4 ms·

All spending everywhere is essentially “salaries and compensation”. It’s not like you get to the end of the supply chain and suddenly are paying God. Money alwa

by abtinf 1y ago

All spending everywhere is essentially “salaries and compensation”. It’s not like you get to the end of the supply chain and suddenly are paying God. Money always goes to people.

estearum 1y ago
Well, really at rock bottom all payments go into land rent.
- lukas099 1y ago
  Sounds interesting but I'm having a hard time wrapping my mind around that. Would you care to elaborate?
frankbreetz 1y ago
Profit would fall into an entirely different category then "salaries and compensation"
- abtinf 1y ago
  Certainly. So would materials expenses and theft and insurance and so forth. But the confusion is that somehow, money not spent on “salaries and compensation” doesn’t go to people. All of it goes to people. Defense spending isn’t buying “defense”, it’s buying time and effort for people to focus on and produce defense related things. This is the root of the original post that defense spending is a jobs program.
  - ffsm8 1y ago
    > All of it goes to people That's just straight up false. It goes to legal entities, some of which are people. Companies aren't people mate, and neither are investment funds. The money might still be managed by people, but that cannot be called salary, even if you're stretching the definition.
    - lukas099 1y ago
      But companies are owned by people. As are funds.
    - abtinf 1y ago
      For the sake of argument, let’s assume everything you said is true. Would you agree if I reworded my statement to “ultimately, all money eventually flows to people, whether for their labor or due to their ownership of the entities receiving the money”?
      - ffsm8 1y ago
        Ownership is a legal concept, you could even call it fictional. So yes, all transactions can be linked be back to individuals, if you ignore all details and make some gigantic leaps of faith... But what's the insight? Are we just doing philosophy like in ancient Greece?
  - frankbreetz 1y ago
    yes, but "salaries and compensation" are people doing work, and profit gets paid to shareholders. Most people would agree that the bulk of taxpayer dollars should go to working people and not shareholders, these are two entirely different categories. All of it goes to people, is such a reduction. We could just cut a check to Elon Musk and claim "All of goes to people". It is important to establish the difference, between paying people for labor and giving people money in the form of profit.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
monkeyelite 1y ago
But when you get to the end of the supply chain the US gov has very little control of who is getting that money. It’s not an obvious stimulus for US citizens, and in fact taking resources that would benefit other US ventures.
lukas099 1y ago
I don't agree. If I dig a hole in my yard and find a huge chunk of gold, when I sell it very little of what I charge will be for my labor. Also, even if you're right, the "salaries and compensation" of anyone outside the U.S. are effectively NOT that, since the thing in question is whether defense spending is mostly a jobs program.
- Workaccount2 1y ago
  >when I sell it very little of what I charge will be for my labor. No, almost all of it would cover your labor. What you are describing is winning the lottery, which isn't really useful since it is a rounding error of possible scenarios. A "Having a career is meaningless because you can just win the lotto instead" kind of scenario. In reality you would be digging for ages in your yard to find a nugget of gold. If you went to a place with gold to dig, you would be a gold miner, and no, it's not easy money, go ask them.
- 9rx 1y ago
  > when I sell it very little of what I charge will be for my labor. That's debatable. Without the labor input the product doesn't exist as far as the market knows. However, if you want to discount the labor portion, which is an equally valid take, it remains that what was said was “salaries and compensation”. Any compensation you receive for giving up the gold in your possession was already recognized. As said earlier, the exchanged value doesn't go to God, it goes to people. > since the thing in question is whether defense spending is mostly a jobs program. You can certainly play a game of semantics here, but generally "job" in this type of context refers to any kind of economic role, not necessarily direct labor. "It is my job to provide gold to the world" doesn't imply that you are the one doing the actual extraction. The significance of "job programs" is in offering opportunity to derive an income, not to give opportunity to strain muscles.

by abtinf 1y ago

All spending everywhere is essentially “salaries and compensation”. It’s not like you get to the end of the supply chain and suddenly are paying God. Money always goes to people.

estearum 1y ago

Well, really at rock bottom all payments go into land rent.

lukas099 1y ago
Sounds interesting but I'm having a hard time wrapping my mind around that. Would you care to elaborate?

frankbreetz 1y ago

Profit would fall into an entirely different category then "salaries and compensation"

abtinf 1y ago
Certainly. So would materials expenses and theft and insurance and so forth. But the confusion is that somehow, money not spent on “salaries and compensation” doesn’t go to people. All of it goes to people. Defense spending isn’t buying “defense”, it’s buying time and effort for people to focus on and produce defense related things. This is the root of the original post that defense spending is a jobs program.
- ffsm8 1y ago
  > All of it goes to people That's just straight up false. It goes to legal entities, some of which are people. Companies aren't people mate, and neither are investment funds. The money might still be managed by people, but that cannot be called salary, even if you're stretching the definition.
  - lukas099 1y ago
    But companies are owned by people. As are funds.
  - abtinf 1y ago
    For the sake of argument, let’s assume everything you said is true. Would you agree if I reworded my statement to “ultimately, all money eventually flows to people, whether for their labor or due to their ownership of the entities receiving the money”?
    - ffsm8 1y ago
      Ownership is a legal concept, you could even call it fictional. So yes, all transactions can be linked be back to individuals, if you ignore all details and make some gigantic leaps of faith... But what's the insight? Are we just doing philosophy like in ancient Greece?
- frankbreetz 1y ago
  yes, but "salaries and compensation" are people doing work, and profit gets paid to shareholders. Most people would agree that the bulk of taxpayer dollars should go to working people and not shareholders, these are two entirely different categories. All of it goes to people, is such a reduction. We could just cut a check to Elon Musk and claim "All of goes to people". It is important to establish the difference, between paying people for labor and giving people money in the form of profit.

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

monkeyelite 1y ago

But when you get to the end of the supply chain the US gov has very little control of who is getting that money. It’s not an obvious stimulus for US citizens, and in fact taking resources that would benefit other US ventures.

lukas099 1y ago

I don't agree. If I dig a hole in my yard and find a huge chunk of gold, when I sell it very little of what I charge will be for my labor. Also, even if you're right, the "salaries and compensation" of anyone outside the U.S. are effectively NOT that, since the thing in question is whether defense spending is mostly a jobs program.

Workaccount2 1y ago
>when I sell it very little of what I charge will be for my labor. No, almost all of it would cover your labor. What you are describing is winning the lottery, which isn't really useful since it is a rounding error of possible scenarios. A "Having a career is meaningless because you can just win the lotto instead" kind of scenario. In reality you would be digging for ages in your yard to find a nugget of gold. If you went to a place with gold to dig, you would be a gold miner, and no, it's not easy money, go ask them.
9rx 1y ago
> when I sell it very little of what I charge will be for my labor. That's debatable. Without the labor input the product doesn't exist as far as the market knows. However, if you want to discount the labor portion, which is an equally valid take, it remains that what was said was “salaries and compensation”. Any compensation you receive for giving up the gold in your possession was already recognized. As said earlier, the exchanged value doesn't go to God, it goes to people. > since the thing in question is whether defense spending is mostly a jobs program. You can certainly play a game of semantics here, but generally "job" in this type of context refers to any kind of economic role, not necessarily direct labor. "It is my job to provide gold to the world" doesn't imply that you are the one doing the actual extraction. The significance of "job programs" is in offering opportunity to derive an income, not to give opportunity to strain muscles.