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Old 09-29-2010, 01:33 AM   #241 (permalink)
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Originally Posted by dippin View Post
Let's assume everything you have just said there is the absolute truth. The next question is, why does that make it ok for the government to intervene?

Or, more precisely, why is it ok to deregulate everything else BUT unions?
I don't recall posting that everything should be deregulated.

Unions should be regulated for the same reason we have anti-discrimination law, to protect individual's rights.

It's not me who's asking for new regulation on the unions. It's the unions that are asking for this employee free choice act.
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Old 09-29-2010, 03:25 AM   #242 (permalink)
 
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from the article linked below:

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Beneath the surface, the Tea Party is little more than a weird and disorderly mob, a federation of distinct and often competing strains of conservatism that have been unable to coalesce around a leader of their own choosing. Its rallies include not only hardcore libertarians left over from the original Ron Paul "Tea Parties," but gun-rights advocates, fundamentalist Christians, pseudomilitia types like the Oath Keepers (a group of law- enforcement and military professionals who have vowed to disobey "unconstitutional" orders) and mainstream Republicans who have simply lost faith in their party. It's a mistake to cast the Tea Party as anything like a unified, cohesive movement — which makes them easy prey for the very people they should be aiming their pitchforks at. A loose definition of the Tea Party might be millions of pissed-off white people sent chasing after Mexicans on Medicaid by the handful of banks and investment firms who advertise on Fox and CNBC.
Tea & Crackers | Rolling Stone Politics
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Old 09-29-2010, 04:11 AM   #243 (permalink)
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Interesting fact: The Tea Party claims to have been founded less than a month after Obama was sworn into office. So clearly it wasn't a reaction to any actual policy making by Obama's administration. Can we be honest about the real reason it was started?
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Old 09-29-2010, 08:07 AM   #244 (permalink)
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Not sure that proves anything. Most incoming POTUS have a team and basic agenda in place weeks after winning in Nov. That the Tea Party folks were against him from the start doesn't prove they're racist, if that is what you're implying.
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Old 09-29-2010, 08:33 AM   #245 (permalink)
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Originally Posted by Tully Mars View Post
Not sure that proves anything. Most incoming POTUS have a team and basic agenda in place weeks after winning in Nov. That the Tea Party folks were against him from the start doesn't prove they're racist, if that is what you're implying.
I saw that as an implication that the movement isn't about policy, as none had been made, but about anti-Obama instead.
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Old 09-29-2010, 08:45 AM   #246 (permalink)
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But every POTUS start detailing policy really during the election. Within weeks of being elected those details become plans and by the time they're sworn in those plans are well known. The fact people were actively working to fight his plans a month after being sworn in proves nothing more then they disagreed with his plans.

I have no problem with people who disagree with Obama on policy or actions. I disagree with him on several issues. The people I have problems with disagree based on falsehoods such as he's a Muslim, he a socialist (crap people open a book once and while) or he's soft terrorism. The worst of the worst, IMO, are those who simply hate him becasue he's black, claim he's not American or he supports terrorist.
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Old 09-29-2010, 09:08 AM   #247 (permalink)
 
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taibbi tells the story of the birth of the second-generation tea party in the tea & crackers article i linked above. the article is quite good...well worth a read. but here's the origin:

Quote:
This second-generation Tea Party came into being a month after Barack Obama moved into the Oval Office, when CNBC windbag Rick Santelli went on the air to denounce one of Obama's bailout programs and called for "tea parties" to protest. The impetus for Santelli's rant wasn't the billions in taxpayer money being spent to prop up the bad mortgage debts and unsecured derivatives losses of irresponsible investors like Goldman Sachs and AIG — massive government bailouts supported, incidentally, by Sarah Palin and many other prominent Republicans. No, what had Santelli all worked up was Obama's "Homeowner Affordability and Stability Plan," a $75 billion program less than a hundredth the size of all the bank bailouts. This was one of the few bailout programs designed to directly benefit individual victims of the financial crisis; the money went to homeowners, many of whom were minorities, who were close to foreclosure. While the big bank bailouts may have been incomprehensible to ordinary voters, here was something that Middle America had no problem grasping: The financial crisis was caused by those lazy minorities next door who bought houses they couldn't afford — and now the government was going to bail them out.

"How many of you people want to pay your neighbor's mortgage that has an extra bathroom and can't pay their bills? Raise your hand!" Santelli roared in a broadcast from the floor of the Chicago Board of Trade. Why, he later asked, doesn't America reward people who "carry the water instead of drink the water?"

Suddenly, tens of thousands of Republicans who had been conspicuously silent during George Bush's gargantuan spending on behalf of defense contractors and hedge-fund gazillionaires showed up at Tea Party rallies across the nation, declaring themselves fed up with wasteful government spending. From the outset, the events were organized and financed by the conservative wing of the Republican Party, which was quietly working to co-opt the new movement and deploy it to the GOP's advantage. Taking the lead was former House majority leader Dick Armey, who as chair of a group called FreedomWorks helped coordinate Tea Party rallies across the country. A succession of Republican Party insiders and money guys make up the guts of FreedomWorks: Its key members include billionaire turd Steve Forbes and former Republican National Committee senior economist Matt Kibbe.
Tea & Crackers | Rolling Stone Politics

(quote's from pg 2 of this version).

i don't think it requires a whole lot of commentary.
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Old 09-29-2010, 10:39 AM   #248 (permalink)
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Yeah, I'm not going to take seriously "journalism" that uses "windbag" and "turd" when referring to the piece's subjects. Ain't journalism, ain't news, ain't worth reading, and sure as hell ain't the basis for an argument.
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Old 09-29-2010, 11:14 AM   #249 (permalink)
 
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my my, i wouldn't have suspected a prude lay behind all these drive-by posts that display such willingness to tell others to fuck themselves.
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Old 09-29-2010, 01:04 PM   #250 (permalink)
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Originally Posted by roachboy View Post
my my, i wouldn't have suspected a prude lay behind all these drive-by posts that display such willingness to tell others to fuck themselves.
RB, you are just as guilty, if not more so, of preaching rhetoric instead of fact, as the right wing journalists you like to "hold accountable." I may agree with your position 70 percent of the time, but you are still a hypocrite.
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Old 09-29-2010, 01:15 PM   #251 (permalink)
 
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fugly dear, i didn't write the article that appeared in rolling stone.
mike taibbi, who did write the piece, works in the "new journalism" style that's been "new" since hunter s. thompson pioneered it (in rolling stone).
the research is solid, the methodology folded into the piece.
your "objection" is basically that the style of writing doesn't appeal to your prudish sensibility.
then don't read it.
it's of no consequence to me, your "taste".
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Old 09-29-2010, 01:35 PM   #252 (permalink)
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fugly dear, i didn't write the article that appeared in rolling stone.
mike taibbi, who did write the piece, works in the "new journalism" style that's been "new" since hunter s. thompson pioneered it (in rolling stone).
the research is solid, the methodology folded into the piece.
your "objection" is basically that the style of writing doesn't appeal to your prudish sensibility.
then don't read it.
it's of no consequence to me, your "taste".
To me, it makes the writer look unproffesional if he's calling people "turds" and "windbags." The only place I could see insults like that being used and not immediately object to it would be in an editorial, which the article you posted is not.

Journalism is (or should be) unbiased and fair. That article is not journalism.
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Old 09-29-2010, 01:39 PM   #253 (permalink)
 
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A well written piece. Thanks for the post, rb.
This section & many others are quote-worthy:

"A hall full of elderly white people in Medicare-paid scooters, railing against government spending and imagining themselves revolutionaries as they cheer on the vice-presidential puppet hand-picked by the GOP establishment. If there exists a better snapshot of everything the Tea Party represents, I can't imagine it."

I'm especially saddened by the pervasive notion that many of us relying on government
help, are most unworthy...especially the brown ones.

On a positive note, my foodstamps will increase by five dollars this month.
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Old 09-29-2010, 01:39 PM   #254 (permalink)
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The facts hold up. Journalism should, first and foremost, be about the facts holding up.
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Old 09-29-2010, 01:42 PM   #255 (permalink)
 
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Yeah, those facts. They are stubb..stupid things.
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Old 09-29-2010, 02:01 PM   #256 (permalink)
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Originally Posted by dogzilla View Post
I don't recall posting that everything should be deregulated.

Unions should be regulated for the same reason we have anti-discrimination law, to protect individual's rights.

It's not me who's asking for new regulation on the unions. It's the unions that are asking for this employee free choice act.
The employee free choice act actually reduces regulations on unions by eliminating the need for employer acquiescence to bypass a secret ballot in case a majority sign a petition.

The bottom line of what I was getting at is that since Reagan republicans have been more than willing to use the Sherman anti trust act against unions even as they relax their application everywhere else.
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Old 09-29-2010, 02:15 PM   #257 (permalink)
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Originally Posted by roachboy View Post
fugly dear, i didn't write the article that appeared in rolling stone.
mike taibbi, who did write the piece, works in the "new journalism" style that's been "new" since hunter s. thompson pioneered it (in rolling stone).
the research is solid, the methodology folded into the piece.
your "objection" is basically that the style of writing doesn't appeal to your prudish sensibility.
then don't read it.
it's of no consequence to me, your "taste".
Trust me, RB, if I could put you on ignore, you'd have been there months ago.
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Old 09-29-2010, 02:25 PM   #258 (permalink)
 
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...but since you cannot partake of this silly ignore function, his posts somehow
have blasted into your brain against your will &
you find yourself agreeing with him 70% of the time.

I need some scones to go with this Mad-Hatter party.
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Old 09-29-2010, 02:37 PM   #259 (permalink)
 
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that's fascinating, fugly.

===
back in the olde days of the 1970s when there was something of a cultural revolt going on, there was a reaction in the form of "new journalism" against the fake omniscience and patronizing neutrality of mainstream infotainment writing. new journalism put the writer him or herself into the piece and made of the information-gathering part of the piece. new journalism also played around with tone. it's not everyone's cup of tea.

the factual basis of taibbi's piece can easily be checked out--there's little new in it---if you've been tracking the tea party or curious about who's paying for it or wondering what was gonna come of that ugly supreme court ruling of a few months ago that was referenced earlier, you'd already know most of it.

taibbi's journey through kentucky is unobjectionable. a standard trope. he does it well enough.

the piece appeared in rolling stone, which sometimes still features interesting political journalism. taibbi is ok--william greider is better. i don't think anyone relies on rolling stone for all their information...it's not like conservative journalism and its heavily-funded multi-media wrap-around environment. the sort of writing that they publish that interests me---and for what it's worth i only find out about it when someone bounces me something or by mistake: reading rolling stone in 2010 seems goofy to me, particularly its music coverage---that writing **presupposes** you are an active reader of information and **presupposes** that you will challenge it--because the style is about provocation.

like i said, this isn't necessarily a type of writing i enjoy. i think this piece is well done.

that's the end of my defense of the piece.

i find it kind of funny in 2010 that there's any need to explain what new journalism is much less defend it.
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Old 09-29-2010, 03:15 PM   #260 (permalink)
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I love all of Taibbi's writing, regardless of him calling people fuckwads or whatever.
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Old 09-29-2010, 04:28 PM   #261 (permalink)
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Originally Posted by roachboy View Post
taibbi tells the story of the birth of the second-generation tea party in the tea & crackers article i linked above. the article is quite good...well worth a read. but here's the origin:
That's pretty funny, RB, you rant about infotainment then post a great example of infotainment.

I had a moment of deja-vu when I read this sentence

Quote:
She then issues an oft-repeated warning (her speeches are usually a tired succession of half-coherent one-liners dumped on ravenous audiences like chum to sharks) to Republican insiders who underestimated the power of the Tea Party Death Star. "Buck up," she says, "or stay in the truck."
I thought it might have been a parody of Obama's crying to members of the democratic party about how they haven't been backing him lately.

Matt might want to hire a fact checker if he expects to be taken seriously as a journalist

Quote:
No, what had Santelli all worked up was Obama's "Homeowner Affordability and Stability Plan," a $75 billion program less than a hundredth the size of all the bank bailouts
When did this $7.5 trillion bank bailout occur? That doesn't seem to have made the news for some reason.

The article is entertaining. It's as if a conservative reporter went to the Democratic national convention and described the attendees there as being all welfare recipients and drug addicts. Maybe Matt's trying for a job as a reporter for Truthout or one of the other loony websites.
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Old 09-29-2010, 04:32 PM   #262 (permalink)
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his articles on Wall Street are very informative. I suggest trying them out
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Old 09-29-2010, 04:56 PM   #263 (permalink)
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What I took away from the article is the cynical but probably truthful point that the Tea Party movement is doomed.

Not that the Democrats or progressives are going to triumph in any way, but that the establishment system is playing the movement for chumps. It's incredibly depressing when you think about it. He's saying that this movement isn't a pendulous swing to the right, but instead a manufactured slide of the middle class slide into poverty and powerlessness.

No wonder his tone is so sour.
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Old 09-29-2010, 05:35 PM   #264 (permalink)
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What I took away from the article is the cynical but probably truthful point that the Tea Party movement is doomed.

Not that the Democrats or progressives are going to triumph in any way, but that the establishment system is playing the movement for chumps. It's incredibly depressing when you think about it. He's saying that this movement isn't a pendulous swing to the right, but instead a manufactured slide of the middle class slide into poverty and powerlessness.
I just read an article in the Globe and Mail that revealed how American marriages are at an all-time low and that the gap between the rich and the poor is at an all-time high.

This to me seems like a big-picture snapshot of shifting values, both internal and external. The traditional family is eroding. The middle class is eroding. America is changing, and I think this is the kind of environment that creates something like the Tea Party movement.
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Old 09-30-2010, 12:00 PM   #265 (permalink)
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I'm not talking specifically about demand or whether a market exists or is yet to be created. Wealth creation is dependent on a number of factors, including supply, demand, production, and a market for exchange. You have been implying that wealth comes literally from nowhere, brought forth—somehow—and solely—by an idea.
Your attempt to recast what I wrote is misleading. If we reverse engineer wealth creation, we see patterns. From my reviews there are correlations between those who have created wealth from "ideas" and major benefits to mankind as measured by standard of living improvements. In order for "ideas" to have an impact, synergy has to be created - where the total is greater than the sum of the parts - this affect in an economic perspective is the creation of wealth. These "ideas" leading to the creation of synergy comes from a place I don't understand - and I called it nothing. Perhaps it is something, I don't understand it. If you do, explain it please.


Quote:
Ideas aren't created, they're stolen.
Is it your position, that "man" has never had an original idea? Your statement is confusing to me.

---------- Post added at 07:45 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:37 PM ----------

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Originally Posted by FuglyStick View Post
Wait, what? The reason people couldn't read was because there was no reading material available, outside that available to clergy, academics and nobility, and no need to learn as there wasn't literature available to read anyway. But I suppose your version is preferable amongst the crowd that strives to justify a have/have not system.
There was no need to read. There was no real opportunity to read. It was a time when time was consumed by more pressing (pardon the pun) needs, like avoiding starvation. However, given the synergy created from the invention of the printing press, reading began to have value and allowed for increased productivity. This lead to material standard of living increases for the populations with access to the new technology.

---------- Post added at 07:54 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:45 PM ----------

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A couple of thoughts stuck me today as I followed this unfolding thread periodically on work breaks...

1. ace: The situation with Tesla Motors is a bit more complicated than you are trying to make it out. In terms of picking winners and losers at the behest of the US Government...both GM and Tesla Motors have received government support. Tesla has been lobbying for years to gain US government support, and at this time have $465M ($465,000,000 / almost half a billion dollars) in government subsidized loans to develop their sedan class vehicle. I believe the initial target price will be in the neighborhood of $50,000 and judging from the way the hybrid vehicles have been handled, will likely rely on tax incentives to get any market share initially. From what I've read, they will have a target range of ~220 miles per charge, with an option to buy a more expensive battery pack that will boost them up to ~300 miles. To argue that the government could have chosen to stabilize GM or boost up Tesla, but chose to support GM because of entrenched politics is too simplified. If Tesla were to grow in market share in the near-term to the size of GM, or even nearly the size of GM, they would have to adopt GM's technology. The pure electric vehicle technology that is ready to go today is simply not ready for mass marketing without significant changes in expectation on behalf of the United States public. This why they are an early adopter technology company, and this is why they are being supported by the United States government. Incidentally, I believe they are probably also receiving some assistance from Japan and/or Germany, as they are now teamed up with Daimler/Mercedes and Toyota.
Of course things are more complicated than what will be communicated here - even more complicated that your expansion of the original point. However, the basic question, does Telsa compete with GM, can not even be agreed upon here.

Quote:
2. Another issue with the lack of widespread reading in Europe was also that wily Catholic Church, who used literacy or illiteracy, if you will, as a tool to retain power over the populace. Its tough to argue with the interpretation of God's Word if you can't read it.
Hence, a centralized power weather it is the church or government using its power to control people/markets/etc. is wrong in my view. I think an informed populace with the freedom to choose is best for mankind.

Quote:
3. This entire issue seems to rotate around that nasty phrase "redistribution of wealth," and it seems to me that no matter how you look at it, any form of government will entail a redistribution of wealth. "Class Warfare" is simply a reality. What I see is that those with money/power are simply using that money and power to reframe the discussion, such that if you allow the current ordering to stand, then these concepts go away. If you believe in a more uniform distribution of wealth in a given society, then you are promoting these concepts. No matter what you choose, someone will not be happy. But you can't simply wash away the underlying concepts simply because you happen to like things the way they are.
I think it possible for government to play a productive role, create synergy without redistribution of wealth. I am not an anarchist and I think markets need a governmental regulatory body with enforcement power. That then helps markets operate at higher efficiency.

---------- Post added at 08:00 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:54 PM ----------

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Still don't understand the hate for the unions. In a Capitalist utopia where everyone is trying to get as much money as possible, why is it suddenly offensive for the workers to want their slice?
I don't hate unions, nor do I hate corporate lobbyist. They have a job to do. the problem is how liberals try to separate the two. For example GM has about 300,000 employees, the protection those employees received from government is disproportional to the general population. Why? My answer is the power of their political influence. If it is wrong, it is wrong - or lobbying is lobbying. I prefer government to be neutral. If you don't, then the next time a big corporate lobby "wins" in Washington, tip your hat to them rather than complain. Be consistent.
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Old 09-30-2010, 01:01 PM   #266 (permalink)
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You see unions and lobbyists as the same thing? I think you may be misunderstanding just what it is that unions and lobbyists do.

Lobbyists exist solely to sway public officials on issues and causes. It's what they do and all they do.

Unions, on the other hand, exist to give power to workers through organization. The central responsibility of a union is to, collectively, be the voice of the workers. Chief among the goals of unions is better working conditions and fair pay. While some unions do hire lobbyists to push for political agendas, that's not the central responsibility of a union.

In short, they're not the same thing. One can be consistent while still being honest.
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Old 09-30-2010, 01:24 PM   #267 (permalink)
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You see unions and lobbyists as the same thing? I think you may be misunderstanding just what it is that unions and lobbyists do.

Lobbyists exist solely to sway public officials on issues and causes. It's what they do and all they do.

Unions, on the other hand, exist to give power to workers through organization. The central responsibility of a union is to, collectively, be the voice of the workers. Chief among the goals of unions is better working conditions and fair pay. While some unions do hire lobbyists to push for political agendas, that's not the central responsibility of a union.

In short, they're not the same thing. One can be consistent while still being honest.
I agree that they are not the same thing the way an apple is not an orange, but both an apple and an orange are fruit. A corporate lobbyist is an advocate for the corporate interest that they represent, even in the political arena; and a union is an advocate for the labor interest that they represent, even in the political arena.

Just a concluding note for me on the topic of wealth creation to tie it in a nice little bow. Anyone who objectively looks at wealth creation will have to see that in the process of individual initiative that creates individual wealth through productivity gains (as opposed to fraud, stealing, cheating, arbitrage, etc) it follows that all benefit. History shows us that "trickle down" is real, history shows us the power of "supply side economics". Our next move forward, will require this process to occur again - organic growth in economic terms does not lead to standard of living improvements.
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Old 09-30-2010, 01:26 PM   #268 (permalink)
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Your attempt to recast what I wrote is misleading. If we reverse engineer wealth creation, we see patterns. From my reviews there are correlations between those who have created wealth from "ideas" and major benefits to mankind as measured by standard of living improvements. In order for "ideas" to have an impact, synergy has to be created - where the total is greater than the sum of the parts - this affect in an economic perspective is the creation of wealth. These "ideas" leading to the creation of synergy comes from a place I don't understand - and I called it nothing. Perhaps it is something, I don't understand it. If you do, explain it please.
You seem to take a metaphysical—and possibly superstitious—view of how wealth is created. An idea is a great thing. I value ideas. I think ideas are among the greatest things about humanity. However, you seem to take a reverent view of them, as though they exist independent from reality as some self-contained entity. And somehow it comes into being to bring along with it all this lovely wealth. And that we should thank the idea and the one who birthed it for creating all this lovely wealth. The problem is either a) you are not being comprehensive enough in explaining how ideas fit into the puzzle of wealth creation, or b) you have an antiseptic view of ideas and wealth.

If the problem is b, then all I can say at this point is that you should probably read an introduction to macroeconomics. I won't go as far as to say to read the Wealth of Nations, but reading summaries of it wouldn't hurt.

Ideas don't create wealth from nothing. They create it from a "synergy"—a word you seem to like—between production (i.e. labour + capital), demand (i.e. a consumer), supply (inventory/service availability), and a market (a place of exchange, usually using cash or credit).

• Idea + "Synergy" = Wealth

• Where "Synergy" = supply + demand + production + market

If you take anything out of the equation, wealth cannot be generated in a capitalist economy. This is why I said that Bill Gates didn't generate all the wealth he did on his own. He may have been the catalyst, but he couldn't have done it on his own.

Quote:
Is it your position, that "man" has never had an original idea? Your statement is confusing to me.
Yes. As much as I hate to quote the Bible, King Solomon said that there is nothing new under the sun. Ideas don't spring from nothing. They're based on a synthesis of experience and speculation, often brought about by a problem or an opportunity. You can take any idea imaginable and trace it back to another source. It's not like the Big Bang every time someone comes up with something.

Quote:
There was no need to read. There was no real opportunity to read. It was a time when time was consumed by more pressing (pardon the pun) needs, like avoiding starvation. However, given the synergy created from the invention of the printing press, reading began to have value and allowed for increased productivity. This lead to material standard of living increases for the populations with access to the new technology.
To tie this into what I was saying, movable type was created out of an innovation in the process of bookmaking, which was a laborious thing until then. The idea didn't come from nowhere; it came from thinking about the process of bookmaking and how to use technology to make the process easier. A hell of a lot of reading came afterward, but reading wasn't invented by Gutenberg.

Gutenberg didn't invent language. He didn't invent reading. He didn't invent paper. He didn't invent books. He didn't even invent engraving or printing. He invented a process as an innovation based on existing elements.
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Old 09-30-2010, 01:42 PM   #269 (permalink)
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I agree that they are not the same thing the way an apple is not an orange, but both an apple and an orange are fruit. A corporate lobbyist is an advocate for the corporate interest that they represent, even in the political arena; and a union is an advocate for the labor interest that they represent, even in the political arena.
A lobbyist represents an organization. A union is an organization. Corporate lobbyists and union lobbyists can be compared, obviously, but not the unions themselves. Here's something to consider: not all unions are even political.
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Old 09-30-2010, 01:55 PM   #270 (permalink)
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Quote:
Is it your position, that "man" has never had an original idea? Your statement is confusing to me.
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Originally Posted by Baraka_Guru View Post
Yes. As much as I hate to quote the Bible, King Solomon said that there is nothing new under the sun. Ideas don't spring from nothing. They're based on a synthesis of experience and speculation, often brought about by a problem or an opportunity. You can take any idea imaginable and trace it back to another source. It's not like the Big Bang every time someone comes up with something.
I look for core elements that are the true foundation of disagreement, this may be one. I don't understand your point of view. I am sure you and I are not the only one's with an opinion on this point and I would love to read what others have to say. Ironically, I bet if there was a survey of Tea Party people compared to non-Tea Party people, there would be a division similar to ours on this point.

---------- Post added at 09:55 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:45 PM ----------

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Here's something to consider: not all unions are even political.
How is that possible? If politics involves influencing collective public actions or views, I disagree. I can agree that not all union or lobbyist work to influence national politics - but by definition they exist to influence something or to have some kind of impact, and if "politics" in a public manner is required there must be engagement to fulfill the purpose. If a union exist for its members to play card games, I would not actually call it a union - it is a social club.
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Old 09-30-2010, 02:02 PM   #271 (permalink)
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I look for core elements that are the true foundation of disagreement, this may be one. I don't understand your point of view. I am sure you and I are not the only one's with an opinion on this point and I would love to read what others have to say. Ironically, I bet if there was a survey of Tea Party people compared to non-Tea Party people, there would be a division similar to ours on this point.
Well, it might help for you to know that I've been an agnostic since birth, and that I think the Age of Enlightenment was actually a good thing. That might be a start anyway.
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Old 09-30-2010, 02:43 PM   #272 (permalink)
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How is that possible? If politics involves influencing collective public actions or views, I disagree. I can agree that not all union or lobbyist work to influence national politics - but by definition they exist to influence something or to have some kind of impact, and if "politics" in a public manner is required there must be engagement to fulfill the purpose. If a union exist for its members to play card games, I would not actually call it a union - it is a social club.
I don't want to get too bogged down in semantics, but when I used the word politics, I meant:
Quote:
...the activities associated with the governance of a country or other area, especially the debate or conflict among individuals or parties having or hoping to achieve power:
definition of politics from Oxford Dictionaries Online

Many unions only exist to ensure that managers don't exploit their workers with unfair wages or treatment. They don't ever interact with politicians on any level, they don't have anything to do with public policy, and they don't hire lobbyists. Their interaction with the government begins and ends with paying taxes. In that way, they're nothing at all like lobbyists.
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Old 09-30-2010, 03:39 PM   #273 (permalink)
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I always find it ironic when folks on the right rail against "redistribution of wealth" when in reality they've been working tirelessly at that since before Regean. Almost all of their policies are designed to move even more of the wealth to those already wealthy and push more and more of the middle class in poverty.

Maybe saying it's by design isn't completely supported by fact but the effects certainly are by all the data I've ever seen.
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Old 09-30-2010, 03:44 PM   #274 (permalink)
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What Reagan started was a redistribution of power. The concentration of wealth is a side effect.
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Old 09-30-2010, 03:47 PM   #275 (permalink)
 
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the only thing funnier than that, tully, is the history of abstract "synergies" to the total exclusion of knowing what you're talking about factually or conceptually. but the funniest thing is watching a rickety chain of arbitrary statements about "history" get assembled that culminates in surreal claims about the objective validity of supply side economics.

this is "history" for conservatives.....?
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Old 09-30-2010, 04:29 PM   #276 (permalink)
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This whole drive for lower taxes, smaller government, etc., and the resistance to the redistribution of wealth needs to be placed into context with the reality of current global economics.

It's still usual for people to think in terms of the nation state, but the multinational (not to be confused with international) corporate structure of today is widely apathetic towards the nationalism of individuals. Multinational corporations aren't preoccupied with "the American way of life" in the way individuals are. They're preoccupied with capital flows and market opportunities around the world.

So what you get are incredibly wealthy entities that may or may not be considered "American," who are interested in maximizing revenues and minimizing costs. What happens to a large degree is you get a more or less "American" entity owned by Americans and others alike who don't give a damn whether they employ American workers, just as long as the employee costs (i.e. compensation and benefits) are kept low with respect to required skill sets. If these skills can be had in Asia for cheaper, then that's where they will be bought.

Capital, then, flows from the American wealthy to virtually anywhere in the world and back again. American workers can be cut out of the loop if they demand too much compensation, even if it's modest in terms of the local market in which they live. They can't compete with China and India, but they do anyway. So essentially, there is a downward pressure on American income levels because of globalization, fuelled in large part by neoliberal practices of free markets and free trade. These same neoliberal practices don't consider fairness or the relative value of labour. They look at labour value in absolutes, in terms of bottom lines.

In America, holders and users of capital not only maintain their quality of life, they improve it. Those on the bottom rungs of the ladder, who struggle just to keep competitive in the labour market (i.e. they go into debt just to get educated), are lucky to break even. Considering that it's unfeasible to rely on government pension money, one must have access to capital to fund their own retirement, let alone a quality lifestyle. But with real wages in the U.S. flipping between erosion and being stagnant, this is becoming increasingly difficult.

So the Tea Party wants smaller government and lower taxes and no universal health care. They want government to have less control over how global trade affects those without capital. They want those who hold capital to be able to hold a lot more of it. They want less tax revenue to help pay for what the poor cannot hope to afford.

This is all just fine. America's poor will have to deal with their slide toward a Third World reality. Just don't be surprised if they acquire an increasing interest in socialism. You know, that thing that does a great job keeping economies stable.
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Old 09-30-2010, 04:50 PM   #277 (permalink)
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What Reagan started was a redistribution of power. The concentration of wealth is a side effect.

I disagree. Power has always been in the hands of the wealthy. It's the golden rule... those with the gold make the rules. But for years they've been perfecting gaining more and more of the wealth, much like mobbed up casino bosses upping the skim. And their wealth almost always comes at the cost of the middle class and poor. Sure there's guy/gals out there that hit one out of the park and made it big on a good idea but they're much like those scamming welfare. They make up a very small percent of the overall population. Just look at the data over the last 30-40 years- the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. That is redistribution of wealth and it's completely supported by the right.
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Old 09-30-2010, 04:56 PM   #278 (permalink)
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Tully, I was referring mostly to the deregulation orgy sparked by Reagan. It basically gave more power to the wealthy to do what they do...which we know is based on maximizing profit.

Deregulation was the removal of rules...leaving the wealthy to make the rules instead, as you say.
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Old 09-30-2010, 05:34 PM   #279 (permalink)
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I see your point. Maybe it's a chicken and the egg thing.
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Old 09-30-2010, 05:50 PM   #280 (permalink)
 
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my theory has long been that there's more to conservative deregulation than merely accelerating class warfare. at least in its earlier, thatcherite phase(s) the new right was influenced by systems-theoretical critiques of the welfare state, which are different from the more simple-minded critiques you get from other quarters (in this thread, dogzilla's posts are consistently on this)...for that line of thinking, bureaucratic action generates crisis. it creates it (the general explanation is as a function of a system-imperative to reduce complexity) and then reacts in an ad-hoc manner to address crisis--so it's a continuous cycle of action unintended consequences action to address those followed by unintended consequences and so on. because the state is involved, each aspect of this cycle is political. and there's really no way out of it. a steady self-defeating grinding away of the legitimacy of the state as a function of the nature of bureaucratic organization itself coupled with the particular complexity of state action.

so i've thought that the idea was, initially anyway, to roll the state out of areas as a form of damage control---with the idea that over the longer run persistent social problems would require that the state move back into those areas again. so it looked for a while like a way of limiting damage, of protecting the state from itself, and this by way of a conservative appropriation of a hard left critique of the social-democratic state.

over time in the states, the right has become more rigid/ossified ideologically and less pragmatic politically as it lost legitimacy because of the way it exercised power and found itself running toward neo-fascism.

plus the world has changed. thatcherism of this stripe was very much a mid-to-late 70s affair, so in that space the regulation school called "flexible accumulation" during which some of the more basic aspects of what became neo-liberalism or "globalization" were starting to take shape. the fragmentation of labor processes for example and the beginnings of an accelerated remaking of the geography of capitalist organization that erased nation-state borders. but that mutated with the arrival of a telecommunications "revolution" of sorts with the net and its infrastructure and its various superstructures.

now things are different. i don't think the right has fuck all to say of any interest about where we are. but i think people are freaked out---alot of people are freaked out---because basically they've been sold a bill of goods over a very long time. horseshit like supply-side "trickle-down" economics and the mythologies of american exceptionalism that they sit on...but i digress....

still, it is curious the extent to which petit bourgeois conservatives mobilize politically against their own material interests. this gives the lie to any notion of "rational actor" theory in both its markety and marxist forms. they don't make sense from any conventional economics-based behavioral model.

but i digress.
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