Most of the "wealth" of the rich isn't in per year earnings like income or dividends, it is simply in held stock assets.
If you lower the price of Microsoft stock, for instance, Bill Gates deflates by billions of dollars.
Stock isn't income, it is an asset that has variable value.
Does Bill Gates have income? Absolutely. He certainly has diversified and probably has some safer investments in some bonds and such which provide millions for living expenses per year that is more like a salary or annuity, but he doesn't make billions per year like a salary. He could end up with a windfall due to a stock price rise, but he could just as easily lose money as well.
The problem that people run into when they estimate what they can extract from the 1% is that they are also counting assets, and once assets are removed, they aren't regenerated. So if Bill Gates has 90 Billion Dollars as a worth, and you remove 89 Billion of it, he's not going to have 90 billion again next year. He might not even have 2 billion next year. To charge him 89 billion, he had to sell most, if not all of his Microsoft stock, most likely at a price below what it is worth because he's probably going to have to dump a lot of it on the market for a considerable amount of time.
The reason we even consider that stock "wealth" as real wealth is because the rich can use it as for collateral for loans. Otherwise, it's like a lottery win... worth a certain amount unless you try and take it as a lump sum.
I actually estimate you get one trillion dollars out of the 1% of the US population and then it drastically reduces from then on. The 1% will continue to make 1% salaries and dividends if they have CEO jobs and all of that, but that will be a considerably smaller portion of the pie than they had the previous year.
And the problem with letting them keep it all is that sooner or later we're going to run out of everyone else's money.
You can't have a 1% without other people having money.
Most of the wealth of the rich is in things like stock, which has a variable value and isn't actually durable goods. Without the stock price being maintained at a certain level, they deflate like a dry rotted tire.
You can't have the rich in the current economy without people who buy things. There is no economy if there are only robots making things that no one else can pay for. If that is the case, they sit in the warehouse and become a net expense.
This doesn't have to even be about Hillary's personal corruption, really.
Any battle to try and stem the tide of H1-B has an uphill battle with the software and IT industry.
In some cases, H1-Bs are actually needed, although those individuals are actually paid identically to US citizens and don't really represent an issue.
But in other cases, they're abused to make large amounts of money in making citizens redundant. That is not something that business is just going to let anyone in office take away from them unless they have no way to stop it. They might first go to Hillary, but really all they need are some Congressmen on the right committees in their pocket and reform is as dead as a door nail. Those Congresspeople will be a mix of Republicans and Democrats from the right districts and be amusingly non-partisan.
Maybe, but battery development is not one of the most dynamic fields out there. Most of the low hanging fruits aren't just there for the taking if you spend enough time on it. There's only so much you can do with the battery tech we have now, and new battery tech research is not really showing anything particularly revolutionary.
So, yeah, I believe they could make *enough* batteries by 2025 for general adoption. I just don't think those batteries will necessarily be able to support 400-800 miles. So you're going to continue to need at least hybrids for long distance travel.
Mind you, the threat to them personally might be more dire. They have to show that their company is not only making revenue, but that it is making revenue *growth*. Otherwise their stock price suffers and they lose their jobs.
So, it is fair to say that unless they can extract as much as possible from people, they are personally at risk of not making year over year growth.
And my answer to that is quite simply that it is too damn bad. Culture is better when it isn't an industry that has to make volume to exist.
They also don't want to hear it because the idea that you "can't market everything" gives them power to decide what actually gets seen by only using their marketing resources to promote what they think is the most profitable or which they most agree with.
They aren't just losing money, they're losing the power to control their environment. And that may be more scary to them than simple lost revenue. Even these fools would eventually be able to figure out how to use new technologies, and they would have made just as much money if they maintain their stranglehold on power. If that hold on power disappears, they lose their market niche entirely and become structurally redundant, not just less profitable.
Correct. You are not seeing danger to "culture" from the VHS tape or the MP3 or the scanned book. I mean the recording industry has not dried up and blown away like a dead leaf.
This isn't going to end culture, what it is going to end is *their business model*.
And I agree that a business model to support artists and writers is important, but as long as those items have intrinsic value to humans, humanity will see that they continue to exist. What doesn't have to exist is the specific method that the middlemen use to extract value.
In the times you speak of, we had a strongly progressive tax, strong public works, and implemented the minimum wage. One difference was that nearly half of the current workforce was excluded by social norm, driving wages up.
You're both right. That's my original point. We have no real basis for making statements because we're always cherry picking what was going on when those things happened.
In the late 40s to the 50s, we had both an excellent economic situation, and we had high regulation. Which caused which? Or where they only loosely dependent variables?
Ultimately, we were the beneficiaries of a situation where the rest of the world eliminated itself as competition for the US. That's a pretty strong position, but it was going to be a temporary position as the world rebuilt. In 1950, when we could afford to pay people large sums for unskilled labor, and when the millionaires made enough so that they didn't care about 95% income tax, it could certainly be possible for all things to be in harmony. Today? Maybe... maybe not.
My point is not that regulation doesn't work, or that the market is the only right answer. It was merely my assertion that we have no idea how anarchy would work because we've never actually seen it or even really modeled it realistically. We only think we know what would arise in such a system based on certain assumptions. And many times we make assertions based on what we thought it would look like by looking at the past, but even the past does not necessarily work the way we think it did because we have an incomplete or simplistic picture.
In many objective senses, we're better off than any 1950's worker was, but in other ways we're objectively definitely not better off. In some sense, I don't think we have the same idea of "success" or even happiness. Some people accept discomfort for themselves and others if it gives the hope of advancement. They do not believe that a completely equitable society is in humanity's best interests if other things must fall to the wayside. Some people care less for ambitions in that regard and more for a more "equitable" society, even if we must force it somewhat. If you look at what people believe, you start seeing why matters like this are viewed in completely different ways.
But I have a hard time as a white guy telling a hispanic who is legitimately offended by a borderline racist remark that the remark is not racist.
Any way you cut it, this guy is a gaping asshole, and has no business being sworn in as President. It's a job for a serious person.
First off, I agree. He's a gaping asshole who should not be elected. I also don't believe he will be. So there's that.
However, if racism is a real thing that really happens, and can therefore be combated, it absolutely must be objective enough that an old white, Anglo-Saxon Protestant male should be able to identify it for what it is or what it is not. Otherwise, racism is a subjective, slippery term which is useless except for marking someone you in particular don't like.
Mind you, it is possible to be *wrong* about how you characterize a situation. You can be wrong about if something is or is not racist, but you can't simply be wrong because you're white. That's actually smacks of... racism.
It just seems to me that white people have two reasons that we won't comment: discomfort or denial. Those of us who feel uncomfortable with someone turning around and pointing to so-called white privilege tend to just sort of duck the issue by excluding ourselves. And there are those of us who completely deny the existence of racism in our midst. Both are wrong. We should be able to say, "this is racism, and this is not" and just as importantly be able to say, "white people can act in racist ways, but so can everyone else, and it is important that a white person be allowed to have an opinion on what constitutes racism or we have no way to assess ourselves or insist on objectivity in others."
So, if a Hispanic person was to get angry with you for disagreeing with the opinion that a Trump comment is or is not racist, do listen to their viewpoint from their position as the targeted ethnic group, but do not throw away the discussion of an objective standard simply because it makes you uncomfortable. If we don't come to a solid definition that can be applied to blacks, whites, or Asians equally then "racism" is a useless term.
Actually his behavior with Kelly is interesting. While it does have a creepy tone to it, he is working hard to beat the media at their own game. Taking on Kelly is giving him a media target to savage while at the same time, probably has many media people thinking that she never represented them, so they can report the hell out of the attacks on one of their own and not feel guilty.
Trump needs the media, but is trying to show he owns them, not the other way around. That's why he picked one of them to attack and keep attacking, while at the same time, he's remaining someone who gets useful coverage. I doubt that Fox News anchors are high on the media totem pole among their peers, but to everyone else, she's part of the media as much as anyone. In doing this, he's probably ruffled *fewer* feathers than if he took on some one else.
People work for Amazon, and those people get other jobs. Surely you don't think they can lock up all those ideas in a vault like the Coca-Cola recipe, do you?
And I don't mean highlights. Yes, you can't just walk out of Amazon from your job as Chief of Logistics or whatever and create a new company or even non-profit from it on the next day, but you can't erase people's minds and experience (yet). It's not corporate espionage to know the things that were your legitimate job at Amazon. Someday, your NDAs and severance agreements will expire and you can spread it around.
Bear in mind, we're talking about how Amazon contributes to productivity. That doesn't mean we're saying they are contributing all of it directly *right now*, but over the years and decades, that is going to get out. Information always does. So even if their process is closely held at the moment, it will still move forward productivity in the future as they develop their methods.
In what way does a high frequency trader on the Street not make use of mathematics or technology? (I left out "engineering" in the event you're one of those people who don't consider software to be "engineering").
Someone who goes into STEM is *exactly* who the Street is looking for. You just don't care for the application.
It's going to be hard to assess your situation with few facts other than before and after price, so I'll only ask the following questions.
Did that $180 policy exist previous to the ACA?
Did that $180 policy cost less or more before the ACA?
It seems like your HR department buckled down and did a lot of work. However, do we know they couldn't have found a better policy before the ACA by your HR department being sufficiently motivated to find one that was cheaper in the past?
The point is, I doubt that it is impossible to find a policy today that is cheaper than what you used to pay. The question is whether you always had the choice to have a better plan via your employer, if they had done the necessary work to find the best deal. There are a lot of companies out there trying to find the best deal they can, but I've personally worked two jobs since ACA and all of them have either been more expensive, or had less coverage, or both.
I'm not necessarily saying I am against all provisions of the ACA such as the prohibition of restrictions due to pre-existing conditions, but those changes did add considerable liability to the insurers. I mean, if someone walks in the door with an existing ailment, they're going to be paying for treatment from Day 1. That may be a good thing, but it is not free. My experience is that for middle class people I know, it has been nothing but added expense.
It does not fly in the face of reason. Although perhaps it does fly in the face of conventional wisdom today which is why you think it is absurd.
Question: We have government today, and have had such for 227 years (starting at the Constitution). Have wages *ever* been equal? In that entire time?
So why do you believe that it is so impossible that the action of government is responsible for such?
I can't say what you personally believe, but a lot of people have this conception of less government creating things like monopolies and big business which we needed regulation to stop.
Bullshit. You know how railroads and steel companies and oil companies became so powerful? Government grants, government action, government regulations. Government lands and right of ways were handed out to railroads. Government mineral rights were handed out via government corruption to companies with no bidding (Teapot Dome scandal). Governments colluded in running the Indians off lands that got in the way of development (despite treaties signed to the contrary). Party political machines took payments to directly affect policy and people used to line up at the doors for political appointments.
Sure you point to my statement about a completely unknown force stabilizing wages and call that bunk, because on the face of it, it seems like an easy statement to make. But the point I am trying to make is that the conventional wisdom about more regulation == equal wages is that it has similarly never actually been seen. That assertion is just as vague and hopeful as any statement I could make about some mystery force that equalizes wages due to the market. We just assume that if the government is big enough and strong enough and led by the right person making the right laws, that wages will equalize and the market can never compete. That is just as untested an assertion as my admittedly vague statement.
I'm surprised then. Because I hear stuff like that every day.
Let's take everyone's favorite ACA. I know a guy who owns a small business who has brittle bone disease (I forget the real name). He operates a garage where he works on cars. With the ACA, the plans he can now get as an small business owner due to the new regulations are too expensive for him. And with the tax on not having a plan, there's no way out. Admittedly, there's no way he'd go without a plan, but he has only one option. Pay more.
Actually though, he has two options. He also have the option to shut down his business and drop his income below the poverty line. Now he's still unable to afford insurance, but now that he's impoverished, he can get a grant for it from the government.
Yeah, the ACA is a huge insurance company grab, but it was only possible by government regulation. The government regulation also rewards lower productivity. I'm not saying that this person's case is not an edge case, but his case is special in that he is an owner-proprietor in a business where he used to be able to be independent. By all accounts, he was not rich, but basically as close to a free man as you get in this society. Now, the government is more than willing to help him, just as long as he is poor enough and dependent enough on it.
Unlike a lot of people of my mindset, I don't believe this is a plot by "big government" to take away our freedom. I just believe it is the result of people who think they're helping when they aren't. They're the political helicopter "parents" who want to constantly watch over everyone and make them "safer" and "more equal". And its hard to argue with someone who wants to make you more "equal" and "safer", but sometimes, being safe is the last thing we need, as either individuals or as a country. Sometimes you need to let someone have the ability to go out on their own and beat down the barriers themselves. That is how you build a country that is productive and able to be proud of its achievements.
I think this is important. The Internet does not mean growth only for the USA. It means world growth.
We need to continue to work at being more productive and competitive, but at the same time, we should realize that as we invent capabilities that bring the world closer, more people in other countries will also take advantage of that.
I don't see a problem with that. I don't want to fall into poverty, but I don't see a decrease in the *difference* of our standards of living to be a bad thing. As long as we all keep moving forward and not going backward, I am happy that China or India can work to catch up. I see no reason they should remain poor.
While I worry sometimes about whether a country like China with growing power may have a government that misuses it in the name of nationalism, the fact that the Chinese might have a better life pleases me. I think we will never have the ability to have the peace that people want without equal economic opportunity and oddly enough, I think that global capitalism, for all its problems, might have brought us closer to world peace than we have ever been precisely because we are removing those false barriers to entry that keep poor countries poor and rich countries rich.
Again, I don't believe for a second that capitalism is some sort of benevolent force for good. What I do believe is that it is the ultimate neutral force for actual global economic equality there is, as long as we maintain free trade. Someday, they're going to run out of cheap labor. Yes, there may still be "cheaper" labor, but I think eventually the people on the lowest rungs will be much better off than those who used to be on those lowest rungs in past days.
While I understand that change is necessary, I am wondering why we need to completely re-organize those things that actually got us to this point to begin with?
Wealth concentration can be an issue, but this is far from the first period in history when that has been an issue.
Religions and more rigid social hierarchies certainly existed in periods of explosive growth, like the Industrial Revolution.
I actually see many, if not most of the changes you're referring to as a *result* of extra productivity, not a cause.
For instance, the French Revolution came about because of an empowered Third Estate. That bourgeois class had existed for decades, centuries even. It grew slowly as technology and communications made it possible for there to be an empowered middle class. That class was who eventually called for those right and changes. So, I think you're putting the cart before the horse. More freedom or being more "progressive" doesn't make us more productive. Being more productive makes us more free and able to accept change because we have the liberty to do so.
Reducing costs does not imply that innovation is stopped.
Yes, you can under-fund innovation. However, you can easily over-spend on "innovation" as well.
Ultimately, humanity gets little out of your innovation if it cannot be applied. Unless of course, you just want seven billion people to gaze in awe of your theoretical paper on Loop Quantum Gravity and leave it at that.
Coke may have worked, but heroin and opium use tended to eventually led people to what is known as an Opium Den. Don't for a second think that was a contributor to productivity outside of actual medical usage for acute pain.
Your ability to spell, such as it is, helps you every day that you don't look like an illiterate retard. You may not see it as a line item on your check, but it is a small, but important piece in your ability to maintain any success you have had.
Yes, some people are so skilled or otherwise connected that it is overlooked for them, but there are a lot of people in the world who wonder why they can't be successful and consider it some sort of conspiracy against then. In reality, they don't make the effort to do those little things which will show that they care about what they do, nor do they understand the value in being understood and seen as careful.
Again, it's not a big thing, but small things add up.
Slashdot Mirror
Most of the "wealth" of the rich isn't in per year earnings like income or dividends, it is simply in held stock assets.
If you lower the price of Microsoft stock, for instance, Bill Gates deflates by billions of dollars.
Stock isn't income, it is an asset that has variable value.
Does Bill Gates have income? Absolutely. He certainly has diversified and probably has some safer investments in some bonds and such which provide millions for living expenses per year that is more like a salary or annuity, but he doesn't make billions per year like a salary. He could end up with a windfall due to a stock price rise, but he could just as easily lose money as well.
The problem that people run into when they estimate what they can extract from the 1% is that they are also counting assets, and once assets are removed, they aren't regenerated. So if Bill Gates has 90 Billion Dollars as a worth, and you remove 89 Billion of it, he's not going to have 90 billion again next year. He might not even have 2 billion next year. To charge him 89 billion, he had to sell most, if not all of his Microsoft stock, most likely at a price below what it is worth because he's probably going to have to dump a lot of it on the market for a considerable amount of time.
The reason we even consider that stock "wealth" as real wealth is because the rich can use it as for collateral for loans. Otherwise, it's like a lottery win... worth a certain amount unless you try and take it as a lump sum.
I actually estimate you get one trillion dollars out of the 1% of the US population and then it drastically reduces from then on. The 1% will continue to make 1% salaries and dividends if they have CEO jobs and all of that, but that will be a considerably smaller portion of the pie than they had the previous year.
And the problem with letting them keep it all is that sooner or later we're going to run out of everyone else's money.
You can't have a 1% without other people having money.
Most of the wealth of the rich is in things like stock, which has a variable value and isn't actually durable goods. Without the stock price being maintained at a certain level, they deflate like a dry rotted tire.
You can't have the rich in the current economy without people who buy things. There is no economy if there are only robots making things that no one else can pay for. If that is the case, they sit in the warehouse and become a net expense.
Although they have a significantly smaller area, making the amount of area that they need to subsidize smaller.
That said, the Finns do have excellent service and they would be rightly proud of it.
This doesn't have to even be about Hillary's personal corruption, really.
Any battle to try and stem the tide of H1-B has an uphill battle with the software and IT industry.
In some cases, H1-Bs are actually needed, although those individuals are actually paid identically to US citizens and don't really represent an issue.
But in other cases, they're abused to make large amounts of money in making citizens redundant. That is not something that business is just going to let anyone in office take away from them unless they have no way to stop it. They might first go to Hillary, but really all they need are some Congressmen on the right committees in their pocket and reform is as dead as a door nail. Those Congresspeople will be a mix of Republicans and Democrats from the right districts and be amusingly non-partisan.
Maybe, but battery development is not one of the most dynamic fields out there. Most of the low hanging fruits aren't just there for the taking if you spend enough time on it. There's only so much you can do with the battery tech we have now, and new battery tech research is not really showing anything particularly revolutionary.
So, yeah, I believe they could make *enough* batteries by 2025 for general adoption. I just don't think those batteries will necessarily be able to support 400-800 miles. So you're going to continue to need at least hybrids for long distance travel.
Is that a problem for the Netherlands? Maybe not.
Wait... you don't know who Rush are?
Were you born on Earth?
Yes, they are full of shit. T
Mind you, the threat to them personally might be more dire. They have to show that their company is not only making revenue, but that it is making revenue *growth*. Otherwise their stock price suffers and they lose their jobs.
So, it is fair to say that unless they can extract as much as possible from people, they are personally at risk of not making year over year growth.
And my answer to that is quite simply that it is too damn bad. Culture is better when it isn't an industry that has to make volume to exist.
They also don't want to hear it because the idea that you "can't market everything" gives them power to decide what actually gets seen by only using their marketing resources to promote what they think is the most profitable or which they most agree with.
They aren't just losing money, they're losing the power to control their environment. And that may be more scary to them than simple lost revenue. Even these fools would eventually be able to figure out how to use new technologies, and they would have made just as much money if they maintain their stranglehold on power. If that hold on power disappears, they lose their market niche entirely and become structurally redundant, not just less profitable.
Correct. You are not seeing danger to "culture" from the VHS tape or the MP3 or the scanned book. I mean the recording industry has not dried up and blown away like a dead leaf.
This isn't going to end culture, what it is going to end is *their business model*.
And I agree that a business model to support artists and writers is important, but as long as those items have intrinsic value to humans, humanity will see that they continue to exist. What doesn't have to exist is the specific method that the middlemen use to extract value.
In the times you speak of, we had a strongly progressive tax, strong public works, and implemented the minimum wage. One difference was that nearly half of the current workforce was excluded by social norm, driving wages up.
You're both right. That's my original point. We have no real basis for making statements because we're always cherry picking what was going on when those things happened.
In the late 40s to the 50s, we had both an excellent economic situation, and we had high regulation. Which caused which? Or where they only loosely dependent variables?
Ultimately, we were the beneficiaries of a situation where the rest of the world eliminated itself as competition for the US. That's a pretty strong position, but it was going to be a temporary position as the world rebuilt. In 1950, when we could afford to pay people large sums for unskilled labor, and when the millionaires made enough so that they didn't care about 95% income tax, it could certainly be possible for all things to be in harmony. Today? Maybe... maybe not.
My point is not that regulation doesn't work, or that the market is the only right answer. It was merely my assertion that we have no idea how anarchy would work because we've never actually seen it or even really modeled it realistically. We only think we know what would arise in such a system based on certain assumptions. And many times we make assertions based on what we thought it would look like by looking at the past, but even the past does not necessarily work the way we think it did because we have an incomplete or simplistic picture.
In many objective senses, we're better off than any 1950's worker was, but in other ways we're objectively definitely not better off. In some sense, I don't think we have the same idea of "success" or even happiness. Some people accept discomfort for themselves and others if it gives the hope of advancement. They do not believe that a completely equitable society is in humanity's best interests if other things must fall to the wayside. Some people care less for ambitions in that regard and more for a more "equitable" society, even if we must force it somewhat. If you look at what people believe, you start seeing why matters like this are viewed in completely different ways.
But I have a hard time as a white guy telling a hispanic who is legitimately offended by a borderline racist remark that the remark is not racist.
Any way you cut it, this guy is a gaping asshole, and has no business being sworn in as President. It's a job for a serious person.
First off, I agree. He's a gaping asshole who should not be elected. I also don't believe he will be. So there's that.
However, if racism is a real thing that really happens, and can therefore be combated, it absolutely must be objective enough that an old white, Anglo-Saxon Protestant male should be able to identify it for what it is or what it is not. Otherwise, racism is a subjective, slippery term which is useless except for marking someone you in particular don't like.
Mind you, it is possible to be *wrong* about how you characterize a situation. You can be wrong about if something is or is not racist, but you can't simply be wrong because you're white. That's actually smacks of... racism.
It just seems to me that white people have two reasons that we won't comment: discomfort or denial. Those of us who feel uncomfortable with someone turning around and pointing to so-called white privilege tend to just sort of duck the issue by excluding ourselves. And there are those of us who completely deny the existence of racism in our midst. Both are wrong. We should be able to say, "this is racism, and this is not" and just as importantly be able to say, "white people can act in racist ways, but so can everyone else, and it is important that a white person be allowed to have an opinion on what constitutes racism or we have no way to assess ourselves or insist on objectivity in others."
So, if a Hispanic person was to get angry with you for disagreeing with the opinion that a Trump comment is or is not racist, do listen to their viewpoint from their position as the targeted ethnic group, but do not throw away the discussion of an objective standard simply because it makes you uncomfortable. If we don't come to a solid definition that can be applied to blacks, whites, or Asians equally then "racism" is a useless term.
Actually his behavior with Kelly is interesting. While it does have a creepy tone to it, he is working hard to beat the media at their own game. Taking on Kelly is giving him a media target to savage while at the same time, probably has many media people thinking that she never represented them, so they can report the hell out of the attacks on one of their own and not feel guilty.
Trump needs the media, but is trying to show he owns them, not the other way around. That's why he picked one of them to attack and keep attacking, while at the same time, he's remaining someone who gets useful coverage. I doubt that Fox News anchors are high on the media totem pole among their peers, but to everyone else, she's part of the media as much as anyone. In doing this, he's probably ruffled *fewer* feathers than if he took on some one else.
People work for Amazon, and those people get other jobs. Surely you don't think they can lock up all those ideas in a vault like the Coca-Cola recipe, do you?
And I don't mean highlights. Yes, you can't just walk out of Amazon from your job as Chief of Logistics or whatever and create a new company or even non-profit from it on the next day, but you can't erase people's minds and experience (yet). It's not corporate espionage to know the things that were your legitimate job at Amazon. Someday, your NDAs and severance agreements will expire and you can spread it around.
Bear in mind, we're talking about how Amazon contributes to productivity. That doesn't mean we're saying they are contributing all of it directly *right now*, but over the years and decades, that is going to get out. Information always does. So even if their process is closely held at the moment, it will still move forward productivity in the future as they develop their methods.
Last I checked, STEM stood for:
Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics
In what way does a high frequency trader on the Street not make use of mathematics or technology? (I left out "engineering" in the event you're one of those people who don't consider software to be "engineering").
Someone who goes into STEM is *exactly* who the Street is looking for. You just don't care for the application.
It's going to be hard to assess your situation with few facts other than before and after price, so I'll only ask the following questions.
Did that $180 policy exist previous to the ACA?
Did that $180 policy cost less or more before the ACA?
It seems like your HR department buckled down and did a lot of work. However, do we know they couldn't have found a better policy before the ACA by your HR department being sufficiently motivated to find one that was cheaper in the past?
The point is, I doubt that it is impossible to find a policy today that is cheaper than what you used to pay. The question is whether you always had the choice to have a better plan via your employer, if they had done the necessary work to find the best deal. There are a lot of companies out there trying to find the best deal they can, but I've personally worked two jobs since ACA and all of them have either been more expensive, or had less coverage, or both.
I'm not necessarily saying I am against all provisions of the ACA such as the prohibition of restrictions due to pre-existing conditions, but those changes did add considerable liability to the insurers. I mean, if someone walks in the door with an existing ailment, they're going to be paying for treatment from Day 1. That may be a good thing, but it is not free. My experience is that for middle class people I know, it has been nothing but added expense.
It does not fly in the face of reason. Although perhaps it does fly in the face of conventional wisdom today which is why you think it is absurd.
Question: We have government today, and have had such for 227 years (starting at the Constitution). Have wages *ever* been equal? In that entire time?
So why do you believe that it is so impossible that the action of government is responsible for such?
I can't say what you personally believe, but a lot of people have this conception of less government creating things like monopolies and big business which we needed regulation to stop.
Bullshit. You know how railroads and steel companies and oil companies became so powerful? Government grants, government action, government regulations. Government lands and right of ways were handed out to railroads. Government mineral rights were handed out via government corruption to companies with no bidding (Teapot Dome scandal). Governments colluded in running the Indians off lands that got in the way of development (despite treaties signed to the contrary). Party political machines took payments to directly affect policy and people used to line up at the doors for political appointments.
Sure you point to my statement about a completely unknown force stabilizing wages and call that bunk, because on the face of it, it seems like an easy statement to make. But the point I am trying to make is that the conventional wisdom about more regulation == equal wages is that it has similarly never actually been seen. That assertion is just as vague and hopeful as any statement I could make about some mystery force that equalizes wages due to the market. We just assume that if the government is big enough and strong enough and led by the right person making the right laws, that wages will equalize and the market can never compete. That is just as untested an assertion as my admittedly vague statement.
Genes, unless they make you sick or something, are irrelevant.
Culture, however, may be a cause, if that culture does not value productivity.
Anyone, of any genetic disposition can have a culture with a good work ethic.
I'm surprised then. Because I hear stuff like that every day.
Let's take everyone's favorite ACA. I know a guy who owns a small business who has brittle bone disease (I forget the real name). He operates a garage where he works on cars. With the ACA, the plans he can now get as an small business owner due to the new regulations are too expensive for him. And with the tax on not having a plan, there's no way out. Admittedly, there's no way he'd go without a plan, but he has only one option. Pay more.
Actually though, he has two options. He also have the option to shut down his business and drop his income below the poverty line. Now he's still unable to afford insurance, but now that he's impoverished, he can get a grant for it from the government.
Yeah, the ACA is a huge insurance company grab, but it was only possible by government regulation. The government regulation also rewards lower productivity. I'm not saying that this person's case is not an edge case, but his case is special in that he is an owner-proprietor in a business where he used to be able to be independent. By all accounts, he was not rich, but basically as close to a free man as you get in this society. Now, the government is more than willing to help him, just as long as he is poor enough and dependent enough on it.
Unlike a lot of people of my mindset, I don't believe this is a plot by "big government" to take away our freedom. I just believe it is the result of people who think they're helping when they aren't. They're the political helicopter "parents" who want to constantly watch over everyone and make them "safer" and "more equal". And its hard to argue with someone who wants to make you more "equal" and "safer", but sometimes, being safe is the last thing we need, as either individuals or as a country. Sometimes you need to let someone have the ability to go out on their own and beat down the barriers themselves. That is how you build a country that is productive and able to be proud of its achievements.
I think this is important. The Internet does not mean growth only for the USA. It means world growth.
We need to continue to work at being more productive and competitive, but at the same time, we should realize that as we invent capabilities that bring the world closer, more people in other countries will also take advantage of that.
I don't see a problem with that. I don't want to fall into poverty, but I don't see a decrease in the *difference* of our standards of living to be a bad thing. As long as we all keep moving forward and not going backward, I am happy that China or India can work to catch up. I see no reason they should remain poor.
While I worry sometimes about whether a country like China with growing power may have a government that misuses it in the name of nationalism, the fact that the Chinese might have a better life pleases me. I think we will never have the ability to have the peace that people want without equal economic opportunity and oddly enough, I think that global capitalism, for all its problems, might have brought us closer to world peace than we have ever been precisely because we are removing those false barriers to entry that keep poor countries poor and rich countries rich.
Again, I don't believe for a second that capitalism is some sort of benevolent force for good. What I do believe is that it is the ultimate neutral force for actual global economic equality there is, as long as we maintain free trade. Someday, they're going to run out of cheap labor. Yes, there may still be "cheaper" labor, but I think eventually the people on the lowest rungs will be much better off than those who used to be on those lowest rungs in past days.
While I understand that change is necessary, I am wondering why we need to completely re-organize those things that actually got us to this point to begin with?
Wealth concentration can be an issue, but this is far from the first period in history when that has been an issue.
Religions and more rigid social hierarchies certainly existed in periods of explosive growth, like the Industrial Revolution.
I actually see many, if not most of the changes you're referring to as a *result* of extra productivity, not a cause.
For instance, the French Revolution came about because of an empowered Third Estate. That bourgeois class had existed for decades, centuries even. It grew slowly as technology and communications made it possible for there to be an empowered middle class. That class was who eventually called for those right and changes. So, I think you're putting the cart before the horse. More freedom or being more "progressive" doesn't make us more productive. Being more productive makes us more free and able to accept change because we have the liberty to do so.
There are definitely closed data silos.
However, there has never been more free and open source software out there.
The problem you're discussing is real, but hasn't really gotten any worse.
Wall Street MBAs don't write algorithms. STEM people do. And they are very well paid for it.
Reducing costs does not imply that innovation is stopped.
Yes, you can under-fund innovation. However, you can easily over-spend on "innovation" as well.
Ultimately, humanity gets little out of your innovation if it cannot be applied. Unless of course, you just want seven billion people to gaze in awe of your theoretical paper on Loop Quantum Gravity and leave it at that.
Coke may have worked, but heroin and opium use tended to eventually led people to what is known as an Opium Den. Don't for a second think that was a contributor to productivity outside of actual medical usage for acute pain.
Your ability to spell, such as it is, helps you every day that you don't look like an illiterate retard. You may not see it as a line item on your check, but it is a small, but important piece in your ability to maintain any success you have had.
Yes, some people are so skilled or otherwise connected that it is overlooked for them, but there are a lot of people in the world who wonder why they can't be successful and consider it some sort of conspiracy against then. In reality, they don't make the effort to do those little things which will show that they care about what they do, nor do they understand the value in being understood and seen as careful.
Again, it's not a big thing, but small things add up.