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The Heavy Legacies of Our Past (Read 30874 times)
Mattyfisk
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Re: The Heavy Legacies of Our Past
Reply #195 - Jun 4th, 2016 at 3:37pm
 
freediver wrote on Jun 3rd, 2016 at 6:56pm:
Quote:
Democracy is about including citizens, but it can be tricky. As Yeltsin found, it can be hard to get things done through endless committees and layers of government.


Usually the less they do, the better.


And the less they do, the less "inclusive" a society is.

The heavy legacy of the Reagan/Thatcher years is the ever-shrinking wealth in the hands of the majority of citizens. This project was exported to the developing world through the carrot of IMF loans, and it’s led to the concentration of the world’s capital. It also led directly to the GFC, which has seen even more wealth concentration, higher corporate bonuses, and in the US, no financial regulation.

Thus, it will all happen again. This is the cycle of an economy without restraint.
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Re: The Heavy Legacies of Our Past
Reply #196 - Jun 20th, 2016 at 9:13pm
 
Quote:
And the less they do, the less "inclusive" a society is.


Unless of course they do things like build gas chambers.

Quote:
The heavy legacy of the Reagan/Thatcher years is the ever-shrinking wealth in the hands of the majority of citizens.


Do you have any evidence to back this up? Do you consider yourself poorer than your parents?

Quote:
This project was exported to the developing world through the carrot of IMF loans


What 'project'?

Quote:
and it’s led to the concentration of the world’s capital


Evidence?
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Re: The Heavy Legacies of Our Past
Reply #197 - Jun 21st, 2016 at 5:25am
 
freediver wrote on Jun 20th, 2016 at 9:13pm:
Quote:
And the less they do, the less "inclusive" a society is.


Unless of course they do things like build gas chambers.

Quote:
The heavy legacy of the Reagan/Thatcher years is the ever-shrinking wealth in the hands of the majority of citizens.


Do you have any evidence to back this up? Do you consider yourself poorer than your parents?

Quote:
This project was exported to the developing world through the carrot of IMF loans


What 'project'?

Quote:
and it’s led to the concentration of the world’s capital


Evidence?


My parents had a proportionately higher level of discretionary income than my children do.... wealth is perhaps in some cases defined by how you waste it.

When discussing comparative wealth, you need to look at a lot of factors, including opportunity cost of home purchase, car purchase, etc, transport costs, costs of living etc.

When we have private roads and privatised power supply that costs us hugely more than the old public roads and power etc, these all eat into comparative wealth.

I'd like to see some solid figures on these things.  What I do know is that upward pressure on working incomes is permanent and much higher than it was back then, and there are more people these days doing the con jobs to get a quick buck than there were then, which raises the bar for everyone.

I remain astounded that Australia rates 10th or something for 'wealth' in the world - compared to who?  Faroffistan?

The entire concept of wealth needs to be looked at close and across the board... not just at the lovely incomes of some while the rest struggle.
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Re: The Heavy Legacies of Our Past
Reply #198 - Jun 21st, 2016 at 12:59pm
 
Quote:
My parents had a proportionately higher level of discretionary income than my children do.... wealth is perhaps in some cases defined by how you waste it.


At the same age? Did you know your parents when they were your children's age?

As far as I can tell every generation, including the current one, gets better quality cars and more of them, bigger houses at a younger age that are also of a much higher standard (a lot of this is mandatory), work less hours and have all sorts of gadgets that their parents would have considered magical.

Karnal's gripe relies on an absence of perspective. It is the standard socialist trick of inventing a problem that does not really exist to justify a solution that would only make it worse.
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Re: The Heavy Legacies of Our Past
Reply #199 - Jun 21st, 2016 at 4:02pm
 
freediver wrote on Jun 21st, 2016 at 12:59pm:
Quote:
My parents had a proportionately higher level of discretionary income than my children do.... wealth is perhaps in some cases defined by how you waste it.


At the same age? Did you know your parents when they were your children's age?

As far as I can tell every generation, including the current one, gets better quality cars and more of them, bigger houses at a younger age that are also of a much higher standard (a lot of this is mandatory), work less hours and have all sorts of gadgets that their parents would have considered magical.


No, FD, Australians work more hours that they ever have. Quality of life is not determined by the amount of gadgets one has.

Your Hegelian belief in the telos of liberal democracy is a myth. The reason people all over the world are up in arms over their economic situation, from the US to Russia, is that real wages have decreased. The situation has worsened in many developing countries.

This is not a socialist argument, but many of those pushing it, from Trump to Putin, are indeed proposing socialist solutions. Trump proposes trade walls, tariffs and money printing. His pitch to capture disgruntled working class men is captured in the slogan, "making America great again".

Australia is one of a few countries in the world which has seen a rise in real wages and working conditions. Try pushing your argument in South Africa, the Philippines, or in the host of developed countries that are still recovering from the global financial crisis. 

If they don't laugh at you, they'll chop off your head.

In most parts of the world, life for the majority of people is not getting better and better. Australia is one of the few countries where it has - for now.
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Re: The Heavy Legacies of Our Past
Reply #200 - Jun 21st, 2016 at 4:05pm
 
freediver wrote on Jun 21st, 2016 at 12:59pm:
Quote:
My parents had a proportionately higher level of discretionary income than my children do.... wealth is perhaps in some cases defined by how you waste it.


At the same age? Did you know your parents when they were your children's age?

As far as I can tell every generation, including the current one, gets better quality cars and more of them, bigger houses at a younger age that are also of a much higher standard (a lot of this is mandatory), work less hours and have all sorts of gadgets that their parents would have considered magical.

Karnal's gripe relies on an absence of perspective. It is the standard socialist trick of inventing a problem that does not really exist to justify a solution that would only make it worse.


And umm FD, he's avoided the above highlighted section.

In fact, it's as if this paragraph hasn't even been posted. Shocked
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Re: The Heavy Legacies of Our Past
Reply #201 - Jun 21st, 2016 at 7:32pm
 
Mattyfisk wrote on Jun 21st, 2016 at 4:02pm:
freediver wrote on Jun 21st, 2016 at 12:59pm:
Quote:
My parents had a proportionately higher level of discretionary income than my children do.... wealth is perhaps in some cases defined by how you waste it.


At the same age? Did you know your parents when they were your children's age?

As far as I can tell every generation, including the current one, gets better quality cars and more of them, bigger houses at a younger age that are also of a much higher standard (a lot of this is mandatory), work less hours and have all sorts of gadgets that their parents would have considered magical.


No, FD, Australians work more hours that they ever have. Quality of life is not determined by the amount of gadgets one has.

Your Hegelian belief in the telos of liberal democracy is a myth. The reason people all over the world are up in arms over their economic situation, from the US to Russia, is that real wages have decreased. The situation has worsened in many developing countries.

This is not a socialist argument, but many of those pushing it, from Trump to Putin, are indeed proposing socialist solutions. Trump proposes trade walls, tariffs and money printing. His pitch to capture disgruntled working class men is captured in the slogan, "making America great again".

Australia is one of a few countries in the world which has seen a rise in real wages and working conditions. Try pushing your argument in South Africa, the Philippines, or in the host of developed countries that are still recovering from the global financial crisis. 

If they don't laugh at you, they'll chop off your head.

In most parts of the world, life for the majority of people is not getting better and better. Australia is one of the few countries where it has - for now.


OK, so it does not apply to Australia. What countries does it apply to? I assume you would not say this about China either.

And where are you getting this from? Green Left Weekly?
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Re: The Heavy Legacies of Our Past
Reply #202 - Jul 15th, 2016 at 6:47pm
 
Karnal? Are you just making this up?
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Re: The Heavy Legacies of Our Past
Reply #203 - Mar 13th, 2017 at 7:41pm
 
Bump for Gandalf:

freediver wrote on Mar 13th, 2017 at 7:34pm:
Quote:
benefiting the Caliphate economy


So why did the Caliphate barely register an increase in living standards? Do you remember arguing for pages and pages that it was because they didn't have Italy, as if Roman wealth could be attributable to some giant gold mine that the Muslims didn't know about?

Quote:
And I see FD is once again peddling his beloved 'depopulated Mediterranean coastline due to muslim slave-traders' fairy tale. We'll just ignore the fact that the Mediterranean slave traders didn't start until about the 17th century under the Ottomans


Crap. Muhammed was a slave trader. His immediate succesors invaded Spain, reintroducing sex slavery as a core of the economy.

Quote:
on the fact that FD's own favourite economic data compiled by Ian Morris - does not reveal any evidence whatsoever of any depopulation or economic decline caused by the muslim raids/settlements that happened along some Mediterranean coastlines during the period he is talking about


It does not attempt to measure this. It does however show that the best Islam could do in terms of living standards was lock western civilisation into the post apocalyptic mess for 1000 years, until Europe managed to get it started again, despite the best efforts of Muslims to turn everything to poo.

Quote:
On the contrary, historical evidence clearly shows that such places experienced relatively more prosperity under Muslim rule. All this has been shown to FD before.


What you ahve shown me is a remarkable effort in mental gymnastics by trying to argue that the cause of the Caliphate's dismal economic performance compared to the Romans, despite having a far bigger empire, was their inability to capture Italy.

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