Trickle down economics is a lie, the proof !

[Yamato]

That's simply not true, on either count. They're not the best, they're both lousy, but people believe that they are best, that they must be best, simply because they're so gigantic and dominant. It seems like a religious belief. It must be only the best companies that get to the top, because that's what the belief system insists.

I almost called you Col for a second. I hadn't noticed your change in rank. Congratulations. I can pronounce your name finally as well.

There is truth in Fess's statements. For issues like backwards-compatibility and standardized software development and security, Microsoft has been the best. I know that's like taking a free shot. But new devices are coming up so drastically different than the traditional PC that Microsoft is going to have to fight to save its share. It's hard to justify why anyone would need Windows on a tablet that's as powerful as a laptop and has apps aplenty for casual enough use. The explosion of apps is making Microsoft somewhat irrelevant both from a hardware and a software perspective. If Microsoft is the problem, the market is taking care of it. Why pull the levers and push the strings?

[Frank Merton]

I dunno: just when I think I have learned how to use something they change the technology.

[F3SS]

That's simply not true, on either count. They're not the best, they're both lousy, but people believe that they are best, that they must be best, simply because they're so gigantic and dominant. It seems like a religious belief. It must be only the best companies that get to the top, because that's what the belief system insists.

That is simply your opinion. But really, is the a better search engine or a better words processor out there? I doubt it. I know these guys are about more than those two things. They just own those parts of the market at the moment. Nothing religous about it. Point me towards something better, more efficient and more refined. I dare ya. Lastly, the worst companies certainly don't make it to the top. You really have more issues than their products it seems. There's something personal in the way you feel about big business.

[Guest]

Government has had to intervene on a number of occasions to curtain the anti-trust activities of Microsoft. The situation would be considerably worse if they hadn't. But the point remains, competition is little threat if you have a big bag of money to buy up and close down the competition before they effect your own profits and products. Microsoft are past masters, but they are only one of many examples of how markets always tend towards monopolies unless the regulators intervene to protect the greater good.

Br Cornelius

[Jeremiah65]

Microsoft is not an anti-trust issue..they are a product on the free market that people happen to like, understand and enjoy.

It's like browsers....I use Firefox. Some folks like IE...some folks like Google Chrome. I happen to like Firefox.

As far as operating systems...yes, Windows gets a huge market share...why is that? Well...it is easy to use and most people can figure out how to get it to do what they need. It might not be "the best"...but it is very user friendly. I can make windows based stuff do whatever I need it to do.

I totally get the upstarts think they are fighting an uphill battle...and they are....but...there is a logical reason for that...windows is easy to use...it works on basic sheep logic....

Python and a few others is not so bad but they have to understand if they want to compete...they have to be easy...follow logic and be something the average mushroom can work with. It's fine to take an elitist point of reference...but you can then look around and wonder why you are all alone....

People...like water...always follow the path of least resistance...so you end up with crooked rivers...and crooked men....

[Guest]

Linux is far easier to use than Windows and it detects hardware out of the box. last time I had to install Windows I had a nightmare finding drivers for all my hardware and then setting the compatibility lair. Then there is the constant fear of Viruses and Trojan horses and when that happens the nightmare of reregestering your copy of Windows onto the machine again. All total none issues for Linux. Then of course there is all the productivity grade software which is totally free on a Linux box.

If it wasn't for the fact that Microsoft makes it so difficult to work with all would be ticket-bo, but they are constantly messing with standards in an attempt lock you into their operating system - and for most people it works. My son had Win7 loaded on his computer for games but he let it go last time it crashed out and is now a dedicated Ubuntu Linux user.

Terrible products from a terrible company who constantly fight dirty to maintain their market share. You should look into how they behaved when Intel decided to migrate their chip development from Windows to Linux because the Windows software was so buggy - the threats they tried to pull were unholy.

And yes they have been taken to court over all this anti-trust behaviour and they were even forced to hive off divisions to attempt to curtail their influence.

Br Cornelius

[Jeremiah65]

I still don't think it is malicious....I think it is laziness. People can work with windows cause it was set up to work with the lowest common denominator...i.e. ....the dumbest.

Gates is...well...Gates. He stole technology back in the day, got away with it and here we are....

I really dont want to learn a new system....I am not a huge fan of Microsoft....but they allow me to make a living though the software they support. If I had my way...we'd go back about 30 years on this and re-boot....but....I am a silly old man.

[Guest]

The is almost no learning curve with Linux - even my wife uses it exclusively now. Point and click is point and click.

Br Cornelius

[Space Commander Travis]

Microsoft is not an anti-trust issue..they are a product on the free market that people happen to like, understand and enjoy.

.

i very much doubt that. most people use it because they either have no choice, or it comes as the default and they don't know how to change it, if indeed it is possible.

[Yamato]

For all the criticism in light of the laws that do and did work, Microsoft was never a monopoly. The Mac GUI came long before Windows GUI. Jobs is the one who wanted ALL the world's GUIs running on his boxes not someone else's. Jobs stole the concept of GUI from Xerox. Then he got an entitlement complex to be the exclusive provider because he got to market first. That is a monopoly. "Linux is awesome" is hardly making the case against Microsoft either. There are market alternatives, that's what cheerleading for Linux proves.

I really dont want to learn a new system....I am not a huge fan of Microsoft....but they allow me to make a living though the software they support. If I had my way...we'd go back about 30 years on this and re-boot....but....I am a silly old man.

Reboot and have your way to do what exactly? What are you missing today that you wish you had?

[+DieChecker]

The proof of the lie of your statement will play out, and the belief that your is the best and only way is easy to disprove by simply looking around and seeing that things can work in other ways.

What lie? Do you believe that taxing the crud out of the rich and reestablishing the equality of everyone will magically fix societies ills. My statement was that such was not so. So for your statement to be true, you would have to believe that equality equals fixing society.

[Yamato]

Utopia is living a cookie cutter life in a cookie cutter house with cookie cutter credit and an equal sized bank account for doing cookie cutter work Collateral and leverage, personal income and responsibility, the policy and the banks, the financial history of the borrower, expertise and the promise of future earnings, none of this matters to the Great Equalizer. The state of the economy isn't an excuse either to avoid the equality of wealth redistribution.

If Trickle Down is a lie, it's the same lie whether it trickles down from government or corporations. Sometimes it doesn't trickle down from govt either, and so? Why does govt get a mulligan? Because govt can force you to do what Br wants; it's all very theoretical.

[F3SS]

It appears this new holy grail of anti-capitalist literature has come under scrutiny.

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/e1f343ca-e281-11e3-89fd-00144feabdc0.html#axzz32a0XErOq

...according to a Financial Times investigation, the rock-star French economist appears to have got his sums wrong.

The data underpinning Professor Piketty’s 577-page tome, which has dominated best-seller lists in recent weeks, contain a series of errors that skew his findings. The FT found mistakes and unexplained entries in his spreadsheets, similar to those which last year undermined the work on public debt and growth of Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff.

The central theme of Prof Piketty’s work is that wealth inequalities are heading back up to levels last seen before the first world war. The investigation undercuts this claim, indicating there is little evidence in Prof Piketty’s original sources to bear out the thesis that an increasing share of total wealth is held by the richest few.

Prof Piketty, 43, provides detailed sourcing for his estimates of wealth inequality in Europe and the US over the past 200 years. In his spreadsheets, however, there are transcription errors from the original sources and incorrect formulas. It also appears that some of the data are cherry-picked or constructed without an original source.

For example, once the FT cleaned up and simplified the data, the European numbers do not show any tendency towards rising wealth inequality after 1970. An independent specialist in measuring inequality shared the FT’s concerns.

[acidhead]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zd9ZYTzPZE4

[Guest]

What lie? Do you believe that taxing the crud out of the rich and reestablishing the equality of everyone will magically fix societies ills. My statement was that such was not so. So for your statement to be true, you would have to believe that equality equals fixing society.

No and here's the rub, I have clearly stated that it isn't my position - it is your projection of my position.

That is a straw man argument.

Br Cornelius

[Guest]

Utopia is living a cookie cutter life in a cookie cutter house with cookie cutter credit and an equal sized bank account for doing cookie cutter work Collateral and leverage, personal income and responsibility, the policy and the banks, the financial history of the borrower, expertise and the promise of future earnings, none of this matters to the Great Equalizer. The state of the economy isn't an excuse either to avoid the equality of wealth redistribution.

If Trickle Down is a lie, it's the same lie whether it trickles down from government or corporations. Sometimes it doesn't trickle down from govt either, and so? Why does govt get a mulligan? Because govt can force you to do what Br wants; it's all very theoretical.

Again more straw men. I have clearly pointed out in this thread that there is a problem which leads to social instability. Trickle down economics creates an unbalanced and unstable society which marches ever closer to revolutionary collapse and that is supported by the empirical evidence.

What you do about it is introduce a framework where it is systematically impossible for such wealth disparity to happen. How that is achieved is a decision of policy. I just don't want to live through a revolution just because a bunch of conservatives imagined that there is no problem to solve.

So you can take your cookie cutter metaphor and stick it where the sun don't shine. Your anaslysis is so weak because you refuse to acknowledge the problem and simply want to carry on beating your old boggy man - the government. i say grow up.

Br Cornelius

[F3SS]

No and here's the rub, I have clearly stated that it isn't my position - it is your projection of my position.

That is a straw man argument.

You certainly imply it if in fact you don't outright call for it which I'm not so sure you don't.

What you do about it is introduce a framework where it is systematically impossible for such wealth disparity to happen. How that is achieved is a decision of policy.

So you have no idea how to achieve this ideal. Your solution is weak and is more fantasy than solution, in America at least. You've been asked several times what it is you want and what you'd do and this big broad general statement is all you have to say. The only way to achieve your goal is exactly what you deny. Taxing through the roof and wealth caps. Yay, can't wait to do business in your country. Meanwhile with those eager enough to do business in your land, where a cloud is the limit instead of the sky, you'll be making the process a slow and unrewarding job by taking some of what you didn't get by tax and giving to citizen Jane or Joe. Sounds wonderful and ultimately sounds very much like the cookie cutter world Yamato described.

You come off like you have the answers and the specifics. You're filled with more ideologies than workable policies.

Edited May 24, 2014 by F3SS

[Frank Merton]

Economic growth and advancing technology are really all we have, and to make them function you have to let people get rich. The secret I think is that although wealth is to be allowed it must actually be taxed (that is taxes actually paid, no loopholes) and must be obtained through effective competition, not monopolistic practices and of course not through corruption. That requires free trade and stable and reasonable, not ideological, regulation. In societies ("democracies") where there are party swings and periodic changes of the party in power, and access to politicians is bought through party and campaign donations, this just doesn't seem to work and wealth accumulates in fewer and fewer hands.

[Guest]

You certainly imply it if in fact you don't outright call for it which I'm not so sure you don't.

So you have no idea how to achieve this ideal. Your solution is weak and is more fantasy than solution, in America at least. You've been asked several times what it is you want and what you'd do and this big broad general statement is all you have to say. The only way to achieve your goal is exactly what you deny. Taxing through the roof and wealth caps. Yay, can't wait to do business in your country. Meanwhile with those eager enough to do business in your land, where a cloud is the limit instead of the sky, you'll be making the process a slow and unrewarding job by taking some of what you didn't get by tax and giving to citizen Jane or Joe. Sounds wonderful and ultimately sounds very much like the cookie cutter world Yamato described.

You come off like you have the answers and the specifics. You're filled with more ideologies than workable policies.

So Fess you have analysed all the possible policy options and decided that taxation is the only one available to you. How brilliant you are, how wise

the world is not just made up of those with almost pathological ambition to succeed regardless of the consequences. to simply focus on those with such limited ambition is why we are in the state we are in. You may not see it but the world is for us all - regardless of our ambition - we all have a role to play and we need a world where we can find our productive niche to do so. The current system marginalizes to many people from achieving that because its focus is on those with overweening ambition.

You world is simple because your analysis is simple, reward the ambitious and don't get in their way. Forget about the notion of society because its my ambition that counts. You end up with the mess your country is in - but gee its simple and an easy concept to grasp. I repeat what i said to yamato - grow up and try to engage with a bit of complexity rather than resorting to simplistic one size fits all solutions.

Br Cornelius

[Leonardo]

If you did what you just described the economy would collapse overnight.

What economy?

That word is nothing more than an abstraction. An "economy" is whatever system of trade satisfies the needs of a society. The economic model would certainly change under pbarosso's suggestions, but "the economy" would not collapse because there is no such thing as "the economy". Those who tell you that there is are spinning you a lie.

Edited May 24, 2014 by Leonardo

[F3SS]

So Fess you have analysed all the possible policy options and decided that taxation is the only one available to you. How brilliant you are, how wise

the world is not just made up of those with almost pathological ambition to succeed regardless of the consequences. to simply focus on those with such limited ambition is why we are in the state we are in. You may not see it but the world is for us all - regardless of our ambition - we all have a role to play and we need a world where we can find our productive niche to do so. The current system marginalizes to many people from achieving that because its focus is on those with overweening ambition.

You world is simple because your analysis is simple, reward the ambitious and don't get in their way. Forget about the notion of society because its my ambition that counts. You end up with the mess your country is in - but gee its simple and an easy concept to grasp. I repeat what i said to yamato - grow up and try to engage with a bit of complexity rather than resorting to simplistic one size fits all solutions.

Br Cornelius

Again you are detracting. You're stating problems and goals but no solutions or paths. It isn't I who sees taxation as the answer. That is what I and probably 20 other people here have analyzed from your comments as your solution. Again, you insult my intelligence and call me simple and immature. All I've done is ask you to outline your solutions to the problems you perceive. Others have too. Detraction and insults are your key traits yet it is I who needs to grow up? Face it, you don't have the answers.

Edited May 24, 2014 by F3SS

[spartan max2]

Br Cornelius cant debate without insults and a condescending tone for some reason. Its why I much prefer debating with other left people

Edited May 24, 2014 by spartan max2

[F3SS]

Br Cornelius cant debate without insults and a condescending tone for some reason. Its why I much prefer debating with other left people

I hear ya but I'd rather help true colors be seen.

[+DieChecker]

No and here's the rub, I have clearly stated that it isn't my position - it is your projection of my position.

That is a straw man argument.

Br Cornelius

So you are willing to admit now that the GF had no excuse for secretly (illegally) recording Mr Sterling?

[Guest]

Again you are detracting. You're stating problems and goals but no solutions or paths. It isn't I who sees taxation as the answer. That is what I and probably 20 other people here have analyzed from your comments as your solution. Again, you insult my intelligence and call me simple and immature. All I've done is ask you to outline your solutions to the problems you perceive. Others have too. Detraction and insults are your key traits yet it is I who needs to grow up? Face it, you don't have the answers.

Tell me where I called for taxes to be raised - so you are projecting. I am asking people to consider that there is a crisis and we need to face up to it - many here seem to disagree that there is a problem to solve. I have stated that controls on the speculative aspects of the stock market. I also think wage policy is a good idea since bosses pay themselves rediculous amounts regardless of their track record - which simultaneously cutting wages lower down. I believe certain tariffs are called for. i also think that company owners once they float their company should be on a wage and should be bared from taking share options and other asset stripping incentives.

There just a few ideas off the top of my head - but really I would seek academically supported evidence based solutions - things that have a proven track record of working to increase social cohesion. Also let me say that if it is evidentially shown that a more progressive tax system were in place it would solve the problem - then I would be for it. I am not and never have been about punitive taxes to punish the rich, that is simply a childish policy and notion. There is a wealth of analysis out there showing what policies produce what results. What is abundently clear from all of them is that allowing the rich to pay little back into society is not one of them and that is why "trickle down economics" has been empirically shown to be socially destructive. I can't say it to many times - that is what the evidence says and there has to be an evidence based suite of solutions.

I think your blind addiction to the Free Market solution to the problems of the world is simply a sign of a lack of thinking ability.

Br Cornelius

Edited May 24, 2014 by Guest