Quote:
Originally Posted by The Demon
Do you think most voters are brainless or informed? If it's the former, I'm not sure how this is going to change anything, other than idiotic candidates. If it's the latter, well then I praise you for your optimism.
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This is a whole new discussion in itself. I think we both recognize the pros and cons of both types of economies, yet I still lean towards the unmanaged.
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And who do you propose manages the economy? The 'informed" voter or politician who at one point or another is going to sacrifice his morals?
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Looking at your presentation, I'm seeing two major points you are trying to make.
The first is that this country has an excess of stupidity. The second involves the planetary conflict between more-managed and less-managed economies, which, for the moment, the united states is losing.
Yes, I agree, this country has let itself become stupider. I suspect you and I have very different ideas about that stupidity, but sure, we have a serious problem as a country, in that we have embraced stupidity, lack of education, and the cult of personality.
I get the feeling you think this is a permanent state, something inherent in teh people, whereas I think it's a cultural effect, something we have done to ourselves, and that people have the potential to be less stupid.
However, it will talke years for america to become less stupid, and right now I don't see any reason to believe americans want to be less stupid, I think we want to be more stupid.
HOWEVER - we have been ruled by the rich since reagan, and rule by the rich has been just as stupid as anything else we americans have done. The rich create bubbles, let the infrastructure rot, and they have destroyed the american productive economy and threatened national security by letting our infrastructure and logistics base decay.
So, the rich have been just as stupid as anybody. Basing the post 9/11 economy on building unneeded homes and derivative securities and weapons manufacturing was as dumb a fucking idea as anything any birther or 9/11truther ever dreamed up.
And it doesn't matter wether you (or I) think americans are stupid - unless you are going to end our psuedo-democracy, they still get to vote.
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As for more-managed versus less-managed economies - yes that is a huge topic.
But, the country needs to create 41 million jobs in teh next decade to catch up to where we were 20 years ago, before free trade.
This is a national security issue, not just a consumer or economic iissue.
If you can show me any force, any principle, any trend, that indicates that an unmanaged economy has any way to create 40 million jobs, or 20 million jobs, or even 10 million jobs, I'll be very interested in discussing it.
I cannot see any unmanaged force that makes that possible - until the time comes when the american working class standard of living has been reduced to the chinese working class standard of living, and there is no economic incentive to place all manufacturing in the third world. (leaving out of the picture, for the moment, the question of the price of oil and transport.)
Americans are stupid, but are they stupid enough to passively accept that new order - a superrich elite ruling over a working class making a few dollars an hour?