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Can We Build Our Own Economy From the Ground Up?
The Economy Is Stuck In a Depression … For Most Americans
The mainstream economy is stuck in depression. See this, this and this.
More accurately, there are two economies:
- In one economy, the top .1% are being made richer and richer due to access to government handouts, fraud and bad government policies
- In the other economy, everyone else is getting poorer
Alan Greenspan agrees:
Our problem basically is that we have a very distorted economy, in the sense that there has been a significant recovery in our limited area of the economy amongst high-income individuals…
Large banks, who are doing much better and large corporations, whom you point out and everyone is pointing out, are in excellent shape. The rest of the economy, small business, small banks, and a very significant amount of the labour force, which is in tragic unemployment, long-term unemployment – that is pulling the economy apart. The average of those two is what we are looking at – that they are fundamentally two separate types of economies.
Put another way, the top .1% are currently acting like parasites, stealing the money from the rest of the population.
Moreover, the giant insolvent banks – which are receiving trillions in bailouts, guarantees and opportunities – are not lending to Main Street, while the smaller banks are (even though the smaller banks are being unfairly penalized by the Fed.)
And perhaps most importantly, consumer confidence – and Americans’ confidence that their government is doing the right thing to fix the economy – is extremely low.
Why?
Largely because the rule of law has broken down, and fraud is so rampant – and is actually sanctioned by the government – that it has become “the business model” of Wall Street. And see this.
In short, people no longer trust the economic system, which makes an economic recovery impossible.
So people aren’t spending, but are instead “keeping their powder dry” until the rule of law and free markets are restored. People know – either consciously or below the surface – that we have socialism for the rich, and that the little guy doesn’t have a chance. See this, this, and this.
Under such circumstances, people will not spend.
Is There A Solution?
We can’t get out of this depression until trust is restored and consumer spending occurs again. Trust and spending won’t happen unless the rule of law is followed. But the government refuses to enforce the rule of law or to prosecute most of the Wall Street fraud, partly because Washington D.C. has been bought and paid for by Wall Street.
So we’re stuck in a seeming catch-22.
But maybe we can build our own economy. Yes Magazine has a new article out entitled:
Who’s Building the Do-It-Ourselves Economy?
Corporations aren’t hiring, and Washington is gridlocked. Here’s how we take charge of our own livelihoods.
We – collectively – have enough money in our personal stashes to be able to grow a vibrant economy. If we held our own money, we wouldn’t need the big banks. Public banking could also really help us obtain credit to grow our local businesses and economies. But the big banks (and Federal Reserve itself) are exerting tremendous pressure to kill any public banking movement.
Local currencies and barter are also becoming huge trends. As John Stossel noted in March:
The Cleveland Federal Reserve notes that private currencies have even helped the economy function in the past: During the Great Depression, the Federal Reserve failed to keep enough currency in the economy – so some companies issued their own currencies and helped fill the void.
But the government at times cracks down ruthlessly on alternative currencies … going so far as to label them a form of “domestic terrorism”.
Moreover, there is a growing consensus that – since there is simply too much debt in the world to repay (much of it fraudulently incurred) – the debt should simply be written down. See this and this. However, the bondholders are fighting that idea with tremendous lobbying efforts.
So the large organizations – perhaps with the best of motives – are trying to keep us trapped in the dysfunctional, debt-based system.
Re-Building Local Communities of Trust
As professor of social anthropology – and debt expert – David Graeber points out, we don’t really need debt and money as such:
The big question in the origins of money is how a sense of obligation – an ‘I owe you one’ – turns into something that can be precisely quantified? Well, the answer seems to be: when there is a potential for violence. If you give someone a pig and they give you a few chickens back you might think they’re a cheapskate, and mock them, but you’re unlikely to come up with a mathematical formula for exactly how cheap you think they are. If someone pokes out your eye in a fight, or kills your brother, that’s when you start saying, “traditional compensation is exactly twenty-seven heifers of the finest quality and if they’re not of the finest quality, this means war!”
Money, in the sense of exact equivalents, seems to emerge from situations like that, but also, war and plunder, the disposal of loot, slavery. In early Medieval Ireland, for example, slave-girls were the highest denomination of currency. And you could specify the exact value of everything in a typical house even though very few of those items were available for sale anywhere because they were used to pay fines or damages if someone broke them.
But once you understand that taxes and money largely begin with war it becomes easier to see what really happened. After all, every Mafiosi understands this. If you want to take a relation of violent extortion, sheer power, and turn it into something moral, and most of all, make it seem like the victims are to blame, you turn it into a relation of debt. “You owe me, but I’ll cut you a break for now…” Most human beings in history have probably been told this by their debtors. And the crucial thing is: what possible reply can you make but, “wait a minute, who owes what to who here?” And of course for thousands of years, that’s what the victims have said, but the moment you do, you are using the rulers’ language, you’re admitting that debt and morality really are the same thing.
If Graeber is right in his claim that modern ideas of money and debt came from warfare and slavery, if the large banks and their “bought and paid for politicians” continue to block public banking, and if the IRS is going to tax barter transactions and block alternative currencies, what can we do to escape the clutches of the wealth-extracting system we currently have?
Graeber hints at one possibility:
[French anthropologist Marcel Mauss] was one of the first anthropologists to ask: well, all right, if not barter, then what? What do people who don’t use money actually do when things change hands? Anthropologists had documented an endless variety of such economic systems, but hadn’t really worked out common principles. What Mauss noticed was that in almost all of them, everyone pretended as if they were just giving one another gifts and then they fervently denied they expected anything back. But in actual fact everyone understood there were implicit rules and recipients would feel compelled to make some sort of return.
What fascinated Mauss was that this seemed to be universally true, even today. If I take a free-market economist out to dinner he’ll feel like he should return the favor and take me out to dinner later. He might even think that he is something of chump if he doesn’t and this even if his theory tells him he just got something for nothing and should be happy about it. Why is that? What is this force that compels me to want to return a gift?
This is an important argument, and it shows there is always a certain morality underlying what we call economic life.
In other words, in communities or webs of human interaction which are small enough that people can remember who gave what, we might be able to set up alternative systems of money and credit so we can largely “opt out” of the status quo systems of money and debt measurement.
I’m not arguing for becoming Luddites and living in mud huts (but that is fine, if you wish to do so). Nor am I suggesting that we all have to become selfless saints who give away all of their possessions without any reasonable expectation of something in return.
I am arguing that it might be possible to empower ourselves – and create our own systems for keeping track on a local or people-centered basis, and create our own vibrant economies using the resources we have – by moving away from the national and global systems dominated by the biggest banks and oligarchs, and towards a system where we “spend” resources and goodwill into our local communities in a way in which trust is built from the ground-up, and the energy of trade and commerce can be re-started.
Postscript: Mainstream economists will argue that we need a universal, fungible type of money in order to trade on a global basis. But because currencies are now unpegged from anything in the real world and are traded on the currency markets, their values fluctuate wildly in the modern world. In other words, one of the essential characteristics for money – that they represent a universal, fixed yardstick – has disappeared. And fiat currencies have a very short lifespan. So how valuable are they, really, for anyone but forex speculators?
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Depending on costs, before you go for a lawyer you might want a surveyor to take a look at land and house. Then you can use these figures to rebut the ones the county has. My parents had trouble with this, about 20 years ago they added a maybe $10,000 living room onto the house (so the combinating living/dining room could be a dining room...) and the county claimed this added like $100,000 onto the house value. They were set striaght.
There's an interesting cheeseball movie out there called "The Widow's Mite." It speaks to the same kinds of problems. Caused a group of us to start looking into prevalence of default for tax purposes. Wouldn't you know all that data is proprietary, and they want a pretty penny for it. Since we're at a small underfunded university, that research isn't going to happen...unfortunately..
Taxes in my burg went up 12.5% last year. Valuations didn't change a dime, though the Zillow Zestimate (I know, complete crap, but what else can I use) went dropped 50% from the previous appraisal...even if you own your house and land outright, you don't own it. Best of luck with the attorney. If you were down in NC, I know someone who would be willing to help you for cheap. He always likes to take on The Man.
Appreciate the thought, but I'm in battleground Ohio, where the Rs and Ds are fighting like crazy. I keep trying to get my husband to sell out and move somewhere sane, but no luck so far.
We're like ten years from retirement and the bastards are trying to rob us blind just in time for it. Younger people need to understand that not all boomers fell for the bs, but tried to do things the right way and are watching everything we worked our whole lives for being stolen out from under us.
The whole thing makes me sick.
Are you familiar with the UCC1 filing and Accepted For Value movement?
I just recently came across it and am not sure if it's for real or not. Here's a link:
http://www.educationcenter2000.com/accepted_for_value.html
Even if it's all BS, it still makes for fascinating reading.
I've heard of this. I don't know if I would trust it without legal advice though.
Our property is paid for. Unfortunately, we supposedly live in a good school district and they just passed a new levy. Our taxes are as much as a mortgage payment now. I can't imagine what they will be now that our land value has increased by almost a million over night. We won't be able to sell and won't be able to afford the taxes on land we paid for. I wish we had a mortgage we could walk away from. That would be a much better deal. Unfortunately, I sincerely believe we are going to be screwed.
Give me a break. The worldwide prevailing labor wage is $5/day w/o any benefits. The house of cards started collasping in 2000-2001 with the world wide web (globalization) and the 9/11 attack. The end game was deferred with several wars and a housing bubble. Now its only a matter of time before the house of cards collaspes. Only the really smart geeks and the rich will avoid the pain. Eventually, most will have to compete with China/India labor rates to survive.
If you ask the question "why now?" you'll find the only thing really different about the world is peak oil has arrived.
Even rich and smart folk are fucked.
The economy has been a series of sucessive bubbles since the gold standard was abandoned in 1971. The lack of cheap oil is preventing reinflation of the bubble.
Without cheap oil, the global economy won't work. Cheap goods in China can't be sold in America, because disposable income is now used for gasoline and utilities, and thats for folks who still have jobs.
We are witnessing what happens when the ship of state runs aground.
A return to local economies is not only possible but inevitable and unstoppable. The real question then becomes, is a global economy dying?
At some point the Federal Government will destroy itself by overstepping and over enforcing, it has too many laws and too few jail cells. It can no longer afford to incarcerate everyone it disagrees with.
When the governments can no longer stop the people, they will no longer stop the people. Over-reaction is the Federal way. It buys them few friends. When no one obeys their laws, they lose their power.
You keep impressing me, GW; and you impress me because you're asking the right questions. enough of this what can be 'saved'...it's already GONE!!! unless, that is, you view health care and wal mart as a viable economic model.
but i suspect most ZHealots have moved past the whole heglian dialectic (at least those worth their salt), and so this false tension between the two sects of the War Party is starting to lose its savor. and the latest bathos to spew out of their luke-warm oraface is some more meaningess nonsense about jobs; which aren't 'jobs', but rather useless dithering -- just hand them the checks. we've all seen cool hand luke; we know the game -- take dat dirt outta boss man's hole...now fill her back in! that's what working for Uncle Sam entails. why do you think the military motto is "hurry up and wait!"
anyway, i've been called to supper.
let me stew on this, GW; and i'll get back to you with somethin worthy of your question -- i don't know if it'll be an answer, probably just more questions, but i'll set the ole noggin to it whilst i'm munchin away on mrs. janus's vittles.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsQ977u8Wuk
everybody goes as far as they can/
they don't just care/
they stood on the stairs/
laughin at your airs,
janus
The only way to have a viable do-it-ourselves economy is to completely avoid the conventional corporate-government power-kleptocrat society. It is impossible to be successful while complying with their system. The only way success is possible is by evading or withdrawing from the conventional world of commerce. Sure, people in the boonies can still grow their own food, though swat teams are more regularly invading those domains today.
But that is just a stop-gap to get by until the system crashes and burns. Until the predators-that-be and predator-class are ELIMINATED, the good life remains virtually impossible. It is not possible to live any kind of good life inside a cage of predators, and that cage has expanded to planet earth.
It is the predators, or us. It is that simple. They must go, or we will. And that is indeed their plan.
I tell you what is funny as shit. This communities this guy is talking about already exist. It dawned on me a year or so ago. It's the Amish, and the Mennonites, and similar groups. When this ponzi scheme comes crashing down, those guys are going to barely notice. The rest of us will probably starve if we don't kill each other first. Now there is some irony for you. Maybe the meek (funny constumes and all) really will inherit the earth. At a minimum, they will certainly have the last laugh.
Yeah....
Last Friday, I got stuck in line behind a Mennonite guy at the gas station. He was paying for a tank of gas with a check (slowly, I might add.) Sure, he wasn't the driver- but who cares?
They're not what you think they are, and they'll notice sure enough when they no longer have "English" to take advantage of when it comes to customers for their over-priced blocky furniture. They're not good stewards of the land, they're more like locusts who clear the ground and farm without fertilizer until there are no nutrients left in the soil, and then move on, leaving houses that don't meet code- without foundations, plumbing or wiring.
Without people who think they're somehow "pure" because they wear funny clothes throwing money at them for their folksy wares, they'd starve on those farms when they've run them into the ground, and don't have the cash to simply move onto the next piece of land.
They're just hippies with black hats. Forget the stupid dream of going back to olden days, and let's figure out how to preserve all the comforts we already have.
this is the post of the day g.w., thank you!
.
i would encourage you to view the bruce lipton
video on you tube, parts 1-7, for the biological
logic of where and why we are where we are.
tks, pjb
.
Bruce Lipton - Biology of Perception 6 of 7
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFO741MrkIU&feature=related
what he says in the one of 1st parts is really fascinating : that if you take the nucleus out of a cell, the cell continues to function as normal. the nucleus is NOT the brain of the cell (as is commonly taught), but the gonads. pretty profound if you think about it. all this time societies have been organized around their nuts, and the nuts gotta us thinking they're the brains of the operation.
self-organization, boys & girls.
The Dolt's Guide To Self-Organizationthe "gonads" are the accumulated experience of
billions of years of adaptation and evolution.
the intellect of god, our universe, known to us
only through narrative, symbol and feeling !
best to u !
yes, that's where the DNA is, but is that the only intellect that we possess in our 'bodies'?
identical twins, i think, represent the
capacity for a single cell to overcome,
through growth and time, the apparent limitation
of time and space that says " you can't be in two
places at once" ? hmmm?
.
to a degree all life confers this strangeness to
a perspective of consciousness, perhaps, if the
ladder of consciousness is climbed? lipton seems
to be finding the principles at the cellular level,
in its complexity, all the higher order emergent
analogies may be expressed and experienced. in consciousness
we can experience the cell, the universe, all life
say as a twin? he also points out the integral
significance of the environment in its impact on the
resulting life forms development and survival, stressing
the sensitivity and utter dependency of the form on
its capacity to respond, digest, mediate, exchange with
the elements of its surroundings. the inside of the form
becoming and come from the external information and
signals that designed and sustain it. so the inside is
much the same as the outside in a way, like twins?
let me say this. all emergent form and instruction and potential
is oriented in the evolving manifest milieux /and environment.
that is the intellect of life. ready and waiting and ready to
deal with what is manifest by other, the other. multiplicity of
perspective and being, eternal and ongoing.
.
for tip e... a private segment, become public for u 2 disect.
.
@ " ..
"so we think in concrete terms about things that are fluid." ... to be sure and
this is a scalular problem.
" the collective function becomes one dimensional and the "individuals"
sacrificed... " indeed and it is either one or the other - I wonder why...
.
here i have to inject the lipton model of protein dynamics in service of source
function, from which
the protein is designed. the elements are.
1. charge and affinity and repulsion.
2. structure and location in milieux and environment.
3. more on affinity and repulsion: the implication by analogy,
being affinity, love and temporal closure. repulsion, searching for
love and temporal closure,( stasis ). function seeking "becoming" structure.
complexity-simplicity, verbe-noun. etc. so love is present and the energy
of both poles of polarity, o affinity is repulsion to a different degree. proof
can be found if you look around .....
4. the growth impulse is the main force of the universe but growth outside
of the existing structure and its core design storage criteria, metabolic
needs and informational capacity is by definition, cancer, outside the LAW.
5. when a system of life has outgrown , outside the law, its own criteria
for growth and life some aspects must be removed, detoxified, waste gases
deflated, the preservation phase must initiate or the system dies.
.
( gold is the, pms, preservation non nutritious store of economic energy
in a preservation phase, me thinks.)
6. there is more but i can't think of it at the moment. except for this...
7. the future is, the dna of life, waiting for life to present the next mutation
and its products and environmental elements. ready to respond. ready
and waiting, laughingly.
.
" con -
form- ity. most remain social animals and one in a million wanders off
into the caves and stars?
Lipton states the proteins contort to the conformal _ i both love and hate this - but the
hate is 'order' and the 'love' is harmony - interesting oui?
...
yes. the fountain of emotion and mind. connected like siblings living in
different temporal realities, but connected at the throat.
..
The Law = conformal = concordance = accord = rightness = harmony
BUT
unity is unity
and the rest is digestion where sometimes that which one one witnesses, isn't so nice. Is
this not the lesson of purification? of condensation? of putrification?
.
lesson of urgency in a world with no sense of sanctity or the sacred. i blame the fed
and the pope and the rest of 'em.
sort of blame the common man and his goodness, if you know what i mean? there, i blame
myself.
.
consider: if its all starts with a movement, does it really start here? Instability? It
can start with the slightest difference in charge? Is there anything more subtle? Maybe
just will! A question? An itch?
.
there, you said it.
"will", the living law."
.
alternative poetry for the living i call it.
"some aspects must be removed, detoxified, waste gases deflated, the preservation phase must initiate or the system dies."
yes, this is where i choose to believe we are at the moment, the 'detox' stage. or rather, the long & aching moment when we realize that the detox must begin but we come up with a million and one excuses to delay the start of the painful process until tomorrow.
as for gold, are you sure it's non-nutritious? and does it only preserve economic energy or is the economics only a veil for something deeper? maybe pm's help with the detox stage in a more literal way? maybe this is what the ancients understood about it?
Sounds like a bunch of mystical mumbo jumbo.
thank you for listening to the sound.
yup, blindman, janus has his eye on this creep. dis 'doctor' or, rather, 'professor', or rather, parasitic off-scowering of some corrupt and callow university.
this same waxy-skinned 'professah' was not long ago posting byzantine and esoteric 'formulas' from deep within the necrotized recesses of his inert bowels -- or perhaps they were culled from that sterling dissertation he did on the statistical probabilities associated with a waxy skinned 'professah' evah pullin some pussy without makin a sizeable payment for the same. so, what were your conclsions, 'teacher'? hoverin somewhere around 0 -- one of those 16 sigma events?
sorry, i have to take vengence on professors. i'd go into hidin if i were you, professors -- at least till janus cools off from his most recent experience with acedemia.
bunch of cowardly bitchez...
hey, teachers!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhgE5bfcFTU
rot in hell, acedemia.
janus will crush you.
guess what's gonna happen when THE credit crunch hits and they shutter universities by the score? no student loans issued? know how to flip burgers, professah? let's see what you have to say after a few years of mutha fuckin LABOR, bitch!
i plan on setting up a big plantation for you boys and girls; but your masters will be the slaves of old. janus loves irony. THE SALT OF THE EARTH WILL TEACH YOU ABOUT THE METAPHYSICAL, THE SPIRITUAL AND THE SUBLIME!!! get ready, i hear that school bell a ringin! time to start learnin!
so, wittle bitchez (acedemia) i know you cower like craven and brutalized dogs when janus comes a strollin through -- cause i'm da mutha fuckin auto-didact! i put that ugly mirror up; don't i? reveal just how lazy you've been all these years -- just checkin off boxes, sniveling and scrapin and bowin on yer way to 'tenure'...my best wishes on your desperate struggle for security (the 'weak' always seek security, above every other consideration -- again, if you prefer the word 'coward', you won't get an argument from janus).
so, professah, let's see what that phd is good for. chop lil ole janus down to size. i'm beggin you! i need it! i've been crusin for a bruisin! and, with all those august letters affixed next to your name, you should be able to dispatch me straight away, bitch!
double-dog dare! callin you out, whore! by he ancient laws of combat.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BIjCW2_Uik&feature=related
you know the day destroys the night/
night divides the day/
try to run, try to hide/
break on through to the other side,
janus
janus, how you feel about University Professors I feel similarly toward the entire Western "Clergy". Every one of these bastards whose path I've crossed (countless) lies and steals and cheats. The entire class of people is based on lies and deceit. The first is that there is supposed to be this parasitic class of human leaches that don't work. Rather the "laity" is supposed to work to support their lazy slimeball selves, and their entire family, because they "labor in the word". They should read what Paul actually says about this class of human leaches. The entire Protestant universe (just as bad in the Papist world) is based on Pagan structures that did not exist at the time of Christ. Label the word "jesus" on it and the naive goyim will believe any thing.
Indeed. i know not what faith you profess (perhaps none at all; my three best friends are all devout athiests); but it is clear we are brothers in "The Spirit" (if you'll permit me my pet metaphors -- which i happen to believe; but if comfort is found in interpreting them as metaphors, i deny no man quarter).
yes, if you're interested in preserving your soul; stay the hell away from churches. they offer a counterfiet 'strength'. Christ said he was the Word, and the Word was God, and before there was anything, there was the Word. i believe that's how the Gospel of John begins...may be Matthew. nevertheless, Truth is in those words; not their mangling for control and, yes, as you say, to support a parasitic class of imbeciles -- poseurs -- to stand between God and man.
That was the WHOLE purpose of Christ; thus the symbolism of the curtain (which, i believe was 6 inches thick) in the Holy of Holies (sanctus sanctorum) being rent from top to bottom upon His crucifixion. There is no longer ANY barrier seperating God and Man -- you have a direct link, through Christ. and NO MAN MAY INTERVENE.
oh, believe me, they will receive their just deserts.
you've made one small error, but it's a common one; let me clear it up, because the words are POWERFUL:
Christ calls them whitewashed tombstones (meaning they have an appearance of godliness, but inside they are dead -- meritricious)
Christ called them a brood of vipers (no explanation needed there -- but there's a lot of esoteric symbolism)
Christ called them sons of the devil.
and, really, he was just gettin goin! there's lots of other CRUSHING insults he levied at the religious rulers; but you'd have to be VERY well versed in the old testament to get them. trust me, Jesus had one hell of a sense of humor (ironic pun intended).
and, again, trust me; you have a friend out in the world just looking to break these false men of God over his knee. i can make these 'men' quiver in just a few minutes time. maybe i'm bad guy...whatever. i think these men are shameful and need to be called out. and since no one else has done it; janus has taken it upon himself these last few years.
once, several years ago, when i announced i would never again attend church, my parent's pastor called me; and, well, let's just say he didn't atttend services the next week and my mother wouldn't talk to me for two months. i tried to warn her, but she insisted i talk with him.
fuck these preachers.
janus know his Bible better than ANY of them.
janus has poured over more REAL exegence than ANY of them.
janus has done the HARD work.
janus can blow ANY theologian out of the water -- jew or gentile!
again, I TAKE ALL COMERS! sorry little bitchez! (preachers, not you joe jones)
i can give you only one single recommendation; and if you can get past the accent and whatnot, you will find GREAT wisdom. now, this man does have all the phds in ancient greek and hebrew blah blah blah...so he knows the vulgate and the original texts fairly well. he's a sort of calvinist; and so is janus. but he's not a conventional calvinist; nor is janus.
www.ttb.org
and the Stone the builders rejected has become the Chief Cornerstone,
janus
Indeed. i know not what faith you profess (perhaps none at all; my three best friends are all devout athiests); but it is clear we are brothers in "The Spirit" (if you'll permit me my pet metaphors -- which i happen to believe; but if comfort is found in interpreting them as metaphors, i deny no man quarter).
yes, if you're interested in preserving your soul; stay the hell away from churches. they offer a counterfiet 'strength'. Christ said he was the Word, and the Word was God, and before there was anything, there was the Word. i believe that's how the Gospel of John begins...may be Matthew. nevertheless, Truth is in those words; not their mangling for control and, yes, as you say, to support a parasitic class of imbeciles -- poseurs -- to stand between God and man.
That was the WHOLE purpose of Christ; thus the symbolism of the curtain (which, i believe was 6 inches thick) in the Holy of Holies (sanctus sanctorum) being rent from top to bottom upon His crucifixion. There is no longer ANY barrier seperating God and Man -- you have a direct link, through Christ. and NO MAN MAY INTERVENE.
oh, believe me, they will receive their just deserts.
you've made one small error, but it's a common one; let me clear it up, because the words are POWERFUL:
Christ calls them whitewashed tombstones (meaning they have an appearance of godliness, but inside they are dead -- meritricious)
Christ called them a brood of vipers (no explanation needed there -- but there's a lot of esoteric symbolism)
Christ called them sons of the devil.
and, really, he was just gettin goin! there's lots of other CRUSHING insults he levied at the religious rulers; but you'd have to be VERY well versed in the old testament to get them. trust me, Jesus had one hell of a sense of humor (ironic pun intended).
and, again, trust me; you have a friend out in the world just looking to break these false men of God over his knee. i can make these 'men' quiver in just a few minutes time. maybe i'm bad guy...whatever. i think these men are shameful and need to be called out. and since no one else has done it; janus has taken it upon himself these last few years.
once, several years ago, when i announced i would never again attend church, my parent's pastor called me; and, well, let's just say he didn't atttend services the next week and my mother wouldn't talk to me for two months. i tried to warn her, but she insisted i talk with him.
fuck these preachers.
janus know his Bible better than ANY of them.
janus has poured over more REAL exegence than ANY of them.
janus has done the HARD work.
janus can blow ANY theologian out of the water -- jew or gentile!
again, I TAKE ALL COMERS! sorry little bitchez! (preachers, not you joe jones)
i can give you only one single recommendation; and if you can get past the accent and whatnot, you will find GREAT wisdom. now, this man does have all the phds in ancient greek and hebrew blah blah blah...so he knows the vulgate and the original texts fairly well. he's a sort of calvinist; and so is janus. but he's not a conventional calvinist; nor is janus.
www.ttb.org
and the Stone the builders rejected has become the Chief Cornerstone,
janus
i'm sure that you could have found a worse version of Another Brick in the Wall Part Two, but you'd have to have searched pretty hard to do so...
try this one instead. :) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZbM_MIz4RM&feature=related
JB,
you did service to the Good with that one, my friend.
i confess, i was 'lazy' in my search -- but i'm no sorry fuckwad 'doctor'.
so, professah, janus is waiting....fret not, if you pop back up, janus WILL find you, acula.
blindman, janus is going to secure him something i haven't had in years...i'll tell ya later...to help with the lyrics.
we'll see if dylan's advice on the matter is helpful.
teacher teach of evil fates/
goodness hides behind its gates/
sometimes even the president of the united states/
must have ta stand naked/
so don't fear,
janus
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CbiPDSxFgd8
(To the Other Side)
.
janus,
send me lyrics.
we can make music, god willing and the creek don't rise.
i see you have the gift of the word. my gift is in question,
where it belongs.
p ?
okay, i like a challenge...may make a fool of mysefl; never been afraid of that neither.
i'm honored. it may take a day or two. but i'll give it the ole college try.
Thanks for a great contribution, George! It will hopefully spur others to think about practical solutions.
We do need to bypass discussing "Which bonehead in DC will fix the problems created by the boneheads in DC" and move onto actually sorting this out ourselves.
Washington DC is the enemy of the sovereign states of the Union and is therefore the enemy of the American people.
SECEDE NOW and let's get started on rebuilding a free and prosperous society from the ground up. It won't be easy, but it IS necessary!
The entire concept behind economy is based on scarcity. Scarcity is an idea conceived by man, not apparent in our surroundings. The grass grows in my yard without my help, the deer browse through and eat my shrubbery with little regard, the rain falls and the cycle continues.
Yes, we get hungry and we get cold and there are seasons of scarcity, but the fundamental paradigm on earth is abundance and renewal in its natural state. We're surrounded by it. But if you recognize abundance and accept it then it devolves into a peer-to-peer economy that essentially removes much of the power and influence that is exercised within systems based on the "wealth of nations" rather than the abundance of the universe. The "invisible hand" becomes your hand and your neighbors hand.
Statistical probabilities such as the second law of thermodynamics and entropy are, like the law of gravity itself, relative to your location and not "laws" and never have been laws. The best example I know of abundance is not only fresh water, but the need to transport fresh water efficiently from one place to another. Potable water is the cornerstone unit of value in all human existence, not gold. The world is essentially a fresh water filter, but if we only had an efficient way to move water from one place to another.... a way that didn't use a lot of oil... a way that would allow us to create a fresh water derivative that we could collateralize and trade... think tug boats pullling icebergs to the desert. What an amazing solution that would create for mankind.
What a minute.... I just figured it out. There is a great and energy efficient water transport system that doesn't rely on OPEC. It's called the sun.
Dave Harrison
www.tradewithdave.com
scarcity is a socially mediated perception and a biological
reality, depending on the milieux and the level of intellect
of the population. in the realm of finance it is the core building
block of usury that is used to enslave the idiots, ie the us in the
usa.
>Scarcity is an idea conceived by man, not apparent in our surroundings.
In the cosmic age when there were no men, there was no scarcity. But as long as there is one man who is conscious, then there is someone who is acting to alleviate his felt uneasiness. In carrying out his actions this man is limited by physical laws, by the speed of his own mind, by the strength and hardiness of his own body, by the materials available to him, and by the willingness of his neighbors to cooperate with his plans. He depends on limited intelligence and foresight to form efficacious plans. There is scarcity. Even in the Garden of Eden, there is scarcity: I cannot stand at the same location that you stand at. Scarcity is an inescapable part of the human condition.
Even in the Garden of Eden, there is scarcity: I cannot stand at the same location that you stand at. Scarcity is an inescapable part of the human condition.
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Made me laugh. US citizens can not stand definitions of words. They need perpetual redefining to make their woobly stuff stay together.
Is it not a criterion that should be applied to private property, not scarcity?
Lets have some fun: with that scarcity, the universe is scarce no matter what. A rock can not stand at the same location as another rock. So what?
Makes no sense as one expects from US propaganda, which is cheap.
Another remark in regards with scarcity: one guy is standing here, another there. Both have locations and another would waste resources moving to one's location. Locations can or can not be scarce in this example as both locations might provide the same benefits.
US citizens are condescending. They belittle people of the past as if US citizens have provided benefitial original thoughts. But people of the past knew what scarcity is and what abundance is.
The property underlined in the comment is not one of scarcity. It is one of private property. With the social construction called private property, a place owned by one is not owned by another (zero sum game which by the way seriously damage the story about cooperation as often recanted on this site)
When we accept as a pardigm Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations or John Locke's Two Treatises of Government and their implications to property rights as the cornerstone of our society, you are correct. That's a fundamentally scarcity model based on the net sum game that every piece of property "owned" and enforced through violence or coercion is a piece of property not able to be owned by another. It's an understanding of water and the watershed that helps you break free of the concept of real property ownership within a vacuum as being worthless. It's the dynamic nature of the property, the inherent free movement across the property (the sun, the wind, the rain) that imbues the property with its abundance, not the property itself. The property is the medium, not the message.
This is becoming increasingly clear to people as the very sheriff who enforces their so-called "ownership" via property rights is the same sheriff who destroys the value through the enforcement of oppresive tax regimes that are unsustainable. Ownership of property and distraint as found within the Magna Carta is a deception designed to undermine both the importance of stewardship and to provide some false level of comfort in the paper-based ownership model of a deed. A map is not a battlefield any more than a deed is property.
You may believe these constructs have served us well depending on your point-of-view or opinion, but anyone who has liquidated an estate understands that "It all goes back in the box" and that ownership is only stewardship whether you accept it or not or whether you are a responsible steward or not. Real property only has this power of the "invisible hand" over us if we value property.
As you can see from this thread there's a farmer out there in Ohio who valued his property until such time as the visible hand turned it into a liability through excessive taxation and coercion. So the farmer's perception changes that property is a liability, not an asset. Then values begin to shift. People start to devalue real property and revalue productive output. Maybe that perceived productive output is in the form Monsanto GMO grain managed by Cargill or ADM. Then soccer mom founds out about that or about high fructose corn syrup or hydrogenated vegetable oil and her values shift again. She's a choosy Mom, but she quits choosing Jiff peanut butter and the world shifts again when the quarterly earnings report is released... because of her shift in consciousness.
Where does valuation form? Why do we value gold? Why do we value a Toll Brothers house in a demographically "safe" cul de sac, or a guy down the road who raises free range chickens who has the USDA breathing down his neck. Values are formed within the consciousness and the same thing goes for gold. If the world was hit but a bunch of huge meteriorites containing gold, the consciousness regarding its value would shift overnight (by the way that's where gold comes from). In summary, you're correct, in my opinion, that the concept of scarcity does originate in great part as it relates to the concept of private property. It's a deception that breaks down quickly at the end of a gun barrel or at the end of probate. It's stewardship, not ownership and once we understand that we don't want to own the farm unless we're prepared to be accountable to our neighbor for how we manage it, what happens to the output, including the runoff that sheds off that land. Within such a framework, people who have the inclination and willingness to take responsibility for stewardship would be revered for their willingness to accept the accountability for their impact on their community.
Dave Harrison
www.tradewithdave.com
"The property underlined in the comment is not one of scarcity. It is one of private property"
You are splitting hairs. Private property implies that something is contentious. For example, two people cannot simultaneously eat the same ham sandwich. Whenever there is private property, there is scarcity. In fact, property rights are a logical means of coping with scarcity.
When you are standing on the ground, I cannot occupy the same space without clashing and I cannot pass through it either. The external data of the world limit the choices available to me. There is scarcity.
By contrast, an idea such as "1+1=2" is not contentious. Two people can simultaneously use this idea without clashing. It is not scarce and it is not property. As it is not scarce, it is also not an economic good. It is not an element of catallactics.
>a place owned by one is not owned by another (zero sum game
What do you mean by "zero sum"? When I trade a dollar for an apple at the store, it's because I ex ante value the apple more than the dollar. Likewise, the store values my dollar more than its apple. Obviously this is true; otherwise there would be no exchange. Hence, both parties ex ante expect to benefit from the trade. But how can both parties benefit if private property exchanges are "zero sum", as you say?
The answer to the riddle is that it is impossible to quantify, compare, or sum the subjective valuations of two individuals. There is no "zero sum", because there is no "sum".
You are splitting hairs. Private property implies that something is contentious. For example, two people cannot simultaneously eat the same ham sandwich. Whenever there is private property, there is scarcity. In fact, property rights are a logical means of coping with scarcity.
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Splitting hair? No, keeping distinction where there are.
Indeed, two consumers can not eat the same ham sandwich. This does not imply a scarcity issue.
Consumers A and B go to a take away. Each orders the same menu. A unable to eat B's menu does not delineate a scarcity issue. The restaurant unable to deliver either A or B's meals delineates a scarcity situation.
But indeed, in every case, neither A or B can own the meal of the other respectively.
Breathing is funny. How? Because greed can not expand beyond a certain level breathing. Greedy people can not breathe more than that.
Scarcity does not depend on private property. Private property is useful to generate scarcity though as it is a zero sum game.
So what? A and B locked up in a tight room determines scarcity of air, not private property. Private property or not, air will turn scarce sooner or later. In the open world, no matter how greedy people breathe, they can not overbreathe and therefore, private property is ineffective in bringing scarcity.
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What do you mean by "zero sum"? When I trade a dollar for an apple at the store, it's because I ex ante value the apple more than the dollar. Likewise, the store values my dollar more than its apple. Obviously this is true; otherwise there would be no exchange. Hence, both parties ex ante expect to benefit from the trade. But how can both parties benefit if private property exchanges are "zero sum", as you say?
The answer to the riddle is that it is impossible to quantify, compare, or sum the subjective valuations of two individuals. There is no "zero sum", because there is no "sum".
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Made me laugh. US citizenism has really destroyed the capacity of thinking. It is really something that should be studied in depth.
US citizens are unable to keep a line of thinking, they constantly need to turn the tables to meet their pre set conclusions.
So what happened to the line hold previously? That two consumers could not eat the same ham sandwich? Should not the same line give that the two agents here could not own at the same the dollar note and the apple? They have either one or the other?
US citizenism is really a construction built of the ghost of nothing. It has to use coercion to stand. There is no other way.
Ah, oh, to finish with, wrong postulates usually give wrong conclusions.
A guy crops an apple from a tree. The cropper must value the apple more than seeing the tree with an apple on it and the tree must value more being unloaded from an apple. Either, exchange would not happen.
your doctorate is the perfect formula that iconises what is a modern day sophist. You'd make a great lawyer to sell heaven to a pilgrim by describing to him hell as the maze of Knossos out of which he will never come out alive. Your logic is so convoluted it would make a Jesuit blush with envy.
Your logic is so convoluted
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Is there any logics in the following?
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By contrast, an idea such as "1+1=2" is not contentious. Two people can simultaneously use this idea without clashing. It is not scarce and it is not property. As it is not scarce, it is also not an economic good. It is not an element of catallactics.
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The only thing in it is the will to distort in order to meet a preset conclusion. The method is the same: pushing property of something onto another. The method is illogical in itself.
Ideas are ideas. They can be 'used' by people anytime and simultaneously without clashing, whether they are contentious or not contentious.
Two people can 'use' 1+1=3 without clashing.
No logics here. More the absence of logics, even the most twisted.
What is told is that if there were a means to turn into private property the process of thinking, US citizens like this guy would try to bring that in.
"Hell is other people" and "No exit" where the thesis of Jean-Paul Sartre upon which much of our modern day philosophy and policies are based. It's existentialism. It's saying "the only meaning my life has is the meaning that I create for it. I was not created for any special purpose. My life has no meaning imbued to me by my Creator. I am God." I happen to disagree with that thesis. I believe we all posses a unique purpose that is "a priori."
Dave Harrison
www.tradewithdave.com
For example, two people cannot simultaneously eat the same ham sandwich.
*cuts sandwich in half. gives half to Dr Acula.*
so much for THAT argument.
People in the past had some knowledge in euclidian geometry.
Private property being a zero sum game does not delineate a scarcity situation.
Scarcity is determined by the capacity of producing two ham sandwichs. Whether or not the two ham sandwiches can be owned by the same person.
In the Western world, under the rule of US citizenism, economics are used to depicting themselves at managers of scarcity.
As the US world order has been benefiting from an age of abundance, when you are in the business of scarcity, you might want to scale abundance down to what you know to manage: scarcity.
Somebody in one other thread (BMWs and China) has brought up a means to bring in scarcity for a resource that greed and private property have not yet made scarce: clean air. If you pollute enough air, then clean air will be scarce and you will be able to manage the scarcity issue you have introduced.
I appreciate your perspective and if you don't mind I will give a couple of responses. First of all, from a purely scientific standpoint (and I'm no scientist), Poincare's conjecture was proven by Grigori Perelman quite recently. This proves the fact that we are all simply connected. As humans we act as feedback loop. Essentially we are a torus, but we live on a sphere. We are a feedback loop as life passes through us just like you can pass something through a donut hole. (http://tradewithdave.com/?p=778).
What's most significant, in my opinion, about these findings is that they emphasize the significance of our free will as humans and our ability to act on our choices and affect change. These ideas can be interepreted in everything from the Rosenthal effect to quantum mechanics and even behavioral economics. Concepts such as Sunstein's "Choice Architecture" are nothing but yet another Marxist solution designed to free us from the consequences of our free will choices by saying "Government knows best... it's not your fault... we'll take over from here." How else can we satisfy ourselves from the guilt of the accountability for our actions? Let's see.
Since you brought it up, Jesus Christ offererd a solution. First of all, I would suggest not accepting the lie that Satan presented in the garden that there was scarcity. There wasn't one tree, there were two. A tree of life and a tree of knowledge of good and evil. It was the second tree that they were forbidden from eating of.
This knowledge of good and evil, has since that day been the human condition. But God sent his son to free us from that burden and to forgive us for our sins. It's no small reason that Jesus instructed us to love our neighbor. Just read any of the posts on resilience or gold or stockpiling weapons and the first thing someone says is "I hope you have a bigger gun than your neighbor."
Perelman's findings show that we're simply connected from a mathematical perspective. We all know that we're simply connected, but we try to deny it because we can't control our neighbor so instead we isolate in a vain attempt to protect and insulate. The Good News is that Christ will come again and he will reign and instead of building NAWAPA, we'll breakdown all the things that we have built that block abundance that the earth was designed to give to us freely. The only question that leaves in my mind is does Christ return when He's ready, or when we're ready.
Dave "your neighbor" Harrison
www.tradewithdave.com
yes, bag o bones, dry-abstract 'logic' can keep going forever. as you may know, math-boy, we can logically deduce that a ball will never hit the ground...in so far as we can keep dividing the distance before it hits the ground, never reconcile the infinity of time and space division, and, therefore the ball, according to the tenents of your 'logic' will never hit the ground.
but we see with our eyes that the ball hits the ground; and we also see it bounce back into the air, arching again for another go at the affair -- this time with a lil less spirit.
now, feebleminded, you started off decently with your little syllogism; but you concluded the way all morons do -- in abject and demoralizing failure.
janus is always here, acula the yellow.
i'll try to keep my cultural allusions within the province of the nerd; as i do want you to 'get it'.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4SJ0xR2_bQ
let's see what you got.
invictus,
janus
think tug boats pullling icebergs to the desert.
"Flood a desert, empty an ocean." - Jeanie, from I dream of Jeanie, a 60's comedy show.
think tug boats pullling icebergs to the desert.
"Brewster's Millions"?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svKq044qrYU
NAWAPA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERq86OlS-_k
The ultimate jobs and infrastructure project. At first I thought they were crazy, then I watched "China:engineering an empire" and realized it had already been done on a simpler scale.
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=china+engineering+an+empire&...
I am glad you brought up Lyndon Larouche and NAWAPA because it is a response to the issue, although I disagree with it. In particular Sky Shields who works with Larouche PAC has done a good job of articulating the issue and attempted to frame it within the context of the "Three Body Problem."
My point about dragging icebergs with tug boats or building hydroelectric dams to resolve the second the second law of thermodynamics is actually addressing the exact same issue that NAWAPA attempts to resolve, however they attempt to resolve it through the creation of even larger "Hoover Dam" type projects based on even larger North-American central planning.
Most people don't realize that at its heart this is a libertarian paternalist agenda (not a libertarian agenda) which is essentially progressive in its mindset. That's exactly why in the recent MSNBC advertising campaign they posed Rachel Maddow on top of the Hoover Dam to show what we can do as a society when we set our minds to it. Solving the problem by building a dam so to speak actually creates the problem... doesn't solve it (Las Vegas for example as an unsustainable paradigm - to be debated in future posts).
My point which is the polar opposite of NAWAPA is that hydroelectric energy isn't hydroelectric energy... it's solar energy. Why? Because it is solar power that moves the water above the dam line... not the dam itself. Once you understand that and also that oil is solar energy and natural gas is solar energy, it changes the human consciousness about where energy is coming from. This quickly allows you to look in your back yard and understand the power plant you have right under feet.
This doesn't resolve this month's power bill or how to air condition your office, but the solution is not in the next invention as much as it is in unlocking the understanding of what is power. It's more about the human mind and consciousness and the sun itself than it is about Exxon or Lyndon Larouche's next hydro-electric project that would create thousands of jobs. We see this model today in the extensive public relations campaign everyday on CNBC to convince us that fracking isn't going to damage our groundwater. Does anyone seriously believe that... and nuclear power won't damage Fukushima.
I think it was Edward Deming (not sure, so don't quote me) who was consulting with the Japanese on job creation and the subject came up of why the builder was not employing advanced hydraulic equipment in the construction. The builder told Deming that by using shovels they could create more jobs. Deming's response was why don't you simply give them spoons to dig with and you can create even more jobs.
The point is that our current solutions are not solutions. We're blocking the energy. I live near a huge dam and less than a generation ago there were massive shad fishing and canning operations there... wonder what happened to them? The sooner we realize that you release energy when you unblock water rather than block it, move away from overly transport dependent models and source closer to home, (more skype, less UPS) and turn our focus to the source of all energy in our universe rather than attempting to shortcut it or worse to build our own sun too close to home in the form of nuclear fission.
Water is the source of life. The sun is the source of energy. Is that really all that hard to understand and to act on. Jobs and money are a construct. What people want is to be fulfilled, not to commute... I know I've done more than my share. The irony of Larouche is that these guys are challenging the second law of thermodynamics in a project they call "the basement." What they may not realize is that they're putting themselves out of a job.
Yeah, I don't know enough about the actual NAWAPA concept to have an educated opinion about it. I just find it fascinating that the engineering was done in the late 1950's and here it a half century later and no one in the media even mentions it.
We can build a pipeline through earthquake & flood & tornado country to bring Canadian oil from tar sands to the southwest and middle west, but we can't even consider building channels to move upper midwest flood water to the deserts of America.
There are so many things that need repaired in this nation, so many new things that need to be built, but there is no discussion or even mention of ideas in the media.
One in six Americans live in poverty, soon it will be one in five, than one in four and yet we sit on our hands and wait for the system to destroy our economy. Something is very wrong with this picture.
We must at some point confront our reality. The system has failed and yet it brooks no competition, it allows no other paths. We are living in a failed state, imprisoned in our cocoons..
Water and food, these should national imperatives. Clean and safe water and food. Life at its most basic and yet our government stumbles and we get Chinese toxic toys and salmonella in our produce.
A new economy must be built so that we may allow this tragic wreck of an economy to die.
There's a LOT to this discussion of scarcity, Dave. Thanks for bringing it up and elucidating a bit!
Whoa... can I have some of what you've been smokin'?