Examples of Capital- What it Is

Wiki has a good list of kinds of economic capital.

Capital - Wikipedia The main point presented is that capital is any asset useful for production. I should add to the wiki list that military capital is useful for producing war, peace and political capital. Christian capital is useful for producing eternal life with the Lord God.

I tend to regard anything of value as capital, since any material or intellectual property may be useful for production of other goods or ideas.

Consider invention of new ideas; pre-existing ideas combined together can produce a new synthetic idea(s).  That is comparable to arithmetic where with a two and a three, it is possible to produce a five.

Humans exist embedded in a thermodynamic physical field of being in which they are self-aware and aware of the field and characteristics of it objectively. If they were unchanging and static beings the concept of production might not be so important; capital is consistent with thermodynamic change or artificial production that supports human life and its proprietary interests.

Natural capital such as comprise forests and the services they produce in supporting human life, and oceans, rivers, clouds, the sun etc all may be regarded as natural capital beneficial to human existence. Ecological economics is a field that values natural capital and seeks to sustain or increase it so far as possible.

Social and political capital exist useful for production in marketing and political goals respectively. The late President Ronald Reagan had much social capital before he began building political capital, for example.

Scientific capital can reap innumerable production benefits. Even the Chinese lunar probe that discovered a gel like substance of unusual color on the dark side of the moon (possible ET scat), may be useful for something someday (coprolite research dump for exopologists).

China's lunar rover discovers 'gel-like' substance in crater on moon

Breakthrough enables storage and release of mechanical waves without energy loss

Synopsis: Quantum Interference Across an Astronomical Distance

A New Way to Store Information in Molecules for Millions of Years

Large corporations often have technical and intellectual as well as financial capital that allows quick production of material objects from new ideas they can invent, purchase or redistribute unto themselves from others in sundry ways.

An interesting example of capital is the dirt (regolith) of the moon. Apparently it can yield Helium 3 useful for fusion reactors (or not because there are scientific questions about that) and more immediately, lunar materials could be used to produce a sun screen to reflect light when the mirroring surface (600,000 square kilometers) are launched from the moon inexpensively (compared to Earth) to the Lagrange Point 1. Mirroring surface at L1 facing the sun could screen out 1 or 2% of the sunlight reaching the Earth and cool it down a little. That might be a practical dampener of some of the global warming problem. A moon base would be required to build the sun screen, and fortunately President Trump is trying to fund a moon base (although the global warming problem is not perhaps interesting to him). The moon dirt and other minerals have real value for production.

Monetary capital compounded with investment produces more monetary capital. The 1% have so much monetary capital as well as other kinds that it dwarfs the capital of the rest of society (at least that of the bottom half). The monetary and financial capital of the richest is so deep that it is like a gravity well such as the sun that brings all of the objects of the solar system to orbit around it and eventually gobble them up as would a black hole.

Select Strengths of the Electoral College

The Electoral College is a defender of the equal rights of states and the rights of citizens of the states. The United States is composed of fifty states. Each state is equal. Citizens of each state elect federal representatives and senators to send to attend the federal legislature. Senator apportionment of two for each state is permanent. Populations may shift about interstate yet states remain equal. The people of New York and California cannot just out-vote and plunder Alaska or Rhode Island (though corporations can plunder well enough).

The Executive branch is one of three parts of the federal government. The other branch is the Judicial and its members on high courts require approval by Congress (and the Congress is more or less equally representing all of the states interests). The Judicial branch is not generally a problem.

The Executive is elected by the voters of each state through an electoral college. That electoral college is selected something like the way the Congress is selected; two for the senators of each state plus the number of representatives. That is fair and proportionate selection of the electoral college. It keeps the election of the president fair and balanced representing state and popular interests together just like the legislature.

To eliminate the electoral college would throw the selection out of balance regarding states. To restore the balance one would also need to eliminate the extra representatives given to populous states. Perhaps each state would then have just three representatives.

There are 435 U.S. Representatives and 100 Senators = 535. There are 538 members of the electoral college. The people of states elect the electors and the electors elect the Executive (as the way the citizens voted).

Of course the most populous states would like to have their cake and eat it too getting rid of the electoral college yet keeping the extra representatives in the U.S. Congress. Such an act would be a reason to de-unionize the states and return to independent status so the most populous states would need to rely upon their own resources rather than plunder less populous state’s resources.

The equality of states as abstract entities is equal in my opinion. One sees that in the U.S. Senate apportionment. The people are significant too as relates to the composition of the Federal government legislative branch and electoral college for the Executive branch. So the representation in Congress is proportional as is the composition of the electoral college. That is pragmatic. People are not abstract entities.

The federal government is of the nation and the people. It is appropriate that its members are selected with the rights of states and the populous together for the Legislative, Judicial and Executive branches.

Some Democrats would of course like a Moscow style strong central government with states being fairly meaningless and subject to the transcending power of the Chief Executive. 

It is interesting that the Republic of Plato had two philosopher-kings ruling the people for life. He probably got his idea from Sparta, except Sparta hadn’t a philosopher ruling the military state. One could find the divine right of kings implicit in philosopher-kings ruling within the realm of forms paradigm of temporal forms, and blame The Republic for middle ages divine rights theories of monarchy, yet even some primitive tribes had ideas about god-kings long before Plato.

Socrates and his student Plato liked the oligarchy and hated the democracy. It is ironic that the concept of abolishing the electoral college would best serve to accomplish the absolute power of oligarchy or plutonomy through places of power like Wall Street in New York.

The United States probably has the best form of hybrid government, or did before it crept in to corporatism-socialism. Many are always at work these days trying to destroy it-sometimes inadvertently.

Electoral College is Right for the United States

The electoral college protects state's rights. States are given electors according to their Senate and representative numbers. It is part of a brilliant and accurate design to permit a federal system to function while letting states keep a substantial element of self-determination.

What is the Electoral College?

There are complete idiots in the Democrat Party that would abolish the electoral college and let concentrated urban populations in a few states determine the winner of Presidential elections. States need proportional election of the Chief Executive as well as the Congress.

Another alternative reform, if the electoral college were eliminated, would be to allow every state to have two Senators and just three representatives in order to allow democracy to flourish in each state on a level field. 

With elimination of the electoral college state's rights would essentially disappear as a federal executive and congress composed of urban proles passed whatsoever plundering laws they liked to extract anything of value from the less densely populated states.

Why Democrats Want to Abolish the Electoral College—And Republicans Don't

One better reform than abolishing the electoral college and the states would be to let the states be free to leave the union altogether and keep a loose confederacy. The large urban center dominated minority of the states would be allowed to keep the federal government and its public debt. 

Trumps Challenges; To Reduce Global Warming, Fund the Moon Program and Grow the Economy

Ecological economics theory has sustainable growth in quality and zero growth in quantity. Classical economics has a robust growth rate of more than 5%. President Obama was borrowing a little from ecological economic theory to explain the insipid 1% growth rate that was satisfactory to select Harvard marionettes of his administration I would guess; typical Democrat party trickery with Eleatic economics.

A history of economics and capital named Capital in the Twenty-First Century, written by Thomas Piketty, explained that the rate of growth tends to follow select patterns during the growth phase compared with a mature economy that settles down to a lower rate, China’s economy is has grown rapidly the past couple of decades in keeping with their entry into limited market economics with an immature economy. Looking at Piketty’s charts one would guess that China’s economy would settle down in two or three decades. It might be compared to where the United States was in, oh, the 1950s.

President Obama’s economy was not a sustainable ecological economic economy with sustainable infrastructure. Democrats don’t actually understand what that is and try to substitute ‘Cargo Cult’ economic policy for actually well-founded ecological economics. With so much work outsourced abroad these days the 1% was deceptive; it was a government job security and bureaucracy economy with high, unemployment and underemployment compelling citizens to live on government programs. Quite an unhealthy situation.

The Trump economy is the Obama economy plus plundering natural resources for an extra few percentage points of growth. Neither Obama nor Trump has a clue about Ecological Economics or capacity to lead the nation toward that. The President should at least use the L1 solar reflecting mirrors to cool the Earth 1% as his campaign idea for reducing global warming. It would require building the mirrors on the moon of regolith and launching them to L1 with the low delta v required…even an electromagnetic mass driver on the moon would provide most of the push. President Trump’s moon program is just what is needed to get the mirror project going. Of course the Democrats won’t fund the moon program willingly though it will be needed to cool the Earth in the decades ahead most likely. The idea was developed at a Sept. 2001 White House meeting on global warming, probably before 9-11. The timing is appropriate for politicians ignored warnings then too.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-7407175/Humans-ruining-world-Stone-Age.html

President Trump has the challenge of dealing with a growing Chinese economy that is in the classical economic criterion while transitioning the nation to sustainable quality growth only. That is beyond his capacity so he is just growing it the old fashioned way by exploiting endangered, natural resources causing harm to the ecosphere and adding to global warming. really, all of the politicians running for the job are clueless- even the Yang campaign seems to have some fairly socialist ideas about giving 1000 dollars to everyone in the nation without working. That would create a surplus of gamers I would guess.

Genetic Editing Can Create a World of Problems

In a couple generations biophysics has learned about the structure of human genes to how to edit them. Probably terrorists lag behind a generation.

It is possible today to use biology as a weapon rather easily for those with a PhD. Nations may also use genetic design to improve their human stock from enhancing biceps to brains, endurance to an ability to live better in space. Certainly some will go in new directions especially as humanity is free again to be free from other's interference at some time and space different from Earth-now.

https://www.gene-editing.org/genome-editing

http://www.genetherapynet.com/gene-editing-tools.html

https://geneticliteracyproject.org/2017/06/08/dangerous-combination-crispr-potential-weapon-terrorists/

https://fortune.com/2017/10/23/designer-babies-inequality-crispr-gene-editing/



Mazhar Adli [CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0)]

Decline of Catholic Moral Theology at John Paul II Institute

An interesting article in The Church Militant describes problems associated with the reform of the John Paul II Institute in Poland.

https://www.churchmilitant.com/news/article/john-paul-ii-institute-forsaking-moral-theology-prof

Issues of clerical celibacy that might have been resolved with a return to a license for priests to marry face the ironic challenge of the tanglefoot of the corruption of civic homosexual marriage. For the Catholic Church to return to the freedom of priests to marry would risk allowing in homosexual marriage- creating a complete farce of ecclesiology in support of the doctrine of sin. When the Christian church over-accommodates itself to worldliness it subverts its own integrity as well as fails to bring the lost to the Lord. A priesthood of believers would better work in a literate era with perhaps somewhat more of a Levitical function rather than a sacerdotal stress. Good luck Polish Catholics.

Build Camp and Ride Lots for Homeless Californians

California is good at a few things involving technology and conservation. Unfortunately the state’s major cities have had decades to fix the urban homeless population problem and hasn’t. The reason for that may be the nature of democracy itself, for it tends to elect bad politicians that haven’t good ideas about how to improve civic matters, too often. For the homeless problem the solution is simple; build suburban camp and ride lots for the homeless to commute downtown.

Like park and ride lots that work, camp and ride lots would bring a suburban population of commuters to the urban core and back. Dedicated buses would operate all day to bring the urban homeless to a safe camping area with real policemen security the site, real surveillance cameras and strong, semi-private cam sites. Residents could stay for a year, free. They would have a post office with free postal box and clean, secure toilet facilities-with individual toilets to avoid problems associated with semi-communal facilities used by unsupervised homeless people.

Each homeless village for two-thousand souls would have a medical clinic and detox facility. The savings to taxpayers would be great in not needing to arrest people downtown or provide emergency medical transport to emergency rooms.

The downtown terminus would be like a job and counseling center for the homeless who could use the location for phone calls, work searches, food and so forth.

With the exclusivity of urban centers where the jobs are located many of the poor are precluded from looking for a job without the risk of living on the streets. If the poor individual looking for work has no drug problem it is possible they will learn to get one in the urban jungle of despair. Living on the street is an unhealthy environments with urban traffic noise, pollution, crime and complete lack of physical security, cleanliness etc. It would be useful for anyone in such a situation- and many there are for not everyone has the intelligence and wit to innovate some sort of productive employment and living situation with all of the up-front costs and low wages- to have the knowledge that they can have a functional and secure base from which to search for a way to improve their life should they wish to try.

It would be necessary for security purposes to register every camp resident. The state should make sure they all are supported with real i.d. cards that are requisite for getting a job. It would be necessary to have language translators for foreign residents, and illegal aliens and their culture should be in a separate facility than legal residents and citizens in order not to harm the Americans with a host of foreign problems that could adversely impact them. Sacramento and L.A. have ample space to construct secure camp and ride facilities if they had the good sense to do so.