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fear
Ice climber
hartford, ct
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Aug 30, 2018 - 11:44am PT
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America has created a system where money is protected against voters.
That'd be any political system anywhere, not just America. "Voting" is just another veil to keep the proles thinking they have a choice in the matter.
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Marlow
Sport climber
OSLO
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Aug 30, 2018 - 12:03pm PT
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Not...
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August West
Trad climber
Where the wind blows strange
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Aug 30, 2018 - 02:44pm PT
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That'd be any political system anywhere, not just America. "Voting" is just another veil to keep the proles thinking they have a choice in the matter.
It's not either or. Yes, money trumped public opinion when it came to the trillion+ dollar tax cut.
But America would be different if Hillary instead of Trump won.
If we had had a republican president picking SC justices instead of Obama, the SC probably would not have legalized gay marriage.
If Trump gets to replace Ginsburg while the R's still hold the Senate, abortion access will be radically reduced. Even if Roe isn't explicitly overturned, that SC would likely allow states to regulate all of their abortion providers out of existence.
So even if voting doesn't matter as much as you would like, it still matters.
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Splater
climber
Grey Matter
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Aug 30, 2018 - 09:00pm PT
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In the 60s and 70s in the USA, we had not sold our government nearly as much to the highest bidder. Nixon started the EPA. Today the government is mostly in the pocket of big money, a land where "banks are not financial companies." But clearly it was and could again be different.
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Tom
Big Wall climber
San Luis Obispo CA
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Aug 30, 2018 - 09:31pm PT
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Policy excursions as a result of election turn-over are depicted above.
The recent policy trend in Congress has been a tit-for-tat cat fight, with opposing viewpoints becoming more and more extreme.
Oscillatory divergence from a common, middle ground results in disaster.
Oscillatory convergence to a common, middle ground results in stability.
This is Rocket Science.
One of the most important developments of the Space Age has been a sophisticated understanding of how to prevent dangerously large excursions in complicated oscillatory systems.
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Lituya
Mountain climber
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Aug 30, 2018 - 09:48pm PT
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I think there are some poor memories here regarding the 60s and 70s--particularly with regard to New York, Chicago, Detroit, and the urban core generally. Poor memories, or, perhaps, willful ignorance and revisionism in pursuit of a fanciful, paper agenda. Do any of you really want to go back to that blight?
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Tom
Big Wall climber
San Luis Obispo CA
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Aug 30, 2018 - 10:01pm PT
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^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Examples?
Specific facts we can learn from?
I'll tell you a story about New York City in the late 1970s.
The City was going bankrupt. Its former glory as a hub of international finance and commerce was on the wane. Cargo ships were diverting to New Jersey, with it's railroad networks moving goods more efficiently. Decayed neighborhoods in NYC were on the rise. Crime was so rampant, Charles Bronson made four (FOUR!) movies about a mild-mannered architect who became a NYC nighttime vigilante battling crime.
New York City was on life support. It was not pretty.
And then, Donald Trump crossed the bridge from his hometown of Queens to Manhattan, bringing with him a strong vision for the future of New York City. He moved, forcefully, to renovate the decayed Commodore Hotel, next to Grand Central Terminal. He moved, forcefully, to erect the Trump Tower, next door to Tiffany's on Fifth Avenue. Both times, Trump was a master of negotiating deals with financiers and city planners, and he had to work very hard, to allow them to let him do what was right for the city.
Both times, Donald Trump helped to bring New York City back from the brink of the dark days of disaster. Both times, Donald Trump led the way in overcoming the reticence* of investors and developers in believing in the future of New York City.
QUESTION:
What ever happened to that guy?
ANSWER:
He's still around.
QUESTION:
What sort of demon now possesses him?
ANSWER:
Vladimir Putin.
* Reticence conjugates with Reticent => climbing related.
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Lituya
Mountain climber
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Aug 30, 2018 - 10:49pm PT
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Specific facts we can learn from?
Reticence conjugates with Reticent => climbing related.
Neither of these are verbs in any form--and only verbs can be conjugated. Inflection of nouns and adjectives is known as declension.
A writer, you say? No charge this time. ;-)
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Tom
Big Wall climber
San Luis Obispo CA
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Aug 30, 2018 - 11:02pm PT
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I guess I don't know what "conjugate" means.
I appreciate being corrected when I am wrong. The worst thing a person can do is to insist that they are correct, when all evidence indicates they are wrong.
I meant to say that the noun and adjective, reticence and reticent, are connected, I don't know the correct linguistic term for that connection.
A little help?
Maybe, I should have married a college English Major when I had the opportunity.
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JEleazarian
Trad climber
Fresno CA
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Aug 30, 2018 - 11:23pm PT
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Warren wrote an Op-Ed piece in the Wall Street Journal a couple of weeks ago. The response letters were published about a week later. The best was the shortest: "Venezuela 2.0."
As someone who worked both as lawyer and an economist (I still work as the latter), her proposal appalled me. It guarantees endless litigation over anything a corporation does, with no redeeming features.
We already have a robust antitrust law, and those who claim businesses exist as monopolies must not have been involved in, say, marketing. It reminds me of when Ralph Nader spoke at my law school (UCLA), arguing that we needed stricter laws governing the NBA because the Lakers had a monopoly in the LA market. Really? The Lakers had a monopoly on entertainment in Los Angeles, of all places?
Yes, intellectual property law produces monopolies for a limited period of time. I think we can argue over the appropriate time period, or whether a different system would better balance the incentive to innovate and the need to protect the public from predation, but Warren's proposal does neither. Rather, it takes a very critical property right -- financial control of a business -- away from those who put the money up, and gives it the political system. I'd rather trust the people who stand to make or lose money to make the decisions, rather than those who get paid regardless.
While there are a few companies that Warren's bill would cover that remain private, most are public companies. That means anyone can buy an ownership interest. It's a free country -- put your money where your mouth is.
I've addressed the proposed restrictions on corporate speech extensively years ago. Suffice to say that any media company that decries the decision in Citizens United, but hides behind New York Times Co. v. Sullivan when threatened with libel, deserves to disappear. The latter decision, made in 1964, specifically upheld the First Amendment rights of the New York Times Co., a corporation. Thus those saying "corporations aren't people" and therefore lack First Amendment protection must ignore a precedent that the liberal media relies on to this day.
She also argued that corporations used to "share more of their earnings" with workers, rather than all the earnings going to shareholders. As another letter writer pointed out, that statement makes no sense, because we define earnings as what a business has left after it pays all expenses, including labor. Put differently, earnings constitute what goes to the owners.
I try not to fall victim of the disease of the aged, viz. believing that the world is falling apart because it changes, but I see a very stark polarization between those who see the economy as a zero-sum game, and those who see it as a positive-sum one. I further see a polarization between those who believe that their actions primarily determine their situations, and those who see themselves as victims of circumstance and unfair actions of others. I'm not sure how to bridge that divide, since the politicians of both parties seem intent on exacerbating, rather than improving the rift.
I applaud you, Scott, for trying, but I'm not sure how to overcome the difference in values I see in the society around me.
John
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Tom
Big Wall climber
San Luis Obispo CA
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Aug 31, 2018 - 12:02am PT
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This civilization thing we do is not easy.
It's complex and confounding; competitive and conflictive; compromising and confident; codependent and cooperative; cunning and callous; caring and compassionate; criminal and conspiratorial; confused and confident.
Carry on, as you were: comfortable and complacent.
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Contractor
Boulder climber
CA
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Aug 31, 2018 - 06:59am PT
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I applaud you, Scott, for trying, but I'm not sure how to overcome the difference in values I see in the society around me.
John Answer- you don't. Within the framework of our laws and regulations, those differences are binded into an amalgamate that may be dissatisfying to all, yet it works.
Where you may see partisan dogma in a snapshot in time, I see a set of readymade ideas to confront a specific issue- such as severe economic disparity.
Warren's ideas, in the most favorable political climate would be debated and watered down. You can be sure that this process would be done within the framework of our laws.
You mention unreasonable fear of change- Are you referring to this Presidency? Would you characterize the actions of this administration, his corporate allies and Congressional operatives as a typical shift in the political and socioeconomic spectrum?
This President and his allies are making policy and shifting the lines with a sidegame to shield themselves from our Constitution, and while many families may feel insulted because their portfolio's are looking good, the most vulnerable of our society are playing a terrible price. That is exactly what Warren intends to do something about.
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Spider Savage
Mountain climber
The shaggy fringe of Los Angeles
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Aug 31, 2018 - 09:15am PT
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Warren is struggling with the same thing old Karl Marx struggled with. Just reading a bit of his work yesterday. (really bad phillosphy based on generalizations that are not true.) Warren is no commie and her compassion is compelling.
The way any of the politicos fall down (Trump, Sanders, etc.) is they try to associate and generalize. They attempt to lump people into categories.
In the future a great leader will come who does not do this. Each human is completely different. The more we all learn to accept that we are all one because we are very much NOT all one the civilization will be able to move forward.
Most successful politicians are recognizing real problems but then their solutions go off the rails.
Socialism is both bad and good. Good because it makes life easier and more organized. Bad because some individuals loose motivation and cease to produce at a high level. Saying it is all bad is a false generalization.
Capitalism is necessary to generate enough energy but in the hands of certain indiduals it can seem to turn into injustice and oppression. Saying it is all bad is a false generalization.
Organizing for a sustainable future of civilization will require the abandonment of absolute "isms" and learning to apply them appropriately where they work and hold them back where they don't work.
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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Aug 31, 2018 - 10:29am PT
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that excerpt is not consistent with the words I just read as being directly from Elizabeth Warren or the philosophy she espouses.
Which Elizabeth Warren are you talking about in your OP WoT?
She has switched trains so many times in her political career that it's impossible to know what she really believes. In fact, she's just another career politician, with the same priorities that they all have, beholden to the same powers that they all are.
If you guys can't get past partisan thinking and set a date to literally throw all the bums out and do a reset, you will NOT have a crop of politicians that represents us, answers to us, fears us, and serves us. Thus, this will become just another politard thread (well, it's already there) filled with epithets and hand-wringing on both "sides," and no actual change in the game that is played out of Washington.
Nooo... you fear a genuine reset, so you prefer to maintain the status quo, all the while moaning about it and blaming the badness on "the other side." Once you get your minds around the reality that "both sides" are in the pockets of mega-corps, Wall Street, and big banking, then and only then will you tumble to the fact that a grass-roots, voter reset is the only way. That or revolution. But let's try a reset first.
My belief is that most of you, on "both sides" really don't want genuine freedom. You just want to be the ones controlling the most powerful entity ever created by mankind. That's why when "the other side" wins, it feels like an existential crisis.
The irony of that perspective is that you actually have ZERO control, whether your "side" wins or not. At present, we the people are effectively irrelevant. You think that voting in this or that president really matters, really makes a substantive difference, really produces change???
The federal government was never supposed to have anything approaching the power over our lives that it does. Reset that, and the sense of existential crisis will evaporate. Without a house-cleaning in Washington, it's literally (big) BUSINESS as usual, and this thread remains as irrelevant as your vote.
But, you know, carry on... as if it matters.
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NutAgain!
Trad climber
South Pasadena, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Aug 31, 2018 - 10:59am PT
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She also argued that corporations used to "share more of their earnings" with workers, rather than all the earnings going to shareholders. As another letter writer pointed out, that statement makes no sense, because we define earnings as what a business has left after it pays all expenses, including labor. Put differently, earnings constitute what goes to the owners. Don't use pedantry to obscure the main issue. As an economics professor, I would expect Warren to understand Income Statements and Balance Sheets and know the difference between income and earnings. But she attempts to make the spirit of her message understood by a broad range of Americans who don't necessarily have a college education or business accounting/finance knowledge. The core issue is how the value creation and income of a company is allocated; many things like COGS and sales/marketing expenses and IT/administrative expenses are functions of specific businesses and industries; but the allocation of pay between the lowliest of workers up to the CEO is within a company's control. There are external pressures in terms of competition for executives and people with specific rare skills, and there are profit margins that hinge on the salaries of a large number of low paid workers. But within these constraints there is always wiggle room, and the policies of the regulatory/governing bodies have a huge effect on shaping the environment that guides corporate strategy.
Without regulation or worker representation as a key stakeholder for corporate decision-making, we have the case in USA today that the AVERAGE CEO compensation for Fortune 500 companies ($10,500,000/yr as of 2012) is a whopping 724x the compensation of minimum wage workers.
I will grant that there are CEOs who can generate a lot more value with themselves and say 10 other people, than a random collection of 735 minimum wage workers. Sure they can't move a pile of gravel as fast using their manual labor in the next few weeks; but by using their minds and relationships, perhaps they can negotiate for equipment and design a process that gets the job done (without dirtying their own hands) at a lower cost and in less time. From an external perspective of putting in X money and seeing which leads to a better outcome, that CEO pay would be justified. It is really difficult to make these sorts of apples to oranges comparison of what a person is worth- in theory the market does make these determinations in a fairly elegant (if brutal) way.
I don't want to see government intervention fundamentally breaking this balancing role of market dynamics. But I do want to see governments changing the environment in which the balancing happens, which leads to different outcomes while still leveraging the market-balancing benefits.
For example, companies today have no incentive except to maximize profit. They can even blatantly break the law, as long as the cost of a legal defense and the penalties are lesser than trying to abide by the laws and regulations. For the largest companies, this is most effectively done NOT by improving products and services, but by investing in government lobbying to change the regulatory environment to reduce taxes and reduce regulations that increase the costs of whatever they provide. The larger the companies are, when billions of dollars are at stake, it is very worthwhile to pay $100 million to do WHATEVER is necessary to maximize profits. If paying this money to create false advertising to skew elections, to bribe politicians, to threaten politicians, will achieve the desired outcome, so be it. Just jump through the correct hoops of creating arms length transactions and plausible deniability by using PACs and Super-PACs and shell companies that hire lawyers who subcontract other specialists to do whatever nefarious deeds. So the CEOs who will be most in demand for large corporations are those who know how to apply money to manipulate our government, which increasingly means how to manipulate social media and "news" reporting to change the perceptions of people and alter election outcomes.
This is the main reason that I think the size of corporations should be limited. At a certain point they have an incentive to reduce focus on innovation and product/service development and instead focus on gaming the system. As this game is played on an international scale, the logical outcome is that companies will grow larger and more powerful than national governments. It is already at a point where corporations can simply work around whatever regulatory attempts in a given country by going to a different country for that piece/requirement of their business. For this reason, international trade agreements are needed to create a more uniform regulatory environment to patch the loopholes that corporations exploit.
The proposal to stop government politicians from accepting positions in the private sector seems like an excellent one to help break up this cycle too. Whereas bribes today can involve time-shifting by giving the money as "compensation" for a subsequent job or consulting or speaking event... if this loophole is cut out, we are back to a more black and white money transfer to an off-shore account and if the transactions can be traced, there is less ability to explain them away. That increases the likelihood of holding corporations and the political recipients accountable for the bribery.
As for government trying to regulate that businesses operate in a vaguely defined interest of the common good... that does seem like a rat-hole to me. The process of coming to a clear definition in what that means can waste endless dollars in lawsuits and legal distractions. For me, it would be better to have clearly defined boundaries and regulations for environmental pollutants, worker safety and working conditions, wages and benefits, etc. I haven't read the details of proposals that Warren is sponsoring, but perhaps this stuff is already in there and she is just summarizing to a simpler sound bite? Most of these specific environmental and worker safety and working conditions and minimum wage laws were already in place at one point, but it gets watered down with the constant pressure from large companies to increase profits using the most effective means they can.
There are very meaty tangential topics of media transparency, campaign finance reforms, etc... but I'm trying to stay focused.
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Tom
Big Wall climber
San Luis Obispo CA
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Aug 31, 2018 - 11:05am PT
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^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
You commie bastard! You sound just like Thomas Jefferson.
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fear
Ice climber
hartford, ct
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Aug 31, 2018 - 11:20am PT
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You think that voting in this or that president really matters, really makes a substantive difference, really produces change???
Ding Ding... we have a winner. It does matter to the nonsensical wedge issues however. Who can I marry? Is this plant/substance/rifle 'legal' for me to use?... The empire will continue to rape and pillage interally and externally at will.
This is the main reason that I think the size of corporations should be limited.
Who would enforce these regulations? Ahhh...ultimately gov't men with rifles and badges who control the preponderance of violence. We can wish for all kinds of things that will never happen with no incentive for those in power to enforce. Without dismantling the entire rotten power structure, it's all just mental masturbation with no happy ending.
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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Aug 31, 2018 - 11:31am PT
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I spend a lot of time in parking structures. If Americans are too stoopid to even park their cars,
and god knows how they were able to get to the parking structure, then how can they be
expected to make intelligent choices at the polls?
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Tom
Big Wall climber
San Luis Obispo CA
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Aug 31, 2018 - 11:51am PT
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^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Oh, GOD!
You should see the people in the tourist town I live in. It's complete transportational anarchy. The will, literally, wander like zombies off the sidewalk and into the middle of the street, and then stop and become mesmerized by the sight of a building. And, a car will suddenly stop on the highway, as if were a driveway, and they will become catatonically transfixed by the sight of some zebras in a field.
It's crazy!
In their defense, they come to the tourist town for a specific purpose of turning their brains off for a few days.
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Lituya
Mountain climber
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Aug 31, 2018 - 12:09pm PT
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So, roll back twenty-five years to when corporations largely terminate private-sector pension plans and set their employees adrift in the market. And now fast fwd and find a certain caste of liberals coveting the wealth of those who, often reluctantly, played the market game? And the Elizabeth Warrens of the world are gonna make things right? You tards are smokin' some potent commissar brand.
Never gonna happen.
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