Re: A REALLY DUMB QUESTION

Evelyn wrote:

"Alan Lichtenstein" <arl@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:49a1562b$0$5918$607ed4bc@xxxxxxxxx

Evelyn wrote:

"Alan Lichtenstein" <arl@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:49a093b5$0$20284$607ed4bc@xxxxxxxxx

Evelyn wrote:




I still hold the oil companies up as an example of greed gone wild while the country is experiencing bad times.



Evelyn, any business is in the business of making a profit. Even oil companies. A business is not synonymous with a welfare office. they are entitled to make money on their commodity. The problem with their commodity is that it is finite supply, so the normal capitalist process of competition, economies of scale, innovation really don't apply here to any great degree. The only thing is to recognize the finite nature of the commodity and move to ration it, which would likely be fairer, but have very serious negative consequences for our economy.




At the risk of being called a socialist yet again, I must say that yes, I understand that every business is in the business of making a profit. I am fine with that to a degree.

But when it is a product or service that we cannot live without, that profit ought to be within reason, and not used to gouge us while overly enriching themselves. Don't they call that profiteering?


Halfway measures don't work. What you propose is holding the oil companies subject to market forces with respect to their commodity, such as what it costs to purchase, transport, refine and market it, yet restrict their right to make a reasonable profit based on those costs. You either allow them to make what the market will determine, or you nationalize it and eliminate them entirely from the equation. You can't have it both ways.

Now, I agree that if it is found that they unfairly manipulated the market, why that is another matter.

Where is that fine line to be drawn, between making a profit from favorable circumstances, and taking advantage of peoples need?


The market conditions determine that. If a commodity gets too expensive because of various legitimate market conditions, that's not taking advantage of people's needs. That's just tough luck for some. If you can't afford it, in a capitalist economy, you can't have it.

As I'm sure you're aware, the reactionaries are attempting to assert that Government actions aimed at increasing minority home ownership were responsible for this mortgage crisis. Clearly, one who is not ideologically challenged understands that the banks were just as eager to issue those mortgages as the Government was to have them, even if it didn't require by law for them to do so. but the parallel here is that you can't have capitalism as a system of economics and then modify it to provide for what some bureaucrat determines as people's needs.

I do believe that some regulation of certain industries is necessary. We have tried the small government, no regulations thing, and it hasn't worked........ either in financial markets or in the health care field or in the oil business. We have become slaves to these industries that we need to live, who are taking us for all they can squeeze out of us.


That's an over simplistic view, and, if I may say so, beneath you.

I am sorry, Alan, but I think that business is good and business is fun and profitable too, but when it starts getting out of hand it is like raising a pit bull. Cute as a puppy but its time to rethink when it tears peoples throats out.


But, as with your assertion concerning the oil companies, the perception is not necessarily the way it is, and you've got to be willing to let go of the perception when it's incompatible with things as they exist.

Most ideologues on either side of the aisle aren't. We have our share of both sides of the aisle. I'm sure I don't have to name names.


I think the oil companies have reached that point already a while ago. They need to be muzzled!




Alan,

I must tell you it is NOT at all beneath me to misunderstand or not understand certain of these issues at all. I have clearly stated many times that understanding economics on a national or global level absolutely is way out of my league. To put it politely and plainly, my ignorance is far greater than my knowledge of these things.

I didn't mean to be pejorative towards you. I assumed that you recognized the ideological basis for those perceptions rather than the evidence which would be required to support the perception.

If I ask a question and it seems simplistic, it is because I am trying hard to understand something which is not in my area of interest, expertise, or knowledge. Where these matters are concerned, I come from a place of simple personal observations and small time homeowner economics.

I don't hold myself out as genius either, but I do have a knack for looking down the road a bit farther than most people, and being able to measure effects to their logical conclusions, given certain things remaining constant.

I realize this, but sometimes things are simpler than we would make them out to be.

I agree that sometimes the simplistic is correct. Unfortunately, this is not one of those times.

There are reasons and there are excuses for everything,
especially when there are global and national interests that stand to keep certain people in the money, which they have to get out of another segment of the population. What may seem like fairness and filed under the category of "that's life" can end when it hits home.

Life isn't always fair, but that doesn't mean that the causes of that inherent unfairness are due to some nefarious cabal of deliberate collaboration. The capitalist economy implies that life will not necessarily be fair.

The big investment bankers were in it to make a profit and they made so much profit for themselves, that the system toppled. I see so many people who are in high places who vote themselves raises and benefits of every kind, while they make sure their underlings are on subsistence compensation.

Greed is the engine that drives capitalism. Unfortunately, greed is a part of human nature. And that's one big reason why Socialism and other similar economies have never persevered, can never persevere and will never persevere.

Something is wrong, and there must be some solution to this disparity, and I don't know what it is.

There is somewhere, in capitalism, some point at which there is a balance between capital and labor. Capital, recognizes that its profits are adequate and fair in consideration of risk, and labor recognizes that it is being permitted a reasonable share of the fruits of its labors. No one knows where that line is at any given time, but they recognize it when they get there.

Right now, we've lost that balance. We have various statistics that indicate that and we can point to current actions in the economy which also indicate that. Recovering that line is crucial to political stability as well as economic stability, as political instability has far more deleterious effects on people. We need to recover that balance. But unfortunately, its going to be more difficult, because we've expanded the stage from just our economy to a global economy. Obama, for all the 'hope' is not moving one iota to address that. In fact, he's retrenched from his campaign platform to do so, if the remarks by his secretary of state regarding China's currency manipulation are any indication. So much for putting one's trust in the messiahs of false hope. But given the fact that Hillary also proposed the same position in the primaries, I suppose she wouldn't do any better. But what is surprising, apparently with respect to this issue, they're doing exactly the same thing that our disgraced former leader did. Isn't it funny how much things change how much they remain the same?

.

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