Yes but 'everything is fucked anyway' is hardly an answer??? — Wayfarer

I commend the Democrats' efforts toward impeachment. (Remember, impeachment, to be effective, has to be followed by a conviction and removal from office--quite unlikely, given the Republican controlled Senate). The Democrats happen to not be at fault on the question of manipulating the Ukrainians into investigating Bidens Jr. and Sr., but they haven't caught fire and fought fiercely on other issues where they should have, were they a "real" opposition. Everything isn't fucked. What is fucked is the the Two-Wingéd Unitary Beast that colludes to facilitate all sorts of corruption and bad policy.

The United States does not have a viable third party. Third parties there have been, oppositional groups there are, but up against a united front of political and corporate power, they have not had, do not have, and, as far as most oppositional analysis sees it, will not have a chance much better than NIL.

A third, militantly progressive oppositional party would have to arise from the electorate; While there may be 10% (arbitrary number picked out of thin air) of the electorate who could be militantly progressive and oppositional, it would take quite some time for such a new, rapidly growing party, even given plurality and majority election numbers, to win in the 50 states, elect a majority oppositional party in both houses, win the White House, and repeal reams worth of regressive legislation and go on to achieve real change. Meanwhile, the Two-Wingéd Unitary Beast would not have died. It would fight like hell to maintain its prerogatives and privileges.

Trump was never a suitable possibility for POTUS, and the Republican Party, had they had, at last, some decency, would not have selected him as their standard bearer. There were other, better (even as Republicans) choices. As always, "the problem" is stacked up several layers deep.

"Trump" is an exemplar of a much larger problem. So is the Republican Party. But then, so is the Democratic Party, and so is Wall Street, Capitalism, and more!

Your smarter than that Bitter Creek — Brett

Maybe not, but I think the quote is quite apropos.

Any society has to decide how it will do business ("business" not automatically capitalism), and when nations form (as they have been doing for a while now) it is "the government's task" to decide how business will be conducted. There are major differences from nation to nation.

China's ground rules for doing business were and are quite different than South Korea's and Japan's. Saudi Arabia's rules for doing business are not the same as Nigeria's. The USSR's methods of doing business were different than China's. The American way of doing business is different than both China's, the USSR's, and Russia. In different ways, entrepreneurship has been favored by China, the US, and Russia. Different ground rules = different results.

Both, and not just in a manner of speaking.

The legal system is organized to support private property and entrepreneurial activity. For instance, one can organize a corporation, borrow money from an investment banker, do business, go broke, and have no personal liability. At every step of business, rules governing business elements like depreciation, capital investment, and so on are in place. It isn't just the final tax on income or estate taxes that aids the rich getting richer.

If Joe Blow, factory worker, borrows money to fix his car so he can keep getting to work, and the car is still unreliable, he'll lose his job and will still be fully liable for the loan. True, he could file bankruptcy, but that might not help him.

Now, it is true that the ability to get rich and stay rich is one of the reasons remarkable innovation and aggressive expansion occurs. Michael Bloomberg made his huge fortune by supplying financial operators with something they very much needed: up to date financial information in ready-to-use forms through the Bloomberg Terminal. It was a high end financial data delivery service.

He didn't just become worth $58 billion dollars by delivering newspapers. He was a partner at Salomon Investment Banking, and as a partner accumulated $10,000,000 which he used to start his new business.

Fortunes require a foundation of money, from somewhere. You might be broke, but if you have a simply fabulous idea that will turn a profit, some investment banker might risk a few million bucks om you, and if everything goes well, you end up quite well off. If it doesn't go well, you don't. It went really well for Bloomberg.

Bill Gates didn't become the richest mortal to walk the earth on the basis of how wonderful his Disk Operating System (DOS) was. Dos and several other Microsoft products were rammed down the throats of consumers by highly anti-completive methods. I don't know if you remember this, but once upon a time when you bought a PC it would ALWAYS have Microsoft software on it, pre-installed. Later, it would have Windows, then Internet Explorer, something you couldn't get rid of for love or money. It was crappy software, but that's whaat was in the bundle.

Deals were made with equipment manufacturers. That why people had to put up with generally crappy Microsoft products (some of which, like Word and Excel, were good). If you didn't want Microsoft, you pretty much had to buy an Apple, which was more expensive.

Once you bridge the gap between poor and rich your money makes it's own money and your taxes are often times non existent, and if you do so happen to pay taxes it doesn't matter because you make enough money off of the backs of other people who never see a fraction of your wealth and are just supposed to accept that your life is more valuable than theirs because you came up with the idea and you had the connections, and usually the money to make it work in the first place. — Lif3r

Exactly.

"Government is a committee to tilt the playing field in favor of big business." (A paraphrase of Karl Marx's statement, "government is a committee to organize the affairs of the bourgeoisie".)

The US is very vigilant about consumer protection. — Wallows

What that means is manufactures try to avoid class action lawsuits. IF the US was "very vigilant" about consumer protection, we would be moving heaven and earth to lower our CO2 output. Global heating will kill the consumer and producer together.

The rich and the powerful versus the meek and the poor. Is this phenomenon not a cycle? — Lif3r

The "great cycle" of economic expansion is very long. The Roman Empire was one period of economic expansion, wealth getting, and building. The stretch between the Romans and the Industrial Revolution was around 1200 years, during which there was little economic growth. The comparatively trivial waves of the "business cycle" are maybe a decade or two long. In the business cycle there is rapid expansion, saturation, then contraction. Rinse and repeat.

Wealth is built from the bottom up, the poor being on the bottom, the rich being on top. The principle that separates the two is accumulation. For most of the "modern" human history (the last 10,000 years) accumulation was relatively limited. The best way to accumulate was through force: seizing wealth (military campaigns) or peonage--forcing the peasants to work for the resident lords

It has been suggested by some archeologists - anthropologists that agriculture was invented as a way of making people work for somebody else, but that is speculative. If so, it worked. The poor clod hoppers gathered in the grain which made the local elite rich.

The capitalist/industrial revolution was and is accumulation and exploitation on steroids--hell on wheels for the poor, a gravy train for the rich.

there's simply a structural advantage to being rich — Wallows

The structural advantages you reference greatly assist the rich in obtaining their status in the first place.

I'm an old (literally) practitioner of shallow, pseudo-cynical blasé attitudes, so I understand their pleasures and satisfactions. But I'm a little confused by your reaction to what I wrote. Your beginning post seemed in earnest. Then you switched.

What good will your shallow pseudo-cynical blasé attitude do you in any case?

These social arrangements no doubt have some grand function. — Enrique

Well sure, like running the world, running the country. Ruling. Look, I disapprove of the ruling class and the Uber-rich. I am interested in how they are organized and how they operate -- the better to make up lists of whose property to seize, and who to send to political re-educate camps after the revolution.

Who are you addressing here? and What are you trying to say?

I am a commodity, first of all, and a commodity fetishist to boot. I was junked as a laboring commodity when I grew too old. But I am still consuming (thank you, SSA). I belong to the "L" Tribe of men's clothing -- LL Bean, Lands End, and Lee. I eat Quaker Oats (rather than artesian rolled oats produced in a mill powered by falling water or tired mules) and Green Giant rather than the local farmers market (the growing season just isn't long enough here).

I get my hair cut at Great Clips, I buy my shoes from Aesics, I prefer up-market Calvin Klein underwear (always bought at deep discount from Marshalls) to down-market Fruit of the Loom, discounted or not. I shop at Target (certainly not Walmart, God forbid!!!) Amazon or Macys, (except to go slumming at Penney's). K-mart is beneath me. I've never set foot in a Dollar General store and sorry, I don't like Aldi either. I yack on an Apple iPhone, and read on an Apple iPad. Music is still delivered on the go from an aging Apple iPod. I surf and write on an Apple iComp. I ride Lyft when a bus or bike won't do.

I am a disgrace.

There are 7,000,000,000+ people in the world (too damned many) and 320,000,000 people in the United States (also too damned many). I don't see how the bare needs of even the 5 million people living in my state, or the 627,180 people living in Vermont--Go Bernie) could meet their minimal needs through pre-commodified interpersonal production and consumption. I don't know anyone who can make a pair of shoes out of the skin of a dead cow, or out of a dead tree. I don't know anyone who spins wool or linen and weaves it into cloth for leggings and a tunic (the minimum clothing). I do know people who raise apples, carrots and kale (first grown as cattle feed--disgusting stuff), and who can make butter and cheese with the help of a live cow. They could furnish me with some food once in a while, but soon I would have starved to death.

London once had water sellers -- people selling slightly less murky liquid that than what the people could get out of a bad well or the Thames. That was a nice person to person business. I prefer the commodity relationship of centralized water treatment facilities. A little more chlorine, please?

Ale? There is a passage in The Tunning of Elynour Rummyng (1550) describing the wench's ale, which was brewed in a barrel over which her chickens roosted. It's a long raucous poem written by English poet John Skelton and presents disgusting images of rural drinking and drunkenness. I was shocked! Shocked! See, they didn't have a commodity relationship to their alehouse. I prefer sanitary, bottled and branded ale that I can count on to not have chicken shit as a flavoring agent.

Our commodity status and relationships are so essential to our lives (and have been for, oh, maybe 150 years) that we no longer see them, and have forgotten (or never knew) anything about the downside of artesian production -- like starvation in the spring, freezing in the winter, dying from bad water in the summer, or having to gather acorns, walnuts, apples, chestnuts, mushrooms, bits of cereal, berries, and what not at harvest time and somehow keeping the stuff from spoiling or being eaten by vermin. Life for us lumpen proles was tough before commodity relationships came to the rescue. (Not too tough, or we wouldn't be here today; most of us did not descend from well-fed, richly clothed, palace-housed royals.)

The person-to-person non-commodified pre-fetishized economy has been fading away for quite a while in different parts of the world. It hasn't disappeared, but to reinstate it as a more humane, less alienating market relationship would be extraordinarily difficult.

You can find a handy sampling of the ruling class by looking at a list of the Fortune 500 -- a listing of the 500 largest corporations in the United States--surprisingly published by Fortune Magazine. It isn't the workers at these companies, it's the top brass. Also, look for a listing of the 100, or 500, or 1000 -- whatever -- richest people in the United States.

Another stat: Less than two dozen people in the world hold more wealth than 1/3 of the world's population. When you have that much money, you can call a lot of shots.

what distinguishes these professional policy-makers from the ruling class? — Enrique

The ruling class is distinguished by the amount of power they have. In any nation, the ruling class has at least tacit support of the population, but they also have the explicit support of business, military, religion, and so on. The power of the ruling class is not imaginary, symbolic, or figurative. Their power is literal, but (at least in democracies) is not crudely displayed.

Who is in the American Ruling Class (ARC)? They who own the largest block of the economy--people like Warren Buffett (Berkshire Hathaway, which includes businesses from Dairy Queen to the Burlington Northern Santa Fe railroad system), major stockholders of corporations, the ultra rich who, like Bill Gates have huge stakes in major corporations, and so on. The boards of directors of corporations -- everything from Wells Fargo, Consolidated Edison, Proctor & Gamble, General Motors, etc. (They are on these boards because they hold a large stake in the corporations.). The top management of the military; the heads of central government agencies like Treasury, State Department, Interior, Defense, etc. How many people? Certainly less than 1,000,000 -- or about 1/3 of 1%, counting those at the tip.

What level of continuity does the upper class have that would give it a sustained, multi-generational and cohesive agenda? — Enrique

G. William Domhoff has analyzed the ruling class. Domhoff (and other authors) show how ruling class families have been, are, and (in all likelihood) will continue to be very deliberate about maintaining multigenerational class continuity. Who marries whom? No matter how hot he or she might be, the private's son or daughter will almost certainly NOT marry the 5-star general's child. Similarly, the lowly teller is not going to marry the son of the chair of Morgan Chase Bank. Not going to happen. Money and power marry money and power.

Where do the children go to school? Summer camp? Youth clubs? College? The children of the rich and powerful do not attend public schools, or run of the mill private schools, either. They attend elite schools from the cradle through whatever terminal degree they earn (at Yale, Harvard, Princeton, Berkeley, etc.). At these elite institutions they learn which class they belong to, what its interests are, and (eventually) how to keep things that way.

Most people do not mix with the ruling class because the ruling class is an exclusive club.

Here is a web site for Who Rules America -- G. William Domhoff's research: Well worth checking out.

what is the mechanism of real control? It seems like you're suggesting money might be the mode of influence, but what is the relationship between financing and cultural organization? — Enrique

In short, it's the Golden Rule: Them with the gold make the rules.

"Cultural organization" or what Marx called the reproduction of society, takes money. Some cultural organizations, like public schools, are broadly financed from local taxes. Other institutions, like elite universities, cultivate donor relationships with the upper class of people who have lots of money. Harvard's $40 billion endowment wasn't accumulated by begging on Boston Commons with tin cups. They gathered their endowment by the truck load.

Across the country, major cultural organizations -- schools, orchestras, museums, theaters, and so forth are kept afloat by major gifts, and the major gifts definitely influence what the institutions will do. Whether orchestras play Bach or Philip Glass doesn't matter all that much, maybe, but what is taught in schools (K - post doctoral studies) does matter. Finding major funding for an new arts magazine would be a breeze compared to finding major funding for magazines featuring socialism, anarchism, trans issues, poor men's rights, and so on. You practically have to rob a bank to get money for these sorts of cultural projects. Take two very minor magazines which were really very interesting and lively and covered significant issues -- Processed World (dealt with temporary workers) and Diseased Pariah News (dealt with people who were HIV+ and suffering from AIDS). Both operated on a shoe string.

Are politics no longer a part of public life? — Enrique

If, and only if the governed decide to roll over and play dead.

I'll get in touch with my inner Socrates. What is an upper class, how can we define it? An upper class isn't simply people with lots of power... — Enrique

People with lots of power are called "the ruling class". They rule because they have lots of power.

There are 3 basic classes are divided up on the basis of how they get an income.

Working class (the majority) = people who depend on their ability to labor for a daily, weekly, or monthly wage. They are also called "wage slaves" because they are dependent on their wage.
Middle class (a minority) = people who are small to medium-sized entrepreneurs and highly trained professionals. They are an employing class.
Upper class (quite small minority) are people who are in a position to live off the income of investments. They may actively be involved in various companies, but generally they stay involved in order to maximize returns.
Ruling class = people with an extraordinary amount of wealth who are in a position to shape policy.

There are perhaps 2% of the population who is or could be in the ruling class. Working FOR the ruling class may give one some power and prestige, but those are only on loan.

He'd be right, of course.

Aristotle might die on the spot from the shock of having the light switched on.

Socrates might say, "2500 years later this is the best we can do?"

"I always said that nothing straight was ever built with the crooked timber of humanity. How right I was!!! Immanuel Kant

Hegel said "'the rational alone is real' and this is REALLY AWFUL".

Camus immediately pulled out his pistol and shot himself.

He just sits there with his thoughts and memories of perception. Out of nowhere, a masked man steals the mans wallet, punches him in his face and has sex with the mans wife in front of him. — Mark Dennis

Maybe the masked bandit would be thoughtful enough to have sex with the guy who doesn't have many opportunities to feel pleasure. It would work for me, but never mind.

Of course a wrong would be done. A person has rights that can be attacked without one being aware of it. If a bank officer swindles you out of your money, you have been swindled before you find out about it. A comatose person (however we define 'coma') has rights too. That's why we don't just start cutting them up for spare parts when they've been unconscious for a couple of weeks. "Awareness of a wrong" isn't required for a wrong to exist.

You might not suffer from being swindled until you know about it; you might not suffer from pain inflicted that you can not feel, but that is another issue separate from a wrong done.

True: a little controversy never hurt anyone. Actually, quite a bit of controversy never hurt anyone either.

If we compare 21st century realities to the historical myths of an earlier time when politics were vital and the citizenry were engaged, then it seems like our wonderful democratic republic has fallen into deep decay. The hard core truth of the matter is that the political deck was stacked against the average citizen from the very beginning.

We began our national history (early 1600s) as elite-governed and elite-serving provinces of an empire in which the average person had little say. The black slaves, of course, had no say in anything, but the "white trash" who made up a good share of the population had no say either. (Good source: White Trash : The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America by Nancy Isenberg. 2016.).

After the Revolution of 1776, a local elite was either in place or arose. You know their names -- the familiar founding fathers. Over time, decade after decade of economic, geographical, political, and military expansion the elite's power waxed. It wasn't a conspiracy -- this is just the way most societies work: the many are governed or managed by the few.

I don't want to exaggerate, however. Being an American was a good deal for a lot of ordinary folk who came here from Europe (voluntarily) and prospered in agriculture and trade. Upward mobility was more available here than in Europe, for the most part. Suffrage was expanded (grudgingly) until by 1920 both ordinary men and women could vote. Blacks were openly and greatly hindered every step of the way after emancipation.

So, here we are, the product of the usually complicated history.

The Ruling Class composed of the very wealthy and their ranks of political and economic servants down the line pretty much run things for their own benefit and convenience. Their historical rule is echoed in the last lines of a popular hymn, "Holy, Holy, Holy": which wert and which art, and ever more shall be.

Theoretically we could overthrow the ruling class and establish an economic democracy. People have tried hard to float this idea. Damned if I know how to do it.

Just here to mark my dismay at the loss of yet another long time poster. — VagabondSpectre

It is sad.

What is causing veteran posters to lose their cool all of a sudden? — VagabondSpectre

We live in an age of diminishing returns. Those who have been here longest have seen the returns diminish the most.

Street light summarized the demands -- which were stated in an NPR report from Hong Kong. They are not, according to a spokeswoman in Hong Kong, seeking independence from China. There are supposed to be two systems; they want their part.

They might be defeated, true. However, they are not betting on a horserace; they are demanding what was supposed to be their system (one country, two systems). They are also (gratuitously) providing a fine example of resistance to ordinary, banal tyranny for other people around the world who are unhappy with their governments' behavior.

Not all civil battles are won, just as not all military battles are won. But if the goal is sufficiently worthwhile, it is worth the risk of failure. Your lickity-boot approach only makes sense if nothing much is at stake.

The Importance of Philosophy
Why do philosophy in the first place, what does it matter? — Pfhorrest

The philosophy that is most important is the effort we make to situate ourselves in the world, and judge whether where we are is good or not. some people do not think about these questions, because their questions have been answered by their other-worldly or their temporal ruler, or because they prefer not to think about such matters. Somebody has to get out and till the corn so that there will be food on the table. Be grateful that the corn was hoed.

Somebody has been thinking about these questions beginning perhaps 300,000 years ago. There is no accumulation of insight, because each person in each generation who asks these questions must find his or her own answers.

Now in the 21st Century, we are still asking these kinds of questions. Perhaps we are able to use more sophisticated language (or not) but the need to situate ourselves in our time and place is no less or more important. The answer does not usually come to us swiftly. We can spend decades rolling the question around in our heads without much result.

Ok, so we've established that the FHA is still racist. — Harry Hindu

I don't know why this is difficult. The FHA could be 100% color blind, and the black housing conditions could be worse now (which they are). Ameliorating the damage done to the black community in the area of housing would require reparations. The FHA is not charged with the task of paying reparations, and nobody else is, either -- as you know.

There are two other sets of actors in the real estate industry: real estate brokerages and banks. Their roles are at least as critical now as the FHA's role.

Does the FHA still "notice color" for the purpose of segregating whites and blacks today? I didn't get an answer - just more ad hominems. — Harry Hindu

The FHA does not now engage in racial segregation as a matter of policy. They have been reformed by court orders, legislation, and large changes in the political personnel--different than what existed in 1935. In 1935, southern congressmen could force racial exclusion into federal law. The segregationist congressmen, and their allies north and south, have died.

The point I was making is that, even if we became color blind over night racial segregation would continue. Why is that? It would continue because white people, even if they are 100% enlightened about race, possess so much more valuable real estate than any other group. A big hunk of the wealth advantage is a legacy of the earlier segregation. how? After WWII, vast suburban building projects serving many millions of families, were sold only to white people. These were very good housing properties and they appreciated in value several times over. As the older generation moved on, they liquidated that large value and a younger (white) generation inherited the wealth. Real estate, and racially preferential employment policies, has cemented the white advantage.

Most non-whites lack the accumulated advantages of real estate appreciation and preferential employment. THEREFORE, they will not be able to buy into economically segregated communities. The suburbs stay mostly white because blacks can't afford to buy houses there.

The economic crash of 2007 created conditions for some racial integration. Homes owned by bankrupted victims have, in many cases, been bought up by rental companies. Minorities can often rent a house in an otherwise mostly white neighborhood. Rental companies owning large numbers of housing in a community is never a good thing for housing values, but it opens up some opportunities. If housing prices rise sufficiently, the rental houses will be sold to buyers, who will probably be white.

I refer the OP to the Jerry Seinfeld Comedy series, which was a show about nothing. Very popular. Also, this on YouTube:

Nothin' from nothin' leaves nothin'
You gotta have somethin' if you wanna be with me
Nothin' from nothin' leaves nothin'
You gotta have somethin' if you wanna be with me

I'm not tryna be your hero
'Cause that zero is too cold for me, brrr
I'm not tryin' to be your highness
'Cause that minus is too low to see, yeah

and so on. Nothing has been done already.

But this is 2019. What are the racist institutions in 2019? Are you saying the FHA is still racist today? — Harry Hindu

The economic effects of what the FHA began doing in 1935 and (supposedly) ended in the 1980s are enduring. In addition, disinvestment in housing continues to occur, which is why some parts of cities descend into slum grade housing, or stay that way.

There are, of course, other important factors at work. Loss of manufacturing jobs, poor education performance, deteriorating family structures, alcohol and drugs, and on and on. There are also cultural factors at work that aren't institutional. Individuals make decisions that affect their lifetime outcomes, for better and for worse.

Does this response address your question? I'm on my way to a funeral just right now, so not much time.

Is there anything we can do about this? — Wallows

Yes: Stop worrying about it.

To use a phrase which you popularized a while back, The Philosophy Forum "is what it is". What it is is a free chat room of sorts where people share ideas in a generally civil, thoughtful manner, helped by a hit squad of volunteer moderators who do a good job of keeping the site free of garbage. There's no barrier to entry and no achievement grades once one signs up. It is there for the taking or the leaving. Moreover, the forum is pitched to a relatively narrow population: People who are interested in philosophy, or at least in having thoughtful conversations about Life As We Know It.

Please be aware that people do the same thing on even fine porn sites. They view; they sign up; they may or may not post so much as a plaid wool-covered breast; they get bored or feel guilty and are not seen again. Some people--usually guys--just like the philosophy forum--contribute content and keep the site as active as it is. Tumblr has millions of porn fans who sign up and "come and go" so to speak.

If people don't stay with porn sites that offer physical pleasure as a reward, how much less likely are they to stay on a site that offers them perhaps only slight interest and many conundrums?

The turnover rate has nothing to do with philosophy. Revolving door participation is a feature of public fora, whether they are actual or virtual. It's not a bug, it's a feature.

As for guiding the peasants into higher abstractions, just put the hay down where the goats can get at it. Most people will, quite appropriately, find their level of interest. Over time a sub-population will migrate across the board, forming layers of interest with people like you on the farthest side, and others with less interest in abstractions in bands closer to the starting point.

I'm sorry, but there is nothing special about the field of philosophy among other academic fields. "Nothing special" is not disparagement. There are a host of academic fields which will interest people differentially. If philosophy or biology or supply chain management or literature or mathematics or history or music or... whatever is your thing, do that.

Let's take a longer over view than the last century. We evolved into our modern form roughly 300,000 years ago, and we lived as expert tool making hunter gatherers for about 280,000 years. During that time we were certainly not in any sort of Edenic state: We engaged in the sort of conflict that primates tend to engage in. (We are, after all, primates.). During those 280,000 years we did very little damage to the earth (we didn't have the means, yet). There weren't too many of us then, so we weren't always rubbing up against each other, the way people do in crowded cities.

Around 20,000 years ago, by some means not altogether known, we began to grow food, rather than using the snatch and grab method. There are still some people who hunt and gather. In order to do that, we had to settle down. We had to organize our labor, develop timing methods so that grain was scattered at the right time. In all, life quickly grew more complicated.

In another 15,000 years we had developed writing. We started building bigger things. (Much earlier we had already learned how to travel far and wide.). In not too many years later, the Greeks and others were philosophizing. Here we are.

SO, NO. Our beginnings weren't destructive. We became destructive as we developed the means to behave more dangerously in the manner of the primates we are--clever, very short-sighted creatures.

Former Theists, how do you avoid nihilism??

Maybe they stay theists?

So, we're experiencing the longest economic boom in modern history. — Wallows

If the post WWII boom is what you are talking about, it's a very screwy boom. Anyway, the post WWII boom came to an end in the early 1970s. For the working class (just to remind you, that's about 90% of the population) it's been slowly going down-hill since 1973, with bursting bubbles along the way.

Much of the wealth expansion is highly concentrated and isn't based on actual production; it's based on speculative investments in paper, much of which does not connect to the real economy of production and consumption (per Pikeitty).

I would agree that China is a variety of fascism. I think you'll be seeing more fascist regimes over time -- but don't think Hitler and the Nazis. They were fascists of a particularly vile variety, but fascism has other - friendly and not very friendly - faces.

But but the invisible hand does wonderous things for us. Why shalt one bite it? — Wallows

It's hard to bite the invisible hand when it has your balls in a tight grip

More like rotisserie chicken, I would think.

But which of the two is more pragmatic? Is believing there is a way with optimism better than disbelieving there is a way with Pessimism? — Mark Dennis

Optimism and pessimism have nothing to do with pragmatism. Optimism and pessimism are emotional states. Neither are a solution to anything.

BECAUSE

Political priorities of world governments don’t seem to be matching up with the priorities that are required for long term survival — Mark Dennis

IT ISN'T

... extremely hard to get a true gauge of what our chances really are — Mark Dennis

It's really very simple: IF political [and economic] priorities don't match up with long term survival requirements

THEN

we won't survive.

We're screwed. The world will become our rotisserie.

Is it the biggest challenged we’ve faced as a species? — Mark Dennis

It might be, but you know, the bubonic plague wiped out at least a third of Europe's population in a short period of time. The plague was horrible, but once it let up, the survivors picked up where they left off and carried on. A lot of people found they were better off than before the plague because they had inherited bits of property that the dead had left them. The economy boomed.

I don't cite the plague as evidence that all will be well. I cite it as evidence that abandoning coal/oil/gas, and the private auto would be a horrible experience (it really would be) but that many people would survive. Walking or riding a bike to work, taking a bus, literally running to the store for bread, forgoing many of the luxuries that have become necessities (like fresh strawberries all year round, organic air-cooled-chicken, or flying 10,000 miles to attend a wedding) would be hard, but people would learn to make do. It would be easier than recovering from bubonic plague.

A realistic assessment of the global warming crisis ought to result in feelings ranging from pessimism to despair, with a side trip to include rage.

Do not make the mistake of thinking you are personally responsible. If you are not a high level national decision maker; if you are not a coal/oil/gas CEO or member of any of several coal/oil/gas boards of directors; if you are not a CEO of an auto maker; if you are not a major stockholder in any of these industries--then you are not in a position to make critical decisions.

Those who are in positions where they could make critical decisions have, by and large, decided to burn the last ton of coal, the last barrel of petroleum, and the last cubic foot of gas. That is why I am fairly certain that we will collectively suffer a hot wet death.

We are running out of time (or we have run out of time--not sure which) for our usual slow rate of change to make a difference in the outcome. What we are doing now (putting in modest wind and solar farms) we should have been doing 40 years ago. Jimmy Carter put a solar panel on the White House roof in 1976. Ronald Reagan took it down in 1980. End of discussion. We should have started worrying about temperate and tropical rain forests 40 years ago. We didn't.

A hand full of ultra-rich and power people in the world are both guilty and responsible for the critical problems we face.