-
Posts
651 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Events
Everything posted by PunK BeaR
-
Ugly house with horrid grey render. The planning departments push for these 'traditional' style houses with wallhead dormers , 45 degree pitched roofs etc because they think it fits in with the character of the area. Unfortunately, like this house, they just look like a redrow kit build with some tacky pastiche features added. How much of this supposed £500k is the value of the land? Quite a bit of it i would say. Some of these plots can go for £200,000 plus. They still have that at least.
-
You Cannot Spend Your Way Out Of A Depression
PunK BeaR replied to chris25's topic in House prices and the economy
I think i might have misinterpreted his post maybe. I thought he was suggesting that one group owned the majority of the wealth producing machines and land. Thus people could not get access to the means to survive leaving them as nothing more than slaves to the owners. -
You Cannot Spend Your Way Out Of A Depression
PunK BeaR replied to chris25's topic in House prices and the economy
Thanks for the comprehensive reply. We have probably had a slight terminology conflict with this one. As i understood it, Anarcho-capitalism included all forms of private property, what you are describing is probably more like anarcho-mutualism. Irrespective of the terminology, which isnt really that important anyway, i agree that only personal property and not private property reduces the chance of monopolism which i think is pretty much in line with marxist thinking. Im still not 100% convinced this could be achieved without a state to define the limits of the personal property but i think its probably more realistic and more in line with human behaviour, However, i still see another problem. Basically, i equate land ownership with space ownership. Although the universe is infinte (or at least bloody big) due to physical limitations we effectively have a finite amount of space usable to us. Every item takes up a set amount of physical space, thus isnt any property ownership (be it private or personal) just the same as land ownership. I know this sounds a bit whacky but say for example in this anarchistic world there was an area i liked the look of but couldnt afford to build a building on it. Could i not produce an item to monopolise this space and effectively take ownership of the land. Say for instance a large modern art sculpture made of some cheap material, tether it to the ground and say it's the product of my labour and thus my possession and it cant be moved. I would thus have ownership of the land and people could then start making offers of trade on the sculpture just to get hold of this area of space or land. Moreover, even if you dont believe in land ownership, certain areas will be more attractive to producers due to their location and thus finding a way to claim ownership of that space is still viable. I dont disagree that people feel an affinity to items they produce, and i myself have produced lots of stuff from scratch so i really can understand this up to a point. Maybe we are getting our wires crossed about our definitions of ownership. To me ownership is exclusive access and utilisation of a product. Nothing else. Nobody is saying you cant take credit for its production but just because you produced it doesnt mean you should have exclusive control over it IMO. As i said, if someone else can take control of it or even utilise the product with you (eg 4 people live with you in a house you built) you no longer have exclusive access and control over it and thus i believe any claim for ownership of it in the world of real things has no bearing. In relation to your other point, i also agree that the producer has the strongest claim, just not a definite, unbreakable claim. And because of that other people can take it or co-ultilise it with you and thus (in my definition of ownership) also take ownership of it. Even having this debate highlights the problems with having a stateless system of ownership of any kind. People just cant agree on what it means to own something or who can own what. If you want to have a definite definition of who owns what it has to either be enforced centrally by state or mutually agreed by all users in the system. Although i much prefer the latter option im not sure its yet possible. It would be nice to think it is achievable sometime in the future though. see my points above about space As i answered just above. As i said above, im not saying people shouldnt take responsibility for what they produce, its just my definition of ownership differs. I believe ownership is exclusive access and control of the product which i dont believe is physically possible when there is no physical ties to the item. Nothing can change the reality that person X produced item Y but i just dont see how that can physically give them exclusive control over it. Moreover, i believe that for this assumption to give them exclusive control, a 3rd party would be required to defend that claim. This 3rd party would be a state. Again, I believe this would require a state to decide the compensation if the parties could not agree And if you dont accept responsibility for your actions? Surely somebody is going to have to start swinging their weight around. Whether it is implied by self-ownership or not i dont think is that relevant. When there is an advantage to be gained from lying and cheating to avoid responsibility some people are going to do just that. Again, its just a differing definition of ownership. I dont agree its human nature to own stuff in the possessive sense. I agree people like to take credit for their work but i just cant compute how this can give them exclusive access to that product without a 3rd party to defend this claim. As i said earlier, i believe that people own their labour because nobody else can do it. Thus i feel they should take responsibility for their actions because they did those actions. What i dont believe is that they own the physical products of their labour. i.e. they have exclusive access and control over these products. I agree that we should look for a better definition of ownership and get away from the might is right scenario. That is why i inclined against the violent state. But IMO ownership can only be defined as exclusive access and control. Thus by having a system like this, this violence is almost inherent to defend this type of ownership. I would love to see a mutual agreement on this so we could provide something better than we have now and get away from the violence of the state but i am still not convinced its workable. Maybe anarchy in any of its forms is just unworkable. Im not sure. But even if it is, a small scale state along the lines of what you have suggested above would be a massive improvement over what we have now and i think thats worth working towards p..s. sorry if the reply is a bit scatty, im half asleep just now. -
You Cannot Spend Your Way Out Of A Depression
PunK BeaR replied to chris25's topic in House prices and the economy
Ive heard both sides of argument on this issue and i cant make my mind up whether a free® market could eliminate this problem. The problem i see is that a situation could occur where a small group own the automated means of production and thus the products of this production. I think this is a possiblity as i believe that private property rights are intrinsically monopolstic. The counter argument is that this monopolistic situation could never occur because if people could get access to wealth then they would have nothing to trade meaning the producers couldnt turn a profit etc etc. The way i see it though is that everyone will always have something to trade in return. If they dont have property or money to trade, they can always trade themselves. i.e. they can trade their loyalty and obedience in return for the products required to live. This would lead to the producers effectively becoming a new state. All this is fairytale stuff as, IMO, you need a state to have capitalism anyway. Even if it was just a nightwatch state, all that would happen is this state and the producers would merge, which is pretty much what is happening now anyway. And, if the current system of big govt and large scale producers which we have now continues and they monpolise production and the state redistributes this wealth, this is just the same as them buying obedience in return for the (monopolised) products. Either way you look at it, i believe we would just end up at the same point. The only other option is abolition of private property rights but thats probably a discussion for later. -
You Cannot Spend Your Way Out Of A Depression
PunK BeaR replied to chris25's topic in House prices and the economy
Then surely any system that has private property rights cannot be anarchistic because it is not free from coercion. IMO i can accept that one owns their self because nobody else can (unless of course someone or something took control of your mind and body but thats probably a debate for elsewhere). I also believe you own your labour because only you can do it. I also believe you could say you own the space you you occupy because, once again, noone else can occupy that space at a single time. These are basically unchangable through nature. However, i dont believe this can be extended further. The assertion that one owns the products of their labour is really a figment of the imagination. Moreover, its monopolistic and requires a state to enforce this assertion. When someone makes a product from their labour all that exists at the end of the process is item X in a spatial environment. There are no physical linkages or ties to whoever produced that product. Moreover, as that product is in the spatial environment occupied by all others, anyone can utilise it who can get their hands on it. Thus, claiming the producer has exclusive access to said product is just nonsensical. Private property is monopolistic because one person lays claim over a finite item which occupies a set amount of limited space. That may seem like a trite point when considering a smaller item but when you consider entities such as factories or roads, then this allows certain groups to monopolise these resources and space. And when people start laying claim over any resource there can really be no validity to such claim and any other also making such a claim over a resource would be equally valid or invalid depending on how you look on it. e.g. Person X claims ownership of a table they produced, then person Y claims they can take and utilise that table without persons X's consent because they believe that it is there valid right to do so. Who has a valid right of claim over the table when all that exists in the world of real things is person X, person Y and the table with no bind between either of these 3 entities? No-one, surely, because these claims are just opinion of the individual Thus, in an anarcho-capitalist society private property has to be defined, and to make the definition hold it has to be enforced. Thus violent coercion i.e. a state is required. Moreover, property claims over limited resources are also highly coercive because it gives one person group access to limited resources thus denying others the same access to this resource meaning they can use this exclusive access as a method of coercion. Arguments can be put forward for universally preferable behaviour or morality, and for common law precedent but these have little validity in this argument insofar as it just takes one person to disagree with these ideas and the model then becomes coercive, forcing people to bend to these ideas. You stated in a previous post that its in human nature to respect the ownership of stuff. Although i dont contend this viewpoint the problem exists with defining what stuff is yours. As most private property rights are just ideas theoretically anyone could claim anything to be their stuff and without an enforced definition of what can be your stuff, how can any claim be valid over another. Nobody has a crystal ball to see how these ideas would play out and I think that or anarcho-capitalism could be a significant improvement over the current system in terms of wealth distribution and overall quality of life for the majority people. But i also believe that a) to make the claim that it is anarchistic and free from coercion is just not true and b ) it has the potential to produce an even more oppressive, controlling and coercive system due to monopolising limited resources. Im not saying this would happen and i have heard the counter arguments to this. Its just my own personal opinion that this is a danger of such a system. -
You Cannot Spend Your Way Out Of A Depression
PunK BeaR replied to chris25's topic in House prices and the economy
But they do. All the time anarchistic interactions between small groups of people. E.g. friends are invited round for a buffet dinner. They choose to attend without violent coercion they then share the food out without any claim over property rights. Its just a small example but you get the idea. The question is whether this could be applied on a global scale. -
You Cannot Spend Your Way Out Of A Depression
PunK BeaR replied to chris25's topic in House prices and the economy
This is an interesting thread. Just to add my tuppence worth in. I was under the impression that anarchy had no property rights. Anarcho-capitalism (or anarchy with private property rights) is just minarchism masquerading under a different name because you need a state to define and enforce the property rights. I think it was Rothbard that added the provisio that a state had to tax, which IMO, is just nonsense which he added so he could classify his theories as anarachistic. Anyhow, as i understand it true anarchy is a stateless, classless, nationless and IIRC moneyless society, which is the same as the final outcome of true communism. The two theories just have opposing views on how to reach this end. I dont mean to nitpick over terminology but im just saying that the theory of anarchy goes further than the model being discussed here. -
State Socialism Vs Distributed Socialism
PunK BeaR replied to Traktion's topic in House prices and the economy
I have found that it can take some time for people to see it but when they do it is often a major impact and often not what they really want see or know. For me personally, i kinda worked it out for myself. I used to work for the govt in a regulatory role. For years i had these altruistic notions but as time went on i realised something wasnt right. Going into work just to threaten people to comply with regulations started to sit more uncomfortably with me as time went on, especially as i felt many of the regulations were nonsensical. Thats when i started reading different political theories which helped me understand this far better. And you are right, once you see things for what they are, you cant un-see them. -
State Socialism Vs Distributed Socialism
PunK BeaR replied to Traktion's topic in House prices and the economy
Having spoken to a lot of people about this I dont think that people see it as abuse or even see the violence. Battered wives know fine well what has just happened however many people just dont see the state as violent. I suppose it stems from years of brainwashing from when people are young and i believe that many people almost see the state as some omnipresent force like nature. For example, when an earthquake hits, people dont turn around and say nature has been abusive and violent towards to them. Of course not, it is just an unchangeable force (if you want to call it that) present throughout the universe and it isnt sentient. In the same way, i believe many people view the state in the same way. They dont see it for what it is, which is basically a group of people violently forcing them to do what they wish. It doesnt help that they use deceptive terminology such as 'laws' to describe their violent mandate. Again we are conditioned to see 'laws' as natural forces such as the law of gravity. Just a thought based on some conversations i have had. -
Its only lately people have started taking such a belligerent negative attitude towards dole payments. 20+ years ago nobody really cared about people getting dole money, eventhough in those days someone could happily claim it for their entire life. Crikey it was only 50 quid a week or something which was barely enough to keep a person alive. People back then felt sorry for people on the dole because they knew it was a tough life and just accepted that some people were happy to live such a life if they chose. Dole money did what it set out to achieve, which was keep people fed, clothed and warm. Its only since the media have started propagating news stories about dolies living lavish lifestyles that perceptions have changed. But in most cases that has to be just horsesh!t. In actuality nothing has really changed. Dole money (i think its about £60 a week now) is still a pitance and is still barely enough to keep yourself alive, yet because of the media propaganda peoples attitudes have completely changed. And what comes rolling out on the back of this manufactured change of attitude, a gradual erosion of of this welfare system to the point now where they are forcing people to do work for this subsistence payment. People need to take a stop and think about things. Dole money is about £3 billion a year which is actually a drop in the ocean compared to some other govt expenditure. What it does is keep people, who have no source of income, alive (plain and simple). Reduce access to that and people will just take other steps to survive such as thieving. Of all the welfare systems, dole money should be the last to be eroded as it is the final safety net to allow people to survive and with its erosion will come rafts of social problems.
-
The Unemployed Are Workshy Scum
PunK BeaR replied to Harry Monk's topic in House prices and the economy
When i was younger, about 15 years ago, I was able to get a job in a supermarket no probs. Just went in, got an application form, had a 5 min interview and got the job. They were always looking for new staff and getting a job there was easy. Fast forward to now and these jobs are gold plated with hundreds applying for the posts. -
Boycott Workfare---merged threads
PunK BeaR replied to ska_mna's topic in House prices and the economy
Noticed this article written yesterday. Tesco feeling the heat a bit from all the complaints. Linky -
Boycott Workfare---merged threads
PunK BeaR replied to ska_mna's topic in House prices and the economy
Im not 100% sure but i dont think Tesco pay them anything. The govt pays the £60 a week to the employee (if you can call them that) Moreover, i believe the govt also pays Tesco a similar amount to take these people on, as well as paying some private employment agency also a similar amount. So its not that Tesco are getting free labour, they are actually getting a nice wad of tax payers cash as well. -
Oops! Sorry about the multiple post. Kept coming up with server error when i tried posting.
-
Old furniture is great for hacking up and making guitar bodies. Perfectly flat treated surfaces which dont require huge amounts of work. I cant ever seem to get hold of this old, unwanted furniture. Most of it either seems to sell for a high price or goes to the dump, where you can now no longer just help yourself.
-
Old furniture is great for hacking up and making guitar bodies. Perfectly flat treated surfaces which dont require huge amounts of work. I cant ever seem to get hold of this old, unwanted furniture. Most of it either seems to sell for a high price or goes to the dump, where you can now no longer just help yourself.
-
Old furniture is great for hacking up and making guitar bodies. Perfectly flat treated surfaces which dont require huge amounts of work. I cant ever seem to get hold of this old, unwanted furniture. Most of it either seems to sell for a high price or goes to the dump, where you can now no longer just help yourself.
-
Why dont they just go back to the old Unemployment Benefit? You got your £50 a week providing you were not doing paid work. No Jobseeking nonsense, no forced work programmes, certainly no slave labour as proposed now, and no army of bureaucrats required. Simple, straightforward and seemed to work better than the current scheme.
-
I wonder why this wasnt picked up sooner. Planning wouldnt check the site through development but building standards would. I guess the developers must have found the correct site plan before submitting the drawings for building standards. Reading between the lines it seems like they got planning consent then just flung those plans away and built the house wherever they felt like in the plot. The Council will just be flexing their muscles as it undermines their precious planning system. All in all a bit of a nonsense really especially asking them to demolish it.
-
The most noticeable i have found is choccy biscuits. The price is the same or higher but the biscuits are shrinking. Penguins are now bite size and wagon wheels are more like skateboard wheels. Ive also noticed changes in recipes and packaging too. for example, Markies ready meals used to be straight into the microwave without pricking the plastic cover as it had a special cover with a steam vent bit at the side. That is now gone and its back to pricking the lid. I assume this is a cost saving measure however there may be another reason. On the subject of Markies ready meals, one of the most noticeable recipe change i saw was in their lasagne. It was fairly pricey but it had tons of cheese and a rich sauce far surpassing other supermarket brands. Then, overnight, it just changed to a bland, insipid, bog standard lasagne. Pity the price didnt change also.
-
Gotta agree. This just stinks of the usual BS. Reminds me a bit of the "No more boom and bust" and "I wont let house prices get out of control" garbage from Broon.
-
Worlds Most Expensive Home Going Down?
PunK BeaR replied to JustAnotherProle's topic in House prices and the economy
Looks like he just wants to lord it over the proles by sticking it in that location. Shame if it had to be torn down but i somehow expect with his money and clout it will stay. To be fair regarding the design of it, the architects have taken their design cues from the surrounding area. The big, shit ugly tower design paradigm. -
As bosh said he should have asked him politely to observe the required hygiene regulations. I dont deny he has a stressful job but losing the rag in front of the patients isnt too smart. As an aside, does anyone know if he was observing the required hygiene regulations? I would have though his bow tie and that id card swinging round his neck would have been a no no.
-
It looks like a warehouse