The value of money has dropped by two thirds in 30 years

[SPman]

Isn't that the same reason it won't work on a Country scale? People have different standards of living and different expectations? A company director might earn 10x the salary of the company cleaner- just as a rich western country like NZ might have a living standard 10x that of a small African nation.

If only it were 10x the cleaner, people wouldn't be so pissed off.

http://www.perthnow.com.au/business/...-1226589884653

A HARVARD Professor and economist asked more than 5000 Americans how they thought wealth was distributed in the United States and what would be the ideal distribution.

Their answers are starkly different to the reality.

The actual distribution of wealth is far removed from what survey respondents thought and is shockingly skewed from perceptions.

The bottom 40 per cent of Americans barely have any of the wealth at all and the middle class is barely distinguishable from the poor.

The top two to five per cent of Americans are so rich they go off the chart, and the top one per cent are so rich they get a chart of their own.

The best way to imagine it is that 80 per cent of Americans only have seven per cent of the wealth between them. Not seventy - seven.


More than 90 per cent of survey respondents said they believe wealth should be more evenly distributed.

But instead, it's only gotten worse in the last 30 years. In 1976 the richest one per cent only took home nine per cent of the wealth – now they take home 24 per cent.

************************************************** ****************


Ideally Americans believe that the richest people in the country should be 10-15 times richer than the poorest folk with hardly any poverty.

Instead the average CEO is earning 380 times more than the average employee (not the lowest paid employee – the average one).

And - for all the so-called egalitarian predisposition of New Zealanders, it's going that way here as well - at an ever increasing rate.

[mashman]

The reserve bank. Like I said, the Govt. What’s your point?

In this country yes. Who owns the US Federal Reserve Bank? The IMF? The World Bank? Ya know, the bigger fish in the pond?

And you genuinely believe this is a viable option?
Fuck, the chasms you’re prepared to paper over so that a few minor holes in a functional existing system get plugged is amazing.

I do believe it's a genuinely viable option.
What chasms? and those few minor holes in this system cost the lives of people and cost people their livelihoods.

What, some shit’s no worth the asking price? Fuck me I had no idea that could ever happen. Nonetheless, If you should find yourself in the extraordinary position of being faced with demands for prices you feel aren’t representative of the value in any given product then I suggest that you refrain from buying that shit. In fact, now that I think of it I’ve had occasion before now myself to decline to pay for shit I couldn’t afford. And on further in depth investigation I now discover it’s a phenomena facing perfectly normal people every day. Fuck knows how we all survive.

Of course, we could just blame money for this horrible misunderstanding and ban that shit altogether.

Yes. Bit I'm likely thinking of a different price to you. There's a fuckload of product that we don't need upgrades of, or upgrades of at the rate we're churning the shit out at. I don't buy what I can't afford. I have 1 debt, my mortgage. See this post for my motivation and then try to move on eh.

monetary gain certainly drives the need for shit and needless product.

It has been tried before. You just haven’t heard about it because the invention of exchange tokens falls on the level of civilisation somewhere between the use of antelope leg bones to smack dinner about the head and the development of a coherent written history. It’s one of the first conceptual tools civilisations develop. To date, all of them.

In the last 2000 years? With our technology? On a country wide scale? Well I have a new conceptual tool that beats yours hands down .

If economic machinery fails it’s ALWAYS because the machine isn’t programed to produce stable negative feedback outputs. Yes, we have numerous instances of people and commercial and state entities dipping their fingers in the till. That’s no reason to abandon any attempt at control altogether, (and yes failing to have a viable financial system would absolutely guarantee failure) the machine simply requires editing to ensure that public spending returns commensurate value to the public. You’re dangerously close to pushing me onto my pet rant re monopolies, here.

As for you dislike of budget constraints? My wife agrees. Both of you can suck it up. It’s called living within your means.

Ah, and as for who decided what’s of value? That’s the dude that’s paying for it. With the money he earned expressly for that purpose. It’s not you.

@controlling the financial system. The whole system is built on debt, always has been and always will be (hopefully not always will be) and that debt has to land somewhere. It doesn't just up and vanish like a fart in the wind (credit to Shawshank). Please rant away about monopolies, coz them that private banks listed above are to all intents and purposes monopolies.

I dislike budget constraint because it stops exceptional people doing exceptional things and all because of viability. Not knowledge viability or ability viability, but financial viability... and all because it won't make enough of a profit to receive funding. What an unbelievable fuckin waste.

Sure. If your objective is complete and immediate economic collapse. That, and pushing civilisation back to the level of that antelope thigh bone.

That won't happen. The idea is to take what he have, improve upon it, implement technology where it is required etc... and it will be fuckin superb because it'll be stuff that meets the needs of people, not the profiteers and not constrained by budget.

I supply tech consult services to developers accessing public grants. From that background I can assure you that publicly funded research is colaberative far more often than otherwise.

So yes, where it's public money that absolutely is the norm.

NEXT BOGYMAN!

Excellent to here. Shame the private monsters of this world, of which there are many, don't do things that way. IP is an oxymoron.

[mashman]

Isn't that the same reason it won't work on a Country scale? People have different standards of living and different expectations? A company director might earn 10x the salary of the company cleaner- just as a rich western country like NZ might have a living standard 10x that of a small African nation.

Essentially those who want to live the money lifestyle can fuck off to another part of the world. It's a big place and there are more opportunities for that kind of wealth elsewhere. Those who don't will stay and will enjoy as near as dammit a free life. I have a feeling that the brain drain from across the globe to NZ will be much larger than you'd give it credit for. As for the country comparison. You're poor, we're rich, get over yourselves. I don't care if your population dies in the millions each year, get over yourselves or move to a different country. Aye, civilised is the wrong word. Savages fits better.

[mashman]

It has been tried before. You just haven’t heard about it because the invention of exchange tokens falls on the level of civilisation somewhere between the use of antelope leg bones to smack dinner about the head and the development of a coherent written history. It’s one of the first conceptual tools civilisations develop. To date, all of them.

I saw this and thought of you

[jonbuoy]

... Their jobs aren't in comparison to mine. No, I'm not a stay at home dad, although I wish I could be.

So what were you saying?

[mashman]

So what were you saying?

Can you give me a context for that question please?

[jonbuoy]

I don't mind admitting it if I am in that 1%, but if I am then it's a sad reflection on the country that it values my all but pointless effort over that of a Nurse or Binman or Sewerage worker etc... You may not want to give up your position, but with any luck the majority of NZ might. I'd like to know... and if not, then hope it turns out like the attitudes towards gay people in that that perception changes over time and we finally get there.

This one......

[mashman]

This one......

Still not getting your point. Care to spell it out?

[Akzle]

guys, it's fucking easy:
http://ancienthistory.mrdonn.org/money.html

[Ocean1]

Essentially those who want to live the money lifestyle can fuck off to another part of the world..

I've got a better idea.

Hands up everybody that wants to give up money and use cows instead?


Make a queue over there.



Leave your passport at the airport.




And your wallet.

[jonbuoy]

I don't mind admitting it if I am in that 1%, but if I am then it's a sad reflection on the country that it values my all but pointless effort over that of a Nurse or Binman or Sewerage worker etc... You may not want to give up your position, but with any luck the majority of NZ might. I'd like to know... and if not, then hope it turns out like the attitudes towards gay people in that that perception changes over time and we finally get there.

Can you explain what your saying here, what have gay people got to do with this? Why do you think NZ values your contribution lower than a bin man or sewage worker?

[mashman]

I've got a better idea.

Hands up everybody that wants to give up money and use cows instead?

Make a queue over there.

Leave your passport at the airport.

And your wallet.

Why would we be using cows? No trade or barter will exist outwith that which people decide amongst themselves. S'ok though, I understand why the concept is beyond your ability to grasp.

Indeed, form an orderly queue, although how are you going to sell your assets to a country of people who are about to get everything they need for free? I know how, but do you?

"My" system allows you to take your wallet with you and keep your passport for when you would like to return for medical assistance that you can't afford overseas. Fuck you're an oppressive being.

[mashman]

Can you explain what your saying here, what have gay people got to do with this? Why do you think NZ values your contribution lower than a bin man or sewage worker?

The gay people thing is in regards to an idea growing on the population. Where once upon a time attitudes where more against gay people being married, these days the opposite is true. Similarly I was saying that if the majority don't initially understand the idea of living without a financial system, I hope it follows the trend of how gay marriage was viewed and that the majority are eventually for it.

The opposite is true. My effort is valued over and above that of the binman/sewerage worker/nurse etc... In comparison to the binman/sewerage worker/nurse, I was saying that my job is actually pointless in that it makes money and does not serve a real need of the people. I value their effort over mine even though I get paid more.

[Ocean1]

Why would we be using cows? No trade or barter will exist outwith that which people decide amongst themselves. S'ok though, I understand why the concept is beyond your ability to grasp.

What's difficult to grasp is how anyone with the cognitive horsepower to remember to breath could ever come to believe a civilisation could function without the most basic machinery to manage demand and supply.

Bazzar.

Indeed, form an orderly queue, although how are you going to sell your assets to a country of people who are about to get everything they need for free? I know how, but do you?

I'll use cash. The hippies that haven't bothered fucking off to Kansas as suggested will have starved inside a month, leaving the place substantially no worse off. And a fucking sight more effectively supplied with both cows and paint.

"My" system allows you to take your wallet with you and keep your passport for when you would like to return for medical assistance that you can't afford overseas.

I'm staying here, in the real world. If you want to fuck off to paradise where nobody uses money then don't bother coming back, with or without your pasport unless your wallet's full of the price of your hospital bill.

Fuck you're an oppressive being.

Yeah, if you're not bloody sick and your'e eating the lunch I paid for I'm as oppressive as all fuck.

TANSTAFL.

Outside of that I'm a pussycat.

[jonbuoy]

The gay people thing is in regards to an idea growing on the population. Where once upon a time attitudes where more against gay people being married, these days the opposite is true. Similarly I was saying that if the majority don't initially understand the idea of living without a financial system, I hope it follows the trend of how gay marriage was viewed and that the majority are eventually for it.

The opposite is true. My effort is valued over and above that of the binman/sewerage worker/nurse etc... In comparison to the binman/sewerage worker/nurse, I was saying that my job is actually pointless in that it makes money and does not serve a real need of the people. I value their effort over mine even though I get paid more.

So your partly against the current system because you feel bad that you contribute less than a nurse to society but take more from it in monetary value?