The majority of Democrats like socialism
I’m getting tired of using the phrase “this is no surprise”—but this is no surprise. According to a new Gallup poll:
…more than half (53%) of Democrats or Democrat-leaners say they have a positive attitude toward socialism.
What is far, far stranger—and really is a surprise—is that 27% of Republicans or Republican-leaners also had a positive attitude toward socialism.
The only explanation I can think of—other than that the world has gone mad—is that a lot of people are unaware of what the terms “Republican” and “socialism” mean.
Come to think of it, that’s not really much of a surprise either.
Note also that among Democrats and Democrat-leaners, “capitalism” just barely nosed out “socialism” in positives, 55% to 53%. And yet “small business,” “free enterprise,” and “entrepreneurs” were hugely popular with both Republicans and Democrats (95%R/94%D, 94%R/88%D, and 91%R/84%D, respectively). Do Democrats not see these things as part and parcel of capitalism?
Here’s the chart. Go figure.
Our schools and colleges have done their work well on this one. Reading, writing, math and science not so much.
Based on a sample of one from a decade or two ago, one friend I had who was a Republican (now deceased) commented to me once that socialism seems good in theory. [Dunno ’bout you, but I’m fairly nauseated by the theory as well as by the results.]
I think a lot of people see it that way, including a lot of Republicans. Those are ^not^ the Republicans who have thought things through and pondered the evils of socialism: the disincentives to work and all that; they are the Republicans who are Republicans by birth or by heritage or by something, essentially Democrat-lite because there’s something about Democrats that ties them more to the Republican party.
Those are the ones who buy into the fiction that socialism and socialists have good, altruistic intentions. Those are the ones whose politics tend to be very superficial in terms of understanding what’s ^really^ going on. Those are social Republicans.
Those are the ones who totally buy into the meme that socialism and collectivism are good and individualism and a drive to ^really^ excel are bad. (They can be bad when carried to extremes, but most things are bad when carried to extremes, including moderation — Barry Goldwater, call your office up there in heaven.)
So, for M J R, it’s not a huge surprise, but what it is, is discouraging. We have to convince not only the bad guys but even some (purportedly) on our side.
Socialism can mean a lot of things, and its hard to say which meaning came to mind when people were asked the question. It could bring to mind the USSR with its bread lines, secret police and gulags, or it could mean the Social Democrats of Scandinavia.
Same goes for capitalism. Are people thinking of Adam Smith’s free enterprise or of the oxymoronic “crony capitalism.”
I’m very demoralized about politics in this country nowadays. The problem isn’t Obama, the Democrats, Pelosi, Reid or anything/anyone like that.
The problem is the quality of the electorate. There will always be dishonest, narcissistic, unethical politicians who lust for fame and power and who take advantage of the mental laziness, greed, selfishness, and “want-something-for-nothing” masses. But it’s the masses who elect them in a democracy, even a republican democracy.
I’ve just about decided that we can’t change the American public and as a result, we’re screwed.
If you feel I’m being too negative, I’ll point out that it’s a tradition of people in this country to leave a country that’s a mess and go to one that isn’t.
MJR et.al.,
Recently I’ve begun to think of socialism as a macro extension of normal human interaction. It works on an intimate, day-to-day basis but it doesn’t work as a national social or economic system. Let me explain.
Suppose I purchase a lawn mower and my neighbor asks to borrow it. Now a pure capitalist woudl say, “Sure, you can use it for $15/hr.” Most normal people wouldn’t do that, they would just let their neighbor borrow the lawn mower.
Now carry that metaphor to govt-level socialism. Not only does my neighbor borrow my lawnmower, but day after day for 30 days a month someone else (more often than not a stranger) is borrowing my lawn mower. Not only do I have to track down and schedule a time to use my own lawnmower, but I’m no longer in control of the very lawn mower that I, myself, purchased. Furthermore, by the time I get it back to use it myself, it’s in worse shape than it was when I first loaned it out.
I think the implicit moral high ground of socialism for many people is an extension of this idea of loaning one’s neighbor a lawn mower. Help you neighbor, it makes you feel good (note the word “feel”). What they consistently forget is that someone must purchase the lawn mower in the first place and someone must also be willing to keep it in good repair.
Socialism sounds nice in theory. However, both in theory and practice, it is a system designed to consolidate wealth and power with a select few through the establishment of a monopoly or monopolistic practices enforced through a granted or coerced authority. It then redistributes wealth and favor to capture democratic leverage in order to preserve its own existence and the exceptional conditions of its leaders. By its nature, it does not recognize individual dignity; although, it does marginally, if selectively, equalize outcomes.
The concern with socialism, and similar systems, is two-fold. First, it does not respect individual dignity. Second, dissociation of risk is the principal cause of corruption.
There’s nowhere else to go, and a tremendous number of men and women have given their lives to pass on the inheritance of liberty that we have until very recently possessed.
This country is yours as much or more than the clamoring socialist’s.
But let’s do a little thought problem here. Let’s suppose that you could find a landmass sufficient to support some tens of millions of productive self-disciplined and self-governing people.
Sixty-three million Republican voters and their families would instantly create one of the most powerful polities in the world.
One third of that number would be tremendously impressive.
So suppose that you had a migration to there, and created a functioning quasi-libertarian constitutional polity with a strong conservative civil society structure.
Suppose it was an economic success.
How long, once the hard work was done, before the hapless and those with feelings of entitlement were clamoring for entry, and demanding that the constitutional structure be changed in a way they found more congenial and supportive?
The fact is that a “collective” mentality which presumes the right of access to the persons and energies of all others without limit in principle, serves as the primary social predicate of most moderns.
Conservatives have been acerbically observing for years that the socialist’s god is man or the state. And in a number of paradigm cases and examples it was readily apparent. But never before so much and so widely as now. The permissive society’s reign of appetite has been coupled to a demand for universal self-sacrificial solidarity and cost distribution in a way that seems new to me- at least in this country.
Unconditional allegiance is now demanded to a sketchy evolutionary social procession which directs toward some mystery destination the nature of which is unclear and never really stated. But which it is implied promises freedom from the so-called ” tyranny of biology”, the ongoing experience of the joy of a permissive society, a liberation from the burden of the self, and ultimately some kind of absorption into a state of trans-humanist bliss.
You know, if I didn’t know better, I might suspect there was some metaphysical dimension to all of this that I had somehow been missing.
But suppose you went there. What price would you be willing to pay for success? Having large numbers of children and fewer cocktail parties. And suppose they then they followed you demanding entry and your submission. Would you then consider that you had the right to fight back?
“Having large numbers of children and fewer cocktail parties” was a question …(?)
I take it Republicans who had a positive attitude toward socialism are a testimony to what can be done to the young by putting them in the charge of socialists. If the percentage of Libertarians with positive attitudes toward socialism were to hit double figures I would suggest we burn down the schools… pronto.
T, 1:54 pm —
“What they consistently forget is that someone must purchase the lawn mower in the first place and someone must also be willing to keep it in good repair.”
The lawn mower would be owned by the collective to begin with. It would be someone’s job to keep it in good repair. From each according to his abilities and all that.
I’m reminded of a conversation I had with a very dear cousin (now gone), who had been a member of numerous collectives. She was describing her ideal (collectivist) society, how all possessions would be shared (never mind how they got there to begin with). I brought up the subject of my dear LPs (this was in the 1980s).
She said they’d belong to everybody, including me. I objected strenuously — I ^like^ my LPs, they’re ^mine^, and I don’t want to share them. I don’t abuse them, I don’t want others abusing them or even using them; I don’t want them worn out — they’re ^mine^.
She assured me we could all work out an accommodation.
Sigh.
I love(d) her, but she was a dreamer (“Some may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one.” — John Vladimir Lennon). I know from my mother that she often “borrowed” money from her elderly dad, my uncle, a gentle, good-hearted old dude; I can’t for the life of me see how she was ever in any financial position to pay it back.
Sigh again.
Prof. Thomas Sowell addressed this in one of his books — that marxism may appear to be viable only after capitalism has supplied the machinery and the goods necessary to get a healthy economy going in the first place. I think Ayn Rand takes care of the rest, as she describes how the marxist economy will ultimately grind to a halt when Atlas Shrugs [see the drunk’s monologue re The Twentieth Century Motor Company].
“And that’s the way it is,” to quote Uncle Walter [Cronkite].
Frank Luntz has been saying for years that the term “capitalism” doesn’t poll well and that it should be replaced with terms like free markets and free enterprise.
I believe the term capitalism was coined by Marx.
MJR,
“The lawn mower would be owned by the collective . . . .”
You seem to be describing communism rather than socialism here. Communism is govt ownership of assets, socialism is govt control of assets that might be owned by others.
Also a general thought. The cognitive dissonance of Neo’s chart above just struck me:
53% of Dems support socialism, but 94%, 88% and 84% support small business, free markets and entrepreneurs (which is support of capitalism) while only 55% support capitalism.
Furthermore, 55% support capitalism while 75% support the federal govt. These people are rubber-room nuts. As Ronald Reagan pointed out, it’s not that liberals don’t know anything, it’s just that so much of what they do know is wrong.
MJR,
RE: your discussion with your cousin and your mention of John Lennon. Did you know that Yoko Ono refused Ben Stein the rights to use Lennon’s Imagine in Stein’s film.
Get that? A song which celebrates no possessions and a shared world is not allowed to be shared. As I sais, rubber-room nuts!
texexec,
“I’ve just about decided that we can’t change the American public and as a result, we’re screwed.”
Yup. Facing Up to the Enormity of Our Problem
“On November 6, 2012… a basically virtuous minority fought to preserve the cause of 1776 — life, liberty and property — against a basically immoral, merciless mob and its conscienceless, power-hungry puppet masters, while a basically amoral, self-obsessed mass of bloodless, happy-pilled pod people sat on its collective hands and, bored of watching America die, changed the channel to watch American Idol instead.
In simple terms, Western man may, in the main, no longer be capable of living in liberty. He does not want it. He does not know it. And he has been bribed and brainwashed out of the primal feelings that would have made it attractive to him.”
You’re not being too negative, but what country could we emigrate to that isn’t a mess?
“You’re not being too negative, but what country could we emigrate to that isn’t a mess?”
It’s true there aren’t many choices. But I’m researching it intending to gently make some suggestions to my grandchildren. It’s definitely too late for me…and probably for my children…to make such a change.
I think if you asked the question in the 1930’s people would have a much better understanding of the terms. If you asked people on the street (yes I know its like shooting fish in a barrel) to define capitalism and socialism they would have a very hard time. If you asked the question do you prefer a free-market economy and a government controlled economy you might get a different answer.
Readers might remember the old Disney cartoons with Scrooge McDuck explaining the workings of the economy to Huey, Dewey and Louie (so aptly recalled by SouthPark in the Underwear Gnomes). No equivalent popular education goes on today. Kids TV is controlled by PBS socialists or hipster Nickelodeon types.
regarding the poll’s findings;
For the past 9+ months, small business has been touted by Obama as much as Romney. Obama’s insincerity is irrelevant, its a concept currently popularized with the public.
Cognitive dissonance explains the popularity of Free enterprise and Entrepreneurs with Democrats, however understand that what they actually support is heavily regulated ‘free’ enterprise and politically correct entrepreneurs. They also support mandatory free ‘lunches’ (a euphemism that includes everything) for everyone.
Ah, Capitalism, the root of all evil or so they’ve been told, repeatedly…
Big Business; the home of the greedy and selfish who leverage money into theft. Please ignore the contradiction in saving GM and the fact that big business provides the nation’s industrial might, without which it’s impossible to defend ourselves in the modern world…as small business doesn’t build aircraft carriers and nuclear submarines… Did I mention cognitive dissonance?
The Federal Government; “here comes Santa Claus, here comes Santa Claus…”, right down the chimney. And please don’t ruin our ‘free’ lunch by pointing out that “a government big enough to give you everything you need is big enough to take it all away”. We don’t need no stinkin’ facts confusing the issue!
And finally socialism, a belief in the premise that there will always be other people’s money to ‘appropriate’… hey, did I mention cognitive dissonance?
T: Suppose I purchase a lawn mower and my neighbor asks to borrow it. Now a pure capitalist woudl say, “Sure, you can use it for $15/hr.” Most normal people wouldn’t do that, they would just let their neighbor borrow the lawn mower.
The Czech film, Fireman’s Ball, cynically depicts the problem of socialist societies. In one famous scene, the fire fighters can only sympathize as an old man’s house burns down.
However, in the poll, people seem to be advocating a mixed system. Every major developed economy is a mixed system.
I’m actually somewhat surprised. I thought the concept had been appropriately discredited since the Reagan years, but I guess not. Welp, we’re doomed. 🙂
T, 3:20 pm — “You seem to be describing communism rather than socialism here. Communism is govt ownership of assets, socialism is govt control of assets that might be owned by others.”
I think it’s mixed: some communal ownership, some individual ownership but control by the collective. In my case, communal ownership of most LPs, but ^perhaps^ an accommodation for my ownership of ^perhaps^ certain of my LPs. But who would actually ^control^? Suppose someone wanted to borrow my LPs, but I already knew from experience that she would abuse them?
Whatever (smile) . . .
Meanwhile your point about cognitive dissonance is well-taken, but as Zachriel (3:58 pm) is pointing out — correctly in my judgment — “people seem to be advocating a mixed system. Every major developed economy is a mixed system.”
T, 3:23 pm — I’d long ago forgotten that about Yoko Ono and Ben Stein. What a hoot! Cognitive dissonance indeed.
“Everyone wants to live at the expense of the state. They forget that the state lives at the expense of everyone.” Frederic Bastiat
As Bastiat pointed out, socialism is thieft. It is belief in the fantasy that we can all live high on the hog at everybody else’s expense.
I looked up Republican. It says: “Richie-rich big-government hypocritical loser.”
Just saying …. that it does not say Conservative.
HTH.
Let’s have another poll in which those who favor socialism are asked to define it.
BTW, by necessity early Israel had to have many, many government managed projects. With prosperity these have largely gone by the wayside. Whatever socialism is, it appears to be useful for preventing mass starvation and homelessness but harmful to long term prosperity once the danger is past.
Maybe it would not be all bad if we hit the fiscal cliff and everybody’s taxes go up. Then conservatives can point out that big government costs big bucks.
“Also a general thought. The cognitive dissonance of Neo’s chart above just struck me:”
Utopian dreamers, cognitive dissonance be thy name.
Socialism can mean a lot of things…
that is wrong… it does not mean a lot of things. people think this because they hear a lot of lies and dont know which one is the valid one. its like burying gold at the foot of a tree, then tying a gold ribbon around the tree to find it the next day. what if i put gold ribbons on all the other trees? can you find your tree, ribbon, and gold?
every utopian moron has put their two cents in.
in fact a friend of a friend at a barbeque and his son argued with me as to what socialism was, and all this stuff, just as your comment alludes to.
but yet… they had no immigrant family, no circle of soviet friends, just a bunch of people who think that putting everything into the hands of the same people they curse when they dont have the power, is a great idea.
they were surprised to find out my family is from the workers paradise from conception, through execution, and escape… (other family came later).
and here is why i can never reach such:
Its like your arguing a dog is going to bite your friend because its real mean and always bites.
And your friend wont believe it because you cant tell him exactly where he is going to get bitten..
the first sentence is knowledge by knowing nature of something… (nature is denied by the left)
the second is the demand of specific knowledge before the fact as if god does not play dice and this is a Newtonian universe alone
there has never been many kinds of sociailism, there has only been one socialism, and different mixes of denial as to what it does or doesnt include and how it behaves or doesnt behave.
this is why they keep doing it over and over…
they think its different, but they always end up with the same thing!
is whats happening any different than the soviet changes? nope… maybe how, or how fast, or what form, but most are equivalent… including the use of councils and the naming of Czars, and the move to administrative rules over laws, and on and on.
hitlers socialism was no different than stalins
what was different is that hitler was working with a educated, developed, free state… and stalin was working with a uneducated peasantry, undeveloped lands, and coming from a Czarist state. Mao was more like stalin because china was more like russia than germany.
the only key difference between the national socialists and the international socialists is what?
which of the two would you think wants the whole world more than the other?
Geoffrey Britain, you ask what country we could move to that is not a mess. Is that the question? We do have an option: federalism. States should challenge any federal roles that violate the 10th Amendment. It is time to end the power grab in DC isn’t it?
T Says:
Suppose I purchase a lawn mower and my neighbor asks to borrow it. Now a pure capitalist woudl say, “Sure, you can use it for $15/hr.”
no, a “capitalist” would not…
a marxist fantasy of a “greedy capitalist” would
money is not the only capital in the world, and mutually beneficial exchange is what capitalism is about.
your buying good will, commiseration, the good feeling in yourself, etc…
all have value just like dollars…
socialism was designed to put the genie of freedom back into the bottle for the aristocracy
Here is an excellent comment I saw earlier today at Ace of Spades:
What do you think of that, Art?
Mr. Frank nailed it with his first post.
Teachers, like my sister, live in a mentally socialist bubble.
It’s a flat world, wherein the level of output/ excellence means naught to personal outcomes: paycheck, awards, propagation of influence, etc.
Against that is our national ethos, well encapsulated in “How the West Was Won” — the film.
(This film was so influential it was parodied: Blazing Saddles. Most viewers of the latter don’t make the connection to the former — since it doesn’t get much air time, these days.)
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Mr. Frank’s comment on “taxes go[ing] up” betrays the wide spread notion that governments issuing fiat currency actually displace taxes in time. In other words: that the US Government is actually borrowing money — in real terms.
Such an artifice is pure illusion. It’s an illusion almost universally shared.
If you step back from the game board for a moment, consider the following thought experiment:
You’re playing Monopoly. (TM) But in this particular session, the kid with the role of Banker has unrestricted access to currency. No other player does.
He can spend it in the Now — or use it to cover debts in any amount when they come due, in the future.
Is he really playing the same game anymore?
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THAT’S what eludes virtually everyone. The currency issuing party (the Federal Government) is not on the same playing field, whatsoever.
It does not borrow money, not at all. For it never has to repay its ‘borrowings’ in real terms.
All other parties in the game, foreign or domestic, private or public, must handle their debt repayments with monies they cannot print into existence.
It is a god of the money world. It’s above and beyond the rules. All hearings are held in its courts — under its laws — and administered by its officials.
At every level, it’s not like any other player.
Fiat issuing central governments function as stars in their own planetary systems.
The US Federal Government functions as the co-ordinating Black Hole at the center of the Milky Way Galaxy. All other suns/ stars orbit around it. It is the master co-ordinator of the modern economic universe.
Should the US Dollar be destroyed by the Soetoro maladministration more blood will flow than spilt by all other tyrants in history. For such an event must necessarily flat-line international trade. The consequence to global comity would be vast — beyond reckoning.
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Well, since Uncle Sam is not a true borrowing party…
How can it displace consumption ( borrow now, pay later ) across time?
IT CAN’T
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All fiat issuing central governments have a unique equation: for them, and them alone:
Spending = Taxation
It is an illusion that Barry is borrowing.
Instead, he is printing money.
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The next equation you must master:
Government money printing = Hyper-inflation of the currency.
This is definitional, The ONLY issue is the rate of hyper-inflation. Uncle Sam has been hyper-inflating since 1914. Hence, the general price level has risen drastically over the last 99-years. But, it’s been a mild hyper-inflation.
Originally, the hyper-inflation was extremely mild — as the gold standard was still in place. What happened was that ever so gradually, the price level overtook the cost of extracting gold.
(FYI, one of the most significant ore extraction techniques of all time was exponentially advancing during those decades: the floatation process — also the cyanide process.)
Rather than follow every twist and turn: we can cut to the chase: 1971 all pretense of linking the US Dollar to gold was abandoned, followed by the re-permission to privately own gold.
It’s only at the end of the road, when the price level is blatantly
sailing out of sight, that one and all finally agree that hyper-inflation has arrived.
Actually, other than the tempo, nothing has changed in all that time.
Blatant money printing always occurs when a governments conventional power of collecting taxes falls short — while its imperative to spend soars.
Lacking the ability to tax conventionally — it debases the currency — which is a wealth tax on every asset nominated in the currency — particularly debt-assets.
Hence, the first to hit the wall are insurance companies. They hold most of their assets as debts: bonds, debentures, notes, mortgages — and cash in the bank. Their liabilities are due at current price levels — if they are a casualty company.
All merchants that extend credit — like contractors, wholesalers get beat up and destroyed. Weimar Germany’s merchant class had to be re-booted. You wouldn’t believe how cheaply one could have bought Daimler-Benz — all of it. (Henry Ford could’ve bought it with his cash in the till.)
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It’s this Wealth Tax that has destroyed Wall Street. When re-nominated in gold/oil/food the S&P have been cut in half already — and are headed far, far lower.
ZIRP is clipping the 401-Ks by 6% per annum — compounded. So, no separate tax against them is necessary. Five-years is a 26.6% hair-cut. The Federal Reserve is on record as intending to hold to ZIRP until 2016. That would bring the hair-cut to 42.7% ish.
At the same time, it’s destroying the SS Trust Fund’s assets — in real terms. The inflation adjustment to payouts is being held way, way low, of course.
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So, the matter at hand is whether taxes will be collected up front — or as a destruction of the currency/ a wealth tax.
more than half (53%) of Democrats or Democrat-leaners say they have a positive attitude toward socialism.
“You can say, I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one…”
Unfortunately true. To change the number significantly, you’d have to replace “dreamer” with “grownup.”
“…just a bunch of people who think that putting everything into the hands of the same people they curse when they dont have the power, is a great idea.”
This is the core of the problem we face. “A government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take from you everything you have.” With various changes in syntax, this sentiment has been repeated down through the ages. It remains true today.
I think the dimension is “regression to the mean,” or for the religiously inclined, “original sin.” No need to invoke immigration as the engine of destruction; simple procreation, over enough generations, inevitably generates the social detritus that will destroy the best thought out polity. We each carry within ourselves, in our DNA, the stain that ineluctably draws mankind back toward mediocrity, hubris, and misery. We are shackled to perdition by four nucleotides.
Did you know that Yoko Ono refused Ben Stein the rights to use Lennon’s Imagine in Stein’s film.
Classic. Even better than Lennon being in New York to avoid UK taxes.
Btw, what was Mark Chapman thinking? When he smoked Lennon, Yoko Ono was standing a few feet away, and would’ve been a freebie at that point. I’ll never understand some people.
I’m reminded of a conversation I had with a very dear cousin (now gone), who had been a member of numerous collectives. She was describing her ideal (collectivist) society, how all possessions would be shared (never mind how they got there to begin with).
Good God, not this again. It’s almost as if the Oneida commune, New Harmony, the kibbutzes, etc. never existed. Will these people ever learn?
Noop.
T, 3:20 pm – “You seem to be describing communism rather than socialism here. Communism is govt ownership of assets, socialism is govt control of assets that might be owned by others.”
no… thats called a “false distinction”
its created because people do not understand the point of which ownership is defined any more…
this is why Rockefeller said:
“I want to own nothing, but control everything.”
its why McKinnon said:
“Feminism, Socialism, and Communism are one in the same, and Socialist/Communist government is the goal of feminism.” – Catharine A. MacKinnon, Toward a Feminist Theory of the State (First Harvard University Press, 1989), p.10
they know what you dont. they are not tricked by the game they play on and with society. so when you go to the horses mouth, they admit and talk without the pretense. as you go lower down, you get more personal versions in which each person accepts the whole, but doesnt.
the easiest example of this personal version, personal god, etc… is with catholics vs Catholics.
(some even say little c vs big C!)
the catholic church has specific rules as to what a catholic does or doesnt do, believes or doesnt believe. your free to be a part, or not a part, but if your a part, then technically you have to adhere or at least try to adhere to the rules.
the personal version people change that in their heads and then still attend. so you have abortionists who go to catholic church, and don’t want to go down the block to sit in a protestant pew. or as with some politicians, they want to take sacrament. the church has specific rules as to what that is, and so they rewrite them to suit themselves in a personal edited version and still attend.
socialism in the masses is the same way.
their socialism doesn’t have coercion… at least not of the good people, the volk… but all such states have that. their socialism doesn’t have eugenics, or euthanasia, but all such states have that… (go ahead, figure out where ours is… hint, planned parenthood and medical rationing by age. the 30 day rule will wipe out the elderly)
there are only three forms..
capitalism
fascism
communism
once fascism became a pejorative, socialism took up its place. so when people say communism owns stuff, and socialists don’t… what they are really saying, but don’t know it is, socialists own everything, but socialist/capitalist hybrids called fascism allow the illusion of ownership.
the key here is that the fascists believed that people had individual skills and that they rose by those skills and so it would be best if you traded control for a semblance of freedom to retain their expertise and natural skills and be more productive for it. while the soviets murdered their own generals and nearly lost to hitler for it. they murdered the skilled and that, and then placed people. this is why the hitler machine has the reputation for clockwork and mechanics, and the Russians have a undying reputation of not being able to make much (and certainly not at six sigma level). yes those same people come to the usa and they can do it… heck, they are often peeved at the lack of drive of americans!
when i say people dont know their history, i mean they dont know it. even if they know dates, times, names, and places… they dont know it. as its more than facts, its how people lived.
so if agrarian uneducated populations become communist, what do educated modern societies become? fascist… (china has become fascist technically).
this is why everything that is happening is paralleling Germany so much.
i explained that the idea that the term Nazi meant
National Socialist German Workers’ Party is a farce…
Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, NSDAP
with so many letters you would be surprised what you can spell out… but why would something abbreviated as NSDAP become nazi? their process of taking over was nationalization – nationalisierung
that is, rather than take full ownership and kick all the workers out as the soviets did and do, they brought the ownership under the auspices of government and the workers (mostly) remained at their jobs (eventually the unfavored scapegoats of that system were legally pushed out. which is the same here, as women, minorities and lgbt are the volk)
so they nationalize transportation
they nationalized the auto industry and were told what kind of cars to make
they nationalized energy, and told that industry what to do
just have to look, we have nationalized school, nationalized auto, nationalized education loans, nationalized medical, nationalized energy, nationalized banking.
and what about currency printing and buying your own debt? a unpatriotic leader who would not miss changing what he never loved?
Next is to force consolidation now that gliechshaltung has been reached… (ie, cant go back, demographics and feminism prevent it).
“consolidation” is driving small businesses to sell to larger businesses or go out of business, and then nationalize the larger businesses as the leaders collude with the state and enjoy the perks and ability to associate and have access to political leaders.
there will also be more offerings for the national service… and other such stuff.
heck… Father Couglins Social Justice is being said and no one gets what it means or leads to.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Coughlin
Early in his career Coughlin was a vocal supporter of Franklin D. Roosevelt and his early New Deal proposals, before later becoming a harsh critic of Roosevelt as too friendly to bankers. In 1934 he announced a new political organization called the National Union for Social Justice. He wrote a platform calling for monetary reforms, the nationalization of major industries and railroads, and protection of the rights of labor. The membership ran into the millions, resembling the Populist movement of the 1890s.
After hinting at attacks on Jewish bankers, Coughlin began to use his radio program to issue antisemitic commentary, and later to support at least some of the policies of Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini. The broadcasts have been called “a variation of the Fascist agenda applied to American culture”.
His chief topics were political and economic rather than religious, with his slogan being Social Justice, first with, and later against, the New Deal. Many American bishops as well as the Vatican wanted him silenced, but it was the Roosevelt administration that finally forced the cancellation of his radio program and forbade the dissemination through the post of his newspaper, Social Justice.
Social Justice (periodical)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Justice_%28periodical%29
Obama: If you look at the victories and failures of the civil rights movement and its litigation strategy in the court. I think where it succeeded was to invest formal rights in previously dispossessed people, so that now I would have the right to vote. I would now be able to sit at the lunch counter and order as long as I could pay for it I’d be o.k. But, the Supreme Court never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth, and of more basic issues such as political and economic justice in society.
rickl Says: What do you think of that, Art?
its what i said would happen even before Obama was elected. but i couldn’t tell you where the dog would bite, i just knew he would.
here is the key. it all depends on what kind of landing they want, and how stupid they are.
there is a very special kind of stupid that is among very smart people. its very different than the kind of stupid that not so smart people exhibit.
as any caddy or general will tell you, look at the lay of the land and how things are placed.
and i have been pretty clear about that, and how that lays out, but peer across it.
They are using an old play book, not the more modern one. This playbook does not take into account the abilities of other states, the penetration of other states, the weakness the moves they make to get what they want cause, and so on and so on and so on.
yes, Obama CAN declare power over all, but then what does Russia, china, or even the other western countries then decide? to destroy the fascist uprising and nip another Germany before she acts?
most of my discussions have always been about what happened and how it relates, but not about the differences. the differences were inconsequential to the process, but had everything to do with how things panned out. sounds contradictory i know.
but look this way. whether Russia was agrarian, martian, or not, didn’t matter to the acquisition of Germany by Hitler other than they were in no position to attack or play games.
the lesson of Indonesia, Russia and china, and the dead generals, is one of later time when the changing of the guard was affected by someone else not part of the plan jumping in.
analytically speaking there are key differences that affect the outcome, but not before
one key difference is whether the rises were autonomous or assisted, that’s a difference between master and servant.
another is that other states have interests in doing things and have long reach and collude
another is that wars cost, and we would have to borrow to pay, and… well… think martians might help there?
for instance, say the student revolution of the 60s swept the nation and became a fast one, not a long slow one
as things were in complete chaos and so on, what could other states do? invade? cripple? etc?
now fast forward that to today… what could other states do? invade? they did… cripple? they can… very easily.
unbenowest to the players on the american side of the board is the utter fragility of a modern capitalist state.
its not a state that can take war. its efficiencies cause errors in time and supply to ripple out to huge messes that would not have happened 30 years before that level of coordination.
but also, there are other very unsettling parts of this story…
which has to do with the general health, and education, COHESION, and ability of the population who would all be part of what happens and what responses can happen. the lack of the cultural knowledge, the family histories with the lessons in how to live, or can food, or fix things, which has been shorted out and negated by those popular fronts, create a fragile population when once was a robust and tough one. (and fecund one)
if something happened, a lot more material would be needed in supplies, and the point is, we dont have the manufacturing here to that capacity, and the other side does. by many times… it also has huge resources its been building up in things line phd science, engineering, computational experts and so on.
so when you throw that in, you either have a smart cookie that wont grab the helm and will just let this play out slowly over a long time and keep the sheilds up scotty… or you have a dumb bunny who will do it, have disorder, which then puts is in a weak spot for some action or event by other countries, that then we cant respond to things as our fragile system with JIT warehousing, and so on just goes pfffft..
right now a single strike in California is affecting the corridor for about 40% of all US imports…
what i am seeing and have always seen are suckers being set up to fail during the process they think they are winning with the help of those who are playing them for suckers. i dont think they are cognizant of the precarious position they have put things in (unless they are outright betrayers to another country), and so will not stop themselves from getting into a situation that will get away from them and we wont be able to do anything about it for years IF we can at all.
but then again. what do i know?
‘What is far, far stranger–and really is a surprise–is that 27% of Republicans or Republican-leaners also had a positive attitude toward socialism.’
What is really strange is that both parties say they hope for socialism but work hard for facism. Go figure.
‘What is far, far stranger–and really is a surprise–is that 27% of Republicans or Republican-leaners also had a positive attitude toward socialism.’
Only 27% of Republicans have a positive view of socialism? Now that’s a surprise! I would have guessed more like 80% based on their policies compared to about 100% for Democrats.
The chart speaks for itself. The majority of people don’t know the least bit about socialism, capitalism, conservativism,or liberalism. They know what things they want and whichever candidate offers the most of those things, they want him. They’re too self absorbed to pay attention to what’s happening as long as their immediate needs are being met. Worrying about all this stuff is too much trouble, dude.
steve,
re: “States should challenge any federal roles that violate the 10th Amendment. It is time to end the power grab in DC isn’t it?”
Challenging vs winning are not necessarily the same. Certainly it is the constitutionally appropriate challenge but given the current make-up of SCOTUS, a far from certain strategy.
But Obama is expected to nominate 2-3 Supreme Court justices in this term. That takes place in the Senate where a simple majority of 51 votes confirms the nominee. Obama easily has those votes.
Obama nominees are certain to be far left, what then of 10th amendment challenges?
Baltimoron Says:
“Same goes for capitalism. Are people thinking of Adam Smith’s free enterprise or of the oxymoronic “crony capitalism.””
I don’t even like the term… its a socialist term for free market… a false concept.
I think there is a confusion between ‘socialism’ and ‘welfare state’. The latter was the invention of Bismarck, and many early socialists admired Wilhelmine Germany as progressive on that account. But I don’t think it is socialism in the sense of state ownership of the means of production and distribution. If that confusion of terms is taken into account the survey results don’t seem that contradictory.
T Says:
“I think the implicit moral high ground of socialism for many people is an extension of this idea of loaning one’s neighbor a lawn mower.”
Ding ding ding; yes exactly. I think Marx threw a lot of people off with his atheism arguments. It doesn’t jive with what most of us know about socialist experiments before Marx… aside from them all failing they were religious in nature. My point being; a lot of the cultural groundwork for socialism being part of western culture were due to the Catholic church (not to bash; but they were the only game in town in the periods I’m talking about; eventually it also went its way into protestant groups once they existed… and from both of them they have a foothold in our culture today even).
So anyway; a socialist type of communal moneyless living was Christian ideal for a long time (along with voluntary poverty in favor of sharing with others and the poor). It still exists in many people who are not even leftists / jerks.
Anyway; Marx’s game was to try to co-opt this religious impulse / cultural energy. He pandered to the proletariat because he wanted a modern weavers revolt. If your wondering where the socialists got the sickle symbol this has all been a hint… Whereas Marx’s apologists claim his talk about historical eras means he created sociology.. I think the truth was he was rewording the old German sleeping emperor myths that involved three eras… placing his vision of socialism in place of the return of Fredrick…
ShesnotquitewhotIwanted
Feltherupbutfelldownjilted
T Says:
“You seem to be describing communism rather than socialism here. Communism is govt ownership of assets, socialism is govt control of assets that might be owned by others.”
American socialists call socialism communism to deflect / protect the term socialist… Communist was the name of a socialist political party; not an ideology.
A few examples… The name of the USSR, the name of the USSR’s legal system, what they put on their money… what the leaders refereed to themselves as… the names of the other east block countries. What people in them called the system they lived under… blaw blaw blaw. The answers are Socialist / socialism.
American political terms are totally screwed up.. mostly to protect the left and blame everything on radical right wingers… who would be called liberal in most of the rest of the world….
Geoffrey Britain, I’d say the Republicans should stop playing along in DC and start transforming themselves into the party of the states. They should be preparing states to push for increased autonomy. They should help states work together effectively in groups to challenge laws that clearly are outside the bounds of the 10th amendment. They should be planning how to take over more legislatures and governorships. If they take control of 2/3 they can call an Article V convention and propose amendments or a new constitution. If they control 3/4 they can pass these changes. All of this can be done independently of the Supreme Court. The states can change DC from the outside.
Steve:
I agree with you, but the Republican Party is not going to do that. They are only interested in keeping as much power for themselves as they can inside the beltway.
DirtyJobsGuy Says:
“Kids TV is controlled by PBS socialists”
on a positive parting note; I have a young child so I spent a couple years watching PBS cartoons… and I didn’t find much to not like (re: not much political stuff and/or stuff that bothered me). I actually came away upset with the non PBS cartoons for being all junk food.
Kids will obviously watch a cartoon that slips some learning / knowledge info into them… why can’t the network shows slip some in too… I mean you can push toys and explain gravity.. or how street addresses work.. or whatever…
rickl, at some point Republicans may collectively awaken to the fact that the game has stopped working in DC and that there is no hope for them to turn things around. At that point they have to stop what they are doing and look for another strategy.
Geoffrey Britain Says:
“Challenging vs winning are not necessarily the same. Certainly it is the constitutionally appropriate challenge but given the current make-up of SCOTUS, a far from certain strategy.”
Obama and the left ignore laws they don’t like. We just have to get used to doing the same.
They can say Obamacare is constitutional or that they are all the King of Spain… Either way I don’t care and I refuse to comply.
I think the key for the federalism movement to take off is to reframe the political debate not as left vs right but as state vs feds. If states can see a clear benefit to taking more control over their affairs (eg, lower taxes and less regulation for some states, bigger government for others) then they may join the effort whether they are red or blue.
Steve Says:
“taking more control over their affairs (eg, lower taxes and less regulation for some states, bigger government for others) then they may join the effort whether they are red or blue.”
The problem is this is similar to the ‘culture’ wars. The left has been pushing for a strong centralized state since FDR. They want to force everyone to be in on their plans…
thomass, I would argue the one-size-fits-all approach will never be accepted and cannot be imposed successfully. This is another reason the federalism approach may take off. As the screws tighten, people will look for a way out.
Move to China:
History has a curious way of turning received theories about it on their head. Having reached socialism first, bypassing advanced capitalism, China and Russia are on their reverse passage from socialism to capitalism. India too is in the midst of a transition from a planned to a market economy. Recent visits to China and Russia gave me an opportunity to compare these transitions. These comparisons are, of course, no more than the casual observations of a passing traveller.
A striking feature of China’s urban landscape is the hectic pace of construction. High-rise apartment and office blocks, factories, broad urban avenues, new metro lines, expressways, ports, airports and railroads are all being built at a dizzying pace. Not surprising for a country that has grown at double-digit rates for decades and continues to invest nearly half its GDP
http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2012-11-29/edit-page/35410297_1_china-and-russia-luxury-goods-gurgaon-manesar-industrial-belt
marblesp:
China is building like crazy, but a lot of it is in the form of “ghost cities” where nobody lives.
Also, much of their construction is shoddy and substandard. A number of schools collapsed in an earthquake a couple of years ago.
China’s housing bubble hasn’t popped yet. But it will.
China is not an example of free-market capitalism. Much of their economy is still directed by the government in top-down fashion.
If anyone’s counting on stashing away gold or silver, look up this from our history: Executive Order 6102.
Remember that ownership can be redefined as “hoarding,” if The People[TM] need what’s yours.
And the majority of Democrats don’t know their rear end from a post hole.
Steve Says:
November 30th, 2012 at 11:11 pm
I think the key for the federalism movement to take off is to reframe the political debate not as left vs right but as state vs feds. If states can see a clear benefit to taking more control over their affairs (eg, lower taxes and less regulation for some states, bigger government for others) then they may join the effort whether they are red or blue.
I agree wholeheartedly. I’ve been harping on this here in this blog for some time. Somehow, we’ve got to make the lefties in states with large urban populations see that adherence to the 10th amendment is to their benefit.
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blert: But, it’s been a mild hyper-inflation.
Curious. What does the prefix “hyper-” add to that phrase? Is that different from mild inflation, or hyper-inflation?
ROTFLMAO!
A striking feature of China’s urban landscape is the hectic pace of construction. High-rise apartment and office blocks, factories, broad urban avenues, new metro lines, expressways, ports, airports and railroads are all being built at a dizzying pace. Not surprising for a country that has grown at double-digit rates for decades and continues to invest nearly half its GDP
whoever wrote that doesnt know jack about china but is promoting the party line of the new capitalism. no. its facism… so is russia… the middle ground between capitalism (free market) and completely planned living (communism/socialism)…
to them that choose it its the best of both world, the economics of capitalism, with its productivity, and the false morality play and aristocracy of socialism (where someone has to take up the charge to review everything to make sure the rules are followed as they are not natural to living things)
the communists are all cargo cult sociopathic (no sympathy, all surface). for 100 years they have duped people by playing with false indicators they use to determine things.
ie. the us state has no right to take taxes for the purpose of controlling outcomes, nor in arbitrarily helping some people over other people they ignore using arbitrary amounts limited only by the ire of the public.
i have repeated over and over but its implication doesnt usually sink in till after the fact. what makes things totaliarian, what makes a state fascist, what makes is communist.
for most, they are waiting for symbology and a over show of unquestionable force to tell them.
what if the other avoids that, can they still be what they are without the signaling symbology or the public display of uquestionable force?
i mean, all you have to do is have elections like wrestling matches which easily fooled millions into thinking costumed mooks doing crippling moves that in real life wont work against an equal (they always pick on an unequal to show it works), are really fighting… compared to Olympic wrestling
a surface veneer of contest is enough to convince most its a contest. conspiracy explained as cooperation, is enough to convince most its a good thing. close political races convince people that the race is real (when you throw a game, don’t throw it with a score of 100 to 10, 55 53 is better)
in this way, you can then move the bar of the description. oh, welfare isnt socialism even though it is. what do you look at to decide whether its socialism? where its put and how you like it, or where it comes from?
you see, the bleeding hearts are looking at where its put with blinders on to everything else. disparate impact gives a scientific veneer to why its ok to be sociopathic and have no empathy for the people who provide you things you like and make your life more convenient (how would you like to buy everything you own from a sears catalog? what if there wasn’t a sears catalog?)
they do not look to where the money is obtained to define it, and so they can define every part of it away over time as there is no fixed definition and no end of misery to want to succor with greenbacks
however, if you use the old definitions which i have yet to hear written by anyone here (including me), and so i know they certainly have not read or known that. (right? or are they waiting too?)
here is the best definition:
socialism is the removal of value from a person by another person by threat of harm as the presumed means to help a third person
Without the threat of harm its called charity…
thats it…
now… is welfare socialism? yes… because the state will kill you if you dont pay your taxes and refuse up to the last of it. no?
is state schools socialism? yes…
is using money to change habits socialism?
is this a communist state? no.
so i guess its capitalism and socialism… yes?
and if its capitalism socialism, you are all FASCISTS and never knew it your whole lives.
you were all waiting for these personal signposts of a false definition to let you know, and as long as you didnt see them, you were not what you didnt want to be.
but for most of all your lives you have had socialist eugenics and didnt care as they called it something else. but you never used the simple absolute definition of – are you killing a life that will be as the means of the presumed good of many?
you get wrapped up with who decides personhood, what the others life will be, whose burdened, everything BUT the point.
again… as i said above.
your waiting for them to tell you exactly where the dog will bite you or else you dont see wha it is. in the case of abortion, they get you to look so closely that you dont see that the point at which the dog bites has nothing to do with whether it bit.
finger to ass, head to toe, if it bit anyplace, it bit.
conception to birth, if it bit, it dies, and no person.
who taught us that the right way to evaluate it is by its minutea if its larger picture is unarguable (abortion), or at the larger picture if the minutea is unarguable (redistribution)
there is no way to avoid the administrative state without saying, i dont want it administrated.
that’s ALL totalitarianism is, the administrated state. that’s what aristocracy is, the administrated state who choses its leaders through sustained dynasty (which might be why they want your children dead or feral).
all those theories and ideas of organization have nothing to do with whether its bit… they are not the definitions but the acceptance of the definition and the idea of how to develope and make and establish it. so if they try to establish it by the same path as before, including swasticas and fashionable leatherwear, your in opposition. but if they do it a different way, your arguing synonyms are not synonyms and the administrative state is not going to be the administrative state, whether having stars on hats, bit cheerio Os, swasticas, or even no signature. all that is cargo cult fashion trappings. the substance is the administration of everything. the establishment of a hard frozen heirarchy, otherwise known as a feudal state.
and just like a farm, they need the women to do the work as they are more docile. they use gays because they are less fertile. just look to the chinese dynasties. the longest lived ones in the universes history as far as we know. so what do you think the model is for the people that desire this enough to actually work with others that desire this and collude with those that have this would be?
its that freaking simple..
but everyone wants it more complicated so they can choose from the complexity the outcome THEY want in a personal way, and never conclude what it is against their own desire, and so have to act.
to take money at threat of death to manipulate outcomes and not pay for needs is socialism. to use redistribution to change birth rates and provide extermination services on demand so the redistributive taking doenst prevent the extermination, and what are you doing?
naturally if you dont have enough to have a kid, you dont have enough to pay to not have it. right? nature insured it would survive whether you liked it or not. but under redistribution and welfare, if you don’t have enough to have a kid, you do have enough thanks to money taken by threat of death, to terminate.
you see, once you are owned, then they can cull.
they have culled the society of the people that vote for freedom, and established it, and have allowed more others into the mix to dilute that for the purpose of more controllable people who are less intelligent who will murder the more intelligent to prove they are not less intelligent (an act of less intelligence as the smarter nice people they kill, are not the smarter bad people that tell them to).
an army of idiots unpaid by their masters risking their lives and everything for a cause that is not for them, and they are geniuses… like the women who think that not having babies means they are the future, dead people are not the future of anything. but they cant put that together, they are waiting for a horn to blow, the clouds to part, and heaven and immortality to present unto them their reward on earth.
and every one of the useful idiots thinks they are part of the royalty who will have a better life when those others next to them in line are taken away. harumppfh… as they certainly wont take them away, they personally know how important they are (like the 100 million did)
Cull
Culling is the process of removing breeding animals from a group based on specific criteria. This is done either to reinforce certain desirable characteristics or to remove certain undesirable characteristics from the group. For livestock and wildlife alike, culling usually implies the killing of the removed animals.
Zachriel says: Curious. What does the prefix “hyper-” add to that phrase? Is that different from mild inflation, or hyper-inflation?
oh yes it does…
we used to live at say a 5% inflation rate reflecting a 5% devaluation of the currency… give or take.
when i was a kid, 10% was not uncommon…
would you think that 50% to 100% a year (ie. prices doubling in 6 months) to be hyper inflation?
nope.. thats plain old inflation..
hyper inflation is you get paid 2 times a day because the prices go up between the morning and the after noon. so they cut you a pay check for lunch so that you can get out there and buy something before the price goes up for dinner.
THATS what guys like me have been warning against while watching more important jello conversations go on.
ie. the more they print the more they have to print the more they dilute. but then, what happens when the people who hold one trillionth of the value of a country whose value has deflated due to no manufacturing and so on (which was part of its value and future value)?
http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/Hyperinflation.html
Hyperinflation reduces an economy’s efficiency by driving people away from monetary transactions and toward barter. In a normal economy, using money in exchange is highly efficient. During hyperinflations people prefer to be paid in commodities in order to avoid the inflation tax. If they are paid in money, they spend that money as quickly as possible. In Germany, workers were paid twice per day and would shop at midday to avoid further depreciation of their earnings. Hyperinflation is a wasteful game of “hot potato” in which people use up valuable resources trying to avoid holding on to paper money.
and those without skills who cant make things at home, iron clothes, and so on… cant survive… the state cant pay for them, and there is no charity in the above scenario.
lots of other stuff too.. but most argue, not ask questions as they think that by winning, they have changed tomorrow. but all they did was stop acting in the real world, once in their head it wont happen.
The reason we have skewed perceptions of socialism and capitalism is because Madison Ave marketing has overwhelmed intelligent debate as a way to inform the public about politics.
Our first clue should have been how GWB was hated by people who couldn’t even name the mayor of their town or governor of their state.
Such mindsets are only achieved by succesfully folding the realm of politics into the world of fashion.
by the way, if we go to barter, who survives?
and how does barter get food into cities of 8 million?
Povolzhye famine
note that the key difference in the world views is that the people growing should starve if that’s what the state needs of them, and their attempt to survive is an act against the state.
remember that you scapegoats who are not volk and female, tanned, or sexually dysphoric…
because with the changes that are here duplicating the changes applied to jews in full socialist states (not states in transition), the outcomes are what will follow.
or is every one crazy thinking that doing the same thing will lead to a different outcome for the same peoples?
this is why a synonym is not allowed to be a synonym
ie. they take away education, but since they dont do it the same way with the same declaration, this must be a more moral and valid and acceptable taking.
which is why the big stink in socialist medicine in the UK has been the starving of babies…
if it was some real humanity they would at least get an air embolism. its cheaper than 10 days of starvation and curling up to die… no?
but administrations have no empathy, they are sociopathic even if the people in them aren’t. and if the people in them ARE, they are not limited.
not only has never again not been kept
its been years to decades its been dropped and people had been exterminated.. with the victims fighting the facts. note that the socialists and progressives aren’t fighting that, they claim its essential to their plan, from the weathermen to college feminist progressives. and those that oppose them too… the only people that think otherwise are the people being exterminated… big jokes on them, eh?
oh… i forgot to mention.
someone above said the first communes were religious. most were.
but remember, moses harmon had a sex commune socialism.. which is where feminism comes from.
after all, if your goal in life is to h ave unlimited sex and perversion like a rat hitting a lever to get cocaine, then your nintendo happy set is going to have to stop being so damn valuable, and start debasing herself. or where would that plan go?
so women are the nintendo set for the wealthy men as their own mates are unsutable by their own desires to make them so to punish them for beating on them when we were all mice running around under dinosaurs feet and before that according to the college courses…
if you dont believe me, ask dominique strauss kahn or anyone that attended his and others bunga bunga parties, of the people of enron who had their own bunga bunga parties, or the hollywood hotties we fuond out had sex parties, or the producer of the next generation being a sex addict who had parties with condoms on tables, or the senator from ny who sent nude pictures, or a president who got a blow job, or the congressman who had a prostitute boy friend he employed, or the mlk who was a sex addict, and on and on and on and on and on i could list for an hour if i really tried. (and i never even got to micheal jackson, gary glitter, a certain film producer, soon yi, the recent actor that suicided)
i also left out cougers, pulling trains, tram stamps, free sex aids given on the street, pole dancing as exercise for young girls, etc…
sure sounds like moses harmons idea of heaven.
they dont like Xbox, they want the sexualized woman, who will not balk at their desires.
and feminism and all this stuff gave it to them, and not only that, but eliminated the competition they would have, which makes the women even more willing to debase themselves.
and note that like sanger, harmon was into eugenics.
when his paper lucifer bringer of light (lucifer being a undefined god and so they defined him as permitting sex and perversion for good reasons and so liked his style the way saul alinsky did), became a eugenicist rag like sangers, and the feminist movements
blert: But, it’s been a mild hyper-inflation.
Zachriel: Curious. What does the prefix “hyper-” add to that phrase? Is that different from mild inflation, or hyper-inflation?
Artfldgr: we used to live at say a 5% inflation rate reflecting a 5% devaluation of the currency… give or take.
Perhaps you didn’t understand the question. Blert seemingly indicated that any monetary inflation is “hyper-inflation”. We’re trying to understand what adding the prefix means.
Artfldgr: hyper inflation is you get paid 2 times a day because the prices go up between the morning and the after noon.
Yes. Most people would consider that hyper-inflation, but that’s not what has been occurring.
Artfl dgr,
Your make two points above. The first was that capitalism is an exchange of value, and needn’t be monetary. I will cede that point. My illustration was intended for the discussion of the economics of capitalism.
Your point gets to the heart of a very important and understated issue; that capitalism involves a voluntary exchange (whether tangible, economic or emphemeral) while socialism/communism involves a mandated assessment. This can’t be repeated often or loud enough.
Secondly, being in the financial services induistry I fully understand the distinction of ownership v. control. I agree, but offer that it is not as precisely defined as you make out. Even using you aforementioned important point about an exchange of values, in a socialist world there still seems to be some “wiggle room” for that exchange to take place, while under a truly communistic approach such wiggle room disappears.
In the former case, one can still find a way to work around the socialist mandates (to tweak them so to speak). In the latter case one cannot. I submit that socialism is more like a rock in a stream bed (water can still find a way around when necessary) while communsim is more like a dam where the water output is controlled absolutely.
Now some may say that this comparison is just two different degrees of the same concept, but IMO this is an important distinction in practical application and fact. IMO socialism still permits, however grudgingly or unconsciously, the existence of capitalist execution, communism does not.
Steve Says:
“This is another reason the federalism approach may take off. As the screws tighten, people will look for a way out.”
Agree; but don’t expect the left to join. They’ve been the people on the other side of this since day 1. They were calling federalist racists long before Obama.
marblesp Says:
“Move to China:”
China actually hits my definition of Fascism. They’ve merged the state with nationalism to the point that any criticism of the government is associated with being anti-Chinese. They’re picking fights with their neighbors to give their public causes. If they cross any lines the US will get sucked in. I wouldn’t recommend going there.
China is better suited to leftists. They love the place. The government tells ‘the people’ what to do; and they do it.
Zachriel Says:
“Curious. What does the prefix “hyper-” add to that phrase? Is that different from mild inflation, or hyper-inflation?”
In hyper prices rise every day so your paid daily so you can afford food.
In mild hyper you don’t; but you’ve money has lost almost all of its value. Might take two years for something to become 90% more expensive… but it happens.
thomass Says:
December 1st, 2012 at 12:39 pm
Also, the inflation is moving along an exponential curve. It doesn’t seem too bad…at first.
(I refuse to respond to Zachriel directly, as I consider him to be a “time waster” species of troll.)
Artfldgr Says:
“money is not the only capital in the world, and mutually beneficial exchange is what capitalism is about.”
That really is a left wing blind spot. They really don’t get the differences between money, capital, income, and wealth. They confuse all four of the terms at random. They just did it again with the Obama ‘the 1% doesn’t pay their fair share thing’. The answer was always ‘your confusing wealth and income’ or ‘your confusing capital and income’. The exception being Buffet; ‘your confusing OUR risky investments with someone famous for beating the odds on such investments’ (while also confusing capital gains tax and income tax)….
rickl Says:
“Also, the inflation is moving along an exponential curve. It doesn’t seem too bad…at first.”
Yes… and hardly anyone has had raises in 5 years. This had the effect of ‘slowing inflation’ in terms of the percent per year while at the same time hitting the public with the same de facto loss of purchasing power as higher percentage inflation would cause.
“(I refuse to respond to Zachriel directly, as I consider him to be a “time waster” species of troll.)”
I know. I just wanted to explain the difference for others. It was an interesting question.
thomass,
As for Warren Buffet, for those in the financial world he is relatively transparent, and the transparency is quite linear.
He advocates higher taxes on wealth because then the wealthy will take greater pains to make use of tax avoidance strategies. His company, Berkshire-Hathaway, has major investments in insurance companies which are a prime vehicles for tax avoidance strategies (death benefits are not income taxable on the federal or state level).
Thus, the higher the impending current taxes, the more logical it is to make use of tax deferral and tax exemption strategies which are provided by the companies in which Berkshire-Hathaway invests.
Many of these strategies push an asset to succeeding generations. Only the truly wealthy, who have more than enough to live on now, can really mine these generation stretching strategies. The Kennedys, being able to stretch Joe Kennedys wealth down through three or four generations are a prime excample of this; all of which was done in an era of a 55% estate tax.
Again, all of this simply translates into a healthier bottom-line for Berkshire-Hathaway and, thus, for Warren Buffet.
Our first clue should have been how GWB was hated by people who couldn’t even name the mayor of their town or governor of their state.
A bit OT, but amusing. Talking with my (sole) liberal friend, I deprecated The Messiah’s political experience of a few months in the Senate. He responded by saying Obama for a number of yearshad been a state senator, an important position. I then asked him who OUR state senator was.
Crickets.
thomass: Might take two years for something to become 90% more expensive… but it happens.
Price inflation has been running at an annual rate of only about 2-3%.
http://inflationdata.com/inflation/Inflation_Rate/HistoricalInflation.aspx
Maybe on your planet.
Go grocery shopping much? Seen the price on a pound of bacon or a pack of hot dogs?
Bacon – $5-7 a pound; dogs on sale @ $4.99.
Yep, 2-3% inflation. Just like the unemployment is only 7.9%./s Do you think anybody’s going to go against the Owebama and his destructive schemes? The Fellatio Media? Anybody?
Oh, and I think that chart is not factoring in the depreciation of the dollar thanks to Precedent Downgrade (trillion dollar deficits), so the inflation is hitting harder than your insouciance allows.
“The way to crush the bourgeoisie [read: middle class] is to grind them between the millstones of taxation and inflation.” ~ Vladimir Illyich Ulanov
Massive taxation (OwebamaCare), check.
Inflation, check.
Gee somebody seems to be following a plan, wouldn’t you say?
Zachriel: Price inflation has been running at an annual rate of only about 2-3%.
RickZ: Maybe on your planet.
On planets with economists anyway.
http://www.bls.gov/cpi/
Zachriel Says:
“Price inflation has been running at an annual rate of only about 2-3%.”
You didn’t ask that. You asked what the step below hyper inflation was.
Also; that [government] figure is bogus. Items we buy week to week (food, gas, electricity) have gone up much more. Yes; housing is down. Small appliances are flat. That doesn’t translate into any benefit for the vast majority of people.
The real rate is closer to 5% imo.. plus I’m not hearing about anyone getting their 4% a year raises.. so purchasing power is going down… quickly. We are past the halfway point of having a lost decade.. like Japan’s.
Inflation has been more or less continuous since we permitted the currency to float. That is a 2% per annum inflation would over 50 years be 100% cumulative. Presumably, this is the reason for increasing minimum wage and other compensatory “COLA” policies, which serve to further distort the economy, and undermine our ability to manage risk.
Something to consider while observing the effects of inflation are moderating or mitigating factors. The production of goods by slave-like labor (i.e. compensation below the cost-of-living), services provided by slave-like labor (i.e. unequal treatment before the law), financial and political schemes to redistribute risk.
While the effects of inflation are not generally perceivable, in the medical and pharmaceutical sectors they are overtly recognizable. For instance, the rule is that medical services, but also pharmaceuticals, are compensated through insurance and welfare (i.e. redistributive schemes) programs. The cause of unaffordable health care is primarily caused by inflation in our economy. The present solution (i.e. health care “reform”) is to permit inflation to progress while simultaneously redistributing risk to a larger pool. This approach has two problems. First, it treats symptoms while ignoring causes and permits the problems to fester. Second, through dissociation of risk, it sponsors corruption.
Our society has progressed to treat symptoms while ignoring causes because the former is profitable in perpetuity. Furthermore, there is a perverse incentive to manufacture problems when causes are negligible and symptoms are controllable.
Sure, that’s all we want. A “mixed system”. And “Every major developed economy is a mixed system”. But we were a mixed system in 2008 when the bottom fell out. And we were a mixed system in 2000 when again the bottom fell out. We have been a mixed system since FDR if not before. But what everyone is REALLY asking for is to increase the rate of this creep towards a totally socialist system and one which will no longer be a mixed system. By the way Greece was a mixed system as is Italy and Spain. You can include France in that list as well. But wait! But wait! I thought you were trying to convince us a mixed system was a good thing. What it sounds like is that a mixed system is the springboard to a failed system.
“Our society has progressed to treat symptoms while ignoring causes because the former is profitable in perpetuity. Furthermore, there is a perverse incentive to manufacture problems when causes are negligible and symptoms are controllable.”
And thus we find medical and educational costs rising like a rocket to the moon.
Zachriel: Envision what it is like to live in Zimbabwe. http://tinyurl.com/69vz9e
Excellent, SunnyD!
I can see that clarification is necessary.
In today’s world there are two dominant mechanisms for creating money:
1) Commercial/ private lending (The animal spirits of the free wills of men cause an increase in banking deposits/ the money supply.)
It is critical that you understand that the loans are created FIRST — the private sector is creating money.
2) Federal Government money printing (The political spirits of the elected officialdom cause an increase in the money supply by direct and indirect, flat-out, money printing.)
The first mechanism causes the general price level to rise. Lacking any linkage to gold, silver or alternate specie, the money supply is no longer nailed to a cross of gold. As history shows, when the animal spirits run hot, the money supply can metastasize like cancer. No matter what the rate — even Brazilian rates are termed, merely, Inflation.
This term is further modified based upon media perceptions as to whether it is low, medium, mild, or a raging inferno. Do keep in mind that Nixon imposed price and wage controls when the inflation rate was a ‘trivial’ 4-5%. (!) For that Depression era kid, prices were already moving like lightning.
Hyper-inflation, the term, is ALWAYS associated in the public mind with the FINAL blow-off stages of terminal hyper-inflation. From Weimar Germany, the Confederated States and the Revolutionary Colonies we have vivid images of a rack of zeros appended to toilet-paper notes.
What the populace fails to understand is that these governments were hyper-inflating their currencies all along. The ONLY thing that had changed was the public’s awareness that they were NEVER going to get back their values by holding on to the ‘script.’
This progression of perception always starts with foreign holders. There have been no exceptions. This time around, do note that Red China, Iran and Russia are now unloading all of their US Dollar instruments as best they may. Red China hasn’t bought any US Treasury paper in for a year. They’re merely rolling over old paper.
Instead, all three are frantically building up gold and silver stocks. There was a time when Red China was the world’s largest exporter of silver — thousands of tons. Now that flow has been entirely reversed. So silver has jumped from $8 to $35 / troy oz — and is headed ever higher.
Red China is the world’s largest producer of gold. But, now she’s an importer, too.
After the foreigners figure the game is up — prices start to move for critical IMPORT commodities. For Weimar Germany it was American wheat imports. They were ‘priced in gold’ — that is in gold standard US Dollars.
Today, the import of importance is oil. It’s price has moved in nominal dollars by 110% since the printing press hit high gear.
The devaluation of the US Dollar is DIRECTLY responsible for the civil wars/ revolutions in the MENA.
That such would happen was predicted by me, at the Belmont Club, some years ago.
Everything has proceeded as I have foreseen.
We’re not done yet. At some point Iran should entirely melt down or blow up. It’s economy is in free fall, something that gets no ink in our MSM.
Inflation and Hyper-inflation gained their monikers by happenstance of history — not because they were logically, systematically named.
Inflation has no fundamental relation to hyper-inflation at all. It is solely triggered by the Animal Spirits of Free Men.
Hyper-inflation is solely triggered by the Animal Spirits of the Government Budget — a budget that is ‘covered’ by rank money printing.
The mechanisms are distinct. Private monies know fear. At some point, ordinary inflation comes to an end because of human psychology and market dynamics. It runs out of greater fools.
It takes the Ultimate in Fools — A Government — to hyper-inflate to oblivion.
It progresses so because hyper-inflating the currency is an Opiate of the Politicians/ Elites.
It’s tougher to shake than nicotine or methadone. Once hooked, every polity takes the full ride… on down to a flat-lined currency.
There was only one entity known that was able to rescue a fiat money printing binge: the US Federal Government, under Republican administration made Lincoln’s Greenbacks as good as gold. It took victory, parsimony and a wealth of western gold and silver mines to make it happen.
Of course, once America joined Britain’s gold trading block in 1872 ( Mississippi River wheat steamed to London in quantity by that time.) the Morgan Bank’s ‘gold drive’ triggered a multi-decade contraction that lasted through 1906.
America reversed course — with the demise of JP Morgan in sight — during 1913 — with the US Federal Reserve System.
BTW, the structure, bidding, and authorities of the USFRS was and is identical to that of Weimar Germany’s. There is not one scintilla of difference. So you can take it to heart that 0bama can print away, just as Germany did.
It is in this context that Democrat impulses to entirely remove the Federal debt limit are harrowing to the market.
And, explain why specie demand is surging — right along with firearms — ever since the Wan stole the election/ re-selected himself.
{ Serial voters are now admitting that one can flit from ward to ward in Philadelphia — taking Pennsylvania along for the ride. }
First, there will be deflation, the gross devaluation of tangible commodities. This will be followed by hyperinflation as Ben and his fellow banksters seek to monetize public and private debt and paper over the hundreds of trillions of junk that are now being traded around as real assets. The endgame approaches for this always leads to hunger, destruction, and ultimately war. All you have to do is visit http://www.usdebtclock.org/ daily to see what looms on the event horizon.
thomass: You didn’t ask that. You asked what the step below hyper inflation was.
We asked “Curious. What does the prefix ‘hyper-‘ add to that phrase {‘mild hyper-inflation’}?” The reason for the question is that blert seemed to be saying any monetary inflation was hyper-inflation, which seems to render the prefix superfluous.
Meanwhile, you suggested that the U.S. is currently experiencing hyperinflation.
thomass: The real rate is closer to 5% imo..
That still isn’t what most economists would consider hyperinflation, much less a doubling every couple of years, as you suggested.
SunnyD: But we were a mixed system in 2008 when the bottom fell out.
Yes, but there were obvious systemic problems; primarily, the trillions of dollars in the unregulated shadow market in securities. Other factors were the large tax cuts and unfunded wars that overheated the economy, directly contrary to economic theory.
SunnyD: And we were a mixed system in 2000 when again the bottom fell out.
The bottom didn’t fall out in 2000. It was a mild recession.
SunnyD: We have been a mixed system since FDR if not before.
And there hadn’t been a financial meltdown between 1929 and 2008, when the basics of economics were ignored.
SunnyD: By the way Greece was a mixed system as is Italy and Spain.
As you are probably aware, Europe has a unified currency, but not a unified fiscal policy. Regardless of their current problems, Europe is one of the most economically developed regions of the world.
SunnyD: I thought you were trying to convince us a mixed system was a good thing.
While a mixed system is probably necessary, it is certainly not sufficient, to ensure prosperity.
parker: Envision what it is like to live in Zimbabwe. http://tinyurl.com/69vz9e
We’re quite aware of what is typically meant by hyperinflation. Our question concerned blert’s comments which implied the U.S. is experiencing ‘mild hyperinflation’.
blert: 1) Commercial/ private lending (The animal spirits of the free wills of men cause an increase in banking deposits/ the money supply.)
While the ‘animal spirits of the free wills of men’ can create wealth in terms of goods and services, only government can create fiat money. Generally, economic growth creates mild deflation, as more goods chase the same measure of currency.
blert: This progression of perception always starts with foreign holders.
Then we would normally say there is a threat of hyperinflation; that is, unless you are using the term to refer to monetary inflation, and not price inflation; but that isn’t consistent with the rest of your comment.
blert: So silver has jumped from $8 to $35 / troy oz – and is headed ever higher.
Silver is down from its peak of last year, but is expected to go up due to the pickup in industrial demand, probably around $50 per oz in 2013.
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Zachriel Says:
“That still isn’t what most economists would consider hyperinflation, much less a doubling every couple of years, as you suggested.”
Man, again, I didn’t say 5% WAS hyper inflation or even a variant of it. It doesn’t even meet the example I just gave of a step below it. You don’t just disagree; you don’t listen and are not very intelligent.
There is well neigh universal mis-understanding with regard to how modern monies are created.
Z is classic in this regard.
Z, bank deposits are money. They are money, and so much so, that the Federal Reserve tracks them every week and reports them as M1; paper money, not so much.
If you’d challenge yourself to even a basic economics study, you’d know that to be true.
==========
For further elucidation:
Pictures — they can be created by paint, TV screens, or film projection.
We don’t cross-confuse film and TV — everyone understands that these pictures were created via entirely different phenomena – even though their appearances may look exactly the same to the human eye.
=====
I left off the third type of modern money — the ancient one: specie. (That’s gold and silver and copper coins to Z, though copper is normally omitted from the list, for lack of prestige.)
Eight-years ago, 20% of the market value of the NYSE was in gold mining concerns; today, not even 1%. That was in a time when the dominant source of money was leveraged off of real gold. Yes, even then, the dominant source of money was bank lending.
For Z: it’s Bank Lending that creates fresh Bank Deposits — for all bank loans start life as a bank deposit. Even now, the dominant source of money still is Bank Lending.
Money creation goes into reverse when Bank Lending contracts. It’s also termed money destruction. It’s this phenomena that has Krugman, et. al. freaking out.
Classical Depressions/ SLUMPS occur because of it.
(Depression, as a term of art, was invoked by Hoover to replace the politically toxic term SLUMP.
In 1930, EVERYONE dreaded the term Slump. It was the newspaper headline used for a century to denote tight, tight money and a universal roll back in prices.
Today, the term slump is associated with construction and geology. If you were to ask a man-on-the-street what a business slump was — you’d expect puzzlement.
( When my Grandfather heard Hoover’s comment on the newsreel — he raced home to the dictionary. Depression??? He finally hooked up with a medically trained buddy who turned him on to its medical term (psychiatric): feeling low. He later quipped: “Hoover though that the economy needed a rest!”)
{ He graduated with William O. Douglas. It’s missing from his Wiki bio (duh) but Douglas received his Baccalaureate from Gonzaga — though he never attended a single day’s class there. He wasn’t even at the ceremony.(!) He had a patron, at the college, who had his private studies deemed sufficient to qualify — and so Douglas was slotted in the list with the rest of the class. (It numbered 16!) It was this degree that permitted Douglas to attend law school, in the East. — thought you’d want to know.) }
Naturally, being the only college grad in the whole county, he was constantly queried the next month as to what the heck President Hoover meant by the word: Depression. As a point of intellectual pride, he could now answer: “It needed a rest.”
That was some rest.
He was asked, point blank:”Are we in a SLUMP?”
(The President’s actual term: “No, the economy is in a mild depression.”)
It was the national media that focused on this new term of art. It progressed from the quote to: deepening — then, severe — then Great Depression. That last, sticks to this day.
Z, industrial demand for silver is FALLING. It’s being priced out of industrial uses. ALL of the demand is asset accumulation.
==========
Folks, Z is under prescription: the BLUE PILL.
Once you understand that, every other bizarro Z quote can be surmised. It’s the medication.
==========
Back to pictures, TV and movies…
It is not helpful, in the adult sense, to avoid the source of causation when discussing imaging technologies. When a TV tube goes out — tracking down oil paint is no help.
Similarly, it is entirely counter-productive to conflate money created by the banking system – loans – with money created by mining or by fiat-printing.
Banking loans can get paid off. If they are paid off across the whole economy you get a massive contraction in the circulation of money.
This happened between 1837 and 1842. (Think Jackson) Andrew fought his central bank — and used the Louisiana Purchase assets sales to liquidate Federal debts. The COMPLETE collapse of Federal debt was a commercial catastrophe. This was the era when the Wooden Nickel had to be minted into existence. { It ducked counterfeiting law by not being metal. }
Should the US Dollar flat-line, the WHOLE planet will experience the ‘Jackson effect.’ There is not enough specie on the surface of the planet to lubricate international trade.
The resulting (atomic) convulsions will make 0bomba more hated, more bloody than Stalin, Mao and Hitler combined. Stupidity kills.
Whereas privately created money – bank loans – can go into reverse; the other monies never do. (Almost, silver can be diverted into industrial uses. Somehow, after a time, it seems to re-enter the flow.)
Whereas gold mining is tough; printing money is famously easy. It’s the original source of the term “easy money.”
Easy Money = Fiat Money (typically, war time printing)
{As Oskar Schindler how that worked out. That was fiat money in his suitcases. No wonder he was shoveling it out the door for gold, diamonds and LIVES.}
=======
Most of the above ^^^^ posters are still ‘looking at the IMAGE of money’ and are not aware of how modern money is created.
This is primarily due to the fact that our brightest college professors have got it entirely wrong — to include Milton Friedman. (!)
His error is in getting the flow of events BACKWARDS — thats SDRAWKCAB For Z. He’s on record for believing that the US banking system hinges upon High Powered Money — i.e. the Fiat Money injections from the US Federal Reserve that are placed in the system — every ninety days — to balance the books and stop money panics.
{ This function was the Foundational purpose of the Fed — whereby it replaced J P Morgan — man and institution. }
Modern banking reality is the exact opposite: commercial loans are processed, approved — and then STACKED in the hopper/ heap awaiting the NEXT financial reporting period. Unlike retail auto loans, Seriously large loans are not placed into the System until the first days of the next reporting period.
{ January, April, July, October }
Then, all-at-once, with a thud, all of these pre-approved loans are ‘booked’ — typically 1-2-xy.
This explains why the stock market suddenly finds new money every first week of every year. With these loans NEW MONEY is created for the system as a whole. It races across all of the accounts. Ultimately it ends up in investors hands as interest coupons. ( Most munis pay on Jan 1 and July 1 — the very definition of the top 1%’s cash flow.)
But, cross-payments didn’t create new money. The wave of serious bank loans did.
The Fed knows all of this, unlike Z, and keeps track of this like a hawk. At the end of the reporting period, the inter-bank over-night liquidity market gets tight. System-wide there is now, no longer the required Free Balances, stipulated by the Fed, on the books.
This is promptly remedied by a calculated injection of Fiat Money (digital cyphers) by the SOMA.
http://www.newyorkfed.org/markets/soma/sysopen_accholdings.html
It is critical that you understand that these SOMA injections come from Pure Air — digital ether.
It is these SOMA injections that have put paid to financial panics such as that of 1837, 1873, 1930 ( forget 1929 ) — that last one, the Fed blew it. See Friedman.
It is these SOMA injections that are mildly, trivially hyper-inflationary. Yes, they constitute flat-out money-printing. But, they are the tail of the dog.
Over the longer haul, being in one direction only it is these trivial SOMA injections that cause the general price level to creep ever upwards.
But, they are a following event.
Comes now 0bomba. While Bush was in way over his head, at least he was able to genuinely find buyers for US Treasury paper — even during the panic of 08-09. Now, however, 0bomba has established the new bizarro. During his term, and directly because of it, the foreigners are no longer willing to purchase new US Treasury debt. Instead, it’s all going to the SOMA account.
{ I’m leaving out the swaption trade: when the Europeans unloaded Freddie and Fannie paper onto the Fedsury. That’s a more minor subset of the sound money issue. }
This last aspect is being hidden from the public and the markets as best as can be done. (Delayed reportage tops the list.)
However, the general public is spitting out the Blue Pill and buying specie. Since the stolen election, the ramp has been astounding.
The first wave of losers are the muslim oil exporters and their kin. Like Blanche DuBois, they are utterly dependent upon the kindness of strangers. Worse, they depend upon the kindness of those whose hands they bite.
===========
It is useless to discuss monetary issues when one’s head is clouded by MMT and Marxist falsities.
Once you understand that there are three types of monies — and that it’s the contraction of bank loans that the legal system and one’s emotional harmony can’t handle — then you can start to make policy progress.
Otherwise, you’re left talking physics — before Newton.
Addendum: paper money IS apart of M1 — just a trivially insignificant amount of it.
Z would fall off his throne if he knew the ratio.
======
There are a few typos above. Sorry. No re-edit function here.
Neo Neoco: wishing your blog would permit a timed re-edit function…
Note also that among Democrats and Democrat-leaners, “capitalism” just barely nosed out “socialism” in positives, 55% to 53%. And yet “small business,” “free enterprise,” and “entrepreneurs” were hugely popular with both Republicans and Democrats (95%R/94%D, 94%R/88%D, and 91%R/84%D, respectively). Do Democrats not see these things as part and parcel of capitalism?
In a word, No. I would love to see the results from a survey that asked your question of those who think positively of socialism and of small business, free enterprise, and entrepreneurs.
Nobody thinks! Nobody is encouraged to think!
They are encouraged to emote and react, rather than to think and respond. And, as it seems, to emote and react to mere words rather than to ideas.
@9:19 am Zachriel wrote:
Simply factually incorrect. The Obama administration’s own numbers dismisses the myth of Bush tax-cuts contributing ot the deficit:
http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials-perspective/113012-635352-bush-tax-cuts-did-not-cause-deficits.htm
Furthermore, re: Zachriel’s claim to the “unregulated shadow market securities” the housing bubble was caused not by UNregulation but by OVERregulation. Democrat President Jimmy Carter instituted the “Community Reinvestment Act which prohibited banks from red-lining neighborhoods for mortgages. Get that Zachriel? President Carter required banks to lend money to people unable to repay. This program continued under Reagan and G H W Bush and absolutely exploded under Democrat President Clinton.
Now the people in finance are emminently smarter than the people in govt. They realized that no one would want to buy these lousy loans. So in order to make $$, they spread substandard loans in packages with mostly good loans; kind of like adding just enough arsenic to your tea to consume the entire bottle but never enough at any one time to do you in. Once these substandard GOVT MANDATED loans began to fail everyone saw the mtg market as “polluted” and refused to sip the tea
Those who claim lack of govt regulation was the problem focus only on the second half of that equation; we should have regulated those shady bankers trying to—gasp!—make a profit from a bad govt regulation (pearl clutching swoon, here). The real problem was created by govt interference in the first place; to wit, the govt forcing banks to make what the banks, themselves, considered to be bad loans.
This is the classic liberal cycle. Identify a problem, set govt policy around that problem and when that govt policy fails, call that failure an obvious need for more govt policy.
Next comment is #100….what’s the longest comment thread to date?
holmes: a lot longer than this one.
I don’t really know what the longest has been, but I recall that a couple may have reached around 200.
thomass: I didn’t say 5% WAS hyper inflation or even a variant of it.
No, you didn’t. Keep in mind that you interposed into a discussion with blert. You are defining hyperinflation in an orthodox manner, but that doesn’t explain the discrepancy as far as blert’s original comment, “Uncle Sam has been hyper-inflating since 1914. Hence, the general price level has risen drastically over the last 99-years. But, it’s been a mild hyper-inflation.”
blert: paper money IS apart of M1 – just a trivially insignificant amount of it.
What percentage would you say?
blert: Z, industrial demand for silver is FALLING. It’s being priced out of industrial uses. ALL of the demand is asset accumulation.
ALL? None of it is used for industrial or other fabrication? In fact, commercial demand (877 million oz, 2011) far exceeds investment (164 million oz, 2011).
T Says:
“Simply factually incorrect. The Obama administration’s own numbers dismisses the myth of Bush tax-cuts contributing ot the deficit”
Factor is a good term for not conveying an actual measure. Maybe they did contribute 8% or so. Maybe less if they played a role in the growth of the period (though the usual suspects will never give you that). Maybe more with general statistics lie stuff (re: higher percentage when compared to the smaller deficits of the period).
T, #98, excellent explanation of the ultimate cause of the crash. I’d like to try to de-scare some of the wording left over from Z. The “unregulated shadow market securities” were nothing more than large money market funds used by business to park their cash and earn a return on it. It got run on due to people being scared. It was a classic bank run. Once it was guaranteed, the run stopped. There was nothing shadowy about it at all. But that woldn’t make a good headline or provide for parrots parroting agitprop.
ne1,
Thanks, as for your extension of the topic, most people do not realize that the govt (FDIC) has no more that about 8 cents on deposit for each dollar that they “insure” (n.B., that was a number I learned quite some time ago, I’d bet it’s a lot less that that now). The govt depends on the fact that a “run” on the banks will be ltd in scope. If there ever was a real run as we saw in 1929, the entire system would collapse again because that minimal isnurance just wouldn’t cover the accounts it was meant to cover. Once that became public knowledge, just imagine the publc reaction. As per your comment, the “run” to which you refer was certainly one contributing factor to the 2008 debacle.
As for govt insurance, the FDIC exists not to actually insure accounts, but to insure that there will be no run on them. Of course, money markets normally do not fall into this category unless they are special insured accounts paying less interest than other types (that pesky risk-reward thing, don’t ya know).
T…
I don’t know where or when you got your stat…
But FDIC insurance backing of $0.08 per dollar of deposits is w a a a y high.
The last time I looked it was not even $ 0.008 of assets per dollar — across the whole insured base.
The FDIC has stepped up their assessment tempo to get the fund back up to normal. However, it’s being bled down by bank failures as fast as the money rolls in.
Indeed, the tempo of bank closures is MATED to this tempo of funding. Institutions are being left to run further into the ground because the funding is not there to wrap them up — without running to Congress — and letting the cat out of the bag.
T, thanks for noting that one of the main culprits for the “meltdown” was the CRA. I have a link to an article in the fine “City Journal” that came out in the year *2000* (not a typo, two-zero-zero-zero) warning of the dangers of the CRA:
The Trillion-Dollar Bank Shakedown
As you alluded to, the article says that while the CRA was first put into effect under Carter, it was really Clinton who lit the match.
Gary…
He lit that match EXACTLY at the time that Monica was on the frunt burner.
More specifically: there’s a striking corelation between CRAPolicy commitments in this or that Democrat Senator’s state with his impeachment hearings.
It was only during his Senate trial that the Clenis used his phone to dial in commitments for a big nay vote — swapping mega-mega monies to be committed via the Democrat-happy big bankers to CRAPolicy in our major urban cores.
(Read that to mean the inner-city wards.)
Compare and contrast the pledges to even one year before.
CRAPolicy pledges simply exploded — particularly with Citi.
Of course, Barry Soetoro came of age suing big bankers in Chicago. IIRC, it was Citicorp. (He was their token Harvard boy, of course.)
Part of that stipulation was that ACORN members would be sustained DIRECTLY by Citicorp as they marketed CRAPolicy give-away financing down in the ‘hood.
Hence, the sobriquet: Grifter in Chief.
T: The Obama administration’s own numbers dismisses the myth of Bush tax-cuts contributing ot the deficit: http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials-perspective/113012-635352-bush-tax-cuts-did-not-cause-deficits.htm
Hmm. Reductions in marginal tax rates began in 2001 and 2002. It wasn’t until 2006 that revenues returned to previous levels, and that was during the housing bubble.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_Growth_and_Tax_Relief_Reconciliation_Act_of_2001
T: Zachriel’s claim to the “unregulated shadow market securities” the housing bubble was caused not by UNregulation but by OVERregulation.
The shadow banking system was and is largely unregulated, with assets that doubled from 2002 to 2010, and which are currently at about $67 trillion.
“The evidence strongly suggests that without the excess demand from securitizers, subprime mortgage originations (undeniably the original source of the crisis) would have been far smaller and defaults accordingly far lower.” – Alan Greenspan
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/24/business/economy/24panel.html
T: Democrat President Jimmy Carter instituted the “Community Reinvestment Act which prohibited banks from red-lining neighborhoods for mortgages. Get that Zachriel? President Carter required banks to lend money to people unable to repay.
That doesn’t make a lot of sense as the housing bubble didn’t occur for 30 years after CRA was instituted. In any case, the majority of subprime securitizations were made by non-CRA banks.
ne1: The “unregulated shadow market securities” were nothing more than large money market funds used by business to park their cash and earn a return on it.
The shadow banking system does include money market funds, but also hedge funds, special purpose conduits, repurchase agreement markets, structured investment vehicles, and other non-bank institutions.
ne1: There was nothing shadowy about it at all.
It’s called the shadow banking system because it occurs without the transparency of conventional banking.
blert,
You’re correct,$0.08 for the FDIC is an old number (like maybe 20 years old). That’s why I qualified it by saying “no more than”; I was just too lazy last night do the obnligatory search at bedtime.
So Zachriel,
Cause and effect must be immediate?
The 4 year lag between tax cuts and economic performance or the 30 year lag between the institution of the CRA and the housing collapse are not cause and effect?
I guess then, that it was just coincidence that we landed on the moon in 1969—had nothing to do with the Kennedy administration. I guess Nixon establishing the EPA in 1970 has nothing to do with EPA overreaching in 2011. I guess the elimination of the Volstead act almost 100 years ago has nothing to do with having a glass of wine with dinner today.
Your rejoinder betrays ignorance or denial.
Zachriel,
One additional point. The Investors Business Daily article cites “Pages 411-413 of his 2012 Economic Report of the President” and you counter with a reference to . . . Wikipedia?
Your defense of your position, like your initial argument, is either naive, disingenuous or both.
T: Cause and effect must be immediate?
Not necessarily, but thirty years is too removed to sustain your claim. A better argument would be that changes to the program since then abetted the formation of the bubble. However, like most market bubbles, it was driven by demand. There’s a long history of market bubbles. They occur when the value of the underlying commodity becomes detached from the market price.
T: The Investors Business Daily article cites “Pages 411-413 of his 2012 Economic Report of the President” and you counter with a reference to . . . Wikipedia?
Yes, we both cited secondary sources. Here is the ECONOMIC GROWTH AND TAX RELIEF RECONCILIATION ACT OF 2001.
http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/PLAW-107publ16/html/PLAW-107publ16.htm
Please note that the marginal rate decreases were phased in over time starting in 2001. Also, from your own chart, revenues did not return to previous levels until 2006 during the housing bubble, and then collapsed precipitously in 2008. That’s hardly a confident result.
“Not necessarily, but thirty years is too removed to sustain your claim. A better argument would be that changes to the program since then abetted the formation of the bubble . . . .”
That is a matter of your opinion, not fact. Try as you may to explain them away, a bad loan is a bad loan is a bad loan. Period. Those particular sub-prime loans did not exist before the govt mandated that they exist. Without govt interference those sub-prime loans would not have existed at all, much less in the plethora they did. Period. Further, non-repayment is non-repayment and when the system reaches a tipping point where those non-repaying loans are recognized for what they are, then the system will eventually collapse–as it did.
Note I wrote about a tipping point of recognition. It matters not at all that there were or were not enough sub-prime loans to truly damage the system. It matters that they reached a tipping point of perception. They polluted the system which made the system untrustworthy which then discouraged investment in the system which caused the collapse. Let me give you a rather graphic example. I hand you a glass of water and as you drink it I mention that I added to your glass half an ounce of water that I ladeled from the toilet. Now the toilet water comes from the same pipes and is the same water that I get from my kitchen faucet. Do you continue to drink the water? Of course not. This is precisely what happened w/ regard to the influence of the sub-prime loans. I repeat, that they existed at all was the doing of the Carter administration.
All this is the result of the govt mandating these sub-prime loans in the first place. Remember, then banks didn’t go out and say “hey, let’s fleece these homeowners by lending them money that they are unable to repay.” Banks don’t work that way; banks are in the business of making money on loans, not using them to acquire unsalable real estate. Only govts can invent such tortured mental gymnastics. Actions have consequences, the good intentions of the Carter administrations be damned; as Herb Stein pointed out, what can’t go on forever won’t! Once you find out where the water is coming from you’ll stop drinking it unless it becomes a matter of life and death.
As to the citing of secondary sources Wikipedia does not count as even a secondary source. At best, and I mean at best, Wiki can only be used as a rudimentary starting point to direct the most initial phases of research and discovery. Do not propose to me that it is a “secondary” source. It is not even that.
“that’s hardly a confident result”? Your argument is based upon a false premise. Here is the gist of your argument:
1) tax cuts began to be phased in in 2001
2) revenues did not return to previous levels until 2006
3) then the housing bubble collapse occured.
So let’s get this straight. You will not credit the tax cuts for stimulating revenue because of a lag time of five years, but you will cite the tax cuts as a proximate cause of the housing bubble implosion eight years after the tax cuts were introduced?
Ultimately, your argument regarding the tax cuts and their impact flows from the argument that tax cuts do not encourage economic growth but, rather, they encourage deficits by reducing revenue. If, as I believe, this is the basic origin of your personal presentation here, then it reveals a fundamental misunderstanding (or lack of knowledge) of the Laffer curve. Again, you are simply and factually incorrect.
Zachriel: Not necessarily, but thirty years is too removed to sustain your claim. A better argument would be that changes to the program since then abetted the formation of the bubble.
T: That is a matter of your opinion, not fact.
As you are the one blaming the CRA, it is up to you to explain why there was a 30-year lag. We suggested a possible explanation.
T: Those particular sub-prime loans did not exist before the govt mandated that they exist.
Subprime loans have been around for decades. As long as the risk is clear, then simply offering subprime loans won’t create a bubble. What was different was the issuing of private-label securitization that gamed the credit ratings system.
http://www.anthonyworlando.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/Screen-shot-2011-10-26-at-4.48.55-PM.png
T: As to the citing of secondary sources Wikipedia does not count as even a secondary source.
It was exactly a secondary source, as it provided a link directly to the primary source. It was in the first sentence, so not sure how you missed it.
T: You will not credit the tax cuts for stimulating revenue because of a lag time of five years, but you will cite the tax cuts as a proximate cause of the housing bubble implosion eight years after the tax cuts were introduced?
You are quite confused. The Bush tax cuts did stimulate the economy, however they left a budget deficit. Revenues finally exceeded previous levels during the housing bubble, but then fell precipitously immediately afterwards. Nor did the tax cuts cause the bubble, though they certainly added fuel to the fire.
T: If, as I believe, this is the basic origin of your personal presentation here, then it reveals a fundamental misunderstanding (or lack of knowledge) of the Laffer curve. Again, you are simply and factually incorrect.
You do realize the Laffer curve is a toy model? It’s not without some value, but largely oversimplified.
Zachriel,
The CRA: I did explain, you need to pay attention when you read. You dismissed my explanation.
Subprime loans. While certain types of subprime loans have been around for a long time (just as junk bonds have) the subprime loans which poisoned the well did not exist before the CRA because banks were red-lining and wouldn’t write mtgs. in those lowest income neighborhoods.
The Bush Tax cuts; As you, yourself admit, the Bush tax cuts did stimulate the economy; they increased revenues. Increasing revenues does not create deficits. Spending beyond one’s means creates deficits.
The Laffer curve. You really simply do not understand.
I do not expect to change your mind in this discussion, but you make the discussion itself an exercise in futility rather than an exchange of ideas. Your response betrays a most superficial understanding of that which you profess to discuss.
T: While certain types of subprime loans have been around for a long time (just as junk bonds have) the subprime loans which poisoned the well did not exist before the CRA because banks were red-lining and wouldn’t write mtgs. in those lowest income neighborhoods.
Many people who were directed to subprime would have qualified for full-doc fixed-rate FHA loans, but that’s not where the profit was. In any case, the bubble was in private-label securities, as we showed above.
T: As you, yourself admit, the Bush tax cuts did stimulate the economy; they increased revenues.
Just because tax cuts spur the economy doesn’t mean the increase in revenues due to the expansion will offset the loss in revenues due to lower taxes. A simple example–from the Laffer Curve–is dropping rates to zero.
T: The Laffer curve. You really simply do not understand.
The peak of the Laffer Curve is undefined, as is the shape of the curve. It’s not even clear it’s a continuous function. That’s why it’s not a serious model, not in isolation at least.
–
“Nor should the argument seem strange that taxation may be so high as to defeat its object, and that, given sufficient time to gather the fruits, a reduction of taxation will run a better chance than an increase of balancing the budget.” – John Maynard Keynes
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2012-12-03/time-bernanke-reevaluate-his-sworn-testimony-congress
^^^^^^^^^^^^^
As to what money-printing looks like in our digital age.
=======
As previously posted: Of the three monies, it’s Bank Loans that can contract — implode the money supply.
Gold, and silver, just creep on up. Today, they are eclipsed.
Because Bank Loan money creation is nil to negative, the Fedsury is ginning up ‘high-powered’ money at a serious clip.
At some point, probably behind us, the economy hits an inflection point, and is no longer able to pull back from the opiate addition.
It is hooked.
=======
There are many, many indications that Barry stole his re-selection no less than Hugo Chavez.
We are now seeing Youtube clips of babes in the ‘hood picking up free cell phones, to be later flipped to their dope dealing lovers.
Barry’s been handing them out like Chicklets.
We’re seeing videos of ‘hood babes who claim that they were able to vote, time and again, November 6, 2012; no IDs were required. They simply rode from ward to ward until the rosters were voted full. (!) So went Philadelphia and thus Pennsylvania.
And Ohio. And Florida. And Virginia….
And Colorado. And, almost, North Carolina: a state not even considered in contention — went down to the wire. (!)
Nothing to see here, folks. Move along.
========
The upshot: the spigot is to be turned wide, wide, wide open.
When it’s done, Z will be utterly ruined. No way he survives on the Blue Pill.
Zachriel Says:
“No, you didn’t.”
and you are on ignore. Idiot troll.
Guys; someone else knew this Z guy from other forums and said he is into attention and will do or say things just to get a response.
Don’t waste your time. He’s going to intentionally misunderstand you to waste your time / have more back and forth.
I’ve met the type a couple times before.
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