stamped pieces of metal and nails/screws. All the houses in the neighborhood follow the same 5 floorplans.

In the middle ages middle class houses were made of 8"x 10" wood beams. They were hand worked and the beams were built into trusses held together by cleverfully artful joinery and secured by wood dowels driven through drilled holes. Thatched roofs are actually very eficient and high quality, and still preferred in some regions. Similar building styles remained the norm into the late 1800's.

Our current houses (the 2x4 method I brought up earlier) were a result of the type of buildings erected in wild-west boomtowns. Sush houses were considered low quality and cheep and were meant to be temporary housing that would be torn down once they had the time to put into decently built structures. However that didn't happen and cheeply build houses became the norm

I don't know where you got that piece of wisdom. Since accumulated DNA damage leads to cancer, cancer incidence naturally increases as a population ages because aging causes DNA damage. Therefore it is sensible to look at age adjusted cancer incidence to correct for natural incidence of cancer due to just plain living, whereupon we learn that since 1990 cancer incidence has been decreasing in all categories and incidence of death due to cancer is reduced.
It still doesn't help that living in LA is the equivalent of smoking a pack of cigarettes per day. And in the very act of cutting back cancer we will only cause some other problem.

Populations are growing in both India and China and so is the standard of living. I could go on, but I think you get the picture. You presume way way too much which is simply demonstrably incorrect. Please stop. Population growth is only occuring in China because the old people aren't dieing fast enough for the reduced birth rate to be noticable yet. If you look at the number of births most families, especially those experiencing the economic growth that you pointed out, are following the 1 child per couple law.

While India is improving it is not anywhere as close to the rate of improvement in China. Also, in many ways their poverty before was artificial, as it was orriginally imposed by British imperialism and as with anything it will take some time for wealth to redistribute itself.

[Peter Coene]

To elaborate on what Kev is saying: A Paul Graham essay on wealth (http://www.paulgraham.com/wealth.html)

Suppose you own a beat-up old car. Instead of sitting on your butt next summer, you could spend the time restoring your car to pristine condition. In doing so you create wealth. The world is-- and you specifically are-- one pristine old car the richer. And not just in some metaphorical way. If you sell your car, you'll get more for it.
Incorrect. You could have also spent your time and work on something else that is just as valuable as the shiney new car. In that case your wealth would still be the same. You simply exchanged your time labor and possibly money, none of which are useless, on that car. Thus there is still the same ammount of wealth in the world.

In restoring your old car you have made yourself richer. You haven't made anyone else poorer. So there is obviously not a fixed pie. And in fact, when you look at it this way, you wonder why anyone would think there was.
However, looking at it this way is flawed. First notice that the car was not always crappy and beat up to begin with. It was once shiny and new, just like after you repaired it. By not keeping it repaired under the previous owner it lost value. He spent his time effort and money elsewhere. Technically, when it came to the car, he lost wealth. You gained wealth. When everything is factored in the ammount of wealth in the world remains the same, and it doesn't matter if Paul Graham says otherwise.

[kev ferrara]

Peter, your loosely considered opinions aren't facts. And they certainly aren't economics. Please stop.

[Jason Manley]

Your post is incorrect.

1. India and China have an almost identical economic growth rate currently...around eleven percent.
2. Old people are not valuable to society? This is a bigoted comment. It is false.
3. Living in LA is not the same as smoking a pack of cigarettes per day. This is also false. Maybe if you were sleeping on the side of the freeway...but not for the majority of folks living in LA who are not.
4. The British did not install the Caste system. The caste system had been in effect in india for over two thousand years prior to the British imperialist domination.
5. White collar people are worthless? Massive Black and CA are run by white collar folks, including myself. White collar workers will be the base of American workforces in the coming century. Education is more important now than ever before, so that the US stays competitive.

Your posts are beginning to suggest to me that you should do more research before making them. I am not going to respond to any more of your comments given their nature. But, I thought your post should at least be addressed due to the amount of misleading confusion within it.




You missed the point that the lives are less valuable. If we are so busy that we are going so many different places at once then our lives have lost value.


Democracy is not wealth, it is a system of government.



Great, people live longer. Now even old people are less valuable to society. If you don't beleive it look at the way we treat them. It used to be that it was rare for someone to make it to 80 and if they did everyone gave them super amounts of respect, revered them as venerable wise leaders, and looked the other way when they crapped themselves. Now we shut old people up in old folks homes so we don't have to deal with them and call them McNutter when they try running for office.


And so the labor becomes worthless. You have a device that cuts down the ammount of time it takes doing things to 1/10th? Then you have to be able to fit 10 times as much stuff into your schedual and still get paid the same ammount.


Yay, more worthless office workers.


thatched huts don't count, as even durring the middle ages they were not the abodes of the middle class.

The typical middle class house today, if you look at it, has a frame made out of 2x4s, fluffy stuff to fill in the holes between the 2x4s and in some spots 4x4s, a covering of drywall (talcum filled boards) on the inside walls and plywood covered in stucco on the outside. The roof has tarpaper and shingles made out of paper, tar, and coarse sand. All of it is mass produced and held together by machine stamped pieces of metal and nails/screws. All the houses in the neighborhood follow the same 5 floorplans.

In the middle ages middle class houses were made of 8"x 10" wood beams. They were hand worked and the beams were built into trusses held together by cleverfully artful joinery and secured by wood dowels driven through drilled holes. Thatched roofs are actually very eficient and high quality, and still preferred in some regions. Similar building styles remained the norm into the late 1800's.

Our current houses (the 2x4 method I brought up earlier) were a result of the type of buildings erected in wild-west boomtowns. Sush houses were considered low quality and cheep and were meant to be temporary housing that would be torn down once they had the time to put into decently built structures. However that didn't happen and cheeply build houses became the norm


It still doesn't help that living in LA is the equivalent of smoking a pack of cigarettes per day. And in the very act of cutting back cancer we will only cause some other problem.

Population growth is only occuring in China because the old people aren't dieing fast enough for the reduced birth rate to be noticable yet. If you look at the number of births most families, especially those experiencing the economic growth that you pointed out, are following the 1 child per couple law.

While India is improving it is not anywhere as close to the rate of improvement in China. Also, in many ways their poverty before was artificial, as it was orriginally imposed by British imperialism and as with anything it will take some time for wealth to redistribute itself.

[TASmith]

"If we are so busy that we are going so many different places at once then our lives have lost value."

This is a personal opinion. If you were to ask many people who do go about from day to day in cars to work, shopping, entertainment, etc, if their lives are valuable or not, they would most likely say yes, and that their lives are enhanced by having cars. Just ask yourself Peter, do you value your own life? Ask yourself, do you want a car or not? Would you ever give up a car? Furthermore, I want to add that the basis of your argument rest on some idea that working makes your life less valuable. This is another personal opinion that you are parading as fact. It seems life for you would be most valuable if you spent it constantly sitting on a large, Persian futon, eating grapes from the hand of a nude goddess while another fans you, simultaneously watching television, playing playstation XVI, and listening to the latest music on your IPod. All well and good, but what about the personal satisfaction you get from accomplishing something?

"Democracy is not wealth, it is a system of government."

Democracy and capitalism are the surest means of creating wealth and distributing it in a fashion more equitable than any other system. We can all agree on this, yes? It also increases one's personal freedoms, leading to a greater quality of life. I can't stand that in one rebuttal (above) you point to quality of life to argue that the modern world is worse off than it was, and here you discount quality of life entirely. You've got a very heavy filter between your ears that absolutely refuses to listen to anything outside your own undeveloped beliefs. I mean, honestly, do you seriously think life was better in the middle ages with those fancier homes? Do you want to go back in time? It seems your options are limited, but you could join a Renaissance fair and/or become Amish. It'll be fun to see how quickly you realize that the work involved in that lifestyle quadruples. Just because you drive places, doesn't mean you work more. Oh, but you'd have to give up your computer. Hmmm, maybe you just want to be an aristocrat in medieval times. Crack the whip and make others build you a fancy castle?

"thatched huts don't count, as even durring the middle ages they were not the abodes of the middle class."

The human race didn't begin in the middle ages, we began in the "beginning ages". Plus there was no middle class in the middle ages. What you would consider middle class would actually be like 4% of the population. Kev so owned you on that one and you're still in denial.

"However, looking at it this way is flawed. First notice that the car was not always crappy and beat up to begin with. It was once shiny and new, just like after you repaired it. By not keeping it repaired under the previous owner it lost value. He spent his time effort and money elsewhere. Technically, when it came to the car, he lost wealth. You gained wealth. When everything is factored in the ammount of wealth in the world remains the same, and it doesn't matter if Paul Graham says otherwise."

No, your view here is flawed. Yes the car was shiny and new and all cars lose value as soon as they're sold. Granted. That in itself proves your theory wrong as it shows value/wealth can be created and destroyed. And, not only cars lose value. Everything loses value as it get's run down: houses, schools, parks, collectables, etc. Once you own something you have to work constantly to keep it in good condition. My dad's violin needs to be serviced every year to keep it in working order and valuable. Certain items gain and lose more value than others. Cars lose almost all their value the more you drive them, whereas houses typically increase in value. My dad's violin increased its value 100x's over the last few decades. There are many factors that go into these rises and losses in value but the main point is that over time the overall value of everything increases, and does so faster than any inflation could hurt their relative value. And, the guy who spends his time repairing the car could also, easily maintain a steady job and earn the reward of the car's increased value in addition to his other work, creating more wealth in the world.

[0kelvin]

Incorrect. You could have also spent your time and work on something else that is just as valuable as the shiney new car. In that case your wealth would still be the same. You simply exchanged your time labor and possibly money, none of which are useless, on that car. Thus there is still the same ammount of wealth in the world.
Think about that for a second. If time is a form of wealth, then total wealth rises and falls with population. More people, more person-hours. Furthermore, if there was this law of conservation of wealth you're proposing, then every hour spent would have to create the same amount of wealth elsewhere, no matter what it was spent doing. If that man had spent the entire summer staring at a wall rather than fixing up a car, that wall would have had to appreciate in value the same amount as the car would have, or else there would be a wealth deficit.

I can't believe you're able to give this theory even a minute of thought and not see how ridiculous what you're saying is.



Eric

[Peter Coene]

If time is a form of wealth, then total wealth rises and falls with population. More people, more person-hours.
larger supply, less value.

Furthermore, if there was this law of conservation of wealth you're proposing, then every hour spent would have to create the same amount of wealth elsewhere, no matter what it was spent doing.
Not true, instead you just factor in that a percentage of the population is lazy. On average for every lazy person that breaks the norm to get up off their lazy ass theres a hard worker that breaks the norm and takes a day off. Things tend to even out, especiallt when talking about something as large as world population.

If that man had spent the entire summer staring at a wall rather than fixing up a car, that wall would have had to appreciate in value the same amount as the car would have, or else there would be a wealth deficit.
Now you are talking about (individual) micro-economics as opposed to (world-wide) macro-economics. The two have some similarities, but when it comes to the actions of 1 individual who is a nobody in the scheme of things you face major differences between the 2.

I can't believe you're able to give this theory even a minute of thought and not see how ridiculous what you're saying is.
Orriginally when I 1st heard it I didn't give it any thought, however the idea has grown on me.

[Peter Coene]

"If we are so busy that we are going so many different places at once then our lives have lost value."

This is a personal opinion. If you were to ask many people who do go about from day to day in cars to work, shopping, entertainment, etc, if their lives are valuable or not, they would most likely say yes, and that their lives are enhanced by having cars. Just ask yourself Peter, do you value your own life? Ask yourself, do you want a car or not? Would you ever give up a car?
Even a rat in a trap will squirm and thrash untill it dies. Does that give it value? Yes, each of us is enthralled with ourselves and what we have and won't give any of it up. That said, step back from it and look down at people as the ants that we are. Do any of us matter when looked at from that angle? When you are talking about all the wealth in the world thats all you can see people as, a mass of humanity which on the whole is significant, but and 1 individual lacks any significance aside from being a part of the whole.

Furthermore, I want to add that the basis of your argument rest on some idea that working makes your life less valuable.
I didn't say that at all and I'm not going to say it. Working makes the individual's life more valuable, however the more people working in the same way makes the work less valuable.

This is another personal opinion that you are parading as fact. It seems life for you would be most valuable if you spent it constantly sitting on a large, Persian futon, eating grapes from the hand of a nude goddess while another fans you, simultaneously watching television, playing playstation XVI, and listening to the latest music on your IPod. All well and good, but what about the personal satisfaction you get from accomplishing something?
You really don't know me if you think thats what makes life valuable to me.

"Democracy is not wealth, it is a system of government."

Democracy and capitalism are the surest means of creating wealth and distributing it in a fashion more equitable than any other system. We can all agree on this, yes?
No, because you are making the clain that wealth can be created, and capitalism is nothing more than letting wealth go where it goes naturally.

It also increases one's personal freedoms, leading to a greater quality of life.
Perception of quality.
I can't stand that in one rebuttal (above) you point to quality of life to argue that the modern world is worse off than it was, and here you discount quality of life entirely.
I am not discounting it entirely, but trying to avoid what I see as inflation in the perceived values of certain elements that we view as quality of life.

You've got a very heavy filter between your ears that absolutely refuses to listen to anything outside your own undeveloped beliefs. I mean, honestly, do you seriously think life was better in the middle ages with those fancier homes?
If the theory I subscribe to espouses coservation of value, then no. Both were equally good by the standards of their perspective time.

Do you want to go back in time? It seems your options are limited, but you could join a Renaissance fair and/or become Amish. It'll be fun to see how quickly you realize that the work involved in that lifestyle quadruples.
This is not a matter of that. I doubt that someone from that time would very much enjoy finding themselves in our brave new world any more than we would like finding ourselves living in theirs.

"thatched huts don't count, as even durring the middle ages they were not the abodes of the middle class."

The human race didn't begin in the middle ages, we began in the "beginning ages".
Before the middle ages Rome had running water and brick buildings. Granted, the more affordable rooms were a few floors up, as it was more difficult for the aqueducts to feed the water that high, but they were affordable. Before that it becomes difficult to determine who was what as often times each city had its own culture.

Plus there was no middle class in the middle ages. What you would consider middle class would actually be like 4% of the population. Kev so owned you on that one and you're still in denial.
The middle class durring that time period was smaller than it is now, but not as small as you'd think. If you look at towns from the 13th 14th and 15th centuries you will see exactly the types of structures I was referring to, entire towns of them. The fact that the middle class has grown since then actually fits directly into this theory, as higher quantity means lower value, and as the middle class has grown the quality of craftsmanship in their homes has decreased.

[/quote]"However, looking at it this way is flawed. First notice that the car was not always crappy and beat up to begin with. It was once shiny and new, just like after you repaired it. By not keeping it repaired under the previous owner it lost value. He spent his time effort and money elsewhere. Technically, when it came to the car, he lost wealth. You gained wealth. When everything is factored in the ammount of wealth in the world remains the same, and it doesn't matter if Paul Graham says otherwise."

No, your view here is flawed. Yes the car was shiny and new and all cars lose value as soon as they're sold. Granted. That in itself proves your theory wrong as it shows value/wealth can be created and destroyed. And, not only cars lose value. Everything loses value as it get's run down: houses, schools, parks, collectables, etc.[/quote]
Not entirely true, some loose value, some gain value, some remain almost exactly the same. For example, collectables and antiques gain value over time, especially if you avoid damaging them. Silver/gold bullion hold themselves an almost exactly the same value. Ownership of stocks can go either way. Enough stuff is gaining or loosing value for countless reasons, but in the end it mostly evens out so that the sum of the value remains the same.

There are many factors that go into these rises and losses in value but the main point is that over time the overall value of everything increases, and does so faster than any inflation could hurt their relative value.
I think you are missing the point of inflation. Inflation, as it is normally referred to, is a drop in the value of currency. The value of other things is a sepparate issue alltogether.

For example, I own a certain amount of silver coins from when I collected coins as a kid. Now out of those coins some have absolutely no collector value as they are too beat up so instead their value is entirely tied to their silver content. One such example is a Kennedy half dollar. The year it was struck, sometime in the early 60's it was worth half a dollar, meaning that the ammount of silver in that coin was worth half of a dollar. Since then the US currency has dropped so far as to make that ammount of silver worth 6 dollars. The inflation did not do anything to the value of silver but instead reduced the value of the curency.

Just to drive that point home, lets say that some hypothetical pirate country existed and they still used the Spanish 8 Real (pieces of 8) coin. That coin has about the same ammount of siver as a silver dollar, and thus my half dollar has the same silver content as 4 Reals. My silver half dollar, despite the inflation that went on with American currency after we dropped the silver standard, is still only worth 4 Reals, even though it is now worth 6 dollars in America. You see, the inflation did not touch its value, instead it only lowered the value of US currency in comparison.

And, the guy who spends his time repairing the car could also, easily maintain a steady job and earn the reward of the car's increased value in addition to his other work, creating more wealth in the world.
Hw could do that but it would not create more wealth in the world. Once again, stop looking at this on an individual basis. While the wealth does not neccesarily move from one thing to another, enough things in the world are gaining value and loosing value at the same time as to even things out. Another small gold nugget gets pulled out of the ground on one side of the world, another guy drilling oil on the other side of the world gets his finger lopped off in the equipment and his wedding ring gets lost down the well. Anything that isn't the result of direct trade evens out in some other way anyways.

[TASmith]

"Working makes the individual's life more valuable, however the more people working in the same way makes the work less valuable."

Wrong. The first part is correct. If an individual works at something they enjoy, they will feel valuable and that their life has meaning. It's an intrinsic value. If more people work in the same way, for example 1000 freelance illustrators instead of 10, then the value of these employees and their work may decrease PER CAPITA due to increased competition, but the total sum of their work will certainly be worth more than that of ten. You really don't know what you're saying.

As for Roman architecture, it took homo sapiens sapiens over 20,000 years to reach the stage of the Roman empire. Kev wins.

Ok, now I'm done, honestly. Anything else said will just be ignored.

[Mike Frank]

I hesitate to comment on this but I think that there is some truth on both sides of the discussion.

I think what's confusing about this is that there is not a finite amount of wealth. Wealth is generated by goods, services, and its value is determined by the market at the point of transfer for that wealth - either by a barter or an exchange for a currency.

But the amount of currency is finite (at any given time). So if a good or service has increased supply, or innovations allow it to be made more cheaply.. than its unit price will fall in proportion to the currency. It would also fall when weighed against other commodities.

A good example for this discussion is the computer market. Computers started out insanely expensive and have steadily fallen as time has gone on. I think you could argue that the availability of computers *has* raised the standard of living for everyone who owns one.

Cell phones are another good example, they're getting cheaper all of the time.

[nonie]

What is the difference between "perception of quality" and actual quality? If I feel like my life have improved, then it has.

When I was a kid my family lived in one shitty apartment after another, with my mom using the dining room as a bedroom so my brother and I wouldn't have to share a room. Then we got a "cheap" house and my mom had a real bedroom of her own. We went from not having a working car to having a "cheap" used SUV which allowed my mom more flexibility in work scheduling since she didn't have to factor in an hour or two bus rides every day. When she used this time to take care of the house, the value of it rose. When she used this time to work, she made more money. When she used this time to kick back with her kids, the family benefited from feeling more together. Even when she just slept a little longer she felt healthier and more rested. No matter what she did what that time, anything was an improvement from riding the bus for hours. Our standard of living didn't just "seem" to go up. It did.

Peter, you need to ditch your "if I didn't say it, it's wrong" attitude and grow up. People are stating irrefutable facts and you're just disagreeing because you don't want to be wrong.

[Peter Coene]

As for Roman architecture, it took homo sapiens sapiens over 20,000 years to reach the stage of the Roman empire. Kev wins.
nonono, you are misunderstanding the concept alltogether.

Lets say that 4000 years ago you have a bronze knife. At that time in some parts of the world that bronze knife would be considered a treasure. If someone from another village came and stole that knife from you then your entile village might go to war with their village to get it back. That is how much its worth.

Yes, today we have a lot more stuff. It is easier to get, easier to make, and everybody is they want to can own a broze knife that looks exactly like that one and is perhapse sturdier. However, none of it is worth as much as the orriginal knife was back 4000 years ago. If your bronze knife was stolen today you'd laugh that anyone would steal anything so cheap.

The only way to come close today to understand how much that knife was worth in 2000bc you'd have to compare it with all the oil wells that could cover an area the size of Nevada, or two towers in New York which comprise a national landmark and are filled with people.

This is what I mean when I talk about a conservation of net value in the world. When civilivation was in its infancy the net of its treasures was assigned the same value as we assign to our world's riches today. That value being "all the riches in the world." There was less of it, yes, but value it not something that can easilly be defined by numbers, as it is a concept entirely invented within our minds.

However, to claim that such an idea has no basis makes certain economic rules a lot less easy to explain. For example how could you say that 5% of the population owns 80% of the world's riches today and say that is any better or worse than the way things used to be? Suddenly comparing "the world's riches" today and "the world's riches" at any other time period becomes a moot point. To compare the two you have to assume that the two mean the same thing, and therefore the value that we attach to the worlds righes remains the same, even if the number of riches or the makeup of those riches changes.

[nonie]

Peter, wtf are you talking about? You're arguing a moot point.

You're confusing value with rarity. Sure a knife is more valuable as a treasure if only one person has one, but a knife is a fucking knife when you need to gut a fish. Other people having knives does not degrade the person who has the fancy bronze one. It just means more people have an easier time preparing their food. There will always be a fancier knife, but the rest of the people having rudimentary knives that serve their purpose increases the standard of living for all of them.

If everything man makes has a value, and man continues to make things, the total number of products rises faster than the "value" of these products can fall. Hence the world is richer. This is what civilization IS. It's *progress,* making life better for everyone.

[Ilaekae]

I have whiskey, cigs and guns. When the Italians or Latvians invade tomorrow, we'll find out what real wealth is... :P

[Peter Coene]

Peter, wtf are you talking about? You're arguing a moot point.

You're confusing value with rarity. Sure a knife is more valuable as a treasure if only one person has one, but a knife is a fucking knife when you need to gut a fish. Other people having knives does not degrade the person who has the fancy bronze one. It just means more people have an easier time preparing their food. There will always be a fancier knife, but the rest of the people having rudimentary knives that serve their purpose increases the standard of living for all of them.
I am beginning to beleive that you are incapable of wrapping you mind arround the idea here. This isn't about the knife, the car, the ammount of people in the world, the houses or the huts. Those were individual examples, and apparently you were too stubborn to look past them to see the point. It is a simple theory, I didn't come up with it myself, it is just a theory that many economists prescribe to.

This is about value. What you are attatching the value to doesn't matter. So since money, silver, cars, and weapons didn't seem to work I will instead break this down to the most abstract terms available and hope that it sinks in.

Just for the theory's sake, immagine that value is an abstract idea that we attatch to things. We will measure value in these groupings; overall net value, worth going to war for, worth being protected by a person, worth picking up and holding onto, and worthless. Then you have whatever you attatch the value to, it doesn't matter what this stuff is, all that matters is the value. Now suppose that 10% of the overall net value is worth going to war for. Thousands of years in the future 10% of the overall net value will still be worth going to war for. Now, if there is more junk that we attatch value to, 10% will make up a greater ammount of junk than it did when we started out, but it will still be 10% of the overall net value. In that time there will be things that we used to attach value to that now we don't, people now prefer nack-knicks rather than knick-nacks, but that doesn't matter, what matters is the value that we attach.

Look, I may not be an economist, but I can remember what I learned in the one class that I took on the subject.

If everything man makes has a value, and man continues to make things, the total number of products rises faster than the "value" of these products can fall.
Proove it.

Hence the world is richer. This is what civilization IS. It's *progress,* making life better for everyone.
No, civilization is a bunch of people living together usually with a recognizable culture. For example, the later Roman empire was in a downward spiral yet we still call them a "Civilization." The same is true of the Aztecs when the Spaniards first met them. King Tut was burried in a hole dug into the ground while previous pharoes were burried in some of the most recognizable structures on earth, but we still look at what was found in his tomb and refer to it as having come from the ancient Egyptian civilization. Any historian will tell you that the assumption that you have made here is false.

[Peter Coene]

I have whiskey, cigs and guns. When the Italians or Latvians invade tomorrow, we'll find out what real wealth is... :P
I've got what is currently about $200 worth of junk siver, my plan is to continue buying untill I have 5x that much. If I reach that goal before the US economy goes to shit I can buy a plane ticket out of here and hope I can get a work visa somewhere else.

Oh, and I've got some whisky too, and I'm a good shot with my bow and know how to make new arrows.

Ok... not quite as good a shot after the whiskey.

[sve]

Value Added = Sales - Labour Costs - Capital Costs
Added Value = Sales - Purchases - Labour Costs - Capital Costs (shareholder value)
Isn't this value added a reason and source of growing wealth?
New value which is obtained in process of producing or marketing some new product or service..

[0kelvin]

Look, I may not be an economist, but I can remember what I learned in the one class that I took on the subject.
Remembering it right doesn't matter if you learned it wrong.

[Izi]

yeah

pity we still don't value *life*

[Peter Coene]

Value Added = Sales - Labour Costs - Capital Costs
Added Value = Sales - Purchases - Labour Costs - Capital Costs (shareholder value)
Isn't this value added a reason and source of growing wealth?
New value which is obtained in process of producing or marketing some new product or service..
Once again you are bringing the things into this and not just talking about the value itself. Slow down and try to understand the theory before jumping in with what you think is a monkey wrench to throw in the works.

Anyways, this is a matter of microeconomics, not macroeconomics. On an individual basis, yes, this happens. However, things also loose value and when you pull back and you look at the big picture it averages out.

Think of it as being like how in physics certain rules apply on the atomic level but not on the macroscopic level. For example, an atom can be in two places at the same time, or can seace to exist in on place and simultaniously pop into existance in another. It can spin in 2 different directions at the same time, and change its state of reality so that it does one thing while being observed and another while not being observed. However, on the macroscopic level we do not do those things, instead all that stuff evens out as soon as you combine all those individual atoms to do what they do. This is what keeps a pink rhinoscerous from popping into existance in your living room. We are used to living as the size that we are, so from out point of view things behaving the way that we perceive them to is normal.

Likewise we live at a level where economics is a matter of things gaining and loosing value as they are bought ang sold. This is commonly referred to a microeconomics, which is basically what you face when balancing a checkbook, running a small business, of buying and selling stocks. As soon as you move up to macroeconomics things begin to change, especially when you start talking about world economy. Just like how something that appeared bumpy and irregular and contantly moving on the quantum scale suddenly becomes a rigid flat plane on the macroscopic scale, so too does what was values moving up and down in microeconomics level out when placed at the level of macroeconomics.

[sve]

I can't sleep. so a bit more talking then.
People will always be getting sick, or hungry or in need of advice of an expert and so on... they will always have certain needs and demands. So there will always be possibility to create a profit from selling them certain products or services, and in this relationship there is no stealing. It is a market. There is a demand and there is an offering. If buyers and sellers are in agreement, buyers get what they want and sellers will get richer by selling their product or service for money bigger than it was to produce them. If they are no in agreement, nothing happened, there is no relationship..

When certain wealth is accumulated in society, people with new needs and demands appeared and possibility for new products and services (luxury, advice for investments) to be sold appears as well.

Population grows and possibility for more profit grows as well.

About reducing values of other sellers... they are not in relationship of creating value. Possibility to create value is not the same as really creating it.

Information is a product as well. You can create value added with it as well. You don't need material goods to create profit. Example:
Recently Microsoft was trying to buy Yahoo for 44 billions dollars. Yahoo refused. It's interesting because for 14 billions dollars it can buy General Motors and will have enough to buy Ford for 16 billions dollars and will have 14 billions left.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,354208,00.html
So it can buy almost entire car industry in America for money less than it wants to spent on yahoo, which of course has some value as paid advertisements, but still ... Money is real, yahoo apparently has some values.

[Peter Coene]

I can't sleep. so a bit more talking then.
People will always be getting sick, or hungry or in need of advice of an expert and so on... they will always have certain needs and demands. So there will always be possibility to create a profit from selling them certain products or services, and in this relationship there is no stealing. It is a market. There is a demand and there is an offering. If buyers and sellers are in agreement, buyers get what they want and sellers will get richer by selling their product or service for money bigger than it was to produce them. If they are no in agreement, nothing happened, there is no relationship..

When certain wealth is accumulated in society, people with new needs and demands appeared and possibility for new products and services (luxury, advice for investments) to be sold appears as well.

Population grows and possibility for more profit grows as well.

About reducing values of other sellers... they are not in relationship of creating value. Possibility to create value is not the same as really creating it.

Information is a product as well. You can create value added with it as well. You don't need material goods to create profit. Example:
Recently Microsoft was trying to buy Yahoo for 44 billions dollars. Yahoo refused. It's interesting because for 14 billions dollars it can buy General Motors and will have enough to buy Ford for 16 billions dollars and will have 14 billions left.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,354208,00.html
So it can buy almost entire car industry in America for money less than it wants to spent on yahoo, which of course has some value as paid advertisements, but still ... Money is real, yahoo apparently has some values.
All of this is once again immaterial as it is talking about what the value is being applied to rather than the value itself.

[Duq]

*Edit*

not gonna discuss economics, and universe macrolevels. Should be doing work >_>

[sve]

You can say your product is worthy of 5 dollars or 5 billions dollars, you can say anything you want. Until you have a buyer ready to take your offer, your product is worth nothing.
Value added appears only in a process of selling.
From my example Yahoo value = value of Ford + value of General motors + 14 billions dollars - capital expense. That's not applied value. That's its current value for which Microsoft is ready to buy it.
Tell me please where do you see ceased to exist values in this example.

[Peter Coene]

You can say your product is worthy of 5 dollars or 5 billions dollars, you can say anything you want. Until you have a buyer ready to take your offer, your product is worth nothing.
Value added appears only in a process of selling.
From my example Yahoo value = value of Ford + value of General motors + 14 billions dollars - capital expense. That's not applied value. That's its current value for which Microsoft is ready to buy it.
Tell me please where do you see ceased to exist values in this example.

Once again, you are jumping past the part of the theory that you need to understand and trying to bring in things. The theory, once again, is about the abstract thing that we call value, not the many things that we attach value to. Instead of looking at this as products that value can be added to look at it as the abstract value that can be attatched to whatever.

Value is defined by desire and how much a person's desire matters. To analize this we need to stop caring what the "it" is and instead pay attention to the value. When you add up all the value you have the sum ammount of greed and need in this world. Now, because this is an abstract thought you cannot quantify it by numbers without attaching the actual objects that people are wanting to it. That is what you are doing and that is where you fail and by doing so loose sight of what I'm trying to get at here, so as soon as you start thinking about stocks and cars, stop, clear you mind of that and go back to value. So that we can avoid getting sidetracked by that again lets call it WNV (world net value).

Now, while society grows everybody is still saying "I want it." However, the more that society grows the less that the individuals matter. The ammount of people who want is therefore inversely proportional to the importance of their desire. Therefore, twice as many people with desires means their desires mattering in the scheme of things half as much. Therefore the WNV remains the same.

Now if we have that figured we can begin to move on to the things. Lets imagine that in the dawn of man there are only 10 neandrothals in existance (I know, not true, but bear with me) and all 10 attached all of their desire to one thing and nothing else, that one thing being a black monolith. The fact that it is a black monolith doesn't matter, what matter is that it is what the WNV is attached to. Later on, when society has grown and there are about 10,000 cro-magnon and they have/want 1,000 wood plows, 3,000 oxen, 100,000 chickens, 20,000 stone scrapers, 2,000 spears w/ stone spearheads, 50 saber tooth necklaces, and 20 crude stone sculptures of anthropomorphic deities. All of that, put together, is now the WNV. While the GDP grew, the value of all those things put together is exactly the same as the black stone monolith had been. In other words, all of it put together is everything in the world that could be wanted at that specific time.

When it comes to trading we can't just assume that 2 stone sculptures are worth 5 necklaces, even if the math makes sense what people want doesn't. If they thing the sculpture has magical powers suddenly they attach more value. However this doesn't matter, as it just means that by desiring one thing more they are desiring another less, so it evens out. The fact that the oxen and chickens are constantly reproducing and dieing doesn't matter, as if their number doubles their value halves and vice-versa.

[nonie]

Peter, it's not that I can't wrap my mind around what you're trying to say, it's that the point you're making is true on an object-by-object basis or some macro-godlike the-earth-is-a-piece-in-some-boardgame way and has no influence at all on the life of the average person. And as more and more people have enough of the creature comforts to have a decent life, 10% of the wealth is *not* going to be worth going to war over, so your argument is flawed anyway. Who is going to want to fight in a war they know is for riches they don't really need? The reason so many people are protesting Iraq is *because* they see it as a was for oil, or whatever percent of wealth, and their lives were fine before anyway.

As to wealth of the world constantly increasing, saying "prove it" is just childish. If you just look at the state of civilization now and the amount of time a person has to do what they want instead of what they need to just to survive (and I'm talking about the *average person* and not some wealthy aristocrat with slaves to do his bidding) you can plainly see that the longer civilization has been going, the better things get overall. The benefits haven't spread to everyone in the world yet and that means there's tons of wealth yet to be created and sold, tons of markets yet to be created.

And what is the purpose of living in a civilization if it doesn't benefit the individual? Civilization *has* to be making you life better or there's no incentive to participate. We are genetically hard-wired to be gregarious and altruistic because helping the group benefits the individual. That is in human nature. Living in groups automatically improves your life. Civilizations that don't eventually fall, as per your examples.

Anyway. I'm done. You're just going to argue every point anyone makes because it makes you feel superior. Have fun.

[kev ferrara]

This thread needs Van Halen.

8w-0bSo9OcI

[Dirty C]

Jesus. If even Kev won't argue anymore, it's time this shit got locked down.

Can I get an Amen??

[Costau D]

Assalamu alaikum.

[James Kei]

Jesus. If even Kev won't argue anymore, it's time this shit got locked down.

Can I get an Amen??

Agreed, I think this thread has run its course.


Closed.