In order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a re-read to refresh your memory! The vast majority of you are contributing in a healthy way, keep it up!
NOTE: When providing a source, explain why you feel it is relevant and what purpose it adds to the discussion if it's not obvious. Also take note that unsubstantiated tweets/posts meant only to rekindle old arguments can result in a mod action.
The Ebola outbreak in West Africa is both a danger in itself and a wake-up call for Americans – about President Obama, about the institutions of this country and, most important, about ourselves.
There was a time when an outbreak of a deadly disease overseas would bring virtually unanimous agreement that our top priority should be to keep it overseas. Yet Barack Obama has refused to bar entry to the United States by people from countries where the Ebola epidemic rages, as Britain has done.
The reason? Refusing to let people with Ebola enter the United States would conflict with the goal of fighting the disease. In other words, the safety of the American people takes second place to the goal of helping people overseas.
As if to emphasize his priorities, President Obama has ordered thousands of American troops to go into Ebola-stricken Liberia, disregarding the dangers to those troops and to other Americans when the troops return.
What does this say about Obama?
At a minimum, it suggests that he takes his conception of himself as a citizen of the world more seriously than he takes his role as president of the United States. At worst, he may consider Americans’ interests expendable in the grand scheme of things internationally. If so, this would explain a lot of his foreign policy disasters around the world, which seem inexplicable otherwise.
That's Sowell recently on Obama's handling of Ebola outbreak. Rest here.
The truth of the matter is, funnily enough, that we're fighting it over there so we won't be fighting it over here. This isn't Pandemic II, blocking your ports won't make your country into Madagascar.
The only thing I would change about the handling of Ebola after researching the current outbreak is investing a couple thousand dollars in the "cure" and "vaccine" peddlers that are reaping the benefits of a hysterical media and public. Give me adequate fluid repletion and replenish my clotting factors and I'll be more than satisfied.
Sure, blocking your ports won't make you invulnerable, but its still a smart measure. Go ahead and help people over there too, but don't be stupid about it.
Ebola transmission rates are so incredibly low that this measure is completely disproportionate. It may even cause problems because people will try to get into the States via indirect flights which may have lesser security standards.
There are direct flights from Monrovia to the US? (Hint: a fair few news sources have confused the country Liberia with the city of Liberia, Costa Rica.)
Well I don't know about Monrovia, but you can book a flight to Nigeria and Ebola has appeared there, too. I'm pretty sure you can book flights to most of the countries that have had Ebola cases. ´(Guinea for example)
On October 06 2014 12:12 IgnE wrote: What inheritance nonsense?
That the off-spring of the parents should not be recipients of the familial estate / businesses, and such should be appropriated by the Government. This would essentially kill any long-running business as the Government would de-facto shutter a business (or at least reduce it's competitiveness) via inheritance taxation. Similarly, somehow the Government or other folk are more 'deserving' or whatever justification of that property / money than said offspring. Anyways, my whole point is that if we want to tackle inequality and address average joe standard of living the answer isn't - Hey you guys with guns calling yourself Government; go take those rich guys stuff and give it to those in the lower-rung economic bracket. Are there rich folk who stole and cheated their way to their wealth? Certainly. Almost all of those people are politically connected douchebags, and if you want to deal with them you do so by taking away their lucrative means of profiting off buying politicians. In other words, political power is the problem, and that needs addressing. There's nothing wrong with wealthy folk getting wealthy by providing a wanted product to those willing to voluntarily trade with them.
Of course, all people see are folk above them and their inclination is to tear them down, instead of looking around and asking; how best can we work to raise the average folk standard of living?
what people who, like me, want nothing more than equal opportunity for all advocate is not to simply take the money from the wealthy and give it to the poor. What I propose is an all-around substitution of the institutions that cement the already existing differences between different segments of society for institutions that instead attempt to genuinely enable the "capital-less" (because like whitedog keeps on saying, these differences are reproduced by the combination of money-capital, cultural capital and social capital) to rise through the ranks of society. There is no element of "punishing" or "hating" the rich. However, there is an element of stating that the rich don't deserve their wealth any more than the poor deserve their poverty, an element I assume you disagree with. And while that's not irrelevant to the overarching argument or discussion, it's irrelevant to the point I'm about to try to make..
Basically, the to me only perceivable way of stopping children - who are what adults stem from - from being cursed or blessed by their upbringing, is through increasing public education (which is more than just school) in such a way that everyone is ensured a good education, and through (at least nearly) abolishing tuition fees. As long as there are tuition fees, schools can charge more money from parents to spend more money on teachers/other educational aid which provides the children of wealthy parents to go to better schools which nearly by default will lead to the reproduction of social status.. I don't mind private schools - just that they have more money. Fund them by the same principles as you fund public schools and you can have private schools that offer alternative pedagogical routes or whatnot, and it's all good. Obviously this means that more money will have to be pooled into education (not just public schools, but private ones would also be funded by taxation), which means that you have to increase taxation. Then, to avoid poor people being hurt by this, you don't increase taxation of poor people (also hurts their ability to be good consumers) but rather you increase that of the top brackets (who will also benefit by no longer having to pay $30k yearly tuition for their kid anyway!). There's no hatred of the rich here, it's just.. the only possible way I can see to decrease the reproduction of societal differences - something which is in great conflict with the idea and ideal that we are and should be responsible for how we do in life. Statistically, we are not.
I mean it doesn't even just end there. This overarching educate-the-population-project should include stuff like, library funding and encouragement, more focus on pedagogical tv (ban advertisement geared towards children already..), just more public efforts because clearly private ones just don't cut it.. It's just, there's no dislike of the wealthy in my rhetoric, it's just that I cannot understand how we can expect to change some of the reproduction of societal differences (which it seems like everyone is opposed to - it's in great conflict with the very concept of the self-made man..) without increasing public efforts, which I don't understand how we can do without taxation, and there's no point in taxing the poor more. Your point about corrupt politicians, which I guess is true from an american point of view, is just another example of how some doors are closed to the poor that are open to the wealthy.. But there's no conflict between that and what I am suggesting.
Further, I think the self-made discussion is actually really important, even if people are clinging on to extreme outliers like top 400 of forbes, who are just.. kinda irrelevant in the self-made argument context. I mean of course Gates is exceptional. And hell, Gates to me is like the prime example of an extremely wealthy who does more good with his money than government would if they taxed it like I would like them to do anyway.. ;p
It's a really important argument to have though because political affiliations can largely be logically derived from the degree to which you believe people are responsible for their own success or failure..
On October 06 2014 12:12 IgnE wrote: What inheritance nonsense?
That the off-spring of the parents should not be recipients of the familial estate / businesses, and such should be appropriated by the Government. This would essentially kill any long-running business as the Government would de-facto shutter a business (or at least reduce it's competitiveness) via inheritance taxation. Similarly, somehow the Government or other folk are more 'deserving' or whatever justification of that property / money than said offspring. Anyways, my whole point is that if we want to tackle inequality and address average joe standard of living the answer isn't - Hey you guys with guns calling yourself Government; go take those rich guys stuff and give it to those in the lower-rung economic bracket. Are there rich folk who stole and cheated their way to their wealth? Certainly. Almost all of those people are politically connected douchebags, and if you want to deal with them you do so by taking away their lucrative means of profiting off buying politicians. In other words, political power is the problem, and that needs addressing. There's nothing wrong with wealthy folk getting wealthy by providing a wanted product to those willing to voluntarily trade with them.
Of course, all people see are folk above them and their inclination is to tear them down, instead of looking around and asking; how best can we work to raise the average folk standard of living?
what people who, like me, want nothing more than equal opportunity for all advocate is not to simply take the money from the wealthy and give it to the poor. What I propose is an all-around substitution of the institutions that cement the already existing differences between different segments of society for institutions that instead attempt to genuinely enable the "capital-less" (because like whitedog keeps on saying, these differences are reproduced by the combination of money-capital, cultural capital and social capital) to rise through the ranks of society. There is no element of "punishing" or "hating" the rich. However, there is an element of stating that the rich don't deserve their wealth any more than the poor deserve their poverty, an element I assume you disagree with. And while that's not irrelevant to the overarching argument or discussion, it's irrelevant to the point I'm about to try to make..
Basically, the to me only perceivable way of stopping children - who are what adults stem from - from being cursed or blessed by their upbringing, is through increasing public education (which is more than just school) in such a way that everyone is ensured a good education, and through (at least nearly) abolishing tuition fees. As long as there are tuition fees, schools can charge more money from parents to spend more money on teachers/other educational aid which provides the children of wealthy parents to go to better schools which nearly by default will lead to the reproduction of social status.. I don't mind private schools - just that they have more money. Fund them by the same principles as you fund public schools and you can have private schools that offer alternative pedagogical routes or whatnot, and it's all good. Obviously this means that more money will have to be pooled into education (not just public schools, but private ones would also be funded by taxation), which means that you have to increase taxation. Then, to avoid poor people being hurt by this, you don't increase taxation of poor people (also hurts their ability to be good consumers) but rather you increase that of the top brackets (who will also benefit by no longer having to pay $30k yearly tuition for their kid anyway!). There's no hatred of the rich here, it's just.. the only possible way I can see to decrease the reproduction of societal differences - something which is in great conflict with the idea and ideal that we are and should be responsible for how we do in life. Statistically, we are not.
I mean it doesn't even just end there. This overarching educate-the-population-project should include stuff like, library funding and encouragement, more focus on pedagogical tv (ban advertisement geared towards children already..), just more public efforts because clearly private ones just don't cut it.. It's just, there's no dislike of the wealthy in my rhetoric, it's just that I cannot understand how we can expect to change some of the reproduction of societal differences (which it seems like everyone is opposed to - it's in great conflict with the very concept of the self-made man..) without increasing public efforts, which I don't understand how we can do without taxation, and there's no point in taxing the poor more. Your point about corrupt politicians, which I guess is true from an american point of view, is just another example of how some doors are closed to the poor that are open to the wealthy.. But there's no conflict between that and what I am suggesting.
I completely agree with this, other than the bold parts. Not everyone agrees the current inequality is a problem (or even exists) and not everyone wants to remedy it.
On October 06 2014 12:12 IgnE wrote: What inheritance nonsense?
That the off-spring of the parents should not be recipients of the familial estate / businesses, and such should be appropriated by the Government. This would essentially kill any long-running business as the Government would de-facto shutter a business (or at least reduce it's competitiveness) via inheritance taxation. Similarly, somehow the Government or other folk are more 'deserving' or whatever justification of that property / money than said offspring. Anyways, my whole point is that if we want to tackle inequality and address average joe standard of living the answer isn't - Hey you guys with guns calling yourself Government; go take those rich guys stuff and give it to those in the lower-rung economic bracket. Are there rich folk who stole and cheated their way to their wealth? Certainly. Almost all of those people are politically connected douchebags, and if you want to deal with them you do so by taking away their lucrative means of profiting off buying politicians. In other words, political power is the problem, and that needs addressing. There's nothing wrong with wealthy folk getting wealthy by providing a wanted product to those willing to voluntarily trade with them.
Of course, all people see are folk above them and their inclination is to tear them down, instead of looking around and asking; how best can we work to raise the average folk standard of living?
what people who, like me, want nothing more than equal opportunity for all advocate is not to simply take the money from the wealthy and give it to the poor. What I propose is an all-around substitution of the institutions that cement the already existing differences between different segments of society for institutions that instead attempt to genuinely enable the "capital-less" (because like whitedog keeps on saying, these differences are reproduced by the combination of money-capital, cultural capital and social capital) to rise through the ranks of society. There is no element of "punishing" or "hating" the rich. However, there is an element of stating that the rich don't deserve their wealth any more than the poor deserve their poverty, an element I assume you disagree with. And while that's not irrelevant to the overarching argument or discussion, it's irrelevant to the point I'm about to try to make..
Basically, the to me only perceivable way of stopping children - who are what adults stem from - from being cursed or blessed by their upbringing, is through increasing public education (which is more than just school) in such a way that everyone is ensured a good education, and through (at least nearly) abolishing tuition fees. As long as there are tuition fees, schools can charge more money from parents to spend more money on teachers/other educational aid which provides the children of wealthy parents to go to better schools which nearly by default will lead to the reproduction of social status.. I don't mind private schools - just that they have more money. Fund them by the same principles as you fund public schools and you can have private schools that offer alternative pedagogical routes or whatnot, and it's all good. Obviously this means that more money will have to be pooled into education (not just public schools, but private ones would also be funded by taxation), which means that you have to increase taxation. Then, to avoid poor people being hurt by this, you don't increase taxation of poor people (also hurts their ability to be good consumers) but rather you increase that of the top brackets (who will also benefit by no longer having to pay $30k yearly tuition for their kid anyway!). There's no hatred of the rich here, it's just.. the only possible way I can see to decrease the reproduction of societal differences - something which is in great conflict with the idea and ideal that we are and should be responsible for how we do in life. Statistically, we are not.
I mean it doesn't even just end there. This overarching educate-the-population-project should include stuff like, library funding and encouragement, more focus on pedagogical tv (ban advertisement geared towards children already..), just more public efforts because clearly private ones just don't cut it.. It's just, there's no dislike of the wealthy in my rhetoric, it's just that I cannot understand how we can expect to change some of the reproduction of societal differences (which it seems like everyone is opposed to - it's in great conflict with the very concept of the self-made man..) without increasing public efforts, which I don't understand how we can do without taxation, and there's no point in taxing the poor more. Your point about corrupt politicians, which I guess is true from an american point of view, is just another example of how some doors are closed to the poor that are open to the wealthy.. But there's no conflict between that and what I am suggesting.
I love the education idea, but I don't believe increasing taxation of the rich is the way to do it. I think we should be cutting military funding instead. Look at the F35 Joint Strike Fighter. It's already a trillion dollar project, already overbudget, had its design specs reduced because the originals were too difficult several times, it is totally superfluous; we don't need a trillion dollar jet to bomb ISIS morons, and STILL it isn't finished. There are plenty of other military programs wasting huge sums of money as well. I suspect you could cover tuition for everyone in the US with that much money.
But there's more to it than just free tuition. A big problem I saw in college was that people who intellectually did not belong in a university setting were there anyways because a degree is so heavily emphasized by society as being necessary for getting a decent job. I saw plenty of terrible students coasting by with D's and C's, most of whom were just simply not cut out for that style of learning. Some of them were even honors students in high school, so to be clear I'm not trying to disparage the less intelligent. I think a big problem with free tuition is that there's little incentive to quit college and try a technical school or something if university is not for you if tuition doesn't cost a fortune. Maybe you could have harsh GPA limits for that free tuition, at least for universities. Keep a high GPA and the state or feds will cover everything, but do poorly and you're on your own.
GH, virtually everyone agrees that reproduction of societal differences is a problem. This is why you see people from the right side of the political spectrum claim that there is less reproduction of societal differences than what people from the left side of the political spectrum claim.
I also don't want everyone to be equal or have equal results, I just don't understand why it all has to be so lop-sided. Anecdotes are largely meaningless for proof, but to illustrate what I, as a leftist am totally fine with, is my brother making more than twice what I do. We come from similar backgrounds, we're about equally smart, we've been about equally supported by our families and our social and cultural capitals were similar. Yet we simply wanted different things from life, he likes expensive stuff, and he has been working hard and been dedicated all his life to make it happen. I'm more of an "earthly guy who likes to think cheap thoughts" or whatever, don't have the same desire for high end appliances nor the status that comes from them, and I also really love having spare time, and I sometimes like to do stuff like, play games or browse or make long posts on teamliquid rather than spend the same amount of time researching something that I could then write a publication about sometime in the future.. So we want different things, and we've put different amounts of workloads in to make our dreams come true or whatever. I wouldn't be happy with his life, and he certainly wouldn't be happy with mine.
But the point is that he's just making twice as much, and while I can't just buy whatever I want all the time like he can, I have enough money to be happy. In a less egalitarian society, I could find myself making one tenth of his income - which from my perspective is just pure wastefulness, both because he already has more money than he can reasonably spend and doesn't need any more, and because my life quality would actually be hampered if I had like, 20% less..
I think much of the right side is basically supporting of the type of difference you see between me and my brother, and not supportive of the type of difference where being born of a particular gender/ethnicity in a particular zip code leaves you with a 30% probability of going to jail while another ethnicity in another zip code leaves you with a 30% chance of millionairehood, it's just that they either perceive it to less prevalent than we think, or that they think the medicine we prescribe for the problem will cause more damage in other areas of societies than it would fix. I think they're wrong- but it's a legitimate point of view to have..
On October 06 2014 12:12 IgnE wrote: What inheritance nonsense?
That the off-spring of the parents should not be recipients of the familial estate / businesses, and such should be appropriated by the Government. This would essentially kill any long-running business as the Government would de-facto shutter a business (or at least reduce it's competitiveness) via inheritance taxation. Similarly, somehow the Government or other folk are more 'deserving' or whatever justification of that property / money than said offspring. Anyways, my whole point is that if we want to tackle inequality and address average joe standard of living the answer isn't - Hey you guys with guns calling yourself Government; go take those rich guys stuff and give it to those in the lower-rung economic bracket. Are there rich folk who stole and cheated their way to their wealth? Certainly. Almost all of those people are politically connected douchebags, and if you want to deal with them you do so by taking away their lucrative means of profiting off buying politicians. In other words, political power is the problem, and that needs addressing. There's nothing wrong with wealthy folk getting wealthy by providing a wanted product to those willing to voluntarily trade with them.
Of course, all people see are folk above them and their inclination is to tear them down, instead of looking around and asking; how best can we work to raise the average folk standard of living?
what people who, like me, want nothing more than equal opportunity for all advocate is not to simply take the money from the wealthy and give it to the poor. What I propose is an all-around substitution of the institutions that cement the already existing differences between different segments of society for institutions that instead attempt to genuinely enable the "capital-less" (because like whitedog keeps on saying, these differences are reproduced by the combination of money-capital, cultural capital and social capital) to rise through the ranks of society. There is no element of "punishing" or "hating" the rich. However, there is an element of stating that the rich don't deserve their wealth any more than the poor deserve their poverty, an element I assume you disagree with. And while that's not irrelevant to the overarching argument or discussion, it's irrelevant to the point I'm about to try to make..
Basically, the to me only perceivable way of stopping children - who are what adults stem from - from being cursed or blessed by their upbringing, is through increasing public education (which is more than just school) in such a way that everyone is ensured a good education, and through (at least nearly) abolishing tuition fees. As long as there are tuition fees, schools can charge more money from parents to spend more money on teachers/other educational aid which provides the children of wealthy parents to go to better schools which nearly by default will lead to the reproduction of social status.. I don't mind private schools - just that they have more money. Fund them by the same principles as you fund public schools and you can have private schools that offer alternative pedagogical routes or whatnot, and it's all good. Obviously this means that more money will have to be pooled into education (not just public schools, but private ones would also be funded by taxation), which means that you have to increase taxation. Then, to avoid poor people being hurt by this, you don't increase taxation of poor people (also hurts their ability to be good consumers) but rather you increase that of the top brackets (who will also benefit by no longer having to pay $30k yearly tuition for their kid anyway!). There's no hatred of the rich here, it's just.. the only possible way I can see to decrease the reproduction of societal differences - something which is in great conflict with the idea and ideal that we are and should be responsible for how we do in life. Statistically, we are not.
I mean it doesn't even just end there. This overarching educate-the-population-project should include stuff like, library funding and encouragement, more focus on pedagogical tv (ban advertisement geared towards children already..), just more public efforts because clearly private ones just don't cut it.. It's just, there's no dislike of the wealthy in my rhetoric, it's just that I cannot understand how we can expect to change some of the reproduction of societal differences (which it seems like everyone is opposed to - it's in great conflict with the very concept of the self-made man..) without increasing public efforts, which I don't understand how we can do without taxation, and there's no point in taxing the poor more. Your point about corrupt politicians, which I guess is true from an american point of view, is just another example of how some doors are closed to the poor that are open to the wealthy.. But there's no conflict between that and what I am suggesting.
I love the education idea, but I don't believe increasing taxation of the rich is the way to do it. I think we should be cutting military funding instead. Look at the F35 Joint Strike Fighter. It's already a trillion dollar project, already overbudget, had its design specs reduced because the originals were too difficult several times, it is totally superfluous; we don't need a trillion dollar jet to bomb ISIS morons, and STILL it isn't finished. There are plenty of other military programs wasting huge sums of money as well. I suspect you could cover tuition for everyone in the US with that much money.
But there's more to it than just free tuition. A big problem I saw in college was that people who intellectually did not belong in a university setting were there anyways because a degree is so heavily emphasized by society as being necessary for getting a decent job. I saw plenty of terrible students coasting by with D's and C's, most of whom were just simply not cut out for that style of learning. Some of them were even honors students in high school, so to be clear I'm not trying to disparage the less intelligent. I think a big problem with free tuition is that there's little incentive to quit college and try a technical school or something if university is not for you if tuition doesn't cost a fortune. Maybe you could have harsh GPA limits for that free tuition, at least for universities. Keep a high GPA and the state or feds will cover everything, but do poorly and you're on your own.
Well our ancient collegiate system could use a massive overhaul too. A lot of those people who 'struggle' with such a learning style has nothing to do with their overall intelligence, just that the anachronistic teaching styles we use don't work for everyone.
I think the jobification of education is a bit of a disservice too. There are important life lessons and vital knowledge about how we came to be where we are that most people are only exposed to in college. Along with a lot of general knowledge that (despite what some people think) is useful for more than just cocktail conversation.
And for the sake of ones own brain one should never stop learning. There is a lot of brain science that supports the idea that active learning maintains brain health much better than the repeated practice of learned behaviors.
But yeah there is plenty of room in the Military budget for cuts too.
On October 06 2014 12:12 IgnE wrote: What inheritance nonsense?
That the off-spring of the parents should not be recipients of the familial estate / businesses, and such should be appropriated by the Government. This would essentially kill any long-running business as the Government would de-facto shutter a business (or at least reduce it's competitiveness) via inheritance taxation. Similarly, somehow the Government or other folk are more 'deserving' or whatever justification of that property / money than said offspring. Anyways, my whole point is that if we want to tackle inequality and address average joe standard of living the answer isn't - Hey you guys with guns calling yourself Government; go take those rich guys stuff and give it to those in the lower-rung economic bracket. Are there rich folk who stole and cheated their way to their wealth? Certainly. Almost all of those people are politically connected douchebags, and if you want to deal with them you do so by taking away their lucrative means of profiting off buying politicians. In other words, political power is the problem, and that needs addressing. There's nothing wrong with wealthy folk getting wealthy by providing a wanted product to those willing to voluntarily trade with them.
Of course, all people see are folk above them and their inclination is to tear them down, instead of looking around and asking; how best can we work to raise the average folk standard of living?
what people who, like me, want nothing more than equal opportunity for all advocate is not to simply take the money from the wealthy and give it to the poor. What I propose is an all-around substitution of the institutions that cement the already existing differences between different segments of society for institutions that instead attempt to genuinely enable the "capital-less" (because like whitedog keeps on saying, these differences are reproduced by the combination of money-capital, cultural capital and social capital) to rise through the ranks of society. There is no element of "punishing" or "hating" the rich. However, there is an element of stating that the rich don't deserve their wealth any more than the poor deserve their poverty, an element I assume you disagree with. And while that's not irrelevant to the overarching argument or discussion, it's irrelevant to the point I'm about to try to make..
Basically, the to me only perceivable way of stopping children - who are what adults stem from - from being cursed or blessed by their upbringing, is through increasing public education (which is more than just school) in such a way that everyone is ensured a good education, and through (at least nearly) abolishing tuition fees. As long as there are tuition fees, schools can charge more money from parents to spend more money on teachers/other educational aid which provides the children of wealthy parents to go to better schools which nearly by default will lead to the reproduction of social status.. I don't mind private schools - just that they have more money. Fund them by the same principles as you fund public schools and you can have private schools that offer alternative pedagogical routes or whatnot, and it's all good. Obviously this means that more money will have to be pooled into education (not just public schools, but private ones would also be funded by taxation), which means that you have to increase taxation. Then, to avoid poor people being hurt by this, you don't increase taxation of poor people (also hurts their ability to be good consumers) but rather you increase that of the top brackets (who will also benefit by no longer having to pay $30k yearly tuition for their kid anyway!). There's no hatred of the rich here, it's just.. the only possible way I can see to decrease the reproduction of societal differences - something which is in great conflict with the idea and ideal that we are and should be responsible for how we do in life. Statistically, we are not.
I mean it doesn't even just end there. This overarching educate-the-population-project should include stuff like, library funding and encouragement, more focus on pedagogical tv (ban advertisement geared towards children already..), just more public efforts because clearly private ones just don't cut it.. It's just, there's no dislike of the wealthy in my rhetoric, it's just that I cannot understand how we can expect to change some of the reproduction of societal differences (which it seems like everyone is opposed to - it's in great conflict with the very concept of the self-made man..) without increasing public efforts, which I don't understand how we can do without taxation, and there's no point in taxing the poor more. Your point about corrupt politicians, which I guess is true from an american point of view, is just another example of how some doors are closed to the poor that are open to the wealthy.. But there's no conflict between that and what I am suggesting.
I love the education idea, but I don't believe increasing taxation of the rich is the way to do it. I think we should be cutting military funding instead. Look at the F35 Joint Strike Fighter. It's already a trillion dollar project, already overbudget, had its design specs reduced because the originals were too difficult several times, it is totally superfluous; we don't need a trillion dollar jet to bomb ISIS morons, and STILL it isn't finished. There are plenty of other military programs wasting huge sums of money as well. I suspect you could cover tuition for everyone in the US with that much money.
But there's more to it than just free tuition. A big problem I saw in college was that people who intellectually did not belong in a university setting were there anyways because a degree is so heavily emphasized by society as being necessary for getting a decent job. I saw plenty of terrible students coasting by with D's and C's, most of whom were just simply not cut out for that style of learning. Some of them were even honors students in high school, so to be clear I'm not trying to disparage the less intelligent. I think a big problem with free tuition is that there's little incentive to quit college and try a technical school or something if university is not for you if tuition doesn't cost a fortune. Maybe you could have harsh GPA limits for that free tuition, at least for universities. Keep a high GPA and the state or feds will cover everything, but do poorly and you're on your own.
I absolutely agree that cutting your ridiculously bloated military budget (I mean, you're at like 4% of world population yet 36% of military expenditure) would go a long way.. But I dunno if that's any more plausible than increasing taxation?
And discussions on various educational reforms, whether education should be a tool for productivity (more focus on STEM!) or a goal in itself (more liberal arts!) are super prudent.. Personally I think the whole Bildung-aspect of education is of vast importance, but it's so understated in the US and UK that you guys don't even have your own word for it..
On October 08 2014 01:49 Liquid`Drone wrote: And discussions on various educational reforms, whether education should be a tool for productivity (more focus on STEM!) or a goal in itself (more liberal arts!) are super prudent.. Personally I think the whole Bildung-aspect of education is of vast importance, but it's so understated in the US and UK that you guys don't even have your own word for it..
We have a word for it... It tends to be called 'liberal propaganda'.
Also on the inequality piece this is the kind of stuff I was talking about.
You see Megan Kelly basically making your case, then you see BillO shit all over it...
As a general rule of thumb, don't post a video if you are too lazy to make an argument yourself. Noone is gonna watch it, and then you tell everyone "Dude just watch this video it totally explains everything", and the discussion becomes stupid. If you are incapable or too lazy to put the argument into words in a post yourself, you don't help the discussion. I never watch videos anyone posts in discussion threads for that very reason, they obviously value their own time more then mine, so i will value mine higher than theirs and just ignore what they were too lazy to put into something readable.
On October 08 2014 01:39 Liquid`Drone wrote: GH, virtually everyone agrees that reproduction of societal differences is a problem. This is why you see people from the right side of the political spectrum claim that there is less reproduction of societal differences than what people from the left side of the political spectrum claim.
I also don't want everyone to be equal or have equal results, I just don't understand why it all has to be so lop-sided. Anecdotes are largely meaningless for proof, but to illustrate what I, as a leftist am totally fine with, is my brother making more than twice what I do. We come from similar backgrounds, we're about equally smart, we've been about equally supported by our families and our social and cultural capitals were similar. Yet we simply wanted different things from life, he likes expensive stuff, and he has been working hard and been dedicated all his life to make it happen. I'm more of an "earthly guy who likes to think cheap thoughts" or whatever, don't have the same desire for high end appliances nor the status that comes from them, and I also really love having spare time, and I sometimes like to do stuff like, play games or browse or make long posts on teamliquid rather than spend the same amount of time researching something that I could then write a publication about sometime in the future.. So we want different things, and we've put different amounts of workloads in to make our dreams come true or whatever. I wouldn't be happy with his life, and he certainly wouldn't be happy with mine.
But the point is that he's just making twice as much, and while I can't just buy whatever I want all the time like he can, I have enough money to be happy. In a less egalitarian society, I could find myself making one tenth of his income - which from my perspective is just pure wastefulness, both because he already has more money than he can reasonably spend and doesn't need any more, and because my life quality would actually be hampered if I had like, 20% less..
I think much of the right side is basically supporting of the type of difference you see between me and my brother, and not supportive of the type of difference where being born of a particular gender/ethnicity in a particular zip code leaves you with a 30% probability of going to jail while another ethnicity in another zip code leaves you with a 30% chance of millionairehood, it's just that they either perceive it to less prevalent than we think, or that they think the medicine we prescribe for the problem will cause more damage in other areas of societies than it would fix. I think they're wrong- but it's a legitimate point of view to have..
Now, I don't know your brother, but I assume his "extra" money is mostly tied up in investments or in bank accounts. In both cases, his money is doing more than just being hoarded under his bed or something. While he can't spend it all, banks use the money in his accounts to make loans, and companies use those investments to pay their employees. I think you need to be careful when you start thinking some people have too much money. If you start limiting how much people can get, banks will have less to loan out and companies will have fewer investors. Now, I don't have the numbers to say one way or the other, but limiting these investments might hurt everyone more than the wealth gap due to decreased productivity. Just something to consider.
On October 08 2014 01:39 Liquid`Drone wrote: GH, virtually everyone agrees that reproduction of societal differences is a problem. This is why you see people from the right side of the political spectrum claim that there is less reproduction of societal differences than what people from the left side of the political spectrum claim.
I also don't want everyone to be equal or have equal results, I just don't understand why it all has to be so lop-sided. Anecdotes are largely meaningless for proof, but to illustrate what I, as a leftist am totally fine with, is my brother making more than twice what I do. We come from similar backgrounds, we're about equally smart, we've been about equally supported by our families and our social and cultural capitals were similar. Yet we simply wanted different things from life, he likes expensive stuff, and he has been working hard and been dedicated all his life to make it happen. I'm more of an "earthly guy who likes to think cheap thoughts" or whatever, don't have the same desire for high end appliances nor the status that comes from them, and I also really love having spare time, and I sometimes like to do stuff like, play games or browse or make long posts on teamliquid rather than spend the same amount of time researching something that I could then write a publication about sometime in the future.. So we want different things, and we've put different amounts of workloads in to make our dreams come true or whatever. I wouldn't be happy with his life, and he certainly wouldn't be happy with mine.
But the point is that he's just making twice as much, and while I can't just buy whatever I want all the time like he can, I have enough money to be happy. In a less egalitarian society, I could find myself making one tenth of his income - which from my perspective is just pure wastefulness, both because he already has more money than he can reasonably spend and doesn't need any more, and because my life quality would actually be hampered if I had like, 20% less..
I think much of the right side is basically supporting of the type of difference you see between me and my brother, and not supportive of the type of difference where being born of a particular gender/ethnicity in a particular zip code leaves you with a 30% probability of going to jail while another ethnicity in another zip code leaves you with a 30% chance of millionairehood, it's just that they either perceive it to less prevalent than we think, or that they think the medicine we prescribe for the problem will cause more damage in other areas of societies than it would fix. I think they're wrong- but it's a legitimate point of view to have..
Now, I don't know your brother, but I assume his "extra" money is mostly tied up in investments or in bank accounts. In both cases, his money is doing more than just being hoarded under his bed or something. While he can't spend it all, banks use the money in his accounts to make loans, and companies use those investments to pay their employees. I think you need to be careful when you start thinking some people have too much money. If you start limiting how much people can get, banks will have less to loan out and companies will have fewer investors. Now, I don't have the numbers to say one way or the other, but limiting these investments might hurt everyone more than the wealth gap due to decreased productivity. Just something to consider.
10000% wrong. Poor people use banks too. If 10 people have $100,000 in the bank or 1000 people have $1000 in the bank, the bank still has $1,000,000 to invest.
On October 08 2014 02:07 Simberto wrote: As a general rule of thumb, don't post a video if you are too lazy to make an argument yourself. Noone is gonna watch it, and then you tell everyone "Dude just watch this video it totally explains everything", and the discussion becomes stupid. If you are incapable or too lazy to put the argument into words in a post yourself, you don't help the discussion. I never watch videos anyone posts in discussion threads for that very reason, they obviously value their own time more then mine, so i will value mine higher than theirs and just ignore what they were too lazy to put into something readable.
It's 2 minutes long... It's not 'explaining' anything. It's a demonstration of what I said was the case. I said people were making an argument (more critical of the idea of increasing inequality as a preventable problem than Drone was suggesting) then I put a video of someone (rather prevalent) making said argument.
I would like to take this opportunity to point out that not everyone is like you Simberto. I personally prefer videos (especially under 3 minutes) as opposed to text in general. I am primarily an audio visual learner, so while some might prefer a text books, I've learned far more from Bill Nye, The Magic School Bus, and You Tube (like sources) than I ever have from a science book (%absorbed). <--My point about education, as if on cue.
Beyond that, in this specific case, simply posting the transcript (as in many cases) misses much of what was captured on video.
You would miss out on the sheer contempt and the palpable response from Kelly without the video... But I could post the transcript and highlight my point if 2 mins is too much for you?
EDIT: After thinking and re-reading what you wrote, I think you just misinterpreted what the video was posted for?
On October 08 2014 01:39 Liquid`Drone wrote: GH, virtually everyone agrees that reproduction of societal differences is a problem. This is why you see people from the right side of the political spectrum claim that there is less reproduction of societal differences than what people from the left side of the political spectrum claim.
I also don't want everyone to be equal or have equal results, I just don't understand why it all has to be so lop-sided. Anecdotes are largely meaningless for proof, but to illustrate what I, as a leftist am totally fine with, is my brother making more than twice what I do. We come from similar backgrounds, we're about equally smart, we've been about equally supported by our families and our social and cultural capitals were similar. Yet we simply wanted different things from life, he likes expensive stuff, and he has been working hard and been dedicated all his life to make it happen. I'm more of an "earthly guy who likes to think cheap thoughts" or whatever, don't have the same desire for high end appliances nor the status that comes from them, and I also really love having spare time, and I sometimes like to do stuff like, play games or browse or make long posts on teamliquid rather than spend the same amount of time researching something that I could then write a publication about sometime in the future.. So we want different things, and we've put different amounts of workloads in to make our dreams come true or whatever. I wouldn't be happy with his life, and he certainly wouldn't be happy with mine.
But the point is that he's just making twice as much, and while I can't just buy whatever I want all the time like he can, I have enough money to be happy. In a less egalitarian society, I could find myself making one tenth of his income - which from my perspective is just pure wastefulness, both because he already has more money than he can reasonably spend and doesn't need any more, and because my life quality would actually be hampered if I had like, 20% less..
I think much of the right side is basically supporting of the type of difference you see between me and my brother, and not supportive of the type of difference where being born of a particular gender/ethnicity in a particular zip code leaves you with a 30% probability of going to jail while another ethnicity in another zip code leaves you with a 30% chance of millionairehood, it's just that they either perceive it to less prevalent than we think, or that they think the medicine we prescribe for the problem will cause more damage in other areas of societies than it would fix. I think they're wrong- but it's a legitimate point of view to have..
Now, I don't know your brother, but I assume his "extra" money is mostly tied up in investments or in bank accounts. In both cases, his money is doing more than just being hoarded under his bed or something. While he can't spend it all, banks use the money in his accounts to make loans, and companies use those investments to pay their employees. I think you need to be careful when you start thinking some people have too much money. If you start limiting how much people can get, banks will have less to loan out and companies will have fewer investors. Now, I don't have the numbers to say one way or the other, but limiting these investments might hurt everyone more than the wealth gap due to decreased productivity. Just something to consider.
Firstly, he actually spends like, mostly all of it. He has some part ownership in the company he has a managerial position in, and he owns his apartment (still in debt though!), but mostly he just spends money like crazy. Secondly, like I said, I don't mind his degree of wealthy. I don't think it's particularly harmful for society. (Aside from some environmental concerns tied to him travelling so much, but that's secondary here.) I can even accept that it's beneficial to society that people who desire more have the ability to work harder so they get more, because this can be a great motivator to "get shit done" - and to be fair, I cannot claim that I have done as much with my abilities to cause the betterment of society as I perhaps should have - if I had his desire, maybe I would have. But what I would object to is that say, right now, I have like, 110% of what is "required" to live a happy life in Norway. And then he's at 220%. What I would object to is him moving to 1000% while me and 45 other people drop down to 90% so we can finance this vast increase that he would hardly even feel the benefits from..
I guess my ultimate societal goal would be for as many as possible to be at the upper levels of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, for this to happen people can't be stuck on tier 1-2..
On October 08 2014 01:49 Liquid`Drone wrote: And discussions on various educational reforms, whether education should be a tool for productivity (more focus on STEM!) or a goal in itself (more liberal arts!) are super prudent.. Personally I think the whole Bildung-aspect of education is of vast importance, but it's so understated in the US and UK that you guys don't even have your own word for it..
We have a word for it... It tends to be called 'liberal propaganda'.
Also on the inequality piece this is the kind of stuff I was talking about.
You see Megan Kelly basically making your case, then you see BillO shit all over it...
Yeah right after he says that she replies by saying that she had the benefit of factors that were conducive to her being able to climb her way up. Then they proceed to do more rabbling, and then the video ends without OReilly addressing what she said.
On October 08 2014 01:49 Liquid`Drone wrote: And discussions on various educational reforms, whether education should be a tool for productivity (more focus on STEM!) or a goal in itself (more liberal arts!) are super prudent.. Personally I think the whole Bildung-aspect of education is of vast importance, but it's so understated in the US and UK that you guys don't even have your own word for it..
We have a word for it... It tends to be called 'liberal propaganda'.
Also on the inequality piece this is the kind of stuff I was talking about.
You see Megan Kelly basically making your case, then you see BillO shit all over it...
Yeah right after he says that she replies by saying that she had the benefit of factors that were conducive to her being able to climb her way up. Then they proceed to do more rabbling, and then the video ends without OReilly addressing what she said.
What a low quality post.
Did you guys read my posts before the video or no? Because your responses don't seem to reflect such?
I'm not suggesting O'Reilly was right...? Just that he represents a large portion of the 'inequality deniers' (to abuse a trope) and that their perspective is more dismissive of inequality than Drone's claim was indicating. I actually agreed with Drone's other original points.
I think Megan Kelly represents a more common point of view, even from the right. And while I think O'Reilly is being ridiculous there, I got the impression he was more of a "don't use the rise of inequality as a reason for abolishing the free market place". He's trying to make it a non-issue because the medicine feels terrible to him, at no point is he saying that he thinks it is okay that some people are left without options for making their lives better - he even states that "there are programs in place to help them", meaning that he thinks that it is a bad thing that there is inequality, he just thinks they are currently being helped enough (whereas Kelly thinks we need more programs!). He just doesn't want to accept that inequality is a growing problem that to be addressed politically because he disagrees with how it would be addressed politically.. At the very end when they start talking about Piketty, you see exactly what I'm talking about - their perceived leftist medicine prescribed against increased income inequality is the abolishment of capitalism..
I fail to understand how reasonable redistribution is somehow not capitalism anymore? The whole "Nordic model" has successfully combined a universal welfare state while keeping the idea of free markets and personal property intact. They are not mutually exclusive, and I don't think Piketty argued for the abolishment of capitalism at all.
EPT
