US POLITICS SPRING 2011: Let's just call off this country.

I thought banaka was retired?

sweet heaven

*evolves mentally and spiritually*

Oil's actually doing a better job in the past 5 years (excepting the post Lehman hedge deleverage) than the past 30. Brent will be above $200 in latter 2013 (future flows coming onstream are known, and developing world demand has a lot of inertia), and there's still storage available for about $2/bbl/month. There's a carry trade in buying now and storing for when demand outpaces supply, which is exactly what futures markets are for.

Of course, those who want to save the world from climate change may prefer $500 or $1000 oil. That's coming, too, but mostly due to the U.S. dollar losing its reserve currency status over the coming decade.

For most ordinary ppl here, the extraordinary rise in health, longevity, leisure and consumption that has occurred over the last several hundred years is due to the dynamic innovation and productivity gains mostly due to capitalism and the rights and social welfare institutions due to democracy, and union and associative pressure. This false dischotomy of capitalism vs, is as outdated as teapartier's romance of the 18th century - okay, maybe 80 some odd years younger.

Finding out how to make that sustainable is the question, as it always has been only now the stakes are higher and the time window is smaller.

In order to practice capitalism you must lie about the worth of whatever you are selling to make a profit.

What? My labor, insight, expertise, time, ready availability of capital are worth nothing? If you want to make some argument about natural resources, riverine laws, airwaves belonging to the nation, fine, but please make sure that I'm paid something for doing productive work. Oh, and how do you price that? Name a more efficient way than the market? Does the market fail us in certain areas? Yes. Should we take collective steps to counter that? Sure.

excepting the post Lehman hedge deleverage

Godammit Lens!

For most ordinary ppl here, the extraordinary rise in health, longevity, leisure and consumption that has occurred over the last several hundred years is due to the dynamic innovation and productivity gains mostly due to capitalism and the rights and social welfare institutions due to democracy, and union and associative pressure.

Yeah I've heard this before, you forgot about education...

Sorry, botched my obscure joke. Should have read "Godammit Jens".

Yeah I've heard this before, you forgot about education...

Yeah and that was made available to ppl not spending the majority of their lives eking out an agricultural living how, exactly?

(I also forgot about including women in the workplace.)

yeah i'm agreeing with you (despite the neg connotations normally associated with 'heard it (all) before')

I am fully cognizent of the extraoridnary advances the USSR made economically in the 1930's, but I hardly think those were worth the pain nor truly sustainable and considering the very real need we have to address our hydrocarbon addiction, the degradation of our environment, our need for healthy food and clean water, and the enduring threat of population overload, I don't think we should just give up on the incomparable innovative dynamism of capitalism - nor do I think we should rely on it alone - I just wish everybody would stop wishing all the answers were in the past. I mean, all those Coolidge loving Koch Kool - supporters should remember the private/public aspect of major and transformative works in this country from the Erie canal to the railroads to the interstate highway system to name just transportation as a sector.

yeah I mean 'capitalism' serves as a generic boogeyman term for the 'hard left' in the same way that 'socialism' and 'liberal' serve as a generic boogeyman term for the right. great way to make vague, sweeping statements in online newspaper comment sections, not really a good way to actually talk about anything.

'capitalism' is an unchanging idea and tool in the same way that trigonometry is. we can use it differently but it's not 'changing' or going anywhere soon.

er - that 'socialism' and 'liberal' serve as generic boogeyman terms*

The masons can still suck my dick, though.

I'm okay with capitalism, it pays my salary, and many of my friends own small businesses. 'Boogeyman' capitalism, to me, comes from Walmart receiving $1B in government subsidies, or healthcare industry lobbyists subverting the desire of American people for healthcare reform, or pressuring to gut the EPA.

That is just corruption

right, I mean walmart getting subsidized by the government is about as un-'capitalistic' as you can get, which is why it makes more sense to call that corporate welfare/corporatism/corruption/whatever than to consider it the 'bad side of capitalism'

What? My labor, insight, expertise, time, ready availability of capital are worth nothing?

To respect each other's worth we need not rely on imaginary numbers stored on a computer somewhere.

If you want to make some argument about natural resources, riverine laws, airwaves belonging to the nation, fine, but please make sure that I'm paid something for doing productive work.

Here's some food, it belongs to the whole planet.

Oh, and how do you price that?

Money in the 2011 concept will not make it to the far future.

Name a more efficient way than the market?

There will still be a market as long as tangible & digital objects remain separated. Just because food is traded over money does not mean competition for better and more unique product will fail to exist. Pride in one and another's work can be a great mutual reward. A good way of doing business.

Does the market fail us in certain areas? Yes. Should we take collective steps to counter that? Sure.

We gotta work with what we have, and it's not hopeless in the present. Even if nothing changes the longer we make a stink about bugs in the system, the more it will be a presidential issue that gets serious attention.

Here's some food, it belongs to the whole planet.

Dude, even Australopithecus knew that that's bullshit. The food belongs to the guy with the biggest club.

Money in the 2011 concept will not make it to the far future.

Humanity in the 2011 concept is what's not going to make it to the far future, and I have my doubts about anything beyond 2111.

http://www.progarchives.com/progressive_rock_discography_covers/609/cover_155202292005.jpg

on a general level my issues with industrial capitalism are primarily that since it's large-scale implementation we have got 1) a century of massive, previously impossible levels of genocide, and 2) after we got the genocide over with, we just switched to wholesale destruction of our ecosystem. All accomplished in roughly 150 years! amazing. In return we got some neat digital gadgets and extended lifespans for a small minority of the population. way to go, industrial capitalism.

Don't forget complete oligarchic manipulation of the political process.

eh that's nothing new

LOL true, true

What?! Genocide predates industrialization! The Americas from 1492 or Africa from around the same period readily spring to mind.

killing millions of people in a single day, THAT was new

rendering the planet uninhabitable for our own species, also a completely new innovation

good morning, everyone!

Dude, even Australopithecus knew that that's bullshit. The food belongs to the guy with the biggest club.

Yeah, let's go ask how that worked out for him. Nevermind, the last of his kind died off 2 million years ago. Guess it's not a good long-term disposition.

genocide definitely predates the 20th century, no argument there. But the scale and time-range of mass murder was exponentially increased and compressed, respectively

xp

lol @ Alfred

Nevermind, the last of his kind died off 2 million years ago.

Worse, his descendants evolved into consultants.

Yeah, pay no attention to that tree-hugging ecosystem stuff. Just buy more gadgets (and give more tax breaks to the billionaire CEOs of the gadget factories.) It'll all work out fine.

http://jalcorn.net/weblog/uploads/flammable.gif

Or look like Obama, according to the GOP.

xpost

we generally didn't care about the ecosystem before the industrial revolution either - we just were much less efficient at tearing it up.

LOL. I loved her apology/non apology, alfred

Dan has anyone suggested that we do anything along those lines, here?

we generally didn't care about the ecosystem before the industrial revolution either - we just were much less efficient at tearing it up.

^^^exactly. industrial capitalism just gave us the tools to magnify our shitty habits a billion-fold

right. it also gives us the tools to fix them, if we actually wanted to.

Michael, no, just sarcastically trumpeting the GOP party line. Wasn't W's prescription for the recession "go out and spend?"

"I am a banker. Give me your money. Give me your money"

Wasn't W's prescription for the recession "go out and spend?"

It's not that he was entirely wrong about 'patriotic spending' post 9-11, it's that as Presidential actions go, that's not very likely to be successful.

Genghis Khan to thread

It's okay for Americans to spend. It's wrong for the government to spend. Of course the government is made out of Americans but that part always gets lost in translation.

WOW A 40 YEAR OLD PHOTO OF THE CUYAHOGA RIVER HOW CONVINCING OF EVERYTHING YOU SAY.

I can see the fucking Cuyahoga River from my office, hardly need a lecture.

good morning, everyone!

― My mom is all about capital gains tax butthurtedness (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 21 April 2011 16:15 (1 hour ago) Bookmark

srsly this guy killin me

rly don't get people sometimes.

here's rep. thaddeus mccotter (r-mich), playing stones licks, talking bout how great berlusconi is.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4GrClpp5RE

Too much reverb!

Hoos you should check out the 90s one hit wonder poll thread; Alfred brought serious lolz there...

starting right here:

best song in VH1's Top 40 One Hit Wonders of the '90s