Current economic system & Housing

GreatApe

spadoosh wrote: »

You dont know who youre talking to so think your making certain assumptions about that.

Youre using a utopian system with people. It will not be perfect. It will never be perfect and its impossible for it to be so.

Consider the laws on conservation of energy, its a perfect system. To represent such a sytem we use a newtons cradle. Ultimately the newtons cradle stops swinging which kind of contradicts conservation of energy. The reason for this is you get deviations, air resistance, flexibility in the balls, energy being transferred to the frame. All tiny losses but the results is that they perfect system ultimately fails because its not perfect, and we cant make it perfect.

Better and worse are subjective things. For me personally, my life is probably better than it ever has been, im probably less wealthy now than a few years ago but children tend to do that for you. And i appreciate that id rather live now than say 1940's but then i do believe i wouldve be eminently more wealthy had i been an adult in the 80's. Growth was huge leading to substantially more opportunity. Due to pretty stagnant growth in my adult years opportunities are (seem) less prevalent.

Itll be intersting to see how tha capital being divvied out plays out. I suspect the flaws in the capitalist and free market system will prevail and it will be taxed accordingly. Maybe we're not so different? Its just you think utopia is attainable, i believe history shows it is not.

I did not say we are in utopia I said the current economic system is working very well and creating lots of capital and pointed to the biggest stock of capital the biggest infrastructure project on earth which is housing and the world is building at a rate of >500 million a decade which is clearly amazing

I am only aiming to displace the myth that things are bad and getting worse because that is propaganda and not reality

BikingBud

GreatApe wrote: »

Oh the figures are extremely meaningful you just dont like them so you are trying to obscure.
Where are the homes being built? Everywhere in all nations all the way from France in Europe adding about 4 million a decade to Turkey which will add ~8 million over the next decade to china which will add ~100 million over the next decade. Before you say ah ha look china they are communists!! Their economy is more capitalist than communist now and their build rate looks big because they are a populous nation on a per capita basis they are roughly at the same rate as Turkey also a developing nation but one that is clearly free market and mostly right wing. But once more you are trying to obscure the debate it doesn't matter all that much where homes are being built at what rate or what design we can make the overall argument that the worlds primary economic system is free market capitalism and look at worldwide production of capital and where it is going. What you find is over the next 20 years a huge amount of capital is going to be built out and its mostly not going to the 1% but to the 90%





What would you suggest? 2 years and 10 months? 3 years and 1 week an 4 hours? How does that change anything in this debate and argument? Which is that cars are not cheap and if worldwide car production has boomed so have the middle classes of the world. This is an objective truth you even know is true but yet you try to do your best to deny it



This is such a stupid argument

Don't you see that your claim boils down to something like 'finance is magic it allows the world to produce and consume more than it otherwise could' which is true and I agree but the bit where you fall down is to then imply finance is somehow a temporary phenomenon where the world is going to wake up one morning and make finance illegal and thus production and consumption is going to crash. Clearly you do not believe that finance is temporary in which case why use arguments of finance as if it is temporary?

And I will go back to simply saying ignore money it is mostly a transmission mechanism a way to do accounting just look at the world more basically we are a planet with about 4 billion workers working away and producing goods and services.

The central argument against the current economic system by the left is that these 4 billion workers under the current economic system are not able to produce capital and thus improve their lives and get more wealthy (and thus improve other things like heath etc). The argument is we should abandon free market capatilism and put in place another system which will allow production of capital and thus improved lives

When you take a step back you see how stupid this argument is

For a start the world is building out its capital and this is so easy to prove by looking at the #1 infrastructure project on earth which is housing. How good is the current system at building housing for the planet? Well what does 1 billion homes over the next 20 years sound like? Success or failure?

The second bit of the left argument is they have some system which works better and not just a little better but massively better because it isn't worth burning down the current system if what you think might work is only 5% better. What is the new system that is going to produce more than 1 billion homes in 20 years?




The problem is yes I have and most of you haven't so what I see you clearly can not see.

Well as you have studied maths then I must bow to your crystal balls and foresight🤩

Countries have gone bankrupt even those with massive populations where they have aspired to achieve something way beyond their means, Russia and the space race for instance.

The same principles apply to the real world economics of running a house. You want to borrow for the sofa and the car and the new kitchen and the new 60" UHD tv, then all well and good because someone somewhere in the world has the capital and you can just borrow. Job done all happy now🧐

However, credit is only good when you are creditworthy. When you lose the ability to work and service the debt, ie in your model you have no hours to trade, and when the banks call in the debt and you have nothing to pay for them then the repo man comes around.

GreatApe

Countries have gone bankrupt even those with massive populations where they have aspired to achieve something way beyond their means, Russia and the space race for instance.

The same principles apply to the real world economics of running a house. You want to borrow for the sofa and the car and the new kitchen and the new 60" UHD tv, then all well and good because someone somewhere in the world has the capital and you can just borrow. Job done all happy now🧐

However, credit is only good when you are creditworthy. When you lose the ability to work and service the debt, ie in your model you have no hours to trade, and when the banks call in the debt and you have nothing to pay for them then the repo man comes around.

Please stick to the topic you are just trying to obscure the conversion

Me: look the economic system is so good it is going to build 1 billion homes over 20 years which is amazing progress

Your Side: Well those new homes are no good and help no one because debt exists

Me: How does the existence of a financial system negate the benefit of 1 billion additional homes?

Your Side: An individual or a company or even a country can go bankrupt

Me: We have already discussed this yes an individual or a company or even a country can go bankrupt that a person or company can go bankrupt does not mean the whole financial system is a bad thing. Also come back to the fact a billion homes will be built over 20 years is that good or bad? Can you think of any other economic system that can progress so fast and help so many people by building 1 billion net homes in 20 years (actually probably closer to 1.25 billion over 20 years)

GreatApe

BikingBud wrote: »

The same principles apply to the real world economics of running a house. You want to borrow for the sofa and the car and the new kitchen and the new 60" UHD tv, then all well and good because someone somewhere in the world has the capital and you can just borrow. Job done all happy now

Again you try to pick fringe arguments to paint an average and it makes you look a tit

Most debt is on homes not on 60" UHD TVs
The next big one is corporate debt

So do you want to try and make an argument against corporate paper?
I suspect probably not as it really isnt your business what a corporate borrows or spends its money on an you are probably wise enough to know if a company goes bankrupt its hardly a net negative for the planet. In fact companies have to go bankrupt as new companies are continuously forming

So you are left with trying to make an argument against mortgages for homes.
Do you really want to attempt that? Even though we have the best part of a hundred years of mortgages showing on net people do repay and on net people do benefit in borrowing money to buy their home.

However, credit is only good when you are creditworthy. When you lose the ability to work and service the debt, ie in your model you have no hours to trade, and when the banks call in the debt and you have nothing to pay for them then the repo man comes around.

And if you are renting, if you lose your job who comes round? Santa and the tooth fairy to say dont worry my dear we will cover your rent with pots of gold found under rainbows?

But like I said you are trying to obsecure
Stick to the topic

How many homes will the current system build over 20 years? >1 billion
Is this good or bad?
Can you think of another system that can build more than this number and are you sure about that?

spadoosh

GreatApe wrote: »

Please stick to the topic you are just trying to obscure the conversion

Me: look the economic system is so good it is going to build 1 billion homes over 20 years which is amazing progress

Your Side: Well those new homes are no good and help no one because debt exists

Me: How does the existence of a financial system negate the benefit of 1 billion additional homes?

Your Side: An individual or a company or even a country can go bankrupt

Me: We have already discussed this yes an individual or a company or even a country can go bankrupt that a person or company can go bankrupt does not mean the whole financial system is a bad thing. Also come back to the fact a billion homes will be built over 20 years is that good or bad? Can you think of any other economic system that can progress so fast and help so many people by building 1 billion net homes in 20 years (actually probably closer to 1.25 billion over 20 years)

There not really a lot to compare it too. Certainly not a like for like basis, since the industrial revolution weve pretty much practised a capitalist economy.

I think the conversation is going more like.

You: Capitalism is amazing

Everyone else: theres flaws with it though

You: no there isnt, people are doing what people do (ie try and live) and building homes so it must be successful.

Everyone else: its not really an indicator of overall success. And whilst its a system thats in use and for the most part works, we think we could make things better still, you know continuous improvement?

You: Nah capital is the only answer, there isnt any short coming of it

Everyone else: well the increasing wealth divide suggest its more favourable to certain people. Capitalism was built on the basis that you pretty much get what you deserve yet theres folk who work crazy hard yet things dont work and then theres folk that dont really work too hard at all who have benefitted hugely from the system.

You: No youre all wrong, ive got a degree in fag packet maths.

The thing is youre a right winger, one who seems to allign closely with the american constitution. Its based completely on libertarianism (ie you can do what you want illdo what i want and everythign is all good, lets just try and avoid annoying each other too much.) But then you also want to dictate how people should live and more importantly the value of that life based on financial worth. You are the very problem of capitalism! Youre inperfect and completely unaware of your hypocrisy. You want free choice as long as that free choice grants you the position of dictating what other people should want and therfore denying theirs.

Thats the point, people arent compatible with capitalism. I get rich tomorrow, i might set up a business. First thing im going to do is speak to my mates/family and see how i can help them out with making their own money via and investment from me. Well thats socialism isnt it. Im assuming youre planning on making sure youre children are as advanced as they can be, so giving them an advantage. Thats not capitalism because capitalism is reliant on a free market, which youve skewed by applying advantages to your family.

If youre a capitalist you wont be leaving an inheritance to your loved ones, i bet you are though arent you? So youre a capitalist when it suits you, which is exactly the problem with the capitalist system.

GreatApe

spadoosh wrote: »

There not really a lot to compare it too. Certainly not a like for like basis, since the industrial revolution weve pretty much practised a capitalist economy

Lets assume there isn't much to compare it to. The question then is, is the rate acceptable progress? ~600 million homes a decade is great it means we solve one of the big needs of the world over the next 30 years. Within those 30 years the nearly 2 billion new homes will be built which will house 4-5 billion people.

This is not a system for the few, it is a system for the many.
Turkey is an interesting example. Construction everywhere. They are building ~800,000 homes a year and while we and most turks criticize the ruling party they keep voting for them because the Turks when they go from mud huts to a nice new apartment can see the benefit to their own lives and their children lives. Housing is one of the key needs for the planet the worlds largest infrastructure project and the current economic system is providing at an amazing rate to disturb that is a just a silly risk. Even if I were a communist I would wait 30 years and keep my mouth shut when this system builds out the housing the world so badly needs then maybe indulge my fantasies of a new economic order

I think the conversation is going more like.
You: Capitalism is amazing
Everyone else: theres flaws with it though
You: no there isnt, people are doing what people do (ie try and live) and building homes so it must be successful.
Everyone else: its not really an indicator of overall success. And whilst its a system thats in use and for the most part works, we think we could make things better still, you know continuous improvement?
You: Nah capital is the only answer, there isnt any short coming of it

The economic system should be chosen to maximize production of goods and services.
The current system produces goods and services at all price points in abundance and it is producing fixed capital at an amazing rate. So yes I think the current system works amazingly well

The problem is those on the left try to paint social/individual/health/family problems with the economic system when it is not related.

Everyone else: well the increasing wealth divide suggest its more favourable to certain people.

Sure we are not born equal and some people will make more money than others. That does not mean the majority are not benefiting enormously though. Hence the topic on housing. The nearly 2 billion homes that will be built over the next 30 years will not benefit the poor or the middle? They should just shut up and stay in their shanty towns or living 8 to a roof?

Capitalism was built on the basis that you pretty much get what you deserve yet theres folk who work crazy hard yet things dont work and then theres folk that dont really work too hard at all who have benefitted hugely from the system.

Are you kidding? under which other system can you become a single mother and not work a day in your life and consume £1m + in goods and services and still have people call you poor and suggest you are hard done by the current system?

We have never worked less and produced so much as we do today.
32 million in the uk work that means 34 million dont. Of the 32 million that work about a third are part time. Of those that do work full and part time how difficult are our jobs just look at this forum people at work just wasting hours discussing crap.

We have great easy lives good jobs and high pay be f.greatful!

Once more this does not mean everyone life is amazing. Some people have !!!! lives this includes the poor the middle and the rich but being a drunk or a gambling addict is the problem not the economic system

The thing is youre a right winger, one who seems to allign closely with the american constitution. Its based completely on libertarianism (ie you can do what you want illdo what i want and everythign is all good, lets just try and avoid annoying each other too much.) But then you also want to dictate how people should live and more importantly the value of that life based on financial worth. You are the very problem of capitalism! Youre inperfect and completely unaware of your hypocrisy. You want free choice as long as that free choice grants you the position of dictating what other people should want and therfore denying theirs.

I am an engineer I think all our problems can and will be solved. As an engineer I am also reminded that nothing can be designed to be perfect you should aim for good not perfect and the current system is very good to complain that it is not perfect is to destroy something that is good for something that might be much worse.

I do lean right because the people on the right mostly just say leave me alone which indeed is attractive because how do you respond as no to such a request?

Thats the point, people arent compatible with capitalism
. I get rich tomorrow, i might set up a business. First thing im going to do is speak to my mates/family and see how i can help them out with making their own money via and investment from me. Well thats socialism isnt it. Im assuming youre planning on making sure youre children are as advanced as they can be, so giving them an advantage. Thats not capitalism because capitalism is reliant on a free market, which youve skewed by applying advantages to your family.

You are mixing a lot of things together. The idea that capitalism is all about the individual is wrong. Its about the family unit. This is something you and many on the left do not get it is also why people lean more right once they have a family.

If youre a capitalist you wont be leaving an inheritance to your loved ones, i bet you are though arent you? So youre a capitalist when it suits you, which is exactly the problem with the capitalist system.

I would say a capitalist is someone who aims to accumulate capital
In a sense we are all capitalists, some of us want individuals to be able to accumulate capital while others want only the state to accumulate capital. I doubt anyone sane wants there to be no capital whatsoever (no homes no roads no factories etc)

Who you pass on your capital to or what you spend it on is an irrelevant part of the disccsuion
Should individuals be allowed to accumulate capital or should it be the reserve of the state?

Effectively the argument on the far left is that only the state should be able to accumulate capital

The argument on the right and the center is that individuals should be able to accumulate capital too and that argument has won since at least 1990 when the communists fell


Of course in arguments both sides try to frame the others as the far extreme.
I doubt you would find many on the right who think governments should have absolutely no income and tax at zero. Nor would you find many on the left who think governments should ban all capital accumulation. Hell even corbyn the communist owns his own home and would probably fight tooth and nail to not give it up. I have even met true life long hard core communists that own property its mostly just a cult that doesn't do what it preaches

So since everyone agrees capital is good and everyone (bar the very fringe that make up less than 1%) thinks individuals should be able to own and accumulate capital that it should not just be the reserve of the state the actual question is which system maximizes capital production?

On the right people like me say look the world is building out its capital at an amazing pace lets just continue until at least housing and electricity is solved. On the left we have people denying capital formation is happening at all, and that if it is it is only benefiting the 1%. Clearly that is wrong the 1% isn't going to live in the 2 billion new homes it is going to be the vast majority.

Your arguments of inheritance or inequality is really a trivial sideshow. The world needs more capital and the current system is producing just that at an amazing rate dont kill it off for spite and hate of a system that is working even though youd love it not to be working

GreatApe

spadoosh wrote: »

If youre a capitalist you wont be leaving an inheritance to your loved ones

This is such a stupid argument that appears all the time

Do you really think the definition of a capitalist is someone who does not want to accumulate capital for themselves and their family? It is the exact opposite a capitalist is someone who wants to accumulate capital an anti capitalist is someone who thinks an individual should not be allowed to accumulate capital

I would say >99% of humans are capitalist they want to have savings a home and capital and even the majority of die hard communists I have met do or want to own capital

Even many animals are capitalist they store nuts or seeds for the winter its literally in their DNA. Some insects are the opposite they work for the collective and just like ants communists dont give a !!!! about the individual you are expendable so long as the colony survives. But even in the ant world i'm sure you'd agree the queen lives quite differently to the repletes so while you may argue all the ants are equal im sure the repletes will tell you otherwise

Thrugelmir

GreatApe wrote: »

I did not say we are in utopia I said the current economic system is working very well and creating lots of capital and pointed to the biggest stock of capital the biggest infrastructure project on earth which is housing and the world is building at a rate of >500 million a decade which is clearly amazing

Current economic system appears to be on the verge of going bust. Unless debt levels are addressed.

GreatApe

Thrugelmir wrote: »

Current economic system appears to be on the verge of going bust. Unless debt levels are addressed.

You've been saying that every week for the past two decades

Meanwhile the world not just goes on but gets better and richer.

I wonder does that fact fill you with hope and gratitude or are you full of hate for the system not crashing despite all your hopes that it will?

Sapphire

spadoosh wrote: »

Thats the point, people arent compatible with capitalism.

Well, they certainly aren't 'compatible with' socialism in all its guises, including the variant forms of communism. That just impoverishes millions, while enriching the compliant apparatchiks at the top and killing many millions of people in the process.

When it comes down to it, humans, like any other species, basically exist for their personal survival and continuation of their line. No amount of PC thinking is going to change this instinct. Oh, it might for a while, in weak, affluent societies that can currently afford to indulge themselves in such nonsense, but that won't last.

There is much wrong with capitalism, not the least the way it has destroyed centuries-old industries, with many skilled workers, all for the god Money, as well as the shameful way a certain section of our society, namely the very old, defenceless and vulnerable, are treated. However, neither socialism or its offshoot, communism, is the answer.