Comments on: Proof You Are Being Exploited

By: Paul

Paul — Thu, 23 Jun 2011 21:21:58 +0000

It is exactly at the “molecular level” that we get to see what’s really happening. Anything else lacks depth regardless of the pleasure we get out of it. People “love” all kinds of things often simultaneously and maybe to the same degree.
Opportunity is too vague a term. It is in carefully analysing the mechanics of the system and how some can be fortunate like yourself (being self-employed is good I think although working 80 hours on one area would never be my thing) or unfortunate that we can hope to find real understanding. It also requires the dismissal of the love of life/hatred of death and the hatred of life/love of death – a kind of neutral, “cold” thinking that’s required. The passionate kind, while useful at times, is more often manipulated than not.
That’s probably not being clear enough but I can’t write a book here.

By: Harsha

Harsha — Thu, 23 Jun 2011 21:16:14 +0000

Your statement smacks of emotionalising.

By: no third solution » The “Race to the Bottom” is Only a Symptom

no third solution » The “Race to the Bottom” is Only a Symptom — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 03:07:00 +0000

[...] Dissent notes that the productivity gains of the last several decades have simply not “trickled down” in to the pockets of the American worker, instead they’ve been pocketed by the corporate elite. If this sounds somewhat familiar, it should. [...]

By: Vincent Diakuw

Vincent Diakuw — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 14:48:52 +0000

I was working from http://mykindred.com/cloud/TX/Documents/dollar/. My math-fu might be weak.

By: Vincent Diakuw

Vincent Diakuw — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 14:46:03 +0000

Thanks.

By: Don

Don — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 01:44:20 +0000

Vincent Diakuw says: “A 1905 dollar was worth 22 times what a 2005 dollar is worth.”

Not quite right.
A 1913 dollar is worth “93″ 2010 dollars.
And then you have to figure in the taxation levied at all layers of manufacturing and labor.
Then factor in the massive costs of regulation compliance and you will see why even 2 full time working people cannot subsist at more than a basic level.

A general rule of thumb is that in the absence of gov’t your money would be worth 2 times what it currently is and everything would cost 1/2 what it currently does.

The *Rule of Eight* stipulates that everything the gov’t spends (stolen) money on costs 8 times MORE than originally projected and this is proven time and time again historically.

By: David Z

David Z — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 01:25:16 +0000

I do not think you understand what inflation is.

By: Vincent Diakuw

Vincent Diakuw — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 22:19:36 +0000

Doesn’t inflation take care of this?

A 1905 dollar was worth 22 times what a 2005 dollar is worth. If you take the necessity of two full time wage earners a household works x2 the hours and so producers must on average be 11 times as productive just to cushion the impact of inflation on the economy.

Considering that voluntary and involuntary expenditures have increased on the face of it – I could work 2.5 hours less per week if I didn’t want cable and internet and who knows how much I’m paying for police pensions and so on – I don’t see any excess productivity to account for.

By: anonymous

anonymous — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 18:10:17 +0000

I think that if you take your thought experiment a little further, you’ll find a reasonable justification for a participatory economic model.

By: David Z

David Z — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 14:34:34 +0000

large corporations succumb to pretty much all of the command economy failures that Mises wrote about in Socialism or Economic Calculation. Add to that the intra-office politicking, and top-down hierarchical management, and yeah, it’s kind of a recipe for disaster. The only reason they survive as they do is because of implicit and explicit government subsidies.