- Moderator
- #161
Or people who havent worked a day in their lives but expect things to be handed to them.
Good Grief Occupy Wall Street Imbeciles Release 13 Demands Including $20 Minimum Wa
- Thread starter Stephanie
- Start date
Or people who havent worked a day in their lives but expect things to be handed to them.
The concept of free will is more than just a vocabulary term to be thrown for the purpose of lazy political rhetoric; it's a concept fundamental to the evolution of human existence that requires an interdependency with individual responsibility and self-awareness.
If you ever want to transcend political coercion and think for yourself, existentialism is a good place to start imo Existentialism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- Moderator
- #163
So there is no free will?
Lakhota
Diamond Member
I think we should all be proud of these young people for trying to do something positive. After all, they were dealt a pretty bad hand by older generations.
- Moderator
- #165
How is this positive?
It's kids getting involved, and caring about politics.
Even if you think they're wrong, it's still positive.
Lakhota
Diamond Member
Amen! These young people bring tears to my eyes. I am so proud of them. It will take them time to totally get their act together. It takes all political movements time to polish. Even if they fizzle out, I still applaud their efforts. Personally, I doubt they will fizzle out...
Folks, you need to understand the 30 year push for cheap labor. Hint: when you cut wages/benefits/entitlements, consumers have less money with which to buy things.
Which is to say: our economy depends on a level of consumption which is not supported by the current policies of cheap labor and austerity.
Workers are also consumers whose consumption the system depends upon.
When average hard working families cannot consume, the capitalist has no incentive to add jobs no matter how many tax breaks you give him.
Meaning: we have a structural crisis in the form of a distribution system which does not provide for demand. Capitalism has been in this structural crisis since the 70s when it started shipping jobs to ever cheaper labor markets. With each job lost to a profit-boosting sweatshop, we also lost a consumer. Of course, we tried to fix this by expanding the credit economy (-that's why we all started receiving 3 credit-card-offers a week in the 80s. Reaganomics had to make up for the money that wasn't trickling down into solid jobs, which enable consumption). That is, for 30 years we kept the real economy alive by loaning workers the very money they used to make in the form of wages & benefits.
Morning in America is actually: 30 years of fueling the economy with debt.
You know how the story ends, right? We broke the bank . . . (we even hawked the only thing of value we had left, our homes). Point is: the solid jobs promised by the supply siders never materialized; rather, the jobs went to Asian sweatshops (which resulted in massive profits for the suppliers and their share holders). The cheap prices the supply siders promised have been magically replaced by Health Care and Energy monopolies - with costs rising at 5x inflation. (What do you think the suppliers did with their newfound profits? They invested in politicians, who fixed markets, thus protecting them from competition)
TRAGICALLY, our postwar manufacturing was quietly replaced by financialization, that is, instead of making real products for the real economy (with real jobs), we began to specialize in the creation of speculative garbage for the fictitious economy (hedges, derivatives, swaps, ALT-As, futures, CDOs, etc., etc., "get rich quick" asset bubbles > Casino Capitalism. America now specializes in manufacturing risky garbage that makes a few people wealthy while blowing-up like a nuclear bomb over the rest of us. This is what we get for moving government out of the way and letting the innovators set their own risk levels . . . as they leveraged us into a bankrupt future).
We now have unprecedented wealth on top (which gets sucked into speculative voids which blow up and destroys jobs), combined with unprecedented debt at the level of purchase, i.e., middle class consumers who have to borrow just to stay afloat until they inevitably go bankrupt. This is a disaster. Governments across the globe - seduced by the policies Reagan and Thatcher set in motion - are all floundering. They are stuck in the failed model of pumping credit into zombie (a.k.a. jobless-&-deb-ridden) consumers and zombie banks. In other words, we are using supply side medicine (bailing out billionaires) to fix a problem of middle class demand. We are doing this because the billionaires own the media and have fooled an army of useful idiots.
The only way to solve this crisis is to re-capitalize the middle class by giving them a larger share of the wealth which is made from their labor. This is the only way we can rebuild the purchasing power which is required for sustaining and growing jobs. Tragically, the folks who own media have no interest in telling the truth.
Which is to say: our economy depends on a level of consumption which is not supported by the current policies of cheap labor and austerity.
Workers are also consumers whose consumption the system depends upon.
When average hard working families cannot consume, the capitalist has no incentive to add jobs no matter how many tax breaks you give him.
Meaning: we have a structural crisis in the form of a distribution system which does not provide for demand. Capitalism has been in this structural crisis since the 70s when it started shipping jobs to ever cheaper labor markets. With each job lost to a profit-boosting sweatshop, we also lost a consumer. Of course, we tried to fix this by expanding the credit economy (-that's why we all started receiving 3 credit-card-offers a week in the 80s. Reaganomics had to make up for the money that wasn't trickling down into solid jobs, which enable consumption). That is, for 30 years we kept the real economy alive by loaning workers the very money they used to make in the form of wages & benefits.
Morning in America is actually: 30 years of fueling the economy with debt.
You know how the story ends, right? We broke the bank . . . (we even hawked the only thing of value we had left, our homes). Point is: the solid jobs promised by the supply siders never materialized; rather, the jobs went to Asian sweatshops (which resulted in massive profits for the suppliers and their share holders). The cheap prices the supply siders promised have been magically replaced by Health Care and Energy monopolies - with costs rising at 5x inflation. (What do you think the suppliers did with their newfound profits? They invested in politicians, who fixed markets, thus protecting them from competition)
TRAGICALLY, our postwar manufacturing was quietly replaced by financialization, that is, instead of making real products for the real economy (with real jobs), we began to specialize in the creation of speculative garbage for the fictitious economy (hedges, derivatives, swaps, ALT-As, futures, CDOs, etc., etc., "get rich quick" asset bubbles > Casino Capitalism. America now specializes in manufacturing risky garbage that makes a few people wealthy while blowing-up like a nuclear bomb over the rest of us. This is what we get for moving government out of the way and letting the innovators set their own risk levels . . . as they leveraged us into a bankrupt future).
We now have unprecedented wealth on top (which gets sucked into speculative voids which blow up and destroys jobs), combined with unprecedented debt at the level of purchase, i.e., middle class consumers who have to borrow just to stay afloat until they inevitably go bankrupt. This is a disaster. Governments across the globe - seduced by the policies Reagan and Thatcher set in motion - are all floundering. They are stuck in the failed model of pumping credit into zombie (a.k.a. jobless-&-deb-ridden) consumers and zombie banks. In other words, we are using supply side medicine (bailing out billionaires) to fix a problem of middle class demand. We are doing this because the billionaires own the media and have fooled an army of useful idiots.
The only way to solve this crisis is to re-capitalize the middle class by giving them a larger share of the wealth which is made from their labor. This is the only way we can rebuild the purchasing power which is required for sustaining and growing jobs. Tragically, the folks who own media have no interest in telling the truth.
Last edited:
oreo
Gold Member
Your original post on this issue did not clarify what you were talking about--nor did your link work. Yes INFLATION has eaten up our dollar--and run-a-way government spending and printing money doesn't help either.
- Moderator
- #170
So does that mean the Nazi party was positive? It got kids involved in politics.
I dont think so. And i dont think it's positive for this.
Last edited:
Lakhota
Diamond Member
Well, it beats the hell out of being a couch potato and looking like Chris Christie...
You're welcome to your opinion.
kiwiman127
Comfortably Moderate
The link that you called a farce changed addresses I had bookmarked it for a paper for my MBA. The new one is correct and works. Again, thanks!
- Moderator
- #174
Id rather look like Chris Christie then be involved with these violent revolutionaries.
- Moderator
- #175
Is that a yes or a no?
kiwiman127
Comfortably Moderate
The Wall Street protesters are all over the board in what they are protesting.
One thing they are right about is wages.
Income Slides to 1996 Levels
Household Income Falls, Poverty Rate Rises - WSJ.com
Which leads to;
Workers share of national income plummets to record low
Workers
Which leads to this:
With consumers slow to spend, businesses are slow to hire
With consumers slow to spend, businesses are slow to hire
Which leads to this:
Bernanke Says High U.S. Unemployment Poses National Crisis
Bernanke Says High U.S. Unemployment Poses
Which could very well lead to this:
Forecast says double-dip recession is imminent
Forecast says double-dip recession now inevitable - Sep. 30, 2011
oreo
Gold Member
They were dealt a bad hand by the person they just installed in the Oval Office--Barack Obama.
Here is one of the best books for studying the push for cheap labor.
Capital moves: RCA's seventy-year ... - Jefferson R. Cowie - Google Books
The logic of capital demands the highest possible return on investment. This is why the cheapest possible labor is genetic to capitalism. What this means is that you cannot sustain a vigorous consumption economy without disastrous forms of credit (which becomes necessary as you cut wages and benefits). Capitalism is always in crisis because it never pays Labor enough to consume, unless it is forced by government, which happened during the postwar years. Check out the growth in the 50s and 60s. Point is: you cannot sustain a consumption economy unless your distribution system sufficiently capitalizes average hard working families. FDR did it with unions, entitlements, cost of living programs, public universities, infrastructure, and a fed that sustained full employment. Reagan did it with credit cards. Both methods have serious flaws, but the essential problem is quite clear: capital's drive for cheap labor versus the economy's need for strong demand.
Capital moves: RCA's seventy-year ... - Jefferson R. Cowie - Google Books
The logic of capital demands the highest possible return on investment. This is why the cheapest possible labor is genetic to capitalism. What this means is that you cannot sustain a vigorous consumption economy without disastrous forms of credit (which becomes necessary as you cut wages and benefits). Capitalism is always in crisis because it never pays Labor enough to consume, unless it is forced by government, which happened during the postwar years. Check out the growth in the 50s and 60s. Point is: you cannot sustain a consumption economy unless your distribution system sufficiently capitalizes average hard working families. FDR did it with unions, entitlements, cost of living programs, public universities, infrastructure, and a fed that sustained full employment. Reagan did it with credit cards. Both methods have serious flaws, but the essential problem is quite clear: capital's drive for cheap labor versus the economy's need for strong demand.
Last edited:
Photonic
Ad astra!
Not only have you missed the entire point of my response, but you have proven yourself to be exactly like every prick California ***** who looks down their nose at anyone who they perceive to be lower class than they are.
Good job fulfilling your useless stereotype.
My Grandfather was a board executive for Exxon for 17 years. My other grandfather is a state lawyer for Maryland.
The Holocaust took their family, if anyone knows the American Dream better than my family, feel free to point them out.
Next time I attempt to have a reasonable conversation with you, perhaps you should respond in kind. I made a point and expected a point in return. But no, mindless inflammatory comments all the way.
Really showing how well you are able to express legitimate political views to other people.
Last edited:
To your Godwin'd question? I'm not going to dignify it with a response.
Similar threads
New Topics
-
-
-
After Trump is gone, the dems want America to despise the reps so much that they won't be getting a turn at power for a long time.- Started by Invisibleflash
- Replies: 2
-
On This Day In History: March 26, 1953 Dr. Jonas Salk Announces Polio Vaccine.
- Started by 0311
- Replies: 1
-
