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That’s because today we actually are more socialist than capitalist. Unbridled capitalism looks more like Rockefeller in the gilded age and the vertical crushing of competition with standard oil and the monopolistic rail behavior. Company towns, children used to oil running machines. Etc. BTW rockefellers grandson is still on the Forbes worlds richest list. He’s old, 92 and his daughters when they inherit will likely remain on the list. The other 200 members of the “family” need to share a measly $9 billion. Not bad for something that’s near 100 years after the founders passing and he was ancient when he went 97 back in 30s

The Kennedys have been a dynasty in the U.S. For quite some time, granted they’ve even done some good but don’t gloss over how the original Joe got his money

Carnegie gave it all away, frankly, I think we’d probably be better off with a few more like him. The gilded age was actually good for American workers, our wages blew most of Europe out of the water. Don’t really want Pinkertons back or 70 hour work weeks but they were better than the seed like conditions in Europe.

I don’t mind people making money. I’d rather have Bill Gates deciding how to dispose of his wealth than our esteemed leaders in Sacramento appropriating it and deciding how to spend it.

I do think though in political speech, that we need to find a way to muzzle Bill, Warren, Broad, the Koch brothers at least down to parity with people. I also think we need to muzzle the unions to in the political realm. To me, a teachers union or AFL CIO spending millions is no different than the Kochs spending millions

Elon Musk is a good example, he made money with Zip2, but then he really made money when he learned to suck the government subsidizes. SpaceX, SolarCity and Tesla.

The primary problem socialism has was identified by Marx, the people. To me, LAUSD represents the end result. Until production advances to the point that a life a leisure can be available to all, commodity fetishism will continue to be a problem so we’re best off with bridled capitalism. In a society with so many externalized costs naked capitalism becomes just as problematic. Unless of course, you prefer a California with no pollution regulations.

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Deep down, you recognize that the watch today is an really just a fashion affectation. Not spending on something nonessential I wouldn’t be concerned about unless you can’t spend even on trivial enjoyments. If you have problems spending in something like your own healthcare, then that’s a different story.

$1250 is $1250 and while today that may be a trivial drop in your annual spending, if you’re still working it equates to some amount of work.

Now again if the only reason you’re not sitting around in ratted out holey underwear on a dumpster salvaged lawn chair using a 300 baud dial up modem on a 1990s Dell with 8088 processor is your wife furnishes the house and buys your clothes, you may have a problem.

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If you actually look at the Dow 30 from 1965, you might be shocked. The effective companies and their products are quite alive and dominating. Post, no longer Post, was Phillip Morris, then Altria, now Kraft and another company. Don’t Kraft and Post products pretty much own one of the aisles in most supermarkets. Little known firms like united Aircraft, still around, you may recognize their new name United Tech. UTX. $64B in revenue, total slouches. AT&T recently booted from the Dow, still around. In 1965, they were huge, $3.1B in revenue, those losers barely rake in $132B today.

GM now they imploded a couple years ago, still around. After a massive political shuffling of who owned it, profit in 1965, $1.7B, today, $5B with a $10B cash flow.

Sure, anaconda copper is gone after close to a century, sort of, Arco bought them, then BP bought Arco, but effectively, the assets have been sold off and operations ended. The principal owners, the Rothchilds and Rockefellers, well we know how down on their luck they’ve been.

[quote=livinincali][quote=scaredyclassic]im less concerned with inequality. in equality by itself seems neither bad nor good, since it doesn’t in itself describe the conditions of the lower end.

I am more concerned with the endgame. capitalism, does it necessarily end in the desctruction of our souls, our planet, our society?[/quote]

It doesn’t seem too. How many companies that were in the DOW 30 50 years ago still around today or as big as they are today. Kodak was a huge company that dominated photography now it’s gone. Walmart and McDonald’s have both been struggling recently. Apple would never be here today if Steve Jobs didn’t come back in the late 1990’s. The visionary leader that built these companies eventually leaves and dies and the next round of Wharton business grads eventually grinds the company into the ground because they don’t know how to innovate. All the wealth doesn’t eventually end up in the hands of the few because they die and their heirs eventually squander it.[/quote]

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[quote=FlyerInHi]Capital markets to match savers to borrowers did work very well in increasing overall wealth.

There is an optimal level of debt, but debt is good in increasing net worth.[/quote]

Got a link for that? Debt only if used for investment that grows faster than the cost of debt will increase networrth. Debt for the purpose of anything else destroys future networrth growth. I.e. Credit card debt, car loans, etc.

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[quote=FlyerInHi]NSR, if your income growths, your debt can grow along. You’re increasing your standard of living by taking on a larger mortgage and buying a bigger house.
Your mortgage is savings to someone else. Higher debt means higher savings which means more overall wealth.[/quote]

The budget isn’t debt. And collectively, mortgages are a zero sum game, they don’t create networrth. The interest on that mortgage isn’t networrth either, it’s a transference of your income to my income thru access to my networrth whether you chose a house or consumed anything else (payday loan). I can then spend that income and thus consume it or retain it (save) creating a .net worth.

I’m talking budget, the annual expenditures. Not the debt to income levels. It’s cash flows. When living off your assets, when you start to exceed 4% expenditure rates, you very quickly deplete the asset base unless investment growth goes perfectly.

Effectively, you eat the seed corn when your expenditures grow. Or like having too large a mortgage, you cripple yourself with debt payment. Again commodity fetishism, or in our case consumerism.

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Wealth and income are very different. In 2007, top 1% of household income earners started at $350K. The top 1% of wealth started at $8.6 million. If you make $350k, save aggressively (40%) for 25 years, it still isn’t enough to climb into the wealth 1%. Very few without the wealth will be on the top 1% of earners for that long, or maintain that investment rate.

The top 1% have 40% of the wealth, and total wealth (networrth) is just north of $80 trillion.

The last proposed U.S. Federal budget was $3.9 trillion, roughly 5% of totals wealth. Luckily were taxing income because anyone doing financial independence knows what happens when you start spending 5% and growing of your networrth each year. You go broke. And that’s just federal.

We can talk about who pays, however in the end, the problem still remains that our spending is outstripping our income and wealth.

This goes back to the commodity fetishism that Marx discussed as being responsible for distracting the masses.

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[quote=paramount][quote=no_such_reality] Nor am I aware in his work where people come up with a surgeon and janitor making the same.[/quote]

How else would one eliminate class warfare?[/quote]

Estate taxes so wealth isn’t passed generationally? Direct taxation of wealth (assets) and not income? Class isn’t having money or not, class is a level of privilege.

Keep in mind Marx lived during Dickenesque London, died about the beginning of the Gilded Age. Child Labor, no real safety concerns for workers, seventy hour work weeks were the norm. A few decades later, Ford was considered radical in raising wages to attract workers to the assembly line.

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[quote=FlyerInHi][quote=ltsdd]
Isn’t that enough proof there that marxism is shit?[/quote]

It’s shit for people who got swept away.
In the big scheme, the revolutions in Russia and China were just changes of dynasties. If they get established and are able to smoothly hand power over time, they will just become like us.[/quote]

No, whether the red revolution in Russia, Maos Revolution or the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, the socialist upheavals resulted in something more akin to feudalism than socialism. I suspect what Marx was driving at looks more like Norway and not what most think of for communism. Nor am I aware in his work where people come up with a surgeon and janitor making the same.

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[quote=XBoxBoy][quote=spdrun]Yeah, DSL runs over twisted pair (often old, 1940s-era twisted pair). Cable runs over a shielded coaxial cable.[/quote]

So is the type of wire the only difference? If the phone company put in shielded coaxial would they be competitive with cable service? How much wire would need to be replaced? (ie from the telephone poll to house, or from switch box to house, or from central office to switch box to house?)

If shielded coaxial is so much better why hasn’t the phone company switched years ago? Presumably it wouldn’t have taken much insight to see the business opportunities associated with better connections.[/quote]

The answer is simple $$$$$$$$. How much do you think cabling up a neighborhood costs? There’s a reason google fiber is in three cities since 2012.

Remember decades ago the phone companies got broken up. I had high speed u verse a decade ago before the cable company could match the speed. It was an early neighborhood. My current neighborhood got it this year. The cable companies wired them because they originally had city franchises that gave them monopoly (pre little satellite days).

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Xbox, Easter eggs yes, emission controls I’m not so sure. no one asked any questions about how when the testing improves by 40x? The concept of the Code is fairly simple, its implementation surely required multiple testing cycles, it sounds like the code determines it is being tested by a combination of vehicles speeds, steering wheel position and wheel motion.

Basically, The exec sad they have no idea if a programmer put random kill switches in their ECM.

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LOL, a top VW exec blamed a couple rogue software developers for the emissions thing

[quote]“This was a couple of software engineers who put this in for whatever reason,” Michael Horn, VW’s U.S. chief, told a House subcommittee hearing. “To my understanding, this was not a corporate decision. This was something individuals did.”
[/quote]

Wow is he that clueless or just that boldface of a liar? Or worse, he’s telling the truth and VW really has no idea what has been encoded into their engine control modules?

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[quote=FlyerInHi]What brand would you choose?

1.6 gallon flush or 1.28? Some new one are 1 gallon flush.

I like the Kohler Persuade because it looks nice and streamlined.

It’s for a rental at a condo so not directly paying for water (but still I believe in conservation) I’m thinking about the American Standard Champion 1.6 gallon that can flush a bucket of golf balls. Don’t want tenants to call me about clogged toilet.

I have a friend who is good remodeler. He swears by Toto and said I need to spend $350 for a Toto.[/quote]

Golf balls are discrete small objects, easy to flush. Give it a real test, take one of those bagel energy bars and see if it an flush that after a 5 minute soak.

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[quote=scaredyclassic]Don’t be dumb.[/quote]

I’ll just refer everyone back to the Kelly Thomas beating video and ask if anyone other than the 12 idiots on the jury think any amount of compliance was going to save him from receiving a beat down?

Because to me it’s real obvious that Ramos was spoiling to beat him from the initial contact.

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Scaredy is makIng a point about the reality of our entitled blue brotherhood. Most cops are good people, a few are bad apples. Come across a bad one and don’t genuflect and you can easily end up not just beaten down, facing multiple charges, jail time and if they’re just in a bad mood, dead. Unless someone happens to have video of the whole event.

That’s wron, but pretty much the reality of the situation at the moment.

#time to demilitarize our police

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BG I’m not talking complacency, I’m, talking about doing something. And frankly, our standard office type jobs are very toxic, we may not have a lot of choice with them, but they are a big root of the problem. Our bodies aren’t intended sit around that much.

Since you’re work out routine is 0.75, I’m curious what you’re doing for the other 2 hours. I don’t count, the changing, the driving (ironic), showering, and waiting around. They are unfortunate side effects of gym memberships. I swim for thirty minutes at the gym, not two hour. If I count the drive there, park, walk into gym, change, wait to lane split, shower, get dressed and leave to get home, I’m easily an hour and I live super close, such that walking to the gym is something I’ve started doing. If I want to use the treadmill or one thing during peak time, my 30 minutes can easily turn into 1.5 hour.

30-45 minutes will be more than enough more most, especially the majority that is overweight, pre diabetes, etc. that doesn’t include getting there and getting ready time. Kudos to you if you’re maintaining 2.75 hours most will fail. And for most, a simple consistent 30 minutes will do a lot of good. you’re working at home, imagine commuting 30 or more minutes each way each day and still squeezing in that gym time. Or squeezing it in, with the commute, with two kids in primary school.

My grandparents never spent a day in the gym, and at 45 would probably be able to out work most of us here. I suspect your grandparent where the same. Setting the expectation you need hours in the gym each day is prefailure for most.

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