Category: Economics

Where to fit in

11/12/2016

540. Past

Principles

Economics

Where to fit in

Materialism is better than war. Anger, rage, aggressiveness are redirected into grabbing houses, land, toys and all you can. It’s better than killing one another, but neither option is great.

People are either wage slaves, or scavengers, schemers, or manipulators. It’s hard to not get caught up in all of it. All the choices seem horrible. It’s ugly, hard to know where to fit in or not fit in.

I once lived in an apartment complex run by a known realtor in New York. He let the apartments slide until there were underlying structural problems. Then he offered to sell them to the renters who were ignorant of their true condition. He did this all over New York. Within this greed and victimization, it is hard to know where one fits.

0 Comments

Money and care

2/27/2016

4 Comments

442. Past

Principles

Economics

Money and care

In today's world sometimes it seems as if money is everything. Life can depend on it. Money can keep you alive; determine the kind of care you get when sick. If older and you are without an advocate in a hospital setting, non-caring help can be fatal to you. You can end up with tubes up your mouth and more.

4 Comments

Hard to simplify

12/30/2015

2 Comments

416. Past

Principles

Economics

Hard to simplify

One can't live a simple existence anymore. I remember one time in Oregon I went up upon a mountain in an RV planning to be alone for a time. Local ranchers came by to check me out, helicopters flew over to have a visual of me, and chipmunks always made their presence felt. So much for solitude.

The maintenance on my condominium is high. To move to another condominium without guards at the entrance would mean being around noise. Dogs, boyfriends, kids would be all over. I'd be living with loose end people so I stay where I'm at, in an adult community, where restrictions abound but keep chaos at a minimum.

How about simply moving into a mobile home, unattached to neighbors, as simple a structure as is around? However, it's totally vulnerable to hurricanes which we get in Florida. It's vulnerable to theft and druggies may become your neighbors.

It's hard to simplify today. You are stuck wherever you are at.

2 Comments

Leverage and intrinsic value

3/11/2015

0 Comments

290. Past

Principles

Economics
(Growing up I wasn't sure what money was. It seemed like you always owed and would work forever to pay off something. Borrowing and debt seemed to enslave so better get a profession. Then if you eventually had some money it was a hot potato to leverage out somewhere. You seemed never free of the cycle. A simple understanding of money came to me much later in adulthood. A dollar earned from exchange or labor that stayed consistent as possible. This appealed to the purist in me. Later I realized it is good to know the base, the premise, the core of a concept, but one also has to make peace with what is, ie; the present money system. And then, does one accept this and play debt as if it is actual money? Practical but so cynical.

Following is a look at the two ways of viewing money.)

Leverage and intrinsic value

There is an honest relationship with money that one shouldn't be too removed from. Time, work, energy are exchanged for a good or service using a symbol called money. This money should be as consistent as possible over time, almost as unchangeable as the effort to accumulate it. Symbols for this money should be durable, of limited supply and intrinsic value. Gold is an example. A paper note could be used to represent the gold value, but it should remain consistent. So far money, as in gold, and its relationship with a note representing it, is honest and trustworthy.

When the relation between the paper note and the symbol it represents, say gold, is distorted, no longer reflecting accurately time, work, and energy, that is when we begin to have “funny” money. In one sense this distortion becomes a form of chance taking and gambling.

A simple example is a bank with $1000 to lend and charge interest upon. If ten people are lent 10% on $1000, all is okay. If 15 people are lent $100 on the initial $1000, that is a gamble. If by chance 12 or 13 of these borrowers couldn't pay back their money, the bank would lose its capital and be out of business. If this doesn't happen the bank stands to make unseemly profits based upon risk taking.

Recall the play “The Producers.” The accountant and hustler producer sold to elderly ladies thousands of percent for a play they carefully picked to fail called “Springtime for Hitler in Germany.” Everything seemed a go and the play at best should have been a one night stand. However, the audience after hesitation loved it as one loves kitsch or a grade B movie. The producers were in trouble.

Leveraging and derivatives are more sophisticated ways of manipulation. Often you are betting on the probability of an event happening, whether a crop failure or of a stadium being built near some land. Options and futures are other plays in the market that can multiply earnings.

In addition to this, there has been an effort to eliminate the downside of risk. One foreign individual from an African country said he planned to borrow all he could and invest it and if these investments failed, the International Monetary Fund would bail him out.

A teacher I knew said he worked with another teacher who drove a Lexus on a teacher’s salary. He would run up credit card debt and then declare bankruptcy as a matter of course. Corporations do this on a larger scale as do small businesses. When I was a small contractor I would see one decorating shop close, declare bankruptcy only to reopen across the street under a different name. All the debt goes unpaid with the net result money is cheapened. Of course this doesn't even touch the subject of recent bailouts for major corporations under the “too big to fail” concept.

In the stock market you have vehicles to sell off a stock if it goes below a certain level. Shrewd yes. One limits the downside. But it's too related to gambling. Instead of investing it becomes trading, where there is no belief or loyalty to a company. Technical analysis is even more detached in its methodology. The fundamental make up of a company is ignored and all that's important are the patterns of ebb and flow of capital. It becomes depersonalized, soulless trading.

Finally there is the printing of money which cheapens a currency. If a piece of gold is worth $100 and we print 100 dollars, every dollar to represent 1/100 of its worth, each dollar would be worth less if we printed 500 individual dollars or 1/500 of the piece of gold. In this way our savings are cheapened, our work, our time, our energy are degraded and worth less and less.

Inflation too becomes a form of leverage. Higher wages, higher prices, more printing of money continues to devalue the dollar. There should be some leeway but it should not be commonplace. Otherwise our simple honest relationship with money becomes compromised and society turns into a gambling casino and Ponzi scheme.

0 Comments

Centralized government versus centralized capitalism

12/29/2014

0 Comments

260. Past

Principles

Economics

Centralized government versus centralized capitalism

I was speaking to Al, a younger friend who is presently working as a park ranger, and he was talking of a “New World Order” coming in. He referred to the prediction in the “New Testament Revelation”. He's usually not biblical. I have studied that chapter and find it terribly inconsistent and not chronological. World control was mentioned by the Jewish prophet Daniel and other prophets allude to it. The New World Order is a favorite subject of the conspiratorial and prophesy minded. However, one doesn't have to be an evangelical Christian to see some type of world unified government coming into being.

The United Nations has been a step in that direction. We went from a colony to statehood to nationhood. To some extent it is the way of the world. When individuals clash, a third impartial party can restore rule. When countries clash, the same applies. If we can't get along, either a third, more powerful entity is needed, or some type of government. The 20th century left us with wars and more wars that just continue. It is understandable to want a unifying force, or a “New World Order.”

However, often people corrupt institutions and these institutions, which seem omnipresent and omnipotent serve and perpetuate themselves, robbing the people of their freedom and liberty, or at least the ideal of them. What's to stop a dictator from taking over, becoming our enforcer and Godlike in his/her eyes. That can be scary. We are almost better off with the chaos and mayhem of anarchy. At least it is what it is.

I made the point to Al. I don't think we need a “revelation” or to be fundamentalist Christians to sense that there might be a culmination soon. It is all around us in every facet of thinking. You might first become aware of this through evangelical Christianity but it's all over the place, in many religions, scenarios, metaphysical thinking and just plain day to day observation.

So, without the dominating force of big government what are we left with, predatory capitalism that has no regard for nations and sovereignty or perhaps a return to small feudal like warring factions? Perhaps all will lead to just mush. Or could society become at its worse one, big, slavery system, with the strong dominating the weak?

We are headed towards a flawed “New World Order” on one hand, or a market place with little government that exploits the people, instead of helping them. All is not quite right whether it be a monster government or a monster corporate system.

0 Comments

Condescending towards the prudent

11/4/2014

0 Comments

232. Past

Principles

Economics

Condescending towards the prudent

I had occasion to call for motel reservations near New York City at a moderate but clean hotel on the border of Queens and Long Island. I asked questions about the rate and if any reduction was given for business usage and for AARP, and what I would receive for the money. The clerk, who had a foreign accent, became short, curt and impatient with me. Here I was trying to be a saver, prudent with my spending, a good consumer and I was judged, wronged and mistreated. Savers should be respected because they are the backbone of our country. The desk clerk disrespected me because my question revealed I was not rich. He wouldn't talk to the rich the way he talked to me.

In a sense his attitude of condescension sabotaged the American dream of having a prosperous, informed, discerning middle class. His way serves to transform America to a ruling class and their underlings. He never “got” what America was, and is, and should be about.

0 Comments

Free market versus government control

10/25/2014

4 Comments

228. Past

Principles

Economics

Free market versus government control

Which is it, government control or the free market? If we had a mini government, (the libertarians dream), how would we look? Would economics and life reach a natural equilibrium similar to an aquarium? Would human nature balance itself out? Would the natural tendencies towards greed and cruelty be balanced by mercy and help? Would it be “one man under God” with nothing in-between or just “man alone?” Would the irresponsible balance the responsible? Or, do we need enlightened individuals to pull this off? All these are considerations without a big government.

Without big government would we go back to the garment industry with children working 16 hour days? Would predatory capitalism, monopolies, control and betray the country in quest for becoming multinational? What happens to our country? Some say the rise of multinationals has been helped by big government and that they are in bed together. Perhaps. Without government would this be curtailed? Would a human scale economy, and market place flourish? Could a supply and demand market place be enough and keep a flourishing middle class?

Or, without government control, would lack of protection encourage gangs that turn into feudal warring tribes destabilize the market place? Profits and corruption replace choice and safety. These questions along with others should be asked.

My instincts are these. The free market place has gone too far. The scale is too large. The ingrained corruption and control are too deep for it be healthy. Government, on the other hand, has controlled too many areas of our life and has made itself and life a giant mush. There is no answer. It is beyond comprehension. One just has to “let it go.”

4 Comments

Principle versus survival

9/2/2014

0 Comments

202. Past

Principles

Economics

Principle versus survival

Some time ago before much of the present economic chaos I learned to appreciate money and gold and silver. As a medium of value gold is old, limited in quantity, beautiful, stands the test of time, durable and portable. Silver has to a lesser extent these qualities. No medium of exchange is perfect and all can be sabotaged. But gold and silver seem to be the best and have been for quite a while. Gold has been used to set a standard, out of which money and its value is compared to. Alan Greenspan before his later policies used to be an adherent.

Anyhow, this is not a discourse on gold and silver. This is simply about a question, maybe laced with some doubt that encompasses the above. Many people I know, older and younger workers, are playing the system where they can. They collect food stamps, get on whatever government program they can, and get whatever benefits they can for themselves and family. Disability, health coverage, assistance, all are obtained. Not all these people are ignorant. In principle many are against big government and entitlements programs. They are for self-advancement. But they have come to the point where they are doing what they have to do, at least according to them. They are not following the principle of sound money. They are hustling the system, getting government jobs and milking them.

So, as my old and former friend Steve used to say “it's not what you stand for or say that counts, it's whether or not you're in the drivers seat.” In other words, principles be dammed, one has to survive, do what one has to do. To what extent and at what price we have to reflect.

0 Comments

Where to fit in

Money and care

Hard to simplify

Leverage and intrinsic value

Centralized government versus centralized capitalism

Condescending towards the prudent

Free market versus government control

Principle versus survival

Steven B. Nussdorf records his lifelong search to find meaning outside of the normal channels. He uses writing, poetry, and drawing to document this effort.

Archives