Rebane's Ruminations
November 2014
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[Recall the little dustup between two Union editorial board members Ms Cheryl Cook and Mr Norm Sauer that was introduced here in 'Deconstructing America' that resulted in Ms Cook's resignation from that board?  Well, all the dust has yet to settle as we read Letters to the Editor in the 7nov14 Union (here).  There we see that one or two residual burrs remain under the liberals' blanket regarding Mr Sauer's reply.  Today Ms Judith McCarrick's letter is an almost embarrassing yet important expose of more misdirected meanderings of muddled minds.  Nevertheless, this kind of instructive voices should never be stilled, and The Union is to be lauded for bending backward to provide us such a 'balanced' voice which writes -

I was surprised to read Norm Sauer’s attack upon his fellow Editorial Board member at The Union, Cheryl Cook, and was appalled at his lack of civility and respect. … While he vehemently defends the sanctity of the Constitution, he finds it acceptable to use words such as “rant,” “diatribe,” “contempt” and “destruction” to belittle Ms. Cook’s own First Amendment rights. Hers was a thoughtful discussion of issues that Americans of conscience are concerned about in our current climate of violence, a climate that the framers of our Constitution could never have anticipated. Mr. Sauer lectures Ms. Cook about “our God-given inalienable (sic) rights that all men are created equal,” when, in truth we know that many groups of Americans are still not treated equally and women remain economically disadvantaged. But it is his disrespectful tone, directed specifically at the character of Ms. Cook, who is his equal, that I find most offensive. … Mr. Sauer’s verbal assault on a colleague raises questions about the composition and purpose of this board as effective representatives of our community.

Judith McCarrick, Nevada City  gjr] 

Posted in

118 responses to “Sandbox – 7nov14”

  1. Ben Emery Avatar
    Ben Emery

    Fish,
    “How without the slow evolution of primitive to sophisticated economies do you ever get to the “wages cause demand” stage?”
    You don’t. But that isn’t how industrial revolution or the feudalistic economies evolved throughout history so if we want to strictly stay within theory we can create an optimal system how this economic evolution can take place. OR we can talk about the realities of how we ended up with our very dysfunctional system.
    It is important to understand how our current day economic markets got started, so lets stroll down memory lane. Everything I will type is true and very elementary compared to the extremely complex system but we are talking macro here not micro.
    Again this is where we’ll be on the same page with government bashing. Through force, kingdoms arose and monarchies took hold in Europe. A small few willing to insert their entire heads up the kings arse and/or marriage got ahead with land ownership through theft. Then the king would tax the shit out of the landowners for protection of that land or for the cost of stealing more land in distant regions. With that land ownership, capital was then available through credit that allowed the privileged few to borrow against its potential through the hard times while exploiting those who weren’t as fortunate who had to make deals with future labor, many times their lives to fight in the wars for more power/ land. Mostly it was they could work the land for the land owner who then brought the excess to market in the towns. These peasants never had enough to get ahead and many times didn’t even have that. That is where the tradesmen class comes in. Entrepreneurs who own their own their labor that provide a service or good that makes life a bit easier for others e.g. butcher, baker, candlestick maker. Never getting ahead but always having enough. That is why the New World was so enticing for colonists, especially those who were not the first born males in their families of the privileged class.
    Accessing capital through credit is precisely the difference between developed nations and undeveloped to developing nations. It takes decades of constant infrastructure to build an economy that can achieve this level of complexity. It really wasn’t until post civil war era and the Gilded Age did we see a huge boom in Dynastic style wealth outside the South. Even that was due to federal government stealing land and giving it to those who stuck their head fully up the arse of the correct people in the federal government. Railroad tycoons didn’t make themselves(economically) they were created through government spending/ actions. That is when trusts and monopolies took over. Labor was still basically the same as it had been for centuries, powerless and barely keeping their heads above water without any real chance of getting ahead. Until that earned the right to organize without fear of retribution from Industrialists.

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  2. George Rebane Avatar

    re BenE’s 243pm – the problem with the discourse is that it hues to the line currently made popular by collectivists Warren and Clinton, namely that all economic development from ideas to implementation comes from government. (How government assembles such a brain trust remains a mystery, since no such trust has ever been seen.) Fortunately it was not government that created railroad and other “tycoons”, but clever capitalists who saw how government was playing a game that they could advantageously restructure for themselves to generate and deliver goods and services that no government bureaucrat could ever conceive. No such government flunky, no matter his station, ever stood up and declared ‘Here’s how these new-fangled steam locomotives should be made into a transportation network called a ‘railroad’ that will be planned, organized, built, and operated by people I’ll call ‘tycoons’. (One may substitute any other development – telegraph, telephone, radio, steamship line, TV, personal computer, parcel delivery service, smartphone, … for railroad.)

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  3. Ben Emery Avatar
    Ben Emery

    George,
    Your disconnect from idea to implementation from the reality is due to your misplaced idea that OUR government is THE government. Our government means “public” ownership and policies. The land that was taken by force was then given with land grants to Railroad companies is very much what made these businessmen into tycoons. They didn’t have the capital or want to take the risk of such grand schemes. It is a very cozy relationship, positive or negative is up to each individual to decide, and is once again the debunking of the idea the US has ever had anything close to a free market. It was the collective thinking in DC it was for the general welfare of the nation. Government picking winners and losers isn’t that your guys favorite argument?
    “(One may substitute any other development – telegraph, telephone, radio, steamship line, TV, personal computer, parcel delivery service, smartphone, … for railroad.)”
    Very true.
    Once again you guys create a straw man argument when you claim that I say government created these industries. I don’t want the government making goods and never claimed the government created these industries. The government had an essential role in the creation of these industries, without government infrastructure/ spending these industries rarely would have gotten off the ground level. I want our government to provide essential services for all citizens. A person earning a good living through government contracts is fine as long as it promotes the general welfare. A person becoming extremely wealthy through crony capitalism and over charging the people through corruption I have a real problem with.

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  4. Ben Emery Avatar
    Ben Emery

    George,
    Your disconnect from idea to implementation from the reality is due to your misplaced idea that OUR government is THE government. Our government means “public” ownership and policies. The land that was taken by force was then given with land grants to Railroad companies is very much what made these businessmen into tycoons. They didn’t have the capital or want to take the risk of such grand schemes. It is a very cozy relationship, positive or negative is up to each individual to decide, and is once again the debunking of the idea the US has ever had anything close to a free market. It was the collective thinking in DC it was for the general welfare of the nation. Government picking winners and losers isn’t that your guys favorite argument?
    “(One may substitute any other development – telegraph, telephone, radio, steamship line, TV, personal computer, parcel delivery service, smartphone, … for railroad.)”
    Very true.
    Once again you guys create a straw man argument when you claim that I say government created these industries. I don’t want the government making goods and never claimed the government created these industries. The government had an essential role in the creation of these industries, without government infrastructure/ spending these industries rarely would have gotten off the ground level. I want our government to provide essential services for all citizens. A person earning a good living through government contracts is fine as long as it promotes the general welfare. A person becoming extremely wealthy through crony capitalism and over charging the people through corruption I have a real problem with.

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  5. George Rebane Avatar

    BenE 323pm – “A person earning a good living through government contracts is fine as long as it promotes the general welfare. A person becoming extremely wealthy through crony capitalism and over charging the people through corruption I have a real problem with.” Hallelujah, we agree!

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  6. Ben Emery Avatar
    Ben Emery

    George,
    That is good.
    Can you admit that those railroad tycoons become extremely wealthy through crony capitalism?

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  7. Todd Juvinall Avatar

    I would recommend Ben Emery rad “Nothing like it in the World” about those train fellows and maybe he would have some info that could help him understand what George is telling him.

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  8. George Rebane Avatar

    BenE 345pm – Of course. Ben, you are laboring tautologies that lead me to still believe that you know nothing of my credo and its expansions which I have so laboriously laid out here. Perhaps sooner than later I will also sally forth on the raison d’etre and, therefore, some little understood societal benefits of crony capitalism.

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  9. Ben Emery Avatar
    Ben Emery

    No George,
    I am setting up the foundation of my argument that continues through every single issue we talk about in today’s political arena.
    From these Railroad tycoons with their new crony capitalist extreme wealth along with related industries such as banking, steel, and eventually oil cornered markets and created trusts. The also owned our government with this wealth from local to the federal and everything in between. No regulations in place to prevent anti competition power plays by a few familiar family names that still are major players in our government and business world today. These inheritors didn’t create anything themselves but rather cashed in on the fact their relatives got extremely wealthy off of crony capitalism and corruption. So these families have had undue influence over American Policies for almost 150 years while hundreds of millions of Americans have come and gone with virtually no influence of the laws from which the live.
    Andrew Carnegie
    John D Rockefellar
    Cornelius Vanderbilt
    JP Morgan
    I am not saying these guys didn’t work hard but what I am saying is these guys had privileges to power that most Americans did not have and should not be celebrated as something to emulate. They should be held up as a warning at what can go wrong with huge amounts of accumulated wealth in just a small few peoples hands.
    A quote from person you probably like.
    “Those who don’t know history are doomed to repeat it.” -Edmond Burke

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  10. George Rebane Avatar

    BenE 611pm – Thank you Ben.
    As an important aside, please catch us up with your medical progress. As you may know, I lost my father to cancer and we lost one of our granddaughters to GBM cancer at the age of 14, and there’s more. It is a disease that has visited our familty tree often enough. Today we received news that another granddaughter, fighting cancer for years and now mother of three, just received a clean bill of health from her latest PET scan, a process that will be ongoing every six months for years.
    Our prayers are with you.

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  11. Walt Avatar

    Ben… How many poor folk gave anyone a high paying job?

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  12. Scott Obermuller Avatar

    Ben – The feds certainly granted big favors for the RRs at the outbreak of the civil war to tie the east with the western gold fields. But the rail roads were alive and kicking long before the govt even knew what they were. Please tell me what any govt agency did (outside of the strict Constitutional guidelines) for the Ford Motor Co. Or any of the big oil companies. The idea that any business beyond a mom and pop store is prospering only due to the intervention of govt is absurd. You claim to not like crony capitalism, yet it seems like you are extremely quiet about ‘green’ scams. Please explain how the feds ‘intervened’ on behalf of Gates in order that Microsoft could be so successful.

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  13. Bill Tozer Avatar
    Bill Tozer

    Walt and Scott. Were those rhetorical questions? You don’t really expect a direct answer you do? Walt, the answer to your question involves seeing the big picture. Kkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkrickets

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  14. Ben Emery Avatar
    Ben Emery

    Thanks George,
    Hopefully when all is said and done I will live a long active healthy life. My focus will most likely move towards helping those who aren’t blessed with the support that many of us have in this way to common journey called cancer. Focusing education on nutrition and having access to those foods with a Cancer Nutrition Center of some sort. I have been talking with people from the hospital and a couple of cancer survivalists on the idea. It is most likely a few years down the road but would be a huge help in our aging community. My thoughts, prayers, and positive energy are with yourself and loved ones who are dealing this very scary but natural health issue.
    We are about 2/3 of the way through my chosen primary treatments of poison, burn, and cut. The next 5 months are going to be extremely rough and isolated; 100 days of chemotherapy that include 14 rounds, immune recovery, ileostomy reversal surgery and recovery, and then maintaining a healthy anti cancer diet and lifestyle. If the cancer comes back there will be no regrets since I have tried everything I feel was prudent and effective.
    Have a good holiday season and Christmas.

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  15. Ben Emery Avatar
    Ben Emery

    Bill,
    Your are exactly right, those are rhetorical questions and it has to do with the big picture not any one specific thing. Since I am a sucker I will still try and answer the rhetorical question with a thoughtful answer.
    Walt,
    How many wealthy people hire workers for the hell of it? They hire workers because they feel they can create more wealth by employing them not out of the goodness of their hearts.
    A seemingly disconnected employment example at how it works.
    The Banker and the Landscaper.
    The landscaper helps the investment banker create more wealth by being paid on average less than the investment banker for that same amount of time. Instead of the $500 an hour banker taking their own time for pruning the hedges and mowing the lawn they hire the landscaper at $20 an hour to do the work instead. This allows the banker to spend more time with the $500 an hour job. Make sense.
    Scott,
    There are literally a million small factors in every single step that change the next step when it comes to markets. The one consistent factor is without the infrastructure (executive/ legislative/ judicial branches of government, law enforcement, currency, faith in currency, banking, roads, ect…)in place the need or opportunity for mass production doesn’t exist. With no mass production no large businesses/ industries. So in the Big Picture, no big business created their own destiny without the help of government services and investment. Just because those who came before us invested and built the infrastructure doesn’t mean it has any less importance to big business today. If fact I would argue it becomes more valuable to big business today and they are reneging on their economic responsibilities of maintaining the very infrastructure that allowed them to become successful by avoiding their share of taxes that are due.
    Bernie Sanders Top Ten Tax Dodgers
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CUUA8g3DPw
    Sanders for President 2016

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  16. Ben Emery Avatar
    Ben Emery

    Everyone,
    I really enjoyed the last few days debating philosophies instead of the usual your team vs our team finger pointing attack fest.
    Have a good winter, holiday season, and Christmas.

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  17. fish Avatar
    fish

    Posted by: Ben Emery | 12 November 2014 at 12:12 PM
    Indeed! I’ll pick up the Zinn from the library so we’ll have some thing to argue about in the Spring.
    Have a wonderful holiday season and may your recovery continue apace!

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  18. Scott Obermuller Avatar

    Ben doesn’t get to sign off with BS like that.
    Businesses in this country pay one of, if not the highest tax rates in the world. Ben has tried to slide from the immense waste of green scams, freebies for non workers and wasteful pork of the bloated govt to ‘infrastructure’. It’s the govt that’s not investing the money in infrastructure. Money that we have paid for the roads, for example, are siphoned off into pet green projects that have nothing to do with the general welfare or profitable commerce. I have no problem paying taxes to govts that stick to Constitution limits. Any one who claims to be some sort of libertarian and wants Bernie Sanders to be president is very confused, to say the least. I do sincerely hope Ben does a whole bunch better at beating cancer than he does at political and economic reasoning. My wife and I will pray for a full recovery for you Ben.
    We need you back in full health again and will miss you in the mean time with your many examples of alternative thinking.

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