Null
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It's also an unmoderated thread, so I can finally post a photo of my enormous pen... collection.
World News Thread (Politics,whatever)
- Thread starter Wally
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It's also an unmoderated thread, so I can finally post a photo of my enormous pen... collection.
comradekingu
Glowing ember
Just because it is unmoderated doesn't mean you can post be… spoke pens.Thatswhatshesaid said:
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I think the move is to sell someone elses grandmother, to maximise your shareholder value.
Isn't that the very problem you are describing, how we are already doing that?
Not actually depending on where you make the cut, i think each strata has a good reason to keep the poor people somewhat alive, for a variation over the theme "meaningful".
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I can understand your frustration if you need to pay high level of taxes for sub par benefits.
Yeah, that is the difference between right-wing sensibilities and left-wing sensibilities. The 1st kind cares for people from their family first and sometimes only for that close circle of people. The 2nd kind care for all.
I'm of the 2nd kind while being from the upper middle class (the one that pays most taxes in %age) and the biggest reason is that I would not like to be rich in a society were people around me are poor. I want to be able to go to any street in my country. I want to know that no one is in a such a bad situation that they will be desperate and do things that hurt others. Clearly you can know from the news that even France is failing there.
You don't need to worry for the next 4 years. The current French president is perfectly aligned with your views. If (that is a big "IF") a true leftist were to be elected at the next vote, unless enough European countries would be aligned (that is an even bigger "IF"), France would have to leave the European Union to carry a non-liberal agenda anyway. So you wouldn't be threatened in that situation either, it would just mean the end of the European Union.
Because a rich person's vote is equal to a poor person's vote ? Also the modest people in a country might be contributing more than the rich but may only be compensated less fairly ?
I do NOT consider myself to be worth more than any person earning less than me.
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Null
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Rise of the Taxes
In our European province, the low taxes go from 6% to 9%. This is for all items like food and that means that fruit and veggies will cost at least 6% more later on this year (because: water is more expensive, clothing is too (hey, your not picking brambles in your Gucci outfit, right?), fertilizer will too, thus the 3% extra for the state does not factor in the other rising costs, resulting in higher prices).
How badly do they want our taxes? They organize tax raids. (as last year's was such a success!) Taxes - It's like crowd funding, but mandatory...
The rise in tax is because of collusion in the Dutch governing party
Euphrates is dried up.
Rev16:12 And the sixth angel poured out his vial upon the great river Euphrates. And its water was dried up...
Turks made a dam up-river. But we are not in the summer, yet the river is dried up already. Maybe to keep the Syrian Kurds thirsty... but I have reliable intel that the Russians did it... by making it a dry winter (no accumulated snow)
Nicaragua (country nobody ever heared before - except by rum lovers)
Escalation in protests made president Ortega revert the sobering of pensions and other austerity mandates. But as always... the few that stole the money keep the money... it's only fair. And no jail for them of course. Around 25 dead protesters though. Do you know how much a fired bullet costs? I hope their families realize that and pay the government the expenses made on their behalf.
Spain
Rallies in Barcelona. No, it's not about fast cars. They seem to want their government back... silly! More government is more overhead! More taxes! But hey, Spanish are weird in that way.
Net Neutrality is Over
Yes, today is the day... faster internet, saver internet! Prepare to pay extra to access this premium website (in a month or two)! How cool is that?
Rape is OK, says the UN
The UN Secretary General says that Burmese troops' use of sexual violence was a ‘calculated tool’ to force Rohingya to leave and not return.
But alas, they are coming back (Gee, thanks Bangladesh, for forcing them back!), despite the minefield we put them behind to prevent this.
Measles Virus does not exist.
Says the court in Germany.
Want more fake news?
https://stallman.org/archives/2018-jan-apr.html
mandatory disclaimer: Any coincidence with reality and real coincidental news in this post is purely coincidental. This post is only a parody.
In our European province, the low taxes go from 6% to 9%. This is for all items like food and that means that fruit and veggies will cost at least 6% more later on this year (because: water is more expensive, clothing is too (hey, your not picking brambles in your Gucci outfit, right?), fertilizer will too, thus the 3% extra for the state does not factor in the other rising costs, resulting in higher prices).
How badly do they want our taxes? They organize tax raids. (as last year's was such a success!) Taxes - It's like crowd funding, but mandatory...
The rise in tax is because of collusion in the Dutch governing party
Euphrates is dried up.
Rev16:12 And the sixth angel poured out his vial upon the great river Euphrates. And its water was dried up...
Turks made a dam up-river. But we are not in the summer, yet the river is dried up already. Maybe to keep the Syrian Kurds thirsty... but I have reliable intel that the Russians did it... by making it a dry winter (no accumulated snow)
Nicaragua (country nobody ever heared before - except by rum lovers)
Escalation in protests made president Ortega revert the sobering of pensions and other austerity mandates. But as always... the few that stole the money keep the money... it's only fair. And no jail for them of course. Around 25 dead protesters though. Do you know how much a fired bullet costs? I hope their families realize that and pay the government the expenses made on their behalf.
Spain
Rallies in Barcelona. No, it's not about fast cars. They seem to want their government back... silly! More government is more overhead! More taxes! But hey, Spanish are weird in that way.
Net Neutrality is Over
Yes, today is the day... faster internet, saver internet! Prepare to pay extra to access this premium website (in a month or two)! How cool is that?
Rape is OK, says the UN
The UN Secretary General says that Burmese troops' use of sexual violence was a ‘calculated tool’ to force Rohingya to leave and not return.
But alas, they are coming back (Gee, thanks Bangladesh, for forcing them back!), despite the minefield we put them behind to prevent this.
Measles Virus does not exist.
Says the court in Germany.
Want more fake news?
https://stallman.org/archives/2018-jan-apr.html
mandatory disclaimer: Any coincidence with reality and real coincidental news in this post is purely coincidental. This post is only a parody.
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This is incorrect.
To whatever extent the government does not interfere, you can choose (vote with your wallet) what shelter to buy, rent or build. You choose what water to purchase, collect (from rain), or dig for (with a well). You choose what transport (foot, bike, bus, taxi, train, helicopter, airplane), you can choose what health services to purchase as well, if the state doesn't forbid it.
Please read Robert Murphy: Choice
Null
Snug
Caine
Hardcore Member
Yes, having just filed my taxes does not really help in reducing the frustration. I suppose the flip side is that my bank account grew with roughly the same amount. What annoys me the most is the elimination of personal choice (elections just create the illusion of choice).
If you phrase it like that, is that not just the 1st kind then? It sounds like you don't care for others but are afraid that they create danger in your life if you don't support them. I.e. providing benefits being the possibly cheaper way of preventing crime.
No, because forcing someone to work without reward by force (slavery) or by majority vote (welfare) is not a big difference to me (but it is not the same). The end does not justify the means, a voluntary exchange is always preferred over a forced one. Without the threat of jail time, I would not pay my taxes. I just don't agree that a majority vote can strip someone of his/her rights and in my opinion everyone has the fundamental right to the fruits of their labour.
I am my own standard of value, I consider everybody else to be worth less regardless of income. They have no rights over me, but (and this is very important) the same holds for others. So I have no rights over others either and others should consider themselves to be worth more than me. Only through voluntary exchange can we cooperate ethically. Yes this is selfish, but my selfishness must end where another begins.
Have you looked into reality lately?
You often can't even afford basic needs anymore with profit driven owners and there is no real competition since the infrastructure (telephone lines, rails, water pipes, etc...) are usually owned by exactly one company.
Caine
Hardcore Member
Sure, ideals end where reality begins, in practice almost everything is grey instead of black and white. You still need to have those ideals to give direction.
Isn't this where we come to the role of government in damping the positive feedback loops of wealth and power?
To allow an idealised vote-with-your-wallet society to develop, monopolies must be prevented from forming. That generally means taking power and wealth from the richest people/organisations, and indirectly giving it to poorer ones.
For example, in the UK, there are two major networks of telephone lines, and I doubt anyone would pay to build a third. BT has the largest network, and a historical advantage, as well as a history of allowing their equipment to decay or become outdated.
To keep this under control, the regulator legally requires them to separate their ISP operations from their line-rental business. This has created a diverse commercial market for domestic internet services, all using the one set of physical wires.
That is, a government body has forcibly taken power away from a private company, and the result has been a competitive market, and better choices for consumers!
Hows that for grey, then?
Re-edit: Why was there half an edit there? It didn't even make sense...
To allow an idealised vote-with-your-wallet society to develop, monopolies must be prevented from forming. That generally means taking power and wealth from the richest people/organisations, and indirectly giving it to poorer ones.
For example, in the UK, there are two major networks of telephone lines, and I doubt anyone would pay to build a third. BT has the largest network, and a historical advantage, as well as a history of allowing their equipment to decay or become outdated.
To keep this under control, the regulator legally requires them to separate their ISP operations from their line-rental business. This has created a diverse commercial market for domestic internet services, all using the one set of physical wires.
That is, a government body has forcibly taken power away from a private company, and the result has been a competitive market, and better choices for consumers!
Hows that for grey, then?
Re-edit: Why was there half an edit there? It didn't even make sense...
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Caine
Hardcore Member
Exactly right. Extremes on either side of the spectrum don't really work.
You can view an extreme welfare state as rewarding the non-working by redistributing the wealth of the working. If we all follow the reward then everybody would stop working and the system will collapse on itself as there will be no wealth to redistribute (it will flow abroad).
An extreme capitalistic market could converge into a monopoly where a single company would become a corporate state effectively replacing the official government. In a sense comparable to a communistic state, ironically enough
Thus I tend not to think about the left and right as endpoints on a line but as directions on a circle, more like clockwise and counter-clockwise. In the end you just end up in the middle again.
Ideological conversation tends to focus on extremes (at least with me
). In a way this is the Dutch way of throwing an idea on the table and shoot as many holes in it as you can, when this fails then it might be a good idea My point is not to abolish all taxes but to prefer non-state driven commercial solutions to problems where possible (as taxation is use of force, which I prefer not to). This also cannot be seen out of context, after correction the Netherlands is amongst the countries with the lowest income inequality (though this is not true for wealth). I would not mind that gap to be a tad bigger, by no metric am I rich but money is not my biggest concern either.
I enjoy these discussions as a way to investigate where systems break down. E.g. I like laissez-faire capitalism, but when this devolves into commercialised law enforcement then I am more than a bit sceptical about how that would work out. If companies are wilfully selling poisonous food then they deserve a good smack-down by the government for violating ethical standards. However, I am not convinced that incentives are properly aligned with e.g. government run healthcare, pension, transport and welfare.
ible
professional vim user
optimizing for economic output will likely destroy the world as we know it. (and we're already headed that way, because that's essentially what we're doing.)
here in America, healthcare is pretty messed up, and it's become tied to this idea of human value being associated with work (economic output). if you don't have a good job, you won't have good health insurance, and you might not be able to pay for your medical bills if you get majorly sick. universal healthcare gives people more freedom to pursue small-business, entrepreneury stuff. without universal health care, you end up consolidating (bigger companies have better benefits). you can of course argue from ideology that some people will take advantage of the system, but there are ways to incentivize working, and there's a pretty strong social incentive, too...
here in America, healthcare is pretty messed up, and it's become tied to this idea of human value being associated with work (economic output). if you don't have a good job, you won't have good health insurance, and you might not be able to pay for your medical bills if you get majorly sick. universal healthcare gives people more freedom to pursue small-business, entrepreneury stuff. without universal health care, you end up consolidating (bigger companies have better benefits). you can of course argue from ideology that some people will take advantage of the system, but there are ways to incentivize working, and there's a pretty strong social incentive, too...
I'm sorry, continuing this line of conversation will not produce any enlightenment.
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Direct democracy might be able to work the way you hope. Representative certainly has not. Learn about regulatory capture in Rothbard's The Progressive Era.
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What's your argument here? Are you referring to Kaczynski's Collapse Theory?
And in Britain, a bureaucrat decides whether you get life-saving treatment based on your projected future 'value to society' and whether he thinks your 'health choices' mean you do not deserve treatment.
levi
Still fresh, damnit!
Couldn't this fit perfectly well in the newishly pinned general news (incl. politics) thread?
rygD
Nihilistic Mystic
Yes, yes it could.
Interesting. Let's see if they handle it better than TEPCO.
levi
Still fresh, damnit!
Yeah, I've heard that theory doing the rounds. Apparently this is just the Nork's strategy for the last couple of decades at least. Basically make a fuss by building nukes, quietly find out how difficult it is to do that, agree to stop doing it in exchange for food, petrol, whatever, meanwhile within a few weeks, start working on nukes or whatever. They've done this a couple of times already, one time actually getting fissile material for a power plant project from the yanks, which they almost immediately took and started reprocessing it into warheads. So I expect them to find a new mountain and be setting off new nukes by next Tuesday.
Maybe if China get significant and measurable amounts of fallout from this mountain they've blown up that might change things. Probably not though; 100kt is nothing compared to even some of the bombs that the US were blowing up in free air in the 1950s.
Maybe if China get significant and measurable amounts of fallout from this mountain they've blown up that might change things. Probably not though; 100kt is nothing compared to even some of the bombs that the US were blowing up in free air in the 1950s.
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