Inequality much worse than most think

[Woodsman]

Re: Inequality much worse than most think

On the other hand I could become a slave of a utilitarian justified because slavery "advances civilization" , or just as easily with another with the opposite ideals because I serve the best end in itself to a self aware "glorified individualist".

How perfectly "Nozickian" of you!

[gwynedd1]

Re: Inequality much worse than most think

Our current system can be used to legislate an entire group of people for anything. Could the government or a "populist" president get 50% of the national vote and the congress to say that anyone of middle eastern descent must be rounded up and deported? Yes they could.

They could also enact an environmental law saying that families are only allowed 1 child for "environmental reasons."

To think that our current system couldnt do this is a bit naive. What it has actually done is get the majority of people to think that the rich shouldnt pay higher taxes and be taxed "equally" as someone making 50k a year, it is all clouded in smoke and mirrors. For reference I am not a democrat or left wing.

Again I can pragmatically point out inconsistency and a problematic premise. Financial flows are not consistent with net benefits.Thus the "equality" is a false one. Its one side of the equation. For example ,I could fill a gas tank and explain that my fuel contribution is greater than yours. It implies that we ride the same bus. A good test with an empirical basis is when a country is reduced to a vassal state. Who benefits from government the most? A pro athlete or a model? A dish washer or a surgeon? Hard to say, but I think the owner of apartment buildings has the most to fear. I would think that those whose assets that depend on legal protection benefit the most. Microsoft would be bankrupt without the legal system. A dish washer is still a dishwasher.


http://www.atamanhotel.com/fatih_sultan.html


"One of the tasks on which Mehmed II set his heart was the restoration of the city, now popularly called Istanbul, as a worthy capital of a worldwide empire. To encourage the return of the Greeks and the Genoese of Galata (the trading quarter of the city), who had fled, he returned their houses and provided them with guarantees of safety. In order to repopulate the city, he deported Muslim and Christian groups in Anatolia and the Balkans and forced them to settle in Constantinople. He restored the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate (Jan. 6, 1454) and established a Jewish grand rabbi and an Armenian patriarch in the city. In addition, he founded, and encouraged his viziers to found, a number of Muslim institutions and commercial installations in the main districts of Constantinople. From these nuclei, the metropolis developed rapidly. According to a survey carried out in 1478, there were then in Constantinople and neighbouring Galata 16,324 households and 3,927 shops. Fifty years later, Constantinople had become the largest city in Europe. (see also Index: Eastern Orthodoxy)."

If any idealist wants to do a thought experiment with an empirical basis let them imagine Chinese rule in the US. Then we could imagine those who would fear the change in rule the most and then measure "equality" in a much different way. I think we can also assume that labor that expatriates itself, otherwise known as brain drain, doesn't think its getting its monies worth for a penny.

[gwynedd1]

Re: Inequality much worse than most think

How perfectly "Nozickian" of you!

Not until you put that slogan on a coffee mug or a key chain so that I have something tangible to believe in.

[ProdigyofZen]

Re: Inequality much worse than most think

To lump the entire banking system with the FIRE institutions is flawed thinking.

JR, obviously not the entire banking system. Yes a good amount of banking and credit creation is needed but not nearly to the extent that we have allowed it to grow and engulf the entire world economy.

And I would hope that my thinking is flawed on various subjects because if it werent I wouldnt need to constantly learn and improve my thinking, refining it to minute details over time.

An open mind is all I can offer.

One day we are basking in the sun along the shore and the next a storm is battering us against the shores rocks.

I hope that your business is not engulfed by the forces at work we speak of.

[gwynedd1]

Re: Inequality much worse than most think

So your belief is that the banking system is a parasitic drag on society? Not sure where you're going with this.

I could certainly come of with some plausible metrics that define progress , and then show them to be most incompatible with those goals.

[gwynedd1]

Re: Inequality much worse than most think

POZ has nearly 2500 posts where his thinking - sometimes flawed, often flawless - has been put to the test and subject to scrutiny. Respectfully, you have less than 30 and are an unknown entity as yet. And there is so much to learn.

Your comment gives me POZ....

I like POZ.

[ProdigyofZen]

Re: Inequality much worse than most think

Again I can pragmatically point out inconsistency and a problematic premise. Financial flows are not consistent with net benefits.Thus the "equality" is a false one. Its one side of the equation. For example ,I could fill a gas tank and explain that my fuel contribution is greater than yours. It implies that we ride the same bus. A good test with an empirical basis is when a country is reduced to a vassal state. Who benefits from government the most? A pro athlete or a model? A dish washer or a surgeon? Hard to say, but I think the owner of apartment buildings has the most to fear. I would think that those whose assets that depend on legal protection benefit the most. Microsoft would be bankrupt without the legal system. A dish washer is still a dishwasher.


http://www.atamanhotel.com/fatih_sultan.html


"One of the tasks on which Mehmed II set his heart was the restoration of the city, now popularly called Istanbul, as a worthy capital of a worldwide empire. To encourage the return of the Greeks and the Genoese of Galata (the trading quarter of the city), who had fled, he returned their houses and provided them with guarantees of safety. In order to repopulate the city, he deported Muslim and Christian groups in Anatolia and the Balkans and forced them to settle in Constantinople. He restored the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate (Jan. 6, 1454) and established a Jewish grand rabbi and an Armenian patriarch in the city. In addition, he founded, and encouraged his viziers to found, a number of Muslim institutions and commercial installations in the main districts of Constantinople. From these nuclei, the metropolis developed rapidly. According to a survey carried out in 1478, there were then in Constantinople and neighbouring Galata 16,324 households and 3,927 shops. Fifty years later, Constantinople had become the largest city in Europe. (see also Index: Eastern Orthodoxy)."

If any idealist wants to do a thought experiment with an empirical basis let them imagine Chinese rule in the US. Then we could imagine those who would fear the change in rule the most and then measure "equality" in a much different way. I think we can also assume that labor that expatriates itself, otherwise known as brain drain, doesn't think its getting its monies worth for a penny.

Mehmed due to the fact that he was the first Turk to finally after many hundred years of trying captured Constantinople. The name in Turkish is now the most popular and well known name in all of Turkey.

Thus the reason whenever I meet a Turkish person and they ask my name I respond "Mehmed."

An example. I was in SF attending a show and had to park in one of their over priced parking lots near to the theatre. I asked the parking attendant where he was from and he sais Turkey.

Then I said well my name is Mehmed. He laughed in astonishiment and I asked his name.

He said Mehmed.

Istanbul was one of the most important cities in the world for over 2500 years. Where east meets west.

[ProdigyofZen]

Re: Inequality much worse than most think

POZ has nearly 2500 posts where his thinking - sometimes flawed, often flawless - has been put to the test and subject to scrutiny. Respectfully, you have less than 30 and are an unknown entity as yet. And there is so much to learn.

TY but in all honesty jr429 does have a point on hardwork, intelligence and aggressiveness.

These traits do matter I just dont believe they matter as much as he thinks. I believe there are other forces at work that are more prevalent and matter more to any individual situation, not only through my own experiences but through watching others observing as an outsider with no emotion in the game.

[gwynedd1]

Re: Inequality much worse than most think

This is a very underestimated notion.

I disagree with Mn_Mark not on the issue of whether one can become rich or famous from scratch but because of a basic misalignment of ~what~ vehicle can get you there versus ~what~ service that is to society at large. We have allowed the system to be skewed to where the highest rewards are granted to those who make their living in the most corrosive way imaginable to the society we inhabit. It is insanity writ large.

Sucking at the teat of the central bank and manufacturing asset bubbles from toxic paper does not a healthy economy make.

You can take all of these financial hallucinations and fever dreams and jam them. A healthy economy has been, and will ever be, composed of a mostly self sufficient nation that rewards those who build and manufacture needed goods. Not only have we lost sight of this, we have allowed a system to develop where vast riches have been accumulated by attacking this self sufficiency and industrial orientation.

This is the root of a lot of dismay about this system for a lot of us. It is not that it is not fair or equitable or allows upward mobility on a large scale. It doesn't but that is not the point. It isn't that it is wrong it is that it is wrong headed! Its elite do not get to be elite by making the largest contribution to the nation and society. The most base and unprincipled are rewarded. That is the problem.

Will

The best economists are not economists.

http://www.simplypsychology.org/maslow.html


More or less this model destroys the concept of a hard asset. Then simply recognize that cash flows come from these "assets". If the society is run by a maniac, debts will be secured by madness. Madness will secure money.

Money is indeed damned because it is only born funding labor in a pioneer state. Once privileges can be secured in mature states it funds the manufacture of spicey meat balls for nightmares.

[gwynedd1]

Re: Inequality much worse than most think

To lump the entire banking system with the FIRE institutions is flawed thinking.

I believe I see a flock of frightened crows...

[ProdigyofZen]

Re: Inequality much worse than most think

The best economists are not economists.

http://www.simplypsychology.org/maslow.html


More or less this model destroys the concept of a hard asset. Then simply recognize that cash flows come from these "assets". If the society is run by a maniac, debts will be secured by madness. Madness will secure money.

Money is indeed damned because it is only born funding labor in a pioneer state. Once privileges can be secured in mature states it funds the manufacture of spicey meat balls for nightmares.

And it's ironic that you need an economics degree and most likely a PhD to be taken seriously by anyone.

And that goes for just about any major subject with influence.

That is part of the problem.

Most of the greatest thinkers and discoverers of ideas throughout history never actually studied in the field they are famous for.

Galileo studied medicine for 4 years at university. http://inventors.about.com/od/gstart...eo_Galilei.htm

He had some knack for mathematics then he was given the opportunity to study under a mathematics tudor. If he had never been given that opportunity perhaps he wouldnt have gone on to discover what he did.

The same is true of Francios Quesnay, he studied medicine and became a master surgeon. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fran%C3%A7ois_Quesnay

But he isnt famous for medicine, he is famous for being one of the first economists.

To think that you need to study some discipline for 4 years in college plus get a masters degree to be an expert is preposterous. (obviously he had talent, perhaps not everyone does for such high level thinking).

Again he was given the opportunity by the king to study economics which is where he came up with his theories drawn from his understanding of medicine and the circulation of blood in the body.

That word opportunity keeps popping up.

[Rajiv]

Re: Inequality much worse than most think

Look at my post

I would say that most bank CEO's today are guilty of "control fraud" - and the ones who actually do the fraudulent act are almost as guilty. Many of the people you laud, advertently or inadvertently have at the very least enabled fraud, if not actually committed a fraudulent act. Read up on Bill Blacks indictment of what is happening on Wall Street today.

[gwynedd1]

Re: Inequality much worse than most think

And it's ironic that you need an economics degree and most likely a PhD to be taken seriously by anyone.

And that goes for just about any major subject with influence.

That is part of the problem.

Most of the greatest thinkers and discoverers of ideas throughout history never actually studied in the field they are famous for.

Galileo studied medicine for 4 years at university. http://inventors.about.com/od/gstart...eo_Galilei.htm

He had some knack for mathematics then he was given the opportunity to study under a mathematics tudor. If he had never been given that opportunity perhaps he wouldnt have gone on to discover what he did.

The same is true of Francios Quesnay, he studied medicine and became a master surgeon. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fran%C3%A7ois_Quesnay

But he isnt famous for medicine, he is famous for being one of the first economists.

To think that you need to study some discipline for 4 years in college plus get a masters degree to be an expert is preposterous. (obviously he had talent, perhaps not everyone does for such high level thinking).

Again he was given the opportunity by the king to study economics which is where he came up with his theories drawn from his understanding of medicine and the circulation of blood in the body.

That word opportunity keeps popping up.

Everything I have studied as a hobby, student, and professional in philosophy, psychology, history and anthropology clashes with current economic dogma. Even its progenitor "political economy" would condemn it. "Economics" is a special interest school of huckterism with no written, artifactual, observational or empirical basis of any kind. And to paraphrase Michael Hudson, they make completely fictitious histories and then by thought experiment make their ridiculous citations of fact , which are often nothing but carefully crafted logical fallacies. Much of it is done by working one side of the equation. I can't think of a single real contribution that occurred much past the early 20th century.

[ProdigyofZen]

Re: Inequality much worse than most think

Everything I have studied as a hobby, student, and professional in philosophy, psychology, history and anthropology clashes with current economic dogma. Even its progenitor "political economy" would condemn it. "Economics" is a special interest school of huckterism with no written, artifactual, observational or empirical basis of any kind. And to paraphrase Michael Hudson, they make completely fictitious histories and then by thought experiment make their ridiculous citations of fact , which are often nothing but carefully crafted logical fallacies. Much of it is done by working one side of the equation. I can't think of a single real contribution that occurred much past the early 20th century.

I completely agree.

Now try convincing the people in finance and economics that what they have studied the past 60 years is junk science.

Thats where I am in, I feel like I am running a hundred years ahead of most of the other professional economists/financiers and it doesnt sit well with them.

I have to adapt what I say to be sensitive to their world life views that they have been taught and held their entire life.

Besides maybe Minsky there were not many great ideas past Keynes. Well aside from EJ of course.

There is not truth, only power and facts are for little men.

[jr429]

Re: Inequality much worse than most think

POZ has nearly 2500 posts where his thinking - sometimes flawed, often flawless - has been put to the test and subject to scrutiny. Respectfully, you have less than 30 and are an unknown entity as yet. And there is so much to learn.

POZ is obviously an intelligent person and disagrees with my perspective. I'm assertive and belligerent, always have been. But why does post count come into play in a debate? Perhaps "seniority" should be equally weighted. I've been here since 2009. But I don't believe that either