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On October 06 2012 11:13 Deathmanbob wrote:Show nested quote +On October 06 2012 09:31 kmillz wrote:
I have to ask...what has Obama done to move us "Forward" so far? This is a serious question, I am not trolling, but the numbers just show unemployment and the debt worse since he has been in office. No "Romney's plan is worse" comments, I just want to hear what Obama has done positively for this country so far and why he deserves a second term. ill do it in bullet system if thats okay with you, also ill generalize. If you want more details later ill be happy to give them - Signed the fair pay act for women -Signed the auto bailout which saved GM from bankruptcy - 30 straight months of private sector job growth - Signed into law restrictions on credit card fees - Signed into law bank reforms - Signed into law healthcare reform (first president to ever do this) - Unemployment down below when he was sworn into office (jobs number today has unemployment at 7.8%) - killed OBL - Lower taxes for households earning less then 250k a year those are the major ones i can think of off the top of my head
Don't forget the repeal of DADT 
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2nd Worst City in CA8938 Posts
On October 06 2012 11:13 Deathmanbob wrote:Show nested quote +On October 06 2012 09:31 kmillz wrote:
I have to ask...what has Obama done to move us "Forward" so far? This is a serious question, I am not trolling, but the numbers just show unemployment and the debt worse since he has been in office. No "Romney's plan is worse" comments, I just want to hear what Obama has done positively for this country so far and why he deserves a second term. ill do it in bullet system if thats okay with you, also ill generalize. If you want more details later ill be happy to give them - Signed the fair pay act for women -Signed the auto bailout which saved GM from bankruptcy - 30 straight months of private sector job growth - Signed into law restrictions on credit card fees - Signed into law bank reforms - Signed into law healthcare reform (first president to ever do this) - Unemployment down below when he was sworn into office (jobs number today has unemployment at 7.8%) - killed OBL - Lower taxes for households earning less then 250k a year those are the major ones i can think of off the top of my head
- Repealed DADT
- Student loan reform
- Head Start Education Program
- Renewed military relations with New Zealand
- Multiple tax cuts for small businesses
- Assassination of Bin Laden and many Al Qaeda leaders
- Blocked the Keystone Pipeline
- Stricter regulation for offshore oil drilling (though it came after the BP Gulf Spill)
That's some more that I can remember atm, not including everything else that's been mentioned so far. The last two are controversial but to me they are much welcomed. We do not want another environmental disaster on our hands the size of the BP blunder.
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On October 06 2012 11:31 Souma wrote:We do not want another environmental disaster on our hands the size of the BP blunder.
Oh brother have I got news for you
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2nd Worst City in CA8938 Posts
On October 06 2012 11:57 sam!zdat wrote:Show nested quote +On October 06 2012 11:31 Souma wrote:We do not want another environmental disaster on our hands the size of the BP blunder. Oh brother have I got news for you
Did I miss/forget something? o_O
Or was that a jab at global warming?
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On October 06 2012 12:00 Souma wrote:Show nested quote +On October 06 2012 11:57 sam!zdat wrote:On October 06 2012 11:31 Souma wrote:We do not want another environmental disaster on our hands the size of the BP blunder. Oh brother have I got news for you Did I miss/forget something? o_O Or was that a jab at global warming?
We have all kinds of problems. water (pollution and aquifer depletion), monoculture and industrial agriculture in general, air pollution, climate change, loss of biodiversity, overfishing, all kinds of terrible shit happening to oceans, habitat destruction (not just bad for cute fuzzies and charismatic megafauna), future reactor issues (if you think we've seen the last of these I have a bridge to sell you), deforestation, electronic waste disposal. Not to mention the purely sentimental&aesthetic concern of having a nice pretty planet to live on.
You have not even begun to see environmental disasters.
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2nd Worst City in CA8938 Posts
On October 06 2012 12:13 sam!zdat wrote:Show nested quote +On October 06 2012 12:00 Souma wrote:On October 06 2012 11:57 sam!zdat wrote:On October 06 2012 11:31 Souma wrote:We do not want another environmental disaster on our hands the size of the BP blunder. Oh brother have I got news for you Did I miss/forget something? o_O Or was that a jab at global warming? We have all kinds of problems. water (pollution and aquifer depletion), monoculture and industrial agriculture in general, air pollution, climate change, loss of biodiversity, overfishing, all kinds of terrible shit happening to oceans, habitat destruction (not just bad for cute fuzzies and charismatic megafauna), future reactor issues (if you think we've seen the last of these I have a bridge to sell you), deforestation, electronic waste disposal. Not to mention the purely sentimental&aesthetic concern of having a nice pretty planet to live on. You have not even begun to see environmental disasters.
You're so pessimistic. Shit's bad but it's not spontaneous and as overwhelming as the BP spill--not yet, anyway. Though if you added everything up through the years then yeah, it's pretty bad.
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On October 06 2012 12:19 Souma wrote:Show nested quote +On October 06 2012 12:13 sam!zdat wrote:On October 06 2012 12:00 Souma wrote:On October 06 2012 11:57 sam!zdat wrote:On October 06 2012 11:31 Souma wrote:We do not want another environmental disaster on our hands the size of the BP blunder. Oh brother have I got news for you Did I miss/forget something? o_O Or was that a jab at global warming? We have all kinds of problems. water (pollution and aquifer depletion), monoculture and industrial agriculture in general, air pollution, climate change, loss of biodiversity, overfishing, all kinds of terrible shit happening to oceans, habitat destruction (not just bad for cute fuzzies and charismatic megafauna), future reactor issues (if you think we've seen the last of these I have a bridge to sell you), deforestation, electronic waste disposal. Not to mention the purely sentimental&aesthetic concern of having a nice pretty planet to live on. You have not even begun to see environmental disasters. You're so pessimistic. Shit's bad but it's not spontaneous and as overwhelming as the BP spill--not yet, anyway. Though if you added everything up through the years then yeah, it's pretty bad.
No, I'm an optimist. I think we still have a chance.
(the most dangerous thing about environmental problems is that they are not spontaneous and overwhelming. frogs in a pot, my friend)
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2nd Worst City in CA8938 Posts
On October 06 2012 12:21 sam!zdat wrote:Show nested quote +On October 06 2012 12:19 Souma wrote:On October 06 2012 12:13 sam!zdat wrote:On October 06 2012 12:00 Souma wrote:On October 06 2012 11:57 sam!zdat wrote:On October 06 2012 11:31 Souma wrote:We do not want another environmental disaster on our hands the size of the BP blunder. Oh brother have I got news for you Did I miss/forget something? o_O Or was that a jab at global warming? We have all kinds of problems. water (pollution and aquifer depletion), monoculture and industrial agriculture in general, air pollution, climate change, loss of biodiversity, overfishing, all kinds of terrible shit happening to oceans, habitat destruction (not just bad for cute fuzzies and charismatic megafauna), future reactor issues (if you think we've seen the last of these I have a bridge to sell you), deforestation, electronic waste disposal. Not to mention the purely sentimental&aesthetic concern of having a nice pretty planet to live on. You have not even begun to see environmental disasters. You're so pessimistic. Shit's bad but it's not spontaneous and as overwhelming as the BP spill--not yet, anyway. Though if you added everything up through the years then yeah, it's pretty bad. No, I'm an optimist. I think we still have a chance. (the most dangerous thing about environmental problems is that they are not spontaneous and overwhelming. frogs in a pot, my friend)
An optimist in this case would say it's more than just a chance. 
And yeah, you can definitely make that case, but at least we still have time to mend many of our problems. A giant spontaneous disaster, however, can be absolutely destructive on so many levels.
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On October 06 2012 12:21 sam!zdat wrote:Show nested quote +On October 06 2012 12:19 Souma wrote:On October 06 2012 12:13 sam!zdat wrote:On October 06 2012 12:00 Souma wrote:On October 06 2012 11:57 sam!zdat wrote:On October 06 2012 11:31 Souma wrote:We do not want another environmental disaster on our hands the size of the BP blunder. Oh brother have I got news for you Did I miss/forget something? o_O Or was that a jab at global warming? We have all kinds of problems. water (pollution and aquifer depletion), monoculture and industrial agriculture in general, air pollution, climate change, loss of biodiversity, overfishing, all kinds of terrible shit happening to oceans, habitat destruction (not just bad for cute fuzzies and charismatic megafauna), future reactor issues (if you think we've seen the last of these I have a bridge to sell you), deforestation, electronic waste disposal. Not to mention the purely sentimental&aesthetic concern of having a nice pretty planet to live on. You have not even begun to see environmental disasters. You're so pessimistic. Shit's bad but it's not spontaneous and as overwhelming as the BP spill--not yet, anyway. Though if you added everything up through the years then yeah, it's pretty bad. No, I'm an optimist. I think we still have a chance. (the most dangerous thing about environmental problems is that they are not spontaneous and overwhelming. frogs in a pot, my friend)
Or lobsters in the bucket I dare say.
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On October 06 2012 09:17 Defacer wrote:Show nested quote +On October 06 2012 08:57 coverpunch wrote:On October 06 2012 08:34 harlock78 wrote:On October 06 2012 07:48 coverpunch wrote:On October 06 2012 07:40 harlock78 wrote:On October 06 2012 07:32 coverpunch wrote:On October 06 2012 07:18 harlock78 wrote:On October 06 2012 07:11 coverpunch wrote:On October 06 2012 06:57 DoubleReed wrote:On October 06 2012 06:48 coverpunch wrote:
[quote]
I have an issue with that phrasing because the rich aren't "getting" anything. They get to KEEP more money that they earned or produced in income. The discussion of whether a CEO or professional athlete or banker "deserves" their income is for a different day.
Also, your historical argument for taxes on the rich is highly fallacious and subject to historical context. Getting, keeping, whatever. You know what I mean. Efficiency is what economies are all about. We want to be efficient. As for context for cutting taxes for the rich, I'm talking about recent history in America (like since the 1970s), where we have made plenty of tax cuts for the rich. Over and over and over again. It's not whatever because it changes the frame of mind. You're imagining income to be a giant pie and the rich are greedy bastards taking a disproportionately large slice for themselves while leaving the crumbs for the poor. You get a very different image if you think of it as the rich being the most productive members of society cranking out the most and best utility. This colors the notion of fairness greatly. In the former, it seems fair to take from the rich and give everyone the same size pie. In the latter, that looks enormously unfair as you're asking one person to work their ass off and another might do nothing and they get the same amount in the end. As for historical context, that's a losing argument. There are conditions in which we can have high taxes and high growth and high taxes and low growth. But you have to agree that what matters first and foremost is growth. If we have no growth, then there will be no prosperity for either the rich or poor. The rich can bear tough times better, but they also need growth sooner or later. In bold is an assumption I always see but completely unproven. For example how is a CEO more productive than all his engineers or scientists. Was Steve Jobs more productive than Wozniak? Or that crazy australian hiress Gina Rinehart? Einstein was never a millionaire. Even if you assume the market price is the "just" assessment of productivity and usefulness, the current market is rigged. Can't take it as fair in any way. The current market is rigged by people's perceptions. But that's how the market works. What matters is whether people can do things that spark your imagination and open your wallet to the product of their ideas. It's not that this is the best or most fair way of measuring things, but it's the way that everyone can understand. You can talk about your admiration for Einstein all you want, but do you admire him enough to buy books written by him or donate to his family's estate? That's your own choice. But don't tell me or society that you have this huge love for something if you don't trade your limited resources for it because it's just empty platitudes. The current market is rigged by incestual boards and several companies with massive financial power able to bend it the way they want. From differential access to information to little arrangements with legality, the whole thing now is rigged. Then there is the issue of fairness. Without Einstein, then the engineers developping the idea, there is no GPS. I contest that productivity=usefulness for society in that sense. So yes you can measure productivity your way, but then societal adjustment (via government, taxes etc..) should try to reach for more fairness. Your second point gets to the heart of the matter. Who gets to measure fairness? My contention is that it should be left to individuals in the market. The government should protect individuals only by curtailing frauds and corruption in the market and administering justice through predictable and open sets of law. Which is broadly how it works in the United States. You can come up with specific counterexamples, but generally the system works. The problem with your first point is that you're in an unacceptable place. Why should I vote to re-elect Obama, who has kept incestuous boards and companies with massive financial power when he clearly had the opportunity to hammer them down? I will agree with you that one thing I am furious with about President Obama is that he has made the clear and conscious decision that he isn't going to pursue and root out frauds that the big banks perpetrated in the last decade. On your second point, I agree in general with you that Obama hasn't done all he should and could have done regarding to corruption and fraud. In some case he didn't really have a choice though (2008 stimulus to insure not only the big banks but also the whole industrial tissue and small business depending on them). But he should have gone further and was not helped by republicans in that matter. Maybe you are also thinking of more specifics, like preferential funding for green energy companies etc... This is complicated and comes back in a way to your first point and our fundamental disagreement. First I don't think the market is really the result of individuals wishes. Individuals are not that free, and in real life, many other factors make the market imperfect. I would propose an analogy: natural selection is the "market" of the evolution of life on earth. It favors whatever is "fit" in a given environment. But society can decide that what is "fit" or "unfit" is not necessarily what is best or worse. And that maybe natural selection is "short sighted". For example we try to protect species about to go extinct (giving subsidies and incentives to populations who would otherwise hunt and destroy it). We spend a lot of energy on medicines (public research), or environmental preservation, in hope that in the long run, it will increase the general welfare and well being. I think your analogy is okay. There's a difference between saying the market is a collection of individual choices and that any single individual has the power to move markets, however. The important difference IMO is that the market has feedback mechanisms that can correct mistakes. Let's make it clear that the market is far from perfect, many people make mistakes or bad decisions. But the problem with a government-driven system, as borne out in more authoritarian systems, is that the government is very slow to admit it has made mistakes and even slower to change bad policies as an even bigger admission that a mistake was made. In the market, we really don't care that bad companies go bust all the time and we're not afraid to criticize or jeer at companies that produce bad products (or most devastating, not buy their products). Bringing it to the election, Ww see this with the Obama administration on Benghazi, where it has been VERY slow to admit errors were made, and we see this with the Romney campaign, which has made many mistakes but tried to act like they're victims of a liberal bias. I try to avoid debates related to the economy, because I feel there are a lot of fine posters in this thread that have a better understanding of economics than I do. But I have some open questions. Aren't their cases of the market being slow to change as well? Or the market being too easy to 'game'? It seems to me there is something wonky about a market where a consulting agency, like Bain Capital, can make profit in companies they invest in, regardless if they succeed or fail. That's not to meant to be criticism of Romney or Bain, but -- it is a perfect example of how the market is profit-driven, not innovation or solution-driven, and its a fallacy to assume there is a relationship between the two. And aren't their instances where the government has facilitated innovation, or created a demand for it, in meaningful ways? Think of all the advances made in technology as a by-product of the space race, or investing in defense. If Bill Gates didn't have free access to the supercomputers at the University of Washington, would he have succeeded? A lot of people criticize Obama's investment in Green Energy. Yes, Solyndra bombed, but it was one project in a whole portfolio of successful ones (that Obama's campaign has done a HORRIBLE job of defending). But, at least in the past, it's this kind of government-triggered 'intervention' in the market that has lead to creation of new opportunities, markets, and technologies. How is increasing spending for Green Energy any different than ... increasing Defense spending for no particular reason? They're both forms of 'crony' capitalism, if you're cynical enough to think that way. Edit: I like your analogy with the campaigns themselves by the way. Both the Obama administration and Romney campaign are quick to blame everyone other then themselves for their problems. Fucking politics.
Bain really didn't turn a profit on companies that failed. What happened in some cases is that they bought the company, it improved, Bain then sold a portion its stake in the company (at a profit) and the later down the road the company failed (and Bain suffered a loss). Bain wasn't doing anything to profit at everyone else's expense.
As for Solyndra, yes the vast majority of DOE loans are perfectly safe loans. All the DOE loans do is give green projects a slightly lower interest rate than they would get in the private market. They aren't a big deal either way, but then I fail to see the point of them since they don't really do much.
What is a big deal are the tax credits the government gives to finance solar / wind. They are huge - 30%+ of the cost paid for - and while they do help make the environment cleaner they also don't do the economy any good. You can make then case that long-term solar / wind will be valuable industries but even then why bother when other countries are already spending huge sums of money to develop them (and not at the expense of US companies either).
Are there things the government does better than the private sector? Absolutely! But when you look at something like green energy I really think the government is doing the wrong thing. The government is indispensable at helping to develop new technologies - not push them into the marketplace. So IMO the government should be spending its money helping universities develop the latest tech, keep the playing field level and end its role there.
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On October 06 2012 12:25 Souma wrote:Show nested quote +On October 06 2012 12:21 sam!zdat wrote:On October 06 2012 12:19 Souma wrote:On October 06 2012 12:13 sam!zdat wrote:On October 06 2012 12:00 Souma wrote:On October 06 2012 11:57 sam!zdat wrote:On October 06 2012 11:31 Souma wrote:We do not want another environmental disaster on our hands the size of the BP blunder. Oh brother have I got news for you Did I miss/forget something? o_O Or was that a jab at global warming? We have all kinds of problems. water (pollution and aquifer depletion), monoculture and industrial agriculture in general, air pollution, climate change, loss of biodiversity, overfishing, all kinds of terrible shit happening to oceans, habitat destruction (not just bad for cute fuzzies and charismatic megafauna), future reactor issues (if you think we've seen the last of these I have a bridge to sell you), deforestation, electronic waste disposal. Not to mention the purely sentimental&aesthetic concern of having a nice pretty planet to live on. You have not even begun to see environmental disasters. You're so pessimistic. Shit's bad but it's not spontaneous and as overwhelming as the BP spill--not yet, anyway. Though if you added everything up through the years then yeah, it's pretty bad. No, I'm an optimist. I think we still have a chance. (the most dangerous thing about environmental problems is that they are not spontaneous and overwhelming. frogs in a pot, my friend) An optimist in this case would say it's more than just a chance.
No, that is someone who does not appreciate the magnitude of the problem.
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On October 06 2012 12:25 JonnyBNoHo wrote:Show nested quote +On October 06 2012 09:17 Defacer wrote:On October 06 2012 08:57 coverpunch wrote:On October 06 2012 08:34 harlock78 wrote:On October 06 2012 07:48 coverpunch wrote:On October 06 2012 07:40 harlock78 wrote:On October 06 2012 07:32 coverpunch wrote:On October 06 2012 07:18 harlock78 wrote:On October 06 2012 07:11 coverpunch wrote:On October 06 2012 06:57 DoubleReed wrote:
[quote]
Getting, keeping, whatever. You know what I mean. Efficiency is what economies are all about. We want to be efficient.
As for context for cutting taxes for the rich, I'm talking about recent history in America (like since the 1970s), where we have made plenty of tax cuts for the rich. Over and over and over again. It's not whatever because it changes the frame of mind. You're imagining income to be a giant pie and the rich are greedy bastards taking a disproportionately large slice for themselves while leaving the crumbs for the poor. You get a very different image if you think of it as the rich being the most productive members of society cranking out the most and best utility. This colors the notion of fairness greatly. In the former, it seems fair to take from the rich and give everyone the same size pie. In the latter, that looks enormously unfair as you're asking one person to work their ass off and another might do nothing and they get the same amount in the end. As for historical context, that's a losing argument. There are conditions in which we can have high taxes and high growth and high taxes and low growth. But you have to agree that what matters first and foremost is growth. If we have no growth, then there will be no prosperity for either the rich or poor. The rich can bear tough times better, but they also need growth sooner or later. In bold is an assumption I always see but completely unproven. For example how is a CEO more productive than all his engineers or scientists. Was Steve Jobs more productive than Wozniak? Or that crazy australian hiress Gina Rinehart? Einstein was never a millionaire. Even if you assume the market price is the "just" assessment of productivity and usefulness, the current market is rigged. Can't take it as fair in any way. The current market is rigged by people's perceptions. But that's how the market works. What matters is whether people can do things that spark your imagination and open your wallet to the product of their ideas. It's not that this is the best or most fair way of measuring things, but it's the way that everyone can understand. You can talk about your admiration for Einstein all you want, but do you admire him enough to buy books written by him or donate to his family's estate? That's your own choice. But don't tell me or society that you have this huge love for something if you don't trade your limited resources for it because it's just empty platitudes. The current market is rigged by incestual boards and several companies with massive financial power able to bend it the way they want. From differential access to information to little arrangements with legality, the whole thing now is rigged. Then there is the issue of fairness. Without Einstein, then the engineers developping the idea, there is no GPS. I contest that productivity=usefulness for society in that sense. So yes you can measure productivity your way, but then societal adjustment (via government, taxes etc..) should try to reach for more fairness. Your second point gets to the heart of the matter. Who gets to measure fairness? My contention is that it should be left to individuals in the market. The government should protect individuals only by curtailing frauds and corruption in the market and administering justice through predictable and open sets of law. Which is broadly how it works in the United States. You can come up with specific counterexamples, but generally the system works. The problem with your first point is that you're in an unacceptable place. Why should I vote to re-elect Obama, who has kept incestuous boards and companies with massive financial power when he clearly had the opportunity to hammer them down? I will agree with you that one thing I am furious with about President Obama is that he has made the clear and conscious decision that he isn't going to pursue and root out frauds that the big banks perpetrated in the last decade. On your second point, I agree in general with you that Obama hasn't done all he should and could have done regarding to corruption and fraud. In some case he didn't really have a choice though (2008 stimulus to insure not only the big banks but also the whole industrial tissue and small business depending on them). But he should have gone further and was not helped by republicans in that matter. Maybe you are also thinking of more specifics, like preferential funding for green energy companies etc... This is complicated and comes back in a way to your first point and our fundamental disagreement. First I don't think the market is really the result of individuals wishes. Individuals are not that free, and in real life, many other factors make the market imperfect. I would propose an analogy: natural selection is the "market" of the evolution of life on earth. It favors whatever is "fit" in a given environment. But society can decide that what is "fit" or "unfit" is not necessarily what is best or worse. And that maybe natural selection is "short sighted". For example we try to protect species about to go extinct (giving subsidies and incentives to populations who would otherwise hunt and destroy it). We spend a lot of energy on medicines (public research), or environmental preservation, in hope that in the long run, it will increase the general welfare and well being. I think your analogy is okay. There's a difference between saying the market is a collection of individual choices and that any single individual has the power to move markets, however. The important difference IMO is that the market has feedback mechanisms that can correct mistakes. Let's make it clear that the market is far from perfect, many people make mistakes or bad decisions. But the problem with a government-driven system, as borne out in more authoritarian systems, is that the government is very slow to admit it has made mistakes and even slower to change bad policies as an even bigger admission that a mistake was made. In the market, we really don't care that bad companies go bust all the time and we're not afraid to criticize or jeer at companies that produce bad products (or most devastating, not buy their products). Bringing it to the election, Ww see this with the Obama administration on Benghazi, where it has been VERY slow to admit errors were made, and we see this with the Romney campaign, which has made many mistakes but tried to act like they're victims of a liberal bias. I try to avoid debates related to the economy, because I feel there are a lot of fine posters in this thread that have a better understanding of economics than I do. But I have some open questions. Aren't their cases of the market being slow to change as well? Or the market being too easy to 'game'? It seems to me there is something wonky about a market where a consulting agency, like Bain Capital, can make profit in companies they invest in, regardless if they succeed or fail. That's not to meant to be criticism of Romney or Bain, but -- it is a perfect example of how the market is profit-driven, not innovation or solution-driven, and its a fallacy to assume there is a relationship between the two. And aren't their instances where the government has facilitated innovation, or created a demand for it, in meaningful ways? Think of all the advances made in technology as a by-product of the space race, or investing in defense. If Bill Gates didn't have free access to the supercomputers at the University of Washington, would he have succeeded? A lot of people criticize Obama's investment in Green Energy. Yes, Solyndra bombed, but it was one project in a whole portfolio of successful ones (that Obama's campaign has done a HORRIBLE job of defending). But, at least in the past, it's this kind of government-triggered 'intervention' in the market that has lead to creation of new opportunities, markets, and technologies. How is increasing spending for Green Energy any different than ... increasing Defense spending for no particular reason? They're both forms of 'crony' capitalism, if you're cynical enough to think that way. Edit: I like your analogy with the campaigns themselves by the way. Both the Obama administration and Romney campaign are quick to blame everyone other then themselves for their problems. Fucking politics. Are there things the government does better than the private sector? Absolutely! But when you look at something like green energy I really think the government is doing the wrong thing. The government is indispensable at helping to develop new technologies - not push them into the marketplace. So IMO the government should be spending its money helping universities develop the latest tech, keep the playing field level and end its role there.
But when big oil spends as much money as it does to keep the energy market stagnant, something external must be done.
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On October 06 2012 12:28 farvacola wrote:Show nested quote +On October 06 2012 12:25 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On October 06 2012 09:17 Defacer wrote:On October 06 2012 08:57 coverpunch wrote:On October 06 2012 08:34 harlock78 wrote:On October 06 2012 07:48 coverpunch wrote:On October 06 2012 07:40 harlock78 wrote:On October 06 2012 07:32 coverpunch wrote:On October 06 2012 07:18 harlock78 wrote:On October 06 2012 07:11 coverpunch wrote:
[quote]
It's not whatever because it changes the frame of mind. You're imagining income to be a giant pie and the rich are greedy bastards taking a disproportionately large slice for themselves while leaving the crumbs for the poor. You get a very different image if you think of it as the rich being the most productive members of society cranking out the most and best utility.
This colors the notion of fairness greatly. In the former, it seems fair to take from the rich and give everyone the same size pie. In the latter, that looks enormously unfair as you're asking one person to work their ass off and another might do nothing and they get the same amount in the end.
As for historical context, that's a losing argument. There are conditions in which we can have high taxes and high growth and high taxes and low growth. But you have to agree that what matters first and foremost is growth. If we have no growth, then there will be no prosperity for either the rich or poor. The rich can bear tough times better, but they also need growth sooner or later. In bold is an assumption I always see but completely unproven. For example how is a CEO more productive than all his engineers or scientists. Was Steve Jobs more productive than Wozniak? Or that crazy australian hiress Gina Rinehart? Einstein was never a millionaire. Even if you assume the market price is the "just" assessment of productivity and usefulness, the current market is rigged. Can't take it as fair in any way. The current market is rigged by people's perceptions. But that's how the market works. What matters is whether people can do things that spark your imagination and open your wallet to the product of their ideas. It's not that this is the best or most fair way of measuring things, but it's the way that everyone can understand. You can talk about your admiration for Einstein all you want, but do you admire him enough to buy books written by him or donate to his family's estate? That's your own choice. But don't tell me or society that you have this huge love for something if you don't trade your limited resources for it because it's just empty platitudes. The current market is rigged by incestual boards and several companies with massive financial power able to bend it the way they want. From differential access to information to little arrangements with legality, the whole thing now is rigged. Then there is the issue of fairness. Without Einstein, then the engineers developping the idea, there is no GPS. I contest that productivity=usefulness for society in that sense. So yes you can measure productivity your way, but then societal adjustment (via government, taxes etc..) should try to reach for more fairness. Your second point gets to the heart of the matter. Who gets to measure fairness? My contention is that it should be left to individuals in the market. The government should protect individuals only by curtailing frauds and corruption in the market and administering justice through predictable and open sets of law. Which is broadly how it works in the United States. You can come up with specific counterexamples, but generally the system works. The problem with your first point is that you're in an unacceptable place. Why should I vote to re-elect Obama, who has kept incestuous boards and companies with massive financial power when he clearly had the opportunity to hammer them down? I will agree with you that one thing I am furious with about President Obama is that he has made the clear and conscious decision that he isn't going to pursue and root out frauds that the big banks perpetrated in the last decade. On your second point, I agree in general with you that Obama hasn't done all he should and could have done regarding to corruption and fraud. In some case he didn't really have a choice though (2008 stimulus to insure not only the big banks but also the whole industrial tissue and small business depending on them). But he should have gone further and was not helped by republicans in that matter. Maybe you are also thinking of more specifics, like preferential funding for green energy companies etc... This is complicated and comes back in a way to your first point and our fundamental disagreement. First I don't think the market is really the result of individuals wishes. Individuals are not that free, and in real life, many other factors make the market imperfect. I would propose an analogy: natural selection is the "market" of the evolution of life on earth. It favors whatever is "fit" in a given environment. But society can decide that what is "fit" or "unfit" is not necessarily what is best or worse. And that maybe natural selection is "short sighted". For example we try to protect species about to go extinct (giving subsidies and incentives to populations who would otherwise hunt and destroy it). We spend a lot of energy on medicines (public research), or environmental preservation, in hope that in the long run, it will increase the general welfare and well being. I think your analogy is okay. There's a difference between saying the market is a collection of individual choices and that any single individual has the power to move markets, however. The important difference IMO is that the market has feedback mechanisms that can correct mistakes. Let's make it clear that the market is far from perfect, many people make mistakes or bad decisions. But the problem with a government-driven system, as borne out in more authoritarian systems, is that the government is very slow to admit it has made mistakes and even slower to change bad policies as an even bigger admission that a mistake was made. In the market, we really don't care that bad companies go bust all the time and we're not afraid to criticize or jeer at companies that produce bad products (or most devastating, not buy their products). Bringing it to the election, Ww see this with the Obama administration on Benghazi, where it has been VERY slow to admit errors were made, and we see this with the Romney campaign, which has made many mistakes but tried to act like they're victims of a liberal bias. I try to avoid debates related to the economy, because I feel there are a lot of fine posters in this thread that have a better understanding of economics than I do. But I have some open questions. Aren't their cases of the market being slow to change as well? Or the market being too easy to 'game'? It seems to me there is something wonky about a market where a consulting agency, like Bain Capital, can make profit in companies they invest in, regardless if they succeed or fail. That's not to meant to be criticism of Romney or Bain, but -- it is a perfect example of how the market is profit-driven, not innovation or solution-driven, and its a fallacy to assume there is a relationship between the two. And aren't their instances where the government has facilitated innovation, or created a demand for it, in meaningful ways? Think of all the advances made in technology as a by-product of the space race, or investing in defense. If Bill Gates didn't have free access to the supercomputers at the University of Washington, would he have succeeded? A lot of people criticize Obama's investment in Green Energy. Yes, Solyndra bombed, but it was one project in a whole portfolio of successful ones (that Obama's campaign has done a HORRIBLE job of defending). But, at least in the past, it's this kind of government-triggered 'intervention' in the market that has lead to creation of new opportunities, markets, and technologies. How is increasing spending for Green Energy any different than ... increasing Defense spending for no particular reason? They're both forms of 'crony' capitalism, if you're cynical enough to think that way. Edit: I like your analogy with the campaigns themselves by the way. Both the Obama administration and Romney campaign are quick to blame everyone other then themselves for their problems. Fucking politics. Are there things the government does better than the private sector? Absolutely! But when you look at something like green energy I really think the government is doing the wrong thing. The government is indispensable at helping to develop new technologies - not push them into the marketplace. So IMO the government should be spending its money helping universities develop the latest tech, keep the playing field level and end its role there. But when big oil spends as much money as it does to keep the energy market stagnant, something external must be done.
I got a long list of "external" things I'd like to do to big oil
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2nd Worst City in CA8938 Posts
On October 06 2012 12:26 sam!zdat wrote:Show nested quote +On October 06 2012 12:25 Souma wrote:On October 06 2012 12:21 sam!zdat wrote:On October 06 2012 12:19 Souma wrote:On October 06 2012 12:13 sam!zdat wrote:On October 06 2012 12:00 Souma wrote:On October 06 2012 11:57 sam!zdat wrote:On October 06 2012 11:31 Souma wrote:We do not want another environmental disaster on our hands the size of the BP blunder. Oh brother have I got news for you Did I miss/forget something? o_O Or was that a jab at global warming? We have all kinds of problems. water (pollution and aquifer depletion), monoculture and industrial agriculture in general, air pollution, climate change, loss of biodiversity, overfishing, all kinds of terrible shit happening to oceans, habitat destruction (not just bad for cute fuzzies and charismatic megafauna), future reactor issues (if you think we've seen the last of these I have a bridge to sell you), deforestation, electronic waste disposal. Not to mention the purely sentimental&aesthetic concern of having a nice pretty planet to live on. You have not even begun to see environmental disasters. You're so pessimistic. Shit's bad but it's not spontaneous and as overwhelming as the BP spill--not yet, anyway. Though if you added everything up through the years then yeah, it's pretty bad. No, I'm an optimist. I think we still have a chance. (the most dangerous thing about environmental problems is that they are not spontaneous and overwhelming. frogs in a pot, my friend) An optimist in this case would say it's more than just a chance. No, that is someone who does not appreciate the magnitude of the problem.
I'm a true optimist. I don't think it'll ever get to the point where it's 'too late.' Of course, that doesn't mean we should remain complacent, but I believe as the years go by, the public is becoming more aware of the environmental dangers surrounding us. We're lagging pretty bad (something I was reminded of every day I was in Japan) but the environmental lobby is getting stronger (or at least it is in California).
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Depends what your criteria for 'too late' are. Is life on Earth in danger? Fuck no, we couldn't destroy life on Earth if we tried. Is the human race going anywhere? No. Do we stand a good chance of going down in the history books as a bunch of stupid motherfuckers who fucked everything up for everybody else? bet yer ass
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2nd Worst City in CA8938 Posts
Oh, jeeze, if that's what you're worried about then rest assured, people will be reading about our stupidity 100 years from now regardless. The human race is still at the stage where we can't help but to be blundering fools.
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On October 06 2012 12:25 farvacola wrote:Show nested quote +On October 06 2012 12:21 sam!zdat wrote:On October 06 2012 12:19 Souma wrote:On October 06 2012 12:13 sam!zdat wrote:On October 06 2012 12:00 Souma wrote:On October 06 2012 11:57 sam!zdat wrote:On October 06 2012 11:31 Souma wrote:We do not want another environmental disaster on our hands the size of the BP blunder. Oh brother have I got news for you Did I miss/forget something? o_O Or was that a jab at global warming? We have all kinds of problems. water (pollution and aquifer depletion), monoculture and industrial agriculture in general, air pollution, climate change, loss of biodiversity, overfishing, all kinds of terrible shit happening to oceans, habitat destruction (not just bad for cute fuzzies and charismatic megafauna), future reactor issues (if you think we've seen the last of these I have a bridge to sell you), deforestation, electronic waste disposal. Not to mention the purely sentimental&aesthetic concern of having a nice pretty planet to live on. You have not even begun to see environmental disasters. You're so pessimistic. Shit's bad but it's not spontaneous and as overwhelming as the BP spill--not yet, anyway. Though if you added everything up through the years then yeah, it's pretty bad. No, I'm an optimist. I think we still have a chance. (the most dangerous thing about environmental problems is that they are not spontaneous and overwhelming. frogs in a pot, my friend) Or lobsters in the bucket I dare say.
You've exceeded my analogical facility in the realm of small aquatic animals in vessels.
but there is indeed hope:
"In 2002 Dr. Victor H. Hutchison, Professor Emeritus of Zoology at the University of Oklahoma, with a research interest in thermal relations of amphibians, said that "The legend is entirely incorrect!". He described how the critical thermal maximum for many frog species has been determined by contemporary research experiments: as the water is heated by about 2 °F, or 1.1 °C, per minute, the frog becomes increasingly active as it tries to escape, and eventually jumps out if the container allows it."
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On October 06 2012 12:28 farvacola wrote:Show nested quote +On October 06 2012 12:25 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On October 06 2012 09:17 Defacer wrote:On October 06 2012 08:57 coverpunch wrote:On October 06 2012 08:34 harlock78 wrote:On October 06 2012 07:48 coverpunch wrote:On October 06 2012 07:40 harlock78 wrote:On October 06 2012 07:32 coverpunch wrote:On October 06 2012 07:18 harlock78 wrote:On October 06 2012 07:11 coverpunch wrote:
[quote]
It's not whatever because it changes the frame of mind. You're imagining income to be a giant pie and the rich are greedy bastards taking a disproportionately large slice for themselves while leaving the crumbs for the poor. You get a very different image if you think of it as the rich being the most productive members of society cranking out the most and best utility.
This colors the notion of fairness greatly. In the former, it seems fair to take from the rich and give everyone the same size pie. In the latter, that looks enormously unfair as you're asking one person to work their ass off and another might do nothing and they get the same amount in the end.
As for historical context, that's a losing argument. There are conditions in which we can have high taxes and high growth and high taxes and low growth. But you have to agree that what matters first and foremost is growth. If we have no growth, then there will be no prosperity for either the rich or poor. The rich can bear tough times better, but they also need growth sooner or later. In bold is an assumption I always see but completely unproven. For example how is a CEO more productive than all his engineers or scientists. Was Steve Jobs more productive than Wozniak? Or that crazy australian hiress Gina Rinehart? Einstein was never a millionaire. Even if you assume the market price is the "just" assessment of productivity and usefulness, the current market is rigged. Can't take it as fair in any way. The current market is rigged by people's perceptions. But that's how the market works. What matters is whether people can do things that spark your imagination and open your wallet to the product of their ideas. It's not that this is the best or most fair way of measuring things, but it's the way that everyone can understand. You can talk about your admiration for Einstein all you want, but do you admire him enough to buy books written by him or donate to his family's estate? That's your own choice. But don't tell me or society that you have this huge love for something if you don't trade your limited resources for it because it's just empty platitudes. The current market is rigged by incestual boards and several companies with massive financial power able to bend it the way they want. From differential access to information to little arrangements with legality, the whole thing now is rigged. Then there is the issue of fairness. Without Einstein, then the engineers developping the idea, there is no GPS. I contest that productivity=usefulness for society in that sense. So yes you can measure productivity your way, but then societal adjustment (via government, taxes etc..) should try to reach for more fairness. Your second point gets to the heart of the matter. Who gets to measure fairness? My contention is that it should be left to individuals in the market. The government should protect individuals only by curtailing frauds and corruption in the market and administering justice through predictable and open sets of law. Which is broadly how it works in the United States. You can come up with specific counterexamples, but generally the system works. The problem with your first point is that you're in an unacceptable place. Why should I vote to re-elect Obama, who has kept incestuous boards and companies with massive financial power when he clearly had the opportunity to hammer them down? I will agree with you that one thing I am furious with about President Obama is that he has made the clear and conscious decision that he isn't going to pursue and root out frauds that the big banks perpetrated in the last decade. On your second point, I agree in general with you that Obama hasn't done all he should and could have done regarding to corruption and fraud. In some case he didn't really have a choice though (2008 stimulus to insure not only the big banks but also the whole industrial tissue and small business depending on them). But he should have gone further and was not helped by republicans in that matter. Maybe you are also thinking of more specifics, like preferential funding for green energy companies etc... This is complicated and comes back in a way to your first point and our fundamental disagreement. First I don't think the market is really the result of individuals wishes. Individuals are not that free, and in real life, many other factors make the market imperfect. I would propose an analogy: natural selection is the "market" of the evolution of life on earth. It favors whatever is "fit" in a given environment. But society can decide that what is "fit" or "unfit" is not necessarily what is best or worse. And that maybe natural selection is "short sighted". For example we try to protect species about to go extinct (giving subsidies and incentives to populations who would otherwise hunt and destroy it). We spend a lot of energy on medicines (public research), or environmental preservation, in hope that in the long run, it will increase the general welfare and well being. I think your analogy is okay. There's a difference between saying the market is a collection of individual choices and that any single individual has the power to move markets, however. The important difference IMO is that the market has feedback mechanisms that can correct mistakes. Let's make it clear that the market is far from perfect, many people make mistakes or bad decisions. But the problem with a government-driven system, as borne out in more authoritarian systems, is that the government is very slow to admit it has made mistakes and even slower to change bad policies as an even bigger admission that a mistake was made. In the market, we really don't care that bad companies go bust all the time and we're not afraid to criticize or jeer at companies that produce bad products (or most devastating, not buy their products). Bringing it to the election, Ww see this with the Obama administration on Benghazi, where it has been VERY slow to admit errors were made, and we see this with the Romney campaign, which has made many mistakes but tried to act like they're victims of a liberal bias. I try to avoid debates related to the economy, because I feel there are a lot of fine posters in this thread that have a better understanding of economics than I do. But I have some open questions. Aren't their cases of the market being slow to change as well? Or the market being too easy to 'game'? It seems to me there is something wonky about a market where a consulting agency, like Bain Capital, can make profit in companies they invest in, regardless if they succeed or fail. That's not to meant to be criticism of Romney or Bain, but -- it is a perfect example of how the market is profit-driven, not innovation or solution-driven, and its a fallacy to assume there is a relationship between the two. And aren't their instances where the government has facilitated innovation, or created a demand for it, in meaningful ways? Think of all the advances made in technology as a by-product of the space race, or investing in defense. If Bill Gates didn't have free access to the supercomputers at the University of Washington, would he have succeeded? A lot of people criticize Obama's investment in Green Energy. Yes, Solyndra bombed, but it was one project in a whole portfolio of successful ones (that Obama's campaign has done a HORRIBLE job of defending). But, at least in the past, it's this kind of government-triggered 'intervention' in the market that has lead to creation of new opportunities, markets, and technologies. How is increasing spending for Green Energy any different than ... increasing Defense spending for no particular reason? They're both forms of 'crony' capitalism, if you're cynical enough to think that way. Edit: I like your analogy with the campaigns themselves by the way. Both the Obama administration and Romney campaign are quick to blame everyone other then themselves for their problems. Fucking politics. Are there things the government does better than the private sector? Absolutely! But when you look at something like green energy I really think the government is doing the wrong thing. The government is indispensable at helping to develop new technologies - not push them into the marketplace. So IMO the government should be spending its money helping universities develop the latest tech, keep the playing field level and end its role there. But when big oil spends as much money as it does to keep the energy market stagnant, something external must be done.
Sorry, could you explain?
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On October 06 2012 12:59 JonnyBNoHo wrote:Show nested quote +On October 06 2012 12:28 farvacola wrote:On October 06 2012 12:25 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On October 06 2012 09:17 Defacer wrote:On October 06 2012 08:57 coverpunch wrote:On October 06 2012 08:34 harlock78 wrote:On October 06 2012 07:48 coverpunch wrote:On October 06 2012 07:40 harlock78 wrote:On October 06 2012 07:32 coverpunch wrote:On October 06 2012 07:18 harlock78 wrote:
[quote]
In bold is an assumption I always see but completely unproven. For example how is a CEO more productive than all his engineers or scientists. Was Steve Jobs more productive than Wozniak? Or that crazy australian hiress Gina Rinehart? Einstein was never a millionaire.
Even if you assume the market price is the "just" assessment of productivity and usefulness, the current market is rigged. Can't take it as fair in any way. The current market is rigged by people's perceptions. But that's how the market works. What matters is whether people can do things that spark your imagination and open your wallet to the product of their ideas. It's not that this is the best or most fair way of measuring things, but it's the way that everyone can understand. You can talk about your admiration for Einstein all you want, but do you admire him enough to buy books written by him or donate to his family's estate? That's your own choice. But don't tell me or society that you have this huge love for something if you don't trade your limited resources for it because it's just empty platitudes. The current market is rigged by incestual boards and several companies with massive financial power able to bend it the way they want. From differential access to information to little arrangements with legality, the whole thing now is rigged. Then there is the issue of fairness. Without Einstein, then the engineers developping the idea, there is no GPS. I contest that productivity=usefulness for society in that sense. So yes you can measure productivity your way, but then societal adjustment (via government, taxes etc..) should try to reach for more fairness. Your second point gets to the heart of the matter. Who gets to measure fairness? My contention is that it should be left to individuals in the market. The government should protect individuals only by curtailing frauds and corruption in the market and administering justice through predictable and open sets of law. Which is broadly how it works in the United States. You can come up with specific counterexamples, but generally the system works. The problem with your first point is that you're in an unacceptable place. Why should I vote to re-elect Obama, who has kept incestuous boards and companies with massive financial power when he clearly had the opportunity to hammer them down? I will agree with you that one thing I am furious with about President Obama is that he has made the clear and conscious decision that he isn't going to pursue and root out frauds that the big banks perpetrated in the last decade. On your second point, I agree in general with you that Obama hasn't done all he should and could have done regarding to corruption and fraud. In some case he didn't really have a choice though (2008 stimulus to insure not only the big banks but also the whole industrial tissue and small business depending on them). But he should have gone further and was not helped by republicans in that matter. Maybe you are also thinking of more specifics, like preferential funding for green energy companies etc... This is complicated and comes back in a way to your first point and our fundamental disagreement. First I don't think the market is really the result of individuals wishes. Individuals are not that free, and in real life, many other factors make the market imperfect. I would propose an analogy: natural selection is the "market" of the evolution of life on earth. It favors whatever is "fit" in a given environment. But society can decide that what is "fit" or "unfit" is not necessarily what is best or worse. And that maybe natural selection is "short sighted". For example we try to protect species about to go extinct (giving subsidies and incentives to populations who would otherwise hunt and destroy it). We spend a lot of energy on medicines (public research), or environmental preservation, in hope that in the long run, it will increase the general welfare and well being. I think your analogy is okay. There's a difference between saying the market is a collection of individual choices and that any single individual has the power to move markets, however. The important difference IMO is that the market has feedback mechanisms that can correct mistakes. Let's make it clear that the market is far from perfect, many people make mistakes or bad decisions. But the problem with a government-driven system, as borne out in more authoritarian systems, is that the government is very slow to admit it has made mistakes and even slower to change bad policies as an even bigger admission that a mistake was made. In the market, we really don't care that bad companies go bust all the time and we're not afraid to criticize or jeer at companies that produce bad products (or most devastating, not buy their products). Bringing it to the election, Ww see this with the Obama administration on Benghazi, where it has been VERY slow to admit errors were made, and we see this with the Romney campaign, which has made many mistakes but tried to act like they're victims of a liberal bias. I try to avoid debates related to the economy, because I feel there are a lot of fine posters in this thread that have a better understanding of economics than I do. But I have some open questions. Aren't their cases of the market being slow to change as well? Or the market being too easy to 'game'? It seems to me there is something wonky about a market where a consulting agency, like Bain Capital, can make profit in companies they invest in, regardless if they succeed or fail. That's not to meant to be criticism of Romney or Bain, but -- it is a perfect example of how the market is profit-driven, not innovation or solution-driven, and its a fallacy to assume there is a relationship between the two. And aren't their instances where the government has facilitated innovation, or created a demand for it, in meaningful ways? Think of all the advances made in technology as a by-product of the space race, or investing in defense. If Bill Gates didn't have free access to the supercomputers at the University of Washington, would he have succeeded? A lot of people criticize Obama's investment in Green Energy. Yes, Solyndra bombed, but it was one project in a whole portfolio of successful ones (that Obama's campaign has done a HORRIBLE job of defending). But, at least in the past, it's this kind of government-triggered 'intervention' in the market that has lead to creation of new opportunities, markets, and technologies. How is increasing spending for Green Energy any different than ... increasing Defense spending for no particular reason? They're both forms of 'crony' capitalism, if you're cynical enough to think that way. Edit: I like your analogy with the campaigns themselves by the way. Both the Obama administration and Romney campaign are quick to blame everyone other then themselves for their problems. Fucking politics. Are there things the government does better than the private sector? Absolutely! But when you look at something like green energy I really think the government is doing the wrong thing. The government is indispensable at helping to develop new technologies - not push them into the marketplace. So IMO the government should be spending its money helping universities develop the latest tech, keep the playing field level and end its role there. But when big oil spends as much money as it does to keep the energy market stagnant, something external must be done. Sorry, could you explain?
I used to have an entire index of good material but here's some I found on a whim.
Here is an excellent little article on how Big Oil uses the cover of misplaced alternative fuel enthusiasm as a means of inflating profit and, consequently, disparaging the few legitimate "green" energy research opportunities in the process.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/larrybell/2012/05/22/how-big-oil-benefits-from-global-warming-alarmism/
Here is a short bit on Big Oil using pointed funding to guide university research.
http://www.polluterwatch.com/blog/study-finds-big-oil-money-controls-federal-research-spending-influences-academia
I realize the second one is a GreenPeace subsidiary, but the study cited is reputable and checks out.
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EPT
