I'm fairly sure not everyone who understands the need for a reasonable national minimum wage "hates corporate profits". That doesn't even make sense.
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- Thread starter ukbob
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I don't get it. He's talking about the distribution of resources, now something else is more important? Pray tell.
Not everyone, but considering how their other criticism of me was my 'love of profits', I'd say they've shown they do.
The ideologically blinded pursuit of profit at the expense of all else was, I'm pretty sure, what they were objecting to. Not that you're blinded by ideology of course...
The welfare of mankind is the only thing I care about. If profits bring that, then great. If socialism or minimum wages could bring that, then that would be great. But they don't.
as ifWhat if everything isn't the polar opposite of everything else? What if providing basic social care in a broadly capitalist society is the way to go? What if all the evidence points to this being the case?
What if I thought all those statements were wrong?
I know you're quite certain about what you're saying, but taking some superior tone and acting like anyone who disagrees with you has to be insane is not the way to change people's minds.
All the evidence...
yeah, tell that to the entire research economics profession. Pack up guys, it's over - a guy on the Caf has decided your debate is meaningless cos his evidence means everything is settled.I don't think I've ever seen you post anything other than vague "economic freedom is better for everyone" posts. Perhaps if you showed us some proof of your argument..
I know you're quite certain about what you're saying, but taking some superior tone and acting like anyone who disagrees with you has to be insane is not the way to change people's minds.
All the evidence...
I dearly hope you realize the irony in sentence #1 followed by sentence #2.
A brief look at most measures of quality of life, social mobility and standard of living does, indeed, show that nations that operate in a broadly capitalist manner while attempting to provide a basic minimum standard of living for their citizens (eeew, socialism) perform better than those nations who neglect either one of these facets. If you want a mega rich country with a hugely wealthy elite and unstoppable corporate sector, it might not be the best way to go. If you want a communist dictatorship where no one owns anything, it's certainly not the way to go. But no nation operating on either of the previous two grounds can boast the overall quality of life of a nation operating in a more moderate and balanced manner.
You claimed you were interested in the general well being of mankind. Nations that best provide well being for their populations don't throw all their eggs into one ideological basket.
You claimed you were interested in the general well being of mankind. Nations that best provide well being for their populations don't throw all their eggs into one ideological basket.
Remember when the economic community agreed that the recent economic crash was caused due to too much regulation? No, wait..
Squiggle's a bit like one of those people you sometimes meet that are fairly intelligent but then you find out they also hold pretty fundamentalist religious beliefs. It's a sort of cognitive dissonance I think.
I don't see anything 'superior tone' about it.
Correlation not causation. Welfare systems mostly are in place in post-industrial countries because they can afford them. They've already had the incredible boost that the relative economic freedom allowed in the late 18th-19th centuries brought forward. That's the reason they have better standards of living and quality of life. The welfare systems are predatory on that development.
Post-industrial countries with good welfare states have better standards of livings than post-industrial countries crap welfare states. See America and Canada as examples.
The economic community doesn't agree on much, but they agree that the 2008 crash was an incredibly complex event that you can't just say one single factor caused it. Some things were more prominent than others, obviously. I'm actually quite interested in that event so if you want to discuss it, open a thread up, it would be fun.
So, you think it's more complex than a bunch of greedy bastards intentionally selling a bad product with no other intent in mind than profit? Because, I mean, it looks a lot like that..
Obviously.
And you don't think regulating what products they can sell to people would have stopped it?
So I'd imagine a hugely wealthy nation operating without a sound social safety net would probably boast an excellent standard of living and high social mobility for it's citizens then. Of course, this isn't actually the case, is it?
This already happens. The financial industry was one of the top three most regulated industries (if not the most regulated) in the US and the UK along with healthcare and the airline industry when I last checked.
Depends entirely on what you mean by 'hugely wealthy nation'. China has one of the wealthiest and most powerful governments on the planet, but that doesn't translate to better standards of living (I'm ignoring social mobility because it's nonsense) for citizens. Naturally, if you mean higher income per household/person, then obviously this is a better marker for standards of living.
I seem recall Canadas banking sector not crashing, and it being attributed to their good regulation. What's that about?
lol. Well that goes back to the previous point: you think lack of regulation caused the crash; I think it was a combination of things. Canada's banking sector wasn't as exposed to the 'sub-prime debt' packages as US banks, hence they weren't as affected.
I don't think it was just a lack of regulation, I think it was a mixture of bad regulation, self regulation, rules being completely floundered and bankers chasing profits like a crackhead chasing elderly women he thinks are an easy target. And it's that kind of culture I don't want to exist because it's fecked up. If you make it impossible for people to suffer, they won't, if you make it impossible for your economy to crash, it won't. The way to do that is to build a system which isn't too dependent on any one thing or too few things. Letting people to their own devices doesn't work because people suck. Case in point: The Koch brothers.
Government isn't omnipotent, it can't make anything impossible. And on past record, when it does try, it creates more problems than the original 'problem' even created.
How about percentage of population living below the poverty line? Percentage literate? Accessibility to quality health care? If you ignore all measures of quality of life other than mean or median income you'd have a point, which I imagine is why you're ignoring all those other measures.
What past record? Life has consistently gotten better for the majority of the planet, especially in progressive countries. And while government isn't omnipotent, it doesn't have to be. It's just that people left to their own devices suck.
The poverty line is a relative thing and can't ever be gotten rid of. Literacy isn't helpful either because here is rampant illiteracy even in the most developed countries for all sorts of reasons. And most health issues are lifestyle induced, and increased income can alleviate most of them with better diets, less working hours, more mechanisation in the workplace so the work is less dangerous.
So, really, what you're trying to say is, you won't acknowledge any statistic that disagrees with your ideological view, while claiming to value the general well-being of humanity.
Like I said, cognitive dissonance.
Like I said, cognitive dissonance.
That's a ridiculous over-simplification. Yes, it is relative TO AN EXTENT, but of course you can change and influence how many people fall below any given standard for a poverty line (which is most definitely an absolute and not a relative). Otherwise why would western Europe and Canada have so many fewer people above a specifically defined poverty line than the US does? And the comparison is not even the tiniest bit close. Western/northern Europe and Canada are an absolute mile ahead of the US in this respect regardless of which demographic you choose to measure it by.
What a massive load of bollocks. I literally can't see any justification for this utter nonsense claim in countries where 99%+ of the population is literate. It just makes no sense.
Absolutely. And yet you think with complete economic freedom and no regulation this would improve? You mean like there was in Victorian times, when workers in factories could barely afford to eat and died with enormous regularity? Again, if you genuinely believe this you're just astonishingly naive, or ignorant, or a good healthy combination of both.
That's usually how it works when you disagree with something.
I'm quoting this every time you say something now, you clearly have no interest in debate.There are many reasons why, it's definitely not down to welfare because the US spends more than Canada and some Western European states on welfare.
Yes, economic freedom would improve it. Economic freedom improved people's live in Victorian times, so why not now?
I'm not sure what you think debate means.
No it didn't, it improved a small band of rich people's lives, but poor people were arguably worse off in Victorian times than they were even in the middle ages, in some ways. It's only as businesses started getting regulated that the lives of the peons improved.
I do know what it means. But if you're never going to accept anything that disagrees with your worldview its pointless.
lol, please don't even try that kind of silly revisionism.
Yes, because you're so incredibly accepting. In-between calling anyone who disagrees with you insane, immoral, profit-obsessed etc etc.
It's not revisionism.