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On January 16 2015 06:25 Nyxisto wrote:
Also consumption taxes are inherently regressive because rich and poor guys pay the same, so I think that's just pretty awful. I'd actually prefer to get rid of all taxes that are not income or wealth based.
The problem with those kind of taxes is that they're usually quite complex and full of loopholes. In the end a lot of taxes and tax breaks that strive for redistribution of income are a lot less effective than intended.
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On January 16 2015 06:25 Nyxisto wrote:
Also consumption taxes/tools are inherently regressive because rich and poor guys pay the same, so I think that's just pretty awful. I'd actually prefer to get rid of all taxes that are not income or wealth based.
Honestly, reducing consumption taxes would be fantastic for Germany. From a macro perspective higher German consumption would be good (current trade surplus is unsustainable). From an domestic perspective, German workers haven't been benefiting so much from economic improvements. Lower consumption taxes would help fix both - more consumption overall and more purchasing power for workers.
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On January 16 2015 05:10 RvB wrote:Show nested quote +On January 16 2015 04:21 mcc wrote:On January 16 2015 02:58 L1ghtning wrote:On January 16 2015 0139 Nyxisto wrote:
Sorry, but there is no space between "taxes are theft!111" and anarchism. Governments don't work without income. Taxes can't be theft if they're voluntary. For instance, I'm a supporter of road/toll taxes. Income taxes if voluntary are fine. Anyway. Although I strongly oppose to involuntary taxes as a concept, that's not where my main focus would lie. There are bigger issues than involuntary taxes. Things like regulations, which serves no purpose other than to restrict our abilities to trade on the open market. Taxes atleast serves some purpose. A state should follow constitutionalistic ideals though. They should not have the power to interfere with our freedoms, not even if the majority agrees. Voluntary taxes are not taxes, that is insurance. As for interfering with freedoms. Modern western states are the best protectors of your freedoms against the majority that history has ever known. How is voluntary taxes the same as insurance? For example voluntary taxes for infrastructure wouldn't be insurance. Edit: a lot of government programmes funded from 'coercive taxes' (for lack of a better word) is essentially insurance already, for example government paid pensions is a form of life insurance.
Exactly taxes already have a lot of in common with insurance. Voluntary taxes for infrastructure is more like shared investment. But shared investment is pretty close to insurance, but if you want you can extend my statement with "or shared investment". The main difference between taxes and insurance/investment is the coercion and the fact that it is state that manages them. If all taxes become voluntary state disappears and thus coercion also disappears. Those two aspects that differentiate taxes from insurance/investment are tied together.
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On January 16 2015 02:58 L1ghtning wrote:Show nested quote +On January 16 2015 0139 Nyxisto wrote:
Sorry, but there is no space between "taxes are theft!111" and anarchism. Governments don't work without income. Taxes can't be theft if they're voluntary. For instance, I'm a supporter of road/toll taxes. Income taxes if voluntary are fine. Anyway. Although I strongly oppose to involuntary taxes as a concept, that's not where my main focus would lie. There are bigger issues than involuntary taxes. Things like regulations, which serves no purpose other than to restrict our abilities to trade on the open market. Taxes atleast serves some purpose. A state should follow constitutionalistic ideals though. They should not have the power to interfere with our freedoms, not even if the majority agrees.
The individual is certainly the most important thing, the individual needs protections to pursue their happiness.
The individual wants a strong rule of law to protect him from other individuals.
He wants regulations to protect him from businesses.
He wants a strong constitution to protect him from the state's regulations and rule of law.
He is willing to bargain and pay for these protections and services with the fruits of his pursuit of happiness.
All of these interlocking pieces must be kept in balance by educated, informed, and engaged individuals constantly. Blindly hoping a state follows "constitutionalistic ideals" is a fairy tale. The debate needs people from both left and right pulling it into
balance or of course Somalia and North Korea are possibilities if that balance isn't reached.
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On January 16 2015 01:48 Simberto wrote:
I know from experience that libertarians can't be convinced of anything, thus i don't really want to rehash the same arguments over and over again onto someone who will just say "Yeah but free market will fix everything and work better", and who to any counter example will say "Yeah but that is just because the free market wasn't free enough".
Or maybe it's because they're right, and your arguments are weak.
A free market without regulations, as opposed to a welfare state, has incredibly large amounts of problems, and has historically always led to the rich abusing the poor as much as they can get away with. Obviously, that is good if you are a part of the top 1%.
Here you come with your conspiracy theories. The idea of the employer abusing their employee makes no sense. If he was really abused, then he would surely leave. You also haven't backed up this claim.
I get a feeling that you're talking about the industrial revolution, and here's my interpretation of it.
Before the time around the french revolution, the nobles had been in complete power in Europe, which means they were the ppl who decided what industries and inventions to invest in.
When the bourgeois gained their full liberties, and was allowed to compete with the nobles (the state), they let the market decide what industries and inventions to invest in, and it spawned the industrial revolution, which was probably the most inventive time period in human history. This was an era of enormous growth, and the populations grew accordingly.
This created some problems however. When the nobles had been in power in Europe, over the previous 1000 years, they had suppressed the farmers to the lowest status in society, greatly undervaluing the price on food.
When the bourgeois got the opportunity to compete, farmers moved towards the cities to work for them. Populations in the cities grew enormously, according to the growth rate. The problem was that as the populations in the cities grew at a much faster rate than in the farms, it became more and more apparent that food was undervalued, which resulted in a massive price increase on food. This in turn lead to massive starvation. Blaming it on the business owners is very ignorant and dishonest. Society just grew faster than it could deal with. But if you think that regulations could have solved it, then you're delusional. You don't solve mass starvation through regulations. Poverty, at the surface it might seem that you can fix it through regulations (in reality you can't), but starvation, no. Starvation can only be fixed by more farming.
If the wages in the factories had been regulated, I really struggle to see how it would have lead to more farmers. Shouldn't it lead to less farmers, if the factories suddenly starts to pay you better? Isn't that more or less what happened? The factories paid them so well that they left their farms. And then the prices of food, unfortunately sky-rocketed.
What we currently have as a system is the result of a large history of societal struggle and of the weak slowly gaining rights from the rich,
Wrong. It was always a struggle between state and citizens. The rich bourgeois were the driving force behind the french revolution. They were the class who brought forth natural rights, justice and personal liberties. They were the progressives of their time. When the bourgeois grew wealthy enough that they could use money to challenge the nobles and their power monopoly, everything changed, for the better.
The countries that had the wealthiest bourgeois classes, were the first to adopt liberalist ideas and give more influence to the common folks. The bourgeois laid the foundations for the modern western european democracy, the republic and constitutional monarchy.
No single group is more important to the progress of western societies than the bourgeois. You claiming that they were always the enemy, just shows how brainwashed you are by leftist ideology.
leading to a society we have nowadays where everyone can live a fulfilling live, instead of slaving away for the rich masters for barely enough compensation to stay alive to keep on working. I think this is a lot better, and i simply don't understand how anyone can claim otherwise.
Slavery does not exist in a lawful, free society.
If you don't have a universal healthcare system, that means you accept that fact that some people will die because they can not pay for a treatment that is available. I do not thing that is reasonable.
Universal healthcare does not save everybody. There are lots of ppl who die here, as a result of our healthcare system not being good enough, and there's an enormous amount of ppl here who get put on long wait lists, and who have to endure living with pain for as much as a year or more. It's an absolute catastrophy that a sick person can't get treatment almost immediately in a country where everybody is walking around with a iphone. And you support this inadequate healthcare system. What is wrong with you?
Here's a link that tells a bit about the reality of the swedish healthcare system.
http://www.thelocal.se/20140117/hospital-queues-tied-to-insurance-trend
If you take away social security, you accept that some people will starve or become criminals if they lose their job, which gives absurd amounts of negotiation potential to their employers, which historically has lead to fun situations like at the start of the century where people worked 12 hours a day 7 days a week, which is just a small step above slavery.
Once again, you show your ignorance about what the word slave means. Slave means that you don't have a choice. You do have a choice. You have 3 choices. Continue to work under your current employer, find somewhere else to work, or start your own business. If neither of those alternatives are good enough for you, then quite frankly, you're just a spoiled brat.
There are voluntary insurance policies for ppl who are inbetween jobs. And if you didn't pay the fees, well then it's your own fault. Why should everybody else have to pay for one persons irresponsibility? Deal with the consequences instead. That means that you will have to maybe settle for something less desireable for some time, while you hunt for a job that is more in line with your true capability. This is not something that is very likely to kill you. On the other hand, you having to deal with the consequences of your bad decisions will make you stronger.
Anyway, as I've pointed out before, societies that are built on this "anglosaxon" mentality, are proven to be the absolute best at providing aid through voluntary organizations, so in a society that is more in line with what I want, there would be plenty of voluntarist organizations to help those who are in need. Why don't you trust voluntarist organizations, when you seem so willing to trust the governments systems? To me it makes more sense to do the opposite, because the ppl who support voluntarist organizations spends their own money and time on helping you, while the government systems are just tax money that they throw in some direction, and then hope that it will result in something good. On top of that, government healthcare is a monopoly, and monopolies are inefficient.
The free market is simply really, really bad at doing some things. Police. Firefighters. Healthcare. Education. Keeping poor people alive. There are simply where a society that provides them to everyone, as opposed to only to those who can pay for it, becomes a lot better for everyone involved.
I've seen more studies that points towards private healthcare and education being better. At the very least, it's equal, which is good enough. The left even wants to ban private healthcare actors in Sweden, because it's too efficient. They make too much money, despite the fact that we are more happy with the performance of private actors.
The police, I'm personally undecided when it comes to the police, and law in general. I think the private institutions would be more efficient, but I don't know how a single system of law could be upheld, when you break the monopoly. It has never been tried as far as I know.
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On January 16 2015 03:34 nunez wrote:
fishing industry doesn't need regulations hm?
i think we tried that, and figured out it did not work very well...
you want to go back in time and do the same excercise over again.
need more regulations for fish farms to prevent disease and
pollution from ruining my fjord and future fish further.
the majority is protecting us both from your bad ideas.
democracy so good.
If the sea was owned by private property, the owner would be able to regulate it.
Same thing as a government doing it, only I'm pretty sure that a private actor would be more responsible. Let's face it. The politicians doesn't care if we have healthy fish in our seas in 100 years. The owner of a part of the norwegian coastline would want to make sure that his land doesn't lose value, and he would maybe also want the land to be worth something when his grandchild inherits it.
Reality is the absolute opposite of what you claim. It is government that will destroy our seas, not the lack of government.
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And that is why i don't debate with you guys, you simply do not live in the same world as the rest of us.
"societies that are built on this "anglosaxon" mentality, are proven to be the absolute best at providing aid through voluntary organizations"
"The idea of the employer abusing their employee makes no sense. If he was really abused, then he would surely leave."
"the left even wants to ban private healthcare actors in Sweden, because it's too efficient."
You are living in a different world than the rest of us, apparently one that works entirely differently and has just a bare semblence of similarity to the one i live in. A world where every worker can easily choose who to work for, one where the rich don't abuse the power they have over the poor if they are allowed to (Btw, that also means the nobility before the industrial revolution. At that point, they were "the rich" who kept their serfs firmly based on their turfs and made sure they provided them with a nice lifestyle.) A world where only this big evil leftist conspiracy keeps us all from experiencing paradise in the wonderful land of the free market.
You might as well argue with an IS member about god. It is just pointless.
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On January 16 2015 08:26 L1ghtning wrote:Show nested quote +On January 16 2015 03:34 nunez wrote:
fishing industry doesn't need regulations hm?
i think we tried that, and figured out it did not work very well...
you want to go back in time and do the same excercise over again.
need more regulations for fish farms to prevent disease and
pollution from ruining my fjord and future fish further.
the majority is protecting us both from your bad ideas.
democracy so good. If the sea was owned by private property, the owner would be able to regulate it. Same thing as a government doing it, only I'm pretty sure that a private actor would be more responsible. Let's face it. The politicians doesn't care if we have healthy fish in our seas in 100 years. The owner of a part of the norwegian coastline would want to make sure that his land doesn't lose value, and he would maybe also want the land to be worth something when his grandchild inherits it. Reality is the absolute opposite of what you claim. It is government that will destroy our seas, not the lack of government.
But money in the short term might be worth more then a non-polluted sea. You could buy another sea with that money, and also ruin it. Or you could buy a nuclear reactor, which is way cheaper now that you don't have to care about all that pesky waste. After all, you already have a perfectly nice sea to dump it into. Plus it's not like fish stay put where you want them too. If you don't grab them, the neighbour who owns the next part of the coastline will.
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On January 15 2015 13:45 nunez wrote:
all hail lord nibbler.
good reference ^^
On January 16 2015 05:09 RvB wrote:Show nested quote +On January 16 2015 03:14 RCMDVA wrote:
So the Swiss central bank blinked today?
They cut the 1.20 cord... because of what is going on in Switzerland or what is going on with the Euro?
Show nested quote +LONDON (Reuters) - Switzerland's franc soared by almost 30 percent in value against the euro on Thursday after the Swiss National Bank abandoned its three-year old cap at 1.20 francs per euro.
In a chaotic few minutes on markets after the SNB's announcement, the franc broke past parity against the euro to trade at 0.8052 francs per euro before trimming those gains to stand at 1.0350 francs.
It also gained 25 percent against the dollar to trade at 0.8900 francs per dollar.
The SNB has been resisting heavy pressure in recent months on the cap it imposed in September 2011 on the stellar rise seen in the franc's value due to investors seeking a haven from the euro zone's economic and political troubles.
The prospect of outright money-printing by the European Central Bank as early as next week has added to the pressure, with the SNB seen by players in the market as buying euros consistently around 1.2009 francs per euro in recent days.
"It has taken the market by complete surprise," said Jonathan Webb, head of FX strategy at Jefferies in London.
"The SNB probably expects the ECB to launch QE next week and along with the Greek elections coming up, it would make it pretty tough on the Swiss to keep bidding the euro. So they have abandoned the cap and cut rates deeper into negative territory. We expect euro/Swiss to trade around 0.90-1.00 francs after all the stop loss orders have been cleared." sourceBasically the QE programme from the ECB will make the exchange rate they have now unsustainable so they decided to stop it all in one go.
I found it funny how some german AfD guy I follow on twitter because I am curious was all doom and gloom about the Euro and how it is gonna collapse any second now ^^
yes the euro is gonna weaken, that is to be expected if you are doing QE. on the other hand the SNB did not do export oriented companies any favor, the stock of swatch for example took a huge dive. however, EU countries might find it easier to sell their stuff to the swiss 
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On January 16 2015 08:33 Simberto wrote:
And that is why i don't debate with you guys, you simply do not live in the same world as the rest of us.
"societies that are built on this "anglosaxon" mentality, are proven to be the absolute best at providing aid through voluntary organizations"
"The idea of the employer abusing their employee makes no sense. If he was really abused, then he would surely leave."
"the left even wants to ban private healthcare actors in Sweden, because it's too efficient."
You are living in a different world than the rest of us, apparently one that works entirely differently and has just a bare semblence of similarity to the one i live in. A world where every worker can easily choose who to work for, one where the rich don't abuse the power they have over the poor if they are allowed to (Btw, that also means the nobility before the industrial revolution. At that point, they were "the rich" who kept their serfs firmly based on their turfs and made sure they provided them with a nice lifestyle.) A world where only this big evil leftist conspiracy keeps us all from experiencing paradise in the wonderful land of the free market.
You might as well argue with an IS member about god. It is just pointless.
The nobles did not have the power because they were rich. They became rich because they had the power.
The reason they had power had nothing to do with them being rich, and everything to do with them having the loyalty of the armies.
The bourgeois made their wealth out of pretty much nothing. Big difference. And the bourgeois was responsible for most of the progress in western government. In other words, your narrative about the wealthy screwing over the poor on a consistent basis, through the government falls completely flat. It was the bourgeois who destroyed the old authoritarian systems that had plagued civilization since eternity, and continues to plague the part of the world that never had this revolution.
About the anglosaxon society, there's some link earlier in the thread. It's common knowledge that anglosaxon countries, primarily USA, have the largest voluntary systems in the world.
And what the hell do you know about the politics of Sweden? The left wants to regulate private healthcare actors so that they are not allowed to make a profit. This is the exact same thing as banning private healthcare, because noone in their right mind would invest in a business that doesn't net them anything in return.
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On January 16 2015 09:32 L1ghtning wrote:Show nested quote +On January 16 2015 08:33 Simberto wrote:
And that is why i don't debate with you guys, you simply do not live in the same world as the rest of us.
"societies that are built on this "anglosaxon" mentality, are proven to be the absolute best at providing aid through voluntary organizations"
"The idea of the employer abusing their employee makes no sense. If he was really abused, then he would surely leave."
"the left even wants to ban private healthcare actors in Sweden, because it's too efficient."
You are living in a different world than the rest of us, apparently one that works entirely differently and has just a bare semblence of similarity to the one i live in. A world where every worker can easily choose who to work for, one where the rich don't abuse the power they have over the poor if they are allowed to (Btw, that also means the nobility before the industrial revolution. At that point, they were "the rich" who kept their serfs firmly based on their turfs and made sure they provided them with a nice lifestyle.) A world where only this big evil leftist conspiracy keeps us all from experiencing paradise in the wonderful land of the free market.
You might as well argue with an IS member about god. It is just pointless. The nobles did not have the power because they were rich. They became rich because they had the power.
Please, everyone, read this and realize that you cannot argue with someone who thinks is a meaningful thing to say. Murray Rothbard would be proud.
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I am just curious about these Baltic waters awash with fish. You can stick your hand in and grab them if you are hungry.
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Cayman Islands24199 Posts
it's not awash with fish. takes a true hero with iron resolve to hunt fish in the treacherous, maelstrom littered waters of the baltic.
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Oh so l1ghtning is a norse hero with unmatched fishing prowess? I understand why he has a such a hard time answering basic questions then.
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Cayman Islands24199 Posts
rating of norse heroes:
1. beowulf
2. thor
3. L1ghtning
4. Aragorn son of Arathorn
5. Gustavus Adolphus
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Well, even though his arguments are typical rehash of libertarian nonsense, he at least actually argues himself. It is far too common for libertarians to argue by citing walls of text from their holy books. Of course stating falsehoods and multiple fallacies combined with accusing others of ignorance is ironic. It is also telling that he judges healthcare systems by how much money they generate.
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Yep this discussion really lacks some "As Rothbard von Mises unmistakenly shows in his Road to Anarchy State and Utopia : Under a one-man-one-vote regime, then, a relentless machinery of wealth and income redistribution is set in motion. It must be expected that majorities of have-nots will constantly try to enrich themselves at the expense of minorities of haves. "
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This type of discourse is what deregulators use all the time but they know that having fair and ideal markets is an illusion or that some egoistic people just want to make money by every possible mean and will screw others so it isn't out of morality that they deregulate. It is because they believe they can gain economically speaking from deregulating. I believe that the politicians who use these ultra liberal rhetorics like the Tea Party don't believe in them themselves it's just a show that justify acting like dicks and playing with fire and lives.
I think Europe should never go down that path of more competitiveness thanks to deregulation hence degradation of all our standards.
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I agree, we should never go down that road. a people divided and disunited... no solidarity. it's a cancer. we need however find a good mix between what the state's supposed to do and what the private sector can and will do better.
the last word on that is not spoken, even though many people would like to tell us otherwise.
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On January 16 2015 09:32 L1ghtning wrote:Show nested quote +On January 16 2015 08:33 Simberto wrote:
And that is why i don't debate with you guys, you simply do not live in the same world as the rest of us.
"societies that are built on this "anglosaxon" mentality, are proven to be the absolute best at providing aid through voluntary organizations"
"The idea of the employer abusing their employee makes no sense. If he was really abused, then he would surely leave."
"the left even wants to ban private healthcare actors in Sweden, because it's too efficient."
You are living in a different world than the rest of us, apparently one that works entirely differently and has just a bare semblence of similarity to the one i live in. A world where every worker can easily choose who to work for, one where the rich don't abuse the power they have over the poor if they are allowed to (Btw, that also means the nobility before the industrial revolution. At that point, they were "the rich" who kept their serfs firmly based on their turfs and made sure they provided them with a nice lifestyle.) A world where only this big evil leftist conspiracy keeps us all from experiencing paradise in the wonderful land of the free market.
You might as well argue with an IS member about god. It is just pointless. The nobles did not have the power because they were rich. They became rich because they had the power. The reason they had power had nothing to do with them being rich, and everything to do with them having the loyalty of the armies. The bourgeois made their wealth out of pretty much nothing. Big difference. And the bourgeois was responsible for most of the progress in western government. In other words, your narrative about the wealthy screwing over the poor on a consistent basis, through the government falls completely flat. It was the bourgeois who destroyed the old authoritarian systems that had plagued civilization since eternity, and continues to plague the part of the world that never had this revolution. About the anglosaxon society, there's some link earlier in the thread. It's common knowledge that anglosaxon countries, primarily USA, have the largest voluntary systems in the world. And what the hell do you know about the politics of Sweden? The left wants to regulate private healthcare actors so that they are not allowed to make a profit. This is the exact same thing as banning private healthcare, because noone in their right mind would invest in a business that doesn't net them anything in return.
I'm a Swede. I'm 30 years of age, I've done my army service and worked menial jobs, I've studied law at university and I'm a trained and employed dentist. In my relatively brief life I've had my experiences with a great deal of companies and institutions in Sweden, seen or been close to hundreds or not thousands of employers and employees.
I work as a dentist which is a field with a 70 % 30 % split between private and government care providers. My work consists of meeting people who range from homeless to very wealthy entrepreneurs who are the best in their field.
I say all these things because when I read your texts I see some well deserved criticism of Swedish government and institutions but more clearly I see a complete lack of insight into what could possibly be negative with privatization and libertarian-ism.
And while I could debate all these things I'd like to know that I'm talking to an adult individual who have faced real life in a real society and not some 15 year old gamer kid who read Atlas shrugged and thought it sounded awesome. Because if your not trolling your opinions about how society would work in that kind of world are incredibly different from mine.
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EPT
