As will I.Originally Posted by Fuchs
As will I.
John Wolfsberger, Jr.
An unruffled person with some useful skills.
I think our Constitution is pretty good for what it is, but I had my druthers there would be some changes. For instance, to heck with this 'one man, one vote' crap; I want one man, five votes, weighted by order of preference. Or at least something like Germany's simultaneous candidate/party vote. That, plus some very sharp limits on corporations.
But frankly, I would be absolutely terrified if a new Constitutional Convention were formed in this day and age. With tempers this high, and rhetoric this inflamed, the best we could possibly hope for would be semi-peaceful Balkanization.
I've always thought of a "none of the above" option: if "none of the above" won the parties would have to pick new candidates and do it again. Of course in practice that would probably just leave us stuck with the incumbents, which would suck.
I don't really see "the system" as the problem, more the people in it, and no system is going to be immune to that problem.
Americans all love to hate "the corporations" [insert warding-off-evil symbol here], but might do well to reflect on where those "high paying jobs" everyone talks about actually come from. Ghastly as the corporations are, we'd be well stuffed without them.
“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary”
H.L. Mencken
Or we could just leave the office empty.
Which ...
... might not suck when you think about it.
John Wolfsberger, Jr.
An unruffled person with some useful skills.
Fuchs,I understand that there has been a revival of interest in the U.S. constitution, if not even worshipping. Same for "founding fathers".
This doesn't change the fact that its lack of reform (instead mere amendments) means that it's a low quality constitution by modern Western standards.
Constitutions reflect the the values of the people and the circumstances under which they are governed. America is exceptional in this regard, and by exceptional I do not mean "better" but "different." The USA is a political union and not a nation-state like Germany which, like most of Europe, is a collection of people who are largely homogenous in terms of ethnicity, language, culture and religion. You don't see, for example, something like birthright citizenship in most nation-states for this reason - a homogenous people are ever afraid that the "other" will come in, multiply and dilute the ethnic and cultural values upon which the nation-state is based. Birthright citizenship is one feature our political union that sets us apart from nation-states. Another is decentralized power since our states are, technically at least, still sovereign entities in many respects. The federal government has no power to redraw state borders, for example.
Our constitution was a compromise between the original states which were, at the time, sovereign entities, and its purpose was to create a federal government to provide services for those states. The other states that joined since the first are now part of that "deal" and are more that mere administrative divisions.
Secondly, stating that this or that constitution is "better" doesn't really mean much. How does one define "better" in terms of a constitution? Is there some objective standard that all nations aspire too? I don't think so once one moves beyond basic civil rights. People's and cultures are different and to suggest that something is wrong, or outdated, or obsolete is to engage in the arrogant paternalistic assumption that one knows what's best for others. The US system is not without its flaws but it's served us well throughout our history.
Supporting "time-limited, scope limited military actions" for 20 years.
The Year of Living Dangerously
Real news Network interview on is Capitalism dead. Near the end you will here the comment of how we are living dangerously.There is some Marxian analysis in here also on how economics leads to Revolutions.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xy5iG...&feature=feedu
Capitalism has been around for 5,000 years.
It's not dead -- or even wounded. Humans living dangerously is not new, that's well over 5,000 years old as well -- only the predators and jungles change a bit.
Marx, OTOH is dead and though his system and aberrations of it still live, sort of, they're on shaky legs simply because people can be greedy and just won't play fair. Every system of nominal socialism over the last 50 centuries has failed and has generally done so catastrophically but folks will keep trying...
Those failures are proof that capitalism won't die. Instead of trying to replace it -- which is futile -- great thinkers ought to concentrate on ways to improve it instead of wasting time on something that human foibles will not permit to attain lasting success.
I never cease to be amazed at the number of folks who want to make frontal assaults instead of figuring out what and where the flaws are and using those as leverage to obtain lasting as opposed to possible temporary improvements. Many of those folks want level playing fields, forgetting the earth has very few level spots and if man makes one, he needs to watch it or Mother earth will unlevel it for him. They also want people to be equal -- that's not going to happen until we can manufacture them. Greed, energy, ambition and ego intertwine in too many ways for perfect or even much improved social equilibrium to ever be attained. Instead of trying to replace a natural tendency with one that is unnatural we should try to assist Mama Nature and do it her way...
Well, sure. We'd be stuffed without fire, too, but that's no reason to let folks run around with flamethrowers.
I'm pro-capitalism, but I'm also pro-not losing sight of the fact that the economic system serves the nation--not the other way around.
Last edited by motorfirebox; 08-23-2011 at 05:21 PM.
Not necessarily.
The biggest advantage of a corporation over a SMEs is power, and more rarely economies of scale.
Power translates into better safety against legal claims, ability to bully and push out smaller competition (even small patent applicants) with legal claims, get better purchase deals (and at times even get a discount with threat of legal action).
Now think about it; such a power asymmetry exploitation enterprise pays a higher salary than a SME in the same market.
This is often in part compensation for a worse work environment, and thus not always an employee's advantage tot he full extent.
The corporation may also pay a higher salary because I exploited power asymmetry to gain a high market share in a generally very profitable market. Meanwhile, the SME can pay less in the same market because its lesser power leads to additional costs.
I see no real reason why corporations should pay systematically better salaries/wages because they're somehow better organisations. In fact, up to 100% of the salary difference may be compensation for the job being ####tier and the ability to pay a high salary might be transferred to all SMEs in the same market if you get rid of the corporation(s).
Did salaries drop when AT&T got dismembered, did they rise when it reassembled itself?
The German economy rests on SMEs, many of them were founded during the rebuilding of the economy in the 50's. Our big corporations are mostly consumer brand enterprises. The B2B sector is mostly about SME suppliers.
We seem to do fine. One nice trait of SMEs is that their direct investments in foreign countries are mostly marketing investments, not about exporting jobs.
The reasons may be open to debate, but if you look at the salaries paid by major corporations in the US, even at the fairly mundane level (secrataries, office managers, etc), they tend to be at the high end of the wage spectrum for the job in question. Whether or not those jobs are in fact $#!ttier than equivalent jobs elsewhere is something I suspect neither of us knows. In any event the Government doesn't choose whether a given economic sector will be dominated by large corporations or SME's, neither is there anything preventing the two from coexisting. It's by no means an either/or situation.
“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary”
H.L. Mencken
No, but legislation and gubernation can steer an economy towards a dominance of corporations or SMEs.
Turnover taxation details, anti-trust legislation, taxation differences between ltd and inc, patent legislation, subsidies...
To some extent, yes, though the extent to which these have actually influenced conditions on the ground is in any case debatable.
In the US, small businesses (>500 employees) account for a bit over 50% of private nonfarm GDP and close to 50% of employment, so it's hard to argue that they have been marginalized by large corporations. 65% of new hires in the 17 years ending 2009 were from small business, though of course these jobs tend to pay less and be less secure than those in large companies.
The two co-exist, and dominate the respective niches where they are most efficient. Obviously Boeing, GM, Apple, ExxonMobil, Lockheed Martin etc are not going to be replaceable by small businesses, nor would it make sense for government to try to initiate such a dramatic change.
Last edited by Dayuhan; 08-24-2011 at 10:35 PM.
“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary”
H.L. Mencken
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