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Date: July 13, 2004 05:07 AM
Author: SirEdward

any comments?

"Not everyone can become rich because there is a finite amount of money in the economy and a person becomes rich by making other people poorer since a rich person effectively has taken money from people without passing all that money onto other people by spending it. When a rich person saves his money rather than spends it he is effectively taking money out of the economy and so deprives the economy of money that can be used to give someone else a living.

"If everyone was rich there would be too much money in the economy and the value of money will fall (inflation) and eventually the value of money that people have will end up worthless. This is why you cannot have prosperity for all, because it is inflationary.

"Sustainable prosperity is not possible in a free-market economy because this increases the money supply which causes inflation. Prosperity can only be achieved in a spurt of inflationary monetary expansion called a boom which then has to be followed by a painful monetary contraction called a recession in order to reduce the inflation caused by the preceding boom. The more money people have the greater is the quantity of the money in the economy which causes inflation. A recession is required following a boom in order to contract the money supply and so reduce the inflation caused by the boom. The recession is intended to make people poorer because it is when people have too much money that causes the rise in inflation.

"The purchasing power of money can only be maintained by limiting the supply of money. The value of money diminishes the more money is in circulation. Increasing the money supply causes the value of money to fall because prices rise which is inflation. To keep inflation under control there needs to be a large number of people that are poor otherwise if everyone was prosperous then money would be worthless. Inflation is a problem that affects money based economies and in order to keep inflation low there needs to be a large pool of unemployed and poor people. A free-market economy needs to maintain a large number of people in poverty in order to protect the purchasing power of money and to be ruthlessly efficient. Poverty is the price that needs to be paid so that society as a whole can enjoy the fruits of a ruthlessly efficient free-market system".

(http://65.88.90.51/forums/Index.cfm?CFApp=3&Message_ID=163886)

Date: July 13, 2004 06:20 AM
Author: FAST FRED
Subject: POVERTY

"Poverty is the price that needs to be paid so that society as a whole can enjoy the fruits of a ruthlessly efficient free-market system."

Well lets see ,

of the "poor" in the US more than half own their own homes , have two or mor cars , air cond color TV and Cable or Sat.

Sounds like there really put upon.

But not as much as the 2 BILLION that earn under $2.00 a day that have no conection to globalazation.

The MARXIST rants were old hat 100 years ago , does anyone outside a 60's Berkly "prof" still living in a student rent controlled apt actually belive this drivel?

With 75 Million soviets MURDERED to create the perfect man (ant) most thought the experiment with being controlled by massive bueaurocy was Happily dead !

FAST FRED

(http://65.88.90.51/forums/Index.cfm?CFApp=3&Message_ID=163900)

Date: July 13, 2004 07:00 PM
Author: Lucius Foster
Subject: A reply to Sir Edward

Sir Edward, sir, does my OBE entitle me to be addressed as Sir? I think it would be an improvement over SOB, which is what my workman call me. I teach them all English, just the most important parts. they all know the WhiffenPoof song, you know Yale copied it from the Brits, "Gentlemen Rankster." Thats when the Army reduced into the ranks all the short Commissioned Officers at the end of the Boer War.

Your piece was interesting seems like something I read in the Library in London, but not a whole truth. The trouble is the human race refuses to fly as designed. It keeps cutting up every now and then. Oh I know Watts Rebellion and all that stuff, but it is more then that. I think that it is a great desire to "cross over" You know, I am in favor of the priviledge of the first night, that is if I am Lord of the Manor, not the deprived bridegroom. I think it is this ongoing desire to raise up from following the three field system to ownership of a road and from that to Royalty. Strangely enough it does occur. Almost every 500 years or so, there is an occurance and in answer to that event, those that can emerge and end up in high places. I think that is the true human condition.

I went to Winchester, the only American, but in that lovely place there were Scholars. Some from very humble beginnings. The headmaster explained that they were necessary to challenge those students who came from priviledge. I agree and I approve of any system that allows the highly gifted and motivated to climb up to positions of leadership. I think that is part of the greatness of our species.

So there, I have stated the common viewpoint. After all I am your most Obt.Servant un common Lucius noh Foster OBE DSO DFC DFM and of course PilotOfficer Prune Medal.

(http://65.88.90.51/forums/Index.cfm?CFApp=3&Message_ID=164185)

Date: July 13, 2004 08:24 PM
Author: Thye Usual Suspect
Subject: Lucius you CAD...

I am named after a relative one William Jock Whitworth, who was twice Commander of HMS HOOD,,,,

Look that up on your Googles.

Howevers, I do not pretend either "AIRS nor Graces",,,tut

The chaos of genetics and evolution does not foretell the greatness of the lineage....

Chance, and circumstances, do....

My friend EDWARD, has wandered afar, and seems rather happy with his side of life now....let him rest in PEACE.

As for the ARMY,,,,having seen many sides of this earth, I prefer we have more George Pattons, and fewer Bernard Montgomery's in the future.....

Even ERWIN ROMMEL, respected this man......

And I have shared a pint with his son Manfred,,,

If I have crossed over to anywheres, it would be to the downside,,for therein lies the future,,,not the pomps and stiff necks who are only impressed by themselves

Birth circumstance should not be a factor in the equation when determining the man.....let accomplishment speak for, itself!

No Harrs

(http://65.88.90.51/forums/Index.cfm?CFApp=3&Message_ID=164213)

Date: July 13, 2004 06:45 AM
Author: Mark Grant

Sounds like something written by a twelve-year-old Marxist.

"Not everyone can become rich because there is a finite amount of money in the economy"

True. However, the poor today are richer than many kings were a few centuries ago: rich and poor is always relative. While capitalism makes us all relatively rich compared to our ancestors, leftism aims to make us all equally poor.

"When a rich person saves his money rather than spends it he is effectively taking money out of the economy and so deprives the economy of money that can be used to give someone else a living."

Because, of course, like Scrooge McDuck, the rich person just piles all their money up in a vault, rather than invest it in productive uses.

"Sustainable prosperity is not possible in a free-market economy because this increases the money supply which causes inflation"

A free-market economy would not have a government-run fiat currency, so this point is moot. That's not to say that there wouldn't be fiat currencies, but people would be free to choose what kind of money they used for payments, not forced to accept small green pieces of paper.

(http://65.88.90.51/forums/Index.cfm?CFApp=3&Message_ID=163905)

Date: July 13, 2004 08:19 AM
Author: Albert Einstein
Subject: rich & poor

It's all relative.

(http://65.88.90.51/forums/Index.cfm?CFApp=3&Message_ID=163918)

Date: July 13, 2004 09:09 AM
Author: axbucxdu
Subject: Let me guess

A Capitalist economics lesson as proscribed by the NEA teacher's manual. How does that goose step go?

(http://65.88.90.51/forums/Index.cfm?CFApp=3&Message_ID=163940)

Date: July 21, 2004 03:43 AM
Author: Kenmeer Livermaile

"dolphins are another creature, besides man of course, that hunt just for the sport or pleasure of hunting."

In Europe: left, right, left, right.

In China, where lambdacism rules so many tongues, it goes: reft, light, reft, light.

(http://65.88.90.51/forums/Index.cfm?CFApp=3&Message_ID=167070)

Date: July 21, 2004 11:40 PM
Author: axbucxdu
Subject: reft, light

That only addresses the basics. What nuances can we expect North Americans to add when it's their turn to learn the step?

(http://65.88.90.51/forums/Index.cfm?CFApp=3&Message_ID=167392)

Date: July 22, 2004 01:43 AM
Author: Kenmeer Livermaile
Subject: marching cheek to cheek

"What nuances can we expect North Americans to add when it's their turn to learn the step?"

A syncopated gaiter? A dotted rhythm'n'blues feel? Pogo stilts?

I have nada clue:)

(http://65.88.90.51/forums/Index.cfm?CFApp=3&Message_ID=167420)

Date: July 13, 2004 09:10 AM
Author: Vangel Vesovski

Not everyone can become rich because there is a finite amount of money in the economy and a person becomes rich by making other people poorer since a rich person effectively has taken money from people without passing all that money onto other people by spending it.

The statement above is false. Bill Gates did not get rich by making other people poor but by providing them with a product that made it easier for them to be more productive. John Rockefeller did not become rich by making people poor but by selling them a commodity that they wanted and needed at ever decreasing prices.

When a rich person saves his money rather than spends it he is effectively taking money out of the economy and so deprives the economy of money that can be used to give someone else a living.

This statement shows the author's economic ignorance. Wealth generation comes from the deployment of capital and capital comes from savings, not consumption.

If everyone was rich there would be too much money in the economy and the value of money will fall (inflation) and eventually the value of money that people have will end up worthless. This is why you cannot have prosperity for all, because it is inflationary.

In any economic system around 80% of the capital will be controlled by less than 10% of the population. That is a fact of life that is unlikely to be changed regardless of what type of system is put into place. The key is to have a system that allows the most efficient distribution of scarce resources and the highest standard of living for society. History shows that market capitalism is the best of all of the alternatives. What we have to note is that few countries today actually employ market capitalism; we now live in an era of big governments that regulate most economic transactions between producer and consumer and pass protective legislation to protect favorite businesses from the consumer friendly competition of the marketplace.

Many of the leftists on this board would prefer a socialist system in the mistaken belief that it will lead to a 'fairer' distribution of wealth and a better life for workers. While their desire to have a higher standard of living is not bad they are mistaken if they think that socialism will provide it. The USSR managed to reduce inequality among the masses but by doing so it only made them much poorer and increased the concentration of the control of wealth in society. Even though it was poorer than Western nations the Soviets had a much greater distribution of wealth. While in theory all wealth was owned by the state in practice it was controlled by the party, which ensured that its members lived extremely well. They were given special and luxurious housing, chauffeur driven cars, special shops that sold foreign goods, members only medical clinics, etc.

I always found it interesting that an average working person who lived in the 'exploitive' West lived much better than most of the privileged in the Soviet system. By trying to eliminate inequality the socialists only managed to decrease the standard of living of their society. By setting a doctor's wage at the same level as that of a factory worker they got exactly what they paid for, mediocrity. By elevating egalitarianism at the expense of economic freedom the Soviets got what they deserved; poverty.

Sustainable prosperity is not possible in a free-market economy because this increases the money supply which causes inflation.

This is another example of economic illiteracy. The standard of living in the US and the UK increased at a rapid rate throughout the 19^th century but the economies of the two nations experienced mild deflation (with the exception of war time). Inflation is a monetary and credit phenomenon and is the normal product of monopolistic fiat and fractional reserve banking systems. The best way to eliminate inflation is to let the market choose and control the supply of money. Eliminate central banks and take away the government's power to counterfeit.

(http://65.88.90.51/forums/Index.cfm?CFApp=3&Message_ID=163941)

Date: July 13, 2004 07:32 PM
Author: Jerry R LaPlante
Subject: Under this debt monetary system.......

Rockefeller could not have sold the poor products they wanted and needed at ever decreasing prices, unless the poor borrowed the money to buy his product, or captured the debt dollars that someone else borrowed previous to the purchase.

No matter how much you increase productivity, the only thing you are expanding the the amount of product for sale. the money supply does not increase unless someone borrows more, either individually or collectively.

The difference between wealth and money is that you can spend money. Wealth can be sold or mortgaged in order to get money to spend.

Please explain to me why the American worker, who's productivity has increased so much over the decades, is so far in debt collectively?

National debt 7 trillion Unfunded govt obligations 73 trillion personal debt approx 30 trillion Corporate debt approx 8 or 9 trillion Derivative debt 100 trillion plus Individual state debts ????? Individual county debts ????? Individual city debts ?????

M1 money supply 1.5 trillion

If this system is working so great, why are we in this shape?

The answer is (IF WE DON'T BORROW, THERE ARE NO DEBT DOLLARS CREATED).

If we do borrow (WE ARE CREATING A DEBT GREATER THAN THE DEBT MONEY SUPPLY CREATED) THIS IS BECAUSE NO MONEY ON ANY LOAN IS CREATED TO ADDRESS THE INTEREST ON THAT LOAN.

The banks have most of the world in financial slavery. Very few of you will admit it.

(http://65.88.90.51/forums/Index.cfm?CFApp=3&Message_ID=164200)

Date: July 15, 2004 07:54 PM
Author: Vangel Vesovski

Please explain to me why the American worker, who's productivity has increased so much over the decades, is so far in debt collectively?

Did productivity really increase? If you have an economy in which more people work for the government than in manufacturing is any official statistic on productivity to be taken seriously? What about the service sector? Is a loan officer who is making bigger loans to lower quality clients more efficient than one who makes fewer loans to better customers?

The banks have most of the world in financial slavery. Very few of you will admit it.

I do not see how you can come to this conclusion. Many on this board are hard money advocates and have little hope for the survival of the current fiat system.

(http://65.88.90.51/forums/Index.cfm?CFApp=3&Message_ID=165042)

Date: July 15, 2004 09:16 PM
Author: Jerry R LaPlante
Subject: Yes, productivity has increased in many cases.

There are many companies that have maintained their rate of productivity with less workers.

As far as government workers go, I do not think that example is valid. They are supposed to be paid for primarily through tax dollars, and generally do not produce product.

As far as Loan officers are concerned, They are service workers, but contribute more to the debt side of the economy than wealth, in my opinion.

Although many on this site are hard money advocates, just what is it that they use to measure the value of their hard money? Isn't it the frn? Isn't it their hopes that their hard money, or shall I say gold or silver will go up in the value of those debt dollars they say are going to fail?

Why are gold and silver dealers so anxious to sell you that hard money to get the frn's?

When I was talking about people not admitting it, I probably should have said not willing to believe it. I truly believe that not many even understand it, or don't want to. Their attitude is, if they don't admit it, it's not true.

The question still stands. Why are we in so much debt collectively?

(http://65.88.90.51/forums/Index.cfm?CFApp=3&Message_ID=165061)

Date: July 15, 2004 10:15 PM
Author: The Reaper !
Subject: Jerry R LaPlante & The Answers !

Jerry , you asked "why are we so deep in debt collectively" ? .......First off "real wages" ! In 1967 I worked for Chrysler , I was 19 years old and was just a common machine operator . My take home pay was equal to just under 3 ounces of gold . A friend of mine is presently working for Ford and has 18 years in , also a production employee , his take home pay is equal to 1.5 ounces of gold . My son recently applied at a new Mazda Plant and they offered him around $10.00 an hour to start , on that amount his take home pay would be .6 ounces of gold . Get it ? . Now on to interest rates , over the last 30 years the spread on what you get on your savings and what interest you pay for a loan has never been greater , at least in modern time . This is something that few people really understand , just a 1% difference over a persons life time makes a HUGE difference . On to taxes , some say property taxes are a form of property confiscation over time , if that's true , then over the last several years , people's homes that have doubled in value , now through higher values are being confiscated twice as fast . All this has taken place while taxes on the richest Americans were cut , but hidden taxes and fees that fall on the poorest Americans have been rising dramatically . And this has transpired during a time of stagnant REAL wages for most Americans . The working poor and the middle classes know that some thing is wrong , but the are really not trained in economics to the degree that they should be . They are getting it on every end , for them it's kind of a Chinese water torture that won't stop . This period ( the last 30 years ) will go down in history as the biggest transfer of wealth in history , but this time it's from the poor , to the rich . Vangel and his Libertarian friends tell us that we are just one more pay cut away from Utopia , the truth is that we are just one more pay cut away from a revolution ! The Reaper !

(http://65.88.90.51/forums/Index.cfm?CFApp=3&Message_ID=165071)

Date: July 15, 2004 11:37 PM
Author: Vangel Vesovski
Subject: You want some cheese with your whine?

In 1967 the price of gold was being suppressed by the London Gold Pool. Because of the Vietnan War inflation its price should probably have been 3 to 4 times higher than it was. Today the price of gold is also suppressed by official sales and verbal attacks from central banks and governments. That makes it hard to compare pay in terms of gold. A meaningful comparison requires a free market, something that is clearly lacking and something that you clearly oppose.

The after tax pay for Americans has fallen because the size of your government has grown. It has grown because voters like you seem to prefer a big government and the welfare state to self sufficiency. Libertarians have a solution to this; reduce taxes so that people keep what they earn. Again, this is something that you oppose because you do not think that those who earn a lot should keep the same percentage of their pay as those who earn a little.

What you get on your savings is set by the Fed because it controls the short end of the yield curve. It can do this because people like you want the government to have control of the nation's money supply. If this rate is too low compared to inflation you have nobody to blame but the official sector and those who support it.

On to taxes , some say property taxes are a form of property confiscation over time , if that's true , then over the last several years , people's homes that have doubled in value , now through higher values are being confiscated twice as fast .

Property taxes are set by local governments who are elected by local voters. The governments use property taxes to pay for services that are demanded by those voters. If voters want lower taxes than they should demand fewer programs and services. And if the value of the FRN falls by 50% it is expected that both the house price and the tax paid (but not the rate) would double.

I cannot understand the rich are getting a tax break argument. The fact is that the richest 10% of Americans pay more than 50% of the taxes. This hardly seems fair because they do not get 50% of the 'services' that are funded by those taxes. From where I sit it looks as if the American 'poor' get a good deal. More than 50% of them do not pay income taxes but are the primary beneficiaries of the discretionary programs that those taxes fund.

Vangel and his Libertarian friends tell us that we are just one more pay cut away from Utopia , the truth is that we are just one more pay cut away from a revolution !

Not exactly. We simply point out that the source of your problems is excessive government and that this government interferes with the economy and with the ability of men and women to look after their families. The welfare state is broken because you do not have enough rich people to rob to pay for programs that subsidize bad behaviour and idleness. If you want that raise you better get the government's hand out of your pocket and start taking responsibility for your own actions instead of wanting the nanny state to look after you.

(http://65.88.90.51/forums/Index.cfm?CFApp=3&Message_ID=165095)

Date: July 15, 2004 11:52 PM
Author: The Reaper !
Subject: Vangel & What Ain't !

Since I have never once clearly stated my preferences , how is it that you know what they are ? Again , I wrote of the economy that we have , and you again write about the one we haven't . In the future , why don't we stick to what is ? Not what exist in the gray matter between your ears , or in that fantasy publication (Mise.com) that you get your arguments from . My post , whether you like it or not , is accurate , as are all of my post ! And just for your information , I don't and never have gotten anything from the government , but I have given them a great deal . See Ya at the revolution dude ! The Reaper !

(http://65.88.90.51/forums/Index.cfm?CFApp=3&Message_ID=165099)

Date: July 16, 2004 10:59 PM
Author: Vangel Vesovski
Subject: Never stated your preferences???

You whine about the rich and about corporations. The implication is that they need more regulatory control.

You whine about worker pay and against free trade. Again, the implication is that something needs to be done.

You keep talking about what is but miss the point that it is that way because of the system that you support. If you want a better country you have to support individual responsibility and smaller government, not a bigger welfare state with more power. You have to get away from Marx and Keynes and start using your mind. History shows that those economies that interfere least with the social and economic transactions of their citizens have the greatest success. But instead you live in some Fabian fantasy that promises utopia but delivers misery.

(http://65.88.90.51/forums/Index.cfm?CFApp=3&Message_ID=165475)

Date: July 17, 2004 01:03 AM
Author: The Reaper !
Subject: Vangel & Whining !

Stating facts is not what I would call whining . The fact is , that you are the biggest whiner on this board . You are the one that is always complaining about your freedom or lack there of . All you do is sit comfortably in your socialist country and whine about your freedom . If you are who you say you are , you would have been long gone . All I do is state irrefutable facts , and then listen to you tell me that I voted for something , all the while you have no idea what I ever voted for , or if I have ever voted at all . You say that I support the welfare state when in fact I support a living wage . But I can see why you would confuse the two , since you don't give two shits about any one but yourself . The lower wages that you love for your neighbors , is exactly what will in the end give us a welfare state . Do you honestly think that the U.S. or Canada would let people starve , or die from something like an abscess tooth ? The truth is you have no concept of what it cost to run a city , a state or the country . You have no concept of what it takes to run a business . But you do have a great concept about something that never was , isn't , and never will be . Put that on your resume ! The Reaper !

(http://65.88.90.51/forums/Index.cfm?CFApp=3&Message_ID=165513)

Date: July 17, 2004 03:42 PM
Author: Finster
Subject: Reaper And Whining

Stating facts can be whining depending on what facts you choose to state. Consider the following:

Gasoline at my local service station costs $2.25 a gallon. My grandfather's hair transplant surgery cost $6000. I make $5.25 an hour and eat leftover beans five days a week.

Now Reaper, those are just facts but there is a whine there just as sure as you post on this board.

There are trillions, quadrillions, gadzillions of facts in the world. When you cite facts on an Internet message board, you have to do some serious fact omitting, or you'll never get them all. The problem is how do you select the facts you focus on? The answer...

... you start with an agenda!

So when Vangel and I and others argue with you, we argue with that agenda. The old "it's just facts" excuse just doesn't cut it.

(http://65.88.90.51/forums/Index.cfm?CFApp=3&Message_ID=165773)

Date: July 17, 2004 03:56 PM
Author: The Reaper !
Subject: Finster &The Agenda

Your right Finster I do have an agenga , it's called the TRUTH ! The Reaper !

(http://65.88.90.51/forums/Index.cfm?CFApp=3&Message_ID=165777)

Date: July 17, 2004 04:44 PM
Author: Finster
Subject: Truth And Consequences

Your agenda is truth ... and ...

...The fact is , that you are the biggest whiner on this board .

That Vangel is the biggest whiner on this board??? What about me??? Maybe I'm a bigger whiner!

...when in fact I support a living wage .

A loaded statement if I ever heard one. How exactly do you do this? How in the world do you define "a living wage", and who is supposed to get it, and finally, who is going to have to pay it???

Some teenager in Toledo is going to get a "living wage" for doing (fill-in-the-blank). Okay. Assuming arguendo you know exactly what a "living wage" is in Toledo, how is this going to happen? Are you going to pay it??? I didn't think so. You're going to pass a law??? Then what? If someone is willing to pay a wage that falls below your definition of "living", and the teenager is willing to take it, you're then going to send men with guns? What then? Either your teenager has no work at all, or whoever is paying is going to be poorer, or they're gonna charge higher prices for whatever they sell. And the delicious irony here is that somebody who doesn't even know these people gets to tell them how to run their lives!!!

How are you gonna like it when somebody in a city far away from you tells you you can't have a cigarette, a brandy, or even a Big Mac? That you can't have a shower head that passes more than so-and-so many gallons per hour of water?

Amazing how we can get all this from just a few random "facts".

Facts have consequences!!!

(http://65.88.90.51/forums/Index.cfm?CFApp=3&Message_ID=165796)

Date: July 17, 2004 05:59 PM
Author: The Reaper !
Subject: Finster & A Living Wage

What you don't seam to understand is that when we don't pay a living wage , we have to subsidize that person anyway . When these low wage people get sick they just walk into the emergency room at the local hospital , and we get the bill through taxation and higher insurance rates . And those tax and insurance increases are born by those who make less than $500,000 per year . The IRS through the Earned Income Tax Credit , also gives these low wage people up to $4,000 a year for having a low paying job . Again this is paid for by the above mentioned tax payers . Now lets say that our low wage worker also has 4 children , we will be spending $60,000 a year just to educate his children . Again , this is paid for by the above mentioned tax payer . Now lets say that one of his children contract a chronic disease , we could spend millions just taking care of that one child . Think all of this is far fetched ? Think again !! What you and your moron cohorts don't understand is that cheap labor is in the end very expensive for those who are forced to do the subsidizing . My Blue Cross Blue Shield is up over 50% in the last 2 years due to this charade . My property taxes are sky rocketing along with a plethora of other little taxes and fees . All this is happening while Bush is cutting taxes on the richest American and fighting a needless war in Iraq . If the rich want all of this cheap labor then let them do the subsidizing , not me or my children 20 or 30 years from now . Wake up dude ! The Reaper !

(http://65.88.90.51/forums/Index.cfm?CFApp=3&Message_ID=165813)

Date: July 17, 2004 07:24 PM
Author: Finster
Subject: Living Wage Subsidies

If "we" i.e. via the government, think that someone should have more money, we should just cough it up ourselves instead of making someone else do it. That's the difference between compassion and thievery. I have no objection whatsoever to people voluntarily helping out other people - that's genunine human compassion. But having a politician buy votes from any man by reaching into another man's pocket is immoral and that politican should fast become unemployed himself.

No one in this country ought to or need starve. Americans are a generous people and if allowed to voluntarily, will always help the unfortunate. But politicians have elbowed in on the game, claiming a monopoly on compassion. If you believe this is a problem that only politicians and governments can solve, then you are one of their gullible victims.

Here's something else to think about. If someone's services are not worth $5.25 or $7 an hour or whatever (insert name of politican on soapbox here) thinks they ought to be worth, why is that? Why is someone's time not worth that much? Bad education? That might be one reason. If so, why is education bad? Maybe after so many years of the welfare state, word got out that you can goof off in school, and still be guaranteed at least $5.25 or $7 an hour?

Dag! Why work hard in school? Why make something of yourself? Why show respect to your teachers and employers? Reaper, you should talk to some teachers in high schools in your area and see if they think kids these days are motivated. If they're not, wonder why?

(http://65.88.90.51/forums/Index.cfm?CFApp=3&Message_ID=165828)

Date: July 17, 2004 11:09 PM
Author: The Reaper !
Subject: Fister & What ?

Dude , your ramblings aren't getting it . The fact are the facts . If you don't have a living wage , you get subsidies . And WE pay the subsidies , we are in fact subsidizing those employers that pay those chicken shit wages . You can call it immoral or anything else your little heart desires , the fact is , that it is happening and we are paying for it . I am not arguing the right and wrong of it , I am just telling you that , that is what is in fact happening . So instead of paying directly through a living wage , we pay it indirectly through TAX PAYER subsidies . Just like when we send a man's job to China or India , the first thing that happens , is the guy collects unemployment for up to a couple of years , depending on what the federal government has as far as extensions . At the same time , depending on his net worth , the guy can apply for food stamps and Medicaid . Now this former tax paying citizen is no longer paying taxes helping the rest of us pay the bills , he has become our newest dependant . What I am saying to you is that there is a price to be paid for all of this , and the rich aren't paying for it , we are ! The fact is that the rich have had their taxes cut , while those who make $500,000 a year or less have had a tax increase . Your being had dude , and your really not smart enough to see it . Oh Well ! The Reaper !

(http://65.88.90.51/forums/Index.cfm?CFApp=3&Message_ID=165903)

Date: July 18, 2004 05:51 PM
Author: The Devil's Gift
Subject: $50,000/Year

Grim Reaper,

Your last post had one two many zeros.

According to the Clinton Administration, which had the last definition by the Federal Government that I saw, any household making over $50,000/year was considered rich.

If anyone has a source of a more up to date Federal Government definition of "rich" (similiar to the official Federal Government definition of "poverty"), please post it.

(http://65.88.90.51/forums/Index.cfm?CFApp=3&Message_ID=166196)

Date: July 16, 2004 01:08 AM
Author: EHtaga

Vangel, we talk about rich people paying so much more and with regards to property taxes, I used to think the same way as you ie it was for the services and really the services for a rich house and a poor one are about the same and nowhere near the the disparity in property taxes. But over the years I've come to the acceptance or resolution that its a 'progressive' tax just like income, it may have to cover services but it's levied on supposedly ability to pay. Read something interesting recently about the Seagram (Bronfman) building in NYC. The city planners were somewhat reluctant to approve those plans as the original building design did not meet their tax col criteria for a building in that zoning, ie it did not take up enough of the land it was going to sit on, and I believe some modifications were brought to bear. That building is set way back from the street. Rich houses generally take up more space in a multi-zoned community, so there may be some justification to higher property taxes in some cases. On the question of a progressive income tax, I get the feeling that while the income part of the equation is rather straight forward, the system actually taxes the high earners for the privilege of having a market and labor force to permit such, not what many want to hear or accept but more palatable as a reason. On a different note, they did a survey here not too long ago on some of the food chains and their pricing or mor specifically sales specials policy some years back. It was a consumer group, and lo and behold what they found was that sales in the week of the first , when those income supplements and welfare recipients get their cheques were a statistically a lot less than at any other time in the month. Makes you wonder sometimes if we really don't kick them while they're down, or maybe try in our own way to get some of that ill gotten money back. Live long and prosper dear friend.

(http://65.88.90.51/forums/Index.cfm?CFApp=3&Message_ID=165113)

Date: July 16, 2004 11:22 PM
Author: Vangel Vesovski

Rich houses generally take up more space in a multi-zoned community, so there may be some justification to higher property taxes in some cases.

A house on a 200 foot wide lot should pay more in property taxes than a condominium in a multi-unit building because proportionally it uses more sewer, water and electrical infrastructure. But the proportion of the taxes that go to fund such services is small. Most of the property tax bill goes to pay for such things as education. Why should a childless person pay to educate the children of others?

On the question of a progressive income tax, I get the feeling that while the income part of the equation is rather straight forward, the system actually taxes the high earners for the privilege of having a market and labor force to permit such, not what many want to hear or accept but more palatable as a reason.

Is this the best argument that you can think of? I am certain that someone could argue that the poor should pay a higher proportion of their incomes as taxes for the privilege of working for the rich but that would also wrong. In the US people used to be free to conduct their business and social affairs as they saw fit as long as they did not interfere with the rights of others to do so. The American Founding Fathers realized that the best system was one in which government was small and people were free. That is why they did not tax income.

On a different note, they did a survey here not too long ago on some of the food chains and their pricing or more specifically sales specials policy some years back. It was a consumer group, and lo and behold what they found was that sales in the week of the first , when those income supplements and welfare recipients get their cheques were a statistically a lot less than at any other time in the month.

Eating in a restaurant is a choice made by the consumer. If the welfare recepients did not see any specials they should have made their own meals as most people do.

(http://65.88.90.51/forums/Index.cfm?CFApp=3&Message_ID=165489)

Date: July 17, 2004 03:29 PM
Author: EHtaga

duplicate sorry

(http://65.88.90.51/forums/Index.cfm?CFApp=3&Message_ID=165765)

Date: July 17, 2004 06:55 PM
Author: EHtaga

Vangel, there must bve something keeping you in beautiful downtown Mississauga, so close to the the big city with all its attractions, in that even more socialist country. Exactly what keeps you there? The governments gave the municipalities the right to tax based on the assessed values in their jurisdiction. So while it may cover things such as education, it acts just like any other expenditure that must be covered by a tax base. I would like to see just how a system that pushes user pay would work out. Even your universities are funded for the most part by the tax base, tuition compared to the American ones is but a small fraction. I disagree with much of these imposed shared services but haven't found a place yet where I would want to live. Have you? So I just look at it as a cost of living where I do, I'd love to change some aspects but I don't see politicians campagning on removing or redistributing these taxes, not any that stand any chance of getting elected. That commentary about food specials did indeed refer to grocery chains , those that supply the ingredients for those home made meals. I don't know where you got restaurants out of that. Sounds more like an automatic response there.Live long and prosper dear friend.

(http://65.88.90.51/forums/Index.cfm?CFApp=3&Message_ID=165824)

Date: July 18, 2004 08:16 AM
Author: Vangel Vesovski
Subject: Live in a place you like...

If you have sufficient capital there are ways to live very well and keep your tax burden fairly low, even in a socialist country like Canada. You have to keep in mind that the modern socialist system that is favoured by the West makes it hard for a working person to become well off because most of the burden is placed on people who obtain their income by working.

Since politicians cannot afford to scare off investment capital those that earnings and gains that come from capital have a lower tax burden. Because I am no longer working for a living I do not have to pay into the Canada Pension Plan or into the Employment Insurance fund. My taxable earnings come mainly from dividends, which are taxed at a lower rate than earned income. Capital gains also get a preferred tax treatment and any gains or income inside retirement plans does not get taxed until it is withdrawn.

I live in Mississauga because I like the city. It is well run when compared to most other Canadian cities and the tax burden is much more reasonable than in Toronto. Frankly, I do not care that much about the quality of the education system because as a consumer I can choose which school my kids will attend. The area in which I live has excellent public schools but I have still chosen to send my children to a private school that I feel is much better.

Like you I feel that it is important to control the cost of living. Fortunately that is not all that hard in modern society. The basics are very cheap. One can purchase and store flour, beans, rice, and other essentials in bulk when prices are low and replenish when prices are lowered as they usually are at least once per month. That is the reason why I assumed that the food specials that you referenced were restaurant food; everything that we need can be stored in bulk so the timing of discounting is not important.

(http://65.88.90.51/forums/Index.cfm?CFApp=3&Message_ID=165993)

Date: July 16, 2004 02:00 PM
Author: Jerry R LaPlante
Subject: Good post Reaper

You are right on about the spread. Wage stagnation, coupled with the higher cost of living equals a lot more hours of labor to purchase the same needed products and services.

Have a great weekend

(http://65.88.90.51/forums/Index.cfm?CFApp=3&Message_ID=165275)

Date: July 20, 2004 06:24 AM
Author: Jonathan Potter
Subject: Debt

You have been going on about this for years. If this debt is going to destroy us why has it not done so already? Debt does not matter, as long as it is serviced. As long as new debt is created the system will go on working. Money is like a circut. Banks put it out with one hand and pull it back with the other. Along the way it makes things happen. The end points are not as important as what happens between them.

(http://65.88.90.51/forums/Index.cfm?CFApp=3&Message_ID=166725)

Date: July 13, 2004 09:32 AM
Author: feelingolder
Subject: The Pepsi challenge

Are you quoting Marx or Ralph Nader? Or Hillary Clinton?

(http://65.88.90.51/forums/Index.cfm?CFApp=3&Message_ID=163952)

Date: July 13, 2004 03:19 PM
Author: EHtaga

What people fail to consider, and yet they are also the proponents of things such as Hulbert's peaks and the like, is that this ball is a finite resource, it is not getting bigger, oil is not being replenished. minerals don't just re appear. Perhaps this ball will surprise us and throw up a resource that will greatly substitute for those we are consuming or perhaps we'll find better ways of using more efficiently that which we have. But , and I don't know how long it will take but we will hit that wall eventually, hopefully long after our own children are gone. On the subject of John D Rockefeller, what was once a strategy to protect his own refining interests became an all out obsession to dominate and control the oil industry. Just before the break up of the Standard Oil trust, JD controlled almost 90 % of the world oil marketing and refining and a third of its wells. And just how do you think he managed to do that, fair play?, no the courts decided otherwise there. Once JD wanted your business, your best option was to be on his good side, sell out and take stock in his 'annaconda' (the serpent with far reaching limbs) The Standard as it was called. He made a lot of people who had wealth or could have had wealth that much poorer. A decent fellow in all other respects, but 'MONEY MAD' as various psychologists of his day termed him. Not quite a Martha Stewart for you Vangel, and I have to wonder if you would have been at his defence as you are with Lay and Stewart. Before you do, think of all the entrepreneurial, creative, productive lives he ruined in his obsessive quest for industry monopoly, the same people who believed hard work, creativity, perserverance and fair play would be their ticket to success. A most secretive man and organization, and a man who never even fought back those serious allegations and facts in Tarbell's famous 19 issue expose in Mclure's Magazine. And yet a most confounding man given to philanthropic causes, but an important caveat there, causes JD believed in. In a way his method of imposing his and Standard Oil's vision of the world. Live long and prosper dear friend.

(http://65.88.90.51/forums/Index.cfm?CFApp=3&Message_ID=164082)

Date: July 13, 2004 03:41 PM
Author: Mark Grant

"oil is not being replenished"

Well, there's some evidence that maybe it is: but that seems pretty dubious to me.

"Just before the break up of the Standard Oil trust, JD controlled almost 90 % of the world oil marketing and refining and a third of its wells."

And the price of oil was about 1/10 as high as it was when he began his drive to become an EVIL MONOPOLY, and he was being sucked dry by people who'd start up refineries just in order to force him to buy them out. For the horrible sin of reducing the cost of oil by 90%, he was demonised and taken to court.

"And just how do you think he managed to do that, fair play?, no the courts decided otherwise there."

And what would the courts know about fair play?

(http://65.88.90.51/forums/Index.cfm?CFApp=3&Message_ID=164106)

Date: July 13, 2004 04:30 PM
Author: EHtaga

I'd love to be sucked dry as he was Mark .....anytime. Do you really think JD was that dumb? Inconsistent there. Mark imagine yourself on the receiving end of JD's big stick! LOL Monopolies work well, the oil price and volumes are such that they are controlled, others were suffering with the low oil prices, but JD was prospering due to his influence or persistence in getting those rebates that common carriers were prohibited from giving. Nah for the most part those that sold out got much less than what their operations were worth. In my reading, a lady whose lubricating business was earning 30 to 40 thousand a year, with a stand still agreement on the part of Standard, which she felt would cost more to enforce against Standard was bought out at 60 thousand. She sold out of fear. Hell JD even forced out supposed friends out of their Standard holdings. JD was above the law, or so he thought. Anyone going against him would find he either couldn't getthe chemicals needed for refining (JD had bought them all up, to store, rail cars just wouldn't be there for you (JD's influence and arm twisting of the rails) your local market would just dry up (Jd's persistent predatory pricing). And your comment that oil prices were much higher at the end than when he started his scheme, it was due to those low oil prices that he embarked on it. Amazing how he just let those damming allegations by Tarbell go without comment. Maybe even worse would have come out if the affair was blown wide open. As I said in another thread, maybe JD's vision of the world and his monopoly of oil would have been better, we'll never know. Imagine one man deciding who got how much and when. And with his upbringing ....the waste, he would have been appaled to see his precious resource used as it is today. Live long and prosper dear friend.

(http://65.88.90.51/forums/Index.cfm?CFApp=3&Message_ID=164131)

Date: July 13, 2004 05:40 PM
Author: Mark Grant

"And your comment that oil prices were much higher at the end than when he started his scheme, it was due to those low oil prices that he embarked on it."

Uh, no. The oil prices _dropped_ by about 90% while he was creating his monopoly. How exactly can prices dropping by 90% be a bad thing?

"Monopolies work well, the oil price and volumes are such that they are controlled"

If the oil price was controlled, why did he let it drop by 90%? Why didn't he increase it? The reality is that the only way the oil price was controlled was by him selling oil to customers at below market price... what's so bad about that?

Also, his market share was down to only about 65% by the time the anti-trust actions were taken. So prices were going down, and his market share was dropping. What's the problem?

You see, unlike government-supported monopolies, in a free market a monopoly can't artifically raise prices or competitors will appear to sell for less. This is why a number of people got rich by selling refineries to him, then building new ones with the proceeds, which they then sold to him again... he couldn't afford to have the competition if he wanted to build a monopoly.

(http://65.88.90.51/forums/Index.cfm?CFApp=3&Message_ID=164155)

Date: July 15, 2004 01:46 AM
Author: EHtaga

Mark. The problem was that he may not have been completely within the law on a lot of his dealings and he had a history (or many people suspected and later proved) of not even abiding to the rulings. Past indiscretions? Usually there are consequences for that, no matter where his market share was going. Courts just aren't expected to devine market share, and it's not part of the judicial process. On the question of oil prices. they started off somewhere around $20 a barrel but as more and more wells were brought in (wild catters and the established drillers) prices dropped and considerably, (think I remember reading in those subsequent years to something like $1 a barrel or so. Remember seeing an oil contract of Standard whereby the blank space (To be filled in) was in cents per barrel. So depending on what point in time one picks prices may drop as you indicate, the marvels of statistics. It was in large part due to those lower prices that the Standard went about creating the "brotherhood" first the South Improvement Company and when that was ordered disbanded the Standard Oil Trust and when that was ordered shut down well the Standard Oil Company, so what was in effect started as an informal grouping of Companies ended up a consolidation within Standard. No big difference as Jd and the policies of Standard prevailed throughout. It was for that very reason of lower prices (excess supply) that JD set up those combinations, to get the clout in extracting rebates from the common carriers who were by law prohibited from discrimination on rates and availability. Now do you honestly believe that Standard's prime motive was to reduce oil prices, or would it be more to give Standard an edge in marketing, being able to undercut the competition, and especially at a time when there's a glut. Competitors don't last long under such a scenario. It was indeed this low price scenario that made predatory pricing and monopoly that much more possible. If pricing and supply were more in balance, the competitors would have made less than Standard but would have been able to survive, but not under a low price one where your competitor has a substantial freight advantage. The whole industry was reducing costs not just Standard, and while any one player or Standard contributed to those reductions, it would be wrong to attribute that solely to Standard. JD's motto was definitely buy low and sell as high as practicable. And my reference to monopolies, they still have to function according to the laws of supply and demand, a little like the example of Microsoft selling software at $1000. Unprotected market monopolies, while acting as such, will always be subject to new entry competition, especially if the suspect company, the Standard in this case is front row center, both in the public's eye though the Tarbell exposee, and its continuing legal battles with regards to those rebates. And did he get to exercize his monopoly, perhaps pricing would have been even lower had he not had that sizeable position in his markets. But overall prices had to come down, because crude supply increased and the industry increased tremendously in volumes and added new significant players in the fuel and gasoline markets, players much stronger than the kerosene market (the major petroleum market before) where JD had his dominance. But an amazing man nonetheless, one who conducted business the same way one fights a war, determined, resolute and courageous. And who fights a war fairly? Live long and prosper dear friend.

(http://65.88.90.51/forums/Index.cfm?CFApp=3&Message_ID=164763)

Date: July 20, 2004 11:28 AM
Author: Kenmeer Livermaile

It is almost universally assumed that lowering the cost of something as valuable as oil is inherently good. Is lowering the cost of glod inherently good?

When something as currently indispensable, as oil has become to much of the world's population, is made cheap in price, it is debased. It is WASTED.

When the 'cost' (as it is so quaintly expressed in the colloquialism "life is cheap") of human life is lowered, is this a GOOD thing or a BAD thing?

I shake my head in wonder at the deformations of thought that prevailing economic tenets of belief produce in the minds of people who are otherwise obviously very intelligent and morally engaged.

Making something becomes affordable for the masses isn't necessarily a good thing. Affordable RPG bazookas, for example, aren't necessarily a good consumer good.

It is SO easy to diss the GOALS of socialism by noting its common (not UNIVERSAL but frequent) failure to meet them, and to praise free market capitalism by noting how the principle of Greed Run Amok inadvertantly raises standards of living when filtered through at least a little Applied Science.

The goals of socialism are a reasonable standard ofl iving for all. 'All' impolies universal absolutes, which are the thrid rail of any human endeavor, so I'll say 'the most'.

Butr Greed Run Amok will, by nature and definition, destroy that prosperity it inadvertantly created while making Jay and Andrew and the boys extremely wealthy.

The Invisible Hand is, like religion's Invisible Friend (God), invisible for the same reason God is invisible: its existence is only a theory. Eventually we will learn principles of regulation and administration that harmonize with Life on Earth, which is ruthlessly dynamic interaction between competing infoenergy systems, i.e., critters, driven by that solar engine around which our planet circles.

Or else we will be reduced again to lives that are nasty, brutish and short or perhaps even extinction.

(http://65.88.90.51/forums/Index.cfm?CFApp=3&Message_ID=166794)

Date: July 13, 2004 06:26 PM
Author: Vangel Vesovski
Subject: You are confused...

Just before the break up of the Standard Oil trust, JD controlled almost 90 % of the world oil marketing and refining and a third of its wells.

That is not true. Rockefeller never controlled 90% of the world's oil marketing and refining and by 1911, the year Standard Oil was broken up, he only had 11% of the market.

It was clear that the petroleum market that JDR dominated was very competitive and prices fell rapidly as oil became more and more plentiful; by taking advantage of economies of scale and vertical integration Rockefeller reduced his costs from 3 cents to less than 0.3 cents per gallon. The savings allowed prices of refined petroleum to fall from more than 30 cents per gallon in 1869 to less than 6 cents in thirty years. As for being money mad, Rockefeller made the most amount of money when the government forced him to break up Standard oil; the parts were worth much more than the whole.

Before you do, think of all the entrepreneurial, creative, productive lives he ruined in his obsessive quest for industry monopoly, the same people who believed hard work, creativity, perseverance and fair play would be their ticket to success.

Actually, JDR made many of his competitors very rich by buying them out. And those who were less efficient and did not sell were driven out of business because they could not provide the final product as cheaply or reliably. That is the nature of the free market; it is the ultimate form of democracy as customer vote with their money and usually favor those that give them the best product at the lowest cost.

(http://65.88.90.51/forums/Index.cfm?CFApp=3&Message_ID=164176)

Date: July 13, 2004 09:12 PM
Author: EHtaga

Vangel this is one source, where I went to get data or commentary, it is not even the one that the original data or comment came from. If memory serves me right, at that point in time (I believe 1900) the numbers quoted were roughly 36 million barrels a year of which Standard controlled 33. As I said JD was a strange individual, not all bad nor all good. He may have reduced his costs as a great many other refiners did, but his trump card was his exclusive deals (illegal by the way) with the rairoads ( a major cost for oil at that time and I imagine today as well). And where do you think the railroads made up for that concession to Standard? At one time Standard was even receiving rebates on oil shipped by their competitors, and to top it off, Standard even arm twisted control of the railyards in New York for one, as such they could even see their competitors shipments, while their own operations were strictly veiled in secrecy. Perhaps some of that is alleged, but the rail subsidies were attested to by the railroads themselves and they were ordered to stop, which they did for a short while but due to the persistence , tenacity of JD were re-instituted silently thereafter. And predatory pricing, one can say it is purely altruistic, giving deserving people a break on oil pricing, where in one part of the country oil prices are maintained high to sponsor predatory pricing in another part, where a competitor is to be eliminated. One source follows, I'll be looking for the other factual data source, if I can find it again. But before I go, I do not find you confused as you do me but rather inconsistent perhaps a bit like JD. For one who, it appears to me to do on one hand so much due diligence, and on the other to accept and propose almost to the point of naivete, the exclusive benefits of a non regulated fully capitalistic market system, and the players in that system. While our present system may be the best of all alternatives, pushing your arguement to its likely conclusion, unfettered capitalism would be nirvana to your way of thinking. Naive at best. Live long and prosper dear friend. "Industrial Espionage

To work for the Standard Oil, the railroads had to commit themselves to give detailed reports to the Standard on all the oil transport made for competitors, stating the producer's name, quantity, quality and price paid by the client. Rockefeller also places spies who checked that the railroads really used the price discrimination explained above. If this discrimination had not been applied in a case known to the Standard, the culprit railroad quickly received a letter like this:

Wilkerson and Company received car of oil Monday 13th-70 barrels which we suspect slipped through at the usual fifth class rate paying only $41.50 freight from here. Charges 55.40. Please turn another screw "...................................................."9. Chronology 1870 The Standard Oil Company is founded by John D. Rockfeller in Cleveland, Ohio. The refining industry is at this time decentralised, and Rockefeller's share of the refined oil business is less than 4%, with more that 250 competitors in the US. 1870 John D. Rockefeller and Flagler start the South Improvement Company to pool oil transportation on railroads, letting those who take part in the scheme to get incredibly cheap rates. 1873 John D. Rockefeller already controls 80% of the refining capacity of Cleveland, which makes a third of the nation's total. 1879 The Standard Oil Trust shuts down 31 of the 53 refineries owned by the Standard Oil and concentrate production in 3 giant refineries. 1880 Standard Oil controls almost every refinery in the US and has more than $40 mio in cash. 1882 The alliance of all the companies that made the Standard Oil is transformed into the Standard Oil Trust, the first big trust in the USA. The shareholders of the 14 companies and minority shareholders of a further 26 hand in their bonds and shares to 9 trustees and get in exchange $70 mio in trust certificates. The trustees control the company and pay dividend to the holders of these certificates. 1882 An Ohio court dissolve the trust, but it is reincorporated in New Jersey, a state that accepts trusts. The trustees leave their initial horizontal integration concept and work for a total vertical integration. 1890 Congress votes the Sherman Antitrust Act and the Standard is again reincorporated, this time in New Jersey as a holding. 1900 The Standard Oil controls more than 90% of the refined oil in the USA 1911 The Supreme Court decides the break up of the Standard Oil in smaller, competing companies." .............................................................................................. PS If you can provide your source especially for your 11% I would be most interested in reviewing it. Especially in the context of the 90% in 1900. Remember the industry was growing in leaps and bounds back then, the automobile creating a further increasing demand and Tarbell's expose came out in 1904, my guess it put a damper on Jd for a while. It is also true the break up of Standard made JD even richer (upwards of three times) as the whole was worth more than the parts, or was it the disclosure forced by the break up that made it possible to properly value Standard? JD wouldn't give a darn to cash in if he could keep the game going, that cash-in was always possible, the value was always there just not recognized, and that wouldn't have fazed JD one bit, HE knew what he had.

(http://65.88.90.51/forums/Index.cfm?CFApp=3&Message_ID=164229)

Date: July 13, 2004 11:28 PM
Author: Marothoner
Subject: He can't respond - he's too busy

running.

(http://65.88.90.51/forums/Index.cfm?CFApp=3&Message_ID=164283)

Date: July 14, 2004 06:35 AM
Author: Vangel Vesovski

Sometimes I do not respond because I do not get e-mail notification since the site went to passwords. If anyone can tell me how I can see responses to threads that I post on I will be more diligent.

(http://65.88.90.51/forums/Index.cfm?CFApp=3&Message_ID=164360)

Date: July 14, 2004 06:34 AM
Author: Vangel Vesovski

Standard Oil was such an extraordinarily efficient company that even Rockefeller's harshest journalistic critic, Ida Tarbell, described it as "a marvelous example of economy." The efficiencies of economies of scale and vertical integration caused the price of refined petroleum to fall from over 30 cents per gallon in 1869 to 10 cents by 1874, and to 5.9 cents in 1897. During the same period Rockefeller reduced his average costs from 3 cents to 0.29 cents per gallon.

The industry's output of refined petroleum increased rapidly throughout this period--just the opposite of what mainstream monopoly theory would predict. In 1911, the year in which the federal government forced the breakup of Standard Oil, the company faced fierce competition from Associated Oil and Gas, Texaco, Gulf, and 147 other independent refineries. Because of this competition Standard Oil's market share fell from 88 percent in 1890 to a mere 11 percent by 1911. From, The Gates-Rockefeller Myth, by Thomas J. DiLorenzo

(http://65.88.90.51/forums/Index.cfm?CFApp=3&Message_ID=164359)

Date: July 14, 2004 06:42 AM
Author: Vangel Vesovski
Subject: Another source...

From 1906 to 1911, antitrust authorities prosecuted Standard Oil, a case that culminated with John D. Rockefeller's company being forcibly broken up into several smaller businesses. The Microsoft wars have often been compared to the Standard Oil case, and the analogy is apt -- though not in the way it is usually intended.

Like Microsoft, Standard Oil was pilloried for practices considered legitimate when used by other companies. Since Standard Oil was such a high-volume customer, railroads gave it special discounts in exchange for planning shipments in ways that enabled railroads to use their lines and railcars most efficiently. Standard Oil's competitors complained bitterly about these discounts (called "rebates"), which the railroads kept secret from other oil companies.

Also like Microsoft, Standard Oil may have harmed its competitors, but it helped its consumers. Rockefeller's chemists developed 300 different byproducts from oil and created production and distribution processes far more efficient than those of other companies, allowing it to underprice them and to buy many of them out.

Standard Oil began in 1870, when kerosene cost 30 cents a gallon. By 1897, Rockefeller's scientists and managers had driven the price to under 6 cents per gallon, and many of his less-efficient competitors were out of business -- including companies whose inferior grades of kerosene were prone to explosion and whose dangerous wares had depressed the demand for the product. Standard Oil did the same for petroleum: In a single decade, from 1880 to 1890, Rockefeller's consolidations helped drive petroleum prices down 61 percent while increasing output 393 percent. He eventually built Standard Oil of New Jersey into a trust composed of 18 companies operating under a single board of directors.

Standard Oil used resources with legendary efficiency, introducing many new labor-saving devices to its factories and locating sophisticated facilities at key points in its distribution system. Yet Rockefeller paid wages well above the market level, believing that high wages and good working conditions would save money in the long run by averting strikes and by encouraging loyalty among employees. Before Standard Oil revolutionized oil derivatives by lowering prices and improving quality, the high prices and limited supplies of whale oil and candles prevented all but the wealthy from being able to work or entertain after dark. Thanks to Standard Oil, families could illuminate their homes for just one cent per hour. And he saved the whales.

The federal government filed suit against Standard Oil in 1906 for violating the Sherman Antitrust Act, and in 1909, the company was found guilty; the Supreme Court affirmed the finding in 1911. Standard Oil, claimed the courts, evinced an "intent and purpose to exclude others" -- demonstrated, ironically, by its many mergers, acquisitions, and business alliances. No one brought forward evidence of consumer harm, and the government never showed that Standard's specific actions, as opposed to its alleged intent, were illegal.

For several decades following the verdict, economists and legal scholars viewed the Standard Oil case as a classic example of "predatory pricing" -- a monopolist's attempt to underprice its competitors out of the market so it could raise its prices later. In fact, just as the threat of new entry into the operating system, browser, and applications markets has kept Microsoft from ever exercising its supposed "monopoly power," so did new sources of competition keep Standard Oil from raising its prices. Neither the federal district court nor the U.S. Supreme Court found that Standard Oil's practices made kerosene prices higher than they otherwise would have been. If Microsoft Windows actually were a monopoly (that is, essential for anyone who wants to use a computer), the proper price would be about $900 a copy. Microsoft doesn't price this high because it knows that if it does, consumers will flock to Linux and Macintosh, and other companies would enter the operating system business, with products much cheaper than $900.

There's one more important parallel between the Standard Oil and Microsoft cases: Technological change made the Standard Oil decision obsolete by the time it was resolved. Of course, the Microsoft case hasn't resolved itself yet, but as we'll see, changing technologies are changing market conditions in the software world as well.

The oil business was opening fields in states such as Kan-sas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, California, and especially Texas, where Rockefeller had failed to invest. All those fields were far away from the Ohio/Pennsylvania/New Jersey corridor that was the base of Standard Oil's power. Also, the national kerosene market had declined, as home lighting shifted from kerosene lamps to coal-generated electricity and as fuel oil replaced coal and wood as the major fuel for home heating. In 1899, kerosene had accounted for 58 percent of all refined petroleum sales, and fuel oil for 15 percent. By 1914, kerosene had plunged to 25 percent, and fuel oil had risen to 48 percent.

Rockefeller was slow to switch from kerosene to gasoline, and with only 11 percent of the nation's oil production in 1911, Standard Oil could never hope to dominate the new market. Throughout the energy business, new technologies and new efficiencies were creating new and stronger competitors from industries previously distinct from the oil industry. Those competitors were far more powerful than the kerosene companies Rockefeller had defeated decades before.

Some observers have noted that in the years after Standard Oil was broken into smaller regional companies, the stock prices of those smaller companies rose, leading to speculation that breaking up Microsoft might have a similar positive effect on the total value of Microsoft stock. This is a misreading. Nearly all oil companies' stock went up in that period, not because of the breakup but because of rising demand and technological breakthroughs. Nor did the breakup have any discernible impact on oil production or oil prices.

The government's victory against Standard Oil had a long-term effect on the oil industry that is seldom discussed by those who see parallels with the Microsoft case. Only six years after losing the antitrust case, Standard Oil dramatically changed its attitude toward Washington, moving from hostility or avoidance to a very warm embrace. Company chief A.C. Bedford served as chairman of the War Services Committee, an agency created to mobilize the nation's supplies of gasoline and diesel fuel for military use during World War I. After the war, federal control never retreated, transforming what economist Dominick Armentano has called "a virtual textbook example of a free and competitive market" into "what had previously been unobtainable: a governmentally sanctioned cartel in oil." The legacies of this transformation include higher prices for consumers and the "energy crisis" of the 1970s. Deregulation in the 1980s finally restored some measure of competition to the industry.

The Standard Oil case teaches some important lessons about competition, innovation, and antitrust law. We see the difficulty antitrust has dealing with highly innovative companies. We witness the vagueness of antitrust law, which allows prosecution on the basis of alleged intent rather than specific actions. And we see how the Standard Oil case ultimately failed to benefit consumers or investors. Instead, it laid the groundwork for collusion between industry and government, bringing about many of the very ills the "progressive" proponents of antitrust said they were fighting. From: Antitrust's Greatest Hits: The foolish precedents behind the Microsoft case, by David B. Kopel and Joseph Bast

(http://65.88.90.51/forums/Index.cfm?CFApp=3&Message_ID=164362)

Date: July 16, 2004 12:31 AM
Author: EHtaga

So Vangel, sorry I didn't get back to this sooner. So at one time Standard had the 90%, but I believe it was closer to the early 1900's, but no matter he basically 'controlled' the petroleum industry as it was back then. That the market and industry abruptly changed was perhaps even too much for JD to address in such a short period, but given time and no outside diversions or major obstacles such as the Tarbell exposee and his own advancing years, I believe he would have given even that a shot. One other consideration which I read which may or may not be included in the numbers, Some have inferred perhaps different percentages control By JD and Standard by his ownership of major pipelines and of course control over ALL the oil processed or pumped through those, His Standard decided who was getting it, how much etc. I'm not certain to what extent that would influence the 11% that was quoted. Some have alluded to the fact that when one considers this, his control was even higher than the quoted 88% in the period about 1890 before the fuel oil and gasoline markets developed in earnest. While looking again at the Standard history I came upon this rather disturbing web page, I had seen more detailed reference to it before especially with the IG Farber connection, but it also outlines connections involving GM ITT Ford and others. The Mercedes Benz settlement for imprisonned slave camp labor tends to give credence to those. If we give any kind of credence to these allegations or facts, then how can we in all honesty say unbridled free market capitalism is the panacea that you believe? The war machine, and it's a powerful one, thrives on war, it puts a tax* on every citizen as it diverts and uses up capital and resources that would have gone elsewhere, and that too is part of your free market capitalism. One would have to be extremely naive to not suspect that powerful companies or entities disregard any allegiance to their countries of origin, or to principles of fair play or morals. And perhaps I'm the one being naive to expect these corporations to act in the national interest, but I find it hard to believe the people working for them (Americans) would be able to put the company's interest before that of their nation and fellow citizen. This article also attributes (and I've seen it before) to Rockefeller the following "While he professed Christianity, Rockefeller is famous for saying "the only sin is competition."" Refer to my other post to Mark Grant for a response to advances made by Standard in cost reduction and efficiency. The spiel your author delivers sounds just like the Company propaganda and video releases at some Company annual meetings, you'd never know some of them were on their death throws, or at least weren't as saintly as they project in those. And the fact that the Company cozied up to the government thereafter really is a separate issue, if anything it demonstrates even further the resoucefulness, and political connections developed by the Rockefellers and Standard (the remaining major parts). The 'annaconda' can change its tactics very well. At least with JD it's tactics ,while secret, were much more discernible. Live long and prosper dear friend.

PS the link to that page is as follows.......................http://www.mindcontrolforums.com/beafraid-fascistpedigree.htm

(http://65.88.90.51/forums/Index.cfm?CFApp=3&Message_ID=165107)

Date: July 18, 2004 08:28 AM
Author: Vangel Vesovski

First, Standard was not forced to give up its monopoly position until it had less than 20% of the market. Second, during the so called 'control' of the market, JDR cut fuel prices significantly, an act that benefited the consumer.

If we give any kind of credence to these allegations or facts, then how can we in all honesty say unbridled free market capitalism is the panacea that you believe?

You forget that the major beneficiary of capitalism is the consumer. In a free market producers gain market share if the give the consumer what is wanted at an attractive price. The moment that a company tries to 'take advantage' of its position consumers go elsewhere and market position is lost. But even if a dominant company continues to be consumer friendly, its healthy profit margins will attract competition and it will lose market share to smaller rivals better able to take advantage of certain local conditions.

PS the link to that page is as follows.......................http://www.mindcontrolforums.com/beafraid-fascistpedigree.htm

That is your problem; your source of information lacks the rigour and credibility that is necessary to draw a true conclusion.

(http://65.88.90.51/forums/Index.cfm?CFApp=3&Message_ID=165997)

Date: July 13, 2004 05:45 PM
Author: tajak
Subject: anybody can become rich

if they have the mindset and the psychology to do what it takes. Most people aren't rich because of the things they do and don't do.

And there are differant definitions of rich. Someone who earns passive income which totally covers their expenses is financially free. I would class this as being rich in more ways than one.

If you find a way to add value to peoples lives, that they will willingly pay for, then you will become rich......but then you know this :)

Where did you find the quote?

(http://65.88.90.51/forums/Index.cfm?CFApp=3&Message_ID=164159)

Date: July 20, 2004 11:15 AM
Author: Kenmeer Livermaile
Subject: conventional logic

It makes sense. But it makes sense on the basis of prevailing canards.

One of these is:

"rich", which is a concept based on relative inequity. Rich implies a background of poor, just as poor implies a background of rich.

Another is exprerssed here:

If money had real value this statement would be meaningless. If everyone had all the food they could eat, electricity , material, et cetera, it would not decrease the value of these things. Calories are calories, ergs are ergs, fabrications processes/fabricated substances are what they are.

So I say that analyses of wealth/prosperity based on the chimera of money are inherently flawed by, that is, limited to, the reality of said chimera.

For example, the continual despising of socialism based on money market logic is far from conclusive. Analyses of socialism (and other systems) based on human nature come closer to their underlying eal potential, but inevitably said human nature too moften gets filtered through fiscal reasoning.

Only because money has ever been attached to symbolic materials (as in gold standard) or symbols, period (as in fiat currency). In de facto reality, the USA dollar has been pegged to oil production, but that is not a one-on-one official relationship. Still, there is a decided stability provided by this. As we all know, if OPEC goes off the USA $ standard, our currency will respond drastically.

If money were directly and declaratively based on something reliable, fixed and sustainable, like the solar constant. then the value of 'dollars' would be directly adjustable. It could be very precisely calculated what the effect of, say, doubling the amount of currency would do. A dollar would then by half the photovoltage than before.

However, here's where the magic of capitalism would kick in, for an increase in the money supply could be used to allocate materials and labor to build more solar conversion both in terms of squyare footage of collectors/convertors and/or efficiency of design.

I know this is both frightfully oversimplified and terribly lacking of details, for I am only slightly acquainted with fiscal theory and economic theory. But we live in an era dominated by appliued science, and in applied science, energy is the most steady constant available.

Should human civilization survive this century's queue of catastrophic counter punches resulting from centuries of treating nature as an enemy/slave rather than a finite home of necessity, we will likely move into a fiscal era where currency actually bears true value relationship to essentials rather than nebulous value relationship to market pressures, fiat symbols (Greenspan's oracular mumblings and printing press charges, aka, prime interest rates), and quasi holy precious metals like gold, silver and platinum.

It will be pegged to a prevailing rate obased on a ratio between available energy and efficiency of alchemy in converting that energy into food, water, warmth, motion & material.

Summary: a stabilized economy is not one based on sound fiscal policy but one based on sound methods of production and acknowledgement of resource limitations. Money has for many centuries been the whip driving energy/resource utilizations(increasing applied science has been the buggy) but this could -- and should -- change when we reach that ultimate deflation/deflation threshold: the expanding human population and contracting resource availability.

Old Man Malthus will be right in the end. Hopefully, we'll find a better means than war to adjust the population to the realities of physical limitations. Democracy's most useful expression in the future might be in the form of a euthanasia lottery. Capitalist, communist, socialist, monarchist: I see no means for any of these systems, all of which are in existence as we speak, to avoid a phase of intense totalitarian authority in this century, whether it be to fight the Population Wars internationally or to prevent internecine democide internally.

(http://65.88.90.51/forums/Index.cfm?CFApp=3&Message_ID=166787)

Date: July 20, 2004 11:53 AM
Author: Kenmeer Livermaile
Subject: conventional logic

It makes sense. But it makes sense on the basis of prevailing canards.

One of these is:

"rich", which is a concept based on relative inequity. Rich implies a background of poor, just as poor implies a background of rich.

Another is exprerssed here:

So I say that analyses of wealth/prosperity based on the chimera of money are inherently flawed by, that is, limited to, the reality of said chimera.

It will be pegged to a prevailing rate obased on a ratio between available energy and efficiency of alchemy in converting that energy into food, water, warmth, motion & material.

(http://65.88.90.51/forums/Index.cfm?CFApp=3&Message_ID=166800)

Date: July 13, 2004 05:35 AM
Author: joe weizer

didn't karl have a word or two on the subject some 100 plus years ago. greed bankrupts economies. than masses hit the baricades. and then comes Communism.

(http://65.88.90.51/forums/Index.cfm?CFApp=3&Message_ID=163891)

Date: July 13, 2004 07:35 AM
Author: joe weizer

when a system slowly but surely eliminates the middle class, with it goes the "american dream" which once was the envy of the rest of the world. what happens to these people. they wake up in a new reality, not edited by holywood. they realise they were manipulated by great lies. and as this ex-class grows in masses, with them grows the hope of a more just economic system. these people are very different from the once of 1917 in russia. a transition of a feudal system into a socialist/communist system was an absolute failure. but, a transition of a modern, educated society, who's dreams are being shuttered daily, into a more self governed, tolerant, emancipated society is a hope that the world would really envy.

(http://65.88.90.51/forums/Index.cfm?CFApp=3&Message_ID=163914)

Date: July 13, 2004 08:47 AM
Author: cherokee
Subject: slavery is not about force or money...

... it is about land.

if you have no land, you are forced to pa yextortion to those who have.

this is why in the future the young people will revolt and take control of the land, and the cycle will begin all over.

(http://65.88.90.51/forums/Index.cfm?CFApp=3&Message_ID=163929)

Date: July 13, 2004 09:05 AM
Author: Mark Grant

"if you have no land, you are forced to pa yextortion to those who have."

Unlike the extortion that those who do have land are forced to pay to the government each year, you mean?

"this is why in the future the young people will revolt and take control of the land"

Indeed. They're doing that in Zimbabwe, and it's proving to be such a success.

(http://65.88.90.51/forums/Index.cfm?CFApp=3&Message_ID=163938)

Date: July 13, 2004 05:16 PM
Author: cherokee
Subject: so income taxes ..

.. are not extortion?

the main function of the state has been to protect landed property. and now they want income taxes to pay for that privilege too!

zimbabwe is sad because an idiot has taken a real problem and converted it into a populist scheme to stay in power.

(http://65.88.90.51/forums/Index.cfm?CFApp=3&Message_ID=164145)

Date: July 14, 2004 11:10 AM
Author: Rick Gryphon
Subject: Tax = Extotortion

Yes, I would agree with you that the current system of income tax is an extortion of sorts. It is labeled as "voluntary", but if you don't pay it, you'll end up like the convenience store owner that refuses to pay "protection". As a Canadian I am used to paying taxes, income and otherwise. I don't feel extorted until I hear about my government giving away millions of dollars to some group that I couldn't care less about, and I wonder who in the F*** authorized the b******* to spend that money. On the other hand, for the most part we get fairly good service for the taxes we are coerced into paying.

I still will not agree with you on the property issue. Ownership of land does not guarantee freedom from anything. You are forced to pay taxes based on the "assessed" value of said property, not on the actual value that it represents to you the individual. While it used to be true that land ownership meant something, today you are basically renting off of the government in many parts of the world. Just try and seperate your piece of land from the rest of the country and see what happens. The government in truth owns the land, and you get to register it under your name and exchange that registration for a fee to somebody who is willing to pay you a lot of money for that registration and whatever improvements have been made to the land. What you really end up owning is a registration document, issued by the government. Not much better than owning dollar bills in the end.

(http://65.88.90.51/forums/Index.cfm?CFApp=3&Message_ID=164445)

Date: July 21, 2004 08:42 AM
Author: cherokee
Subject: put another way...

... the landlords own the govt.

hint - george washington etc were all landowners.

(http://65.88.90.51/forums/Index.cfm?CFApp=3&Message_ID=167116)

Date: July 13, 2004 08:05 PM
Author: Mas o Meno
Subject: "In the future young people will revolt, take control ......

of the land and then starve to death cause they don't know how to make the land produce a decent crop and have killed off the ones that did. Supermarket shelves are briming full due to hard work that is done in the field and the sweat that is done in the field is seldom pretty. The future young people with "buns of steel" are able to revolt, control, produce directive from a central authoritarians office but are total failures in the fields where it counts.

(http://65.88.90.51/forums/Index.cfm?CFApp=3&Message_ID=164208)

Date: July 21, 2004 08:40 AM
Author: cherokee
Subject: why don't you read something mas o meno?

production is divided into factors of production. the leftover is called profit for the owners.

landlord gets rent.

labour gets wages.

capital gets interest.

it is well known that the landlord part of the cost is due to a govt privilege and can be easily taxed without distorting production.

here are some nobel prize winners on land taxes:

"Pure ground rent is in the nature of a 'surplus,' which can be taxed heavily without distorting production incentives or reducing efficiency." -- Paul Samuelson, Nobel laureate in Economics "In my opinion the least bad tax is the property tax on the unimproved value of land, the Henry George argument of many, many years ago." -- Milton Friedman, Nobel laureate in Economics

"It is important that the rent of land be retained as a source of government revenue." -- Franco Modigliani, Nobel laureate in Economics

"For efficiency, for adequate revenue, and for justice, every user of land should be required to make an annual payment to the local government equal to the current rental value of the land he or she prevents others from using." -- Robert Solow, Nobel laureate in Economics

"While the governments of developed nations with market economies collect some of the rent of land, they do not collect nearly as much as they could, and they therefore make unnecessarily great use of taxes that impede their economies -- taxes on such things as incomes, sales, and the value of capital goods." -- William Vickrey, Nobel laureate in Economics and past president of the American Economics Association

(http://65.88.90.51/forums/Index.cfm?CFApp=3&Message_ID=167115)

Date: July 22, 2004 12:18 AM
Author: Mas o Meno
Subject: Dear Cherokee......If you were an elected official...

...as a Landlord, I would fear for my life. It appears you hold the opinion that I bring no expertise to the table and thus can be eliminated "without distorting production." The Commisars of the USSR killed off the landlords and landholders in the 1930's and never produced a food surplus the rest of the 20th century. Recent history tells us that Nobel prize winners, when actively testing their theories, fall on their faces losing billions in the process. Supermarket shelves are loaded and fat Americans waddle down the aisles pushing shopping carts and upon this observable fact I will rest my case. Don't try to fix a system that is not broken. Central planners, whether from academia or government will always be "Fooled by Randomness"

(http://65.88.90.51/forums/Index.cfm?CFApp=3&Message_ID=167402)

Date: July 13, 2004 10:39 AM
Author: SirEdward

& if you have no software you're forced to pay licence fees to those who have it, no?

(http://65.88.90.51/forums/Index.cfm?CFApp=3&Message_ID=163993)

Date: July 13, 2004 05:13 PM
Author: cherokee
Subject: you do not need software....

... to stay alive.

sophistry will not help you - throughout history only "gentlemen" could own land. If you had no land, you were (and are) a nobody.

(http://65.88.90.51/forums/Index.cfm?CFApp=3&Message_ID=164143)

Date: July 13, 2004 07:15 PM
Author: feelingolder
Subject: Huh?

So, why don't you buy some land?

(http://65.88.90.51/forums/Index.cfm?CFApp=3&Message_ID=164193)

Date: July 13, 2004 08:29 PM
Author: Mas o Meno
Subject: If you buy land you might have to make it produce something

to make it pay its way and that requires work and unsightly sweat. It is much easier to sit back and bemoan how unfair life is, creat a revolution, kill the producers who actually thrive on the dirty, sweaty work they are engaged. It is a work that only 2% of our nation is really competent doing. The incompetent left for the city years ago. Kill off the competent, send the incompetent back out into the fields, and you will reap desolation and death.

(http://65.88.90.51/forums/Index.cfm?CFApp=3&Message_ID=164214)

Date: July 21, 2004 08:31 AM
Author: cherokee
Subject: bullshit.

if you produce something, you are productive (either labour, or management, or capital lender).

a landowner by definition does nothing and collects rent on the production. the privilege to collect part of production is purely given by the government. in other economic systems the land rent is taken by taxes and those economies have provably done better.

a landowner who improves his land has two roles : landlord and labour.

the difference is crucial (for tax purposes, atleast).

better read up some political economy.

(http://65.88.90.51/forums/Index.cfm?CFApp=3&Message_ID=167113)

Date: July 21, 2004 08:28 AM
Author: cherokee
Subject: what makes you think i don't have land?

...we have to play by the rules even if we don't like them.

i'm just pointing out that land speculation leads to problems in the economy and polity.

till the tax laws are corrected, the land owners will just screw the productive.

(http://65.88.90.51/forums/Index.cfm?CFApp=3&Message_ID=167112)

Date: July 14, 2004 10:08 AM
Author: SirEdward

it might if you bought Mr. WDH KwikTop's stuff. maybe he's cracked it, who knows. though if he had he wouldn't waste his time trying to flog it. $1500 will get you going. no trial necessary ;)

nevertheless, if i create or use software that gets me rich i don't need to own a square inch of land. own for what? lots of people make money via software, keeps them alive. look at the mess techies are in over outsourcing.

(http://65.88.90.51/forums/Index.cfm?CFApp=3&Message_ID=164420)

Date: July 20, 2004 11:36 AM
Author: Kenmeer Livermaile

"you do not need software to stay alive"

Nowadays we increasingly DO need software to stay alive. With native seed stocks being squeezed out and patented hybrid seed stocks being forced onto ther market via 'Free Trade' (ha!) agreements, software is life. It's genetic software but it's software.

Wait till they patent human thought processes;)

(http://65.88.90.51/forums/Index.cfm?CFApp=3&Message_ID=166796)

Date: July 13, 2004 11:52 AM
Author: Rick Gryphon
Subject: Extortion?

I choose to live in an apartment. For a low monthly payment, I get heat, electricity, water, sewage, garbage, cable, and they even cut the grass for me. I could choose to live on a piece of land that may parents own, but the cost would actually be much higher by the time I have to pay for everything, and to what benefit?

If I live on a houseboat, then I would still have no land, but I wouldn't have to pay rent either. So, I am not being extorted by anybody at all. I choose my accomodations for my own benefit.

Or maybe you are thinking that the Native American Aboriginal People are being extorted?

(http://65.88.90.51/forums/Index.cfm?CFApp=3&Message_ID=164025)

Date: July 13, 2004 04:35 PM
Author: wayne martin
Subject: Capone

Our government wrote special laws just to imprison Al Capone. Tried several times, no jury found him guilty of breaking the law, so they wrote new ones and nailed him on tax evasion. The reason: Government couldn't stand the competition and he refused to be bought off. Joe Kennedy sold out for an ambassadorships respectability. His offspring went into politics where they continue shaking down the working class. Ted is doing the same things today that Al Capone was arrested and tried for. Al Capone could have had an ambassadorship as well, but he didn't want to leave Chicago on a permanent basis.

Bill Gates is classic Capitalism. You can have everything you want in life by providing others with the things they want. This opposed to: to each according to his NEEDS. Communism promises to provide your essential needs,It makes NO PROVISION WHATSOEVER for your wants, your desires, your hopes.

We had never been a nation of need, but a nation of wants. Personal responsibility dictated we all take care of our needs. Capitalism encourages change. Communism discourages change. Capitalism encourages personal responsibility. Communism absolves all responsibility. Capitalism inspires desire. Communism discourages desire.

Granted, Capitalism must be regulated to avoid monopolies which government determines to be bad. But Ma Bell never dreamed of charging what her offspring charges for the same service. And look how many taxes are still being charged to your bill that no longer apply. When the one company built the monopoly, they knew the direct cost of producing and bringing the widget to market. They maintained direct control over those costs to produce that widget at the lowest possible cost. If I can't produce it for less, I can't charge less. By keeping the price low, competition could not undercut them on price, so they do like the government. Get new laws enacted and litigate your way to his customer base, or use the courts to drive them out of business.

(http://65.88.90.51/forums/Index.cfm?CFApp=3&Message_ID=164133)

Date: July 13, 2004 10:27 PM
Author: EHtaga

Wayne on your point about ma bell never charging what the baby bells charge. overall my communications bill is much less than it was 15 years agio and that on an absolute, never mind real basis. Of course the opening up of long distance to competition, where before my ld bill was upwards of 200 to 300 per month, a plan with a carrier has reduced that to a nominal fixed rate per month. My local bill has increased, but not anywhere enough to offset the savings in long distance. Live long and prosper dear friend.

(http://65.88.90.51/forums/Index.cfm?CFApp=3&Message_ID=164257)

Date: July 14, 2004 10:15 AM
Author: SirEdward

friend lives on a boat in Phuket, choosing this lifestyle to prevent any new female gambits whose express purpose might be to separate him from the more traditional types of assets like houses. plus he gets to move his home wherever he wants when he gets tired of the view. marina fee about $125 a month, plus elec, fresh water, satellite TV, security & nice neighbours.

(http://65.88.90.51/forums/Index.cfm?CFApp=3&Message_ID=164426)

Date: July 13, 2004 08:41 PM
Author: dyjech
Subject: Blasphemy!!

"You can only be as rich as the people around you."

(http://65.88.90.51/forums/Index.cfm?CFApp=3&Message_ID=164216)

Date: July 20, 2004 12:53 AM
Author: Some dude

Alright, first let me admit I didn't take the time to read this super long thread. But I want to throw out the big point that so many people miss. Perhaps several others already have.

The premise of the original arguement that getting and saving money is bad, because you're taking wealth away from others, not putting it back into circulation, blah blah... is BS

You do a service and are paid. But you don't spend the money, you save it for future use. Well the transaction is only half finished. You gave your services, but did not demand your share of others goods. If everyone tried to do this you would have people lining up to do all the crap you don't want to. They would do it cheap to get market share, more business, etc. At the end of the day they wouldn't even exercise their right to some of the real physical goods that belong to you! They allow you to keep on being lazy until the future point when they spend their money, thus exercising their right to their half of the original deal. You had a free loan the whole time they saved their money.

Bill Gates provides Windows. Decent product, helps millions and millions of people connect and be more productive. So a leveraged guy like that has a big pile of money. The windows users have something from Gates, but he doesn't have anything physical from them in return. If he torched his cash in a big fire, everyone should say thank you! Now they not only get to keep their physical goods until the future point when Gates spends his cash... they get to keep them forever! (OK, now since the Windows buyers spent their money, but the money now doesn't exist everyone who holds money now holds money of more value. So everyone benefits. Difficult to measure, yes. Especially with our terrible non gold standard system. But the benefit is real.)

Don't let the non-austrian school idiots confuse you. Of course the government folks want everyone to blow their money, creating a short term boom. But it's bad for the future, and the logic is wrong.

(http://65.88.90.51/forums/Index.cfm?CFApp=3&Message_ID=166655)

Date: July 20, 2004 06:20 AM
Author: Jonathan Potter
Subject: Money

...The premise of the original arguement that getting and saving money is bad, because you're taking wealth away from others, not putting it back into circulation, blah blah...

That doesn't hold. When you save money in the bank it is loaned out to others and the money supply increases. Bill Gates does not have 64 billion stashed under his bed. That money is out on loan.

(http://65.88.90.51/forums/Index.cfm?CFApp=3&Message_ID=166724)

Date: July 20, 2004 09:50 AM
Author: Some dude

Yep. You're right. Which further illustrates my point that no one understands real economics, all the way up to the top. The central bank can truly do anything they want, making any economic theory worthless in the short term.

It's a sad thing. My analogy isn't great, but it's still a useful way of thinking about savings - the way they should work.

(http://65.88.90.51/forums/Index.cfm?CFApp=3&Message_ID=166767)

Date: July 20, 2004 10:22 AM
Author: A.H.
Subject: About Saving

You are right. I think that the real way of saving is to buy gold/silver and hold it. To put money on bank is not real saving, a phony saving! because bank lends out and it becomes a bad loan!

(http://65.88.90.51/forums/Index.cfm?CFApp=3&Message_ID=166777)

Date: July 20, 2004 10:16 AM
Author: cherokee
Subject: banks don't need your savings....

... they can create money out of thin air and loan it (aka leverage or credit line). they are limited in this process by the capital and reserve requirements (reseves however can be borrowed from the money market or from the fed - so reserve requirements are more applicable to the aggregate bank lendings).

the money market needs your money and cannot lend it without you.

(http://65.88.90.51/forums/Index.cfm?CFApp=3&Message_ID=166776)

Date: July 20, 2004 11:52 AM
Author: Kenmeer Livermaile
Subject: thin air and fat city

"... they can create money out of thin air and loan it (aka leverage or credit line). they are limited in this process by the capital and reserve requirements (reseves however can be borrowed from the money market or from the fed - so reserve requirements are more applicable to the aggregate bank lendings)."

The banks don't need money; they need BUYERS.

"the money market needs your money and cannot lend it without you."

The money market needs SELLERS before it can court BUYERS.

What this system wants/needs is ever-increasing consumption, either directly via, uh, consumption, or indirectly, via symbolic exchange (all those bytes moving billions of symbolic value from computer to computer).

The fact that humans seem to be motivated by greed does NOT mean that greed is a sustainable economy.

In ecology, sustainable ecosysytems are those in which a collage of life forms interact in way that meets their needs Living and procreation), and consistently curbs their greed (over population) without creating so wide a range of fluctuation that species that feed on a species experiencing a 'market correction' (die-off) aren't reduced to the point where species dependent on THEM are pushed to the point where species dependent on them are pushed to the point of... extinction.

The current system is all-growth all the time. It is lkike sex, like the biological imperative. Humans want to procreate at will, live forever, and rule the planet. Our entire economic structure is driven by these undisciplined impulses.

It's been a great ride (for those of us lucky enough to be on board) but it's headed over a cliff. Unregulated free markets can't supply our needs in a sustainably survivable fashion by basing their actions on greed, on WANTS.

I love being a self-reflective sentience, really I do. Being creatively aware is the most fun these molecules I comprise have ever had since, oh, maybe since they were part of a dolphin or flying squirrel or... but I;m not sure that sentience is a a quality that is sustainably 'inclusively fit', as Darwinian natural selectionists (of which I am one) would say.

(http://65.88.90.51/forums/Index.cfm?CFApp=3&Message_ID=166799)

Date: July 20, 2004 11:58 AM
Author: feelingolder
Subject: dolphins

Did you know that dolphins are another creature, besides man of course, that hunt just for the sport or pleasure of hunting. source: National Geographic

(http://65.88.90.51/forums/Index.cfm?CFApp=3&Message_ID=166801)

Date: July 21, 2004 03:41 AM
Author: Kenmeer Livermaile
Subject: flipper and f*** her

"dolphins are another creature, besides man of course, that hunt just for the sport or pleasure of hunting."

I think they're one of the few critters who are willing to get it on most anytime, too?

(http://65.88.90.51/forums/Index.cfm?CFApp=3&Message_ID=167068)

Date: July 21, 2004 09:36 AM
Author: feelingolder
Subject: willingness

I seem to remember something about dolphins willingness to have more than one partner, but the part I remember better is, sometimes one, two, or more males will herd, (kidnap), a female for days, and take turns, (gang rape), her.

I found it all surprising as I had grown up being taught dolphins were highly evolved, peaceful, loving, and socially kinder than human beings.

(http://65.88.90.51/forums/Index.cfm?CFApp=3&Message_ID=167130)

Date: July 22, 2004 01:53 AM
Author: Kenmeer Livermaile

Perhaps I'm exaggerating dolphin promiscuity. But I too recall the gang rape thing.

How could we not idealistically romanticize dolphins? They're so much like us -- and we certainly romanticize ourselves, nyet?

"I found it all surprising as I had grown up being taught dolphins were highly evolved, peaceful, loving, and socially kinder than human beings."

I grew up thinking human beings were morally superior to 'mere creatures'. I no longer think so. That doesn't mean I think we're morally inferior, per se. I just think we're AMAZING.

(http://65.88.90.51/forums/Index.cfm?CFApp=3&Message_ID=167421)

Date: July 22, 2004 10:57 AM
Author: feelingolder
Subject: creature morality

Do creatures have morals? Or will they do only that which they are genetically predisposed to do? I tend to think the later, whereas, man has choice, therefore morality. And responsibility.

(http://65.88.90.51/forums/Index.cfm?CFApp=3&Message_ID=167515)

Date: July 22, 2004 12:04 PM
Author: Kenmeer Livermaile
Subject: monk in the mirror

"Do creatures have morals? Or will they do only that which they are genetically predisposed to do? I tend to think the later, whereas, man has choice, therefore morality. And responsibility."

I tend not to see the line between homo sap and the rest of the critters as being so sharp as some do. I allow more room for self-conscious direction on the part of critters than the prevailing view, just as I allow more room for instinctive 'primitive' behaviour on the part of humans than most do.

We have morals, that is, we can abstract value judgements and relate ourselves to them. Then we can decide what responsibility we may or may not apply to these.

We invent concepts like Good and Evil and place them higher and lower than, respectively, Things We Like and Things We Don't. Personally, I find the latter (like/don't like/preferences) far more honest and useful than the former (Good/Evil/morals).

My mirror looks at me when I look at it: that's all I really know.

(http://65.88.90.51/forums/Index.cfm?CFApp=3&Message_ID=167551)

Date: July 20, 2004 09:56 PM
Author: Some dude
Subject: Kenmeer...

Please be careful when talking about the dangers of "unregulated free markets", and how they can't provide for people.

#1 Unregulated free markets are nature itself and the best way of providing for people.

#2 Don't confuse our system with a free market. It isn't. Not trade, retail, services, or especially health care. The free market is like liberty - something that is claimed or worshiped but doesn't truly exist.

(http://65.88.90.51/forums/Index.cfm?CFApp=3&Message_ID=166990)

Date: July 21, 2004 03:38 AM
Author: Kenmeer Livermaile
Subject: it ain't necessarily free...

"Please be careful when talking about the dangers of "unregulated free markets", and how they can't provide for people."

I thought I WAS? I said:

"Unregulated free markets can't supply our needs in a sustainably survivable fashion by basing their actions on greed, on WANTS."

Please note the qualiufying final 8 words. Unregulated free markets serve us well when they address NEEDS. Needs provide the governing regulation that all systems need if they're not to cycle wildly. Wants are like a nervous nellie's foot on the throttle.

"#1 Unregulated free markets are nature itself and the best way of providing for people."

I'll roll with this for now, although calling nature unregulated is, I think, tricky. (Wanted to say dubious but that might sound dismissive.) But it rolls OK. I'll go with it.

"#2 Don't confuse our system with a free market. It isn't. Not trade, retail, services, or especially health care. The free market is like liberty - something that is claimed or worshiped but doesn't truly exist."

I don't. As for liberty, I think it exists, alright, but as you seem to imply, it exists in one's mind. It rarely if ever exists absolutely but only relatively. For example, I'm relatively free these days of a drinking problem that has nagged me for 25 years. It no longer controls me -- but it still decidedly influences me.

There. I think I've captured one way of expressing at least one core conceopt of liberty. It's when one says 'You're not the boss of me.'

Another core concept of liberty is when one says, to oneself, 'I'm the boss of you.'

I think we often say liberty when we mean impunity, which me 1937 Webster's defines as: 'Exemption or freedom from punishment, harm or loss.' Liberty is not the absence of unwanted circumstances. It is determination not to let unwanted circumstances rule your purpose.

I'm not much good at liberty but am good enough at fluttering from facet to facet that I achieve quite a lot of freedom nonetheless.

I can hear Sammy Davis, Jr. singing "I gotta be me" and wonder if it's really the soul cry of defiant individualism it is commonly thought to be or if it's a schizophrenic's command to itself to make up its mind(s) for once in its life?

(But Sammy singing 'It Ain't Necessarily So'... chills down my spine. That cat was HOT...)

'Unregulated free markets can't supply our needs in a sustainably survivable fashion by basing their actions on greed, on WANTS.+

(http://65.88.90.51/forums/Index.cfm?CFApp=3&Message_ID=167067)