Let us remember that the Civil War was only four years of a long period of time during which the US transitioned from upstart former colonies to a superpower. Somehow it had growth despite all the problems of that age. Despite being supposedly wiser, more caring, and more knowledgeable, we just aren't growing any more.
I assert that it is in large part due to spending, both public and private, that grows faster than GDP. Here, the three big culprits are IMHO health care, education, and real estate.
Well, it still exists and it still has a monopoly on power production in much of its service area. It doesn't have to comply with a lot of environmental and worker safety regulations (at the state and local levels), so it can generate externalities that other utilities can't. It has the power of eminent domain, that is, it can legally seize property. And consider this quote (from here):
To the degree that the TVA had any impact, it appears to be negative. The most important study of the effects of the TVA, conducted by energy economist William Chandler, estimated that in the half-century after the TVA was launched, economic growth in the Tennessee Valley increasingly lagged behind non-TVA southern markets. Chandler concluded, "Among the nine states of the southeastern U.S., there has been an inverse relationship between income per capita and the extent to which the state was served by the TVA...Watershed counties in the seven TVA states, moreover, are poorer than the non-TVA counties in these states."
In the non-TVA southern markets, there was a greater exodus of people out of subsistence farming into manufacturing and services, which offered higher incomes. Ironically, electricity consumption has grown faster in the non-TVA southern markets, because it tends to correlate with income. Subsistence farmers might be able to afford light bulbs, but they could not afford the electrical appliances that people in non-TVA southern markets were buying. Furthermore, despite the vast sums spent building TVA dams, water usage grew faster in the non-TVA southern markets.
Places served by TVA did worse than those in the same states which weren't served by the TVA.
but I seem to recall you once posted a remarkable story of how you went essentially "from rags to riches" - it was inspiring, I thought, and I applaud and am happy for you. However, I think that to sneer at those less fortunate, or who could not replicate your success, is a bit... unseemly. Just because some may be lazy or drug-addled is to me no reasonable reason to tar all with such a wide brush, nor deny them access.)
In other words, "do it for the poor" is the Slashdot version of "do it for the children". I'll just say that I don't see the benefit in providing universal services, especially one of dubious value like internet access. For example, I use the internet primarily as a source of entertainment. I don't think anyone should pay for my service as a result.
Second, I'm not rich nor have I ever been (though I have earned considerable income at times). I still need to work on occasion. Instead, I'm a hardcore saver. For example, I currently earn somewhat less than $20k per year in pre-tax wages (working about three quarters of the year). But I save a bit over half of that at present (though my savings rate was worse in previous years when I was paid less). I have no debt nor other such obligations.
Knowing how to live on a budget, save money, and obtain cheap living expenses really helps. This is also why I don't see the need for universal internet service or the like. Sure, there might be a few people whose situation is so dire that they can't afford internet. But in those cases, what should be addressed is the dire situation not the lack of internet.
For the rest of the people who don't currently get by, they need to learn financial discipline and the like rather than get internet access.
Ok, so you don't actually have a counterargument. If we were speaking of someone competing in the Olympics or who did specialized research in a hard subject, you might concede that some degree of aptitude might exist in the subject for that area.
But because we're speaking of wealth, which incidentally has more focus in society than either of the above two things, then the outstanding members of that category must have for some reason no more aptitude for accumulating or retain wealth than the average person, who somehow can't come within a few orders of magnitude.
It's a hard problem and I find it bizarre how people can continue to claim that it doesn't require some degree of unusual aptitude to acquire that sort of wealth.
Why wouldn't you? The rich would be better at resolving conflicts of interests too. Who are we plebs to question their judgement? Oh, you think you'll have a conflict of interest with the rich? Too freaking bad, you're a lower class peasant, who are you to question their judgement? Their interest trumps yours!
So why would I? I mentioned conflict of interest and you give me a runaround. Just because one might be skilled in resolving conflicts of interest doesn't mitigate a conflict of interest. After all, they could use that skill to resolve the conflict of interest even more in their favor.
And merely having more aptitude for accumulating money doesn't as you sarcastically claim above, give someone any moral grounds to rule others or moral insight in resolving the problems of rule. My observation is not a threat to whatever ridiculous belief system you happen to have.
A rational mind would say they both are part of the military
No, that isn't true. The NSA doesn't actually do military activities. And intelligence gathering has considerable application beyond that of military activities.
I note also that the War Resisters' League also discounts Social Security. Those sort of accounting gimmicks have long been discredited. That shrinks the entitlement side of their pie charts.
That is entitlement spending which is also inflated by the numerous poor US policies inflating health care costs.
Actual US military spending is approximately 900 to 950 billion/year.
You speak of "false statistics", but all you were able to do was come up with was at best an aditional 7% of the US budget for the US military - more than half of which is itself entitlement spending. It still remains that entitlement spending is more than double military spending by your measure.
No, his fundamental point remains. The original comparison was terrible because one would expect the US to spend less now on the military than in the Second World War precisely due to the degree of effort.
As to your yacking about a US "declared" or "authorized" war on al Qaida, what is al Qaida? At least the Taliban is a definable enemy.
Since the only computer connection for millions of Americans is the one at school, the one at work or the one at the library that puts the US in third world status as well.
You could say the same about any other country too. And it's not that hard to afford an internet connection.
We have not touched the edge of getting America up and running yet.
Interesting how adding a few economically marginal people to the internet is supposed to be such a big deal. I'd rather get rid of the nonsense that keeps US businesses from employing US workers.
-small business make up about half the economy. So that means lots of not-rich people have the skill set
To manage small businesses (or not as the case may be) not large ones. To manage relatively small amounts of assets, not hundreds of millions of dollars. But by looking at this category of people, we already see a great winnowing in the number of people who can be considered to do comparable activities to what some wealthy do.
-the richer you are, the less likely you're doing the job yourself, but hire somebody else (a not-as-rich person) to do it. That means there are not-rich people with the skill set to be hired by the rich.
So what? Observing that maintaining great wealth requires some degree of cooperation with other people doesn't mean much. Most of us cooperate with others all the time and we don't become billionaires as a result.
If you really believe are so much different than the rest of the people, then I gotta ask: how do you feel if society stops trying/pretending to be capitalist or democratic? Why not we switch to something like a caste system, where the rich elite ruling class is official recognized and entrenched as better than everybody else? Since they rich overlords have skill sets that most of us don't have, let them decide everything!
Well, why would I want that? Even if the wealthy were better at running society, we'd still have conflicts of interest.
You make completely unsupported assertions about supposed differences between the rich and the rest
So? I wasn't insisting on rigor so I'm consistent with my arguments on the matter.
then when challenged to provide any sort of evidence, you say I need to "provide supporting evidence" for asking you for evidence?
You're the one demanding that I provide more rigor without providing any of that demanded rigor yourself. That's inconsistency in your argument. So I in turn insist that you provide a rigorous reason for me to step up my game.
This is achieved not by adherence to political ideology, but rather by analyzing empirical evidence and employing the scientific method to determine the best ways in which to promote these goals.
That's a mighty fine quality of bullshit you're shoveling there. There's another name for this: ethnic homogeneity. Have a bunch of people who are fairly closely related and you end up with a bunch of common interest. So Nordic countries can pull off stuff like the Nordic system as a result.
Pick a list for sci-fi/fantasy and you will find it no lower than 5 or so all-time.
I find that surprising actually. It's not that good a book. For example, I can list a bunch that just are better and more influential: H. G. Well's "War of the Worlds", Dan Simon's "Hyperion", Henry Kuttner's "Fury", Asimov's "I Robot", Jules Verne "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea", William Gibson's "Neuromancer", George Orwell's "1984", Poul Anderson's "Boat of a Million Years", and Heinlein's "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress". That's nine right there. It just doesn't make my short list of best sci fi ever. Maybe top 100 though.
Having said that, it's definitely in the elite of science fiction both in terms of quality and actual sales.
The fallacy he employs here â" that calling out hate-speech is intolerance on par with curtailing the human rights of others â" is a favorite fallback of cowards and bullies
Except that here, Card is the one being bullied. I find such bigoted remarks as the above to be remarkably hypocritical.
If I were to liken you to "cowards and bullies" merely because of your beliefs, ethnicity, etc, would that not be hate speech as it is nebulously defined? Well, that's what just happened here. If interval1066 genuinely wishes to curb hate speech, he can start with his own.
"The problem with enforcing property rights is that its always at someone else's expense. Why should I pay for police who only stop me from taking the nice stuff my neighbor has?"
Theft inhibits my freedom more than it enables the thief. Take my car and I can no longer choose to drive somewhere - the thief could have always obtained a car by more legitimate methods and they too would have to worry about losing that car to another thief. Take my house and I lose choices that I had from owning a house. Many of these choices are fundamentally economic in nature, but the point is that ownership enables more choice and empowers the owner in a variety of ways, whether economic or otherwise.
Sure, it does apparently offer some economic security in whatever sense you mean, but that's not the primary reason for having private ownership to a libertarian.
And what else do you consider "economic security"? As I implied earlier, I consider one of the greater failures of modern civilization to be its efforts to minimize the risk of harm at the expense of everything else (including the risk of harm - policy makers are often remarkably ignorant about risk management or the implications of their policies). Attempts to create economic security for someone describe a lot of these actions.
The thing I note is that there are a number of things that can encourage economic security, but that comes as a secondary effect - such as private ownership and punishment for theft, or a decent system of accounting. Then there are actions which explicitly and primarily are intended to generate economic security such as government subsidized insurance, pensions, and corporate welfare. These tend to cause loss of freedom and structural economic problems (such as a tragedy of the commons or widespread moral hazard issues).
They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.
There you go. He wrote it at some point prior to February 17, 1775.
It's hard to imagine a greater counter-example. TBTF means destroying the economic security of many individuals in order to prop up a few fat cats - the exact opposite of what's meant by economic security.
That's the fundamental problem with economic security. It's always at someone else's expense and the effort to avoid risk can be quite perverse in its consequences.
as it is a fucking disgrace that we allow self-harm bordering on criminal stupidity.
What's disgraceful about it? Freedom or nannying, you get to pick just one. I'd rather have freedom even if that means a lot of people will make suboptimal decisions.
I wish American libertarians could mentally grasp the fact that "liberty" is meaningless in the absence of economic security.
Ben Franklin had a famous quote about that. You don't get liberty in the presence of so-called economic security - for example, any mechanism that shields society from economic risk is possible to game and suborn to undemocratic purposes. And we have plenty of examples of this in practice such as the global phenomenon of "too big to fail".
I have and I agree. There isn't a national pension in the US. I've heard all sorts of rationalizations about Social Security, but my view is that it is an unsustainable wealth transfer from young to old.
Medicare will only lead to "national bankruptcy" if there is insufficient revenue to cover it.
Growing faster than GDP makes that inevitable. Sooner or later, whether you "tax the rich" or not, you'll still end up with insufficient revenue to cover it. So benefits will be cut. I rather they were cut now rather than a few decades down the road, when the US has managed to put itself in a very unstable economic situation.
Slashdot Mirror
Let us remember that the Civil War was only four years of a long period of time during which the US transitioned from upstart former colonies to a superpower. Somehow it had growth despite all the problems of that age. Despite being supposedly wiser, more caring, and more knowledgeable, we just aren't growing any more.
I assert that it is in large part due to spending, both public and private, that grows faster than GDP. Here, the three big culprits are IMHO health care, education, and real estate.
To the degree that the TVA had any impact, it appears to be negative. The most important study of the effects of the TVA, conducted by energy economist William Chandler, estimated that in the half-century after the TVA was launched, economic growth in the Tennessee Valley increasingly lagged behind non-TVA southern markets. Chandler concluded, "Among the nine states of the southeastern U.S., there has been an inverse relationship between income per capita and the extent to which the state was served by the TVA...Watershed counties in the seven TVA states, moreover, are poorer than the non-TVA counties in these states."
In the non-TVA southern markets, there was a greater exodus of people out of subsistence farming into manufacturing and services, which offered higher incomes. Ironically, electricity consumption has grown faster in the non-TVA southern markets, because it tends to correlate with income. Subsistence farmers might be able to afford light bulbs, but they could not afford the electrical appliances that people in non-TVA southern markets were buying. Furthermore, despite the vast sums spent building TVA dams, water usage grew faster in the non-TVA southern markets.
Places served by TVA did worse than those in the same states which weren't served by the TVA.
This is like saying the cook at the mess hall is not part of the defense budget because he doesn't actually do military activities.
Does the cook serve mostly to civilians? if so, then he shouldn't be counted. That's what the NSA does.
but I seem to recall you once posted a remarkable story of how you went essentially "from rags to riches" - it was inspiring, I thought, and I applaud and am happy for you. However, I think that to sneer at those less fortunate, or who could not replicate your success, is a bit... unseemly. Just because some may be lazy or drug-addled is to me no reasonable reason to tar all with such a wide brush, nor deny them access.)
In other words, "do it for the poor" is the Slashdot version of "do it for the children". I'll just say that I don't see the benefit in providing universal services, especially one of dubious value like internet access. For example, I use the internet primarily as a source of entertainment. I don't think anyone should pay for my service as a result.
Second, I'm not rich nor have I ever been (though I have earned considerable income at times). I still need to work on occasion. Instead, I'm a hardcore saver. For example, I currently earn somewhat less than $20k per year in pre-tax wages (working about three quarters of the year). But I save a bit over half of that at present (though my savings rate was worse in previous years when I was paid less). I have no debt nor other such obligations.
Knowing how to live on a budget, save money, and obtain cheap living expenses really helps. This is also why I don't see the need for universal internet service or the like. Sure, there might be a few people whose situation is so dire that they can't afford internet. But in those cases, what should be addressed is the dire situation not the lack of internet.
For the rest of the people who don't currently get by, they need to learn financial discipline and the like rather than get internet access.
How is a USER supposed to track down a bug? They're users.
They're users because they're using the program in question. They run into the use cases that trigger the bug.
And an open bug reporting system means that users can get educated on what sort of bug reporting actually helps developers.
But because we're speaking of wealth, which incidentally has more focus in society than either of the above two things, then the outstanding members of that category must have for some reason no more aptitude for accumulating or retain wealth than the average person, who somehow can't come within a few orders of magnitude.
It's a hard problem and I find it bizarre how people can continue to claim that it doesn't require some degree of unusual aptitude to acquire that sort of wealth.
Why wouldn't you? The rich would be better at resolving conflicts of interests too. Who are we plebs to question their judgement? Oh, you think you'll have a conflict of interest with the rich? Too freaking bad, you're a lower class peasant, who are you to question their judgement? Their interest trumps yours!
So why would I? I mentioned conflict of interest and you give me a runaround. Just because one might be skilled in resolving conflicts of interest doesn't mitigate a conflict of interest. After all, they could use that skill to resolve the conflict of interest even more in their favor.
And merely having more aptitude for accumulating money doesn't as you sarcastically claim above, give someone any moral grounds to rule others or moral insight in resolving the problems of rule. My observation is not a threat to whatever ridiculous belief system you happen to have.
If Commonwealth Edison is contributing to the GDP, why isn't the Tennessee Valley Authority?
Well, one obvious reason is that the TVA may actually be destroying economic value. That incidentally wouldn't be going into GDP calculations.
A factor of three is half an order of magnitude roughly. I'd give him credit for getting within an order of magnitude.
A rational mind would say they both are part of the military
No, that isn't true. The NSA doesn't actually do military activities. And intelligence gathering has considerable application beyond that of military activities.
I note also that the War Resisters' League also discounts Social Security. Those sort of accounting gimmicks have long been discredited. That shrinks the entitlement side of their pie charts.
For example, 140 billion on Veterans
That is entitlement spending which is also inflated by the numerous poor US policies inflating health care costs.
Actual US military spending is approximately 900 to 950 billion/year.
You speak of "false statistics", but all you were able to do was come up with was at best an aditional 7% of the US budget for the US military - more than half of which is itself entitlement spending. It still remains that entitlement spending is more than double military spending by your measure.
No, his fundamental point remains. The original comparison was terrible because one would expect the US to spend less now on the military than in the Second World War precisely due to the degree of effort.
As to your yacking about a US "declared" or "authorized" war on al Qaida, what is al Qaida? At least the Taliban is a definable enemy.
Since the only computer connection for millions of Americans is the one at school, the one at work or the one at the library that puts the US in third world status as well.
You could say the same about any other country too. And it's not that hard to afford an internet connection.
We have not touched the edge of getting America up and running yet.
Interesting how adding a few economically marginal people to the internet is supposed to be such a big deal. I'd rather get rid of the nonsense that keeps US businesses from employing US workers.
Learn from countries that are not having the same growth problems.
Such as the US of the Victorian era?
-small business make up about half the economy. So that means lots of not-rich people have the skill set
To manage small businesses (or not as the case may be) not large ones. To manage relatively small amounts of assets, not hundreds of millions of dollars. But by looking at this category of people, we already see a great winnowing in the number of people who can be considered to do comparable activities to what some wealthy do.
-the richer you are, the less likely you're doing the job yourself, but hire somebody else (a not-as-rich person) to do it. That means there are not-rich people with the skill set to be hired by the rich.
So what? Observing that maintaining great wealth requires some degree of cooperation with other people doesn't mean much. Most of us cooperate with others all the time and we don't become billionaires as a result.
If you really believe are so much different than the rest of the people, then I gotta ask: how do you feel if society stops trying/pretending to be capitalist or democratic? Why not we switch to something like a caste system, where the rich elite ruling class is official recognized and entrenched as better than everybody else? Since they rich overlords have skill sets that most of us don't have, let them decide everything!
Well, why would I want that? Even if the wealthy were better at running society, we'd still have conflicts of interest.
You make completely unsupported assertions about supposed differences between the rich and the rest
So? I wasn't insisting on rigor so I'm consistent with my arguments on the matter.
then when challenged to provide any sort of evidence, you say I need to "provide supporting evidence" for asking you for evidence?
You're the one demanding that I provide more rigor without providing any of that demanded rigor yourself. That's inconsistency in your argument. So I in turn insist that you provide a rigorous reason for me to step up my game.
This is achieved not by adherence to political ideology, but rather by analyzing empirical evidence and employing the scientific method to determine the best ways in which to promote these goals.
That's a mighty fine quality of bullshit you're shoveling there. There's another name for this: ethnic homogeneity. Have a bunch of people who are fairly closely related and you end up with a bunch of common interest. So Nordic countries can pull off stuff like the Nordic system as a result.
Pick a list for sci-fi/fantasy and you will find it no lower than 5 or so all-time.
I find that surprising actually. It's not that good a book. For example, I can list a bunch that just are better and more influential: H. G. Well's "War of the Worlds", Dan Simon's "Hyperion", Henry Kuttner's "Fury", Asimov's "I Robot", Jules Verne "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea", William Gibson's "Neuromancer", George Orwell's "1984", Poul Anderson's "Boat of a Million Years", and Heinlein's "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress". That's nine right there. It just doesn't make my short list of best sci fi ever. Maybe top 100 though.
Having said that, it's definitely in the elite of science fiction both in terms of quality and actual sales.
The fallacy he employs here â" that calling out hate-speech is intolerance on par with curtailing the human rights of others â" is a favorite fallback of cowards and bullies
Except that here, Card is the one being bullied. I find such bigoted remarks as the above to be remarkably hypocritical.
If I were to liken you to "cowards and bullies" merely because of your beliefs, ethnicity, etc, would that not be hate speech as it is nebulously defined? Well, that's what just happened here. If interval1066 genuinely wishes to curb hate speech, he can start with his own.
"The problem with enforcing property rights is that its always at someone else's expense. Why should I pay for police who only stop me from taking the nice stuff my neighbor has?"
Theft inhibits my freedom more than it enables the thief. Take my car and I can no longer choose to drive somewhere - the thief could have always obtained a car by more legitimate methods and they too would have to worry about losing that car to another thief. Take my house and I lose choices that I had from owning a house. Many of these choices are fundamentally economic in nature, but the point is that ownership enables more choice and empowers the owner in a variety of ways, whether economic or otherwise.
Sure, it does apparently offer some economic security in whatever sense you mean, but that's not the primary reason for having private ownership to a libertarian.
And what else do you consider "economic security"? As I implied earlier, I consider one of the greater failures of modern civilization to be its efforts to minimize the risk of harm at the expense of everything else (including the risk of harm - policy makers are often remarkably ignorant about risk management or the implications of their policies). Attempts to create economic security for someone describe a lot of these actions.
The thing I note is that there are a number of things that can encourage economic security, but that comes as a secondary effect - such as private ownership and punishment for theft, or a decent system of accounting. Then there are actions which explicitly and primarily are intended to generate economic security such as government subsidized insurance, pensions, and corporate welfare. These tend to cause loss of freedom and structural economic problems (such as a tragedy of the commons or widespread moral hazard issues).
I take it you've heard of the false dichotomy. Tell me why you think that applies here.
They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.
There you go. He wrote it at some point prior to February 17, 1775.
It's hard to imagine a greater counter-example. TBTF means destroying the economic security of many individuals in order to prop up a few fat cats - the exact opposite of what's meant by economic security.
That's the fundamental problem with economic security. It's always at someone else's expense and the effort to avoid risk can be quite perverse in its consequences.
as it is a fucking disgrace that we allow self-harm bordering on criminal stupidity.
What's disgraceful about it? Freedom or nannying, you get to pick just one. I'd rather have freedom even if that means a lot of people will make suboptimal decisions.
I wish American libertarians could mentally grasp the fact that "liberty" is meaningless in the absence of economic security.
Ben Franklin had a famous quote about that. You don't get liberty in the presence of so-called economic security - for example, any mechanism that shields society from economic risk is possible to game and suborn to undemocratic purposes. And we have plenty of examples of this in practice such as the global phenomenon of "too big to fail".
I have and I agree. There isn't a national pension in the US. I've heard all sorts of rationalizations about Social Security, but my view is that it is an unsustainable wealth transfer from young to old.
Medicare will only lead to "national bankruptcy" if there is insufficient revenue to cover it.
Growing faster than GDP makes that inevitable. Sooner or later, whether you "tax the rich" or not, you'll still end up with insufficient revenue to cover it. So benefits will be cut. I rather they were cut now rather than a few decades down the road, when the US has managed to put itself in a very unstable economic situation.