What is this Sky TV hack?
 

J G Miller wrote:
On Wed, 07 Oct 2009 23:37:14 +0100, Tony wrote:

yes, but is not the point of capitalism to provide for society

No the point of capitalism is to acquire as much capital as possible
in order to control society in order to acquire further capital.

or can it survive without the poor?

No, capitalism needs the poor. Why do you think that capitalists close
down their production lines in countries where people have more wealth
and move them to countries where people are much poorer?


Its hard to argue with that but I think you are viewing things a bit too
black and white. I am talking about short sighted views. Making crap
products and services will just use up the money in the economy for less
useful purposes creating less good quality capital. ie it won't survive
competition or downturns. Banks for instance have increased their
capital mostly by increasing the perceived value of their assets, by
lending out money the borrowers could not afford to repay based on loans
secured on overvalued assets, this devalues the assets (after its
discovered) and they return to more sustainable market values and the
banks go bankrupt, except for gov't bailouts buying the useless assets.
Not very capitalist is it?

Anyway manufacturers move manufacturing to cheaper countries because the
alternative is to go out of business. There are very few manufacturers
increasing their capital these days, the west can't compete with the Far
east who are prepared to sell at a loss (its a myth that the labour cost
makes all the difference). Its only through the non capitalist action
of the Chinese gov't that allow it to continue. However I suspect their
business model will cease to function in the next 5 years or so.

Of course anything that has tight regulation like heath products or
Aviation are in a much better position because noone trusts companies
that don't make a profit to make anything important.

--
Tony

What is this Sky TV hack?
 

On Fri, 09 Oct 2009 17:48:11 +0100, Tony wrote:

I am talking about short sighted views.

No disagreement over that point.

Making crap products and services will just use up the money
in the economy for less useful purposes creating less good
quality capital. ie it won't survive competition or downturns.

Unless the competition is doing the same thing. Consider consumer
goods -- it is now vital that consumer goods are manufactured with
built in obsolescence because once most people have bought them
thanks to mass manufacturing making them available to almost all,
the market is saturated.

So the corporation cuts costs, and makes a cheaper product which
wears out more quickly or becomes technologically obsolete
(2k boxes, split-NIT etc) or makes a more technologically
advanced product to replace the older one (DVD-audio over
CD-audio, BluRay over DVD-HD over DVD).

Anyway manufacturers move manufacturing to cheaper countries
because the alternative is to go out of business.

By this statement you have just proved that manufacturers
need the poor. Cheaper countries is a euphemism for poor people.

What is this Sky TV hack?
 

In article ,
Tony wrote:
Anyway manufacturers move manufacturing to cheaper countries because the
alternative is to go out of business.

The actual cost of manufacture can be a small percent of the retail cost
with many things.

--
*Cleaned by Stevie Wonder, checked by David Blunkett*

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

What is this Sky TV hack?
 

J G Miller wrote:

By this statement you have just proved that manufacturers
need the poor. Cheaper countries is a euphemism for poor people.

I think that was 'my' point :-)

--
Tony