If not Capitalism... then What? And, How?

[sidd]

Blumenthal intervoews Keen and Hudson: the fix is in

"there’s a simple relationship between an increase in level of private debt and a fall in the amount of money going to workers."

"billionaires come from is getting too much private debt, through private debt bubble that shouldn’t have been allowed to happen in the first "

"The billionaires’ assets of the 1% are the debts of the 99%"

"If it keeps the debt on the books, the economy is going to shrink and shrink and shrink for the 99% and the only people who will be growing is the 1% of the creditors."

"The good thing is that by canceling the debts you cancel out this huge amount of billionaires’ power to take over the government, to replace it and ultimately to become the government."

"the emergence of the Holder Doctrine from Eric Holder, former Attorney General, who said that banks are strategic to the economy and, therefore, you couldn’t prosecute them"

"They strangled Greece, they choked it out. As a result, they rewarded the financiers with a bailout, with more hundreds of billions."

"the Democratic Party is Wall Street. The Democratic Party is basically the neo-liberal Wall Street party "


'You talked about the current generation having to pay off the depths of their predecessors. They’re not going to pay them off, these debts cannot be paid off. They can go bankrupt, they can starve, they can die sooner, but they cannot pay off the debts. Mathematically, there’s no way of these exponential growth in debts being paid off. In the end, every economy reaches a point where the debts cannot be paid and it is a choice: either it can wipe out the debts and grow again, or it can leave the debts in place and let it strangle the economy. That’s what the Democratic Party and the Republican Party stand for today."

"by wiping out the debts you wipe out this excess wealth."

" is Greece America’s future? Is Latin America, America’s future? "

"Greenspan’s helicopter drops the money over Wall Street, not Main Street."

" the need to keep the central banks happy by allowing them to print in what I call, interest rate apartheid. They simply give money to their friends and everyone else gets choked out."

"the least productive capitalist in society would be Warren Buffet because he does absolutely nothing. He just collects money from the Fed and he buys strategic positions in insurance and banks."

"he’s a classic case of somebody who knew that mainstream economic theory was nonsense. Efficient markets hypothesis . . . and said, “if enough people . . . if that’s what you believe, I’m going to become a billionaire.” And he was right, okay? "

"He knows that it can’t go on forever. And if you know it can’t go on forever, what do you do? You play for the short run, and that’s the real problem of finance capital. "

https://michael-hudson.com/2020/01/front-running/

sidd

[gerontocrat]

The International Monetary Fund (IMF,) that bunch of radical card-carrying commie loonies, are suggesting that things are going wrong with the Capitalism as is operating today.

https://www.taxjustice.net/2020/01/17/imf-shrink-the-financial-sector-to-reduce-inequality/
The IMF has just published a new Staff Discussion Note entitled “Finance and Inequality,” by Martin Čihák and Ratna Sahay.

The shortest summary of its conclusions is: too much finance makes countries more unequal. And in the words of the IMF’s new Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva, introducing the study, rising inequality:

"is reminiscent of the early part of the 20th century
— when the twin forces of technology and integration led to the first Gilded Age,
the Roaring Twenties, and, ultimately, financial disaster.

This is the latest in a now-hefty body of academic research supporting the finance curse thesis: the apparently paradoxical idea that “too much finance can make you poorer.” In other words, countries need to develop financial sectors, but only up to an optimal point, and if finance grows beyond this point it tends to harm the economy and society that hosts it. Many western economies passed this point long ago.

We’ll start with a line fairly deep in the report’s text, which is fairly explosive. In a section on policy implications, it recommends that:

regulatory policies have a role to play in reining in excessive growth of the financial sector.

That’s our emphasis, in bold. Here’s the IMF saying that countries should not allow their financial sectors to grow too big. This recommendation is related to inequality, but the IMF has not only come around to the idea that inequality hurts growth: it has published several reports demonstrating the finance curse thesis: that too much finance hurts overall economic growth (and delivers a payload of other economic and societal damage.) As we’ve said before: shrink finance, for prosperity.[/size]

Link to complete report at https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/Staff-Discussion-Notes/Issues/2020/01/16/Finance-and-Inequality-45129

Note re image.
Y axis - the GINI index is a commonly used index of income inequality in a population.
If I remember correctly
Index = 0 - everybody has the same income,
Index = 1 - 1 person has all the income.

[nanning]

Thanks for that gerontocrat. I don't seem to have access to your C: drive

In my understanding/observation, economic growth is always resulting in higher GINI indices (without government intervention).

[gerontocrat]

Thanks for that gerontocrat. I don't seem to have access to your C: drive

In my understanding/observation, economic growth is always resulting in higher GINI indices (without government intervention).

Whoops - you can download report from......

https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/Staff-Discussion-Notes/Issues/2020/01/16/Finance-and-Inequality-45129

The GINI index does not capture the grotesque increase in remuneration of the 0.1 %, displayed in its most exaggerated form in the U.S. of A..

Average pay of CEOs at the top 350 firms in 2018 was $17.2 million—or $14.0 million using a more conservative measure. (Stock options make up a big part of CEO pay packages, and the conservative measure values the options when granted, versus when cashed in, or “realized.”) CEO compensation is very high relative to typical worker compensation (by a ratio of 278-to-1 or 221-to-1). In contrast, the CEO-to-typical-worker compensation ratio (options realized) was 20-to-1 in 1965 and 58-to-1 in 1989. CEOs are even making a lot more—about five times as much—as other earners in the top 0.1%.

From 1978 to 2018, CEO compensation grew by 1,007.5% (940.3% under the options-realized measure), far outstripping S&P stock market growth (706.7%) and the wage growth of very high earners (339.2%). In contrast, wages for the typical worker grew by just 11.9%.

https://www.epi.org/publication/ceo-compensation-2018/

The UK is trying to catch up...
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/jan/04/uk-ceos-make-more-in-first-three-days-of-2019-than-workers-annual-salary
UK CEOs make more in first three days of 2019 than worker's annual salary

‘Sickening’ Fat Cat Friday figures show the disparity is growing

The bosses of the UK’s biggest companies are facing renewed scrutiny over excessive pay deals, after new figures showed top executives earned the average worker’s annual salary within the first three working days of 2019.

Dubbed “Fat Cat Friday”, 4 January is the date by which the average CEO of a FTSE 100 company pockets the equivalent take-home pay of a typical full-time worker in the UK.

Calculations by the High Pay Centre thinktank and the professional HR body the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) show top executives are earning 133 times more than the average worker, at a rate of around £1,020 per hour or £3.9m annually. That’s up 11% compared to a year earlier.

It means CEOs working average 12-hour days would only have to clock in for 29 hours in 2019 to earn the median £29,574 of British staff.

as is continental Europe

https://www.consultancy.eu/news/2118/average-top-100-ceo-in-europe-earns-salary-bonus-of-58-million
Average top 100 CEO in Europe earns salary & bonus of €5.8 million

Chief Executive Officers (CEO) of large European companies are seeing continued growth in their compensation packages – an average CEO bags more than €5 million per year in salary and bonuses. Growing pressure from the public, politicians and shareholders is however changing the remuneration landscape for executives.

In a new report by Willis Towers Watson, the firm’s HR consultants analysed the CEO pay of the largest stock-listed companies in Western and Eastern Europe – companies listed on the STOXX All Europe 100 Index.

The authors found that, on average, a CEO of a STOXX All Europe 100 company is paid €5.8 million in total direct compensation. Of this amount, the base salary represents around €1.5 million, with the remainder gained through bonus payout and more long term grant incentives. .

[nanning]

^^
Nice photo. It is very fitting that they're standing on bitumen. It looks like a funeral. No life in sight.

[johnm33]

They obviously missed this, https://ellenbrown.com/2012/11/08/its-the-interest-stupid-why-bankers-rule-the-world/

[sidd]

Pyll explodes the efficient markets hypothesis: an ax cut againth the neoclassical root

"The Grossman-Stiglitz paradox shows that if the market were effective - if prices fully reflect available information - no player would have the incentive to obtain the information on which prices are expected to build. If, on the other hand, no actor is informed, it would be worthwhile for an actor to obtain information. Consequently, market prices cannot incorporate all relevant information about the goods exchanged in the market. "

https://larspsyll.wordpress.com/2013/05/15/grossman-stiglitz-paradoxen/

The original is in swedish ; i used google translate. Perhaps one of our swedish speakers could weight in as to accuracy of the translation ?

sidd

[nanning]

Do you think it is possible to change the system? It is engrained in everything economic, financial/banks, real estate, investment, government, neo-liberalist dogma, growth, social/career succes hierarchy, inequality, powerstructure, accumulation.
CAN it change? Or is there no choice but to ride it out and see where it gets us?

[Neven]

If you don't want the financial sector to grow too large, you need to deconcentrate wealth by capping it on  the individual level. There's no other way.

[kassy]

And that needs to be a global effort. See Moneyland.

So if i had to bet i would say this is more likely to happen as a consequence of climate catastrophy than as a measure to prevent this.

[zizek]

If you don't want the financial sector to grow too large, you need to deconcentrate wealth by capping it on  the individual level. There's no other way.

There's no other way? Once again, Cuba doesn't need any sort of hamfisted bureaucratic easily loopholed "cap", they just use a different economic system.... It's that easy mate.
And another reminder, because Cuba's economic system doesn't revolve around profits, they have managed to produce the most impressive climate action plan of any state in the world. They did that while under decades of crippling sanctions from a global superpower.

I'm honestly curious how you think that every nation governing almost 8 billion people are going to implement a worldwide wealth tax. Don't you think it's easier just to change our economic system?

[nanning]

Yes Neven, you're right. But. Is anyone in power listening? Who do they listen to?

[oren]

I doubt there is anyone with enough power over the system to make a real difference even if they wanted to, which would be a miracle in itself.
I am highly pessimistic, and expect a civilizational collapse before any meaningful systemic change.

[gerontocrat]

To me the link attached is a "must read" to help understand the form of Capitalism currently running the USA and UK (and elsewhere?)

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/apr/10/new-age-ayn-rand-conquered-trump-white-house-silicon-valley

So the men and women in suits are gathering in Davos, ready to save the planet. Mind you, they knew the way it was going 5,10, 20 years ago. So why do they take it seriously now? Self-interest.

I am always stunned when I find out a bit more how the "philosophy" of Ayn Rand has taken such deep root amongst our elite, including the new elite in Silicon Valley and elsewhere in the Technology world.

Rand called her philosophy - now taught to A-level students alongside Hobbes and Burke - Objectivism the belief that

“man exists for his own sake, that the pursuit of his own happiness is his highest moral purpose, that he must not sacrifice himself to others, nor sacrifice others to himself”.

Republicans and British Conservatives started giving each other copies of Atlas Shrugged in the 80s was that Rand seemed to grant intellectual heft to the prevailing ethos of the time. Her insistence on the “morality of rational self-interest” and “the virtue of selfishness” sounded like an upmarket version of the slogan, derived from Oliver Stone’s Wall Street, that defined the era: greed is good. Rand was Gordon Gekko with A-levels.

Trump is notoriously no reader of books: he has only ever spoken about liking three works of fiction. But, inevitably, one of them was Ayn Rand's "The Fountainhead." “It relates to business, beauty, life and inner emotions. That book relates to ... everything,” he said last year.

So why does Trump claim to be inspired by her? The answer, surely, is that Rand lionises the alpha male capitalist entrepreneur, the man of action who towers over the little people and the pettifogging bureaucrats – and gets things done. As Jennifer Burns puts it: “For a long time, she has been beloved by disruptors, entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, people who see themselves as shaping the future, taking risky bets, moving out in front of everyone else, relying only on their own instincts, intuition and knowledge, and going against the grain.”

So Rand, dead 35 years, lives again, her hand guiding the rulers of our age in both Washington and San Francisco. Hers is an ideology that denounces altruism, elevates individualism into a faith and gives a spurious moral licence to raw selfishness. That it is having a moment now is no shock. Such an ideology will find a ready audience for as long as there are human beings who feel the rush of greed and the lure of unchecked power, longing to succumb to both without guilt. Which is to say: for ever.

[Neven]

I'm honestly curious how you think that every nation governing almost 8 billion people are going to implement a worldwide wealth tax. Don't you think it's easier just to change our economic system?

You are proposing a solution, I'm proposing a pre-condition for any solution to have a chance of working.

And I fully agree with your solution. For years I have read about neoclassical economics, and even wrote a piece about it for Planet 3.0, back in 2011. I was convinced, as you are, that the root cause of all problems was economic growth and its arbitrary definition, based on neoclassical economics that basically ignores limits.

Since then, my thinking has evolved, as there's always another turtle under every turtle. What is all that economic growth actually for? Where does it all go to? 'Concentrated wealth' is my answer. The reason the economic system is as it is, is that it's the most efficient and fastest way to grow and concentrate wealth. If you don't first put the brakes on that dynamic, there is no way you are going to be able to change the economic system.

In other words, you can only start changing the economic system, if you first take away the incentive behind it. And you take away the incentive by putting a cap on how much a person can own (so that wealth cannot concentrate endlessly).

It's a fairly simple concept that even people with low IQs can grasp intuitively. Much simpler, I think, than proposing a new economic system and get a critical mass to support it.

[TerryM]

If you don't want the financial sector to grow too large, you need to deconcentrate wealth by capping it on  the individual level. There's no other way.

There's no other way? Once again, Cuba doesn't need any sort of hamfisted bureaucratic easily loopholed "cap", they just use a different economic system.... It's that easy mate.
And another reminder, because Cuba's economic system doesn't revolve around profits, they have managed to produce the most impressive climate action plan of any state in the world. They did that while under decades of crippling sanctions from a global superpower.

I'm honestly curious how you think that every nation governing almost 8 billion people are going to implement a worldwide wealth tax. Don't you think it's easier just to change our economic system?

The Cuban Government is proof that The Right is wrong. 
Terry

[nanning]

Yes, profits (i.e. inequality from trade&commerce) is the basic driver/incentive together with social hierarchy status based on material wealth.

Whereever trade and profits came to the non-civilision old tribes, rich people (material accumulation) and inequality emerged. These rich people started to feel supreme over others because of perceived status and became insane. They also thought they were supreme over all of living nature and even made a religion out of it to enshrine that view, resulting in total destruction.

They are the people-in-suits in the background. Because of religion, tradition and culture all civilisation people think this is 'normal' and all are insane because of that.


edit: As observed from living nature, from reality, for example: Mowing the grass is insane; tidiness is insane; marriage is insane. I can go on a long time with this list.

[sidd]

Capitalism not working ? Lie about it !

" today’s reported unemployment rate of 3.5 percent is statistically impossible"

"  While you are as unemployed as one can possibly be, and tragically may never find work again, you are not counted "

https://wallstreetonparade.com/2020/01/heres-how-the-fake-unemployment-number-was-created-to-subdue-anger-against-wall-street/

https://news.gallup.com/opinion/chairman/181469/big-lie-unemployment.aspx

sidd

[nanning]

   Two billion and rising: the global trade in live animals in eight charts

  The world’s seas and roads are awash with farm animals, with almost two
  billion pigs, cattle, sheep and chickens trucked or shipped as exports in 2017

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jan/20/two-billion-and-rising-the-global-trade-in-live-animals-in-eight-charts
  by Tom Levitt

(more information in the article)

[johnm33]

http://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data/unemployment-charts what it says in the link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzX5GXc4HhQ&feature=youtu.be 9mins on the long fight against financialisation of politics took me 3 times to get it, if indeed I did.

[sidd]

Majority now don't believe: Capitalism is net harmful

"Capitalism as it exists today does more harm than good in the world."

"most believing they will not be better off in five years' time"

O dear. time to lie some more.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/01/20/welp-glad-thats-settled-global-poll-finds-majority-believe-capitalism-more-harmful

sidd

[sidd]

Rundle at Huffpo on automation: 47% of all jobs gone in 2034

https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014/01/17/rise-of-the-machines-economist_n_4616931.html

Original survey:

www.oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk/downloads/academic/The_Future_of_Employment.pdf

sidd

[TerryM]

^^
sidd
I fear Rundle's prediction is overly optimistic.


What 1st world job can't be done better and more efficiently by the robots/AI now on the drawing boards? (or in the DARPA warehouses)


In 14 years we may still require humans to sign off on the work that AI/Robots have performed. Some luddites may still prefer human caregivers. (or at least very "affectionate" androids)


With the systems we've already developed we could do far more than half of the work that humans presently perform. As AI designs more products for robotic manufacturing, distribution and servicing, human intervention becomes unneeded, unwanted and ultimately unsafe & unsanitary.


I can't conceive of a field that won't be decimated by 2034, and eliminated soon after.


Perhaps I'm more depressed than usual - but perhaps Rundel is being wildly optimistic.
Terry

[nanning]

^^
"Perhaps I'm more depressed than usual"
Of course I don't know what the basis is for you being depressed but it could be that your thinking and understanding might be coming in line with reality.
In my opinion, acceptance is key. And emotionally detaching from the extreme losses of ecosystems, all other lifeforms and human shared high morality. Without acceptance and emotionally disconnecting I am able to live and watch the total destruction unfold. Extreme unbearable grief and depression is the result of emotionally connecting.

[sidd]

Re: What 1st world job can't be done better and more efficiently by the robots/AI

Plumbing. HVAC. House renovation.

sidd

[nanning]

^^
To add:
Prime minister, President, Queen/King, manager, every job in Finance and administration .

[gerontocrat]

Re: What 1st world job can't be done better and more efficiently by the robots/AI

Plumbing. HVAC. House renovation.

sidd

I have the solution...
All is needed is for management to be as useless as in the UK. As can be seen from the attached graph, despite all the new technology, output per hour worked has not changed since 2010.

GDP has grown every year, simply because the number in employment has risen, largely through immigration which Government is trying to reduce substantially.

For countries with reducing & ageing populations, machines doing the work is a solution. Pity the UK, which is likely to see less and less immigration, continued poor performance in harnessing technology and from that, declining GDP & continued collapse in the systems required to keep things going - like the National Health Service.

[TerryM]

Re: What 1st world job can't be done better and more efficiently by the robots/AI

Plumbing. HVAC. House renovation.

sidd

You chose the 3 jobs that I spent far too much of my life working in.


Plumbing's been reduced to gluing plastic pieces together. Knowing which plastic pieces go where is in the realm of residential, or commercial space AI designers. Grunts with a glue bottle will be around for a while.


Many of the more recently marketed "window shaker" ACs & Heat Pumps are designed to be plugged in, then landfilled rather than repaired. A robot can take it to the dump when it's time is done. Larger systems can't be far behind.


Renovation for sale or rent has become more more standardized just as living spaces have been reduced in individuality. 3 bedrooms, 2 baths and a family room. A tree in the front yard and a gated entrance to the rear. Clean it, paint it beige and call the realtor - its been renovated!


We've been taught that less is more - more "modern". That the neighbors dark coloured fake shutters create visual diversity in an otherwise identical row of McMansions, some are the mirror image of the others - how innovative!


Grunts will find work until someone decides it's easier to design a throw away replacement. Easier and more profitable!


..........................
nanning
The rulers are in ultimate control of the robots.


Finance today requires assets, a connection to the world, and a program that tells you which button to press and when to press it. - You take fliers at your own peril! Too many fliers and your assets move to other folders as your financial firm folds.


Administration requires people to order about. No people to do your bidding, no administrator. When your "crew" gets charged up by the Watt/hour instead of by your rousing pep talk, you've lost your administrative position. You're unneeded, unwanted, redundant and soon unemployed. Mid-level management only works when lower levels need to be managed. Upper level management then drops to mid-level management before following them to the unemployment office.


The grunts will exist longer than those ordering them about. The "thinking" jobs go first because their the easiest to replace with a "thinking" machine.


"TOP"-Assignment-"Build a shed to protect these pieces under these conditions".
"A"- Hire design team, order material, assemble shed, deliver shed, return to "A"
or
"B"- Scan designs, order (appropriate) shed delivered to site, return to "TOP"


"B" can be accomplished before "A" can complete its first task. "B" requires no administrators, foremen, factory or transportation. Even a secretary is redundant.
"B" is the future. "A" is so 20th century.


By the way, when the order is received by the ShedShop Comptroller, modification "x" is initiated prior to the order being executed by the SHEDMACH & the DELIVBOT is fed the address.


Coming soon to a manufacturing hub near you.
Terry

[sidd]

I know a lot of those "grunts."

Try fixing 80 yr old plumbing in a 100 yr old structure.

Or for easier examples, try fixing plumbing in a 10 yr old garage mahal piece of crap build in 2007 where the ground has settled, slab is cracked, nothing is square. Having PEX and glue joints dont help much when your faucets are leaking around the joints because the fake granite on the vanity is cracked from some moron overtightening the nuts on the install.

 Or electric which is miswired according to code and half the circuits are overloaded and phase is seriously imbalanced.

Or HVAC which was undersized from day one,  half the flues leak two thirds of the heat/cold, condensation is rotting out the OSB around and growing mold in the insulation.

Good luck with automating fixups on those.

Manufactured housing delivered and installed on a slab or on a basement is about as shitty as new build in the USA.

I find fear of automation in the hands on occupations is highly misled.  I know about a hundred people doin it. I do it myself when i cant get a buddy to do it for me. It is highly skilled, highly demanding and every job is a one off.

That said, if you go with lo rent, incompetent help, who will do a JB weld fix on a plumbing leak, and replaces a 15A with a 20A fuse on a circuit to keep it from tripping without checking the wire gauge, vents your HVAC refrigerant and replaces it and doesnt tell you that wont fix your AC problems, gives you a curb guarantee (guarantee lasts till he hits the curb) you deserve what you get.  And even incompetent help will not be automated.

sidd

[nanning]

@Terry interesting, thanks for that.
Increasing uniformity is against the grain of a human's impuls to creatively personalize something for 'home', identity and culture.

[TerryM]

sidd
I'm not sure that I disagree with anything you've written, and some of your examples have a very familiar ring to them.
Those of us that can improvise & put things back together that never had been assembled properly will find more work than we can handle, but repairing machines designed to fail is damn difficult, doesn't pay worth a damn, and scavenging parts that can be cross used takes lots of space.


New installations are done by minimum wage kids that don't know & don't care. Then they're sent back to fix up their screw ups.


Integrated systems installed at the factory shield the manufacturers. A Johnson control valve has all of the safety circuits built in, but it wholesales for twice the retail price of a valve and all of the safety sensors. Robots built the valve, by now they are probably are installed in the system by robots. The grunts simply attach the supply line, the leads to the (installed) breaker box, and run control voltage to the (robotically assembled) T-stat.


When the flame sensor fails, the grunt throws in a new $valve because it's "integrated".
The last dehumidiator I looked at had the control voltage transformer built into the board! The OEM board cost so much that replacing the unit made more sense to the customer. (and myself)


I'm on my 3d window shaker in the 15 seasons I've been up here. The first two failed because the manufacturer hadn't drilled out oiling passages for the blower/fan motor. I drilled one myself and got an additional season even with the metal filings floating in the oil I'd added, by the time the second one failed for the same reason it went straight to landfill, refrigerant & all.


It's still fun to putter about, but I'd hate to rely on making these patches for a living.


We used to manufacture water source heat pumps from angle iron, sheet metal and off the shelf compressors. We wound our heat exchange coils on an antique threading machine & built the beasts custom by hand. Myself, my partner and his teenage kid. Damn efficient machines built to be repairable!


We produced and installed ~1/wk & filled our spare time fixing up other's fuckups, hustling commercial ice machines & installing/repairing walkin coolers/freezers. My partner got old, I got sick, and his kid is now in charge of Steve Wynn's HVAC department. Life was good! We heated swimming pools while cooling homes, warmed an oversized commercial septic tank once, and generally made systems that the "installers' deemed impossible.


I think those days are gone.


Robots on the factory floor kick out a thousand units/day, and the "installers"/salesmen take a two semester course at night school that hopefully keeps them from burning the customers building down. Thread in some pre-charged lines and sell it as the latest model, its Green and it will Save You Money!!


Bah Humbug!
Terry

[sidd]

Prefab units are seriously overrated. Just as one example, a buddy of mine is working on a manufactured unit, on slab, no basement, just hookup water electric sewage, and ready to go right ?

Not so fast. Those things are built in climate controlled factories, where tolerances can be as tight as your machines and workmen can hold. Looks real pretty when it comes off the lines. When those are meet realworld, with real realworld temperature fluctuation from 95F to -20 F, realworld snow loads, real world storms, real world humidity, real world rodents, real world birds ... you get the picture.

Family moved in 3 yr ago. First year: windows began leaking. 2nd year: roof began leaking. Third year: misaligned condensate drain from AC had been leaking since install, nice big patch of mold in wall insulation. This year: siding starts peeling, roof tiles and siding blow away in windstorm kill neighbour's dog. Family of squirrels move into ceiling, couple die there. Family moves out, sues everybody beginning with factory, thru transport, and installers.

My buddy was working onnit, looks at me and goes, i was gonna do a gut job, but now i think is a knockdown and rebuild. All the money is goin to the lawyers, and the insurance company is doin what insurance companies do, screw their clients. So he is going to make a loball offer on the thing, he thinks the family might take it at this point.

If you want it done right, go stickbuilt with a general contractor you know and trust. Also helps if you know where he drinks, that way you can track him down at the bar if all else fails.

sidd

[blumenkraft]

[TerryM]

^^
Ramen!!
The Right bemoans any concession to workers rights, and the pensions that legacy manufacturers owe their retirees make it much easier for uncaring upstarts to compete while exploiting their employees.


Workers and unions have been losing membership for more than 1/2 a century. We need to elect representatives dependent on worker's votes, rather than those that depend on corporate donations.


Terry

[Tom_Mazanec]

^^
Ramen!!
The Right bemoans any concession to workers rights, and the pensions that legacy manufacturers owe their retirees make it much easier for uncaring upstarts to compete while exploiting their employees.


Workers and unions have been losing membership for more than 1/2 a century. We need to elect representatives dependent on worker's votes, rather than those that depend on corporate donations.


Terry

Why are these politicians winning? The only reason a politician gathers donations is to turn them into votes. There are more braves than chiefs. Why are so many workers being outvoted by so few bosses?

[blumenkraft]

Why are so many workers being outvoted by so few bosses?

If you need 1000 bucks to live and have 1000 bucks, you don't give money away.

If you earn 1000 bucks for giving away 100 bucks, you give away millions.

There you have your discrepancy.

[sidd]

Pistor at project syndicate: limited liability for some

" markets simply cannot price risk adequately, because market participants are shielded from the harms that corporations inflict on others. This pathology goes by the name of “limited liability,” "

"shareholders are protected from liability when the corporations whose shares they own harm consumers, workers, and the environment. "

"sparing owners from the harms their companies cause amounts to a hefty legal subsidy. "

"So long as shareholders can gain from these externalities, they will defend them. "

"why not enable markets to price risk correctly, by removing the distortion that is currently preventing them from doing so?"

"a subsidy that distorts markets and gives investors a license to harm is not only inefficient. It is a threat to both the market system and the natural environment"

https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/limited-liability-corporate-shares-by-katharina-pistor-2020-02

sidd

[kassy]

Oh yes. Full liability.

And politicians that claim they cannot recall something important from lets say 5 years ago should thereafter be disqualified from any office until they get their memory fixed.

[Tom_Mazanec]

Why are so many workers being outvoted by so few bosses?

If you need 1000 bucks to live and have 1000 bucks, you don't give money away.

If you earn 1000 bucks for giving away 100 bucks, you give away millions.

There you have your discrepancy.

For some reason I did not se your reply in my unread replies until now.
That should make no difference...if the candidate is obviously bad for workers I would not expect them to vote for him no matter how much cash he gives away.
The rich don’t get more votes than the poor.

[kassy]

Possibly the candidate poses as good for the workers...

[gerontocrat]

Why are so many workers being outvoted by so few bosses?

If you need 1000 bucks to live and have 1000 bucks, you don't give money away.

If you earn 1000 bucks for giving away 100 bucks, you give away millions.

There you have your discrepancy.

For some reason I did not se your reply in my unread replies until now.
That should make no difference...if the candidate is obviously bad for workers I would not expect them to vote for him no matter how much cash he gives away.
The rich don’t get more votes than the poor.

If people did not believe snake-oil salesmen then snake-oil salesmen could not sell snake-oil.

The millions of dollars goes into producing spiel (i.e. cyber-snake-oil) to con enough people to vote in the politicians who have been bought with some of those millions of dollars that comes from a bit of the tax those very rich people do NOT pay due to  legislation passed by those bought politicians.

The circle is complete.

[sidd]

Zucman and Saez at the boston review: tax the wealth

"Wealth is power. An extreme concentration of wealth means an extreme concentration of power: the power to influence government policy, the power to stifle competition, the power to shape ideology. Together, these amount to the power to tilt the distribution of income to one’s advantage. This is the core reason why the extreme wealth of some can reduce what remains for the rest—why part of the income of today’s superrich can be earned at the expense of the rest of society. "

"many of the most advantaged members of society possess substantial wealth but low taxable income "

"That’s how billionaires such as Buffett, Jeff Bezos, and Mark Zuckerberg can live almost tax-free today. And that’s how the top 400 richest Americans have come to pay the lowest tax rate of any income group."

"the U.S. tax system indeed now resembles a giant flat tax that becomes regressive at the very top. All groups of the population pay effective tax rates of roughly 28 percent, with mild progressivity up to the top 0.1 percent and a significant drop at the top—where effective tax rates fall to 23 percent for the 400 richest Americans.  "

"Taxing the superrich involves three essential and complementary ingredients: a progressive income tax, a corporate tax, and a progressive wealth tax. "

" If ultrarich individuals say they have little cash, it is usually because they choose to realize little income to avoid the income tax. They organize their own illiquidity. "

"Extreme wealth concentration, like carbon emissions, imposes a negative externality on the rest of us. The point of taxing carbon is not to raise revenue but to reduce carbon emissions. And the point of high tax rates on the very highest incomes is not fundamentally to fund government programs. They are aimed at reducing the income of the ultra-wealthy."

"A radical wealth tax would not make it harder to become a billionaire; it would make it harder to remain a multi-billionaire. "

" More than collecting revenue, it would de-concentrate wealth. "

Read the whole thing:

https://bostonreview.net/class-inequality/gabriel-zucman-emmanuel-saez-taxing-superrich

sidd

[sidd]

Adler at nakedcapitalism: Dimon is the biggest corporate socialist

Smith (editor at nakedcap) has some points before the article:

Quoting Haldane:

" Assuming that a crisis occurs every 20 years, the systemic levy needed to recoup these crisis costs would be in excess of $1.5 trillion per year. The total market capitalisation of the largest global banks is currently only around $1.2 trillion. Fully internalising the output costs of financial crises would risk putting banks on the same trajectory as the dinosaurs, with the levy playing the role of the meteorite."

Smith:

"a banking industry that creates global crises is negative value added from a societal standpoint. It is purely extractive."

Adler:

" inside JPMorgan and most other big corporations, market competition is subordinated to planning."

"This is just how a socialist economy is intended to operate."

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2020/02/sanders-called-jpmorgans-ceo-americas-biggest-corporate-socialist-heres-why-he-has-a-point.html

sidd

[sidd]

Martens and Martens at wallstreetonparade: JPMorgan Chase criminal record 3 going for 4

"the fourth criminal probe of the bank in the past 8 years by the U.S. Department of Justice with the bank pleading guilty to three felony counts in two of the prior criminal investigations."

"the Board recently awarded Dimon a pay package of $31.5 million for last year – buttressing presidential candidate Bernie Sanders’ message that the business model of Wall Street is fraud."

"Crime and fraud are so de rigueur at the bank led by Dimon that not one major newspaper ran the headline on the front page or anywhere else in the paper."

"a criminally recidivist bank"

https://wallstreetonparade.com/2020/02/jpmorgan-chase-is-under-fourth-criminal-probe-after-pleading-guilty-to-three-prior-felony-counts/

sidd

[nanning]

A great article on EU's greenwashing plans/lies.

   The EU’s green deal is a colossal exercise in greenwashing

   Ursula von der Leyen’s signature proposal co-opts the
   slogans of climate activism, but has none of the substance


https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/feb/07/eu-green-deal-greenwash-ursula-von-der-leyen-climate
  by Yanis Varoufakis and David Adler



  Excerpts:
Between 2009 and 2013, European governments channelled €1.6tn (£1.36tn) to Europe’s bankers, while imposing stringent austerity upon the European citizens they pledged to serve. When in 2015 they realised that more support was necessary, the European Central Bank printed €2.6tn over just four years.

Now, Europe confronts a crisis of far greater severity: a climate emergency. And so, last month, EU commission president Ursula von der Leyen unveiled the European green deal, a €1tn, 10-year plan to reduce the EU’s greenhouse gas emissions by at least 50% compared with 1990

At first, one cannot resist comparing the two sums and the priorities they reveal: more than €4.2tn to save Europe’s financial sector; €1tn to save our world.

But things are far worse than that. Whereas the €4.2tn for the financiers was new, actual funding, the €1tn that Von der Leyen has promised across 10 years in her green deal – €100bn annually – is mostly smoke and mirrors.


the green deal is largely composed of reshuffled money from existing EU funds and reheated promises to mobilise private-sector capital down the road. In total, the green deal will generate just €7.5bn in new budget commitments, stretched over seven years. By way of comparison, the commission is set to spend €29bn – almost four times more – on “unnecessary” and environmentally destructive gas projects, according to a recent study.

Much like the Juncker plan before it, the green deal proposes to encourage private investment by shifting risk from privateers to the EU budget. But this does not reduce risk – it simply shifts it on to the shoulders of the European public, while ensuring that private investors enjoy all of the gains.


Von der Leyen is fond of speaking about the green deal as a big structural change. “Our goal is to reconcile the economy with our planet,” she has said. But at the same time, the EU has approved and supported the construction of a multibillion-euro pipeline to transport gas between Israel and the EU

[Shared Humanity]

Reimagining Ourselves and Community

Anthropogenic Global Warming is arguably the most serious threat to human civilization ever encountered. In large part, I am pessimistic as to whether we will be able to avoid its worst effects due to the fact that any real concerted effort to address the problem is contrary to very powerful interests. These interests are very public in their arguments against taking any radical action. They work to minimize the seriousness of the problem while simultaneously playing to the fears of ordinary people (I consider myself to be one of these.) by emphasizing the damage it will do to the world's economy. They argue that it is absolutely necessary to sustain the existing growth system which supplies the material wealth that most of us seek. This conflict between our need to immediately take massive and quite disruptive action while simultaneously sustaining the system mirrors the conflict within each of us. We want to address the problem of climate change while still achieving the growth needed for us to accumulate wealth. I consider this conflict irresolvable, this dual purpose unachievable.

The problem, for all of us, rests with the simple fact that the current growth system, the modern industrial economy which spans the globe, is the root cause of our problem. We have been destroying ecosystems across the planet, a destruction that is occurring at an accelerating pace. We all know this. We all work within the existing political structures to minimize this environmental damage in our own backyards but we are unwilling to accept that the problem is systemic.

The solution is also systemic in nature. We need to jettison the existing growth system. We have the necessary technology to overcome this existential crisis. We also have the necessary resources if we immediately bring them to bear on the problem. What is lacking is the political will. Our failure is one of imagination. None of us are able to imagine a method of interacting with others which does not assume the continuation of the very system which will guarantee our destruction.

I am not certain we will be able to overcome the fear that paralyzes us all. We must all agree to take action that would appear to not be in our best interests. But our concept of self interest here is too narrow, focusing only on our material well being. It ignores what makes us uniquely human. The revolution must originate in our minds, in our concepts of self, community and happiness.

[Sigmetnow]

If the Chinese invented everything, why didn't they rule the world instead of Europe?
James Burke, Connections series

[Sigmetnow]

The rules are simple at this deli in the Bronx: solve a math equation and you get five seconds to grab anything you want off store shelves. (But not the cat.)

This New York City deli offers customers free food if they can solve simple math problems
https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/10/us/new-york-deli-five-seconds-free-food-math-trnd/index.html

[sidd]

Food tax on the innumerate. Sorta like the lottery.

sidd

[sidd]

Romer at foreign affairs reviews two books:

The Economists’ Hour: False Prophets, Free Markets, and the Fracture of Society
By Binyamin Appelbaum

Transaction Man: The Rise of the Deal and the Decline of the American Dream
By Nicholas Lemann

"What happens when a government starts conducting its business in the foreign language of economists?"

" A society is hardly making progress when its people are dying younger."

"the economists at the helm are doing more harm than good."

" The language and the concepts of economics helped shape debates about unemployment and taxation, as one would expect. But they also influenced how the state handled military conscription, how it regulated airplane and railway travel, and how its courts interpreted laws limiting corporate power. Together, Appelbaum writes, economists’ countless interventions in U.S. public policy have amounted to no less than a “revolution”—well intentioned but with unanticipated consequences that were far from benign."

"Lemann concludes that economists’ uncritical embrace of the market changed U.S. society for the worse."

" To regain the public’s trust, economists should return to the humility of their nineteenth-century forebears, who emphasized the limits of their knowledge"

"The United States is going backward, and many economists have provided the intellectual cover for this retreat."

"In effect, by taking on the responsibility to determine for everyone the amount that society should spend to save a life, economists had agreed to play the role of the philosopher-king."

"the potential gains or losses extended into the tens of billions or hundreds of billions of dollars, as they do in decisions about regulating the financial sector, preventing dominant firms from stifling competition, or stopping a pharmaceutical firm from getting people addicted to painkillers. In such circumstances, it is all too easy for a firm that has a lot riding on the outcome to arrange for a pliant pretend economist to assume the role of the philosopher-king—someone willing to protect the firm’s reckless behavior from government interference and to do so with a veneer of objectivity and scientific expertise."

"a system that delegates to economists the responsibility for answering normative questions may yield many reasonable decisions when the stakes are low, but it will fail and cause enormous damage when powerful industries are brought into the mix. "

"To know that it is morally wrong to let a company make a profit by killing people would have been enough."

"the United States is going backward, and in many cases, economists—even those acting in good faith—have provided the intellectual cover for this retreat."

“Unfettered markets create a degree of wealth that fosters a more civilized existence,” :Greenspan

" the officials who would not even look into that damage saved the banks that had caused it. No amount of econosplaining could change the message this conveyed: everybody has to accept what the market gives them—except the people who work in the financial sector."

" And just like their more reputable peers, these pretend economists used the unfamiliar language of economics to obscure the moral judgments that undergirded their advice."

"Throughout his entire career, Greenspan worked to give financial institutions more leeway and in doing so helped create the conditions that led to the financial crisis. He did so in the name of economics ... he came to personify the field. But his opposition to regulation was invulnerable to evidence. Until he took control at the Fed, he was a hired gun, ready to defend firms in the financial sector from regulators who tried to protect the public ... If economists continue to let people like him define their discipline, the public will send them back to the basement, and for good reason."

"Scientific authority never conveys moral authority. No economist has a privileged insight into questions of right and wrong, and none deserves a special say in fundamental decisions about how society should operate. Economists who argue otherwise and exert undue influence in public debates about right and wrong should be exposed for what they are: frauds."

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/reviews/review-essay/2020-02-11/dismal-kingdom

sidd