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First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out....

Discussion in 'Sports and News' started by poindexter, Jan 27, 2014.

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  1. daemon

    daemon Well-Known Member

    You are embarrassing yourself. I identified several instances in which you failed to make a valid logical argument, and several others in which you attempted to use inaccurate statistics to make a point. You have not countered with anything resembling coherence. I suggest taking your own advice and stepping away.
     
  2. The Big Ragu

    The Big Ragu Moderator Staff Member

    The thing that tickles most about where this thread went:

    How we've somehow "established" that 47 millions of people (or some large portion of those people) wouldn't buy food without SNAP (There is somehow a black market that traffics EBT cards, but no consideration for why people would want to sell their food subsidy at a discount to get cash), so therefore we have this "fact": that SNAP creates incremental demand for food (Another fact: It benefits "Big Food." all-capstm)

    Can't you use any bullshit-connect-the-dots, to conclude anything you want with this stupidity? I mean, I would argue (It's fact!) that it is more logical that people would still spend their first dollar on food (since it is a necessity), and what SNAP does is free up money for other things. Why can't SNAP really be a program that benefits clothes retailers (because with the subsidy for the food, people can now spend the amount of the subsidy that they would have spent on food on new clothes)? Has SNAP ever made a big screen TV a possibility for anyone, by freeing money from a food budget? Does that make it a boon to "Big Consumer Electronics"TM?

    Of course, we have a bunch of amateur central planners on here who can connect the dots so damned precisely (read the link my Google search found!). ... But, no thought to considering what we know is an ACTUAL cost: Where that money would have OTHERWISE been allocated -- without it being redistributed, and what it would have meant for the world.

    And nope, it is income distribution, so therefore it isn't a wealth distribution program.

    Mmm hmmm. ... it's funny. Because Richard Rahn uses the tact daemon got a chubby over to argue against ALL taxation (pretty much anywhere he can get an audience).

    Not that it has anything to do with this discussion, still. ... All he is saying is, income tax to make the rich help the poor? No way. You aren't hitting the right people! You're getting honest working stiffs saddled with student debt. Oh, then a wealth tax, of course! That will get JUST the rich? Oh no. Can't do that either. You freeze up capital, kill jobs and productivity and incentivize people to move their wealth elsewhere, a la France. Capital gains? No way, it catches too many regular folks who sold their farm or small business and it can really be a tax on imaginary income if their investment didn't keep pace with inflation. He's an anti-tax crusader, and that link has nothing to do with this discussion, unless the idea is that we need to stop taxing anything (which would take away the redistributed money we are discussing in the first place!).
     
  3. Baron Scicluna

    Baron Scicluna Well-Known Member

    You're counting on people to actually have a dollar in the first place. To do that, they need to have jobs, which, a good amount of people on SNAP already have (over 60 percent according to this http://www.cbpp.org/cms/?fa=view&id=3894).

    If the people on SNAP use their money to buy food instead of SNAP, then they're not paying something else, like their rent, or their heat, or their medical, or their other bills.
     
  4. RickStain

    RickStain Well-Known Member

    It's absolutely a wealth redistribution program. And good for it. I like wealth redistribution programs.
     
  5. waterytart

    waterytart Active Member

    Investors and possessors of gold are a Venn diagram whose circles overlap but are not identical. You have to allow for the possessors who have "in case you need to bribe the border guards" echoing in their subconscious.
     
  6. 3_Octave_Fart

    3_Octave_Fart Well-Known Member

    Great thread...it's been like a circular firing squad.
    My kind of fun!
    I know a fight with a mod ain't ever a fair fight, but I applaud the thread staying unlocked.
    As you were. (Jesus is coming.)
     
  7. daemon

    daemon Well-Known Member

    Ragu, you seem to have succeeded in convincing yourself that the trajectory of this thread was something other than reality. So let's recap.

    1. You are provided with three succinct grafs that suggest "REDISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH!" is misleading when used in its popular context. You are provided with examples. One of them is that the real issue is aggregate benefit derived from government spending, and for whatever reason the folks who are most vocal about "REDISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH!" often fail to account for the many ways in which the rich receive a sizable chunk of the distribution revenues, beginning with defense outlays. The second is the issue of income vs. wealth.

    2. You respond with a lengthy diatribe that, among its few concrete points, dismisses the validity of the notion that value derived from defense spending might be weighted according to wealth, as well as the validity of the notion that there is a real distinction between income and wealth.

    3. You are provided with evidence that refutes both points that you dismiss. The evidence happens to come from papers that support your overall world view, one of which you had originally linked to, which spells out why defense spending is legitimately believed to benefit the rich more than the poor. Said paper, which you originally cite to make a huge claim about net benefit from distribution of tax revenues, acknowledges that it does not account for this legitimate difference in value and that it instead assigns an equal defense spending benefit to all households, rich or poor, leading to the number you end up citing.

    4. Rather than arguing the specific points of contention, you shift the discussion.

    Just because you type a lot of words doesn't mean they make sense. From the beginning, my simple point has been that the super rich often do not take into account the value they derive from government spending, most egregiously the work that the Depts. of Defense and State conduct on their behalf to facilitate/protect trade. And that $75 billion spent on SNAP, as flawed as the program may be, pales in comparison to the amount of money big corporations save by living in a country with a government that pays for services that are essential to their ability to survive and thrive. And the gov't spending that protects the welfare of the rich helps them exponentially, because it protects capital (i.e. wealth), rather than simply providing goods of consumption.

    That's it. Everything else is you arguing against one of your boogeymen. Which is fine. Like I said, it is amusing.
     
  8. The Big Ragu

    The Big Ragu Moderator Staff Member

    OK, I buy all of your factTM.

    So we have a $3.6 trillion Federal budget (doesn't include trillions of other spending and our monetary debasing), financed in part by debt.

    That money isn't mostly spent on entitlement programs that redistribute wealth incomeTM from people who have more to those who have less.

    Got it. Everything isn't what it actually appears to be (I keep shifting the discussion!), because as "flawed" as things are it "pales in comparison to the amount of money big corporations save by living in a country with a government that pays for services that are essential to their ability to survive and thrive."

    You didn't build that, Mark Zuckerberg or Sara Blakely!

    "And the gov't spending that protects the welfare of the rich helps them exponentially."

    With that tripe factTM now established. ... Why aren't we dismantling the $3.6 trillion Federal monstrosity that has run up $17 trillion in debt (and growing) to "protect the welfare of the rich"?

    I mean, this can't possibly be a good thing, right?

    I want to subscribe to your newsletter AND sign the petition that puts an end to that madness (seriously!).
     
  9. cranberry

    cranberry Well-Known Member

    Football season ends and this is how you guys spend your Sundays?
     
  10. Baron Scicluna

    Baron Scicluna Well-Known Member

    What are we supposed to do, watch the Olympics?
     
  11. doctorquant

    doctorquant Well-Known Member

    Trying to find some info on all those food riots that occurred prior to the start of the U.S. food stamp program (1939), and between that initial program's end (1943) and the initiation of the "modern" food stamp program (1964).
     
  12. daemon

    daemon Well-Known Member

    No you aren't. Or, if you are, you aren't trying very hard.

    http://www.newyorker.com/archive/1931/11/14/1931_11_14_056_TNY_CARDS_000211494

    http://www.arhistoryhub.com/wp-content/uploads/gravity_forms/2/2012/05/1931-England-Food-Riot.pdf

    http://digital.library.okstate.edu/encyclopedia/entries/G/GR014.html

    http://www.timesdispatch.com/special-section/the-civil-war/civil-war-th-richmond-bread-riots-were-biggest-civil-uprising/article_faa79410-99a9-11e2-a04a-001a4bcf6878.html
     
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