ralis Posted September 23, 2015 (edited) You have a habit of adding your personal bias into your arguments in a way which does not help them. Russia is a state, not a private, free market enterprise. There has been no global warming for 17 years despite the previous claims of a 2 degree rise. You want to 'preserve the environment' but that isn't my aim. The environment is constantly changing without mans help. My aim is not to cause unnecessary damage and to have the free market allocate resources properly. Â Â Your fractured narrative regarding global warming is completely flawed. 97% of all climatologists agree that humans are the cause for AGW. Have you read any of the research or are you listening to the corporate shills that are paid to spew propaganda? Â For a further understanding of the earth's complex biosphere, a primer in complex non-linear dynamics is appropriate. Â Â Dr. Oreskes is a climate historian at Harvard University. She discusses the propaganda model that big tobacco companies used to deceive the public regarding cigarette smoking. The same model is being used by global warming deniers to deceive the public. Â Edited September 24, 2015 by ralis Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
voidisyinyang Posted September 24, 2015 There has been no global warming for 17 years despite the previous claims of a 2 degree rise.  Nice corporate propaganda Karl! Your views are paid for by corporate shills - it's material based on brainwashed lies!   The pause was actually a statistical error, according to a new study published Thursday in the journal Climatic Change. “The alleged or purported hiatus in the warming of the global climate system does not have a sound scientific basis,” says study lead author Bala Rajaratnam, an assistant professor of statistics and Earth system science at Stanford University. Dr. Rajaratnam and his team examined all the data published relating to a global warming pause. “Using the language of statistics and the discipline of mathematics, we tested to see if these claims could stand up to statistical scrutiny,” he says. It did not. The researchers found no statistical evidence that the rate of global warming stopped or slowed down between 1998 and 2013, as previously thought.  http://m.csmonitor.com/Science/2015/0917/Is-global-warming-s-hiatus-really-just-a-statistical-error-video   Scientists have debunked statistical models that appear to show a 15-year pause in rising global temperatures. By Eva Botkin-Kowacki, Staff writer / September 17, 2015 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
voidisyinyang Posted September 24, 2015 So China and Russia do not have private corporations but rather "state" actors and so they don't apply to your free market analysis? As I've said - this supposed separation of state and private property is a myth. Who is gonna decide to write the deeds and distribute the property rights of the environment?  So then I received this email today:    Perhaps some others here have also been tracking the efforts of the “neb-liberals” and their ilk to privatize and capitalize everything possible — water, national parks, information (“intellectual property”), etc. I had a joint appointment on the faculty of Conservation Biology Graduate Program and our graduates ran into this constantly in trying to conserve species or habitat. Lobbyists will argue for example, “We are part of the public and we want to develop this land and have as much right to say how it should be used as anyone else. The fairest way to deal with the differences of opinion is to privatize the land (or information etc.) and let the wisdom of the marketplace decide what is right for all of us. If other individuals among the public want the land (or whatever) let them organize as a corporation and raise the money and outbid us on the open market.”   Any ideas about public “ownership" have been seen as socialistic.  Basically the concepts of the commons, fair use, and the public domain have been up for grabs as this philosophy or ideology keeps advancing and as Big Money keeps gaining political muscle.  This article about “Happy Birthday” may seem amusing, but it has some significance in terms of what the eventual outcome of this battle might be.  And who knows? There were common lands going back to antiquity in Europe (and don’t forget American Indians). But as the elite needed more money for wars, luxuries, etc. they began to appropriate the common lands that the villages and peasants had been using/owning collectively, and to farm them for profits. It took in effect centuries for the Inclosure Acts to finally pretty much eliminate common lands in England for example. Don’t believe what you read about the “Tragedy of the Commons.” It is ideological and not correct history.  Anyway, its nice that the Boston Common still survives in some form, as a bit of history, although there is no longer grazing on it. I do wonder however if when it was bought from the Indians if perhaps they understood that they were selling use rights and not ownership. What might seem like legal nuances at a given time can be significant. Does anyone from Boston know?  yeah that email was today from a professor emeritus of biology.  And guess what? In the 1980s this same professor actually petitioned the UN to stop the release of a genetically-engineered algae that could threaten life in the oceans!  http://www.saynotogmos.org/scientists_speak.htm  You can read his statement against GMOs - along with other professor statements against GMOs.  Now in terms of private property - how do you distribute voluntarily the patented property of genetically engineered organisms that sell-propagate in the environment and have their genes spread into other species via horizontal transfer?  He stopped that algae since it potentially threatened all life in the oceans.  Also how would your private property free market scheme address the acidification of the oceans?  Here is what this professor wrote about the effect of free market on the environment:   Biotech leaders have been arguing that nations can use voluntary guidelines. But larger ecological disasters would have effects beyond national borders. A free-market approach would encourage biotech companies to threaten to locate in countries where regulation is easiest, and thus pressure all countries to lower environmental and health standards in order to remain competitive. The laws of economics and the competitive race would everywhere sacrifice safety to deadlines and budgets.  http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/17626/title/International-Biosafety--A-Global-Imperative/ Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
ralis Posted September 24, 2015 So China and Russia do not have private corporations but rather "state" actors and so they don't apply to your free market analysis? As I've said - this supposed separation of state and private property is a myth. Who is gonna decide to write the deeds and distribute the property rights of the environment?  So then I received this email today:    yeah that email was today from a professor emeritus of biology.  And guess what? In the 1980s this same professor actually petitioned the UN to stop the release of a genetically-engineered algae that could threaten life in the oceans!  http://www.saynotogmos.org/scientists_speak.htm  You can read his statement against GMOs - along with other professor statements against GMOs.  Now in terms of private property - how do you distribute voluntarily the patented property of genetically engineered organisms that sell-propagate in the environment and have their genes spread into other species via horizontal transfer?  He stopped that algae since it potentially threatened all life in the oceans.  Also how would your private property free market scheme address the acidification of the oceans?  Here is what this professor wrote about the effect of free market on the environment:    http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/17626/title/International-Biosafety--A-Global-Imperative/   The Grand Canyon is becoming a commercial enterprise with homes, shopping and a tramway to transport tourists down to the river which will all be constructed on the East rim. This is absolutely preposterous that one of the great earthly treasures is being exploited for profit!  http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/04/us/where-2-rivers-meet-visions-for-grand-canyon-clash.html?_r=0  http://grandcanyonescalade.com/ Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
voidisyinyang Posted September 24, 2015 The Grand Canyon is becoming a commercial enterprise with homes, shopping and a tramway to transport tourists down to the river which will all be constructed on the East rim. This is absolutely preposterous that one of the great earthly treasures is being exploited for profit!  http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/04/us/where-2-rivers-meet-visions-for-grand-canyon-clash.html?_r=0  http://grandcanyonescalade.com/  http://azdailysun.com/news/opinion/columnists/coconino-voices-consider-privatizing-grand-canyon-water/article_5dcfc54c-e168-11e3-8580-001a4bcf887a.html  But the NPS doesn’t have to give this resource away. They could auction off these rights, earning some additional revenue in the exchange. Additionally, all the really great infrastructure of the park was developed by private firms and/or individuals — the El Tovar, the Watchtower, the Grandview Trail, the Bright Angel Trail, Phantom Ranch, the Grand Canyon Lodge, the Hermit Trail and others. The Park Service doesn’t provide mule rides into the canyon, nor do they feed hungry hikers and quench the thirst of river runners at Phantom Ranch. Xanterra does this. Likewise, when it comes to water, the private sector can do a much better job than can the Park Service. Dennis Foster has a Ph.D. in economics,  it seems that money is being pursued instead of real ecological value.  Water privatization in general has been a huge failure.  A distant relative of mine was in charge of water privatization for the World Bank - my dad helped get him the job.  http://mic.com/articles/87941/the-world-bank-wants-to-privatize-the-one-thing-we-can-t-live-without Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Karl Posted September 24, 2015 Your fractured narrative regarding global warming is completely flawed. 97% of all climatologists agree that humans are the cause for AGW. Have you read any of the research or are you listening to the corporate shills that are paid to spew propaganda?  For a further understanding of the earth's complex biosphere, a primer in complex non-linear dynamics is appropriate.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efHCdKb5UWc  Dr. Oreskes is a climate historian at Harvard University. She discusses the propaganda model that big tobacco companies used to deceive the public regarding cigarette smoking. The same model is being used by global warming deniers to deceive the public.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXyTpY0NCp0&list=PL1eZiQLduolmhW7FUoMay4x4t8-Uf82cC  I don't give a fuck about AGW, is that clear enough for you. As for smokers they all knew, as did non smokers that cigarettes were bad for their health-the argument had been settled conclusively by the millions of wheezing, gasping, sick smokers who had tried to stop. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Karl Posted September 24, 2015 The Grand Canyon is becoming a commercial enterprise with homes, shopping and a tramway to transport tourists down to the river which will all be constructed on the East rim. This is absolutely preposterous that one of the great earthly treasures is being exploited for profit! Â http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/04/us/where-2-rivers-meet-visions-for-grand-canyon-clash.html?_r=0 Â http://grandcanyonescalade.com/ Â Profit represents the value others place on the product or service others supply. It represents the actual increase in wealth for everybody due to fair exchange. It's also impossible to make a profit fairly without time deferred consumption-capital accumulation. In other words somebody chooses to defer personal gratification now, in exchange for the entrepreneurial chance to increase the capital in the future. It's a huge risk which might not pay off. As most people will prefer to consume immediately instead of delaying gratification - or even borrow from potential future production to have things earlier-then deferred capital expenditure necessitates an increased opportunity cost. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Karl Posted September 24, 2015 (edited) http://azdailysun.com/news/opinion/columnists/coconino-voices-consider-privatizing-grand-canyon-water/article_5dcfc54c-e168-11e3-8580-001a4bcf887a.html]http://azdailysun.com/news/opinion/columnists/coconino-voices-consider-privatizing-grand-canyon-water/article_5dcfc54c-e168-11e3-8580-001a4bcf887a.html[/url] Â Â it seems that money is being pursued instead of real ecological value. Â Water privatization in general has been a huge failure. Â A distant relative of mine was in charge of water privatization for the World Bank - my dad helped get him the job. Â http://mic.com/articles/87941/the-world-bank-wants-to-privatize-the-one-thing-we-can-t-live-without]http://mic.com/articles/87941/the-world-bank-wants-to-privatize-the-one-thing-we-can-t-live-without[/url] Ah the twists of those who want to use rhetoric to support their sordid aims. Now, I'm no supporter of the world bank, or their operations because it's a corporocracy under the benefice of government in the first place, so you have inadvertantly proved my point. Â However, what we don't have in these marvellous statistics is the number of failures without the privatised water companies being involved-see that little switcheroo that went off there ? -I'm going to guess that it's actually 100%, which is the only reason why privatised companies were operating in these areas in the first place. Yet there is another problem-the world bank itself with the IMF and its nefarious loans which have plunged countries into debts they could not escape from-is this the real reason for the collapse of those private companies ? Â See, there is no information. You don't want to get to the truth. Everyone just spins there little stories to hide the circumstances. It's just lies on top of lies. The best that can be said is -insufficient data to conclude anything at all from these stories. Either, like Ralis you are following your own little agenda, or you genuinely aren't aware of the manipulation. Â You should want to genuinely know the facts before making spurious conclusions that suit your bias. You are blinding yourself. If privatisation was better wouldn't you want privatisation ? I would certainly want the state to be involved if I thought they could make a better job that's for certain. I'm looking for the truth. I'm not libertarian first, I'm reality first, truth first. I'm always trying to find holes in my own thesis. This is the only way to truly learn. You are not doing that. You have a set idea and then attempt to utilise any fallacy laden evidence to suit your belief. That's how school taught you to work. You did not think for yourself, you were encouraged to pass their tests. Â Until you know this, you will never be free. You have created a prison of your mind by ignorance of truth. I think there is hope for you. Edited September 24, 2015 by Karl Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
voidisyinyang Posted September 24, 2015 The promise of private investment has turned out to rely on market-rate pricing that the poor cannot afford.In El Alto the cost of getting a water and sewage hook-up exceeded a half-year's income at the minimum wage.The promise of skilled management turned out to be about corporate leaders willing to let the poor suffer and, in Bechtel and Abengoa's case, stand aside while they were shot. No one–not the Bolivian government, not the World Bank and certainly not the multinational corporations involved–ever asked the Bolivian people, "Do you want to privatize your water?" One of the most important policy choices a people can make–public or private?–was taken away and made by economists and theorists in a huge white stone building a hemisphere away.  http://www.thenation.com/article/politics-water-bolivia/  So the 16% profit rate demanded - was killing off the people of Bolivia.  Profit is a mafia-style involuntary tax - a gang-enforcement of "protection" money.  Tax is based on democratic voting.   Those steep and sudden price hikes, needed in part to finance the 16 percent annual profit demanded by the companies, led to citywide protests and eventually to Bechtel's and Abengoa's ouster.  http://www.thenation.com/article/politics-water-bolivia/  https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CB4QFjAAahUKEwiSltHg0Y_IAhUEooAKHdCDDFU&url=https%3A%2F%2Fseagrant.uaf.edu%2Fconferences%2F2011%2Fwakefield-people%2Fpresentations%2Fcarothers-wellbeing-kodiak.pdf&usg=AFQjCNFt5dIHO26qUucUChRqFqqhoaTI3Q&sig2=4-l4oCZ2EgbeO4vXgcTt4Q  So last night I listened to this ph.d. study on privatization of fisheries in Kodiak Alaska.  I used to work in a fishery in Kodiak Alaska - processing crab and halibut and salmon.  What did the study find after an extensive interview of the fishery community?  Privatization caused a concentration of profit wealth for the owners of the boats while the workers got less money.   “Fishing used to be about hard work. You work hard, you work your way up. Now you have to be “made” – have a rich dad or something…”  and   “Crew guys used to aspire to do what you were doing. So you’d get good guys. Now you just get guys looking for a wage…”  And so then the fishing business becomes a privatized speculative investment - with the market shares traded by office owners - instead of being a craft that is handed down and trained in through apprenticeship.   “We’re an aged, aging fleet. When a bunch of us die, I don’t know if turning over that quota share is going to be a positive effect cause I think it’s gonna have to disperse – I don’t know how many young guys have a cash flow to buy into it.”  O.K. so you Karl are so big on the free market - but free market fundamentalism is what just caused the collapse of the global economy.  A great expose on this is the documentary "Inside Job" - the "economic scientists" are exposed as a bunch of fakes.  When I did my master's degree at the University of Minnesota I exposed similar corporate corruption.    'Inside Job’ prompts new look at conflict of interest policy   And so you hold up Iceland as some privatization model yet the corruption is rife:   Hubbard is not the only Columbia academic criticized in the film. "Inside Job" also features Business School professor Frederic Mishkin, who, according to the Wall Street Journal, was paid almost $135,000 by the Icelandic Chamber of Commerce in 2006 to author a report that praised the stability of Iceland's economy and banking system—two years before they collapsed. Mishkin did not disclose the payment in the report.  and so Mishkin fired back in the Economics section of the Financial Times:   Mishkin also declined requests to be interviewed. But in an October 2010 post on the Financial Times' Economic Forum, he defended his paper on the Icelandic economy, saying that many factors that put Iceland at risk had not yet emerged when he wrote it.  and   "Inside Job" also scrutinizes leading economists from Harvard University, Brown University, and the University of California. Columbia Economics Department Chair Michael Riordan said that the film has sparked healthy debate within his department about conflicts of interest and the University's disclosure requirements.  A healthy debate is b.s. - these schools need disclosure requirements!  But they can't have them because the Economics discipline is completely based on ass-kissing the corporations - and these are the "Free market" fundamentalists pushing no regulations and privatization.  http://columbiaspectator.com/news/2011/04/13/%E2%80%98inside-job-prompts-new-look-con%EF%AC%82ict-interest-policy The Tragedy of Privatizationhttp://tholepin.blogspot.com/2009/10/tragedy-of-privatization.html  Two excellent articles on economics affecting privatization of resources below are worthy of a careful read and further research by all of us who mouth support for freedom, fisheries, and future.  http://www.adn.com/news/alaska/story/971399.html  From Wikipedia: "The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said Ostrom's 'research brough this topic from the fringe to the forefront of scientific attention,' "by showing how common resources-forests, FISHERIES, oil fields, or grazing lands, can be managed successfully by the people who use them, rather than by governments or private companies." Ostrom's work in this regard, challenged conventional wisdom, showing that common resources can be successfully managed without privatization or government regulation."  http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/13/business/economy/13nobel.html  "Conservatives used the tragedy of the commons to argue for property rights, and efficiency was achieved as people were thrown off the commons," said Joseph E. Stiglitz of Columbia University, a Nobel laureate in economics himself. "But the effects of throwing a lot of people out of their livelihood were enormous. What Ostrom has demonstrated is the existence of social control mechanisms that regulate the use of commons without having to resort to property rights."  Right now the NPFMC is moving full steam ahead to privatize the remaining fisheries in the North Pacific Ocean, under pressure of the draggers, some larger fixed gear entities, and the processors. Perhaps, just perhaps, if we could get Lubchenko and the new NMFS chief to stop the steam roller for a moment and see that by throwing our fisheries to the big corporate interests is not in the best interest of the people of the State of Alaska, or the health of the Ocean herself, they might rethink the management options. Little hope remains that the NPFMC will do anything unless their feet are put in fire. Anyone have a match?  Keep yer flippers wet.   An Economic Hit Man Speaks Out: John Perkins on How ...www.truth-out.org/.../26112-an-economic-hit-man-speaks-out-j... TruthoutSep 11, 2014 - John Perkins, author of "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man," ... and water systems, transportation systems, privatize those, and basically ... How Greece Has Fallen Victim To "Economic Hit Men" | Zero ...www.zerohedge.com/.../how-greece-has-fallen-victim-econo... Zero HedgeJul 2, 2015 - That's where the "economic hit men" come in: seemingly ordinary men, ... water systems, transportation systems, privatize those, and basically ... Rise of the Global Corporatocracy: An Interview with John ...monthlyreview.org › ... › Volume 64, Issue 10 (March) Monthly Review Mar 1, 2013 - —John Perkins, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man (2004) ... Bhandari (RB): As a fellow former EHM, pushing for the privatization of land in ...  An Economic Hit Man Speaks Out: John Perkins on How ...www.truth-out.org/.../26112-an-economic-hit-man-speaks-out-j... TruthoutSep 11, 2014 - John Perkins, author of "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man," ... and water systems, transportation systems, privatize those, and basically ... How Greece Has Fallen Victim To "Economic Hit Men" | Zero ...www.zerohedge.com/.../how-greece-has-fallen-victim-econo... Zero HedgeJul 2, 2015 - That's where the "economic hit men" come in: seemingly ordinary men, ... water systems, transportation systems, privatize those, and basically ... Rise of the Global Corporatocracy: An Interview with John .....   The investment money by the World Bank goes to the few big corporations pushing privatization.  That's how "investment" works - whether it's the "free market" of the Federal Reserve policies that caused the global economic collapse - the whole system is based on a huge pyramid ponzi scheme that is destroying the planet.   Massive Private Gains at Public Loss. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
voidisyinyang Posted September 24, 2015 Economics professor Michael Hudson exposes the Austrian free market school as neo-fascists.  http://store.counterpunch.org/michael-hudson-episode-19-2/  http://michael-hudson.com/2015/09/killing-the-host-the-book/  His new book looks amazing - Killing the Host.  Free Market Fundamentalism as parasites that kill the hosts. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Karl Posted September 24, 2015 (edited) Economics professor Michael Hudson exposes the Austrian free market school as neo-fascists. Â http://store.counterpunch.org/michael-hudson-episode-19-2/]http://store.counterpunch.org/michael-hudson-episode-19-2/[/url] Â http://michael-hudson.com/2015/09/killing-the-host-the-book/]http://michael-hudson.com/2015/09/killing-the-host-the-book/[/url] Â His new book looks amazing - Killing the Host. Â Free Market Fundamentalism as parasites that kill the hosts. There is no 'Austrian free market school' there is an Austrian school of economics. So, try again. As to Neo Fascism, that requires a government, so, if you mean the libertarian approach to politics/economics, then it's awfully hard to see how it could be fascist. Fairly big oxymoron, but then, you won't think, you haven't got that all the corporatists and states won't teach, or utilise libertarian, or Austrian economics. Indeed, most don't even know what it is as the trend is still Keynesian and Friedmanite. Â We have very little in the way of a 'free market' so, 'free market fundamentalism' is a nice word co-opted by the corporocracy and government in order to pretend that they adhere to it-which they haven't since 1900. At present the markets are completely state controlled through the state, the corporations and the fed. All these are fascist and all these are killing the host. Yet, you won't think for yourself. If you did, then you would get the clever twists of truth, the subtle propaganda, the media lies, the control of words that have left you ignorant. Edited September 24, 2015 by Karl Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Karl Posted September 24, 2015 (edited) http://www.thenation.com/article/politics-water-bolivia/]http://www.thenation.com/article/politics-water-bolivia/[/url]  So the 16% profit rate demanded - was killing off the people of Bolivia.  Profit is a mafia-style involuntary tax - a gang-enforcement of "protection" money.  Tax is based on democratic voting.     http://www.thenation.com/article/politics-water-bolivia/]http://www.thenation.com/article/politics-water-bolivia/[/url]  https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CB4QFjAAahUKEwiSltHg0Y_IAhUEooAKHdCDDFU&url=https://seagrant.uaf.edu/conferences/2011/wakefield-people/presentations/carothers-wellbeing-kodiak.pdf&usg=AFQjCNFt5dIHO26qUucUChRqFqqhoaTI3Q&sig2=4-l4oCZ2EgbeO4vXgcTt4Q]https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CB4QFjAAahUKEwiSltHg0Y_IAhUEooAKHdCDDFU&url=https://seagrant.uaf.edu/conferences/2011/wakefield-people/presentations/carothers-wellbeing-kodiak.pdf&usg=AFQjCNFt5dIHO26qUucUChRqFqqhoaTI3Q&sig2=4-l4oCZ2EgbeO4vXgcTt4Q[/url]  So last night I listened to this ph.d. study on privatization of fisheries in Kodiak Alaska.  I used to work in a fishery in Kodiak Alaska - processing crab and halibut and salmon.  What did the study find after an extensive interview of the fishery community?  Privatization caused a concentration of profit wealth for the owners of the boats while the workers got less money.     and     And so then the fishing business becomes a privatized speculative investment - with the market shares traded by office owners - instead of being a craft that is handed down and trained in through apprenticeship.     O.K. so you Karl are so big on the free market - but free market fundamentalism is what just caused the collapse of the global economy.  A great expose on this is the documentary "Inside Job" - the "economic scientists" are exposed as a bunch of fakes.  When I did my master's degree at the University of Minnesota I exposed similar corporate corruption.      And so you hold up Iceland as some privatization model yet the corruption is rife:     and so Mishkin fired back in the Economics section of the Financial Times:     and     A healthy debate is b.s. - these schools need disclosure requirements!  But they can't have them because the Economics discipline is completely based on ass-kissing the corporations - and these are the "Free market" fundamentalists pushing no regulations and privatization.  http://columbiaspectator.com/news/2011/04/13/%E2%80%98inside-job-prompts-new-look-con%EF%AC%82ict-interest-policy]http://columbiaspectator.com/news/2011/04/13/%E2%80%98inside-job-prompts-new-look-con%EF%AC%82ict-interest-policy[/url]  The Tragedy of Privatization http://tholepin.blogspot.com/2009/10/tragedy-of-privatization.html]http://tholepin.blogspot.com/2009/10/tragedy-of-privatization.html[/url]      http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/26112-an-economic-hit-man-speaks-out-john-perkins-on-how-greece-has-fallen-victim-to-economic-hit-men]An Economic Hit Man Speaks Out: John Perkins on How ...[/url]   www.truth-out.org/.../26112-an-economic-hit-man-speaks-out-j...         Truthout   Sep 11, 2014 - John Perkins, author of "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man," ... and water systems, transportation systems, privatize those, and basically ...       http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-07-02/how-greece-has-fallen-victim-economic-hit-men]How Greece Has Fallen Victim To "Economic Hit Men" | Zero ...[/url]   www.zerohedge.com/.../how-greece-has-fallen-victim-econo...           Zero Hedge   Jul 2, 2015 - That's where the "economic hit men" come in: seemingly ordinary men, ... water systems, transportation systems, privatize those, and basically ...       http://monthlyreview.org/2013/03/01/rise-of-the-global-corporatocracy-an-interview-with-john-perkins/]Rise of the Global Corporatocracy: An Interview with John ...[/url]   monthlyreview.org › ... › Volume 64, Issue 10 (March)       Monthly Review   Mar 1, 2013 - —John Perkins, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man (2004) ... Bhandari (RB): As a fellow former EHM, pushing for the privatization of land in ...   http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/26112-an-economic-hit-man-speaks-out-john-perkins-on-how-greece-has-fallen-victim-to-economic-hit-men]An Economic Hit Man Speaks Out: John Perkins on How ...[/url]   www.truth-out.org/.../26112-an-economic-hit-man-speaks-out-j...         Truthout   Sep 11, 2014 - John Perkins, author of "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man," ... and water systems, transportation systems, privatize those, and basically ...       http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-07-02/how-greece-has-fallen-victim-economic-hit-men]How Greece Has Fallen Victim To "Economic Hit Men" | Zero ...[/url]   www.zerohedge.com/.../how-greece-has-fallen-victim-econo...           Zero Hedge   Jul 2, 2015 - That's where the "economic hit men" come in: seemingly ordinary men, ... water systems, transportation systems, privatize those, and basically ...       http://monthlyreview.org/2013/03/01/rise-of-the-global-corporatocracy-an-interview-with-john-perkins/]Rise of the Global Corporatocracy: An Interview with John ...[/url] ..   [/url]  The investment money by the World Bank goes to the few big corporations pushing privatization.  That's how "investment" works - whether it's the "free market" of the Federal Reserve policies that caused the global economic collapse - the whole system is based on a huge pyramid ponzi scheme that is destroying the planet.  [/url]  Massive Private Gains at Public Loss. Firstly 'privatisation' is nothing at all to do with the free market, or private property rights. You must first understand th definitions or you will be following duff leads and dead ends.  It's really difficult to right every bad idea and confused reasoning you have created here. You seem to think the banks are private, free market institutions, but they aren't. They are tax payer funded corpricracies and oligarchs given free reign by the Government. These are the crooks, banksters and revolving door statist so that have crippled the economy. If you could get this, then you would be coming over to the libertarian side, because it's that side that's fighting these crooks.  Here: this is from Lew Rockwell a confirmed An-Cap and a post by Bill Grigg another An-Cap.   https://www.lewrockwell.com/2010/06/william-norman-grigg/economic-hitmen-target-you/  Why on earth would they be posting these criticisms which align with several things you have posted ? Surely it's time you wondered why they would be blowing up their own 'Neo fascistic' ideology in that way ? Come on. Realise you have been had by the best smoke and mirrors experts on the planet. Just have a look through the articles on Lews site. Does it seem that he supporters the IMF, World bank, Fed, corporations ?  Why isn't Austrian economics taught in universities ? There isn't even a qualification in it. Why has there only been one libertarian ever elected-Ron Paul-and why didn't he ever get anywhere ? Come on dude, figure it out. Why was Ron Paul trying to end the fed ? Edited September 24, 2015 by Karl Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
voidisyinyang Posted September 25, 2015 'privatisation' is nothing at all to do with the free market, or private property rights.  That sounds pretty convenient for you!  http://www.onthecommons.org/corporate-trawlers-try-enclose-pacific-fish  Corporate Trawlers Try to Enclose Pacific Fish http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2010/10/28/18662551.php  Lawsuit Filed Against Privatization of West Coast Fisheries by Dan BacherThursday Oct 28th, 2010 11:02 AM  http://yubanet.com/california/Dan-Bacher-Congress-Defunds-Wasteful-Catch-Shares-Program.php#.VgSriZdjcxJ  The widely-contested "catch shares" program on the East and West Coasts, a pet project of Dr. Jane Lubchenco, under secretary of commerce for oceans and atmosphere and NOAA administrator, serves to privatize public trust resources by concentrating ocean fisheries in a few corporate hands.  Dan Bacher: Congress Defunds Wasteful Catch Shares Program   Published on Apr 18, 2011 - 8:08:41 AM  https://books.google.com/books?id=vzj5W37u0B4C&pg=PA224&lpg=PA224&dq=austrian+free+market+fisheries&source=bl&ots=s3tUJw3dkk&sig=kQVCwH_zlzC3gw3UH-0dEYb76F0&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CDgQ6AEwBGoVChMIiITK0oyRyAIVQnUeCh25-gDU#v=onepage&q=austrian%20free%20market%20fisheries&f=false  Was does this book quote the Catch Shares privatization program as an example of implemented the Austrian free market ideology?  That directly contradicts your claim otherwise. Interesting.  So if that book author is wrong - as you claim - then again what is your solution?  For example what's your free market solution to the vast raping of the oceans for "by-catch" shrimp food.   The Burmese workers are in forced slavery to use trawler nets - which are raping the oceans for profit.  The shrimp is then farmed and fed the fish food - caught by raping the oceans.  The shrimp is then sold as sustainable to Europe and the U.S., etc. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Karl Posted September 25, 2015 (edited) I can't get to look at the book unfortunately.  Again -Austrian free market is something of a cobbled together word-m very careful to evaluate any claim that begins 'free market Austrian'. Libertarians could be described as free marketeers, but really their Philosophy is adherence to the non aggression principle -essentially they won't hurt people or steal their things-so free market/private property is built into that philosophy. Austrian economics is the philosophy of human action, it doesn't really mention the free market as it isn't a manifesto, it's a social science that describes how men act and is termed praxiology.   Privatisation usually mean a state enterprise that is taken over by a corporation-most noteable through the world bank /IMF in poor countries. This isn't the creation of a free market by any stretch of the imagination. It's a state granted monopoly and, as you rightly pointed out some posts previously, it is Neo fascistic and therefore not libertarian. Austrians would simply comment on it and why it would not work effectively. Some people who call themselves free market economists would praise it and some-who really don't understand th Austrian school of economics-like to align themselves with Austrian philosophy to try and give corporatism a more 'authentic' free market flavour.  I had the same issues as you over 'privatisation' and I found it tough to understand the distinction between true Libertarians - Murray Rothbard even changed its name to An-Cap after the Koch brothers began co-opting and distorting the principle for their own benefit.  At some point I think you are going to reach the same conclusion as I have, but it will take a lot of convincing. It's necessary to understand economics from first principles according to the Austrian School, the what the Law is for, finally the Libertarian manifesto.  Books: The Law -Fredrick Bastiat ( short essay). Economics in one lesson -Henry Hazlitt ( economic primer and easy reading) Man, Economy and State-Murray Rothbard ( an easier version of the very dry but genius Mises-human action) For a new Liberty (a libertarian Manifesto)-Murray Rothbard.  Finally, if you want a more new age version then:  Healing our world in an age of aggression-Dr Mary J Ruwart  The first books are all free downloads on Mises.com library. Edited September 25, 2015 by Karl Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
voidisyinyang Posted September 25, 2015 You seem to want to focus on theory and semantics but you have dodged the practical issues I've brought up.  I'm well familiar with the Austrian "school" as I've read Hayek.  Mises was a fawning fan of Ayn Rand as was Greenspan who was a main force behind the economic global collapse that has cost the taxpayers of the working class - trillions of dollars.  That is fascism straight up.  As Professor Michael Hudson states - the Austrian "school" was using Orwellian terminology since it was against the democracy movement in Austria.  http://www.meetup.com/thegreenanchor/messages/boards/thread/19988732  You can't access google books? Set up a gmail account.   But World War I changed the momentum of Western civilization. The rentiers fought back – the Austrian School, von Mises and Hayek, fascism and the University of Chicago’s ideologues redefined “free markets” to mean markets free for rentiers, free from government taxation of land and natural resources, free from public price regulation and oversight. The Reform Era was called “the road to serfdom” – and in its place, the post-classical neoliberals promoted today’s road to debt peonage.  http://michael-hudson.com/2015/06/global-financialization-2015-the-state-of-play/  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDF5kC6rs8s  at the end of 10 minutes. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Karl Posted September 25, 2015 (edited) Well you aren't familiar with the Austrian School if you have read Hayek. You need to read Mises to understand it, Hayek isn't really Austrian, although some of what he says is similar. Â The university of Chicago is Freidmanite and is not Austrian by a long stretch, effectively they are neocon. Â Mises did have a lot of good things to say about Rand and, Rand also had many good things to say, however over the years this relationship fell apart. Rand misunderstood Mises and Rothbard and much arguing ensued. Â Greenspan was a Rand acolyte. However, he never maintained the conviction and joined the enemy 'the fed' and its state. It must be remembered that Rand was never an Anarchist, she did support the state, but she had a pre depiction for supporting powerful businessmen and not necessarily the free market. Â A lot of this is misunderstood. His is why I'm suggesting you get this 'pure source'. If you have the ability to digest the heavy stuff then Mises-Human Action is literally the Bible. It has, in my estimation, a few minor faults, but not many and they are only discoverable because time has passed and the greats, such as Rothbard modified some of the philosophy. Mises was an economics professor he didn't do any of the things you have mentioned. Â I will have a look at your posted video when I get the chance and then comment. Edited September 25, 2015 by Karl Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Karl Posted September 25, 2015 (edited) Ok I've reviewed the video as far as the 10 minute mark. Actually it helped to clear up what Varafoukas, Keen and Hudson have in common. They are Neo-Marxist and we have Neo-Fascists so that all makes sense. Â Both want big government and totalitarian control. They differ only in so far as their methods for achieving domination over everyone. It's the same old blarney we have been listening to since Hitler/Stalin. It's just been softened. Â Live under Hudson and you get nationalised, state run financial systems just as was once the case with the USSR and its older capitalist manufacturing structure. Â Live under the current system and the banking system is privatised, but only nominally. The state runs it through the fed, or should I say it is more of a partnership. Â In both cases there will be the destruction of wealth for everyone but a small percent. Just like the USSR and Nazi Germany. Â Neo Maxist align with libertarians against imperialism and intervention. This was of course a feature of both Soviet and Chinese communism that fell on its own people but did not care much for expansionism beyond spreading ideology. However Neo Marxist don't like the free market, ending welfare, denationalisation. Â Neo fascist like the libertarian free market because it can be twisted to mean 'Neo fascist economics'. However they don't like the non aggression principle which means non intervention. These Neo fascists are termed 'neocons'. They want to expand through aggression and not simply ideology. They will bring what they term 'democracy' to each and every state that opposes them-just as Hitler did with his thousand year reich. Â If you look between the lines you will see that libertarians offer the only alternative. We oppose expansionism and support a true free market. That's the Tao isn't it. Freedom from totalitarian control ? It's also what Jesus was said to have taught. Edited September 25, 2015 by Karl Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
voidisyinyang Posted September 25, 2015 Hudson is critical of Marxists:   Marxists who attribute a crisis of capitalism to declines in reported rates of profit overlook the fact that the real estate, mining and insurance sectors wring their hands all the way to the bank with tax-deductible cash flow counted as “depreciation.”  and   Marx defined “primitive accumulation” as the seizure of land and other communally held assets by raiders and the subsequent extraction of tribute or rent. Today’s financial analogue occurs when banks create credit freely and supply it to corporate raiders for leveraged buyouts or to buy the public domain being privatized.  and then Michael Hudson criticizes compound interest as a mathematical concept:   That is what the mathematics of compound interest are all about.  Now again this is from logarithmic math which is also the basis of the supply and demand model.  The problem, as Michael Hudson knows, goes all the back to ancient Greece with Plato and Archytas - from misusing music theory.  http://michael-hudson.com/2010/07/from-marx-to-goldman-sachs-the-fictions-of-fictitious-capital1/     The worst problem in tuning occurs in the interval of three whole tones, e.g., between C and F#/Gb in the “natural” untempered methods of tuning. If the ratio of the octave is 2:1, then the ratio of C to F# represents the square root of two — an irrational number. (Burkert [1972:441] notes that the harmonic mean [Archytas' subcontrary mean] discovered in the context of Pythagorean music theory has a major use precisely in approximating the square root.)....Pythagoras became the patron saint of the most anti-democratic clubs. They used the principles of musical harmony as a patina of pseudo-science to giveintellectual legitimacy to a movement whose worldly consequences were anythingbut harmonious. The Pythagorean clubs became a network of civic cults risingabove the local sphere to which most clubs related. There seems to have beensome connection with the Delphi temple (the name Pythagoras means “voice ofPythia,” the snake-goddess of Delphi and its oracle). They have been likened tothe Free Masons, in that they served as a kind of Council of Foreign Relations orNew World Order…. Archytas developed the musical scale into a political metaphor for the scales of justice. What gave music this imagery of social balance and just proportion was the ability of its mathematics of harmonic (“geometric”) proportions to serve as an analogy for how inequities of wealth and status rendered truly superior men equal in proportion to their virtue — which tended to reflect their wealth. By this circular logic the wealthy were enabled to rationalize their hereditary dominance over the rest of the population.  Michael Hudson’s essay, “Music as an Analogy for Economic Order in Classical Antiquity” in Jürgen Backhaus (ed.), Karl Bücher. Theory, History, Anthropology, Non-Market Economies (Marburg:Metropolis Verlag, 2000): pp. 113-35 citing Burkert, Walter (1972), Lore and Science in Ancient Pythagoreanism (Harvard University Press, 1972).  So the supply and demand model based on logarithmic math from Plato and Archytas is directly against Taoism.  I have a long article on this - that goes more into the music origins of the Western math - "The Devil's Interval."  Michael Hudson understands Marx just as he understands the Austrian "school" - but he critiques Marx:  Having analyzed finance capital’s tendency to grow exponentially, Marx nonetheless believed that it would be subordinated to the dynamics of industrial capital. With an optimistic Darwinian ring he shared the tendency of his contemporaries to underestimate the ways in which the vested interests would fight back to preserve their privileges even in the face of democratic political reform. He expected industrial capitalism to mobilize finance capital to fund its expansion and indeed its evolution into socialism, plowing profits and financial returns into more capital formation.  http://timefrequencyqigong.blogspot.com/2014/04/the-devils-interval-and-pre-established.html  So that's my article that goes into Taoism and music origins of Western math.  http://michael-hudson.com/2009/06/de-dollarization-dismantling-americas-financial-military-empire/  Hudson is in no way a U.S. nationalist - calling for "de-dollarization"  Now back to the thread - what is the solution instead of privatization and free market fundamentalism?  You have said privatization is the selling off of "state" assets or businesses, etc.  But I have asked you for the solution instead of this - for free market of fisheries?  I have given you evidence that indeed the Austrian "school" is considered the model for the privatization of the oceans.  I see Walter Block arguing for ocean privatization but also stating "slavery was not so bad."  I have given you examples of actual literal slavery still occurring on the ships - the trawlers raping the ocean to create fish food for shrimp farms.  I have asked for a free market solution to that problem but I don't expect Walter Block to provide one since he thought slavery was not so bad.  I have also asked for free market solution to dead zones from fertilizer run-off and your solution is to sue the farmers.  That does not address the actual cause of the problem - the solution is buffer strips.  I asked for a free market solution to ocean acidification and you said you don't care about global warming and you cited corporate Koch-funded research claiming it is not warming.  Then you claim to not be aligned with Koch views.  What Michael Hudson supports is economic democracy.  In the form of fisheries this economic democracy means community-supported fisheries.  https://namanet.org/csf  http://www.localcatch.org/  https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=8&ved=0CEYQFjAHahUKEwj17MDtpJLIAhWCbB4KHfQDB9Q&url=http%3A%2F%2Fsoilandhealth.org%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F0303critic%2F030317hudson%2Fsuperimperialism.pdf&usg=AFQjCNGCs2mHRxd_OxsGJFOve1Mp1BjQLw&cad=rja  So Michael Hudson's book as a pdf. Again critical of Marx:   Far from being the engine ofdevelopment that Marx, Lenin and Rosa Luxemburg imagined the imperialism of Europe’scolonialist powers to be in their day, the United States has drained the financial resourcesof its industrial Dollar Bloc allies while retarding the development of indebted third worldraw-materials exporters and, most recently, the East Asian “tiger economies” and theformerly Soviet sphere.   That's the only reference to Marx that he makes in the book.  How would the Free Market address salmon fishieries that rely on freshwater rivers for spawning - rivers facing drought due to overuse by agriculture?  http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/fishermen-farmers-fight-water-california/   A political and ideological coup d’état is replacing democracy with financial oligarchy, transferring government power to banks and bondholders. The new policy is not for governments to tax the wealthy but to borrow from them – at interest, which is to be paid by taxing labor, consumers and industry all the more. To proceed down this path would reverse Europe’s Enlightenment and the past three centuries of economics. It is called classical economics – and even “free market economics” – but it is a travesty to impose this policy in the name of the patron saints of classical political economy. The Physiocrats, Adam Smith, John Stuart Mill, Wilhelm Roscher, Friedrich List and Progressive Era reformers urged just the opposite path of what now is being taken, and indeed which the world seemed to be following until World War I and for a few decades after World War II.  http://michael-hudson.com/2012/08/financial-predators-v-labor-industry-and-democracy/   Not since the Middle Ages and colonization of the New World, Africa and Asia has the world seen so aggressive an economic warfare. The plan drawn up in 2011 for Greece to become a tribute-payer confronts voters with a condition for remaining part of the Eurozone that nobody expected a decade ago: replacing democracy with a rentier oligarchy administered by financial technocrats. The government is to serve bankers and bondholders by acting as their debt collector.  and   To disable political democracy, finance buys control of the electoral campaigns so as to promote politicians acting as its officers. It also buys control of the television, radio and published mass media, and uses endowments to buy control of the academic process. Together, these are the various organs that represent the “brain” of society. They are being zombified today. Religion itself has been diverted away from its age-long focus on debt and usury. Few Christians are taught that in his initial sermon, Jesus unrolled the scroll of Isaiah proclaiming the Jubilee Year, and said that this was his own task: to proclaim the “Year of the Lord” and announce a Clean Slate wiping out Jewish debts, liberating indebted bond-servants and restoring lands to their original pre-foreclosure owners.  So I would say Michael Hudson follows Jesus much more than the Austrian "school." Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Karl Posted September 25, 2015 (edited) Hell on Earth is reading your polemics. :-) I can't speak to all this music, irrational number stuff. I haven't any idea where you are going with it. Â Private property ownership isn't privatisation. You haven't privatised your own person, house, clothing, job etc. You have temporary ownership and responsibility for these things that's all. It is what you do with that property that adds value to the world. Thus the parable of the talents. Â Hudson is calling for communism of the bankers, just as Marx called for communism of the industrialists. Currently we have a fascistic banking class supported by the state. Hudson wants to collectivise it. Â Debt jubilees are not the answer to today's financial problems. We need a liquidation of malinvestment. That means a clear out of those who have invested badly. We should not be encouraging poor actors to continue being poor actors. In the time of Jesus, all loans were private loans and all losses would be private losses. This won't happen today. What we have in artificially low interest rates is a debt jubilee in all but name. The result is the destruction of the savers and careful investors/businesses who have been turned upside down by the gambling classes. Â As to the rivers. Let them be in privately owned and utilise the law to sue those who pollute (trespass ) on the property. The water from the river, it's fishing and access are then controlled by someone who has a vested interest in achieving some form of income from the property and will therefore will work to keep it sustainable and free from pollution. It's no different to a restaurant owner. In fact this is the case with much of the Highlands of Scotland, which is why the area remains an unspoilt wilderness. Â It's quite frustrating when you quote Walter Block out of context. Instead of defending him, I'm going to ask you to find the full transcript of his conversation instead of just an excerpt. You owe Walter that at least and not just to take for granted some sound bite you discovered to support your ideology. Â Hudson by the way has several articles on the Lew Rockwell website. Â As to global warming, I simply don't give a chuff. I pointed out that despite claims by paid up pseudo scientists who are no different to the Koch brothers, that we hadn't had the temperature rises anyway. Not only do give a chuff, but the numbers were wrong. Same gig with the Ozone hole which was a huge hoax we all fell into- even I did. Â The reason I don't care is because it's in the future. The free market and private property rights would have already resolved the issue. As no one really wants to solve any potential issue and simply want to make money/ grab power by scaring people then I have no interest in their schemes and scams. I will be long dead either way and its fir future generations t figure out these things if needed. I live in the now, the future is not written by me, or for me. Â That Hudson piece on Marx and Capital is so idiotic it is downright scary. Money is just a convenient form of exchange for goods. Money therefore is a commodity just the same as any other good. Gold and Silver became the dominant money by the power of the market. This can be seen in prisoner of war camps where cigarettes became the preferred money as they were readily exchangeable and has many of the attributes necessary for a money. Â So, real money represents unconsumed goods ( as opposed to today's unbacked fractional reserve debt creators that create debt out of thin air ). Libertarians want to end this government fiat, it's fractional reserve system and its monopoly. Hudson does not want to do this, he wants to carry on with it and nationalise the banks just as Marx wanted to nationalise the industrialists. Â Back to real money, the stuff that has organically become the money of choice. This has traditionally been precious metals because of their relative scarcity, ductility, beauty, diserability etc. However there is no intrinsic value in precious metal anymore than there is in Fiat currency-although you can at least manufacture something out of metal, where as paper is pretty much worthless. It's noteable than a ÂŁ5 note is no more costly to produce than a ÂŁ50 note, or much greater denomination, but a precious metal would be heavier. Â As a commodity then, money is traded and has a market price. That market price is denominated by its interest which, without state interference, would normally rise and fall with market demand. When there is little demand then the rate falls, when there is great demand it rises. Thus, the economy envisaged by the classical economist is wrong. Without the interference of the state, a small amount of savings would largely stay a small amount of savings. It would be worth more during times of high demand and then the market would react to contract its value. Â Henry ford did not pay his workers more in order that they buy his cars. He paid them more to stop them being snapped up by competing companies after he had spent months investing in their training. In other words, labour is a commodity, however those supplying their labour are not homogenous. Everyone supplying labour is unique, with different skills and capacities. Yet it does not rest there. As Mises showed, every labour supplier has a different value of his time. Some value idleness higher than productive income. Some wish to work hard and earn 23 hours a day, others are happy for a few hours a week. Edited September 25, 2015 by Karl Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
voidisyinyang Posted September 25, 2015 Frederick Hayek’s Road to Serfdom portrayed a dystopia of public officials seeking to regulate the economy. In attacking government so one-sidedly, his ideological extremism sought to replace the checks and balances of mixed economies with a private sector “free” of regulation and consumer protection. His vision was of a post-modern economy “free” of the classical reforms to bring market prices into line with cost value. Instead of purifying industrial capitalism from the special rent extraction privileges bequeathed from the feudal epoch, Hayek’s ideology opened the way for unchecked financial power to make a travesty of “free markets.”  http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2011/06/michael-hudson-the-financial-road-to-serfdom-%E2%80%93-how-bankers-are-using-the-debt-crisis-to-roll-back-the-progressive-era.html  O.K. so you're saying the river should be owned but that is not the same as privatization - and that privatization of the ocean is not the same as property rights or the free market, etc.  http://creativetimereports.org/2015/03/17/activists-fight-privatization-colombias-magdalena-river/   In recent years Colombia has privatized the entire Magdalena River, with plans to build another nine dams that will transform the upper part of the river—which flows northward from the departments of Huila and Tolima—and bleed the country of its agricultural heritage and environmental resources. In 2014 the government also gave the green light for the controversial technique of hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” throughout the country, including in 16 municipalities in Huila.  The problem with these privatization schemes or free market property - what ever you want to call it - is they ignore the real ecological consequences.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_privatization  For example - the Ocean privatization scheme promoted by your cult leaders - this ignores some serious problems with the attempt to "enclose" the environment, especially the ocean.    Companies should own every single bit of water on the planet, according to Nestle’s former CEO and now-Chairman Peter Brabeck-Letmathe. His position, shared by many others in his ranks, is one of profits over people and corporate rights over human rights. They advocate a sort of survival-of-the-richest, where only those with money should have access to “privileges” like water. Read more: http://naturalsociety.com/nestle-drains-water-arkansas-rivers/#ixzz3mmHdHjUs Follow us: @naturalsociety on Twitter | NaturalSociety on Facebook  So it's the big corporations pushing privatization of water.  Yet you seem to think there is some free market utopia somewhere of private individuals.  Sorry - but I have no idea what you're talking about.  I post evidence after evidence and then you spew theory and semantics.    Nestle’s position on owning water is not new. A few years ago they began buying up property and water rights in Colorado to turn the world’s greatest natural resource into a bottled commodity. The Arkansas River Basin in Chaffee County, Colorado was ground zero for millions in land acquisitions. Private landowners sold their plots for as much as $1.1 million for 1.4 acres, according to a news report from the Colorado Independent at the time. Read more: http://naturalsociety.com/nestle-drains-water-arkansas-rivers/#ixzz3mmI0aZwI Follow us: @naturalsociety on Twitter | NaturalSociety on Facebook  so private ownership in the free market in no way guarantees environmental conservation.  What is forgotten about money is that gold was based on solar temples - and silver was based on lunar temples. Originally gold and silver represented alchemical principles and it was believed to be buried with gold meant to go into heaven.  But then when the ancient Greeks began printing coins they used the ten-based number system and this was tied to phonetic language using symmetric-based mathematics and so the principles of complementary opposites was lost.  Along with losing the female lunar principle was the rise of monoculture farming tied to the solar calendar and divide/average mathematics.  So the patriarchal money system is based on the idea that infinity of Nature can be contained by geometric-based mathematics - and so money as an exchange system became no longer tied to Nature based on complementary opposites but instead a concept of infinite symmetric-based geometric transformation.   Fiction, Famine, and the Rise of Economics in Victorian Britain and Ireland  This book details this well - Gordon Bigelow Cambridge University Press, Nov 20, 2003  So this myth of an individual economic human arose - along with this idea of an infinite money system.   In it an enormous multitude of strangers, all individuals, all striving alone, are nevertheless all bound together in a beautiful and natural pattern of existence: the market. This understanding of markets—not as artifacts of human civilization but as phenomena of nature—now serves as the unquestioned foundation of nearly all political and social debate....The core assumption of standard economics is that humans are fundamentally individual rather than social animals. The theory holds that all economic choices are acts of authentic, unmediated selfhood, rational statements reflecting who we are and what we want in life. But in reality even our purely “economic” choices are not made on the basis of pure autonomous selfhood; all of our choices are born out of layers of experience in contact with other people. What is entirely missing from the economic view of modern life is an understanding of the social world.  and   When British leadership put its faith in the natural balance of an open market to create the best outcome, the result was disaster.  Talking about the Irish Famine.  and about you unable to read my "polemics"   “Post-autistic economics” (PAE) is the name now taken by those few economists who hope to rescue the discipline from the neoclassical model; the name is an homage to the dissident French students, whose manifesto called the standard model “autistic.” It is a hilariously apt (albeit mildly offensive) diagnosis, and it could be just as well applied to Homo economicus himself, the economic actor envisioned by the neoclassical theory, who performs dazzling calculations of utility maximization despite being entirely unable to communicate with his fellow man.  http://harpers.org/archive/2005/05/let-there-be-markets/4/   The wages of sin are often, and notoriously, a private jet and a wicked stock-option package. The wages of hard moral choice are often $5.15 an hour. Free markets don’t promote public virtue; they promote private interest. In this way they are neither “free” (that is, independent of human influence) nor uniformly helpful in promoting freedom. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
voidisyinyang Posted September 25, 2015 So it's kind of ironic that prison privatization has led to slavery again in the U.S. -  According to the website Insider Higher Ed, 17 Loyola faculty members wrote a joint letter calling on the university to "take the long overdue and necessary steps to condemn and censure Professor Block for his recurring public assaults on the values of Loyola University, its mission and the civil rights of all." In his decision to dismiss the case, handed down April 30, U.S. District Judge Ivan Lemelle wrote: "Perceptions about Block's notions of race related issues were largely fueled and published by Block himself. In this regard, Block cannot complain about resulting perceptions of insensitivity and levity on serious issues like slavery." Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Karl Posted September 25, 2015 (edited) You won't do your own thinking. I mentioned this previously regarding your dissertation. All you do, on a consistent basis is to drag up bits of what others have said. This is how you were taught. Simply to parrot the state and its supporters. It is simply the fallacy of verecundian and nothing more. It's the worst kind of plagiarism, but I suppose that's what passes for a qualification these days. Â I have drawn ever closer to terminating this discussion, but had a vain hope you might just begin to utilise your own faculties to argue, but it appears I was too optimistic. Either argue on your own terms without the plagiarism or I'm out. Edited September 25, 2015 by Karl Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Karl Posted September 25, 2015 So it's kind of ironic that prison privatization has led to slavery again in the U.S. -  According to the website Insider Higher Ed, 17 Loyola faculty members wrote a joint letter calling on the university to "take the long overdue and necessary steps to condemn and censure Professor Block for his recurring public assaults on the values of Loyola University, its mission and the civil rights of all." In his decision to dismiss the case, handed down April 30, U.S. District Judge Ivan Lemelle wrote: "Perceptions about Block's notions of race related issues were largely fueled and published by Block himself. In this regard, Block cannot complain about resulting perceptions of insensitivity and levity on serious issues like slavery."  I know all about it, but, again, sadly you are unable to do the thinking work for yourself. The powers that be don't like libertarians or Austrian economists. They didn't like Jesus either. Would you be hammering in the nails ? Do I really have to dig out Blocks entire story to convince you? Are you just too lazy ? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
voidisyinyang Posted September 26, 2015 Karl - quoting evidence is not an "appeal to authority" fallacy. Also it's not plagiarism if you cite the sources.  Libertarians are actually funded by big corporations to spew out corporate propaganda - this is the Cato Institute, Heritage Foundation, Koch Brothers, American Enterprise Institute, ALEC and again Alan Greenspan and the Ayn Randian deregulation movement that brought down the global economy through massive fraud.  So in actuality - libertarians are the Wall St. fraudsters that have destroyed the u.s.  As for the topic of this thread - you have yet to present any evidence for any real solutions to the environmental destruction of the ocean. On the contrary you say you don't care about global warming - which is causing ocean acidification, the destruction of the coral reefs, dramatic rising of water levels, destructive mega-storms, etc.  You just keep saying put the environment in private ownership and I keep pointing out that doesn't ensure any kind of conservation - in fact it concentrates the wealth which creates more problems.  A corporation is legally a person - and so corporations uses personhood to argue for libertarian bill of rights protection - and so corporations love libertarian arguments.  This corporate libertarian philosophy was well detailed by David Korten in his classic book, "When Corporations Rule the World." Assault of the Corporate Libertarians (Excerpt) http://livingeconomiesforum.org/Libertarians   In the quest for economic growth, free market ideology has been embraced around the world with a near religious fervor. The beliefs espoused by free market ideologues are familiar to anyone conversant with the language of contemporary economic discourse. Sustained economic growth, as measured by Gross Domestic Product, is the path to human progress. Free markets, unrestrained by governments, generally result in the most efficient and socially optimal allocation of resources. Economic globalization, achieved by removing barriers to the free flow of goods and money anywhere in the world, spurs competition, increases economic efficiency, creates jobs, lowers consumer prices, increases economic growth, and is generally beneficial to almost everyone. Privatization, which moves functions and assets from governments to the private sector, improves efficiency; lowers prices, increases consumer choice, increases economic growth, and is generally beneficial to almost everyone. The primary responsibility of government is to provide the infrastructure necessary to advance commerce, maintain public order, protect property rights, and enforce contracts. These beliefs are based on a number of explicit, underlying assumptions imbedded in the theories of neoclassical economics. Humans are motivated by self-interest, which is expressed primarily through the quest for financial gain. The action that yields the greatest financial return to the individual or firm also yields the most benefit to society. Competitive behavior is more rational for the individual than cooperative behavior and ultimately more beneficial for society. Human progress and improvements in well-being are best measured by increases in the aggregate market value of economic output. To put it in harsher language, these ideological doctrines assume that: People are by nature motivated primarily by greed. The drive to acquire is the highest expression of what it means to be human. The relentless pursuit of greed and acquisition leads to socially optimal outcomes. The interests of human societies are best served by encouraging, honoring, and rewarding the above values.  and   The moral philosophers of market liberalism perpetrate a serious distortion by neglecting the distinction between the rights of property and the rights of people. Indeed, they equate the freedom and rights of individuals with market freedom and property rights. The freedom of the market is the freedom of those with money. When rights are a function of property rather than personhood, only those with property have rights. 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Karl Posted September 26, 2015 (edited) As I said. I'm out. Edited September 26, 2015 by Karl Share this post Link to post Share on other sites