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xssve -> RE: The myth of endless economic growth (3/25/2012 2:09:05 PM)
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ORIGINAL: Musicmystery
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This? I don't think you quite get what this thread is about.
Oh, I do. It's about whining that the evil in the world is so great that there's nothing to do but complain.
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And all business is both speculative and gambling, if the economic term you based your calculations on change in the middle of the investment, it alters the basis of that speculation, that what other speculators do.
That's quite a generalization. All investment holds risks, yes. All everything holds risks. But you're playing pretty loose with the terms gambling and speculating. Taking a stab at corn futures is speculating. You're guessing. Going to the casino is gambling. Looking that fundamentals of a business and investing, your own or others, is hardly the same. We calculate risks continually. Driving to work is a risk, but hardly a gamble.
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You're saying that all those Enron Employees should quit complaining because Enron's management altered the terms they based their decision to buy Enron stock on?
Sounds to me like you're blaming the victim, I think you've got the disease, not the cure.
Wow. What a maroon. Just where did I say that, farty? Enron's actions were criminal; Enron's employees didn't have a choice of investment. We aren't talking apples and oranges here. They also had all their investment in one stock, hardly ever a good idea.
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You are back at clinging to a model that you admit isn't working anymore.
You mean making things people need and selling those to them is an outdated model? It always works, but it's always a gamble, it's called risk - there is no model that doesn't involve risk, if you aren't taking any risk, somebody else is taking it for you.
Again, you're making shit up, and you're clinging to a short term model. In fact, I said exactly the opposite, didn't I, that meeting those needs will also fuel economic growth. However, clinging to the one particular way you do things as needs and conditions continually evolve is, indeed, going to become outdated. You could, instead, pay attention and grow, adjust, change as the needs and conditions do. That's what successful businesses do.
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I thought you were kinda smart, but it appears you swallowed all that "New Economy" bullshit. I suspect it will keep working - for a while, but flat out, it's unsustainable, anything to the contrary is pure fantasy.
I have no idea what you're talking about -- "New Economy"?
Again, people will always have needs, and meeting those needs will also provide economic opportunities.
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Lol, again, you appear to have no alternatives other than what? Stock market speculation? The stock market is not capitalism, in fact it's outlived any usefulness it ever had and exists only as parasitic overhead on the real economy, it's only hastening our demise.
Wow, are you full of shit. No, I'm answering the sandstorm from the peanut gallery that wants to make something simple into futures speculation, and I was answering other posters.
I've already told you my solution several times. Address people's needs. That's economic growth. That's how to get a job. That's how to start a business. That's how to earn extra cash. That's now to invest. What, you want me to design a new business for you? Find you a new job? What?
I'm saying sitting around whining is probably not getting the kind of results you'd like to see. Maybe it's time to try something else.
Nor am I defending the wave of speculation contributing to the global food crisis or higher oil prices (which are going to rise anyway because of increased global demand), nor the misuse of financial markets, nor corporate greed, nor the other hosts of monetary evils. Nowhere--that's what you guys are reading into things, a knee-jerk reaction to the topic.
But you're over-reacting. You're taking some high profile instances and assuming that's the entire business and financial world. It's not. Not even close. New sustainable models are invented every day. Hell, my new home will require no heat at all--in the US NE! Absolutely, I'll be sharing that project with as many people as possible, probably a new book at that. That's a new model--no heating bills. How? Simply designing the house to absorb heat in the first place (with the help of a clever architect friend).
My part time business is exactly helping people to get on their feet, job wise, business wise, getting past the assumptions that are holding them in place. But first, stop doing what isn't working.
And attacking me all day isn't going to make you any more successful either, and isn't going to help anyone else.
Knock it off and open your eyes. There are multiple opportunities, once you stop convincing yourself it's all hopeless. Stop playing the victim. Argue for your limitations, and they'll be yours. If that's what you want.
I'm continually amazed that people feel happiness is too great a price to pay.
I dunno man, you're making me crazy here, you keep saying I'm wrong, but offering no alternatives - here you're telling me that bitching is wrong, but that you're job is basically bitching at people - the bitching I do in here is not paying my bills, it's exercising my civic duty by taking advantage of the first amendment, and I plan to keep doing until that son-of-bitch is repealed, and if, like you, I could make money doing it then I might try that too.
Meantime, you don't seem to understand that bitching is shaping the macroeconomy as we speak by influencing microeconomic policy, and in that abstract realm of our collective narrative of reality, bitching is about all there is - things got where they are because of a bunch of people who have been bitching since the British decided to apply labor regulation during the industrial revolution, they're been bitching a long fucking time,ad loud enough to drown out all the contrary bitching, tricking people into bitching for them, and paying still others to bitch even more, they bitched till the got their way, an now we have a de facto unregulated financial markets because of it - so don not sit there and tell me that bitching has no effect - none of that bitching got much of anywhere while there were still people around who remembered the '29 crash, but now that all those fuckers are dead, all the sudden it seems like a good idea, like nobody ever thought of this shit before.
And, when they fall completely on their faces and drag everybody down with them - again - then everybody will bitch about the opposite - my only regret here is that I cannot bitch loudly enough to be heard over all the whining about regulation and taxation, or long enough to keep this shit from happening all over again.
We're talking here about the macroeconomy,and the microeconomy is inextricably linked to the macroeconomy - the macro is the aggregate of the micro, plus all the bitching, i.e, the narrative that describes the abstract paradigm of what is: what works, what is real, what is fair, what is desirable, etc., etc., and it's all bitching - capitalists bitching about commies, commies bitching about capitalists, people bitching about too many taxes, people bitching about too much debt, people bitching about resource depletion, people bitching that resources aren't being depleted fast enough - that abstract facet of the macroeconomy is nothing but bitching - in fact it's got it's own economic school of thought devoted to it - the theory of rational expectations, ratex economics.
The stock market rises and falls on this shit - Lehman was killed by the combination of a rumor, and an unconvincing PR performance by Fuld - they had real problems, no question, but it was ratex put the bullet between their eyes.
You can't tell the future, the future is unknowable, it's all a gamble, however you try to talk it away - all we have to rely on is perceptions so perceptions matter. The difference between Lay and Fuld is that Lay was a better bullshitter, Fuld couldn't keep a straight face, though in this case, the result was the same due to the facts of the underlying empirical realities.
In both cases however, they both managed to convey a perception of things that was at at odds with the empirical reality, and were undone by somebody bitching about it - and there were consequences to that, both macro and microeconomic.
So save your bitching for the people who pay you to bitch at them Dr. Pangloss, I got a handle on it baby, I'm way ahead of you, you're looking at bits and pieces.
And get ready for some real bitching - on the fucking house.
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