Random Thoughts on the Falling Empire

[Oldguy]

A lot of it does migrate to the socialist leaders though Oldguy...

A lot of what?

 

[Uncensored2008]

1. The country is falling in part BECAUSE it has become emperial in scope rather than centered on the People of the United States. When our politicians send American jobs overseas to help the poor people over there as though we dont have unemployed people here, you know that someone is getting their bread buttered by the wrong people.

Politicians don't directly send jobs overseas. Generally it's regulations that make American industries non-competitive. The EPA is the greatest impediment to American manufacturing.

2. Our unionshave been taken over by Marxist radicals who are in unending war with American management. So of course these businesses will try to avoid hiring leftwing loons if it can. I personally have worked at several companies where management had told their workers that if they unionize they will simply shut the plant down for good. They would rather throw away millions in capitol than deal with unions.

Unions and Marxism are not compatible. Notice that Marxist countries outlaw trade unions. Our Unions are organized crime - the Mafia.

3. The new technology is only making workers more efficient. If the government would get off the business communities backs, those businesses could hire more people to produce more goods. But the lay offs, tax hikes and murkey regulatory future discourage any current expansion efforts or business start up.

It's doing a lot more than that.

Check out the way Staples did away with all of their Warehouse forklift drivers. Using robots,

These Robots Play Fetch | Fast Company

 

[Uncensored2008]

No, they are returning, just not at the same numbers as when they left. Half a loaf isnt no loaf at all.

Fair point.

 

[Uncensored2008]

Well...that's a silly question, isn't it? The Bible, of course.

I'm surprised by that answer.

Then again, that's an easy answer because Dad Kapital is based upon a faulty premis to start with.

Really? And what premise is that?

Let me ask you: Do you believe in the Bible?

Do I believe the Bible is the word of God?

No.

 

[Uncensored2008]

I think it fails to account for human nature. Marx and Engel's seem to assume that man's better nature will arise when freed of competition and oppression, but I don't buy that notion at all.

Greed, avarice, lust, jealousy...those things don't just disappear in the Marxist utopia.

Das Kapital is a separate work from "The Communist Manifesto."

Economic Manuscripts: Capital: Volume One

While the Manifesto has no real value, Capital contains many insights that are correct.

 

[Uncensored2008]

It's fairly well accepted that win/win scenarios far exceed win/lose or lose/win scenarios in terms of outcome and efficiency--and yet, we adhere to an economic system that is solidly rooted in win/lose philosophies.

You know nothing of economic systems.

Capitalism is 100% based on a win-win equation where value is traded for value.

It is the communism that you promote which substitutes "need" for value. One must surrender value in exchange for the need of another in socialism. Obviously the one who receives no value in return loses. Capitalism depends on both sides of a trade gaining value.

 

[jasonnfree]

1. The country is falling in part BECAUSE it has become emperial in scope rather than centered on the People of the United States. When our politicians send American jobs overseas to help the poor people over there as though we dont have unemployed people here, you know that someone is getting their bread buttered by the wrong people.

Politicians don't directly send jobs overseas. Generally it's regulations that make American industries non-competitive. The EPA is the greatest impediment to American manufacturing.

2. Our unionshave been taken over by Marxist radicals who are in unending war with American management. So of course these businesses will try to avoid hiring leftwing loons if it can. I personally have worked at several companies where management had told their workers that if they unionize they will simply shut the plant down for good. They would rather throw away millions in capitol than deal with unions.

Unions and Marxism are not compatible. Notice that Marxist countries outlaw trade unions. Our Unions are organized crime - the Mafia.

3. The new technology is only making workers more efficient. If the government would get off the business communities backs, those businesses could hire more people to produce more goods. But the lay offs, tax hikes and murkey regulatory future discourage any current expansion efforts or business start up.

It's doing a lot more than that.

Check out the way Staples did away with all of their Warehouse forklift drivers. Using robots,

These Robots Play Fetch | Fast Company

A couple things you say that I question. Marxist countries don't allow unions you say but China has unions. Also you say regulations make American industries non competitive, but we had regulations prior to Nafta and the other free trade deals and Americans industries seemed to survive anyway back then. They've always complained about high taxes and regulations but weren't able to offshore back then and still survived.

 

[RightNorLeft]

Last night I happened to watch 60 Minutes, which I rarely do, but stumbled across a segment that they said was on robots.

The segment was really on automation in general, rather than robotics specifically. But the gist of the peace regarded the changing world that Americans face due the rapid pace of automation technologies.

Many here know that manufacturing is rapidly returning to America, returning at a rate much faster than it left. Many also know that most of the jobs associated with manufacturing are not returning. Automation is replacing low skilled workers on a massive scale. Computer controlled equipment can do jobs with far greater precision at a lower cost than people can. These are irrefutable.

The conclusion that 60 minutes came to is that automation will push the lower segments of society into persistent poverty, as entry level jobs are eliminated by automation. As a middle age man, this is the same old song and dance to me. I was taught by public schools in the 70's that computers would replace everyone. It never happened, quite the opposite.

But I do see the left paving a path to more economic realignment using workers displaced by automation as the catalyst for demands of more fascist and socialist entanglement and ever greater power to the state.

Interesting post...I have to dispute one thing however, I was already out of the military in the late 60s and in the workforce in the 70s and I watched jobs eliminated by the droves by automation. The 70s and the automation of that period was the beginning of the decline of the middleclass worker. Outsourcing has done more to do them in and the latest greatest automation will bury them.
I do have a question..what do we do with all these americans that want to work that have no work and in turn have no income and cannot buy basics...they arent going to starved the death...they will rob steal kill and do whatever to survive...prison costs 100,000 a year at the minimum...seems we are going to face a real conundrum.
T

 

[Uncensored2008]

A couple things you say that I question. Marxist countries don't allow unions you say but China has unions.

The ACFTU is run by the Communist party, it is a government agency. China has no legitimate union.

All-China Federation of Trade Unions - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Also you say regulations make American industries non competitive, but we had regulations prior to Nafta and the other free trade deals and Americans industries seemed to survive anyway back then.

NAFTA is of little relevance. Regulations have been on the rise since the 60's with a crescendo in the 90's.

Some of the most onerous and expensive regulations, such as Sarbanes-Oxley, the ADA, and the Clean Air act are all from the last 30 years, which is coincidentally when America lost her competitive edge.

They've always complained about high taxes and regulations but weren't able to offshore back then and still survived.

Telecommunications have empowered offshoring. Data and telepresence allow some processes to be completed remotely. Also the opening of China in the last 20 years has provided a huge pool of unskilled labor. These were not options during the 50's and 60's.

 

[JimBowie1958]

I think it fails to account for human nature. Marx and Engel's seem to assume that man's better nature will arise when freed of competition and oppression, but I don't buy that notion at all.

Greed, avarice, lust, jealousy...those things don't just disappear in the Marxist utopia.

Das Kapital is a separate work from "The Communist Manifesto."

Economic Manuscripts: Capital: Volume One

While the Manifesto has no real value, Capital contains many insights that are correct.

True, but it is the things that Marx got wrong that overwhelms the accurate due to his followers treating his analysis as though it were revelation and not to ever be questioned or revised due to new data. They turned Marxism into a sort of secular religion and guarranteed it would become fossilized.

 

[georgephillip]

Last night I happened to watch 60 Minutes, which I rarely do, but stumbled across a segment that they said was on robots.

The segment was really on automation in general, rather than robotics specifically. But the gist of the peace regarded the changing world that Americans face due the rapid pace of automation technologies.

Many here know that manufacturing is rapidly returning to America, returning at a rate much faster than it left. Many also know that most of the jobs associated with manufacturing are not returning. Automation is replacing low skilled workers on a massive scale. Computer controlled equipment can do jobs with far greater precision at a lower cost than people can. These are irrefutable.

The conclusion that 60 minutes came to is that automation will push the lower segments of society into persistent poverty, as entry level jobs are eliminated by automation. As a middle age man, this is the same old song and dance to me. I was taught by public schools in the 70's that computers would replace everyone. It never happened, quite the opposite.

But I do see the left paving a path to more economic realignment using workers displaced by automation as the catalyst for demands of more fascist and socialist entanglement and ever greater power to the state.

National Dividend?

"If the purpose of our economic system is to deliver the maximum amount of goods and services with the least amount of effort, then the ability to deliver goods and services with the least amount of employment is actually desirable.

"(C.H) Douglas proposed that unemployment is a logical consequence of machines replacing labour in the productive process, and any attempt to reverse this process through policies designed to attain full employment directly sabotages our cultural inheritance.

"Douglas also believed that the people displaced from the industrial system through the process of mechanization should still have the ability to consume the fruits of the system, because he suggested that we are all inheritors of the cultural inheritance, and his proposal for a national dividend is directly related to this belief."

Wasn't the Industrial Revolution designed to free humanity from the need to toil?

Social Credit - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[LoneLaugher]

But I do see the left paving a path to more economic realignment using workers displaced by automation as the catalyst for demands of more fascist and socialist entanglement and ever greater power to the state.

So, that's what you see, do you? Maybe so-called "conservatives" like yourself should take a tip from the Bible:

"You hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of your own eye; and then shall you see clearly to cast out the mote out of your brother's eye." Matthew 7:5 (AKJV)

You believe in the Bible?

You know, citing a passage from a work of fiction is always evidence that one "believes" in said work of fiction.

 

[skookerasbil]

So, that's what you see, do you? Maybe so-called "conservatives" like yourself should take a tip from the Bible:

"You hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of your own eye; and then shall you see clearly to cast out the mote out of your brother's eye." Matthew 7:5 (AKJV)

You believe in the Bible?

You know, citing a passage from a work of fiction is always evidence that one "believes" in said work of fiction.

Curious..........


Is it cool to lurk with the fringe? Have always been fascinated about how one gets there?

 

[Unkotare]

What "Empire"?

 

[georgephillip]

[ame="http://www.amazon.com/What-America-Short-History-World/dp/B002BWQ5V8/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1358026652&sr=1-1&keywords=what+is+america%3F"]What America?[/ame]