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Capitalism Has Gone Off the Rails

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Re: Capitalism Has Gone Off the Rails

#231

Post by tdaltonc »

zanny wrote: post #77
Animats wrote: post #17

This is an important article, but I doubt there will be a useful discussion of it here. The developed world has incredible productive capacity. With 1% of the workforce in agriculture and 8% in manufacturing, the US produces as much stuff as China. There are no significant shortages of any manufactured good anywhere in the developed world. Quality is pretty good across the board, too. This is unique in history. That'…

> We have no successful model for dealing with this. Canada seems to have had pretty good success with that basic income town. And no major western democracy has really attempted it yet. I like it because it lets you have a completely deregulated economy, because both employer and employee would be participating in voluntary negotiation without a huge bias towards the employer - when one side is starving and need she…

You mean " . . . deregulated labor market." Other parts of the economy would still need to be regulated.

Re: Capitalism Has Gone Off the Rails

#232

Post by skywhopper »

How can you write an article about Japan Syndrome and stagnating economies without mentioning Bernanke, Krugman, or Keynes?

Capitalism isn't itself the problem. It's the way out of our current doldrums. But there's this idea that government institutions have no way to intervene to kick-start capitalism's more virtuous cycles.

As Keynes first recognized, and as Bernanke and Krugman both clarified in respect to 1990s Japan: when you hit an economic slump driven by lack of demand and your control over interest rates has hit its natural limit (you can't set an interest rate lower than zero... you wouldn't want to risk deflation in any case), the only way out (besides waiting) is to increase demand.

So how do you do that? Well, we have tons of options. Governments can take the opportunity to borrow at essentially zero interest and use the money to build stuff we need and fix stuff that's broken. Build out gigabit Internet to every house in the country; commit to curing diabetes in 20 years; build 200mph+ high speed rail networks between clusters of large cities, and improve airport capacity for longer-distance travel; replace aging water and sewer systems; invest in offshore wind and tidal power sources; build out a national power grid to maximize efficiency; provide research grants to increase battery efficiency x100 by 2025.

All of this will create millions of jobs, in addition to providing the cash to soak up all the industrial overcapacity that's out there. But there are more direct routes as well. Raising the minimum wage would stimulate a huge amount of new consumer spending and debt reduction, while increasing payroll and income tax revenues for the federal government and putting upward pressure on wages across the board, which would lead to additional spending, tax revenues, and growth.

Or if you want to go full Bernanke, just have the central banks print money and drop it out of helicopters. That, or just mail everyone a check. That money'll get spent, and add jobs, and then we can let capitalism take back over from there.

Re: Capitalism Has Gone Off the Rails

#233

Post by Hermel »

randomsearch wrote: post #224

If I were a rich software engineer feeling angry at people who criticised the capitalist system we had, perhaps whilst failing to acknowledge that people in America die because they can't pay health insurance, or are homeless because they can't afford housing, or end up eating what they find in someone's trash because they can't afford to buy food, I think that I'd do one thing: I'd consider whether perhaps I might b…

With both, private and public spending, it is not the quantity that matters, but quality. Both sometimes waste money, and that's what needs to be addressed. More government does not solve anything as long as that additional spending finances bureaucracy. Since the most cost-effective governments are normally also the smallest, my personal view is that one should spend less on the federal level, but more on the local level. Decentralization is key.

Re: Capitalism Has Gone Off the Rails

#234

Post by yummyfajitas »

opendais wrote: post #211
yummyfajitas wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

95% of the biggest nation in the world (or maybe second biggest, no one really knows the exact pop of India and China) lives in far deeper poverty than poor americans. Many of them experience actual suffering - not enough food, no flush toilet, no power. What, precisely, do you believe poor Americans are suffering from? The only concrete answer I usually hear is envy (I.e. "oh noes the inequality"). http://economix.b…

No offense, but you are just ignorant :/ http://abcnews.go.com/Health/food-insecurity-affects-50-mill... http://www.ers.usda.gov/publications/err-economic-research-r... So, 14.3% of US Households don't have enough food. Food insecurity is another way of saying "Hey, we may not eat today but we eat enough calories on average to survive.". You think these people are paying their power bills over food? Seriously? http:/…

Food insecurity is another way of saying "Hey, we may not eat today but we eat enough calories on average to survive.".

You seem to be confusing "food security" with "very low food security".

http://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/food-nutrition-assistance/foo...

None of these things are hunger, however.

So when you say its "Envy" are you saying you are ignorant or that 14.3% of the people in this country are envious, ungrateful bastards for thinking they deserve 3 square meals a day?

The natural consequence of not getting enough food is weight loss. Where are the skinny poor people? Note that here in India, even in a well developed city, they aren't hard to find. In the poor parts of the US where I've lived, you mostly just see fat people.

Re: Capitalism Has Gone Off the Rails

#235

Post by rayiner »

ceronman wrote: post #166
rayiner wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should we care about people in India or China? We're entitled to shape our society the way we want, and to address the local ills we see fit to address. Our predecessors worked very hard so that we would be richer than India and China and have the luxury of figuring out how to better the lives of urban "poor" who have cable TV.

> Why should we care about people in India or China? Replace "India or China" with "Black or Hispanic" to see how sad this comment is. It still surprises me to see that we live in a world where racism is condemned but discriminating people for the place they were born in is socially accepted. Now, to answer your question, we should care about people in India or China because they're people. Human beings. The place th…

Caring more for the plight of people around you than people in far away countries isn't discrimination, it's rational self-interest. I want to see healthy, thriving communities in Baltimore because I live there. Those people are part of my community. They walk alongside me and interact with my family.

The irony is that people in India and China understand this simple dynamic perfectly well. You don't need to explain to the average Indian or Chinese person why they should care more for the plight of their neighbors than that of, say, even poorer people in Africa.

Re: Capitalism Has Gone Off the Rails

#236

Post by kaitai »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #198
ap22213 wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your continual use of the word 'envy' belittles the psychological affects of poverty. Your use of that word seems to imply that poor people can somehow eradicate their psychological suffering through positive thinking or something similar. It's the "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" approach to reducing poverty, as US conservatives so frequently say. It is these clever uses of words that aim to reduce very complex…

And yet, I can't shake the feeling that if you took away all my money and property, I would be employed and back in an apartment in a month. What's a guy to think, when folks complain about how its too hard to move, to get an education, to save money, when I know I can do it? Its hard to empathize with people with an outlook so different, that they can't imagine working their way out of poverty. Because I can.

Well, let's take away all your money and property, give you three kids under 6, diabetes, dental problems, and a disabled spouse with a felony so you can't get housing assistance without leaving the spouse. That would be a more accurate representation of the difficulties people face.

I would definitely watch that experiment and I think people would support it on Kickstarter. (People don't want to support the actual folks doing this that much -- it's depressing -- but it would be interesting to see someone with all the advantages of education, marketable skills, previous steady employment, and ease with middle- or upper-class mores and culture try to make it come together.)

Re: Capitalism Has Gone Off the Rails

#237

Post by _yosefk »

skywhopper wrote: post #232

How can you write an article about Japan Syndrome and stagnating economies without mentioning Bernanke, Krugman, or Keynes? Capitalism isn't itself the problem. It's the way out of our current doldrums. But there's this idea that government institutions have no way to intervene to kick-start capitalism's more virtuous cycles. As Keynes first recognized, and as Bernanke and Krugman both clarified in respect to 1990s J…

So do you think it worked for Bernanke after he went full Bernanke and the article misses this point? Or do you think it didn't work - if so, why didn't it?

Re: Capitalism Has Gone Off the Rails

#238

Post by yummyfajitas »

redmoskito wrote: post #220
yummyfajitas wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Measured health outcomes did not go up, only self reported health did. Further, the increase in self reported health was present even before people had a chance to go to the doctor. Better health insurance makes people feel better. That's not the same thing as making them healthier. If you think the data changed between 2008 and the next AHS survey, feel free to prove it. Or just call me a troll, far less work.

I don't understand. From my brief reading it looks like measured outcomes did improve significantly (see diabetes, depression, cholesterol). Am I misreading this?

The outcomes did not change statistically significantly. Note the CI's indicated on the graphs.

Diabetes was diagnosed more.

Re: Capitalism Has Gone Off the Rails

#239

Post by drderidder »

Animats wrote: post #17

This is an important article, but I doubt there will be a useful discussion of it here. The developed world has incredible productive capacity. With 1% of the workforce in agriculture and 8% in manufacturing, the US produces as much stuff as China. There are no significant shortages of any manufactured good anywhere in the developed world. Quality is pretty good across the board, too. This is unique in history. That'…

It might be worth mentioning that although the Nikkei has been pretty flat, after visiting Japan yearly for the past few years, I've noticed that the rate of development and re-development there continues unabated. Employment is high, health care universal and prompt, bullet trains ever evolving, gleaming skyscrapers appearing in place of 30-year old structures deemed out-dated, shopping and commerce and business all zooming along, uniformed safety workers waving red glowing batons over temporary pot-holes which will be patched by morning. It all runs like a well oiled machine. House prices were surprisingly affordable - values haven't risen meteorically like before the 'bubble'. In short, the idea that Japan has flatlined for 20 years gets thrown around a lot in the west, but it only takes a visit there to see that in those 20 years, they've managed to do some amazing things while remaining under the radar in a supposedly enduring recession. Japan is still way ahead of the west in many areas, and it seems more like they've reached a kind of steady-state balance. It's a situation that I suspect many westerners would actually be impressed by, if not a bit envious of, if they witnessed it first hand.

Re: Capitalism Has Gone Off the Rails

#240

Post by patrickk »

lispm wrote: post #175
jvm wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They certainly are. But even Germany has had mediocre performance compared to the rest of the rich world.

While adding 20+ million people from a collapsed economy and rebuilding much of that.

Exactly, the effects of reunification are still being felt. Not to mention battling a low birth rate for quite some time, although this is partially offset by immigration from other parts of the EU.
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