4 ms·

I'm not sure about the policies bit. Sure, on the social front God, Guns, and Gays are powerful motivators to get those people to vote. But economic policies f

I'm not sure about the policies bit. Sure, on the social front God, Guns, and Gays are powerful motivators to get those people to vote. But economic policies from the same side seem to be mainly about lowering the tax burden of the rich. What am I missing?

WalterBright 4y ago
Not sure what your point is, but wealthy people are the source of investment capital. Less capital investment means a less prosperous economy, which negatively impacts about everybody.
- pstuart 4y ago
  Sorry, but I wasn't attacking wealthy people, nor capitalism (but would be willing to poke at 'em for fun some other time). > that huge blocks of the rest of the country (and world) vote with their ballots or feet or both for very poorly-articulated policies and agendas My point is that the policies and agendas seem to be driven more on anger than on structural policies that will enrich their lives. I'm trying desperately to not engage in any sort of partisanship here, but I'm not aware of any significant policies from the previous administration that actually made their lives better. It's been shown that fear (and anger) are powerful motivators: https://www.apa.org/news/apa/2020/fear-motivator-elections https://www.apa.org/news/apa/2020/fear-motivator-elections tl;dr -- fear+anger > economics/domestic policy
  - WalterBright 4y ago
    Politicians are well aware that people vote based on emotional appeals, and take full advantage of it.
    - pstuart 4y ago
      Ok, but I'm asking about what actual policies are "those people" voting on? I'm just seeing the fear and anger bits.
      - WalterBright 4y ago
        Trump's tax cuts correlated with prosperity and very low unemployment.
        pstuart 4y ago
        Correlated. There's plenty to discuss in depth there but let's just stick to enumerating high-level policy/programs that we're being voted for, e.g., "Vote for me and I'll give you X, Y, and Z!". I'm trying to understand what X, Y, and Z might be.
- benreesman 4y ago
  Eh, I take your point but I think it’s at least debatable. Bell Labs via sanctioned, de-facto subsidized monopoly gave us everything from the transistor to the laser to Unix (you know the list, some readers might not). DoD/ARPA/DARPA funding was responsible for countless innovations, notable to this readership TCP/IP etc. (again, you know the list probably better than I do). Public funding for innovation demonstrably works extremely well at least under some circumstances. Private investment capital has been demonstrably effective at growing that pie somewhat, but it’s arguably been privatizing the resulting wealth even faster than its grown it, and almost definitionally privatizing it into the pockets of people with significant equity portfolios. We’ll obviously never know what would have happened if Bell had been broken up and parceled off in the 1930s instead of the 1980s, but it’s far from obvious to me at least that it would have been better.
  - WalterBright 4y ago
    > Private investment capital has been demonstrably effective at growing that pie somewhat Compare the success of the free market at raising the standard of living as opposed to other forms of government - by a lot. > arguably been privatizing the resulting wealth The only way that wealth would have grown is if that investment paid off in providing goods and services that the rest of the country preferred to buy, and they would only prefer spend their money on it if it made their lives better. For example, people like to rag on Amazon, but Amazon's products and services has personally benefited me greatly. Shopping online saves me a ton of time, and wear and tear on my car. As for equity portfolios, anyone in America can invest in equities. Etrade, Robinhood, etc., have done a great job democratizing investing. Want a piece of the action? Buy some equities.
    - eyelidlessness 4y ago
      > Compare the success of the free market at raising the standard of living as opposed to other forms of government - by a lot. Generally alongside massive government-directed/-financed social programs, often much higher tax rates than we’ve seen for decades, alongside a powerful labor movement, and alongside substantial regulation like antitrust. To the extent the raised standard of living has been anything remotely like equitable, anyway. To wit: > For example, people like to rag on Amazon, but Amazon's products and services has personally benefited me greatly. Shopping online saves me a ton of time, and wear and tear on my car. That’s great, for you. And the conditions their warehouse workers experience more closely resemble the conditions of workers in similar jobs a century ago, than the conditions of equivalent jobs which no longer exist many places Amazon operates warehouses. In the same time that this more-free market has been allowed to grow such behemoths, wealth and income disparity have ballooned incredibly. To that point, if I said something like this to many family members and several friends: > As for equity portfolios, anyone in America can invest in equities. Etrade, Robinhood, etc., have done a great job democratizing investing. Want a piece of the action? Buy some equities. They’d either laugh out loud or stop speaking to me. Buy some equities with… what? They’re struggling to keep a roof over their heads. Given the circumstances, where I’ve taken over mortgage payments for my parents so they can have a home and where there’s hospital bills much larger than the value of the house, I suspect some of them would disown me for being so callous. I sincerely am glad that you’re enjoying the benefits of the free market such as it is. But you shouldn’t be under the illusion that it’s anywhere near as available to others as you seem to think.
benreesman 4y ago
I’ve heard a number of plausible theories, but I’d point out that Blue Team’s politicians are damn near as committed as Red Team’s to preventing any of the “wrong people” from getting any money: epsilon politicians on either side are going to budge a nanometer on “the rich get richer” (Pelosi on privileged “insider” trading, Sinema on the carried interest loophole right off the top of my head). In fairness, Red Team’s politicos are much more bare knuckled / flagrant about their take on kleptocapitalism, but on the ground it’s all more or less boils down to “eat the poor”. Even things that I can kinda sorta get behind like student loan forgiveness are mostly A) cosmetic and B) benefitting the base. Not so different from some Texan congressman porking in some oil thing or an F35 appropriations boondoggle in the political calculus. I’d rather see student loan forgiveness than a garbage airplane like the F35, but I’d really like to see people with family offices get sent to “Federal Pound Me in The Ass” prison for the roughly always that they rig up the tax and financial system with flagrant fraud and that’s a complete nonstarter on either side of the aisle.
- giardini 4y ago
  bennesman says>" but on the ground it’s all more or less boils down to “eat the poor”."< If only it were that easy! sigh
treeman79 4y ago
Your assumption is that government is good. Founders felt it was necessary evil. Without limits it would become tyrannical. Most of the constitution is about Limiting the role of government. So people could have more freedom. Look at China. Dozens of cities locked down. People not free to leave their building. Not possible here thanks to high gun ownership. Police can handle one offs here and their. But not a full cities.

WalterBright 4y ago

Not sure what your point is, but wealthy people are the source of investment capital. Less capital investment means a less prosperous economy, which negatively impacts about everybody.

pstuart 4y ago
Sorry, but I wasn't attacking wealthy people, nor capitalism (but would be willing to poke at 'em for fun some other time). > that huge blocks of the rest of the country (and world) vote with their ballots or feet or both for very poorly-articulated policies and agendas My point is that the policies and agendas seem to be driven more on anger than on structural policies that will enrich their lives. I'm trying desperately to not engage in any sort of partisanship here, but I'm not aware of any significant policies from the previous administration that actually made their lives better. It's been shown that fear (and anger) are powerful motivators: https://www.apa.org/news/apa/2020/fear-motivator-elections https://www.apa.org/news/apa/2020/fear-motivator-elections tl;dr -- fear+anger > economics/domestic policy
- WalterBright 4y ago
  Politicians are well aware that people vote based on emotional appeals, and take full advantage of it.
  - pstuart 4y ago
    Ok, but I'm asking about what actual policies are "those people" voting on? I'm just seeing the fear and anger bits.
    - WalterBright 4y ago
      Trump's tax cuts correlated with prosperity and very low unemployment.
      - pstuart 4y ago
        Correlated. There's plenty to discuss in depth there but let's just stick to enumerating high-level policy/programs that we're being voted for, e.g., "Vote for me and I'll give you X, Y, and Z!". I'm trying to understand what X, Y, and Z might be.
benreesman 4y ago
Eh, I take your point but I think it’s at least debatable. Bell Labs via sanctioned, de-facto subsidized monopoly gave us everything from the transistor to the laser to Unix (you know the list, some readers might not). DoD/ARPA/DARPA funding was responsible for countless innovations, notable to this readership TCP/IP etc. (again, you know the list probably better than I do). Public funding for innovation demonstrably works extremely well at least under some circumstances. Private investment capital has been demonstrably effective at growing that pie somewhat, but it’s arguably been privatizing the resulting wealth even faster than its grown it, and almost definitionally privatizing it into the pockets of people with significant equity portfolios. We’ll obviously never know what would have happened if Bell had been broken up and parceled off in the 1930s instead of the 1980s, but it’s far from obvious to me at least that it would have been better.
- WalterBright 4y ago
  > Private investment capital has been demonstrably effective at growing that pie somewhat Compare the success of the free market at raising the standard of living as opposed to other forms of government - by a lot. > arguably been privatizing the resulting wealth The only way that wealth would have grown is if that investment paid off in providing goods and services that the rest of the country preferred to buy, and they would only prefer spend their money on it if it made their lives better. For example, people like to rag on Amazon, but Amazon's products and services has personally benefited me greatly. Shopping online saves me a ton of time, and wear and tear on my car. As for equity portfolios, anyone in America can invest in equities. Etrade, Robinhood, etc., have done a great job democratizing investing. Want a piece of the action? Buy some equities.
  - eyelidlessness 4y ago
    > Compare the success of the free market at raising the standard of living as opposed to other forms of government - by a lot. Generally alongside massive government-directed/-financed social programs, often much higher tax rates than we’ve seen for decades, alongside a powerful labor movement, and alongside substantial regulation like antitrust. To the extent the raised standard of living has been anything remotely like equitable, anyway. To wit: > For example, people like to rag on Amazon, but Amazon's products and services has personally benefited me greatly. Shopping online saves me a ton of time, and wear and tear on my car. That’s great, for you. And the conditions their warehouse workers experience more closely resemble the conditions of workers in similar jobs a century ago, than the conditions of equivalent jobs which no longer exist many places Amazon operates warehouses. In the same time that this more-free market has been allowed to grow such behemoths, wealth and income disparity have ballooned incredibly. To that point, if I said something like this to many family members and several friends: > As for equity portfolios, anyone in America can invest in equities. Etrade, Robinhood, etc., have done a great job democratizing investing. Want a piece of the action? Buy some equities. They’d either laugh out loud or stop speaking to me. Buy some equities with… what? They’re struggling to keep a roof over their heads. Given the circumstances, where I’ve taken over mortgage payments for my parents so they can have a home and where there’s hospital bills much larger than the value of the house, I suspect some of them would disown me for being so callous. I sincerely am glad that you’re enjoying the benefits of the free market such as it is. But you shouldn’t be under the illusion that it’s anywhere near as available to others as you seem to think.

benreesman 4y ago

I’ve heard a number of plausible theories, but I’d point out that Blue Team’s politicians are damn near as committed as Red Team’s to preventing any of the “wrong people” from getting any money: epsilon politicians on either side are going to budge a nanometer on “the rich get richer” (Pelosi on privileged “insider” trading, Sinema on the carried interest loophole right off the top of my head). In fairness, Red Team’s politicos are much more bare knuckled / flagrant about their take on kleptocapitalism, but on the ground it’s all more or less boils down to “eat the poor”. Even things that I can kinda sorta get behind like student loan forgiveness are mostly A) cosmetic and B) benefitting the base. Not so different from some Texan congressman porking in some oil thing or an F35 appropriations boondoggle in the political calculus. I’d rather see student loan forgiveness than a garbage airplane like the F35, but I’d really like to see people with family offices get sent to “Federal Pound Me in The Ass” prison for the roughly always that they rig up the tax and financial system with flagrant fraud and that’s a complete nonstarter on either side of the aisle.

giardini 4y ago
bennesman says>" but on the ground it’s all more or less boils down to “eat the poor”."< If only it were that easy! sigh

treeman79 4y ago

Your assumption is that government is good. Founders felt it was necessary evil. Without limits it would become tyrannical. Most of the constitution is about Limiting the role of government. So people could have more freedom. Look at China. Dozens of cities locked down. People not free to leave their building. Not possible here thanks to high gun ownership. Police can handle one offs here and their. But not a full cities.