Which raises the question of whether rich people really consume that much more than poor people...something that we could go around about for hours.
I can answer that for you: to a decent approximation, richer people consume a greater absolute amount, but a lower proportion of their income than poorer people.
AFAIK most Libertarians are for a consumption tax, and zero income tax. Which is a progressive tax. If you consume more stuff, you pay more tax.
While the first claim may be true in practice, it is in no way a result of being libertarian.
The second bit is likely wrong, as progressive taxation means that higher income individuals pay a higher portion of their income, not just a higher sum.
AFAIK most Libertarians are for a consumption tax, and zero income tax. Which is a progressive tax. If you consume more stuff, you pay more tax.
Consumption taxes are regressive, not progressive. Lower-income groups spend a higher proportion of their income.
But they also spend less in nominal terms.
If the rich are not spending their money, then what are they doing with it? Well, they are investing in companies and saving their money. Investing in companies allows them to grow and meet more demands of the people. Saving allows lending, which lowers the interest rate (naturally) which makes it easier to access capital to start a business.
Edit: Well if people want to tax the rich more, in terms of percentage of their income, more in a libertarian society, that's fine by me. I prefer a consumption tax. But anyways, the government will have to get money somehow. So it's either 1) Consumption tax 2) Income tax 3) Flat tax, or something else. I don't think it really makes much of a difference how a government collects the money it needs to, to do it's stuff. As long as it's fair and sensible.
i dont think he meant receives from the government in cash. all of us receive a lot from the government in value, which as far as i know, does not lead to a deficit.
This makes my head hurt...
If I spend 10 dollars in taxes and get 15 dollars back in services how is my society not going to end up in a deficit? We're going to have to borrow 5 dollars, or tax someone else who gets less services. Edit: Or force someone to give up 5 dollars worth of value for nothing (in other words: force a cop to work but not pay him).
Add to the fact that some of the things my 10 dollars (+5 someone else had to pay) paid for a cops to bust hookers and pot-smokers, shit I don't care about and wouldn't waste my money/energy on. But I'm forced to pay for it because it's a tax.
i think the right way of thinking about it is this: a million people get taxed 10 dollars. if you wanted your own police force, you would have to pay 50 dollars, not 10 (from economies of scale).
government spends 8 million for a police force. due to the fact that the police create peace and prosperity, you can earn 3000 dollars (creation of value (i.e., peace) that far outweighs your personal tax cost).
AFAIK most Libertarians are for a consumption tax, and zero income tax. Which is a progressive tax. If you consume more stuff, you pay more tax.
Consumption taxes are regressive, not progressive. Lower-income groups spend a higher proportion of their income.
But they also spend less in nominal terms.
If the rich are not spending their money, then what are they doing with it? Well, they are investing in companies and saving their money. Investing in companies allows them to grow and meet more demands of the people. Saving allows lending, which lowers the interest rate (naturally) which makes it easier to access capital to start a business.
All true. That doesn't change the fact that consumption taxes are regressive and all that entails - institutionalization of poverty, etc.
Mind you, it's entirely possible to build a net progressive distributional program using a consumption tax - say we apply a consumption tax of 1%, then take the revenue and hand it out equally to every individual. This is net progressive; the progressive payment outweighs the consumption tax regressivity (you can see this if you work through the algebra). I think Milton Friedman advocated something along these lines.
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AtomikaLive fast and get fucked or whateverRegistered Userregular
A Libertarian should, by tenet of dogma, be inherently opposed to pro-life movements, homophobia, and religion in general. This, well more often than not, is not the case.
I don't see why a libertarian would be inherently opposed to pro-life movements.
Because they're an example of unfounded morality arguments dictating personal freedoms, that's why.
If you accept the argument that life begins at conception, it's perfectly consistent with libertarianism.
Again, I think you'll find very few actual Libertarians that feel life begins at conception that don't also have reasons for not support gay rights, women's rights, or the church.
"Libertarian" is a term that somehow got jacked about five years ago and taken over by people who are really just Free Market Evangelicals. Most of whom know jack shit about the actual economy, but never miss a chance to call someone a socialist.
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mrt144King of the NumbernamesRegistered Userregular
im not sure if im cutting through the bullshit here or if im going on a tangent, but i think libertarians dont really give a shit about large government at all.
i think they just want everyone to earn and pay their own way.
the problem being, some people cant earn or pay their own way. i know it's not pc to say that, but it's the truth. so what do we as a society do? either the government absolutely has to take from those who can earn and pay for others (the rich) or the government allows those who cannot earn and pay their own way (the poor) to die.
i dont think many libertarians really give a damn about the size of government at all. it's just a way of controlling the dialogue so that it doesnt sound like "survival of the fittest" for people. cause if they couched their actual position in those terms, we would all dismiss them for crazy fucks.
I solidly put myself in the camp of a libertarian and I totally detest of large government from the perspective of incetivized inefficiency. The larger and more complex the government is the less efficiency can be achieved in terms of the tax payer getting bang for their buck. Health care providers suffers from this same problem of mutlilevel bureaucracy that incentivizes ineffcient outcomes for patients. I'd argue that bieng a libertarian is in a large part about being anti bureaucratic as much as possible.
The economies of scale that government can provide are diminished by the large bureaucratic apparatus that is present at the Federal government level. Farm subsidies are a key example here.
I'd also argue that the problem with government isn't just large or small dichotomies but hard or soft dichotomies. How strongly does the FDA enforce regulations or courts rule in favor of the better funded claimants? The Libertarian problem is that the influence of power and corruption isn't given enough credence of being a real problem even in an ideal libertarian society. Sure it exists in those "less ideal societies" but that's just narcissism on the part of libertarians.
just wondering, do you think inefficiency is the necessary result of a large government? or do you believe that a large government can be efficient and that ours just isnt?
because we have companies that are enormous and in effect larger than some governments. yet they can run relatively efficiently, can't they?
Absolutely not. There are some great examples from 2005-Present that illustrate just the problem with large beauricratic inefficencies within any large organization. Divorcing results from decision making or in other words detaching incentives from outcomes is in my approximation one of the biggest problems of any large organization, business or government and i believe it to be an eventuality of growth of an organization.
i dont think he meant receives from the government in cash. all of us receive a lot from the government in value, which as far as i know, does not lead to a deficit.
This makes my head hurt...
If I spend 10 dollars in taxes and get 15 dollars back in services how is my society not going to end up in a deficit? We're going to have to borrow 5 dollars, or tax someone else who gets less services. Edit: Or force someone to give up 5 dollars worth of value for nothing (in other words: force a cop to work but not pay him).
Add to the fact that some of the things my 10 dollars (+5 someone else had to pay) paid for a cops to bust hookers and pot-smokers, shit I don't care about and wouldn't waste my money/energy on. But I'm forced to pay for it because it's a tax.
i think the right way of thinking about it is this: a million people get taxed 10 dollars. if you wanted your own police force, you would have to pay 50 dollars, not 10 (from economies of scale).
government spends 8 million for a police force. due to the fact that the police create peace and prosperity, you can earn 3000 dollars (creation of value (i.e., peace) that far outweighs your personal tax cost).
Police is a bad example because there is no free-market alternative. Police use force legally, so they have to be part of the government.
Because they're an example of unfounded morality arguments dictating personal freedoms, that's why.
If you accept the argument that life begins at conception, it's perfectly consistent with libertarianism.
Again, I think you'll find very few actual Libertarians that feel life begins at conception that don't also have reasons for not support gay rights, women's rights, or the church.
"Libertarian" is a term that somehow got jacked about five years ago and taken over by people who are really just Free Market Evangelicals. Most of whom know jack shit about the actual economy, but never miss a chance to call someone a socialist.
That's completely irrelevant to whether pro-life is compatible with libertarianism.
Oh, I agree with you totally, I just find it interesting the rhetoric of both sides considering themselves the real producers and everyone else being parasites or welfare queens.
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surrealitychecklonely, but not unloveddreaming of faulty keys and latchesRegistered Userregular
edited May 2010
Because they're an example of unfounded morality arguments dictating personal freedoms, that's why.
The foundedness of the argument is really up to the personal judgement of the libertarian. I know quite a few secular guys who are against abortion.
Although I can see it's reasonable to object to most self-labelled Libertarians in the ground that they aren't.
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AtomikaLive fast and get fucked or whateverRegistered Userregular
Because they're an example of unfounded morality arguments dictating personal freedoms, that's why.
If you accept the argument that life begins at conception, it's perfectly consistent with libertarianism.
Again, I think you'll find very few actual Libertarians that feel life begins at conception that don't also have reasons for not support gay rights, women's rights, or the church.
"Libertarian" is a term that somehow got jacked about five years ago and taken over by people who are really just Free Market Evangelicals. Most of whom know jack shit about the actual economy, but never miss a chance to call someone a socialist.
That's completely irrelevant to whether pro-life is compatible with libertarianism.
Hardly. Unless there's suddenly a population of pro-life non-evangelicals out there to support your argument. There's nothing inherent in Objectivism or Libertarianism that gives fetuses rights over those that produce them.
So what you're saying is that libertarians think that rich people drive the economy.
Well, rich(er) people certainly drive the tax base. What's the figure, something 94% of all taxes are paid by the top 50% of all earners?
Tax base isn't the economy though. This is such a weird way to think. Our economy won't grow if the government collects more taxes.
Government doesn't actually create anything. All it can do is re-order things. Even in cases where there is a government business, like a government liquor store, all it's doing is taking customers away from private liquor stores. It just re-orders where people can buy their booze.
Loklar a mutual fund would be a much better place for someone with a small amount of capital to invest. A small collection of actual stocks is an incredibly high-risk venture, not exactly something you want to encourage people to get into with the bulk of their savings.
And you could drive far more investment in a corporation by eliminating a lot of the corporate tax loopholes and heavily taxing pollution, forcing companies to invest heavily in efficiency research and development.
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mrt144King of the NumbernamesRegistered Userregular
Oh, I agree with you totally, I just find it interesting the rhetoric of both sides considering themselves the real producers and everyone else being parasites or welfare queens.
I don't have enough fingers to type how far above my head that post was ronya. What does that mean in dumb people words?
I'll try to translate and ronya can correct me where I goof since he is far better at this than I am.
Harm and non-coercion principles. This one is pretty straightforward. The belief that consenting individuals can do what they want. Government attempts to curtail this are simply morally wrong. Making individuals do things through coercion is also wrong.
Classical economic libertarianism. Uses maths and some economic theory to state that people who are making economic transactions voluntarily will maximize goodness (aggregate welfare). Basically a person won't trade item A for item B unless he values B more than A. Conversely, the person being traded with must value A more than B or else he wouldn't trade. So both individuals are made better off.
Hayekian. Hayek was a sweet-ass economist, even if he wasn't as straight pimping as Keynes. He believed that the mathematical models from above didn't really play out when applied to the real world. However he thought that even if markets didn't really acheive optimality, government action was worse.
Not sure how I missed this post, but yeah Saamiel got it right.
So what you're saying is that libertarians think that rich people drive the economy.
Well, rich(er) people certainly drive the tax base. What's the figure, something 94% of all taxes are paid by the top 50% of all earners?
Tax base isn't the economy though. This is such a weird way to think. Our economy won't grow if the government collects more taxes.
Government doesn't actually create anything. All it can do is re-order things. Even in cases where there is a government business, like a government liquor store, all it's doing is taking customers away from private liquor stores. It just re-orders where people can buy their booze.
Hardly. Unless there's suddenly a population of pro-life non-evangelicals out there to support your argument. There's nothing inherent in Objectivism or Libertarianism that gives fetuses rights over those that produce them.
You're changing the argument. Libertarianism is perfectly compatible with both pro-life or pro-choice, depending on when you think life begins.
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AtomikaLive fast and get fucked or whateverRegistered Userregular
Because they're an example of unfounded morality arguments dictating personal freedoms, that's why.
The foundedness of the argument is really up to the personal judgement of the libertarian. I know quite a few secular guys who are against abortion.
Although I can see it's reasonable to object to most self-labelled Libertarians in the ground that they aren't.
I'll shame myself here and admit to believing in one principle of Randian Objectivism: the importance of non-coercion on one's decision making functionality.
Show me a "Libertarian" who is ardently pro-life, and I'll show you someone wracked with guilt and raised in a strongly-religious community/household.
Hardly. Unless there's suddenly a population of pro-life non-evangelicals out there to support your argument. There's nothing inherent in Objectivism or Libertarianism that gives fetuses rights over those that produce them.
You're changing the argument. Libertarianism is perfectly compatible with both pro-life or pro-choice, depending on when you think life begins.
Regardless of when life begins, you can choose to follow a political philosophy that best represents your views, and still not agree with 100% of it. There are definitely people who follow Liberalism and Conservatism that don't agree with 100% of the views contained within those philosophies.
So while the Libertarian view on abortion would be to allow for choice, someone can be pro-life and still correctly identify as a Libertarian.
Hardly. Unless there's suddenly a population of pro-life non-evangelicals out there to support your argument. There's nothing inherent in Objectivism or Libertarianism that gives fetuses rights over those that produce them.
You're changing the argument. Libertarianism is perfectly compatible with both pro-life or pro-choice, depending on when you think life begins.
There's a strong argument to be made for comparing what is and what ought to be. In this case, the Libertarian movement also just so happens to massively support banning abortion. But there ought to be concessions made in any argument that Libertarians are capable of supporting the idea of free access to abortions.
But I have that funny engineering perspective where ideals be damned, it's facts on the ground that matter. If the data doesn't fit the equation, I'll modify the equation. If Libertarians mostly march around in "pro-life" rallies, favour aggressive military intervention in the middle east and decry efforts to control climate change, well, I'll modify my definition of Libertarian to fit those facts.
To say that they aren't true Scotsmen (ahem Libertarians) is to subscribe to the same mistake many Communist supporters make - sure, the communist nations of the world are largely terrible, but damn it they aren't real communism and it could work out pretty well!
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mrt144King of the NumbernamesRegistered Userregular
So what you're saying is that libertarians think that rich people drive the economy.
Well, rich(er) people certainly drive the tax base. What's the figure, something 94% of all taxes are paid by the top 50% of all earners?
Tax base isn't the economy though. This is such a weird way to think. Our economy won't grow if the government collects more taxes.
Government doesn't actually create anything. All it can do is re-order things. Even in cases where there is a government business, like a government liquor store, all it's doing is taking customers away from private liquor stores. It just re-orders where people can buy their booze.
And it costs time and energy to re-order things.
Actually, our economy could grow if the government collected more taxes and then used the proceeds from tax collection to purchase goods and services from the private sector that all people would benefit from (like a cure for cancer). My bone to pick is that agriculture subsidies and combat aircraft don't offer the best use of tax proceeds.
Actually, our economy could grow if the government collected more taxes and then used the proceeds from tax collection to purchase goods and services from the private sector. My bone to pick is that agriculture subsidies and combat aircraft don't offer the best use of tax proceeds.
Oh hey, a real-life old-school Keynesian. You're a rare species nowadays :P
Hardly. Unless there's suddenly a population of pro-life non-evangelicals out there to support your argument. There's nothing inherent in Objectivism or Libertarianism that gives fetuses rights over those that produce them.
You're changing the argument. Libertarianism is perfectly compatible with both pro-life or pro-choice, depending on when you think life begins.
Regardless of when life begins, you can choose to follow a political philosophy that best represents your views, and still not agree with 100% of it. There are definitely people who follow Liberalism and Conservatism that don't agree with 100% of the views contained within those philosophies.
So while the Libertarian view on abortion would be to allow for choice, someone can be pro-life and still correctly identify as a Libertarian.
Not necessarily. If you believe that life begins at conception, clearly the life of the zygote/fetus outweighs the bodily autonomy of the woman. One man's freedom ends where another's begins. That's the essence of libertarianism.
Well, why can't it? The USPS sells postal services.
You know its losing tons of money right?(mostly because delivering a letters to/from a major city cost much much less than delivering a letter to some spot in the boonies, but they charge the same for both).
Well, why can't it? The USPS sells postal services.
You know its losing tons of money right?(mostly because delivering a letters to/from a major city cost much much less than delivering a letter to some spot in the boonies, but they charge the same for both).
And UPS and FED-EX could fulfill the USPS roll.
I didn't say the USPS did it well. :P There is certainly room for improvement, so to speak.
I'm just wondering what might possibly lead someone to insist, baldly, that government can't create anything.
Even North Korea succeeds at creating things. It's just obviously not the most efficient, or just, way to go about it.
Pretty much. And, well, obviously there are industries that a government is uniquely placed to be the most efficient, or just, way to do things. Few other institutions have its expected lifespan, for instance. Or the ability to promise full faith and credit.
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mrt144King of the NumbernamesRegistered Userregular
Actually, our economy could grow if the government collected more taxes and then used the proceeds from tax collection to purchase goods and services from the private sector. My bone to pick is that agriculture subsidies and combat aircraft don't offer the best use of tax proceeds.
Oh hey, a real-life old-school Keynesian. You're a rare species nowadays :P
Well I'm definitely not of the opinion that lower taxes = more economic growth (and I wont even go further on that line of thought because the Laffer Curve is stupid) inherently or that higher taxes means lower economic growth and output. It all has to do with how efficiently the money is spent, the things we spend the money on, and the possible ROI from that expenditure.
There's so much wasteful spending in our government that my statement you quoted looks outright stupid based on reality but it is possible to have a positive ROI on expenditure from government purchased projects that were paid for using tax dollars and bonds.
I always figured that one day...humanity is going to grow up enough that government won't need to watch over us because we'll finally figure out how to live in peace with each other and government won't need to worry about companies exploiting and fucking people/the environment/the economy/etc over. But even then, we're still going to need some sort of governing body to at the very least coordinate or act as a representative to the rest of the universe when it comes to things like defending against outside threats or constructing our grand works, infrastructure, etc.
But we're not there yet and sadly, we need a group to raise monies in order to protect us from ourselves. We call this group government.
Government doesn't actually create anything. All it can do is re-order things. Even in cases where there is a government business, like a government liquor store, all it's doing is taking customers away from private liquor stores. It just re-orders where people can buy their booze.
And it costs time and energy to re-order things.
I am very curious to know who you allowed to put these ideas into your head.
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mrt144King of the NumbernamesRegistered Userregular
Well, why can't it? The USPS sells postal services.
You know its losing tons of money right?(mostly because delivering a letters to/from a major city cost much much less than delivering a letter to some spot in the boonies, but they charge the same for both).
And UPS and FED-EX could fulfill the USPS roll.
The USPS operate at a loss because they offer a subsidized service to every American citizen - the ability to mail a letter anywhere in America for very cheap. They're a bit of a relic these days, but you can't look at the USPS without looking at how vital mail was in the past few centuries before the internet came along.
It's the same way that Chomsky noted that a government-run steel mill would be a good idea for economic stimulus... the government has the capital to build and operate the mill, and the mill could produce cheap steel for local firms to work with. The mill would also employ a good section of the local population, who would drive other industries with their earnings. An entire new industrial sector would spring up with the cheap steel being offered in the region, one that would eventually produce enough tax dollars to more then cover the initial cost of the plant construction as well as the cost of subsidizing the price of the steel.
So what you're saying is that libertarians think that rich people drive the economy.
Well, rich(er) people certainly drive the tax base. What's the figure, something 94% of all taxes are paid by the top 50% of all earners?
Tax base isn't the economy though. This is such a weird way to think. Our economy won't grow if the government collects more taxes.
Government doesn't actually create anything. All it can do is re-order things. Even in cases where there is a government business, like a government liquor store, all it's doing is taking customers away from private liquor stores. It just re-orders where people can buy their booze.
And it costs time and energy to re-order things.
That someone is posting this on the internet is kind of ironic
I always figured that one day...humanity is going to grow up enough that government won't need to watch over us because we'll finally figure out how to live in peace with each other and government won't need to worry about companies exploiting and fucking people/the environment/the economy/etc over. But even then, we're still going to need some sort of governing body to at the very least coordinate or act as a representative to the rest of the universe when it comes to things like defending against outside threats or constructing our grand works, infrastructure, etc.
But we're not there yet and sadly, we need a group to raise monies in order to protect us from ourselves. We call this group government.
If there were only one government there would be little need for it to protect itself from other governments, just enough to deal with warlords.
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I can answer that for you: to a decent approximation, richer people consume a greater absolute amount, but a lower proportion of their income than poorer people.
That's the textbook account, anyway.
While the first claim may be true in practice, it is in no way a result of being libertarian.
The second bit is likely wrong, as progressive taxation means that higher income individuals pay a higher portion of their income, not just a higher sum.
But they also spend less in nominal terms.
If the rich are not spending their money, then what are they doing with it? Well, they are investing in companies and saving their money. Investing in companies allows them to grow and meet more demands of the people. Saving allows lending, which lowers the interest rate (naturally) which makes it easier to access capital to start a business.
Edit: Well if people want to tax the rich more, in terms of percentage of their income, more in a libertarian society, that's fine by me. I prefer a consumption tax. But anyways, the government will have to get money somehow. So it's either 1) Consumption tax 2) Income tax 3) Flat tax, or something else. I don't think it really makes much of a difference how a government collects the money it needs to, to do it's stuff. As long as it's fair and sensible.
i think the right way of thinking about it is this: a million people get taxed 10 dollars. if you wanted your own police force, you would have to pay 50 dollars, not 10 (from economies of scale).
government spends 8 million for a police force. due to the fact that the police create peace and prosperity, you can earn 3000 dollars (creation of value (i.e., peace) that far outweighs your personal tax cost).
edit--I find it interested that both communists and libertarians claim to be fighting for the producers of the economy.
All true. That doesn't change the fact that consumption taxes are regressive and all that entails - institutionalization of poverty, etc.
Mind you, it's entirely possible to build a net progressive distributional program using a consumption tax - say we apply a consumption tax of 1%, then take the revenue and hand it out equally to every individual. This is net progressive; the progressive payment outweighs the consumption tax regressivity (you can see this if you work through the algebra). I think Milton Friedman advocated something along these lines.
Again, I think you'll find very few actual Libertarians that feel life begins at conception that don't also have reasons for not support gay rights, women's rights, or the church.
"Libertarian" is a term that somehow got jacked about five years ago and taken over by people who are really just Free Market Evangelicals. Most of whom know jack shit about the actual economy, but never miss a chance to call someone a socialist.
Absolutely not. There are some great examples from 2005-Present that illustrate just the problem with large beauricratic inefficencies within any large organization. Divorcing results from decision making or in other words detaching incentives from outcomes is in my approximation one of the biggest problems of any large organization, business or government and i believe it to be an eventuality of growth of an organization.
Police is a bad example because there is no free-market alternative. Police use force legally, so they have to be part of the government.
Also the police don't earn profits.
That's completely irrelevant to whether pro-life is compatible with libertarianism.
They don't drive the economy; they lend their money to people who do, via an intermediary called a bank.
*applies to sane libertarians only; Randians tend to believe that they drive the economy
And by that token everyone drives the economy in different proportions and ways.
The foundedness of the argument is really up to the personal judgement of the libertarian. I know quite a few secular guys who are against abortion.
Although I can see it's reasonable to object to most self-labelled Libertarians in the ground that they aren't.
Well, rich(er) people certainly drive the tax base. What's the figure, something 94% of all taxes are paid by the top 50% of all earners?
Hardly. Unless there's suddenly a population of pro-life non-evangelicals out there to support your argument. There's nothing inherent in Objectivism or Libertarianism that gives fetuses rights over those that produce them.
Tax base isn't the economy though. This is such a weird way to think. Our economy won't grow if the government collects more taxes.
Government doesn't actually create anything. All it can do is re-order things. Even in cases where there is a government business, like a government liquor store, all it's doing is taking customers away from private liquor stores. It just re-orders where people can buy their booze.
And it costs time and energy to re-order things.
And you could drive far more investment in a corporation by eliminating a lot of the corporate tax loopholes and heavily taxing pollution, forcing companies to invest heavily in efficiency research and development.
Rhetoric is interesting and abominable!
Not sure how I missed this post, but yeah Saamiel got it right.
Oh I see, well, carry on then.
You're changing the argument. Libertarianism is perfectly compatible with both pro-life or pro-choice, depending on when you think life begins.
I'll shame myself here and admit to believing in one principle of Randian Objectivism: the importance of non-coercion on one's decision making functionality.
Show me a "Libertarian" who is ardently pro-life, and I'll show you someone wracked with guilt and raised in a strongly-religious community/household.
Imho.
Well, why can't it? The USPS sells postal services.
Regardless of when life begins, you can choose to follow a political philosophy that best represents your views, and still not agree with 100% of it. There are definitely people who follow Liberalism and Conservatism that don't agree with 100% of the views contained within those philosophies.
So while the Libertarian view on abortion would be to allow for choice, someone can be pro-life and still correctly identify as a Libertarian.
There's a strong argument to be made for comparing what is and what ought to be. In this case, the Libertarian movement also just so happens to massively support banning abortion. But there ought to be concessions made in any argument that Libertarians are capable of supporting the idea of free access to abortions.
But I have that funny engineering perspective where ideals be damned, it's facts on the ground that matter. If the data doesn't fit the equation, I'll modify the equation. If Libertarians mostly march around in "pro-life" rallies, favour aggressive military intervention in the middle east and decry efforts to control climate change, well, I'll modify my definition of Libertarian to fit those facts.
To say that they aren't true Scotsmen (ahem Libertarians) is to subscribe to the same mistake many Communist supporters make - sure, the communist nations of the world are largely terrible, but damn it they aren't real communism and it could work out pretty well!
Actually, our economy could grow if the government collected more taxes and then used the proceeds from tax collection to purchase goods and services from the private sector that all people would benefit from (like a cure for cancer). My bone to pick is that agriculture subsidies and combat aircraft don't offer the best use of tax proceeds.
Oh hey, a real-life old-school Keynesian. You're a rare species nowadays :P
Not necessarily. If you believe that life begins at conception, clearly the life of the zygote/fetus outweighs the bodily autonomy of the woman. One man's freedom ends where another's begins. That's the essence of libertarianism.
You know its losing tons of money right?(mostly because delivering a letters to/from a major city cost much much less than delivering a letter to some spot in the boonies, but they charge the same for both).
And UPS and FED-EX could fulfill the USPS roll.
I didn't say the USPS did it well. :P There is certainly room for improvement, so to speak.
I'm just wondering what might possibly lead someone to insist, baldly, that government can't create anything.
Pretty much. And, well, obviously there are industries that a government is uniquely placed to be the most efficient, or just, way to do things. Few other institutions have its expected lifespan, for instance. Or the ability to promise full faith and credit.
Well I'm definitely not of the opinion that lower taxes = more economic growth (and I wont even go further on that line of thought because the Laffer Curve is stupid) inherently or that higher taxes means lower economic growth and output. It all has to do with how efficiently the money is spent, the things we spend the money on, and the possible ROI from that expenditure.
There's so much wasteful spending in our government that my statement you quoted looks outright stupid based on reality but it is possible to have a positive ROI on expenditure from government purchased projects that were paid for using tax dollars and bonds.
But we're not there yet and sadly, we need a group to raise monies in order to protect us from ourselves. We call this group government.
Enlist in Star Citizen! Citizenship must be earned!
I am very curious to know who you allowed to put these ideas into your head.
The USPS operate at a loss because they offer a subsidized service to every American citizen - the ability to mail a letter anywhere in America for very cheap. They're a bit of a relic these days, but you can't look at the USPS without looking at how vital mail was in the past few centuries before the internet came along.
It's the same way that Chomsky noted that a government-run steel mill would be a good idea for economic stimulus... the government has the capital to build and operate the mill, and the mill could produce cheap steel for local firms to work with. The mill would also employ a good section of the local population, who would drive other industries with their earnings. An entire new industrial sector would spring up with the cheap steel being offered in the region, one that would eventually produce enough tax dollars to more then cover the initial cost of the plant construction as well as the cost of subsidizing the price of the steel.
That someone is posting this on the internet is kind of ironic
If there were only one government there would be little need for it to protect itself from other governments, just enough to deal with warlords.