Future Important Thread (Maybe)

[ScottieX]

No, I'm not trying to reduce producers. Where does that idea come from? How does moving people out of jobs they no longer want and moving people into those jobs reduce the number of producers?.

Well I guess there is an empirical dispute hidden in here but simply you are encoraging productive people to retire by paying them to do so and encouraging productive people to work less hours by some method.. (not exactly sure how this works). Thats you reducing production.

The empirical part comes in that I expect that some of that production but not all of it will be recouped by others now entering the work force - you seem to arge that ALL of it will - which I find hard to believe unless you give me a massive amont of proof.

To me this is like when conservatives aruge cutting taxes will increase total tax revenue.

In our earlier conversation I think we agreed that most workers aren't actually producing anything. I would increase production, eliminate unemployment and reduce the number of hours the employed work by building domestic industry, reducing the work week and by allowing people who want to retire to retire.

building domestic industry would probably help there, but the other two probably wont, and the debate was curently focused on the other two.

Of course the issue is that there are not enough jobs. That's why people are unemployed and underemployed.

No I dispute this and the zeitgeist guys and that article seem to also. There is not a set quantity of jobs, You an make more or less jobs available via many diferent policy and economic levers. If you were unemployed I could say you have a job posting here - give you a salary equal to your benefit and make you employed. See... Jobs aren't a fundimental issue in themselves.

As that article points out, there's no shortage of food and other resources. The only reason that people in the developed world wind up in poverty is because they can't find a way to make money pushing paper around all day.

why cant they? Ie what are the changes we could make that would resolve that? Are there market inefficiencies here?

[elthrasher]

Well I guess there is an empirical dispute hidden in here but simply you are encoraging productive people to retire by paying them to do so and encouraging productive people to work less hours by some method.. (not exactly sure how this works). Thats you reducing production.

No it isn't. Every hour of labor that is lost by someone retiring or working a shorter week is made up by giving a new job to somebody who previously didn't have one. What's so difficult about that?

And again, I stress that the only people retiring are those who want to retire. If you want to keep working until you are 125, that's fine. No problem, assuming you can still do the work. The ideal retirement age is the age at which new workers would replace retiring workers at a rate in which all the work gets done and everybody has a job.

The empirical part comes in that I expect that some of that production but not all of it will be recouped by others now entering the work force - you seem to arge that ALL of it will - which I find hard to believe unless you give me a massive amont of proof.

How would I have a massive amount of proof? You might as well ask me to tie the moon to a string and spin it around like a pocket-watch. You seem to think that there's a problem with sufficient labor resources in the US. I can promise you that there is not. We have an abundance of qualified people who don't have jobs. That is our problem, not the other way around.

To me this is like when conservatives aruge cutting taxes will increase total tax revenue.

Well it's not really like that because again our problem is not that we don't have enough workers. We have too many workers. That is our problem. The solution is obviously to have fewer workers. It would be more like the problem was the government had too much revenue (har har). Then the solution would be to cut taxes to reduce it.

building domestic industry would probably help there, but the other two probably wont, and the debate was curently focused on the other two.

You're the one who brought it up!

No I dispute this and the zeitgeist guys and that article seem to also. There is not a set quantity of jobs, You an make more or less jobs available via many diferent policy and economic levers. If you were unemployed I could say you have a job posting here - give you a salary equal to your benefit and make you employed. See... Jobs aren't a fundimental issue in themselves.

Yeah but why would you do that? What is your incentive to create a job out of nothing? That's our problem really. We have too many jobs that don't really amount to anything. We create jobs to keep people busy. See the whole discussion about the IRS and tax accountants and everything. Is that the best way to have a society? If there isn't enough real work to go around, why not reduce the amount of work that everybody has to do?

why cant they? Ie what are the changes we could make that would resolve that? Are there market inefficiencies here?

Yes of course there are. There have been ever since humans stopped needing to fight for survival every single day of our lives. That day came and some dude built a palace and sat around getting fat while everybody else worked for him. He was a "market inefficiency" because he didn't produce a thing. Now we've become so efficient in so many ways that the number of hours we have to work to provide the basic things we need approaches zero.

What I don't get is why you think it's so important to use every worker to maximum efficiency for as long as we can. Are we bees? What good is it to force a guy to go push paper around all day when he could read a book, sit in a park, spend time with his children or play CivRev if nothing needs to be produced just then?

[ShowtekGER]

I do see it as you have framed it. Do you see the hypocrisy of violating people's wills & forcing them to help others against their will as not being helpful to them nor to society at large by implicitly condoning coercive measures to achieve an end deemed only by some in society to be worthy? How is this different from Hitler/Nazism in nature? In essence, it's the same. I resist the obvious temptation regarding apples & trees & gravity.

yea, this would be true if only anybody would be forced to anything. if you walk down the streets of denmark or sweden and ask people whether they have a problem with their system (and they all know that they give a lot) most of them won't give you a positive answer. remember my friend's father, the psychiatrist who gives more than 50% of his income to taxation? he's perfectly fine with it. the people here want their mixed market economy. i'm not advocating that people should be forced to anything. perhaps you should redefine your view of left system because it's not about forcing people. the examples you mention involved coercion because they were totalitarian.

[ShowtekGER]

I wasn't just talking about charity literally but charity in the abstract (non-commerce transactions/investments). I'm talking about global organizations which you have expressed some support for such as NATO & the UN among other things like forgiving Liberia's debt, etc.... I'm a bit tired of your constant anti-USA refrain based on bias rather than data. Here's the NATO statistics directly from NATO & some UN info.
http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/topics_67655.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations

As you can see the USA is the largest contributor to both. This is just 2 examples. For my part, I'd prefer the USA stop all this giving money away to worthless organizations doing questionable operations & corrupt to the core (UN specifically) imo. Maybe then we could find better use for this money, the first option available being leaving more in taxpayer's hands.

In any case, any assertion that the USA doesn't carry it's fair share on the global stage, either now or since WWII is simply nonsense on the order of pink unicorns.

based on bias rather than data? you just didn't care to contribute back when we had that discussion or deliberately ignored anything i wrote since i posted more data supporting my stance in that debate than in most other ones we had here. for example, here are the two links of my initial post:

http://www.owen.org/musings/generosity
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...able_countries

i repeat this again, for you: americans are one of the most charitable people when it comes to classical charity. they also score the highest in absolute terms of aid which is no surprise since they are by far the biggest country in the west. though, absolute numbers don't have anything to do with the average citizen's contribution to aid obviously.

then, you post these links. the first one directs me to financial support of the NATO where the US, of course, gives most in absolute numbers. if you convert those numbers to contribution per capita you see that americans give less than most other rich nations such as germany, the UK, france, spain, the netherlands, norway, belgium, denmark, etc. the next link redirects me to the wikipedia article about the UN and i seem to be supposed to scroll down until i find some sort of ranking of countries which, again, measures financial support for this organization. and it's the same again. the US pays less than all other western nations that are listed here per capita.

fail fail fail. anyway, that was NOT what i meant when i said the US could be the greatest contributor of good which is why this sub-discussion emerged. do you think financial support is the only support? if you would use your resourced wisely you could be the leaders in all technological, including medicinal, fields, all social sciences, humanities, etc. you could make all other people of the world achieve this too.

[ShowtekGER]

ShowTek,
I've started on Zeitgeist, reading the .pdf file (large!) & there are several movies, not just one. Based on this content, you NEED to play Deus Ex: Human Revolution. I think you will absolutely love it.

yes, i still recommend to begin with the third film ("moving forward") and i don't recommend the first one at all. i'm not sure which pdf you mean.
i'm not really playing video games right now because i don't have the money nor the motivation. but i might check it out as soon as i have either of these.

[SVPM]

i'm not really playing video games right now because i don't have the money nor the motivation. but i might check it out as soon as i have either of these.

Is it because government stole all your money and removed any will to do anything by coercing you into a collective society?

Good answer on the data driven analysis of world aid. I was about to do the same things because I knew it was the reality. I'm not sure you get much answer when data doesn't go in a direction as shown before in this and other discussion. Data can be better, but not when it is use against your position...

[Zso_Zso]

A political message in Friday-afternoon compatible form

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AvF1Q...layer_embedded

[asmodeios]

based on bias rather than data? you just didn't care to contribute back when we had that discussion or deliberately ignored anything i wrote since i posted more data supporting my stance in that debate than in most other ones we had here. for example, here are the two links of my initial post:

http://www.owen.org/musings/generosity
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...able_countries

i repeat this again, for you: americans are one of the most charitable people when it comes to classical charity. they also score the highest in absolute terms of aid which is no surprise since they are by far the biggest country in the west. though, absolute numbers don't have anything to do with the average citizen's contribution to aid obviously.

then, you post these links. the first one directs me to financial support of the NATO where the US, of course, gives most in absolute numbers. if you convert those numbers to contribution per capita you see that americans give less than most other rich nations such as germany, the UK, france, spain, the netherlands, norway, belgium, denmark, etc. the next link redirects me to the wikipedia article about the UN and i seem to be supposed to scroll down until i find some sort of ranking of countries which, again, measures financial support for this organization. and it's the same again. the US pays less than all other western nations that are listed here per capita.

fail fail fail. anyway, that was NOT what i meant when i said the US could be the greatest contributor of good which is why this sub-discussion emerged. do you think financial support is the only support? if you would use your resourced wisely you could be the leaders in all technological, including medicinal, fields, all social sciences, humanities, etc. you could make all other people of the world achieve this too.

Who cares about per capita.

The total amount is what matters. Not per person. This is just an example of someone selectively using stats to back their argument. Considering there are less people in those countries than the US sure your per capita number will be higher. But trying to use that as proof that you guys give more is ridiculous.

[SVPM]

Who cares about per capita.

The total amount is what matters. Not per person. This is just an example of someone selectively using stats to back their argument. Considering there are less people in those countries than the US sure your per capita number will be higher. But trying to use that as proof that you guys give more is ridiculous.

Are you kidding? Is it sarcasm?

[ScottieX]

No it isn't. Every hour of labor that is lost by someone retiring or working a shorter week is made up by giving a new job to somebody who previously didn't have one. What's so difficult about that?

Well we cold also cut taxes and increase tax revenue also as long as we stiplate that every dollar lost is replaced by more dollars due to economic activity. But I dont see the point in just stiplating things work like that.

Well it's not really like that because again our problem is not that we don't have enough workers. We have too many workers. That is our problem. The solution is obviously to have fewer workers. It would be more like the problem was the government had too much revenue (har har). Then the solution would be to cut taxes to reduce it.

No my point is that you are just stipulating the result of the policy you want will be what you want it to be. That doesnt seem very useful.

So here is a hypothetical -

You take over the congress and propose a lowering if the retirement age. a million people retire so we are now have maybe 1% less prodction.

Now some currently unemployed people apply for those jobs and after going throgh the employment process maybe 800,000 get hired (some don't have the skills or whatever) and they do the job 80% as well as the previous people (which is why they didnt already have the jobs). So some work doesn't get done and some gets done to a lower standard. Some of this work is paper pushing and some is somthing that matters like growing vegetables in similar proportions to the rest of the economy.

Is there any reason, besides you just stipulting it, (or you instituting an unrelated policy that could be run independantly), that somthing at least vagely like that wont happen?

interestingly i note that (and i know these statistics can be a bit distorted)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...mployment_rate

France with their shortened working week have a higher unemployment rate than the USA does and NZ, which i understand works long working week on average, has a lower rate. I dont want to claim i have shown this, but that may even reflect a statistical relationship across that table vs the work hours data (even if you factor out the variable for absence of a decent social safety net).

You're the one who brought it up!.

talk about it, just dont mix them, or it will be hard to discuss

Yeah but why would you do that? What is your incentive to create a job out of nothing? That's our problem really. We have too many jobs that don't really amount to anything.

are you assuming I dont like debating with you on here!! There are other reasons why I dont pay you than because I dont think your comments amount to anything.

why not reduce the amount of work that everybody has to do?

well this is yet another issue besides encouraging domestic indstry and retirement. And Im not sure how you plan to do it. In capitalism we se a bit of a "scatter gun" approach to getting important work done but the other main system we tried (commnism) while targeting the important things - still struggled to do a better job.

Yes of course there are.

Well i suggest you can fix most of your issues by fixing the systemic problems. And the fat guy who doesnt want to work isnt the problem in this sense, it is just the guy who wants to work but cant get in contact with the person who wants somthing done or cant form a relationship where he might get paid for that valuable work.

What I don't get is why you think it's so important to use every worker to maximum efficiency for as long as we can. Are we bees? What good is it to force a guy to go push paper around all day when he could read a book, sit in a park, spend time with his children or play CivRev if nothing needs to be produced just then?

If the job is 'useless' thats a seperate problem. Im not sure how you are adressing that one.
For me I would ask - if it is useless why is he getting paid for it. At some point there should be a sort of market inefficiency / externality that can be fixed via policy.

[ShowtekGER]

Who cares about per capita.

The total amount is what matters. Not per person. This is just an example of someone selectively using stats to back their argument. Considering there are less people in those countries than the US sure your per capita number will be higher. But trying to use that as proof that you guys give more is ridiculous.

do you know what per capita means? it means the total amount divided by people. it means how much every individual citizen pays. i'm asking this because you seem to allege a mathematical connection between the size of the population of a country and contribution per capita which makes no sense. if you refer to political/economic dynamics, alright, but you don't seem to do that and even if you did you would obviously have to endow your statement with some argumentation.

the per capita measurement matters because it will tell us which people are the most charitable and that is what we're trying to figure out. just to give you an example, if we would add up the official development assistance in 2009 of germany, the UK, and france it would be a greater absolute sum than the US' (numbers taken from my wikipedia link) even though the three countries only add up to a population of 205 million versus the US' 312 million. the same could be said about the US vs. the EU (>500 million people) where the EU would easily win the comparison. no, if we want to know which national population is the most charitable we have to look at charity/aid per capita.

and when you google related statistics i find it is fairly certain to say that in terms of actual charity (donations and the like) americans are one of the most charitable people of the world. when it comes to total aid (including governmental, legislated aid) they lack behind most other highly developed countries.

[elthrasher]

Well i suggest you can fix most of your issues by fixing the systemic problems. And the fat guy who doesnt want to work isnt the problem in this sense, it is just the guy who wants to work but cant get in contact with the person who wants somthing done or cant form a relationship where he might get paid for that valuable work.

That you frame things thus suggests to me that you are missing something essential here. This isn't about a person of any girth who doesn't want to work (other than those who are old and want to retire but can't afford to). This isn't about being unable to connect a worker with an available job. Those aren't the problems we're trying to address here. I mean, do you really think we hit 9.1% unemployment because we have some kind of disconnect between workers and employers who would love to employ them? Remember, that's just the percentage of the workforce that want to work - it doesn't include "lazy" people.

The basic premise is that as machines have replaced workers in many cases and as our workforce has grown over the past 70 years - it is now common for both parents to work outside the home whereas that was rare 70 years ago so twice the workforce, same number of mouths to feed - we are running out of really valuable things for people to do to contribute. And worse, we have become more individually productive with workers spending 70+ hours per week on their jobs. The result of this is layers of meaningless bureaucracy, high unemployment and massive waste. So why don't we all just work less, keep it to the actual valuable tasks and then everybody can enjoy life a little more?

[SVPM]

do you know what per capita means? it means the total amount divided by people. it means how much every individual citizen pays. i'm asking this because you seem to allege a mathematical connection between the size of the population of a country and contribution per capita which makes no sense. if you refer to political/economic dynamics, alright, but you don't seem to do that and even if you did you would obviously have to endow your statement with some argumentation.

the per capita measurement matters because it will tell us which people are the most charitable and that is what we're trying to figure out. just to give you an example, if we would add up the official development assistance in 2009 of germany, the UK, and france it would be a greater absolute sum than the US' (numbers taken from my wikipedia link) even though the three countries only add up to a population of 205 million versus the US' 312 million. the same could be said about the US vs. the EU (>500 million people) where the EU would easily win the comparison. no, if we want to know which national population is the most charitable we have to look at charity/aid per capita.

and when you google related statistics i find it is fairly certain to say that in terms of actual charity (donations and the like) americans are one of the most charitable people of the world. when it comes to total aid (including governmental, legislated aid) they lack behind most other highly developed countries.

This is true, but I would add that it's also good to look as percentage of gdp going to aid. This way even poor country can be seen as charitable. US is giving less % of their GDP than most european country by a huge margin. A guy winning 1000$ month who gives 100$ makes more effort than a guy winning 1 000 000 that gives the double.

[elthrasher]

fail fail fail. anyway, that was NOT what i meant when i said the US could be the greatest contributor of good which is why this sub-discussion emerged. do you think financial support is the only support? if you would use your resourced wisely you could be the leaders in all technological, including medicinal, fields, all social sciences, humanities, etc. you could make all other people of the world achieve this too.

Forget the numbers, guys. Here's the money quote. The USA is and has been better positioned than any nation on Earth to lead the way to a new age of peace, learning and prosperity. But we're not doing it because we can't get our stuff together. Oh yeah, and because executing innocent people is an applause line. But it's not our fault. Who exiled all the idiots, wackos and crazies here? Hmm? Suck it, Europe. You did this!

[ShowtekGER]

This is true, but I would add that it's also good to look as percentage of gdp going to aid. This way even poor country can be seen as charitable. US is giving less % of their GDP than most european country by a huge margin. A guy winning 1000$ month who gives 100$ makes more effort than a guy winning 1 000 000 that gives the double.

sure, that's true. anyway, i wouldn't expect much support from poorer countries. and especially not from the really poor ones. they are the ones who are supposed to receive the help.

[ScottieX]

That you frame things thus suggests to me that you are missing something essential here. This isn't about a person of any girth who doesn't want to work (other than those who are old and want to retire but can't afford to). This isn't about being unable to connect a worker with an available job. Those aren't the problems we're trying to address here. I mean, do you really think we hit 9.1% unemployment because we have some kind of disconnect between workers and employers who would love to employ them? Remember, that's just the percentage of the workforce that want to work - it doesn't include "lazy" people.

You seem to be missing my point more than i am mising yours. Bt yes yor 9.1% is to a large extent that people with skills are not being connected to the places where those skills could be used to create more value than the cost of using them. or it is taking too long to connect them. At other times in other similar countries unemployment might be far less. I think ours was somthing like 3 % not that long ago. If, in your model, we had more to do, then why is that?

Also if the workforce can absorb 100 million women (or whatever) why is it that we are arging it cant absorb some much smaller number of unemployed if it is just simply matter of seats for employed people to sit in.

Also I dont know how we got onto lazy people. I dont think i ever said it was about that.
For context I will note that my experience of being unemployed is one of knowing i can do jobs and employers or potential customers not realising it.

[ShowtekGER]

Forget the numbers, guys. Here's the money quote. The USA is and has been better positioned than any nation on Earth to lead the way to a new age of peace, learning and prosperity. But we're not doing it because we can't get our stuff together. Oh yeah, and because executing innocent people is an applause line. But it's not our fault. Who exiled all the idiots, wackos and crazies here? Hmm? Suck it, Europe. You did this!

well, are there any practical solutions to this? basically every superpower is in that position as long as it's a superpower. i didn't really say that the US could be the greatest generator of well-being worldwide because i would expect the US to do it. no superpower before the US did. some were perhaps a little better of an influence, some a little worse. but they all stuck to being imperialist arseholes in the end. i'm not asking that question because i'm cynical or don't believe that this can be changed but most ideas that seek to solve this are still very theoretical (i'm thinking of dissident ideas such as radical left-wing thought). i don't believe that this can be dealt with with modesty, i.e. staying within the same framework of our system. we need radical system change.

and don't accuse me of anti-americanism. accuse me anti anti-superpowerism or anti-arseholelism if you want. western europe is the partner of the US in the global status quo. all of the west supports the system. i'm only criticizing the US that often because it is the current superpower and thus many of the bad developments in the world can be traced back to it, its allies, their ideas, and their system. the same was true of the soviet union and probably in different ways of superpowers before the world was globalized.

[ScottieX]

we are running out of really valuable things for people to do to contribute. And worse, we have become more individually productive with workers spending 70+ hours per week on their jobs. The result of this is layers of meaningless bureaucracy, high unemployment and massive waste. So why don't we all just work less, keep it to the actual valuable tasks and then everybody can enjoy life a little more?

I dont think we are running out of useful things to do. If the world was perfect you might be right but it obviously isn't.

You are right that I think we do a lot of thing that are fairly useless (according to a specific moral standard) things. The response from a defender of the system would probably be that it isnt worth the energy expended to seperate out useful from useless... or that you cant really be trusted to judge what is useless at all.

[ScottieX]

deleted post

[asmodeios]

do you know what per capita means? it means the total amount divided by people. it means how much every individual citizen pays. i'm asking this because you seem to allege a mathematical connection between the size of the population of a country and contribution per capita which makes no sense. if you refer to political/economic dynamics, alright, but you don't seem to do that and even if you did you would obviously have to endow your statement with some argumentation.

the per capita measurement matters because it will tell us which people are the most charitable and that is what we're trying to figure out. just to give you an example, if we would add up the official development assistance in 2009 of germany, the UK, and france it would be a greater absolute sum than the US' (numbers taken from my wikipedia link) even though the three countries only add up to a population of 205 million versus the US' 312 million. the same could be said about the US vs. the EU (>500 million people) where the EU would easily win the comparison. no, if we want to know which national population is the most charitable we have to look at charity/aid per capita.

and when you google related statistics i find it is fairly certain to say that in terms of actual charity (donations and the like) americans are one of the most charitable people of the world. when it comes to total aid (including governmental, legislated aid) they lack behind most other highly developed countries.

Right...ask me if I know what it means when in the very first line of the post I said it's definition.

There are lies, damn lies, and statistics.

Like I said earlier. You can mold statistics however you want to support your argument. Doesn't make you right.

I don't give a flying #### what people give on average per person. But GJ being anti-american for no reason. I know it is the trendy thing to do in Europe and all. We give more aid yet you find reason to fault us despite that. Great job guy.

[elthrasher]

You seem to be missing my point more than i am mising yours. Bt yes yor 9.1% is to a large extent that people with skills are not being connected to the places where those skills could be used to create more value than the cost of using them. or it is taking too long to connect them. At other times in other similar countries unemployment might be far less. I think ours was somthing like 3 % not that long ago. If, in your model, we had more to do, then why is that?

Well, a lot of people refer to the good economy (low unemployment and lots of upwardly mobile people) that we had in the 1990s as a bubble. That's both true and a bit misleading. It's true in the sense that a lot of the dotcom/venture capital work that was going on was utter garbage that never saw the light of day. I worked for a contract firm at that time and I know that several of the projects I and my colleagues assisted with never made a cent. I knew that at the time, but it's not a software contractor's place to go "you seriously think this is going to make money for you?" I could go into why calling that economy a bubble is misleading, but that's not really germane.

The point is that we had a good economy which involved a lot of people spending a lot of time doing not very much. Now we have a bad economy in which many of the people who have jobs spend a lot of time not doing very much. Again I reference the IRS/tax accountant discussion and toss in all the fumblebucks on Wall Street for good measure. It's not that we really have more to do. It's that a good economy can absorb more of the wasteful non-work that people do.

Also if the workforce can absorb 100 million women (or whatever) why is it that we are arging it cant absorb some much smaller number of unemployed if it is just simply matter of seats for employed people to sit in.

If you can fit an entire grape into your mouth, why not a watermelon? Women were absorbed into the workplace over a period of several decades and during the greatest booming economy the United States has ever seen.

Also I dont know how we got onto lazy people. I dont think i ever said it was about that.

Well you mentioned "a fat guy who doesn't want to work." In any case, this isn't about handouts. It's about recognizing how much actual work there is to do and dividing it up among the people willing to do it. Unambitious people can still be poor. I'm fine with that.

For context I will note that my experience of being unemployed is one of knowing i can do jobs and employers or potential customers not realising it.

But surely realizing your potential in a nation with 3% unemployment is a lot easier than doing so in one that has 9% unemployment. That's a lot of people who want to work and can't find work. If there were jobs available, they would find them. At least some of them would.

[elthrasher]

well, are there any practical solutions to this?

My solution is to try to make things as good as possible at home. I would provide people with opportunity and security and most of all education. I know that American people are generous and if we can solve some of our problems, we can turn to the rest of the world with real help, real solutions, real leadership, not war and thievery.

There's a really simple rule that is announced every time an airplane takes off in the USA (and most other places IIRC). If the cabin loses pressure, put on your own oxygen mask before you help others. That's because if you are gasping for breath, you are in less of a good position to help others. Right now many Americans are gasping for breath.

and don't accuse me of anti-americanism.

I wouldn't.

[elthrasher]

I dont think we are running out of useful things to do. If the world was perfect you might be right but it obviously isn't.

You are right that I think we do a lot of thing that are fairly useless (according to a specific moral standard) things. The response from a defender of the system would probably be that it isnt worth the energy expended to seperate out useful from useless... or that you cant really be trusted to judge what is useless at all.

So what are some useful things we can do? Right now the job force in America is 153.6 million workers and there are 14 million unemployed people. There is some infrastructure repair that needs to be done. We could bring back some manufacturing and industry. But 14 million jobs worth? Those are blue-collar jobs. What are unemployed white-collar workers to do now that their companies have downsized and outsourced and decided they don't need them?

[ShowtekGER]

I don't give a flying #### what people give on average per person. But GJ being anti-american for no reason. I know it is the trendy thing to do in Europe and all. We give more aid yet you find reason to fault us despite that. Great job guy.

no. europeans give more aid in absolute terms.

the statistics argument is valid. yet, i think it is misapplied here. i doubt that it is really me who tries to save his biased view but accusing each other of exactly that won't move us any further. for me this issue is done since we last had this discussion anyway. i don't see why i should change my mind on the matter.

[Pedal2Metal]

do you think financial support is the only support? if you would use your resourced wisely you could be the leaders in all technological, including medicinal, fields, all social sciences, humanities, etc. you could make all other people of the world achieve this too.

The US already leads in most categories you mention. I posted this video a long time ago which addressed virtually every major category imaginable: financial, military, political, cultural, etc....
http://www.pjtv.com/?cmd=mpg&mpid=56&load=2378

The US led by large margins virtually everywhere. You have to be a PJTV member now to watch this video. In other words, given USA's short existence compared to Europe, China, India, etc..., the very fact it leads in so many categories is exceptional by definition, whether you like the USA or not. Even if it's not leading, to be in competition for the top spot after literally being around for only 200+ years as a nation is impressive as compared to nations who have had millenia of a headstart. Similar statements can be made for Israel by the way. Yes, I know you dislike both nations but in terms of measured results & the society at-large, especially Israel, it sure beats most of the neighbors all hollow. While excuses can be made forever, results are measurable & indisputable. I'd love to see the Arab nations follow Israel's example & build great technology, etc... in their own countries rather than squandering their energy trying to destroy Israel and/or creating glamor for the few at the top vs. truly benefiting the country at large. What a waste of resources.

As for your per-capita dogma, that's exactly what it is: chosen dogma. Contributions to UN/NATO/etc... are more interesting as total percentages, not per-capita imo as it indicates who's shouldering the lion's share of the responsibility, which is significant & substantive. You want to ignore that perspective so you can continue on your anti-USA journey. Ok, so be it but that's not exactly a credible position either.

best regards,
Pedal2Metal

[Pedal2Metal]

http://www.slate.com/id/2302853/

About conspiracy theories & the resilient nature of those related to 9/11.

best regards,
Pedal2Metal

[ShowtekGER]

My solution is to try to make things as good as possible at home. I would provide people with opportunity and security and most of all education. I know that American people are generous and if we can solve some of our problems, we can turn to the rest of the world with real help, real solutions, real leadership, not war and thievery.

There's a really simple rule that is announced every time an airplane takes off in the USA (and most other places IIRC). If the cabin loses pressure, put on your own oxygen mask before you help others. That's because if you are gasping for breath, you are in less of a good position to help others. Right now many Americans are gasping for breath.

well, it's an interesting solution, one that many people choose, and it has some charm to it. it wouldn't be my favorite solution, though, because in my view concentrating on one artificial set of people supports the idea that we are all different from each other, symbolized by borders and perhaps religion. and thus it helps supporting the idea that some people are more deserving of resources and life than others. i would much rather seek global solutions for all of humanity. yet, of course, if more people believed what you believe and acted upon this i think we could accomplish a whole lot.

[SVPM]

As for your per-capita dogma, that's exactly what it is: chosen dogma. Contributions to UN/NATO/etc... are more interesting as total percentages, not per-capita imo as it indicates who's shouldering the lion's share of the responsibility, which is significant & substantive. You want to ignore that perspective so you can continue on your anti-USA journey. Ok, so be it but that's not exactly a credible position either.

best regards,
Pedal2Metal

Isn't per capita number data? I thought you liked data? Relative data are more useful in general because they take part of the context into accounts.

We could easily make a parallel between this and your idea that a flat tax rate is fairer. Let's everybody pay the same % of their income in aid or in NATO/UN and your actual deficit would seem a joke compared to what it would be if USA would make the same effort as most european nation.

Criticizing a country isn't being anti this country...

As for the progress you've made in 225 years is really impressive. You must admit that you didn't start with no technology. You started with at least industrial technology (rail road, gunpowder, modern states management...), which isn't the case for most decolonized country in Africa and middle-east. Same thing for Israel. I'm not saying the history of USA isn't inspiring. We do have the same level of technology as you here, but are younger by 100 years.

P.S.You never answered to the post where you specifically asked for a western european country with a better economy than US. Don't you like data?

[ShowtekGER]

The US already leads in most categories you mention. I posted this video a long time ago which addressed virtually every major category imaginable: financial, military, political, cultural, etc....
http://www.pjtv.com/?cmd=mpg&mpid=56&load=2378

The US led by large margins virtually everywhere. You have to be a PJTV member now to watch this video. In other words, given USA's short existence compared to Europe, China, India, etc..., the very fact it leads in so many categories is exceptional by definition, whether you like the USA or not.

yea, well, i can't see it and i'm not a fan of being persuaded into subscribing something. perhaps you can provide me with another link supporting your position?

but tell me how the USA "leads" in a category such as social science?! people naturally contribute to sciences so that's what they do if they have the chance. that's why basically all rich countries lead in the sciences. if you're the major innovators within, e.g., medicinal technology (provide me with data), fine, but you don't seem to apply it very well to your own population, at least not significantly better than other rich nations and many would say worse (we had this conversation). i mean perhaps you are even the leader in many such fields but if you're the leader in social sciences, why are your crime rates, number of prisoners, and divorce rates among the highest or outright the highest? why do you have some of the lowest rates of a functioning democracy, life expectancy and freedom of the press among developed countries? it's time to put all this into practice, then, right? because practically, in all of those fields and many more other nations are clearly ahead of the US, my patriotic friend.

and don't ask me to support each of these assertions with links. this knowledge is uncontroversial. look for it yourself and tell me if you find that i said anything which isn't true.

and how is the youth of a country linked to greatness and justified pride when it's coupled with great achievements? were the immigrants to america fresh evolutionary descendants of chimpanzees or, excuse me, of adam and eva? this just shows how ridiculous the concept of national pride is. well, what have you achieved? you have accumulated most resources and thereby most power and are using this to direct the world according to your standards causing starvation and calamity everywhere. you can cheer because you're proud or you can denounce it like i just did. OR you can stop putting any moral value on what your ancestors accidentally did within arbitrary geographical boundaries which, by no sane standard, could count as your personal achievement.

As for your per-capita dogma, that's exactly what it is: chosen dogma. Contributions to UN/NATO/etc... are more interesting as total percentages, not per-capita imo as it indicates who's shouldering the lion's share of the responsibility, which is significant & substantive. You want to ignore that perspective so you can continue on your anti-USA journey. Ok, so be it but that's not exactly a credible position either.

let's back up. both total sums and per capita sums are interesting but there's a reason why we have both. because both are interesting in regard to different issues. saying that one is less interesting than the other make zero sense. if we want to find out which people are the ones who give away most of their money to aid, i.e. finding out who is most charitable, we cannot look at the total amount given because that is dependent on population size. i mean am i talking to 10 year olds here?

it is surely interesting to look at total amounts of money in order to see where the biggest pile comes from for a variety of reasons. but we can't conclude any moral value about charitableness on the basis of that, right?! we can't expect spain with 50 million people to pay as much as the US with 300 million. we have to convert the numbers. but if you absolutely want to play this game i'm in. because if we compare the USA and the EU (or even just some of the biggest EU countries) the EU definitely gives more. according to your method of comparison, i could also compare the USA with all of europe. is that so hard to understand?

[elthrasher]

well, it's an interesting solution, one that many people choose, and it has some charm to it. it wouldn't be my favorite solution, though, because in my view concentrating on one artificial set of people supports the idea that we are all different from each other, symbolized by borders and perhaps religion. and thus it helps supporting the idea that some people are more deserving of resources and life than others. i would much rather seek global solutions for all of humanity. yet, of course, if more people believed what you believe and acted upon this i think we could accomplish a whole lot.

An instant global solution would be ideal of course, but sometimes large problems must be broken up into chunks. You know the slogan "Think global, act local"? The USA is a pretty big chunk, true, but you can't really say, "well, we'll help all the people in Nevada first, sorry Oklahoma." These kinds of initiatives would really need to come from the executive level. Maybe I'll run in 2016.

[ScottieX]

It's that a good economy can absorb more of the wasteful non-work that people do.

I think a bad economy will absorb those as well. But I spose there are two types of wasteful work the first is irs tax accountants and wallstreet traders. They will probably continue to do their things while your joe the farmer gets fired.

The other set is joe the coal miner who isnt really mining enough coal to pay for the full cost of his work. He is engaging in wasteful work that the good economy tolerates but the bad economy doesn't.

Women were absorbed into the workplace over a period of several decades and during the greatest booming economy the United States has ever seen.

The rest of the world got it sorted out also.

Well you mentioned "a fat guy who doesn't want to work."

only so i could say he WASNT the problem!

But surely realizing your potential in a nation with 3% unemployment is a lot easier than doing so in one that has 9% unemployment. That's a lot of people who want to work and can't find work. If there were jobs available, they would find them. At least some of them would.

Some of them do find jobs...
There is just a complex set of environmental and personal factors resulting in them being 'employed' or 'not employed'.

The economy is in some ways like..... a banking crisis, when you have a bad economy and everyone loses confidence all of a sudden all sorts of things start to fall apart. But it is not that people fundimentally need less food to eat or somthing.

[ScottieX]

So what are some useful things we can do?

Well I could list a million odd things here but that would take quite a long time and wouldn't add much value because the question then becomes why are not people doing those jobs already and then we get onto things that we cold start adressing with policy.

Also I think that the market will proably be a better tool to determine what is reqired than my guesses with no evidence.

What are unemployed white-collar workers to do now that their companies have downsized and outsourced and decided they don't need them?

get a new collar? Or they could just keep doing the same job even though it may no longer produce more than it costs...

But more seriously what i keep reading into this is that you dont think people should need to change jobs (or "collars") as technology changes the global job landscape. I can actally sympathise with that point* and we could debatably institute policy to adress that but you already said you didnt mean that..

[ScottieX]

An instant global solution would be ideal of course, but sometimes large problems must be broken up into chunks. You know the slogan "Think global, act local"? The USA is a pretty big chunk, true, but you can't really say, "well, we'll help all the people in Nevada first, sorry Oklahoma." These kinds of initiatives would really need to come from the executive level. Maybe I'll run in 2016.

Maybe we can all form policy platforms and make up some parties - Then someone could propose a presidential debate format and questions I might call mine the utilitarian party

[elthrasher]

Maybe we can all form policy platforms and make up some parties - Then someone could propose a presidential debate format and questions I might call mine the utilitarian party

Yeah, you're Chairman Yang of The Hive.

[Zso_Zso]

Yeah, you're Chairman Yang of The Hive.

Hey SMAC reference for the win!

[elthrasher]

Well I could list a million odd things here but that would take quite a long time and wouldn't add much value because the question then becomes why are not people doing those jobs already and then we get onto things that we cold start adressing with policy.

I don't need a million things. How about ten? That should be easy. What are ten jobs that aren't being done in America that should be?

Also I think that the market will proably be a better tool to determine what is reqired than my guesses with no evidence.

I completely disagree with this. Any time we give the market free reign to decide what is best for us, we end up worse off than ever. Case in point, all the banking deregulation that lead to the global meltdown. The standard work week and retirement ages aren't dictated by the market anyway. If we let the market decide, we'd work until we died and do 100+ hours per week. From a strictly financial point of view, how can it make any sense to do any differently? What I'm talking about here is quality of life. F the market. It only serves itself. That humans should pay fealty to such an absurd institution is one of our greatest failings as a race.

get a new collar? Or they could just keep doing the same job even though it may no longer produce more than it costs...

But more seriously what i keep reading into this is that you dont think people should need to change jobs (or "collars") as technology changes the global job landscape. I can actally sympathise with that point* and we could debatably institute policy to adress that but you already said you didnt mean that..

Retraining is certainly something that people need to do from time to time and we've done it. The United States has transitioned from a mostly agricultural nation to a largely white-collar workforce over the past 100 years. But it's not helpful to retrain for a job that doesn't exist. Stop insisting all these jobs exist with no proof. Show me some evidence that they do. It's kind of ridiculous. Have you ever even been to America? Have you looked for a job here? What are you basing this notion on? For that matter would you like me to tell you how it is in New Zealand?

[ScottieX]

I don't need a million things. How about ten? That should be easy. What are ten jobs that aren't being done in America that should be?

Well you could probably do with more and better budget advisors and diet advisors and medical advisors. Simply, is there anything in your life that you do better than your neighbour? Or that you neighbour knows should be done but isn't. Most of these arent inventing a new industry entirely but thats just becase a proposal like that wold be less obvious.

I completely disagree with this. Any time we give the market free reign to decide what is best for us, we end up worse off than ever.

Not free reign - you manage it. China manages it for their own purposes and it works for them.

Case in point, all the banking deregulation that lead to the global meltdown.

I'd never have supported that.

The standard work week and retirement ages aren't dictated by the market anyway. If we let the market decide, we'd work until we died and do 100+ hours per week.

I see the market as a tool that we can use and which in some sitations does the job quite efficiently. If it is better at the job use it - if not dont. Anyway my solution is to mould what the market does via careful intervention - exactly like financial reglations. Surely you are not taking the extreme position that we wold throw out the financial markets and just tell them what to do?

Retraining is certainly something that people need to do from time to time and we've done it.

yes but it results in stress and downtime vs not retraining. You could, i suppose, have policies in place that effectively slow the introduction of new consumer products and thus slow the rate of technological change that your workers face. If you thought the benefits outweigh the costs. That wold also put your consmer market out of sync with the rest of the world which would amount to a trade barrier I guess.

But it's not helpful to retrain for a job that doesn't exist. Stop insisting all these jobs exist with no proof. Show me some evidence that they do. It's kind of ridiculous. Have you ever even been to America? Have you looked for a job here? What are you basing this notion on? For that matter would you like me to tell you how it is in New Zealand?

that you phrase the qestion like that implies you miss my point. If the averaged unemployed american is looking for a job and is constantly getting offers but is not taking them, it isnt (in itself) relevant to me - becase my perspective is one of policy i could change, not one of magically jumping into their minds and controling them.

I am looking at systematic issues and indicating there are interventions we could se to shape the market to do the job better.

Thre are a lot of different issues one might be to do with employers knowing they can make money from a project but not having the ability to efficiently raise capital for it. Or there might be a subset of employees that the person belongs to where the employer cannot differentiate efficiently between the cleptomaniacs and the honest employees and thus determines it isnt worth employing (maybe that subset is excriminals). Other isses you might be more sympathetic towards are economy of scale issues that might need to be government projects, or where a project good for everyone has externalities that are hard to capture.

[ScottieX]

watched some more daily show now Im fully p to date on perry's march to the presidency over That other dude who has 50 policies, and boring stuff like that.
Seems like that huntsman and ron paul need to stop talking about sensible things or at least where they do limit themselves to only the most defendable aspects. Hunts man for example shold skip talking about global warming and only fight them on evolution. And ron paul should attack the military overseas as some sort of stupid charity for overseas countries or whatever meme he can get to fly in that sort of vein - then STAY ON MESSAGE...

[Zefelius]

http://youtu.be/WQPfQvLIseA

Hard rockin' band with a funny video... (Red Fang's "Wires")

[ShowtekGER]

inspiring

http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth...723351393.html