Comments on Stonekettle Station: Failure Is The Plan The Plan Is Death

This is not about Bachmann or any of the other foo...

2011-12-07T08:42:43.297-09:00

This is not about Bachmann or any of the other fools in the GOPer clown car.

It's about the voters who consistently re-elect her and the other fools.

We should not be talking about these people and we wouldn't if it wasn't for the idiot voters. Blame the voters. Let's talk about the voters and what kind of educational system would produce such idiots who could elect the G Dubya the texas dummy not once but twice.

The voting bit is nothing if not frustrating. My ...

2011-12-01T15:24:28.881-09:00

The voting bit is nothing if not frustrating. My little corner of Ohio is bright red. John Boehner is one district to the north. My friends up there remind me whenever I complain about Steve Chabot, our 1st district rep.
What else is there, though? I don't buy voting Independant candidates at the federal level. I think it wastes my vote. (Looking at you Nader-gator.)
The only recourse is discussion. On the web, and face to face.

Instead of blaming congress not once did you al...

2011-11-30T20:50:08.760-09:00
Instead of blaming congress not once did you allude to the voters who put them there. Maybe start with one of the reddest of red states, Alaska

I guess you missed this part:

"Because, see, ultimately the mere existence of such a congressional super-committee is an expression of abject failure on the part of Americans to maintain and operate their democracy in any but the most mindless and instinctual manner. "

Instead of blaming congress not once did you allud...

2011-11-30T20:43:36.623-09:00
Instead of blaming congress not once did you allude to the voters who put them there. Maybe start with one of the reddest of red states, Alaska

Oh, and Jim, some of us got who you were talking a...

2011-11-30T19:25:08.074-09:00
Oh, and Jim, some of us got who you were talking about by that comment on the "rich lobbyist". You were talking about George Soros, right?

Let's see, something that was worth nothing on...

2011-11-30T19:23:18.847-09:00
Let's see, something that was worth nothing one day, worth thousands the next, and then worth nothing afterward… hmmm, that's a hard one I'll have to think on that and resear…

Gold.

Worth nothing in the ground. Dug out, refined, and hyped to the nth degree it's worth thousands. And when that bubble collapses, worth less than what you paid for it.

It's happened twice in my life. I expect it to happen again, pretty soon in fact.

Love the post, love Tiptree/Sheldon, love the biog...

2011-11-30T14:10:09.011-09:00
Love the post, love Tiptree/Sheldon, love the biography that tells such an amazing story so compellingly. Obviously, another gushing sycophant.

And while I'm sympathetic to some of BadTux's points (e.g., CEO's of Blue Chip corporations are wildly overpaid), I can't say I agree with many of them. For instance, the canard that defense contractors don't hire U.S. citizens is simply wrong. Ditto that part about how putting money back into the DoD, effectively in-sourcing, would result in more U.S. citizens having jobs.

Every army needs a general. Somebody has to be at the end of the chain of command. As Truman famously said, "The buck stops here." That's why corporations need CEOs.

On the other hand, you can cut the pay of most of them by 50% or more, and still end up paying them quite a bit of filthy lucre.

Every time someone calls for the creation of a &qu...

2011-11-30T11:02:06.450-09:00
Every time someone calls for the creation of a "beacon" to attract other intelligent life in the universe, I think of the Screwfly Solution. I had forgotten who wrote it, thanks for the reminder.

Also to respond to Snap the Randian -- history is full of examples of things that have an arbitrary value only because we say they do. Some hold this value because they are excellent status markers, such as gems. Others, like Beanie Babies, balloon up and explode. The classic historic example was the dutch tulip market of the early 17th century.

Perhaps you should balance your randian fantasy reads with some non-fiction. I would suggest history and economics.

Oh and caps don't make things truer. You'll learn that when you get to high school.

I've worked for 2 power companies for over 30 ...

2011-11-30T07:26:20.980-09:00
I've worked for 2 power companies for over 30 years. The very 1st CEO seemed like a fairly decent guy when he flew in on his private helicopter; he even glad-handed a few of the plant workers. The ones after that merely issued edicts from 300 miles away (one of our 50-some vice presidents eventually went on to destroy an airline with his majic). Then came so many "programs" (vision quest was one that always reminded me of Quest for fire) that I can't even remember the names. Then we started hearing about shareholder value. I looked up the insider trading on the yahoo message board. I was stunned to see that the CEO sold $11 million in stock in 3 weeks; that was on top of his salary, perks, helicopters, etc. Shareholder value IS NOT the retiree waiting for his $50 dividend check; it's the millions the 10 main board members sell. If anyone of those guys (or gals) disappeared off the planet, the only person that might miss them would be the secretary. They have absolutely nothing to do with creating electricity, the people running the plants, nor the poor schmucks paying light bills. If people knew what their bills were really paying for in idiotic programs that last 6-8 months, consultants, lobbyists, and lawyers, the high lines would be strung with bodies. We had one consultant in house for almost 2 years. He was given his own office. His bill was almost $800 per day. He made enough money, that I got a fax off the machine for him, asking what options he wanted on his new plane. He bragged that if Tom Cruise (Top Gun) had done what the consultant had done, Tom Cruise would be bald too. This overblown braggart swaggering around the office, ordering cases of flip charts and scented markers for his "lessons" (which included having management look at zoo animals and describe which one they most related to) contributed not one thing to making electricity. I swear that guy laughed his ass off all the way to the bank seeing what insane things he could get management to do because he said so. One time he had upper management skipping around an office trying to get each person to walk/skip/jump different than the guy before. Yet his "opinion" mattered more than the people actually running the plant. It was disgusting and a monumental waste of money.

Becky

Bravo!

2011-11-30T06:04:46.481-09:00
Bravo!

Hmm. Things that we pay for that are worthless onc...

2011-11-30T03:35:28.991-09:00
Hmm. Things that we pay for that are worthless once we've purchased them.

I'll have to start with lap dances. I've never had a lap dance that was anything other than five extra minutes of frustration. I'd have been better off handing over the cash and averting my eyes.

Software. If you're old enough you've tossed hundreds of dollars of used software you paid good money for.

Gambling. No explanation needed.

Religion. You could toss an envelope stuffed with newsprint in the collection plate every week and the service would be the same.

I'm sure there's more but that's what I can think of off the top of my head.

Whoops, forgot political donations. If you're not tossing in big bucks nobody cares what you want. Which is how we got to the OP.

Jim - Great post. Painful to read and agree with. ...

2011-11-30T03:31:02.044-09:00
Jim - Great post. Painful to read and agree with. However our "public servants" in DC are not going to be concerned about the common good of the nation. They are primarily dedicated to remaining in office.

Their failure in the last decade to recognize and prevent the national train wreck is bound to a large extent to their complete and utter fealty to the real source of their support. The bankers, businesses and industrialists that suck from the federal teat keep these "elected" people whole.

War is GREAT business. The Fed and SEC massage the privates of the bankers and Congress bends over willingly for their largess. Education and health care reform are just institutionalized cash cows for the providers. We all know that, but few of us have the $millions to attempt counter the trend.

Congress (and apparently the Judiciary and White House) could not turn against the hyper-wealthy benefactors if it even occurred to them to try. The status quo is good business and the business is good. The lucky 12 on the 1% Committee made out handsomely from additional $millions in campaign contributions; just to make sure they didn't fuck up and actually produce a plan that might benefit the nation.

S/F Mate

Well, I'm back home from work (I create for a ...

2011-11-29T18:35:45.727-09:00
Well, I'm back home from work (I create for a living, remember?). It seems to me that there's some confusing about price, value, and worth. A stock certificate for a share of Disney has a price. This price is some number that is negotiated in a marketplace via supply and demand. It has value -- it denotes a percentage of ownership of Disney Corporation. But its actual worth is what that percentage of the assets of Disney Corporation, its real estate, its intellectual properties, its workforce and divisions, would be if sold on the open market -- and completely divorced from the price of the share.

So what is wealth? Is wealth the stock certificate, which has a price? Or is wealth the worth of Disney Corporation's assets, including the cash flow generated via operating Disney Corporation? Long-term, the price of a share of stock approaches the worth of the percentage of the company denoted by the share of stock. Enron stock, after all, is now worthless because it turns out the company was a scam. But before Enron collapsed, its stock prices hit record highs, $84.87 on December 28, 2000 - making Enron the country's seventh most valuable company. But was the *wealth* represented by Enron any different on December 28, 2000 than it is today, when we know it was an utterly bankrupt and worthless shell on that day? Price != wealth. There were no assets represented by that share of Enron that you bought on December 28, 2000 -- they were all gone, you were buying literally hot air. There was no more wealth produced by Enron on December 28, 2000, than there is today when the company is long gone.

So anyhow, back to wealth. I think one reason people conflate price with wealth is because money serves as a temporary store of value by agreement of all involved, otherwise it'd be useless as a medium of exchange in a marketplace. If money became worthless between you selling potatoes in the marketplace this morning and you buying turnips in the marketplace tomorrow evening, what would be the point of accepting money in exchange for potatoes? But money is not wealth. You can't eat money. You can't live in money. It's what you *buy* with money that is wealth. And the *price* of what you buy with money has little to do with the actual *worth* of what you buy with money -- two words: Pet rocks.

So anyhow, anybody who says that someone "created wealth" by driving up the price of a stock is being a silly bugger. Ken Lay did that too. Did Ken Lay "create wealth"? No. If you're going to say that someone "created wealth" at Disney, what you're saying is that someone contributed to Disney having more assets, more intellectual property, more cashflow, more profit, more product to sell in the marketplace. Those are wealth. The price of a stock certificate has nothing to do with the wealth denoted by that stock certificate, which is the percentage of the assets of Disney Corporation involved. Insofar as a CEO coordinates the actual wealth producers he does add value to the company and should be compensated thereof. But to say that he should be compensated 1,000 times what the people who actually produced the wealth is paid is ridiculous... all he did was coordinate other people's activities, he didn't actually create any of that wealth *himself*.

Of course, our elites are quite eager to distract us from this reality, because they get to grift really really well if they can convince people that price is the same thing as worth is the same thing as wealth. And as responses to my prior comments demonstrate, they've pretty well succeeded. So it goes, in Griftopia USA...

- Badtux the Non-grifting Penguin

Stocks are wealth because they represent shares in...

2011-11-29T18:14:28.207-09:00
Stocks are wealth because they represent shares in corporations which own capital (aka stuff). It is true that stocks often get sold for amounts that are way higher than the actual worth of share of the corporation's capital they represent and that difference between the actual wealth and the price of the stock is not stuff or wealth. It is just potential wealth in the same way that a lottery ticket is potential wealth.

The Deficit Commission is a hulking fucking great ...

2011-11-29T17:10:02.188-09:00
The Deficit Commission is a hulking fucking great failure, appointed by a bunch of fucking epic failures.
However, as one commenter has already pointed out, "we the people" elected these representatives.
The cure to the problem lies in the hands of the electorate. Just for once, electors need to stop blathering on about "we need to clean house" and actually make it happen. Starting by NOT voting for either of the two major political parties. Right now, voting Democrat or Republican truly fits that well-known definition of Madness.
Until enough people vote for third parties in a way that influences the political process positively (most likely by scaring the bejeebers out of the two major parties, who will then promptly smack their foreheads and, you know, discover those "new ideas" that they had been ignoring for decades), then we will not see any meanginful change.

Now, now. Don't be a sorehead, Snap

2011-11-29T17:07:59.360-09:00
Now, now.

Don't be a sorehead, Snap

2011-11-29T17:07:04.483-09:00
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

Oh and, uh, snap.

2011-11-29T16:34:01.523-09:00
Oh and, uh, snap.

Beanie Babies

2011-11-29T16:32:57.124-09:00
Beanie Babies

Jim Wright "Yes. Stock has value -" BUL...

2011-11-29T16:32:09.736-09:00
Jim Wright "Yes. Stock has value -"

BULLS%#T.

you have no idea what your talking about. You should try reading Ayn Rand again, maybe this time you will "get it." name one REAL product who's "value" changes like freakin' stocks! Name ONE product that was only worth a couple of cents andt hen was instantly worth a thousand timest hat because people "wanted" it and then was worthless over nite. Because you CANT.

I think it depends on the widget. Certain widgets ...

2011-11-29T14:45:49.003-09:00
I think it depends on the widget.
Certain widgets tend to hold their value over time, or increase their value over time, due to perceived quality, or scarcity, because they're just plain awesome, or because the outfit that makes it is engaged in a long term sustained marketing campaign that helps keep desire for the product alive, say like a Harley-Davidson motorcyle.

Other widgets don't.

Ditto stocks.

When we are discussing complex issues such as wealth, I would be very reluctant to embrace any "one size fits all" position.

Jim Wright: "But because stocks are, as you p...

2011-11-29T14:37:05.727-09:00
Jim Wright: "But because stocks are, as you pointed out, Tux, based on fickle human desire and rarely on physical stuff they can lose value just as quickly as they created it. "

Do you think the value of "physical stuff" is just as fickle as nebulous things like stocks? Their value is defined by how much people want the stuff. If they lose the desire for the stuff, then it will lose value.

This is, perhaps, less true of physical stuff that people need to survive (water, air, food, shelter, etc.) But is the value of a widget really any more tangible than the value of a stock in the company that makes the widget?

Stocks are wealth because many people see them as ...

2011-11-29T10:53:18.494-09:00
Stocks are wealth because many people see them as valuable and desire to possess them. But because stocks are, as you pointed out, Tux, based on fickle human desire and rarely on physical stuff they can lose value just as quickly as they created it.

Are stocks real wealth? That's just arguing semantics. Wealth generated from the desire for stocks is used to buy stuff and so its value becomes physically real, at least in some sense. And I don’t really see it as that much different from the desire for shiny metal. Up until the advent of the electronics industry, gold mostly only had value because people wanted it. It really wasn’t much good for anything other than being shiny and yellow. Another example, I’m old enough to have once spent money on a Pet Rock. Yep. That was wealth created entirely from an idea – and the non-physical product of marketing. Was it real wealth? For somebody it certainly was.

Conversely, it's also important to point out that physical stuff can become worthless just as easily as non-physical stuff, computers and other such momentary technology are one example, a racehorse that breaks a leg is another. The physical stuff still exists, and in the case of the antiquated but still fully operational computer, isn't worth anything, not even the price of recouping the material it's made from (the horse can still be used for stud or sold for dog food, it may still have value albeit much reduced). Why? Where did the wealth inherent in the physical item go? The effort to create it didn't change. The wages the manufacturer paid to the person who built it didn’t change and weren’t recovered. The material it's made from didn't change and may, in fact, be worth more now than when the device was first manufactured. Nothing changed about it, but it's now worthless, and in fact may actually represent negative wealth if you have to pay to dispose of it. It's still stuff, you can touch it, but again where did the wealth go? Answer: the stuff is worthless because nobody wants it.

Stocks are wealth because we say they are. Because people want them.

Jim feel free to remove if you think I've g...

2011-11-29T10:53:02.290-09:00
Jim feel free to remove if you think I've gone to far off topic.

Ultimately, this post is about national debt, spending cuts, and taxes: i.e. wealth. So, no, I don't think you're off topic, @Warner. Feel free to continue.

Stock prices? You believe stock prices are wealth?!...

Yes. In that stock has value. It has value, because a lot of people want it. Silly? Perhaps, nevertheless.

... Wealth is *stuff*

Stock is stuff. Example: I create stuff, i.e. physical art from wood. I make bowls and carvings and other such things from wood on my lathe in my woodshop. People give me money for those items, sometimes a lot of money. Sometimes they give me stuff in trade (usually more wood to make more stuff from). The Stuff I make has value to people who are interested in such things. Others? Well, they think my stuff is crap and they have said they wouldn't even use it for firewood (those people are entitled to their opinions. They can also blow me).

Wealth is what we say it is.

Another example: Stonekettle Station. I write stuff. I most certainly create it. In many cases it takes a great deal more creative effort on my part than my woodwork. A number of folks have said quite specifically that what I write here has value to them, but it's quite unlikely that they'd pay to visit this blog. So while it may have value, it makes me no wealth. And yet it has value to me, otherwise I wouldn’t do it. There’s more than one kind of wealth.

People who makes things, as you pointed out, Tux, create wealth as a general case. The CEO and managers of the company may not create wealth in the same fashion, but they provide wealth in the form of fostering an environment that lends value to the physical items created by workers (or not, certainly there are plenty of worthless managers and CEO’s). Example: Marketing. People in marketing may not directly create stuff, but they do create wealth by creating a desire for the physical items created by people who make stuff (or not, again I’m talking in a general sense here). Now does that mean that they should be entitled to 1000x the share of wealth as the guy who makes the gizmo? Maybe. Because maybe the gizmo is worthless without the efforts of the marketing trolls and the CEOs. Or maybe not. What percentage then? 100x? 10x? .5x? Who decides? The government? History would suggest that’s a bad idea.

@Nick The only problem with that is, to someone w...

2011-11-29T10:44:47.009-09:00
@Nick

The only problem with that is, to someone who is REALLY REALLY poor (as in having to choose between rent and food) $10 is a lot of money.

To someone like me (making $36,000 a year) $10 is pocket change.

To the 1%, they wouldn't even know it's gone. Either $10, or several thousand times $10.

This is why people whose incomes are so low they don't pay income taxes (you know, the people Michele Bachmann rags on) shouldn't have to.

Comments on Stonekettle Station: Failure Is The Plan The Plan Is Death

This is not about Bachmann or any of the other foo...

The voting bit is nothing if not frustrating. My ...

Instead of blaming congress not once did you al...

Instead of blaming congress not once did you allud...

Oh, and Jim, some of us got who you were talking a...

Let's see, something that was worth nothing on...

Love the post, love Tiptree/Sheldon, love the biog...

Every time someone calls for the creation of a &qu...

I've worked for 2 power companies for over 30 ...

Bravo!

Hmm. Things that we pay for that are worthless onc...

Jim - Great post. Painful to read and agree with. ...

Well, I'm back home from work (I create for a ...

Stocks are wealth because they represent shares in...

The Deficit Commission is a hulking fucking great ...

Now, now. Don't be a sorehead, Snap

Oh and, uh, snap.

Beanie Babies

Jim Wright "Yes. Stock has value -" BUL...

I think it depends on the widget. Certain widgets ...

Jim Wright: "But because stocks are, as you p...

Stocks are wealth because many people see them as ...

Jim feel free to remove if you think I've g...

@Nick The only problem with that is, to someone w...