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RE: Economical Crisis in Spanish Luthiers   You are logged in as Guest
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Stephen Eden

 

Posts: 914
Joined: Apr. 12 2008
From: UK

RE: Economical Crisis in Spanish Lut... (in reply to jshelton5040

Sorry for my delayed Responce a Long public holiday and partying to do left no time for a considered reply.

Anders I think you have misunderstood my point. I suggested making a Guitar I could market at that price. Not lower my current price. I would just have to work more hours to earn enough to afford a decent life style.
I sell a few guitars to retailers who, as you may know, require a huge discount most of the time around 50% your own asking price. So you can imagine how much I sell some of my guitars for already. These provide handy sales and advertising in places that have far more people go through than my dusty workshop. I would and will continue to work like this as long as it takes to get to the reputation I am happy with.

I would never move to Granada or Spain for that matter. I love it here in England and wouldn't want to live anywhere else. I don't really mind what other builders think of me. I work for the guitar players out there. I would never raise my prices just to be inline with other makers. I'm sure there are laws out there that forbid such actions.

There are so many guitar makers out there selling instruments at 2 to 3 times even my current price. I could stick my price up to 4-5k but where would that get me. How many people spend that kind of money on name that is relatively unknown. I've only built 80 guitars! as good as they are I am still relatively a 'nobody' trying hard to make a name for himself. I have much respect for all of the guys who can sell there work for top top money. They have worked their entire lives making their name and I am keen to follow in thier footsteps. If I continue on the road I am on I am looking at building in the region of 800 guitars.

It's not right to say that if I sell cheap they will stay cheap. Over the last 4 years my guitars have doubled in price and 2 of those years they were no more than £1500. The price still went up and I'm still selling them! You may say that being early days I could get away with it as an excuse but I would also consider the finicial difficulties that everyone is going through as a pretty good excuse.

I doubt out of the thousands of guitar makers in the world I could ruin it by selling a cheaper model in times of prosperity.

Good luck with your plans in fighting the economic hard times.

_____________________________

Classical and Flamenco Guitars www.EdenGuitars.co.uk
  REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |  Date Jun. 6 2012 15:42:41
 
Anders Eliasson

Posts: 5780
Joined: Oct. 18 2006
 

RE: Economical Crisis in Spanish Lut... (in reply to Stephen Eden

I get what you say, but it starts getting annoying and worrying when you have to many bloodsuckers on the phone or mail asking you to make them a guitar for max 1000,-€ Thats far out and totally out sync with what is a decent price for the product. (Thats why I asked Nealf if his firend went ti Italy with the idea to get a Ferrary half price because of the crisis)
My prices also went up. and like you, I had a long period with 1800,-€ as a price and I still build guitars for 2000,-€.

quote:

I would never move to Granada or Spain for that matter. I love it here in England and wouldn't want to live anywhere else. I don't really mind what other builders think of me. I work for the guitar players out there. I would never raise my prices just to be inline with other makers. I'm sure there are laws out there that forbid such actions.


This with laws and things is a bit square compared to reality. Spain works very different from the UK or Denmark. Here you have a lot of unwritten laws and besides, you have them everywhere. Big companys make deals about prices even though its forbidden.
On the other hand I´ll give you an example of what you might not think was ok yourself. In another thread you talk about Stephen Hills guitarmaking courses and that he charge 3500,-€ each pupil. What if I moved to La Herradura where Stephen lives and teaches and started a guitarmaking course for lets say 2000,-€ each pupil??
I will not do so but its a typical example. There´s no black and white in life, but there are many bloodsuckers in times of crisis. (Try selling a house in Spain now and you´ll find out VERY soon)

_____________________________

Blog: http://news-from-the-workshop.blogspot.com/
  REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |  Date Jun. 6 2012 17:05:08
 
Stephen Eden

 

Posts: 914
Joined: Apr. 12 2008
From: UK

RE: Economical Crisis in Spanish Lut... (in reply to Stephen Eden

That comes down to confidence and prestige and demand. Romanillos run courses that cost a a hell of alot more! Just up the road in Malaga, Pablo Requena, who is also a course teacher for Stephen Runs the exact same course for 600 euro cheaper and they are friends! There is also a huge demand for this type of course from all over the world and Stephen can only teach 6 people at a time with two teachers!

You have to run things to your situation. I don't think Reyes for instance will get hit at all. It will be the small fry that not many people know about like me to get hit first if I don't have a plans ready. You'll know I'm in trouble when I actually stick a guitar up here for sale ;)

_____________________________

Classical and Flamenco Guitars www.EdenGuitars.co.uk
  REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |  Date Jun. 6 2012 19:45:41
Guest

[Deleted] (in reply to Anders Eliasson

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  REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |  Date Jun. 9 2012 20:05:44
Guest

[Deleted] (in reply to Stephen Eden

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  REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |  Date Jun. 9 2012 20:23:15
 
Ruphus

Posts: 3782
Joined: Nov. 18 2010
 

RE: Economical Crisis in Spanish Lut... (in reply to Stephen Eden

Right, all these lazy people should rather be thankful for honorable hard-working men like you who provide the earths twist to start with.

What were the spongers thinking really? Sitting around blowing bubbles and wanting your upright fruits for nada. Disgusting.

These lowly pedestrians are not worth it. You, and the adored upper class should just stop that generous providing of jobs et al and finally let that baggage realize their friggin ingratitude.

That could also leave them with enough time to gather profound wisdom like yours.

Where did you get that amazing grasp from, besides? From grandpa, National Enquirer, or was it that your ungreatful wife divorced? They all should be proud of such a big hitter anyway.

You probably made it as a self-made man from the very ground up, exclusively for exemplary brilliance and sweat. It certainly so billows from between your lines.

Ain´t the world just as round like a belly button anyway?

Kermit says: Applause, applause, applause!

Ruphus

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  REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |  Date Jun. 10 2012 0:05:34
 
Anders Eliasson

Posts: 5780
Joined: Oct. 18 2006
 

RE: Economical Crisis in Spanish Lut... (in reply to Stephen Eden

Nealf, good to have you back. we need people calling us idiots

The point for me is not intelectual but real time blues:
You get VERY tired of people not looking for a good deal but looking to push you price down to 30% just because of the economical missery that we are living here. 3 years ago, they were lickink your as* and now they show up with a completely different attitude. I didnt like their "old" attitude, but I certainly dont like their "new" attitude either.

when you´re in business and you personally have to deal with those, listen to them on the phone or reding their E-mails, you get really tired.
When you this add that when you´re trying to sell a house, you have to deal with those wanting everything 50% lower than the already highly devaluated markeprice.

I know very much the its human mentality... You ask me if I dont do it myself.. I dont know. In general no, because I dont buy a lot of things and I make many of the things I need myself.

_____________________________

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  REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |  Date Jun. 10 2012 7:47:47
 
erictjie

 

Posts: 163
Joined: Apr. 11 2011
 

RE: Economical Crisis in Spanish Lut... (in reply to Stephen Eden

i am a businessman , i run a small business and i deal with all kind of people from all over the world. I don't like being short change so i don't do that to other people too. But they are so many selfish people in this world, they always said' customers always right' ' loyal customer' .... my ass!!!!
  REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |  Date Jun. 10 2012 8:12:32
 
Ruphus

Posts: 3782
Joined: Nov. 18 2010
 

RE: Economical Crisis in Spanish Lut... (in reply to erictjie

quote:

ORIGINAL: erictjie

i am a businessman , i run a small business and i deal with all kind of people from all over the world. I don't like being short change so i don't do that to other people too. But they are so many selfish people in this world, they always said' customers always right' ' loyal customer' .... my ass!!!!



Depends on what you consider short change.
The common margins added on by traders are way out of anything reasonable.
Like those 50% for instance that they inquire for selling a product like the guitars mentioned above.

It is legalized taunt that an instance that passes on a product requests just as much like the producer who provided all that it takes to bring the product about.

A humane society would not allow higher trade margins of say 15-30% max. And if more than that, it should have to be substantiated why.

The upside-down economy we have come to where 60% or more of NGPs are being occupied by none-producing instances and slick wedging methods must end.

If the raking baloney won´t come to an end, it will inevitably be leading into riots and civil wars.

Ruphus
  REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |  Date Jun. 10 2012 8:33:09
 
erictjie

 

Posts: 163
Joined: Apr. 11 2011
 

RE: Economical Crisis in Spanish Lut... (in reply to Ruphus

if max margin 30%, most businesses in australia will close down , believe me!
  REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |  Date Jun. 10 2012 9:36:24
 
Ruphus

Posts: 3782
Joined: Nov. 18 2010
 

RE: Economical Crisis in Spanish Lut... (in reply to erictjie

That would be for other wedges like bloated taxes ( only to then be drained off through corruption), bloated community fees, bloated energy bills, bloated insurances ( and regulations to over insure as lever), bloated rents ...

All parts of the hydrocephalus that need a close look at simultaneously.

Ruphus
  REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |  Date Jun. 10 2012 10:59:48
 
RTC

Posts: 667
Joined: Aug. 20 2008
From: DFW Area, Texas

RE: Economical Crisis in Spanish Lut... (in reply to Stephen Eden

I once read a quote, do not remember by whom:

"You do not get what you deserve, you get what you negotiate"
  REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |  Date Jun. 10 2012 17:51:44
 
gounaro

Posts: 875
Joined: Sep. 28 2008
From: Athens, Hellas

RE: Economical Crisis in Spanish Lut... (in reply to Guest

quote:

Gounaro - you should be out on the streets fighting with the riot police and not on the foro. After all GErmany owes you money .. go get it from Merkel.

When you say go "take the money from Merkel" I want to believe that you dont mean it.

I suppose the situation across Europe is tragic.

And should you mention the setbacks Merkel's when some of Europe curse her.

If Greece goes out to Europe (this will not happen) then come and tell me how this will affect all Germans.

_____________________________

Spyros
  REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |  Date Jun. 10 2012 18:24:44
 
Anders Eliasson

Posts: 5780
Joined: Oct. 18 2006
 

RE: Economical Crisis in Spanish Lut... (in reply to gounaro

The percentage deal here when selling through a dealer or shop is normally like this:

They take 50% if they have to buy the instument and put it in their shop.

They take 30% if they take the instrument in their shop but dont pay far it. In other words, you leave the instrument in their shop so that they can sell it.

I dont sell through shops. Because this way I would have to raise my prices and shops sell very little here.... Why?
Because the luthiers started to have 2 prices. One for shops and foreigners and another one for hermanos/amigos and flamencos... It was like that not many years ago and I blieve its still like that.

I dont like money games and I´m not Spanish. I have my prices and if I lower the price, the lower price is for everyone. If I dont do it my way, I feel like I´m a cheater and nothing is worth that.

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  REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |  Date Jun. 11 2012 7:18:57
 
KMMI77

Posts: 1821
Joined: Jul. 26 2009
From: The land down under

RE: Economical Crisis in Spanish Lut... (in reply to Stephen Eden

The problem is everyone has been sucking as much as they can out of the next guy. With our education and media system promoting the behavior as superior, standard, sound and acceptable. The coming results are obvious. This system is retarded and unsustainable and still people don't get it. Now we are reaching the scary, get as much as you can now!! phase.

We go along with it and then complain.

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  REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |  Date Jun. 11 2012 7:56:26
 
shaun

Posts: 176
Joined: May 11 2012
From: Edmonton, Canada

RE: Economical Crisis in Spanish Lut... (in reply to Stephen Eden

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/commentary/canada-is-wise-to-resist-europes-call-to-pay-up/article4246497/

The author adds a fair bit of commentary to this but makes some good points about the situation.
  REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |  Date Jun. 11 2012 14:46:09
 
erictjie

 

Posts: 163
Joined: Apr. 11 2011
 

RE: Economical Crisis in Spanish Lut... (in reply to Stephen Eden

we will have our carbon tax in 1st july. hooray!!!

we are sinking our own ship here in australia
  REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |  Date Jun. 12 2012 12:05:11
 
Pedoviejo

 

Posts: 59
Joined: Dec. 12 2003
 

RE: Economical Crisis in Spanish Lut... (in reply to Anders Eliasson

quote:

when you´re in business and you personally have to deal with those, listen to them on the phone or reding their E-mails, you get really tired.
When you this add that when you´re trying to sell a house, you have to deal with those wanting everything 50% lower than the already highly devaluated markeprice.


Anders, I’ve been through it myself, and as “Uncle Bill” Clinton said, “I feel your pain.” My story:

As I think I wrote somewhere previously, the interesting thing about living in Louisiana (I grew up in California) is that you get to experience a third world country while living in the U.S. (a long story there which I shall omit). I came here in the mid 70’s just when there was an oil boom following the creation of OPEC. In 1981 I and my then wife bought a small house with an 80% mortgage at 12.5% interest (which was a special “reduced” rate through some complicated quasi governmental bond float deal). Then around 1985, “poof!”, the oil bubble burst. Property values crashed, the oil companies had large lay-offs, and then consolidated their HQ’s in Houston, Texas taking the lion’s share of the educated families with them, leaving downtown New Orleans with lots of empty oil-built sky scrapers. The big restaurants downtown, where not long before you couldn’t get a table at lunch for the sea of porcine, Stetson-wearing, loud talking men with hands like meat cleavers who had mini private wine cellars in the basement and dishes on the menu named after them – well, you could shoot a shotgun through the main dining room at noon and not do any more damage than startling the Viennese maître d and Swiss food and beverage manager from their nap. Meanwhile, I was divorced, and stuck with paying the mortgage which was more than the value of the house. So while the rest of the country boomed economically (from Reagan through Clinton), Louisiana sat mired in its swamps and misery. And nary a penny had been invested in the state and its economy for all the billions that had flowed through here: It had all been handed out vis a vis government related contracts, and the insiders got rich while property values were grossly inflated.

After several years, I was finally able to unload that house by essentially signing it over to a buyer for the amount owed on the mortgage; i.e., at a loss. And I grew up with the idea, firmly planted there by my parents, that you could never lose money buying real estate. (“Land, Scarlett, land!” Gone With the Wind) Then I bought another house in a good neighborhood for a good price. But my new wife (there’s a pattern here) decided we needed to completely renovate… and that still could have been okay. Except expenses kept increasing while income did not, the renovation ran over budget, and mortgage followed refinanced mortgage because the national economy and the mortgage boom inflated the value of my house. Also, after 20 years of stagnation, New Orleans had finally achieved something of a state of homeostasis, which the politicos were calling a “recovery.” At the end of a dying marriage and struggling with debt in a corrupt, crapped out economy, on August 27, 2005 we signed a new refinance at 100% of appraised value – at that time, if you had a pulse you could get a mortgage - $485,000 (not much by West or East Coast standards, but enough by down-here-in-the-swamps standards). Three days later, Hurricane Katrina smashed into the city which had already been extremely poorly governed by a succession of corrupt and/or incompetent mayors, and with a levee (dyke) system which had been negligently built and managed by the U.S. Army Core of Engineers. With a buffoon in New Orleans (Mayor Ray Nagin), a cipher in the governor’s mansion (Kathleen Blanco) and an idiot in the White House (George W. Bush), the prognosis was not good. There was a post-disaster uptick in prices of houses which had not been flooded, and mine had not, but now with divorce lawyers hovering there was no way to sell. Within 6 months, all prices crashed. And stayed that way. While the national economy boomed – you got it – Louisiana in general and New Orleans in particular stayed mired in the economic swamps. Then came the 2008 international financial crash which reinforced the damage – just like had occurred in the early 1980’s when the oil crash was followed by a national recession.

I was finally able to sell that New Orleans house 4½ years after Katrina. Four and ½ years of paying that mortgage note, utilities, and property taxes (which had been significantly raised after Katrina because suddenly we had “reform” of a taxation system which had indeed been corrupt and unfair, but why now? When everyone was hurting so bad? Because city hall really, really, really needed the money since sales taxes had dived, and the devil take the hindmost.). AND after a 4½ year succession of merciless bargain-hunters.

So, yes, Anders, I know what it’s like to owe $480,000.00 (approx. €378,000) on a house and be offered $220,000 (€171,875) – and, oh, by the way, I want everything fixed, and this changed, and that repainted, and will you throw in a new appliance budget? I finally sold it for $375,000 (€293,000) AFTER loads of work and paying untold sums to put the house into top-notch, pristine, spotless condition, and yes I had to reach into my pocket and pay the balance on the mortgage to do so, because if I hadn’t the monthly mortgage note would eventually have bankrupted me anyway. And this while being preached at about “financial discipline,” “personal responsibility,” and “creative-destructive capitalism” by rich s.o.b.’s whose liabilities were bailed out at public expense because their investment vehicles were “too big to fail.” It has enabled me to understand the sentiment of Madame Lafarge.

But, believe it or not, you live in a much more enlightened place than I. My observation is that post-Franco Spaniards have been quick studies, and I sure hope that they quickly learn from the present mistakes, mistakes which seem to have been ubiquitous in the West. I remember thinking to myself many a time before 2008: “Just how many finance guys do we need?” This happened each time I traveled by air, since I invariably was seated next to or near some 20 to 40 something person with a degree from Harvard Business School, or Wharton, or the London School of Economics, many with a law degree as well, and all of them employed by a financial business, all flying back and forth from London, New York and so on. I mean, just how many people do you really need handling and lending money? Doesn’t anyone make anything anymore? Well, yes, there were – but in Spain’s case, many were employed in building, and they built and built and built while the financiers lent and lent and lent through very complex financial mechanisms which their fancy business educations had enabled them to create and in a manner which insulated them from the ultimate risk. (But, what the hey, what’s a fancy education for anyway?)

This gave rise to another thought which kept occurring to me: Is this real? I mean, when one day “the market” is worth $10 trillion and two days later it has “lost” $5 trillion – or so we were told repeatedly – how can that be? Where did that money come from and where did it go? Was it stuffed into a giant mattress in the sky while we weren’t looking? Or was it really there to begin with? And then finally I read something in print which echoed my thoughts. “But money is not real. Wealth is real. Money is imaginary.” (John Ralston Sauls in several different works – he’s the one guy who nailed the 2008 financial crisis several years before it happened. See “The Collapse of Globalism”, published September, 2005) Counterfeiting is illegal in every country that has a currency, but that is exactly what was going on – not with printing presses, but with computers which enabled the creation of ever more complicated forms of “financial instruments” (e.g, “credit debt swaps”). They were digitally printing money which was not backed up with real wealth. IT WASN’T REAL. As Sauls has pointed out, the English word “inflation” is from the French word for excess gas; i.e., farting. It collapsed in one, giant financial fart, and we’re all still gagging while those who were most responsible for creating it are provided with taxpayer-financed gas masks.

I believe we can all get out of this. But first we need to throw away Marx and Keynes – AND Milton Friedman, and Mises, and Hayek and the whole Viennese-U. of Chicago school of economics and their whole “laissez faire” clap-trap which is just as much of a utopian fantasy as Marx’s worker’s paradise. (And toss Ayn Rand on top of your Marx and Engels, whose ideology seems to inform so much of the right wing these days. Rand replaced “let them eat cake” with “let them die – it’s their own damn fault.”) The facts are – my observation – that we need to eliminate the lion’s share of “financiers”, especially since they’re really not financiers at all but middle-men brokers, like feudal lords helping themselves to a percentage of the value created by others, inflating the price, adding nothing of value and dumping the risk on the rest of us. And the corporation, a very modern creature which owes its existence to legislative largess and a succession of (bad to very bad) judicial decisions, needs to be drastically revised. Ever notice how many of the people who scream the loudest about personal responsibility and its consequences are made wealthy as owner-employees of corporations, the purpose of which is to insulate them from that same personal responsibility? But I am right with what they say: We need to restore personal responsibility. We need to make corporate executives responsible for the damages caused by their corporations. “Bankaria” did not cause all those losses and problems. The flesh and blood people who ran it did, so why should they not be brought out in the open, in the public eye, tried, judged and held liable for their deeds, instead of being allowed to keep their huge gains and, insult to injury, continue to be handsomely paid while the public now picks up the check?

You, Anders, create something of value, and you deserve to be fairly paid for it. And I believe that that will happen regularly if we can revise the rules of the game to reward the players and not the manipulators. In the meanwhile, "hang in there." I did and I'm still here, scars and all, but still alive, ready to kick corporate butt, enjoying great bulerías more than ever and, if I’m lucky, contribute to making some changes for the better.
  REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |  Date Jun. 13 2012 0:28:39
 
estebanana

Posts: 9466
Joined: Oct. 16 2009
 

RE: Economical Crisis in Spanish Lut... (in reply to Pedoviejo

quote:

leaving downtown New Orleans with lots of empty oil-built sky scrapers. The big restaurants downtown, where not long before you couldn’t get a table at lunch for the sea of porcine, Stetson-wearing, loud talking men with hands like meat cleavers who had mini private wine cellars in the basement and dishes on the menu named after them – well, you could shoot a shotgun through the main dining room at noon and not do any more damage than startling the Viennese maître d and Swiss food and beverage manager from their nap.


This is a fracking fantastic rant. You are master and I am a young padawan, may I study with you sir?

_____________________________

https://www.stephenfaulkguitars.com
  REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |  Date Jun. 13 2012 1:41:53
 
estebanana

Posts: 9466
Joined: Oct. 16 2009
 

RE: Economical Crisis in Spanish Lut... (in reply to Pedoviejo

quote:

(And toss Ayn Rand on top of your Marx and Engels, whose ideology seems to inform so much of the right wing these days. Rand replaced “let them eat cake” with “let them die – it’s their own damn fault.”)


I loathe Ayn Rand, privileged swiness of philosophy.

_____________________________

https://www.stephenfaulkguitars.com
  REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |  Date Jun. 13 2012 1:44:25
 
Anders Eliasson

Posts: 5780
Joined: Oct. 18 2006
 

RE: Economical Crisis in Spanish Lut... (in reply to Stephen Eden

Maybe we should just put a 10 - 20% tax on all stock market movements. Then they would relax and 80% of them would have to do other things with their lifes and stop ruining the life of everyone else.

_____________________________

Blog: http://news-from-the-workshop.blogspot.com/
  REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |  Date Jun. 13 2012 7:19:03
 
Ruphus

Posts: 3782
Joined: Nov. 18 2010
 

RE: Economical Crisis in Spanish Lut... (in reply to Pedoviejo

quote:

ORIGINAL: Pedoviejo

... first we need to throw away Marx ...

The facts are – my observation – that we need to eliminate the lion’s share of “financiers”, especially since they’re really not financiers at all but middle-men brokers, like feudal lords helping themselves to a percentage of the value created by others, inflating the price, adding nothing of value and dumping the risk on the rest of us.


You would obviously be surprised to see what Marx´ascertainment actually was about.

Don´t buy into the distortion of unprincipled opinion makers that served to scare the people with contents never claimed by the author, like alleged equalization of the people or blind marketing.

In fact Karl Marx illuminated what you painfully experienced.

Ruphus
  REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |  Date Jun. 13 2012 10:55:39
 
erictjie

 

Posts: 163
Joined: Apr. 11 2011
 

RE: Economical Crisis in Spanish Lut... (in reply to Ruphus

i agree , Marxism is good but hard to implement. I don't like capitalism!
  REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |  Date Jun. 13 2012 10:59:43
 
Ruphus

Posts: 3782
Joined: Nov. 18 2010
 

RE: Economical Crisis in Spanish Lut... (in reply to Anders Eliasson

quote:

ORIGINAL: Anders Eliasson

Maybe we should just put a 10 - 20% tax on all stock market movements. Then they would relax and 80% of them would have to do other things with their lifes and stop ruining the life of everyone else.



Much more efficient than that, eliminating the mother of inhumanity: The appropriation of labour surplus value.

Any actually democratic constitution ought to capture the inalienability of labour value as the human right that it is.

Ruphus
  REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |  Date Jun. 13 2012 11:08:27
 
Ruphus

Posts: 3782
Joined: Nov. 18 2010
 

RE: Economical Crisis in Spanish Lut... (in reply to erictjie

quote:

ORIGINAL: erictjie

i agree , Marxism is good but hard to implement. I don't like capitalism!



Agreed; transparency and just are hard to warrant. And yet, should take less elaboration to be introduced than the current finesse of a highly refined system of deception.

Ruphus
  REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |  Date Jun. 13 2012 11:15:54
 
XXX

Posts: 4400
Joined: Apr. 14 2005
 

RE: Economical Crisis in Spanish Lut... (in reply to Ruphus

quote:

ORIGINAL: Ruphus
Much more efficient than that, eliminating the mother of inhumanity: The appropriation of labour surplus value.


surplus value means that the value the worker produces is more than what he draws as wages. Removing that would contradict capitalism as everything that is produced is only produced because the owner of these goods expects to sell them with a profit, not for the same price as he "bought" them. The problem is not surplus, it is the appropriation at all. The fact that a socially produced good becomes a private property of somebody is "unnatural" if you want. Goods that naturally should be produced to fullfill a societal need - this can be local or global - are now produced to be sold by whoever owns them. As a result he wants to and needs to pay as little wages as possible to have maximum profit. This economical fact is also known as the morally loaded term "exploitation of the worker".

Now as everybody knows, producing companies usually dont even own all the means of production themselves. They have to apply for a loan to buy facilities and pay workers, which again means that whoever deals the credit is expecting to receive a surplus out of it. Basically all production in capitalism is based on the fact that banks need to be pleased first in order to get anything going on, as seen in recent developments. The purpose of capitalism is that those who own the most need to accumulate more.

_____________________________

Фламенко
  REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |  Date Jun. 16 2012 22:21:32
 
stratos13

 

Posts: 222
Joined: Apr. 11 2005
From: Αθήνα

RE: Economical Crisis in Spanish Lut... (in reply to Guest

quote:

ORIGINAL: nealf

Michael Lewis has documented in his book Boomerang (available on Amazon)the dysfunctional country that is Greece – how citizens avoid taxes, how over 600 categories of workers can retire at the age of 50 with full pensions, and how fraud and corruption are endemic.

Recently, when the current Greek government committed to actually collect some taxes in order to get more loans, a bureaucrat decided that a great way to collect property taxes would be to include them in people's electricity bills, a move that caused an uproar. Lawsuits followed, as the national power company tried to cut off electricity for nonpayment. In a country where it can take a decade for a legal matter to get on a court docket, a court rather quickly took up the case and ruled it illegal for the power company to cut off service for non-payment. This ruling led to a massive financial loss by the power company as people simply stopped paying their electric bills.

Yet I'm a blood-sucker?? Friggin Idiots.


It is good that you have done some research on the subject, but I can assure you you are wrong in many things you say due to luck of basic info on how things work in Greece.
None will find it interesting to discuss such matters here, but if you wish i can give a little more info through PM.
  REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |  Date Jun. 18 2012 20:11:09
 
Ricardo

Posts: 15242
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC

RE: Economical Crisis in Spanish Lut... (in reply to Stephen Eden

I was always confused about this economy stuff. The economy is "bad"....what is that mean? Everyone takes it like "oh no, I need to hold on to my money to fight this thing..." ...and then I wonder how did people HEAR about this economic problem? Logic always told me when I hear the economy is in trouble it means WE ALL need to go out and spend MORE MONEY....it's pretty simple to me really.

Like "oh **** anders, the economy is in trouble....can you build me instead a $10,000 guitar with all the trimings so I can keep the ball rolling since because of economic crisis my boss gave me a raise naturally, and now you too can spend some cash too on more and better materials and other stuff?".... no? Isn't the spread of the idea of a "problem with the economy" the problem ITSELF???? Simple reversal of the WHOLE THING would be tons of public announcements that the economy is doing great everyone spend all you can or want, go nuts.

Anyway, regardless, I feel I understand issues of pride when dealing with "negotiators". As a musician you can imagine, but here is funny story. Few years back I was working a lot and at a club that I played regularly an older woman approached me about a private party. Everyone understands I hope that at steady weekly club gigs we charge much less then private events concerts weddings etc right??? Anyway she inquired my fee and after giving her the run down of options...(how many people, location and time of event, weekend evening if we have to leave our steady the price is inflated etc, can't be in two places at once now can you)... it seemed she wanted me and my partner at prime time....so I let her have out normal rate. She gasped...."oh my, are you joking??? My husband is a doctor and you charge more than HIM per hour"....I just laughed and said "oh really he's that affordable? Then have him play at your party..." and left it at that.

another story was about CD sales...I actually drove my price up when annoyed by someone so that had no choice but to refuse to buy....and another were a talent agent insisted to grab a free CD and I later "convinced" him to pay for it....

In the end it's about if you GET IT or not, a sign of simple respect. Hopefully we can leave something for our family, but I don't want to die with piles of money that's for sure...I will rather have spent it and enjoyed whatever I got for it. Fuk the economy. If I wanted to make money then I would have been a banker, if I wanted to heal people a doctor, to free the innocent or convict the guilty a lawyer, etc. People have twisted things so bad into everything about money and how they don't have it. Banker is SUPPOSED to have money...that's why you give it to him. Other wise keep it under your mattress or spend it on something.

Ricardo

_____________________________

CD's and transcriptions available here:
www.ricardomarlow.com
  REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |  Date Jun. 19 2012 5:15:10
 
Ron.M

Posts: 7051
Joined: Jul. 7 2003
From: Scotland

RE: Economical Crisis in Spanish Lut... (in reply to Ricardo

Interesting post, Ricardo.
I must admit all this macro economic stuff with hundreds of billions flying around from country to country has me puzzled too.
(In fact it's not even "real" money, but just numbers on a computer screen.)

If we had to theoretically destroy all the money in the world and take a snapshot, the world would still be the same place. Nothing would have changed.
All the "real stuff" like houses and resources etc would still be there. It wouldn't suddenly vanish.

So money is just the vehicle for exchanging "work credits" between people.

I dunno. I'm not an economist.

Actually I heard an economist say that instead of bailing out the banks the money would have been better given to ordinary people!
That way, folk would start spending again, buying houses and cars and guitars and going holidays etc and the world economy would start moving again.

Seemed to make sense actually.

cheers,

Ron
  REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |  Date Jun. 19 2012 6:16:40
 
KMMI77

Posts: 1821
Joined: Jul. 26 2009
From: The land down under

RE: Economical Crisis in Spanish Lut... (in reply to Ron.M

quote:

If we had to theoretically destroy all the money in the world and take a snapshot, the world would still be the same place. Nothing would have changed.
All the "real stuff" like houses and resources etc would still be there. It wouldn't suddenly vanish.


If only we could figure out how to all outgrow things like jealousy and greed. And seeing things, and each other as superior and inferior. And move away from utilizing material gain as a tool for motivation. And outgrow the concept of ownership.

If only this world/reality wasn't such a mess and so darn complicated. I wonder what it potentially could be like if we all knew everything?

_____________________________

  REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |  Date Jun. 19 2012 7:56:39
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