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Flash Boys Has Been Dethroned At The Top Of The Amazon Bestseller List By This Book
From a critique of pure capitalist algorithmic frontrunning (which was at the top Amazon bestseller spot until a few days ago)...
... we go to a critique of pure capitalism.
Which of course, is merely a rehash of a critique of all capitalism as expounded some 150 years ago by this book.
And to think all it took was 147 years of 'capitalism' for the circle to be complete from Das Kapital's labor-vs-capital Marxist manifesto to Thomas Piketty's Capital "exposing capitalism's fatal flaw" topping the Amazon book charts. One wonders who finds the time to read the 696 page tome whose core thesis is well-known for socialists the world over: under capitalism the rich, or hoarders of capital, get steadily richer in relation to everyone else; inequality gets worse and worse and it's all unavoidable, between #Selfies, The Voice semi-finals, and Dance Moms finales.
One thing is certain: the financial asset tax we warned about back in 2011 is coming with a bang.
So, communism's heyday is coming again, right? Maybe. One thing is certain: liberals couldn't be more delighted about mandatory equality. But as we discussed yesterday, there is one thing that no one seems to want to discuss about Piketty's findings... gold...
Well, feature the chart that Professor Piketty publishes showing inequality in America. This appears in the book at figure 9.8; a similar version, shown alongside here, is offered on his Web site. It’s an illuminating chart. It shows the share of national income of the top decile of the population. It started the century at a bit above 40% and edged above 45% in the Roaring Twenties. It plunged during the Great Depression and edged down in World War II, and then steadied out, until we get to the 1970s. Something happened then that caused income inequality to start soaring. The top decile's share of income went from something like 33% in 1971 to above 47% by 2010.
Hmmm. What could account for that? Could it be the last broadcast of the “Lawrence Welk Show?” Or the blast off of the Apollo 14 mission to the Moon? Or could it have something to do with the mysterious D.B. Cooper, who bailed out of the plane he hijacked, never to be seen again? A timeline of 1971 offers so many possibilities. But, say, what about the possibility that it was in the middle of 1971, in August, that America closed the gold window at which it was supposed to redeem in specie dollars presented by foreign central banks. That was the default that ended the era of the Bretton Woods monetary system.
That’s the default that opened the age of fiat money. Or the era that President Nixon supposedly summed up in with Milton Friedman’s immortal words, “We’re all Keynesians now.” This is an age that has seen a sharp change in unemployment patterns. Before this date, unemployment was, by today’s standards, low. This was a pattern that held in Europe (these columns wrote about it in “George Soros’ Two Cents”) and in America (“Yellen’s Missing Jobs”). From 1947 to 1971, unemployment in America ran at the average rate of 4.7%; since 1971 the average unemployment rate has averaged 6.4%. Could this have been a factor in the soaring income inequality that also emerged in the age of fiat money?
This is the question the liberals don’t want to discuss, even acknowledge.
h/t @Not_Jim_Cramer
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Kommunism is for YOU, Comrade, not ME.
I will find it for free and then not read it.
Isn't this all a bit binary? There is the IDEA of capitalism and socialism. We're already in the other system, fascism
Isn't fascism plotted at a point somewhere between a private ownership based society and a "The People" towit; the government's ownership of all property?
Um, hoarding isn't bad. Read Rothbard. It simply removes money from circulation, (think of it as the anti-QE), and therefore makes all money remaining in circulation slightly more valuable in exchange.
Okay, I'm a hoarder. That's not relevant.
You neglect to mention the importance of the influence of money.
As with nuclear weapons, them as have money don't have to use it to get what they want.
when goods stop crossing borders, troops do.
Almost never.
People starve, but that is acceptable.
Troops move when there is treasure.
I probably should refine what i said to be more specific about food, water, medicine, energy, etc. (treasures = resources).
+1 of course.
In which case we are in general agreement.
The special case of course is oil (energy).
Semantics, gets me every time! I tend to jump right in and my brain catches up afterwards.
If your brain is catching up later (or even, ever) then you are waaaaaay ahead of 99% of people out there.
I swear to God almost nobody anymore can manage two thoughts at the same time.
Now account for price/wage rigidity ...
Jim Morrison died in 1971. When the music's over, turn out the lights.
1
2 3 4 5 6arghhhh WAS GOING TO DO A 1971/2014 POP MUSIC COMPARRISON BUT THE FORMATTING IS RETARDED /DELETE
7 8Noone here gets out alive. Enjoy the movie.
Jim Morrison's dad was the commanding admiral of the Bay of Tonkin non-event. I always found that interesting.
Maybe I'm missing something but I don't see the point in tarring "liberals" with that brush.
As a rule, I'm leery of scapegoating these days. The US does not have a 2-party electoral system, there are no blue and red states. Anyone thinks that way still is either a student of Joe Goebbels working for the elites to divide the opposition, or is stupid as a sack of busted hammers.
This is not a test, not true, this kind of is a test of our endurance
There's really no one left to place the blame on and hang in effigy
This was not ruined by a regime, it also took a hundred million
Of angry, stupid, scared, pathetic populace to complete the deed
And it's a long, long way down
And there's no climbing back so wave bye bye
And it’s a long, long free dive
So fill your lungs with air and grab a weight
It's been a long time coming and well deserved
It's time to redefine what we call neighborhoods and start to trust your neighbors
Circle the figurative wagons and figure it's gonna be
A long painful de-evolution that could last for decades
America as we know it, is finished, fermenting and flailing
And it's a long, long way down
The parachutes are gone so grab a smoke
And it's a long, long free fall
No signs of soft landing bon grave voyage
It's been a long time coming and well deserved
Would you feel better if the word Progressive was used? It's factually correct for what they identify themselves as, and it correctly identifies the fascist muther phuckers in both parties.
Urrrmmm ...
I'll let it go for now.
I think I made my point.
Completely agree, cougar.
Bretton woods has been collapsing since 1971. That is when organic growth really rolled over and died. It has only been synthetic growth (leverage upon leverage) ever since. Called overshoot in more lay terms.
That's way too strong, there has been a ton of new technology since 1971 that has produced real growth too, in the US and around the world.
It would be interesting trying to weigh that against the "synthetic growth". It may be the real thing predominated until about the millenium, but once Clinton and Greenspan approved modern derivatives, and with China sucking any real growth out of the US, it's been bad since then.
Yeah, it is a generalization for sure. Becomes more and more relevant as time goes on... into the deregulation of banking, globalization, NAFTA, you name it. All to keep the wheels spinning.
Money changers trying to understand philosophy is like Marx trying to understand capitalism.
I LOLed.
Once again, it takes a 700-page tome for a socialist to explain capitalism. That's like taking 700-pages to explain what a hammer is for as a foundational argument for why we need totalitarian centralized government.
Capitalism is not an all-encompassing ideology for instructing citizens how they should live their lives. It is just a tool for making free markets work. We don't like hammers therefore let us tell you how to live your lives.
exactly...because M.U.T.A.N.T.S. are fucking wack jobs and sociopaths who like to bloviate about their utopian fantasies and lie their fucking asses off to try and convince sane people to come over to the dark side.
Yet, W. Cleon Skousen succinctly explained what these Socialist/Commie retards were up to in his book: The Naked Capitalist
http://www.amazon.com/Naked-Capitalist-W-Cleon-Skousen/dp/0899683231/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1398284628&sr=1-1&keywords=the+naked+capitalist
Great little book of only 144 pages that tears apart Tragedy and Hope by Carroll Quigley which drones on and on and on for like what, 1400 fucking pages or something like that?
I fucking hate M.U.T.A.N.T.S. and the author of this Marx Redux must be one of them. The establishment tries to get us to believe in zombies, but zombies aren't real. M.U.T.A.N.T.S. are and they should all be exterminated!
M.arxist
U.topian
T.reasonous
A.uthoritarian
N.efarious
T.yrannical
S.ociopaths
******************************************************
So a Marxist, a Muslim, and an illegal alien walk into a bar...
The bartender says, "Hello, Mr. President."
Bah-dump-bump
Nice
Worked so well the first time ...only makes sense to give 'er another go!
Good that everyone is buying an economics book for the 21st century because they need to understand the difference between long term demand destruction aka deflation and the so called growth due to fake interest rates, fake creation of money to buy delinquent subprime bonds to allow fake banks to zombie on, fake unemployment figures, fake stock market traded by machines between themselves and fake real estate data etc in the new capitalism model from Amerika, the great leader of all things capitalist.
I wish the Fed could buy all the unemployed people a house from the QE money being printed instead of saving GS and their fellow banksters. How about giving sick people free surgeries or giving bonuses to everyone like 10% of their last years taxabale income...but wait....helping the poor is not part of the agenda...you have to be rich to receive help...Got it! <Face palm>
Whoever said that bankers take the umbrella away when it starts to rain....poor bankers...the central bankers are busy giving umbrella to whoever needs...provided you have a banking licence i.e. a licence to scam, legally, of course!
Good part is that the word 'deflation' is entering the lexicon once again and is being debated inside ECB.
Weapon of Last Resort: ECB Considers Possible Deflation MeasuresThe empire's entire economic system is firmly a Fabian Socialist construct called the third way. Private ownership but government regulation and control. They want their cake aka all the benefits of wealth and to be able to eat it aka control.
Communism is just one of their Heglian Economic Dialetics nothing more. It is just a convenient excuse to expand the empire while deceiving people from truth.
The nice thing about "socialism" (whatever we mean by that) is that it gives a plausable enough reason to concentrate wealth and power. The promise to have these "serve the greater good" (whatever that means to anyone) is only as good as the delivery of same. The social contract then is that if "the people" (errr...) don't like how the promise is kept they can "revolt" (ummm...) but that is easly diverted by giving the people something shiny.
Almost nobody understands any of this.
Socialism became a Corporatist tool as soon as it was born.
Putin loves capitalism.
He's richer than any Soviet leader ever.
This guy is the biggest dumbass. Analyzing the Keynesian monster as capitalism and then concluding it is a fault of capitalism.
Stupid is as stupid does.....
Personally I perfer Thomas Paine's Common Sense.
One person on ZH is opposed to common sense, refreshing! Must be thrilling to wake up in the morning, walk over to your computer, in your pajamas, log into your troll job at FreeSocialistArmy.com, get your distributed "work" list for the day, and start down ticking common sense.
More likely, we have a serial down-voter. They seem to erupt spontaneously from the dark, bell-shaped swamps of average intelligence.
Or someone came up with a script to stream new comments, and downvotes as it parses so that next parse it avoids duplicates.
Oh look who just showed up to cheer us up.! Another poor (unless tenured) envious intellectual professor who thinks other guys have too much $$$ (read: more than him). Where do I sign up?
I witnessed socialist equality in action years ago when my boss decided that everyone would get the same bonus year in and year out in fairness. A couple years into it, we had people showing up at 11am and leaving at 3pm and he couldn't figure out why their work ethic was gone.
Who was the first governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony? I think that experiment w/ equal shares regardless of productivity was tested and you can guess at the outcome.
I wonder if this genius ever overlayed the growth of government, rules, regulations & tax burden over the falling income 'inequality' chart for the same period?
Isn't a legal tender act followed by the debasement of the currency the ultimate in destructive rules and regulations? You pretty much don't need to do anything else whatsoever in order to screw everyone who isn't an insider.
"One thing is certain: liberals couldn't be more delighted about mandatory equality."
With constant repetition "liberal" has become the new "communist".
Its function has been to move the debate way to the corporatist/fascist right.
I am not making any statement about ideology.
Look at the results of this manipulation of language.
Key question: Have we become more free or more restricted these last few decades?
America is run by corporate business interests of both major parties (see Bundy Ranch/Reid interests example).
Is Senator Reid a "liberal"? No, he's a fucking corrupt, shit-stain using fuzzy language. He's using his power to steamroll the "little guy", Bundy in this case.
My similar rant above.
People: understand the importance of words in propaganda.
My personal favorite is "growth"
Please. Not during lunch.
Yes.
results of this manipulation of language = corporatist/fascist right.
Honestly, there's no left and right. just kick-ass daddy and smothering-mommy, old-testament and new-testament, and the humans with brains which respond to these fundamental bundles of bullshit.
It's the crony-capitalist and crony-socialist sociopaths leading the (R)etards and (D)umbasses to the top of Mt Authority, and there's no other system possible because most humans have brains that are configured to worship authority (daddy and mommy).
"Your anaysis, Mr Spock?"
"Captain, the only things on this planet are Gold and the weapons that guard it."
There is absolutely a left and a right. I think what you're referring to is the democrat/repub as left right is utter BS. And on that, I absolutely agree and I loathe them both.
I wonder if they will print another over hundred year old book, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion?
"Karl, you're one of the Tribe. We ask you to write this down as an act of loyalty the The Cause."
Seems that most people find it impossible to seperate Marx's technical critique of capitalism in early books, with his later suggestions for what to replace it with. They aren't the same thing.
Unfuckingbelieveable that these monstrous mass murdering animals have the fucking balls to "blame capitalism" for inequalities of income and net worth.
Brought to you by the death camp champions, the Fabian Society, whose letterhead logo is that of - and I shit you not, a wolf in sheep's clothing.
Central planners steal literally everything you own and blame you for it.
"We will grind them in between the twin millstones of income tax and inflation," - Lenin
Their stained glass window designed by one of their heros is pretty bad too.
http://2012patriot.wordpress.com/2011/05/24/fabian-stained-glass-window/
Heat it so you can remould it nearer to the hearts desire...
Hit nail on head!
Hit nail on head!
Right the Fuck on!
Yep one of the many Jesuit's 'disguised' mercenaries they use to maintain the empire.
"Ooh lala. My book is a great success. Now to buy some nutella and take a 6 week vacation from my government teaching job with my mistress."
For forms of government let fools contest: whatever's best administered is best. - Alexander Pope
The fact is there is an Iron Law of Oligarchy. It doesn't matter how you set it up, a small clique eventually runs things.
The Athenians tried to lick the problem with the ostracism system.
Other societies have had much uglier purges.
The Icelanders deposed their "Octopus" bloodlessly.
What is needed is a system that makes it difficult to retain and concentrate wealth and power, and easy to diffuse it. So far it has been much easier to articulate that idyllic state than any means to reach and perpetuate it.
Yes indeed. Because it's really tough to for the dumb-n-clueless to not believe the bullshit created by the smart-n-savvy people.
It seems that only small countries are capable of having a society where the sociopaths don't devour the dumbasses; and then only IF the sociopaths happen to need the dumbasses for other longer term purposes (like catching cod in small boats on the North Atlantic).
NotaRealAmerican - Do you or do you not understand the cyle of great courage, freedom to great success and then apathy which then in evolutions draws brilliant but deficient sociopaths to push by pain to go forward?
Hey egomaniac, yes you who feel superior to supposed "dumb-asses". Go fuck yourself. I am sick ot you calling the global citizen a dumb-ass. You fall with them Mr. Sociopath. I'll cry for you, really because you were coded to be eventually slain. But enjoy your short supposed reign of intellectual superiority...
Or perhaps you look in the mirror and realize your individual intellect is mere nothing compared to our collective species. Ones who break the mold with intellect do not call others dumb-asses. Where did Einstein or Edison do such a thing? Dimitri Orlov? Go hide yourself in shame before you get hit with a (virtual or not?) hammer to your head. Let history decide if the hammer is virtual or not.
"We will grind them in between the twin millstones of income tax and inflation," - Lenin
Nice quote what is the source?
Um ... Lenin?
Or did you mean "source" in some other context?
I'm not saying he didn't say it. But I'm not sure there is proof he did. Either way.
http://blog.skepticallibertarian.com/2013/04/15/fake-quote-files-v-i-len...
Full disclosure: I spent exactly 20 seconds researching it myself. Pitiful, I know. This is the first link that addressed it directly. An interesting read for anyone who is actually interested if he actually said it. It is not my blog.
If someone had given the quote first and then asked us who do you think said this? I would have hazarded: Lord Nathan Rothschild.
Which is every bit as good a fit as V.I. Lenin.
Fair enough. But it would appear, regardless of ideology, that he did not say it. But I'm no expert. Is it fitting? Sure. But the original posters question remains valid. Hard to go around quoting someone if you aren't sure.
Point.
?
They will never, ever blame the monetary system.
It is the Ponzi by which they all operate. Government of the Ponzi, by the Ponzi, for the Ponzi, shall not perish from the earth.
Because of course we do not bite the hand that feeds us.
Oh and on the subject of biting, I recently fed Paul Krugman to a tiger:
http://fedtoatiger.blogspot.com/2014/04/dr-paul-krugman-is-fed-to-tiger....
HA!! That was funny. +10
LOL!
Css1971 - Not true. But the deception runs three levels deep. Most of us think three levels deep: Concepts, issues, details. Draw a a pyramid and put these three layers into it. Now - what the Rothschilds have done and all dicks suckers of them have done is create this deception of who is in charge:
1) Government
2) Media
3) People
Reality of the pyramid right now:
1) Central banking
2) government
3) media
Note, the equation of the people is not there yet. What becomes reality based on evolution of pecking order:
1) People
2) Government
3) media
Banking should be a utility. I could write DOS software from 1977 to replace what they do. But the Central Banker franchise owned by Rothschild family, the Council of Nine (google) dares to proclaim themselves god? HAHAHA. Your wrong Csss1071, I do appreciate most of your commentary but I disagree. The model has been exposed. Whether 1/3 die to replace it or not, banking will become a utility. This time after near four hundred years is different. The model of Central Banking though evil I must admit was absolutley brilliant. It also involved not just lending but sending false signal at it's inception. But for them to continue when evolution as brought us forward means they intent to make us all stagnate and die of entropy at an accelerated rate. Adjust the model and involve the people of get washed away by the tidal wave of evolution. I prefer non-violence and making all of us collectively limited partners in a more stable model than boom bust, thank you.
dupe
Funny how any and every critique or consideration of capitalism is always met with anger, bitching, moaning and derision of socialism, communism, etc. Because the ONLY choice we have is between one of these. And 100% of the one we choose. Not mostly capitalism with some socialism (like the socialism we've had for the wealthy in America for decades). It's like the only choice we're given between a pro-corporate republican or a pro-corporate democrat in any given election and then we can argue about the purity of those candidates once the owners give us their choices.
There can be free markets without capitalism. Such systems existed in the scant few historic cultures that libertarians point to as evidence that their chosen system is possible.
Also, it seems the capitalists can do a good job of central planning themselves. Bilderberg meetings anyone? Do you think that maybe the head honchos at the TBTF banks planned anything at all to ensure their bailouts after 2008? Corporate lobbyists dominate DC trying to get everything done their way, and doing a pretty good job of it. Yet it's only government's fault and it's all socialism, communism, etc... Unless there's a republican president, then we eat freedom fries and kick ass.
Finally, if capitalism is the default, perfect system of all humanity, wouldn't it be apparent to everyone on a daily basis without the need for all of the defenders lining to espouse anger the moment anyone might question their sacred cow? Thin skins abound around here.
How can you refer to 'TBTF' banks and 'capitalism' in the same sentence? They are mutually contradictory. The central tenet of capitalism is the owners of capital are free to RISK (that's the important word) their capital to try to implement their ideas. If they fail (i.e. their ideas were wrong), they lose their money and go bankrupt. Jim Cramer's tantrums to the contrary, if GS or JPM or CITI or all three are allowed to faiil, the sun would still rise tomorrow. Any world that bails out these institutions is not 'capitalist'; it's corporate fascism, and it's where our current system (and any socialist/communist system) eventually wind up.
Re; our current system
And, speaking of systems, what OTHER system could possibly exist? Imagine you happened to be a member of the smart-n-savvy class 100 years or 10000 years ago. You want to screw some dumbasses (what else would you want to do, we're imagining you're a sociopath in this exersise, remember. Ok) so, back in time, you (as a sociopath) are stuck with a bad system which keeps you from screwing the dumbasses. What are you going to do?
Well, change the fucking system to allow for screwing the dumbasess. And, the best way to do that is to create bullshit about how screwing the dumbasses is good for the nation. Which, btw, brings us to about 40 years ago. Let's have a show of hand from all the dumbasses who beleived the bullshit about "how screwing the dumbasses is good for the nation"? See, just about everybody.
We've got the only system possible. There's NO SUCH THING as Capitalism. There's only sociopaths screwing dumbasses for fun and profit (for the good of the nation, of course).
DefinatleyNotARealAmerican OR CapitalistFucktard - Short term stealing kills long term opportunity and the host dies. Like the movie Heavy Metal where the evil alien says "you die, she dies, everybody dies!" Even a reformed sociopath like me gets it. So it is a personal choice assmuncher to logically think long term or not. To steal or not. Competing fairly seems harder but I do enjoy it. I also sleep at night and don't have to pay massive funds for good pussy. Fucktard.
dupe
Usual 'american' thing: unable to face reality as it is.
TBTF was a risk taken by people who considered they might be that but they did not validate until they took the risk of seeing for sure.
Other people discovered that while they thought they were too big to fail, actually, they were not.
So true - there is no 'capital' without government, a terribly tragic irony for all the 'capitalists' who oppose government.
GeorgHayduke - I like your simple breakdown. We laugh because it is funny and laugh because it is true. My solution to corruption. Have 10,000 representatives. If you can come up with a couple trillon upfront to buy them all without hyperinflation give it a run!
Of course, the sociopaths will find a way around this eventually but all we seem to get in any event is a breath of fresh air every few decades anyways. Perhaps this along with a return to the coinage act or on similar lines (be it gold or electrons) will give us enough time to evolve into 4d.
Either way, I would take a few decades of the sociopaths having to figure it out while they are studied doing so. By the way, I think like a sociopath because I was born with deficiencies and could easily be one. I would have to be downright Machivalien but I could fool most of them to give me their trust and loot and betray them like they did to America. However, Ilearned to overcome by looking in the mirror. It's a binary system. Choose your adventure!
I compete and win at the level I can and have a few laughs along the way. Sociopaths are deficient so they cheat. They also tend to be highly intelligent. We must after WW3, collapse etc learn to better to screen for them they will enter and do this again but perhaps we get 100 years of relative peace instead of 70.
dupe
..
'Socialism is a philosophy of ignorance and gospel of envy. Its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.' - Sir Winston Churchill
Well, in that context it doesn't seem so bad. I'm sure there are a bunch of .001%'ers who could use a good does of misery.
I guess the problem is, they are, and will always be outside of the reach of the people. ;-)
You ain't gonna get rich countin' somebody else's $$$!
You mean being an accountant?
;-P
Kinda busy today with "work" so haven't had time to read all the posts, but did we have anybody post that they didn't read the article because it had the word "Marx" in it?
If not, please use this:
Ok, I stopped right here: And to think all it took was 147 years of 'capitalism' for the circle to be complete from Das Kapital's
Graucho's autobiography was better!
[So-called ] "individualism" under Capitalism is the attempt to escape the results of Capitalism. [From Peter Kropotkin's writings].]
Or: Capitalism causes "individualism" as a reaction to escape the ravages of Capitalism.
Good one, and I wish we could get rid of these useless words like "Capitalism" and "Socialism". There's only screwISM. The smart-n-savvy manipulate the dumbasses for fun-n-profit. The same people running our society would be running it regardless of the particulare ISM being used to screw the dumbasses. The assholes run things, who else is going to; the nice guy down the block?
Crony Capitalism causes Communism.
Crony Capitalism is Fascism which causes cummunism
"This is the question the liberals don’t want to discuss, even acknowledge"
so let me get this straight, you're whining about liberals while a republican closed the gold window?? WTF?
Maybe he means: only liberals could possible change things because I sure don't see "conservatives" trying to take on the top 10%.
My guess is that this 're-distributor' is looking to share others peoples money who have more than he does ... as opposed to him sharing his $$$ with people who have less! He has got 'giving zero % of his income to charity' written all over him!
So, Dick got rid of real money in 71.
Yep, downhill from there.
"Captain, we are approaching the event horizon of the Ponzi Nebula."
"All the power you've got, Mr Scott, or we're going in!"
we're going to get a really awesome world once these problems are resolved:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7TLtXfZth5w
Without a standard, people lost the sense of value of money. Money isn't Money.
Debt isn't Debt.
We all lost in a world of nothing over nothing.
There are 2 things that stop communism cold....the ability to save in gold and guns. Cures Crapitalism too.
But, all the ISM have something much more powerful than gold, which is WHY the ISM's always win.
In the immortal words of the supreme sociopath: Never underestimate the power of the bullshit, young Skywalker.
without a deeper dive into longer term data sets, i see the 1971 gold window closing as hypotethical/coincidental as the "root cause" for a higher-trending unemployment rate.
is it a bit of a leap to suspect that the skill-sets were no longer required/desired by the marketplace, perhaps being at too high a premium relative to foreign sources or not matched to global/domestic demand?
are we capitalist, market economists or what here?
possible future/solution:
decentralised, redudant nodes within a global operating system and running a marxist/socialist/communist service on top with a real-time tutorial and recursive self-improvement feature.
Re; decentralised, redudant nodes within a global operating system and running a marxist/socialist/communist service on top with a real-time tutorial
I'm sure the people running things now, will be getting right on this.
Re: and recursive self-improvement feature
This is actually the magic of bullshit, btw. "recursive self-improvement feature", just when you think the smart-n-savvy people can't bullshit the dumbasses any more, the "recursive self-improvement feature" of bullshit comes into play.
Oh look, I think one of "those people" has the weapons of mass delusion, over there. look.
well, it's clear you're the pessimist.
what would change your mind?
Re: what would change your mind?
Not sure what you mean. I think I was born a pessimist. Usually, the basic configuration of the brain doesn't change much.
do some research, conduct a risk assessment, and perhaps give psychedelics a try, if you haven't already.
Resources were expanding cheaply before 1971, then the US reached Peak Oil production - resources were still expanding after that, but not as cheaply.
This is all interconnected with the fail of the gold standard.
Because the amount of gold needed to have rapidly increasing imports of oil did not exist. They must have convinced OPEC that they would suppress the gold price for them, in exchange for accepting USD for oil, to enable the OPECers to trade the pieces of paper for other people's gold.
I can't wait to see the sons of Ayn Rand now squirm in their own "sheeet".
To be double whammyed thus :
1° By Greenspan, in real life, her ideological son, the man who created this "cheap unlimited money" mantra; all for the greater glory of invisible hand of free markets (haha, what a pipedream, thank you Blythe who created that supreme perpeptual machine product, the CDS; aka capitalism with no moral hazard, hahaha).
2° To now be dragged through the mud by this new son of Keynes; Piketty. Who says History repeats and we are once again in "exuberant hubris" dystopian world of 1930s because of John Gaultian "greed is good".
Oh, its a tough day to be Ayn Rand's son today !
Blame it all on Mame...its the Commie under the bed game!
Capitalism is just like Marxism is just like Christianity is just like Islam -
That shit all works great on paper.
Whatever their humble origins -- all the things you listed -- they are now nothing more than the tools of the oligarchs.
"on paper"
"on electrons"
does it matter?
you need to communicate somehow. we haven't quite perfected telepathy / hive mind approach in homo sapiens society.
what are some options to improve quality of life for you/us?
Karl Marx was a fuckin douchebag. That, and reportedly he farted a lot.
Which makes him akin to Hitler - and we all know the fucking Fuehrer could crack off some serious stink.
Hitler despised the Communists because he didn't believe they were true to socialism. National Socialist Workers Party if you recall.
And of course, look at 1913 for the point where the US and Europe cross, and the historical mistakes of epic proportions that happened in 1913.
Thomas Piketty'sCapital "exposing capitalism's fatal flaw"
No doubt this is an ultraliberal and thinks what Obama has done to Capitalism by abusing the system of Crony Capitalism is Capitalism and it is not! Can anyone name any country that has thrived like the USA did through socialism, Totalitarianism, communism or with a Fraud at the helm? The answer is NONE! And who ruined the system? Well, it was the Federal Reserve board and unellected group of gangsters and they need to be destroyed now! Pure capitalism is great it rewards hard work and gets the lazy trash off thier asses, of course, we cannot do that it will hurt their feelings! Fuck you Jack, I have had enough!!Re: Pure capitalism is great it rewards hard work and gets the lazy trash off thier asses
Pure capitalism is great if you're one of the winners, otherwise... The 19th century wasn't the most peaceful of times, lots of dead below average Trash Class. It why the Trash Class wanted more socialism. Maybe you need a less pure capitalism?
What is going on today is less pure capitalism and is also why it's failing planet wide. Because the more pure capitalism of yesteryear America that fed the rest of the world's loser socialist economies has vanished.
what is pure capitalism and why would we ever rank it as the preferred option of all known/unknown systems?
There hasn't even been a simulacrum of lassie fare capitalism since the early 1900's.
'Americans' seem never short of finding words to hide the fact that 'americanism' dominates.
Crony capitalism is one way for them to avoid stopping by and face the fact that the current system is 'americanism' and nothing else.
'Americans' and their twisted logics: they can serenade hours, days about the benefits of networking but suddenly, when others do it, they call it cronyism.
'Americanism' is based on community building (communalism) Bear with it.
There is nothing like crony capitalism. That does not exist. What does exist is the 'american' system aka 'americanism'.
not so fast partner.
the answer is a FEW:
switzerland
germany
norwaysweden
finland
...
I hate Obama's guts, but in fairness, he is but the latest in a long line of Democratic Party socialists to obtain the presidency, and actually lets throw in most of the repubics in the same category.
Even odds it's none other than the US Gov't...buying copies for the State Department for gifts at the embassies.
Capitalism requires constant expansion of the markets.
At some point it covers the whole planet and then no further expansion is possible
Oh wait one more expansion was possible - tapping into the future earnings to get increase in today's demand
Once that last option was used the capitalism has no escape but to turn into communism - start giving away money for free to prop up the demand
that is more or less what Karl Marx explains in his Das Kapital
it is absolutely possible, desirable, and inevitable to have inequality in a steady state economy with 0% interest rates. stable equilibria develop all the time in the animal kingdom. it's called survival of the fittest.
I'd go back in time to kill Marx just so all of you uninformed assholes could shut up and stop whining about it.
We do not live in capitialism. We don't live in communism. We live in feudalism.
We do not live in capitialism. We don't live in communism. We live in feudalism.
We do not live in capitialism. We don't live in communism. We live in feudalism.
The world is an 'american' world and 'americanism' is the dominant global system.
perception is reality.
and the common perception is that the system is of a capitalistic nature.
i see the feudalism argument, but try communicating that message into an actionable, positive resolution to the collective conscious.
Feudalism? Noone here are actual serfs, one still has choices as opposed to historical serfs. Fascism defines our reality imho.
You've got to be fucking kidding.
Communism doesn't work because human nature makes us basically self-centered and we want to have things of our own, and we wish to decide how much we need and want. That's ok. The people tire of their boring lives and throw off the communist oppressor.
Capitalism won't work because human nature makes us fundamentally greedy, and very few of us will hold to principle rather than give it all up for greed. So capitalism becomes the means and the excuse for ravaging others to get what we want, or lazily living off of the shrinking producers in the system, and capitalism becomes perverted and morphs into socialism/communism as capitalism careens from crisis to crisis.
We're just too stinking dumb to come up with something that really works.
Blame it all on the so called human nature to spare the credibility of 'americanism'
So commonly done by 'americans'
Some human beings are greedy, others are frugal. The base is genetics, variability and the rest.
Human nature is a non determiner.
'Americanism' is a determiner.
You swallowed the scam hook, line and sinker.
Hey dudes - we got us a true believer here. Wahoo - take a look at what your so-called "americanism" is producing. The country is headed at full speed for the proverbial shitter. But I know you'll be singing the star spangled boner all the way down.
'Americans' trapped in their fantasy.
Actually, it is common for 'americans' to describe human beings as exclusively greedy. People who believe that are the ones who swallowed it all.
The natural world provides otherwise though: some human beings are greedy, other human beings are frugal.
It is one trait determined by genetics.
Does 'americanism' favour the greedy over the frugal? Of course, it does. 'Americans' are running the vastest human selection program ever.
Some are greedy and frugal.
And some are obviously insanely envious and exceedingly stupid!
I happen to be greedy, frugal, envious and rather bright in some regards and exceedingky stupid in others.
Always amazing how 'americans' want to make human nature a simple thing.
So a human being is greedy only if that being is greedy all the time (an aberration from evolution's perspective)
So the guy that is greedy 90 per cent of time and something else 10 pc of time, can invoke being greedy and something else.
When bigger than biggest is not yet big enough, 'americanism' has this component that usually builds up in escalation.
Some are courageous and coward.
One thing that cant be: some are 'american' and un-'american'. You are either an 'american' or you're not.
So did I since I actually believe in the concepts embodied in the now dead Constitution.
But, but... there are many, even some ZH readers who either don't understand it or don't want to...