Debt Rattle August 4 2019

 

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  • #48970

    Julie Edgley Immature white tailed eagle.   • An Economy Based on Plunder (PCR) • Economics Is A Failing Discipline Doing Great Harm (Simms) • Jo
    [See the full post at: Debt Rattle August 4 2019]

    #48973
    Dr. D
    Participant

    Wow, PCR goes full Social Democratic anti-capitalist. Times they are a-changin’ Basically everything he says is false, carefully oversimplified to make his case. It’s often said the U.S. just arrived and plundered the environment with fish jumping in your boat and gold lying on the ground, but this is false. It may SEEM that way now, but the U.S. INVENTED all the mechanisms by which to turn a heartless desert and wilderness INTO a place where iron and coal were easy and cheap. Europe, while having been mined, quite the contrary had the advantage of the U.S. for several hundred years because they had infrastructure: roads, canals, skills, cities, ports, banking, the U.S. had to install all that. When the Spanish first met Iowa, they called it “The Great Inland Desert”, as the grass was so tall and the sod so thick, they reported nothing could ever grow there. It would be wasteland all the way through to the Napa Valley. That’s why they sold it off for nothing. Florida: useless, sandy, unfarmable, malaria-ridden swamps. Sierra-Nevadas: from alkali, unfarmable rock to 10,000 foot, impassable mountains, useless, an obstacle, as barren as the moon. Worthless. So the iron ore in Minnesota, as cold as Siberia and as remote, who cares if it’s there? It’s impossible to move to Cleveland, to say nothing of smelted and shipped out the St. Lawrence, trapped by impassable rapids. …And on and on and on. Why was it valuable? Because we INVENTED aluminum, essentially, we INVENTED suspension bridges large enough for the landscape, we INVENTED canals and waterworks that could contain the massive Mississippi, invented city-size smelters, deep coal mining, deep windmill wells, invented steam shipping, invented thousands of things that made the waterworks of the West into the California valley where a powder desert once baked with lizards. Apparently he prefers to live in caves and tipis, chasing stringy rabbits where Los Angeles used to be.

    And so “Capitalism” attacked in WWI? So Napoleon, Charlemagne, Rome, never attacked anyone, nor Tecumseh, the Zulus or Chinese? Stalin never took Eastern Europe. Only “Capitalism”. Gotcha. And so on, lie after lie after lie. Toss the whole thing, would take all day to unwrap it error by error.

    “neoclassical economics has so deeply entrenched the notion that markets are better than all other ways of organising life”

    They have a problem in that it is the NATURAL way for humans to organize THEIR lives, thus private property exists in prison and black markets worldwide, forever. But they say, “No it won’t! I’ll tell them not to!!! And they will obey me as their Lord and Master!” No, they will ignore you and run you over, as they have the thousand petty dictators and officials before you. The difference is, when you run contrary to natural laws, like gravity, you can kill a few million people first. Don’t.

    As I’ve said many times, the issue isn’t “Capitalism”, that only means I’m allowed to make and trade stuff – which every human society does and always has. How you arrange your family, politics, your religion, your values system, is not “Capitalism”, that’s a you-ism. Capitalism says slavery is fine and legal. Your SOCIETY says it isn’t. Capitalism of the Lene Lenape says imprisoning/domesticating animals is fine. Their SOCIETY said it wasn’t. And right now our society says enslaving Apple and Nike employees and fishing the last Tuna is good, and later they will say they/we were barbarians. That’s not capitalism enslaving and poisoning those people for profit: that’s YOU. Take responsibility for it and don’t divert the personal blame you so richly deserve, Mr Richy-Rich Schmarty-pantz.

    The idea of perfect markets under perfect competition, for example, asks us to believe in a world where everybody knows everything, there are an infinite number of companies, no barriers to setting up a business, where any product can stand in for any other (say, a banana for a tractor) and, crucially, there are no “externalities””

    No one believes this. Only dummies like you believe this when you’re making straw-man arguments. Pretty sure if you took the 60 seconds to cover “VonMises: Wikipedia” you’d refute this, but you’re not deep enough a scholar to click “Google.”

    “why students have rebelled,”

    No, the schools were given million-dollar grant/bribes by oligarchs to destroy the old economics that mostly worked, and replace it with socialist/neoliberal (but I repeat myself) that will advantage oligarchs and interventionists who rob the poor and middle class. …But I repeat myself. They’re not robbing the oligarchs, and there are only two other classes to steal from, one of which doesn’t have any money. But hey: lie all you want. About everything! Then lie more. Apparently everyone will believe you for 100 years despite open, transparent, provable lies anyone can check.

    “the special counsel’s office spent $25 million”

    While annoying this is probably about 10 minutes of Federal Spending. Besides, we’re not going to pay it.

    “meat consumption will have to be cut to reduce methane”

    Again with non-science lies. The CO2 methane of cows comes from where? The grass that locked up that CO2 last month. CO2 net Zero. But that would get us taxes and ambitious plans to enrich my friends and cause well-meaning fools to pursue a new Holodomir. How about we change it because it’s really inefficient and makes everyone unhappy? But that premise wouldn’t get mega-welfare for my oligarchs who are funding the research, just like the Economics schools above.

    #48979
    lasttwo
    Participant

    The book an omnivores dilemma is a good primer. Cows eat grass but to make more money we feed them grain and antibiotics. They have trouble digesting corn and all the other crap we feed them and make a lot more gas. Oh by the way eat the beef from a grass fed cow and the grain fed are a poor substitute in taste and health. I think I remember a commercial from maybe a fast food resturant about grain fed beef. what a lie. look to local family farms for your food it is possible and quite amazing really we now buy local beef , pork, eggs. fish. produce all from local growers and fishers. Most are young families looking to make sustainable future for there own kids. I would encourage you to find local family farms. it may cost 10 or 15 % more but the benefits are wonderful. We just made the switch about a month ago (we had a fairly full freezer of factory farm meat) and I know I feel better and have lost about 5 lbs. There is something there worthwhile.

    #48980
    V. Arnold
    Participant

    Julie Edgley Immature white tailed eagle.

    What a great shot…

    #48981
    J.A.Kosmos
    Participant

    Have you read this yet Raúl? Most interesting article on the Epstein affair I have read so far. Three part series.

    Hidden in Plain Sight: The Shocking Origins of the Jeffrey Epstein Case

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