Why do so many view 47 as good?

TheVat said:
I do sometimes see the "bland moral relativism" here, though I don't know that member well enough to weigh in. I do suspect there is too much leaning on the notion that people can simply act from self-interest and that will somehow all work out, the invisible hand will prevail, etc.
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Self-interest includes other-interest in most if not all cases. (personal experience, when the self-interest was either mine or other or both.)
 
TheVat said:
I do sometimes see the "bland moral relativism" here, though I don't know that member well enough to weigh in. I do suspect there is too much leaning on the notion that people can simply act from self-interest and that will somehow all work out, the invisible hand will prevail, etc.
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Yeah it’s just a sense I get of withdrawal from any notion of social responsibility and preoccupation with economics and what’s in it for me.
 
exchemist said:
Yeah it’s just a sense I get of withdrawal from any notion of social responsibility and preoccupation with economics and what’s in it for me.
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Yep. All the cheering about withdrawing from USAID and ending programs that vaccinate children in third world countries, for example.
 
@$35,460,000,000,000.00 (this gets more and more wrong with each passing minute)
Try to picture it as $1.00 bills laid end to end(a dollar bill is 6.14 inches long)

How do you expect this debt to be honored?
 
exchemist said:
Yeah it’s just a sense I get of withdrawal from any notion of social responsibility and preoccupation with economics and what’s in it for me.
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That's the disconnect, IMO. Capitalism is an economic system, not a political system so when the topic is economics what meaning is there in being "preoccupied" with economics? That is the subject.

If you are talking about social responsibility, that's the government. Capitalism works with most any government policies that you want and vote for. It isn't up to corporations to be in charge of our "social responsibilities".

Ignoring economics is like sticking your head in the sand. You may feel that teachers should be paid more than engineers, sports personalities, hedge fund managers, whatever. However that's not how the system works and it's not reality. The system that you want isn't consistent with reality. That's not being "pre-occupied" with economics.

In physics you may not like gravity but you can't wish that it didn't exist. Are you pre-occupied with gravity even though you wish it wasn't so harsh sometimes?

You design around the reality of gravity. It's the same with economics. Due to the system, rent control doesn't do what you want it to do. You can't just ignore that fact due to your feeling.
 
sculptor said:
@$35,460,000,000,000.00 (this gets more and more wrong with each passing minute)
Try to picture it as $1.00 bills laid end to end(a dollar bill is 6.14 inches long)

How do you expect this debt to be honored?
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Only takes government to mint gold and/or silver coins and regulate the value as anything they want and then give them to the Fed and proclaim the debt paid.
 
Wizard of Whatever said:
Only takes government to mint gold and/or silver coins and regulate the value as anything they want and then give them to the Fed and proclaim the debt paid.
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That's all it takes if you want massive inflation. Technically, just doing that isn't inflationary immediately but that's only because just doing that also isn't really paying off the debt. The Fed is now just holding a coin obligation rather than a bond obligation.

So it either does nothing or it's inflationary and very destabilizing.
 
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sculptor said:
@$35,460,000,000,000.00 (this gets more and more wrong with each passing minute)
Try to picture it as $1.00 bills laid end to end(a dollar bill is 6.14 inches long)

How do you expect this debt to be honored?
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Google AI Overview

The total household debt in the United States has reached $18.20 trillion, according to the latest Federal Reserve Bank of New York report. This includes various types of debt, with mortgages being the largest component at $12.80 trillion

Google AI Overview

In the U.S., mortgages represent approximately 70% of total household debt. This means that for every $100 of household debt, roughly $70 is attributed to mortgages. While mortgages are the largest component of household debt, it's worth noting that less than half of American families actually have mortgages or home equity loans
====================================

Soo that's 6 Trillion turning over the daily Economy through the working class.
Keep in mind that doesn't count for Rent which needs to be paid to keep housed and functioning.

From what i have learnt personal debt runs the front line economy in the USA.

Google ... USA Credit Card Debt = $1.182 trillion

Debt is a core feature of modern economy.
The System is leveraged to create growth(inflation).
you could cut all government wages, contracts and salaries including senators, house representatives, governors, mayors & Military by 50% & use that to pay off the debt.
can they afford to live on 50% of their salary/contracts ? some could, most cant.
 
Seattle said:
[...] Capitalism works with most any government policies that you want and vote for. It isn't up to corporations to be in charge of our "social responsibilities". [...]
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Those working relationships (with moral "powers that be", activist movements, etc) being part of why capitalism is unstoppable. Since it either flexibly adapts to or outright assimilates looming threats to its continuance. Including the old enemy that accused it of being the source of all injustice and oppression. Even marketing what it absorbs under opportunistic re-imaging.

Who would have dreamed back in the 19th-century that the future instantiations of unbridled moguls and robber barons would be the reverent supporters of every social justice totem under the sun? The entrepreneurial equivalent of television evangelists -- progressive vanguards of virtue whose wealth, notoriety, and privilege can be excused due to the holiness of the causes they accommodate, champion, and fund!

That sarcastic, European political cartoon illustrating the evolutionary ascent of the Left -- from the heroic class struggle of the proles to its final, exalted stage of being the paladin of drag queens -- could almost fit the trajectory of the "vile capitalists" in terms of final destination. Strange bedfellows resulting from convergence on the shared night furniture of coincidence. ;)
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C C said:
Those working relationships (with moral "powers that be", activist movements, etc) being part of why capitalism is unstoppable. Since it either flexibly adapts to or outright assimilates looming threats to its continuance. Including the old enemy that accused it of being the source of all injustice and oppression. Even marketing what it absorbs under opportunistic re-imaging.

Who would have dreamed back in the 19th-century that the future instantiations of unbridled moguls and robber barons would be the reverent supporters of every social justice totem under the sun? The entrepreneurial equivalent of television evangelists -- progressive vanguards of virtue whose wealth, notoriety, and privilege can be excused due to the holiness of the causes they accommodate, champion, and fund!

That sarcastic, European political cartoon illustrating the evolutionary ascent of the Left -- from the heroic class struggle of the proles to its final, exalted stage of being the paladin of drag queens -- could almost fit the trajectory of the "vile capitalists" in terms of final destination. Strange bedfellows resulting from convergence on the shared night furniture of coincidence. ;)
_
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& then came Elons Twitter & Nazi Grok
 
Seattle said:
That's all it takes if you want massive inflation. Technically, just doing that isn't inflationary immediately but that's only because just doing that also isn't really paying off the debt. The Fed is now just holding a coin obligation rather than a bond obligation.

So it either does nothing or it's inflationary and very destabilizing.
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Not a debt, the coins, the government has to pay, since they are the payment.. The coins can be spent or held by the Fed. And no more interest.
I don't really see how this can be inflationary
 
C C said:
Those working relationships (with moral "powers that be", activist movements, etc) being part of why capitalism is unstoppable. Since it either flexibly adapts to or outright assimilates looming threats to its continuance. Including the old enemy that accused it of being the source of all injustice and oppression. Even marketing what it absorbs under opportunistic re-imaging.

Who would have dreamed back in the 19th-century that the future instantiations of unbridled moguls and robber barons would be the reverent supporters of every social justice totem under the sun? The entrepreneurial equivalent of television evangelists -- progressive vanguards of virtue whose wealth, notoriety, and privilege can be excused due to the holiness of the causes they accommodate, champion, and fund!
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It's the era of "washing," greenwashing, whitewashing, perhaps "ecru-washing (hey we didn't process this too much!)". Everything is eventually coopted into a capitalist narrative because we live in an Information Age and you have to pony up some serious money to hold the Information Firehouse. Makes me think about the late great anthropologist David Graeber talking about slavery - how capitalism made it grow, then decided to get rid of it because modern wage-slavery was a better cleaner model.
 
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Wizard of Whatever said:
Not a debt, the coins, the government has to pay, since they are the payment.. The coins can be spent or held by the Fed. And no more interest.
I don't really see how this can be inflationary
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You are debasing the currency. You effectively just turned on the money printer. Look what happened when the government sent out "free money" during Covid. Groceries are now "double" what they were before Covid and that was just a couple of "stimulus" checks.
 
TheVat said:
Yes, possibly a RCV system could have given a different outcome in 2016 and taken us in a less partisan direction. I like your graphic of bell curve marbles.
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The Bell Curve tends to slightly defy common reasoning of a more even spread of probability.
there is for some reason a tendency to form a collective concentration.
with a FPP 2 party system i suspect it extremafys people into polar opposites, not necessarily based on policy.
somewhat ironic because we have MMP and the minor partys have had a disproportionate amount of power in this current government.
 
Seattle said:
You are debasing the currency. You effectively just turned on the money printer. Look what happened when the government sent out "free money" during Covid. Groceries are now "double" what they were before Covid and that was just a couple of "stimulus" checks.
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Supply was a HUGE issue during COVID, but the system of greed will never lower prices once they have been raised.
 
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RainbowSingularity said:
Supply was a HUGE issue during COVID, but the system of greed will never lower prices once they have been raised.
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Yep. Eggs are the only food item I've seen drop down in price after a multi-month recovery from the last round of hen genocide issued due to bird flu. Everything else stays jacked-up after the original "good reason" for it has long since faded. Once an opportunity arises, exploit it to the hilt.
_
 
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