We could easily stand to reduce the workforce 10% and still have involuntary unemployment now.
It's hard to make that claim with the "recovery" stagnating. It's not the root cause of the stagnation, but I don't think your statement is self-evident.
How many people do we need to make three copies of the form nobody will ever read again and file them?
The ones that are corporate mandated, or the ones that are government mandated? (or as a direct response to anticipated government action) The answer varies wildly depending on why those forms are being filled in the first place.
As we reduce the need for full time work, we can begin easing on the workplace regulations and the people needed to administer them. Then we can raise the basic income a bit. lather, rinse, repeat.
This bit makes no sense. You really believe these regulations are there to protect workers? You really believe that if workers have a guaranteed minimum wage that they can* quit... let alone that they will quit? You really believe that the government will let go of regulations that are ineffective and unnecessary today if they become only slightly more-so? Even if there is a significant overhaul, you believe our economy can support the enormous expense?
*(one word: "mortgage". Supplement that with two more words: "negative savings")
I'm not saying that the idea isn't pleasant. If production continues to become easier, and easier, we should start a conversation like this at some point. We're just not close enough for people to take it seriously.
Now, let's turn it around. What is your grand plan to deal with the existing unemployment and it's likely growth in the future? We know "let them eat cake" won't cut it.
What we can do today, and what we need to do, is systematically refactor government regulations. We start from the presumption that running a business is a right, and eliminate anything that can't be rationally supported.
And I do mean systematically. A systems analysis and design team must be involved. These are difficult and complex systems, but they're also dysfunctional. We can't just wring our hands and make them better.
We need tort reform. Judges really need to be reminded of the difference between "accident" and "negligence". They have forgotten, and every little thing has become a liability. Every little lawsuit for an honest accident where a judge rewards the plaintiff (even if overturned on appeal) is something that fuels the fire, and becomes a requirement that all businesses in the jurisdiction must respond to. You can't own a business anymore without retaining a lawyer who watches for these things. It is no longer good enough to be an expert in your field. You must also be an expert in tort law.
The ADA is important, but it is a major impediment to business (and the primary reason why small companies are eliminating public rest-rooms). It needs to be kept, for obvious reasons, but it needs to be simplified, made self-consistent, unambiguous. In other words, it must become a yardstick to be measured by, and not a mine field.
Legislatures must be prevented from passing laws granting blank-check regulatory authority. Every industry that has a regulatory body with one of these blank-checks is hampered by unelected officials writing laws ("regulations") that benefit the few, and hamper everyone else. Remember, big business want a good solid minimum of government hassle. It provides a barrier-to-entry for smaller competitors.
We should have government agencies whose sole purpose is to aid business start-ups, and guide them through the other government head-aches. I know that some commerce departments and chambers-of-commerce do this, but they are rarely interested in being effective.
The elephant in the room, of course, is the fantasy of corporate person-hood. Cor
It can't be done by companies. It has to come from society- and the government.
It can't be done by government, either. Government is as integral to the problem as corporations are. In some ways, more-so.
90% of whatever solution is settled on must come from society, somehow. Government must be dragged kicking and screaming the other 10%. (Corporations will need to be hit over the head and dragged the whole way there.)
It absolutely wasn't expected. I believe that this was discussed behind closed doors with Russia, but they blocked it, or were dragging their feet. When Kerry said it on tv to Syria, very sternly, he expected to be ignored. He was trying to bag a few lose international points. Putin decided that they couldn't have that. Why let the US look good, when Russia can take the credit?
Granted. There is still a danger, though, as Russia prepares to re-approach the world stage. If it does so from the perspective of loathing -- blaming the US for their economic struggles instead of their own totalitarian arrogance, then it could lead to Cold War II or World War III.
The real threat from this angle is not Russia, but Putin specifically. He still sees things largely in Cold War terms. He thinks that the US sees Russia as a caged and chained animal. That's isn't how we see them, but he's eager to force us to change our opinion. That type of brash approach could lead back to brinkmanship.
It is how we treat Putin, personally, within his position of power that will ultimately determine how Russia makes itself felt. The US could really benefit from them as a partner and ally, but we've been doing a good deal to distance ourselves from him as an individual. That is going to cost us. I just hope the price isn't exorbitant.
So, I guessed right. "A basic income (also called basic income guarantee, unconditional basic income, universal basic income or citizen’s income)" There's a reason for the less ambiguous nomenclature.
Tell me, would you personally be satisfied to live like your image of the average welfare recipient or would you likely do something more interesting and profitable with your time? I'm guessing the latter.
What makes you think I'm average?
How about your friends? Do you keep company with lazy worthless bums?
Some are, some aren't.
[W]hat it's really about, making sure work is done for personal satisfaction and betterment, not out of desperation.
We're just not there yet. We won't be for decades. At a minimum. That's assuming we don't trash our economy before we can develop sufficient tech to pull it off.
I guarantee you 50% of the current work force will drop out of work if they could. (I'd actually estimate it closer to 95%.) Until you can tell me how you intend to deal with the effects of that unemployment, I think it's a silly notion at best. (and a dangerous one if taken seriously)
It's a win for Putin, but it's not a win for Obama... It's just the softest possible way to lose. (There is no winning move available, not after his red-line blunder.)
Its all a horrifying situation what's going on in Syria, but at this point intervention seems too little too late, and looks an awful lot like Obama is just trying to cover his ass after laying down so-called "red lines".
You noticed. Me too. The real problem is concern that if we don't step up and enforce Obama's moronic comment then other sand countries may take notice and continue developing nuclear weapons. Those form a real threat to American interests. They're not the same, but there are concerns that true resolve may be confused with now-obvious bluster.
But doubling down on idiocy is rarely the right move. There were better ways to unwind this.
I don't think what you just said made a whole lot of sense. I bet there are three times as many unstated assumptions there than statements. That makes it very difficult to follow, and impossible to evaluate.
Are you describing population wide welfare? Is this some variation on minimum wage? The statement is a bit opaque.
The problem with just cutting every citizen a check, and calling it good, is that we still have a great many essential jobs that nobody will do unless they need the money. We are a very long ways away from the degree of automation that is productively self sustaining. Most people want to be a burden on society (sad, but true). Until society can support them without being dragged down, it isn't a real option. Trying it will destroy our economy.
There's a difference between "safe jobs" and "pleasant jobs". I'd like everyone to have a pleasant job, too. We're just not there yet.
... and the last human who runs it all dies once their family becomes too inbred to reproduce.
Actually, that's not how genetics work. Inbreeding brings recessive variance to active use. Most such variance is detrimental, which is why inbreeding generally leads to physical, mental, and emotional developmental problems. In other words, we don't do it because we don't want to see our children suffer.
In the long run, though, natural selection weeds out the worst of these and the population continues, albeit with less genetic drift. (not recommending it, but it wouldn't be the end of the species, as you seem to claim)
The single biggest deterrent we have to war with China is the fact that our economies are so intertwined. If we stop trading with them, our economy collapses, but so does theirs.
Not true, actually. Prior to WW1, the intellectual elite did not believe that future war was possible. Economies were too intertwined, and the financial interests of the wealthy would prevent all future conflict.
We see how well that turned out. The single biggest deterrent to war with China is that nobody, yet, has wanted to start one. Let's hope it stays that way.
Oh, and the bit about Citizens United: All that case did was make it easier for private interests to "invest" in politicians. All that money was being spent by them anyway. They just needed to try harder to obfuscate it. It was a tricky, and sometimes difficult task. It's easier now, that's all.
The vast majority of our politicians care NOTHING about if their constitutents have jobs just as long as their corporate buddies get what they want. This was NOT true before 1980 and the era of big politics, a little less true before Citizens United, and absolutely true after Citizens United.
Unions would become temporarily unnecessary. There needs to be some mechanism to maintain those conditions. It would be nice if it was a combination of sane legislation (most isn't) and trade associates (or some other relatively benign setup). I wish I could envision a world without unions.
Make it more economically feasible to just quit and a lot of the compliance stuff can just go away. Most of it exists because people can be trapped in a job.
Uhm. No. Not at all.
It exists as an existential threat to the business. If it's not done, the government will shut the business down, or fine it into oblivion.
Yes, there's some busywork as a result of inefficient bureaucracies, both in business and government. These aren't the ones small business owners close their doors over... the ones they can't avoid by being efficient... the ones that keep small business owners from actually doing their business because they're too busy filling out paperwork. (This varies from industry to industry.)
Dig deeper into the union rules. For every arcane rule there is an equal and opposite attempt by management to exploit a loophole that necessitated the rule.
Again, you've missed the mark.
There are equal and opposites for many of the things that unions do. But you've ignored what unions fundamentally are. They're bureaucracies. Sociologically speaking, bureaucracies begin existence as task oriented social entities. Over time, they evolve into existing for the sake of continued existence, and to jockey for relevance.
Mega-unions today exist solely for their own continuing relevance. They bully their way into businesses in order to collect more dues from new "members". They don't need to be invited by anyone working in the company... they merely need to claim that they were. They rarely have a token employee that they'll trot out because they're "protecting" the non-existent worker they're using as an excuse. For the necessary paperwork, they'll include employees that they've never spoken with, or who have outright refused them. Of course the employee will deny it. "If you were scared of retaliation, you'd deny it too." They try to make sure they control the vote to unionize. They ballot stuff when they must, they throw entirely mock elections when they can.
Unions can be every bit as evil as a Wall Street investment firm, and for the same reasons.
Any time you've got a union several orders of magnitude larger (in liquid assets) than the company they're "negotiating" with, you've got a potential problem. The company is no longer in a position to negotiate, only to fight like a cornered animal, or cower. (or close their doors preemptively, to save everyone the trouble)
Now I'm not saying that the idea of unions are bad, or that all unions are evil. I'm not even saying that unions aren't necessary. I am saying that treating them like super heroes because they claim to be defending workers is ludicrous, and damaging to society. They need to be monitored and checked just like every other bureaucracy in existence.
however for-profit corporations will need to be addressed. Concentrating weath, to the extremes we allow today[, especially in for-profit corporations], is destroying society.
That's only half the problem. The other half are the Utopians.
You know, the ones that are killing businesses in their infancy because the bathroom mirrors are half an inch too high? Or require managers to spend hours a day filling out paperwork that will never be read to "ensure compliance" with various government mandates? Or require each and every business to keep a lawyer on retainer to make sure they don't trip over the inevitable arcane fine or lawsuit? Or how about the ones that wind up paying tons of money to a union, even if they had already been treating their workers well, and even if the workers don't want to unionize? (Unions often demand that worker pay drop to meet "industry standards" when this happens, by the way.)
These nimrods are true believers, though. There is no convincing them to focus on waste and abuse, because they see it absolutely everywhere they haven't caused it... and then proceed to introduce it everywhere in the name of whatever-makes-them-feel-self-righteous-today.
Remember, on the most fundamental level, economics is: people producing goods and services that other people are willing to trade for. There are a lot of very important ancillary bits, but it is production relative to desire that forms the backbone of economy.
You pointed out the greedy rich that take far more than their share off the top. These people need to be stopped. This pales in comparison, though, to the destruction of production that idealists without brains have caused, and are causing.
As I heard this week: In many things, including government, perfect is the enemy of good-enough. It is both unattainable, and will actively prevent that which is.
You didn't even try to understand the summary, did you?
He wasn't arguing about the text of the fifth amendment, he was arguing about the rationale behind it. Your statement is a lot like answering any math question with: 1=1. It's non-sequester, a circular argument, and ultimately irrelevant to the question being asked. It merely takes the same form.
We all understand what the constitution says. He was questioning why it says so.
Conservatism is against freedom, is a hazard to our nation, and currently is so vile that it approaches treason. We have a severely under educated public that is frightened and due to those fears is willing to betray our Constitution.
If you can't figure out how liberalism is against freedom, is a hazard to our nation, and is currently approaching treason, then your critical thinking skills are way out of kilter.
Abuse of power based on any ideology it wrong. Implicitly excusing one side because of the sins of the other is vile. Get your head on straight.
This is an interesting argument, though it doesn't help the prosecution.
To poke it a bit, if you compelled someone to testify on behalf of the defense, you risk offending them and eliciting hostile (perjurious) testimony. Is it simply a risk that you take, or would you mitigate that somehow? It doesn't generally help a defense case to threaten a defense witness with perjury charges.
Slashdot Mirror
It's hard to make that claim with the "recovery" stagnating. It's not the root cause of the stagnation, but I don't think your statement is self-evident.
The ones that are corporate mandated, or the ones that are government mandated? (or as a direct response to anticipated government action) The answer varies wildly depending on why those forms are being filled in the first place.
This bit makes no sense. You really believe these regulations are there to protect workers? You really believe that if workers have a guaranteed minimum wage that they can* quit... let alone that they will quit? You really believe that the government will let go of regulations that are ineffective and unnecessary today if they become only slightly more-so? Even if there is a significant overhaul, you believe our economy can support the enormous expense?
*(one word: "mortgage". Supplement that with two more words: "negative savings")
I'm not saying that the idea isn't pleasant. If production continues to become easier, and easier, we should start a conversation like this at some point. We're just not close enough for people to take it seriously.
What we can do today, and what we need to do, is systematically refactor government regulations. We start from the presumption that running a business is a right, and eliminate anything that can't be rationally supported.
And I do mean systematically. A systems analysis and design team must be involved. These are difficult and complex systems, but they're also dysfunctional. We can't just wring our hands and make them better.
We need tort reform. Judges really need to be reminded of the difference between "accident" and "negligence". They have forgotten, and every little thing has become a liability. Every little lawsuit for an honest accident where a judge rewards the plaintiff (even if overturned on appeal) is something that fuels the fire, and becomes a requirement that all businesses in the jurisdiction must respond to. You can't own a business anymore without retaining a lawyer who watches for these things. It is no longer good enough to be an expert in your field. You must also be an expert in tort law.
The ADA is important, but it is a major impediment to business (and the primary reason why small companies are eliminating public rest-rooms). It needs to be kept, for obvious reasons, but it needs to be simplified, made self-consistent, unambiguous. In other words, it must become a yardstick to be measured by, and not a mine field.
Legislatures must be prevented from passing laws granting blank-check regulatory authority. Every industry that has a regulatory body with one of these blank-checks is hampered by unelected officials writing laws ("regulations") that benefit the few, and hamper everyone else. Remember, big business want a good solid minimum of government hassle. It provides a barrier-to-entry for smaller competitors.
We should have government agencies whose sole purpose is to aid business start-ups, and guide them through the other government head-aches. I know that some commerce departments and chambers-of-commerce do this, but they are rarely interested in being effective.
The elephant in the room, of course, is the fantasy of corporate person-hood. Cor
It can't be done by government, either. Government is as integral to the problem as corporations are. In some ways, more-so.
90% of whatever solution is settled on must come from society, somehow. Government must be dragged kicking and screaming the other 10%. (Corporations will need to be hit over the head and dragged the whole way there.)
It absolutely wasn't expected. I believe that this was discussed behind closed doors with Russia, but they blocked it, or were dragging their feet. When Kerry said it on tv to Syria, very sternly, he expected to be ignored. He was trying to bag a few lose international points. Putin decided that they couldn't have that. Why let the US look good, when Russia can take the credit?
Well, at least not to anyone crazy enough to use them... Yet.
I hadn't considered that. I knew they were acting on their own interests. This makes sense.
Granted. There is still a danger, though, as Russia prepares to re-approach the world stage. If it does so from the perspective of loathing -- blaming the US for their economic struggles instead of their own totalitarian arrogance, then it could lead to Cold War II or World War III.
The real threat from this angle is not Russia, but Putin specifically. He still sees things largely in Cold War terms. He thinks that the US sees Russia as a caged and chained animal. That's isn't how we see them, but he's eager to force us to change our opinion. That type of brash approach could lead back to brinkmanship.
It is how we treat Putin, personally, within his position of power that will ultimately determine how Russia makes itself felt. The US could really benefit from them as a partner and ally, but we've been doing a good deal to distance ourselves from him as an individual. That is going to cost us. I just hope the price isn't exorbitant.
So, I guessed right. "A basic income (also called basic income guarantee, unconditional basic income, universal basic income or citizen’s income)" There's a reason for the less ambiguous nomenclature.
What makes you think I'm average?
Some are, some aren't.
We're just not there yet. We won't be for decades. At a minimum. That's assuming we don't trash our economy before we can develop sufficient tech to pull it off.
I guarantee you 50% of the current work force will drop out of work if they could. (I'd actually estimate it closer to 95%.) Until you can tell me how you intend to deal with the effects of that unemployment, I think it's a silly notion at best. (and a dangerous one if taken seriously)
It's a win for Putin, but it's not a win for Obama... It's just the softest possible way to lose. (There is no winning move available, not after his red-line blunder.)
You noticed. Me too. The real problem is concern that if we don't step up and enforce Obama's moronic comment then other sand countries may take notice and continue developing nuclear weapons. Those form a real threat to American interests. They're not the same, but there are concerns that true resolve may be confused with now-obvious bluster.
But doubling down on idiocy is rarely the right move. There were better ways to unwind this.
I don't think what you just said made a whole lot of sense. I bet there are three times as many unstated assumptions there than statements. That makes it very difficult to follow, and impossible to evaluate.
Please define: basic income.
Are you describing population wide welfare? Is this some variation on minimum wage? The statement is a bit opaque.
The problem with just cutting every citizen a check, and calling it good, is that we still have a great many essential jobs that nobody will do unless they need the money. We are a very long ways away from the degree of automation that is productively self sustaining. Most people want to be a burden on society (sad, but true). Until society can support them without being dragged down, it isn't a real option. Trying it will destroy our economy.
There's a difference between "safe jobs" and "pleasant jobs". I'd like everyone to have a pleasant job, too. We're just not there yet.
... and the last human who runs it all dies once their family becomes too inbred to reproduce.
Actually, that's not how genetics work. Inbreeding brings recessive variance to active use. Most such variance is detrimental, which is why inbreeding generally leads to physical, mental, and emotional developmental problems. In other words, we don't do it because we don't want to see our children suffer.
In the long run, though, natural selection weeds out the worst of these and the population continues, albeit with less genetic drift. (not recommending it, but it wouldn't be the end of the species, as you seem to claim)
Writing and interpreting law are principally activities of philosophy. It will be a very long time before AI gets to that point.
Oh, we are. We're just trying to do it slowly to prevent the public from noticing.
US M1 money supply.
(If someone has a similar chart for M0, or MB, please link.)
Not true, actually. Prior to WW1, the intellectual elite did not believe that future war was possible. Economies were too intertwined, and the financial interests of the wealthy would prevent all future conflict.
We see how well that turned out. The single biggest deterrent to war with China is that nobody, yet, has wanted to start one. Let's hope it stays that way.
Most teachers could be replaced by something like Kahn Academy. Ergo, most teachers are _____ ______ __________.
Oh, and the bit about Citizens United: All that case did was make it easier for private interests to "invest" in politicians. All that money was being spent by them anyway. They just needed to try harder to obfuscate it. It was a tricky, and sometimes difficult task. It's easier now, that's all.
Emphasis added:
The vast majority of our politicians care NOTHING about if their constitutents have jobs just as long as their corporate buddies get what they want. This was NOT true before 1980 and the era of big politics, a little less true before Citizens United, and absolutely true after Citizens United.
You're deluding yourself here. Just saying.
Unions would become temporarily unnecessary. There needs to be some mechanism to maintain those conditions. It would be nice if it was a combination of sane legislation (most isn't) and trade associates (or some other relatively benign setup). I wish I could envision a world without unions.
Make it more economically feasible to just quit and a lot of the compliance stuff can just go away. Most of it exists because people can be trapped in a job.
Uhm. No. Not at all.
It exists as an existential threat to the business. If it's not done, the government will shut the business down, or fine it into oblivion.
Yes, there's some busywork as a result of inefficient bureaucracies, both in business and government. These aren't the ones small business owners close their doors over... the ones they can't avoid by being efficient... the ones that keep small business owners from actually doing their business because they're too busy filling out paperwork. (This varies from industry to industry.)
Dig deeper into the union rules. For every arcane rule there is an equal and opposite attempt by management to exploit a loophole that necessitated the rule.
Again, you've missed the mark.
There are equal and opposites for many of the things that unions do. But you've ignored what unions fundamentally are. They're bureaucracies. Sociologically speaking, bureaucracies begin existence as task oriented social entities. Over time, they evolve into existing for the sake of continued existence, and to jockey for relevance.
Mega-unions today exist solely for their own continuing relevance. They bully their way into businesses in order to collect more dues from new "members". They don't need to be invited by anyone working in the company... they merely need to claim that they were. They rarely have a token employee that they'll trot out because they're "protecting" the non-existent worker they're using as an excuse. For the necessary paperwork, they'll include employees that they've never spoken with, or who have outright refused them. Of course the employee will deny it. "If you were scared of retaliation, you'd deny it too." They try to make sure they control the vote to unionize. They ballot stuff when they must, they throw entirely mock elections when they can.
Unions can be every bit as evil as a Wall Street investment firm, and for the same reasons.
Any time you've got a union several orders of magnitude larger (in liquid assets) than the company they're "negotiating" with, you've got a potential problem. The company is no longer in a position to negotiate, only to fight like a cornered animal, or cower. (or close their doors preemptively, to save everyone the trouble)
Now I'm not saying that the idea of unions are bad, or that all unions are evil. I'm not even saying that unions aren't necessary. I am saying that treating them like super heroes because they claim to be defending workers is ludicrous, and damaging to society. They need to be monitored and checked just like every other bureaucracy in existence.
FTFY
(And I'm a conservative.)
That's only half the problem. The other half are the Utopians.
You know, the ones that are killing businesses in their infancy because the bathroom mirrors are half an inch too high? Or require managers to spend hours a day filling out paperwork that will never be read to "ensure compliance" with various government mandates? Or require each and every business to keep a lawyer on retainer to make sure they don't trip over the inevitable arcane fine or lawsuit? Or how about the ones that wind up paying tons of money to a union, even if they had already been treating their workers well, and even if the workers don't want to unionize? (Unions often demand that worker pay drop to meet "industry standards" when this happens, by the way.)
These nimrods are true believers, though. There is no convincing them to focus on waste and abuse, because they see it absolutely everywhere they haven't caused it... and then proceed to introduce it everywhere in the name of whatever-makes-them-feel-self-righteous-today.
Remember, on the most fundamental level, economics is: people producing goods and services that other people are willing to trade for. There are a lot of very important ancillary bits, but it is production relative to desire that forms the backbone of economy.
You pointed out the greedy rich that take far more than their share off the top. These people need to be stopped. This pales in comparison, though, to the destruction of production that idealists without brains have caused, and are causing.
As I heard this week: In many things, including government, perfect is the enemy of good-enough. It is both unattainable, and will actively prevent that which is.
You didn't even try to understand the summary, did you?
He wasn't arguing about the text of the fifth amendment, he was arguing about the rationale behind it. Your statement is a lot like answering any math question with: 1=1. It's non-sequester, a circular argument, and ultimately irrelevant to the question being asked. It merely takes the same form.
We all understand what the constitution says. He was questioning why it says so.
Conservatism is against freedom, is a hazard to our nation, and currently is so vile that it approaches treason. We have a severely under educated public that is frightened and due to those fears is willing to betray our Constitution.
If you can't figure out how liberalism is against freedom, is a hazard to our nation, and is currently approaching treason, then your critical thinking skills are way out of kilter.
Abuse of power based on any ideology it wrong. Implicitly excusing one side because of the sins of the other is vile. Get your head on straight.
This is an interesting argument, though it doesn't help the prosecution.
To poke it a bit, if you compelled someone to testify on behalf of the defense, you risk offending them and eliciting hostile (perjurious) testimony. Is it simply a risk that you take, or would you mitigate that somehow? It doesn't generally help a defense case to threaten a defense witness with perjury charges.