maple_leafs182

I guess I don't disagree with this post buy why not use science, technology and our technological knowledge to improve the quality of life for everyone instead of a market economy. I understand that with communism resources weren't being allocated properly and a market economy to a certain extent resolves that problem but a market economy still creates a lot of waste, pollution and poverty. A market economy really isn't efficient. Science and technology are the things that truly help improve our standard of living but they aren't at the forefront of our economy, money and profit seeking corporations are.

This is a little off topic but whatever. Many of you see the benefit of putting your faith in science rather then blindly putting your faith into a religion. Yet when I say we should use science to develop and guide our economy instead of the invisible hand you say that is crazy. We all blindly put our faith into the current economic system even though it creates tons of waste, poverty and pollution. How is putting your faith in the current system any better then putting your faith in a religion.

Isn't it amazing how much power and influence banks have over countries and the economy.

The beauty of science is it is open to idea of being proven wrong.

I am not saying the government should provide an internet service. ISP aren't losing money, they are profitable as it is right now. I am saying it should stay the way it is right now. What I am worried about is limiting internet access to people by making it unaffordable. Internet is very important in todays society, the protests in Egypt were organized threw social networks.

Because the internet is the free flow of information, you may not always agree with the information and it may not always be true but it is still the free flow of information, in a democracy there is nothing more important. I understand what you mean by them offering a service and I would agree with you on most other goods or services but not the internet.

I think I would normally agree with you but not here. The reason I am a libertarian is because I find that governments tend to limit freedoms. This may not be the government but it is corporations limiting our freedoms which I see as being equally as bad. I understand the ways of the free market but something as important as internet should remain affordable and accessible to all users.

So what do you believe the solutions is to societies problems?

I got a question. What is the main reason why people hate the idea of religion. Is it because it leads to a lot of wars and violence?

It is just another way for big corporations to take money from the people. These corporations need a new way to make money, too many TV stations are losing viewers to the internet. Internet Service Provides(ISP's) such as Shaw or Bell own TV Stations such as Global or CTV. They want their stations to remain profitable so they will limit the amount people can view on the internet so it makes their stations more relevant and therefore more profitable. This is being under discussed. I have seen many topics about the unrest in Egypt on this forum, yet some like a hidden tax and our freedom being stolen gets nothing. You guys should sign the petition at http://openmedia.ca/meter

Advances in technology isn't always a good thing in our current economic system. Advances in technology may lead to improvements in productivity but new technologies also replace human labour which leaves some jobless. Also, advances in technology does not mean that we are all of a sudden immune to depressions. I don't know if you haven't noticed but countries are going bankrupt, expect more of the same in the coming years.

GDP is calculated by adding consumption + investment + government spending + net exports. A recession is when I think there is two consecutive quarters where GDP falls. The only thing that has been bringing GDP up is government spending. Of course there is gonna be a temporary recovery if you pump trillions of dollars into an economy and loan trillions more which the Federal Reserve is doing. If you know anything about economics you know the only way to generate wealth is threw production. Until America gains a productive capacity, there will be no recovery. I know Ben Bernake says inflation is contained but when he talks inflation he is only talking about core inflation which doesn't take into consideration food, oil and gas prices, the things that people buy the most. Food and gas prices are rising, the cost of living is rising as a result of all the money being pumped into the economy. As the cost of living rises, people won't be able to afford to buy as much, this will hurt the economy. I wanna say that once QE2 ends and we get back to the real economy things will start to collapse but chances are there will be QE3 and QE4 which will be larger then the others and bring down the value of the dollar and increase the cost of living even more which will hurt the economy even more. All that is happening now is we are delaying the collapse while making it bigger problem. You guys say that this is just a blip, why is it just a blip, what makes you say that, is it because GDP is rising?

I didn't say drug use, i said abuse. And if your bored then your boring, that is your problem, I'm sure you would find something to do. Watch this movie, depending on your person, it may be one of the most important movies you will ever see.

Because saying they are no longer problems is a lie, they may not be a problem for you or your family or friends but they are still a problems for others. They get free food for life, that is there compensation and it isn't like anyone is forcing them to take on that responsibility. Also, they wouldn't have to be there on a constant basis, look at some luxury cars, they can e-mail you telling you that you need an oil change, we can set up a system that works in a similar way. Not because of wage slavery but because of the stress that many endure on a day to day basis. Yes, that is my point, imagine living in a community where the necessities of lives were met for everyone free of charge. Do you think there would be an increase or decrease in crime and drug abuse.

I think people saw deflation because all the defaults on mortgages shrunk the overall money supply.

Why would deflation lead to an increase in wages. Deflation is a contraction of the money supply compared to the amount of goods it is chasing, where is the money coming from to increase wages. I agree with it leading to deflation and ya it would discourage economic activity because we have built up an economy out of borrowing cheap money. If that ended doing that, we would slip into a recession or depression.

I would argue that inflation and deflation are symptoms of bad economic policy. I don't think inflation is a big problem with a gold standard, it is a lot harder to find new gold to add to the overall supply then press a couple of buttons on a computer and digitally create money. Deflation might be a problem but as wages fall, prices will fall. Honestly, I would let the market choose what money is, it doesn't have to be gold but historically people have chosen gold and silver.

The point of the gold standard is to limit government spending. When governments digitally create too much money it debases the currency and robs the savers of their wealth. Central banks are extremely dangerous, they hold more power then governments, they can make or break economies. Ben Bernake is one of the most powerful person in the world. There is a reason why America had dismantled a few central banks prior to the Federal Reserve.

Ya, that is a possibility, I just can't see the transition going that smoothly. No they aren't, we have the means now to solve our problems threw the proper application of technology but we aren't doing that. Our problems are no longer the same problems of the past. We can supply and distribute food on a massive scale with minimal work to all people thanks to recent technological advances. We have satellites, computers, the internet, amongst many other amazing inventions and ideas. We have the ability to free man of labour so we came have more time to experience life. I think I know what freedom is, it is time. The more time you have in order to do what you want to do, the more freedom you have. What we have now isn't freedom, the only freedom you have is the freedom to sell your labour. What is capitalism? don't most people walk into dictatorships the moment they get to work. I know you say slaver is gone but what is slavey? isn't it nothing more but the ownership of labour. Is this nothing more then wage slavery. Think about this, why do many people abuse drugs? it is because they live stressful lives and they are just trying to find a way to escape it all. why do people steal, because they lack the necessary resources in order to survive.

What I mean by saying the current economic system doesn't take into consideration the carrying capacity of the earth is for example, we've developed an entire global economy that is dependent on oil for its daily operation. As if we are under the assumption that oil will always be there, we are depleting oil reserves which is driving up the price of oil which drives up the production cost of everything else. Once oil prices reach a certain point things become to expensive to produce and the entire economy will collapse, this isn't a sustainable economic structure. I am sure we will find alternatives be it electric or hydrogen but the transition period will be extremely painful with a lot of suffering. Politics and the monetary based economy were developed in a time when the problems we faced were not technical. In our current society almost everything is technical, from transportation to production. So how can our problems possibly be solved by institutions that were not designed to solve technical problems. The institutions of politics and economics we use now may have been relevant in the past but that is not true today, as of right now they have surpassed the initial intended purpose of managing and distributing resources equally and ensuring prosperity and have become barriers to those goals. What motivates people in the current economic system, it is the profit motive. If we face a problem where we can not make a profit from solving that problem, that problem will go unsolved. This is why thousands of people die a day from hunger or preventable diseases, it is not profitable to help them. You also have to realize profit doesn't only motivate people to work but it motivates them to kill, go to war, steal, kidnap, etc... see, profit isn't the only thing that motivates people, ingenuity can be a very powerful motivator. We need a system where profit isn't the primal motivating factor and human ingenuity is. We should be giving scientist and engineers the problem of trying to develop a social and economic system that is sustainable, that provides the necessities of life to all its members of society within the carrying capacity of the earth.

But it won't be a very long time away, it will be soon. America cannot get out of a recession by printing and spending money, they need a productive capacity. It should of collapsed by now but the Federal Reserve keeps propping the system up by throwing cheap money everywhere. Like I said, no utopia, we will always face problems. I've done both. No I am not. I really don't know the best approach to developing a sustainable system and it is crazy to think one person does. All I know is that we need to stop thinking that our problems are political or financial and realize they are technical. Maybe supporting companies like GE or GM won't lead to prosperity, maybe making sure nobody goes to bed hungry is prosperity.

By the physical metal and I would suggest buying silver, I am expecting higher gains from silver then gold, silver outperformed gold last year and it is still trading well below all time highs where gold is trading above.

No they are not be progressed towards. Helping doesn't mean simply giving people resources, you can help them threw education. I am not suggesting us being the nannies of the world, different places of the world have different resources and they should develop a sustainable system within the limits of their recourses, a system in which all the people of that community are taken care of. The global economy will collapse, it is no longer a question of if it collapse, my only hope is that when it does people will begin to question the current system when it does. Growth and progress in the current system are flawed because the current system does not take into consideration the carrying capacity of the earth. I understand how capitalism works and I know farms are to a certain extent automated now. This is what I was saying, for a second think past capitalism and money. I live in Winnipeg, say we developed automated farms in the outskirts of the city to provide food for the entire city, no individual excluded. Let us say some the machines broke down at a farm, it would become everyones problem for we all rely on the those machines for food. Money wouldn't be our motivation to fix the machines, it would be the need for food. Well it would make sense to develop machines that are easy to maintain. It wouldn't take a more complex machine to fix another machine, fixing a machine is a technical process. All the robot would have to do is scan to identify the problem, then search threw its database to find possible solutions to the problem, similar to how we would solve the problem.

I am going to say this again, I am not imagining a utopia, it is impossible to achieve utopia status, we will always face problems. All I am imagining is a system that is better then the current system. A world without scarcity isn't impossible, it is in a monetary based economy where scarcity is more profitable. Our resources aren't infinite so isn't the proper management of these resources the most important thing we can do. We should be building products that are the most recyclable and energy efficient possible. I'm gonna say the great depression, I may be wrong. I'm not too worried about the lack of food all though I have herd from some sources that they are expecting food shortages, I am more worried that people will lack the purchasing power to obtain the food. What are you talking about, this current system doesn't care about who gets hurt or how many lives are destroyed, I am saying that we don't need to live in a society with recessions and depressions or scarcity. You think I want a depression, no I don't. Say farms were made automated by technology, lets say the farm broke down, It would become all of our problems if food was no longer being produced, we would have to work on fixing or implementing new technologies so we can continue to produce food for everyone. What are you talking about, have you seen video of an automated car plant.