Yes, now that emotion is supposedly superior to thought !!!!!!

From what I read, this started in feudal Times and really blossomed with outright slavery. Now it’s done with emotional manipulation mostly

I second Mama

"The goal is to control the people who understand and work with reality."

That is correct and the bedrock of looters/moochers.

Excellent!
The viros ARE killers. There is plenty of explicit evidence.
Thanks for explaining things.

Ain't it the truth!--But just look at what people are
learning in school. I don't mean in politics primarily,
but the way they are taught (or not taught) to use
their minds. It looks to me like if this country is to be
saved, it will have to be by the homeschool movement.

"Socialism or communism........may be great concepts." Gag!

I signed in just to upbote your excellent comment

Ayn Rand was a genius to put into words the end game of socialists. Interestingly enough trump said today that Venezuela's problem wasnt the improper implementation of socialism, but it was the end result of socialism itself. I almost fell over when I heard him say that to the UN. No wonder the democrats hate him.

Same as in Atlas Shrugged.

Not in any systematic, meaningful way. There are still reactions against the progressively increasing statism, but with no idea a across the country in general of what is right, it leads to nowhere good -- only to a zigzag superimposed on a downward trend.

Don't equate price deflation with deflation of the money supply, even inadvertently through ambiguity. Prices go down naturally in an advanced industrial society as you described. Monetary deflation is an artificial reduction in money, throttling the ability to (privately) borrow and invest. Likewise for inflation as inflation of the money supply versus increases in prices for whatever reason.

I did mean Libertarians, but good thought, it could also mean most everyone!

Well said. It is precisely the tripe in the article that we must confront. So many people accept the pablum in this article as dogma that it makes me seriously wonder whether it would be worth going back to the world after spending any time in Galt's Gulch at all.

especially when the fishermen realize whats really going on and collect just enough fish to eat

I'm not quite sure whether I would call this piece disturbing. I suppose it is, in the sense that like so many "progressives" the authors talk about what they believe to be a lot of problems, but nowhere do they provide any detail or specifics, or any solutions to what they say the problems are.
On the one hand they say that 4.3 billion people live in poverty. The World Bank doesn't give that kind of number. It says that 10.7% of the world's population live on less than $1.90 per day (down from 35% in 1990). Is that the "world poverty line? Who knows. I suppose it all comes down to what the definition of poverty is.
On the other hand, the authors say, correctly in my view, that our economic system demands greater and greater resources which are becoming more and more scarce. If mankind is to reach a place where real poverty is minimal, something must, indeed, change. However, it seems to me that many of the alternatives to capitalism, or socialism or communism, idealist and sometimes silly, that are proffered in this piece may be great concepts, but I fail to see how anything mentioned does not suffer from the same fatal flaw as capitalism, socialism or communism: namely the demand for greater yet limited resources.
Mankind has been exceptionally good at creating one thing. More people. Actually, too many people. If the authors of this piece, and the idealist types who agree with them are to create the Nirvana of "shared prosperity", with everyone having enough, of no one left out, with no one living in poverty or "at the bottom" of any economic scale, then I believe it can only be accomplished by having a much smaller human population - substantially smaller. Maybe only 2 Billion, and maybe even that is too big.
The bad news is that given our current population growth rate, and consumer economies, and the increasing demands by egalitarians for "economic justice" (I.e. Equality of incomes) we are ultimately doomed to failure, and the world of Soilent Green may, in reality, be our real future.

That may be what a statist thinks about fishing, but such "control" will probably result in getting fewer fish, too.

What garbage.
In the first place, capitalism has been more and more restricted, and often prohibited from operating. To speak of it as "orthodox", as if it were being imposed on everybody, is glaringly hypocritical.
But what I believe in, basically, whether it is called "capitalism" or not, is individual rights. And a man's right to trade with another man on terms they both agree on. (As long as no third party's right is violated; for instance, two do not have a right to sell a third into slavery). And that one purpose of government is to protect such a right. And the end result of such, if practiced without contradiction, is, necessarily: capitalism.
Of course, people who choose have a right to go together and live together in a hippie commune, but ultimately I believe that that cannot work.

He wants an alternative to Capitalism and Socialism, yet does not even begin to define what that would be. He says Cap. has failed, causing - among other things - 1/2 the population to be in poverty, environmentalism to be ignored, etc. Yet true Cap. has never existed; and where it has been the strongest, it has clearly succeeded.
Socialism is what exists almost everywhere, and that is what is "dogma and dangerous".

Note that the Dem. party is fighting for the same mysterious thing; and that "thing" is pure socialism.

Nope, not since 1964..............

I completely agree with your amended example which cites the backing and the fact that the supply itself (of gold in this case) may increase. In your original example, you cited a number defining the available currency as static, so by definition it was artificially constrained - which is why I pointed it out. The phrase "artificially constrained monetary supply" absolutely should bother anyone who wants a robust and sound economic system.

"The real danger is the unconstrained increase in money supply which happens with fiat money whose only constraint is the will power of the government"

Absolutely. This is why the abandonment of the Gold Standard in 1964 was so bad. It has led to our currency inflation problems and our astronomical debt.

SURPRISED?

Agreed my example was overly simplistic. Just trying to point out that a correction to market manipulation is not the only deflationary event. Even a non manipulated market with sound money can have deflation.

As you stated, thinking of money itself as a good that adjusts itself to the market is probably the best way to think about it.

When you say,"Artificially constrained monetary supply," it bothers me a bit. Sound money like something based on gold standard will always be constrained. The amount of available gold can increase but it is limited and has cost associated with the increase.

The real danger is the unconstrained increase in money supply which happens with fiat money whose only constraint is the will power of the government (always moves towards zero over time).

I agree it isn't the only cause, but it is the primary one.

Your example is overly simplistic, however. It doesn't matter how many widgets I produce, but how many I sell. It is not merely production, but consumption that determines the total value of the economy (see China's ghost cities). But is money a representation of the economy, or of the value used in the exchange of goods and services?

The better example is that a population expands and demand for widgets increases to 110 units per year. That population's labor efforts receive remuneration for their efforts which they then turn around and use to purchase widgets. Because there is an artificially constrained monetary supply, wages decrease, in turn forcing a corresponding decrease in "cost" (only comparative to the prior year) of widgets (and all other consumer goods). But if you look at the matter not in terms of the money supply but in terms of absolute labor, you have zero inflation and zero deflation - the money itself as a good must then reflect the new market realities.

Appreciate your thanks. My reaction to reading the article was basically the same as yours. Posted because I think it is important to be aware of what those who do not hold my views think.

My concern after reading this was the extreme ignorance of matter economic and the thinking that their ideas are new. It goes back to the old adage, "Those who refuse to learn from history are doomed to repeat it." I just hope that I or my sons do not have to live through a repeat of this foolishness in this country in our lifetimes, but I have learned not to underestimate the stupidity of people.