I am not suggesting that there is any merit or particular lack of merit by
these things; they are merely accurate observations.
Most jobs in our economy really do not serve most people, except that most us
have such jobs. Let's take a look at Government waste first. Government is the
biggest cash machine, not for people on welfare, but for corporations that get
highly questionable contracts. We all know many examples. My Grandfather made
quite a career up into the highest levels in the US Federal Bureaucracy. If you
asked the CEO of GM what he produced, he would say: automobiles. If you asked
my Grandfather what he produced, he would say: jobs. His method? Triple the
paperwork, double the staff, apply for next promotion, promote the
least-competent person he could find, to take over his old job, then repeat
this cycle at his next job. Commoditiy trading and the ability to buy and sell
stock on short time intervals does no general good for society. Most, if not
all, so-called primitive societies do the same thing.
Large private business have the same cancer. People make unneeded jobs for
unneeded projects to hire their relatives and friends; or like my Grandfather,
they just believe that it is the decent thing to do! These high-powered
executives probably do a similar thing to artificially maintain their
outrageous pay-scale, terms of service and benefits.
It is doubtful that even 20 % of us have jobs that could not, in principle, be
eliminated, but then; who would buy all the goods and services of the remaining
20%. Ideally all of us that truly can work, could eight hours a day and enjoy
all the same goods and services; or we could all work 16 hours a week and get
twice as many goods and services.
I guess my point is that a lot of people should be a lot humbler when
criticizing various forms of wealth redistribution: I think it can be done far
better than what any system is presently doing, but it is a very human thing to
somehow, accomplish, and not as evil as so many people assume.
With the coming hyper-automation of nearly everything, nearly all of us will be
in this same boat! The good new is this, if we are all shareholders in this
process, then we can all look forward to less work, more goods and more
services. Automation will even make recycling practical.
> CC: vortex-l@eskimo.com> From: lookslikeiwasri...@gmail.com
> Subject: Re: [Vo]:[Political OT]: Global negative income tax
> Date: Sat, 6 Aug 2011 12:05:18 -0400
> To: vortex-l@eskimo.com
>
> It's not reserved for poor countries, but weak countries. Thus, poor Libya,
> having given up its nuclear ambitions, gets smacked around with a large
> trout, whereas poor DPRK is allowed to fire missiles randomly around its
> region, and it receives a finger wag.
>
> Craig, truly brilliant post.
>
>
> Sent from my iPhone.
>
> On Aug 6, 2011, at 11:04, Jouni Valkonen <jounivalko...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > 2011/8/6 Craig Haynie <cchayniepub...@gmail.com>:
> >> You propose to end war with a
> >> global democracy, but wars will never end as long as we give the power
> >> seekers the ability to wage war.
> >
> > I have not seen a war in 66 years, because I live in civilized and
> > rich country. Believe me, war is something that is only reserved for
> > poor people. If we end poverty, we will end all wars.
>
