Politics

[WAB]

I feel naive about many things as tbh, I just want what's best for the people around me. I know that I can't just throw money at problems but I just want to find a decent compromise

Then apply economic solutions that create wealth and align incentives. If you want to understand a science based approach that works (yes economics is a precise science), read Bastiat’s treatise ‘The Law’. Follow that up with anything you can get your hands on Regarding Austrian economics (Hayek, von Mises).

The trick is to view the economy dynamically not statically. Liberals, by and large view the economy statically, a pie that just needs to be sliced more ‘fairly’. Conservatives view the economy dynamically and desire to create greater wealth that benefits all.

I don’t want to sound critical, but we need people to educate themselves on key economic principles in order to be able to work together on a solution that benefits all. The great fallacy of the tax and spend liberal solutions is that the economy is not static and will shrink under their plan, destroying wealth, and hurting everyone in the process. The examples of this failed experiment are too numerous to list here.

 

[Bullthrower338]

I feel naive about many things as tbh, I just want what's best for the people around me. I know that I can't just throw money at problems but I just want to find a decent compromise

Encourage hard work from your peers rather than expecting that they need a hand out or to belly up to the government tit. Entitlement is a very dangerous thing, when people feel they are entitled to things it causes more resentment from the people paying for it than it will ever “help” make things equal. It is quite naive to believe that there will ever be equality as long as there is government fingers involved in the leveling of the field.

 

[Opposite Pole]

Beware of a person who promises someone else will pick up your bills. Like poaching, it is not sustainable.

 

[tigris115]

Encourage hard work from your peers rather than expecting that they need a hand out or to belly up to the government tit. Entitlement is a very dangerous thing, when people feel they are entitled to things it causes more resentment from the people paying for it than it will ever “help” make things equal. It is quite naive to believe that there will ever be equality as long as there is government fingers involved in the leveling of the field.

I was thinking of ideas that would incentivize the disenfranchised to enter the force. I think the best one is the vocational school model as it costs way less than college and teaches valuable skills. For example, I went to an equine school in the mornings in my high school senior year and now I have the skills to at least prevent myself from going hungry.

 

[sgt_zim]

I was thinking of ideas that would incentivize the disenfranchised to enter the force. I think the best one is the vocational school model as it costs way less than college and teaches valuable skills. For example, I went to an equine school in the mornings in my high school senior year and now I have the skills to at least prevent myself from going hungry.

I think people need less incentive than you might imagine. Free people, really free, not like what we are now, will reap the rewards of their efforts quickly and realize the effort is actually worth it.

One of the things that is absolutely crushing poor people, preventing them from relieving their own misery, is occupational licensure. I see stories about inner city black women who can do things like "thread" eye brows or put in weaves - yes, those are both "a thing." I'd of course never pay for either one of those things, but there are probably millions of women who will. The various state and county governments require them to be licensed for such things, with education requirements just to get started in the 1000+ hour range.

Almost everybody believes licensure "protects" us. Who it really protects is those who are already established within a given market, making it more difficult for competitors to enter their market space. This harms consumers, because more competitors in a given market means more choices for skill level and price. It also deprives those from entering the market who might have the skills but lack the time or money to chase down what is ultimately and mostly useless "education."

 

[Opposite Pole]

I think the trouble is there are a lot of people who seem to think they deserve this or that, but are unwilling to go after it. Where there is a will there is a way, at least for those living in a functioning, free country. However the social justice warriors are only willing to put any effort into queuing for the handouts. This naturally goes against the very principal of what freedom is.

“For what is freedom? That one has the will to assume responsibility for oneself.”

It is the right to the “pursuit of happiness” that governments can and ought to guarantee, not the happiness itself. For such a guarantee would first need to be defined by someone other than ourselves and be provided to some at the expense of others. I will quote Nietzsche again as he summarised the issue so well.

“Liberal institutions cease to be liberal as soon as they are attained: later on, there are no worse and no more thorough injurers of freedom than liberal institutions. Their effects are known well enough: they undermine the will to power; they level mountain and valley, and call that morality; they make men small, cowardly, and hedonistic -- every time it is the herd animal that triumphs with them. Liberalism: in other words, herd-animalization.”

 

[sgt_zim]

I think the trouble is there are a lot of people who seem to think they deserve this or that, but are unwilling to go after it. Where there is a will there is a way, at least for those living in a functioning, free country. However the social justice warriors are only willing to put any effort into queuing for the handouts. This naturally goes against the very principal of what freedom is.

“For what is freedom? That one has the will to assume responsibility for oneself.”

It is the right to the “pursuit of happiness” that governments can and ought to guarantee, not the happiness itself. For such a guarantee would first need to be defined by someone other than ourselves and be provided to some at the expense of others. I will quote Nietzsche again as he summarised the issue so well.

“Liberal institutions cease to be liberal as soon as they are attained: later on, there are no worse and no more thorough injurers of freedom than liberal institutions. Their effects are known well enough: they undermine the will to power; they level mountain and valley, and call that morality; they make men small, cowardly, and hedonistic -- every time it is the herd animal that triumphs with them. Liberalism: in other words, herd-animalization.”

Not sure where I read it, but "pursuit" in "pursuit of happiness" works better as a noun than a verb.

Chase the pursuit that makes you happy - engineering, medicine, welding, mechanic, whatever. Those are, in classical parlance, Pursuits.

For me, it absolutely nails down the idea of liberty...to engage in those pursuits which we deem most likely to bring about our own felicity.

 

[sgt_zim]

So, Fauxcahontas is proposing medicare for all to the tune of $55 trillion over 10 years. I can't imagine how much purple nurple I'd have to smoke to believe that hot, steaming pile of pig s**t. In conjunction with the $50 Trillion or so that Occasional Cortex wants to spend on finding sasquatch global warming climate change, we're going to get the government these whackos want, good and hard.

 

[WAB]

It’s hard to believe that any sane person can buy the crap they’re shoveling. It’s a crazy contest and America is the clear loser.

 

[sgt_zim]

 

[Ed Lally]

I'm 74. All my life I wanted my children, and now my grand children, and very soon my great grandchildren to have a better life than I had. When I was very young, I had next to nothing, so I worked extremely hard to buy an education, then a car, then a house, then a life style. I have also worked hard to provide the same for my kids and then to help provide these things for my grandkids. Unfortunately, too late we learn that it is not the having that makes a great life but the striving. We can never give anyone, kids, grandkids, or any other members of the public, a good life. We can give but the gifts are all-to-often accepted but not valued. Something is worth only what it costs the recipient, not what it costs the provider. We really only help those we care about when we provide the opportunity to strive. That is why the Constitution guarantees the PURSUIT of Happiness. It is in the striving, the PRUSUIT, where we find and feel our FREEDOM!! This is why EVERY well intended wealth distribution program has and will fail miserably. If we love and truly care for our fellow man, we will work hard to provide them the oppertunity to earn their success. To strive. To pursue their Happiness.

 

[Newboomer]

All men are created equal. What happens after that is strictly up to the individual. Everyone has an equal chance. Your life is what you work to make it. No amount of handouts, entitlements, gimmies, or freebies is going to improve anything. You want something, work and earn it. Life is a series of decisions and consequences. Some decisions reap good returns, others not so much. It's the unfavorable consequences that teach us life lessons that hopefully improve our status.

 

[One Day...]

This all reminds me of the French politics in the early 1980's when the first socialist president (Mitterand) was elected. The recipe is always the same: buying the votes of those interested in receiving with the money of those interested in earning.

Not a very bright or long term view, but generally enough, combined with the appropriate lax immigration, unemployment benefits, social net benefits, medical benefits, etc. to ensure a comfortable presidential and legislative majority.

Truth be told, if it were not for the Electoral College, we would already be there in the US...

What this all means, I will leave to two quotations from countryeconomy.com to explain:

"In 1980 France placed 3rd in the ranking of GDP of the 26 countries that we publish."

"France is the 7th largest economy by nominal GDP in 2018."

It only took a short 40 years to drop 4 ranks. Somehow the "work less, earn more;" "few duties, many rights" etc. mantra does not seem to work so well, and based on what the family says, and the news of endless and accelerating social unrest ("yellow vests" etc.) confirm, I shall expect that this prediction from StatisticsTimes.com will hold true:

"In nominal ranking, India is projected to surpass France in 2019."

Sad...

 

[Ed Lally]

Amen to that!!

 

[Opposite Pole]

Mitterand’s policies in his first years had quite a drastic impact on French economy with inflation raising to over 12% in the first years of his presidency. In 1983 he changed the policies to save the economy and limit the damage made so far and in 1984 inflation was already half of that in 1983.

 

[Newboomer]

Following WWII Argentina was 2d or 3d in the world. Today it is one of the poorest due to creeping socialism. Compare Venezuela today with what it was just a decade ago. Both scintillating examples of the demand more give less mentality. Anywhere in the world that Socialism/Communism has been tried it was and is a dismal failure.

 

[One Day...]

Yep. Mitterand was no more socialist than you or I, he had just understood what to promise to get elected, and it was quite a shock to him, his minions, and the country to discover how fast getting "the rich to pay for the poor" could tank an economy.

Thankfully he was smart enough to realize that he would promptly sink with the ship, so keeping the ship afloat while still promising the world to his base became the name of the game for the second half of his first term, in order to get his second term. In a modern parallel, he went from being a Bernie Sanders to being a Joe Bidden...

I guess that following his first policies would have ranked France 15th instead of 7th by now, but his adjusted policies still got the country on the path where it dropped from 3rd to 7th, and where it is slowly continuing to become a gradually less relevant world player (economically, financially, militarily, etc.)

It seems harder to get a country back from a 35 hours work week to 40 hours, and from a 60 year old retirement age to 65, than it was to get folks to work 35 hours for a 40 hours pay and retire at 60 with full benefits... As to the 5 weeks annual paid vacations + 10 days paid holidays, can't touch a sacred cow...

Wonder !?!?

 

[Hogpatrol]

 

[WAB]

Following WWII Argentina was 2d or 3d in the world. Today it is one of the poorest due to creeping socialism. Compare Venezuela today with what it was just a decade ago. Both scintillating examples of the demand more give less mentality. Anywhere in the world that Socialism/Communism has been tried it was and is a dismal failure.

Yep, Evita may be a good movie, but the truth is the Peronists and their socialist policies have destroyed Argentina.

 

[Wheels]

I'm 74. All my life I wanted my children, and now my grand children, and very soon my great grandchildren to have a better life than I had. When I was very young, I had next to nothing, so I worked extremely hard to buy an education, then a car, then a house, then a life style. I have also worked hard to provide the same for my kids and then to help provide these things for my grandkids. Unfortunately, too late we learn that it is not the having that makes a great life but the striving. We can never give anyone, kids, grandkids, or any other members of the public, a good life. We can give but the gifts are all-to-often accepted but not valued. Something is worth only what it costs the recipient, not what it costs the provider. We really only help those we care about when we provide the opportunity to strive. That is why the Constitution guarantees the PURSUIT of Happiness. It is in the striving, the PRUSUIT, where we find and feel our FREEDOM!! This is why EVERY well intended wealth distribution program has and will fail miserably. If we love and truly care for our fellow man, we will work hard to provide them the oppertunity to earn their success. To strive. To pursue their Happiness.

Great post.

"The journey is the destination"