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Reports of Yaz side effects continue to grow as the makers of Yaz, Yasmin and Ocella prepare themselves for further judicial proceedings and more possible lawsuits. Bayer Healthcare Pharmaceuticals, makers of Yasmin and Yaz, and Barr Pharmaceuticals, makers of the generic version Ocella have been barraged with allegement extending from downplaying the severeness of side effects in their adverts to knowingly unleashing a serious and potentially fatal product on American women.

There are already many lawsuits filed in various counties across the U.S. against the pill manufacturer. This number is expected to reach 1,000. Typically, those effected by Yaz, Yasmin, and Ocella can fill out the form at TheLegalAdvocate.com to have an attorney review their information in order to be provided with answers and hopefully representation.

Women taking Yasmin, Yaz or Ocella to avoid getting pregnant or to treat PMDD (Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder) or severe acne have reportedly withstood major injury to their health and wellness. Although most pharmaceuticals present some form of side effects, the main event surrounding Yaz seems to be that the original commercials downplayed the health risks and side effects. This attracted users to the product that may not have taken it otherwise had they been properly informed about the risks posed by Ocella, Yasmin and Yaz.

Pass through your local town or city during the early hours of the morning and you will see various pedestrian sweepers on the roads tidying up the mess left from all the shenanigans of last night. It’s an emblematic early daybreak setting, especially the beeping noise! We don’t actually give rubbish a second thought as we take for granted it will all be tidied up for us.

Nonetheless, there is a sometimes imperceptible yet substantial impact litter plays on human psychology. Individuals are more likely to think a neighbourhood is less well policed if litter is scattered around, and therefore felons see rubbish as a likely sign for a chance of a break-in, a mugging, or car-theft. The same sign instills some concern in other individuals who worry they might be walking through a more risky neighbourhood and are wary of being assaulted.

There’s also the influence on the aesthetic appeal of a location. Rubbish lying around can give the appearance of a neighbourhood looking run down even if it’s just been trashed by revellers from the night before. This can harm the reputation of an area if people are only within the location for this particular time and only see it in its disorderly state.

Prevention is always better than cure when it comes to litter. There’s absolutely no purpose to throw rubbish if there are empty rubbish bins around the area. If there is a lack of bins, or the bins that are there are stuffed, this is an issue to address the local council with. Littering has a negative influence on everybody.

The great leader and Senator from New York and wife of a former President cares about America and says that Health Care can be fixed with IT? Yes, perhaps that will help with accountability of the taxpayers wasted dollars in Health Care indeed. But how will that help the quality of Health Care?

What I find interesting is that President Bush a couple of years ago said that he believed that the HIPPA Legislation would be able to be handled by entrepreneurial problem solvers through IT. Indeed, this is coming to be and as the prices get cheaper we are seeing even smaller community hospitals and clinics. So whatever Hillary is saying was certainly nothing new, in fact it is two-years after that fact. Further more much money is being spent on IT work for Department of Homeland Security and these budgets will be trimmed as Net Centric Warfare and the Justice Department finds their rear ends. Meaning these government contractors, which have huge lobbyists and a potential presidential candidate once again is courting big bank roles from government contractors.

For someone to say that somehow this approach helps the village raise the mature Americans is silly indeed. It just means more government spending on IT to fix a system, which is so broken it is, cannot be glued back together no matter whose computer system you use, thus lots more money will be spent on IT work in Health Care. Today we see Military and DHS and even the FBI computer program software and IT a complete debacle. Remember the Carnivore, Virtual Case File or even the Navy-Marine Intranet system with EDS? Talk about taxpayer’s money down the virtual BS Gitmo Toilets?

I predict that spending on such stuff will continue not to solve mankind’s problems, as even with the best database systems, the information contained within is junk data. I predict the Beltway and suburbs near Washington DC to end up like the problems in Silicon Valley. Same crap different day; read the writing on the walls. Surely Hillary can see where this is heading if she believes her own political positioning and rhetoric. I am not against the current administration nor for the next up and coming; I am simply examining the facts and observations, which no one seems to wish to talk about. Why; why are we not asking questions of these things? That government is ours, we own it, it is our money; we damn well have the right to know. And since everything the government does, does not work all that well; how about we cut our losses, save some money and aggravation and have them do a lot less of all this stuff they promise. Shame on us, not once have they lived up to the promise and yet every election season more of the same podium pushing promises, to appease the masses while they jockey for position in the media to control our minds. If the government could do one thing right, just one, then maybe the X’ers will put their faith back in it. For instance getting rid of SPAM, Identity theft or something of value? How can we trust them to fix the health care system using computers when they cannot even stop the hackers?

Some say they can trust them as far as they can throw them? Which is a lot as our trade deficit mounts and we are caught under a load of debt, while we forgive every other nation for theirs as we pay the interest? We are financing our own demise? Are you sure you wish to put faith in politicians whose answer is to spend more money on the things, which are already not working? You know rather than me stand here and talk about it, why don’t you think about it.

“Lance Winslow” - Online Think Tank forum board. If you have innovative thoughts and unique perspectives, come think with Lance; www.WorldThinkTank.net/wttbbs/

For a short time I worked as a union officer for the office workers’ union at Walt Disney studios. It was a very educational experience and one thing I learned is that people have a strange attitude about the relationship between unions and business management. All too many business managers think of the union as their enemy, and unfortunately too many union members think the same thing about management. The sad part of it is, both sides are working toward the same goals. Employees need to be working for a successful and prosperous company and the company needs to be a place where employees can be happy and productive.

In today’s business climate this partnership is even more crucial. We have a problem in this nation - too many gigantic corporations are hogging all of the business, putting smaller business owners out of business. And these corporations don’t hire the union employees. Instead they outsource the jobs to foreign countries where they can get labor for pennies on the dollar.

Unions were originally formed to protect employees from the abuses of large companies. It is beneficial, I believe, for
small business owners to support this fair play because in the process of promoting fair play for labor, they are also promoting fair play for business in general. Without mentioning names, the largest retailer in the nation has been accused of busting unions so they could continue to pay lower wages and less benefits. This same company sells products which are manufactured largely in China and this practice has cost a large number of American jobs. When this company moves into a new locality, small business owners go out of business.
Small business and labor are both victims of the same corporate greed.

If small business owners could team up with labor, they could fight this evil together. It requires some sense of responsibility on both sides. Union members cannot expect a local furniture store, for example, to pay the same wages as they would expect somebody like GMC to pay. And the small business owner has to realize that it is this employee who is helping him to make a success of his venture. That employee cannot do his best work if he is worrying about foreclosure or eviction because his wages don’t cover the basic cost of housing. The trick is for both labor and management to make small business’s prosperous and then share that prosperity.

If you are a small business owner and your employees express a desire to form a union, my suggestion is, talk to them and to the union officials and see how you can make it into a mutually satisfactory partnership. If an employee comes to you with a grievance, don’t think of it as a personal attack. Think of it as an invitation to open up a dialogue to resolve small problems before they escalate. On the same token, if you are
an employee, don’t think of the union as your way to stick it
to your boss. Think of them as a tool to help you to help your boss become more prosperous and share his success with you.

Sure, unions have had their problems. There have been instances of corruption and abuses toward business. But for the most part, they are a good thing - not only for employees, but for the business community as a whole. Let’s use them as the beneficial tool they were designed to be.

Ron Coleman is retired and spends most of his time working as a freelance cartoonist and writer. He has served as a union officer in the office workers union at Disney Studios and has sold several pro-union cartoons to labor publications. His work can be seen on his website: http://www.coleman-cartoons.com

On the Day After Thanksgiving Kohls, KMart, Caribou Coffee and other American retailers will open their doors at 5AM for the holiest of all shopping days in America.

Buy Nothing Day: November 25, 2005

There are more circulars and advertising inserts incenting purchases for this specific day than any other day of the year, according to Media Week. Countering these massive energies is the grassroots declaration of Buy Nothing Day, a resistance fortified by AdBusters.

What is this all about? AdBusters’ Brian Highley explains, “We ask people to go 24 hours without buying anything. Some find that they can’t and we encourage them to ask themselves, ‘Why not?’”

Buy Nothing Day will be celebrated in a record 65 countries this year. Fueled in part by a growing anti-American sentiment, more folks in more countries will be hanging posters and discussing global consumerism. AdBusters.org has downloadable posters and paraphernalia to spread the word of Buy Nothing Day.

In America, it is unlikely that Buy Nothing Day will reach your attention unless you read Adbusters. Wired and The Christian Science Monitor ran articles this week covering Buy Nothing Day, but the vast majority of the rest of the coverage will only come if participants make a big enough spectacle of themselves to become newsworthy.

Why so little coverage? The efforts of AdBusters are well-meaning but poorly orchestrated. There is no press release, a basic tool of a communication society.

AdBusters has few facts to readily give out on Buy Nothing Day, like the full name of “Ted Dave” who started Buy Nothing Day, the year of its inception: 1992, but that’s about it.

In years past, AdBusters was thwarted from buying spot TV time to run a thirty-second commercial questioning the consumption of American and Canadian citizens while promoting Buy Nothing Day. Thwarted? AdBusters called stations directly. If their goal was truly to run their ad they could have had their ad run with the help of a Spot TV Buying service. Instead, it appears that their goal was to get rejected so they could play the martyr card and generate sympathy.

Martyrdom is a questionable tactic, with limited repeatability. Questioning shopping on the biggest American shopping day will no doubt prove ineffectual in America. Asking consumers to restrain their shopping habit in the face of the most media advertising for the best sales of the year taking place over the longest shopping day of the year is like asking a smoker to quit and taking them to Vegas. Not a prescription for abstinence. To provide day-long distraction, residents of San Jose, CA have organized a bike ride and folks in Washington County, Wisconsin are organizing an all day film festival.

Reaching mass Americans is only likely if local participants make themselves newsworthy. In Fairbanks, AK Buy Nothing Day activists are planning a demonstration around WalMart. In Northern California, folks calling themselves the People’s Revolutionary Organization is staging a full day of direct action throughout their county in support of Buy Nothing Day, staging events at 7 different shopping centers in the area from 9am-5pm.

Granted, AdBusters has gotten better at promoting Buy Nothing Day. To begin with, they stopped selling calendars and Tshirts to promote themselves. However, their efforts continue to communicate “Look at this fabulous idea of AdBusters” instead of giving helpful tactics towards increased effectiveness.

Many activists question the efficacy of AdBusters. Why would they launch BlackSpot Sneakers when NoSweat was already making an eco-friendly shoe made by workers paid a decent wage? Why don’t they promote/review the best books? Why wouldn’t they put a link to the WalMart movie in their magazine? Does nobody else make a decent video or media literacy kit? Why is every piece of media they sell and promote branded AdBusters?

AdBusters, AdBusters, AdBusters. Me, me, me.

AdBusters recent removal of page numbers makes the magazine more of an art object than a tool for disseminating discussion fodder. If changing behavior is their goal, then they have an obligation to get better at disseminating what’s working that isn’t branded AdBusters. There is a huge opportunity for AdBusters to grow by better suiting the needs of its users and occasional users.

Employing the crass techniques of big business seems to go against the culture of AdBusters. There are no goals for Buy Nothing Day. There are no means of measuring success. It is time for AdBusters to get better, to get professionally organized, to use basic tools of planning and communication.

Howard Campbell,
Poker Without Cards

After watching a show called Question Time on BBC 1 this last week…it dawned on me just why the world is the way it is right now, For the Government i.e. The Labour Party and its Beleaguered Leader Tony Blair…United Kingdom seems to be torn apart in regards to Terrorism, Religion and Parliament!

I found myself utterly flabbergasted by it all. It sure has been an interesting week for everyone concerned… Going back to the Show I watched, ‘Question Time’ Which is a weekly TV Debate show had opponents from each political party and the odd special guest like in this case Lesbian Comic Rhonah Cameron and another guy I had never heard of…With David Dimbleby Hosting it was one hell of a show but what got to me was the crowd which almost seemed hand picked, Reason for me to believe that this was case, was fact that most of the audience which was white had hardly any effnic minorities.

Topics of the week discussed was mostly about the Prime Minister’s defeat in the commons and the Race Riots in France. So it was an Interesting show to watch…But what left me upset and angry was the fact that as a Black man living in the UK and knowing what I know about Racism, Discrimination, Cultures and Life as a whole…I was struck by just how backward this country truly is.

Some people in the UK blame the fact that 7/7(The London Bombings) was because the UK raged war on Iraq but for me because of the lack of education in regards to extremist groups from around the world and the simple fact that this was going to happen anyway but it was all just a matter of time. 9/11 Happened well before Iraq and there has been so many incidents of bombings well before and after 9/11. It was going to happen to all countries which celebrate freedom amongst it people. But imagine this, you are a normal man with a normal life, good family and friends and then one day you attach explosives to your body and then enter a train or bar and kill innocent people..??? This has happened so many times now, so many stories of this type of change in behaviour in people that make them do what they do. Now what makes a man or woman do this? I don’t think that question can be answered but I think we can elaborate on it a little.

My point of view is that Religion has a lot to answer for! Everything comes back to that one issue, Religion and the lack of innate education between all races. To me no one really understands what religion truly is, I know I don’t!

I hardly ever go to Church and when I do it’s for the odd christening and funeral! As for my faith, I don’t have one! I believe in what I can see and do as a human being living on this planet, why because life doesn’t give me enough reason to believe in something other than what is going on around me, sorry mum, I know that may hurt you to hear but its how I feel. Anyhow back to the point at hand, the world is this way right now because Religion dictates everything we do believe it or not…Muslims have there beliefs, Christians have theirs and well all the others, God knows!

But what it shows is that people need something to believe in and are easily taken in by these true or false religions. Thus the way the world is…Watching this show made me feel so lost and disappointed with Democracy, Equality and Freedom and that we are all created equal. These days I don’t think all three exist. We are supposed to be going forward as Humans Beings but it seems we are gong backwards. The Destruction of humans is an everyday accurance these days, is that what Christ would have wanted? I know I can’t answer that, I am sure though the religious people of this world will have their own point of view on that one but for me it will always be a bit of a joke.

People’s points of views are always interesting to hear but sometimes I think that people should understand and educate themselves more on topics and issues before speaking their minds and worse of all going on TV and making a fool of themselves. I am fed up with these TV shows that have people on which are supposed to reflect the people from the streets and putting their own points of views across. For me that’s a load of bull! I would like to see a show where they get loads of Muslims and other Religious factions on so that the real point of view in regards to how the world has change because of Religious beliefs, only there and then we will get a good debate on how things really are and what the real people are thinking.

Only then will someone like my self and for me a lot of other effnic people living in the UK and around the world will understand a little to what is going on in the world we live. It is so easy to ignore things that happens around you but when it affects you in a certain way then its time to take notice and not ignore what is going on.

Mark J. Stevens

mjsmusic@hotmail.com

Today (10/24/05), President Bush appointed Ben Bernanke to succeed Alan Greenspan as the new chairman of the Federal Reserve.

Bernanke is currently serving in the White House as the chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors. The stock market immediately responded favorably to the appointment. How much of the market response is a result of the approval of the appointment or just the removal of uncertainty — the stock market hates uncertainty — is a matter of conjecture.

Bernanke is best known for a speech he made in November of 2002 in which he said…

“Like gold, U.S. dollars have value only to the extent that they are strictly limited in supply. But the U.S. government has a technology, called a printing press (or, today, its electronic equivalent), that allows it to produce as many U.S. dollars as it wishes at essentially no cost.”

His “printing press” comment was viewed by many as a signal that the U.S. would adopt inflationary policies. In fact, shortly after the speech, gold began a bull market move that is still intact today. And significant inflation has reared its ugly head for the first time in many years as the price of crude oil trades over $60 a barrel.

The reaction of Wall Street to Bernanke’s appointment seems mixed. But it is generally conceded that he will be less concerned about inflation than Greenspan has been. So the stock market has responded with a big rally as the fear dissipates among market participants that the Fed would overshoot in raising interest rates and spark a recession.

There may not be much change at first in Fed policy. The Fed has already signaled that they intend to continue to raise interest rates until January. After that, Bernanke takes over and it’s anybody’s guess.

I think the stock market euphoria will be temporary. The real winners will be hard assets — gold, silver, commodities, and oil.

The investment themes that have worked in the past will not be the ones that will work in the future. Plan accordingly.

Copyright 2005

Larry Holmes invites you to visit http://www.Money-Management-Wisdom.com/
You will learn how to become debt-free, save and invest money, cut taxes, manage risk, and achieve financial freedom in a much shorter time than you dreamed possible.

Guns were invented to kill people. Isn’t it time for us to move upward on the ladder of civilization and admit that we are better off without them? Hand guns have the advantage of being unnoticed in a crowd until the last minute. Rifles are so accurate that the victim doesn’t have a chance. Assault weapons are the same as rifles with the added feature of being able to kill more people faster. The old ploy of gun lovers is that they need guns to protect themselves from other gun lovers. Gun clubs exist to allow them to hit their targets better. Not having guns in the house would save the lives of thousands of people, many being children.

Of course, facing reality, we know that guns wouldn’t disappear over night, even if the right legislation were passed. But a ban on the sale and private ownership of hand guns would be a start in the right direction. I concur that rifles could be useful to the police in a situation where lives were at stake, as when a crazed killer is on the loose. But I can’t think of any place guns have in the lives of teachers, students, music lovers, and the rest of the peace loving world. I abhor war as much as anyone, but I believe that when criminals use force, ignoring the laws of the land, to harm innocent people, then it leaves the authorities no recourse but to eliminate these killers any way we can, including using guns.

Two hundred years ago citizens used guns to kill animals for food and to protect themselves in a wild, lawless country where danger was a way of life. The somewhat unclear portions of the Constitution that gives people the right to bear arms is believed by many knowledgeable historians to refer to mercenaries and volunteer soldiers, not anybody. There are many problems connected with the removal of guns from the populace. One method used by many communities is an offer by the police department to buy outright any guns brought in without penalty to the ‘owner’. This program has proved successful but only partially effective. (Allowing only one week of the year for this opportunity may have something to do with it.) I think that the price offered is much too little to attract those people with guns who are afraid to bring them in for fear of reprisal. Laws could be passed to restrict the sale of rifles to duly appointed authority and a ban placed on the sale of hand guns to the general populace. Just my opinion.

Comments welcome.

Those of the libertarian bent are often accused by statists of overreacting to the predations of government. “We are the government,” they say, “our elected officials are only doing the things we elected them to do, so what’s the problem?”

In many (even most) cases they may be right. We do tend to be a bit hypercritical of the machinations of our leaders, but not always.

If you want a glimpse into predatory government at its worst, take a look at what’s going on in Alabaster, Alabama.
Alabaster is such a booming metropolis that I only ever heard of it (until this week) as an occasional reference in the old Pogo comic strip. So, what can the politicians of this little burg be doing that threatens the nation? They are stealing private property.

There is a tool used by government in order to acquire property for public use. It’s called ‘eminent domain.’ Briefly, it is a Constitutional way for government to force property owners to sell land (for adequate compensation, of course) that may be necessary for the construction of public facilities such as roads, bridges, utility rights-of-way, etc.

At least that’s the way it was for the first two hundred years of this Republic. Today though, the political hacks in government have found a brand new way to define what the terms public and necessary mean. They now say that additions or increases to the tax base of a community or bringing in new jobs can be viewed as contributing to the public good and thus as a necessity.

In Alabaster, on one side, there is some land owned and occupied by plain old citizens, some of whom have lived there for nearly half a century. On the other side, there is the Colonial Properties Trust, a development company, which wants to build a huge shopping center that includes a WalMart Super Store.

The problem is, some of the residents have no interest in selling their property. They see no reason why their lives should be disrupted just because a developer has chosen to build on their land.

Enter the city government of Alabaster.

“You must sell,” they harumph. They insist that this project is “necessary” because it will bring in many times the tax dollars of the current residences. And if the landowners still refuse to sell, the city will use its power of eminent domain to condemn the land, force its sale at extremely low prices and then the city will sell the land to Colonial and the shopping center will be built.

I wonder if the late storeowner of the people, Sam Walton, is spinning in his grave at the thought of the power of the government being used to seize folks property to be used for one of his namesake stores?

And just in case you think this is only an isolated instance, read on.

In New York City, the venerable New York Times wanted to build a brand new headquarters in Manhattan. They selected a block which contained a number of established businesses and went about trying to convince the owners to sell. As in Alabaster, AL, some of the owners didn’t want to sell because they would be unable to relocate their businesses with the amount of money they were offered. In due course the NYT, having much political power in the City, went to the politicians, who dutifly condemned the recalcitrant business’s properties and turned it over to the Times.

In East St. Louis, IL, the Gateway International Motorsports Corp., owner and builder of Gateway International Raceway went to the Southwestern Illinois Development Authority (SWIDA) in an attempt to have nearly one hundred-fifty acres of privately owned land condemned so they could build a parking lot for their race track. In that case, the landowners fought back and having survived several victories and reversals, at last report, the Illinois Supreme Court had found for the landowner.

These are big buck land grabs but the same thing is happening on a smaller scale all over the country and they are finally starting to generate some notice and some organized opposition. (See the Web site for the Institute for Justice at http://www.ij.org/index.shtml under “CASES,” the Southeastern Legal Foundation at http://www.southeasternlegal.org/ and the Castle Coalition http://www.castlecoalition.org/ for more examples)

Then the unthinkable happened. The United States Supreme Court, in a decision known as “Kelo vs. New London, CT” stuck a dagger in the heart of every American property owner when they said that government agencies actually had the RIGHT to seize private property under eminent domain and turn it over to other private interests.

The United States Constitutional protection of property ownership was destroyed by five black robed statists who see government power and its ability to raise money as more important than the rights of the people.

The right of people to own private property that is not subject to seizure on the whim of government is a fundamental underpinning of any nation that claims to be free. English Common Law asserted that right as early as the Twelfth Century and our Founding Fathers used the Fifth Amendment to the U. S. Constitution to guarantee that right to us. Governments, big and small are now usurping that right any time they think there is tax money or political advantage to be had.

In one city, an area was declared to be blighted despite the fact that the homes were occupied and well maintained. In another, an entire neighborhood of homes were condemned to allow the construction of a privately owned office park and “other unspecified uses.” In yet another, a county government condemned an occupied home, forced the residents out, then allowed the manager of a nearby golf course to move in.

The Christian Science Monitor’s Alexandra Marks has an article at http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0509/p01s03-ussc.html describing more government property predation and the sometimes bizarre stratagems used to justify their taking, including a case where a government agency condemned the property of one small business so it could be transferred to another small business.

If America’s governments are allowed to continue to use (or abuse) their power in order to seize the property of American citizens for no other reason than that they can derive political capital from the deal through turning the land over to those with more wealth or political power, our nation, as we know it, will not survive.

And it’s not just state and local governments that are involved. The Feds have taken millions of acres of land so it can be “protected” from the very citizens that provide the tax money to finance the seizures. It’s time for the American people to stand up to government at all levels and a great way to start would be to stop the unconstitutional and perfidious misapplication of the doctrine of eminent domain.

© 2005 Charles Stone, Jr.

Born: Buffalo, NY 8/7/42
Graduated: Williamsville Central HS 1960
Military Service USAF 1/27/61 - 1/4/65 Missile mechanic, 3 years in Germany.
Computer School, Buffalo, NY 1967.
Worked as a computer programmer, programmer/analyst, systems analyst, DP manager and consultant from 1968 - 1990
Became disabled in 1991
Currently living in Kissimmee, FL
Interests: politics, motor sports, history (mainly military), Web surfing, talk radio junkie.
Member of the NRA.
Favorite TV shows: CSI, Whose Line Is It, Anyway?, Nova.
Favorite radio program: Neal Boortz
Political leaning: libertarian, Constitutionalist, individualist.
Supported and campaigned for Harry Browne in 1996 and 2000. Not sure I’d do it again.
Published in: Bureaucrash, Sierra Times, The Libertarian Enterprise, Free Market Net, We Hold These Truths, The Informed Volusian

Profit: Its Social Motivation and Function

A brief treatise on this commonly referenced and highly sought subject of economics…

By Punkerslut

[Author’s Note: Started on Thursday, September 9, 2005. Completed on Thursday, October 6, 2005.]

The Economic Function of Profit

Profit serves primarily as an economic idea. If a merchant were to purchase a single loaf of bread for one dollar and to sell it for two dollars, that would be a single dollar of profit, or what many economists would call a 100% profit return. What does money translate to for the merchant? It translates specifically to privilege: the right to possess and consume products and services, which would otherwise be unreachable, had the merchant sold his labor, instead of selling commodities. By selling one loaf of bread and gaining one dollar of profit, we could just as well say that by selling one loaf of bread, he is gaining another loaf of bread for personal use. If the merchant was doing poorly at his business, if he wasn’t profiting and his needs as a human being were still just as strong, then he could satisfy his economic position by entering the laboring class. That is one very obvious microeconomic example of what profit translates to. Consider something more on the macroeconomic scale. An investor purchases two hundred thousand dollars worth of stock. The dividends pay him only two percent every quarter, or $4,000 every three months. This money he spends on clothing, food, luxury, transportation, housing, all imaginable needs. His investment was the spur to an economy to get people to manufacture a product that would be sold at a profit. When people bought this product with their money, they not only paid for the production cost of the product, but they paid an additional portion, called the “profit;” which means they were paying for the merchant’s food, clothing, and other items of purchase.

The function of profit as a motivator to the capital-owning class, the Capitalist class, is very apparent. Capitalists make wealth by possessing wealth, which is why their property is a different type of property: capital. The alternative to their method of making wealth is to exchange their labor as a commodity. It is also quite apparent that those who make wealth by possessing wealth prefer that method of sustenance. They do not labor, yet they enjoy the fruits of the labor of others. We never see billionaires maintaining power lines or serving fast food. Those who are forced to do these otherwise stressful occupations are people who must trade their labor as a commodity out of necessity. To be able to satisfy their needs of shelter, food, water, and other requirements, they exchange labor as their only commodity. The class that labors to produce wealth to exchange has been referred to by Marxists as the Proletariat class, borrowing terminology from a low caste of the ancient Roman Empire. The class that exists off of the labor of others has gone by the aforementioned popular term: Capitalist.

The Capitalist and Proletariat class are both consumers; that is, they both are purchasers and users of the wealth created by society. When a person purchases a loaf of bread, what they pay can be divided up in to two parts: one part to pay for the actual production costs of the bread, and one part to pay profit. When it happens that the consumer is also a member of the Proletariat class, there are some other deductions that we can further. The Proletariat can pay with the only thing afforded to them: their labor. When a member of the Proletariat decides to purchase a loaf of bread, he is paying with his labor. If a loaf of bread costs only $2.00 and the worker is paid $6.00 an hour, which means that the loaf of bread would cost him twenty minutes of labor. Let’s say, for the sake of this example, that the Proletariat consumer here is a bread worker. Since he would be paying for the cost of the bread and profit of the merchant, he would already be making an unfair exchange at the moment of producing the bread. The Proletariat worker who bakes bread for a living will be buying the bread he makes at a loss, and his extra labor will produce bread that will feed other workers. Other workers in society produce items that they would never use in their lifetime. Assembly line workers in expensive automobile factories may never buy a car. Since they contribute to the social wealth in order to have their needs be satisfied, the luxury workers labor in order to get the produce of other members of society. So, we see the producing parts of society in two categories: those who work to produce necessities to feed the majority, and those who work to produce luxury items and fine items for a small minority. The proportion of these groups is probably subject to variation, but it is safe to say that each group of workers plays an enormously important role in the Capitalist system. If a Capitalist is selling a product for fifty percent profit, what he is saying to the Proletariat consumer is: “For you to accept this product, I want you to work long enough to feed yourself and another person; the other person will make luxury items for me in exchange for the surplus bread you produced.”

The Social Function of Profit

The origin of a Capitalist’s extravagant living, high standards, financial security, and ease of existence is due to his role in the economy: the possessor of wealth. One might look at the way the wealth distribution system is set up and they would say that the only reason one part is privileged is because it owns capital. Simply by possessing wealth does one class gain an advantage over another class. When the Capitalist class desires profit, it can simply raise the retail cost of products and services. A loaf of bread normally costing $1.00 to produce and $2.00 to purchase might then cost $3.00. Instead of a 1:1 ratio proportion of production cost to profit, there is a one 1:2 ratio proportion of production cost to profit. The rising price for the Proletariat workers and consumers means one of three things: they will not be able to consume as many goods, they will need to work longer, or both. The first case, of not being able to purchase as many products, is due to Capitalists enjoying their wealth and suddenly stopping. There was a well-balanced economy, with one part creating the necessities for the majority, and another proportionate part creating luxuries for the tiny minority at the top. The minority at the top stops its consumption, causing massive unemployment of luxury workers, flooding the other economic sector with more laborers but not more consumers. There are more workers competing for the same jobs in the part of the economy that produces the items that the majority uses. But, with the Capitalist class relaxing their purchases, there is a lack of people to buy the items that the new workers can create. The majority was already having its needs satisfied with the current laborers who produce necessities for the majority; since people aren’t buying more, businesses cannot take on the additional influx of workers, causing unemployment. The term used by economists is a depression.

Then there is the second case, of the Proletariat consumer having to work longer just to purchase the same items. This occurs when Capitalists want to increase their own items of luxury that they consume. If the retail cost of items goes up, that means that a Proletariat consumer must exchange a longer amount of labor for the same amount of bread. A bread price increase might mean that the Proletariat baker, for instance, would have to make enough bread not just to feed himself and another worker, but he would need enough bread to feed himself and two others. On the macroeconomic scale, this translates to a migration of workers. Workers who produced wealth for the masses would instead shift to the other occupation: producing luxury for the tiny minority of Capitalists. If that happened, that means that Proletariat workers who worked the same amount of time would get a smaller amount of wealth. To sustain the same lifestyle, a worker would have to take on additional work hours. In an economy with this shift, one would see the general trend of workers giving a little more labor, consumers getting a little less wealth, and the Capitalist class gaining privilege. In some cases, this could reflect a recession, the upswing of a depression. These are the guidelines that the Capitalist class will always operate on; the Capitalist class will suddenly relieve their purchasing habits, causing unemployment, or increasing their purchasing habits and causing a less amount of wealth for the workers.

When looking at this social organization, one might ask: why should we live in such an economy? It seems clear that a group of workers is capable of producing enough necessities for themselves and the others; everyone should just work together, everyone contributing to their own common wealth, so that no strictly idle or strictly working class exists. If everyone worked to produce wealth to be used by the majority, instead of working for the luxury of a few, then workdays would probably be cut to a third or a fourth of what they are today. Wages would increase, bringing a real improvement in living and working conditions. Poverty, crime, and unemployment, all products of this Capitalist organization, would disappear if workers were allowed to freely produce and exchange products without profit. It is simply the possession of wealth, of capital, that allows one group to maintain economic dominance over the other group. Since one group possesses capital, they are allowed to be idle and gain wealth by the labor of a Proletariat worker. It is the social organization of Capitalism that creates a type of wage slavery. A worker is forced to produce more wealth than they are given. The extra wealth is exchanged for something that satisfies the interest of a person who did no labor. The social situation at hand begs one final conclusion. Private property is theft. It is by private property, the idea that a person can own capital, that a person can exploit another individual, whose only crime was not being a possessor of capital. All of the wealth of society is produced by the working class, but the rules of Free Enterprise have dictated one unfair judgment: the tiny, idle minority class is to be given more wealth than those responsible for creating it.

The Political Function of Profit

It is ironic today, to see black and Asian businessmen who are willing to contract slave labor in third world nations. The facts are out there: children work twelve hours a day in hazardous conditions for little pay. It is ironic, because both blacks and Asians were once slaves in this country, yet today they participate in the slavery that destroyed their people. The face of authority always changes, but the trends of authority are never absent. The United States, for instance, has a long, dark history, of manipulating international laws, subverting revolutionaries who are overthrowing a dictator, or setting up slave labor in third world countries. Again, the irony is still painfully present: the United States was formed by a cluster of colonies that believed in the idea that people have a right to govern themselves. America’s involvement in Vietnam, for example, was solely to prevent the popular Democratic uprising. Perhaps centuries worth of infertile soil and millions of dead people was America’s plan. I watch these societies today with pain, as everyone is induced by the hypnotic glare of the establishment’s propaganda, through television, radio, and all media.

The newest Iraq War produced for us pictures and photographs of US soldiers torturing prisoners. It was widely known and understood by almost all individuals of the press and government, but they both refused to let the media channels distribute the information. It wasn’t until the photographs were distributed that the government needed to take action, “on this horrible thing which we could never have imagined.” The words faintly remind us of commanders finally believing the stories of Nazi war crimes only when they crossed the border in to the country. All of a sudden, the world was stricken with the tragedy… despite the decades of information given to authorities and the press in other countries. I’m sure our leaders were thinking more of the interest rates of the debt Germany had incurred; their interest was profit, not any incidental cost of human lives in slave camps. In our world’s political scene, we find factories operated by slave labor and producing American commodities, and in every case, there is always a tyrannical government, supporting foreign investors and oppressing its own people. The actions of Nazi Germany come to mind. The German Holocaust is over, that is true, but there are at least a hundred situations in the world right now where the same thing is happening. Instead of taking the complacent posture of ignoring this dreadful mess, the United States government has actively sought to maintain and stabilize the international situation.

Our nation’s culture is so adamantly moved by the plight of the Jews in the concentration camps, yet our people turn a blind eye to the same people today that are in the same condition of slavery. Perhaps being Jewish is a requirement for sympathy. People often quote the “six million Jews” statistic, but nobody quotes the “over twenty five million human deaths” statistic of the Third Reich. I don’t think I’m confused and I don’t think I’m misunderstanding the situation. I know the facts. Whenever the gods of media publish any comedy with any slight relation to the Holocaust, they always present a disclaimer that they do not wish to offend anyone or cause distress to families that may have been in the Holocaust. Without any sense of irony, any second glance, they will stream in to commercials that advertise products made in slave labor camps. The discipline of the overseers at these third world country factories does not differ greatly from the discipline that the Reich’s slave masters held. Why would the established authority of America condemn the persecution of minorities in an oppressive, totalitarian government, but at the same time, ignore the widespread slavery throughout the world? American culture and society, which is hopelessly intertwined with authority and the state, allows us to create these contradictions. The American CEO today looks back to Auschwitz and tells us that it is a great crime against humanity. But, he continues, “The slave camps the Reich created in Poland and France are admirable methods of outsourcing labor; we should hope to emulate them in our plan of a globalized economy.”

The greatest irony of our world is that we will curse anyone who wants to enslave another man for his race, but we praise those who enslave another man because of his class. America, the state, looks down on any culture that would put forced labor on a person because of their racial background. But when any entire people are put in slavery to create products for Western civilization, words like “rugged individualism” and “free trade” are used as a defense. Millions of Americans continue shopping at Walmart, Niketown, and the other retailers. The crowd mentality survives. The masters of all publishing houses keep the people from knowing the truth. Everyone proceeds on the same grounds, as blind, ignorant, and apathetic as the rest. Here is the cost of profit… real Democracy, where the people are given the light of truth and a conscientious education. Autonomy, rule of the people and for the people, is the first casualty in the system of Capitalism.

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For Life,
Punkerslut

Punkerslut (or Andy Carloff) has been writing essays and poetry on social issues which have caught his attention for several years. His website http://www.punkerslut.com provides a complete list of all of these writings. His life experience includes homelessness, squating in New Orleans and LA, dropping out of high school, getting expelled from college for “subversive activities,” and a myriad of other revolutionary actions.