MrGrunge
Bluelighter
Did you at least cram a TV in there or are you currently sitting alone in an inflatable pool filled with ice in a dark closet?
CEPS Well Hung Parliament (CEPS Social/Off Topic)
- Thread starter Escher's Waterfall
- Start date
superelephant
Bluelighter
^ hah
the fan is blowing into and cooling the whole room from the closet door. I'm not in my closet.
the fan is blowing into and cooling the whole room from the closet door. I'm not in my closet.
dammit, i can't find an image of snowball 2 with a fan attached to its tail sitting next to a block of ice, aka homer's air conditioner. 
as for your market theory, the only thing i understood from it which i agree would make a difference is the removal of the capacity for debts/loans.
as for your market theory, the only thing i understood from it which i agree would make a difference is the removal of the capacity for debts/loans.
Bardeaux
Bluelight Crew
Elephant pls. Asking you to define your terms isn't a loaded question.
You can certainly have a market structure regardless of monetary policy or (to a degree) regulations in the market. This is why I asked you to differentiate between a "market" and an "actual" market. Debt based monetary policies even create their own debt markets.
How?
Then why doesn't Publix sell Jordans? It's not because they're not allowed to by law or have no access to the capital to purchase large quantities of shoes. They're not in the sneaker business. Taking in one pair of shoes as payment for a loaf of bread is not an efficient way to run a business. Besides, who is going to make this decision? The 15 year old girl behind the register, or is she going to drag the manager away from something else in order to barter with some guy over a loaf of bread and a pair of shoes?
Currency is a commodity like anything else. Besides, if it were really more sound, why can't businesses barter with chickens right now instead of using standard currency?
I feel this mythical free market that right-libertarians chase is unattainable. You're upset over the contradictions of capitalism itself, yet want to remedy them with more capitalism.
Droppersneck
Bluelighter
LOL the mystical anarcho communist societies of 16th century France. Devolving! Thats how we should do it!
23536
Bluelight Crew
meant to post this in the prostitution thread but didn't want to derail:
The ownership of multiple cats does not imply anything about a person! When you have one cat, and the cat likes to hang out outside, other cats are attracted to the house (even if yours is fixed). They loom around and are STARVING and you can either be an asshole and refuse to feed them or you can be a decent human being and lay out some kibble for them. Once you do the latter, they tend to stick around. It only seems like you've chosen to own multiple cats. The only thing you've chosen to do is listen to your conscience.
The ownership of multiple cats does not imply anything about a person! When you have one cat, and the cat likes to hang out outside, other cats are attracted to the house (even if yours is fixed). They loom around and are STARVING and you can either be an asshole and refuse to feed them or you can be a decent human being and lay out some kibble for them. Once you do the latter, they tend to stick around. It only seems like you've chosen to own multiple cats. The only thing you've chosen to do is listen to your conscience.
superelephant
Bluelighter
yeah it is.
"market structure" isn't even really a thing. It either is a market or it's not.
Because the pricing mechanism would be subjective phenomena rather than controlled complete bullshit.
irrelevant.
I wouldn't consider selling a few pairs of shoes traded for items considerably less than their worth being "in the business"
there is a ten items or less checkout isle, I see no reason why there can't be a barter check out isle.
No. can't eat it. can't make tools or jewelry. can't use it for anything useful, not even fire.
The psuedo-market is more a form of socialism, which I would like to see remedied with actual capitalism.Besides, if it were really more sound, why can't businesses barter with chickens right now instead of using standard currency?
I feel this mythical free market that right-libertarians chase is unattainable. You're upset over the contradictions of capitalism itself, yet want to remedy them with more capitalism.
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Lazaraus45
Bluelighter
- Joined
- Sep 10, 2011
- Messages
- 131
This is a really weird to post to find in politics, also, you don't own cats, cats own you
Joeof1
Bluelighter
Just a note on the conversation above.
Bartering will never end, as money itself is a commodity through it's action of working, so even today you are still bartering with that debt backed paper. The difference is that you are not able to say how much you think it's worth, you are being told what it's worth by the people that created it in your name. Essentially it's some banker putting you in a cage and only allowing you to live if you use his/her system that directly profits them. It's almost the same as slavery.
Which is why I find it funny so many statists promote it while preaching about economic freedom. Some people just do not understand anything it seems.
Bartering will never end, as money itself is a commodity through it's action of working, so even today you are still bartering with that debt backed paper. The difference is that you are not able to say how much you think it's worth, you are being told what it's worth by the people that created it in your name. Essentially it's some banker putting you in a cage and only allowing you to live if you use his/her system that directly profits them. It's almost the same as slavery.
Which is why I find it funny so many statists promote it while preaching about economic freedom. Some people just do not understand anything it seems.
superelephant
Bluelighter
Most*
Bardeaux
Bluelight Crew
Define "loaded question"
Right. It's a structure or it isn't. Mechanism, structure, whatever floats your boat.
Markets set prices though. It's not a mandatory price, it's not a completely objective price. But there is a generally acceptable price for any good or service in accordance with supply and demand, opportunity costs, production costs etc on top of subjective bartering costs. Prices will never, ever be entirely subjective.
It's entirely relevant. Why doesn't Publix sell Jordans? What phony constructs or restrictions are preventing this?
While this might be extremely fun to engage in, I don't see it being feasible within large enterprises.
Yes, currency is a commodity. It's an item that has both an exchange value and a potential to satisfy wants and needs.. You can't forge jewelry tools out of paper, but you can exchange that paper for the tools. And don't tell me you can't eat currency, I've seen it done
Government regulation of the market =/= socialism. There's a discussion regarding the definitions of socialism going on in the gun thread at the moment, but I would say an economic system driven by a private relationship to the means of production and exchange (even with government rules in place) is a capitalist system. To which degree that capitalist system is with or without restraint has nothing to do with socialism.
Isn't this true with any sort of standard though?
I'm just curious, really. I thought many proponents of a laissez-faire economy were also strong proponents of gold (or silver) standard currency?
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Joeof1
Bluelighter
For argumentation purposes the form of Socialism you seem to advocate is Utopian. The type of Socialism he is referring to is the type that Mises encountered when he original stated that government intervention leads to Socialism and Rothbard's conclusion that interventionism is a form of Socialism through redux of the steps. Mises was speaking about the Fabian Reformers for the most part, as that was all the rage back in the earlier parts of the last century.
There are a lot of different school's of thought on Socialism. Oddly enough there are even schools of Socialism within the Anarcho-Capitalist community. That is a rather interesting conversation, let me tell you..., at least I was confused about what we were talking about for the first 30 or so minutes. Wasn't sure what the point the guy was trying to make, so I was a rude ass and raised my hand in a room filled with something like 200 people and asked him what his initial starting point for his argument was, as he had never mentioned it until after I asked. I felt a lot of eyes on me for interrupting him at a point which I am sure was very intriguing for his fans. The guy had some rather good points though. Not sure I understood everything he was saying though.
There are no standards beyond what the markets dictate in laissez-faire economics. The markets will decide what it is that they wish to use for currency or money. Gold and the other precious metals will always have their place in the world just as they do now because of their rarity and properties. Austrian school supporters merely use gold and silver as they honestly are the best means available of preserving current wealth for future needs. Which is what they are for. Austrian school is the oldest school of economics currently being applied today. It's primary basis and theoretical structuring is based up the preservation of capital through saving and storing for future expansions. In the current economic climate gold has no equal at doing this except for maybe silver, which arguably can be considered better than gold.
Many people claim to be in support of "Laissez-faire" but their comments on who should denote the money to be used gives them away to be central planners and borderline fascists every time. Milton Friedman was not an Austrian in even the Hayekian tradition, and he was not a pro Free-Market guy. An economist and a proponent of Free-Markets can always be seen by their stances on Credit and Money. Which is why the first question you should always ask is if they agree with the "Sound Money" principle that evolved out of the Rothbard circle. If they have no idea what it is, or say they aren't, then they should have a good argument as to why.
Was trying to avoid the distinction of that, as "most" people have no idea about the philosophical underpinnings of the positions they support on many issues. The political class has done a great job at blurring the lines so that they are capable of getting away with just about everything. Including blatant theft at the rate of at least $85 Billion a month, and their scapegoat is perfect, just blame the financial sector for it.
Rothbard once said that the Financialization of a nation historically has signaled the beginning of the downfall of that civilization. In everything I have read in follow up inquiry on the topic, I have found that he was correct in all except for one instance, and that is NAZI lead Germany. When Hitler went through and restructured the financial sectors of Germany they saw the greatest boom and rebuilding of the society the world had seen up to that point. Unfortunately as with all Fascist systems, they require endless expansion and outward growth to keep going. Even if Hitler had not wanted to start a war when he did, he would have eventually had to in order to keep that system afloat.
It's telling that we are seeing "them" trying to pull off what Hitler did here in the US now. The end result will either be complete collapse and Balkanization, or well I don't think I need to point out what happened to Hitler's Germany.
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Bardeaux
Bluelight Crew
Fair enough. Although I wouldn't go so far as to consider the socialism I'm partial to as Utopian. When I think of modern Utopian Socialism I conjure up things like the New Harmony commune, religious socialism, Charles Fourier etc, much of the pre-Marxist socialist thought of the 18th and 19th centuries. I favor a more practical approach to revolutionary political economy, not outside the bounds of the present social and material conditions.
That does sound interesting, although I'm only seeing contradiction here. Have a good link to share?
Exactly, even when a commodity is held to market forces (opposed to the will of the banker you described) isn't it's value still dependent on market forces instead? Rather than a banker speculating debt value, isn't the subjective value of a commodity still chained to market speculators and fluctuations?
In other words, what's the difference between being caged in by a banker, market forces or a government bureaucrat? It seems to be a game of choosing your slavemaster.
Escher's Waterfall
Bluelight Crew
While I was trying to dig up a certain quote about 20th-century works of fiction, I found the following:
Ayn Rand’s “The Lord of the Rings”.
Ayn Rand’s “The Lord of the Rings”.
Apostacious
Bluelighter
Heh... they're both held to the same bar.
23536
Bluelight Crew
With all the recent media talk of riots in the US, I was reminded today of one of the greatest but least-known riot songs in American history. This came as sort of a parody of the charity rap collaborations of the late 80s and early 90s, like We're All in the Same Gang and Self Destruction. These were all "positive", media-friendly, expansive and optimistic. But the optimism they expressed became rapidly untenable in the wake of the Rodney King beating, verdict and the subsequent riots. The ensuing rage begat a different kind of collaboration, glued together not by assimilation and hope, but by violence, hostility and vengeance. Accordingly, every voice transition on Get the Fist seems more like a brutal collision than a seamless overdub:
From the New York Times in 1992:
From the New York Times in 1992:
23536
Bluelight Crew
Is every person with a cat avatar on Bluelight a female?