Politics Discussion Thread (Heated Arguing Warning)

[Brian Shanahan]

Empty wallet means that you are not contributing anything into the system and, as a consequence, you do not get anything from the system.

And herein lies the problem with "free market" thinking. Empty wallet doesn't mean you're not contributing to the system, it simply means that you have insufficient power or protections to get your fair share.

Plenty of people, even in the US (the problem isn't so bad in Western Europe, minus the UK, because social protections are better and much stronger) are working sixty or more hours a week and are yet coming under increasing levels of debt and hardship just to get the bare minimums for survival needs (the lowest on the scale, food and shelter). They, through their hard work and the company bosses/shareholders spending of the profits they make, contribute enormously to the economy, but unfortunately they get nowhere near the rewards their work should entitle them to.

[Tasunke]

Yea Sanders is one of the best/ smartest democrats. It's too bad he lost the 2016 primary, that would have been a good campaign I think. These views are probably also why he refused to say he would abolish ICE

[Brian Shanahan]

People often say, "vote with your wallet" in response to poor products or poor treatment. But when your wallet is empty because you've had to spend everything on what you need to survive, you have no vote.

But this is an entire point of free market, the reason why this system is so beautiful and works so amazingly well. Empty wallet means that you are not contributing anything into the system and, as a consequence, you do not get anything from the system. In that way, everyone is forced to contribute something. Remove this, give non-contributors free access to goods - and the entire system will collapse.
Your argument is built around a premise that free market is uncomfortable for those unadapted to it. But this is a feature, not a bug: it gives them a strong enough incentive to adapt and become productive contributors to the system of division of labor. Also, you seem to confuse freedom with comfort but "free choice" does not mean "pleasant choice".

I will heartily agree with this. Welfare encourages separation and isolation on multiple levels, whereas an actual free market without such safety nets encourages cooperation. Now, whether in economic extremis this results in some sort of gangland paradisio a la CyberPunk 2020, who knows ... but IDEALLY, and at least in American past, the free market allowed for English, Irish, Scottish, German, Italian, French, and Polish people to set aside their differences and to work together. If we had welfare back then there would probably still be Italian and Polish and maybe even Irish or French Ghettos, and all of the Germans would still live in Philidelphia and Minnesota, and there would be inner city Italian and Irish crime.
It is the ease of separation, given to welfare recipients, which allows for the so-called No-Go Zones of Europe, however because Muslims have increased cultural in-group integrity compared to most other migrant groups, instead of actual Single Motherhood, what welfare gives them is instead extra Income for multi-wife families, encouraging the wealth and influence of Polygamist lifestyles among the Muslims and increasing the incentives/ motivations for those "extra Muslim men" without Wives in such a polygamous society to enter other spaces for other reasons, and to do things that those with no wives and no future prospects are sometimes wont to do.
Meanwhile in USA welfare encourages single motherhood in most if not all cases (at least the non Muslim ones).
Singlemotherhood has been on the massive increase in America in both Black and White populations, all due to welfare/ golden civilization doctrines introduced by LBJ and others.

Give me the name of your dealer, I've been looking for shit that strong a long time now.

[Brian Shanahan]

Darrell

That map gets even more stark when you look at county populations:



With the exceptions of Kern an Placer counties the large population counties are Democrat, with the additional corollary that the bigger the county the more Democrat the population.

But then again that's a national trend, the larger the population the more left* the vote.

*for the US definition of left anyways. Over here that's centre-right socially and full right economically.

[Banzailizard]

Maybe I misunderstood but I think his implied question was "how do you propose to get China to back down on forced technology transfers." The administrations messaging on these tarrifs has been confusing.  They are supposed to punish China for the transfers, and to harm their "made in China 2025" program where they are seeking dominance in certain high tech feilds. Many of these industries are reciving subsidies from the Chinese government. However mixed up in that is Trump's obsession with the trade deficit (which is nonsensical), and his protectionist tendencies in general.

It's not merely about technology transfers. The EU quietly agrees with "almost all" of Trump's complaints about China, but despite not being able to do much about them, they can only complain about Trump's approach.

The answer is that you need to play hardball with China.

We could also work with our allies in Europe,  South Korea and Japan who are also harmed by these practices to set standards of practice. Targeted sanctions on specfic goods might be ok if it is clear what behavior will get them removed.

This will also start a trade war, a worldwide one in fact.

No I think there is a readily appreciable difference from what I suggest and what Trump is doing. Let's say company x steals tech from company y. We and our allies put barriers only on the products from company x and only until they meet some sort of terms such as paying a fine and ongoing royalties to continue using the technology (it would be too difficult to stop them using it at all). We have here a clear issue, and a clear mechanism for resolution. Might not stop all theft, but the only way to stop all theft might be to avoid the Chinese market all together.

Trump though has imposed tarrifs on anything targeted by subsidies from made in China 2025 policy.  Intentionally or not the message is "these go away when you stop this policy" which reads as "when you stop trying to develope at all." China will never back down on that.  It goes against the ruling party's defacto deal of "we give you (citzen of China) economic growth, you shut up about democracy" in short tarrifs for no reason to no effect but harm.

I also have not and do not support Bernie Sanders for exactly the reason of his protectionist tendencies.  I am very far left on social issues but more right wing/centrist on economic ones. I am not on board with libertarians however, as I think there is a role for goverment in dealing with externalities and pushing markets towards more perfect completion (breaking up monopolies and such).  I am above all a globalist though. I can only advocate for tarrifs in very limited circumstances to try and compel China to obey global norms.

[ipecac]

No I think there is a readily appreciable difference from what I suggest and what Trump is doing. Let's say company x steals tech from company y. We and our allies put barriers only on the products from company x and only until they meet some sort of terms such as paying a fine and ongoing royalties to continue using the technology (it would be too difficult to stop them using it at all). We have here a clear issue, and a clear mechanism for resolution. Might not stop all theft, but the only way to stop all theft might be to avoid the Chinese market all together.

It would be easier to make a list of companies who are not such x's. Your suggested actions would either be teethless or be impactful enough for China to escalate. And if you see theft as the only issue, you're not properly appreciating the situation.

Trump though has imposed tarrifs on anything targeted by subsidies from made in China 2025 policy.  Intentionally or not the message is "these go away when you stop this policy" which reads as "when you stop trying to develope at all." China will never back down on that.  It goes against the ruling party's defacto deal of "we give you (citzen of China) economic growth, you shut up about democracy" in short tarrifs for no reason to no effect but harm.

Such dumping hurts local production all over the world. The proper antidote to such dumping is tariffs.

I also have not and do not support Bernie Sanders for exactly the reason of his protectionist tendencies.  I am very far left on social issues but more right wing/centrist on economic ones. I am not on board with libertarians however, as I think there is a role for goverment in dealing with externalities and pushing markets towards more perfect completion (breaking up monopolies and such).  I am above all a globalist though.

It's not for nothing that the corrupt centrists support globalism while the outsiders try to break it up. Extremely destructive in practice, with effects ranging from permanently unemployed turning to drugs or suicide, to divided, less trustful and less cohesive societies, to out of control consumerism because the pollution of production is 'exported' elsewhere (the First-world form of environmentalism, "my backyard is unpolluted, who cares about China or other places").

In (their bad) theory, of course, all is good so that's what economists say.

[Gavagai]

Empty wallet means that you are not contributing anything into the system and, as a consequence, you do not get anything from the system.

And herein lies the problem with "free market" thinking. Empty wallet doesn't mean you're not contributing to the system, it simply means that you have insufficient power or protections to get your fair share.

Plenty of people, even in the US (the problem isn't so bad in Western Europe, minus the UK, because social protections are better and much stronger) are working sixty or more hours a week and are yet coming under increasing levels of debt and hardship just to get the bare minimums for survival needs (the lowest on the scale, food and shelter). They, through their hard work and the company bosses/shareholders spending of the profits they make, contribute enormously to the economy, but unfortunately they get nowhere near the rewards their work should entitle them to.

The number of hours you work is irrelevant. What is relevant is the amount of value you contribute to the system. And the only good way to measure it is by the amount of money which other contributors are willing to give you so that you keep doing what you were doing. This not a perfect measure but it gives a very good approximation.
Once again, what you describe is not a problem with the free market but its enormous advantage. The alternative is people like you, willing to arbitrary distribute money to anyone doing useless shit for sixty hours per week.
("Useless" is a hyperbole here, of course. More likely, if you barely receive a living wage for 60 hours work, it means that you are doing something anyone can do and it is very easy to replace you. This kind of behavior - offering the system skills which are already in oversupply - is heavily penalized. As it should be.)

[Bacchus]

The real problem is that in the current circumstances entrepreneurs are not able to properly explore business models, and accompanying employment options that would deploy individuals to more valuable work. Amusingly, social programmes create a self-reinforcing cycle here: you put tax and regulatory pressure on business, which kills competition and exploration, which leaves people with a choice of crap jobs, which justifies 'helping them' through putting even greater pressure on business. Of course large corporates are almost by definition the best able to withstand this pressure, so the primary thing regulation does is dig a competitive moat around them. What we never see are all those businesses that don't exist at all due to regulatory and tax costs, and their non-existence is just where the damage is.

[Tasunke]

Mr MugShot/ erm, I mean Brian Shanahan. I do not understand what u mean when you just make a quip without trying to make a point. Single Mothers lead at least 75% of Black American families, and many of the two Parent Black families in USA are upper class immigrants from Nations with stronger cultural stability than the USA (like Kenya, Somalia, and Ethiopia).

Meanwhile in the EU, often 2nd and 3rd wives get full benefits as single mothers, yet at the same time Muslim families aren't investigated for bigamy like secular/Christian families sometimes are.

[TheHumanHydra]

Empty wallet means that you are not contributing anything into the system and, as a consequence, you do not get anything from the system.

And herein lies the problem with "free market" thinking. Empty wallet doesn't mean you're not contributing to the system, it simply means that you have insufficient power or protections to get your fair share.

Plenty of people, even in the US (the problem isn't so bad in Western Europe, minus the UK, because social protections are better and much stronger) are working sixty or more hours a week and are yet coming under increasing levels of debt and hardship just to get the bare minimums for survival needs (the lowest on the scale, food and shelter).  They, through their hard work and the company bosses/shareholders spending of the profits they make, contribute enormously to the economy, but unfortunately they get nowhere near the rewards their work should entitle them to.

The number of hours you work is irrelevant. What is relevant is the amount of value you contribute to the system. And the only good way to measure it is by the amount of money which other contributors are willing to give you so that you keep doing what you were doing. This not a perfect measure but it gives a very good approximation.
Once again, what you describe is not a problem with the free market but its enormous advantage. The alternative is people like you, willing to arbitrary distribute money to anyone doing useless shit for sixty hours per week.
("Useless" is a hyperbole here, of course. More likely, if you barely receive a living wage for 60 hours work, it means that you are doing something anyone can do and it is very easy to replace you. This kind of behavior - offering the system skills which are already in oversupply - is heavily penalized. As it should be.)

Allow me to express my utmost displeasure with the sentiments conveyed in this post.