Thursday, December 31, 2009

Indiana

Marx was a teenager -- or still in short pants -- when Robert Owen had already had an economic theory that is hardly discussed today. Between 1824 and 1827 he and his sons and daughter helped to develop a community in the United States.

I decide to take a little detour on my way West. I am going by car, for personal reasons. I left yesterday from Southern Indiana. Why was I interested in New Harmony? I think both because it is connected with Robert Owen, who is one of the economics thinkers most congenial to me, and because of my concern for the issue of community, over and above individualism.

And of course Robert Owen too had these concerns. So he is a guy I like. And in his view it is not only the machinery, or profit, that is important to a business, but the people too. He thought his employees worth caring for too. That's different. Real different.

Usually, employers feel some need to subsume employee interests to interests such as those of profit. As if they're two different things. Or maybe people are just mean. Owen, however, did not have any such "need." Instead, he cared. That turns out to be illegal. I'm joking, but, anyway, he was vitally interested in the community, and also in "community." He cared about people and community as it applied to his profitable enterprise in Scotland, and for his whole life until old age. I don't find his theories half bad. These are preserved in his writings. Why, I wonder, has history forgot about him?

But the Indiana settlement New Harmony --- or New Harmonie --- is a little different. It is not a textile factory, or a factory that is operated on humane principles, but a settlement. It is retroactively referred to as a "utopian" "community." For those are the words in use at New Harmonie in hand-out literature and in the museum. That, in fact, fell apart. It was also a hothouse of scholars. As a community, it failed after not much more than two years. I am not completely sure what the whole idea was. There may have been some utopian ideas there. Also a lot of creativity and ferment. What they've done is preserve the place. After all it’s quite nice.

There is a good museum (in the words of Bob Dylan, "where infinity goes up on trial"); many have come together to preserve this place --- it has sponsors such as a nearby university and others. I had a good time --- hashing out some of the details of community and individualism. One of these is valorized, or glorified by our leaders today, the other utterly repressed or devalued. But the truth is, both are there in equal measure in humanity and always will be.

So, let's have a rousing cheer for good old utopian communism! Owen's kind of thinking did in fact make a lot of headway in the US, what we call America. His place in Indiana attracted great scholars, prominent individuals, in the 1820's, although you'd never know it had ever happened... ...unless you visit New Harmony.

Well, I hope you liked my brilliant piece
-and my thanks to the ladies there, who interacted with me, when I arrived, as the last visitor of the day.

Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Ponder Piece

Economics is about communication. This is the story of the one quarter difference.

At the washing machine in our society there is a washer and a dryer. Dryers are usually a quarter and washers $1.50 or $2.00 in my experience of the culture but in this case, at the
Days Inn in Illinois where I've been know to stay (Naperville), it wanted like five quarters in each
machine. Something like that: Anyway, I started with the washer.
I put in my five quarters. But the machine wouldn't start. My favorite desk clerk is called "Steve," although as an Indian only three years off the boat, I hardly think his parents named him "Steve" in anticipation of his future migration. Anyways, my best friend at the motel says we need an extra quarter.

Now there is an economics lesson there somewhere. I don't know where it is exactly, but

it's in there somewhere.

At first, I thought: "That quarter is something I would never have time to negotiate about. If a market

economic system depends on negotiation of price that motel just got a free
quarter.

Why? ... well there was no way I was going to haul all the clothes out of it for lack of a quarter, and, likewise/also I am not going to ruin my relationship with the clerk -- my Indian friend Steve (a new American, and an excellent one --- unlike some of our other immigrants who head straight for the financial sector to bundle derivatives that they sell to your grandmother) -- over an argument about a quarter. Do you kno whot I mean?"

OK, so those are a few thoughts I had, as I....scrambled my way back up to post-industrial society's "place of washing." It's on the second piso just above my intimate friend's head, as he absorbs credit card payments into our beautiful financial architecture, by credit card. To the money sucking machine I go with trembling, eager hands with my coin, and I put the additional quarter in; I was satisfied when things began to actually function (rare in my life). In other words, the washer did work at that point. Which was, for me, a satisfying experience OK.

Then I thought, along basically the same theoretical lines, that I would perhaps put in another six quarters, to dry. This is a

bit much (1 X 6: --- that's for those of you who are easily impressed by mathematics) and in that case, how long would it take before society demanded a better price and some real changes are made at the laundry machine level of our culture? Eventually, of course, supply has to meet demand. It just won't happen right away.

These were my thoughts, but then I had a thought that seemed better than any of the others. The essence of the whole process, I realized is communication. Economics is about communication.

What does that mean?, you ask. Well, ...that the free market (capitalistic) system works as long as there is communication. And in the work of Hayek (whom I despise as a Right-winger of course) he does mention this kind of thing. It is about the communications of members of society. The system only works if communication works. Think on that one for a moment.
All of these meetings in the marketplace, whether there really are adjustments of prices based on consumer decisions at all, or not always, or whether it happens right away or not, all this depends on communication and communication is more important than anything else. It is therefore communication that the free market

system depends on, and, perhaps, this is more important than something that is after all a mere fact --- a simple facticity you might say (Homi K. Bhabha might say that), that, hey, since money is quantitative, the prices can vary. That's just dross. At a deeper level, it is about communication.

Jack's Essay

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I believe it is valid to call myself an economist. It is true that I am not a part of a group. What I mean is that there exists no group of scholars, nor any university program, that I am affiliated with. When I look at what I do, "economist" seems correct ---- a correct and workable method of describing it. More generically, I could say intellectual, and I could say philosopher. There seem to be a broad set of issues generic to the set of us, which is to say to the economists, whomever they be ---- it includes myself. I am like they are: an "economist" Yet although all are "economists" of same subject world (if not Dubai World) and hence interested in same topic or area I am not actually aware that this collective "we" know just what that area is. Hence the question as follows. What do we actually mean when we say it --- the word "economics"?

Now everyone in the field should just admit this and get over with it. The resultant situation means we have a word for the area studied but, Um ---- we're missing something. These may be no description. There may be no fleshing-out beyond mere moniker. I.e: name. Sign. There is a name for what the area of study is, but nothing else. There is nothing other than a term that serves as a signal or "sign." (That's semiotics but I'm not sure what it is, which makes two things --- two things that "we" are not sure of. Although, of course you may pretend if you like. No one can stop you.)

I don't know what "economics" really means and neither, I am pretty sure, do these other guys called "the economists." The thing that I submit as weird is that they do not seem to want to admit this fact that they lack a description of what it is that their field encompasses exactly. The many --the simple-minded --claim to (Have a scarce resource, buddy. And don't forget to pay me.)
This is the point where the whole thing becomes the study of ideology. Now we have to study ideology, it seems, and not just economics (whatever that was).

But I can try to find the description of what this field named economics is; I can try as well, and here it is. "My Turn."
The study of how humans use available resources. Ah. That was easy; it seemed really easy. How humans make use of what is available to them. Furthermore, and of this I am yet more certain, by which I mean more certain than I am certain that the economists who claim to know the description of their field dont, ---furtherMORE ---- these human beings are divided up into various social groupings. Oooooo..."socialism." Well, damn right it is. Capitalism is social, OK? I am sure of it. These humans that are making use of available resources are divided up into social groupings --albeit that a whole herd of economists, which is to say human absurdities calling themselves economists, deny that any such thing could possibly be relevant to their America, since the (American) universe contains, as all red-blooded real American morons know only "self-interested individuals" --Um, ... OK ... where was I? What I was saying when I was sane and feeling like a fair rational being, which I was, a moment back, was that, in all fairness, economics is probably about how human beings divide up some particular set of resource, which we can tweak further as the available potentialities for the production of, or for the use of, existing resources----now this in turn is to say short of hitting another person over the head or something, and stealing it, which would not be a very "economic" way of acting. Now would it? Also it's anti-social, get it? Economics is totally a social matter. But they never say it. So, that's where there is this twist, and ideology comes into it. (There are leftists who have said this, in the past. I even have a book by some mainstreamers, from the fifties, who preface their argument about ideology or business creed with the comment that what is called the "interest" theory is silly and should be dismissed out of hand, all of which, I thought when I saw this book, prefaces their own ideological look at the matter. The book then goes on to frame just such an argument. It was, indeed, not in the authors "interest" to say anything else. They were ideological. All of this is parenthetical, of course. You know?)

When I had a book proposal to offer to an editor, it was an academic press I chose, that I wanted to consort with. I thought of a university press. When I finally chose one, I did not choose one that puts out very many books specifically in my field of (you know) economics. I do not know if Indiana University Press puts out any economics books at all. I was picking an academic press. And the matter of whether this targeted institution of mine puts out economics books meant nothing. So, I guess that that shows how isolated I am or something. If other economists mean so little. Or that I'm not a good collaborator. In fact, it means a number of things. They mean little to me in terms of relationships, actually. These people should be my collaborators and colleagues. The truth is, there is no working relationship at all.

I do read some of them. Mostly the dead ones. How sad and lonely I must be! This is , OK?. There is some Latin word here, I think. Ennui? I haven't the vaguest idea of what the word is. It's a nice word for "alone." Alone in a sad, romantic painting painted by a lonely aristocrat of any European century whatsoever. Before the advent of capitalism's reign of hope. It's sad. I just don't know what it is----no education, you see.

So, OK: no school, no organization, no partners. Sad? So what. What does it matter? That I do not agree with anybody? That is not so unusual, my friends. Do Paul Krugman and Milton Friedman agree with one another? I think not! So maybe I'm right. To call myself "economist," I mean. Maybe that's what I am. (Also a comedian, but there actually is a Canadian comedian who started out as an economist. I bought his dissertation as a discounted book. I liked it.) There is no consensus between them either, although there may be some acquiescence to academic institutions, to get paid, to have jobs. (Which means something: they are all taking money from the same structure they are supposed to be studying.) There does not deserve to be any consensus between them. (Somehow that makes sense, but I have to analyze and edit, you know? Maybe I mean that we deserve to admit it to ourselves, or I deserve a break for calling myself an econo... oh I don't know!)

It is the same in similar fields, like psychology or political science and so forth. There are distinct schools there that do not agree with one another. You cannot artificially stitch that together. This is common in Western social science.

Am I worse than they? This great "They" (in addition to being the paid dignitaries of a collapsing civilization) could not even predict the recession. (I did. I was four years too early but I did. I was out of stocks entirely three years ago. I did not predict it would bounce back, though, and I do not think the banks should have been bailed out and I do not think it is necessarily good that "the economy"
whatever that is is bouncing back so fast. I think it is ominous. When civilization itself collapses we will be really, really shocked and awed. Then we'll look back and say, "but of course!" anyone could have predicted that!) Having not predicted the recession, they could not predict anything else either like for example how fast we would emerge from it. They take paychecks from the economy but is that related to the fact that they don't understand it? Don't want to bite the hand that feeds us, do we?

So I am no different----I mean I'm just another economist trying to make a go of it. I am no different, from the rest of the economists. There is no basis there to agree to. Am I the only one in isolation? Better ask John Lennon about that... but there is no consensus agreement in the field for me to be in isolation in comparison to. I am the same as the rest of them. I, too, am an economist.

* * *

The question is whether any of us know anything. I may not have my ducks all in a row. I may not have everything formally arranged. I may not have an audience for my papers, although I do have a few papers with definite ideas. I do have a set of ideas. These are, as time passes, emerging more and more coherently as a whole, constituting a genuine body of thought. My findings indicate that capitalism is an ever-changing arrangement that can either be self-generating, or, on the other hand, it can be consciously directed and intentionally modified. The modern world, so strongly based on capitalistic economic arrangements, is not at all something to be described as individual, or self-interested, although persons always describe it that way, but rather the world, with it's for-profit transactions, is a social world, and capitalism's economic arrangements are social arrangements, affecting all memebers of society. The requirements of capitalism are not merely requirements of individuals, for individual profit, and, if capitalism's purely social requirements are not met, the system will collapse completely. But, if capitalism is social -- or cooperative -- why is it described as "individual," especially in the United States? This is ideological. This is the function of ideology in society. What must change, then, is not only existing economic arrangements. Also, the wrong understanding must be corrected. Capitalism must be administered in an honest, democratic and transparent way.

Those are some of my conclusions. How I came to them is, of course, a story that is somewhat more involved.




What "genuine" means is that it could have some relevance. My ideas could create a better, more equitable economic arrangement, and contribute to security, in the real world. Correct economic theory should be relevant to the real world and not merely operate to rationalize and support whatever arrangements already exist.

Sunday, December 20, 2009

More Theory and Discovery

I have made a basic discovery in economics. Based on this breakthrough my position is that capitalism should progress. Capitalism can have stages. It is possible to move from one stage to the other. It is possible that capitalism must move to a new stage. It is possible that there is a new stage that needs to be achieved.
The kernel idea related to this new stage for capitalism comprises the basic discovery. Put into its most essential terms, and bordered by the limits in the present author's own knowledge, my discovery consists in understanding that there can be a form of capitalism that does not involve money payment but rather involves the provisioning of certain useful commodity goods to designated recipients. The suggestion is that physical goods be transferred to recipients who are otherwise not obtaining the basic physical wealth they need, in terms of food, usable water, etc. Such direct transfers of goods, from the developed world to the needy persons, do not involve the normal concept of money paid in exchange for goods.
Such an arrangement is perfectly rational. Of course, the commodities taken out (extracted is another word here) would have to be taken out in common, from the entire "industrialised" side itself, otherwise the donor gains unfair advantage over another party who is not giving.
Likewise, we cannot create inequality amongst recipients, but each person (region is another word here) that is a qualified recipient has to be given formal right to his or her individual share of this kind of transferred wealth product or commodity.
We now see that we are creating two categories, two designations that are like trading partners between which the wealth flows.

To recap, then: we transfer physical goods, in a way that does not primarily involve money, from one designated donor group to another designated recipient group.

We find that the result looks surprisingly like capitalism, rather than any violation of capitalism. This would comprise a new stage of capitalism.

The theoretical framework is completely sound, rational and defensible.





Based on this discovery I am a proponent of the view that capitalism should progress.

Thursday, December 17, 2009

New York, Over And Out

Well, my trip to N.Y. is over. At the end of this trip I found myself bleeding money faster than the TARP program.

I also saw a whole lot of goodwill bleeding from the N.Y. people.

I guess --- when you have both of those you're OK.

Monday, December 14, 2009

The Economic Aspect of Life

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The society functions on -or in some kind of relation to -an economic basis.

* * *

The persons that are the most influential are competitors who have varying amounts of property and money. Traditionally, within this system there are various ways of being a successful person. The plethora of types is overwhelming ---- a distraction. Clearly, society needs to perform a blocking action, in order to keep certain persons down. Thus, capitalist society appears to be based on the principle of the equality of money-carrying persons (i.e., anyone with money can buy any product), but there is also the reality that there is a method of keeping some persons out of that, or out of the money. That has to exist.

I have already mention what I call "social connection" elsewhere. It is like there is this whole social dimension to capitalism, which is not understood but which is actually very important. This, I would like to suggest, has an accidental aspect. This random or accidental quality, when I think about it, seems to come through very much as a colored balloon or a "Free Gift." Very capitalistic! It comes through accidentally. In the future, in the changes that I think will have to be made, if we are to save capitalism (which is a form of society, not a form of individualism), it is this aspect that I think would have to change. There is, then, an essential aspect, related to normative social life, that comes through like a gift. This social gift -- I guess that's the word for it -- should continue to be there, but not accidentally. I would think that it is the accidental aspect that would have to change. The social side, of course, is essential to capitalism: this is the necessary social side of capitalism. But in the future this has to be enforced. It has to be put there. This is what it means to have "reform" or "regulated" capitalism. I have written elsewhere clearly stating my side of the regulation vs. deregulation debate with no confusing context needed. What I said was that there needs to be conscious intervention.

This is of course just the "intervention in the market" conservatives are philosophically opposed to. My view, then, is that the social or gift aspect, or whatever it is, needs to be enforced. And I also have ideas as to how to do that, which I am explaining starting on last August tenth (and also just recently on December 20th, hint-hint).

Let's reason it out (as follows):

My view is that capitalism produces equality, although limited to some core set of market actors rather than being an equality that is extended to everyone, and thus we have global wealth inequality, deprivation, malnourishment, etc. But given that capitlaism produced equality, no critic (on the left for example, but it really doesn't seem to matter) would say that capitalism produced equality intentionally. Therefore it must be that capitalism produced equality accidentally. That, then, is precisely what must change. If capitalism produces equality accidentally -- in the past, in fact -- why oh why would that continue? Why would it continue? It just happened. It was not done with any intent or purpose. It was accidental to start with. There is no reason to suppose that the system now in force -- capitalism -- will continue to do in the future what it did by accident.

So therefore there does need to be intervention. I would ask the reader to now jump to the characteristic idea of mine, which is to say that world-wide distribution plan that I have begun to discuss on the August 10th post -- and you can fill in the kind of intervention for yourself, because it is obvious.

If you put it all together you get both of two parts, it seems to me. You see the idea about the need for some intentional policy or some intervention, in the economy. You get also the important information on just what the actual kind of intervention would be. So, now we've got both parts.

It should be a process of dividing into two trade parties the two extremes of capital accumulation and deprivation. These become the parties and there is a transfer from one to the other.
Want more details? OK.

There is no direct paying for things. It is therefore a kind of capitalism without money.

Goods are delivered to recipients on the basis of qualification or entitlements. If a person is in the bottom one or two fifths, for example (of globalization), that person is automatically qualified to receive. S /he may -- or may not -- get something but that person is qualified formally.

The theoretical system based on this idea seems to make sense. Whether it will be done I do not know. That's true. I do not know if the program as I envision it will happen but the idea makes so much sense that there must be benefit. Must be benefit, that is to say, somehow and of some kind, in having a discussion of this.

Abstraction

Neo-Classical microeconomics reduces things to numbers. Reducing things to numbers is like total equality in the abstract sense. Such a move positively invites its own violation. If you have a totally flat line, you want some humps to make it a graph. If an artist starts with a totally blank canvas he usually adds a bit of dimension by painting something.

Saturday, December 12, 2009

On the Changes of Capitalism, and its Problems and Discontents

For anyone who is independently-minded, and who bothers to look, the economy apparently goes through changes. At one time, historians, intellectuals and economists thought it was an "industrial" economy.

Is it smoke-belching factories that characterize capitalism? Is it the production of large numbers of identical goods? I guess not because then it changed. It changed to the "service economy" and then it changed again.

Some people want to get away from it all. But you can't get away. Capitalism seems to be synonymous with life. It changes but doesn't change. Should it change? Should it stay the same? These are the question philosophers have always grappled with. Is capitalism just some kind of naturally occurring "thing" that should just stay the same forever? Probably not; and most persons do not actually believe it. Still, there is always a permanent fire sale for free market fundamentalism going on.

Capitalism may be everywhere, --- But there is a problem with the economy and the problem I'd like to mention --- is that it is too passive -- for all you need do is follow the herd to get your share. Everyone want you to buy gold? You should probably buy it. Everyone likes to put money in the stock market? You should.

It is kind of bone-headed. Banks play their part, no doubt. They generate the illusion that the bank is lending money, instead of mentioning that what they do is create it. That is done, should the gentle reader ask, when they make loans. Money is literally created. (Because even after they loan money they still have it because of the nature of banks as the prime depositories for a civilization. It is all there to figure out, apparently, and quite amazing!) The implications are deep and far-reaching. It is not a minor matter. Still, I would like to return to my point about making the money passively. This is to say that they don't actually do anything. Now I knew this a long time ago! This is so obvious, and it is embarrassing to think of someone challenging me on the point: what do I say to someone like that? What if the questioner is a member of the media or something? (Yes! I fear Fox News.) Children can figure this out, it is so simple: it's direct, it's simple and it's intuitive, but we are basically being swamped with simultaneous information. We are enmeshed; we are embedded; and we are confused. Anyone can figure this stuff of for his or her self. They make their money passively. Children know this; adults forget.

Eventually, as this blog gets popular -- as I assume it ought to -- it may enter the stream of public discussion. Certain things are not reaching the public, whether intentionally or not -- that's hard to discern. I can't change the way the basic structures of human civilization or society work. I do not think so. If I am to enter the mainstream and all that, that's OK, but I have to phrase everything carefully. Which, by the way, I am already working on, you know.

This is how it works. We have to do things in a helpful way. I have in fact, and believe it or not, no interest in destroying anything. The precursor of this blogging activity (of my intellectual activity in general) is that I have had, or sort of been graced with a few original ideas in the vein of capitalist culture studies. And these original ideas open up a rich area of theoretical exploration. OK.

Friday, December 11, 2009

Social Capitalism

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The basic theory is that there had to be some humanity in it. That isn't going to come just from attaching prices to things.

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Thursday, December 10, 2009

I Am an Ugly, Dirty Man, who insists on imposing himself

The society is just not working. That's my observation upon observing ordinary persons. There is frustration everywhere. Do you claim not to see it?

You want to talk about economics? I see people with a good heart: I feel I see a lot of good hearted soul-type things, on my first days in N. Y. City. You notice that shit. OK?

But the frustration is increasing, and it's the truth,....and this is general --- some people just laugh when I say stuff like this --- spread out like a William S. Burroughs-type virus, it's everywhere. It's not just one or two persons. (And the neo-Classical idea about prices is absurd.)

The society is just not working and the only persons that should "b" afraid to admit that are ones that "r" weird (not me!!) or creepy --- or totally oriented towards the self. What do these words mean? --- "free" ; "free competition" ; "free enterprise"? It cannot mean a person that is totally free, totally ... isolated. I

Take a phrase. "Free to trade." Does that mean "free to hurt"? "Free to not care"?

We just got done being "ruled" -- presided on by a presedential quality whose one good quality -- or try this: one interior quality -- is/was his absolute belief in himself ("Dead Certain" is a title to note). These guys? Who they?

I have this to say. Their salient (try: interior) quality is precisely their absolute belief in themselves. How can we crack the code? How can we understand what drives these people?

* * * * *

I don't know what it all means but that's where I am in my work. What is economics? The only economy left is between the street folks -- the peeps on the beggar level collecting cans on the street -- and the "credit" people. That fits the word "Economics" because the street persons are in a balance with something other than themselves (the normal or "Money" people).

In capitalism you make money in an economy. You act in balance. It is a balanced situation, of distinct qualities, not just quantity, such as price quanitity or number of cents of dollars.

It is necessarily social. But, we can't admit that. This is what I have found and the material I work with as a private scholar.

It is necessarily social. The award, best "capitalist", does not go to he who is oblivious to others.

Everything Converges on a Hotel in New York

That blog post about the Dutchie-Wutchies -- bottom 1/2 of "Is It Poetry" post from December 1st -- coincidentally [interjection: maybe I meant "synchronistically"] arrives prior to my physical arrival in bi-polar disordered N.Y.C. (see two posts back).

It seems like I've got New York on my mind but not really. After all, it is a major U.S. cultural center. ...And, I'd visited a few times as a kid, later on as an artist.

Now I paint everything in terms of "capitalism."

Guess I'm still an artist.
* * *
Capitalism is a complex concatenation of various influences.
Everything converges on New York.
My third hotel suckes like all the others --- but the Grshwin H-tel duz provide me "American Quotations" (Wing Books, N. J., 1992 -- orig. 1988). It's a book, Okay? Includes this:

" Mad, adj. Affected with a high degree of intellectual independence; not conforming to standards of thought, speech and action derived by the conformants [sic] from study of themselves; at odds with the majority. In short unusual [try: different]. It is noteworthy that.....[etc.] "
-Bierce, 1906

BIg Apple, 2

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Yesterday, or thereabouts ([interjection: my research department informs me it was 2:15 PM on Tuesday]maybe the day before), we were introduced to N.Y. as a place where 1) everyone is so civilized and advanced and sophisticated and elegant and so forth and 2) where you do not have to study economics because, well---you can see it.

Today, the grim reality sets in

One side of New Yawk is utter chaos. The other is the "social" side, as I call it, of capitalism.

Capitalism organized the mass of Western human beings. This is why I always cast capitalism in terms of nowhere else but ---- the West.

There seem to be two sides to New York --- and, by extension this Western-dominated world where we have the noble opportunity to live.

Look back to the opening days of the United States. First there were troubles concerning the overbearing authoritarianism of the Mother country, of England. These were addressed by the Continental Congress, the colonists' own body. Ultimately, the decision came down: rebel. Then for the first few years there was chaos.

What happens next?

Wednesday, December 9, 2009

Question

Q: What does capitalism actually do?

A: The first thing that it does, is: that it grows. It creates a larger and larger wealth base. Which circulates; it is traded. Soros finds two sectors. He thinks there is a real economy consisting of real products, and then there is the financial sector. What does the financial sector of a two-part Soros economy do?

A: Easy. It distributes. It finds ways to distribute the growing material wealth base out to the population of a growing nation. As for the material side, it too distributes. Both of the Sorosian sides distribute. The financial sector is different, though. The "f" sector distributes, but, unlike the material sector, it does not produce anything, only distributes.

To review one point, briefly, the wealth base ("it creates a large and larger wealth base...") has to be traded; this is clear because one always produces for customers. If you cannot sell it, you would not produce it. So production and distribution occur hand-in-hand in the physical economy, but the financial sector is different. Which of these two sectors sounds more healthy?

The capitalist world has these two parts: the material part and the financial parts The material part of the two-part Soros economic model both produces and distributes. The financial part only distributes. The financial part must be parasitic on the material part. This is my own view, of course, not Mr. Soros's.


That's today lesson, folks. Next week, we examine "Lords of Finance," which is a book, and ask as to who these guys are. All that I know now is: A book has been written that came out recently on the "Lords of Finance" --- in the depression-era of the 1930's. ... There were apparently three of four of them, one for each major so-called "industrialized country."

Tuesday, December 8, 2009

Big Apple

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Boarding the Train


Here,in N.Y, you don't have to study the economy: you can see the economy. You/I can tell just by looking at these people that they have real jobs. Their air or vibe.

Graceful, competent, articulate...

It's a real step up from what I saw on the Amtrak from Chicago (Got on in Indiana, actually).

Today I'm going to go see my sister ---- who is a "real" psychiatrist. No ... OK , Accurately? - Therapist. - And she seems sooo oh ... competent at it lately. OMG! I'd better shut up! So excited to be in New Yawk.

But think of the economy that's not so "real." Chicago even. OMG! Now I'm looking at an eleven year old boy with more class than most adults from Chicago.

Now let's go from Chicago to, for example, Beloit, Wisconsin. There are peoples there too.... Now to the "third-World."

Well, white people love statistics. So, we know there are five billion on the planet earth. In New York, not even one billion. New York, like Chicago, seems so incredibly big And, well---it is. The entire population of earth, 200 years ago, about I think 100 million. 1,000 years ago -- two million and 10,000 years ago... Who the heck knows? There's a lotta things we don't know.

But today, our society is none other than capitalism. My thought on society is that it's indisputable that humans exist in societies, and (capitalism) is is a vast organizing system (society) for human beings. Salient?

I think it is. And our "society" may have at one time been called the fiefdom, later the country, or state (nation-state) and, now, the whole global capitalist world. But there are still wealth disparities. My idea (for ex., in item posted Aug 10th) is that of a balancing between these, creating a more balanced condition.

We should create a trade arrangement, and this is just like any other trade situation, a trade arrangement where by means of a second method, placed over on top of the first (this is "choice"!) --- we trade goods over to the deprived --- but simply not asking for money in return. So, it's like a non-market trade method.

The moral of the story, t hen, is that: "you don't need to get paid to have capitalist trade."

++The End++

Tuesday, December 1, 2009

Underlying Honesty

"Freedom" to Americans apparently means "freedom to cheat." But there had to be some kind of underlying honesty --- otherwise, capitalism could not have succeeded.

So the idea here is that capitalism creates something that I call "social connection."

In practice, it does just the opposite of what hypocrites and liars think they are doing. What they believe it is and what it is are not the same thing. What they actually create is not selfishness but sociality. And I suppose that if this element of sociality is not preserved, everything would just naturally just crash. How to preserve the precious sociality? Which, by the way, we were not admitting (existed).
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There is a way. This appears to be the basic trade idea I had. Now go you have to go to the August 10th post. OK?

Is It Poetry or Is It Economics? Only your Hairdresser Knows...

A TV review - abc t.v. 7, Chicago - - A Sun evening drama: tobogganing, fashion photog--

notes:
Is it reality or is it unreality. We dont know. Are these people competent or incompetent? Again --- dont kno. Incompetence seems to be the last endearing characteristic.
"Where is the reality" seems a very good question. I am too smart for my own good. Now as I comprehend the plot: A rich kid hires a pretend family. But the plot goes awry. Complications ensue.

joinplannow.org
since 1937

reality is very hard to find

America as a land/culture based on ploys (George Santayana, People&P, p. 80, /// ...her view of the S____ family and of B [U. S. city] in general, as she unfolded it to us merrily at home, though friendly and kindly, was frankly comic; ..." and p. 87, "There is curious cruelty mixed sometimes with American shrewdness and humor. The sharp mind finds things queer, crooked, perverse; it puns around them; and it doesn't see why they shouldn't be expected and commanded to be quite other than they are; but all this without much hope of mending them, and a sardonic grin. " The author of the book goes on with these recollections, and in a way that shows up Americans as: perverse, hypocritical, detached, superficial and lacking Santayana says on p. 88 with regard to an old New England preacher, "wisdom." Agreed.

Very strange how Americans view perverseness and unreality as a bargaining chip. Maybe that is how life –the system --has been working all along. You can do your best at lying and deceiving your way through life----and, at some point, you go as high as such as that will take you and there you stop anyway (because after all you were lying. You were not ethical.) But, it is not the perversity that creates the limit: it is the stop point itself, in the market. After all, what else is life? Just a big competition. What does this create? Essence of Olay? Perfume? Once again I am reminded of Neitzche's essay, "The Great Blond Beast." Here, many years earlier, he nailed this quality -- this was years before Hitler spelled out its actuality. Neitzche, in this essay, discusses, in a very profound way, I thought, the Europeans. He discusses Europeans, or maybe Germanic persons, as these monsters returned home from some "campaign" where they had raped women, plundered, etc., and the brilliant Neitzche points out how they, upon returning, think highly of what they have done. It striks me as excellent, this Neitzche piece. I do not know if I received the point with total precision of understanding, or I am applying my own version of it. But, from my point of view, it is one hell of an astounding good essay, on subjects usually untouched. It is called "The Great Blond Beast."

The Americans, it seems, have got the same problem. And where can we expect this to lead us? You are not perfect of great, just because you is Americansky. And now for something --- Well, different:



The Dutchy-Wutchy People

When "they" --the Dutch people in this case --originally colonized U. S. country on site at "New Netherland," as Holland's elites named it --- they did it for money. But you have to remember that the Dutch were, culturally, familiarized to markets and money. The fact is that they were the main European group involved in the trading activity of that particular time in the development of capitalism. According to F. Braudel, the great historian of material culture, trade and finance --these being Braudel's three spheres of culture as it relates to economics, later, this sort of Capital cities of capitalism would move on. Later it is London, and not Amsterdam or Bruge as it had been earlier, and, still later: New York.
As for the current center or capitol city, whether it has become Dubai is a matter that remains yet unsettled.

At any rate, the Dutch were the main trading people of that time. Yes, capitalism is about making money bets ---- but it is about making money bets against reality, and it is not done against money itself. That's a no-no, fellas and you should knock it off.