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Author | Topic: Decline And Fall Of The American Empire | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
ringo Member (Idle past 438 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined:
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quote:The American "Century" ended in 1963. Edited by ringo, : fixed quote.
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ringo Member (Idle past 438 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Phat writes:
I live in an oil-exporting province - so good. Import our oil.
The main issue, as I have tried to explain before, is that once the US Dollar is no longer the global reserve currency, we can no longer print money to pay our debts and prices on oil imports will rise exponentially.
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ringo Member (Idle past 438 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
NoNukes writes:
Isn't the money they risk also the fruit of human labor?
On the other hand, the idea that labor creates all value is clearly bogus. Folks who take risks, and who lose money when things do not work out are folks who do contribute to value.
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ringo Member (Idle past 438 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined:
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NoNukes writes:
Where did that money come from?
For example, inherited lottery winnings. Or money earned via investment in the stock market, where the initial investment is a loan. Or money from the sale of property whose value is primarily accumulated via appreciation rather. NoNukes writes:
It only has "value" when somebody pays for it. Where does that money come from?
A bottle of wine may have a value that increases over time just from sitting in a cellar. NoNukes writes:
"Ownership" of the money is not relevant to my comments. No matter how a first million dollars is earned, if the money can become 2 million dollars for the owner without the owner adding labor, then it is ownership of that second million dollars that serves as the source of my comments. Ownership is arbitrary. Some right-wing nuts believe they "own" their money and that taxation "steals" it from them. In fact, it's society that determines who owns what. But the real "value" of something can only originate in labor, I think.
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ringo Member (Idle past 438 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
NoNukes writes:
Who said it had to be labor on the part of the seller? The "value" is set by whatever the buyer is willing to pay and his money is generated by labor.
If the buyer has to work himself into an early grave in order to purchase the wine, then the owner of that old wine still reaps an increase with essentially no labor on his own part. NoNukes writes:
Your example is invalid. Try another one.
Some value is derived from sources other than labor even if labor is used to purchase that value.
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ringo Member (Idle past 438 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Phat writes:
The Attorney is part of society, along with the legislators and the judicial system.
Although an individual with a good Attorney can school society on the legalities. Society itself has no Attorney to look after their social interests.
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ringo Member (Idle past 438 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Phat writes:
That's the point. There is "value" that can not be measured directly in dollars and cents. The standard economic indicators don't include the indirect contributions.
I read an article in The Atlantic that talked about the GDP as an outmoded measurement.
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ringo Member (Idle past 438 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
NoNukes writes:
Nope. The seller's income comes from the buyer, who gets it from labor.
My example is just fine for the purpose of showing that labor is not the source of all income and that other components make up GDP. NoNukes writes:
Where does the money for the interest come from?
How about all income from interest as yet another.
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ringo Member (Idle past 438 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Phat writes:
That depends on what you call a "major economic event". There have been several booms and busts in my lifetime that the pundits refer to as major revents - but none of them had any effect on me. I seem to be swimming upstream, doing well when the economy is bad and worse when the economy is better. It seems to me that it's all relative.
In my opinion, the Fall Of The American Empire will be punctuated by a major economic event.
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ringo Member (Idle past 438 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
NoNukes writes:
Even if they're not directly labourers, the money originates in labor. Jesse James didn't rob working people directly but he robbed the banks that stole the money from working people.
Not necessarily. Buyers need not be laborers. NoNukes writes:
That's not much of a point.
The point is that the seller gets his money without his own labor.
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ringo Member (Idle past 438 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Phat writes:
You're defining it so broadly that it doesn't have much meaning. You said, " the Fall Of The American Empire will be punctuated by a major economic event," and now you're making it sound like every other Tuesday.
a major economic event is when a majority of the people are directly affected. Phat writes:
How do you propose that that would happen? Going back to the idea of labour being a source of wealth, what's to prevent me from working, even if not for money?
Not just in having less disposable income but in having no income.
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ringo Member (Idle past 438 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Phat writes:
It will create a lot of work rebuilding. Is that a bad thing?
In relation to this discussion, Hurricane Irma could end up being a major economic event.
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ringo Member (Idle past 438 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Phat writes:
Why wouldn't people use dollars for exchange? There's plenty of them around even if the economists, in their infinite wisdom, decide they're worthless.
In order to help the economy, however...people would have to agree with each exchange of labor a common value. This isn't easy to do if I offer dandelion leaves while you have oak timber.
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ringo Member (Idle past 438 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Phat writes:
The question was about work, not pay. What would prevent me from working? Nothing. What would prevent people from paying me in any mutually-agreed-upon medium of exchange? Nothing. Whether or not the medium of exchange is "backed" by the government is relatively insignificant.
Because you said you could work even if not for money.
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ringo Member (Idle past 438 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Phat writes:
Yes. How is that an insurmountable problem?
I could pay you in a medium of exchange agreed upon by both of us, but if you tried to buy bread with it, you would then have to agree with the baker before you could eat.
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