Capitalism: A Success or Heavily Marketed Failure? - Page 2 - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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#15178899
ckaihatsu wrote:I've heard that there's a new bubble developing in *commercial* real estate, this time around.

Do you still think that market dynamics can be adequately corralled and controlled through legislation?

For example, what should be done about *rent* for those who are still unemployed due to the economy recovering from the coronavirus? Shouldn't wages offered be *raised* as an incentive towards employment?


If you have read anything I have written in the last year, you would know I have been against lockdowns from the beginning given many of the economic problems we face now was foreseeable and shouldn't even have been a problem at all had we acted rationally. But we didn't. So to answer what you say about people who were made unemployed and their rent, my answer is as the government made them unemployed, they have a duty to pay their rent and get them back to work. I also support a fair minimum wage I might add.

As for the housing bubble, sure, it is a high demand and low supply product. I don't support private property and I support home building. Those two things alone would solve that problem and legislation doesn't really need to apply at all given that. Just a social housing program very much like the 60s will do.

Do you think that 'regulations' will be sufficient for addressing global warming and reducing the carbon footprint in time to avert environmental catastrophe?


It helps. Although really it is consumer attitudes that will really make the difference. We have to buy green in order for it to be profitable and as such change the course of the invisible hand. However legislation controls the damage that can be done.

Well, it's a caricature / dramatization of its own, of course, but fully automated humane distribution is arguably just-around-the-corner, first for those who can afford it, of course.

I don't think that the *class* issue will necessarily be resolved in the process, but I think that the two dynamics of increasing-automation and working-class-empowerment would be mutually constructive.

Also, btw:


Film Theory: Wall-E's Unseen CANNIBALISM! - YouTube



OK. But I don't see labor just disappearing given AI needs programming. So we disagree here. Only time will tell who will be right.
#15178902
B0ycey wrote:
If you have read anything I have written in the last year, you would know I have been against lockdowns from the beginning



Well, from a *health* perspective lockdowns, masks, and social distancing were all socially necessary.


B0ycey wrote:
given many of the economic problems we face now was foreseeable and shouldn't even have been a problem at all had we acted rationally. But we didn't. So to answer what you say about people who were made unemployed and their rent, my answer is as the government made them unemployed, they have a duty to pay their rent and get them back to work. I also support a fair minimum wage I might add.



Can we get you to bump that up to a 'living wage' -- ?


B0ycey wrote:
As for the housing bubble, sure, it is a high demand and low supply product. I don't support private property and I support home building. Those two things alone would solve that problem and legislation doesn't really need to apply at all given that. Just a social housing program very much like the 60s will do.



It's not about *human-need* supply-and-demand -- it's about *financial* supply-and-demand, meaning that both times there were *huge* amounts of capital chasing after few investment opportunities, causing high-risk / bad-debt outlets to be *hyped* (subprime mortgages), and now *commercial* real estate, from what I've heard.

Financial speculative bubbles in valuations have been occurring since the dawn of capitalism -- the most famous historical example is the Dutch tulip mania:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulip_mania


How do you think that home building could be done without the inclusion of private property?


B0ycey wrote:
It helps. Although really it is consumer attitudes that will really make the difference. We have to buy green in order for it to be profitable and as such change the course of the invisible hand. However legislation controls the damage that can be done.



What about China's use of coal, and the entire factory farming agriculture industry, for meat -- both of which contribute greatly to carbon emissions. Can *these* economic practices be 'regulated' away, or are we ultimately at the mercy of business interests?


B0ycey wrote:
OK. But I don't see labor just disappearing given AI needs programming. So we disagree here. Only time will tell who will be right.



Uh-oh, gettin' all John-Henry on me, huh -- ? (grin)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Henry_(folklore)


I was trying to avoid the following, but now I'm going to have to post this video. Watch it and weep. (grin)


Can LEGO Machine Beat Fast Food Worker McDonald's Burger Robot (Custom Model)

#15178903
ckaihatsu wrote:Well, from a *health* perspective lockdowns, masks, and social distancing were all socially necessary.


Were they? Or could we have isolated the vulnerable who happen to be the most likely to be retired and as such NOT halt production and civilisation on the whole.

The only argument for lockdowns which had any foundation to it was to prevent different variations, which occurred anyway. Besides, where do you stand with mental health, cancer, routine operations, diagnosis etc. From a health perspective I would say there is more to health than just Covid19 and lockdowns have caused a backlog in the NHS now which will be difficult to fix and take years to do so.

Can we get you to bump that up to a 'living wage' -- ?


Yes.

It's not about *human-need* supply-and-demand -- it's about *financial* supply-and-demand, meaning that both times there were *huge* amounts of capital chasing after few investment opportunities, causing high-risk / bad-debt outlets to be *hyped* (subprime mortgages), and now *commercial* real estate, from what I've heard.

Financial speculative bubbles in valuations have been occurring since the dawn of capitalism -- the most famous historical example is the Dutch tulip mania:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulip_mania


House pricing today is ONLY down to supply and demand and it is not like Tulips at all. Your response is correct in some aspect but is basically saying that is many many words and sticking in the word 'financial' in the beginning for the sake of it. If more homes were built, the prices of homes drop. That is just the way it is. Until then as people need a roof over their head they will bid up the price beyond what they can afford due to necessity. It is up for government to create a housing program to fix that.

How do you think that home building could be done without the inclusion of private property?


Perhaps because it once did. Home ownership is a recent phenomenon. We had a social home program after WW2. Your rent should reflect the cost of maintenance and the construction of needed homes. Not profits for real estate, land owners or the bank. And of course I already stated that housing should be state run earlier remember.

What about China's use of coal, and the entire factory farming agriculture industry, for meat -- both of which contribute greatly to carbon emissions. Can *these* economic practices be 'regulated' away, or are we ultimately at the mercy of business interests?


Of course. They have to be regulated by China though. Hence why it is important they keep to their Paris climate commitments.

Uh-oh, gettin' all John-Henry on me, huh -- ? (grin)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Henry_(folklore)


I was trying to avoid the following, but now I'm going to have to post this video. Watch it and weep. (grin)


Can LEGO Machine Beat Fast Food Worker McDonald's Burger Robot (Custom Model)



Machines have precision. That isn't just true for Big Macs but is true for production in general. But they need to be programmed and constructed. That LEGO machine didn't build itself. It also didn't program itself. But once those things are formed, it will perform well until maintainance requires it to be updated or it needs to be reprogrammed. Hence the need for labor. I don't see how you are going to make machines do rational decisions given the complexity of human thought and the restriction of robot senses in general.
#15178904
B0ycey wrote:
Were they? Or could we have isolated the vulnerable who happen to be the most likely to be retired and as such NOT halt production and civilisation on the whole.

The only argument for lockdowns which had any foundation to it was to prevent different variations, which occurred anyway.



Several countries, like China, Cuba, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Vietnam, offhand, did lockdowns quickly and consistently and had super-low infection rates.



On 23 January 2020, the central government of China imposed a lockdown in Wuhan and other cities in Hubei in an effort to quarantine the center of an outbreak of COVID-19; this action is commonly referred to as the Wuhan lockdown (Chinese: 武汉封城; pinyin: Wǔhàn fēng chéng). The World Health Organization (WHO), although stating that it was beyond its own guidelines, commended the move, calling it "unprecedented in public health history".[2]



Some Western observers, such as Amnesty International, were initially skeptical of the lockdown;[9][10] however, as the COVID-19 pandemic worsened, similar measures were enacted around the globe.



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_ ... n_in_China



---


B0ycey wrote:
Besides, where do you stand with mental health, cancer, routine operations, diagnosis etc. From a health perspective I would say there is more to health than just Covid19 and lockdowns have caused a backlog in the NHS now which will be difficult to fix and take years to do so.



Then it's underfunded and needs to be better subsidized.


B0ycey wrote:
Yes.



House pricing today is ONLY down to supply and demand and it is not like Tulips at all. Your response is correct in some aspect but is basically saying that is many many words and sticking in the word 'financial' in the beginning for the sake of it. If more homes were built, the prices of homes drop. That is just the way it is. Until then as people need a roof over their head they will bid up the price beyond what they can afford due to necessity. It is up for government to create a housing program to fix that.



Agreed on the upshot, but I have to stress that capital is *always* on the prowl for 'safe' investment vehicles, especially when the funds are being provided for free, from government public coffers. Just look at cryptocurrencies today and how ridiculous such NFT art prices / valuations are -- is this really the kind of capitalism you want to keep around?

Real estate / housing tends to be seen as a good investment vehicle, at least since the '80s, and so real estate prices keep climbing, well beyond simple supply-and-demand pricing, because so much capital keeps *pouring* in, pushing up face-value valuations.


The Housing Affordability Crisis We Don't Want To Solve




The Economics of Real Estate




---


B0ycey wrote:
Perhaps because it once did. Home ownership is a recent phenomenon. We had a social home program after WW2. Your rent should reflect the cost of maintenance and the construction of needed homes. Not profits for real estate, land owners or the bank. And of course I already stated that housing should be state run earlier remember.



So are you for *nationalization* ( as outlined here: viewtopic.php?f=12&t=180496 ) -- ?


B0ycey wrote:
Of course. They have to be regulated by China though. Hence why it is important they keep to their Paris climate commitments.



Trump, for example, *eschewed* the Paris Climate Accord -- how would someone like *him* be 'regulated', exactly -- ? By my estimates we lost *4 years* of climate decarbonization because of him and his *lack* of regulations, and his fascism. Is capitalist regulation still working *now* -- ?


B0ycey wrote:
Machines have precision. That isn't just true for Big Macs but is true for production in general. But they need to be programmed and constructed. That LEGO machine didn't build itself. It also didn't program itself. But once those things are formed, it will perform well until maintainance requires it to be updated or it needs to be reprogrammed. Hence the need for labor. I don't see how you are going to make machines do rational decisions given the complexity of human thought and the restriction of robot senses in general.



Um, simple -- either the 3D printer that I procured makes me Big Macs the way I like, or else I replace it with one that does.

Maybe the initial "programming" / model-making will be devolved down onto 10-year-olds, or something.

https://www.thingiverse.com/
#15178938
ckaihatsu wrote:Several countries, like China, Cuba, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Vietnam, offhand, did lockdowns quickly and consistently and had super-low infection rates.


So they report. :roll:

Perhaps their success is mainly due to actually carrying on and mitigation.

Agreed on the upshot, but I have to stress that capital is *always* on the prowl for 'safe' investment vehicles, especially when the funds are being provided for free, from government public coffers. Just look at cryptocurrencies today and how ridiculous such NFT art prices / valuations are -- is this really the kind of capitalism you want to keep around?

Real estate / housing tends to be seen as a good investment vehicle, at least since the '80s, and so real estate prices keep climbing, well beyond simple supply-and-demand pricing, because so much capital keeps *pouring* in, pushing up face-value valuations.


Well considering I have repeated over and over again that I don't support private property, no that isn't the Capitalism I am asking for. All I am saying is Capitalism isn't entirely fundamentally flawed. There are aspects of it that are better than say... I don't know... Socialism. Having said that, there are expects of Socialism that are better than say Capitalism. The solution is to take what works from both ideas and disregard what doesn't and base an economy around that. The best example today. THE NORDIC MODEL! And when the next set of contradictions come along that risks the economic model that you have, you repeat the process again. You don't just start from scratch every single time and look for the next vogue economic theory model and keep calling for a revolution to get it.

As for your argument that people are moving their money into property, sure, why wouldn't they? It is a commodity that continues to rise in price and hence a safe bet. The reason it keeps on rising in price though is due to supply and demand. And for some reason you refuse to accept that simple fact and muddy the waters with BS that doesn't really need to apply to this argument. But I am not going to keep going over and over the same point that we need homes to live in and that the supply isn't sufficient for those who need the home currently hence the competition to bid up prices (and rent), as that point should be obvious to you by now. But given the solution of all this would be to just create a social housing program and to build more homes, I don't really know how else to explain that house prices will drop to affordability levels if you made supply exceed demand - regardless whether people are putting their money into housing as an investment today or not.

Trump, for example, *eschewed* the Paris Climate Accord -- how would someone like *him* be 'regulated', exactly -- ? By my estimates we lost *4 years* of climate decarbonization because of him and his *lack* of regulations, and his fascism. Is capitalist regulation still working *now* -- ?


Trump is voted out. Did I mention I support Democracy? Given that climate change is a crisis, it is up to the electorate to vote out those who do not maintain their commitments if the issue is big enough for them. Besides, given the speed of renewable technology has advanced recently and the focus away from oil, my prediction is that in the next few decades we would have moved away from oil in many of things that rely on it today very much like coal in the 60s when compared to today and that the technology of renewable itself will be regarded the same way that we treat oil today. In other words, capitalism would have realigned its focus on this issue. And in that sense it is beneficial that the US commit to its climate commitments now, not just because of the environmental impact, but because if they don't their economy will be over taken by nations (EU & China) that are due to there understanding of said technology.

Um, simple -- either the 3D printer that I procured makes me Big Macs the way I like, or else I replace it with one that does.

Maybe the initial "programming" / model-making will be devolved down onto 10-year-olds, or something.

https://www.thingiverse.com/


3D printers need programming. You seem to look at what can be made and forget that someone operates these things - let alone they need to be manufactured to begin with I might add. As I said, time will tell. I do not ever see the time labor is not needed. Reduced perhaps. But it always is needed in some capacity even if it was just for supervision.

Also, and you seem to keep ignoring this, a robot is only as good as its programming anyway and as such will always have limitations. Your Mac Machine for Example won't be much use at making a milkshake or a Quarter Pounder. And if someone asked for a burger without source and extra pickles, let's see what happens then. :lol:
#15178974
B0ycey wrote:
So they report. :roll:

Perhaps their success is mainly due to actually carrying on and mitigation.



Hmmmm!

The advent of duplicity in international relations, huh -- ? (grin)


B0ycey wrote:
Well considering I have repeated over and over again that I don't support private property, no that isn't the Capitalism I am asking for. All I am saying is Capitalism isn't entirely fundamentally flawed.



Yeah, save it for the battlefield, buddy.... (grin)


B0ycey wrote:
There are aspects of it that are better than say... I don't know... Socialism. Having said that, there are expects of Socialism that are better than say Capitalism. The solution is to take what works from both ideas and disregard what doesn't and base an economy around that. The best example today. THE NORDIC MODEL! And when the next set of contradictions come along that risks the economic model that you have, you repeat the process again. You don't just start from scratch every single time and look for the next vogue economic theory model and keep calling for a revolution to get it.



Well, the point I've been trying to impress upon you is that capitalism has too many *contradictions*, internally, to really be seen as a viable economics. Sure, professional administrative oversight / government could keep chasing after these, or not, to address them after-the-fact -- and after-the-damage, I would argue (as with the pandemic and/or Trump) -- or we could look to situate the political economy as being under the control of *workers*, collectively, for an overall collective 'co-administration' (see 'soviet democracy', from previously).

I also have to note the *human* cost -- it's not like global society is simply sitting on its hands, waiting for the next great political proposal to come along. What about Tigray, what about ISIS, what about Julian Assange, what about government-supported killer cops, the racist prison system, etc. -- ? Is capitalism worth keeping around for all of that? I'll remind that capitalism is inescapably a *class* system, and a class-based economics uses a *ruling class elite* to 'manage' its economics, non-neutrally.


B0ycey wrote:
As for your argument that people are moving their money into property, sure, why wouldn't they? It is a commodity that continues to rise in price and hence a safe bet. The reason it keeps on rising in price though is due to supply and demand. And for some reason you refuse to accept that simple fact and muddy the waters with BS that doesn't really need to apply to this argument. But I am not going to keep going over and over the same point that we need homes to live in and that the supply isn't sufficient for those who need the home currently hence the competition to bid up prices (and rent), as that point should be obvious to you by now. But given the solution of all this would be to just create a social housing program and to build more homes, I don't really know how else to explain that house prices will drop to affordability levels if you made supply exceed demand - regardless whether people are putting their money into housing as an investment today or not.



Okay, I can only repeat that *some kind* of commodity -- often housing / land -- will be speculated-on, with its face-value price *skyrocketing*, well beyond the 'organic' concept of supply-and-demand, to the *financial bubble* version of supply-and-demand.

Would you like to comment on the existence / use of financial *derivatives* at all -- ?



Size of market

To give an idea of the size of the derivative market, The Economist has reported that as of June 2011, the over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives market amounted to approximately $700 trillion, and the size of the market traded on exchanges totaled an additional $83 trillion.[9] For the fourth quarter 2017 the European Securities Market Authority estimated the size of European derivatives market at a size of €660 trillion with 74 million outstanding contracts.[10]

However, these are "notional" values, and some economists say that these aggregated values greatly exaggerate the market value and the true credit risk faced by the parties involved. For example, in 2010, while the aggregate of OTC derivatives exceeded $600 trillion, the value of the market was estimated to be much lower, at $21 trillion. The credit-risk equivalent of the derivative contracts was estimated at $3.3 trillion.[11]

Still, even these scaled-down figures represent huge amounts of money. For perspective, the budget for total expenditure of the United States government during 2012 was $3.5 trillion,[12] and the total current value of the U.S. stock market is an estimated $23 trillion.[13] Meanwhile, the world annual Gross Domestic Product is about $65 trillion.[14]

At least for one type of derivative, Credit Default Swaps (CDS), for which the inherent risk is considered high[by whom?], the higher, nominal value remains relevant. It was this type of derivative that investment magnate Warren Buffett referred to in his famous 2002 speech in which he warned against "financial weapons of mass destruction".[15] CDS notional value in early 2012 amounted to $25.5 trillion, down from $55 trillion in 2008.[16]



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derivative_(finance)#Size_of_market



---


B0ycey wrote:
Trump is voted out. Did I mention I support Democracy? Given that climate change is a crisis, it is up to the electorate to vote out those who do not maintain their commitments if the issue is big enough for them. Besides, given the speed of renewable technology has advanced recently and the focus away from oil, my prediction is that in the next few decades we would have moved away from oil in many of things that rely on it today very much like coal in the 60s when compared to today and that the technology of renewable itself will be regarded the same way that we treat oil today. In other words, capitalism would have realigned its focus on this issue. And in that sense it is beneficial that the US commit to its climate commitments now, not just because of the environmental impact, but because if they don't their economy will be over taken by nations (EU & China) that are due to there understanding of said technology.



Oooops:



European coal phase-out could slow in 2021: OIES

Published date: 21 January 2021

The phase-out of coal-fired generation across Europe could slow in 2021 amid more favourable market conditions than last year, according to the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies (OIES).

The OIES' quarterly gas review predicts a "short-lived" and "marginal" recovery this year owing to firmer electricity demand and higher gas prices, making coal burn more competitive.



https://www.argusmedia.com/en/news/2179 ... -2021-oies



---


B0ycey wrote:
3D printers need programming. You seem to look at what can be made and forget that someone operates these things - let alone they need to be manufactured to begin with I might add. As I said, time will tell. I do not ever see the time labor is not needed. Reduced perhaps. But it always is needed in some capacity even if it was just for supervision.

Also, and you seem to keep ignoring this, a robot is only as good as its programming anyway and as such will always have limitations. Your Mac Machine for Example won't be much use at making a milkshake or a Quarter Pounder. And if someone asked for a burger without source and extra pickles, let's see what happens then. :lol:



To spell-it-out for you, technology, including robotics, gets increasingly *leveraged*, to the point where even a *baby* could initiate a nuclear reaction, for energy, if things *developed* that way, in that direction.

Consider the 'full-automation' of a smart home, for example, which, in my understanding, could be completely 'hands-off'. Yes, it took engineering and production and set-up, and so on, but if society was more *collectivized* in structure these kinds of things could be much more *societal*, universal, and effortless for *years* once initially set up. So it's not even so-much about 'programming' as it is about 'societal implementation'.
#15179404

Others have gone further. Dallas Fed president Robert Kaplan has said that MBS [mortgage-backed securities] purchases should end “sooner rather than later” because of the rise in the housing market, and the St Louis Fed president James Bullard has also called for the Fed to re-evaluate its support for the housing market because of concerns that a bubble was developing.



https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2021/0 ... t-j01.html

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