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The subsidies you received and I received are the ambient subsidies we all have access to. The point you are not acknowledging is that some people take those su

by chimi 14y ago

The subsidies you received and I received are the ambient subsidies we all have access to. The point you are not acknowledging is that some people take those subsidies and create additional value and improvements to the quality of life for those around them and others take additional subsidies on top of that ambient level of subsidization and at best create no additional value and at worst create a lower quality of life for others. It's not a tiny demographic, it's double digit percentages of the population, at least 1 out of 5 people and maybe more. We need to enable and reward the creators and punish the consumers. Our society is currently set up in the reverse manner.

Jtsummers 14y ago
So yeah, I believe I am parsing you correctly on your last sentence: > We need to enable and reward the creators and punish the consumers. Our society is currently set up in the reverse manner. I believe you mean those lowdown, dirty, rotten moochers to be the consumers. I disagree with you, being on food stamps is a pretty lousy reward. The projects as the only affordable residency option is pretty lousy. Being constantly looked down upon by those with more is pretty lousy. Seems like a lousy reward all around. However, you may want to reword it anyways. Another reading of it suggests: Consumers can die from our products, they can waste away from our terribly unhealthy foods, in the end we want all the wealth for ourselves regardless of the fact that they're the one's needed for us to have a sustainable future. Sounds like a lot of companies. Those Facebook users are clearly moochers, they aren't paying anything to Facebook for the privilege of using their services. So Facebook is in the right to punish them by completely breaking down any conventional notion of privacy.</sarcasm> (Because in text form it's never clear).
potatolicious 14y ago
> "It's not a tiny demographic, it's double digit percentages of the population, at least 1 out of 5 people and maybe more." This is an extraordinary claim that demands substantiation. Everything we know about US labor statistics suggests that the long-term unemployed are a tiny portion of the population (6.16 million as of last month, out of a labor force of 239 million). That's roughly 2.5% of the work force, or 1.98% of the total overall population. Note also that people who receive unemployment benefits (including food stamps) are required to be part of the work force (i.e., they are not lumped into the substantial out-of-work-force bucket). There's also the question of just how much these benefits are, and why anyone of sound mind would voluntarily, permanently go on them (even if they could sit on these benefits in perpetuity, which they can't): a single person is only eligible for $200 in food stamp benefits a month, scaling down to $668 for a family of 4. How many people who are on this benefit do you think are there voluntarily, because they're too lazy and $200 a month is such a strong incentive to stay out of work? There are so many crazy, absurd leaps in logic required for a person to conclude that a large portion of the population is too lazy to get work and just leeching off society. The reality is a hell of a lot more reasonable. > "We need to enable and reward the creators and punish the consumers." This is counterproductive and absurd. We don't need to punish the "consumers", we need to help them become creators. This is my problem with libertarian types - you assume the world's problems can be solved by puritanical moralizing, and that people need to be beaten, not led, to productive behavior. Like I've said elsewhere in this thread, this is moralizing in the guise of economics. Your punitive measures will have no positive effect besides making you feel better about having wrought vengeance upon those you perceive to have wronged creators. There is no rational basis for believing that punitive measures will make net-negative-value people into net-positive-values. So yeah, if we did things your way the world will go to hell in a hand basket. But that's okay, so long as "justice" is served, and those icky no-goodniks are properly flogged for their icky laziness.

by chimi 14y ago

Jtsummers 14y ago

So yeah, I believe I am parsing you correctly on your last sentence: > We need to enable and reward the creators and punish the consumers. Our society is currently set up in the reverse manner. I believe you mean those lowdown, dirty, rotten moochers to be the consumers. I disagree with you, being on food stamps is a pretty lousy reward. The projects as the only affordable residency option is pretty lousy. Being constantly looked down upon by those with more is pretty lousy. Seems like a lousy reward all around. However, you may want to reword it anyways. Another reading of it suggests: Consumers can die from our products, they can waste away from our terribly unhealthy foods, in the end we want all the wealth for ourselves regardless of the fact that they're the one's needed for us to have a sustainable future. Sounds like a lot of companies. Those Facebook users are clearly moochers, they aren't paying anything to Facebook for the privilege of using their services. So Facebook is in the right to punish them by completely breaking down any conventional notion of privacy.</sarcasm> (Because in text form it's never clear).

potatolicious 14y ago

> "It's not a tiny demographic, it's double digit percentages of the population, at least 1 out of 5 people and maybe more." This is an extraordinary claim that demands substantiation. Everything we know about US labor statistics suggests that the long-term unemployed are a tiny portion of the population (6.16 million as of last month, out of a labor force of 239 million). That's roughly 2.5% of the work force, or 1.98% of the total overall population. Note also that people who receive unemployment benefits (including food stamps) are required to be part of the work force (i.e., they are not lumped into the substantial out-of-work-force bucket). There's also the question of just how much these benefits are, and why anyone of sound mind would voluntarily, permanently go on them (even if they could sit on these benefits in perpetuity, which they can't): a single person is only eligible for $200 in food stamp benefits a month, scaling down to $668 for a family of 4. How many people who are on this benefit do you think are there voluntarily, because they're too lazy and $200 a month is such a strong incentive to stay out of work? There are so many crazy, absurd leaps in logic required for a person to conclude that a large portion of the population is too lazy to get work and just leeching off society. The reality is a hell of a lot more reasonable. > "We need to enable and reward the creators and punish the consumers." This is counterproductive and absurd. We don't need to punish the "consumers", we need to help them become creators. This is my problem with libertarian types - you assume the world's problems can be solved by puritanical moralizing, and that people need to be beaten, not led, to productive behavior. Like I've said elsewhere in this thread, this is moralizing in the guise of economics. Your punitive measures will have no positive effect besides making you feel better about having wrought vengeance upon those you perceive to have wronged creators. There is no rational basis for believing that punitive measures will make net-negative-value people into net-positive-values. So yeah, if we did things your way the world will go to hell in a hand basket. But that's okay, so long as "justice" is served, and those icky no-goodniks are properly flogged for their icky laziness.