Tuesday, July 24, 2012

Costs of... ... ..

Here is where it is good to do a rhetorical analysis.

"The Government Accountability Office attempted to put a number on the costs of the debt limit disaster last year. They really only looked at the increased cost of borrowing, not necessarily the cost to the larger economy, which was real, at least if you go by economic indicators like jobs and GDP growth. But just on borrowing costs alone, the number went well above $1 billion..."

That's a liberal blog. So I might be expected to feel at home, since I have often felt fairly close to such views.

The term "real" comes up here, within this excerpt from the liberal blog, but I think the whole quote is about what's real. I do not see any distinction. It is about the "real economy" (a term that is used by amongst others George Soros, in contrast to "unreal," signifying the financial sector). But I think the economy consists of both of two: the above-board economy with its ideas of what is "real" and also another  thing. That is to say, all the hidden aspects. What do I mean, "hidden"?

The hidden aspects are all those things we don't see. When I look at a word like "cost," for example, it reminds me of these hidden aspects - something going on that we don't see. I don't think the language economists use makes much sense. And I think I can demonstrate that I am not delusional. Some of the economists are delusional, however. Believe me!
     Anyway, one way to illustrate how we miss the hidden aspects (and a lot of it is when we so pathetically tie our cart to language practices acting in the conformity of prevalent language practices and speech practices) is to ask what a "cost" is when humans are the ones that create money. It is a quite simple way of critiquing the above text excerpt. And not only did we create money at some time in the past, but Ellen Brown and others say banks actually create money, which is of course wrong. It is wrong morally. (A child could tell you that money cannot just be created by a bank! That is why they normally hide what Ellen and others have revealed.) And because it is so morally repugnant it must happen, naturally, in a mind-boggling, almost impossible-to-understand-way! But, apparently it is true. Banks do increase the amount of money. It's real. To be a little more clear, they loan out money they do not actually have. It is something like that. (Something like that, but at any rate I think it is true).

So - suddenly - a word like "cost" becomes more complex and we see that there is more hidden beneath the surface. Then what is a "cost," in capitalism? Let's look at this, okay? If I had a "cost" to build a company, and then it goes and makes profits, which these days takes only perhaps a few months, that is merely the "cost" of exchanging one sum of money for another, larger, amount, the later accounting for net income. That isn't what "cost" means in the English language. Maybe in some other language; but, not English. Why is that a "cost"? -when what it is the cost to make a profit? Why, oh why? Why is the initial outlay a "cost" followed by a profit? Semantically, it does not make sense. A cost is when it costs you something. The "cost" didn't cost anybody anything, it did the opposite (made a profit, that is to say). If a company loses money, OK, a cost. The smarter the businessman, they more the notion of "cost" is usurped. If he was really, really, savvy, he calculated his risks quite well, and if he calculated his risks quite well, there was no time when the monies invested were "costs." He went to the bank and borrowed it. Where are the "costs"? The collateral? Give me a break; the money was free. He got free money, and spent it. So, that was a "cost"?
     If the company makes money it should be called an investment. The upshot of all this is that there is no cost for an act of business that becomes a profit. You lost nothing, so it did not cost you. That is not what cost is, in language. That is not what you are doing. You are doing business. So, this meaning of "cost" is not the real, or semantically real, meaning of the word.
     And economists are not nearly smart enough to create some kind of alternative language. This is just one example, with regard to this one word, "cost." There are numerous other frauds to be exposed, even just regarding this one word!
     Now, here is the issue. You have been tricked. You have been intentionally tricked by these economists. And you'd better believe it. It has to be intentional. You cannot do that by accident. This should be an issue in the world. Why, of all places, the academic world is where they cannot handle the truth? Anyway, the point is this. We cannot really just use the words the way other people tell us to. Economics appears to me to be a false science. It is being foisted on you. You are being tricked. All of the collective knowledge of society is wrong on this one. The university system has dropped the ball. It's witchcraft (and I don't mean that in a good way).
     Before you get angry at me and call the police ask yourself whether there is still time to look at this or whether it is just too late.

    It all sounds very simple, though, when you do what society says, like a lapdog, like the "liberal" blogger at FDL who uses the accepted linguistic devices. This is what happens when you choose to stick with the rhetoric. That is what the FDL writer, and all writers on economics do, because there is no other language to use, when discussing economics. And we are stuck with the words that don't make sense. OMG! Now we come to "cost of borrowing"? But does it make sense. I am not sure it does. My instinct tells me that there is not any cost of borrowing. It does not exist. What the Ellen Brown people would say, as I understand it, is it just an adjustment of assets vs. debits.    

     At any rate I think we have resolved this bullshit involved in the word "costs." And there is only one way a single word could contain that much bullshit. This is called lying. That is the only word for it, it is an intentional deception that has been at work within the economics field. To these persons' total discredit, this field let it happen. That is a scandal. That is the scandal of my life, the result of all my investigations --- t is one result. There are others. This one I found out about and now I understand this --- I fully know.

I notice also that, in the above excerpt, this person who is writing compensates for the weakness of the term by differentiating between kinds. There are two kinds of costs. He tries to make a distinction between which costs are real and which are not. Many times, of course, we create reality by how we talk about things. So, he is allowing "rhetoric" to frame the conversation. The result that "the" conversation is now a neutral or synthetic creation and therefore not "his" conversation. (This understanding of the term 'rhetoric,' which is itself rhetoric of course, was accessed through my reading of McCloskey, 1992)

reference, below.
article quoted is David Dayen Tuesday July 24, 2012 8:15 am
website is http://news.firedoglake.com/

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