"Lichtenstein, swiss banks and other vulture societies."
The poster who referred to these places - add the Cayman ilands - as vulture societies was almost right on. Leech societies would be a little more apt.
They simply steal the wealth owed by the institutions to the societies from which they obtained it as their fair share for that society's functioning.
The poster who referred to these places - add the Cayman ilands - as vulture societies was almost right on. Leech societies would be a little more apt.
They simply steal the wealth owed by the institutions to the societies from which they obtained it as their fair share for that society's functioning.
An excellent question I see going unanswered, but that's merciful to us, because I know that instead of his understanding 'we don't', he'll actually try to say why we want it.
you are STILL clinging to the idea that wealth is static!
Whenever you use a phrase like "wealth is overly concentrated"
Dont you get it? That can only happen if wealth is static! Wealth can not possibly be "overly" concentrated. For that to be true you have to cling to the myth that if someone gains, someone else loses.
If I invent a hammer, and sell it to the 10 carpenters on my block, I make a profit, and they all become more productive, themselves ALL increasing thier profit. EVERYONE gains!
This is how advances in technology (starting with the beginnings of agriculture, when humans went from 100% survival to having time to create art, music, pottery, tools) brought us to today.
If overall wealth was static, advancements in society would be impossible.
Whenever you use a phrase like "wealth is overly concentrated"
Dont you get it? That can only happen if wealth is static! Wealth can not possibly be "overly" concentrated. For that to be true you have to cling to the myth that if someone gains, someone else loses.
If I invent a hammer, and sell it to the 10 carpenters on my block, I make a profit, and they all become more productive, themselves ALL increasing thier profit. EVERYONE gains!
This is how advances in technology (starting with the beginnings of agriculture, when humans went from 100% survival to having time to create art, music, pottery, tools) brought us to today.
If overall wealth was static, advancements in society would be impossible.
Trying to talk to you is like trying to get a dog to meow. I explained to you how wealth is both static and not static in different ways,and you just don't follow what I'm saying.
*Wealth can be overly concentrated, and it matters*. That has a *huge* influence on the way the wealth is then used that's not static, on how much growth there is.
Write this on your forehead and memorize it: Excessive and Inadequate concentration of wealth both reduce producticity.
When you're done with that one, we'll move on to where the generated wealth goes. John Kennedy popularized the saying 'a rising tide lifts all boats'.
He was right, *when* there's a healthy democracy ensuring the increases are fairly distributed somewhat proportionally (not evenly).
But since 1981 and Reagan, the bottom 80% have received nothing of the growth in the ecoomy after inflation, while the very top has received the huge increases.
That's not static wealth, it's a huge increase in wealth causing an increasingly huge disparity in the concentration of wealth. All you're seeing here is 'woof woof', though right?
holy shit your dense, Wealth is not static, this is a FACT, its not up for frikkin debate, the fact that you have dispute something that is as factual as 2+4=4 to keep your ideology alive is what makes this argument so ridiculous.
You could at least be honest and say you want socialism for charity's sake, or for the concentration of power, or something realistic. But you cant bend time and space.
So some one who offers a tax lower rate or better service and attracts that business and is successful at it, can be classified as leeching of off society?
How about the government that takes 70% of someone's income? that sounds more like leeching too me.
Myself i've chosen to live in a place with a lower tax rate, why? because i want to keep more of the money i earn. Its very simple.
Esstentially you want to spend some one else's money. What makes you the judge of what some should do with their money?
Why would I am not an American? We don't call people here that, we call them nationalists!
same fatherland trip'
As I've indicated on numerous occasions.
I am from a country your's now sends it soldiers to be trained in soldiering (something to do with kill/cas ratio I guess and pork for bending over)- you know! where Steve Erwin came from!
You may of heard also of ACDC?
Gid'day mate, throw a shrimp on the barbie for ya's!
You are an x-british colony, we are still part of the "empire", probably because we hate the word 'republican after seeing what it means politically in the us of a over the last 20 years odd. Your cia has been prodding our socialist movements since wubba wubba two.
Gee wubbya just gave our x-pm little johnnie howard a medal!
Funny, our right wing is called the "liberal party" similar irony to yours i guess.
Our country's tax department- along with a few others- is currently trying to get transaction records out of the Lichtenstein banks through international legal means, our overtly wealthy follow the lead set by your rich and shameless.
If other countries followed their lead, they too would be a sham and a blight on the worlds population as a whole.
So tell me where the bloody hell are ya?
I have great respect for the old US manufacturing capabilities and middle American culture, but like most of the post Vietnam era recessions the only casualties have been the companies and people that make things to last and are considered "anti-consumerist". We suffer from a residual effect from the baddies in the us of a. along with the rest of the worlds people, whom live in the Tsunami of Americas power and apathy.
Revolution morphed into succession.
cheers and here's to a better tomorrow....for everybody not just a few.
My father immigrated from there, so yes i've heard of it. And its a shame you had to turn your guns in to be destroyed.
May i suggest not tax them at 50%, and give them an incentive to not want to move their money overseas? I mean if you could buy things, legally, with out the 10% vat, would you?
How is protecting peoples money, by not releasing information to any government agency that asks, such a blight?
and pray tell how is having a lower tax rate then your country such a blight also?
The united states - the place of unflitered internet access and gun ownership.
Are people as a whole, better off then they were, 1000 years? 500? 100? last 50? I'm not saying everything is better in every area. But the world as a whole is improving, and has been. Assuming we don't have another world war or some apocalyptic event, it will always more forward.
You're honestly telling me that every single Wall Street exec creates millions of dollars of NEW money a year, every year?
Sure, for someone to gain, others don't necessarily have to lose. But for someone to gain at ten times the rate of economic growth, or for someone to gain during negative or stagnant growth...someone must lose.
Point is, if someone joins a startup or failing business, turns it around and rides it to the top...they made their wealth, no one loses. But if business execs of stagnant or failing companies are making millions during the middle of a stock market crash and economic slowdown...someone is losing.
...umm, no. Even if the water is rising, people can experience a drought if the guys upstream are pumping it out faster than it rises.
Explain to me, if the current concentration of wealth is "healthy", why the ~90% tax rate of the 40s, 50s, and part of the 60s didn't choke the economy to death.
50% tax?
Over $180,000 $58,000 plus 45c for each $1 over $180,000- you do the 'maths'
and you can walk down the street safety-without a 9mm glock.
keeps the rupert murdoch's away!
boon or actual benefit. You want a Rodney Adler? he's going cheap and works great in concerto with ol'rupes'
Harbouring tax avoiders isn't protecting peoples money, it's protect thieves money- open sesame!
ww3? humans are like terrorists to the planet! Now we start to see a retaliation, I flew over Europe, all carbon up to 35,000meters its chemical warfare! the planet uses biologic, meteorological and seismological counter attacks.
I agree with the gun's bit to a degree.
I don't need bestial pron! The best thing to of come out of the internet was the interpole pedo stings.
Over $180,000 $58,000 plus 45c for each $1 over $180,000- you do the 'maths'
and you can walk down the street safety-without a 9mm glock.
keeps the rupert murdoch's away!
boon or actual benefit. You want a Rodney Adler? he's going cheap and works great in concerto with ol'rupes'
Harbouring tax avoiders isn't protecting peoples money, it's protect thieves money- open sesame!
ww3? humans are like terrorists to the planet! Now we start to see a retaliation, I flew over Europe, all carbon up to 35,000meters its chemical warfare! the planet uses biologic, meteorological and seismological counter attacks.
I agree with the gun's bit to a degree.
I don't need bestial pron! The best thing to of come out of the internet was the interpole pedo stings.
...umm, no. Even if the water is rising, people can experience a drought if the guys upstream are pumping it out faster than it rises.
Is that a two pronged attack......I mean like Los Vegass's water use?
No, you can't generalize it the way you did.
It's when one group exploits a situation to not actually offer something of real value, but rather offers the chance for someone to get out of a legitimate debt, it's a problem.
In principle, our nation has states that can have democracy create rules for corporations who register in that state. When corporations were more linked to a state, that's ok.
But as corporations go national and th system allows them to mainly have their operations in one state, Delaware can be a leech and let them just incorporate there to get some bucks and give them extremely biased rules in their favor, so they can avoid the democratically passed rules of the state they actually operate in. Hence you see corproations highly disproportionately registered in Delaware.
When companies operate primarily in the US, but register their headquarters in the Cayman Islads who gives them whatever rules they want in exchange for a few bucks, it lets them not pay the legitimate debt they owe to where they actually operate. Many billions of dollars are lost this way; the Cayman Islands is a leech state. You can read David Cay Johnston's books for many examples, try 'Free Lunch'.
This is different than when two states legitimately compete, so that a state with a higher standard but also higher cost of living competes with a lower standard and cost.
That's the market legitimately working. Do you want the nice beaches and weather and higher cost of California, or do you want the tax incentives from new Mexico?
The good thing about of this multi-national corporate hopscotch of labour and legality exploitation is; eventually you will see a leveling out of both these two "commodities" internationally and when that finally comes about, the proletarian victory will be realised and always was inevitable, capitalism evolves into socialism- yes things are getting better.
Happiness is a mode of transport; not a destination.
Happiness is a mode of transport; not a destination.
Sigh, another individual that doesn't understand the meaning of the word they are attempting to use. Naturalwirtschaft refers to a time before the invention of money. Natural economy refers to a bartering economy and this is how the first specialists obtained food for the goods they created.
Pretty bold statement. I'm assuming you base this conclusion on thousands of years of European history? Forgetting the rest of the world for a second, the economy that "naturally" appears is a mixed economy. That is, an economy that incorporates ideas from several economic ideologies.
And if you are basing your conclusion on European history, then you are also lacking. Many different types of societies and economies "naturally appeared" on the scene. I would consider the most prevalent throughout European history to be Feudalism. Of course, Europe also gave rise to trade leagues, city states, and modern Westphalian nation states. In fact, these existed in Europe simultaneously and all represented different ideologies of society and economies. However, the modern nation state is the winner as it was only the nation state, and its standards and regulations, that could promote efficient commerce and sufficiently protect the lives and property of people that gave birth to mercantilism. You seem to be under the delusion that Capitalism was born before banks and the modern state, your order is reversed. Capitalism required standards, low trade barriers (offered by organized governments), and protection of private ownership which could all be provided by the state.
Before we continue this discussion any further, I suggest you read The Sovereign State and its Competitors by Spruyt. It describes the birth of the modern state and why some form is strong government proved to be more advantageous than looser forms of social cohesion through weaker governments. It was the strong Westphalian state that allowed early Capitalism to flourish, not vice versa.
So, in answer to your question, if all banks and governments disappeared tomorrow there would:
1) first be anarchy and an immediate reversion to a natural economy; bartering economy
2) people with vast personal fortunes (represented now by gold and/or other commodities) would quickly become warlords/local royalty and we would quickly devolve into something resembling Feudalism (think fall of the Roman empire)
3) from Feudalism would arise many different types of economic and societal organizations like the city-state, trade league, and eventually the nation-state
4) the nation-state will be more effective at reducing trade barriers as it can set standards, organize armies, and create a unified currency
5) early forms of Capitalism will begin to flourish once again and we will have a mixed economy
I say this because this is how Capitalism came into being in the first place. Capitalism has always been mixed with a strong government that can protect property rights and reduce trade barriers. It's always been mixed.
Note: the above assumptions assume we follow a Euro-centric evolution and completely ignores the types of economies and societies that evolved in the rest of the world, particularly in China.
Sigh. I don't assume anything about someone having to lose for another to gain. However, I'm simply stating fact about the pattern of wealth in this country. While the overall "wealth pie" may have been growing rapidly since the early 80s (which I really disagree with, I would call it a "debt pie"), most of the newly created wealth has been concentrated in the hands of a few people.
If the pie grows by 3% this year, yet 90% of the population only sees an increase in wealth of 1%, are they richer or poorer this year than last? The problem you have is that you assume all new wealth created is distributed evenly. Even in a growing pie, wealth can be concentrated. This is called wealth condensation. I recommend you visit this topic, has wealth has been concentrated over the last decades despite a "growing pie."
I recommend you spend some time reading as it appears your understanding of economics is no more comprehensive than your understanding of history.
Capitalism:
An economic and political system characterized by a free market for goods and services and private control of production and consumption.
This has nothing to do with the creation of currency. The barter system IS capitalism. Throwing currency into the mix is just adding another thing to barter.
Thats the most insane thing I have ever heard. Do you see any socialism in black markets? How about unregulated markets like virtual goods? Do you see any of those people getting together to tax themselves for the purpose of redistribution? Get a frikin clue. Anarchy, (not that I'm defending it) is capitalism. Its the only economic system that does not require external forces (i.e. a govt) to support. Which is why its the NATURAL economy.
False false false and more false, Capitalism (like I just stated above) is the only system that DOESN'T require support. It doesnt need banks, or governments, or some mythical protection an individual can not provide for himself. If I grow a tomato, and sell it to whichever neighbor is willing to give me the most wheat for it.... Guess what? Thats capitalism, I ownded the production (my damn self), and I used nothing but supply (how many I(or others) produced) and demand (what the neighbor was willing to pay/trade for it) to determine the price.
If it even tries to say Capitalism was "formed" then its entire premise is false, and should probably be classified as propaganda.
Which is capitalism. The only economy that requires no external forces. /list
How do you distinguish "new" weatlh from "old"?
And if new weatlth going to one person is bad (as you are implying) how exactly was the other person "wronged"? If my neigbor wins the lottery... am I now somehow fucked by this new and vast disparity? Not unless I'm a jealous SOB, which is the main emotion socialists play to. Drop jealousy, and it doesnt make a difference. My neighbor is now rich, good for him.
If person A is hard working, and person B does enough to get by... guess who will have more wealth at the end of the year? Now they both invest what little they have left over, and repeat to next year. Person A produced more, and also invested more.. Person B invested a little, if any, and still did enough to get by... Person A is of course going to gain faster than person B. This is not a crime, there is no conspiracy here to impoverish person B, person B is just doing it thier way. Person B had nothing stolen from them, and there was plenty of oppertunity for person B to increase his % gain, he just chose to do as he always does... enough to get by.
puhlease. You dont even understand the simplest principles of your own examples. Knowledge != intelligence. You can go memorize all the books you want, but if you dont understand the basics.. your like an idiot savant, just reguritating what someone else wrote.
Wealth is not static.
Capitalism is a natural system.
These are simple facts that cant be denied. I've seen people successfully argue socialism while at the same time accepting these facts, and I can at least respect that. But when the people like the half informed liberals who post here try to make sense, they are doing soclialism a disservice.
You shouldnt try to bend facts to support your ideology. you should bend your ideology to support the facts.
Train, capitalism most certainly does require an external support system. You know what happens when you grow your tomato? Your neighbor comes over, hits you in the head with a baseball bat, and takes your tomato. I guess he 'produced' his violence against you, but that's hardly a functioning economy. Capitalism requires a framework that provides for reasonable protection against violence and fraud. (ie: government.)
In addition, must like knowledge does not equal intelligence, wealth does not equal hard work. You need to take a step back and re-examine your basic premise, because it's really really wrong.
In addition, must like knowledge does not equal intelligence, wealth does not equal hard work. You need to take a step back and re-examine your basic premise, because it's really really wrong.
:roll:
what a joke. So one person can not protect himself? He needs a govt to do it for him? Guess who they are going to send? Another PERSON.
Wealth is produced by work. One may become wealthy without hard work. but that doesnt mean one is not supported by the other.
Stop grasing for straws.
Wake up to reality.
I'm using examples that have been seen in any state where the government breaks down. Of course there are tons and tons of situations where one person cannot protect themselves. All that happens in the ridiculous situation that you paint is that people rely on the protection of kleptocratic strongmen to protect what they produce from other people. Look at failed states the world over. What you describe is simply living in a fantasy world.
You did hit it right on the head however when you said that wealth is supported without hard work, but that one may become wealthy without hard work. It's where the unregulated capitalistic system always turns into a kleptocracy. That's why no one stands for such an atrocious system to be put into place.
But then again, all these people arguing against you are getting their ideas from fancy books. I mean you already know what's right without all that fancy book learnin'.
O.k., but we aren't talking about corporations are we? The issue is about a single person's pay.
So tell me what happens with that 400 million that a CEO gets, where does it go?
And I'm telling you that capitalism isn't natural, kleptocracy is. (or at least capitalism by itself exists for only a short period of time before becoming kleptocracy). What's strange is that you seemed to be arguing that people could always protect themselves, then when shown you were wrong, retreated to 'hey man, just an example!'.
As for my 'jealousy', you gotta learn to read better brotha. There are lots of ways people acquire wealth that don't involve investments (or at least not real ones). Do you really think a lot of CEO salaries are so high because of the value they add to the company? Why don't you take a few minutes and see how those salaries are determined, and who frequently determines them? It's the same people patting each other on the back, over and over and over again. Oligarchs padding the pockets of other oligarchs. They are not creating wealth, they are stealing from you. All those finance people who just lost their jobs on wall street after raking in untold millions and billions? What value did they add to the economy? What did they produce? Nothing. They created a bubble, took millions (billions) for doing it, and then it collapsed. They were stealing from you. All aided and abetted by capitalist market ideology. All of them gained wealth, COMPLETELY untethered from production, through an asset bubble financed by cheap lending. Who will pay the piper for all that? You.
Money can and does grow without production, it just takes people awhile to realize it. By that point, the fox is already out of the hen house.
Like I said, reality man. Reality.
So people can steal in a capitalist system... but you all are trying to use that to prove capitalism is wrong...
Assholes are assholes, regardless of the system.
Same guy would steal in a socialist system, so your point is moot. Its more likely that theft is MORE likely in a socialist system. Just look at the former eastern block. Organized crime, black markets, they made up damn near 20% of the economy. Heh, those "natural" systems probably kept the USSR alive longer than it should have been.
No, I'm not trying to prove that capitalism is wrong. Nor did I ever say that socialism was natural. In addition, I did not say that socialism was superior to capitalism. If I remember, this was the same problem you had last time you talked about this. You are arguing based on what you WISH other people had said as opposed to what they actually said.
I'm arguing that CEO pay is untethered from wealth generation, and it is.
yllus
Elite Member & Lifer
- Aug 20, 2000
- 20,577
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Nothing you wrote there made any sense, especially considering you seem to be working off the notion that I think no problem exists when I wrote the exact opposite in the post you quoted. I get the impression that reading a lucid post from you is going to be a rarity.
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