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No I haven't.
Black swan event. Impossible to see looking forwards readily foreseeable in hind sight.
This is a function of wealth distribution. With a shrinking middle and the wealth concentrated at the top you don't have the tax base to do stuff with. Now If things were different they wouldn't be the same. The wealth redistribution from the middle to the top is being driven in part by the tax code and how it is set up. Drop the taxes on the middle and bottom up the taxes on the top and the middle and bottom will grow and the top will shrink. (Or not grow as fast) This will provide the excess resource base to rebuild/build infrastructure with.
Yep. What I have been talking about is how to get the money to rebuild the infrastructure among other things. We are scheduled to hit the wealth distribution of Mexico in about 2015 to 2020.
That is where we are headed unless we change direction.
There is a relatively easy fix for this. Redistribute the wealth from the top to the middle and bottom. How to do this is by radically increasing the wages world wide, get everybody working productively, and not letting the top get richer faster than the bottom and middle.
Easy to say harder to do.
Explain how this wealth redistribution can possibly come to be.
The wealthy are in control. They own the government, they own the media, which programs the sheeple to act in the wealthy people’s interest at their own peril. They own the schools and the curriculum by way of owning the government, and controls what the sheeple are taught. They own the Universities and the "Studies" they sponsor dictate the so called science that the sheeple base their "educated" opinions on. They control the military and the police. They own the court system and the Judges which sit on the bench. In short the wealthy control everything, and the current distribution of wealth suits them just fine, so by what mechanism do you fantasize that this "change" you speak of can possibly happen.
Bottom line is that it is impossible. It is not going to happen. It is just a fantasy.
In the real world, the rich get richer, and what was once known as the middle class are sinking into peasant status along with their brothers in the third world.
Explain how this wealth redistribution can possibly come to be.
Starting with the mechanics of how the wealth was redistributed from the middle to the top in the US. In the 1950's the minimum wage peeked at 55% of the average wage. To put it back where it was then would take something like $30 an hour when you factor in the resulting wage price inflation. A high capital gains tax and a high top marginal income tax rate.
How to get those changes enacted. Well that is the black swan event of the century.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jimhcom
The wealthy are in control. They own the government, they own the media, which programs the sheeple to act in the wealthy people’s interest at their own peril. They own the schools and the curriculum by way of owning the government, and controls what the sheeple are taught.
I'm impressed most people don't see this.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jimhcom
They own the Universities and the "Studies" they sponsor dictate the so called science that the sheeple base their "educated" opinions on. They control the military and the police. They own the court system and the Judges which sit on the bench. In short the wealthy control everything, and the current distribution of wealth suits them just fine, so by what mechanism do you fantasize that this "change" you speak of can possibly happen.
Bla bla bla. They don't own this. The internet. They are trying hard to figure out how to own it but they currently don't. The time is now we stand up and fight, get organized take back our government, where to cut government spending abolish public education. With the death of factory work we don't need the school system to keep turning out factory workers.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jimhcom
Bottom line is that it is impossible. It is not going to happen. It is just a fantasy.
In the real world, the rich get richer, and what was once known as the middle class are sinking into peasant status along with their brothers in the third world.
It wouldn't be called a black swan event if everyone saw it coming now would it. If you say they have won then they have won. They haven't won yet.
It wouldn't be called a black swan event if everyone saw it coming now would it. If you say they have won then they have won. They haven't won yet.
I think your view of history is a little skewed. The prosperity of the 50's, - 90's was an anomaly.
It was a direct result of demand created by WWII combined with a worldwide shortage of labor caused by the killing of hundreds of millions of working age men.
Prior to WWII the working people in the US were far from prosperous, despite the overabundance of resources.
The elite took control of labor in the late 1800's and after the implementation of the Federal Reserve, robbed the country of any control the people had by way of Congress to control the money supply or credit.
They then systematically robbed the country of its gold, its farmland, its timber, its oil, and every other natural resource.
They then monopolized all industries working their way down until now even the mom and pop merchants have been put out of business. When they made the shoe stores, the bicycle shops, the hardware stores and the like uncompetitive with big box stores they eliminated the main avenue average Americans had to escape the wage restraints of working for others.
The only kind of black swan event that would reverse the fortunes of the working class today would be another World War on a scale that would take billions out of the workforce worldwide while at the same time creating demand for new manufacturing on a massive scale.
Barring that happening, the average working person has a future of lower relative wages combined with ever increasing inflation to look forward to. I wish I could be more optimistic, but as a friend once told me sometimes it is better not to know how things really work, then at least you can still have hope.
I think your view of history is a little skewed. ...
Barring that happening, the average working person has a future of lower relative wages combined with ever increasing inflation to look forward to. I wish I could be more optimistic, but as a friend once told me sometimes it is better not to know how things really work, then at least you can still have hope.
A black swan event is by definition unforeseeable.
This graph with the line drawn a little better shows the problem all to well. The post WWII economic boom was set up by the great depression. With the line drawn a little less steeply you see that we are set up for a long time area below the line. It is the nature of the beast.
I think your view of history is a little skewed. The prosperity of the 50's, - 90's was an anomaly.
It was a direct result of demand created by WWII combined with a worldwide shortage of labor caused by the killing of hundreds of millions of working age men.
Prior to WWII the working people in the US were far from prosperous, despite the overabundance of resources.
The elite took control of labor in the late 1800's and after the implementation of the Federal Reserve, robbed the country of any control the people had by way of Congress to control the money supply or credit.
They then systematically robbed the country of its gold, its farmland, its timber, its oil, and every other natural resource.
They then monopolized all industries working their way down until now even the mom and pop merchants have been put out of business. When they made the shoe stores, the bicycle shops, the hardware stores and the like uncompetitive with big box stores they eliminated the main avenue average Americans had to escape the wage restraints of working for others.
The only kind of black swan event that would reverse the fortunes of the working class today would be another World War on a scale that would take billions out of the workforce worldwide while at the same time creating demand for new manufacturing on a massive scale.
Barring that happening, the average working person has a future of lower relative wages combined with ever increasing inflation to look forward to. I wish I could be more optimistic, but as a friend once told me sometimes it is better not to know how things really work, then at least you can still have hope.
With no concentration of rent, no oligarchy.
What is now, according to Wakefield, the consequence of this unfortunate state of things in the colonies? A “barbarising tendency of dispersion” of producers and national wealth.[17] The parcelling-out of the means of production among innumerable owners, working on their own account, annihilates, along with the centralization of capital, all the foundation of combined labour.
-Marx(using his observations which I find more agreeable than some of his theory)
. The richest soils were always most subject to this change of masters; such as the district now called Thessaly, Boeotia, most of the Peloponnese, Arcadia excepted, and the most fertile parts of the rest of Hellas. The goodness of the land favoured the aggrandizement of particular individuals, and thus created faction which proved a fertile source of ruin. It also invited invasion. Accordingly Attica, from the poverty of its soil enjoying from a very remote period freedom from faction, never changed its inhabitants. And here is no inconsiderable exemplification of my assertion that the migrations were the cause of there being no correspondent growth in other parts. The most powerful victims of war or faction from the rest of Hellas took refuge with the Athenians as a safe retreat; and at an early period, becoming naturalized, swelled the already large population of the city to such a height that Attica became at last too small to hold them, and they had to send out colonies to Ionia.
-Thucydides
Sparta had value without human labor which meant power ans control without a human proxy.
Athens was valuable because all wealth came from labor and capital.
Its real simple. You tax the value out of rent and/or redistribute it. You can create the poverty of the soil via taxation and property laws and concentrate wealth on the value of labor and capital. Otherwise you end up with vast amount of wealth no human can make on their own and with no need of people. No need of people means no need of justice or liberty.
How does one for example steal the wealth of Japan without the Japanese? They are the wealth.
Its real simple. You tax the value out of rent and/or redistribute it. You can create the poverty of the soil via taxation and property laws and concentrate wealth on the value of labor and capital. Otherwise you end up with vast amount of wealth no human can make on their own and with no need of people. No need of people means no need of justice or liberty.
How does one for example steal the wealth of Japan without the Japanese? They are the wealth.
When the top marginal tax rate is high total debt is low and we prosper. When the top marginal tax rate is low we have economic depression. And high total debt. Don't confuse the 1980~through 2007 debt bubble with actual good economic health.
What is now, according to Wakefield, the consequence of this unfortunate state of things in the colonies? A “barbarising tendency of dispersion” of producers and national wealth.[17] The parcelling-out of the means of production among innumerable owners, working on their own account, annihilates, along with the centralization of capital, all the foundation of combined labour.
-Marx(using his observations which I find more agreeable than some of his theory)
. The richest soils were always most subject to this change of masters; such as the district now called Thessaly, Boeotia, most of the Peloponnese, Arcadia excepted, and the most fertile parts of the rest of Hellas. The goodness of the land favoured the aggrandizement of particular individuals, and thus created faction which proved a fertile source of ruin. It also invited invasion. Accordingly Attica, from the poverty of its soil enjoying from a very remote period freedom from faction, never changed its inhabitants. And here is no inconsiderable exemplification of my assertion that the migrations were the cause of there being no correspondent growth in other parts. The most powerful victims of war or faction from the rest of Hellas took refuge with the Athenians as a safe retreat; and at an early period, becoming naturalized, swelled the already large population of the city to such a height that Attica became at last too small to hold them, and they had to send out colonies to Ionia.
-Thucydides
Sparta had value without human labor which meant power ans control without a human proxy.
Athens was valuable because all wealth came from labor and capital.
Its real simple. You tax the value out of rent and/or redistribute it. You can create the poverty of the soil via taxation and property laws and concentrate wealth on the value of labor and capital. Otherwise you end up with vast amount of wealth no human can make on their own and with no need of people. No need of people means no need of justice or liberty.
How does one for example steal the wealth of Japan without the Japanese? They are the wealth.
its funny that people have decided that this world is finite and we cant grow forever, so the population should shrink. who is to say that we have reached the limits today??? we are nowhere near those limits. there is still plenty of room on this planet for many more people. i do find it offensive to see people who are alive trying to deny future generations the privelage of living when there is absolutely no need to do so.
We have space, but not resources. Theoretically, you can fit the world's population into TX, but then you would not have the farms and ranches producing food. That isn't even mentioning water. TX already has water restrictions in place, where would the addition water come from? Desalination works, but is expensive.
Quote:
Originally Posted by pie_row
It is possible to build a 600mpg at 50mph personal vehicle. At 12k miles a year that works out to 20 gallons of fuel a year. It is time for a rethink on personal transportation and personal consumption of goods. My take is we can have the same standard of living on far less energy consumption.
Time for a rethink on how we are doing things. You can sell the same standard of living on far less resources, it is far harder to sell a lower standard of living.
Well, you have sold me on the idea of living on less resources now all you need to do is deliver. The world is never going to "run out" of oil or energy because we do have alternatives, but these alternatives are going to be more expensive. More expensive energy is going to mean lower standard of living or less people around that can actually afford this energy. Hopefully, Exxon can find a way to deliver algae biofuel cheaply and on a large enough scale that we can have cheap energy again.
Quote:
Originally Posted by CaptainNJ
haha, did you suggest that starvation is a result of overpopulation? what a joke. who is starving to death in america?
If nobody in the USA is at risk of starving then we don't need the food stamp and S.S. programs, but we do precisely because they do not make enough to feed themselves.
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