Weekend Watching - The Story of Stuff

Playlist
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c5uJgG05xUY&feature=SeriesPla...
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misplaced can have serious consequences.

The Story of Stuff has many flaws.

The video link below (3:23 min) illustrates how good intentions operating on flawed logic can kill. Think of the damage the Copenhagen Treaty can inflict if passed.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yi3erdgVVTw

#1. The corporations are SUPPOSED to be bigger than the government.
What's wrong is our politicians are criminals. They need sentencing.

#2. Extraction segment is almost ALL lies. We are still discovering natural gas, oil, gold and other rare earth minerals. THIS IS TOTAL JUSTIFICATION FOR POPULATION REDUCTION AND RE-WILDING.

#3. Consumption segment. OH Yes! I believe! 99% of evverything I bought 6 months ago is in the trash. Total !@#%^&* bullshat.

These morons think that improvment in natural resources is our enemy. Well guess what... if we stop we will have no economy. And when we have no economy we're screwed. In fact right now November 28, 2009, the only thing keeping us a civilized nation is our economy. Take that away and there will be mass murders and devastation that you can't imagine.

Bottom line: These are half truths intertwined with bold faced lies.

Local economy is what is coming. With revolt there will be a movement of self-sustainability. It's already happening.

The Last Hope Trader
Forensic Trading For Times of High Crime

said how great it was just before they went out to go shopping. I was so put off by their understanding and disregard. It is laid out in terms most people can understand.

With that said I think everyone should see it.

This is not the message of Ron Paul....

I may not know the truth, but I know when I'm being lied to...

Starve the corporations.
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Free yourself.

I will try to keep this bumped through black Friday.
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Free yourself.

is supposed to be fighting against. This is the villification of business production, private property in resources, job creation, and consumption, and the glorification of government: "it's the government's job to take care of us," she says. As supporters of Dr. Paul's economic philosophy, and at least some of us are, we should be doing the opposite, praising production and consumption and attacking governent. Business knows more of how to "take care of us," than government.

If anyone here is unfamiliar with the classic socialist exploitation theory capitalism, all you have to do is watch this video. The theory is that resources, which socialists believe should be considered owned in common, are privately owned so that the capitalist can force people to work for a wage or starve and exploit them through that. And they way this capitalist conspiracy keeps this running is by convincing the working class to buy things they don't need. So they're forever trapped in the system of capitalist exploitation. This is video is pure socialist propaganda garbage.

If you like the kind of rhetoric represented by this video, you're probably a socialist and didn't even know it. Now you know.

Free Markets Always Work. The only alternative to capitalism is fascism, communism or socialism or some mixed up form of them.

Annie presents some valid points about current market trends but starts out with a false premise. She says “it’s the government’s job to take care of us, to look out for us. That’s their job”

Many of the problems she presented are as a result of government regulations and a lack of free markets.

It is not the government’s job to take care of us. The governments job it to protect people’s liberty and their ability to trade freely.

As a result of individuals like Annie government organizations like the Federal Organization of Consumer Protection is created. http://www.cpsc.gov/ Organizations like this lead to the federal imposition of most of the “toxins” that are placed on products that she speaks against.

Annie’s main cry is against the toxins placed on goods. Chemicals cost money and corporations do not want to spend more money than necessary to get a product to market. Most all flame retardants applied to natural products are applied as a result of federal government regulations imposed by the US Consumer Product Safety Commission and are not a breakdown of Capitalism/ The problems are a result of the Government like the New Federal Mattress Standard. http://www.cpsc.gov/cpscpub/prerel/prhtml07/07220.html
By chemically treating what we sleep on ‘the government will prevent “270 deaths and 1,330 injuries every year.” As a result, the government will expose 300 million to carcinogens to save 270 who may fall asleep in bed with a cigarette.

Even if one in the free market wanted to produce a 100% cotton chemical free mattress they couldn’t. The government is the problem not capitalism. Items in their natural state are meant to burn. So in government’s zeal to protect someone from falling asleep with a cigarette in their mouth, they create agencies that require chemicals to be placed in products.

The fight is against the fascist elements in government and not the free markets. As Ron Paul Points out in Has Capitalism Failed? We do not have a free market and we do not have capitalism. If we did these and many problems would not be allowed to exist.http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul42.html .

The fight is against government regulation forcing chemicals into goods. Many of the other problems have to do with how the media manipulates buying habits. The media is powerful enough now that they effectively lobby and through legislation bar and other companies from entering into the national mainstream market. This is fascism not capitalism. We need new media. In order to get more media we need free markets to eliminate the government regulation barriers to entry. We have to eliminate the fascism.

We need more competition. More choices in the marketplace. Less barriers to entry.

Many large corporations have contributed some of the greatest medical and technological advances to improve the lifespan and standard of living of mankind. Mankind had virtually to same standard of living and same technology for 5000 years. Then starting in to 1700’s when free markets and liberty entered the scene , mans creative genius was unleashed. Mankind took a 5000 year leap: from the horse and buggy to commercial jet liners, from bloodletting to heart transplants; from the quill and ink to the mainframe computer. These are a result of mans desire to achieve greatness.

We need as many companies as possible to enter into the market place. It

One common fallacy presented is regarding extractions. The tree cry is false. Most trees consumed in the US are from tree farms (i.e. planted pines) from companies like IP , Rayonier etc. These pines are planted and harvested like crops. Resources are recyclable and renewable.

She states 1/3 of the worlds resource space is gone.

She says the US has 5% of the population but we are using 30% of the worlds resources. Does she mean resources that have been brought to market? Are these resources we produce that are sustainable?

Planned obsolescence. The market solution is for a new company to produce a produce that does not quickly become obsolescent. Maybe we go back to recycling glass bottles?
Also, no one is being forced to purchase any of the products mentioned. They are only being purchased because the individual desired to voluntarily trade their money for it. All the market has to do is to educate and refuse to buy from one manufacturer and purchase from another. By placing market demands corporation will be forces to react to the desire of the market place.
As Ron Paul states from the article cited above: “It is now commonplace and politically correct to blame what is referred to as the excesses of capitalism for the economic problems we face, and especially for the Wall Street fraud that dominates the business news. Politicians are having a field day with demagogue the issue while, of course, failing to address the fraud and deceit found in the budgetary shenanigans of the federal government – for which they are directly responsible. Instead, it gives the Keynesian crowd that run the show a chance to attack free markets and ignore the issue of sound money. “
It is as a result of capitalism that mans greatness is achieved and accomplishment is obtained. The only way these problems will be solved is by technology and invention. Not more government regulation and not an attack on corporations. Corporations must be held accountable to honesty and fair dealings. There is no room in capitalism for fraud, fascism (lobbying for government regulations to create a competitive advantage), or any form of dishonesty. Those items are handled against the individuals committing these acts and not a law to limit free markets.

The lady in the short said to ask Grandma how little her generation consumed....well, Grandma was a product of the (1st) Great Depression. Since alot of the DP'ers think we're headed that way again, all this consumption should be over with, pretty soon, by the sounds of it. Sadly, problem solved?

Freedom does not entail responsibility, rather it is responsibility that requires freedom.

It is no accident that the words "right" as in a liberty and "right" as in correct or the opposite of wrong are one and the same word. It is because you have the responsibility to defend yourself that it is only "right" that you should have the "liberty" to keep and bear arms. It is because you have the responsibility to feed, clothe, and shelter yourself and those in your charge (children, dependents, spouse) that it is only "right" that you should have the "liberty" to acquire, own, use, and dispose of the fruits of your labor. (aka property)

It is "right" that you have these "liberties" among others precisely because of your responsibilities, otherwise it would be impossible for you to fulfill them. Your "rights" exist because of your very nature which creates responsibilities for you. If they aren't YOUR responsibilities, then they must fall to someone else, and thus it would only be "right" for that individual to have whatever sovereignty necessary to carry out the responsibility to care for and defend you.

Since your "rights" stem from your nature, they are inalienable. They cannot be taken away. But you can fail to exercise them. However in doing so, you turn over responsibility for your own welfare to others. And you might not like how they go about looking after you.

We get the government we deserve. Self-Government isn't about electing representatives, it's about governing our own behavior. If we fail to do so, and shirk our responsibilities then we will become wards of the state.

The current danger is that so many people do not understand this basic concept of responsibility that we will all soon be treated as wards of the state rather than it being a more selective process - martial law.

To quote The Earth Organization, "None Survive Alone," so we don't survive just as ourselves - our own, our families', our groups' and mankind's survival are all dependent upon each other. The Golden Rule certainly applies here. DP is one group we belong to. How good would it be for our survival if DP didn't survive? How good would it be for DP if we didn't survive? Therefore our responsibility extends beyond ourselves and must embrace other areas of life in order for us to be free. I think that's why we are in the Ron Paul Revolution and this online community. I think the Daily Paul has drawn to it's fold the most intelligent, articulate, and responsible people in our society. I consider it a national treasure, and hope I get to meet you all in Minn.

Would you believe this too? Test yourself. Video 3.5 min.

http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=penn+teller+water&__q=...

This lady gets it wrong on who pays for her $4.00 radio for one, in the end she does,or at least most do, pay many times over through interest on credit to buy this piece of junk in the first place, it's a gift that keeps on taking long after the item is trashed.
If the green folks get thier way, billions of people will die of starvation because of related jobs lost, if the greenies loose then billions die from abuse of resources and chemical contamination, but the global bankers will aquire all of the wealth left behind and thrive either way.
Have our times changed so much since John Ruskin wrote "when we build,let us think that we build forever. Let it not be for present delight nor for present use alone. Let it be such a work as our descendants will thank us for; and let us think, as we lay stone on stone, that a time is to come when those stones will be held sacred because our hands have touched them, and that men will say, as they look upon the labor and wrought substance of them, "See! This our father did for us."
We are all doomed if we fail to find some common ground, no pun intended.

perhaps it was the interface that we should be looking at. It was fun to watch . The presentation was engaging because it seemed personal, the graphics were simple, but added to overall understanding and the chance for interactive use as an option added interest. Hmmmmm.....what a great educational tool for liberty!
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*What you don't know CAN hurt you.*

The problem with these Green people is that they are fighting the wrong battle. They blame everything on Capitalism and Free Markets but they have never really learned about either other than what they think they've learned over the years growing up in Suburbia and being born American.

The battle they should be fighting against is Corporatism, Fascism, and Socialism because these are the real evils of the planet and human race--just look at China. China is the perfect example of a country that has cleaned up its act since putting their tippy toe in the Capitalist pool. Anybody that's been to Shanghai 25 years or so ago and has gone there very recently can relate to what I'm saying.

The Green people see Capitalism through the perverted lens of Time magazine and the other pro-Corporatist magazines that Americans read. They only know one side of the story and that's the story that they've been force fed.

Anyway, there is light at the end of the tunnel. The confused leftists are waking up! They are realizing that Free Market theories are much better than their own; that the American dream has been manipulated and perverted and what they thought was evil American Capitalism was really a big lie. People like Naomi Wolf, Cindy Sheenan, and many leftist sites are starting to change their tune. It's almost like they're jealous of our movement because our revolution is truly American and doesn't have any hidden agendas.

Our agenda is quite clear and that agenda is at the foundation of this once great country. The leftist foundations are built on empty promises and a history so unAmerican that it even turns off most people in their own movement. Their foundation is built on a black hole....

First, I do appreciate the post, because it is something to be debated. I can always count on DailyPaul for a great debate.

There are so many problems with this video that I can't list them all. And I don't have the time to rewatch it and mark them down, piece by piece. Here are some complaints:

1. It's the government's job to look out for us and take care of us? Seriously? This intro statement should be enough to get the ridicule and scorn of DP readers everywhere.

2. A. Markets are NOT to blame for environmental destruction overseas or at home. Example: China does what it does because of the trade off value it sees. They destroy the environment because they value the industrialization. It's a trade off. They sell the health of their land for industrial prosperity. It's a way of showing what they value more. Markets are simply the MECHANISM to accomplish this, they're not the cause. People's desires are the cause... and they ain't going away soon.
B. Capitalism saves environments! You've got to make sure there are more trees around if you're in the paper or lumber industry... otherwise you're soon to go out of business! China killed it's panda's under communism, now they're saving them in their move towards capitalism... because they're cute and we all want to pay money to see them, feed them, and hold them! The Pandas, that is, not necessarily the Chinese people.

3. We could better spend the money on education, healthcare, or justice? I don't want the government to spend any of my money! It's MINE. They only justice i want from big brother is for them to enforce my right to contract.

4. Toxic chemicals? Yes, we use lots of them. Water, H2O, is toxic... in large enough quantities. She demonizes "synthetic" chemicals as though they're Lucifer's spawn.... I wonder if she's ever taken ANY medicine... which are synthetic chemicals. Give me a break.

5. Consumption is the core of the economy? Such a Keynesian load of bull! Savings and investment define the economy. Production, innovation, and technology are the paramount ends to the economy, not consumption.

6. Extraction = natural resource exploitation? What the hell does that mean? I guess we are exploiting the hell out of the Japanese... and they're exploiting the hell out of us. Yet somehow, we all want more of it!

7. Every time in history, from Mesopotamia, to the Roman Empire, to the Industrial era: People FLOCK to cities! Life on the farm is miserable! They'll do anything to get away from it. This isn't an advent of industrialization, but of differential wealth potentials. There's more money to be made in a city, a higher standard of living. That's why farmers become factory workers, and not the other way around. Industrialization was the first time it became remotely feasible for a peasant to stay on the farm, rather than come to the city, because the technology made his lives easier. They don't leave "environments that have sustained them" to the "slums;" they leave the misery of rural poverty for the chance are more wealth in the city. Not to mention, childhood death rates in rural, poor areas are astronomical compared to cities, just as life spans are much smalerl in the countryside.

8. BFRS? I think this woman is more toxic to the brain than BFRs ever could be. I guess tonight I'll sleep on a pile of straw... even though I'm highly allergic and would die... it's better than the BFRs which prevent my pillow from catching fire.

9. She thinks government is looking out for us? Wow. She's been brainwashed by the Statists.

10. Externalized costs? A reality... but it occurs because of government fiat! Stop forcing business to pay for healthcare, and then there's no problem. The "externalized cost" is just the sum of the opportunity costs of all the components. Get a grip on free market economics, woman!

She treats people as though they're machines with no free will. They make us shop, so they make us work, so they make us tired and miserable, so they make us shop, etc. I am forced to buy new shoes to remain in style. etc.

I don't know about you, but I can make up my own mind. I'm an ardent conservationist, but these sort of environmental wakkos just want to control you. It's another excuse for Statism.

In an anthropology class, I learned that most indigenous people spend maybe 3 hours a day, on average, working at their hunting and gathering. Talk about leisure time!

No wonder that when Bush 41 spoke about the NWO, he contrasted the rule of law to the law of the jungle. The lifestyle of living in the jungle does not support corporate american bullshit.

http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=penn+teller+environmen...

I agree with Scott. and I am also a technogeek, I don't think That I will move my talents elsewhere however.......enjoy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TF5F6eYho8U

Ken

" the important thing is to never stop questioning, curiousity, has it's own reason for existing..
Albert Einstien

If we stop being the worlds largest consumer of goods, what will become of the federal reserve notes. Well robin, I'm afraid it will lose it's role as the world's reserve currency. What does that mean batman? If the federal reserve does not preserve it's monopoly on paper currency it will lose it's power to control the people of the world. Control the people of the world? .........The Joker! That right robin. The joker the penguin the riddler and the devil himself. This is big batman! It's the biggest scam of all time Robin. Do the people know whats going on Batman. Not many do, but things are changing.

This 'stuff story' maybe anti-capitalist propaganda and I don't know what to think of this lady, but she is passionate and trying to do something about much that concerns me as well.

Being a sailor and a 'wannabe' surfer with a love for the ocean, every time I think of the "great pacific garbage patch" (google it!) I feel like crying like a helpless baby. Check out this monster:

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/the-worlds-rubbish-...

This monstrous problem transcends any political philosophy, from marxist to anarchist, this is a huge problem that we are all contributing to and each individual should do something about it... without the government's "help".

This is some of what I do: don't buy cheap crap I don't need, ride my bicycle as much as possible, under-eat (you live longer;o), pick up trash in the woods and along the roads, recycle always, brainwash my kids about all of the above.

And slave labor pisses me off... watch "Bordertown"!!.

Damn it Michael! now you started something big!!! ;o)

If it is to be, it is up to WE!!

oops, sorry, double posted

I could only stand a few minutes of that crap.

"Stuff", as in material and energy flow, is exactly what the universe is about the business of doing.

Those statistics are neurotic as the premises of the enviro-nuts that buy it. I could rant for pages, but here's just one for-instance...

America uses ~30% of resources but is only ~5% of the population, IIRC.

Fine. Give your excess share of fuels, materials, intellectual property and other "stuff" to those ignorant 3rd world peoples that wouldn't have a clue what to do with crude oil or a computer.

Worse still, not only do the enviro-nuts want to throttle our prosperity (production and consumption), they want to nip the production and consumption of the 3rd world before they can even begin.

Its the industrial revolution that allowed the human population to explode. Its culture and medical technology that enables people to control their birth rates. Enviro-nuts, by default, advocate human death.

I got news for them - India and China aren't buying in to it. That's why a few months back the Europeans and Americans blew-off the climate-change BS. Green energy is relatively expensive energy, and will render America economically non-competitive, sick and poor.

And by-the-way, there is only so much money - economics is the "science of scarcity". If you make America poor, you hurt worse the poor and unborn, since there won't be money for their healthcare. Not to mention the 3rd world foriegn aid. But again, the environmentalists really hate poor 3rd world people. They want to see them dying of disease and 1/2 of them in infant mortality.

But those fools get control of America through Obama or whomever, I am one technologist who will flee to a country that appreciates production, prosperity and "stuff", and leave the neurotic enviro-nuts to sickness and death in the cold and hot, dry and humid, vicious natural habitat intelligent tool-making man has fought for tens of thousands of years to make into a comparative paradise.

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POLITICS, n. A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage. - Bierce
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5 parts.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=DrTsaSUFfpo&feature=related

WAHOR!!
http://www.dailypaul.com/node/48994