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There is a substantial amount of pushback against hiking the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour and some resistance to student debt loan forgiveness, but the rest of the wish list is electoral catnip:
Remember, Mitch McConnell lost the GOP the Senate by refusing to sign onto the promised $2000 $1400 stimulus premium Trump supported, congressional Democrats seconded, and McConnell scoffed at. Georgia was decided by less than a point. Within that razor thin margin, were there voters who would’ve voted Republican if it didn’t mean giving up $2000 of free cash? Rhetorical.
A minimum wage hike creates a wage floor that leaves the bottom of society behind. It benefits only a small, semi-skilled uneducated section of the labor force and hurts everyone else. It increases incentives to pay off the books. It accentuates rather than attenuates wealth inequality. It is another form of regulatory burden designed to snuff out small businesses for the benefit of the corporate giants.
A UBI has none of these drawbacks and it has the added bonus of appealing to people’s innate sense of fairness.
Budget deficits and the Fed’s balance sheet are going to continue to grow inexorably. Interest rates will never be raised, shortfalls will never be made up. If the dollar is invincible, we’ll print our way to prosperity and live happily ever after. If it’s not, we’re going to continue to accelerate towards the crash, without slowing down let alone pausing, until the break. Brace for impact.
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They should compromise at about $9.00 per hour.
There are plenty of small rural and semi-rural factories that dont pay $15 an hour in the South. These jobs would vanish. Maybe thats the point though.
Ideally, you would have unions that could negotiate wages that are sustainable for the industry and fair, but the unions have been busted and/or corrupted.
But minimum wages should help suppress immigration while UBI should draw more and more people into the country.
I support student loan debt forgiveness as long as it is joined to some systemic educational reforms like making professional licenses dependent purely on exams rather than on exams-after-degrees and decreasing any kinds of federal aid, including future student loans to universities that spend large percentages of yearly budget on things like sports facilities.
Combine this with the fact that ICE is putting the kid gloves on, and this could be a boom for illegal immigration.
Foreigners and their spawn ain't eligible for the Pewitt Conjured Loot Portion(PCLP) and most foreigners will be repatriated out of the USA and illegal alien invaders will be deported immediately in the future Pewitt presidential administration.
The Pewitt Conjured Loot Portion(PCLP) will pay each American who has all blood ancestry born in colonial America or the USA before 1924 a cool ten thousand dollars a month. The US Treasury and the Federal Reserve Bank shall work together to conjure up the cash out of thin air, just like the ruling class is doing now.
I support student loan debt forgiveness as long as it is joined to some systemic educational reforms like making professional licenses dependent purely on exams rather than on exams-after-degrees and decreasing any kinds of federal aid, including future student loans to universities that spend large percentages of yearly budget on things like sports facilities.
I wrote this in January of 2019:
What if the student loan debt bubble scam was cooked up bankers and puppet politicians such as Bill Clinton to massively increase debt to provide more ability for shady shysters to clam rake out some cash before the whole damn thing came down in a crash?
I thought it was understood by Unz Review types that financialization was a frigging swindle from the get-go? The baby boomers got the jobs and the graft from the student loan debt bubble and the bankers got the profit on the loans. Construction cads built crap like gangbusters on all the student loan debt and they loved it. A lot of money-grubbers were grabbing the cash from student loans and they loved it.
The answer to the student loan debt bubble is to implode the debt by immediate debt repudiations and money printing. There was always going to be a currency crisis anyway after the monetary extremism starting in 2008, so it might as well start now. The Deep State can coordinate with China and Japan and Europe to simultaneously implode the value of global currencies. The baby boomers will be financially liquidated, but they have been the beneficiary of all the unpayable debt anyway.
The Fed could take all the repudiated student loan debt onto its balance sheet like they took all the toxic mortgage-backed securities.
All student loan debt — whether paid or unpaid — should be redeemed back to students who took out the debt. Every penny ever borrowed for student loans should be sent back to the students who took out the loans and paid them. All unpayed student loan debt should be repudiated with extreme prejudice.
https://www.unz.com/anepigone/average-iq-of-college-undergrads-and-graduate-degree-holders-by-decade/#comment-2735877
One way of looking at this question is: If it’s good for White People, it’s good!
There are plenty of small rural and semi-rural factories that dont pay $15 an hour in the South. These jobs would vanish. Maybe thats the point though.Replies: @Rosie
Something needs to be done. Jeff Bezos has become fabulously wealthy by underpayment and overworking his employees. He then uses this money to commandeer the political process, including resisting taxes on his wealth to fund, say, UBI, so he has even more money to bribe politicians, etc.
Ideally, you would have unions that could negotiate wages that are sustainable for the industry and fair, but the unions have been busted and/or corrupted.
I’m concerned at this new $3000-$3600 per child benefit. It is an invitation for any female hoodrat or trailer park pill popper to whelp out a life of ease by staying knocked up. Who in the hell needs a $15 per hour minimum wage when you can make just as much having children and not have to go to a crummy job everyday. Such payments for pregnancy are clearly unaffordable and will have to be withdrawn once Biden’s stimulus money has been squandered on this and public sector payroll support. Unfortunately the low quality children this program will create will remain and still require cradle to prison cell taxpayer support.
I do not support student loan ‘foregiveness’. I know millions of young people got themselves into a bad situation by taking on enormous debt to drink beer and party when they got out of high school but other young people didn’t go to college right away or at all so why should they have to subsidize those who did. Then there are those who joined the military as a way to defray some of their educational costs. Some died or were wounded during their tours of duty. Are we going to turn them into suckers for choosing this path to paying for college?
As a note aside, we might want to just end student loans for college ( unless the school cosigns for the debt) and, instead, allow parents to get loans to send their children to good private high schools.
Getting a good high school education is preferable as such children can benefit more from college than a child who graduates from a crummy high school only to find they cannot undertake a more demanding curriculum in college.
It is similar to health care coverage, which by being tied irrationally to employment, adversely and irrationally affects peoples decisions about quitting and looking for new work.
We should try to reduce factors that prevent people from pursuing economic opportunities.
I do not support student loan 'foregiveness'. I know millions of young people got themselves into a bad situation by taking on enormous debt to drink beer and party when they got out of high school but other young people didn't go to college right away or at all so why should they have to subsidize those who did. Then there are those who joined the military as a way to defray some of their educational costs. Some died or were wounded during their tours of duty. Are we going to turn them into suckers for choosing this path to paying for college?
As a note aside, we might want to just end student loans for college ( unless the school cosigns for the debt) and, instead, allow parents to get loans to send their children to good private high schools.
Getting a good high school education is preferable as such children can benefit more from college than a child who graduates from a crummy high school only to find they cannot undertake a more demanding curriculum in college.Replies: @Supply and Demand, @Chrisnonymous
I hope all gray-hair, austerity loving GOPers maintain this level of resentment toward the indebted youth so that they are Democrats forever. Biden will be the first guy to dish out gibs to whites since Hitler with student loan forgiveness, earning the Germanic monicker A123 gives him.
All hail Joe Biden, all curse Trumpenstein.
How can it be so hard? Why is an egalitarian society so out of reach for America?
Take Libya, for example.
Libya under Gadaffi was the most prosperous nation in Africa. Free education, including university, for everyone. Universal free health care. Free housing for parents with children. Massive joint infrastructure projects with all Libya’s neighbors. Health and prosperity as far as the eye could see.
Oh, that’s right, you brought freedom and democracy to Libya, butchered Gadaffi and trashed the joint. And Hillary cackled with glee.
These are the people running America, so I guess it does make sense.
I’d be in favor of forgiving student loans IF Biden would claw back from the colleges and universities the money they paid to administrators, diversity hirelings and worthless propagandists posing as professors in some made up field of study created solely to allow them to enroll some 18 year old sucker and saddle them with debt for a worthless degree. But Biden won’t do that because those well paid administrators, diversity hirelings and phony professors are part of his political base. They’ll get to keep their ill-gotten loot and pickup a defined benefit pension their students will never see.
Sorry you got cheated but debt doesn’t just vanish. It gets paid off one way or another. If it stays on the governments balance sheet every penny of interest paid to service that debt is one less penny another government agency has to fund other programs.
All these ideas Democrats support will be inflationary in the long run because they will all involve more money printing. This is even true in the case of a higher minimum wage since it will throw more people out of work and the government will have to support them. It’s also true of eviction bans since the landlords will need a government bailout. They can hardly keep providing free housing on a long term basis.
Since all these bad ideas will cause massive amounts of money printing leading to high levels of inflation, I fear it will lead to the ultimate bad idea governments usually come up with in these types of situations. That idea is wage and price controls. Price controls will be followed by shortages of goods. We will be going down to the grocery store and seeing empty shelves. Goods will only be available on the black market and you will run the risk of getting arrested if you buy them.
I support student loan debt forgiveness as long as it is joined to some systemic educational reforms like making professional licenses dependent purely on exams rather than on exams-after-degrees and decreasing any kinds of federal aid, including future student loans to universities that spend large percentages of yearly budget on things like sports facilities.Replies: @Wency, @Charles Pewitt, @RadicalCenter
I wonder about this, and it makes sense in theory if the minimum wage is enforced. But I imagine that in a lot of areas where most jobs at or near the current minimum wage, there’s going to be a widespread attempt among small businesses to evade enforcement, go under-the-table and pay employees cash (and less than $15/hour). And it seems you’re more likely to get away with that if you use illegal immigrants — in fact, there’s a good chance you’re doing it already. But if you’re not, it’s going to be tempting to start doing so if the alternative is closing your business.
Combine this with the fact that ICE is putting the kid gloves on, and this could be a boom for illegal immigration.
Sorry you got cheated but debt doesn't just vanish. It gets paid off one way or another. If it stays on the governments balance sheet every penny of interest paid to service that debt is one less penny another government agency has to fund other programs.Replies: @Supply and Demand
I didn’t get cheated. The Chinese government paid off my 40K in student loans shortly after I put in two years of work for the Thousand Talents Program doing academic espionage on their behalf. Pretty good deal for me, IMO.
Few other Americans have that opportunity, though.
My 2020 presidential campaign rather modestly and politely and mildly touched upon using the federal government to nationalize the privately-controlled Federal Reserve Bank and electronically conjuring up cash out of thin air and doling it out to White Core Americans.
My Modest Federal Reserve Bank Nationalization Proposal From August Of 2020:
The Charles Pewitt campaign for president of the USA has recently put forth the modest policy proposal of nationalizing the currently-private Federal Reserve Bank.
The PPP program scam and the unemployment program scam and the other Bat Soup Fever scams are rancid disgusting frauds that shovel conjured up loot to shady bastards — yeah, I didn’t get any of it and I’m as bitter and jealous and infuriated as a late season bee.
NATIONALIZE THE FED NOW! DAMMIT!
The dollar is going dodo and if we don’t grab some goddamn loot then some other bastard will do it and continue to do it.
Welfare Queen money grubbers are grabbing loot from this PPP horseshit and this extra 600 clams a week in the unemployment and the Fed is conjuring up the loot out of thin air.
NATIONALIZE THE FED NOW!
The phucking dollar is done and a currency collapse is baked into the cake and the American Empire is imploding like a bastard and the hogs are at the trough shouldering us regular people the Hell out.
They ARE doing the Bernanke helicopter money at this very damn frigging moment and the shady crooked crook governor of a certain state is grabbing big loot from this disgusting PPP fraud scam. The vile disgusting baby boomer money-grubber hubby of a certain senator from a certain state is grabbing this Fed PPP money like a bastard too! OUTRAGED!
The 60 percent for payroll and the 40 percent for so-called “business expenses” leads me to believe that the PPP is the most crooked crock of rancid fraudulent horseshit ever.
But, the crooked PPP scam and the unemployment 600 hundred dollar scam treat are merciful and kind, the privately-controlled Federal Reserve Bank itself is the dreaded enemy.
All the phucking financial scams emanate from the big scam of the debt-based fiat currency system that the baby boomers have used to attack and destroy the European Christian ancestral core of the USA. The Fed asset bubbles bought off the slobs born before 1965 and that’s why those damn dirty nation-wreckers have allowed all this anti-White crap to keep going. The mass legal immigration and the mass illegal immigration would’ve been stopped long ago if it weren’t for the greedy slobs born before 1965 getting bought off with all the ill-gotten gains from all the Fed-induced asset bubbles.
Grab Control Of The Fed Now!
Nationalize The Fed And Get Your PCLP Ten Thousand Dollars A Month Now!
The Pewitt Conjured Loot Portion(PCLP) will pay each American who has all blood ancestry born in colonial America or the USA before 1924 a cool ten thousand dollars a month. The US Treasury and the Federal Reserve Bank shall work together to conjure up the cash out of thin air, just like the ruling class is doing now.
https://www.unz.com/anepigone/shaking-the-money-tree/#comment-4134735
I support student loan debt forgiveness as long as it is joined to some systemic educational reforms like making professional licenses dependent purely on exams rather than on exams-after-degrees and decreasing any kinds of federal aid, including future student loans to universities that spend large percentages of yearly budget on things like sports facilities.Replies: @Wency, @Charles Pewitt, @RadicalCenter
But minimum wages should help suppress immigration while UBI should draw more and more people into the country.
Foreigners and their spawn ain’t eligible for the Pewitt Conjured Loot Portion(PCLP) and most foreigners will be repatriated out of the USA and illegal alien invaders will be deported immediately in the future Pewitt presidential administration.
The Pewitt Conjured Loot Portion(PCLP) will pay each American who has all blood ancestry born in colonial America or the USA before 1924 a cool ten thousand dollars a month. The US Treasury and the Federal Reserve Bank shall work together to conjure up the cash out of thin air, just like the ruling class is doing now.
I support student loan debt forgiveness as long as it is joined to some systemic educational reforms like making professional licenses dependent purely on exams rather than on exams-after-degrees and decreasing any kinds of federal aid, including future student loans to universities that spend large percentages of yearly budget on things like sports facilities.
I wrote this in January of 2019:
What if the student loan debt bubble scam was cooked up bankers and puppet politicians such as Bill Clinton to massively increase debt to provide more ability for shady shysters to clam rake out some cash before the whole damn thing came down in a crash?
I thought it was understood by Unz Review types that financialization was a frigging swindle from the get-go? The baby boomers got the jobs and the graft from the student loan debt bubble and the bankers got the profit on the loans. Construction cads built crap like gangbusters on all the student loan debt and they loved it. A lot of money-grubbers were grabbing the cash from student loans and they loved it.
The answer to the student loan debt bubble is to implode the debt by immediate debt repudiations and money printing. There was always going to be a currency crisis anyway after the monetary extremism starting in 2008, so it might as well start now. The Deep State can coordinate with China and Japan and Europe to simultaneously implode the value of global currencies. The baby boomers will be financially liquidated, but they have been the beneficiary of all the unpayable debt anyway.
The Fed could take all the repudiated student loan debt onto its balance sheet like they took all the toxic mortgage-backed securities.
All student loan debt — whether paid or unpaid — should be redeemed back to students who took out the debt. Every penny ever borrowed for student loans should be sent back to the students who took out the loans and paid them. All unpayed student loan debt should be repudiated with extreme prejudice.
https://www.unz.com/anepigone/average-iq-of-college-undergrads-and-graduate-degree-holders-by-decade/#comment-2735877
NATIONALIZE THE FEDERAL RESERVE BANK NOW!
This Covid thing is an excuse for the economic collapse.
Its actually the Fed’s policies that destroyed it.
The offshoring and the cheap labor have killed the great economic engine.
They are now trying to salt the dry wells to hide their malfeasance.
The fear is that the rigged system that favors the fake elite will be overthrown.
The Federal Reserve is a legalised counterfeiting ring.
The Federal Reserve must be abolished.
The Zionists must be overthrown.
The otherkins must be expelled.
Only those things will save the economy from total oblivion.
It’s not the fiscal austerity that pisses people off, ladies and gentlemen. It’s the fact that these people talk in terms of fiscal austerity and give you the bootstraps speeches with a straight face while finding billions of dollars to hand out to foreign states and are are willing to shell out tens of millions more for SJW-fied museums in exchange for tax cuts on martinis at CEO luncheons. To say nothing of still refusing to seriously go after trusts and plutocrats, ones that even openly support your opponents if you need to speak in terms of pure political self-interest. It’s like what I said about the Democrats and riots: there’s a point where your hypocrisy is going to reach the level that *anything* you say on the topic is going to be undermined, even if it is accurate in this particular, limited sense case.
The only salvaging point is that the Democrats do visibly insane stuff like fetishiziug open borders while still embracing domestic lockdowns (and even talking about closing down inter-state travel), but it’s not as if the Mitch McConnells and Ron Johnsons and Liz Cheneys of the world ever going to buck increasingly ridiculous levels of donor class greed on importing labor. If they did, they would not be treated differently than Trump by the media. Relying off being the lesser of two evils is never going to pay off every year in politics.
Peace.Replies: @anon
PS:
Lindsey Graham is very happy about Biden’s stance of Afghanistan. That’s another X-billion-something dollars that we supposedly don’t have.
And, BTW, we don’t: we really don’t. But if you are going to be spending money like this, you might as well spend it on your struggling citizens in the context of the worst economic crisis we’ve faced in a long time.
I do not support student loan 'foregiveness'. I know millions of young people got themselves into a bad situation by taking on enormous debt to drink beer and party when they got out of high school but other young people didn't go to college right away or at all so why should they have to subsidize those who did. Then there are those who joined the military as a way to defray some of their educational costs. Some died or were wounded during their tours of duty. Are we going to turn them into suckers for choosing this path to paying for college?
As a note aside, we might want to just end student loans for college ( unless the school cosigns for the debt) and, instead, allow parents to get loans to send their children to good private high schools.
Getting a good high school education is preferable as such children can benefit more from college than a child who graduates from a crummy high school only to find they cannot undertake a more demanding curriculum in college.Replies: @Supply and Demand, @Chrisnonymous
I hear you about responsible and patriotic young people, but student loans seriously affect people’s ability to get on with life. Young people who take out loans are not acting independently. Their friends are doing the same, and they are being told by their parents, high schools, and the universities that they should do so as well. It is in all of our interests to end student loan debt as long as the system that seduced these students is ended as well.
It is similar to health care coverage, which by being tied irrationally to employment, adversely and irrationally affects peoples decisions about quitting and looking for new work.
We should try to reduce factors that prevent people from pursuing economic opportunities.
I hope they do stop interstate travel to Florida. “Democrats build Berlin Wall to stop children from going to Disney World: news at eleven!”
Nah, there's a lot more Boomers who really, really need to move to The Villages. And stay there.
Let’s not be too hard on Graham. He was golden on Kavanaugh and is now doing the gods’ work by questioning what Democrats knew about the riots before they took place.
This. People hate hypocrisy.
Peace.
People hate hypocrisy.
Guys like Soros don't care. They just want to be obeyed, that's all.
I hope they do stop interstate travel to Florida
Nah, there’s a lot more Boomers who really, really need to move to The Villages. And stay there.
Peace.Replies: @anon
“Government” is acting. It’s acting in a way to benefit the tiny minority donor class, that’s all.
People hate hypocrisy.
Guys like Soros don’t care. They just want to be obeyed, that’s all.
The U.S. ranks 13th in infrastructure, and it gets worse from there. 27th in competence of medical staffs, 25th in schools, and so on. I think now people realize that “exceptionalism” is a lie. The vaccine rollout clinched it for anyone who still needed convincing. But they (especially Dems) WANT exceptionalism. The Fed’s printing press = free money (they assume) and so they support it, as the only way to somewhat evade the harsh reality of U.S. mediocrity.
UBI could mean simple and transparent redistribution. It may well be popular with voters. Social security is, and therefore untouchable. UBI would also replace existing welfare programs.
What makes it appealing for voters makes it unappealing for the ruling oligarchy. UBI doesn’t require a large federal bureaucracy with proliferating missions, resulting in the creation of more bureaucracies at the State and local levels to comply with federal rules. No need for academic experts, specialized lawyers, contractors, lobbyists, NGOs, and other rent-seekers. It’s race and gender-neutral.
Even worse, the simplicity and transparency of the mechanism, a benefit for US citizens and legal residents could strengthen national cohesion and have most people conclude that this is worth preserving including by controlling immigration.
Unsurprisingly, while UBI might be popular with a significant share of lefty voters, it isn’t especially popular with the progressive academic/media/bureaucratic industrial complex. There is much more institutional progressive energy behind defunding the police, reparations for slavery, racial justice everywhere than behind Medicare for all or UBI.
If the democratic coalition was about solving the problems of regular people in a simple, effective and non-divisive manner not involving reorganizing society, we would have noticed by now.
__________(1) http://acecomments.mu.nu/?post=392605
https://comicallyincorrect.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/01-biden-dumpster-dt-1080-1050x750.jpgReplies: @unit472
If not wanting to pay for people’s stupid choices is resentment, well then I’m just brimming with it. Not a boomer though.
I still see that the cuckservatives are fucking themselves in the ass with their “hurr denbts sacred” imbecility.
Then they complain when they get enslaved and exterminated
Compromise; cancel all interest on student debt…
https://imgur.com/vaQecEW.jpgReplies: @Talha
Nobody cares.
What makes it appealing for voters makes it unappealing for the ruling oligarchy. UBI doesn't require a large federal bureaucracy with proliferating missions, resulting in the creation of more bureaucracies at the State and local levels to comply with federal rules. No need for academic experts, specialized lawyers, contractors, lobbyists, NGOs, and other rent-seekers. It's race and gender-neutral.
Even worse, the simplicity and transparency of the mechanism, a benefit for US citizens and legal residents could strengthen national cohesion and have most people conclude that this is worth preserving including by controlling immigration.
Unsurprisingly, while UBI might be popular with a significant share of lefty voters, it isn't especially popular with the progressive academic/media/bureaucratic industrial complex. There is much more institutional progressive energy behind defunding the police, reparations for slavery, racial justice everywhere than behind Medicare for all or UBI.
If the democratic coalition was about solving the problems of regular people in a simple, effective and non-divisive manner not involving reorganizing society, we would have noticed by now.Replies: @A123, @DanHessinMD
If voters were *sure* that UBI would *replace* other welfare programs it would already be law.
However, the DNC/CCP is all about social controls that give them power. Is there any chance they would actually replace government controlled spending with individual citizen choice? No. The DC Swamp creatures would add UBI on top of other programs. And then, begin adding strings to it so that they could take choice away from individuals.
Remember Obamacare — If you like your Doctor, you can keep your Doctor? The DNC/CCP lied. Whatever memorable quotes they come up with for UBI, those will also be lies. The DNC/CCP exists to transfer wealth away from U.S. Workers to Elites like themselves. (1)
PEACE 😇
__________
(1) http://acecomments.mu.nu/?post=392605
I suppose we could deny UBI to non citizens and rely on immigrants to do the dirty work. We already do to some extent but that would create a two tiered society of the genuinely 'privileged' and the permanently 'disadvantaged'.Replies: @RadicalCenter, @dfordoom, @Intelligent Dasein
I suspect there will be recurring payments during this “Covid Virus Crisis”.
This will hide the massive unemployment problem that will be exacerbated by Biden.
Stupid Joe’s open borders and upping the wages will lead to massive unemployment.
UBI is too expensive for this failed state at this point.
They’re already borrowing Trillions for the papering over of the dead economy.
This crisis is actually an economic collapse being covered over by a “pandemic”.
This failed state can no longer operate as a World Power.
This should begin to dawn on our opponents soon.
China and Russia already know this and are ramping up against the Zionists.
The Zion Century is now over. The Zionists are grasping at straws.
There cannot be stability as the vacuum must be filled.
Expect there to be a ramping up of military bluster as the Zion Empire collapses.
__________(1) http://acecomments.mu.nu/?post=392605
https://comicallyincorrect.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/01-biden-dumpster-dt-1080-1050x750.jpgReplies: @unit472
One BIG problem with UBI is that those that receive just consume but do not produce. No one wants to have to get up and go to work on a cold, rainy morning especially if they don’t make a lot of money doing so or work outside yet society depends on them to do those jobs. If we allow people to make enough through UBI to ‘get by’ who is going to drive snowplows, clear fallen trees after a hurricane or just pick up your garbage?
I suppose we could deny UBI to non citizens and rely on immigrants to do the dirty work. We already do to some extent but that would create a two tiered society of the genuinely ‘privileged’ and the permanently ‘disadvantaged’.
They also serve who only sit and consume.
It really is time to drop the Protestant work ethic thing in the trashcan.Replies: @Intelligent Dasein
Go ahead and have a straight UBI for people who cannot work, but anybody who has a job should also be given a federal multiplier to their wages---a reverse income tax, if you will. That would incentivize people to keep working even with a UBI; and since the federal government was paying the multiplier, it would not be onerous to employers.
This is also how the minimum wage needs to work, by the way. We can raise the legal minimum wage to $15.00/hr but McDonald's can keep paying $7.50/hr and the government will pay the other half. That way, a minimum wage hike does not hurt employers.Replies: @V. K. Ovelund, @A123
I support student loan debt forgiveness as long as it is joined to some systemic educational reforms like making professional licenses dependent purely on exams rather than on exams-after-degrees and decreasing any kinds of federal aid, including future student loans to universities that spend large percentages of yearly budget on things like sports facilities.Replies: @Wency, @Charles Pewitt, @RadicalCenter
You have a valid and major concern about UBI attracting even more mass immigration, probably skewed much more towards Would-be freeloaders than current immigration. That concern is — or at least should be — fatal to the UBI idea if not conclusively addressed.
If we are going to have a UBI, which I’d like to see, we need to require a very long period of legal permanent residency before being eligible to apply for citizenship, such as twenty-five years. Nobody is going to immigrate to the USA, legally or illegally, because they look forward to getting a basic income thirty years from their date of entry. (This drastic toughening of citizenship eligibility is desirable for independent cultural and political reasons, anyway.)
But any Congress and president who would enact a UBI would rail against such a sensible and fair restriction as heartless and racist. Sigh.
I suppose we could deny UBI to non citizens and rely on immigrants to do the dirty work. We already do to some extent but that would create a two tiered society of the genuinely 'privileged' and the permanently 'disadvantaged'.Replies: @RadicalCenter, @dfordoom, @Intelligent Dasein
Any remotely affordable or just UBI must exclude non-citizens and, I submit, incarcerated Criminals.
But any Congress and president who would enact a UBI would be the kind of people to shriek in pretended offense at such “cruel” and “racist” eligibility restrictions.
I suppose we could deny UBI to non citizens and rely on immigrants to do the dirty work. We already do to some extent but that would create a two tiered society of the genuinely 'privileged' and the permanently 'disadvantaged'.Replies: @RadicalCenter, @dfordoom, @Intelligent Dasein
But given the nature of the modern economy consuming is more useful than producing. The modern economy is based on consumption, not production. And that’s not going to change. In fact the economy will become ever more consumption-oriented.
They also serve who only sit and consume.
It really is time to drop the Protestant work ethic thing in the trashcan.
I suppose we could deny UBI to non citizens and rely on immigrants to do the dirty work. We already do to some extent but that would create a two tiered society of the genuinely 'privileged' and the permanently 'disadvantaged'.Replies: @RadicalCenter, @dfordoom, @Intelligent Dasein
As I’ve said before, we need to combine aspects of the minimum wage and aspects of UBI into a single system that is more tied to production.
Go ahead and have a straight UBI for people who cannot work, but anybody who has a job should also be given a federal multiplier to their wages—a reverse income tax, if you will. That would incentivize people to keep working even with a UBI; and since the federal government was paying the multiplier, it would not be onerous to employers.
This is also how the minimum wage needs to work, by the way. We can raise the legal minimum wage to $15.00/hr but McDonald’s can keep paying $7.50/hr and the government will pay the other half. That way, a minimum wage hike does not hurt employers.
The financing of a permanent program seems problematic with a huge split be the minimum wage and the target wage. Also, given that certain sectors of the urban brown population are prone to crime, one has to wonder what additional costs would exist for administration & fraud.
PEACE 😇
They also serve who only sit and consume.
It really is time to drop the Protestant work ethic thing in the trashcan.Replies: @Intelligent Dasein
Don’t get too far ahead of yourself, my southern friend. I’m no fan of the Protestant work ethic either, but I don’t think anyone has yet mastered the trick of consuming what has not first been produced.
In a modern western economy very few jobs are actually productive. In fact many are counter-productive! There will always be more than enough people to do the very small number of jobs that are actually necessary.
I know this will cause howls of anguish here at UR but economic globalism really does work. It has its downsides but it does work. Pretending that it doesn't is just not a viable position.
Of course just because I think economic globalism works does not mean I'm in favour of open borders and it does not mean I'm in favour of political globalism.Replies: @V. K. Ovelund
What makes it appealing for voters makes it unappealing for the ruling oligarchy. UBI doesn't require a large federal bureaucracy with proliferating missions, resulting in the creation of more bureaucracies at the State and local levels to comply with federal rules. No need for academic experts, specialized lawyers, contractors, lobbyists, NGOs, and other rent-seekers. It's race and gender-neutral.
Even worse, the simplicity and transparency of the mechanism, a benefit for US citizens and legal residents could strengthen national cohesion and have most people conclude that this is worth preserving including by controlling immigration.
Unsurprisingly, while UBI might be popular with a significant share of lefty voters, it isn't especially popular with the progressive academic/media/bureaucratic industrial complex. There is much more institutional progressive energy behind defunding the police, reparations for slavery, racial justice everywhere than behind Medicare for all or UBI.
If the democratic coalition was about solving the problems of regular people in a simple, effective and non-divisive manner not involving reorganizing society, we would have noticed by now.Replies: @A123, @DanHessinMD
“UBI could mean simple and transparent redistribution. It may well be popular with voters. Social security is, and therefore untouchable. UBI would also replace existing welfare programs.”
No it wouldn’t.
The reason you have rent subsidies, food subsidies and the rest is so that welfare only goes to bare essentials. With UBI people could waste the money and turn around and still need food and housing, which you would have to give them because you can’t let people go hungry and homeless.
If you give people a bunch of UBI that they don’t strictly need to survive, you get several bad effects:
(1) People at the lower economic end simply drop out. They going from being an asset in the economy (even in a minimum wage job someone can be very productive — i.e. a McDonalds employee serving 1000 burgers a day) to being a total drain on the economy.
(2) The rent and food subsidies would have to continue anyway, because lots of people wouldn’t cover their needs first.
(3) It would be a gigantic magnet for the poorest people in the world.
UBI is a really bad idea. It comes from smarties who don’t understand poor people.
There is no necessary connection between a UBI and insane open borders policies.
But modern economies (including the US and Australian economies) have largely mastered that trick. Other countries do the producing (and they do it much more effectively and much more cheaply) while we do the consuming. Those other countries benefit and we benefit as well. It’s a win-win.
In a modern western economy very few jobs are actually productive. In fact many are counter-productive! There will always be more than enough people to do the very small number of jobs that are actually necessary.
I know this will cause howls of anguish here at UR but economic globalism really does work. It has its downsides but it does work. Pretending that it doesn’t is just not a viable position.
Of course just because I think economic globalism works does not mean I’m in favour of open borders and it does not mean I’m in favour of political globalism.
I'll give this to you, though: at least you clearly perceive what is going on.Replies: @dfordoom
I grasp the argument. I am not sure that concrete observation supports the argument, though. Do you observe otherwise?
What I observe is that a moderate minimum wage prevents some cheap small employers from taking unfair advantage. I understand the libertarian line of attack against this observation, but libertarians are temperamentally reluctant to admit that unfair advantage even exists. When the minimum wage is so low that only 2 percent of the workforce is on it, anyway, easing it upward a bit can’t do much harm; and it might do some good.
Not in theory. It’s a truly elegant idea with first-order benefits that ought to pay out.
However, there will be unintended side effects. UBI’s proponents don’t like to hear about the apparently Stimulus-fueled riots last summer, but I didn’t think that the riots were funny.
Are you sure?
Andrew Yang did lose. It wasn’t close.
I believe that a halt to immigration combined with a 25-percent across-the-board import tariff would largely solve the problem. Don’t you?
The way to brace for impact would be for the United States to boost and diversify domestic, domestically owned industrial production now.
You are right that that dollar is not invincible. Indeed, the dollar is already being vinced. China will choose the moment for the dollar’s international downfall. There isn’t much we can do about that, now, except maybe to try to cut a deal with the Chinese to transition the petrodollar gracefully to XDR.
(Someone will perk up to mention Bitcoin in this context, incidentally. Bitcoin is fascinating but fundamentally worthless. The dollar is boring but not worthless, for one can pay taxes with it, which is the reason one can pay everything else with it, too. When the Federal Reserve gets around to authorizing blockchain dollars, you will see.)
Are there instances of a doubling of the minimum wage over the period of a few years anywhere?
Without UBI, Andrew Yang would've been unknown. He had less name recognition than literally anyone else in the Democrat field at the beginning of the campaign and yet hung around with the second-tier well into debate season. His political career is bright. He is likely to NYC's next mayor.
An across the board tariff would crash the markets just as raising rates would, so neither of them will happen, though I agree with you that both would be preferable to what is going to happen.
A majority of all Bitcoin mining takes place in China. Very interesting, isn't it?Replies: @V. K. Ovelund
In a modern western economy very few jobs are actually productive. In fact many are counter-productive! There will always be more than enough people to do the very small number of jobs that are actually necessary.
I know this will cause howls of anguish here at UR but economic globalism really does work. It has its downsides but it does work. Pretending that it doesn't is just not a viable position.
Of course just because I think economic globalism works does not mean I'm in favour of open borders and it does not mean I'm in favour of political globalism.Replies: @V. K. Ovelund
Not really.
It is not a benefit my country needs, and it won’t last.
It’s an odd kind of win-win, then.
See what I mean about odd? A serious country would not think like this.
I’ll give this to you, though: at least you clearly perceive what is going on.
You might think the 1950s were better than today and in some ways I'd agree with you. But you can't go backwards. We need to accept that economic globalism really does work. What we need to do is to make sure the benefits are spread more widely. A UBI would be a good start. A generous UBI. Enough to live a decent life.
We need to ditch the Protestant work ethic which was only ever beneficial to capitalists in order to persuade people to willingly accept wage slavery. It's obsolete. People don't have to work factory jobs any more. People don't have to work soul-destroying menial jobs. Burger-flipping should be done by machines. Fruit should be picked by machines.
A serious country would face the challenges of the future and make that future a good future for ordinary people. Making economic globalism work for everyone is one of those challenges.
Manufacturing should be done in Asia. They do a better job of it than we ever did.
BTW it's good to see you commenting again.Replies: @Intelligent Dasein, @anon
That’s not an argument against a UBI. You can have a UBI and restrict it to citizens and you can have a UBI and restrictive immigration policies.
There is no necessary connection between a UBI and insane open borders policies.
Go ahead and have a straight UBI for people who cannot work, but anybody who has a job should also be given a federal multiplier to their wages---a reverse income tax, if you will. That would incentivize people to keep working even with a UBI; and since the federal government was paying the multiplier, it would not be onerous to employers.
This is also how the minimum wage needs to work, by the way. We can raise the legal minimum wage to $15.00/hr but McDonald's can keep paying $7.50/hr and the government will pay the other half. That way, a minimum wage hike does not hurt employers.Replies: @V. K. Ovelund, @A123
Your angle is less elegant than a straight UBI.
However, your angle seems more practical and much less disruptive.
https://imgur.com/vaQecEWReplies: @Mr. Rational
That will display properly if you supply the file extension.
Peace.Replies: @Mr. Rational
I'll give this to you, though: at least you clearly perceive what is going on.Replies: @dfordoom
A serious country would not try to turn the clock back to the 1950s. Manufacturing industry is not coming back to the US, or to Australia.
You might think the 1950s were better than today and in some ways I’d agree with you. But you can’t go backwards. We need to accept that economic globalism really does work. What we need to do is to make sure the benefits are spread more widely. A UBI would be a good start. A generous UBI. Enough to live a decent life.
We need to ditch the Protestant work ethic which was only ever beneficial to capitalists in order to persuade people to willingly accept wage slavery. It’s obsolete. People don’t have to work factory jobs any more. People don’t have to work soul-destroying menial jobs. Burger-flipping should be done by machines. Fruit should be picked by machines.
A serious country would face the challenges of the future and make that future a good future for ordinary people. Making economic globalism work for everyone is one of those challenges.
Manufacturing should be done in Asia. They do a better job of it than we ever did.
BTW it’s good to see you commenting again.
American infrastructure is in sorry shape. We need to rebuild roads, power plants, and water treatment facilities like nobody's business. This is not the kind of work that can or should be outsourced. You would think that being able to fit your own electric grid would be a point of national pride, to say nothing of national security.
Lemma 1) Global automobile manufacturing has recently entered a hiatus due to a shortage of semiconductors. It would be nice if we could still fabricate those ourselves.
Lemma 2) It is now proven that China sold the USA hundreds of millions of phony Covid-19 tests and masks during the recent "pandemic." It would be nice if we did not have to relay upon the world's best known conman as a supplier of critical medical supplies, etc.Replies: @A123, @dfordoom, @anon
Lol.
The US is the 3rd largest manufacturer on the planet. You probably missed the recent fizzing in the financial press about Apple's plans to manufacture cars in the next 5 years, one option floated was via collaboration with Hyundai / Kia since both have assembly plants in the CONUS. But they are out this week, with Nissan now wanting into the deal.
https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/apple-car-nissan-automaker-project/
It could all be vaporware, but Apple has a mountain of cash and they can see how Tesla is doing. GM is talking big about an EV future, but GM also got taken just recently by fakesters at Nikola. Any auto project will have various subsystem suppliers as well although "supplier" is a global concept to be sure, and well integrated with machines, it still means more manufacturing.
But with asinine statements such as this.......it is obvious why serious discussion is close to impossible here.Replies: @V. K. Ovelund
you certainly cared enough to reply!
You might think the 1950s were better than today and in some ways I'd agree with you. But you can't go backwards. We need to accept that economic globalism really does work. What we need to do is to make sure the benefits are spread more widely. A UBI would be a good start. A generous UBI. Enough to live a decent life.
We need to ditch the Protestant work ethic which was only ever beneficial to capitalists in order to persuade people to willingly accept wage slavery. It's obsolete. People don't have to work factory jobs any more. People don't have to work soul-destroying menial jobs. Burger-flipping should be done by machines. Fruit should be picked by machines.
A serious country would face the challenges of the future and make that future a good future for ordinary people. Making economic globalism work for everyone is one of those challenges.
Manufacturing should be done in Asia. They do a better job of it than we ever did.
BTW it's good to see you commenting again.Replies: @Intelligent Dasein, @anon
That isn’t the point. We aren’t talking about stamping out our own Red Ryder wagons here.
American infrastructure is in sorry shape. We need to rebuild roads, power plants, and water treatment facilities like nobody’s business. This is not the kind of work that can or should be outsourced. You would think that being able to fit your own electric grid would be a point of national pride, to say nothing of national security.
Lemma 1) Global automobile manufacturing has recently entered a hiatus due to a shortage of semiconductors. It would be nice if we could still fabricate those ourselves.
Lemma 2) It is now proven that China sold the USA hundreds of millions of phony Covid-19 tests and masks during the recent “pandemic.” It would be nice if we did not have to relay upon the world’s best known conman as a supplier of critical medical supplies, etc.
PEACE 😇
You'll also end up with manufacturing industries entirely dependent on the government which will lead to more corruption. Those industries will buy congressmen in order to ensure that their subsidies do continue forever.
Rebuilding infrastructure is a different matter and it's an obviously good idea. I don't think you can rely on the private sector for that - private corporations will treat is as an opportunity to help themselves to billions of dollars of public money (and that will lead to more corruption). Since the money will end up coming from the taxpayer anyway (or more likely from printing more money) it would be better for the government to do it directly. I know that libertarians and free-marketeers will now start chanting That's Communism! but personally I'd prefer basic infrastructure to be provided by the government rather than corrupt corporations.
If you reduced the military budget to something sensible (say about 25% of its current level) you could afford a lot of infrastructure which would benefit ordinary people a lot more than endless wars. The military budget is basically a welfare scheme for defence contractors.Replies: @V. K. Ovelund, @Audacious Epigone
Compared to what?
We need to rebuild roads, power plants, and water treatment facilities like nobody’s business.
Perhaps there is an issue in your locale that needs addressing? In other parts of the US highways and lesser roads are constantly being upgraded. I personally went on a long road trip in 2018 and another in 2019 that took me past a lot of highway construction, so I have seen with my own eyes what work is going on.
The ongoing conversion of baseload electrical generation from coal to natural gas implies not just upgrading but replacement of power plants. There are larger issues that bring NIMBY and green fanaticism into the picture, too.
Some of these issues are local, some are state, some are Federal, some are heavily regulated. California has serious problems with its power grid because that's how their state government wants things. Other states don't have those problems because for whatever reason other states are not run by ideologues as insane as those in Cali. Yes, many infrastructure issues are actually political issues, not technology issues.
Frankly, this kind of sweeping generalization is something I usually hear or read from either a politician, a clueless uninformed CNN-watching Boomer or a sophomoric student. Which are you?
This is not the kind of work that can or should be outsourced. You would think that being able to fit your own electric grid would be a point of national pride, to say nothing of national security.
Well, ok. If you knew something, we could have a conversation.
Just one power distribution item:
The Department of Energy at Trump's insistence banned Chinese-made transformers from the US power grid. This was a prudent move, for multiple reasons including national security. Naturally Biden has rescinded this order. Do you know why that matters?
Lemma 1) Global automobile manufacturing has recently entered a hiatus due to a shortage of semiconductors. It would be nice if we could still fabricate those ourselves.
Look, you are ignorant. Really, and truly, you once again show your utter ignorance. That's ok, we all are ignorant of all sorts of things, but...not only do you not know anything about semi fab, you apparently don't know that you don't know. You can't even use a search engine. But you insist on broadcasting your ignorance in the usual way. Again, this is a sophomoric, emotional statement.
I'll help you a bit.
Search term: "taiwan semi shortage 2021"
FIRST ENTRY RETURNED:
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/02/05/us-thanks-taiwan-for-help-resolving-auto-chip-shortage-in-key-trade-meeting.html
Links in that story plus other search results would tell more of the actual situation. It is obvious you did not bother to even look.
By the way, semi fabs typically cost something like $10,000,000,000 (ten Billion) or more. They are not built overnight, and the various machines that are installed in them are very complex and expensive things - that are also not built overnight.
Now, I could expend more time explaining semiconductor device fabrication to you, including the chemistry and device physics, plus the supply chain. Then I could point out the various device fabs in the US on a map, including the new Taiwan Semi fab planned for construction this year in Arizona (estimated cost: $12 billion). Then I could patiently explain how all the various interconnecting strands of modern manufacturing interact to produce those chips that must be installed in motor vehicles to meet the various requirements, and how the current shortage will be resolved.
But, nah, that would be a total waste of my time. Really, it would.
Now I'm sure your thin skin is chafed, but frankly that's not my problem. You are in charge of your own feelings.
This kind of ignorance, like that of dfordoom, is a reason we can't have intelligent discussion here.
You might think the 1950s were better than today and in some ways I'd agree with you. But you can't go backwards. We need to accept that economic globalism really does work. What we need to do is to make sure the benefits are spread more widely. A UBI would be a good start. A generous UBI. Enough to live a decent life.
We need to ditch the Protestant work ethic which was only ever beneficial to capitalists in order to persuade people to willingly accept wage slavery. It's obsolete. People don't have to work factory jobs any more. People don't have to work soul-destroying menial jobs. Burger-flipping should be done by machines. Fruit should be picked by machines.
A serious country would face the challenges of the future and make that future a good future for ordinary people. Making economic globalism work for everyone is one of those challenges.
Manufacturing should be done in Asia. They do a better job of it than we ever did.
BTW it's good to see you commenting again.Replies: @Intelligent Dasein, @anon
Manufacturing industry is not coming back to the US, or to Australia.
Lol.
The US is the 3rd largest manufacturer on the planet. You probably missed the recent fizzing in the financial press about Apple’s plans to manufacture cars in the next 5 years, one option floated was via collaboration with Hyundai / Kia since both have assembly plants in the CONUS. But they are out this week, with Nissan now wanting into the deal.
https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/apple-car-nissan-automaker-project/
It could all be vaporware, but Apple has a mountain of cash and they can see how Tesla is doing. GM is talking big about an EV future, but GM also got taken just recently by fakesters at Nikola. Any auto project will have various subsystem suppliers as well although “supplier” is a global concept to be sure, and well integrated with machines, it still means more manufacturing.
But with asinine statements such as this….
…it is obvious why serious discussion is close to impossible here.
https://imgur.com/vaQecEW.jpgReplies: @Talha
Yeah, it’s weird – Imgur usually renders fine in Unz posts…wonder what was different this time. Maybe it didn’t like the “more” tag first. 🤔
Peace.
Our right to a permanent 1950s, aka Self-Determination, is NON-NEGOTIABLE
A government “elected” against us has no legitimacy
Lol.
The US is the 3rd largest manufacturer on the planet. You probably missed the recent fizzing in the financial press about Apple's plans to manufacture cars in the next 5 years, one option floated was via collaboration with Hyundai / Kia since both have assembly plants in the CONUS. But they are out this week, with Nissan now wanting into the deal.
https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/apple-car-nissan-automaker-project/
It could all be vaporware, but Apple has a mountain of cash and they can see how Tesla is doing. GM is talking big about an EV future, but GM also got taken just recently by fakesters at Nikola. Any auto project will have various subsystem suppliers as well although "supplier" is a global concept to be sure, and well integrated with machines, it still means more manufacturing.
But with asinine statements such as this.......it is obvious why serious discussion is close to impossible here.Replies: @V. K. Ovelund
No, I probably align with you in this matter but is one of the most thoughtful, reasonable persons you will encounter in any forum, anywhere. The man may be many things, but never asinine.
In the matter of manufacturing and trade, not many Americans any longer believe as does. His position reminds one of the position typically held by thoughtful, right-of-center Americans 35 years ago. The position demands to be taken seriously because serious persons adhere to it.
The tone of my comment yesterday made it sound as though I disagreed with you, AE. To clarify, I don’t, necessarily. If we’re going to have a welfare state (and apparently we are), then I really like UBI as a conceptual solution to a myriad of problems the welfare state otherwise causes.
However, when writes, …
… are we sure that he’s wrong?
I suppose that a physician, as he is, might know quite a bit about the actual habits of a large number of actual poor people. Maybe we should listen.
There are alternatives to a UBI but the alternatives would be more complicated and less elegant. You could for example pay part of the UBI in the form of housing vouchers (which could be used to pay rent or a mortgage) and part in the form of food vouchers. In other words you could treat it like a conventional welfare program but with the difference that it would be a universal welfare program. Everybody would be eligible for housing and food subsidies.
The problem with that is that it means treating people like irresponsible small children who are incapable of making their own decisions. A straight-out UBI would treat people like responsible adults.
So it comes down to whether you believe people really are irresponsible small children or responsible adults.Replies: @V. K. Ovelund
Reading comprehension fail.
lol.
Go ahead and have a straight UBI for people who cannot work, but anybody who has a job should also be given a federal multiplier to their wages---a reverse income tax, if you will. That would incentivize people to keep working even with a UBI; and since the federal government was paying the multiplier, it would not be onerous to employers.
This is also how the minimum wage needs to work, by the way. We can raise the legal minimum wage to $15.00/hr but McDonald's can keep paying $7.50/hr and the government will pay the other half. That way, a minimum wage hike does not hurt employers.Replies: @V. K. Ovelund, @A123
This is similar to the German program, Kurzarbeit — literally, short-work. However, that is intended as a temporary solution during an economic depression. And it does seem to keep unemployment under control during a downturn.
The financing of a permanent program seems problematic with a huge split be the minimum wage and the target wage. Also, given that certain sectors of the urban brown population are prone to crime, one has to wonder what additional costs would exist for administration & fraud.
PEACE 😇
American infrastructure is in sorry shape. We need to rebuild roads, power plants, and water treatment facilities like nobody's business. This is not the kind of work that can or should be outsourced. You would think that being able to fit your own electric grid would be a point of national pride, to say nothing of national security.
Lemma 1) Global automobile manufacturing has recently entered a hiatus due to a shortage of semiconductors. It would be nice if we could still fabricate those ourselves.
Lemma 2) It is now proven that China sold the USA hundreds of millions of phony Covid-19 tests and masks during the recent "pandemic." It would be nice if we did not have to relay upon the world's best known conman as a supplier of critical medical supplies, etc.Replies: @A123, @dfordoom, @anon
The TRUMP 2024 campaign will no doubt run on these issues. With enough support from the New Populist GOP, he has a much better chance of receiving the congressional appropriations needed to disentangle the U.S. from Elite CCP, state owned enterprises.
PEACE 😇
Peace.Replies: @Mr. Rational
No, the problem is that you didn’t put .gif or .jpg on the end.
https://www.unz.com/anepigone/taxation-is-largely-irrelevant/#comment-4449543
Peace.
Sure, but it seemed to have worked fine here:
https://www.unz.com/anepigone/taxation-is-largely-irrelevant/#comment-4449543
Peace.
American infrastructure is in sorry shape. We need to rebuild roads, power plants, and water treatment facilities like nobody's business. This is not the kind of work that can or should be outsourced. You would think that being able to fit your own electric grid would be a point of national pride, to say nothing of national security.
Lemma 1) Global automobile manufacturing has recently entered a hiatus due to a shortage of semiconductors. It would be nice if we could still fabricate those ourselves.
Lemma 2) It is now proven that China sold the USA hundreds of millions of phony Covid-19 tests and masks during the recent "pandemic." It would be nice if we did not have to relay upon the world's best known conman as a supplier of critical medical supplies, etc.Replies: @A123, @dfordoom, @anon
I was arguing against the idea of tariffs. I don’t see how tariffs would help to rebuild basic infrastructure. And I don’t see much usefulness in tariffs as an attempt to rebuild any kind of manufacturing industry based on the production of consumer goods. You’ll just end up with an inefficient manufacturing sector that will expect to be subsidised forever. And the lower middle class and the lower class will get screwed with higher prices for those consumer goods.
You’ll also end up with manufacturing industries entirely dependent on the government which will lead to more corruption. Those industries will buy congressmen in order to ensure that their subsidies do continue forever.
Rebuilding infrastructure is a different matter and it’s an obviously good idea. I don’t think you can rely on the private sector for that – private corporations will treat is as an opportunity to help themselves to billions of dollars of public money (and that will lead to more corruption). Since the money will end up coming from the taxpayer anyway (or more likely from printing more money) it would be better for the government to do it directly. I know that libertarians and free-marketeers will now start chanting That’s Communism! but personally I’d prefer basic infrastructure to be provided by the government rather than corrupt corporations.
If you reduced the military budget to something sensible (say about 25% of its current level) you could afford a lot of infrastructure which would benefit ordinary people a lot more than endless wars. The military budget is basically a welfare scheme for defence contractors.
Increasingly I'd prefer to be able to tell the difference.
His point that some people will just spend the money on designer shoes or drugs is valid up to a point although the belief that poor people can’t be trusted with money is also to some extent fuelled by a simple contempt for poor people.
There are alternatives to a UBI but the alternatives would be more complicated and less elegant. You could for example pay part of the UBI in the form of housing vouchers (which could be used to pay rent or a mortgage) and part in the form of food vouchers. In other words you could treat it like a conventional welfare program but with the difference that it would be a universal welfare program. Everybody would be eligible for housing and food subsidies.
The problem with that is that it means treating people like irresponsible small children who are incapable of making their own decisions. A straight-out UBI would treat people like responsible adults.
So it comes down to whether you believe people really are irresponsible small children or responsible adults.
American infrastructure is in sorry shape. We need to rebuild roads, power plants, and water treatment facilities like nobody's business. This is not the kind of work that can or should be outsourced. You would think that being able to fit your own electric grid would be a point of national pride, to say nothing of national security.
Lemma 1) Global automobile manufacturing has recently entered a hiatus due to a shortage of semiconductors. It would be nice if we could still fabricate those ourselves.
Lemma 2) It is now proven that China sold the USA hundreds of millions of phony Covid-19 tests and masks during the recent "pandemic." It would be nice if we did not have to relay upon the world's best known conman as a supplier of critical medical supplies, etc.Replies: @A123, @dfordoom, @anon
American infrastructure is in sorry shape.
Compared to what?
We need to rebuild roads, power plants, and water treatment facilities like nobody’s business.
Perhaps there is an issue in your locale that needs addressing? In other parts of the US highways and lesser roads are constantly being upgraded. I personally went on a long road trip in 2018 and another in 2019 that took me past a lot of highway construction, so I have seen with my own eyes what work is going on.
The ongoing conversion of baseload electrical generation from coal to natural gas implies not just upgrading but replacement of power plants. There are larger issues that bring NIMBY and green fanaticism into the picture, too.
Some of these issues are local, some are state, some are Federal, some are heavily regulated. California has serious problems with its power grid because that’s how their state government wants things. Other states don’t have those problems because for whatever reason other states are not run by ideologues as insane as those in Cali. Yes, many infrastructure issues are actually political issues, not technology issues.
Frankly, this kind of sweeping generalization is something I usually hear or read from either a politician, a clueless uninformed CNN-watching Boomer or a sophomoric student. Which are you?
This is not the kind of work that can or should be outsourced. You would think that being able to fit your own electric grid would be a point of national pride, to say nothing of national security.
Well, ok. If you knew something, we could have a conversation.
Just one power distribution item:
The Department of Energy at Trump’s insistence banned Chinese-made transformers from the US power grid. This was a prudent move, for multiple reasons including national security. Naturally Biden has rescinded this order. Do you know why that matters?
Lemma 1) Global automobile manufacturing has recently entered a hiatus due to a shortage of semiconductors. It would be nice if we could still fabricate those ourselves.
Look, you are ignorant. Really, and truly, you once again show your utter ignorance. That’s ok, we all are ignorant of all sorts of things, but…not only do you not know anything about semi fab, you apparently don’t know that you don’t know. You can’t even use a search engine. But you insist on broadcasting your ignorance in the usual way. Again, this is a sophomoric, emotional statement.
I’ll help you a bit.
Search term: “taiwan semi shortage 2021”
FIRST ENTRY RETURNED:
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/02/05/us-thanks-taiwan-for-help-resolving-auto-chip-shortage-in-key-trade-meeting.html
Links in that story plus other search results would tell more of the actual situation. It is obvious you did not bother to even look.
By the way, semi fabs typically cost something like $10,000,000,000 (ten Billion) or more. They are not built overnight, and the various machines that are installed in them are very complex and expensive things – that are also not built overnight.
Now, I could expend more time explaining semiconductor device fabrication to you, including the chemistry and device physics, plus the supply chain. Then I could point out the various device fabs in the US on a map, including the new Taiwan Semi fab planned for construction this year in Arizona (estimated cost: $12 billion). Then I could patiently explain how all the various interconnecting strands of modern manufacturing interact to produce those chips that must be installed in motor vehicles to meet the various requirements, and how the current shortage will be resolved.
But, nah, that would be a total waste of my time. Really, it would.
Now I’m sure your thin skin is chafed, but frankly that’s not my problem. You are in charge of your own feelings.
This kind of ignorance, like that of dfordoom, is a reason we can’t have intelligent discussion here.
I suppose that a physician,
Reading comprehension fail.
lol.
There are alternatives to a UBI but the alternatives would be more complicated and less elegant. You could for example pay part of the UBI in the form of housing vouchers (which could be used to pay rent or a mortgage) and part in the form of food vouchers. In other words you could treat it like a conventional welfare program but with the difference that it would be a universal welfare program. Everybody would be eligible for housing and food subsidies.
The problem with that is that it means treating people like irresponsible small children who are incapable of making their own decisions. A straight-out UBI would treat people like responsible adults.
So it comes down to whether you believe people really are irresponsible small children or responsible adults.Replies: @V. K. Ovelund
Empiricism trumps analysis. One could but try and see.
Americans ran a trial of sorts in April 2000. Riots erupted nationwide. Whether the riots were connected to the payments can be debated but it is hard to state with confidence that they were not.
As far as I know (which is not very far), the typical physician in the United States must spend a fair amount of time listening to the intimate troubles of irresponsible poor persons. Thus, when a physician like speaks to the character and proclivities of such persons, I listen.
But I agree with you in principle: if one accepts the inevitability of the welfare state, then UBI is a compelling concept. We just don’t have a lot of experience with it in practice.
You'll also end up with manufacturing industries entirely dependent on the government which will lead to more corruption. Those industries will buy congressmen in order to ensure that their subsidies do continue forever.
Rebuilding infrastructure is a different matter and it's an obviously good idea. I don't think you can rely on the private sector for that - private corporations will treat is as an opportunity to help themselves to billions of dollars of public money (and that will lead to more corruption). Since the money will end up coming from the taxpayer anyway (or more likely from printing more money) it would be better for the government to do it directly. I know that libertarians and free-marketeers will now start chanting That's Communism! but personally I'd prefer basic infrastructure to be provided by the government rather than corrupt corporations.
If you reduced the military budget to something sensible (say about 25% of its current level) you could afford a lot of infrastructure which would benefit ordinary people a lot more than endless wars. The military budget is basically a welfare scheme for defence contractors.Replies: @V. K. Ovelund, @Audacious Epigone
There is some truth to this. Experience bears it out to a certain degree.
Hold on. Subsidies flow out of the federal treasury. Tariffs flow in.
Even Heckscher, Ohlin and Samuelson, the prophets of free trade, admit that tariffs simultaneously boost prices and wages. Moreover, all excise taxes screw the lower middle class and the lower class with higher prices for consumer goods. One oughtn’t to single out just tariffs.
However, with such details, you and I are talking past one another. (I cannot speak for ID.) The difference between you and me is that I value improvements in national self-sufficiency more than you do. If I valued them less, I would probably agree with you.
Economic globalism is perfectly compatible with tariffs.
They could trigger an inflationary spiral.
They would hit people on fixed incomes very hard. You could lose an awful lot of votes that way.
They would hurt the poor and the only way to deal with that would be massive increases in welfare spending.
Tariffs could devastate the retail sector, causing job losses. And causing retailers to move much more aggressively in the direction of automation, causing more job losses.
Tariffs would benefit the giant online retailers by destroying their competitors.
They most certainly would trigger an all-out trade war, which the US would not necessarily win.Replies: @V. K. Ovelund, @A123
I believe Dan Hess mentioned before that he was an engineer, and that the ‘MD’ part of his moniker is referring to the state of Maryland, as in ‘DanHess inMaryland’. It’s a confusing moniker.
Tariffs could have all sorts of nasty side-effects.
They could trigger an inflationary spiral.
They would hit people on fixed incomes very hard. You could lose an awful lot of votes that way.
They would hurt the poor and the only way to deal with that would be massive increases in welfare spending.
Tariffs could devastate the retail sector, causing job losses. And causing retailers to move much more aggressively in the direction of automation, causing more job losses.
Tariffs would benefit the giant online retailers by destroying their competitors.
They most certainly would trigger an all-out trade war, which the US would not necessarily win.
Americans have long, extensive, happy, actual, extremely prosperous experience with tariffs in the 40 percent range. The period from 1816 to 1939 was a long time.What has nasty side-effects is free trade.Sprial? I don't see how. They never did before.This is your strongest point, but you yourself have repeatedly outlined the straightforward solution to such problems.The nice thing about tariffs is that they bring in revenue to help to finance the solution. (You have not raised the Heckscher-Ohlin objection to this point, which in brief is that the revenues almost but do not quite cover the shortfall, so I will not debate Heckscher and Ohlin here other than to note that I am aware of their objection, grasp the elegant analytical basis for it, and insist that it is a largely irrelevant second-order theoretical effect, if it even exists in reality at all.)You could gain an awful lot more. By every metric, tariffs have become rather popular among Americans.I would favor tariffs even if unpopular, but the popularity makes it easy.Is there anything that does not hurt the poor?Free trade forces the American poor to compete for wages against third-world labor. That doesn't exactly help them.I am already on record in conceptual support of your UBI.Both sides of this debate invoke the specter of job losses and both are talking balderdash. Locally, a specific job is almost a tangible object to the individual that holds it but, in the macroeconomic aggregate, “jobs” consist of an infinitely long list of tasks that need to be done. A job is simply a to-do list. It isn't a thing, and it leads to bad policy when one speaks of it as though it were.One wishes that politicians would speak of wages, instead. In the long run, in anything that resembles a free-market economy, it is impossible to run out of jobs until one runs out of things to do. (I can speak further of short-term job shortages if you wish, but these have chiefly to do with labor psychology when fluctuating market wages momentarily regress, and are exacerbated by unemployment insurance that rewards labor for sitting idle. Speaking of wage regression, if you wanted wages to regress, free trade would be a really good way to achieve your aim.)Regarding automation, if you had sought a debate opponent who preferred to deautomate the economy, I am not he.Retail is not my interest, but manufacturing, so I don't know a lot about it. How would tariffs benefit the giant online retailers?Nah. The trade war is already underway, only the U.S. has unilaterally not been fighting it; but “trade war” is a misleading, hyperbolic term for tariff policy, anyway.Other countries have their own problems. They'll buy U.S. goods and services when it suits them to, not otherwise. This trade-war threat does not even exist.It is not a competition. To the extent that the United States produces what she needs and wants, herself, she has already won.I suspect that where you really went wrong (according to my perspective), though, was in another comment of yours:You might want to rethink this. I am not sure that it means anything.Replies: @dfordoom, @dfordoom
Keeping the government "take" constant while replacing other revenue collection with tariffs creates a virtuous cycle. Tariffs transfer "value added" activities to U.S. workers thus increasing real national productivity. That "value added" work generates wage income that feeds both consumption and national growth.
It is easy to set-up a straw man that sounds bad, for example "Infinite Tariffs, Imposed Instantaneously". The dislocations of such a bogus scenario would be infeasible. Chinoids in service to CCP Elites are paid to create unrealistic scaremongering " non-predictions".
Ending CCP exploitation of U.S. Workers has to follow a realistic plan. (e.g. gradually ramping-up tariffs, avoiding artificial shortages of essential raw materials). U.S. Re-industrialization is long-term process. It will require decades to repair the damage done by the Elite Globalist DNC/CCP.
PEACE 😇
They could trigger an inflationary spiral.
They would hit people on fixed incomes very hard. You could lose an awful lot of votes that way.
They would hurt the poor and the only way to deal with that would be massive increases in welfare spending.
Tariffs could devastate the retail sector, causing job losses. And causing retailers to move much more aggressively in the direction of automation, causing more job losses.
Tariffs would benefit the giant online retailers by destroying their competitors.
They most certainly would trigger an all-out trade war, which the US would not necessarily win.Replies: @V. K. Ovelund, @A123
I am not sure how helpful it is for me to answer objections to Australian tariffs with a defense of American tariffs. Plainly, Australia can treat her imports as she likes, and best luck to her. Nevertheless, you have objected point by point, so here goes.
Americans have long, extensive, happy, actual, extremely prosperous experience with tariffs in the 40 percent range. The period from 1816 to 1939 was a long time.
What has nasty side-effects is free trade.
Sprial? I don’t see how. They never did before.
This is your strongest point, but you yourself have repeatedly outlined the straightforward solution to such problems.
The nice thing about tariffs is that they bring in revenue to help to finance the solution. (You have not raised the Heckscher-Ohlin objection to this point, which in brief is that the revenues almost but do not quite cover the shortfall, so I will not debate Heckscher and Ohlin here other than to note that I am aware of their objection, grasp the elegant analytical basis for it, and insist that it is a largely irrelevant second-order theoretical effect, if it even exists in reality at all.)
You could gain an awful lot more. By every metric, tariffs have become rather popular among Americans.
I would favor tariffs even if unpopular, but the popularity makes it easy.
Is there anything that does not hurt the poor?
Free trade forces the American poor to compete for wages against third-world labor. That doesn’t exactly help them.
I am already on record in conceptual support of your UBI.
Both sides of this debate invoke the specter of job losses and both are talking balderdash. Locally, a specific job is almost a tangible object to the individual that holds it but, in the macroeconomic aggregate, “jobs” consist of an infinitely long list of tasks that need to be done. A job is simply a to-do list. It isn’t a thing, and it leads to bad policy when one speaks of it as though it were.
One wishes that politicians would speak of wages, instead. In the long run, in anything that resembles a free-market economy, it is impossible to run out of jobs until one runs out of things to do. (I can speak further of short-term job shortages if you wish, but these have chiefly to do with labor psychology when fluctuating market wages momentarily regress, and are exacerbated by unemployment insurance that rewards labor for sitting idle. Speaking of wage regression, if you wanted wages to regress, free trade would be a really good way to achieve your aim.)
Regarding automation, if you had sought a debate opponent who preferred to deautomate the economy, I am not he.
Retail is not my interest, but manufacturing, so I don’t know a lot about it. How would tariffs benefit the giant online retailers?
Nah. The trade war is already underway, only the U.S. has unilaterally not been fighting it; but “trade war” is a misleading, hyperbolic term for tariff policy, anyway.
Other countries have their own problems. They’ll buy U.S. goods and services when it suits them to, not otherwise. This trade-war threat does not even exist.
It is not a competition. To the extent that the United States produces what she needs and wants, herself, she has already won.
I suspect that where you really went wrong (according to my perspective), though, was in another comment of yours:
You might want to rethink this. I am not sure that it means anything.
They could trigger an inflationary spiral.
They would hit people on fixed incomes very hard. You could lose an awful lot of votes that way.
They would hurt the poor and the only way to deal with that would be massive increases in welfare spending.
Tariffs could devastate the retail sector, causing job losses. And causing retailers to move much more aggressively in the direction of automation, causing more job losses.
Tariffs would benefit the giant online retailers by destroying their competitors.
They most certainly would trigger an all-out trade war, which the US would not necessarily win.Replies: @V. K. Ovelund, @A123
If tariffs are loaded on top of existing taxes thus increasing the government “take”, they could have the negative impacts you suggest.
Keeping the government “take” constant while replacing other revenue collection with tariffs creates a virtuous cycle. Tariffs transfer “value added” activities to U.S. workers thus increasing real national productivity. That “value added” work generates wage income that feeds both consumption and national growth.
It is easy to set-up a straw man that sounds bad, for example “Infinite Tariffs, Imposed Instantaneously”. The dislocations of such a bogus scenario would be infeasible. Chinoids in service to CCP Elites are paid to create unrealistic scaremongering ” non-predictions”.
Ending CCP exploitation of U.S. Workers has to follow a realistic plan. (e.g. gradually ramping-up tariffs, avoiding artificial shortages of essential raw materials). U.S. Re-industrialization is long-term process. It will require decades to repair the damage done by the Elite Globalist DNC/CCP.
PEACE 😇
Americans have long, extensive, happy, actual, extremely prosperous experience with tariffs in the 40 percent range. The period from 1816 to 1939 was a long time.What has nasty side-effects is free trade.Sprial? I don't see how. They never did before.This is your strongest point, but you yourself have repeatedly outlined the straightforward solution to such problems.The nice thing about tariffs is that they bring in revenue to help to finance the solution. (You have not raised the Heckscher-Ohlin objection to this point, which in brief is that the revenues almost but do not quite cover the shortfall, so I will not debate Heckscher and Ohlin here other than to note that I am aware of their objection, grasp the elegant analytical basis for it, and insist that it is a largely irrelevant second-order theoretical effect, if it even exists in reality at all.)You could gain an awful lot more. By every metric, tariffs have become rather popular among Americans.I would favor tariffs even if unpopular, but the popularity makes it easy.Is there anything that does not hurt the poor?Free trade forces the American poor to compete for wages against third-world labor. That doesn't exactly help them.I am already on record in conceptual support of your UBI.Both sides of this debate invoke the specter of job losses and both are talking balderdash. Locally, a specific job is almost a tangible object to the individual that holds it but, in the macroeconomic aggregate, “jobs” consist of an infinitely long list of tasks that need to be done. A job is simply a to-do list. It isn't a thing, and it leads to bad policy when one speaks of it as though it were.One wishes that politicians would speak of wages, instead. In the long run, in anything that resembles a free-market economy, it is impossible to run out of jobs until one runs out of things to do. (I can speak further of short-term job shortages if you wish, but these have chiefly to do with labor psychology when fluctuating market wages momentarily regress, and are exacerbated by unemployment insurance that rewards labor for sitting idle. Speaking of wage regression, if you wanted wages to regress, free trade would be a really good way to achieve your aim.)Regarding automation, if you had sought a debate opponent who preferred to deautomate the economy, I am not he.Retail is not my interest, but manufacturing, so I don't know a lot about it. How would tariffs benefit the giant online retailers?Nah. The trade war is already underway, only the U.S. has unilaterally not been fighting it; but “trade war” is a misleading, hyperbolic term for tariff policy, anyway.Other countries have their own problems. They'll buy U.S. goods and services when it suits them to, not otherwise. This trade-war threat does not even exist.It is not a competition. To the extent that the United States produces what she needs and wants, herself, she has already won.I suspect that where you really went wrong (according to my perspective), though, was in another comment of yours:You might want to rethink this. I am not sure that it means anything.Replies: @dfordoom, @dfordoom
Increased prices will reduce sales volume. The online giants can absorb this damage. Their smaller competitors will go to the wall. The online giants will benefit greatly from the elimination of their competitors.
So you don’t think that countries that will suffer from US tariffs will fight back?
The idea that the strength of an economy is based on making things is hopelessly outdated.
Americans have long, extensive, happy, actual, extremely prosperous experience with tariffs in the 40 percent range. The period from 1816 to 1939 was a long time.What has nasty side-effects is free trade.Sprial? I don't see how. They never did before.This is your strongest point, but you yourself have repeatedly outlined the straightforward solution to such problems.The nice thing about tariffs is that they bring in revenue to help to finance the solution. (You have not raised the Heckscher-Ohlin objection to this point, which in brief is that the revenues almost but do not quite cover the shortfall, so I will not debate Heckscher and Ohlin here other than to note that I am aware of their objection, grasp the elegant analytical basis for it, and insist that it is a largely irrelevant second-order theoretical effect, if it even exists in reality at all.)You could gain an awful lot more. By every metric, tariffs have become rather popular among Americans.I would favor tariffs even if unpopular, but the popularity makes it easy.Is there anything that does not hurt the poor?Free trade forces the American poor to compete for wages against third-world labor. That doesn't exactly help them.I am already on record in conceptual support of your UBI.Both sides of this debate invoke the specter of job losses and both are talking balderdash. Locally, a specific job is almost a tangible object to the individual that holds it but, in the macroeconomic aggregate, “jobs” consist of an infinitely long list of tasks that need to be done. A job is simply a to-do list. It isn't a thing, and it leads to bad policy when one speaks of it as though it were.One wishes that politicians would speak of wages, instead. In the long run, in anything that resembles a free-market economy, it is impossible to run out of jobs until one runs out of things to do. (I can speak further of short-term job shortages if you wish, but these have chiefly to do with labor psychology when fluctuating market wages momentarily regress, and are exacerbated by unemployment insurance that rewards labor for sitting idle. Speaking of wage regression, if you wanted wages to regress, free trade would be a really good way to achieve your aim.)Regarding automation, if you had sought a debate opponent who preferred to deautomate the economy, I am not he.Retail is not my interest, but manufacturing, so I don't know a lot about it. How would tariffs benefit the giant online retailers?Nah. The trade war is already underway, only the U.S. has unilaterally not been fighting it; but “trade war” is a misleading, hyperbolic term for tariff policy, anyway.Other countries have their own problems. They'll buy U.S. goods and services when it suits them to, not otherwise. This trade-war threat does not even exist.It is not a competition. To the extent that the United States produces what she needs and wants, herself, she has already won.I suspect that where you really went wrong (according to my perspective), though, was in another comment of yours:You might want to rethink this. I am not sure that it means anything.Replies: @dfordoom, @dfordoom
The obsession with returning to the world of the 1950s is largely driven by resentment that the US is losing its dominant position in the world. And resentment that the American Dream has turned sour, that the US is increasingly dysfunctional and has become in many ways a joke country. For many Americans the answer seems to be to turn the clock back to the 1950s.
I do not think that it’s much of a fight. The fight metaphor is inapt, and even if it were apt, the U.S. unlike Australia runs a persistent trade deficit—which affords the U.S. the leverage. (When China slaps tariffs on U.S. goods China wasn’t buying, anyway, the Chinese gesture hardly makes much of a difference.)
Mostly, foreign countries and their inhabitants will buy American goods and services if and when it suits them to buy, and not otherwise. Same as always. Same as since foreign countries and their inhabitants bought Cornwall tin at Damascus in 800 B.C. When foreign countries and their inhabitants buy American today, that’s fine, as long as they don’t buy too much; and when they don’t buy, that leaves more for Americans. Meanwhile, momentary diplomatic spats over tariff adjustments are soon forgotten and are not very relevant.
Someone (not necessarily you) who jumps in at this point may seek to lecture me about Ricardo’s comparative advantage. They can try if they like. I’ve got answers for all comers.
Whether ordinary people want tariffs or not is irrelevant. Ordinary people are not going to be asked for their opinion.
What really matters is, do the elites want tariffs? How many among the elites will see tariffs as a direct benefit to themselves and how many will see them as having a negative effect on their own interests?
Whether ordinary people want tariffs or not is irrelevant. Ordinary people are not going to be asked for their opinion.
Okay, this is a major factor, but that’s not me, and you’re talking to me.
I also kick my sons out of the house when they turn 18, for my sanity and for their own good. If I don’t want to organize my own sons’ lives after age 18, then why would I want to organize the lives of foreigners I have never met in foreign lands about which I hardly care?
That’s not my game.
The United States’ dominant position was an artifact of the peculiar denouement of World War II. It was never sustainable, nor have I ever believed otherwise as far as I recall.
Be fair. I do believe that the 1950s were better, and I believe that policy could do worse than to tether the 1950s as an anchor to the limited degree to which the tether is practical; but I am not the one who keeps bringing the 1950s up.
By the way, one does not mind if you keep bringing the topic up. It’s a fine topic and, since I was not born until the mid-1960s and did not reach the age of reason until the early 1970s, I know less about the world of the 1950s than I should like.
Turning the clock back, though, is a confusing metaphor that evokes incorrect operation of a device used to tell time and implies an all-or-nothing choice. It’s your metaphor, so it is not for me to retire it; but my own view is that this particular metaphor is inconducive to clear thinking.
Actually, the metaphor has some merit for humor. If you set your foot upon the slippery slope, who knows where the slide might take you? But if you set your hand to turn back the clock, the slide is not downhill but down through the ages! Besides shattering the laws of physics (no mean feat), such a slide has a mystical, Homeric quality to it. The slide might take one to the Bronze Age and beyond.
Back here in the mundane present, I suggest that you and I dispense with the problem by pushing the clock over the edge onto the slippery slope. Once this deed is done, and the echoes of the distant clangs and cracks of smashed machinery have died in our ears, you and I can turn to put ourselves to the needful task of societal retrenchment.
Incidentally, I grasp or mostly grasp your observation regarding the popularity of postmodern decay. I do not obseve postmodern decay to be quite as popular as you observe it to be; but, in the main, I must acknowledge that you are right.
While the older generations of classicists might have deplored the decadence of the later Roman Empire the Romans themselves may well have thought it was awesome. And preferable to the straitlaced virtue of the Republic.
It has to be admitted that straitlaced virtuous societies are not a whole lot of fun. That's the big reason social conservatives lost the Culture War - virtue and moral probity aren't very exciting. Social conservatives have a major problem in that they appear to most people to be humourless killjoys. Many of them are humourless killjoys.Replies: @Talha
Advances in technology, such as programmable CNC machines, make turning back the clock impossible. These productivity systems permanently eliminated a significant amount of individual hand craft. The video below shows a modern gun barrel manufacturing system. Modern work emphasizes different skills, such as:
• Statistical Process Control
• Machine set-up & maintenance
• Raw & WIP material inspection so that a flawed input cannot damage the machine
Keeping manufacturing onshore in the U.S. has huge advantages over subbing it out to a foreign subcontractor. Some examples:
-- Ocean freight moves slowly (30+ days of delay is not uncommon)
-- Your engineering team can quickly turn around solutions to unexpected problems
-- Intellectual Property is not at risk of theft by foreign State Owned Enterprises
Also remember, the goal is not 0% foreign trade. U.S. re-industrialization will emphasize high value added and national security products.
Cheap underwear and socks will likely continue to be mostly made overseas. However, there is very little political leverage to be gained by a nation embargoing underwear exports to the U.S. The late night comics would have a field day... There would be skits about, Going Commando for Uncle Sam!
PEACE 😇
https://youtu.be/gLApYZMYSyw?t=1
It’s possible that most people actually like living in a decadent society.
While the older generations of classicists might have deplored the decadence of the later Roman Empire the Romans themselves may well have thought it was awesome. And preferable to the straitlaced virtue of the Republic.
It has to be admitted that straitlaced virtuous societies are not a whole lot of fun. That’s the big reason social conservatives lost the Culture War – virtue and moral probity aren’t very exciting. Social conservatives have a major problem in that they appear to most people to be humourless killjoys. Many of them are humourless killjoys.
Peace.Replies: @V. K. Ovelund
Dfordoom — In this case, I must concur with VK.
Advances in technology, such as programmable CNC machines, make turning back the clock impossible. These productivity systems permanently eliminated a significant amount of individual hand craft. The video below shows a modern gun barrel manufacturing system. Modern work emphasizes different skills, such as:
• Statistical Process Control
• Machine set-up & maintenance
• Raw & WIP material inspection so that a flawed input cannot damage the machine
Keeping manufacturing onshore in the U.S. has huge advantages over subbing it out to a foreign subcontractor. Some examples:
— Ocean freight moves slowly (30+ days of delay is not uncommon)
— Your engineering team can quickly turn around solutions to unexpected problems
— Intellectual Property is not at risk of theft by foreign State Owned Enterprises
Also remember, the goal is not 0% foreign trade. U.S. re-industrialization will emphasize high value added and national security products.
Cheap underwear and socks will likely continue to be mostly made overseas. However, there is very little political leverage to be gained by a nation embargoing underwear exports to the U.S. The late night comics would have a field day… There would be skits about, Going Commando for Uncle Sam!
PEACE 😇
While the older generations of classicists might have deplored the decadence of the later Roman Empire the Romans themselves may well have thought it was awesome. And preferable to the straitlaced virtue of the Republic.
It has to be admitted that straitlaced virtuous societies are not a whole lot of fun. That's the big reason social conservatives lost the Culture War - virtue and moral probity aren't very exciting. Social conservatives have a major problem in that they appear to most people to be humourless killjoys. Many of them are humourless killjoys.Replies: @Talha
This is likely very true and once a society is on that path, it just feels too good to pull the brakes on it. The society simply is on a kind of autopilot of its own momentum and will eventually reach a cataclysmic event as a result of the various pressures that cause a breakdown and reset. That may be very quick or take a long time, depending on circumstances. IF Ibn Khaldun was right, I don’t think it can be avoided.
Peace.
Peace.Replies: @V. K. Ovelund
If you wanted to try your hand at a brief summary of, or introduction to, Ibn Khaldun, then I would be interested. Who was he? What did he teach? Why does he not think that it can be avoided?
(One could look up Khaldun in Wikipedia, of course, and I’d gladly do that if you recommended it; but you have more credibility than Wikipedia has in a matter like this. I’d rather ask you, first.)
http://peterturchin.com/cliodynamica/does-history-cycle/
http://peterturchin.com/cliodynamica/ibn-khaldun-on-the-rise-and-decline-of-corporate-empires/
http://assets.press.princeton.edu/chapters/i4744.pdf
The wiki article isn’t that bad to be honest.
Peace.
Peter Turchin is a good resource (and tries to apply Ibn Khaldun’s theories to current situations):
http://peterturchin.com/cliodynamica/does-history-cycle/
http://peterturchin.com/cliodynamica/ibn-khaldun-on-the-rise-and-decline-of-corporate-empires/
http://assets.press.princeton.edu/chapters/i4744.pdf
The wiki article isn’t that bad to be honest.
Peace.
I grasp the argument. I am not sure that concrete observation supports the argument, though. Do you observe otherwise?
Are there instances of a doubling of the minimum wage over the period of a few years anywhere?
Without UBI, Andrew Yang would’ve been unknown. He had less name recognition than literally anyone else in the Democrat field at the beginning of the campaign and yet hung around with the second-tier well into debate season. His political career is bright. He is likely to NYC’s next mayor.
An across the board tariff would crash the markets just as raising rates would, so neither of them will happen, though I agree with you that both would be preferable to what is going to happen.
A majority of all Bitcoin mining takes place in China. Very interesting, isn’t it?
One major issue to address is that of fraud. McD’s writes off labor expenses against income. If they fake employment with someone in return for keeping the government half of his wages, they immediately realize a tax benefit without having to do a thing. That’s a huge problem that will be abused.
Not that I know. The doubling is far too extreme. Perhaps no adjustment is needed at all.
Your point is taken. The elegance of UBI is hard to beat, isn’t it?
Besides the riots, one is just reluctant to surrender so completely to the principle of the welfare state. Every time I hear of UBI, I am curious, but then I want to go to watch an old episode of Bonanza or Gunsmoke to recall our not-very-distant ancestors, free men under the law, who hardly interacted with the state except when receiving and sending mail and when buying and selling real property. It’s a feeling, and the feeling has slipped so far away, it’s almost gone.
I’d like to write more but, unfortunately, I have a federal form 1040 to prepare….
Are there instances of a doubling of the minimum wage over the period of a few years anywhere?
Without UBI, Andrew Yang would've been unknown. He had less name recognition than literally anyone else in the Democrat field at the beginning of the campaign and yet hung around with the second-tier well into debate season. His political career is bright. He is likely to NYC's next mayor.
An across the board tariff would crash the markets just as raising rates would, so neither of them will happen, though I agree with you that both would be preferable to what is going to happen.
A majority of all Bitcoin mining takes place in China. Very interesting, isn't it?Replies: @V. K. Ovelund
For what it’s worth, I changed my party registration just to vote Yang in the 2020 primary. I’d only voted in a Democratic primary once before in my life.
I do not know how Yang’s UBI would have worked out, but overall, Yang was so much more perceptive, reasonable, balanced, considerate, thoughtful and just plain smart than competing candidates, how could I vote for anyone else?
Yang would have taken my vote, my wife’s vote, and at least one of my two adult sons’ votes away from Trump had Yang made it to the general election. I am not a New York City voter, so it’s not my business, exactly, but I do hope that Yang wins the mayor’s post.
It’s increasingly either fair or we don’t get any. We better fight for fair while we can. The powers that be would like to take social security away but they know they can’t. Get Medicare for all and social security for all and they won’t be able to take those things away, either.
You'll also end up with manufacturing industries entirely dependent on the government which will lead to more corruption. Those industries will buy congressmen in order to ensure that their subsidies do continue forever.
Rebuilding infrastructure is a different matter and it's an obviously good idea. I don't think you can rely on the private sector for that - private corporations will treat is as an opportunity to help themselves to billions of dollars of public money (and that will lead to more corruption). Since the money will end up coming from the taxpayer anyway (or more likely from printing more money) it would be better for the government to do it directly. I know that libertarians and free-marketeers will now start chanting That's Communism! but personally I'd prefer basic infrastructure to be provided by the government rather than corrupt corporations.
If you reduced the military budget to something sensible (say about 25% of its current level) you could afford a lot of infrastructure which would benefit ordinary people a lot more than endless wars. The military budget is basically a welfare scheme for defence contractors.Replies: @V. K. Ovelund, @Audacious Epigone
personally I’d prefer basic infrastructure to be provided by the government rather than corrupt corporations.
Increasingly I’d prefer to be able to tell the difference.