JayJuanGee said:
I totally agree with you I'm just so cynical and caustic people can't even understand what I'm talking about.
Question re: Warren Buffet paying 10% tax
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I totally agree with you I'm just so cynical and caustic people can't even understand what I'm talking about.
dreambig said:
That is really funny. Yes, the train system in America sucks (both in cities and across the country), and could use a little (or a lot of) work in order to get people out of their cars.
dreambig said:
Even though it may sound as if I am using the word “destruction” to be sensationalistic, I believe that I am NOT being sensationalistic and attempting to be descriptive. Below is the context of my “destruction” statement.
JayJuanGee said:
By NO means do I claim to be any kind of expert or able to conjure up irrefutable facts to substantiate my conclusions, but I do NOT come to my conclusions lightly. When I refer to the destructive behavior of the self-proclaimed tea party members, I am referring to a course and pattern of behavior that seems to be targeted at sabatoging the ability of govt to function, with an attempt to get the public to believe that the govt does NOT work. So, we know that generally, the public has a pretty short memory and ability to sus out what is going on exactly, so if there is repeated rhetoric that govt does NOT work followed up by actual examples of the govt NOT working, then the public begin to think that the Govt does NOT work. A large majority of Americans do NOT really believe this propaganda when they are exposed to actual facts that they can weigh in order to come to their own conclusion(s). In essence, I am of the belief that various kinds of conduct of NOT passing any legislation, engaging in obstructionism, passing legislation against the public interest, and shutting down the govt are destructive behaviors. NOW, I would NOT want to get caught up in the weeds in providing multiple examples, but generally I believe that there is fairly solid evidence that there have been a large number of tea party representatives who have been acting in destructive manners – and I wonder even if they are adequately representing the people in their districts when they come up with these looney ploys such as shutting down the govt that could have a world-wide negative affect on the credibility of the US Govt.
dreambig said:
I am sure that there are instances in which the government can be cut in various ways. IN the USA, NON-Policing aspects of the Federal Govt were being cut from 2001 – well and even earlier than that, and being done through NON-hirings. But at the same time, various policing aspects were expanding. From 2011 to present, there has been quite a bit of freezing of Federal salaries (a 1-2% increase this year). These are austerity measures, and in my view, they are NOT the solution to getting the economy going. When the private sector is NOT investing in job creation, then the govt should NOT be freezing and/or failing to create jobs. Now, once the private sector gets going and is investing in jobs, then maybe at that point, various govt shrinking can take place.
dreambig said:
These statement are pretty broad and global. Govt jobs are NOT necessarily wasteful – it depends on the job. Probably, instead of being resentful about the “cushiness” of govt jobs, there should be avenues to make private sector jobs more cush. Generally, there is a need for unions and such in order to ensure decent private sector jobs. It is NOT an easy answer to just say Govt workers have it too good. Our goal should be that there are decent jobs for everyone to be able to get, and surely, there are some free market principles, as well to achieve such, so long as systems are in place for the incentivizing of the creation of jobs with decent wages and benefits across the various sectors.
dreambig said:
For the most part, this capitalizing is NOT substantive (and has NOTHING to do with tone) – only to allow for the ease of reading or spotting the direction of the sentence. I understand that sometimes, style can become irritating, but overall, I consider that my capitalizing of various negative words serves a non-substantive function, which is intended to make reading easier rather than more difficult.
JayJuanGee said:
If only it were that simple. As I stated previously, public sector jobs are consumers of economic value, not creators. That is irrefutable fact. Why does the government need to step in to make more jobs that contribute nothing towards the real economy? I realize that more government jobs will create more consumption but there are better ways to encourage spending than wasting tax money. You seem to be stuck in some kind of Keynesian bubble.
JayJuanGee said:
Nice idea in theory. In reality, this doesn't happen. Once the economy picks up, everyone relaxes and forgets about the budget. Government goes back to its normal patterns of throwing our money down the toilet. In a way, downturns are excellent opportunities to expose wastage and outright corruption in government.
JayJuanGee said:
I don't know how it works in the USA but in the UK there are many civil servants who retire 10-15 years earlier than is the norm in the private sector. They can then go into second jobs and get a double income. Ridiculous. That's why I refer to them as the new aristocrats. And I am not even talking about the more senior civil servants.
Simple demographics dictate that we all need to work until a later age (I have misgivings about this but it's hard to see any other way) but so far the public sector has kept all of its benefits, including early retirement. To me, this is utterly unfair. Government is supposed to be FOR the people, not the other way around. All public sector jobs except the dangerous ones (police, military etc) need to be brought in line with the private sector. The job security they receive should be enough of a benefit without all the extra perks paid by the taxpayer. I don't think I am writing anything that extreme. All of this strikes me as democratic and fair.
dreambig said:
YES, EXACTLY. Keynesian is the idea. I’m NO expert; however, under a Keynseian idas, some of the jobs may be govt jobs and other jobs could be contracted.. but in the end there is a push towards various public projects to get this economy going… spending rather than cut… that is what I am talking about… … let’s say for example, build and/or fund various comprehensive public transportation systems (trains and subways) throughout the US of A. That transportatation is an example… or may be some other project such as solar energy or school revitalization… public or govt elected officials would chose what projects and the projects would create momentum… yes.. stimulous…
Regarding your point about “irrefutable facts.” YOU are NOT stating irrefutable facts, but instead, you are suggesting that only private sector creates value and the public sector does NOT.. that assertion is FAR FROM irrefutable.
dreambig said:
You are right that sometimes are more opportunistic for looking at certain kinds of problems – however, there should be ways to plan long term and to follow through to be proactive rather than reactive.
dreambig said:
Depends on the jurisdiction, but yes, there are some jurisdictions that have these same kinds of problems. Usually, they are the exception rather than the rule, but if those kinds of problems exist, then they should be addressed.
dreambig said:
Yes, there is a problem with job distribution in which there are thoughts that people need to work longer – however, there is a large segment of the population that is NOT employed. There is more than one solution, including considerations of how to spread out the work a little better. Employed people should NOT have to work 60 hours a week while others cannot get a job, and then those people working 60 hours a week are getting shit for wages. The same is true about working until a guy is 70.. should NOT have to happen if there is adequate distribution. Of course, people who want to work until they are older should NOT be precluded, but it should NOT be forced.. that is bs to treat older people like that and to NOT have a retirement system.
dreambig said:
This is part of the problem, people get so worked up about govt sector getting more than the rest, and that is the wrong focus, in my opinion…. And it is a form of set up. Rich people have been screwing Americans out of Unions and decent jobs in the private sector for 30 years and then after they have nearly totally screwed the private sector, then they want to come after the public sector. It is screwed up that we got to this place in the first place, but that is what is happening.. targeting of public sector to want to drag them down to the despictable levels that the private sector has been drug down to.
Instead, we should be conceiving of and building systems to bring up the conditions of the private sector, rather than dragging down the public sector.
dreambig said:
This is backass rationalization to try to suggest that the only thing that matters is police and the military and other govt functions do NOT matter… Whether we individually agree, WE, as a society, have already decided that the Govt serves a large variety of services besides ONLY police and military. Certainly, some of those OTHER services could be cut (IN THEORY), if that is what people want… but generally, people do NOT want a govt that is only police and military. People want the other services, and if people are deciding, then that is what should be done. IF money and/or corporations are deciding, then those kinds of other services would be cut. I am proposing a govt of the people, NOT a govt of big money. So, in sum, people want more than just police and military in their govt, and accordingly, they (hopefully rich people will pay more) need to pay for those other services to benefit the society as a whole.
Surely, there is NOT a problem to attempt to move the public in that direction to accept govt services that are only police and military; however, that is NOT the current world in which we live.
dreambig said:
I already addressed this above that I do NOT think that it is fair to be striving to drag down govt workers, and the more fair approach would be to consider and figure out various mechanism to improve the wages, hours, working conditions and benefits of private sector workers ( NOT to the exclusion of public sector workers or by demonizing public sector workers).
Feisbook Control
Kingfisher
JJG: It wasn't me who brought up the concept of a fair tax.
I guess you and I won't reach agreement on this. You might talk about how much tax the rich used to pay, but as I have already written, they'll just move their money offshore now. The world has changed in that respect.
As for government spending, I know you won't agree with this, but here goes. Firstly, government spending as a percentage of GDP has increased markedly since the 60s, but even before then. One hundred years ago, it was only a few percentage points. The state has increased in size markedly. Further increasing its size is not the solution. If anything, many areas of service (such as education) have actually decreased in quality, despite the extra funding. Regardless of this though, the national debt and deficit on their present courses are simply unsustainable.
The other thing I would say about the growth of the welfare state is in reference to what dreambig has written and what I wrote previously also. There has been a massive industry created of careerist politicians, lobbyists and civil servants. Yet the number of snouts at the trough will always exist in direct proportion to the size of the trough. If you want to reduce or eliminate the snouts, you need to reduce or eliminate the trough. It's as simple as that because it's all about incentives.
As for the Republican Party, it's absurd to talk about them being a right wing party anyway because the Overton Window has shifted so far to the left on many issues (about the only one where both parties have shifted to the right has been on trade liberalisation) that both parties would be completely unrecognisable to their former incarnations several decades ago, though this is more the case for the Republicans. In many ways, the Republicans are no different to the Democrats. Both are big government, tax and spend parties. They just have different points of emphasis on who they tax and what they spend on. Both are also shills for their own special interests as well as the 1%. I don't know if the Tea Party is necessarily the solution, but it's a step in the right direction. It's meaningless to talk about right wing or conservative parties when they haven't actually conserved anything. Possibly the only issue I can think of where they have actually conserved the status quo as it existed decades ago would be gun rights, but I am sure that many would disagree with me there too. As I wrote, aside from trade liberalisation, if you picked up both the Democrats and the Republicans as they exist today and put them into the 1960s, they would both be to the left of both parties then. The Republicans exist merely as a bogeyman and set of enablers to rally/fool people on the endless march to the left on social issues and the weird march to welfare/1% dichotomy on economic issues.
Anyway, it's not going to matter for much longer. Unless the middle class do something pretty soon they're going to be outnumbered at the polls. 2016, and possibly 2020, may be the last gasp of the middle class at the polls before the demographic tipping point. After that, you won't even have to have the illusion of a Republican president supposedly representing the middle class.
I know you don't want to talk about the poor, but it is clearly absurd that close to half of the population is a net drain on society. In any healthy society, surely we would expect no more than about 5% of the society to actually be mentally or physically incapable of being net contributors. It's simply unsustainable as it is.
As for the arguments about feminism and Marxism, both have made a decades-long concerted effort to undermine certain key institutions in society. This is a fact. The evidence of this has not been so apparent for the upper middle class and upper class, but if you look at the work of Charles Murray in Coming Apart, you will see that the white working class has been absolutely devastated in its mores since the 1960s. The black working class has fared even worse. I refer you to the work of Theodore Dalrymple for the British equivalent. The destruction of things such as marriage, religiosity (and I say that as an atheist) and so on, in conjunction with the growth of the welfare state, has been disastrous. As I wrote in my previous post, these changes have been effected by an unholy alliance of both the 1% and the cultural Marxists/feminists. You cannot only focus on the 1% in this.
I guess you and I won't reach agreement on this. You might talk about how much tax the rich used to pay, but as I have already written, they'll just move their money offshore now. The world has changed in that respect.
As for government spending, I know you won't agree with this, but here goes. Firstly, government spending as a percentage of GDP has increased markedly since the 60s, but even before then. One hundred years ago, it was only a few percentage points. The state has increased in size markedly. Further increasing its size is not the solution. If anything, many areas of service (such as education) have actually decreased in quality, despite the extra funding. Regardless of this though, the national debt and deficit on their present courses are simply unsustainable.
The other thing I would say about the growth of the welfare state is in reference to what dreambig has written and what I wrote previously also. There has been a massive industry created of careerist politicians, lobbyists and civil servants. Yet the number of snouts at the trough will always exist in direct proportion to the size of the trough. If you want to reduce or eliminate the snouts, you need to reduce or eliminate the trough. It's as simple as that because it's all about incentives.
As for the Republican Party, it's absurd to talk about them being a right wing party anyway because the Overton Window has shifted so far to the left on many issues (about the only one where both parties have shifted to the right has been on trade liberalisation) that both parties would be completely unrecognisable to their former incarnations several decades ago, though this is more the case for the Republicans. In many ways, the Republicans are no different to the Democrats. Both are big government, tax and spend parties. They just have different points of emphasis on who they tax and what they spend on. Both are also shills for their own special interests as well as the 1%. I don't know if the Tea Party is necessarily the solution, but it's a step in the right direction. It's meaningless to talk about right wing or conservative parties when they haven't actually conserved anything. Possibly the only issue I can think of where they have actually conserved the status quo as it existed decades ago would be gun rights, but I am sure that many would disagree with me there too. As I wrote, aside from trade liberalisation, if you picked up both the Democrats and the Republicans as they exist today and put them into the 1960s, they would both be to the left of both parties then. The Republicans exist merely as a bogeyman and set of enablers to rally/fool people on the endless march to the left on social issues and the weird march to welfare/1% dichotomy on economic issues.
Anyway, it's not going to matter for much longer. Unless the middle class do something pretty soon they're going to be outnumbered at the polls. 2016, and possibly 2020, may be the last gasp of the middle class at the polls before the demographic tipping point. After that, you won't even have to have the illusion of a Republican president supposedly representing the middle class.
I know you don't want to talk about the poor, but it is clearly absurd that close to half of the population is a net drain on society. In any healthy society, surely we would expect no more than about 5% of the society to actually be mentally or physically incapable of being net contributors. It's simply unsustainable as it is.
As for the arguments about feminism and Marxism, both have made a decades-long concerted effort to undermine certain key institutions in society. This is a fact. The evidence of this has not been so apparent for the upper middle class and upper class, but if you look at the work of Charles Murray in Coming Apart, you will see that the white working class has been absolutely devastated in its mores since the 1960s. The black working class has fared even worse. I refer you to the work of Theodore Dalrymple for the British equivalent. The destruction of things such as marriage, religiosity (and I say that as an atheist) and so on, in conjunction with the growth of the welfare state, has been disastrous. As I wrote in my previous post, these changes have been effected by an unholy alliance of both the 1% and the cultural Marxists/feminists. You cannot only focus on the 1% in this.
JJG and iknowexactly are very firm with their viewpoints. Kind of a pointless argument.
No offense intended just see this over and over again.
No offense intended just see this over and over again.
Feisbook Control said:
Sorry about that – especially if you do NOT ascribe to such a “fair tax” plan. It was dreambig that provided that potential “fair tax” plan as a means to take us forward.. Definitely, I applaud when there is a proposed plan, which is better than merely criticizing without presenting some kind of plan.
Feisbook Control said:
Yeah, it doesn’t seem that you and I are making a whole lot of progress in finding some areas in which we agree – though I am somewhat optimistic that if there were a bunch of clones of us in congress, we would be able to iron out some areas in which we could proceed forward. These kinds of matters can get fairly complicated to attempt to work out various solution details in trading writings.
Regarind taxing the rich: I am NOT much for arguments that in essence that we should throw up our hands and say that there is NOTHING that we can do about tax because they will just move their money off shore. Surely, over the last 30 years, we as a country have allowed for and created more mobility of capital – but I do NOT think that capital mobility is a lost cause or that it is a lost cause to attempt to regulate rich people in various ways by disallowing the mobility. The US still has a lot of appeal in various ways, and we do NOT want to give up by conceding that they are just gonna go somewhere else if we do NOT race to the bottom and give in to the hostage taking.
Feisbook Control said:
WE do NOT agree because you keep trying to frame govt in terms of the various social services that are provided by govt. And, I would NOT want to put words in your mouth, but frequently, this cut govt mantra becomes very blinded by moniacle focuses on cutting social spending or cutting evenly across the board.. and in the end, there are policing and military services that are SO bloated that when even cuts across the board are applied to govt (in order to be “fair”) then the social service programs get disproportionately negatively affected as compared to the more overly bloated policing/military programs. However, the govt services that have the most waste and inefficiencies are likely related to military and defense and policing (because that is where the money is, …… the biggest troughs (as the words you used) are in military and policing and banking…. .. NOT in social services). I am repeating myself, but the social services are but a drop in the bucket compared with other larger and wasteful govt programs. Take 1 or 2 B75689 (fictional number) bombers and that would pay for all social services in the US for a year, or one day of strikes in Libya or whatever other country is being bombed at the moment, and all social programs could be paid for the year by changing the policy of one day of military attacks.
Feisbook Control said:
Yes, certainly, you and I have a different framing of issues problem here. I am almost asking myself, “ARE YOU SERIOUS?” but I can see that you really seem to be serious. YOU seem to really believe what you are saying that the problem is that both political parties are moving to the left, and I think the exact opposite that the problem is that both parties are moving to the right.
And, I see that we are framing the issues differently. I frame the issues in terms of economics and you frame the issues in terms of social issues. It is possible that both of us are correct, and in that regard, I am of the belief that the social issues are NOT really that important.. and maybe even some social issues can be administered by Local governments rather than by the fed. Possibly, we do NOT really need the federal govt into so many social issues (as long as the states are NOT engaging in certain social injustices such as racism, which had become a federal concern). In my thinking the main concerns need to be the economics, and in that regard, both political parties have shifted way too much to the right… including attacks (or concessions) regarding Unions and workers rights. Yes, work place issues can be economic but also social.. so these questions can overlap concerning whether the federal govt should be involved…. because sometimes if you leave it to the states, then the same race to the bottom problem can occur regarding an issue that may be of federal concern.
Feisbook Control said:
Your concept of who is the middle class seems to be some skewed concept that is laden with some code meaning. I mean it is almost like you are afraid that some group of “middle class” people are losing something to an undeserving “other” group.
My thoughts on the middle class does NOT have to do with any conception about who they are exactly, because I could give a shit about who they are. All I care about is that the people are making the decisions and voting like a democracy. The people rule and wherever the chips fall, so be it. I am NOT really that attached to the outcomes, so long as the shots are being called by the people and NOT by money…. That is my fiction of a reality that I have this preference for democracy.. whatever it happens to be without trying to define the “middle class” as being some kind of characteristic of a group that needs to be preserved.
When I say middle class, I mean a whole bunch of people who are sufficiently affluent to be able to have decent lives and to work less than 40 hours a week with paid vacations and health care.. and the general basics of life. The middle class is disappearing because it is being pushed into being either extremely poor or extremely rich.. and the group is becoming smaller.
Feisbook Control said:
Your presumption of unsustainable seems to presume, to some extent, that the poor are a bunch of leaches. I do NOT agree with that presumption.
I think that it is totally ridiculous that we live in a society in which 1.3 million people are being cut off from unemployment benefits, and the presumption is that it is for their own good to cut them off because they are going to go out there and innovate and find jobs and create businesses, etc etc. We are NOT in such a place at the moment because NOT only are there NOT sufficient jobs, there is NOT credit for the unemployed (newly without benefits) to create businesses because the rich are hording the money and/or investing in China rather than investing in America…. So those 1.3 million are screwed and the economy is further screwed by cutting these unemployed off of their benefits in such circumstances. So, we gotta screw our heads on straight and see the reality of getting jobs and money in place before we cut off those people from the unemployment benefits.
Feisbook Control said:
I am sure that these guys (Murray and Dalrymple) may have various contributions that they could make to my thoughts on various social policies and subjects – however, ultimately, I get the sense, from reading some of the blurbs related to their work, that the amount of time that it would take for me to suss through the crap would NOT be worth the effort. For example, Murray has made really “great” arguments in the past with his Bell Curve racist arguments, and it sounds very convincing what he was arguing, but it is underladen with racism and trying to make racial arguments through science. This kind of thinking tends to carry a lot of baggage. And, frequently, these libertarians, such as Dalrymple, will tend to get all excited about cutting govt, and the baby gets thrown out with the bath water. I do NOT have a problem with the potential of engaging in various govt cuts, but don’t start me on the road to cut social programs first or try to be all even and across the board about the cuts that you want us to endure. Let’s start with the military cuts and the cuts to various contractors and cuts to the financial industry first and then maybe after we have cut some of that crap we can consider ways to cut the social systems (if still necessary).
NY Digital said:
Thanks for your vote of confidence (said in irony). It seems that pretty much IKE has abandoned me, and I have been ON MY OWN with this thread – at least, so far.
Nonetheless, there are a lot of guys (whether RVF members or NOT) who have similar ideas as me regarding these various social issues. And, it does NOT make a guy beta to have social responsibility ideas, and he can still game women and believe in the idea of gaming of women – even with some ideas of social / civic responsibility. Anyhow, frequently, a problem on these political threads is that guys are worried about expressing themselves because often names begin to get thrown out - like calling the guys who support social programs and/or govt feminists and/or Marxists or liberals or democrats.. or left winged… and that does NOT move the dialogue along… and YES>> frequently guys will give up in the discussion after receiving such attacks. Accordingly, frequently, RVF guys do NOT want to chime in these kinds o discussion to show that they do NOT buy the tea party “solutions” to social issues and/or the “let’s get rid of govt” solutions… when there is NO real plan about how to proceed once the govt is taken out of the picture (and made small enough to drown in the bathtub).
Surely, I agree that it is frustrating to engage in these kinds of lengthy political discussions in writing because they are complicated and sometimes we cannot really resolve them by engaging in back and forth writings (because they are too complicated to resolve in these with back and forths).
Feisbook Control
Kingfisher
I think language such as "race to the bottom" and "hostage taking" doesn't help, really. It's a way for you to frame opposition to the status quo as bad. The fact is that the status quo is unsustainable. National debt has been growing exponentially for decades, and the interest on that debt is increasing exponentially also (which means it alone takes a bigger and bigger slice of taxes each year).
It also misses the point that the U.S. government was actually designed to be oppositional. That's why there are three branches of government and one of those branches is further divided. The notion of gridlock is fundamental to the system precisely to avoid government getting out of control. It is not a flaw of the current situation, but part of the design, that politicians can't agree.
At no point have I argued that military spending should not be on the table for spending cuts, though there might be ramifications in doing so (though I think America would probably save itself a lot of grief, both economic and in other ways, by not engaging in "nation building" projects). Likewise, I am not pro-banking. I think there shouldn't be a thing called "too big to fail". I was opposed to bailouts and crony capitalism generally. Yet this still doesn't address whether the other government programmes are value for money either.
Firstly, it's interesting to me that you mention devolution of power from the federal to state level. The 9th and 10th Amendments to the Constitution already state this, it's just that no one pays attention to such things.
Anyway, did you miss the part where I wrote that there has been a move to the right on trade liberalisation?
The fact is that socially, America has moved massively to the left. Regard issues such as divorce, children born out of wedlock, abortion, being on welfare for extended periods of time and so on. How did people think about those issues one, two or three generations ago? How do people regard them now? Do you really think there has been a move to the right on those issues?
I know that you think that social issues are not important, but they are. The breakdown in the family is associated with all sorts of other social ills such as poor educational attainment, involvement in criminal activity and so on. These things do make people noncompetitive, and perhaps unemployable as individuals, and they drag a nation down collectively. None of this is to say that economic issues have not been very important also, but it is to say that these social issues have real consequences. America, and certain other countries, is going to face increased difficulty going head to head against other nations that don't have these issues. Look at the most recent PISA results. Let's be clear about this. The U.S. is not even mid-way between the top and bottom nations on that list for science. Yet many of the countries above the U.S. are poorer nations. Many were also poorer within recent decades. You're really missing the boat if you think that the difference between East Asia and much of the West now has little to nothing to do with culture.
They are. All redistributive economic policies, by definition redistribute money from one group to another group. I do believe that it is unfair to redistribute money away from a productive class of people to a habitually unproductive class of people. I am not talking about people who have fallen upon hard times. I am talking about people who are institutionally dependent upon welfare. The 47% are not 47% of people who have fallen on hard times.
The middle class are not just defined by wealth levels. Sure, one way to describe them might as the middle three quintiles based upon income, but I think that in itself could be completely meaningless if the income distribution were skewed. You also talk about them having enough money to live comfortably. That is part of it, but I think there are a certain set of mores and behaviours that are indicative of the middle class and it those mores and behaviours that both allow the middle class to exist and prosper, but also the country. A society, a culture, cannot simply be created by painting by numbers. There is a whole lot that must be qualified as well as quantified.
As for democracy, I don't believe it is a good thing. I believe that the franchise should be limited. People should have at least as much to lose as gain from everyone voting to help himself to someone else's money or freedoms. That is not the case now. It is very lop-sided for certain people and they have figured out that they can vote themselves access to what other people have.
My presumption of unsustainable is based upon two things. The first is that the national debt is unsustainable. Throughout history this never ends well. The second is that a society can't have 47% of its populace as net takers from the system. Maybe I am wrong on that, but do you really think that it is a natural state of affairs to have 47% of people as a net drain on society in terms of taxes paid in and services drawn out? That seems like a pretty radical social and economic experiment to me.
I am not looking at this from the point of view of the past five years. Through both good times and bad times, the state has grown in size. The numbers of people on welfare has increased. The trend line has been upwards over the past half century or longer. This is a long term structural issue that Keynesianism simply fails to recognise. I know the theory is that the government should throw money around during the bad times, but the other side of that theory is that during good times the belt should be tightened. Yet it never is. That is unsustainable and it is something that you refuse to even acknowledge.
There are a number of points to make here. The first one is that Dalrymple is not a libertarian by any stretch of the imagination. If anything, he's probably an old school Burkian conservative, but I'd regard him as more of a sceptic than anything.
It also surprises me that you would dismiss both people based upon what other people might say and accuse Murray of racism without having actually read his work. Any mention of the word racism and all discussion gets shut down.
The other thing about Dalrymple is that he has had direct experience at the coal face, so to speak. In his professional career (as a psychiatrist in the British penal system) he has seen the underclass up close, and he has also seen all of the unintended consequences of liberal policies on those people.
This might surprise you, but I have also seen all of this firsthand in my own professional career. I have spent over a decade working within the education systems of three countries. I have worked in probably well over 50 schools, sometimes for as little as a day and sometimes for years. Some would be considered upper class or middle class, but the overwhelming majority would be considered lower class/under class (including here in Asia). It is during this time that I have travelled a political route from liberal to conservative to neoreactionary on social issues and many issues to do with government generally precisely because I have seen failed government and culture in action. On a daily basis I see a lack of accountability within the government. I see a lot of excuses, incentivisation and enabling of irresponsible and destructive behaviour (both to the individuals concerned and those around them).
The unintended consequences of these policies on the lower end of society have been absolutely ruinous. I believe the mistake you are making here is in thinking that culture is not important and that people are basically people and it just comes down to money. Money is not the issue per se. I have seen "poor" schools with computer labs with every single power outlet in the wall kicked in. Throwing money at that issue will make virtually no inroads into it, and might even make it worse. Likewise, if you take a kid from a single parent family and a kid from a middle class nuclear family and put them both in the same bad classroom, the second kid is still going to learn to read because there is a whole level of buttressing that occurs outside that situation that stops him falling through the cracks. I could meet two kids right now and tell you which one has books in his house and which one doesn't. I could tell you which one's parents do stuff with him on the weekend and which one's parents don't so much as say twenty words to him in those 48 hours. Money is not even the issue here either because invariably, some of the "poorest" kids I have met have always had money for new phones or shoes, and their parents have always had money for alcohol, tobacco, junk food, etc. Yet the kids can't bring a pen to school. It is a problem with their basic engagement with the world and their priorities. Unfortunately, many who should know better enable such behaviour, or even promote it, and they promote all sorts of mad schemes to undermine the social framework that stops people from falling down. Except for a small subset of people with genuine physical and psychological issues in the West, being poor is a lifestyle choice. It is a result of poverty of mind and spirit, not a lack of resources. I've seen true grinding poverty and it doesn't exist in the West.
I am not disputing that you are well intentioned, but I've spent over a decade in a kind of hell (though willingly so), and I travelled here on a road of good intentions built by others.
Feisbook_C:
First of all, I must congratulate you for attempting to wear me out with lengthy posts.
It’s almost working because I senst that in some areas we are becoming somewhat repetitive – nonetheless, I cannot resist but to respond to you because you are continuing to bring up some new point or to get into some details that seem to warrant further response/explanation from me.
My reference to “race to the bottom” and “hostage taking” is NOT meant to be conversation stoppers. I am referring to a particular phenomenon that exists when goverments are unable to control capital because of capital mobility. The phenomenon is that one jurisdiction will bid against the other and each will continue to bid down… until the mobile capital is able to get its way (deregulation and no taxes and no labor protections and no environmental protections). This is a real dynamic that exists when jurisdictions give into company demands and begin to attempt to entice them by giving various perks. Accordingly, when you assert that we cannot control capital movement, I say that agreeing with you will result in outcomes of “race to the bottom” and negotiation with “hostage taking” dynmamics. You should know about that dynamic, but if you are anti govt, you may revel in the fact that companies are beating up governments when they engage in these tactics.
I agree that you have the right idea, that a certain amount of gridlock can be good. Yet, it seems absurd to tout some of the level of self-destructive conduct and seemingly selfish conduct of some representatives that seem to want to run the system into the ground as being some kind of benefit. I get your point though that a certain amount of gridlock is par and parcel of the system. But I do NOT agree that the extreme gridlock that currently seems to exist is healthy.. a feature rather than a bug.
I don’t mean to attribute any position to you that you have NOT taken. Yet, here your comments remind me of the extreme depravity of the times in which we currently live. And, you and I have differing perspectives in the sense that you believe the govt is the problem, and I tend to think that too much of the public space has been taken over by the rich and by the private sector. And, in this regard, concerning the banks, probably, what needed or needs to be done is to make them more public, rather than private. There should be some banks that are modeled after the bank of North Dakota… a state run bank…. Then we would NOT have so much of this private sector sucking at the public coffers to steal our money.
I think that our conversation in this area is devolving somewhat. I am familiar with some of the state rights concepts of the constitution. I am also familiar that very smart people, even some of those on the supreme court, get caught up in very intelligent arguments about federal powers questions and the extent to which the federal govt has moved beyond its powers to begin to perform functions that had historically been performed by the states.
And, yes, there are a lot of problems in America, but these problems are NOT just resolved by getting rid of the federal govt and handing control of some of those issues over to states. Sometimes federal protections and/or expansion is needed, and even if it is NOT needed, currently we are in a state in which federal powers have been expanded in a lot of ways. We do NOT resolve problems by all of a sudden extinguishing all of those areas in which federal powers have been expanded.
Mitt Romney lost the election. These were Mitt Romney talking points about the 47% that the majority of people do NOT really believe, and NOW you are framing the topic as if this 47% is some kind of reality. You have a very pessimistic view of society if you (and possibly Mitt Romney and a few other out of touch people) believe that 47% of Americans are moochers.. I feel bad for people who have such negative view of people and such ingrained concepts of these large pools of undeserving people out there.
I think that you are confirming what I said that you have some kind of non-inclusive definition of the middle class.
I say whatever to mores and values and that crap. Just let people be who and what they are, and there are a lot of differences. I have no problem with trying to promote certain values of honesty and integrity and work to get ahead, but it smacks of elitism for me to understand that someone may NOT be part of the middle class because s/he has different values from what I believe is part of the middle class.
WE are getting at the source of the difference of opinion. I recognize that we live in a certain world, which purports to be democratic. Accordingly, we should espouse to carry out those democratic values, and if we are going to change the franchise, then that should be made clear about the criteria. Well, nonetheless, we have had women voting since 1918-ish… and blacks have been voting since the mid-1800s…. even though there have been some bumps in the road that caused the 1965 voting rights legislation.. Well, anyhow, I believe voting and input is a good thing, even from people of different viewpoints…. Even though it can be messy to have more input.
The debt is NOT as big of a problem as guys make it out to be, and this is getting to be very repetitive in regard to suggesting that cutting social spending and entitlement will resolve this. I do NOT agree, because social spending is a drop in the bucket regardin any purported debt problem. The major spending in the debt is military related.
I don’t agree with your presumption about 47% leeches. Or entitlement or whatever you call it. It is just a fantasy framework.
I already responded to this multiple times that I believe that social spending is NOT a problem. And, YES, you seem to recognize the Keynsian idea. Spend in times of trouble and cut in times of prosperity. Just because we have NOT cut in times of prosperity does NOT mean that it should NOT be done… and also does NOT mean that we should be cutting during these times when we need to be exercising Keynsian spending. Now is ripe time for Keynsian spending… and NOT the opposite (as you seem to recognize this concept, even though you do NOT want to carry it out and you seem to want to cut in all times, including now.
Personally, it seems like a big waste of time for me to be going down some path of reading these guys who you are suggesting have gems of wisdom contained therein. I have enough problem keeping up with good things to read rather than reading stuff that already seems a little questionable. It is like a religious argument of someone trying to persuade me to read the bible and that I cannot talk about other ideas unless I read the bible. WTF. I do NOT want to spend hundreds of hours reading something that I do NOT agree with, even though there may be some good and interesting stories in there .. I do NOT want to spend my time that way… but I can still talk about ideas that relate to the bible (especially if I have some other sources), if I want, even if I did NOT spend hours of my life reading the bible.
Anyhow, I looked at related links for these guys and your Wikipedia link – however, if you have some better links or best of materials for me to look at – that will NOT take me forever on some wild goose chase, then I will look at those materials. Yet, in the meantime, I am going to stick to my original thoughts based on what I currently know and have read.
Each of us is writing, hopefully, from his framework of experiences, and my belief is that part of any democratic process is that various people will provide input in order for society to be able to arrive at what direction they want to go with various social contructions and priorities. Oh, wait, you do NOT believe in democracy. Well, anyhow, I am NOT of the sense that what you or I say is going to carry the day; however, if various people are allowed to contribute, then society makes decisions about how far to go in various directions and what priorities to make regarding a variety of policy choices..
Again, the input of a variety of people is usually necessary to make choices, and it will be good to see your input. And, if you have seen hell, then that would be good for you to let us know about those experiences; however, society ends up going forward based on consensus… hopefully, and sometimes some individual preferences are going to be lost by consensus politics.
First of all, I must congratulate you for attempting to wear me out with lengthy posts.
It’s almost working because I senst that in some areas we are becoming somewhat repetitive – nonetheless, I cannot resist but to respond to you because you are continuing to bring up some new point or to get into some details that seem to warrant further response/explanation from me.
Feisbook Control said:
My reference to “race to the bottom” and “hostage taking” is NOT meant to be conversation stoppers. I am referring to a particular phenomenon that exists when goverments are unable to control capital because of capital mobility. The phenomenon is that one jurisdiction will bid against the other and each will continue to bid down… until the mobile capital is able to get its way (deregulation and no taxes and no labor protections and no environmental protections). This is a real dynamic that exists when jurisdictions give into company demands and begin to attempt to entice them by giving various perks. Accordingly, when you assert that we cannot control capital movement, I say that agreeing with you will result in outcomes of “race to the bottom” and negotiation with “hostage taking” dynmamics. You should know about that dynamic, but if you are anti govt, you may revel in the fact that companies are beating up governments when they engage in these tactics.
Feisbook Control said:
I agree that you have the right idea, that a certain amount of gridlock can be good. Yet, it seems absurd to tout some of the level of self-destructive conduct and seemingly selfish conduct of some representatives that seem to want to run the system into the ground as being some kind of benefit. I get your point though that a certain amount of gridlock is par and parcel of the system. But I do NOT agree that the extreme gridlock that currently seems to exist is healthy.. a feature rather than a bug.
Feisbook Control said:
I don’t mean to attribute any position to you that you have NOT taken. Yet, here your comments remind me of the extreme depravity of the times in which we currently live. And, you and I have differing perspectives in the sense that you believe the govt is the problem, and I tend to think that too much of the public space has been taken over by the rich and by the private sector. And, in this regard, concerning the banks, probably, what needed or needs to be done is to make them more public, rather than private. There should be some banks that are modeled after the bank of North Dakota… a state run bank…. Then we would NOT have so much of this private sector sucking at the public coffers to steal our money.
Feisbook Control said:
I think that our conversation in this area is devolving somewhat. I am familiar with some of the state rights concepts of the constitution. I am also familiar that very smart people, even some of those on the supreme court, get caught up in very intelligent arguments about federal powers questions and the extent to which the federal govt has moved beyond its powers to begin to perform functions that had historically been performed by the states.
And, yes, there are a lot of problems in America, but these problems are NOT just resolved by getting rid of the federal govt and handing control of some of those issues over to states. Sometimes federal protections and/or expansion is needed, and even if it is NOT needed, currently we are in a state in which federal powers have been expanded in a lot of ways. We do NOT resolve problems by all of a sudden extinguishing all of those areas in which federal powers have been expanded.
Feisbook Control said:
Mitt Romney lost the election. These were Mitt Romney talking points about the 47% that the majority of people do NOT really believe, and NOW you are framing the topic as if this 47% is some kind of reality. You have a very pessimistic view of society if you (and possibly Mitt Romney and a few other out of touch people) believe that 47% of Americans are moochers.. I feel bad for people who have such negative view of people and such ingrained concepts of these large pools of undeserving people out there.
Feisbook Control said:
I think that you are confirming what I said that you have some kind of non-inclusive definition of the middle class.
I say whatever to mores and values and that crap. Just let people be who and what they are, and there are a lot of differences. I have no problem with trying to promote certain values of honesty and integrity and work to get ahead, but it smacks of elitism for me to understand that someone may NOT be part of the middle class because s/he has different values from what I believe is part of the middle class.
Feisbook Control said:
WE are getting at the source of the difference of opinion. I recognize that we live in a certain world, which purports to be democratic. Accordingly, we should espouse to carry out those democratic values, and if we are going to change the franchise, then that should be made clear about the criteria. Well, nonetheless, we have had women voting since 1918-ish… and blacks have been voting since the mid-1800s…. even though there have been some bumps in the road that caused the 1965 voting rights legislation.. Well, anyhow, I believe voting and input is a good thing, even from people of different viewpoints…. Even though it can be messy to have more input.
Feisbook Control said:
The debt is NOT as big of a problem as guys make it out to be, and this is getting to be very repetitive in regard to suggesting that cutting social spending and entitlement will resolve this. I do NOT agree, because social spending is a drop in the bucket regardin any purported debt problem. The major spending in the debt is military related.
Feisbook Control said:
I don’t agree with your presumption about 47% leeches. Or entitlement or whatever you call it. It is just a fantasy framework.
Feisbook Control said:
I already responded to this multiple times that I believe that social spending is NOT a problem. And, YES, you seem to recognize the Keynsian idea. Spend in times of trouble and cut in times of prosperity. Just because we have NOT cut in times of prosperity does NOT mean that it should NOT be done… and also does NOT mean that we should be cutting during these times when we need to be exercising Keynsian spending. Now is ripe time for Keynsian spending… and NOT the opposite (as you seem to recognize this concept, even though you do NOT want to carry it out and you seem to want to cut in all times, including now.
Feisbook Control said:
Personally, it seems like a big waste of time for me to be going down some path of reading these guys who you are suggesting have gems of wisdom contained therein. I have enough problem keeping up with good things to read rather than reading stuff that already seems a little questionable. It is like a religious argument of someone trying to persuade me to read the bible and that I cannot talk about other ideas unless I read the bible. WTF. I do NOT want to spend hundreds of hours reading something that I do NOT agree with, even though there may be some good and interesting stories in there .. I do NOT want to spend my time that way… but I can still talk about ideas that relate to the bible (especially if I have some other sources), if I want, even if I did NOT spend hours of my life reading the bible.
Anyhow, I looked at related links for these guys and your Wikipedia link – however, if you have some better links or best of materials for me to look at – that will NOT take me forever on some wild goose chase, then I will look at those materials. Yet, in the meantime, I am going to stick to my original thoughts based on what I currently know and have read.
Feisbook Control said:
Each of us is writing, hopefully, from his framework of experiences, and my belief is that part of any democratic process is that various people will provide input in order for society to be able to arrive at what direction they want to go with various social contructions and priorities. Oh, wait, you do NOT believe in democracy. Well, anyhow, I am NOT of the sense that what you or I say is going to carry the day; however, if various people are allowed to contribute, then society makes decisions about how far to go in various directions and what priorities to make regarding a variety of policy choices..
Feisbook Control said:
Again, the input of a variety of people is usually necessary to make choices, and it will be good to see your input. And, if you have seen hell, then that would be good for you to let us know about those experiences; however, society ends up going forward based on consensus… hopefully, and sometimes some individual preferences are going to be lost by consensus politics.
cardguy said:
the CEO salary for his own company (Berkshire Hathaway) is $100k. that is the money he gets to spend on toys, consumption etc, that gets taxed normal income tax. i can assure you that he pays more than 10% tax on that. however, there is corporate tax. corporate tax that has to be paid on the profit his company makes.. last year his company made $22 billion in profit. that gets taxed $7.3 billion (33%). his share is around 30% so he's basically coughing up $2.2 billion to uncle same. as long as that profits after corporate tax stay in the company, it doesn't get taxed anymore.
IF however he sent out whatever profits he made after corporate tax (14.8 billion) to shareholders through dividends, his share would be 4.4 billion, which gets taxed as ordinary income. after ordinary income tax that would mean he gets around 2.2 billion to spend on himself. too see how ridiculous that actually is, if there were no taxes, he would get 6.6 billion. after corporate and divident tax, he would get taxed a ridiculous 67%.
capital gains tax is something he would come across rarely since i don't think he sells his shares for personal gain. he donates loads though.
Jaydublin
Pelican
JayJuanGee said:
Not saying what is happening with that is good or bad ... Ill wont give my opinion on that as I know we disagree. But I do want to say that in my experience with the people I met at the UE offices, they tend to quickly find jobs at the end of their unemployment benefits or immediately after. Sometimes its not what they want, or they have to move but they find them. People on benefits are typically very selective in their job search and a lot of them flat out aren't looking.
In my own experience I maxed out the benefits then had two 6 figure job offers within 3 weeks when they ran out. People can do amazing things when a fire is lit under their ass and the second my money ran out I made shit happen. I actually look at most lifetime welfare recipients as victims.
Jaydublin said:
I have NO problem with your assessment that people will look harder once their benefits run out - however, that does NOT justify the current (non-plan) to allow the benefits of 1.3 million to expire all at once. That is too much opposite of what is currently needed; however, it may NOT be a bad idea to trickle in such a change over a longer period of time such as 6 months or some more reasonable period. The period of time and how to trickle in the cutting off of benefits needs to have more consideration than the abruptness of the fact that repubs and dems can cannot come to an agreement. They need to work a little harder to figure out a reasonable path, rather than going home for the holidays (which is already water under the bridge). The damage will NOT be so bad, if they can come up with some kind of retroactive transition that better takes into account current economic circumstances.
Feisbook Control
Kingfisher
JayJuanGee said:
It actually doesn't take me too long to type these posts because I am a very fast typist. Also, apologies for not getting back to you sooner. I have been quite busy this past week.
I would suggest that this kind of dynamic really only becomes a problem in two ways. The first is when the middle class gets hollowed out. The middle class are naturally a lot more conservative and patriotic. They also tend to lack the expertise in moving their money abroad. If a significant portion of a nation's wealth is held by them, then there will probably be significantly less capital flight. I think we'd probably agree on that. The other thing is that capital also has less incentive to flee a country when that country provides good opportunities for it for investment. It's not just that there's downside from taxes and regulations, I believe a large part of the problem is that there is decreasing upside in many developed nations too. By this I mean that sure, a company or investors can always go and set up a factory in a third world country and produce tacky plastic crap that will break in short order and have to deal with bureaucracy and corruption. The edge that developed nations will have will always be in cornering high end niches, as well as cutting down on the BS. If a country has a whole bunch of smart people and provides a really tip top standard of living as well as a general ease of doing business and so on, it can essentially call the bluff of corporations or people in taking their money elsewhere because it will know that those other places simply won't be able to hit the high end. The problem, increasingly, is that, like their women, certain Western nations are massively overvalued. The reality on the ground is that they're not high end, yet they have massive chips on their shoulders that they are. How is it that certain places seem to be able to get the best of both worlds? I can't imagine that businessmen in Singapore are pouring mercury in the water supply, yet that nation consistently ranks near the top of all sorts of measures from the ease of doing business to the quality of its education system.
The problem is lobbyists and money in the system, but snouts will always head to the trough, doubly so if it is a big trough. You also need to understand what is happening on the right of politics. The Republican Party and its ilk abroad is completely out of touch politically and progress will only be made when so-called conservative parties finally deserve the horrible, treasonous death they deserve. On economic issues, they've just become one of the two fundraising arms of the corporate elite. They are part of the problem regarding the national debt and big government. The other problem is that on social issues, they've pretty much ceded any pretense now of actually caring about what the middle class stands for. I know they have this whole smokescreen of conservative Christian issues, but they pretty much couldn't care less about where the middle class is coming from, especially because their economic stance so massively undermines the self-sufficiency of the middle class to preserve their own values of their own accord. Everyone keeps framing various right wing parties, both in the U.S. and abroad, as somehow being radical. What they are is representative of where the conservative parties were even just half to one full generation ago. The populace at large has shifted to the left, though not nearly as much as people believe. Yet politics (on social issues) has shifted massively to the left. The goal posts have been deliberately moved in this respect, and now anyone who just stood still is considered radical or "far right", be they the Tea Party or groups like UKIP. The real far right is something most people can't even begin to comprehend. The modern labelling of different political groups has been an incredibly disingenuous process instigated by what is referred to as "the Cathedral" by those of us in the neoreaction. If you don't know what "the Cathedral" or "neoreaction" are, then I suggest you delve into them a little more, though you will probably find the whole movement out of its mind.
Why do you think my ideas are as depraved as the times in which we live? I am a (neo)reactionary and regard current times as depraved and getting away from what made our once great societies great. Our once great societies did not run up massive debts and I believe that there was not nearly as much crony capitalism as there is today. I am not shilling for corporations at all. I believe that they should not be getting handouts. I believe that there should be public space, but also that a lot of what constitutes public space cannot be manufactured (when it is, we tend to get bad architecture, amongst other ills). Public space is often the result of the spontaneous and voluntary coming together of the middle or it is created by other institutions (such as the old churches, which as an atheist, I can still admit had their benefits).
There is a feedback loop that when government controls the construction of such things and eliminates the need and desire for spontaneous and voluntary association and construction of such things, they do disappear of their own accord, which then leads to dependency on state created institutions. The problem with your concept of state banks is this. The main reason for people to use a cooperative bank, including a state bank, is a sense of trust, that such institutions do represent them, that they are controlled organically from below. It is all well and good for the state to be involved in banking when people trust the state to run its finances correctly and for the benefit of the people it ostensibly is meant to serve. Yet if the GFC has taught us anything, from the U.S. to Cyprus, it is precisely that the state cannot be trusted to serve the people through financial institutions. Why would anyone want to go anywhere near such things? It is bad enough that people were forced to give bankers golden handshakes indirectly through bailouts, why would they voluntarily contribute to such schemes? Have you ever read Zero Hedge, by the way?
The Bill of Rights is pretty clear in this respect. Yet onwards the state will expand. I am sure people made the exact same argument as you a generation ago. Have things improved or become worse since then?
Of course he lost the election. That does not mean that he was not correct on that point, merely unpopular, which would seem likely given the percentages involved. It is not a matter of me having a positive or negative view of people. Either that 47% exists or it doesn't. Either some people do pay tax or they do not. It can be quantified. The main objection to it seems to be of the form that noting its existence is mean, not untrue. The most generous assessment of a situation won't change the reality of it being sustainable or unsustainable.
I am not sure what this means. Axiomatically, definitions must be exclusive and discriminatory (in the original sense of the word). If a definition is inclusive, then logically, it has no non-members. As such, the term middle class would become meaningless because everyone would be middle class, and so we would simply need to invent a new term to mean what we originally meant by the original term.
In a sense, it would be elitist, though really, surely upper class membership would be elitist. Being in the middle would, by definition, not make one elite.
Class is not really an economic term, though it is often conflated with such things because there is some overlap. By an economic analysis, a person working at a public library might not even make it into the middle class, whereas someone working at an oil field who hasn't read a book since school might even be pushing the limits of the upper middle class. Yet I am not sure that it would therefore make sense to say that the librarian would be working class or lower middle class and the oil worker upper middle class. There are lots of other examples we could think of. Obviously there is going to be difference within the middle class in terms of their mores and values, but if you really think that there aren't broadly middle class values, or that there were a couple of decades ago, then I really think we are talking past one another.
Anyway, that aside, it should come as no surprise to you that I do not accept your definition of elitism as a pejorative.
We place other limitations on voting rights, such as age. Reductio ad absurdum : why, if more diverse input is a good thing? Why do we have a non-elected judiciary or civil service, or the concept of "experts" generally, if diverse input is such a good thing?
That is not even true. According to the breakdown of the budget, 6% alone goes to debt servicing (and more of this interest on debt is paid to foreigners as the percentage of debt held abroad has increased). Another 23% goes to Medicare and Medicaid. Another 22% goes to Social Security. Of the remaining 49%, 19% goes to the DoD. Non-DoD discretionary spending is 17%.
It accounts for almost an identical amount of the federal budget as the military. Personally, I think they're both part of the problem.
I understand Keynes, I just think he was wrong. I do not want to cut in all times because I don't think spending should be cyclical because I do not think the government has a role in the economy. For a long time, it represented a few percentage points of GDP. I am willing to acknowledge that the government in many places will be involved in the economy, but that should be kept below a certain threshold in relative terms and should not grow. More than that though, I would have debt paid down and generally avoided like the plague. I am averse to debt, especially when it is not used to grow the economy, which is the ostensible reason for its existence.
That might be the case with someone like Theodore Dalrymple, who is a social commentator, though he has a massive amount of informal data from his career. I would suggest that if you are not interested in that kind of thing, then you're not interested in that kind of thing, so fair enough. In the case of Charles Murray, however, we are talking about someone who has collected extensive data. What this suggests then is that you have a preformed opinion on certain topics and are unwilling to regard data that contradicts that. I understand your point about having a backlog of things to read, however.
The first thing to note here is that society most definitely does not move in the directions in which it moves through a democratic process. Consensus is manufactured. Obviously, you and I probably disagree on who is doing that manufacturing, but the above surprises me because I thought that earlier you argued something of the opposite (or maybe the above paragraph is more the aspiration than the description).
Probably not. I would suggest that policy is decided by a fairly narrow range of actors who move people to follow them. To say it is democratic though is to suggest that the cart says to the horse after the fact that it wished to go that way all along. I understand that that such an illusion is a large part of the appeal of the democratic process though.
I've already addressed most of that paragraph, but I will just say that I won't write too much about my own experiences. There's nothing as boring as a teacher talking shop and I don't have much of a flair for gallows humour that would make it more interesting, though perhaps I will be coaxed into such stories at a later date.
Icarus
Ostrich
Feisbook Control said:
I, too, like to distinguish between social class and economic class. Social class is about values. Economic class is about assets.
It is indeed sad to watch grandchildren of formerly upper social class people who are now lower middle economic class. The value system changes much more slowly than the bank account balance, which is why "old money" has always despised "new money", and always will.
- Status