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Politics and Economics: Less Than Zero

Discussions about the economic and financial ramifications of PEAK OIL

Politics and Economics: Less Than Zero

Unread postby Pops » Sat 28 Jan 2012, 11:52:53

I was listening to David Brooks and he really hit on the left's problem addressing the whole income inequality thing.

Basically, he said calling it an equality issue in the first place is the problem. They should frame it instead as a moral issue. Expecting equality of outcome rather than opportunity is where the left runs into resistance from the middle probably and the right certainly.

He's right, lefties don't do the whole morality thing well. Most lefties lean more toward the social libertarian end of the spectrum rather than the authoritarian end. That makes for problems pontificating absolutes about Right and Wrong because morality assumes one has perfect knowledge of what's right and the left usually doesn't go there. So while at least 5 of the deadly sins are wrapped up in most arguments for unlimited acquisition, the left stands there and whines 'yea but, why can't we make everyone equally greedy, gluttonous and prideful?'

They are so hung up on this idea of forced equality of outcome that they seem uncomprehending that it is completely artificial, no one is equal and there are always going to be winners and losers in the real world.


The Zero Sum part:
I think people on the right are more realistic, they instinctively look at the world as a zero sum game. They really do get the idea of "you're with us or you're against us", and instinctively have the "taking care of me and mine" mindset. A generality of course but I think it's pretty obvious that lefties believe there really is such thing as win/win and that we can always be our brother's keeper because the pie will always get bigger. People on the right seem to feel (from my perspective anyway) at least put upon when they are "forced" to contribute to their brother's upkeep and even the general welfare (take the pun as you like LOL). They seem to understand better than the left that you better hold on to what you got.

The economics part:
For a good while there the left could depend on the growth economy to make everyone a winner. It worked because as our energy use continued to grow, we became more more and more productive and the pie continued to get bigger and bigger. But somewhere around the '60s or '70s when we passed the peak of world oil discovery, the peak of US production and the end of $10 oil, we also passed the peak of the growth economy and the pie quit growing.

Since then we have been in a Zero Sum World. Name your malady: from policy choices like Tinkle Down, Deregulation, War on Poverty/Drugs/Terror and borrowing, borrowing, borrowing; to investment choices like building a FIRE economy by offshoring, outsourcing, downsizing, automating, globalizing, temping, and loaning, loaning, loaning. But whatever effect you point to, it is painfully obvious there are now clear winners and losers.

Sure, "wealth" has increased, or the illusion of wealth anyway. But by many measures that don't count the ephemeral, almighty dollar, the US is much less than it was in '69. Life for the majority has declined, or at best stagnated, while the small percentage at the top has done outstandingly well. That is the definition of the zero sum game.


In a declining energy world the game is less and less zero sum and more and more negative sum. Now, "getting ahead" might keep someone else down, soon simply getting-by might mean someone else doesn't.


I leave you with this

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http://www.truth-out.org/america-decline/1312567242
The legitimate object of government, is to do for a community of people, whatever they need to have done, but can not do, at all, or can not, so well do, for themselves -- in their separate, and individual capacities.
-- Abraham Lincoln, Fragment on Government (July 1, 1854)
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Re: Politics and Economics: Less Than Zero

Unread postby Cog » Sat 28 Jan 2012, 11:59:01

Thank you for making the case for keeping what I have on the ride over the economic cliff.
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Re: Politics and Economics: Less Than Zero

Unread postby dorlomin » Sat 28 Jan 2012, 13:02:51

Pops wrote:Basically, he said calling it an equality issue in the first place is the problem. They should frame it instead as a moral issue. Expecting equality of outcome rather than opportunity is where the left runs into resistance from the middle probably and the right certainly.
I am really not sure who you are talking about here.

When you say 'the left' whom in particular? And as for seeking equality of outcome over equality of opertunity, since the 90s the Clinton\ Blair type 'left' has been big on that. Not being anti wealthy just seeking equal opertunities.

Since then we have been in a Zero Sum World.
We lived in a world of growing energy supply and increasing crop yields, not a zero sum world at all. Now we can be said to be moving into a zero sum world perhaps.

Sure, "wealth" has increased, or the illusion of wealth anyway.
The average westerner lives in a relatively risk free painless world. We have health services (well in most countries :roll: ) that ensure that we rarely feel real pain, worry about staying alive and are cosseted in pain killers when we do contract incurable maladies. We had little to worry about in terms of growing old as there was a guarenteed provision and little to worry about losing the job as you would not starve.

Compared to the bulk of human existance we have lived in pretty comfortable lives. Could\ should have been better but hardly hell holes of pain and despair.
In a declining energy world the game is less and less zero sum and more and more negative sum. Now, "getting ahead" might keep someone else down, soon simply getting-by might mean someone else doesn't.
We can live successfull balanced lives for most of our citizens in a world of declining energy. It will be a matter of distribution and conservation. "Can" however requires the foresite to not try to hold on to what we had and recognise the need to re-orginise. What will happen is likely to be uglier greedier and fail.
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Re: Politics and Economics: Less Than Zero

Unread postby seahorse3 » Sat 28 Jan 2012, 14:23:56

The problem is that we are all in this together. We sink or swim together. We always have and always will. The rich need the poor and the poor need the rich. The problem is desparity that separates one from the other. Starving people have a tendency to eventually snap and start cutting heads off indiscriminately. So te conservative Hobbes would surely agree that the masses must at least be clothed and fed to preserve social order and preserve their heads. Maslow was right, not wrong. Reduce people to starvation and things fall apart. We are at a particularly vulnerable point in history- lack of resources, growing population, andnthe fact that we don't really need people to work anymore bc people are being replaced with machines. So what to do with all these out of work people? Thats the moral issue. Turnips BAU model has to fundamentally change. Eithernthat or we need a good world war to solve these problems for us. War is the old business model for solving the problems.
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Re: Politics and Economics: Less Than Zero

Unread postby Cog » Sat 28 Jan 2012, 14:34:42

There is no solution other than violence and die-off.
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Re: Politics and Economics: Less Than Zero

Unread postby efarmer » Sun 29 Jan 2012, 01:52:43

That is my dear brother Pops whom I know and whom is posting from his heart and very much up on his game of being a clear thinker on this one as well.

The Left / Right , two party , political dualism in whatever form is a dead on arrival proposition
in my opinion.

We in America rejected being a colony of England, with their strange government of nobility in
the House of Lords, Parliament by election, and ruling class and Royal Blood all hooked together
in a system that required foreign people to work for nothing and have their resources plundered
to support the unsustainable empire and lifestyle of a smallish Island nation.

We have replaced bloodline nobility with royalty by financial status.

Both of our main political parties are in the hands of the wealthy and connected
and we have made America into a version of our former colonial oppressors that is
attainable for purchase but has replaced bloodlines with lines of credit.

Our experiment is still continuing, we are down to if the people rule by democracy or
if our money faux nobility from both parties rules by access and wealth to run the game
on the choices given for voting or the advertising and media access required to persist
and attain the highest offices of power in our American experiment.

So in this spirit of synthesis and experiments, I hope Newt gets a 3AM call and responds to
the emergency at hand to fly to the moon and attempts to run Earth with words more powerful
than actions and behaviors whilst he challenges God to a series of debates on if the universe is
ready for true conservative leadership, if Hope is just black matter, and if the energy radiating from the star known as our Sun, is a giveaway the makes people dependent and weak. And they should
instead seek the true energy of Wall Street money to buy influence in Washington because this money
loves the country where it's printing presses makes it so much, they had to betray their spouses in order to save humanity.

Keep up the good work Pops. I have other fish to fry, but come back every once in awhile
and am so happy to see critical thinking that says this site is still got the goods and the spark
of life so many of us have enjoyed.
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Re: Politics and Economics: Less Than Zero

Unread postby Loki » Sun 29 Jan 2012, 02:34:18

Pops, I agree with you about the zero-sum shrinking pie. Of course that's kind of the whole idea of collapse.

It seems to me that a more equitable distribution of wealth will cushion the blows of long-term economic decline. The pie won't be growing in the developed world, but cutting up the pieces more evenly will help all of us weather the storm a little easier. A continuation of the trend towards extreme wealth inequality will lead to far more suffering than is necessary.

I also agree there is a strong moral foundation to the ideas of equality of opportunity and basic social decency. The left may not articulate this well but it appears to be a total non-issue for those on the right, ironic given their penchant for moral pontification on other matters.

Populism is a deep, strong current in American history. OWS is just a taste of what's to come. An Andrew Jackson or Huey Long will stir up passions that will be hard to control. The plutocrats would be wise to moderate their actions before that happens.
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Re: Politics and Economics: Less Than Zero

Unread postby Cog » Sun 29 Jan 2012, 06:34:47

Stealing other people's pie is a serious crime and will be punished severely. Better you figure out a way to increase your piece of the pie now or go on a diet.
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Re: Politics and Economics: Less Than Zero

Unread postby dorlomin » Sun 29 Jan 2012, 07:36:58

Cog wrote:Stealing other people's pie is a serious crime and will be punished severely.
Words from the court of Louis XVI.
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Re: Politics and Economics: Less Than Zero

Unread postby Cog » Sun 29 Jan 2012, 08:48:37

Louis the XVI did not have a union police force that has been conditioned to mow people down in the street. Trust me on this. The police and military will do precisely what they are ordered to do as the riots begin.
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Re: Politics and Economics: Less Than Zero

Unread postby dorlomin » Sun 29 Jan 2012, 09:19:28

Cog wrote:Louis the XVI did not have a union police force that has been conditioned to mow people down in the street.
He had an army of foreign merceneries and la Garde nationale. History not a strong point then.


Cog wrote:Trust me on this. The police and military will do precisely what they are ordered to do as the riots begin.
History really not a strong point then.
During Tianamen Square the politburo was so concerned with the loyalty of local troops they had to get in army units from the other side of the country.
During the Romanian revolution the police sided with the people.
During the Prague uprising of 1967 the Soviets had to send in their own troops because the Czeks were all on the side of the uprising, just like Hungary.
In the recent Egytian uprising the Armys nutrality was critical to the sucsess of the street protests.


I could go on. But your idea that the millitary and police can be relied on 100% is pretty ill informed. Whats more police violence is often a huge source of recruitment for a protest movement. In the era of the camera phone police violence is a god send to gain credibility and national attention.
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Re: Politics and Economics: Less Than Zero

Unread postby Cog » Sun 29 Jan 2012, 09:35:18

This isn't Europe and it defintely isn't China. Good luck with that whole rebellion thing taking hold. Those that got will want to keep and those who don't will not want to be slaughtered in the street. As long as there is money to pay the military and police, armed insurrection is impossible here.

What exactly happened to your OWS movement?

Snow too much for them? :lol:
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Re: Politics and Economics: Less Than Zero

Unread postby Cloud9 » Sun 29 Jan 2012, 11:42:58

I have often said that hope is a hollow eyed whore that will put you on a train to Auschwitz. Having said that, it must be remembered that after Pandora opened her little box, and letting all types of misery escape, hope was the last one out.

Destroy hope and this thing we call civilization unravels rather quickly. The way to engender hope is to tell the truth.

The simple truth, we cannot afford what we have. If we want the system to continue we are going to have to cut its services by half. We can cut five percent every year until we reach our goal or we can collapse the system and have riots in the streets.
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Re: Politics and Economics: Less Than Zero

Unread postby Cog » Sun 29 Jan 2012, 14:05:22

Progressive do not want to cut anything. To them, its always a revenue problem. If only they could tax the rich, they believe free skittles could be provided to all.
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Re: Politics and Economics: Less Than Zero

Unread postby AgentR11 » Sun 29 Jan 2012, 14:32:04

Cog wrote:Louis the XVI did not have a union police force that has been conditioned to mow people down in the street. Trust me on this. The police and military will do precisely what they are ordered to do as the riots begin.


Louis' base was too small. The problem wasn't the loyalty or disloyalty of the units of force; it was simple numbers. Too few people in the country were dependent upon his success and welfare, for their own family's success and welfare.

This time around; those dependent don't number in the thousands, they number in the millions. And we have no specific king for the opposed forces to focus on.

Besides, those who are physically capable of insurrection are too busy playing Annoyed Parakeets on their mobile devices... which are, inherently, also dependent upon the welfare of those very same people for their continued good function.
Yes we are, as we are,
And so shall we remain,
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Re: Politics and Economics: Less Than Zero

Unread postby Pretorian » Sun 29 Jan 2012, 14:48:58

Cog wrote:Progressive do not want to cut anything. To them, its always a revenue problem. If only they could tax the rich, they believe free skittles could be provided to all.

that may be true for the front row of liberal yokels, no further than that.
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Re: Politics and Economics: Less Than Zero

Unread postby Plantagenet » Sun 29 Jan 2012, 15:10:33

Pops wrote:lefties believe ... the pie will always get bigger.


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George Bush is a leftie?

----------------

The problem with both lefties and righties who think the pie will always get higher and bigger is that we are at the end of growth. Neither lefties or righties get it. What we need now is pragmatism.

Without ever-increasing oil production, the pie is shrinking.
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Re: Politics and Economics: Less Than Zero

Unread postby Cog » Sun 29 Jan 2012, 17:03:55

From a caloric and economic standpoint the majority will have to start liking gruel instead of pie. It won't harm us.
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Re: Politics and Economics: Less Than Zero

Unread postby ralfy » Sun 29 Jan 2012, 23:35:19

The problem isn't "left" and "right" but capitalism.
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Re: Politics and Economics: Less Than Zero

Unread postby Cog » Mon 30 Jan 2012, 00:07:06

ralfy wrote:The problem isn't "left" and "right" but capitalism.


Suggest an alternative economic model that works as well.
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