Originally posted by FMFThe Wikipedia article doesn't seem to agree with you. It claims there's agriculture, mining, manufacturing etc. going on over there.
Not so. Here in Indonesia, the private sector, judging by the billions of dollars it invests in advertising (in this 63 year old democracy with lamentable infrastructure, people dying for want of $1 vaccines, some school classes held under trees) is very focussed on skin whitening creams and anti-dandruf shampoos, vacuous date-a-celebrity text messaging schemes, ...[text shortened]... ", when that just simply isn't true. To think it's a case of one or the other is facile.
The skin creams and such are a combination of two things; getting money from irrational people, and providing rational people with valuable services and products. I use anti-dandruff shampoo for example. There's nothing wrong with it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Indonesia
Originally posted by FMFYour argument seems to be that individuals should not be controlled, but groups of individuals should be, because individuals in groups lose their intelligence. Is that right?
Not true. I think kmax87's analogy is thought provoking. AThousandYoung's "A market is the combined behavior of intelligent beings" thing doesn't withstand scrutiny. The "intelligent beings" bit is a red herring. The key to it is the "combined behavior" bit. The "combined behavior" obviously needs regulation because it clearly has no coherent "intelligence" of i ...[text shortened]... ctual playfulness of the analogy. It's a shame so many of you are dull idealogues!
Originally posted by FMFThere are clearly enough wealth and resources in the world to support all the people living in it and much more.
There are clearly enough wealth and resources in the world to support all the people living in it and much more. You'd be the first to agree with me when I say that its uneven distribution is utterly shocking and rigidly enforced by violence or the threat of violence.
Now, I have more than just a little respect for you as a student of human nature. Greed, we ...[text shortened]... solidarity. The 'need' to have sex. Just so I don't get the wrong end of the stick.
Not so. There may be enough wealth saved up to support everyone for a while...but that saved up wealth will then not be used for investment, and taking it from the ones who saved it will suppress peoples' motivation to work and make money. Eventually all that saved wealth will be gone, population will be huge, and everyone will be poor.
You'd be the first to agree with me when I say that its uneven distribution is utterly shocking and rigidly enforced by violence or the threat of violence.
I'm not shocked. Valuable professionals with good self control and long term planning abilities should have more than people who are obsessed with immediate gratification. The economy should reward those who strengthen the economy.
Now, I have more than just a little respect for you as a student of human nature.
Thanks! 🙂
Greed is like many things in life; good in moderation, bad in excess. Concentration of power is necessary, because societies with concentrated power can easily dominate societies without it through a simple divide and conquer strategy. Community solidarity is part of human nature, but not an essential part of every individual's nature; it depends on that person's experiences and character. I don't know what you want about me to say about sex.
And here you are insinuating that what we need to do is stop the majority of mankind from having sex.
No I am not. I am saying that unrestricted breeding (not sex, but sex without birth control) causes poverty. This cannot be avoided.
Originally posted by AThousandYoungYou're trying some sleight of tongue here, aren't you? A person has intelligence. A group of people does not have "intelligence". There is no such thing as "collective intelligence". There is, however, "combined behaviour". I said nothing about individuals 'losing their intelligence'. The 'market' is a system. It doesn't have "intelligence". The U.S.A. is a group of people - a nation. It doesn't have "intelligence". Union Carbide is a corporation, with "intelligent" managers, but it doesn't have corporate "intelligence". Nor does it have "humanity" or "morality". Same goes for 'market forces'. For rational human beings to surrender our collective well being and fate to an inanimate financial mechanism - that has no intrinsic intelligence, no moral core, no instincts, no ability to perceive, no 'desire' for holistic outcomes - is utterly irrational and, in effect, a suppression of the extraordinary capacity of our humanity. And an insult to your intelligence. And mine. Everyone's.
Your argument seems to be that individuals should not be controlled, but groups of individuals should be, because individuals in groups lose their intelligence. Is that right?
Originally posted by FMFThere is no more combined behavior than there is collective intelligence. There are lots of individuals with individual behaviors, each of which is intelligently directed.
You're trying some sleight of tongue here, aren't you? A person has intelligence. A group of people does not have "intelligence". There is no such thing as "collective intelligence". There is, however, "combined behaviour". I said nothing about individuals 'losing their intelligence'. The 'market' is a system. It doesn't have "intelligence". The U.S.A. is a grou ...[text shortened]... anity. And an insult to your intelligence. And mine. Everyone's.
Originally posted by AThousandYoungYour post is riddled with false choices. Why are you suddenly talking about 'wealth saved up'? And money 'not being used for investment'? You seem to be trying to knock down something I didn't even mention. And why is the choice so starkly framed: "Valuable professionals with good self control and long term planning abilities" verses "people who are obsessed with immediate gratification"? Are there any other kind of people? Does this rather surreal dichotomy assist our discussion? And why do you always refer to a fairer distribution of wealth as "taking it away" from the rich?
There may be enough wealth saved up to support everyone for a while...but that saved up wealth will then not be used for investment, and taking it from the ones who saved it will suppress peoples' motivation to work and make money [...] Valuable professionals with good self control and long term planning abilities should have more than people who are ...[text shortened]... ssed with immediate gratification. The economy should reward those who strengthen the economy.
Let me give you an example. I have a friend in Jakarta works in an Adidas factory. She works a 10 hour day, 6 days a week, 7 days holiday a year (plus national holidays). No benefits except for medical coverage up to a maximum of $2.50 a month (i.e. one visit to the doctor, but buy the prescription yourself). For this she is paid U.S.$150 a month. That is approximately. $6.25 per day. Why not pay her $300? Adidas can easily afford it and it would still be a very profitable company. And its shareholders would still make plenty of money. An extra $150 would be hugely significant to my friend. She would spend most of it in any given month. All sorts of other people in the local economy would benefit from her spending.
And yet the system you advocate doesn't want to do this. It wants to withhold money from people like my friend, who work very hard to produce things, and instead give the vast majority of the wealth that this hard work creates, to people who already have massive amounts of wealth. If it is the 'market mechanism' that "decides" to give my friend only $150 (i.e. as little as it possibly can) then clearly this 'market mechanism' serves the interests of Adidas and its shareholders and does not serve the interests of millions of people like my friend - unless you believe that by paying her as little as it possibly can it is serving her interests... and perhaps she should be grateful and just shut up? If so, you'll find that Indonesia's vicious 'security services' are you moral and political bedfellows.
Or maybe you believe that the reason my friend is paid so little is because she produces so little? Some of the shoes she makes fetch $200 in the U.S. (so I'm told). So there are clearly people higher up the food chain who benefit extraordinarily from her work. The 'market mechanism' is incapable of proportionality. To suggest that we should just let it be and laud its 'decisions' as some kind of 'truth', strikes me as daft.
Originally posted by AThousandYoungThis is - as I am sure you will agree, on reflection - incoherent.
There is no more combined behavior than there is collective intelligence. There are lots of individuals with individual behaviors, each of which is intelligently directed.
You said on page one of this thread: A market is the combined behavior of intelligent beings. Are you retracting this? Reiterating it? Making the above comment regardless of it? There is no combined behaviour? But you brought that up yourself...
You believe the "market" is an intelligent thing and therefore cannot be compared to a nuclear reactor, yes? And that mankind should not interfere with the "market" because it is made up of lots of individuals with individual behaviors, each of which is intelligently directed, yes?
Whatever "intelligence" has worked out that an Indonesian working mother should be paid $6.25 for a 10 day working for a hugely profitable multi-national company, is totally unimpressive to me. I reject that "intelligence". That kind of "intelligence" needs to be confronted, opposed. If it uses violence to enforce its "intelligence" or impose it on people with the help of local elected jobsworths and their 'security services', then perhaps it should be - or needs to be - met with violence.
Isn't imposing the 'market mechanism' by force, in itself, intervening?
For the sake of texture (ATY, please read):
" ... the idea that banks and building societies could lend out of all proportion to real economic growth was bound, one day, to come crashing to the ground. If illness is nature's way of telling you to slow down, then a credit squeeze does the same for an economy. Once in a while we all need to slow down. .....Time and again we've been reminded, these last few years, about the risks of ignoring limits.....So bad news today may lead to good news tomorrow if it teaches us to spend less on what we lack and celebrate more what we have."
http://www.citywire.co.uk/personal/-/news/markets-companies-and-funds/content.aspx?ID=302149&re=2945&ea=170211
Originally posted by Bosse de NageI'm not sure how rational it was. It was irrational to accept those loans. How are the banks in question doing?
What's stopping them from investing it so as to enrich themselves immensely notwithstanding any potential damage to the economy as a whole?
How rational was sub-prime lending?
If the market would be allowed to correct itself the economy would recover. Houses would be dirt cheap, which is nice for the poor. This whole episode should serve to weed out the stupid companies who provided these loans and could not handle the backlash. Some companies maybe could handle it, and so will survive, and so they should. New Century Financial Corporation is filing for bankruptcy.
What's stopping them from investing it so as to enrich themselves immensely notwithstanding any potential damage to the economy as a whole?
I'm suspicious of this claim that investment - especially profitable investment - can be destructive to the economy. What do you mean?
There are cases like the Iraq contractors who are failing to fulfill their contracts, but that's because they have the government giving them jobs, investing taxpayer money stupidly. The government's investment of our money in that way is not going to provide a return and has simply led to incompetence and failure. In any case it's still good for the Iraqi economy; just not ours. Now they have partially completed infrastructure...for free!
Originally posted by Sam The ShamBut like untrimmed beards, they are big, and the individual hairs are long.
free markets that aren't controlled are like beards that aren't controlled, they get all bushy and look bad and stuff so the reactor goes all critical and then needs new dilithium crystals to be brought back under control so you need to shave and control the market and not let reactors go all crazy
Originally posted by FMFThe system you advocate, almost by definition, pays the people in the middle and at the bottom [b]as little as it can. Meanwhile, it pays the people at the top as much as it can - even when they fail. [/b]
Your earnestness is admirable. Your wide-eyed sycophancy for the 'noble rich' is, in a way, kind of touching. It certainly liberates your 'analysis' from much in the way of intellectual gravitas. What I find interesting about your posts, Wajoma, is the sort of world-weary 'adult' pretense mixed with the childlike internalization of cozy myths and disingen ...[text shortened]... re beyond your own bitter, selfish, cliche-ridden horizon. Come on!
That's not true. People fall from the top all the time. People also rise from the bottom. I'd be one of the latter; I've gone from unemployed bum to almost middle class. I'm getting promotions left and right.
And yet for the most part, the people here who have half a dozen top of the range European cars and four fully staffed houses
That's four houses of employed people and an auto industry and housing industry being funded that you're referring to. Let's keep that in mind. There are probably various taxes going to the government as well.
Now inheritence IS indeed something I find strange and potentially economically unbalancing. Inheritence is it's own issue though.
classic, nuts & bolts element of capitalism, you'll agree
Absolutely not! Capitalism is about spending money to acquire capital which then can be used to more efficiently make money. It's not about inheritence.
also have maybe thousands of people on their payroll who actually produce things, working a grim and startlingly productive 60 hours a week, and moonlighting too, while still not having enough money to send both their kids to school
Thousands of people with jobs. Despite their low incomes at the moment, they're pumping out the babies, and then you whine that they can't afford to support those babies! That adds expense to their lives and removes their flexibility; now they can't do a lot of things because they have to look out for the kids.
I sometimes live on fifty cent tacos for a week at a time. Costs me a couple bucks a day. I get constipated and feel nauseous though when I do that, but I could be trimming the luxuries if I want to eat better.
Give us something with some humanity or some awareness of how things actually are beyond your own bitter, selfish, cliche-ridden horizon.
Appeal to emotion. Attacking the speaker. You're being illogical now.
Originally posted by FMFThe reason there is enough wealth to support everyone - for a little while - is because some people were more efficient with their resources and were able to save extra. If you were in charge, they'd have no incentive to do that, and this wealth you are drooling over would not exist.
Your post is riddled with false choices. Why are you suddenly talking about 'wealth saved up'? And money 'not being used for investment'? You seem to be trying to knock down something I didn't even mention. And why is the choice so starkly framed: "Valuable professionals with good self control and long term planning abilities" verses "people who are obsessed wit ...[text shortened]... d laud its 'decisions' as some kind of 'truth', strikes me as daft.
Does this rather surreal dichotomy assist our discussion?
Yes. Does your surreal dichotomy about how there are "rich and powerful" and by implication people who are not assist the discussion?
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Originally posted by FMFAre you retracting this?
This is - as I am sure you will agree, on reflection - incoherent.
You said on page one of this thread: [b]A market is the combined behavior of intelligent beings. Are you retracting this? Reiterating it? Making the above comment regardless of it? There is no combined behaviour? But you brought that up yourself...
You believe the "market" is an intell ce.
Isn't imposing the 'market mechanism' by force, in itself, intervening?[/b]
Not really. It's one or the other; are we going to be rigorous about describing how individuals behave in a group setting? Then there is neither "group behavior" nor "group intelligence". Or are we going to refer to the group as an entity out of convenience? Then there are both.
There is no more combined behavior than there is collective intelligence. Both exist as a quick and dirty way to describe the statistical study of individual behavior in groups and they ways those behaviors interact. But rigorously, a group is not an entity with intelligence or behavior.
You believe the "market" is an intelligent thing and therefore cannot be compared to a nuclear reactor, yes?
No. It's a collection of intelligent things. The reactor is a collection if unintelligent things. Radioactive atoms are not analogous to humans.
You know, the people of Indonesia could choose (in a free market) NOT to work for that shoe company. If there are thugs preventing this, then you've found the problem. It's not a free market. It's the thugs that are the problem. Free markets, by definition, are free from violent coercion.
You seem to put on the ideal of the free market the blame for US government interference in the economy and for the actions of violent thugs. Can't you see that these things are antithetical to a free market? I don't know what your solution is, but communism has traditionally challenged such violence, but replaced it with MORE violent interference in the economy, and then those countries tend to collapse in poverty.
Isn't imposing the 'market mechanism' by force, in itself, intervening?
That makes as much sense as screwing for chastity. The market mechanism we're discussing is free from violent coercion by definition. You're demonizing a non-violent idea and I can only guess you want in place instead.