Artificial Scarcity Rant...

[BryanC]

Has anyone read Grunch Of Giants by Buckminster Fuller?

It is basically about how the biggest corporations in the world have shafted all of us. These corporations have found a resource that everyone needs, placed a monopoly on the resource it's self through the corrupt legal system, and artificially restrict the production/distribution of the resource. Thus, creating what I have come to call: Artificial Scarcity.

I have allowed my mind to entertain this idea for the past week and every conclusion I have come to is that everything we accept as truth having to do with our economy is typically a fraud.

The built in demand for immediate currency. The idea of lack. The fear of monetary failure. Hell even poverty it's self. I mean, yes, poverty is very real, but it does not have to be that way.

I mean, what I am seeing now is that all of this stuff is just socially engineered into the system. :smx4:

What is it that we are doing wrong as human beings to allow this to persist? Why are the rest of us accepting this form of artificial scarcity so .001 percent of us can enjoy everything the world has to offer??

I do support the accumulation of currency in the pursuit of goods/services to better living standards, but I am starting to think that there is something VERY wrong going on when the economy at large is an illusion. :smug2:

Anyway, it's a very liberating feeling knowing that most of all these beliefs of scarcity may indeed be false.

 

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[Jito]

You sound crazy.

 

[Russ H]

BryanC-

There's a difference between you not having any real control over global economic conditions, and the conspiracy theory that our current global financial crisis has been engineered by the corporate megalopoly.

It's certainly true that corporations do an admirable job of limiting supply to increase demand. Just study DeBeers work with diamonds, or Carnagie's work with steel. Rockefeller's oil monopoly. Brilliant stuff.

-Russ H.

 

[BryanC]

Will do that!

From what I have come to understand studying John D.'s business style, he was a strewed business man always seeking to eliminate competition and monopolizing the oil industry. The more I read about him, the more I reached the conclusion he was a nut case but at the same time brilliant. LoL. He even had code names for his agents, workers, product, and the business it's self. And he was very successful in his endeavors.

I will take a look at DeBeers and Carnegie also.

What really makes me mad the most is just the deceit and manipulation. I dig deeper in this stuff and feel like I grew up in an illusory world. It just seems like you are sent down the wrong path all your life and it's up to you to find out what is "really" going on and create, forge, and bring the other path into your life anyway you can. But, then I have to look at it from their POV and see that maybe they had to do the same thing I am having to do. I guess maybe they had to go through the same process because at this point all my friends think I'm totally a nut case when I talk about it with them.

 

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[smoothplaya]

Life has been a competition since the day you were a sperm cell. Now your competing against 6,738,798,339 people. So good luck in this game we called " life ".

Over and out .

 

[kimberland]

Deceit and manipulation is a judgment call
and that's very difficult to do
looking on from the outside
(and getting your information from secondary sources).
You also have to put it in context of the times.

To get things done in China right now,
for example,
you have to offer bribes.
Is that manipulation or
simply respecting how another culture does business?

About artificial scarcity...
erecting barriers to entry is the GOAL in business.
Coke and Pepsi block new entrants
with their huge advertising spends
and their locked in distribution deals.
Wal-Mart does the same
by having such economies of scale,
that they can sell at below competitor's costs.

Why?

Because, at least in consumer packaged goods,
the ideal number of manufacturers
is three.
Many more and no one makes money
(weakening the entire industry).
Many less and there is no push for innovation.

 

[hatterasguy]

Sounds like a conspiracy theory.

I always find them entertaining, because they count on the fact that these guys are smart enough to keep a secret. Which is laughable. I mean the government is as leak proof as a colander.

Insted of reading books like this, do as Russ suggested and read about DeBeers. Thats the real life version of the book you read.

 

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[MJ DeMarco]

I understand what you are saying and if you fully believe that, ask yourself this ... which side do you want to be on? This concept not only lives for huge corporations, but just in economics. There are two sides to supply and demand.

You can be the consumer, demanding goods and services (like "everyone")

OR

You can be the provider, offering goods and services.

One ends up poor....

the other ends up rich...

I decided long ago which side of the paradigm attracts wealth and which side I always want to be on.

 

[BryanC]

I agree my thinking leans towards that, just I am looking for the direction on what to read and I end up reading stuff like this finding out it may all be a fraud. Well, it expands my view point... I really need to find somebody who has built a business enterprise and feed off them. If anything, I wish there was no scarcity in instructors. lol