It’s the Stupid, Economy!

Posted on March 28, 2012 by RL CRABB

This entry was posted in Politics, Uncategorized. Bookmark the permalink.

28 Responses to It’s the Stupid, Economy!

  1. rl Crabb says:
    March 28, 2012 at 7:58 am

    Conclusion: The economy will get better unless it gets worse.

    Reply
  2. Douglas Keachie says:
    March 28, 2012 at 9:09 am

    The root cause of society’s ills is simple: “Make it as cheaply as you can (pollution controls be damned), paying as little as you can, importing illegals to do so, reducing taxes via lobbyists, and then let the society as a whole take care of the resulting mess, while you hoard the profits every which way, including stashing them offshore.”

    This explains healthcare, budget deficits, prison problems, family discords, drugs, slums, etc. You’ve just had Keachie’s 4 year degree in the Social Sciences distilled into one brief paragraph.

    If employers paid more by hoarding less, all the boats would rise. Better home life with healthcare = better educated kids = less drug use = fewer unplanned pregnancies = happier families, = fewer folks in prisons = more productive GDP. Republicans fail to understand the situation, and fail join in to solve it, and instead aggravate the situation even more, with the laws and candidates they push. WHY???

    Reply
    • John Stoos says:
      March 31, 2012 at 5:32 pm

      Two quick thoughts for you Douglas:

      1) Only if you deny property rights can you have unfettered pollution.

      2) IF the free market results in lower wages as you argue because of selfess actions, why during the 70 years of communist rule in Russia did our private employers consistent pay much higher wages and raise many more boats than we saw in Russia?

      John

      Reply
      • Tony Waters says:
        March 31, 2012 at 7:23 pm

        John,
        For point 1: The logical extreme of this point is that the air, rain, etc., be owned. Are you proposing that air can be clean only if it is owned by a private entity (who in turn charges the rest of us to breathe?)

        For point 2, I guess you could turn the argument around and ask why the Soviet Union was richer than pre-Civil War China, and the Belgian Congo which were dominated by western business interests (indirectly) and Belgium in the case of the Congo. Note that this doesn’t mean that I think that the Soviet Union was good–just that I think your point two is overly simplistic!

        Tony

        Reply
        • Greg Goodknight says:
          April 1, 2012 at 9:13 am

          Tony, just as you have a right to water that flows through your property (as Mark Twain once wrote, in the west, whiskey is for drinking, water is for fighting) and those upstream don’t have the right to dam it or pollute it, you also have a right to the air on your property and those around you don’t have a right to pollute it.

          Of course, it’s impossible not to live even a stone age existence and not emit stuff into the air, so we use government to regulate this on behalf of everyone. Even staunch libertarians accept this.

          You don’t have a right to buy a lot right next to a dump and force them to shut the dump down because you don’t want your house to stink to high heaven. Or expect the airport to shut down because you just bought a half acre 100 yards off the end of the runway (they practically gave it away!) and you won’t like the noise after you build your dream house.

          It’s OK to use a burn pile to eliminate slash, it isn’t OK to steam wet pine needles and immerse your neighbors in a noxious smoke.

          Reply
          • Tony Waters says:
            April 1, 2012 at 4:01 pm

            Greg,
            In the end, I think that in the end we argue over degrees of libertarianism, and communitarianism, rather than purity per se. Even you and John are willing to acknowledge that there is a place in economic life for government, and vice versa. Which means that in the end we are probably much more alike than we are readily to admit!

            Tony

          • Greg Goodknight says:
            April 1, 2012 at 9:40 pm

            “Even you and John are willing to acknowledge that there is a place in economic life for government”

            Tony, that was a “you people” moment from you and I am disappointed. It is also a cheap shot.

            Stoos made a perfectly reasonable statement ab0ut property rights , “Only if you deny property rights can you have unfettered pollution” and you countered with a ridiculous caricature that showed you didn’t understand what had been written.

            How about even Tony Waters agreeing that yes, property rights are important and only if you deny property rights can you have unfettered pollution?

          • Tony Waters says:
            April 2, 2012 at 6:53 pm

            Greg,
            I have no problem agreeing that property rights are important. They are indeed the source of much–though not all–prosperity.

            I don’t quite understand how denial of property rights leads to unfettered pollution. Under some circumstances it can, but under other it might not. Likewise, not everything is suited to be defined as property, either. The air and the ocean water are two such things. There are others as well.

          • Greg Goodknight says:
            April 2, 2012 at 8:21 pm

            Tony, I think your confusion is because
            “Only if you deny property rights can you have unfettered pollution”
            is not the logical equivalent of
            “denial of property rights leads to unfettered pollution”, nor does the second statement follow logically from the first.

        • Tony Waters says:
          April 2, 2012 at 9:00 pm

          Ok, so explain then why “only if you deny property rights can you have unfettered pollution.” I don’t get it.

          And how do you have property rights in the first place if you don’t have an independent sovereign authority above the marketplace, a la Locke?

          Reply
        • Tony Waters says:
          April 2, 2012 at 9:00 pm

          Ok, so explain then why “only if you deny property rights can you have unfettered pollution.” I don’t get it.

          And how do you have property rights in the first place if you don’t have an independent sovereign authority above the marketplace, a la Locke?

          Reply
      • Douglas Keachie says:
        April 2, 2012 at 9:49 am

        Stoos, there’s a thing called a “head start.” The Tsar/Peasant system found prior to 1917 was a far cry from the industrialized USA of 1916.

        You are of course making the presumption that my proposal of having employers pay living wages is equivalent to the communist regime of Soviet Russia, and as usual, one pot of paint and one brush is all those on the Rightish sides need when describing those on the leftish sides.

        As for pollution, it comes in many forms, and a lot of it is pretty hard to detect, and even when detected and placed in view of the county zoning planning folks, it is often ignored, because they have even bigger fish to fry, and limited budgets to do the legal work and the cleanups.

        Reply
    • TD Pittsford says:
      March 31, 2012 at 5:46 pm

      I suggest that, “…making it as cheaply…” should perhaps read, “…buy it as cheaply as possible from overseas…” We don’t make much in this country any more and don’t hesitate to flock to Wal-Mart for the latest “deals”. This has become the new American Way. The illegals are doing manual labor here but making garbage in other (I won’t mention any names) countries. I agree with most of your synopsis of Americas woes but I think I can sum it up in one word: “Greed.” THAT has become the signature of success in this country.

      Reply
    • Laura Thorne says:
      August 25, 2020 at 12:02 am

      Dougie , you are a blithering old fool. Crawl back into your hole and die already. You are a disgusting troll that deserves nothing better than eating $hit the rest of your life

      Reply
      • Michael Anderson says:
        August 25, 2020 at 11:11 am

        Wow Laura, what a remarkably uncivil comment, and on a post from over 8 years ago as well! Perhaps the troll you see is in the mirror? (-;

        Reply
  3. Greg Goodknight says:
    March 28, 2012 at 10:53 am

    Doug, thanks for the distillation. It is what I thought you’d studied in college.

    RL, please reconsider. Your reports might just be the same old BS the other consultants create but the cartoons would make the whole thing worth reading!

    Reply
    • Douglas Keachie says:
      April 2, 2012 at 10:32 am

      Yes Greg, it is what I studied in college, which was driven in part by a quest to find how and why we got ourselves into such an awful mess, on so many levels, as a society. Cultural inertia bears a lot of the blame, summed up best by, “God Wrote It, I Read It, and That Does It! This discussion is over.” Too many adults putting their brains in the deep freeze after they’ve gotten theirs. And too many other adults beaten into COPS fodder after going through a school system that deep freezes them into worthless selfhood. It was a mess in the 1960’s, and sadly, we’ve made little progress since, even with a Harvard educated Constitutional scholar in place as President, we still have folks like Todd who doesn’t understand that Palin, who could barely recall Roe vs Wade when asked about important cases, is NOT Obama’s equal.

      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gk8moOxzlGQ explanations of explanations

      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LwhO8a1PLMQ&feature=endscreen

      go to 5:10 “you can actually see Russia, from land, here in Alaska..” an

      explanation of qualifications gets started with this whole interview.

      Reply
      • Greg Goodknight says:
        April 2, 2012 at 11:40 am

        Keach, if you think CO2 needs cleanup, hold your breath until the carbon cycle can be fixed.

        It strikes me you’re doing the same thing you accuse others of, substituting a Berkeley leftist’s anthropology reading list for the Bible. Perhaps even more rigid and judgmental without that turning the other cheek nonsense.

        Cheer up, it isn’t a complete mess yet, as Washington hasn’t yet run out of other people’s money!

        Reply
        • Douglas Keachie says:
          April 2, 2012 at 11:52 am

          Greg, I’ve probably read and watched, and listened to, far more material in the 40 year since I left Berkeley than I read while there, and education is an ongoing process. You pass on what you can by speaking, writing, and voting, and by doing, and then your molecules all agree to disagree. The only real question of substance for philosophers and religions, is, “are your molecules all there is of that which you sense as you?” I certainly hope not, but so far, no one has presented proof one way or the other that convinces me. Defining ones self by what one has studied in college seems a little odd to me, when you are 40 years down the pike from that four years…

          Reply
          • Greg Goodknight says:
            April 2, 2012 at 2:28 pm

            “The only real question of substance for philosophers and religions, is, “are your molecules all there is of that which you sense as you?””

            I’m sure that seems deep to someone, especially those who don’t really have a clue what a molecule is, or an inkling of biochemistry.

          • Douglas Keachie says:
            April 2, 2012 at 5:39 pm

            Let’s see you come up with something deeper, Mr. Eversoclueless about what I do and don’t know, and ever-so mocking of the values of the colleges, he supposedly praises. Trying to puff yourself up by putting others down is not in fashion these days. It’s called bullying, if you ever actually succeeded in accomplishing your intentions. How are the mosquitoes doing in your pond? Polluted any of your neighbors’ horses yet with West Nile virus?

          • rlcrabb says:
            April 2, 2012 at 8:23 pm

            Hey you two, get a room, or schedule a duel where you can slap each other around with your diplomas.

        • Greg Goodknight says:
          April 2, 2012 at 8:15 pm

          Keach, you’re projecting.

          Reply
  4. Bob White says:
    March 28, 2012 at 12:12 pm

    Keachie you missed one.

    And the rent is too damn high!

    Reply
  5. Douglas Keachie says:
    March 28, 2012 at 12:24 pm

    Education is of course a life long pursuit, and have been enjoying Donaldson of late:

    http://www.usustatesman.com/prof-discusses-cures-for-economic-ails-1.2704598#.T3NxidUmzTo

    Reply
  6. Douglas Keachie says:
    March 28, 2012 at 3:02 pm

    Rewnt too high? HA! Wait until you see what the security deposit on the planet amounts to if we monkey with the ecosystem too much and break it.

    Reply

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