The end of the EURO???

[Toro]

Nice way to spin the Greece crisis to a slap at the GOP.
In fact it is the state unions that are the problem. The gov't is paying out far too much in terms of salaries and benefits (especially retirement, which is at age 55 or something). Additionally business formation is putrid, taxes are high and often go uncollected, and the gov't is sprawling and puts its dead hand of regulation on everything.
In other words, pretty much where obama wants us to be in 2 years.

Rabbi:

Would you agree "Throughout Europe and in fact throughout the world, tax collection is intensified to guarantee payments on bonds underwritten by (private) banks as devices for sucking the earned income out of the economy."

"These bonds are actually tantamount to the Privy Purse; they are direct feudal payments to an oligarchy of absolute rulers by divine right. They take precedence over all other obligations foreign or domestic.

"These bonds are usually tax exempt to induce rentiers to buy them because of the 'risk' they entail."

Most government bonds are not tax exempt.

Most government bonds are not owned by "the rich." They are owned by large institutions that act as intermediaries and repositories for individuals who save, i.e. pension funds, mutual funds, insurance funds, etc.

Plus, governments have defaulted hundreds of times over the past two centuries, so they clearly do not take precedence over all other obligations.

Thus, your premise is incorrect.

Rabbi is right. Greece is a basket case. It must reform.

Our country must also reform, otherwise we are going to have a similar crisis in the future.

 

[Samson]

Meh, I'm glad my ancestors saw this coming, stole a chicken, and were sent to Georgia in 1745.

 

[georgephillip]

Nice way to spin the Greece crisis to a slap at the GOP.
In fact it is the state unions that are the problem. The gov't is paying out far too much in terms of salaries and benefits (especially retirement, which is at age 55 or something). Additionally business formation is putrid, taxes are high and often go uncollected, and the gov't is sprawling and puts its dead hand of regulation on everything.
In other words, pretty much where obama wants us to be in 2 years.

Rabbi:

Would you agree "Throughout Europe and in fact throughout the world, tax collection is intensified to guarantee payments on bonds underwritten by (private) banks as devices for sucking the earned income out of the economy."

"These bonds are actually tantamount to the Privy Purse; they are direct feudal payments to an oligarchy of absolute rulers by divine right. They take precedence over all other obligations foreign or domestic.

"These bonds are usually tax exempt to induce rentiers to buy them because of the 'risk' they entail."

Most government bonds are not tax exempt.

Most government bonds are not owned by "the rich." They are owned by large institutions that act as intermediaries and repositories for individuals who save, i.e. pension funds, mutual funds, insurance funds, etc.

Plus, governments have defaulted hundreds of times over the past two centuries, so they clearly do not take precedence over all other obligations.

Thus, your premise is incorrect.

Rabbi is right. Greece is a basket case. It must reform.

Our country must also reform, otherwise we are going to have a similar crisis in the future.

If national governments issue debt to transfer labor's earned wealth to rentiers (banks) by creating and enforcing liens through taxation, doesn't that government under the control of bankers and their owners become a derivative instrument used for controlling the underlying cash flows of a domestic economy?

 

[georgephillip]

Meh, I'm glad my ancestors saw this coming, stole a chicken, and were sent to Georgia in 1745.

I hope you've saved some of that chicken...

 

[The Rabbi]

Rabbi:

Would you agree "Throughout Europe and in fact throughout the world, tax collection is intensified to guarantee payments on bonds underwritten by (private) banks as devices for sucking the earned income out of the economy."

"These bonds are actually tantamount to the Privy Purse; they are direct feudal payments to an oligarchy of absolute rulers by divine right. They take precedence over all other obligations foreign or domestic.

"These bonds are usually tax exempt to induce rentiers to buy them because of the 'risk' they entail."

Most government bonds are not tax exempt.

Most government bonds are not owned by "the rich." They are owned by large institutions that act as intermediaries and repositories for individuals who save, i.e. pension funds, mutual funds, insurance funds, etc.

Plus, governments have defaulted hundreds of times over the past two centuries, so they clearly do not take precedence over all other obligations.

Thus, your premise is incorrect.

Rabbi is right. Greece is a basket case. It must reform.

Our country must also reform, otherwise we are going to have a similar crisis in the future.

If national governments issue debt to transfer labor's earned wealth to rentiers (banks) by creating and enforcing liens through taxation, doesn't that government under the control of bankers and their owners become a derivative instrument used for controlling the underlying cash flows of a domestic economy?

No.
Why in the world would you think it does? The fallacies have already been pointed out by Toro.
Additionally, there is no such thing as "labor's earned wealth."

 

[georgephillip]

Labor's earned wealth is at least as real as the $610 trillion in derivatives the bankers have in play.

Why is it big, bad conservatives turn bright yellow when it comes time for the Big Fight, i.e., Class War?

 

[Neubarth]

Meh, I'm glad my ancestors saw this coming, stole a chicken, and were sent to Georgia in 1745.

They must of been damn good people. Back in those times in England, if you needed to feed your family because there was a lack of jobs and your children were hungry, you could count on the church to help you a little, or you could take decisive action to feed your wife and children. We needed decisive people like that to build this nation. Thank God the British sent them to us. That might also explain why the British to this day have so few strong decision makers in their populace (At least among the men). Their strong decision makers have a tendency to be women. Could it be that they cast out most of their good men?????

 

[The Rabbi]

Labor's earned wealth is at least as real as the $610 trillion in derivatives the bankers have in play.

Why is it big, bad conservatives turn bright yellow when it comes time for the Big Fight, i.e., Class War?

Class war is a loser. It is a political loser in this country because we don't have static classes. Most of the super-rich today started out middle class or lower. Many of the middle class worked their way up from poverty. Class war only works with the multi-generational welfare families and the frustrated incompetents who think "da man" is what is holding them back.
It is an economic loser because only inputs from labor, capital and management can produce wealth for all three groups.
So I would say your arguments are giant losers.

 

[georgephillip]

Is Noam Chomsky a loser or frustrated incompetent?

"The war against working people should be understood to be a real war...Specifically in the US, which happens to have a highly class-conscious business class...And they have long seen themselves as fighting a bitter class war, except they don't want anybody else to know about it."

 

[antagon]

The Euro is in a free-fall, and governments will fall, the only question is whether or not they fall peacefully. The problem isn’t just Greece, the problem isn’t just Portugal, or even Spain…all three of which are basket cases.

The real problem is Germany... how long do you think the Germans will be willing to accept massive bailouts of their EU brethren, working twice as hard, suffering under a stifling taxation burden… to support the failed and corrupt socialist experiments of Greece, Portugal and Spain?

haven't you considered that germany welcomes the opportunity to devalue the euro? at the pace it has been on, the euro would have failed for its strength, certainly not for this desperately needed weakness now.

 

[antagon]

Is Noam Chomsky a loser or frustrated incompetent?

with respect to his social commentary, for certain.

 

[georgephillip]

Is Noam Chomsky a loser or frustrated incompetent?

with respect to his social commentary, for certain.

Some of Chomsky's social commentary mirrors another well known incorrigible radical Adam Smith:

"(Smith) recognized the principal architects of power in England were the owners of society, in his day the merchants and manufacturers, who made sure that policy would attend scrupulously to their interests however 'grievous' the impact on the people of England and worse, the victims of 'the savage injustice of the Europeans' abroad:

"British crimes in India were the main concern of an old fashioned conservative with moral values."

From: The Center Can Not Hold: Rekindling the Radical Imagination

 

[Toro]

If national governments issue debt to transfer labor's earned wealth to rentiers (banks) by creating and enforcing liens through taxation, doesn't that government under the control of bankers and their owners become a derivative instrument used for controlling the underlying cash flows of a domestic economy?

Governments spend money for two reasons, to build infrastructure and run the country, and to redistribute wealth within the country. Governments will both tax its citizenry and borrow from savers to do so. When a government does not want to increase taxes, it borrows.

Wealth redistribution is usually (but not always) from the upper earners to the lower earners. Because our system is a progressive tax system, for the most part, there is a transfer of wealth from those who make more to those who make less because, usually, the infrastructure and running of government is not applied proportionally to how it is funded since we pretty much all use the same amount of government infrastructure.

When governments borrow too much, there is an expropriation of savers for the benefit of recipients. This happens two ways, either by default or through inflation.

Greece is a good example. The Greek government borrowed excessively to fund the operations of a government and social system it could not afford. This spending was funded by savers, both by Greeks and non-Greeks. Because Greece borrowed too much, they are going to default or restructure, and lenders will not get all their money back. There will be a transfer of wealth from savers to spenders.

This isn't unique to governments, of course. This happens with businesses as well.

Governments also transfer wealth through inflation. A bond is a fixed investment. If a 30 year bond pays a 5% interest rate, and inflation rises to 5%, then the holder of the bond is essentially giving his money to the government for free.

The imperative of politicians is to get elected, and to do so, they must promise something to the voters. This has on many occasions led to a transfer of wealth from the prudent to the reckless. I believe that ultimately that will happen in this country in the future.

 

[antagon]

Is Noam Chomsky a loser or frustrated incompetent?

with respect to his social commentary, for certain.

Some of Chomsky's social commentary mirrors another well known incorrigible radical Adam Smith:

"(Smith) recognized the principal architects of power in England were the owners of society, in his day the merchants and manufacturers, who made sure that policy would attend scrupulously to their interests however 'grievous' the impact on the people of England and worse, the victims of 'the savage injustice of the Europeans' abroad:

"British crimes in India were the main concern of an old fashioned conservative with moral values."

From: The Center Can Not Hold: Rekindling the Radical Imagination

buddy, that is the core of the problem. smith's commentary is about a feudal mercantile system, whereas chomsky makes the same criticism of our decidedly meritocractic capitalist setup. chomsky is not a businessman, but an academic. he's not got a clue about labor or entrepreneurs through any stretch of actual experience. certainly incompetent.

have you considered what he says, or have you assumed he is right because he's published?

 

[editec]

Labor's earned wealth is at least as real as the $610 trillion in derivatives the bankers have in play.

Why is it big, bad conservatives turn bright yellow when it comes time for the Big Fight, i.e., Class War?

Because the BIG LIES are that we live in a classless society which is a meritocracy.

 

[georgephillip]

with respect to his social commentary, for certain.

Some of Chomsky's social commentary mirrors another well known incorrigible radical Adam Smith:

"(Smith) recognized the principal architects of power in England were the owners of society, in his day the merchants and manufacturers, who made sure that policy would attend scrupulously to their interests however 'grievous' the impact on the people of England and worse, the victims of 'the savage injustice of the Europeans' abroad:

"British crimes in India were the main concern of an old fashioned conservative with moral values."

From: The Center Can Not Hold: Rekindling the Radical Imagination

buddy, that is the core of the problem. smith's commentary is about a feudal mercantile system, whereas chomsky makes the same criticism of our decidedly meritocractic capitalist setup. chomsky is not a businessman, but an academic. he's not got a clue about labor or entrepreneurs through any stretch of actual experience. certainly incompetent.

have you considered what he says, or have you assumed he is right because he's published?

Antagon:

When someone's thoughts are published about as often as Plato's or Freud's I think it would be self-destructive not to assume he's right a good percentage of the time.

While the political economies Chomsky and Smith lived under are different, the "savage injustice" that both require to sustain acceptable levels of profit are very similar.

For Smith the injustice took place in India, and for Chomsky the war crimes range from North Korea to Afghanistan and beyond.

 

[georgephillip]

Labor's earned wealth is at least as real as the $610 trillion in derivatives the bankers have in play.

Why is it big, bad conservatives turn bright yellow when it comes time for the Big Fight, i.e., Class War?

Because the BIG LIES are that we live in a classless society which is a meritocracy.

Editec:

While you don't have to be born Bush or Kennedy to become rich in this country, you do have to accept their version of the golden rule and Big Lies like "Free Markets."

Anglo-Saxon Capitalism seems to have followed from the academic evolution of moral philosophy to political economics to "economics."

"(Political economics) was stripped down into "economics" largely to exclude political analysis, and the distinctions between productive and unproductive investment, earned and unearned income, value and price."

Classical economists wanted markets free from rent and interest.

Today's economists want markets free from regulation and taxes.

 

[The Rabbi]

Labor's earned wealth is at least as real as the $610 trillion in derivatives the bankers have in play.

Why is it big, bad conservatives turn bright yellow when it comes time for the Big Fight, i.e., Class War?

Because the BIG LIES are that we live in a classless society which is a meritocracy.

So says an economic loser.

 

[editec]

Is Noam Chomsky a loser or frustrated incompetent?

"The war against working people should be understood to be a real war...Specifically in the US, which happens to have a highly class-conscious business class...And they have long seen themselves as fighting a bitter class war, except they don't want anybody else to know about it."

Seems like a fairly accurate assessment to me.

Every social policy and regulation brings good outcomes to some and bad outcomes to others.

Class, that is to say economic class, plays an enormous part in how one views the benefit or problems with those policies.

This is so obvious that one must blind oneself to reality to pretend that class isn't describing an important part of our collective reality.

Who here is prepared to prove otherwise?

 

[antagon]

Some of Chomsky's social commentary mirrors another well known incorrigible radical Adam Smith:

"(Smith) recognized the principal architects of power in England were the owners of society, in his day the merchants and manufacturers, who made sure that policy would attend scrupulously to their interests however 'grievous' the impact on the people of England and worse, the victims of 'the savage injustice of the Europeans' abroad:

"British crimes in India were the main concern of an old fashioned conservative with moral values."

From: The Center Can Not Hold: Rekindling the Radical Imagination

buddy, that is the core of the problem. smith's commentary is about a feudal mercantile system, whereas chomsky makes the same criticism of our decidedly meritocractic capitalist setup. chomsky is not a businessman, but an academic. he's not got a clue about labor or entrepreneurs through any stretch of actual experience. certainly incompetent.

have you considered what he says, or have you assumed he is right because he's published?

Antagon:

When someone's thoughts are published about as often as Plato's or Freud's I think it would be self-destructive not to assume he's right a good percentage of the time.

While the political economies Chomsky and Smith lived under are different, the "savage injustice" that both require to sustain acceptable levels of profit are very similar.

For Smith the injustice took place in India, and for Chomsky the war crimes range from North Korea to Afghanistan and beyond.

i am in strong disagreement with your assumption that quantity = quality with respect to publication. in so many ways, i find the opposite to be the case. i'm not sure how old you are, but there comes an age when you must think for yourself about the plausibility of someones conclusions, rather than signing up because they've found success in publishing them. a flock of sheep comes to mind.

i've read adam smiths '...of the wealth of nations'. your conclusion that smith harped on the injustices of capitalism is deeply mis-guided. karl marx championed this view, while i would characterize smith's commentary on rent, hoarding and monopoly to be recognitions of self-defeating behaviors in an unguided capitalist paradigm, notwithstanding his strong advocacy of capitalist economics. i think it is a horrible mis-attribution to put adam smith and chomsky in the same boat. incarnate, one would throw the other overboard. i'm routing for chomsky to take the swim.