Truth Discussion Time - Page 85

the argument for tax cuts for the rich...that they will use the money to invest in enterprises that create jobs...it's clear that the rich get richer by cutting jobs or offshoring it overseas, or simply investing it in their stock portfolio. But even in china, advancements in robotics will be cutting down any sort of wage slave work. That would be a great thing if the wage slaves were the ones that profited from increased efficiency but they dont. China is a great place for investors since the rich their will always have bargaining power over the worker, with an endless army of migrants from rural china they don't have to worry about such things as unions and their demands for higher wages.

There are different types of keynesian systems that can create jobs, the one america uses is simply spending their money on a massive military budget-hardly something socially useful as it's used for imperial ambitions. They could get rid of their military and replace it with a massive economic program that would restructure the economic system to be more environment friendly. Actually that is the only rational thing to do given the impending doom from global warming. private enterprise will largely never initiate this themselves as they will lose their profits. I mean expecting exxon mobil to just willingly shut down or shift to renewable is irrationally optimistic.

Its not just that Trump broke a campaign promise with non-intervention, with the hiring of Bolton its apparent that he's taken the polar opposite stance. I encourage people to watch the Oliver skit spitfire was talking about to see just how bad he is. He explicitly favors regime change in Iran to the point that he predicted we would be celebrating there in Tehran by 2019. Fortunately this isn't the stance of the US government as a whole. Pretty much all the democrats and there should be enough moderate republicans in congress to oppose backing out of the Iran deal let alone invading.

Also Mike Pompeo just confirmed as new secretary of state. Its not surprising that inexperienced Tillerson turned out to be a complete disaster but at least he had the good sense to call Trump a "fucking moron" on the way out. Pompeo is ultra-hawkish and just much worse. Democrats heavily opposed him but didn't have the votes. So called libertarian Rand Paul predictably caving.

The USA entering Iran right now would literally mean World War 3. There is a reason West Europe are all like "hooold up there, what the fuck are you talking about?" . The USA wont get anyone's support going in there at this point and they re quite aware of it, so I doubt it happens, obv excluding Israel, but I count Israel as baby USA so


I cant stress this enough but I dont think americans realize that Iranians arent actually arabs that lived in tribes until 50 years ago and they have very solid reasons to completely despise the USA for the "good" they've did them.

On April 26 2018 12:47 Stroggoz wrote: the argument for tax cuts for the rich...............

I had an argument with a buddy the other day of whether or not the common guy in the Western world actually lives better economically compared to 50 years ago for example and I always just thought "well sure everything points to it" - he just told me to check the median salary and then obviously apply the inflation rate to it and see how the rich are banking all the economical growth. Turns out people in the USA at least, are making like 30% more money than they used to, so he was wrong, however our necessities have also greatly changed, so people actually have a much worse standard of life.

Bit of a rant here:

i seen a lot of graphs about the economy, the most enlightening one is the comparison of real wages (real wage meaning the wage adjusted for inflation), and corporate profits. And you can see any country where neoliberal reforms have taken place, the real wage has stagnated, and profits go way up. So for example in New Zealand where neoliberal reforms were applied in 1984, the real wage is the same in 2018 as it was then, but of course cost of living has gone up with vastly increased oligopalistic competition between business. So now we have people living out of their cars, and third world diseases making a comeback, whereas that used to be completely eliminated. There was some media attention to this in the wake of the global financial crisis and very moderate critics like piketty were given attention, but now its back to normal.

I showed these kind of graphs to my flatmate who was doing a phd in economics, and he didn't know about them. What he was focusing on was lattices in algebraic topology instead, which is some very advanced math that i didnt know about even tho i got a math degree. And apparently you need an A/A+ in elementary pure mathematics to make it to ivey league graduate school in economics, so that basically guarantees the next generation of economists will be people with autism, but if someone wants to read 100 books on economic history and is passionate about it, they wont make it to a good school.

I also showed the graphs to someone with a masters in political science, and they didn't know about this. Universities in the humanities subjects do not teach about the real world-rather they focus on highly abstract theories in a futile attempt to be as impressive as physicists. The entire world suffers because the personal ambitions of academics as well as all of the other evils that plague the modern world.

The stagnation of salaries is mainly caused by women emancipation, basically the supply doubled in relation to the demand.


The only 2 fixes I see to the american deficit problem is either getting rid of the welfare state or the military, and given how Trump who is a total outsider from politics didnt do it, I think its a fair assumption that it wont be done, and that is what the keynesians and monetarists naively didnt foresaw.


Any sistem has to work assuming the worst in humans, if it requires integrity it will fail, the reason why socialism and communist don't work.


If we assume president seek self interest before anything else, it is logical to think that debt and balancing the budget is not a priority, and to reduce massive benefits is political suicide for any person and party, so obviously nobody will bite the bullet, this is the reason why the money supply should not be in the hands of the government

I did watch the John Oliver's rant about the tax cuts, and its incomplete, look it up, Trump made a major reduction in taxes across the board, it wasn't just corporate ones, look it up, and obviously they could have been better, but its something significant.


however cutting taxes but not reducing spending is self defeating because you have to print more money, causing inflation, and inflation is a direct tax, so the tax cut is basically errased.

On April 27 2018 06:27 Baalim wrote: The stagnation of salaries is mainly caused by women emancipation, basically the supply doubled in relation to the demand. The only 2 fixes I see to the american deficit problem is either getting rid of the welfare state or the military, and given how Trump who is a total outsider from politics didnt do it, I think its a fair assumption that it wont be done, and that is what the keynesians and monetarists naively didnt foresaw. Any sistem has to work assuming the worst in humans, if it requires integrity it will fail, the reason why socialism and communist don't work. If we assume president seek self interest before anything else, it is logical to think that debt and balancing the budget is not a priority, and to reduce massive benefits is political suicide for any person and party, so obviously nobody will bite the bullet, this is the reason why the money supply should not be in the hands of the government

it isn't caused by just by the emancipation of women, i think that would be a relatively small factor actually and would invite you to show me research that says otherwise. I don't think there is much point in bringing that up though since clearly there are more moral, easier ways of fixing unemployment than re-subjugating women to the kitchen.

in political science polls/interviews indicate that it is largely the rich who care about the deficit, why would 90% of america-the poor- care about this? They would want stable and well paying jobs, which is what polling data says. The deficit would be very easy to get rid of as well though.

America isn't a welfare state, it wouldn't even be called a welfare state by Aristotle.

Disagree that assuming the worst in human beings is the way to go. In most political systems it is really the governing class who assume the worst in the rest of the population, and that serves as a justification for their managerial roles in government.

If you read lenin's work he assumes the worst in human beings, or at least the vast majority of the population, including the peasantry of russia, and the proletariat.-he wrote in 1905 a document called 'what is to be done?', basically outlining his plans for government and explaining that russia needs to be a dictatorship with a technocratic class in charge to 'educate' marxism to the masses, because the peasantry and proletariat were incapable of radicalism. Lenin was in no way a communist, and he imprisoned many communists for advocating communism. He also called himself a communist. His views are sometimes called 'paternalism', which is the name for a political system which assumes the vast majority of the public are infantile and can't take care of themselves, and they need a governing class to uplift/civilize/enrich/make sure they behave properly.

the main justifications for state dictatorship go back to thomas hobbes, who basically assumed that people are self interested and there needs to be a violent totalitarian state to prevent human beings from killing each other.

As far as i can tell the majority of forms of authoritarian institutions have been justified through assuming the worst in human beings, capitalism being no different of course as anyone can see that in milton friedmans arguments. Actually there is a lot of evidence from anthropological work that societies which base themselves on individual self interest are societies that die off quickly.

Just want to point out that the much bigger factor in depressing wages (in recent years) is globalization. Emancipation prob similar effects, but today its so easy for businesses to outsource a lot of unskilled labor, and even skilled labor to china/india/etc. for pennies on the dollar. Notice that the only loser in this scenario is the guy who would have been hired in the U.S., its a dispersed benefit for tons of people, cheaper products for the masses, but it tends to go unnoticed compared to the loss of U.S. job which the pain is felt more acutely by the involved party.

I honestly don't understand the globalization as a factor for wages in the USA in a long period of time. The people who's jobs get outsourced find jobs in other fields and even if they find a job which pays lower, it means that the guy who had the same job previously has risen up in the hierarchy. Globalization only caused structural unemployment, which mostly causes positive outcomes in the long run excluding other factors, as it means people become more productive in the industries in which they're actually needed

I find that argument as good as businesses blaming millennials for their bankruptcies e.g. - http://www.businessinsider.com/toys-r...-millennials-babies-birth-rate-2018-3

structural unemployment causes depressed wages. It means business has more power over the working man and they don't have to pay them as much. Alan Greenspan actually explained this in a speech to congress in 1997, in which he said the reason business was doing so well was due to 'growing worker insecurity'. Ok so greenspan was wrong about almost everything but i think he is right about that, and the Marxists and Austrian economists at least agree on that. If workers are so insecure about where their next job will come from then they will accept what's given to them. globalization-which is a word that encompasses a lot of policy changes, is indeed a major contributor in depressed wages.

and yeah it's like what mezmerize said, It is the manufacturing jobs that are set in competition with china, and so for them their wages are depressed. but for the professional service jobs like being a doctor, lawyer or whatever they obviously dont have to compete with china. They are a sector of society that are protected from globalization to a large extent, and they are especially protected through the decreased labour mobility. In fact 'globalization' is a bit misleading. Although capital mobility has gone up, labour mobility is down and esp with the recent anti-immigration rhetoric used by trump and EU far right politicians, i wouldn't expect it to go up. So it's only globalization for certain parts of society. It's really just 80% of the population that are subject to it and have their wages depressed.

As for CEO's there's some argument that if they are paid too much the board of directors can just get a cheaper one. This is untrue since the board of directors appoint CEO's who are board of directors on other corporations and they appoint CEO's who are their board of directors. So they all work together to make sure they got some pretty +EV salaries and huge rakeback deals when their company collapses.

i'm not sure globalization has resulted in cheaper products, i imagine in many industries it has, but in others it wouldn't have. although corporations pay 1/10 for wages that they used to, monopoly power has gone way up during the same period of outsourcing, so they also have the power to just pocket the profits made off cheap labour. This is going into territory i have not researched. There is also the factor of externalities caused from globalization; from outsouring your work means more money spent on transportation, it has vastly increasesd greenhouse gas emissions-something that the corporations dont have to pay for.

There used to be an expression called 'internationalism', which was the idea that labour would be completely free from national boundries. If you want to work in another country you can. This idea was propagated by socialists in late 19th century/early 20th century. The word 'globalization' is the idea that was brought up at the world economic forum in davos by the richest people in the world, after the fall of the USSR. And it's idea was for capital to be let loose in the world and to be free to invest anywhere they want. Those are two ideas coming from different sectors of society with their own appeals to a nice sounding word, they both have their own propaganda intentions from using these two similar words which in reality mean completely different things.

Furthermore this 'globalization' is not something new but has gone on a lot through history. If you go back to ancient Rome, conquests brought in, slaves which were taking all the work, and this enabled demagogues to pretend to feel the pain of the plebs (as Trump does), and seek power.

Solid post stroggoz. I do think that its to a different degree today than throughout history. I mean access to billions of workers in a short span is insane

Hm that makes a lot of sense and sadly is very disturbing at the same time

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-43952196

yap USA will push it, lets say if Macron actually holds his word and lets the USA and Israel suicide into Iran. If the USA doesnt get international support, they're gonna have a really, really, really bad time in the upcoming years and I'm not talking about military casualties or the result of a potential war w Iran

Fuck Iran

On April 27 2018 15:42 Stroggoz wrote: it isn't caused by just by the emancipation of women, i think that would be a relatively small factor actually and would invite you to show me research that says otherwise. I don't think there is much point in bringing that up though since clearly there are more moral, easier ways of fixing unemployment than re-subjugating women to the kitchen.

I only pointed out the obvious main reason why salaries are stagnant, drastic increase in workforce with relation job positions, basic supply/demand.

At no point I suggested subjugating women and I didnt offer any solution, I was pointing out the obvious cause of a problem you seemed perplexed by, and I think that subtle accusation of sexism pretty dissapointing.

in political science polls/interviews indicate that it is largely the rich who care about the deficit, why would 90% of america-the poor- care about this? They would want stable and well paying jobs, which is what polling data says. The deficit would be very easy to get rid of as well though.

Of course the average person doesn't care about the deficit, they dont understand how the economy works, and the deficit is extremely easy to fix in theory, in practice its virtually impossible because of the reasons I said.

America isn't a welfare state, it wouldn't even be called a welfare state by Aristotle.

Free healthcare, foodstamp, unemployment checks etc, but if that doesnt qualify to you as a welfare state I dont really care, I dont debate about semantics and definitions, its a wate of my time

Disagree that assuming the worst in human beings is the way to go. In most political systems it is really the governing class who assume the worst in the rest of the population, and that serves as a justification for their managerial roles in government.

Assuming the worst in humans and thinking the solution to this is to give power to a group of humans is contradictory since you have to assume the worst of those humans in power.


But dont get me wrong, I dont assume the worst in humans, and I dont advocate for pure selfishness, to paraphrase Hitchens when criticizing Ayrn Rand, I dont think selfishness needs any more encouragement, thank you very much.

What I'm saying is that building a economic system that does not heavily take human nature into account, will fail, just like Marxism does every time.

On May 01 2018 09:10 VanDerMeyde wrote: Fuck Iran

Long Live Israel right? :D

On May 02 2018 04:06 Baalim wrote: Show nested quote + On April 27 2018 15:42 Stroggoz wrote: it isn't caused by just by the emancipation of women, i think that would be a relatively small factor actually and would invite you to show me research that says otherwise. I don't think there is much point in bringing that up though since clearly there are more moral, easier ways of fixing unemployment than re-subjugating women to the kitchen. I only pointed out the obvious main reason why salaries are stagnant, drastic increase in workforce with relation job positions, basic supply/demand. At no point I suggested subjugating women and I didnt offer any solution, I was pointing out the obvious cause of a problem you seemed perplexed by, and I think that subtle accusation of sexism pretty dissapointing.   in political science polls/interviews indicate that it is largely the rich who care about the deficit, why would 90% of america-the poor- care about this? They would want stable and well paying jobs, which is what polling data says. The deficit would be very easy to get rid of as well though. Of course the average person doesn't care about the deficit, they dont understand how the economy works, and the deficit is extremely easy to fix in theory, in practice its virtually impossible because of the reasons I said.   America isn't a welfare state, it wouldn't even be called a welfare state by Aristotle. Free healthcare, foodstamp, unemployment checks etc, but if that doesnt qualify to you as a welfare state I dont really care, I dont debate about semantics and definitions, its a wate of my time   Disagree that assuming the worst in human beings is the way to go. In most political systems it is really the governing class who assume the worst in the rest of the population, and that serves as a justification for their managerial roles in government. Assuming the worst in humans and thinking the solution to this is to give power to a group of humans is contradictory since you have to assume the worst of those humans in power. But dont get me wrong, I dont assume the worst in humans, and I dont advocate for pure selfishness, to paraphrase Hitchens when criticizing Ayrn Rand, I dont think selfishness needs any more encouragement, thank you very much. What I'm saying is that building a economic system that does not heavily take human nature into account, will fail, just like Marxism does every time.

Understanding definitions matters if you care about understanding your interlocutor and making yourself understood. Like, it matters when you call yourself an anarchist and virtually all the people who call themselves anarchists think that you're not an anarchist. If you don't care about definitions, that's the equivalent of saying that you don't care about engaging in rigorous thought and you don't care about meaningful things like scholarly consensus. You're just too smart for that and you've figured out the "real definitions" that intellectuals are ignorant about. It's maybe not a perfect label, but it would be more accurate to call yourself an anti-state, market fundamentalist.

The issues with Marxism go well beyond the so-called human nature you believe in and that's so primary through your crypto-social Darwinist lens. The main problem with Marxist theory is not its critique of capitalism, it's that it was fundamentally faith-based (much like your own views, which as far as I can tell haven't evolved in the past 10 years). Marx inherited this faith from Hegel, who was a brilliant philosopher but he misled a lot of people with his dialectics. Historical materialism/dialectical materialism was driven by a grand narrative that turned out to be false, like every other grand narrative. It isn't "anti-capitalism" that has failed and "can only fail because of human nature", it was this faith in a grand narrative that was doomed from the start. It's also implied in your statement that, by contrast, capitalism isn't failing, which is ridiculous. It is failing in innumerable ways, a lot of which Marx was perfectly right about. Right now, economists who preach the neoliberal credo (so virtually all economists) have placed a huge wager on the ability of continual economic growth to solve the massive problems that we face. This is not based on science and it has no historical precedent, it is an ideological gamble (in the ability of scientists to come up with revolutionary inventions) and the risks are nothing short of the total annihilation of our species. So at the very least, you should be agnostic about growth and have a nuanced view of the pros and cons that were brought with the industrial revolution instead of one-sidedly glorifying it as the best possible system like all the libertarians and neoliberals do.

To add to yesterday's post, I've just stumbled upon this video today, which was coincidentally released yesterday. It focuses precisely on this topic. What strikes me when I really think about it is how little you have actually attempted to discuss these things here and offer criticism of actual anarchist thought on human nature. I don't remember you trying to refute them, only repeat your own right-libertarian talking points. So, what exactly is your critique of anarchism? What are people like this guy so misled about when it comes to human nature? I'd like to hear some non-vague counter-arguments from you, ideally backed up with some research. If you don't want to go in depth yourself but you have reading recommendations that will do as well, I'll have a look at them. (Videos are fine too I guess, unless it's Stefan Molyneux videos...)

I dont see how the USA is a welfare state, what free healthcare, what foodstamps and do they even have any social policy for anyone? We're talking about the country which gives 4 days of motherhood after birth if I recall correctly. Compared to 90% of the countries in Europe, Eastern Europe included (yes its that bad), the USA is a joke in terms of welfare