What to do in the mad, mad world?

Assuming the above as the premise, what is your solution? I would argue that where I live a free market does exist as all our needs, with the exception of telephone (a private enterprise), and electricity (a public utility), are produced by individuals locally, within the immediate or adjacent communities. A few members of the community do travel and work for private enterprises bringing home currency which can be used in place of bartered trade if you wish, as a small amount is necessary for those who have electricity, $2-$3 per month, and the very few who have telephones such as me, another $20 per month. In fact I probably provide a major portion of the currency within the village as I only barter occasionally.

Oh, and I think Reagan himself was more influenced by Friedrich Hayek than by John Maynard Keynes.

 

this is questionable, though some is accredited.

 

You very much suggest it when you say everyone is free to compete, that everyone is free to rise above their current economic situation. It is simply not true.

Don't equate money with human worth. Do you think a persons only value is the goods and services they produce that can be paid for?

I don't think so, you have identified many things you feel threaten you and your way of life, that are quite imagined and have no objective constituents in reality.
What might you think I would be paranoid about? I am not afraid that someone who may have temporarily less than I is out to take my stuff. Nor is it the governments purpose to assail my liberties.

So it follows it must be your contributions that are causing your complaints.

Prosperity requires labor only to the extent that any movement is labor.
The earth and it's systems are fecund regardless of your efforts. It requires labor to accumulate stores, or surpluses and defend those stores and surpluses from others. If as person is hungry and sees food, he is virtually compelled by his body, to take it because that is what biology does. I don't regard effort to feed, clothe or house a person as slavery.

I regard the fractional reserve monetary system and it's built in debt to establish the de facto conditions of slavery. A person who is fat and happy is probably not too concerned about their freedom. Even slaves can have relatively better conditions than other slaves. Further the competitive market system insures that there are both winners and losers. A winner is certainly satisfied with the system but he is deceived if he believes his fortune came only from his own efforts. You yourself did not manufacture the goods and services that you enjoy, they were built by others.

No, you just look like corn fed rump roast to me.

No, the affluent rob from everyone. Borrowing money at this point is a symptom of present greed and disproportionate distributions. It is not a symptom of out of control government.

The earth has a regional carrying capacity. That is, only so many can live in an area because of native resources and another limiting factor is the ability of that site to recycle the waste from consumption. It is the "accumulation of wealth", or the proprietary model that creates these distortions, both for people in poorer countries who's natural resources are carted off to richer countries causing even more desperation, and in the more affluent countries in the form of pollution.

It is not jumping around, pollution is the other side of proprietary affluence, of accumulations beyond the capacity of the local system to recycle. As simple as storm runoff from the impervious surfaces of cities and roads.

No it is not, but in recent memory a surplus became a deficit through the combination of both tax cuts and spending. In recent memory this combination resulted in a net loss of jobs but enormous profits for a few.
All the while, because some are making enormous profits, it appears to those who are winning that "the fundamentals of our financial system are strong",
famous last words before the savings and equity of millions is wiped out.

The tax cuts are referred to as the bush tax cuts. The ones that in addition to unrestrained deficit spending caused the financial collapse that we have seen. Pay as you go was stopped and money was transferred from the taxpayer overseas to government contracts for war and reconstruction.


..

Winners and losers are built into the systems regardless of your particular efforts. Many have not done quite well.

We don't need opposition but less ideology and more practicality.

I'm not ignoring demand. The phenomena you are talking about is not the same as the speculative bubble. Supply and demand is one thing. A real product is there or it is not. Speculation bets on whether it will be or not and how much it will cost.

The dot com. bubble was speculative, starter companies imagining unlimited growth and earning power. The housing bubble is speculative, investing in housing and borrowing on housing with the idea that prices can only go up.

The corporation exists to protect the individual from liabilities that businesses may incur.

 

The fact that everyone is free to compete in no way suggests the playing field is level, only that we are free to excel to the best of our abilities.

Some persons may be of value to me without my having knowledge of their existence, while others may be of no value at all simply because of the knowledge I have of them. For the most part I don't really spend much time thinking of who is and who isn't of value, but I do when it comes to products and services whoever produces them.

But you do appear to fear those who have more than you. Why should I fear anything when I take appropriate actions to assure my liberties are maintained?

More likely it might be "your" lack of contributions.

I don't really think you can count on the earth to produce adequate food supplies to feed the entire population adequately throughout each season without human intervention, planting, harvesting, preserving, canning, and accumulating surpluses adequate to provide until the next growing season. Are you trying to say that consumption is natural but the labors required to produce the goods for consumption is slavery?

And in fact some of the goods and services I produced and enjoyed by others provided my means to obtain and enjoy the goods and services produced others. To me that is a win win situation. Even now, I raise fish and can swap some fish for a chicken raised by a neighbor, or I can sell my fish and buy a chicken from a neighbor, in which case we are both winners, and all without any government intervention.

What has that to do with the question I asked?

If the affluent are robbing from everyone, then why are they not prosecuted? Borrowing money by whom? Whose greed? Who should be receiving distributions? So you're content to allow government to borrow ceaselessly without limit?

Apparently you've not lived in Hong Kong? I do believe resources from each and every country are purchased, and not just carted off.

What would you suggest to resolve that problem then? Obviously it will worsen as population increases.

If you take time to check you will find that many of the wealthiest suffered huge losses also. You have to take note that the so called multi-billionaires are just worth that much on paper and draw much less in taxable salaries annually. Their worth is investment which would quickly lose value were they to try and turn it into cash immediately. I don't know what he currently takes, but I remember Warren Buffett once claimed that he only drew $100,000 annually as his salary which he paid taxes on, leaving the remainder invested.

The tax cuts occurred under Bush and have not been cut since. They simply remain to be the current tax rates. The financial collapse was brought about due to risky sub prime loans which Greenspan and Bush tried to bring to everyones attention a couple of years before the collapse, and Barney Frank declared safe. Even today they are being revived by the government.

I think it's getting to the point that many won't even try.

Until we can all agree on what is practical there will be opposition, hence the reason the Tea Party came into existence.

I think you can count on the prices of housing to go up, but government actions led people to buying houses they could not afford to pay for in the long run, by demanding that banks provide more loans to minorities and poor with minimal assurance they could repay the debt they were taking on.

Then might we agree that it should be the executives who are in charge of making the decisions who should be held personally liable, and NOT the company itself?

 

Your statement is not true. We are not free in the general sense to excel to the best of our abilities.

Exactly

Really? I am quite well off and you know what someone who has everything wants, only to give it away. The fact that you "take appropriate actions to assure my liberties", means that you consider yourself already under attack.
Possession is, regardless whether prized or demonic.

So you take credit for success but none for failure. If you are so adept at providing for yourself, why would you have the slightest complaint about anyone else?

Humans are mobile and adaptable with bodies designed for running during daylight hours. The extreme population growth of human beings has meant the extinction of of many species. The worlds native economy is sustainable without redistribution of resources, it is when you start to hoard that you become subject to being taken from, and you produce excess waste. Nature they say is in balance. When you take from one local ecosystem in order to accumulate it in another ecosystem, the balance is upset. When you take the world that everyone is born into and then divide that world into spaces that some are prohibited from entering then you are robbing the inheritance of all.

That is wonderful. Free trade, item for item, is far different from market economy. So you do recognize on a limited basis that there are no discrete systems.

Looks like consumption for consumptions sake, consumption of or attachment to comfort which of itself consumes. I am not aware that you are free of anything.

I am not content with government at all. The reason the affluent get away with it is that the dollar has become more important, than the people that the system purportedly supports. It is a measure of greed, of those saying if they can do it, perhaps so can I.

Paid for, does not change the fact that things are taken from one place to another. A strip mine leaves a hole where the raw materials are removed from. A hole in the local environment. Economic growth is an illusion caused simply by redistribution of resources. Energy they say, can neither be created not destroyed. You cannot create wealth but you can corner resources from one location and transport them to another.

Nor do many countries get a fair price for their resources.

Well toxicity at some point will take the population down if things do not change. I suggest doing in a day the work required of the day, not the work that will provide for your retirement to leisure at some point in the future. I suggest living lightly in the world and not taking more than you need.

I've had the time and the wealthiest suffering huge losses are no less wealthy. You make an important point about money's value is assigned only definitely at the time it is negotiated. In others words, it is not in fact worth anything, unless it is spent.

Exactly they were reduced from levels that existed during the previous administration when there was a budget surplus and strong job growth. So the tying of tax rates so dogmatically to the business climate, is a theory that dose not reflect the facts.

Yes both parties were responsible for the lack of oversight. But again, this is the result of the distortions of market ideology.

I think that many understand the system is still in serious jeopardy.

Practical turns out to be that which we practice. It is the ideological treatment of practical issues that causes the fight, not the difference in practical solutions. Beliefs, or platforms prescribing the anticipation of future results do not argue for truth but only against other beliefs.

Haha, No document loans have nothing to do with governmental encouragement.

Companies, I don't think, should be given human rights.

 

I believe that there is hope, but that hope does not come from "taking power from others" but from civil not-recognizable disobeying and non-violence. This could happen only, I guess, in getting out of mainstream society, not trying to make society do as we want.
Money will always be a problem while you manage with it.
The change will not be made by big communities confronting government (those will be the first to be wiped out) but small communes being as independent (energetically, culturally, economically) as they can.
The tools for us might be in alternative energies, sustainable technology, alternative trading systems, open knowledge (copyleft, as an example) and such. And maybe the best practices should go around ways to spend the lesser money in mainstream markets and selling them all that you can without being the slave you don't want to be. This might be seen as a contradiction, but I still believe that the best way to get rid of today's monetary system and power is to be the best functional cells of the system without following what the system gives as guidelines: consume, consume, consume. The consecuence for the system, as consume diminishes in time, will be the slow death in the form of change.
This, of course, isn't new. It is what a lot of communes are still doing, so, from my point of view, the future for us is moving to communes. At least it is what I plan for myself when I find one that fits me and after traveling a bit.
I would add that voting is important, even if it only is giving the vote to the "less bad" candidate.
Something else I think is that you will always depend at some level from mainstream society, specially from health systems when big problems arise, because it will be hard to get out of the system those who work better in it. Yes, docs are the better merchants in the system. Food is a primary good, but anyone can do/cultivate/raise food. It does not require a really specific complicated knowledge.
The way should be not in getting power, but in depending less form power.

 

Geographic isolation contributes to speciation. New paradigms do not emerge from the status quo. Good point.

 

How do we get this idea or design to the mainstream? I've always felt the 'nuclear' family is a social construct, engineered to fuel mercantilism and big business, utility's, suburb builders, govt tax treasury, etc. and has made each of us slaves to mortgages, pensions, debt. Sharing resources among each other in groups is so much more efficient. The current system is the root of our social and personal ills. imo

 

You teach it to children and the idea of isolation from existing systems is better than trying to change the system. You create islands of sanity if you can. I think Venus project for one is too grandiose in it's scale. We have the technology now to make self contained environmentally neutral prefab living units. We have the technology to grow food without the need for arable land.
Solutions are there but they require personal investment in changing our way of life and the comfort of familiarity is hard to ignore.

 

You continue to waste time and words leading no where. Show me proof where government redistribution of wealth has led to making everyone equally prosperous and the nation economically sound. Large centralized governments, of any kind tend to lead to failure simply because the cost and effort to maintain peace and tranquility begins to become more burdensome and can only be achieved by taxing (stealing) from one sector of society in order to give and appease another sector. It does not eliminate the existence of a wealthy class making all members of the society more equal, but assures that the wealthy class can more easily retain their position above and in control of the remainder of society, which eventuates the creation of a ruling class made up of those with great wealth, and a ruled class made up of those more or less equally cared for. If this was such a great form of government, why were walls built by the Soviet Union to keep people in rather than keep people out?
Freedom is not synonymous with equal and government by trying to impose controls over society which might result in achieving what government determines to be fair results in chipping away at the freedom of some in ways that while benefiting others eventually results in all no longer having the freedom to do more than what government alone allows.

My views are based primarily on observation more so than philosophical writings of others that can only be envisioned as to the results they might produce.

 

What holds you back? Money?

So we agree that it is the goods and services that are valued without knowledge of the individuals who produce and/or provide them?

The fact is that liberty and freedom continue to exist only as long as we don't allow them to be taken away. If we ignore the constant passage of new laws we may one day wake up to find much of the liberty and freedom we once possessed has disappeared. I just say, be alert, and take action when necessary.

I have no complaints about those who don't try to impose their will upon me, only those who do.

Then you would support a one world government?

Currency is but another item, if I sell some fish and use the currency acquired I make the decision of where and how to dispose of the currency in a way that satisfies me.

But neither am I enslaved by anything other than the whims of nature.

I don't equate "the system" with the word "support" in relation to "the people".

Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and many others have been quite successful in creating wealth. Idle resources are great wealth creators, as exemplified by the iron age, bronze age, and in the modern era many perceived uses of resources that have improved our life styles immensely.

They are free to set the price as high as they wish and most often do if the demand exists or the supply is diminishing.

If you don't prepare for your retirement then you must rely on someone else to provide your needs at that point in life.

A loss is a loss, but for those who have nothing, they also have little to lose.

Look at the figures, and put them into perspective based not just who was president, but who controlled the house and the senate in relation to the effects brought about. Not that I was a Bush supporter, but 9/11 had the effect of bringing about a lot of spending that without we might have enjoyed more budget surpluses. Under 8 years of Bush the debt did increase by a little more than $2 trillion, and a feat exceeded by Obama in under 2 years, with the expectation of a nearly $6 trillion increase by the end of his first term, according to the OMB.

Simply governments desire to manage the markets in ways to accomplish goals that result in the reelection of incumbents. Even good intent does not always produce good results, and the mistakes of government, regardless of party, results in costing everyone, and more often than not, spreading misery although not necessary equally, but more often to those they claim to be helping.

When you try to impose a single system upon all, problems which arise are multiplied greatly. I was quite pleased to hear that James Mulva, CEO of ConocoPhillips had the courage to stand up to Senate democrats in a hearing related to raising taxes on large oil companies, calling it un-American, while John Watson, CEO of Chevron also spoke up saying that "Americans would prefer to see policies that promote 'shared prosperity' rather than shared sacrifice."

The problems we face can vary greatly, therefore so can the solutions.

Regulations, existing and proposed in the form of threats do have something to do with how loans might be required to be made.

Upon who should the costs of litigation be borne? The Company or the executives who make the decisions and run the company?

 

Cultural despotism.

No, we are not without that knowledge.

I am all for being up to the moment.

Can you name them, the ones that do, because I don't believe in bogeymen.

I support the person standing next to me and in doing that I meet every civil responsibility. I support no government.

Currency is not but another item, it is a symbol for any item, which means of itself it is worth nothing. Money as it is conceived at the moment, that is tied to a fractional reserve system, creates distortions in real value and causes us to spend treasure on things we do not need or things that have no real value.

You can go any where you will then?

You have demonstrated something quite different from what you say in this instance. It is the proprietary system that allows for what you see as the "accumulation of wealth". You support the proprietary system because it seems to serve you.

They are not creating wealth, they are monopolizing resources.

No they are not. Big players controlling large amounts of commodities can make imports cheaper than locally produced goods, thus pricing them out of a lively hood.

That is true regardless. Someone else cared for you when you were young, you perhaps have children of your own. Children and the aged are at risk populations that may need assistance. I don't believe in retirement. I do hope you remain healthy and are able to enjoy all those things you think you deserve and have earned.

My grandfather retired from a lifelong career with the railroad. Great pension and health care. Unfortunately his health deteriorated and was unable to enjoy in peace, the fruits of his long labors. It was the bitterest pill for him to swallow. I knew another who had a five year plan. The guy worked 12 hours a day, 7 days a week. He earned a lot of money but didn't make it to five years before he died.

An accumulation in one place means a shortage in another.

The only thing a man truly has in this world is time. Material is accessible to you or not during that time.

From surplus to deficit of 2 trillion. Inheriting a tanked economy does not bode well for climbing out of debt. Further there is way more spending going on in the printing of money and "quantitative easing" by the fed. The spending you see is directly related to the amount lost from the economy due to speculation. All the money that was poured into financial instruments which produce nothing of real value, is money that should have been used to compete in real terms in the world economy.

Well that is the thing, the manipulation of markets rather than real exchange.

Ideologies are not representative of solutions. Solutions deal directly with events on an equal basis. Solution means equal dispersal.

Pushing worthless paper in order to generate fees has nothing to do with threatening regulations.

Neither. I think the whole value system is screwed up and if true value were recognized there would be no need for litigation.

 

That's a new take I've not seen before.

Although I happen to know a great number of people around the world, I have no knowledge at all of who produces anything other than the items I purchase locally.

Very good.

Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Barack Obama to name just a few.

Then you're not battle worn.

While it's value is questionable, it remains an item among a list of items used as a means of carrying out transactions.

Certainly, why not? I do sometimes have to first ask permission and abide by prescribed rules to do so.

I do support ownership of property, and were it not for the dispute over slavery the Declaration of Independence would likely have used the words "Life, Liberty, and Property" instead of "Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness". But government today, beginning in the early 20th century, seems to ignore the fact that it does not say the achievement or provision of Happiness, but only the pursuit of.

Which resources would that be? Many different products are created from the same resources and they don't appear to be dwindling.

Labor Unions do essentially that too, and in fact many labor intensive products would not avail themselves to but a small portion of the population if they were produced by American labor as the cost would be enormous.

True for some perhaps, but not all. I've enjoyed over 2 decades of retirement and look forward to enjoying much more, I earned it and I deserve it.

Tell that to New York City, I believe they still have a problem getting rid of their trash. I believe in accumulating things that I might need in the near future. It saves me from making trips to the store unnecessarily. You might even call that energy conservation.

Obviously we have more than we know what to do with as we waste so much of it.

The economy could recover much more quickly if government would just let the market adjust but they worry too much about displaying growth in the GDP.

Thankfully there are black markets.

Solution means resolving a problem. Of course the problem needs to first be correctly identified, and finding agreement on that point alone is often the most difficult problem one has to deal with.

Banks operated within the laws, and rightfully so there intent was to protect themselves while abiding by governments and ACORNs threats if they did not provide loans to those who otherwise would not be approved for a loan.

If, for example, a company pollutes a river with chemical discharge should not someone be held responsible for the cost of cleanup? And as a further complication, should it make a difference if it were intentional as opposed to accidental?

 

Indie

Try posts 89-90 of this thread.

Public good - the well-being of the general public, it is about the quality of life of everyone.

Well as I’ve already pointed out - to me the problems that the US (and UK) are facing at the moment are mainly if not wholly due to the neo-liberal type policies that have often been pursued in the last 30 years or so.

This led to the idea among some that having a huge national debt during an up period was ok because there wouldn’t be a ‘down’ of course if a down turn came and a bail out was needed it would vastly balloon that debt.

Try reading – Utopia, no just Keynes
http://www.hipforums.com/newforums/showthread.php?t=328353&highlight=Utopia%2C+Keynes&f=36

 

indie

But a ‘free market’ has never existed and I don’t think could ever exist.

Free market = Plutocratic Tyranny
http://www.hipforums.com/newforums/s...?t=353336&f=36

What ‘normal’ rate?

And as pointed out in the type of system you seem to be promoting wealth would gain the power to fix a tax rate that would work in its favour to the detriment of anyone else.

Also I think a financial crisis could be worse than a natural disaster or a war. Also wouldn’t it be better to try and stop a national disaster from happening or at the very least try and alleviate the damage it might cause.

It seems to me that this reveals an inexperience (bordering on naivety) of business or government.

The whole idea of capitalism is based on debt – to buy an investment or run and especially expand a business people need ‘capital’ e.g. the money to do so. And one of the mainstays of capitalism is that you can borrow the money to do so.

That is what a house mortgage. Your idea is that a person should only buy the house once they have raised all the money from their monthly paycheque. So that they have to stay with there parents for 20-30-40 years until they have the money saved.

Same with businesses, if they can only get equipment if they have raised the money means that if they have the chance at a contract they have to turn it down because they haven’t the money at hand.

And it is the same with government sometimes it needs to borrow money.

The problem is that the neo-liberal ideas that became dominant in some countries brought about a mentality that it was alright to have such government debt in up periods because there was not meant to be any low periods.

Try reading - Utopia, no just Keynes
http://www.hipforums.com/newforums/showthread.php?t=328353&highlight=Utopia%2C+Keynes&f=36

LOL – so you don’t read my posts, I mean they are full of things, if you haven’t an idea by now where have you been?

But of course you know this again is just evasion you haven’t not any rational or reasonable answers, so you pretend you don’t know what’s been said.

A balanced political system, a democratic system, a regulated market that works in the interests of all in society, a Keynesian type economic system…and on and so forth…

Why not actually debate rather than be dishonest all the time?

 

Indie

The economic policies of the Reagan administration were rather confused. It made some mistakes (fixing interest rate too high during a dip) because it didn’t seem to know what it was doing and it made some good (stimulus spending and tax cuts to kick start the economy) because it didn’t seem to know what it was doing.

As I’ve pointed out here - Utopia, no just Keynes
http://www.hipforums.com/newforums/showthread.php?t=328353&highlight=Utopia%2C+Keynes&f=36
There are several ways to kick start an economy - tax cuts and government spending are two.

The problem with the Reagan tax cuts were that they mainly only benefited the rich in that now discredited idea of ‘trickle down’. It would have been better to limit the tax cuts to those in the lower brackets (as it was inequality grew which is bad for an economy overall) but it would have helped.

As to the government stimulus package, well some have dubbed the economic policies of his administration as ‘military Keynesianism’ increasing government spending boosting the US economy out of recession by spending on arms financed by a large rise in the national debt.

As John Kenneth Galbraith has commented “the results was an improving economy in the '80s under Ronald Reagan, and one of the amusing facts of that was that this was done by people who didn't really understand Keynes and who were critical of him. We had involuntary anonymous Keynesianism.”

But it seems to me that many of the neo-liberal ideas that grew in this time were destined to have adverse long term effects. For example - financial deregulation brought about a short termist attitude that increasingly became speculative (bubble inducing) and helped to encourage private debt. And during this period a trade deficit grew and manufacturing declined or began to be outsourced, the idea (also prevalent in the UK) being that a neo-liberal economy would be a service economy and so manufacturing didn’t get the investment it needed.

 

indie

Oh hell we have been through this. This is simplistic I mean what you seem to be describing is a pre-industrial, non-urban society, with a primitive economic system.

And you are trying to us that as a model for a highly industrial and urban society with a complex economic system.

Its apples and oranges, chalk and cheese, only someone that hadn’t given it much thought or was a fool would see that it couldn’t be done.

*

Let us take for example Laos, one of the poorest and less well developed countries in Southeast Asia.

Subsistence farming accounts about half of its GDP and provides some 80 percent of the countries employment, it is a mainly rural society with some 85% of the population living in rural areas. And these areas can often be isolated there been virtually no rail network and few year round roads (only 16.5% to 19% been paved) although the Mekong allows river traffic to those communities close to it. So these are places with little population movement since subsistence farmers don’t often move from their land and little employment outside of agriculture.

On the other hand the United States of America is very different with 80% of Americans living in urban areas and with approximately only 2-3 percent of that population being directly employed in agriculture (and it only accounting for 1.2% of GDP).

Subsistence agriculture basically disappeared in Europe by the beginning of the 20th century but had declined rapidly from the 1850’s and in North America it died out with the movement of sharecroppers and tenant farmers out of the American South and Midwest during the 1930s and 1940s but again had been declining before then.

In the US (as in many parts of Europe) industry and then services have dramatically changed the type of society they had (with industry in the US now accounting for 21.9% and services 76.9% of GDP).

For many they don’t look to the land for survival but to their wages or commercial profit.

The other major difference between the two types of societies which helps define how they are set up is urbanisation.

The population of the whole of Laos is 6,320,429 while that of New York City alone is 8,391,881, but that doesn’t give the full picture more important is the population density, even in the capital of Laos, Vientiane population density is 178 per square mile whereas in NYC it reaches a staggering 26,403 per square mile (In London which is more spread out than NYC its 4,761).

A village of subsistence farmers requires little in the way of infrastructure and often does not produce the surplus to support such things. A built up urban society demands infrastructure. A village of subsistence farmers requires little in the way of regulation, but again a built up and populous urban area requires them.

In the same way social welfare and provision is likely to be local and family orientated in a subsistence economy, old or infirm family members would be looked after by their families and those that fall pray to bad luck are going to get there neighbours help, if that is possible but even that s going to depend on income as this article on Laos points out

“Many lowland villages are prosperous, regularly produce a rice surplus, and assist a small number of less well-off households within their boundaries. Other villages, particularly those in the uplands or of minorities who had recently relocated to lowland sites, are less well off and often unable to produce enough rice for village consumption. In these situations, the ability to produce other salable commodities, whether livestock, opium, or vegetables, or to find wage-labor jobs, is critical to the well-being of the household and the village. In settings where an entire village is rice-deficient, interfamily exchanges and rice loans cannot ameliorate the basic shortage affecting the community. Acute regional crop shortfalls in several years between 1989 and 1993 were largely met by rice imports provided through foreign aid. As market networks expand and as the economy becomes increasingly monetized and population growth and resettlement increase pressure on land resources, the number of villages in marginal economic situations can be expected to increase.”
http://countrystudies.us/laos/65.htm

Many modern left wing ideas (including Socialism) grew out of the industrial revolution and increasing urbanisation because they were about tackling and alleviating the problems associated with those developments.

The old social structures associated with the agricultural system often broke down as new realities took hold.

Someone might think that such simple rural communities are idyllic or even romantic, especially if they hadn’t had to live the life of a poor peasant farmer, but even they must realise that is a far cry from a highly industrial and urban society.

Now there are those people that would like to turn back the clock or turn the US into something closer to the Laos agricultural model but to me that is a fantasy. The population of the US would have to drop dramatically and it would entail the forced redistribution of wealth (land) that even a hard-line communist might find daunting.

Again your views seem to be fundamentally flawed

 

Well, the US govt. turned the US from a manufacturing model into a 'service' model in a couple of decades. China has turned from a agricultural-village model into a hyper manufacturing model in a couple of decades. Our govt's that powerless to change economic models?

 

While I might find some areas to agree, I noticed you did not mention limiting public sector union campaign contributions.

It should not be governments responsibility to assure a desired quality of life for each person.

I would claim they are related to socialist based policies that began about 100 years ago.

I don't believe in debt, except that which can realistically be repaid in short order. When debt is taken on, it should be the first priority to eliminate, and any additional debt should become much more difficult to acquire.


I don't subscribe to Keynes at all.

 

Whether or not a 'free market' has ever existed is meaningless.

How about 10%?

I look at income earned as what benefits each of us, taxes should never be allowed to take the place of earned income.

I think government more often is a major source of the problems we face.

My experience has been in business, not government, and was quite rewarding.

While you can borrow money, it's not mandatory.

My idea is that you should live within your means, and not just pay check to pay check.

Investors provide the money, and should be rewarded or absorb the loss depending on what the company does.

Too often, and too much.

I read what you post to me directly, but I've not seen anything that would make me want to give up my own control over my life and decisions, and allow government to take that responsibility.

Sounds like a Socialist system to me.

I'm not receptive to Socialism. Socialism degrades society, unionized work places have demonstrated that conclusively, which you should know if you have ever worked in a union job.