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(02-20-2021, 11:14 PM)beechnut79 Wrote: (02-20-2021, 09:52 AM)David Horn Wrote: (02-20-2021, 04:21 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: (02-20-2021, 02:07 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: (02-20-2021, 12:48 AM)Einzige Wrote: What century plus old system?
The Bolshevik Revolution took place nearly 105 years ago. Stalin's worst horrors happened about 90 years ago.
The Communist Manifesto was written in 1848.
It's noteworthy that economic dogmas have a short shelf life. What we call "the economy" has changed so much in the last 200 years that its hard to see much of the past being relevant today. Keynes was uniquely foresighted by being uniquely open about the economic model. He focused on the human factors. Marx, on the other hand, was totally immersed in his model, which is so out of date today it's hard to take it seriously anymore.
But Keynes wasn’t right on everything either. Nearly a century ago he predicted that by this time most of us would be working 20 hours per week or less. Later futurists made similar predictions. And yet it seems that so many of us perhaps the majority are working more instead of less and have had to forgo gatherings with friends along with hobbies. One of the big lies of our times IMO. Wonder if we’ll ever see this more leisured society ever happen.
The solution for the most rapacious plutocrats was to make sure that everything got costlier, if no less efficient. Consider the cost of residential property: at one time the canon among mortgage lenders was that families should borrow no more on housing than 35% of their income as costs of principal, interest, taxes, and insurance. Renters supposedly paid less... but that is over. In some places, landlords can exact as much as 70% of disposable income from people. For-profit medicine may not be better at anything other than bleeding the assets of the middle class. Marx had the doctrine of the declining rate of profit, which a non-Marxist could reduce to the assumption that as capitalism matured and became more efficient, that capitalists would make on volume what they once made on high markups in new products.
Capitalists can get the easy money that they once did... and easy money for passive investors who need not innovate is potential exploitation. Easy money also creates some political perversity as easy money means plenty of lucre for expenditure on one of the most profitable actions possible: purchase of the political process.
(Oh, the alliteration!)
Henry George had his solution: tax the Hell out of easy money. Thus one (1) guts the inequality, and (2) gets the funds for a welfare state.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.
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02-22-2021, 05:05 PM
(This post was last modified: 02-22-2021, 05:12 PM by Eric the Green.)
#......Country..........Total Cases......New Cases......Total Deaths......New Deaths
........World.............111,968,471.....+319,960.........2,478,291.........+6,509
1.......USA.................28,767,050......+58,423............511,217.........+1,244
2.......India................11,005,071.....+13,980............156,418..............+79
3.......Brazil................10,168,174.....+29,026............246,560............+554
4.......Russia................4,164,726.....+12,742..............83,293...........+417
5.......UK.....................4,115,509.......+9,834...........120,579............+214
6.......France................3,605,181.....+22,046.............84,280............+133
7.......Spain..................3,145,740.......+5,676.............67,457............+178
8.......Italy....................2,809,233.....+13,439.............95,718............+232
9.......Turkey................2,638,422.......+6,546.............28,060..............+77
10.....Germany.............2,394,584.......+6,167.............68,443............+100
11.....Colombia.............2,226,262......+4,244..............58,834............+149
12.....Argentina............2,064,334.......+3,709..............51,198.............+76
13.....Mexico................2,038,276.......+7,785............179,797...........+832
14.....Poland................1,638,768........+7,039.............42,171.............+94
15.....Iran....................1,574,012........+7,931.............59,483.............+74
Feb.21 https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
#......State................TotalCases.....New Cases.....Total Deaths.....New Deaths
1......California..........3,517,576......+4,611...........49,314.............+207
2......Texas...............2,604,277......+6,806...........42,449.............+137
3......Florida..............1,868,772......+5,065...........29,906..............+93
4......New York..........1,627,523......+6,482...........47,020............+101
5......Illinois...............1,174,409.....+1,585............22,466.............+40
6......Georgia................985,505.....+1,758............16,744...............+2
7......Ohio....................953,767......+1,461...........16,816..............+67
8......Pennsylvania........918,178......+1,798...........23,698..............+24
9......North Carolina......842,637......+2,541...........10,926..............+30
10.....Arizona...............807,967......+1,804...........15,502..............+22
(02-18-2021, 01:54 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: #......Country.........Total Cases.....New Cases.....Total Deaths.....New Deaths
.........World...........110,423,750....+397,372.......2,439,907........+11,383
1.......USA................28,453,526.....+71,640...........502,544..........+2,537
2.......India...............10,949,546....+12,440..........156,038...............+89
3.......Brazil.................9,979,276....+57,295..........242,178..........+1,195
4.......Russia................4,112,151....+12,828...........81,446.............+467
5.......UK.....................4,071,185....+12,718.........118,933.............+738
6.......France...............3,514,147....+25,018...........83,122.............+310
7.......Spain.................3,107,172....+10,829...........66,316............+337
8.......Italy...................2,751,650....+12,067...........94,540............+369
9.......Turkey...............2,609,359......+7,325...........27,738..............+86
10.....Germany............2,362,384......+9,618...........67,074............+538
11.....Colombia............2,207,701......+5,103...........58,134............+185
12.....Argentina...........2,039,124......+6,064............50,616............+184
13.....Mexico...............2,004,575......+8,683..........175,986.........+1,329
14.....Poland...............1,605,373......+8,695............41,309............+280
15.....Iran...................1,542,076......+8,042............59,184..............+67
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
The UK variant surge is happening in Germany, Poland, Chechia and, it looks like, the USA, and elsewhere. Brazilian variant surge in Brazil. Vaccine supply is too low.
Previous list: http://generational-theory.com/forum/thr...l#pid74897
#......State....................Total Cases.......New Cases......Total Deaths......New Deaths
........USA Total..............28,453,526.......+71,640..........502,544............+2,537
1......California.................3,492,045........+6,440............47,916...............+409
2......Texas......................2,583,822........+4,178............41,728.................+76
3......Florida.....................1,844,627........+7,342............29,311...............+158
4......New York.................1,597,308.......+6,293.............46,457...............+122
5......Illinois......................1,166,717.......+1,795.............22,224.................+25
6......Georgia.......................973,247.......+3,545.............16,273.................+99
7......Ohio............................945,107.......+1,816............16,513.................+63
8......Pennsylvania................907,736.......+3,530............23,418...............+190
9......North Carolina..............829,507.......+3,167............10,670...............+108
10....Arizona........................801,055.......+1,315.............15,063................+82
In the back of my mind is still the thought, this virus is coming for all of us and will kill us all. Not my prediction, mind you.
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Arguing with Einzige about Marxism on the coronavirus page. Does that mean that Marxism is a pandemic?
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(02-22-2021, 09:04 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Arguing with Einzige about Marxism on the coronavirus page. Does that mean that Marxism is a pandemic?
I suspect he is so locked into one thing that everything is part of that one thing.
That this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.
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02-22-2021, 11:53 PM
(This post was last modified: 02-22-2021, 11:54 PM by Einzige.)
(02-22-2021, 11:43 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: (02-22-2021, 09:04 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Arguing with Einzige about Marxism on the coronavirus page. Does that mean that Marxism is a pandemic?
I suspect he is so locked into one thing that everything is part of that one thing.
No more or less so than you being locked into bourgeois left-liberalism.
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Do not blame China... do not blame China... do not blame China!
South Korea did much the same things, and got similar results.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.
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(02-22-2021, 11:53 PM)Einzige Wrote: No more or less so than you being locked into bourgeois left-liberalism.
I would put my center on the triplet of ages, turnings and civilizations. Specifically, for each civilization the crisis gets rid of one or more immediate flaws of the previous age. As these flaws can involve many things, you have to learn the many things. Capitol is just one of the things.
Once upon a time revolution was the key act. Getting rid of the nobles was the clearing out of the Agricultural Age pattern. The means of production was agricultural land. When that was done, revolting against the industrial revolution and the Robber Barons seemed the next step. Factories became the means of production. It is not an irrational way of looking at things.
But racism, non violence, military balance, democracy, tribalism, religion and so many other things play a role in human culture. Looking at things from a narrow century plus old perspective just doesn’t do it.
Besides this, the problem was controlling the violent clique which inevitably hijacks any revolution. Too many people see this problem which was never solved as a reason to avoid a revolution. Communism became a non starter as democracy and non violence allowed you to change the culture without violence.
This does not mean the imbalance of wealth isn’t still a problem. It will eventually be considered the most important problem left and be addressed in an awakening or crisis. Looking at this crisis, that isn’t one of the current problems to be addressed. That and perhaps global warming are all that are left, and only because warming won’t go away instantly. If a good size effort is made towards warming this crisis, I could see the imbalance of wealth problem being addressed starting as soon as next awakening.
But in the democratic cultures, protest and legislation seem the most obvious way to change the culture. Autocracies? They have a talent for trying to ignore the people. Violence may be necessary. Ironic, but the cultures that patterned themselves originally on Marx may be victims of revolution.
That this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.
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(02-22-2021, 03:31 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: Henry George had his solution: tax the Hell out of easy money. Thus one (1) guts the inequality, and (2) gets the funds for a welfare state.
Yep. We will see some of that this crisis. I suspect come the awakening, we will see a lot more of it among the democracies. As I stated above, the imbalance of wealth may become the biggest problem left. After the stimulus package, the Democrats will have one more money and budget bill this year they can pass with a simple majority. I wouldn't be surprised if it centered on Henry George's idea.
Among the autocracies? What happens if the elites set the tax rates? Henry George's solution becomes easy said.
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The easy money is heavily taxed without distortion of the incentives to keep earning it. It's the non-so-easy money that a requires effort to maintain.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.
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(02-22-2021, 11:43 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: (02-22-2021, 09:04 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Arguing with Einzige about Marxism on the coronavirus page. Does that mean that Marxism is a pandemic?
I suspect he is so locked into one thing that everything is part of that one thing.
We can more than suspect; it is obvious!
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The death toll has now surpassed the population of Atlanta (the 37th largest city) and is approaching that of Sacramento. The distribution of cities by population as analogues size thins out at this level of mass death.
Don't fool yourself. Even if COVID-19 does not kill outright, it is doing organ damage that will shorten lives among 'survivors'. While I was undergoing a routine medical check-up for high blood pressure I got to meet someone who had survived COVID-19. He was on oxygen, and he needed help by people taking him to the medical office. I got the first injection and I have had body aches, shortness of breath, and upper-respiratory distress. I can only imagine what a real infection would do to me. Off to the nursing home after a nasty time under hospitalization?
COVID-19 is a thoroughly-evil disease. Unless one has had some personal involvement in it one cannot know how horrible it truly is.
The death toll in the USA is about half the level at which one reaches the level of death in Josef Stalin's infamous quote "One death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic". There is much weeping and wailing yet to be done, some of it delayed.
COVID-19 kills. At the least we now have a President who doesn't trivialize the disease. I got my injection from a soldier. If you want to do something on a mass scale. the Army is really good at it.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.
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Still 71,000 new cases in the USA yesterday, and 2400 new deaths. I'm not sure the virus is declining anymore.
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(02-24-2021, 12:10 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Still 71,000 new cases in the USA yesterday, and 2400 new deaths. I'm not sure the virus is declining anymore.
Not only isn't it declining, it's going to hit like a motherfucker over the summer.
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(02-24-2021, 01:18 PM)Einzige Wrote: (02-24-2021, 12:10 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Still 71,000 new cases in the USA yesterday, and 2400 new deaths. I'm not sure the virus is declining anymore.
Not only isn't it declining, it's going to hit like a motherfucker over the summer.
Probably not. Vaccines are being distributed worldwide, so some protection is available there (especially in the OECD countries). Then there's the issue of warm weather and less time indoors. Overall, the infection rate should slowly drop over the next 6 months, although brief upticks may occur.
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(02-21-2021, 11:17 AM)David Horn Wrote: (02-21-2021, 10:55 AM)Einzige Wrote: (02-21-2021, 08:35 AM)David Horn Wrote: (02-20-2021, 11:14 PM)beechnut79 Wrote: (02-20-2021, 09:52 AM)David Horn Wrote: It's noteworthy that economic dogmas have a short shelf life. What we call "the economy" has changed so much in the last 200 years that its hard to see much of the past being relevant today. Keynes was uniquely foresighted by being fully open about the economic model. He focused on the human factors. Marx, on the other hand, was totally immersed in his model, which is so out of date today it's hard to take it seriously anymore.
But Keynes wasn’t right on everything either. Nearly a century ago he predicted that by this time most of us would be working 20 hours per week or less. Later futurists made similar predictions. And yet it seems that so many of us perhaps the majority are working more instead of less and have had to forgo gatherings with friends along with hobbies. One of the big lies of our times IMO. Wonder if we’ll ever see this more leisured society ever happen.
Keynes noted what should happen, but failed to appreciate the power of the ownership class to overwhelm the working class by getting them to believe they were unworthy. After all, Keynes was an economist, not a sociologist. Sadly, the veil remains in place. There are a few folks working to pick that lock. My money is on Heather McGhee -- first among the many.
Lol, Keynes hated the working class.
... and the importance of this is what exactly? It's not all that uncommon for the highly educated intelligencia to relate poorly with people who they don't respect or even understand very well. Keynes favored eugenics too -- yet another reprehensible belief he held. That in no way diminishes the insight he had on how the economy actually works, nor does that insight provide a fig leaf for his many failings.
That's why I chose Heather McGhee as an archetype of the next socio-economic wave. Unlike Keynes, she actually sees the humanity in the downtrodden, and has an innate talent for translating that into progress.
Few people relate well to everyone who deserves to be related to (the exclusion of course if for the evil-doers of the world, and I don't want to relate to Ted Bundy or Pol Pot). We all have some equivalent of a curtain between ourselves and people with whom we have little in common.
Today we are aghast about the idea of eugenics because it is so extremely classist as a concept, yet there was one a huge concern that the very stupid and crazy would never carry their weight. Often institutionalized, they would be public charges with little to redeem them as economic participants. If they did get freedom they would have few honorable means of supporting themselves. The people formulating the rationale and policies behind eugenics were among the best and brightest of the time, so that ensured that the promoters of eugenics often failed to understand the humanity of the stupid and crazy.
We now elect them (OK, that is a horrible joke!)
The peak distribution of IQ (to the extent that that is a valid measure) has a mode and mean at 100. People 40 points lower than that or 40 points above that are comparatively rare. Human evolution favored what we see as average, and not something higher. In general, people with IQ's around 140 live well, and people with IQ's around 60 don't.... but there is no obvious survival value in having an IQ around 140.
People are downtrodden for reasons other than stupidity, vice, and laziness. Can we afford to have downtrodden people (except for those who have done horrible things that make them unsuited to living among us)? I think not.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.
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02-27-2021, 11:41 PM
(This post was last modified: 02-27-2021, 11:51 PM by Eric the Green.)
#......Country.....Total Cases........New Cases...Total Deaths....New Deaths
........World........114,365,543......+387,697......2,536,703.......+8,048
1......USA.............29,202,824......+64,320..........524,669.......+1,554
2......India............11,096,440......+17,346.........157,087..........+117
3......Brazil...........10,517,232.......+59,438.........254,263.......+1,275
4......Russia...........4,234,720.......+11,534...........85,743..........+439
5......UK................4,170,519.........+7,434.........122,705..........+290
6......France..........3,736,016.......+23,996...........86,332..........+185
7......Spain............3,188,553..................?...........69,142................?
8......Italy..............2,907,825......+18,916...........97,507..........+280
9......Turkey..........2,693,164........+9,193...........28,503............+71
10....Germany.......2,444,177........+7,671...........70,589..........+168
11....Colombia.......2,248,135........+3,343...........59,660..........+142
12....Argentina......2,104,197........+5,469...........51,946............+59
13....Mexico..........2,076,882........+7,512.........184,474...........+782
14....Poland..........1,696,885......+12,100...........43,656...........+303
15....Iran..............1,623,159........+7,975..........59,980.............+81
16....South Africa..1,512,225........+1,447..........49,941............+157
Feb 26 2021 https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
#......State..................Total Cases........New Cases......Total Deaths......New Deaths
1......California............3,551,618..........+4,338............51,979..............+158
2......Texas.................2,653,467..........+5,777............43,885..............+158
3......Florida................1,903,682..........+5,459............30,740..............+114
4......New York............1,673,171..........+8,213............47,720..............+100
5......Illinois................1,185,447..........+1,780.............22,710...............+35
6......Georgia..............1,004,187..........+3,365.............17,294...............+75
7......Ohio.....................966,154..........+1,773.............17,241................+56
8......Pennsylvania.........934,354..........+3,014.............24,041....................?
9......North Carolina.......858,548..........+2,643.............11,212................+26
10....Arizona.................815,707..........+1,179.............15,967................+70
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/
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As of Feb 28 and March 1st, USA new cases about 53,000, Brazil about 35/38,000, while France fell from 20,000 to 4000 new cases today. Italy had over 17,000 new cases and India over 15,000, yesterday.
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
Today as of 6 PM, CA had recorded 4215 new cases, while Texas had over 6500 and NY had the most with 6700. CA led the death march with 276 today and 234 yesterday. Florida had 150 today and New York 122, with Texas at 106. Other states well below.
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/
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03-04-2021, 05:52 AM
(This post was last modified: 03-04-2021, 05:55 AM by Eric the Green.)
Brazil surging in new cases and new deaths under Bolsonaro; USA slightly up as Texas opens up new USA surge in variant infections. Variants cause rise in new cases in France and Italy.
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
CA stays at just over 4000 new cases, while Texas, New York and Florida still surging. Texas takes small lead over CA in the death march of new deaths in March.
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/
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At some point, the states will have to be sidelined or we will never get a real handle on this pandemic. Listen to Greg Abbott explain why this societal menace is really just a case of poor individual judgement. If we applied that idea to fighting wars, we would dispose of military orders and just offer guidance to the troops as we suggest they might be wise to fight... or not -- their choice. I'm sure that will work.
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We did pass Fresno, America's 34th-largest city. Death totals are starting to abate as new cases diminish. This said, it is still too early to relax the needful preventive measures. The inoculations are finally reaching more people, but the other plague (human stupidity) isn't.
I have been slowing on reporting cities that the death toll progresses because the cities are thinning out. Tucson, the 33th-largest city in the US, has about 16,500 people more than Fresno and would be reached in about four days at recent days of peak death. America has 314 defined cities in its 50 states and DC, five such cities in Puerto Rico, and eight census-designated places with more than 100,000. 16,500 people is roughly the difference between 314th (Bend, Oregon) and 244th (Clearwater, Florida) at the 'low end'.
(I was wrong when I said that Arlington, Texas was America's largest suburb. Mesa, Arizona is... and is much bigger than Arlington).
28 cities used to be over 100,000 and either have been absorbed into another city (Brooklyn into New York City; Allegheny into Pittsburgh), Niagara Falls is now the smallest such city; Youngstown has taken the biggest percentage and numerical fall from its height: Gary, Indiana (hint: Rush Limbaugh has made it to such a place): Flint, Michigan; and Youngstown, Ohio have all lost over 100,000 people mostly due to economic distress.
If this is a grisly comparison, then so be it. That people sanitize death bugs the Hell out of me. I can understand devout people using such terminology as "was taken to Jesus". I do not see violent death (which includes deaths in vehicle crashes, building collapses, and being killed in action in war) as "passing away". The worst, of course, was Josef Stalin saying that one death is a tragedy and a million is a statistic. We are halfway to Stalin's "statistic".
Do you know what is really grisly? COVID-19!
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.
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