The Observation Deck

Bill Call wrote:https://www.sciencehistory.org/distillations/mouse-heaven-or-mouse-hell

Mouse hell is my vote.

Thanks for the good read this morning.

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Jim O'Bryan wrote:

Bill Call wrote:https://www.sciencehistory.org/distillations/mouse-heaven-or-mouse-hell

Mouse hell is my vote.

Thanks for the good read this morning.

.

Every once in awhile ..

People will read their own interpretation of the experiment based on their life experience and ideology.

I think we are seeing similar social disintegration in the more prosperous Western democracies. Japan's and Korea's populations are withering away, Europe's population will soon collapse and we are not far behind. What happens to the social safety net when there is no new generation?

My own ideological bias leads me to believe that prosperity and the social safety net leads to moral decay and the disintegration of society. Those programs designed as short term assistance become permanent support. Why work? Why save? Why invest? Why have children? Why not just sit around watching Netflix?

Work is the best therapy, struggle brings strength and social interaction makes a life more fulfilling.

The mice in the study had no purpose except to" sit around whiling away the hours until they die". Somebody used that quote to describe Europe. It seemed pretty accurate description to me.

Japan has about 125 million people in a nation smaller than california. If you reduce their population to 50 million people it can always be 125 million 60 years later.

In the United States, women that make less money, usually in retail or lower tiered manufactures, tend to have more children.

Mice evolved to reproduce and die rapidly. Like rabbits, only more. Felines, birds, snakes, canines, weasels, stoats. They all eat mice.

Appalachia generally has a climate more suitable to prosperity than Norway, Sweden, Finland, and perhaps even Switzerland. More sunshine, more temperate climate, natural resources. But Norway is full of Norwegians, Sweden is full of Swedes, Finland is full of Fins. And Appalachia is full of Americans.

ryan costa wrote:Japan has about 125 million people in a nation smaller than california. If you reduce their population to 50 million people it can always be 125 million 60 years later.

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You're a little too sanguine.

If you reduce the population to 50 million it will never recover. The average age of tha population will be 50 not 15.

What if Lakewood's population crashes to 25,000?

What do you do with15,000 vacant houses.?
Who maintains the infrastructure?
Who pays City workers pension?

One option pushed by the global elite is more immigrants.

Countries like Egypt still have growing populations. Way back in 1890 the population was about 9 million. The current population is about 110 million.

What if 10 million moved to Greece?

The last time they had elections in Egypt the winner was the Moslem Brotherhood. If the Moslem Brotherhood ruled Greece would it still be Greece?

Western societies are like the third generation of inherited wealth. There s still enough wealth to live comfortably but the third generation isn't all interested in creating more. They just while away the hours until they die.

Bill Call wrote:

ryan costa wrote:Japan has about 125 million people in a nation smaller than california. If you reduce their population to 50 million people it can always be 125 million 60 years later.

.

You're a little too sanguine.

If you reduce the population to 50 million it will never recover. The average age of tha population will be 50 not 15.

What if Lakewood's population crashes to 25,000?

What do you do with15,000 vacant houses.?
Who maintains the infrastructure?
Who pays City workers pension?

One option pushed by the global elite is more immigrants.

Countries like Egypt still have growing populations. Way back in 1890 the population was about 9 million. The current population is about 110 million.

What if 10 million moved to Greece?

The last time they had elections in Egypt the winner was the Moslem Brotherhood. If the Moslem Brotherhood ruled Greece would it still be Greece?

Western societies are like the third generation of inherited wealth. There s still enough wealth to live comfortably but the third generation isn't all interested in creating more. They just while away the hours until they die.

Bill

While I share your concerns about the housing bubble breaking, not through death as much as over-building, I have to admit your thoughts both amuse me and trouble me.

Do you really believe their ar millions? hundreds of thousands? Thousands of people living the high life on welfare, food stamps and stolen NetFlix? As if they believe they are at the pinnacle of life, and can take it easy. I see them mostly as people desperate to survive, with a small group potentially taking advantage of some freebies, with an otherwise desperate life.

Just curious.

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Jim O'Bryan wrote: While I share your concerns about the housing bubble breaking, not through death as much as over-building, I have to admit your thoughts both amuse me and trouble me.

Do you really believe their ar millions? hundreds of thousands? Thousands of people living the high life on welfare, food stamps and stolen NetFlix? As if they believe they are at the pinnacle of life, and can take it easy. I see them mostly as people desperate to survive, with a small group potentially taking advantage of some freebies, with an otherwise desperate life.

Just curious.

Excellent point.

I didn't exactly say that millions are living the high life on welfare, believing that they are at the pinnacle of life and just siting back and taking it easy.

I am sensitive to the reality that millions of people are working hard just to live on the edge. Real wages are declining, good jobs are hard to find and hard to keep. Is it possible that people want to work hard at good paying jobs but that it's just not attainable for everyone? And if its just not attainable at what point do people just stop trying?

I was writing more about: what if everything is provided for and nothing is worked for? What happens to society? To people? What happens when people give up? Stop having children? What happens when there are not brother's, no sister's, no aunts, no uncles? Who maintains the infrastructure? Who pays your Social Security? Most prosperous societies are facing just that kind of outcome.

Are we living in a mouse paradise?

I was a big Star Trek Fan. In that world your Replicator could create food, clothing, entertainment, the finest wines and more right when you asked for it. No effort required. Just press a button and it's there. The assumption was that in that world people would take advantage of all that abundance and use their time to write a great novel, devote their time to study and invention and the arts and explore the universe. I always thought it more likely that most people would just while away the hours until they died. In luxury of course. Well, until the replicator broke.

Bill Call wrote:

Jim O'Bryan wrote: While I share your concerns about the housing bubble breaking, not through death as much as over-building, I have to admit your thoughts both amuse me and trouble me.

Do you really believe their ar millions? hundreds of thousands? Thousands of people living the high life on welfare, food stamps and stolen NetFlix? As if they believe they are at the pinnacle of life, and can take it easy. I see them mostly as people desperate to survive, with a small group potentially taking advantage of some freebies, with an otherwise desperate life.

Just curious.

Excellent point.

I didn't exactly say that millions are living the high life on welfare, believing that they are at the pinnacle of life and just siting back and taking it easy.

I am sensitive to the reality that millions of people are working hard just to live on the edge. Real wages are declining, good jobs are hard to find and hard to keep. Is it possible that people want to work hard at good paying jobs but that it's just not attainable for everyone? And if its just not attainable at what point do people just stop trying?

I was writing more about: what if everything is provided for and nothing is worked for? What happens to society? To people? What happens when people give up? Stop having children? What happens when there are not brother's, no sister's, no aunts, no uncles? Who maintains the infrastructure? Who pays your Social Security? Most prosperous societies are facing just that kind of outcome.

Are we living in a mouse paradise?

I was a big Star Trek Fan. In that world your Replicator could create food, clothing, entertainment, the finest wines and more right when you asked for it. No effort required. Just press a button and it's there. The assumption was that in that world people would take advantage of all that abundance and use their time to write a great novel, devote their time to study and invention and the arts and explore the universe. I always thought it more likely that most people would just while away the hours until they died. In luxury of course. Well, until the replicator broke.

The Wall Street Journal reports this week that wages are slightly up AND, more importantly, that unemployment is at historic lows. By historic, they mean 1969.

You might want to take a few moments and research the new book "Poverty, by America". This is an in-depth look at the nature of wealth transfer in the United States. I just read an essay by its author Matthew Desmond and one of his primary conclusions seems to be that most of the wealth transfer by the federal government is in the direction of the middle-class and those who need it least. --529 Plans, etc.

I'm self-employed and I have no present plans to stop despite the many disincentives that I recognize in my business activity. Many of which I have written about in this forum.

Mark Kindt wrote:
The Wall Street Journal reports this week that wages are slightly up AND, more importantly, that unemployment is at historic lows. By historic, they mean 1969.

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Since you are the challenger the choice of weapon is mine. I choose:

https://www.bls.gov/blog/2023/more-ways ... 20decrease.

Over the last 5 years or so real wages have declined.

Over the last 25 years real wages have barely moved.

While the unemployment rate is low the labor participation rate is lower as well. A lot lower.

I've reserved a copy of Poverty By America. I'll try to keep an open mind I'm not a big fan of Marxist economics.

End stage capitalism is really just socialism. Think Cuba. Venezuela, North Korea, Chicago.

End stage democracy is where voting blocks look more like waring tribes than political parties.

Challenge accepted!

Bill Call wrote:

Mark Kindt wrote:
The Wall Street Journal reports this week that wages are slightly up AND, more importantly, that unemployment is at historic lows. By historic, they mean 1969.

.

Since you are the challenger the choice of weapon is mine. I choose:

https://www.bls.gov/blog/2023/more-ways ... 20decrease.

Over the last 5 years or so real wages have declined.

Over the last 25 years real wages have barely moved.

While the unemployment rate is low the labor participation rate is lower as well. A lot lower.

I've reserved a copy of Poverty By America. I'll try to keep an open mind I'm not a big fan of Marxist economics.

End stage capitalism is really just socialism. Think Cuba. Venezuela, North Korea, Chicago.

End stage democracy is where voting blocks look more like waring tribes than political parties.

I want to start with your statement on the labor participation rate.

1. There is an important mirror to your statement and that mirror is simply the extraordinary growth that the largest economy on the planet (ours) has seen in labor productivity due to technological innovation and constant managerial efficiency improvements -- think ISO...think Sigma Six...etc. Each year there are fewer employees in the typical manufacturing plant because of the implementation of new technologies and the continuous improvement methodologies that lead to or are concomitant with such implementations. I watch this professionally with my manufacturing clients, decade-by-decade. This is real.

2. There is a direct correlation between the retirement of the boomer generation and the size of the available work force. My 86 year old aunt (who died recently) retired about 20 years ago and she probably represents the leading edge of the retirement of the boomer generation. That's about 20 years worth of semi-professional labor exit from the system. My colleagues who are in their early 60s are now on the brink of exiting the labor force. Once this demographic wave passes the slack in the labor market will tighten to full employment. We may be seeing statistical evidence of that now in the record low unemployment rate that I previously noted.

3. As one of the self-employed members of the remote work force, I suspect that there is a serious undercount of those who work remotely, particularly in any field that uses network technology to facilitate their business activities. (And that is just about all of them.) I have worked remotely now for about 12 years and almost all of my work in via networks on out-of-state clients and projects. Even the court systems now work this way.

Frankly, work is nothing like what it was when I graduated from high school ('70), college ('76), or law school ('79). Fifty years of amazing change that got rolling during the recession of 1973 with the start of globalization and really has shown no signs of stopping. Look at your iPhone and press a few keys and invest a few dollars instantly in any market your might choose.

Finally, to put this all another way -- for a decade or more now various kinds of vehicles are being driven remotely on the planet Mars. Yes--about 36 million miles away. Underpinning this is the most technologically sophisticated and capital intensive economy that the world has ever seen. Trust me, its booming.

I'm staying! I'm not going to miss any of this!

Bill Call wrote:

Mark Kindt wrote:
The Wall Street Journal reports this week that wages are slightly up AND, more importantly, that unemployment is at historic lows. By historic, they mean 1969.

.

Since you are the challenger the choice of weapon is mine. I choose:

https://www.bls.gov/blog/2023/more-ways ... 20decrease.

Over the last 5 years or so real wages have declined.

Over the last 25 years real wages have barely moved.

While the unemployment rate is low the labor participation rate is lower as well. A lot lower.

I've reserved a copy of Poverty By America. I'll try to keep an open mind I'm not a big fan of Marxist economics.

End stage capitalism is really just socialism. Think Cuba. Venezuela, North Korea, Chicago.

End stage democracy is where voting blocks look more like waring tribes than political parties.

Nor am I.

However, I think that we both can agree that taxation and wealth transfers need to be studied in order to be understood and that both Lakewood (the Hospital closing) and Ohio (First Energy's HB 6 Shake-down) offer prime examples of how the political system whether Democrat (Lakewood) or Republican (Ohio) can be manipulated to the disadvantage of citizen regardless of their income.

The command economies in Cuba, Venezuela and North Korea exemplify what Alexander Solzhenitsyn documented 50 years ago --that humans can be forced to eat dirt under communism. Now the remnants of Soviet state communism are again wreaking havoc on the edges of Europe.

Please substantiate the commonality between the City of Chicago and Cuba, Venezuela, and North Korea. If you can.

Mark Kindt wrote:
Please substantiate the commonality between the City of Chicago and Cuba, Venezuela, and North Korea. If you can.

They are all ruled by Marxists.

Poverty By America

It's a depressing read. According to the author America is a dystopian wasteland whose economy is one long series of sufferings and failures.

Of course even the most negative assessment of the American economy has many elements if truth.

Hard work or a great education does not guarantee success.
Some people pay for all the mistakes they make.
Some people don't pay for any of their mistakes.

The author discounts marriage, education, discipline and effort. According to him it's all a rigged game and the only solution is for the government to give people money.