RE: The myth of endless economic growth

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mnottertail -> RE: The myth of endless economic growth (3/22/2012 7:31:03 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: DesideriScuri quote: ORIGINAL: tweakabelle In the west everything is secondary to profit, in the east everything was secondary to the State's interests. Tell me what is wrong with profit. And, I can assure that while profit is extremely important to most companies, it is not the only thing important to companies. The things that are important to companies, and the only things that are important to companies are selling, and cutting costs. Profit arises from that. There is nothing else.Not ever.

Edwynn -> RE: The myth of endless economic growth (3/22/2012 8:47:29 AM)
Danke. It would be a bit much to expect companies, especially the smaller and smallest ones, to be Mother Theresa with Karen Carpenter face in all their struggling to function at all. There are a few sole proprietorships that find some niche of both market and their own livable income where costs might be of slightly lesser concern, but for the most part cost is the nemesis of a decent net revenue. This is why we have regulation, so that companies are not infernally beset with the quandary of whether to be a goody-two-shoes or using the cheaper but more poisonous ingredient in their product. The referee regulatory agency, when done right, levels the playing field and relieves businesses of the burden of sainthood as would interfere with paying the bills and the workers. As long as everybody else has to play by the same rules, the business has an even chance. All we are saying, is give peas a chance, etc. It was vegetables, before meat, that brought refrigeration to the modern world, being as that salted vegetables never made a go of it in the market, whereas salted meat survived the new fad of refrigeration for more than a decade.

mnottertail -> RE: The myth of endless economic growth (3/22/2012 8:53:20 AM)
Oh, shit, they will paint themselves that way, it is part of the 'marketing strategy' (that would be selling) and they will do it cost efficiently (that will be cutting costs). It dont matter what lipstick you put on that pig, that is what WE (because I am one of them) do. I grow or die, how I get that is within the law (usually, actually almost always because its just me, there is no corporation to spread the issue, responsibility, or conscience) and if there is no speciifc prohibition..........well, I will cry 'free market', and 'socialism'.

Edwynn -> RE: The myth of endless economic growth (3/22/2012 9:24:20 AM)
Are you talking about those "I want the best for my family" toilet paper commercials? The ones that imply you are a borderline child abuser if you do not buy their product? Yes, Mother Theresa does in fact sell toilet paper, or so they would have you believe. But as to costs of marketing, for the ginormous corporations ... In my former life as an audio techno-person and lighting techno-person and otherwise essentially the equivalent of a circus roustabout for live shows in general, I have worked on a few movies and a few commercial shoots. You would not believe the trouble taken for the largest adverts, though I only worked on a few big ones, not the largest. We spent three days in the Asheville area for only two POVs of a car coming around a curve. The budgets for commercials that sell product specifically to the target demographic of 18-45 yr. old males, such as the beer commercials, can be as large as the total budgets for an 8-10week shoot of a lower grade movie. These are the situations where sales volume is the master. Cost of marketing is considered less an extravagance if you hit a home run on sales.

mnottertail -> RE: The myth of endless economic growth (3/22/2012 9:34:26 AM)
increase sales cost, once obtaining the next level, and operating at it, you cut costs, labor, and so on. If I sell that beer, I am taking beer drinkers away from you, so you cut costs. I will hire your labor cheaper, or cheapen mine with the threat of hiring them. What I said holds, as does what you said. It takes money to make money. GM, who has fought us for years and years on mileage, has no problem making those high mileage cars in China.

Edwynn -> RE: The myth of endless economic growth (3/22/2012 9:59:02 AM)
Thanks for the reminder in that last. Cost of lobbying has to be worked into the equation also. Who needs a separate country corruption index. The mpg requirements would do the job just as well.

DesideriScuri -> RE: The myth of endless economic growth (3/22/2012 10:32:52 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: mnottertail quote: ORIGINAL: DesideriScuri quote: ORIGINAL: tweakabelle In the west everything is secondary to profit, in the east everything was secondary to the State's interests. Tell me what is wrong with profit. And, I can assure that while profit is extremely important to most companies, it is not the only thing important to companies. The things that are important to companies, and the only things that are important to companies are selling, and cutting costs. Profit arises from that. There is nothing else.Not ever. Sorry, but you are wrong. The company my soon-to-be-ex-wife is an exception. They pay out hundreds of thousands of dollars a month in health benefits. The offer a Cadillac plan, so they'll cough up an extra $300k because they are providing such good benefits. They would have to pay <$600k/year as a tax penalty to drop coverage completely. They are self-insured, so all bennies are paid by them up to a Stop-Loss of $100k/employee/year. There are co-pays that have been pushed onto their employees. Ownership has already made it known that they value their employees enough to continue providing health benefits at their current level for as long as they can, regardless of how much money they'd save by dropping employee coverage altogether. What Capitalist bastards, huh? One other little thing: Employees pay $0 towards premiums. Company even pays that. But, yeah, it's all about profit.

mnottertail -> RE: The myth of endless economic growth (3/22/2012 10:36:02 AM)
Don't see where I am wrong, in what you have said. But thanks for the my cats mothers uncles cousins wifes anecdote on the internet without a shred of evidence. I am usre that they are the only ones. Funny such altruism hasn't made the paper when if even a fuckin rat terrier falls down a wellpipe in Dismal Seepage, Tenn'see, the BBC will carry the story.

xssve -> RE: The myth of endless economic growth (3/22/2012 10:36:08 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: mnottertail quote: ORIGINAL: DesideriScuri quote: ORIGINAL: tweakabelle In the west everything is secondary to profit, in the east everything was secondary to the State's interests. Tell me what is wrong with profit. And, I can assure that while profit is extremely important to most companies, it is not the only thing important to companies. The things that are important to companies, and the only things that are important to companies are selling, and cutting costs. Profit arises from that. There is nothing else.Not ever. Well this is how the invisible hand is supposed to work: competition creates the incentive to reinvest capital in capital improvements in order to remain competitive - this condition is ideally called "the level playing field", not Laissez faire, which presupposes markets regulate themselves without intervention - they don't - the first thing firms do when they get big enough is attempt to crush or absorb the competition, and increase their market share, the logical limit of which is monopoly - it's human nature, it's in their self interest to do so, and nobody knew that better than Adam Smith - it's usually the Randists and the fundies who are convinced that unregulated capital can do no wrong. And, the level playing field works, as long as nobody gets so big they can distort the market, and buy political favor - we passed that point a long time ago, started with banking deregulation, but went from protecting Microsofts monopoly and marketshare, to bailing out financial institutions themselves. There is effectively no regulation in financial markets at this date, government intervention is confined to shoveling more borrowed capital into them every time they fuck up, which is increasingly frequently, and your rule of profit taking unquestionably applies - the "ownership society" is essentially a nation rentiers, who produce nothing, and live off the produce of others - that production gravitates to the least regulated labor markets, in this case, China and the Pacific rim, Mexico, etc. Capital improvements are made in those economies, but almost none in our own - only a small handful of industries in the US have been upgraded to the level of Asian manufacturing, that's where the capital is flowing, because that' s where the markets are - Germany, Japan and Switzerland are the world leading manufacturing powerhouses. So, in an unregulated capital market like that the tendency will be towards increasing monopolization by a handful of companies, hegemonic kept in place by financial rent seekers, unassailable if no one is willing or capable of capitalizing competition - which takes work, and nobody wants to do that if they can go golfing instead. For US labor, w/respect to republican debt financing and profit worship ("prosperity", they call it) it looks like we're going to have to compete with the Chinese, meaning gutting labor laws, including child labor, and turning back the clock to an industrial dystopia that is very little different from feudal slavery, given that - they call it "the flock" for a reason, and at some point they have to turn the dogs loose if they don't want the herd to wander. It doesn't have to be that way of course, we're just doing what the Europeans did from the 1200's onward, whereas they learned their lessons: as I said, Germany, Japan and Switzerland are the world leading manufacturing powerhouses, and all that in spite of tighter labor laws, labor market socialization, and overall higher costs of production than we have in the US. What they did do was not sacrifice their manufacturing sector to their financial sector - from a purely economic perspective, the form of government here is almost irrelevant, other than it was a form that didn't have it's nose completely buried up the financial sectors ass. In most ways, turns out economics is just too damned important to be left up to capitalists, is how that shakes out. The republicans are just dead wrong on this: lip service ain't enough, when those lips are so firmly wrapped around finance dick (prosperity!), in very practical sense, it's everybody's money (it's damn sure everybody's debt) and there will be hell to pay for letting our manufacturing edge slip way for easy profits, with the manufacturing goes the brain drain, doesn't do anybody any good to invent things that nobody here can make. We had one good chance to get it back on track in 2000, but half the country stood there and watched Bush piss it away. We got privatized profits and socialized risk, it violates the principles of capitalism, and it violates the social compact, given the implications in the not-so-distant future. Capital improvements, whether in the labor or the manufacturing market, takes capital, and I've described several scenarios above that illustrate what can happen depending on whether or not you leave it to markets alone to allocate capital. In the current scenario, looks a lot like the rats are loading up the lifeboats with loot and preparing to repel all boarders, the rest of us are going to have to swim for it. Going to be interesting, that's all I can tell you.

mnottertail -> RE: The myth of endless economic growth (3/22/2012 10:41:31 AM)
Agreed, everyone quotes the 'invisible hand' but fail to read the entire surrounding anatomy. Adam Smith was the fucking head of customs in England during our Revolution. He also had 4 absolute reasons for tarriffs, and everybody forgets and outright ignores that. But just because Adam Smith thought something, it was not necessarily any more true than if the head of our part of the WTO thought something.

Musicmystery -> RE: The myth of endless economic growth (3/22/2012 12:14:10 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Kainundeva quote: ORIGINAL: Musicmystery quote: ORIGINAL: vincentML quote: ORIGINAL: Musicmystery Will more people mean more needs? Will more people mean more hands available to work toward those needs? That's economic growth. I think the trend is currently in place and quite visible. That's exactly your problem and the problem of several posts after yours. It's a trend! Well why didn't you say so! People's gross misunderstanding of economics blahblah How is higher production possible? There will be more people. That simple. blahbla ok. and you really think there will be unlimited people growth? What a silly question. If there's no population growth, then the scarcity problem the OP outlines doesn't exist--more for everyone. Not an increase in production, but de facto the same thing.

vincentML -> RE: The myth of endless economic growth (3/22/2012 12:16:01 PM)
quote: There are more likely much freer markets under socialism because of direct govt. involvement, rather than private greed and risk taking and particularly with other people's money. This statement contradicts itself. How can a market be free if there is direct government involvement? What is your definition of "free?" quote: As I've written, most of our economy would be unchanged without wall street and the big investment banks. They do NOT serve society at all. They merely create a piece of paper upon which to speculate and in some cases even manipulate markets, all with the goal of selling paper for somebody else's money. What other mechanism is there to finance new businesses then if not the banks and private lenders? Your formulation seems absurd. Sorry, it just does. Until you explain alternate financing. quote: Socialism whether the partisan puppets and lemmings think they know or not...IS the govt. OWNERSHIP of the means of production...period. All that means is that the govt. could choose if voted upon to own a piece of say Microsoft (stock, private or public) and thus have a measure of control, NOT complete control of any means of production. It is simply ownership and some board control but not complete control. Like not completely pregnant, just a little bit pregnant. Sorta tried that in Germany and Italy. Mussolini called it "Corporatism" I think. How did that work out?

Musicmystery -> RE: The myth of endless economic growth (3/22/2012 12:16:26 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: DesideriScuri quote: ORIGINAL: mnottertail quote: ORIGINAL: DesideriScuri quote: ORIGINAL: tweakabelle In the west everything is secondary to profit, in the east everything was secondary to the State's interests. Tell me what is wrong with profit. And, I can assure that while profit is extremely important to most companies, it is not the only thing important to companies. The things that are important to companies, and the only things that are important to companies are selling, and cutting costs. Profit arises from that. There is nothing else.Not ever. Sorry, but you are wrong. The company my soon-to-be-ex-wife is an exception. They pay out hundreds of thousands of dollars a month in health benefits. The offer a Cadillac plan, so they'll cough up an extra $300k because they are providing such good benefits. They would have to pay <$600k/year as a tax penalty to drop coverage completely. They are self-insured, so all bennies are paid by them up to a Stop-Loss of $100k/employee/year. There are co-pays that have been pushed onto their employees. Ownership has already made it known that they value their employees enough to continue providing health benefits at their current level for as long as they can, regardless of how much money they'd save by dropping employee coverage altogether. What Capitalist bastards, huh? One other little thing: Employees pay $0 towards premiums. Company even pays that. But, yeah, it's all about profit. And they do that through---attention to the bottom line. There's no mission if there's no margin. You are perversely arguing backwards a point I often make in seminars--most people in business are good, honest, caring, because (1) that's who they are and (2) it's good for business.

vincentML -> RE: The myth of endless economic growth (3/22/2012 12:37:33 PM)
quote: If there's no population growth, then the scarcity problem the OP outlines doesn't exist--more for everyone. Not an increase in production, but de facto the same thing. If there is population growth there will be economic growth per your earlier comments. Now if there is no population growth there will be no scarcity problem. Seems like the best of all possible worlds. It works out well either way. But if there is no population growth, how can there be economic growth [your earlier premise] ? But let's deal with reality. Population growth is slowing in some nations and exploding in other parts of the world, accompanied by an increase in poverty, a lack of capital, and an increase in insurgency. The world's population is growing but not the world's wealth. How does that reality fit into your equation?

mynxkat -> RE: The myth of endless economic growth (3/22/2012 1:23:25 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: DesideriScuri quote: ORIGINAL: Iamsemisweet Any ecosystem has a population that it can sustain. We have reached ours and probably passed it. I fail to see how a population of 10 billion will be sustainable or productive. What we will have is a minority hanging on to their resource sucking lifestyle, and the vast majority living in not so quiet desperation. Meanwhile, the natural world, the thing that made this world beautiful, will be completely consumed. It is a very painful thing to watch for those of us who value species other than human beings and worship things besides the dollar. I am actually glad I won't be alive to see it come to pass. What, then, is the answer? If we accept your assumption of having reached ours (without accepting we've passed it), are we simply fucked, or is there something that can be done? Let's say the Illuminati conspiracies are true and they take over the world tomorrow. They choose you to be Sir Lord Emperor of Earth, bestowing upon you all power and authority. Then, they gather a meeting with you and say, "Oh, by the way, since you're new here and all, we thought we'd just let you know that the Earth can not handle more human population. You need to fix it. What is your first move? Can we assume instant implementation of any plan I choose to put into motion, ignoring logistics of exactly HOW it gets implemented? If so, my first move is mandatory reversible sterilization of EVERY human over the age of 12. You earn the right to reproduce based on demonstrated ability to support yourself. Even then, you are limited to replacement value on children you bear or sire, unless there are exceedingly special circumstances, such as superlative ability in your chosen career field. It gets complex from there, but you only asked for the first move. The problem with our planet at the moment is not a LACK of resources, it's inadequate distribution of the resources we have. Don't get me wrong, I am not advocating any sort of socialist or communist style government with that statement. It's just that, as far as I can see, most of our major problems boil down to that simple statement. As far as climate change goes- we don't know enough to assign a reason to the current changes in climate we're witnessing. We can only guess. This does NOT rule out the possibility that humans as a species are at least in part responsible for some of the climate changes, nor does it rule out possibilities of causes beyond our influence. My own personal guess is that it's a combination of at least three different effects heterodyning. One solid fact is that no matter what happens to humanity or other species on the planet as a result of our current cycle, the planet itself will survive and recover.

DesideriScuri -> RE: The myth of endless economic growth (3/22/2012 1:39:48 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Musicmystery quote: ORIGINAL: DesideriScuri quote: ORIGINAL: mnottertail quote: ORIGINAL: DesideriScuri quote: ORIGINAL: tweakabelle In the west everything is secondary to profit, in the east everything was secondary to the State's interests. Tell me what is wrong with profit. And, I can assure that while profit is extremely important to most companies, it is not the only thing important to companies. The things that are important to companies, and the only things that are important to companies are selling, and cutting costs. Profit arises from that. There is nothing else.Not ever. Sorry, but you are wrong. The company my soon-to-be-ex-wife is an exception. They pay out hundreds of thousands of dollars a month in health benefits. The offer a Cadillac plan, so they'll cough up an extra $300k because they are providing such good benefits. They would have to pay <$600k/year as a tax penalty to drop coverage completely. They are self-insured, so all bennies are paid by them up to a Stop-Loss of $100k/employee/year. There are co-pays that have been pushed onto their employees. Ownership has already made it known that they value their employees enough to continue providing health benefits at their current level for as long as they can, regardless of how much money they'd save by dropping employee coverage altogether. What Capitalist bastards, huh? One other little thing: Employees pay $0 towards premiums. Company even pays that. But, yeah, it's all about profit. And they do that through---attention to the bottom line. There's no mission if there's no margin. You are perversely arguing backwards a point I often make in seminars--most people in business are good, honest, caring, because (1) that's who they are and (2) it's good for business. Which is opposite how business people are portrayed by the media and those on the left. Plus, it was put out to counter mnottertail's allegations that it's only about profits.

Edwynn -> RE: The myth of endless economic growth (3/22/2012 1:54:16 PM)
quote: The world's population is growing but not the world's wealth. The world's wealth is in fact growing, and for the most part has been doing so over time. Wealth is not just a simple measure of basic physical resources such as commodities, it is the value put on finished products and services. The value of goods and services is what historically increases over time, this being due to advancement in technology. Increased technology improves efficiency, lowering cost, and it increases the productivity of labor, meaning a greater output per worker for a given hour or day. This is bourne out by looking at historical data on per capita real (inflation adjusted) GDP and observing that the figure usually increases over time, depression/recession bumps aside. Another way to look at it is to just look around and take a cursory accounting of your house and how many items are in it. Compare this to 100 years ago. The increase in 'stuff' is more than what can be accounted for by increase in population. The most developed economies are usually near limit on both capital inputs and population (labor), so technology is what accounts for continued growth.

Iamsemisweet -> RE: The myth of endless economic growth (3/22/2012 1:58:40 PM)
Am I the only person on here who has the slightest interest in human's negative impact on other species and the natural world? I guess so.

DesideriScuri -> RE: The myth of endless economic growth (3/22/2012 2:02:44 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: mynxkat quote: ORIGINAL: DesideriScuri quote: ORIGINAL: Iamsemisweet Any ecosystem has a population that it can sustain. We have reached ours and probably passed it. I fail to see how a population of 10 billion will be sustainable or productive. What we will have is a minority hanging on to their resource sucking lifestyle, and the vast majority living in not so quiet desperation. Meanwhile, the natural world, the thing that made this world beautiful, will be completely consumed. It is a very painful thing to watch for those of us who value species other than human beings and worship things besides the dollar. I am actually glad I won't be alive to see it come to pass. What, then, is the answer? If we accept your assumption of having reached ours (without accepting we've passed it), are we simply fucked, or is there something that can be done? Let's say the Illuminati conspiracies are true and they take over the world tomorrow. They choose you to be Sir Lord Emperor of Earth, bestowing upon you all power and authority. Then, they gather a meeting with you and say, "Oh, by the way, since you're new here and all, we thought we'd just let you know that the Earth can not handle more human population. You need to fix it. What is your first move? Can we assume instant implementation of any plan I choose to put into motion, ignoring logistics of exactly HOW it gets implemented? If so, my first move is mandatory reversible sterilization of EVERY human over the age of 12. You earn the right to reproduce based on demonstrated ability to support yourself. Even then, you are limited to replacement value on children you bear or sire, unless there are exceedingly special circumstances, such as superlative ability in your chosen career field. So,you are simply going to solve the problem of overpopulation through attrition. Would it work? Probably. Obviously, if we stop producing babies and our age continue to die, population will drop. Feasibility is definitely a question (and you already commented to ignoring the implementation), and we haven't even brought up the morals or ethics. Thank you, mynxkat, for actually answering the question. quote: It gets complex from there, but you only asked for the first move. The problem with our planet at the moment is not a LACK of resources, it's inadequate distribution of the resources we have. Don't get me wrong, I am not advocating any sort of socialist or communist style government with that statement. It's just that, as far as I can see, most of our major problems boil down to that simple statement. I would even go as far as to say that we do have a lack of resources. There will always be inefficiencies, even within a free market. Plus, we have the logistics cost. We can grow enough grain, but how much is it going to cost to distribute? We need to grow enough grain in enough areas that the logistic costs are contained. Would it be better to work on making more lands arable? Would desalination plants strategically placed in Africa create enough usable water to sustain some form of agriculture? Could there be enough water created for the African population and to support plant life (non-agricultural)? That would add more green to the globe, which would help with CO2. quote: As far as climate change goes- we don't know enough to assign a reason to the current changes in climate we're witnessing. We can only guess. This does NOT rule out the possibility that humans as a species are at least in part responsible for some of the climate changes, nor does it rule out possibilities of causes beyond our influence. My own personal guess is that it's a combination of at least three different effects heterodyning. One solid fact is that no matter what happens to humanity or other species on the planet as a result of our current cycle, the planet itself will survive and recover. http://hailtoyou.wordpress.com/2011/01/13/usas-total-fertility-rates-by-race-1980-2008/ [image]http://img703.imageshack.us/img703/7784/tfrbyrace19802008.png[/image] Can't you just see the uproar from the "minority rights" advocates because the reduction of birth rates is going to affect minorities more than it will whites? That's not a commentary on your idea. It's just an observation. Look at the frenzy in FLA. Black rights groups are getting lathered up and there is some racist accusations being levied at the local police down there over this. Never mind that the shooter wasn't a cop and was, himself, a "minority" race. It's crazy, really.

xssve -> RE: The myth of endless economic growth (3/22/2012 2:12:08 PM)
quote: This statement contradicts itself. How can a market be free if there is direct government involvement? What is your definition of "free?" Not even the Flea market is free, you have to pay somebody to put up you're booth, and the concession is usually a monopoly, i.e., somebody owns the land you set up on. I don't know where you idiots got the idea that there ever was such a thing as a free market in the sense you mean it, it's a hypothetical construct, in capitalism it refers to market forces in a hypothetical level playing field - not unregulated. If it's unregulated, it damn sure is not going to be level: bad money crowds out good, basic economic truism. It requires regulation to maintain any semblance of levelness. Go research drug cartels or the Italian textile industry if you want to study "free", meaning unregulated, markets.

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