You say sexual perversions like it was a bad thing. I resemble that remark!

Last time I checked those things werten't a mechanism for self-sustaining productivity.


(A) I'd like to see you or anyone else demonstrate altruism on a regular basis that can hold a candle to what private industry does every day as a matter of course. Even Mother Theresa's contributions are nothing compared to the vast amount of wealth and social growth that the market generates.

(B) You cannot prove that egoism does mostly bad things within the context of private industry. An economy worth $17 trillion that provides comfortable liveleyhoods for over one-hundered million people says you're wrong.


And? That's what people do, even when they are employed by the entity in question. Corporations are not any more evil than anyone else, Sky.

Quite correct. The oil lobby is very strong, but so are the farm and steel and automotive and textile lobbies, along with a dozen others. The problem is not with the lobbies themselves. They're just doing what we gave them incentive to do. The problem is with the mechanism we gave them to lobby, i.e. the state.

I've been trying to tell you this for what, two years now?


Really? Lobbyists manipulate legislation? How did you ever figure that one out?

C'mon Sky, I may not be as smart as you, but I'm not retarded. I'm just as aware of how dangerous centralized authority is as you are. And yet, you seem to hold on to some misguided belief that the state can "set things right".

Do they? That's an irresponsible claim and you know it. No private industry has ever massacred half a million Kurds or started a war or forced 25 million people to live in poverty and darkness. Only governments wield such power.


That's what happens when you give peple a powerful state to co-opt.


Okay, where is yours? If my way of doing things is so bad, why do you not have an alternative? You don't have a system by which we place altruistic angels in state offices, and neither does anyone else.

What you have is a list of grievances for which you are willing to blame other people and a vague notion that everyone else should do everything "better' because you wish it. You might as well build a car with a wind-powered engine.


So are you, but the difference between us is that I can generate economic productivity through investment. What have you created?
I have complete confidence in the ability of private industry and consumers to create and sustain a sustainable fuel economy. That's all they've ever done, so why would anyone expect anything different?


When, indeed. Oil production continues to climb, despite the worries of concerned persons like yourself. It may run out someday, but I seriously doubt it. Even if it does run out, there will be an alternative fuel source. Didn't we learn this already?

No, most economists you have heard of who have an agenda to pursue refute classical economic theory because they want free money from the state.

Negative. Classical economic theory is often presented by economists who know what works because they grew up in a successful economic model. Read Friedman.


What? The world doesn't use anything even remotely close to my model. The concepts of free trade and limited government are alien to any major state in the world.

No, my friend, it is not the free market that has brought us here. It is the state that has brought us here. The corrupted elites are here because we gave them a place to live.


Outstanding!:salute: I'll start a thread as soon as I get off from work. White or black?

Oh, they can be that, can't they.


An economy being run by responsible motives can contribute to the people'S needs. In an economy run by ruthless egoism that does not care for altruzistic motives, people are used to serve the craving of the few for more profits.
The debt level of that 17 trillion economy is 13 trillion currently, and is set to reach 18 trillion within the next 5 years. That's what one calls a failing economy system: it does not produce lasting results, but consumes itself. Boston economy professor Kostlikoff, as I quoted him in anothe rthread just days ago, forsees that soon the Greek will be better off than the americans, becasue at least the Greek have gotten the wakeup call. America is still sleeping and thinks it can solve the issue by printing more money and making more debts (pushing inflation that way that, if you want to hinder it going on a stampede needs tight state regulation. I hate the inflation part in it, you hate the regulation part in it).

The point is BP preferred to buy and use the more expensive one which is more dangerous to the cheaper, less dangerous one, becasue that way it could sack in anotherprofit. The damage done that way once again is externalsied (handed over to the public and taxpapyer). that is both cyncial and criminal behavior. That is as if I beat you up with that sort of sticks I sell, just to additionally sell you the bandage afterwards. Ain'i I helpful?

As usual you totally ignore the massive ammount to which this state is being corrupted by the industry so that legislation and decision-making serves the industry's interests. I cannot see communities of multi-million people functioning without a form of a state-like authority giving general rules, order and structure - it would be a condition of anarchic constant war of all against all, militarily, economically - in every regard. They have hijacked the state, and that way have more politically unlegitimated power than the voters (which in a democracy should be the most powerful entiti, right?) On the other end of the spectrum you have the state, especially in europe, promising social over-supply and socialistic ideas to bribe voters. when politicians became a life-long career to opt for, they lost scruples to sell away our childrens future for the party of today- hoping that they already will have left office and will be dead once the cleaning needs to be done.

You criticice the "state" a lot. but you are completely ignorrant to the massive role of your beloved "egoism" and your unregulated market economy in turning the state into what it is today: an entity so much interwoven with the economy that it can no longer act independantly from it. Often it is that where the economy and the banks are moving, politicians must follow. rules and trails get marked along the way - not by leadership of an independant policy, but the desires of economy. This dependance has done a lot of damage to our communities.

You are not trying to tell me you are that naive, are you? That is part of the job description for a lobbyist. If he does not acchieve that, he is not worth the wages you pay him.

Not if it is just an appendix to the banks and economy, and throws away more money than the economy can responisbly produce to bribe voters for bringing this or that politiican or party to power. But the principle staement stays that the state is the authority that protects and must protect the many from the few - by legislation. that means an economy that is left to itself and self-regulation, running by mere egois and profit interest alone, inevitably tries to erase competition, tries to raise monopoles, and tries to make own profits even to a degree and in ways where that means damage of the communal interests of the many. Because egoism does not care for others, just for oneself. Only if it gets channeled and balanced by somethign that is outside itself, it can produce wwealth for the others too without selling away our future by destroying it for the sake of maximising the present'S incomes. That'S what makes your rcipe of a "pure ecojomy" a 100% bid for cultural suicide, always and inevitably.

Our conflict also is about materialism versus non-materialistic ethics, of course.

Wrong. The massive industry influence in governmental politics decides on the government's policies on wars and non-wars, too. Also, the massive dependance on ressources. that is true for Africa (rare ores, for example), and of course for oil. It has been said that the difference between tyrannies and democracies is that the first do the killiung themselves, the latter let others do the killing - in the name of one'S own interests. It has also been shown that since the beginning of the 20th century and with exclduing the two world wars, demciracies at least are directly and indirectly respomnsible for the mass killing of more people than tyrannies have killed by their own hands in the same time. It was quite a discussion some years ago when those historians examining this had published their statistics several years back.

I also remind of the Halliburton and big oil controversy over Iraq, and the pipeline projects that mujst be seen in connection with Afghanistan (although in case of the latter it was not the only reason, obviously).

Nobody votes for democratic structures in order to see them hijacked by more powerful egoists claimign the right to install shadow governments. Lobbying agencies and democratic states are like trying to extinguish fire by spilling gasooline into it. It works only to quite a contrary effect. Lobbyists are b eyond voter's control and awareness, and they work to overthrow the desires expressed by voters in the election if the crowds had not been talked into lining uip their desires with the profit interests of the corporations. and that is corrupting democracy, nothing else. In other words: high treason.

I have shown you a mind experment one year ago or so, haven't I. I jst do not repeat it time and again. To you, everything will be good if the economy is left to itself and can become as egoist and craving for more as it wants, according to the motto of Michael Douglas in the first Wall Street movie. You doom all state because you see all it's evilcoming just from itself. your very big fault is that you totally ignore that a community needs any form of community structure that also shields it from too far-reaching claims for more profit from the few, and you also totallymignore that the state you hate so much very massively gets corrupted by those holy actors of economy you want to give absolute power while hoping that they would be more reasonably acting than politicians. That both are failing in their sense of respnsibility, you never adress. One year ago, I pointed out that failure of both, in that long essay where I experimentally imagined a "feudal" elite that is driven by a code of responsibility and is independently enough from both economy and the people so that it can balance both side's interests against each other without needing to get corrupted by any of them. Of course, that model is just a variation to democracy, and feudalism before. The basic problem of all three is that none of them guarantees to get a leading elite that is reasonably and honourful and altruistic and non-egoistic. but at least I spend a lot of time to show that both present democracies and your self-regulating market fail for the very same reason: the egoism of people overruling long-termed sense of responsib ility and reasonability.

Maybe we need a world dicatorship by computers, like in that old movie, "Colossus".

I also remind of that long essay of mine some months ago, where I summarised how we do destroy ourselves even for absolutely reasonable reasons. http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=159065

tbc

Nothing about investement, as long as it is a responsible and constructive one. But yopu can also do destruvtive investements, or trying to generate a profit by producing nothing or by dm,aaging others or the community. Short sales are one example, or hedge funds. Both claim profits for offering nothing by themselves. Either they damage others by taking what is theirs, or they do longterm dmaage to the system itself by fueling inlfation - when money just gets printed to compensate the loss of the victims. Both hedge funds and short sales are characterised by that the victim that gets robbed, gets nopthing in return. Short sales even sell something that they do not even own. that is very abstract, nothing constructive at all. It is an economy that runs amok because it is in certain fields too unregulated, (while in others it is overregulated, yes).
I haven't, becasue of additional vaiables palying a role here: time left, population density, resources available. Read Jared Diamond "Collapse. Why Societies choose to fail or succeed", which is a very competent and accessible summary of the matter. There is a real, a material, and physical environment within which all what man does take splace. We must get along with the limits it sets. If we cannot mamage that (our population desnity for example), we exticnt ourselves. Many cultures - that thought like you do - have done that in the past, btw. The book lists them on hundreds of pages. surving only those societies did, who by insight or lucky coincidences of several factors beyond their awareness managed to control their own poplation size and implemented strict rules on how to handle the limited resslources available.Some of these socieites survived for remarkable ammounts of time, and even survived in times or troubles that would have crushed others.

Becasue the problem is that when their is more resources thn are needed, nobody thinks of saving and storiung reserves, and to maintain the current population size nevertheless, but everybody immediately thinks of expansion. Sooner or later expansion leads to more population than the former sufficient ressource level could supply. And without need, the culture that before lived in wealth, now lives in poverty and pain. Many such cultures died by - starvation. This is the most important lesson we need to learn: that we must find ways to reduce and than to caop global population levels, and that we need to cap consummation of natural resources as well, at a level where we do not take more than nature can resupplky, or than we give back. Currently, we take all that we can get, leaving a desert behind us. We are about to extinct ourselves, and I do not mean that just metaphorically.

Last time I checked, it was in decline. the hiuge reservoirs are emptied below a level where they can be used within a economically profitable cost-profit ratio. Peak OPil does not mean that all of a sudden poil will be over. It means that the cost-profit ration has flipped over to the other side, making producing of oil more and more expensive until more and more parties cannot afford it anymore. Look at the Glf disaster. They are drilling at depths and on a risk level that 30 years ago nobody even considered to try. They do so becasue the easy-access reservoirs all have been sucked "empty" (costs to get more oil out of them are higher than profit can be generated by doing so).
there will be oil for another 150-300 yars, estimations say. But that does noit mean it will be affordable over all that time anymore. It won't. and by general trend, the price will not rise by speculations only, but because it'S availability on the market drops indeed.

If our desire for energy is higher than what nature can produce and replace or what we can produce by constructing facilities, and if the "fallouts" of that energy production (pollution, or storing burnt nuclear fuel) cannot be handled reliably so that they donot damage nature, then new energies fuels will not save us. So, it depends. but everything except wind cpomes at a price: even solar energy: currently some key materials needed for producing solar panels, are runnig short on the market. Or Lithium: the known Lithium reservoirs (key compent in accumulators to store electric energy) have been calculated in quantities they hold, because there are only three such reservoirs known in the world. The result - I read about it sometime during last winter - was that there is not enough Lithium to supply all the visions for those clean environment electric future dreams environmentalists forsee for us all. the demand of current population level is much bigher than what nature can supply.

No matter what kind of ore you dig for - it si limited in quantity, and digginf for it leaves traces, that sometimes, and more and more often, feeds back on man. May it be from intoxication of drinling water or falling of the natural ground water level with the accoridng effects for angruclture and natural habitats, may it be from social distortions caused by working conditions (from blood diamonds and precious ores needed by Western high tech industry fueling tyrannies and civil wars in Africa), may it be from financial debts increasing due to the costs for producing these materials. Everything isn loinked with everything else, nothing is for free, and every qaction of cours causes reactions and consequences - sometimes within our perception range, sometimes outside (and then tending to do even more damage becase since we are not aware of it, we do not adress it).

So says you.

Economists and militaries have one thing in common: they tend to think that what has won the the past war necessarily will win them the next war as well. That things and times and the world do chnage meanwhile, is beyond them. The French costed that dearly with their Maginot line, which was a prodfuct of thinking in temr sof WWI - and the Germans simply bypassed both that line and that kind of thinking and came up with a new idea. America also fell victim to that error when invading Iraq, and in the Afghanistan war - one was very badly prepared due to a mixture of basing on old military thinking mixed up with some obscure ideas by Rumsfield who wanted to save money by scaling down force sizes for the mission. The anglosaxon way of adressing the current crisis is: more of the old recipes that have accumulated the damage so far. This also is because high profits that can only be maintained by sticking with thse old ways, are not wanted to be given up. that is a mixture of both "the dilemma of made investements" that I have repeatdeldy described in threads of the past months now, and stupid, short-sighted egoism. I time and again also see an alienating habit in american thinking, to prefer allowing damage taking place and then repairing it at higher costs, than trying to prevent it in the first.

[quote]
What? The world doesn't use anything even remotely close to my model. The concepts of free trade and limited government are alien to any major state in the world.

You talk of the corrupted poiitical elites. You do not mean the corrupting economic elties that corrupt others becasue non-regulation gives them the freedom and space to do so.

I am on the leave now, for one, two or three days, not sure about, I visit friends, and my train is leaving in two hours, so chess will need to wait, and i think our discussion has come to the to-be-expected fruitless end anyway, so do not wonder that I am away for the time being. Time also is the reason why I do not run a correction reading (sometimes i do thta with longer pieces :) ), so excuse the usual many typos.