Most of the gains of the last century seem to have been erased over the past couple of decades…
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Praxaeology, obviously.
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They haven’t disappeared, they’ve just been funneled to the uppermost class.
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I swear, it must be a huge cosmic joke that nearly all the places which have a relatively ideal quality of life are so freakin’ far from the equator.
I hate the cold, dammit!
*lolz
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Really? I think this one is more fitting.
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No, you said “all pulling in the same direction”. Not 20%. It is a material, substantial difference.
You’re imagining that 20% of citizens, and the permanent members of the public service have a better “long-term interest” view than the 100% of the citizens. This is so patronizing - and selective. We could sit here all day giving counterexamples to their glorious “long term interest” omniscience. A government has no skin in the game - has crappy incentive feedback mechanisms - it deserves no presumption of competence or omniscience.
That’s a dishonest equivocation. The question was about collectivized services, and whether they are the “best” way of providing each of them. Not one of the items on your list was “in a competitive study, voted sewage treater of the year”.
Oh, private industry is doing gangbusters with countless things that keep you alive and fed and moved and enlightened (?), such as the very device under your palm and the doritos in your kitchen and the prius on the driveway and every single one of my postings. But you’re ignoring my point that governments deliberately make it difficult or impossible to compare them once they squat in an industry, by outlawing or penalizing private alternatives. It’s almost as if they are afraid of competition.
After all your strawman fallacies and contractions you’re soldiering on?
Bravo. Queen Ayn would be proud.
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Okay, first, you’re pulling a quote from the “Do we all agree on the direction the government is pulling?” section of the discussion, and applying it to the “Are we all contributing?” argument. That’s not kosher.
My thoughts on “Are we all contributing?” are, to quote the same post that you responded to,
Not everyone can give millions of dollars in taxes, because most people don’t have that to give. Everyone gives what they can, and thus, we are all pulling together.
See also: pallbearer metaphor and Bible reference. Odd that you didn’t quote/refute that part of my message.
No, that would be you again. I’m the one saying that money should be taken from the 20% and put in the hands of the people chosen by the “50%+1” (which, since we’re never going to have 100% agreement on anything, is at least closer to 100% than 20% is). If that 20% kept the tax money that would have been given to the government, and were free to spend it on anything, instead of contributing to the government, then we would have to trust that they would choose to spend it in the common interest. That, instead of buying vehicles that would chew up the dirt road and dumping their sewage into the nearest river, that they’d choose to pave the roads and lay the sewers themselves.
As you yourself say, “This is so patronizing - and selective.”
Or, we can set up a government and have them pay taxes, and the government will have to either work (mostly) in the common interest of the people or it will eventually be overthrown.
[quote=“fche, post:108, topic:77613”]
A government has no skin in the game - has crappy incentive feedback mechanisms - it deserves no presumption of competence or omniscience.[/quote]
I agree (other than that, again, the government has some skin in the game because if they piss the people off too much, they get a revolution).
But the only feedback mechanism that the private sector has (especially in the absence of a government to keep them honest) is profit. Why should we trust them to work in the public interest, if they can make more profit by not doing so?
Do you really think that people would be happier (or have better quality of life or higher life satisfaction) in a place where the sewage was being untreated?
If you want a specific study, run it yourself. I’m refuting your argument as a whole. “Socialist” countries are usually considered to be the ones that have the most services and infrastructure run by the state. You asked me how I measured their ability to do these things better, and my reply was that things are generally better in the countries where they do.
[quote=“fche, post:108, topic:77613”]
Oh, private industry is doing gangbusters with countless things that keep you alive and fed and moved and enlightened (?), such as the very device under your palm and the doritos in your kitchen and the prius on the driveway and every single one of my postings. [/quote]
You shift the discussion from infrastructure to gadgets and toys, and you have the nerve to call my argument a “dishonest equivocation?”. To quote you, “The question was about collectivized services,” not consumer products.
[quote=“fche, post:108, topic:77613”]
But you’re ignoring my point that governments deliberately make it difficult or impossible to compare them once they squat in an industry, by outlawing or penalizing private alternatives. It’s almost as if they are afraid of competition.[/quote]
I’m not ignoring your point, I’m asking for examples. As I said, hundreds of countries, billions of people, yadda, yadda. Surely not every government provides every centralized service everywhere. Find me an example, any example, of a private competitor doing a better job of creating and maintaining infrastructure on a national level than a socialist government does.
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It’s not a coincidence, it’s colonialism.
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There’s always New Zealand - that kept coming up on the Top 10 as well.
Or, you know, you can wait a couple decades and those countries will get warmer.
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No. Scroll way, way up. You trumpeted the glorious virtue of government as the vehicle “that if we all work together on something, we have a much better chance of success”. Repeated multiple times. Do you now admit that “all” is grossly overstated?
That is a nonsense definition. A bunch of people are on the cart, being pulled by the others. A bunch of people are milling around. A few people are doing a huge fraction of the pulling. That is not “all” except in the trivial sense of “everyone wins a participation prize!!!”.
No. They would only need to spend it in self interest, if incentives were set up properly. Prohibiting sewage dumping into the river is a separate level of government intervention from providing tax-funded sewage treatment.
But the only feedback mechanism that the private sector has (especially in the absence of a government to keep them honest) is profit.
Yup. And that’s quick, brutal, efficient.
Why should we trust them to work in the public interest, if they can make more profit by not doing so?"
Your argument only works by redefining “public interest” in a circular manner. (“it can’t be public interest if it is justified by self interest”).
my reply was that things are generally better in the countries where they do.
things - doesn’t seem a trifle vague? A little conveniently subject to cause-effect attribution errors (again, the topic was specific infrastructure, which you asserted that are “best” provided by government).
“The question was about collectivized services,” not consumer products.
Then your question is an oxymoron: “name private collectivized services that work better than non-private collectivized services”, as though the first category weren’t self-contradictory. And in case you haven’t noticed, the list of types of “infrastructure” that your fellow travelers would like governments to expand to is limitless. Broadband too, right?
Find me an example, any example, of a private competitor doing a better job of creating and maintaining infrastructure on a national level than a socialist government does.
That is so ripe for true-scotsmaning. By definition, there is apprx. no “national infrastructure” at the level of municipal physical services. There is plenty of privately operated national-scale infrastructure (internet, aviation & air-traffic-control, banking, railways, parcel delivery, farming & food distribution, power generation … ad infinitum).
Do you want Immortan Joe? Because that’s how you get Immortan Joe.
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The irony of you calling out someone else for ignoring points you’ve made is apparently lost on you in spite of your penchant for not only ignoring points you don’t like but making false claims in an attempt to counter some.
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You obviously don’t own Boeing stock. 
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All that tells me is you’re in denial about the social contract, when it has costs, like most internarrcisists.
it’s them them them, but friend… it’s you.
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Do you admit that he didn’t use a trumpet?
Go back to libertarian school, you’re embarrassing your cause here today.
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Just drove through Gary, Indiana twice yesterday and will do it again today. There was a relatively brief time in recent history when regulations were in place and the air was breathable, but we’re back to your second photo, which causes everyone there to look like your first photo.
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No. “Unanimity” means “we all agree.” Government is “we all pay our taxes and contribute, even if we don’t want to.” There’s nothing about “all pulling together” that has anything to do with unanimity.
And those people who lack the strength to pull, should they be left behind to die in the streets? Or are you referring to these guys?: [These 27 profitable S&P 500 companies paid no tax last year.] (http://boingboing.net/2016/03/13/these-27-profitable-sp-500-co.html)
If the wagon is the country or its government, I have no idea who these people are supposed to be, who don’t interact with the wagon at all.
The annual budget of the United States, per capita, is about $100,000. I don’t make $100,000 a year, and I’m middle-class, bordering on upper-middle-class. If I lost $100,000, I’d probably have to find another place to live; $200,000, and I’d probably be homeless. Whereas if Bill Gates (sorry, Bill, but you’re still the richest) lost $100,000, he’d probably shrug and stop somewhere to buy a new wallet.
As the story in the Bible goes: the old woman who tosses a few cents into the donation box, which she can ill afford to pay, is holier for doing so than the wealthy people who toss in the big bags of coin, which they can give without missing any of it (I apologize for getting the story wrong previously; I looked it up since then).
Going back to Dubai - dumping sewage in the river was already illegal, but it didn’t stop until the government-provided sewage treatment was in place and serving everyone. But I have you on record: we should have a nanny state holding our hand and telling us everything that we are and are not allowed to do.
And doesn’t lead at all to oil companies pumping carbon into the air and [knowingly ruining our planet] (Exxon's Oil Industry Peers Knew About Climate Dangers in the 1970s, Too - Inside Climate News), and then [funding research to ignore the science] ("Dark Money" Funds Climate Change Denial Effort | Scientific American) and say that’s not what’s happening. Or [Japanese fisheries over-fishing] (Warning over Pacific bluefin tuna stocks as Japan meeting ends in stalemate | Fishing | The Guardian) and killing off the very species that sustain their livelihood. Or companies providing the illusion of insurance, and then [denying the claims] (Jennifer Huculak-Kimmel billed $950K US after giving birth in U.S. | CBC News) when they’re submitted.
Oh, wait. Never mind.
Not at all. I’m just saying that if there’s an opportunity for sustainable long-term gain, and an opportunity for modest short-term gain, we’re wired to take the short-term gain. That is: private citizens (or companies) tend to only act in the long-term interest of the greater good insofar as it’s also in the short-term interest of that citizen/company.
I’m not saying that companies won’t act in the public interest when it profits them to do so; I’m saying that when the two are at odds, the conflict of interest is usually resolved in favour of profits, and to the detriment of the public good.
- Quality of Life
- Happiness
- Income equality
- Crime rate
- Press Freedom Index,
- Life Satisfaction
I’m sure I could find a few more things that are better in socialist countries than in the U.S. (and certainly better than Somalia). Do you want me to look?
No, the topic was “You didn’t build that” - that companies have received benefit from infrastructure that was built using taxpayer funds, and that they should thus pay it forward by paying taxes, so that the next generation of companies will benefit in the same way. And I didn’t assert that they were best “provided” by government; I asserted that private citizens/companies wouldn’t bother to create those services unless the government forced them to, incentivized them to, subsidized. or built it themselves.
By “collectivized” I thought you meant “serving an entire community.” If that’s what you meant, you admit that a group of private citizens and companies can’t run their own sewage system? Their own interstate system?
Oooh, here’s the bit I was waiting for. I’ll stick to the U.S., since that’s where you seem to be from.
internet
[Heavily subsidized.] (RAJA5K: Link Daftar Situs Judi Online Hoki Slot Gacor Depo 5000) (And that doesn’t include the subsidies to roll out the phone lines and television cables).
aviation & air-traffic-control
[U.S. airports are largely owned by city, county or state governments] (http://www.cnn.com/2014/04/02/travel/u-s-airports-bad/), and air-traffic control is [provided by the FAA]
(Federal Aviation Administration - Wikipedia) (a government agency).
banking
[Heavily subsidized] (Bloomberg - Are you a robot?) (not to mention when they need to be bailed out, like in 2007/08).
railways
[The federal government operated a land grant system between 1855 and 1871, through which new railway companies in the uninhabited West were given millions of acres they could sell or pledge to bondholders. A total of 129 million acres (520,000 km2) were granted to the railroads before the program ended, supplemented by a further 51 million acres (210,000 km2) granted by the states, and by various government subsidies.] (History of rail transportation in the United States - Wikipedia)
parcel delivery
That’s not infrastructure in itself, that’s a consumer service built on the existing roads and rails.
farming
Not infrastructure, but [still heavily subsidized] (https://farm.ewg.org/).
food distribution
Not sure what you’re talking about here, so I’ll leave it alone, and…
power generation
[Subsidized.] (Energy subsidy - Wikipedia)
…And in case you’re going to say that there’s a difference between “government-funded” and “government-run”: you’re right. There is. But the argument, again, is that companies who have received benefits from taxpayer funds (like that list of taxpayer-funded services that you provided, thank you) have a moral obligation to pay their own taxes and pass those benefits on.
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Da fuck?
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