Re: Amazon Marketplace Absurd Prices - This may top them all

Bob Harper wrote:
Kip Williams wrote:
(snip)

3) Liberals subscribe to a political theory that charity is best
handled by a state actor that can negotiate for better prices and
which draws money more fairly from all. So, they pay their taxes
without complaining. Conservatives are vested in the belief that
government can't handle charity, so they have an interest in making
private charities work. It benefits their political aims to try and
make that happen.

So coerced payments (taxes) are more 'fair' than free contributions, and
a central authority will do a better job than the people closest to the
problem. Sorry, but I disagree on both counts. Maybe that's why
conservatives give more of their income to charity than do liberals.

Payment for societal good that benefits all (reduced crime, police and fire services, national defense, roads, product safety, etc) is best shouldered by all, or as near to all as is practical. Those who benefit by such things while shunning paying for them apparently aspire to be parasites.

4) How does it count people who opted to work in the public sector for
idealistic reasons when they could have cleaned up in the private
sector? Does he count someone working a $40k/yr job instead of a
$200k/yr job as making a $160k/yr donation? I doubt it.

While there are doubtless those in the public sector accepting lower pay
than they could earn in the private sector, the fact is that the average
government salary is now considerably higher than the average for the
private sector (http://www.cato.org/pubs/tbb/tbb-0605-35.pdf). Outside
of top political appointees, I rather doubt that too many government
employees would get the big bucks in the private sector. And they
wouldn't have the same job security :)

Are you thinking of civil servants? I had educators in mind.

I appreciate that you are debating specifics with me here. Thanks.


Kip W
.

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