turning the world Greek

[archytas]

A common phrase in my childhood when we couldn't understand something
was 'it's all Greek to me'. Greece, Spain, Portugal and Italy are all
Euro periphery nations now on the brink of collapse. I've been trying
to explain what's going on in a series of lectures recently. I start
from the premise that economics is all Greek to me. This is some
combination of me not understanding the muck and my belief that what
it's all about is a politburo imposing the Greek fate on us all.
Michael Hudson has written extensively on this.

Most of us can't debate economics because we can't get our attitudes
out of the Idols that generate our 'understanding'. I usually start
with a few questions about debt and what money is. It's rare anyone
has much sensible to say on either, let alone knowledge of the history
on might find in, say, David Graeber's 'Debt: the first 5000 years' or
Paul Ormerod's 'Dr Strangelove's Game'. I veer off a little and
explain that when I started university teaching, you could base a
course on text like this aiming at truth than than quantitative
manipulation. These days, education has shifted towards producing
technocrats with instantly transferable job skills. Teaching doesn't
get much further than compiling and manipulating spreadsheets.

Ask yourself who owns the debt, what is its size in comparison with
the productive economy. The answers are startling, but less so than
the general ignorance in which we have been educated not to know. I
test the latter with a bit of computerised button-pushing before I
start.

The debt is several times the productive economy - or rather the
consuming economy. It's owned, in the main, by a small number of
people through stock markets and bonds (bonds are much bigger than
shares these days). As few as 92,000 people own most of it around the
world. These are the politburo or alien lizards who run the show.

I venture off into some Thorstein Veblen and a book on Germany and the
world wars by an Italian - 'Conjuring Hitler'. This is really to show
that current economics isn't new at all. I run through some economic
modelling and then ask what results we'd get if we designed our
spreadsheets from history rather than theory, including a turn on
delta, gamma and Poisson leap hedging.

My last question is 'where did the money go'? You see, all the
spreadsheets work, but they don't show what money is or where it ends
up. Something called the Cantillon effect helps here. Money is
effectively 'radioactive' and the plan worldwide Greek. We cut
schools, police and welfare services and the money goes to a rich
oligarchy who fund our politics, destroying the hope of democracy.
Viewed as a physical system, economics is a control system that uses
more resources in control than in production. We don't go for this in
science, except in highly complex experiments as at CERN and
Fermilab. The essence of economics is a plot by a government of he
rich to own everything and rent it back to us. This is the essential
Greek model.

It's easy enough to get to this stage. The arguments can be made very
accurately. This is only stage one. Underlying the argument are the
Idols - complex soaked-up collective ignorance that actually prevent
economics as a science and our recognition that finance is a
complicated, religious control fraud (Veblen comes free on the Net).

Lecture two starts with the question 'what is our evidence that
private sector disciplines work better than the public sector and if
so, why is the private sector so interested in running the public
sector rather than producing radical, innovative, better
alternatives'? This is something of a Wittgensteinian turn as I think
organisation itself is misunderstood in private versus public sector
debate. Underlying this is the ideology of meritocracy and its
contradictions that money buys unfair advantage and wealth results in
rents the rest of us pay.

Is your country turning Greek?

[andrew vecsey]

Very interesting post. In simplified terms, we are all playing monopoly. Unfortunately the player operating the bank is also playing and is monopolizing the entire game ruining the game for everyone. The rules we play under make the game less than fun, No start up money for most new players, players cheating, stealing, and breaking the rules,  and players who quit the game giving everything they have to whoever they want. With all the properties already taken, the game is no longer fun to play.

[Francis Hunt]

It's a rigged game, Neil, with rigged rules, from beginning to end. One of the excellent points made by Graeber is how little of that which is really important to us in life lets itself be quantified in monetary/economic terms; things like love, honesty, beauty, trust. Trust ... ? The strange thing is that any monetary system is based on trust - yet what exemplifies the current financial roulette systems which dominate the global and national "markets" is a complete lack of trust. He who trusts will be conned.

The system is rotten, played to the advantage of the 1% (or the 0.001% globally). Unfortunately we are all caught up in it, are dependent on it, suffer from it (or even - in the case of those of us living in the rich countries - occasionally profit from it). There are plenty of models for ways of doing things differently. What I can't see - without systemic breakdown and the immeasurable suffering and death of tens, even hundreds of millions - is how to move from where we are now to where we could be. In my more pessimistic moments, I fear that this systemic collapse is probably inevitably imminent anyhow.  

--

--
Francis Hunt
http://francishunt.blogspot.de/

[Vam]

Neil, 'many likes' and 'much love' ... for bringing this crux to focus.

Fran, you hit it on the head about our times.

Maybe, Don will take it forward with his passionate disputation.

The puppeteers have "unlocked" the value, they say. 

Means, people have been effectively harnessed into the system which reaps the 'value' they create in a high-GINI hierarchical structure, in which too they are made to pay for their needs at costs that leave them poor. Except for the smart few who agree to actions they might be indicted by law for or stoned to gore by the people !

The whole of education serves to provide an inexhaustible stream of such 'whizkids.' The entire environment is made subtly captive with massive obfuscation of meaning, PR, propaganda, paid media and editorials, legislatures and senates, and 'iconic' bizwigs.

And people... remember, most of them are too taken up with survival and 'upward mobility' !

[Allan H]

Welcome back Andrew it is nice to read you contributing and I do agree with you.

Allan

--
 
 
 

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|_D Allan

Life is for moral, ethical and truthful living.

I am a natural Airgunner -

 Full of Hot Air & Ready To Expel It Quickly.

I Am A Natural AirGunner  -  Full Of Hot Air & Ready To Expel It Quickly!

[rigsy03]

What makes you think the public sector can run the private sector? As
in the past, the two are often in oppostion. Again, just make some
historical substitutions.

There are systems of meritocracy that work. The military is one
example but there are others. Merit is not always measured by
financial gain.

Wealth can only buy "so much" of an advantage- the rest is up to
character.

The private sector probably works harder because they can see/use the
rewards whereas the public sector is hamstrung and dependent on others/
policy/elections. (Rat/mouse experiments.)

What is misunderstood is the concept of Democracy- which was a very
controlled system in ancient Greece. America has become the symbol of
Democracy but there is much misunderstanding about individual and
group rights. We offer the opportunity to suceed which is not the same
as a free ride.

Who has set up the systems that control personal/national finances?
Sometimes individuals but usually with the permission and regulation
of the government- which was once controlled by the Papacy, for
instance, and some may now be controlled by Islam or other strict
"isms".

"Rents" are the price one pays to live in a society. (Even apps are
leased and cannot be transferred.)

At any rate, few systems survive with an empty treasury/debts that
soar above GDP.

If voters want to be dazzled rather than directed they will continue
to vote for entertainers rather than managers.

[archytas]

For once rigsy I don't think you grasp any of the point. I certainly
don't want to see the public sector running the private sector. We
mostly nationalised over here because the private sector wasn't
working and it's difficult to find evidence that privatisation has
worked. I use Andrew's 'Monopoly' to explain the focus on finance.
Most of it is unnecessary and at odds with the cost-cutting of
efficient business. It's also a form of taxation without
representation. About 92,000 people own most of the Earth. You are
right, of course, that democracy is something we have wrong.

Pr[T < 1 T < 1] = O, O - 1 (F (1), O -1 (F(1), y would be the Gaussian
copula derivatives trading is based on if I had the right symbols. It
was produced by Dr Li who is back in China. It's nonsense as science
- what we call a scalar in maths. Joseph Farrell even suggests it
might be a red plot in 'Babylon's Banksters'. The maths is churned
out like religious liturgy and yet is as flawed as working out our
weekly budgets using income we make up rather than receive. It's
alchemy.

[rigsy03]

Maybe. I'll admit spreadsheets are a mystery- my notion is changing
the bed linens.

England lost most of a generation in WWI and her empire at the end of
WWII. How does this impact your theory? Your losses were America's
gain.

92,000 people are a leap forward from past controls and ownership.

Taxation has never been "fair", has it? The best I can do is consider
them a form of charity at best and human corruption at worst.

Economics cannot be approached without considering the social demands/
changes- particularly of the 20th C.

And who is buying the abandoned vast estates? Setting the socio-
economic markers?

Yes- it's alchemy- another branch of fantastic belief systems with its
own language and methods similar to a liturgy.

And tecnology has become so user friendly it's like we have been
lulled away by the Pied Pipers of Silicon Valley.

> > > Is your country turning Greek?- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

[archytas]

That's more like it rigsy. I think we have to avoid the 'same old
answers'. Some of the literature runs to likely fantasy. David Li,
the man behind the financial application of the Gaussian copula is
portrayed as Tong-Triad connected because of his name (etc.) Much is
made of Adam Smith's thought experiment on 'barter to money' and that
the practical incidence of this is 0% in societies studied by
anthropologists. Economics is full of assumptions that are probably
wrong.
Something Vam often says about 'learned authority' is right - there is
too much of "Wittgenstein 1958" around to prove oneself erudite rather
than shorthand for 'you can read the argument yourself - to do so
here would delay mine in old ground'. Spreadsheets manipulate
numbers, but underlying this one is manipulating relationships between
numbers and what they represent. You don't get many undergraduates
into the second part and very few into the last.

If you call something given number value in a spreadsheet 'money' (in
chemistry we called stuff colour, spin, charge and a host of other
names) and whatever money is is actually very variable, it's likely
the number value won't work as you hope. In many respects, I'd say
Wittgenstein was right we should look at definitions in practice or
use. The money that left the Weimar and Hitler's Germany (or more
recently by truck load from Argentina) is not the same as the stuff we
pay our grocery bills with. The men buying Mexican prostitutes in New
York with 'money' aren't doing the same as we do with the stuff
either. What has money become when its being used to buy politics?
Money from vice, rackets and other forms of business and financial
theft and fraud is indistinguishable from anything derived from fair
toil thanks to the banks. This, of course, is only the beginning of
the deconstruction. My hope would be we could complete this process
and reassemble the spreadsheet.

On might say our governments are buying the abandoned estates. TARP
and QE have inflated stock and bond markets and this protects vast
claimed investment in derivatives. Smart money is in cash or liquid
assets waiting for the fire sale. The Bilderburgers ave already
bought themselves a vast Greek retreat.

Sub-atomic particles have charge, colour, strangeness, up, down, top,
bottom, spin, charm (labels) and I'm pretty sure we could devise a
complex notion of money that told us a lot more about its role in the
world. Half-a-million Indian farmers committed suicide in the last
decade because of usury. Micro credit schemes are being used in the
Yemen to steal farmers' land. The Enclosures go on.

[rigsy03]

Thank you for a clear and beautifully written post, Archytas. It may
penetrate my understanding/ignorance. Is this like a system of keeping
double books for the mob bosses? Yes- some of economics is theoretical
to the point of fantasy/magical thinking- at least to me- but then my
understanding of the hard sciences has been translated to practical
applications in real life/time. (Your mysterious formula versus my
recipe for blueberry pie, I was thinking yesterday.) Anyway, we do
need to figure out a common system somehow with trustworthy stewards
so that we are prepared/eager to accept, participate and sacrifice, if
necessary. It is strange how money affects even the family unit and is
blistered with emotions, memories, self-worth, etc. Will think more on
this...

> ...
>
> read more »- Hide quoted text -

[gabbydott]

People being too taken up with survival and 'homeward mobility' to
want to listen to the wise men's advises and sermons coined the
corresponding German idiom which literally translates: To understand
only train station
(http://german.about.com/od/idiomsandproverbs/a/German-Expression-Nur-Bahnhof-Verstehen.htm).
German WW I soldiers did the Odysseus thing and put wax in their ears.

Now, what exactly do you have to do in order to not mistake the
messenger for his message? You need to know how the distillation
process works! Repeating or pushing up what the seemingly best has
said and loading it up with your own history only fosters the
development of the fool's gold production technique.

If you use fear as a transport means for your message instead of using
it as a catalyst for progress, I'd call this a systemic misucation of
fear that you are propagating. The system is rotting, let's rot the
next!

> --
>
>
>

[archytas]

The problem is that once the government or the rulers gain control of
money, it progressively ceases to be a medium of exchange and becomes
a medium of control. That impinges on the functioning of markets which
in turn impinges on the maintenance of property rights. Thus, we come
full circle from a free society to a command society. There has never
been any shortage of those who want to rule. The problem has always
been with the vast majority who are content to be ruled. Today’s
global outcry for the manufacturing of more and more “money” out of
thin air is an eloquent testimony. It shows that most people have no
understanding of freedom, markets or money. Lacking such understanding
- and having no desire to gain it - most people have accepted
government as their masters.

As Robert Heinlein stated the problem - it is impossible to free a
serf or a slave. He or she must free themselves and most are much more
terrified of that prospect than they are resentful of being ruled.
Sometimes Gabbers sounds like one of those women who sit around
looking pretty John Cheever used to write about. I know she isn't, a
matter for taking either way and one end against the other. The
Germans have no sense of humour we Anglo-Saxons can understand because
it just isn't funny kind thing. I too am part post-modern text
engine. Did you know we are probably 'related' Gabs? A whole pile of
your guys invaded Scotland with farming about 3000 years ago. It
seems the Germans are responsible not only for bad opera and the
interminable Mahler, but also porridge.

The blueberry pie is spot on rigsy - even if you give me the recipe
I'll probably foul-up the cooking. Much complexity in maths comes
down to formulating the sum so we can count - the modern solution to
Fermat's last theorem is an example, however cunning. My suspicion is
there is no pie to bake with the arguments about. Wittgenstein used
to take apparently very different arguments and show they were based
on what in my everyday I'd call the same shit. No doubt some would
prefer 'root metaphor'. This is merely an application of set theory,
and eventually leads to the notion the universe is just the history of
an electron over time, or Barthes' idea text is all about seduction.

My suspicion is we are lost in world-views of the slave and serf -
though I don't end up as a libertarian. Most people don't work very
hard. Otherwise my novel will sell in millions (it's finally at the
agent's - friends will be able to download it free at some point).
Most people, in academic terms, can't "read". Even I don't do
'misucation'! Though I note it may be more descriptive than ejucation
on the forced processes of childhood. I don't just think money has
become the means of control - the whole process of making argument
accessible to only a few is part of that spreadsheet.

Trying to get people to do things as a manager or teacher often left
me feeling it is cruel to have to do such work unarmed. These days I
think we'd be better off with a less gruesome system than money-
misucation that kills and impoverishes in millions to deal with
laziness. Anyone else hate teenagers? They are lazy, dirty, loud,
littering scum. I even had to take my grandson and his two mates to
Blackpool Pleasure Beach - the notion of just going on the train was
beyond them. We even have to force people to be clean. No amount of
soldierly ear-wax is going to stop me getting a hygiene message
thought of someone I have to share the intimacy of a tank with.
Deontological liberalism won't do Gabby.

On 3 Sep, 13:09, gabbydott <gabbyd...@gmail.com> wrote:
> People being too taken up with survival and 'homeward mobility' to
> want to listen to the wise men's advises and sermons coined the
> corresponding German idiom which literally translates: To understand
> only train station

> (http://german.about.com/od/idiomsandproverbs/a/German-Expression-Nur-...).

[Vam]

Delighted...with the expose. Sincerely wish "A Short History Of Wealth and Corruption, Money And Control" sees the light of the day. It's the 21st Century thing that's missing... and you have it pretty sorted out. Put out more of it here, as cues you could expand in the essays proper. I could off a compilation on the web, if you and Fran are okay with it.

[Vam]

[Vam]

I sense you've thrown the Ayn Rand baby away. But there are places she discusses money and how it is an expression of value, how it represents honest work, and why it deserves to be trashed when it accrues on account of efforts that are corrupt or valueless.

[Allan H]

I have been reading this posting  oddly I am lost, I know there needs to be a solution.. But I do not have any ideas..  

Allan

On Mon, Sep 3, 2012 at 8:09 PM, Vam <atewa...@gmail.com> wrote:

I sense you've thrown the Ayn Rand baby away. But there are places she discusses money and how it is an expression of value, how it represents honest work, and why it deserves to be trashed when it accrues on account of efforts that are corrupt or valueless.

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 (

  )

|_D Allan

Life is for moral, ethical and truthful living.

I am a Natural Airgunner -

[archytas]

The problem is the business as usual solutions don't and can't work.
We hear stuff like bringing jobs back - but technology has changed so
much that what might once ave created 3000 jobs is now a factory run
by 100 people minding clever machines. We have been sending over half
our kids to university for a long time now - even China has a big
problem with low paid white collar workers with degrees (called the
Ant People). The investment in education still seems sound to most,
but it's not and is diverted from elsewhere. The world's highest
value company on market capitalisation makes toys.

My guess is the problem starts with our attitude towards work and
stealing other people's effort. I believe this is as mad as, say,
societies that slaughtered their own teenagers to satisfy fertility
gods. The problem is that we need guaranteed work programmes as a
means to share created wealth and duties to each other AND some means
through which this isn't some kind of horrible control system. For
every answer there are 'Gabby objections' (no doubt I can produce
more). About half he youth of Europe is unemployed. There is work to
do, but surely trying to turn everyone into a Santa's elf producing
neater mobile toys can;t help.

I'm led to believe deep confusion in our ideologies almost
automatically produces non-answers.

On 3 Sep, 20:09, Allan H <allanh1...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I have been reading this posting  oddly I am lost, I know there needs to be
> a solution.. But I do not have any ideas..
> Allan
>

[Francis Hunt]

Maybe a possible beginning to change lies in a general societal shift in the way we see wealth and those who amass it. Rather than according them adulation, we should perhaps work on spreading the view that such people are necessarily morally deficient in some way. People in the possession of millions must have achieved this at the cost of the suffering of others - if not legally, then morally.

This kind of attitude would then regard all those who work in banking and the so-called "financial services" with a mixture of pity and distain; people doing a distasteful job which, unfortunately, may be necessary given the way we run things - a bit like the way we would think about people who clean sewers; something someone has to do, perhaps, but nothing that anyone decent would want to do.

The good opinion of one's fellows is a major aspect of our societal relations. To stop envying and praising the rich and instead begin pitying and despising them might be a start.

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[Allan H]

Yes I agree Neil  the factory that is being run by mindful machines needs to be paying for the 2900 workers that they displace.. We both know wealth does not want that.

I can not help but think a sub economy is developing that will not be so rediliy effected by banksters and wealth and the isolation will turn around. to were wealth will be isolated and ignored by the masses.

Allan

[gabbydott]

What I mean by misucation is, don't you u me, without knowing where I
am coming from. The kind of bias training that you are suggesting here
is historically not new. Neil will give you the details.

> --
>
>
>

[rigsy03]

The triumph of the machine was anticipated by Veblen, wasn't it? (What
a strange man, however.) This opens the gap between human
responsibilty/ethics and an amoral machine. Not only in finance but
manufacture and marketing, the machine trumps the businessman/farmer/
medicine- well, everything. We have a new social network/contract as
well as fertile ground for misinformation and surveilance.

> >  Full of Hot Air & Ready To Expel It Quickly.- Hide quoted text -

[rigsy03]

Perhaps part of the distain felt for messy motherhood, as well.
However, I would say that the poor and middle class want to be rich
even though they are held back from such an existence. One only has to
observe the copy-cat motives in slick media and advertising- and
politics. Politicians and war-hawks cause as much grief as those who
manipulate the financial system. The problem is that wealth trumps
just about everything to a certain point- ruin and/or death.

On Sep 3, 9:57 pm, Francis Hunt <francis.h...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Maybe a possible beginning to change lies in a general societal shift in
> the way we see wealth and those who amass it. Rather than according them
> adulation, we should perhaps work on spreading the view that such people
> are necessarily morally deficient in some way. People in the possession of
> millions must have achieved this at the cost of the suffering of others -
> if not legally, then morally.
>
> This kind of attitude would then regard all those who work in banking and
> the so-called "financial services" with a mixture of pity and distain;
> people doing a distasteful job which, unfortunately, may be necessary given
> the way we run things - a bit like the way we would think about people who
> clean sewers; something someone has to do, perhaps, but nothing that anyone
> decent would want to do.
>
> The good opinion of one's fellows is a major aspect of our societal
> relations. To stop envying and praising the rich and instead begin pitying
> and despising them might be a start.
>

> Francis Hunthttp://francishunt.blogspot.de/- Hide quoted text -

[rigsy03]

The new middle class in China is starving for luxury goods.

>  Full of Hot Air & Ready To Expel It Quickly.- Hide quoted text -

[archytas]

There are many calls for a fresh start.

"Sadly, in this banana republic which employs such banana agencies as
the SEC to do the bidding of the banana elite that matters: not
democrats, not republicans, but Wall Street's banks full of money
(most of it from the trillions in 2008/9 taxpayer funded bailouts),
nothing will ever change, until the next and final crash wipes out
everything with it and forces the system to start afresh. Only by
eliminating the status quo, its insidious tentacles, and the enture
existing generation of corrupt, criminal, co-opted regulators, can
there be a chance to restore some semblance of fair and efficient
markets.

Until then, enjoy the farce of the broken Wall Street casino until
trading volumes finally hit zero. It won't be long. At that point it
will be too late"

This particular one is from the libertarian end (Zerohedge) - the
people who want capitalism back. The 'left' tends to agree. I tend
to think such 'answers' are right on the assumptions of corruption but
lack grasp of what being human could be about. We have little clue
about such matters as how much work we need to do to sensibly maintain
the collective and individual freedom. Instead, we have ideologies
like work ethic and entrepreneurial innovation. In more than 2000
years since the Athenian Democracy we have come up with little that
prevents wealth buying votes and securing a place at the rarefied free
table for only a few.

Wittgenstein pointed out that philosophers discuss much the same old
rot as Plato and hence a turn to how language bewitches us is needed.
Actually, Plato made a similar point and Francis Bacon's Idols are a
classic example. In a way were are bewitched by lies and lying makes
language almost impenetrable. We are essentially animal and my own
guess is that we lack much understanding of this and the extended
phenotype. We don't think animal hierarchies are the result of social
planning and I guess we don't understand much about how our own come
about. Communism had a classic contradiction in centralising wealth
as state capitalism and its Utopian statement that the state would
wither away.

Rigsy talks fairly often about a happy medium and I often think of
this as a spreadsheet - though my background with them goes back to
chemistry and statistical process control rather than finance. Most
of us a familiar with simple experiments like heating stuff in a test-
tube with a Bunsen. In more complex processes we often want to
control ten variables to get the outcome we want. Financial systems
that leave the one percenters with nearly all the product of effort
remind me of out of control experiments or production processes. In
Africa, farming is often reduced to subsistence only because are
production that can't be hidden will be stolen. I suspect
deregulation (some of which, when one thinks of red tape, must be
good) is just an example of a system out of control. We have the
design wrong.

[archytas]

I think at bottom we still live with a slave mentality. I have no
truck with Nietzsche's ubermensch, but rather a system of control of
leadership excess. I would over-turn employment relationships in
favour of collectives and collegiality. To try stuff like this we
need to recognise that human beings cheat and that there is behaviour
we can't tolerate. We have to try to create a freedom that is also
freedom from the worst of others. The record of people in power isn't
good, but we paint history as though it is. The BBC and even Channel
4 keep presenting he same old dross on Kings and Queens, Churchill,
Hitler and the rest. In science, Horizon keeps presenting 'brand new'
particle physics I was taught as an undergraduate forty years ago.

The truth is probably that we are stuck in out-dated beliefs. We get
people telling us we need to return to the entrepreneurial spirit of
Victorian times - child and forced labour? We need to know more about
a genuine history of emancipation.

[Allan H]

Of course we are all stuck Neil  it it profitable for the rich, banksters and politicians why change?

Until we kill them all there will be no change..  LOL did I include the churches?

Allan

[rigsy03]

How does a Hegelian relationship between unequals figure into this?
Dug out an interview with Elfriede Jelinek though I haven't read her
books. <http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/21/magazine/21QUESTIONS.html>
Sexual and financial politics are probably related more than we
admit.//Anyway, I really do try to keep an "open mind" (though is can
get drafty, at times) so it was good to read you think I try for the
happy medium. There may be too much information stored in the wrong
compartments!

> > > - Show quoted text -- Hide quoted text -

[Vam]

I must recall that we are a result of 4 billion years of evolutionary success and, that, we do not act like one !

[archytas]

We know pretty concretely now, rigsy, that psychopaths usually have
screwed communication between parts of the brain. Everything seems
relational, but it's rare we see arguments that relate facts. I
watched Clinton last night and he was awesome. Yet how old was
Monica? Who was responsible for the control fraud deregulation of
finance (etc)?

Matt Stoller had this to say on the relations between Democrat
promises in 200 8 and reality.
#

Here’s a list of some of the broken promises from 2008.

We will strengthen the ability of workers to organize unions and fight
to pass the Employee Free Choice Act.

This did not happen. The labor law never passed.


We will ensure that federal employees, including public safety
officers who put their lives on the line every day, have the right to
bargain collectively, and we will fix the broken bargaining process at
the Federal Aviation Administration.


Nope.


We will fight to ban the permanent replacement of striking workers, so
that workers can stand up for themselves without worrying about losing
their livelihoods.

Nope.


We will also ensure that every American worker is able earn up to
seven paid sick days to care for themselves or an ill family member.


Nope.


To help workers share in our country’s productivity, we’ll expand the
Earned Income Tax Credit, and raise the minimum wage and index it to
inflation.


Didn’t happen. And the minimum wage hike is actually in the 2012
platform, again.




We will encourage diversity in the ownership of broadcast media,
promote the development of new media outlets for expression of diverse
viewpoints, and clarify the public interest obligations of
broadcasters who occupy the nation’s spectrum.

Well, Comcast did buy NBC.


We will ensure that the foreclosure prevention program enacted by
Congress is implemented quickly and effectively so that at-risk
homeowners can get help and hopefully stay in their homes. We will
work to reform bankruptcy laws to restore balance between lender and
homeowner rights.


Larry Summers and Tim Geithner opposed cramdown, so it didn’t happen.
And I think it’s safe to say that foreclosure prevention was not a
priority for this administration.


We will work with Canada and Mexico to amend the North American Free
Trade Agreement so that it works better for all three North American
countries.

Nope.




We will put all non-emergency bills that Congress has passed online
for five days, to allow the American public to review and comment on
them before they are signed into law.

Nope.


We will require Cabinet officials to have periodic national online
town hall meetings to discuss issues before their agencies.


Nope.


We reject illegal wiretapping of American citizens, wherever they
live.


“Obama Fights to Retain Warrantless Wiretapping“.


We reject the use of national security letters to spy on citizens who
are not suspected of a crime.
Nope.


We reject the tracking of citizens who do nothing more than protest a
misguided war.


Nope.


We reject sweeping claims of “inherent” presidential power.

Nope.


And we will ensure that law-abiding Americans of any origin, including
Arab-Americans and Muslim- Americans, do not become the scapegoats of
national security fears.

Nope.


We will respect the time-honored principle of habeas corpus, the seven
century-old right of individuals to challenge the terms of their own
detention that was recently reaffirmed by our Supreme Court.


Nope.


These aren’t just broken promises, these are all broken promises that
have to do with the economic and political rights of the relatively
powerless. Privacy, union rights, debtor’s rights, activist rights,
etc – they were promised tangible stuff, and didn’t get it. It looks
like the Obama campaign will get a bounce from the convention, because
the convention is well-organized and a good show. Just recognize that
this show in 2008 had nothing to do with the ultimate policy that was
enacted, and it’s likely that the 2012 convention will see a similar
outcome.

I paste this as someone ho thinks the GOP is lunatic - less than 5% of
scientists vote Republican. Labour in the UK is as bad as Obama-
Clinton. I think what I meant by turning Greek is the shattering of
the labour-spread of wealth compact and the debasing of non-elite
freedoms. I was never a close reader of Hegel - some awful dross on
seven as 'god's magic number' put me off. The big idea is history
teaches us something - but the question of what history is the real
problem, just as any focus on language is meaningless without
awareness of how much of it is deception and compromise. I was a
union man as an academic, but always despised the self-interested
focus.

The biggest 'unions' today are professional groups like banksters,
lawyers, doctors and accountants. An old Spanish poet and philosopher
Ortega Y Gassett once said Nazism reversed persuasion - coercion -
violence and what facilitates this is debasing points of resistance
like unions and worker solidarity. I can no more be pro old fashioned
unions (or their professional equivalents) than pro abortion, but I
can believe in proper representation of all decent rights and a
woman's choice.

Exposing workers to Chinese serf wages is not an economic answer to
anything and I suspect its based in hatred. Liberalism often seems to
pussy-footing to me (though our female cat has a habit of seizing my
hand in claws as she is smoothed to apparent ecstasy) in respect of
justice. In test-tube baby work, they may fertilise 6 eggs in vitro.
Only two can be chosen for implant (I'm not sure this is law,
resourcing or both). Ask yourself which eggs you would choose if you
knew 4 of them likely to develop painful disability? There is no
complete answer, but in practice I'm going to choose the healthier
suspects. My guess is we face something similar in labour
organisation and reward/benefits - we evade the real issues in favour
of cracker-barrel ideologies - the social theory of disability being
the example in moral choice in the in-vitro conundrum. There are hard
choices.






Read more at http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/09/broken-democratic-platform-promises-from-2008.html#uH786Wt1KucHtCZc.99

[archytas]

Jennifer Hornsby also deploys speech act theory to explain how
pornography silences women. According to Hornsby, pornographic
materials reinforce ideas about women that deprive their utterances of
their ordinary illocutionary meaning (Hornsby 1995, 227). For example,
pornographic works may convey the idea that the women which men find
sexy are eager to satisfy their sexual appetites, so that when these
women say “no,” their utterance constitutes not an act of refusal but
an act of teasing. In this way, pornography reinforces social codes
that allow men to systematically misread and discount women's speech.
Women may be silenced, then, not by having their speech suppressed but
by changes to the background conditions necessary for successful
speech acts, such as refusal. If pornography interferes with the
ability of women to communicate, then women cannot contest the harm of
pornography with more speech, but only by suppressing pornographic
materials.
Hornsby, J., 1995, “Speech Acts and Pornography,” in The Problem of
Pornography, S. Dwyer (ed.), Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing
Company.




Hegel was waffling on (Phenomenology of Spirit) about the social
construction of self-awareness, as is the above.  Our cultural
construction rarely satisfies me.  Type "scat sex" into Google and be
appalled.  My own book explores rigsy's theme that sexual and
financial politics are related more than we admit.  I tend to
biological explanations and the idea we don't have to be constrained
to them.  The moral issue seems to me to be about what one becomes in
asking anyone else to be a slave.  I think we find this in teaching
relationships where essays on content and process work motivation are
set rather than allowing students to assess their own experience.
 I've seen this captured in several Chinese films where the son wants
to be an artist but the mother wants him to slave away doing the
esoteric exams of the State bureaucracy.

> Read more athttp://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/09/broken-democratic-platform-pro...

> ...
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[archytas]

One might say, in politics, the way real argument is silenced is done
by argument itself - almost in the 'does he take sugar?' sense of our
treatment of disabled people. Methinks the lady does protest too much
is hardly new thinking and it's mostly women buying Fifty Shades of
Grey. Quite why anyone would want to base the notion a woman saying
no is teasing on pornography (or any of the idiot romance movies) or
other idols of gossip is beyond me. I feel much the same way about
the politics in which we insist on great leaders and economic
pathology. I wonder what the category of 'men' used by women like
Hornsby is - I never know what is going on in sexual encounter much
beyond wanting to exclude violence from it. I think economics would
benefit from this rule too.

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[archytas]

I came across another form of Greek today. I retain a bit of interest
in the philosophy of science and read the odd original paper. There's
one here that challenges Einstein, though compared to his classics
from 1905, this one is written in modern mathematical Greek -
http://arxiv.org/pdf/1206.5078v2.pdf

The basic ruse of the paper is that Einstein worked without dark
energy and dark matter. This paper is largely what the maths works
out as if we include them. Dark energy and matter are still big 'what
ifs'. I suspect the equations will put off most in here. I can write
economics that looks like this paper - though I assure everyone I
don't.Tian Ma and Shouhong Wang's maths seems to work (I checked with
a couple of old friends who would know). The new energy they suggest
may give us a new theory of gravity. They also suggest conservation
of momentum may not be true for ordinary matter.

I have never found any of the scientific rigour of papers like this
and their reception in science in economics. Money has never
interested me much, partly because I see it connected with dominance
and don't believe this is good for anyone. I might not be too
bothered that a small number can be rich, but the 'equations' of this
involve how that wealth comes back to bite me. If the rich could
respect my rights as an equal this wouldn't matter. Current economics
doesn't works (however much maths used) by excluding most of what we
observe from relevance. It produces 'engines' through which to
observe the world (which is what Ma and Wang do) that cannot account
for real data. More than half Greek youth is unemployed, but kids all
over are in useless education and training schemes. We should
recognise he dark matter of economics and start again on the theory.
To be honest wouldn't bother - I just go with a moral solution on
full employment, a ban on usury and wealth restrictions to change
politics.

> ...
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[rigsy03]

I would hate to have anyone get the idea that I was referring to
psychopathy. (Must I use a :-)?). There are positive and negative
"compartments" that we use for many different reasons. Facts and logic
are parts, certainly.

One could see the feminine as the weak- in political and economic
terms. I must have remembered Hegel's influence upon Marx though it
has been a very long time since those readings and courses. I still
have the books- the pages have yellowed and the print grown smaller.
Odd how our books are doing a slow burn...

Well, Clinton and Obama both employ the speech tactics of preachers
but if I want a sermon I can go to church. Maybe that's what you mean
by "awesome".

Though it has popped up before, we are engaged in a struggle between
capitalism/individual rights and socialism/welfare state/government
control. But you know that. :-)

> Read more athttp://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/09/broken-democratic-platform-pro...

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[rigsy03]

We have evolved in many ways but certain behaviors repeat through the
centuries.

"Man makes his own history, but he does not make it out of whole
cloth; he does not make it out of conditions chosen by himself, but
out of such as he finds close at hand. The tradition of all past
generations weighs like a nightmare upon the brain of the living."
"The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte" By Karl Marx from "The
Communist Manifesto"- Marx and Engels- ed. Samuel H. Beer- Crofts
Classics- New York- 1955--p.48

[Don Johnson]

Wonderful to see the old crew at work talking about something I'm
hugely interested in. I can't wait to read your book archy. Be sure to
set up a website so you can sell signed copies. I'm going to be all
over it.

My aunt and uncle were just in London recently and I told them "to
avoid the chavs." Youngsters here are pretty much the same. Just read
a bio on George Washington and it was amusing to read some of his
letters to his adoptive son's school master and others bemoaning his
charge's lack of ambition and disgusting personal conduct. The more
things change the more us humans never do. I, of course, was a model
adolescent that never got into trouble. Ahem.

I've been focused on my country's choice of leader of late.
Conventions and what not. Folks talking alot and saying less then
nothing except basically "My opponent sucks ass." Well, they have
others do it for them but it's the same.

Yeah, y'all are stuck with the dollar. I know it gives us the
advantage in some respects but if the trend of downsizing our military
continues I suspect Fran's more pessimistic fears may come to pass.
This is in no ones best interest except the crazy Anarchists. The
eternal optimist in me suspects that with a little government show or
restraint(stop hemmorhaging my hard earned cash) folks(including the
much maligned .01 percenters) will be more willing to pay up to start
paying down the debt. We don't need another Terror. No thank you. I
happen to really like most rich people and would prefer to not see
thier heads removed from their bodies.

As usual I read nothing in your posts about the problems we face that
I disagree with. It's only when we talk about solutions that we
differ. I see massive fraud here in the USA. Everybody wants their
turn on the tit and those that have been on the longest are the
hardest to drag off. Incidentally I just watched Cinderella Man about
John Braddock's heavy weight fight. This was back in the Depression
when folks were shamed about taking public asistance. Now, folks brag
about how much they get. The Culture has changed somewhat and short of
censorship(which I hate) I haven't a clue how to fix it.

I hope to find some time Sunday to delve into this topic further and
perhaps be more careful to spell better(no speel check) and not
over-use parenthisis. I was a lazy child in English class.

dj

> --
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>

[gabbydott]

I am missing +Molly in this thread here. Molly, what do YOU think, the
language that the world is talking in is turning into? How much more
does the image of Clinton and Obama embracing each other count
compared to all the nope-facts that have been listed here? Ain't that
a show with the quality of Shakespearian dramaturgy, being able to
keep the Dark Lady at bay? Connectivism yes, with the right
connectors? Do you see where I see you coming in?

> --
>
>
>

[archytas]

Wasn't the Dark Lady a young bloke?

I think we know that the answer has to do with a fair work deal and
cutting corruption. I'm not sure we understand how disruptive the
rich are and the extent of modern fealty relations. We need to stop
all the hard work nonsense without giving up to free-loaders and
criminals. Race to the bottom competition is the big problem.

> ...
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[rigsy03]

A couple of random thougts: "awesome" tactics brought to mind Budd
Schulbergs's "A Face in the Crowd" based on his story, "Your Arkansas
Traveler"- however, you would have been five years old at the time of
this movie.//Also, somewhere I heard or read that the major factor in
condemning homes was actually due to unpaid property taxes, therefore
a government decision, and I believe the banks are still stuck with
rotten mortgages.

On Sep 6, 11:24 am, archytas <nwte...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Read more athttp://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/09/broken-democratic-platform-pro...

> ...
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> read more »- Hide quoted text -

[Don Johnson]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEmJ-VWPDM4

 

Instead of the lost gf this confused and institutionalized young man is lamenting in the above classic what we are suffering from is the loss of JOBS and what we are turning into is, unfortunately, Greece. While our economic system could definitely use an enema the real problem is more personal. We, as a society, want more then we have. We have no problem with borrowing to get it and in most cases have no problem with mortgaging our children's future for that new car or widescreen TV today. Perhaps this is because we don't understand the capital eroding effects of QE or the destruction of our global credit that huge debt brings. Perhaps we wouldn't care anyway. Like the dude from NETWORK; I'm mad. However, barring cataclysmic change along the lines of alien invasion or zombie attack I will continue to take it because I see nothing else that will work better. We can't stop borrowing or even slow it down during this Great Recession without huge fallout. China continues to buy our debt to avoid aforementioned invasion/attack senarios. We are all connected. The USA's Great Leader ignored global economic disaster in favor of massive entitlement increases. The world now reaps the rewards of such insight.

 

This is what needs doing.

 

1)Fund training programs to get today's youth making money. Total Education Reform is required eventually to start teaching our little cherubs how to earn a living instead of teaching them to be good little Marxists and Leninists. Our government run education system is a huge failure with a capital F. We need to move away from the notion of saving Teacher's Jobs and focus on educating children in the most efficient and economical way. We need fewer but better teachers. I'm appalled by some of the attitudes of some of the so-called "educators" I come across on the internet. I wouldn't want these miscreants anywhere near my child. I applaud child labor. Builds character. Who else is going to fit down the chimney? -jk, no dangerous jobs allowed.

 

2)Increase financing to small businesses. Regulation has strangled borrowing opportunities. It takes money to expand and hire new employees and the banks aren't loaning. It takes money to make money. Reduce the number of hoops one must jump through to start a business.

 

3)LOWER TAXES AND MAKE IT PERMANENT. Along with this we must remove various/sundry perks and subsidies and credits and loop holes built in for the lobbyists. Make it simpler and fairer. This doesn't mean soak the rich.

 

Doing these things will cost money. Some will come from much needed cuts to entitlement programs and some from borrowing but I hope most of it will come from the success of freeing up the private sector to start making money again. Lowering capital gains taxes will have the hated "rich" spending again. I am disappointed in the continued resentment toward the rich. Even to those I wouldn't really consider rich just well off.

 

I like the idea of being able to enjoy the fruits of your labor. One thing I DO NOT agree with is the massive transfer of wealth down to progeny. I actually support the Death Tax for the insanely wealthy. Folks like Buffet and Gates already understand this and will give away the bulk of their fortunes before their kids get to it. I think Asian and European wealthy families are more guilty then anyone of cheating taxes and passing the wealth to their offspring.

 

dj 

[rigsy03]

Another thought: violence cannot be excluded from sex anymore than
tenderness. I think one must give the full range of possibilities
based on the situation and those involved. And what do you mean by
violence? Physical violence or other forms of cruelty? I think self-
preservation trumps and one could be violent to escape, for instance.
The scenarios are probably endless.

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[archytas]

You are no doubt right rigsy. I think we would do well to view
ourselves as primates -
http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/11200-primal-outrage-can-homo-sapiens-use-our-inherent-inequity-aversion-to-topple-the-1-percent

I'll have to get back later Don - must paint my gates.

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[Vam]

I can see the dissipation of the crux, as I read in the thread...

Evidence of what is subversive includes facts like the US spending 54% of tax revenue on war program and Rupert Murdoch's 175 media units voicing in unison that Iraq war was right.

Clearly, I am speaking of the system, order and economics. We are back to franchise barriers open only to millionaire 'gentry.'

[Molly]

I see spirit in action beyond language.

[archytas]

I rather like some Marx and Lenin Don. Our kids are being cloned in
other ways. I broadly agree though - but jobs as we knew them are
gone. The current con is about 'working smart' and further and higher
education providing training for that. In round 1924 the Germans
sacked 25% of State workers and underwent massive bankruptcies. The
US lost 10 million jobs in the depression - most ending up in a vast
military mobilisation. I suspect you and I see freedom as linked to
productive work, but this needs reworking.

I'd cut the school-leaving age to 14 and introduce a new form of
national-international service. I'd scrap universities as we have
them now and introduce 7 years free post-14 education for anyone
wanting it. I'd expect most of this to be non-classroom and project-
related. It would be good to give up to notions of people just being
able to earn money, but I think this has always been organised. Every
scheme we come up with brings up control problems, either by
government or the rich.

[archytas]

Some of the issues facing us can be found here -
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/americas-middle-class-divide

Greece and probably Italy would have become communist after WW2 - but
for Anglo-Saxon interference. International money has escaped even
war reparation and the whole business of working for a living is
undercut by vast riches. The real issue is about retaining motivation
to get the work we need done done. I find the financial system
utterly demotivating. The answer isn't communism.

It doesn't seem to matter much whether money is focused on a few rich
or centralised government. The problem is the corruption of the
oligarchs or politicians. Yet try getting people to organise to do
necessary work and you soon realise this is a process of coercion.
The idea has to be to spread wealth widely - yet even this leaves us
with problems of consumption and planet burning as we all become
middle-class idiots or irresponsible carbon-footprint breeders.

[archytas]

The scary thing about most of the solutions in our politics is they
have been tried before and failed. Most of us have forgotten or never
knew.

On 10 Sep, 13:05, archytas <nwte...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Some of the issues facing us can be found here -http://www.zerohedge.com/news/americas-middle-class-divide

[Allan H]

yeah we need a "universal party of amnesia" we could make it world wide and run on everything the other parties forgot they tried..

Allan

--

[archytas]

Rentiers are those who benefit from control over assets that the
economy needs to function, and who, therefore, grow disproportionately
rich as the economy develops. These proceeds are rents – revenues from
ownership “without working, risking, or economizing”, as John Stuart
Mill (1848) wrote of the landlords of his day, explaining that “they
grow richer, as it were in their sleep”. Classical economics from Adam
Smith onwards analysed rents, its effects, and policies towards rents,
but the very concept is lost on today’s economics.Just as landlords
were the archetypal rentiers of their agricultural societies, so
investors, financiers and bankers are in the largest rentier sector of
today’s financialized economies: finance controls the economy’s engine
of growth, which is credit in all its forms. Economies obviously need
banking services, insurance services, and real estate development and
so, of course, not all of finance is “without working, risking, or
economizing”. The problem today remains what it was in the 13th
century: how to isolate what is socially necessary for ‘retail’
banking – processing payments by checks and credit cards, deciding how
to relend savings and new credit under normal (non-speculative)
conditions – from extortionate charges such as 29% interest on credit
cards, penalty fees and other charges in excess of what is socially
necessary cost-value.


Demographically, the effect of debt deflation is emigration and other
negative effects. For example, after Latvian property prices soared as
Swedish bank branches fueled the real estate bubble, living standards
plunged. Families had to take on a lifetime of debt in order to gain
the housing that was bequeathed to the country debt-free when the
Soviet Union broke up in 1991. When Latvia’s government imposed
neoliberal austerity policies in 2009-10, wage levels plunged by 30
percent in the public sector, and private-sector wages followed the
decline (Sommers et al 2010). Emigration and capital flight
accelerated: the Economist (2010) reported that an estimated 30,000
Latvians were leaving every year, on a 2.2m population. In debt-
strapped Iceland, the census reported in 2011 that 8% of the
population had emigrated (mainly to Norway).
Read more at http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/09/getting-economics-to-acknowledge-rentier-finance.html#5QSCE07s7Tq5GVgz.99

Greece is just one example of what may befall us all. I'm past caring
on a personal basis and even scared that most of what I would see as a
solution was actioned by the Nazis. We need something to replace the
rich, but this can't just be a change of faces.

[Vam]

The truth is we don't have economic practices to suit the 21st Century realities :

01 We need a global resource management order that puts food and health starved millions, environment, sustainability and renewable energy at its core ... not profit, not electoral populism, and certainly not this oligarchical status quo.

02 Much of this eddy economics swirling amongst the rich is not just a decadent pastime  but a waste when tested on societal needs ... 

the concept of competitive economics that worked in resource abundant era is out of date by at least 5 decades, since data on resource crunch has been suppressed ... 

the idea of markets to be conquered and captured is out of sync by a quarter of century, since serving the needs of people has gone altogether off the radar ...

Neil, the facts you narrate fills in the gaps precisely, and eloquently, in my own felt notions ! Thank you.

[archytas]

It's probably uglier than we think old friend. My guess is we can get
by on a couple of days work a week over 8 months of the year. I think
we are stuck in an ideology of the Undead. I also think we should all
do this basic work, unless too disabled (and we should build in work
for people who are disabled). We have human motivation all wrong.

> >http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/09/getting-economics-to-acknowled...

[rigsy03]

I call these types "paper pushers"- living off the efforts of others
just because they know how to do the paperwork- like brokers and
lawyers.

> Read more athttp://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/09/getting-economics-to-acknowled...

> >  Full of Hot Air & Ready To Expel It Quickly.- Hide quoted text -

[rigsy03]

A woman's work is never done. :-)

> > > >  Full of Hot Air & Ready To Expel It Quickly.- Hide quoted text -

[rigsy03]

Anthony Burgess wrote a great little novel- "Nothing Like the Sun",
which I gave to a friend so I hope I am correct that he posited that
the "Dark Lady" was a negress and mistress of the Bard's and think he
died of syphillis. Who knows?

> ...
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[rigsy03]

I just learned that the term "negress" (and also "Jewess") can be
considered offensive- which I did not intend nor understand. I
apologize to any I may have offended.

[archytas]

I would suspect anyone wanting to imply offence from you rigsy. We
don't even know if the bard wrote the plays. I'm not sure they are
much good.

I've just started reading 'Carbon Democracy: Political Power in the
Age of Oil' by Timothy Mitchell. There's a review here -
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/09/how-coal-brought-us-democracy-and-oil-ended-it-lessons-from-the-new-book-carbon-democracy.html

Everything in our politics flows through dense carbon-based energy
sources, and has for three to four hundred years. For instance, the
invasion of Iraq in 2003 was a pivotal moment in America’s strategic
outlook. America, a global hegemon whose empire was weakening, seized
the second largest oil deposits in the world as a way of preventing
its economic and political decline. Was there any precedent for this
kind of action? As it turns out, yes. The last declining global
hegemon, Great Britain, also engaged in a brutal and highly
controversial British occupation of Iraq, in the 1920s, pressed
aggressively by the well-known British conservative, Winston
Churchill. Churchill supported this occupation not just because he
wanted Iraq’s oil, but because he wanted to defeat democratic forces –
particularly militant coal miner unions – at home. Churchill and
conservative elites running through British history (most recently
Margaret Thatcher) understood that as long as the British power grid,
and more importantly the military, was dependent on radical coal
miners, his left-leaning labor opponents would be able to demand
higher wages, social insurance, voting rights, and a share of the
economic gains of the British economy.

I can't say the book is right, but do feel it at least starts one
thinking much of what we discuss as 'politics' evades the real issues.

> ...
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[rigsy03]

Will get back to this but agree as of now- one could also trace gold,
spices, timber, etc. Even grazing pastures and a water supply.

Must rally to get to doctor this afternoon. Good grief- it's always
something!!!

On Sep 13, 9:30 am, archytas <nwte...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I would suspect anyone wanting to imply offence from you rigsy.  We
> don't even know if the bard wrote the plays.  I'm not sure they are
> much good.
>
> I've just started reading 'Carbon Democracy: Political Power in the

> Age of Oil' by Timothy Mitchell.  There's a review here -http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/09/how-coal-brought-us-democracy-...

[archytas]

We have a dozen GPs at my practice, so at least I don't face constant
repetition!

> ...
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[rigsy03]

I go to internists and had a new doctor as it was a last minute
appointment- I liked him- a wry type. Am in good shape except for that
dang molar which flared up again so am back on antibiotics till I can
get it yanked for hundreds of dollars. :-) What happened to string and
a slammed door? Anyway, my supplementary has this drug thing so I have
to pay ten times the cost of a generic drug till I reach $125-
outrageous! So there went an afternoon...I rewarded myself with a trip
to Wendys for a junior bacon cheeseburger and sea salt fries- my
favorite junk meal so all was not lost.

[Allan H]

well sounds horrible,, the door trick really doesn't work though.. it is called greed..  I have to go over 250 euros  but that is cheap  but considering my medical bills I am long past. but at least I get a disability allowance but it just about pays for what I have to pay out.

try loves sucking in them  actually it will kill the pain..  you just kind of chew on them all the time worked best for me

Allan

--

[rigsy03]

This new doctor called me yesterday to check I was doing okay and my
blood was fine (went over my head) so will switch to him as I felt a
glimmer of compassion- and wit, to boot! I know it's pathetic to
complain about a tooth when the world is a violent mess. I should be
grateful there are drugs, cold packs, etc. and a solution. It's
Catholic guilt also- must offer it up. (I killed the pain with Advil
at this point.) Anyway, thanks for not jumping all over me.

[Don Johnson]

Good ideas here but the challenges are huge. I agree by 14 we pretty much can tell if the student has potential or not. I would be excited to see Corporations take the cream of these youngsters under their umbrella and start the training as well. This is actually a very, very good idea. Science has advanced so far specialization is needed for years before innovation is possible. I read an article recently that noted most modern Nobel Prize winners are well into or past middle age when they do the work that gets them their prize. It takes that long to learn enough to get to where they can come up with a new idea or formula or model or map some interesting gene or some such. Imagine if their journey started when they were 14 instead of 24 and just dipping into graduate work. Very interesting.

 

The elephant in the room is what to do with all the undiciplined(problem) children that seem to have no future. One answer would be some kind of bootcamp. I'm actually for this as well. At 14 they are still young enough to hopefully become more disiplined and perhaps can improve and join their peers on a more sucessful path to the future. Some may show aptitude for mechanical and/or computer repair/maintainance.  Some may be better suited to labor jobs. I don't know what to do with the losers but it would be awesome if schools were to stop having to be armed concentration camps and start focusing on teaching.  Getting rid of the malcontents will improve moral of teachers and good students a great deal making learning more pleasurable. Perhaps we could keep the brick and mortar schools for the rejects. They already have metal detectors so why not?

 

I really like the idea of project learning. I think the Montessori method is based on this concept. Seems to work great with Kindergarden kids don't know why it wouldn't work just as well with teenagers.

 

The biggest boon to education, imo, would be to decentralize it. Let the States compete with each other on who puts out the most qualifited graduates. Much like universities do. Then those underperforming schools could look to the methods of the better schools and change to improve. Having everything centralized prevents innovation. We need to shake things up.

 

Been working like a dog all week. Grateful to be employed.

 

dj

[Don Johnson]

Hello Vam. 

On Tuesday, September 11, 2012 4:07:21 PM UTC-5, Vam wrote:

The truth is we don't have economic practices to suit the 21st Century realities :

01 We need a global resource management order that puts food and health starved millions, environment, sustainability and renewable energy at its core ... not profit, not electoral populism, and certainly not this oligarchical status quo.

Soooo basically the UN without the corruption and cupidity. Got it. Those darn humans(chuckle) How do we pay for it? Oh yeah, rich people. At least they're good for something, eh? As an American I can't forget that once we've saved a people from themselves; put food in their bellies and clothes on their bodies and roofs over their heads and built them bridges and schools and sanitation systems we still have to deal with the burning, soul eating hatred most of them have for us. Anybody with a solution for this that isn't do-gooder fantasy?  We need oil now and will still need oil after 50 more heavily subsidized "renewable energy" companies go belly up. The truth hurts.   

02 Much of this eddy economics swirling amongst the rich is not just a decadent pastime  but a waste when tested on societal needs ... 

the concept of competitive economics that worked in resource abundant era is out of date by at least 5 decades, since data on resource crunch has been suppressed ... 

the idea of markets to be conquered and captured is out of sync by a quarter of century, since serving the needs of people has gone altogether off the radar ...

Not so. Neil is correct many jobs have disappeared this doesn't mean new ones can't be created to serve new wants and needs. Read an article the other day predicting the new Apple IPhone 5 will improve GDP by .5%. That's one freakin' product. If China didn't make a fortune in knock-offs it might even be more when all is said and done. I don't see getting rid of the rich as the answer. Don't think it's possible anyway as Neil mentioned the faces would just change. However, I do agree our financial system is in shambles and shamelessly favors those already in power. The rules must be changed. Unfortunately, the only time the rules change is when some lobbyist or another convinces some politicians to cut his industry some breaks at the expense of other companies and/or citizens. That's the way it works and nothing I can see is better. Just the seesaw rules and regulations change we get with power switches. We here in the US have steadily been becoming more socialist for the last 50 years or so and I believe, for the sake of the world, it is past time we saw back towards capitalism and freer markets. We can still feed the hungry and help them pay the rent but maybe we don't need to buy them all IPhones and cars and big screen tvs and computers and lotto tickets and tattoos. 

It's going to get ugly before it gets better. Those riots in Egypt and Libya? We'll see some of that here. It's coming. 

dj

[Vam]

Don, I see no scope of arguing you out of your regressive attitudes. That's how plain I will get. So, instead ...

01 The more macho the Republicans project themselves as, the more effeminate they actually are.

02 When you are putting the hungry millions and yourself on the balance, you will win. There is no argument there. It's the norm at its basest. Cool there !

03 That you are employed and get paid, I knew. But that you are rich, and actually consider yourself as being one amongst them, makes me snicker. And that's one thing I never do !

We attended different schools, Don. God bless ...  

[Don Johnson]

It's just antiquated. I remember having to tell my dad sometime in the early 90's that "colored" wasn't kosher anymore. He didn't believe me until he'd asked some of his younger co-workers. Considering the other available labels he grew up with in Gadsden, Alabama in the 40's and 50's he thought "colored" was the hight or respectability. Reminds me of the time shortly after I started working here in the plant(early 90's) and walked in on a group of black gentlemen playing dominoes and hollered "Got room for one more boys?" I never heard the end of it. Sheesh. Pretty soon the hippie standard "Man" will become non pc. 

"Person, I can't BELIEVE I smoked all that weed."

Just doesn't sound right to my ears. 

dj

[Don Johnson]

Hey Vam I'm not personally rich. I live in a rich country and do still pay some taxes although not much. I've been finding the loop holes. Don't hate the playah; hate the game. Do you see Romney as "macho?" I think he's pretty wimpy. He better toughen up or the mainstream media will slaughter him. I still think Obama will win the deck is stacked but Romney has an excellent opportunity to lay things out in the public eye that most people don't know. He'll have his bully pulpit I hope he doesn't waste it being "nice". 

You knew I was employed 2 months ago. The fact that I am very happy to STILL BE employed should be news to you. Things are getting rough all over. (cue tiny violins playing "My Heart Bleeds For You") That said, should I find myself out of a job I'm prepared. Well, I think I am. QE3 is eating up my savings as I write. Call me cautiously nervous. 

Take care, 

dj

[rigsy03]

Mismanagement and waste of precious resources of a virgin New World.

A rounded individual is an ideal. Don't forget Scouts, home ec, shop,
the arts, life skills, etc. Not great to be a geek who can't boil
water.

Why are there so many overweight people on food stamps and shelves?

Public security. Who is going to be dumb enough to want to start
companies in Muslim countries? Or in violent cities in the West?
Security also includes trust for honest government and faith in
products and services.

Generally there seems to be a principal at work that scoundrels
usually come to a well-earned miserable end on their own which might
explain the merry-go-round of the classes. Poor>middle
class>rich>filthy rich>ruin>poor, etc. Or, as mother would say, "The
bigger they are, the harder they fall." (She had a million sayings, by
the way. :-) )

> >>>>http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/09/getting-economics-to-acknowled...

[archytas]

I don' see ou as a reactionary Don. I've taught people who failed at
school, did painting and decorating training and scored a first class
degree (still fairly hard). Sue has a first in psychology and a
masters with distinction from Manchester. She put down a physics
paper I left lying around after 5 of the 36 sides, sid she was
clueless and asked for explanation. She could tell the key issue is
that the thing was speculative, as it assumes dark matter and energy.
If they are a crock the paper is just so much maths. She could get to
this low down witout knowing what a tensor equation is or the blow
your mind geometry.
The economics of views on full employment and manufacturing our own
food and stuff s broadly modern marxism - Steve Keen (an Aussie) is
the best. It's not really ideological stuff and the maths is very
sophisticated. I don't see most social science as science - but I do
think a scientific economics is possible once we get rid of the lying
going on. It's pretty obvious now that boom years in the US and UK
were just an expansion of the debt and ludicrous financial services
stuff.

My point from years ago was simple - if we look to efficiency in a
manufacturing company to cut costs, how can it make any sense to foist
the massive burden on financial sector costs on our businesses? I
once turned a fairly large business for loss to profit by getting them
to 'bank overnight' - why they had been so dumb not to and their bank
such bastards not to tell them are the real questions. The interest
gained was about half-a-million a year. However, no real work is done
to 'make' this interest or any of the fees of the financial sector.
The money has to come from somewhere and the eventual answer is you
and me as wage earners. You have to understand the half-life of money
to grok this. The dollars in our wallets are being leeched away as |I
write. If I have a hundred dollars as I finish, it will be 99 by
morning (approx), much as a tapeworm would have a percentage of my
digesting supper. No Wendy's here - my chips were made from home-
grown spuds, fried in olive oil (halogen fryer) and th sea bass caught
on rod and line from a Welsh beach.

I don't think most of the people sitting banking exams after my
classes are brighter than skilled men and women - rather the
opposite. We've lost sight of this.

> ...
>
> read more »

[Don Johnson]

Thanks for the kind words archy I don't FEEL reactionary either. As
you no doubt recall I think charity(welfare, medicaid, medicare, food
stamps, etc.) is absolutely neccesary I just feel it would be better
implemented by those of us actually paying for it. Choosing who gets
it and how much rather then relying on politicians beholden to
lobbyists. Skip the middlemen as it were. In this modern age of tweets
and instant 'round the world news releases we could have whole
networks and websites dedicated to showcasing those in need to help us
decide where our money should go. Not some nameless, pencil pushing
bureaucrat. There would be fraud in that as well, no doubt, but
hopefully when exposed the major donors would stop giving immediately.
With our tax dollars confiscated with little control on what it gets
spent on short of breaking the law defiantly(I don't think I have this
gene) by not filing there's very little accountability.

 

The flippant comment I made about leaving the brick and mortar schools
open to house the criminals wasn't meant to denigrate poor students.
Just because someone has trouble wrapping thier brain around maths or
dealing with any number of developmental handicaps doesn't make them a
criminal. As you mentioned even the mentally challanged have a place
in our society and can learn to do something basic to contribute and
earn a living if given the proper motivation and support. IMHO, the
minimum wage and our litigious society make this more difficult.

 

My assistant here at work is a highschool graduate. Barely. Terrible
test taker. However, he is smart and attentive and I only have to show
him how to do something once and he's got it locked in. He's a very
good mechanic. Unfortunately he's not a self starter. Even if he
really knows what to do he'll sit and wait for me before solving a
problem and for this reason he is unlikely to advance. When I tried
telling him about this he got upset and basically acted like a 12 year
old for weeks. Too bad. The man is 27 years old has two children out
of wedlock with two different women and pays no child support. None.
His friends and relatives are much the same. No accountability; very
little responsibility and nothing but resentment for those more
successful. It's sad really I like the man and he has potential but
absolutely no ambition. This is the future of my country I'm afraid.
Yeah, he's a Democrat.

 

I don't think our values are all that different Archy. We do differ on
the importance of global warming and this is huge. The world
shattering consequences of reducing GHG to have even a miniscule
effect on temperature rise just isn't worth it to my mind. Should the
US and UK pass more economy destroying legislation to limit GHG
there's ample evidence other countries will ignore their obligations
to do the same. I think we can survive a 2 or 3 degree temperature
rise over the next 100 years. Al Gore's dire predictions are bunk
IMHO.

 

Looking out the window while flying from Houston to Seattle I see
thousands and thousands of miles of empty land. Our cities are packed
because that's were the jobs are and that's where the entitlements
are. We have PLENTY of room for Marxist experiments that can work
fantastically because of one simple solution that doesn't really exist
in the real world. When one of the group fails to pull their expected
weight you can boot them out of the commune. Revoke their citizenship.
Which brings me to the other issue we completely and totally disagree
on. Too many people will let others take care of them with no feelings
of shame or gratitude. In effect, they believe the world owes them a
living. Smart people. Capable people. But shameless. How did our
society get here? I'm not sure but mass media has it's downside for
sure. I like freedom but somewhere along the way our permissive
society has gotten a tad out of hand imho. Obama's promised change is
coming but I wonder if it's the change his supporters are expecting? I
know you know how bad it is where you are and certainly have a better
grasp or how bad it is in the rest of the world then I do but check
out these numbers for good 'ol Uncle Sam.

 

http://professional.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303561504577497442109193610.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop&mg=reno-ws

Scary.

 

On growing my own food I've discovered it's cheaper to buy at the
supermaket. Growing at home requires rotating crops and buying soil
and fertilizer and pesticides. Plus time pulling weeds and planting
and harvesting. More affordable to buy at the supermarket.

dj

[Don Johnson]

 

http://professional.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303561504577497442109193610.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop&mg=reno-ws

 

I hope the link works but if it doesn't try googling the following excerpt and see if it will let you read it from the google search page. After they try to get you to start paying for the service, of course. Greedy WS bassturds.

 

"Did you know that, during the last fiscal year, around three-quarters of the deficit was financed by the Federal Reserve? Foreign governments accounted for most of the rest, as American citizens' and institutions' purchases and sales netted to about zero. The Fed now owns one in six dollars of the national debt, the largest percentage of GDP in history, larger than even at the end of World War II.

The Fed has effectively replaced the entire interbank money market and large segments of other markets with itself. It determines the interest rate by declaring what it will pay on reserve balances at the Fed without regard for the supply and demand of money. By replacing large decentralized markets with centralized control by a few government officials, the Fed is distorting incentives and interfering with price discovery with unintended economic consequences."

[archytas]

I agree on the food growing Don - I do it for the taste and perhaps
some desire to work with the soil. On global warming I think we have
it all wrong. The popular argument isn't worth spit. Over history
the planet is in a temperature cycle much bigger than whatever carbon
dioxide produced by humans musters. One theory I looked at recently
is that nitrous oxide (the stuff that makes Viagra work) was once
responsible for much worse from some kind of sea grass.
In Britain, the climate is pretty good in the South and pretty
miserable up North (cloudy, wet). That we aren't in an ice-age is
probably due to the gulf stream. The question is less to do with
whether human industry is responsible for 'global warming' and more
about organising to use land, protect lives and develop technology so
we can cope.

I think the problem is "government", but just as sensible family
planning has still meant the world population has trebled in my life-
time (not me guv') and I've seen plenty of changes of government, I'm
inclined to think we don't get deep enough into the issues to stop
repeating the same old mistakes.

Bees are all born identical (more or less) and the queens come about
through feeding. Workers (all female) start off as nurses and later
become foragers. In a recent experiment, we killed off the hive
nurses ('removed' in the experiment description). Journal reference:
Nature Neuroscience, DOI: 10.1038/nn.3218 - the paper is free at
Plos. Some of the foragers reverted to nurses - interesting - but the
point is we were able to track the epigenetic changes as they switched
genes on and off to do this - it reminds me of old dot matrix printers
where you flipped some switches to make the machine simulate an Epson
because most software was written for them. People can change too.

The bee case involves the bees 'knowing' there is a shortage of nurses
and this signal kicking off complex genetic reformulation - plus lots
of questions as to how this has come to be designed in evolution. For
all fine words, human societies are not free of genetic and hive
organisation. We have little general clue about ourselves as social
animals. Bees and other insects engage in consensus - bees emit (to
bees) piercing screeches to dissuade their mavericks. Apes have
affairs discreetly behind the alpha's back. All very human.

The organisation of our societies is likely genetic in the modern
sense of this word - genes are interactive with environment. We have
ape-like hierarchies. We have something approaching democracy in a
few places but we don't examine our nature much and what we could be
organising for. Our concepts of freedom don't seem to take much of
what is animal and collective into account, let alone plane
management. And management is often so bloody awful many of us see
freedom as freedom from being managed.

I think freedom has to be structured, partly because scum so readily
don't respect the freedom of others, partly because Utopian freedom is
so readily disrupted by bandits and also because of limitations in our
understanding of the gene machine.

On 17 Sep, 07:39, Don Johnson <daj...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >http://professional.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405270230356150457749744...