On 21 Nov 2013, at 22:53, Richard Ruquist wrote:
Bruno,
The rich have been trying to take over the US govt to reduce their
tax burden for over 100 years.
Every time they have succeeded the result has been an economic crash
usually followed by war.
That happened in 1857 after a decade of prosperity and then the
crash was followed by the Civil War within a decade.
Crash and Clash was repeated in 1893->WWI,
and again in the real estate crash of 1926 and the Wall Street crash
of 1929->WWII.
In each case the very rich accumulated so much wealth that they
caused investment/debt bubbles resulting a crash. After the real
estate crash of 1926, rich investors then switched to stocks and
caused the 1929 crash. We have already experienced a real estate
crash in 2008. and today we see the stock exchange reaching never
before heights.
So we again are ripe for a crash which and if the lessons of the
1920s are repeated,
the crash will be much more severe than the 2008 Great Recession.
The roaring 20s prosperity came about when the top tax rate was
reduced to 25% along with finance deregulation. Since WWII and up to
Reagan, the top tax rates were between 90% and 70%, and at those
rates the rich tended to turn profits back into their companies and
the recessions were rather mild. But after Reagan reduced the top
rates to 28%, the incentive to accumulate wealth was strong
resulting in a series of investment bubbles. Recall the internet
bubble at the turn of the century. And deregulation resulted in the
invention of derivatives.
So I think, and many bankers do as they are hoarding cash, that we
are headed for a serious stock market crash, and apparently just
because the very rich are making so much money, especially in
derivatives which continue to exist despite being the cause of the
real estate crash. It is said that the value of the derivative debt
is orders of magnitude bigger than the value of the entire world.
That sounds like a form of comp (;<)
I am not entirely convinced. I think other factors have to be taken
into account, and that the correlation you describe can be the symptom
of some other problems. I really don't know, I need more data, and
clever algorithms to manage them :)
I agree on deregulation and the foolishness of many pseudo-economical
ideas, which here also can only help to influxes black and grey money,
this little by little amounts in the financial circuits, slowly but
persistently, which makes the bandits taking the banks into hostages.
Something like that.
I distinguish black money (100% of the value is based on a lie), and
fake money (the sur-price of a legal medication which would be
replaced by a less expensive medication if it was not illegal).
What is the "real" value of one dollar?
It is the value of work + speculation. The speculation can be based on
evidences or lies. The amount of lies creates a fake value, which
leads to economical catastrophes. But if the "rich" is a bandit, he
speculates on those catastrophes too.
Solution? Step 0: education. Step 1: stop prohibition of food and
drugs. Denationalize food and drugs, in all nations. Allow free
competitions in the art of life. We can take the complains into
account and still enforce some respect for the neighbors, but not much
more.
Alas, we live at a time where a lot of humans still like (or are
encouraged) to delegate their thinking to the local authorities, and
the problem is that the bandits and "authorities" can exploit this.
Bruno
On Thu, Nov 21, 2013 at 10:11 AM, Bruno Marchal <[email protected]>
wrote:
On 21 Nov 2013, at 13:41, Telmo Menezes wrote:
On Thu, Nov 21, 2013 at 11:40 AM, Bruno Marchal <[email protected]>
wrote:
On 21 Nov 2013, at 11:05, Telmo Menezes wrote:
<snip>
If nobody complains on his local decentralized power, the central
power
should have nothing to say, but if the locals complain about their
local
powers, the central power can be used as an arbiter.
I agree that this is a risk. I don't claim that there is any system
that could be implemented and would solve all the problems, that's the
danger with ideologies.
I agree.
My belief is that "human evolution" -> "better forms of governance",
not the other way around. So democracy, with all its flaws, was made
possible by a new level of human development. Here I mean evolution
and development in the broad sense, not the biological sense. This is
made clear by the attempts to force democracy on less developed
societies.
OK.
My point is that, as we evolve further, maybe the
decentralized system can exist without incurring so much on the risks
that you mention, and at the same time being much more resilient to
sociopathic manipulations.
About this I am not sure. With local powers you augment the risk of
the "little bureaucratic sort of bosses".
With some level of "spiritual maturity", I can conceive that you are
right, but since sometimes I am not sure such spiritual maturity
exists, nor even that it is on a near horizon.
The deeper problem relies in the fact that most humans are unwilling
to
think by themselves, and they confuse "p -> q" and "q -> p" all the
times.
The (human, but not only) sciences are still driven by the appeal to
authority. We have never been "modern".
I'm happy to read this. I thought this confusion was a central problem
in society for a long time, without being an expert in logic.
The problem is that "p <-> q" is far better than nothing, in the
short run,
so our brains are hardwired to "reason" by association, instead, of
logical
validity. Logic is by essence counter-intuitive (which explains the
logician's sense of humor).
The short term/long term conflict is unavoidable. Humans face it all
the
time, like when hesitating to stop smoking, or to stop producing
CO2, etc.
It is even more complex today due to globalization. With the 20th
century,
earth has become a finite space, and this has to be taken into
account, and
it is not a simple task, as we have to change habits that we have
since a
very long time. In the long run, we will have to escape the planet and
continue to run forward. But meanwhile, we have to accommodate with
the
finite resourcing, with or without global warming. That's a reason
more to
fight against corporatism, special private interests, international
white
collar criminality, etc.
Right, but the hope of some people who propose a radically free market
is that it would work more like the immune system, and that it would
allocate resources in a more efficient way than central control.
I am for a free market. The market should be independent of the
(central) power, except for the modalities of the contracts, the
selling technic, etc.
The
long term view is not foreign to markets. This is precisely what
investments are. Warren Buffet became extremely rich by taking a long
view on investments, not by doing high-frequency trading. But again, I
say this with the human evolution caveat in mind.
Local powers can easily design laws against foreigners, and develop
selfish local profits method. In the UD this could enlarge the gap
between black and white, or between middle class and lower classes.
I would favor a stable central power, which would enforce few but
basic important laws and rules, on which everyone agrees. Then the
local powers can implement special politics and experiences.
Somehow I do believe that the Americans were close to this, but they
failed to prevent prohibition, and that remains a bit of a mystery
for me. I am open to the idea that there has been a real well
prepared conspiracy, not by "illuminati" but by by a collusion of
special interests (paper, oil, pharma, military, jails, and the
black market, etc.).
I'm also strongly in favour of experiments. For example, and this
would certainly annoy most libertarians, I am very excited by the
Swiss plan to provide a base level of income to all citizens.
I have always defended that idea.
I like
it because it's so simple and non-intrusive. You just give everyone
the same base income, no matter how poor or rich they are.
Yes. That is what the communist never grasped. It makes no sense to
distribute the money from the rich to the poor, this makes the
richer less rich, and very quickly the poor even much less rich. As
long as people don't use lies and dishonest methods, people should
be able to enrich themselves as much as they want. But we must find
a way to prevent the bad use of money to enrich oneself. And this
asks for very special laws against the fake speculation. The problem
is that with enough money, you can multiplied your richness easily
by dishonest means, and this perverts the system.
Hopefully
it will remove unnecessary and even counter-productive jobs, free more
people from meaningless lives and attack the entire "job mentality".
One can hope...
I agree. I believe that it will be more easy to avoid counter-
productive jobs if there is a minimal salary. It would stabilize the
little markets, and would annoy only those who are addicted to "more
money at all price".
For the "job mentality", I'm afraid we will need a coming back to
seriousness in the human sciences, but this will take time, and some
catastrophes. The "job mentality" is not unrelated to the current
institutionalized religions, and the current conception of reality.
Bruno
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
Groups "Everything List" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it,
send an email to [email protected].
To post to this group, send email to [email protected].
Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
Groups "Everything List" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it,
send an email to [email protected].
To post to this group, send email to [email protected].
Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
"Everything List" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email
to [email protected].
To post to this group, send email to [email protected].
Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
