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I don't understand how there is any way out of a global crisis unless a conversation begins on how to raise global wages.
Paul Jay may do well to read Equitable Commerce
The price of wages must have a standard from which to judge them; judging something relative to something.
How are wages measured to be low?
What is low, compared to high - wages?
Take the very same nickle miner wage rate discussed by Paul Jay, for example, and call that wage 10 per hour.
If the cost of living is 9 per hour, then a standard is now known, and the measure of wage rate is knowable.
1 per hour above the cost of living.
Compare that to a wage rate that is negative 1 per hour - below the cost of living.
Cost of living 10 per hour (worker needs that much to maintain a standard of living)
Wage of 9 per hour (paid less than required to maintain a standard of living)
A standard of living can be a bare minimum standard as well as an average standard. A bare minimum standard of living is known, by Alexandr I. Solzhenitsyn for example, by calorie count - less calories and the worker dies during work.
How about a relevant quote?
HERE
It is not the employer who pays the wages. Employers only handle the money. It is the customer who pays the wages.
AND
There is one rule for the industrialist and that is: Make the best quality of goods possible at the lowest cost possible, paying the highest wages possible.
If Henry Ford can figure out how capitalism can work, why can't someone else know these same truths?
I can look for more quotes from Henry Ford, or I can paraphrase from memory, and I choose to write my own words.
If Henry Ford can pay wages well in excess of the cost of living, then each worker can afford to buy a Ford car, so long as, and this is real news, so long as the Ford car is priced at cost, or near cost, so that a Ford car is competitive in the car business, meaning: the highest quality at the lowest cost.
The supposed modern capitalist mantra, thinking, rationale, excuse, for lowering wages is to compete in a competitive global market, to find the cheapest labor and then out-price the competition - or lose market share and go out of business.
That is a lie, or at least only half true.
The other truth is another supposed modern capitalist mantra, thinking, rationale, excuse, for lowering wages, whereby the modern capitalist confesses a desire for maximizing profits at all cost - let no stone be unturned, no avenue left untraveled, no limit, no restriction, no governing principle whatsoever stand in the way of maximizing profits.
To who?
From who?
Two things:
A. Highest quality at the lowest price to be competitive - including lowest wage costs.
B. Highest profits without any limit whatsoever
Those are two distinct and separate doctrines or methods, actions, thoughts driving action, and to confuse the two would be an error in perception.
A. Exists in a competitive market - free from crime.
B. Exists when competition is against the law, a monopoly is enforced by law, whereby crime becomes law.
Henry Ford figured out how to compete without having to monopolize the car business by resorting crime, or government, seeking subsidy, seeking laws that remove competition. Henry Ford priced the products he and his employees produced at the lowest possible price, and at the highest possible quality. He created a free market monopoly by out producing all competition, for some time, in some places. Worker wages were bid up to bring in the highest quality workers, and wages were pegged at better than living wages, wages sufficient to afford the purchase of the cars being produced by Henry Ford and the workers, and yet, even so, the price of a car was still high enough to transfer purchasing power from all the customers to Henry Ford sufficient to expand the car company, and/or, Henry Ford found financing by other means, such as selling stock, or borrowing (at interest) from banks, so as to expand.
This is important. The price of the cars sold by Ford could not have been priced "at cost" if after all sales are known and all costs are known and subtracting costs from sales (income) the result is a positive number - profit.
1. Total income
2. Total expenses
3. Positive sum (profit) or negative sum (loss)
Subtract Total expenses from Total income and the result is a positive number, and it is known then that the price per car is "above cost" - a profit - not the lowest cost possible if expansion is not added to cost. If expansion is added to cost, then profit becomes investment which is a cost.
What was the best competitor in the car business doing at that time? What wages where they paying their workers? What prices did they set on their cars? What quality did the Ford car measure up against the quality of the competition?
What quality of the Ford car measured up if the workers were paid less than a cost of living? A Ford built by a worker starving to death compares how well to a Ford built by one who can afford to eat, and buy a Ford?
If Ford could spend X on a false advertisement campaign, claiming false things about the quality of the car, or spend Y on increased workers wages, which expense brings in the most cash soonest? If Henry Ford wanted to boom Ford stock, consume the workers, consume the tools, consume the infrastructure, inflate the price, then sell it off just before it drowns in debt, and hide the debt off the books, and sell at the top of the boom, cash in, and then move onto another company, would Henry Ford earn a place in modern capitalist dogma?
How about a quote?
The construction of I.G. Auschwitz has assured I.G. a unique place in business history. By adopting the theory and practice of Nazi morality, it was able to depart from the conventional economics of slavery in which slaves are traditionally treated as capital equipment to be maintained and serviced for optimum use and depreciated over a normal life span. Instead, I.G. reduced slave labor to a consumable raw material, a human ore from which the mineral of life was systematically extracted. When no usable energy remained, the living dross was shipped to the gassing chambers and cremation furnaces of the extermination center at Birkenau, where the S.S. recycled it into the German war economy – gold teeth for the Reichsbank, hair for mattresses, and fat for soap. Even the moans of the doomed became a work incentive, exhorting the remaining inmates to greater effort.
And:
Conditions were such that sickness was a pervasive fact of life among the inhabitants of Monowitz. The hospital wards built by I.G. were so inadequate that even the S.S. suggested additional wards be built. I.G. refused because of the cost.
From:
This BOOK
If Henry Ford could buy a politician and outlaw competition, would Henry Ford earn a spot as a modern capitalist - or a modern fascist?
The price of wages in a free market, free from crime, does not exist on the planet Earth - in a Global sense - from a macro economic viewpoint.
From a micro economic viewpoint any person selling his or her labor can jack up the price as high as he or she wants or give away his labor below cost so long as his or her labor is in demand. Why are Rock Stars not seen as laborers? How about Formula 1 race car drivers?
How much do they charge for an hour of labor? They exist in a free market, on a micro economic scale, as does everyone else selling labor. If what you have is in demand then you can set the price at your own cost, higher than your own cost, or lower than your own cost. If you set the price lower than your own cost, you give away your labor. If you set the price higher than your own cost, you are a capitalist, you are making a profit. If your labor is sold at cost, you are selling your labor at an equitable price. If 100 other people are in competition for the same job, what do you think a Rock Star has to contend with, or a Formula 1 race car driver? labor must have a measure of quality, or there won't be a demand for it.
If there aren't enough jobs for the number of people seeking jobs, then a reasonable question to ask is: why?
Back to the report by Paul Jay and REAL NEWS:
all owned by the same global major firm
A monopoly power? People may read my words and consider me to be overly redundant when I write about the significance of monopoly power relative to the force of competition.
A. Monopoly power enforced by law as laws are made to remove the force of competition
B. Monopoly power earned by producing the highest possible quality at the lowest possible cost without any force applied by law to eliminate competition, no subsidy, no stimulus, no bail out, no flow of power by government from the many tax payers to the few monopolists (not from the workers paying taxes, to the monopoly nickle mining business CEO or Stock Holders), no un-free market criminal abuse of government whatsoever, not even subsidies in the form of health care paid to innocent people injured by pollution caused by nickle miners where those costs are accountable to the nickle miners themselves - and no one else.
See?
A nickle mining group of people gain a competitive advantage if laws are made to eliminate or reduce the power someone has to expose injuries caused by nickle mining. Some innocent person who is injured as a direct result of the nickle miners actions is someone who has costs added to their lives, are injured, and require treatment, costs, caused by nickle miners, and if those costs are paid for by the people who pay taxes and to paid for by the people who willfully cause those injuries, then that is a subsidy, an economic advantage given to that nickel competitor. Workers selling labor do not set policies that cause pollution in the nickle mining business, typically the workers are among the innocent injured victims of policies set by the CEO or perhaps the Stock Holders, who willfully perpetrate criminal injury upon innocent victims for profit - and are paid by the government to do so, because the cost of remedy is "socialized".
If law prevents innocent injured victims from charging the people who cause the injury the bill for a remedy from the injury, what is law?
If I am injured by someone, what prevents me from sending that person the hospital bill? What prevents the hospital from charging the criminal?
Law is crime in modern times. Law is a device by which competition is eliminated.
A competitor who can expend cost toward the avoidance of paying for remedies for injuries caused by this "competitor", as an investment in avoidance of paying for remedies for injuries caused by this "competitor", and in so doing this "competitor" capitalizes on such and investment, actually earn the power to avoid paying for remedies for injuries caused by this "competitor", is a criminal, not a competitor.
If I dump poison into my neighbors drinking water, and he suffers as a result, I am guilty of injuring my neighbor. If I do it twice, despite the obvious result known by me, then I am guilty of a willful crime - premeditated.
If I respond by seeking ways to avoid paying the cost, the doctor bill, to get my neighbor back to good health, then what am I? What is my ability to respond accounting for my willful conduct? Do I keep dumping the poison because I manage to buy a politician that covers my crime up? Is that a modern capitalist or just another criminal? Words either have meaning or they are duplicitous on purpose.
What if my neighbor and I are competing for the same job at the local nickle mine? Can I eliminate the competition by poisoning that competitor?
What are people doing when they buy human labor for a price that is less than the bare minimum living wage? Capitalist or criminal? What power exists that allows such a thing to happen?
There are people who perceive laborers as competitors and there are people who injure competition as a means by which competition is eliminated. Some are fellow laborers (who isn't?), some are employers.
A. Capitalism in a free market, free from crime, free from willful injury of other people by capitalists or anyone else.
B. Capitalism in tandem with crime, where capitalists are criminals, where capitalists plan on and then follow through with the plan to injure innocent victims so as to eliminate competition, so as to increase the flow of power from the many to them by any means whatsoever - without any limit.
What happens if the workers at one nickle mine happen upon a flow of debt money, where they are loaned a sum of money, at no interest, or 1% interest, whereby they begin mining nickle themselves in the same state, in the same country, as the one monopoly nickle mining company?
What happens if each worker receives an equal division of profits after costs and that sum is competitive in the nickle worker labor market?
A. Monopoly nickle wage rate is X
B. Worker run nickle mining competitor wage is X+Y
Where will the monopoly nickle mining workers who are working for X per hour go once they have a choice to work for X+Y per hour instead?
Competition brings quality up and prices down. Ending competition is required to create a monopoly. Ending competition can be accomplished two ways:
A. Providing the highest quality at the lowest price (free from crime = a free market free from crime)
B. Crime (legalized or not)
In addition to that, there's also the problem of depletion of natural resources, especially oil.
I skipped past the debt crisis part of this DOOM DAY report boding future calamity where none need exist - with qualification.
A. Is Debt good or bad?
B. Is scarce oil good or bad?
The qualification required here is from which perspective is the question answered?
Debt, if it is debt, is paid. Someone pays. Someone is paid. If it isn't paid, it isn't debt. If it isn't paid, it is something else.
A guy walks into your home or business, without knocking, and tells you to pay him money for protection. He says you owe him this money.
You pay him, you know that the guy will hurt you if you don't, so you go along with the story line. You are paying him the protection money that you owe him.
Wink, wink, nudge, nudge, the emperor is wearing such beautiful clothes.
Is that debt (protection money) bad?
Is it doom day?
When oil prices go up the savings of shifting from gasoline to electric power transportation goes from a current 80% savings to a higher percent savings.
What makes oil prices go up?
Will oil prices go up if oil is abundant; running like sunlight in the middle of a summer day with no clouds as far as the eye can see?
What is the price of clean air, on the same sunny summer day, charged to you today? How much do you have to pay for clean air right now, what is the price per cubic foot of clean air, and do you keep the receipt?
What would the price of clean air be if one person, or one group of people, seized the power to make clean air scarce, or abundant, to you? What will they set the price of clean air at, then? What would you be willing to pay for clean air, once you have no choice but to pay the price demanded by the monopoly supplier of clean air?
Where do those nickle minors go when they need liquid credit to start their own mining business and compete in a free market with the monopoly nickle mining business, to see who offers the best nickle at the lowest cost without harming any innocent victims in the process, on purpose?
What sets the interest rate?
Who is fooling who?
in the next five years we will again see a major world economic crisis
Right now a global money supplier could offer 2 products for sale to anyone on the planet earth who has earned a good credit rating and who therefore has earned a zero interest rate on product 1 and a ONE percent interest rate on product 2.
That global money supplier would have the power to capture and monopolize the world money production business with those two products - unless someone else offered a higher quality product at a lower price.
Product 1 allows anyone on Earth to own a home for half the cost currently offered by the global suppliers of money - talk about quality?
Product 2 allows anyone to convert from the DOOM DAY oil business to the Solar Electric Business starting on that day when the customer purchases that product 2.
5 years?
What does that reporter, expert economist, or whatever, think is going to happen when oil prices go higher - relative to the already 80% savings in converting to electric power and even more savings if the consumer converts to solar electric power?
If I can call up someone and have someone drop on by my house in a few days and have Solar Panels put on my home starting right now, or Monday, when they are open, then I will be prepared, in that way, for this supposed crisis. I call them up. They guarantee that my electric bill will go down - now. Less coal burned. Less CO2 emissions. I save. I effectively increase my income. I effectively increase my ability to buy more things. I increase demand. I can even save my saved electric costs and save up for more Solar Panels once the ones on the roof wear out - thereby sustaining economic demand (for more Solar Panels at least).
If I call up Nissan, or Tesla, or any of a number of people currently producing Electric cars, and I buy an Electric car right after I install more than enough Solar Panels I effectively stop my future crisis concerning that Day of DOOM when oil prices go up. I make my own car fuel at my own house and the price of my fuel is set by how much the sun shines.
If I can do that, why can't other people do the same thing?
Why can't I start up a new global money supply business and begin selling product 1 and 2? How much would my cost of running such a business be, and how much profit could I make once the 1% interest payments begin flowing to me?
Who would have the power to stop me?
What if Microsoft, Google, PayPal, Skype, eBay, E-Gold, Wikipedia, or any number of other similar companies began an effort to corner, or monopolize, the global money production business in competition with each other, offering home mortgages, business mortgages, electric car loans, solar panel loans, Modular Vertical Farming Unit (for food or algae fuel production) Loans?
What would be the highest quality money offered by those competitors vying for market share be? What is the upper most limit of quality in money?
What would be the lowest price set by the best competitor, the one who corners the market? What would the lowest possible price of money be, then?
Would you go Apple or Microsoft?
Would you choose Mozilla or Windows?
Would you choose Tesla or Nissan?
Would you settle for DOOM DAY, the perpetual business cycle, perpetual wars of aggression for profit, and the goon demanding protection money?
I would not rule out it would develop into a runaway inflation. It's possible.
People, people, people, come on, really?
Once a monopoly on money is in force there will be booms and busts, that is how power transfer from those who create power to those who steal power by creating and maintaining The Business Cycle.
Prices go up, on schedule, but not a schedule that is known by everyone, only a few can know the true schedule, otherwise it would not work as planned.
Once prices are reaching the peak, the people who control the money supply know when to sell off everything that is over-priced as a direct result of where the new money was sent, housing for example, the people creating and then spending that created money know which products are bubbled up, which things are over-priced, and therefore which things are sold off at the highest price near the peak of the BOOM side of the business cycle. Then money is taken out of circulation by some means, and there are many ways to accomplish a reduction in the money supply, making money scarce to this sector or that sector of the economy, a freeze on home loans for example, an increase in reserve requirements, an increase in the prime rate, Gary North is a good source for such methods of manipulating the money supply.
Liar Loans cause a BOOM in Real Estate, and then a policy change causes a crash in Real Estate - for example.
Who knows when the next BOOM will occur?
What was said in the REAL NEWS report?
I would not rule out it would develop into a runaway inflation. It's possible.
Those are code words. What do those words mean? Those words mean specific things. Currently the supply of dollars has doubled, but that new supply of dollars is not flowing through the American economy.
Early 2008 the dollar supply was X
Late 2008 the dollar supply was 2X
Where is that new money?
Where will that new money go?
What will that new money buy?
Why was that new money created?
Why will the new money buy the things that the new money will buy?
I would not rule out it would develop into a runaway inflation. It's possible.
That is like saying:
I would not rule out the sun appearing again tomorrow. It's possible.
Once that money is spent the value of the dollar will drop to roughly half of the value of the dollar before the supply doubled in 2008 unless the new money isn't spent. If the new money just sits in the bank, never being spent, the money supply remains at X - not 2X.
If these people have the power to increase the total units of dollars by double, then they have the power to decrease the total units of dollars by half. They can keep half of the supply in their banks and cut off the flow to all but whomever they want to have the half of the supply they want people to have, and the effect of cutting the total supply of dollar units by half will roughly be an increase in the value of the dollar by double - confusingly called "deflation" because the result is lower prices.
1. Dollar supply is cut in half
2. Dollar value eventually doubles (once people understand that dollars are now scarce compared to when twice as many dollars were circulating)
3. Prices drop, or deflate, because the dollar value doubles
4. This isn't the first time this has ever happened, it is on a cycle, a schedule, and it is done on purpose by the people who have control over the total number of dollars, because they own the monopoly, because competition is against the law, just like discussion is effectively against the law. Obey. Be afraid. Pay.
The cart is pulling the horse when the workers are not allowed to make their own money, finance their own mines, or discuss important things using meaningful language.
Legal crime, for example, exists. Why does it not have a name?