Dario on 2/12/2008 at 01:40

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Thanks for the replies, all....

Maybe it would help if I elaborated my understanding a bit. I understand that money is just a representation of wealth, thus what I'm trying to figure out here is if the world's applications of "wealth" (at least in our society) are flawed by design.

The main issue I see is:

The freedom for markets to fluctuate means that if EVER all people had enough money to not be bargain shoppers anymore, prices would go way, way up on everything.... until pockets were drained (whether it would take months or years), and everyone was once again a bargain shopper.

Think about this: corporations/companies charge as much as they can possibly get away with (as long as it pads their bottom line maximally, and doesn't interfere with sales). Leaving prices low when people can afford a lot MORE is simply not something a corporation/company is going to do... thus I see this system as designed to keep man from not being able to get on top of things financially as a whole: only small sub-classes of society would be allowed to "succeed" without causing prices to inflate. If ALL society increased in its wealth, the prices of EVERYTHING would follow, reducing that wealth to mush...

Or is that simply not the case? CAN society at large increase its wealth and comfort-levels with prices actually staying where they are? (remaining low enough to ALLOW that comfort)

I would think the value of products would have to be locked or regulated... allowed some sort of natural, fair fluctuation, but not just regular ol' fashioned greed-powered "inflation".

jtr7 on 2/12/2008 at 02:31

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Without money, we would still have greed, selfishness, and a driving desire to take more for ourselves at the expense of others. If only it was about survival. :tsktsk:

By creating money, and by creating an employment system which requires people to work harder than they should or can sustain, to the greater benefit of the employer than the worker, we feed the greed-monster at our own expense, and certainly the expense of those around us. Although there are awesome and caring employers, we know they are not the norm. Some work should result in feeding, clothing, and sheltering us the same day the work is done, while other work should lead to maintaining that, and preparing us for the future needs which will come.

Requiring people to work for two or three weeks before their first paycheck is awful. They should have something to show for their efforts at the end of the workday, not exhaustion, unpaid bills, and empty stomachs. It doesn't take long for workers to begin self-medicating to get through the week, or put it behind them. Drugs and medicines to keep us going beyond our known limits.

Many employers think they own their workers, and expect them to work hard and sustained while injured, or to disregard safety protocols, or frikkin' ask them to come pick them up and take them to their colonoscopy exam! They forget it's a trade: Our time for their money. Why ask us for extra, unpaid work when I'm off the clock? Oh yeah, they reward us by not firing us. Yeah, they may have us by the balls, but they forget: They are our employer by mutual agreement. We agree that they are our employers. We can walk away at any time, but we stay out of a greater need, and to avoid the inconveniences quitting would cause. Want me to stand on the very top of a ladder two stories up without a safety harness for minimum wage? How 'bout I keep my mouth shut 'cause I can't prove this was a real expectation and get the business shut down. :mad:

Greed, selfishness, and indifference are the bulk of the problem. Well, that's from the view of more than one facet of society, but doesn't take into account some completely different views of others who manage to retain empathy for their fellows.


Money won't work for some people until there's enough of it to make it work for them, as opposed to working themselves to the point they have to spend money on just keeping sane enough, and healthy enough to keep working too hard for too little. Aside from medical expenses, transportation expenses, and all the expenses to maintain what keeps breaking down, people spend too much money on medication, drugs, alcohol, books, music, television, movies, games, SEX!, and any other expensive escapes from the pain and disappointment, become the lifestyle, the trap. I work with several people who have at least one Master's Degree, and it ain't enough to get them out of the cycle. Over-qualification.

It's not gonna change for a long long time, without something grand and global.

baeuchlein on 2/12/2008 at 16:47

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I am not so certain that prices necessarily have to rise when enough people are able to pay those prices, but at the core of what you said there is one of the faults (I think) of our economy: It functions in a way that does not aim for a maximum of people who can buy the goods, but for a maximum of profit(s) for those who sit "on top". These are not necessarily humans, though, but companies. Whether the humans working for these companies gain large sums of money is a different question - and a less important one.

The prices for goods are often not created by some greedy company bosses, but rather by an economic system that uses competition as a driving force. Unfortunately, this force has failed to deliver low prices and good quality towards the buyers, but instead makes companies try to squeeze even more out of their workers, the environment and the rules of the countries they operate in. China, for example, is becoming an increasingly big threat for western economy. At least that's what politicians and newspapers continue to tell us in the last years - and I believe they're at least partially right.

China has two big advantages compared to western countries: A large number of people and extremely low social standards for workers. If a worker gets injured so much that he cannot work, he will be thrown out. He will not even get any money if the company caused the accident rendering the worker "unusable". The company just picks the next worker in line. 1,3 billions of people (and no laws in favour of the workers) allow for that - you can throw away any unusable worker and get the next one to work for you, just like you throw a broken screwdriver into the trash bin and get a new one. Workers are cheap.

Of course, China still has problems achieving western quality standards, but as long as chinese companies sell enough to survive (and even grow), that's only a problem for the customer, not for the company.

However, if you think that the Chinese are cruel and evil people, you miss the point: Chinese firms just use their advantages in a global market with locally different standards to rise upwards among companies. But other western firms do the same if they can. In Germany, for example, workers were used to working for the same company for all their life just one generation ago. Today, however, young people often are just hired for a particular time, leaving them uncertain about their future, while they are expected to marry and raise a family at the same time, providing a comfortable and secure home for their kids. Politicians even try to push people to having more children, "because we need them", and not explaining what we need all those children for. I call it the "Fucking for Germany" program - yes, it is that stupid.:tsktsk:

The companies, on the other hand, not only subdue people by leaving them uncertain about their future, they also time their contracts in a way which makes sure people don't get any holidays (unless you count times of being unemployed and devoid of loan as "holidays"). Thus, the company does not have to pay people while they're having their nonexistant holidays. Instead, the country has to support them, effectively paying a part of what companies used to pay a few decades before. And then the companies cry out like babies when the country's taxes have to go up to compensate...:mad:

The companies have to do all this, even if they're not greedy, because if they don't, another company will do it, gaining this second company an advantage over the first one. The more profit a company makes, the less likely it will go bankrupt. You don't need the "greedy boss" for this idiotic system to work, you just need enough people worshipping the great god called competition.

This is one of the faults of our economy: Competition has turned from a tool thought to lower prices to a driving force constantly pressing people to squeeze more and more out of a company and it's workers.

So, this system may not be designed to keep prices high, but it has escaped mankind's control and turned into something driven by itself and pulling more and more people in a tight grip along with it, to a point in time where the benefits are far outweighed by the disadvantages. But it has become very difficult to stop that driverless train, especially when mighty companies have no reason to stop this system - as long as these companies stand in a powerful position, they can bend the rules around them more than other companies can, meaning they can and will profit more from all this than other companies.

And ordinary people are caught in this giant maelstrom with little means of escape.

I could point out a lot more things which, according to me, are going wrong in our economy and even our society, but I can make more money of that if I write a book instead and sell it...:cheeky:

Kolya on 4/12/2008 at 22:05

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Seconding all of what baeuchlein said, especially this, because it describes my situation and that of many others:



I'm 31 now. If I had had the choice my kids would be around 10 years old by now. But as it is I will have to wait another 3 or 4 years before I can even think about such things.
And this is where shit gets personal.

Edit: Moreover these children would start working in another 10 years, contributing not only to social security but to the economic system that's preventing their existence right now.

BEAR on 14/12/2008 at 00:21

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Is it madness or just the pendulum coming back around. The spectacular convenience of our modern lives sometimes surprises and disgusts me when I look at other parts of the world that don't share our western fortune.

Should we be able to subsist as easily as we do? The world is a pretty harsh place, its probably not a bad thing for children to realize this, rather than falsely thinking that life is a fantastic wonderland when for many many people it is a tough and not altogether pleasant experience. I'm speaking from personal experience in this, I should have to work way harder than I do to get by. I'm not lazy, but its hard to do a lot more than is necessary, I think adversity breeds invention and we're lacking that in western society these days.