I think the problem is not with Capitalism (you cannot find anything better or more realistic, it is with Moneytheism- the most popular and destructive religion today. Peter
On Sat, Jan 14, 2012 at 1:59 PM, Mauro Lacy <[email protected]> wrote: > ** > On 01/11/2012 11:28 PM, James Bowery wrote: > > The only way to get capitalism to work is to shift the tax base from > economic activity to the liquidation value of assets, and set the tax rate > to the interest rate used to calculate liquidation value. > > But no one with wealth wants that to happen even though just about > everyone who has high incomes would want it to happen. > > So, due to political economic considerations, capitalism cannot be made to > work. > > This is not to say that socialism can be made to work, since in order to > do so it would require that the liquidation asset interest collected by the > government be dispersed equally to all citizens, no "means testing". > Socialists want to figure out how to spend your dividends for you because > they're so smart and all. > > In other words: All fall down. > > > Maybe the solution is what Fidel Castro proposed recently: replace the US > president with a robot. > http://www.elcorreo.eu.org/?El-mejor-Presidente-para-Estados&lang=es > > In spanish. Translation here: > > http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http://www.elcorreo.eu.org/%3FEl-mejor-Presidente-para-Estados%26lang%3Des&sl=es&tl=en&hl=&ie=UTF-8 > > I (along with Castro) am being sarcastic here, of course. But > nevertheless, the rationale behind Catro's idea is impeccable: given that > the western world is so advanced at the technological level, perhaphs it > should consider using that wonderful advancement to try to advance also at > the social, political and economical levels, where it's clearly lagging > behind the curve. In fact, technological advances are usually being used to > even recede in those areas. > > The troubles with political and economical systems do not lie necessarily > in the systems per se, but in people. As long as people refuse to look into > their inner dark areas, to consider their evil within, so to speak, nothing > will change. We have come to a point when we're talking about the benefits > of nanotechnology, artifical intelligence, robotics and free energy, and at > the same time threathening to use that knowledge to attempt to destroy the > world. It's insane, and it's because people usually don't look (and take a > part of the responsibility) for the contradiction. > > > My 1992 white > paper<http://mysite.verizon.net/res10kjcq/ota/others-papers/NetAssetTax_Bowery.txt> > introduces > an early version of the idea. The impetus for it came from my work to > privatize government technology development programs in > space<http://www.oocities.com/jim_bowery/testimny.htm> > and energy <http://www.oocities.com/jim_bowery/BussardsLetter.html>. > > Charles Murray of the CATO Institute later wrote a book on an idea > related to the citizen's > dividend<http://www.aei.org/press/society-and-culture/poverty/in-our-hands-press/> > . > And, yes, this problem has been known well over a century. > > On Tue, Dec 13, 2011 at 8:48 AM, Jed Rothwell <[email protected]>wrote: > >> noone noone <[email protected]> wrote: >> >> I am all for vertical agriculture, but I am totally opposed to a >>> global basic income. I do not support socialism or communism. >>> >> >> Socialism, communism and capitalism are all based on ordinary people >> trading labor for money. In a few decades human labor will be worth >> nothing. All economic systems will be obsolete. >> >> See: >> >> http://www.thelightsinthetunnel.com/ >> >> >> >>> With cold fusion technology, the price of everything will go down. >>> Even a job at McDonalds will be capable of paying for a nice house, nice >>> cars, etc. >>> >> >> Even today we have automobiles capable of driving in California >> traffic. That is a more difficult task than any job at McDonald's. It is >> just a matter of time before all jobs such as this will be done by robots. >> A robot the replaces a person (or the entire staff) will cost McDonald's a >> few thousand dollars a year. you cannot buy a nice house were nice cars >> with that kind of money. >> >> The most difficult job at McDonald's is human language: cashiers have to >> understand what the customers are ordering. Cashiers can easily be >> replaced today by having most customers enter the order by touchscreens, >> and pay with credit cards. This would be like the self checkout lines at >> grocery stores. In the near future, computers will understand speech well >> enough to take verbal orders. >> >> McDonald's has not installed touchscreen ordering devices for the same >> reason the US automobile industry did not install robots in the 1960s. The >> government and labor organizations are putting pressure on McDonald's not >> to automate. McDonald's is one of the biggest employers in the US. Walmart >> is another huge employer that could easily replace much of its staff with >> robots. I'm sure that it will within 20 years. Robots capable of stocking >> shelves are already available. At present people are cheaper for an >> environment such as a Walmart store, but people are not becoming twice as >> fast and far cheaper every few years. At places like Amazon.com, and the >> newest university libraries that still handle paper books, robots do the >> inventory work. >> >> - Jed >> >> > > -- Dr. Peter Gluck Cluj, Romania http://egooutpeters.blogspot.com
