Thank you my friend for your response. Your humanity always fills your posts and makes me feel honored that you answered. With all of the fights going on here in the US over the demise of the classical music radio stations and the cultural public broadcasting as well as the attacks on the National Endowment of the Arts by people close to me and even in my family I am frankly too demoralized to deal with this anymore. I'm 69 years old, soon to be seventy and I would have to have the hope of a 21 year old to believe that there is a future and to have a decent anger about all of this. I suspect that we are looking at the end of the old European Oak trees transplanted to America in favor of the scrub oaks of the prairie and a culture of shysters and sleaze. I feel a loyalty to my students and to the amazing philosophical systems of the Cherokee people that I've had the opportunity to scratch the surface on since the Freedom of Religion Act in 1978. The tragedy of the loss of this eats my soul. The aggressiveness of the most base and crude monetary perpetrators sickens me and turns my beliefs about the dominant population to dust. There doesn't seem to have been one whit of moral movement in 200 years. I'm going to take a break and rest for a while. I have to cut this off or I will not be able to do my work. Thank you Arthur, Mike and the others. I will not leave the list but I'm feeling much to old for this conversation.
REH agagasesdi From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Arthur Cordell Sent: Wednesday, March 09, 2011 5:12 PM To: 'RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, EDUCATION' Subject: Re: [Futurework] NYTimes.com: Degrees and Dollars Drawing on my first year law class in property, the issue of riparian rights is well settled. The upstream neighbor cannot build a dam without compensating those downstream who are deprived of the flow of water. I tend to agree that in the economy we are entering there will be many things that need doing but which won't be done because of market failures of one type or another. And here govt tax dollars can be used to hire people to do these things. Things may range from works of art to creating parks to providing home care for disabled. You have said it well, The problem is that economic theory allows the market to define ultimate value although they deny it. Lie about it, frankly. When you point it out you stop getting invited to their parties and conferences and even on their lists. All they really did with their money making schemes was to deny the value of anything that couldn't make a profit, for them, even if essential to life. A lot of work has gone into ways to impute value in the absence of a market mechanism (e.g., the value of housework.) But in the main, we tend to rely on markets for measures of value. And we tend to look to the wealthy (Gates, Buffett, et.al.) for sage advice. As though they have something to say beyond how to make money. Arthur From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Ray Harrell Sent: Wednesday, March 09, 2011 4:48 PM To: 'RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, EDUCATION' Subject: Re: [Futurework] NYTimes.com: Degrees and Dollars If I have land that a river runs through and another man above me builds a dam to sell me water does he owe anyone anything or was that OK? I would suggest that his dam stole my water and would blow it up or demand a share of the take on his benefits as would all of the people downstream from me as well. He could say that he built the dam and therefore made the investment but he built the dam to take my water and sell it by diversion to the local farmers for irrigation. The wealthy 1% claims to pay all of the taxes when they "built that dam" that makes the rest of us unable to pay taxes. Then they claim that gives them special privileges or they are being robbed by the government in taxes. [Grover Norquist] It would make just as much sense to pay doctors to heal you after they made you sick in the first place. This is a problem of logic, morality and old fashioned sin. You can do away with religion but why not sin when you do? It's all so simple (minded). Work should be paid for and valuable work whether profitable or not should be supplied by the society that should regulate it just as they do water and sewage. You showed that big ship but big ships only come from companies that are sustained by socialist nations or parties. Private enterprise can only enter the market if its profitable. That really big oil tanker was finally beached and broken up for scrap. Smaller is profitable. The problem is that economic theory allows the market to define ultimate value although they deny it. Lie about it, frankly. When you point it out you stop getting invited to their parties and conferences and even on their lists. All they really did with their money making schemes was to deny the value of anything that couldn't make a profit, for them, even if essential to life. That's why they are "conservative" and environmentalists are called "liberal" or socialist. I would simply call the people perpetuating faulty definitions of value sinful or even evil. Immoral. still anonymous but not blind. From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Arthur Cordell Sent: Wednesday, March 09, 2011 2:07 PM To: 'RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, EDUCATION' Subject: Re: [Futurework] NYTimes.com: Degrees and Dollars I think we have to re think the way in which income is distributed. In the past it was via the job of one kind or another. With an automated society we will still need to get income to people: via a variety of devices including guaranteed income, grants of one sort or another for public goods, etc., to some degree financed by a bit tax. and finally, we'll have to cut back on the work week and think about how people can live without making a living. arthur From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Michael Gurstein Sent: Wednesday, March 09, 2011 12:13 PM To: 'RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, EDUCATION' Subject: Re: [Futurework] NYTimes.com: Degrees and Dollars I think the difference from the '30's is that it was generally understood that the problems were likely to be transient ones... I don't know that anyone sees any clear way out of the ones that are now becoming ever more visible. M -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Arthur Cordell Sent: Tuesday, March 08, 2011 11:44 PM To: 'RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION,EDUCATION' Subject: Re: [Futurework] NYTimes.com: Degrees and Dollars Time to bring back the civilian conservation corps? http://tinyurl.com/4uzwmax And a bunch of agencies from that era like http://tinyurl.com/5r3nxo lots of funding for the arts and culture. May be a better use of funds than bailing out the banks and corporations. arthur From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Ray Harrell Sent: Tuesday, March 08, 2011 7:59 PM To: 'RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, EDUCATION' Subject: Re: [Futurework] NYTimes.com: Degrees and Dollars Arthur, Why not serious public sector jobs in areas that create a better cultural environment, beautify the world and raise the level of sophistication of the citizen. Conquer productivity lag and free ridership by paying people for work that is good for the nation and not just the drone work that came out of the Industrial era. Since I wrote the piece about the capitalization of Europe yesterday I've spoken with several scholars who basically said, "so what's the big deal." You're right. It is a problem of lack of creative thought in the economic sphere and a huge problem with value. There is also all of that karma and guilt still rolling around the European unconscious mucking up the psychology both individually and in groups. We've used up all of the cheap easy ideas around the market and money just as we've used up all of the dirty cheap energy sources. Now we have to grow up. What do you think? still anonymous From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Arthur Cordell Sent: Tuesday, March 08, 2011 4:27 PM To: [email protected]; 'RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, EDUCATION' Subject: Re: [Futurework] NYTimes.com: Degrees and Dollars Tough times. Early union development was the workers vs. capital. More for workers and less for capital. Now we see public sector unions which means public sector workers bargaining for more money, tax dollars paid by citizens. It is not workers vs. capital but workers vs. other workers and citizens broadly. Somewhere I read that Roosevelt was uneasy about the whole concept of public sector unions and probably with good reason. As far as the rest of the article it is time to examine how the productivity of the economy is distributed. Period. And probably a call for a guaranteed annual income and a call for a bit tax. But the saying probably applies to our society as well: Some people can't read the writing on the wall until their backs are up against it. We need to re examine work, income, status, class, social cohesion, etc. Leontieff the founder of input output analysis said: If horses belonged to trade unions we would never have had industrialization. Todays workers need income, dignity and a sense of place. In the past this came in the form of a job. We will need to provide income, dignity and a sense of place in new ways in the new automated society. arthur From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of [email protected] Sent: Monday, March 07, 2011 7:58 AM To: [email protected] Subject: [Futurework] NYTimes.com: Degrees and Dollars <http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/misc/spacer.gif> <http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/misc/spacer.gif> <http://www.nytimes.com/> The New York Times E-mail This <http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/apps/emailthis/head_2.gif> <http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/misc/spacer.gif> <http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/misc/spacer.gif> This page was sent to you by: [email protected] OPINION | March 07, 2011 Op-Ed Columnist: <http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/07/opinion/07krugman.html?emc=eta1> Degrees and Dollars By PAUL KRUGMAN The hollow promise of good jobs for highly educated workers. <http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/misc/spacer.gif> <http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/misc/spacer.gif> <http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/misc/spacer.gif> <http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/misc/spacer.gif> Copyright 2011 <http://www.nytimes.com/ref/membercenter/help/copyright.html> The New York Times Company <http://www.nytco.com/> | Privacy Policy <http://www.nytimes.com/ref/membercenter/help/privacy.html> <http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/misc/spacer.gif> <http://www.nytimes.com/adx/bin/adx_remote.html?type=noscript&page=emailthis .nytimes.com/openrate&posall=Bottom1&pos=Bottom1&query=qstring&keywords=>
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