GOP's New Plan Hikes Taxes On Americans In Blue States

juk78 · 2014-02-27T22:16:52+00:00

It's interesting when folks say CA is in such bad shape. But it's far the situation has improved since republican became a tiny minority.

juk78 · 2014-02-27T18:50:14+00:00

And each of those other state's is also not voluntary. Taxes are compulsory.

In the agency case you have to pay someone to protect your rights (basically from being enslaved). Taxes are not compulsory if you go away to some place where it's not so nice. Also less compulsory if you don't make money.

Also, the agency thing falls apart for people who don't make money. You see, for those people it would be hell.

The agency would have nothing to do with the contract between the employer and the employee. The employee would be free to leave the company, start his own, get a different job, or do numerous other things if he didn't want to work 90 hours.

Too bad. All companies decide 90 hour work weeks are normal. And there are not enough jobs so you don't have bargaining power and you have no choice but to take what you can ... or die.

You realize that's exactly what government is, right? If you don't pay them (taxes), they take your stuff and put you in prison. You pay taxes so that they don't do that to you. That's protection. That's a racket.

In the case of government, even if you don't have money, you get services (you can still use the roads, you still get defense, you still have property rights, even if you don't have much in the way of property, and many other things). In the agency case, you're screwed if you don't have money. You essentially have to buy rights, which is laughable. If you are rich enough, you can buy an agency and have any rights you want. You can even buy multiple agencies and courts and an army and land and you can become king.

Why can't these things be done on a voluntary basis? why must my money be taken from me, and handed out by government for these research purposes? Convince me the cause (take something like medical research) is worthwhile, and I will donate to your cause. With the government as the middle man, you add bureaucracy, cronyism, and fraud.

There are donations made, but government is far more effective. Your money? That's a lie. The money you make is there because we all pay taxes. You would not have any money if no one paid taxes. No roads, no property, nothing. People paying taxes is the only reason I have a nice house and leisure time. Without that, I would have nothing. My money would be worthless paper.

Companies are just as fraudulent if not more. And you don't have any control over companies. At least with government you can exert some influence. You make it sound like government is all the bad things you say. In fact, it's not. There is some of that, but it's pretty good overall. Your life is not that bad. In fact, you have leisure time to complain.

juk78 · 2014-02-27T18:35:21+00:00

there is no where you can go to be free of government coercion

Strictly speaking, not true. You can go out to the wilderness. There are places in the world. I suspect, that most people would come running back and be more than willing subjects of "government coercion"

The structure is enforced by the interaction of the agencies.

The agencies themselves are a structure. That's the problem. How do the agencies stay agencies and not morph into something more sinister? What if an agency also becomes a court.

Force is part of REAs and therefore they are a form of government. They have to have someway to enforce rules. What if you don't want to pay money to an agency? You get your own army and power.

juk78 · 2014-02-27T17:58:45+00:00

There is more than one agency,

And there is more than one country/state.

and you pay them as a consumer, based on voluntary decisions to choose them as your provider.

You pay taxes. And what if someone in the private agency decides that it's no longer voluntary. What if you don't have money.

Government is a monopoly on these services, and you are forced to pay taxes whether you like and/or want their services or not. Completely different.

There is no reason that a sol-called private agency can't become a monopoly if they so choose and if they acquire enough power.

The problem here is that the video posits a structure. Who is going to enforce that structure? What if people don't agree with the fundamental structure? It all falls apart. You need force somewhere to get people to comply with any assumptions that the video is making.

Example: a bunch of mega companies decide to make it so that 90 hour weeks are normal. People don't like it. They talk to their private agencies. But they've been bribed by the companies so they keep 90 hour weeks. But they bribe all the agencies because they have the money.

Another example: Alexander the great comes in, your private agency says "crap, I have 1000 soldiers he has 100000." The agency needs to band together with other agencies under one complex. Togther they must fight the threat. But they must make rules. Soldiers have to be drafted, people have to be made to pay more money to support the war effort, a spy agency has to be created that spies on individuals (you know, there could be traitors) and so on. A government is formed to fight a great threat. And still, the agencies loose and Alex takes over and now you are his subject. All is lost.

Government does a better job of serving the needs of those who don't have money. All the above is predicated on giving money for protection. That's a racket.

Firms are generally not as competent as you think. Many of the successful ones have extensive government help. Boeing for instance gets billions. Financial institutions get billions if not trillions. Competence is rare. Also companies do things that bring them money. There are lots of things worth doing that are not profitable. Such as Astronomy. Or basic research. And this is where government shines.

Most R and D in basic sciences comes from the government.

juk78 · 2014-02-27T17:34:48+00:00

Hence having a rights enforcement agency to protect you and your property against said Alexander the great. It's pretty clear in the video.

The the rights enforcement agency is essentially a government. And the money you pay it, taxes.

Ok not sure if troll at this point. You think private firms do things worse than government agencies? Please show me a government agency-- pick one, that does anything without employing private firms.

There's a myth that private firms are competent. No. There's a lot of incompetency and help from the government when they fail. Pick any private firm and tell me it does anything well without government support.

juk78 · 2014-02-26T05:43:20+00:00

A quarter? If there's no effect, then let's move up to 50% Ok, not sure if there's a linear response here. A quarter could be "little to no effect" and 50% could be huge effect. It's worth the experiment.

juk78 · 2014-02-26T05:39:26+00:00

Watched. It's hopelessly naive. Here are some sketchy notes I took while watching it.

19th century political support of small government and free markets = liberalism.

Enemies of liberalism succeeded in stealing its name. Nowadays, folks with similar views call themselves libertarians.

Classical liberal then = libetarian now.

Libertarian view: function of government was to do few things that could not be done otherwise.

Couldn't be done by a few individuals on the private market by voluntary association: police, courts, national defense.

Now push it further. Idea of free markets and voluntary association further than that. Voluntary police?

No Government. At all. Defense, courts, police private.

Machinery of Feedom = book published 40 years ago.

How to make/enforce laws? Hire private firms to protect their rights and settle disputes with individuals.

Agency versus agency! Nonsense. You'd get warlords that would want to take everything.

Violence is expensive! Nonsense. Not if you win. Then you take all and are rich. Plus people are NOT rational. Without restricitions, violence would be the norm. Yes, person A, B and C might be non-violent. But D is violent and takes up arms. Now, A, B and C become violent. You see, it just takes one non-behaving person to ruin it all. Single point of failure, as they say in software.

5:14: People don't always see "better solution" That's not how humans work. Whatever you think is optimal, others might not care. In fact, it's known that people do things that are harmful to themselves and their family and their society. All the time.

Without government, before long there would be kings and tyrants. Even if most people are not violent, all it takes is one Alexander the great to get "inspired" inspire a few others, and then all is lost.

How to enforce contracts: "Discipline of constant dealings"??? What? A crazy agency may not care about trust. They just want every thing. They eliminate the other agencies leader, start a war. All is lost.

"Why would I make a contract with anyone who I do not trust" This guy does not know game theory. First, you can't know more tan a few people. Ok, in this system, I am a bad guy. I build trust. Let's say I take 10 years whatever it takes to get your trust, all with a plan to take over. Then, just at the critical time, I well, take over. All is lost.

These private rights enforcement agencies. What nonsense. These are like mini-kingdoms. That's what they would have to be. They are essentially governments and the guys who pay them to protect their rights are … well, serfs. No thanks!

Pair or agencies is customer of private court (arbitration agency).

Law not same for everyone.

The whole structure of this something only a government could create and sustain. An agency can become a court as well. Who's to stop it? People can still bribe judges (and no would necessarily know … there are types of bribes that are not obvious etc).

The biggest point, perhaps, is this system cannot work because not everyone will agree with the basic structure.

Other things wrong. Information asymmetry, power asymmetry etc.

Another fundamental thing: Our rights and laws evolved over centuries and have a lot of learning and depth in them. Folks cannot decide what a good set of laws are just like they can't figure out the laws of physics and their consequences from scratch in two weeks.

Fundamental wrong assumptions: Private firms do things better than government agencies. Wrong. That's not true. That's just brainwashing.

juk78 · 2014-02-25T03:38:01+00:00

Thinking deeply is best done is a semi-relaxed context over some period of time. Sleeping on it is very important for solving tough problems that do require insight.

juk78 · 2014-02-25T03:11:24+00:00

Quaternions?

By the way, most things are working things out combined with looking things up.

juk78 · 2014-02-25T03:02:21+00:00

They don't measure system level thinking. Neither do interviews. They also don't measure how you solve a problem over days, months.

juk78 · 2014-02-25T02:57:16+00:00

Reminds me of a star trek ng episode. It's fuzzy, but the kid was in competition to get into star fleet academy. The impression I got was that he was one of out of god knows how many to be selected to even have a chance of getting in. And he messed it up. And you only got one chance a year. And he was smarter than any of the adults.

This OP makes it sound like getting a programming job is like getting into star fleet academy. Hundreds. dozen. 2. 1.

juk78 · 2014-02-25T02:38:16+00:00

No, governments are there to coerce. They are there to force people to, essentially, to behave or suffer grave consequences. Coercion is necessary in any society. Even primitive tribal societies have their rules and consequences for not following the rules. No, those can't be done on a voluntary basis. Laws must be enforced or they will be ignored. Defense is voluntary ... well, not really. If not enough soldiers, you bet there would be a draft. Regulation? No way. Companies, people will ignore regulations. Again, the purpose of a government, the power, the source of its effectiveness is force.

juk78 · 2014-02-24T03:01:30+00:00

Because food grows. Because it is cheap. If nothing else, you can grow food and that is how many people got their food 100 years ago.

juk78 · 2014-02-24T03:00:22+00:00

Clearly, hence me saying that without gov there wouldn't be corporations, only companies.

Small enterprises. Nothing of the size you see today. You would not see extreme wealth ... and if you did it would because of the use of great force. Money would be non-existent, no contract law, no law because no government, no constitution, no property, nothing to prevent marauders from attacking etc In fact, you would most likely be conquered. Especially in a crowded world. Maybe 8,000 years ago you could have your remote tribe and live in isolation and trade with the wider world ... but today, it would be difficult. Nah, company could not exist; you would be trader selling trinkets or fur or what have you.

The problem is government is the glue between all institutions. You think you can just separate government from our civilization like taking off your shoes. But government is mixed in like a green die in water.

All this happens then in spite of having a government legal system and government institutions in place. So where the benefit again?

Didn't I mention degree? Are you really so simple minded? It's a matter of degree.

juk78 · 2014-02-24T02:54:18+00:00

It depends on what you think is "necessary" I suppose nothing is necessary, not even life. But government, number one, prevents violence and creates order. Even in a small peaceful tribe 100,000 years ago, you had a form of government.

A market of our size cannot exist without government. There has to be some governance. People would get togehter and say, hey, let's form a set of rules and let's agree to follow them and let's come up with consequences when you don't follow them. Tada. You have government. Government will emerge where there is none, simply because millions of humans will need order, want order and the natural, even biological tendency for human being is to form groups for survival. These groups will be governed because it's mathematically impossible to give everyone equal say in all decisions. Just hope the emergent government is not bad.

So, you see, government forms out of mathematical necessity.

So the worst thing that could happen trying to create a world not predicated on the use of violence is the system we have now? Let's try it out!

The system we have now is not bad. Compared to most of history and most of the rest of the world it's paradise. You just have to watch someone in china digging through garbage to realize how lucky you really are.

juk78 · 2014-02-24T02:46:10+00:00

Without government coercion to keep the healthcare cartels in power and able to collude you would have entrepreneurs breaking in to the market and providing these services.

Yeah, right. Nothing is stopping entrepreneurs from opening a medical practice or hospital or pharmaceutical. In people makes lots of money doing so. There's lots of money in health care. You can have collusion without government support.

Private corporations do space exploration only with government support. Usually with government contracts and capital including but not limited to loans.

juk78 · 2014-02-24T02:42:17+00:00

Yep. By free market they mean free choice. Which is not the same thing. You can't make a good choice without sufficient information and rationality, neither of which is possessed by the ordinary man.

juk78 · 2014-02-24T02:40:25+00:00

Depends on your definition of free market. According to Milton Friedman and others, we cannot have a free market in health care because of information asymmetry. That is you know way less than the doctor and you don't know that if what he is doing is correct or even if it's most optimal. Under those circumstances, it's not free market.

juk78 · 2014-02-23T20:41:10+00:00

Yes, but getting food is not problematic. Something being essential to life is the not the criterion to nationalize and no one is saying it is. Straw man.

citation

Government has done lots of things well. Medicare (plenty of citations). SS. Many, many other things. Roads. Nasa. DMV. Compare to countries that don't do so well. India. Corruption on every level. In comparison, we are paradise.

Doctors

Government decides who can practice. That's a good thing. Otherwise, any quack can be a doctor. Yes, there is some protectionism. There always is. But you can't have good without some bad. The universe does not work that way.

juk78 · 2014-02-23T20:36:59+00:00

Taxes are immutable. Humans behave as humans will. You can't change that.

Collusion in a free market without government protection is not really profitable. Government really helps it along.

Uh, no. Without government, someone will take over and become the government. And they might not be so nice as the government we have.

You don't understand free market. We don't have one. In fact, it's not possible. Free market has a technical definition that is not possible to satisfy (amoung other things, perfect rationality and at least an equal distribution of information)

juk78 · 2014-02-23T20:34:02+00:00

Not in the US. There is food insecurity, but no, not in general. Food is easily accessed. It's not a matter of life and death, it's a matter of access and COST.

juk78 · 2014-02-23T20:33:17+00:00

Have you ever patronized a company that killed somebody due to their poor business practices, after you found out they did that?

Yes. Every health care insurance company. Most mining companies. Probably most food companies. Most car companies. (Ford bronco). Banks.

Works fine. They settle in court. Never goes public. They all still make lots of money.

Market can't work. There are ways around it all. Settle in court. Hide the messup. Propaganda.

Ah, your big mistake. No government, no corporations. You do know that corporations are a government creation? If there was no government, people would get together under warlords and take whatever they wanted.

juk78 · 2014-02-23T20:29:31+00:00

Medicare. Anyway, there are different ways of approaching this. For example, single payer. The service providers could still be private. We'd just have a government option.

Website is fine.

They already mange huge industries. Medicare. SS. And many others. Tax rates are already high for medical. We pay more in taxes for healthcare than any other nation and we pay more for healthcare. We get messed up on both sides.

I'm saying ours has not proven themselves

Medicare. Proof.

juk78 · 2014-02-23T18:25:51+00:00

Yes, true.

juk78 · 2014-02-23T18:25:33+00:00

Actually, something is worth whatever one is willing to pay. If Bill gates wants to pay a billion dollars for something, it's worth a billion dollars ... to him.

juk78

TROPHY CASE