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Money for Nothing
Wanting to make money from essentially matching supply and demand is a hallmark of the unethical person. These types of jobs do little else but match supply and demand.
- Stock Brokers
- Real Estate Agents
- Recruiters
- Automotive Dealerships
Education
The logic many of them use to justify their existence is that they educate their clients. However, what type of education can a client expect to get from someone who’s only objective is to sell them something that they have access to?
Free Markets
The issue is that even with the arrival of computers, intermediaries strive to do business “the old fashioned way.” A the same time they speak about the importance of free markets. Here are some ways intermediaries interfere with markets:
- For years you could not trade stocks (which you should not be doing in any case see the post why http://counterecon.com/2009/05/04/the-case-against-stock-compendium/) online, but had to go through brokers.
- Real estate agents have fought transparency in their market through controlling the Multiple Listing Service and pretending its a public database. See this link for more details http://counterecon.com/2008/01/11/real-estate-information-control-and-the-multiple-listing-service/)
- Recruiters insist on keeping a database of resumes and in communicating resumes in document format rather than simply pointing their clients to LinkedIn which keeps updated databases online.
- Automotive dealerships have used lawyers to make buying cars over the internet illegal. They want you to come in so they can go to work on you in a controlled environment. See this link for more details( http://spplan.wordpress.com/2009/05/18/automotive-dealers-mostly-useles/)
Conclusion
People who are attracted to intermediary roles are looking for easy money and are essentially dishonest. If real economics were applied then we would actually use technology to reduce the need for intermediaries and create more efficient economy. The rule is simple, the money that is given to intermediaries above and beyond their contribution is both taken from the individuals who actually work, and decreases the efficiency and increases the costs of buyers and sellers coming to mutually agreeable transactions. If people are curious how to improve any economy, the answer is simple – reduce the costs of intermediaries through the creation of public on-line databases. Place the important information in the public domain, so that no one owns it.
Lets start this post by defining “doctrinal.”
Oxford English Dictionary
doctrinal |ˈdäktrənl|
adjective
concerned with a doctrine or doctrines : doctrinal disputes.
doctrine |ˈdäktrin|
noun
a belief or set of beliefs held and taught by a church, political party, or other group : the doctrine of predestination.
• a stated principle of government policy, mainly in foreign or military affairs : the Monroe Doctrine.
More generally, a doctrine is a belief taught by a power structure, someone or something with the power to enforce beliefs. While a parent is not considered a power structure, such as the World Bank, for a child, their parent has a high degree of control over them in terms of their economics and in terms of the trust that children have for their parents, so the parent has the ability to enforce a doctrine or belief system on the child.
We use the term doctrinal to describe the repetition of inflexible or even false beliefs on the part of individuals. People who repeat doctrine in an unthinking manner are considered “indoctrinated”
One very good example of doctrinal behavior is found in this video below. In it Jim Rogers describes what he thinks are the correct actions to take given a financial crisis. He is shown being interviewed by a number of network interviewers who are asking him questions which have a number false premises. The interviewees have both a limited ability to work with the concepts that Jim Rogers is discussing and thus their questions tend towards the doctrinal. However, there is a second reason for this inflexibility, which is happening behind the scenes. The interviewers appear to be being fed questions from their network editors. The like of questioning appears to support the notion that the network is in favor of a particular course of action…in this case using taxpayer money to bailout financial institutions.
Thinking for oneself is an often praised attribute. However, what is not discussed is how small a market there is for it and how people who think for themselves are often at odds with their employers and with their social support structure. The education system is doctrinal. While it well understood that education up to the high school level is doctrinal, many presume that as education level goes up, that more critical thinking takes place. This is a misunderstanding. The education system is doctrinal even to the PhD level. PhD dissertations must be approved by committiees, and very few people will obtain a PhD unless their committiees agree with both the quality as well as the doctrine and conclusions of the dissertation. One can be sure that dissertations which do not serve the interest of the committee members, or contradict the previous work of the committeee members will be tolerated. After years of effort, people generally want to get their PhDs, so its a small matter to make the necessary changes. However, it rarely comes to that as the PhD candidate will typically figure out long before this time what conclusions are necessary to garner approval from the committee and will adjust their research accordingly. One may think that after a PhD is conferred that the person is then free to express their own view. However, this is not true as that PhD’s career success will depend upon publishing articles in specific periodicals. These periodicals have particular standards, and particular doctrinal tests. Furthermore, endowments and contributions from corporate interests provide incentives for the university power structure, decentralized to departments, to promote research consistent with corporate doctrines.
Why So Indoctrinated?
The main reason that people are so indoctrinated is that there is a tremendous amount of effort spent in indoctrinating them, and that their perceived incentives are to continue to be indoctrinated. As most people work for other people, they do not have the luxury of “going their own way,” they must conform to the doctrine of their superiors. While they could live a dual life (stating they believe in public, while holding different views in public), in all frankness, most people have little concern with what is true and false and would prefer to be contented and successful over developing their mind. In a world of trade-offs, the desire for a nice house and comfortable life as well as enhanced access to desirable mating partners tends to trump the desire to investigate underlying assumptions. This is evidenced by the emphasis given to material acquisition vs. the acquisition of knowledge in most societies.
When Doctrine Does Not Work
Accepting the programming is often functional for the individual and makes them appealing to employers. however it is not always functional. We have seen how the doctrine of finance and economics has really worked against many people. The doctrine of investing in the stock market and in expensive housing has been very economically damaging to individuals while very profitable for concentrated financial power.
These links tell the story of the NSA illegal copying of all communications going through a major internet backbone. While the NSA is supposedly intercepting international communications, it along with the FBI has a history of surveillance of Americans in a highly indiscriminate manner.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132×2613420
Frontline on the NSA copying of data at the San Francisco ATT internet backbone.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/homefront/view/
Select the 2nd video
http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2006/05/70908
The estimated surveillance impact of this site, another 15 to 20 sites wired by the NSA similarly means an interception of roughly 10% of all domestic internet traffic…and that is just at ATT. It is likely, though unproven, that the NSA has similar setups with other communication companies. Even after being made public by a whistleblower, these computer surveillance operations are still running.
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For some time analytical people tend to ask the question why even though it appears that society (in the US) tends to put so many resources into education that the end result is less than the sum of its parts. That is why even with 27% of the population attaining an undergraduate degree that the national media provides such oversimplified answers and the general population finds them convincing. Along with this question is the basic assumption which is standard across society that socializing is good.
Socializing is Universally Good?
That is, people who do not spend a good deal of time interacting with other people are somehow deviant. It is thought that well adjusted people have families and society places an emphasis on spending time in this way. These two issues (the simple nature of explanatory descriptions, and the focus on socializing) may be connected.
- The one issue which is unaddressed in that time spent socializing is necessarily taken from one’s personal pursuits.
- Secondly, people tend to have a number of problems and they hoist their problems on those around them. This is referred to as the support system. Psychologists promote the idea of a support system as necessary to mental health. However, what psychologists do not point out is who benefits the most from these “support systems.” Clearly, those people that have a higher than average number of problems benefit more than those that have a lower number of problems. Thus, while the support system, may be good for problematic people, it is less beneficial for those that have their act together (for lack of a better description).
A Child in the Room
Obviously, the young and old have more problems than those in the middle of the age continuum. However, within the middle of the age continuum, some people tend to have far more issues or concerns than others. The “child in the room” analogy is that the person with the most pressing issue must be attended to. Therefore, a child’s concern takes precedence over reading, analyzing, relaxing, resting and so on. However, it not only applies to children, but to anyone with an infantile need tend to become the focus. Thus the more time a reasonable person spends with unreasonable person the more unreasonable they become.
Distractions
Can it be that it is distractions that are partially responsible for the low level of analysis and understanding in society? One of the main purposes of the mainstream media appears to be distraction, with informing being only a secondary consideration. One wonders if this is a main purpose of sporting events as well. There is actually much writing on this and it is documented and explained by Noam Chomsky. His YouTube explanation of of how permanent distraction can occur can be found here.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sUBtXcL0ObU&NR=1
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