What exactly do you have against China? Seriously, what have they done in the last 20 years against us? At all? Yes, they have an evil government, but this kind of thinking is what got us into Iraq.
"The problem: if the Chinese military can get enough control over Pentagon computers, then it doesn't really matter what their own hardware capabilities are, they'll be able to deploy some US military hardware for their own objectives."
Bullshit, do you really think we have not done the exact same thing to their networks? Besides, this is not a movie; most military systems (and all if they felt the need) are on a private intranet. While this can be hacked into in theory, if that becomes an issue, we can simply take the stuff offline. Tanks don't need Wi-Fi uplinks to kill people.
And besides, this is moot. China does not have to resort to high-tech fantasy tricks to beat us. China has a GDP of 7 trillion dollars, while the US has one of 12 trillion. Their economy is growing at 10% per year, ours grows at 3%. Do the math, in a decade or so, even if Chinese have one 5th the per capita income of the US, they will have a larger GDP.
With a larger GDP, they will be able to outspend us militarily, without causing any strain on their economy. In the face of such a demographic certainty, the worst thing we can do is to act aggressive and provoke China into an arms race. Unlike the Soviet Union, they could actually win one.
"They take a lot of good from Japan, but not from America. My guess is that they are trying to draw Japan into being dependent on them, and separate them from us."
Have you ever considered that China's economy is not centrally planned anymore? Japan just happens to be the closest industrialized country to China, so that is where it makes the most sense to import heavy machinery from? It seems that South Korea, Singapore, and Australia seem to have large surpluses too, adding credence to the theory.
I dont think drugs are too big an issue, while new drugs are hidiously expensive, there exist generic medication of simular effectiveness for nearly every illness. Patients usualy don't pay for their drugs, so they prefer expensive brand names. Even if they do pay, drug companies regulary bribe doctors(usualy with free meals at 5 star resturonts, free cruises, occasionaly slutty drug reps). A bit of information assymetry exists in the market, and if a doctor says you need a drug, you will take it.
the root problem here is the insurance model of payment. As long as patients have no marginal incentive to conserve, they will not. I propose we give people the ability to save 10% of their income(or put in a bank, bonds, whatever) taxfree, but unlike current health saving accounts, people can spend it as they wish: social security supplement, health care, etc. It can be said that the poor don't have spare cash to save, so every year, the goverment can wire $X to every account. Something like stafford loans could exist for those unable to pay large bills.
Under this plan, money not spent on health care can be spent by pateints on other things, giving patients a incentive to control spending, while maintaing quality. Information assymetry and price discrimination issues still need to be dealt with, but that can be dealt with by 1) making doctors liable for the cost of unnessisary spending if the patient finds out later that he was mislead(I know nobody wants more lawsuits, but as long as you eliminate pain and suffering charges it will be ok) and 2) Force doctors to charge all of their customers the same price, regardless of insurance, and have these prices posted every week on a government website.
You are under the impression that more dovtors would decrease medical costs through competition. But this is non-trivial, two effects are in play: most patients only go to one family doctor, and the presence of more family doctors might cause some price competition, but not much, insurance copay is rather low, so most patients have a very low incentive to economise. Because of this, the increased competition will most likely be over service and luxury. This has the potential to dramaticly raise costs.
Worse, most costs come from specialists. There is no price competition with specialists, the costs are so high for catostrophic care that patients usualy have the bill paid by a third party. The salary of specialists will go down, but labor costs are fixed, patient expense will only go down with hospital competition(which sadly is impractical in all but the biggest cities). The worst part is that decreased salaries will make specialists within the financial reach of smaller hospitals. This will cause prices to explode.
The equilibrium result is that the insurance companies will create medical schools and only fund people within network. Over time, networks will "harmonate" and we will have something remarkably like the AMA.
"The trouble is, we're not reverting to the global average, but rather the race to the bottom- the cheapest labor gets the jobs, regardless of what the job is or what the skill level is."
This would imply that employment would be dropping rapidly in developed countries (Not true, actually on the downswing), and economic growth would be negative in richer countries (Once again, not observed). Most of all, it would imply that the poorest countries have the lowest levels of unemployment (once again, unobserved).
"Depends on who you are- it would be better for them, but it's not better for the multinational corporations that own it all and control the strings."
It certainly seems like it would be better for everyone, Americans do not become poor, and Africans become rich.
"Only if you think 2% of the population owning 98% of the resources is egalitarian. As opposed to 25% of the population owning 75% of the world's resources- as it was back in 1900."
A single number can never reliably measure a statistical distribution. Back then, entire continents were devoid of any sort of wealth.
Your suggestions entail the complete destruction of the most developed economy in the world. Unless your explicit goal is destruction, I don't think this is necessary.
I don't want to nitpick, but around 800 million people live on less than a dollar a day, and in many of those places, money equivalents come from aid and farming. Not that it is pleasant or acceptable, but I felt that it needed to be pointed out. And if we are all reverting to a global average, the GDP per capita of the world is between 7-10 thousand a year(depending on how you define GDP), coming out to about $28 dollars a day.
And I don't see how the Gold standard and income inequality are related, the world has a much more egalitarian distribution of money now then we did back when the Gold standard were around.
And finally, wouldn't it be better to bring the rest of the world to our standard of living then vice versa? Contrary to communist belief, we are not rich off of their exploitation and poverty, but because of a lack of development. Most of the third world is growing at a more rapid rate then the west (Essentially all of Asia, most of Latin America, a couple of bright spots in Africa), so they will catch up with us eventually.
"If those with money left this country in the dead of night, those without could simply raid the storehouses of food left behind. OR, better yet, actually take over the farms stolen by the white man to begin with."
Farms? Agriculture makes up less than 1% of GDP. There is no shortage of food in this country, as a college student my food budget was $3 dollars a day, anyone can obtain that. It would not be farmers who would be missed, but Doctors, Engineers, Programmers, Professors, every skilled worker in the country.
And it's completely unsustainable and will eventually collapse, ruining billions of lives and sending the entire world into a depression anyway. Once again, all this does is hasten the inevitable.
It's possible, but there are many reasons to think otherwise.
If you have not already, do some reading on evolutionary game theory. It shows how diverse populations change over time. It contains tools to answer the points you raised.
No, by that logic, we should not forcibly redistribute money from people for the sole benefit of others.
There are many perfectly selfish reasons to give Aid to Africa to feed starving kids. The obvious thought is that with a bit of access to capital, they will be able to develop into an economically robust economy, and nearly everyone in the US will be better off in that case. Not only that, but if we don't give them aid, then it is fully possible that they will become radicalized and attack us.
So aid is not altruism, but simply an investment that will provide us future customers and lower homeland security costs. But an investment whose benefits can not be easily captured by the private sector, hence the reason the government does it.
Aids babies? If a baby has HIV, he is almost certainly going to die. I think the drug regimen to keep HIV in check would kill the developing body of a child. But if the parent wants to pay, or mortgage their home, or even take out a low interest loan from the government (I would support such a program), that is their choice. I don't want to pay to support the short and painful existence of a rather unlucky child.
Truth is, I don't care whether or not you were born with health problems. People's quality of life is directly dependant on things entirely outside their control. For example, intelligence greatly determines ones future wealth, but we don't call for income redistribution to the stupid. People who are going to incur more healthcare costs should pay them, even if the causes are completely beyond their control.
I realize this sounds ghastly, but is it any better to force everyone else to pay?
"The romance of farming is largely gone in the US. Personally, I believe that we would be better off as a culture if we knew who had grown or raised our food items, and the restoration of the local farmer to significance (and the near elimination of the food processor) would be a great benefit to all of us as a nation, a state, and a people."
Ok I'll bite. Why exactly? What makes a farmer any different than a butcher, doctor, or mutual fund investor? I don't know who made my computer, who made my car, or who picked my tomatoes. I don't really see why I should, the information is not relevant to the quality of the good.
"Yes, but it would mean outsourcing our food production entirely to other nations. Might I point out how well that works for another valuable good named "oil"? No, I'd better not."
How exactly does it work for oil? What policy objective would Europe, or any country for that manner, have done if it were not for oil? How has the presence of oil allowed the Middle East to advance their policy objectives? There is still no Palestinian state, Israel is still copiously supported. Western nations have employed sanctions, bombed, and invaded oil rich nations with total impunity. I think it actually works the other way. The nations who supply oil are completely Dependant on us for money and capital, because otherwise, oil is just a dirty liquid. Because of this, Middle Eastern countries have adopted numerous reforms they never would have, refrained from particularly egregious human rights abuses, and have had a relative lack of international conflict.
"If you outsource the food production of a nation entirely to a third party, you give absolute power to that outside country. They just need to threaten to stop selling grain and we have to bend over and take it from behind or we starve."
Or you could say "give us this food or we will nuke you". No nation has such a large monopoly on food that it will ever be able to threaten your food-supply.
"This is about balances of power. You might think that foreign trade with African countries will work, but it has to go both ways: if we are dependent on their food, they need to be dependent on something we produce... Otherwise the "peace producing foreign trade" doesn't work"
Have you ever been to a third world nation? Without us they are utterly dependent on us for almost every good imaginable. The reason why they work so hard to crank out food and cheaply manufactured goods is so they can trade it for western products. Anyway, there are millions of Africans living in Europe right now. The remittances that they send are significant sources of tax payer dollars and capital in their home nations. No head of state would do anything to jeopardize that, and if they did, their people or generals would promptly remove him.
"I admit they are self-serving. That's not a problem though... I don't think they are stupid though, you might but I couldn't care less about your opinion."
So Europe is afraid that Africans might exert economic influence and use it to unfairly exploit Europeans? This is rather funny. But for your own sake, the European people themselves are paying a high cost for this. Agricultural subsidies take the overwhelming majority of the EU budget, have distorted your economy, and have made European food prices inordinately high. And if your one of the nationalistic Europeans, European and American subsidies and tariffs are among the root causes of African Poverty. This has caused a giant migrant inflow into Europe from Africa (Disclaimer: I am of Moroccan decent, this trend really does not worry me).
America is paralyzed by an inefficient power structure that greatly impedes any ability to cut subsidies. But Europe has historically strived to be an example to the world of social responsibility. Europe can and should lead the world in a unilateral cut in agricultural subsidies and tariffs, if not for social justice then for self interest, and serve as an inspiration for the rest of the world.
Why exactly would it be so stupid? Every country in the world produces food, so no country would be able to "walk all over us". I suppose that if America, China, India, Africa, Russia, and the Middle east decide to band together to destroy you, then your food supply would be subject to the whims of other political leaders. But honestly, at that point, you really have larger problems at hand.
But if you want to be paranoid, than here is your trump card. Europe has about 700 nuclear weapons and a highly developed ICBM delivery system. If any country ever threatens your food supply, threaten to nuke them into oblivion. I am sure they will back down.
Now dump your idiotic, expensive, and downright evil CAP program. And stop using paranoid fantasy to justify enriching a small European minority at the expense of abject and near permanent poverty in the rest of the world.
You seem to not be familiar with the tragedy of the commons. It is a Market failure that occurs when people benefit from extraction of a resource, but the costs of extraction are borne by society. The classic example of this is the common fields of England several hundred years ago(These were essentially wiped out by the enclosure movement, which you ironically mentioned.) Farmers would work and graze the land aggressively without regard to the sustainability of the soil. As a result, fertility was very low, and everyone was worse off than if they had used the soil in a more sustainable fashion.
But why did these farmers act apparently against their self interest? Simple Game theory. Suppose you are a farmer working a common, if you over utilize the soil, then you get an extra amount of food. If you don't over utilize the soil, there is no rational reason to believe another farmer will not. If you don't over utilize the soil, the soil will be ruined tomorrow, and you have no extra food. So, every farmer over utilizes the soil, and the soil is ruined.
The Commons problem is solved usually by one of two approaches. One approach is to strictly regulate the amount of farming by a central body(Either government or social conventions), it is not hard to see how this can produce suboptimal results. Also, the incentive structure of a regulating body is rather peculiar, and they often fail to take into account important factors(For example, the Soviet Virgin Lands campaign forgot to rotate crops, leading to wide scale soil degradation.)
A better approach is to introduce property rights, by having someone own the land. That way, it is in someone's best interest to maintain their "property". This applies to more than just farmland, it applies to pollution control, and even airwaves.
The 10th amendment states that any powers not given to Congress explicitly in the constitution are given to the states or people, but Congress has the authority to pass laws regarding interstate commerce. Regulation of the public airwaves is clearly a matter of interstate commerce. Why? Airwaves don't respect state lines, and they a vital part of any economy.
Not only that, but the Constitution says that states cannot place trade barriers against other states (For example, there can be no ban in Florida against California Citrus). If the power to regulate airwaves was given to states, then states would have the power to create differing broadcast standards, so radio towers in one state could cause interference in another state. The shutdown of radio towers in a neighboring state would be debilitating to the neighboring economy, and this would almost certainly be an unconstitutional trade barrier.
The easiest way to keep "dumb" code from killing us is not to program them to do so. They could mutate their code and decide to kill us anyway, but at that point, they become "smart".
I don't buy that, how exactly does exploding a dirty bomb further Al-Qaeda's goals? An radiological attack on a major urban area would kill many Muslims, alienate their "base", and drive the nations of the world fearful of a repeat to desperate measures.
Remember, there goal is not to cause fear and panic in the American people, it's to further their rather narrow political aims(Get America to cease control of the Suez Canal, impose Sharia-ish law in most of the middle east, create a independent Palestinian state). Fear and panic is a tool that they use to further these aims when convenient, sometimes effectively.
But the key term is sometimes. If it was advantageous for Al-Qaeda to attack America, they would have done so by now. The fact that they have failed to respond to our shitty security tells me that they do not want to attack at this time.
Slashdot Mirror
What exactly do you have against China? Seriously, what have they done in the last 20 years against us? At all? Yes, they have an evil government, but this kind of thinking is what got us into Iraq.
Bullshit, do you really think we have not done the exact same thing to their networks? Besides, this is not a movie; most military systems (and all if they felt the need) are on a private intranet. While this can be hacked into in theory, if that becomes an issue, we can simply take the stuff offline. Tanks don't need Wi-Fi uplinks to kill people.
And besides, this is moot. China does not have to resort to high-tech fantasy tricks to beat us. China has a GDP of 7 trillion dollars, while the US has one of 12 trillion. Their economy is growing at 10% per year, ours grows at 3%. Do the math, in a decade or so, even if Chinese have one 5th the per capita income of the US, they will have a larger GDP.
With a larger GDP, they will be able to outspend us militarily, without causing any strain on their economy. In the face of such a demographic certainty, the worst thing we can do is to act aggressive and provoke China into an arms race. Unlike the Soviet Union, they could actually win one.
Have you ever considered that China's economy is not centrally planned anymore? Japan just happens to be the closest industrialized country to China, so that is where it makes the most sense to import heavy machinery from? It seems that South Korea, Singapore, and Australia seem to have large surpluses too, adding credence to the theory.
the root problem here is the insurance model of payment. As long as patients have no marginal incentive to conserve, they will not. I propose we give people the ability to save 10% of their income(or put in a bank, bonds, whatever) taxfree, but unlike current health saving accounts, people can spend it as they wish: social security supplement, health care, etc. It can be said that the poor don't have spare cash to save, so every year, the goverment can wire $X to every account. Something like stafford loans could exist for those unable to pay large bills.
Under this plan, money not spent on health care can be spent by pateints on other things, giving patients a incentive to control spending, while maintaing quality. Information assymetry and price discrimination issues still need to be dealt with, but that can be dealt with by 1) making doctors liable for the cost of unnessisary spending if the patient finds out later that he was mislead(I know nobody wants more lawsuits, but as long as you eliminate pain and suffering charges it will be ok) and 2) Force doctors to charge all of their customers the same price, regardless of insurance, and have these prices posted every week on a government website.
I think that will fix most things.
Worse, most costs come from specialists. There is no price competition with specialists, the costs are so high for catostrophic care that patients usualy have the bill paid by a third party. The salary of specialists will go down, but labor costs are fixed, patient expense will only go down with hospital competition(which sadly is impractical in all but the biggest cities). The worst part is that decreased salaries will make specialists within the financial reach of smaller hospitals. This will cause prices to explode. The equilibrium result is that the insurance companies will create medical schools and only fund people within network. Over time, networks will "harmonate" and we will have something remarkably like the AMA.
This would imply that employment would be dropping rapidly in developed countries (Not true, actually on the downswing), and economic growth would be negative in richer countries (Once again, not observed). Most of all, it would imply that the poorest countries have the lowest levels of unemployment (once again, unobserved).
"Depends on who you are- it would be better for them, but it's not better for the multinational corporations that own it all and control the strings."
It certainly seems like it would be better for everyone, Americans do not become poor, and Africans become rich.
"Only if you think 2% of the population owning 98% of the resources is egalitarian. As opposed to 25% of the population owning 75% of the world's resources- as it was back in 1900."
A single number can never reliably measure a statistical distribution. Back then, entire continents were devoid of any sort of wealth.
Your suggestions entail the complete destruction of the most developed economy in the world. Unless your explicit goal is destruction, I don't think this is necessary.
And I don't see how the Gold standard and income inequality are related, the world has a much more egalitarian distribution of money now then we did back when the Gold standard were around.
And finally, wouldn't it be better to bring the rest of the world to our standard of living then vice versa? Contrary to communist belief, we are not rich off of their exploitation and poverty, but because of a lack of development. Most of the third world is growing at a more rapid rate then the west (Essentially all of Asia, most of Latin America, a couple of bright spots in Africa), so they will catch up with us eventually.
Farms? Agriculture makes up less than 1% of GDP. There is no shortage of food in this country, as a college student my food budget was $3 dollars a day, anyone can obtain that. It would not be farmers who would be missed, but Doctors, Engineers, Programmers, Professors, every skilled worker in the country.
And it's completely unsustainable and will eventually collapse, ruining billions of lives and sending the entire world into a depression anyway. Once again, all this does is hasten the inevitable.
Explain why this collapse is inevitable?
What measures do you exactly recomend to "bite the bullet"?
There were far less people dead from wars in the 40 years after 1971 then before.
If you have not already, do some reading on evolutionary game theory. It shows how diverse populations change over time. It contains tools to answer the points you raised.
"Those who can't do, teach."
There are many perfectly selfish reasons to give Aid to Africa to feed starving kids. The obvious thought is that with a bit of access to capital, they will be able to develop into an economically robust economy, and nearly everyone in the US will be better off in that case. Not only that, but if we don't give them aid, then it is fully possible that they will become radicalized and attack us.
So aid is not altruism, but simply an investment that will provide us future customers and lower homeland security costs. But an investment whose benefits can not be easily captured by the private sector, hence the reason the government does it.
Aids babies? If a baby has HIV, he is almost certainly going to die. I think the drug regimen to keep HIV in check would kill the developing body of a child. But if the parent wants to pay, or mortgage their home, or even take out a low interest loan from the government (I would support such a program), that is their choice. I don't want to pay to support the short and painful existence of a rather unlucky child.
I realize this sounds ghastly, but is it any better to force everyone else to pay?
Ok I'll bite. Why exactly? What makes a farmer any different than a butcher, doctor, or mutual fund investor? I don't know who made my computer, who made my car, or who picked my tomatoes. I don't really see why I should, the information is not relevant to the quality of the good.
How exactly does it work for oil? What policy objective would Europe, or any country for that manner, have done if it were not for oil? How has the presence of oil allowed the Middle East to advance their policy objectives? There is still no Palestinian state, Israel is still copiously supported. Western nations have employed sanctions, bombed, and invaded oil rich nations with total impunity. I think it actually works the other way. The nations who supply oil are completely Dependant on us for money and capital, because otherwise, oil is just a dirty liquid. Because of this, Middle Eastern countries have adopted numerous reforms they never would have, refrained from particularly egregious human rights abuses, and have had a relative lack of international conflict.
"If you outsource the food production of a nation entirely to a third party, you give absolute power to that outside country. They just need to threaten to stop selling grain and we have to bend over and take it from behind or we starve."
Or you could say "give us this food or we will nuke you". No nation has such a large monopoly on food that it will ever be able to threaten your food-supply.
"This is about balances of power. You might think that foreign trade with African countries will work, but it has to go both ways: if we are dependent on their food, they need to be dependent on something we produce... Otherwise the "peace producing foreign trade" doesn't work"
Have you ever been to a third world nation? Without us they are utterly dependent on us for almost every good imaginable. The reason why they work so hard to crank out food and cheaply manufactured goods is so they can trade it for western products. Anyway, there are millions of Africans living in Europe right now. The remittances that they send are significant sources of tax payer dollars and capital in their home nations. No head of state would do anything to jeopardize that, and if they did, their people or generals would promptly remove him.
"I admit they are self-serving. That's not a problem though... I don't think they are stupid though, you might but I couldn't care less about your opinion."
So Europe is afraid that Africans might exert economic influence and use it to unfairly exploit Europeans? This is rather funny. But for your own sake, the European people themselves are paying a high cost for this. Agricultural subsidies take the overwhelming majority of the EU budget, have distorted your economy, and have made European food prices inordinately high. And if your one of the nationalistic Europeans, European and American subsidies and tariffs are among the root causes of African Poverty. This has caused a giant migrant inflow into Europe from Africa (Disclaimer: I am of Moroccan decent, this trend really does not worry me).
America is paralyzed by an inefficient power structure that greatly impedes any ability to cut subsidies. But Europe has historically strived to be an example to the world of social responsibility. Europe can and should lead the world in a unilateral cut in agricultural subsidies and tariffs, if not for social justice then for self interest, and serve as an inspiration for the rest of the world.
But if you want to be paranoid, than here is your trump card. Europe has about 700 nuclear weapons and a highly developed ICBM delivery system. If any country ever threatens your food supply, threaten to nuke them into oblivion. I am sure they will back down.
Now dump your idiotic, expensive, and downright evil CAP program. And stop using paranoid fantasy to justify enriching a small European minority at the expense of abject and near permanent poverty in the rest of the world.
You seem to not be familiar with the tragedy of the commons. It is a Market failure that occurs when people benefit from extraction of a resource, but the costs of extraction are borne by society. The classic example of this is the common fields of England several hundred years ago(These were essentially wiped out by the enclosure movement, which you ironically mentioned.) Farmers would work and graze the land aggressively without regard to the sustainability of the soil. As a result, fertility was very low, and everyone was worse off than if they had used the soil in a more sustainable fashion.
But why did these farmers act apparently against their self interest? Simple Game theory. Suppose you are a farmer working a common, if you over utilize the soil, then you get an extra amount of food. If you don't over utilize the soil, there is no rational reason to believe another farmer will not. If you don't over utilize the soil, the soil will be ruined tomorrow, and you have no extra food. So, every farmer over utilizes the soil, and the soil is ruined.
The Commons problem is solved usually by one of two approaches. One approach is to strictly regulate the amount of farming by a central body(Either government or social conventions), it is not hard to see how this can produce suboptimal results. Also, the incentive structure of a regulating body is rather peculiar, and they often fail to take into account important factors(For example, the Soviet Virgin Lands campaign forgot to rotate crops, leading to wide scale soil degradation.)
A better approach is to introduce property rights, by having someone own the land. That way, it is in someone's best interest to maintain their "property". This applies to more than just farmland, it applies to pollution control, and even airwaves.
Not only that, but the Constitution says that states cannot place trade barriers against other states (For example, there can be no ban in Florida against California Citrus). If the power to regulate airwaves was given to states, then states would have the power to create differing broadcast standards, so radio towers in one state could cause interference in another state. The shutdown of radio towers in a neighboring state would be debilitating to the neighboring economy, and this would almost certainly be an unconstitutional trade barrier.
The easiest way to keep "dumb" code from killing us is not to program them to do so. They could mutate their code and decide to kill us anyway, but at that point, they become "smart".
According to TFA, a draw
Thanks for the tip, I really enjoyed the article.
Remember, there goal is not to cause fear and panic in the American people, it's to further their rather narrow political aims(Get America to cease control of the Suez Canal, impose Sharia-ish law in most of the middle east, create a independent Palestinian state). Fear and panic is a tool that they use to further these aims when convenient, sometimes effectively.
But the key term is sometimes. If it was advantageous for Al-Qaeda to attack America, they would have done so by now. The fact that they have failed to respond to our shitty security tells me that they do not want to attack at this time.
(If "It can't be expressed in figures" --> "it is not science")!=(If "it is not science" --> "It can't be expressed in figures")