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PoliGAF 2017 |OT5| The Man In the High Chair

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F

Fenderputty

Banned
kirblar said:
Latter is effectively a method to achieve the former?
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It's seems more effective to me as it's a targeted system. Like we're giving a rich dude 15K so I can tax him 20K a year more. Why not just raise the rich dudes taxes 5k and not give him the free income in the first place? Less bureaucracy involved.

I'm curious which would be an easier sell.

One the one hand UBI gives money to EVERYONE while raising taxes. Psychologically speaking this may be easier to sell as it's not seen as just a handout to the poor. That being said Taxes would be higher.

With a negative income tax, you would have to sell a handout to the poor, but it should be done using less tax money.

With both systems you should technically be able to get rid of wage floors. So neither is special here.
 
K

kirblar

Member
Fenderputty said:
It's seems more effective to me as it's a targeted system. Like we're giving a rich dude 15K so I can tax him 20K a year more. Why not just raise the rich dudes taxes 5k and not give him the free income in the first place? Less bureaucracy involved.

I'm curious which would be an easier sell.

One the one hand UBI gives money to EVERYONE while raising taxes. Psychologically speaking this may be easier to sell as it's not seen as just a handout to the poor. That being said Taxes would be higher.

With a negative income tax, you would have to sell a handout to the poor, but it should be done using less tax money.

With both systems you should technically be able to get rid of wage floors. So neither is special here.
Click to expand...
A big problem is that we're seeing once yearly payments don't work w/ people we're trying to help (poverty mindset to consume all immediately at work)
 
J

Joe

Member
(excuse if posted)

FiveThirtyEight | The Congressional Map Has A Record-Setting Bias Against Democrats

Democrats have made huge gains in densely populated cities but GOP has made their gains in rural states that have disproportionately more power relative to their population.

That disproportionate control of power is currently at historical levels in the Senate and the House.

Even if Democrats were to win every single 2018 House and Senate race for seats representing places that Hillary Clinton won or that Trump won by less than 3 percentage points — a pretty good midterm by historical standards — they could still fall short of the House majority and lose five Senate seats.
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In 2008 Obama won the popular vote by 7.3 but Democrats won the median House seat by 4.4 points - a pro-GOP tilt of 2.9%. This was during a time when George W. Bush spent the final year of his presidency in the 25-33% approval range.

In the 2016 election, pro-GOP tilt was about 5.5% in the median Senate and House seat (100-year and 50-year highs respectively).


screenshot_60.png



That doesn't mean Democrats can't win the House and Senate back — they won control of both chambers in 2006 despite a Republican-bias that year, for example — but they're starting from a truly historic geographic disadvantage, even with the political wind at their back.
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Today, Republicans don't even need to win any ”swing states" to win a Senate majority: 52 seats are in states where the 2016 presidential margin was at least 5 percentage points more Republican than the national outcome. By contrast, there are just 28 seats in states where the margin was at least 5 points more Democratic, and only 20 seats in swing states.
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The GOP's current 52-seat majority makes the Senate look tantalizingly competitive. But a look at the map reveals that the Democrats hold far more seats on borrowed time than Republicans do. The GOP doesn't hold a single Senate seat in those 14 states that are more Democratic-leaning than the country overall. Meanwhile, Democrats hold six seats in the 26 more-Republican-than-average states, and all six are at risk in 2018.
Click to expand...
 
S

Suikoguy

I whinny my fervor lowly, for his length is not as great as those of the Hylian war stallions
pigeon said:
I mean, I think there are a bunch of other examples, we just take them for granted now. Like, building the interstate highway system was a lot better than giving people enough basic income to build roads to where they want to go.

In general, I categorize as "infrastructure" things that people in general need but that would be extremely inefficient or antisocial for each person to purchase/produce for themselves -- things like roads, healthcare, internet access, or armed forces. The government should simply take over and provide those things as services to all citizens because that's pretty much why we founded it.

For things that are not infrastructure, we should simply have UBI and let the market manage it.

I'm happy to allow the socialist onramp by saying that if we perceive market failures in the wake of UBI we should consider them evidence of an infrastructural need and provide government intervention. If this leads eventually to a fully planned economy then great, everything is fine. But I'm really not convinced this will be necessary in the main because we've simply never seen what a market would look like in which labor is not extracted via coercion and have no idea how that society would take shape. I think there's a good chance that might be enough.
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I think the term you are looking for is Natural Monopoly.

There are many services where the benefits of a single entity maintaining something are far too great for alternatives to thrive. Where having multiple options is just not feasible or the barriers to entry are far too large to be overcome by normal means.

Examples:

1.) Garbage Pickup
2.) Power Distribution and to a lesser extent, generation.
3.) Cable/Phone Service
4.) Roads
5.) GPS System
6.) Mass Transit
7.) The Military

There are multiple ways to deal with the problem, with varying results, but a full free-market solution is not viable. I don't think there is a one-size fits all solution.

Solutions Include:
1.) Government Maintained (such as the Military)
2.) Heavily regulated monopolies (Cable, Power Utilities),
3.) Government contracted services (Garbage Pickup, Road Construction)
4.) Public owned (There are not many examples of this in the US)

The only example you gave that does not fit under the term is Healthcare and has it's own set of problems more related to human behavior.
 
W

whyamihere

Banned
is there a reason the same people seem obsessed with posting Actually, This Is Bad News for Democrats articles all the time? Not to say that isn't warranted from time to time if such a thing is true, but it seems that there's a certain obsession with it and the only times in which those people engage with this thread.
 
Z

Zukkoyaki

Member
whyamihere said:
is there a reason the same people seem obsessed with posting Actually, This Is Bad News for Democrats articles all the time? Not to say that isn't warranted, but it seems that there's a certain obsession with it and the only times in which those people engage with this thread.
Click to expand...

GAF is loaded with highly anxious and depressed people. Actively seeking bad news or affirmation of their beliefs is like an addiction.
 
A

Autodidact

Banned
whyamihere said:
is there a reason the same people seem obsessed with posting Actually, This Is Bad News for Democrats articles all the time? Not to say that isn't warranted from time to time if such a thing is true, but it seems that there's a certain obsession with it and the only times in which those people engage with this thread.
Click to expand...

Zukkoyaki said:
GAF is loaded with highly anxious and depressed people. Actively seeking bad news is like an addiction.
Click to expand...

.

Also, Democrats have this weird daddy abuser complex with Republicans.
 
B

Box of Kittens

Banned
Zogby sucks and has for a long time. And I don't just say that because he went on The Daily Show right before the 2004 election and said Kerry was going to win. They've long been regarded as a joke in the polling industry.

Edit: 42% approval among Hispanics seems... unlikely.
 
K

kirblar

Member
whyamihere said:
is there a reason the same people seem obsessed with posting Actually, This Is Bad News for Democrats articles all the time? Not to say that isn't warranted from time to time if such a thing is true, but it seems that there's a certain obsession with it and the only times in which those people engage with this thread.
Click to expand...
Because "THE DEMOCRATS WOULD WIN IF ONLY THEY ADOPTED *MY* POLICY POSITIONS" is a thing on the left.
 
R

RustyNails

Member
Joe said:
The GOP’s current 52-seat majority makes the Senate look tantalizingly competitive. But a look at the map reveals that the Democrats hold far more seats on borrowed time than Republicans do. The GOP doesn’t hold a single Senate seat in those 14 states that are more Democratic-leaning than the country overall. Meanwhile, Democrats hold six seats in the 26 more-Republican-than-average states, and all six are at risk in 2018.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
If anything, silver lining is that this is the best environment to play defense for Democrats: Hugely unpopular president, GOP agenda stalled, Senators on record with a toxic bill and Republican party at a generic disadvantage. If Hillary was the president, 2018 would have been a bigger shellacking than 2010.
 
E

East Lake

Member
It's not hero worship but a fairly evenhanded observation of reality. Two important factors being that we don't know that Musk actually did the thing said in the article, and in the grand scheme of things a set of events that still leaves someone with the option of being employed isn't the greatest example of the horrific techno libertarian future that we all must be prepared for.

Elon Musk wants his manufacturing process to be so automated that he can turn the lights off in the factory, any articles about that recently?
 
W

watershed

Banned
If you want to talk about the Elon Musk thread shouldn't you post in the Elon Musk thread? Seems needlessly passive-aggressive to complain about that thread from this thread.
 
M

Maengun1

Member
RustyNails said:
If anything, silver lining is that this is the best environment to play defense for Democrats: Hugely unpopular president, GOP agenda stalled, Senators on record with a toxic bill and Republican party at a generic disadvantage. If Hillary was the president, 2018 would have been a bigger shellacking than 2010.
Click to expand...


Yeah, I live in Michigan and I was thinking ...Stabenow is up next year and Peters in 2020. If Hillary was president with the GOP blocking literally everything and we got another 2010-esque midterm in 18 and then a GOP president/more gains in 2020.....eesh if we ended up with 2 GOP senators somehow.

Granted, I think anything could happen at this point and I'm NEVER counting chickens before they hatch again, but...the one tiny little silver lining of last year is that we have the potential to flip the momentum of house/senate elections to our favor again. Maybe. Hopefully.

I wish America could just continually vote for good people but apparently we have to flop back to shit every other cycle
 
F

Fenderputty

Banned
kirblar said:
Not really. Having to run so many of these programs through the tax system (hi stupid renconciliation!) is creating a lot of problems on this front.
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It seems like we should be able to do monthly payments based on the previous years taxes and then readjust at end oh new year. UBI would have to run through the tax system anyway, just not the payment
 
B

Brawndo Addict

Banned
East Lake said:
It's not hero worship but a fairly evenhanded observation of reality. Two important factors being that we don't know that Musk actually did the thing said in the article, and in the grand scheme of things a set of events that still leaves someone with the option of being employed isn't the greatest example of the horrific techno libertarian future that we all must be prepared for.
Click to expand...

Musk's reasoning is so mind-boggling stupid and illogical on its face that I can't decide whether it's more stupid or hilarious. I literally don't even know where to begin with tearing it apart because it's so fucking dumb. Here's a fun thought experiment though, pick any established company in the world and then pick any single employee from that company to die in their sleep overnight (including Musk himself). In 100% of cases the established company will continue operating without them because institutionalization is a fundamental element of any properly functioning business, goddamn.

But by Musk's own perverted logic, this experiment not only means that every single possible employee of a company is non-essential to the company's continued operation, it also means that every employee brings zero value and can be fired without any issues whatsoever. Not less than existing or perceived value mind you, oh no, zero value. Musk is a fucking engineer and the guy still cannot comprehend the simple idea that redundancy of roles/responsibilities in business serves the same purpose as it does in rocketry.

Or hey, maybe I'm wrong and that's why Apple went out of business the second Steve Jobs died.
 
E

East Lake

Member
Here's a fun thought experiment as well. Would Tesla or Spacex be in operation today without Musk using his own personal money to fund them? The answer is no.

Another thought experiment might be, do you have enough information in that article to know whether that event actually happened?
 
P

pigeon

Banned
Brawndo Addict said:
Unfortunately there is enormous institutional resistance to this idea, both from our donor base and our salaried employees/board, none of which I consider to be very evidence-based or in keeping with our mission of charity. Sometimes it feels like people are more concerned with making sure that donors and volunteers feel good about themselves as opposed to actually improving the lives of our fellow neighbors and making them feel good. [Building awareness of the larger societal injustices that perpetuate this whole state of affairs in the first place is a whole other can of worms.
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Scorching hot take: that's because, from a business perspective, a charity is a corporation which sells tax-subsidized moral indulgences, so high quality production of such is key to the bottom line.

(I agree with everything else you said in this post, just wanted to pitch that mordant note of capitalist despair into the mix.)
 
P

Pixieking

Banned
East Lake said:
Here's a fun thought experiment as well. Would Tesla or Spacex be in operation today without Musk using his own personal money to fund them? The answer is no.
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That seems irrelevant. Many people use their own finances as seed money (and more), for business ventures large and small - sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

East Lake said:
Another thought experiment might be, do you have enough information in that article to know whether that event actually happened?
Click to expand...

It's taken from a biography of Musk. So, the real question would be "Is the biographer making shit up?" And on the balance of probabilities - and with a good review from the NYT behind it - the answer is probably "no".
 
B

Brawndo Addict

Banned
East Lake said:
Here's a fun thought experiment as well. Would Tesla or Spacex be in operation today without Musk using his own personal money to fund them? The answer is no.

Another thought experiment might be, do you have enough information in that article to know whether that event actually happened?
Click to expand...

Goalposts have gone and flown away into outer space I see. Musk wasn't talking about retroactive conditions of existence, he was evaluating worth in the present day based on employee absences. Aint nobody saying that the other paypal cofounders are essential to SpaceXs operation because without them Musk wouldn't have been able to have any paypal money in the first place because that is a stupid train of thought. And Musk certainly didn't evaluate whether his secretary was an essential element of his success over 12 years.

Hell, even if we were to accept your thought experiment as both valid and true, all it would show is that Musk's capital (not Musk himself) used to be essential to the company's operation. But anybody could have provided that capital, it's not like there's something unique about Musk's money that makes it more meaningful than someone else's. And his will/estate likely would have continued funding the company after his death so it still doesn't resolve his proposed test.

But more importantly, we can put aside all those factors because now his capital isn't necessary anymore so he would still fail his own test. So you would still be forced to admit that Musk brings no value at this time based on his logical reasoning / experiment. And even worse for your position, even if I did agree with you that Musk is essential to the company's continued operation because of his capital, you could still apply his test to literally every other employee in the company and come up with the result that everyone but Musk is essential, which is a system of evaluation that is almost by definition, implicit hero worship.

"Hey, I'm going to evaluate my employees based on this cool test I made up that somehow always results in me being the only employee who works here with any worth or value. Huh, crazy how that worked out, weird. Oh well, that's just science and rationality, can't dispute it.".

And you complain about the veracity of the article as if we're reciting the narcissist's prayer, "Stop it guys, there's no proof Elon said this jeez, buuuuut...... if he did say it then he didn't say anything wrong. And if it was wrong, it wasn't that wrong to say. And if it was wrong to say, it's way better than other things he could have said. And even if its not better, that's just the reality of the world we live in so deal with it". Okay, so then why complain about whether he actually said it or not if there's nothing wrong with it. The only reason you're complaining about whether he said it is because the statement/story is so damaging.

Plus, I think it's a pretty safe assumption that he would treat his employees with less respect than his wife, and he certainly didn't refrain from treating his wife the same way.
 
F

Fenderputty

Banned
Self funding has fuck all to do with anything. That people think it does is part of the problem. Whether somone can doesn't mean they should or, that we should accept it as some sort of norm. The individual always "can" with capital. They could literally do anything following that logic due the it's relationship with labor.
 
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