Late Cycle Capitalism

[GloryofGreece]

I get your point, but just think about what I am saying. Writing laws has quite a lot to do with lawyers. Lawyers are the ones who have to use and navigate these laws in court. They understand the difference between poorly-written laws and laws you can sort of work with. There is at least some applicability there.

Merchants offer literally nothing to government but their own aggrandizement. Their values are the values of Mammon. And as bad and wicked as lawyers can get, there is nothing inherent about being a lawyer that is completely antithetical to good governance. The same cannot be said about merchants. Merchant values and culture are the polar opposite of what you need in government.

That's not to say they shouldn't have a voice. We obviously want them to participate in discussions about economic policies. But when you give them control over those policies, they absolutely will destroy your fucking nation for profit (and that's exactly what they are doing.. globalism).

Ancient Persian culture looked down on markets and merchants for a reason. Why would you listen to so called men that make a living lying about most things to make a buck? Fuckem.

[Speaker to Animals]

Maybe a better way of putting it is that merchants can only be good politicians despite their profession in life, not because of it. My congressman is pretty good on straight politics and personal morals. I like him for that. But when it comes to more social and economic morals, he still sides with the degeneracy.

[brewster]

I get your point, but just think about what I am saying. Writing laws has quite a lot to do with lawyers. Lawyers are the ones who have to use and navigate these laws in court. They understand the difference between poorly-written laws and laws you can sort of work with. There is at least some applicability there.

Merchants offer literally nothing to government but their own aggrandizement. Their values are the values of Mammon. And as bad and wicked as lawyers can get, there is nothing inherent about being a lawyer that is completely antithetical to good governance. The same cannot be said about merchants. Merchant values and culture are the polar opposite of what you need in government.

That's not to say they shouldn't have a voice. We obviously want them to participate in discussions about economic policies. But when you give them control over those policies, they absolutely will destroy your fucking nation for profit (and that's exactly what they are doing.. globalism).

Lawyers are whores, they write what they're paid to, so everything depends on who's buying them. There's really only 2 classes with money, the aristocracy and the bourgeoisie, trade unions briefly mattered, but no more. Modern democracy was born in Britain and The Netherlands, the dominant merchant powers of the Enlightenment where the powerful merchants like the chartered trade companies wrested power from the landed aristocrats. The merchants saw that there were better domestic markets when the plebs has some money to spend rather than it all being hoarded by the Aristocracy. It was enlightened self interest, same as Henry Ford paying a living wage so his workers could buy a car. It seems the lesson has been forgotten as our modern merchant princes come to resemble hereditary aristocrats.

[Martin Hash]

Businesses, like foxes, are amoral. People who forget that will suffer the consequences of not putting a fence around the chicken coup.

[brewster]

Businesses, like foxes, are amoral. People who forget that will suffer the consequences of not putting a fence around the chicken coup.

Animals are not amoral, like businesses, they are what they are, and one should expect them to act in their own interest. But we expect more of humans than instant gratification, long term thinking is what made us what we are. Civilization grew around cities that saved grain for bad seasons, remember Joseph and the Pharaoh? Modern businesses eat their seed corn to make their next quarter profit target.

I was just listening to a 99% Invisible podcast about the drinking straw industry, and they went off on how mom & pop old school manufacturing and retail businesses get eaten by the financialization of our economy. Where they get bought, loaded with debt by the banksters extracting cash, then spun off to die like a fish filleted alive and tossed back in the water.

[Martin Hash]

That’s several metaphors there, Brew.

Mitt Romney-style businesses are indeed evil. They exploit corporate rules. I’ve said what the solutions are: all businesses pass-thru their profits (like 99% of businesses already do), businesses can’t hold money (like 99% already can’t), and businesses can’t donate to political campaigns (only people can).

[brewster]

That’s several metaphors there, Brew.

Mitt Romney-style businesses are indeed evil. They exploit corporate rules. I’ve said what the solutions are: all businesses pass-thru their profits (like 99% of businesses already do), businesses can’t hold money (like 99% already can’t), and businesses can’t donate to political campaigns (only people can).

With you 100%. That would do much to reign in sociopathic business models. But it ain't going to happen unless we start building guillotines. We can't even get rid of the obviously ridiculous carried interest rule, or even ditch the basic idea of taxing investment income less than hard work. When heiress Betsy DeVos pays a lower tax rate on her husband's inherited income than the schoolteachers she despises do on their salaries, the problem is obvious, at least to me.

[Fife]

I'd be more than happy to give those teachers and Betsy the exact same federal income tax rate (zero), and those downtrodden teachers the opportunity to earn an excellent salary in the voluntary education sector.

[brewster]

I'd be more than happy to give those teachers and Betsy the exact same federal income tax rate (zero), and those downtrodden teachers the opportunity to earn an excellent salary in the voluntary education sector.

I guess you're the handyman who solves the leaky roof problem with a match and gasoline. No more roof problem for sure.

[Speaker to Animals]

Businesses, like foxes, are amoral. People who forget that will suffer the consequences of not putting a fence around the chicken coup.

I think it's worse than that, though. Look at that article I quoted. This character thinks he has a moral imperative to drive up prices as high as possible for a life-saving antibiotic, all based on an artificial monopoly the state granted.

Most of the republican party is infested with people like this, and they are the only thing standing between us an the oblivion that the democrats promise this country.

To say I am worried about it is an understatement.