Re: rights/responsibilities
Steve Kurtz wrote: Dear Thomas, Your axe is social justice; mine is long term habitat health and minimization of scarcity induced conflicts. You accept the system at base, and plea for redistribution of credits. My view is equal slices of an insufficient renewable pie results in maximum suffering and dieoff. Of course, you may not think the pie is insufficient! It is certainly not right to construct a conflict between social justice and ecological concerns! Therefore I do not think that the solution to overpopulation is to starve the "unnecessary" people to death, or hope for their annihilation by war and plague. Today it looks like that the European populations are trying to eliminate themselves. I no country in Europe are so many children born that the children will replace their parents generation. In Italy the population will be reduced by 50% within a century, since the average woman in Italy gives birth to less than 1.4 child. Some countries are producing more children than they can raise and feed - but in Europe so few children are born, and have been born after 1970, that the development of European societies will be hampered few decades ahead. The reason is I guess that women in Europe are free to decide themselves how many children they will have. The most important reason to overpopulation is the supression of women in those countries which are producing more children than they can feed. To prevent overpopulation one has to given poor women a larger slice of the pie, an equal slice of the pie, and education and the possibility to run their own lives. -- All the best Tor Førde
Re: rights/responsibilities
-Original Message- From: Steve Kurtz [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: futurework [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: September 25, 1998 11:35 AM Subject: Re: rights/responsibilities Dear Thomas, Thomas: Come on guys having a piss requires "human actions". At some future date, if you live long enough, you will undoubtedly need to make an effort to urinate. Thomas: That may very well be true. But using it as a definition of work is pretty succint. My Oxford dictionary uses a whole column - more than almost any other word in the dictionary to describe the various meanings of work. I think that trying to work with a generalization such as " required human actions" is like describing life as breathing. Though there may be some truth in both statements, neither gives enough information to apply to real world situations. Answer the question! "Does or should everyone have to work? And the collorary question, "What is work? Give me your definition. I did both in plain English. "Yes" , and "required human actions". If you choose another definition, it is up to you to state it. Thomas: I guess, I disagree with both your answers. No, everyone should not have to work because work has not been adequately defined. Required human actions is not a definition, it is a generalization. I use work as currently defined by economists as paid employment. There are many legitimate reasons for a person at some time in their lives to not be engaged in paid employment. To young, to old, getting educated, no paid work available, suffering medical problems, lazy, exploring other facets of being human, thinking, inventing, playing and on ad infinitum. I sorry, I have not found the world amendable to black and white answers or yes or no solutions. Someone who sits on the sidelines and takes shots without every revealing their position. What do you call my above quoted statement? Thomas: And I have told you what I think of your above quoted statement - it's to general. How did we get to vegative people? They are the only people who can't ( don't) work. Thomas: I think with a little imagination, you can come up with more than two categories other than "can't" and "won't". 1.The fact that many people aren't working is the result of a particular set of economic theories developed by Milton Freidman such as the concept of fighting inflation by deliberately creating unemployment through a theoritical position called the "natural rate of unemployment". I claim that everyone is working, if not vegetative. Freidman is like all neo-classical economists, deluded; and they are running like scared rabbits now that the debt based money system is collapsing. If I have to pick one primary factor in the breakdown it is debt-based, fiat money. All economists do is speculate. Thomas: Slippery, slippery. Was there anything in my statement about debt based economies? No. So why go off on a tangent. If you want to discuss or analyze my essay, then do it on the contents of the essay, not on some privately held opinion that is tangent to my statements. 2.These policies have become the basis for a whole slew of legislation and activities by the Central Bank which has deliberately created unemployment as a policy goal. I assume you are referring to the US Fed. Well, they support the debt based money system, and the policies to which you are referring are the looseness/tightness of money supply. You are choosing to play intellectual ball in the park created by the bankers. Also, you define remuneration as fiat money/credits. That is an "artificial turf" ballpark IMO, it will not endure since it is unsustainable. A trillion credits cannot, on their own sustain any life in any form. Thomas: No, what I am referring to is the choice made by the US FEd and the Canadian Central Banks that led to certain policies without explaining or exploring other possiblities such as full employment and slight inflation. What I am asking for is a response from the List, should anyone choose to make it, about whether they made the right choice. I have my opinion and I am interested in others. As that unemployed group used social services - which is what they are there for - to protect themselves, the government used this as an excuse to cut social programs claiming we couldn't afford them. Business jumped on the bandwagon on payroll taxes and a call for an elimination of the minimum wage and other draconian measures under their banner of global competition. Your axe is social justice; mine is long term habitat health and minimization of scarcity induced conflicts. You accept the system at base, and plea for redistribution of credits. My view is equal slices of an insufficient renewable pie results in maximum suffering and dieoff. Of course, you may not think the pie is insufficient! Thomas: Well, I don't think I accept the system at base as you claim. However, given that is the system at the moment, you are right, I
In Case Anyone Needed to Be Reminded
As the witticism goes: If you owe the bank $10,000 and you can't pay, you have a problem... If you owe the bank $10,000,000 and you can't pay, they have a problem... Globe and Mail, Saturday Sept. 26, 1998 FUND RESCUED TO PREVENT MARKET CHAOS -Brian Milner and Andrew Willis- "The 14 powerful financial institutions pumping more than $3.5 billion (U.S.) into crippled hedge fund operator Long Term Capital Management LP said yesterday they acted to prevent disruption in global financial markets that could stem from a precipitous liquidation of the portfolio." As an aside, it is likely that the Canadian banks which did not participate in the bail-out and had (according to the article) only minor exposure to LTCM were presumably saved from this debacle because they were "too small to be global players"... But next time, after they will have had the opportunity to merge and thus become "global players", they too will have the chance to play (and lose) with the big boys at the high stakes craps table. regs Mike Gurstein
Global Learn Day II (fwd)
I have been asked to be a keynote speaker for this event. The text of the address I will be giving on Oct. 11 can be found at http://ccen.uccb.ns.ca/articles/GLD2.html. The presentation itself will be available as Real Video on the day of the event. For anyone with an interest, other of the papers produced by myself and my at C\CEN colleagues over the last several years can be found at http://ccen.uccb.ns.ca/articles. Any comments on the paper(s) are appreciated. regs Mike Gurstein -- Forwarded message -- Date: Sat, 26 Sep 1998 13:02:35 -0700 (PDT) From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Global Learn Day II To: E.S.D*. - GLD LIST - Subject: Important Announcement/Global Learn Day II Global Learn Day II will take place on October 10 and 11. This is a worldwide 30 hour nonstop webcast featuring the leaders in distance education from around the world. Attendance is free. 21st Century technology will be used to ensure that those with even "386" computers and 14.4 modems, while not fully functional for all the video and audio activities, can still interactively participate in this groundbreaking event. While the entire proceedings will be archived for one full year, we earnestly hope you will attend on Saturday or Sunday, October 10 or 11. And, if you're using an older system with a slow internet connection you can still chat with people from around the world using IRC chat. Starting October 1, 1998, you'll be able to download the program you need and all the information about joining this exciting around the world chat from http://www.msintergate.com/GLD/chat. Very specific GLDII Announcements will be forthcoming in the next two weeks, all which are designed answer your commonly asked questions and help you better enjoy your time at Global Learn Day II. For immediate information about GLDII, you may wish to write: [EMAIL PROTECTED] or visit http://www.bfranklin.edu. We sincerely hope that you will attend this extraordinary event. Linda Riddell Director of Communications [EMAIL PROTECTED] Tel: 619 230 0212 This message is sent in compliance of the new e-mail bill: SECTION 301. "Per Section 301, Paragraph (a)(2)(C) of S. 1618, further transmissions to you by the sender of this email may be stopped at no cost to you by replying to this email with the word "REMOVE" in the subject line. Your request will be honored automatically if you follow the above instruction.
URL Correction (Whoops) (fwd)
For anyone with an interest, other of the papers produced by myself and my C\CEN colleagues over the last several years can be reached from http://ccen.uccb.ns.ca/cceng/cceng.html and clicking on either the "papers" button or the "new publications" tag. Any comments on the paper(s) are appreciated. regs Mike Gurstein
