Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Impressions of Bachman

The difference between Palin and Bachman is in the area of their intelligence. I would vote for Bachman as more intelligent. And Palin always stuck me as secretly a fascist. For example, her husband wanted to secede from U.S., which supports the idea that Palin is all about something "totally different." Fascism.

Now we have a new one. A candidate, I mean. For you-know-what. President, I mean. Isn't that the top office in the land? As for the new one, USA Today calls the lady a "tax lawyer."

That would mean that Bachman understands the workings of the law but on the other hand maybe does not understand the reason we need laws.

    Chris Matthews has for some time known Bachman. He considers her on the extremes. We could say she is on the extreme end of some spectrum, if there is a spectrum. In a well-known incident, Bachman once called Obama "anti-American." 
    That is pretty well-known but we also see it in the newspaper and my reference here for her statement about Obama's anti-Americanism is USA Today for Wed., June 15 (not un-coincidentally the date of this blogpost) p. 2A. Her questionable language use: "anti-American views." Now this is not quite right somehow. Now this was 10/08. She may have changed since. After all, a smart lady certainly cleans up her act. And I did call her smart, didn't I?

From about the period during or shortly after the French Revolution right up until now there has been a situation in which there are not one but two publicly-acceptable, culturally kosher mindsets. This is very liberal of us. At any rate, these are the factions called "liberal" and "conservative" or left and right.
    Now, Michelle B. would appear to be on the Right.
    I can tell. Yes I can ---- I do it by looking at a photo that comes up on that page. It's 2A of this newspaper. There are two femme faces there, Bachman and a female reporter, I think.
    I do not want to get into a lot of verbal descriptions of faces because I am not Paul Eckman, one, and two, faces and words communicate in distinct ways: but Michelle has a kind of eager, jump-in-your-face kind of face. That's her expression going up against or I should say contrasting with what appears to be maybe a reporter. The reporter's face, or the other face in the photo, is more analytic --- could be skeptical. The former, Bachman, is a face that is not expressing a critical quality. This face has an acceptant quality; what this mean is that this face accepts. She not only accepts reality she wants to jump in. But not critical. Stay on "our" side.
    But then again she too has a critical side, in some sense. The critical side here would be her attitude towards "other." That mean foreigners, outsiders, and so forth. The ones who sell us oil. Conservatives think this way, and of course, Obama is Muslim etc. and so on and so forth and etc.
     So: my expect would b that as with Palin --- what we would see is a lot of "us against them" stuff. What I'm saying is pretty obvious, eight? That would seem to imply the USA, "us," against "them", the foreigners. Or the outsiders, or in the Palin case perhaps it would be against those who do not use Gucci handbags.  Whatever the going demarcation is, I guess --- since, after all, conservatives of the Tea-Party stripe (perhaps all conservatives today?) are not so well-connected to reality.

(So, what would they be accepting? That's a good question. Themselves?) Also, on the same page/ (The famous page 2A of the June 15th USA) / another photo:

I guess it's my photo analysis day, so: this one is above the one we have just finished of Bachman and reporter.  I don't know which is photo is "foreign," and I don't want to use words to describe a photo... This other one is of Jon Huntsman looking like a buffoon. He has a certain combination of features here, which comes across to me as: dumb ...conservative ...wealthy.  I mean, that's lethal.  I love these old traditional conservative guys just as much as you do but we don't want one as president (if we do why not Mitt R?). I'm sure Huntsman can kill terrorists just as good as anybody. He's running for president too, just like Bachman is, get it? That's why they were both on the same page. That newspaper is pure brilliance. Well, anyways, on to the photo. I mean, there is something else: In this photo are three other men, all they all coincidently turn out to be white. And they are, I sense, all of them, either chortling or snickering. That is what you might call the Gee/Golly kind of Republicanism.  "Don't know how I got the heck I got here but ahm shore lakin' it, yuk, yuk, yuk."

So, I don't support any of the afore-mentioned conservative Republicans, Palin, Bachman, or Huntsman, on the evidence so far.  If you want a Republican, I'd have to say Mitt R. Go Mitt!

Thursday, June 9, 2011

Jume 09, 2011

Why is "love" a good subject for songs, but a bad topic for discussion? The Dalai Lama keeps talking about "love"; but is anyone paying attention? I suggest we all pay more attention to the Dalai Lama, this time around, actually reading his books and listening to what he has to say this time. (note to myself.)


Bob Dylan, too has made claims of love -- that "it makes the world go 'round." That line comes from the "Nashville Skyline" LP. No shit.


Other cultures, like Spanish cultures, talk about love all the time, and in everyday life. I really believe that other cultures do, but not in the Anglo-American world, except, that is to say, in the sanctified university circles, where they just dither about how to define the word, that's all.


Then, also persons try to squash it underfoot. Yeah, they really do. They will do that to love. And when they find that "love" is just a crumpled candy wrapper -- once-colorful -- they laugh, the bastards.




And Paul tried to register his point of view when he said he has not yet "had enough of silly love songs."  So he sings.


But, Mr. McCartney, you should come to the point.  Love isn't silly. Love isn't silly at all!!!! (♪)


Yet another wag: Love "Is Just a Four-Letter Word." Another song. This has little to do with my discussion of "love" as a topic for serious discussion, but I got off track. Music is about four tracks and eight tracks and sixteen tracks after all, and that song is what came to my mind.


I wonder: who wrote that?


(hint): see comments section!

Wednesday, June 8, 2011

June 08, 2011 ; Fairness and Sharing


There is some question on whether economics is based on fairness or not – most persons would say not.
If economics is based on fairness then it should involve sharing.
This culture handles the subject matter of economics in a way that is not at all obscure. That's because it is blaring out at you as front page news; we do not keep this collective ideology a secret. This is because it is culture. There is a cultural norm, an ideology. Think of culture being something like a shared public property. It is shared: that's why it is "culture". "Sharing" seems (to me) to function as an antonym for “competition.” One cannot be both sharing and competing at the same time. If I own a software company and say, “I am competing with software company z,” then it follows that I am not sharing: the two terms preclude each other, (I guess) in economics.
Of course, it is also possible to say I am sharing, because I am sharing with company z a system of law, a culture, a language – all that. There is so much, all you have to do is think about it. At the same time, it is true that the way the concepts function in the business world, which is kind of like our main culture or the engine of our society, if I were to say to another businessman, “they are my competition,” then the concept, idea or ideology of “competition” arrives, to block or preclude the function that the concept of sharing would have. I have little doubt that the distinction between the words "competition" and "sharing" points to the fact that American society is stuck on the concept of competition all the time. At any rate, “sharing” and “competing” are different and distinct ways of handling that situation/semantic.
What I am saying certainly seems to be so. We have, for many moons, not wanted to talk about sharing or fairness.  It is both a business culture trait and a trait of the general culture to avoid such talk. And culture is always shared, and, as said, the idea of selfishness is a cultural idea to be shared. Since all cultures are shared cultures, etc., selfishness is a shared ideology of America/US, adhering to and functioning within American/US culture. Also this very US/American choice of standard language or trope indicates that maybe --- in some ways maybe we aren’t that fair. OK, so that's true. We nailed that one, at least. So, we mean Americans (or all white people?) don't like the idea of fairness, but, and this is a theme I have been working on for some time, capitalism gets around that. Capitalism in particular -- and what call economics is generally very close to what we call capitalism -- may just be resiliently based on sharing and fairness nevertheless. John Wayne turns over in his grave.
If we are a society that wants to NOT frame itself in terms of fairness, then our usual/normal faux-manly characterization of economics follows right along just like a little puppy dog. We are “competitive” and all of that. Oh. We are all a bunch of macho competitive dorks. OK. We would rather not say anything about sharing or fairness -- thank you. That's what we say about ourselves and that's how we think about ourselves. 
But there is a problem with all of this posturing at "American competitiveness" and so forth, which is that, if we keep pretending we’re such a bunch of tough guys, we’re going to end up as, Um ---- a bunch of dead dorks.

Monday, June 6, 2011

Hillary Speech About Internet

[via YouTube]
“Think of all the ways in which people and organizations rely on confidential communications…businesses…journalists…retribution/exposure…the need for [confidentiality]…Wikileaks…government documents stolen…” At this point, Hillary begins to make a very strategically specific case, a case tailored to her specific interests.  There is a completely different direction in which she could have gone.
    I would simply suggest we look at all the instances of confidentiality and try to eliminate whatever can be eliminated. Hillary covers this too. At lease she seems to, but in every case, she also backtracks and makes the case for less openness, not more openness, in a very crafted and targeted set of ideas.
    “confidentiality is essential…but of course governments also have a duty to be transparent [too]…we must be judicious about when we close our work off to the public…open to the people [too]…[much] government data [is] online…depends on maintaining a balance, between what’s public and what should and must remain out of the public domain…the scale must be…in favor of openness…”
At one point, she makes a strong case for free speech in general (24:27). She seems to continuously veer back and forth between the freedoms and the restrictions. She wants a general trend towards openness (yes; this is how she or Bill would be elected) “But, when it comes to online speech, the United States has chosen not to depart from our time-tested principles. We urge our people to speak with civility, to recognize the power and reach that their words can have…tragic examples of how online bullying can have…consequences…empowering people to make their own choices…we protect free speech with the force of law [she breaks her flow at this word and stumbles here], and we appeal to the force of reason to win out over hate…” Everything up until this point in the speech points to a kind of balancing act, which she contradicts with: “we do not have to choose among them: liberty and security, transparency and confidentiality, freedom of expression and tolerance – these all make up the foundation of a free, open and secure society as well as of a free, open and secure internet.” Sounds like a contradiction there, and at this point mention of control is dropped and only freedom is discussed. She then rejects the idea of partitioning, or of any kinds of “walls that divide the internet.”
     Here, my ideas seem to differ; my position is that we should divide the internet; I favor a division between a business and a non-business internet. This is what we should do. I do not know why, if there is “an economic internet and a social internet”, the internet itself would be prone to repression. The internet could be divided, and yet both parts could be free. Antagonism towards division per se is weird. The mere fact of division does not imply restriction of lack of freedom. The whole universe is divided between particulars and universals, anyways. The human race is, for example, divided between male and female. The French say, "vive le difference,” why does that become a problem? The fact of division does not imply some kind of problem – division exists for a reason. Why would the French say that?
     All you have to do is not overly repress either of the two divisions.  There are divisions, though. In the U.S. there is a huge division, between rural and urban; there is a division between rural persons, who tend to be conservatives, and urban professional persons who are many kinds of liberal. She is on very shaky ground here. She does not double back to the security concerns expressed at the beginning. The speech forgets that theme. So now, for a long stretch, the speech is completely for openness.  For this whole stretch she speaks only of “an open internet”, and “open societies”, etc. Suddenly she says “rule of law,” though. That implies the control factors. I thought she would start to double back to the security concerns again. She doesn't.
She speaks of all the “challenges we are facing,” how to “handle” things. “…corporate partners.” She wants to bring in the activists, the ngo’s. “Civil Society 2.0” She drops the anti-Wikileaks stuff; continually comes back to the theme of “openness” instead. ...“open internet…internet freedom isn’t about any one particular activity online. It’s about assuring that the internet remains a space…we want to keep the internet open”
Here again is this generalized advocacy of openness, and also with an implication of no divisions to the openness. Then there is the word we." 
     The “we” here indicates a particular take on political freedoms – that they come from the government. The “we” is the government. She speaks of “defending the space in which all these things occur.” “This is one of the grand challenges of our time.” Grander yet would be to create a space that includes the phenomena of division, better reflecting the reality of the way the world really is, for it is a world where a lot of people disagree.

Hard to Talk Sometimes

It is hard to talk about what’s irrational. When we see something irrational it confounds us and we are likely to turn away. Nevertheless I am an autistic individual who gets indignant sometimes. My own neurological apparatus is partially disabled, but I think I am like Temple Grandin, in one thing. When I see an entire society that is disabled I get indignant.
Any system that successfully functions day to day has rational elements. Yet when I look at this world I sometimes see a system that is not rational. I don’t see a system that is rational, sorry.
There’s not much we can do about accepting the system we have; we need to do that to a certain degree. Nevertheless, certain substantive things get to me. 
And what is it about wasted packaged food? Why is that my big beef? I am not sure that I can totally analyze this. I get indignant when I see a bit of carefully packaged food left lying around on a street corner, when all those people are around. It is not just that the food is wasted; it must be some combination of factors; there seem rather to be several factors involved: food is something you pay for; packaging material is then employed to carefully contain it; and, finally, some of it – it does not have to be all of it – is left lying around in the middle of all those persons.
Something about this is wrong. Why did you put it in a nice little package if you want to leave it on the street corner? And nobody takes it?  
All of these persons in the big city are supposedly competing for everything. And then somebody leaves a nice piece of food the most basic thing persons want and nobody takes it? And you went out of your way to put it in a package? And why did you put it in a package? So, you could leave it in the trash can?
This really gets to me.
And you have all those people, competing for jobs and money. And the main thing you do with money is you use it for food. And then you leave it in the middle of the city in a nice package and nobody takes it?

Saturday, June 4, 2011

06/04/2011 second post / FT: World's Largest Economy Stalled!

____
Please respect FT.com's ts&cs and copyright policy which allow you to: share links; copy content for personal use; & redistribute limited extracts.  [this is from: Saturday Jun 4 2011: US > Economy & Fed]
"
The US added just 54,000 jobs in May, confirming fears that the recovery of the world’s largest economy has stalled.

The rise in payrolls was far smaller than the 165,000 forecast by economists in a Bloomberg poll, and also well below this year’s average monthly gain of 182,000. The unemployment rate rose by a 10th of a percentage point to 9.1 per cent.


[the likelier cause is the] recent rise in oil and food prices – and the resulting damage to consumption and business confidence
"

I have no problem with this. That's right, I don't worry too much. I worry that we refuse to re-organize the economy. It needs re-organizing, but psychopaths tend to be in charge of the thing. The data merely tell us that conditions are changing; so, if conditions are changing --- we need to re-organize. These numbers are the indicator that tells us we need to create jobs. Where is the problem? Create them.

There are all kinds of ways to create jobs, but you would need to go outside of traditional policies. If the leadership of the nation cannot go with non-traditional policies, they cannot fix things. They could "create jobs." But they cannot conceive of new methods. If they cannot conceive it, then they can that much less go ahead and find those methods. The "economy," we call it --- but this all about certain ambitious persons who have made their money. They have already made their money, and it has been their means for obtaining status. Within a status system, persons who have attained status will not accept a basic change of system, Ghaddafi or Bashar being the examples, if you will. Bashar and Ghaddafi do not know another way to live. How can a banker for a large bank suggest an alternative method of economics? ---- when he cannot conceive of any such thing?

The president should simply go with the most radical economist he can find within the profession. Notice I do not say "outside" the profession. But what I do say is that you need to create "capitalism" v.2!

Who wants to do this?

06/04/2011

____
It’s a long way from 4000 N. (where I am staying) to 4900 N. where the Blue Line is waiting to take me right into the mouth of the American Lion City known as Chicago, Illinois (plus a.k.a. hog butcher to the world) if I have to walk it – which I do not, so I wait for the Milwaukee bus. If it’s hot at 6:00 AM, then it’s going to be a hot one.

On the way I write out these "Rules of ‘Merica."

The low-income persons count for nothing. Neither do their clever ideas, nor does their low-budget writing style count for anything.
And, even once you accept the upper classes, there is no way to penetrate them based on your mere ideas.  Don't even bother because objective evaluation of others' ideas is just against the rules, and that's that. So, what is left? The basic method is that of force and violence. But where force and violence do not work peace and democracy will be indulged to some minimal extent. Noam Chomsky explains that this does not apply to other countries. As for other countries, the only thing the United States cares about is whether those countries will cooperate with U. S. interests, and we have some ideas what those are. And these are, of course, the interests of those upper classes we mentioned, and those are, as stated, based upon force and violence, or upon killing thousands --- so far we still kill unnumbered persons only in the non-Western countries, which means I am, mercifully, free to write here. Mercy, mercy.

If this is the case, then why does anything of any note even exist at all, in the United States? Well, in one word, capitalism. We don’t need to liberate persons from capitalism. Capitalism is a reality. Rather what we need to do is liberate capitalism. (Now that may be hard to understand for some persons --- for those who are following the usual cultural "conversation.")

This is the way to restore balance to the world system, create more security at home, create a more stable country.

Or, if it is too late to create a stronger U. S. by such methods, by liberating capitalism (from those who want to capture it for themselves, i.e. for private self-interests), we could at least stop our further decline by re-organizing the capitalistic economy.

(I am the author of a unique theory and set of ideas. The field in which those ideas exist seems perfectly compatible with what is called "economics,” so I am technically speaking an economist. The ideas are neither right nor left. They comprise a specific theory of economics. They acknowledge capitalism as our system, but clarify that capitalism is public; it should be regulated. The way to do that has been found: the strategy to extract commodities directly out of the present productive stream of, or system of, or capacity for production. The extracted commodities should be given away to certain members of the system, a system that conveniently happens to be "global." Products can be transferred without extracting payment from the recipients. That would be the beginning of a re-organization of capitalism. Without re-organizing capitalism, the system, it appears to me, will perish. It cannot simply continue to be operated by "private" persons, doing as they please.)

- - + - -

[Now I am on the bus, and I have some other observations]: The materiality of my physical body, standing on the concrete, getting on the bus, is reduced from the moment I step onto the vehicle. (My body becomes less relevant, i.e. less “material.”) They don’t just let me on, I have to pay. Most will accept that. But then there is the further attempt to reduce the materiality of the situation, even beyond the step that is taken when money is used.
Stick plastic transit card into bus’s metal box; as there was not enough on the card the display prompts me to put in $1.50 additional. I have it. I have exact change so I put that in. The machine is not designed to take any additional money, like the 25¢ I am going to need later. At that point, at the station, there is another 25¢, to be put in at another, different machine. My thesis here is that at every point, materiality for some reason (such as human ignorance?) is attacked and assaulted, in order to be reduced to abstraction. Now at the present juncture I have access to the very physical train platform, to wait for the very physical choo-choo train. Let us observe this with precision. Once I have accepted the use of money -- not rejected its use, which would be rather strange -- that acceptance is the opening used to enact the strategy of everyone's continual reduction from materiality to abstraction, from a physical thing to a nothing -- a mere abstraction. We live in a material, physical world. We don't live in abstraction. The world is metal, concrete; a world of distance, of air, but a world of (the science of) physics. Money is an abstraction that must always be place in relationship with materiality.

Assuming that relationship as the starting point, here's the way stuff actually works in this world: take this necessary relationship between money and materiality and reduce only the materiality aspect. You can also note here that the very very right-wing, conservative economic views hold compatible views: that money, you see, is just like a language; and so it transfers materiality into speech like language does. Those persons argue like that; they say this translation is natural and automatic and flawless, hence you need no regulation of any kind. Money is the same as logic, as nature, or, as language. (See http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=11569 for, believe it or not, the left-wing version) But the reality is not like that. There are very specific actions that are being forced upon us: a plastic card is used, which is something like being forced to use an alternate currency, and now the machine is asking for an exact amount, and later another additional amount will requested (at that point I can actually added even more, if I had want to – not that that makes a difference but I am just trying to be accurate). Only then may I get physically onto the train and go to the exciting downtown (to what is supposedly an actual city with human culture).
The system we use -- the government -- acts in terms of taking my physical presence and reducing me. First it does so by requiring that I use money, then by requiring an abstraction readable only by technology – a plastic card (is that better? Worse? Who knows?) It is a plastic card instead of those bits of paper, the ones with numbers on them, or, a separate series of circle-shaped metal pieces denominated by units the value of which is 1/100 of the first kind of money, the paper. No more separate pieces of paper. Now we have one plastic card (I do not say that is “good” or “bad.” I don't know.) But there's more, always more: no more two qualities associated with the currency, i.e. feel of paper and metal. Also, on a more abstract level this time, there are no more two number series, one of which is 1/100 of the other. I think there were two numbers series before, because each was attached to a distinct material, paper or metal. There is now only one number series, using decimals to divide the infinitely ascending numbers on one side of “Mr. dot” from the other side, where the numbers are infinitely descending into littleness.

When one dies, this is a reduction of a physical entity into abstraction. What does our present way of using money do? Is there any difference?

Friday, June 3, 2011

Banking article from Reuters

article Rachel Maddow . tweet . @maddow . http://blogs.reuters.com/reuters-wealth
"
Elizabeth Warren, it’s not you they hate. It’s what you represent. You want to be an honest cop when so many before you in Washington have looked the other way and pretended that the banking industry could police itself.
"

Banking -- or "the banking industry" -- is not an honest device. Close off all your theories and assumption. Just look at banking. Open your mind and just look at this institution, or this industry of ours.

Maybe you can read a few articles. Keep an open mind. Go back to just observing bankers and wondering what they do.

Read Keynes's book on monetary policy (A Tract on Monetary Reform).

OK, just read the first two pages, like I did.

Look at banks again.

Think for yourself. Weigh all sides of the argument. It is not really that hard. There cannot be an "honest cop" in banking because that is not the nature of the beast. Banking is scam. This is what banks do. I don't know if the bankers believe it themselves --- Well, I am sure they do.

But, if they reflect a bit, they would have to admit: what they believe in is their own scam. There is no sense or foundation to banking. It is like an onion: if you peel off every layer, you get down to nothing. There is no honest layer.

What bankers do is: "lend" money. How can you lend money? What you are "lending" is the right to use money. Who is a bank to award a person the "right" to use money? You cannot combine the word "lend" and the word "money."

If you put an "honest broker" into banking, from the side of the consumer (the word "consumer" is right there in Warren's title), that person would just uncover scam after scam after scam. Because, that is all banking is.

So many websites are dedicated to showing logically, how the "deceitful" or scamming banker operate. But is there really any explanation? How can one "explain" it if it doesn't make sense?

Now what happens when you try to regulate those at the very top of this banking industry, or industry built on cotton candy---? How could they say, "yes, I am a scammer, always have been"? That does not make sense. Crazy people do not admit to being crazy. They just keep on driving you around in circles.

So what do you do? What's the answer?

Again, you should think for yourself. I am tired now; maybe I will find time to put in a "part two" to this.

Wednesday, June 1, 2011

Mexican Music Street Vendors in Spanish City

The magazines have finally caught up to reality. Yeah. That's progress. In a world caught up by global climate change (possible alternative wording: Just as the world is about to be destroyed by global climate change), which we'd be better off calling “climate response” (the response of the climate to humanity's failure to think, or “be” (be sentient) the magazine industry has finally figured out how to create great magazines. So that's progress. I found a few at a newstand in Chicago, and I'd like to discuss one article in particular. Oprah's town, ya know?
    We find a magazine from L. A. Very accurate description of a North American Cuidad EspaƱol by which I simply mean a Spanish city not a city located in the U. S. A.  Spanish.  Probably Mexico; I'm not sure.


    The author has observations of noise in Spanish culture (ruido). Anyway he is in a city, and there are some loud vendors selling music. They are outside his apartment. He observes that this is a culture where persons find comfort, security, and, safety in Um --  noise. Weird. Difficult to explain. Comfort in noise doesn't seem so good to me either. Author does not know what to do about the noise. He considers his options. First, to go see his local genteel enlightened ombudsman sort, a guy put there by the kind government (probably Mexico, I don't know). But he being a smart L.A. author-type the author can see far enough ahead to where that's going to lead; doesn't want to try. But at same time cannot find another tack. What to do? Ask neighbor (an architect). Next? Perhaps the landlord. This is the part I like. The landlord repeats what the street vendors say. Here it is: “If you ask them why they cannot turn it down they tell you if they do not play the music loud they won’t sell anything.” That's good. I really like that.

Perfect explanatory routine. Notice how good that is. You shouldn't go past the explanation. It is some kind of weird street poetry, or economic theory, I mean it. It also corresponds to an impression that I have in my life formed, that in the commercial-yet-working classes, in this world of the regular folks, or this world of those stuck in the sticky capitalis-stick situation, they have absorbed the mainstream culture and as well its theories: these persons are totally attuned to the ideology. They have absorbed society's natural need for explanation. And not only that, they've absorbed it, and trained in it's explanatory regimen (the ideology) just as well as anybody. Including - natch - economists. The academics in their halls of scholarly pretense try too, I will hand them that. They try too. And they are liars. And I think the street people are good liars, too. I think that is what to call it, I don't  think it's the wrong word. If what you say becomes a lie, or functions as one, you are a liar or you are functioning as a liar, just as the words coming out of the mouth of the music street vendors are functionally bullshit: "we have to play it loud or we won't sell anything." What do you call that?
    I don’t know what the word for it is, but “liar” is close, ain't it? It will have to do if you get my drift. The ordinary individuals situated in a commercial, capitalistic social position regurgitate the mainstream version of stuff. They should be given full credit --- they do philosophy of commerce in a fashion that is actually very good and, I'll opine, rather better than do those who do try so hard at it in the hallowed halls of genteel learning.
    They have a clear and present idea of exactly the same basic set of values --- just the values they are supposed to believe in. The writers and intellectuals try hard to articulate this cultural ideology. I am just saying that these street vendors get it too.
    The average man gets it. This is what I call "ideology." I think there is an intellectual "explanation" kind of floating around in space. It is ambiguous and hybrid---an actual theory and also, in inseparable fashion, a real, materially present social system. (After all, "social" includes ideology, literature, myths.) The social system has a requisite ideology. It is a matter of culture.  So, you have to talk about ideology and reality as being connected. Once conditions the other. One is obviously material. And the other is half-material. I think so, but I find it difficult enough to reason through this kind of thing, and I have not done the work.
    But what the street vendor said isn't exactly true, even if it does function culturally and socially. This kind of thinking, lies, ideas, or ideology functions in our society but it may also eventually destroy our society. What the ordinary level persons in the capitalist/urban world have perfectly absorbed is the explanation, or society’s message to them; although it may be a necessary ideological trope at this time in history, it is not the truth. (Actually you could also say, "superstructural ideology.")
     What I am saying is that the ideology is a prerequisite to "being" in the capitalistic realm. Naturally, that includes, preeminently, the making-of-money part. And in addition to being an ideology there is the material thing which is that this is a real system and this is real life, not a fantasy. It is the life of a capitalist society and coming up with shit like that is part of the way these fellows make their living---and live. The ideology is made up but you get real jobs in that system (as long as it lasts, because I don't think that "system" can be assumed; it should be interrogated, and it is in deep trouble, meaning we are if you get my drift).
    So, the "people" --- the "dummies" who accept the ideology impressed upon them --- reflect back this necessary ideology that is kind of naturally floating around anyway. They could write Milton Friedman's books as well as Milton Friedman could. They couldn't do the math, that's all. This is how the human mind works. And, I might venture further that as the society itself gets less and less stable, and more threatened, theories like "we have to play the music loud otherwise it won't sell" and not harmed. They are unscathed. I would say that ideology is very strong, and not a mere superstructure at all but somehow very basic and important, very human and cultural.
     Considering these things causes me to have more respect of "primitive" beliefs. But primitive beliefs usually succumb to modern science, whereas, as capitalism blunders on, it never harms the (ideology industry or the) manufacturing of the statements such as: "we have to play the music loud or we cannot sell anything" at all. This kind of b.s. thinking is clear to just the average mainstream citizen. It’s a trope, a wrong ideology built in like a cumbia beat on a hot Mexican night.

“We have to play the music loud or we can’t sell anything.” I didn't just jump past it. I recognized it as a trope as soon as I read that part. I stopped reading the article there. You have to absorb this kind of stuff. It's music. The music of "free market explanation" has been playing for decades, for over a century. The explanation of the music seller was "good."
     For exactly what, I don't know. In a society without values it exemplifies that society's lack of values. Milton Friedman is not the better guy. Anybody can sell this crap. Other variations exist...

     “We have to destroy the earth otherwise we cannot sell things.” (I just looked at Bill McKibben on his Tar Sands protest in D.C. today, August 30.)

“We have to kill a few civilians in order to win this war, even  though we love peace dearly you see, but we are going to be careful and not have any more lethal accidents than we need to, not kill any more than the amount that we accidentally need to, which is in order to bring democracy to Iraq, since they do not know enough about democracy, being only the cradle of civilization.”

“You have to pay if you want to play.” 

"The suffering of humanity is a necessary price to pay for happiness of humanity ---- (and now the trumpet fanfare): as exemplified by the glorious capitalist system—which, they will tell you, is not social. No, it's “individual.”