Saturday, March 23, 2019

Liberal Conspiracy Theories

Waking Times The 5 Cartels that Rule America and the World
The above link was posted on FB by one of my more liberal cousins. I made light of it. "Oh my good golly.... That is almost as amusing as some of the Conservative conspiracy theories." G2A"
And he responded... "Is it really that far fetched to believe that these huge conglomerates have been and will continue to manipulate people, politics and laws in their battle to keep control of the powers they have gained? Have we not exposed enough cheaters to show that anything is possible when the stake are high? I'd rather be the watch dog than the sheep." "
And another added..."I think most folks would be surprised at how long this corruption has been going on. I don't even know where to begin, but I guess the Rothschild brothers would be a start: “The few who understand the system, will either be so interested from its profits or so dependent on its favors, that there will be no opposition from that class.” — Rothschild Brothers of London, 1863"
I promised a response, so here goes... We the consumers decide how we choose to live:
  • if we want to live in debt or on cash only basis
  • if we want to take advantage of all the medical advancements or not
  • if we choose to live where we can walk every where, or if we choose to be reliant on man made power sources
  • if we want to grow our own food or buy from others
  • if we choose to leave our foot print on the world wide web or not
Now as for the supposed "cartels"...  It is at times like this I am very thankful for capitalism. Please remember the definition of cartel.  "an association of manufacturers or suppliers with the purpose of maintaining prices at a high level and restricting competition."

The advantage of global competition and capitalism is that anyone can rise to power and influence if they have a good idea and can deliver results at a lower cost.  I mean the vast majority of companies in power today were not even an idea 50 years ago.  So if "cartels" are working to keep their power they are very incompetent and ineffective.

As the Rothschild Bank example, apparently Politifact looked into it.

As for the medical cartel, no one is forcing anyone to take advantage of all the medicines, procedures, tests and technologies that have been developed over the past 50 years. We volunatrily ask and sometimes beg for those benefits, especially if we can pass the bill on to the tax payers.

As for energy, if there was no consumer demand...  Prices would plummet and the Amazon would be safe.  Unfortunately we like to live in the big old house and driving to town instead of living in a studio apartment downtown.  We use energy, therefore someone will fulfill our desire.

As for those terrible food and energy producers... That awful cartel has done miracles with regard to raising yields and keeping prices under control..  So the cost of wheat is up 2.5 times over 50 years where as the CPI is up 8 times. Just imagine how hungry and poor all of us would be without those crop technologies.

As for people harvesting my personnel data to better market products to me...  I really have no secrets that I an trying to hide.  So know yourselves out.

Well this exercise has reminded me that the Right does not have a monopoly on conspiracy theories, paranoia and exaggeration.  Thoughts?

40 comments:

Anonymous said...

I am not enamored by the piece, but the question isn't so much whether or not you deal with the cartels so much as whether when you choose to deal, can you deal with someone other than the cartels. For example, you don't have to use a credit card; you can live on a cash basis. But if you do use a credit card, can you deal ultimately with someone other than the cartels. Bear in mind, no matter how independent he claimed to be, his building and loan association was financed by Mr. Potter.

--Hiram

John said...

There concept of "cartels" seemed pretty vague. So I am not sure if you could avoid dealing with them, or if you would want to?

And the irony of course is that these folks disapprove of monopolistic cartels that are illegal in the developed world... However they would happily give over monopolistic control to the governments regarding many aspects of our lives. :-)

I am still happier with a system that allows and encourages microsoft, netscape, facebook, google, etc to innovate and thrive... While keeping them on their toes because the next new best thing may bankrupt them...

Anonymous said...

Why do you Republicans never understand that people have direct power over the government? Not so with cartels or corporations.

John said...

Now that is a bit humorous given that "the people":
- gave Republicans a lot of political power
- support our huge military expenditures
- support public social services and education systems who fail millions of children each year
- support social security and medicare programs that are heading towards insolvency
- support yearly national deficits and a growing national debt

By the way, please sign your comment(s) with a real or made up name so the other readers get a feel where you stand on topics.

Thank John / G2A

John said...

Here is an interesting example. Cal is very wealth and liberal and yet it has the highest rate of homelessness

I am not sure giving more power and control to politicians and bureaucrats is the answer.

Anonymous said...

There concept of "cartels" seemed pretty vague.

Oh, yes, one of the reasons I have a problem with the article. But I also think that people generally have a sense of powerlessness over their own lives. Plants close, jobs are lost and nobody seems to be able to do anything about it. Trump responded to this feeling, and has made attempts to address the concerns. That's why he works to keep various plants open.

--Hiram

Anonymous said...

When did I say to give more power to and control to politicians and bureaucrats? I said quite the opposite, but your misunderstanding of that is evidence of your misunderstanding of our form of government.

Moose

John said...

Moose,
You made a claim that I disagree with....

"that people have direct power over the government? Not so with cartels or corporations."

The reality is that consumers and investors control corporations...

If people dislike Apple, they stop sending money to Apple...

If they dislike Google, start using Bing...

Try stop paying your taxes some day... :-)

Anonymous said...

The people have direct control over who gets to make the decisions in government. Your deflection to the subject of taxes, not withstanding.

Moose

John said...

Moose,
How is that "the people have direct control over who gets to make the decisions in government" working out for the Liberals right now?

Personally I have more faith in business personnel.

Anonymous said...

Faith in business personnel leads to Walmart workers requiring government assistance. It leads to pollution and global climate change, it leads to Enron. Thank heavens we have government to reign in morons like you.

Moose

John said...

Ouch.

Why do you resort to name calling when people disagree with you?

It does nothing good for your credibility or argument.

And yes I agree that we need the government also to ensure those businesses due comply with the laws we have agreed to.

As for pollution and climate change, that is on all of us humans, no one forced us to increase our population to ~8 Billion.

No one forces us to heat our homes, use electricity or operate cars... That is on us.

Anonymous said...

Because you espouse beliefs and political opinions that endanger and oppress people. I don’t have time to be politically correct against such nonsense.

Moose

John said...

Please explain...

"beliefs and political opinions that endanger and oppress people"


Do you mean my belief that people should accept responsibility for the choices they have made and actions they have taken in their lives?

Examples:
- not learning while in school
- pursuing poorly compensated jobs / careers
- having children while struggling themselves
- getting addicted to alcohol, gambling, smoking, drugs, other

By the way, name calling has nothing to do with political correctness. It is just a sign that you are frustrated and can not find a better word or argument.

Anonymous said...

You don't want a health care system that everyone has equal access to.
You voted for Trump, who supports white supremacists, who has put foxes in charge of the hen houses of the EPA, education, and other government departments, who denies even the existence of climate change, who threatens our allies and compliments authoritarian regimes.
You think that corporations care about anything but the bottom line.
You think that collecting fewer taxes will magically lead to better outcomes for the citizenry, even though that never happens.

It's much more succinct to say: a moron supporting moronic things. I'm not a windbag; I like to be succinct.

Moose

Anonymous said...

One more thing. It is politically correct not to call something what it is.

Moose

Sean said...

"Personally I have more faith in business personnel."

This is the sort of nonsense that leads to government officials saying things like "It's perfectly OK to let Boeing test and sign off on their own planes".

John said...

Yes I do believe people should pay their own bills, not make others pay them.

Yes Trump does have his flaws, as I often note. Though I agree with some of his policies.

I count on companies to care about their bottom line, just as people care about their household budget. This supports people making efficient and effective decisions. It promotes their being law abiding and working to keep their customers, investors and employees happy and engaged.

I was actually against the Trump tax cuts if you remember. I was and am for reducing spending to match revenue.

John said...

Sean,
I develop products for a living.

Bad things sometimes happen no matter how many checks and oversite occurs. Especially when computers and software are involved.

Do you think that Boeing and the Airlines were not highly motivated to avoid this PR disaster?

Remember the Challenger shuttle disaster... Tons of oversite and it still blew up.

Sean said...

"Do you think that Boeing and the Airlines were not highly motivated to avoid this PR disaster?"

Boeing gambled that they could get this problem fixed before anything bad happened, and they lost. And so did the hundreds of people who have lost their lives as a result.

This happens all the time in business. Despite the fact that everyone should in fact be "highly motivated" to avoid these sorts of things, they still happen a lot. We crashed the economy 11 years ago because these otherwise "highly motivated" bankers gave out a bunch of reckless loans. Ford should have been "highly motivated", but they put out a car that routinely blew up when involved in a typical rear-end collision. The folks at Enron should have been "highly motivated" to do the right thing, but they turned their business into a gigantic financial fraud.

This is why we have regulations. And if we have regulations, they should be enforced. (If we're not willing to enforce them, we should get rid of them.)

John said...

Which regulations do you think Boeing violated?

Proof?

John said...

NPR Boeing Faces New Regulatory Scrutiny

Investigation Begins

I sure am happy I am not one of their engineers or program managers... Imagine the FBI walking through everything you did for the last 2 years looking for any mistakes, errors or omissions... No fun...

Anonymous said...

Imagine your saintly business personnel doing it so that people didn't die and the FBI step in.

The bottom line was more important.

Moose

Sean said...

"Which regulations do you think Boeing violated?"

I didn't say they violated regulations. My point is that we've allowed Boeing to self-certify critical systems without government oversight -- and it all comes out of attitudes like yours, the "highly motivated" nonsense.

John said...

I am assuming neither of you works in the area of new product development...

I am certain that Boeing has many of these:
FMEAs
HRAs

Engineers spend a lot of time thinking about every interface, system, piece of code and what may go wrong... Unfortunately even with the best of intent things can get missed or perform differently than planned.

What exactly do you think these government regulators would have done differently?

Do you think they are smarter than the top engineers at Boeing?

Not to scare you... But every plane, car, amusement ride, bridge, etc you interact with daily has a chance of failure because humans are not perfect, parts vary slightly, software has bugs, things wear out, etc.

John said...

Apparently Conservatives think Doctors are out to kill healthy babies.

And Liberals think engineers and programmers are out to kill everyone else.

By the way, I disagree with both groups. Everyone I know works as hard as they can to ensure people are kept safe when working with our very dangerous equipment...

By the way, this is one of the ways my current employer helps to keep planes safe. We create systems to flex the wings to simulate flying to test for fatigue failure. Or they can use it to just brake them off to determine how much the wings can really take.

John said...

FYI, we work with most airplane manufacturers.

Sean said...

"I am assuming neither of you works in the area of new product development..."

Well, you know what they say about assuming.

"What exactly do you think these government regulators would have done differently?"

Government regulators are an independent eye. They're not worried about profitability, they're worried about safety. This is the second time in the last six years that Boeing has had to ground planes (also 787s because of battery fires in 2013) because of a defect that they self-certified and then put out into production.

"And Liberals think engineers and programmers are out to kill everyone else."

Worse than a moron, you're an asshole. How many times have people had to ask you not to do crap like this, but you just float along with no self-reflection.

John said...

So if you are in the Product Development world: then you understand why companies end up pushing software fixes, providing warranty repairs, providing safety updates, etc. Humans design, build and test products, and to err is human...

Do you know any engineers who are willing to cave when it comes to safety?

I have not met them yet... We tend to be a pretty safety focused bunch...


And on a big project like that Boeing would have had dedicated Systems and Safety Engineers who's only job is to dot i's and cross t's.

So either the personnel missed something or they knowingly risked losing a plane and passengers. I am voting for the prior.

John said...

Updates Tentatively Approved

It was a bit odd that they did not have a redundant sensor.
Though it is even stranger that the sensor failed.

and

The pilots did not know enough to go to manual.

John said...

Maybe the evil intent that Conservatives and Liberals believe in has to do with their forgetting that government and companies are made up people who are doing their best for themselves and their customers...

Both groups envision this monolithic controlling self centered organism that is out to destroy man kind... :-)

It is an interesting concept...

Anonymous said...

Nope. Keep trying, though.

Moose

John said...

Then why do you have such a pro-government anti-business perspective?

I mean they are both organizations who are made up of people who are out to serve their stakeholders and stay out jail...

One craves votes and the other craves revenues.

Anonymous said...

Because you want corporations to have more power than government.

See how easy it is to make assumptions?

Moose

John said...

That is technically impossible... Because corporate and personal property rights do not legally exist without a government.

Anonymous said...

Doesn't keep you from wanting them to have more power over people.

Moose

John said...

I am not the one arguing for big changes to the way our government and businesses function.

Typically it is the Liberal contingent wanting to pass more rules, regulations and over sight.

Or in the area of healthcare... They want to give full control to the same government that can not help all kids to succeed... I hope I won't need to rely on that same group for my healthcare as I age... :-)

Anonymous said...

"...rules, regulations and oversight"

Those are the things that keep people and the environment safe. So...yeah, I'm not going to trade those things away to corporations.

Moose

John said...

Actually I think our excessive number of lawyers and very friendly tort policies are actually what keep us safe. Well that and the fact that the vast majority of people / employees / managers are not interested in putting lives at risk.

John said...

Though I do agree that our current level of regs is not overly oppressive.

Unfortunately the Liberals keep wanting to pass more as I noted above.