*** The Official CUCKposting thread ***

[Poopadoop]

Well actually it would be "I'm a victim you're a cunt" if we're talking from the left's pov, but yeah.

Well when you're acting like a cunt what do you want me to say? "Please sir can i have more?"

Fucking hell man.

[OngBonga]

People are too sensetive.

You know I can be a dick, you know I like to troll, and yet you still let me get under your skin.

You know why it's bothering you? Deep down you know I'm right, that the left are just noise making pussies who play the victim card to guilt the world into meeting their demands. If they don't get what they want, they cry louder and louder until people get sick of the noise and cave their own fucking head in.

The left operates by playing victim.

[Poopadoop]

People are too sensetive.

You know I can be a dick, you know I like to troll, and yet you still let me get under your skin.

You know why it's bothering you? Deep down you know I'm right, that the left are just noise making pussies who play the victim card to guilt the world into meeting their demands. If they don't get what they want, they cry louder and louder until people get sick of the noise and cave their own fucking head in.

The left operates by playing victim.

See, here's where you're making a mistake. You're not under my skin just because I point out you're being a cunt. I could see anyone being a cunt and say 'what a cunt' and be totally devoid of any feeling about it.

What's bugging you is that you got called on it, and now you're trying to make into some 'lefty commie victimisation syndrome' or w/e. Stop trying to rationalise why you were being a cunt and just stop being a cunt, and I'll stop pointing out that you're being a cunt. It's really simple.

[spoonitnow]

So my tongue in cheek banshee posts are the same as actual physical harm.

This is why the left have no credibility. This is a somewhat pathetic guilt trip. Man up for fuck's sake, words on the internet are not the same as being a dick to old ladies.

Again with the guilt. You're a victim, I'm a cunt. That's the entire ideology of the left summed up in a few short words.

Ding ding ding. Ladies and gentlemen, this man gets it.

[OngBonga]

You don't tease them a fourth time unless you're a shitty friend.

Again with the guilt. You're a victim, I'm a cunt. That's the entire ideology of the left summed up in a few short words.

[OngBonga]

I don't give a fuck if I get called out for being a cunt. It's hardly breaking news.

I'm usually a cunt, it's just unusual for you to get butthurt about it.

[Poopadoop]

I'm usually a cunt

There's a difference between checking someone's spelling and arguing about nonsense and/or whatever else you usually do and insulting them repeatedly. If it makes you happy I'll try to get butthurt when you point out my spelling mistakes too from now on.

[OngBonga]

Banshee isn't really that much of an insult. You called me a fucking idiot and I didn't get butthurt.

I really couldn't give a toss what someone on the internet says to me. You shouldn't either.

[Poopadoop]

You called me a fucking idiot and I didn't get butthurt.

I didn't call you it over and over again every day for week.

I really couldn't give a toss what someone on the internet says to me. You shouldn't either.

All I said was you're a fail as a troll.

[OngBonga]

All I said was you're a fail as a troll.

I dunno, I mean you're still biting.

Don't make me say the B-word again.

[Poopadoop]

I dunno, I mean you're still biting.

Don't make me say the B-word again.

Well if your goal this morning was to get me to not react to your trolling except to call you a troll and then later maneuver me into calling you a cunt, then truly you are playing some 3D infinite chess.

[spoonitnow]

Well if your goal this morning was to get me to not react to your trolling except to call you a troll and then later maneuver me into calling you a cunt, then truly you are playing some 3D infinite chess.

TRIGGERED

[OngBonga]

There was a time that I held some radically left wing views. You could probably find many of them by searching through my posts.

I dunno, there came a time when I realised that life isn't fair, it's impossible for it to be fair, we're not all equal, and I'm not a victim of a shitty world I don't like.

[wufwugy]

I'm not a victim of a shitty world I don't like.

Whether or not somebody takes responsibility or blames others really does seem to be a key driver of how they view the world.


In other news, I've been softening to Christianity as a way of organizing one's life in part due to I think the foundational idea of Christianity is for the self to humble his pride, to not blame others, and to take responsibility. That's the central idea from Cain and Abel to Jesus.

[Poopadoop]

Whether or not somebody takes responsibility or blames others really does seem to be a key driver of how they view the world.

Obviously someone who has an internal focus and thinks they get what they deserve is going to try harder than someone who thinks it's all luck. So the former are, on average, going to be more successful than the latter.

That said, everyone is subject to variance whether they count its influence properly or not. Being aware of its impact doesn't mean you have to surrender yourself to it.

I think there are studies that show that when people succeed at a task they tend to take the credit for it (i.e., it's down to skill/hard work etc.) and when people (the same people mind you) fail they tend to blame bad luck or say 'it's rigged' or w/e. So it's hardly surprising successful people are going around saying 'all you have to do is work hard to succeed and the reason you failed is you didn't work hard enough) and unsuccessful people are saying the opposite.

[wufwugy]

Obviously someone who has an internal focus and thinks they get what they deserve is going to try harder than someone who thinks it's all luck. So the former are, on average, going to be more successful than the latter.

That said, everyone is subject to variance whether they count its influence properly or not. Being aware of its impact doesn't mean you have to surrender yourself to it.

I think there are studies that show that when people succeed at a task they tend to take the credit for it (i.e., it's down to skill/hard work etc.) and when people (the same people mind you) fail they tend to blame bad luck or say 'it's rigged' or w/e. So it's hardly surprising successful people are going around saying 'all you have to do is work hard to succeed and the reason you failed is you didn't work hard enough) and unsuccessful people are saying the opposite.

I totally agree.

What do you think about when applying prescriptions? It can be true that "I'm the bestest" emerges from success and "Woe is me" emerges from failure, yet if we're dealing with prescriptions to "Woe is me," it might involve changing the outlook away from "Woe is me."

[Poopadoop]

I totally agree.

What do you think about when applying prescriptions? It can be true that "I'm the bestest" emerges from success and "Woe is me" emerges from failure, yet if we're dealing with prescriptions to "Woe is me," it might involve changing the outlook away from "Woe is me."

By prescriptions do you mean how to address the problem?

Well, clearly self-pity is not productive. The cure for that in a one-to-one setting is to say, 'Yes poor you. Explain the problem to me.' and then once you understand the problem, to say "Now what can, and are, we going to do about it?'. I think the approach needs to be handled carefully though, because different people have different buttons that need to be pushed to activate them out of their self-pity.

I had a colleague once who got a visit from a student doing a version of 'woe is me'. He went on to explain life variance to her with some equations and whatnot, and suffice it to say it did absolutely nothing for her in any way.

In a more society-wide setting 'woe is me' tends to be more complicated, and I don't know what the answer is. If you take the plight of minorities in many countries, the 'woe is me' is understandable and the way to resolve it is to try to resolve the cause if you can. But it's complicated.

[Poopadoop]

There was a time that I held some radically left wing views. You could probably find many of them by searching through my posts.

I dunno, there came a time when I realised that life isn't fair, it's impossible for it to be fair, we're not all equal, and I'm not a victim of a shitty world I don't like.

Not every liberal is just trying to get more for themselves.

I've been dealt plenty of good cards in life. I can't complain that life isn't fair to me, but I can see where and how it's unfair to other people.

Further, I'm of the view that being dealt a good hand makes you lucky, not good. I think it's too easy for people who have a lot to think 'i deserve this' rather than 'i partly deserve this, and I partly lucked out because I grew up here or am this colour or knew this person or whatever'. From that pov, it's not hard to get to thinking the world isn't fair and one way to make it more fair is to spread the wealth around a bit better. Even if that costs me a few quid a year personally, to me there's a larger question of the greater good and what kind of society I want to live in.

[OngBonga]

I also still feel the govenrment should run the hospitals, trains, roads, water, energy... so I'm pretty left wing when it comes to economics.

Government should run critical infrastructure so private enterprise can thrive. Why do we need competition for trains? There's only one network. So it's not competition, it's a monopoly, and it's critical infrastructure because people need to get to work for the country to stay afloat. The government has more incentive than a private company that has no competition - votes.

But when it comes to equality and all that shit, this is where it all falls apart for me. This isn't economics, it's fucking identity politics. I abaondoned the left for this reason.

The right are just more sane, their ideology seems based on reason and logic, rather than blame and victimhood. I don't like the way the world works, but it's better here than most other places, so I'll take my good luck and get on with my life. I'm selfish, all I want is to survive and be happy. I don't give a fuck who isn't surviving and isn't happy because if I did I'd have a whole lot of fucking to give.

[wufwugy]

I also still feel the govenrment should run the hospitals, trains, roads, water, energy... so I'm pretty left wing when it comes to economics.

Do you believe the government more efficiently allocates resource than private interests do?

[OngBonga]

Do you believe the government more efficiently allocates resource than private interests do?

No, because they are cuorrupt and have private interests at heart. So when they do run public services that they would like to privatise, they run them to the ground to given the idea of inefficiency so the people are brainwashed into thinking that private interests will deliver a better service. It might if there was serious competition, but am I going to browse hospitals on the internet before I get my fucked ankle looked at?

[OngBonga]

Rewarding one with £3m a year while the other has to go look for a real job that might pay £30k a year is what strikes me as unfair.

Yeah well it strikes me as unfair too. However, it's not. It just so happens that a fuck ton of morons will pay 10% of their salary regularly to watch a ball being kicked around while wearing an advert, while noone is willing to fund an accountant's salary by paying Sky to broadcast their work.

Football is better than watching someone doing the books, so it's fair.

[Poopadoop]

Yeah well it strikes me as unfair too. However, it's not. It just so happens that a fuck ton of morons will pay 10% of their salary regularly to watch a ball being kicked around while wearing an advert, while noone is willing to fund an accountant's salary by paying Sky to broadcast their work.

Football is better than watching someone doing the books, so it's fair.

I'm talking about what's fair in terms of people getting what they morally deserve, independent of what they actually get because of how the economic system works. In other words, I'm saying the economic system is not set up properly when the rewards differ by so much for what is the same amount of effort.

If a giant suitcase with £3m inside falls out of the sky into my garden, and a smaller one with £30k falls into my neighbor's garden, then neither of us did anything to deserve the bigger or smaller suitcase; one just got lucky relative to the other. It's the same with A and B; one had the stars line up genetically and other didn't. In that sense, I have no problem with saying 'ok A you got £3m you lucky bastard, let's have a big chunk of that and spread it around a bit.'

[wufwugy]

I'm talking about what's fair in terms of people getting what they morally deserve, independent of what they actually get because of how the economic system works. In other words, I'm saying the economic system is not set up properly when the rewards differ by so much for what is the same amount of effort.

Is that an economic system or is that the way the world normally works and economic systems are ways to try to solve that?

[wufwugy]

Further, I'm of the view that being dealt a good hand makes you lucky, not good.

That's totally true.

The question I think is more about what provides for the best outcomes even in a world where good fortune is exactly that, good fortune.

[spoonitnow]

There was a time that I held some radically left wing views. You could probably find many of them by searching through my posts.

I dunno, there came a time when I realised that life isn't fair, it's impossible for it to be fair, we're not all equal, and I'm not a victim of a shitty world I don't like.

I don't say this to make fun, but I was honestly wondering what had happened to you since the last time I was active on FTR. I'm glad to see that you've hopped onto the winning team with this. I was always hoping that you would since you seem like you have a lot to offer the world, but base mindset is a motherfucker.

[wufwugy]

I don't say this to make fun, but I was honestly wondering what had happened to you since the last time I was active on FTR. I'm glad to see that you've hopped onto the winning team with this. I was always hoping that you would since you seem like you have a lot to offer the world, but base mindset is a motherfucker.

Do you have much idea regarding how to change base mindset?

[spoonitnow]

Do you have much idea regarding how to change base mindset?

I do, but it's incredibly complicated, and I would argue against the need to on a mass scale. However, I think it can be useful on an individual scale. It gets into the topic of benevolent brainwashing, which I wouldn't need to do if someone didn't fill the person's head full of shit in the first place. It's largely outside of the scope of this thread.

[OngBonga]

I can't complain that life isn't fair to me, but I can see where and how it's unfair to other people.

That's the way it works. You're a poker player, if you win some fucker else loses. That's the way it works, the principle is the same... we're competing for resources. You invest your money, or labour, in an effort to compete, and you either win or lose.

I'm of the view that being dealt a good hand makes you lucky, not good.

I agree. I don't pretend to be either unlucky nor good. I'm lucky I live in a country where I can be idle for a decade and not die. I'm also immoral for expecting the taxpayer to cough up.

The only lefty view I really still hold onto is the need for welfare. I know most unemployed people are unemployed for a reason... they are unemployable, either because they are too stupid, too lazy, or both. These people still need food, water and shelter, otherwise we have a problem that seems to me a great deal more worrying than a tax burden.

It's not right, but it's the way it is. Life isn't fair. Pay your fucking tax and be glad, in fact be proud, that you're not someone who lives like that.

[Poopadoop]

That's the way it works. You're a poker player, if you win some fucker else loses. That's the way it works, the principle is the same... we're competing for resources. You invest your money, or labour, in an effort to compete, and you either win or lose.

This is all true but sort of misses my point.

If two football players are both working their ass off to make the top league, and Person A has the genetic talent to be a professional athlete and Person B has almost but not quite enough genetic talent, they've both worked equally hard and arguably deserve the same reward. Rewarding one with £3m a year while the other has to go look for a real job that might pay £30k a year is what strikes me as unfair. Ok fine, capitalism and all that, but it's hard to believe anything except person A's genes are being rewarded out of all proportion to what he 'earned' by being born lucky. Person A did not do anything differently from Person B, so letting A earn 100x the salary of B is unjustified imo.

Now if we add in person C who genetically never had a chance in hell of making £3m a year at anything, it becomes easier to accept the idea that just maybe A should be paying more taxes than B or C.

[wufwugy]

This is all true but sort of misses my point.

If two football players are both working their ass off to make the top league, and Person A has the genetic talent to be a professional athlete and Person B has almost but not quite enough genetic talent, they've both worked equally hard and arguably deserve the same reward. Rewarding one with £3m a year while the other has to go look for a real job that might pay £30k a year is what strikes me as unfair. Ok fine, capitalism and all that, but it's hard to believe anything except person A's genes are being rewarded out of all proportion to what he 'earned' by being born lucky. Person A did not do anything differently from Person B, so letting A earn 100x the salary of B is unjustified imo.

Now if we add in person C who genetically never had a chance in hell of making £3m a year at anything, it becomes easier to accept the idea that just maybe A should be paying more taxes than B or C.

In this example, you may be correct in part because you didn't provide any output for the taxes. If the output is something like welfare, it can be the case that Person C is made worse off because of how his behavior (and beliefs) would change when he receives benefits due to the fact that he is in a worse situation.

[spoonitnow]

Person A did not do anything differently from Person B, so letting A earn 100x the salary of B is unjustified imo.

Person B picked the wrong thing to work at.

Moreover, what you're describing here is at the core of the victim mentality. It's the difference between what's fair and what's equal. They aren't the same.

[Poopadoop]

Person B picked the wrong thing to work at.

So 'blame the person who has less for them having less' is your answer in a nutshell.

Let's take a different approach then. A and B are identical twin footballers and work equally hard. Both are drafted to the big leagues. On the day before signing his contract, B gets hit by a drunk driver, and suffers career-ending injuries.

What's the argument now for why A "deserves" £3m a year and B "deserves" £30k?

[spoonitnow]

So 'blame the person who has less for them having less' is your answer in a nutshell.

In this situation, yes.

Let's take a different approach then. A and B are identical twin footballers and work equally hard. Both are drafted to the big leagues. On the day before signing his contract, B gets hit by a drunk driver, and suffers career-ending injuries.

What's the argument now for why A "deserves" £3m a year and B "deserves" £30k?

In this completely different situation, A can earn £3m/year, and B can earn £30k/year. What they can produce is what they deserve. B does not have a claim to what A is earning.

Whether or not B deserved to be hit by a drunk driver and the injuries that came with that is a completely different question, but I don't expect you to understand that because your first inclination is to define B as a victim.

And of course I have sympathy for your perspective. I just think it's better for everyone, on average, if that perspective is not the one that's used as the basis for policy.

[wufwugy]

The only lefty view I really still hold onto is the need for welfare. I know most unemployed people are unemployed for a reason... they are unemployable, either because they are too stupid, too lazy, or both.

I know some very stupid people. Like 80 IQ or something worse, who are very employable and very employed, that even support families.

Regarding too lazy, yeah true, some people are too lazy to be employable. Though that would change right quick if their options were to go hungry or lift their fucking finger.


Anyways, even if most people are not "truly" unemployable, some still are, so my above points would not fully address your concerns. To your concerns, which are legitimate, (some people legitimately cannot take care of themselves) those people do need to be taken care of. The question then is does it work best when government does it or when families and friends and communities do it? I had a great post how we can figure this out a few days ago that you might have seen.

[OngBonga]

I'm talking about what's fair in terms of people getting what they morally deserve

You get what you morally deserve by working hard for it, at least in this country anyway. You think the footballer got lucky? Bollocks did he. He had to work really fucking hard to get where he got, ridiculously hard because the competition is enormous. You want to be an accountant? Go to uni, be motivated, sorted. You want to earn $30 million a year kicking a ball about? Be better than millions of other kids who want to be a footballer.

Morality is a crock of shit. If you don't like the money footballers earn, don't buy into it.

[Poopadoop]

You get what you morally deserve by working hard for it, at least in this country anyway.

Bullshit. The Queen never did a hard day's work in her life and she lives in a palace.

He had to work really fucking hard to get where he got, ridiculously hard because the competition is enormous.

You just ignored the whole premise of the argument. They both worked equally really fucking hard at it.

[spoonitnow]

You just ignored the whole premise of the argument. They both worked equally really fucking hard at it.

Equality in effort does not mean equality in what's earned or what's deserved. The left does not understand this, largely because of the epidemic of participation trophies and the related victim mentality.

To kick this over to the Christianity thread, this is also at the core of the Cain and Abel story. Cain perceives that he has put up equal effort but does not get equal result, so he lashes outward instead of looking inward.

[OngBonga]

They both worked equally really fucking hard at it.

Sure they did. I'm sure the accountant was practising sums in his spare time through his entire childhood. I'm sure he is as fit.

The accountant went to uni and was pretty much guaranteed a job because someone is always hiring an accountant.

The footballer was practising from an early age, all the time, more so than your average kid who just has a kickabout now and then. If he's really serious when he gets in his teens, he'll have to ensure he's fit enough, so he'll have to go for a jog every day, make sure he doesn't smoke, less parties... the accountant can get as drunk as he likes at the weekend.

You think being a footballer is as easy as being an accountant?

That's why it's fair.

As for the queen, so she has a palace. What do you care? She earns it by being gawped at by millions of people and not being able to have a normal life. You think that's an easy life just because you don't ever have to worry about running out of bog roll? I wouldn't swap lives with her for shit.

[Poopadoop]

Sure they did. I'm sure the accountant was practising sums in his spare time through his entire childhood. I'm sure he is as fit.

The accountant went to uni and was pretty much guaranteed a job because someone is always hiring an accountant.

The footballer was practising from an early age, all the time, more so than your average kid who just has a kickabout now and then. If he's really serious when he gets in his teens, he'll have to ensure he's fit enough, so he'll have to go for a jog every day, make sure he doesn't smoke, less parties... the accountant can get as drunk as he likes at the weekend.

You think being a footballer is as easy as being an accountant?

That's why it's fair.

Go back to my first post about A and B and read the chain of posts again. You're not even on the same page here.

As for the queen, so she has a palace. What do you care? She earns it by being gawped at by millions of people and not being able to have a normal life. You think that's an easy life just because you don't ever have to worry about running out of bog roll? I wouldn't swap lives with her for shit.

Ok, how about someone who inherits a fortune without the strings attached? You think they earned that?

[wufwugy]

Ok, how about someone who inherits a fortune without the strings attached? You think they earned that?

In a way they did*, but this also shows why it's folly to attempt to organize "earns" and "deserves" by force.

*By being preferred inheritor by the other person who "earned" it. Indeed there likely wouldn't be inheritance except that the person who "earned" it first, whatever that even means, preferred to give it as inheritance.

[OngBonga]

Go back to my first post about A and B and read the chain of posts again. You're not even on the same page here.

Nah, I'll just let you win.

[OngBonga]

If I want to give all my money to a homeless guy, that's my call, right?

What if I want to give my $100m estate to my son? Why is that a problem?

[OngBonga]

Ok, how about someone who inherits a fortune without the strings attached? You think they earned that?

Sure, his Dad earned it and his Dad has the right to do what he likes with his own hard earned shit.

[Poopadoop]

Sure, his Dad earned it and his Dad has the right to do what he likes with his own hard earned shit.

So everyone gets what they deserve then in your eyes. The guy who makes £300k as a university chancellor deserves 10x as much as the accountant making £30k?

[spoonitnow]

So everyone gets what they deserve then in your eyes. The guy who makes £300k as a university chancellor deserves 10x as much as the accountant making £30k?

If wufwugy is willing to pay me $25 to mow his yard, and I mow their yard for that amount, then I deserve that amount.

If wufwugy is willing to pay you $250 to paint his porch, and you paint his porch for that amount, then you deserve that amount.

The guy who makes $250 as a porch painter deserves 10x as much as the yard mower making $25?

Yes.

[OngBonga]

So everyone gets what they deserve then in your eyes. The guy who makes £300k as a university chancellor deserves 10x as much as the accountant making £30k?

If that's how much they're getting paid, if that's how the system is working, then yes, it's fair. Or at least, as fair as it can be.

You and I both know it's ridiculous how much money a footballer gets paid, but it's the way it is. What you going to do? Cry about it? I stopped going to football matches long ago.

I don't give a fuck how much anyone else earns, or where they live. I care about me. Do I like where I live? No. Am I doing something about it? Yes. Will I like where I'm going to be in two weeks time? Yes. That's my life sorted. Fuck everyone else.

[Poopadoop]

Fuck everyone else.

Not to be glib, but that seems to be the difference between capitalism and socialism in a nutshell right there. The capitalist is individualistic and the socialist is group-oriented. The former is Darwinian in their outlook on wealth whereas the latter treats their country as you would a family that shares resources, rather than just a bunch of strangers that all live in one place and hoard their own goodies.

[OngBonga]

Not to be glib, but that seems to be the difference between capitalism and socialism in a nutshell right there.

Yep. One is based on cold, hard, natural fact, while the other is based on naive delusion.

[OngBonga]

What are these natural monopolies?

Dude cmon. Energy, water, rails... when I need to get the train to my Mother's, I have exactly one company to choose from. They can charge whatever they can get away with.

It is by the potential to make profit that resources are allocated to the thing in the first place.

The govenrment's profit comes from increaed tax revenue caused by a stimulated economy.

However, what happens to the trains when there is no profit to be had by making a better train good or train service to consumers and potential consumers?

There's always profit. Someone has to build the new trains, or refurb them, or provide the imroved service.

[wufwugy]

Dude cmon. Energy, water, rails... when I need to get the train to my Mother's, I have exactly one company to choose from. They can charge whatever they can get away with.

Why do you think you don't have much option in these things?

The govenrment's profit comes from increaed tax revenue caused by a stimulated economy.

Can we make everything free and stimulate the economy even more?

There's always profit. Someone has to build the new trains, or refurb them, or provide the imroved service.

You said there should be no profit, and one of your elements implies no profit (free).

[OngBonga]

Why do you think you don't have much option in these things?

Well, I have precisely one company delivering water to my taps. If I want to use a different company, then I need to move to their region.
Energy, well there's usually a handful of different companies, all providing you with the same energy at different complicated prices.
Rails, the other options are bus or car. Not really competition, is it? It's like saying Pepsi is competing with bottled water. Well not really, you want one or the other, you're not like hmm um which one hmm...

Can we make everything free and stimulate the economy even more?

Free is probably taking it too far, I was being extreme. But cheaper, certainly, especially off peak. And no you obviously can't make everything free, but if you can get people moving cheaply, then it's reasonable to assume consuming increases. It's like reducing business tax... it stimulates investment and ultimately increases tax revenue, while increasing business tax does the opposite.

You said there should be no profit, and one of your elements implies no profit (free).

Well there's plenty of bsuinesses that are capable of fitting out a train, for example. Maintenence will probably have to be outsourced to private interests, too. We'll never rid the system totally of profit, and that's probably not a bad thing.

[wufwugy]

Well, I have precisely one company delivering water to my taps. If I want to use a different company, then I need to move to their region.
Energy, well there's usually a handful of different companies, all providing you with the same energy at different complicated prices.
Rails, the other options are bus or car. Not really competition, is it? It's like saying Pepsi is competing with bottled water. Well not really, you want one or the other, you're not like hmm um which one hmm...

Do you suppose there would be monopolies in other industries if the law made them that way?

Free is probably taking it too far, I was being extreme. But cheaper

You're not proposing to make things cheaper by instituting a negative demand shock or a positive supply shock. So then the mechanism to make things cheaper is through increasing efficiency of allocation of resources. Do you have other ideas for how we could make things cheaper?

[OngBonga]

You're not wrong. Still, it depends on how much it costs. If a government education system costs 100 per head and results in 90 value per head, it's not worth it. We have to also account for what a private education system costs and benefits.

Well I guess Norway found a way to make it $90 per head and they get $100 per head back.

[OngBonga]

Yeah yeah google definitions etc

socialism - a political and economic theory of social organization which advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole

If we're talking true socialism, there's no room for capitalism. Means of production owned by the community? How can I create a business-for-profit and employ someone in such a system?

[wufwugy]

If we're talking true socialism, there's no room for capitalism. Means of production owned by the community? How can I create a business-for-profit and employ someone in such a system?

The cool thing about free market capitalism is that it allows people to freely choose to run socially owned enterprise. If it was true that socialism is better for people, we'd probably see it play out in a free market capitalist society.

[OngBonga]

The cool thing about free market capitalism is that it allows people to freely choose to run socially owned enterprise. If it was true that socialism is better for people, we'd probably see it play out in a free market capitalist society.

Capitalism is a choice.

[wufwugy]

Capitalism is a choice.

It's probably not a good idea to conflate something that once took choice to adopt with something that within its structure involves am amount of choice.

[OngBonga]

Where am I going with this?

That it isn't free.

Do you mean how Norway subsidizes law-created monopolies by using the successes of its competitive markets in other sectors?

Um I was thinking how they provide whatever it is they provide that makes people think they're somehow not capitalist. idfk to be honest, so yeah, exactly what you just said.

Depends on how much it costs compared to the benefits and compared to what would happen otherwise.

Well I'm kind of assuming that healthy smart people can earn more money for longer (and therefore pay more tax) than dumb people who die sooner. Maybe I'm wrong, the pension bill is a beast.

[wufwugy]

That it isn't free.

I'm getting at how you said government provided healthcare and education is benefit to private businesses. Since it is producers and consumers of the businesses paying the taxes that fund the healthcare and education, it can't be said that those benefit the those people with that information alone. To find out if those benefit the people we need to find out how efficiently government allocates those resources and how efficiently the markets would if allowed to do it themselves.

Well I'm kind of assuming that healthy smart people can earn more money for longer (and therefore pay more tax) than dumb people who die sooner.

You're not wrong. Still, it depends on how much it costs. If a government education system costs 100 per head and results in 90 value per head, it's not worth it. We have to also account for what a private education system costs and benefits.

[OngBonga]

Do you suppose there would be monopolies in other industries if the law made them that way?

Well sure, if you create a law that says only the government can make bread. But why? We're not talking about bread, we're talking about energy and water, which come from specific power plants and resevoirs. You don't have a choice in that. You don't have a choice which train you get to Brimingham, or which motorway to use for London.

Do you have other ideas for how we could make things cheaper?

Yeah. Free energy.

[wufwugy]

Well sure, if you create a law that says only the government can make bread. But why? We're not talking about bread, we're talking about energy and water, which come from specific power plants and resevoirs. You don't have a choice in that. You don't have a choice which train you get to Brimingham, or which motorway to use for London.

First off, you do have choices. And I'm getting at how to improve or disintegrate those choices. A lack of choice in the markets you discuss are often caused by government intervention. In fact, it isn't even evident that any lack of choices in a free market has the effect monopolies behaving like monopolies.

Yeah. Free energy.

What do you mean?

[Poopadoop]

What do you mean?

It means he wants the government to make utilities free so he can grow herbs on an industrial scale without all the overhead is my guess.

[Poopadoop]

The thing with the trains is there's only one track going from A to B usually, so you can't really have companies competing over customers in a free markety kind of way. Are they going to build another track next to it and say 'come on our track, it's cheaper?' And how can they do that if they just spend £40m or whatever to build the second track? Or, are they supposed to have two companies using one track and constantly getting in each other's way?

Same thing with highways. The gov't builds it, owns it, and it's paid for with taxes. So if you did the same with trains that would keep one company from having a monopoly and bilking the shit out of everyone the way they do now.

[BananaStand]

Same thing with highways. The gov't builds it, owns it, and it's paid for with taxes. So if you did the same with trains that would keep one company from having a monopoly and bilking the shit out of everyone the way they do now.

This is reflexive liberalism. Just because there is a monopoly, doesn't mean you're getting bilked.

I actually don't know the pricing structure of the train, but in general, public stuff run by private companies is subject to heavy government regulation, mostly to prevent the public from being bilked.

For example, I know of an electric company. They don't just charge whatever people are willing to pay for electricity. that's a fucking dangerous game. Instead, they have to show the government how much capital they have invested in the enterprise of delivering electricity. Then they say, a fair return on that capital investment, given our level of risk, etc etc etc., is X%.

Then the government has to approve that %. Sometimes they change it. At the company I'm thinking of, they went a little extravagant with the capital investments and the government said "whoa, people don't need that shit, you're not earning a return on that frivolous spending"

Anyway once the % is set, they multiply it by qualifying capital investments, and that is their return for the year. Then they add their annual operating expenses, and that's the revenue. Then they divide that revenue by the number of Kilowatt hours they expect to sell, and boom, there's your price for electricity.

[wufwugy]

The thing with the trains is there's only one track going from A to B usually, so you can't really have companies competing over customers in a free markety kind of way. Are they going to build another track next to it and say 'come on our track, it's cheaper?' And how can they do that if they just spend £40m or whatever to build the second track? Or, are they supposed to have two companies using one track and constantly getting in each other's way?

The answer is I don't know yet in general the specifics for how these things get dealt with. The high fixed cost (and economies of scale) you describe are the theoretical reasons for how monopolies can develop in a free market. Markets continually evolve and over time they tend to allocate resources the way that works best for all those who engage in the market on average.

Same thing with highways. The gov't builds it, owns it, and it's paid for with taxes. So if you did the same with trains that would keep one company from having a monopoly and bilking the shit out of everyone the way they do now.

We don't even know that monopolies bilk people. We know that in theory they can. However, two things on this:

(1) I once asked a professor which companies are setting quantity where marginal cost meets marginal revenue instead of where marginal cost meets demand (that's the way monopolies can theoretically bilk consumers), and his response was "nobody knows".

(2) The best examples of natural monopolies I know of don't seem to behave like the negative way monopolies can in theory.



A side point that might explain why monopolies don't seem to behave like "monopolies" is because of play between markets. Each decision a person makes is associated with a cost and an opportunity cost, and each person has marginal preferences. So, when the cost of something in one market changes, other markets that act as either substitutes or complements experience a change in demand. So, the idea that there is "no choice" but to take the train to see Grandma isn't quite true. Sure, you, at this specific point in time, when adjusting for your costs and your preferences, if you will go to see Grandma you take the train, but the state of the market is not created by that type of "no choice". Instead it is created by all the people who make marginal decisions about whether or not to use the train to do something, to use something else to do that something, or to do something else entirely. If we combine with this the fact that public relations are VERY important to even the most monopolistic company, we can possibly explain why natural monopolies don't seem to behave like the theoretically negative ways monopolies can.

[OngBonga]

First off, you do have choices.

How do I have choice? I have the choice to not consume water? I have the choice to use a different company to deliver my water? Perhaps a different resevoir?

The only choice I have is tap water or bottled water. That's great when I want to drink it, but when it comes to washing, I think it's gonna get expensive pouring evian into the bath.

The free energy comment was a little bit trollish, but if you can bring down the price of energy (perhaps by nationalising it and removing profit), then there might be a knock on effect making goods and services cheaper.

[OngBonga]

Looking at our energy companies, I can't figure out what the fuck is going on.

British Gas - owned by Centrica, the same company who own Direct Energy in USA. British based mulitnational company.

EDF - French state-owned.

Scottish Power - owned by a private Spanish company.

SSE - Scottish, private.

npower - German, private.

E.ON - also private German company.

So the only state-owned power company we have are French.

Turns out my water supplier is UK state-owned, although I can't even begin to figure out the company structure, and it appears to be the only state-owned supplier in the UK.

[spoonitnow]

but if you can bring down the price of energy (perhaps by nationalising it and removing profit)

The profit motive is what drives competition, which drives down the price of energy.

[wufwugy]

How do I have choice? I have the choice to not consume water? I have the choice to use a different company to deliver my water? Perhaps a different resevoir?

The only choice I have is tap water or bottled water. That's great when I want to drink it, but when it comes to washing, I think it's gonna get expensive pouring evian into the bath.

In the first paragraph you implied you don't have choice then in the second paragraph you stated you have choice.

I explained the paragraph immediately above your post the type of thing that is going on here, where how even companies that are monopolies don't seem to behave the way monopolies can.

For nearly all things, people do operate with a small degree of choice, and that choice has a very positive impact. Typically, when there is a "lack" of choice, it comes by government laws creating that lack (this is VERY common) or by one/couple company(s) meeting demand.

The free energy comment was a little bit trollish, but if you can bring down the price of energy (perhaps by nationalising it and removing profit), then there might be a knock on effect making goods and services cheaper.

How would that make energy cheaper?

[spoonitnow]

How would that make energy cheaper?

Because they wouldn't have to turn a profit. The money for research and development and the upward pressure from competition is all free.

[OngBonga]

I dunno if your idea of choice is to get four or five different companies to do exactly the same thing on the government's behalf, such as provide electricity. I have chocie here, but each company I can choose from is actually doing exactly the same thing... acting as a middle man between me (the consumer) and the government (the provider). Whether I use company A or company B, I get the same energy from the same plant. The only difference is the person I talk to on the phone and maybe the amount of money I pay.

So what's the point of this choice? To fool me into thinking there is competition? I can't think of any other reason.

[wufwugy]

I dunno if your idea of choice is to get four or five different companies to do exactly the same thing on the government's behalf, such as provide electricity. I have chocie here, but each company I can choose from is actually doing exactly the same thing... acting as a middle man between me (the consumer) and the government (the provider). Whether I use company A or company B, I get the same energy from the same plant. The only difference is the person I talk to on the phone and maybe the amount of money I pay.

So what's the point of this choice? To fool me into thinking there is competition? I can't think of any other reason.

That situation is a mess. It probably derives from people making decisions based on fear. A heavily government regulated system where the producers are for-profit appears to have the effect of maintaining a stasis in an already stable system while assuaging fears, yet it has no effect or just a very small effect of increasing quality. We've seen this sort of thing in other industries, where there is no improvement at all for a very long time because of government laws, yet "everybody" is happy because they have the same thing today that they did yesterday. Then when that law changes or a new adjacent substitute market opens up where private enterprise operates with little regulation, quality skyrockets.

[wufwugy]

"Choice" can be thought of as a cover-all. It's not like ten is 100% increase over five or is even better than five in the first place. There are so many different things at play.

Look at search engines. What is that, is that a monopoly? A duopoly? Does labeling it based on quantity of production and market share tell us anything about how that quantity of production and market share is impacted by that label? Not really.

What we want to look at instead is all the related incentives. For example, Bing is a little bitch compared to Google. But Bing isn't a little bitch since Bing is one of the main reasons why Google is so good. After all, if Bing didn't try to compete with Google, it is likely that Google would not have improved so many of its offerings in order to stay numero uno. And what about all the other ones like DuckDuckGo or Yahoo? They're not doing much of anything in the market, right? Wrong. Well, maybe wrong. They're not perfect alternatives to Google, people tend to use them for niche reasons. But if Google upsets people enough or if Google doesn't develop one specific niche enough, then Google loses a proportion of its customer base to those others. And this is very bad for Google, much worse than the "incomes" of any people at Google suggests it is.

So, while the search engine market can be said to only have a certain amount of "choice", it can be thought of as operating fully with choice since the producers and consumers in the market are all operating voluntarily.

[OngBonga]

Bottled water vs tap water is not choice, not when it comes to washing. Drinking, sure, but not everyday household chores.

Just like energy choice isn't about nuclear power plants vs solar. Most people cannot afford to install stuff like solar panels and turbines.

For competition to mean anything, choice needs to be comparable in price.