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On February 17 2013 15:56 JonnyBNoHo wrote:Show nested quote +On February 17 2013 15:33 sam!zdat wrote:
it's just crazy enough to be a worthwhile suggestion But isn't that what GDP is supposed to be? ... a proxy for happiness?
Well, that's the problem. People think it is, but it obviously isn't.
That is, a caveman would consider GDP to be a great, neigh an absolutely fantastic, indicator of happiness - starvation sucks! Homelessness sucks! Tedious toil sucks! All these things are captured in GDP .... yet it's just a proxy - it is incomplete.
Jonny, you have almost broken through the veil.
This is stupid:
Yet also brilliant!
Did I ever tell you that the most dangerous and traumatic fact I ever encountered in my young life was the notion that WWII had ended the depression? That was basically my rabbit hole right there.
But is the goal to game GDP higher or to make people's lives better?
why aren't you already a marxist?
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On February 17 2013 15:48 Broly wrote:
Why can't we all just perform a task without any upward mobility. Your a engineer, I'm a construction worker, I perform a task and we all enjoy what we want.
I still have a year until I get my BS =/
upward mobility is important as an option. People are naturally "greedy" and desire to improve their situation, even if their situation is already decent. I you are happy with your current situation and job, great for you! However, most people desire to keep improving.
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On February 17 2013 16:01 sam!zdat wrote:
why aren't you already a marxist?
If only I could find a way to make it work....
/sigh... life < dreams... I really should write a book about this but it would pretty much just turn into (warning: sounds awful with headphones):
+ Show Spoiler +
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Naturally? I am not certain it is ingrained in us to be greedy. I believe it is more of a notion where people develop it to become the bigger fish.
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On February 17 2013 16:01 sam!zdat wrote:
Did I ever tell you that the most dangerous and traumatic fact I ever encountered in my young life was the notion that WWII had ended the depression? That was basically my rabbit hole right there.
Yeah, I'm waiting for someone to bring that up. I've got this bookmarked as a counter argument:
![[image loading]](http://www.ameshistoricalsociety.org/exhibits/events/ww2ration_s.jpg)
And that's not even getting into the whole "death on a massive scale" thing...
Edit: on the topic - how should we account for military spending? Are we buying tanks and soldiers individually or are we buying something else? (perhaps... international security?) If we're buying tanks (et. al) the accounting is good, but if we're buying security than war is just 'inflation in the cost of security' and then should reduce real GDP (that makes more sense!). But what should the rules be... and how should those rules extend to individual participants (we still want to win!).
Edit2 :On February 17 2013 16:17 sam!zdat wrote:
edit: sorry, I'm really confused. you're going to have to explain how you interpret this exhibit.
Sorry, if WW2 "fixed" the economy then why did people need to reduce their spending on basic things like meat, gas and clothes... in other words people's ability to buy the things they wanted was reduced during www2 yet they had to work more for it. Kinda sucks IMO.
Edit 3: sorry if I'm a little off base here. To me it just seems so contradictory - work more so you can buy less stuff - the opposite of normal economic growth.
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edit: sorry, I'm really confused. you're going to have to explain how you interpret this exhibit.
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Cayman Islands24199 Posts
during wwii itself there was quite a bit of domestic belt tightening, the economy during the war is catastrophic in the sense of not providing a good living for people despite achieving higher GDP because of all the military related, but nonproductive stuff, produced. that bit is jonny's point.
the other side of the coin is that, the war did massively reset the stuck economy circuitry, and after the war, various factors led to a booming recovery.
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of course it wasn't good DURING the war
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With all the recent wars the US has seen, it's a wonder why the economy isn't booming.
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On February 17 2013 18:22 SilverLeagueElite wrote:
With all the recent wars the US has seen, it's a wonder why the economy isn't booming.
If we could just start another World War to devastate all non-U.S. developed economies, the U.S. really would boom again 
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On February 17 2013 16:17 sam!zdat wrote:
edit: sorry, I'm really confused. you're going to have to explain how you interpret this exhibit.
of course it wasn't good DURING the war
The Keynesian theory that an increase government spending is the way out of a depression or lessen the effects of a depression. Wars incur massive government spending. So many economists (google would turn up most economists) argue that the spending incurred from WW2 was huge in getting us out of the great depression. If only we could do this kind of spending in every depression!
What JonnyBNoHo has there is the disgusting truth about the whole story of what happens. We ration common goods like sugar, and you can't even go where you want in your car. Government sells its bonds on patriotism, and gives kickbacks, (but they aren't selling on their own merits!). If you would like the summary in rap form, hear this one out in 30 seconds. Some call WWII spending a case in point, but it comes with nasty side effects, perhaps significant to outweigh the benefits.
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On February 17 2013 16:14 JonnyBNoHo wrote:Show nested quote +On February 17 2013 16:01 sam!zdat wrote:
Did I ever tell you that the most dangerous and traumatic fact I ever encountered in my young life was the notion that WWII had ended the depression? That was basically my rabbit hole right there. Yeah, I'm waiting for someone to bring that up. I've got this bookmarked as a counter argument: And that's not even getting into the whole "death on a massive scale" thing... Edit: on the topic - how should we account for military spending? Are we buying tanks and soldiers individually or are we buying something else? (perhaps... international security?) If we're buying tanks (et. al) the accounting is good, but if we're buying security than war is just 'inflation in the cost of security' and then should reduce real GDP (that makes more sense!). But what should the rules be... and how should those rules extend to individual participants (we still want to win!). Edit2 : Show nested quote +On February 17 2013 16:17 sam!zdat wrote:
edit: sorry, I'm really confused. you're going to have to explain how you interpret this exhibit. Sorry, if WW2 "fixed" the economy then why did people need to reduce their spending on basic things like meat, gas and clothes... in other words people's ability to buy the things they wanted was reduced during www2 yet they had to work more for it. Kinda sucks IMO. Edit 3: sorry if I'm a little off base here. To me it just seems so contradictory - work more so you can buy less stuff - the opposite of normal economic growth.
of course WW2 did not improve anything in itself, the military spending was a way to dispose of wealth in a way that did not benefit the common citizen. But what it did was paving the ground for the American economical doctrine with lower customs barriers and more free trade, that combined with the "Marshall plan" referred to as the Marshall help here in Denmark, Europe were able to rapidly industrialize our rural society with huge production increases as a result. This is what ended the depression, the realization of economical potential not the war.
The ability of America to to change their military production into civil production, from tractors, Cars and commercial airplanes. Was only matched by Germanys ability to transform it´s was industry into known brands like BMW (military motorbikes), Mercedes (trucks and cars), BASF and BEYER (cyklon-B) , Hanomag (armored personal carriers). And from the devastation rose Europe as we know it today. Europe chose the no military road, which allowed us to be very rich, America chose to defend us and.
(a Long time ago we had a Danish politician that suggested that we closed down the military and made a tape recording in Russian which said “we surrender”)
maintain a high military spending rate per capita, and as a result has a large population of working poor. There just is not enough wealth for everybody, if you want to be able to defend yourself at the same time. So war is bad and WW2 did not save the economy. The same result could have been reached by peaceful means.
if you truely want to argue that war is good for GDP, you have to remember that GDP is per capita (head), So a war where a lot of people die will reduce the dividing factor increasing the overall result, if you are able to maintain the production apparatus. And enter the biological and chemical-weapons.....
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Cayman Islands24199 Posts
On February 17 2013 15:48 Broly wrote:
Why can't we all just perform a task without any upward mobility. Your a engineer, I'm a construction worker, I perform a task and we all enjoy what we want.
society is not determined top down. it's the way it is through the action and interaction of people.
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On February 17 2013 23:44 oneofthem wrote:Show nested quote +On February 17 2013 15:48 Broly wrote:
Why can't we all just perform a task without any upward mobility. Your a engineer, I'm a construction worker, I perform a task and we all enjoy what we want. society is not determined top down. it's the way it is through the action and interaction of people.
Exactly: Make laws for the people and build society from that. With the macroeconomic top-down detail regulation we see used today that idea seems to be more and more forgotten. I am all for regulations, where they are due, but it has to be created from the bottom up unless you want to expand unnecessary bureaucracy.
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Cayman Islands24199 Posts
i'm partial to technical regulation when you can limit the scope of that regulation to the specific places that need it. but it's always a negotiation between guiding behavior and commanding it.
libertarian types tend to see things more black and white, government ordering free and good natured people what to do, but the alternative to heavyhanded regulation is working self regulation.. if there is not that, then maybe the foundational structure needs to be examined.
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On February 17 2013 15:45 Dagan159 wrote:
Im sure you know more about marxism. Now please explain to me how someone could under wage-labor attain enough capital to ascend to the bourgeois?
This has to be understood as historically situational, right? I mean, obviously the room for upward mobility is dependent on the economy at large. Andrew Carnegie became Carnegie in large measure because the opportunity for a massive accumulation of wealth thanks to technological and economic needs. This is true also of someone like Mark Cuban who was able to take advantage of an Internet boom. But the broader question should be, is this opportunity really open to everyone? Given a division of labor and differences in ownership and control of production and industry, it clearly is not.
That upward mobility exists in some respect is not new. It was a prospect even in medieval Europe - fight in a war well, you might get promoted enough to get enough money to buy a title or even be granted one along with lands. There were also merchants - particularly in Italy - who grew very wealthy and came to rule their cities.
On February 17 2013 15:45 Dagan159 wrote:
If you are a true marxist (and I have my suspicions that you are) you would believe that the worker class is under the toe of the bourgeois, and they are confined to this status with no chance of advancement because the bourgeois is exploiting them and not giving them any more capital than is needed for them to survive and pay for the products the capitalists are selling. The idea of upward mobility is completely against this train of logic.
Not really. In fact Marx had a far greater conception of upward mobility than subsequent historians - who challenge Marxist historiography - have found. For example, Marx made famous the belief that the French Revolution was really about upwardly mobile traders, merchants, and other middle class folk demanding new political rights to match their growing economic rights. Historians have since realized that many of the investors big into industry and commerce were also part of the wealthiest nobility. There was no clear differentiation between the bourgeoisie and the aristocracy in this respect.
As has been noted, of course, the world is messy. Upward mobility exists, but anyone who wishes to approach it sensibly would assess how likely it is. People also win the lottery, it doesn't mean it is a realistic prospect for most people. For every hard working, clever man who makes a fortune through saving and enterprise, many others who are also hard working and clever fail. Liberal ideology does not tend to account for luck, but circumstances of the world greater than a man's will are certainly a key factor in his success or failure.
On February 17 2013 15:45 Dagan159 wrote:
Marx was right for the early 1900's... industrialization led to the dumbing down of the jobs in the workforce, however, now with advances in technology jobs are becoming more and more diverse and requiring more and more technological skill.
I would argue just the opposite in fact, though one thing Marx underestimated was the extent of the globalization of production. The industrial proletariat in the United States is rather small, with more low wage workers working mindless service jobs.
Look at China, or Indonesia, or Vietnam, or Nicaragua, or Guatemala - there are certainly workers there who are working the miserable jobs that people in the U.S. pretend don't exist anymore. And they are necessary to support our high standard of living, though... out of sight, out of mind, I suppose.
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I wish I had a better understanding of economic history so I could represent what happened with WWII.
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Look at China, or Indonesia, or Vietnam, or Nicaragua, or Guatemala - there are certainly workers there who are working the miserable jobs that people in the U.S. pretend don't exist anymore. And they are necessary to support our high standard of living, though... out of sight, out of mind, I suppose.
The poverty of the third world is not an indictment of capitalism. These people are poor precisely because their societies do not have well respected property rights because they do not have capitalism. Contrast the communist policies of the Nicaraguans with the limited government approach of Botswana or Hong Kong and compare the resultant prosperity and lack thereof.
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On February 18 2013 01:39 TerribleNoobling wrote:Show nested quote +Look at China, or Indonesia, or Vietnam, or Nicaragua, or Guatemala - there are certainly workers there who are working the miserable jobs that people in the U.S. pretend don't exist anymore. And they are necessary to support our high standard of living, though... out of sight, out of mind, I suppose.
The poverty of the third world is not an indictment of capitalism. These people are poor precisely because their societies do not have well respected property rights because they do not have capitalism. Contrast the communist policies of the Nicaraguans with the limited government approach of Botswana or Hong Kong and compare the resultant prosperity and lack thereof.
This is a profoundly ahistorical position. Was Nicaragua a bounty of wealth in 1979 when the Sandinistas took over? Of course not. It was already one of the poorest countries in the hemisphere - and why? Like much of Latin America, Nicaragua has bitter class division and tremendous inequality - in part growing out of land relations stretching back to Spanish colonial rule, but it has been maintained and protected by the United States in the last century and a half or so. Nicaragua was a particularly important case, precisely because the U.S. (and powerful capitalist interests within) initially conceived of a transisthmic canal being built there rather than in Panama. Nicaragua was invaded and occupied by U.S. forces several times to prevent political change that would adversely affect U.S. geopolitical and economic interests - and at the end, as in Cuba and the Dominican Republic - an effort to create a 'national guard' of U.S. trained security forces created a ruthless military dictatorship that the U.S. supported for decades. Yet we are supposed to ignore all of this material and historical context (as well as the criminal terrorist war waged by the Contras against the population of Nicaragua), and instead believe that Sandinista 'communist' policy created poverty in Nicaragua.
I don't think it's a simple situation to model these economic relationships, but regardless, we need to take account of history before making judgments.
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I've not seen you post before, hypnobean, but I like yo style 
Here's some news y'all.
WASHINGTON — President Obama's chief of staff on Sunday defended the administration's decision to prepare an immigration bill even as bipartisan groups in Congress are writing their own versions.
Chief of Staff Denis McDonough said on two Network talk shows that the White House still wants Congress to lead the effort to draft and pass an overhaul to the nation's immigration laws. But it is drafting its own bill, a copy of which was obtained by USA TODAY, in case Congress moves too slowly.
"We are doing exactly what we said we would do, which is we'll be prepared in the event that the bipartisan talks going on the Hill — which by the way we're very aggressively supporting — if those do not work out, then we'll have an option that we'll be ready to put out there," McDonough said on NBC's Meet the Press.
Republicans pounced on the release of the White House plan, with Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., who is part of a bipartisan group of senators crafting their own immigration bill, declaring the administration plan "dead on arrival" in Congress. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., another member of the bipartisan group who also pushed a failed immigration effort in 2007, when asked if a presidential immigration plan would fail if sent to Congress, said "of course."
"This raises the question that many of us are continuing to wonder about: Does the president really want a result, or does he want another cudgel to beat up Republicans so that he can get political advantage in the next election?" McCain said on Meet the Press.
Obama aide defends decision to prepare immigration bill
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EPT
