Politics Discussion Thread (Heated Arguing Warning)

[T-hawk]

That sounds like an argument for government enforcement of a living wage

Not even close. It's an argument against that, since no matter what you call a living wage, the recipients can and will turn into a squandered wage.

[Mr. Cairo]

You can magic money out of thin air, but you can't do the same with goods. The people you will be subsidizing the most through any wage increases are the landlords.

Also, earners at below 'living wage' levels are mostly employed not in some fat-cat, high-margin businesses, but in small, local enterprises with minimal-to-zero profits. These are precisely the enterprises that provide goods and services to the very people you are attempting to benefit. Raise the wage, and labour largely goes to call centres, cleaning, security and other corporate behemoth non-jobs.

Not even close.  It's an argument against that, since no matter what you call a living wage, the recipients can and will turn into a squandered wage.

Sounds like an argument for rent control or state-provided housing. When over 50% of my income goes towards rent+bills, I have less to spend elsewhere, supporting local businesses in my community, and I get paid well over minimum wage in my province.

As for the baby formula anecdote, how can you know that's not people getting their welfare cheques and immediately stocking up on the most important things they'll need for the next month, like sustenance for their baby? It seems as though the answer can only be derived from ones pre-determined beliefs/prejudices, which makes the anecdote useless.

My own idea regarding welfare/UBI/living wage is that the government should basically skip the middleman. The government tries to ensure that everyone has a certain minimum standard of living, and it does this by giving people money; whether that's welfare or UBI or living wage or whatever.
But that is inherently inefficient, some are irresponsible with the money, and those who are resposible get screwed by their landlords and employers. Instead, the government should directly provide/pay for that target standard of living. A place to live, food to eat, clothes to wear, and all the things one needs to find work in the 21st century: access to public transport, a phone, internet access, etc. Those who don't desire to contribute get that stuff and nothing else (encouraging them to start contributing), those at the bottom who do want to contribute have a better place to start from.
It would also provide for those who want to contribute to society in a manner OTHER that getting a job, like artists for example. There are many people out there with artistic talent unable to contribute to the cultural milieu of their community because they need to work 60 hours a week to survive.

[Nicolae Carpathia]

This. In fact, in an ideal world that would be the solution to this children crisis on the border: separate these children from their parents permanently and let Americans adopt them. Last time I checked, America had more people willing to adopt a child than orphans.

broke: put their children of central american asylum seekers into concentration camps
bespoke: force childless couples to adopt the children

[Nicolae Carpathia]

Also, while RB hit a new low when Ipecac posted a neo-nazi 4chan meme to celebrate that Gen Z are going to be neo-nazis, it is worth pondering. We really have no idea they will turn out like.

For a start, that 4chan twitter meme was clearly not Gen Z, it's millenial (Gen Z can't drink). The Gen Z demographic is relatively diverse, many who will respond negatively to exterminationist rhetoric from the right. So 4chan is being extremely premature when hoping that Gen Z will become loyal footsoldiers and tradwives.

[ipecac]

To be sure, but I would say that the community has not only the right, but even the obligation to take care of such children directly. If parents, having means to feed their children, elect to have those children starve -- the community has to save the children from such abuse. The last thing the community should do is shower additional material support on these parents.

I say community rather than state, because ideally, and normally, such children will be rescued from abuse by their other relatives or, if this fails, by other associations that family is a member of. In a modern anonymised world such an association might not be present, so the state could step in, but only as a last resort. Even there, the state would do much better to promote and empower community-building, than to send out social workers.

As such, I don't think this issue proves the necessity of other forms of welfare.

The main reason why mass welfare (e.g. for unemployment) is needed in the first place is that for large numbers of people in the modern world, local community has largely collapsed and the 'safety net' traditionally provided by family or church or other association is ceasing to exist. Resorting to a UBI is a tacit admission that the safety nets are largely not working any more, and therefore you can't count on them to save the kids.

I agree that the restoration of community is the long-run solution.

[Nicolae Carpathia]

No, actually Libshits ruined South Africa. It was running smoothly in its Apartheid state. It wasn't "Blacks" that ruined Apartheid, it was western Libshits and local libshits ... largely economic and diplomatic sanctions et al in an attempt to 'end Apartheid' ... and when the nation was ruined, the local libshits ran away instead of sticking around to see the wage of their own sins ... (sins of arrogance, et al)

I don't get why you are so 1 dimensional on this.

fookin yikes

[MJW (ya that one)]

No, actually Libshits ruined South Africa. It was running smoothly in its Apartheid state. It wasn't "Blacks" that ruined Apartheid, it was western Libshits and local libshits ... largely economic and diplomatic sanctions et al in an attempt to 'end Apartheid' ... and when the nation was ruined, the local libshits ran away instead of sticking around to see the wage of their own sins ... (sins of arrogance, et al)

I don't get why you are so 1 dimensional on this.

fookin yikes

I assume Tasunke posted that and didn't realize that you get an e-mail as soon as the post is made... 

[Nicolae Carpathia]

Hoo boy whenever they say something cretinous, all you gotta do is say a few rude words and the mask of reasonable centrism falls right off their face.

It was my fault unfortunately, they would never have to reveal their beliefs if I were more polite.

[Bacchus]

My own idea regarding welfare/UBI/living wage is that the government should basically skip the middleman. The government tries to ensure that everyone has a certain minimum standard of living, and it does this by giving people money; whether that's welfare or UBI or living wage or whatever.
But that is inherently inefficient, some are irresponsible with the money, and those who are resposible get screwed by their landlords and employers. Instead, the government should directly provide/pay for that target standard of living. A place to live, food to eat, clothes to wear, and all the things one needs to find work in the 21st century: access to public transport, a phone, internet access, etc. Those who don't desire to contribute get that stuff and nothing else (encouraging them to start contributing), those at the bottom who do want to contribute have a better place to start from.
It would also provide for those who want to contribute to society in a manner OTHER that getting a job, like artists for example. There are many people out there with artistic talent unable to contribute to the cultural milieu of their community because they need to work 60 hours a week to survive.

This is a fine set of beliefs for someone under 20, it comes from the right place and has the right goals. The means to getting there are very confused, though, and generally people come to realize that once they have had more practical experience with human decision-making, especially in an organisational context. And that's a better way to understand the weakness of the position than any economic theory. I mean, sure, you can talk about bureaucracy being inefficient, and the market being a valuable coordinating mechanism that passes information about needs and abilities, ensuring that labour is allocated exactly where it's demanded, but none of that is nearly as convincing as experience is.

But it could help to just think through the practicalities. What you are imagining as a solution is largely a projection of how things are, under assumption that they could be just like that without the market. Same products, just in the "right" hands. They couldn't be, getting the right products to the right hands is an enormous challenge and the government is not at all well suited to meeting it. Who would decide how many houses to build, and of what type? How many competing designs would they try? How would they know which design actually fulfills the people's needs best? What space would be left for a person that doesn't care much about housing, and is prepared to live almost in a capsule, as long as he can go out and socialize in as expensive places as he can afford? It's even worse with clothing -- what clothes, how many, which colors, who gets to call all these production shots?

The bottomline is that the world as it is broadly works. It works exactly because of, not in spite, the market. We know that because for the longest time in human history there were no markets, and we know exactly the effects of that. People who get badly done in this system exist, but they are relatively few. Undoing the entire system (and that's what you are proposing, at least for a very large section of the economy) wouldn't help them much, but would hurt the majority a lot. The benefit side of your proposition is fine, but you now need to come to grips with its costs.

[AdrienIer]

They take a treacherous journey through Mexico and possibly other countries aided by gangs, a journey none too safe itself, because there's something waiting for them on the other side: access to welfare, jobs, and possibly citizenships. Remove these and the flow will magically drop.

Removing them won't suffice. There will be jobs available whatever you do because many employers want cheap manual labor and don't care if they're illegal. Many people entering the US illegally have relatives (or know someone) in the country that can help them.
Unless you're proposing concentration camps with inhumane conditions. That would probably stop the flow, at the expanse of showing to the world exactly what the US far right stands for.

What do you mean by the US helping them get rid of their corruption/gang/instability problem' anyway? Invasion followed by change of government?

Economic aid. Cooperation (including the possibility of sending auxiliary police troops to help the local police) against gangs. The drugs eventually get to the USA so it would even make sense if you want the US government to only do selfish things. As I said central america is part of the US's sphere of influence. They're pretty much your vassals in every way. Maybe the US could make something good come out of it ?