this is one of the biggest misconceptions about how the middle class benefits. of COURSE you benefit, and in one huge way: economic stability.
the safety net for people earning less than you prevents an underclass from bottoming out the economy while providing the workforce for high-labor, low-skill work. it also prevents externalities that rise from poverty, like crime, urban decay, and other unsavory elements, from getting out of hand. these "entitlements" are meant in large part to keep the economy stable so that people don't suffer from extreme swings, and that people generally have chances to work hard and succeed.
I think a bigger misconception is the assumption that a social "safety net" contributes to some sort of stability. It can, but it can also undermine it. The obvious example is generous welfare that encourages people to not take jobs. That's not much of a problem in the US, but it is a problem in much of Europe.
But a more particular US problem associated with "safety nets" is the triumvirate of health care, education, and savings and retirement. How is economic stability helped by transferring vast amounts of wealth from productive parts of society to programs which artificially inflate the cost of education and health care? Or encouraging the creation of large pools of unaccountable funds (federally insured savings accounts, pensions, mutual funds, etc) suitable for looting by bankers, fund managers, and a herd of corporate executives?
Too many people listen to him and think, "he's right, Buffett shouldn't have a lower tax rate than his secretary" without actually looking at the situation and asking why.
It's especially interesting given that Buffet's tax burden doesn't really change either. Most of his wealth is undeclared capital gains. That remains untaxed under his proposal. Sure, some day it'll become realized capital gains which would be taxed at a somewhat elevated rate, but he doesn't need to be alive when that happens.
People with flu can spread it to others up to about 6 feet away. Most experts think that flu viruses are spread mainly by droplets made when people with flu cough, sneeze or talk. These droplets can land in the mouths or noses of people who are nearby or possibly be inhaled into the lungs. Less often, a person might also get flu by touching a surface or object that has flu virus on it and then touching their own mouth or nose.
The problem is that, you can't enforce it under the current model. Human beings are too ignorant, too irrational, too uninformed, too uninterested and too divided to do as you suggest.
Now, I don't agree, but let's suppose you're right. Then what's wrong with the current system? We have sheep and shepherds. That's pretty much what you need to keep things going.
You are not "implying" anything but instead pretending that millions agree with you and we both know it.
Well, one merely needs to read what I wrote to see what I actually asserted. For example, even the casual reader will see that I don't claim to represent anyone other than myself, much less hundreds of millions of people. One doesn't need to represent anyone in order to observe the behavior of other people. Do I really need to pass some sort of vote here in order to observe and make claims based on those observations?
Now it may be that I observe incorrectly or that I make unfounded assertions from those observations. That is what another replier has claimed. But that is a completely different sort of argument than the absurdity you're pushing here.
It's worth keeping in mind that metric is already obsolete with the advent of widespread bit-based mathematics. Most computations by a large number of orders of magnitude are in bases that are powers of two (particularly, bases of 2^8, 2^16, 2^32, and 2^64). All we have to do is switch over the entirety of humanity including its knowledge and infrastructure to this superior standard.
So why haven't we done that yet? Because it's extremely hard and costly to do so and there's not much to gain from doing so.
The dirty secret of standards is that most of the advantage from having standards comes from having a standard, any standard. The advantages of having metric over imperial is insignificant compared to the advantages of having imperial over having nothing. And the cost of switching standards requires temporarily devolving some of your knowledge and infrastructure towards that standardless state. That's a big cost though not as big as a complete rollback.
a) that the US public hasn't adopted metric of its own free will nor shown any inclination to do so
That's not evidence. That's conjecture.
What is conjecture here? That there is a US public? That its members haven't adopted metric for most purposes? That its members are able to choose to use metric? Or that the US public hasn't shown an inclination to switch to metric?
Oh, and I didn't request anything. YOU requested a serious discussion. I'm just telling you if you want one, you give one first. I'm not demanding anything from you. I'm just giving you advice.
Well, actually I'm getting a serious discussion even if it isn't quite in the form that I originally wanted. What I find is the big problem with most such suggestions as the above, is that the burden is always on me not on the other author. To use your used car salesman example, the salesman is the one making the original offer. So if I come in, why should I be expected to offer anything, be it money or whatever. Circularly, don't sell cars, if you don't want to initiate car sales.
And when I make the attempt, as I've done so far, I often get passive aggressive behavior such as semantics games or ad hominems (for example, the use of the term "pathological" when it's evident that the poster hasn't thought out the ethical implications of the behavior or incentives that they're defending).
How does US coins have anything to do with the metric system? That's a non sequitir
One needs to look at the original poster whom I replied to in the first place who used the dollar coin as a second example. His arguments boiled down to: a) it is just a matter of forcing people to do the right thing, be it adopting the metric system or using dollar coins and b) he's the one who decides what the right thing is.
My view is that overwhelming public opposition to such action is usually a sound indication that it is a bad idea. Why should one person's wishes, even if they do have a bit of merit to them, outweigh the wishes of hundreds of millions? As I see it, the point of a free society is that we allow people to choose for themselves, even if that is very suboptimal, such as becoming an alcoholic or using imperial instead of metric.
No, you are wrong because you provided no evidence that you are correct in the first place, so any half assed attempt at a rebuttal (such as the one provided the GP) will suffice
Ok, I'll point out as evidence a) that the US public hasn't adopted metric of its own free will nor shown any inclination to do so, and b) almost no one uses US dollar coins. Now that I provided the evidence you requested, can I have the serious discussion?
for a successful and perpetually unwinnable cold war.
The last cold war was winnable. We know because the US-side won it (and squandered that victory in a way that probably will be talked about for centuries). But while I pointed that out, it's not the point of a cold war. The point of a cold war is to slowly resolve conflicts without sinking into a hot, nuclear war.
Just about everyone in the US congress and senate has shown for about the past thirteen years that they think just about anything is more important than an economy. If you haven't picked that up over the blatant game playing over the "fiscal cliff" during the last few weeks you must have hitchiked on the Mars rover to be so out of touch.
So how many people is that? 535 right? That's slightly more common than 1 in a million as a portion of the overall US. So I'm supposed to be wrong about the attitudes of hundreds of millions of people, because an incredibly small group behaves peculiarly? This is a non sequitur, assertions that do not follow from the premises.
At the start of this recession, British manufacturing's output was the highest it had been in history.
And yet it's steadily declined as a fraction of GDP since the 60s. My view is that thinking about manufacture in absolute terms is not a good approach. If these were niches, then it wouldn't be a serious cause for concern. There will always be obsolescence and stronger competition elsewhere to deal with and some sectors naturally weaken and die.
But when a broad category of productive activity, here, the making of things, is in consistent decline even relatively, that indicates structural problems with the society in question, not just the vagaries of a niche market.
So you think a choice of measurement units is more important than an economy?
I addressed such false dichotomy already.
When you dismiss "economics" as a "poor but convenient excuse", that strikes me as meaning you're just ignorant of economics. Your subsequent foray into dollar coins confirms my impression.
The blatantly obvious consensus of hundreds of millions of people is that Internet Explorer is a great browser, and Windows XP remains a great operating system for 2013. That is obviously as false as your statement, because it's inertia, familiarity, and habit that keeps them going, not because they remain the best option years after their introduction.
And those people are right for the reasons you indicate. Inertia, familiarity, and habit are quite good reasons for staying with a product rather than switching to a slightly better product which has a steep learning curve and for which you'd be unproductive for an extended length of time. People don't want to be spending a good portion of their time attempting to learn the "best" web browser only to throw away that knowledge for yet another "best" web browser.
I also find that I'm on the verge of using scare quotes with many of your terms. Just because you use the word, "best", doesn't meant that it has any connection with what usually is considered "best". Similarly, your use of the terms "false", "poor", "economical", whatever.
And now they're a hollow shell of their former selves industrially. If you're going to push this argument, please come up with an example that has a positive outcome.
Economics and timing is a poor but convenient excuse, it's only been used for the last three decades to justify not doing anything.
So you think a choice of measurement units is more important than an economy?
Hell, it would've been more economical to stop printing $1 bills years ago, seeing as $1 US coins have been available for ages. But no, new $1 bills are still made, and so people continue using them.
Dig that grave deeper. It'd have been more economical to just drop the dollar coin altogether. Somehow your little opinion on such things is more important than the blatantly obvious consensus of hundreds of millions of people.
Sure, it is. NASA has a terrible track record when it comes to "finishing" orbital launch vehicles. Last one they finished in the real sense of the word was the Space Shuttle and that was thirty years ago.
It's clear you can't read the writing on the wall.
If you want to get into space, you better brush up on your Chinese and Russian.
No offense, but those guys aren't doing so well either. The Chinese are going slow and steady, and have been successful to this point. But their country's leadership has its finger on the reset button. All it takes is one sufficiently public and embarrassing or lethal accident.
The Russians haven't been going anywhere for about two decades aside from creation of several commercial space launch services.
Plus, who really thinks there will be an SLS? NASA has a remarkably bad track record for new launch vehicle development. The Shuttle was its last successful vehicle design. As I understand it, they are to some degree legally required to operate as if there will be an SLS at some point in the future, but that doesn't mean that there will be an SLS.
I agree. I will say that there is some truth to my original post. There's seems to be a lot of people giving out advice or assigning blame who should be heeding their own words.
But of course. These are elementary socialist games: privatize the gains, socialize the losses. Keep in mind my remark about "recognized elites". Who gets this bailout money? It's not just anyone!
The reality is technology is a game changer and we have social order and ideology trapped in 19th century thinking.
Well, don't be part of the problem then. I propose as part of the 21st century thinking, we cut out the "socialize the losses" aspect of the above. I propose a separation of private enterprise and state much like the one the US has for religion and state. For example, if it were illegal to direct earmarks or bailouts to favored businesses or non-profits, that would cut out a bit of any country's budget squandered for such.
It's worth noting that even with the separation of "church and state", there are still grounds for US government regulation of religious organizations, they just have to be done on a non-discriminatory manner. And while there're a few counterexamples, most activities that would be illegal for a secular organization to do, are illegal for a religion to do as well.
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this is one of the biggest misconceptions about how the middle class benefits. of COURSE you benefit, and in one huge way: economic stability.
the safety net for people earning less than you prevents an underclass from bottoming out the economy while providing the workforce for high-labor, low-skill work. it also prevents externalities that rise from poverty, like crime, urban decay, and other unsavory elements, from getting out of hand. these "entitlements" are meant in large part to keep the economy stable so that people don't suffer from extreme swings, and that people generally have chances to work hard and succeed.
I think a bigger misconception is the assumption that a social "safety net" contributes to some sort of stability. It can, but it can also undermine it. The obvious example is generous welfare that encourages people to not take jobs. That's not much of a problem in the US, but it is a problem in much of Europe.
But a more particular US problem associated with "safety nets" is the triumvirate of health care, education, and savings and retirement. How is economic stability helped by transferring vast amounts of wealth from productive parts of society to programs which artificially inflate the cost of education and health care? Or encouraging the creation of large pools of unaccountable funds (federally insured savings accounts, pensions, mutual funds, etc) suitable for looting by bankers, fund managers, and a herd of corporate executives?
Too many people listen to him and think, "he's right, Buffett shouldn't have a lower tax rate than his secretary" without actually looking at the situation and asking why.
It's especially interesting given that Buffet's tax burden doesn't really change either. Most of his wealth is undeclared capital gains. That remains untaxed under his proposal. Sure, some day it'll become realized capital gains which would be taxed at a somewhat elevated rate, but he doesn't need to be alive when that happens.
It was so much fun, he did it eight times.
People with flu can spread it to others up to about 6 feet away. Most experts think that flu viruses are spread mainly by droplets made when people with flu cough, sneeze or talk. These droplets can land in the mouths or noses of people who are nearby or possibly be inhaled into the lungs. Less often, a person might also get flu by touching a surface or object that has flu virus on it and then touching their own mouth or nose.
I find it confusing that we insist that the national mail service makes a profit.
Yes, it's pretty crazy to insist that we get more value out of an endeavor than what we put in.
The problem is that, you can't enforce it under the current model. Human beings are too ignorant, too irrational, too uninformed, too uninterested and too divided to do as you suggest.
Now, I don't agree, but let's suppose you're right. Then what's wrong with the current system? We have sheep and shepherds. That's pretty much what you need to keep things going.
You are not "implying" anything but instead pretending that millions agree with you and we both know it.
Well, one merely needs to read what I wrote to see what I actually asserted. For example, even the casual reader will see that I don't claim to represent anyone other than myself, much less hundreds of millions of people. One doesn't need to represent anyone in order to observe the behavior of other people. Do I really need to pass some sort of vote here in order to observe and make claims based on those observations?
Now it may be that I observe incorrectly or that I make unfounded assertions from those observations. That is what another replier has claimed. But that is a completely different sort of argument than the absurdity you're pushing here.
It's worth keeping in mind that metric is already obsolete with the advent of widespread bit-based mathematics. Most computations by a large number of orders of magnitude are in bases that are powers of two (particularly, bases of 2^8, 2^16, 2^32, and 2^64). All we have to do is switch over the entirety of humanity including its knowledge and infrastructure to this superior standard.
So why haven't we done that yet? Because it's extremely hard and costly to do so and there's not much to gain from doing so.
The dirty secret of standards is that most of the advantage from having standards comes from having a standard, any standard. The advantages of having metric over imperial is insignificant compared to the advantages of having imperial over having nothing. And the cost of switching standards requires temporarily devolving some of your knowledge and infrastructure towards that standardless state. That's a big cost though not as big as a complete rollback.
It's nice to know that you think you represent the American people far better than anyone they've voted for. It puts your comments into perspective.
You mean the part where I imply that several hundred million people represent themselves better than 535 people? That part?
a) that the US public hasn't adopted metric of its own free will nor shown any inclination to do so
That's not evidence. That's conjecture.
What is conjecture here? That there is a US public? That its members haven't adopted metric for most purposes? That its members are able to choose to use metric? Or that the US public hasn't shown an inclination to switch to metric?
Oh, and I didn't request anything. YOU requested a serious discussion. I'm just telling you if you want one, you give one first. I'm not demanding anything from you. I'm just giving you advice.
Well, actually I'm getting a serious discussion even if it isn't quite in the form that I originally wanted. What I find is the big problem with most such suggestions as the above, is that the burden is always on me not on the other author. To use your used car salesman example, the salesman is the one making the original offer. So if I come in, why should I be expected to offer anything, be it money or whatever. Circularly, don't sell cars, if you don't want to initiate car sales.
And when I make the attempt, as I've done so far, I often get passive aggressive behavior such as semantics games or ad hominems (for example, the use of the term "pathological" when it's evident that the poster hasn't thought out the ethical implications of the behavior or incentives that they're defending).
How does US coins have anything to do with the metric system? That's a non sequitir
One needs to look at the original poster whom I replied to in the first place who used the dollar coin as a second example. His arguments boiled down to: a) it is just a matter of forcing people to do the right thing, be it adopting the metric system or using dollar coins and b) he's the one who decides what the right thing is.
My view is that overwhelming public opposition to such action is usually a sound indication that it is a bad idea. Why should one person's wishes, even if they do have a bit of merit to them, outweigh the wishes of hundreds of millions? As I see it, the point of a free society is that we allow people to choose for themselves, even if that is very suboptimal, such as becoming an alcoholic or using imperial instead of metric.
No, you are wrong because you provided no evidence that you are correct in the first place, so any half assed attempt at a rebuttal (such as the one provided the GP) will suffice
Ok, I'll point out as evidence a) that the US public hasn't adopted metric of its own free will nor shown any inclination to do so, and b) almost no one uses US dollar coins. Now that I provided the evidence you requested, can I have the serious discussion?
for a successful and perpetually unwinnable cold war.
The last cold war was winnable. We know because the US-side won it (and squandered that victory in a way that probably will be talked about for centuries). But while I pointed that out, it's not the point of a cold war. The point of a cold war is to slowly resolve conflicts without sinking into a hot, nuclear war.
Just about everyone in the US congress and senate has shown for about the past thirteen years that they think just about anything is more important than an economy. If you haven't picked that up over the blatant game playing over the "fiscal cliff" during the last few weeks you must have hitchiked on the Mars rover to be so out of touch.
So how many people is that? 535 right? That's slightly more common than 1 in a million as a portion of the overall US. So I'm supposed to be wrong about the attitudes of hundreds of millions of people, because an incredibly small group behaves peculiarly? This is a non sequitur, assertions that do not follow from the premises.
The SAE system and dollar bills both cost more money than the alternatives.
To who? Not to the people using those systems.
. At some point, the cost of replacing both of those things will far exceed the cost of switching to a more modern system.
Well, when are we switching to a base 2 system? Because that is a more modern system than anything based on 10.
At the start of this recession, British manufacturing's output was the highest it had been in history.
And yet it's steadily declined as a fraction of GDP since the 60s. My view is that thinking about manufacture in absolute terms is not a good approach. If these were niches, then it wouldn't be a serious cause for concern. There will always be obsolescence and stronger competition elsewhere to deal with and some sectors naturally weaken and die.
But when a broad category of productive activity, here, the making of things, is in consistent decline even relatively, that indicates structural problems with the society in question, not just the vagaries of a niche market.
Yes, that's entirely down to the metric system.
Rarely is one bad decision made in isolation.
So you think a choice of measurement units is more important than an economy?
I addressed such false dichotomy already.
When you dismiss "economics" as a "poor but convenient excuse", that strikes me as meaning you're just ignorant of economics. Your subsequent foray into dollar coins confirms my impression.
The blatantly obvious consensus of hundreds of millions of people is that Internet Explorer is a great browser, and Windows XP remains a great operating system for 2013. That is obviously as false as your statement, because it's inertia, familiarity, and habit that keeps them going, not because they remain the best option years after their introduction.
And those people are right for the reasons you indicate. Inertia, familiarity, and habit are quite good reasons for staying with a product rather than switching to a slightly better product which has a steep learning curve and for which you'd be unproductive for an extended length of time. People don't want to be spending a good portion of their time attempting to learn the "best" web browser only to throw away that knowledge for yet another "best" web browser.
I also find that I'm on the verge of using scare quotes with many of your terms. Just because you use the word, "best", doesn't meant that it has any connection with what usually is considered "best". Similarly, your use of the terms "false", "poor", "economical", whatever.
And now they're a hollow shell of their former selves industrially. If you're going to push this argument, please come up with an example that has a positive outcome.
Economics and timing is a poor but convenient excuse, it's only been used for the last three decades to justify not doing anything.
So you think a choice of measurement units is more important than an economy?
Hell, it would've been more economical to stop printing $1 bills years ago, seeing as $1 US coins have been available for ages. But no, new $1 bills are still made, and so people continue using them.
Dig that grave deeper. It'd have been more economical to just drop the dollar coin altogether. Somehow your little opinion on such things is more important than the blatantly obvious consensus of hundreds of millions of people.
yes smart good so we do smart
which is being finished up
Sure, it is. NASA has a terrible track record when it comes to "finishing" orbital launch vehicles. Last one they finished in the real sense of the word was the Space Shuttle and that was thirty years ago.
It's clear you can't read the writing on the wall.
If you want to get into space, you better brush up on your Chinese and Russian.
No offense, but those guys aren't doing so well either. The Chinese are going slow and steady, and have been successful to this point. But their country's leadership has its finger on the reset button. All it takes is one sufficiently public and embarrassing or lethal accident.
The Russians haven't been going anywhere for about two decades aside from creation of several commercial space launch services.
Plus, who really thinks there will be an SLS? NASA has a remarkably bad track record for new launch vehicle development. The Shuttle was its last successful vehicle design. As I understand it, they are to some degree legally required to operate as if there will be an SLS at some point in the future, but that doesn't mean that there will be an SLS.
I agree. I will say that there is some truth to my original post. There's seems to be a lot of people giving out advice or assigning blame who should be heeding their own words.
The reality is technology is a game changer and we have social order and ideology trapped in 19th century thinking.
Well, don't be part of the problem then. I propose as part of the 21st century thinking, we cut out the "socialize the losses" aspect of the above. I propose a separation of private enterprise and state much like the one the US has for religion and state. For example, if it were illegal to direct earmarks or bailouts to favored businesses or non-profits, that would cut out a bit of any country's budget squandered for such.
It's worth noting that even with the separation of "church and state", there are still grounds for US government regulation of religious organizations, they just have to be done on a non-discriminatory manner. And while there're a few counterexamples, most activities that would be illegal for a secular organization to do, are illegal for a religion to do as well.