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TomCochrane
Trad climber
Santa Cruz Mountains and Monterey Bay
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Jul 29, 2014 - 10:55pm PT
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Money is supposed to be a medium of exchange for trading goods and services.
Money still serves that function on a minor scale, which serves to obscure it's major function as controlled by the central bankers who own the government.
Money (fiat currency = debt i.e. US dollar) is primarily a tool for manipulating (enslaving) people.
GOLD is the money of the KINGS,
SILVER is the money of the GENTLEMEN,
BARTER is the money of the PEASANTS,
but DEBT is the money of the SLAVES!!!
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, CA
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Jul 29, 2014 - 11:22pm PT
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The only way you win this fight is through education. Informing people of what is really going on.
I'll get partisan. I saw Obama for what he was a mile way, the minute he opened his pie-hole and spoke. Everybody called me names, racist, or whatever...
He's still a loser.
As for trusting COngress? You really have to listen to people and watch them when they speak. Most people with a good heart and mind can see the liars, they are evident.
Pelosi is a liar, fyi.
EDIT: We are actually pretty damn close. Re-instate the banking regulations that were in place until Reagan showed up.
If yer talking about the Gold Standard, that was Nixon, I believe....
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, CA
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Jul 29, 2014 - 11:33pm PT
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Not all, Randisi, but most.
I haven't lost complete faith yet. And neither should you.
As long as there are honest people like you and me, there is still hope for honest gov't. Right?
Have faith...
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TomCochrane
Trad climber
Santa Cruz Mountains and Monterey Bay
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Jul 29, 2014 - 11:43pm PT
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it's not about the politicians, they are just the entertainers who distract you from what is being done behind the curtain...(or rather behind that red cape being waved by the matador with the sword)...
it's all about the banksters and their handlers
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, CA
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Jul 29, 2014 - 11:49pm PT
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Ya know what stuck me immediately about Romney, was that he was incapable of lying or being dishonest.
That was his only problem, but his biggest mark of character. I blame the easily duped voters, not the person who was elected.
You get the gov't you elect. Vote carefully, and with wisedom...
EDIT;it's all about the banksters and their handlers
Of course it is, but see my previous statements. There ARE good people out there in the House. But K-Street is a big problem.
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HighDesertDJ
Trad climber
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Jul 30, 2014 - 06:04am PT
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bluering posted Ya know what stuck me immediately about Romney, was that he was incapable of lying or being dishonest.
Obvious troll is obvious.
bluering continued As long as there are honest people like you and me, there is still hope for honest gov't. Right?
Sorry, bluering. I'm not quite sure our last best hope for functioning democracy lies with people who spent as much energy as you did questioning the citizenship of our President.
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climbski2
Mountain climber
Anchorage AK, Reno NV
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Topic Author's Reply - Jul 30, 2014 - 07:06am PT
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Both lied.. wow! How odd. Wonder why?
How much did both get in campaign contributions .. how much from the same contributors?
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Gary
Social climber
Desolation Basin, Calif.
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Jul 30, 2014 - 07:07am PT
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Ya know what stuck me immediately about Romney, was that he was incapable of lying or being dishonest.
:-)
Bluering, you've become one of my all-time favorite Internets posters!
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WBraun
climber
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Jul 30, 2014 - 07:29am PT
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Just see the politards how steeped they are in their daily phantasmic illusions ......
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crankster
Trad climber
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Jul 30, 2014 - 08:21am PT
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Just see the politards how steeped they are in their daily phantasmic illusions ......
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JEleazarian
Trad climber
Fresno CA
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Jul 30, 2014 - 10:28am PT
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Jammer is right... the only source of monetary value is labor.
Strongly disagree, DMT. The only source of monetary value is what you can exchange it for. Since I am required to pay my taxes in U.S. dollars, and I can be jailed if I don't, I can exchange U.S. dollars for my freedom which, to me, has value.
In addition, labor is simply one factor of production. You can't eat unless you harvest a crop, but you can't plant a crop unless you have seed for the crop, and unless you water it, and unless you have soil in which to plant it, etc. etc. In general, production requires varying amounts of the following (in alphabetical order):
1. Capital;
2. Entrepreneurial leadership;
3. Labor; and
4. Resources (some older texts lump all resources as "land").
Trying to say that any one factor of production is "primary" leads to the equivalent of proving the chicken came before the egg or vice versa.
Incidentally, the popular "Marxist" idea that labor is the sole source of value contradicts what Marx himself believed. He used a labor definition of value (thus, if have to work four hours to buy a suit, the suit is "worth" 4 hours to me. It didn't matter to Marx that it took ten minutes of labor in the factory to make it.
John
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JEleazarian
Trad climber
Fresno CA
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Jul 30, 2014 - 11:18am PT
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Jammer, you and Gary share the same view on the value of labor. You eliminate an essential ingredient in acquiring capital. It is not enough merely to labor for it. You need to spend less than you make. Deferred gratification enriches economies. Unless you reward that deferred gratification, you will have no incentive to accumulate capital.
Similarly, entrepreneurial leadership involves more than labor. It involves bearing financial risk. If I work as a farm laborer, I get paid whether the farmer makes money or not. Not everyone wants to take the entrepreneurial risk. The entrepreneur assumes more risk in exchange for the expectation of a higher reward.
Finally, resource ownership also implies more than labor. Once I extract the resource, or plow the ground, or build the building, someone needs to decide what to do with that resource. Accumulation of resources are really a form of capital, and it cost the owner (in the form of other opportunities foregone) to acquire those resources. Unless the owner gets paid for those resources, there is no incentive to acquire them.
So ultimately, your "labor theory of value" needs an awful lot of refinement before it truly explains economic activity. Those refinements end up being equivalent to the factors of production I set forth above.
John
Edit: Since money is really just a Ponzi scheme, why don't we agree to let people free themselves of that worthless asset by, say, giving it to me?
;-)
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pyro
Big Wall climber
Calabasas
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Jul 30, 2014 - 11:32am PT
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The entrepreneur assumes more risk in exchange for the expectation of a higher reward.
Entrepreneur= Genuis
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apogee
climber
Technically expert, safe belayer, can lead if easy
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Jul 30, 2014 - 11:33am PT
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'Genius'
Or maybe you were referring to:
Genuis
When you think that you're smart, but in actuality you aren't.
or
Genuis
To act as a channel for devine or aka bad ass information or abilities...root word from Greek of Genus or like Geni as of the god, or gods
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Genuis
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JEleazarian
Trad climber
Fresno CA
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Jul 30, 2014 - 11:38am PT
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Interesting article on Lessig, Apogee, but he has a fundamentally flawed premise when he says the public domain has no lobbyists. It has lobbyists, but they are diverse. Those who benefit from keeping intellectual property out of the public domain are identifiable and work more closely in concert.
Virtually every change in every law produces economic winners and losers. When the stakes affect substaintial interests on both sides (e.g. worker's comp law in California), there will be intense interest by those on all sides of the issue, it will receive a full hearing, and proper political outcomes will determine the result.
If, however, one side of a potential change has a relatively small number of people who will suffer a great deal with the change, while the other side has a relatively large number of people who will gain a little by the change, it is likely that those opposing the change will be heard more clearly than those who support the change, because those who would benefit from the change have less incentive individually to do anything about it. The classic example of this is the sugar import quotas, which hurt the economy generally, but greatly benefit domestic suger growers.
The battle between owners of intellectual property and public domain status is like the sugar quota example. The public domain has lots of businesses that benefit from expansion of public domain status, but none benefits enough to put a lot of money into expanding it. That could reflect two possible states of being:
1. The gain from expansion of the public domain does not offset the cost of doing so; or
2. The gain from expansion of the public domain exceeds the cost of doing so, but the transactions cost of changing the law exceeds the gain that would result.
Lessig's view assumes that case No. 2, above, prevails in real life. That's not particularly clear from readily available facts.
Lessig's beef really is not with influence or corruption; it's with transactions costs. It costs way more money to identify and coordinate action among those who would benefit from an expansion of the public domain than it does to identify and coordinate action among those who oppose that expansion. That's true no matter what "political reforms" get passed, so we'd better make sure that any such reforms actually ameliorate the transactions cost asymmetry, rather than distort economic reality.
incidentally, the Bankruptcy Code created a new entity, the United States Trustee, whose job is to look after the interest of parties whose eocnomic stake in a bankruptcy is too small to hire a lawyer. I have reservations about how well the idea works, but it was an attempt to deal directly with a transactional cost problem.
John
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apogee
climber
Technically expert, safe belayer, can lead if easy
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Jul 30, 2014 - 11:43am PT
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Lessig readily acknowledges that this idea is not a panacea, but the levelling effect would still be a far cry from where we stand now, don't you think?
Since Citizens United has effectively entrenched our current system even deeper, there don't seem to be a plethora of potential solutions being offered up these days. Mostly complicit resignation and cynicism.
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JEleazarian
Trad climber
Fresno CA
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Jul 30, 2014 - 11:46am PT
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Its labor that is at risk; it could be all for nothing.
Um no, unless your definition of "labor" makes your statement a tautology. When our law firm revenues were low, the employess of our firm who were not partners made their full salary, and the partners got to wait to get paid. My income could vary drastically from year-to-year. The incomes of the non-partner employees would be exactly what we promised, regardless of how well we did.
I've represented perhaps 1,000 owners of businesses that failed. Their employees lost their jobs with the employers, but never (in my cases, anyway) their pay for work they'd already performed. In contrast, the owners lost everything they put into the business, plus, usually, every other non-exempt asset they owned. The risks are in no way comparable, as everyone in business for themselves knows or finds out.
John
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apogee
climber
Technically expert, safe belayer, can lead if easy
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Jul 30, 2014 - 11:47am PT
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BTW...stop seeing this whole issue from an economist's viewpoint. I know it's your natural locus, but our Representative government is supposed to be about the people first. The $$ is a necessary reality & evil, but it's supposed to follow the people, not supplant them.
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