The KGB Oracle Forums General Public Discussion (SPECIAL ACCESS) KGB Political Debate Central Does government regulation kill jobs?

@Rationality - Are you familiar with work of Dan Ariely ( Irrationaly Yours )?

My position is that mob violence is a given part of human nature (see: human factors) and at this point rather predictable aspect that you can control with policy. Nobody should be surprised when a critical mass of starving people with no prospects form a mob and go looting.

This post seriously brought a smile to my face, and yes I mean that literally. The irony that you have allowed your inability to process and properly respond to simple logic has led you to degenerate to behaving in the same manner you took so much issue with in regards to Vuldan is not lost, at least on me. Not my intended outcome, but amusing nonetheless.

Now to pick apart what apparently passes for reasoning among leftists.

" Ignores that a) other people can help and impede " - As I pointed out earlier, I do not ignore that aspect in the slightest. It is you who by nature of the absolutism of your poorly worded argument that is trying to set a definition where outside interference is guaranteed. Again, you are confusing the way things "typically are" for "the absolute meaning of the words as used". Its really a black and white concept.

"b) we live in a world where overpopulation is a problem, where anyone, least all 7 billion of us, will find such place to hide and create wealth? " - Who ever said anything or even implied that hiding 7 billion people was practical or had anything to do with anything? It is however possible for one person to hide, and there is a ton of open space. Or perhaps the example could be set in prehistoric times, or even far in the future. The debate over the meaning of the terminology is a debate about the concepts at hand.

Remember, the debate was over the strict meaning of the wording you used - not any type of argument that hiding all 7 billion people would be practical. I will leave silly assertions of that nature to leftists.

"This is not how I read your responses. Way I read it - "Lets take this idea to illogical and impossible extreme, see it doesn't work there, so whole concept is flawed"." - no it gets back to the root concepts. If you allow a logical fallacy of that nature to stand, then presumption of the correctness of that fallacy can in turn be used to create an illogical case.

The concept of whether or not multiple people are, in the "strictest sense" required for wealth creation has powerful implications if extrapolated into a plausible scenario. As such, it is important to make sure someone misusing the terminology to misrepresent the concept is called out on it. Though in this particular case I may have just been over thinking it.

So, again asking for clarification - you are saying that if we freeze govt expansion at Clinton era levels that mobs of starving people are going to go looting?

Spell it out for me again, I do not see logical fallacy in my argument.



I personally don't agree with your argument that lone individual in perfect isolation can create wealth... wealth is a measure, if you have only one point, what do you measure it against, previous state? Even if I concede this point, how does it affect bigger argument? We established, and you agreed, that interaction is not all consensual and not all positive. So does it matter if single individual can or cannot create wealth, and if so does this wealth make a sound when it get bailed out, but nobody is there to cash in on it?

I am saying that if we eliminate all social programs the mob of starving people are going to go looting.

You could pick many benchmarks. What one has today vs what one had yesterday. If you measure wealth as something solely to be compared to against other people, I can see why you argue about it the way that you do. But wealth can be any sort of useful resource. Ex: Robinson Crusoe stumbles across a pile of fallen coconuts, and the fallen coconuts have not gone bad and turned into poison. He could be said to be much wealthier than he had been the day before. Ex2: Robinson Crusoe actually builds a still, and intentionally makes the coconut milk go bad in a manner designed to produce alcohol and now has a refreshing nightcap to provide a little luxury to his solitude.

""

I am saying that if we eliminate all social programs the mob of starving people are going to go looting. "" (dropped oracle quotes due to having to many quotes )

Well, even if we allow that presumption to stand for now - that has never been the crux of this discussion. I simply do not recall ever calling for the immediate and unconditional removal of all safety nets or social programs. In fact just the opposite, I made a case that the Clinton era system worked well enough for our purposes and that properly allowed to otherwise flourish, our economy could probably sustain such a level of social spending for a long period of time, perhaps even indefinitely.

The topic at hand was what has come after, and what is coming in the future.

Also, I have some issue with you classifying lack of violence with positive contribution to society. Or perhaps we simply need to clarify the difference between positive and negative contributions.

If we just kill all the poor people we wouldn't need social programs...right?

Derid, so since we agreed that we cannot end social programs, and we indeed need some for our society to continue cooperative (peacful) existence, the only question is what level of social programs do we need to maintain?

Do you want to discuss any specific programs? I am uncomfortable with "Clinton-era" budget estimates, not only this is fixed number, not adjusted by inflation, it also does not discuss priorities and use of these social programs...

Let me elaborate on this more. Hypothetical example - US implemented single-player health care system and merged medicare, VA into this program. Overall costs projected at 11% of GDP (down from 15%) and are now collected as value-added tax. Overall per-person costs go down from $7500 per year to $5000 per year per person.

If you look in absolute social outlays, numbers will increase. If you look at % of GDP numbers will decrease. If you look at per person costs number will decrease.

In the grand total, I doubt costs would go down and the CBO has a history of grossly underestimating costs, especially more than 2 years out. Or, if costs really did go down, quality and availability will also follow suit. I think our health care is *good enough*, because there are no plans to centralize it that will reduce costs while keeping quality and availability.

When I refer to Clinton era, I am more or less fixing it to GDP% and more or less general taxation/outlay ratio. Sure, in any budget that large there is room to re-arrange some things, or change spending priorities but if memory serves in 1998 total entitlements were about 9% of GDP.

I think that this number is more or less sustainable, though I think 8% would be a safer number when thinking in the long term.

If you have social and economic issues such that 8% of the total economy cannot successfully help sustain those who are unfortunate enough to require them, then you have much greater social and economic problems of a type that throwing more money at covering the symptoms and ignoring whatever the root issue might be will simply lead to an even bigger collapse down the road. Case in point is Greece. There were a lot of things wrong with Greece, but it is inarguable that they increased govt welfare, govt jobs as means of employment and borrowed heavily to do. Eventually this became unsustainable for them.

Which is where I see us currently heading, which is why I am so opposed to the path we are currently on.

If you want to fudge, plan for a cap of 9% with a target of 8%.

Also, I was agreeing in regards to short term. I think long term, most social programs could be offloaded to the states to craft more local solutions and there are various paths to get there.