Hot takes on the Democratic frontrunners

[xoxoxoBruce]

Why is Bernie an economic illiterate, he says what he wants to do and where the money will come from?

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

Why is Bernie an economic illiterate, he says what he wants to do and where the money will come from?

Money enough to do what he wants to do is not where he says it will come from, and more than a few people of good sense would take exception to the theft and they'd do something about it.

Run the numbers once, sift the discussion if you can't run numbers. You will cease to believe in Bernie.

I'm already there.

[Flint]

Virtually all of our beloved tax dollars are going to obscene corporate welfare, currently. We should have billions of dollars just "laying around" if it wasn't being funneled directly into offshore tax havens and stock buybacks. The constitution defines the government's taxation powers-- and we're doing the COLLECTING part, we just aren't using the money for the "general welfare" of the PEOPLE who are getting taxed. It's really not radical to suggest evaluating where our tax dollars are being spent.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Originally Posted by Flint

Virtually all of our beloved tax dollars are going to obscene corporate welfare, currently. We should have billions of dollars just "laying around" if it wasn't being funneled directly into offshore tax havens and stock buybacks. The constitution defines the government's taxation powers-- and we're doing the COLLECTING part, we just aren't using the money for the "general welfare" of the PEOPLE who are getting taxed. It's really not radical to suggest evaluating where our tax dollars are being spent.

There's Our Man Flint... world-class money manager, you betcha. Just ask him. But avoid carbonated beverages during his reply -- that's the painful kind of Coke snorting.

What the socialists who resent anyone actually, you know, using money management to engender, aye create wealth fall down is: their answer to it is to centrally plan the money flow. There are people reading this post who don't understand how big an error that is. The Central Plan of course features an idea that "You're too successful, too rich," and this is the rationale for confiscating that money and alleging you're handing it over to some group you favor better.

And they won't get shit done with it, in part because if they did, you'd notice they were profiting and you'd rape the profits away. Under those circumstances, their motivation to do well sags.

Is there any benefit from central-planning anything large? Why, there is, yes. The benefit stops among the planners themselves. Particularly once they make themselves exempt from the plan; the benefit trebles and quadruples.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

I would also prefer never to bloat the government Leviathan. This tends to cause, not cure, social ills.

The "general welfare of the PEOPLE" is best served by "the PEOPLE," in business interaction, without the twostepping intercession of the State. This attitude comes of refusing to be a statist, mind you.

[glatt]

I guess when PG&E burns down the town of Paridise CA, those customers can just express their displeasure by switching to another power company.

[Griff]

Originally Posted by glatt

I guess when PG&E burns down the town of Paridise CA, those customers can just express their displeasure by switching to another power company.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Originally Posted by glatt

I guess when PG&E burns down the town of Paridise CA, those customers can just express their displeasure by switching to another power company.

When will it occur to you this is increasingly becoming an option -- especially with electricity?

I think it would be more difficult for the municipal waterworks -- at present.

[xoxoxoBruce]

He didn't even hear it go over his head, glatt.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

He didn't even hear it go over his head, glatt.

How many times do you want to be wrong tonight, Bruce? Go to bed.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Oh, you just chose to ignore it. Figures.

[Undertoad]

We must implement UBI once we notice that automation is actually creating the described problem. Maybe 40-50 years from now.

[Griff]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

We must implement UBI once we notice that automation is actually creating the described problem. Maybe 40-50 years from now.

problem or opportunity?
Timing is interesting. Do we start paying when retail dies or trucking or software development...

[Undertoad]

Innovation continuously puts entire industries out of business, and we like that. 50% of us worked in agriculture a century ago, now it's 2% of us. The typing pool used to take up an entire floor of a company; within a decade it was gone.

Those people did not just disappear from the work force. The thing is, automation has always created more jobs, and so we are not suffering at all from the jobs that were lost. We don't miss them. We have single digit unemployment, even after most of the mindless manual labor is outsourced to China.

Things will be radically different with another level of automation. It will probably require UBI or something like it. But, on the other hand, if there is no cost of labor, the price of many things will drop - a lot. So the problem that UBI needs to solve could be radically different by the time it's needed.

~ IMO ~

But we will notice the problem first. We should solve problems we have, not problems that aren't problems yet.

[Griff]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

Those people did not just disappear from the work force. The thing is, automation has always created more jobs, and so we are not suffering at all from the jobs that were lost. We don't miss them. We have single digit unemployment, even after most of the mindless manual labor is outsourced to China.

I'm going to assume that workforce participation rates are really hard to measure but...