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Banks

What I mean is that in all of those examples of 'making money out of think air', it's 'just give money to the FED and you can open a bank and make money out of thin air' or 'go to the bank to get a loan/mortgage and the bank gives you money created out of thin air'.

It was the second in the video ITT, but I've seen the first in videos presented in this forum before.

At best the videos are confused and conflating the process that happens with banks with what happens at the Federal Reserve. Most likely is they're being dishonest and intentionally misleading.

trackin.

keynesian economics predates fascism, so your logic seems a bit flawed.

John Maynard Keynes lived from 1883 to 1946. However is most famous book, The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money - the text upon which Keynesianism is based - was published in 1936. While some of his ideas were implemented during the Great Depression, Keynesian economics itself did not become widely accepted until after WWII.

Fascism first pops up in the 1880s but becomes more widespread after WWI. I don't believe it is accurate to say that Keynesianism predates fascism, though their relative popularity did overlap slightly in the early 1940's.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keyensian

Hey, so I've been thinking again.

Before I reached an agreement with you all: that the economy isn't zero-sum. My (and others') reasoning was that resources can increase/decrease.

Unfortunately, I'm starting to think we'd be better off if it WERE zero-sum.

From the beginning of civilization to not long ago, mankind has been gaining resources. But more recently, we've begun to LOSE resources. Also, we're increasing in population, so we're losing per-capita resources even faster. This math professor's lecture drives home this point very well -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-QA...1FD147A45EF50D

I was aware before that we're rapidly losing resources, but didn't mention it because I wasn't sure if capitalism was to blame.

But I'm starting to think it is related to capitalism. The energy companies are depleting our resources in order to gain maximum profit in the short-term; they don't care about the future, when there will be nothing left for them to buy with their billions. The big agriculture companies are also depleting our resources, again for selfish short-term reason of monetary profit.

If it weren't for capitalism, there wouldn't be a motivation to ruin the future. There would be no, "I'll be dead by then, so I might as well get rich now."

Or am I wrong again?

There would be a motivation for current generations to use up resources at the cost of future generations. It has nothing to do with the economic system you use. Motivation for using resources isn't "getting rich" it is getting a better quality of life. Wouldn't society as a whole have the same motivation to use resources?

Anyways, we can assume that we will get better and better at harvesting resources in the future so that the possible resources we can gather is going to keep increasing. Eventually we may run out, but it won't happen for a while and our tech may be so advanced by then that it doesnt matter.

Energy companies wouldn't have a reason to deliberately lie about how long the coal and oil reserves will last.

As the video I linked to shows, every time they say "This will last for 500-1000 years", it's a gross lie.

Also, aggro companies would diversify their crops and I'm pretty sure if not for capitalism, they wouldn't have a reason to feed corn to cows. Agriculture *should* be the easiest thing to sustain, because all it requires is the sun and cyclical processes. Instead we turned it into something highly unsustainable, because there's more money to be made that way.

Everyone assumes, without reason or evidence, that the problems will magically solve themselves at the last minute ("by then I'm sure we'll have come up with something"). And we also assume the last minute is a long time away, when really it's not. It's basically 1 generation away.

Resources are almost never depleted in a market economy. The price rises as the supply diminishes, allowing for a gradual transition into other resources that serve the same purposes.

Source article, it's short and worth a read.

They don't solve themselves at the last minute. The market drives things to adjust and account for future supplies by making profit opportunities to hold resources for future use (if you expect them to be scarce in the future). This moves the problems forwards and smooths out problems.

Welcome back, Jiggs.

Can't be Jiggs--heehaw changed his position ITT (about zero-sum) and actually admitted it.

The OP was effectively correct and capitalism only survives by pretending to be creative.

Did you pretend to write that post on a pretend computer on the pretend internet?

The capitalists who made this computer did not create anything.

An enormous number of people cooperated to create that computer. Capitalism made that possible.

An enormous number of people cooperate just to create an ordinary pencil:

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/I,_Pencil

http://fee.org/wp-content/uploads/au...encil-Full.mp3

@Fermion -- You might have a point, I forgot to consider supply&demand, I'll have to think about it.

But I wonder why the prices aren't already skyrocketing. Yes they're higher than a few years ago but not high enough to really discourage anyone.

And we won't ever be able to just stop using energy, unless we all stop driving to work and stop using electricity and start living an Amish or Native American lifestyle all of a sudden (and I guess the poor would be the first ones forced to do that, they'd literally be surfs just like the old days). We're talking about a very basic thing, not ipods. So I'm not sure if the supply/demand dynamic models energy consumption quite as well as it models ipod purchasing.

I figure it's wiser to start really looking for alternative sources NOW, because it will probably be harder to develop new technologies while we're living in teepees. You don't see bushmen developing cold fusion, do you?

Why should the prices skyrocket? There is still oil for now. Those who have it, whether they be individuals, corporations, or governments, need to get something for it, if only to pay expenses and salaries required to produce it. If they hoard the rest it in anticipation of future shortages, they would need to forgo some of their own present consumption.

No, there really ISN'T oil. We are still exponentially using it all up, just like the yeast in Fermion's link. The market forces have yet to break us off our exponential curve. We only have 50-100 years of oil left. And I'm saying the market shouldn't wait until we only have 5 years left to start skyrocketing the prices.

No, but 50-100 years is beyond most peoples' time horizons. Would you rather have a million dollars now, or 50 million in 50 years (assuming no risk).

Right, that's exactly why I considered the topic of resource consumption relevant to capitalism. Capitalism seems to lead to selfishness. A corporation only cares about its bottom line; not about the good of mankind or whether the non-zero-sum economy and set of resources is tending toward a positive or negative sum.
(Also, does nobody care about their kids' or grandkids' time horizons?)

And by "resources" I'm also including basic necessities like water. The more water we pollute, the less available for us to drink and water our crops with. Of course we can start distilling all our water, but that requires energy.

Food (actual food) is already very low in supply thanks to capitalism. Food is probably the best example, because without capitalism there would be absolutely no reason for any of the current ass-backwards agriculture practices (for instance, feeding corn to cows), and we'd have an abundant supply of real food. (On the other hand, our supply of pharmaceutical drugs would be much less abundant, because we wouldn't have all the illnesses caused by our malnutrition.)

We would have an abundant supply of food because there would be more people dying off of other problems.

But food today is cheaper now than it has been in any time in history. You are vastly mistaken if you think that there is a shortage now of food thanks to capitalism.

I said in parentheses, "actual food".

Find something in your grocery store that you can justifiably call food, then maybe I'll agree there's no shortage of food.

heehaww,

What social system would you advocate?