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> Give people enough resources and opportunities, and they will often better themselves. The paradox is that giving people resources and opportunities is the w

by Aldo_MX 10y ago

> Give people enough resources and opportunities, and they will often better themselves. The paradox is that giving people resources and opportunities is the wisdom behind left-wing politics, the opposite of what Trump and the Republican party represent...

stcredzero 10y ago
the opposite of what Trump and the Republican party represent... They would disagree. Probably disagree with each other if you look close enough and can pin them down to a position. Everyone wants to provide resources and opportunities. Everyone simply disagrees on the best way to do this. (I certainly think of the market as only an imperfect but useful mechanism.)
clevernickname 10y ago
The welfare state does not exist to bring people up, it exists to lock people into a dependent underclass to justify its continuation and expansion.
smsm42 10y ago
The government does not create resources. Giving people resources means taking resources from people, passing it through enormously vast, complex and ever expanding bureaucracy and then giving whatever is left to the those that the bureaucracy deemed worthy. This is the wisdom behind left-wing politics, and I think it is only natural it does not look particularly wise to some. Adding to that huge amount of regulations, red tape, prohibitions and compliance demands, which drain resources and foreclose opportunities for many while benefitting few or nobody at all - and the wisdom becomes even more elusive.
- stcredzero 10y ago
  Giving people resources means taking resources from people, passing it through enormously vast, complex and ever expanding bureaucracy and then giving whatever is left to the those that the bureaucracy deemed worthy. This sounds more like the military industrial complex than the Social Security Administration. The SSA pays out something like $870 billion per year (2015) with fewer than 70 thousand employees. It's spending less than a percent of that amount on wages. That's way better than most private charities. In terms of draining resources out of our society versus benefiting it, the right wing darling of the military industrial complex is far worse than the darling of FDR's New Deal.
  - smsm42 10y ago
    > The SSA pays out something like $870 billion per year (2015) with fewer than 70 thousand employees You sound like these employees produce those $870 billion. In fact they take them from one set of people and send them to another set of people. Getting handsome pay, union benefits, pensions and what not on the way. > That's way better than most private charities. Charities do not have IRS, FBI and the police to jail anybody who does not pay them and take their property. So they have to do it the old-fashioned way - by convincing people to give them money voluntarily. So if you want to compare, add the costs of enforcement to it. > the right wing darling of the military industrial complex is far worse I just heard couple of days ago Hillary Clinton boasting about almost everything in iPhone being fruits of government-sponsored research. I don't think it's true, but to the measure it is, most of this research is done by the military industrial complex. In fact, the left often mentions the internet is rooted in government research - to the measure that it is, it's the same military again. You can't have it both ways - either it's bad, and the research they do and money government funnels to them is evil, or they actually do cool things and money funneled to them are great investment. You can't have both. And btw the whole military budget is 16% of all federal budget. And that doesn't take into account what state and local governments spend.
    - stcredzero 10y ago
      There is clearly value generated by the right kind of distribution. Anyone who doesn't admit that hasn't thought about the role of middlemen, and isn't being intellectually honest in their economic thinking.
      - smsm42 10y ago
        There's big difference between distribution from willing sellers to willing buyers and forcible taking and redistribution at the whim of the distributing bureaucracy. If a middleman took the good from wholesale sellers by force and then shipped it to where they liked, we'd call it a gangster organization.
- deleted 10y ago
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by Aldo_MX 10y ago

stcredzero 10y ago

the opposite of what Trump and the Republican party represent... They would disagree. Probably disagree with each other if you look close enough and can pin them down to a position. Everyone wants to provide resources and opportunities. Everyone simply disagrees on the best way to do this. (I certainly think of the market as only an imperfect but useful mechanism.)

clevernickname 10y ago

The welfare state does not exist to bring people up, it exists to lock people into a dependent underclass to justify its continuation and expansion.

smsm42 10y ago

The government does not create resources. Giving people resources means taking resources from people, passing it through enormously vast, complex and ever expanding bureaucracy and then giving whatever is left to the those that the bureaucracy deemed worthy. This is the wisdom behind left-wing politics, and I think it is only natural it does not look particularly wise to some. Adding to that huge amount of regulations, red tape, prohibitions and compliance demands, which drain resources and foreclose opportunities for many while benefitting few or nobody at all - and the wisdom becomes even more elusive.

stcredzero 10y ago
Giving people resources means taking resources from people, passing it through enormously vast, complex and ever expanding bureaucracy and then giving whatever is left to the those that the bureaucracy deemed worthy. This sounds more like the military industrial complex than the Social Security Administration. The SSA pays out something like $870 billion per year (2015) with fewer than 70 thousand employees. It's spending less than a percent of that amount on wages. That's way better than most private charities. In terms of draining resources out of our society versus benefiting it, the right wing darling of the military industrial complex is far worse than the darling of FDR's New Deal.
- smsm42 10y ago
  > The SSA pays out something like $870 billion per year (2015) with fewer than 70 thousand employees You sound like these employees produce those $870 billion. In fact they take them from one set of people and send them to another set of people. Getting handsome pay, union benefits, pensions and what not on the way. > That's way better than most private charities. Charities do not have IRS, FBI and the police to jail anybody who does not pay them and take their property. So they have to do it the old-fashioned way - by convincing people to give them money voluntarily. So if you want to compare, add the costs of enforcement to it. > the right wing darling of the military industrial complex is far worse I just heard couple of days ago Hillary Clinton boasting about almost everything in iPhone being fruits of government-sponsored research. I don't think it's true, but to the measure it is, most of this research is done by the military industrial complex. In fact, the left often mentions the internet is rooted in government research - to the measure that it is, it's the same military again. You can't have it both ways - either it's bad, and the research they do and money government funnels to them is evil, or they actually do cool things and money funneled to them are great investment. You can't have both. And btw the whole military budget is 16% of all federal budget. And that doesn't take into account what state and local governments spend.
  - stcredzero 10y ago
    There is clearly value generated by the right kind of distribution. Anyone who doesn't admit that hasn't thought about the role of middlemen, and isn't being intellectually honest in their economic thinking.
    - smsm42 10y ago
      There's big difference between distribution from willing sellers to willing buyers and forcible taking and redistribution at the whim of the distributing bureaucracy. If a middleman took the good from wholesale sellers by force and then shipped it to where they liked, we'd call it a gangster organization.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]