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The USA is a country, not an economy. What about human development? What good is a society of great business opportunities if it is populated by violent obese people in a pharmaceutical haze? Economics need not be the foundation for society.
Your bias against progressives, labeling some of them as business haters suggests that you think business should prevail, that it should somehow be the basic unit of our country. Sorry, I think people come first. Businesses should be restricted to doing the right thing without exception. If that means I hate business because I place limitations on them, then so be it. If we're going to give citizenship to a entity called a corporation, that corporation should be a model citizen. It should not pollute the environment, it should not treat workers like slaves, etc. It should manufacture value, not junk. If it exists solely for profit, it really serves no purpose at all.
The larger picture shows the world economy to be failing. Its infrastructure is rotten because it was built on wrong ideas and principles. Our current dog-eat-dog model ends up producing one fat dog and a lot of bones. To encourage its growth or continuation is foolish. New systems need to be developed that can be self-sustaining. The future should be modeled on this ideal and on a much smaller scale, it should be local and immediate. Stocks? Bonds? Interest rates? All garbage. Energy should be spent on developing what happens after this system collapses instead of trying different sized band-aids on wounds that are terminal.
Karl Marx was talking about that more than 100 years ago yet we're still collapsing.
A society can't function properly without a healthy economy.
Plenty of societies in history existed without money. Economics is a manmade construct. It exists because we participate in it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by marcopolo
Um, a business has to provide goods or services which buyers value more highly than the money they willing pay.
If it has no customers it really serves no purpose at all. Profits are the sign that a business serves a purpose.
To restate what I wrote: if the business exists SOLELY to make a profit, then it serves no real purpose. I can think of a lot of people who work at meaningless jobs just for the profit it brings them. So much of our economy produces meaninglessness. A pile of cash is only useful in the system that values it but in the larger spiritual sense it's meaningless. My statement is an attempt to place real value into the economy rather than allowing the profit motive to run (ruin?) our lives. The ideal economy would be one in which we find and achieve our real purpose, not the one we reluctantly adopt just to simply exist within it.
An aboriginal woman named Ooota made an astute observation about business even though she never participated in the modern world. She said that business exists only to be in business. I kind of agree with her assessment. From a larger perspective, it has no lasting value or meaning.
Plenty of societies in history existed without money. Economics is a manmade construct. It exists because we participate in it.
To restate what I wrote: if the business exists SOLELY to make a profit, then it serves no real purpose. I can think of a lot of people who work at meaningless jobs just for the profit it brings them. So much of our economy produces meaninglessness. A pile of cash is only useful in the system that values it but in the larger spiritual sense it's meaningless. My statement is an attempt to place real value into the economy rather than allowing the profit motive to run (ruin?) our lives. The ideal economy would be one in which we find and achieve our real purpose, not the one we reluctantly adopt just to simply exist within it.
An aboriginal woman named Ooota made an astute observation about business even though she never participated in the modern world. She said that business exists only to be in business. I kind of agree with her assessment. From a larger perspective, it has no lasting value or meaning.
Plenty of societies in history existed without money. Economics is a manmade construct. It exists because we participate in it.
To restate what I wrote: if the business exists SOLELY to make a profit, then it serves no real purpose. I can think of a lot of people who work at meaningless jobs just for the profit it brings them. So much of our economy produces meaninglessness. A pile of cash is only useful in the system that values it but in the larger spiritual sense it's meaningless. My statement is an attempt to place real value into the economy rather than allowing the profit motive to run (ruin?) our lives. The ideal economy would be one in which we find and achieve our real purpose, not the one we reluctantly adopt just to simply exist within it.
An aboriginal woman named Ooota made an astute observation about business even though she never participated in the modern world. She said that business exists only to be in business. I kind of agree with her assessment. From a larger perspective, it has no lasting value or meaning.
Thanks for the clarification. As long as one's "real purpose" involves being of value to others, one can find meaning in their work or business if the path is consciously chosen. Some of the happiest people I know made that integration; the byproduct is, they make a lot of money. But the money is not the point--the work--being valuable to others--is the point.
We provide value to others and earn it; we seek value provided by others and spend it. I think it the system has a beauty and simplicity to it that is consistent with being a decent human being.
Last edited by marcopolo; 07-13-2010 at 09:05 PM..
Reason: typo
I am not interested in Bush this or that because believe it or not, he has not been President for 18 months. I want to know what YOUR plan is to make business want to invest in this country?
This should be interesting.
We should emulate that "socialist" country to the north: Canada. Their economy is in great shape.
I am not against private property but I do believe that private property (land, buildings, etc) should be subject to health safety and environmental regulation. There are all kinds of freedom but there is no freedom from responsibility.
I am not against private property but I do believe that private property (land, buildings, etc) should be subject to health safety and environmental regulation. There are all kinds of freedom but there is no freedom from responsibility.
There is when you wish to delegate that responsibility to your government.
The more progressive parts of the country are generally the most economically viable. Last time I checked, SF, Boston, NYC and Seattle are engines of economic growth that dwarf any conservative city's economy.
While I don't favor needless or impractical business regulation, cities with a liberal bent--in the last 20 years at least--have a much better track of producing innovation and economic growth.
The hype over businesses moving to conservative parts of the county is based on one thing: avoiding taxes. And most of these businesses soon find the downside: a lack of talent.
If you work in an innovative industry, then odds are the industry leaders are based in fairly progressive cities. If on the other hand, you make ball bearings and you only need a semi-literate workforce, then a place like Texas or wherever will work just fine.
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