Twin Peaks

[Mach]

His solution to the issue is a rather exotic blending of economic theories that would produce a society where the line between worker, owner, and investor blurs to a large degree. It's more than a little idealistic, but his comments on democracy and the market are worth hearing. He speaks in English, not Greek.

That's interesting. I'm an owner, investor, and worker, all at the same time, and have been for a decade. Are the lines blurred already? How many people have 401Ks...are they not all investors? and how many people desire to be owners? I mean, like as in put their money/time where their dream is... Hell, I have trouble promoting people if it requires more responsibility or any skill set they are the slight bit uncomfortable with (sales, people skills, travel, risk, etc.) It's similar to freedom. We have freedom, but you are not forced to eat organic, work out every day, and dote on your spouse and children. These are things you are free to do. Same with the economy. You are free to participate in the economy in all of those ways, and millions do. That not everyone does it in the same proportion has to do with our education system, and our culture. You can brainwash people into wanting/needing to do those things, but if left to their own devices...who wants to be ambitious? Its an american thing, getting rid of most social stuff in favor of a high $$ career. Many people know its not all its cracked up to be, so they divide their time, they work, they dabble invest/retirement invest, and leave "owning" to people with no lives...

 

[Ahlevah]

18 Minutes is too long.....?

No. What I get from his is a desire to rebrand Marxism for the modern age. He's attempting to take a sow's ear and once again turn it into a silk purse, and it just won't fly. For example, he mentions the misallocation of capital and massive debt in the major industrialized economies. This is more a function of central banks propping up unproductive enterprise and not adequately rewarding savers for risk, rather than any inherent fault of capitalism. Under a true capitalist system, the losers would be allowed to lose and capital would be redeployed to more productive enterprise. Savers would be adequately compensated for lending.

Also, how would his ownership system work in practice. For example, let's go back to when Facebook was founded and Mark Zukerberg wrote the code for it. How would the ownership of Facebook have been determined? What would Eduardo Saverin have owned for putting up the money to launch it? Who would decide compensation and ownership shares? Would the company have been required to set up a workers' committee for that purpose or what? And where would the money come from if a critical employee decided to leave? How would he be "cashed out," as it were?

 

[Aberration]

dear, majority control is how democracy works. 1+1=2

Dear, only if 100% voted.


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[Lafayette]

Does capitalism necessarily mean democracy, or does it even favor democracy? Today we tend to merge the two concepts, but there is strong evidence that democracy can easily atrophy in the face of unrestrained economic force.

We now have, as economist Yanis Varoufakis puts it, huge twin peaks within the developed economies.

Capitalism just IS. Democracy is not necessarily.

If don't like capitalism, a nation goes back to barter. Want that? Thought not.

Democracy is what most people want to adopt, but do so in many different ways. The Islamic Countries are having a hard time, because their religion institutes the primacy of belief over that of voter rights.

Americans are befuddled by the opportunity to make (and keep) profits, which they think in an unalienable and unlimited right; whilst the EU has shown the way to a Social Democracy, where capitalism the primary function of a market-economy but taxation limits the accumulation of capital by one segment of the population.

And what Varoufakis knows about "economics" would fit a thimble. He had his chance in Greece, and he flubbed it ...
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[James972]

whilst the EU has shown the way to a Social Democracy,

which is why France, for example, has the per capita income of Arkansas about our poorest state, why EU unemployment is usually 10%+, why even Krugman says the European economy has Eurosclerous, and why most new inventions( 70% of recent medical patents for example) come from the USA.

 

[kanabco]

His solution to the issue is a rather exotic blending of economic theories that would produce a society where the line between worker, owner, and investor blurs to a large degree. It's more than a little idealistic, but his comments on democracy and the market are worth hearing. He speaks in English, not Greek.

He's gotta be an academic.

 

[iguanaman]

it does?? So far as I know liberalism is 100% about more and more govt violence. While conservatives and libertarians only want peaceful voluntary relationships between people.

Unless the populace does not submit to subjugation of course. Then we fill the prisons and line the streets with jack booted thugs demanding your papers.

 

[James972]

Unless the populace does not submit to subjugation of course.

can you say what on earth you are talking about?? libertarians want tiny govt just so no subjugation is possible. Liberals like Hitler Stalin and Mao want huge govt just so subjugation is possible. 1+1=2. Do you understand?

 

[James972]

a society where the line between worker, owner, and investor blurs to a large degree.

ah actually this is called communism. 1+1=2

 

[iguanaman]

can you say what on earth you are talking about?? libertarians want tiny govt just so no subjugation is possible. Liberals like Hitler Stalin and Mao want huge govt just so subjugation is possible. 1+1=2. Do you understand?

Subjugation can come in other forms than Govt. That's where you libertarians lose respect. You basically advocate for leaving the frying pan for the fire. It's a hard sell.

 

[James972]

Subjugation can come in other forms than Govt..

dear, govt has been the overwhelming source of evil in human history by 1000% . Other sources are very very trivial. This is why our very very conservative Founders did everything conceivable to limit central govt. Do you understand now??

 

[James972]

You[libertarians] basically advocate for leaving the frying pan for the fire.

care to explain what on earth you are talking about????????????????????

 

[iguanaman]

care to explain what on earth you are talking about????????????????????

It's a old saying about fools who think a frying pan is hot and don't get that the fire is even hotter. I'm surprised you never heard it before.

 

[James972]

It's a old saying about fools who think a frying pan is hot and don't get that the fire is even hotter. I'm surprised you never heard it before.

dear, how does it relate to this thread??????????????????????????????????

 

[iguanaman]

dear, govt has been the overwhelming source of evil in human history by 1000% . Other sources are very very trivial. This is why our very very conservative Founders did everything conceivable to limit central govt. Do you understand now??

Steinbeck and Charles Dickens wrote a lot about the misery caused by corporations and individuals. I suggest you read up on it before you throw Govt. under the bus. "The Grapes of Wrath" would be a good start.

 

[iguanaman]

dear, how does it relate to this thread??????????????????????????????????

It relates to your hatred of Govt. Be careful what you wish for.

 

[James972]

It relates to your hatred of Govt. Be careful what you wish for.

dear, nobody in human history hated govt more than our Founders and nobody ever created a country half as great as America. Liberalism is treasonous. Liberals are like children, they believe govt is magical because they lack the IQ to understand how freedom works.

 

[iguanaman]

dear, nobody in human history hated govt more than our Founders and nobody ever created a country half as great as America. Liberalism is treasonous. Liberals are like children, they believe govt is magical because they lack the IQ to understand how freedom works.

Nonsense "dear". Not only did the founders believe in Govt. but they believed that the power of Govt. should be used to limit the formation of an aristocracy here in America.

If there was one thing the Revolutionary generation agreed on — and those guys who dress up like them at Tea Party conventions most definitely do not — it was the incompatibility of democracy and inherited wealth.

With Thomas Jefferson taking the lead in the Virginia legislature in 1777, every Revolutionary state government abolished the laws of primogeniture and entail that had served to perpetuate the concentration of inherited property. Jefferson cited Adam Smith, the hero of free market capitalists everywhere, as the source of his conviction that (as Smith wrote, and Jefferson closely echoed in his own words), "A power to dispose of estates for ever is manifestly absurd. The earth and the fulness of it belongs to every generation, and the preceding one can have no right to bind it up from posterity. Such extension of property is quite unnatural." Smith said: "There is no point more difficult to account for than the right we conceive men to have to dispose of their goods after death."

Estate tax and the founding fathers: You can't take it with you | The Economist

 

[Aberration]

It's a old saying about fools who think a frying pan is hot and don't get that the fire is even hotter. I'm surprised you never heard it before.

It actually has nothing to do with fools, has had many forms going for hundreds of years and has been applied in many contexts.

For instance one could use it against the US and its steady trend of more and more democratic command of the economy to help short term and visible problems, but creates long term and mostly invisible problems. Like $200 Trillion in unfunded liabilities due mostly to our two largest social programs.


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[iguanaman]

It actually has nothing to do with fools, has had many forms going for hundreds of years and has been applied in many contexts.

For instance one could use it against the US and its steady trend of more and more democratic command of the economy to help short term and visible problems, but creates long term and mostly invisible problems. Like $200 Trillion in unfunded liabilities due mostly to our two largest social programs.


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What would not be "invisible" is the horror of old people thrown into camps because they cannot afford to live. Surely the richest nation in the world could find a way to avoid that don't you think? And surely the top 5% who saw their net worth's quintuple to over $40 Triliion in 35 years can afford to help pay for those "social programs" too.

 

[Aberration]

What would not be "invisible" is the horror of old people thrown into camps because they cannot afford to live. Surely the richest nation in the world could find a way to avoid that don't you think? And surely the top 5% who saw their net worth's quintuple to over $40 Triliion in 35 years can afford to help pay for those "social programs" too.

Simple fear mongering. There was not old people being thrown into camps before those social programs. $40 Trillion versus $200 Trillion. Obviously richest nation cant afford it.


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[James972]

Nonsense "dear". Not only did the founders believe in Govt. but they believed that the power of Govt. should be used to limit the formation of an aristocracy here in America.

yes exactly so you agree that founders would have opposed always growing power of liberal aristocracy?? Isn't thinking fun??

 

[James972]

And surely the top 5% who saw their net worth's quintuple to over $40 Triliion in 35 years can afford to help pay for those "social programs" too.

actually top 1% pay 44% of all federal income tax and about same % of state taxes. Very successful brain washing process makes liberals parrot line that the rich don't pay their fair share. They pay 44% when their fair share is 1%.

 

[iguanaman]

actually top 1% pay 44% of all federal income tax and about same % of state taxes. Very successful brain washing process makes liberals parrot line that the rich don't pay their fair share. They pay 44% when their fair share is 1%.

Like I said income tax rates are determined by what the individual can afford to pay and the rich can afford to pay more. That is how it is and always will be. The progressive rates stop at $400,000 and that is ridiculous. We need higher rates in higher brackets like over 1 million.

 

[iguanaman]

yes exactly so you agree that founders would have opposed always growing power of liberal aristocracy?? Isn't thinking fun??

The aristocracy of capital is what we need to reign in now. We cannot let the wealthy control us any more than we would the "landed gentry" back in their day. The founders did not believe in inherited wealth and felt all estates should be confiscated upon the owners death.

Estate tax and the founding fathers: You can't take it with you | The Economist