If you’re defining base dollar value as “inflation adjusted” then I can agree, but if you’re choosing some other value of dollar I don’t know where you’re going with this.
Beans’s point is that in addition inflation adjusted wage, you also have increasing non-monetary benefits for most workers now compared to decades ago. These benefits have a dollar amount because they cost the company something even though nobody sees it in their paycheck.
This part concerns me. Resisting a dictator or a king, or the rule by a few evil ones is much easier for people to imagine. Resisting tyranny by a majority frightens the heck out of me.
I love a good anti-authoritarian rant, but think this is real. I know. Best option, but I think a lot of people are blind to this possibility because it doesn’t look like a dictator. I’m not the only one who worries about the rise of populism, but I think it’s been one reason the left won’t tolerate the idea that the group or collective can do some bad stuff, or that we’re too evolved to trend toward injustice. It’s a mistake.
Maybe this is pretty dark, but I think some of what beans is saying is just pragmatism of living in a very imperfect world. In that sense, it’s not cognitive dissonance, or not being true to your ideals. We don’t deal in ideals down here.
Sorry if I keep looking at this through religion, but I can’t help it. As much as possible, I believe in the idea of “teach them correct principles and let them rule themselves.” For me, there’s nothing ennobling or virtuous about me taking Richie Rich’s resources and giving it to to someone else. It doesn’t ennoble me or Richie. I really strongly dislike this idea that my Christian obligation to the poor is satisfied through this kind of thing, partly because it makes me personally less responsible. Also, I think that kind of power can be abused so easily, and can cause people to offend God if it steps on free will unnecessarily or excessively, and these are very subjective. How can we be so sure that what we’re doing is just? To me, something like taxes needs to be overseen so carefully, and with tremendous trepidation because it is a form of control or power. I don’t think people see that as the sacred, and truly scary thing it is. I think we constantly overestimate our ability to wield it.
Feel like I just gave you a bucket of snakes for Christmas? You’re welcome! Haha. I’m having a hard time keeping up with the discussion today, but it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas over here. You might have a little bit of fun in here when you’re tired of talking lifting.
I have an atheist confession to make. I always find myself reading your religious posts and nodding my head. When I read how you, Jewbacca and a few others write about your faith, it sometimes makes me wish I had it. I mean that as a compliment in the most sincere way possible.
Back on-topic, or at least back on a relevant tangent!
There’s always a fine line between theft and taxation. I think those of us who’ve made it past the 400 post mark in this thread understand this. You can take either argument to the extreme. Each one of us has a percentage or a range where the taxes we pay cease to be reasonable and become unreasonable.
I’m no L. Ron Hubbard and I’m certainly no Jesus, but if I’m advocating that something should apply to others but not to me, I try to reflect on how I’d feel if it did apply to me.
Also acceptable, but it would need to be The General Illegal Immigrant Attorney Fee Fund. Not the other funds.
This is the kind of freedom you get as an atheist. No jokes are off-limits!
[quote]Dude… You’re literally making shit up now, and I refuse to entertain make believe. I’ll lay it out one more time for those interested in truth:
Consensual sex may lead to pregnancy. Both parties must consent to this outcome in order to engage in the activity. Libertarians don’t deny basic biological function.
If that sex leads to a child, you by having the fucking thing, are consenting to take care of.
Full stop
end of discussion. [/quote]
Dude, you’re right, it is the end. You’ve flat out described the contradiction. You’re taking consent away - an intervening event (pregnancy), and someone has an obligation to another person whether they want to or not. No more choice, no more consent. A duty independent of your free will to do it or not. An obligation.
Nope, just another application of libertarian theory to the real world and showing where it doesn’t add up. I could go down the anti-discrimination route and done the same.
See, you keep showing more flaws in the Premise. Under libertarian theory, a person can’t create something and leave it to others to be responsible, because others have no duty to be responsible for the discarded thing…unless they want to be responsible, giving consent.
No one has to pick up the slack of a parent refusing to take care of child. They have the option, but not the obligation.
So a person refusing to take care of a child isn’t burdening anyone else.
Because libertarianism. No obligation without consent.
I understand, I think the better question is so you?
The feeling is mutual, sincerely.
[quote]So I don’t really think taxation is theft, because I’m cool with most of the shit the country spends money on. I think amounts could be lower, and less bloat etc, but in the modern world… You need a larger government than “ancapistan”. IMO
[/quote]
Well shit, I spend Sunday, Monday and today trapped in airports, waiting for my delayed flight to be cancelled and this thread goes awry. Also, welcome @EyeDentist. I actually placed an internal bet on when you’d jump in; I lost. The money I lost - to myself - will be donated to Disabled and Sexuality.
People were told and housing did appreciate for 50 years, so there was a believable basis to consider home ownership as a wealth builder. Some areas like CA shacks from the 1930s-40s selling for $1MM for the heirs selling their childhood homes, etc. The same house sells for $45K here.
Wages relatively constant in inflation $ from 1964 - 2014 for production and non supervisory, so where else might be causing loss of wealth? CPI not figuring true inflation, our 2 accountants here keep saying too much personal debt - many new cars, mc mansions, school loans, credit card interest; keeping up with Jones instead of saving, Labor participation rate is down from 67% to 62% in 17 years, fewer manufacturing jobs, health costs shifted to user, a couple of equity market bubbles, bonds yielding negative.
TARP and FNMA have returned all plus 71BB with some companies still on program. Agree with Beans as to the original action, but I would classify as ‘govt intervention’ for companies addicted to outsize profits from overly creative CDOs.
But I hates me some commies, so any pro-commie language typically gets my jimmies a rustled.
False. That isn’t in my power to do.
I cannot commit a crime to stop abortion, otherwise I’d be abandoning my family by going to prison which makes me a hypocrite, and breaking different laws to protest an immoral law, which also makes one a hypocrite.
How did I know you were trying to drag me into such nonsense?
Nonsense. Words matter, allow me to demonstrate:
Likewise, a Black is not a person. Given time and nurturing, a Black will eventually become close enough to work within the house and not just the fields. But a Black is not a person.
Fact of the matter is, this is a lame attempt at rationalization of your position. You need to strip personhood from a baby in order to justify your stance on their murder. “Personhood” is a non-argument. There is zero scientific evidence that states a person is anything but a person starting at conception, and ending at death. Zero.
No, I don’t agree. It’s male, it’s a man. Stage of development doesn’t determine worth.
ugh… Yeah 10-30% taxes on every product produced… Great idea…
You’re just a blob of cells too. Does that mean I can end your life if 50.1% of people vote to allow me to?
One accepts that, ie: consents, to that duty by doing the nasty with your lady. Bumping ugliest means you consent to the outcome of that bumping. Whether it be a nice O, or 18 years of “but DAD!!!”
Who am I kidding, 30 years of “but DAD!!!”
Correct, because it violates the NAP.
Why do you assume L theory has no morality?
Yes they are lol. They are either burdening the child (whom they consented to bring into the world) with death, or others with the care of the child, they consented to care for by accepting the fact it could happen when they had sex with a lady friend.
My business partner pisses away company money elsewhere and sends us into bankruptcy. Now I am on the hook for the debt even though I didn’t choose to be. But wait, I did choose to be when I started the damn business with my partner.
Maybe not the best analogy but I agree. Libertarian doesn’t mean ignoring consequences or for that matter biology.
Talk about lala land of my economic ideas and then write this?
When every person is willing to use the exact same absolute truths, then Libertarians will make hay
A request has been made that we refrain from discussing abortion on this economics thread. This seems to me a reasonable request, so I’m going to honor it. I’ll see you on the next abortion thread, on which I’m sure we’ll manage to solve this issue once and for all.
[quote][quote]
Under libertarian theory, a person can’t create something and leave it to others to be responsible, because others have no duty to be responsible for the discarded thing…unless they want to be responsible, giving consent.[/quote]
Correct, because it violates the NAP.
Why do you assume L theory has no morality?
[/quote]
I think you misread my post. I’m not saying “can’t be done” in the sense of a moral rule that violates the NAP, I am saying it “can’t be done” in the sense that it is not logically possible. So, if someone walks away from taking care of a child, they aren’t burdening anyone else to take care of it because no one else has a duty to take care of the child.
Same for property. Walk away from your property - it burdens no one else. No one has any responsibility to take care of it. To suggest they do is to violate the very NAP that underpins the theory.