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Trump’s war on socialism will fail

braindrain said:
Thank you for proving you have no real argument so instead have to just spew insults.
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The real argument is that the Constitution gives Congress the power to set taxes at whatever level they choose for whatever reason they choose
 
sangha said:
They aren't the same
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And yet you make this claim;
Originally Posted by sangha
No, parasitic relationships can be symbiotic
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You are either quite confused or just want to play word games
 
sangha said:
No. There is no free market, therefore no free market forces. This is particularly true when it comes to health care because it does not follow the law of supply and demand
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Which is missing the supply or the demand?
 
Bum said:
And yet you make this claim;


You are either quite confused or just want to play word games
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You're confused about the English language.

Things can be described using many adjectives. That doesn't mean they are all the same thing.

A girl can be both tall and cute. That doesn't mean tall and cute are the same

A relationship between two organisms can be both symbiotic and parasitic. That doesn't mean that symbiotic and parasitic are the same
 
ttwtt78640 said:
Which is missing the supply or the demand?
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The ability of market forces to affect the latter. Neither the price nor the supply of health care affects the demand for health care.

When you're sick, you're sick and need health care
 
sangha said:
You're confused about the English language.

Things can be described using many adjectives. That doesn't mean they are all the same thing.

A girl can be both tall and cute. That doesn't mean tall and cute are the same

A relationship between two organisms can be both symbiotic and parasitic. That doesn't mean that symbiotic and parasitic are the same
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Check.....word games.
 
sangha said:
The ability of market forces to affect the latter. Neither the price nor the supply of health care affects the demand for health care.

When you're sick, you're sick and need health care
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Yep, just as when you are hungry you need food or when your car breaks down you need parts and/or a mechanic. The demand may be more immediate, yet the ability to select among medical care insurance providers or treatment providers is still present (for now).
 
Lutherf said:
There is a lot of criticism about the "free" handouts. There SHOULD be a lot of criticism about the "free" handouts. The main point of criticism should be that they aren't "free".

Look, I know that everyone knows that the programs really aren't free. I know that using the term just makes life easier. It's a concept that people who don't pay fr the services can wrap their heads around and it kind of lessens the blow for the people who actually are paying. But it also obfuscates the reality of what's happening.
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Of course they aren't free. But it seems that having a society where there are no basic safety nets for people if they trip and fall in life, where the price of losing a job or a business is literally dying on the street- both for yourself and your whole family- seems to short circuit the whole idea of having a civil society in the first place. A society with no formal systems in place to protect the basic human rights of its citizens may be free- but it's the freedom of the jungle, not that of a modern civil society. And once that's gone, social instability and mayhem is not too far behind. You mentioned how the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was drawn up right after WWII- one of the most unstable and shockingly brutal periods of human history. It makes sense. Why would we want to repeat the insecurities and instabilities and social Darwinism that led to these atrocities before?

And no, voluntary charity has never been enough by itself, and not a substitute for formal systems and policies. Think about a busy intersection. Yes, sure if the traffic lights are down for a while due to a storm, people will voluntarily yield to pedestrians and small children, take turns crossing the intersection, etc... It works for a little while until they can get the lights going again. But it's dangerous. It's certainly not something you would want to keep going for too long. You want a formal system of enforceable traffic laws back in place as soon as possible. It's the same with basic safety nets for protecting human rights of a citizens of a stable civil society. A society where people cannot rely on those rights being protected in a formal way, as a matter of policy, is not a stable society.

And don't you think that in a society where the price of failing at a business or job is not death for you and your loved ones, it would ENCOURAGE, not discourage, entrepreneurship and more healthy risk taking? That has certainly been the experience of many of the social democracies like in Scandinavia.

But now think if people protested traffic lights at the busy intersection as an infringement of their freedoms. "Traffic lights today is a slippery slope to communist fascist tyranny tomorrow", they may say. Or maybe "give them an inch, and there will be no end to what else they will dictate to us". Maybe they will say "why should big nanny government dictate when and where and for whom I choose to stop for at the intersection? Arrest me only if I hurt and kill someone. Until then, don't infringe on the rights of responsible citizens!", or "When you limit opportunity, you limit freedom!" Wouldn't such arguments sound a little odd?
 
sangha said:
The ability of market forces to affect the latter. Neither the price nor the supply of health care affects the demand for health care.

When you're sick, you're sick and need health care
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Yes, things outlined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, like food, clean water, shelter, a basic education, and access to healthcare, are very different things than commodities like a Ferrari or a Rolex watch. They need to be approached and addressed differently in modern civil societies which don't necessarily want to use the model of the freedom of the jungle as an ideal.
 
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ttwtt78640 said:
Yep, just as when you are hungry you need food or when your car breaks down you need parts and/or a mechanic. The demand may be more immediate, yet the ability to select among medical care insurance providers or treatment providers is still present (for now).
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Food...that is why we have food stamps

Card...not at all similar
 
ashurbanipal said:
Yes, we tried. And we generally succeeded. We fed info from applications/resumes into what was at the time a realtor's database that told us approximately what an applicant was paying for rent/mortgage, and we had some algorithms that looked at their previous jobs, credit report, and other information and figured out for us what we'd need to offer them and what we'd need to pay them to ensure they had to take on debt. Our under-the-table discussions with other employers, carried out through various media, assured us that they were all thinking the same way, so there was no demand to worry about.

Plenty of evidence bears out the result of this program, which has been widespread and generally going on for a long time. Just google "monopsony power" and you'll see how the employer/employee balance of power has been steadily shifting in favor of the employer. Why would that be happening, if it was just me doing this sort of thing? Most employers (though certainly not all) do stuff like this.



Why? Employees who have a burden of debt stay in their jobs and shovel whatever BS we tell them to shovel, whenever we tell them to shovel it. And that is absolutely the ideal. Want someone who will get up and get on the clock when you call them at 2:30 in the morning--five nights in a row? Need someone who will cancel their family weekend or vacation at the last minute if you need them to do so? Need someone who will work with a 105 degree fever if you need them to? Make sure there is a huge threat--and that threat is lose your house, your family on the street, starving. That's the point. So long as I could create that as an employer, I knew I could literally get my people to do whatever I wanted them to.




For the most part, skills are nonsense. You don't want someone to develop them--that costs money. Just fire whoever doesn't have the right skills and hire someone who does. As long as I know that a sufficient number of employers are doing the same things and acting the same way, that's all that I need to worry about. With that threat, I can guarantee that my employees will develop whatever skills I need them to have in double-quick time, on their own dime (taking on even more debt). Again, all of that is the point.



Well...bracket that for a moment and your answer will be forthcoming shortly. What, in market economics, stops something like this from happening? This was an implicit agreement between me and other employers in my markets to act a certain way so as to remove, as much as possible, all the power employees might otherwise wield--and if they have any power, it drives labor costs up. So long as they have no power, they'll work whenever I want them to, (bringing all their skills with them) for much less, and you'll never have any trouble getting employees whenever you need them.

But from a market economics perspective, what does it matter how I figure out what offer to make employees, what I offer them once they're on the job, and why they accept it? That's all just our business, isn't it? That's between me and the employee, right?
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---This is entirely accurate in dozens of occupational categories.
 
ataraxia said:
But now think if people protested traffic lights at the busy intersection as an infringement of their freedoms. "Traffic lights today is a slippery slope to communist fascist tyranny tomorrow", they may say. Or maybe "give them an inch, and there will be no end to what else they will dictate to us". Maybe they will say "why should big nanny government dictate when and where and for whom I choose to stop for at the intersection? Arrest me only if I hurt and kill someone. Until then, don't infringe on the rights of responsible citizens!", or "When you limit opportunity, you limit freedom!" Wouldn't such arguments sound a little odd?
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This is a really bad analogy, between social safety nets and traffic lights.

You also fail to differentiate between local and federal interventions. You wind up thinking that the federal government is responsible for making sure every citizen has a good education and a smart phone.

Libertarians can be crazy, and maybe some advocate complete anarchy. But reasonable libertarians just don't want the central government to keep growing and becoming ever more powerful and corrupt and wasteful.
 
Good4Nothin said:
This is a really bad analogy, between social safety nets and traffic lights.
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Why is it bad? It's just to show that having SOME laws for safety and order is not always a slippery slope to Soviet fascist communism. It's also to show that not everything works out for the best if just left alone and free and up to the voluntary charity of individuals. So in what way is the analogy bad?

You also fail to differentiate between local and federal interventions.
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Because that is not the argument being made. The argument was that everything just magically works out for the best if left free and up to responsible individuals. No one was arguing that the size of the jurisdiction taking your freedoms away made a difference. The point was that freedom is always better than any formal systems of law and policy. You disagree? Don't change the subject now.

You wind up thinking that the federal government is responsible for making sure every citizen has a good education and a smart phone.
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No, just responsible for a basic education and other human rights.

Libertarians can be crazy, and maybe some advocate complete anarchy. But reasonable libertarians just don't want the central government to keep growing and becoming ever more powerful and corrupt and wasteful.
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Protecting basic human rights of their citizens is not a slippery slope to "ever more powerful". It's just what basic, competent governments all around the world do. That's their job. Anything else is not freedom. It's just incompetent government.
 
ttwtt78640 said:
Yep, just as when you are hungry you need food or when your car breaks down you need parts and/or a mechanic. The demand may be more immediate, yet the ability to select among medical care insurance providers or treatment providers is still present (for now).
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Food is a basic human right according to the 1948 document. Cars are not. There is a difference. These things need to be approached differently in a humane society with a competent system of government.
 
sangha said:
The real argument is that the Constitution gives Congress the power to set taxes at whatever level they choose for whatever reason they choose
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It's a good thing no one here argued differently then isn't it. Do you always resort to making up strawman when you have no real argument.
 
sangha said:
Walls are hardly ever used to secure a border and when they are, they fall
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Not only do many countries use walls along parts of thier border the number that do has been steadily increasing.

Border walls: 77 walls or fences around world, many erected since 9/11

I guess I just imagined that one of the very first things the US military did when it set up a base around a base in Iraq or Afghanistan was to build a wall. Because according to you walls don't work and can't help provide security.

Thank you for once again proving just how clueless you are.
 
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braindrain said:
It's a good thing no one here argued differently then isn't it. Do you always resort to making up strawman when you have no real argument.
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Lol!

In post 245 you say I haven't posted any facts. In post 246 you agree with the fact I posted
 
RooseveltTruman said:
I know. Social democracy, which is not socialism, is capitalism with a robust welfare system, a strong social safety net, high taxes, etc. Never said that Sweden was anything but that.
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Swedes don't hate their government like most Americans do...So they get a lot for their taxes...Good schools,medical care,infrastructure help for the mentally ill...etc....Americans seems to embracing every man for himself mentality, much to the downfall of the country
 
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