no responses? That's too bad.

-Benjy

I attended this debate in Burlington and just found this series of postings. I was about to post the link to the debate as nobody had until this very last posting above by "Daniel." In case you missed it: http://www.uvm.edu/~uvmpr/?Page=News&storyID=12999

I am a local foods advocate, but also the son of a Harvard Business school grad. I am a business owner with 20 employees and $1,000,000 in sales this year…I'm not a puffball liberal. I came hoping for a robust debate…I wanted to hear the "other side." Professor Roberts introduced the concept of "confirmational bias", which I thought was very apt given the crowd to which he spoke. Sadly, I agree with the consensus up here in VT…Professor Roberts did not come appropriately prepared for the debate. He failed to address the subject directly.

Daniel, you are correct in your suspicion that McKibben's arguments convinced more people here, though I do think it is very dismissive for you to refer to McKibben's arguments as "psuedo." Meanwhile, Roberts appeared to concedes on a number of points. Surely there was tremendous "confirmational bias", but I'd like to think I heard both sides fairly.

Most of these postings do not address the debate directly. Since this posting group is full of people on Roberts home turf…please, I would really appreciate an attempt on your parts to listen to this debate and share your honest reflections…try to hold the "confirmational bias" and respond. Since we all felt it was an overwhelming "win" for McKibben up here, it would be fascinating to hear your perspectives directly on the subject of this debate down there.

Best,

-Benjamin Adler

Russ, I think you did quite well, even if McKibben attaced you pretty harsh at the beginning.

Trying to convince people, that the world is more complex than "buying local" or "buying global" seems to be quite a difficult point to get across. I also liked your reply to the studies and your calm, considerate style, but I suspect, McKibben's pseudo-arguments convinced more people, especially in that audience.

Here's what I was trying to post in reply to methinks continued from "Changing World" and "WWII Ended the Depression…"

repost

I wrote a reply and it got swallowed.

Let me rephrase:

Finance is about how consumers gain the right to consume, in the future when they are no longer producers, what is produced by producers in the future.

The problem is that the pool of producers is not growing as fast as the pool of those who no longer produce.

It may have been possible for productivity gains to keep up with the disparity, but our collective agency has been very busy diverting much or our excess production into sinkholes, that is allocation of resources into non-productive endeavors rather than allowing those resources to be devoted to increasing productivity.

IOW, the power of government has been turned into a reality faking machine.

Investors are not getting signals from the real world.