My Plan As President

[GT7]

This is why I also talk about more unpaid labor. Free market capitalism is great for regulating scarce resources. That's what it does best. But when it comes to things that are abundant, it tends to scarcify them to drive up prices. Because of that it is better to turn certain products, services, and cultural forms over to the free republic. That way, people can spend their time making and doing what they want instead of competing for it in an economy that will erect barriers as quickly as it will lower them when there is profit to be made by doing so.

First, you acknowledge that a free market is the only way to correctly manage resources.

In the next part, it is clear you don't understand how the market accomplishes this.

It has nothing to do with being able to do what you want, that is called leisure time.

The market will only buy something in demand, and if what you do is useless, the market regulates you by not purchasing your goods and then you quit producing what you "want" because you won't be able to buy food.

Hopefully you can see why this makes a free market efficient...

You are also wrong about the great depression, the recovery was fueled by the free market, the new deal had a negative impact on the economy, putting people into crappy and inefficient jobs.

After the war, the economy exploded because of government guaranteed loans for veterans and especially from women entering the workforce for the first time.

Demand for all types of things was high and due to the money flowing into the US from all over the world (the US was the ONLY surviving industrial nation) to buy goods and services produced here, the economy boomed heavily and boomed again in the 60's when taxes were cut... then fell stagnant due to the price controls and massive spending in the late 60's and 70's.

Then, in the 1980s, the capitalists had power for the first time in what seems like the entire 20th century, maybe only since Taft, and cut 40,000 pages of regulations and cut taxes 20%.

The economy boomed for 30 years until socialism caught up with the US again and caused the latest economic problems.

Granted, corrections are a natural part of a free market economy, but government meddling has caused most of the serious problems, including the "Great" part of the great depression.

[indepenence]

First, you acknowledge that a free market is the only way to correctly manage resources.

In the next part, it is clear you don't understand how the market accomplishes this.

It has nothing to do with being able to do what you want, that is called leisure time.

The market will only buy something in demand, and if what you do is useless, the market regulates you by not purchasing your goods and then you quit producing what you "want" because you won't be able to buy food.

Hopefully you can see why this makes a free market efficient...

I would agree with you if the market would limit itself to trading in necessities, but it doesn't. Investors with surplus capital invest it in leisure businesses, which effectively makes leisure a method of attaining necessities/resources, such as food, shelter, health care, etc.

People defend the market practice of leisure investment and consumption by saying that investors should be free to invest in whatever business they want and consumers free to pay however much they want for whatever they want. But at the level of the invisible hand, this de-rationalizes capital flows and labor utilization. De-skilling occurs when more people think it is worthwhile skill to learn how to make music or marketing plans than building, farming, medicine, etc.

The market only sustains so many musicians, artists, marketing planners, and administrative personnel. In order to provide necessities like food, shelter, and medicine for those people, economic infrastructure has to expand and stretch. As it stretches, resources grow scarce driving prices up. This has happened with fuel prices in recent years with growing dependence on imports and the massive shipping logistics required to liberate the middle-class and service-class from local manufacturing.

Reducing dependence on fuel requires changing economic patterns and the high-consumption culture they cater to. Local productivities have to develop to in-source labor that has been systematically out-sourced. To not do this is to continue down a path of increasing dependency of a shrinking aristocracy, as the resource-costs of sustaining this lifestyle shrinks to exclude increasingly more people. As a class-elite shrinks and the number of disenfranchized grow and grow more jealous, terrorism and socialism are increasingly inspired as the means of the weak to achieve the unrepublican "American" dream of a securitized aristocratic lifestyle.

The ironic thing is that the dream of republicanism has become popularized and succeeded at various moments in history, such as during westward expansion and with the freedom of slaves. Unsurprisingly, the left always draws attention to the negative aspects of liberation movements by pointing out the conflict always entails violence, which it must (how could it not?). The issue for republicans should be to minimize violence while pointing out that there is nothing more ethical about subjugating people to oppressive economic structuring to avoid the conflicts and difficulties of economic liberations.

I was reading about the history of the republican party on wiki and it mentioned some government policies of granting land to individuals to encourage independent productivity. This would be possible today if the government had actually seized the many "toxic" properties that faced foreclosure during the recent bubble-burst. Instead, the government acted to preserve a landlord system in which property prices are kept high to promote high rental prices that force tenants to work for wages and support the landlords instead of owning their own homesteads and only working for what they need to sustain their livelihood.

I believe such a republicanizaton of the economy would be good for not just those receiving free or reduced priced "toxic properties." It would also relieve the pressure on the economy to provide jobs for so many people just to be able to keep up with the rent and/or high mortgage payments. The fact is that consumerism and service industries have grown cumbersome trying to sustain high property prices and other investment-demands for profit. People on both side of profit-margins need to cultivate some renewed independence to desaturate the markets of their relentless need to pursue absurd amounts of profit via absurd forms of services and consumption.

If nothing else, the problem is mass fixation on revenues, incomes, and GDPs as the only measure of economic prosperity. If you look back at the various periods where true republican independence was growing, through pioneering, independent farming, etc. GDP would have gone down, because the amount of money changing hands would have decreased due to increasingly independent economic activities. It is an anti-independence mentality that decries any cultural developments that hinder GDP as being economically bad, because they're only bad for people who want to increase and expand consumerism, dependency, and the ability to subjugate people's economic choices to market demand.

The point of the free market is not, as you say, to stop people from growing food when no one wants to pay them to do it. It is to facilitate efficient production and distribution of tools and soil inputs to allow people to grow food or do other self-determined economic activities with as little market-demands on their productivity as possible. Obviously shovels, saws, building materials, and fertilizer have to be produced and distributed, and a free market is the way to regulate their production and distribution, but things get anti-republican when the shovel-maker corners the market to ensure that all his food, housing, recreation, etc. are all provided by interdependency that includes his shovels.

Maximizing the means of prosperity have to be tempered by maximization of freedom to self-determine for a free market economy to also be a flourishing republic. Likewise, maximizing freedom for some individuals can't come at the expense of limiting freedom for others that must serve them to provide the conditions of their freedom. That was what the republican party was founded to address in the issue of slavery

You are also wrong about the great depression, the recovery was fueled by the free market, the new deal had a negative impact on the economy, putting people into crappy and inefficient jobs.

After the war, the economy exploded because of government guaranteed loans for veterans and especially from women entering the workforce for the first time.

Which eventually culminated in the military-industrial complex of WWII and after. Who paid for all those planes and tanks and the salaries of the women who built them? Deficit spending, which continued with the veterans benefits and Freddie/Fannie underwriting the governmental promise to continue to spend however much was necessary to keep the bubble expanding.

However, a friend recently reminded me that the seemingly unstoppable growth of the 20th century was not fueled by spending or governmental policies but by cheap oil. What's more, the cheap oil only had the effect it did because the curve was positive. People invest in the prospect of profit, not price stability. So once the curve starts leveling off, there's really nowhere to go but down. The point of this is not to give up all hope. It's to realize that economic prosperity was never what that growth economy was producing, because easy profit didn't fuel growth but rather the ability for people to experience their wealth as growing due to market forces alone.

Now people have the chance for the first time in a long time of experiences economic prosperity at the material level of what they achieve with their own hands and backs. Many people aren't ready for this, but it is a more real form of prosperity than cashing in on profits created by balance sheets of an economy expanding due to average net growth alone.

Demand for all types of things was high and due to the money flowing into the US from all over the world (the US was the ONLY surviving industrial nation) to buy goods and services produced here, the economy boomed heavily and boomed again in the 60's when taxes were cut... then fell stagnant due to the price controls and massive spending in the late 60's and 70's.

And what has it done to the world to have built up the fire of US consumer markets in an attempt to sustain the global economy through foreign investment in US capitalism while trying to protect home markets through various programs of socialism and market protectionism?

Then, in the 1980s, the capitalists had power for the first time in what seems like the entire 20th century, maybe only since Taft, and cut 40,000 pages of regulations and cut taxes 20%.

The economy boomed for 30 years until socialism caught up with the US again and caused the latest economic problems.

I would just say that Greenspan created a long term plan of interest-rate cuts designed to cash in on the savings accrued with the interest-rate increases prior. This was long-term Keynesian approach of slowly build up interest rates and government spending and then slowly cut rates and deficits. The intention is to drive the economy with fiscal policy in either direction. Now that interest rates have begun to hit bottom, you are seeing the attempt from the left once again to begin the cycle anew by increasing deficit spending and soon interest rates as well.

Hopefully the republican party (or some new more radical republican movements) will respond by insisting on exemptions from taxation and debt-imprisonment for those who would rather pursue a more independent economic lifestyle than service the great Keynesian collective.

Granted, corrections are a natural part of a free market economy, but government meddling has caused most of the serious problems, including the "Great" part of the great depression.

I disagree. I think it was the bubble expansion caused by new forms of investment (stock market boom) and the development of radio and cinema, which promoted new forms of consumption, advertising, and mass-marketing. The new deal was just a problem because it attempted to maintain the collectivizing tendencies of mass-production, mass-marketing, and mass-industry by coupling them with mass social security and public works projects.

The government had no way of predicting at that point how dire the deconstruction of individuality and independence would become since it was something simply taken for granted in the spirit of colonial history and ideology.

[qixlqatl]

Now, I don't necessarily agree with all of that, Indy, but I will say that's a good post. Nice specifics.

I do agree that the problem is rooted in the culture: simply stated, far too many people expect far too much for far too little. These expectations are watered and fertilized by politicians (politicians spread a natural kind of fertilizer every time they speak, imo), and cultivated by the bureaucracies the politicians tend.

[indepenence]

Now, I don't necessarily agree with all of that, Indy, but I will say that's a good post. Nice specifics.

I do agree that the problem is rooted in the culture: simply stated, far too many people expect far too much for far too little. These expectations are watered and fertilized by politicians (politicians spread a natural kind of fertilizer every time they speak, imo), and cultivated by the bureaucracies the politicians tend.

As far as people wanting too much for too little, I agree with you in one sense but disagree in another. Either way, I think you are at the heart of economic problems.

On the one hand, with modern industrial technologies, I think it is possible to produce an enormous supply of goods in a relatively short period of time with relatively little human labor. In that sense, goods are more plentiful than they are costly in terms of production. This is visible in the amount of waste and fickleness of taste in contemporary consumerism.

On the other hand, consumers have come to expect too much for too little in the sense that post-industrial culture has allowed socially well-integrated people to basically design hobby-jobs to their whim, which allow them to spend their work time and energy how they enjoy and avoid any undesirable labor. Yet, in living this way, they have come to expect increasing wages and purchasing power.

In short, people have become increasingly accustomed to reductions in undesirable work they have to do coupled with increasing rewards for fulfilling the standards of their desired work. In short, they've gotten spoiled.

This is also true for those who bite the bullet to do undesirable work, because they are rewarded generously and as such become accustomed to playing/consuming hard as a reward for working hard.

Both forms of labor-exchange alienate workers from the fundamental reality of reaping what you sow. This is an obvious consequence of growing economic complexity and division of labor. I know this all sounds straight Marxist, and it is in a way, except I'm not going to ever advocate abolition of private property or making social-economic equality a higher value than getting people back in touch with their own individual labor-power and its fruits.

So, yes people are spoiled by getting more for less. But no, consumer goods are not undervalued for the amount of human labor used to produce them, they are overvalued. If you had the tools to put together your own mass-production machinery, it would be like having your own nuclear power plant, i.e. practically unlimited wealth.

The problem is that if everyone had their own means of mass-production at their disposal, everything would become excessively abundant, prices would drop to nothing, and loads of waste-junk would be the result, not to mention unnecessary resource-depletion. So we are stuck trying to regulate artificial scarcity despite having the power to generate unlimited abundance.

The question is how to do that in a way that maximizes human self-actualization and self-determination. I say this happens by reducing collective economics and other forms of collectivism as much as is practically feasible. I also think that humans need to be culturally liberated to become self-determining - otherwise they too often end up subordinating their freedom to conformity to authority they perceive as dominant.

[qixlqatl]

On the other hand, consumers have come to expect too much for too little in the sense that post-industrial culture has allowed socially well-integrated people to basically design hobby-jobs to their whim, which allow them to spend their work time and energy how they enjoy and avoid any undesirable labor. Yet, in living this way, they have come to expect increasing wages and purchasing power.

Another form of the same thing, which I intended my rather blanket statement to cover.

So, yes people are spoiled by getting more for less. But no, consumer goods are not undervalued for the amount of human labor used to produce them, they are overvalued. If you had the tools to put together your own mass-production machinery, it would be like having your own nuclear power plant, i.e. practically unlimited wealth.

The problem is that if everyone had their own means of mass-production at their disposal, everything would become excessively abundant, prices would drop to nothing, and loads of waste-junk would be the result, not to mention unnecessary resource-depletion. So we are stuck trying to regulate artificial scarcity despite having the power to generate unlimited abundance.

Abundance does not automatically equate to wealth. 30 miles or so to the south of my home, the Piedmont plateau gives way to the sand hills of the coastal plain, an area dotted with commercial sand pits. There are literally billions (perhaps trillions, or even more, idk) of cubic yards of sand available to be mined with relative ease. Yet only a handful of sandpits operate. Why is that? Because the market will support only so many. Anyone with a pickup could travel to the area, find some loose sand, load it, and transport it to the desired location. The sand itself has so little intrinsic value that I can't imagine that anyone would mind. (People get paid for it because of the effort involved in collecting, loading and transporting of it to locations of relative scarcity more efficiently than can be done with a pickup and shovels. I know you know this stuff, just following the thread of the thought.)

The point is, all of that abundance (of sand) which all ready exists is not wealth, even if labor and transportation costs can be reduced to zero (impossible of course, but lets imagine), because there is a use for only so much of it. In the imaginary land of zero cost labor and transportation, an unlimited amount of sand could be delivered to your door for a very low price (even at the cost of a penny, the profit margin would be infinity), but how much richer would you be?

Overproduction does not increase wealth, it de-values markets. Real wealth correlates to usability, not quantity.

EDIT: Forgot to add this (carp!!)
That's why the law of supply and demand is a law, and the point of diminishing returns is studied assiduously.

The question is how to do that in a way that maximizes human self-actualization and self-determination. I say this happens by reducing collective economics and other forms of collectivism as much as is practically feasible. I also think that humans need to be culturally liberated to become self-determining - otherwise they too often end up subordinating their freedom to conformity to authority they perceive as dominant.

I think that is one of the core tenets of the republican base (not the party apparatus, which is a power structure dedicated to maintaining and expanding it's own power). It is certainly a conservative opinion, though a true conservative is culturally liberated to be self-determining and seeks to avoid political and legal circumscription that inhibit self determination.

Since political opinions are as common as dirt this year, and the internet is a very efficient means of distribution (but not free!), that will be two cents, please. :) (Service with a smile, too!)

[indepenence]

The point is, all of that abundance (of sand) which all ready exists is not wealth, even if labor and transportation costs can be reduced to zero (impossible of course, but lets imagine), because there is a use for only so much of it. In the imaginary land of zero cost labor and transportation, an unlimited amount of sand could be delivered to your door for a very low price (even at the cost of a penny, the profit margin would be infinity), but how much richer would you be?

This is a common confounding of the functioning of capitalism. Capitalism stimulates increased production of scarce goods by attributing higher value to them than abundant goods. This does not mean that abundant, cheap goods are not wealth - it just means that S&D doesn't need to regulate them the way it does scarcity. When you need sand to raise or level ground, or to make glass, or a beach, it has value regardless of the price. If labor, machines to dig and carry it, and fuel were all as abundant as the sand, you could make sand beaches for free. Would that reduce the value of sand beaches to nothing? Only the exchange value. The value of having and using the beach would stay the same.

So how does S&D in capitalism regulate scarcity and promote abundance? Through price. High prices stimulate self-rationing, because people will limit their use of high-priced commodities and seek substitutes. High prices also stimulate production and innovation by people who want to cash in on the high price. Diamonds are very scarce, so people invented ways of producing them synthetically for use in cutting tools and costume jewelry to avoid the high cost of using scarce natural diamonds.

Whenever capitalism resolves some form of scarcity, it causes crisis because capitalism is designed to push people to identify the next scarce product or resource and produce it until it is abundant enough that the price drops. This is what has happened with real-estate. The price of housing was pushed increasingly higher, which stimulated development until the point of abundance. Now people are having to search for new forms of scarcity to make money.

Here's the ironic part, though: scarcity can be resolved in two-ways. 1) increase production until abundance is achieved 2) increase conservations and substitutes until demand no longer exceeds supply, which causes the scarce resource to become relatively abundant due to reduced demand for it. So, for example, if no one cared about natural diamonds as jewelry, investment, etc., they would decrease in value due to the availability of cheap synthetic ones. Likewise, when the price of gas was up very high, reductions in driving and the promotion of substitutes for OPEC oil (i.e. domestic drilling) created relative abundance in oil futures, which caused the price to go down.

Still, think about it. If capitalism was successful in making industrial productivity so efficient that scarcity of everything became a distant memory, the price of everything would drop to practically nothing. If that would happen, what would motivate people to produce more than they needed for themselves and possibly their friends? For this reason, political forms of regulations have emerged to guarantee ample supply of abundant resources and create artificial scarcity to raise prices to levels that stimulate capitalists to work/produce.

The irony of this is that the only reason people have a need to work/produce is to make money to be able to buy other things. If people (or corporations) could produce everything they needed for themselves, they would have no need for money. Hopefully you can see my point that politics and business has ceased to be the pure classical capitalism in which people/firms in a free market continually seek new opportunities to produce something that's scarce until it's abundant. Now it has become about regulating markets to create the scarcity that creates a price-incentive OR it is about ensuring sufficient access to abundant resources to prevent monopolization by a power-elite.

Overproduction does not increase wealth, it de-values markets. Real wealth correlates to usability, not quantity.

And with overproduction, usability is bountiful enough for everyone to get some to use.

EDIT: Forgot to add this (carp!!)
That's why the law of supply and demand is a law, and the point of diminishing returns is studied assiduously.

The law of diminishing returns means that there comes a point where you can't gain any more value out of consuming more of a commodity. Consider housing: For years people have been struggling to acquire property because they thought it was the ticket to being independently wealth. Of course, this was only the case because property was relatively scarce, which caused people to pay a lot to buy or rent it.

Now, if property is abundant enough that everyone can acquire as much as they want, who are they going to rent it or sell it to? I could try to sell you one of my 10 houses, but you would tell me that you've got enough to deal with with your own 10. So perhaps real-estate has reached the point where the law of diminishing returns has overtaken demand, I don't know.

The point is that when everything is abundant, that is when capitalism succeeds in fostering republic, because market trading gives way to the freedom to use abundant commodities according to individual will. That is what I call "self-determination." You can help other people if you want, but it would be voluntary because you don't need to do it for the money, because you have plenty of everything you need.

I think that is one of the core tenets of the republican base (not the party apparatus, which is a power structure dedicated to maintaining and expanding it's own power). It is certainly a conservative opinion, though a true conservative is culturally liberated to be self-determining and seeks to avoid political and legal circumscription that inhibit self determination.

So would you call political-economic maneuvers that prevent the achievement of widespread resource-abundance as inhibiting self-determination?

Probably you are one of the people who turns it around and says anyone who allows resources to become abundance to the point of non-profitability is inhibiting freedom. Having to work for money so you can buy things that you are inhibited from getting for extremely cheap doesn't seem like it's fostering self-determination to me. If anything it is fostering other-determination, i.e. market subjugation.

Imagine someone put a fence around your free-sand pit and started charging $100/ton to dig sand. Would that make you more free or make you work more to get more money to pay for the sand in addition to the labor, fuel, and machinery? Now imagine machinery and fuel were so abundant that you can get them for free? Now you are free to self-determine whether you want to build a sand-beach in your back yard or not.

Since political opinions are as common as dirt this year, and the internet is a very efficient means of distribution (but not free!), that will be two cents, please. :) (Service with a smile, too!)

Yes, democratic is bad for maintaining relative scarcity and therefore high prices on opinions. Dumb down the public, or generally convince them that popular opinions are not as viable as expert opinions, and you can charge a lot more for expertise. The big question through all of this is whether people truly want freedom, republic, and democracy or whether they want elitism, scarcity, and social-economic control over one another.

[qixlqatl]

Only the exchange value. The value of having and using the beach would stay the same.

Exactly. The value is in the use.

And with overproduction, usability is bountiful enough for everyone to get some to use.

My definition of over-production is market saturation which results in negative benefit for the producer.

The law of diminishing returns means that there comes a point where you can't gain any more value out of consuming more of a commodity.

Applies to the production side. too.

So would you call political-economic maneuvers that prevent the achievement of widespread resource-abundance as inhibiting self-determination?

Yes. Non-renewable natural resources are a bit different in that once they are gone, we can't make more of them, but that's a different topic.

Yes, democratic is bad for maintaining relative scarcity and therefore high prices on opinions. Dumb down the public, or generally convince them that popular opinions are not as viable as expert opinions, and you can charge a lot more for expertise. The big question through all of this is whether people truly want freedom, republic, and democracy or whether they want elitism, scarcity, and social-economic control over one another.

It was just a feeble attempt at humor, but my response would be that it all depends on which side of the social-economic control equation the given individual is going to wind up on. Okay, maybe that's a little cynical--not everyone thinks that way, and I have no idea the proportions in our society.