Ferengi Discusses Earth Economics (Star Trek)

[sixshooter500]

IT's good point, we should have managed our businesses better.

[ShamanMcLamie]

It's easy to tell those who created Star Trek were no fans of Capitalism

[jones81381]

What episode is this?

[theironworker781]

"At least 21 per cent of Greeks are unemployed. Yet the thumbscrews are to be tightened once again: more austerity, more spending cuts, eliminating another 20 per cent of all government jobs and slashing the minimum wage by another 22 per cent. All this, in a country in its fifth year of recession."-Gerald Caplan

[theironworker781]

"And this will be on top of the punishment that had already been inflicted on the 99 per cent, including deep cuts to private-sector wages, layoffs in the civil service and significant reductions in health and social security."-Gerald Caplan

[theironworker781]

Look at poor Greece. Ms. Klein could have invented it as a pure case study for her thesis. Big economic problems, it’s true. So how do you fix them? As a Greek journalist wrote matter-of-factly in The New York Times, the latest bailout program imposed by the IMF, the European Union and the European Central Bank “almost guarantees recession.”

[theironworker781]

"What else does the widespread attack on seniors’ pensions mean?"-Gerald Caplan

[theironworker781]

reality, everything that’s happened in the past several years has gone to further empower and enrich the 1 per cent (or maybe the 5 per cent) at the expense of the rest of us. Look anywhere you want. What else does the universal demand for austerity programs mean? What else does the sudden concerted attack on public sector workers mean? What else does the intransigent line taken by multinational corporations against their unions mean? What else does the demand for “right-to-work” laws mean?

[ShamanMcLamie]

@theironworker781 It all means your government and economy is broke and can no longer afford those programs, public employee's, and defense of those unions they've indebted themselves to preserve. You're right that a small group of people have been screwing over the people. But their tool for doing so isn't the corporations they own, but the governments they influence.

[cadfog]

@ShamanMcLamie-You have a good point. I think it's a little of both. We could afford those programs with proper taxation.

[ShamanMcLamie]

@cadfog No the problem isn't lack of taxation, the economy couldn't support these programs. If you tax an economy too much it will hurt it and will actually reduce revenues. Greece put too much of it's economy into public sector monopolies these monopolies were inefficient and had no competition to make it want to improve. Public employee union make it more inefficient cause increasing efficiency could kill jobs and change things.

[ShamanMcLamie]

@cadfog If you privatize most of the economy and had less taxes less regulations, and remove many of the guarantee's it would encourage(force) people to be more responsible and self sufficient instead of relying on the legally stolen resources of others. They may go start a business learn new trades invest in businesses. Basically the Greek government took away responsibility and replaced it with entitlement.

[ShamanMcLamie]

@cadfog What the Greek government also did was put itself in massive debt to pay for the entitlement society. The debt became so large that is was greater than what the Greece ECONOMY could afford. Debt is basically trying to gain progress by giving up a little bit more of your progress in the future. Greeks need to cut back on their standard of living and lower expectations maybe default and deal with the repercussions of their unearned excessive and wasteful lifestyle for a few years.

[theironworker781]

"In a sane world, the economic meltdown and deep recession of the past four years would have led at minimum to stringent regulation of financiers and speculators plus programs to assist their victims."-Gerald Caplan

[theironworker781]

"• Foreign policy and the military: from American exceptionalism to America as a normal nation, from hard power to soft, from military prowess to real security."-James Gustave Speth

[theironworker781]

"• Dominant cultural values: from having to being, from getting to giving, from richer to better, from separate to connected, from apart from nature to part of nature, from transcendent to interdependent, from today to tomorrow. • Politics: from weak democracy to strong, from creeping corporatocracy and plutocracy to true popular sovereignty. "-James Gustave Speth

[theironworker781]

"• Indicators: from GDP (“grossly distorted picture”) to accurate measures of social and environmental health and quality of life. • Consumerism: from consumerism and affluenza to sufficiency and mindful consumption, from more to enough. • Communities: from runaway enterprise and throwaway communities to vital local economies, from social rootlessness to rootedness and solidarity."-James Gustave Speth

[theironworker781]

"The corporation: from shareholder primacy to stakeholder primacy, from one ownership and motivation model to new business models and the democratization of capital. • Money and finance: from Wall Street to Main Street, from money created through bank debt to money created by government.

 • Social conditions: from economic insecurity to security, from vast inequities to fundamental fairness."-James Gustave Speth

[theironworker781]

"Economic growth: from growth fetish to post-growth society, from mere GDP growth to growth in human welfare and democratically determined priorities. • The market: from near laissez-faire to powerful market governance in the public interest. • The corporation: from shareholder primacy to stakeholder primacy, from one ownership and motivation model to new business models and the democratization of capital."-James Gustave Speth

[TheGreenVoter]

"Big Government having unlimited power to tell people what to do, and to control every aspect of their lives"

The Patriot Act, Guantánamo Bay, Abu Ghraib, CIA renditions, the use of depleted uranium, dumping white phosphorus onto CIVILIANS in Fallujah, ARRESTING peace activists for merely wearing anti-Bush T-shirts (Nicole & Jeff Rank, Independence Day of all days, 2004), etc. etc. etc....

... but NO! The ONLY "big gov" this RACIST is CONcerned about is food stamps for NIGGERS! The HYPOCRISY!

[howardz43]

With socialist economics the 'guarantors' of the Debt are the same people as the debtors. You cannot spend your way out of debt without producing anything! In Europe, they are doing everything possible to keep the bubble in place and postpone an inevitable collapse. Keynes, is the defunct economist not in question. It's outrageous that taxpayers should have to pick up the bill, for Big Government protected ‘zombie banks.' Banks Ordered to make bad loans - that's not the fault of Capitalism.

[howardz43]

The central planning authority in Socialist economics has to have powers that impact and ultimately control social life because the knowledge required for centrally planning an Economy is inherently decentralized. Such knowledge thus needs to be brought under the central planning committee's control, in order for it to function. That is what leftist refuse to admit because they can't show or explain how with Government organized socialism such a totalitarian planning authority is not needed.

[dthejc]

Is it just me or is Jeffery Combs 50% of the population in the star trek universe. :o

[proadmin1]

Even a Ferengi gets the idea that some regulation and responsible management might be necessary.

[zackymcbrain]

@proadmin1-amen!

[TheGreenVoter]

@proadmin1

Thanks.

[cadfog]

"The group warns against over-reliance on markets but instead urges politicians to listen and learn from how poor communities all over the world see the problems of energy, water, food and livelihoods as interdependent and integrated as part of a living ecosystem."

[cadfog]

"The perpetual growth myth ... promotes the impossible idea that indiscriminate economic growth is the cure for all the world's problems, while it is actually the disease that is at the root cause of our unsustainable global practices"

[cadfog]

"We cannot assume that technological fixes will come fast enough. Instead we need human solutions. The good news is that they exist but decision makers must be bold and forward thinking to seize them."

[cadfog]

"The current system is broken," says Bob Watson, the UK’s chief scientific advisor on environmental issues and a winner of the prestigious Blue Planet prize in 2010. "It is driving humanity to a future that is 3-5°C warmer than our species has ever known, and is eliminating the ecology that we depend on for our health, wealth and senses of self."

[Z3R0CO0LnESS]

Wait a minute. Isn't that the guy who played Brunt on DS9?

[djslapdash]

@Z3R0CO0LnESS

Yes and weyoun as well

[zackymcbrain]

"Incremental change will not slow a runaway train. Awareness and action might. In our case, at this late date, if the corporate elite, who control the agendas of the state, are not challenged and brought to heel, and soon, then there is little else left for us to do, other than become hospice workers for our doomed species."-Rockstroh

[howardz43]

Incremental change will not slow a runaway train. Awareness and action might. In our case, at this late date, if the Big Government leftists, who control the agendas of the state, are not challenged and kicked out of their positions of malignant power, and soon, then there will be little else left for conservatives of true economy to do, other than being benevolent hospice workers for the doomed leftist species, trying to drag everyone into the pit along with them.

[zackymcbrain]

"...personal devotion to a fear-bulwarked, habitually self-serving egoism, as opposed to embracing a soul-infused selfhood, creates a catastrophe of malignant greed--a disastrously narrow, resonance-bereft approach to consciousness that alone cannot carry the multiverse of the self into the world."-Rockstroh

[howardz43]

Personal devotion to a fear-bulwarked, habitually self-serving Big Government egoism, as opposed to embracing a soul-infused selfhood, creates a catastrophe of malignant entitlement greed--a disastrously narrow, resonance-bereft approach to having consciousness that alone cannot carry the multiverse of the self into the world.

[zackymcbrain]

"Contemporary conservatives promote--in fact, seem to outright revel in--the litanies of a gospel of global-wide destruction (in the case of religious fundamentalists even going so far as to implore the forces of heaven, with fervid prayers, to expedite doomsday's date of arrival) by means of militarist aggression and environmental carnage--while squeamish liberals are devotees of the cliché-worshipping temple of incremental change."-Rockstroh

[howardz43]

Contemporary Marxists promote--in fact, seem to outright revel in--the litanies of a gospel of global-wide destruction (in the case of the religious fundamentalists of leftism even going so far as to implore the forces of heaven, with fervid prayers, to expedite doomsday's date of arrival) by means of militant pacifist aggression and economic carnage under the guise of environmentalism--while squeamish liberals are devotees of the cliché-worshiping temple of incremental change.

[zackymcbrain]

The 1% steal labor from the 99%. That whole 53% vs 47% is so very Libertarian because it conveniently pits have-littles and have-enoughs vs. have-nots, the people Libertarians despise more than anyone. Capitalists fear the 99%, so much so, that they dupe 99% members into shilling for the 1%.

[howardz43]

Big Government produces NOTHING. As Government becomes increasingly supportive of the poor at the forced expense of the rich, it undercuts the supply of wealth available for it to support the poor with, unless it somehow FORCES the rich to be more enterprising and produce ever more wealth. Good luck with that! The U.S. is where enterprising people come for freedom of equal opportunity to be rich or wealthy or whatever kind of life they want, according to their talents and lawful desires.

[howardz43]

A succession of high profile left wing decisions and initiatives drive home the extent to which the left is changing the face of America. - Star Parker

[howardz43]

The three high profile left wing victories of recent weeks all touch these key areas. End the traditional institution of marriage as a bulwark of our society. Continue to promote sex as recreation and relegate the life this activity creates as a trivial byproduct which we allow to be destroyed with ease, and destroy the sanctity of private property so government can finance irresponsibility with other people’s money. - Star Parker

[howardz43]

President Obama is unapologetic about this agenda and even has the audacity to call it Christian for government to borrow trillions on the good credit of the American people and then permit politicians to determine who it is fair to tax to pay for it all. - Star Parker

[zackymcbrain]

long as that’s the case, the whims of the 1% will rule and your pay will continue to erode, or your job will exported to China or India or Honduras or anywhere the plutocrats are free to exploit workers and the environment. Or to places like Germany, where they don’t buy into the myths, and an active government role assures high-wage jobs and general prosperity-John Atcheson

[zackymcbrain]

John Atcheson's writing has appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Baltimore Sun, the San Jose Mercury News, the Memphis Commercial Appeal, as well as in several wonk journals. He is the author of a fictional Trilogy that centers on climate change. The first book will be available on Amazon in the spring of 2012.

[zackymcbrain]

At the end of the day, trying to run a country according to the rules of fantasy island isn’t a recipe for success. But it does serve the interests of the 1%.

[zackymcbrain]

Republicans want to protect your freedom. Except when they want to tell you who you can sleep with, who you can marry, whether or not you can use birth control; when and whether you can choose to die; or when they want to tap your phone or detain you without due process, of course.

[zackymcbrain]

Strike 1 was the Panic of 1893 and the depression which followed it. Strike 2 was the Great Depression of the 30’s. In all three cases, these collapses were preceded by conservative, laissez-faire policies featuring deregulation, low taxes and weak governments.

Three tries – each resulting in severe income inequality and the catastrophic economic meltdowns they inevitably cause. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out this strategy doesn’t work.

[zackymcbrain]

the size of government exploded under Reagan and Bush II, and we didn’t hear a peep out of Republicans.

[TheGreenVoter]

@zackymcbrain

Because BIG GOVERNMENT that benefits Wall Street and the military-industrial complex is acceptable to libertarian skkkum -- it's only when gov't actually helps the poor and oppressed (food stamps, housing subsidies) do libertarians flip the fuck out ...

... there's a term for that: RACIST HYPOCRISY. There's also a very special place in HELL waiting for their monkey asses ...