Obama funding plan for health insurance losses is a bailout

Dec 1, 2014 18:38:27 GMT pjohns1873 said:

Oh, I quite agree with Adam Smith that no one--no one--should be guaranteed "survival and comfort" (or anything else) based solely upon their labor. My own views are much closer to laissez-faire than that.

If the "average age" of a burger flipper is 29 nowadays--and (1) I do not know if that is correct or not; and (2) even if it is correct, there may be a substantial difference between the "average" age and the median age--then he (or she) should attempt to do better.

And, whereas you expounded at some length as regarding your personal philosophy concerning fairness, you never answered my direct question: Do you consider yourself more fair than most other Americans?   

Adam Smith literally argued that a percentage of the people must be denied "survival and comfort" based upon their labor. He advocated for an economic society basically like slavery in the South were there would be the wealthy plantation owner that ruled with an iron fist, some free employees of the plantation, and then the economic slaves. Is that the type of economy you advocate?    

The "burger flippers" are trying to do better but they can't because well over 40 million jobs in America don't provide adequate compensation for the person's survival and comfort (not luxury). No matter what one person does there are still 40 million that can't make it. This is exactly what Adam Smith advocated. You don't like the necessity of welfare assistance but you advocate an economic philosophy that requires welfare assistance for over 40 million working households based upon Adam Smith's economic philosophy.

I believe that most Americans, when they are informed, do believe in fairness. The problem is that most people aren't very well informed and because of their lack of knowledge they allow and sometimes even advocate the unfair treatment of others. I believe that when most people have the facts they're probably just as fair as I am. 

Dec 3, 2014 19:13:08 GMT pjohns1873 said:

So, you possess "the facts," but most others are living in blissful ignorance? Is that your opinion?

No one is required to live, permanently, as an "economic slave." That is where upgrading one's skillset comes in. (By the way, the characterization of capitalism as a system of "economic slave[ry]" is thoroughly Marxist.) 

Based upon the economic model in the United States about 40 million households are forced to live in poverty (economic slavery) and that number is not going to change unless our economic model changes. The statistics require one person to be forced into economic slavery for every person that manages to escape that slavery. That economic slavery is what Adam Smith advocated in his book 'The Wealth of Nation' where he proposed that capitalism always required an enslaved lower economic class that could not survive based upon their labor under capitalism.

I disagree with that principle because I believe capitalism can ensure that everyone has enough compensation for "survival and comfort" based upon their labor. The US has more than enough gross personal income from capitalism to ensure that every working household in the nation has enough compensation for their basic survival and comfort. It is not wealth redistribution to provide enough compensation for the basic survival and comfort of those actually creating the wealth of the nation by their labor.  

Dec 4, 2014 22:11:06 GMT pjohns1873 said:

First, I would fundamentally disagree with your assertion that "the nation" possesses some (aggregate) "wealth." Each individual (or household) indeed possesses a certain degree of wealth--whether substantial or quite modest--but it does not belong to the nation as a whole.  That is far too collectivist for my own tastes.

And if you "provide" more for some, you will necessarily increase prices for all.  Very few merchants are likely to look at some model in which they can (theoretically, at least) keep prices stable, and still remain above water, economically.  Most will simply raise prices.  Face it. 

And those who are currently impoverished are certainly not being forced into "economic slavery" by others.  Some were made poor through very unfortunate circumstances (e.g .divorce).  Others are just lazy.  And still others have inadequate ambition.  But they are certainly not being "forced" by capitalists to be poor. 

Adam Smith advocated economic slavery in his doctrine of capitalism when he asserted, and I paraphrase, that some people would have to starve so others can become wealthy.

Dec 10, 2014 18:40:16 GMT pjohns1873 said:

What sort of "market coercion," exactly, do you have in mind?

Anyone who finds the offered wages and/or benefits inadequate is certainly free to decline the work offered, and go elsewhere.  If he (or she) is incapable of commanding better compensation elsewhere, then he (or she) needs to acquire an improved skillset. 

The market creates a system where "going elsewhere" results in the same compensation. There is no place for the workers to go where they can secure better wages and compensation because wages and compensation are controlled cummulatively by all of the employers. Market driven wages and compensation is established by what employers will pay and the workers are forced to accept that compensation. That was even true when I was earning over $100,000/yr. I didn't set that compensation level, the employer did, and I had no real say or influence related to it. I even learned it wasn't based upon my skills and knowledge but instead was based upon a general classification where many unqualified workers were also receiving the same compensation. 

Of course for the poor acquiring an improved skillset is a financial impossibility. They can't afford to live off of the income they earn and certainly can't go to college or attend job training programs.

While I don't know if this has any significance all of the employees in my job specialty where I last worked were white and with only one exception all were male. I'm not claiming racial or gender discrimination but only noting that it appeared like the only one's basically being hired for these high paying positions were basically white males. That did seem odd to me at the time because I've know many very qualified blacks and women that were as competent as my co-workers. Once again, no claim of discrimination but merely citing the fact that it was very odd that no blacks and only one woman was employed in our office. I can also note that there were no women in management at our office either. How strange.

See my next post.

Dec 12, 2014 19:29:06 GMT pjohns1873 said:

Since you are infinitely better acquainted with your former employer than I am, I will not attempt to comment upon that matter.

If an employee's going elsewhere merely "results in the same compensation," and that compensation is inadequate, then it is very likely that he (or she) requires an improved skillset; which you breezily dismiss as "a financial impossibility." (People used to be asked to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps; then the left came along with its rationalization that these folks simply "have no bootstraps," thereby altering, fundamentally, the meaning of the metaphor.  So let me put it another way:  They should improve themselves through their own efforts.) 

"They should improve themselves through their own efforts."

How?

Most are working as many hours as they can and don't have time for education or job training. They can't afford to quit working and their employers don't offer them on-the-job-training where they can achieve greater success. They can change jobs but they find themselves with an employer just like their previous employer. Many are women or minorities and the "white males" typically receive any promotions (i.e. white male privilege that I always had during my entire working career).

I've already provided references that show that middle-income jobs are disappearing and these were the steps in the ladder a person required to improve themselves through their own efforts. I succeeded because those "steps in the ladder" were there but there are fewer and fewer steps in the ladder today while there are more and more people that would need these steps to improve themselves. We're no longer living in the 1950's or 1960's where a person could improve themselves by working hard and making steps up the economic ladder. IE and technology are replacing those steps and with every robot and every automated system someone is losing a job and a step in the ladder is being removed.

As I've documented 40% of all manufacturing jobs per capita in the US (and the world) have been eliminated since 1970 and those jobs were the foundation of economic advancement in the US. There is an old saying that all wealth is either grown or mined and the automation of both manufacturing and farming has elminated the sharing of wealth creation by workers previously involved in bringing that which is grown or mined to market. The "owners of the automation" (i.e. investors) are reaping the profits leaving less and less for the workers that traditionally created the wealth.

That is why poverty is expanding ultimately and eventually, as I've noted, there will be little necessity for human labor and knowledge at all. What happens then? What happens when people really aren't needed to create wealth? That is the road we're on and we're seeing it's effects. There believe that a person can improve themselves financial is becoming a myth. You make a proposal that becomes less and less possible with every passing minute for the vast majority of people.

Are you aware of the fact that statistically only about 5% of the people actually advance economically today? Roughly 40% of Americans are living on less income than they require (i.e. in relative poverty) and only about 5% of those will ever advance enough to work their way out of that poverty in their lifetime. It isn't that they're not willing to work or that they're not dedicated to trying to advance themselves but instead it's because our system doesn't allow them to.

Are you aware of the fact that since 2007 all Americans lost personal wealth but whites have recovered and are once agian increasing their household wealth while blacks are still in a downward spiral? The average household wealth of white households was about $140,000 in 2013 and increasing from 2010 while for blacks it was $11,000 and still going down.

It's all very noble to state that "They should improve themselves through their own efforts" while ignoring the fact that they can't do that anymore in the vast majority of cases. When you can tell me how 40% of American households can do this today then you'll have an argument. You might just as well be saying that they should "walk on water" because that's about all of the meaning your statement carries.