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You should write it.Jeez, what blather about economics.
Did Keynes ever see a television commercial for automobiles? Hayek lived long enough to see consumerism go crazy but he never wrote The Road to Consumer Slavery.
Calling people Human Resources is much better than calling them Slaves.You should write it.
"Consumer slavery?"
Can you expand on how that works?
Slavery consists of treatment of human beings as if they were livestock, and controlling them with beatings, chains, food and water deprivation, sexual assaults, including of young children, and threats to family.
You say there is something about television commercials for automobiles that is similar to that? Even commercials for electric cars?
I wrote this:You should write it.
How do changes in technology synchronize with these cycles when no one knows what these technological changes will be? Are there just cycles of people talking and believing BS?There's a theory claiming every 80 years the US experiences a succession of crises that requires a complete overhaul of the status quo; the latest chapter began in 1945 with the end of the Second Great Capitalist War of the 20th Century (WWII):
"Man" Didn't Invent the Wheel; One Man DidIf you haven't explored Michael Hudson's opinions, you might find them worth your time; he came to Economics from a background that was very different from his peers:
The Platypus Affiliated Society – The destiny of civilization: An interview with Michael Hudson
"Well, I (Hudson) grew up in a Marxist household.
"My father was a political prisoner, one of the Minneapolis 17.[1]
"Minneapolis was the only city in the world that was a Trotskyist city, and my parents worked with Trotsky in Mexico.
"So, I grew up not having any intention of going into economics.
"I wanted to be a musician, and when I was 21, I began writing a history of the connection between music, art, drama theory, and the Renaissance in the 19th century.
"But then I went to New York and went to work on Wall Street just to get a job.
"I met the translator of Marx’s Theories of Surplus Value, Terence McCarthy, who convinced me that economics was more interesting than anything else that was happening.
"He became my mentor, I took a PhD in economics, and that’s it."
I offer this as a way to help Democrats/Socialists understand what their economic approach really means. I offer it in good faith, with the heart of a teacher.
Democrats and Socialists get much of their economic understanding from Marx or followers of Marx. I actually don't mind that, because Marx was a brilliant economist/didactic. I disagree with his conclusions, but his simplified explanation of what he called "capital" was pretty accurate.
The problem with Marx' teaching is that it starts with an industrialized economy. Humans did not.
To understand the most basic principle underlying economics, let's imagine a hypothetical human society that has no economics. Suppose a small group of people lived on an island with freshwater stream running through it, and a mild climate. Suppose this island had many fruit bearing trees, and many wild edible vegetables, available for the picking. Suppose it also had freshwater fish in the stream and a lagoon in which fish and crabs were easily gathered.
There would be no economics in that society, because there would be no scarcity. Adults can take care of their own needs easily and families take care of those too young or too old to gather food for themselves. There would be no trade, because everyone has enough of everything. There would be little or no theft because it would be as easy to gather food as to steal what another has gathered. There would be no envy or greed.
Economics arises when there is scarcity. All human being experience scarcity for two reasons: There is no island or area in which food is so easy to come by. Even if there was, it is human nature to want and create more than nature provides.
Suppose on that island, fruits and vegetables had to be planted and harvested, fish are not easy to catch near the island and so must be fished for by skilled fisherman, perhaps using boats, and the weather is often cold, requiring clothing. There would arise a division of labor, with some people making cloth, some making the cloth into clothes, some farming, some making farm tools, some fishing, some making boats, and so on. They would not need money, and could barter for all they need. The fishers could trade fish for clothes, fruits and vegetables, with a share of their catch to the person who made the boat.
There would be in impetus to improve the technology in order to have more goods to trade. More occupations would arise.
I used to ask my high school economics students: Imagine three men go out on a boat and fish all day. When they come back, they divide the fish and then sell them at the market on the docks. One man gets two-thirds of the fish to sell and the other two get on sixth each. What is the most likely reason for the uneven division of the product of their labor.
Some of them surprised me by giving the correct answer: The man who gets two thirds owns the boat.
This is where Democrats/Socialists begin to fail to understand the basics. They see all of the goods available in the modern world the same way that those islanders saw the natural resources of their island. They see no reason why anyone should have more than anyone else.
Fish in the ocean are a natural resource available to all. A boat is not. To understand why the boat owner gets the lion's share of the fish, we have to ask ourselves why he owns the boat.
I'll give you some processing time for that, and then continue.
I don't fully understand your question.How do changes in technology synchronize with these cycles when no one knows what these technological changes will be? Are there just cycles of people talking and believing BS?
Can you provide any examples?"Man" Didn't Invent the Wheel; One Man Did
Economics is as primitive and shallow as alchemy. It ignores the most important factor of all in economic growth, the creative potential of a few geniuses, who are excluded from having any control in the unrealistic systems imagined by academic economists.
No, my point is that technology disrupts the economy so why should these cycles exist? What did automobiles do to horses? What happened to the farmland raising food for the 100,000 horses in NYC in the 1890s?I don't fully understand your question.
Why would these cycles require technological synchronization to exist?
I'll read it, thanks!I wrote this:
Economic Wargames
The global economy is a giant multilevel, multiplayer chess game. It is however, being played in the dark. The powers that be, have the overhead lights switched off. To have any chance you need a flashlight, and that would still leave the problems of learning the rules and developing your...blog.lostsoulscorp.com
Economic Wargames Opinion:
(no title)
Economic Wargames
www.spectacle.org
Oh no.You think the Democrats only have one economic approach? Like half the damn country thinks alike?
Oh no.
The overwhelming majority of Demcrats do not think beyond the Democratic Party talking points like, "Repubicans is racist," "Orange Man Bad," and "Free Stuff!"
Only a tiny percent have a clue what the economic system that they unwittingly support bringing to the United States consists of.
They surely don't know what has happened every time it has been tried.
Every. Single. Time.
If they knew that, they would be online ordering their MAGA hats in no time flat.
If it's true that history moves in 80 year cycles and each cycle is divided into 4 phases defined by each generation and tied to the seasons of the year, perhaps technological change contributes its share to the economic disruptions that lead to wars like WWI and WWII?No, my point is that technology disrupts the economy so why should these cycles exist? What did automobiles do to horses? What happened to the farmland raising food for the 100,000 horses in NYC in the 1890s?
Maybe the changing technology created the cycles and they just happened to be 80 years. But how could WWI and WWII not be factors on the cycles? Maybe these cycles are someone's delusions based on coincidence.
Hired workers are much better off than slaves. When black slaves were freed, many of them remained on the plantation as sharecroppers, with many not earning much more than they were given when they had the legal status of farm animals. But, they were free. They could leave the plantation if the master whipped them or raped their daughters (or sons).Calling people Human Resources is much better than calling them Slaves.
Ok. People spend more money on cars than you think that they should, is your point? I myself has sworn never to buy a new car again, paying absurd prices for a car designed to perform sub-optimally in order to comply with environmental regulations. I'll buy a car from the early seventies, since I learned to work on them in the late seventies.Years ago I had a conversation with a man who told me that he "Loved Cars". He was carrying an Automobile magazine. So I asked him what a cam shaft was. He didn't know. I opened his magazine and pointed at a part in an ad and asked him what it was. He said, "Cam shaft?" in a questioning voice. I was pointing at a crank shaft.
Try finding out how much American consumers have lost on the depreciation of automobiles and other durable consumer goods since Sputnik. Americans go into debt for stupidly designed crap and brag about it.
I get it. Durable goods depreciate and that is a reduction wealth.Computer performance is measured with benchmarks. I worked for IBM. I never saw the word benchmark on any IBM documentation. I had to write my own to test a couple of machines.
We now have the technology to wreck the planet and enough people. Listen to economists talk about GDP, but really notice if they mention NDP, Net Domestic Product. Research NDP and see what it says about the depreciation of durable consumer goods.
From whom do you get your information about economics?Economists cannot tell the difference between a banana and an air conditioner.
There were 200,000,000 cars in the US in 1994.From whom do you get your information about economics?
- President Trump, in a stunning nighttime tweet, called the $900 billion Covid relief bill passed by Congress an unsuitable “disgrace.”
- Trump demanded lawmakers make a number of changes to the measure, including bigger $2,000 direct payments to individuals and $4,000 to families.
- Trump Government Spending was $11 Trillion & real GDP was only $18.7 Trillion.
There were 200,000,000 cars in the US in 1994.
Where did their depreciation go?
What has happened to the depreciation of automobiles and other durable consumer goods in the US since WWII? Experts leaving out such information for 70 years cannot be an accident.
Treating air conditioners like bananas!
