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Author Topic: Doc Helgoland's Asylum for the Politically American: T+0  (Read 1425863 times)

Erkki

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Re: Doc Helgoland's Asylum for the Politically American: Post-Apocalypse
« Reply #14565 on: December 02, 2016, 03:41:17 am »

you need to incentivize employment, via an effective and rational minimum wage.

By necessity, government assistance needs to be below this amount, or the perverse anti-incentive manifests.

Thats one of the issues around here. Minimum wage results in a salary barely above what you need for the sickening at minimum 800 euro rents, plus food, clothing and other things for basic living. Because of the very high costs of living, theres a support system for rents too... Which sounds like an awesome idea until rents and assists keep going up hand in hand in a lovely bubble fed by taxes. Good part of the companies that own apartments are owned by the government and cities, too. Nothing stops them from raising rents by several % every year. In the end, many cant go to work because they'd risk getting less overall income and potentially not being able to afford for their living, and all the work is naturally where the high cost living is.
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Phmcw

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Re: Doc Helgoland's Asylum for the Politically American: Post-Apocalypse
« Reply #14566 on: December 02, 2016, 07:37:16 am »

I'm not against conservatism, but you're not one : you're a victim of the illusion of status quo.


The world change, those who adapt lives, those who cannot adapt die. That's true for companies (who praise "innovation" all the time) and that's true for governments.


Your single mother issue is a good one : you're saying that giving an allowance would have unexpected effect. Plenty of countries did just that, and you have all the data you need to weight the pro's and con of the situation.
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wierd

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Re: Doc Helgoland's Asylum for the Politically American: Post-Apocalypse
« Reply #14567 on: December 02, 2016, 08:49:11 am »

Waiting until you have more data is a feature of conservatism.

As for my not being one in the sense I stated...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiscal_conservatism

Seems pretty in line with what I explained to me.
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Lord Shonus

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Re: Doc Helgoland's Asylum for the Politically American: Post-Apocalypse
« Reply #14568 on: December 02, 2016, 08:51:18 am »

Have you been to Detroit recently?  How about Chicago?  How about Flint?  All three, and many more hard-hit inner cities have been safely Democrat for the last 2 - 3 generations.  You could probably point out problems with large cities that have been reliably republican for similar time frames, but I don't think any exist.  No, you do not want a single party to hold the reigns for too long without competent competition.  Competition keeps the people in power sharp.

Flint's water problems arose as a direct result of republican Governor Rick Snyder and other state officials' actions. Citation is wall street journal.

Flint's water problems arose as a result of the city going bankrupt and the state stepping in to take over.  The guy assigned to fix the city's finances just happened to also be, apparently, incompetent when it came to public works (he tried to cut a corner that should not have been cut).  Why Flint and Detroit went bankrupt (and the state of Michigan had to step in to fix their finances), is a much more complicated problem with roots in the race riots of the 60s and factory movement of the NAFTA era.

And I maintain that the nanny-state mentality of many Democrats leads directly to job-movement and lost opportunity.  That, and the reluctance of some Democrats to call a riot a riot.  Consider Baltimore last summer.  There were what, 3 days of rioting?  They stopped the minute the governor sent in the National Guard.

It would probably help to go over what happened in Flint in more detail, just so that everyone's on the same page of the conversation.

For a long time, Flint was getting water from the City of Detroit, which is an unusually expensive water system. After Republicans took power in that state, the state gained the power to place any municipal government under a special governor if that government is in a financial crisis. Flint was placed under such a governor who decided that another water system in the region would be just as good and significantly cheaper, and arranged for a switch. When Detroit turned off the flow, the other system wasn't ready to supply, and it was decided that water would be drawn from the Flint River (which had been an emergency backup for decades) as a temporary solution, and certain chemicals (mainly dissolved road salt) were not properly filtered out. While these chemicals would not normally be a major health hazard at the quantities present, much of Flint still has lead piping. Normally, lead pipes form a scale on the inside relatively quickly that prevents lead from contaminating the water - this is why there hasn't been nearly as great a push to remove them as there has been with lead paint and glazes. Unfortunately, the deposits in the Flint River happen to be very, very good at dissolving this scale, rendering the plumbing highly toxic.

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Frumple

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Re: Doc Helgoland's Asylum for the Politically American: Post-Apocalypse
« Reply #14569 on: December 02, 2016, 09:11:48 am »

That, and the reluctance of some Democrats to call a riot a riot.  Consider Baltimore last summer.  There were what, 3 days of rioting?  They stopped the minute the governor sent in the National Guard.
Eh, that's not really a party focused thing, tbh. Republicans are notably skittish about calling stuff like sports riots what they are (or just pointedly ignoring they existed) and pretty quick to downplay/attempt to reframe similar stuff that manifests differently (see that church shooting... a year or two ago? Something like that. Just as one example among many.).

... also very quick to call shit that very much isn't rioting that in order to discredit protesters. There's definitely all sorts of framing issues that have been plaguing american politics for years, now, basically. FTFE, et al.
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wierd

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Re: Doc Helgoland's Asylum for the Politically American: Post-Apocalypse
« Reply #14570 on: December 02, 2016, 09:17:11 am »


Re, flint's water
Law of unintended consequences..

However, the danger of lead piping is not new, and the ancient romans knew about it.

http://penelope.uchicago.edu/~grout/encyclopaedia_romana/wine/leadpoisoning.html


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Lord Shonus

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Re: Doc Helgoland's Asylum for the Politically American: Post-Apocalypse
« Reply #14571 on: December 02, 2016, 09:24:34 am »

Aye, that's why lead pipes were made illegal. It is just that nobody wanted to spend the vast amounts of money to rip the old ones out when the hazard was very small compared to other possible lead sources such as paint, pottery glazes, and gasoline. Fast forward decades after we stopped using the things, and most people didn't even realize there are any still around.
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ChristianWeiseth

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Re: Doc Helgoland's Asylum for the Politically American: Post-Apocalypse
« Reply #14572 on: December 02, 2016, 10:00:14 am »

A person who is both socially and fiscally conservative may assert that there is not actually a real problem, especially if it is for a social cause.

For example, giving money to single mothers is not something a social+fiscal conservative will really want to do. They would rather see that there are no single mothers, rather than give them social acceptance as a normal thing. As such, they would be more inclined to see that single mothers get temporary support, while they find another husband, etc-- and that such temporary support is indeed just temporary, with finite, fixed limits, and that it is exactly just barely enough to support them until they do so. They would be very concerned about changes in the incidence rate of this issue, as they would view it as a serious social ill in society that there are children not being raised in classic nuclear families. If the incidence rate goes up, they would be in a serious tizzy over it, not be looking for ways to hemorrhage more money to support them.

Throwing money at healthcare doesn't create better healthcare, it just gives bigger bonuses and salaries for the employees. Just as it does in almost every sector that doesn't have a feedback system between demand and supply.

I am a moderate, who is fiscally conservative, but socially liberal. I dont see a problem with single mothers, as long as they are able to properly provide for their children. Everyone falls on hard times, and having a social safety net is a good thing, but having people subsist entirely out of it is not acceptable. (For one, it takes money away from people who are just in a rough patch of road, which leads them to persistent poverty if they are not helped in a timely manner-- and two, enabling persistent populations supported by the state creates a persistent underclass which is deleterious to the society.) People getting government assistance should receive just enough to get by, and only for limited periods, and only recieve permanent assistance for VERY VERY special conditions, with strict requirements.

A social+fiscal liberal wants to accept every social choice as being valid, and wants to assure that everyone gets everything they want or need in a comfortable setting, regardless of price of impact to the rest of society.

Not sure how it is in the US but in Norway we have very serious problem with welfare spending.

I recommend the book "Michael Lipsky: Street Level Bureaucracies" as it explains why public directorates and institutions always "implode" over time.

For Example, in my country the single payer healthcare system capacity has reduced 67% whereas spending has increased 400% the last 30 years and even though we have three times as many doctors the amount of people waiting more than 6 months for operations/treatment has increased 64% and the price of each person in the system has increased by 70%. If we continue the current trend our healthcare system which is ranked best in the world by the UN will collapse.

Welfare is very nice, to not have to worry about poverty is relaxing, though I also see the problem with making people comfortably poor which makes people perpetual welfare dependent which limits social mobility over time.

What we end up is a strange mix of incentives to get people to work, get companies to hire unemployed by having government pay part of the salary etc all of which has consequences that creates new problems such as unfair advantage, corporations only hiring part time unemployed people on rotation to lower wage cost which requires new laws to prevent this which also limits companies ability to change in accordance to demand of services etc.

And with regards to the election I'm as a Norwegian is very happy Trump got elected even if he will force my country to contribute more to NATO because war with Russia is the biggest threat to welfare here in Europe and I hope it doesn't happen, though we do have warmongers here who want a war with Russia. Ironically in Norway both Communists and Conservatives are allied whereas the Socialist and Moderates want war... strange times.
« Last Edit: December 02, 2016, 10:03:55 am by ChristianWeiseth »
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McTraveller

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Re: Doc Helgoland's Asylum for the Politically American: Post-Apocalypse
« Reply #14573 on: December 02, 2016, 11:35:45 am »

So it seems like my philosophy is kind of similar to that of @Wierd - maybe we should start a new party?  ;D
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Shadowlord

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Re: Doc Helgoland's Asylum for the Politically American: Post-Apocalypse
« Reply #14574 on: December 02, 2016, 11:57:34 am »

So it seems like my philosophy is kind of similar to that of @Wierd - maybe we should start a new party?  ;D

We can call it the Illuminati.
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misko27

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Re: Doc Helgoland's Asylum for the Politically American: Post-Apocalypse
« Reply #14575 on: December 02, 2016, 12:18:06 pm »

So it seems like my philosophy is kind of similar to that of @Wierd - maybe we should start a new party?  ;D
Sure. Just get a couple of supremely wealthy backers and ideally at least a 100000000% increase in support and you are on your way to competing with the Libs and Greens for "Most entertaining waste of our time."
« Last Edit: December 02, 2016, 12:29:33 pm by misko27 »
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Re: Doc Helgoland's Asylum for the Politically American: Post-Apocalypse
« Reply #14576 on: December 02, 2016, 12:51:05 pm »

So it seems like my philosophy is kind of similar to that of @Wierd - maybe we should start a new party?  ;D
Sure. Just get a couple of supremely wealthy backers and ideally at least a 100000000% increase in support and you are on your way to competing with the Libs and Greens for "Most entertaining waste of our time."

If the people who didn't vote because they didn't like either major party had voted for a third party, then that third party would have won.

The idea that third parties is irrelevant is a very carefully constructed propaganda campaign created specifically to keep people from voting for them.
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BorkBorkGoesTheCode

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Re: Doc Helgoland's Asylum for the Politically American: Post-Apocalypse
« Reply #14577 on: December 02, 2016, 01:19:08 pm »

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Shadowlord

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Re: Doc Helgoland's Asylum for the Politically American: Post-Apocalypse
« Reply #14578 on: December 02, 2016, 01:21:49 pm »

Except that would never happen because people have issues getting to the polls and having the time to stay for hours if there's a line (and dealing with other voter suppression tactics).
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Sergarr

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Re: Doc Helgoland's Asylum for the Politically American: Post-Apocalypse
« Reply #14579 on: December 02, 2016, 01:30:54 pm »

So it seems like my philosophy is kind of similar to that of @Wierd - maybe we should start a new party?  ;D
Sure. Just get a couple of supremely wealthy backers and ideally at least a 100000000% increase in support and you are on your way to competing with the Libs and Greens for "Most entertaining waste of our time."

If the people who didn't vote because they didn't like either major party had voted for a third party, then that third party would have won.

The idea that third parties is irrelevant is a very carefully constructed propaganda campaign created specifically to keep people from voting for them.
That's assuming a nearly 100% turnout and no vote splitting in third-party vote. If third-parties had someone like Theodore Roosevelt level of charismatic figure on their side, then maybe yes, otherwise, yeah they don't matter.

Or rather, they do matter - it's just that the real effective third parties (i.e. Radical Populists, like Donald Trump, and Socialists, like Bernie Sanders) join the main two and subvert them from within.

In other news, shit in EC is slowly getting more real. Previously, I would say that it would be a bad idea if the result gets overturned... but given what massive garbage Trump has hired for administration, and the climate change funding disaster that they've already announced, yyyyeah I better hope they flip it. Sorry Obama, Trump is just that bad.
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