Harry & you free market folks, This is so dense I suspect it will be ignored rather than read but I had a good thinking anyway. I thought I would post it in case anyone else would care to wade through it. There is a gold vein there and I see it clearly. Who knows? Maybe someone else will see it too. Enjoy or delete.
How do you feel about Allopathic Medicine? Your argument for the "Free Market" is very much in line with the type of non-intervention advocated by many types of alternative healing methods. In otherwords they say there is no such thing as a "magic bullet" to cure illness. They say modern chemicals are "unnatural" and even destroy the systems of nature present in the body and besides "a little death is the price that we all pay for living." In that manner of thought, "dis-ease" becomes a form of the greater curing of that great "eco-system" out there. The Invisible Hand of medicine and ecology. They say: "If you will just meditate on the 'great market' and its ultimate goodness then the Invisible Hand will heal the system and work at peak efficiency automatically." Cute, but it doesn't make much sense. Who amongst you would forgo giving medicine to a child dying of cancer because it is better for the greater good? Who would watch your mate or your brother pass at a young age because it is not correct for the balance of nature, AND who would claim that their mother or child are responsible for having gotten their cancer or heart disease in the first place and therefore must bear the consequences? Today, we may laugh on the radio, at people dying from lung cancer or who spill too hot coffee on their laps while driving but we don't spread the same rules to the vulnerable in our own home, except in economics. Economics, Wow! What was supposed to facilitate all of the better sides of humanity through greater financial efficiency and the understanding of its mechanisms, has instead become a "good" and a "moral system" of its own, separate from those things that it was supposed to "help." Today we may be more "productive but we are not more human, more artistic, better lovers, better parents or more compassionate in our wisdom. We are just more venal and materialistic as we blame it on the great "Invisible Hand" of the market place or the lack of it. Would it surprise you if I pointed out that from that same time in history that was a "naturists" movement in the teaching of voice? That after the great pedagogists of the Bel Canto era had literally created the greatest human voices and techniques on the planet, we invented a version of teaching that claimed to be re-discovering the nature of the voice and the perfection of that nature. Ignoring the fact that Bel Canto had "invented" them they now claimed that voices were "born" and not built. Even today we have this left over version of Romanticism that makes it OK to ignore the less than obviously talented and to leave it to those who are "Gifts of God." This version removes the song from everyone but the ones with the "Stimme" the "great voice." Those who don't possess it can't play. Stupid, you bet! Wrong? Absolutely and against all human experience. Believed by millions? Yes and even worse, taught by professional musicians who don't want amateur competition or who wish to exercise authority over "Holy Art" which they see as the domain only of the "talented". The Invisible Hand of talent is the most efficient way to develop and sustain talent, except it isn't and doesn't work. It's a lie! Or would it be better to observe the "Classical Economics" of John Baptiste Say? (JB) I realize that I have a different take on what he said especially since he agrees with Harry on the "unlimited desire" stuff. But desires are limited by experience and our knowledge of what it is possible to desire. And in the sense that the future is created, out of the successes of the past, in the imagination, and not so much in the failures (basic rat psychology) you often need "supply" before you can have demand. This is where Keynes forgot to talk to his Russian Ballerina wife and John Stuart Mill completely misunderstood his healing from the poet Wordsworth when he had his nervous breakdown. We might paraphrase Jesus here and say it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than it is for an "intellectual" to give up the predispositions of his thought system and trust his experience of the world at large. Think about this: when the missionaries came to Indian people and we read their manual we were impressed with the book. At one point the great Iroquois philosopher warrior Red Jacket said after reading the Bible and talking with one of these missionaries that they would "now wait a period of a generation to see how well the Christians practiced the manual and whether it worked in reality." The missionary left in a "huff" refusing to shake the hand of the great man who was used to thinking about the future of his people, down to the seventh generation, in "actions" rather than to a simple bargain with God for the soul of an individual. Today if you want a future then you must create your success in the present and I haven't had any rich folks or government agents create success for me in 43 years but I have had a lot get in the way. If I waited for them to "want" what I did in order to sell it then I would never created it in the first place. I had to create the product and make it work and only then would the supply I created bring forth a demand for what I did. People who get in the way of my supplying that product are useless and I don't keep them around as I used to when I was younger. Balance and success demands a little more than just having an opinion and sitting on your hands or betting on "Invisible Hands." So my personal experience has been that "Invisible Hands" are "ideals" that may have very long term general applications but are not useful in the short term. On one hand, as an Artist, I must think like Red Jacket but on the other I must think like the missionary. In the Arts or Intellectual Property you must think in terms of products that disappear once they have been experienced. They cannot be known except in the moment and experience is based upon the discretion of taste that is cultivated. The key is in the learning "device" that John Dewey called the "readiness point." I know Harry, Dewey liked George. But let's leave George and just think that what you should do is "prepare your society to do what your product is." That preparation takes time and within that time it can slip if you take it too fast or slow. If you can't create your audience in their "taste" then supply will come too quickly and it won't be bought and you will have a "glut." (J.B. Say is mistaken about the meaning of "glut" in my business.) If supply comes too late or too slowly then you will have a scarcity and you will have nothing to supply but even worse, your audience's imagination will go elsewhere and you may have start over in your preparation phase. But! and that but-t is as big a one as the gorgeous JayLo, BUT! if you can create a supply around the "reduction back to the preparation phase" then you will create demand ala J.P. Say's "supply creates demand." But if! as in the US Fine Arts establishment, you have very little supply then there is very little likelihood of a demand ever developing due to the desire of the human spirit for a successful resolution of it's desires. The more poor you are, the less likelihood you will ever go for such a frustrating and unlikely success. Hence we find Amerika! Or as the lovely Rosina says .......Ma! But! wasn't there an audience somewhere, sometime ago? How did they happen? The great composers from the peasant class in Europe were developed by an Aristocracy who wanted an appreciative audience for their theaters. Even in America the Plantation owners sent slaves to the opera emulating the Aristocracy of Europe. Hence your operatic voiced spirituals and big voiced gospel music as well as Jazz. (Levine, Massey Lectures from Harvard) If you get just the right timing and you reach the readiness point with "supply" in hand and the audience's "need" then Keynes "works" and you have desire creating demand and you sell. On the other hand if you don't then Keynes doesn't work and they will never demand or even desire a complex artistic product. You have to have enough supply to create taste for a complex artistic product. J.B. Say "works" in that sense. "Supply creates demand" if there is enough taste to create desire! We have the same story with ecology and the "magic fires" formed by lightning and the great consciousness of Gaia. Some people even ascribe such beliefs to us! And then beat us up for it. How little they know! Systematically you have to be against such things as birth control (unnatural control diverts the effectiveness of nature upon natural selection and the survival of the brightest and best) etc. Metaphor, all metaphor. The only process here is metaphor in that God damned hand! You can take the metaphorical process wherever you would like, however I would just like to say the the "Invisible Hand" of Smith and others is really just a version of a the great perfect clock of Deism wound up in perfection and only a problem when the God Creator is not there to start it. Ain't myths wonderful? Well for 1/2% they are anyway. That is some judgment of success you folks have. Ray Evans Harrell "how do you like your blue eyed boy now mr. death?" ----- Original Message ----- From: "Harry Pollard" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Bruce Leier" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Friday, January 01, 1999 5:41 PM Subject: [Futurework] RE: The Solar Economy > Bruce, > > I would have thought that oil didn't get any kind of government subsidy. > Also coal surely didn't. > > But, I repeat that it would be better if there no government subsidies for > any energy source. > > Two problems arise from subsidies. One is that it throws off the market > mechanism, so you don't know which is the best fuel. Second, it directs > research in a particular direction, which may not be the best. This means > major money goes chasing after perhaps a false path. > > At the same time, those who might be interested in pursuing innovative > alternatives are dissuaded by the enormous advantage enjoyed by those > subsidized. > > In other words, perhaps solar, wind, and nuclear might now be supplying us > with electricity if government were not involved. > > Harry > > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----- > > Bruce wrote: > > >Harry, > > > >I do not know of any energy technology that did not get its start and/or > >a big boost through subsidies of some kind. Oil certainly did. And > >nuclear really did, too. Do you say those subsidies were "bad"? Or is > >it only new subsidies that are "bad"? What has changed other than who > >are the economic royalists? WWHGsay? > > > >Bruce Leier > > > > > -----Original Message----- > > > From: Harry Pollard [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] > > > Sent: Sunday, December 22, 2002 1:27 AM > > > To: Bruce Leier; [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > > Subject: RE: The Solar Economy > > > > > > Bruce, > > > > > > If the presenter was correct, the $27,000 cost of each wind turbine > >was > > > written off with special tax advantages. That was the point I was > >making. I > > > would be happy to have no subsidies of any kind for any method of > >producing > > > power. > > > > > > As it is, how does that $27,000 mix into the cost pkh? > > > > > > Harry > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------- > > > > > > Bruce wrote: > > > > > > >Harry, > > > > > > > >Seems to be a lot of conclusions and judgments without many facts or > > > >much data. What was the cost pkh? What is the cost pkh? Give us > >that; > > > >then we can discuss something. > > > > > > > >Bruce Leier > > > > > > > > > -----Original Message----- > > > > > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:owner- > > > > > [EMAIL PROTECTED]] On Behalf Of Harry Pollard > > > > > Sent: Saturday, December 14, 2002 5:27 PM > > > > > To: Karen Watters Cole; [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > > > > Cc: Keith Hudson > > > > > Subject: RE: The Solar Economy > > > > > > > > > > Karen, > > > > > > > > > > I was waiting to give a paper at an AAAS annual conference > >(obviously, > > > >my > > > > > paper was the reason for good attendance). The guy ahead of me was > > > >giving a > > > > > paper on the economics of wind turbines. I had vaguely notice in > >the > > > >LA > > > > > Times proposals for investment in these things. The ads were > >careful > > > >to say > > > > > you needed an income of $250,000 - or a net worth rather more than > > > >that. If > > > > > you qualified, you could reap lucrative rewards from government > >tax > > > >breaks. > > > > > > > > > > He estimated that each wind turbine cost $27,000 - hidden in the > >tax > > > > > breaks, and never appearing in any balance sheet. My thought was > > > >forget > > > > > them as an energy source except in special locations. The > >economist > > > >had > > > > > other ideas. His recommendation was that the tax break system > >should > > > >end. > > > > > Instead, there should be direct subsidy by the Federal government. > >The > > > >fact > > > > > that the electricity produced was prohibitively expensive > >apparently > > > >didn't > > > > > occur to him. > > > > > > > > > > That was 20-30 years ago. I assume that during this time, the cost > >of > > > >a > > > > > turbine has gone up, but the efficiency of the turbines will also > >have > > > >gone > > > > > up. I wonder what the cost of a kilowatt is now? > > > > > > > > > > The economist's advice was taken. If you install a wind turbine, > > > >California > > > > > will now pay half the cost along with giving a tax credit of 7.5%. > > > > > > > > > > I don't know how the new wind-farms are financed. > > > > > > > > > > The put the solars out in the desert. Didn't help. > > > > > > > > > > Solar hot water heaters are in the yellow pages in Florida. They > >are > > > >also > > > > > used, I understand, all over North Africa. But, so far, as a > > > >replacement > > > > > for coal, oil, or nuclear - no luck. > > > > > > > > > > Fuel cells don't produce power, though from the excitement they > >cause, > > > >one > > > > > would think they are the definitive answer to non-renewables. The > > > >answer to > > > > > their use at the moment is Bah! Humbug! > > > > > > > > > > In Southern California. now the daily temperature is down into the > > > >60's - > > > > > practically freezing. (We may even get some rain in the next few > > > >days.) So > > > > > playing with these toys isn't crucial. But, in the North-East and > > > >Mid-West > > > > > they can't heat their homes with fantasies. Babies with pneumonia > > > >aren't a > > > > > pretty sight. > > > > > > > > > > So, the alternatives aren't particularly practical. They may > >become so > > > >in > > > > > due course, but at the moment - Marley's ghost has nothing to > >offer. > > > > > > > > > > Bah, Humbug! > > > > > > > > > > Harry > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > >----------------------------------------------------------------------- > >- > > > >----------- > > > > > > > > > > Karen wrote: > > > > > > > > > > >Harry, you are such a Scrooge: Bah, Humbug on all these new > >fangled > > > >energy > > > > > >projects! > > > > > > > > > > > >Light bulbs weren't that great when first invented. Telephones > >are > > > >much > > > > > >improved, some would say not for our benefit. Everyone agrees > >the > > > >auto is a > > > > > >better vehicle for transportation that the family mule, though a > > > >mule's > > > > > >emissions problems didn't impact as wide an area as airborne > >carbons > > > >do now > > > > > >and it could be recycled. We don't even want to start a thread > >about > > > >how > > > > > >much better medical science is that how it was practiced > >initially. > > > > > > > > > > > >Your arguments below against newer developments into sustainable > > > >energy > > > > > >projects seem to reflect the bottom line that if it doesn't work > >for > > > >me, > > > > > >right here in my own backyard, then it is doomed to failure. > >Sure, > > > >the new > > > > > >ideas are still being developed and will probably be best used as > > > >backups in > > > > > >the energy grid, but we need all the backups we can use. I > >haven't > > > >noticed > > > > > >too many people in California voluntarily riding their bikes to > >work, > > > >using > > > > > >oil lamps at home unless forced to by blackouts. > > > > > > > > > > > >Call me a Pollyanna, but I think that attempts to broaden our > >base > > > >for > > > > > >energy sources should be considered. No matter that they've just > > > >discovered > > > > > >huge wells of natural gas off the coast of India, (1) or that > >there > > > >may be a > > > > > >pipeline through northern Russia for its oil in another decade, > >we > > > >have to > > > > > >look at the needs of the future, not just living off the past. > > > > > > > > > > > >PacificCorp built a wind farm between Portland and Pendleton, > >Oregon > > > >in 3 > > > > > >months last fall. Works great and annoys just the birds, not the > > > >cows. PGE > > > > > >built a smaller-sized urban power plant in 6 months, and it > > > >immediately > > > > > >began acting as a supplement to the bigger plants. Some cities > >have > > > >tapped > > > > > >into their underground aquifers to heating city buildings, saving > > > >taxpayer > > > > > >money. It all adds up, and the supplements are accomplished > >quickly > > > >without > > > > > >huge voter or corporate commitment. > > > > > > > > > > > >So they weren't smart enough to put wind farms out in the > >countryside > > > >in S. > > > > > >California. The ones between the Bay Area and San Joaquin Valley > > > >have been > > > > > >in place since when, the 70s? Wouldn't those poles cycling in > >the > > > >wind be a > > > > > >nicer view interruption than oil rigs off the Southern coastline, > > > >say, that > > > > > >long stretch south of LA known as Camp Pendleton where nobody > >cares > > > >what the > > > > > >view is anyway? I am not aware of any windmill pollution or > >spill > > > >dangers. > > > > > >Since Pendleton is an Army base, there shouldn't be aircraft > >landing > > > > > >conflicts. > > > > > > > > > > > >And if they can't succeed with solar in lovely San Diego, then > > > >someone just > > > > > >had a bad business plan. Too much of the delay in building new > > > >nuclear > > > > > >power plants is the argument about retooling them and what tax > > > >credits can > > > > > >be had or denied. Then they take forever to construct and have > >to be > > > > > >recertified every 5 years (I think, still), a very time-consuming > > > >process. > > > > > >It's not the R&D, it's the profit line that is cramping the > >future of > > > > > >energy. > > > > > > > > > > > >Bush's energy vision is in the past. Individual states are > >moving > > > >ahead in > > > > > >spite of him, not following his leadership (2). Coal may be > > > >plentiful, but > > > > > >pulling it out of the earth is devastating large swaths of coal > > > >country, > > > > > >polluting rivers and drinking water for many communities. We > >have to > > > >have > > > > > >other options besides these old fossils. > > > > > > > > > > > >To quote Tufts Prof. Agyeman on sustainability, "It isn't rocket > > > >science; > > > > > >it's plain common sense. It's not about no growth, but a > >different > > > >kind of > > > > > >growth. It's about using more of our unlimited mental resources > >and > > > >less of > > > > > >our limited natural resources. It's about not using up our > >natural > > > >capital > > > > > >such as wilderness areas, forests, a fish stock or an aquifer, > >but > > > >living > > > > > >off the harvest and other ecological services they provide." (3) > > > > > > > > > > > >Karen > > > > > >East of Portland, West of the Windmills > > > > > >1. Big Gas Fields Found in Indian Waters @ > > > > > > > >http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/13/business/worldbusiness/13GAS.html. > > > > > >2. On Global Warming, States Act Locally @ > > > > > > > >http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A36696-2002Nov10.html > > > > > >3. From Responsibility to Sustainability @ > > > > > >http://www.msnbc.com/news/783068.asp > > > > > >Harry wrote: If there was any place that solar power could work, > > > >it's in > > > > > >Southern California, where sunshine is the rule rather than the > > > >exception. > > > > > >Yet, solar power failed here in spite of government subsidy and > > > >complete > > > > > >relief from property taxes. > > > > > > > > > > > >That eventually it may become less expensive, or non-renewables > >might > > > >become > > > > > >more expensive may change things, but that's not now. > > > > > > > > > > > >Even if one forgets the cost, there is still the environmental > > > >impact. Both > > > > > >solar and wind take up enormous areas to produce the same energy > >as a > > > > > >modern power station. Wind makes lots of noise and people a mile > >or > > > >more > > > > > >away are bothered by the continuous onslaught on their ears. > > > > > > > > > > > >There seem to be only two probabilities - coal and nuclear. The > >US > > > >has coal > > > > > >that could last us for several thousand years. It can be sent > >through > > > >a > > > > > >pipeline too, if necessary. Nuclear is a best bet. The technology > >we > > > >are > > > > > >using is 3-4 decades old. New nuclear furnaces apparently don't > > > >require > > > > > >coolant or containment shells. > > > > > > > > > > > >Fuel cells are the biggie at the moment even though they produce > >no > > > >power. > > > > > >(Haven't these people learned anything at school?) > > > > > > > > > > > >If important people are beginning to discover the uselessness of > > > >Kyoto, > > > > > >could we say they are following a prescient George W. Bush? > > > > > > > > > ****************************** > > > Harry Pollard > > > Henry George School of LA > > > Box 655 > > > Tujunga CA 91042 > > > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > > Tel: (818) 352-4141 > > > Fax: (818) 353-2242 > > > ******************************* > > > > > > > > > >--- > >Incoming mail is certified Virus Free. > >Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). > >Version: 6.0.427 / Virus Database: 240 - Release Date: 12/6/2002 > > ****************************** > Harry Pollard > Henry George School of LA > Box 655 > Tujunga CA 91042 > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Tel: (818) 352-4141 > Fax: (818) 353-2242 > ******************************* > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---- > > --- > Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. > Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). > Version: 6.0.427 / Virus Database: 240 - Release Date: 12/6/2002 > _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://scribe.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
