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Read the rules in the OP before posting, please.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. |
I fail to see anything remotely exploitative about Walmarts employment practices, and I've worked in similar jobs for other similar companies.
The expectations of those positions are that they're temporarily filled, and largely filled by people in between jobs or kids in highschool or college looking for pocket money, and by people who will not/cannot work 5 days a week for 8 hours a day. The wages reflect the turnover rate, and the requirement for multiple employees to fill the same shifts.
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On July 11 2013 11:46 coverpunch wrote:
My point is that people should be free to choose what they want to do and they should be paid in line with the supply and demand for the work they can do.
The government does have laws establishing and preventing outright abuse. Walmart has low pay and crap work, but they're not exploiting or abusing workers on a regular basis. Don't mistake disapproval of Walmart's practices with being illegal.
Engineers get paid well because their skills are more rare and employers can't find anyone competent willing to work for $7.25 an hour. Unfortunately for you, Walmart can offer such a floor job at that wage and get a line going around the block of people who are willing to do it.
What are you going to do instead, walk around and decide the price of everything?
http://www.walmartmovie.com/facts.php
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Walmart#Labor_union_opposition
Walmart can do that because they're some of the best (and quiet) union busters ever to exist. They have that shit on lockdown.
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On July 11 2013 11:24 coverpunch wrote:Show nested quote +On July 11 2013 10:14 DoubleReed wrote:On July 11 2013 10:08 coverpunch wrote:On July 11 2013 10:00 DoubleReed wrote:On July 11 2013 09:47 coverpunch wrote:On July 11 2013 09:29 DoubleReed wrote:On July 11 2013 09:23 coverpunch wrote:On July 11 2013 09:20 DoubleReed wrote:On July 11 2013 08:33 Danglars wrote:On July 11 2013 07:49 Shiori wrote:
I don't get it. On the one hand, my understanding is that the right (generally) wants to reduce/restrict welfare and reform or eliminate minimum wage. On the other hand, they assert that corporations have absolutely no reason to be concerned with social justice.
So how exactly would the the far-right economic policies not suck? I guess it can work if you're really optimistic about the invisible hand?
Or is it that some/most poor people or people on welfare actually deserve to have fairly bad living conditions and therefore it's okay? I'm not trying to be snide; I'm genuinely curious as to what the answer is here. Complete your thought. The nation got by without minimum wage for years, indeed it ascended to excellence in the world and no minimum wage existed in the years where the nation supplanted its rivals for economic superpower. It's quite old hat among my colleagues to go back to the original radical right-wing ideologues, the framers of the Constitution. The danger does not exist in monopolies or predatory wage rates should government take a lesser role in the nation's economy, the danger is, in the words of Washington "Government is not reason, it is not eloquence–it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and fearful master." I'm optimistic about the power of free enterprise left unhindered because that's what the nation was founded on. I don't say that free markets and a free people magically solve societal malaise, but instead are the fastest way out when times are tough as opposed to direct government intervention, control, and future regulations. There is abundant dishonesty about the play of welfare in politics, namely, when people grasp that they can simply vote themselves more money that comes from somebody else (e.g. Obama's stash). I mean this great American experiment lasted plenty well before the super-progressive income tax and government involvement in the early 20th century. I say there is plenty of reason for optimism based on America's success from 1776-early 1900s. Why exactly should conservative Republican economic policies suck? Uhh... no. The Gilded Age kind of sucked for us. We weren't a world power at that point, and it was really terrible economically. We didn't ascend to the world stage until after World War II. We were in the Great Depression right before that... The most prosperous time in American History was post-WWII (1945-1980), where we had strong unions, we just constructed a huge social safety net, and we were horribly in debt from the amount of government spending during WWII. Wealth Disparity was literally at an all-time low until 1980. The top marginal tax rate fluctuated between 70%-90%. You want to talk about prosperity? We didn't get prosperity until we spent a shit-ton of goverment money and rejected libertarian rhetoric in favor of public responsibility. This is having your cake and eating it too. You can't say "the Gilded Age kind of sucked" and then say "we didn't get prosperity until we spent a shit-ton of government money". You're saying correlation isn't causation, then drawing a cause from a correlation, totally glossing over that the US economy didn't do well in the postwar era because the government spent lots of money, it did well because the US won the war without substantial destruction. Winning wars does not magically give you money. Wars are government spending. Our allies were in shambles and couldn't properly trade with us. We even spent our money rebuilding Europe to get our trading partners back on track. I'm not saying correlation isn't causation. What? The Gilded Age was filled with libertarian rhetoric and corporatism, but it totally sucked. It wasn't good for America at all. The post-WWII America was filled with responsible, less corrupt government with extremely liberal policies and did amazingly. It wasn't until Reagan when a lot of the "small government" rhetoric came back that we had more wealth disparity and a more fragile economy. I'm saying causation all the way, baby. What, you think it's a coincidence that our top marginal tax rate went from 70% -> 30% and suddenly wealth inequality started going up? There's nothing magic about it. But losing a world war is certainly worse for the national economy than winning. Consider that Japan didn't have a standing structure taller than two stories by the end of the war. Combined with 3 million citizens killed, including an entire generation of young men, that is very very bad for the economy. I think it was coincidental that the tax marginal tax rate went down and wealth inequality went down. It certainly played a role in exacerbating the problem, but I don't think it was the root cause. Given more time, inequality will always increase. That's the nature of giving more time for advantaged people to utilize their skills/talent/hard work and disadvantaged people to sit around doing nothing. IMO the problem was and has been increasing global competition. In the period between 1945-1975, Americans could basically take it for granted that they were better educated, better fed, harder working, and more creative than the rest of the world. That is increasingly not true. I don't think the answer is protectionism, but I think there are many things Americans cannot take for granted and it raises questions of how we can improve the lot of people of more mediocre skills. No, that's not how it works. That means we have fewer trading partners. It means less people were able to afford purchasing all our crap (and we love selling people our crap). We don't benefit from other people being poor and stupid. And the "harder working" part? Really? Just like today. The fact that the Euro is having problems isn't a good thing for us. It affects our trade. It's not a good thing. We want them to be doing well, so we can be doing better. For the last 30 years, corruption in our politics has been getting worse and worse (I can pin at least some blame on Buckley vs Valeo in 1976). It has led to weaker unions, regressive taxes, stagnant wages, skyrocketing wealth inequality, and more partisan politics. It wasn't always like this. Inequality will not always increase. That's just not true. And Globalization could have been offset with even more liberal policies, even stronger unions, etc. so that workers would be even with employers. But that didn't happen. Trade is a different joint from inequality. The benefit of trade is that people can have a better standard of living at lower cost, but it comes with the price that US workers have to compete with foreign workers, which puts downward pressure on wages for low-skilled workers. It also means people who make good products have more consumers and can become personally richer. But for this reason, more unionization is actually a bad thing in a more global, more trade world, because unions always result in higher labor costs for their constituents, which increases the incentives to look elsewhere for cheaper labor. How does your link show that inequality will not always increase? It shows that inequality had a marked increase after 1980. But there's nothing to show that inequality was not already increasing before that. Sorry, try this link. Wealth inequality went down during World War II. It stayed down during the 1945-1980 portion of our history. It only started rising again in the late 70s. Edit: I'm not sure what you're talking about with trade. I wasn't talking about sweatshops. I was talking about trading oil for guns for bananas for sugar. Like trade trade. It's just a matter of Comparative Advantage, and everyone benefiting in a trade transaction. You're looking at these things blithely though, as though they simply just happened by coincidence. The war caused a decrease in inequality because the government could simply seize property and strip rights in the name of winning the war and people were supportive of that. Inequality took a long time to increase back to prewar levels, which speaks more to how devastating the wars were than the goodness or effectiveness of government spending. As the global economy matures and trade opens up for more new players, I think it's natural that inequality will increase in all of the individual countries. Countries that resist this do so usually at the expense of their competitiveness. Which is what the problem has been with countries like Greece, Spain, and Japan. I will agree with a point you made in another post, that inequality is a problem. Material inequality is a symptom and an eventual cause of social inequality, where people get substantially different educations or materially different access to certain positions simply because of who they are. Money is an imperfect measurement but it's the best we can do. For instance, I don't think it's a stretch to say Sasha and Malia Obama will go to Harvard. They're probably not stupid and maybe they will earn it, but I think their access is far easier for their name than it would be if they were simply two other kids. But how much is a problem and what we should do about it is where we differ. I think a lot of CEOs are grossly overvalued, but it's not the government's job to fix it. Stockholders and the board of directors should be doing it. Similarly, I don't like Wal-Mart's employment practices but I don't want to go in and tell them what to do. I don't shop there and I would never apply for a job there. If enough people agree with me, then Wal-Mart will be forced to change their practices to get competent workers or more business.
Uhh... sure, that was true for WWII, but how do you explain post-WWII? You can probably blame technology and globalization on the rise of equality in 1980, but again, it's not like inequality just naturally rises or something. That's a weird, random claim, and I don't understand why you are still clinging to it. Inequality rises because certain stuff makes inequality rise. It doesn't HAVE to rise. How silly.
Wtf are you talking about Greece, Spain, and Japan? What makes you think these are good examples of less inequality? Why not pick better examples, like Canada, Sweden, or Denmark? These are better examples and they go against your claim. Again, there is no Law that says inequality must rise.
Government's job, in this respect, is to do whatever is better for the economy. We want to lessen the burden on the middle class as much as possible, and make sure our money is funneled there to massively increase demand. Increases in capital for the very wealthy are practically negligible in their effects to the economy, so basically we should tax them whatever's best for the economy (like 73%).
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On July 11 2013 10:53 Danglars wrote:Show nested quote +On July 11 2013 10:37 DoubleReed wrote:Hahaha, quoting the Heritage Foundation and Margaret Thatcher. Oh this is gold. I do not accept a decrease in wealth disparity as any indicator of a prosperous era. I want a prosperous country with the lowest percent and the richest percent both experiencing rises in their standard of living. I want to increase the opportunities available for those at the bottom to rise in income with hard work. I have no idea what this means. A decrease in wealth disparity and prosperity is an indicator of a prosperous era. I mean, sure, Louis XIV had some magnificent artwork and gardens but I don't generally consider that a sign that France was doing well economically. Remember, America has terrible social mobility, and states with welfare states and taxes on the rich are much better in this regard. If you actually want to "increase the opportunities available for those at the bottom to rise" then a welfare state with a strong social safety net is exactly what you want. Perhaps if an expansion of government into the health care industry were not the current trend in Western democracies, then large articles from think tanks would not be necessary. Thatcher was a much more brilliant stateswoman than I am a stateman, so I will use quotes from her as I think them applicable. In this case, I do not mind if the rich get richer at a faster pace than the poor get richer; how is this a reflection of a plight of the poor? The wealth disparity and income inequality argument comes from the rich-bashing left that want to see them put in their place, the poor be damned. What was the absolute gains in the living standards of the poor under Louis XIV? What were their socio-economic mobility? Those are the right questions, not how many paintings the aristocracy could purchase compared to the living situations the poor could afford. I'll have to wait until the policies I support come back into power in Washington to compare income mobility in free market capitalism to income mobility with heavily regulated business and industry. The political winners have been top-down welfare increasers for many years now, so there is no standard of comparison within the US yet. I hope one day, the federal government is pruned back heavily so a comparison between states can be made without the overarching structure of federal welfare subsidies, federal agency involvement, and federal education/energy/finance/etc.
The problem is that there will never, ever be a perfectly free market system out there. It, just like Communism, is too susceptible to human corruption. That's why we use the government. Furthermore, rolling back our welfare policies to essentially "test them out" like you're implying would be absolutely disastrous and would probably ruin the lives of a significant portion of the population. Because of this, it's just not feasible, and we're going to have to use the best real-world examples that we have to compare conservative economic ideas vs. liberal ones, and the U.S. is the developed nation where the conservative, hands-off economic approach has influenced policies the most. Now, look at where it got us. It isn't exactly fantastic. The American Dream is a complete lie (you could move to DENMARK and have a better chance at social mobility for Christ's sake), our country is the poster-boy for Corporatism and is the inspiration for every Deus Ex-esque dystopian fictional future outlook there is, and financial life here is noticeable worse for the average person when compared to most other developed nations.
It's absolutely true that we haven't actually "tested" a true conservative free market economic system, but at the same time, that ideology is what contributed us to have such a relatively conservative economic system and the mess that we're in now, so if you're of a libertarian/conservative economic ideology, you can't just completely wash your hands of the situation and say, "Well this isn't real free market capitalism!" That's like trying to say that the USSR or China weren't examples of attempted Communism and thus we have no evidence that Communism is problematic.
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On July 11 2013 12:06 DoubleReed wrote:Show nested quote +On July 11 2013 11:24 coverpunch wrote:On July 11 2013 10:14 DoubleReed wrote:On July 11 2013 10:08 coverpunch wrote:On July 11 2013 10:00 DoubleReed wrote:On July 11 2013 09:47 coverpunch wrote:On July 11 2013 09:29 DoubleReed wrote:On July 11 2013 09:23 coverpunch wrote:On July 11 2013 09:20 DoubleReed wrote:On July 11 2013 08:33 Danglars wrote:[quote] Complete your thought. The nation got by without minimum wage for years, indeed it ascended to excellence in the world and no minimum wage existed in the years where the nation supplanted its rivals for economic superpower. It's quite old hat among my colleagues to go back to the original radical right-wing ideologues, the framers of the Constitution. The danger does not exist in monopolies or predatory wage rates should government take a lesser role in the nation's economy, the danger is, in the words of Washington [quote] I'm optimistic about the power of free enterprise left unhindered because that's what the nation was founded on. I don't say that free markets and a free people magically solve societal malaise, but instead are the fastest way out when times are tough as opposed to direct government intervention, control, and future regulations. There is abundant dishonesty about the play of welfare in politics, namely, when people grasp that they can simply vote themselves more money that comes from somebody else (e.g. Obama's stash). I mean this great American experiment lasted plenty well before the super-progressive income tax and government involvement in the early 20th century. I say there is plenty of reason for optimism based on America's success from 1776-early 1900s. Why exactly should conservative Republican economic policies suck? Uhh... no. The Gilded Age kind of sucked for us. We weren't a world power at that point, and it was really terrible economically. We didn't ascend to the world stage until after World War II. We were in the Great Depression right before that... The most prosperous time in American History was post-WWII (1945-1980), where we had strong unions, we just constructed a huge social safety net, and we were horribly in debt from the amount of government spending during WWII. Wealth Disparity was literally at an all-time low until 1980. The top marginal tax rate fluctuated between 70%-90%. You want to talk about prosperity? We didn't get prosperity until we spent a shit-ton of goverment money and rejected libertarian rhetoric in favor of public responsibility. This is having your cake and eating it too. You can't say "the Gilded Age kind of sucked" and then say "we didn't get prosperity until we spent a shit-ton of government money". You're saying correlation isn't causation, then drawing a cause from a correlation, totally glossing over that the US economy didn't do well in the postwar era because the government spent lots of money, it did well because the US won the war without substantial destruction. Winning wars does not magically give you money. Wars are government spending. Our allies were in shambles and couldn't properly trade with us. We even spent our money rebuilding Europe to get our trading partners back on track. I'm not saying correlation isn't causation. What? The Gilded Age was filled with libertarian rhetoric and corporatism, but it totally sucked. It wasn't good for America at all. The post-WWII America was filled with responsible, less corrupt government with extremely liberal policies and did amazingly. It wasn't until Reagan when a lot of the "small government" rhetoric came back that we had more wealth disparity and a more fragile economy. I'm saying causation all the way, baby. What, you think it's a coincidence that our top marginal tax rate went from 70% -> 30% and suddenly wealth inequality started going up? There's nothing magic about it. But losing a world war is certainly worse for the national economy than winning. Consider that Japan didn't have a standing structure taller than two stories by the end of the war. Combined with 3 million citizens killed, including an entire generation of young men, that is very very bad for the economy. I think it was coincidental that the tax marginal tax rate went down and wealth inequality went down. It certainly played a role in exacerbating the problem, but I don't think it was the root cause. Given more time, inequality will always increase. That's the nature of giving more time for advantaged people to utilize their skills/talent/hard work and disadvantaged people to sit around doing nothing. IMO the problem was and has been increasing global competition. In the period between 1945-1975, Americans could basically take it for granted that they were better educated, better fed, harder working, and more creative than the rest of the world. That is increasingly not true. I don't think the answer is protectionism, but I think there are many things Americans cannot take for granted and it raises questions of how we can improve the lot of people of more mediocre skills. No, that's not how it works. That means we have fewer trading partners. It means less people were able to afford purchasing all our crap (and we love selling people our crap). We don't benefit from other people being poor and stupid. And the "harder working" part? Really? Just like today. The fact that the Euro is having problems isn't a good thing for us. It affects our trade. It's not a good thing. We want them to be doing well, so we can be doing better. For the last 30 years, corruption in our politics has been getting worse and worse (I can pin at least some blame on Buckley vs Valeo in 1976). It has led to weaker unions, regressive taxes, stagnant wages, skyrocketing wealth inequality, and more partisan politics. It wasn't always like this. Inequality will not always increase. That's just not true. And Globalization could have been offset with even more liberal policies, even stronger unions, etc. so that workers would be even with employers. But that didn't happen. Trade is a different joint from inequality. The benefit of trade is that people can have a better standard of living at lower cost, but it comes with the price that US workers have to compete with foreign workers, which puts downward pressure on wages for low-skilled workers. It also means people who make good products have more consumers and can become personally richer. But for this reason, more unionization is actually a bad thing in a more global, more trade world, because unions always result in higher labor costs for their constituents, which increases the incentives to look elsewhere for cheaper labor. How does your link show that inequality will not always increase? It shows that inequality had a marked increase after 1980. But there's nothing to show that inequality was not already increasing before that. Sorry, try this link. Wealth inequality went down during World War II. It stayed down during the 1945-1980 portion of our history. It only started rising again in the late 70s. Edit: I'm not sure what you're talking about with trade. I wasn't talking about sweatshops. I was talking about trading oil for guns for bananas for sugar. Like trade trade. It's just a matter of Comparative Advantage, and everyone benefiting in a trade transaction. You're looking at these things blithely though, as though they simply just happened by coincidence. The war caused a decrease in inequality because the government could simply seize property and strip rights in the name of winning the war and people were supportive of that. Inequality took a long time to increase back to prewar levels, which speaks more to how devastating the wars were than the goodness or effectiveness of government spending. As the global economy matures and trade opens up for more new players, I think it's natural that inequality will increase in all of the individual countries. Countries that resist this do so usually at the expense of their competitiveness. Which is what the problem has been with countries like Greece, Spain, and Japan. I will agree with a point you made in another post, that inequality is a problem. Material inequality is a symptom and an eventual cause of social inequality, where people get substantially different educations or materially different access to certain positions simply because of who they are. Money is an imperfect measurement but it's the best we can do. For instance, I don't think it's a stretch to say Sasha and Malia Obama will go to Harvard. They're probably not stupid and maybe they will earn it, but I think their access is far easier for their name than it would be if they were simply two other kids. But how much is a problem and what we should do about it is where we differ. I think a lot of CEOs are grossly overvalued, but it's not the government's job to fix it. Stockholders and the board of directors should be doing it. Similarly, I don't like Wal-Mart's employment practices but I don't want to go in and tell them what to do. I don't shop there and I would never apply for a job there. If enough people agree with me, then Wal-Mart will be forced to change their practices to get competent workers or more business. Uhh... sure, that was true for WWII, but how you explain post-WWII. You can probably blame technology and globalization on the rise of equality in 1980, but again, it's not like inequality just naturally rises or something. That's a weird, random claim, and I don't understand why you are still clinging to it. Inequality rises because certain stuff makes inequality rise. It doesn't HAVE to rise. How silly. Wtf are you talking about Greece, Spain, and Japan? What makes you think these are good examples of less inequality? Why not pick better examples, like Canada, Sweden, or Denmark? These are better examples and they go against your claim. Again, there is no Law that says inequality must rise. Government's job, in this respect, is to do whatever is better for the economy. We want to lessen the burden on the middle class as much as possible, and make sure our money is funneled there to massively increase demand. Increases in capital for the very wealthy are practically negligible in their effects to the economy, so basically we should tax them whatever's best for the economy (like 73%).
Greece, Spain, and Japan are examples of countries that shielded high-wage workers from globalized trade and their competitiveness has suffered as a result. They're examples of how trade is not necessarily tied to inequality. But if you're going to insist on Canada, Sweden, and Denmark, how about this:
3/4 of Canadians think inequality is rising
Riots in Sweden, after which the OECD says Sweden has had the highest change in inequality of any developed country
There's nothing for Denmark, which has low inequality and is currently very stable. But is it representative or something other countries can emulate?
And I think the period in the US from 1945-1975 is unusual, not the norm. It's nothing something that is likely to ever happen again, or at least we should hope not in many respects. That's my point in harping on things like the destruction of the war.
Economic inequality rises because people are unequal with respect to the contributions they can make to the economy. I don't think that's weird or controversial, and I think as time rolls on without intervention, inequality will rise in every country. People around the world are more unequal than they are equal in this aspect. There are certainly contributing factors that society is providing and I've mentioned before that low taxes might be exacerbating the problem, but I think insisting on jacking up the tax rate to 73% because that's how it was in 1965 and if we go back to that, other things will also go back to the way they were before the increase in inequality is a really unpersuasive argument.
In short: you have to do better than that if you're going to persuade me to support such sharp increases in tax rates, especially when the US economy is currently suffering from stagnant growth.
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On July 11 2013 12:06 DoubleReed wrote:Show nested quote +On July 11 2013 11:24 coverpunch wrote:On July 11 2013 10:14 DoubleReed wrote:On July 11 2013 10:08 coverpunch wrote:On July 11 2013 10:00 DoubleReed wrote:On July 11 2013 09:47 coverpunch wrote:On July 11 2013 09:29 DoubleReed wrote:On July 11 2013 09:23 coverpunch wrote:On July 11 2013 09:20 DoubleReed wrote:On July 11 2013 08:33 Danglars wrote:[quote] Complete your thought. The nation got by without minimum wage for years, indeed it ascended to excellence in the world and no minimum wage existed in the years where the nation supplanted its rivals for economic superpower. It's quite old hat among my colleagues to go back to the original radical right-wing ideologues, the framers of the Constitution. The danger does not exist in monopolies or predatory wage rates should government take a lesser role in the nation's economy, the danger is, in the words of Washington [quote] I'm optimistic about the power of free enterprise left unhindered because that's what the nation was founded on. I don't say that free markets and a free people magically solve societal malaise, but instead are the fastest way out when times are tough as opposed to direct government intervention, control, and future regulations. There is abundant dishonesty about the play of welfare in politics, namely, when people grasp that they can simply vote themselves more money that comes from somebody else (e.g. Obama's stash). I mean this great American experiment lasted plenty well before the super-progressive income tax and government involvement in the early 20th century. I say there is plenty of reason for optimism based on America's success from 1776-early 1900s. Why exactly should conservative Republican economic policies suck? Uhh... no. The Gilded Age kind of sucked for us. We weren't a world power at that point, and it was really terrible economically. We didn't ascend to the world stage until after World War II. We were in the Great Depression right before that... The most prosperous time in American History was post-WWII (1945-1980), where we had strong unions, we just constructed a huge social safety net, and we were horribly in debt from the amount of government spending during WWII. Wealth Disparity was literally at an all-time low until 1980. The top marginal tax rate fluctuated between 70%-90%. You want to talk about prosperity? We didn't get prosperity until we spent a shit-ton of goverment money and rejected libertarian rhetoric in favor of public responsibility. This is having your cake and eating it too. You can't say "the Gilded Age kind of sucked" and then say "we didn't get prosperity until we spent a shit-ton of government money". You're saying correlation isn't causation, then drawing a cause from a correlation, totally glossing over that the US economy didn't do well in the postwar era because the government spent lots of money, it did well because the US won the war without substantial destruction. Winning wars does not magically give you money. Wars are government spending. Our allies were in shambles and couldn't properly trade with us. We even spent our money rebuilding Europe to get our trading partners back on track. I'm not saying correlation isn't causation. What? The Gilded Age was filled with libertarian rhetoric and corporatism, but it totally sucked. It wasn't good for America at all. The post-WWII America was filled with responsible, less corrupt government with extremely liberal policies and did amazingly. It wasn't until Reagan when a lot of the "small government" rhetoric came back that we had more wealth disparity and a more fragile economy. I'm saying causation all the way, baby. What, you think it's a coincidence that our top marginal tax rate went from 70% -> 30% and suddenly wealth inequality started going up? There's nothing magic about it. But losing a world war is certainly worse for the national economy than winning. Consider that Japan didn't have a standing structure taller than two stories by the end of the war. Combined with 3 million citizens killed, including an entire generation of young men, that is very very bad for the economy. I think it was coincidental that the tax marginal tax rate went down and wealth inequality went down. It certainly played a role in exacerbating the problem, but I don't think it was the root cause. Given more time, inequality will always increase. That's the nature of giving more time for advantaged people to utilize their skills/talent/hard work and disadvantaged people to sit around doing nothing. IMO the problem was and has been increasing global competition. In the period between 1945-1975, Americans could basically take it for granted that they were better educated, better fed, harder working, and more creative than the rest of the world. That is increasingly not true. I don't think the answer is protectionism, but I think there are many things Americans cannot take for granted and it raises questions of how we can improve the lot of people of more mediocre skills. No, that's not how it works. That means we have fewer trading partners. It means less people were able to afford purchasing all our crap (and we love selling people our crap). We don't benefit from other people being poor and stupid. And the "harder working" part? Really? Just like today. The fact that the Euro is having problems isn't a good thing for us. It affects our trade. It's not a good thing. We want them to be doing well, so we can be doing better. For the last 30 years, corruption in our politics has been getting worse and worse (I can pin at least some blame on Buckley vs Valeo in 1976). It has led to weaker unions, regressive taxes, stagnant wages, skyrocketing wealth inequality, and more partisan politics. It wasn't always like this. Inequality will not always increase. That's just not true. And Globalization could have been offset with even more liberal policies, even stronger unions, etc. so that workers would be even with employers. But that didn't happen. Trade is a different joint from inequality. The benefit of trade is that people can have a better standard of living at lower cost, but it comes with the price that US workers have to compete with foreign workers, which puts downward pressure on wages for low-skilled workers. It also means people who make good products have more consumers and can become personally richer. But for this reason, more unionization is actually a bad thing in a more global, more trade world, because unions always result in higher labor costs for their constituents, which increases the incentives to look elsewhere for cheaper labor. How does your link show that inequality will not always increase? It shows that inequality had a marked increase after 1980. But there's nothing to show that inequality was not already increasing before that. Sorry, try this link. Wealth inequality went down during World War II. It stayed down during the 1945-1980 portion of our history. It only started rising again in the late 70s. Edit: I'm not sure what you're talking about with trade. I wasn't talking about sweatshops. I was talking about trading oil for guns for bananas for sugar. Like trade trade. It's just a matter of Comparative Advantage, and everyone benefiting in a trade transaction. You're looking at these things blithely though, as though they simply just happened by coincidence. The war caused a decrease in inequality because the government could simply seize property and strip rights in the name of winning the war and people were supportive of that. Inequality took a long time to increase back to prewar levels, which speaks more to how devastating the wars were than the goodness or effectiveness of government spending. As the global economy matures and trade opens up for more new players, I think it's natural that inequality will increase in all of the individual countries. Countries that resist this do so usually at the expense of their competitiveness. Which is what the problem has been with countries like Greece, Spain, and Japan. I will agree with a point you made in another post, that inequality is a problem. Material inequality is a symptom and an eventual cause of social inequality, where people get substantially different educations or materially different access to certain positions simply because of who they are. Money is an imperfect measurement but it's the best we can do. For instance, I don't think it's a stretch to say Sasha and Malia Obama will go to Harvard. They're probably not stupid and maybe they will earn it, but I think their access is far easier for their name than it would be if they were simply two other kids. But how much is a problem and what we should do about it is where we differ. I think a lot of CEOs are grossly overvalued, but it's not the government's job to fix it. Stockholders and the board of directors should be doing it. Similarly, I don't like Wal-Mart's employment practices but I don't want to go in and tell them what to do. I don't shop there and I would never apply for a job there. If enough people agree with me, then Wal-Mart will be forced to change their practices to get competent workers or more business. Uhh... sure, that was true for WWII, but how do you explain post-WWII? You can probably blame technology and globalization on the rise of equality in 1980, but again, it's not like inequality just naturally rises or something. That's a weird, random claim, and I don't understand why you are still clinging to it. Inequality rises because certain stuff makes inequality rise. It doesn't HAVE to rise. How silly. Wtf are you talking about Greece, Spain, and Japan? What makes you think these are good examples of less inequality? Why not pick better examples, like Canada, Sweden, or Denmark? These are better examples and they go against your claim. Again, there is no Law that says inequality must rise. Government's job, in this respect, is to do whatever is better for the economy. We want to lessen the burden on the middle class as much as possible, and make sure our money is funneled there to massively increase demand. Increases in capital for the very wealthy are practically negligible in their effects to the economy, so basically we should tax them whatever's best for the economy (like 73%).
A 73% tax rate as optimal is highly debatable. Regardless, I think they were arguing that it would maximize social welfare, not the economy.
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On July 11 2013 12:26 coverpunch wrote:Show nested quote +On July 11 2013 12:06 DoubleReed wrote:On July 11 2013 11:24 coverpunch wrote:On July 11 2013 10:14 DoubleReed wrote:On July 11 2013 10:08 coverpunch wrote:On July 11 2013 10:00 DoubleReed wrote:On July 11 2013 09:47 coverpunch wrote:On July 11 2013 09:29 DoubleReed wrote:On July 11 2013 09:23 coverpunch wrote:On July 11 2013 09:20 DoubleReed wrote:[quote] Uhh... no. The Gilded Age kind of sucked for us. We weren't a world power at that point, and it was really terrible economically. We didn't ascend to the world stage until after World War II. We were in the Great Depression right before that... The most prosperous time in American History was post-WWII (1945-1980), where we had strong unions, we just constructed a huge social safety net, and we were horribly in debt from the amount of government spending during WWII. Wealth Disparity was literally at an all-time low until 1980. The top marginal tax rate fluctuated between 70%-90%. You want to talk about prosperity? We didn't get prosperity until we spent a shit-ton of goverment money and rejected libertarian rhetoric in favor of public responsibility. This is having your cake and eating it too. You can't say "the Gilded Age kind of sucked" and then say "we didn't get prosperity until we spent a shit-ton of government money". You're saying correlation isn't causation, then drawing a cause from a correlation, totally glossing over that the US economy didn't do well in the postwar era because the government spent lots of money, it did well because the US won the war without substantial destruction. Winning wars does not magically give you money. Wars are government spending. Our allies were in shambles and couldn't properly trade with us. We even spent our money rebuilding Europe to get our trading partners back on track. I'm not saying correlation isn't causation. What? The Gilded Age was filled with libertarian rhetoric and corporatism, but it totally sucked. It wasn't good for America at all. The post-WWII America was filled with responsible, less corrupt government with extremely liberal policies and did amazingly. It wasn't until Reagan when a lot of the "small government" rhetoric came back that we had more wealth disparity and a more fragile economy. I'm saying causation all the way, baby. What, you think it's a coincidence that our top marginal tax rate went from 70% -> 30% and suddenly wealth inequality started going up? There's nothing magic about it. But losing a world war is certainly worse for the national economy than winning. Consider that Japan didn't have a standing structure taller than two stories by the end of the war. Combined with 3 million citizens killed, including an entire generation of young men, that is very very bad for the economy. I think it was coincidental that the tax marginal tax rate went down and wealth inequality went down. It certainly played a role in exacerbating the problem, but I don't think it was the root cause. Given more time, inequality will always increase. That's the nature of giving more time for advantaged people to utilize their skills/talent/hard work and disadvantaged people to sit around doing nothing. IMO the problem was and has been increasing global competition. In the period between 1945-1975, Americans could basically take it for granted that they were better educated, better fed, harder working, and more creative than the rest of the world. That is increasingly not true. I don't think the answer is protectionism, but I think there are many things Americans cannot take for granted and it raises questions of how we can improve the lot of people of more mediocre skills. No, that's not how it works. That means we have fewer trading partners. It means less people were able to afford purchasing all our crap (and we love selling people our crap). We don't benefit from other people being poor and stupid. And the "harder working" part? Really? Just like today. The fact that the Euro is having problems isn't a good thing for us. It affects our trade. It's not a good thing. We want them to be doing well, so we can be doing better. For the last 30 years, corruption in our politics has been getting worse and worse (I can pin at least some blame on Buckley vs Valeo in 1976). It has led to weaker unions, regressive taxes, stagnant wages, skyrocketing wealth inequality, and more partisan politics. It wasn't always like this. Inequality will not always increase. That's just not true. And Globalization could have been offset with even more liberal policies, even stronger unions, etc. so that workers would be even with employers. But that didn't happen. Trade is a different joint from inequality. The benefit of trade is that people can have a better standard of living at lower cost, but it comes with the price that US workers have to compete with foreign workers, which puts downward pressure on wages for low-skilled workers. It also means people who make good products have more consumers and can become personally richer. But for this reason, more unionization is actually a bad thing in a more global, more trade world, because unions always result in higher labor costs for their constituents, which increases the incentives to look elsewhere for cheaper labor. How does your link show that inequality will not always increase? It shows that inequality had a marked increase after 1980. But there's nothing to show that inequality was not already increasing before that. Sorry, try this link. Wealth inequality went down during World War II. It stayed down during the 1945-1980 portion of our history. It only started rising again in the late 70s. Edit: I'm not sure what you're talking about with trade. I wasn't talking about sweatshops. I was talking about trading oil for guns for bananas for sugar. Like trade trade. It's just a matter of Comparative Advantage, and everyone benefiting in a trade transaction. You're looking at these things blithely though, as though they simply just happened by coincidence. The war caused a decrease in inequality because the government could simply seize property and strip rights in the name of winning the war and people were supportive of that. Inequality took a long time to increase back to prewar levels, which speaks more to how devastating the wars were than the goodness or effectiveness of government spending. As the global economy matures and trade opens up for more new players, I think it's natural that inequality will increase in all of the individual countries. Countries that resist this do so usually at the expense of their competitiveness. Which is what the problem has been with countries like Greece, Spain, and Japan. I will agree with a point you made in another post, that inequality is a problem. Material inequality is a symptom and an eventual cause of social inequality, where people get substantially different educations or materially different access to certain positions simply because of who they are. Money is an imperfect measurement but it's the best we can do. For instance, I don't think it's a stretch to say Sasha and Malia Obama will go to Harvard. They're probably not stupid and maybe they will earn it, but I think their access is far easier for their name than it would be if they were simply two other kids. But how much is a problem and what we should do about it is where we differ. I think a lot of CEOs are grossly overvalued, but it's not the government's job to fix it. Stockholders and the board of directors should be doing it. Similarly, I don't like Wal-Mart's employment practices but I don't want to go in and tell them what to do. I don't shop there and I would never apply for a job there. If enough people agree with me, then Wal-Mart will be forced to change their practices to get competent workers or more business. Uhh... sure, that was true for WWII, but how you explain post-WWII. You can probably blame technology and globalization on the rise of equality in 1980, but again, it's not like inequality just naturally rises or something. That's a weird, random claim, and I don't understand why you are still clinging to it. Inequality rises because certain stuff makes inequality rise. It doesn't HAVE to rise. How silly. Wtf are you talking about Greece, Spain, and Japan? What makes you think these are good examples of less inequality? Why not pick better examples, like Canada, Sweden, or Denmark? These are better examples and they go against your claim. Again, there is no Law that says inequality must rise. Government's job, in this respect, is to do whatever is better for the economy. We want to lessen the burden on the middle class as much as possible, and make sure our money is funneled there to massively increase demand. Increases in capital for the very wealthy are practically negligible in their effects to the economy, so basically we should tax them whatever's best for the economy (like 73%). Greece, Spain, and Japan are examples of countries that shielded high-wage workers from globalized trade and their competitiveness has suffered as a result. They're examples of how trade is not necessarily tied to inequality. But if you're going to insist on Canada, Sweden, and Denmark, how about this: 3/4 of Canadians think inequality is risingRiots in Sweden, after which the OECD says Sweden has had the highest change in inequality of any developed countryThere's nothing for Denmark, which has low inequality and is currently very stable. But is it representative or something other countries can emulate? And I think the period in the US from 1945-1975 is unusual, not the norm. It's nothing something that is likely to ever happen again, or at least we should hope not in many respects. That's my point in harping on things like the destruction of the war. Economic inequality rises because people are unequal with respect to the contributions they can make to the economy. I don't think that's weird or controversial, and I think as time rolls on without intervention, inequality will rise in every country. People around the world are more unequal than they are equal in this aspect. There are certainly contributing factors that society is providing and I've mentioned before that low taxes might be exacerbating the problem, but I think insisting on jacking up the tax rate to 73% because that's how it was in 1965 and if we go back to that, other things will also go back to the way they were before the increase in inequality is a really unpersuasive argument. In short: you have to do better than that if you're going to persuade me to support such sharp increases in tax rates, especially when the US economy is currently suffering from stagnant growth.
I'm confused on what you are trying to say. You made the claim that inequality just sort of naturally rises, and I was just trying to demonstrate that there are plenty of cases where inequality doesn't rise.
Sure, protectionism can insulate an economy and make it less competitive. Okay? I'm not advocating for protectionism, am I? I'm advocating for specific domestic policy.
The 73% tax rate is due to a paper explaining why that would be a optimal rate for the top marginal tax rate. It's not from historical account. That's just a coincidence :D
And I'm only advocating a sharp increase of tax rate for wealthy earners. With the revenue you'd get, we could probably lower tax rates for the middle class. Basically just make everything more progressive (although state/local governments are still hurting from the recession). This would be positive for growth, because the middle class drives demand.
A 73% tax rate as optimal is highly debatable. Regardless, I think they were arguing that it would maximize social welfare, not the economy.
Those are the exact same thing in this case.
Edit: But hey! I'm no extremist. We can compromise at 60%! :D
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On July 11 2013 12:26 coverpunch wrote:Show nested quote +On July 11 2013 12:06 DoubleReed wrote:On July 11 2013 11:24 coverpunch wrote:On July 11 2013 10:14 DoubleReed wrote:On July 11 2013 10:08 coverpunch wrote:On July 11 2013 10:00 DoubleReed wrote:On July 11 2013 09:47 coverpunch wrote:On July 11 2013 09:29 DoubleReed wrote:On July 11 2013 09:23 coverpunch wrote:On July 11 2013 09:20 DoubleReed wrote:[quote] Uhh... no. The Gilded Age kind of sucked for us. We weren't a world power at that point, and it was really terrible economically. We didn't ascend to the world stage until after World War II. We were in the Great Depression right before that... The most prosperous time in American History was post-WWII (1945-1980), where we had strong unions, we just constructed a huge social safety net, and we were horribly in debt from the amount of government spending during WWII. Wealth Disparity was literally at an all-time low until 1980. The top marginal tax rate fluctuated between 70%-90%. You want to talk about prosperity? We didn't get prosperity until we spent a shit-ton of goverment money and rejected libertarian rhetoric in favor of public responsibility. This is having your cake and eating it too. You can't say "the Gilded Age kind of sucked" and then say "we didn't get prosperity until we spent a shit-ton of government money". You're saying correlation isn't causation, then drawing a cause from a correlation, totally glossing over that the US economy didn't do well in the postwar era because the government spent lots of money, it did well because the US won the war without substantial destruction. Winning wars does not magically give you money. Wars are government spending. Our allies were in shambles and couldn't properly trade with us. We even spent our money rebuilding Europe to get our trading partners back on track. I'm not saying correlation isn't causation. What? The Gilded Age was filled with libertarian rhetoric and corporatism, but it totally sucked. It wasn't good for America at all. The post-WWII America was filled with responsible, less corrupt government with extremely liberal policies and did amazingly. It wasn't until Reagan when a lot of the "small government" rhetoric came back that we had more wealth disparity and a more fragile economy. I'm saying causation all the way, baby. What, you think it's a coincidence that our top marginal tax rate went from 70% -> 30% and suddenly wealth inequality started going up? There's nothing magic about it. But losing a world war is certainly worse for the national economy than winning. Consider that Japan didn't have a standing structure taller than two stories by the end of the war. Combined with 3 million citizens killed, including an entire generation of young men, that is very very bad for the economy. I think it was coincidental that the tax marginal tax rate went down and wealth inequality went down. It certainly played a role in exacerbating the problem, but I don't think it was the root cause. Given more time, inequality will always increase. That's the nature of giving more time for advantaged people to utilize their skills/talent/hard work and disadvantaged people to sit around doing nothing. IMO the problem was and has been increasing global competition. In the period between 1945-1975, Americans could basically take it for granted that they were better educated, better fed, harder working, and more creative than the rest of the world. That is increasingly not true. I don't think the answer is protectionism, but I think there are many things Americans cannot take for granted and it raises questions of how we can improve the lot of people of more mediocre skills. No, that's not how it works. That means we have fewer trading partners. It means less people were able to afford purchasing all our crap (and we love selling people our crap). We don't benefit from other people being poor and stupid. And the "harder working" part? Really? Just like today. The fact that the Euro is having problems isn't a good thing for us. It affects our trade. It's not a good thing. We want them to be doing well, so we can be doing better. For the last 30 years, corruption in our politics has been getting worse and worse (I can pin at least some blame on Buckley vs Valeo in 1976). It has led to weaker unions, regressive taxes, stagnant wages, skyrocketing wealth inequality, and more partisan politics. It wasn't always like this. Inequality will not always increase. That's just not true. And Globalization could have been offset with even more liberal policies, even stronger unions, etc. so that workers would be even with employers. But that didn't happen. Trade is a different joint from inequality. The benefit of trade is that people can have a better standard of living at lower cost, but it comes with the price that US workers have to compete with foreign workers, which puts downward pressure on wages for low-skilled workers. It also means people who make good products have more consumers and can become personally richer. But for this reason, more unionization is actually a bad thing in a more global, more trade world, because unions always result in higher labor costs for their constituents, which increases the incentives to look elsewhere for cheaper labor. How does your link show that inequality will not always increase? It shows that inequality had a marked increase after 1980. But there's nothing to show that inequality was not already increasing before that. Sorry, try this link. Wealth inequality went down during World War II. It stayed down during the 1945-1980 portion of our history. It only started rising again in the late 70s. Edit: I'm not sure what you're talking about with trade. I wasn't talking about sweatshops. I was talking about trading oil for guns for bananas for sugar. Like trade trade. It's just a matter of Comparative Advantage, and everyone benefiting in a trade transaction. You're looking at these things blithely though, as though they simply just happened by coincidence. The war caused a decrease in inequality because the government could simply seize property and strip rights in the name of winning the war and people were supportive of that. Inequality took a long time to increase back to prewar levels, which speaks more to how devastating the wars were than the goodness or effectiveness of government spending. As the global economy matures and trade opens up for more new players, I think it's natural that inequality will increase in all of the individual countries. Countries that resist this do so usually at the expense of their competitiveness. Which is what the problem has been with countries like Greece, Spain, and Japan. I will agree with a point you made in another post, that inequality is a problem. Material inequality is a symptom and an eventual cause of social inequality, where people get substantially different educations or materially different access to certain positions simply because of who they are. Money is an imperfect measurement but it's the best we can do. For instance, I don't think it's a stretch to say Sasha and Malia Obama will go to Harvard. They're probably not stupid and maybe they will earn it, but I think their access is far easier for their name than it would be if they were simply two other kids. But how much is a problem and what we should do about it is where we differ. I think a lot of CEOs are grossly overvalued, but it's not the government's job to fix it. Stockholders and the board of directors should be doing it. Similarly, I don't like Wal-Mart's employment practices but I don't want to go in and tell them what to do. I don't shop there and I would never apply for a job there. If enough people agree with me, then Wal-Mart will be forced to change their practices to get competent workers or more business. Uhh... sure, that was true for WWII, but how you explain post-WWII. You can probably blame technology and globalization on the rise of equality in 1980, but again, it's not like inequality just naturally rises or something. That's a weird, random claim, and I don't understand why you are still clinging to it. Inequality rises because certain stuff makes inequality rise. It doesn't HAVE to rise. How silly. Wtf are you talking about Greece, Spain, and Japan? What makes you think these are good examples of less inequality? Why not pick better examples, like Canada, Sweden, or Denmark? These are better examples and they go against your claim. Again, there is no Law that says inequality must rise. Government's job, in this respect, is to do whatever is better for the economy. We want to lessen the burden on the middle class as much as possible, and make sure our money is funneled there to massively increase demand. Increases in capital for the very wealthy are practically negligible in their effects to the economy, so basically we should tax them whatever's best for the economy (like 73%). Greece, Spain, and Japan are examples of countries that shielded high-wage workers from globalized trade and their competitiveness has suffered as a result. They're examples of how trade is not necessarily tied to inequality. But if you're going to insist on Canada, Sweden, and Denmark, how about this: 3/4 of Canadians think inequality is risingRiots in Sweden, after which the OECD says Sweden has had the highest change in inequality of any developed countryThere's nothing for Denmark, which has low inequality and is currently very stable. But is it representative or something other countries can emulate? And I think the period in the US from 1945-1975 is unusual, not the norm. It's nothing something that is likely to ever happen again, or at least we should hope not in many respects. That's my point in harping on things like the destruction of the war. Economic inequality rises because people are unequal with respect to the contributions they can make to the economy. I don't think that's weird or controversial, and I think as time rolls on without intervention, inequality will rise in every country. People around the world are more unequal than they are equal in this aspect. There are certainly contributing factors that society is providing and I've mentioned before that low taxes might be exacerbating the problem, but I think insisting on jacking up the tax rate to 73% because that's how it was in 1965 and if we go back to that, other things will also go back to the way they were before the increase in inequality is a really unpersuasive argument. In short: you have to do better than that if you're going to persuade me to support such sharp increases in tax rates, especially when the US economy is currently suffering from stagnant growth.
I'd actually say that Canadians worry about increasing equality (from my admittedly anecdotal experience) because we culturally pride ourselves on being a good place for people of various classes (i.e. we're more sensitive to things we think are diminishing the "Canadian Dream") and because we have a Conservative government with a ridiculously low approval rating.
Inequality is always going to be present in any (capitalist) economic system, but the prevalence of this inequality depends greatly on the mobility of the classes, the equality of opportunity (in real terms rather than legal ones) and on how large the inequality actually is. It's one thing to claim that inequality will always arise. Nobody disputes that in practice; people dispute that this inequality necessarily existing implies that we shouldn't keep it down as much as possible.
I'm not commenting on this particular argument you're having exactly, but I don't think anyone is really making the claim that inequality is totally removable, much in the same way that 0% corruption is impossible.
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On July 11 2013 12:12 Stratos_speAr wrote:Show nested quote +On July 11 2013 10:53 Danglars wrote:On July 11 2013 10:37 DoubleReed wrote:Hahaha, quoting the Heritage Foundation and Margaret Thatcher. Oh this is gold. I do not accept a decrease in wealth disparity as any indicator of a prosperous era. I want a prosperous country with the lowest percent and the richest percent both experiencing rises in their standard of living. I want to increase the opportunities available for those at the bottom to rise in income with hard work. I have no idea what this means. A decrease in wealth disparity and prosperity is an indicator of a prosperous era. I mean, sure, Louis XIV had some magnificent artwork and gardens but I don't generally consider that a sign that France was doing well economically. Remember, America has terrible social mobility, and states with welfare states and taxes on the rich are much better in this regard. If you actually want to "increase the opportunities available for those at the bottom to rise" then a welfare state with a strong social safety net is exactly what you want. Perhaps if an expansion of government into the health care industry were not the current trend in Western democracies, then large articles from think tanks would not be necessary. Thatcher was a much more brilliant stateswoman than I am a stateman, so I will use quotes from her as I think them applicable. In this case, I do not mind if the rich get richer at a faster pace than the poor get richer; how is this a reflection of a plight of the poor? The wealth disparity and income inequality argument comes from the rich-bashing left that want to see them put in their place, the poor be damned. What was the absolute gains in the living standards of the poor under Louis XIV? What were their socio-economic mobility? Those are the right questions, not how many paintings the aristocracy could purchase compared to the living situations the poor could afford. I'll have to wait until the policies I support come back into power in Washington to compare income mobility in free market capitalism to income mobility with heavily regulated business and industry. The political winners have been top-down welfare increasers for many years now, so there is no standard of comparison within the US yet. I hope one day, the federal government is pruned back heavily so a comparison between states can be made without the overarching structure of federal welfare subsidies, federal agency involvement, and federal education/energy/finance/etc. The problem is that there will never, ever be a perfectly free market system out there. It, just like Communism, is too susceptible to human corruption. That's why we use the government. Furthermore, rolling back our welfare policies to essentially "test them out" like you're implying would be absolutely disastrous and would probably ruin the lives of a significant portion of the population. Because of this, it's just not feasible, and we're going to have to use the best real-world examples that we have to compare conservative economic ideas vs. liberal ones, and the U.S. is the developed nation where the conservative, hands-off economic approach has influenced policies the most. Now, look at where it got us. It isn't exactly fantastic. The American Dream is a complete lie (you could move to DENMARK and have a better chance at social mobility for Christ's sake), our country is the poster-boy for Corporatism and is the inspiration for every Deus Ex-esque dystopian fictional future outlook there is, and financial life here is noticeable worse for the average person when compared to most other developed nations. It's absolutely true that we haven't actually "tested" a true conservative free market economic system, but at the same time, that ideology is what contributed us to have such a relatively conservative economic system and the mess that we're in now, so if you're of a libertarian/conservative economic ideology, you can't just completely wash your hands of the situation and say, "Well this isn't real free market capitalism!" That's like trying to say that the USSR or China weren't examples of attempted Communism and thus we have no evidence that Communism is problematic.
I'd be happy to go back to the government spending as it existed soon after the adoption of the constitution. Maintain a military, delegate most of the functions of government to state and local, preserve the rights of the people. Even after the adoption of the constitution, it was not a perfectly laissez-faire system. The government licensed some professions, inspected goods arriving in ports, collected revenue for a military. I say the problem is not that there will never be a truly free market system, the problem is that there isn't one even close to what free market meant back in the late 1700s/early 1800s. It's now a matter of allowing some people to keep some of their hard earned money, and take the rest for whatever social good you feel like. You mention Denmark, great example. It rates slightly higher in indices of economic freedom than the US these days. Freer economy, more economic mobility, your example helps prove the point. I'll take a Switzerland above them, and the further away Hong Kong & Singapore as even better models of free market economic systems. It's not a matter of lamenting true capitalism or true communism, it's that you have to walk twenty paces to socialism just to get to the freer markets out there.
I'll link my previous post because the remainder of your dialogue is woefully offtopic of what I'm talking about. You have quoted a response I made to a response someone else made. The original response quoted a very small portion of a rather large previous post. I'm not lamenting like the communist apologists that there will never be a pure communism. I'd be happy with a basket of apples with a few oranges mixed in. There's some people here saying 50% apples and 50% oranges is the new basket of apples, which is so far removed from theoretical perfection as to make the comparison unjustified. It would take many year's travels from the current muddled middle to arrive at anything resembling the edge of a true free market. The start of the steps should not prompt screams that we're at the edge and the edge can't work in reality!
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On July 11 2013 12:45 DoubleReed wrote:
Those are the exact same thing in this case.
Ahh, OK. But again, this isn't some settled thing we can call a fact.
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total cost $813 million.
An autonomous US drone jet has completed its first unaided landing on an aircraft carrier in a milestone that paves the way to base offensive robot aircraft aboard strike fleets.
The Northrop Grumman X-47B flew on Wednesday from Patuxent River Naval Air Station in Virginia to the deck of the USS George HW Bush in the Atlantic without human intervention.
Unlike current drone aircraft in the US military arsenal, the prototype X-47B landed by using a predefined programme, and without live input from a human pilot.
Landing on an aircraft carrier is considered one of the most difficult manoeuvres for human pilots.
"It's not often that you get a chance to see the future, but that's what we got to do today," said Navy Secretary Ray Mabus.
The X-47B aircraft has a 3,200km range and the ability to carry the equivalent of two guided bombs, the stealthy X-47B raises the prospect an autonomous, long-range, radar-evading, unmanned strike aircraft.
It will be superseded by a new robot jet capable of reconnaissance and strike missions to be deployed aboard carriers within six years. Navy commanders insist that it will only fire its weapons on the command of a human.
Source
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On the one hand, yay we can stop sending actual humans to warzones. On the other hand, it just became a hell of a lot easier to commit a violent act.
It will be superseded by a new robot jet capable of reconnaissance and strike missions to be deployed aboard carriers within six years. Navy commanders insist that it will only fire its weapons on the command of a human.
I have approximately -6 units of faith in this but even so...why is that supposed to be reassuring? Humans are assholes. Obama loves to murder and pillage the middle east and he does that openly. I'm supposed to believe that some unnamed officer with even fewer public consequences is going to show more restraint?
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United Kingdom36156 Posts
On July 11 2013 23:17 Klondikebar wrote:On the one hand, yay we can stop sending actual humans to warzones. On the other hand, it just became a hell of a lot easier to commit a violent act. Show nested quote +It will be superseded by a new robot jet capable of reconnaissance and strike missions to be deployed aboard carriers within six years. Navy commanders insist that it will only fire its weapons on the command of a human. I have approximately -6 units of faith in this but even so...why is that supposed to be reassuring? Humans are assholes. Obama loves to murder and pillage the middle east and he does that openly. I'm supposed to believe that some unnamed officer with even fewer public consequences is going to show more restraint?
What's your complaint? It's a war-machine designed to blow shit up. Not sure where restraint comes into this.
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On July 11 2013 23:19 marvellosity wrote:Show nested quote +On July 11 2013 23:17 Klondikebar wrote:On the one hand, yay we can stop sending actual humans to warzones. On the other hand, it just became a hell of a lot easier to commit a violent act. It will be superseded by a new robot jet capable of reconnaissance and strike missions to be deployed aboard carriers within six years. Navy commanders insist that it will only fire its weapons on the command of a human. I have approximately -6 units of faith in this but even so...why is that supposed to be reassuring? Humans are assholes. Obama loves to murder and pillage the middle east and he does that openly. I'm supposed to believe that some unnamed officer with even fewer public consequences is going to show more restraint? What's your complaint? It's a war-machine designed to blow shit up. Not sure where restraint comes into this.
That maybe we shouldn't be blowing things up...and the fact that the tool exists means we're going to blow shit up.
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United Kingdom36156 Posts
On July 11 2013 23:23 Klondikebar wrote:Show nested quote +On July 11 2013 23:19 marvellosity wrote:On July 11 2013 23:17 Klondikebar wrote:On the one hand, yay we can stop sending actual humans to warzones. On the other hand, it just became a hell of a lot easier to commit a violent act. It will be superseded by a new robot jet capable of reconnaissance and strike missions to be deployed aboard carriers within six years. Navy commanders insist that it will only fire its weapons on the command of a human. I have approximately -6 units of faith in this but even so...why is that supposed to be reassuring? Humans are assholes. Obama loves to murder and pillage the middle east and he does that openly. I'm supposed to believe that some unnamed officer with even fewer public consequences is going to show more restraint? What's your complaint? It's a war-machine designed to blow shit up. Not sure where restraint comes into this. That maybe we shouldn't be blowing things up...and the fact that the tool exists means we're going to blow shit up.
There will always be a need for things that blow shit up. Or at least for there to be the *potential* to blow shit up. If it weren't the US in a dominant technology+military spot, then it would be another country. The grass probably isn't greener on the other side.
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On July 11 2013 23:27 marvellosity wrote:Show nested quote +On July 11 2013 23:23 Klondikebar wrote:On July 11 2013 23:19 marvellosity wrote:On July 11 2013 23:17 Klondikebar wrote:On the one hand, yay we can stop sending actual humans to warzones. On the other hand, it just became a hell of a lot easier to commit a violent act. It will be superseded by a new robot jet capable of reconnaissance and strike missions to be deployed aboard carriers within six years. Navy commanders insist that it will only fire its weapons on the command of a human. I have approximately -6 units of faith in this but even so...why is that supposed to be reassuring? Humans are assholes. Obama loves to murder and pillage the middle east and he does that openly. I'm supposed to believe that some unnamed officer with even fewer public consequences is going to show more restraint? What's your complaint? It's a war-machine designed to blow shit up. Not sure where restraint comes into this. That maybe we shouldn't be blowing things up...and the fact that the tool exists means we're going to blow shit up. There will always be a need for things that blow shit up. Or at least for there to be the *potential* to blow shit up. If it weren't the US in a dominant technology+military spot, then it would be another country. The grass probably isn't greener on the other side.
The US has the nasty habit of being a little too ok with "collateral damage." I'd prefer big-blowy-uppy-things not be in the hands of people who aren't very concerned with precision.
Also, I don't like the additional layer between killer and...I don't wanna say victim so "killee?" Killing someone is a big deal. So much so that we have a physiological aversion to doing so. Creating this much distance between killing and death might make it too easy.
Look, I'm apprehensive. And I think justifiably so. I'm not saying END ALL DRONE PROGRAMS because, like I said in my first post, I'd prefer we didn't have to send our men into danger as well. I'm just worried for innocent people on the other side who don't have the luxury of their own automated warfare.
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United Kingdom36156 Posts
On July 11 2013 23:34 Klondikebar wrote:Show nested quote +On July 11 2013 23:27 marvellosity wrote:On July 11 2013 23:23 Klondikebar wrote:On July 11 2013 23:19 marvellosity wrote:On July 11 2013 23:17 Klondikebar wrote:On the one hand, yay we can stop sending actual humans to warzones. On the other hand, it just became a hell of a lot easier to commit a violent act. It will be superseded by a new robot jet capable of reconnaissance and strike missions to be deployed aboard carriers within six years. Navy commanders insist that it will only fire its weapons on the command of a human. I have approximately -6 units of faith in this but even so...why is that supposed to be reassuring? Humans are assholes. Obama loves to murder and pillage the middle east and he does that openly. I'm supposed to believe that some unnamed officer with even fewer public consequences is going to show more restraint? What's your complaint? It's a war-machine designed to blow shit up. Not sure where restraint comes into this. That maybe we shouldn't be blowing things up...and the fact that the tool exists means we're going to blow shit up. There will always be a need for things that blow shit up. Or at least for there to be the *potential* to blow shit up. If it weren't the US in a dominant technology+military spot, then it would be another country. The grass probably isn't greener on the other side. The US has the nasty habit of being a little too ok with "collateral damage." I'd prefer big-blowy-uppy-things not be in the hands of people who aren't very concerned with precision. Also, I don't like the additional layer between killer and...I don't wanna say victim so "killee?" Killing someone is a big deal. So much so that we have a physiological aversion to doing so. Creating this much distance between killing and death might make it too easy. Look, I'm apprehensive. And I think justifiably so. I'm not saying END ALL DRONE PROGRAMS because, like I said in my first post, I'd prefer we didn't have to send our men into danger as well. I'm just worried for innocent people on the other side who don't have the luxury of their own automated warfare.
The collateral damage that the US (or anyone in NATO, whatever) inflicts is actually really, really low. I think you're being pretty unfair on the highly trained individuals within the armed forces who I'm sure *are* very concerned with precision - unless you have evidence to the contrary? The fact that things can go wrong doesn't mean that the people are incompetent or don't care, it just means in war it's hard for everything to be puppies and flowers 100% of the time.
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On July 11 2013 23:38 marvellosity wrote:Show nested quote +On July 11 2013 23:34 Klondikebar wrote:On July 11 2013 23:27 marvellosity wrote:On July 11 2013 23:23 Klondikebar wrote:On July 11 2013 23:19 marvellosity wrote:On July 11 2013 23:17 Klondikebar wrote:On the one hand, yay we can stop sending actual humans to warzones. On the other hand, it just became a hell of a lot easier to commit a violent act. It will be superseded by a new robot jet capable of reconnaissance and strike missions to be deployed aboard carriers within six years. Navy commanders insist that it will only fire its weapons on the command of a human. I have approximately -6 units of faith in this but even so...why is that supposed to be reassuring? Humans are assholes. Obama loves to murder and pillage the middle east and he does that openly. I'm supposed to believe that some unnamed officer with even fewer public consequences is going to show more restraint? What's your complaint? It's a war-machine designed to blow shit up. Not sure where restraint comes into this. That maybe we shouldn't be blowing things up...and the fact that the tool exists means we're going to blow shit up. There will always be a need for things that blow shit up. Or at least for there to be the *potential* to blow shit up. If it weren't the US in a dominant technology+military spot, then it would be another country. The grass probably isn't greener on the other side. The US has the nasty habit of being a little too ok with "collateral damage." I'd prefer big-blowy-uppy-things not be in the hands of people who aren't very concerned with precision. Also, I don't like the additional layer between killer and...I don't wanna say victim so "killee?" Killing someone is a big deal. So much so that we have a physiological aversion to doing so. Creating this much distance between killing and death might make it too easy. Look, I'm apprehensive. And I think justifiably so. I'm not saying END ALL DRONE PROGRAMS because, like I said in my first post, I'd prefer we didn't have to send our men into danger as well. I'm just worried for innocent people on the other side who don't have the luxury of their own automated warfare. The collateral damage that the US (or anyone in NATO, whatever) inflicts is actually really, really low. I think you're being pretty unfair on the highly trained individuals within the armed forces who I'm sure *are* very concerned with precision - unless you have evidence to the contrary? The fact that things can go wrong doesn't mean that the people are incompetent or don't care, it just means in war it's hard for everything to be puppies and flowers 100% of the time.
Yo:
http://www.cnn.com/2012/09/25/world/asia/pakistan-us-drone-strikes
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United Kingdom36156 Posts
On July 11 2013 23:48 Klondikebar wrote:Show nested quote +On July 11 2013 23:38 marvellosity wrote:On July 11 2013 23:34 Klondikebar wrote:On July 11 2013 23:27 marvellosity wrote:On July 11 2013 23:23 Klondikebar wrote:On July 11 2013 23:19 marvellosity wrote:On July 11 2013 23:17 Klondikebar wrote:On the one hand, yay we can stop sending actual humans to warzones. On the other hand, it just became a hell of a lot easier to commit a violent act. It will be superseded by a new robot jet capable of reconnaissance and strike missions to be deployed aboard carriers within six years. Navy commanders insist that it will only fire its weapons on the command of a human. I have approximately -6 units of faith in this but even so...why is that supposed to be reassuring? Humans are assholes. Obama loves to murder and pillage the middle east and he does that openly. I'm supposed to believe that some unnamed officer with even fewer public consequences is going to show more restraint? What's your complaint? It's a war-machine designed to blow shit up. Not sure where restraint comes into this. That maybe we shouldn't be blowing things up...and the fact that the tool exists means we're going to blow shit up. There will always be a need for things that blow shit up. Or at least for there to be the *potential* to blow shit up. If it weren't the US in a dominant technology+military spot, then it would be another country. The grass probably isn't greener on the other side. The US has the nasty habit of being a little too ok with "collateral damage." I'd prefer big-blowy-uppy-things not be in the hands of people who aren't very concerned with precision. Also, I don't like the additional layer between killer and...I don't wanna say victim so "killee?" Killing someone is a big deal. So much so that we have a physiological aversion to doing so. Creating this much distance between killing and death might make it too easy. Look, I'm apprehensive. And I think justifiably so. I'm not saying END ALL DRONE PROGRAMS because, like I said in my first post, I'd prefer we didn't have to send our men into danger as well. I'm just worried for innocent people on the other side who don't have the luxury of their own automated warfare. The collateral damage that the US (or anyone in NATO, whatever) inflicts is actually really, really low. I think you're being pretty unfair on the highly trained individuals within the armed forces who I'm sure *are* very concerned with precision - unless you have evidence to the contrary? The fact that things can go wrong doesn't mean that the people are incompetent or don't care, it just means in war it's hard for everything to be puppies and flowers 100% of the time. Yo: http://www.cnn.com/2012/09/25/world/asia/pakistan-us-drone-strikes
Any civilian casualties are theoretically too many civilian casualties, but from that article
However, an analysis by the New America Foundation says that the civilian casualty rate from drone strikes has been dropping sharply since 2008 despite the rising death toll.
"The number of civilians plus those individuals whose precise status could not be determined from media reports -- labeled 'unknowns' by NAF -- reported killed by drones in Pakistan during Obama's tenure in office were 11% of fatalities," said Bergen. "So far in 2012 it is close to 2%. Under President Bush it was 33%."
The foundation's analysis relies on credible media outlets in Pakistan, which in turn rely on Pakistani officials and local villagers' accounts, Bergen said, rather than on U.S. figures.
Still suggests collateral damage is pretty low.
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On July 11 2013 23:38 marvellosity wrote:Show nested quote +On July 11 2013 23:34 Klondikebar wrote:On July 11 2013 23:27 marvellosity wrote:On July 11 2013 23:23 Klondikebar wrote:On July 11 2013 23:19 marvellosity wrote:On July 11 2013 23:17 Klondikebar wrote:On the one hand, yay we can stop sending actual humans to warzones. On the other hand, it just became a hell of a lot easier to commit a violent act. It will be superseded by a new robot jet capable of reconnaissance and strike missions to be deployed aboard carriers within six years. Navy commanders insist that it will only fire its weapons on the command of a human. I have approximately -6 units of faith in this but even so...why is that supposed to be reassuring? Humans are assholes. Obama loves to murder and pillage the middle east and he does that openly. I'm supposed to believe that some unnamed officer with even fewer public consequences is going to show more restraint? What's your complaint? It's a war-machine designed to blow shit up. Not sure where restraint comes into this. That maybe we shouldn't be blowing things up...and the fact that the tool exists means we're going to blow shit up. There will always be a need for things that blow shit up. Or at least for there to be the *potential* to blow shit up. If it weren't the US in a dominant technology+military spot, then it would be another country. The grass probably isn't greener on the other side. The US has the nasty habit of being a little too ok with "collateral damage." I'd prefer big-blowy-uppy-things not be in the hands of people who aren't very concerned with precision. Also, I don't like the additional layer between killer and...I don't wanna say victim so "killee?" Killing someone is a big deal. So much so that we have a physiological aversion to doing so. Creating this much distance between killing and death might make it too easy. Look, I'm apprehensive. And I think justifiably so. I'm not saying END ALL DRONE PROGRAMS because, like I said in my first post, I'd prefer we didn't have to send our men into danger as well. I'm just worried for innocent people on the other side who don't have the luxury of their own automated warfare. The collateral damage that the US (or anyone in NATO, whatever) inflicts is actually really, really low. I think you're being pretty unfair on the highly trained individuals within the armed forces who I'm sure *are* very concerned with precision - unless you have evidence to the contrary? The fact that things can go wrong doesn't mean that the people are incompetent or don't care, it just means in war it's hard for everything to be puppies and flowers 100% of the time.
Yes there is evidence to the contrary, especially with drone strikes. Look up "signature strikes." (Sorry I can't provide evidence atm) And there are serious issues where we define "men" to be "enemy combatants." And even then we have collateral damage, in other words, killing women and children.
However I think a major problem is that the CIA is the one with drone strikes rather than the military. I think if you put the military decisions only in the hands of the military this would help a lot. This sounds more like a Navy thing, which is more comforting.
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EPT
