AWFUL news from the Gulf.

[PostMortem1666]

Jeff is winning the thread.

Winning? Is that what this is really about? Come on man.

 

[PostMortem1666]

What do you mean by a "need for infinite growth" and why is this a flaw, and why is it associated with money specifically? In general, all living systems grow until they reach their maximum sustainable size, at which point they start to stagnate and/or die. Economies are no different. Humans are remarkable because they are the only organisms that can increase the ability of their environment to sustain themselves.

In order to keep people employed, people must constantly consume, regardless of the state of affairs within the environment and often regardless of product utility. This is the absolute reverse of what a sustainable practice would require, which is the strategic preservation and efficient use of resources.

At this point it becomes obvious that you aren't talking about money, but have some bizarre complaint against what I assume is your vague notion of a free market economy.

Anyway, a really inefficient industrial complex is... inefficient... and not nearly as profitable as an efficient industrial complex. Capitalism allows for a competitor to leap in, have a more efficient process, and therefore have cheaper costs and lower prices. Lower prices = More sales and More Sales = More profit. The more efficient process is rewarded.

In the world today, with the advent of Globalization, it has become more profitable to import and export both labor and goods across the globe, than to produce locally. We import bananas from Ecuador to the US, bottled water from Fuji Japan, while western companies will go to the 3rd world to exploit cheap labor, etc. Likewise, the process of extraction, to component generation, to assembly, to distribution of a given good might cross through multiple countries for a single final product, simply due to labor and production costs / property costs. This is extreme inefficiency and only justifiable within the market system for the sake of “saving money”.

Right, like guilds in the Middle Ages. Or kingdoms and caste systems.

Wait, those belong to feudalism, not capitalism... Does capitalism have any "establishments" like these? Aside from a government that makes the startup cost of business prohibitively high (hmm that appears to be a problem of TOO MUCH gov't, and not too little), no, there isn't any feature of capitalism that does this

It is important to consider the basic nature of a corporation and its inherent need for self perpetuation. If a person starts a company, hires employees, creates a market and becomes profitable, what has thus been created, in part, is the means for survival for a group of people. Since each person in that group typically becomes dependent on their organization for income, a natural, protectionist propensity is created whereas anything that threatens the institution thus threatens the well being of the group/individual. This is the fabric of a “competition” mindset. While people think of free market competition as a battle between two or more companies in a given industry, they often miss the other level- which is the competition against new advents which would make them obsolete, outright.
The best way to expand on this point is to simply give an example, such as the US Government and 'Big Oil' collusion to limit the expansion of the fully Electric Car (EV) in the US. This issue was well presented and sourced in the documentary called “Who Killed the Electric Car?”. The bottom line here is that the need to preserve an established order for the sake of the well being of those on the pay role, leads to an inherent tendency to stifle progress. A new technology which can make a prior technology obsolete will be met with resistance unless there is a way for the market system to adsorb it in a slow fashion, allowing for a transition for the corporations ( IE- the perpetuation of “Hybrid” cars in the US, as opposed to the fully electric ones which could exist now, in abundance.) There are also large amounts of evidence that the FDA has engaged in favoritism/collusion with ************** companies, to limit/stop the availability of advanced progressive drugs which would void existing/profitable ones.

This has nothing to do with capitalism but rather the people buying and the people creating. Consumers in general prefer buying disposable things for the most part, and why not? Is there really anything that bad with this? Computers are radically different every 5 years. What is your proposed alternative, that we slow progress down until the natural obsolescence of things is more to your taste?

The wasteful reality is that due to the competitive basis of the system, it is a mathematic certainty that every good produced is immediately inferior the moment it is created, due the need to cut the initial cost basis of production and hence stay “competitive” against another company... which is doing the same thing for the same reason. The old free market adage where producers " create the best possible goods at the lower possible prices" is a needlessly wasteful reality and detrimentally misleading, for it is impossible for a company to use the most efficient material or processes in the productions of anything, for it would be too expensive to maintain a competitive cost basis. They very simply cannot make the “strategically best” physically - it is mathematically impossible. If they did, no one would buy it for it would be unaffordable due the values inherent in the higher quality materials and methods. Remember - people buy what they can afford to. Every person on this planet has a built in limit of affordability in the monetary system, so it generates a feedback loop of constant waste via inferior production, to meet inferior demand.

Wrong. Capitalism actually fosters and encourages competition. When you have a cartel/monopoly situation that is truly unfavorable, the incentive to start a company and undercut their prices is immense. Carnegie proved that extremely efficient production practices and undercutting competitors was the best way to make money and be successful. I read in his biography that he was asked to join a cartel, and declined, saying that he'd simply undercut every one of them and run them out of business before losing customers to them.

In America, there have been numerous monopolies, such as Standard Oil and Microsoft. Cartels, which are essentially Monopolies by way of collusion between the largest competitors in an industry, are also persistent to this day, while less obvious to the casual observer. In any case, the "free market" itself does not resolve these issues - it always take the government to step in and break up the monopolies. This aside, the more important point is that in an economy based on "growth", it is only natural for a corporation to want to expand. After all, that is the basis of economic stability in the modern world - expansion. Expansion of any corporation, always gravitates toward monopoly or cartel, for, again, the basic drive of competition is to out do your competitor. In other words, monopoly and cartel are absolutely natural in the competitive system. In fact, it is inevitable, for again, the very basis is to seek dominance over market share. The true detriment of this reality goes back to point 4 above- the inherent propensity of an "Establishment" to preserve its institution. If a medical cartel is influencing the FDA, then new ideas which void that cartel's income will often be fought, regardless of the social benefits being thwarted

Yes, but you're forgetting an important part: "The less there is of something, the more valuable it is, therefore more money can be made off of it". You say "in the short term", but you omit that this is also true in the long term -- why is that, I wonder

It is simply against the very nature of what drives demand to create abundance. The Kimberly Diamond Mines in Africa have been documented in the past to burn diamonds in order to keep prices high. Diamonds are rare resources which take billions of years to be created. This is nothing but problematic. The world we live in should be based on the interest to generate an abundance for the world's people, along with strategic preservation and streamlined methods to enable that abundance. This is a central reason why, as of 2010, there are over a billion people starving on the planet. It has nothing to do with an inability to produce food, and everything having to do with an inherent need to create/preserve scarcity for the sake of short term profits. Abundance, Efficiency and Sustainability are, very simply, the enemies of profit. This also applies to the quality of goods. The idea of creating something that could last, say, a lifetime with little repair, is anathema to the market system, for it reduces consumption rates, which slows growth and creates systemic repercussions (like a loss of jobs, etc.).

 

[JeffTD]

Anyone hear about BP's twitter account getting hacked?

BP: Our Twitter Account was Hacked!!

gotta read up on that other fake account, that thing is genius!

I will say that I'm getting a bit sick of all the flack BP is getting... I flipped on CNN yesterday to find Anderson Cooper bitching endlessly about BP having stopped pumping for 16 hours and never notified the public or the Coast Guard of it before resuming. The problem is that them stopping the pumping was completely normal operating procedure, the kind of shit that the people internally at BP wouldn't think would be necessary to tell the public and the Coast Guard. That's not to say BP's PR team is a bit behind and fairly retarded as we've seen at this point, and that's also not to say that the internal chain of command is not exactly efficient (part of the source of this leak in first place), but at some point we need to step back and let BP do all they can to stop the leak, and deal with punishments and lawsuits and payouts and etc etc etc when oil isn't flowing at an exorbitant rate out into the ocean.

It's not as if it's in BP's best interest to do anything but stop the flow of oil as soon as humanly possible. There is zero good that prolonging the process would do for the company, and it's stupid to think they aren't doing everything in their power to stop it.

President Obama the other day in a press conference 'reassured' the public that the federal government was involved with and even directing the stoppage effort since day one.

WHAT???

Let's ignore the fact that there is not a single task that our government can perform more efficiently and effectively than a private company. Who do you want in charge of plugging up this hole - civil engineers with years of experience and training, who work with the equipment and in the environment in question on a day-to-day basis, or some dude from FEMA who's been trained by an organization with a questionable track record at handling emergencies and who hardly specialize in any one area of recovery? I've posted this before, but my best friend works at FEMA. He's 19. I love Billy, but for chrissake, they employ far more college freshman than a government agency tasked with federal emergency management really should be employing.

I don't want to downplay how shitty move a BP pulled in shortcutting the normal procedure for sealing these kinds of wells, by any means, but to suggest they aren't doing everything in their power to rectify this as quickly as possible is foolish, at best.

 

[Chryst Krispies]

Winning? Is that what this is really about? Come on man.

Lawls.

I bathed them and I clipped them and I stand by my performance.

 

[ParsonsMatt]

In order to keep people employed, people must constantly consume, regardless of the state of affairs within the environment and often regardless of product utility. This is the absolute reverse of what a sustainable practice would require, which is the strategic preservation and efficient use of resources.

People have to constantly consume in order to survive. That's a nature of reality. You need food every day. Likewise, things break and need to be replaced. Your logic is backwards: People must constantly consume, so people are kept employed.

In the world today, with the advent of Globalization, it has become more profitable to import and export both labor and goods across the globe, than to produce locally. We import bananas from Ecuador to the US, bottled water from Fuji Japan, while western companies will go to the 3rd world to exploit cheap labor, etc. Likewise, the process of extraction, to component generation, to assembly, to distribution of a given good might cross through multiple countries for a single final product, simply due to labor and production costs / property costs. This is extreme inefficiency and only justifiable within the market system for the sake of “saving money”.

This is high school economics dude. We import bananas from Ecuador because they grow better there (different climate...). We don't import much water at all from Fuji -- the water that IS imported, is a "luxury/boutique" item.

One of the reason we export so much labor is because the price of US labor is vastly inflated over what it is worth (thanks to... Gov't enforced minimum wage!), which results in prices being higher for things that require minimum wage labor.

What you are describing is a natural consequence of specialization and relative vs absolute advantage, and is a perfectly efficient thing to do. Do I grow all of my own food? No, I buy food from people who specialize in food growing. Do I build my own guitars? No, I buy guitars from people who specialize in guitar building. Do I build my own computers? Yes, because I have the skills and knowledge necessary to do that. Does the US make all of its own stuff? No, it makes a good bit of it, but what it can't produce efficiently, it purchases from elsewhere.

Why should the United States spend $10 million per year on banana production, when it can simply buy the same amount of bananas from Ecuador for $5 million?

It is important to consider the basic nature of a corporation and its inherent need for self perpetuation. If a person starts a company, hires employees, creates a market and becomes profitable, what has thus been created, in part, is the means for survival for a group of people. Since each person in that group typically becomes dependent on their organization for income, a natural, protectionist propensity is created whereas anything that threatens the institution thus threatens the well being of the group/individual. This is the fabric of a “competition” mindset. While people think of free market competition as a battle between two or more companies in a given industry, they often miss the other level- which is the competition against new advents which would make them obsolete, outright.

I will agree with you, to an extent. It is true that a corporation and its employees' livelihood depends upon its success. And it is true that new technology, ideas, and implementations can make the old obsolete. And it is also true that one way to combat this is to stop the development of new things.

However, doing that is extremely costly and NOT efficient at all. Microsoft survived in the mid-90s by changing its focus and main intent to be more Internet adaptable. Apple changed focus from computers to consumer lifestyle and became hugely profitable. Ibanez started out making Gibson/Fender clones, and adapted to the changing market of the 80s to produce shred guitars (and became very successful).

Also, there's a huge incentive to have that cutting edge technology and the competitive edge it brings, and who better to do this than large corporations with big R&D budgets?

The best way to expand on this point is to simply give an example, such as the US Government and 'Big Oil' collusion to limit the expansion of the fully Electric Car (EV) in the US. This issue was well presented and sourced in the documentary called “Who Killed the Electric Car?”. The bottom line here is that the need to preserve an established order for the sake of the well being of those on the pay role, leads to an inherent tendency to stifle progress. A new technology which can make a prior technology obsolete will be met with resistance unless there is a way for the market system to adsorb it in a slow fashion, allowing for a transition for the corporations ( IE- the perpetuation of “Hybrid” cars in the US, as opposed to the fully electric ones which could exist now, in abundance.) There are also large amounts of evidence that the FDA has engaged in favoritism/collusion with ************** companies, to limit/stop the availability of advanced progressive drugs which would void existing/profitable ones.

I find it interesting that you mention government organizations and government regulation being key in these problems -- I thought you were talking about the ills of capitalism/market economy/etc., and not the problems associated with regulation and control?

I saw "Who Killed the Electric Car?", and I think its a great documentary. Its a great example how and why we need to move away from oil, but I don't think that its necessarily a good example of why free market is a bad thing. Consumers in general don't want electric cars, because gasoline is still significantly cheaper than the cost of buying a new (expensive!) electric car. When the big automakers are offering fully electric cars at equivalent prices to their gas powered economy models, I expect to see them gain market share, but as it stands, the kinds of people that are concerned about gas prices can't really afford the cost of a new electric car.

The wasteful reality is that due to the competitive basis of the system, it is a mathematic certainty that every good produced is immediately inferior the moment it is created, due the need to cut the initial cost basis of production and hence stay “competitive” against another company... which is doing the same thing for the same reason.

What? This doesn't make any sense, nor as far as I can tell, actually mean anything. It seems to me that you are assuming some "ideal" product, which the two companies are striving to make but can't because they are cutting costs. This doesn't really reflect reality at all.

The old free market adage where producers " create the best possible goods at the lower possible prices" is a needlessly wasteful reality and detrimentally misleading, for it is impossible for a company to use the most efficient material or processes in the productions of anything, for it would be too expensive to maintain a competitive cost basis.

You say it is wasteful; what is wasted? You say it is misleading; who is it misleading, what is the truth and how is this 'adage' distorting that truth?

Additionally, an efficient process of manufacturing by definition is cheaper than an inefficient one. An efficient process uses less time and resources to produce the same end product. Time and resources cost money, so using less of them is cheaper... I don't see how a more efficient process can be too expensive to maintain. It seems to me that any company that wanted to remain competitive would find it too expensive -NOT- to have the most efficient process possible.

They very simply cannot make the “strategically best” physically - it is mathematically impossible. If they did, no one would buy it for it would be unaffordable due the values inherent in the higher quality materials and methods.

Right, which is why no one buys Mercedes cars, Suhr guitars, Diezel amps, Apple computers... oh wait.

Obviously there is an incentive to produce an "inferior" product, but if you consider the value/cost of something, "inferior" is difficult to determine, especially given the wide variety of possible purposes and uses. A Roland Microcube doesn't sound particularly great, but I'd rather use it for home practice and quieter jams than a Mesa Road King full stack, despite the Mesa being vastly "higher quality".

Remember - people buy what they can afford to. Every person on this planet has a built in limit of affordability in the monetary system, so it generates a feedback loop of constant waste via inferior production, to meet inferior demand.

Ohhhhh, I see what you're getting at. The reason people don't buy high quality stuff is because they can't afford it, and that's because they don't have enough money, so MONEY is the problem.



You do realize that, if you were to simply get rid of money, you'd have to exchange other things? Money in itself is a MEDIUM OF EXCHANGE. When you work, you are directly converting your time and effort into something tangible. At a wage job, you are directly converting your time and effort into money. If we get rid of wages and money, your time and effort will be converted into whatever it is that you're making. If you're stuck making tires, you'll need to trade those tires to people for all of the things you need -- rent, food, etc. Well, that's all well and good, you can do that for a while, but eventually you'll have traded tires to everyone around you and no one will really need tires.

Or maybe your coworkers already traded tires to all of the farmers, and now you can't get food. Luckily your other friend makes shoes, and needs tires, and the farmers need shoes too. So you trade your tires for shoes for food.

It doesn't take a whole lot of thinking to understand why this is infinitely inferior to money.

In America, there have been numerous monopolies, such as Standard Oil and Microsoft. Cartels, which are essentially Monopolies by way of collusion between the largest competitors in an industry, are also persistent to this day, while less obvious to the casual observer. In any case, the "free market" itself does not resolve these issues - it always take the government to step in and break up the monopolies.

An interesting point. To that I ask, is a monopoly always a bad thing? The government, after all, is an organization that possesses a monopoly on the use of force. This is a good thing. I would argue against classifying Microsoft as a monopoly -- they did after all win their court case against the Feds. Microsoft possesses a HUGE market share because their product is simply superior in a variety of ways. Linux has a significant market share where its product is superior, and Apple has the same, but for the vast majority of applications, Microsoft makes the best tool for the job.

This aside, the more important point is that in an economy based on "growth", it is only natural for a corporation to want to expand. After all, that is the basis of economic stability in the modern world - expansion. Expansion of any corporation, always gravitates toward monopoly or cartel, for, again, the basic drive of competition is to out do your competitor. In other words, monopoly and cartel are absolutely natural in the competitive system. In fact, it is inevitable, for again, the very basis is to seek dominance over market share. The true detriment of this reality goes back to point 4 above- the inherent propensity of an "Establishment" to preserve its institution. If a medical cartel is influencing the FDA, then new ideas which void that cartel's income will often be fought, regardless of the social benefits being thwarted

Let's imagine a world where there is a monopoly on guitars. Gibson makes the world's only guitars, and they're $3000 for an Indonesian plywood piece of shit. Musicians everywhere are sick of paying exorbitant prices for shitty guitars, and a few of them even know how to build guitars. One of these guys (we'll call him Leo) makes guitars of his own that are American made with quality components for $1000.. and sell them for $2500. He can't make them fast enough and has to hire help. Before too long, he's running a huge business and is hurting Gibson badly.

However, another guy (Jack) has a plan and a better way of building guitars. He can make a great guitar with good components for $500, and sells them for $2000. Leo has to drop his price down to $2000, and Jack just drops his price again to $1000. Leo can't make the guitars at cost, he has to profit some, so now his guitars are more expensive and aren't selling as well.

Gibson buys Jack's guitar company and uses their production techniques to undercut Leo. Leo figures out a way to produce guitars cheaper, and undercuts Gibson.

Now lets say that they get together and make peace, and say "We'll make guitars for $500, but we'll sell them for $3000 and won't undercut each other". However, all it takes is one competitor to come in and undercut the cartel to completely destroy it.

You may respond, saying that these cartels/monopolies could use force to keep other companies from springing up... but that would be criminal, and punishable by the government.

It is simply against the very nature of what drives demand to create abundance. The Kimberly Diamond Mines in Africa have been documented in the past to burn diamonds in order to keep prices high. Diamonds are rare resources which take billions of years to be created. This is nothing but problematic. The world we live in should be based on the interest to generate an abundance for the world's people, along with strategic preservation and streamlined methods to enable that abundance. This is a central reason why, as of 2010, there are over a billion people starving on the planet. It has nothing to do with an inability to produce food, and everything having to do with an inherent need to create/preserve scarcity for the sake of short term profits.

Not really. Food is a funny thing, especially here in America. We subsidize our farmers and produce so much food that we end up burning and donating a lot to keep prices where they want them. You are right, there isn't a problem with the production end of things, there's a problem with the distribution, but I don't think that switching over to a non-capitalist system will fix that at all. After all, where are these starving people located?

From this article:

The FAO's hunger report, the State of Food Insecurity in the World 2008, found that the majority of the hungry live in the developing world, 65% of them in just seven countries: India, China, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Pakistan and Ethiopia.

Communist or third world countries that lack a strong capitalist economy. Imagine that. The article even states that part of the problem is that there isn't enough modernization and technology available. And even then, raising food prices is bad for people but its good for farmers... Its all a double edged sword.

This also applies to the quality of goods. The idea of creating something that could last, say, a lifetime with little repair, is anathema to the market system, for it reduces consumption rates, which slows growth and creates systemic repercussions (like a loss of jobs, etc.).

Which is why you don't see things on the market with a lifetime warranty... oh wait, you do. For example, Monster cables are guaranteed for life, if you ever break one or destroy it for any reason they'll replace it for free, no questions asked. Additionally, products are rarely useful that genuinely last a lifetime. Products that are, typically can be purchased that are high quality enough that they will last that long.

You're entire argument is based on fantasy.

 

[PostMortem1666]

http://digitaljournal.com/article/292626

A just-found 22 mile long oil plume in the golf. I have a feeling the oil will be washing up on the coastlines for a long time.

EDIT: A new official estimate of the oil leak is over twice what the old estimate was.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/27/AR2010052701957.html?hpid=topnews

 

[Cyanide_Anima]

pardon the mega-post, but i've re-read this threat, and feel like i have to respond to a few things. I believe some of my previous arguments have been mistaken.

yes people have to consume. but slick advertising convinces people that they need more than what they do. no, its not wrong to advertise a product in a favorable way, but to the extent that it is done today is pretty sickening. in schools (soda, snacks) it's fucking everywhere; encouraging our nations youth to be sugar addicted, ill-willed, cavity-ridden diabetics.

...yes we import fruits like banana's, but who owns chiquita, for example? both of their headquarters are in the USA. COBAL, the subsidiary of chiquita who employs the people who grow the fruit are in constant human rights violation disputes, which their labor union seems to ignore. check out United Fruit Company (from which Chiquita spawned), they continually changed names because of scandals and were even split into separate entities because of monopoly. the countries where an american company essentially owns the land and pays the natives little to grow the fruit, the people are going to actually be benefitting very little from this other than the basics, if that. our companies get too large (to fail) and become leeches on societies. they have huge pull in public opinion, and have the money to fight when it comes to court cases. for every law there most likely is another to conflict it and they basically null in court or they just use legal language to manipulate the case. Philip Morris has hardly been liable for anything. Exxon has hardly been liable for anything. Bp, Goldman Sachs, Chevron, AIG, Proctor & Gamble, JP Morgan Chase, and a shitload of other companies have, and continue to use the law to their advantage, in ways it wasn't designed to be used (though some claim the contrary...). Fuck everyone else, fuck the health and safety of the public, there is profit at stake!

if capitalism and the freemarket system were so well designed then why do they need to continue to append more and more laws?is it likely because the Corporations do not play along nicely so the rules must constantly change? the small guys do follow the law for the most part, because its a bigger risk for them and a lower payoff. but when there is such large corporations and such large amounts of money involved, the incentives are too great and corruption is inevitable. the rules of the game are so vague, the language is so easily manipulated, and there are so many loopholes it's laughable. (ever listen to "the young turks"?) changing the rules and laws haven't helped at all, and if anything have given the world's largest mega-corporations the incentive to lie, cheat, and steal. you have to give people the incentives to not cheat. like, maybe a relatively stress free life? not worrying about if your children will reach adulthood safely, because there are people who are deprived (whether self inflicted or not), and will take from you what they cannot afford or attain easily, and will kill you over a can of pringles (!) (an extreme example, maybe lol). we can automate entire manufacturing facilities to make useful (and useless) products from start to finish without human interaction. it's not a leap at all to say we couldn't do this on a somewhat larger scale (which we might not have to do if we convert existing facilities that are making 10,000 versions of toilet seats, coffe mugs, and milk jugs when maybe 5 of each is much more resource efficient) and create the abundance i've been describing all along. how many of those products are going to go unused for YEARS making the resources that were used in making them unavailable? we are using resources at a rate faster than the earth can replenish them, thats a fact. the capitalist system may not deserve all the blame, but it sure is exacerbating the problem.

people have more incentives other than profit. what was the incentive for inventing the wheel? it wasn't to make money. it was to unload some labor so that we are free to do other things, like spend time with your family. instead of walking 10 loads of firewood by the armload, we throw it all in a wheelbarrow to save us the time and labor. the need for certain tasks to be complete, and problems that need to be solved are what drives technology, not the profit motive. we had technology before capitalism was around. it has always accelerated exponentially throughout the progress of human civilization, so to say that the capitalist system is the reason for our recent surge forward in technological advancement simply isn't true.

specialization is important, i agree. we can't have jack of all trade's building rockets for NASA. but people today don't know enough about the world, know little science or understand the scientific method. people don't know enough about politics to engage on any meaningful level. same goes with issues like energy, environment, economics, etc. americans live in their own little bubble. pretty much every society today does though. americans for the most part just don't have the incentive (ya see what i did there) to change when they enjoy their live of getting easy fast food, watching tv powered by fossil fuels, driving 2 miles to work, buying a new car every 8 years, arguing over which is better: coke or pepsi (obviously, its pepsi...), etc. This is the Microwave Generation. There are no patience left.

slowly transitioning from fossil fuels to more renewable sources over the next 50-100 years just isn't going to cut it. the demand is rising more and more and more every decade for all these expendable products which waste so many resources. and we don't recycle them for the most part. even most "high end" consumer electronics are build with poorly manufactured components, they have the incentive to do so. they have to ensure that the customer will come back to purchase the next-gen of consumer electronics. it doesn't even matter these days if the product is quality or not because most products are sold by the image they portray of the owners and users of their products in advertisements, and the people buy it. lack of critical thinking. how many of these shit products that do not work as advertised come up on infomercials? sure once they catch on to them the go away, but another pops back up right in its place. you would think the laws would give them incentive to not provide false or exaggerated claims to their potential customers. but the profit motive gives them the incentive to just concoct some POS done-before-1000-times product, come up with a catchy "let's party!" or "that's amazing!" imaged to associate with the products users and people will buy it. most people even know this and they STILL fall for it. hell, 6 months ago i got a Droid Eris phone because it was marketed to be technologically impressive. it fails. after 2 lemons i dismantled one (I googled but i wanted to be sure) and sure enough, it was built on an obsolete platform. htc's parent company had purchased too many ARM11 (old) processors and had to unload them, or scrap them and lose money (i hate when i have to toss parts at my job!). one last call. if they had said "Hey, this is pretty old stuff, and runs slow as shit and will probably piss you the fuck off because 9 times out of time it freezes when you try to answer a call because the processor is about to explode from frying its caps trying to run stuff it wasn't designed for. but hey, sometimes it does what it was designed to do, it's not my fault we rushed the product out the door with incomplete software, but we have to remain competitive!" I would have maybe looked at something that suits my needs more. this fucking thing could heat a small apartment after 10 minutes of talking. it's in the best interest of the company to make their products as appealing as possible, even if it means misleading its "consumers". I love how the media refers to us all as "consumers" when talking about economics and anything else business related at all, really.

yes we subsidize our farmers to grow shitloads of extra grains and corn, and other crops. but over 60% (most estimates i've read said more than 70%, but i'm being conservative) of our corn and grain crop goes to our dairy farms and cow (beef) farms, chicken farms, pig farms, etc. to feed them. so we still have to import yet more resources. I live in Washington, border to border fucking APPLES and pears. so many varieties yet I still see apples from other states and countries here. same goes for many other produces and products. Shipping all the different fruits and veggies, grains, animals, meat, etc (and lead toys!) have fucked up the ecological balance. we have all these invasive species running around and causing havoc to the ecosystems. but if i'm wrong and they have all this extra food to burn and give away, it hasn't put the slightest dent in the portions of society that are still going hungry.

a lifetime warranty usually refers to the lifetime of the product (read the fine print). companies are always looking at ways to cut costs by any means possible, or legal. you ever tried to cash in in your "ten year bumper to bumper" warranty at your local car dealership only to leave disappointed a couple hundred dollars lighter? again, marketing is pretty much convincing you of something you do not need, or making something appear almost irresistible. Monster cables has sued the shit out of almost every fucking company that is using the word 'monster' in the name of a product, or slogan, or whatever. google it, they are experts at unethical business practices. they have the money, and throw huge sums of money around in lawsuits to intimidate the company. they say it is because they don't want anyone to give Monster a bad name. Too bad they do that to themselves, people see it and just say "aww, that's too bad.", they see the injustice but are apathetic to it, don't believe they have a voice, or are non-confrontational or what have you.

these arguments aren't from fantasy. just a different perspective ( ;/ ). what I (postmortem is along the same lines) am talking about is something completely new. something that hasn't been tried before because we simply didn't have the means, the understanding, the technology, or the incentive to do before. If the current state of the world isn't enough to get you to at least LOOK at other things and not just smack possible solutions down because you are possibly misunderstanding what I've trying to communicate to you. that we need Scientists, Engineers, Sociologist, Environmentalists, Biologists, Etc, to design something sustainable and flexible. bottom line. and not some narcissistic politician spouting out ignorance and spreading his personal Ideology and aiding the people who sponsored his campaign skate past the law (environmental and socially detrimental) in pursuit of profit isn't getting us anywhere. if what these Scientists create includes trade, that's great. if it doesn't and cities are broken down into smaller communities which are easier to manage, and to create centralized distribution centers in each, great. if its an all barter based system, woohoo. if its through money, ok, but it has to be based on something tangible (physical reference ftw!) and the current consciousness people hold today, people could have the incentive to revert back to fighting over resources (money). Money could possibly be reformed, but I haven't seen a decent proposal for it yet, and that lingering incentive to have MOOOAAAARRRR stuff than the next guy will always be there. setting standards doesn't work, because it just makes it fixed and you are going to want more of it. if you heard "oh shit, the chicken population all died of pneumonia" you might go out and get a carton of eggs, who knows when the next time you will be able to enjoy a french omelette.

my angles are not so much the economic side or the political side, but in the humanities and scientific aspect. The world we live in is psychologically and consciously traumatizing. you man say "that's the way it is", sure, but we can change that. we had the will to implement this wasteful system, we literally moved mountains (100 years ago to boot!) to do so. These modern huge Corporations and Politicians sure as hell do not walk the walk. they say we need to change the world. yet they take the shortest possible steps only to appease us, the one who demand it. there is no incentive for them to change when they are/own a fortune 500 company already, or are already well off making a killing trading derivative products (contributing nothing and amassing huge wealth). why mess with success, right? the people need to set the example, but they have to start actually caring first and not just going out and purchasing a stainless steel water bottle (new fad cropping up, save the world, buy a fucking stainless steel bottle that used hundreds of gallons of water, toxic chemicals, cheap labor in a foreign country and wasteful production methods to produce, congrats, you're a hypocrite and didn't even know it), a pink ribbon, or a $5 Shamrock doesn't assume responsibility, it absolves it. donating something like your time and effort actually shows that you care. as odd as it seems, I kinda see why my 8th grade health teacher gave me a D (the whole class was based on donating your time to community service, kinda odd for a health class so I didn't do much, though I see the kind of health that she meant now... like 15 years later).

You can speculate further on details i cannot possibly type at this time (or even properly convey through text) if you wish but you will only misunderstand what is trying to be done. i'm well aware a some of the RBE groups and movements are cranks with arguments that have flawed premises to begin with, but I do not associate with any of them (cept Venus Project because I'm generally curious, and they are genuinely sincere in their ambitions. though I keep tabs on most of the RBE offshoot groups (they are always trying, uhh, wierd things...). Most of them are kids, or people who don't fully understand what it is they are trying to explain to others. they do have their "hearts in a good place" so to speak, and while I see the merit in those groups, most cling to pointless and time/energy wasting conspiracies and shit like that and completely lose focus on what the actual causes to our problems are. its funny how people blame money, or the system, or the government. those are all just systems unvented by US, so WE are actually to blame. Just because we inherited a system doesn't mean we have to perpetuate it. When my family came to this country long ago, they didn't impose their traditions, language, customs, or ideology onto me while raising me (except Jeebus, eeeep). It doesn't do me much good to learn italian in a country that is predominantly english, It would never be put to good use (though I did learn some later in life, I have already forgotten most of it because it's never used).

Ok. I'm done now! final stab and conveying an important message. lulz. unless anyone has anything constructive to add...

how bout that gusher in the gulf? eep. the feed still looks like the mud that they are pumping into the well is just being ejected through the top of the "top killy death machine of doom". and the news about the new estimates is horrible. some good news, permits we pulled. but will this be enough to fuel people interest in exploring alternative energies? tune in tomorrow, when BP rents peter north so he can jam his cock into the hole and shoot a power load, clogging the well, saving the sea monkeys! and making the ocean safe for wakeboarders everywhere.

 

[drew_drummer]

People don't buy what they can afford. They buy what they can't affford. That's why everyone is in so much debt. Credit cards are the lifestyle accessory of choice for fagtards who admire cars and clothes.

 

[Cyanide_Anima]

I would say that is part of the problem, yes! I personally know people who are in debt thousands of dollars. i personally, am debt free. i do not live beyond my means. though i am doing pretty well for myself. edit: and by well, i mean i can purchase a piece of gear now and then, eat good food whenever i want, rofl.

 

[JeffTD]

People don't buy what they can afford. They buy what they can't affford. That's why everyone is in so much debt. Credit cards are the lifestyle accessory of choice for fagtards who admire cars and clothes.

I've been thinking about this lately, though - if we weren't allowed to buy anything on credit, the only people living in legitimate houses and not renting would be really old folks, and your life would just be one big savings game. I think we've taken it too far, but sometimes it's really great thing for everyone, being able to take a loan out.

 

[MaxStatic]

I think we've taken it too far, but sometimes it's really great thing for everyone, being able to take a loan out.

Hell, this is the second job ever created, being a loan shark that is.

First of course was prostitution....

 

[Notuern]

Shut the fuck up, you are all going to burn in hell anyways.

 

[muckypup1]

There has been over 140 million gallons of oil released so far... but this thread seems to have moved to different subjects

 

[MaxStatic]

Wait a sec, isn't this the NSFW Hayley Williams thread....shit...

 

[colonel kurtz]

I've been thinking about this lately, though - if we weren't allowed to buy anything on credit, the only people living in legitimate houses and not renting would be really old folks, and your life would just be one big savings game. I think we've taken it too far, but sometimes it's really great thing for everyone, being able to take a loan out.

+1

i was raised believing that you should only buy what you have the $$ for, and that taking out loans and running up debt for shit is a horrible idea, under pretty much any circumstance

then i grew up, and realized that alexander hamilton was right - in order for an economy to really function, it's necessary that floats on a cushion of debt...only problem is that our debt cushion has gotten way too big, and is going to blow up in our faces here soon enough

 

[roy22341]

gotta read up on that other fake account, that thing is genius!

I will say that I'm getting a bit sick of all the flack BP is getting... I flipped on CNN yesterday to find Anderson Cooper bitching endlessly about BP having stopped pumping for 16 hours and never notified the public or the Coast Guard of it before resuming. The problem is that them stopping the pumping was completely normal operating procedure, the kind of shit that the people internally at BP wouldn't think would be necessary to tell the public and the Coast Guard. That's not to say BP's PR team is a bit behind and fairly retarded as we've seen at this point, and that's also not to say that the internal chain of command is not exactly efficient (part of the source of this leak in first place), but at some point we need to step back and let BP do all they can to stop the leak, and deal with punishments and lawsuits and payouts and etc etc etc when oil isn't flowing at an exorbitant rate out into the ocean.

It's not as if it's in BP's best interest to do anything but stop the flow of oil as soon as humanly possible. There is zero good that prolonging the process would do for the company, and it's stupid to think they aren't doing everything in their power to stop it.

President Obama the other day in a press conference 'reassured' the public that the federal government was involved with and even directing the stoppage effort since day one.

WHAT???

Let's ignore the fact that there is not a single task that our government can perform more efficiently and effectively than a private company. Who do you want in charge of plugging up this hole - civil engineers with years of experience and training, who work with the equipment and in the environment in question on a day-to-day basis, or some dude from FEMA who's been trained by an organization with a questionable track record at handling emergencies and who hardly specialize in any one area of recovery? I've posted this before, but my best friend works at FEMA. He's 19. I love Billy, but for chrissake, they employ far more college freshman than a government agency tasked with federal emergency management really should be employing.

I don't want to downplay how shitty move a BP pulled in shortcutting the normal procedure for sealing these kinds of wells, by any means, but to suggest they aren't doing everything in their power to rectify this as quickly as possible is foolish, at best.

I was thinking the other day that if I was in BP's place right now I would have said "Fine - fuck you - you think you can fix this better than we can? Have at it - we're done." MMS is finally doing real rig inspections now, because after BP gets reamed out, they're next on the chopping block. Six month moratorium being placed on offshore drilling is nothing but a political stunt, a month from now, when everyone has forgotten about this they will lift the ban so the tax money can start flowing again.

 

[MaxStatic]

...a month from now, when everyone has forgotten about this they will lift the ban so the tax money can start flowing again.

That is if they are able to plug this hole up.

 

[JeffTD]

Six month moratorium being placed on offshore drilling is nothing but a political stunt, a month from now, when everyone has forgotten about this they will lift the ban so the tax money can start flowing again.

Exactly, and I hope this goes exactly as you outlined. It was, after all, BP's fuck up trying to take a shortcut that screwed them over - they should be punished for their own negligence, not the rest of us.

 

[iHate]

So... it failed.

 

[Uladyne]

Hey Crowbar, you make some heavy shit, an ima let you finish, but the Big Bang made the heaviest record of all time. OF ALL TIME!

Someone needs to make that.