  Ccbatson Member Username: Ccbatson Post Number: 18790 Registered: 11-2006 |
Wealth created by the workers you say...irrational. What worker(s) has work without a product or service to generate? What worker, who has not become an owner (of a company that employs...workers) ever generated (from nothing) any product or service? | ||
Vetalalumni Member Username: Vetalalumni Post Number: 1159 Registered: 05-2007 |
Glowblue wrote "... wealth created on the backs of the workers." (emphasizes the workers). Ccbatson wrote "Wealth created by the workers..." (emphasizes the wealth). See the distinction? Check the clues to deconstruct the argument. | ||
Rb336 Member Username: Rb336 Post Number: 8492 Registered: 02-2007 |
what product can be created without workers, bats? without workers making all those products (and, as henry ford realized, able to afford to buy them) where would the wealth come from? it comes from VALUE ADDED. what is it that adds value? LABOR | ||
Oladub Member Username: Oladub Post Number: 1192 Registered: 08-2006 |
Scarcity, including government induced scarcity also play into value. Government can drive up the price of oil or drugs, for instance, by restricting the development of oil fields or the availability of legal and illegal drugs. On the other hand, government can buoy the value of local paychecks by restricting immigration and imports produced in cheaper labor pools. Also, when government inflates the amount of money, it makes the value of most everything, as measured in dollars, worth less. There is also natural scarcity, physical, and intellectual scarcity. Stumbling over a newly exposed gold vein, having Air Jordan's talent, or Bill Gate's creativity elicit value. So do the hours of labor digging out the gold or packaging Microsoft software. However, in such cases of natural scarcity, value is added in excess of hourly wages. It is not how hard I work on the basketball floor for which spectators pay money. Otherwise I would get paid as much as Kobe. Or maybe if my physical labor was so important, I could get paid as much for some clay I dug up as whatever gold I could break loose in the same hour. Subjective value also has little to do with labor. Fashion is an example of subjectivity. Someone's collection of Beanie Babies is probably not as valuable today and it was fifteen years ago. Yet, the labor that went into making Beanie Babies remains the same. Management is also a division of labor. Capital is a strange category. Some people are better at managing value either by working more hours, being smarter, or not spending what they have. These traits offer some options not available to those without such skills or habits. On the other hand, maybe some who have spent their capital on wine, women, and song have had more happiness and how would that be measured as 'value' since labor went into those efforts too? | ||
Rb336 Member Username: Rb336 Post Number: 8508 Registered: 02-2007 |
"Scarcity, including government induced scarcity" and lets include all other forms of artificial scarcity -- and artificial demand as well. The lesson is that when their is a large well-paid working middle class, it benefits all. when corporate and government elites are able to isolate themselves from the problems caused by their decision, it ends up badly for all (like the mayan, roman, ottoman, british and soviet empires) | ||
Oladub Member Username: Oladub Post Number: 1193 Registered: 08-2006 |
Rb, I more or less am agreeing with you about the manifestation of value. That's twice in one week. (???) The other point of agreement being that if the Federal Reserve should be allowed to exist, it should exist under congressional regulation even, gasp, the 'regulation' of Democrats. | ||
Rb336 Member Username: Rb336 Post Number: 8510 Registered: 02-2007 |
i noticed that. scary, eh? | ||
Vetalalumni Member Username: Vetalalumni Post Number: 1164 Registered: 05-2007 |
Again thoughtful Oladub. Thanks. "... in such cases of natural scarcity, value is added in excess of hourly wages" In excess of, however not absent of it. In your particular example, the excess value would not exist without the scarcity. "It is not how hard I work..." and "Subjective value also has little to do with labor." How hard John Doe works creating value, and the markets current assessment of that value, are both somewhat independent of the associated labor itself. "Some people are better at managing value either by working more hours ..." Limited opportunity here. How many jobs you got, mon? (In Living Colour) "... being smarter ..." Optimal opportunity here. "... or not spending what they have." Exception - opportunity here to smartly exchange their intellectual property. "... maybe some who have spent their capital on wine, women, and song have had more happiness..." NOT being smarter is inferred here. "... and how would that be measured as 'value' since labor went into those efforts too?" Subjective valuation. "Subjective value also has little to do with labor". Emphasis on little. Admittedly imprecise here. Semantic usage affects such terms as elicit, generate, create, making, labor, value, wealth, and capital. Quite evident in this thread. | ||
Ccbatson Member Username: Ccbatson Post Number: 18835 Registered: 11-2006 |
Now this is a good thread and discussion. So rare to see this here. | ||
Oladub Member Username: Oladub Post Number: 1195 Registered: 08-2006 |
Vetalalumni, I was attempting to bounce off of Rb's mention of labor giving value by suggesting that other factors also add value - some as disguised variations of labor. For instance, my drawer full of family snapshots vs. the Kaaba. Outside of several family members, most of the world's population would consider the Kaaba more important. Neither the labor that went into taking snapshots and developing them or building the Kaaba would be much of a factor in how people valued them. In the early days of the Bolshevik Revolution, Party leaders realized that just levelling wealth did not totally address social inequalities. For awhile, young ladies were required to provide their bodies to guys who hadn't been getting any. This caused too many young ladies to go insane so the policy was abandoned. It was, however, an example of a government realizing that inequality will not be achieved simply by levelling financial assets. Our founders tackled this differently by stating the purpose of government included protecting the pursuit of happiness. That is a radical concept that would never pass today's Congress. Republicans might be too worried about morals and Democrats would be disenfranchised as the self definers and providers of happiness. That is what I was getting at by suggesting that the labor that went into securing wine, women, and song might leave a person happier and with sweeter memories than the same effort used to gather wealth or power. Its a shame that people who have taken different roads of pursuing happiness should be jealous of each other. So should religious Republicans, Democrat utopians, or the individual determine value? | ||
Vetalalumni Member Username: Vetalalumni Post Number: 1177 Registered: 05-2007 |
"So should religious Republicans, Democrat utopians, or the individual determine value?" First thought is the majority (will of the people and all). Is that flippant? | ||
Rb336 Member Username: Rb336 Post Number: 8514 Registered: 02-2007 |
one last point here if you want a first-world economy, you have to make THINGS. you can't just dig up the resource and sell it off (including all the junk cars going off to china to become steel again)unless you want to be the Congo. that is what "value added" refers to in an economists vocabulary, and that is where labor comes in to the equation | ||
Jimaz Member Username: Jimaz Post Number: 6660 Registered: 12-2005 |
There's a good article in the latest Wired Magazine that goes more deeply than usual into the origins of the current economic crisis. In 2000 David X. Li, then a JPMorgan Case statistics PhD, published a paper announcing a formula for combining multiple risk assessments into one simple overall risk assessment. This formula became wildly popular among bond investors, Wall Street banks, ratings agencies, regulators, etc. because it allowed the combining and dividing of enormous batchs of investments without losing track of overall risk -- or so it was believed. However, the formula neglected to consider interrelationships among the combined risks that ultimately toppled the whole house of cards. The flaw was foreseen by Paul Wilmott and others but in the enthusiasm of the then-lucrative market they were ignored. See Recipe for Disaster: The Formula That Killed Wall Street, by Felix Salmon. | ||
Ccbatson Member Username: Ccbatson Post Number: 18992 Registered: 11-2006 |
Too shallow...the root is socialized housing via the CRA in the 70s (Carter). The root of that is creeping socialism...FDR/new deal in the 30s, and LBJ/great society in the early 70s. | ||
Rb336 Member Username: Rb336 Post Number: 8553 Registered: 02-2007 |
sorry, bats, but you are simply being silly again, blaming 40-60 year old programs for today's problems, grasping at straws when even conservative economists acknowledge it was the rampant deregulation, allowing insurance companies to deal securities, the credit default swaps, etc., all pushed by the bushies, that led to the current crisis. the numbers simply don't back you. never have, never will. | ||
Danindc Member Username: Danindc Post Number: 4434 Registered: 10-2003 |
quote: Too simplified. The root was the military-enforced Republican state governments in the Confederate states during the post-Civil War period. This led directly to the nanny state. | ||
Danindc Member Username: Danindc Post Number: 4435 Registered: 10-2003 |
Also, Andrew Johnson, a Democrat. | ||
Oladub Member Username: Oladub Post Number: 1235 Registered: 08-2006 |
There is a better case to be made that the Federal Reserve, a collection of private banks not controlled by government, created huge economic bubbles that collapsed during the Hoover and W. Bush administrations. These collapsed bubbles plus well-intentioned but flawed government responses perpetuated the collapses and largely destroyed the purchasing price of the dollar. Congress could regulate the Fed but doesn't. Not all Democrats are afraid to stand up to rich powerful bankers. Dennis Kucinich wants to reign in the Fed. President Andy Jackson (D) gathered the central bankers of his day into a room and told them, "Gentlemen, I have had men watching you for a long time and I am convinced that you have used the funds of the bank to speculate in the breadstuffs of the country. When you won, you divided the profits amongst you, and when you lost, you charged it to the bank. You tell me that if I take the deposits from the bank and annul its charter, I shall ruin ten thousand families. That may be true, gentlemen, but that is your sin! Should I let you go on, you will ruin fifty thousand families, and that would be my sin! You are a den of vipers and thieves. I intend to rout you out, and by the grace of the Eternal God, will rout you out." And he did. He shut down the national bank. | ||
Rb336 Member Username: Rb336 Post Number: 8556 Registered: 02-2007 |
I like Dennis. Now he IS a real liberal. | ||
Oladub Member Username: Oladub Post Number: 1237 Registered: 08-2006 |
Rb, I respect Kucinich. I don't always agree with him but often do. He has balls and does not kow-tow to corporatist interests. He is not a bribed politician. Pretty wife of lovely voice too. He keeps a copy of the Constitution in his pocket. And my highest praise; Ron Paul votes more consistently with Dennis Kucinich than he does with other Republicans. | ||
Detroitnerd Member Username: Detroitnerd Post Number: 3566 Registered: 07-2004 |
Doomed by the Myths of Free Trade How the Economy was Lost By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS The American economy has gone away. It is not coming back until free trade myths are buried six feet under. America’s 20th century economic success was based on two things. Free trade was not one of them. America’s economic success was based on protectionism, which was ensured by the union victory in the Civil War, and on British indebtedness, which destroyed the British pound as world reserve currency. Following World War II, the US dollar took the role as reserve currency, a privilege that allows the US to pay its international bills in its own currency. World War II and socialism together ensured that the US economy dominated the world at the mid 20th century. The economies of the rest of the world had been destroyed by war or were stifled by socialism [in terms of the priorities of the capitalist growth model. Editors.] The ascendant position of the US economy caused the US government to be relaxed about giving away American industries, such as textiles, as bribes to other countries for cooperating with America’s cold war and foreign policies. For example, Turkey’s US textile quotas were increased in exchange for over-flight rights in the Gulf War, making lost US textile jobs an off-budget war expense. In contrast, countries such as Japan and Germany used industrial policy to plot their comebacks. By the late 1970s, Japanese auto makers had the once dominant American auto industry on the ropes. The first economic act of the “free market” Reagan administration in 1981 was to put quotas on the import of Japanese cars in order to protect Detroit and the United Auto Workers. Eamonn Fingleton, Pat Choate, and others have described how negligence in Washington DC aided and abetted the erosion of America’s economic position. What we didn’t give away, the United States let be taken away while preaching a “free trade” doctrine at which the rest of the world scoffed. Fortunately, the U.S.’s adversaries at the time, the Soviet Union and China, had unworkable economic systems that posed no threat to America’s diminishing economic prowess. This furlough from reality ended when Soviet, Chinese, and Indian socialism surrendered around 1990, to be followed shortly thereafter by the rise of the high speed Internet. Suddenly, American and other first world corporations discovered that a massive supply of foreign labor was available at practically free wages. To get Wall Street analysts and shareholder advocacy groups off their backs, and to boost shareholder returns and management bonuses, American corporations began moving their production for American markets offshore. Products that were made in Peoria are now made in China. As offshoring spread, American cities and states lost tax base, and families and communities lost jobs. The replacement jobs, such as selling the offshored products at Wal-Mart, brought home less pay. “Free market economists” covered up the damage done to the US economy by preaching a New Economy based on services and innovation. But it wasn’t long before corporations discovered that the high speed Internet let them offshore a wide range of professional service jobs. In America, the hardest hit have been software engineers and information technology (IT) workers. The American corporations quickly learned that by declaring “shortages” of skilled Americans, they could get from Congress H-1b work visas for lower paid foreigners with whom to replace their American work force. Many US corporations are known for forcing their US employees to train their foreign replacements in exchange for severance pay. Chasing after shareholder return and “performance bonuses,” US corporations deserted their American workforce. The consequences can be seen everywhere. The loss of tax base has threatened the municipal bonds of cities and states and reduced the wealth of individuals who purchased the bonds. The lost jobs with good pay resulted in the expansion of consumer debt in order to maintain consumption. As the offshored goods and services are brought back to America to sell, the US trade deficit has exploded to unimaginable heights, calling into question the US dollar as reserve currency and America’s ability to finance its trade deficit. More at: http://www.counterpunch.com/ro berts02242009.html | ||
Rb336 Member Username: Rb336 Post Number: 8559 Registered: 02-2007 |
^this from the founder of "reaganomics"^ | ||
Ccbatson Member Username: Ccbatson Post Number: 19011 Registered: 11-2006 |
Read closely, the truth is that it is not a failure of free trade...it is a failure to establish free trade on many fronts (protectionism, creeping socialism, etc). A very good point. | ||
East_detroit Member Username: East_detroit Post Number: 1993 Registered: 11-2003 |
That is incorrect. The unregulated banking and mortgage industries are at the root of economic failure. In fact, you stated in another thread that we should blame Barney Frank for not regulating the mortgage industry well enough. Please correct your assertion to reflect the truth; unadulterated by partisanship. Many thanks in advance. | ||
Vetalalumni Member Username: Vetalalumni Post Number: 1330 Registered: 05-2007 |
(Oladub post # 1195 on February 17, 2009) quote: At that time, this definition of the pursuit of happiness applied to full 100% American citizens as the founders so defined them. And we know who that unjustly excluded. A conceptually flawed aspect of a great tenet. quote: This sentiment could easily be understood to say to those who lacked fair or equal opportunities, "don't worry, be happy". In the extreme but not rare case, even cheering on the principles of the entrepreneurial spirit found in a resourceful criminal who may have never really known about the better opportunities available in America. Had he known, he'd likely not have preferred securing wine, women, and song. A "just be thankful" offering offends the sensibilities of the ambitious. quote: Embarking down a particular road is not always solely indicative of poor choices. Freedom to choose other preferred roads is not always available, apparent or practical. One could be jealous that in spite of their enduring love for their country, empowered citizens in the country have historically and unjustly perpetually favored others above them. Asserting "survival of the fittest" here would be truly sad and very telling. quote: Your premise herein would favor the individual. (Message edited by vetalalumni on March 02, 2009) | ||
Mauser765 Member Username: Mauser765 Post Number: 3033 Registered: 01-2004 |
"First of all...Free market policies is an oxymoron, " EXACTLY. There are NO "free market policies" because it is tantamount to economic anarchy. Only rule is: no rules. Only result: ruin. | ||
Ccbatson Member Username: Ccbatson Post Number: 19140 Registered: 11-2006 |
Laws regulating contractual relations so that they are just is the same as anarchy? | ||
Jams Member Username: Jams Post Number: 7829 Registered: 10-2003 |
quote: Laws=anarchy? Did I miss something? | ||
Vetalalumni Member Username: Vetalalumni Post Number: 1346 Registered: 05-2007 |
quote: Did you intend to say equality in the above quote? Also, as utilized above, the phrases "... levelling wealth ..." and "... levelling financial assets ..." are deemed somewhat synonomous. Respectfully, since the context is that of human beings (the raping of young ladies), the conclusion is flawed. quote: "... a radical concept ..." More so an intentionally imprecise concept, than a radical concept. "Republicans might be too worried about morals ..." Inferentially allocating wisdom here. "... Democrats would be disenfranchised as the self definers and providers of happiness" Here inferring base, selfish motives. | ||
Ccbatson Member Username: Ccbatson Post Number: 19241 Registered: 11-2006 |
Jams, what you missed was my sarcasm. |
