Business Economics

[Mismatch]

I for one see economics as one big hoax, I mean they really need to look it over, there must be some huge flaw in the system with swhich they calculate money value.
The value of money keep dropping, even if the stockmarket rises and some currency gain worth compared to the other, money keep getting less and less worth.They should really look further into their algorithms and examine them closely. I am not well versed in the subject, so I'll ask you fellas, Has there been any progress whatsoever in the algorithms and economic theories with which they calculate theese things?
Here in sweden I get the feeling that people with an economic education is rather overrated, when I was age 16-19 I studied some business econimics and such (a tad of marketing also)... and really, it gets you nowhere, imo it's a profession about knowing nothing really. Offcourse there is some good things which come out of it, but it's mostly results of studies which anyone can make, like thisone:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/36655.html

And as far as business economics go, no system is really good. Here in Sweden the government go socialism all the way, and I must say it's reallyreally annoying.
With a regular income tax at 30%, a tax on everything you buy at 25% and alcohol & tobacco taxes even higher, you don't get much money left. You'd think we'd have a rather good infrastructure and good prices on traintickets and such because of government sponsorship, but no. We have some of the highest publictransportation fees in all of europe, our healthcare is really declining, and unemployment is on the rise.
And why not, the socialist economic policy scare all companies away, and all taxes go to the unemployed ppl, who really are a buncha lazy bastards. All in Sweden know that a great change must be done, since within 20 years over 55% of the population will be retired, and, since we have a governmental pension (you don't have to save for your pension yourself, the about 35% who'll be in a working age, will have to support the rest of society. This will not work... no way. But does the government care? No, not really.

And, as far as capitalism goes, I am not really happy with that either. I wouldn't wanna live in the US, where too much is about makeing companies happy, enviromental laws arent passed and pollution is more or less allowed so that US companies will be kept happy. This may be a result of the rather foolish US campaing contribution system which is pretty much a system of bribery. Citizen rights are a seconday objective, corporations are more important than the inhabitants of the country, and I must say the US view of human rights scare me quite a lot.

I could go on and on about both systems raveing and ranting. I can only see one working system, and that is haveing me as a world leader, I'd rule with an iron fist sending legions of ppl into my bottomless coalpits, and collectiong billions and billions of "volontary" contributions from citizens. Offcoure I'd have deathsquads, who'll take care of resisters and such.
And then, when finally people manage to start a revolution and overthrow my evil government, they will be so overjoyed and so happy that they'll try to ensure that nothing like my rule will ever come to pass again, and they'll form a flawless way of running things, an Utopy will emerge and all will be just great.

[Kashluk]

It's frustrating and some what funny at the same time, don't you agree? Those same things that cause the stress on economy and we dislike in socialism are the same things we would hope / expect to get from the capitalist system.

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But about the stuff you mentioned about economic studies... The thing is that the free market, capitalist system or whatever you want to call it, is like a big living entity (ie. what Trakocian wrote earlier). The only people who can control it are governmental bureaucrats and even their hands are tied by laws passed by the parliament, not to mention that it's not rare that even they lose control.

The markets have grown and so has the system become much, much more complex. So complex in fact, that one person is not even supposed to understand all of it, simply the ways how to live with the system and it's effects.

Being a business college graduate or a master of economic sciences doesn't mean you can much affect the system. It's all about learning to "live as parasite" ON the system. Here at the business studies institute they teach us things that could be described as means of survival in the jungle called Free Market. We learn wages calculation, accounting, documenting, company founding and all other boring stuff you can imagine

They give us the "tools" to hang on to economics, nothing more. People who graduate from such institutes similar or higher level to mine aren't supposed to change the system they've been taught to survive in/on - they've taught, like said, to survive.

As for currency value dropping for no obvious reason etc: only in rare cases does money or any other kind of value just disappear. It's like material or essence in chemistry - it only changes form and place.

For example, the Swedish Crown has been hitting it's real low-point against Euro lately, which has been getting stronger and stronger. This on the other hand has crippled the EMU-nations' export, which means good news for Japan and especially USA, which is trying to shake off a quite long-lasting economic recession. Anyways, the point is that if someone loses money then someone else will gain more profit and the other way around.

[Mismatch]

It's frustrating and some what funny at the same time, don't you agree? Those same things that cause the stress on economy and we dislike in socialism are the same things we would hope / expect to get from the capitalist system.

indeed, and sad that people never manage to balance things. It seems that pople feel that they need to defend their ideas by takeing them to their extremes rather than to adopt the best of the two worlds.

You're probably right about the value of maney, since you seem to be rather familiar with the subject.(All it takes is to seem like one knows what one is talking about for people to think you do. Ergo: I think you do.)But hardheaded I still maintain my position, I will not listen to reason. I am convinced that the system is flawed, any system of which you have lost control is no longer a working system.
If it was possible I'd reccomend to put the current system out of its misery and form a new one, but alas, since the system now is controlling us instead of vice versa it won't be possible.

[Kashluk]

No, no, no... In my opinion you are completely correct! It isn't a working system, it's flawed as hell. But it's the best we got and (right now) we got to stick with it.

And yes, the system (kind of) controls us... It controls us in form of keeping us, the wealthy and prospering, wealthy and prospering. Any system that we know of that doesn't oppress the poor and make profit for one person from another person's misery doesn't guarantee this level of advance in arts and/or science.

As a side note, I'm not really that familiar with the subject, besides being on my first year of business economics studies and having a shit-rich businessman / economic genius uncle A man who moved to the Soviet Union in the 1970's as a politically radical communist youngster but changed sides at some point, so he has first-hand experience of the good and bad sides of both socialism and capitalism.

[Mismatch]

rich uncle you say......
how about we stage a lil' kidnapping you and me


btw, this evening the english will suffer a humiliating defeat at the hands of sweden.

[Kashluk]

No way, he'd just hire some ex-Alpha Squad commandos from Moscow to kill both of us for even trying something like that

And btw, what are you talking about? Which sport?

[Mismatch]

No way, he'd just hire some ex-Alpha Squad commandos from Moscow to kill both of us for even trying something like that

the A-team :0

oh, football offcourse, or soccer as they call it in countries where their idea of football is running with the ball in your hands. I mean c'mon, calling american football football is like calling horsebackriding cowbackriding.

[Walks with the Snails]

The value of money keep dropping, even if the stockmarket rises and some currency gain worth compared to the other, money keep getting less and less worth.They should really look further into their algorithms and examine them closely.

That's actually deliberate. It's called inflation. All governments continually print more money than they destroy, leading to gradual devaluation of the currency. It's believed that relatively low inflation is a good thing because it gives people motivation to spend or invest their money. Deflation, where money gets more valuable over time, tends to wreck economies, as people save more and spend less. On the international scale, currencies also go up and down in proportion to trade. If a country exports more than it imports, it's currency becomes more valuable in proportion to others because of how the money is flowing. When foreigners invest in a country, that also boosts the value of that country's currency, as foreign money is getting translated into domestic money.

And, as far as capitalism goes, I am not really happy with that either. I wouldn't wanna live in the US, where too much is about makeing companies happy, enviromental laws arent passed and pollution is more or less allowed so that US companies will be kept happy. This may be a result of the rather foolish US campaing contribution system which is pretty much a system of bribery. Citizen rights are a seconday objective, corporations are more important than the inhabitants of the country, and I must say the US view of human rights scare me quite a lot.

Well, partly we just like to bitch, too. Really, it's not so bad here, and you don't have to drink the Kool-Aid if you don't want to. We've also got hippie communes, militias, Amish communities; if you can imagine it it's probably in America somewhere. You'll just get sniffs of derision in some corners if you don't really care about playing the game and being a good consumer, leading the life of quiet desperation.

[CloudNineGT]

The US is a fine place to live. Environmental laws do get passed often enough, and I certainly can still breathe (as opposed to Mexico) so something’s going ok. You make it seem like the US is some industrial empire, the citizens rats in a maze of steam and machinery. Hardly. Corporations are a part of daily life as they are in any country, and US citizens have far too many rights anyway. Huge corporations do often get special treatment, but that’s also a truth worldwide. Look at France, they pay companies to stay there. Companies in the US have to put up with all our workers rights laws, though often they relocate to much poorer countries.

[Mismatch]

Naah, from what I've heard, the air in the US is rather foul. And, furthermore some months age, Bush refused to sign (or follow or whatever) some international enviromental agreement concerning discharges of carbonmonoxide or summit.

SO, saying that USA has a good enviromental act is, as we say in Sweden, lögn och förbannad dikt (lies and bloody fabrication).

[Doyle]

Naah, from what I've heard, the air in the US is rather foul.

That has not been my experience.

And, furthermore some months age, Bush refused to sign (or follow or whatever) some international enviromental agreement concerning discharges of carbonmonoxide or summit.

They Kyoto treaty? That's a whole different can of worms.

[Mismatch]

They Kyoto treaty? That's a whole different can of worms.

Yeah, that's the one, I wasn't sure though, so I decided not to write the agreements name.

[CloudNineGT]

Every thing over here is environmentally sound, the biggest problem we have here is salmon arnt as numerous as they used to be, and the nuclear plant, but that’s not active anymore. Our president <I>is</I> a dumbass, but as Doyle said, the Kyoto protocol is something else entirely. It costs a lot and it puts people out of work.

[Mismatch]

Nuclear Power is neat, much better than coal power, and since water and wind power doesn't produce energy enough, it's the best alternative.

oh, and, about the Kyoto agreement, pray tell about teh can of worms.

[Walks with the Snails]

Yeah, the air is just fine here, really. It's been getting steadily cleaner for the past 30+ years, in fact. The only time you'd even be aware of it is in a city with a population in the millions, of which there are that many, and even then only on a hot summer day. If "what you hear" is from some uncle who came here 20 years ago and spent the whole time in a tour bus in Los Angeles behind some guy who's 40 year old truck was burning oil, get a second opinion. From my somewhat limited experience abroad, I'd say Athens and London were more polluted than anywhere I've been in America.

And the Kyoto treaty is a joke, anyway. People like to scapegoat Bush like everything else, but guess what. Over here, the President doesn't ratify our treaties, the Senate does. And when Kyoto went to the Senate in Clinton's term, it was rejected 98-0. That's right, John Kerry, John Edwards, Ted Kennedy, Tom Daschle, and all the other lovely Democrats voted against it, too. Mostly because it was set up to screw us, while the real emerging pollution dangers, China and India, got a free pass.

[Kashluk]

I haven't really ever been to such a "smoggy" city, that I could tell I've experienced it. Only really big city I've ever been to was Berlin (~ 4 million people) and I really couldn't tell the difference between the air quality of the German countryside and the Berlin city centre. What I've heard and learned is that in most Western cities the air pollution problem has been got under control?

But the facts still stand: number one carbon dioxide producer in the world is USA. Might've got something to do with cheap fuel and commonness of automobiles, mebbe?

[CloudNineGT]

I heard europian gas sells at $2 a litre, Is that true? If it is, I'll stop bitching about high gas prices.

[Kashluk]

It varies a lot, here in Finland where 75% of the price is tax, it's around 1.3 € = 1.6 $, IIRC? Someone with a better memory could help me here, though, because I don't own a car and don't need to worry about the gas prices.

[Mismatch]

About the same here in Sweden, 1.5-1.6$, most of it taxes. But I think it's ok with high gasprices, alcohol taxes they should lower, but keep that gas costing. After all it harms not only teh enviroment, but it also ruins the facades of them buildings from the old days, and restoring theese are rather expensive.

oh, and we did win against england, we havent lost to them in 36 years.

[CloudNineGT]

ok, just to solidify my amazement, those are prices for one <i>liter</i> right? I mean that&#8217;s four times what I pay, how can anyone afford to drive?

Oh, and so that I don&#8217;t derail this too badly, have we essentially decided capitalism is the way to go, until either humans learn to work as a group, or robots save our ass?