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| The California Collapse
Posted: 5/21/2009 7:07:01 PM | | Pirate, I heard that China has made some super wise business moves and as a result their government has grown super, super rich. | |
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| The California Collapse
Posted: 5/21/2009 8:05:36 PM | | Chris I saw a report on China yesterday and they are not buying any treasury notes, instead they are investing in South America, Africa and buying real goods and mineral rights and the such, their exports are up by 42%n to these areas. Exports to the US are down as they are beginning to no longer see us or Europe as their top market They are doing it at a breakneck pace too. We have taken our eye off the prize as an economy, oh that's right those evil corporate entities. We are soon going to be a 3rd World Country. | |
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| The California Collapse
Posted: 5/21/2009 8:24:11 PM | I know, we are screwed--but we have the minds of free people already, this is our greatest asset to be capitalized on, immediately. Petty regulations, licensing demands and fees are all quite profitable for some but not for the majority. Its choking us out. I have a passion for marketing and photographing yachts--and not to brag but I have great gifts in this particular department. Yet, I can't do much with those "magical skills" because I'm not a broker who has worked under a sales person for a minimum of three years (the basic requirement for the broker license). I could be bringing buyers from all over the world, improving the economy, but no, I'm not a broker. :( I
That's bs | |
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| The California Collapse
Posted: 5/21/2009 8:40:44 PM | Government always is less efficient than the market. There is no doubt about it. History is replete with examples. Now they want to nationalize banks, automobile business, etc.
When goods and services are such that the market can provide them, the market should provide them. Not all goods and services are like that. Health care is one such service. The buyer is not the user, and because it's a three-way transaction, two players can gang up to screw the third.
You get your electricity from a regulated monopoly. That's a nonmarket commodity. Same with municipal water.
There is nothing wrong with social engineering. Everything about our lives has been engineered. The Interstate highway system is an artifact of social engineering, as is the single-family suburban home.
However, there is an awful lot wrong with _bad_ social engineering. Placing ideology over practicality (whether it's pro-market idealism in a nonmarket situation, or pro-government idealism in a market situation) is bad engineering.
All that is necessary for optimal allocation is a situation in which the relative power of buyers and sellers is equalized. Public assistance programs have not been set up that way, so it's no wonder they don't work.
I agree that the government should not be bailing out/nationalizing car companies. But if they do, I would want voting board representation for consumers and workers, not just stockholders. When a company reaches such a size that it "cannot fail," it has outgrown its market. The arrogance that allowed GM to be so completely unresponsive for so long shows that competition is not always sufficient to discipline suboptimal performers. | |
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| The California Collapse
Posted: 5/21/2009 8:50:49 PM | You get your electricity from a regulated monopoly. That's a nonmarket commodity. Same with municipal water.
Hope the quote worked.
Not disagreeing you point just wanted to list interesting article on the subject.
http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/ElectricityandItsRegulation.html
I'll never get the quote thing right
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| The California Collapse
Posted: 5/21/2009 9:01:57 PM | Progress dude! Progress!
Do it like this:
{quote}
{quote}
Here's the older quote.
{/quote}
Here's the newer quote.
{/quote}
Now, instead of curly braces use square ones and you'll be in business.
BTW, regulated monopolies aren't perfect either. For too many decades small producers like households with solar panels could not get paid for surplus power added to the grid. Why? Because the companies and regulators were in cahoots to keep solar off the market. | |
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| The California Collapse
Posted: 5/21/2009 11:42:43 PM | [quoteThe Interstate highway system is an artifact of social engineering, as is the single-family suburban home.
How, and why? I don't see what kind of "social engineering" was necessary for either one. Congress, representing the people, voted to fund the highway system. No one else imposed it on us. And the biggest boom in suburban housing took place during the 1920's, before there was a FHA, mortgage interest deduction, etc. People saved their $2,500 and bought a house where they wanted to live.
I don't agree with you, and I don't understand your rancor toward GM. In what ways, specifically, has it been so unresponsive? And to whom? It's been in competition with the other two American makers for a very long time, and with foreign ones for several decades now. All these companies have been responsive enough to their customers' demands to sell millions of cars and trucks.
If there'd been a large market here for 2-cylinder cars, they all would have made them. But this isn't Italy. The poorest American cars were probably made during the 1970's, when the makers had to satisfy a load of federal regulations in a short time, while keeping prices down.
You never mention the enormous cost that labor agreements, partly forced on Detroit by federal law, imposed on GM and the others.
<div class="quote"> There is nothing wrong with social engineering. Everything about our lives has been engineered.
Social engineering by whom? And by what right? Unless you mean it in some other sense that what it meant to us in planning school, there's *everything* wrong with it. It's statist tyranny--the death of federalism and the substitution of nationalism. This country was never designed for a socialist government, and I don't recognize the right of *anyone* to install one here so it can control ever detail of our lives. And I don't care if it's the pompous statist now in the White House, or any other would-be tyrant obssessed with dictating how we all should live. | |
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Posted: 5/22/2009 7:07:54 AM |
Congress, representing the people, voted to fund the highway system. No one else imposed it on us.
The same is true of social welfare programs.
This country was never designed for a socialist government, and I don't recognize the right of *anyone* to install one here so it can control ever detail of our lives. And I don't care if it's the pompous statist now in the White House, or any other would-be tyrant obssessed with dictating how we all should live.
Well then, you might want to reconsider your views on indefinite detainment and harsh interrogations.
Name me a suburb that wasn't planned, zoned, and built according to a blueprint that mandated the placement of building schools, shopping districts, parks, levels of police, fire, and other governmental services, according to a universal building code. What is that if not social engineering? | |
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Posted: 5/22/2009 7:28:05 AM | No...you have not described social engineering at all in the above passage Ace. Let me shed some light on the concept. My take on social engineering is that it occurs when one group assumes that the other group needs a leg up, structuring, guidance, support, money, education, standards, etc.,. and all of these engineered social objectives consequently disable and/or limit the individuals subjected to the social engineering. A good example of social engineering is mandantory voluntary service.
Zones create order. While zones can inadvertantly engineer, the intent of social engineering is not inherent in the concept of zoning laws as zoning can't be attributed to manipulating people into what another wants them to do--or can it? Hmmm. Maybe zoning is a two edged sword. Anyway, just thinking out loud here...
To gain insight on the essence of social engineering, consider Lamb's reflection on the matter:
"A substantial number of Americans, perhaps a majority, believe that government should dictate where people live, what their housing structures should look like and how they should be constructed. They believe it is right for government to dictate what curriculum children should study in school. They believe it is right for government to dictate which land should be cultivated and which land should not be touched by humans. They believe it is right for government to dictate the kind of automobiles that are available for people to purchase.
Simply put, a substantial number of Americans believe it is right for government to dictate how people should live. They believe that government should “engineer” society.
How different is this modern attitude from the belief system that led Americans into war to defeat the Nazis’ efforts to engineer society. How different is this modern attitude from the belief system that led our founders to declare that the Creator, not government, endowed people with equal rights to “… life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” How different is this modern attitude from the notion that legitimate government is empowered only by the consent of the governed."
Source: http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=56996
I myself have no problem making resources available to others, and even cooperating in such activity, and even contributing my money. And while I have enjoyed some of the perks of social engineering in my youth, I must say that participation in programs that socially engineer should be OPTIONAL in a free society because now that I've grown older, I have a problem when the government dictates how resources need to be applied or used.
In other words, I liken the impact of social engineering to once having been free in my mother's womb to float and fall and then being born into a system where the river is flowing so fast that I can't even be my own ideal productive self. There's very little thinking (or living) outside of a box in a socially engineered society. Another example of the impact of social engineering is that a kid diagnosed with autism is educated and cared for in this society ONLY in a previously prescribed fashion expecially designed for the autistic. Those who approach the plight of an autistic in an alternative fashion are immediately viewed by many of their peers as 1) lacking experience and education, 2) breaking existing laws, or, 3) "out there." Conformity is often a fruit of social engineering. It can get pretty ugly the more one ponders the notion.
Ok, I've strayed onto the topic of social engineering. But, I hope it was helpful. | |
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| The California Collapse
Posted: 5/22/2009 8:02:43 AM | "I have great gifts in this particular department. Yet, I can't do much with those "magical skills" because I'm not a broker who has worked under a sales person for a minimum of three years (the basic requirement for the broker license). I could be bringing buyers from all over the world, improving the economy, but no, I'm not a broker."
Total BS is that for decades up and coming people have trained under brokers for the time necessary to earn their licenses. Not being a broker isn't the problem. Lacking the maturity to learn from brokers and follow the path of education in your career is. Sheeeeeeesh.
From the very earliest of mercantile times in the very earliest of mercantile societies each new generation has apprenticed to those with experience before earning the right to call themselves by the name that trade gives to the most highly trained in the field. Plumbers are first apprenticed, then journeymen, then masters .... it is an educational path. Calling yourself a broker before you have followed the path is no different than a person calling themselves a doctor who has not followed the path. | |
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| The California Collapse
Posted: 5/22/2009 8:09:20 AM | There is no calling one's self a broker. There is simply wasted skills related to another field where education and apprenticeship ALREADY took place. Those skills are made legally applied if hired by a broker who sits and need not do a thing in light of another's skill set. Some are quicker studies than others. No one should be forced to stay back to entertain policies when they catch on fast. At no time in history were people subjected to "waiting out" qualification time before embarking on what they already know how to do because of an aristocratic monopoly on any given field that puts policy before consideration of people. I resent your suggestion.
You can't convince me that licensure is ALWAYS better than output monitoring and is therefore more meaningful, credible or mature. Sheesh. I am not in favor of making others submit mindlessly to a bureaucratic dicatorship.
My evidence: "Today, oppressive economic regulations such as occupational licensing laws and government-conferred business monopolies proliferate at the state and local level. These laws often far exceed legitimate public health and safety concerns. Like their Jim Crow antecedents, these laws are race-neutral but impose their harshest burdens on people outside the economic mainstream -- primarily minorities and the poor."
http://www.theadvocates.org/freeman/8910boli.html
"To be governed is to be watched, inspected, spied upon, directed, law-ridden, regulated, penned up, indoctrinated, preached at, checked, appraised, seized, censured, commanded, by beings who have neither title, nor knowledge, nor virtue. To be governed is to have every operation, every transaction, every movement noted, registered, counted, rated, stamped, measured, numbered, assessed, licensed, refused, authorized, endorsed, admonished, prevented, reformed, redressed, corrected."
--Pierre-Joseph Proudhon
I'm sure your post had good intentions in them, someplace, but be advised that I don't need your governing too. | |
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| The California Collapse
Posted: 5/22/2009 11:21:10 AM | Message 58,
Most social programs are UNconstitutional. I have many other reasons to oppose them, but that will do. The Constitution was designed to rein in governmental power. It states clearly what it can do. All other powers are reserved for the States and the People. | |
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| The California Collapse
Posted: 5/22/2009 11:22:29 AM |
This country was never designed for a socialist government, and I don't recognize the right of *anyone* to install one here so it can control ever detail of our lives. And I don't care if it's the pompous statist now in the White House, or any other would-be tyrant obssessed with dictating how we all should live.
Well then, you might want to reconsider your views on indefinite detainment and harsh interrogations.
What the detention and interrogation of unlawful enemy combatants in wartime has to do with President Obama's socialist domestic policies, no one knows. You're implying that what President Bush did with captured jihadists was illegal, and that therefore it's inconsistent of me to attack President Obama's domestic actions on the same ground. The analogy is false--and you know it.
"My views" on these matters are what U.S. law says about them--pure and simple. But even after I explained what this law says, about both the detention at Guantanamo and the 2003 interrogations, you've continued to make assertions to the contrary--a half dozen times now. You can't support these assertions with any law, and you've declined my invitation to try. You should make clear that (as you admitted elsewhere) you're only stating your opinion about how things *should* be. I'm interested in discussing things here, but not if anything goes.
Leave it to the President to make noble-sounding assertions about torture that he knows, or should know are false, and to Mr. Holder to make a fool of himself trying to defend his boss. Either they were spotted ten or twelve points on their LSAT's because they're black, or they're both lying. I have no personal respect for either of them--not because of their views, but their character. | |
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| The California Collapse
Posted: 5/22/2009 11:45:44 AM | | Pirate, I'm still trying to figure out why the anarchist, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon has been classified as a socialist when all it seems he was advocating was cooperation among people for "social programs," leaving government aside. I know he was a radical, but, a socialist? That just does not seem accurate to me. Are you familiar with him? | |
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| The California Collapse
Posted: 5/22/2009 11:59:13 AM | Hmmm... Libertarians tend to favor him, it seems, but don't quote me.
Thanks. | |
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| The California Collapse
Posted: 5/22/2009 6:24:49 PM | My take on social engineering is that it occurs when one group assumes that the other group needs a leg up, structuring, guidance, support, money, education, standards, etc.,. and all of these engineered social objectives consequently disable and/or limit the individuals subjected to the social engineering. A good example of social engineering is mandantory voluntary service.
12-steppers would call that "enabling." Though I do agree that it is one form of bad engineering. There are others.
Good engineering is not the same as Capitalism. Bad engineering is not the same as Socialism. Allowing unregulated speculation in financial derivatives is Capitalism. it is also very bad engineering.
Any activity that involves design, calculation, and operation entails some engineering. Let's start calling things what they are instead of using all these code words--shall we?
Chances are we're going to have to engineer our way out of this collapse, so instead of disparaging the entire activity, let's make sure we do it right. | |
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| The California Collapse
Posted: 5/22/2009 6:28:46 PM | What the detention and interrogation of unlawful enemy combatants in wartime has to do with President Obama's socialist domestic policies, no one knows.
You're implying that Obama is skirting the law and abusing his authority to impose a socialist agenda on the nation, in a way that threatens our property rights.
I suspected the Bush administration of skirting the law and abusing his authority to impose an imperialist agenda on the nation, in a way that threatened our due process rights.
Of the two sets of rights, you tell me which is more urgent to protect. | |
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| The California Collapse
Posted: 5/22/2009 8:21:21 PM |
You're implying that Obama is skirting the law and abusing his authority to impose a socialist agenda on the nation, in a way that threatens our property rights. I suspected the Bush administration of skirting the law and abusing his authority to impose an imperialist agenda on the nation, in a way that threatened our due process rights.
I'm not just implying that he's doing that, I'm saying it flat out. He's unquestionably a socialist by conviction--his "little red book" was "Rules for Radicals," written by a communist. And he still believes it. He lamented that the Warren Court couldn't do more to redistribute wealth, because the Constitution posed too many obstacles to that. Of course anyone who thinks that way is a threat to our property rights.
I gave one example of a clearly false claim he continues to make about waterboarding that took place six years ago. President Obama is a glib, arrogant liar--every bit as dishonest as Ms. Pelosi. He spouted all sorts of sappy nonsense to please the adoring throng on the campaign trail, and now he's having to contradict himself. He's already adopted most of President Bush's policies regarding terrorists--the same ones he earlier lambasted at every chance--and yet he has the audacity to continue to blame what are now his own policies on the last administration. Nothing's Mr. Obama's fault, to hear him tell it, practiced as he is at every kind of illegitimate rhetorical trick there is. And so far, he's still snowing most people with his fine-sounding platitudes.
If you choose to believe President Bush was doing these things, that's up to you. But why should anyone else believe it, when you don't cite, specifically, what he did, and when, that directly threatened anyone's right to due process? If he did what you claim, you should be able to point to specific examples, say exactly what laws his actions violated, and explain why it was unjustified. I'd like to hear it. I heard this stuff for eight years, and with a couple exceptions, it's never been anything but vague personal attacks, mockery, slander, and so on--90% ad hominem. And when you attack President Bush for having threatened our most basic constitutional rights--without citing specific laws and facts--you appear to be doing the same thing.
You know that legal rights have always been compromised to some degree during wartime. "Inter armas silent leges." Justice Rehnquist wrote a couple books about that. Why make President Bush a villain for taking the measures he did, when they were FAR less severe than the ones Presidents Lincoln, Wilson, and FDR took? | |
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Posted: 5/22/2009 8:21:49 PM |
All other powers are reserved for the States and the People.
When the People, speaking through their duly elected representatives, agree upon a course of action, the only agency that has the power to tell them otherwise is the Judiciary, and they can only do so when the will of the majority would violate the rights of an individual.
When our predecessors gave the power to tax incomes to the Federal Government, the opportunity to rein in the government's power was lost. | |
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| The California Collapse
Posted: 5/22/2009 8:36:20 PM |
Why make President Bush a villain for taking the measures he did, when they were FAR less severe than the ones Presidents Lincoln, Wilson, and FDR took?
Lincoln, Wilson, and FDR consulted with Congress and recognized the importance of legislative oversight. What they did might have been harsh, but it was all above board. The Bush administration made themselves into suspects by skirting oversight whenever possible.
The President has a great deal of authority and leeway in wartime, that's true. But the President must still observe the principle of consent of the governed. Bush & Co. derided such calls at every opportunity. They wrapped themselves in the flag while screwing with the Constitutional guarantees and, it appeared "engineered" a war in Iraq so that they could continue to do so. That's the 1984 formula in a nutshell, and if you don't believe me go read it again. And that's why I was suspicious of them.
Which laws, in your view, is Obama trying to end run? | |
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| The California Collapse
Posted: 5/22/2009 11:29:20 PM | It makes me livid as an eight generation California family to see the spend spend spend pigs at the trough expecting someone to do everything for them aside from wipe their bare butts. And its even weirder when one knows that California is seen as a live and let live free spirited place.
Sadly we have become a state where people assume that doing ones own thing means that when you mess up the taxpayer will bail you out. Be it drug, alcohol addiction, children you cannot afford, education. We are touted as being an organic loving state yet the opposite is true where big business runs the show. And we rank 49th in public education, yet we have an educational system that gets one of the biggest chunks or money in the state budget. The state never as had a rainy day fund. Never has a set aside fund for wild fires or other natural disasters.
And then we wince when they say we are a state of fruits and nuts. We need to get back to the Constitutional guarantee of life liberty and the pursuit of happiness which is about the individual paying for it not the government (taxpayers).
Am a wild mountain woman and all that invisions.
By the way the national highway system which was an Eisenhower idea was created because of the cold war and the concern that people needed multi lane highways in case they needed to evacuate. Not because someone invisioned suburbia.
~Beth~ | |
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| The California Collapse
Posted: 5/23/2009 1:22:36 AM | Wow Beth.
By the way the national highway system which was an Eisenhower idea was created because of the cold war and the concern that people needed multi lane highways in case they needed to evacuate. Not because someone invisioned suburbia.
Someone really needs to compile a bunch of facts like the one above into a book and call it The Escape Indoctrination Handbook. | |
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| The California Collapse
Posted: 5/23/2009 8:37:57 AM |
By the way the national highway system which was an Eisenhower idea was created because of the cold war and the concern that people needed multi lane highways in case they needed to evacuate.
It wasn't for evacuation, but for rapid troop transport. Still, your point is well taken. Sprawl was a side effect.
Nevertheless, virtually all suburban developments were planned, from Levittown on out. As far as planned communities go, there is probably no other settlement on Earth that is as thoroughly engineered as Irvine California. We'll have to see how well these different experiments in social engineering fare in the coming decades of ever-increasing fuel costs.
Here's the thing. We can continue to blame the government for their previous mismanagement. That might make us feel better but it won't really change anything. We can continue to mistrust those who have different perspectives, but that won't do us much good either. Or, we can recognize that we are, for the most part, well intended and capable, and start working together to engineer a more sustainable lifestyle and the infrastructure to support it.
Christakeri, you are absolutely right in saying that we cannot allow some insular elite to design our lives and lifestyles for us. But that holds just as well for development contractors who are only in it for the money as it does for ideologues who are in it for a sense of control. There is no reason why the engineering of our future cannot be participatory. In fact, if we're going to have much of a future, it will have to be.
Someone very wise once said that freedom is the ability to act in one's own best interest. At a certain point, the self-interested thing to do is to appreciate differences, find ways to apply them as strengths, and get on with the business of creating good lives for ourselves and our descendents.
For example, if we need government-sponsored basic research to increase the efficiency of photovoltaic cells and reduce their cost to the point that homeowners can afford to by enough of them to meet their electricity needs, that's a good investment of tax dollars. Just the research, not the manufacturing. As a society, we'll make that money back a hundredfold at least, and the tax revenue from the sales of panels will repay the initial outlay and then some. That is a nonmarket government intervention.
But bailing out a manufacturer who consistently refuses to adopt the new technology? Sorry. That would be a bad use of government funds. If the workers for that company choose to trust that sort of management with their livelihoods, they live with the consequences. Same with the stockholders. Same with the bondholders. That's the market in operation.
Personally, I don't think I'll ever again invest in any company that does not have voting stakeholder representation on it's board. The interests of stockholders are too narrow to get sound direction for the long term, and if I'm looking at a 20-year income stream from my investment, that's long term. | |
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| The California Collapse
Posted: 5/23/2009 9:44:13 AM |
But that holds just as well for development contractors who are only in it for the money as it does for ideologues who are in it for a sense of control.
and this...
Someone very wise once said that freedom is the ability to act in one's own best interest. At a certain point, the self-interested thing to do is to appreciate differences, find ways to apply them as strengths, and get on with the business of creating good lives for ourselves and our descendents.
See Ace, to me this is Free market. And I don't mean free by not having laws or even regulations. But we also can not over regulate so that a business cannot compete. Free market is about the bottom line, life is about making a living. Having a secure sustainable life. Do you make yours secure in-spite of everyone else? NO, but a free market creates opportunity and a fair competition. When you start adding in Unions, and overly regulated laws and throw in government control, it is no longer a fair market, and you lose opportunity. People who want a free market, don't believe there should be no regulation or oversight... It just has gotten out of control, and is choking opportunity. It causes those mid-size businesses not to be able to compete, while the large companies, (the greedy ones-people complain about) can get around the regulation obstacles.
Like I said here or in a different thread. Unions may help an individual worker, but it kills the competition and free market. The union itself becomes the big greed, while prostituting their own workers for more control. Unions really are not there to help the employed... they are there to monopolize the free market. They use this helping employees... to gain control. It's doing a little... to get a lot. Do some employers take advantage of their employees? Sure... we are all human... But they don't take advantage of their employees as much as the unions do.
Now, it isn't that I am totally anti-union... I know they do some good... I'm just more for free market, more for the opportunity for any individual in America to have the right to make a living the best way he sees fit. The plumber or contractor union shouldn't be able to keep an individual from doing what he knows. As any union. We should have the right to work here in America... if we are really a free nation. And this is something Obama is going to make even more controlling... He is pushing the Union agenda.
The Government was already too big, Already got into the Real Estate market with Freddie and Fannie... but just this year alone so far (5 months) The Government has gotten into Banking, the Auto business, wants to take over health care... may purchase California? LOL And I'm not sure what else their plan is. Obama also believes he can tell the NCAA how to run their affairs.
Look, I don't hate government... I just think it's gotten way too big for its britches... and is getting way too involved in things it shouldn't. And that Americans are being force feed the wrong message... Free market isn't evil... The greed they want to attach to free market is the same greed they will find in Washington... in the Unions... and everywhere else... The message is only attached to the free market, because those greedy politicians... and lobbyists for a different kind of America are pulling the wool over your eyes to get you to follow them down the path of a more socialist government controlling, unionized way of life. | |
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