But you can. You can shop around a find a deal and buy whatever item you want at a price that seems fair to you.

Anyway, we've diverged from what we were talking about. My point is that it's not unreasonable to expect people on stupid wages to pay their share of taxes. Also it's all well and good saying that government is evil but it's not. The system that you've got going on has led to people with the wrong intentions getting government jobs, but government in itself isn't (I can hear Tesla laughing now).

Sorry Eugene I've highjacked your conversation here.

i know you're trying to jump ahead of things but you're trying to jump ahead to the "stupid wages" part and there is the "stupid" part and no, i refuse to go there yet.

let's not go there yet!

let's really look at the issue of profits.

this is not just a matter of people paying a price that seems fair. that comes after. cuz what am i to do-- choose between 2 scammers but still get scammed? well...

see, i can actually find 2 good moral justifications for taking a profit:

1) the profit is a compensation for the risk the business owners (you, me, and everyone in the stock market for example) take with their money. because we could just stuff our money under the mattress, yes? where it's safe... a business can lose the money. so, the profit is the reward for taking a risk.

2) but wait! isn't that just a gamble you ask? what is this? a fucking casino?

no.

the social moral reason why a business is entitled to take a profit is because IT CREATES VALUE. the profit is, broadly speaking, a measure of the value added to all the components. the whole that is more than the sum of its parts.

when the maker of crystal sauce sends buyers to chihuahua, buys aged peppers, puts them in a bottle with vinegar, pays for health inspections, sends it my way, etc... it creates a value for me that is greater than the sum of its parts.

i pay more than what it costs the business to make hot sauce ... because that is the reward for creating something that i could not do for myself otherwise.

sure i could go to chihuahua buy my own peppers make my own vinegar bottle it oooofff... it would be VERY expensive for me to make all this. and i should have better things to do with my time, like play nintendo or something (lol).

so paying 1.50 for a bottle of sauce that cost maybe $1 to make is not a bad deal for me. THE BUSINESS HAS ADDED VALUE TO THE ECONOMY. THEY ARE PRODUCING A SOCIAL GOOD. the business owner's "greed" for "profit" has benefitted... ME!

and you know, the business owner didn't need to go through all this trouble to make a profit. they could have just stuffed the money under the mattress and jerk off all day.

i would actually pay more even to avoid going to chihuahua and look for peppers... but this (only this) is where competition comes from. because texas pete and louisiana compete with crystal. and all 3 are trying to get my business.

ok this stuff ate my short break and then some. i will be back later with more shit.

Marxism is dumb as fuck, useless, and completely discredited as an ideology that can run governments.



In the ideal world, the world that most businessmen would like you to believe they inhabit, a product or service is exchanged for whatevr the "market" (meaning the consumer) is willing to pay for it.



Profit comes from selling a product/service at a state of rarity. I can try to sell Mangoes on the street in Puerto Rico but no one will buy them as everyone has a dozen mango trees on their property. My only way to get any profit (meaning more money than I spent to sell the mangoes) is top take them (incurring more cost) to a location without mangoes. The rarer a product or service is the m ore profit can be gained from it.


The USA system is screwed because instead of putting profits back into the businesses, so that wages go up, employee satisfaction goes up, and the product/service becomes of a better quality, much of the PROFIT goes to stockholders. Stockholders are people and organizations/banks that have absolutely no input and say into HOW a product or service is sold or rendered, but who claim the most influence on the state of any business.


The entirety of the USA business and finance system is a giant pyramid scheme, propped up by the federal Reserve.

but rob that is way too large and scattershot for me to be able to answer fairly.

from the microeconomics of mango to macroeconomic conspiracy theories is too much of a range for anyone to answer.

BUT let me take one thing you mention: the mango thing

close, close...

it's not a matter of mere rarity. it's a matter of VALUE.

value may relate to rarity.

for example if you are lost in the desert you may value water a lot more because it's rare.

but just because something is rare it doesn't follow that one must value it.

e.g., dragonfruit

dragonfruit is rare as fuck in this here desert. i look at it, five bucks, fuck that, i can buy a red baron pizza and a can of pringles for that.

i don't value the rare dragonfruit. maybe some day. i don't know. who cares.

so you're right that profit and value are related.

but value. it's not just about rarity.

why is crystal sauce valuable to me? it's not rare but it's valuable enough to pay more than it costs to make and deliver to my local store.

eh??? why???

where does value come from?

hint: the marxists were wrong about it

value is ephemeral.


I firmly believe that there is only so much "wealth" in any closed system. For someone to make a million, several hundred thousand people had to lose $10-$20 each. There is no "wealth creation." I hate that insidious lie.


for example, people nasume you create a new product and all the money you make is new wealth, but that is false. any money apple computers made, for example, was money that texas Instruments, Coleco, Tandy, etc. did NOT make. There is truly only so much to go around.




value is not solely determined by $$. I value you guys opinions and friendships but I would never place a price on it, and I would never expect to pay $$ for the value of your friendship.


It is extremely complex, and irreducible to simple statements of "truth"


(BTW, the Marxists were wrong about pretty much everything)


in American pyramid-scheme business, many corporations actively purchase products and businesses that have negative value. The tax breaks they get from losing money on one business offset the taxes they are supposed to pay from the profit of a different business. They get VALUE but no PROFIT.

im talking about practical stuff not metaphysics. life is ephemeral too. so is value. but in this life, value is value.

i want things


there is wealth creation!

i submit to you: crystal hot sauce combine aged chihuahua peppers, bottle with vinegar and salt in a hygienic fashion, bring it to a nearby store: I AM WEALTHY FOR I HAVE DELICIOUS AGED CHIHUAHUAN PEPPER ON MY TABLE

WEALTH!!!

you rich gringos don't appreciate wealth no more


no entiendo

are you talking about schumpeter, creative destruction, etc?

too soon! too soon...


correct. not all value involves money. but im not gonna fuck a stranger for their hot sauce! i prefer to give them money than love.

well, not fuck.. you get the idea. was just being extreme to clarify.


and yet, we must discuss positive factual statements


yes but their theory of value is the source of their wrongness. i will follow with this in the next post.


this is above my paygrade. wtf do i know of corporate tax offsets. not my sphere. accountants, lawyers, taxes... headaches.

OKAY. SO.

to make things short.

VALUE is created by human desire. in the human mind.

that's it. it's that simple.

VALUE is... WHAT PEOPLE WANT.

VALUE is... CONSUMER DEMAND.

PRODUCTION has the purpose to MEET DEMAND.

otherwise, why work? of your needs are all met, you do nothing but sleep and fart.

if the consumer wants nothing, there is no value. you can work and work and work and make things and if the consumer does not want them... you're shit out of luck.

marxists had a LABOR THEORY OF VALUE.

even if marxism has fallen out of fashion, many of us still knowingly or unknowingly have a LABOR THEORY OF VALUE.

meaning: things are worth whatever work we put in it!

and this seems fair.

but what if i work 10,000 hours digging holes and then covering them up for no purpose?

that is a fuckton of labor with zero value.

this is what happens when someone makes a product nobody wants. you're shit out of luck but it has no value.

THIS IS THE PROBLEM THAT MOST PEOPLE HAVE UNDERSTANDING WHAT IS AND WHAT IS NOT A "FAIR PRICE"

fair is what people will willingly pay for it. yes rarity and other shit will feature into it.

but something of value is basically something that has a demand for it.

(that includes friendships too. you want friendship, you value it.)

(but talking about economics here)

A BUSINESS CREATES VALUE WHEN IT MAKES SOMETHING THAT PEOPLE WANT. and with decent management it will profit and the business owners will be rewarded.

A BUSINESS DESTROYS VALUE WHEN IT THROWS RESOURCES INTO A FUCKED MONEY PIT OF USELESSNESS and the owners and investors will lose their shirts in the process lmao.

that's just what value is.

i want crystal hot sauce, i value it.

i want a 65" korean tv, i value it.

i personally don't give 2 shits about non-industrial diamonds (laughable) but enough people value them enough to make them expensive (fools, their problem)

i value water more in the desert than in my kitchen where it pours “free” from the tap ($10/mo or whatever)

unless ther is no water in my kitchen and i have to wash dishes. oh i have driven miles and miles to fill a tank of water. so i do value water in my kitchen always. but more when it’s scarce!.

see, this is why marxists think profit is theft: because, they say, the owner provided no labor! or the labor was negligible! or whatever other bullshit!

this is why they had a hard time satisfying consumer demand in their economy. they weren't "evil". they were just... wrong about reality.

wow i am tired from work today. i don't know if my exertions will amount to anything of value haaa haaaa haaaaaa. we'll see... one day...

I'm just scanning this but symbols makes a lot of sense.

But look at the last election.....what were the defining things that people were discussing? What details on policy did Trump put forth? Nobody gave a flying fuck about supply/demand/value/debt/foreign policy/pussy/fitness.

It all came down to emails.

WTF is this "Socialism" that Trump keeps tagging the Dems with? The population doesn't fucking know, or care. It's just "bad". Like those emails. (Do you guys really think that Trump understands Socialism?) :)

“the evil rich”

“redistribution of wealth”

government ownership of the means of production (healthcare is 20% of the economy roughly)

it doesnt matter if he knows or doesn’t. maybe kellyane is putting words in his moutn.

what matters is that this country has a strong tradition of individualism and free enterprise, and the takeover of the democratic party by the anticapitalist wing is gonna bite us in the ass HARD

there are reasonable ways to increase revenue from the wealthy (eg look at capital gains tax) without sounding like they’re a) an unlimited resource, b) evildoers

this is how the democratic party loses me for example

but hey if they wanna pander to the occupy kids, good luck with that...

quien con niños se acuesta amanece meado

"Nobody knows more about socialism than I do."

:rolleyes:

That makes sense within the context of a highly competitive market but what about the private rail company that has a monopoly on a certain route (arranged by agreement with other rail companies on other lines) that lets it cancel trains or hike fares as and when it wants to and still make huge profits because it has an effectively captive consumer base, made up largely of commuters, who aren't so much willing to pay for their service as forced to, because they effectively have no realistic alternative? This is the capitalism that I have a problem with, not the guy who sells hot sauce.

ah, captive markets...

those usually don’t last without government support, do they?

i mean, i get that there’s a cartel in your example, and a rail line is (sort of) a natural monopoly, but what prevents an entrepreneur from launching a more convenient bus or van line that runs along the same lines as the train, and defeats them, or at least forces the train lines to lower prices?

the cartel formation is rent-seeking behavior that allows them to raise prices without added benefit to the public.

in a market economy we value public service through competition. this is why competition is sort of the supreme value. yes there are barriers to entry for the public transportation business, but if the government is promoting rent-seeking behavior that’s where the real problem comes with “the rich”, or with any group that seeks special treatment and protection from competition.

on the other hand, 20 years ago in the u.s. it took a family about 31 weeks of income to purchase a new vehicle. today the average is 21 weeks of income, i think i read. ("wage stagnation," whatever).

so through competition and innovation cars have become cheaper, safer, and more fuel-efficient. maybe at this price point it could beat the train? i don’t know your train prices or car prices or other options. vote with your pounds.

but anyway without the government propping up a cartel that does not benefit the customers, and limiting consumer options, it’s hard to see how this cartel would endure.

eta: check this one demonyo

https://www.forbes.com/sites/oliverw.../#7b0f5cd4a1aa

That's incredibly flawed. Might be nice in Germany but here is a tad different. We have Megabus coaches too, however, we also have the traffic to contend with.
A coach journey for me from Preston to London is 6 hours, nearly 7. Worse if there's traffic. Train it's 2 1/2 hours. It would cost £30 for a return by the coach but y'know what? The idea of spending 7 hours on a very average coach is not one for me, Clive. If I book ahead enough I can get a return on the train for £60.

And also, that looks at long distant travel. On a personal level getting the bus from Preston to Manchester (45 minute train journey) is the only realistic way to there,bar driving. It's the same in London. People commute from the outskirts into London and the train is usually the best way. You seen London traffic, right? Which brings us back to his original point of people have no viable alternative.

Anyway, from all this I can't tell if your posts are incredibly anti-government and pro massive corporation. Ask me what a profit is one more damn time...

im pro-enterprise and against rent-seeking through government manipulation

so im for government when it ensures competition and free markets, against it when it establishes monopolies, cartels, special protections, etc

so you’re saying the train price is advantageous to you against alternative options? what’s the problem then?

-

i dont know about the new scenario you added and i cant comment

so for example i have no problem with “corporations” in themselves.

there’s nothing wrong with corporations. they’re a way to pool resources for large enterprises where one individual lacks the capital. (e.g., a railway, insurance, mining, airlines, tech, etc)

but i do have a problem when a corporation lobbies the government asking for special favors, to leech from taxpayers to protect them from competitors, and guarantee privileges for themselves without adding any value to the economy.

that there is the problem we have today. “corporations are people” lmao. and “vote”. NO.

Key point-book ahead. My point being that the coach isn't a viable alternative in many situations. Long distance is ok if you're willing to put up with 7 hour coach journey.

I've actually forgotten what we were discussing. Something to do with the super rich need to pay their more than sizable share in taxes. 50% is NOT a high number. Things can't keep on as they are in that the gap gets bigger and bigger. This is why Bernie Sanders' stance has the potential to move a lot of people. However, he has got the whole media and Trump shouting "socialism" to fight against.

the problem is that the rich are not rich because of “high wages”

the rich are rich because their ownership of business entrprises which create wealth in the market.

this wealth is shared by everyone though, not just in the marketplace with better/cheaper goods and services, but also in our collective ownership of these enterprises via saving and investing (if you have a retirement plan, you own the means of production).

wealth creation is not predatory. wealth creation benefits us all. i tried to explain/exemplify that.

on the other hand : rent seeking is predatory. it only benefits the rentier at the expense of everyone else. it creates market distortions, squelches innovation, prevents competition, etc..

the problem is the public does not distinguish between these behaviors.

if you can curb rent seeking while sparing wealth creation, im all the way with you taxing rents to a reasonable non-punitive level.

for example, the capital gains tax is capped at 20%. this is how the rich get the bulk of their income.

instead of trying to go 70% of “wages” like o’casio wants, just level up capital gains with the income tax!

and please dont waste that money offering free ponies to everyone and their mother. fix the fucking crumbling infrastructure instead.

as for healthcare, just finish fixing obamacare and preserve consumer choice. no need to conscript doctors into a national army. we’re closer to the swiss model.

Subsidies only stop the privatisation of the railways from being an even bigger disaster than it already is. They at least keep less profitable lines open - albeit it at a massively reduced service. But the point I'm making is these companies generate massive rewards with next to no risk for those rich enough to become shareholders.

no such thing as "wealth creation"


there is only a set amount of wealth, and rich people practice wealth ACCUMULATION, not CREATION.

shares are not expensive to buy actually. and you own shares of this and many other companies.

and maybe subsidies are the disaster itself, that keeps a dying enterprise in artificial life support?

i really don’t know a lot about rail service to be honest. much less in england. here in the u.s.a. the only profitable train route for passengers is the northeast corridor. otherwise it’s car country. you can buy a ford fiesta for as low as $12k!

and for long distance, airplanes are cheap and fast and fuel efficient. but i hate flying coach, lol.

i dont know this theory

whose is it?

--

or what is it called so i can read about it

Not a theory. My own thoughts based on 45 years of living and reading and seeing/witnessing the LIES that businessmen and the business world use to justify destroying everything for an extra dollar.




When anything gains in perceived "value" something else loses it's perceived "value." Think of the creation of mini-cassette tapes. That business BOOMED, due to convenience, ease of use, and cheapness, compared to the 8-track cassette, which dropped in sales and perceived "value" almosty instantly.


a businessman/capitalist will argue that they CREATED wealth and value by creating a new product, but they KNOW that what they have actually done, is destroyed the "value" of a separate product by creating something better.


If "wealth" was infinitely expandable, inflation would not exist. You could literally print money endlessly and all the money would be worth the exact same, always. However, since there is only a finite amount of wealth to go around, a dollar is worth HALF now what it was worth in 1980, and printing more money just devalues the money that already exists.


Millionaires and billionaires try to pretend this is not true, so as to justify their largesse and their hoarding of wealth. If they truly thought wealth could be created they would not have any proble with poorer people getting their share.

oh.


yeah and mini cassettes lost value too eventually.

also see: furbys (or what were they called?), dutch tulips, leeches as medicine

what is the problem?

value like you said earlier post is ephemeral. but it exists. i meant to bring this back but forgot.

i mean....value exists, but it fluctuates in time, yes, because consumer demand fluctuates as in time well as our needs and desires change

that’s the whole principle behind financial markets: to trade the risk and reward of rising and dropping economic values



that is schumpeter’s “creative destruction” yes! he wrote about it in the 40s.

schumpeter thought this was a dead end. other people differ.

the replacement to me is an increase in wealth! flash recorders replaced the minitape because they had better value! i love flash memory. so portable. you can’t put a minitape inside a smartphone. some day in the future i won’t because business enterprises will come up with an even better product. who knows what that will be?

and the thigns that we can build with it...


but but but... money is not wealth itself... money is a... language. a means of exchange. and a currency also has value in itself but... yes it can be destroyed.

this is why rampant inflation can be a fucking disaster. this is precisely what we’ll get with bernienomics: a flood of increasingly worthless dollars. modern monetary theory my ass!


poorer people get their share! some save it and invest it, some spend it.

some invest it in themselves as education. some invest it in a hoard of their own. some blow it all in vegas. some pass it along to their families.

do you not save and invest your share of wealth?

Sorry for this brief interruption, but:

a) Mueller report likely done in a week.

b) When will Trump start tweeting about Smollett?

OK, carry on. Thanks.

Absolutely insane. People living hand to mouth every week do not have the option to save, or invest, of what have you. You're making out that people on barely minimum wage should be grateful that they get even that much, and that it's their own fault they haven't built up a nice nest egg for themselves. The quickly disappearing middle class may had the option to do all that but not so much now.

Do you think that it's right that the Walmart family can continue to shaft workers out of a living wage just so they can add to their billions of dollars? Or is it the workers fault for being poor and that they can easily stop.

are you living hand to mouth? do you not have retirement savings? i thought you just spent a month in ‘merica. im confused...

who are you talking about?


walmart does not belong to “the walmart family”. it’s not a privately owned business. it belongs to me and many others who have shares in it one way or another.

walmart moves billions of dollars though the economy but because of a competitive retail environment their profit margins are very thin. if you think walmart is guaranteed megaprofits you’re not informed correctly.

i actually know a bunch of people who work there actually. some like it some don’t. the ones who didn’t left, the one who do, stay.

i actually shop there too.

ps

“POORER”

i did not mean “the down and out and distressed and the homeless”

i was responding to demonyo’s “poorer people” vs millionaires and billionaires. because middle and working class people are “poorer” than billionaires but own stocks.

[quote=!@#$%!]
Wasn't talking about me specifically. IIdo ok, nothing special but ok. And nope I don't have any retirement savings. However, I will say that I worked in a warehouse job for years minimum wage. I lived in a crappy bedsit, owned a crappy £150 rover, one week of my monthly wage was spent with not a penny to my name. Pretty much every penny I had went on bills with a little bit left over to actually enjoy life. This is the reality for millions of people over in your end and here too. Moe Tucker actually wrote a great song about this. The recession ruined me and my ability to hold a steady wage as a decorator. Thankfully I managed to get.iut of the warehouse job. However, that isn't the case for most people in those jobs and bounce from one dead end job to another with no option to save and/or invest in shares.




Thin but on a massive scales means they were able to report a fourth-quarter profit of $3.69 billion. But you knew that already. I'd consider 3.69 billion for one quarter a massive profit no matter how you look at it.

And apologies, not Walmart, Walton family are majority owner.

And the ones who leave generally drift from one shitty job to another.

That argument's fine if you have a viable alternative up and ready to replace it, but without one I think the social benefits of subsidising a dying enterprise are what ultimately stand between communities that are just about barely holding on and the actual disaster of those abandoned mining towns in the north of England or the rust belt in the US.

everyone suffers from a recession. my business crashed during the recession. i had to downsize HARD. eventually we recovered but later we shut it down for good. so? failure is a good teacher. knowledge is not a waste.

and that's what i meant by some people invest on themselves. you acquire new skills and move up from minimum wage jobs as your career progresses. isn't it how it works? are you supposed to do the same thing now that when you were 20? gotta take some courses. move up in the world. treat the job like an entrepreneur.

as for retirement, i guess here some people will depend solely on social security (a growing albatross), but working class people with pensions and other types of retirement accounts are all invested in the market. teachers, cops, firefighters, municipal employees, they're all... walmart owners!

and walmart actually offers a 401(k) with matching contributions to employees, btw.



it's not massiv profit! it's a matter of scale. arithmetic, my friend. walmart is HUUUGE. it feeds and clothes MILLIONS of people. they also sell BILLIONS AND BILLIONS in merchandise. they are a beacon of civilization in many places, especially rural areas who'd be fucked and at the mercy of predatory mom and pop stores without them (mom and pop are assholes, trust me. they overcharge, accept no returns, fuck you on the installment plan, and their warranties suck).

after walmart pays everyone including the gubmint, their profit margin is barely 3.3%.

right now there are savings accounts paying 2.35%. you could just open one and jerk off all day while accruing interest.

see:

https://www.pnc.com/en/personal-bank...AAEgI-ZfD_BwE#

walmart does A LOT OF FUCKING WORK to beat a savings account by less than 1%.

jeezus...

1 out of 30 days is a profit. on day 29 they break even. the other 28 they operate at loss.

how is this... aaaah!

proud walmart shareholder ready to divest lol.

You're gonna defend Walmart and it's practices now? I'm out.

yey Walmart. The paradigm of society

Fact is Walmart managed to get to the size they are by destroying communities, by grinding down every Union and working person, through predatory pricing and making themselves the monopoly in towns. But hey, fuck mom and pop stores for charging items so they can actually make a living. Yup, Walmart, working so hard for your share money. Get some shares.in nestle whilst you're at it.

I agree with this, and it's how I was able to pull myself out of a rut in my early/mid 20s.

However, it probably wouldn't have been possible without state-funded education. Not everyone can afford to just take a course, not everyone has the time to support themselves (working full-time) AND study on the side. I had barely a penny when I committed to going back to study. Thank fuck for evil Fox News "socialism"!

(as an aside, I had Swedish and Finnish friends at uni who got very generous monthly stipends from their governments for studying abroad at university. They got PAID to go to uni. Amazing what can be done when you actually look after your citizens).

what communities did they destroy? the town where i used to do my shopping (i do mostly online now) has all kinds of stores and there is no monopoly and people shop like crazy. if anything walmart makes the town more attractive. community! a lot of the community works there.

there is plenty of competition to go around and obsolete models will always go away.

amazon and walmart and costco fighting for my online dollars is a magnificent thing....

and i still buy from “mom and pop” via amazon marketplace stores. oh, walmart offers a similar thing. same bike shop in philly sells the same item in both websites. who knew! some moms and pops are smart after all.

ps that chant looks like japanese workers hahaha. im not made for that kind of environment.

the way i see it it works like a loan.

your govenment spends tax money on you, then it collects taxes from you as you make more money.

so in principle it works, no?

it wasn’t “free”—it’s really a loan.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...n-walmart-left

http://money.com/money/4192512/walma...g-small-towns/

And so on and so on