tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3856837.post1026762770686420751..comments2023-10-24T09:06:30.200-04:00Comments on No More Mister Nice Blog: Steve M.http://www.blogger.com/profile/11963290427258439242noreply@blogger.comBlogger14125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3856837.post-67836108177963526532013-08-07T08:20:00.090-04:002013-08-07T08:20:00.090-04:00Man, do I get tired of these "authors" w...Man, do I get tired of these "authors" who come from my area pushing some sort of crazed insight that only they have. Port Clinton is like Sandusky, which is like Huron, like Lorain, like Elyria. Things change. Some employers leave, some start up and stay. Messed up poor people are everywhere, not just here and they don't have any special reason to stay indigent and screwed up, except really bad judgement skills.<br /><br />Akron, just to the south and east of Port Clinton, lost all of its rubber factories. Yet, it has rebuilt. Polymers, electronics, related industries. Yes, there are lost souls there as well. The mayor of Akron, who has lots of good and bad traits, has made it a priority to get his local economy moving. Cleveland, just to the north, is following. Not everyone catches the wave at the same time, but it is possible to change the economic clime. And the only boogey man seems to be Father Time. Things change.Luigihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16483229810538275725noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3856837.post-45592783760919565722013-08-07T03:59:20.159-04:002013-08-07T03:59:20.159-04:00Perfect intact families who conspicuously work har...Perfect intact families who conspicuously work hard, show up in the community, and ask for help often make out OK. The children of messed-up, broken, violent ne'er-do-wells are treated as if their problems are contagious.<br /><br />That's in every era. Now if we'd been shown two equivalent children, decades apart---Superfluous Manhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14935534194246434873noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3856837.post-71868705971217222172013-08-06T04:13:04.334-04:002013-08-06T04:13:04.334-04:00@ Examinator: Yes, indeed, bloody people, why do t...@ Examinator: Yes, indeed, bloody people, why do they always get in the way and mess things up! An intellectual like Karl Marx spent all that time working out a detailed ideology on how things should be organised, you know, 'each according to his needs' and all that sort of thing but he forgot human nature which most of the time for most people entails looking out for number one!<br /><br />That is why, on the whole, and with reservations, I prefer societies run on the basis of maximum liberty and a minimum of people telling me how I should, or in the worst case, how I *must*, conduct my life.<br />David DuffAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3856837.post-60878780484607708022013-08-05T20:11:54.446-04:002013-08-05T20:11:54.446-04:00Duff
Your argument(s)to me tend to ignore cause an...Duff<br />Your argument(s)to me tend to ignore cause and effect. In so doing you seem to ignore the root cause.<br />The problem with most political ideologies is that they involve human nature but tend to ignore that in favor of effect juggling.<br />e.g Communism like Conservatism, Republicanism and particularly the US version of Libertarianism don't account for/ignores the previously mentioned human nature. They also tend to miss the implication of the Laws of Thermodynamics. TD doesn't say is that the the opposite and equal force MUST be a singular one.<br />The clear implication is that everything has the potential to effect everything else.... there are no externalities/exclusions just our ability to measure them either in singularity or combination. Examinatorhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08990595916031900662noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3856837.post-38452357734001763772013-08-05T19:51:48.320-04:002013-08-05T19:51:48.320-04:00Victor,
I'm in more than casual agreement with...Victor,<br />I'm in more than casual agreement with you.<br />What you missed is the effects of the creations of the rich the '29 crash and the following depression. This in turn lead to the threat behind the "New Deal" give them some equity or suffer the consequences of when the poor take it all. <br /><br />Clearly history tells us that every popular revolution begins when the gap between the rich and poor becomes extreme.<br /><br />There is a wealth of research that shows the link between decreasing equity (as opposed to equality) and social unrest(see our own revolution).<br />Clearly the mechanism is a bit more convoluted but the end game is clear.<br />It would seem that human greed/selfishness stops us from learning the indelible truth.<br />Duff is also accurate that THINGS have changed but what he chooses not to acknowledge, is that genetic based Human nature hasn't. <br />Evolution is predicated of gradual change of both circumstances and the organism takes a very long time.. measured in millions of years. We have changed from our hominid ancestors of 1-2 million years ago but the base (survival) conditions haven't. Those changes that have happened have been in evolutionary terms vary rapid 60000 years. <br />In short our technology has changed but not our emotions to cope with it ( see the lessons from 'le Enfant Miserable' and 'Lord of the Flies' i.e. civilization is learned and socially deep.Examinatorhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08990595916031900662noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3856837.post-1033008526027557972013-08-05T14:34:32.785-04:002013-08-05T14:34:32.785-04:00Thanks, Duff.
And yeah - I am old.
My fightin'...Thanks, Duff.<br /><br />And yeah - I am old.<br />My fightin' and protesting days are over.<br /><br />Victorhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06609452382111686086noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3856837.post-67529024165514640482013-08-05T10:17:30.116-04:002013-08-05T10:17:30.116-04:00"Globally"!
"Aye, there's the..."Globally"! <br /><br />"Aye, there's the rub", as that gloomy Dane muttered. What you seem to be suggesting, Victor, is an international and enforceable tax rate. Well, pigs might, I suppose, just about fly one day but it's hardly realistic, is it? Do you think that nice Mr. Putin will help you with that idea? Or any of the Asian countries desperate to keep their *genuinely* poor people in work? I don't think so.<br /><br />I suspect, Victor, that you might be of my generation which is a polite way of saying - old! Today, money is mobile in a way that it never has been before - and so are people, as your Mr. Snowden has just demonstrated. Businessmen will always follow the money which, as it happens, is currently a benefit to YOU! Because fracking has managed so far to avoid the attentions of the Commissars in your EPA, the USA is about to become self-sufficient in oil and gas which is already bringing the prices down and the factories back home.<br /><br />There, don't say I haven't tried to cheer you up!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3856837.post-53726508533499686862013-08-05T09:30:21.224-04:002013-08-05T09:30:21.224-04:00What I'm suggesting is not to set that society...What I'm suggesting is not to set that society in aspic.<br />We were the lone economy in the world, left standing.<br />All of Europe, Russia, North Africa, China, East and Southeast Asia, were little more than rubble.<br /><br />Only the US, Canada, and Australia, outside of Central and South America (and those had their own set of problems) were left fairly intact.<br />And out of those, the US had by far the most industrialized society. And we did that lickety-split, too - from 1939 until the end of the war.<br /><br />We had a high tax rate on the highest earners, and that allowed for further expansion under Truman and Ike - super-highways and airports were built, railroads expanded, and people moved out of the country to the city, and out of the cities into the suburbs. All of those put people to work.<br /><br />What I'm calling for, is a return to the tax rates of that time - GLOBALLY!<br />With no place to hide money.<br /><br />Somehow, the yachts built before, were large and showy enough - now, they're virtually, if not in fact, larger than cruise ships. <br /><br />The rich had enough back then. They were still far richer than the working man. <br />But the CEO wasn't making hundreds, if not thousands, of times what the average worker made.<br /><br />Higher taxes were a way to say, "Enough!" <br />Higher taxes allowed for the lives of the poor and middle class to be better than merely tolerable.<br /><br />Our infrastructure badly needs rebuilding. There are hundreds of thousands, if no millions of jobs to repair, expand, and then maintain that infrastructure.<br /><br />But that takes money. And too many cowardly politicians over the last 4-5 decades, didn't want to tell people that taxes needed to be raised.<br />No, in fact, quite the opposite happened.<br />But without the promise of jobs, and NO TRICKLING DOWN OF ANYTHING!!!<br /><br />Taxes are the price people pay, for an orderly society.<br /><br />Someone pretty damn smart said that, too! Victorhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06609452382111686086noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3856837.post-71542810124112269772013-08-05T09:28:16.558-04:002013-08-05T09:28:16.558-04:00Drivel and dreck, that's all we can expect fro...Drivel and dreck, that's all we can expect from an apologist for the 1% like you.Dark Avengerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02220642215040873632noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3856837.post-15361370457710319102013-08-05T08:08:57.624-04:002013-08-05T08:08:57.624-04:00Well done, Victor, splendid stuff - and please fee...Well done, Victor, splendid stuff - and please feel free to call me David, er, or anything else that comes to mind! I really do admire your passion and your eloquence but I only wish your analysis was more rigorous.<br /><br />Let me try and understand you, are you suggesting that somehow the immediate post-war society of America could and should have been set in aspic, as it were? That might, just, have been possible if you had thrown up huge trade barriers to the rest of the world, although of course, they would have returned your gesture and your exports upon which many jobs depended would have dried up.<br /><br />Given the latest news I would suggest that the history of Detroit is worth study. For decades after the war the fat cat owners of the huge car plants sat back and raked in the profits churning out increasingly old-fashioned cars. They placated their militant unions by sharing a considerable amount of their profits with their workforce who prospered along with them.<br /><br />Meanwhile, the rest of the world, well, the Japs at least, had realised that people wanted different cars and when they opened their factories in the non-unionised southern states they rapidly brought about the demise of the giant American companies and their hugely expensive behemeths - with the entirely expected result you have just witnessed in Detroit.<br /><br />I might add, that whilst the car workers enjoyed their superb wages and conditions - *it was the rest of America* which paid for them! Truly was it said by a very wise man, an American, I believe, that there is no such thing as a free lunch!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3856837.post-76374524253269698782013-08-05T07:42:19.462-04:002013-08-05T07:42:19.462-04:00Cont...
And the powers-that-be, saw all of that, s...Cont...<br />And the powers-that-be, saw all of that, saw other nations were now recovering from the devastation of WW II, and realized that they no longer had to depend on Americans to keep their companies afloat, and awash in profits, and they set about trying to kill that middle class here.<br />They didn't need it anymore. And it was getting too powerful, and demanded still more change - and not in the favor of the wealthy.<br /><br />And so, since the mid-late 60's, via wedge issues like race, misogyny, xenophobia, and homophobia, they have 'divided,' and the have 'conquered."<br /><br />Now, the middle class here is all by destroyed.<br />There is no guarantee of long-term, stable employment with one company - as there had been, from after WWII into Nixon's Presidency.<br /><br />Do you think this was all some accident, or intentional?<br /><br />I say that they have done it intentionally, since without a stable middle class that people can find a place in, people are desperate.<br />Many people don't have a secure home anymore - and that's if they have a job at all.<br />A lot of people don't have food security.<br />Secure pensions are the dream from a long-ago era.<br />People will take whatever they can get, to make it through the day, and the next one.<br /><br />The America I was born into, is gone.<br />Dead, and buried.<br />The America that offered the job security that led to a strong middle class is gone.<br />Dead, and buried.<br /><br />And it was no accident.<br />This was all intentional. And it was done slowly, lest it birth a revolution.<br /><br />We Americans now have the greatest economic inequality since The Gilded Age.<br /><br />We live in what I call, The Platinumed Age.<br />A rotting core, coated with a sheen of wealth for our richest people that would be the envy of Crassus, and Emperor's and Kings, and Queens, throughout history.<br /><br />And there is no sense of obligation, no sense of societal responsibility, because these uber-wealthy people don't need Americans to buy their goods anymore - their market is now the whole world.<br />And they can take their money, and move wherever they want to.<br />And their market will change, as some countries grow wealthier, and some poorer - it doesn't matter, because there will always be a market somewhere.<br /><br />I could spend another 100,000 words to explain what is going on.<br /><br />But if people don't want to see it, don't want to accept it - or instead, deny it, then they have been propagandized into being obtuse, and hence compliant.<br /><br />If people can be made to understand what has happened, then perhaps they can fight for change.<br /><br />Because without fighting for change here in America, the only light at the end of the tunnel, is the last Galtian train, taking as it's last load in this country, all of the wealth that is left, to some other new country, or countries, to call home.<br /><br />The wealthy can see their 'brave new world,' and guess what?<br />None of us has a place in it - except as low-paid, compliant lackey's.<br />And those will be the lucky ones.<br /><br />The rest of us, can all go fuck off and die, for all anyone cares.<br /><br />There is one of two choices.<br />Both are revolutions.<br />One will be violent revolution.<br />The other, is even more revolutionary - the rich and powerful, can come to the conclusion to share a bit of their wealth. And accept being rich, instead of wanting to be filthy disgustingly rich.<br /><br />The tipping point may come soon.<br /> <br />The TV networks had better keep churning out enough entertaining drivel to keep the masses occupied.Victorhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06609452382111686086noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3856837.post-55149676196774002292013-08-05T07:41:49.340-04:002013-08-05T07:41:49.340-04:00Duff,
The market was no less "free" from...Duff,<br />The market was no less "free" from the late 40's, to the early-mid 70's. <br />The rich and corporations paid a much, much higher share of taxes than they do now.<br />And they were willing, because a good chunk of what they were making in this country was being sold in this country - since it took the rest of the world 20-30 some-odd years to recover from the economic after effects of WW's I & II.<br />We were the lone economy standing.<br /><br />And the corporations and their owners/shareholders were willing to pay workers, and give them long-term secure jobs, because the people with good-paying jobs, would buy one another's products, which allowed the economy to grow and grow.<br /><br />All of that growth, and stable, good-paying jobs built the strongest middle class in history. <br />And that middle class, no longer worried about the roof over their heads, or where they were going to work the next day, and what they were going to feed their families, noticed societal inequity - it was on the TV's in their living rooms.<br />And they saw the plight of black in the South, and clamored for fairness.<br />And they saw an ever-expanding war in Vietnam, that was chewing up their kids - who didn't want to fight some useless war in some jungle half-way 'round the planet. And the youth spoke out against it.<br /><br />To be cont...Victorhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06609452382111686086noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3856837.post-88270284748646958422013-08-05T06:41:49.043-04:002013-08-05T06:41:49.043-04:00No one is to blame? Hey, what's capitalism wi...No one is to blame? Hey, what's capitalism without a little creative destruction now and then ruining a community, profits should come before people, right?Dark Avengerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02220642215040873632noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3856837.post-57636600094943306612013-08-05T06:04:49.695-04:002013-08-05T06:04:49.695-04:00Well at least you and Mr. Putnam agree on the evid...Well at least you and Mr. Putnam agree on the evidence that surrounds you, it is only the conclusions you both draw that differ.<br /><br />Setting aside free markets vs. fixed markets upon which we will never agree, let me point to the main neutral characteristic that effects both of them equally, the anvil, if you like, upon which both are tested. <br /><br />Everything in life - and I do mean everything - changes, it always changes, and it always will. Like the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics, there is no escape. Flux is a constant!<br /><br />So how do you deal with it? In a free market system change is accepted, more or less, and things change accordingly because it is obvious that if you stand still you will be run over! In a fixed market, 'stasis rules OK!' But unfortunately, as every fixed market that has ever existed finds out sooner or later, change always wins. <br /><br />I would suggest that the pain felt by gradual change is less than that felt by sudden, cataclysmic change. None of what I have said thus far precludes decent arrangements for workers caught in the pain of change but trying to shore up stasis is the equivalent of the Dutch boy sticking his finger in the dam.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com