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I guess you're being sarcastic? I'm not really sure. What you're describing is the reason I'm not a "liberal", but I also think it's bullshit that so many of Sa

I guess you're being sarcastic? I'm not really sure. What you're describing is the reason I'm not a "liberal", but I also think it's bullshit that so many of San Francisco's service workers have to live on the other side of the Bay when there's so much money in this city.

smsm42 14y ago
Not sure what this has to do with San Francisco service workers. I personally wouldn't want to live in SF, even though I visit from time to time - I think the city government should be committed to the mental hospital, but SF people are apparently fine with it, so who I am to tell them.
smsm42 14y ago
And yes, I was sarcastic and I meant the topicstarting post which exhibits classic liberal cliche of "why don't we just take all the wealth and redistribute it and everybody would have enough money". If the author is under 20, it's completely excusable, he just needs to do some reading and thinking, but if it's not - it's a problem. Unfortunately, quite a common one.
- jbooth 14y ago
  You're quite severely strawmanning the original poster and 99% of liberals who don't have dreadlocks and punctuate every sentence with ",man". I'd add that this strawmanning and the assumption that it's true by ~~35% of the country is the reason no reform has happened for the last 3 years.
  - smsm42 14y ago
    No I am not - the poster explicitly cited confiscatory taxes and redistribution as his proposed solution to the perceived problems. I don't care about what grows on the outside of his head, but on the inside it's exactly as I described, I didn't invent it - he told it himself by his own words (all while he did strawman the political opponents by falsely claiming Republicans did not oppose raising his taxes, which many of them did).
    - jbooth 14y ago
      The person you replied to didn't mention taxes except as a metaphor 'tax yourself', talking about tipping well. The rush to portray anybody to the economic left of Ayn Rand as a communist is the reason we won't see reasonable tax reform cleaning up deductions and all that, something that both Obama and Republicans say they support. The second Obama proposes something, it's communism, and there's no possibility for working with him.
      - smsm42 14y ago
        The commenter did. I, however, highlighted the difference in his (commenters) approach with the approach of the author of the topic article, who advocates confiscatory taxes - because he's not content with doing something he thinks is right, he wants everybody to be forced to do the same. As it often happens, first thing you do protesting stigmatization is stigmatize and paint me, protesting confiscatory taxes, as somebody who rushes "to portray anybody to the economic left of Ayn Rand as a communist" - despite the fact that I never said or implied anything of the sort. The reason, however, why we don't see reasonable tax reform is, first, that current situation is hugely profitable for people in power - if you have power to grant tax exemptions, you will soon have a lot of friends who need tax exemptions, and these people tend to have a lot of money. If you make tax code simple and logical, you lose the power to regulate people's behavior (see how it comes back to where we started?) and you lose the influence and the friends with money. That's why we have hundreds of "deductions", "credits", etc. - because the government wants to control people, and when it can't do it by force of direct coercion, it does it by force of taxation. See the recent example of Obamacare - the fix to mandate the participation in the scheme is to do it through punitive taxation. The second reason why we don't see reasonable tax reform is that for certain part of US political spectrum, "reasonable" means applying punitive and confiscatory tax levels on people that they do not like. You can not approach reasonable solution if you come in with hidden agenda and try to enact social-engineering agenda under the guise of economic policy. The third reason why we don't see reasonable tax reform is that many view "tax reform" as a magic bullet that would allow us to get a free ride out of over-commitment on welfare obligations that our economy is unable to support. There's a widespread view that there's a huge amounts of "wealth" hidden by capitalists somewhere and if only we could tap into that hidden treasure all nearly broke welfare programs would suddenly become viable and sustainable in the long term. Unfortunately, this magic stash does not exist and tax reform would not fix the problem of welfare overcommitment. >>>> The second Obama proposes something, it's communism, and there's no possibility for working with him. This is pure organic bullshit. The problem with so many Obama proposals it's not that it is "communism" but that it stems from misguided idea that the economy needs more government-driven redistribution and that such redistribution makes everybody better off. Communists shared that idea too, but the problem is not in the communists, nobody cares too much what they think as they are largely irrelevant by now, the problem is that the idea is wrong.
yummyfajitas 14y ago
Why is it "bullshit"? Due to space constraints, someone needs to commute for an hour. What's wrong with the person having a lower hourly productivity being the one stuck with the commute?
- jbooth 14y ago
  Who's to say that a teacher, policeman or civil administrator has a lower hourly productivity than some rails coder working on a social mobile startup? Heck, dishwashers work harder than we do. That opens up a debate about skills scarcity, which I can see, but calling public service jobs 'less productive' just because we get to vote (indirectly) on their paychecks seems a bit circular to me.
- bobwaycott 14y ago
  > What's wrong with the person having a lower hourly productivity being the one stuck with the commute? The productivity of labor is not determined by wages. Period. What is right with the person having a lower hourly wage being the one stuck with the commute? What is wrong with the person with the higher hourly wage being the one stuck with the commute? Due to space constraints, what argument is there for preferential treatment of those already economically better off? It is far less of a hit on your pocketbook to shoulder the expensive commute than it is on someone making 50% of your wages. Perhaps the social expectation should be that the more money an agent makes, the greater his social responsibility to give up conveniences to those making less to better balance the equation? There is far more reason to be found in those with higher wages being 'stuck with the commute' and living in less convenient areas than there is in an elitist notion that one ought to have the benefit of both higher wages and maximum convenience. Unless, of course, higher hourly wages also bestow upon the bearer an inherent right to misanthropy and rejection of a social obligation to produce greater equality across humankind.

smsm42 14y ago

Not sure what this has to do with San Francisco service workers. I personally wouldn't want to live in SF, even though I visit from time to time - I think the city government should be committed to the mental hospital, but SF people are apparently fine with it, so who I am to tell them.

smsm42 14y ago

And yes, I was sarcastic and I meant the topicstarting post which exhibits classic liberal cliche of "why don't we just take all the wealth and redistribute it and everybody would have enough money". If the author is under 20, it's completely excusable, he just needs to do some reading and thinking, but if it's not - it's a problem. Unfortunately, quite a common one.

jbooth 14y ago
You're quite severely strawmanning the original poster and 99% of liberals who don't have dreadlocks and punctuate every sentence with ",man". I'd add that this strawmanning and the assumption that it's true by ~~35% of the country is the reason no reform has happened for the last 3 years.
- smsm42 14y ago
  No I am not - the poster explicitly cited confiscatory taxes and redistribution as his proposed solution to the perceived problems. I don't care about what grows on the outside of his head, but on the inside it's exactly as I described, I didn't invent it - he told it himself by his own words (all while he did strawman the political opponents by falsely claiming Republicans did not oppose raising his taxes, which many of them did).
  - jbooth 14y ago
    The person you replied to didn't mention taxes except as a metaphor 'tax yourself', talking about tipping well. The rush to portray anybody to the economic left of Ayn Rand as a communist is the reason we won't see reasonable tax reform cleaning up deductions and all that, something that both Obama and Republicans say they support. The second Obama proposes something, it's communism, and there's no possibility for working with him.
    - smsm42 14y ago
      The commenter did. I, however, highlighted the difference in his (commenters) approach with the approach of the author of the topic article, who advocates confiscatory taxes - because he's not content with doing something he thinks is right, he wants everybody to be forced to do the same. As it often happens, first thing you do protesting stigmatization is stigmatize and paint me, protesting confiscatory taxes, as somebody who rushes "to portray anybody to the economic left of Ayn Rand as a communist" - despite the fact that I never said or implied anything of the sort. The reason, however, why we don't see reasonable tax reform is, first, that current situation is hugely profitable for people in power - if you have power to grant tax exemptions, you will soon have a lot of friends who need tax exemptions, and these people tend to have a lot of money. If you make tax code simple and logical, you lose the power to regulate people's behavior (see how it comes back to where we started?) and you lose the influence and the friends with money. That's why we have hundreds of "deductions", "credits", etc. - because the government wants to control people, and when it can't do it by force of direct coercion, it does it by force of taxation. See the recent example of Obamacare - the fix to mandate the participation in the scheme is to do it through punitive taxation. The second reason why we don't see reasonable tax reform is that for certain part of US political spectrum, "reasonable" means applying punitive and confiscatory tax levels on people that they do not like. You can not approach reasonable solution if you come in with hidden agenda and try to enact social-engineering agenda under the guise of economic policy. The third reason why we don't see reasonable tax reform is that many view "tax reform" as a magic bullet that would allow us to get a free ride out of over-commitment on welfare obligations that our economy is unable to support. There's a widespread view that there's a huge amounts of "wealth" hidden by capitalists somewhere and if only we could tap into that hidden treasure all nearly broke welfare programs would suddenly become viable and sustainable in the long term. Unfortunately, this magic stash does not exist and tax reform would not fix the problem of welfare overcommitment. >>>> The second Obama proposes something, it's communism, and there's no possibility for working with him. This is pure organic bullshit. The problem with so many Obama proposals it's not that it is "communism" but that it stems from misguided idea that the economy needs more government-driven redistribution and that such redistribution makes everybody better off. Communists shared that idea too, but the problem is not in the communists, nobody cares too much what they think as they are largely irrelevant by now, the problem is that the idea is wrong.

yummyfajitas 14y ago

Why is it "bullshit"? Due to space constraints, someone needs to commute for an hour. What's wrong with the person having a lower hourly productivity being the one stuck with the commute?

jbooth 14y ago
Who's to say that a teacher, policeman or civil administrator has a lower hourly productivity than some rails coder working on a social mobile startup? Heck, dishwashers work harder than we do. That opens up a debate about skills scarcity, which I can see, but calling public service jobs 'less productive' just because we get to vote (indirectly) on their paychecks seems a bit circular to me.
bobwaycott 14y ago
> What's wrong with the person having a lower hourly productivity being the one stuck with the commute? The productivity of labor is not determined by wages. Period. What is right with the person having a lower hourly wage being the one stuck with the commute? What is wrong with the person with the higher hourly wage being the one stuck with the commute? Due to space constraints, what argument is there for preferential treatment of those already economically better off? It is far less of a hit on your pocketbook to shoulder the expensive commute than it is on someone making 50% of your wages. Perhaps the social expectation should be that the more money an agent makes, the greater his social responsibility to give up conveniences to those making less to better balance the equation? There is far more reason to be found in those with higher wages being 'stuck with the commute' and living in less convenient areas than there is in an elitist notion that one ought to have the benefit of both higher wages and maximum convenience. Unless, of course, higher hourly wages also bestow upon the bearer an inherent right to misanthropy and rejection of a social obligation to produce greater equality across humankind.