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L, you are one of the dumbest people on TL. The whole discussion of weight in America was brought up because people were arguing that providing food stamps was better because then they would not buy drugs with the money but would rather buy food. Therefore they would have more food and less drugs. Those were the points that were being used against me...not the ones I was using like your little child-brain thought.
you made the assumption that food stamps lead to higher caloric intake without any causal evidence
You retard. I said that even if that IS true, our country does NOT need more calories.
I don't think you are a serious poster L. I think you are a child (or youth..whatever), who just wants to have a kick on the internet. There are a lot of people who disagree with me on TL which I like. Some are smart and serious (like Jibba), but a lot are just little kids like you. I'm tired of arguing with children so I am going to focus more on the more serious posters.
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United States22883 Posts
On February 04 2009 13:28 Savio wrote:L, you are one of the dumbest people on TL. The whole discussion of weight in America was brought up because people were arguing that providing food stamps was better because then they would not buy drugs with the money but would rather buy food. Therefore they would have more food and less drugs. Those were the points that were being used against me...not the ones I was using like your little child-brain thought. Show nested quote +you made the assumption that food stamps lead to higher caloric intake without any causal evidence You retard. I said that even if that IS true, our country does NOT need more calories. I don't think you are a serious poster L. I think you are a child (or youth..whatever), who just wants to have a kick on the internet. There are a lot of people who disagree with me on TL which I like. Some are smart and serious (like Jibba), but a lot are just little kids like you. I'm tired of arguing with children so I am going to focus more on the more serious posters.
Holy crap, I've never seen you actually get annoyed before.
And answer my pm. No one answers me anymore. 
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LoL, TL is starting to wear off on me 
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On February 04 2009 13:41 Jibba wrote:Show nested quote +On February 04 2009 13:28 Savio wrote:L, you are one of the dumbest people on TL. The whole discussion of weight in America was brought up because people were arguing that providing food stamps was better because then they would not buy drugs with the money but would rather buy food. Therefore they would have more food and less drugs. Those were the points that were being used against me...not the ones I was using like your little child-brain thought. you made the assumption that food stamps lead to higher caloric intake without any causal evidence You retard. I said that even if that IS true, our country does NOT need more calories. I don't think you are a serious poster L. I think you are a child (or youth..whatever), who just wants to have a kick on the internet. There are a lot of people who disagree with me on TL which I like. Some are smart and serious (like Jibba), but a lot are just little kids like you. I'm tired of arguing with children so I am going to focus more on the more serious posters. Holy crap, I've never seen you actually get annoyed before. And answer my pm. No one answers me anymore.
take a hint
omg im kidding
im just being an asshole.
On February 04 2009 13:28 Savio wrote:L, you are one of the dumbest people on TL. The whole discussion of weight in America was brought up because people were arguing that providing food stamps was better because then they would not buy drugs with the money but would rather buy food. Therefore they would have more food and less drugs. Those were the points that were being used against me...not the ones I was using like your little child-brain thought. Show nested quote +you made the assumption that food stamps lead to higher caloric intake without any causal evidence You retard. I said that even if that IS true, our country does NOT need more calories. I don't think you are a serious poster L. I think you are a child (or youth..whatever), who just wants to have a kick on the internet. There are a lot of people who disagree with me on TL which I like. Some are smart and serious (like Jibba), but a lot are just little kids like you. I'm tired of arguing with children so I am going to focus more on the more serious posters.
hahahahaha wow
savio's letting her rip.
this post was VICIOUS
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L, you are one of the dumbest people on TL. The whole discussion of weight in America was brought up because people were arguing that providing food stamps was better because then they would not buy drugs with the money but would rather buy food. Therefore they would have more food and less drugs. Those were the points that were being used against me...not the ones I was using like your little child-brain thought. Yeah, I was the one that brought in the directed nature of the food stamps as a benefit derived from them. Thanks for noting that we came from there, seeing as it was my line of reasoning. The discussion about weight in america was your attempt to say that the health benefits associated with directing funds into food were potentially negated or negative in nature because of the issues with obesity.
You retard. I said that even if that IS true, our country does NOT need more calories. I picked up on that, I was merely noting that scientifically, you made a bunch of false statements regarding caloric consumption, and the only way you could fall back on an anti-food stamp position was to construct a causal link. Without that, you're forced to admit that there's a substantial benefit to food stamps from a health perspective. This train of thought is actually succinctly encapsulated in my first reply regarding the calorie issue. Here you reply:
we certainly don't suffer from not being able to get enough calories so increasing the amount of food eaten can't be an argument for food stamps against direct monetary payments. Making the link that supplying food cannot be an argument for food stamps because people are fat, which assumes a causal link which I submitted argumentation against (and had done so from the prior post as well). I still don't find this statement of yours to be true; Not everyone is fat, especially not the most emaciated of americans, which also happen to be the poorest of americans. Additionally the study cited earlier points to a reduction of caloric intake, with an increased rate of spending points to a shift from high fructose, high calorie food to one including more healthful foods (which is somewhat requisite, because the high fructose, high calorie food is the cheapest form of subsistence possible, and it has pretty much zero nutritional value besides keeping your body from undergoing ketosis. The cheaper your food is, the more your calories are coming from corn-sugar, which really wasn't designed in the natural world to be purified and substituted for sucrose and other 'standard' sugars in foods).
The way this phrase is organized also puts in a subsidiary assumption that someone able to buy more food buys more calories, which is false. The only example which I'll need to debunk this is one of method. We can both buy a chicken breast, but if i make a glaze out of red wine and white beans, and you deep fry yours, i will have actually have purchased more 'food', but you will obviously have both a higher caloric intake, a dearth of protective tannins, a lack of a number of vitamins and minerals, and a gigantic amount of cholesterol.
The argument I've put forward is that its not a calorie issue: its a quality of calorie issue which you've painted in broad strokes by using the calorie as a specter of obesity which somewhat truistically (no one likes fat people :O) opposes all additional food ingestion, whereas that simply isn't the case. To extend this argument would be to point towards both my assertion that food stamps can be part of a cumulative help program, and that the proper 'partner' would be to increase levels of physical activity and provide accessible information on the subject to those at risk. Its a fairly accepted principle that prevention of obesity and related diseases are far less costly as a societal strain if funds are put into prevention instead of crisis treatment. There is also a social dynamic at play here, but I've already touched upon the basics previously.
The fact that the US spends such an exorbitant amount more on health care per capita (http://www.kff.org/insurance/snapshot/chcm010307oth.cfm), but receives nothing special in return should be reason enough to consider prevention as a serious and important solution to both issues of budget and issues of quality of life.
I don't think you are a serious poster L. I think you are a child (or youth..whatever), who just wants to have a kick on the internet. There are a lot of people who disagree with me on TL which I like. Some are smart and serious (like Jibba), but a lot are just little kids like you. I'm tired of arguing with children so I am going to focus more on the more serious posters.
I think your nutrition based defence got completely demolished, seeing as you admittedly ran out of arguments, and are now resorting to rage when some of your very false statements have been called out as such. Okay. Fair enough. I'd be angry too if I was in your position.
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are you guys seriously talking about calories? there be some massive dumbfuckery up in here yo.
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On February 04 2009 16:53 mahnini wrote:
are you guys seriously talking about calories? there be some massive dumbfuckery up in here yo.
FORUM FIGHT!!!!!!!!
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Cayman Islands24199 Posts
you could have just pointed out that savio is overly attached to the principle of "letting people do what they want", and is applying said principle to a random program. it is a minor grip and an ideological one at that. i dont think savio is quite motivated to solve poverty from the ground up to tackle reforming food stamps, which would only make sense as a part of a grand strategy raising living standards and thus enabling healthier lifestyles.
to be fair, that peculiar attachment to an egotistic conception of freedom has a strong tradition, but it is entirely counter to the dominant welfare/utilitarian framework used in policy analysis. while savio wishes to argue the welfare superiority of a direct transfer scheme, i suspect that he really wants to argue for the kind of freedom represented by such programs, and others like school vouchers or 'free market' slogans, a freedom that is qualitatively absent in 'state directives.' personally i think labeling one program as 'more free' is not a simple matter of degrees of government involvement. for example, private school vouchers may be seen as offering a choice, but public schools offer choices too, in the form of the choice of the desired residential neighborhood. nevertheless, the voucher system is seen to offer qualitatively distinct freedom, rather than just a different slate of choices with different items. the point is again seen in the choice of slogans. instead of 'better schools,' we have school choice, as if the latter is a different calculation than the former. would making available worse schools to people be considered choice? or is the former slogan unpopular due to the often disingenuous actualities. perhaps the emphasis on the health of the entire education system found in a collective reading of the former is entirely lost on the latter.
in the case of food stamps, why do i say savio is concerned with its unfree nature, rather than its welfare impact? because of the way he frames the alternative: if we take the food stamp money and relax restrictions. the existence of food stamps does not preclude direct welfare payments. knowing nothing of the political tradeoffs, we do not know how much food stamp is equivalent to how much welfare checks. from a policy view, there is no basis to make savio's alternative the rival case, because they are not presented as actual choices within the political framework. rather, food stamps is seen as one of many ways government tries to actively infringe or constrain personal choice and thus lives. what is in need of neutralizing, for the sake of a free humanity, is the creeping hand of government, rather than lost degrees of welfare.
i believe the impression that there is some higher sense of freedom in 'free choice' programs that cannot be captured by welfare analysis is illusionary until proven otherwise. such programs only enpower the choosers insofar as they provide more options, a situation that is perfectly captured by the worth of the best option. we are not really talking about government regulation of a hitherto private sphere of life, but essentially two kinds of government programs. so before looking at the specifics, there is no need to settle on a particular solution by ideological labeling. without knowing any empirical facts of the matter at hand, i am still able to mock yer position. har har har etc
anyway, carry on.
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Assuming that he has an agenda does not invalidate his claim directly. Its an ad hominem regardless of how you construct that argument.
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Cayman Islands24199 Posts
you don't have to invalidate his claims. sometimes people make claims not to make truthful claims, but to advance ideologies, satisfy psychological needs or generate entertaining responses. whether you choose to engage with the dance is a perfectly open question.
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On February 04 2009 18:14 oneofthem wrote:
you could have just pointed out that savio is overly attached to the principle of "letting people do what they want", and is applying said principle to a random program. it is a minor grip and an ideological one at that. i dont think savio is quite motivated to solve poverty from the ground up to tackle reforming food stamps, which would only make sense as a part of a grand strategy raising living standards and thus enabling healthier lifestyles.
to be fair, that peculiar attachment to an egotistic conception of freedom has a strong tradition, but it is entirely counter to the dominant welfare/utilitarian framework used in policy analysis. while savio wishes to argue the welfare superiority of a direct transfer scheme, i suspect that he really wants to argue for the kind of freedom represented by such programs, and others like school vouchers or 'free market' slogans, a freedom that is qualitatively absent in 'state directives.' personally i think labeling one program as 'more free' is not a simple matter of degrees of government involvement. for example, private school vouchers may be seen as offering a choice, but public schools offer choices too, in the form of the choice of the desired residential neighborhood. nevertheless, the voucher system is seen to offer qualitatively distinct freedom, rather than just a different slate of choices with different items. the point is again seen in the choice of slogans. instead of 'better schools,' we have school choice, as if the latter is a different calculation than the former. would making available worse schools to people be considered choice? or is the former slogan unpopular due to the often disingenuous actualities. perhaps the emphasis on the health of the entire education system found in a collective reading of the former is entirely lost on the latter.
in the case of food stamps, why do i say savio is concerned with its unfree nature, rather than its welfare impact? because of the way he frames the alternative: if we take the food stamp money and relax restrictions. the existence of food stamps does not preclude direct welfare payments. knowing nothing of the political tradeoffs, we do not know how much food stamp is equivalent to how much welfare checks. from a policy view, there is no basis to make savio's alternative the rival case, because they are not presented as actual choices within the political framework. rather, food stamps is seen as one of many ways government tries to actively infringe or constrain personal choice and thus lives. what is in need of neutralizing, for the sake of a free humanity, is the creeping hand of government, rather than lost degrees of welfare.
i believe the impression that there is some higher sense of freedom in 'free choice' programs that cannot be captured by welfare analysis is illusionary until proven otherwise. such programs only enpower the choosers insofar as they provide more options, a situation that is perfectly captured by the worth of the best option. we are not really talking about government regulation of a hitherto private sphere of life, but essentially two kinds of government programs. so before looking at the specifics, there is no need to settle on a particular solution by ideological labeling. without knowing any empirical facts of the matter at hand, i am still able to mock yer position. har har har etc
anyway, carry on.
That is definitely part of what I am saying. I DO generally believe that giving people more choice is a good thing because I reject the idea that the government (or any group of people) understand each individuals preferences or needs as well as that person does. For this reason, I would much rather see the stimulus money handed out to people than spent of what Obama decides it should be spent on. Because it could be that the Jones family WOULD benefit from that road construction somewhat but what they REALLY need is a new car. Or the Smith family is having trouble making mortage payments and while that nice new library is nice, what they REALLY need is some extra cash so they don't lose their house.
When you want to help people, it is always more efficient (economic efficiency, readers should google if they have not taken classes) to give money rather than a set of goods/services that was chosen by someone else.
So my reasons against food stamps and for monetary payments are:
1. Intrinsic value in giving people choices and freedom
2. Billions of dollars of lost benefit due to inherent inefficiency of food transfers
In your post you understood well my first point, but a HUGE factor in my view is inneficiency.
If government spends 3 billion dollars on food stamps, they could have instead given people the same benefit by giving them ~2 billions dollars in cash and then that extra billion dollar could be used for anything else. Heck, if it went to the poor than they would be WAY better off than they were under the food stamp program for the same cost to government. And we will have been valuing their freedom as well.
Food stamps inherently lose around 30 percent of their value (people value each dollar at about 70 cents or so) when you give them to people but they still cost the full dollar to governemnt.
THIS is the big waste that needs to be fixed.
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One other side thought your post made me think of oneofthem is that even though there is inherent choice in public schools (since you can choose the district you live in), one benefit to vouchers is it gives you the freedom of not only choosing a different school but also escaping the teachers unions. As it is, only the rich kids have been able to escape the problems caused by unions in our educational system and the poor kids are stuck with teachers who can't be fired if they suck and can't be pressured to work harder.
One side benefit of vouchers is more kids can escape the effects of teachers unions. But the teachers unions are VERY against vouchers so it has been hard to pass since the democratic party is strongly influenced by unions.
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United States22883 Posts
On February 05 2009 05:04 Savio wrote:
One other side thought you post made me think of oneofthem is that even though there is inherent choice in public schools (since you can choose the district you live in), one benefit to vouchers is it gives you the freedom of not only choosing a different school but also escaping the teachers unions. As it is, only the rich kids have been able to escape the problems caused by unions in our educational system and the poor kids are stuck with teachers who can't be fired if they suck and can't be pressured to work harder.
Just so we're clear, the government would also need to step in and provide transportation for everyone that wants to choose. It happens to some degree right now, but the effort would be ramped up quite considerably.
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On February 05 2009 05:08 Jibba wrote:Show nested quote +On February 05 2009 05:04 Savio wrote:
One other side thought you post made me think of oneofthem is that even though there is inherent choice in public schools (since you can choose the district you live in), one benefit to vouchers is it gives you the freedom of not only choosing a different school but also escaping the teachers unions. As it is, only the rich kids have been able to escape the problems caused by unions in our educational system and the poor kids are stuck with teachers who can't be fired if they suck and can't be pressured to work harder.
Just so we're clear, the government would also need to step in and provide transportation for everyone that wants to choose. It happens to some degree right now, but the effort would be ramped up quite considerably.
If they didn't provide transportation, then yes, there would still be a cost for poor kids in the ghetto to get to the nice private school, but at LEAST the total cost of switch to private will have been greatly reduced to merely the time and $$$ to transport the kid. Thats a lot better than they have to deal with now.
It is still expanding choice. Just because it is not 100% free (transportation costs), that does not mean the choice isn't there.
EDIT: I don't actually know if some form of government transportation is a part of most voucher bills but what I am saying is that vouchers are good even if it didn't exist.
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United States22883 Posts
On February 05 2009 05:14 Savio wrote:Show nested quote +On February 05 2009 05:08 Jibba wrote:On February 05 2009 05:04 Savio wrote:
One other side thought you post made me think of oneofthem is that even though there is inherent choice in public schools (since you can choose the district you live in), one benefit to vouchers is it gives you the freedom of not only choosing a different school but also escaping the teachers unions. As it is, only the rich kids have been able to escape the problems caused by unions in our educational system and the poor kids are stuck with teachers who can't be fired if they suck and can't be pressured to work harder.
Just so we're clear, the government would also need to step in and provide transportation for everyone that wants to choose. It happens to some degree right now, but the effort would be ramped up quite considerably. If the didn't provide transportation, then yes, there would still be a cost for poor kids in the ghetto to get to the nice private school, but at LEAST the total cost of switch to private will have been greatly reduced to merely the time and $$$ to transport the kid. Thats a lot better than they have to deal with now. It is still expanding choice. Just because it is not 100% free (transportation costs), that does not mean the choice isn't there.
I assume you're a Hayekian and even if you want the market controlling things, you need to allow government to be a referee. If the parents of low income families are working 3 jobs and 1) don't have the money or 2) don't have the time to drive their kids an hour away, then it's not a level playing field.
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On February 04 2009 16:56 EleanorRIgby wrote:Show nested quote +On February 04 2009 16:53 mahnini wrote:
are you guys seriously talking about calories? there be some massive dumbfuckery up in here yo. FORUM FIGHT!!!!!!!!
No. Unlike the large number of empty threats on TL, when I say I will end it and ignore someone, its over.
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On February 05 2009 05:17 Jibba wrote:Show nested quote +On February 05 2009 05:14 Savio wrote:On February 05 2009 05:08 Jibba wrote:On February 05 2009 05:04 Savio wrote:
One other side thought you post made me think of oneofthem is that even though there is inherent choice in public schools (since you can choose the district you live in), one benefit to vouchers is it gives you the freedom of not only choosing a different school but also escaping the teachers unions. As it is, only the rich kids have been able to escape the problems caused by unions in our educational system and the poor kids are stuck with teachers who can't be fired if they suck and can't be pressured to work harder.
Just so we're clear, the government would also need to step in and provide transportation for everyone that wants to choose. It happens to some degree right now, but the effort would be ramped up quite considerably. If the didn't provide transportation, then yes, there would still be a cost for poor kids in the ghetto to get to the nice private school, but at LEAST the total cost of switch to private will have been greatly reduced to merely the time and $$$ to transport the kid. Thats a lot better than they have to deal with now. It is still expanding choice. Just because it is not 100% free (transportation costs), that does not mean the choice isn't there. I assume you're a Hayekian and even if you want the market controlling things, you need to allow government to be a referee. If the parents of low income families are working 3 jobs and 1) don't have the money or 2) don't have the time to drive their kids an hour away, then it's not a level playing field.
Of course, its not a level playing field as it is now is it? Voucher without transportation wouldn't level it completely, but would make it more level.
But I am not against some form of transportation being provided.
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Cayman Islands24199 Posts
what if a less costly improvement project to a public school achieves the same result as a private voucher program?
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EPT![[image loading]](http://img371.imageshack.us/img371/200/eebd108c814759bd82ed9d2sf6.jpg)
