NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #27/NN_1992_27.iso/spool/alt/californ/2064

Internet Message Format | 1992-11-19 | 9.3 KB

Path: sparky!uunet!infoserv!steiny!
From: [e-mail] (Don Steiny)
Newsgroups: alt.california
Subject: Re: relocation
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: 19 Nov 92 19:31:56 GMT
References: <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]>
Organization: Don Steiny Software
Lines: 174

[e-mail] (C D Burdorf) writes:

>In the referenced article, [e-mail] (Don Steiny) writes:
>>[e-mail] (C D Burdorf) writes:
>>
>>>The high interest rates that Reagen imposed did a lot of damage to our
>>>industrial base.
>>    Reagan did not impose the high interest rates.   The Federal Reserve
>>bank decides on interest rates.   It is an independent part of the government.
>>They successfully controlled double digit inflation.
>He had a chance to get rid of Paul Volker, but he reappointed him.
>It was a rubber stamp approval of high interest rates.

    That is not what you said in the first place, you can see that
what you wrote is a factual misstatement.   I cannot read your mind.

    You might not be aware that international cooperation in exchange rates
has been growing for some time.   Having an independent Federal Reserve
system is considered good policy by one and all.   I do not know for sure
why Reagan did it.   I can think of other plausable reasons.    Besides,
are arguing that Volker did the wrong thing?

>When you're out of work or have to take a low-paying service job instead of
> a well-paying >manufacturing or professional job, it doesn't matter that
>inflation is low.

    Why is that?--You accuse me of making unsupported statements.   This
statement makes no sense to me.   Inflation hurts everyone.    A decrease
in the spending power of people on fixed incomes affects the whole economy,
for instance.

    Besides, there are many high paying service jobs.   Ross Perot, for
instance, made millions of dollars by providing system integration services
to the US Government.

>>Are you suggesting that it would be better to subsidize incompitence
>>by increasing tarrifs on foreign goods?
>Why do you have such a low opinion of American products?

    Saying that tarrifs subsidise incompitance does not mean that I have
a low opinion of *all* Americian products.   But my Honda has 150,000 miles
on it and it runs perfectly and is better on the air polutions standards
than a new Chevrolet.   Consumers Reports had not rated an American car
in the top place for I don't know how long.  Why waste my money?  The
biggest improvements in a while in the US auto industry have been in the
last few years as the companies are learning to compete globally.

>It doesn't help you if your one of the thousands of people that are
>now out of work.  When I was in LA 3 years ago, unemployment was
>1% now its 10%.  I don't care what the economists say.  That is
>economic hard times.

    It is very sad.   But I am saying the the reasons you are giving and
not the reasons you give.   In California, especially in Southern
California, the downsizing of the defense industry is causing job losses.
The internationalization of labor is perhaps also causing job losses.  But
I do not think that this is something a politician can do something about.
I have been maintaining that calling Bush and Reagan "fascists" and blaiming
everything them obscures the bigger picture.

>>    Please tell me where I can find one so I
>>can see a political spectrum.
>>
>Take an introduction to political science class.

    Oh, no need to do that.   Are you familiar with the philosopher
Ludwig Wittgenstein and the issues of "ordinary language philosophy?"
What is "policial spectrum" linguistically?   It is a "noun-phrase."
To what does it refer?   Clearly not something physical and concrete
like a table or a chair.    Philosophers, linguists, and psychologists
have been trying to figure this out for quite a while.   Plato felt that
it referred to something metaphysical, Wittgenstein felt that words had
no meaning at all and were simply tokens in a "language-game."
Wittgenstein's point of view is the predominate one today.   Thus, if I had
taken a high-quality political science class that delved into the phiosophical
undepinnings of the topic, I would have learned not to use terms like
"politial spectrum" as if they referred to something concrete.   Wittgenstein
felt that philosophy was a "disease" where people took terms
like "political spectrum" and had huge argument, wrote books, and such.

>>> I believe that right-wing views are dangerous and destructive, so I choose
>>>to make a statement as such.  Why do you have a problem with this?
>> Boy, "views" seem to be pretty dangerous creatures to you.  I cannot imagine
>> why a "view" would be dangerous to anyone unless it lead to some action
>>by someone that held it.    It would be pretty tough to demonstrate a chain
>>of causation from a "view" to an "act."
>Well nazism started with "views" that ended up in acts.  The same holds
>for communism.

    Was it the chicken or the egg that came first?   How could you prove
it?  In other words, aren't Nazism or Communism just fancy words to describe
age old behavior?    "Views" are like "political spectrums."  Since they
are purely subjective it is difficult to support a claim that they "exist"
at all, much less lead to acts.

>I'm not new to it, and I encourage responses.  I just think that
>you are being very patronizing and elitist by claiming that my
>polictical views are basically wrong.  I have a right to express
>my views

    Patronizing?  Elistist?   Huh?   You seem to have a habit of
calling people names using words you do not fully understand how to use.
I did not say your views are "wrong."  I am philosophically committed
to relativism at this point in my life.   You are very defensive.
As for "elitist"--how many of the downtrodden masses have time to
read "alt.california" on USENET, anyway?   Who do you think your audience
is here anyway?

>There's BS in the US media  and just because the Wall Street Journal
>says something doesn't mean its right.

    [The Economist is not the US media.   It is an English
publication--but what the heck, what with riots and Iraqgates, no one
can tell the difference anymore.]

    I think this sentence shows our fundemental difference.   If you
read what I said, I never said that the Wall Street Journal or The
Economist were "right."   I simply said that there was an alternate
point of view with strong arguments to support it.

>Well, if they are so complex, explain how?  I'm not going to take your
>word for it.

    The freer movement of goods and capital, changes in the nature of
capital, better telecommunications, computer use, ..., all these things have
contributed greater internationalization of the market place.   That
means that if I need someone to put a frozzle-grommet on my widget, then
to a greater degree, I can look anywhere in the world for that worker.
I can make my decisions based who is cheapest.   This means that Joe
Shmoo in Little Rock is competing with people in the rest of the world,
and in some places, like Mexico.  It is cheaper to live than here so they
can pay people less.   It seems that if we restrict the ability of our
companies in the US to use this global labor pool their labor costs
will be higher and thus the cost of US goods will be higher.  If they
cost more, all other things being equal, people will not buy them.  If the
companies do not sell their products, then they will not make any money
thus, handing the industry to foreign interests.   It is a paradoxical
situation.  This is an example of an issue for which I do not see a simple
solution.

    An other issue is the redistribution of wealth.   For better or for
worse the US had a system in place where the government funnelled money into
the economy by putting it into the military.   During peace time the
military was[is] an egalitarian training program for numerous skills.   It
was a huge job training program.  In addition, money was allocated for
research, and such things as ARPA and the Internet, which connects us all
for this discussion, were significantly funded by defense spending.   And
people did not mind that much because of the cold war.   Now that that
channel is being drastically reduced it is having a big impact on the
economy. There does not seem to be a simple solution to this
either.  Should the money be funnelled into R&D the way it was done
in Japan?  Which industries are to be the recepients of this munificence?
Which companies?  I am sure everyone has their favorite.

    We cannot know what will work best beforehand.  How could we?
We may never know.  Since our laboratory is human society and our
measuring stick is history, we can only try one thing.   Can we
tell exactly how a person is going to be as an adult by observing
the person as a child?   No, and human societies are every bit as
complex as the people from which they are made.    All we can do here is
talk about what might work.   Perhaps if we have an open mind and try
get as much information as possible  we can make better guesses.

    Calling Bush a fascist and blaming everything on him is addressing
the problem at too high a level to be useful.   It grossly oversimplifies
things.  So what if he is?  Maybe he beats Barabra?  So what?  What
effect does that have on the internationalization of the labor pool?

-don
--
Don Steiny
Don Steiny Software
Santa Cruz, CA 95060
[phone]