[pp.int.general] My thoughts at present

[carlo von lynX]

On Tue, Nov 01, 2016 at 09:19:47AM -0400, James O'Keefe wrote:
> I see robots as just another form of capital, and the question becomes what
> happens if a larger and larger portion of production only requires capital
> and raw materials and not labor? You really cannot divorce this process
> from the 40 year march of neoliberalism and the increase in power of
> capital over labor.

Nice thought. Thx.

> Personally, I find the belief that people should get a lump sum to care for
> all of their needs (including health care and education) and leave them to
> the failings of the market for key areas like health care is a step
> backward.  I would rather quality universal single payer health care before
> a basic income, but then I live in the US.

The idea that UBI can provide for health care is profoundly wrong.
UBI is not designed to handle ethically legitimate spikes in need.
I think I discussed this in my posts mentioned beforehand, and I
think none of the Pirate Parties have promoted such injust and
unethical Milton Friedman style models of UBI. If that is the only
UBI you have heard of until now, disinformation and manipulation
is having its way!

On 10/26/2016 12:21 AM, Paul Tidwell wrote:
> I am enjoying your owning of Milton Friedman and the neoliberal
> ideologues. In particular because I signed up For Grantcoin and am
> already receiving it but i'm trying to figure out how to get it set up
> and people talk about how a UBI would be inflationary and would "erase"
> all the benefits via the inflation mechanism but this is a really
>  really dumb view of economics. One of the key problems I have with Econ
> right now is most of the market that's out there as well as voting
> public still essentially believes that Currency derives it's value from
> it's scarcity as a currency and that's the only thing that generates the
> actual value of the currency itself.  So essentially the Quantity theory
> money is getting in the way and since most of the public uncritically
> accepting the quantity theory of money they're voting as if it's true.

I think legislative regulation is a lot more powerful than physical
quantity. The only thing that hurts regulation is globalization, and
that is a political problem: the limited ability of humanity to agree
on common ethical and thus economical standards. It's a sociological
problem and worldwide liquid democracy could be an experimental way
to address it. Produce a platform that credibly and representatively
deliberates for worldwide humanity. The credibility would come from
the quality of the output which I would expect to be mind-bogglingly
good as past experience has showed me.

> http://socialdemocracy21stcentury.blogspot.com/2010/07/quantity-theory-of-money-critique.html

Excellent. So people have been expressing judgments making wrong
assumptions on the foundational knowledge. That's a pattern on a
lot of topics.

> But I would go further in that the "neoliberal" view that you're
> criticizing here:  http://my.pages.de/outcomunisten
> 
> It basically says that it would "Delete the benefit to the poor" by
> causing inflation which seems to be what Milton Friedman's calculations
> suggest that on balance inflation would end up yielding no benefit to
> the poor because prices would just rise proportional to the
> unconditional money that was now in the system.

If that was accurate, then Hartz IV would have failed.
The German economy should have gone completely bonkers.
Instead government just adapts it each year. No big deal.

> 1. It's already in the system now. And in particular Cryptocurrency has
> a way of interacting with the main economy, It may take a few hoops to
> jump through but grantcoin and other cryptocurrencies can eventually be
> exchanged back into the dollar. So we already have ONE cryptocurrency
> offering a universal basic income and there will probably be more to
> come over time.

How can that work if the wealthy cannot be obliged to participate?
Or are you thinking of a cryptocurrency which is obligatory for all of
humanity?

I presume that unregulated forms of exchange cannot provide for any
ethical guarantees, that's why I promote taler.net over any blockchain
stuff, but you can try to convince me otherwise.

> 2. It treats inflation as the biggest enemy in society and to the
> economy and to the market which ??? Why?  People say inflation hurts the
> poor but the people saying this are ignoring the fact that it hurts the
> Banks and Creditors far more. People who LEND money are harmed FAR more
> by it because it screws up their  returns by insuring that what their
> loans get paid back with is now worth less.

Yes, I too see inflation as a tool to reduce inequality, albeit an
insufficient one given the absurd levels of inequality we have reached.

> 3. Inflation isn't the biggest problem out there.   In fact right now it
> isn't much of a problem at all. Unemployment as well as underemployment
> and employees who are overqualified for their positions are a mcuh
> bigger problem at present.

It's like the hype against taxes. Taxes should serve the poor and middle
class and get back a fair share from the super-rich, yet the utter
stupidity of comparing taxes to robbery catches on and drives all
sorts of uneducated people into supporting political moves for more
inequality. Their anger is manipulated into driving themselves even
deeper into misery. The incapacity of people of acting in their own
interest is impressive and a solid threat to the survival of humanity
on the planet.


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