(08-08-2020, 01:57 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(08-08-2020, 01:17 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: I'm OK with the Democrats shutting down cheap meat packing plants that mainly employ cheap immigrants (legal or illegal)  that provide cheap food for cheap people like you to eat. I think it would be a major mistake but whatever the Democrats seem know what's best for Democrats and you seem to be on board with the Democratic way of thinking. Well, have fun starving and dealing with hungry people as you're waiting for couple of disconnected  multi-millionaires/ aristocrats  named Nancy and Chuck to figure it out and maybe do something about it or possibly ignore it or whatever. Like I said, I'll go in with a Republican minded friend and buy a fucking cow to eat as your waiting for free food.

Not enough thinking is going into changing our work habits to protect workers in the age of COVUS.  Places like meat packing plants are optimized for max profits in non pandemic times.  Expanding space to improve isolation while continuing work would be nice.  But, no.  Trump just declares meat packing plants essential, forces the workers to work, and we continue on putting workers at risk.  Let them die.  Can't let a few worker deaths impact profits, can we?

At least in buying a cow you are using a little smarts to avoid some of Trump's deaths.  More ways to work while isolating are needed.  Still, most people would rather wait on a vaccine than think and change.  I have already given ideas on how this could be done with my own software writing profession.

I am watching a handful of court cases advance, or not advance as the case might be.  MA law mandates the shut down of many court rooms and lawyers offices due to the bug, thus only major criminal cases are currently being heard.  Even if Walmart and a hospital involve in the cases are regarded as essential, they are using the COVID shutdowns as an excuse not to pay their debts.  The legal system is beginning to respond to this.  Judge's offices, jails and lawyer's offices are beginning to all have Zoom or similar interfaces so that virtual reality allows them to hold virtual meetings.  Some sense of normal pacing is returning in spite of the bug.

This is the sort of thing which everybody should be striving for, the ability to continue productive work while still isolating.  We can't afford just to stop and sit.  We can't mandate worker deaths to protect corporate profits.  We certainly can't afford certain conservatives refusing to take simple painless precautions or putting profits ahead of lives.

(08-08-2020, 02:31 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(08-07-2020, 10:33 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(08-07-2020, 09:57 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(08-07-2020, 08:31 PM)Ragnarök_62 Wrote:

(07-31-2020, 07:36 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: The Social Security Trust Fund has already been spent and is currently being tapped to cover the shortfall between the wage earners and recipients. We are paying for China's virus not Trump's virus. See, you're still thinking like a Democrat too. Dude, the bulk of Obama's stimulus went to shoring up Obama's base and about a quarter went to fixing some roads. The Obama stimulus was probably the biggest political scam in US history. I take that back, it's probably tied with Obamacare and Trump-Russian collusion. I watched that dip shit playing his partisan politics during the funeral the other day.

Yes, the SS trust fund was stolen to pay for all of those stupid wars of choice and tax cuts for the fat cats.  The solution is to stop wasting money like that. Let's undo every tax cut since Reagan was elected and cut the military budget by 90%.  The US spends 10 times on the military than the next big spender. There's the waste fraud and abuse the Republicans always bitch about. If Republicans care about the deficit, they can fix that stuff. Uh, it's not "China's virus."  The US due to privatize everything, was a sitting duck. The corona virus arrived by the planeload because the US DIDN'T DO FUCKING SHIT TO KEEP IT OUT.  Only idiocy or incompetence make stuff like this happen. Guess what? It's gonna get worse, because the US has no clue and when folks are scared to go out now and when it gets worse, the fewer folks go out for good reason. Nobody wants to get sick. And yes, I really do want the stock market to crash, because it means nothing. I'd like a 90% crash , thank you, so I can buy stocks at the proper price. Here's another observation. The US social contract is to get a job [if you can], and spend you money. That's it, nothing more. If you can't get a job, then it's the streets for you.  I can, of course just fuck off my part of the bargain and not spend, or just get clothes from a 2nd hand store. I don't have to participate in a system that's no good.  I'll keep voting to butter my bread since that's the American way as exemplified by the fatcats.  If Warren Buffet can have a lower tax rate than I do, then I can go back to the 1970's way and ignore the , buy, buy , go into debt racket. Speaking of rackets, that's most of the US economy.  We have a healthcare racket, a college education racket, rental rackets in assorted cities, Big Food racket, Big Oil racket, and on and on, and on. I don't care if rackets crash and burn either.

It was primarily used/ borrowed against to bring an abrupt  end to the Soviet Union. You educated me on your philosophy of life during the Obama years. It didn't jive with mine at the time or today but it kind of did jive with mine about 30 some years ago when I was first started out on my own during the late 80's.

Young people are hip; older people often lose the spirit of life and get worried about money and in their insecurity they hang on to traditions and symbols. Myself though, I keep the spirit alive.

That was the strategy, as I wrote in my book published in 1997. First one to go broke loses. So Reagan built up the military to scare the Soviets, and they had to build it up to scare us in turn. And they shot down an airliner full of Americans. They were going broke faster than us. The Russians got lucky and got a couple of reformers at the helm to try to change their system. We didn't.

The bad news is two-fold. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. The commies were gone, but now they have a new tsar just as bad as the old ones. Even Eastern Europe is no longer free. Meanwhile, our new boss Reagan promised to balance the budget. Instead he unleashed the national debt as never before, and Bush and Trump have put us into total bankruptcy. We didn't fare much better than the Soviets. They got a new tsar and the same old poverty. We got a society where young people can't get ahead, where our infrastructure and education are rotten, and where we rank 36th instead of #1 in measures like life expectancy and the health of our children.

I suppose it will be OK for us to spend trillions of dollars to pay for the Trump Virus. As long as interest rates remain low, because of our slow economy, at least taxes won't go up to pay the interest on our debt. As long as the rich capture all the growth of our economy, thanks to Reaganomics (still in effect after 40 years), salaries and wages will remain flat and the economy will not overheat, and young and poor people will remain miserable.

I suppose if the Democrats get in and rebuild the middle class by deposing Reaganomics, including raising taxes on the wealthy, raising minimum wages and redistributing what the rich have extorted, the people will get more money in their pockets and the economy could heat up with inflation again. Then will be the time for the government to take its share from more of us to cool off the economy, and pay for some of the federal debt and interest as interest rates go up. But only then will we in the USA recover from that project "to bring an abrupt end to the Soviet Union" and recover our spirit. Both countries have paid a high price, and as of now I see no way out for the former Soviets.

Yep. The young people seem pretty  hip and care free as you say. I was the same way about thirty five years ago. I guess I fucked up by growing up and accepting responsibility vs refusing to grow up, remaining  immature, self centered    and reliant upon adults or nations  to provide. Yes, the China virus has been very costly to all of us. So, do you think I give a shit about what Nike thinks or give a shit about what some hip basket player who happens to be black who makes MILLIONS or some group of football players who happen to be black or part black who make Millions or a group of professional sport team owners worth billions  who happen to be white have  to say about anything that's viewed as important or relevant to any of them these days. So, what are you going to do when America wins and all those dumb fuckers end up poorer and end up competing against the country and the system that created every fucking one of them. So, what the fuck do you have to offer them when America is done teaching them. Do you think wide scale boycotts that brings tears to eyes of bunch of dumb business owners and business professions dealing with major losses is impossible today? I'm not nearly as racist as you would hope or want to  believe at this point. I watched a black dude trying to cover up what has already been determined to be a huge mistake that is going to impact everyone associated with professional sports today. IDIOTS ARE IDIOTS TO ME AND I DON'T CARE WHAT THE COLOR OF THE IDIOTS SKIN IS EITHER. I'm sorry but America has no sympathy for idiots who don't realize whose country they're living in these days.

(08-08-2020, 01:17 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: I'm OK with the Democrats shutting down cheap meat packing plants that mainly employ cheap immigrants (legal or illegal)  that provide cheap food for cheap people like you to eat. I think it would be a major mistake but whatever the Democrats seem know what's best for Democrats and you seem to be on board with the Democratic way of thinking. Well, have fun starving and dealing with hungry people as you're waiting for couple of disconnected  multi-millionaires/ aristocrats  named Nancy and Chuck to figure it out and maybe do something about it or possibly ignore it or whatever. Like I said, I'll go in with a Republican minded friend and buy a fucking cow to eat as your waiting for free food.

(08-08-2020, 04:01 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: I can understand why paying debts and keeping up with demand would be pretty tough without the ability to conduct regular business so to speak. I assume life would be much tougher for you and your bills would be tougher to pay if I were to take away the bulk of your revenues. So, how many years is it going to take for the liberal courts to catch up on all the work that its been putting off or refusing to do for its taxpayers for several months now? Yes, we have a bunch of tax dollars being spent of dip shit Democrats sitting around doing nothing, what little they can do from home, refusing to work due to COVID19 concerns and forming an impression of supporting a bunch of stupid stuff that pisses off American taxpayers and consumers these days.

(08-08-2020, 09:28 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(08-08-2020, 04:01 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: I can understand why paying debts and keeping up with demand would be pretty tough without the ability to conduct regular business so to speak. I assume life would be much tougher for you and your bills would be tougher to pay if I were to take away the bulk of your revenues. So, how many years is it going to take for the liberal courts to catch up on all the work that its been putting off or refusing to do for its taxpayers for several months now? Yes, we have a bunch of tax dollars being spent of dip shit Democrats sitting around doing nothing, what little they can do from home, refusing to work due to COVID19 concerns and forming an impression of supporting a bunch of stupid stuff that pisses off American taxpayers and consumers these days.

We have to decide what is truly essential.  We have to figure out how to both work and isolate.  We have to decide what debts will be forgiven or delayed for a time.  For example, many are not paying rents these days.  Debts set by courts are being ignored.

But in America we don't have liberal courts and conservative courts.  We have one legal system.  Where do you get your fantasies again?

(08-08-2020, 04:01 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: , we have a bunch of tax dollars being spent of dip shit Democrats sitting around doing nothing, what little they can do from home, refusing to work due to COVID19 concerns

(11-20-2020, 01:15 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: Capitalism is no better than the moral compass of the capitalists or what the government and threats of lawsuits can impose upon them. Suppose that I own a truck line "Brower Express Lines (BEL)". I'm going to set some rules. So let us suppose that someone driving a load for which the driver has a responsibility to deliver to a retail chain. I have good cause to not want any delay due to vehicle crashes, hijackings, or confiscations. So let me consider something that could be troublesome: a trucker finds an underage prostitute at a truck stop and solicits sex with her. He pays the money and commits a felony. he gets busted, and everything suggests an open-and-shut case.

(Before anyone says that someone who supplies underage prostitutes is a capitalist, I can say this: I almost endorse how China deals with human traffickers: the death penalty. With murder, the misery ends with death. With human trafficking, Hell on Earth has started for an indefinite time).

OK, I have a clear policy for anyone driving a load for me (and ultimately the producer of the load and its retail buyer): do not consort with prostitutes while delivering merchandise on BEL. It is a delay, and it is risky. I want to have a family-friendly company, and I prefer that wives of truckers know that I have such a policy. It might make it easier to find truckers. I may have the idea that people who follow the Judeo-Christian ethic (irrespective of their theology) are more reliable than people who don't. It's behavior and not theology.

I still have some responsibility to get the load from Texas to Ohio and it is in Tennessee because an employee (whom I have fired for the crime of having sex with a minor), and I am going to make sure that the load goes to its appointed destination. I will find someone to complete the trip  even if it requires me to find someone reasonably close, put him in a taxi, and get him to that truck stop to complete that trip. You can bet that I will dock the fired trucker for the cost of the cab fare, at the least. I already have a policy in place and I make it clear: do not do prostitution while delivering freight for me. It is made abundantly clear.

Now here is a risk awaiting a truck line: it is possible that some crusading DA will seize the cargo because someone that I had delivering it got ensnared with a minor. Nobody knows when that will happen first. I do not want to pay for a cargo lost under those circumstances. Eventually truck lines will face that risk.

Moral conduct is far less risky than immoral conduct. We have laws to make grossly-immoral behavior (like having sex with a minor) not worth the risk. We also have civil courts to make sure that businesses recognize the risk and set policies that make such deeds unlikely.

If ethics don't cause me to set a no-prostitution-on-the-road rule, then economic consequences of delays and lost revenue do. If that doesn't work, then the risk of severe economic losses may be all that there is to compel a business owner to compel integrity in operations. Do you think I would risk a load of either a perishable commodity (meat) or high-value merchandise (the latest clothing or electronics) to someone who wants to get some sexual gratification that could be illegal?

Such are capitalist choices. I could operate on one of three levels, all of them working to the same end: efficiency, risk containment, and asset protection.

(11-20-2020, 01:27 PM)Einzige Wrote: The morality, or lack thereof, of individual capitalists or irrelevant. Capital is a systemic totality to which everyone, including the individual capitalist, is yoked.

(11-20-2020, 02:39 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(11-20-2020, 01:27 PM)Einzige Wrote: The morality, or lack thereof, of individual capitalists or irrelevant. Capital is a systemic totality to which everyone, including the individual capitalist, is yoked.

Unfortunately, the Marxist revolutionaries come to own the means of production, and just come to replace the capitalists in exploiting the worker.  If in some way (such as democracy) you could keep enabling the worker to put limits on the elite class, I might listen.  Alas, the Elites provided the money during the recent unraveling, the racists provided the votes.  Potentially, we could return to a newer deal configuration.  The right promises were made.  We will see if they can be kept.

(11-20-2020, 09:35 PM)pbrower2a Wrote:

(11-20-2020, 02:39 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(11-20-2020, 01:27 PM)Einzige Wrote: The morality, or lack thereof, of individual capitalists or irrelevant. Capital is a systemic totality to which everyone, including the individual capitalist, is yoked.

Unfortunately, the Marxist revolutionaries come to own the means of production, and just come to replace the capitalists in exploiting the worker.  If in some way (such as democracy) you could keep enabling the worker to put limits on the elite class, I might listen.  Alas, the Elites provided the money during the recent unraveling, the racists provided the votes.  Potentially, we could return to a newer deal configuration.  The right promises were made.  We will see if they can be kept.

... The survival of capitalism is far more likely when capitalists act in accordance with some moral compass.  The first rule is to not do evil. The second is to not tolerate it. The third is to turn a profit. Mafia-like syndicates put the latter first, do evil, and corrupt the entire system. 

(11-23-2020, 01:03 PM)David Horn Wrote: Capitalism does not include morality or ethics. They are only there when imposed externally.  Since we have allowed the image of "friendly capitalism" to flourish, it will be a hard slog getting the exploited to recognize their fate.  For now, they blame government and "the others", whoever that may be at any given time.  Until that changes, nothing else will either.

(11-23-2020, 01:53 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(11-23-2020, 01:03 PM)David Horn Wrote: Capitalism does not include morality or ethics. They are only there when imposed externally.  Since we have allowed the image of "friendly capitalism" to flourish, it will be a hard slog getting the exploited to recognize their fate.  For now, they blame government and "the others", whoever that may be at any given time.  Until that changes, nothing else will either.

The Tea Party was originally an attempt by the Republican base to purge the elite influence.  The progressive wing of the Democrats gives some lip service to attempting to benefit the poor and minorities rather than the elites as well.  The idea is bubbling near the surface.  Agree there is much yet to be done.

(11-25-2020, 03:27 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: I consider that the Republicans pulled off a huge ruse by convincing people that the Tea Party and Trump are movements against "elites." Nothing could be further from the truth. They are movements that are foundations stones for much greater growth in the power of elites.

(11-25-2020, 03:27 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(11-23-2020, 01:53 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(11-23-2020, 01:03 PM)David Horn Wrote: Capitalism does not include morality or ethics. They are only there when imposed externally.  Since we have allowed the image of "friendly capitalism" to flourish, it will be a hard slog getting the exploited to recognize their fate.  For now, they blame government and "the others", whoever that may be at any given time.  Until that changes, nothing else will either.

The Tea Party was originally an attempt by the Republican base to purge the elite influence.  The progressive wing of the Democrats gives some lip service to attempting to benefit the poor and minorities rather than the elites as well.  The idea is bubbling near the surface.  Agree there is much yet to be done.

I consider that the Republicans pulled off a huge ruse by convincing people that the Tea Party and Trump are movements against "elites." Nothing could be further from the truth. They are movements that are foundations stones for much greater growth in the power of elites.

(11-25-2020, 06:56 PM)Einzige Wrote: There is no movement against "the elite" in the United States, if by "elite" we actually mean the bourgeoisie with a definite relationship to the instruments of production as a totality and not some nebulous abstract like "the greedy" or "the Jews" or "the Illuminati".

(11-25-2020, 09:59 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(11-25-2020, 06:56 PM)Einzige Wrote: There is no movement against "the elite" in the United States, if by "elite" we actually mean the bourgeoisie with a definite relationship to the instruments of production as a totality and not some nebulous abstract like "the greedy" or "the Jews" or "the Illuminati".

Sorry, I'm talking about the real world.  I could try to shift into your theoretical doublespeak, but it doen't seem worth the bother just now.

(11-25-2020, 10:27 PM)Einzige Wrote: Right. The real world, where social classes have definite, objective existences, defined not by mere monetary wealth (as in "the 1%" of vulgar left-populists coming out of Occupy) but by the social and juridical relationship to the means of production from which that wealth arises.

Democratic Party left-liberalism is the favored orientation of a sector of the bourgeoisie in the United States, favoring as it does fiscally "loose" policies that support banks and subsidies to the tech and "green" energy sectors, as well as those factions of academia responsible for administering the capitalist State.

Quote:Since the Young Hegelians consider conceptions, thoughts, ideas, in fact all the products of consciousness, to which they attribute an independent existence, as the real chains of men (just as the Old Hegelians declared them the true bonds of human society) it is evident that the Young Hegelians have to fight only against these illusions of consciousness. Since, according to their fantasy, the relationships of men, all their doings, their chains and their limitations are products of their consciousness, the Young Hegelians logically put to men the moral postulate of exchanging their present consciousness for human, critical or egoistic consciousness, and thus of removing their limitations. This demand to change consciousness amounts to a demand to interpret reality in another way, i.e. to recognise it by means of another interpretation. The Young-Hegelian ideologists, in spite of their allegedly “world-shattering" statements, are the staunchest conservatives. The most recent of them have found the correct expression for their activity when they declare they are only fighting against “phrases.” They forget, however, that to these phrases they themselves are only opposing other phrases, and that they are in no way combating the real existing world when they are merely combating the phrases of this world.

(11-23-2020, 01:03 PM)David Horn Wrote:

(11-20-2020, 09:35 PM)pbrower2a Wrote:

(11-20-2020, 02:39 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(11-20-2020, 01:27 PM)Einzige Wrote: The morality, or lack thereof, of individual capitalists or irrelevant. Capital is a systemic totality to which everyone, including the individual capitalist, is yoked.

Unfortunately, the Marxist revolutionaries come to own the means of production, and just come to replace the capitalists in exploiting the worker.  If in some way (such as democracy) you could keep enabling the worker to put limits on the elite class, I might listen.  Alas, the Elites provided the money during the recent unraveling, the racists provided the votes.  Potentially, we could return to a newer deal configuration.  The right promises were made.  We will see if they can be kept.

... The survival of capitalism is far more likely when capitalists act in accordance with some moral compass.  The first rule is to not do evil. The second is to not tolerate it. The third is to turn a profit. Mafia-like syndicates put the latter first, do evil, and corrupt the entire system. 

Capitalism does not include morality or ethics. They are only there when imposed externally.  Since we have allowed the image of "friendly capitalism" to flourish, it will be a hard slog getting the exploited to recognize their fate.  For now, they blame government and "the others", whoever that may be at any given time.  Until that changes, nothing else will either.