Someone else who knows what feedback is.

[Diogenes]

America's Wealthy Are Caught In A Positive Feedback Loop That Will Collapse The System

We can see runaway feedback loops in the economy and society, not just in Nature. One of the key runaway feedbacks in the U.S. is the concentration of wealth and political power.

The social safety net is not there to "catch you if you fall", it was put in place to prevent the Elites from getting trampled. The ostensible "excuse" for the "social safety net" is not valid. It doesn't help those struggling, it uses them.

A fellow I know was a successful tradesman. With the downturn in construction he couldn't make ends meet, so he asked for help (only available if you *can't* work). To qualify he has to repeatedly *prove* he can't work for "medical" reasons. No shortage of medical "professionals" anxious for a piece of the public pie! End result being to get $1500 a month of "assistance" he has to be constantly undergoing some "necessary" treatment or procedure. As soon as he's "cured" of one "problem" another pops up. He was in better shape than I am before he got "help" and he's now in worse shape than he was before. The "social safety net" primarily benefits those who don't need help by at least ten to one! Not just doctors and drug companies, there's also a few lawyers "helping" with his "condition". I've pointed out how he's being used, he says it's OK because they're paying him.

http://www.businessinsider.com/wealth-f ... op-2010-10



Gee. A point i've been attempting to make for a long time. Now if someone would just write an article about artificial perceptional boundaries.

[MSimon]

Nice to see the cobwebs clearing.

The purpose of our system is to produce economic returns (the best you can hope for is a system that does not impede that much).

Voting etc is not about self government. It is about providing a safety valve.

Business has always run government. One very good reason to keep government very small.

As to wealth disparities? Who cares? I'm a poor man in America and live like a rich one 100 years ago. Strawberries year around at affordable prices. I'm living off all the wealth those rich guys have accumulated. Let them accumulate and invest more. I suppose it is a defect in my personality but I have never been seriously afflicted with envy. I also do not want to run other people's lives. I barely know what is good for me.

The problem with conservatives is they tend to get stuck in the mud and sometimes the mud they get stuck in is pretty ugly mud. Let's take the Civil Rights movement, for instance. It was very hard for a lot of conservatives to move forward during the Civil Rights movement and realize that a hideous injustice had been done to a very large percentage of the American population for a very long time and that needed to be remedied. They had a tendency to say, "Well it's the way we always did it." That's not really sufficient when it comes to Civil Rights.

On the other hand with Libertarians, their problem is excessive reliance on reason. Where Libertarians tend to come to pieces a little bit and quarrel with each other is on foreign policy because with foreign policy, reason doesn't always apply. We're not always dealing with reasonable people. Hugo Chavez is not a reasonable person. Kim Jong-Il and his son Fatso -- they are just not reasonable people. These people are not in their right minds. Vladimir Putin is a bad guy.

And politics is ultimately not reasonable. There are unreasonable aspects of the politics that Libertarians sometimes have trouble dealing with.

http://rightwingnews.com/2010/10/the-p- ... interview/

I also see conservatives do not look at the long sweep of history in making their judgments about the "wisdom of the ages." Drug prohibitions have never worked. Generally their lifetimes run about 50 years or so (my guess is that they live longer now because people live longer). So the conservatives are quite happy (and irrational) to leave the "wisdom of the ages" when it suits their government and MSM induced prejudices. But of course the conservatives would never be fooled by the government and MSM. Conservatives know their enemies. Really?

Conservatives believe people ought not be allowed to wreck their own lives (as if government could stop it). I'm of the opinion that the self wreckers leave sign posts for the rest of us. They perform a useful function. Wisdom of the ages.

I am making headway though, every day I convince a few more conservatives to go libertarian. And I'm making progress with liberals too.

http://www.libertarianrepublican.net/

[zbarlici]

" I'm a poor man in America and live like a rich one 100 years ago. "

Agreed. Same here. It doesn`t take much to come to that realisation, just talk to your or someone elses grandfolks.

Also you are suggesting the conservatives adjust their moral stance based on the wisdom of the ages? Of course you realise the day they do that they need a name change from conservatives to something else, heh.

[zbarlici]

the Compromising Conservative Party? haha

[choff]

I have nothing against people getting wealthy. My only issue is that the same laws should apply to everybody regardless. It's been argued that the whole financial meltdown could have been avoided if the existings laws were enforced, additional regulations are unnecessary.

http://www.longislandpress.com/2010/10/ ... nside-job/

It seems like one huge difference between Canada and US federal governments is the actual number of pages that take up any new bill or law up for debate in either the Parliament or Congress/Senate. I think American legislation takes up ten times as much paper, much easier for individual members to add in amendments, but also possibly the approach is different.

[WizWom]

What a moron the original writer is.

there is nothing wrong with collecting wealth because you have helped others to get things they want to do done.

The wrong comes in when you collect wealth by fraud or force.

Having wealth is NOT EVER a problem in and of itself.

[CaptainBeowulf]

The division is between those who see the economic pie as a set size, and want to slice it up differently, and those who see that the economic pie can keep growing if you allow the wealthy to invest money, and therefore everyone will end up with bigger slices of the pie.

But some financial regulations are needed to avoid certain types of meltdown - some regulations put in place after the great depression were disassemble and so we got the great recession. To me, one of the core problems is how to get politicians to write legislation that reasonably regulates the financial system without crippling it. It's a very fine balancing act and one which is easily messed up by political populism... or just by politicians who don't grasp economics properly.

[WizWom]

Regulation is always designed to favor established connected companies over their competition.
ALWAYS. It is NEVER to protect the consumer.

[choff]

Regulation is always designed to favor established connected companies over their competition.
ALWAYS. It is NEVER to protect the consumer.

I don't believe that's necessarily the case in other countries, in fact I think the US may have on average even more regulations than other countries. The real breakdown appears to be enforcement, either understaffed agencies or political interference. In my province, we have strict conflict of interest legislation, to the extent that even the appearance of conflict is illegal, real or not.

[WizWom]

Regulation is always designed to favor established connected companies over their competition.
ALWAYS. It is NEVER to protect the consumer.

I don't believe that's necessarily the case in other countries, in fact I think the US may have on average even more regulations than other countries. The real breakdown appears to be enforcement, either understaffed agencies or political interference. In my province, we have strict conflict of interest legislation, to the extent that even the appearance of conflict is illegal, real or not.

All that means is that they are better at coming up with nonsense excuses.

[kcdodd]

So when a law is passed banning the dumping of toxic chemicals in a river, it was really to help (who exactly?), and not keep unwitting people from getting cancer?

[WizWom]

So when a law is passed banning the dumping of toxic chemicals in a river, it was really to help (who exactly?), and not keep unwitting people from getting cancer?

It was to help the companies producing equipment for toxic chemical removal.

[CaptainBeowulf]

It was to help the companies producing equipment for toxic chemical removal.

Yes, in part, but you're being an intellectual absolutist. You also need to stop things like dumping of toxic chemicals. Things like such dumping, or giving mortgages to people who can't afford them, selling "asset backed commercial papers" that are really junk, etc., can't be good things.

I understand the frustration - to bring this on-topic in terms of polywell, there is the omnipresent danger that successful alternative energy development will be stifled because of the entrenched interests of oil and gas companies, wind power companies, etc. Or, as some people here like to complain, the entrenched interests of the ITER crowd.

Similarly, you could easily argue that NASA has become moribund because it is politically tied to continued production of solid rocket motors, SSME derived engines, etc., for political reasons. This makes a shuttle-derived launch vehicle a necessity. The space program is tied to existing jobs, rather than developing next generation systems which could render existing aerospace jobs redundant.

Nonetheless, despite these drawbacks, some regulation is necessary. It's always about balancing the lesser of two evils. Checks and balances. Winston Churchill said something about capitalist democracy being the best of a bunch of bad systems.

[Helius]

So when a law is passed banning the dumping of toxic chemicals in a river, it was really to help (who exactly?), and not keep unwitting people from getting cancer?

Such new legislation could be to forestall worse legislation for the polluters, or, more likely, as a barrier to competitive entry. New smaller competitors may be more harmed by the legislation thus providing just such a barrier.

[rcain]

property is theft

well, thats the way i like to see it, in the global historical scheme of things.

@MSimon re your plug for the 'Libertarians' - they look just like the normal Republican party to me. are you sure you haven't been sold a dud there, or inadvertently been brainwashed into joining some religous sect by mistake?

I'm a poor man in America and live like a rich one 100 years ago

well, i feel like i'm living like a poor man, 100 years ago, and i consider myself to be relatively rich, in the global scheme of things.

there are just so many of us. and so many even poorer. something has to give. historically.

i propose not jetpacks, but free replicator rations, for everyone! hara!

(.. this an example of why i so rarely post under 'general').