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Pseudo-demand, Pseudo-supply

Started by Xerographica, August 01, 2013, 12:21:06 PM

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Colanth

Quote from: "Jack89"By the way, I'm pretty sure civilization predates medicaid and food stamps.
Medicaid and food stamps are just formalized ways of caring for those in your group who aren't as fortunate as you are.  We were doing that in an informal way before we became human beings.  (Bonobos share.)  When the population gets to the point that there are more people on your block than there were in your clan 35,000 years ago, we need a formal way of doing it.  "I cooked too much, so you feed your family with it before it goes bad" doesn't work when the family that needs the food is 200 miles from you and you never heard of them.

So no, civilization doesn't predate what Medicaid and food stamps represent.
Afflicting the comfortable for 70 years.
Science builds skyscrapers, faith flies planes into them.

Jack89

Quote from: "Colanth"
Quote from: "Jack89"By the way, I'm pretty sure civilization predates medicaid and food stamps.
Medicaid and food stamps are just formalized ways of caring for those in your group who aren't as fortunate as you are.  We were doing that in an informal way before we became human beings.  (Bonobos share.)  When the population gets to the point that there are more people on your block than there were in your clan 35,000 years ago, we need a formal way of doing it.  "I cooked too much, so you feed your family with it before it goes bad" doesn't work when the family that needs the food is 200 miles from you and you never heard of them.

So no, civilization doesn't predate what Medicaid and food stamps represent.
There is a big difference between voluntarily sharing and helping your fellow man, which is a good thing, and forcing other to do it, which is not.  But that's not what I was asking.  This thread is just a piece of the free market vs welfare state argument that never gets resolved.  I was questioning the justification for your argument, and you answered as I expected you would.  I was thinking you might consider that part of the problem lies, at least partially, with the other social welfare programs you mentioned besides minimum wage.  You implied that you wouldn't.  Fair enough.

Colanth

Quote from: "Jack89"There is a big difference between voluntarily sharing and helping your fellow man, which is a good thing, and forcing other to do it, which is not.
And the biggest difference is that once the population exceeds a certain point, voluntary assistance no longer works, so government gets invented.

A clan of 10 people doesn't need a government (and can't afford one).  A city of 3 million people needs a government to function.  And part of the job of that government (the major one, actually) is to replace those functions that the clan could perform without a government.
Afflicting the comfortable for 70 years.
Science builds skyscrapers, faith flies planes into them.

Xerographica

Quote from: "LikelyToBreak"Which is why although not a Libertarian anymore, I'm still libertarian.  Because as long as the government can arbitrarily decide which businesses will make it and which will not, there is no chance for a level playing field.  As Jmpty alluded too.
But the government can arbitrarily decide how much employers pay their employees?  In your example businesses demand a free lunch from the government and in my example voters demand a free lunch from the government.  

As Bastiat said, "the state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else."

When businesses demand subsidies / bailouts they are trying to live at the expense of others.  When voters demand minimum wages they are trying to live at the expense of others.

Given that I'm not an anarcho-capitalist...I don't advocate throwing the baby out with the bath water.  As a pragmatarian, my argument is simply that taxpayers be allowed to choose where their taxes go.  So if you want other people to have a free lunch...then you're going to have to pay for it.  If you want to help bail out auto manufacturers...then you're going to have to give your taxes to whichever government organization is responsible for bailing out failing companies.  If you want employees to have more money...then you're going to have to give your taxes to whichever government organization is responsible for subsiding companies that pay a living wage.  

Resources cannot be efficiently allocated without individual valuation...and there is no individual valuation if you're spending money that you did not earn.

Xerographica

Quote from: "Colanth"
Quote from: "Jack89"There is a big difference between voluntarily sharing and helping your fellow man, which is a good thing, and forcing other to do it, which is not.
And the biggest difference is that once the population exceeds a certain point, voluntary assistance no longer works, so government gets invented.

A clan of 10 people doesn't need a government (and can't afford one).  A city of 3 million people needs a government to function.  And part of the job of that government (the major one, actually) is to replace those functions that the clan could perform without a government.
Pseudo-atheists have a poor understanding of history.  Let me give you a hand...

QuoteOn the whole, then, we seem to be justified in inferring that in many parts of the world the king is the lineal successor of the old magician or medicine-man. When once a special class of sorcerers has been segregated from the community and entrusted by it with the discharge of duties on which the public safety and welfare are believed to depend, these men gradually rise to wealth and power, till their leaders blossom out into sacred kings. - James George Frazer
From kings to legislators...

QuoteApparently, then, the legislators and the organizers have received from Heaven an intelligence and virtue that place them beyond and above mankind; if so, let them show their titles to this superiority. - Frédéric Bastiat
What makes you a pseudo-atheist is that you simply replaced God with the state...

QuoteBut what if Nietzsche is right? What if God is dead? What happens to the person who is forced to recognize that the ordering presence of God is no longer real? What if God cannot be depended on to clean up the mess, even in some last resort sense? Who and/or what can ful?ll the surrogate parent role? Who and what is there beyond the individual that can meet the yearning for family-like protectiveness? Who and what will pick us up when and if we fall? Who and what can provide the predictability that God and his agency structures seemed to offer? - James M. Buchanan, Afraid to be free: Dependency as desideratum
QuoteIn short, persons are afraid to be free. As subsequent discussion will suggest, socialism, as a coherent ideology, has lost most of its appeal. But in a broader and more comprehensive historical perspective, during the course of two centuries, the state has replaced God as the father-mother of last resort, and persons will demand that this protectorate role be satis?ed and ampli?ed. - James M. Buchanan, Afraid to be free: Dependency as desideratum
You still want to put your life in the hands of some superior entity who knows what's best for you...

QuoteBut where Wicksell proceeded to examine the process of preference revelation, Samuelson provided a more general definition of the efficient solution. Preference revelation is disregarded as the model visualizes an omniscient referee to whom preferences are known. - Richard A. Musgrave
In a pragmatarian system, you would still be able to worship congress all you wanted.  Given that you believe them to be superior/omniscient...you would still be able to give them all your taxes/sacrifice.  Personally, I'm a nonbeliever.  I don't believe that congress knows my preferences better than I do.  Therefore, I would wish to allocate my taxes according to my preferences.  

Clearly I'm capable of tolerating your belief...so why are you incapable of tolerating my disbelief?  I accept the possibility that I might be wrong...is it really so difficult for you to accept the possibility that you might be wrong?

LikelyToBreak

Xerographica wrote in part:
QuoteIn a pragmatarian system, you would still be able to worship congress all you wanted. Given that you believe them to be superior/omniscient...you would still be able to give them all your taxes/sacrifice. Personally, I'm a nonbeliever. I don't believe that congress knows my preferences better than I do. Therefore, I would wish to allocate my taxes according to my preferences.
Others may very well worship congress, but I don't.  Especially as I see them as being under the thumb of the richest 1%.  Who most definitely don't have my best interest at heart.  

As it seems you are a history buff, remember how the Romans used to feed the masses and occasionally forgave all debt?  This was to gain loyalty from the masses and to stop them from rioting.  I agree the current welfare system is terribly flawed, but something has to be done to help the bottom 10%.  Many of these people are sick or crippled.  And many of them would happily work, if they could find a job.  Or even start their own businesses if they knew how and had the capital to start it.  

Congress and the Executive branches of government have done little to keep jobs in this country or to try to make the U.S. competitive overseas.  Which means we have less jobs and a growing population looking to fill the jobs which are available.  They also allow the Federal Reserve to increase inflation making it harder for everyone else to make ends meet.  There is a dying middle class in the U.S.  This is something dictators prefer.  After all, it is usually the middle class which drives revolution.

Oh, and I am trying to understand your view.  Actually, I think I do as it sounds very much like a view I used to hold.  But, time and experience have modified my views.  I'm not a socialist, but I despise having different rules for the select and the masses.

Fidel_Castronaut

You keep saying pseudo-atheist like a fucking moron, you know that?

Atheism has nothing to do with political science. So pull that stick out of your ass.

My request to mods: merge all this joker's threads into one. All of them are carbon copies and he contributes literally nothing.

On ignore. I suggest everyone else does the same till he's left the building.
lol, marquee. HTML ROOLZ!

Plu

Quote from: "Colanth"
Quote from: "Jack89"There is a big difference between voluntarily sharing and helping your fellow man, which is a good thing, and forcing other to do it, which is not.
And the biggest difference is that once the population exceeds a certain point, voluntary assistance no longer works, so government gets invented.

A clan of 10 people doesn't need a government (and can't afford one).  A city of 3 million people needs a government to function.  And part of the job of that government (the major one, actually) is to replace those functions that the clan could perform without a government.

This. Share and care works for small groups, but fails terribly for big ones. People are simply unable to give much of a fuck about others once they reach a certain number of people they know. Anyone outside that range is irrelevant to them.

If share and care worked, there wouldn't be cities full of blocks worth of "bad neighbourhoods". Those things exist because even with government mandated care for the less fortunate and the option to go and help those people even more if you feel like it, we still can't give enough fucks to actually solve those problems.

Xerographica

Quote from: "LikelyToBreak"Others may very well worship congress, but I don't.  Especially as I see them as being under the thumb of the richest 1%.  Who most definitely don't have my best interest at heart.  
Show me how you spend your time/money and I'll show you who you worship.  My guess is that you give far more of your money/sacrifice to the 1% than you do to congress.  Of course, you have no idea whether this is true or not...given that you have no idea who exactly you're giving your money to when you're at the grocery store.  The large majority of the products and services we purchase do not have labels that indicate whether the producer is in the 1%...but chances are pretty good that they are.  They are in the 1% because we worship them.  We worship them because they give us the most value for our sacrifice.  

Quote from: "LikelyToBreak"As it seems you are a history buff, remember how the Romans used to feed the masses and occasionally forgave all debt?  This was to gain loyalty from the masses and to stop them from rioting.
Yeah, just like how Marx said that religion is the opiate of the masses.  Why revolt when you're assured eternal happiness in the next life?  

Why revolt when you can vote for a free lunch?

QuoteAgain, it may be objected that the poor are never invested with the sole power of making the laws; but I reply, that wherever universal suffrage has been established the majority of the community unquestionably exercises the legislative authority; and if it be proved that the poor always constitute the majority, it may be added, with perfect truth, that in the countries in which they possess the elective franchise they possess the sole power of making laws. But it is certain that in all the nations of the world the greater number has always consisted of those persons who hold no property, or of those whose property is insufficient to exempt them from the necessity of working in order to procure an easy subsistence. Universal suffrage does therefore, in point of fact, invest the poor with the government of society. - Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America
Quote from: "LikelyToBreak"I agree the current welfare system is terribly flawed, but something has to be done to help the bottom 10%.  Many of these people are sick or crippled.  And many of them would happily work, if they could find a job.  Or even start their own businesses if they knew how and had the capital to start it.
Efficiently allocating resources creates jobs/wealth while inefficiently allocate resources destroys jobs/wealth.

Quote from: "LikelyToBreak"Congress and the Executive branches of government have done little to keep jobs in this country or to try to make the U.S. competitive overseas.  Which means we have less jobs and a growing population looking to fill the jobs which are available.  They also allow the Federal Reserve to increase inflation making it harder for everyone else to make ends meet.  There is a dying middle class in the U.S.  This is something dictators prefer.  After all, it is usually the middle class which drives revolution.
In the 50s and 60s unions were at the height of their power.  They drove wages so high that manufacturers moved their factories overseas.  Why?  Because they wanted cheap labor.  Cheaper labor meant greater profits.  They opened up their factories in Taiwan, Singapore, South Korea and Hong Kong.  Why not in China and North Korea?  Because they were planned/command economies...just like our public sector.  

Obviously, as we already established, wages were cheap in the four countries that I mentioned.  Are the wages still cheap now?  

In 1978...Deng Xiaoping replaced Chairman Mao.  He gradually opened China up to foreign investment.  But it wasn't just American businessmen looking for cheaper labor and higher profits...it was now also South Korean businessmen...and businessmen from those other countries that had opened up their economies.  They opened up factories in China because wages in China were cheaper than the wages in their respective countries.  

And are the wages in China still cheap?  

QuoteRising wages in emerging markets and higher shipping costs are also closing the cost gap between developing markets and the United States. - Scott Malone and Ernest Scheyder   Outsourcing Losing Its Allure As China Costs Soar
If you really want to screw the poor...just replace allocative efficiency with altruism.  Take money from the people using society's limited resources for all our benefit...and give it directly to the poor.  Ignore the fact that some unknown percentage of people are poor because they waste their resources.  

Quote from: "LikelyToBreak"Oh, and I am trying to understand your view.  Actually, I think I do as it sounds very much like a view I used to hold.  But, time and experience have modified my views.  I'm not a socialist, but I despise having different rules for the select and the masses.
I also despise having different rules for the select and the masses...but I also despise the view that people are equally effective at using society's limited resources.  It's a good thing that the two views are not mutually exclusive.  

I'm against subsidies and bailouts just as much as I'm against minimum wages.  I'm against giving businesses free lunches just as much as I'm against giving voters free lunches.  

As Bastiat said, "the state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else."

But, unlike libertarians and anarcho-capitalists who either want to severely reduce or eliminate the public sector...I don't believe it's necessary to throw the baby out with the bath water.  All that's needed is to allow taxpayers to use their taxes to indicate what parts of the government are worth saving and what parts need to be thrown out.  The least beneficial government organizations would lose funding and the most beneficial government organizations would gain funding.

If you want to truly raise the standard of living for everybody, you have to recognize that some people are better at using society's limited resources than others.  By far and large, employers are better at using society's limited resources than employees.  Therefore, eliminating the minimum wage and allowing taxpayers to directly allocate their taxes will give more influence to employers, and as a result, they'll do better things with society's limited resources and the standard of living will improve for everybody.

Jmpty

???  ??

Hijiri Byakuren

Quote from: "Jmpty"Ignore.
Same here.
Speak when you have something to say, not when you have to say something.

Sargon The Grape - My Youtube Channel

Xerographica

Quote from: "Jmpty"Ignore.
LOL.  I guess you could have just not replied to the thread...but then I suppose I wouldn't have known that you were ignoring it.  If you hadn't replied to the thread then my feelings wouldn't have been hurt...but now my feelings are hurt.  Your mission has been accomplished.  :)  I mean... :(

Here's a deal, rather than only replying to threads that match our preferences and ignoring the rest, we should also reply to threads that don't match our preferences and say "this topic does not match my preferences".  

Kinda like how facebook should also have a "dislike" button.  Youtube has one.  

In fact, maybe on facebook we should be able to unfriend people that we aren't even friends with!  That would show them!

Also, at bars and clubs, we should walk around rejecting people who haven't even shown the slightest interest in us!  

And employers can go around firing people who don't even work for them!  LOL...too much fun.  You should ignore me more often.  :)  I mean :(

Xerographica

Quote from: "Fidel_Castronaut"You keep saying pseudo-atheist like a fucking moron, you know that?

Atheism has nothing to do with political science. So pull that stick out of your ass.
So Buchanan, the Nobel Prize winning economist, had no idea what he was talking about when he said that the state had replaced God?  

Richard Musgrave, a highly respected public finance economist, had no idea what he was talking about when he said that our current system is based on the assumption that congresspeople are omniscient?

Quote from: "Fidel_Castronaut"My request to mods: merge all this joker's threads into one. All of them are carbon copies and he contributes literally nothing.

On ignore. I suggest everyone else does the same till he's left the building.
Yeah, people should be free to boycott me...but taxpayers shouldn't be free to boycott specific government organizations?  

Even some liberals aren't that stupid...Velazquez: Funding war should be taxpayers' choice.

LikelyToBreak

Xerographica wrote in part:
QuoteShow me how you spend your time/money and I'll show you who you worship. My guess is that you give far more of your money/sacrifice to the 1% than you do to congress.
Gotta eat dude.  I'm not against people doing better than me.  In fact, I'm all for it.  What I am trying to get across, is that it is not a fair playing field and if it was many of those 1% er's would be replaced.  Right now we have hierarchical government under a different guise.  Yes, there are a few who break into the upper ranks, who do deserve to be there, but most are born into the position.  Then they manipulate government to stay there and keep others down.

In China the working conditions are terrible.  People are working 16 hour days 7 days a week for a little more than subsistence.  Is that what you would have for us and the rest of the world.  Screw that!  I don't want to be a slave in anyway.  

Xerographica wrote in part:
QuoteLikelyToBreak wrote:
"As it seems you are a history buff, remember how the Romans used to feed the masses and occasionally forgave all debt? This was to gain loyalty from the masses and to stop them from rioting."

Yeah, just like how Marx said that religion is the opiate of the masses. Why revolt when you're assured eternal happiness in the next life?

Why revolt when you can vote for a free lunch?
I'm sorry, but you completely lost me here.  What does the pagan Rome have to do with eternal happiness an Marx?  What I was trying to get across is, that the government and the ruling elite have to appease the masses or the whole system breaks down.

Xerographica wrote in part:
QuoteBut, unlike libertarians and anarcho-capitalists who either want to severely reduce or eliminate the public sector...I don't believe it's necessary to throw the baby out with the bath water. All that's needed is to allow taxpayers to use their taxes to indicate what parts of the government are worth saving and what parts need to be thrown out. The least beneficial government organizations would lose funding and the most beneficial government organizations would gain funding.

If you want to truly raise the standard of living for everybody, you have to recognize that some people are better at using society's limited resources than others. By far and large, employers are better at using society's limited resources than employees. Therefore, eliminating the minimum wage and allowing taxpayers to directly allocate their taxes will give more influence to employers, and as a result, they'll do better things with society's limited resources and the standard of living will improve for everybody.
This makes no sense.  First you say the masses should decide how to spend the money, then you say they don't know how.  I already conceded that some people are better able to use resources than others.  But, allowing an electorate, many of who don't even know who their congressman is, to decide how to spend the money, just doesn't make sense.  We are supposed to have a representative republic, but many people don't even understand that.  The idea being, some people can spend the time and effort to figure out the best uses of governmental resources.  Your idea turns the country into a democracy.  If I am right in what I am reading, then I find it illogical.

Xerographica. Just to see if you are paying attention, you do realize that the top 1% control like 85% of the money don't you?  

Another question, do you (Xerographica) have plans for any other changes besides eliminating the minimum wage and allowing the masses to vote on government spending?

Colanth

Quote from: "Xerographica"What makes you a pseudo-atheist is that you simply replaced God with the state...
When you have no argument ...

Read my posts (any of them, anywhere on AF or Usenet) to see whether I've ever replaced God with the State.  (I'm not pro-state, I'm pro-people.  If the State is needed to assure that people survive, so be it.)

QuoteClearly I'm capable of tolerating your belief...so why are you incapable of tolerating my disbelief?
We're not talking about beliefs, we're talking about knowledge of economics, which is fact, and you don't get to make up your own facts.
Afflicting the comfortable for 70 years.
Science builds skyscrapers, faith flies planes into them.