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On February 25 2025 18:30 Gorsameth wrote:
The main argument supporting the idea that private is ,almost, always better then public seems to rest on the basis that the more efficient company always wins and the less efficient company dies.
I very much question that notion. Ofc it happens and it happens all the time but not consistent enough to attach the notion that private much be better then public to it. There are so many more factors that weigh in beyond just efficiency.
Nobody says that, profitability =/= efficiency, the most profitable company wins the less profitable one dies.
Efficiency is correlated with profitability but as you mention there are many factors and intervention in the market is what mostly creates a rift between efficiency and profitability, if I can set up a mega-corp that succesfully lobbies a regulatory moat so that the capital to enter the market is greatly increased then I become less efficient (I need a lobbying team etc) and I become more profitable.
Make the market more free and the correlation between efficiency and profitability will be greater.
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On February 28 2025 15:11 baal wrote:Show nested quote +On February 25 2025 18:30 Gorsameth wrote:
The main argument supporting the idea that private is ,almost, always better then public seems to rest on the basis that the more efficient company always wins and the less efficient company dies.
I very much question that notion. Ofc it happens and it happens all the time but not consistent enough to attach the notion that private much be better then public to it. There are so many more factors that weigh in beyond just efficiency. Nobody says that, profitability =/= efficiency, the most profitable company wins the less profitable one dies. Efficiency is correlated with profitability but as you mention there are many factors and intervention in the market is what mostly creates a rift between efficiency and profitability, if I can set up a mega-corp that succesfully lobbies a regulatory moat so that the capital to enter the market is greatly increased then I become less efficient (I need a lobbying team etc) and I become more profitable. Make the market more free and the correlation between efficiency and profitability will be greater.
Citation needed
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Free market just ensures a completely screwed userbase because there's no incentive to keep an ethical framework tied to your business. Hell, even now business need to be dragged kicking and screaming to comply with things and then they cynically post things like: "because we are a business that cares for its employees safety..."
There's a reason these pseudo monopolies are enshittifying their services.. they've got the consumer cornered and now it's time to extract as much as possible for as little effort as possible. Free markets results in en masse scams.
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Basically we reconcile it in a few ways:
1) We can't find Wharton's "One Simple Fix To Make The Economy Perfect And Debt Disappear" paper. This is not facetious. There is not a single part of the paper that says "We propose this instead." Ability of any institution or think tank to predict macroeconomic trends is limited - that's why they disagree with each other.
2) We're sick of the shit from the uniparty that 7xed the national debt over 20 years. People have had chances to address this. Or at least try. The concern trolling now is going to fall on deaf ears. XYZ policy has a chance to make an issue worse? Oh no. That'd be convincing if it came from factions that actually agreed with the framing of it being an issue, or ones that had proposed or enacted literally even any single action about it at all.
3) There is no choice but to cut spending. Everyone talks about cutting and nobody does it. We are not going to instantly get cold feet and turn on the one time that people both say they will cut, and might end up actually cutting.
4) While the House budget outline is there, Congress's tax plan is still forthcoming. Meaning actual tax cuts and revenue projections are speculative at this point. So our rough perspective is this: Bite the pillow, give this a try, and if it still doesn't work come up with a nice socialist proposal to possibly refinance debt, revalue the currency, and tank capital markets by seizing unrealized capital gains and turning it into more extensive jobs programs, which is what the federal government essentially is now, a giant jobs program, and bring that plan to the ballot box in about a decade or so.
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United States44439 Posts
The idea that both parties are responsible for the deficit is absurd. One party spent $3t on military adventurism in the middle east while passing a giant tax cut, and then the same party followed it with $2t of giveaways to the richest Americans while passing another giant tax cut. And then Oblade shows up with "we can't really know where the deficit came from but I want to hear more from the $2t giveaway guy, and maybe another tax cut".
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That's a really smart observation, Kwark.
Where'd the other $25 trillion come from?
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United States44439 Posts
It's all speculative really, nobody actually knows what happens when you reduce money in and increase money out.
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United States44439 Posts
On February 28 2025 17:17 oBlade wrote:
That's a really smart observation, Kwark.
Where'd the other $25 trillion come from?
From not collecting taxes to pay for things and interest.
You're here just not getting that you can't keep increasing spending while cutting taxes and acting like it's some unknowable mystery and that nobody really knows what'll happen. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that it really is unknowable to you but you need to realize that that's strictly a "you" problem. Everyone else does know, it's just you who doesn't understand this.
That's why people are able to model it, even though you dismiss their models out of hand with "it's all speculative".
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I just said to cut spending.
The central criticism of the Wharton release is spending is cut, but tax cuts exceed them.
Your memetic conception of Red vs. Blue is great for Roosterteeth, but it's not for the actual reality of US politics. For example, the swarmy $3 trillion and $2 trillion is so ambiguous as to not even be identifiable, which most citizens would realize. Congress under Obama extended Bush tax cuts. Obama spent as much in the middle east as Bush. If the "$2t" handouts was supposed to refer to the CARES Act, it passed nearly unanimously. What do you think about Musk looking for PPP fraud? Support his efforts, right?
It's been one party. There is a possible way out. That's good.
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United States44439 Posts
On February 28 2025 17:37 oBlade wrote:
I just said to cut spending.
The central criticism of the Wharton release is spending is cut, but tax cuts exceed them.
Your memetic conception of Red vs. Blue is great for Roosterteeth, but it's not for the actual reality of US politics. For example, the swarmy $3 trillion and $2 trillion is so ambiguous as to not even be identifiable, which most citizens would realize. Congress under Obama extended Bush tax cuts. Obama spent as much in the middle east as Bush. If the "$2t" handouts was supposed to refer to the CARES Act, it passed nearly unanimously. What do you think about Musk looking for PPP fraud? Support his efforts, right?
It's been one party. There is a possible way out. That's good.
"Obama spent nearly as much in the Middle East as Bush" is just trolling.
That's still Bush spending.
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"Why couldn't he just retreat, like Trump did in Afghanistan? He was just as much a warhawk, no even moreso actually, as Bush."
Your engagement in this discussion is futile, Kwark. It'll only lead to frustration. They have an infinite number of nuh-uhs.
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Yep right on the money, every time a Democratic Congress votes for a budget, and that budget spends more than tax revenues bring in - that was George W. Bush's fault. I learned about it on the Daily Show.
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On February 28 2025 17:45 oBlade wrote:
Yep right on the money, every time a Democratic Congress votes for a budget, and that budget spends more than tax revenues bring in - that was George W. Bush's fault. I learned about it on the Daily Show.
My dude. Do you really not recognize that decisions now can influence costs in the future?
Lets say Obama sets the White House on fire, and just lives in a burned out husk for the remainder of his term. Then Trump has to spend money to rebuild and renovate the burned down White House. Is that Trumps spending or Obamas spending?
I am leaning more an more towards the Colin Robinson theory.
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On February 28 2025 15:02 baal wrote:Show nested quote +On February 25 2025 18:18 Acrofales wrote:
Where does this unshakeable belief in the invisible hand of the market come from? No economist believes that shit anymore. They gave Kahneman a novel prize years ago for his work showing that it's a fun idea but with no basis in reality. And behavioral economics is a mainstay of every undergraduate program in economy. So why the fuck are people still attached to this idea that perfectly informed rational actors are setting the correct price for everything in the free market of capitalism, and if they aren't then it's because they aren't free enough, not because *shudder* they aren't rational nor informed. It's insanity to still believe that shit today. The "Invisible hand" is a silly concept so that dimwits of the 18th century could understand roughly how a market works, of course people aren't perfectly rational, nor perfectly informed ergo markets aren't perfect but the concepts do apply. And yes the more free is a market the better it runs, you can argue that regulating it can help other things like lets say environment, but that is another point, but to think it improves the market itself and not externalities is simply not true.
Obviously regulating the market doesn't help the market. But only tools who gobbled up Ayn Rand's pseudophilosophy think the market needs helping. The market is irrelevant when it doesn't serve society. And guess what: it doesn't! Deregulating the market has fairly consistently from Reagan until now shown a whole bunch of predatory behavior is encouraged and none of that trickles down, ever. I'd give examples, but I'm sure you know of some obvious ones from oil companies and banks.
Finally, you seem to claim that monopolies exist only if companies can throw up regulatory moats. That seems to ignore about a billion other reasons for monopolies to form. Let's start with the OPEC cartel in the mid 20th century, the de Beers diamond monopoly, and Chiquita Banana are obvious examples of large companies staying large by controlling supply of a limited resource. Not by innovating or staying ahead of the competition in some other ways. And then there's the newer generation of tech monopolies, where the network effect and walled gardens are an important way of preventing people from leaving a platform freely even when you enshitify everything.
Also, want to see how deregulating more would work? The Martin Shkreli and Elizabeth Holmes of the world would be even more free to rip you off.
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On February 28 2025 17:48 Simberto wrote:Show nested quote +On February 28 2025 17:45 oBlade wrote:
Yep right on the money, every time a Democratic Congress votes for a budget, and that budget spends more than tax revenues bring in - that was George W. Bush's fault. I learned about it on the Daily Show. My dude. Do you really not recognize that decisions now can influence costs in the future? Lets say Obama sets the White House on fire, and just lives in a burned out husk for the remainder of his term. Then Trump has to spend money to rebuild and renovate the burned down White House. Is that Trumps spending or Obamas spending? I am leaning more an more towards the Colin Robinson theory.
Is your position that Congress has had no choice but to spend more federal money than revenues for 25 years in a row because of 1-2 wars that Congress never voted to stop or defund? Because my question is simply again - even if that hypothesis goes 100% your way - what about the other $25 trillion?
I do not live in the world where every Republican is a MIC-captured crooked Cheney clone and every Democrat is... an angel. Because it's not true.
Decisions do affect the future. For example, if you cut taxes, then encourage growth, then you hopefully end up with a wider base of tax revenue.
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On February 28 2025 18:12 oBlade wrote:Show nested quote +On February 28 2025 17:48 Simberto wrote:On February 28 2025 17:45 oBlade wrote:
Yep right on the money, every time a Democratic Congress votes for a budget, and that budget spends more than tax revenues bring in - that was George W. Bush's fault. I learned about it on the Daily Show. My dude. Do you really not recognize that decisions now can influence costs in the future? Lets say Obama sets the White House on fire, and just lives in a burned out husk for the remainder of his term. Then Trump has to spend money to rebuild and renovate the burned down White House. Is that Trumps spending or Obamas spending? I am leaning more an more towards the Colin Robinson theory. Is your position that Congress has had no choice but to spend more federal money than revenues for 25 years in a row because of 1-2 wars that Congress never voted to stop or defund? Because my question is simply again - even if that hypothesis goes 100% your way - what about the other $25 trillion?
I do not live in the world where every Republican is a MIC-captured crooked Cheney clone and every Democrat is... an angel. Because it's not true. Decisions do affect the future. For example, if you cut taxes, then encourage growth, then you hopefully end up with a wider base of tax revenue.
I wrote a lengthy response to this. Then i deleted it. Because i thought: "Nevermind. I should take my own advice and stop replying to you. You are simply not worth talking to."
Debatelord conservatives are fucking exhausting. If anyone else wants to talk about anything else but this constant idiotic fight with oBlade, i am open for it.
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I'll just post this here:
That's probably a better argument.
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On February 28 2025 18:26 Simberto wrote:Show nested quote +On February 28 2025 18:12 oBlade wrote:On February 28 2025 17:48 Simberto wrote:On February 28 2025 17:45 oBlade wrote:
Yep right on the money, every time a Democratic Congress votes for a budget, and that budget spends more than tax revenues bring in - that was George W. Bush's fault. I learned about it on the Daily Show. My dude. Do you really not recognize that decisions now can influence costs in the future? Lets say Obama sets the White House on fire, and just lives in a burned out husk for the remainder of his term. Then Trump has to spend money to rebuild and renovate the burned down White House. Is that Trumps spending or Obamas spending? I am leaning more an more towards the Colin Robinson theory. Is your position that Congress has had no choice but to spend more federal money than revenues for 25 years in a row because of 1-2 wars that Congress never voted to stop or defund? Because my question is simply again - even if that hypothesis goes 100% your way - what about the other $25 trillion?
I do not live in the world where every Republican is a MIC-captured crooked Cheney clone and every Democrat is... an angel. Because it's not true. Decisions do affect the future. For example, if you cut taxes, then encourage growth, then you hopefully end up with a wider base of tax revenue. I wrote a lengthy response to this. Then i deleted it. Because i thought: "Nevermind. I should take my own advice and stop replying to you. You are simply not worth talking to." Debatelord conservatives are fucking exhausting. If anyone else wants to talk about anything else but this constant idiotic fight with oBlade, i am open for it.
There is no reason to call me a conservative just because you had a marvelous proof that decades of bipartisan spending bankrupting the federal government is actually all Bush's fault, which this comment field was too narrow to contain.
On February 28 2025 18:34 EnDeR_ wrote:I'll just post this here: + Show Spoiler +That's probably a better argument.
What is the conclusion of this argument?
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Northern Ireland27478 Posts
I’m not very good at reading complicated graphs, can some kind soul explain that one for me?
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On February 28 2025 18:42 WombaT wrote:
I’m not very good at reading complicated graphs, can some kind soul explain that one for me?
Bush 1, Bush 2, and Trump all increased the deficit during their terms. Clinton and Obama decreased the deficit during their terms.
Those are deficits, not debt. Although the chart is misleading as Clinton created a predicted surplus which was supposed to happen in Bush 2’s term, but Bush 2 did a major tax cut right away and the surplus never materialized.
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EPT![[image loading]](https://media.licdn.com/dms/image/v2/D5622AQFw8XwuVZMrYg/feedshare-shrink_1280/feedshare-shrink_1280/0/1683051012691?e=1743638400&v=beta&t=LijM66XHo_a2qABgvhWlatXeh-NuHdVbnJXIzOhzec8)
