Frediano

Well, so is a quarter inch thick of most yellow pages. Indeed. If a 25 yr old kid wants a crap job with any one of them, he's got to pony up his college transcript. If Obama or some other fool wants to 'run the[sic] economy', nobody asks to see anything except a few poses in front of a lectern. Explain that one to me.

You know what the economic crisis in 1970 was? A demographic induced recession that peaked with unemployment at 6.1%. Of course, that was back when unemployment was actually measured. Today that rate would be reported as 2.8%... 1970. Boomers not yet fully in workplace, but fully in the crosshairs of demographic youth group being marketed to. Businesses trying to expand to market to the Boomers could not grow workforce fast enough...and this led to a recession in the economies, caused by lack of manpower. The opposite demographic problem we have today. Unemployment -peaked- at 6.1% in that recession, and that isn't comparing apples to apples; they actually measured unemployment back then.

But here is the great equalizer: Nixon was a lawyer...and so was Obama.

You could just see Nixon grimacing when he had to congratulate the astronauts on the Moon, bristling at his ceremonial duties to honor JFK's legacy. If you listen real closely,you can hear him muttering, "Ok, ok, great...now get the fuck back here so I can shut this mother f'n puppy down."

Other than ObamaCare, has Obama attempted anything that tops the audacity of Nixon's 1970 Economic Stabilization Act? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_Stabilization_Act_of_1970 If Obama put forward this same legislation today, he'd rightfully be accused of stealing a lost chapter from Atlas Shrugged, verbatim. The Economic Stabilization Act of 1970 (Pub.L. 91–379, 84 Stat. 799, enacted August 15, 1970) was a United States law that authorized the President to stabilize prices, rents, wages,salaries, interest rates, dividends and similar transfers.[1] It established standards to serve as a guide for determining levels of wages, prices, etc., which would allow for adjustments, exceptions and variations to prevent inequities, taking into account changes in productivity, cost of living and other pertinent factors.[2] Let freedom ring there, Dick. Jesus, what a horror show Nixon was. Vietnam: "Never mind, we really didn't mean it...er...Peace with Honor!" JFK's Space Program: "Over my dead body." Bretton Woods: 'Burn the mother!" How can I forget: "I am a Keynsian now, too." (No you weren't; poor abused Keynes had two parts to his theory. No politico ever glommed onto the running uphill save/paydown debt half, only the running downhill borrow/spend half. And we wonder why we are at the bottom of the hill?" The Imperial White House... piling on to hapless George McGovern in the 72 election.... Who grew the federal government more than Nixon, Reagan and Bush '43? Obama is giving them a run for our money.

Actual question from Anthropology course mid-term in 1975 or thereabouts, paraphrased from memory: "Explain how Nanook's battle with the walrus represents the deleterious impact of capitalism on humanity." I argued several pages of the exact opposite. The course instructor, a flaming marxist radical, actually hissed at me when he handed back my paper: "If you do this on the final, I will fail you." The course was "The Human Image in Film" (Busted; I was fulfilling my 'humanities' distribution requirement by auditing this basket weaving thing pass/fail. I remember one of my precept mates was Armand Hill, the basketball player. He was an Anthro major, if I remember correctly...) The instructor wore a disconnected 35mm SR lens , held around his neck by a tattered multicolored piece of string. Every so often he would stop his lectures in mid-sentence, grab this lens, and 'frame the world.' He was both precious and pretentious all at once. A massive flake. Or, as you describe perfectly.

Would one say someone was an ardent advocate of free association, if they opposed forced association? Nothing wrong with being either ardent or fervent, but could one say that as a criticism without also, at the same time, not being an advocate of its opposite: forced association? Could that be done without at least attempting to justify forced association? Otherwise, one's advocacy of free association, ardent or not, would seem quite reasonable. Would one say someone was an ardent advocate of free markets, or economic freedom in general, if they opposed forced association in commerce? Nothing wrong with being either ardent or fervent, but could one say that as a criticism without also, at the same time, not being an advocate of its opposite: command and control/the economy running public totalitarianism? Could that be done without at least attempting to justify economic totalitarianism? The criticisms of free markets often include the argument that 'they are not free markets.' I agree with those criticisms. IBM running to the guns of government by way of Moynihan for special treatment, subsidies/crony capitalism/corporatism is not 'free markets.' But the remedy cannot be the institutionalization of crony state capitalism-- of granting even more power to make crony deals to the always will be naked sweaty apes who make up not only commerce but self government. Self government should be policemen(plural), who 'make regular' commerce, not by directing it, but by enforcing laws based on principles (such as free association.) Even clean air and water laws regularly follow from the principles of free association vs, forced association. (Foul air and water is an example of forced association with the uninvited commerce of others; the state has an interest, based on a principle, to enforce against acts of forced association.) I don't speak for all libertarians or even any libertarians, but it is not my opinion that libertarians are in favor of anarchy. They espouse laws based on principles, and one of those principles is 'free association.' So the thought remains; I've asked this of folks many times, never get an answer. Why is free association insufficient, and what is the argument that justifies forced association over a national, state, county, or local scale? (And, are those justifications the same across each of those scopes?) That isn't an argument against the Civil Rights Acts; in fact, I've argued elsewhere that the CRAs were necessary and an example of enforcement against forced association(with the racist ideas of bigots in the public commons, where a unique responsibility to peers sharing our same freedom exists.)

Well, for one, the timing was just a little off on both of them. Maybe O'Hara, barely. After all, bronchitis takes a little time to blossom into full blown pneumonia. There was a Cold War, and it was waged by determined enemies, each striving to prevail. America and Reagan didn't so much win the Cold War as catch the cold. Reagan might have danced in the endzone, but his 'grand compromise' with O'Neill -- a little more guns in exchange for a lot more butter, was the deal that put the present wreck on rails. But, that conflict was waged for decades, not just the Reagan 80s. The Ivies are natural choke points, tiny high-school sized clubs, each with their totally open campus, like all colleges in America. Given a smart and determined global adversary selling an idea -- totalitarianism -- completely anathema to freedom, what would have ever possibly prevented an attack on these choke points? I call them choke points because that is what they are. For being tiny, high school sized little clubs of exclusivity, they have an inordinate amount of influence on our Congress, the White House, the Supreme Court, and even the faculty of other schools. And from the 30's on, what would possibly have slowed down, much less, stopped or prevented a focused attack on these choke points? Seriously, what would keep such an attack from happening? Would it be the open campuses? Our open borders? Our non-police state? Would it be the benevolent sense of fair play and well wishing of our global political adversary in the Cold War? Would it be that the thought just never crossed their mind? Would it be our absolute belief in complete academic freedom, which oddly includes an embrace of ideas that eat that very freedom? What would prevent a successful attack on those choke points? I have no idea. But I know what the outcome of a successful attack would look like. We are living it. What I am certain of, because I experienced it in the late 70s, is that the Ivies have become mandrels of thought, institutions of indoctrination. For every John Stossel that escapes intact and whole, there are a hundred Katrina vanden Heuval-esque marching instructoids rotely spouting the single word mantra "RaceClassGender" as they were instructed to repeat at every opportunity. When our Ivy Leager POTUS leans across the pillow at night, he is whispered to by a former Princeton radical feminist. His first nominee for the USSC is a former Princeton radical feminist. His second nominee to the USSC is a cookie cuttered former Princeton radical feminist. If you scrounge around the USSC, you will find another Princeton product. And that is just Princeton, not the entire Ivies. Is it -really- such a bright idea to have so much of our 'self-government' influenced by such a tiny, inbred, mandrel of singular thought? Isn't that exactly why this nation once eschewed monopolies-- because of undo influence by single point of failure entities? Social Scientology is not an official acknowledged religion on the list of official acknowledged religions maintained by Congress(huh?) But it is a religion, defined by "S"ociety=God and the State is its proper Church. It also has its dedicated seminaries of instruction, and we call them 'The Ivies.' America, the new Theocracy. How is it looking so far?

Sort of. 'True Princtonians' are instructed to work in the words "capitalism sucks" into every possible utterance. Some examples: "Nanook's battle with the walrus was metaphor for the well established historical fact that capitalism sucks." "Dr., please, my hemorrhoids are killing me, because capitalism sucks." "I'm not certain if I want the french toast for breakfast or the Cuban omelette, but one thing is certain, and that is... capitalism sucks." "If the ratio of successive terms is less than one, the series will converge and capitalism sucks." "Sure, the Soviet Union collapsed in 1989, and they were farming with oxcarts right up until the bitter end. Sure, socialist strong arm generals are creating Hell on earth in former Burma. Sure, Assad's Ba'ath Socialists are notmuch prettier than Saddam's Ba'ath Socialists. Sure, that crazy agrarian marxist, Pol Pot, murdered millions on the way to that failed People's Worker's Paradise. Sure, even Sweden in Europe is backing away from the abyss and quietly liberalizing its economies. Sure, Germany doing the same thing with Agenda 2010 and even doubling down on it gave them the opposite trajectory of Greece. Sure, the example of even little Estonia proves the point in Europe. Sure, China realized they forgot the 'need to actually have Capitalism first before you can cannibalize it.' Sure, Cuba and North Korea's economies consist of peasants eating their own shoes. But haven't you heard? Capitalism sucks." Now that is spoken like a true Princetonian!

Who are these people disrespecting the University of Toronto???

I never expected my comments to make you feel bad and I'm sure they didn't For sure. As in the engineer's dictionary and its definition of futility. But you would be on a double Fool's Errand. I'm not just a prick, but an Ivy League/MIT prick, and for God's sake, trying to make an Ivy League/MIT prick feel inadequate is for sure a tough row to hoe, even for ho's who can hunt. I even laugh at Howard Wolowitz. They used to say that McGill was the 'Princeton of Canada.' But they never say that Princeton is the McGill of the US. How impolite and unfair. Why is that? You gave me an opportunity to make cracks and I took it. This is scary; you are like my Canadian doppleganger. As in my response to the following. It is indeed sad that a living wage and job security can be achieved by labour unions, and that the entire world economy is being destroyed by them. Obviously their time is past, as no one today deserves or should expect a living wage, much less the continuation of any wage, unless they continually surpass the expectations of the free markets, those infallible arbiters of excellence. I don't want to mislead; I don't mean my response a few days ago. I mean, my response 30 years ago. This is all so much easier for me when I use your words. Thank-you.

Dear Dance Layman: The eyes are always the first to go. You dated an eagle with a nest full of bones? The Hell you say. I always picture eagles swooping down over lakes and pulling fish out of the water; they don't dive, they kind of just grab what they can from near the surface, unannounced. They eat what I think must be curious fish, as in, 'hey, what is that big shiny up there?" So surely those weren't catfish bones littering the nest. As curious as they are, catfish are bottom feeders. Just sayin'. And as that fine Canadian gentlemen could have once said, sorry for being surly when I was calling you Shirley. There are probably several mispellings (there's one) and grammar mistakes in my latest stream of consciousness effort. There have been many. But my dictionary defines futility as trying to make an engineer/nerd feel either bad or badly for occasionally mangling the language in what streams from his fingers-- fingers often observed to have minds of their own when banging on keyboards. There becomes their...its becomes it's...whom becomes who...and so on. They figure, that is what spellcheck and editors are for. Hell, most engineers/nerds are still trying to master punctuation, Damn. If literacy is going to be questioned, then shouldn't we should test across all modes? My stream of consciousness bon mots, offered up as my cheap alternative to much needed therapy, vs. others grasp of linear algebra or non-linear partial differential equations. We'll average the results. It will be fun. Is there even such a thing as technological or technical literacy? I suspect the guardians of literacy might say not. I wonder why? Yet if we take even a short spin through modern political debate on topics like the economies or climate change, clearly there is no need for technical literacy to weigh in. Nope. In the brave new world of egalitarian ideas, grade school grammar and spelling is the only literacy required. One GED, one vote.

In the definition of GDP, can government spending fueled by taxes or debt (promise to tax in future)be net stimulative, to grow something called 'the economy?' We have been running the experiment now... for five years. Consider this. We have local government taxing authorities that cover the nation. On top of them, we have county taxing authorities that cover the same dirt with a second layer. On top of them, we have state/province taxing authorities that cover the exact same dirt with a third layer. Finally, there is a national/federal taxing authority ... that covers the same dirt with a fourth layer. The surface of our nation is well covered by four completely overlapping taxing authorities. These taxing authorities are granted the right to demand taxes from those who create value in the economies, and who then turn around and hand those taxes back selectively to some, demanding stuff in return for the well traveled cash. For them, take away the give and take of taxes, and basically, government shows up and demands shit for free. For others who aren't demanded to pony up actual shit that they make or create in exchange for tax dollars handed back to them after they just forked them over under threat of penalties, they end up creating things and losing part of their IOUs for having created something to begin with. But at least, they all receive government goods and services. But...where do those government goods and services come from? Does the government manufacture them? No... the government procures them from the people who do the work...paying them with money that they just took from them or borrowed from their kids. or just printed. How can that be stimulative? The argument is, after all, that the government is 'spending' the money just taken from the economies in the economies for necessary goods and services ... provided by those same economies. Or maybe for national defense... using the lives of the people of the nation who actually provide that defense, using goods and materials actually manufactured by some other of those same people of the nation. There is no national government goods/services manufacturing plant that we are exchanging value for value with. At most... we are providing the value for necessary government, which we agree there is a finite amount of. As well, the lives that die in battle. But an ever increasing arbitrary amount of that beyond what is necessary to fund required government cannot possibly be net 'stimulative,' and I will show that below. It is just disruptive of the economies, especially when, in the extremes of our current $3800B federal gluttony going nowhere, it is managed by political cronies and crony statism-- at most corporatism and nowhere near free market capitalism. Here is proof that these four redundant overlapping levels of 'necessary government' cannot be net stimulative, just because they return the money just taken from the economies back into the economies elsewhere. Imagine a giant silver orb speeds from deepest space and suddenly hovers over the White House one day, an alien species. In a display of overwhelming technological power, the beings in this orb shut down all power in the world for 30 minutes. (Yes, The Day The Earth Stood Still, the morality play about the Paradox of Violence.) Humans are powerless in the face of this confrontation with an advanced species, like Spaniards in South America. But it turns out they are deal makers. What they want is for everything to go on exactly as before, but on top of the existing four layers of redundant taxing authorities, they propose to add a fifth layer(why not? If 1 can become 4, then 4 can become 5.) Their argument goes as follows: "Your federal, state, county, and local taxing authorities will continue to tax the exact same dirt they do now. Nothing will change. We will tax anything that is 1 Angstrom above the dirt or more. We will add a new taxing authority, and anything that is 1 or more Angstroms above the local dirt or floor will pay us a 40% yearly tax. But don't be concerned, because what are we going to do with this additional tax? We are going to spend it in your economies, thus 'stimulating' them more than they are now. So they are going to tax us all an additional 40%, but then they are going to take those same tax dollars, turn around, and spend it with some of us, in exchange for which we will turn around and hand them over goods and services that they will do with as they see fit. Maybe build a new sky version of the Imperial DC Capital area. It will be beautiful, complete with monuments. So when the dust clears...cancel out the tax money to and from the silver orb, a new emperor has shown up, and we are making stuff and handing it over to them for a brand new layer of 'necessary government.' If that is net 'stimulative' to something called 'the economy' , then so is a giant whip. If people -still- believe that federal spending is 'stimulative' then why wouldn't we all be looking to the stars and praying for that silver orb to show up, and save our economies by...driving them into the ground with yet a fifth layer of taxing authority? It might have been stimulative when the base level of taxation was $100B, as in JFK's America. (However...he cut taxes, and his economies roared.) The current experiment has no suggestion at all that in today's $3800B/yr federal skim, that additional federal taking is stimulative at all.

Let me give you an example from 'economics:' the 'definition' of GDP GDP = G + C + Inv + (Ex-Im) where GDP = Gross Domestic Product G = total goverment spending C = total private consumptive spending Inv = total private investment Ex = total exports Im = total imports It is widely touted as a measure of economic 'growth' of something called 'the economy.' Look at that, it looks just like mathematics; inexorable. Undeniable. But wait...it is packed with political assumptions. here are unseen factors which must all be assumed to be +1.0, as in GDP = 1.0* G + 1.0 * C + 1.0 *Inv + (1.0 * Ex - 1.0 * Im) That is math, too. If we assume all those factors are 1.0, then that 'equation is not written that way. But... what does it mean when we assume all those factors are = + 1.0? It is a political assertion. It is the assertion that, when defining a measure of economic 'growth', $1 of Government spending is exactly equivalent in every way to $1 of private spending. Which is to say, $1 of public debt fueled public spending is equivalent in every way to $1 of private debt fueled private spending. And yet, if you think about this even a little bit, it is clearly not the case, especially given all the creative ways the governments can take on debt. If Congress were to sign a piece of paper. granting itself the right to tell a secretary to run a laser printer, print out another piece of paper, then walk over to the fed window and accept $1T in freshly printed cash in exchange for that paper(a promise to tax/borrow more in the future), and then throw that money at 'the economy' (really, the economies, by way of selective and crony based government 'spending')...would we say that 'the economy' has 'grown' by $1T? And what of the implied equivalence, not only between $1 of government spending and $1 of private spending, but of public debt and private debt? What is the difference between public debt and private debt? That is easy to understand. My available credit and your available credit and the CEO of FedEx's available credit on behalf of FedEx is all finite. When we take on debt, we consume available credit. Not only that, we create incentive -- in ourselves -- to freshly go out into the future and create new value, in order to paydown that debt, lower interest payments, and restore our available credit. It is thus seen as a kind of investment in the future economies. It projects economic activity -- human creative effort -- forward into the future. Compare with public debt. When public debt is taken on(how? By painlessly signing pen to paper and extending the debt ceiling on our unlimited credit), not a single human being anywhere in the world wakes up the next morning with any incentive to do anything. The debt just grows, unbounded. It creates no incentives at all in future economies. It is thus seen as a pure de-investment in future economies (because all that remains is the future obligation for our children to be taxed to pay the increased debt service.) And so, a $ of G is not equivalent to a $ of C, and that 'equation' defining GDP is really a political assertion, it is not 'math' even though it looks just like math. In fact, in terms of defining a healthy, growing 'the economy', not only is the implied 1.0 suspect, but so is the implied '+' in front of it... Think about this the next time we hear some cheerleader on the radio announcing "1.1% growth in 'the economy'" ...what the Hell does it mean?

" since economies like everything can only predicted based on past variables" I have to disagree with you on that; it is much worse than that. Modern state of the art economic theory can't even tell us what is happening or what already happened, much less, what is going to happen. There are few, if any 'economists.' There are mostly only conservative economists or liberal economists. Economic theory is political argument by other means. (As someone else pointed out elsewhere, there are subsets of economists who focus purely on data analysis and theoretical work about what should show up in data as the consequences of other economic theories, but I suspect even that field is subject to political gerrymandering. The given in all of this -- commerce, politics, economics -- is that we are all naked sweaty apes, and on average, we are average.) Where is there any evidence that economics has been able to predict anything at all about economies based on past variables? Never mind what is going to happen-- modern state of the art economics can't even explain what has long already happened. Said another way; I assume present and past POTUS and world political leaders have had access to state of the art economists, the very best of the Nobel Prize Winning best; is there any evidence -- even the slightest -- that present and past POTUS and world political leaders have been able to "run the[sic] economy?' If so, then ... is this where they wanted to 'run' it? "unintended consequences" is a favorite topic; it is related in some way to Wolfram's "New Kind Of Science(NKS)", which can be crudely boiled down to "complexity can spontaneously erupt from simple rules." An example is, DNA. GATC + a set of simple rules for what are allowed combinations. Shake and bake, and before you know it, the borrowed heavy elements of stars long dead becomes self aware. There is a creationist argument that this cannot possibly be, that such a precise order cannot from randomness, but their argument is flawed in the sense that there wasn't just 'randomness' at work; there was another simple rule of the Universe at work, which is gravity; 'random' species in solution(muddy water), under the influence of gravity, will not settle out 'randomly.' It will settle out by density. The resulting media creates not just a gradient of species, but a gradient of gradients. Imagine the stagnant pools around thousands of miles of ocean and river and lake shorelines, running ordered lab experiments for eaons. Is it unreasonable to assume that somewhere in that ordered-- not random -- matrix of gradients there would erupt fom simple rules the complexity of the building blocks of life? And from those building blocks, more complexity? Until, lather, rinse, repeat, here we are, self aware borrowed stardust. NKS doesn't 'prove' this. But it does suggest that it is a possibility. Unintended consequences from simple rules includes unanticipated complexity. Not all unintended consequences are bad.

" I like people who live their beliefs however much I think their beliefs are wrong." You think my beliefs are wrong? Which beliefs? I believe peers living in freedom should be limited to rules of free association. (That rules out things like rape and murder and other forms of forced association.) I believe the justifications for forced association are nearly non-existent; not even my really good ideas are a justification for forced association with them. I believe the formation of unions is an example of free association...when they are limited to free association. I'm an advocate of political free association. A co-op or commune or non-profit or a union is an example of free association. So is Mobil/Exxon. So are the two corporations, one domestic and one foreign, that were' me' for most of my working career. The only way to screw that up is to inject the guns of government(and for example, direct special favors at Mobil/Exxon.) I've never said unions weren't for anybody; I've said they weren't for me. More power to them. So, where do I go astray, eschewing political forced association? You know; Totalitarianism. One size fits all. Monopolists with guns. All our eggs in one great big basket. Hell, I used to belong to a union, when I was going to college. Summer jobs. Steel fab plant, manufacturing plant. It's where I learned the exact meaning and precise definition of the phrase, "fu**ing the dog." Used in an answer to the question "Where's Frank?" ... "He's fu**ing the dog." Oh. Since then, no union has ever politely asked(or impolitely demanded)that I join their ranks. Nor have I asked. It has worked out fine for me... and the many enough just like me. Here's a problem unions have. Maybe they don't realize it, maybe they do. You don't need to believe me, maybe I'm making all this up. Not my problem. Take it for what it is worth, the cost of my offering it, which is nothing. What was the biggest capital drawing IPO in resent memory? The 800 lb gorilla of recent IPOs? "Facebook" Not anything like the folks like me living in the cracks and crevices of commerce, hidden in plains sight. Facebook! Drew a tsunami of capital thrown at it. Facebook employs maybe ... 3400 people. At it's peak, Beth Steel employed 330,000 people. It would take a hundred 'Facebook' IPOs to equal one Bethlehem Steel. Don't hold your breath. which means, don't wait for that to happen. And therein is the problem faced by unions. Unions are waging a twentieth century battle. This is not a plot by nefarious neocons or whatever. This is the endgame of dirt simple 2D geopolitical gradient in the world, and a confluence of multiple factors. 1] At the very moment that we've all but consumed dirt simple 2D surface based geopolitical gradient (the gradient of markets between civilization and frontier-- the 'new' world), our technological range -- the ability to project command, control, communication and commerce -- has more than overwhemed the surface of the globe. Not a plot; just reality. 2] Dirt simple geopolitical gradient was important for the following reason; it created, simply by existing, a gradient of economic opportunities. There were plenty of -different- economic opportunites, and that translated to a a gradient of jobs, jobs, jobs, as in, types of jobs. The needs at the 'frontier' were not the same as the needs at 'the capitol.' It has been 60 years -- 3 generations -- since America put the last star on its flag. he 'new world' is no more. The current 2D surface development wave -- in India and China -- is expanding at a rate far faster -- orders of magnitude faster -- than it did during the North America development wave, due precisely to that massive technological increase in CCC&C. This barely understand fact, a modern boundary condition, is variously called 'globalization' and/or the end of history as we knew it as a species expanding over a limited 2D surface domain as a modern, technological group of civilizations, plural with various levels of interaction and shared experience. 3] As the stress of this endgame grows, our ratcake politics have not helped one bit. The tribe has panicked, like sinking rats on a lifeboat, and that isn't working at all. The results are just pathetic, but predictable. 4] There are still plenty of frontiers and economic opportunities in modern economies; the problem, not just for classical unions but for many is that increasingly, these opportunities are in narrow intellectual fields, and the price of admission is ever more specialized education. There were always purely intellectual frontiers, but in a world with 2D dirt simple geopolitical gradient remaining, there were also non-intellectual frontiers and opportunities. This concentration of economic opportunities into purely intellectual frontiers has happened too rapidly for mankind as a whole to adapt to, and the current stress is the grinding of the gears as we struggle to either sink or swim in the reality of the new economies. 5] The problem with much of the new intellectual frontiers is that, unlike the equivalent intellectual frontiers in the old 2D surface growth world, not enough of them result in -broad- economic opportunity elsewhere. (As in, Facebook employing 3400 people...and of those 3400 jobs, how many are like the jobs once offered by a Beth Steel?...) 6] The challenge for modern economies is to restore gradient of economic opportunities in a world in which 2D dirt simple surface gradient is gone-- not just 'consumed,' but overwhelmed by out technological CCC&C range. But, none of our politics is directed at this(at least, not since JFK fifty years ago.) 7] 2D surface based growth had the following characteristic(for thousands of years until recently). As technological range grew linearly (the ability to project command, control, communication and conduct commerce), geo-political borders grew as range, and domain grew as range-squared, even if limited by geography and in fits or spurts. Borders were a cost, and domain was a resource. So there was always a geopolitical pressure for geopolitical entities/nations to grow, until pressure at mutual borders resulted in a kind of homeostasis. But even with this homeostasis, with the technologies of the time, there yet existing a gradient of opportunities to and from the borders, which were not like the 'capitol'. The border was where trade happened, where wars were fought. Modernlity and 20th century technological range rapidly changed that dynamic, creating a new 'globalized' world not seen before. A downside has been the destruction of economic gradients of broad opportunity in other than purely intellectual fields. So what to do? The malthusians have one solution, which is, marshall all of mankind as if they wer bees in a bee colony, and target a new 'stasis.' But stasis in the universe, as it is, is death. It is a dangerous experiment. Mankind has never known it,,,except in the dark ages(the last time we paused at a gulf and stared out at a seemingly impenetrable ocean.) An alternative is JFK's vision. The transition from 2D to a 3D growth paradigm, one in which domain grew as range cubed, and border area as range squared. Not only restoration of gradient, but of an exponentially more potent growth model. 50 years after his vision, we are -still- living off the remnants of that attempt to put 12 sets of footprints on the Moon. What little has driven our economies since then is directly attributable to that intense, focused effort to -reach-. The gradient of opportunities went all the way from the Moon back to Huntsville, AL, Los ANgeles, CA, Bethpage, NY, and beyond. It extended into our schools and universities and both drive and inspired a generation, until Nixon, in a fit of petty jealousy over JFK's legacy, put that vision on ice. The human urge to restore gradient is still alive in efforts like SpaceX and Orbital Sciences, not because of our politicos and their spending of 3800B/yr of the nations lifeblood, but in spite of it. I could be wrong about all of that. Maybe what we really need is Totalitarianism, a committee, and a Five Year Plan.

It was sex with the eagle, Look! A squirrel!...

Nihil animi, nihil certamen animi ...nihil est.

When you got nothing but spelling...you got nothing.

...because they run like bitches to correct spelling...

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So in other words, the entire basis for 'redistribution of wealth' has no basis in fact whatsoever. Exactly the point. If we can't base those theories on quintiles(huh? what are quintiles? that's as good a response as I've gotten in 20+ years) or decimiles or percentiles, then what in the world is the justification? The whole ferago of left wing redistributive politics devolves to coveting "dems whats gots more dem me." Apply that recursively, as in lather, rinse, repeat, and the inevitable result is two poor wretches in rags, arguing in a hovel over whose sores are runnier, as claim on the last remaining not so maggoty hunk of rotting Elk. Thank you for the latest unsurprising data point; I'll add it to the pile. The entire concept of "redistribution of wealth" is totally indefensible even in its most fundamental claim-- that there is a 'maldistrubution of wealth.' It is exposed as having no deeper calculus than the reasoning of any criminal who wants what he wants, and so, can never be taken seriously. An example: Dr. Laura D'Andrea Tyson, giving a talk at UCal Berkley in Nov 1997, at the peak of the Miracle Clinton Economies. She admits, frankly, "Nothing we did." Not the symbolism of a 3.6% surcharge aimed at income over 250,000. Not anywhere near explaining the surplus. As she said, "Anyone can run those numbers, they aren't even close to explaining the surplus." (But she was too modest; it might be true that Clinton didn't get any of the three key things that he campaigned on 1992 -- A Stimulus Plan, Nationalized Health Scare, or a BTU Tax -- none of that agenda passed. But he did level off the Reagan defense buildup -- he cut the scheduled rate of increase of federal spending. This is what we call the catastrophe of 'sequestration' today. But any president in the wake of the collapse of the USSR would have done the same thing-- the Cold War was over. (And, Reagan made his 'grand compromise' with O'Neill, which was, a little more guns in exchange for alot more butter, needlessly, just to dance in the endzone of the Soviet collapse. US Intelligence, and it is assumed, the POTUS, knew damn well that the Soviets were farming with ox carts in the 80s. That system was gasping its last breath all on its own, on the weakness of its crappy ideas.) When Clinton got spanked in '94 for his failed attempt to lurch the nation left, and Congress entered into a harmless six year perseveration on the stains on chubber's blue dress, the US Economies breathed a sigh of relief and for the last time in recent history, roared. In the Q&A after the talk, a Berkloid whined that the quintile distribution of income in America was "about 8 or 9 to 1" as defacto evidence of something called the 'maldistribution of income' in America. The highest 20% held "8 or 9 times" what the lowest 20% held. And, not being a math illiterate, I laughed my ass off at that whine. Because, if incomes fell uniformly from the sky everywhere, totally randomly, so that the same number of folks earned 0$/yr as 1$/yr as $2$/yr....as MAX_INCOME$/yr, the ratio of the highest quintile to the lowest quintile would be exactly 9:1. (The average income of the lowest quintile would be 10% of MAX_INCOME and the average income of the highest quintile would be 90% of MAX_INCOME...) And yet, apparently, not only is the quintile statistic important, but ... the shape of the disribution is somehow an ecomomic factor in something called 'the economy.'.... A hoot. Since modern lefties have punted on knowing anything at all about QUINTILES(claiming ignorance is for sure the best path in this regard), I suspect we're not going to be regaled by any handwaving arguments about the shape of meaningless curves at Census. And this year's 1040 still said INDIVIDUAL at the top. Go figure... With that perfectly flat 'distribution' of income, the top 10% get 19 times what the lowest 10% "get" and the top 1% "get" 199 times what the lowest 1% 'get.' The villain in this is called 'magnitude.' Good luck outlawing that. The only way to ever remedy this 'maldistributuion' is to enforce INCOME=SAME for absolutely everybody in the economies, including my teenage son when he was cutting lawns part time in the summer. Meanwhile, the tribe allows itself to be driven insane trying to do exactly that, egged on by these Berkloid whiner social / political science math illiterates and similar, like the poser in our White House. Sorry, at Martha's Vineyard, working on 'jobs, jobs, jobs...'

You have removed yourself from it,... From 'it?' Nonsense. I've removed myself from unions. I've removed myself from forced association with a total myth called "S"ociety. I have socius. I belong to societies, plural. I participate in economies, plural. I've 'removed' myself from no such 'it' that actually exists. Whatever 'it' you imagine I've removed myself from is pure delusion. I'd even say, mass delusion. Your begrudging or not is of no consequence to anyone but yourself. In the case of 'the economy' and "S"ociety being "semantic conveniences", that may be so, but IMO, those particular conveniences lead away from understanding either, not towards. It is an example of hand waving away complexity, of creating a monopolistic 'it' out of a complex plurality of systems of systems. Throwing our hands up and calling the aggregate of all such an 'it' may make 'it' easier to comprehend as an 'it'...but there is no such 'it.' Here is another example of an 'it' that doesn't exist: a quintile. As in, the ratio of the wealth of the upper quintile to the lowest quintile. I will begin to take political arguments based on such statistics seriously as soon as someone answers a question I've been asking for over 20 years: Can you or anyone name one thing that any living human being actually does primarily or even secondarily as 'a quintile?' What actions or decisions or effects do 'quintiles' have as actors in our economies? Canada may be different, but here, I just looked at our IRS 1040, and everyone I've ever files says INDIVIDUAL at the top in can't miss it big letters. Have I and my fellow QUINTILIANS been not filing the proper QUINTILE returns all these years? After 20 years, I would settle for even a made up thing, like, a lost episode of Star Trek. Surely, there must be some basis for all these QUINTILE statistic based political arguments. Seems we need to be gettin' to some serious redistributin' to even out those QUINILES. Ok. But before ai take any of that seriously, somebody is going to finally need to come up with at least one action or event or decision made by a QUINTILE that could possible impact the economies, plural, individually or in aggregate. Is that really too much to ask, before taking any of that redistributive social theory serious??? I tried to help once. No good. What is a QUINTILE(or DECIMILE or PERCENTILE...)? I mean, other than something on a spreadsheet at Census. I really need to know, in order to understand redistributive logic. I'm trying, without any help at all. Ok, so once a year, we all line up by income or wealth or whatever, and get into one of five freight trains, sorted by wealth or income. And then, a conductor comes along. I know, its a freight train, but it will be all right in the end, I promise. We used to do this on passenger trains but it got too crowded. The conductor adds up everybody's income or wealth on his freight train and then writes it on a piece of paper, and sends it to the Census Department, where politicos wait with tense looks on their faces. What will this years numbers be? And, then, we all get off the freight trains and go about our lives again. I understand all that. But damn... there are no freight trains; we don't even do that together as members of a quintile. In fact... we do nothing. Nothing at all, as a quintile. And that is why it is perfectly OK that there was a conductor on the non-existing freight train, because none of this QUINTILE nonsense has any basis at all in our economies, plural.

I meant that in those thirty years you spent in your niches and fringes, the US labour movement has been continuously weakened by ideology-driven anti-union practices and legislation, without any corresponding strengthening of the mainstream economy or trickling down of wealth to it from the tax cuts for the wealthiest. This is precious. You don't get it. I've run the experiment-- for me, not for you. Did I need labor more than labor needed me? I was told by the prevailing winds in my youth that if I worked real hard and achieved success it would only be by sucking the lifeblood out of virtuous labor. It was a theory I didn't quite believe, so I ran my own singular experiment and I found my own answer. Labor is finding their own answer. They may not like their answer. I absolutely love my answer. So do the many others I've met over the years running their own experiments. This isn't a debate. I'm not in any debate with labor. I'm not in any discourse with labor at all. More power to labor, long ma it wave. Labor might figure this out, or not, can't tell. I hope they do. You can run your own experiments. "Trickle down' was the bad,bad old days. The not good enough days. 2013 aint about any trickle down. This is about getting out of the way, so that others can -finally- scoop up that which falls from the sky, unabetted. Welcome to the universe, as it is. Hope you're loving it like I am. You're out battling the big, bad corporations in 2013. Go get 'em. Meanwhile, I was two of them. One in the US, one in the Caymans(fully disclosed to the IRS)as an aid in doing international business. The ratio of corporations to actual humans who were shareholders, employees, and officers in my instance exceeded 1. How you going to unionize that? Not my problem. If there is a problem to be seen in any of this story, it is mostly about really clumsy forks.

Oh, sweetie(sure, I believe you're a woman--why not?)correcting spelling and grammar is the universal sign for 'I got nothing else.' And, it's 'the economies' stupid. But here is something else: there is no such singular thing as 'the economy.' That is a complete political myth. When we talk about 'the weather' it is clear from context that we mean the local weather; there is no such thing as 'the national weather.' If there was, and we were naive enough to try to control 'it' by heating or cooling 'it' then I'm sure the folks in Alaska and Florida would bear the brunt of our abject stupidity. The current voodoo politics is intent on assessing only the average depth of a stream before designing 'a bridge' to carry all of us across 'it.' No wonder we're all wet. There are economies. Some are doing quite well. Others are on their ass. As a meaningless aggregate, dutifully averaged in some cubicle at Census, 'the economy' is doing poorly. You don't have to believe me, not my problem, but the reason 'it' is doing so poorly is largely tied to the fact that so many think the real economies are an 'it.' Totally analogous to "S"ociety. There is no such singular thing. There are societies, plural, that make up a nation, singular. ANd yet, as part of our from birth indoctrination -- our 'socialization' -- it has been drummed into our heads from the day we could first hear and form and understand words that there is something called "S"ociety and 'the economy." We've been conditioned to the point where most of us can't even imagine a reality made up of societies and economies...which is how sheep are created. We have been totally 'socialized.' I am not 'anti-social.' Folks freely form societies all the time, via free association. Mobil/Exxon is an example. I am pro free association, anti-forced association. I am anti the implied forced -association of the concept "S"ociety. It is an abuse of the language. As in: Society: from the Latin, socius. Ally, companion. As in, associate. Do you know everyone? Neither do I. Neither does anybody. What can any thinking person possibly think they are referring to when the refer to "S"ociety? I have no idea. Durkheim gave an honest disclosure in works such as Religious Formes(especially his summary. "S"ociety = God, the modern totem for the invisible authority safely beyond all mere local individual contingencies that yet curiously needs carny hucksters to speak for what is best for 'it.' Same carny hucksterism, new name. Rawls has his own variant of the spirit that lives under the volcano(the perfect state of unbias, to which only he can travel to to conduct political polls.) It's all the same leg lifting political nonsense. Nothing wrong with being a roofing contractor. Or even, a lawn and garden contractor. Or even a defense contractor. Those are all perfectly accessible ways to escape The Borg. Guaranteed. Been waiting 20+ years for some tribalist to stand up and defend their forced association philosophy...just never happens. I'm not holding my breath over the latest failure to engage...because you can't do what you can't do. It's just cruel to suggest otherwise. It's historically unfortunate, but what else can you call socialism on a national scale other than 'national socialism?' There is a difference between socialism and national socialism. In a free America, folks form coops and non-profits all the time. That is socialism under free association. More power to them, existing side by side with other peers living in freedom. That is not national socialism. National socialism is impressed upon the unwilling 51% to 49% using the ethics of gang rape(unfettered pure democracy, which is exactly what goes on in a gang rape.) The clarifying issue is free association vs. forced association. None of the advocates of national socialism ever proudly defend their advocacy of forced association. Why is that? If it is such a great idea, you'd think they'd do other than run from that which they advocate, even if does share the ethical characteristics of gang rape. Fee free to check my spelling and grammar, and run from the ideas. Nobody will notice.