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DagothGares
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No gods or kings
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posted April 19, 2009 03:51 PM |
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Actually, games need the money for self-sustenance and pay the entire team for their effort and to pay all their investors back with an added percentage...
Same with the movie industry...
Yeah, some actors, sportsmen and musicians earn too much money that their own company could use better, but those are very narrow margin... A very narrow margin that could buy a third world country...
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Doomforge
Admirable
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Retired Hero
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posted April 19, 2009 03:58 PM |
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Quote:
Doomforge:
Yes, they can. They can stop going to his football games. That'd put a quick stop to it.  If you don't like something, don't pay for it. If you want something, buy it.
I don't, and.. wait, it still happens.
To be honest, they don't get paid according to how many people go to the games. It's something like an inner competion between the biggest teams and their absurdly rich sponsors, often Russian businessmen. The payments are a direct response to that. Football is like rich guys' chess. You want your pawns to be the best, so you throw in 1% of your monthly income so that your private club can buy a good player. And since that 1% equals like 20 million dollars, or something.. oh well.
No control, that's what it is. It's like buying golden toilets for your private yacht for some absurd sums of money: excessive money beyond logic of a common man. It shouldn't happen. It makes the world horribly unfair.
Yet people say we should play by the rules and allow more and more unfairness, because we're, what... "helpless"?
Because the rules we set ourselves are impossible to change?
NO, It's because MONEY OWNS US, not WE OWN MONEY.
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We reached to the stars and everything is now ours
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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted April 19, 2009 04:48 PM |
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Quote:
JJ:
There is no such thing as "economic power".
There is no economic power? How would you call it, if a corp goes to a local government and says: "We currently consider building a new facility here; it will cost around 100.000.000 which we will invest into the local building and manufacturing industry, and we will employ 2500 people from the region. However... what are you prepared to do for it?"
Isn't that economic power?
Or if a corp buys smaller ones - reorganizing the structure of the bought ones, "rationalizing" them by reducing the staff. Isn't THAT economical power?
Just two examples.
Quote:
As Ludwig von Mises wrote in Socialism,
"Mankind does not drink alcohol because there are breweries, distilleries, and vineyards; men brew beer, distil spirits, and grow grapes because of the demand for alcoholic drinks. "Alcohol-capital" has not created drinking habits any more than it has created drinking songs. The capitalists who own shares in breweries and distilleries would have preferred shares in publishing firms for devotional books, had the demand been for spiritual and not spirituous substance. "Armament capital" did not create wars; wars created "armament capital." It was not Krupp and Schneider who incited the nations to war, but imperialist writers and politicians."
And that is AT BEST half the truth.
Because the other half is, once you are in the business, you won't like getting out of it. Capitalism is more than ever about CREATING a demand or REFINING a demand. Of course beer is brewed because there is a demand for alcoholic drinks - but the aim is not to satisfy a demand the aim is to MAXIMIZE THE PROFIT.
THAT, however, means, that you have to
a) increase the demand, per person as well as as a percentage of society
b) create additional demand.
So if you brew beer, the idea of maximizing profit means that
a) bring people to drink MORE beer
b) bring MORE PEOPLE to drink beer
c) create a demand in people for drinks involving beer
And that is only the BEER part. Of course you maximize profits also if you can get a hold on wine production, get special legal conditions for beer bettered (allowing it for younger people) or make sure taxation on beer is low or lower than on the other alcoholic drinks.
Which is the problem: there are many ways to help MAXIMIZING PROFITS, but not all of them are helpful for society. In fact a lot of them are pretty UNhelpful for society as a whole and have the habit to turn out being a liability for the community sooner or later.
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Corribus
Hero of Order
The Abyss Staring Back at You
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posted April 19, 2009 04:51 PM |
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Edited by Corribus at 16:52, 19 Apr 2009.
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@Wolfsburg
Quote:
No, I dont think both farmer A and B should get payed for 75% of the crops. Nor any other conduct that would in anyway increase ones profit in an undeserved way. But I think, and not only me, that the percentage the farmers get payed is outrageously low in absolute numbers.
The potato standards have gotten so strict that the edge of potatoes with market value got narrower with the time. This means the farmers have to hire extra personal to select the good from the bad potatoes, pay extra hours, and buy new machinery to collect them with more precision. This itself would be ok, but when they have to deal with a slice of less than 5% of the money being made on top of their own products, then I start to get touchy.
Ok, thank you, it's more clear now.
Now, I would like to ask you to please explain what you feel is the solution to the problem, and especially to reconsider my original question. Apparently, someone has decided that certain types of potatoes are more valuable than others. Do you feel that the companies purchasing potatoes should pay farmers more for potatoes that are less valuable?
I can think of two solutions off the top of my head.
(A) Company raises payment for every potato farmer sells (equally, regardless of potato quality), but the difference in payout for good and bad quality potatoes is the same as it is now.
(B) Company raises payment for low-value potatoes but keeps the price for high value potatoes the same. The extreme end here is that all potatoes prices are raised to be equal with the current value of good quality potatoes, but you could go somewhere in between.
Perhaps you have some other solution in mind. In any case, since either of these solutions is unnatural (please don't take that perjoratively) the government will have to enforce a regulation to effect the change. So, please consider what other ramifications will be if one of these laws is passed. Because, there will be other ramifications (for good or ill).
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I'm sick of following my dreams. I'm just going to ask them where they're goin', and hook up with them later. -Mitch Hedberg
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DagothGares
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
No gods or kings
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posted April 19, 2009 05:00 PM |
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@ JJ: You make it sound as if advertising is a bad thing and that they put guns to our heads for increasing profits... Short answer: i haven't noticed, but I'm still alive, despite not having drunk any alcoholic beverage to date.
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mvassilev
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posted April 19, 2009 05:05 PM |
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Doomforge:
If you did spend money on that, then he'd get paid even more. And how does him getting paid a lot hurt you?
JJ:
Quote:
How would you call it, if a corp goes to a local government and says: "We currently consider building a new facility here; it will cost around 100.000.000 which we will invest into the local building and manufacturing industry, and we will employ 2500 people from the region. However... what are you prepared to do for it?"
The government should not do anything illegal for it.
And people foolish enough to be affected by advertising deserve what they get.
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Eccentric Opinion
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Doomforge
Admirable
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posted April 19, 2009 05:09 PM |
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Quote:
Doomforge:
If you did spend money on that, then he'd get paid even more. And how does him getting paid a lot hurt you?
As hurts me as much as random theft. I wasn't the one robbed, but it doesn't change the fact it's not fair. Does it have to physically concern me to make it more important? We're talking about concepts here, not individual causes, I believe. 
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We reached to the stars and everything is now ours
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mvassilev
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Undefeatable Hero
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posted April 19, 2009 05:27 PM |
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Random theft does hurt you. That doesn't. And I don't see anything unfair about voluntary exchange.
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Eccentric Opinion
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JollyJoker
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posted April 19, 2009 06:21 PM |
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Quote:
@ JJ: You make it sound as if advertising is a bad thing and that they put guns to our heads for increasing profits... Short answer: i haven't noticed, but I'm still alive, despite not having drunk any alcoholic beverage to date.
You may not have bought a vacuum cleaner, an electric toothbrush, a microwave oven or a new car and a million other things as well, but does that change the aim to maximizie profits and does it change anything in the possible stratgies to do that?
Which isn't a question of how I make it sound. It's plain fact.
So can you tell me which point you actually have? That the fact that you didn't drink an alcoholic beverage to date proves that the strategies of profit maximizing aren't working?
MVass
Quote:
Quote:
How would you call it, if a corp goes to a local government and says: "We currently consider building a new facility here; it will cost around 100.000.000 which we will invest into the local building and manufacturing industry, and we will employ 2500 people from the region. However... what are you prepared to do for it?"
The government should not do anything illegal for it.
What do you mean, "illegal"? The government MAKES the laws or can loosen them, wide them, knot a tie around them, twist them. They can make EXCEPTIONS. They will do it as well - they have to bow to the pressure, because otherwise, someone else will do.
Which shows, that today communities compete for the corps, which shows who has the power.
Quote:
And people foolish enough to be affected by advertising deserve what they get.
You've alredy made it abundantly clear that you are a bit limited in your perspective, but I'd be careful with calling people foolish. A simple question: How stupid do you think THE CORPS are?
http://www.warc.com/LandingPages/Data/Adspend/AdspendByCountry.asp
This table shows that in 2007 in the US ALONE, over 160 BILLION $ were spent for advertisement.
Worldwide it's probably at around 500 billion $.
Now, do you really think that the corps would invest that kind of money into something that you'd have to be foolish to fall for?
That raises the question how foolish you are yourself, don't you think?
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mvassilev
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posted April 19, 2009 06:36 PM |
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The government should pursue optimal policies, whatever that means. It should try to attract businesses, of course, and maintain property rights. It shouldn't sacrifice the long term for the short term.
And I understand that some people are fooled by advertising, and businesses profit off of that. I have no problem with it.
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Eccentric Opinion
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JollyJoker
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Undefeatable Hero
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posted April 19, 2009 06:52 PM |
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Quote:
The government should pursue optimal policies, whatever that means. It should try to attract businesses, of course, and maintain property rights. It shouldn't sacrifice the long term for the short term.
And I understand that some people are fooled by advertising, and businesses profit off of that. I have no problem with it.
Yeah, whatever that means. Fine point. Everyone should always behave optimal whatever that means. All problems solved.
And I repeat, if you think that the corps spent 163 billion dollars for advertisement in the US alone in 2007 with and for the effect to fool "some people", the fool are you.
I mean, shouldn't you at least stop and think about it? 163 billion $. You really think that kind of money is spent to find a couple fools that buy a few products they otherwise wouldn't buy?
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Wolfsburg
Promising
Known Hero
... the Vampire Doc
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posted April 19, 2009 07:20 PM |
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Quote:
And I understand that some people are fooled by advertising, and businesses profit off of that. I have no problem with it.
Capitalists profit out of fooling people in many ways. Advertising is possibliy the least worst of them. As if passively accepting a system based on deceit was not bad enough we have found ourselves someone who actively supports it. 
You are really amazingly hardline for your age Vassilev, I wonder how someone who is 17 already embraced such ideas.
And please, don't be offended, its just unusual to see this kind of opinion in your age group.
@Corribus:
I just think that opposite to rotten, damaged or worm-drilled, there is much use to odd shaped and large potatoes, thats all. I don't think they fit in the group "unusable". They could perfectly be used for other ends that not french-fried machines. So IMO farmers should get payed for those too. The locals point out that restraining the amount of boxes available to transport the potatoes and increasing those kinds of strict demands is one more stratagem to further repass the burden of market to the backs of the farmers, while keeping the broad edge of profit. And I think they are quite right on that assumption.
Do you disagree?
And sorry guys, I promisse that is my last post on potatoes on this thread about socialism!
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Doomforge
Admirable
Undefeatable Hero
Retired Hero
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posted April 19, 2009 07:56 PM |
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Quote:
Random theft does hurt you. That doesn't.
A big tax ramp also doesn't hurt me.
You know what unfairness is? It's not necessarily about hurting people. It's just unfair
Quote:
And I don't see anything unfair about voluntary exchange.
To be honest I don't know what voluntary exchange is, and the language of wiki is too cryptic for me. I'm a man of simple english, Goddamnit. 
____________
We reached to the stars and everything is now ours
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mvassilev
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
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posted April 19, 2009 08:11 PM |
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JJ:
Apparently, companies think that advertising is profitable. Whatever. That's fine with me. It may be. That's none of my concern, as it's not coercive.
Wolfsburg:
Quote:
As if passively accepting a system based on deceit was not bad enough we have found ourselves someone who actively supports it.
What. Capitalism isn't based on deceit at all. And it could function just as well if the concept of advertising was never thought of.
Doomforge:
Quote:
A big tax ramp also doesn't hurt me.
Yes, it does. It discourages productivity - which would hurt you.
Quote:
To be honest I don't know what voluntary exchange is
It's what it sounds like: exchange... that is voluntary.
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Eccentric Opinion
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Doomforge
Admirable
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posted April 19, 2009 08:23 PM |
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Quote:
Yes, it does. It discourages productivity - which would hurt you.
To see a guy after elementary school earning millions when I struggle to get a job (payment: 500 euro) after finishing an university discourages productivity far more. It actually destroys any desire to study and work 
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mvassilev
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
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posted April 19, 2009 09:02 PM |
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Well, that only hurts you. Put that out of your mind and you'll be much more productive. His productivity is helping you, not hurting you.
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Eccentric Opinion
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Corribus
Hero of Order
The Abyss Staring Back at You
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posted April 19, 2009 09:09 PM |
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Edited by Corribus at 21:10, 19 Apr 2009.
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@Wolfsburg
Quote:
I just think that opposite to rotten, damaged or worm-drilled, there is much use to odd shaped and large potatoes, thats all. I don't think they fit in the group "unusable". They could perfectly be used for other ends that not french-fried machines. So IMO farmers should get payed for those too. The locals point out that restraining the amount of boxes available to transport the potatoes and increasing those kinds of strict demands is one more stratagem to further repass the burden of market to the backs of the farmers, while keeping the broad edge of profit. And I think they are quite right on that assumption.
Do you disagree?
Well I'm not an expert on the potato market. However, under the assumption that a corporation (in this case, whoever purchases the potatoes from farmers) does not operate under simple malice, one must believe that the corporation will purchase what items it feels are valuable. Certainly you may believe that an oddly shaped potato has value, but clearly to the corporation purchasing potatoes, only potatoes with certain characteristics have value (value here meaning that the sell price of a potato justifies the cost of purchasing and processing the potato). For instance, the purchaser of potatoes probably has certain machines that process the potatoes in a certain way. It is quite likely that oddly shaped potatoes cannot be processed by these machines, which are engineered to handle potatoes of a uniform shape and size, and so these potatoes are, in effect, worthless to the processor (even though they may taste as good as, and be as healthy for you as, perfectly shaped potatoes). Therefore, because oddly shaped potatoes are, in effect, worthless to the processor - because he cannot use them at all - it seems unreasonable to expect the processor to purchase oddly shaped potatoes from the farmers. No?
Quote:
And sorry guys, I promisse that is my last post on potatoes on this thread about socialism!
Quite the contrary, as opposed to most of the banal (and quite meaningless) capitalism vs. socialism discussion that goes on here, which is done mostly on an abstract, theoretical (and, hence, vastly oversimplified) level, I find it quite interesting to discuss your experience at a potato farm. While I seriously doubt you will turn me against capitalism, I do often find that you can learn as much from other peoples' experiences (as opposed to simply and often stubbornly stated opinions) as you can from your own. Even if I ultimately come away from such a discussion still feeling that my initial perspective was the correct one, I find that viewing a problem from someone else's vantage point can often put my own opinions in a wider, more meaningful context. An opinion without context is meaningless because it is untested.
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I'm sick of following my dreams. I'm just going to ask them where they're goin', and hook up with them later. -Mitch Hedberg
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Doomforge
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posted April 19, 2009 09:34 PM |
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Quote:
Well, that only hurts you. Put that out of your mind and you'll be much more productive. His productivity is helping you, not hurting you.
Aww, come on, this isn't an argument. What are you advising here, "trying to pretend everything is ok" ? That's rather a commie way of thinking, they were always pretending and having the success propaganda around.
Reality is harsh. Capitalistic approach of "free market" creates idiocies like the football player millionaire.
Would be good if you came out with something to stop this absurd, though Why won't you invent your own system?
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We reached to the stars and everything is now ours
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Wolfsburg
Promising
Known Hero
... the Vampire Doc
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posted April 19, 2009 10:29 PM |
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@Corribus
Since you find it interesting, a bit more of my thoughts.
Quote:
However, under the assumption that a corporation (in this case, whoever purchases the potatoes from farmers) does not operate under simple malice, one must believe that the corporation will purchase what items it feels are valuable.
I also dont believe they operate under malice, but they operate with the intend of making more profit. And that kind of narrowminded mentality brings us to an interesting scenario: a society advanced enough to extract monoclonal antibodies from patients with multiple myeloma and use them to threat a wide array of rheumatological diseases cannot come up with an efficient way of using odd shaped potatoes.
Sounds to me more like an excuse to constrain the potato production when its abundant in the market (everyone is harvesting in potato season), and thus mantaining its cost high. Again, leaving the burden on top of the farmers shoulders. Not to mention the concept of waste, which I consider very unpleasant, for it opens a whole new subject of discussion.
Quote:
Quite the contrary, as opposed to most of the banal (and quite meaningless) capitalism vs. socialism discussion that goes on here, which is done mostly on an abstract, theoretical (and, hence, vastly oversimplified) level, I find it quite interesting to discuss your experience at a potato farm.
I have quite a load of another interesting experiences, like back then when I worked with malnurished children in Peru, or in emergency stations in "war-zones" within Rio, or my perspectives on the agro-slums sorrounding my city. But I would much happier hear a bit of your own life-experiences for a change.
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While I seriously doubt you will turn me against capitalism, I do often find that you can learn as much from other peoples' experiences (as opposed to simply and often stubbornly stated opinions) as you can from your own.
You can be sure Im not arguing to turn you against capitalism (what a pretensious effort would that be). All of my efforts are normally intended to make people see that capitalism as we know it is a flawed system as well. And certainly not a viable tool to adjust humanity's status quo.
Quote:
Even if I ultimately come away from such a discussion still feeling that my initial perspective was the correct one, I find that viewing a problem from someone else's vantage point can often put my own opinions in a wider, more meaningful context. An opinion without context is meaningless because it is untested.
As long as one contributes to the discussion and brings new perspectives I think it is utterly healthy to come out of it with the feeling that one is correct. 
And like yourself, science is my daily-bread. I work fine with testing, observation, notation, discussion, and with luck, conclusion. Thats why I so actively search for such experiences.
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mvassilev
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
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posted April 20, 2009 12:02 AM |
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Doom:
Quote:
Aww, come on, this isn't an argument. What are you advising here, "trying to pretend everything is ok" ?
No, I'm suggesting that you realize that it has nothing to do with you and doesn't affect you in any way. His success has nothing to do with your lack thereof.
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Eccentric Opinion
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This thread is pages long: 
