Money keeps the world spinning!

I figure it still fits under the 'does capitalism work' umbrella, in terms of sustainability etc. And I guess with the distant storms () of peak oil/gas ahead, the energy angle is one of the most interesting 'use of resources' discussions. It's not so much that we have to look for 'other lands' (altho the moon could be mined for a novel fuel type I'm told ), but dig up the existing ones some more.

I'm pretty optimistic that new tech will and can be found in terms of replacing current energy sources as and when needed (there are a load of classy ideas out there, such as the 'Terrapower' nuke research Bill Gates is funding, which aims to make use of the '99pc waste' uranium as a fuel & harvest more from the seas etc). I'm more hesitant on whether they'll kick in early enough to impact on the Climate Change projections. Which we can leave aside (with its contingent objections to existing abundant fuels like coal etc), but it brings up the other knotty issue of tackling global outcomes of private industry. The CFC response shows it can be done (although that's ongoing, in that human N02 release depletes the ozone layer too and is on the rise, due to innovation in the agricultural sector... on which more in a sec ), but it's often where 'The State' has to pick up the pieces.

Yeah I'd say new tech can have a teething stage at the very least, and often bring a new set of considerations (and potential downsides) that can take time to recognise & address. In the above case it's confounded by the resource being in a troubled region etc.

*EDITED* You do make me giggle tho. The way you pin sluggishness in cleaning up ecological damage on governments, when as a rule the private industries involved rarely show signs of tackling these issues until kicked up the arse by said political bodies (or sued by those affected via the law courts etc). I think we both agree though that ecological concerns are one of the key areas where the State can often outdo the free market.

Yeah, all things being equal, I think they're expecting population to peak and then decline as everyone gets in on the small-family industrialised way of things. And the Malthusian worries of food shortages were swept aside by technology, no doubt, but as hinted at above, other strands that need sweeping up are still emerging from the Green Revolution that achieved this. Modern farming is, amongst other things, far more energy intensive than it used to be (due to fertiliser production etc in the main), which links us back into a cycle of resource availability. I think it's all 'in hand' as it were. (So long as you leave the main body of Climate Change science to the side ).

Consider me still half painted blue

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Virtual Reality chatter on a movie site? Got endless amounts of it here. Reviews over here

I doubt you can give me a verified example (not just some wild charge) of one businessman who has "destroyed others lifes just to make more money." That view implies that it's the businessman's duty to take care of others who cannot earn a living without his help and charity. Like he has the only job those people can do and get paid? Like they can't find another job that pays as well or better, or at least lets them get by until they can find a better paying job?

This type of argument reminds me of a guy with whom I once worked who wrote a column giving Coca-Cola hell because the company closed one of its smallest operations and laid off like 300 people who were involved in growing and processing oranges into orange juice down in Florida. He claimed the company should have maintained that unprofitable operation just to keep those 300 employed. But isn't it really the duty of those workers to find more solid employment with a bigger, more successful orange juice producer? Was Coca-Cola the only employer around? Couldn't the ex-workers apply the skills they learned in growing and processing oranges for Coca Cola to maybe grow and process lemons or limes or some other product? Where does it say if a company hires you it's got to take care of you for the rest of your life? It can fire you for doing poor work, missing too many days, stealing from the company, sexual harassment, being drunk on the job, punching the boss in the eye, or any number of reasons. But if they close an unprofitable plant or shut down an unprofitable business, everyone wants to paint them as a monster. Even though in the US such massive layoffs require the company to provide a separation package which usually involves extra pay for a month or more based on senority and an outplacement service to help employees search for new jobs. What about the flip side of that equation--what's the employees' duty to make that plant or division more profitable so they could keep their jobs?

Is it the company's fault that the ex-worker didn't manage his finances better and set aside savings so maybe he wouldn't have lost his home and his car and other things he bought on credit? Where does individual responsibilty for one's own welfare enter the picture?

And what about employee loyalty. If you're working for a company and a competitive firm across the street offers you a bigger paycheck, are you going to say, "No, thanks, I owe it to this company to stay because they hired and trained and promoted me"? Not on your Aunt Fanny!

Seems like nowdays everyone wants someone else to take care of them--the employer, the government, mom, dad, grandma. Whatever happened to individual pride and ambition?

I'm truly sorry your life is so rough, but listen to what you're saying--you're young and don't have much experience, you don't have much money because you did not have the self-discipline to save for a rainy day. The state failed to provide you with a proper education. The labor unions are weak. The whole world is against you. So do you take any responsibilty for yourself at all instead of blaming everyone else for your misfortune? The schools were bad, but did you go to the public library to read more on the subjects? Did you ask teachers to work with you after class? Did you do extra work for extra points? I'm not familar with the German school system; maybe none of that applies, but you yourself know (and I'm not asking you to tell) whether you did your absolute best in school and took advantage of all possibilities. The best jobs may not be open to you but surely you can find something to get you started, to develop good work habits, maybe learn a trade or at least enough to get out of that job into a better one down the line. You can put money aside and get more education, even if it's only a trade school.

As for the poor kids being traumatized by life in the housing projects, that reminds me of when I was working the cop shop and saw all of these young punks being brought in for stealing and drugs and violence, all "traumatized" by the ghetto. At the same time in the same halls of the police station there were men and women from that same ghetto working every night for a steady paycheck as members of the janitorial staff. I also saw cops and lawyers and reporters who came out of those same neighborhoods and made better lifes for themselves. I think it's more the case of individual initiative that decides where we end up, not where we started out.

How many times have YOU been HOMELESS, ruffy? Or anywhere close to homeless? How did you escape what these pathetic "non-achievers" apparently missed? Are you trying to imply that Texas is an Oasis for every single homeless, jobless person there? Or are you just some kind of genius? Love ya, ruffy, seriously.

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It's what you learn after you know it all that counts. - John Wooden
My IMDb page

"Industry is the root of all ugliness" - Oscar Wilde.

Sure, money is great, but it should remain as the means to trade and exchange, rather than being the end goal. Too many projects and companies focus on making more money and being more profitable as though that increase in efficiency is going to outweigh the losses in quality. Obvious and overused example: the music industry. They don't care about making quality music, only about making more money. Hence the market is flooded with trash that for some reason people will listen to for a few weeks at a time.

Businessmen don't destroy lives just to make more money, I mean killing people isn't the aim but it's certainly the outcome in many countries in the undeveloped world where health and safety standards don't match the ones in the company's own US/European HQ countries. Easy to transfer business over to places where people can be paid pennies and not have our own governments's safety and environmental rules.

Two examples:

Union Carbide destroyed lives in Bhopal in the process of making money for their shareholders. If the original release of deadly chemicals was an accident, the subsequent abandoning of the leaking chemical containers for years was willful.

Many people in Indian villages accuse Coca Cola of exploiting the ground water resources leaving drought behind for whole settlements leading to disease and death.

In Germany they are. Often, you can even tell it by their names. I don`t wanna take a stand for the poor or for working class heroes or something like, I don`t give a ****, I simply have worries about my own future. At the moment I do an occupational training, so I am able to work in the social area. I don`t really wanna do this. Half of my family is working there (social branch), and most of them are not very happy about it. But I have to do it, because of the money. That`s how money affects my life, make my going ways I don`t wanna go all the time and that`s was my point with this thread. Money keeps the world spinning and your own personal hamster wheel, too. On my first training day (not as cool as with Denzel W.), my superior said something like: "Strange, how kids become like their parents, laywer-sons become laywers, bankerkids become bankers. And sons and daughters of nurses become brothers and sisters." Great.

No. It`s gambling. Was that even a real question?


Like greed, this isn`t necessarly a bad thing. It can change a unfair situation, unfortunately sometimes in a very violent way.


For a reason. "Industry is the root of all ugliness." isn`t that wrong. The Industry era built up the modern world and was a orgy of exploitation. Even the land of the free was built on slavery and land robbery.

In "Dino Park" M.Crichton write something like this: Stone-Age-People had to work about three or four hours per day. The rest of the time, they were free to do whatever they want - in a clean, non-polluted area, without thousands of civilisation diseases. Nowadays employed people work about ten or twelve hours a day, in the office, in the household and so on, ambitious peple even more. I`m surely don´t want to go back, but I think about that, too.


No, I think you`ve got me wrong. It means: Everything that provides working places is good, no matter how bad the conditions for the employees are.



No? It`s not my biz,`cause it`s not my country, but 33 milion unsecured american people may think different. Newspapers in Germany talking about Obama gave them a second chance, maybe even a second life. All I know, is that poverty or threat of poverty, strains you out in so many ways, it has the power to **** you up, no matter how much you`ve got. People who never made this experience, tend to underestimate the destructable power of the absence of money. I think we are really came from different sides of the scale. Sure, there is a stabile minority of people who will waste any money for alcohol, drugs, home media and other dependencies, everytime. But I never get the logic, that there is an preventive destention for all people in need, because of this minority. Maybe he`s your deadbeat uncle, but you can`t choose yourself a family, right?

Talking for myself, I´ve got some extra-nitro, right now. Maybe I am able to do it right and wipe the smile of some ******** faces. But I don`t like the whole concept of modern capitalism and how money keeps the world spinning. Here is an angry face, showing everyone I`m pissed off!

I rather doubt that the majority of wealthy people in any country inherited their wealth. Is there any information to this effect demonstrating otherwise in Germany, or is this just a guess?

You're saying that all investment, all startup businesses, all venture capital...is gambling?

This is absolutely false, and the fact that you regard investment this way probably goes a long way towards explaining your attitude towards wealth and capitalism in general.

Some businesses are run well; some are run poorly. Some are based on good ideas for products; some are not. To say that investment is gambling is to say that either a) these things have no effect on which businesses succeed or fail, and/or b) that it's absolutely impossible to tell the difference. And if you've ever had an opinion about whether or not one product was better than another, or about whether or not a given product was a good or bad value, then you've already contradicted both of these ideas.

There's also the fact that some investors consistently outperform others, which wouldn't be possible if they were just guessing.

There's also the fact that investments have steadily risen as long as we've been tracking them. Even through boom and busts, in the American market, for example, you can't find a ten year period in which stocks as a whole didn't go up.

There's also the fact that millions of people have made trillions of transactions, which would be unthinkable if the whole system were just some crapshoot.

I think there's a fairly large disconnect between our conceptions of what wealth is and how it's created. If you insist on thinking that wealth is finite and that investment is random, even though both things are demonstrably false, then I don't have any hope of convincing you that capitalism is worthwhile.

But there has to be something behind that, something that makes the situation "unfair" or not. If you're fixing something that's truly unfair, then we just call it "justice."

Thinking that some people shouldn't make a lot of money, just because, isn't a reason. It's nothing but the envy, and envy isn't a good reason for social upheaval.

The phrase "built on" is a bit odd. By this logic anything which took place in the nation's infancy means everything that has come after has been "built on" that, even though the ingenuity shown by Americans several generations later was a separate thing entirely. Slavery was not a inevitable prerequisite for the invention of the personal computer or the internal combustion engine.

It's easy to blame wealthy people because envy is a universal human trait, and understanding economics is not. And, specifically, because some people believe there's no such thing as growth and that you only move the same fixed amount of wealth around, which means they think that every dollar a rich person has is one that they don't.

Well, you can think about it, but as you say, you wouldn't want to live then. Very few of us would. Also, we don't need to work 10 to 12 hours a day, we choose to so we can afford a more comfortable life. If I just wanted to get by on 3 to 4 hours a day, I could do so, and I could do it in far more comfort (no matter how poor I was) than your average cave man. There's also the little matter of which work is harder; 10 or 12 hours in a factory, or even at a desk, or 3 or 4 hours of hunting and gathering. I know which I'd choose.

I don't understand what you're trying to say here, nor how it relates to what I said about social programs.

Then they would be wrong. I didn't say everything was perfect, or that everyone had insurance, I said that we spend billions upon billions of dollars on social programs and federal assistance, and that clearly, throwing money at some problems isn't going to fix them.

I don't think we do at all; I grew up poor. My earliest memories are of living in a crappy duplex in one of the bad parts of town. I remember -- with a very unsettling clarity -- what it felt like to know we didn't have enough money. I remember laying in bed and offering my Dad the pennies I'd saved up to see if it'd help. I remember one day wondering what would happen to me if I suddenly had to buy my own food (I was a very worrisome kid). I remember these things so vividly that they sometimes turn my stomach in knots even now.

But as much as I hate the way that felt, that feeling has driven me to work harder every day since, and to save a lot more of my money than most of my friends of the same age. It's a horrible little blessing, to know how stressful it feels to be poor. I don't think I'd want to forget it, even if I had the opportunity to.

I don't make a lot even now, but I'm very careful with it. I am not rich, nor have I ever been rich. And I absolutely dismiss out of hand any argument that anything I'm saying would have been invalid even if I had been.

I wasn't suggesting that everyone poor is on drugs, or a drunk. It was an analogy to explain why some forms of social spending don't fix the problem.

The comfort we live in is unrivaled in the whole of human history, and its because of the same system you're so upset with. This, as far as I can see, isn't arguable.

I'm sorry you're having trouble, but that doesn't mean that whatever system you're having trouble under must be invalid.

The question of whether or not capitalism is a good system cannot only be settled by listing its upsides and downsides, but by comparing them to every other system available to us. At a certain point, these complaints stop being about capitalism, and start being about humanity in general. There's not an economic system in the world, or in history, that will prevent people from falling on hard times.

I absolutely can. Give me some time for this,`cause the first thing that comes to my mind, is a little delicate and political, and this should be not about nations or so.


It´not his duty, but in times of mass unemployment, like here in germany,
the weights are shifting. Businessmens and coorperate-owners are no
"Big Sugar Daddys", but they are self-imposed role-models for the modern society, face it, "descendants" of clan-leaders or something like that.


Sorry, that`s con logic. They make profit at all, but not as much as they could, right? So, yeah, kick them all out! Reminds me on "Wild Animals", amusing flick. Workers uusally got families to feed, not-so-succesfull-companies still got traditions. Did CC even made an overture to the staff, for changing to an affiliate (Sprite)? I don`t think so.



No monsters. Just, you know, cold people with no heart and dollar-signs in the eyes.

Whoa! It´s a part of the american culture, ain`t it? It worked for a long time. Banks and governments supported this developement. But in your opinion, almost all ex-workers seems to be big kids with no control of their impulsive behaviours. ("It can fire you for doing poor work, missing too many days, stealing from the company, sexual harassment, being drunk on the job, punching the boss in the eye, or any number of reasons."). Sometimes it is exactly like that. Otherhand there are things like: Dumping. mobbing, betrayal, blackmailing and the killing of working-counsils-in-progress.

Today? No way! Back in the day? Probably. You get what you give. Especially loyality and trust. And my Aunt is named Marion .


That´s your opinion. I think more and more people felt left outside alone.
And this could be a reaction. Look, I write so much about it, but I`m not even a real part of this show. I had many jobs in my life, but no carrer. But besides that, how people threat each other, freaks me out. You almost spare one third of your life in or on your working place. It`s shouldn`t be a Lalala-Land for everyone, that`s utopic, but so many people are burned out and on the end of their mental theter.


I visit trade school for a half year or so. It was not my kind of style. My personal history is long and confusing and I will not tell it here. But trust me, the german school systems sucks. They seperate you out at fourth grade (!), when you are about ten years old. That´s a time, when you are hardly aware of what`s going on and furthermore absolutely characterized by your parents and your environment. That can be good or bad. Anyway, I think I will make it. Things can only get better.

I lived in some very sad districts. And I know, that this districts defintely eats up young talents and kills weak dreamers. I think it`s never bad to have ideals. Of course it`s good, when some tough individuals, "get out alive", but the rest stays there forever.

How come I have to be homeless or anywhere near homeless to question individual initiative among workers, yet anyone can bash "big business" without ever being even a junior executive?

When I came out of the Army, the first job I could land was sacking groceries. Could only afford to take the job because I was living with my younger brother and his wife and driving a car I'd bought and paid for in high school. (does it qualify as homeless that I couldn't afford a home of my own whild paying child support for my daughter). Worked at a succession of low-paying jobs but always moving up to something that paid better. The top of the heap was a job as a lab assistant (no not mixing chemicals but grinding fusalinds) at the old Humble Oil Co. Paid a whole $350/month prior to the takeouts. From that I paid $50/month for child support (I wasn't working at all when my wife and I divorced and she was anxious to remarry, which is why the child support was so low). Also paid about $65/month for a used car I bought to replace my other vehicle when it stopped running. From the rest of my income, I rented a small furnished apartment in a poor neighborhood. Place was overrun with cockroaches you could hear scurrying around at night when the lights were off. Each morning, I had to pick cockroaches out of the cereal box prior to pouring breakfast (It helps to think of them as free protein since throwing away the cereal and going hungry wasn't a choice. Was late on sending in a car payment that first month because I had to pay a month's deposit plus first month's rent and buy some food for my apartment and a sauce pan to warm the canned beans in. Next weekend a bank rep was knocking on my door before 8 a.m. Saturday threatening to take the car if I didn't pay up within a week. No one heard the term "homeless" but I was as close as I ever want to get.

Finally, Congress passed a new GI bill for Viet Nam vets and backdated it to include my period of enlistment (sponsored by a Texas congressman). I figured out that if I could get a part-time job on campus and a small apartment within walking distance off campus, along with the monthly GI bill payment and a student loan through the state of Texas, I could have more cash going to school than I could by staying at my current job. I applied to a handful of Texas colleges and Texas Tech not only accepted me but offered me a small scholarship for a couple of hundred bucks!

Let the bank take my car, got my brother to drive me up to Lubbock, found a small one-room apartment (half of a garage with a bathroom shared by the other apartment in the other half of the garage). Had a small 3-ft high refrigerator and a single electric heating plate on a table that also doubled as my school desk with the one chair in the room. Got a job working between classes in the registrar's office. Even so, there were days I'd have gone hungry if not for the "care packages" my Mom sent me. Lunch would be a small can of beets. Supper might be a small can of corn. I only had one pot, anyway. I went 6-8 months without ever seeing a movie, ever drinking a coke, ever having a date of any kind. But I made the dean's list with a 4.O average and won a bigger scholarship. So no, I've never been homeless but I've damn sure been poor. And I took advantage of every opportunity and worked my butt off to rise above that, so I know it can be done.

Most of the stats I've seen on the truly homeless indicate a great many have mental or personality problems as a result of the move years ago to "de-institutionalize" the mentally handicapped. Also a lot of them are wineos and drug addicts and therefore unlikely to get any better. I definitely endorse any program that will get those people off the street. But I also know from my police beat days that most of the "homeless veterans" you see begging at street corners are really part of Gypsy bands that work this and the psychic forturne-teller scams moving from town to town. Someone gets bilked out of money by Mother Zaza and goes to police, by the time the cops get to the psychic's office, there's another woman now going by Mother Zaza and the original con-artist is now working the same con in Dallas or New Orleans. So apparently there are homeless and "homeless."

I don't recall all of the details of the Bhopal disaster some years ago, but I certain it was not a normal "process of making money for shareholders." If anything, the resulting loss of life, including first and foremost the company's own employees who were the closest people to the leaks, the resulting publicity, lawsuits, and settlements cost the shareholders a hell of a lot more than they were making on that operation prior to the disaster. So where is a company's incentive to willingly work on the edge of a disaster? That's like blaming an airline pilot for knowingly taking off in an aircraft that he knows is unsafe and then crashing and killing all aboard. If that plane dives into the ground, he's gonna be the first person to die. If a refinery or chemical plant blows, the crew running that facility are the first in the line of danger.

I don't recall enough about the Bhopal incident to argue points of fact with you, but the way I remember it is that some worker--likely someone who lived with his family in that very neighborhood--opened (or shut) the wrong valve, causing the accident, so it wasn't something that people in Union Carbide's US board room could have known about or prevented.

But let me tell you about a mishap I do remember back in 1988 when the Piper Alpha gas production platform blew up in the North Sea. Months of investigation by British officials, the company, and the unions concluded that the explosion occurred when one crew was overhauling some gas production equipment when time came for a shift change and another crew took over. Workers on most offshore rigs and platforms work 12 hour shifts and then are off 12 hours 7 days a week. No one knows why, but apparently one shift did not communicate to the other the stage they were at in overhauling the equipment, with the result that a lot of gas eventually vented, reached an ignition source and exploded blowing that platform all to hell and killing 167 workers. Only about 57 survived. The platform was operated by Occidental Petroleum and the first thing Oxy officials told the surviving families was that the company would do whatever it could to help them in that sad time. The company made money available to help with any immediate expenses such as paying rent, childcare, transportation for family members to wherever the wounded and dead had been taken, medical and funeral expenses. And they did so without anyone telling the company it had to. These were its employees who had died and they stood ready to help the survivors any way they could. Oxy continued picking up tabs for months even before the lawyers and lawsuits were later worked out. The company cooperated fully with the investigation and as a result of things learned from that tragedy, they redesigned where sleeping quarters and escape boats are located on offshore platforms. Oxy put in a bank of dozens of telephones all manned around the clock so that when we in the news media called in from updates, they would provide the latest information, the latest statments from company and government officials, and if you asked a question they couldn't answer, they'd go find someone who could. It's the perfect example of the type of response a smart company would make when a disaster occurs.

There was another case earlier than that I think in which some large metal tanks containing crude at a refinery site collapsed, dumping several barrels of oil into (I think) the Ohio River. Even though his attorney's were telling him not to, the company CEO immediately told the press, "We're going to make this right, whatever the cost." It went immediately into action to block and pick up the crude before it could get further downstream and pollute an even bigger waterway. It cooperated with local, state, and federal officials in the clean up and in the investigation of what happened. And like the CEO said, the company did everything in its power to clean up the spill and restore the environment to its previous condition.

Now for someone to claim that company knowingly put oil into tanks it knew might fail or that Getty knowingly allowed conditions where an expensive production platform would blow up and kill skilled workers is just not thinking straight. That oil was worth a lot more to that company in its tanks and eventually in its refinery being converted to petroleum products than as an oil slick on a river from which the local employees also got their water and went boating and swimming and hunting just like the other residents in that area. I'm sorry--taking such huge financial risks just to crank out production doesn't make sense because when those tanks collapsed, when that platform blew, production immediately shut down and remained shut down for many months. In the case of the offshore platform, they had to call in famed wild well specialist Red Adair to put out the fire. That took several days with Red and his crew on site, and those boys did not work cheap--you're looking at a tab that alone could run more than $1 million a day.

Some 70-80 years ago, some Germans were claiming you could tell the rich by their Jewish names.

Oh, really? You can disagree with my opinions, but Nazi comparisons are just lame and out...you know in the past, in Germany, there were people who also make strange comparisons...

I think SoulInside is talking about names like von Thurn und Taxis, instantly recognisable as a rich family name? Much like in the not so distant past in the UK double barrelled surnames were the preserve of the aristocracy. Now they're more used by a couple who don't want to get married but who want to join their surnames.

Ruf, I know Occidental Petroleum did the right thing, but you might say that they damn well should too! There's been lots of cases which show that the public responds well to companies which act quickly in emergencies and treats people fairly. Although Piper Alpha was a terrible accident, Occidental would've had insurance and some of the families of the dead are still unhappy that Occidental were never brought to court in this country despite the public enquiry being critical of their safely procedures.

Sure, the initial mistake at the Union Carbide plant was caused by an employee, but Union Carbide tried to get out of their responsibilities, not having the same safety standards as their US plants relying on the Indian Government who didn't want to lose the industry. The compensation paid to the families of the dead was pitiful. The aftermath of that horrendous disaster is still being felt in the environment in water and soil contamination and in peoples health.

I think some companies do actually work on the edge of disaster, due to limitations of finance, hoping that nothing will happen. Like us going out in a car that's making a funny noise hoping we'll make it to the shops and back. Witness several train accidents in the UK due to the poor state of track maintenance when the rail network was privatised. The wish to make money for the shareholders was greater than the need for safety, so much so that the government was forced to take back responsibility for infrastructure.

Example: There are 50 companies listed on the german stock market. From all this companies, only one has got an chairman with a "modest" background. There are paths, which make it easier for kids from the "right" neighborhoods and families. That´s nothing new, but in germany the lines are a little sharper sometimes.
Of course, this is the 21th century: If you are a) clever b) self-disciplined and receive c) good support from your family, you can easily make it to the university or wherever, no matter where you came from - and make big money. But if just one of this elements is invalid, you already have serious trouble before you even get it started. And further on, you will have nothing but problems.


Absolutely not! You said investement, not start-up business. I thought about things like buying houses, apartments or shares. You buy it, cause you speculate on a rise of prices. But you never know. What happens, when the government-plans (pump some money in the infrastructure) are cut, because of the tight budget? No young artist, couples, yuppies, hipsters and families will move there. Immigrants, poor, drugdealers and other shady people instead. Or even more simply: It turns out, that the house is built on a earthquake-line or a old indian tombyard. Bad Luck. You lost money, no matter how good your selling-skills are. Same with stock market. Sure, I don`t understand it. But as it turns out, so many of the people, who are involved with tons of money, didn`t have a clue either!

We are who we are, because of trade. Brilliant invention. My position isn`t extreme. Investment is mainly another word for taking risks- you are dependent from other peoples actions. Generally I see no difference between these and simple bets with switching odds. And wealth is infinite, of course. Nothing material is infinite.


I mentioned the world-wide "scissoir" about three or four times now. No one responds to that. But it`s a growing fact.

Right. But what about our new minister of defense Karl-Theodor Maria Nikolaus Johann Jacob Philipp Franz Joseph Sylvester Freiherr von und zu Guttenberg also known as the "Black Baron"?





I have to admit, even I`m impressed by his s(l)ick, fresh style. His blonde wife (swedish aristocraty) is a dream come true! He`s Mr. Bombastic, the most popular politician in germany. Or our family-minister Urusla von der Leyen? But these are just actors. On a daily level parents usually name their kids according to the environment. Double-barreled names means: Florian-Konstantin will likely have a good income, Anna-Sophia anyway, certain other names are uncommon among wealthy people. Subtle differences, stop crying baby. Real connections between single members of these two different subcultures are as rare as poking horses.

Thank God he's not a footballer. It'd cost a fortune to have his name on the back of your shirt.

So what names of rich families did you have in mind? Smith? Jones? Williams? Actually I didn't even mention the Nazis, just simply pointed out a propensity in Germany over the years for prejudices connected to family names.

As for Nazi references being "lame and out" when I was in Mannheim in 1963-1964, the Germans I met almost always asked if I were a Jew based on my given name. In that same period, there were reports and pictures in local newspapers of the results of vandals desecrating Jewish cemeteries by painting swastikas on headstones. I've seen much more recent reports that neo-Nazism of the Skinhead type is on the rise in Germany, so we're not exactly talking ancient history if we were to draw parrallels to Nazi Germany.

So apparently industry is to be damned even if it tries to do the right thing! "Yeah, Oxy paid willingly, but we still wanted to take them to court!!!" Even though the whole thing could have been avoided if one group of workers had told the other group what they had been doing and what still needed to be done before they went to eat and sleep.

In all these law suits in the wake of an industrial disaster, I wonder how much money it might take to "satisfy" someone over the loss of a loved one. Or are we simply talking revenge here? A financial lynching?

Well the big difference, you see, is that in something like the oil industry, you can't even get in the game on a shoestring, not in a business where just an average land rig rents for 5 figures a day, where a small offshore rig in shallow water runs hundreds of thousands per day, and a really big rig in deep or harsh waters costs more than $1 million a day.

Some years ago, there was an ol' boy here in Houston, Red Adair, who was one of the best at extinguising well fires and capping wild wells. Say you have a blow-out--the first thing it does is wreck and melt your $50,000-$90,000/day rig plus other expensive equipment, and you've likely got workers in the hospital who you will be picking up costs for. Meanwhile, you've got hundreds of barrels of oil and billions of cu. ft. of natural gas going up in flame and smoke, while the landowner stands by with his adding machine counting up the damage to his property. So your only hope to save anything at all is to get someone like Red and his crew in there to put out the fire and cap the well. Saying used to be that if you asked Red what it would cost to do that work, you really didn't need him. Didn't matter what it cost--all that mattered was getting the well capped before you lose any more money.

Yet we've seen it in the movies time after time where evil businessman Michael Caine cuts corners by willingly buying defective rig equipment, and Stephen Segal fixes him by blowing up a refinery. Not exactly the environmentally safe way to go, but what the hell, we can't let those lousy capitalists get away with anything!

But see, if you know anything about the manufacture and use of oil field equiptment, the first thing you gotta ask yourself is where the hell did Caine find "defective" equiptment to buy? It's not like this stuff is treated like used cars that can be palmed off on any unwary buyer. Things like blowout preventers and valves start getting checked from the time that the iron ore is separated and purified. At every step up through the sale to the steel company, the material is identified, inspected, and checked. That continues when they make the steel and start to roll it into sheets. There's a paper trail of inspections and reports that follow it all through the process to the sale of the product, it's connection to other equipment and its installation. Years later you can go back and see what company made the steel, in what plant was it rolled, who were the crew and boss overseeing that work, who were the inspectors who signed off at one stage and who accepted it at the next. It's possible to reuse some equipment, but not until after it has been refurbished and reinspected. That doesn't mean someone just looks at it and says, "Yeah, it looks good to me." There are certain specifications on the thickness of the steel at various points, over valve closures and such. They even Xray and use sound and light waves to make sure it's up to exact specifications. Even when you retire and discard material, it still has to be documented. I imagine stuff would really hit the fan if a piece of equipment certified to have been melted down and recycled were to show up again. But I've never heard of such a thing ever happening. Industry isn't nearly the heartless monsters so many people like to think they are. And even if they were, they're smart enough to know that oil is valuable to them only if it ends up being marketed to consumers, not when it's spread over the landscape or going up in flames.

Since no one can guess in advance when or where an industrial disaster can happen or how big it will be or how much damage it will cause or how much product is lost or how long it will take to repair or if workers or others will be hurt or killed or how much the lawsuits might be for, or how a judge or jury might decide (although it's safe to bet it won't be in the company's favor), it wouldn't make make much sense for a company knowingly to run a risk on faulty equiptment, not knowing if it will last a year, a month, or blow up that afternoon. Moreover, according to your theory, the company is not likely just to run one risk, so there would be the dangerous possibility of dozens of disasters one after another or all at once. And companies just can't plan budgets and dividends around things like that.

This is a genuinely lame arg ruf. Aside from Soul's initial point clearly being about names denoting class (not race or religion, an important distinction), and some examples now being given of names which suggest family privilege etc, you're now trying to justify your Nazi parallel by saying neo-Nazis still exist in Germany, ergo Soul could well be making neo-Nazi assertions. But my dear ruf, the Klan still exists in the US, but I'm not about to start mentioning burning crosses if you were to say you didn't like Obama, or what have you.

I'm sorry if you encountered anti-Semitic feeling when you visited Germany (although it's not clear from your account, I'm assuming that's what happened for you to be taking this stance). I think you've lost the plot a bit here tho.