theological economics

10/29/2011 3:08:10 PM

I know you are but what am I.

10/29/2011 4:24:00 PM

Quote :

"And step one of that is getting the government out of the economy."

Ending government regulation would just promote greed and exploitation to new levels. Get wall street out of government and then you can begin to enact effective regulation on those behemoths.

10/29/2011 4:58:23 PM

Quote :

" stop being jealous of people who make >250k a year and figure out a way to join them."

And who is really more jealous? the person who is happy with their life but doesn't like to see the injustice of our current system, or the person sucking up to the broken system with the hope it let's them in?

10/29/2011 5:31:15 PM

Quote :

"^go sign up for foodstamps. you know you want to. "

what in the hell

10/29/2011 5:33:58 PM

Quote :

" How does one person having wealth choke off someone else? How is Bill Gates having billions of dollars keeping you from becoming successful? I can see how patents, taxes, lobbying and other similar items could choke you off, but the simple possession and gain of wealth?"

it doesn't. buy i don't recall saying making money was inherently bad. bill gates isn't really part of the problem, i don't think occupy wall street has a problem with him. gates spends large amounts of his personal wealth helping others, believes in a more progressive tax structure, and supports government investment in science and technology .

10/29/2011 5:36:38 PM

I think once the cold weather sets in and the hippies experience how harsh cold weather is on a human they will realize how stupid their cause is

10/29/2011 11:19:48 PM

http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D9QL4OEO1.htm

Quote :

"Anti-Wall Street protesters vowing to stand their ground against police and politicians are also digging in against a different kind of foe: cold weather. They are stockpiling donated coats and blankets. They are trying to secure cots and military-grade tents. And they are getting cold-weather tips from the homeless people who have joined their ranks. Former Navy medic Michael McCarthy of Providence, where activists have erected a tent city in a park across from City Hall, says people have dubbed it "our Valley Forge moment." The rigors of camping outdoors in some of the country's harsher climes are already becoming apparent. In Denver, two protesters were hospitalized with hypothermia this week during a storm that brought several inches of snow."

Quote :

"ALBANY, N.Y. — The first financial report of the Occupy Wall Street demonstration in New York City shows protesters have raised more than $454,000 and have spent slightly more than $50,000 in the movement's first five weeks, a person close to the movement said Friday."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/28/occupy-wall-street-money-donations_n_1064684.html

10/30/2011 1:34:57 AM

Quote :

"bill gates isn't really part of the problem, i don't think occupy wall street has a problem with him. gates spends large amounts of his personal wealth helping others, believes in a more progressive tax structure, and supports government investment in science and technology . "

Bill Gates isn't a problem not because he's a generous philanthropist, but because it simply isn't a problem for him to make shitloads of money to begin with. The game is not zero-sum. Gates doesn't have a disproportionate piece of the pie because there is no pie.

10/30/2011 2:52:43 AM

Of course there's a pie.

Lets say by some stroke of magic or miracle Herman Cain is right and if someone is poor it is only their fault. And 100% of Americans took this idea to heart. We would still have poverty, starving children and unemployment.

Contemporary capitalism demands "labor market fluidity" which means some people must have crappy jobs or no jobs. A free market system in a general sense aims merely to manage scarcity and doesn't necessarily have this limitation. Capitalism doesn't aim to solve the problem of scarcity, it only cares to manage it to the detriment of a certain group of people.

OWS doesn't aim to destroy the free market. They don't want communism. We need to embrace a free market system that does more than manage scarcity and can actually solve this problem.

If our system now can't handle 100% of people being motivated, the that means there is some band of people whose marginal effort is worth less than the equivalent marginal effort of someone better off than them.

Most people have an intuitive understanding of this concept which is where the OWS movement started. as the statistics show, this has been getting worse too, which isn't tenable.

[Edited on October 30, 2011 at 3:21 AM. Reason : ]

10/30/2011 3:17:16 AM

I'm no economist, but I never understood how anyone can believe that wealth can be "created" or "destroyed."

Every other physical law in the universe follows the zero-sum principles but somehow we are to believe that wealth does not? Doesn't make sense to me.

10/30/2011 3:33:53 AM

http://www.washingtonian.com/articles/people/21277.html

Here's an interesting article that further demonstrates how Herman Cain et al are ridiculously out of touch with reality. We couldn't even go back to her g'mas times with the current economic system and the mentality of many rightist politicians and economists. The idea that the only successful careers are the ones corporations find valuable is as fascist as the idea that the gov should determine who does what job.

When you have a society where even white collar jobs are being eaten by computers, we need to brace the concept of socialized investment in the arts, and fundamental (ie. sometimes pie in the sky) research.

10/30/2011 3:36:32 AM

Quote :

"The game is not zero-sum. Gates doesn't have a disproportionate piece of the pie because there is no pie."

Finite amount of goods on the market now; finite amount of money circulating in the economy. Finite amount of money in hoards, finite amount of money invested.

In the future, that finite amount of money invested will turn into a finite amount of goods that go to market, to be chased by a finite amount of money in circulation again.

Finite labor pool. Finite amount of demand for that labor. Finite amount of labor power that pool can produce, in theory, and given the wages they receive.

At any moment of time there certainly is a pie, do not kid yourself. Proportionality matters. Just take all those ideals and attach them to the planet and reality again.

[Edited on October 30, 2011 at 9:20 AM. Reason : .]

10/30/2011 9:19:53 AM

There is a finite amount of goods (that seems to be the nature of the universe), however it doesn't have to be a zero sum game.

When people accrue wealth without providing value/opportunity, this is where it becomes zero sum.

For example, someone creates a very efficient energy source that provides the world with the means to live at a much higher standard of living. This inventor would likely accrue massive amounts of wealth (if ran his business right) while at the same time providing a huge value to the people.

While this is probably impossible to do, a variable tax based on how much opportunity/value you create to the general public may be interesting to look at. The more you help others through your products/services, the less you are taxed.

However, objectively setting what is good/valuable will be next to impossible.

10/30/2011 9:27:18 AM

Usually when people say "zero-sum" about these kinds of situations, they mean something like "a finite pie that, once divided, determines a distribution of resources". There's a more technical sense but I don't think that's what's being employed here (that payoffs sum to zero), as we're not using any of the OTHER technical senses of "game" (so why, then, "zero-sum"?).

[Edited on October 30, 2011 at 9:41 AM. Reason : .]

10/30/2011 9:37:18 AM

Quote :

"For example, someone creates a very efficient energy source that provides the world with the means to live at a much higher standard of living. This inventor would likely accrue massive amounts of wealth (if ran his business right) while at the same time providing a huge value to the people."

Yes but that creation, its production, its sale on market, and its eventual proliferation to people takes time. From the inventor's perspective (to be more realistic we should say "owner", as the inventor is probably working for some owner and not for his own wealth), there's time that elapses between when he decides to start his business and when he can take his goods to market.

At any point in time in there (even when efficiency is rising due to the proliferation of the invention), there's a fixed amount of stuff to be distributed. This is relevant not because things are BAD in your scenario (anybody would accept they are GOOD), but because inequality can still rule at any point in time, nothing necessary demands that those benefits be distributed equitably or justly, and growth can always contract (or we could regress). Plus if we don't create the basic conditions in which such an invention could do what you suggest, then it's all just blackboard scribbles.

10/30/2011 9:47:02 AM

By zero sum game, I take it to mean for one person to profit, another must suffer.

Me: +1
You: -1
Total: 0

In my example, I show that wealth creation doesn't have to be.

10/30/2011 10:15:15 AM

Wealth creation is really useless to discuss without discussing wealth distribution. Clearly if we created things more efficiently and everybody got a piece of that, everybody would be better off. In that sense the "game" isn't zero-sum, because there are cooperative solutions. I'm willing to go that far with you; without any control of distribution, however, people can get pushed to losing scenarios easily (we see it at the moment). Describing these scenarios as "zero-sum" is not so far off the mark because the psychology that grips the masses at that point is a zero-sum mentality.

But I don't think anybody who claims the economy is 'zero-sum' means in the strict sense demanded by game theory (that payoffs sum to zero).

[Edited on October 30, 2011 at 10:26 AM. Reason : .]

10/30/2011 10:25:12 AM

Quote :

" I take it to mean for one person to profit, another must suffer. "

This line of thinking I just dont understand, unless you are railing on the use of govt coersion. If not, you have a CHOICE.

If you spend 10 bucks to buy a pizza, now you have a pizza and the pizza guy has your 10 bucks. You BOTH got something you wanted through voluntary interaction. It isnt like the pizza guy can just come up to you and take 10 bucks...only the govt can lawfully do that.

10/30/2011 11:00:44 AM

You'll never get that ten bucks if you can't sell your labor for ten bucks, if you're a regular person. Surely you can imagine scenarios (other than ones driven by GOVERNMENT COERCION) in which people end up unable to sell their labor for a living wage, as measured against money?

10/30/2011 11:11:32 AM

Quote :

"Get wall street out of government and then you can begin to enact effective regulation on those behemoths."

No you really can't. Effective regulation requires extensive and practical knowledge of the industry. Extensive, practical knowledge is impossible without experience in the industry. Your regulators will have to be insiders, and will therefore have conflicts of interest.

10/30/2011 11:34:53 AM

Oh boy what should we do? I guess the only thing we can do is deregulate everything and hand direct control to the people whose influence is already toxic.

10/30/2011 11:38:56 AM

That gorilla sure is violent, he harmed that woman even though he was in chains!

"Why yes! Better remove its chains!"

10/30/2011 11:39:25 AM

Of course the difference is, it's possible to effectively control the gorilla without using the gorilla's friends. You know this, obviously, but it's easier for you to build strawmen and snark than it is to have a real discussion on the matter.

[Edited on October 30, 2011 at 2:06 PM. Reason : sdf]

10/30/2011 2:05:28 PM

Get rid of the gorilla all together

10/30/2011 2:11:23 PM

That is what we want to do. Get the Government (gorilla) out of here!

10/30/2011 2:22:44 PM

Quote :

"Get rid of the gorilla all together"

And how do you plan on doing that? Are you going to outlaw free association? Or just set some arbitrary limit on how many employees a business can have. Maybe on how many customers they can have? Will you forbid a business from serving an area larger than a given size?

10/30/2011 2:27:05 PM

Quote :

"Oh boy what should we do? I guess the only thing we can do is deregulate everything and hand direct control to the people whose influence is already toxic."

No, give the power back to the people. The people will search for the best way to manage their own money. Bad banks will go bankrupt. Good banks will prosper.

10/30/2011 5:09:43 PM

I don't really get the progressive point of view on ever more regulation and control and oversight by the government. Do you guys not have your eyes open and see how well its been working for us so far?

What is your plan to remove the cronies and put in people that won't be under the sway of vast sums of wealth shoveled at them from corporate interests?

10/30/2011 6:41:02 PM

^ yep, pretty much

And I think it's obvious why the current plan is: to be balls deep in all of the wrong fights in all of the wrong places.

Quote :

" No you really can't. Effective regulation requires extensive and practical knowledge of the industry. Extensive, practical knowledge is impossible without experience in the industry. Your regulators will have to be insiders, and will therefore have conflicts of interest."

Yes and no. Lobbyists are absolutely necessary, but surely we can do better than the current status quo.

10/30/2011 7:02:42 PM

Quote :

"No, give the power back to the people. The people will search for the best way to manage their own money. Bad banks will go bankrupt. Good banks will prosper."

I agree with this actually. In a democracy the gov is an extension of its citizenry. The people need to reassert their stake in the gov that has been yielded to or taken by wall street.

10/30/2011 8:43:51 PM

Quote :

"I don't really get the progressive point of view on ever more regulation and control and oversight by the government. Do you guys not have your eyes open and see how well its been working for us so far? What is your plan to remove the cronies and put in people that won't be under the sway of vast sums of wealth shoveled at them from corporate interests?"

Government may have gotten bigger in the last 30 years, but it has been less effective. Regulation has waned, and the rest of us have suffered as a result. The removal of Glass Steagal, corporate personhood, and unlimited corporate influence have corrupted our government. $1 in lobbying influence yields $220 in return in the form of legislation. That's a problem.

If you want to get rid of cronyism, you have to A) create term limits, B) create campaign finance reform, and C) strip corporations of first amendment rights.


Seriously, the Secretary of Treasury might as well be renamed "Goldman Sachs Consultant." If you can't see this obvious conflict of interests, I don't know what to tells ya.

[Edited on October 30, 2011 at 9:03 PM. Reason : ]

10/30/2011 8:59:55 PM

Quote :

" A) create term limits, B) create campaign finance reform, and C) strip corporations of first amendment rights."

I don't think it's at all intuitive that this will do anything at all.

A) Presidents terms are limited to two and that hasn't seemed to do anything regarding instilling principles in the institution. One term is more than enough for a politician to "get his". This will do nothing.

B) What will this do? Ok, we say that the financing for campaigns will come from public monies. Big fucking deal. The problem really isn't in them getting power...it's what they manage to do with it once they get it and it seems like they are all corruptible in one way or the other.

C) Again, what do you fancy this will do?

10/30/2011 10:24:32 PM

Quote :

"I don't really get the progressive point of view on ever more regulation and control and oversight by the government. "

It worked rather well in the 40's through the mid 70's, when regulations and oversight were tighter and taxes were higher. In fact, those decades saw a completely unprecedented (and as yet unmatched) mutual rise of productivity, wages, and standard of living for the vast majority of Americans.

Quote :

"Do you guys not have your eyes open and see how well its been working for us so far?"

You see it's not enough to have your eyes open if you're reading Chance's (Revised) History of America

10/31/2011 11:44:37 AM

Quote :

"$1 in lobbying influence yields $220"

Sounds like a bubble to me.

10/31/2011 3:59:42 PM

^^^
Campaign finance determines to whom the politicians are most beholden once they are elected or reelected; it's seen largely as an investment, and for good reason.

10/31/2011 10:49:28 PM

Quote :

"It worked rather well in the 40's through the mid 70's, when regulations and oversight were tighter and taxes were higher. In fact, those decades saw a completely unprecedented (and as yet unmatched) mutual rise of productivity, wages, and standard of living for the vast majority of Americans. "

This is what is wrong with macro slaves and the majority of armchair economists on this site and elsewhere. You guys simply can't figure out that correlation isn't causation. Even if we allow that regulations were higher then - a fact I'd like to see you prove - all we can say is that for some reason(s) it didn't prevent the growth in our nation. I'd imagine destroying everyone's manufacturing base but your own might have something to do with things but hey, that's way less intuitive than high taxes and high regulations making things more productive so I can see why you'd miss it.

11/1/2011 7:27:11 AM

Bank Transfer Day is coming up, peeps.

Quote :

"Remember, remember the 5th of November"

https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Bank_Transfer_Day

11/1/2011 8:26:39 AM

Ah, yes. National bank run day - I'll actually be participating on November 2nd.

11/1/2011 10:03:23 AM

I've been meaning to close my Wachovia/WellsFargo account for a while and transfer everything to SECU. This might be a good opportunity.

11/1/2011 10:13:14 AM

They should have called it something other than Bank Transfer day. Without much knowledge, I'd think I'm just supposed to go and do a transfer at my bank..

11/1/2011 10:13:24 AM

I've been meaning to close my Wachovia/WellsFargo account for a while and transfer everything to SECU. This might be a good opportunity.

11/1/2011 10:13:48 AM

Quote :

"This is what is wrong with macro slaves and the majority of armchair economists on this site and elsewhere. You guys simply can't figure out that correlation isn't causation."

You don't even recognize correlations because you don't know about actual data. You just have a theory on how things work and assert again and again that they are working that way. When history actually contradicts your fantasy, idealized world you're confused and befuddled.

Quote :

"Even if we allow that regulations were higher then - a fact I'd like to see you prove -"

Once again Chance is confused by mentions of of actual history, big surprise. Here's a primer: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deregulation#Deregulation_1970-2000 pay special attention the Finance section (This trend continued after 2000 as well)

Quote :

" all we can say is that for some reason(s) it didn't prevent the growth in our nation."

Is it really hard to understand that an economy is healthy when the majority of its workers aren't being fucked over by the ownership class running amok without constraints on their behavior?

Quote :

" I'd imagine destroying everyone's manufacturing base but your own might have something to do with things but hey, that's way less intuitive than high taxes and high regulations making things more productive so I can see why you'd miss it."

Our manufacturing base would have been completely worthless if the US government didn't

A) Pass the GI Bill, giving free college educations to millions of Americans who would later become skilled technicians and managers in that manufacturing base

B) Execute the Marshall Plan, which loaned billions to Europe for reconstruction, which they both paid to us for goods and services but also paid interest on the balance of.

It's almost as though when you use the government to invest in citizenry and redistribute wealth, you can guide the economy in a way that's beneficial and prosperous for all.

It's almost as though when you leave sectors like Finance to self-regulation, they eat the country alive.

[Edited on November 1, 2011 at 11:54 AM. Reason : .]

11/1/2011 11:53:45 AM

This may have been posted, if not:

Occupy Wall Street - Raleigh arrests
http://www.wral.com/news/local/story/10322855/

Bank of America is scrapping its plan to charge a $5 monthly debit card fee
http://www.wral.com/business/story/10322455/

[Edited on November 1, 2011 at 2:02 PM. Reason : -]

11/1/2011 1:59:39 PM

Quote :

"Even if we allow that regulations were higher then - a fact I'd like to see you prove - all we can say is that for some reason(s) it didn't prevent the growth in our nation."

Gramm-Leach-Bliley. Removed Glass-Steagal, the law that was put in place after the great depression that required barred banks from merging with investment banks and securities. This allowed Citibank to merge with Travelersgroup (which was illegal during Glass-Steagal) to become the largest bank in the world. Just so happened to be right when we allowed de-regulation.

Oh, and Senator Gramm who authored the bill (who was funded directly by Enron during his campaign) retired from the Senate in 2002 and immediately began working as the vice-chairman for UBS (an investment bank which so happened to acquired Enron's energy trading operations).

11/1/2011 4:14:47 PM

Quote :

"You don't even recognize correlations because you don't know about actual data."

Get the fuck outta here with this tripe.

Quote :

"You just have a theory on how things work and assert again and again that they are working that way."

How about you prove that everything you are observe as a correlation is in fact a causation. This has nothing to do with me so why you're bringing me up I have no idea.

Quote :

"When history actually contradicts your fantasy, idealized world you're confused and befuddled."

~

Quote :

"pay special attention the Finance section (This trend continued after 2000 as well)"

It's debatable about how much it would have helped to have it in place. Glass Steagall had nothing to do with 0% interest rates, had nothing to do with bailing out various institutions in the 80s and 90s leading to moral hazard. Just look at the MF Global blow up. Large bets predicated on the the central bank bailing out government debt. Where have we seen that before?

Quote :

"Is it really hard to understand that an economy is healthy when the majority of its workers aren't being fucked over by the ownership class running amok without constraints on their behavior?"

Again, a mere observation. Indeed, most economies are healthy when distortions aren't being imparted on it via a government meddling based on the bad theories based on bad observations/models.

Quote :

"Pass the GI Bill, giving free college educations to millions of Americans who would later become skilled technicians and managers in that manufacturing base"

I don't understand. Are you saying that we'd literally have no one going to college if it weren't for the government? Furthermore, our mfg output went up drastically IMMEDIATELY after the war...to the dismay of Keynesian economists who said that without government spending on the war machine the economy would be in shambles. How can this be? Did those GI billers finish their school in record time? What of the war stimulus removed? My guess is you have no answer for this.

Quote :

"Execute the Marshall Plan, which loaned billions to Europe for reconstruction, which they both paid to us for goods and services but also paid interest on the balance of."

The fuck? I suppose you can say our mfg base ultimately depended on a rebuilt Europe...but um...that doesn't make sense as you're stating it. Try again.

Quote :

"It's almost as though when you use the government to invest in citizenry and redistribute wealth, you can guide the economy in a way that's beneficial and prosperous for all."

Oh yeah man, definitely in that reality you think exists, not in the real world though.

Quote :

"It's almost as though when you leave sectors like Finance to self-regulation, they eat the country alive."

What country are you talking about? Our economy has been rather resilient given a decade of government driven credit creation excess.

11/1/2011 5:56:15 PM

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/manhattan/occupy_ball_street_aIoZXVqZ3hU8Zm9oX5aGWM

yeah they wish it was the 60s/70s

11/2/2011 5:29:44 PM

this is well worth 2 minutes of your life.

http://dauckster.posterous.com/a-31-year-old-video-clip-absolutely-worth-you

11/2/2011 10:05:32 PM

milton friedman is a dirty, dirty shitter.


no, but seriously, there's nothing implicitly wrong with capitalism, but what we have now can barely be defined as pure capitalism. i defy anyone in here to draw the line between multi-national corporations and the state at this point.

[Edited on November 2, 2011 at 10:26 PM. Reason : ]

11/2/2011 10:16:29 PM

game over-

attacking cops in oakland and having permits revoked everywhere else.

bag em and tag em.

11/3/2011 10:49:33 AM