I will argue we do not get things for nothing when we are no longer dependent children. Even what nature gives us, requires us to make an effort to get it. I think everyone should have a garden because gardens teach us a lot about life. A productive garden requires a lot of work, preparing the soil, planting at the right time, watering just enough and not too much, defending the garden from disease, pest, and animals that will gladly eat it and if you don't get it right, you starve. — Athena

Indeed. I have worked most of a lifetime to afford a garden of my own. Up to now I have worked as a gardener for others, and borrowed or rented various patches from time to time. But in a couple of weeks God willing, we are moving to a new house with a small garden of our own. But bitter experience has taught me that a productive garden takes many many years of labour. We inherit the labour of the ancestors in creating a good soil structure, de-stoning, draining, clearing, terracing, developing the strains of seed we rely on, and building up the complex of knowledge from generations of experience so that we make fewer mistakes and can be more productive than our predecessors. All of this we get for free.
And we are also dependent on our neighbours to keep their patch in good condition and not spread weed seeds or dilute our seed stock with cross-pollination from inferior varieties.

... we do not get things for nothing when we are no longer dependent children. — Athena

You are completely wrong. Never mind the food itself, can you even make a spade? No, most everyone who posts here is totally dependent on a vast network of social connections without which they could not survive, let alone post.

Head for the wilderness and divest yourself of everything made by another hand, and see how far your own work will take you.

I love how you all force me to think! :heart: — Athena

That's a nice compliment to the forum, Athena.

You will not be planning a new computer program and giving any thought to technological development, but you may discover a better way to make a spear because your survival pushes you to do what you do better. — Athena

Making a spear better is likely a far more difficult thing than planning a new computer program, when you think of it. I'd say we are always making similar simple advances, but just adding up on the aggregate collective understanding. "If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants" as Newton once said.

The homeless will be glad to know they get so much free.

What in the Heavens is whatever you said and do you stand by the concept it is not a byproduct of God? A useful one perhaps but yes.

The homeless will be {happy? amazed?} to know they get so much free. — Athena

The homeless have been robbed of their home which is the same Earth that the rich think they have exclusive right to. Some people think there is some justice or morality in a few people owning many homes and a great number paying to borrow their homes and many more not having homes at all. I think is ridiculous and unneccesary. Everyone should have a garden, and everyone should have a home.

The homeless have been robbed of their home which is the same Earth that the rich think they have exclusive right to. Some people think there is some justice or morality in a few people owning many homes and a great number paying to borrow their homes and many more not having homes at all. I think is ridiculous and unneccesary. Everyone should have a garden, and everyone should have a home. — unenlightened

This thread is about the economy and I suppose we could talk about housing the homeless. We have come to that time of year when people freeze to death if they are not sheltered. First we need to decide where they are going to sleep? Then where will they pee and shit? How do they get food? How do they manage their trash? How do they avoid having their few possessions stolen? Our budget is zero. Now create those shelters.

You can easily create a budget by taking from other people. Or taxation.

What in the Heavens is whatever you said and do you stand by the concept it is not a byproduct of God? A useful one perhaps but yes. — Outlander

Yeah, once again I left out an important word. I have corrected the post. Amazing what a difference one word can make. Especially when the word is "not". This time the missing word is "glad".

I became politically active to house the homeless following the 1970 recession. We could not assimilate the young into the work force fast enough and I housed many of them. I sold plasma to supplement my small pay check and was feeding these young people, buying them medicine, buying them clothes so they could apply for jobs, and then things got worse. When an economy crashes the cost of housing stays low but as soon as the economy improves, the cost of housing rises and even more people become homeless.

During the 1970 recession I researched poverty at the U of O document department. I wanted to understand how can wealth just suddenly disappear and such hardships follow?! I learned some interesting things, such as how laws to protect the middle class standard of living, result in increased homelessness. What large populations and diminished resources has to do with the increased cost of housing because the cost of land and everything that makes a house, goes up, making it impossible to build truly low income housing.

I fought very hard to call public attention to the increasing homelessness, and now my retired sister combs the streets of our state capital, rescuing the homeless people she can rescue. Her Facebook page has pictures of the horrors she deals with, and the people who want their story to told. My grown granddaughter manages a camp ground for homeless people and her life is on the line, because of the virus and because, when necessary, she must take knives away from men who are not in their right mind. In my community there is much more for struggling people than in our state capital and this is because of what I was able to achieve long ago. I did not achieve it alone but I got the ball rolling because I wanted to get homeless people out of my home. We could not have achieved anything but our city counsel had hippies running our city and so a lot of good things were done. :flower:

It is hard to imagine anyone being homeless and staying in their right mind for long. Their survival almost depends on going feral, like a feral cat that can no longer be domesticated. I am not as involved as I once was because I just physically can't do much, but I turn on my computer every morning to make this world a better place. After what I have seen and experienced, I really want people to face reality. Never in the history of humanity did the easy life come free, unless the people live in one of the few places that are like a Garden of Eden, such as the tropical islands and Mediterranean areas with large rivers.

You can easily create a budget by taking from other people. Or taxation. — Benkei

Please explain that. Who decides how much a tax payer will pay, and who pays taxes? What is the process of getting more money from tax payers? What are the consequences of raising taxes or creating new taxes? What is being taxed, property, things we own or buy, incomes?

When a representative has a history of raising taxes, what happens when the next election period comes? When a representative or president says we must conserve and stop consuming oil or stop cutting down the forest, what happens at the next election? Why? It is the economy and I hope people keep posting.

The point was just shorthand that the example you provided is fictitious. The budget is never zero. There's always a budget of labour available for starters - there's a bunch of homeless lying around doing nothing after all. And yes, if enough people are homeless they should just take homes from others. Seems fair enough if a society fails to care for all its members.

Very nice to hear that people actually do voluntary work.

Perhaps I seem to be a "socialist" when I do say that these things ought to be taken care by the government and not to be left only to voluntary organizations as they can do only so much. Above all, it policies have to be smart and understand that homelesness is a complex issue, yet it can be minimized and dealt with. Many need far more help than just a roof over their head. Even if there is mental disorders and addiction problems, many don't have these issues. In my country in the 1950's there were about 70 000 homeless people, in 1987 the number had decreased to 18 000 and now in 2020 it's estimated that there are 4 000. Four thousand in over five million people isn't much (0,008%), which all are sheltered. In the US the number is something like (0,175%), which is twenty times the amount than here. For comparison, LA County has roughly twice the population of my country, Finland, yet has about 60 000 homeless.

I think this isn't a problem of money in the US, but the lack of sound social policies, social work and organization. The biggest obstacle is the view that the Welfare State is socialism and that you cannot force people into treatment etc. Reducing the homeless by 50% is totally possible for starters.

↪Athena The point was just shorthand that the example you provided is fictitious. The budget is never zero. There's always a budget of labour available for starters - there's a bunch of homeless lying around doing nothing after all. And yes, if enough people are homeless they should just take homes from others. Seems fair enough if a society fails to care for all its members. — Benkei

Okay you have 50 labors. Now how do you turn this labor into shelter for everyone?

Perhaps I seem to be a "socialist" when I do say that these things ought to be taken care by the government and not to be left only to voluntary organizations as they can do only so much. Above all, it policies have to be smart and understand that homelesness is a complex issue, yet it can be minimized and dealt with. Many need far more help than just a roof over their head. Even if there is mental disorders and addiction problems, many don't have these issues. In my country in the 1950's there were about 70 000 homeless people, in 1987 the number had decreased to 18 000 and now in 2020 it's estimated that there are 4 000. Four thousand in over five million people isn't much (0,008%), which all are sheltered. In the US the number is something like (0,175%), which is twenty times the amount than here. For comparison, LA County has roughly twice the population of my country, Finland, yet has about 60 000 homeless.

I think this isn't a problem of money in the US, but the lack of sound social policies, social work and organization. The biggest obstacle is the view that the Welfare State is socialism and that you cannot force people into treatment etc. Reducing the homeless by 50% is totally possible for starters. — ssu

Your opening statement is excellent and I look forward to reading the rest of your post.

The truth of what you said makes me so mad! :rage: The US has just recently come to the end of its wilderness, and its mentality has not caught up with its changed reality. For awhile we did have facilities for the mentally ill. Some were very nice and others were hell holes because they were overwhelmed by a larger population of mentally ill people than expected. The solution was to close them down and deny the problem. Today where I live, we have an space that provides many services and the mentally ill hang around this area with no place to go. My sister has been rescuing people off the streets at our state capital and her life has been hell because we do not have the organization to help the seriously mentally ill. Our hospitals are dumping people with serious health problems on the streets knowing they have no place to go. A third world country could not do worse than we are doing.

We are just beginning to think in terms of government having a responsibility to care for people needing help, instead of driving them out of town or incarcerating them for crimes. But I am not sure this discussion belongs in a thread about economics? This discussion belongs in a thread questioning if the US is civilized. We are so clueless about the end of a labor intense economy that could more easily assimilate marginal people, and why our high tech society has pushed millions of people out of main stream society and into uncontrolled mental illness and drug addiction. Now that economic change could be an economic issue? But as long as people insist everything is free I don't think we can make much progress in a discussion of economic reality.

Your post is so good, I am excited about what you may say next.

But I am not sure this discussion belongs in a thread about economics? — Athena

Actually, it is.

The 19th Century name for economics was "political economics", which honestly describes just how linked economics is to politics. The idea of "economics" being just this private sector machine spewing out production and GDP is totally wrong. Social problems, povetry, corruption or the way government treats the private sector effect very much how the actual economy works. Unfortunately these factors aren't at all easy to mathematically model, hence they are usually left out from mainstream economic models. Yet looking at which countries economically prosper and which don't, these things do matter.

The simple link is of course is that a well functioning economy creates prosperity for the people and taxes for the government, which then can ease the social problems. Yet there is also a link the other way around: if social problems are left unchecked and become large, this increases the lack of social cohesion, increases crime and heightens political tensions, which then create an atmosphere that decreases economic investment and business activity. You never have at the same time a booming economy and large scale rioting on the streets at the same time.

Even if homelessness effects a very small portion of the population, it is something that everybody can see. (It should be mentioned that young adults living with their parents, for example, aren't the ones when we talk about the homeless, even if they literally don't have an own home). We are now seeing an exodus from California now as the high cost of living and the possibility of working from home gets many to move away from the traditional centers like Los Angeles or San Francisco. Yet many of those moving away do also mention the homeless problem and the tent cities on the street as a reason. Homelessness isn't just a personal problem for those who are effected by it, it does effect the whole society. It easily reminds us how much social cohesion there is in our society. If there isn't any, people are genuinely scared of each other. So I think this is a topic that can and should be discussed on a thread about the economy.

Homelessness in Finland in the late 1960's early 1970's depicted by a cartoonist. As parks had a Puistotäti "Park Aunt", a Kindergarten teacher, taking care of children outside in parks, the parks also had an Puistosetä "Park Uncle", the homeless alcoholic sipping his bottle in the park. Back then the traditional hobo here was a WW2 veteran that hadn't gotten accustomed back to civilian life, which tells this is an universal problem as many homeless in the US are veterans from the various wars.

Yet there is also a link the other way around: if social problems are left unchecked and become large, this increases the lack of social cohesion, increases crime and heightens political tensions, which then create an atmosphere that decreases economic investment and business activity. — ssu

Awe you speak of the American dream where the only thing government provides is a police force to protect private property. You know, bash people's heads in when they dare defy the authority of autocratic industry and property owners. Anything to do with taking care of the poor, who are exploited by industry and property owners, is a matter of charity and that is not the correct function of government. I mean like get real. If you take care of these people they stop working for poverty wages and that would be terrible for the economy! We are not like Europe you know, where the government might be expected to take care of the people.

In the US the idea of a good education system is neighborhood controlled schools that are as good as want the people in that neighborhood can afford. So in one school district the advantaged students have a superior education, and the kids in the slums who live with crime and violence daily, actually risk their lives going to school that have very little to offer the children and the teachers can actually experience battle fatigue because the uncivilized behavior of students. We have videos of these schools where teachers have no control over students and surely you would not spend your hard earned money on those children, would you? Awe yes, the United States, the richest nation in the world. What would happen to our wealth if threw it away on that scum? Look people get what the deserve and it would be stealing form those who work hard for their money to tax them and give the money to the undeserving.

Like OMG, we don't want to be socialist! Everyone knowns how bad that is. Government is correctly restricted to using tax dollars to support a military force that in turn protects our economic interests over seas, because that is the source of our wealth. Local government provides the services the people can afford, and we just stay out of those bad neighborhoods where those disgusting people live. Like Trump said, we don't want those people in our neighborhoods ruining our property value. Really? arguing in favor of socialist notions and that it is the governments responsibility to spread out the prosperity? What kind of person are you? You do not sound like a Trump supporter! :brow: Someone in this forum must provide the correct understanding of what makes the US great because we must protect our wealth and stand firmly against socialism!

We are now seeing an exodus from California now as the high cost of living and the possibility of working from home gets many to move away from the traditional centers like Los Angeles or San Francisco. Yet many of those moving away do also mention the homeless problem and the tent cities on the street as a reason. Homelessness isn't just a personal problem for those who are effected by it, it does effect the whole society. It easily reminds us how much social cohesion there is in our society. If there isn't any, people are genuinely scared of each other. So I think this is a topic that can and should be discussed on a thread about the economy. — ssu

Do you think? but that isn't what is causing the rioting in our cities is it? Those rioters are anarchist that should be controlled with the National Guard if local police forces can not maintain law and order. You are a foreigner so you can be forgiven for not knowing what our great leader Trump says about law and order. I pray to the heavens you know I am being sarcastic and I am experiencing a great emotion relieve as I attack what we have been living and what is tearing the US apart. Europe experienced peasant revolts long ago, and because they were crushed by those in power, we might think they lost their fight, but you are telling us the did not win the fight. They won the fight. It just took a long time to realize their win.

Our unions made some progress and then past President Reagan destroyed the unions. Our past education explained the connection between unions and democracy, but that was before the 1958 National Defense Education that put an end to education for citizenship in a democracy and gave us instead education for a technological society with unknow values. We are no longer the democracy we once were, and as more and more of our wealth goes to the 1% things are not getting better so we worship Trump who promisers to make things better. We will see how well Biden does. I hope he and Harris can unite our nation, but no one understands what the change in education has to do with the mess we are in, so I am afraid we will continue to be divided and fighting against each other.

Awe you speak of the American dream where the only thing government provides is a police force to protect private property. — Athena

The fundamental idea behind is that well known mantra of "limited government" and giving freedom for everyone to pursuit their happiness. And that is a struggle for many, which is a problem.

In the US the idea of a good education system is neighborhood controlled schools that are as good as want the people in that neighborhood can afford. — Athena

As neighborhoods aren't similar, in fact even US states differ from each other just like member states of the European Union (even if English is spoken everywhere), one cannot think that neighborhoods, communities and cities can all provide equal opportunity. Hence here is where things start going wrong. Worse schools make it harder to get to the best secondary schools or to apply to tertiary education.

Awe yes, the United States, the richest nation in the world. What would happen to our wealth if threw it away on that scum? Look people get what the deserve and it would be stealing form those who work hard for their money to tax them and give the money to the undeserving. — Athena

You wouldn't have so many problems or crime, for starters. Not that problems would go away altogether. Still our societies (yours and mine) try to function as meritocracies, which do inherently create inequality. The issue is to have a system with social mobility and not have the classes turn into a caste system.

Do you think? but that isn't what is causing the rioting in our cities is it? — Athena

No.

Of course there's a long thread about racism and I won't go into that. perhaps the basic problem in the US is that many confuse Bernie Sanders, who basically in Europe would be your average social democrat, with Hugo Chavez and his kind, which are a totally different socialists.

They won the fight. It just took a long time to realize their win. — Athena

Exactly.

It should be understood that the conservative right accepted and took the idea of a welfare state as it's own in the Nordic countries. This is something that Americans would find really hard to understand from people who call themselves right-wingers. A similar thing happened with capitalism: the modern social democrat does not cry for a Marxist revolution, but just wants to curb the excesses of capitalism, yet understands that there is a time and place for free market capitalism. Especially when elections are around, the ordinary leftist and the right-winger won't admit that they have accepted issues from the other side, naturally, but their silence does tell a lot.

Our unions made some progress and then past President Reagan destroyed the unions. — Athena

I myself find it odd that labor unions had been infiltrated by organized crime at the first place. But I think this is a major reason why real income and wages haven't gone up in the US and inequality has become even greater.

Awe you speak of the American dream where the only thing government provides is a police force to protect private property.
— Athena
The fundamental idea behind is that well known mantra of "limited government" and giving freedom for everyone to pursuit their happiness. And that is a struggle for many, which is a problem.

In the US the idea of a good education system is neighborhood controlled schools that are as good as want the people in that neighborhood can afford.
— Athena
As neighborhoods aren't similar, in fact even US states differ from each other just like member states of the European Union (even if English is spoken everywhere), one cannot think that neighborhoods, communities and cities can all provide equal opportunity. Hence here is where things start going wrong. Worse schools make it harder to get to the best secondary schools or to apply to tertiary education.

Awe yes, the United States, the richest nation in the world. What would happen to our wealth if threw it away on that scum? Look people get what the deserve and it would be stealing form those who work hard for their money to tax them and give the money to the undeserving.
— Athena
You wouldn't have so many problems or crime, for starters. Not that problems would go away altogether. Still our societies (yours and mine) try to function as meritocracies, which do inherently create inequality. The issue is to have a system with social mobility and not have the classes turn into a caste system.

Do you think? but that isn't what is causing the rioting in our cities is it?
— Athena
No.

Of course there's a long thread about racism and I won't go into that. perhaps the basic problem in the US is that many confuse Bernie Sanders, who basically in Europe would be your average social democrat, with Hugo Chavez and his kind, which are a totally different socialists.

They won the fight. It just took a long time to realize their win.
— Athena
Exactly.

It should be understood that the conservative right accepted and took the idea of a welfare state as it's own in the Nordic countries. This is something that Americans would find really hard to understand from people who call themselves right-wingers. A similar thing happened with capitalism: the modern social democrat does not cry for a Marxist revolution, but just wants to curb the excesses of capitalism, yet understands that there is a time and place for free market capitalism. Especially when elections are around, the ordinary leftist and the right-winger won't admit that they have accepted issues from the other side, naturally, but their silence does tell a lot.

Our unions made some progress and then past President Reagan destroyed the unions.
— Athena
I myself find it odd that labor unions had been infiltrated by organized crime at the first place. But I think this is a major reason why real income and wages haven't gone up in the US and inequality has become even greater. — ssu

Let me begin with "I love you". It is so wonderful to find someone who really knows the value of education and that it isn't only about military and industrial interest. It is our culture and everyone being prepared to give their best to the country.

James Williams in 1899 "If we reflect upon the various ideals of education that are prevalent in the different countries, we see that what they all aim at is to organize capacities for conduct. " At this time for the Germans that meant preparing the young to advance technology for military and industrial purpose. England strongly rejected this education because it wanted to protect it classes, and education for technology tends to make everyone equal, because the child from the poorest home, educated for technology, does not remain in the low class. The focus of English education was to be an English man and woman.

The US with its democratic values, stumbled onto the benefits of education for technology when it mobilized for the first world war. Technologically Germany was the most advanced, and the US had to scramble to catch up. This is not just about having the best war ships and best cannons. It is about having thousands of people who can type, or repair trucks, or build bridges. We did not have that when we faced WWI but rapidly put education for technology into our schools when we knew we were going to entered the war.

Up to this time, US education was limited to literature, reading, writing, and speaking! I collect old books and they are quaint. The goal of education, as you understand it, being to prepare good citizens, so we have social order and a well running democracy. This including promoting associations and unions uniting people to do for themselves what Europeans relied on their governments to do for them. The addition of education for technology was a huge economic benefit that was not expected. Up to this time parents rather keep their children home to help on the farm. When parents learned their children would learn a job skill in school, they were more willing to send their children to school, because that meant their children a had chance of having better lives with more money and the benefit of what money can buy.

We can see how this develops. People have more money to spend, so more businesses become profitable. The whole economy grows and the standard of living is improved. There is no need to say this to you, but more people in the US need to understand the relationship between the education, the military and the economy. This trinity becomes stronger and larger.

But for all the good of this trinity something went very wrong in Germany and the US. If human beings are to be more than well trained, reactionary animals, that obey their masters, or get pushed to the margins of society, then they must learn how to be civilized humans. Leaving moral training to the church does not work in a democracy with liberty. In a democracy with liberty the people must have training for good moral judgment and cultural values. Citizens must be adults, not God's and the king's children.

Germany has progressed as a civilization better the US since WWII. The US missed the lesson's Germany learned and the US took their culture for granted. Now it is no longer a well cultured nation, but I have hope we will return to better education for reasoning and a better economy of independent thinkers who are empowered to make their best contribution to society. Education preparing our young to be products for industry, is good for slaves, and gives us a third world economy of workers dependent on the owners. :rage:

I myself find it odd that labor unions had been infiltrated by organized crime at the first place. But I think this is a major reason why real income and wages haven't gone up in the US and inequality has become even greater. — ssu

That is a fascinating statement! I must look into that. Do you have any more to say about it?

At this time for the Germans that meant preparing the young to advance technology for military and industrial purpose. England strongly rejected this education because it wanted to protect it classes, and education for technology tends to make everyone equal, because the child from the poorest home, educated for technology, does not remain in the low class. The focus of English education was to be an English man and woman.

The US with its democratic values, stumbled onto the benefits of education for technology when it mobilized for the first world war. Technologically Germany was the most advanced, and the US had to scramble to catch up. — Athena

This is a very good take on the situation in the 19th Century. Yes, back then it was Americans that went to Germany to educate themselves. And before WW2, a huge portion of science was in German language and many academics of those time were fluent in German. After WW2, English dominates as a true lingua universalis. And this is one of the cornerstones

If human beings are to be more than well trained, reactionary animals, that obey their masters, or get pushed to the margins of society, then they must learn how to be civilized humans. Leaving moral training to the church does not work in a democracy with liberty. In a democracy with liberty the people must have training for good moral judgment and cultural values. Citizens must be adults, not God's and the king's children. — Athena

Yes. Let's look at this from the viewpoint of the ruling elite. This is the double edge sword for those in power: educated people create a better economy, while an uneducated people likely obey more traditional rulers. Hence many dictators and totalitarian system try the illogical goal of having more doctors, engineers and scientists to advance the technology of the country, yet assume that these highly trained clever professionals won't stray into the realm of thinking about politics or basically using their head. Let's remember that Hitler had been in power only 6 years before he started WW2, hence all the German engineers and scientists had studied and learnt their profession basically before Nazi totalitarianism took hold.

In our current time Saudi Arabia is the best example of this: it desperately tries to use it's wealth into buying the best armament and technology and tries to create technology hubs, yet you don't make a Silicon Valley out of nothing in a society that is in the end quite backward. And those high-tech weapons need an army of very qualified engineers to be kept in service. You end up just with a huge segment of the population being foreign workers.

Germany has progressed as a civilization better the US since WWII. The US missed the lesson's Germany learned and the US took their culture for granted. — Athena

Some define this to be the benefit of the loser of a war. Not only Japan and West Germany were forced into soul searching when militarism had catastrophically failed (East Germany simply assumed it had nothing to do with fascism, hence for example the East German army was made in line with the old Wehrmacht as totalitarianism continued there). In fact after Carthage surrendered to the Romans and stopped competing with Rome for the dominance of the Mediterranean, it had a renaissance and prospered so much that the Romans finally decided to attack and obliterate the whole city.

Not only has the loser of a war think things over, it really has to build all of it's infrastructure and manufacturing plants up from scratch, which modernizes the society in a rapid pace and give an edge to the manufacturing. While nobody had bombed the US during WW2, it simply dominated other countries in the 1950's. But then it didn't have to rapidly modernize. Hence when the World caught up, many parts of it's industry was old and couldn't compete. Add that these areas were left alone and Americans created "the Rust Belt".

From this:


To this:

True, but notice there are indicators as Price to earnings ration, the P/E. — ssu

This is not the only measure. There are ways to look at a new company, for example. Seasonal or cyclical changes can askew the earnings. But, for investors not looking at stock price, but say real estate properties, the criteria are different.

But, for investors not looking at stock price, but say real estate properties, the criteria are different. — Caldwell

Real estate price are the classic way to speculate: if economic activity is going to increase somewhere, it will likely be seen in real estate prices.

Real estate price are the classic way to speculate: if economic activity is going to increase somewhere, it will likely be seen in real estate prices. — ssu

Nice graph!

But okay. We're not in disagreement here.