Depends on if you can give half a fuck.Quote:
Originally Posted by rong
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Depends on if you can give half a fuck.Quote:
Originally Posted by rong
I think plural vs singular dictates fewer or less.
It's countable versus degree.
Less sand versus fewer bits of sand.
I think that's pretty much the same thing as I was saying.
No, because I dunno what you're saying and I know what I am saying.
There's less bullshit and fewer wankers.
Today I learned something.
Also, I have a new bike. £30 from some dodgy guy in Stourbridge. He had a shitty little house in an estate and a swimming pool in his garden with his three children playing in it. He had a hottub with fish in it. His knuckles were touching the floor. He seemed like a nice guy.
Oh wait, this isn't the random thread. Sorry. Carry on about capitalism, I'm vaguely following.
On the topic of safety nets.
This is an important concept that needs to be addressed. I don't disagree at all with the idea that society needs safety nets, and I don't think claiming it's okay for a lack of safety nets would convince anybody. However, the kicker is that welfare is not a safety net, while market policies are safety nets. Here are a few examples illustrating why this is.
Unemployment insurance epitomizes the concept of welfare for the purpose of safety nets for any who "fall through the cracks". When we examine what unemployment insurance actually does, however, it is an incentive to not produce. It turns robust capital into less robust capital. When viewed in a vacuum, unemployment insurance may look like a safety net for each individual from their own anecdotal perspective, but on the macro scale, it makes the economy worse and increases the probability and severity of "falling through the cracks" in the first place. As we've seen over the last few years, employment is depressed when job-searchers receive enough unemployment benefits. When those benefits run out, there are noticeable boosts in employment growth. This means that the "safety net" of unemployment insurance isn't a real safety and suppresses production. For these reasons, any real safety net policy cannot reduce production incentives.
So what increases production and production incentives? Many things, one example of which is unemployment insurance and a lower minimum wage. Let's take two different economies, one where when people lose their jobs, they go on unemployment insurance and when benefits run out they take another job (which is almost always lower paying than the job they lost), and one where when people lose their jobs, they take other jobs for lower wages soon after or within a reasonable time frame. In the economy with unemployment insurance, people are paid to not produce and when they started producing again it is usually lower pay and with lost skills. In the economy without employment insurance and now wage floor, people are paid only when they produce. Skill loss is less and the lower pay is less long-lasting.
What I hope I've illustrated is how welfare does not provide a safety net, and that the real safety net is the economic power actors in markets have. A restriction of actors' freedom in a market, even when meant as a "safety net", has the opposite effect, making the economy less stable, labor conditions more fragile, and deteriorating the real embedded safety nets.
I've posted this link several times in the past. It's the type of welfare system that would do the least amount of damage to production and stability. I think in a free market, it would be redundant and less good than just a regular market, but it's about six billion times better than any welfare system anybody today has.
http://www.morganwarstler.com/post/4...oss-the-market
I would like to comment on the line from Marx that was posted a while back: "from each according to his ability, to each according to his contribution".
In effect, this is capitalism. By mandate, it's communism. Marx, or at least the socialist left that followed, believed that capitalism created an ever perpetuating class of haves at the expense of the have-nots. By now we know this isn't true. We still do have some supposed "haves" and some supposed "have-nots", but we know that capitalism isn't the cause of this and we also know that capitalism is the most effective known solution to this. Regardless, the rise of the socialist left didn't have the history or sound economic theory that we do today, so it developed a different theory, one that says since the assumption is that freedom creates more power disparity, the solution to the problem of haves and have-nots is mandates. This coincides with why every iteration of socialism since its birth has restricted freedom and supported centralized powers with welfare agendas.*
Capitalism is the opposite. It says freedom is good and it has been demonstrated to be more effective than any imaginations at promoting prosperity for the have-nots. That's not an embellishment; poor people have smart phones. Capitalism has been enormously more effective than even Adam Smith could have fathomed. The concept economists have for why this could be the case is exactly what Marx wanted: each according to his contribution. Economists view capitalism's effectiveness mostly emerging from the meritocracy it creates, where workers are capable of getting more by contributing more.
Marx was right in that each should get according to his contribution. But his prescription was antipodal. Capitalism is what effects this meritocracy; socialism is what strips it away.
*The more aggressive versions of socialism have been violent. It should be noted that in socialism, violence isn't ideologically wrong. It is extremely effective at subverting freedom and installing states that can enact the socialist paradigm. Baked into the philosophy is the idea that if violence creates such a state, it's good. The Bolshevik revolution was not a bastardization of socialist philosophy like many today would claim. It was standard engagement of the philosophy. Perhaps a way to see how this is the case is that capitalism is ideologically against violence, while socialism requires a monopoly on violence to engage its agenda.
Your notion that being unforgiving to honest, hard-working people leaves a sour taste in my mouth.
***
As someone who has taken unemployment benefits, and gone through the goddamn ringer on keeping up with their demands while learning to take advantage of the wealth of job-finding resources they had to offer, I can say that it's no easy ride for free money. There's no slacking and avoiding an active daily job search unless you commit fraud. They audit your claims to a certain extent to look for fraud.
I'm not saying people don't abuse the system. I'm certain they do.
I'm saying, in my personal experience, limited though it is, that office was filled with people using the computers and waiting in line for personal meetings with employment workers. It was a room of strained hope and desperate smiles. It was full of people trying their damndest to get back into the system, not people slacking on a free dime.
***
Without data to put this into perspective, we're just sharing anecdotes.
Here's the first 3 links on googling the phrase, "what percent of welfare is abused"
Huffington Post
ThinkProgress
wikipedia
Looks like that abuse of the system you describe amounts to ~2% of all welfare transactions.
Those economic powers can change in ways that leave a person or a region of people on the losing end of the stick. They are perfectly willing to retrain and find a new job, but they need to feed their kids while they take a few weeks to do so.
What I hope I've illustrated is how welfare does provide a safety net - one that compliments the free market.
I'm not talking about fraud or abusing the system and I said that things like unemployment insurance look good on the anecdotal level. Almost everybody who has been on welfare has benefited from it in isolation. But this has no bearing on how the system as a whole functions. Who here would not benefit if they received $5k in their bank accounts every month from the government? No one. Every individual would benefit from this greatly. But the economy as a whole would become a disaster and everybody would end up being worse off than they otherwise would be without that extra $5k. This sounds like a contradiction but it's not a contradiction and is well established consensus in macroeconomics. The unemployment insurance example was meant to illustrate part of why this is true.Quote:
Originally Posted by MadMojoMonkey
I'm talking macroeconomics, and the first thing you do is call me a prick. Most of what I post here I don't make up. I just bring concepts I learn from economists to this board. If you wish to have a productive discussion, you have to assume that you have something to learn.
The problem with your (MMM) anecdote about benefiting from the welfare state is that it presupposes an identical universe except with you not having the unemployment benefits. In a world where the state doesn't take 40% of the shit, you would probably have had a much easier time finding work, and would have had a much lower cost of living to cover in the meantime. By the way, when you were working you paid a 6% unemployment tax.
Yeah that's good for a chuckle. It comes from the employer's magic money box and has NO EFFECT WHATSOEVER on how much he budgets to pay his employees, or on the number of employees he can hire. :wink:Quote:
Originally Posted by IRS
Anyway there's nothing to stop you from buying your own unemployment insurance from the private sector, and if you have a decent job it will probably be highly competitive with the 6% rate you were already paying.
So...Quote:
Originally Posted by wufwugy
People who use it say it's great,
But
people who don't use it are hurt more than the people who use it are benefited?
Overall, it's -EV.
Is that what you're saying?
Is it enough to only consider raising the mean? Doesn't the variance matter, too?
Doesn't the fact that we're talking about providing a service that desperate people need and appreciate play a part?
I get that numbers are callous. I don't get why that means we should act callously.
***
The rest is really another non-sequitur. That terrible $5k plan is terrible.
However, it's not comparable to welfare or unemployment insurance.
This never happened. That's not even my kind of insult.Quote:
Originally Posted by wufwugy
Now that you mention it, though, you are a tiny stab, sometimes...
almost cutting, but just grazing the surface.
:highfive:
(That's my kind of burn.)
;p
Dude, it's purely anecdotal. It only serves to explain why I think the benefits of this particular service are good.Quote:
Originally Posted by Renton
It's not an argument for anything but why my POV is what it is (right now).
The %-age of money isn't important to either of us. What's important to both of us is that the money is well-spent. We agree that the money is not being particularly well-spent.
***
Probably...? :/
You're gonna need a distribution function to go along with that probability to sway me.
Yes. I read the forms which I signed when I was hired. It's like a super power of mine. ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by Renton
I don't know how this relates to the current discussion, or that anyone disagrees with that point.Quote:
Originally Posted by Renton
Am I missing something?
Right. And?Quote:
Originally Posted by Renton
People should do this if they want the service, right? But people don't do this. That's the reality. If private agencies and/or charities can provide the same or comparable service, then by all means... let them. However, if they don't, then having a short-term safety net for everyone is OK with me. Obv. I want it to be not corrupt, if possible, please.
Let's just say that I am highly confident that the unemployment rate and median income would be dramatically improved if the state wasn't squandering so much of our resources. I don't know the exact probability, but it's safe to say that there would be many fewer people in your predicament.Quote:
Originally Posted by MadMojoMonkey
Most people in support of this tax would disagree. They enact this employer-side taxation, along with other taxes like the social security tax (another 6%) and the corporate tax because they believe the money just comes out of the profits. It takes this kind of "money from nothing" belief to support a majority of taxation and economic policy.Quote:
Originally Posted by MadMojoMonkey
Yes, you think everyone should be made to overpay for a service whether they want it or not. You believe they are incapable of making the correct call. I guess I'm a little more optimistic about people.Quote:
Originally Posted by MadMojoMonkey
This is an interesting use of the word "fraud". It implies I'm a fraudster. I have to exaggerate my job search in order to meet the requirements. Am I committing fraud? Well no, because the only part where I actually sign is the part where I say I've done no work since I last signed. If I lie when I make that declaration, then I am committing fraud. That's because it's made clear where you sign that providing false information is fraud. To say one applied for a job when one didn't, that is not fraud, not unless someone actually makes you sign a declaration making it clear that lying will be fraud. Fraud is not just lying to obtain money, if that was the case then everyone who fills in their time sheet at work to say they worked until 5pm when actually they stopped working at 4.50 then dicked about on facebook for ten minutes is committing fraud, because they are obtaining money by means of deception. Would the employer pay them for the final ten minutes if the employee was honest about what he did as the day closed out?Quote:
There's no slacking and avoiding an active daily job search unless you commit fraud. They audit your claims to a certain extent to look for fraud.
I'm not saying people don't abuse the system. I'm certain they do.
Here's the definition of fraud, according to google. Note the use of the words "unfair" or "unlawful". The money you claim as a result of your deception, if you lie about your job search efforts, is neither unfair nor unlawful. It's a basic right.Quote:
In law, fraud is deliberate deception to secure unfair or unlawful gain. Fraud is both a civil wrong (i.e., a fraud victim may sue the fraud perpetrator to avoid the fraud and/or recover monetary compensation) and a criminal wrong (i.e., a fraud perpetrator may be prosecuted and imprisoned by governmental authorities).
The day lying about job search actually becomes criminal fraud is a very worrying day indeed. That's a lot of people at the bottom of the food chain who are now at risk of going to prison.
Or they could just stop abusing the system and actually look for a job.
I'm not questioning your confidence. I just want to see the data that led you to this confidence, so I can judge for myself.Quote:
Originally Posted by Renton
What have I said that led you to think that I would agree with them?Quote:
Originally Posted by Renton
OR
What does their opinion elucidate about my opinion?
I feel like you're attributing ideas to me based on stereotypes and not based on what I've said.
Case in point:
What I said is that I like the service. I want the service provided efficiently.Quote:
Originally Posted by Renton
Not for nothing, but it seems like you're trying to rattle me by putting the word "overpay" in there. I doubt you believe that is the language I would use to describe my position.
Am I supposed to feel bad for being a bit cynical about people acting for their own long-term benefit?Quote:
Originally Posted by Renton
:/
This is one of those things that I would buckle on if asked to provide data, so feel free to call me out on that. However, look around. With the tiniest preparation, most people could solve or avoid their own biggest problems. Yet they don't.
One the one hand, serves them right for failure to plan ahead. On the other hand, no one can foresee all the challenges that will crop up. I don't believe the system should ignore this human problem, nor should it cater to it. It needs to be a balance.
***
This discussion is so emotionally loaded.
I guess with the word sentiment in the thread's title, I should expect as much.
@Ong: If you are giving false information to acquire a gain, then that's fraud.
Plain and simple.
That mental gymnastics whereby you pretend that you're entitled to the money while not preforming their requirements is absolute BS.
You're only entitled to the benefits of the program to the extent that you follow the program.
I would not be at all surprised to find some fine print on something you've signed which says exactly as much.
If you even remotely believe that you are correct, then I suggest you have a meeting with your favorite legal representatives and have a chat with them about it.
Let me know the results, please.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MadMojoMonkey
The theory backs up my case more strongly than the data. There haven't really been any post-industrial states that haven't robbed their citizenry blind. There is plenty of data to correlate the size of the tax burden inversely with the rate of economic growth, though. And reams of data that make a causal link between rate of economic growth and reduced unemployment / increased median wage.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MadMojoMonkey
I'm assuming your in favor of a welfare state based on the opinions you've expressed in this thread. Belief in economic fallacies generally goes with the territory. I'm not accusing you of falling prey to those fallacies, merely suspecting you are. The objective was to get you to respond with why those fallacies aren't fallacies, or that you want a welfare state for a different reason entirely that doesn't rely on fallacy-based reasoning. We can cover more ground that way than if I have to verify every bullet point of your position before I criticize it. No offense is intended.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MadMojoMonkey
You wouldn't. Overpay is appropriate though because there is no market feedback for what you pay for the service. It's a completely arbitrary amount of tax for a completely arbitrary amount of benefits. The mechanism with which the benefits get established or altered is completely unrelated to the means with which the tax gets increased or decreased. Yes surely there is a committee which manages the budget of the unemployment program, but that committee has no ability to affect the necessary on-the-fly changes to the program itself, since those changes have to be routed through the political system. It's a total clusterfuck in which the 6% tax might create a massive surplus or a massive deficit depending on which way the wind is blowing.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MadMojoMonkey
It's reasonable to be realistic about the fallibility of human beings. I'm with you there. But don't you think part of the reason why people are so bad at thinking ahead is because of the existing incentive structure? I think the welfare state predisposes people to excessively risky behavior. I also think that the absence of the welfare state will foster prudent human beings, in time. But mainly I just believe that people ought to be free to fuck up their lives, and free to face the consequences of that. I support everyone's decision to have 6% more money at the cost of a lack of unemployment insurance if they want. Or to spend only 2% of their income on a lighter benefits package. Or to spend 10% of their income on a premium package. I think in a world where the state doesn't take care of everyone, people would come to understand the value of insurance.
Why not just ask me what my thoughts are, rather than assume?Quote:
Originally Posted by Renton
You suspect that I'm foolish?Quote:
Originally Posted by Renton
Ouch, bro. Very ouch.
You're just waiting for the opportunity to criticize me?Quote:
Originally Posted by Renton
While I'm here asking questions to figure out what are the strengths and weaknesses of my knowledge of economics?
:wall: the internet :wall:
What if I answered your physics questions like this?
I'm not offended; I'm bored.Quote:
Originally Posted by Renton
Points taken. I'm dealing with some very stupid people in twoplustwo politics and it is possible that my frustration is seeping from that to my posts in this thread. It is not intentional.
To be fair to your physics analogy, physics isn't a subject that laypeople are as susceptible to forming wrongheaded emotionally-charged opinions about. In my questions to you I presented some minimal hypotheses that I fully expected were wrong, and would have accepted any response from you (a physicist) as correct. The trouble with economics is that people with little interest in learning about the subject nonetheless feel the need to form strong, unyielding opinions. It's understandable considering it affects everyone so much and it's a key part of politics. There just isn't as much of an authority imbalance with this subject, considering I'm not an economist and you're not a rank novice in these matters yourself.
The $5k plan is perfectly comparable. Every element for why it is terrible is also present with unemployment insurance. The unemployed seeking employment are market actors just as much as the employed, and they are subject to the same elements of supply, demand, incentives, etc. When an economy is structured in such a way that the unemployed are paid for unproductive behavior, its eventual effect is that it will be more difficult for them to find productive work and when they do it will be of lower quality or for less compensation. I already went into detail for this but you swept it aside, so whatever.Quote:
Originally Posted by MadMojoMonkey
Safety nets are defined as policies that help people when they lose their jobs. Unemployment insurance is this type of safety net in a vacuum, but because it decreases the productivity of overall capital, it is bad for the economy, which necessarily means it is not a real safety net when all factors are accounted for. However, an elimination of the minimum wage is a real safety net since it also "helps people when they lose their jobs" since it means there is more available work, and it increases production and the overall productivity of capital, which means that the economy is overall better, which means the probability and severity of the downtrodden is reduced, making no minimum wage a true effective safety net policy.
I assumed you meant as much since the first thing you said is I'm being unforgiving to the down-trodden. On the contrary, the policies I propose provide that safety net that welfare doesn't. Welfare looks like it's a safety net on the surface, but when you dig deeper it does not behave as such. Market policies (like lower/no minimum wage) appear to not be safety nets on the surface, but when you dig deeper they behave as safety nets.Quote:
This never happened. That's not even my kind of insult.
Now that you mention it, though, you are a tiny stab, sometimes...
almost cutting, but just grazing the surface.
:highfive:
(That's my kind of burn.)
;p
Pretty sure I need to read Heinlein
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/697...f-man-advances
Here's an analogy to how unemployment insurance helps individuals in a vacuum but because it hurts the overall market, it hurts individuals more than it helps.
http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/...yee_theft.html
TLDR: every patron being given free stuff from employee theft benefits from it. However, employee theft comes from employers, and some of those patrons are themselves employers, which means they are hurt more by an economy with employee theft than one without. Additionally some of the patrons are employees, which means they are employed by employers who have a finite amount they can pay their employees, which means the patrons receive lower compensations and are hurt more by an economy with employee theft than one without. Furthermore, some of the patrons are unemployed, and they desire employment from a potential employer, which means that employee theft hurts their chances at finding this employment since employers have higher costs and cannot hire as many employees.
If you are a patron that receives something from employee theft, you benefit in that isolated instance. But since you exist in an economy with employee theft, you are harmed by its existence more than you are benefited. Likewise and by the same elements, if you receive unemployment insurance, you benefit in that isolated instance. But since you exist in an economy with the deteriorating productivity of unemployment insurance, you are harmed by its existence more than you are benefited. These are still true even though at any point you can say "But I would benefit by having this thing!"
Economics is not unlike physics, where the micro and macro behave differently.
*yawn*
theft
Can we be finished with the sensational language? I can't speak to the persuasive advantage it may provide with a different audience, but it's shaving away credulity with me.
***
The $5k story is not comparable because it gives the $5k to everyone. This would, presumably, drive a wave of inflation as supply/demand balances with the changing buying power of the $.
Welfare, food stamps, and unemployment insurance are designed to be temporary programs which are offered to a small percentage of the society.
The impact on the greater economy is not comparable.
Read things before you comment on them. Have some self-respect.Quote:
Originally Posted by MadMojoMonkey
Actually welfare, food stamps, and unemployment make up a pretty small part of the budget. Medicare is what we should really be talking about, it's something like 2/3 of the federal budget and growing.
Why would you assume I didn't read it?
I read the links you posted, as well.
Obviously, I'm against stealing. If a person steals from their employer by giving away free goods, then that's a person who is stealing, too. If that was your whole point, then I agree that it's bad.
Where you lose me is that you're making a direct comparison between actual, quantifiable theft by individuals and a bureaucratic program funded by taxation. These are very different things.
My point is that your story is an anecdote which explains why you feel the way to do (right now).
It's not evidence.
It is not convincing or persuasive.
***
self respect? I'm baffled as to what this has to do with anything. It seems like a personal attack.
I am disappoint.
You couldn't have a more patient student. Yet, many of the questions I ask are met with a stark lack of data and emotionally loaded assumptions. Words and ideas have been attributed to me which I have not said and do not espouse. These things make the learning process slower and more difficult.
I'll get a job when they legalise weed.Quote:
Originally Posted by rong
The fuck am I going to work in a shitty factory and being miserable for the rest of my life, just because it's illegal to smoke a fucking plant. I'd sooner be poor and happy. I don't consider that I'm abusing the system. I consider that I'm stopping the system from abusing me. The system doesn't allow me to go and live in the woods and kill deer to survive. The system deprives me of a natural life. The least it can do is provide me with the bare minimum required to survive, ie food and rent.
Here's what they should be doing...
Two tiers of unemployment benefits. Those who can't be arsed, who can't satisfy the job search requirements, give them less money. I wouldn't argue at getting less money if it meant I didn't have to go through the fortnightly stress of telling some patronising cunt how I've spent 30 hours a week looking for a job, when really I've been playing poker, watching nature documentaries, and sunbathing.
But no, they want to make the unemployed look like cunts for not wanting to be part of their corrupt system. And people like you dan lap it up. Here you are saying get a fucking job.
No. My life does not belong to the system. Yours might, but mine doesn't. If you're happy, then good for you. I'm happy, so good for me.
MMM I'm pretty sure the point of wuf's post wasn't to compare theft to welfare in the sense of them both being morally wrong. It was to suggest that someone receiving free shit from the system can actually be worse off for it. He wasn't even talking about theft for direct personal gain. Most of the employee theft in that story was giving free shit to customers to make them happier and inflate the tip.
That part of it is is quite analogous to the welfare state. Politicians stand to gain a lot by offering handouts to anyone who wants them. They get campaign contributions from big corporations so the corporations will have a favor in their pocket to cash in once their guy gets elected. They get votes from working class people if they promise to throw them something. The money has to come from somewhere. We can toil at this all day as to whether that constitutes theft, but the analogy to employee theft is clear.
Ok, so you're saying that claiming 15 minutes of wages when you don't actually do any work is fraud? Because that is "giving false information to acquire a gain", assuming you claim to have worked during this time, perhaps by means of clocking out at 5.00 instead of 4.45. Right?Quote:
Originally Posted by MadMojoMonkey
Sure there's fine print that tells me I need to do this and that. Sure they can sanction me if they can prove I'm not meeting these conditions. Does that make it fair? No it doesn't. What choice do I have? Get a job? See my last post.
What people seem to ignore is that a lot of people who are long term unemployed are actually unemployable. You wouldn't employ them if you were running a business, because most of them are stupid and lazy. Why should I have to work just because I'm smart and potentially productive? Why should I suffer a life of misery while stupid people laze around watching Jeremy Kyle? Why should I submit half my waking life to the elite for them to make billions?
I don't like the system. So, do you think the system should provide for people like me? Or should I just be left to die so the working class can pay less tax?
What fraction of the budget is your goal?Quote:
Originally Posted by Renton
deja vu, amirit?
What is up with Medicaire?
Anything besides our general agreement that excess is bad?
I can see an argument that excess is incentivized by any bureaucracy. Budget allocation is scandalous at best in almost any large organization. It becomes advantageous to always overstate your budget needs in order to grow your microcosm of the larger network.
Do you get what I'm saying? Is it spurious?
***
IMO, state-level societies are immeasurably complex*. I think some form of social safety net is a good thing. I think it doesn't much matter which combination of programs suits a particular society, so long as there is some workable combination.
*Something like 3.2 {wows / (minute * person)}, IIRC. Just for perspective, that means if someone is telling you how complex society is, you are likely to say, "wow" about once every 18.75 seconds.
You had me fooled. You blew my point off as if I was using sensational language to say what you now say is theft.Quote:
Originally Posted by MadMojoMonkey
No, that's not my point. Tell me what my point is.Quote:
If a person steals from their employer by giving away free goods, then that's a person who is stealing, too. If that was your whole point, then I agree that it's bad.
Different topic.Quote:
Where you lose me is that you're making a direct comparison between actual, quantifiable theft by individuals and a bureaucratic program funded by taxation. These are very different things.
I link you to a economics professor who has been teaching for a few decades. He used an anecdote merely as an illustration for a broader issue that has been established before that anecdote existed. I then use that to explore our specific topic, and like you have with the last several issues, you just seem to brush it off without considering it more deeply.Quote:
My point is that your story is an anecdote which explains why you feel the way to do (right now).
It's not evidence.
It is not convincing or persuasive.
Then stop portraying such belying behavior. There is virtually no direct evidence of anything in macro. Data-mining is virtually worthless in macro. You say I'm not bringing you worthwhile things, yet when I do it seems you hop to disagreement regardless. Maybe I'm the asshole here, but the types of things you're saying suggest you're not putting much effort into considering the arguments.Quote:
self respect? I'm baffled as to what this has to do with anything. It seems like a personal attack.
I am disappoint.
You couldn't have a more patient student. Yet, many of the questions I ask are met with a stark lack of data and emotionally loaded assumptions. Words and ideas have been attributed to me which I have not said and do not espouse. These things make the learning process slower and more difficult.
Sorry I badly misquoted the medicare budget, counting it with other mandatory spending to make up about 2/3. This includes Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, welfare, student loans, and interest on the debt. Medicare is the biggest chunk of that and is about 24% of the total budget.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=asRDOhgN70Q
(video is from 2012, but it applies today to an even greater extent)
I don't know what the correct percentage medicare should be. I do know that seniors in the U.S. are rapidly becoming the most affluent age bracket and it makes me question the necessity of spending 24% of a multi-trillion budget on their healthcare when most of them do not need the money.
More about "abusing the system".
If I were that way inclined, I'd be pretending to be too ill to work. If I could convince a doctor that I suffer from something like, hmm I dunno, cannabis psychosis, then I'd get more money. Furthermore, there was a time I was growing weed. During this time, my income was untaxed, and therefore off the books, so I could have claimed benefits. But I didn't. Because that is actually wrong, in my opinion. Growing weed isn't wrong. Pretending to look for a job in order to ensure I can eat and pay my rent, that isn't wrong. I have no intention of getting a job. Why should I waste my time and that of employers by applying for jobs I have no intention of holding down?
Those who work assume those who don't want to work are lazy. That isn't true. I'd love to be doing something more productive with my life. But I'm happy enough being unproductive, and yes I believe the system owes me survival at the very least.
Yes. This is fraud. We can imagine certain jobs or circumstances where this may be moot. However, claiming you fulfilled your part of a contract while not having truly done so to the best of your knowledge and interpretation of the contract is fraud. Sure, I can see the difference between fraud of $5 and fraud of $5M. I do not equate them in severity.Quote:
Originally Posted by OngBonga
If you are under a voluntary contract, then your signature is your uncoerced promise to fulfill that contract.
If you do not uphold your promise to the full extent of your good faith, then you've made yourself a liar.
If you don't see this as fraud, then I'd love to hear your explanation of the situation when the roles are reversed and someone is demanding that you uphold your half of a contract when they have obviously and intentionally not upheld their half.
I think if you're not working to help yourself, then you have no right to ask for anyone to pay your way. However, if you're actively trying to help yourself, but have personal struggles of whatever kind, then my opinion changes.Quote:
Originally Posted by OngBonga
Honestly, I would bet a lot of money that if you were cut off from your "provisions" that you would not, in fact, die. I bet you would find a way to not die for many, many years.
You can go anywhere in the world and live there if you only sacrifice a couple of years to your hated system.
I doubt you could get a permanent visa in many countries, given your current unemployment and its length. With a bit of effort, though, I am confident that you could change this. You just need a vision of your future that you love and the will to fight for that future.
You seem to think lying under contract is fraud. It's not. Lying under contract is in the vast majority of cases a civil issue at worst. Maybe the jobcentre could sue me for not meeting my contractual obligations. But it's not fraud. You seem to have a very broad idea of what fraud is. Fraud is criminal. Breach of contract is not.
This is also arguable. I am not under a voluntary contract. If I don't sign, I either have to beg my friends and family to provde my food or shelter, or go without. To say I choose to be subject to their conditions is wide of the mark. I am subject to their conditions because my options are limited. This isn't voluntary.Quote:
If you are under a voluntary contract
The language of theft is off topic. We're talking about whether or not unemployment insurance is, on the whole, helpful or hurtful to the society as a whole. Furthermore, we're exploring whether the net -EV for the society as a whole dominates the net +EV for the few who use the program (or if it is a + at all).Quote:
Originally Posted by wufwugy
Since what I guessed you meant was wrong, I don't know what link you're making between employee theft and anything else.
Help me with the context, then. I don't understand your metaphor.
His anecdote expresses why he feels the way he feels (right now), and is not a compelling argument for why I should feel anything. Furthermore, even if I had the same feeling, it gives no notion of whether this feeling is in line with a helpful model of reality.Quote:
Originally Posted by wufwugy
Yes, I brushed it off. I will brush off any attempt to elucidate which relies on emotionally charged language as its foundation.
If you can only discuss your field in these terms, then I guess I understand why you think I'm being flippant with you.
I dont know what I'm belying. I just want a conversation with the emotions stripped out of it so that we can learn what all economists would agree on, without dispute. If there is no subset of the field for which this occurs, then I am bored of the field and it can exist w/o my input, like so many things in this world.Quote:
Originally Posted by wufwugy
My competitive advantage is in focusing on logic-based systems. I am flummoxed by emotion-based systems. I have nothing to offer that someone else couldn't do better.
If the field of macroeconomics is truly this untested, then I'm absolutely bored with the conversation and I'm sorry if you feel I wasted your time.
Nits picked. What you're doing is indecent and unethical by my standards.Quote:
Originally Posted by OngBonga
Quibbling over which law you're breaking is of marginal interest. Still, I may be confusing different laws, and that's a fair point.
You are making a whole slew of choices which perpetuate your circumstances.Quote:
Originally Posted by OngBonga
What if the shoe was on the other foot? What if you had some friend crashing on your couch who keeps assuring you that he's looking for a job, while you pay for his food and rent. What if you found out he was lying to you?
***
In what way are you prevented from living where weed is legal?
Is there anything beside a few years of sacrifice that prevent you from living there?
I'm getting at the fact that it's not like you are living in North Korea and can't leave. If there is any impediment to your emigrating to a nation which is more in line with your beliefs, I'd wager it's something you could overcome if you worked for it.
No. This isn't a fair comparison. Am I on your couch? No I'm not.Quote:
What if the shoe was on the other foot? What if you had some friend crashing on your couch who keeps assuring you that he's looking for a job, while you pay for his food and rent. What if you found out he was lying to you?
Let's put the shoe on the other foot properly. When I was working, was I happy for my tax to be spent on unemployed people? Yes I was. It keeps crime lower and keeps unemployable people from the workplaces.
What is to be discerned by your selective answering of questions?
Money, friends, family, culture, language...Quote:
In what way are you prevented from living where weed is legal?
Money, ok I can make money if push comes to shove. Friends, I can make friends, learn a language, adapt to new cultures. But family...Quote:
Is there anything beside a few years of sacrifice that prevent you from living there?
Also, do you know of any countries with a shortage of weed growers? Most nations want their immigrants to be useful to them.
Patience...Quote:
Originally Posted by MadMojoMonkey
touche'Quote:
Originally Posted by OngBonga
I do have friends in Portugal who are growing. The whole family upped and moved.
I'd like to leave England, but I do not believe that any other nation on the planet owes me a thing, whether that's a job, or benefits. I didn't choose the UK, this is my home. For me to leave here, I'd need a stable well paid job to go to.
Family is compelling.
I am frequently overwhelmed by my lady's choice to stay with me in St. Louis over returning to her family in Hawai'i. That said, they still visit each other a couple of times a year.
Even still. Living under oppression is a greater daily concern than even family. It's not as if you'd be out of contact, anyway. Skype is a thing. It's no substitute for a hug, but it's much better than complete absence.
I'm certain you have other skills. If you can grow one plant, I'm sure you can grow others. As I understand it, they do most of the work themselves.Quote:
Originally Posted by OngBonga
This is exactly what I meant by a few years' work. You'll need to sacrifice yourself to the long term goal and maintain enough employment to be considered a craftsman in some field. I'm sure botany would suffice.
I'd like to study, either environmental science, or natural science. That's my most likely path to productiveness. But I'm woefully underqualified for university, so it's a long road. I am looking into it though to see if it's realistic, and in what time frame.
I don't really want to be doing nothing with my life, I'd just rather this than a dead end job.
From the sound of it, even the UK has paid up anything they might have owed you.Quote:
Originally Posted by OngBonga
No one chooses their childhood, but we all choose our adulthood. You can't blame the outside for your circumstances beyond a certain point. You have the social mobility to put yourself wherever you see yourself.
In a way, it's kind of messed up that some people would sacrifice everything they know to have a shot at what you have, yet, you see it as oppression. I'm not saying anything with that other than the world is a messed up place and perspective matters.
I see being told I can't smoke a plant as oppression. I don't see anyone telling me I can't smoke cabbage, even though it's likely to be equally as dangerous. I could be earning a decent income.
They owe me a living.
Ultimately, university is just paying a bunch of people to motivate you to do things you already want to do.Quote:
Originally Posted by OngBonga
I'm saying that all you need is the textbooks and a schedule that you adhere to. Read the textbook. Do the homework.
The professor is mostly a companion who tells you to work harder.
Time frame is irrelevant. Or at the very least, it will work itself out. Just keep moving forward.
I get that. This is why is masochistic of you to be resigned to remain in that culture.Quote:
Originally Posted by OngBonga
lol.Quote:
Originally Posted by OngBonga
entitlement.
This isn't what we're exploring. We're exploring why something that is +EV in a vacuum is no longer +EV when other factors are applied. If it was correct that UI benefits are +EV outside of their vacuum, it would also mean that welfare benefits would produce prosperity and the more of them we have the more prosperity we would have; therefore, if only we could give everybody $5k every month, we would all be super well off and the economy would be gangbusters.Quote:
Originally Posted by MadMojoMonkey
Go back to my post on that. In just one paragraph I outlined how employee theft is +EV in a vacuum but -EV when outside the vacuum.Quote:
Since what I guessed you meant was wrong, I don't know what link you're making between employee theft and anything else.
Help me with the context, then. I don't understand your metaphor.
The link is just about employee theft. The way economists use blogs is to provide small tidbits from credible perspectives.Quote:
His anecdote expresses why he feels the way he feels (right now), and is not a compelling argument for why I should feel anything. Furthermore, even if I had the same feeling, it gives no notion of whether this feeling is in line with a helpful model of reality.
Except this never happened. Are you high? No, seriously, are you like really high right now? You initially said theft is not theft then you quickly said theft is theft and now you're saying theft is not theft. You don't realize you're saying this because you're not paying attention. You tell yourself you're paying attention, but your posts say otherwise.Quote:
Yes, I brushed it off. I will brush off any attempt to elucidate which relies on emotionally charged language as its foundation.
Economists agree on most areas of the field with as little dispute as is possible. You haven't yet shown that you seem to care what that is though. Granted, the stuff that most economists talk about is not the undisputed. Here's a neat intro to the concept:Quote:
I dont know what I'm belying. I just want a conversation with the emotions stripped out of it so that we can learn what all economists would agree on, without dispute. If there is no subset of the field for which this occurs, then I am bored of the field and it can exist w/o my input, like so many things in this world.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-89qFWVrrmc&index=5&list=PL-erRSWG3IoAh2JgWv9gYeimAffkyi5X2
Take some time and go through several videos on that channel. It's mostly short and simple material from a whole host of different econ PhDs.
It's as if you think these comments aren't total crap. Protip: they're total crap.Quote:
My competitive advantage is in focusing on logic-based systems. I am flummoxed by emotion-based systems. I have nothing to offer that someone else couldn't do better.
If the field of macroeconomics is truly this untested, then I'm absolutely bored with the conversation and I'm sorry if you feel I wasted your time.
They have taken away viable options for me to be happy and productive. This isn't about entitlement. It's about compensation.Quote:
Originally Posted by MadMojoMonkey
I can't keep up in the thread either, but someone said something about the scientific peer review process and it being good.
It's not, it's complete shit. http://www.vocativ.com/culture/scien...ic-publishing/
With the exception of physics, most sciences are trapped by a few businesses, with reform anticipated...but far away.
I see something about fraud. Fraud is, generally, lying for pecuniary gain.
But it's much more complicated. That's more of a test to see if you should be thinking "hrm, better make sure I'm not doing fraud".
It's jurisdictional based, but I've seen it have as many as 9 different elements, that each need to be met.
Also, not fulfilling a contract is likely just a breach of contract. But falsely claiming to have fulfilled it is a completely different story.
I assume that claiming to have fullfilled the contract would be signing a statement to the effect of "I hereby state that to the best of my knowledge the information I have provided is true and complete", rather than showing a man a list of jobs "applied" for which he nods at then asks if I've had any replies?
I'm very cautious about what I actually claim by signature, I read the statements carefully.
Signatures or whatever only matter in an evidentiary sense. If you're accused of fraud, you say "not uh", and they have no proof...then you win. In 'murica (using English common law), they have to show you lied, knew you were lying, intended on them relying on your lie, and more. But if all they got is "well, I think he lied", then everyone has a good laugh and you go your merry way.
But a signed writing isn't an element of fraud, so it's not necessary to prove guilt. It could be any lie for pecuniary gain, so long as it met the other elements are met.
It should be noted that signed writings matter a great deal in contract and property law generally, just not so much for criminal fraud.
Dude, this article doesn't show a dysfunctional peer review process. The best case it could would be tangential in that government subsidies to universities are indirectly making participation in review more exclusionary than it otherwise would be. But of course it wouldn't do that since it seems the author wants government to take it over and make it "free".Quote:
Originally Posted by JKDS
Paywalls for publications are not bad. If we didn't have paywalls, we'd still be watching just variety shows on three fucking channels on small tube screens.
The peer review process is extremely robust. If it wasn't, we'd be seeing a collapse of scientific institutions themselves.
BTW this is an example why data alone illuminates nothing. You can find any graph to tell you any story you want.
I'll retract part of my statement, but the point that peer review is still in need of vast improvement still stands.
When there are no regulations in place regarding a certain activity, that activity operates in a free market. The timeline regarding pretty much all market activities has been
1. no regulations, people do as they please
2. things go to shit, because people do as they please
3. regulations are put in place
4. things are still pretty much shit
5. free market advocates come about and say everything would be sweet, if only there were no regulations
The burden of proof to show that other regulations are indirectly affecting said activity, is on the proponents of free markets.
Case in point: whaling and shark fishing
When there have been no regulations in place, whales and most species of shark have been or are fished to extinction. When there are (or have been) no regulations in place to limit excess fishing, why didn't the market adjust to protect the environment?
Overfishing is solely caused by the ocean being a common good. They aren't owned by anyone so it's a gigantic tragedy of the commons. The only ways to mitigate that problem are a) allow private individuals/companies to own and trade the exclusive fishing rights to parcels of the ocean, or b) remove the concept of international waters and divide the responsibility for taking care of the oceans evenly among the states. B is the weaker option but would be a lot better than the way things currently are.Quote:
Originally Posted by CoccoBill
Please give more perceived examples of number 2 in your post. I will try to shoot them down if I can. I believe there are many fewer market failures than you think there are.
I think of it this way: regulations were invented to serve a purpose. Most civilizations have thought it prudent to make things like killing and stealing illegal, and I think there's a reason for that. Similarly, before employers were mandated to provide their employees a minimum wage, they were not. Something brought up the need for defining and regulating them.
It isn't that when there are no regulations, there is a free market. It's that when there are no regulations from a monopoly (government), there is a free market. It appears you're operating under the impression that government is the only avenue to set standards and without government things are a free-for-all. Like Renton pointed out, a key component of freedom is private ownership. We don't recommend things like making resources open to all without any rules regarding them. When something is supposedly "public", it needs government intervention to keep tragedy of the commons away. But the better solution is to allow prices to work and allow individuals or organizations to own and operate what they can.*Quote:
Originally Posted by CoccoBill
Private property has a far greater record of conservation than government. Whales and sharks are victims of not having this conservation avenue.
If we're talking about people and communities operating by rules, sure. If we're talking about a violence monopoly, it's a little different. The state has always been foremost about self-protection. Take the laws and norms affecting roads for example. Their most important, highest priority function is to provide state-owned vehicles swift access. State agents are mostly allowed to subvert state laws as long as they're acting in its interest. This is not true only where there are constitutional restrictions against the state.Quote:
I think of it this way: regulations were invented to serve a purpose. Most civilizations have thought it prudent to make things like killing and stealing illegal, and I think there's a reason for that. Similarly, before employers were mandated to provide their employees a minimum wage, they were not. Something brought up the need for defining and regulating them.
You are correct that "something brought up the 'need' for minimum wage". But that doesn't mean the need was real or the prescription healing. Minimum wage is a great example of what every economist learns in academia being subverted by the desires of the populace. It is understandable that people don't understand economics (it's as complex as any other science), but we have always lived in a world where being uninformed on economics is not a barrier to voting on it. My guess for why this is is that macroeconomics is too disassociated from daily life. People think mandating higher wages is better because they see their wages rise and these things are often indeed better for them in a vacuum. But the vacuum is just a fraction of the effects, and they ultimately result in worse results for everybody.
The same principle exists in poker. Shoving KK is pretty much always +EV unless it's against somebody so tight that they only have AA. How we vote on economics only gets so far as the "shoving KK is mostly +EV..." part.
If you take anything away from this, take this: the anti-statist argues against a monopolist regulator, not rules and regulations that are privately endorsed and enforced. If people want people to stop using pot, I want them to have to pay for it instead of getting a monopoly to support them. The reason is that when people have to pay for things with their own efforts, the costs hit them. This changes both the amount of power they wield and their opinions about these things. But when they can just vote for a politician, a policy, or provide a sentiment, and it goes through a convoluted mess where once mandates are set they are virtually impossible to unset, we end up with dogshit.
*I really want to go into greater philosophical depth with this, but I'm not sure how well that would go over. The short of it is that this principle of freedom of choice is what we use for most aspects of our lives where we would be abhorred to consider allowing government to intervene. None of these things are inherently any different to other things. Economics is at play when dating the same way it is with education, and neither are "special" in a way that they need a monopoly to set standards (there has yet to arrive a theory for why monopolies could be good in the first place). How livid would you be if the government regulated your personal relationships? Imagine I defended the government's intervention in personal relationships, and you had to formulate your arguments against me in the most meaningful way you could. For a while you would say "get the fuck out!", which is what anti-government people say, yet that's blown off as non-serious. So let's say I blow you off and say that isn't a good enough explanation. Then you argue against government intervention using logic and academic theory and data. Wouldn't you sound like Renton and I do now? You'd be saying all about how personal relationships work better without government intervention, how leading field experts agree, how the history and data are obfuscated, and how we're using a type of rationale to defend government that we wouldn't dream of doing elsewhere.
You're kind of appealing to tradition though. It's certainly a reasonable assumption that things are the way things are because they needed to be that way at one point in time, but it's also quite true that human beings of previous generations did a lot of really dumb things and didn't have as much collective knowledge to act on as we have today.Quote:
Originally Posted by CoccoBill
I'm pretty dismayed that you see an apt comparison between the minimum wage and laws against theft/murder. We can split hairs here all day on what government's role ought to be, but it is clear that protecting people from bodily harm is a much higher priority for the state than meddling labor market. The minimum wage is one of the most easily debunked government policies. Basically any economist who isn't a Marxian or a Keynesian agrees that it is counterproductive.
I think that's more a subset of neo-Keynesians. A handful of economists did not learn that minimum wage is a good thing in academia. They all learned it increases unemployment and the several reasons why and the unintended consequences, but a handful of the pundit class of Keynesians changed their tune circa 2007.Quote:
Originally Posted by Renton
If I had to guess, I think the reasons behind it are the polarization of politics and the revenue sources of economists who moved towards media. The media adores cherry picked data-mining and consumers of media like pro-labor appearances, so we get a perpetuating cycle where a handful of economists have started saying things like "well, you never know..." Then half the country sees this and thinks minimum wage is probably okay. Bad economists, even when they make up just <5% of all economists, do a ton of damage.
It's like the EU experiment. Lots of economists said it was a bad idea and shouldn't be done, but the political will was huge and a handful of economists within that political agenda did what they could to make it look like it would work. Now the EU is hot garbage for the exact reasons economists who stuck with their education said it would be.
Killer line
From here http://www.nationalreview.com/articl...ism-left-whiteQuote:
Socialism and welfare-statism, like nationalism and racism, are based on appeals to solidarity — solidarity that is enforced at gunpoint, if necessary. That appeal is more than a decent-hearted concern for the downtrodden or the broad public good. It is, rather, an exclusionary solidarity, a superstitious notion that understands “body politic” not as a mere figure of speech but as a substantive description of the state and the people as a unitary organism, the health of which is of such paramount importance that individual rights — property, freedom of movement, freedom of speech, freedom of association — must be curtailed or eliminated when they are perceived to be insalubrious.
I don't equate killing and minimum wages, just bringing up two different examples. Theory may show that min wages are a bad thing, empirical evidence shows otherwise. Standard of living is better in countries with higher minimum wages. Now, is this an unrelated consequence or are there some externalities the theories have left out, I don't know. Either way, I don't think it's a slam dunk for free markets as you claim, mainly because of the main point of my comment, which I feel you both evaded. Not having minimum wages has been tried, everywhere, in every society. In pretty much each of them it didn't work, and minimum wages were enforced.
The point about private ownership though is intriguing, I'll need to digest that a bit.
BTW EU is in trouble mainly because countries with weak economies were let in. For 15-20 years prior to that it was doing pretty good. But apart from that, in theory, what's bad about opening borders and allowing free moving of resources between countries? It's not unlike the US but with more autonomy for the member states.
Countries with high minimum wages tend to be rich countries. Those countries are rich for a complicated lot of reasons that have little to do with minimum wage laws. In a way, they have the "privilege" of being able to have their high minimum wage laws because they can afford to. That doesn't mean its the best way to do things. If you have any empirical evidence in support of the minimum wage that is more than circumstantial, I'm happy to see it.
I wouldn't get stuck in this issue especially when I'm not necessarily for minimum wages, there are better methods. For example where I live we don't have a minimum wage, we have collective bargaining. Personally I'm probably in favor of a basic income, but I think all of these options are better than no guarantees at all.
A universal basic income no strings attached is actually a hell of a lot better than a conventional welfare state in a lot of ways. Of course, only if it supplants the welfare state, and doesn't add to it. The problem is, any government that tries the UBI is going to also give free healthcare, huge restrictions to the way businesses operate, so it will end up just bankrupting the country. But if you got rid of all of that shit and just took money from rich people and gave it directly to poor people, and let the free market be as free as it could be under those conditions, I would consider the situation to be much-improved.
Empirical evidence doesn't show otherwise. If it did, the theory would change.Quote:
Originally Posted by CoccoBill
The results of studies are mixed. But the problem with all of them is they're poorly designed. I can't say to what degree of difficulty it would be to study what minimum wage does to the economy, but it's at least a few magnitudes more than what any of the studies to date have done. Most economists believe that most of the least indirect effects of minimum wage hikes are of less hiring of marginal workers. Zero studies on minimum wage have come close to being able to analyze this. What we do have to work with is extremely sound theory related to supply and demand and an overarching view of the natural rate of employment. The theory is that the higher above market rate minimum wage is the higher the natural rate of unemployment will be. When we look at various economies, we see this. But even then, nobody has been able to isolate that it's the minimum wage specifically that does this, but more broadly welfare, regulations, and taxes and how they influence incentives.
Every known instance of rapid economic growth and social mobility has not involved minimum wages. They have all included massive deregulation and zero welfare. It hasn't happened just once, but many times, and there are no known exceptions. Welfare-statism arises in societies that have already become economic powerhouses and their growth rates greatly reduce after the welfare state is enacted.Quote:
Standard of living is better in countries with higher minimum wages. Now, is this an unrelated consequence or are there some externalities the theories have left out, I don't know. Either way, I don't think it's a slam dunk for free markets as you claim, mainly because of the main point of my comment, which I feel you both evaded. Not having minimum wages has been tried, everywhere, in every society. In pretty much each of them it didn't work, and minimum wages were enforced.
If you have time, I'd watch these
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3N2sNnGwa4
Every modern country once did what half the world is today doing. The example of China should be enough to discard the concept of welfare altogether, since it has outperformed what anybody thought possible just a couple decades ago, and it has done so by way of its government deregulating the market. The government still has a long way to go and the journey will still be quite tumultuous, but China has no welfare, a fully open street vendor market, and pretty much zero zoning regulations. I don't think you could find an economist on the planet who would say those aren't easily the most significant factors in the China miracle. It's not the only example. Some SE Asian countries have been taking business from China because wages have grown so rapidly there that the cheaper labor in SE Asia has a hand in the game. If Cambodia had a minimum wage where it could not do this, its people would not be rising out of poverty like they are today. Hong Kong is a good contrast to China since it is culturally the same but more free.
I agree with open borders and free trade. My comment on the EU was specifically about the common currency. The EUR is basically the Deutsche Mark and the ECB treats it as such. Its monetary policy revolves around what's good for Germany, not what's good for the EU. Most economists saw this problem coming a mile away, including some of the most "liberal" ones.Quote:
BTW EU is in trouble mainly because countries with weak economies were let in. For 15-20 years prior to that it was doing pretty good. But apart from that, in theory, what's bad about opening borders and allowing free moving of resources between countries? It's not unlike the US but with more autonomy for the member states.
You are also right that weak economies being let in are a problem too. Greece lied and the Mediterranean countries are not culturally industrious yet maintain heavy welfare states
Here's a pretty great post and discussion I read yesterday tangentially related to the subject. Some points conflicting, but most very insightful.
http://www.themoneyillusion.com/?p=29868
Two things.
1. Not sure where this fits into th e debate but I thought it was quite interesting
http://www.vox.com/2015/7/21/8974435...k-life-balance
2. Min wage for food service industry in new York just went up to $15ph so according to what we've discussed we should see a bunch of people laid off and mechanisation of the service? Or will the price of a big Mac go up?
Switzerland has arguably the most well-run government on the planet. It also indubitably has the best mix of geography and culture of any state. It isn't really a nation-state. It exists for the reason of common ground between all the various European countries that realize that even through war, they all need an unaffiliated entity that can protect their assets. IIRC Switzerland's government has the lowest amount of counterproductive business regulations in the world, and its culture attracts almost exclusively productive and/or wealthy people. Additionally, it's a state with competent monetary policy smack dab in the middle of a confederation of states with abysmal monetary policy. Monetary policy isn't sexy and it doesn't get much attention, but it's the red blood cells of the economy. It's not a miracle creator, but it is deterministic of how good or bad an economy can be.Quote:
Originally Posted by rong
Without making this any longer, the short of it is that complexities of societies are so great that you can't say a specific policy will have a specific result. For example, even though a certain policy may reduce productivity and overall prosperity in the American south, the same policy will likely go unnoticed in a country several times richer and less diverse. That doesn't mean the policy isn't bad, but effects are relative.
FWIW I think the true capacity civilization has for annual growth is >10%. Given that growth is currently around 2-3% and people tend to think that's a natural rate unaffected by policy, my speculation seems ridiculous. Regardless, there are about a billion different ways to increase or decrease growth, and countries can do all sorts of bad stuff if they do enough good stuff. The ratio matters too. An example is in countries like Denmark and Sweden. The left likes to prop them up as success stories of high tax and high welfare systems (while ignoring a much larger percentage of those countries that have shitty economies), yet what's really going on is that Denmark and Sweden have some of the most sensible regulatory policies in the world. They're vastly more market oriented than the US's regulatory system, and the effect is so powerful that the countries can afford to throw money away in some programs that the US can't.
I don't know. Probably all of the above. Given that it's statewide, it could have some seriously awful effects in the rural areas. I don't know how bad, but in many places outside NYC, $15/hr is really close to the median wage, which means every entry level and/or shitty employee will make about the same amount of money as those who have been working and moving up for a decade or so. This is a recipe for disaster.Quote:
2. Min wage for food service industry in new York just went up to $15ph so according to what we've discussed we should see a bunch of people laid off and mechanisation of the service? Or will the price of a big Mac go up?
Mostly what I think this will do is make it so that prices in the rural areas are so high that the restaurants lose business. It should reduce immigration to the rural areas and possibly increase it to the cities, but overall it should be lower than it otherwise would be. The ultimate result will probably be harm for the regions with the least amount of economic activity and some tangential benefit for entrenched special interests in the city. Which is the way the left likes it. "Fuck the hillbillies, they're not even real people. We want to live elite lifestyles on our liberal arts diplomas and perpetual table-waiting jobs".
I remember ITT there was a video about the merits of price gouging.
I would be interested to hear views on the recent news about the pharmaceutical CEO who raised the price of a drug used to protect AIDs and cancer patients by 5,000%. Each pill costs about a dollar to produce. The guy claims he needs to make a profit, but it seems there is a lot of scope to reduce the price for moral reasons given the large margin he seems to be making and the barriers to entry for competitors?
Seems in this instance price gouging is a bad thing since the product is not scarce and therefore the argument about allocation according to greatest need does not apply.
Government adds a couple of important wrinkles to this situation:Quote:
Originally Posted by pantherhound
1) Intellectual property laws make it far too easily to monopolize. It's an open debate among free-marketeers of how IP should be handled, but its pretty universally agreed that the current set up is pretty fucked up.
2) FDA. It costs millions of dollars and years of time and taxpayer dollars to approve any new drug. There is a lot of evidence to suggest that the FDA has resulted in far more deaths of patients waiting for drugs than lives saved by bad drugs prevented from market distribution. There used to be set limits for how long the FDA could take to approve a drug (i.e. less than 2 years) but they've thrown that shit out the window. The result is that drugs do not come in a diverse array of slightly different flavors in fierce competition like candy bars, but instead each specific type of drug only comes in one or two flavors which are often owned by the same huge pharma corporation. The FDA is an enormous barrier for entry by competing suppliers.
Yeah, by all accounts this guy seems like a dick, but he's exploiting a situation that could never exist in a free market. This is one of the many situations in which a government takes a huge shit on the people by default, and the expected response is for the people to embrace government to clean it up. So then when government steps in and stops this guy from gouging the price, dozens of other drugs will be scrapped for fear that the government will prevent them from selling at market prices. Remember, new drugs costs millions to research and develop, submit for FDA approval, and ultimately produce on a large scale, and the investors expect a return on all of these costs. Often, a big return, since this is the type of business model that has high volatility: even if the drug makes it through the FDA gauntlet, it may bomb when it hits market. A price control (or the spectre of one) would make taking such a risk unfeasible.
Is this not a prime reason medicine should be 100% state controlled? This case pretty much sums up my problem with capitalism. Profit is the motivation here, not public health.
Cliff notes of what Renton is about to post: the private sector is far better equipped to innovate better drugs and the public sector's approach to medicine would result in resources wasted on a huge scale?
Without profit the incentive to dedicate years to education and millions to research is removed. I mean, who's going to pay for it?
I find it hard to believe that people don't see the problem here.Quote:
Originally Posted by rong
Without profit there is no incentive.
That demonstrates everything wrong with the world we live in.
Who pays for it here Dan? In the UK, there is a profit cap to stop this very thing from happening. Meanwhile poor people can get the drugs they need on the NHS. It's not a problem here. Yet.
When we say that profit is the only incentive, we're basically saying that it's only worth our while doing something if it personally benefits us. This is what I mean by "everything that is wrong with the world". Capitalism breeds selfishness, even when it comes to medicine.
Why isn't public health an incentive? Why does it take a private company with profit in mind to develop drugs? Why can't a government with public health in mind develop drugs?
There's plenty of drugs and medical procedures we don't have access to that people go abroad for and pay privately to access.Quote:
Originally Posted by OngBonga
It often takes people to dedicate their lives to understanding these things. How will they live? Feed themselves? Pay for equipment and materials and trials and lab space etc if they can't earn money from it. It all takes resources. Where are the resources coming from? Someone has to pay for it.Quote:
Originally Posted by OngBonga
Also if the government took it all on themselves they'd be crap at most of it and wouldn't have enough resources or skills that a company who specialises in one area would achieve through economies of scale. It would be a case of Jack of all medical areas and master of none.
There's a difference between profit and costs, dan. Things like wages and R&D are costs, not profit. Drugs can be sold at a price that covers the costs without the need for shareholders to be paid dividends. When it's in private hands, subject to market conditions, the drugs will be sold at whatever people are willing to pay for it, and when we're talking about life, people will pay whatever they can borrow. The excess isn't helping R&D, this isn't paying doctors' salaries, it's making shareholders rich.
If medicine is in public hands, then drugs will be sold at the lowest price possible to cover costs. It's in a nation's interests to ensure public health is as optimal as can be. There is no need for any other incentive other than public health.
And why is this? Because the top doctors can get paid more privately than by the state, and that is because essential drugs are allowed to be sold privately at profit.Quote:
Originally Posted by rong
.Quote:
Originally Posted by OngBonga
Well not really, no. The market were talking about is huge. R&D budgets for pharmaceutical companies are huge. If the government tried to do it all it would be smaller budgets for each area. Smaller budgets means less resources which equates to less success.Quote:
Originally Posted by OngBonga
http://www.forbes.com/sites/matthewh...ing-new-drugs/
Average cost per new successful drug: $12bn
FYI didn't read article, just Google lent to first source.
Umm... the government, obviously. They can still sell the drug at a reasonable price to cover costs. So the net cost, in a perfect world, would be exactly zero. Give or take a billion and we're in business.Quote:
if it's in public hands, who is going to provide the capital?
I'm basically talking about removing the profit incentive by having the government invest in all these things, who then recoup their losses through fair pricing. Their incentive is public health. When it's a private investor, he prices the drug to cover costs, and to make profit. His incentive is profit. The latter results in higher pricing of drugs, and the end result is that seriously ill people are at the mercy of hedge fund managers.
How can anyone think this is right?
I find it hard to believe people wouldn't be ok with taxes going towards drug r&d.
I also agree that for many people, profit is not a priority.
The part you're missing is that the price is not a objective quantity. The same product can be made by different means and for different costs. You don't seem to have a problem with the free market when it results in toothbrushes that cost $0.30*, a price that could never have existed if not for a massive economy of scale and fierce competition. You only hate the market when the result is something that only the rich can afford.Quote:
Originally Posted by OngBonga
*I verified this at a 7/11 in thailand, it was Colgate brand.
Yes, you may be right that a state-based healthcare system will charge only as much as is necessary to cover the costs. But the problem is that it is hard to know how much the cost truly should be without market feedback. With no market pressure, there is much less incentive to economize and innovate. When Samsung and HTC are competing over Android market share, the trend is for either phones to improve in quality or decrease in price. It doesn't matter that they are doing it for profit, the product is still ultimately cheaper and better than it would be if it were produced by a state-based smartphone monopoly.
As for government's hand in healthcare in general, I'm inclined to believe in an "all in or all out" stance. I think the U.S. has the worst of both worlds. I'd rather see a total healthcare state than this hybrid shit, but total free market healthcare would be the best option BY FAR. I think you would be surprised at how cheap healthcare could be if it weren't for all of the regulations and bureaucracies.
This isn't true at all. I hate the market when it allows hedge fund managers to hold sick people to ransom. We're talking about medicine here, not yachts. I don't see why medicine needs the competition of markets to value it. It's worth whatever the government need to charge to recover costs. JKDS, the taxpayer isn't paying for this, they are investing in it.Quote:
You only hate the market when the result is something that only the rich can afford.
idk, I mean I don't really have a problem with private companies where their profit is capped at a reasonable level. It's when sociopaths like this guy take the fucking piss, you really see the ugly side of capitalism.
I hope you'll read this Ong
Renton described a situation where the government is the cause of a problem. Your response is to solve the problem of government intrusion with government intrusion.Quote:
Originally Posted by OngBonga
Please think about what you just said. You have argued for the position you're against. The position you hold is supposed to say "profits don't create incentive".Quote:
Originally Posted by OngBonga
This situation is like if you put a 2 ton dead weight in the trunk of your car and then you say "well the only way to keep the vehicle functioning is to alter its structure and engine". The price control is like making a really really really bad policy into just a really bad policy. The solution isn't to achieve the really bad policy but to avoid the really really really bad policy.Quote:
Originally Posted by OngBonga
I've posted video of Milton Friedman answering this question several times. Adam Smith's most famous quote is about it: "It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest." This is an extremely well understood phenomenon in economics. It is covered in literally Chapter 1 in my Econ 101 textbook. A market economy creates a greater amount of good for the people precisely because both producers and consumers act in their own self-interest. The seller wants to optimize his profits and the buyer wants to minimize his costs. A market consists of multiple buyers and sellers, so only the fittest survive.Quote:
Originally Posted by OngBonga
Because that incentive is weak. It may not fit your moral ideal, but the reality of the world does not give a fuck what anybody's morals are. History has demonstrated countless times and the academic science known as economics has total consensus that the incentive to create a good for your own purposes and pleasures far outweighs the incentive to create a good for an elusive abstract communal narrative.Quote:
Why isn't public health an incentive? Why does it take a private company with profit in mind to develop drugs? Why can't a government with public health in mind develop drugs?
Intro to Microeconomics or Intro to Macroeconomics would disavow you of these false statements.Quote:
Originally Posted by OngBonga
The economic principles that govern the most trivial of pleasures (like arguing on the internet) are the exact same that govern the most serious of desires (like staying alive). There is an assessment of opportunity cost and marginal benefit for EVERY decision regardless of the fact that typically people aren't cognizant of those things. When those decisions are subsidized and displaced, there is less incentive for frugality, which in turn increases demand and thus raises costs for everybody else. Government subsidized healthcare is extremely expensive in every iteration there is (including NHS), but market ones are several times less expensive. Markets always reduce costs and increase goods relative to government intrusion and subsidization because markets are more capable of achieving efficiency.
Your method has been tried many times and failed so badly that poor health was unfathomable compared to today. While the NHS is an example of this same method, it exists within an economy that engages market principles in enough other ways that the anchor of your healthcare system is only able to have so much negative effect.
This is false. Medical salaries are enormous precisely because of government. I have given bullet points for why like five or so times on this forum, probably twice in this thread alone. I don't have the time to do it again. Just make sure you acknowledge that governments have many laws on the books that very directly (and many more that do so indirectly) bloat medical salaries. Ever wonder why it's almost impossible to work in medicine without devoting a decade of your life and six figures to the endeavor? It has NOTHING to do with the market of medicine or the skills and desires of the population, but it does have everything to do with laws.Quote:
Originally Posted by OngBonga
This doesn't happen. It never happens in government, but it always happens in markets. Fun that.Quote:
Originally Posted by OngBonga
I explained already some of why this isn't true. I'll add that your version has been and is constantly tried. Your belief is held by the vast majority of people. It is the majority type of policy the world uses. Yet, there is no academic backing for how it has created the goods that consist of our living standards, while there is academic consensus in economics that its functions are what have done so. This is only a debate among non-economists.Quote:
Originally Posted by OngBonga
What you are describing you don't like are monopolistic elements. The solution you are prescribing is an unfettered monopoly.Quote:
Originally Posted by OngBonga
I am against it because it's pretty inefficient and wasteful, which means it decreases the total amount of R&D in the economy. I agree with the sentiment that R&D is good. People are right to have that sentiment. But the way to optimize that outcome is to do the opposite of have government tax for it.Quote:
Originally Posted by JKDS
For who? I mean, sure, for sooooooooooome people who don't need to engage it, but really, go take away the motive for somebody to profit and he's going to live on the street and not afford basics.Quote:
I also agree that for many people, profit is not a priority.
The behavior is temporary in markets. The higher the price, the higher the pressure to increase quantities sold, even when the resource isn't truly scarce. What keeps the behavior from being temporary is, you guessed it, bad laws. There are millions of examples of things being horribly overpriced purely because of bad laws.Quote:
Originally Posted by pantherhound
If this situation perpetuates, it's not the fault of economics and capitalism. Economics explains why the situation doesn't perpetuate without government intrusion.