patrick.net

Analyzer says

The president is pushing to raise the minimum wage, this should help the
housing affordability.

Seriously????

A lot of fat via meat is by no means a crappy diet. Animal fats and proteins are actually the basis for the most healthful of dietary input

Not so long ago, that was the cornerstone of the human diet. We sorta got away from that and added all the bad carbohydrates (grains,breads, cereals, and all the sugars). Adding all that crap to our diets has led to massive increase in the "need" for all this "health" "care"

exfatguy says

Housing IS inflation

Of similar sentiments. For most of us, housing cost (mortgage or rent) is the biggest burden.

mmmarvel says

Analyzer says

The president is pushing to raise the minimum wage, this should help the

housing affordability.

Seriously????

Analyzer says

The president is pushing to raise the minimum wage, this should help the housing affordability.

Not going to pass in a deleveraging economy....minimum wage was never meant to be a living wage....

What is the definition of a minimum wage?

Bubbabear says

Not going to pass in a deleveraging economy....minimum wage was never meant to be a living wage....

True, but you have to admit that many of the jobs that did provide for a decent life are long gone. It's not like people love flipping burgers for 8 bucks an hour so much that they don't want the $20 an hour job tightening bolts.

Bottom line - it's the fucking robots.

This is more of a false flag than a bubble. Or maybe a Ponzi scheme.

errc says

Not so long ago, that was the cornerstone of the human diet. We sorta got away from that and added all the bad carbohydrates (grains,breads, cereals, and all the sugars). Adding all that crap to our diets has led to massive increase in the "need" for all this "health" "care"

Nothing wrong with grains, bread, and carbohydrates either. Grain is one of the most ancient of foods. But I digress, we're now
picking over the crumbs at this point. I get your points about a healthy diet and agree that a better diet can lead to better health.

But I also don't exactly buy that this alone is a remedy for what ailments and future diseases happen to a person in their lives. Like anything else its about common sense. If you get sick... go to the doctor. Its that simple.

Dan says....
The only conclusion one can reasonable reach from the overwhelming historical record is that capitalism is unstable and immediately deteriorates into Americanism upon the creation of corporations. This means that you can never sustain capitalism if any corporations exist in the economic system. Try running a modern, global economy without corporations. Capitalism, by your definition, died as a result of not being able to scale to national, nonetheless, global trade.

I don't care what you call the economic system of 19th century America or the economic system of 21st century America. They both suck. They are both obsolete. Neither is sustainable. And the first inevitably collapsed into the second everywhere on this planet.

Strategist.....
Which is the best system?

rooemoore says

Bubbabear says

Not going to pass in a deleveraging economy....minimum wage was never meant to be a living wage....

True, but you have to admit that many of the jobs that did provide for a decent life are long gone. It's not like people love flipping burgers for 8 bucks an hour so much that they don't want the $20 an hour job tightening bolts.

Bottom line - it's the fucking robots.

Every machine is a robot. If we got rid of all machines we end up in the Stone Age.

rooemoore says

Bottom line - it's the fucking robots.

If it was the robots we would have seen a fantastic productivity boom in manufacturing.

It's not the robots, it's the fucking Chinese slave labor.

edvard2 says

agree that a better diet can lead to better health.

I think you underestimate the effect of the average American diet of highly processed (nutrient depleted), high sodium, over-sweetened or artificially sweetened, "food".
Americans die of self inflicted lifestyle diseases (heart disease, diabetes, stroke, cancers) brought about by the induced overconsumption of these products. Diseases that they fruitlessly try to manage with pharmaceutical solutions.
70% of Americans are overweight for fucks sake.
1 in 10 deaths may be related to just the overconsumption of salt.

edvard2 says

If you get sick... go to the doctor. Its that simple.

And he will tell you to lose weight, eat a balanced diet, and get some exercise……..and then prescribe some toxic statin/beta blocker cocktail, or maybe even some grotesque bariatric surgery, when you don't.

Strategist says

Which is the best system?

I don't believe in a universal "best" economic system. There are trade-offs in the universe. The most one can say is that an economic system is an optimal solution, i.e. no solution is better, for a particular problem or a heuristic that encompasses multiple problems. The choice of heuristic is a value judgement.

Nonetheless, we can objectively measure inefficiencies and identify problems in an economic system. Neither 19th century capitalism nor 21st century capitalism is designed to maximize benefits to most or all people. Both systems were design explicitly to maximize benefits to a small ruling class at the expense of everyone else. Any system designed by the few for the few at the expense of the many is going to be a lousy system for the many. This statement is almost a truism.

How about in the Indian Ocean, in a dinghy?

Strategist says

Every machine is a robot. If we got rid of all machines we end up in the Stone Age.

Classic strawman. Who said get rid of all machines? My point is that machines are evolving to the point that they can replace most jobs. I am not a Luddite, but there is a tipping point when technology can replace too many workers and that technology is owned by too few.

Heraclitusstudent says

If it was the robots we would have seen a fantastic productivity boom in manufacturing.

It's not the robots, it's the fucking Chinese slave labor.

Chinese slave labor ain't as cheap as it used to be.

https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/2013/06/das.htm

Which logically leads to this:

http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/02/google-teams-with-foxconn-to-build-robots-that-replace-human-workers/

Robots are great, especially if you own them.

Dan8267 says

The only reason beer is popular in America is because American culture was based on English culture, and it's too damn cold in England to grow grapes. As a result, beer became popular in England and the founding fathers and English settlers brought beer culture to America.

In the Middle Ages during an unusual warm period, England could grow grapes and they promptly started producing wine instead of ale, much to the chagrin of France. Wine does a far better job of masking the alcoholic taste.

Not correct. Although beer was produces in the colonies, hard apple cider was the drink of choice for most colonists.

http://drinks.seriouseats.com/2011/02/the-cider-press-the-lost-american-beverage.html

In1767, the average Massachusetts resident drank 35 gallons of cider. (That includes children, who sipped a slightly weaker version called ciderkin.)...

John Adams drank a tankard of cider nearly every morning of his life:

http://www.slate.com/articles/life/drink/2009/09/what_would_john_adams_drink.html

Those weren't eatin' apples John Chapman was planting.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Appleseed

No beer didn't become popular here until the early to mid 19th century and the settlement of the midwest by Germans.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beer_in_the_United_States

http://mason.gmu.edu/~drwillia/cider.html

Also English wineries? Lots of them in the middle aqes and they are now making a comeback:

http://www.english-wine.com/history.html

Iosef V HydroCabron says

This is more of a false flag than a bubble. Or maybe a Ponzi scheme.

Sam1000 says

Old news, this is very obvious here in Southern California. However, homeowners will be in denial like they always are and chant that this runup is the "recovery" when it clearly is a speculative bubble.

This is the return to "normal" following a bull trap whose time was extended by fed policy.

Strategist says....

Every machine is a robot. If we got rid of all machines we end up in the Stone Age.

Roemoor says....
Classic strawman. Who said get rid of all machines? My point is that machines are evolving to the point that they can replace most jobs. I am not a Luddite, but there is a tipping point when technology can replace too many workers and that technology is owned by too few.

Strategist says......
More than a hundred years ago most people worked in farms. Tractors and other farm equipment would have replaced most jobs when they were introduced. This made it possible to free up workers in farms who went on to other occupations. This is how our standard of living increases.
History is merely repeating itself, and once again our standard of living will go up because we have more sophisticated robots doing our menial work.

Dan8267 says

Strategist says

Which is the best system?

I don't believe in a universal "best" economic system. There are trade-offs in the universe. The most one can say is that an economic system is an optimal solution, i.e. no solution is better, for a particular problem or a heuristic that encompasses multiple problems. The choice of heuristic is a value judgement.

Nonetheless, we can objectively measure inefficiencies and identify problems in an economic system. Neither 19th century capitalism nor 21st century capitalism is designed to maximize benefits to most or all people. Both systems were design explicitly to maximize benefits to a small ruling class at the expense of everyone else. Any system designed by the few for the few at the expense of the many is going to be a lousy system for the many. This statement is almost a truism.

How would society determine the best combination to create the most efficient society? It can only be through democracy. Power concentrated on too few people is what leads to maximum inefficiencies. Which is why dictators, royalty, religious societies and communism have never shown much progress.
H

Strategist says

History is merely repeating itself, and once again our standard of living will go up because we have more sophisticated robots doing our menial work.

By "sophisticated robots" you mean robots that are smarter, stronger, faster, more durable without the human baggage that employers loath? Just because something held true before doesn't mean it will in the future. There are such things as "game changers". Robots/software will soon be able to replace much more than just "menial" jobs. IBM's Watson beat the top 2 Jeopardy champions several years ago. Since then, Watson's AI has grown exponentially. Watson is a software program than can be duplicated pretty easily. This is light years different than the industrial revolution.

You may be right that it will work out well for everyone, but that will require serious government intervention. Robots will have to pay their share of taxes.

hanera says

What is the definition of a minimum wage?

Poverty.

mmmarvel says

Analyzer says

The president is pushing to raise the minimum wage, this should help the
housing affordability.

Seriously????

Serious sarcasm........................

Dan8267 says

The only conclusion one can reasonable reach from the overwhelming historical record is that capitalism is unstable and immediately deteriorates into Americanism upon the creation of corporations. This means that you can never sustain capitalism if any corporations exist in the economic system. Try running a modern, global economy without corporations. Capitalism, by your definition, died as a result of not being able to scale to national, nonetheless, global trade.

There is a historical pattern of prosperous and liberal (in the Classical Liberal sense, not the anti-liberty statism since FDR era) societies gradually morphing into statist nightmares over a few generations. The dynamics and "reason" have a lot to do with surplus enabling parents sending their kids to schools instead of work with the hope that the kids would then gain knowledge faster and have a leg up on their peers. Inevitably, what get taught in the schools become detached from reality of the working world, and the younger generation grown up in prosperity get all sorts of wacky ideas that eventually wreck the society. Often due to their lack of real life working experience having to seek the voluntary consent and cooperation of others, those privileged kids grow up to model themselves after their teachers in the academia, hell-bent on controlling the rest of the society instead. The result is of course societal conflict and inefficiency.

Both Corporations and Global Trade were highly developed long before the 19th century. Corporations were in ancient Roman laws. Global Trade system was well developed at least by the 16th century (1500's): the Spanish Dollar (minted from silver found in Mexico) was the original basis for the US Dollar as well as Japanese Yen and Chinese Yuan. The whole world was running on the Spanish Dollar as global currency as early as the 1500's. Obviously, there had to be global trade for the Japanese and Chinese to earn so much of the currency to use it domestically in their own countries.

New Renter says

Not correct. Although beer was produces in the colonies, hard apple cider was the drink of choice for most colonists.

I don't see how that contradicts my statements. In fact, apples grow quite well in Britain, which supports the position that the culture of Britain largely influence early American culture.

New Renter says

No beer didn't become popular here until the early to mid 19th century and the settlement of the midwest by Germans.

Samuel Adams

I'll take the History channel over Wikipedia any day despite some subject matter that should never be on the History Channel (ghosts, Big Foot, etc.).

http://www.history.com/videos/history-of-beer-in-america#history-of-beer-in-america

Also, http://beer.yoexpert.com/beer-and-food/what-is-the-history-of-beer-in-america-31982.html

In any case, I was addressing why beer has historically been more popular than wine in America. Had France controlled the original 13 colonies, I strongly suspect that wine would have been consumed far more than beer after the revolution.

Reality says

Both Corporations and Global Trade were highly developed long before the 19th century.

It is a joke to compare Roman commerce or the West Indies Sugar and Trading Company to modern day transnational corporations which are answerable to no state. Regardless of whether or not you use the same word to describe the two beasts, they are vastly different species.

Dan8267 says

Reality says

Both Corporations and Global Trade were highly developed long before the 19th century.

It is a joke to compare Roman commerce or the West Indies Sugar and Trading Company to modern day transnational corporations which are answerable to no state. Regardless of whether or not you use the same word to describe the two beasts, they are vastly different species.

It is not a joke at all. The comparisons are very much applicable. The British East Indies Company was a privately held company that literally directed British foreign policies in half the world, more so than today's big oils directing US foreign policies in Pipelinestans. In Roman times, Corporations were formed and legally recognized not only for commercial reasons but also for religious and civic/governmental reasons . . . as they are today. Temporal Exceptionalism (this time it's different) is as silly as Spatial Exceptionalism (American Exceptionalism).

Strategist says

How would society determine the best combination to create the most efficient society? It can only be through democracy. Power concentrated on too few people is what leads to maximum inefficiencies.

Although I agree that concentrated power leads to many bad things including inefficiencies, I do not buy that this results in the conclusion that democracy is a way, nonetheless the only way, to maximize efficiency.

More importantly, maximizing efficiency is hardly the only goal of economics. Stability, fairness (people keeping what they produce, not what they control), sustainability, and growth (which is completely different from efficiency) are also important to name just a few things.

Furthermore, the word efficiency can refer to a multitude of measurements. Is it efficient to burn coal? If you ignore the environmental costs and effects (bad health, poisoning the food supply, acid rain, etc.) than coal is the most efficient fuel. If you don't ignore these costs, then coal is the least efficient fuel. Two diametrically opposing conclusions based on how you measure things.

More to your point, I don't buy into the idea that markets behave rationally. A fully democratic decision making process is essentially a market of ideas. If economic markets behave irrationally, why shouldn't value markets behave irrationally as well? Even if all the individuals in the market are behaving completely rationally, the collective may be highly irrational.

sbh says

The message couldn't be clearer: education makes you "hell-bent on controlling the rest of society". Education is the enemy of freedom. All institutions of learning are fascist organizations. The anarchist's proudest fire uses books as tinder.

Stop projecting your own prejudices. Education is usually beneficial to the upbringing of children . . . however, in the aftermath of rapid economic growth and prosperous times, educational institutions/systems can latch itself to supplying to the coercive class (producing recruits for government jobs) instead of orienting itself to producing candidates for market jobs. This is more of an indictment on the human condition after experiencing a period of prosperity than education per se; although bad education does amplify the problem. Many normally productive processes turn bad after prosperous times. I'd think even you would consider education that detaches from reality as bad education. Bad goods and services get through the market during prosperous times because the overall demand is so enormous in just about anything.

As for using books for tinder, that's the specialty of collectivists throughout human history. They, like you, want a particular form of "structure," so anything dissenting from that is only fit for use as tinder, for them.

I see this everyday in the Market/Fashion district in LA and LAX. No one cares about their jobs anymore, they just walk around like zombies, barely lifting their heads up when you talk to them.

Of course these are the "agency" people I'm talking about. Forklift loaders and receiving area workers who are paid minimum wage for doing jobs that paid twice as much 15 years ago, the agency has truck drivers too who work for $11/hr. I talk to the few full time employees left in some of these companies, and they say the agency workers are combative, steal like crazy, and only come in when they feel like it, it's absolute chaos.

The companies that do still pay good wages for their non sales/management positions have employees that are usually friendly and assertive. Plus they have a multicultural mix of employees, whites, Asians, blacks and American born Latinos. While the agency and minimum wage workers are about 95% foreign born Latinos. Companies are getting what they pay for, I can say that.

Maybe we should stamp their foreheads with a big letter "R". Sounds like a plan to me.

sbh says

Stop projecting

This means you've lost and have nothing left to lie about.

You are the loser who mistook my criticism of bad education for criticism against education in general.

sbh says

educational institutions/systems can latch itself to supplying to the coercive class (producing recruits for government jobs) instead of orienting itself to producing candidates for market jobs

Only in your mind is there a difference.

Seriously? Do you not realize that more than 70% of Saudi college graduates major in Theology as the government guarantees jobs for college graduates that Theology happens to be the easiest degree track . . . the statistics in the West was just as stark before industrial revolution produced market demand for science and technology majors: most college graduates in the West before the mid-19th century were also theology majors. If the government become the main job provider going forward, the modern equivalent of theology majors will once again attract a disproportionate number of young minds, as witnessed by the rapid decline of science and engineering majors in recent years in favor of financial engineering and global-warming "science" etc. subsidized by government funding.

sbh says

education that detaches from reality

WTF? What cesspool of dementia did you dredge this non-concept out of? Does this describe books on alchemy, religion, all of fiction? You'll say anything, literally anything.

You are only proving your own ignorance. When government dominates the economy or even a discipline, social prmotion/academic promotion based on a particular theocratic template of merit is quite common. For example, almost all universities before the industrial revolution (Christian scriptures in the West, Orthodox Christian scriptures in Eastern Europe, Islamic scriptures in the middle east, and Confucian scriptures in the far east), genetics in the former soviet union in much of 20th century, global-warming "science" and quite a few economics departments in many of own universities. The phrase "ivory tower academia" was coined for a reason. Education institutions can run off track from reality sometimes, regrettably. When that happens, the society suffers as a vast cross section of young minds are corrupted by wacky ideas that will have to be proved false after systematic real life trial and errors on a large scale at tremendous cost.

This is very good news for economy. ;)

Cheap money goes a long a way to screw things up very badly. One more recession is needed to really increase the inventory. There is every reason for money to be available at 0%.

Now, you don't start the debate with liberals.

No doubt a zionist conspiracy.

SBH,

So you think 70% - 100% of college graduates majoring in theology is the mark of a great education system and a wonderfully productive society?

Families and individuals invest resources and time in education in order to give the kids a leg up on other kids. A society can be set up in such a way that kids have the leg up by having a set of skills that other people will want to hire, or it can be set up such that the leg-up is fulfilling a paper requirement that the government will subsidize. Parents and individuals would respond accordingly to either set of incentives. For thousands of years in human history, "education" was about pursuing a theology degree so that the kid can have a privileged job in the government or the government-endorsed church.

Reality says

SBH,

So you think 70% - 100% of college graduates majoring in theology is the mark of a great education system and a wonderfully productive society?

Families and individuals invest resources and time in education in order to give the kids a leg up on other kids. A society can be set up in such a way that kids have the leg up by having a set of skills that other people will want to hire, or it can be set up such that the leg-up is fulfilling a paper requirement that the government will subsidize. Parents and individuals would respond accordingly to either set of incentives. For thousands of years in human history, "education" was about pursuing a theology degree so that the kid can have a privileged job in the government or the government-endorsed church.

I do remember reading 80% of Saudi college students major in religious studies, the least marketable of all majors. Today the Saudis can't even dig a fucking hole to get their oil, without the help of foreigners.
It's a case study in what you should not do.

sbh says

The message couldn't be clearer: education makes you "hell-bent on controlling the rest of society". Education is the enemy of freedom. All institutions of learning are fascist organizations. The anarchist's proudest fire uses books as tinder.

SBH, why do you think that? If no one went to universities how would we have any progress at all? The computer you are looking at right now could not have been made without universities. The same goes for virtually everything you use. We would be living in the 15th century with no cure for the plague.

Strategist says

I do remember reading 80% of Saudi college students major in religious studies, the least marketable of all majors. Today the Saudis can't even dig a fucking hole to get their oil, without the help of foreigners.

Why don't they just pray to their god to create holes for them? Surely that would work. He's omnipotent.

Come to think of it, isn't prayer the Republican healthcare plan for the masses?

Obligatory:

Dan8267 says

Strategist says

I do remember reading 80% of Saudi college students major in religious studies, the least marketable of all majors. Today the Saudis can't even dig a fucking hole to get their oil, without the help of foreigners.

Why don't they just pray to their god to create holes for them? Surely that would work. He's omnipotent.

Come to think of it, isn't prayer the Republican healthcare plan for the masses?

I'm sure the Saudis tried that. They are still waiting.

http://ffrf.org/news/news-releases/item/17787-ffrf-banner-in-wilkes-barre-nothing-fails-like-prayer

https://www.edhat.com/site/tidbit.cfm?nid=89205&showcomments=T