The iPhone is doomed, and Spain as well
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Long form poetry is tiresome to read. The song and the music are missing indeed.
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@boomzilla said:
Really, to fix his quote, we would say something like, "A free market, by its very nature, allocates scarce resources to where they are most valued."
Sell yourself a golf clap.
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@flabdablet said:
You’ll find the people here the same.
Yes, delusional people will usually see the world as a good place.
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@flabdablet said:
@boomzilla said:
Really, to fix his quote, we would say something like, "A free market, by its very nature, allocates scarce resources to where they are most valued."
Sell yourself a golf clap.
Meh, it's true. Anyone who makes a claim like "Market economies simply allocate wealth to the wealthiest" doesn't know the first thing about wealth, economics or history.
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@morbiuswilters said:
Anyone who makes a claim like "Market economies simply allocate wealth to the wealthiest" doesn't know the first thing about wealth, economics or history.
Same applies to claims that public-interest regulation, taxation and the rule of law are impediments to wealth creation rather than necessary preconditions for it.
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@flabdablet said:
@morbiuswilters said:
Anyone who makes a claim like "Market economies simply allocate wealth to the wealthiest" doesn't know the first thing about wealth, economics or history.
Same applies to claims that public-interest regulation, taxation and the rule of law are impediments to wealth creation rather than necessary preconditions for it.Yes, there is a need for certain institutions. But if you think forced redistribution is one of them, or that you or any other person can direct something as complex as an economy then you are a danger to civilization.
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@boomzilla said:
Yes, there is a need for certain institutions. But if you think forced redistribution is one of them, or that you or any other person can direct something as complex as an economy then you are a danger to civilization.
I don't have a problem with redistribution, as long as I get my cut.
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@boomzilla said:
if you think forced redistribution is one of them
Forced redistribution in some form is inevitable: those with the power to inflict and/or threaten deadly violence will always redistribute wealth away from those without. Personally, I would prefer that those who have that power are democratically elected and have at least a shred of structural motivation to operate in ways not completely self-serving.
@boomzilla said:
or that you or any other person can direct something as complex as an economy
Depends what you mean by "direct". Guarantee any given outcome? No. Exert influence to make any given outcome more likely? That's what public policy is for.
@boomzilla said:
then you are a danger to civilization.
/me weighs the same as a duck
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@flabdablet said:
@boomzilla said:
if you think forced redistribution is one of them
Forced redistribution in some form is inevitable: those with the power to inflict and/or threaten deadly violence will always redistribute wealth away from those without. Personally, I would prefer that those who have that power are democratically elected and have at least a shred of structural motivation to operate in ways not completely self-serving.
That's not necessarily true.For example, let's say that Capitalist A pays someone to invent a new item. He then sells this item to Customers B, C, and D. They in turn use it to create even more new items to sell to Customers E, F, G and back to A. From where exactly is the "wealth" being redistributed and to whom? Yes, A is probably aquiring more wealth in top of his already large pile of filthy lucre.But B, C, D are also making more money. And while E, F, and G aren't, they get the benefit of the items they bought. Even the poor inventor still got paid. And the money that A gets will now be plowed back into paying for more items to be sold to more customers. This how the free market works. Money moves from where is it not useful (sitting in a bank account) to where it can generate more money.
Please note that in the above scenario, there is no force involved. The money moves from one person to another not because someone put a gun to someone else's head, but because it was in everyone's (quite selfish) best interests.
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@flabdablet said:
@boomzilla said:
if you think forced redistribution is one of them
Forced redistribution in some form is inevitable: those with the power to inflict and/or threaten deadly violence will always redistribute wealth away from those without. Personally, I would prefer that those who have that power are democratically elected and have at least a shred of structural motivation to operate in ways not completely self-serving.Sure. Better to limit their power, since people will always be motivated in self serving ways. The nice thing about a free market is that we can use mutually beneficial exchanges instead of coercion.
@flabdablet said:
@boomzilla said:
or that you or any other person can direct something as complex as an economy
Depends what you mean by "direct". Guarantee any given outcome? No. Exert influence to make any given outcome more likely? That's what public policy is for.Yes, many people try to do that. And sometimes it even works. I liked Romney's debate line about how Obama doesn't pick winners and losers, just losers.
@flabdablet said:
@boomzilla said:
then you are a danger to civilization.
*flabdablet weighs the same as a duckAnd you have about as much economic sense as the guy was a newt.
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@Snooder said:
Money moves from where is it not useful (sitting in a bank account) to where it can generate more money
But if you have a pile of money "doing nothing" under your mattress (not in a bank account, money in bank accounts is actually invested somewhere), shouldn't their value "spread" to the rest of money? There are less dollars in circulation, so their value is slightly higher.
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@spamcourt said:
@Snooder said:
Money moves from where is it not useful (sitting in a bank account) to where it can generate more money
But if you have a pile of money "doing nothing" under your mattress (not in a bank account, money in bank accounts is actually invested somewhere), shouldn't their value "spread" to the rest of money? There are less dollars in circulation, so their value is slightly higher.I don't think you are ready for a job at the Feds just yet.
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@Snooder said:
That's not necessarily true.
because it doesn't happen in some My Little Pony scenario cooked up for the express purpose of showing it not happening? Weak.
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@boomzilla said:
since people will always be motivated in self serving ways
You mean "people make informed decisions to increase their welath/standard of living/whathaveyou"?
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@dhromed said:
@boomzilla said:
since people will always be motivated in self serving ways
You mean "people make informed decisions to increase their welath/standard of living/whathaveyou"?Pretty much. We're all motivated by different things at different times. I'm just saying that creating a system that relies on people to act against their interests is doomed to fail.
I recall someone (Jonah Goldberg?) back in the height of the Occupy nonsense musing that occutards like to call for a society based on cooperation, where people willingly come together in a community to help each other, etc, etc. And then he pointed out that we already have that in the (imperfect, of course) form of free enterprise. I've always liked I, Pencil as a simple way to get a glimpse of how powerful and complex that cooperation really is.
Of course, the occutards really just want somebody to pay them to make puppets or some shit.
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@I, Pencil said:
If we can leave the creative energies of humankind uninhibited, there's no limit to what we can accomplish
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@flabdablet said:
@I, Pencil said:
If we can leave the creative energies of humankind uninhibited, there's no limit to what we can accomplish
I'm sure there's a point to pointing out how fucked up Greece is. I'm amused that you would bring it up, since it demonstrates one of the many ways that a government can fuck shit up.
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@boomzilla said:
one of the many ways that a government can fuck shit up
Specifically, in this instance, by pretending that it wasn't engaged in a prolonged failure to collect enough tax.
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@flabdablet said:
@boomzilla said:
one of the many ways that a government can fuck shit up
Specifically, in this instance, by pretending that it wasn't engaged in a prolonged failure to collect enough tax.
Ever heard the phrase "can't squeeze blood from a stone?" That's what happens when you try to collect tax from people who don't actually have enough income to pay said tax. The solution, obvious to all, is to require less tax in the first place. And yes, that means cutting social services. Suck it up.
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@Snooder said:
Ever heard the phrase "can't squeeze blood from a stone?" That's what happens when you try to collect tax from people who don't actually have enough income to pay said tax. The solution
obvious to allpreferred by influential people who do actually have enough income to pay vastly more tax than they're asked for is to require less tax in the first place. And yes, that means cutting social services. Suck it up and die in your own filth, you contemptible poverty stricken peasant scum.FTFY.
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@flabdablet said:
@Snooder said:
Ever heard the phrase "can't squeeze blood from a stone?" That's what happens when you try to collect tax from people who don't actually have enough income to pay said tax. The solution
obvious to allpreferred by influential people who do actually have enough income to pay vastly more tax than they're asked for is to require less tax in the first place. And yes, that means cutting social services. Suck it up and die in your own filth, you contemptible poverty stricken peasant scum.FTFY.
TDEMSYR
I really don't get this. Your argument for why we need more government is to pick one that's an international laughingstock? Because the only solution for a failed government is more government?
Seriously, your response to these idiots spending themselves shitless is that it's OK because some rich dude engaged in the national pastime along with the rest of the swarthy tax evaders? And you insult the people who say that maybe they should live within their means. You really do hate civilization.
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@flabdablet said:
@Snooder said:
Ever heard the phrase "can't squeeze blood from a stone?" That's what happens when you try to collect tax from people who don't actually have enough income to pay said tax. The solution
obvious to allpreferred by influential people who do actually have enough income to pay vastly more tax than they're asked for is to require less tax in the first place. And yes, that means cutting social services. Suck it up and die in your own filth, you contemptible poverty stricken peasant scum.FTFY.
Maybe I'm reading the wrong part of that wikipedia article, but the only part that concerns taxes there is when Onassis negotiated a tax exemption in 1929 to avoid a 1000% tax increase. No fucking shit. I don't know many business that could just chug along after a sudden 10-fold increase in taxes. When the choice is between bankruptcy and bribing someone to make sure you can stay in business, it's not weird for people to resort to bribery. Again, maybe the question shouldn't be "why isn't that rich bastard paying his taxes?" but "what idiot set the taxes unreasonably high in the first place?"
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@Snooder said:
1000% tax increase. No fucking shit. I don't know many business that could just chug along after a sudden 10-fold increase in taxes
Wouldn't that be 11-fold? Or a 900% increase?
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I don't think it's a matter of not being able to pay. Greece is not (or at least was not) a poor country, and the taxes don't seem higher than other European countries. Maybe some cultures just aren't used to paying taxes. Why else would there be so much tax evasion in countries like Italy, Portugal or Spain? (and I'm Spanish)
That certainly doesn't mean the government is not to blame. In Spain, for example, most (>50%) of the tax fraud comes from the big corporations. Why are they not clamping down on them? In fact, they haven't done anything at all to fight tax evasion since the crisis started (there was a tax amnesty that only collected like 1/10th of what they expected. Punishing fraudsters? Nah, let's launder their money for free and forget everything). Maybe because they know all they have to do is serve a term, do some favors to a big company, and they'll get hired by them immediately and get a big paycheck every month for life. We recently found out the current Prime Minister received undeclared payments (aka bribes) for many years, and what will happen? Nothing. We get two major corruption scandals per year anyways, in 6 months everyone will have forgotten. Even the royal family is involved. And even the money they spend "officially" is wasted on useless things (like these pictures for 417,000€ or the 150 M€ empty airport).
At least this time it looks like there's a small chance people will vote for a party that's not one of the two main ones. Oh who am I kidding, there's no way that will ever happen.
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@boomzilla said:
I really don't get this. Your argument for why we need more government
exists only in your own fevered imagination.
This is not about needing "more government"; it's about needing some government. The Invisible Hand is attached to a body politic that your Randian excuse for an ideology apparently leaves you too blind to see.
Functioning market economies are not something that "just happens" when government "gets out of the way". Without the rule of law you get feudalism and banditry, not free trade. Without functioning government you get rules for the rich, not the rule of law. And without paying your taxes you get Spain and Greece, not functioning government.
I understand that this argument contains more than one step, which must make it hard for you.
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@Snooder said:
I don't know many
businessorganized crime rackets that could just chug along after a sudden 10-fold increase in taxes. When the choice is betweenbankruptcyoperating within the law and bribing someone to make sure you canstay in businesscontinue to thumb your nose at it, it's not weird forpeoplethe unscrupulous rich to resort to bribery. Again, maybe the question shouldn't be"why isn't that rich bastard paying his taxes?" but"what idiot set the taxes unreasonably high in the first place?" but "why isn't that fucking thug in jail instead of running the fucking country?"FTFY.
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@spamcourt said:
In Spain, for example, most (>50%) of the tax fraud comes from the big corporations.
But you can't get blood from a stone, right?
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@flabdablet said:
@boomzilla said:
I really don't get this. Your argument for why we need more government
exists only in your own fevered imagination.
This is not about needing "more government"; it's about needing some government. The Invisible Hand is attached to a body politic that your Randian excuse for an ideology apparently leaves you too blind to see.
You should read more and listen to your shoulder aliens less.
@flabdablet said:
Functioning market economies are not something that "just happens" when government "gets out of the way". Without the rule of law you get feudalism and banditry, not free trade.
You make blakeyrat appear to be a diligent and intellectually curious reader.
@flabdablet said:
I understand that this argument contains more than one step, which must make it hard for you.
It must seem that way when you can't pay attention for long enough to read what I write.
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@flabdablet said:
@spamcourt said:
In Spain, for example, most (>50%) of the tax fraud comes from the big corporations.
But you can't get blood from a stone, right?It doesn't really matter, because
stonescorporations don't pay taxes, people do.
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@spamcourt said:
ut if you have a pile of money "doing nothing" under your mattress (not in a bank account, money in bank accounts is actually invested somewhere), shouldn't their value "spread" to the rest of money? There are less dollars in circulation, so their value is slightly higher.
"Fewer" dollars. And, yes, money that is out of circulation would create slight deflationary movement for the rest of the circulating money, all other things being equal. Of course, the real economy is significantly more complicated than that. There's continuous, managed inflation now, which some people would say is a good thing and some people would not.
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@flabdablet said:
This is not about needing "more government"; it's about needing some government. The Invisible Hand is attached to a body politic that your Randian excuse for an ideology apparently leaves you too blind to see.
Functioning market economies are not something that "just happens" when government "gets out of the way". Without the rule of law you get feudalism and banditry, not free trade. Without functioning government you get rules for the rich, not the rule of law. And without paying your taxes you get Spain and Greece, not functioning government.
Was anyone here arguing for anarchy? I think everyone here agrees we need "some" government, it's just the "sum" that people disagree on.
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@spamcourt said:
I don't think it's a matter of not being able to pay. Greece is not
(or
at least was not) a poor country, and the taxes don't seem higher than
other European countries. Maybe some cultures just aren't used to paying
taxes. Why else would there be so much tax evasion in countries
like Italy, Portugal or Spain? (and I'm Spanish)People frequently forget the role of culture in a society. For example, as America has become more selfish, narcissistic and unethical, things have deteriorated.
Of course, Greece's problems are also just fundamentally economic and political. The government is caught in an impossible situation: owing money to criminal banks while at the same time losing the confidence of her own citizens. When paying taxes in Greece means shoveling money at German banks, there's not a lot of appetite for complying with the law, and I don't blame people for evading taxes one bit. I consider the US government a criminal enterprise and would gladly evade taxes if I thought I could get away with it.
What's fascinating about the Eurozone is that it's collapsing in the precise way that (non-stupid) economists predicted. I remember reading articles 15 years ago that the Euro was doomed because there were too many contradictory interests at work to make a unified monetary policy work. Germany flexed her economic muscle to create debt expansion throughout the Continent; giving her a stake in--and power over--several economies. But they got too greedy, let the debt pile on too thick and now many (if not most) of their debtors are unable to pay it back.
This results in Deutsche Bank and others being fundamentally insolvent, so their only option is to go through this dog-and-pony show of "bailing out" their debtors every few months. Banks loan money to Greece so Greece can pay back the banks, and continue the charade of the banks still being sound.
If Greece really wanted to get out of this, they would simply default on all of their debts, drop out of the Eurozone, re-establish a sovereign currency, curtail non-essential government services (police, firemen, courts, prisons), cut taxes to as low as they can possibly can while still supporting those services, deregulate economic behavior as much as they reasonably can, and then try to ride out the next half-decade of pain while their economy rebuilds itself. And here's the thing: it would rebuild itself. In a decade they'd be moving along at a good clip and they might actually be the economic envy of a devastated Eurozone. They wouldn't be able to borrow money from other countries, but that's a good thing. What they're doing now--this bailout and austerity schtick--is only going to prolong the agony.
And if I was Spain, Italy or Portugal, I'd consider doing the same thing. Actually, if I was any Eurozone country, I'd proceed along similar lines.
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@Ronald said:
@El_Heffe said:
@Ronald said:
@The article said:
Just write all apps in Javascript, now that Firefox has removed the ability to disable it.“Things that are trivial in native application development such as utilizing the GPS or running parallel processes are much harder to be done efficiently in HTML5,” it says. “Just to give you an example, one of the hardest tasks we had was to play sounds at exactly the right time to match the driving directions. Something that is extremely easy when developing native applications became a challenge in HTML5.”
Here is what you should have said: Firefox 23 Dumps Dangerous Settings so Users Don't End Up Breaking the Browser. It's now obvious that for all those years if Firefox was broken it was because of the users (they were holding it wrong).
This is great news; from this point on, Firefox bugs can't be blamed on the user!
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@morbiuswilters said:
Was anyone here arguing for anarchy?
@boomzilla said:
Yes, there is a need for certain institutions. But if you think forced redistribution is one of them, or that you or any other person can direct something as complex as an economy then you are a danger to civilization.
"Forced redistribution" (Randroid code for taxation) plus a claim about the dangers of directing "something as complex as an economy": yup. Apparently all we need is benevolent capitalists and maybe a stock exchange or two for them to benevolate in.
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@flabdablet said:
@morbiuswilters said:
Was anyone here arguing for anarchy?
@boomzilla said:
Yes, there is a need for certain institutions. But if you think forced redistribution is one of them, or that you or any other person can direct something as complex as an economy then you are a danger to civilization.
"Forced redistribution" (Randroid code for taxation) plus a claim about the dangers of directing "something as complex as an economy": yup. Apparently all we need is benevolent capitalists and maybe a stock exchange or two for them to benevolate in."Randroid." I love that you keep saying this nonsense. I won't harp too much on your continued lack of reading skills, or your inability to remember that you were the one pimping for redistribution. You're like the little kid that's deathly afraid of taking of the training wheels. And it doesn't matter to you that you're using training wheels on a tricycle.
Hey, I'm not the one who said he thought a carbon tax was a good idea...that it would guide us all into a world of better choices or magical energy. You're the chump who enjoys voting for people who want to make choices for you. I get that you're not a fan of having power concentrated among a few rich guys. I'm not either. But I don't get why you think concentrating power among egomaniacal politicians or unaccountable bureaucrats is a good idea either.
I'll point out that we have a federal Department of Education. Let's ignore the WTF that such a thing exists at all and enjoy the ultra WTF that it basically has its own SWAT teams. But yeah, I guess it's true that I'm longing for a Randian wonderland where the DoEd doesn't bust down people's doors. I'm such a dreamy idealist.
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@spamcourt said:
Why else would there be so much tax evasion in countries
like Italy, Portugal or Spain? (and I'm Spanish)There's about to be a lot more tax evasion in Philadelphia.
@Lap Dance Tax said:
His best argument is this language from the Philadelphia Code about the amusement tax: "Imposed upon the admission fee or privilege to attend or engage in any amusement."
The key words are "admission fee," I think, and the $20 the customer hands the dancer is not an "admission fee."
Maybe the city can try for an emission fee.heh
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@flabdablet said:
"Forced redistribution" (Randroid code for taxation)
Um.. what? You couldn't even have a functioning market system without taxes to pay for police, firefighters, etc. So nobody here was arguing for this. "Forced redistribution" is the paying of trillions to welfare recipients (both corporate and individual), punitive taxes on the wealthy to make things "fair", etc..
@flabdablet said:
the dangers of directing "something as complex as an economy"
Yes, trying to direct an economy is nonsense. It's almost always a scam to allocate power in the hands of a few, and when it's not it's a case of woeful-but-well-meaning ignorance. We shouldn't be trying to "direct" our economies--that's what's caused so much grief over the last few decades. However, you can still have sensible, justifiable constraints on behavior when it is detrimental to the well-being of the people (although property law can take care of most of these issues.)
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@morbiuswilters said:
"Forced redistribution" is the paying of trillions to welfare recipients (both corporate and individual), punitive taxes on the wealthy to make things "fair", etc..
Right, so the state-sanctioned theft of a man's hard-earned wealth (getting the hang of this libertarian language now) is only "forced redistribution" when what's been stolen is subsequently spent on things you disapprove of. Check.
Look, I'm all for a sensible discussion on the relative merits of assorted government spending choices, but as long as we keep using loaded terms like "forced redistribution" it's not going anywhere sane any time soon. Yes, we all get that taxation is not (supposed to be) voluntary. We all get that hundreds of millions of recipients times tens of thousands of dollars per recipient comes to trillions of dollars. Trying to score points using "forced" and "trillions" and "punitive" is bloviation, not reasoning. It plays well on Fox News but nobody with actual clue is impressed.
@morbiuswilters said:
trying to direct an economy is nonsense. It's almost always a scam to allocate power in the hands of a few, and when it's not it's a case of woeful-but-well-meaning ignorance. We shouldn't be trying to "direct" our economies--that's what's caused so much grief over the last few decades. However, you can still have sensible, justifiable constraints on behavior when it is detrimental to the well-being of the people (although property law can take care of most of these issues.)
If you're for "sensible, justifiable constraints on behavior" but against "trying to direct an economy", you might want to clarify your position on the not-so-edge case of economic behavior, particularly that of institutions considered "too big to fail".
I would be particularly interested to find out just what "direction" you identify as the prime driver of the high-finance chaos leading up to the collapse of Lehman Brothers.
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@flabdablet said:
Right, so the state-sanctioned theft of a man's hard-earned wealth (getting the hang of this libertarian language now) is only "forced redistribution" when what's been stolen is subsequently spent on things you disapprove of. Check.
Services like the police benefit everyone equally. It's forced redistribution when some people (the successful, wealth creating members of society) are punished through taxes while other people (the weak, unsuccessful, unemployed, criminal) are rewarded through welfare.
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@KillaCoda said:
It's forced redistribution when some people (the successful, wealth creating members of society) are punished through taxes while other people (the weak, unsuccessful, unemployed, criminal) are rewarded through welfare.
Wow. You're not even ashamed of what you just said.
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@dhromed said:
@KillaCoda said:
It's forced redistribution when some people (the successful, wealth creating members of society) are punished through taxes while other people (the weak, unsuccessful, unemployed, criminal) are rewarded through welfare.
Wow. You're not even ashamed of what you just said.
What's there to be ashamed of? I stated a fact. The government does forcibly take some of my money and redistribute it to other people.
I never said if I was for or against this, but it's a fact either way.
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@KillaCoda said:
The government does *forcibly* take some of my money and *redistribute* it to other people.
No that's not quite what you said. You didn't even say that money was being taken form you personally. You said that money is being distributed from better people to inferior people, and used all kinds of subjective, damning language to make it unambiguously clear that you're better than the poor, incidentally suggesting that fixing the poor can be done by making them poorer.
In other words, fuck them, got mine, right?
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@flabdablet said:
Right, so the state-sanctioned theft of a man's hard-earned wealth (getting the hang of this libertarian language now) is only "forced redistribution" when what's been stolen is subsequently spent on things you disapprove of. Check.
Well, yeah. That's what these arguments are all about, no? Now, of course, I disapprove of those things for very good reasons.
@flabdablet said:
Trying to score points using "forced" and "trillions" and "punitive" is bloviation, not reasoning.
No, it's actually a basis for deciding what is reasonable. I'm willing to point a gun at somebody and force them to hand over some of their wealth for the purpose of protecting society for criminals, or building roads, or defending against foreign aggression, or maintaining vast areas of natural land, or providing basic education or any number of--what I feel are--necessary functions of government.
But, no, I'm not willing to use violence against people just so I can pay some fat, lazy piece of shit to sit at home and get drunk and watch 500 channels of cable TV. Nor do I think it's justifiable to use violence to extract wealth from good people just so some shithead teenager can waste $100k on a worthless degree in Marxist Basketweaving or Pissing Off Your Parents. I'm not going to tell somebody that they have to spend 60% of their time as slaves to corrupt politicians. These are not justifiable acts. I can justify 10% of a person's labor going to support society. I can even justify 20%. And not that long ago, that was more than enough to run a prosperous, functioning society.
Please explain to me why a person must be a slave for 60% of their life. And this is not for a prosperous, functioning society, but for a society that is getting poorer and more dysfunctional by the year. Not only is exorbitant taxation unjustifiable, it is killing the very society that taxation is supposed to preserve. That's insanity, and if you can't see that I am very sorry for you.
@flabdablet said:
If you're for "sensible, justifiable constraints on behavior" but against "trying to direct an economy", you might want to clarify your position on the not-so-edge case of economic behavior, particularly that of institutions considered "too big to fail".
"Too big to fail" is a propaganda term cooked up by banks that didn't want to fail, shareholders who didn't want to lose money and a government that was all-too-eager for a closer merging of government and financial power. (I'm always baffled by how supposedly left-of-center people can't see that Big Business and Big Government are allies far more than they are enemies. Most regulations protect big business and harm small business because of the costs of compliance that can only be handled by large, established companies with deeply-entrenched bureaucracies. The more power government has, the more that power has easily been bought by business interests which then grow ever bigger. That's how we living satires like "too big to fail" banks which are run by the government and which are still insolvent if not for government support.)
I simply would have let the TBTF banks fail. Fuck them, they made atrocious mistakes and bailing them out with money taken from hard-working people is sheer Statist hell. (Actually, I doubt they would even exist in the first place because they are monopolies granted and controlled by the unaccountable fourth branch of the US government--the perfect merging of Big Government and Big Business power--the Federal Reserve. And the Fed is responsible for the last several bubbles we've experienced, as well as the current bubbles that are close to popping.)
@flabdablet said:
I would be particularly interested to find out just what "direction" you identify as the prime driver of the high-finance chaos leading up to the collapse of Lehman Brothers.
Well, it's obvious, isn't it? We had a housing bubble that started in the late 90s, and which was inflated more rapidly after the collapse of the tech bubble and the attacks of September 11th as a means of stimulating the economy. It's not like any of this was a secret or a surprise, either. Oh, sure, most people are economically illiterate, but to those who aren't it wasn't a shock. In fact, the only shock for me has been that they've been able to avert a full meltdown since then. Obviously, it's not working very well, since most of the world is still in recession and things are only getting worse, but I have to give them credit for being able to reinflate that housing bubble and tech bubble so effectively. And of course we also now have a higher education bubble and a defense-related bubble and the on-going bonds disaster..
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@KillaCoda said:
Services like the police benefit everyone equally. It's forced redistribution when some people (the successful, wealth creating members of society) are punished through taxes while other people (the weak, unsuccessful, unemployed, criminal) are rewarded through welfare.
I'm not sure the criminal would say the police benefit them equally.. :)
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@dhromed said:
...incidentally suggesting that fixing the poor can be done by making them poorer.
The insane thing is that you don't believe this. Oh, sure, not every poor person is going to improve himself, but that's at least a choice they can make. It's all about incentives: if you pay people for being poor, they have little incentive to improve their economic situation. Why would they?
What's more, it actually makes them awful people. For one, they're utterly dependent on the government for their iPhones and fast food, so they're going to keep voting for more of the same. And since they don't have to work for any of it, they really appreciate none of it, and they become sorta-assholes. They become dull, ignorant cattle, watching TV, slurping down beer and junk food, trading food stamps for drugs, etc..
They become a perpetual underclass. And their kids (and they certainly have kids, and will keep crapping them out because that means more money from the government--and they get an extra bonus if they drink or do drugs during pregnancy and the kid ends up mentally damaged) grow up in this mess, and many assume this is simply how the world works. They grow up not even knowing there's a world outside of welfare. The result is further deterioration of society.
Meanwhile, there are millions of hard-working people who pay taxes and who have less than people on welfare. (This is one of the big disincentives welfare creates--why would you go off welfare and get a job when the job pays significantly less than you'd get on welfare? Very few people would.) And you may cry for these people losing their welfare becoming "poorer", but to be poor in modern America means you have the free Android smartphone that came with your plan instead of an iPhone. It means having a 32-inch TV instead of a 65-inch TV. And even that's better than the people who just spend their money on: booze, drugs, porn, strippers, prostitutes and gambling.
So I don't know how you could look at this mess and not see what a clusterfuck it is. Well, actually I do: you're woefully ignorant. You're white, middle class and you've probably never bothered to learn much about actual poor people. In your mind they're just sad, pathetic, one-dimensional cut-outs who you've imbued with all of these noble qualities because it makes the welfare state seem more justifiable; you see paying them off as a way to assuage your white, middle-class guilt without actually ever having to think about the damage--to society and to the recipients themselves--that's being done.
(And by "you" I don't mean "you dhromed", because your ignorance comes from living in Europe and knowing even less about the American welfare state than most Americans. I don't know how welfare works in the EU, but it's probably a hell of a lot smaller and less ludicrous than it is in the US. It also probably comes with lots of disincentives.. like "We'll give you food stamps, but one night a year Silvio Berlusconi is going to spend the night at your house and sleep in your underage daughter's bedroom.")
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@dhromed said:
@KillaCoda said:
The government does forcibly take some of my money and redistribute it to other people.
No that's not quite what you said. You didn't even say that money was being taken form you personally. You said that money is being distributed from better people to inferior people, and used all kinds of subjective, damning language to make it unambiguously clear that you're better than the poor, incidentally suggesting that fixing the poor can be done by making them poorer.
In other words, fuck them, got mine, right?
Nope. I said that money is taken from the successful people who create wealth to the unsuccessful people who consume it. How is that a controversial thing to say? That's the entire argument FOR welfare, the rich helping the poor.As for my "damning" language, yeah I am better then a lot of welfare recipients. I personally know of drug dealers (went to school with them sadly) who gladly sign on for their hundreds of euro a week in addition to their criminal income. Money which comes from my taxes. Fuck them, indeed.
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@morbiuswilters said:
@KillaCoda said:
Services like the police benefit everyone equally. It's forced redistribution when some people (the successful, wealth creating members of society) are punished through taxes while other people (the weak, unsuccessful, unemployed, criminal) are rewarded through welfare.
I'm not sure the criminal would say the police benefit them equally.. :)
Friend of mine's dad works as a prison officer. He told me a fascinating story. Apparently around winter time, the prisons get more crowded. Criminals confess to petty crimes they may or may not have done and get a short spell inside. Warm rooms and showers, clean clothes and bedding, 3 square meals a day, a gym, and they all know half the other prisoners anyway. For them it's like a little holiday.So, with my tongue somewhat in cheek, I'd have to say the criminals benefit somewhat too :P
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@KillaCoda said:
I personally know of drug dealers (went to school with them sadly) who gladly sign on for their hundreds of euro
Whoa whoa whoa...
There are European drug dealers?
tries to imagine Swedes sitting in their sterile houses while the endless nights surround them, snorting lines off their Ikea coffee table Naw..
tries to imagine German engineers meticulously designing a
concentration camptheme park while puffing on a blunt the size of a rolled up magazine Naw..tries to imagine an unwashed Frenchman in a horizontally-striped shirt, collapsed on a cot in his filthy apartment, chain smoking and occasionally taking a swig directly from a wine bottle while his hairy mistress massages his undersized genitals. he then picks up a crackpipe Naw..
tries to imagine a swarthy, greasy Italian lording over his vast Mafia famil--
It's Italy, isn't it?
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@KillaCoda said:
@morbiuswilters said:
@KillaCoda said:
Services like the police benefit everyone equally. It's forced redistribution when some people (the successful, wealth creating members of society) are punished through taxes while other people (the weak, unsuccessful, unemployed, criminal) are rewarded through welfare.
I'm not sure the criminal would say the police benefit them equally.. :)
Friend of mine's dad works as a prison officer. He told me a fascinating story. Apparently around winter time, the prisons get more crowded. Criminals confess to petty crimes they may or may not have done and get a short spell inside. Warm rooms and showers, clean clothes and bedding, 3 square meals a day, a gym, and they all know half the other prisoners anyway. For them it's like a little holiday.So, with my tongue somewhat in cheek, I'd have to say the criminals benefit somewhat too :P
Oh yeah, the "confess to petty crimes to get three hots and a cot" is just as common for petty criminals as the "pretend you have some vague, difficult-to-diagnose illness so you can stay the night in the ER" is for the winos.
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@flabdablet said:
@morbiuswilters said:
"Forced redistribution" is the paying of trillions to welfare recipients (both corporate and individual), punitive taxes on the wealthy to make things "fair", etc..
Right, so the state-sanctioned theft of a man's hard-earned wealth (getting the hang of this libertarian language now) is only "forced redistribution" when what's been stolen is subsequently spent on things you disapprove of. Check.
You're having a blakeyrat moment. Let me remind you of what you said:
@flabdablet said:
The free market's wealth creation dynamo needs to be harnessed to a wealth redistribution mechanism to stop it spinning out of control, and this is the fundamental economic justification for taxation and the welfare state.
I guess you don't like the acronym "forced" because it has bad connotations and redistribution sounds good to you, but that doesn't make it an accurate and succinct description of your position. Let me introduce a concept to you. It's called a public good. So, roads, national defense are obvious examples. While someone gets paid to provide these things, the point is to provide them, and we all benefit. It's not at all the same as your schemes to punish some people and reward others.
@flabdablet said:
If you're for "sensible, justifiable constraints on behavior" but against "trying to direct an economy", you might want to clarify your position on the not-so-edge case of economic behavior, particularly that of institutions considered "too big to fail".
I'm all for things like, don't steal, don't kill, too big to fail. Failure is how things get better. Failure should be prevented by success, not by getting shielded from mistakes.
@flabdablet said:
I would be particularly interested to find out just what "direction" you identify as the prime driver of the high-finance chaos leading up to the collapse of Lehman Brothers.
I'm not convinced there is a prime mover. It's a combination of a lot of things, not in any particular order:
- Easy money for too long.
- Government enforced oligopoly on credit rating agencies that didn't really rate credit and discouraged investors from their own risk assessments.
- Implicit and explicit government backing of mortgages
- A metaphorical war on lending standards, partly enabled by the above
