We Need Factories for Making Products and Not for Making Jobs

Exactly. I notice even the recent UN development goals include philanthropy as a legitimate means of poverty alleviation - the ultimate cop-out - instead of promoting an economic model that actually empowers everyone to participate in the economy above poverty level, and thereby provide for themselves.

 

What Syrus misses is that the purchaser must also have the means to pay for it.

Exactly. And more of it in existence does not equate to greater wealth, nor does spending it create wealth.

What does that have to do with anything I've said?

Do these quotes do anything for you or have anything to do with money equating to wealth?

 

What does expecting assistance have to do with demand? You keep throwing morality into a discussion of economics. It's like saying "nature is cruel." It's irrelevant. Nature is nature. It doesn't care how you feel. Nor does economics.

No one starts out with wealth. Some may have parents who have wealth and bequeath it to them. It is what it is. You can apply moral judgment to that, but it doesn't change the economics.

You can demand whatever you want. You must have something to offer in exchange, first.

In order to pay for something, you must first produce something. if you are not the producer of what you will use to pay for a thing, then someone else must produce.

 

Someone must produce them. Printing slips of paper, putting a number on them and calling them "currency" or "money" is not production of wealth.

It's not irrelevant to those suffering from hyperinflation or economic collapse due to price controls.

 

They will in time (Christians spent a long time arguing over the nature of Christ), but in the meantime we have this problem of men reading the letter rather than the spirit into the law. Highly skilled, thoroughly versed ISIS Koranic theologians are notorious for this.

That's the interpretation-of-the-text problem.

Then there's the problem of the text itself.

I pointed out to a JW visitor the other day that scripture, any scripture, cannot be the final, unchanging word of God, but his belief that the Bible is exactly that, is apparently unshakable. This in the West where we have had our 'enlightenment!

BTW, I read that Neil Gorsuch prefers to take the Constitution by its word. (Conservatism?). Surely a mistake in an ever changing world.

The Constitution is man-made, therefore ought to be subject to change as required by ever changing circumstances, so that it can maintain as its purpose the promotion of the common welfare .

 

Yes, it's very difficult to keep these threads from veering off on a tangent to their initial topics.
The optimum solutions to similar problems often can differ greatly. Statistically we can group many similar problems into single categories, like poverty for instance. We seem to have convinced many, if not most people, that money is the singular solution to most every problem. Hence, government statistically identifies a problem and immediately it begins trying to solve it with money. And in todays world there is no end to what government can present statistically as a problem needing a solution.

To paraphrase another member, "The source of ALL our problems can be seen by each of us looking into a mirror."

 

It was the egg.

 

This is such an extreme approach to economics, like an ISIS theologian's definition of reality.

Sorry to inform you, but humans, unlike (say) crocodiles, have this pesky concept/awareness of 'fairness'. (One of the earliest written examples of 'law' with its concern for 'justice' is Hammurabi's Law, in c.1750BC)

So WE care about economics . Live with it.

And yet this is most UNNATURAL! No where else in nature, outside of human society, does this privilege exist.

As to the the rest of your post: a modern society has to to educate/teach its young - paid for by community taxation - before those young can participate in the economy and 'create wealth' .

Hopefully this solves the 'chicken and egg' problem for you

 

As most of todays needs/wants can be had quite cheaply, I see those with what many view simply as having excessive wealth a source by which the innovative can create new jobs producing enhanced needs/wants for them to spend their money on. Sort of like Ford and Cadillac or VW and the nearly $3 million Pagani Huayra BC which probably results in a great amount of spending on maintenance and fuel, not to mention annual insurance, tax and tag. Generational wealth can be viewed and put to use as a resource. But there are those like Buffett and Soros who probably live very cheaply, but they support progressivism so we give them a pass.

 

What you're NOT supposed to read from that graph is that excessively high marginal tax rates give those who would otherwise pay them a need to find ways of avoiding them, buying debt while acquiring property for example.

 

Syrus was speaking of A purchaser, one who not only has the means but actually makes the purchase. A producer must take into account the cost of producing something and setting a price that matches/exceeds the cost in order to remain solvent. If a product demand is high and it becomes possible for the producer to reduce the cost and the price then profit can be maintained as a result of quantity being sold.

While I was not disagreeing with your post, it's nice to see you recognize that we agree on something.

Am I not free to say something I feel needs to be recognized?

Simply put, money is the means by which wealth is acquired, and as such it is also used as the means by which ones wealth is defined. One person has $1 million cash in a safe while another purchased $1 million worth of shares in a business. Both have a wealth of $1 million. A decade later the first person still has $1 million of wealth in the safe, while the other may have more or less than $1 million of wealth depending on the current value of the stock. Inflation had it averaged 2% yearly could have diminished the purchasing power of the $1 million to about $820,000 while the stock may have appreciated to now be worth about $1.22 million or having the purchasing power equal to what it had a decade ago.

And yes the quotes, especially the one you included, are meaningful in equating money with wealth. It is the combination of both body and mind of each individual among us being put to use in ways others find value worth paying for that results in acquiring the means by which money can be acquired. What ones does with the money they acquire can result in creating wealth or accumulating wants with short life value.

 

As you sort of quoted me in your response to "a better world" I'm wondering if you disagree with the words you wrote?

In a free market, trade takes place. Government has a duty to ensure the market place treats all persons equally and fairly, not to subsidize the means of some to assure they can make purchases that would otherwise be beyond the means they possess. People ONLY have a right to demand their money be accepted in payment for anything the market has to sell, but no right to demand that another/others provide the means (money) to make a purchase even though it may be considered a need.

NINO

 

Agreed, although in limited application it can motivate the production of assets.

 

No, government's responsibility begins and ends with maintaining social order. In order to achieve that goal they regularise markets and enforce contracts, but they also intervene with social measure in order to ensure people don't revolt and wreck the place.

I feel you have accidentally taken on some idealism here, get back to basics. Private property is a social construction: it can only exist with the agreement and acquiescence of everyone else.

 

I think you and Grumpycatface are in agreement here. Free education is a useful social equaliser, but only to the extent it is scarce. So if access is determined solely by merit, great. The problem is that the merit system is also gamed by the wealthy.

 

"We", who?

Those are Kurds, Turks and Iraqis who are doing the fighting and dying - since the very beginning ...

 

Can you try to focus on what I actually stated and the historical record. Take the supplybaide measures taken during and shortly after the 2001 recssion. Did they help to get us into a very successful economic recovery with strong employment numbers from which we had skme fiscal sanity jn government?

 

We = the US military. We've been bombing the **** out of them, but no troops. That was before the gas attack this week.

 

Yes, and killing a great many civilians in doing so as well.

From the Guardian,
Civilian death toll on the rise from American-led airstrikes against Isis. Click on this site to see the death-toll list by dates for the past two years.

And the Russians have killed even more than the US ...

 

I'm not discussing the morality of it. Just that it appears that we're going to war again.

I'm disgusted by the whole business.

 

What became of the OP topic?

 

Agreed - but the real culprit is the Assad's Shiite regime and his principle henchman Putin. Those dying are Sunnis if they don't flee to Turkey (which is mostly Sunni).

It's all about Latakia (Assad's home town) and also Russia's only naval base on the Mediterranean Sea.

Boys will be boys ...

 

Do we need factories? Do we need Jobs?

 

Supposedly we have about 50-60 million Americans not working even though the unemployment rate is below 5%. Do we or do we not have a jobs problem? Maybe we have a worker problem? Maybe we have 50-60 million Americans who for myriad reasons simply won't work? They live in the wrong place, they are not qualified, they lack education, they lack skills, they'll only do certain types of work, they lack communication skills, they lack self-esteem, or maybe just too lazy? If these 50-60 million Americans TRULY wanted to work, the unemployment rate would be 15% or whatever number much larger than 4.5%...

 

The government unemployment statistics only count NEW applications for Unemployment Benefits, excluding farm workers, within the past few months (I think 6). Once you go over that time limit, you no longer count as 'unemployed' - you've 'left the workforce'.