Obama or Clinton? - Page 24

**El_Gringo_Grande** · 05-16-2008, 04:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by luna

So...

How about we get back on topic, or create another thread about wealth distribution, socialized medicine and tax brackets?

I think those things are core to the original post. It is what the democratic party is all about.

Kerostasis · 05-16-2008, 04:27 PM

It is not, however, what the Democratic Primary is all about. The Primary is about whether misogyny is more or less acceptable than race-baiting, and whose unsavory friends are more unsavory. Perhaps if we made a thread called "Obama or McCain" the actual issues would be more on topic.

**El_Gringo_Grande** · 05-16-2008, 04:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by leejo

I strongly suggest investing in textbooks. Your right about their needing to be sufficient funds For things like competent teachers and safe facilities but I also understand how the administrators might be looking at the decreased tax revenues and conclude that now is not the right time to be cutting state programs left and right while simultaneously building new gyms and bathrooms for third graders when that money might be best invested in ensuring that the children are being educated in things like spelling and learn how to punctuate and avoid run-on sentences.

I don't accept that it hurts a third-grader's future not to have a new gym and potty. I can completely understand how being told that they are in the best school system ever ever, while receiving a crummy education from crummy teachers might hurt a kid's future. First things first.

Textbooks are something that I know a bit about.

I used to work for a math textbook company. When it first started up they tried to sell them relatively cheap thinking it would allow them to sell more.

Nope. Schools balked at paying less, for a couple of reasons. So they raised the prices to be equal to that of the competitors and they started selling many more books.

And textbooks are not that expensive, especially the elementary and high school ones. Information and facts at these levels simply do not change fast enough for it to matter. Since the company was relativly small they had lower volumes thus each books cost more. Even so it was rare for a book to cost more that 5 dollars to manufacture. Most where in the 1-3 dollar range. Yet they sold for $40 dollars and up.

I am not saying the textbook companies are evil and shouldn't make a profit. I am saying there is a lot of fat in the education system and some people are getting very wealthy supplying a rather simple product.

I think schools could get by very well with a single set of public domain textbooks. Put those extra monies into highly trained motivated teachers.

And I would bet the same could be said for many items used by the school systems.

Steeler · 05-16-2008, 04:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by CingularDuality

There is nothing that stops EVERYONE from being rich in a capitalist economy, except, perhaps, for personal motivation...

And, you know, the lack of an infinite supply of eternal coconuts.

The fact that your preferred economic model performs well in a strained metaphor does not mean it works identically in real life. I'm a big fan of capitalism and all its wonders, but your example of a market-solutions paradise is a pretty grasping one.

**leejo** · 05-16-2008, 08:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by El_Gringo_Grande

Textbooks are something that I know a bit about.

*Woo woo woo and flashing lights*

Sir I'm going to have to cite you for failure to recognize and appreciate irony. Please take your hands off the keyboard and step away from the computer.

Sir, take your hands off the keyboard and step away from the computer NOW.

STEP AWAY FROM THE COMPUTER OR I WILL TAZE YOU! STEP AWAY FROM THE COMPUTER OR I WILL TAZE YOU!!! SIR! STEP AWAY FROM THE COMPUTER OR I WILL TAZE YOU.

*brrrzzzzzzfffitfffitfffit*

**CingularDuality** · 05-17-2008, 12:00 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Steeler

And, you know, the lack of an infinite supply of eternal coconuts.

The fact that your preferred economic model performs well in a strained metaphor does not mean it works identically in real life. I'm a big fan of capitalism and all its wonders, but your example of a market-solutions paradise is a pretty grasping one.

It is simple, to be sure, but let's not ignore the fact that raw resources are not the only source of income, thus the firemaker. In a capitalist economy, there is NOTHING to stop someone else from making things better, faster or cheaper. Innovation rules. Knowledge is power. Skills and service matter.

ScratchMonkey · 05-17-2008, 12:14 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by luna

So...

How about we get back on topic, or create another thread about wealth distribution, socialized medicine and tax brackets?

Being a sometime moderator on another forum, I sometimes find myself starting to type that very plea. Then I delete the post and go start the new threads myself, and post links to them in the original. Helps to throw something provocative in there to kick them off.

Too bad that almost all forum software lacks a "quote and start new thread" feature. Perhaps something for the TG wishlist.

ScratchMonkey · 05-17-2008, 01:01 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Razcsak

the capitalist system mandates that the person willing to do the most amount of work for the least amount of money be hired.

First, you've already introduced 2 axes on your chart, price and quantity. And you've left out an important 3rd: quality. (Low quality is a good way to lose business for anyone who wants to be around in the long run. The whole point of maintaining a brand is to differentiate your own high quality from inferior competitors.) Do you have some magic formula for finding people that create high quality and high quantity at low price? I'm sure any successful employer can think of more parameters in the hiring equation, further complicating the decision of who to hire.

**El_Gringo_Grande** · 05-17-2008, 01:22 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by CingularDuality

It is simple, to be sure, but let's not ignore the fact that raw resources are not the only source of income, thus the firemaker. In a capitalist economy, there is NOTHING to stop someone else from making things better, faster or cheaper. Innovation rules. Knowledge is power. Skills and service matter.

There are a couple of real things that prevents individuals from climbing the ladder.

The big one is risk. You risk certain things when going down the entrepreneurial path. There is a very large chance of failure. If you fail you are not going to make a bunch of money. If there was no risk of this everybody would be doing it.

The risk comes from many sources. Lack of skill. A bad idea. Unfair practices of the competition.

A free market does not guarantee the success of the individual. In fact I would say that it guarantees that some individuals will suffer. What it does tend to succeed at is the betterment of the society as a whole. And over time all individuals will benefit, indirectly, from the failure and suffering of others.

I think the question now is have we gained enough to take on something like universal health care? This would lower the risk for those deciding too take the entrepreneurial path thus more would go down this path thus society would gain even more.

I think we have. I think many are held back from taking the leap into making the next greatest widget because a standard job is just to safe relative to starting ones own business.

It just seems like way back jobs simply sucked and you made crap doing them. So quiting them and doing your own thing wasn't much worse even if you failed exquisitely. Nowadays you can get by just doing a job you hate and give the minimum back to society. There is no incentive to break out and take a chance. Maybe one out of a million make it big. Out of the million many will fail, put their family in a worse position and end up getting the crappy job back.

If we could change it such that taking the chance would only mean that you fail but you just get the crappy job back but keep your family at basically the same position it was before the choice more individuals would innovate.

**CingularDuality** · 05-17-2008, 03:22 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by El_Gringo_Grande

A free market does not guarantee the success of the individual. In fact I would say that it guarantees that some individuals will suffer. What it does tend to succeed at is the betterment of the society as a whole. And over time all individuals will benefit, indirectly, from the failure and suffering of others.

Yes! But the true beauty of capitalism is that ANYONE (not necessarily everyone) can rise! Sure, there will be some that are content to sit on their ass, and there will be some that will be unfairly stepped on (the world isn't perfect), but, for the most part, capitalism allows everyone the freedom to try to better their own situation and/or others' situations.

Socialism/communism doesn't allow this. You could be the absolute best at a job, and, theoretically, you're going to have the same lifestyle as a ditch digger. Where's the incentive to excel at anything? If you're a ditch digger and I'm a ditch digger and you can dig twice as fast as me, why would you wear yourself out?

**SloppyJoe** · 05-17-2008, 04:39 AM

Interesting sub-discussion on capitalism.

I agree with the basic ideas of capitalism; merit based.

But to bridge a gap in the discussion, I don't think the general statement capitalism sucks is really what to focus on.

It's great that someone can use their will and creativity to better themselves in society, however here are some examples to clarify an upcoming point:

A criminal thinks of a better way to rob a bank.
A hacker writes better code to steal credit cards.
A land developer bribes local politicians to claim eminent domain over a land plot to secure a fat contract.

The first thing that pops into mind is, wait, those are bad things. In a very narrow and pure form of capitalism they are aligned with the spirit of capitalism, however, they show that capitalism has a large pool of factors involving what society promotes as good capitalistic endeavors versus ones that should not be occurring.

Then one really should focus on questions like: What should be controlled, how should it be controlled, and who should control it.

It's answers to those questions that will separate a capitalistic society from being deemed as a positive one or a corrupt and unjust one.

Unfortunately, those questions are very difficult to answer for society, especially when many segments of the society tend to like to push their ethical agenda on how society should play out. For example, latest hot topic of same sex marriages. A neutral "good" capitalist would say, "As long as it doesn't hurt anyone and the consenting parties are pursuing their happiness using their resources, good for them". Conservative religious segments however, would argue that this is horrendously bad for society.

It's kind of ironic that we all live in a capitalistic nation, yet have such a shallow understanding of what that really is about. Yet so many push their narrow ethical beliefs when answering questions of what, how, and who regarding the controlling factors of the capitalistic society should be - it nearly diverts from capitalism into struggling factions trying to push dictatorial/fascist ideas. And with that going on, it becomes a bickering war where people lose sight of what the country was set up to be in the first place, which was to get away from all that.

Coupled with the factors that we are a democratic capitalistic society and with a general decline of education for the past 2 decades or so, the people that have a large role in determining, especially the "who" questions, are generally pretty separated from qualifications for making such decisions as are the "whos" that get elected/appointed to determine many of the whats and hows.

Being a "melting pot" society is cool, but without being on or as close to the same page about what this country is about, fundamentally, through education or political involvement, and carrying that out through our decision makers, we're going to be far from a pretty picture of an exemplary capitalistic society.

Not to mention how we treat the lower end of the society, but that's a whole 'nother problem.

**Razcsak** · 05-17-2008, 11:25 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by CingularDuality

Anyway, I could go on and on to describe how capitalism encourages innovation and hard work, but I wanted to ask you, what prevents any of those people from simply accumulating more and more economic wealth? Can the coconut guy not simply keep picking more and more coconuts until he has a large enough stockpile that he would never have to work another day in his life? (For the sake of discussion, let's pretend that coconuts won't go bad over time...) Can't everyone work hard enough to do the same? Can't the firemaker make contracts to teach the others how to build fire so that HE never has to work again? The answer is yes. There is nothing that stops EVERYONE from being rich in a capitalist economy, except, perhaps, for personal motivation...

In your idealized island environment, yes. Essentially, you have a very small community with nigh-unlimited resources. That doesn't exist in the real world. (Actually, your initial economy on that island is ultimately socialist. Without money, it certainly can't be capitalist.)

Quote:

In a capitalist economy, there is NOTHING to stop someone else from making things better, faster or cheaper. Innovation rules. Knowledge is power. Skills and service matter.

Well, except the person who already has the money to hire people to take your brilliant idea and adapt it for their own. Or the person who has the money to buy your idea for relatively cheap (since you're starving, at this point) and sell it for their own increased profit. Or, hell, the person who simply has a hold on the economy and can freeze you out.

Your theory-capitalism sounds as lovely as theory-communism, where everyone has everything and everyone is happy. Unfortunately, as people are prone to point out, theory-communism doesn't exist. The Soviet Union did was the closest any government came and it did, in fact, fall. Likewise, the closest we came to theory-capitalism, did we see a utopia of personal wealth? Absolutely not. Historical precedent overrides your theory, in my opinion. Capitalism leads to monopolies, not innovation.

Cingular: Nobody is advocating for a conversion to an entirely socialized state! (And you're arguing against a strawman socialist society anyhow.) At best, we're saying why pure capitalism doesn't work and pressing for a socialized system of medicine, as aptly described by El_Gringo_Grande.

Kerostasis · 05-17-2008, 02:46 PM

@ Sloppy Joe:
Good points, but allow me take it a step further. You list these questions for an economy:

Quote:

What should be controlled, how should it be controlled, and who should control it.

In a more pure form, an economy must answer these questions:
(1) -- What do we make? Also, how do we make it and how many do we make?
(2) -- Once we have made it, who gets to use it?

The fundamental belief at the core of socialism is that question 2 must be answered with a fair and equal distribution that doesn't leave anyone out, and we can worry about question 1 later. The fundamental belief at the core of capitalism is that the best answer to question 1 is only acheived by unleashing the combined innovation and self interest of the population on it, and that is best acheived by answering question 2 with "you get to keep what you make".

Unfortunately, these two noble goals are often at odds with one another. Specifically, the people who dont make anything dont keep anything, so they are left out. Also, there are certain situations where strict application of "you keep what you make" does not lead to the optimal solution to question 1, and the government has to get involved to correct that. This doesn't mean that capitalism has failed though, because "keep what you make" is only a secondary goal of capitalism -- the primary goal is "find the optimal solution to question 1". We just happen to believe that the populace can find that solution much more frequently than government can.

ScratchMonkey · 05-17-2008, 03:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Razcsak

Cingular: Nobody is advocating for a conversion to an entirely socialized state! (And you're arguing against a strawman socialist society anyhow.) At best, we're saying why pure capitalism doesn't work and pressing for a socialized system of medicine, as aptly described by El_Gringo_Grande.

New thread on Socialism versus Capitalism here:

http://www.tacticalgamer.com/sandbox...socialism.html

**Razcsak** · 05-17-2008, 07:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ScratchMonkey

New thread on Socialism versus Capitalism here:

http://www.tacticalgamer.com/sandbox...socialism.html

So where do we discuss socialized health care?

05-17-2008, 04:39 AM	#356 (permalink)
SloppyJoe Join Date: Jul 2005 Location: Bay Area, California Posts: 2,247	Re: Obama or Clinton? Interesting sub-discussion on capitalism. I agree with the basic ideas of capitalism; merit based. But to bridge a gap in the discussion, I don't think the general statement capitalism sucks is really what to focus on. It's great that someone can use their will and creativity to better themselves in society, however here are some examples to clarify an upcoming point: A criminal thinks of a better way to rob a bank. A hacker writes better code to steal credit cards. A land developer bribes local politicians to claim eminent domain over a land plot to secure a fat contract. The first thing that pops into mind is, wait, those are bad things. In a very narrow and pure form of capitalism they are aligned with the spirit of capitalism, however, they show that capitalism has a large pool of factors involving what society promotes as good capitalistic endeavors versus ones that should not be occurring. Then one really should focus on questions like: What should be controlled, how should it be controlled, and who should control it. It's answers to those questions that will separate a capitalistic society from being deemed as a positive one or a corrupt and unjust one. Unfortunately, those questions are very difficult to answer for society, especially when many segments of the society tend to like to push their ethical agenda on how society should play out. For example, latest hot topic of same sex marriages. A neutral "good" capitalist would say, "As long as it doesn't hurt anyone and the consenting parties are pursuing their happiness using their resources, good for them". Conservative religious segments however, would argue that this is horrendously bad for society. It's kind of ironic that we all live in a capitalistic nation, yet have such a shallow understanding of what that really is about. Yet so many push their narrow ethical beliefs when answering questions of what, how, and who regarding the controlling factors of the capitalistic society should be - it nearly diverts from capitalism into struggling factions trying to push dictatorial/fascist ideas. And with that going on, it becomes a bickering war where people lose sight of what the country was set up to be in the first place, which was to get away from all that. Coupled with the factors that we are a democratic capitalistic society and with a general decline of education for the past 2 decades or so, the people that have a large role in determining, especially the "who" questions, are generally pretty separated from qualifications for making such decisions as are the "whos" that get elected/appointed to determine many of the whats and hows. Being a "melting pot" society is cool, but without being on or as close to the same page about what this country is about, fundamentally, through education or political involvement, and carrying that out through our decision makers, we're going to be far from a pretty picture of an exemplary capitalistic society. Not to mention how we treat the lower end of the society, but that's a whole 'nother problem. __________________ . Serving the [4th Force Recon] since June 2007 [Game rules, announcements, and SOPs ][ Armed Assault ][ Counter-Strike Source ][ Call of Duty ] "The success of what we do depends upon people valuing the team over themselves." - Wulfyn

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