[PLUG] hiring full-time: PHP programmer

Jeme A Brelin jeme at brelin.net
Thu Nov 21 01:45:41 UTC 2002


On Wed, 20 Nov 2002, Scott VanHoosen wrote:
> The market decides what a good or service is worth. If you can
> convince people to buy your pet rocks for $5000, then they are worth
> $5000. If you can only get $50 for your used 2001 Mercedes, then it's
> only worth $50.

...which is why "worth" means absolutely nothing and should be discarded
along with "deserve" and "earn".

But anyway, the point is that the purpose of the market in labor is to
drive down wages and benefits while driving up per-worker production.  
That's why high unemployment and low growth (i.e. third-world economics)
is ideal for a booming bond market.

We have a situation in this country where all of the essential needs of
the people can be met with far less than 100% employment hence the
enormous demand generation industry (to create industries that don't need
to exist at all), the low quality of consumer goods (to encourage
re-buying), the highest incarceration rate in the industrialized world (to
decrease the number of have-nots on the street that might revolt against
the haves), and a grossly disporportionate military (both to enlist
have-nots and give them false hope and to threaten and repress the
unenlisted).  Of course, that hyper-inflated military is also what allows
us to import goods or off-load labor at a fraction of the real cost by
repressing foreign uprisings as well as domestic.

If you read the business press, they're very straightforward on the goals
of the "new economy" which include labor market flexibility (which means
job insecurity and a perpetually high unemployment rate so that folks will
take whatever wage they're given and won't bitch about cutbacks) and the
transfer of public funds into private power via government contracts
(military and otherwise).  Privatization is exactly that: a privatization
of what was formerly public property.  Many lose for the benefit of the
few.  Privatizing public works means lower wages for most and huge profits
for a small few... and those profits are all tax dollars.  Where a public
agency's goal is to USE all of the money it is given, a private
corporation's goal is to HOARD the money it takes, dispensing as little as
possible.  I ask you which is better for the people and the economy.

Hurray for the new economy.

J.
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     Jeme A Brelin
    jeme at brelin.net
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