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I am capable of multitasking. If you want to talk about class mobility, then this is a good place to start. Like I say, once that is accomplished, we can consider the next milestone. You don't have to try to reach nirvana in one step.

Last edited by Owain; 07/21/17 11:02 AM.

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Originally Posted by Sini
You can't talk about responsibility when all you have to work with is circumstances.
Of course you can. You can choose to be a victim or you can suck it up like the rest of us a work to change to your circumstances.

Originally Posted by Sini
That is, American Dream is dead. There are no opportunities to hard work, and hard work doesn't get you ahead. Class mobility at all times low, middle class is shrinking by sliding into poverty, and productivity gains almost exclusively go to 1% controlling capital. This is not a rhetorical turn of phrase, rather a hard cold facts backed by a lot of data.
This is utter horseshit. Are you telling me that hard work didn't earn you all the gains you've realized in your life? It just all magically fell into your lap? You immigrated to the US and someone was standing there with a sign with your name and instead of a ride to the hotel, they gave you everything you have? Bologna.

As for the class mobility argument, first, I'm not convinced that this is a reasonable metric or that we have a good way to measure it. Second, in a brief perusal of recent articles from sources like the Atlantic, what I found where studies (performed by Harvard and UC Berkley) saying things are roughly the same as they were 50 years ago, and the article's author pontificating that "just because the data don't agree with me, doesn't mean I'm wrong."


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Originally Posted by Kaotic
This is utter horseshit. Are you telling me that hard work didn't earn you all the gains you've realized in your life? It just all magically fell into your lap? You immigrated to the US and someone was standing there with a sign with your name and instead of a ride to the hotel, they gave you everything you have? Bologna.


In fairness, that was then - we are talking about the now. Plus, despite any hyperbole tossed around, I don't think any is saying there is no opportunity.

I actually agree with Sini on many of the problems, we just widely differ on the best way to address those problems.

-

If we want to look at the real measure of systemic inequality, the metric I favor is actually the price of money. It is also a good metric for examining the level of corruption in public life, and its wipespread effects.

In a nutshell, its pretty simple.

Goldman Sachs and others pay a couple basis points on basically unlimited cashflow as needed. They are not able to do this because of any amount of hard work, or any type of free market. They are able to do this because they control the actual political offices and pseudo-govt entities that have been allowed to take control of such things. This is a true aristocratic upper class that gets, by virtue of their position and connections and control over public life, the ability to obtain unlimited funds to buy your company, put you out of work, and sell off the pieces - or repackage the pieces, sell some, and sell derivatives against the rest. This allows them to buy up debt of entire countries like Greece, using bribes and shady connections, to make huge transaction fees - and resell the debt, putting whole nations in debtor status. Or recently prop up dictators, yet cast a shadow of unmanageable debt - like they did with Venezuela recently. It gives them the leverage to buy out one piece of a distribution chain, then squeeze the rest of the chain, and force them into compromising positions to extract yet more wealth from the Main St economy. And many other things, such as hoarding gold, or artificially inflating whole commodities segments like corn or aluminum.

Again, they don't have this ability because of any free market mechanism. They have it, because they are literally allowed to use your and my, and everyone elses money to do it.

Flip that around 180, to a normal person without a well-off family background. Joe Schmoe pays literally over 1000% APR if they need a short term loan, but don't have the assets yet as collateral. Maybe if they get into college they get a starter visa at 27%+fees. Even people who get established with good credit are still paying about 16-17% APR, even if they swap around from deal to deal - because there are usually strings and fees.

Yet, since so much of the capital these days originates from the corrupt aspects of our financial sector, actual savings pay like 1%. Why are interest rates so high for most people, yet interest gained so low? Except for a few, connected segments?

Because the bulk of that capital investment and speculation is originating from inflationary practice, ultimately backed by tax dollars and the momentum of our currency, and is not originating from any type of savings - and flowing into the hands of a select, political few.

Thus, there is an enormous class divide between people on the bandwagon who have access and the people who service them, and those who do not. The financial market is extremely distorted as well.

This is not sustainable. This will, and is, literally destroying our society.

Of course this is the 10-second nutshell version, there are a thousand other aspects large and small. But the type of corporate, and aristocratic welfare we practice is an order of magnitude more destructive than any social policies that redistribute money to the poor.

Last edited by Derid; 07/21/17 12:22 PM.

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I can't think of a solution to financial markets, when you start talking to people they fall asleep, think you are nutter, or both. It is too abstract, as such any measures to rebalance the system is impossible to socialize. Not even 2009 crash made any difference.

Consequently, I think the only way is to ago around this problem. If there is enough wealth, then parasites won't kill the host by siphoning some of it off.


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Originally Posted by Sini
I can't think of a solution to financial markets, when you start talking to people they fall asleep, think you are nutter, or both. It is too abstract, as such any measures to rebalance the system is impossible to socialize. Not even 2009 crash made any difference.

Consequently, I think the only way is to ago around this problem. If there is enough wealth, then parasites won't kill the host by siphoning some of it off.


I think the scale has gotten too big. I used to agree that as long as enough wealth was created, the existence of some parasitic activity, while unfair and aggravating, could have minimal impact on the bigger picture. No longer.

It's so big, it is causing too much collateral damage. Even the commonly-known-but-much-panned corporate practice of only giving a shit about the next quarterly report largely stems from our monetary policy woes. If you don't keep that share price up, and keep your outward numbers good, its all too easy for some asshole to come in and leverage a couple billion buyout or other shitty manuever basically for free. It was a lot different when the Wolves of Wall St had to draw from a finite pool of capital and pay a real price for that money. Now, companies have to result to insane management and bookkeeping practices just to guard against gross fuckery enabled by free money. Sure, there are other factors at work there, but I believe it all rooted in the monetary aspect.

When it starts impacting general society to the level where large corps become less efficient, it should be obvious to everyone that there is a problem. That's even without going into the social effects of economic dislocation.

Even ignoring the wealth-maintenance aspects required to enable a true middle class, a dislocated worker who stashed away merely 200$ a month in savings at 8% for the 20 years he was stably employed will still have over 120k to fall back on and deal with the dislocation. A guy who did the same at 1% will have around 55k to fall back on. Never mind the people who buried themselves in consumer debt at 16% all those years, who will end up on Section 8 and/or the trailer park if they don't quickly find equivalent employment. (and who will then, apparently, proceed to vote for people who maintain the power of the cliques that maintain the policies that created the type of monetary policy that helped put them there)

--

Which brings me to your other point, that there isn't anything to be done for it because social acceptance of solutions is impossible. I agree. I genuinely think that the USA as we know it is not long for this world, or at least the version that I grew up with. A hundred years from now, the concepts of "Democracy and Republics" will also likely be eliciting guffaws from schoolchildren who wonder how a whole society could be so braindead, much like we used to laugh at people who followed and died for kings in ages past, simply cause their daddy was a king, when we were in gradeschool.

Note that is by no means what I want to happen. Its just what is going to happen. I predict that whatever China morphs into will become the academically accepted model state for the forseeable future, and the collectivist view will win out, where power cliques of technocrats control the lives of the masses. At least until space colonization becomes a thing, I expect the lights of both personal liberty and representative governance to dim. Maybe in the future, hindsight will give a clear enough picture to posterity to enable them to understand where we structurally went wrong and make corrective measures that last longer than 200 years.

Some will no doubt think my view is extreme. What is extreme however, are the demands reality ultimately places on us.


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I happen to agree with your predictions, only I think there is even worst scenario than technocracy that can conceivably take place - theocracy. I don't think it is given that our technological society would survive. Our grand children might end up marveling at our tales of instantaneous communications on the go and imaginary worlds built in the digital space. When Rome fell it brought on dark ages, there is no reason to expect the same won't happen when US collapses (and do not go gentle into that good night).

Also, as a big proponent of republic and democracy, I think where we went wrong in adhering to one person, one vote rule. Not everyone is qualified to vote. These feeble minded people add hysteresis to the system where it does not respond rationally.


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Originally Posted by Sini
I happen to agree with your predictions, only I think there is even worst scenario than technocracy that can conceivably take place - theocracy. I don't think it is given that our technological society would survive. Our grand children might end up marveling at our tales of instantaneous communications on the go and imaginary worlds built in the digital space. When Rome fell it brought on dark ages, there is no reason to expect the same won't happen when US collapses (and do not go gentle into that good night).

Also, as a big proponent of republic and democracy, I think where we went wrong in adhering to one person, one vote rule. Not everyone is qualified to vote. These feeble minded people add hysteresis to the system where it does not respond rationally.


I wont disagree in principle that the right to vote could theoretically be more limited. The question is by what metric? I can see pitfalls in a great many vetting methods.

The biggest pain points as I see them are as thus:

First is sheer scale, both of number of people and number of issues. The public mind can follow a very limited number of issues, and political figures are naturally clueless about the principles behind most issues, even when they genuinely desire to govern well in regards to those issues. This is exacerbated by a trend of wanting govt to do even more, and handle things in a more detailed manner. It is then further exacerbated by all of the issues being handled by the same political offices.

To wit: policy for everything from telecommunications to health to money originates from, or originates from appointees of, or at least is veto-able and/or enforced (or not) by the office of president. This might have worked when there were relatively few issues, and the Federal Govts scope was generally more limited, or served more of an oversight role, only stepping in when needed. These days, the govt is expected to actively manage these sectors. Yet, how can we expect good governance when neither the president nor the voters have any clue about the actual workings of most of those segments? Nevermind congress that votes on everything despite their, or their constituents lack of knowledge. If there were only a half-dozen segments that were actively managed, maybe it would be possible - but these days govt is expected to be intimately involved in producing ends, not just policing the means.

A good example is the monetary policy we were just discussing. Voters don't understand it, or don't think it really matters, and are losing their shirts and country due to that lack. This is generally why most people would consider me financially conservative/libertarian, not wanting govt to be involved - or at least not involved too deeply, and relegated to strict oversight roles that operate using very clear, well-defined criteria for oversight and action.

It's not that I think reducing govt is utopian, or that the world will even be measurably better in most segments by doing so. It is about putting all your eggs in one basket. When politics ultimately controls the fate of an entire sector of society, and the politics fails, then the sector fails. When you have so many sectors of society dependent on the same locus of political power, then inevitably some are going to fail.

If, in certain circumstances, people decide that activist govt is needed no matter what - then fine. But the political offices for that sector need separated out, and elected and overseen individually. You want to implement a widespread govt run health system? OK. But you can't just form it from Congress, and have the current President appoint its top officials, and expect it to work in the long run. Maybe it is a year, maybe it is a century, but it will eventually fail with catastrophic consequences. See the Federal Reserve system, which, despite its myriad shortcomings over the years, would not be tanking our entire society were Volcker still running it: its not that a Federal Reserve system can't work, its just that when it massively fails, it takes down everything else with it.

If we want to give active govt any chance to succeed, each segment needs to be its own office, and its officials elected independently. We need to elect a Director of Health, and the Board, and the regional and local managers. Who we have running our massive health system cannot be dependent on who we vote for as President because of entirely unrelated international politics, or abortion, or anything else. It has to be its own thing, looked at independently, and voted on independently.

-

Second is culture.

Representative government has been shown to fail in most areas of the world. Thus, there is obviously nothing about representative government itself that is self-sustaining. It relies on the culture of the people to make it work, and keep it going. When people don't value it, or forget what it is, it fails.


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https://www.bloomberg.com/view/arti...nk-rules-and-fed-rates-hurt-middle-class

Seems like some more mainstream folks have taken up a similar tack towards the Fed and banking regulation. Interesting.


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I have hard time taking this seriously: "The single biggest variable that changed after 2007 was the way banking was conducted and regulated." Reminds me of this: http://www.tylervigen.com/spurious-correlations


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Well, what, aside from banking conduct and regulation do you think has changed and serves as a larger catalyst?


For who could be free when every other man's humour might domineer over him? - John Locke (2nd Treatise, sect 57)
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