squiggs you make it sound like we had a choice in it all...but how do you have a choice when there are always other capitalists with more capitol than you looking to capitalize on you, even if you're not planning on capitalizing any time soon. "They" created this situation for consumers. and who are they? Capitalists...the people in charge of the corporations that are putting americans out of jobs, making them fat, and making us forget how to care.
"once and for all it's us -- not them"
once and for all it's us AND them - whether we like it or not.
the whole idea of private ownership just seems so sad to me - when you get down to some common sense it actually would appear to be the root of all evil...
It seems retarded--and it is.
The problem is that it's less retarded than what most everyone else has done (other countries that is) from a nationwide success standpoint (at least it was until we wanted stuff SO cheap that we were willing to ship jobs overseas to get it).
If we could get our manufacturing back, it'd be like having our cake and eating it too. That's really what propelled us to a superpower in the first place.
Yes, you said it perfectly.
I would only alter one thing.
During those million dollar days of your dad's business that is when your dad FAILED to capitalize on his success. He should've taken the money and ran at that point--not reinvested it.
The problem with mom-and-pop in capitalism is that they always (erroneously) believe that it can go on forever. By the time its said and done their business eats their profits.
If you're going to do things in perfectly competitive (non-proprietary) markets in a capitalist economy you
absolutely must get out when the gettin' is good.
It's not an evil thing really. It's someone else seeing an opportunity to do something better or more efficient than you at it regards
the consumer (which means cheaper for them in a nutshell) and taking that opportunity.
It is the economic engine that, at one time, made all American products the best products there ever were.
As I said we lost our manufacturing and thusly half of the benefit of this policy--but when we had it, this was the biggest economic boon for a nation this planet has ever seen.
Unfortunately it was a beast that ate itself (by shipping the manufacturing overseas).
We can turn that around but we will all have to deal with a bit more socialism to get there. IE we will all have to bear a little bit of the cost.
Its like they say, everything in moderation--that goes for capitalism, too.
Your dad found out the hard way that Americans have yet to realize that. They want it now and cheaper, and your dad missed the boat on that one.
It's a sad story, but a common one.
We, collectively, created big business.
Sometimes this is good--for instance we have the most advanced pharmaceutical research capabilities on the planet. Unfortunately we've traded our soul to get them.
We need to take a step back to the 1960s and 70s--but I fear each day that passes we get a bit closer to "too late" for this to be possible.
It's all because you'd rather pay $28,000 for that econo class vehicle than $30,000. It sounds incredibly simple--AND IT IS.
That's why its so frustrating that we have to watch it happen.
Think of it like game theory.
One game theory says the following (in a basic conception):
Imagine we have a 3 lane road, and there is a sign saying that in 2 miles the left lane will close.
If EVERY motorist IMMEDIATELY (and its important to note:
unselfishly) decided to merge into one of the two right lanes at the first sign of lane closure--everyone would avoid the bottleneck of traffic.
Unfortunately if EVEN ONE asshole (okay maybe a few more than one in this example--but a low number nonetheless) doesn't do this and decided to zoom down the, now empty, leftmost lane--taking advantage of everyone else's unselfishness--he will still cause traffic to slow.
If enough guys do this, traffic will result anyway and the benefit of being unselfish will be lost for EVERYONE.
The problem is that, as high functioning creatures, before we make our decision about whether or not to merge--we intrinsically understand this choice.
We also understand that there
IS AN ASSHOLE who is going to zoom up that left lane. As a result the most intelligent choice immediately becomes to follow suit and try to make it to the front of traffic along with him.
If you live near a big city you might know that sometimes truckers, realizing this, will actually work in tandem to block the closing lane so that no one can zoom up it. In effect the trucker who blocks traffic "takes one for the team" and makes it easier for everyone else to get by (and punishes the selfish people in the leftmost lane).
This is actually very similar to the way the OPEC oil trading organization works. They limit the supply (production) of oil so that they can control the price. They all agree to how much they'll produce. If one country makes more than the others he can take advantage of them and make a huge profit (because he produced more oil and they, having produced less, brought the price up artificially for him). Before penalties were in place, this is why OPEC sucked ass at making money. Since penalties for over-production were put into place OPEC has become one of the most successful organizations, monetarily speaking, to have ever been created.
The problem here is that there is no penalty for taking capitalism too far and being a dickhead about it. There is no penalty for the 1% of consumers who buy the wal-mart peanut butter.
Or the ones who buy the Japanese cars, or what have you.
Because of this, the cheapest price wins and this provides INCENTIVE for companies like Wal-Mart to exist. I won't use Monsanto as an example because they are evil for non-capitalistic reasons. They're just fucking evil in many ways.
Wal-mart is the face of capitalistic evil--but the reality is that WE as consumers created it.
Those "rollbacks" were just too much for our pea brains to handle. We didn't look at it through the lens of game theory. We didn't realize that by frequenting Wal-Mart in 1998, or by buying japanese cars in the late 70s and 80s, that we were being the asshole in the leftmost lane.
That's exactly what we've all done.
Now we've gone SO FAR in that direction that we are ALL in the leftmost lane--just waiting for it to close (my analogy for having lost our comparative advantage in nearly all industries excepting services--especially in manufacturing industries).
I want to blame big companies for it all, too. I can't though--because I know the truth.
I know it was a tiny savings for all of us over an extended period that cost us all a giant loss.
It was consumer greed (and moreso failure to understand the underlying nuance of economics) that cost us in the end.
If we could all go back to 1970, would we do it differently?
If we all knew better, sure. The problem is people still don't want to blame themselves. They want to blame the government, or this company, or that one.
Its us.
It has always been us.
Where those other things have failed, they have done so because we allowed them to--and in some cases even coaxed them into it under duress.
We did it for cheaper peanut butter, and it's a shame. Another country will be the beneficiary in the end if Americans do not educate themselves as to the reality of this.
