East Meets West Logic...

[Graybeard]

Eternally ban variable prices, and the entire world can print real wealth__overnight, to actually give the poorest of the world's citizens at least a descent bare subsistence living standard... And anyone is a simple fool, not to see the truth of these scientific facts...

No ... I can't see it ... Tho I do admire your ideals.

To fix prices has also been tried many times before with failure mostly resulting. To fix prices is to stifle and choke entrepreneurial activity. A necessary activity that enables us to adapt to changing circumstance in an economic environment .. which in turn takes it orders from primary production .. which is determined by the ecology of the environment .. which is changing as life evolves.

I don't believe J M Keynes advocated such an idea ... tho I am not an economist and I admit that you know more than me about global finance. His idea, in the main, was 'sustainable economy'. If you produce you must pay the full overhead, not just the cost of the production, because it borrows at an interest rate which is variably determined by the ecology of the environment .. which varies as life evolves.

The FULL cost of the impact of production must be paid in order to sustain. No free dinners. The 'greedy hand' principle, which after all is an evolutionary trait of all life, still applies, but the total environment must be reimbursed.

Money is not complex__People are economically stupid...rrr

Money is ephemeral ... so is the internet .. simple or complex ?

P.s.
I do not advocate such a system, but I do advocate a facsimile system__with newly organized government markets__controlling private markets' pricing systems__as the best possible mixed market capitalism...

I advocate Carbon emission tax ... the rest will look after itself. Simple ?? Well you did say it wasn't complex ... rotflmao.

Just as an extreme example to show the fallacy, imagine if the price of a new car was fixed at 1 cent ... it would be a mad rush to the nearest dealer and you'd have a lot of people holding unredeemable pennies. (Not to mention that car dealers and manufacturers would almost certainly go out of business)

This is too simple .. lol. There would be no mad rush. Everybody would have the leisure to buy one at their own convenience. There would be no shortfall because the rest of the economy would be participating in the same '1c' system. You can't set a car price at a dollar without setting the materials it is made of to a similar ratio ??

What your example is really saying is that it is impossible to build an economy where we all have little to do, and plenty to get. This is not what Lloyd is saying at all. He is advocating a system that is implemented by controlling the sell price. Mine is a system where you control the buy price.

No offence to either, and apologies in advance for butting in.

cool bananas ... greg

[SteveA]

Lloyd, let's cut out all the fluff and look at the simple reality:

1) Individuals ultimately determine what value some condition has and no second hand party can hand them a paper, plastic or electronic (etc.) token and create any more value than the token itself.

If you can print up houses or magically alter a database in a computer that suddenly creates a car, then great.

2) The gains in efficiency of meeting these desires occur by coordinating those interests between people in meeting those needs or desires. Though some efficiency could be gained by different monetary policies, improvements can only be assured when competition is allowed because then if conditions are worse in some system, people can move elsewhere - this is healthy competition in a free market and the opposite of coercion, force or enslavement.

3) The manner to avoid corruption is to remove the elements susceptible to it. We cannot continually rely upon an infinite chain of oversight committees to watch over each other and what motivation do any of these actually have to assure good results for people? Ultimately you must have the actual "customers" determine whether or not the results are desirable, but without competition (basically individual freedom), there is now way to "vote" on the results.

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

Basically everything needs to be built from a foundation of individual freedom of (dis)association. From there, there the rest of a peaceful and prosperous future can arise. Without that, there's always a crack in the foundation waiting to be exploited and from the track record this appears inevitable - even getting off to a good start, people still tend to drift and forget what the value was of freedom and tolerance or they find it a bit uncomfortable at times and make exceptions and excuses that ultimately come back to bite them later on.

How long do we need to learn this sufficiently well? A society is never going to be better than the people and culture comprising it ... and sustainable partying (healthy with growth and diversity toward the future) never lasts longer than it takes to forget how the party got started Come on Lloyd. Drop the leash

[Lloyd Gillespie]

To fix prices is to stifle and choke entrepreneurial activity.
cool bananas ... greg

Hi Greg, and to your statement; Not if the government were to percentage-wise print the slack__which they've never figured out__They actually can do, if globally co-ordinated among all nations... And Keynes did advocate the system of Bancor' which was a national/international banking and clearing system of free-printing a percentage of excess monies to slowly pay down the national debts__A very wise idea, when properly managed, during deflationary periods, which he also suggested. It's in his inter-governmental papers, and in Robert Skidelsky's Keynes' books__three as biographies__They're all excellent...

[Graybeard]

Lloyd, let's cut out all the fluff and look at the simple reality:

3) The manner to avoid corruption is to remove the elements susceptible to it.

If this was possible, and its not, it would result in the suppression/elimination of entrepreneurial greed. Essential for adaption to diversity. All technological advance, research and development, medical services ... are given their invention and efficiency through someone seeing for the first time a new way to make a quick buck. The benefits flow thru the economy, regardless of the 'kwik-buck-maker's' intent or activities.

Its called democracy.

Basically everything needs to be built from a foundation of individual freedom of (dis)association.

Its called democracy.

Hi Greg, and to your statement; Not if the government were to percentage-wise print the slack__which they've never figured out__They actually can do, if globally co-ordinated among all nations... And Keynes did advocate the system of Bancor' which was a national/international banking and clearing system of free-printing a percentage of excess monies to slowly pay down the national debts__A very wise idea, when properly managed, during deflationary periods, which he also suggested. It's in his inter-governmental papers, and in Robert Skidelsky's Keynes' books__three as biographies__They're all excellent...

Lloyd.. I defer on this .. I don't know about 'Bancor, nor any other detailed economic system. However, I do note that you say 'slowly pay'. I take this to mean the opposite of rapid change, which I liken to acting before thinking.

This may well work if the 'free printing percentage' was applied to the payback of the environment.

But then, as Steve says, how do you control it. As opposed to this, if governments become appointed 'tax collectors' on the behalf of the environment .... Then the Entrepenurial Dogs of War can be let off the leash once the tax has been collected ... and they require no guardians, they can still do their magic while growing fat.

To me the answer lies in Carbon Tax. All the detrimental activities of our advanced society come down to freeing Carbon to combine with Oxygen. By advanced, I mean a society or system that is forwardly out of sync with the average rate of evolutionary change in the environment that surrounds it.

Cool bananas ... greg (I should note that I am not an economist, nor a green tree hugger)

[Lloyd Gillespie]

Come on Lloyd. Drop the leash

Steve, you don't talk a language I even relate to, and I'm not picking on you. I do not share your >narrow< views of individualism controlling the economy, or even having any real affect on it, other than doing what all business people already realize is necessary for the little people to pay their bills, to stay above water... My position is one of institutions, corporations, nations' systems, markets, and governments' laws setting and controlling the economics of all world trades and contracts, with all us peons hanging by the ropes of their manipulations. I see no evidence of individuals having any control or say over the larger dynamics of this mad machine, not even corporations, in light of the greater competition of entire nations against each other...

Therefore, I as verses you, see our only chance of changing this monster, by changing its law structures of manipulations, as individual people will never gain the power necessary to affect/effect real change, at the local levels__as you suggest__since the international rampage is operating at a pace so much faster than any possible local action, local action is truly crippled.

The view you hold, I honestly see no validity in. If it makes you feel any better, I used to think that way too, but after studying thousands of economists, I changed my mind quite readily. Some advocate keeping the system as is. I certainly do not, but I see no local individual change possible__we all still gotta buy hot-dogs, or so-so. It's like George Monbiot stated, "Local democracy is now impossible, without international democracy." Now, I don't see the case that bad, but I do see it bad enough to require major national and international law changes, to even begin to survive a very clear and dangerous future.

So, in the final analysis, there's no way I can accept local individual validity of change__just can't do it__It ain't reality to me Steve__Sorry...

Imo, we gotta use a massive expansion of our imagination capacities, to figure our way out of this true madness. Capitalism, as we knew it up until last Sept. is gone. It'll never return the same, as everyone is either worked to their bare bones to pay far too much debt, or they are already headed into bankruptcy, and real jobs are still dis-appearing. The real world must start facing this jobless false recovery in America. The truth is most of the other nations' money is coming here, as so many elswhere see their countries as worse than America. When the truth becomes known, either next year or the year after__What then...? Imo, we better be working on a real national and international law structure plan__A plan like the world has never before imagined necessary...rrr

[SteveA]

Hi Greg, and to your statement; Not if the government were to percentage-wise print the slack__which they've never figured out__They actually can do, if globally co-ordinated among all nations... And Keynes did advocate the system of Bancor' which was a national/international banking and clearing system of free-printing a percentage of excess monies to slowly pay down the national debts__A very wise idea, when properly managed, during deflationary periods, which he also suggested. It's in his inter-governmental papers, and in Robert Skidelsky's Keynes' books__three as biographies__They're all excellent...

How do you fix prices on new markets or technologies? Noone even knows what they're worth to people without those markets.

Also if you price fix, then you impede the natural changes that should occur when the desirability of some product changes.

For example, if we had price fixing on analog modems but someone wanted to develop a faster digital modem, first of all how would they determine what value such a product might have if the price of the units they sold was determined whimsically by some entity other than consumers desires?

We additionally have the problem that analog modems would then become less valuable and people would and should naturally prefer a faster and more reliable communication, yet in order for the markets to reflect this we'd have to go through all the beaurocratic red tape to convince some agency what consumers already knew. That's extremely inefficient and would violate the idea of fixed prices anyway - sort of a wave/particle duality - yes, the price is fixed at $35 for a 56K modem ... ummm, unless it's changed?!

In the meantime, the producers of analog modems would not "see" the pressure of moving toward a digital system and would have no economic feedback that their product is becoming less desired and hence they'd find little reason to improve it.

Now that works ok if some company wants a monopoly - for example, if the medical industry did not want to have to offer better services they could simply price fix some operation at some value and then the pressures would now become over how to provide the least possible to a customer and still retain an ability to claim they provided the fixed price service. Customers could not go elsewhere and shop around for less expensive services because the price would be the same wherever they went.

I do actually happen to have some familiarity with economics and I understand quite a bit about how physical systems operate (I tend to work with system designs), and I'm pointing some of the obvious problems to these proposals. You claim I'm being emotional, and I am, but that's simply because I'm really anxious to see things make a change for the better - top down control is not the way to go. People have been there and done that many times and even when it doesn't go immediately bad, it still leaves open the weakness of having that focal point of power that attracts abuse and corruption.

We can still have the benefits of social coordination on large scales as well as the gains possible via. logic and mathematics in terms of intelligent optimizations of networks of interactions or relationships between people - similar to just replacing government functions with distributed networks of communication and laws or social rules of interaction being determined by coordinating common desires in some area and this need not only be in regard to monetary issues but can include most anything people desire to include in it - the only rule of thumb that needs any sort of enforcement is simply that you don't undesirably impede other people in their pursuits. Disputes here aren't always black and white but basically you can provide that form of arbitration using a jury system (and there should be games played in the selection of jurors ... that's a weakness with that system), so the end result would simply be to use common sense - if you think neighbors would generally complain, then a jury might also, so play nice or you're out. That's about as simple as things get and it leaves plenty of freedom in the rest and I'm certain that not everyone immediately goes insane when given some elbowroom in life and I'm also rather certain there are many things we haven't even dreamed of yet that can be done when we have people rather free to pursue their dreams.

Yes, there'd still be the wannabe local rulers but if we have a society that didn't tolerate the big ones we have now then there's little of any way that some upstart with no laws to hide behind is going to ruin the show. It's really all about social outlook - there is no physical impediment to having the world begin to change tomorrow - the impediments are simply cultural habits or mental inertia. These do exist, but it doesn't take rewriting physical laws to alter them - it's simply a matter of choices in what people want and what they pursue. There really no tyranny around that can actually stop people who simply decide they want to make a change and I'm certain we have plenty of people that want that state of greater freedom, but mostly they just lack an ability to see how to work together with others to realize it - that's the "tool" we need.

[Graybeard]

Capitalism, as we knew it up until last Sept. is gone.

It'll never return the same, as everyone is either worked to their bare bones to pay far too much debt, or they are already headed into bankruptcy, and real jobs are still dis-appearing.

The real world must start facing this jobless false recovery in America. The truth is most of the other nations' money is coming here, as so many elswhere see their countries as worse than America. When the truth becomes known, either next year or the year after__What then...? Imo, we better be working on a real national and international law structure plan__A plan like the world has never before imagined necessary...rrr

Profound and Prophetic words. Lloyd, your a pocket prophet ... and in this case, I totally agree with you.

cool bananas ... greg

[SteveA]

If this was possible, and its not, it would result in the suppression/elimination of entrepreneurial greed. Essential for adaption to diversity. All technological advance, research and development, medical services ... are given their invention and efficiency through someone seeing for the first time a new way to make a quick buck. The benefits flow thru the economy, regardless of the 'kwik-buck-maker's' intent or activities.

I believe we actually agree. This was one of the comments I made as well. Greed in itself is actually something that motivates people - the only problem is in assuring it doesn't motivate people to the point of harming someone else, but in itself there's really nothing wrong with someone getting ahead and actually the more people that "get ahead" the better. That's one less person that needs to be taken care of and also one more person that will leave behind a nice house after they pass away (Ok, I'm kind of kidding, but truly if someone say worked as a doctor most their life and earned a lot of money by being a good doctor, the person might own a large home - that's actually a benefit not only for the medical services provided but for the housing as well. It reduced housing needs elsewhere and can serve to lower prices elsewhere)

You probably made an assumption that I hadn't stated as it appears we agree.

Its called democracy.

I hope you don't mean democracy as in 51% majority rule and 49% minority subjugation.

Individual liberty actually arises from individual rights, not from the democratic forces that oppose them.

[Graybeard]

I believe we actually agree.

I think we all agree, Greg, Steve, Lloyd. I think the difference is that you have a belief in an ideal solution, whereas Lloyd, thru experience in this has a more pragmatic understanding of the problems.

This was one of the comments I made as well. Greed in itself is actually something that motivates people - the only problem is in assuring it doesn't motivate people to the point of harming someone else

Someone will always be harmed, there are no guarantees with Capitalism. Capitalism is the engine, (the only one found so far) that can drive democracy. The 'Greedy-Hand-Principle' is well understood by all Govt Treasurers throughout the world. The only option is to minimise its footprint.

I hope you don't mean democracy as in 51% majority rule and 49% minority subjugation.

Individual liberty actually arises from individual rights, not from the democratic forces that oppose them.

I am afraid that once again Steve, this is idealistic. Individual Liberty is strictly limited by the leeway that society gives it. Its a complementary principle. Free it here, you limit it futher over there.

cool bananas ... greg

[Lloyd Gillespie]

How do you fix prices on new markets or technologies? Noone even knows what they're worth to people without those markets.

Steve, look at your question. You are only thinking on one dynamic direction, when the real world is a multi-dimensional actions, especially where money is concerned. Expand your thinking to see what would be possible if a Keynes' style Bancor' system were a reality, and was extended to work far more dynamically than even he imagined. If enough money is accorded to government use, they could actually pay the difference in price directly to the companies producing widgets, with no rise in price. The possible dynamic changes, when one is willing to expand one's imagination are most unlimited. Dynamic governments could function even more fully than markets, with a reverse incentive system of profits. This would work by dynamic governemnts paying companies and corporations to actually lower prices and raise wages, through the new and possible dynamic credit system mechanics of an emergency bank, which Keynes also suggested, to bank labor's wages, in good times, and pay it out in bad times, which also plays an entirely new dynamics into the entire system. All one needs do is follow all the dynamic change links, and one is capable of seeing the entire new systems' workings. Some entities put brakes on natural inflations. Some put brakes on excess wage demands. Others put brakes on price rises, etc., on and on__But one can't see these possibilities one at a time, as you are trying to do. One has to have enough economic education to follow the dynamics of models economists know have been offered through the years. There's literally hundreds of them, maybe thousands__So Steve__It requires economic education to see the possibilities of any of these new systems possibilities...rrr