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Green New Deal
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nwdiver
Well-Known Member
juliusa
Active Member
No - we lost 40% of jobs, compared to the 25% you estimated. No problem.
No problem. Plenty of consumers. Visit a section 8 housing project and look at all the big screen TVs and smart phones. Everyone is a consumer.
Enjoy your retirement, but expect your taxes to go up along with all the other rich retired people. Be sure that is in your FIRE plan. And be careful of your assets too - Liz is coming after them, not just your income.
Just the smart ones. Those that want it all will have nothing - and likely not their lives either.
juliusa
Active Member
We are all bosses and shareholders, except the poor. They are welfare recipients.
nwdiver
Well-Known Member
The bottom 80% own 6.7% of stock. 48% own 0%. ~20% receive some kind of public assistance. Pretty big gap there.
Math disagrees. If we need 4 consumers for every 1 worker there aren't enough people receiving welfare and those benefits are not sufficient to consume the additional production... unless we increase benefits and expand the role (aka UBI). At least you admit that the additional consumers have to receive their purchasing power from not work.
She wants 2% of every dollar >$25M. I'm ok with that. If you can't live on $25M you have other problems....
juliusa
Active Member
Economics will fix that. Narrow the gap.
Too funny. I thought it was $50M.
First they came for the $25M, and I did not speak out, because I did not have $25M.
Then they came for the $5M, and I did not speak out....
I live in CT where a Republican governor implemented a "temporary" income tax. That was in 1991. We still have it.
We have had pages of discussion about the economy, having nothing to do with "Green" and climate change. If nothing else, have we established that these are two different things and can be discussed separately? A guaranteed income has nothing to do with Green. Nor does having consumers when they have no jobs. The fossil fuel jobs are a rounding error compared to those impacted by AI and robotics.
You worry about the impending collapse of our economic system, and hope for the government to save us.
I'm going to chill comfortable in the fact the our inept corrupt government will never agree on anything, and therefore do very little damage, while the economy takes care of itself.
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nwdiver
Well-Known Member
When? We're locked in a game of 'Monopoly'. How does that game end?
As the owner of a solar panel installation company I can tell you they're definitely connected.... can you guess what the #1, 2 and 3 reasons are people don't kick the fools fuel habit?
juliusa
Active Member
Economics, economics, and economics?
When there is something to fix. Economy is VERY happy right now. When that changes, it will adjust.
nwdiver
Well-Known Member
No. The economics are definitely there. The ROI of solar is almost as good as the stock market.
Unfortunately it's only working for <20% of people. Do we need to wait until the mob forms before we take action? So if we need 4 consumers for every 1 worker we wait until AFTER the depression to fix the problem? Seems like an insane idea but I try to think logically......
juliusa
Active Member
The government has proven it is incapable. Depression (some say government policy extended it), great recession (some say government policy caused it), and countless recessions that the government has been unable to do anything about.
Government has simply interfered with the economy. Never fixed anything. Economics fixes the economy.
In theory no, in practice yes.
How are all your economic indicators and ratios doing today?? All the ones I see say things are great. Most people have prospered over the past several years, and most people vote their pocketbook - not good news for the challengers.
As things change, there is plenty of time to make adjustments. 100 years ago there were no social programs - there was the free market and charity. I posted a long list of social programs that have been steadily put in place over the years. More will come - when/if needed.
nwdiver
Well-Known Member
LOL! What do you think would happen to people >65 without Social Security and medicaid? The life expectancy in the US would drop ~5 years.
We're only doing great if you cherry pick the data. Ask former GM workers in Ohio making ~$15/hr making glass instead of $40/hr making cars. Look at the rust belt and former coal mining towns, for most people this is not working. This is only the beginning....
If you hate government then you should love UBI. All the government does is move money. No social programs just a UBI.
Like AGW an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. We should be doing small things now like reducing full time to 32 hours (Like it is in The Netherlands) and lowering the retirement age.
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juliusa
Active Member
Incapable of taking action to avert the depression, great recession, and many other recessions along the way.
Social Security is a disaster. Like a Ponzi scheme, it is dependent on an ever expanding working population to pay for current retirees. Can you imagine if it were simply a 401k-like plan with the payroll taxes going directly to an individual's account?? It would be fully funded, and seniors would have significantly more retirement benefits - imagine what that would do to life expectancy!! Another reason our corrupt government needs immigration - programs are based on an expanding economy and work force.
The only way to save it is finally admit that it was never forced savings for retirement - that was just another goverment lie. It is simply a tax to pay for current retirees. And then raise the hell out of taxes to pay for it. What does that do to consumption? A nice hole we have dug for ourselves. Just like teacher and other government "pensions" that are just unfunded liabilities.
We are the government, and we're here to help. Thanks, but no thank you.
nwdiver
Well-Known Member
LOL! Again.... what would happen to people >65? Have you met people? Most people don't know how to manage a 401k. That's why we need social security.
Yeah... people are morons. It's frustrating and it sucks. But the economy needs consumers...... Money has to move and a homeless senior camp that cashed out their 401k on a lark like a friend of mine did when they were younger helps no one.
juliusa
Active Member
Who said manage? I'm talking of forced contributions to their own retirement account, with similar ruled to SS.
Maybe 3 choices on how it is invested is all. Contributions would be mandatory through payroll taxes - but to an individual's account. Then when they reach 65 it pays out according what they want, between 1 and 1.5x the RMD calculation for private plans based on their desires. Whatever is left at death goes to their heirs tax free.
The idea of tax current workers and give it to current retirees is criminal - actually, if a company did that it would be criminal. Only the government can have unfunded liabilities like that.
nwdiver
Well-Known Member
Now I'm curious... how irrational are you? If Jeff Bezos wanted to buy every national park and not let anyone in.... should that be ok because free market and money rules?
There are some things the free market simply is not equipped to cope with. AGW and a democratic society were production capacity greatly exceeds purchasing power from the value of human labor related to that production capacity when half the population is irrationally resistant to owning the production capacity are two examples.
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juliusa
Active Member
Yep. The government can sell of public land. I don't think he could afford even a small part of one though. I think they tried this recently and there was a huge outpouring of protest and it was canned. That was BLM land, not national parks. Hopefully the government we elect would never sell any land, and definitely not sell any park.
I think a free market economy would never let that happen. Only in a goverment planned economy do those mismatches occur.
Andrew Yang supports your view on jobs - he thinks the loss of 4M jobs to automation in swing states is what got Trump elected. The next thing to go is 3.5M truck driving jobs. Unemployment crisis is coming.
Andrew Yang gets why Donald Trump won. He won't be president but he deserves attention.
I look at the data a little differently. Did you know 4M jobs were lost to automation in those states? They are gone, never coming back, and the unemployment rate in the four states he names is 4% or less. Seems like those 4M people found something else to do, or retired early.
Elizabeth Warren's new anti-corruption plan gets to the root of the problem. It will require much more than just tinkering with incentives and letting the "free market" sort it out.
Elizabeth Warren Releases Sweeping Anti-Corruption Plan | HuffPost
Warren’s plan would ban lobbyists from many fundraising activities and serving as political campaign bundlers, tighten limits on politicians accepting gifts or payment for government actions and bar senior officials and members of Congress from serving on nonprofit boards.
It also would prohibit federal judges from avoiding misconduct investigations by leaving their posts, prevent courts from sealing settlements in public health and safety cases and ban class action waivers for all cases involving employment, consumer protection, antitrust and civil rights.
“Make no mistake about it: The Trump Administration is the most corrupt administration of our lifetimes,” Warren wrote in an online post announcing the plan. “But these problems did not start with Donald Trump. They are much bigger than him — and solving them will require big, structural change to fundamentally transform our government.”
Warren has long argued that the nation’s modern government only works for “the wealthy and the well-connected” like big energy, health care and insurance companies that employ lobbyists to advance their priorities over the best interests of ordinary citizens.
Elizabeth Warren Releases Sweeping Anti-Corruption Plan | HuffPost
Warren’s plan would ban lobbyists from many fundraising activities and serving as political campaign bundlers, tighten limits on politicians accepting gifts or payment for government actions and bar senior officials and members of Congress from serving on nonprofit boards.
It also would prohibit federal judges from avoiding misconduct investigations by leaving their posts, prevent courts from sealing settlements in public health and safety cases and ban class action waivers for all cases involving employment, consumer protection, antitrust and civil rights.
“Make no mistake about it: The Trump Administration is the most corrupt administration of our lifetimes,” Warren wrote in an online post announcing the plan. “But these problems did not start with Donald Trump. They are much bigger than him — and solving them will require big, structural change to fundamentally transform our government.”
Warren has long argued that the nation’s modern government only works for “the wealthy and the well-connected” like big energy, health care and insurance companies that employ lobbyists to advance their priorities over the best interests of ordinary citizens.
Merrill
Merrill
That's the question. The corruption she is trying to address is very effective in preventing it's elimination.
nwdiver
Well-Known Member
??? Happens all the time. It's called a 'recession'. Bad ones are called a 'depression'.
If company XYZ can use technology to cut labor costs 80% while increasing output with a ROI of 3 years the free market would drive them to do that. This reduces the number of consumers (not their problem). Soon demand is far lower than supply because work is coupled to labor and there aren't enough workers to consume the production. What's the free market solution? Only people that own stock get to buy stuff?
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