It seems that you're using an outdated browser. Some things may not work as they should (or don't work at all).
We suggest you upgrade newer and better browser like: Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer or Opera

×
The sad thing is that you've had to post that in here several times.
The basic problem is that the people arguing about their rights being infringed on have an incorrect understanding of what rights are, that they are not absolute and that one person exercising their rights often comes into conflict with the rights of another person.
avatar
richlind33: That does call into question the methodology used to calculate inflation -- or GDP, for that matter. But regardless, that might suggest that the West is almost at the maximum level of disequilibrium that can be achieved before the system collapses.
avatar
firstpastthepost: It might not call into question the way that inflation is calculated but our ideas of what role inflation plays in markets. The current inflation rate is actually close to what would be expected if you look at interest rates over the very long term.

The problem is that our economic models in the neo-liberal era have been designed solely for the purpose of fighting inflation, because inflation is bad for investors. But the idea of fighting inflation is based on a very limited snapshot of what happened with inflation between the 40s and the 80s and ignores anything before that, which tells a different story. Our financial and monetary policy has been designed to fight inflation risk that doesn't actually exist, at least not in the current economic models. That could change given populist opposition to neo-liberal policies. Of course the "opposition" to neo-liberal policies on the part of populists thus far has been mostly lip service. The only real thing they are doing that goes against it is enacting tariffs, which they more than offset through other means like tax cuts.
Right, but that's very different from the economy that ordinary people interact with, where market forces ruthlessly punish people for tiny mistakes, while the privileged few at the top are lavishly rewarded when they fail spectacularly.

"Oops, we did it again. Sorry about that."

Did you know that the FED allowed the commercial banking sector to dump trillions of dollars worth of derivatives into the public banking system, which will totally wipe out the FDIC? I think it's safe to say that nothing is sacred anymore and it's only a matter of time before Social Security and Medicare are eliminated, which will quickly be followed by a dramatic decline in life expectancy. But hey, if we look at this from a bean counter's perspective, eliminating 7/8 of the global population will "reset" the economy and initiate a brand new "golden age" of prosperity and opportunity, and who can say no to that? : (
Post edited December 08, 2018 by richlind33
Censorship seems to be a popular thing right now...
avatar
richlind33: Right, but that's very different from the economy that ordinary people interact with, where market forces ruthlessly punish people for tiny mistakes, while the privileged few at the top are lavishly rewarded when they fail spectacularly.

"Oops, we did it again. Sorry about that."

Did you know that the FED allowed the commercial banking sector to dump trillions of dollars worth of derivatives into the public banking system, which will totally wipe out the FDIC? I think it's safe to say that nothing is sacred anymore and it's only a matter of time before Social Security and Medicare are eliminated, which will quickly be followed by a dramatic decline in life expectancy. But hey, if we look at this from a bean counter's perspective, eliminating 7/8 of the global population will "reset" the economy and initiate a brand new "golden age" of prosperity and opportunity, and who can say no to that? : (
I agree that the day to day interactions of regular people with the economy don't bear out the idea that something like 2% inflation could be considered a benign amount of inflation, but that has less to do with the amount of inflation than it does with the stagnation or decrease in real wages people have experienced for the past 25 or 30 years, despite strong increases in general productivity. That stagnation in wages is a direct result of the neo-liberal agenda to concentrate wealth into the hands of the investor class via tax breaks, under the guise of trickle down economics and the gutting of labour unions.

It's not just the commercial banking sector that enjoys ridiculous wealth transfers from the middle class to the moneyed class via corporate welfare. What is perhaps more egregious is the fact that post recession the Federal Reserve was handing billions and billions of dollars to the European Central Bank taken on as junk bonds by the Fed with zero input from the US electorate or government. That was debt accumulated by US taxpayers, given to foreign entities with no input from elected officials.

I'm not sure how bean counters could view a massive decline in population as a net positive. Speculative markets are based almost solely on the illusion of growth, it's hard to maintain that illusion when you cut the pool of potential consumers by large margins. I suppose some people could argue that there is less of a drain on public goods and services, but it would also reduce the tax base, limiting the governments revenues to pay for said public goods.
avatar
rtcvb32: Censorship seems to be a popular thing right now...
Is censorship popular though? That kind of assumes that the companies banning people from platforms or not selling certain goods relish the opportunity to do so. Based on how slowly these companies tend to react I'd be more apt to assume they do so begrudgingly.

And if you're not talking about the actions of the company and more about the people who express outrage over benign things, or at least things that some people view to be benign. And you're assuming that it's just a small group of loud people expressing misplaced outrage, as many people profess to believe about these things.... wouldn't that make it decidedly unpopular, since it's only a small group expressing outrage and not a majority or even strong minority?
Post edited December 08, 2018 by firstpastthepost
avatar
richlind33: Right, but that's very different from the economy that ordinary people interact with, where market forces ruthlessly punish people for tiny mistakes, while the privileged few at the top are lavishly rewarded when they fail spectacularly.

"Oops, we did it again. Sorry about that."

Did you know that the FED allowed the commercial banking sector to dump trillions of dollars worth of derivatives into the public banking system, which will totally wipe out the FDIC? I think it's safe to say that nothing is sacred anymore and it's only a matter of time before Social Security and Medicare are eliminated, which will quickly be followed by a dramatic decline in life expectancy. But hey, if we look at this from a bean counter's perspective, eliminating 7/8 of the global population will "reset" the economy and initiate a brand new "golden age" of prosperity and opportunity, and who can say no to that? : (
avatar
firstpastthepost: I agree that the day to day interactions of regular people with the economy don't bear out the idea that something like 2% inflation could be considered a benign amount of inflation, but that has less to do with the amount of inflation than it does with the stagnation or decrease in real wages people have experienced for the past 25 or 30 years, despite strong increases in general productivity. That stagnation in wages is a direct result of the neo-liberal agenda to concentrate wealth into the hands of the investor class via tax breaks, under the guise of trickle down economics and the gutting of labour unions.

It's not just the commercial banking sector that enjoys ridiculous wealth transfers from the middle class to the moneyed class via corporate welfare. What is perhaps more egregious is the fact that post recession the Federal Reserve was handing billions and billions of dollars to the European Central Bank taken on as junk bonds by the Fed with zero input from the US electorate or government. That was debt accumulated by US taxpayers, given to foreign entities with no input from elected officials.

I'm not sure how bean counters could view a massive decline in population as a net positive. Speculative markets are based almost solely on the illusion of growth, it's hard to maintain that illusion when you cut the pool of potential consumers by large margins. I suppose some people could argue that there is less of a drain on public goods and services, but it would also reduce the tax base, limiting the governments revenues to pay for said public goods.
If purchasing power is declining, how is that not inflation? Again, it's not an issue for those at the very top unless the system crashes because they always have liquidity, no matter what, but even if it does crash, they literally own almost everything and can afford private armies to defend their interests.

As I recall, the transfer you reference was short term and was supposedly paid back, but those off-the-books transactions were interest-free, which was somewhat shocking to those who weren't familiar with how the FED routinely conducts business with it's "special friends".

Re population reduction and an economic "reset", everything nonessential would be eliminated and the net effect would be a massive reduction in overhead, which I think would more than make up for lost tax revenue.
avatar
rtcvb32: Censorship seems to be a popular thing right now...
avatar
firstpastthepost: Is censorship popular though? That kind of assumes that the companies banning people from platforms or not selling certain goods relish the opportunity to do so. Based on how slowly these companies tend to react I'd be more apt to assume they do so begrudgingly.
Censorship is always popular... with companies with things to hide. Else the DriverGate and GamerGate and other 'Gates' wouldn't happen. Heh, then there's Jim Sterling's spat with Digital Homicide, and then TotalBiscuit's video on The Day one Garry's incident. (which incidentally introduced me to TB)

Other companies quickly will first delete and censor, before backpedaling if the uproar is too big.

But censorship seems to be ramping up a lot (especially on social media), which is why i said it's popular right now.

Here's a relevant quote.

We live in an age where free speech is more controversial than porn - Vee
Post edited December 08, 2018 by rtcvb32
avatar
rtcvb32: But censorship seems to be ramping up a lot (especially on social media), which is why i said it's popular right now.
I see, you mean in the volume of the censorship and not popularity in the sense of desire to censor by those doing the censoring.

"Seems to be" is the operative part of your comment though. The amount of censorship is relative for one thing and our means of measuring censorship now would be different from our means of measuring it 50 years ago. The volume of censorship could be a constant or less now than when taking an average over previous decades depending on how you measure it. That really depends on what you consider to be censorship and the geographies you're measuring it in. It also relies on the fact that you would know when censorship happened regardless of availability of information.

Corporations that owned television networks may well have engaged in massive censorship campaigns in the 50s and you wouldn't really have a way of knowing that if there was no available reporting on it. Likewise television networks and papers have ignored huge stories in the past in an effort to make American involvement in shady military operations less publicized. Is omission of a story censorship?

Surely the most popular (in the sense of volume, as you use it) time for censorship would have been in the late 30s and 40s, with heavy censorship and propaganda campaigns from the growing fascist and communist movements of the time. There's a lot to be said for severity over volume when it comes to censorship. The censorship happening today, at least the censorship most complained about is benign censorship that has little effect on the day to day lives of people being censored and virtually zero effect on the capabilities of various groups to participate in the discourse. The censorship of the 30s and 40s was not benign and led to atrocities. If you compare the censorship happening now to the censorship of the past it becomes fairly obvious that what's happening now is and is highly likely to remain benign. I know people like to say it's just like the fascists, but if you actually compare the two in a truthful way, they aren't even close.
avatar
richlind33: If purchasing power is declining, how is that not inflation? Again, it's not an issue for those at the very top unless the system crashes because they always have liquidity, no matter what, but even if it does crash, they literally own almost everything and can afford private armies to defend their interests.

Re population reduction and an economic "reset", everything nonessential would be eliminated and the net effect would be a massive reduction in overhead, which I think would more than make up for lost tax revenue.
Wages declining is not the same thing as inflation. Purchasing power is an expression of the value of currency based on the amount of goods can be purchased with said currency. Inflation is essentially a mean showing the rate at which the value of goods in increasing. Neither of those things are the same as people having less money in real terms. But both would act at negative pressures on people's purchasing ability.

I agree that those pressures don't mean as much to people with massive amounts of resources. I don't disagree that what you say could happen, but I think I may be more optimistic than you in the sense that I believe people in general would see that it is in their own self interest not to support the ownership rights of the moneyed classes. Ownership is after all conferred by social contract, it's not like it's a divine right. You can say you own something all you want, if no one agrees with you, you don't actually own it. At least not in any protected way. It's the same reason I don't think that private armies will work. I just don't think people are dumb enough to take crumbs to beat back the mobs when they can share in the total spoils with the mobs.

So far as the reset argument with a population decline, I see where you're coming from. I just think with the amount of speculative wealth and the percentage of wealth made up of it that it would not be a goal of the investor class to so thoroughly throw a wrench into the cogs of their own system. Maybe as an absolute last resort, but if the decline of other empires has shown anything, they oligarchy is typically oblivious to the tipping point of their own demise.
avatar
richlind33: If purchasing power is declining, how is that not inflation? Again, it's not an issue for those at the very top unless the system crashes because they always have liquidity, no matter what, but even if it does crash, they literally own almost everything and can afford private armies to defend their interests.

Re population reduction and an economic "reset", everything nonessential would be eliminated and the net effect would be a massive reduction in overhead, which I think would more than make up for lost tax revenue.
avatar
firstpastthepost: Wages declining is not the same thing as inflation. Purchasing power is an expression of the value of currency based on the amount of goods can be purchased with said currency. Inflation is essentially a mean showing the rate at which the value of goods in increasing. Neither of those things are the same as people having less money in real terms. But both would act at negative pressures on people's purchasing ability.

I agree that those pressures don't mean as much to people with massive amounts of resources. I don't disagree that what you say could happen, but I think I may be more optimistic than you in the sense that I believe people in general would see that it is in their own self interest not to support the ownership rights of the moneyed classes. Ownership is after all conferred by social contract, it's not like it's a divine right. You can say you own something all you want, if no one agrees with you, you don't actually own it. At least not in any protected way. It's the same reason I don't think that private armies will work. I just don't think people are dumb enough to take crumbs to beat back the mobs when they can share in the total spoils with the mobs.

So far as the reset argument with a population decline, I see where you're coming from. I just think with the amount of speculative wealth and the percentage of wealth made up of it that it would not be a goal of the investor class to so thoroughly throw a wrench into the cogs of their own system. Maybe as an absolute last resort, but if the decline of other empires has shown anything, they oligarchy is typically oblivious to the tipping point of their own demise.
What you're saying is true with respect to valuations that change as a result of conditions related to production or the availability of resources, but if the change reflects monetary weakness I would argue that it is indeed inflation, and a good example here would be gold. It's real value hasn't changed all that much through the years, but monetary values have changed dramatically.

Re economic reset, I would expect government bureaucracy to be eliminated because it was merely a means to an end that had now been achieved, and I think that would largely hold true for markets, as well. Speculation produces chaos, which is leveraged by those who have no exposure, but there will be no need for that once the game is won.

The purpose of this system has always been to facilitate the *accumulation* of wealth and power. Once that objective is achieved, it will be replaced by something that is vastly more efficient.

BTW, what are your thoughts on the unrest in France? I'm hoping that it explodes all across Europe and creates solidarity among all the people, regardless of nationality and political affiliations.
Post edited December 09, 2018 by richlind33
avatar
CMOT70: And we wonder why there are so many Zombie games. Zombies are the only enemy you can safely use in games these days without offending SOMEONE. So what if they used Afghan Zombies maybe?

Or just make games from now on without bad guys, and only kill good guys. In other words just always make the player the bad guy.

Or just make games where everyone loves each other...but not, you know, too much because some people get offended at those too.
Dont forget the nazis, they are the most politically correct and socially acceptable enemies.
Post edited December 08, 2018 by liltimmypoccet
avatar
firstpastthepost: I see, you mean in the volume of the censorship and not popularity in the sense of desire to censor by those doing the censoring.

"Seems to be" is the operative part of your comment though. The amount of censorship is relative for one thing and our means of measuring censorship now would be different from our means of measuring it 50 years ago. The volume of censorship could be a constant or less now than when taking an average <snip>
Yes censorship has been a big part of things for a while, but it was often obfuscated. It's far more obvious now.

They say a lie can get halfway around the world before the truth can get it's pants on... well things are highly accelerated now time-wise. Someone can say a lie, and sometimes even minutes later (on the internet, or even realtime) get fact-checked, whereas on TV, newpaper and other mediums (in the past before the internet) it could take a long time with just how the system was, and who was in control of it.

Anyways, going to watch a movie. Be back in a while.
Post edited December 09, 2018 by rtcvb32
avatar
rtcvb32: Censorship seems to be a popular thing right now...
avatar
firstpastthepost: Is censorship popular though? That kind of assumes that the companies banning people from platforms or not selling certain goods relish the opportunity to do so.
As a matter of fact, companies (or at least certain company members) indeed relish that opportunity.
Post edited December 09, 2018 by LootHunter
avatar
firstpastthepost: Is censorship popular though? That kind of assumes that the companies banning people from platforms or not selling certain goods relish the opportunity to do so.
avatar
LootHunter: As a matter of fact, companies (or at least certain company members) indeed relish that opportunity.
avatar
LootHunter:
The video you posted is unavailable. I’m not sure if that is unintentional or if it is meant to display censorship on the part of YouTube. If it’s meant to show proof of censorship than that’s not very effective. I have no way of onowing why the video is unavailable.
avatar
firstpastthepost: The video you posted is unavailable. I’m not sure if that is unintentional or if it is meant to display censorship on the part of YouTube. If it’s meant to show proof of censorship than that’s not very effective. I have no way of onowing why the video is unavailable.
Strange. The video is working for me. Try this link: I assure you - its a real video. It contains a speech of Apple CEO (I specifically put timer at this speech beginning) about how they will remove all "undesireable" content for "the greater good". Though you can watch the whole video for the "big picture".
Post edited December 10, 2018 by LootHunter