[Crantag]

You've stated it, but somehow never been able to demonstrate it.

No, I just questioned the orthodoxy of a quasi-theological discipline that is ever more obviously not based on any sort of scientific foundation.

If you want to pick bones with the economics mainstream, you are preaching to the choir.

One reason I regard Marxist analysis indispensable is that it is the only extant current which has consistently, systematically, unapologetically, and in a way foundational to analysis itself, regarded workers as central to consideration.

[Truth To Power]

The Black Death is not a typical event in economic history, nor is the change to population an isolatable variable with which to measure the effect of land prices.

The Black Death was not a typical event in economic history precisely BECAUSE it MADE population an isolatable variable by which to measure its effect on wages, land RENTS, and everything else.

There was in all likelihood present a multitude of variables underlying the phenomenon you raise, which were related to the pandemic.

No, there were not.

There is no iron law that higher workforce participation must lead to lower wages.

Wrong. The Law of Rent implies that cet.par., a larger workforce increases production, but reduces wages.

Such an outlook is a zero-sum approach to wage analysis.

No, it is not. It simply recognizes that the Law of Rent applies.

An example which illustrates this is in the movement of early retirement, in Japan for example. The ostensible aim is to make way for younger workers. But the reality is the effects are often not as expected, either with respect to number of jobs, or wages, for younger workers. One explanation for this is in the exponential nature of the contribution of work. By contributing to the success of operations, older workers who are displaced by such policies, are contributing more than merely their flesh and blood to a business, and it is through growth that businesses create new jobs.

You haven't shown anything of the sort. Japan's workforce was growing rapidly at the time older workers were taking earlier retirement, because of the demographic echo boom that peaked in the early 1970s. Those young people were entering the workforce in the mid-1990s, when the economy had been crippled by a land boom and crash that aggravated deflationary forces and blighted economic prospects for a generation.

Simplistic notions of economic functions thus often miss crucial factors.

There's nothing more simplistic than modern mainstream neoclassical economics, which just deletes every factor with actual explanatory power: land, money, debt, banking, privilege, individual variation, disequilibrium, etc.

[Rich]

Any increase in the workforce, whether immigration, population growth, higher workforce participation rate or whatever, can be expected to reduce wages and increase land rents. So it's good for landowners, bad for workers. This relationship was proved conclusively by the Black Death, which suddenly deleted 1/4-1/3 of the population of Europe in the 14th century, leaving everything else intact. Rents crashed and wages soared.

This is absolutely right. Of course productivity increases have vastly increased the carrying capacity of the land. However up to about 1830 increases in population in Britain left the population no better off. It was only the reduction in reproduction rates that allowed the great take off in living standards that started in the second half of the nineteenth century. This is why Capitalists love immigration. But Capitalists only have narrow self interest to support immigration for lefties its religion. All the Marxists on the forum are opposed to any controls of immigration. I've tried to pin Decky down on why he is opposed to even the slightest control of Muslim immigration, but all he will say is Stalin blah, blah, Muslims are right wingers, the Germans blah blah.

[SolarCross]

Regarding the black death, I can see how it would result in crashing rents because while the supply remained the same the demand would have fallen but I don't see how it would cause soaring wages. The black death didn't just kill producers it killed consumers too, consequently demand should have fallen proportionately with supply. No?

[Rich]

The other great example is the United States, oodles of land led to high living standards and a vast yeomanry class. When America did start to industrialise it had to offer high wages because otherwise workers would just become farmers. American Capitalists whined endlessly about the high wages they had to pay compared with Europe. But they didn't just complain they also sought mass immigration like no country in history. But then the Marxists came on the scene and the Capitalists can sit back and let the Commies and the lefties allies do the work of flooding the country with ever more immigrants.

[Crantag]

The Black Death was not a typical event in economic history precisely BECAUSE it MADE population an isolatable variable by which to measure its effect on wages, land RENTS, and everything else.

The Black Death was an all-encompassing calamity. You are considering the role of humans which make up a population merely as renters of land. What about a business, who sees half its workers die? The technical knowledge which dies with them is one example of something not measured by population statistics. There are as many such examples as one's imagination may conger.

Wrong. The Law of Rent implies that cet.par., a larger workforce increases production, but reduces wages.

There is no such law. Merely a theoretical construct which claims that. I recently was surprised to see Stiglitz raising similar notions, to what you do. I thought that Ricardian Rent Theory was already sufficiently discredited, but it looks like it is being revived. I have not seen anything yet which has convinced me that the proponents of such rent theory are credible, and the burden is on them.

You haven't shown anything of the sort. Japan's workforce was growing rapidly at the time older workers were taking earlier retirement, because of the demographic echo boom that peaked in the early 1970s. Those young people were entering the workforce in the mid-1990s, when the economy had been crippled by a land boom and crash that aggravated deflationary forces and blighted economic prospects for a generation.

I am talking about recent history, and I brought up something which I have seen reported.

It's a big topic, which is not verifiable, one way or another. However, I do find it sufficiently reasonable to warrant consideration, and I have explained a logical basis by which it might attain.

There's nothing more simplistic than modern mainstream neoclassical economics, which just deletes every factor with actual explanatory power: land, money, debt, banking, privilege, individual variation, disequilibrium, etc.

I do not subscribe to neoclassical economics theory.

I do however subscribe to a universalist approach, and would not discard a source, because it is grounded in neoclassical economics. This is partly a practical consideration, as neoclassical economics holds the mainstream.

[Truth To Power]

Have you ever personally read an economics textbook?

Yes, and I've read parts of perhaps half a dozen more, in addition to many economics books that weren't textbooks, from Turgot to Keen.

Which one(s)?

I don't remember the titles. Probably just generic titles like, "Economics," or "Introduction to Macroeconomics." That sort of thing. It was years ago, but I may have them lying around somewhere.

It's mostly rhetorical, but if you choose to, you could always try to provide a convincing affirmative answer (if applicable), by providing some details of the contents of the book(s) you choose to cite!

Like what? They were just standard texts.

It is however mostly rhetorical, because I feel as though you--once more--most likely essentially just made up everything you wrote.

<yawn>

I have absolutely no issue with detailed critiques of economics.

Except ones that actually identify the problems.

However, you are very obviously no kind of expert who might be capable of supplying such critiques.

I don't claim to be an expert. But it doesn't take an expert in homeopathy to critique it, and the same goes for economics. One expert who has critiqued it, and whose critique I largely agree with, is Steve Keen.

Thus, you are really just a guy with lips flapping in the wind.

If that were true, you would be able to refute what I have written. And you can't.

[Crantag]

This is absolutely right. Of course productivity increases have vastly increased the carrying capacity of the land. However up to about 1830 increases in population in Britain left the population no better off. It was only the reduction in reproduction rates that allowed the great take off in living standards that started in the second half of the nineteenth century. This is why Capitalists love immigration. But Capitalists only have narrow self interest to support immigration for lefties its religion. All the Marxists on the forum are opposed to any controls of immigration. I've tried to pin Decky down on why he is opposed to even the slightest control of Muslim immigration, but all he will say is Stalin blah, blah, Muslims are right wingers, the Germans blah blah.

I have pointed out elsewhere on this forum the impact which immigration can have on increasing the surplus army of the unemployed (I didn't use these words), and this observation is entirely consistent with Marxist analysis.

With respect to say North America, Marxists also consider the dislocation caused by the free flow of capital, without the corresponding free flow of labor, under institutional arrangements like NAFTA. It's not necessary to then conclude that this means immigration should be fully liberalized. For one thing, the need for controls on capital flows could well be a more ready conclusion.

More fundamentally though, structural analysis can be an end in itself.

[Rich]

I have pointed out elsewhere on this forum the impact which immigration can have on increasing the surplus army of the unemployed (I didn't use these words), and this observation is entirely consistent with Marxist analysis.

The direct effect on wages is something of a red herring. For starters the effect on the labour market is temporary, if the inflow of workers stops then then wages will bounce back. Plus there can be genuinely positive effects for immigration, such as unskilled workers allowing indigenous workers to be upwardly mobile moving into higher skilled / supervisory positions. Bringing in young working age people without children age can be positive allowing their taxes to support the care of indigenous children and the old. Immigrant workers from Eastern Europe into Britain tend to work harder than indigenous workers for the first two years. So the positive effects can more than cancel out the depression of wages.

The effect on the property market is however long term and catastrophic. There may be no fixed lump of labour, but their sure is a fixed lump of land. As people become more prosperous they tend to spend a bigger share of their income on housing. Result soaring housing costs.

[Crantag]

The direct effect on wages is something of a red herring. For starters the effect on the labour market is temporary, if the inflow of workers stops then then wages will bounce back. Plus there can be genuinely positive effects for immigration, such as unskilled workers allowing indigenous workers to be upwardly mobile moving into higher skilled / supervisory positions. Bringing in young working age people without children age can be positive allowing their taxes to support the care of indigenous children and the old. Immigrant workers from Eastern Europe into Britain tend to work harder than indigenous workers for the first two years. So the positive effects can more than cancel out the depression of wages.

The effect on the property market is however long term and catastrophic. There may be no fixed lump of labour, but their sure is a fixed lump of land. As people become more prosperous they tend to spend a bigger share of their income on housing. Result soaring housing costs.

There is one cause for fundamental consideration that I find in this.

The supply of land is not truly fixed. There are many different possible variations with respect to use, which can influence the supply of land. There is also the artificial scarcity imposed by zoning ordinances.

A drive through the Midwest or South Texas can illustrate. In many cases, cows roam in lieu of people. Cattle farming is a very inefficient use of land, but its economical where land is available, though this too is largely a function of a demand which is dependent on no-economic cultural aspects relating to diet.

In cities, the construction of high rises increases the supply of land through more intensive use of land.

In China, home ownership rates are very high. This is because of a decision by the government in the 1990s to sell homes to occupants, at a rate which was affordable.

People who cry wolf about China's construction of homes for which there is no one yet to occupy, miss this point, regarding the reality of home ownership in China. Homelessness is not a very considerable issue in China. And the building boom is in some ways the effects of economic policy with respect to employment and economic development. Keynes suggested paying guys to dig holes and fill them up again, in China though, they build, and build, and build.

So actually perhaps we need to look elsewhere for the source of high rents, and attendant homelessness. I suspect it is more likely the case that converting houses to financial commodities, in the presence of a financial system which is centered on financial speculation, may reveal more fruitful analysis.

[Politiks]

No, it's actually much harder to make people give up privileges they consider rights such as landowning, IP monopolies, and bank debt money issuance. History shows beyond any doubt that the privileged rich would prefer to perish in blood and flame, and watch their children slaughtered before their eyes, rather than relinquish even the smallest portion of their unjust advantages.

Wrong. Lots of people don't like welfare or quotas. What's really hard is making people rise up against injustice when they think they benefit from it.

The system created welfare and quotas to prevent the victims of privilege from understanding what is being done to them, and how, in order to persuade them that rising up against it would jeopardize their interests.

Your statement seems to presume only rich people on a land or a house/apartment, only rich people ask for loans and only rich people work for insurance companies when in fact that's not true. I want to see you make a poor family that owns a bit of land give their land by free will to the Government. I want to see you convince a poor person that managed to open a successful small business that he can't ask for a loan to grow his business.

The only people who don't like welfare and quotas are the ones who don't need it and don't benefit from them. What you say is completely unrealistic.

Rich people obviously wont give their previlege away by free will and in a smaller finance scale poor people behave exactly the same because they wont give up their rights either and both consider those rights or privilege as a birth right

[Truth To Power]

The supply of land is not truly fixed.

Of course it is. The amount available is the same no matter its price.

Thank you for proving I was right: a graduate education in economics is a form of mild brain damage that makes its victims unable to know self-evident and indisputable facts of economics that any child of seven knows.

There are many different possible variations with respect to use, which can influence the supply of land.

No there aren't, as nothing people do can affect the area of the earth's solid surface. You are effectively claiming, falsely, absurdly, and dishonestly, that whether someone uses rice to make sushi, rice pudding, or risotto, or throws it at newlyweds, somehow affects the supply of rice. That claim is false and absurd.

There is also the artificial scarcity imposed by zoning ordinances.

They do not affect supply, only use. If there is a law that says rice can be used for sushi but not risotto, that does not affect the supply of rice. Your claims are false and absurd, like the claims of everyone else who has ever attempted to evade the facts about land, or ever will.

A drive through the Midwest or South Texas can illustrate.

Yes, such a drive will prove you objectively wrong, just as any other real-world experience will.

In many cases, cows roam in lieu of people.

Why are you falsely and absurdly claiming that an acre of land is a different size depending on whether there are cows or people on it?

Cattle farming is a very inefficient use of land,

No, it is merely a low-density use. It is typically the most efficient use where it is a predominant use.

Everything you say on this subject is reliably false, because you have a graduate degree in economics.

but its economical where land is available, though this too is largely a function of a demand which is dependent on no-economic cultural aspects relating to diet.

What a silly and irrelevant load of horse$#!+.

In cities, the construction of high rises increases the supply of land through more intensive use of land.

No, that is just another false and absurd fabrication from you, no doubt caused by your graduate education in economics. A high-rise ferroconcrete building does not increase the supply of land. It simply puts more built space on the same amount of land that was there since the dinosaurs roamed the earth.

In China, home ownership rates are very high.

Because all the land is publicly owned.

This is because of a decision by the government in the 1990s to sell homes to occupants, at a rate which was affordable.

No it isn't. It is because unlike in countries where land is privately owned, the Chinese homebuyer does not also have to pay for a ticket on the landowners' escalator.

People who cry wolf about China's construction of homes for which there is no one yet to occupy, miss this point, regarding the reality of home ownership in China. Homelessness is not a very considerable issue in China.

But landlessness is, because building all those empty high-rise apartment buildings uses up land that people had been using to make a living by farming. Somehow, the additional supply of land that the high-rise apartment buildings create (in what you are no doubt pleased to call your "mind") is not suitable for farming. Where is all the land the high-rises have created?

Such a mystery.

To you, that is.

And the building boom is in some ways the effects of economic policy with respect to employment and economic development. Keynes suggested paying guys to dig holes and fill them up again, in China though, they build, and build, and build.

And it is going to be a problem. Count on it.

So actually perhaps we need to look elsewhere for the source of high rents, and attendant homelessness.

Yes. We need to look at the Law of Rent, which implies that almost all the additional production made possible by advancing technology, increased investment in production goods, and higher education of workers will inevitably be taken by landowners in land rents. And we need to look at the Henry George Theorem, which shows why all government efforts to help the landless by providing more services and infrastructure only help landowners, and no one else.

I suspect it is more likely the case that converting houses to financial commodities, in the presence of a financial system which is centered on financial speculation, may reveal more fruitful analysis.

See? You cannot understand economics because in graduate school, you learned that there is no such thing as land speculation , only speculation in "houses" or "real estate." Somehow, those who possess graduate degrees in economics have made their brains impervious to the fact that a VACANT BUILDING LOT increasing in price from 100K to 500K while the price of houses increased from 300K to 700K is not actually an increase in the price of "houses" at all, and that what has been converted into a financial commodity and a focus of financial speculation is likewise not "houses" but LAND.

Too bad those who have gone through graduate school "education" in economics have been rendered unable to understand such facts.

[Truth To Power]

Your statement seems to presume only rich people on a land or a house/apartment,

No, my point was that the small homeowner has been co-opted to support a system of which he is a victim.

only rich people ask for loans

No, but those who own the banks that MAKE loans are almost exclusively rich.

and only rich people work for insurance companies when in fact that's not true.

Huh? What does working for insurance companies have to do with it?

I want to see you make a poor family that owns a bit of land give their land by free will to the Government.

The poor don't own real estate. The fact that the productive middle class have been forced to participate in the landowning scam in sheer financial self-defense, and have consequently become dependent on it even to the point of defending it despite being its biggest victims, only demonstrates the system's evil genius. No one said it would be easy to defeat the greatest evil that has ever existed.

I want to see you convince a poor person that managed to open a successful small business that he can't ask for a loan to grow his business.

Why does he need a loan if his business is successful?

Oh, wait a minute, that's right: his profits are taxed away so he can't reinvest them in his business, and given to rich, greedy, privileged parasites to prevent him from succeeding even more and offering competition to the rich unless he signs over his assets to the banksters.

In any case, there is nothing wrong with people getting loans to expand a small business. That's what banks are supposed to do. But in fact, what they mainly do is use their money-issuance privilege to finance land speculation and asset bubbles.

The only people who don't like welfare and quotas are the ones who don't need it and don't benefit from them. What you say is completely unrealistic.

No, it is the actual reality.

Rich people obviously wont give their previlege away by free will and in a smaller finance scale poor people behave exactly the same because they wont give up their rights either

It's privilege, not right; and the fact that they don't understand how they are being robbed of $10K/yr and given back $5K doesn't mean they are not losing $5K on the deal, even though they think they are gaining $5K.

and both consider those rights or privilege as a birth right

Sure. Just as slave owners considered owning slaves a birthright.

[Crantag]

Of course it is. The amount available is the same no matter its price.

Thank you for proving I was right: a graduate education in economics is a form of mild brain damage that makes its victims unable to know self-evident and indisputable facts of economics that any child of seven knows.

I stopped reading here.

I explained in detail the basis of my comments.

If you want to be really precise here, every damn thing is fixed.

Sun rays are fucking fixed.

I explained my basis, all you have is insults.

PS, you know nothing about my educational background, other than that it is much more advanced than your own.

[Zag Note: Please don't post in all caps]

[Crantag]

I'd might as well state that my master's is just a piece of my academic resume (nor was it the terminus).

I'd also might as well state that I didn't attend graduate school in the US. So biases about the American curriculum are unfounded.

I did attend college in the US, and got a thorough study of mainstream economics.

Something economics allows you to do is deconstruct phenomena and understand the particulars of things, through useful analytical tools.

I'm not speaking to anyone in particular, but am responding to being maligned on here.

As a matter of fact, I'm in school again now. My focus now is more technical in nature, but still related to the rest of it.

As for ideologies themselves, I find them nothing other than a crutch to save oneself from thoughtful consideration. Over-reliance on an ideology is a sign of intellectual willful ignorance, and an inability to sufficiently engage in critical thought.

This is one of the strikes against the so-called 'proponents of capitalism'.

[RhetoricThug]

If you want to be really precise here, every damn thing is fixed.

Sun rays are fucking fixed.

Not true. Your training must capitulate to intellectual abstractions.

Solar cycles (Solar Minimum; Solar Maximum and dynamic space weather)

Although sunspots themselves produce only minor effects on solar emissions, the magnetic activity that accompanies the sunspots can produce dramatic changes in the ultraviolet and soft x-ray emission levels. These changes over the solar cycle have important consequences for the Earth's upper atmosphere

Something economics allows you to do is deconstruct phenomena and understand the particulars of things, through useful analytical tools.

Sure, but computers run economies. Do you have any experience with blockchain/cryptocurrency?

[Crantag]

Not true. Your training must capitulate to intellectual abstractions.

Solar cycles (Solar Minimum; Solar Maximum and dynamic space weather)

Although sunspots themselves produce only minor effects on solar emissions, the magnetic activity that accompanies the sunspots can produce dramatic changes in the ultraviolet and soft x-ray emission levels. These changes over the solar cycle have important consequences for the Earth's upper atmosphere

Sure, but computers run economies. Do you have any experience with blockchain/cryptocurrency?

Solar is finite, because the sun is going to burn out in a couple billion years.

If one had the massive amounts of data and computer capacity to do so, they could present a future valuation of all solar power which may feasibly be collected, through optimal technical means, over the propensity of future human experience on earth. This would serve as the basis for what may be utilizable over this future course.

I don't have experience with cryptocurrency, and the context of the remark you quoted was in response to the attack on my character, so I don't see where that's relevant at all.

In economics, all things are scarce. Even sunlight is scarce. But for practical purposes, trying to measure the scarcity of sunlight is about as useful as trying to discover 'the zero' within nature.

It is false that land is fixed, under conventional economic consideration.

I am suspecting this line of reasoning is owing to the abdication of a systematic consideration of labor, which Marx proved is the real basis of value under capitalist modes of production. Marx also already defeated many of the simplistic arguments which still circulate through his work. However, his work was incomplete, and subsequent Marxist have been left to attempt to piece it together, and this task is the basis of a sprawling academic field in its own right.

Yet, you can look to mainstream economics to find what are likely relevant critiques of the 'land value' current, with respect to the rise and fall of Ricardian economic theory.

I am beginning to be suspicious as to whether the crafters of the horrible property tax laws in Oregon, which effectively create a condition where it's a pipe dream for any workers to own land (with attendant disastrous economic effects), were fucking Geoists.

[Reichstraten]

I am not so much against capitalism, but I hate the consumer culture of instant gratification.
Also the fake happy world view that´s presented in commercials is very annoying.
It´s a kind of indoctrination.

[Potemkin]

I am not so much against capitalism, but I hate the consumer culture of instant gratification.
Also the fake happy world view that´s presented in commercials is very annoying.
It´s a kind of indoctrination.

I hate to be the one to break this to you, Reichstraten, but that is capitalism.

[annatar1914]

I hate to be the one to break this to you, Reichstraten, but that is capitalism.

I think I've asked you this before Potemkin, but have you read Jean Baudrillaud?

Back when he made his ''the Gulf War did not happen'' comments, I was intrigued enough by what he said, and a little book called ''American Hero'' by Larry Beinhart helped along the way;

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/106 ... rican_Hero

And I never looked back, with short intellectual trips to examine the breakup of Yugoslvia and the orchestrated collapse of the Soviet Union along the way. The National Security State controls far more than people realize, I call it the Military-Industrial-Entertainment-Intelligence Complex. Universal Fascism.