The climate change consensus extends beyond climate scientists

[aerohead]

Originally Posted by redpoint5

Yeah, I grew up in a single income family and thought it was great. Then again, McDonalds was a once a year luxury because it was expensive "eating out". Nowadays we complain that McDonalds is all poor people can afford. The local pizza chain is always busy on the 1st when food stamps are distributed.

Women entering the workforce has a lot to do with stagnant wages. This goes back to economic theory... that when the supply of workers goes up, the value of labor goes down.

Here's the unemployment history, and we're at a near all-time low. If you can't make it in the US, you can't make it anywhere.



The drug and suicide problem has more to do with a crisis of meaning than it does a crisis of economy. Those comparatively low well off are angry that they aren't better off and those that are well off are depressed that their achievement hasn't made them happier, or that they aren't at the very top. These all have to do with having wrong values and a lack of meaning.

We have structural problems (there's always room for improvement), but the real problems are always much more difficult than "not enough money". That's a symptom, not a cause.

I only finished 'Zombie Economics' this morning.It will take me until next weekend to transcribe my code from the book into usable form.
Some major themes that did stick out:
Free market capitalism has a very poor record for performance.
TheTrickle down hypothesis has no evidence to support its claim of superiority.
Privatization has failed in all large scale experiments,leading back to nationalizations.It has never successfully competed against public-owned enterprises.It's structurally impossible.
Market liberalism is a failure except for small to medium enterprises,and only if there are enough competing companies on a level playing field.
The US economy has never been as good as when it was a socialist/capitalist hybrid mixed-economy,between 1945 and 1973.
The Tea Party has done nothing except to support the very people they're rebelling against.
You might find a more stupid economy than the US economy,but maybe not.

[aerohead]

Originally Posted by sendler

The number of "jobs" may be up but the quality and the pay is way down. The bottom 70% of Americans makes 8% less than they did in 2000 and owns only 3% of the wealth. Wages are still completely stagnant. Per capita GDP is up but so is inequity. There is more money out there but it is more and more concentrated at the very top world wide. The system is broken for labor. If it ever seemed to work at all ,only due to constant growth. But there are limits to growth on a finite planet and we are about to run into them.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealth..._United_States
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According to regression analysis of US Census data,the lower 90th percentile of the population has a lower standard of living than before1973.

[redpoint5]

Originally Posted by aerohead

Free market capitalism has a very poor record for performance.

Compared to what?

TheTrickle down hypothesis has no evidence to support its claim of superiority.

Superiority to what? The principle is common sense though, that when someone has money, they spend or invest it. When you spend money, it then gets spent by the next person and so on, turning the economic wheel.

Privatization has failed in all large scale experiments,leading back to nationalizations.It has never successfully competed against public-owned enterprises.It's structurally impossible.

That's just the opposite of reality. Tell that to the Soviet Union.

Market liberalism is a failure except for small to medium enterprises,and only if there are enough competing companies on a level playing field.

What is market liberalism? Obviously competition is the reason that capitalism produces superior results. The incentive to not go out of business drives innovation. This is exactly why monopolies are bad, and why a centralized economy, being the highest form of monopoly, is the worst outcome possible.

The US economy has never been as good as when it was a socialist/capitalist hybrid mixed-economy,between 1945 and 1973.

That requires explanation.

You might find a more stupid economy than the US economy,but maybe not.

The challenge would be to find a better one, and then adopt those free market principles.

[redpoint5]

Originally Posted by aerohead

According to regression analysis of US Census data,the lower 90th percentile of the population has a lower standard of living than before1973.

Uh huh, with their smart phones, internet, and abundance of nutrition and all.

I get that wealth is piling up at the top more than ever before, but that doesn't mean the poor are worse than before. Something needs to be done about the acceleration of wealth to the top because any rate of change is unsustainable. It isn't a problem that there are strata of wealth, but instead the acceleration of wealth to the top.

[aerohead]

Originally Posted by redpoint5

We live in an increasingly global economy, and the price for labor is increasingly distributed around the world. It's inevitable that we would be competing not just among others in our town, but among all living people. I expect globalization alone to account for a significant amount of stagnant or reduced wages.

There is a looming problem on the horizon of work requiring increasing skill, yet our cognitive abilities aren't increasing, or not increasing at the same pace. That leaves people at the bottom with nothing to do (thanks minimum mandate by government force). Inequality is inevitable because we aren't all the same, but that is a problem when wealth accumulates too heavily at the top; and I don't have any reasonable solutions to that problem at the moment, or know exactly when inequality becomes a problem. As I say, inequality is a feature of the universe; not unique to humanity, so unequalness is not a problem itself.

Inequality is a feature of market liberalism.Get rid of market liberalism and the problem goes away.

[aerohead]

Originally Posted by sendler

Progressive tax rate, rent control, world labor unions, ect. Those that have had the good fortune to do well in the current system should feel compelled to chip in more.

Yes,it is a historical fact that,life was never so good for the population as a whole,as when we had a progressive income tax.

Matt Damon,a 1%-er,said that,with what he earned,he'd be more than glad to pay more income tax.
Even Warren Buffett says he could easily get by on $125,000 a year.

[aerohead]

Originally Posted by redpoint5

Rent control harms everyone. Economists have a consensus that it's a terrible reaction to high housing prices. Most things done to help the poor have unintended consequences worse than the problem they are trying to solve.

The benevolent people of many large cities have vastly expanded the drug and homelessness problem with their good intentions. They hand money directly to people on street corners; participating in the well-being of drug dealers and demise of the addicted.

We don't have crazy wards for the crazies anymore either. Somehow it's more humane for them to sleep on sidewalks naked and poop in public.

The problem is way more complex than "the poor don't have enough money". That's a symptom of many complicated problems, not a problem itself. If that were the problem, then the solution would be to simply give money. That doesn't work.

Rather broad-stroke comments.'got any data at all to back that up? Or are you just parroting someone else that you believe knows what they're talking about?

[aerohead]

Originally Posted by redpoint5

The government operates everything at a loss, as they have no means of income. Their income is 12 out of every 40 hours of your labor.

People don't have the right to live in the most expensive parts of the most expensive cities; they have the right to live where they can afford. Rent control causes housing prices to increase since builders won't build more housing if they can't collect the rent necessary to justify the investment. New housing halts and prices skyrocket.

The government has absolutely no business dictating who I will do business with (I'll make a cake or not for whomever I choose), dictating what wage I negotiate with others (minimum wage), or what I can charge for something I own (rent control). All of these laws presuppose that we don't own our labor, actions, or possessions. If that's the case, then I'm not responsible for anything I do at all, because I either have responsibility for things I own (actions, possessions, labor, relationships, body...), or government owns those things and it's on them. I'm sure if someone refused to abide by any of these unconstitutional laws, the higher courts would rule in their favor; and if not, the courts should be overturned and replaced with reasonable people seeking justice.

Boils my blood that we allow non-sequitur laws that are diametrically opposed to each other to exist.

The fact is that the government can operate publicly-owned enterprise at one-third the cost of free-market capitalists.I can't follow your arithmetic.

[aerohead]

Originally Posted by redpoint5

Compared to what?

Superiority to what? The principle is common sense though, that when someone has money, they spend or invest it. When you spend money, it then gets spent by the next person and so on, turning the economic wheel.

That's just the opposite of reality. Tell that to the Soviet Union.

What is market liberalism? Obviously competition is the reason that capitalism produces superior results. The incentive to not go out of business drives innovation. This is exactly why monopolies are bad, and why a centralized economy, being the highest form of monopoly, is the worst outcome possible.

That requires explanation.


The challenge would be to find a better one, and then adopt those free market principles.

I mentioned at the outset that,it will be a week before I'm ready to parce everything out.
Roger,Wilco,Over and out!

[aerohead]

Originally Posted by redpoint5

Uh huh, with their smart phones, internet, and abundance of nutrition and all.

I get that wealth is piling up at the top more than ever before, but that doesn't mean the poor are worse than before. Something needs to be done about the acceleration of wealth to the top because any rate of change is unsustainable. It isn't a problem that there are strata of wealth, but instead the acceleration of wealth to the top.

The fact is that the poor,today, are worse off than before 1973.They've made no progress whatsoever since before 1973.
Smart phones are $39.00.That's within the reach of most.Internet and 2-Gigs of data is included on my $30/month Cricket Wireless service from Wal Mart.
As to nutrition,'guess you didn't catch the part about the existence of food deserts in the USA.Plus the assassination of the US Senate committee that attempted to educate the US population about proper nutrition in 1977 by 'Big-Food'.
Free market capitalism economists, Presidents, and the Congressmen they own are responsible.The lowliest ghetto dweller could exceed the potential of the silver-spoon,'wealthy dumb' Ivy-League'rs,if given an opportunity.The few that have managed scholarships have demonstrated that empirically.
And if you're in New York and ever need brain surgery,the top neurosurgeon in the area is a former Mexican wet-back.