Re: A Little More Political Humor
- From: "ed" <news@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: 31 Aug 2005 10:07:13 -0700
ZnU wrote:
> In article <1125466984.557523.21580@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
> "ed" <news@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> > ZnU wrote:
> > > In article <2005082911121816807%bxlewi1@usbankcom>,
> > > Brian Lewis <bxlewi1@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > >
> > > > On 2005-08-29 00:40:59 -0400, ZnU <znu@xxxxxxxxxxxx> said:
> > <snip>
> > > > I'm not taking some of what you consider entitlements because I don't
> > > > agree they are entitlements. Take public education, it's not
> > > > universally used. Especially in Cincinnati, there is a large Catholic
> > > > population and a fair share of them send their kids to private schools.
> > > > Even though we send our child through a private school, we still
> > > > subsidize Cincinnati public via property taxes.
> > >
> > > It's useful to stop thinking of these sorts of things as "I personally
> > > pay this money to the government, and the government directly provides
> > > these services to me specifically in exchange." That's just inherently
> > > the wrong way to think about systems that benefit from socialization --
> >
> > it's useful stop thinking that way, and wrong to think that way, if you
> > accept the premise that the systems benefit from socialization. if you
> > don't accept that, it's very useful to think that way! =D
> >
> > > if that sort of direct exchange worked well for all problems, there
> > > wouldn't be any need for socialization; the market handles those sorts
> > > of situations quite nicely.
> >
> > yes, that's what we've been trying to tell you! =D
>
> But there are indisputably certain investments which are beneficial, but
> for which there is no natural market mechanism to make sure that a
> benefit is returned to the investor, rather than to others. For
> instance, making sure everyone is educated is beneficial,
see, here's the rub- there's very few things that are "indisputably"
beneficial for society. i would agree that education is one, but a few
folks wouldn't. from your previous posts you obviously think
socialized health care is "indisputably" beneficial for society, but i
don't. where do you draw the line? why not free housing for everyone-
very similar arguments (for and against) can be made for that as for
health care.
> but if some
> corporation decided to fund free schools to help with this cause, the
> market probably wouldn't reward them for it.
that's because people don't think it's important; it they did, it would
help them as a company. it's like employer sussidized health
insurance- the market doesn't reward you for offering it, but you'd
have a tough time drawing enough quality employees these days if you
didn't offer it.
> In cases where all or most of society benefits from such investments, it
> makes sense to simply require all or most of the population to fund them.
the problem is who gets to decide that all or most of society benefits.
> > > Think about is more as you investing in society. You get paid back in
> > > the form of higher overall economic productivity.
> >
> > how do you identify yourself politically znu? socialist? communist?
> > just liberal? from your posts, i would guess at least stronly
> > socialist?
>
> I suppose I favor the sort of social democracy practiced in the
> Scandinavian countries and, to a lesser extent, in the rest of Western
> Europe. I guess that's "socialist", but that word has so much baggage
> attached to it in the US that I've found describing myself that way
> isn't a very helpful way to explain to people what my positions are.
>
> In terms of what I think might actually be realistic if democracy worked
> a bit better in this country, I guess I'd point to Canada as the model.
i'd point to canada as an example of what i don't ant to happen- not
only does democracy not work better there, they take much more of your
money and stifle more of your rights (even basic ones, like speech).
if canada is so much better, how many people do you know that have
moved to the us from canada, versus from canada to the us? i have a
gaggle of canadian friends here around los angeles and they always
claim it's better, but have no plans to go back. go figure. =D
> > > > I don't see the connection to the wealthy with the other two programs.
> > > > When we talk about wealthy, we're not necessarily talking about
> > > > multi-millionares who own businesses.
> > >
> > > Pretty much anyone who could be described as wealthy
> >
> > i've asked this before, but nobody's stepped up with an answer- at what
> > point do you think someone is "wealthy" or "rich"? they make $50k a
> > year? $100k? $250k? $1million? or is it based on net worth? how
> > much? $100k? $500k? $5mill?
>
> It depends on a bunch of things, really. But broadly, I'd say it depends
> on how much money you'd have available after expenses if you lived a
> reasonable middle-class lifestyle. Pinning down exact numbers is tricky.
> If it's more than half your income, though, I'd say you're rich.
that's an assinine standard- like wealth based tax proposals, it
penalizes those that are frugal.
> > > is quite likely to derive a good fraction of their income from
> > > businesses they own a stake in -- through parts of other people's
> > > businesses that they own (AKA stocks) if not their owning their own
> > > businesses.
> >
> > again, it depends how you define wealthy; this whole conversation is
> > useless without it, as you could be talking about two drastically
> > different things. being relatively young, i don't know many folks w/
> > large ownership stakes in either their own businesses or other folks,
> > but i do know a small gaggle of folks making enough money that many
> > people would claim they're "rich".
>
> But these people likely will own states in businesses later.
i would be surprised if most will eventually "derive a good fraction of
their income" from such sources.
> [snip]
> > > The idea that there are a bunch of lazy people living indefinitely off
> > > of welfare seems to persist even though the system hasn't allowed that
> > > for a long time.
> >
> > oh, there's still a bunch. just not as many as before.
>
> It's hard; you have to have a pretty good reason for it now, like maybe
> if you've got a bunch of kids and it's cheaper for the state to pay you
> to take care of them than to pay someone else to take care of them while
> you go off to work.
and i would say that those folks should be cut off too- if you're too
irresponsible to only have offspring you can afford to raise, you have
no business receiving public funds. sure, we should provide support
for the kids, but those cash benefits for the parents have to go in
those cases.
> > > > I agree that wealth generates wealth. The old addage, you've got
> > > > to spend money to make money is certainly true. I don't see the
> > > > action of the rich getting richer as an inherant problem though.
> > > > If you have worked your life to become wealthy, you have likely
> > > > structured it to grow as you age.
> > >
> > > Again, you can't think of how this functions at the individual
> > > level; you have to take a more broad view.
> > >
> > > If there were a very high estate tax, and wealth couldn't pool
> > > indefinitely in corporations, or if there were significant direct
> > > taxes on wealth, that might be a workable model.
> >
> > yeah, the good ol' punish the successful and frugal models. hate it.
> >
> > > Without those things, more and more money ends up in fewer and
> > > fewer hands, and stays there practically forever.
> >
> > EXCEPT THIS DOESN'T HAPPEN. we live in a very economically mobile
> > society. families are very likely to move both up and down the
> > economic ladder- in fact, most do.
> > http://www.house.gov/jec/middle/mobility/fig-1.gif
> > http://www.house.gov/jec/middle/mobility/fig-2.gif
> > http://www.house.gov/jec/middle/mobility/tbl-1.gif
>
> I've addressed this issue previously. For starters, those figures are
> likely to be misleading in several ways. One big one is, a kid from a
> well-off family might not make much right out of college, but might be
> commanding $150K/year after a few years in the workforce -- and might
> get a couple million dollars when his parents die. That looks like
> economic mobility on paper -- hey, this guy was making $25K and had zero
> net worth, and now he's making $150K and has two million dollars! But
> it's not actual class mobility.
that's an interesting conjecture- do you have anything to base your
statements on? and i noticed you totally ignored that folks go down
from the top quintile just as much as they move up from the bottom
quintile. that fact is also strong indication that your opinion that
wealth just keeps getting concentrated at the top is likely false.
> Secondly, it's not clear to me that the structural problems introduced
> by wealth concentrating in few hands are in any way ameliorated if those
> happen to be different hands every few years.
one of your main points is that wealth redistribution is a good thing-
this shows that in a free market the wealth is already being
redistruted w/out gov't intervention.
> > > > It's easy to argue that people with that much money really don't need
> > > > that much and should pay more than their fare share (as currently
> > > > dictated.) I see that as penalizing success.
> > >
> > > The idea that wealth redistribution is inherently unfair rests on one
> > > major assumption that is not necessarily true, namely that the market
> > > always allocates perfectly fairly in the first place.
> >
> > who says that it's fair? what is this, 3rd grade?
>
> Well, the repeated claim is that any interference with the way the
> market allocates resources is unfair. The implication there certainly
> seems to be that the market allocates fairly.
i think most of the time that people say it's unfair is in response to
statements that the wealthy are only paying their "fair share"...
> [snip]
what, no comments on the market distributing the wealth? oh, that
might undermine your argument above. =D
.
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