Forum Post: we're letting monopolies price set and determine how much of your life they want to take in exchange for their products
Posted 11 years ago on May 31, 2012, 9:51 p.m. EST by elf3
(4203)
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
Bring back the baker, butcher, and candlestick maker - end monopoly rule !!! There's enough economy for all of us if we just free the market from the tyranny of Wall Street.
Good post elf3. The bigger the corporation, the worse they behave. World would do fine without corporations. Wall Street has intensely damaged the world.
There's been a resurgence in local markets for produce and even meat and fish, here in Australia. The stranglehold on the dairy and egg industries remains, which makes it illegal to sell milk, butter, cheese or yoghurt and eggs privately, but in just about every town and village there is a weekend market where you can buy fresh (usually chemical-free) fruit and veges, in season, of course.
I take a cooler bag, for the cold stuff, and we have our own chooks for eggs.
It's all about taking control of your own purchasing power, and taking small steps towards a bigger goal.
Not sure about regulations in the US of A, but local markets are a great step forward, away from corporate rule over our food.
Take back control from monsatan, and their ongoing campaign to turn all food into a commodity.
Wall Street uses government to regulate the mom and pops and keep them out of business - driving down innovation, competition, and the entrepreneur.
Really, how?
permits, business licenses, red tape, taxes inflicted on small business that large businesses can simply skirt around with their money, influence, power, and staff of lawyers it only helps large business monopolies to create as much red tape as possible - really do you think if Wall Street didn't want it it would be there? I mean because Congress has done so much to punish them for headquartering themselves overseas and outsourcing all of their labor? HAH hAH HAAA HAAA HHAAAAAA
And ALEC, installing toadies like the Snot Walkers and Rick Snots, coercing Big Military and municipalities to stay on fossil fuels, union busting, crab mentality, on and on...
But what area of business do you not have a choice?
Unions, now those are anti-choice people.
When we let "monopolies" purchase our democracy, we have to expect all sorts of abuses. But the guiding force behind all of what you address is arrant greed. There is never "enough economy" for anybody but a greed-addled few in the 1%. This is Class War and the strategy is Shock Doctrine!
Where does your paycheck end up? Who sets the prices for your life? When monopolies price set - you will work, they will profit, you work harder they profit even more, then they lay you off and let you start from scratch while they build an empire. If you don't like their prices - you can always visit one of the other 3 mega-stores or choose not to eat. But what about utilities, insurance, cars, how come in such a bad economy all this stuff still costs exactly around the same price - too high for your pay scale?
Funny. I thought I set the prices for my life.
I chose the car I drive based on the price I was willing/able to pay for it.
I chose my house based on the price I was willing/able to pay for it added to the price I was willing/able to pay for insurance and utilities.
You see, I calculated what I could afford based on my paychecks and then made my selections based upon that information. If I don't like the price of something, I (gasp) go without it, find a way to get it or make it cheaper, barter for it, or WAIT for it until I save up enough money to purchase it.
You see, monopolies cannot make ANY money if the products or services they create or provide are so expensive that the public cannot buy them. AND if the public refused to take out credit or spend beyond their means, then the monopolies would HAVE to lower their prices or go out of business.
You're totally ignorant - if you think that there are people out there whose pay can even meet the minimum standards of living - like oh (gasp) we are going without food to make it by - forget extras. When you work in the service sector or you make under $26,000 a year as do 50 percent of Americans there is a minimum cost on basic goods that your paycheck is not meeting. Most rents are over-priced as is housing. The jobs of today aren't meeting basic living costs ( I was not talking about extra things other than basic survival needs) unless (GASP) you mean if we just can't afford that there's always a nice cardboard box we caspn live in rather than "choose" to live above our means. Guess what even working two full time jobs at $26,000 a year after taxes you still will only make enough money to not qualify for a mortgage under the basic minimum debt to income ratio - so that means we can rent from some baby boomer landlord who is sucking our generation dry with their immense over-inflated rents that determine our cost of living - well quite fitting they'll get to collect their SSI a whole decade earlier than my generation. The real problem here is there is noone representing anyone under 40. They're representing the materialistic financially irresponsible baby boomer generation (aka the spend spend spend credit equity debt generation) that caused this mess to begin with. You're just lucky enough to have been old enough at the time to be set enough to cash in on the fake bubble economy while saddling my generation with the shit end of the stick and your debt and sorry political choices. So please don't act like somehow we're the ones who have caused this - or that we're the ones perpetuating it with our basic need to survive. You're statements are inflammatory. Everyone knows the truth you just want to keep what you stole from us and you want us to keep carrying your greedy careless selves into your ripe old age while we learn to live without food or doctors.
WW2 created a tremendous debt
World War two resulted in a manufacturing boom here in the USA (because products were once made here) that pulled the country out of depression - there is nothing to do that now - except a system reboot and us (Occupy)
government work programs puled the US out of the depression
So tell me then Matt how the bankrupted government magically came up with all this mad money to put people to work? I mean if noone is working kind of hard to tax them huh? The truth is they went to work making massive amounts of weaponry and war supplies - that got made in America. That's the part that's missing now. America made here - drives competitive employment a need for workers. I don't want us all to get jobs by going to war that is criminal (though the war profiteers don't see it that way kind of sad they sway politicians into war reap all the benefits yet have it made overseas; so our soldiers can make them wealthy and then they deplete the government with their over-priced thieving contracts and practices that could be better spent paying the soldiers) but anyway if we rid ourselves of all these large monopolies it leaves a gaping whole Americans will fill with American jobs - small businesses who can't monopolize don't take their employment opportunities overseas and pay slave wages and exploit prisoners of a Communist regime to do their labor and make their products. Wall Street claims to hate Communism but their sure love to partner with it. What does that say about their governing styles? Scary that they're also partnering with our government.
As long as "monopolies" (Big Biz) recognize the advantages, and exploits the hell out of them, of government, and "WE" don't, "WE" will continue the spiral decent into feudal hell. Wake up and use the weapons our forefather fought, died and established for us!
taxes on the wealthy income
jumped from 27% to 79% between 1931 and 1936
http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/history-of-american-income-tax-rates/
yes there are no other nuances to this at all - a lot of my taxes go towards that elderly woman I see every day who might otherwise be starving in the street - or to that library that provides the under-educated the chance to catch up without paying - or that provides me with the option of not having my house burn down. It's all the mis-spending and subsidies that are the problem. But that's what bribery does. Maybe we should follow the law and prevent that with the anti-monopoly laws that were put in place to protect us. Taxes aren't the problem - it's how they are spent that is.
government can certainly be monitored better than private businesses when it comes to misspending
true but how do you monitor them when they meld with private business - exactly which portion of my government is public and which is private? They seem to be fond of privatizing the profits - even looking at the welfare system ultimately it's large private business reaping the benefits of that system. They have the government tax one portion of the populous to allow the other to spend. So your choice is out of it - there will be shopping and spending (you can't even decide not to shop within that system vote with your dollars doesn't exist) But they are making out - without any jobs - how else would there still be consumers from which they could continue to thrive?
Follow the money it always knows where loyalty goes - in a corrupt system.
follow the violence
stop it
Export peace - it is healthy and profitable for all.
Often good to practice at home as well.
Less stress.
Isn't that kind of like telling little Amy to play nice with her brother Timmy who is busy holding a blow-torch to her head and lighting her braids on fire?
How so?
[-] 1 points by elf3 (597) 0 minutes ago
Isn't that kind of like telling little Amy to play nice with her brother Timmy who is busy holding a blow-torch to her head and lighting her braids on fire? ↥twinkle ↧stinkle permalink
manipulation ? Matt just reposted my post in response to DKA - to make it look like I was responding to something else? clever truly Matt - you mastermind of evil genius - phhhht sarcasm
So that's why the righties always want to run gov like a biz!
I get the impression that government is divided into two camps of actors. One group pretends to be liberal and one conservative. Each makes noises like a good conservative or liberal, but doesn't really get anything done. The "running government like a business" thing is simply one of the standard lines for the conservative character. Neither side has a game plan designed to actually work, just lines to get them reelected.
So you don't think that either of the "two camps of actors" is actually getting anything done?
No. Partly because their personal desires don't go much past reelection. To be fair the electorate shares some of the blame. There is a deciding group of independents that can't seem to decide which path to stick with that keep swinging back and forth between the two camps.
I think the "independents" are decidedly undecided.
Is this a something one of the camps has gotten done:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/04/24/robert-draper-talks-new-book-inside-the-tea-party-house.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/25/robert-draper-anti-obama-campaign_n_1452899.html
Two bogus wars and the greatest bank heist in world history had a lot to do with "the problem."
90% in the '50s. It was smooth sailing for everybody but the abject poor. LBJ fixed a lot of that, but the Right got vindictive. Cretins!
What caused this mess is a class war that's been waged against the people for 30+ years by a greed-addled few in the 1% and their political followers in the RepubliCon Cult. Don't fall for their Crab Mentality propaganda that has us fighting each other instead of the real enemy in the top 1%.
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why does everything from cable to cars cost so much? Do you ever stop and ask why you need to make so much a year and give up so much of your life? Even for you at your wage I gather it's not all easy - but imagine living on less than $26000 per year like more than 50 percent of your fellow American's do? That's not just rough it's insanity - we're letting one percent of society determine how much of your life they want to take in exchange for their products - seems crazy to me. I think we should all have a chance - and not a chance at job slavery and student loan slavery but a chance at entrepreneurship. I want the end of monopolies. Where are the bakers, and butchers, and candlestick makers? We all know in China and you can only by their stuff in Walmart. But why ? Why are we all giving our time and money to these people/ monopolies? Things can be different - that's what this movement is about and why we're fighting so hard for it.
"why does everything from cable to cars cost so much?"
Why do some people believe they HAVE to "have" cable or expensive cars? There are cheaper cars and cable companies out there-if there was a monopoly on either one-we'd have only one or two choices. But we have far more than that don't we?
My brother is a baker in a small town in Idaho. He's doing VERY well thanks. My best friend runs a boutique where she sells her own homemade items. She's also doing very well. There are millions of small business owners out there in the real world living the dream every day. You're either ignorant of that fact or trying to convince your readers about a falsehood.
"Do you ever stop and ask why you need to make so much a year and give up so much of your life?"
I think you should top and ask "Do I really need to make so much a year or give up so much of my life?" And if the answer is no, stop doing it.
You're totally ignorant - if you think that there are people out there whose pay can even meet the minimum standards of living - like oh (gasp) we are going without food to make it by - forget extras. When you work in the service sector or you make under $26,000 a year as do 50 percent of Americans there is a minimum cost on basic goods that your paycheck is not meeting. Most rents are over-priced as is housing. The jobs of today aren't meeting basic living costs ( I was not talking about extra things other than basic survival needs unless (GASP) you mean if we just can't afford that there's always a nice cardboard box we caspn live in rather than "choose" to live above our means. Guess what even working two full time jobs at $26,000 a year after taxes you still will only make enough money to not qualify for a mortgage under the basic minimum debt to income ratio - so that means we can rent from some baby boomer landlord who is sucking our generation dry with their immense over-inflated rents that determine our cost of living - well quite fitting they'll get to collect their SSI a whole decade earlier than my generation. The real problem here is there is noone representing anyone under 40. They're representing the materialistic financially irresponsible baby boomer generation (aka the spend spend spend credit equity debt generation) that caused this mess to begin with. You're just lucky enough to have been old enough at the time to be set enough to cash in on the fake bubble economy while saddling my generation with the shit end of the stick and your debt and sorry political choices. So please don't act like somehow we're the ones who have caused this - or that we're the ones perpetuating it with our basic need to survive. You're statements are inflammatory. Everyone knows the truth you just want to keep what you stole from us and you want us to keep carrying your greedy careless selves into your ripe old age while we learn to live without food or doctors. As for your friends hmmm, how were they ever able to skirt around all those permits and regulations and somehow convince a bank that they had like $700,00 collateral to get the loan? (well unless you're an immigrant they get special loans) but even then greasing pockets to get an ideal loaction or affording those rents is killer. I wonder how they got the capital to start it (probably flipped some houses during that fake bubble- or picked up some rental properties to overcharge and siphon our generation dry) I'm so happy they have it so good for themselves and my generation can deal with the fall out from all that easy living.
Rent for a 2 bedroom, NICE apartment where I live is $650 a month. Not all rents in all places are the same. You know that right?
Someone "working two full time jobs at $26,000 a year"= $52,000 a year. Someone making $52,000 a year qualifies for a mortgage if they have medium to good credit. I just ran a calculator using those numbers and you would qualify for a house with a value between $129,000 and and $165,000. Your hysteria makes you lie apparently.
Oh and I did not cash in on the fake bubble economy, and I have no debt other than my house so I'm not saddling you or anyone else with the shit stick hon. You're doing that to yourselves.
well where we all live, here in good 'ole REALITY, USA , an apartment for $650.00 a month would land you in the ghetto with gang members and roaches - the average wage for low wage workers is around - $26,000 a year and the median house price is $300,000-$400,000. No way to save a down payment and 20 percent down of 300,000 is $60,000.
And working 80 hours a week to meet the mortgage is not sustainable you would know about sustainability in finance if you weren't a baby boomer.
And WOW - I am the one who lies??? !!!!- here's the data on your community:
http://www.city-data.com/city/New-Hope-Pennsylvania.html
SOOO Busted !!!! - follow the link to the median house price of $300,00 and average income of $67,000 - and your town hit the boom in 2009 with an average price of $600,000 - $700,00 for a single detached home.
BEST PART EVER !!!! - Look at the last statistic on the page for RENT : Median gross rent in 2009: $1,119.
Can we put Betsy Ross to bed now? Now that we have proof she is a liar siphoning off of our generation - living in posh NEW HOPE, PA
poor Betsy doesn't have to worry about money - so it's really not her fault she has no sense of finance or reality
Again, this site added "my location" in for my profile. I did not. I do not live in New Hope, PA. Never even been there. But the numbers I site are real, actual, current, rental, home, and property values where I do live.
Anyone with a braincell and google can determine thousands of places in the US today where the prices are similar. elf3 is missing one or the other....
Here's the funny thing. I NEVER input my location into my profile. The site did that on it's own. I don't live in Pennsylvania.
Now, should you ever decide to leave whatever rat infested crap hole you live in, there's a whole big wide world out there where nice apartments nowhere near a ghetto can be rented for $650.00 a month, where the average home price is WAYYYYY less than $300,000 a year (a $300,000 home in my neck of the woods gives you a quarter acre lot in an HOA community overlooking a golf course with 5 bedrooms, three baths, and assorted amenities)
A modest home in a safe, clean, friendly neighborhood near me will run you between $120,000-$180,000 in today's cheap real estate market and the payments with today's low interest rates.
These prices are common in MANY areas and MANY states in this country. I don't know who brainwashed you into thinking that the whole country shares the "reality" you live in, but it's shameful that they did it AND that you believed it. Millions of Americans live in safe, clean, decent neighborhoods right now. Millions of Americans purchase their homes for 5%-10% down every day.
You really need to open your eyes, do a little googling, and get a grip on why you keep screaming about how sick and ugly the world is and no one believes you. It's because they see and live a different "reality" than you do every day.
Please then tell us where because Occupy and an entire generation has been busy searching on Craig's list for both jobs and housing....In a place where the housing is that cheap sadly there are no jobs and if there are they pay the same ratio and thus equivalent to my current location. Also not everyone has the means to up and move someplace with no job lined up and no housing lined up (and no savings) - The ratio is set on broke/ never leave your station. Most Americans are foreclosing... and banks aren't lending to my generation now thanks to all the financially insane baby boomers who gambled, turned housing into a roulette / stock "market" model, and lost (plus the part about the 5-10% down is a blatant lie and after points and the bank is done pillaging you you don't end up with low interest (that's only for wealthy people you just starting out well you're a higher risk and thus don't get those sweet rates ...I know, I now own a home ...I just bought - but it was so difficult I feel a need to write a book for the younger generation on what they're now facing.) It happened for me only because of great great luck and happenstance and i will not pretend it was easy and I don't live in a very nice location. If they do find something "cheap" - which is still difficult because investors are bidding against them with cash offerings so they can rent them out, it is nearly impossible to get the bank to lend even when they've done everything right and the homes within affordable range have massive issues like no roof or floors. (Secondary to the loan is attempting to get insurance to satisfy the bank) I'm not negative, I'm a realist - who refuses to allow a whole generation to be sacrificed for people like you who lie to them and want to keep them ignorant as long as you can so you can continue to cash in while they are going about their lives believing you're saving anything for them. The wealthy are busy doing land grabs and the banks are busy becoming landlords changing laws to do so, and have decided they will "LET THEM RENT" forever. Don't accept this land-ownership is the ONLY way to ever get out from under the thumb of the 1 percent: Locking in a mortgage/owning land, owning your own business, and most importantly eradicating the monopoly system. That's reality for millions of Americans (not you as we can tell) but you baby-boomers thrive in your self-enclosed bubbles. Perhaps you should step into our reality and see the world as it is, not just, how it is for you: I recommend you should start by Googling under images- Homeless in America or Starvation
Wow...you just get more ridiculous by the second.
"an entire generation has been busy searching on Craig's list for both jobs and housing"
Is that entire generation unemployed and living on the street? No. Read the current unemployment numbers. They don't represent an entire generation.
"In a place where the housing is that cheap sadly there are no jobs and if there are they pay the same ratio and thus equivalent to my current location."
Then how on earth are all the people living in those houses and apartments PAYING for them? Please explain for us all....
"The ratio is set on broke/ never leave your station."
And yet myself, my husband, our neighbors, and most of our friends did exactly that. Your reality is not ours.
"Most Americans are foreclosing.."
http://realestate.aol.com/blog/2012/01/12/foreclosure-activity-at-lowest-level-since-2007/
January 12,2012
"In real terms, 1.45 percent of homes, or one in 69, were in some stage of foreclosure in 2011. That's down from 2.23 percent in 2010, 2.21 percent in 2009, and 1.8 percent in 2008. Both key metrics in 2011 were at their lowest rate since 2007, when home prices started to tank in several markets."
Maybe you can't read percentage stats...but all of those numbers prove that your statement is completely, outrageously false.
"5-10% down is a blatant lie - I own a home"
So do I. Purchased 4 years ago, 5% down. It wasn't difficult or any more complicated than it was when we bought our first home 12 years prior to this one.
"I'm a realist - who refuses to allow a whole generation to be sacrificed for people like you who lie to them and want to keep them ignorant as long as you can so you can continue to cash in"
You're a liar. You don't know me at all. I lie to no one and I have cashed in on no one. I'm not wealthy, nor do I live in a "self enclosed" bubble. But apparently you do. And if you've never traveled outside of the bubble you live in, you have NO idea what the rest of the world looks like, or lives like.
MILLIONS of people arrange for jobs in other places, arrange for housing in other places, and MOVE ON every day. No matter how many times you say that they don't, or how how fiercely you believe that they don't, it is STILL true. Sorry kiddo. The only people lying to you are the ones who tell you what you want to hear.
correction - an entire generation is working in the service sector massaging and coddling wealthy elite making sure they get their order just perfect whilst living at home with their parents since they are unable to get a start or afford an education - fyi more than 50 % of American's make less than $26,000 per year.
"An entire generation"? Exaggerate much?
50% of all American WORKERS make less than $26,000 per year. How many of those workers are working part time?
50% of all Americans don't work because they are children under the age of 16.
I didn't say 50 percent of Americans don't work - how do you find full time employment when it has become corporate policy to only hire part time so they don't have to pay benefits? You can work two part time jobs in the service sector to equal full time and you will still make under $26,000 a year. And yes and entire generation will suffer from monopolies and out-sourcing and a fixed market. Unless we do something to stop this it will get even worse.
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Good Night Dow
Good Night Comcast, Verizon, and AT&T
Good Night Wal-Mart
Yeah! Those monopolies are really riding our backs through mutual and consensual trades!
Opposed to the government, which affects our lives unconsensually!