songbird wrote:
Do you acknowledge that capitalism produces unacceptible
outcomes if growth is not maintained?

no. i think deflation or steady state on prices
is as preferable to some people as inflation is to
others. i think the policy of pushing the system
to have some inflation is actually destructive in
the long term, but the governments/social tinkerers
at present like to hide all sorts of inefficiencies
by using this. also it is a transfer of wealth
indirectly (not very efficiently either) from savers
to debtors (usually this means from the elderly to
the young).


Show me where there has been zero growth or contraction under capitalism for
any length of time. Now tell me what the unemployment was like then. That
is the boogy man the financial controllers and leaders are all scared of.


the crap results are crap because the system is crap
front loaded from the start. garbage in, garbage out.


There is much more to it than weak businesses going under in bad
times. But let's stick to the point.

that capitalism requires profit? well how many
times can i disagree with that as it's pretty clear
to me that the system doesn't magically stop when
companies go non-profit or have a bad year. even in
the worst parts of the Great Depression there were
still companies in business, there were still people
buying and selling things. it really wasn't a problem
of capitalism, but many failed policies and the lack
of banking regulations. then about 80 years later we
ignored the lesson and made banking regulations too
lax and once again the economy took a severe hit,
but in that mess there were a lot of opportunities
for the smart person willing to take risks.


Sounds to me that you are not a true blue free market capitalist at all.
You want it reined in. If it is a naturally correcting system then why is
this necessary?

Because the ways that capitalism does its corrections if left unattended are
not acceptable to you. You also point out that the controls that are used
are not always effective. Wouldn't it be simpler just to admit that the
system is broken?


values will
change as resources become more limited. that's
the nature of the beast. prices rise as supply
becomes limited. people either produce their
own (food, water, etc.) or conserve or find other
sources. what drives the whole system is the
many individual choices made, how they add up.
when we start bumping up against hard limits
like fresh water and food supply then people
will start valuing water conservation and not
wasting so much food. this type of gradual shift
is already happening and will continue to happen.

There are three things wrong with this:

1) The assumption that market forces will eventually result in a
satisfactory new equilibrium

no, i only claim the system keeps working. it is a
dynamic system that also has many conflicting forces
just like there are many different actors with varying
degrees of influence.

i suspect the future is going to be full of many
unsatisfied people. we're not a species geared towards
contentment. it's not a skill that is taught, valued
or explored by many. i think i've done fairly well on
that count though, perhaps others can learn from what
i'm doing...


This is a blue-sky imagination product. Either you have to show that
capitalism with zero growth will continue without ultrahigh
unemployment or that a new system that doesn't produce unemployment
with zero growth will evolve. You have done neither.

i think you ignore the fact that for the most part
actual production of real things is a very minor part
of capitalism these days. i.e. the values have already
shifted. most people could be considered unemployed or
under-employed because most of what they do is shuffle
information, provide entertainment to others, they
really aren't producing tangible things.

You are confused between the level of employment in a business sector and
the resources it demands. Despite the swing from large employment in
agriculture, then industry and now information and services all those
workers who don't actually produce material goods still want them. The
mechanisation of agriculture and industry have if anything added to the
material resource requirements of the economy.


2) The assumption that the transition will be gradual and orderly

i don't make that claim either. i've been a student of
the markets and history to know better. the only argument
i'm making is that the system continues to function without
growth. we've had many periods of deflation or stagnation
and in those cases the markets worked, people bought and
sold things and the world did not end. yes, it hurt some
people and was painful, but that doesn't show that the
system didn't function. what it did show is that people
don't normally have any long-term thinking for retirement
or very much discipline when it comes to savings and
investing.


What you define as 'continue to function' would result in such social costs
that no politician who wants to stay in office would say the situation was
satisfactory. I would be the same as I wouldn't want to be lynched by an
unemployed mob either.



3) The assumption that it will happen soon enough to allow orderly
transition away from dependence on diminishing resources.

We see as plain as day with the climate change issue people will
stick to the old ways until the bitter end. They will not prepare
in time for a new future. They will waste time, deny, continue to
exploit limited resources until the last. The concept of finite
resources that limit growth and require a whole new way of thinking
is not one that people want to believe - therefore they don't -
therefore they will not prepare for it.

no, there is no assumption of orderly because you
are talking about people here. people panic and
freak out over all sorts of things. all i assume is
that the system continues to function.


But it will function so badly that you have bent the meaning of 'function'
so far out of shape to be useless. I begin to think that in many ways you
actually agree with me but you are too emotionally wedded to the American
Dream (the one based on a high expansion, high consumption capitalist
system) that you can't give up on staying with capitalism and claiming that
it will 'work' no matter what.

David

Billy wrote:
songbird wrote:
Billy wrote:
....
McArthur , and I will be back shortly.

"You're fired!" Donald Trump.

is that quote enough?

ok, just kidding, you are not fired.
have a good night.

we're up two more inches of rain. we
aren't going to get any planting done today.
so instead we're heading out in a few minutes
to run errands/shop.


Rain yesterday, kept me out of the garden. The peas seem to be enjoying
the 70F weather, as do the tomatoes (surprise, surprise). The peppers
not so much.
I've lost some plants to varmints, snail or cats, I don't know which. I
had a back up plant for the tomato, but I'm down 4/26 on my peppers, and
3/16 on my corn.

you're in a dry enough area that sprinkling
corn starch around might give you a few clues
as to the varmint.


I'll probably have to buy starters for the peppers, as
it seems too late to germinate fresh replacements. The corn was replaced
by sunflowers. When the corn goes to tassel, I'll just have to get
involved to make sure that the cobs will be full. Every thing is pretty
much in except for the squash, and melons. That should be finished by
today.


To my taste making pesto from fresh store bought basil is a futile
endevor. It just doesn't have enough flavor. Bought a couple of live
basil plants from Trader Joe's a month or so ago. We had our second
pesto from them last night. There were only 5 flowering tops in it, and
it still lacks taste. I suppose it could be me. I've read that as you
get older, your taste buds become less sensitive, and you need stronger
flavors to get their attention. In any event, I'll be happier when the
pesto is mostly flowering tops.

the bees will like it better too!

yes, rumor has it tastebuds and smell fade
along with sight, but i think a lot of it also
involves how much you abuse it earlier. my
sense of smell and taste are pretty good. i
get a lot of off-tastes in almost any
commercially packaged food if it is in anything
other than glass. metallic off-tastes in almost
anything canned in tin cans, even those with
liner plastic coatings, then i taste those too
at times. plastic wraps and left-over food
containers (styrofoam is a big yick).


I'll be starting a new germination tray today with green beans, as well
as mid-season replacement squash, and more lettuce. Can't ever have
enough lettuce. So I;m down to trying to squeeze in whatever is left
over.

that's what i'm like with peas and beans. any
empty spot is fair game.


Whew.



read about California Supercapacitor, 18yr old student
comes up with a potential game changer for every
rechargable device.

unfortunately, i don't have time to dig into the
descriptions to see what it entails, but hey, i like
when some unexpected discovery comes along and makes
everyone go, "Hmmm...."


songbird

In article ,
songbird wrote:

read about California Supercapacitor, 18yr old student
comes up with a potential game changer for every
rechargable device.

unfortunately, i don't have time to dig into the
descriptions to see what it entails, but hey, i like
when some unexpected discovery comes along and makes
everyone go, "Hmmm...."


songbird

Yup. Twenty second recharge on cell phones, near-instantaneously
recharging a car battery, and rapid recycling of military lasers.
Wait, what the . . ?

Can Skynet be far behind? Hmmmmmmmmmm
--
Remember Rachel Corrie
http://www.rachelcorrie.org/

Welcome to the New America.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hA736oK9FPg

David Hare-Scott wrote:
songbird wrote:
Do you acknowledge that capitalism produces unacceptible
outcomes if growth is not maintained?

no. i think deflation or steady state on prices
is as preferable to some people as inflation is to
others. i think the policy of pushing the system
to have some inflation is actually destructive in
the long term, but the governments/social tinkerers
at present like to hide all sorts of inefficiencies
by using this. also it is a transfer of wealth
indirectly (not very efficiently either) from savers
to debtors (usually this means from the elderly to
the young).


Show me where there has been zero growth or contraction under capitalism for
any length of time. Now tell me what the unemployment was like then. That
is the boogy man the financial controllers and leaders are all scared of.

i'm not able to do that research at the
moment, i'll put it on my list for this
winter (along with Capitalism/Marxism and
other related topics). i have a general
recollection of periods of time in the late
1880s where the uSoA had a poor economy
and some recessions and deflation, but i
wouldn't be surprised if you couldn't find
reasons to object to those examples (not
suitably industrial enough, or poor labor
statistics or no statistics at all).

i think periods of the Great Depression
were deflationary and the unemployment numbers
didn't change that much (the damage had already
been done), towards the end, i just have no
stats on hand here and i'm not interested in
that kind of research ATM. i'm more interested
in sustainable agriculture/gardening topics and
the related sciences...


the crap results are crap because the system is crap
front loaded from the start. garbage in, garbage out.


There is much more to it than weak businesses going under in bad
times. But let's stick to the point.

that capitalism requires profit? well how many
times can i disagree with that as it's pretty clear
to me that the system doesn't magically stop when
companies go non-profit or have a bad year. even in
the worst parts of the Great Depression there were
still companies in business, there were still people
buying and selling things. it really wasn't a problem
of capitalism, but many failed policies and the lack
of banking regulations. then about 80 years later we
ignored the lesson and made banking regulations too
lax and once again the economy took a severe hit,
but in that mess there were a lot of opportunities
for the smart person willing to take risks.


Sounds to me that you are not a true blue free market capitalist at all.

no as i find slavery deplorable, a true blue free
market capitalist says all is market and all vices/sins
are possible/exploitable and taxable. sometimes i
find that leaning appealing as then the government
can be turned into a more taxed approach to where
all is permitted but it is taxed more highly as the
evidence of damage accumulates. so the actual cost
to those not involved in the practice is isolated or
even the wider population has a better or improved
life because the few who insist on the more damaging
approaches to life pay a disproportionate tax. so
they are used to advance society as they destroy
themselves. unfortunately, taxes rarely go for
programs they are intended to (c.f. the lotto or
tobacco settlement monies).


You want it reined in. If it is a naturally correcting system then why is
this necessary?

i want it changed to reflect the costs of
pollution and the depletion or destruction of
resources. that is just encouraging the system
to reflect the true costs so that it can work
better at eliminating them.

it does not "correct itself" by direct
fiddling, it changes by getting a large
enough group of individuals (who make up
the market) to change their actions. the
government plays catchup most of the time.
rarely are they out front in terms of
policies. climate change being a large
example in point.

given a free market i can invest in
companies which do what i want (for the
most part) and if i can convince enough
others to shift their decisions in a
similar manner then i can drive up the
financing costs for companies which
don't do things as i'd like. the more
accurately i can make a polluting company
reflect the damage the more likely it
will change ways. make the cost high
enough and it can't continue and we get
a market response to a societal value
completely apart from any governmental
lack of decisions on pollution (this is
pretty much what is happening now, but
it is a slow process).

the companies already ahead of the
shift are those that reap the rewards as
the value of what they are doing is
recognised.


Because the ways that capitalism does its corrections if left unattended are
not acceptable to you.

it's not capitalism which does the corrections
it is the sum result of the decisions of the
market participants. so the market reflects the
values of the people in various (and conflicting
ways). if i were a dictator i could eliminate a
lot of noise and wasted energy, but like you say
i'd be lynched so what's the point of such a
game other than kicking around ideas trying to
find a better way.

my own ideas of a better way leaves capital
markets in place, but forces all costs of pollution
or lack of recycling and destruction or depletion
of resources to be built into the taxes and prices
of products (also allows for wild spaces and taxes
to refurbish damaged areas, demolition of unused
buildings and replanting with trees or other suitable
species). if you manufacture an item, it comes with
a built in recycling fee and a pollution fee (which
gets adjusted as more information becomes known, as
pollution improves, etc). also all products sold
are returnable to the manufacturer (as long as they
are in business (for no additional fee), once they
go under then the recycling is covered by a more
general tax). this way electric cars could be put
into use more quickly and the recharging done with
wind/solar energy as much as possible. getting off
the fossil fuel burning route is critical right now.
adding a carbon tax above the damage rate (so that
CO2 remediation and removal projects can be funded
and gotten going).

so yes, not at all a free market person as i would
also rewrite chunks of the US constitution and make
other changes to many laws i find wasteful along
with many subsidies which damage the environment
or topsoil (and increased enforcement of violations
and remediations).


You also point out that the controls that are used
are not always effective. Wouldn't it be simpler just to admit that the
system is broken?

i don't claim it functions perfectly. so yes,
that means it is broken in various ways. some
ways i find pretty horrible (that a few people
could cause wars that cost trillions of dollars
and kill thousands). i'd put the bill for those
at the feet of those who carried it out not the
wider population or future generations.

i'd also redo much of government as wasted
or damaging (river management is clearly destroying
environment and groundwater along with topsoil
depletion, we should be encouraging farmers to
not put in yet more drainage (as that turns the
ground water into the streams/rivers even faster
leading to ground water pollution being even more
concentrated or worse in terms of pollution from
runoff). there are a huge number of changes that
could be done right now that pay off over the
long term. most of them shift labor from meaningless
paper shuffling to actually doing something which
helps restore species habitat and preserves topsoil.
even simple stuff like cleaning up vacant lots,
tearing down abandoned houses and getting the
areas replanted with a variety of suitable species
turns the land into a better climate for good
things and reduces the negative impression and
crimes around abandoned buildings. get that
done sooner and we have an actual carbon sink
being created as the trees get larger. it
doesn't take long for a tree to be a net carbon
sink. later harvest those trees and turn them
into furniture or buildings for the poor and
then the carbon gets locked up even longer
(as compared to if it were used as fuel for
heating or cooking or...).


values will
change as resources become more limited. that's
the nature of the beast. prices rise as supply
becomes limited. people either produce their
own (food, water, etc.) or conserve or find other
sources. what drives the whole system is the
many individual choices made, how they add up.
when we start bumping up against hard limits
like fresh water and food supply then people
will start valuing water conservation and not
wasting so much food. this type of gradual shift
is already happening and will continue to happen.

There are three things wrong with this:

1) The assumption that market forces will eventually result in a
satisfactory new equilibrium

no, i only claim the system keeps working. it is a
dynamic system that also has many conflicting forces
just like there are many different actors with varying
degrees of influence.

i suspect the future is going to be full of many
unsatisfied people. we're not a species geared towards
contentment. it's not a skill that is taught, valued
or explored by many. i think i've done fairly well on
that count though, perhaps others can learn from what
i'm doing...


This is a blue-sky imagination product. Either you have to show that
capitalism with zero growth will continue without ultrahigh
unemployment or that a new system that doesn't produce unemployment
with zero growth will evolve. You have done neither.

i think you ignore the fact that for the most part
actual production of real things is a very minor part
of capitalism these days. i.e. the values have already
shifted. most people could be considered unemployed or
under-employed because most of what they do is shuffle
information, provide entertainment to others, they
really aren't producing tangible things.

You are confused between the level of employment in a business sector and
the resources it demands. Despite the swing from large employment in
agriculture, then industry and now information and services all those
workers who don't actually produce material goods still want them.

and if the market reflected the true costs of
having them i couldn't even object. it just means
the future society has a much better chance of
living a similar good life if we switch from
destructive non-recycled production methods to
more sustainable ones.


The
mechanisation of agriculture and industry have if anything added to the
material resource requirements of the economy.

well sure as fossil fuels are behind a large portion
of it. if the costs of all of that CO2 (and the damage
it is causing already with much of the future damages also
built in) were included in the taxes for such products
then those material costs would reflect reality (unlike
as you say it has decoupled currently). the thing is
that reality will get it's due.


2) The assumption that the transition will be gradual and orderly

i don't make that claim either. i've been a student of
the markets and history to know better. the only argument
i'm making is that the system continues to function without
growth. we've had many periods of deflation or stagnation
and in those cases the markets worked, people bought and
sold things and the world did not end. yes, it hurt some
people and was painful, but that doesn't show that the
system didn't function. what it did show is that people
don't normally have any long-term thinking for retirement
or very much discipline when it comes to savings and
investing.


What you define as 'continue to function' would result in such social costs
that no politician who wants to stay in office would say the situation was
satisfactory. I would be the same as I wouldn't want to be lynched by an
unemployed mob either.

yet for some strange reason politicians continue
to be elected and unlynched even now in most
modern capitalistish societies. my changes would
be to eliminate popular elections/campaigns along
with pretty close monitoring of money going to
representatives (regular audits of them and their
contacts to detect any funny changes in income or
savings or offshore accounts). but that's even
further afield...


3) The assumption that it will happen soon enough to allow orderly
transition away from dependence on diminishing resources.

We see as plain as day with the climate change issue people will
stick to the old ways until the bitter end. They will not prepare
in time for a new future. They will waste time, deny, continue to
exploit limited resources until the last. The concept of finite
resources that limit growth and require a whole new way of thinking
is not one that people want to believe - therefore they don't -
therefore they will not prepare for it.

no, there is no assumption of orderly because you
are talking about people here. people panic and
freak out over all sorts of things. all i assume is
that the system continues to function.


But it will function so badly that you have bent the meaning of 'function'
so far out of shape to be useless.

no, it's just history that shows me that. if
something has happened dozens of times in various
circumstances i'd be very silly to not pay attention
to the information those events have provided.

my widest claim is that the system continues to
function and reflects the values of the society, if
the society changes enough and enough actors make
different financial decisions then the market itself
reflects those changes. the market can drive some
effects and gets feedback loops, but those can be
worked out in time. i don't see any other system
other than benevolent dictator which allows such
changes to happen without revolutions. yet we've
had close to four revolutions in a few hundred years
and the system continues on in some form or another.
sometimes with more regulation other times with
less, but i think generally it works well enough.
not purely how i'd like, but it's got more going
for it than the government does in terms of
being able to change rapidly once new information
becomes widely known.


I begin to think that in many ways you
actually agree with me but you are too emotionally wedded to the American
Dream (the one based on a high expansion, high consumption capitalist
system)

i don't think you know me that well, but
i don't have the time to spell it all out yet
again how i live my life.

in terms of reform of the system i'd go for
large changes in government (including rewriting
portions of the constitution and several other
laws). the market would shake and shimmy as
people freaked out, but that is a short-term
adjustment needed to prevent an even longer
term catastrophe.


that you can't give up on staying with capitalism and claiming that
it will 'work' no matter what.

i don't see a viable alternative that can
respond as quickly to new information. we'd need
a revolution of huge proportion to change to
something else. more likely we'll continue to
jigger this one with policy patches and social
tinkerings and the whole system will gradually
change to reflect the values of the majority
that comes along next. i sure hope that
majority is more environmentally aware...
at present i don't think it is as much as it
needs to be that is why i aim my efforts at
talking to people around things like gardening
because at least they do understand that they
can get food from a gardener.


songbird

In article ,
songbird wrote:

David Hare-Scott wrote:
songbird wrote:
Do you acknowledge that capitalism produces unacceptible
outcomes if growth is not maintained?

no. i think deflation or steady state on prices
is as preferable to some people as inflation is to
others. i think the policy of pushing the system
to have some inflation is actually destructive in
the long term, but the governments/social tinkerers
at present like to hide all sorts of inefficiencies
by using this. also it is a transfer of wealth
indirectly (not very efficiently either) from savers
to debtors (usually this means from the elderly to
the young).


Show me where there has been zero growth or contraction under capitalism
for
any length of time. Now tell me what the unemployment was like then. That
is the boogy man the financial controllers and leaders are all scared of.

i'm not able to do that research at the
moment, i'll put it on my list for this
winter (along with Capitalism/Marxism and
other related topics). i have a general
recollection of periods of time in the late
1880s where the uSoA had a poor economy
and some recessions and deflation, but i
wouldn't be surprised if you couldn't find
reasons to object to those examples (not
suitably industrial enough, or poor labor
statistics or no statistics at all).

i think periods of the Great Depression
were deflationary and the unemployment numbers
didn't change that much (the damage had already
been done), towards the end, i just have no
stats on hand here and i'm not interested in
that kind of research ATM. i'm more interested
in sustainable agriculture/gardening topics and
the related sciences...


the crap results are crap because the system is crap
front loaded from the start. garbage in, garbage out.


There is much more to it than weak businesses going under in bad
times. But let's stick to the point.

that capitalism requires profit? well how many
times can i disagree with that as it's pretty clear
to me that the system doesn't magically stop when
companies go non-profit or have a bad year. even in
the worst parts of the Great Depression there were
still companies in business, there were still people
buying and selling things. it really wasn't a problem
of capitalism, but many failed policies and the lack
of banking regulations. then about 80 years later we
ignored the lesson and made banking regulations too
lax and once again the economy took a severe hit,
but in that mess there were a lot of opportunities
for the smart person willing to take risks.


Sounds to me that you are not a true blue free market capitalist at all.

no as i find slavery deplorable, a true blue free
market capitalist says all is market and all vices/sins
are possible/exploitable and taxable. sometimes i
find that leaning appealing

Are you talking "white", or "black" slavery here? Somehow, I get the
feeling that economics should take a backseat to morality.

as then the government
can be turned into a more taxed approach to where
all is permitted but it is taxed more highly as the
evidence of damage accumulates. so the actual cost
to those not involved in the practice is isolated or
even the wider population has a better or improved
life because the few who insist on the more damaging
approaches to life pay a disproportionate tax. so
they are used to advance society as they destroy
themselves. unfortunately, taxes rarely go for
programs they are intended to (c.f. the lotto or
tobacco settlement monies).

War, fossil fuel subsidies, and other earmarks


You want it reined in. If it is a naturally correcting system then why is
this necessary?

i want it changed to reflect the costs of
pollution and the depletion or destruction of
resources. that is just encouraging the system
to reflect the true costs so that it can work
better at eliminating them.

Some in Congress would call that new taxes, and you'd be stopped in your
tracks.

it does not "correct itself" by direct
fiddling, it changes by getting a large
enough group of individuals (who make up
the market) to change their actions. the
government plays catchup most of the time.
rarely are they out front in terms of
policies. climate change being a large
example in point.

given a free market i can invest in
companies which do what i want (for the
most part) and if i can convince enough
others to shift their decisions in a
similar manner
Investors can invest, or not invest. Those are the only real options
that they have.

then i can drive up the
financing costs for companies which
don't do things as i'd like.
If you've noticed the Stock Market recently, you'll see that the large
firms are doing quite well. The only businesses that need investing are
the small businesses which have very little effect on the economy except
in aggregate.

the more
accurately i can make a polluting company
reflect the damage the more likely it
will change ways. make the cost high
enough and it can't continue and we get
a market response to a societal value
completely apart from any governmental
lack of decisions on pollution (this is
pretty much what is happening now, but
it is a slow process).

AYN RAND: I am opposed to all forms of control. I am for an absolute
laissez-faire, free, unregulated economy. Let me put it briefly. I am
for the separation of state and economics.
Greenspan is Rand's acolyte, who prevented the derivatives market from
being regulated (transparency), and led the way to it's crash.

(See Frontline's: The Warning (About Brooksley Born)


the companies already ahead of the
shift are those that reap the rewards as
the value of what they are doing is
recognized.


Because the ways that capitalism does its corrections if left unattended
are
not acceptable to you.

it's not capitalism which does the corrections
it is the sum result of the decisions of the
market participants. so the market reflects the
values of the people in various (and conflicting
ways).
As it turns out, the problem is the lack of transparency, without the
sucker getting an even break. Then when it blows up, and the
perpetrators lose money, the suckers make good the money that the
perpetrators lost, so that they can be victimized all over again.

Additionally, this concept of the self-regulating "Free Market" is for
the simple minded. We had a "Free Market", and J.D. Rockefeller made it
his own. An economy with out regulators is like a football game without
referees. I would think everyone would understand that since 2008.

if i were a dictator i could eliminate a
lot of noise and wasted energy, but like you say
i'd be lynched so what's the point of such a
game other than kicking around ideas trying to
find a better way.

my own ideas of a better way leaves capital
markets in place, but forces all costs of pollution
or lack of recycling and destruction or depletion
of resources to be built into the taxes and prices
of products (also allows for wild spaces and taxes
to refurbish damaged areas, demolition of unused
buildings and replanting with trees or other suitable
species). if you manufacture an item, it comes with
a built in recycling fee and a pollution fee (which
gets adjusted as more information becomes known, as
pollution improves, etc). also all products sold
are returnable to the manufacturer (as long as they
are in business (for no additional fee), once they
go under then the recycling is covered by a more
general tax). this way electric cars could be put
into use more quickly and the recharging done with
wind/solar energy as much as possible. getting off
the fossil fuel burning route is critical right now.
adding a carbon tax above the damage rate (so that
CO2 remediation and removal projects can be funded
and gotten going).

so yes, not at all a free market person as i would
also rewrite chunks of the US constitution and make
other changes to many laws i find wasteful along
with many subsidies which damage the environment
or topsoil (and increased enforcement of violations
and remediations).


You also point out that the controls that are used
are not always effective. Wouldn't it be simpler just to admit that the
system is broken?

i don't claim it functions perfectly.
(rolling of eyes)

so yes,
that means it is broken in various ways. some
ways i find pretty horrible (that a few people
could cause wars that cost trillions of dollars
and kill thousands). i'd put the bill for those
at the feet of those who carried it out not the
wider population or future generations.
We all paid for it with our taxes.


i'd also redo much of government as wasted
or damaging (river management is clearly destroying
environment and groundwater along with topsoil
depletion, we should be encouraging farmers to
not put in yet more drainage (as that turns the
ground water into the streams/rivers even faster
leading to ground water pollution being even more
concentrated or worse in terms of pollution from
runoff). there are a huge number of changes that
could be done right now that pay off over the
long term. most of them shift labor from meaningless
paper shuffling to actually doing something which
helps restore species habitat and preserves topsoil.
even simple stuff like cleaning up vacant lots,
tearing down abandoned houses and getting the
areas replanted with a variety of suitable species
turns the land into a better climate for good
things and reduces the negative impression and
crimes around abandoned buildings. get that
done sooner and we have an actual carbon sink
being created as the trees get larger. it
doesn't take long for a tree to be a net carbon
sink. later harvest those trees and turn them
into furniture or buildings for the poor and
then the carbon gets locked up even longer
(as compared to if it were used as fuel for
heating or cooking or...).
The problem is that our overlords don't seem to recognize the real,
physical world. They only understand their virtual, economic world.


values will
change as resources become more limited. that's
the nature of the beast. prices rise as supply
becomes limited. people either produce their
own (food, water, etc.) or conserve or find other
sources. what drives the whole system is the
many individual choices made, how they add up.
when we start bumping up against hard limits
like fresh water and food supply then people
will start valuing water conservation and not
wasting so much food. this type of gradual shift
is already happening and will continue to happen.

There are three things wrong with this:

1) The assumption that market forces will eventually result in a
satisfactory new equilibrium

no, i only claim the system keeps working. it is a
dynamic system that also has many conflicting forces
just like there are many different actors with varying
degrees of influence.

i suspect the future is going to be full of many
unsatisfied people. we're not a species geared towards
contentment. it's not a skill that is taught, valued
or explored by many. i think i've done fairly well on
that count though, perhaps others can learn from what
i'm doing...

You mean that there is nothing we can do about being sheared like sheep.



This is a blue-sky imagination product. Either you have to show that
capitalism with zero growth will continue without ultrahigh
unemployment or that a new system that doesn't produce unemployment
with zero growth will evolve. You have done neither.

i think you ignore the fact that for the most part
actual production of real things is a very minor part
of capitalism these days. i.e. the values have already
shifted. most people could be considered unemployed or
under-employed because most of what they do is shuffle
information, provide entertainment to others, they
really aren't producing tangible things.

You are confused between the level of employment in a business sector and
the resources it demands. Despite the swing from large employment in
agriculture, then industry and now information and services all those
workers who don't actually produce material goods still want them.

and if the market reflected the true costs of
having them i couldn't even object. it just means
the future society has a much better chance of
living a similar good life if we switch from
destructive non-recycled production methods to
more sustainable ones.

It does reflect the true cost. They get the profits, and we get the
costs.



The
mechanisation of agriculture and industry have if anything added to the
material resource requirements of the economy.

well sure as fossil fuels are behind a large portion
of it. if the costs of all of that CO2 (and the damage
it is causing already with much of the future damages also
built in) were included in the taxes for such products
then those material costs would reflect reality (unlike
as you say it has decoupled currently). the thing is
that reality will get it's due.

The DOD has made plans for "Climate Change. Why wouldn't corporations
already have plans to make profits from this next disaster? The only
ones who don't have a plan, are those who rely on politicians to protect
them.



2) The assumption that the transition will be gradual and orderly

i don't make that claim either. i've been a student of
the markets and history to know better. the only argument
i'm making is that the system continues to function without
growth. we've had many periods of deflation or stagnation
and in those cases the markets worked, people bought and
sold things and the world did not end. yes, it hurt some
people and was painful, but that doesn't show that the
system didn't function. what it did show is that people
don't normally have any long-term thinking for retirement
or very much discipline when it comes to savings and
investing.


What you define as 'continue to function' would result in such social
costs
that no politician who wants to stay in office would say the situation was
satisfactory. I would be the same as I wouldn't want to be lynched by an
unemployed mob either.

By a 54 to 40 percent margin, all respondents say the U.S. is at the
³start of a longer term decline, where the U.S. is no longer the leading
country in the world,² rather than ³going through the kind of tough time
the country faces from time to time².

Poll: Congress Has 14 Percent Approval Rating More Americans continue
to disapprove than approve of sequestration, now by 56-35 percent

More Americans continue to disapprove than approve of sequestration, now
by 56-35 percent

Let's face it, we've lost control of our government.


yet for some strange reason politicians continue
to be elected and unlynched even now in most
modern capitalistish societies. my changes would
be to eliminate popular elections/campaigns along
with pretty close monitoring of money going to
representatives (regular audits of them and their
contacts to detect any funny changes in income or
savings or offshore accounts). but that's even
further afield...


Public campaign financing would be so much simpler, since we are talking
"Pie in the Sky".


3) The assumption that it will happen soon enough to allow orderly
transition away from dependence on diminishing resources.

We see as plain as day with the climate change issue people will
stick to the old ways until the bitter end. They will not prepare
in time for a new future. They will waste time, deny, continue to
exploit limited resources until the last. The concept of finite
resources that limit growth and require a whole new way of thinking
is not one that people want to believe - therefore they don't -
therefore they will not prepare for it.

no, there is no assumption of orderly because you
are talking about people here. people panic and
freak out over all sorts of things. all i assume is
that the system continues to function.


But it will function so badly that you have bent the meaning of 'function'
so far out of shape to be useless.

no, it's just history that shows me that. if
something has happened dozens of times in various
circumstances i'd be very silly to not pay attention
to the information those events have provided.

Every once in a while, however, politicians do something so wrong,
substantively and morally, that cynicism just won¹t cut it; it¹s time to
get really angry instead.

First, as millions of workers lost their jobs through no fault of their
own, many families turned to food stamps to help them get by ‹ and while
food aid is no substitute for a good job, it did significantly mitigate
their misery. Food stamps were especially helpful to children who would
otherwise be living in extreme poverty, defined as an income less than
half the official poverty line.

Wait, we¹re not done yet. Food stamps greatly reduce food insecurity
among low-income children, which, in turn, greatly enhances their
chances of doing well in school and growing up to be successful,
productive adults. So food stamps are in a very real sense an investment
in the nation¹s future ‹ an investment that in the long run almost
surely reduces the budget deficit, because tomorrow¹s adults will also
be tomorrow¹s taxpayers.

So what do Republicans want to do with this paragon of programs? First,
shrink it; then, effectively kill it.

And why must food stamps be cut? We can¹t afford it, say politicians
like Representative Stephen Fincher, a Republican of Tennessee, who
backed his position with biblical quotations ‹ and who also, it turns
out, has personally received millions in farm subsidies over the years.
Look, I understand the supposed rationale:

We¹re becoming a nation of takers, and doing stuff like feeding poor
children and giving them adequate health care are just creating a
culture of dependency ‹ and that culture of dependency, not runaway
bankers, somehow caused our economic crisis.

But I wonder whether even Republicans really believe that story ‹ or at
least are confident enough in their diagnosis to justify policies that
more or less literally take food from the mouths of hungry children.
The absurdity of the cuts angers the people they affect. The US can
undoubtedly see how Southern Europe is driving itself into the ground
with its belt-tightening measures and how unemployment there is
skyrocketing. But, here, the country is pulling its own plug.

"Austerity, including sequestration, is the economic version of medieval
leeching," wrote Jared Bernstein, former chief economic adviser to Vice
President Joseph Biden, in the New York Times in early May. People in
the Middle Ages believed a sick person needed to lose supposedly bad
blood in order to regain health.

"If we were the pilots who fly members of Congress home, maybe we
wouldn't have had our funding cut either," says Keys, the Head Start
center director.



my widest claim is that the system continues to
function and reflects the values of the society, if
the society changes enough and enough actors make
different financial decisions then the market itself
reflects those changes. the market can drive some
effects and gets feedback loops, but those can be
worked out in time. i don't see any other system
other than benevolent dictator which allows such
changes to happen without revolutions. yet we've
had close to four revolutions in a few hundred years
and the system continues on in some form or another.
sometimes with more regulation other times with
less, but i think generally it works well enough.
not purely how i'd like, but it's got more going
for it than the government does in terms of
being able to change rapidly once new information
becomes widely known.

³Never be deceived that the rich will allow you to vote away their
wealth.²
-Lucy Parsons
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucy_Parsons

Even if they got it by gaming the system.

At one time we revolted against a King , and royalty. Only the names
have been changed. Government, in the name of the ruling corporations,
wants absolute control again.


I begin to think that in many ways you
actually agree with me but you are too emotionally wedded to the American
Dream (the one based on a high expansion, high consumption capitalist
system)

i don't think you know me that well, but
i don't have the time to spell it all out yet
again how i live my life.

in terms of reform of the system i'd go for
large changes in government (including rewriting
portions of the constitution and several other
laws). the market would shake and shimmy as
people freaked out, but that is a short-term
adjustment needed to prevent an even longer
term catastrophe.

We have a corporate controlled government, and a corporate controlled
media.
Sure we have limited free speech for the present, but the government
with its mushroom clouds, and smoking guns spooks enough of the
population to justify most any crazy notion.
In any event it gives the un-beloved Congress the plausible excuse to do
things that are against our own good, like the National Defense
Authorization Act.


that you can't give up on staying with capitalism and claiming that
it will 'work' no matter what.

i don't see a viable alternative that can
respond as quickly to new information. we'd need
a revolution of huge proportion to change to
something else. more likely we'll continue to
jigger this one with policy patches and social
tinkerings and the whole system will gradually
change to reflect the values of the majority
that comes along next. i sure hope that
majority is more environmentally aware...

Yes the environment is overwhelmed, and as far as we are concerned with
its ability to support human life, the nurturing environment is dying.
Yet, here we all sit in the water, wondering how much warmer it will get.

at present i don't think it is as much as it
needs to be that is why i aim my efforts at
talking to people around things like gardening
because at least they do understand that they
can get food from a gardener.


songbird

At least until they see you as something that may go well with wild
onions, and french fries.
--
Remember Rachel Corrie
http://www.rachelcorrie.org/

Welcome to the New America.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hA736oK9FPg