Bryter posted:

I don't know what he thinks the objections to the inclusion of Qatar and the UAE on a list of "free" states were based on if not "the substance of the ranking".

"But there are slaves in those countries dude" is just about the most substantial objection to "here are countries I think are free" I can think of.

quote:

The labor freedom component is a quantitative measure that considers various aspects of the legal and regulatory framework of a country’s labor market, including regulations concerning minimum wages, laws inhibiting layoffs, severance requirements, and measurable regulatory restraints on hiring and hours worked.

Bryter posted:

Yeah, reading through the heritage rankings... Holy poo poo.


Huh, those seem like pretty good criteria to judge labour standards on. Let's see how different nations compare.



Wait that doesn't make an- Ohhhh those are all BAD things, and they mean freedom for labour to go gently caress itself

Rhjamiz posted:

I am so confused, Norway scores higher on almost everything except LIMITED GOVERNMENT and some Regulatory bits. How the hell does this translate to the rankings?

Rhjamiz posted:

I am so confused, Norway scores higher on almost everything except LIMITED GOVERNMENT and some Regulatory bits. How the hell does this translate to the rankings?

quote:

New research released on Friday contains even more jarring numbers. Looking at the extreme ends of the income spectrum, economists at the Brookings Institution found that for men born in 1920, there was a six-year difference in life expectancy between the top 10 percent of earners and the bottom 10 percent. For men born in 1950, that difference had more than doubled, to 14 years.

For women, the gap grew to 13 years, from 4.7 years.

...

Over all, according to the Brookings study, life expectancy for the bottom 10 percent of wage earners improved by just 3 percent for men born in 1950 compared with those born in 1920. For the top 10 percent, though, it jumped by about 28 percent. (The researchers used a common measure — life expectancy at age 50 — and included data from 1984 to 2012.)

jrodefeld posted:

We have a situation where Federal regulators are cracking down on girls who want to braid hair.

quote:

Someone who agrees with me entirely is rapper Killer Mike, who is a staunch gun-rights advocate. I think Killer Mike is great. I've got both Watch the Throne albums and they are phenomenal. He's intelligent and respectful.

MF DOOM - Deep Fried Frenz posted:

When it get for real, steel get to sparkin'
Everything darken, and ain't no talkin'
For somethin so cheap it sure buys a lot of trouble
Ya better off focusing than tryin to plot to bubble
Or else it'd be a sad note to end on, the guns we got is
(Ones we can depend on...Friends)

quote:

There should be the same proportion of races in the police department and they should be accountable to the community not to Washington D.C. or some outside political force.

Bryter posted:

Yeah, reading through the heritage rankings... Holy poo poo.


Huh, those seem like pretty good criteria to judge labour standards on. Let's see how different nations compare.



Wait that doesn't make an- Ohhhh those are all BAD things, and they mean freedom for labour to go gently caress itself

jrodefeld posted:

Here is the new top 10 from the Heritage Institute. No UAE or Qatar in the top 10 so maybe you'll look at the substance of the ranking this time.


1. Hong Kong

2. Singapore

3. New Zealand

4. Switzerland

5. Australia

6. Canada

7. Chile

8. Ireland

9. Estonia

10. United Kingdom

List of Nations That Are NOT Destined for Turbomegadeath posted:

1. Republic of Cuba

2. Iceland

3. Norway

4. Denmark

5. Rojava

6. Sweden

7. United Republic of Tanzania

8. Zapatista territories

9. Freetown Christiania

10. DRPK

paragon1 posted:

The real secret is that turbomegadeth is just regular megadeth played at 4x speed.

Rhjamiz posted:

I am so confused, Norway scores higher on almost everything except LIMITED GOVERNMENT and some Regulatory bits. How the hell does this translate to the rankings?

spoon0042 posted:

Here, have one more hole in jrod's idiot "economic freedom benefits everyone" argument assertion:

Disparity in Life Spans of the Rich and the Poor Is Growing


Clearly if we were more economically free like Canada this wouldn't be a problem. Or is this like that "time-preference" thing where the poor are giving up their elderly years to... work two jobs now?

DrProsek posted:

Correct, and when the free market realizes there is demand for this and creates it, we will all die infinity times forever because we will be overwhelmed with Megadeaths. Planned economies avoid this through taxes to kill innovations that might lead to speeding up Megadeath, and regulations that enslave all music creators so that they may never create a faster Megadeath than we have now.

I have done all the required logic to reach these conclusions. Since this was determined logically, I expect Jrod to explain his support for the turbomegadeath.

jrodefeld posted:

I've explained this to you many times over the course of this thread, but I'll try once again.

If your primary interest is the well-being of the most poor, then what you ought to support is a society in which the most prosperity can be generated. A more physically productive economy with higher economic growth and capital investment creates the conditions by which people can be taken care of. To create the wealth in society that would be needed to generate a comfortable living standard for the maximum number of people, as history has taught us, you need to embrace a free market economy, private property rights, and keep the State restrained to the adjudication of disputes and the defense of individual rights.

I've cited studies that rank the countries of the world in accordance with their adherence to economic liberty as defined by libertarians to bolster this position. There are many such studies that have been done by libertarian and free market institutions. Instead of understanding the larger point, all you replied with was "why are the United Arab Emirates and Qatar on the list?", "This just proves libertarians are really racists."

This is so staggeringly disingenuous. I never claimed to be any sort of expert in the policies of Qatar or UAE and my goal was simply to give a sample of the sort of literature that has been done on the subject of economic freedom around the world. If you would look at the broader picture, you would see a very strong correlation between adherence to free market principles and the general prosperity and living standards of the populations of those countries.

It has almost become conventional wisdom in the past twenty years or so that if we really want to uplift the poor of the world, the single best reform to advocate is economic liberalization. It has succeeded where foreign aid, charity and State controls have failed. Hong Kong is oft cited as a success story. The ease by which an entrepreneur can start a business and the legal defense of contract and property are critical to capital accumulation and investment which creates prosperity and enables a middle class to emerge.

If you deny that market liberalization and restraint of the State are necessary prerequisites for creating the prosperity needed to provide the poor with jobs and a decent standard of living, we only have to have a thought experiment. Take all your favorite Progressive policies, workplace safety regulations, minimum wage laws, occupational licensure laws, punitive high tax-rates on the highest income bracket and so forth and apply them to Malawi (one of the poorest nations in the world), see how much better you will make the poor in that country. The logical result will be, at best, no discernible effect on poverty rates, and more likely an even worse experience for the people who have to suffer in that third world nation.

Exporting "Progressive" policies to third world nations has actually been tried, with predictably disastrous results. Eliminating child labor in third world nations had the horrifying result of sending children into child prostitution and other more dangerous and degrading occupations. The reason should be obvious. Children don't work in poor countries because they want to, or that they all have horrible parents. They work because the economy is so poor and unproductive, they will starve if they don't. The most effective way to improve working conditions for the poor and eliminate child labor is to adopt policies that attract capital investment to make the economy more physically productive. This raises real wages and stocks store shelves with an abundance of goods that allow people to work less hours, have more leisure and purchase the needed products that allow for a comfortable standard of living.

The message here is that by moving towards greater economic freedom, making it easier for entrepreneurs to start businesses, eliminating occupational licensing, reducing tax rates and government spending which allows more capital investment, the predictable outcome will be greater economic productivity, which results in lower consumer prices, higher real wages and more economic opportunities for both wage earners and entrepreneurs.

The effect of these reforms would be that less people would need charity and there would be more disposable income to provide for those that still did. It is an absolute fallacy to think that the private economy would need to match, dollar for dollar, the amount spent by the State on social welfare. If observable reality about the way governments and the private market work has taught us anything, it is that private sector enterprises can produce equivalent or superior results at a fraction of the cost of the State.

What I'm trying to get across to you is that it is economic freedom and the market economy which is the engine by which prosperity is created and adopting policies which needlessly hinder free economic transactions and opportunities hurt all in society but especially the poor.

Even places like Sweden which have State-funded social programs so loved by the left are only able to finance them due to decades of relatively laissez-faire, free market policies which produced such a level of prosperity that their economies don't crumble under their weight.

It reminds me of the Progressives who argue that the general prosperity and healthy middle class that we observed in the middle of the twentieth century in the United States is attributable entirely to the GI bill and the high marginal tax rates imposed on the wealthy, somehow ignoring the century of relative laissez-faire economic freedom which permitted such a massive creation of prosperity, capital accumulation and physical productivity. THAT is the source of the vibrant middle class and the living standards we enjoy. The State interventions and programs piled onto this productive base only hinder the rising living standards and economic opportunities that would help out the poor and vulnerable.


I'd hope you'd agree with me that a good job with a good wage is more valuable to a poor person than being dependent on a State hand-out. I also don't believe that people are as helpless without daddy government as you seem to think. Free people, communities, charity, mutual aid societies, entrepreneurs and churches will be able to assist the few remaining poor people in a free society as well as any system could ever help them.

To think that only the State is capable to helping people is to someone assume that the motives of people in politics are somehow much more pure and altruistic than people in the private sector. You'd have to assume that perverse incentives don't exist in politics and social welfare programs are really designed to ultimately help uplift people rather than buying off people with bribes in exchange for votes. I'd really suggest you check out a field of study called "Public Choice Economics" which evaluates the motivations of public officials through an economic lens.

What you are falling victim to is the inevitable inertia of tradition. We've been taught for several generations that the only way to help out with social problems, take care of the elderly, provide medical care to people and help the poor is through government policy and democratic elections. Public schools inculcate these ideas in peoples heads and we lose the ability to imagine innovative alternatives. We assume they don't exist.

JVNO posted:

Oh wow I got a JRode reply. ... I received a list of bold and unproven assertions including such gems as 'poverty is exceedingly rare in libertarian societies'.

eNeMeE posted:

No need to say it twice.

Stinky_Pete posted:

Say, is turbomegadeath shorthand for the world rushing to hurl itself off the resource cliff by mindlessly growing our production/consumption/discard economy? Or is it just a general funhouse mirror of libertarian griping about the tyranny of fire extinguisher mandates and vacation days?

jrodefeld posted:

Here is the new top 10 from the Heritage Institute. No UAE or Qatar in the top 10 so maybe you'll look at the substance of the ranking this time.


1. Hong Kong

2. Singapore

3. New Zealand

4. Switzerland

5. Australia

6. Canada

7. Chile

8. Ireland

9. Estonia

10. United Kingdom


So, according to people who have studied the issue, the nations which adhere closest to the libertarian ideal of economic liberty are also the most prosperous. Explain again how there is zero evidence of libertarian ideas leading to better outcomes? Yes, I recognize these countries are not perfectly libertarian, many have social welfare states of one form or another, but they are MORE libertarian than the others. As I've explained previously, the extent of economic liberty is what generates the prosperity that generates high living standards and allows the poor to be taken care of.

The Lone Badger posted:

Australia is way more left-wing than the US.

Caros posted:

This man is wrong. Annual inflation and deflation under the gold standard was more wildly unpredictable and significant under the gold standard than under modern financial policy. Generally speaking in modern terms you can know that once you have money it will be worth tomorrow more or less exactly what it is worth today. Over the long term you know it will lose about 2-3% a year but that consistency is actually exactly what this asshat is talking about.

You can make an argument that money losing its value like that is 'bad' but replacing it with wild financial swings that can be up to 20% up or down in a year based on supply of shiny rocks is absurd.

Halloween Jack posted:

I love goldbug libertarians because they ignore not only all modern empirical economics, but the entire history of Western civilization.

Bryter posted:

Igiari posted:

While Jrod is gone, and as this thread closes, those looking for a fix should just beat up the last boss of Metal Gear Rising over and over

GunnerJ posted:

"Rules of Nature" is pretty good background music for any explication of libertarian principles.

Igiari posted:

While Jrod is gone, and as this thread closes, those looking for a fix should just beat up the last boss of Metal Gear Rising over and over

jrodefeld posted:

...
To claim that these starter jobs are worthless because there is no upward mobility and other, higher paying employers don't care one bit about your early work history is flatly false.
...

quote:

I got my first real, legitimate good job when I was 21 and still in college. Flipping burgers at McDonald's didn't translate "directly" skills-wise to what I was asked to do, but my references I believe proved the difference. The job was a computer engineer position, where I had to work with AutoCAD, do surveying and plot construction for a company that built buildings and managed construction in the town I lived in for a while. A bit of everything. The job paid $23 an hour, which is not bad for a 21 year old kid. I could pick my own hours, do the work on my own time. If I wanted to work 20 hours one week I could. If I wanted to work 40 the next and any time in between I could. No bosses looking over my shoulder, I got to chill in an air conditioned room listening to music and working on a computer, or take a company car around taking pictures and listening to music while I surveyed construction sites or took pictures.

quote:

I needed some elementary computer skills, which I had just picked up on my own, no degree or certification required.

quote:

There are all kinds of reasons why an employer will choose one applicant over another. All other things being equal, the person who at twenty one already has a work history of over half a dozen jobs and stellar recommendations has a substantial advantage over another person who is applying for his or her first job. Believe me, any idiot could have quickly gotten the skills necessary to do that $23 an hour job. You don't need a college degree or substantial technical training in order to get any decent paying job. I learned a lot of it on the job because they were willing to take a chance that I could do so.

quote:

But I can guarantee one thing. If the minimum wage was $15 an hour when I was a teenager, I wouldn't have gotten any of those jobs. I wouldn't have had any money saved up by the time I was in my twenties, and I probably wouldn't have gotten that good job at 21.

quote:

Kicking out the first rung on the economic ladder doesn't really help people who need a first job before they can get a better job.

jrodefeld posted:

Every manager I ever talked to during those years started as a regular employee and worked their way up until they were making $30 an hour or whatever they made as manager.

Soviet Commubot posted:

That whole post he made about his "experiences" is just incredibly , especially as he thinks that it's more or less how things go for everyone. That may be true for middle class suburban white people but holy poo poo is it different elsewhere. My family is all rural poor and only a handful of us have ever made more than a dollar or so above minimum wage. My dad, who died several years back due to lack of health insurance or money, spent his whole life as a farmer never netting more than a thousand or so a month in 2015 dollars because he was illiterate and just really not a very smart guy. My mom has been bounced from minimum wage job to minimum wage job her entire life because between raising two children and helping my dad manage our lovely farm she never had any time, money or energy to take any classes in anything, and even if there were any it'd have been at least an hour drive to where they were. My siblings are pretty much all in the same boat, and both of them have been working minimum wage jobs since they were 16. They're all good, hard workers but that doesn't stop them from getting shitcanned every couple of years due to the instability of rural economies and they just don't have the money to pack up and move to a more thriving urban economy to compete with all those workers there for those jobs. Chances are they never will and will literally work in a rural shithole Walmart until they die.


Just look at this. He just assumes that a fast food manager makes $5,000 per month. That's literally more than twice what they make in a best case scenario. For most fast-food workers $5,000 per month might as well be $50,000 per month because they're both unattainable levels of wealth they don't even dare dream of. poo poo like this makes me wish we could somehow force all 18 year olds from middle class families to spend a randomized period of time living on minimum wage at 30 hours a week with no outside assistance or support so they could have some loving degree of perspective.

e: I've been lurking jrod threads for years and he finally got me actually angry instead of just disgusted.

e2: Also, for jrod's benefit, the realization that as bad as my family has had it how much worse it would be if we were black was one of the primary catalysts in my turning away from libertarianism way back when.

Caros posted:

The $30/hour thing is so utterly ridiculous because even doing basic math would show you it can't be true.

$30/hour is 57,600 a year. The median income for a family of four in the US is $51,000. Hands up everyone who thinks that your average fast food manager pulls in an amount higher than the median family income all by himself.

My now explore took three years of school to earn $25/hour in drafting. Jrodefeld is so divorced from reality that it hurts.

Dirk the Average posted:

Yeah, you really need a 4 year degree in a STEM field combined with both luck and work experience in field-relevant work (intern/temp positions) to land a $30+/hour job these days. They exist, but everyone and their mother are competing for them.

Caros posted:

I have a friend who manages a local pizza joint. He has worked there for a decade starting as an evening cook. He makes a grand total of $16/hour Canadian. Why is his decade of pizza cooking not correlating into a great job?

Caros posted:

I have a friend who manages a local pizza joint. He has worked there for a decade starting as an evening cook. He makes a grand total of $16/hour Canadian. Why is his decade of pizza cooking not correlating into a great job?