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ShadowCatboy posted:Honestly, I think you should keep pressing. Your conversation with your friend appears to have gone well (e.g. no yelling, insults, sarcasm, etc.) and he generally seemed receptive to your ideas and, more importantly, facts and evidence. Try to casually bring it up again, maybe in the context of something like, "I was watching TV today and saw something that reminded me of what we were talking about the other day," just don't make it seem like you are trying to convert him like a Jehovah's Witness. I've had similar conversations with people I know (generally very conservative family members) and it usually ends with overly dramatic eyerolling and derisive sarcasm, so I'm hopeful you can at least have more productive conversations with your friend, even if you don't convince him to change his positions. Also: ShadowCatboy posted:"The Republican replied with: 'Well what if the father's death help inspire the dude to make something better of himself?' Holy poo poo, from where do you know my cousin?
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Nov 2, 2011 11:37
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Enjoy posted:The Anarcho-Libertarian Utopia ? A Critique I really want to read this (more to show my ancap friend), but the link is broken.
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Nov 2, 2011 22:36
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Bruce Leroy posted:Honestly, I think you should keep pressing. Your conversation with your friend appears to have gone well (e.g. no yelling, insults, sarcasm, etc.) and he generally seemed receptive to your ideas and, more importantly, facts and evidence. I have to admit that I snapped at him at first because to me a flat tax is just such a stupid idea... it was the combined frustration and irritation that I hold towards Young Earth Creationists. We took a few weeks to cool off (since the two of us were also really busy with other things). The second time around I cleared the air by making an earnest apology for my behavior and we started over. Went much better the second time around. Actually, I also ended up using some of the tactics and techniques I listed here. The trick is to keep calm, ask problem-solving questions, and maintain an objective and relevant frame of reference. The trick with that conversation was pointing out that "fairness" sounds good, but without context or concrete goals it's a meaningless phrase based on abstract and unapplicable principles. I used Abstinence Only Education as a prime example, but another one would be the Orange Parable I brought up in that thread: quote:There is an old parable, where a brother and a sister are fighting over an orange. Their father comes along and sees the conflict, and decides the best way to resolve the situation is to simply cut the orange in half and split it between the kids. "Fairness" sounds well and good but it doesn't actually meet the concrete goals and needs of reality. Life is complex, and an even split in the name of "fairness" often doesn't address the actual underlying goals and needs of a situation. Once I brought this up my friend was much more amenable to looking at the evidence. He's been asking me insistently about how I'd solve things, but I want to educate him more on the broader issues first.
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Nov 2, 2011 22:58
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“I want to share it with my best friend and eat it with him! He'll think I'm being stingy if I only share half!”
“I want to make a fruitcake. The recipe calls for the zest from a whole orange.”
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Orlics posted:I really want to read this (more to show my ancap friend), but the link is broken. If a website's hosting is no longer able to sustain it, should the website simply die? "YEAH!!!", shouts the audience at a GOP debate. But we do not yet live in their paradise.
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Nov 2, 2011 23:08
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Every time I talk about wages being stagnant over the past few decades, the counter-argument I get is "technology explains the disassociation of productivity from wage". I'm embarrassed to say that I don't readily have a good counterargument to this.
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Nov 3, 2011 20:04
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Zeitgueist posted:Every time I talk about wages being stagnant over the past few decades, the counter-argument I get is "technology explains the disassociation of productivity from wage". "No it doesn't." or "You're begging the question, demonstrate how it does!"? You could also say "And Unions not being present is accounted for how?"
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Nov 3, 2011 20:14
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"Increases in technology requires specialized and more technical labor skills". "Do you think then that we should have the same standard of living as peasants, because technology is also responsible for the productivity differences between us and them?" "technology belongs to society as a whole; society supports the foundations of learning, recording past technologies and influencing future technologies. No piece of technology is created in a vacuum - invariably its inventor was inspired by or built on previously existing technology or foundations of science formulated by long dead professors (which are now in public domain). Given that, shouldn't the spoils of technology be shared fairly?" "Then if this is the case, why aren't scientists being paid more than CEOs? CEO pay has gone up and up, engineer wages have stagnated, yet you say the increase in productivity is due to technology. Shouldn't those responsible for the technology in the first place benefit from it?" rudatron fucked around with this message at 20:38 on Nov 3, 2011 |
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Nov 3, 2011 20:21
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Zeitgueist posted:Every time I talk about wages being stagnant over the past few decades, the counter-argument I get is "technology explains the disassociation of productivity from wage". The counterargument is "and those gains should be distributed more evenly instead of being siphoned off by the finance class."
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Nov 3, 2011 20:25
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Zeitgueist posted:Every time I talk about wages being stagnant over the past few decades, the counter-argument I get is "technology explains the disassociation of productivity from wage". At least you have people willing to engage. Most people I know dont at all or give up if anything I say sounds like it requires some thought past what the Daily Mail says to think. That or they agree with me, even though Im not really sure they know what they are agreeing with...
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Nov 3, 2011 21:16
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Zeitgueist posted:Every time I talk about wages being stagnant over the past few decades, the counter-argument I get is "technology explains the disassociation of productivity from wage". The fundamental problem is you two are making different types of arguments. You are, presumably, saying that the disassociation between the two is a bad thing, for various reasons: why it happened isn't important to those reasons. It would matter if it was a flaw in the data (i.e. productivity per worker went up, but so did capital costs to employ those workers, or the like) but without that the specific reasons for the disconnect shouldn't matter to the overall argument you're making.
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Nov 3, 2011 21:55
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evilweasel posted:The fundamental problem is you two are making different types of arguments. You are, presumably, saying that the disassociation between the two is a bad thing, for various reasons: why it happened isn't important to those reasons. The assumption being made by my opponent, I believe, is that productivity gains should only be linked to wages when the laborer is actually working harder, as opposed to "unearned"(in his eyes) gains from being able to do things on PC that previously would have required a team of engineers. But I'll agree that he doesn't see a fundamental problem with the disparity since he's also the type that will not have a problem with the growth of CEO salaries from 50x base level to 500x.
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Nov 3, 2011 22:48
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Shout "Labour theory of value, you poo poo!" and smash him over the head with a spinning jenny. Alternatively ask him how much extra effort it takes to write those extra zeroes on a cheque to make that extra investment.
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Nov 3, 2011 22:57
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Sounds Marxist to me. Don't you know his ideas never worked in practice?
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Nov 3, 2011 22:59
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Zeitgueist posted:Every time I talk about wages being stagnant over the past few decades, the counter-argument I get is "technology explains the disassociation of productivity from wage". The technical term for this argument is "skill biased technical change". The single most compelling piece of counter evidence is the fact that wage rates in different OECD countries diverge significantly, which would be hard to explain if the only factor influencing compensation were technology. Another important piece of data here is the fact that the income of college graduates has only improved very marginally since 1970. The vast majority of the gains from productivity aren't being evenly shared by educated workers, they are flowing directly to the top 1%. If he's making a moral argument, i.e. if he's saying "work life is easier than ever so why should anyone earn more money?" Then you can go a couple of routes. Most surveys of workplace satisfaction indicate that Americans overwhelmingly think that work life has become harder and less pleasant over the last few decades. There's also the fact that housing, education and transportation and utilities have all risen substantially in cost. The stagnation of wages has forced households to become dual income, which hurts family life, and it has also pressured people to maintain their living standards through credit arrangements, which in turn has created a massive debt overhang, which is now depressing consumer demand and limiting entrepreneurship in the debt ridden middle class. So there's also a pretty good technocratic argument against this arrangement that has nothing to do with morality. Another argument along these lines is that by raising labour costs you incentivize employers to invest in labour saving machinery which improves the economy's overall productivity. By the way, Paul Krugman's "Conscience of a Liberal" attempts to offer an alternative to the Skill Biased Technical Change explanation, primarily focused on the employer's war on unions in the 1980s. I don't always agree with Krugman's analysis, and to be perfectly honest I think he has a typical neoclassical economist's habit of seeing all economic activity as being so fundamentally similar that he probably doesn't give the Skills Biased Technical Change argument quite as much credit as it deserves, but nevertheless he lays out an impressive and relatively robust account of how labour politics, rather than technological change, is what drove the stagnation of working class wages in America.
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Nov 3, 2011 23:42
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Zeitgueist posted:The assumption being made by my opponent, I believe, is that productivity gains should only be linked to wages when the laborer is actually working harder, as opposed to "unearned"(in his eyes) gains from being able to do things on PC that previously would have required a team of engineers. What does he think previously drove productivity gains? It's always been technology, or education, or something else that has nothing to do with working harder.
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Nov 4, 2011 00:53
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evilweasel posted:What does he think previously drove productivity gains? It's always been technology, or education, or something else that has nothing to do with working harder. Not entirely sure. I think I'm probably getting caught up in the idea of trying to provide a fact-based counter when I really should be attacking the basis assumptions.
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Nov 4, 2011 01:32
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US Business Cycle Expansions and Contractions Evidence for when goldbugs and Paulites insist the Fed is the root of all evil in American capitalism. Recessions have been shorter and less frequent with active government intervention and the departure from laissez-faire.
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Nov 4, 2011 04:48
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A Scandinavian economist once stated to Milton Friedman: "In Scandinavia we have no poverty." Milton Friedman replied, "That's interesting, because in America among Scandinavians, we have no poverty either." http://super-economy.blogspot.com/2010/01/dynamic-america-poor-europe.html A guy took some census data to make a "virtual europe" of people who identify as various descents and found that the old Milton Friedman statement is true. People of European descent are even richer in America than in their respective home countries. Note that the data is done by descent (people who identified a country as their heritage on census forms) rather than first generation immigrants or people with citizenship.
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Nov 4, 2011 05:08
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shots shots shots posted:A Scandinavian economist once stated to Milton Friedman: "In Scandinavia we have no poverty." Milton Friedman replied, "That's interesting, because in America among Scandinavians, we have no poverty either." So only the nordic supermen can have working social democracy? Gotcha.
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Nov 4, 2011 08:47
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It's almost as if those same people were the beneficiaries of decades of racial exploitation...
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Nov 4, 2011 09:06
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To be totally fair, both Norway and Iceland were pretty much backwaters up until the post-war period, being pretty much Danish colonies outright up until the Napoleonic war and WWII respectively. Norway got oil to supplement its welfare state, but Iceland's pretty much got there on their own straight away. Of course, Iceland then unleashed its financial sector completely, and we all know how that went, but calling the foundling states of Norway and Iceland particularly privileged doesn't strike me as very accurate.
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Nov 4, 2011 09:22
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shots shots shots posted:A Scandinavian economist once stated to Milton Friedman: "In Scandinavia we have no poverty." Milton Friedman replied, "That's interesting, because in America among Scandinavians, we have no poverty either." Honestly, that link is loving terrible. It is extremely intellectually dishonest for him to use sheer GDP to imply that not only is the US more "dynamic," but that the US is somehow better off than the EU-15 overall, though his definition of better seems to basically be "not like Europe." If he were more honest and interested in being intellectually rigorous, he would include analyses of price indexes relative to GDP (i.e. just because you have more absolute money doesn't mean you can buy as much with it), wealth distribution (hint: the US has incredibly higher wealth inequity than any nation in the EU-15, so it's dishonest to claim that the "average" American has more wealth than the "average" European in the EU-15), American out-of-pocket costs for things that Europeans receive from or highly subsidized/controlled by their governments (e.g. healthcare, college education, etc.), comparative poverty rates (he only lists the poverty rates in the US, for the overall nation and for ethnic sub-populations), and other important factors (especially those that impact standard of living) that inform the total picture of how "dynamic" (whatever that exactly means) a given nation is. The author clearly has a bias and it's pretty obvious to see how it affects his thought processes. E.g. here's his response to someone criticizing his post for not including a standard of living analysis based on the government benefits and social programs to which Krugman was initially alluding: Tino Sanandaji posted:Fidric: Western Europe beats the poo poo out of the US when it comes to "the areas policy can affect," from crime rates, crime recidivism, healthcare (both in quality and cost), poverty (especially since they tend to have proper social welfare programs to prevent them from suffering like the poor do in the US), wealth inequity, education, and various other aspects directly affected by government policy. More importantly, you can see how intellectually dishonest he is, like comparing Harvard University with Bocconi University, instead of more appropriate schools like Oxford and Cambridge. He should have compared US TV with something like Britain's TV (BBC, etc.) instead of Italian TV, which is notoriously corrupt due to Silvio Berlusconi owning basically 90% of media outlets. Comparing San Diego to Scandinavia in terms of climate is also dishonest because it purposely neglects that most of America doesn't have climates like southern California and several states have pretty severe winters on par with Scandinavia (e.g. Minnesota, the Dakotas, Montana, etc.), not to mention that Alaska (our largest state) is as bad or worse than Scandinavia. It's pretty telling that he demeans "energy efficiency" in favor of salivating over SUVs, especially since focusing on SUV production is a big part of what caused US automakers to lose marketshare to their Asian counterparts, who offered Americans the safety, fuel economy, affordability, reliability, and longevity that they actually wanted. He also fails to consider that American cities (and to a larger extent, whole states) were planned out with the notion of widespread car ownership in the post-WWII period. European nations generally have better public transit systems than the US and are laid out to better facilitate walking, biking, and smaller vehicles, though this may be more of a product of having older cities that were built when there were no cars. Each word is more telling than the last and digs him even deeper than his OP and subsequent comment let on, e.g. thinking that universal healthcare, more liveable minimum wages, better retirement benefits, and better government regulations would give us a worse standard of living. If you can't tell how biased and, frankly, obtuse and dull-witted this man is, then you have bigger problems than he does. I generally respect the University of Chicago, but if they're churning out people like this from their PhD programs I may have to reconsider my position. TL;DR: shots shots shots, stop making GBS threads up this thread with your lovely link(s). Bruce Leroy fucked around with this message at 11:13 on Nov 4, 2011 |
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Nov 4, 2011 11:04
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V. Illych L. posted:To be totally fair, both Norway and Iceland were pretty much backwaters up until the post-war period, being pretty much Danish colonies outright up until the Napoleonic war and WWII respectively. Norway got oil to supplement its welfare state, but Iceland's pretty much got there on their own straight away. And the rest of Europe got hosed to hell by WWII and had to rebuild, leaving them at a competitive disadvantage to the US, which had little to no damage (except Pearl Harbor) from the war and had stimulated its economy with war spending and industrial production. V. Illych L. posted:Of course, Iceland then unleashed its financial sector completely, and we all know how that went, but calling the foundling states of Norway and Iceland particularly privileged doesn't strike me as very accurate. Didn't Iceland gently caress itself over by basically becoming America jr. in terms of financial markets? Basically, didn't they do pretty much everything that hosed over Wall Street and American banks?
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Nov 4, 2011 11:19
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V. Illych L. posted:To be totally fair, both Norway and Iceland were pretty much backwaters up until the post-war period, being pretty much Danish colonies outright up until the Napoleonic war and WWII respectively. Norway got oil to supplement its welfare state, but Iceland's pretty much got there on their own straight away. Iceland aquired independence from Denmark during the second world war, not in the Napoleonic era. Norway got it before the first world war, from Sweden rather than from Denmark. Norway began extracting oil in any meaningful quantity in the '70s, and in addition it took more than 10 years for the oil project to generate any income at all. By then there already was a well functioning welfare state in place and and a solid economy built upon industry and basically keynsian economics. Iceland is (was in some sense) very rich on resources and was very favourably treated by the U.S. in trade deals (The U.S. used to occupy Iceland, and later stored atom bombs in Keflavik).
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Nov 4, 2011 14:01
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Svartvit posted:Iceland aquired independence from Denmark during the second world war, not in the Napoleonic era. Norway got it before the first world war, from Sweden rather than from Denmark. Norway began extracting oil in any meaningful quantity in the '70s, and in addition it took more than 10 years for the oil project to generate any income at all. By then there already was a well functioning welfare state in place and and a solid economy built upon industry and basically keynsian economics. Iceland is (was in some sense) very rich on resources and was very favourably treated by the U.S. in trade deals (The U.S. used to occupy Iceland, and later stored atom bombs in Keflavik). ...read my post properly, please. We're not really disagreeing on anything, but you've seriously misread my post. I said that Norway got oil to "supplement" its welfare state, not that it was built on the welfare state, and you left out the word "respectively".
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Nov 4, 2011 18:04
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You mean the vast majority of wealth in the United States is owned by people of European decent? Surely you jest!
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Nov 4, 2011 21:43
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rscott posted:You mean the vast majority of wealth in the United States is owned by people of European decent? Surely you jest! Tino Sanandaji (the blog's author) would probably respond by simply comparing the GDPs (in both absolute and per capita terms) of other nations to those of American sub-populations with the same ethnic background (e.g. "See, black people in the US have higher per capita GDP than Uganda and Sudan, so obviously black Americans have nothing to complain about and should stop being such welfare state liberals"), while purposely neglecting comparisons between Americans of different ethnic backgrounds, e.g. ethnic/racial minority rates of income, poverty, incarceration, education, etc. compared to those of European Americans.
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Nov 5, 2011 00:48
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It's obvious that minorities simply haven't yet mastered the free market. Although, sadly, the ACTUAL arguments I hear from most libertarians is that government programs are what actually caused them to remain poor.
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Nov 5, 2011 04:00
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icantfindaname posted:It's obvious that minorities simply haven't yet mastered the free market. Do those arguments have anything more than "I'm begging the question but it's so stupid nobody's found anything to refute!" going for them?
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Nov 5, 2011 04:14
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2banks1swap.avi posted:Do those arguments have anything more than "I'm begging the question but it's so stupid nobody's found anything to refute!" going for them? If you believe in something strongly enough you'll find ways to get around pesky things like "facts" and "refutation". That's the whole problem with the human condition, in fact. See the thread on postmodernism, or "cultural studies", or whatever.
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Nov 5, 2011 04:41
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icantfindaname posted:If you believe in something strongly enough you'll find ways to get around pesky things like "facts" and "refutation". That's the whole problem with the human condition, in fact. See the thread on postmodernism, or "cultural studies", or whatever. Like the guy with a PhD in Math who told me to "prove" that politicians are corrupt, and then decried "I just knew you'd find something" when I did in my last stupid argument. Clearly a master of proofs.
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Nov 5, 2011 05:15
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Stating (for example) that Swedish descendants have higher income then the average swede isn't much of an argument. Most of the swedes who work in the US do so because they were offered a job or promotion which required them to move. They didn't move to test their luck or fleeing from a war. On top of that, Swedes speak fairly good English. Since the data was taken from the census, it's not unreasonable that the only ones who would be labelled "Swedish", would be the ones that immigrated, and possible the first generation after them. Given the state of the US, it's not surprising that the son of a board member have higher then average income.
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Nov 5, 2011 15:16
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taremva posted:Stating (for example) that Swedish descendants have higher income then the average swede isn't much of an argument. Most of the Swedish Americans who work in the US are descended from people who came over in the 19th and early 20th century to get away from the massive and crushing poverty that held the lower classes in the old world. quote:Since the data was taken from the census, it's not unreasonable that the only ones who would be labelled "Swedish", would be the ones that immigrated, and possible the first generation after them. It is unreasonable because what you propose is incorrect. The US Census does track ancestry. The census has 4.3 million people of Swedish ancestry and 4.6 million people of Norwegian ancestry, this is more then the population of Norway.
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Nov 6, 2011 01:48
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Is there an authoritative source that outlines the benefits of legalizing weed and the problems created by not doing so?
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Nov 7, 2011 04:52
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Longanimitas posted:Is there an authoritative source that outlines the benefits of legalizing weed and the problems created by not doing so? http://www.economist.com/node/13237193
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Nov 7, 2011 05:04
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Does anyone have any good links that lay out in layman's terms: Debunking of arguments for returning to the gold standard. Pros and cons of fractional reserve banking. The relationship between 'fiat' currency and global trade. Productivity, environmental impact, and sustainability of organic vs. modern agriculture, or addresses the claim that the current global population could sustain itself with organic agriculture. My Occupy [Location] GA is becoming subject to a growing faction of goldbugs and agricultural Luddites and I need some decent counterpoints to their positions so we don't end up sliding too far into Infowars territory.
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Nov 7, 2011 22:07
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I.W.W. ATTITUDE posted:Does anyone have any good links that lay out in layman's terms: Yeah this please. We're having a poo poo of a time in perth with these Infowars/David Icke type loons insisting that what we REALLY NEED TO BE FOCUSING ON is fiat currency and how moneys aaaalll just a big fraud maaaaaan. I've been doing my best at slapping these kids some educating with some good old fashion dialectical disco, but honestly I cant get anywhere without a good loving debunking of this currency standard horseshit. e: Don't get me started on Icke. That fucker even has me pre-empted by convincing his followers that "dialectics" see is this thing where you have a problem then a reaction then a solution and uh it somehow is this tactic THE SYSTEM uses to brainwash people. Which has loving nothing to do with marxism at all, but oh well. Wheeee we're all in loopyland together now! duck monster fucked around with this message at 14:04 on Nov 8, 2011 |
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Nov 8, 2011 14:01
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I.W.W. ATTITUDE posted:Does anyone have any good links that lay out in layman's terms: Can we also get some stuff about genetically engineered crops? I constantly hear and read crap about GE crops being some kind of evil Franken-agriculture that is going to doom the entire Earth, but everything I know about biology, botany, anthropology, and history makes me think that it's a bunch of scaremongering from people (from what I've seen, mostly pro-organic advocates) who just don't understand it (e.g. the claims of cross-breeding plants with animals, which was just part of some novel research studies into plant and animal genetics but were never meant to be eaten). I mean, how is it all that different from all the selective breeding and rudimentary "genetic engineering" practiced by humans for the thousands of years that we've had agriculture? Isn't it just refining these ancient processes to a precise science, like old-school astronomy to modern astronomy and astrophysics or the development of modern medicine? Also, wasn't genetic engineering essentially what allowed for the green revolution through the development of new, high-yield crops?
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Nov 8, 2011 14:38
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My suggestion with dealing with science-scare stuff is learning to tease apart the bad-science from the reasonable-politics. A friend of mine is a physicists, uh, does stuff with surface physics and polymers and some poo poo I dont understand. I humor him when he gets drunk and tries to explain it to me. But he's also an anti-nuke activist. He's also pro-nuke as well. That might not make sense but I think I can explain it. From his perspective the problem with nuclear power is not even remotely scientific, but a matter of political principle in geo-politics. We advocate nuclear power for ourselves, then threaten to bomb people when they chose it for themselves. The problem, he argues, is basically Kantian. If its not moral for them, then we mustn't be hypocritcal by claiming its moral for us. If a potential side effect of adopting nuclear power is "Getting bombed by americans", then we have to acknowledge theres a big elephant in nuclears loungeroom. Ultimately it comes down to the bomb. If the lens of "what if the bad guys do it?" can tell us that perhaps theres a problem with nuclear fuel cycle being part of the nuclear bomb production process we perhaps need to exercise more caution and perhaps spend our funds getting Fusion or Thorium fuel working so we can do this nuke thing, which he agrees is necessary, without having to live in fear of some nutty loving american or pakistani leader mashing the nuke button and killing hundreds or thousands or even millions of people. Now he's a frusturated activist. As a physicist when he goes to talks he almost wants to scream "YOU STUPID HIPPY" at the people talking because he thinks they are loving up a worthwhile cause by injecting worthless data into the equasion. He even tried to write a book "Nuclear physics for activists" , released the chapters periodically on the net, and watched the hitcounter hover at zero the whole time. But his method of approaching it is excellent, by not letting very serious political issues with the relationship of the nuclear economy and geopolitical violence get lost in very silly pseudoscience. This is the heuristic I'd advise when looking at GE crops. Separate the spazzy pseudoscience from the more serious political issue. At the core of GEs *REAL* issues is the deadly serious matter of access to seed. Monsanto et al create dependency in their markets by exploiting the need for seed consumers to have access to this excelent new technology by forcing a seed subscription model on very poor people. The problem is , the old techniques of seed saving then become effectively illegal, because the farmer has to now buy the seeds , even if the previous crop failed and they have no money, and they are not allowed to keep a seed bank to re-establish. This creates an effectively imperialist dependency between the third world farmer and a first world company that can basically now control the market. There are some issues with the Roundup ready stuff too, with overuse of glycowhatsitscalledagain herbicides (or pesticides I cant remember) being overused and causing ecological issues, but honestly I think one needs to deploy Alinskys advice here and if your not an expert on the topic , dont go there. So thats my advice. Don't throw away the whole concern with GM over silly science phobia in some western activists. Third world GM activists don't give a rats rear end about whether the canola is as god intended it, they DO however worry about the fact that nobody in their village owns their crops anymore and are now effectively paying rent to a western megacorporation to perform the farming duties they had previously performed self sufficiently for generations before. Keep it real, and keep it political. No need for bad science, the real issues are enough.
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Nov 8, 2011 16:09
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Using science to genetically tinker with plants and animals is fine in principle, but the devil is in the details. Given the horrible state of modern intellectual property laws we need to be cautious; the devil is in the details. Monsanto.com posted:In agriculture plants and seeds with enhanced traits or genetics may be patent protected. This is true in the U.S. for plant varieties as well as biotech innovations. Monsanto is one of many seed companies that patent their innovations. Growers who purchase our patented seeds sign a Monsanto Technology/Stewardship Agreement — an agreement that specifically addresses the obligations of both the grower and Monsanto and governs the use of the harvested crop. The agreement specifically states that the grower will not save or sell the seeds from their harvest for further planting, breeding or cultivation. In a the frictionless world of Econ101 rational utility optimizers at Monsato will use patent protections on genetically altered food to achieve higher profits which in turn finance more research and development, which in turn pushes down costs, which are passed on to the rational utility optimizing farmers, allowing the farmers to produce more and creating a virtuous circle of economic activity from which everyone benefits. In the real world this is a great set up for loving over some of the world's most vulnerable populations by transforming them into 21st century share-croppers.
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Nov 8, 2011 19:47
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