Amazon has more stuff than it knows what to do with
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@dkf said in Amazon has more stuff than it knows what to do with:
@Gąska said in Amazon has more stuff than it knows what to do with:
Like schools and colleges are free.
Yeah, I guess Gąska doesn't realize that the only way to get free college in America is to take on huge amounts of debt (that is exempt from eg bankruptcy), or get a scholarship.
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@topspin said in Amazon has more stuff than it knows what to do with:
@cvi said in Amazon has more stuff than it knows what to do with:
@boomzilla said in Amazon has more stuff than it knows what to do with:
but since you've described a centrally planned menu,
To be fair, I don't think there was mention of a centrally planned menu, just that it would be "free". Why not a setup where one gets vouchers that can be used to get a meal at a place of choice? Those would ostensibly still compete with each other for customers...
Switching sides for a second:
We already have such vouchers, they're called money.And that's why vouchers aren't the solution. Raw ingredients get huge markups from distributors compared to market prices at source. Pre-processed ingredients get huge markups over raw ingredients used to make them. And finally, cooked meals get huge markups over pre-processed ingredients. So vouchers are going to cost the taxpayer many times more than a government-owned food production pipeline, even if you take into account the usual wastefulness of every government effort compared to its private business counterpart.
I realize that this has no chance to actually work in real world, for reasons more related to people actively sabotaging any efforts out of spite than the actual economics. But as a thought experiment - it seems like our economy could handle the burden just fine?
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@boomzilla said in Amazon has more stuff than it knows what to do with:
@e4tmyl33t said in Amazon has more stuff than it knows what to do with:
@boomzilla said in Amazon has more stuff than it knows what to do with:
@cvi said in Amazon has more stuff than it knows what to do with:
@boomzilla said in Amazon has more stuff than it knows what to do with:
but since you've described a centrally planned menu,
To be fair, I don't think there was mention of a centrally planned menu, just that it would be "free". Why not a setup where one gets vouchers that can be used to get a meal at a place of choice? Those would ostensibly still compete with each other for customers...
Centrally planned in the sense of what quantities of which food would be produced / procured. Not to mention all of the other perverse incentives that come along with such things.
And why would it need to be a "menu" as such? Just arrange for weekly/bi-weekly deliveries of a bunch of vegetables, some varied meats, etc. and the people can make what they want with them.
Yes, that "bunch of vegetables, some varied meats, etc." That's exactly what I'm talking about. Someone has to pick which ones to send where.
Again - school meals. It has been done. It was working. We're not talking hypotheticals, we have an actual example of it. Well, we used to have, before it was dismantled for purely politicsl reasons.
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@Gąska said in Amazon has more stuff than it knows what to do with:
@boomzilla said in Amazon has more stuff than it knows what to do with:
@e4tmyl33t said in Amazon has more stuff than it knows what to do with:
@boomzilla said in Amazon has more stuff than it knows what to do with:
@cvi said in Amazon has more stuff than it knows what to do with:
@boomzilla said in Amazon has more stuff than it knows what to do with:
but since you've described a centrally planned menu,
To be fair, I don't think there was mention of a centrally planned menu, just that it would be "free". Why not a setup where one gets vouchers that can be used to get a meal at a place of choice? Those would ostensibly still compete with each other for customers...
Centrally planned in the sense of what quantities of which food would be produced / procured. Not to mention all of the other perverse incentives that come along with such things.
And why would it need to be a "menu" as such? Just arrange for weekly/bi-weekly deliveries of a bunch of vegetables, some varied meats, etc. and the people can make what they want with them.
Yes, that "bunch of vegetables, some varied meats, etc." That's exactly what I'm talking about. Someone has to pick which ones to send where.
Again - school meals. It has been done. It was working. We're not talking hypotheticals, we have an actual example of it. Well, we used to have, before it was dismantled for purely politicsl reasons.
You said this before. I don't believe it any more now that you've said it again.
@Gąska said in Amazon has more stuff than it knows what to do with:
I realize that this has no chance to actually work in real world, for reasons more related to people actively sabotaging any efforts out of spite than the actual economics. But as a thought experiment - it seems like our economy could handle the burden just fine?
It seems like a guy from a formerly communist country (even though he didn't live through it himself) should know better.
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@error said in Amazon has more stuff than it knows what to do with:
@dkf said in Amazon has more stuff than it knows what to do with:
@Gąska said in Amazon has more stuff than it knows what to do with:
Like schools and colleges are free.
Yeah, I guess Gąska doesn't realize that the only way to get free college in America is to take on huge amounts of debt (that is exempt from eg bankruptcy), or get a scholarship.
I was talking to a European. Prefacing every sentence with "as you very well know because you have personally made use of it, there are some countries that, unlike USA..." would just get tedious and detract from the actual argument.
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@Gąska said in Amazon has more stuff than it knows what to do with:
@error said in Amazon has more stuff than it knows what to do with:
@dkf said in Amazon has more stuff than it knows what to do with:
@Gąska said in Amazon has more stuff than it knows what to do with:
Like schools and colleges are free.
Yeah, I guess Gąska doesn't realize that the only way to get free college in America is to take on huge amounts of debt (that is exempt from eg bankruptcy), or get a scholarship.
I was talking to a European. Prefacing every sentence with "as you very well know because you have personally made use of it, there are some countries that, unlike USA..." would just get tedious and detract from the actual argument.
Europeans? I don't think they exist.
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@boomzilla said in Amazon has more stuff than it knows what to do with:
@Gąska said in Amazon has more stuff than it knows what to do with:
@boomzilla said in Amazon has more stuff than it knows what to do with:
@e4tmyl33t said in Amazon has more stuff than it knows what to do with:
@boomzilla said in Amazon has more stuff than it knows what to do with:
@cvi said in Amazon has more stuff than it knows what to do with:
@boomzilla said in Amazon has more stuff than it knows what to do with:
but since you've described a centrally planned menu,
To be fair, I don't think there was mention of a centrally planned menu, just that it would be "free". Why not a setup where one gets vouchers that can be used to get a meal at a place of choice? Those would ostensibly still compete with each other for customers...
Centrally planned in the sense of what quantities of which food would be produced / procured. Not to mention all of the other perverse incentives that come along with such things.
And why would it need to be a "menu" as such? Just arrange for weekly/bi-weekly deliveries of a bunch of vegetables, some varied meats, etc. and the people can make what they want with them.
Yes, that "bunch of vegetables, some varied meats, etc." That's exactly what I'm talking about. Someone has to pick which ones to send where.
Again - school meals. It has been done. It was working. We're not talking hypotheticals, we have an actual example of it. Well, we used to have, before it was dismantled for purely politicsl reasons.
You said this before. I don't believe it any more now that you've said it again.
Facts don't care about your beliefs.
@Gąska said in Amazon has more stuff than it knows what to do with:
I realize that this has no chance to actually work in real world, for reasons more related to people actively sabotaging any efforts out of spite than the actual economics. But as a thought experiment - it seems like our economy could handle the burden just fine?
It seems like a guy from a formerly communist country (even though he didn't live through it himself) should know better.
Know better what? Are you suggesting there is actually a chance it could work? Because I just said there isn't.
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@Gąska said in Amazon has more stuff than it knows what to do with:
@boomzilla said in Amazon has more stuff than it knows what to do with:
@Gąska said in Amazon has more stuff than it knows what to do with:
@boomzilla said in Amazon has more stuff than it knows what to do with:
@e4tmyl33t said in Amazon has more stuff than it knows what to do with:
@boomzilla said in Amazon has more stuff than it knows what to do with:
@cvi said in Amazon has more stuff than it knows what to do with:
@boomzilla said in Amazon has more stuff than it knows what to do with:
but since you've described a centrally planned menu,
To be fair, I don't think there was mention of a centrally planned menu, just that it would be "free". Why not a setup where one gets vouchers that can be used to get a meal at a place of choice? Those would ostensibly still compete with each other for customers...
Centrally planned in the sense of what quantities of which food would be produced / procured. Not to mention all of the other perverse incentives that come along with such things.
And why would it need to be a "menu" as such? Just arrange for weekly/bi-weekly deliveries of a bunch of vegetables, some varied meats, etc. and the people can make what they want with them.
Yes, that "bunch of vegetables, some varied meats, etc." That's exactly what I'm talking about. Someone has to pick which ones to send where.
Again - school meals. It has been done. It was working. We're not talking hypotheticals, we have an actual example of it. Well, we used to have, before it was dismantled for purely politicsl reasons.
You said this before. I don't believe it any more now that you've said it again.
Facts don't care about your beliefs.
How ironic!
@Gąska said in Amazon has more stuff than it knows what to do with:
I realize that this has no chance to actually work in real world, for reasons more related to people actively sabotaging any efforts out of spite than the actual economics. But as a thought experiment - it seems like our economy could handle the burden just fine?
It seems like a guy from a formerly communist country (even though he didn't live through it himself) should know better.
Know better what? Are you suggesting there is actually a chance it could work? Because I just said there isn't.
Sorry, should have been more precise: "more related to people actively sabotaging any efforts out of spite than the actual economics." It's the actual economics that doom such a thing.
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Back to the money part of this, if we're just saying "food should be free with existing taxation," that's trivially true: just take money from every other government program until the food-welfare is sufficiently funded.
If there's enough money, then everyone gets good food, too, with enough variety to supply every possible meal preference. And you can still implement market-like trading between suppliers (with vouchers) if you need a little invisible hand to make things more efficient. (Some food charities have such a market system with points; the various distribution places bid for the stuff they want to give to the homeless, based on the demands/preferences in the various different places.)
Mind you, the rest of the government programs might end up a wee bit underfunded, but doing food-only would be trivial.
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@DogsB said in Amazon has more stuff than it knows what to do with:
the organic and gluten free lot get involved.
Many of us who are gluten-free are gluten-free out of medical necessity and really resent being lumped with that lot.
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@PotatoEngineer said in Amazon has more stuff than it knows what to do with:
Back to the money part of this, if we're just saying "food should be free with existing taxation," that's trivially true: just take money from every other government program until the food-welfare is sufficiently funded.
If there's enough money, then everyone gets good food, too, with enough variety to supply every possible meal preference. And you can still implement market-like trading between suppliers (with vouchers) if you need a little invisible hand to make things more efficient. (Some food charities have such a market system with points; the various distribution places bid for the stuff they want to give to the homeless, based on the demands/preferences in the various different places.)
Mind you, the rest of the government programs might end up a wee bit underfunded, but doing food-only would be trivial.
Where would we find so much money?
Unrelated
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@error said in Amazon has more stuff than it knows what to do with:
@Gąska said in Amazon has more stuff than it knows what to do with:
@error said in Amazon has more stuff than it knows what to do with:
@dkf said in Amazon has more stuff than it knows what to do with:
@Gąska said in Amazon has more stuff than it knows what to do with:
Like schools and colleges are free.
Yeah, I guess Gąska doesn't realize that the only way to get free college in America is to take on huge amounts of debt (that is exempt from eg bankruptcy), or get a scholarship.
I was talking to a European. Prefacing every sentence with "as you very well know because you have personally made use of it, there are some countries that, unlike USA..." would just get tedious and detract from the actual argument.
Europeans? I don't think they exist.
No, it's us 'Muricans!!! that are supersized.
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@HardwareGeek But that would be the usual size.
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@topspin said in Amazon has more stuff than it knows what to do with:
Switching sides for a second:
We already have such vouchers, they're called money.Well, main point is that the going from "free" meals to centrally planned menu is quite the jump.
And while people have obviously disliked that idea, I'd like to point out that things like that have worked out on smaller scales (e.g. via systems where employers "subsidize" or "pay" for meals/lunch; quotations marks for the same reason as around "free" in the context of this thread).
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@Gąska said in Amazon has more stuff than it knows what to do with:
Again - school meals. It has been done. It was working.
Can't speak for the rest of Europe but it was never a thing in Irish schools. Was a thing in English schools for about a decade in 70s/80s. Was dropped because it cost too much. Its brought back every now and then but usually dropped when there isn't a corresponding jump in grades.
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@error said in Amazon has more stuff than it knows what to do with:
Every time I see that I wonder why the US just doesn't anex Canada and Mexico and claim the entire contient.
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@e4tmyl33t said in Amazon has more stuff than it knows what to do with:
@boomzilla said in Amazon has more stuff than it knows what to do with:
@cvi said in Amazon has more stuff than it knows what to do with:
@boomzilla said in Amazon has more stuff than it knows what to do with:
but since you've described a centrally planned menu,
To be fair, I don't think there was mention of a centrally planned menu, just that it would be "free". Why not a setup where one gets vouchers that can be used to get a meal at a place of choice? Those would ostensibly still compete with each other for customers...
Centrally planned in the sense of what quantities of which food would be produced / procured. Not to mention all of the other perverse incentives that come along with such things.
And why would it need to be a "menu" as such? Just arrange for weekly/bi-weekly deliveries of a bunch of vegetables, some varied meats, etc. and the people can make what they want with them.
@e4tmyl33t said in Amazon has more stuff than it knows what to do with:
@boomzilla said in Amazon has more stuff than it knows what to do with:
@cvi said in Amazon has more stuff than it knows what to do with:
@boomzilla said in Amazon has more stuff than it knows what to do with:
but since you've described a centrally planned menu,
To be fair, I don't think there was mention of a centrally planned menu, just that it would be "free". Why not a setup where one gets vouchers that can be used to get a meal at a place of choice? Those would ostensibly still compete with each other for customers...
Centrally planned in the sense of what quantities of which food would be produced / procured. Not to mention all of the other perverse incentives that come along with such things.
And why would it need to be a "menu" as such? Just arrange for weekly/bi-weekly deliveries of a bunch of vegetables, some varied meats, etc. and the people can make what they want with them.
Still fails. Central planning more granular than thevery high level (power of purse, contract onerousness, rights) is fail. It can't scale properly.
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@DogsB Finland and Sweden have had them and AFAIK still have.
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@DogsB said in Amazon has more stuff than it knows what to do with:
@Gąska said in Amazon has more stuff than it knows what to do with:
Again - school meals. It has been done. It was working.
Can't speak for the rest of Europe but it was never a thing in Irish schools.
I'm talking specifically about American public schools. Even more specifically, the shitty high school in Chicago my sister just graduated from. They spend as little money on everything as possible, especially if it's for the good of students. The food at school canteen is absolutely mikeTheLiar quality, to the point half of the kids refuse to even touch it. But before 2018, before Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act got neutered, even that school had to meet some quality and nutrition standards, and the food was actually half decent.
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@error said in Amazon has more stuff than it knows what to do with:
@PotatoEngineer said in Amazon has more stuff than it knows what to do with:
Back to the money part of this, if we're just saying "food should be free with existing taxation," that's trivially true: just take money from every other government program until the food-welfare is sufficiently funded.
If there's enough money, then everyone gets good food, too, with enough variety to supply every possible meal preference. And you can still implement market-like trading between suppliers (with vouchers) if you need a little invisible hand to make things more efficient. (Some food charities have such a market system with points; the various distribution places bid for the stuff they want to give to the homeless, based on the demands/preferences in the various different places.)
Mind you, the rest of the government programs might end up a wee bit underfunded, but doing food-only would be trivial.
Where would we find so much money?
Unrelated
The fine print at the bottom:
The source for this chart uses a definition of defense spending that is more broad than budget function 050 and defense discretionary spending.
I.e., the source for this chart uses a definition of defense spending that includes a lot of stuff that isn't really defense spending (but we won't tell you what or how much), at least for the US, but maybe not for other countries, because we (probably) rely on the official government-reported figures for a lot of them, because we
can't twist them to fit our narrative(probably) don't have access to the real spending numbers to redefine.
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@Gąska said in Amazon has more stuff than it knows what to do with:
@topspin said in Amazon has more stuff than it knows what to do with:
@cvi said in Amazon has more stuff than it knows what to do with:
@boomzilla said in Amazon has more stuff than it knows what to do with:
but since you've described a centrally planned menu,
To be fair, I don't think there was mention of a centrally planned menu, just that it would be "free". Why not a setup where one gets vouchers that can be used to get a meal at a place of choice? Those would ostensibly still compete with each other for customers...
Switching sides for a second:
We already have such vouchers, they're called money.And that's why vouchers aren't the solution. Raw ingredients get huge markups from distributors compared to market prices at source. Pre-processed ingredients get huge markups over raw ingredients used to make them. And finally, cooked meals get huge markups over pre-processed ingredients. So vouchers are going to cost the taxpayer many times more than a government-owned food production pipeline, even if you take into account the usual wastefulness of every government effort compared to its private business counterpart.
I realize that this has no chance to actually work in real world, for reasons more related to people actively sabotaging any efforts out of spite than the actual economics. But as a thought experiment - it seems like our economy could handle the burden just fine?
What kind of ice cream?
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@HardwareGeek said in Amazon has more stuff than it knows what to do with:
@error said in Amazon has more stuff than it knows what to do with:
@PotatoEngineer said in Amazon has more stuff than it knows what to do with:
Back to the money part of this, if we're just saying "food should be free with existing taxation," that's trivially true: just take money from every other government program until the food-welfare is sufficiently funded.
If there's enough money, then everyone gets good food, too, with enough variety to supply every possible meal preference. And you can still implement market-like trading between suppliers (with vouchers) if you need a little invisible hand to make things more efficient. (Some food charities have such a market system with points; the various distribution places bid for the stuff they want to give to the homeless, based on the demands/preferences in the various different places.)
Mind you, the rest of the government programs might end up a wee bit underfunded, but doing food-only would be trivial.
Where would we find so much money?
Unrelated
The fine print at the bottom:
The source for this chart uses a definition of defense spending that is more broad than budget function 050 and defense discretionary spending.
I.e., the source for this chart uses a definition of defense spending that includes a lot of stuff that isn't really defense spending (but we won't tell you what or how much), at least for the US, but maybe not for other countries, because we (probably) rely on the official government-reported figures for a lot of them, because we
can't twist them to fit our narrative(probably) don't have access to the real spending numbers to redefine.USA! USA! USA!
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@Gąska said in Amazon has more stuff than it knows what to do with:
And that's why vouchers aren't the solution. Raw ingredients get huge markups from distributors compared to market prices at source. Pre-processed ingredients get huge markups over raw ingredients used to make them. And finally, cooked meals get huge markups over pre-processed ingredients. So vouchers are going to cost the taxpayer many times more than a government-owned food production pipeline, even if you take into account the usual wastefulness of every government effort compared to its private business counterpart.
An observation in this is that private sector efficiency is not used to actually drive prices down, but rather to increase the fraction of the free money flows that go to the people who own businesses. Which is fine from their perspective, but doesn't mean that it necessarily results in customers of the business having lower prices. Free markets are better at delivering lower prices to customers (due to the effects of competition). I'm rather keen on them, but many true capitalists are far more interested in becoming monopolists or oligopolists.
By comparison, direct government operation doesn't have that incentive to skim off profits, but also tends to exclude competition. Which goes to show something or other I guess…
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@Gąska said in Amazon has more stuff than it knows what to do with:
@error said in Amazon has more stuff than it knows what to do with:
@dkf said in Amazon has more stuff than it knows what to do with:
@Gąska said in Amazon has more stuff than it knows what to do with:
Like schools and colleges are free.
Yeah, I guess Gąska doesn't realize that the only way to get free college in America is to take on huge amounts of debt (that is exempt from eg bankruptcy), or get a scholarship.
I was talking to a European. Prefacing every sentence with "as you very well know because you have personally made use of it, there are some countries that, unlike USA..." would just get tedious and detract from the actual argument.
I happen to know that the many students in Europe also end up well indebted due to their studies. There's really no general rule.
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@dkf said in Amazon has more stuff than it knows what to do with:
Which goes to show something or other I guess…
That's true of all arguments, although what that something is isn't always what the person arguing thinks it is.
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@PotatoEngineer said in Amazon has more stuff than it knows what to do with:
Back to the money part of this, if we're just saying "food should be free with existing taxation," that's trivially true: just take money from every other government program until the food-welfare is sufficiently funded.
If there's enough money, then everyone gets good food, too, with enough variety to supply every possible meal preference. And you can still implement market-like trading between suppliers (with vouchers) if you need a little invisible hand to make things more efficient. (Some food charities have such a market system with points; the various distribution places bid for the stuff they want to give to the homeless, based on the demands/preferences in the various different places.)
Mind you, the rest of the government programs might end up a wee bit underfunded, but doing food-only would be trivial.
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@dkf said in Amazon has more stuff than it knows what to do with:
@Gąska said in Amazon has more stuff than it knows what to do with:
@error said in Amazon has more stuff than it knows what to do with:
@dkf said in Amazon has more stuff than it knows what to do with:
@Gąska said in Amazon has more stuff than it knows what to do with:
Like schools and colleges are free.
Yeah, I guess Gąska doesn't realize that the only way to get free college in America is to take on huge amounts of debt (that is exempt from eg bankruptcy), or get a scholarship.
I was talking to a European. Prefacing every sentence with "as you very well know because you have personally made use of it, there are some countries that, unlike USA..." would just get tedious and detract from the actual argument.
I happen to know that the many students in Europe also end up well indebted due to their studies.
It takes a special kind of idiot to go in debt just to get something you could have for free.
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@boomzilla said in Amazon has more stuff than it knows what to do with:
@PotatoEngineer said in Amazon has more stuff than it knows what to do with:
Back to the money part of this, if we're just saying "food should be free with existing taxation," that's trivially true: just take money from every other government program until the food-welfare is sufficiently funded.
If there's enough money, then everyone gets good food, too, with enough variety to supply every possible meal preference. And you can still implement market-like trading between suppliers (with vouchers) if you need a little invisible hand to make things more efficient. (Some food charities have such a market system with points; the various distribution places bid for the stuff they want to give to the homeless, based on the demands/preferences in the various different places.)
Mind you, the rest of the government programs might end up a wee bit underfunded, but doing food-only would be trivial.
Nobody is taking away your steak houses. We just need some common sense food control.
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@HardwareGeek said in Amazon has more stuff than it knows what to do with:
@dkf said in Amazon has more stuff than it knows what to do with:
Which goes to show something or other I guess…
That's true of all arguments, although what that something is isn't always what the person arguing thinks it is.
False. Q.E.D.
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@Gąska said in Amazon has more stuff than it knows what to do with:
@boomzilla said in Amazon has more stuff than it knows what to do with:
@PotatoEngineer said in Amazon has more stuff than it knows what to do with:
Back to the money part of this, if we're just saying "food should be free with existing taxation," that's trivially true: just take money from every other government program until the food-welfare is sufficiently funded.
If there's enough money, then everyone gets good food, too, with enough variety to supply every possible meal preference. And you can still implement market-like trading between suppliers (with vouchers) if you need a little invisible hand to make things more efficient. (Some food charities have such a market system with points; the various distribution places bid for the stuff they want to give to the homeless, based on the demands/preferences in the various different places.)
Mind you, the rest of the government programs might end up a wee bit underfunded, but doing food-only would be trivial.
Nobody is taking away your steak houses. We just need some common sense food control.
What kind of ice cream?
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Amazon could solve the dead merchandise problem by lowering fees. Ideally, they would do it on all items, as their ~25% fee is pretty much fatal for the folks between "I sell off junk from my attic" and "I have a warehouse with 30 employees." But they could at least give consideration for stuff that's sat for a year or whatever. Or just destroy it like idiots.
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Meh. If you guys are so worried about stuff being destroyed you should have bought some of it.
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@boomzilla said in Amazon has more stuff than it knows what to do with:
Meh. If you guys are so worried about stuff being destroyed you should have bought some of it.
I bought AND destroyed plenty of bulk foodstuffs this year, because nothing burns like dried beans. Well, yeah, lentils.
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@boomzilla said in Amazon has more stuff than it knows what to do with:
@PotatoEngineer said in Amazon has more stuff than it knows what to do with:
Back to the money part of this, if we're just saying "food should be free with existing taxation," that's trivially true: just take money from every other government program until the food-welfare is sufficiently funded.
If there's enough money, then everyone gets good food, too, with enough variety to supply every possible meal preference. And you can still implement market-like trading between suppliers (with vouchers) if you need a little invisible hand to make things more efficient. (Some food charities have such a market system with points; the various distribution places bid for the stuff they want to give to the homeless, based on the demands/preferences in the various different places.)
Mind you, the rest of the government programs might end up a wee bit underfunded, but doing food-only would be trivial.
If we are honestly saying every tax penny goes to food, then there will be enough for restaurants. It's an utterly ridiculous basis, but there's just loads of money going around here.
Total tax revenue: $3.8T.
Total food spending, including restaurants: $1.8T.
Even if an inefficient government manages to waste 50% of the money (please don't challenge them), there's still enough money for everyone to go to restaurants about as much as they do now. So you could give everyone ration coupons for them to spend however they like, or you could have R coupons for restaurants and G coupons for grocery stores, and it would be a bit of a waste (okay, it would be a lot of a waste), but you could do it.
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@PotatoEngineer said in Amazon has more stuff than it knows what to do with:
@boomzilla said in Amazon has more stuff than it knows what to do with:
@PotatoEngineer said in Amazon has more stuff than it knows what to do with:
Back to the money part of this, if we're just saying "food should be free with existing taxation," that's trivially true: just take money from every other government program until the food-welfare is sufficiently funded.
If there's enough money, then everyone gets good food, too, with enough variety to supply every possible meal preference. And you can still implement market-like trading between suppliers (with vouchers) if you need a little invisible hand to make things more efficient. (Some food charities have such a market system with points; the various distribution places bid for the stuff they want to give to the homeless, based on the demands/preferences in the various different places.)
Mind you, the rest of the government programs might end up a wee bit underfunded, but doing food-only would be trivial.
If we are honestly saying every tax penny goes to food, then there will be enough for restaurants. It's an utterly ridiculous basis, but there's just loads of money going around here.
Total tax revenue: $3.8T.
Total food spending, including restaurants: $1.8T.
Even if an inefficient government manages to waste 50% of the money (please don't challenge them), there's still enough money for everyone to go to restaurants about as much as they do now. So you could give everyone ration coupons for them to spend however they like, or you could have R coupons for restaurants and G coupons for grocery stores, and it would be a bit of a waste (okay, it would be a lot of a waste), but you could do it.
Very seriously, what kind of ice cream can I get? Due to the particular nature of ice cream as a good I am well-convinced that no centrally planned economy can sustainably support it. Change someone's mind.
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@PotatoEngineer said in Amazon has more stuff than it knows what to do with:
Even if an inefficient government manages to waste 50% of the money (please don't challenge them)
Are you suggesting that a government program might manage to waste less than 50% of the money?
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@HardwareGeek said in Amazon has more stuff than it knows what to do with:
@PotatoEngineer said in Amazon has more stuff than it knows what to do with:
Even if an inefficient government manages to waste 50% of the money (please don't challenge them)
Are you suggesting that a government program might manage to waste less than 50% of the money?
Don't panic. But buy ice cream.
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@Gribnit said in Amazon has more stuff than it knows what to do with:
@PotatoEngineer said in Amazon has more stuff than it knows what to do with:
@boomzilla said in Amazon has more stuff than it knows what to do with:
@PotatoEngineer said in Amazon has more stuff than it knows what to do with:
Back to the money part of this, if we're just saying "food should be free with existing taxation," that's trivially true: just take money from every other government program until the food-welfare is sufficiently funded.
If there's enough money, then everyone gets good food, too, with enough variety to supply every possible meal preference. And you can still implement market-like trading between suppliers (with vouchers) if you need a little invisible hand to make things more efficient. (Some food charities have such a market system with points; the various distribution places bid for the stuff they want to give to the homeless, based on the demands/preferences in the various different places.)
Mind you, the rest of the government programs might end up a wee bit underfunded, but doing food-only would be trivial.
If we are honestly saying every tax penny goes to food, then there will be enough for restaurants. It's an utterly ridiculous basis, but there's just loads of money going around here.
Total tax revenue: $3.8T.
Total food spending, including restaurants: $1.8T.
Even if an inefficient government manages to waste 50% of the money (please don't challenge them), there's still enough money for everyone to go to restaurants about as much as they do now. So you could give everyone ration coupons for them to spend however they like, or you could have R coupons for restaurants and G coupons for grocery stores, and it would be a bit of a waste (okay, it would be a lot of a waste), but you could do it.
Very seriously, what kind of ice cream can I get? Due to the particular nature of ice cream as a good I am well-convinced that no centrally planned economy can sustainably support it. Change someone's mind.
Salmiac.
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@topspin said in Amazon has more stuff than it knows what to do with:
@Gribnit said in Amazon has more stuff than it knows what to do with:
@PotatoEngineer said in Amazon has more stuff than it knows what to do with:
@boomzilla said in Amazon has more stuff than it knows what to do with:
@PotatoEngineer said in Amazon has more stuff than it knows what to do with:
Back to the money part of this, if we're just saying "food should be free with existing taxation," that's trivially true: just take money from every other government program until the food-welfare is sufficiently funded.
If there's enough money, then everyone gets good food, too, with enough variety to supply every possible meal preference. And you can still implement market-like trading between suppliers (with vouchers) if you need a little invisible hand to make things more efficient. (Some food charities have such a market system with points; the various distribution places bid for the stuff they want to give to the homeless, based on the demands/preferences in the various different places.)
Mind you, the rest of the government programs might end up a wee bit underfunded, but doing food-only would be trivial.
If we are honestly saying every tax penny goes to food, then there will be enough for restaurants. It's an utterly ridiculous basis, but there's just loads of money going around here.
Total tax revenue: $3.8T.
Total food spending, including restaurants: $1.8T.
Even if an inefficient government manages to waste 50% of the money (please don't challenge them), there's still enough money for everyone to go to restaurants about as much as they do now. So you could give everyone ration coupons for them to spend however they like, or you could have R coupons for restaurants and G coupons for grocery stores, and it would be a bit of a waste (okay, it would be a lot of a waste), but you could do it.
Very seriously, what kind of ice cream can I get? Due to the particular nature of ice cream as a good I am well-convinced that no centrally planned economy can sustainably support it. Change someone's mind.
Salmiac.
You got lucky... but what about next week?
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@topspin said in Amazon has more stuff than it knows what to do with:
Now the public wants you dead, in general, but I have had 2 weeks of ice cream, and do appreciate the salmiac.
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@Gąska said in Amazon has more stuff than it knows what to do with:
Why city roads can be 100% tax-funded and food cannot?
Because driving everywhere is actually important. Duh.
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@Gurth said in Amazon has more stuff than it knows what to do with:
@Gąska said in Amazon has more stuff than it knows what to do with:
Why city roads can be 100% tax-funded and food cannot?
Because driving everywhere is actually important. Duh.
A stunning variety of approaches to, roads.
A stunning variety of approaches to, food.
Compare.
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@HardwareGeek said in Amazon has more stuff than it knows what to do with:
@PotatoEngineer said in Amazon has more stuff than it knows what to do with:
Even if an inefficient government manages to waste 50% of the money (please don't challenge them)
Are you suggesting that a government program might manage to waste less than 50% of the money?
Excellent , would read again.
Though I do have an honest question: just what is the typical amount of inefficiency in government, for programs designed to disburse money/services? I'm curious because people like to point to "the insurance companies" as why healthcare is so expensive in America, but for those marketplace/Obamacare plans, the insurance companies must disburse ~90% of the money they take in, so the maximum inefficiency due to the insurance company alone is ~10%. (...I'm sure there are other opportunities for inefficiency, of course.)
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@Gąska said in Amazon has more stuff than it knows what to do with:
@dkf said in Amazon has more stuff than it knows what to do with:
@Gąska said in Amazon has more stuff than it knows what to do with:
@error said in Amazon has more stuff than it knows what to do with:
@dkf said in Amazon has more stuff than it knows what to do with:
@Gąska said in Amazon has more stuff than it knows what to do with:
Like schools and colleges are free.
Yeah, I guess Gąska doesn't realize that the only way to get free college in America is to take on huge amounts of debt (that is exempt from eg bankruptcy), or get a scholarship.
I was talking to a European. Prefacing every sentence with "as you very well know because you have personally made use of it, there are some countries that, unlike USA..." would just get tedious and detract from the actual argument.
I happen to know that the many students in Europe also end up well indebted due to their studies.
It takes a special kind of idiot to go in debt just to get something you could have for free.
But why do you think they can necessarily get it for free? Yes, some countries do it that way for their citizens, but others do not. There is no general rule on this matter, just a great deal of variation.
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@PotatoEngineer said in Amazon has more stuff than it knows what to do with:
@HardwareGeek said in Amazon has more stuff than it knows what to do with:
@PotatoEngineer said in Amazon has more stuff than it knows what to do with:
Even if an inefficient government manages to waste 50% of the money (please don't challenge them)
Are you suggesting that a government program might manage to waste less than 50% of the money?
Excellent , would read again.
Though I do have an honest question: just what is the typical amount of inefficiency in government, for programs designed to disburse money/services? I'm curious because people like to point to "the insurance companies" as why healthcare is so expensive in America, but for those marketplace/Obamacare plans, the insurance companies must disburse ~90% of the money they take in, so the maximum inefficiency due to the insurance company alone is ~10%. (...I'm sure there are other opportunities for inefficiency, of course.)
The accounting here is nasty. Because while the on-paper efficiency is high (~95% of medicare's budget goes out in grants/payments), it also doesn't account for things like enforcement (handled by the FBI and states, mostly), revenue collection (handled by the IRS), etc. Plus medicare/medicaid are notorious for turning a blind eye to fraud. And shoveling most of the compliance costs onto the doctors by having gnarly forms that get rejected if there's an issue with how they're filled out...but not actually checking the real data.
It's one reason that other countries seem to have more efficient health-care services[1]--a lot of the comparisons get muddled because they're off-loading costs onto other sectors of government.
[1] to some degree they do. Not going to get into the argument about exactly how much, but this cost-accounting thing is a real, non-trivial factor.
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@Gąska said in Amazon has more stuff than it knows what to do with:
It takes a special kind of idiot to go in debt just to get something you could have for free.
I recently heard a report that talked about community colleges needing to re-market themselves as they were losing students to the for-profit colleges. (Where they, of course, end up with a humongous debt.)
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@dkf said in Amazon has more stuff than it knows what to do with:
@Gąska said in Amazon has more stuff than it knows what to do with:
@dkf said in Amazon has more stuff than it knows what to do with:
@Gąska said in Amazon has more stuff than it knows what to do with:
@error said in Amazon has more stuff than it knows what to do with:
@dkf said in Amazon has more stuff than it knows what to do with:
@Gąska said in Amazon has more stuff than it knows what to do with:
Like schools and colleges are free.
Yeah, I guess Gąska doesn't realize that the only way to get free college in America is to take on huge amounts of debt (that is exempt from eg bankruptcy), or get a scholarship.
I was talking to a European. Prefacing every sentence with "as you very well know because you have personally made use of it, there are some countries that, unlike USA..." would just get tedious and detract from the actual argument.
I happen to know that the many students in Europe also end up well indebted due to their studies.
It takes a special kind of idiot to go in debt just to get something you could have for free.
But why do you think they can necessarily get it for free?
Because they fucking can. I googled to double check and out of 27 EU countries, 24 have 100% free college for all EU citizens, the exceptions being Portugal, Latvia and Bulgaria. Out of all those many students in Europe that you mentioned you know, how many are Portuguese, Latvian or Bulgarian? How many of them are unable to move to Spain, UK, Germany, or any other of the fucking 24 countries that offer free college for EU citizens?
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@Gąska From what I've understood university isn't free in the UK. US college and UK college aren't the same thing (UK college apparently being what you go to before you go to university; university being where you get a BSc, MSc, engineering degree or (later) a PhD). I don't really hear the term college being used in the rest of Europe.
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@cvi I always forget UK isn't in Europe anymore.
How many of them are unable to move to Spain,
UKFrance, Germany, or any other of the fucking 24 countries that offer free college for EU citizens?