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PeakOil is You

PeakOil is You

New economic system for post-peak ?

Discussions about the economic and financial ramifications of PEAK OIL

Unread postby smallpoxgirl » Fri 04 Mar 2005, 17:26:10

JayHMorrison wrote:, if the majority of your country's democracy do not agree with your values, then you are destined to be in the minority.


A. It's not my country. It's the country that is illegally occupying my home.

B. It's not a democracy. It is a representative plutocracy. US citizens do not and HAVE NEVER set the policy agenda for the United States government. They select from two equaly compemptable vermin each intent on exploiting and enslaving them. Sadly have become so stupified by television, fast food, and other narcotics, that they willingly accept this fraud as being an acceptable subsitute for self governance. Every couple of generations a few people recognize this fact and speak up about it. Those who do end up in jail or in little wooden boxes under six feet of dirt.
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Here, here

Unread postby EnviroEngr » Fri 04 Mar 2005, 18:32:47

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Unread postby Stauffenberg » Fri 04 Mar 2005, 19:06:03

Ludi wrote:If you're looking at "history" then you're only looking at a handful of cultures out of tens of thousands. Many cultures never had a concept of "profit."


These cultures were crushed by the profit-mongering ones. I fail to see why their warm, fuzzy outlook would develop teeth in the future; people are still people.

You should look beyond history to anthropology; broaden your outlook.


You should look beyond anthropology to paleopsychology; broaden your outlook.
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Unread postby Tyler_JC » Fri 04 Mar 2005, 19:57:17

Jay is right. I like private property. I like owning stuff. I'm fine with having other people own stuff. I'm ok with working to get more stuff or at least hang on to my own. That's the basis for Capitalism. Investment in the stock market is a form of Capitalism, but not the only form.

You do not have the right to take my things. Plain and simple. I have a certain number of things that I want to keep. If you steal my things, you must explain yourself :x .

There are only two economic systems that conform to human nature, Capitalism and Socialism. Socialism leads to corruption and wipespread misery but it "works." Capitalism allows some people to move above misery. I prefer Capitalism.

If your "new" system is not either Capitalistic or Socialistic, it won't work.
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Unread postby Ludi » Fri 04 Mar 2005, 20:12:27

Staufenberg, you just don't get what I'm saying. So, nevermind.
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Unread postby Jack » Fri 04 Mar 2005, 20:47:07

Mercani wrote:Even if my intitial suggestion of putting a limit on wealth may not make sense, it is clear that capitalism is not the way to go.

Rome was capitalistic. ==> It fell.
America is capitalistic. ===> It will fall.


The USSR was socialistic/communistic. ==> It fell.
The Sioux were communistic. ==> They fell.

Mercani wrote:Does history have to repeat itself?


Sure.

Mercani wrote:Whose fault is peak oil? All the humans? SUV drivers' ? People who eat bananas transported from half way around the world? People who fly to Las Vegas for the weekend? President who is elected every 4 years?

Who is responsible? Clearly there is something wrong in the system.


No - nor is it human nature. It is, rather, the fundamental nature of life to consume resources until outside constraints limit the increase in consumption. The stable societies are stable partly because natural causes - disease, for example - brings the death rate up to match the birth rate. Given the likely progression of events, such a pattern may again emerge.

Mercani wrote:Therefore after peak-oil, nothing will be the same. We need cooperation at least as much as competition. The current system is based mainly on competition.


We already have lots of cooperation. If I buy a share of stock, I cooperate with millions of other investors in the capital formation process, and in the maintenance of an orderly and liquid market. A corporation competes with some groups and organizations, but cooperates with others. The employees of the corporation cooperate in order to accomplish the overall mission.

Let's suppose the public health care system cooperates to reduce the infant death rate. The population increases. The ecological footprint increases. All because of cooperation. Maybe we need more good, healthy competition! 8)
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Unread postby Stauffenberg » Sat 05 Mar 2005, 00:56:34

Ludi wrote:Staufenberg, you just don't get what I'm saying. So, nevermind.


What I'm hearing is that there have been "non-profit" cultures. I'm not denying this. I am saying, however, that human society, at all levels, is a heirarchy, and these cultures always get ground to dust by the guys that don't share their morals. Profit survives, because profit is willing to do things non-profit won't.

Perhaps you could elaborate?
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Unread postby MonteQuest » Sat 05 Mar 2005, 01:18:16

smallpoxgirl wrote:
JayHMorrison wrote:Capitalism is not mandated upon us. It is simply what happens when we have freedom.


That is factually untrue. Every place that capitalism has ever been imposed, it has been imposed at gun point. Trade is natural. Production of goods is natural. Private property is natural.

Capitalism...ie the idea that one should accumulate capital and be reimbursed for allowing someone else to use your capital is a very new and very unnatural idea. It is one thing to make a product and trade that product with someone else. It is entirely another to "own" an apartment complex, a trailer park, a factory, and sit on your duff charging other people for the privelidge of working or living.


Quite true. A little definition if I may:

Economics 101—Capitalism must have growth and change in order to operate. The engine of capitalism is driven by wealthy investors who put their money into the economy in order to increase their wealth. If the economy offers no growth opportunities, then investors withdraw their money and the whole system collapses. A minor collapse is called a recession, and a major collapse is called a depression. Propaganda myth tells us that capitalism and free enterprise are one and the same thing. They are not. Under free enterprise a business can provide a service or product, make a profit in the process, and continue on stably for many years. Under capitalism such a business would be considered a failure—it does not provide a growth opportunity for an investor. Under capitalism, society is forced to continually destroy old ways of doing things and adopt new ways—not because it is good for society but because that is how wealthy investors can increase their wealth still further. That’s why General Motors and Firestone banded together to destroy excellent urban transit systems throughout the U.S. in the 1940s and 1950s—so that people would be forced to convert to automobiles and create growth for the automobile, tire, and petroleum industries.
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Unread postby Mercani » Sat 05 Mar 2005, 09:09:00

Bravo, Montequest.

You have clearly defined how capitalism and free-enterprise are different things.

Capitalism will not solve our problems in a finite world. It is clear that it couldn't solve peak-oil.


Tyler wrote:

There are only two economic systems that conform to human nature, Capitalism and Socialism.


How can you be so sure? Actually both of them doesn't completely fit human nature. Socialism went down, capitalism will also go down.

If I have $10 million I don't need to work for the rest of my life. I can buy couple of houses and live on the rent. Even better, I can buy government bonds and live on the interest. Isn't there something wrong? I can live without doing anything !
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Unread postby JayHMorrison » Sat 05 Mar 2005, 11:45:07

Mercani wrote:If I have $10 million I don't need to work for the rest of my life. I can buy couple of houses and live on the rent. Even better, I can buy government bonds and live on the interest. Isn't there something wrong? I can live without doing anything !


What is it that you dislike about that? There is nothing wrong with someone owning assets which other people are willing to pay to use.
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Unread postby formandfile » Sat 05 Mar 2005, 13:24:56

I think my friend scott summed this all up brilliantly one night whilst drinking and talking about Russia's 'growing pains' in moving towards a free market:

"You know what the difference is between communism and capitalism? Under the previous, you stood in line all day for a loaf of bread. Now under the later, you stand in line all day for a Snicker's bar."
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Unread postby Mercani » Sat 05 Mar 2005, 14:38:21

JayHMorrison wrote:
Mercani wrote:If I have $10 million I don't need to work for the rest of my life. I can buy couple of houses and live on the rent. Even better, I can buy government bonds and live on the interest. Isn't there something wrong? I can live without doing anything !


What is it that you dislike about that? There is nothing wrong with someone owning assets which other people are willing to pay to use.


The problem is "The rich get richer while the poor gets poorer"

The rich can earn money with their money + live in luxury, but the poor has to work just to live.
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Unread postby Tyler_JC » Sat 05 Mar 2005, 15:05:38

So cut taxes on the poor. The only reason the poor suck at life is because the government taxes them on behalf of the elite. You wouldn't need to raise taxes on the rich that much to make up the difference of eliminating taxation on the bottom 50%.

After all, those people only pay like 5% of the taxes anyway.
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Unread postby Jack » Sat 05 Mar 2005, 15:17:43

Mercani wrote:The problem is "The rich get richer while the poor gets poorer"

The rich can earn money with their money + live in luxury, but the poor has to work just to live.


The moral of this story, then, is to get rich. 8)

You capitalist, you!
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Unread postby JayHMorrison » Sat 05 Mar 2005, 20:19:02

Tyler_JC wrote:So cut taxes on the poor. The only reason the poor suck at life is because the government taxes them on behalf of the elite. You wouldn't need to raise taxes on the rich that much to make up the difference of eliminating taxation on the bottom 50%.

After all, those people only pay like 5% of the taxes anyway.


The bottom 45% in the USA do not pay any federal income taxes.
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Unread postby JayHMorrison » Sat 05 Mar 2005, 20:20:29

Mercani wrote:The problem is "The rich get richer while the poor gets poorer"

The rich can earn money with their money + live in luxury, but the poor has to work just to live.


Even the poor are better off under the typical western gov'ts (Europe, N America, Japan) than they would be under communism or a dictatorship.
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Unread postby smallpoxgirl » Sat 05 Mar 2005, 20:33:04

JayHMorrison wrote:What is it that you dislike about that? There is nothing wrong with someone owning assets which other people are willing to pay to use.


The problem is that the reason the assets are distributed the way they are is because of hundreds of years of crime. I live in Washington state. One of the largest landholders here is a company called Weyerhauser. If you trace it back, where the Weyerhauser family got all this land was through fraud related to the building of the Northern Pacific Railroad. Because they were rich, and the rich own the government, no one ever prosecuted them. Now they own all the land and if you want to harvest timber for a living, you're gonna pay them for that privelidge. And they sit on their fat white butts soaking up the profit while thousands of honest people who work for them are scraping to put food on the table. Their fraud, BTW, didn't end in the 1800's. They have been engaged in all sorts of crimes right up to today: stealing trees from the national forests, illegally manipulating the markets around certain types of wood. They've lost a few lawsuits, but most of the people who got screwed can't afford lawyers. You can bet your sweet butt no prosecuter will ever touch them.

The Kennedy's got rich bootlegging during the 20's. Bill Gates got rich through years of criminal enterprise. This country was built off the theft of land from the Indians and the theft of labor from Africans. Now that you've managed to hoard all the toys, you want to be all free market and property rights about it. Well I say screw that noise. You don't get to cheat your way through the game and then quit while you're ahead.
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Unread postby JayHMorrison » Sat 05 Mar 2005, 22:34:17

smallpowgirl, you seem to be ranting against unfairness that you see as opposed to having in mind an economic system which would be better than the current one. If you are unhappy with the free enterprise economy which is common today in most western countries, what would you propose to replace it?
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Unread postby smallpoxgirl » Sun 06 Mar 2005, 02:15:20

JayHMorrison wrote:smallpowgirl, you seem to be ranting against unfairness that you see as opposed to having in mind an economic system which would be better than the current one. If you are unhappy with the free enterprise economy which is common today in most western countries, what would you propose to replace it?


As I've said before, I'm an indigenist. I believe that indigenous economic systems have, and where they still exist, do work very well to foster both individual initiative and group well being. Generally the elements of those economic systems are that 1: Land and natural resources aren't owned. Land is land and the mountain is the mountain. They are seperate beings and nobody owns them. 2: Individuals do have private property, though there is a strong societal taboo against accumulating excessive wealth. The way that one gains stature in the community is not by accumulating wealth, but by giving things away to needy members of the tribe. Many tribes have customs like the potlatch tradition that I described above to keep people from becoming overly attached to possesions. 3: Because there are societal strictures against accumulating useless quantities of wealth, capitalism does not develop. Capitalism, again, is not trade. It is not private property. It is the act of accumulating capital. Capital is an item that you don't need, but can't extort concessions from other people for using it. In indigenous societies, you get things by making them or by trading for them, not by sitting on your butt and loaning your posessions out to other people. 4: Because the accumulation of useless wealth is taboo, indigenous societies do not generate the sort of ecological destruction that capitalism has. People may say "I need a tent pole. I'm going to cut that tree down." But they don't say. "You guys go cut that whole forest over there down while I sit on my butt and collect the profits." In an indigenous society, there would be no reason to destroy a whole forest because the goal is to live a good life, not to accumulate piles of useless crap and little green pieces of paper.
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Unread postby ECM » Sun 06 Mar 2005, 03:51:34

The health of a society is usually proportional to the distribution of wealth in the society. During the 19th century the wealth of the U.S. was heavily concentrated and there was more than enough strife. The Great Depression erased much of the accumulation of wealth and with the coming of WW II the equality of wealth in the U.S. became significantly more equal. Over the last 3 decades or so that equality has slid back heavily in favor of the few. Bill Gates having the wealth of the lowest 100 million U.S. citizens is completely unjustifiable no matter how he uses that money. The greed of our society and lopsided wealth is a great disease that will eat away at us until we die or collapse. Not only does the U.S. have the worst wealth distribution of any 1st world nation, we also have an extremely disproportionate amount of the world wealth.

The bottom half of Americans pay less than 4% of federal income taxes as a whole. However, due to the cutoffs of Social Security the proportion of SS and Medicare taxes favor the wealthy. In addition we have to pay property taxes, state taxes in 44? states, sales taxes, fuel taxes, sin taxes, excise taxes, and more taxes. By the time it is all counted up the wealthy don't pay sh*t compared to what they make. No one can ever justify to me why the top companies in the United States pay their CEOs 400-1000 times the average employee's wage when in many foreign countries such as Japan it is only around 15 times for their top companies. Even worse is when some CEO fails and gets tens or hundreds of millions when they get fired and it is far more frustrating when they get that and massive numbers of people get laid off.

I will say it again, capitalism is the worst large-scale economic system ever developed. It just promotes individualistic greed and destroys the desire to work for the common good. Just like a team playing as individuals, no nation of individuals can last.

From this link

Society definition

SOCIETY. A society is a number of persons united together by mutual consent, in order to deliberate, determine, and act jointly for some common purpose.

I guess our common purpose must be the raping of the planet, stealing of resources, murdering of innocents, polluting, desertification, deforestation, eroding, and crapping on human rights just so that we can consume and waste more in the name of the gods known as
[smilie=adora.gif][smilie=adora.gif] [smilie=adora.gif] ME, MYSELF, and I [smilie=adora.gif][smilie=adora.gif][smilie=adora.gif].
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