I hear you, but I think it’s a bit more relevant to this thread than you’re letting on. I feel that one of the main cruxes of the problem is the ungrounded cynicism and paranoia towards politics that seems to be widespread throughout the West (my exchanges with Uccisor tell me this is nothing new, at least in America, which dampens my suspicions that it started with Nixon and the Watergate scandal, but I haven’t completely let go of that suspicion).
Michael Ignatieff said something interesting in that link I posted above: he said that politics is the one profession in which you are, by default, distrusted for your expertise. He says this having come from a background of teaching political philosophy as a university professor, a background in which he was trust very highly because he was a professor of political philosophy.
Now, I’m not saying that we should all just give up this silly cynical, paranoid attitude and trust whoever says we should trust them, but I am saying we ought to turn the ungrounded nature of this cynicism and paranoia into something more grounded–this is why I’ve been stressing importance on science and fact finding in this thread–I want to get away from this bottomless pit of paranoia that seems to indiscriminately distrust everyone and everything having to do with politics and suggesting ways to make improvements to the situation, and move towards trying to find a reliable way of figuring out what might actually work (and therefore can be trusted) and what doesn’t.
And that’s unfortunate, especially with education, because I believe that a strong educational infrastructure pays off big time in the long run. It ain’t no 5 year plan–more like a 20 year plan–which people typically don’t have the patients for, but if they did, would reap one of the greatest rewards a society can reap.
LOL. No shit, it’s complicated. In fact, I was just thinking of your example of the 1 in 4 rape statistic. ← Here is an example of corruption that I’m ambivalent about throwing into either of the two categories above (being sloppy in your studies vs. lying about them). I mean, on the one hand, they clearly lied, so it goes into the latter camp, but the point of the division (at least for me) was to distinguish between the effects of bias vs. the effects of corruption. But here we have an example of what seems to be a mere bias (we’re lying but for the sake of the greater good) convincing one that it’s OK to be corrupt (and in all likelihood, without actually using that word: “corrupt”). Oh, God, what people can convince themselves of!
But then there’s another point to the divide which I think still holds: whether we can rely on the method they purported to use. If lying about the method or the results it yeilded is something that happens only rarely (but not never ← I don’t think we could ever say “never”), then we can sift through the studies and identify the reliable ones based on the robustness of the methods used, but if people all too readily lie about the methods or the results, then this approach is a waist of time.
(and as a subsidiary note: let’s not commit the fallacy of finding some example of lying about methods or results and conclude that it represents the norm–there’s a point to saying that we can never say “never”).
Makes sense. I just talked to Liz about my own biases towards socialism, and that’s a Canadian thing, which is (maybe) where the schism between you and I on this matter comes from.
But at the same time, I thought maybe you could see the other side of the coin. I thought you and I agreed that any change to politics or economics was going to be a shift in balance–the whole trade-off thing–which means that, yes, there are disadvantages to minimum wage (unemployment, as you rightfully point out, being one of them), but obviously there are going to be some advantages as well (why would anyone demand it otherwise)–I would think those who would remain employed getting more money would be the main one, no? It’s a question of what outweighs what, isn’t it? Is the margin of increased unemployment worth the increased pay of those who remain employed? Or is the increase in unemployment unacceptable?
For what it’s worth, $15 as the minimum wage seems like a lot. I remember when I first learned about minimum wage, it was $5. I was a kid at the time, and I know inflation happens (for some reason deflation never seems to happen), so I’m not sure if $15 is reasonable or not, but it does seem to me to be a lot–so maybe in the Seattle case, I’d side with you.
I didn’t take it that way. My apologies.
Me too. But I think one must judge arrogance more as closed mindedness to new ideas and perspectives–stubbornness in other words–not as ignorance or presupposed misconceptions.
np
You’ve racked up 10,000 hours of reading? How’d you come to that figure.
I don’t worry about conspiracy theory’s as a general rule. They require too many people keeping their mouths shut to remain a conspiracy. People throw other people over the boat the moment they become inconvenient, doubly so in politics. What’s the old saying, “Three people can keep a secret, if two of them are dead.”
That is interesting. Though, the resent Republican election, David Brat v Eric Cantor argues for expertise in economics being a positive.
I am an American Conservative, if you want to be one too, start by being skeptical of anyone from the government that says they are here to help. Somethings can only be done by the government, so it is a necessary evil. But even when it is doing one of those things, I’m going to be skeptical. I don’t lock myself in a bunker, filled with guns and supplies, which is the point where paranoia is a problem. I deal with life, and argue with people on the internet… I say all this because I think the line is different for everyone. And there is no way to have it any other way. One of my favorite people is Dennis Prager, he has a line, “that either ‘studies’ confirm what common sense suggests or that they are mistaken.” and I agree with that a good 80%.
It is also one of the reasons we need government supported Education… Though I think having the government run the education is a mistake. This is one reason I am Conservative, not Libertarian.
Another thing you didn’t mention, by lying about the statistics involved they undermine their own argument. No one is going to say that 1 in 100 women getting raped is ok, but by manipulating the statistics people who disagree with the “solutions” they present are going to dismiss them entirely. A really good recent example is the 74 school shootings since Sandy Hook, and it is a lie. They included any event that involved shooting, including things happening at 9:00 pm, at illegal gambling events. The actual number is closer to 15… And if they had said, 15, everyone would still be horrified, but now they look like idiots, or extremists at the least. Willing to lie, cheat and steal anything to get what they want. And they want gun control…
It very well might be, my last boss was Canadian and we disagreed on similar things.
I do see the other side, and it has been proven wrong. I got into an argument on minimum wage once, when I argued it cause inflation, and had my ass kicked, because it does not cause inflation. After that, Minimum Wage became a small obsession of mine, I’ve spent a lot of time looking at different studies, different points of view on it and while I wouldn’t call myself an expert, I am pretty knowledgeable. Minimum Wage allows for racists to not have to pay a cost, it causes higher unemployment and is a bad thing all around (simplified as bad thing because I have some theories for which I have nothing to cite to back up, they are mine). People want it because it seems like a simple thing to do to help “the poor.” But, yes, there are people that see it as good, It is promoted by Unions, because they can get increases to their peoples wages, by being a percentage above minimum wage, which means dues can increase. Which is why the biggest lobby for minimum wage increases are consistently Unions.
If I ever make it through school, and if I end up going to graduate school, and if my major is economic, my graduate thesis is going to probably be on minimum wage. If I ever got my PhD in economics I’d probably revisit it…
I see it as a percentage, not as a fixed number. Or the angle of a triangle, the triangle can get bigger, but the angles never add up to more than 180. So, even at $5, it had the same effect, if the price floor is below the price equilibrium for the job, it did nothing, If the price floor is above the price equilibrium it causes unemployment… It doesn’t matter the number, the angles remain the same.
Glad we could clear up the misunderstanding. I apologize for not being clearer.
But then, what is the difference between knowing (believing in, standing firm on) an answer and just being stubborn. I’ve been called stubborn many times (I’m sure your surprised), but it was always be people that are throwing an insult as a way of working to convince me. They never admit, that they are being equally stubborn, else there would not be a problem, they would be on “my side.” In other words, I don’t have the problem with standing strong on a side (which is stubbornness) as I do with being arrogant about something. Calling people stubborn is up there with, “You don’t really believe that do you?” or “Come on, you’re smarter than this.” They are bull shit fallacy arguments… (I don’t remember which fallacy it qualifies as.) At these points, I know they don’t have a real argument, just arrogance about their own opinion.
10,000 hours of practice is the goal in a subject. According to Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell, 10,000 hours is the point were in training one becomes a “master.” The true point were all the hard work fixes in your brain and is automatic. The “greats” in any sport/activity have spent at least 10,000 hours practicing/using the skill set.
gib, did you ever read the link I gave to everyone? I really do think it shows political ‘corruption’ as you would define it. The Watergate affair wasn’t the first, at least in some people’s minds; but, the farther back you go in time, the more is lost in history. One thing I found interesting in the time line was how much the US public knew at the time, but did nothing about.
Anyway, the US, as well as most Western countries, has social programs; do these programs make those countries Socialist countries? Socialism is an economic system wherein people control the means of production, rather than corporations. It isn’t really a political system. But…
I think this happened in the US. It made “socialism” a ‘dirty word,’ which, in turn, made ‘social programs’ a dirty phrase.
Do I want ‘religious people’ out of politics? Good heavens, no! If there were any moral, ethical, religious people in politics, I’d welcome them with open arms! I’d be thrilled! I don’t want the US to take on a State Religion. This, to me, would be totally unconstitutional. But you know that–don’t you?
Eric, You’re against a minimum wage boost and that’s okay–really, it is!
That I look at things a bit differently than do you, is also no surprise. (Actually, we’re pretty close in our thinking, even though you might not think so.)
But let’s go back to the Bell Curve. It looks something like an elephant that has been swallowed by a boa constrictor, doesn’t it?
Now, as the median (or is it the mean?) income shifts, either forward or backward, this is going to effect all parts of the bell curve. If the curve shifts forward, the rich will be considered richer and the poor will have more people falling below the “poverty line.” Does that make sense?
If it makes sense, and if a free market economy is in place, can the market lose consumers because they have no money–no trading ability–to maintain the level of consumerism needed to maintain the overall economy? Or does it rely only on a dwindling number of people who can afford to be consumers going beyond the necessities for life.
Will the market ever ‘adjust’ itself quickly enough, left to itself?
Any theory is judged by how well it succeeds in practice. If it doesn’t succeed in practice, it should be, and usually is, set aside. This is especially true of the ‘soft sciences’ that can only be ‘proven’ empirically. Empirical ‘truth’ changes over time.
You should know that businesses are required, by law, to set aside percentages of their profits for certain things: production improvements; overhead, including taxes; shareholder return on their investment; and so on. These percentages haven’t changed for decades. Sure, the amounts will go up–but given tax shelters, hidden income, and the ‘need’ to hire the best and the brightest, the amounts don’t go up by very much.
Is this a free market correcting itself in a laissez faire sort of way? Do you really believe that the McDonald’s Corporation, Walmart, hotel and motel chains, mega agriculture, pharms, the entertainment industry, financial institutions, theme parks–I could go on and on. Do you really think raising the minimum wage will break the corporations? --Or lead to inflation?
Puh-leeze!
Is it possible for you to admit your biases? Is it possible for you to acknowledge how your biases have led you to your conclusions? Or will you continue to merely flip off someone who might or might not disagree with you while spending time with people who appear to agree with you?
As you should be able so understand, I’m becoming more and more angry as this thread continues.
Uh, thanks… Though I’m not really interested in it being OK’d, but thanks. And I’m not just against a minimum wage boost, getting rid of minimum wage entirely would be one of the first things I would suggest to anyone attempting to help “the poor.”
I am rarely surprised… And I believe that, with few exceptions, all people are out to help other people. Yes there are sociopaths, but humanity has gotten where it is by working together with the people around them. So, I would never question your motives, even as I might disagree with your actions and theories.
Oh, I love the sexy bell curve. I would make love to it if it wasn’t you know, a thought put into a visual representation for ease of understanding… Just not great at love making those things are. (That their is sum gud engrish)
Sexy Bell curve:
No. If the curve flattens there will be an increase in both poor and rich. If it shifts to the right, there will be an increase in rich people, with far less people falling below the poverty line, but many may see the division between the “rich” and “poor” as getting greater, because the distance between normal and poor well have gotten greater.
If you are thinking of “forward” as shifting to the left snort, there would be an increase in “poor” people. And the division could be looked on as greater. But, this does not mean that the poor would be screwed, if the over all well being of everyone is increased than it does not matter that the division is greater. If the people in the “poor” group can afford wifi, two+ flat screen TV’s and Tivo, I don’t care that the “rich” can afford helicopters. Helicopters are trivial.
Yes, the market can lose consumers in a free market. But, the lose of consumers would not be a problem to the free market as this would be an indicator as to a misapplication of resources into areas that people are not interested in.
This has a lot of preconceived notions about necessities of life.
“Adjust” quickly enough for what? Your personal preference, probably not. For life on the planet to be better of, hell yes.
And Minimum wage has never been shown to increase the well being of those in portents to help…
And?
No.
I don’t care if it does.
Minimum wage has been to show that it causes inflation some where in the 2% range… Less than even natural inflation rates.
Citations?
NEVER!! (I have stated repeatedly what I am. I acknowledge it, I embrace it.)
Ok, the first time I heard, and thought about, minimum wage, I thought it sounded wrong. I couldn’t place why, but it sounded like a stupid game that people play with themselves inorder to make themselves feel better, while not accomplishing anything. After an argument I lost, where I argued that Minimum Wage causes great inflation, though I didn’t know the word inflation at the time, I worked my ass off to find out more. As I have stated above.
I have no one around me that agree’s with me. My best friend leaves the room the moment I talk about politics or economics he so vehemently disagrees with me. My mother thinks I’m a bigot because I’m Conservative. My “other” friends, the few that I talk to about such things either couldn’t care less, are basically socialists (one is a self proclaimed Communist), or are default Liberals (meaning, like my mother, they believe that being Conservative means being a bigot, because that is what the media tells them). I actually recently joined a website because I like to argue that much, figuring that most of the people on it would be liberals, or at least be fun to argue with. It’s called I love Philosophy, you might have heard of it. So far, the only person I talk too that I “agree” with is Ucc… (Have you seen many exchanges between us on this thread?)
Sadness. I get energized when I find people I can talk to that have strong points of view. Usually I learn something.
So you never admit your biases? That’s very interesting. Did you wake up one morning and say to yourself, “Self, I believe this!” Is there nothing in your memory banks, nothing you reacted to at any time that didn’t have something to do with how your mind was formed or how your thoughts came to be? I don’t believe that’s possible; however, if you say you did, you could be a phenomenal person, I suppose.
You say you lost an argument that led you to work your ass off trying to learn more about minimum wage/wage floors. What did you read that did anything other than reinforce those thoughts?
The minimum wage is set at a percentage of the median wage, right? Has the median wage changed much since the 1970s? More importantly, has the buying power of the median wage earner gone up, down, or remained the same? It depends on how these things are measured, doesn’t it–and how much confirmation bias is a part of whatever study one chooses to read?
Are benefits counted into the median wage? Some ‘studies’ say yes and some say no–that benefits used as a part of the median income is unfair. Health insurance is probably the largest benefit people expect to receive in lieu of regular cost-of-living increases. But health insurance doesn’t cover everything and part of the bene is that the boss pays for a lot of it. Should only the company portion of health insurance coverage be counted as ‘wage?’
I may be rambling, but I’m trying to ‘see’ some of the ‘problems’ lower income families face–Trying to ‘Put myself in Boo’s shoes,’ as it were. It’s difficult.
Who’s defined the problems faced by the working poor. Have the poor, themselves, done so? How do you know, as you said earlier in this post, that" If the people in the “poor” group can afford wifi, two+ flat screen TV’s and Tivo, I don’t care that the “rich” can afford helicopters. Helicopters are trivial." Who told you that, or, for that matter, who says they can’t afford those ‘things,’ other than me, of course.
Who or what defines ‘poor’ or ‘poverty?’ (Btw, I say ‘working poor’ because if someone isn’t working they wouldn’t be earning minimum wage, would they…)
What does “living at poverty level?” mean and who decides the meaning? Who establishes the standards?
I think there needs to be an agreed as to a definition of the above, before the idea of a minimum wage is thrown in the dumpster. I also think that a minimum wage is only one of many possible solutions; perhaps a combination of ‘solutions’ needs to be considered.
Absolutely. Bush is the poster boy in my mind for political corruption; he broke every rule and lied in so many ways. I’m willing to be forgiving of some politicians as one of the questions raised in this thread is whether political corruption is a necessity in doing politics correctly, but to forgive Bush would, in my mind, be tantamount to saying there are no corrupt politicians, and to me that’s down right nonsense.
Yep. Jame’s frog-in-boiling-water. It’s learnt helplessness. It’s the belief that your leaders are more powerful than you, that they’re always going to be one step ahead of you, with bigger more powerful guns, and able to predict your every move, so why bother even trying.
I think you’d also have to add that socialism isn’t an all-or-nothing affair like communism tends to be. In most communist nations that I’m aware of, it’s the entire economy that’s run by the state, but in Canada, a country considered to be socialist, there are some sectors of the economy that are more heavily regulated than others, but it’s by no means an all-or-nothing affair. I think if communism is a political system in which the economy is controlled by the state, then socialism must be a system in which people are open to allowing for certain regulations in certain areas of the economy, some more heavily enforced than others, but otherwise allow the market to run like capitalism.
Bill Mahr echoes my sentiments in regards to socialism at around 7:25 (the topic of socialism comes up at around 6:20) in this interview with George Stroumboulopoulos.
Sure. I know that.
I think he was being sarcastic.
I’d like to know the answer to this too. In particular, I wonder if the “poverty line” is defined as the lowest X% of the bell curve. If so, then indeed we’ll never get rid of poverty as it would be defined into existence.
Thank you! I’ve been trying to tell people the same thing all over this board.
Exactly, education needs government in the same way roads and infrustructure do, but that doesn’t mean government should have a say in how the curiculum is planned. ← But this is a whole other can of worms in itself.
I guess it back “fired”… they “shot” themselves in the foot… sorry, was that in bad taste?
But how are we to avoid the situation in which people are not making enough money to even subsist? Are we comfortable saying this will rarely ever happen? (again, I’m anticipating certain answers from you, but I don’t want to put words in your mouth or prime you).
I get the triangle analogy, but I’m a dummy when it comes to terms like “price floor” or “price equilibrium”.
Stubborness is a form of believing in, standing firm on something, but it doesn’t always work the other way around. One can have good reason to believe in or stand firm on something, and if he’s being reasonable, or has plenty of evidence to back him up, then I wouldn’t call it stubbornness. But even then, arrogance is a special kind of stubbornness–it’s stubbornness mixed with a kind of self-righteous self-conceit.
I don’t think I’ve done anything for 10,000 hours (except maybe breathe)… judging by my post count, I’m about half way to calling myself a philosophy guru (but that assumes it takes me, on average, one hour to construct a post… which I don’t think is the case).
That is actually the “Elephant tied to a tree” analogy.
The frog is an obfuscation technique… can’t tell where the heat is coming from… different issue.
At all times, the only real hope is in the pursuit of the clarity of hope. Void of such effort, one stumbles blindly through life guided only by those who keep him blind, serving himself only to the degree that it serves them.
I’ve got it! I figured it out–the problem of political corruption!
Well, that might be a hyperbole–I shouldn’t say I’ve got it, at least not the solution, but I’ve got the key insight into what the problem is.
The insight came to me after contemplating that interview with Michael Ignatieff I posted above, plus my response to Chakra Superstar:
My response to Chakra more or less sums up what I was trying to get across in Are all politicians corrupt. But in response to Chakra, and in that thread, I struggled with trying to articulate what it was that I felt we had all wrong about politicians and the nature of political corruption. I knew I couldn’t just say that we’re all crazy–just paranoid and overly cynical–and that in reality, politicians are 100% trustworthy and wouldn’t do a thing to hurt us. I knew that political corruption is real and that men in power are very, very dangerous. But still, there was something about 99% of the silly conspiracy theories that get spewed out by the paranoid and cynical that just made them sound like an overly simplistic caricature of politics–like something out of a cartoon–and couldn’t work in reality. I knew that we were missing something.
Now I think I have it. Chakra called them sociopaths–and the problem lays in not being able to tell the difference between the kind of “sociopath” that we typically find in prisons or in psych wards, and the kind of “sociopath” that we find in politics. But I think I know what the difference is. The sociopaths in prisons and in psych wards are sociopaths in the standard clinical sense–they lack consciences, they feel no guilt or remorse over heinous acts. But the kind of sociopath you find in politics is, I think, simply a case of moral relativism. That is to say, in order to succeed in politics, one must not abandon morality or his/her conscience, but rather adapt to a whole new kind of morality, one that is necessary in order to do one’s job properly in politics and is certainly difficult for the common person to appreciate. From the common person’s point of view, the corrupt politician is “evil” in the way that a Muslim terrorist must seem evil to many in the Western world–not because the Muslim terrorist has no morals, or has the specific clinical condition psychiatrists call “psychopathy”–but because he has a different–a wildly different–morality. But for the simpleminded, he is indistinguishable from an actual clinical psychopath. I don’t think it’s a huge surprise to anyone that morality turns out to be highly dependent on culture and therefore highly relativistic–and perhaps the world of politics ought to be thought of as a culture within a culture.
Machiavelli is instructive here: he understood the importance of brutality in politics, but even he understood this was for the greater good. A strong leader who rules with an iron fist, Machiavelli said, brings society out of anarchy and lawlessness–he establishes order and instills fear of defiance; but this isn’t the only reason why the brutality of a strong leader is important–Machiavelli says the ultimate goal is republicanism. He sees the brutality of the powerful dictator as a necessary transition phase between anarchy and lawlessness and a republican form of government. That is to say, dictatorships are a means to an end but not an end in themselves. In other words, even in promoting brutality in government, Machiavelli understood that it had to, and could, work for moral purposes. But it is certainly a different kind of morality, one that normal folk don’t understand.
(Just as an aside, what’s interesting about Machiavelli’s philosophy is that while he says that brutality in government is necessary as a stepping stone towards republicanism, this implies that brutality may not be necessary, in his view, once a republic is actually established. I’m not sure what Machiavelli says on this point, but it does put into question whether we have a right to apply Machiavellian principles to politics in actual democracies/republics).
I imagine it’s much like the thought experiment that’s supposed to challenge utilitarianism: a man walks into a hospital to undergo a routine operation, but is otherwise healthy and is expected to recover promptly without any complications. In that same hospital are 5 other patients suffering fatal illnesses. No cure exists for them except organ transplants. Each of them needs a different organ, and the first man, the one getting the routine operation, has all these organs and they are fully healthy. The doctors could make a decision: sacrifice the one healthy patient and save the five dying ones. Now, most of us would probably recoil at the prospect–we would be inclined to say: no, we shouldn’t sacrifice the one healthy patient even if it would save the five dying ones, not even on utilitarian grounds. But that’s because we aren’t in the doctors’ shoes–we aren’t responsible for making that decision, which means we don’t bear the responsibility of the death of the five sick patients–so we can comfortably offer up an opinion that makes us seem like decent human beings with healthy consciences. But if we were the doctors? Then we’d have to take the prospect of the death of the five sick patient very seriously. If we spared the life of the one healthy patient, we would indeed be responsible for the death of the five sick patients. Now carry this over to politics. The decisions that politicians have to make are very often matters of life and death–war and peace. How sure are we that there is always a clear-cut right decision in these matters? How sure would we be if we had to take the decisions seriously? I would think we’d have to, very often, make decisions that are unpalatable to most people.
Now a couple caveats:
That still doesn’t mean there aren’t any psychopaths in the clinical sense with the intelligence and social skills to make their way into politics.
That still doesn’t mean that the morality of politics is the “right” morality and that of the common people is the “wrong” morality. Remember, it’s more like moral relativism. From our point of view, genital mutilation is a horrible practice, but to many people around the world, it is the right thing to do. Is it or isn’t it? I’m not quite the moral relativist who thinks there is no objective answer–I think there often is–so this caveat is to be read: the morality of the people may still be right and that of the political world may be wrong (though most politicians wouldn’t think so, but not in virtue of a lack of conscience).
gib, it’s been a while since I read The Prince, but didn’t Machiavelli imply that a ruler had to have two sets of moral convictions–one for private life and one for political life?
In other words, the good of the Republic must take precedence, no matter what the ruler feels privately.
This could result in a real psychological problem for a ‘normal’ person–whether or not s/he follows established moral precepts at all times. But would it be enough to ‘turn’ a person into a psychotic sociopath? Please remember the medical definitions of both conditions. I don’t think it would be enough. Nor do I think a successful politician should start out being a psychotic sociopath or even have a propensity toward those conditions, either together or separately.
To me, a Machiavelli-type ruler should never allow anything personal to enter into decisions made for the good of the country as a whole. That sort of focus is almost impossible to maintain, especially when one is limited by time. The US holds elections for Senators, Representatives (both state and federal,) President, and Governor. A representative has a 2 yr. term, a senator 6 yrs., and a president/governor has 8 yrs., at most. In the US, we have elections going on all the time in one way or another.
In order to maintain any sort of continuity, a president/governor has to continue some of the programs started by his/her predecessor. Add to this is the needed time for the learning curve to take place. That may be why some people believe that former governors are preferred presidential candidates–the learning curve is shortened although the scope of learning is expanded. A US president has 4 yrs., guaranteed, to do all of this while trying to fulfill some of his campaign promises and, at the same time, remaining ‘true’ to the ‘party line.’ How is it possible for the US electorate to really ‘know’ its candidates before an election?
Just some thoughts to nibble on and quibble about. Does Democracy need reforming as a political theory? I guess it depends on how the electorate defines democracy and what it expects from the ruling party democratically elected.
Sarcasm combined with Hyperbole. Hence the ALL CAPS, and admitting my bias in parenthesis after… I’m sorry it didn’t make it through the text.
Nope, I’m not magic, I’ve said repeatedly what I am, where my biases lay. But, I have no problem repeating them.
I am Conservative/libertarian. I read economic books for fun, I am a free market lover. I love free markets because they are the best way to help people and to help society. It means that people are going to be unequal, because reality is unequal. I was raised catholic, and I know my moral compass comes from that, which is why I’ve sent my daughter to catholic school. But I don’t really have a religion and I try not to believe in anything. I think a lot (actively take time) and like to program because in clears my head. (Is that enough to be getting along with?)
Additionally I do not think that someone waking up and saying, “I believe this!” doesn’t have any bias.
Um, I started off thinking it caused inflation. I now argue that is causes limited to no inflation… So lots.
No, it is an arbitrary value based on current perceptions of costs. Not wages.
Yes, quite a bit, at least in the US. But, I find that sorta irrelevant, the average wealth of every individual world wide has increased dramatically since the 1970s.
Down. Taxes and inflation caused by printing money is brutal on buying power.
Agreed, though I would extend it to, “chooses to read” and trust. If I quoted something from Fox News many hear would blow it of based only on that.
Regardless of weather benefits are “officially” counted the must be by the company, or the company goes under and everyone is unemployed.
Not rambling, at least not without a clear line of logic. Putting yourself in others shoes is impossible, unless they have the same size feet as you.
In my bias, I would say that it is richer white people, otherwise known as liberals.
No.
It’s based off of studies done on the US, that I have read in multiple places.
Who says they can’t afford helicopters? Me, I say it, and I think I am unbiased in saying so.
Rich liberals. (Thank you for the clarification. I was wondering.)
Rich liberals and government officials, who are also usually liberals.
I just want proof it raises the average wage of people. It raises the wage of the people that keep their jobs, yes, but that is like saying playing Russian roulette has 100% survivability, by interviewing people after the game is over.
I hope you are feeling better. I would be saddened to know you are still frustrated.
Yeah, government has too many people with “access.”
Agreed… Ugh. Lets not go into it here though.
Snort Even if it was I found it funny.
First, proof must be provided that this is what is happening, which is never provided. Instead, a scream of won’t somebody please think of the children and “why do you blame poor people?!” happens. Second, if we stop regulating companies into the ground it’ll free up funds to hire more people/pay them more. Regulations increase costs without increasing income, just like minimum wage, which means lower pay.
I don’t know if you are comfortable with it. I don’t know that it is true.
I attempt to explain it in the first post here. They are very basic economic models.
Fair enough.
It scares me that I think my only thing is TV watching and Internet surfing.
A lot of times, our jobs fall into this place though. 10,000 hours/8 hours a day/5 days a week/50 week a year gives 5 years. If you do a job, even if in multiple places, for five years you could be a “master” of that job.
You answered what I asked of you. You think it's OK for Michael Moore to spend money on political advocacy as long as he's doing it to turn a profit, the sources you prefer vouche for his facts, and he plays coy about which party/candidate he thinks you should vote for. Got it.
All I can say is, there are plenty of detractors of Michael Moore's films and their facts, when a corporation makes a political statement they certainly have money as their primary motivation (which I refuse to believe makes it better to you), and I don't see how an AFP commercial targeting Obamacare is 'less general' than[i] Sicko[/i] targeting Gitmo, or Goldman Sachs in [i]Capitalism: A Love Story.[/i]
Since Sicko was about the American health care system and Capitalism: A Love Story was about the financial crisis and recovery stimulus, (of which Goldman Sachs was a part), I can only assume you neither saw, nor even read a synopsis of, either movie. If you did neither, how can what you say be trusted?
I never said it was okay for anyone to spend money on political advocacy. As a matter of fact, I’ve been consistently against huge sums of money, particularly from single sources, used that way. Again, I don’t understand what it is you’re asking of me.
Certainly there will be detractors; there are people who believe in the Creation Myth as described in Genesis, despite the scientific evidence against it. There were people who refused to believe the earth was round, despite the scientific evidence against it. But when a woman, who hasn’t read her health insurance policy correctly goes national to vilify Obamacare for her own mistakes, that’s a bit beyond detraction, don’t you think. (I’d give citations, but Google can’t connect me. I’ll add them when I can.)
Corporations want to make money, indirectly, by influencing political policy and, often, by creating that political policy. Corps don’t want to upset the status quo if, by changing the status quo, the corp will lose money.
Must it always be thus?
PS, Please make sure your ‘facts’ are correct and that you don’t put words in my mouth, if you choose to answer this. Not to do so is so…“conservative.”
Me neither, but have you read my theory on how changes in the brain could account for how power corrupts:
I thought we weren’t calling the US a democracy–but in any case, if you think there is room for improvement in a democracy, and you don’t want to abandon democracy, then yes, you would need to reform it.
Eric,
Hmm… not quite the answer I was anticipating, but ok. I thought you might say something like: being paid below the subsistence level means not subsisting, which means workers will not be able to come into work, and employers will feel this very early on. On the other hand, it could also lead to longer working days, or more family members working including (if it weren’t for child labor laws) the children.
But you see, this is what I wanted to get into before this line of discussion derailed into defining arrogance and such. You’re obviously more learned on this subject than I am, but I’ll explain my starting position however much a biased preconception it may be (because it’s what I was taught): before minimum wage, before child labor laws, before the 40 hours a week rule, before dental and health benefits, etc., I’m told that workers throughout the Western world had to toil in harsh factory conditions for up to 16 hours a day, and would often need to bring the whole family in to work, including the children, suffering damage to their health because of poor working conditions, and still making only enough money to scrape by. ← Now this is what I was taught (and I admit, I think I’m exaggerating the conditions, but the bottom line is that they were harsh), and I was also taught that the laws and regulations which were introduced (like minimum wage, child labor laws, a maximum on the number of hours employers have a right to demand of their workers, etc.) were what brought people out of these conditions.
Now you mentioned a few other factors that improved the situation. I believe you said:
I’ll have to read this a couple times over… then I’ll give you an intelligible response.
Well, you’re certainly good at the internet surfing thing.
Really? Well, obviously somebody thought this through. Obviously, 10,000 hours for becoming a master is based on 5 years of work experience. Is that the standard amount of time before an employee is officially recognized as a senior (or maybe an intermediate) as opposed to a junior (ie. “senior manager” vs. “junior manager”)?
From what I remember of the book it was a study of Outliers, the truly amazing people, at one thing. An example use in the book is Andre Agassi. Who kicked ass for a time in tennis, and is considered a “great” at the sport (I’m not really a tennis guy, I’ve got a friend that is and we talk about it sometimes, but my knowledge is limited). They used musician examples, like the Beatles who spent 5 years traveling before they became big. And so on. They talk about a Ancient Greek Artifact, that all the “experts” call fake, but all the paperwork is in order. The experts can’t always state why they think it’s fake, but many do… It is consistent that at round 10,000 hours of practice on one thing the activity sinks into the brain and can be called on to do amazing things.
I’ll respond to the rest of the stuff later… I’ve got an opening statement to write.
You defend Michael Moore's movies because they are general criticisms and not criticisms of specific things like Obamacare. However you are wrong because he does in fact criticize specific policies and organizations such as Gitmo and Goldman Sachs. I don't know how much more clearly I can state it.
You just got done telling me why it was ok for Michael Moore to do it. NOW you're going to split the finest possible hair and try to tell me why Michael Moore's political advocacy isn't political advocacy. If you were REALLY against huge sums of money being spent from single sources on political advocacy, then when I pointed out Michael Moore, you would have said "Good point, he shouldn't do it either". That was an easy, obvious opportunity to grab some of that non-bias cred you're trying for. But instead you're trying to shoot the Moon and construct a justification for why it's fine when liberals do what you don't want conservatives to do- which, if you'll recall, was my exact concern about your reforms pages and pages ago before I had any way of knowing that's what you'd do (we'll pretend).
In a nutshell, that is the problem with all these attempts to 'get the money out of politics'. They are always de facto attempts to 'get the free speech out of politics', and it is impossible to apply them with any non-partisan, non-ideological consistency for two reasons:
1.) As you’ve shown, deep down nobody WANTS to apply them consistently, they just want the political voice they disagree with to be silenced.
2.) Different positions and ideologies get their political capital in such wildly different ways that it’s impossible to impose a standard that will affect them equally.
There's nothing the least bit consistent about it, and that's my whole point. Michael Moore, universities, and Hollywood spend huge amounts of money on political advocacy but because YOU PERSONALLY LIKE THEIR MESSAGE you are making excuses for why that should be allowed to continue. Meanwhile, corporations and religious groups can't do the exact same thing because you don't like their message. That's where we're at right now.
So you’re saying that while on the one hand, there are stupid conservatives, on the OTHER hand, there are stupid conservatives. Yeah, I feel you.
Yes, and so does Michael Moore, and so do schools, and so do abortion clinics, and so do race baiters, and trial lawyers, and fucking unions, and the promoters of green technologies, and politicians- especially politicians. But never mind all that, we gotta stop the Koch Brothers because when THEY do it, they say political things lizbeth disagrees with.
In fact, I was just thinking of your example of the 1 in 4 rape statistic. ← Here is an example of corruption that I’m ambivalent about throwing into either of the two categories above (being sloppy in your studies vs. lying about them). I mean, on the one hand, they clearly lied, so it goes into the latter camp, but the point of the division (at least for me) was to distinguish between the effects of bias vs. the effects of corruption. But here we have an example of what seems to be a mere bias (we’re lying but for the sake of the greater good) convincing one that it’s OK to be corrupt (and in all likelihood, without actually using that word: “corrupt”). Oh, God, what people can convince themselves of!
and 
