Federal Budget 2016: $29B Deficit

[Coach]

Originally Posted by Enoch Root

Just a couple quick comments on some of this...

With respect to people having to have money in order to invest money: Yes, sure, and no one said life is fair, but without that capital being invested, the economy as a whole, and each of us in particular, are less well off. Taxing most of it and putting it in the hands of the government, is the surest way to create equally (less for everyone).

As to market forces not always driving innovation in the right directions, I'll ignore the 'who decides the right direction' argument and just say this: random selection heads in the wrong direction most of the time as well. But overall, it moves things forwards. We can't know what is the right direction in advance. And we can't know what will turn into the right direction (or vice versa) in the future.

But in the end, things move forward. Compare that with humans trying to guide things - virtually always fails, is substantially less innovative, and creates it's own power issues.

The market system is definitely cloudy. But it works. Can any other systems make that claim?

See I don't think we can really say it works. Works better than other things we've done before? Yes. But when we have the possibility of providing something as small as food and clean water to everyone, but don't, the possibility that everyone could have access to using the internet, but don't, the possibility to provide everyone with equal opportunity for educating themselves in any field they wish to pursue , but don't, etc... I don't think you can say that it works. Again this is my personal opinion, and it is firmly based in the idea that the cost of something in dollars shouldn't really matter when compared to actual impacts on our species. We invented money as a medium of exchange. It's not real and holds no actual intrinsic value, and becomes less and less real every day. How many people actually hold physical money anymore? What is our money backed by? The things that made money actually hold value (ie. backed by gold), are gone. It's now just based on perceived value of a nation's currency. I think that the system we have worked, but doesn't anymore. Just like the barter system worked until trading got to a point that we needed something with liquidity to act as a medium. We moved on from that system, why can't we move on from this? I realize there probably aren't many people who agree with that, but again, it's my opinion.

It's not a matter of me thinking I have the answer, it's a matter of me just not being satisfied with what is going on now and wondering about how it can be altered to reflect the incredible advances in technology and globalization that have taken place since money became our chosen means of exchanging goods. There's nothing wrong with questioning it and thinking there may be different ways we could make it work. It's not like money was here when we got here and will never go away. We haven't even been using it for very long.

I did give fair warning this would get a bit crazy.

[burn_this_city]

Most entrepreneurs starting out don't have an extra million laying around they can gamble on their idea. They scrape and save every dime for years and then risk it all. The few who are successful deserve to be rewarded. Many of them lose everything two or three times before they find success. The road to success is littered with failures along the way. The vast majority lose everything and never recover.

I strongly disagree with the premise its everyone's responsibility to top off people who are quite often irresponsible, lack drive or are just plain useless. Your remuneration should be based on your contribution to society, not the number of hours you spend working. There would be no incentive to do anything difficult or challenging if you could get roughly the same doing mindless work or just coasting.

[Coach]

Originally Posted by burn_this_city

Most entrepreneurs starting out don't have an extra million laying around they can gamble on their idea. They scrape and save every dime for years and then risk it all. The few who are successful deserve to be rewarded. Many of them lose everything two or three times before they find success. The road to success is littered with failures along the way. The vast majority lose everything and never recover.

I strongly disagree with the premise its everyone's responsibility to top off people who are quite often irresponsible, lack drive or are just plain useless. Your remuneration should be based on your contribution to society, not the number of hours you spend working. There would be no incentive to do anything difficult or challenging if you could get roughly the same doing mindless work or just coasting.

I don't disagree with your first paragraph at all. Those people should be rewarded I agree. At the same time, there can be a point where they have been and are being rewarded far and above what is even considered excessive. If someone risked it all, worked their tail off, and created Microsoft, they deserve their success and the ability to live the life of excess they have earned. But there are people who have enough to live that life of excess many times over, and that to me, is a problem.

As for your second paragraph, again, I strongly agree minus the bolded part. As that as just as much of an oversimplification, than the idea that people achieving exuberant wealth aren't necessarily "earning" it. But we may disagree on what a positive contribution to society is. I would argue that the social workers life provides a much more positive contribution to society than the inventor of the no-no, or the sham-wow, or any other product that, while can make someone rich, and are things people want, IMO have no actual value to our society as a whole.

I think I've made my points though, and I don't want this thread further bogged down in my personal theories on money and social benefit. So thanks to everyone for the respectful discussion! If you want to discuss it further feel free to PM.

[burn_this_city]

Date a chick with a bit more body hair than typical and you'll find value in the no-no.

[AltaGuy]

For myself, who shares many of the same views as MattyC, both social mobility and democracy are more important than wage equality. In general, more unequal societies are less socially mobile (see generally the huge difference in social mobility in Canada versus the US), and in turn I believe that this hurts all aspects of society: the best and brightest are not (necessarily) being given opportunity nor are being rewarded, and eventually it will follow that productivity, innovation, and other important capitalist paradigms are hindered.

I am no hardcore socialist. But social mobility and entrenched inequality do not strike me as beneficial for society.

[Regorium]

I think the major disconnect is that we will never agree on what a "positive contribution to society" means.

I'm going bald, and I genuinely think that my life would be improved ten fold if I had a cure for it. My life is pretty damn good now, so don't take this as a complaint, but I know that generating self esteem has extreme positive value in society.

Self esteem issues lead to a lot of other societal issues like crime and addiction. Curing something that can so drastically affect someone's self esteem (see the balding vs. gray thread for proof) is of immense societal benefit.

[Jacks]

Originally Posted by MattyC

But in order to have the ability to make any sort of meaningful return, you have to have the money first. And no one is risking more than can afford to lose. IE, if you have the ability to put a million dollars into a company, it's very likely that losing that million is not something you're particularly worried about. Few people have that type of luxury. What has made them so special? Out of the people that have that luxury, IMO, few people have actually earned it.

I don't know about that. When I took over my company I put everything I owned on the line, including my home, and signed contracts where I had to personally guarantee hundreds of thousands of dollars. If things went bad in the first couple of years I would have lost everything I'd saved over a decade for. I have several associates who are small/medium sized business owners and none of them were born into money. There are probably a hundred hard working go getters for every trust fund baby in business, at least in my experience.

[WCan_Kid]

Originally Posted by AltaGuy

For myself, who shares many of the same views as MattyC, both social mobility and democracy are more important than wage equality. In general, more unequal societies are less socially mobile (see generally the huge difference in social mobility in Canada versus the US), and in turn I believe that this hurts all aspects of society: the best and brightest are not (necessarily) being given opportunity nor are being rewarded, and eventually it will follow that productivity, innovation, and other important capitalist paradigms are hindered.

I am no hardcore socialist. But social mobility and entrenched inequality do not strike me as beneficial for society.

Honestly, I think most people agree with this, how we achieve that dream is where things tend to fall apart.

[Coach]

Originally Posted by Regorium

I think the major disconnect is that we will never agree on what a "positive contribution to society" means.

I'm going bald, and I genuinely think that my life would be improved ten fold if I had a cure for it. My life is pretty damn good now, so don't take this as a complaint, but I know that generating self esteem has extreme positive value in society.

Self esteem issues lead to a lot of other societal issues like crime and addiction. Curing something that can so drastically affect someone's self esteem (see the balding vs. gray thread for proof) is of immense societal benefit.

I see your point, but there are a couple issues:

- Anyone that is worried about their baldness to the point that they would pay for a cure (likely to be expensive), the social problems that we are discussing are likely not affecting them at that point. Someone who's worried about where their next meal is coming from, or how they are going to afford their kid's school supplies, is probably not too concerned with their baldness.

- The people that are working on the cure for baldness can likely apply their immense skills and scientific knowledge to more pressing matters. By using profit as the driver for innovation, you pull people with special skill-sets into industries that are mostly inconsequential to our society at large.

Originally Posted by Jacks

I don't know about that. When I took over my company I put everything I owned on the line, including my home, and signed contracts where I had to personally guarantee hundreds of thousands of dollars. If things went bad in the first couple of years I would have lost everything I'd saved over a decade for. I have several associates who are small/medium sized business owners and none of them were born into money. There are probably a hundred hard working go getters for every trust fund baby in business, at least in my experience.

You can refer to my response to burn_this_city for most of my response to this. I don't disagree that there are plenty of people who have done this. What I am talking about is that there is a point where the income they are taking in begins to exceed (some cases grossly excessively so) what they have actually "earned" when you consider it as a percentage of the finite wealth we are all creating, using and sharing.

[burn_this_city]

Wealth isn't finite though, capitalism works because the economy and money supply is constantly growing.

[Coach]

Originally Posted by burn_this_city

Wealth isn't finite though, capitalism works because the economy and money supply is constantly growing.

Constantly growing, yes, but not infinite. There is still a finite amount of money in the system at any given time. And capitalism, in it's current form, has been concentrating that wealth more and more into the select few at the top. The supply may be growing, but that doesn't mean everyone's pockets are getting more stuffed.

[crazy_eoj]

Originally Posted by MattyC

Constantly growing, yes, but not infinite. There is still a finite amount of money in the system at any given time. And capitalism, in it's current form, has been concentrating that wealth more and more into the select few at the top. The supply may be growing, but that doesn't mean everyone's pockets are getting more stuffed.

Your assertion is absolutely false by any metric, but especially the most important ones; life expectancy, average earnings, etc. Wealth may be concentrating at the top, but pretending that the entire globe hasn't seen (and continues to see) massive increases in wealth under capitalism is a bizarre statement.

[Coach]

Originally Posted by crazy_eoj

Your assertion is absolutely false by any metric, but especially the most important ones; life expectancy, average earnings, etc. Wealth may be concentrating at the top, but pretending that the entire globe hasn't seen (and continues to see) massive increases in wealth under capitalism is a bizarre statement.

The cost of living has also increased dramatically, particularly in NA. Cost of housing, essential services, internet, phones, personal computers, cars, food, school, etc.. have all increased in price.

The cost of something like a personal computer may have decreased since laptops and such were actually becoming part of our everyday lives, but the fact that you basically need one means it's an added expense that wasn't necessarily there even a few years ago.

So while the number of dollars on people's pay cheques may have increased, their purchasing power over and above their essentials, has decreased IMO (IMO because I don't really have time to go through and compare all these things right now. Having school project flashbacks going through StatsCan). The thing that's tough about showing this is we can't necessarily use averages across the board. Of course as anyone brings in more wealth, whether at the top or the bottom, it will bring the average up. So while we may have seen average household income increase, that doesn't necessarily mean that everyone is getting a share of that average increase. And so even if the average HH income rate is above inflation or the CPI, that doesn't necessarily mean that people who are at the bottom end of that are better off. In fact, they are falling behind. Again, don't have time to peruse the data, but here is a quote from an MIT professor of Economic Geography and Regional Planning:

An analysis of the living wage, compiling geographically specific expenditure data for food, childcare, health care, housing, transportation, and other basic necessities, finds that:

The minimum wage does not provide a living wage for most American families. A typical family of four (two working adults, two children) needs to work nearly two full-time minimum wage jobs each (a 77-hour work week per working adult) to earn a living wage. A single parent with two children needs to work the equivalent of three and one half full-time jobs (139 hours per work week), more hours than there are in five days, to earn the living wage on a minimum wage income.

http://livingwage.mit.edu/articles/1...ily-live-on-it

[puckedoff]

I'd reckon a guess that the lifestyle of the average joe today is comparable to how the wealthy lived 100 years ago, and the same sort of metric is true for poor people, I just don't know how to word it properly. The creation of wealth over the past century absolutely has brought everyone upwards.

[Coach]

Originally Posted by puckedoff

I'd reckon a guess that the lifestyle of the average joe today is comparable to how the wealthy lived 100 years ago, and the same sort of metric is true for poor people, I just don't know how to word it properly. The creation of wealth over the past century absolutely has brought everyone upwards.

100% agree. But that doesn't mean someone can afford what we would consider proper living conditions in 2016. You just can't compare the living standard from 100 years ago to now. The scope of the economy is so completely different, yes thanks to capitalism.

I've never said that capitalism has been hurting us since day one. My assertion is that it is time to move on from it in it's current form (largely based on trickle-down economics).

[Ozy_Flame]

Probably not the best thread for it but still sort of relevant, Brett Wilson confirmed on Facebook this morning that he's running for office.

Unless this is an April Fools joke, in which case . . . . I suck lol

[Coach]

What type of office? I'd vote for Wilson, he's my type of rich person.

[crazy_eoj]

Originally Posted by MattyC

100% agree. But that doesn't mean someone can afford what we would consider proper living conditions in 2016. You just can't compare the living standard from 100 years ago to now. The scope of the economy is so completely different, yes thanks to capitalism.

I've never said that capitalism has been hurting us since day one. My assertion is that it is time to move on from it in it's current form (largely based on trickle-down economics).

So although you agree that Capitalism has been so hugely successful in changing the scope of living conditions that a 50 or 100 year comparison to our past is completely useless, you think it's time to be done with it?

Totally bizarre.

[Coach]

Originally Posted by crazy_eoj

So although you agree that Capitalism has been so hugely successful in changing the scope of living conditions that a 50 or 100 year comparison to our past is completely useless, you think it's time to be done with it?

Totally bizarre.

Yes. It's not totally bizarre. There are things that work for a time period, but then become enemies of themselves. Saying something like this, to me, is comparable to saying "so you agree that the use of fossil fuels has allowed our species to grow technologically at an incredibly rapid pace, but now it's time to be done with it? Bizarre!"

The side effects of capitalism (massive debt bubbles with no hope of payment, squeezing out of jobs that used to pay well enough to actually support a family in the pursuit of the cheapest possible labour, technological advances that have removed actual jobs from the pool of employment due to redundancies, etc..) need to be adjusted for. And I never said to do away with it completely, I said "in it's current form". These things need to be seriously considered. We are removing jobs from our pool of employment possibilities. Everyone likes to claim that people without work are lazy and need to get themselves educated. What happens when even those people who are educated and have worked hard can't get work because the jobs just straight up don't exist?

I think I've supported my points fairly well throughout this whole exercise, I don't see anyone from the contrary doing much to dispute what I'm saying. I'm happy to engage if you have an argument beyond "totally bizarre".

You want bizarre? It's not capitalism we need to move on from, it's money.

[Locke]

This can all be solved by gathering more wheat!