Where is the US economy headed?

No.

Is a priesthood working?

without a doubt.

A priest gets paid and also provides a service that many in the community value.
So yes, a priest works.

Do you want to play this game forever, or is there a point?

I hardly think so when I am showing that such work, which I consider real work, is not valued as highly as, say, the activities of all those highly paid people arguing over Mr Jackson's body and those writing about them which I consider to be not work.

Is an advert specialist telling lies working?

yes

Of course there's a point. It is that arguments about work need to know what the word work means because otherwise is when there is no point.

How about work being something somebody does for a fee? And it is of no consequence what the something is.

Fair enough.

you accuse me of this stuff, but at the same time i'm supposed to be the big bad liberal socialist.

can't you guys make up your minds? besides, read some of my other stuff.

the capitalist's definition of work is thus, it is gross as well as unhelpful, and is due no further consideration. Anyone who still takes the capitalist's ideology seriously has not been paying attention, the regime has been discredited.

Still in doubt??? Look at what the federal government has done over the last year and then claim that America believes in capitalism. It will get a good laugh from those who keep up with current events, and that is all such a claim should get you.

You can buy it over here now too.

But if there is a poster boy for epicurean socialism, surely it is Oscar Wilde. Although he is now remembered mostly as a gay icon and a flamboyant and witty socialite (follow that last link to get the idea), Wilde considered himself a socialist. He wrote an essay, “The Soul of Man Under Socialism”, which opens with the declaration that “the chief advantage that would result from the establishment of Socialism is, undoubtedly, the fact that Socialism would relieve us from that sordid necessity of living for others which, in the present condition of things, presses so hardly upon almost everybody.” Wilde goes on to argue that abolishing private property would bring about, not collectivism, but the truest kind of individualism!

This claim isn’t as wacky as it looks at first. We have all been taught that capitalism is all about personal freedom and individualism. But how free are most people, when they are compelled to work at some demeaning job in order to pay the rent, or pay off their student loans, or keep their health insurance? If we used our great social wealth to free people from need, and to reduce the length of the work-week, people could dedicate themselves to the things that truly fulfill them. For some people, that might be socially useful things like working in a community garden or writing free software programs. For others, it might be drinking margaritas and watching television. A good epicure would say that it doesn’t matter, however"the point is to give people as much time as possible to pursue any or all of those things if they so choose.

http://theactivist.org/blog/socialism-ascetic-and-epicurean

It doesn't matter what you're supposed to be DTOM.

"No work--no eat" is a fundamental political position. And the people I mentioned earlier were enthusiasts for the doctrine. As you were.

It is unacceptable here in England. Thomas Hobbes notwithstanding.

It is an aspect of conservative philosophy that people are not forced to work.

Bearing in mind the leverage that modern production mechanisms bring to human effort it might become necessary for more people not to work or at least to only pretend to be working.

If it is agreed that priests are working and also those who are exercising themselves to eradicate the priesthood then the end product of the efforts of both might look like digging holes and filling them up again.

Apropos to nothing...I note that the price of sugar on the commodity markets hit a 28 year high today of 22 cents a pound. In April, 2009, the price was 13 cents.
Brazil, one of the larger producers, is diverting a bunch of its crop to ethanol.
India's production was down 45% in the 2008-2009 season and there could be a "drastic fall" this season due to erratic rainfall.
Per capita consumption in the E.U. is listed as being 36 kg vs 30 kg in the U.S.

Maybe we'll improve our health a little by staying away from that expensive sugar.

Sure, but don't forget to invest in producers of corn syrup. It suddenly enjoys a certain comparative advantage.

Of course it is. Still, Thorstein Veblen considered it the ultimate in conspicuous consumption.

I'm not into investing in commodities, but will take note of your recommendation.

You probably know more about corn than I do. My research started an hour ago.
-80 million acres of U.S. cropland is planted in corn;
-90% of production is used as feed grain;
-The rest goes for syrups, sweeteners and the production of ethanol;
-The price peaked at $7.88/Bushel in June, 2008, due to floods in the mid-west and the spike in oil prices. The price of corn has now fallen back due to more normal production and the fall in the price of oil;
-Corn for ethanol may have been doomed due to the development of cheaper sources such as grasses.
The last point is to me good. I have never been a fan of diverting food to fuel production. I am reminded of the lad at some high school in the mountains of SW VA who was working on converting kudzu, a weed here in the south, into fuel. He and his school had to apply for a special permit to allow him to operate what amounted to a still.

He had more than one blind spot did the old goat. C. Wright-Mills pointed them out.

Nobody said that producing gas from this year's sunshine had no downside did they? The downside was hushed up.