"Tom Sherman" <
[email protected]> wrote in message
news:
[email protected]...
> Freewheeling wrote:
>
>> "skip" <[email protected]> wrote in message
>> news:[email protected]...
>>
>>>"Tom Sherman" <[email protected]> wrote in message
>>>news:[email protected]...
>>>
>>>>skip wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>"Tom Sherman" <[email protected]> wrote in message
>>>>>news:[email protected]...
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>>Actually, the unemployed in Scandinavia have better discretionary
>>>>>>incomes [1], housing and health care than the working poor in the US,
>>>>>>not to mention a whole lot more free time to ride bicycles. Pretty
>>>>>>terrible, huh?
>>>>>>
>>>>>>[1] Enough to afford a recumbent bicycle, especially since practical
>>>>>>mass transportation make owning a motor vehicle for most people.
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>It's only pretty terrible for those poor suckers who are working to
>>>>>provide this life of leisure for the "unemployed". But hey, if
>>>>>everybody is happy then it's fine with me.
>>>>
>>>>Are you happy for all the people in the US working for <$6/hour at
>>>>crappy jobs where they are treated as disposable workers?
>>>>
>>>>They can not afford recumbent bicycles, and they are likely working at
>>>>two or three jobs, so they have no time to ride.
>>>>
>>>>Yes, it is a great country for those born into the lower classes.
>>>>
>>>>--
>>>>Tom Sherman ?Earth
>>>>
>>>
>>>Why they don't go to Scandinavia where they could find happiness, afford
>>>a recumbent bicycle, and have all day to ride it. Seems to me they would
>>>be much off there rather than having to be lower class and work three
>>>jobs at $6 per hour in the USA. In Scandinavia they could be unemployed
>>>and middle class. That's what you would call a great country.
>>
>>
>> Americans aren't taking advantage of that opportunity, but Muslims are.
>> That's the dark cloud looming on Paradise's horizon.
>>
>>
>>>P.S. I think they should also check out the unemployment opportunities
>>>currently available in Germany.
>>
>>
>> Over 10% now.
>>
>> But the truth is, no one has this problem worked out. Although Americans
>> work more, they're less productive per hour. France is moving back in
>> the other direction, and they're about to eliminate the 35 hour week, and
>> cut back on benefits, vacation time, etc. The problem is that we're
>> stuck with laboristic economies. There really is no ideal solution,
>> short of a genuine "ownership society." So I hope Bush is sincere about
>> that. But I'm not holding my breath....
>
> Finally, you are making some sense.
The reason I stopped listening to the left is that their judgment is so
awful on the War on Terror that I figured it just couldn't be any good on
these other issues. And it's not. They're still retooling the same old
needs-based remedies they've always relied on. And they're still dead wrong
on foreign policy and the misnamed "War on Terror." Anyone who'd like to
know just how bad their judgment is, and how selective their memory, read
Hanson's "Merchants of Despair:"
http://www.nationalreview.com/hanson/hanson200502250748.asp
>
> The answer is cooperation, where people help each other to lead
> emotionally fulfilling lives, with basic needs met and some luxuries from
> whatever surplus exists. Unfortunately, most people have not reached the
> moral maturity to achieve that goal.
Do you know anything about John Nash and Game Theory? How about Public
Choice economics, which is based on a Game Theoretical approach? The
problem is that the sort of "cooperation" you envision can't happen without
the destruction of liberty. Plus (and this is documented in an enormous
amount of literature) the market failures that supposedly justify these
interventions actually exist only rarely. Even in the case of the railroad
cartels, for instance, the cartels didn't become stable until the government
intervened to remedy "inefficient competition." And it turns out that
there's little, if any, evidence of long run economies of scale, which is
the primary market failure that's used to justify these antics. In most
cases we're better off without the interventions.
>
> What all the promoters of capitalism miss or ignore are the destructive
> side effects of competition, where there must by necessity be losers in a
> world of finite resources. The psychological damage is immense - one only
> needs to compare young children raised in decent environments to the
> average adults to see that.
So, you admit that the issue is child rearing practices and not
socio-economic? Why then, do you support interventions that perpetuate and
reward bad child-rearing practices?
>
> We are failing as a species, and things are almost guaranteed to get much
> worse over then next century. After that, hopefully the survivors will
> have learned some important lessons and will build a society that
> approaches human potential, or the species will become extinct to make way
> for another that at least has the potential to be better.
I think you've misidentified the problem. It's not capitalism, but a
particular form of capitalism that concentrates capital in a few hands. And
no, compared to where we'd be if we adopted Marxism (which would be a dark
night of the spirit indeed) we're not doing too badly. Central tendancy
measures of wealth (not just mean, but median and mode) in the third world
are rising. If you want a phenomenal success story, just look at Chile.
Thanks to privatization of retirement there most retirees, and especially
women, will be able to retire with substancial income. And the
privatization and deregulation of infrastructure has also raised the general
standard of living. We just need to expand capital ownership, is all. And
that requires somewhat differently structured financial institutions. As
those are instituted we can gradually dispense with the welfare state life
rafts.
