BS: Economic Truth

Subject: RE: BS: Economic Truth
From: Ed T
Date: 13 Jun 10 - 10:01 AM

I opened this older thread, rather than start a new one.

What's your view of the current state of the Global economy?
Has it improved? Where is it heading? Are we in a holding pattern, for further recession? Are situations in Greece (and elsewhere) early indicator to economic chaos,or an anomaly and we are on our way out of a Global financial mess? What's your personal view, and, how's your country doing?

Here is a recent article (comment) from Canada, which seems to be doing OK:

http://www.torontosun.com/comment/columnists/eric_margolis/2010/06/11/14355506.html

Subject: RE: BS: Economic Truth
From: folk1e
Date: 01 Mar 07 - 06:30 PM

"Free" is a relative term!
No it isn't a crime mearly an inticement to think (much more dangerous) ;o)

Subject: RE: BS: Economic Truth
From: autolycus
Date: 01 Mar 07 - 03:01 PM

What,you mean asking a question in a free country is,what,a crime?






       Ivor

Subject: RE: BS: Economic Truth
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 01 Mar 07 - 11:20 AM

Just watch yerself Comrade! Uncle Sam will get ya!

Subject: RE: BS: Economic Truth
From: GUEST,folk1e
Date: 01 Mar 07 - 06:52 AM

How have places like cuba managed to "prosper" despite the might of U.S.A. being used against them?
Is there a case for the multi national companies having enough power to dictate national policies? and is this necessarily a bad thing.
Sorry ... I'm only asking. ;o)

Subject: RE: BS: Economic Truth
From: folk1e
Date: 27 Feb 07 - 07:43 PM

in time we will.....

Subject: RE: BS: Economic Truth
From: autolycus
Date: 27 Feb 07 - 05:45 PM

Will we get there in time?






       Ivor

Subject: RE: BS: Economic Truth
From: folk1e
Date: 26 Feb 07 - 08:21 PM

come the glorious day brothers!

Subject: RE: BS: Economic Truth
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 25 Feb 07 - 07:41 PM

We aren't?!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Economic Truth
From: GUEST
Date: 25 Feb 07 - 03:06 PM

maybe WE should be running the country?

Subject: RE: BS: Economic Truth
From: Peace
Date: 24 Feb 07 - 06:38 PM

"Seems like all the people who know how to manage the economy are pickin' banjos and singing about unrequited love."

Yaeh. So what's yer point?

Subject: RE: BS: Economic Truth
From: fumblefingers
Date: 23 Feb 07 - 08:43 PM

Seems like all the people who know how to manage the economy are pickin' banjos and singing about unrequited love.

Subject: RE: BS: Economic Truth
From: folk1e
Date: 23 Feb 07 - 06:21 PM

I remember a story whereby an attacking army devised the most efficient way of invasion was to bombard the enemy lines with trade goods!
The idea was that the people who picked up the goods, which were bulky, were more inclined to protect "their" goods than to fight.
A good idea for Iraq / Afghanistan?

Subject: RE: BS: Economic Truth
From: Little Hawk
Date: 23 Feb 07 - 12:39 PM

I think we should aim to quadruple world production of all consumer goods, weapons, and junk food by the year 2020.

They who die fattest and with the most toys win!

Subject: RE: BS: Economic Truth
From: autolycus
Date: 23 Feb 07 - 12:34 PM

Exactly so,bobad.





      Ivor

Subject: RE: BS: Economic Truth
From: Peace
Date: 22 Feb 07 - 10:25 PM

Where they make a desert they call it peace.

Subject: RE: BS: Economic Truth
From: bobad
Date: 22 Feb 07 - 10:17 PM

Economic growth vs. the environment - a fight to the finish.

Subject: RE: BS: Economic Truth
From: Peace
Date: 22 Feb 07 - 10:03 PM

*

Subject: RE: BS: Economic Truth
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 22 Feb 07 - 04:24 AM

See the Evil inherent in the System!



Sorry, I'll just have a cup of tea, a Bex, and a good lie down....

Subject: RE: BS: Economic Truth
From: autolycus
Date: 22 Feb 07 - 02:34 AM

incidentally,I do see constant economic growth as disastrous;however, share/stockholders demand economic growth,or they'll take thewir money elsewhere,and politicians/journalists/broadcasters/opinion-formers/bankers/financiers all seem to think a growing GDP is a sign of health and correctness.






       Ivor

Subject: RE: BS: Economic Truth
From: autolycus
Date: 21 Feb 07 - 11:44 AM

Well,if he meant the system should stop thinking about economic growth, I agree and rather doubt if the system can.

    If he meant I should stop seeing economic growth as the aim,I don't;it's the system that does.

    hence my question.

    Thanks for your help.






       Ivor

Subject: RE: BS: Economic Truth
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 21 Feb 07 - 07:14 AM

Does it matter if neither wants to listen?

Subject: RE: BS: Economic Truth
From: autolycus
Date: 21 Feb 07 - 03:12 AM

Mr.Mcgrath,are you talking to the capitalist system or to me?






       Ivor

Subject: RE: BS: Economic Truth
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 20 Feb 07 - 01:54 PM

Stop seeing economic growth as something to aim for, and recognise that in many circumstances it is disastrous.

I'd like to see the term "the overdeveloped world" used rather more often.

Subject: RE: BS: Economic Truth
From: autolycus
Date: 20 Feb 07 - 12:17 PM

Thank you,see what you mean.

   I think you're teensy-weensy error, in your first post, was to treat the UK in isolation. The answer to your original 'blonde' post (only joking) is that all that is required is for goods globally to be growing. Nationally ain't required.

   A reason i persisted with my, more global point, is that we are all dependant on that infinite growth.

   I just wondered if anyone had a solution to that impossibility.


   Looks like not, even amongast the free-marketeers among us. (No names, no packdrill.)






       Ivor

Subject: RE: BS: Economic Truth
From: folk1e
Date: 20 Feb 07 - 05:55 AM

The thread was started by the question (crunch point) that we are afluent without being production rich and was this stable.
Most posters seem to agree that it is a house of cards!

Subject: RE: BS: Economic Truth
From: autolycus
Date: 20 Feb 07 - 03:00 AM

folkle - sorry,which first post are you pointing to?





       Ivor

Subject: RE: BS: Economic Truth
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 19 Feb 07 - 05:33 AM

"We do not appear to be producing as much as we used to"

Well, as I read 'the theory' that's ok, as long as you make proportionately more profit on it... :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Economic Truth
From: folk1e
Date: 18 Feb 07 - 08:02 PM

Autolycus, I thaught the first post coverd your point!
We do not appear to be producing as much as we used to, is this viable?

Subject: RE: BS: Economic Truth
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 18 Feb 07 - 07:37 PM

Perhaps EM Forster's story The Machine Stops, publisheb in 1909, contains as good an indication of what we can expect as anything. It is a remarkable story - read the first few paragraphs, and see how close to what's described we have come, and still heading in that direction...

Here is The Machine Stops online. (Very appropriately.)

Subject: RE: BS: Economic Truth
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 18 Feb 07 - 08:49 AM

Well, so far they've tried two approaches

Trade
Planned Obsolescence

oh and they've been using "Stimulated Artificial Demand" for ages...

Remember the SF story about the future consumerist society built on "planned excessive consuming" and the guy who cam to notice as the greatest consumer? You see, he had programmed his robots to consume FOR him.... :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Economic Truth
From: autolycus
Date: 18 Feb 07 - 06:01 AM

I think both of the crunch points are being avoided by one and all.


    Capitalism requires unending growth. If a company/corporations don't grow, investors take their money elsewhere.

    On the other hand



    The planet has only finite resources. At some time,everything we require that can't regrow quickly enough (so food's o.k.,iron isn't) will run out - no 'might run out' - just will. [I loook forward to a time when there is no stuff,just ideas in an ideas economy.]
    As the planet does,what will happen to those corporations?


    Just wondering.






       Ivor

Subject: RE: BS: Economic Truth
From: folk1e
Date: 16 Feb 07 - 06:41 PM

so will the last man standing (Chineese, Indian or Eastern European) corner the market for labor and therefore production? Or will the economies of the individual countries bounce back?
Or will we be totally dependent on the multinational companies (who will need a market to sell their product)?

Subject: RE: BS: Economic Truth
From: folk1e
Date: 15 Feb 07 - 02:31 PM

The NHS has tried (and succeded) over the last few years to have the patients assets used for their care package, but not their medication. This is being challenged in the courts ...... dont hold your breath!

Subject: RE: BS: Economic Truth
From: GUEST,American
Date: 14 Feb 07 - 08:26 PM

Kicked out of a nursing home? I thought you people had national health care or something like that. How could anyone be denied the nursing home under the national health care system?

Subject: RE: BS: Economic Truth
From: folk1e
Date: 14 Feb 07 - 07:44 PM

If the U.K. is the 4th largest economy, what is this measured against?

Subject: RE: BS: Economic Truth
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 14 Feb 07 - 10:56 AM

One problem is that after Thatcher and her lot had totally screwed things up for so long, Labour gave up hope and effectively handed itself over to a leadership that was essentially neo-Thatcherist, just with a kinder face.

Even when pumping money into public services it has felt obliged to do it in a thoroughly Thatcherist style, subsidising private companies to skim off the money and hype up the cost for the public so as to provide the required profits.

But whatever, it's all short term politicking, and and none of them are able to adjust to the idea that the only way to survive long term (ie more than a few decades) is to move to a no growth economy, and to find ways in which that can be reconciled with a decent life for all.

Subject: RE: BS: Economic Truth
From: Scrump
Date: 14 Feb 07 - 10:12 AM

I am convinced that the modern British economy is a hollow sham and it won't be long before the cracks begin to show ...

That will probably happen later this year when Gordon Brown hands over the reins of the economy to whoever his successor will be (who the hell could it be, btw? I can't think of any member of this lot I'd want to run the economy) - just in time to get out before the water starts to seep into the ship's engine room.

Talking of selling your house to pay for a nursing home, an aged relative has recently been told it will cost a staggering 900 quid a week for a place in a nursing home. His house is worth about £150,000 (if he's lucky, it's in a poor state of repair). That means he will be able to survive for 3 and a bit years before the money runs out and he presumably gets kicked out. Naturally he's not too keen on moving.

Subject: RE: BS: Economic Truth
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 14 Feb 07 - 06:53 AM

I suspect that, in the pre-Thatcher era, British Industry was crap partly because the bosses didn't value the skills of their workforces. If everything had become highly confrontational by the 70s it was mainly because of the ruthless elitism of the bosses. My Dad was a highly skilled sheet-metalworker, and worked his b....ocks off for 50 years, and was considered to be a 'nobody' by the pen-pushing money-grubbers. The end of his life was ignominious and squalid and made worse by the fact that all the authorities wanted him to do was to sell his house so that he could pay for his own nursing home place (so much for the fourth largest economy in the world - or whatever we're supposed to be!).
It's now common-place to be thrown on the scrap-heap in your 50s (as has recently happened to me) while bosses moan about 'skills shortages'.
If your philosophy is 'pile-it-high-sell-it-cheap-profit-now-and-sod-tomorrow' and everything, including people and their skills, is disposable it's not surprising that you get crap. I am convinced that the modern British economy is a hollow sham and it won't be long before the cracks begin to show ...

Subject: RE: BS: Economic Truth
From: folk1e
Date: 14 Feb 07 - 03:29 AM

Just a thaught exercise here .....
China increases it's industrial base to supply most of european goods.
The good people of europe slap an "environment tax" on ALL goods, suddenly Chinese goods are dearer, creating a niech for local "clean" local products! The Chinese economy cannot respond quickly to this and so a new industry is born!

Subject: RE: BS: Economic Truth
From: autolycus
Date: 14 Feb 07 - 03:24 AM

Exactly.






       Ivor

Subject: RE: BS: Economic Truth
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 13 Feb 07 - 08:24 PM

Aren't those two FACTS irreconcilable?

Of course they are.

But the bigger crunch question is, what happens when it all breaks down.

Subject: RE: BS: Economic Truth
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 13 Feb 07 - 08:06 PM

Totally.

But greedy powerful bastards won't admit it - at least just yet - they want to make their own pile first....

Subject: RE: BS: Economic Truth
From: folk1e
Date: 13 Feb 07 - 08:06 PM

what happens when the "capitalists" start selling ideas?
Define infinite!
In the models above it just means it is bigger than needed at the present time!

Subject: RE: BS: Economic Truth
From: autolycus
Date: 13 Feb 07 - 12:10 PM

Nobody here is meeting the crunch question head-on.

   We live on a planet of finite resources.

   Capitalism assumes growth for ever.

   Aren't those two FACTS irreconcilable?






       Ivor

Subject: RE: BS: Economic Truth
From: Scrump
Date: 13 Feb 07 - 10:44 AM

Smoking large amounts of hemp flowers can produce a headache but not a high!

Sounds a bit like keg beer to me :-(

Subject: RE: BS: Economic Truth
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 13 Feb 07 - 10:42 AM

"Hemp, Natures Perfect Plant"

"Industrial hemp is an incredible resource. Hemp is harvested for its fibers for hemp clothing and seeds for hemp oil. With a relatively short growth cycle of 100-120 days, it is an efficient and economical crop for farmers to grow, however, industrial hemp cannot be commercially grown in the United States because it is erroneously confounded with marijuana. In fact, industrial hemp and marijuana are different breeds of Cannabis sativa. Smoking large amounts of hemp flowers can produce a headache but not a high!"

Subject: RE: BS: Economic Truth
From: Scrump
Date: 13 Feb 07 - 09:39 AM

Linen, wool and hemp all do reasonably well in our climate in England.

Maybe we should grow more hemp then, and we can all stop worrying about the economy and the climate #-}

Subject: RE: BS: Economic Truth
From: Bunnahabhain
Date: 13 Feb 07 - 08:01 AM

Of course in the long run, and assuming we don't manage to wipe ourselves out beforehand, then fairly much every country will get to similar level of development, so people will demand wages of similar levels. There's no incentive to shift the factory to China if the workers want much the same wages, and the pollution controls are as tough as the West.

It might still be a house of cards, but it wouldn't be sitting on such an unstable base.





BTW Foolestroupe, grapes for wine are currently grown for wine in England, and in increasing amounts.

Subject: RE: BS: Economic Truth
From: Scrump
Date: 13 Feb 07 - 08:00 AM

Grapes for wine were once grown in England.

Er... they still are, unless global warming has put a stop to it?