bro.

There is no system in existence - much less life - that is forever stagnant or stable. Of COURSE economics is also a push/pull between chaos and regeneration. Humans drive monetary economy - that fickle bunch - and our planet itself is a throbbing buzz of life and climate cycles and much more than I can begin to even contemplate. Even art relies to some degree in a level of strife to be meaningful. Socialism or any other economic system would be beholden to the same dynamics.

Is there any reason to fear the coming crash of commercial office space, though? That point got a little lost. If there is a better use for these empty towers, let it die.

Chuck is spot on about capitalism/ists driving crises. Look at the Bitcoin Bros all in for the Trumpster. Not while he will do anything for positive for the economy as a whole, but because he will destroy it and drive Bitcoin prices to astronomical heights.

I'm with you on most of this. The extremely wealthy like volatility. The middle class does not. Got it. Pretty standard stuff.

So these towers are going to switch hands. So what? Are you thinking the hedge fund people will try and monopolize office space, and eventually the cost of working downtown will go way up?

@4, right? These were never ‘the peoples’ towers or whatever.

Well that’s not a real definition of capitalism, and this is wayyyy off base:
“Capitalism is, of course, defined by the constant accumulation of value, which is social rather than material. Any policy or political practice that restricts or decreases this process is by definition socialist. If recycling presents an obstacle to capital accumulation, it can correctly be described as socialist.”

No, capitalism is defined by private ownership of goods and the production of goods, and by free and competitive markets. Recycling is a want of the citizenry, and we pay various companies in the region for recycling services, individually and at the community level. The reason these companies and services exist is because capitalists have created market conditions for these companies to be economically viable.
Capitalism isn’t about profits - it’s about setting conditions for activities to be profitable, such that they will be produced in high supply, and competition will reduce those profits over time such that the consumers get everything near cost from a resilient system (unlike the government).

@6

'Capitalism
isn’t about
profits'

bingo
it's about
creating Winners
who'll use their cunning
to overthrow the Populace
& Rule this planet as THEY see fit

see also:
the Homeless
our for-Profit 'healthcare' system
the "Democratic" National Committee

ad nauseum
ad infinitum
ad Astra
baby

I would incorporate the many native cultures concept of cyclical time and events into your thesis. It's all really deja Vu all over again. We really need Psychohistory as a science to avoid the barbarian economic times.

BalderDash & HornSwoggle

The writing is on the walls all over Seattle & King County.

@3,4 The problem is that these towers will change hands because of an economic crash that hurts people who made no wrong decisions that caused the crash, and rewards the people who cause the crash. When Adam Smith wrote the Wealth of Nations, he foolishly believe that societal pressures and market forces would act as a check on rampant greed. Crony Capitalism uses political power to remove those market forces and modern advertising to convince enough of the working classes that such greed actually benefits them in the long run. This is why we have about 1/3 of the population who would be fine with Oligarchy and Crony Capitalism, as opposed to Democracy and Liberal Capitalism. You know, the system that created the largest growth of the middle class in history, after WWII.

@11, care to unpack that? I’m sure there are a few owners of towers ready to default on mortgages but so what? It’s been 4.5 years since the modern office era as we know it has died, and you know these lease terms are staggered. Banks are typically more diversified than lending to ONLY buyers of giant office towers and many mortgage holders have more than enough assets to liquidate (Amazon, looking at you). I’m gonna need a little more explanation than “another disaster is coming!!!” because that is every other headline in the US news rn and for the most part, life goes on.

@6

'Capitalism
isn’t about
profits'

bingo
it Is about
as Chas' pic shows

Big
Dick
Energy.

do
You
have it?

@13

Wrong.
see:

‘That

https://www.vox.com/culture/2018/6/27/17506898/big-dick-energy-explained

is why the inverse and the spawn of BDE is toxic masculinity.

Toxic masculinity is what the Good Men Project calls “the cultural ideal of manliness, where strength is everything while emotions are a weakness; where sex and brutality are yardsticks by which men are measured, while supposedly ‘feminine’ traits — which can range from emotional vulnerability to simply not being hypersexual — are the means by which your status as ‘man’ can be taken away.”

It’s the belief that in order to be a “real man” you must be strong to the point of cruelty and never feel anything, and it underlies violent and damaging ideologies like that of incels and the alt-right.

Toxic masculinity is an unsuccessful attempt to mimic BDE, and then furious resentment when that mimicry becomes impossible. It is the belief that you are owed the kind of easy confidence that comes with BDE, and then a desire to destroy the world that has not granted it to you.’

--by Constance Grady and Alex Abad-Santos
Jun 27, 2018, 12:30 PM PDT
tonnes more @VOX

(unfettered!)
Capitalism
explained
& witnes-
sed daily