raising minimum wage does not reduce poverty

[danielost]

That is not the way it has worked out. The super rich have deinvested in America and the developed nations and speculated on the developing nations. This has increased unemployment in the USA but also helped to destabilize the developing countries who are currently entering currency crisis as capitol washes out. there is no serious long term investment from the super rich because they make more money by gambling on currencies and commodities with the effect that real goods have their prices driven up whilst real wages stay stagnant or fall in relative terms. Hence minimum wages fall far short of the inflated commodities prices.

The reality is very very different from your imagined ideal.

Br Cornelius

Your correct and why have they stopped investing in the usa. Taxes and regulations. The nited states is very hostile toward the rich, so why should they invest in it, when people like you and obama are calling them evil. Things werebad enough under bush and clinton. Things have gotten worse under obama.

[spacecowboy342]

Your correct and why have they stopped investing in the usa. Taxes and regulations. The nited states is very hostile toward the rich, so why should they invest in it, when people like you and obama are calling them evil. Things werebad enough under bush and clinton. Things have gotten worse under obama.

Banks who do things like buying up aluminum supplies and investing in aluminum futures while holding back aluminum supply to artificially drive up stock prices at the expense of industry are evil.Those who call for slashing all help for the poor in food,medical care,and education just to cut their own taxes and satisfy their own greed are evil.Unrestricted greed is evil

[Guest]

Your correct and why have they stopped investing in the usa. Taxes and regulations. The nited states is very hostile toward the rich, so why should they invest in it, when people like you and obama are calling them evil. Things werebad enough under bush and clinton. Things have gotten worse under obama.

Sentiment has nothing to do with it. Capitol flows to wherever there is greatest potential for growth or profit. In an overcapitalized economy it always flows to comodity and currency speculation which is detrimental to the real economy.

Do you really want to go back to the good old days where whole families worked to survive (children as young as 8 in factories), where there was no health and safety for the workers and where pollution was pumped into the nearest creek for someone else to clean up or die. Regulations are there for good reasons, and if other countries lower their cost base by allowing bad practice, it should be the duty of the Government to protect its manufacturing base by imposing tariff on those dirty imports.

Br Cornelius

[acidhead]

Sentiment has nothing to do with it. Capitol flows to wherever there is greatest potential for growth or profit. In an overcapitalized economy it always flows to comodity and currency speculation which is detrimental to the real economy.

Do you really want to go back to the good old days where whole families worked to survive (children as young as 8 in factories), where there was no health and safety for the workers and where pollution was pumped into the nearest creek for someone else to clean up or die. Regulations are there for good reasons, and if other countries lower their cost base by allowing bad practice, it should be the duty of the Government to protect its manufacturing base by imposing tariff on those dirty imports.

Br Cornelius

Just curious...

IYO, are those tariffs you just championed working as intended?

Edited September 8, 2013 by acidhead

[Guest]

Just curious...

IYO, are those tariffs you just championed working as intended?

NeoLiberal economics aren't allowing the type of tariffs I advocate.

Br Cornelius

[danielost]

Banks who do things like buying up aluminum supplies and investing in aluminum futures while holding back aluminum supply to artificially drive up stock prices at the expense of industry are evil.Those who call for slashing all help for the poor in food,medical care,and education just to cut their own taxes and satisfy their own greed are evil.Unrestricted greed is evil

Name one person who has actually said to do that, with links. With out greed we would all stil be living in a cave. It was greed that got us out of those caves and planting crops.

[danielost]

Sentiment has nothing to do with it. Capitol flows to wherever there is greatest potential for growth or profit. In an overcapitalized economy it always flows to comodity and currency speculation which is detrimental to the real economy.

Do you really want to go back to the good old days where whole families worked to survive (children as young as 8 in factories), where there was no health and safety for the workers and where pollution was pumped into the nearest creek for someone else to clean up or die. Regulations are there for good reasons, and if other countries lower their cost base by allowing bad practice, it should be the duty of the Government to protect its manufacturing base by imposing tariff on those dirty imports.

Br Cornelius

[danielost]

We don't need regulations out lining what kind of font or bckground we can have on menus.

[spacecowboy342]

Name one person who has actually said to do that, with links. With out greed we would all stil be living in a cave. It was greed that got us out of those caves and planting crops.

Was not greed that got us out of caves but cooperation and social skills

[danielost]

No it wa greed. You can't grow much in a cave/mountain area. You need more lanting area. The more food you have the easier it is live. The greed comes in when you want more than your neighbor, that is also where cooperation comes in.

[Guest]

No it wa greed. You can't grow much in a cave/mountain area. You need more lanting area. The more food you have the easier it is live. The greed comes in when you want more than your neighbor, that is also where cooperation comes in.

For most of human history there were always new territories and resources to use if you wanted. The greed bit is just projection of your own value system.

Br Cornelius

[Leonardo]

I have no problem with wealth. The problem is poverty.

Consider this: there is no poverty without wealth.

[spacecowboy342]

No it wa greed. You can't grow much in a cave/mountain area. You need more lanting area. The more food you have the easier it is live. The greed comes in when you want more than your neighbor, that is also where cooperation comes in.

Without cooperation we could have never hunted mammoths or overcome predators like sabertooth cats.Greed is an aberation

[F3SS]

Yeah I'm not buying this greed to succeed stuff. Greed might help some but most end up like crap for it and the few who get by fall hard. Or not. That's life. Sometimes it isn't fair. I think motivation and cooperation got us going.

[F3SS]

I don't think land barons where much of a problem at the start of civilization. They showed up eventually but mostly nobody had any reason to consume more time and energy than they needed just to do more than what they had to do to survive, which I'm sure was hard enough, just for the sake of being an ancient ahole.

[Frank Merton]

I think greed is the basic motivation that makes people work, that and in some cases desperation (if you are forced to work by hunger).

That doesn't make greed a virtue, but it does make profit something society can utilize to generate the risk taking needed to get goods and services it wants.

This was the mistake of the idealist Communists who first took over in Vietnam -- they thought, along with classical Communist doctrine, that the economic system generates greed and it could be suppressed and still get efficient production.

Once that silliness was abandoned (albeit at great human cost) and enterprises were given the freedom to make profits, the country became able to feed itself and is now doing pretty well. Much the same applies to China.

[acidhead]

I think greed is the basic motivation that makes people work, that and in some cases desperation (if you are forced to work by hunger).

That doesn't make greed a virtue, but it does make profit something society can utilize to generate the risk taking needed to get goods and services it wants.

This was the mistake of the idealist Communists who first took over in Vietnam -- they thought, along with classical Communist doctrine, that the economic system generates greed and it could be suppressed and still get efficient production.

Once that silliness was abandoned (albeit at great human cost) and enterprises were given the freedom to make profits, the country became able to feed itself and is now doing pretty well. Much the same applies to China.

No thats no true. These idealist Communists, you speak of, used their own greed for their own special interest resulting in a failure of gov. The result is not the cause.

greed cannot be controlled without negative unintended consequences.

Edited September 10, 2013 by acidhead

[Yamato]

No thats no true. These idealist Communists, you speak of, used their own greed for their own special interest resulting in a failure of gov. The result is not the cause.

greed cannot be controlled without negative unintended consequences.

Exactly. Because the controllers turn greedy.

[spacecowboy342]

"greed cannot be controlled without negative unintended consequences" unproved assertion. Just because totalitarian dictatorships failed it does not follow that greed cannot be controlled

[acidhead]

"greed cannot be controlled without negative unintended consequences" unproved assertion. Just because totalitarian dictatorships failed it does not follow that greed cannot be controlled

ok... then who is trusted to control such a system?

greed is inside each individual

[Frank Merton]

We all learn lessons, but the problem with the first generation of Communist rules in Vietnam was hardly greed: it was excessive and almost religious zeal for Marxism-Leninism. Pragmatism and willingness to learn from the West what is best in it now prevail.

[spacecowboy342]

ok... then who is trusted to control such a system?

greed is inside each individual

Perhaps we should teach our children better.

[Frank Merton]

Perhaps we should teach our children better.

That is an element of Marxist doctrine -- raise a generation of kids without materialist elements and they will behave like good socialists. It is a bit overly optimistic perhaps?

[acidhead]

Perhaps we should teach our children better.

thats assuming everything is a learned process. ..that humans can be trained to live greed free..... I think that is assuming a lot.

[Frank Merton]

I am inclined to think that both greed and generous impulses are evolved behaviors so we are to at least a large extent born with each, in varying degrees.