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Libertarians aren't really known for their realistic expectations.
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Feb 5, 2016 10:49
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Nessus posted:Jrode, it seems awfully like your economic theory isn't even so much "for" anything as it is "against" laborers. Why do you hate them so much by adopting such a hateful thesis? Do you feel they are lesser? Do you feel they are, perhaps, life unworthy of life? Not even close. In a free society you can choose between three (really more than three but these are the obvious ones) means of making a living. You can become an entrepreneur and go into business for yourself. You can choose to exchange your labor for a wage to an entrepreneur and business owner. The third way, and one not discussed as much as it ought to by libertarians, is that you can form a commune with others and share resources, share profits and have a jointly owned and controlled business enterprise. I don't have any preference between these three options and I think any of them are valid choices one is free to make. The difference between socialism and laissez-faire is that in a free society, you can construct a community that voluntarily lives in accordance with socialist values and I have absolutely no moral problem with that. You will be tolerated and, provided you don't use aggression against other people, your rights will be respected. However, in a socialist society, a libertarian is prevented through violence from becoming an entrepreneur, mutually consenting to a wage contract with a laborer and selling his or her services on the market. The only reason you could possibly have to think that I am "against" laborers is because I made the obvious claim that labor doesn't create profits. I said consumers determine profits and losses on the market with their choice and deliberation among the products and services they can exchange their money for. What you fail to see is that laborer are ALSO consumers. So they indeed do determine profits, but not in their role as wage earners. People choose to exchange their labor for wages because they have a higher time preference. They want the security of a guaranteed weekly wage rate for the hours put in over the risk and uncertainty of risking their capital as an entrepreneur. And there is NOTHING wrong with this choice whatsoever. Their rights should be just as respected as the employer and everyone else in society. So what on earth makes this position "against" laborers? Because I don't subscribe to the Labor Theory of Value? That I don't think that labor is, in itself, responsible for profits? What if I am an entrepreneur and I have an idea to manufacture and sell a rotary phone made of gold and studded with diamonds. A new age rotary phone that is completely functional but blinged out with precious metals. Let's suppose the manufacturing process was quite complex and I needed a ton of highly skilled laborers to help produce it at scale. My workers were great, hard working and professional. I paid them a market rate for their specialty services and they performed admirably. Will my company now make profits because I've got tons of great workers who I value and treat well? Hell no! No one is buying something as ridiculous as a rotary phone made of gold studded with diamonds. It is ridiculous and there is ZERO demand for such an insane item. Not only are rotary phones obsolete and pointless at a functional level, but the use of gold and diamonds is a ridiculous misallocation of those scarce resources. The fact that consumers won't buy my ridiculous product, means I'll take massive losses, eventually have to lay off my workers and declare bankruptcy. The value (at the human rights level) of the workers I employ had absolutely no bearing on whether I made any profits. The thing that mattered in that context was whether there was any consumer demand for the product I put onto the market. Whether I had predicted consumer demand correctly. How does this belittle the value of workers? Of course it doesn't.
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Feb 5, 2016 10:51
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jrodefeld posted:Not even close. In a free society you can choose between three (really more than three but these are the obvious ones) means of making a living. You can become an entrepreneur and go into business for yourself. How? How do you gain the capital to do this? In the system you propose your wage should reflect your output productivity but that is not enough to amass investment capital because your employer has the right (and the incentive) to maximise his own profit as the provider of the means of production. How does a warehouse operative amass the capital necessary to start their own business and what niche could they possibly fill that hasn't already been done so by the time they set up shop?
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Feb 5, 2016 10:55
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jrodefeld posted:I think this is a good time to talk about the limits of empirical studies when looking at social phenomenon. Empiricism in the hard sciences is pretty straightforward because studies can be conducted with great specificity and are easily reproducible by other scientists. In contrast, human behavior in a complex economy is much more difficult to evaluate purely on an empirical basis. I've studied this issue for a while, and what has come up again and again is an empirical economist releases a paper that purports to prove a specific assertion, and then subsequent economists find it impossible to reproduce the results found because they cannot isolate the variables with regards to human action in a complex environment. Posting a study claiming empirical support for the theory that minimum wage has a significant negative effect on employment, then asking people to agree or come back with criticisms of it, then responding to my fulfillment of your request with "empirical studies are worthless anyway, my theory is logically derived from first principles and is not open to falsification" is a bad faith debating tactic. Posting studies that look at a difference in minimum wages to support your opinion, then responding to criticism of them with "well actually the only acceptable study would look at something totally different: the $7.25 minimum wage versus nothing at all, we can't learn anything from looking at the difference in minimum wages" is a bad faith debating tactic. jrodefeld posted:I maintain that, through all the studies I have read and my understanding of the labor market literature over the decades, that the preponderance of evidence, even according to the narrow scope of these studies, indicates a negative employment effect to raises in the minimum wage. Dismissing all evidence that contradicts your theory and then maintaining that the remainder supports your theory is poor reasoning which biases your conclusion. It's not reasonable to rely on conclusions you reach by such a method. E: jrodefeld posted:With economics, given the trouble with reproducing the results of studies given the number of variables which cannot be adequately controlled for, such an empirical model proves lacking. At best, economic studies can serve to demonstrate an economic principle or law that has been earlier deduced using logic and an understanding about human action, about incentives and things of that nature. Metastudies exist to address this exact problem of reproducibility. VitalSigns fucked around with this message at 10:59 on Feb 5, 2016 |
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Feb 5, 2016 10:56
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I'm pretty sure your boy Triple H actually advocated for the forcible destruction of socialist, democratic etc. groups and persons in order to protect the Volk. As for the rest, why the hell do you keep pretending you give a single gently caress about workers? quote:People choose to exchange their labor for wages because they have a higher time preference. quote:People choose to exchange their labor because the farcial choice presented to them in most cases is the freedom to choose between working for someone else or dying of starvation.  It seems you are willing to trade massive, immense human suffering in order to gain some hypothetical, axiomatic moral virtue. What makes this any different from a Stalinist? At least a Stalinist has a positive end goal. Your end goal seems to be "everyone suffers except the very rich, however, freedom." e: Oh, I see you're also a doctrinare fundamentalist. "It's important that we realize that it's impossible for scientific studies to disprove this poo poo I believe. Now let's talk about how important it is that this poo poo I believe be implemented in practice ASAP. This time, it HAS to work - that's axiomatically required!" I do appreciate how you do give credence to studies that happen to agree with your pre-concieved notions - those studies, of course, have value, while those that go against those notions, well... Very intellectually rigorous and fair of you, ya melonfucker. Nessus fucked around with this message at 11:03 on Feb 5, 2016 |
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Feb 5, 2016 11:00
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Jizz Festival posted:I can't believe Jrod pretended to be supportive of BLM after posting poo poo like this: I'll respond to this because of how disingenuous it is. I could post dozens and dozens of times praising Black Lives Matter, attacking the war on drugs as racist, the criminal justice system as unfair to minorities and the minimum wage hurting poor blacks in ways progressives ought to be more sensitive to, which I certainly have, and you pick out a single post that seems to you as less sensitive, even if it is literally years old and from an entirely different thread and different topic, and proceed to call me a racist. I will explain that post though. I posted that in the Trayvon Martin/George Zimmerman thread when that story was in the news. It was very early on and none of us had all the facts. I was reacting to the point that people on the left were immediately jumping to certain conclusions about the incident without the facts necessary to make such conclusions. People were falling all over themselves to paint Trayvon as a boy scout and a perfect citizen who nobody had any reason to be suspicious of. I thought that there was more to this story and that is what that post was about. Remember that not all the facts had come to light at that point. And for the record, I don't care one bit if Trayvon Martin smoked marijuana or sipped Codein cough syrup drinks. People have the right to use these substances if they want to. This is an old case and re-visiting this issue is not really very productive but I'll just say that bringing up the issue of Trayvon Martin's drug use or his behavior at school, any history of gang associations or minor crimes or any other thing that people brought up is not inherently racist in my judgment. The reason is that we know that Zimmerman and Trayvon got into a physical altercation at some point. The case at hand turned on whether or not Zimmerman was acting in self defense when he shot Trayvon. Thus, Trayvon's past behavior especially if criminal or violent is actually quite relevant. If he had a history of being impulsive or getting into fights (and honestly it's been far too long and I don't remember that much about this case) then it lends credibility that Zimmerman would have been on the receiving end of violence which would have made his case for using self defense more believable. Now, there were plenty of conservatives who immediately jumped to the opposite conclusion as did the Progressives without the relevant facts as well and they should be ashamed of themselves. There were conservatives who were just as adamant to see Zimmerman get off as were Progressives to see him convicted of murder. And, like I said, this was well before all the information necessary to make this judgment was known. In retrospect, knowing all the facts, I have absolutely no sympathy for Zimmerman. I think he is scum and he had no business following Trayvon on that night. I still think that, given Florida law, and what we know of the case, he could not be reasonably convicted of murder but that doesn't excuse him or make this case any more tragic. This is just one of a large handful of cases of violence against blacks in recent years and I think there is a systemic problem that absolutely needs to be addressed. And I am proud to say that libertarians have a strong record of advocating for the same type of reforms as Black Lives Matter for decades. I maintain that it is disingenuous to dig up three year old posts out of context, especially about a complicated criminal investigation where all the facts weren't known at the time and use THAT to call someone a racist. Unless you're position is that you must always take the side of the black person in any conflict in a knee-jerk fashion without knowing all the information, and if you don't your a de-facto racist. Actually that would make YOU the racist but I'm sure you're too sensible to believe such a ridiculous thing. jrodefeld fucked around with this message at 11:20 on Feb 5, 2016 |
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Feb 5, 2016 11:15
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You liberals shouldn't jump to conclusions before you have all the facts. Anyway, the boy had fruit drink and skittles, he was probably making drugs with it, good shoot.
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Feb 5, 2016 11:18
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I dunno, jrode, you claimed he was wielding purple drank as if that was some kind of indictment on his character.
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Feb 5, 2016 11:18
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Nolanar posted:Holy poo poo, those Trayvon quotes. What thread is that, for people who don't have archives? I'm going to post in a bit explaining my position on medical care a bit more fully soon, but I'm getting tired so that post will have to wait. I'll answer this relatively easy question in the meantime. I can't stand Alex Jones. Of all the loosely defined "factions" that make up the liberty movement, the conspiracy theory Alex Jones Infowarriors are my least favorite. I'll admit that for a short time when I was younger, I was more persuaded by some of the conspiracy theory stuff but I've since learned more and figured there is usually a more mundane answer to what is motivating the people in power. I don't really hate conspiracy theorists like some people do. Frankly, I'd rather people hate the State and they take things too far and assume nefarious plots and grand schemes for world domination where there aren't any than someone who blindly supports Hillary Clinton or Marco Rubio and generally believes what they're told about politics. Alex Jones is hard to listen to. He rants like a lunatic, is loose with the facts (to put in mildly) and is endlessly into self promotion. Sometimes he'll have some good guests on (he has a massive audience as terrifying as that prospect might be to some of you) but I hardly ever learn anything important listening to him. I don't believe 9/11 was an "inside job" in the way the Truthers believe in any event. There was surely some sort of cover-up, as is standard procedure when any major gently caress up occurs. The State protects their own. Nobody goes to prison for their failures, or very infrequently. The furthest I could possibly go with the conspiracy stuff regarding 9/11 is that I think it is possible that an intelligence official or important Neo-con group saw some of the intelligence stating that there were plans afoot by Bin Laden and Al Qaeda to launch an attack and they shrugged their shoulders and chose to do nothing and even, in the back of their mind, hope they do pull it off because that would give them a great opportunity to do all these things they had been wanting to do for over a decade, like invading Iraq and passing the Patriot Act. But do I believe there was a controlled demolition that was carefully orchestrated? Absolutely not. That's ridiculous. Bin Laden and Al Qaeda attacked the World Trade Center on 9/11 in response to a decade of US military occupation of the middle east, a presence on their "holy land", and sanctions which killed some 500,000 women and children in Iraq. They struck back in revenge for our meddling. This is the classic example of blowback. So in short, I don't go in for that conspiracy stuff and I can't stand to listen to Alex Jones.
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Feb 5, 2016 11:41
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Jrode you motherfucker shut the gently caress up about how valuable minimum wage jobs are. As someone who works retail, employers do not actually give a gently caress about them. At all. It literally just proved you can hold down another minimum wage job. So kindly shut the gently caress up about how we should eliminate minimum wage, suck my balls, and fight me you loving coward
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Feb 5, 2016 12:21
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jrodefeld posted:I'll respond to this because of how disingenuous it is. I could post dozens and dozens of times praising Black Lives Matter, attacking the war on drugs as racist, the criminal justice system as unfair to minorities and the minimum wage hurting poor blacks in ways progressives ought to be more sensitive to, which I certainly have, and you pick out a single post that seems to you as less sensitive, even if it is literally years old and from an entirely different thread and different topic, and proceed to call me a racist. I didn't call you a racist, there's no need to even do that any more. I (rightly) questioned your support for BLM given your response to the Trayvon Martin case, which is when BLM began. It was created in response to people who responded to the case the exact same way you did. jrodefeld posted:
No, you don't. The "reform" you want is to get rid of the police and court system and replace it with private competing security companies. This is like the libertarian "supporters" of gay marriage whose solution was to stop the government from performing marriages altogether. Nobody wanted that solution, nobody wanted a libertarian presence because all you guys do is try to promote the same bullshit in every situation and then you expect to be patted on the back for this.
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Feb 5, 2016 12:35
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jrodefeld, if you lived in your ideal society, how would you amass your wealth? What business would you have? What exactly stops you from doing this now? Also how is paying your DRO to live in their territory and use all the services there different from taxes?
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Feb 5, 2016 12:39
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Bitcoin! 
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Feb 5, 2016 13:17
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Zanzibar Ham posted:jrodefeld, if you lived in your ideal society, how would you amass your wealth? What business would you have? What exactly stops you from doing this now? Also how is paying your DRO to live in their territory and use all the services there different from taxes? Paying a DRO is voluntary*. *Not paying this voluntary fee will lead to you getting kneecapped.
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Feb 5, 2016 13:19
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I've been thinking about a question to ask here and it might not go anywhere but hey why not. It seems like the most basic axiom in libertarianism is "man ought to enjoy maximum liberty" with no strings attached. Not "man ought to enjoy max liberty UNTIL" or "EXCEPT IN" or with any condition. This is an a-priori conviction as well as a premise and a normative statement in libertarianism. As a value it supersedes all else, as a premise it is ruled inscrutable, and as a normative statement it goes totally without analysis. And this is because a normative statement cannot place another a-priori conviction over the normative, justice. When a libertarian says "man ought to have maximum freedom" he is saying "it is just for man to have maximum freedom, and man ought to do what is just". I, as well as anyone else, am free to deny freedom of myself or anyone else if the concept of Justice takes a back seat to freedom. If Justice takes its rightful place in front, I am still free to deny freedom of myself or others on the grounds of justice relating to a desire for as much freedom as justice allows, for example, all laws and regulations ever. So I guess here is the question: How can libertarians engage in normative evaluations of human actions while holding freedom higher than justice? Is it impossible via absurdity to hold freedom higher than justice? Do they in fact hold the value of freedom over justice, or do they bend to justice and say "err on the side of freedom when you can though" which is the kind of thinking that leads sane people like you or I to the conclusion of preserving choice and freedom when possible while minimizing the injustices and inequalities generated by said choices and freedoms. How can liberty be the basis of a philosophy that eschews justice save for the fact that it acknowledges the just nature of liberty? Jrod seems to believe that justice flows from Liberty itself, much like the curdled pink juices that flow out of a tiny penis shaped melon hole following a vigorous loving. Also I always wonder this when he gets on a "no no see I'm the real liberal" tangent with "you liberals are the real eugenicists": what happens to the malformed babes of libertopia? What happens to the people who nature didn't just say "you're not as equal" to, but rather "you're equal to like, a tomato, or a forever-baby"? Is it sort of like how a DRO isn't a government, smashing a retarded babies brain in with a rock after visual inspection by the bio-mechanic confirms its flaw, isn't eugenics?
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Feb 5, 2016 13:53
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Tesseraction posted:Paying a DRO is voluntary*. But you need to pay them to live in their territory. Just like you need to pay US taxes to live in US territory. There's no difference.
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Feb 5, 2016 13:59
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jrodefeld posted:I maintain that it is disingenuous to dig up three year old posts out of context, especially about a complicated criminal investigation where all the facts weren't known at the time and use THAT to call someone a racist. Actually, I think this: quote:It might well be that Zimmerman DID profile Martin for being black but only because the last dozen or so recent robberies that were committed in that neighborhood were done by young black men who looked much like Martin. I think that is a distinction between him singling out a black man because he is a bigot. Pretty definitively proves you're a racist! I've actually tried to defend you from this poo poo in the past, saying that you're just oblivious to the implications of defending the Confederacy and quoting Hoppe and Rothbard. But this is you, saying that it's somehow not racist for Zimmerman to stalk and murder a black kid for being black, because other black people have committed crimes. This is you saying that it's totally not racist for you personally to decide that some random black guy you know nothing about is "probably a gang member" because the two gangs you know of off the top of your head are majority black. So I'm done trying to give you the benefit of the doubt on this. You don't just quote racists. You don't stumble into defending racist causes. You aren't just obliviously defending law and order policies. You, personally, hate and fear black men, and openly admit to assuming they are all violent criminals. And then you have the loving sack to claim that you not only support Black Lives Matter, but support their cause more than the people actually protesting do! You accuse them of being "infiltrated and co-opted by leftists" for not supporting your vile Jim-Crow-born ideology, and then when push comes to shove you accuse us (and all of BLM!) of being racist for "jumping to the defense" of black kids being murdered in the street. And it's little doubt why you keep quoting Hoppe despite everything we've pointed out about him. You don't see his racist rants about "negroid time preference" as a liability to be glossed over, you agree with every loving word of it. You want his Covenant Communities to come about, so you can forcibly eject all the homosexuals and democrats rather than try to defend your beliefs against them. So put up or shut up. Either go have some deep introspection on why you consistently support white supremacist causes and thinkers, or embrace your white supremacism outright and post all the vile invective you've been holding back. Goon Danton fucked around with this message at 14:19 on Feb 5, 2016 |
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Feb 5, 2016 14:09
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Zanzibar Ham posted:But you need to pay them to live in their territory. Just like you need to pay US taxes to live in US territory. There's no difference. 
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Feb 5, 2016 14:13
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But jrode doesn't get it. Or has spent years acting as if he doesn't.
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Feb 5, 2016 14:15
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Thinking through to the logical conclusions is taxing for the brain, and libertarians are vehemently against taxes. Therefore...
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Feb 5, 2016 14:17
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VitalSigns posted:Rather than integrating schools, businesses, and neighborhoods, blacks should go back to Africa where their Let's be fair, does jrod really think Rothbard is a "prominent libertarian"? I'm pretty sure his avatar is ironic at this point.
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Feb 5, 2016 14:46
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jrodefeld posted:Not even close. In a free society you can choose between three (really more than three but these are the obvious ones) means of making a living. You can become an entrepreneur and go into business for yourself. You can choose to exchange your labor for a wage to an entrepreneur and business owner. The third way, and one not discussed as much as it ought to by libertarians, is that you can form a commune with others and share resources, share profits and have a jointly owned and controlled business enterprise. I don't have any preference between these three options and I think any of them are valid choices one is free to make. Now wait a second. "Socialism" is not the only possible point of comparison, it wasn't even something Nessus mentioned. All the things you list as the choices available in "a free society" are choices that exist right the hell now in non-socialist but also presumably "not-free" societies. So in terms of available choices, what is the benefit of your proposed system? If there is none, then perhaps "a free society" as you think of it could be worse for workers by removing institutions that are beneficial to them?
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Feb 5, 2016 14:55
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The difference between statist-communism and unregulated markets. Clearly there is nothing between these two binary systems.
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Feb 5, 2016 14:56
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GunnerJ posted:Let's be fair, does jrod really think Rothbard is a "prominent libertarian"? I'm pretty sure his avatar is ironic at this point. #10 on his list a few pages back.
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Feb 5, 2016 15:18
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Anyway, jrod, I'm going to give up on you ever getting back to our discussion of Reconstruction (maybe mises.org does not have a handy set of instructions for its missionaries on this subject?) and take a different tack, now that you're thinking in big grandiose terms about the benefits of hypothetical political economies. While you were out, I outlined my expectations for a libertarian society:GunnerJ posted:
Emphasis added. I will repeat the claim: nothing resembles this "DRO/covenant community/mutual aid/private charity/everything's insurance and binding arbitration" model more than archetypal feudalism. Why do you think this is incorrect? Please do not waste my time with boilerplate from some propaganda site. Look at the argument I am making and address my specific reasons for believing this is the case. It would go a long way toward making your claim that an anarcho-capitalist society is the most beneficial one for everyone plausible.
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Feb 5, 2016 15:25
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Doctor Spaceman posted:#10 on his list a few pages back.
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Feb 5, 2016 15:33
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Hmm... Jrodefeld insanity? Or Xcom 2. Sorry Jrod, 
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Feb 5, 2016 15:41
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jrodefeld posted:Not even close. In a free society you can choose between three (really more than three but these are the obvious ones) means of making a living. You can become an entrepreneur and go into business for yourself. You can choose to exchange your labor for a wage to an entrepreneur and business owner. The third way, and one not discussed as much as it ought to by libertarians, is that you can form a commune with others and share resources, share profits and have a jointly owned and controlled business enterprise. I don't have any preference between these three options and I think any of them are valid choices one is free to make. Oh, thank you. You have no idea what a relief it is that we will be tolerated in a Libertarian society. That's taken care of, then, and all's well! Bring on Liberto- Murray Rothbard posted:If, then, the Race Question is really a problem for statists and not for paleos, why should we talk about the race matter at all? Why should it be a political concern for us; why not leave the issue entirely to the scientists? Hans Hermann 'TripleH!' Hoppe posted:There can be no tolerance toward those habitually promoting lifestyles incompatible with this goal. They-the advocates of alternative, non-family-centered lifestyles such as, for instance, individual hedonism, parasitism, nature-environment worship, homosexuality, or communism-will have to be physically removed from society, too, if one is to maintain a libertarian order. ... On second thought, gently caress that right in the ear. And you too, JRode, for trying to pretend that I would not be among the first to the gallows in your utopia. Oh, wait, sorry. I'd have to wait my turn until the blacks, jews, gypsies, fags and other undesirable elements had been taken care of, wouldn't I? jrodefeld posted:However, in a socialist society, a libertarian is prevented through violence from becoming an entrepreneur, mutually consenting to a wage contract with a laborer and selling his or her services on the market. This is deliciously given the above. There really is not a glimmer of self-awareness in you, is there? The lights are on, the machinery is operating, but there's no-one actually at home, is there?  jrodefeld posted:The only reason you could possibly have to think that I am "against" laborers is because I made the obvious claim that labor doesn't create profits. I said consumers determine profits and losses on the market with their choice and deliberation among the products and services they can exchange their money for. Except has has been pointed out many, many, many times to you already, this is not how it works. Quite a few laborers do not have a choice in the matter of their employment, for a whole host of reasons. They are forced to accept any job that they are offered, no matter how little it pays. And the fact that you think the situation of "Work for me for $2 an hour, or starve to death"" is a choice is all the evidence I - or, indeed, anyone blessed with the empathy of an average cat - will ever need to proclaim you as anti-labor. jrodefeld posted:Because I don't subscribe to the Labor Theory of Value? That I don't think that labor is, in itself, responsible for profits? No, it's because you discount the contribution of labor to profits entirely. Or, at least, that's why I think you're anti-labor. Well, that and your continued refusal to see them as people. jrodefeld posted:What if I am an entrepreneur and I have an idea to manufacture and sell a rotary phone made of gold and studded with diamonds. A new age rotary phone that is completely functional but blinged out with precious metals. Let's suppose the manufacturing process was quite complex and I needed a ton of highly skilled laborers to help produce it at scale. ... HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! "Hey guys! To prove how labor has no influence on profits I'll propose the most retarded scenario possible!" Also, you know... There actually is a market for stupid poo poo like that! Behold! Okay, not technically rotary, but that is a phone, and it's gold-plated. So, even trying to establish the dumbest possible example in attempt to prove a point, you even fail at that. You're just not very good at this are you? Every time you try to prove something? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=naBEfHzGxXM This is you, JRode. This is you. Edit: The only reason I'm not in XCom 2 at this moment, is the fact that I'm waiting for it to download. 
TLM3101 fucked around with this message at 15:57 on Feb 5, 2016 |
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Feb 5, 2016 15:50
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Caros posted:Hmm... Jrodefeld insanity? Or Xcom 2. The free-time market has spoken.
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Feb 5, 2016 15:54
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I just want it known that the Archer references are not going unappreciated.
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Feb 5, 2016 17:41
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Did this thread repeat a page? Jrod posted the same graph I saw earlier and someone was mentioning the FDA not being an omnipotent hivemind of drug info. Did I press back or is jrod.exe in a loop?
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Feb 5, 2016 18:08
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Profit = Revenue - Cost. So, no, consumer demand is not responsible for profits. It is arguably responsible for Revenue, but not Cost, and therefore it cannot be solely responsible for profits. And there aren't any profits in a truly free market anyway.
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Feb 5, 2016 19:01
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I'm going to skip your fluff because it's mostly meaningless dressing to what may actually be your core points. Please try to work on being succinct when you respond to people. If you can't state your position as an elevator pitch then nobody is going to understand it. jrodefeld posted:
Minimum wage labor skillets are completely meaningless to skilled labor positions. If anything they can be an absolute detriment. I've mentioned this to you before but you ignored it: Given 2 resumes for an 'associate consultant' where one is a person who's never worked but has a degree in computer science going up against a guy who's got 4 years of fast food experience I'm going to take a risk on the college guy. Why? Because he has undergone at least some training that makes him relevant to hire. Also, working a minimum wage job does not automatically make you reliable and honest. You're also assuming that it is a badge of honor for working hard. You're still missing a core problem though: wages are too low to enable people to move upwards. If I'm making 2 dollars an hour but it costs be on average 6 dollars an hour to live then I'm taking time better spent elsewhere in a losing proposition. I'm not sure why you're struggling to understand or empathize with this problem in any way. quote:Listen, we can't sit here and magically wish that people who have very few marketable skills and very low productivity earn a middle class salary. Both the libertarians and the left progressives want to eliminate poverty and allow people to move up and out of dire straights toward a comfortable standard of living where their basic needs are fulfilled. We can sit here and magically wish we were in an an-cap libertopia too! What you're suggesting will make these problems worse (what free market solution is there to poverty?) quote:But it is the libertarians who actually have a feasible way of attaining that goal. The leftists who harp about a "living wage" are greatly hurting the very people they assume they are helping. How? Also drop your insulting tone regarding "leftists." quote:
I make a living increasing productivity. I do this in many cases via automation. Automation typically results in cut jobs. How does this increase wages for the bottom percentage? quote:When entrepreneurs start a business, their goal is to be profitable which make the capital investment and risk worthwhile. To be profitable, their incoming earnings must exceed their outgoing expenditures. To that end, the businessman prices the cost of capital goods, of office space and every other commodity that is needed to produce the good or service that he or she is selling. This is done VERY carefully to stay within budget and maximize profits. How does this address the whole "I can't afford food and/or rent" point? quote:This is how human needs are most adequately met in the market. Prices send signals that more accurately reflect the best distribution of scarce resources in an economy in satisfying our shared human needs and desires far better than any central planning State could ever do. Hayek called this the "pretense of knowledge". Libertarians understand the limit to "planning" of society and how commerce permits important knowledge about an economy to be revealed far more effectively and accurately. How are my needs met in a market where I can't afford to shop? quote:WIth central planning, resources inevitably are mismanaged and misallocated and we might have far too much investment in, say, housing (sound familiar?) than would be indicated through laissez-faire market signals, interest rates and the price mechanism. Citation needed to prove that unmanaged resources are allocated more efficiently. quote:Businessmen don't have carte-blanche to set wages or prices for their products at any rate they want unless some benevolent democratic State forces them not to make "obscene" profits or lower wages to so-called "slave-wages" (itself a gross misnomer). This is a leftist fallacy that needs to be understood as such. What? https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...tic-not-greedy/ Also the state doesn't have any say in the rates that I charge or the amount of margin I make on product I sell. I do set these to be competitive in various regions but I have total control over what I want to charge. quote:Why would the cost of labor be exempt from these economic calculations? The entrepreneur very carefully determines what the value of individual capital goods is with very scientific specificity. He determines if they add more value than they detract from the efficient enterprise. If we're talking fast food then if going up to 15 an hour is going to break the business then you're probably on the verge of collapsing as it is. There are a lot more costs than labor that go into running a business and in some cases these costs can be offset with a nominal (<10% increase) in the cost of goods overall. I want to say there was a study done that showed Wal-Mart could set their lowest payrate to 12 dollars an hour with an average 1% increase in prices. quote:Ceterus paribus (all things being equal), if the price of something is raised people will buy less of it. Maybe the customers would prefer three cashiers at the local grocery store and perhaps it would thus add additional profits if they were hired at $8 an hour. But at $15 (which is what Bernie Sanders and most Progressives are advocating we raise the minimum wage to) they simply cannot justify the expense in light of the marginally increased productivity and additional consumer satisfaction they would receive. If you don't have cashiers then you don't get to sell product. If my store is popular then I'm going to need to keep 3 cashiers otherwise the lines will get too long and customers will go elsewhere. Another added benefit is if everyone is making more money then I have a larger potential market of shoppers that may come to my store. Now I need to hire another cashier to keep up with the demands of the market. If doubling the wages of 3 cashiers is enough to crush my business then I'm pretty awful at business and am probably weeks away from closing anyway. quote:So they stick with one cashier. This is a terrible business decision. quote:At the same time, there are 16-21 year old young adults in the neighborhood who are unemployed. They may want to be employed and earn a few bucks to go out to eat, go on a date, see a movie or just create a small savings so that when they move out of their parents house they've got a leg up on everyone else. Most importantly they would have developed a work history and track record of employment that will help them when they apply for higher paying jobs in the future. You keep citing 16-21 year olds but the problem is that these workers aren't all just teenagers that live with their parents. http://www.epi.org/publication/wage-workers-older-88-percent-workers-benefit/ http://www.bls.gov/opub/reports/cps/characteristics-of-minimum-wage-workers-2014.pdf A lot of those people are earning a few bucks to feed their families, pay rent, pay for heat and often rotate payments between bills because they have to run at effectively a loss every month. The work experience they get allows them to apply for more minimum wage jobs. quote:Your policies price these young people out of the workforce entirely. Thanks to you and your policies, some of these kids will get involved in gangs, and possibly be hurt or killed. They might have a criminal record instead of a work history by the time they are 22. Way to appeal to emotion! You're also wrong. A lot of minimum wage job providers that teenagers end up working for tend to be backed by large corporations. If they don't hire these people then they can't service their customers which means their revenues shrink and the business starts to fail. For as long as there are dollars there will be lost cost labor. Even if you set the bar to something like 15 dollars an hour. So yeah, Mcdonalds is welcome to stop hiring teenagers at 15 dollars an hour if they're totally willing to give up their entire business. Also you're forgetting that people who make more money tend to spend more money which overall will result in a net gain for the economy. quote:This is just one example but you have to realize the type of detrimental effect these policies are having on society's most vulnerable. Provide me a viable alternative and I'll listen. Please note that "the free market will address this" is not a viable alternative. It's just a platitude. Give me something prescriptive. quote:And what the hell is "suitable to sustain a minimal standard of living"? This varies State by State. It varies by age group. It varies between single and married people. It varies based on if you have children and how many children you have. The idea you can determine what a minimum "living wage" is for all of society is absolutely ludicrous. It means I can eat 3 square meals a day, have heating in my house, pay rent, and get to work on time. Of course it varies from family to family which makes this all the harder a problem to solve and yes, doubling the wage won't solve it for everyone but it's a good start. quote:You are lumping together people as diverse as a thiry-five year old man with a wife, a mortgage and seven children with a seventeen year old who has virtually no expenses and just wants a bit of disposable income or to fund a savings account. If you price a "living wage" by the standard of the married with children man of thirty-five, then you are virtually guaranteeing the teenager or early twenty-something without college degree will never find employment. You're making the demonstrably false assumption that all minimum wage workers are teenagers. quote:And yes, I recognize that for whatever reason there are adults out there who have very low skills and low productivity. The answer in that case is to assist in them gaining more skills to become more productive and more desirable to employers. One of the best ways to do that is for them to take a job at the best wage they can get on the market (which may be lower than the current minimum wage) and prove themselves to be worth more, and ever more. A job flipping burgers prepares you for one job: flipping burgers. I'm not going to hire a guy who has spent 10 years flipping burgers to go install a 2 million dollar storage array at a fortune 100 financial services company. There is no upward mobility from minimum wage jobs. quote:If you raise the minimum wage, you are literally dooming these people to a life of welfare dependency, frequent substance abuse problems, crime and even imprisonment. Right now these people are stuck in a cycle of welfare dependency because they don't have enough money or opportunities to break the cycle. quote:I made the obvious claim that labor doesn't create profits. This isn't so obvious. Without labor I have no product. Without product I have no profit. For me it's less so since I make money on billable hours for consultants. In that case labor literally is profit! I'm sorry that the real world of business isn't really as simple as selling bootleg action flicks on the internet 
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Feb 5, 2016 19:02
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You know those people who have no short term memory? Its like a statist thug hit Jrod in the head with a tax liability while he was still in highschool and he hasn't progressed past the "no, gently caress you dad!" stage since. This thread requires the most involved shitposting I'm aware of.
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Feb 5, 2016 19:10
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Zanzibar Ham posted:jrodefeld, if you lived in your ideal society, how would you amass your wealth? What business would you have? What exactly stops you from doing this now? Also how is paying your DRO to live in their territory and use all the services there different from taxes? This is an amazing question and probably the most important.
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Feb 5, 2016 19:14
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jrodefeld posted:I will explain that post though. I posted that in the Trayvon Martin/George Zimmerman thread when that story was in the news. It was very early on and none of us had all the facts. I was reacting to the point that people on the left were immediately jumping to certain conclusions about the incident without the facts necessary to make such conclusions. People were falling all over themselves to paint Trayvon as a boy scout and a perfect citizen who nobody had any reason to be suspicious of. I thought that there was more to this story and that is what that post was about. AKA you jumped to conclusions, and did so in a manner congruent with the beliefs of the white supremacist philosophers you venerate (like Lew Rockwell and Hans-Hermann Hoppe).
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Feb 5, 2016 19:15
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jrodefeld posted:In that particular post, aside from the economists who contributed to the studies on the effects of minimum wage that I linked to, the two libertarian thinkers (or libertarian-like) I mentioned were Walter Williams and Thomas Sowell. Both men, as it turns out, are black and participated in the Civil Rights movement against real domestic oppression so don't impugn their anti-racism credentials. Oh, well two whole entire black guys are libertarians, so obviously no libertarian can be racist. Surely the "I have black friends" defense will work this time. And of course all the other libertarians that were on your Personal Heroes List that have supported apartheid (as other posters have already shown) won't count because Williams and Sowell didn't and/or because they didn't literally say the words "I support apartheid". All this despite the fact that you have been shown, multiple times in the past, unequivocally that multiple libertarian "thinkers" supported segregation, racial profiling, and yes apartheid, but just not through the State. You are a loving liar if you're claiming to not be aware of these things. jrodefeld posted:Approximately 4% of the US domestic working force earns the current minimum wage. This number is grossly disingenuous (and deliciously ironic considering how you accused us of that) because it fails to take into account the much larger group of people who would directly benefit from proposed minimum wage increases. Not to mention the number of people who will benefit indirectly by having stronger bargaining positions from which to negotiate their salaries. The 4% number is a transparent ploy to try and hand-wave the issue of stagnant and sub-living wages by implying that it's an issue that affects a tiny group of people instead of a massive chunk of the population.
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Feb 5, 2016 19:24
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Oh they make 25 cents more than the absolute minimum poverty wage in their area, checkmate statists! You know if you don't want a minimum wage the solution is a minimum income. But that would require personal responsibility like paying for services through taxes. However we all know jrod lacks the financial clout to have to pay taxes so we all must suffer the tax of his mooching libertarian nonsense on society as a whole. Just because he can't identify the externalities he inflicts on society doesn't mean they don't exist.
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Feb 5, 2016 19:39
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Still waiting for an answer. What's your plan?HP Artsandcrafts posted:I have a quick question for you jrode. Are you concerned at all about high wealth inequality? I'm not saying any wealth inequality is bad. A little bit is to be expected and possibly even beneficial. I'm talking specifically about high wealth inequality like we are seeing right now in the US.
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Feb 5, 2016 19:43
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Your Dunkle Sans posted:Here's a question for jrode:
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Feb 5, 2016 19:44
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