The economy: How bad is it now? How bad will it get?

[juliaN.]

^^^

exactly. I was once trying to explain someone how capitalism only flourishes under the conditions of social asymmetry, exploitation, and inequality of labor. He told me I was using socialist definitions...now I don't claim to know too much about scholarly details of history and sociology, but yeah I guess you can say he was right. It just depends on whether you see those 3 things as something that inhibits social equality, or something to which you can use the knowledge of to exploit for personal gain.

[Francis Xavier]

I have never understood the desire for social equity... it seems so... anti-growth to me.

Yup. Propaganda, propaganda. Divide and conquer. Solidify the concept of some "injustice" by validating it with compensation and you've legitimized preferential treatment which contradicts your ideals in the first place.

If you play your cards right you can create a class war, which leaves those at the very tippy-top free to play ball while their subject populations squabble over who said what and who's drinking fountain is who's.

You guys should check out some NSK and Laibach. The new stuff isn't so hot, but what they do is simple and not especially clever but they're good at it: they juxtapose and mix contrasting political ideologies like capitalism and communism to prove that totalitarianism is the absolute product, simply with different means to the same end. No new, profound thought there, but they're just sooo good at articulating it artuflly and with a really high-brow sense of humor. Like when they covered that queen song "one vision" dressed like... Well, you know.

[juliaN.]

communism only works in theory. as does most of "economics"

it does not apply to the real world where a trillion gazillion factors are in play on a single block alone let alone an entire nation and everyone got one thing on their mind but communicate another to their neighbor. Also not taking into account things constantly changing, and the very high chance of being exposed to something you were not even aware was possible of existing before.

[Francis Xavier]

Ever considered life as a Chaotician?

[Thorns]

Yup. Propaganda, propaganda. Divide and conquer. Solidify the concept of some "injustice" by validating it with compensation and you've legitimized preferential treatment which contradicts your ideals in the first place.

I don't see it that way. We're not creating the inequality, its been there all along. Most of us have a comparative advantage in some activity or anyother. Man simply was NOT created equal. I've accepted it.

[Francis Xavier]

I don't see it that way. We're not creating the inequality, its been there all along. Most of us have a comparative advantage in some activity or anyother. Man simply was NOT created equal. I've accepted it.

I didn't say that we create it or manifest it out of dust. Certain political powers (very intentionally) amplify it it by either embracing it and making it law, or "ebolishing" it and erecting new laws of compensation to stir up even more racial hatred. Again, different means, same end, two-party politics

The very top always wins with two parties.

CHOICE, CHOICE, CHANGE!

[jack napier]

Christ, some of y'all are naive. Read some Frankfurt school, some Habermas, etc. and then comment on relevant Marxism. Original Marx =/= Leninism =/= Stalinism =/= Adorno =/= Debord =/= Marcuse etc. The amount of conflation on the subject is extremely ill founded. Same thing goes for the re-hashed pop critiques (only works on paper, etc.).

I also realize that a fashion forum based around consumption is not the best place to debate anything related to Marx... at all. (N.B. I am not a Marxist, all I'm saying is that the amount of strawman related crap which gets passed off as legit argument here and everywhere else is ridiculous). For the record I think traditional communism is fucking stupid, and if that's what everyone's talking about... go ahead. Just try not to be so single minded as to dismiss any relevant critique of capitalism.

[Francis Xavier]

Christ, some of y'all are naive. Read some Frankfurt school, some Habermas, etc. and then comment on relevant Marxism. Original Marx =/= Leninism =/= Stalinism =/= Adorno =/= Debord =/= Marcuse etc. The amount of conflation on the subject is extremely ill founded. Same thing goes for the re-hashed pop critiques (only works on paper, etc.).

I also realize that a fashion forum based around consumption is not the best place to debate anything related to Marx... at all. (N.B. I am not a Marxist, all I'm saying is that the amount of strawman related crap which gets passed off as legit argument here and everywhere else is ridiculous). For the record I think traditional communism is fucking stupid, and if that's what everyone's talking about... go ahead. Just try not to be so single minded as to dismiss any relevant critique of capitalism.

???

Nobody seems to be defending capitalism. I hope that by criticizing communism one doesn't automatically assume we're defending capitalism. That's a rather "for us or against us" mentality for somebody who isn't a communist.

And for the record, I've read frankfurt school. Adorno extensively. Adorno was a fucking idiot, by the way. And its easy to decipher, though he would probably deny it vehemenantly, that he was an ethnic supremacist. I used to consider myself a communist before I got a fucking life. I used to champion the frankfurt school and adorno specifically.

If you say there's conflation on the subject, maybe. I don't think we need to define the lines too sharply between various schools of marxism and communism on a milder discussion of the topic. If this were a designated thread, maybe. We're simply touching on it. Communism is a rather simple-minded and delusional point of view (which has merit, but is still completely delusional) to start with so I don't think that school-specifics are necessary here. That's just a little silly.

Also, we can talk about whatever we want on this board. To say that our personal tastes as consumers can all Be muddled into one category and "type" of consumer without actually knowing us, therefor rendering our opinions on communism invalid is rather... Conflated!

PS- Have you ever read any of Adorno's music criticism? Absolute nonsense. The fact that this complete dickface has been canonized confounds me.

[constant struggle]

all i know son, is you better be buying physical gold and physical silver, you need that shit in your hand, fiat money never lives

where is the roman's cash now?

[Francis Xavier]

all i know son, is you better be buying physical gold and physical silver, you need that shit in your hand, fiat money never lives

where is the roman's cash now?

T-R-U-T-H.

GOLD IS MONEY.

[ProfMonnitoff]

you realize that gold and silver are just like every other currency right?

[Francis Xavier]

Right, but our currency is fiat. Its paper... Backed by paper.

And its worth about as much as... Green paper.

[ProfMonnitoff]

gold is backed by paper too

i know what you mean though

i just drop into this anti-gold argumentation every time i hear gold mentioned because i know some dudes who are completely convinced that the us should use the gold standard again

[shaitan]

where is the roman's cash now?

Worth more than our money now.

[Kesnel]

noam chomsky has never been right about anything except linguistics

Even then, important aspects of his theory of generative grammar have been very effectively contested. I'm not going to say disproved, but well contested certainly. Of course though my view is slightly biased by the fact that Heinz Giegerich was my morphology professor.

[Francis Xavier]

I'd like to return to the original topic for a moment to make a cliche statement that holds very true in economic situations like ours:

Support your local businesses. Family businesses, small businesses. Local food, local goods. Go to the small specialty shops for what you need.

Yeah, you might pay an extra .50 cents for what you need. Deal. I know it sucks, but if you turn to wal-mart for what you need it makes the problems worse. Don't forget the impact that faggotry like wal-mart has on American jobs.

The only thing that gets people through shit like this with their sanity is a sense of family and community.

[artificialsky]

Sufu posters critiquing Chomsky is fine comedy.

How many well known political activists do you know who are world-renowned in a completely unrelated field?

Even then, important aspects of his theory of generative grammar have been very effectively contested. I'm not going to say disproved, but well contested certainly. Of course though my view is slightly biased by the fact that Heinz Giegerich was my morphology professor.

Dude, hate to break this to you, but the generative semanticists lost. That was back in the 80s. Sorry to hear your prof is still bitter.

[jack napier]

???

PS- Have you ever read any of Adorno's music criticism? Absolute nonsense.

I agree with this, but calling Adorno an ethnic supremacist is just nonsense. He was a jew who fled to America during WWII and hated America (which is largely why he hated jazz so much)... I have no idea where you can even see ethnic suprematist thought.

And I'm not painting everyone with the same brush, I believe I said some people herein are naive. The internet is never a good place for debate, because all we're going and doing is misrepresenting each other back and forth. All that I think here is that marxist whatever is too often represented as utopian and based on any degree of trust in the human being. That is entirely false - the aim is directed largely at social institutions and now an alternative use of reason.

As for school distinctions, there's a radical difference, but we'll just leave that as something gentlemen can disagree upon...

And on another note, I subscribe entirely (aside from 'faggotry') to what you just said. I come from a farming family, and the importance of going to local markets and stores can't be overstated.

[Leonard Leroy]

my young college graduate friends who had jobs out of college don't got jobs any mo'

[jayrock]

yo, what they be studying. print media?

LOL

[blm14]

value = perception. Even the value of gold and silver is perceived. Gold is worth exactly what someone is willing to trade for it. Arguably, gold in the middle of the jungle has negative value because of the pain in the ass necessary to remove it before you can do anything with it (ripping off Neal Stephenson a little there, but it's a good example - now go read cryptonomicon!)

[Thorns]

my young college graduate friends who had jobs out of college don't got jobs any mo'

Worst job market ever for a fresh college grad in a non-medical field.

[selaviso]

sad day, my homegirls mom lost her job at the bank and she has been there for a minute. hopefully i found a job, even though its a whatever job money is money right now.

[homi29]

0xuK9WCOTKY

[homi29]

value = perception. Even the value of gold and silver is perceived. Gold is worth exactly what someone is willing to trade for it. Arguably, gold in the middle of the jungle has negative value because of the pain in the ass necessary to remove it before you can do anything with it (ripping off Neal Stephenson a little there, but it's a good example - now go read cryptonomicon!)

gold is a hedge against political instability and currency devaluations.

if the US dollar tanks (could be for a variety of reasons) , gold will increase greatly as everyone tries to sell their US dollars before they become worthless.

[blm14]

You're talking about gold's relative value to other currencies. Originally, all currencies were redeemable for heavy metals. I'm talking about the concept of intrinsic value - which doesn't really exist. Gold is perceived to be valuable and so it is, but just like paper money printed by some central bank, its value is due to the fact that people THINK it's valuable.

[artificialsky]

0xuK9WCOTKY

give a break. this guy says one thing "leave the markets alone."

this is straight bush-isms. this unflagging belief that "THE MARKET" is this unfailing, godlike creation that is never wrong is exactly why we're in this situation in the first place.

how can this guy say on one hand that interventionist government policies in the early aughts created this current crisis while simultaneously saying another part of the problem is that those in "the market" spent and lent too much? if anything this shows that you can't just "leave the market be" because the people behind the market have way too much hubris, way too much greed, and they need oversight, not the other way around.

[Eccles]

^ha 'Iraq suicide bombing' right under that guy

so sick of hearing about the economy

rip it up and start again

[homi29]

give a break. this guy says one thing "leave the markets alone."

this is straight bush-isms. this unflagging belief that "THE MARKET" is this unfailing, godlike creation that is never wrong is exactly why we're in this situation in the first place.

how can this guy say on one hand that interventionist government policies in the early aughts created this current crisis while simultaneously saying another part of the problem is that those in "the market" spent and lent too much? if anything this shows that you can't just "leave the market be" because the people behind the market have way too much hubris, way too much greed, and they need oversight, not the other way around.

i dont advocate pure free market systems but the reason why i posted that video is that peter schiff's track record about the economy has been very good. He's also very critical of the fed which i appreciate, since they're doing things that are going to fuck up the economy more imo, for example 0% interest rates isn't going to fix the problem. See : japan in the mid 90s

[JackPhotography]

I'm really glad I posted this, even in the off topic it's good to see that people are taking this seriously and participating in some excellent discourse.

My personal plans are to stay in college until this shit passes over. I was already planning grad school next year but this solidifies it.. kind of good in the long run but we'll see.

Also, I had no idea people really thought chomsky was an idiot. I admired him for his ability to get people to listen to dissenting views on media and popular politics. Maybe it's just because again, I don't know shit on economy, politics etc.. but still had notions that US media is selectively serving us bullshit on a platter and corporation dominated economy and government was incredibly anti-human. I'm not sure if it was always like this but it seems recently (maybe 1970-on) that corporations and big business stopped caring about doing things for good of everyone involved and focused on making as much money as possible regardless of external consequences. This is even worse when the government encourages the behavior. Risk taking is much more acceptable if you disregard consequence, but sometimes ends very badly which is in very simple terms what I believe is the cause of this current crisis.

Again, I have no clue if I'm even touching superficially on what's really happened in the US economy, but I guess I'll just have to look more into it.