4 ms·

I feel better about the money staying in the hands of people that actually (and efficiently) provide useful services and products to people, unlike bureaucrats

I feel better about the money staying in the hands of people that actually (and efficiently) provide useful services and products to people, unlike bureaucrats in the government who have no incentive to do things well and be efficient (and in reality have the opposite incentives).

himlion 8y ago
Luckily most people don't feel like that or we'd be living in a pretty bleak world.
- mikeq101101 8y ago
  People having voluntary interactions instead of being forced, what a bleak world.
  - himlion 8y ago
    Negative externalities are best solved by a government.
    - mikeq101101 8y ago
      That is at least a controversial statement, not a fact as you put it.
      - majewsky 8y ago
        What other method exists for pricing in negative externalities? Honest question.
harrumph 8y ago
>I feel better about the money staying in the hands of people that actually (and efficiently) provide useful services and products to people, unlike bureaucrats in the government who have no incentive to do things well and be efficient (and in reality have the opposite incentives). Right, because tax money, once collected, simply vanishes into thin air and never, ever shows up as the income of private companies, nor drives entire sectors of the economy. At least that's how it works under the purple skies of planet Libertaria.
- mikeq101101 8y ago
  >Right, because tax money, once collected, simply vanishes into thin air and never, ever shows up as the income of private companies, nor drives entire sectors of the economy. What are you trying to argue? Taxes are good, because some part of them is redistributed back to private companies?
  - harrumph 8y ago
    >What are you trying to argue? Taxes are good, because some part of them is redistributed back to private companies? I'm arguing the fact that spending by government is literally the engine of our own and all other economies, and that libertarians are hilariously delusional about this bedrock fact. Without this spending/circulation there is zero facility nor security for the conduct of commerce nor is there income for the vast majority of the private enterprise. When you rebut, please use a privately-developed communications protocol stack to do so.
    - mikeq101101 8y ago
      Can you list a few sectors of the economy that are driven entirely by taxpayer money through the government?
      - harrumph 8y ago
        >Can you list a few sectors of the economy that are driven entirely by taxpayer money through the government? You can begin with a symbol -- the largest single private employer on the planet, the retailer named Walmart. A fully subsidized operation that, per its own filings, depends upon SNAP payments paid to its customers for its income. In addition to being dependent upon these payments the company depends on SNAP serving as payroll subsidy for its hundreds of thousands of workers who they choose to pay poverty wages. Then for sectors, you may move to the depth and breadth of the energy, R&D, defense, security, health care, package freight and construction sectors, who, without their single largest governmental customers, would be a small fraction of what they are, employing a tiny fraction of historic levels. Then there are sectors that are utterly dependent upon government subsidy, such as pharma research, agra, and transportation. Add to this the rest of the economy: sectors that would grind to a halt if not for indirect dependence upon public goods -- courts, roads and communications capacity funded by taxes. Fact: taxpayers, uncompensated by any shares of stock, pay the bills and line the pockets of stockholders in most of really existing capitalism. Socialism exists and dominates for the rich while the market discipline that libertarians live to defend is in fact something that is reserved exclusively for the non-rich. Capitalist fables about the importance of incentives and market discipline fall on their faces the second you scrutinize flows of taxation as well as flows of appropriated value taken from workers under capitalism.
jakelazaroff 8y ago
Who do you think builds and maintains the infrastructure Amazon uses to provide those useful services? How do you think it gets paid for?
- pathseeker 8y ago
  Depends on the infrastructure you are referring to. Things like roads are paid for with gas taxes and commercial trucking taxes that Amazon pays automatically in their shipping costs. They aren't exempt from that.
jakeinspace 8y ago
Teachers, road workers, federal engineers, soldiers, and federal law enforcement aren't exactly bureaucrats. And while there may be a bloating of bureaucracy in government, the private sector has plenty of accountants and middle managers as well.
- mikeq101101 8y ago
  Teachers, road workers, and federal law enforcement do a terrible job, because of the incentives in the government jobs. The soldiers and the endless wars are the worst examples of what the government can do.
- pathseeker 8y ago
  >And while there may be a bloating of bureaucracy in government, the private sector has plenty of accountants and middle managers as well. The difference is that companies with too much bloat die. There is no concept of that at all in the federal government because it just goes into more debt or taxes more instead.

himlion 8y ago

Luckily most people don't feel like that or we'd be living in a pretty bleak world.

mikeq101101 8y ago
People having voluntary interactions instead of being forced, what a bleak world.
- himlion 8y ago
  Negative externalities are best solved by a government.
  - mikeq101101 8y ago
    That is at least a controversial statement, not a fact as you put it.
    - majewsky 8y ago
      What other method exists for pricing in negative externalities? Honest question.

harrumph 8y ago

>I feel better about the money staying in the hands of people that actually (and efficiently) provide useful services and products to people, unlike bureaucrats in the government who have no incentive to do things well and be efficient (and in reality have the opposite incentives). Right, because tax money, once collected, simply vanishes into thin air and never, ever shows up as the income of private companies, nor drives entire sectors of the economy. At least that's how it works under the purple skies of planet Libertaria.

mikeq101101 8y ago
>Right, because tax money, once collected, simply vanishes into thin air and never, ever shows up as the income of private companies, nor drives entire sectors of the economy. What are you trying to argue? Taxes are good, because some part of them is redistributed back to private companies?
- harrumph 8y ago
  >What are you trying to argue? Taxes are good, because some part of them is redistributed back to private companies? I'm arguing the fact that spending by government is literally the engine of our own and all other economies, and that libertarians are hilariously delusional about this bedrock fact. Without this spending/circulation there is zero facility nor security for the conduct of commerce nor is there income for the vast majority of the private enterprise. When you rebut, please use a privately-developed communications protocol stack to do so.
  - mikeq101101 8y ago
    Can you list a few sectors of the economy that are driven entirely by taxpayer money through the government?
    - harrumph 8y ago
      >Can you list a few sectors of the economy that are driven entirely by taxpayer money through the government? You can begin with a symbol -- the largest single private employer on the planet, the retailer named Walmart. A fully subsidized operation that, per its own filings, depends upon SNAP payments paid to its customers for its income. In addition to being dependent upon these payments the company depends on SNAP serving as payroll subsidy for its hundreds of thousands of workers who they choose to pay poverty wages. Then for sectors, you may move to the depth and breadth of the energy, R&D, defense, security, health care, package freight and construction sectors, who, without their single largest governmental customers, would be a small fraction of what they are, employing a tiny fraction of historic levels. Then there are sectors that are utterly dependent upon government subsidy, such as pharma research, agra, and transportation. Add to this the rest of the economy: sectors that would grind to a halt if not for indirect dependence upon public goods -- courts, roads and communications capacity funded by taxes. Fact: taxpayers, uncompensated by any shares of stock, pay the bills and line the pockets of stockholders in most of really existing capitalism. Socialism exists and dominates for the rich while the market discipline that libertarians live to defend is in fact something that is reserved exclusively for the non-rich. Capitalist fables about the importance of incentives and market discipline fall on their faces the second you scrutinize flows of taxation as well as flows of appropriated value taken from workers under capitalism.

jakelazaroff 8y ago

Who do you think builds and maintains the infrastructure Amazon uses to provide those useful services? How do you think it gets paid for?

pathseeker 8y ago
Depends on the infrastructure you are referring to. Things like roads are paid for with gas taxes and commercial trucking taxes that Amazon pays automatically in their shipping costs. They aren't exempt from that.

jakeinspace 8y ago

Teachers, road workers, federal engineers, soldiers, and federal law enforcement aren't exactly bureaucrats. And while there may be a bloating of bureaucracy in government, the private sector has plenty of accountants and middle managers as well.

mikeq101101 8y ago
Teachers, road workers, and federal law enforcement do a terrible job, because of the incentives in the government jobs. The soldiers and the endless wars are the worst examples of what the government can do.
pathseeker 8y ago
>And while there may be a bloating of bureaucracy in government, the private sector has plenty of accountants and middle managers as well. The difference is that companies with too much bloat die. There is no concept of that at all in the federal government because it just goes into more debt or taxes more instead.