An intellectual's review

[Wittlich]

Well, given that McDuck has a Scottish accent in the English version....

But you are right. I too remember McDuck's safe houses having a "double D" on them...

Oh what the hell, it is only a cartoon after all.

[wodan11]

Originally posted by Blake
That's why pretty much however high the prices and demand for hardwood rise, no-one will grow it, it can ONLY be logged unsustainably.

That makes no sense, Blake.

No matter how high the prices? So you admit that in a free market, if everybody planted wheat (because they did the same math you did), then the price of wheat would drop (it would generate less than $100 a year), and the price of hardwood would rise (it would generate more than $400 a year).

It's pretty clear that if we change the prices and the demand, then all your math changes.

First off, anyway, I think you have your math wrong. I think you forgot to add yearly compounded interest for the hardwood after year 20.
0% is year 26
1% is year 27
2% is year 28
3% is year 29
4% is year 31
5% is year 34
6% is year 39
7% is year 50
8% is NEVER

Anyway, to my point.

At the extreme end, if wheat drops to $10 a year at 7%, then it will barely make $400 in the 20th year. Thus, hardwood will make more than wheat in the very first year.

Or, if wheat drops to $30 and wood rises to $600, then even at 0% the wood will make more in the very first year.

Civ has supply and demand, too. Demand for happy/health resources rises as city population increases.

Wodan

[nbarclay]

Blake, you're missing two important points.

First, in your example, the value of planting corn is not just the value of the corn itself, but is also the value of whatever else can be done by reinvesting the money the farmer gets for the corn. This investment can be done directly by buying additional land or farm equipment, or by buying stock in a company. Or it can be done indirectly by putting the money in a bank, allowing borrowers to decide the best way to use it. (Since there are limits to how much money banks can create out of thin air without causing inflation, putting money in the bank does increase the amount available for people to borrow.) Either way, the value of being able to use the profit from corn to do other things over the twenty years it takes hardwoods to start providing a return has to be taken into consideration in order to have a valid comparison.

And second, the only way you've even tried to address the problem of how to offer zero-interest loans without causing inflation is with a demmurage system that takes money away from people who don't borrow to subsidize those who do. I don't view that as being even close to an acceptable solution; why should I pay for someone else's borrowing? It doesn't matter how wonderful zero-interest loans might be in theory if you can't find a good way to make them work in practice.

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by Unimatrix11

I think, first of all, to counter the problem of the limit of growth of the overall economy, we should set a limit to personal growth; maximum income and maximum property. Say 1M$ per year and 10M$ total max... that should be sufficient for anybody... everything above that gets taxed 100% - period.

So Henry Ford should have stopped trying to make automobile production more efficient when he got whatever amount of money then was worth what ten million dollars is today? Apple Computer should never have moved beyond the Apple II, and Microsoft should never have moved beyond MS-DOS, because those companies' founders already had their $10 million?

When a capitalist economy functions properly, transactions are win-win. People become better off themselves by producing things or improving processes in ways that also make other people better off. (Note that in a global economy, the people who receive the largest benefit may be in another country, but that doesn't mean the benefit doesn't exist.) If we take away the incentive for people to keep creating win-win transactions after they reach a certain level of wealth, we hurt the ordinary citizens who could have benefited from the transactions.

Granted, regulators don't always do a good job of making sure that transactions are win-win, not win-lose. Indeed, Microsoft is also a good example of that problem, since some of its success has been due to dirty tricks (or to negligence that had the practical effect of acting as dirty tricks) rather than to the quality of its products. But I prefer to get rid of bathwater without throwing away babies in the process.

Also note that even with a flat-rate tax, the more wealth multimillionaires create, the more money government can take away from them to help the needy and to pay its expenses without having to charge such high tax rates. One hundred percent of zero is zero, which isn't a good way for governments to get revenue.

And finally, I don't like what the attitude, "He already has enough, so let's take away from him for our benefit," does to a society's values. I love the idea of encouraging the wealthy to use a significant portion of their wealth to help others, and of society adopting values in which we view it as a moral duty of people who can afford to - especially the wealthy - to help those who are less fortunate. But the attitude, "Let's take away from these other people to make ourselves better off," is the attitude of a thief, not merely the attitude of someone who believes in generosity. Remember my earlier point about how the politics of entitlement tends to focus on the "poor" at home, and to pay far less attention to the needs of people overseas whose needs are many times greater.

In Civ, we can follow whatever values we want without hurting anyone because it's just a game. But in the real world, looking for excuses to tell people that they are "entitled" to take from others for their own benefit is extremely dangerous.

[Blake]

Here's a good interview with Bernard Lietaer (he has very good money industry credentials) on Complimentary Currencies and such. It's well worth a read.

http://www.nexuspub.com/articles/2003/july2003/interview.htm

[snoopy369]

Originally posted by Unimatrix11
Hmm - thats funny - cause in Germany his "safe-houses" have a big double D (DD - for Dagobert Duck) on them... i figure they redraw them for the translation... So he is a "McDuck" and Donald is only a "Duck" ? Whats with that ?

Perhaps it's Darkwing Duck

[ZEE]

500.

[Unimatrix11]

Originally posted by nbarclay


So Henry Ford should have stopped trying to make automobile production more efficient when he got whatever amount of money then was worth what ten million dollars is today? Apple Computer should never have moved beyond the Apple II, and Microsoft should never have moved beyond MS-DOS, because those companies' founders already had their $10 million?

Oh, they could of course continue to run their businesses, with a personal yearly salery of 1M$, as long as their total personal property does not exceed 10M$. That means they can spend 1M$ a year on consumtion and still have 10M$ in their account. An alternative to that, if they think thats not worth it, would be to pass on the company to someone else. But company size should be regulated, too, btw... SME (small and medium enterprises) are fine, but the big ones need some kind of control and limit IMO. (And yeah, Mircrosoft should have never moved beyond MS-DOS - it was the best).

And finally, I don't like what the attitude, "He already has enough, so let's take away from him for our benefit," does to a society's values. I love the idea of encouraging the wealthy to use a significant portion of their wealth to help others, and of society adopting values in which we view it as a moral duty of people who can afford to - especially the wealthy - to help those who are less fortunate. But the attitude, "Let's take away from these other people to make ourselves better off," is the attitude of a thief, not merely the attitude of someone who believes in generosity. Remember my earlier point about how the politics of entitlement tends to focus on the "poor" at home, and to pay far less attention to the needs of people overseas whose needs are many times greater.

"I have gained this from my philosophy: That i do without being commanded, what others do only from fear of the law" - unfortunately such enlightment is not the common case - if it was, my suggestion would be meaningless. You need to understand, that whoever makes millions a year, never ever makes that millions himself - he is the one who "steals" in the first place. He is the one that decides how much is enough for thousands of people first, the consensus of which is based on the smallest common denominator of the market; the minimum basically. What i suggest is merely a needed correction at ciritical levels.

See, i just have an issue each morning when i open the newspaper and read. Example yesterday - two headlines: "Child starved in Schwerin" (now that was not all due to poverty but rather to scandalous parentship) and "Porsche exec salaries doubled" - to 118 million for 6 people total yearly IIRC - thats roughly 20M per person a year, 1.8M a month, 60.000 a day, 2.500 per hour, each and every hour, 365/24/7, nights and weekends included. How can one man earn in one hour, what a hard working man makes in a month ?! Even our president (more a representative figurehead here) commented on this, reminding that people will have a problem with this. You know, this kind of discussion is sweeping through Germany for years now, yet the top-managers still show no slacking in upping their saleries and dwell in corruption. Thats why i say, if we could, we should have laws to stop that and stop the schmoozing. Talk has it we do, political reality shows we never will.

EDIT: Now, just in case, anyone wants come up with the "but the managers take all the risk" kind of BS, i wanna add this: "Corparation (noun): An engineers device to obtain individual profit without individual responsibility" - if these managers screw up, they loose their jobs and thats it. They participate in the profits not in the risk (well except with their stocks, which i guess they do have).

[wodan11]

Originally posted by Unimatrix11
Oh, they could of course continue to run their businesses, with a personal yearly salery of 1M$, as long as their total personal property does not exceed 10M$. That means they can spend 1M$ a year on consumtion and still have 10M$ in their account.

It would be tremendously easy to find a loophole around this. For example, they could take extra value in services. Or they could give things away to friends and family.

Wodan

[Unimatrix11]

You mean like tax on salery has its loophole in "black" (unanounced) paid labor and existing heritage taxes can be avoided by gifting before you die ?

[Unimatrix11]

(From the link Blake posted):
"BL: Yes, you're right. But it is interesting that societies that are using different kinds of currency have also very different collective emotions concerning money. The generally accepted theory-dating back to Adam Smith-is that money is value neutral. Money is supposed to be just a passive medium of exchange. It supposedly doesn't affect the kind of transactions we make, or the kind of relations we establish while making those exchanges. But the evidence is now in: this hypothesis turns out to be incorrect. Money is not value neutral."

That was also proven in theory about 150 years ago. I figure i do not need to drop the name again, uh ?

Take the Porsche manager from above, making 2500 Euro an hour even while sleeping and me as an oridinary student working for like 10Euro an hour approximately (i could also choose some worker in a developing country making what i make in an hour in his month in turn): I would clean Mr. Porsche´s shoes for say 5 bucks, while he would never do the same for me. Money simply has a different value to him. A pack of cigarettes (4 Euro) translates to roughly 30 minutes of work to me, while to him that would translate to 5.76 seconds (if we count his sleeping time as work-time as well - so actually more like 3 seconds). So while me cleaning his shoes costs 5 bucks, he cleaning my shoes would cost 1250 Euro (half an hour - and i´d have to allow him to sleep half the time)....

[wodan11]

Originally posted by Unimatrix11
You mean like tax on salery has its loophole in "black" (unanounced) paid labor and existing heritage taxes can be avoided by gifting before you die ?

I mean that Bill Gates could take the following in compensation:
-- $1M in salary
-- $XM in services to be paid for by the company
-- $YM in salary bonuses which he gives to friends, relatives, and charity

There are two considerations to your proposal. One is the cap on yearly salary. My concern here is that total compensation (for ANYBODY including me, you, and Bill Gates) includes salary PLUS other things (services, benefits, stock options, etc etc).

Two is the $10M cap on his property at any one point in time. Again, he could take services and give away money; either of these will easily avoid the penalty.

Wodan

[Unimatrix11]

well, you know, we do have income taxes and they seem to work just fine... in either case, the income needs to be estiminated somehow.

And heritage tax is a form of property tax, being in existence as well. Here property is being evaluated, too.

If you try to pull some fraud, and get caught, you get sued and a verdict, because you are breaking a law (which has to define the details about the services for examples of course). By the second time you try that (intentionally), you can count your bills behind bars. Works just fine for the small guys today already.

My question was rethorical - i thought this was obvious.

[wodan11]

I'm confused. Are you advocating "purist" Marxism, or are you advocating the current sociopolitical economic system in effect in Germany?

Wodan

[Unimatrix11]

I am standing to the suggestions i made before, trying to show, that they are just as feasible (bureaucraticly) as the tax laws already in place. BTW: My suggestions have little to do (at least directly) with what Marx wrote - AFAIK he never suggested max income or property directly.