271–280 of 288 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think you are right, but I think they are wrong for doing it given the importance of the military in a lot of regions and the military being a known career path for many young males.
It's not employment because it doesn't generate wealth. Your warm feelings about it notwithstanding.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Perhaps you should look at the conditions that were imposed on these areas. Horrible government education and health care, relocation of individuals resulting in horrific suicide rates, boarding schools that beat students for keeping their culture and language, US government mishandling resources to the point the Dept of Interior was required to cut their internet connection multiple times. Never mind the oil and ura…
There was this article recently that being poor is a set of bad habits and someone commented "poor is a permanent condition, broke is temporary." https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2590535 Stating it that way seems reasonable enough. I haven't read "Don't Sleep, There are Snakes" fully but from summaries I'm guessing the tribes refused to accept Western ways and were comfortable living the way that let them survive…
The tribes ran the gamut in what they had before Columbus. It is know that trade routes existed bring things only found in the arctic regions south to the deserts and beyond.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This stuff is very common, especially here in Chicago with the unions running a fairly corrupt machine. I really wish something could be done. We're taxed hard and money is spent in reckless ways by the government like this. Doesn't seem fair to those of us who actually work to make this money. Worse, there is no solution is site. Who is going to arrest these crooked cops? Other cops? They're on the take as well. >He…
Citizens should be able to pursue small qui tam suits against other citizens for things like welfare fraud. It's worked very well for Medicare fraud, I'd like to see it implemented on a micro scale.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You've alerted us to the existence of a fallacy, but you make no effort to explain what the fallacy is or how the argument you are refuting has committed this fallacy. You did this in a previous discussion with me as well https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8691296 Of course, you are absolutely free to do this if you wish. But I did take the time to explain why I felt you had misdiagnosed the situation, and explaine…
Fair enough. The main reason why there is a lump of labor fallacy is that it rests on the fact that there is just a fixed quantity of jobs in the economy. A fixed amount of jobs means that thers is only a fixed amount of goods and services people desire. But this is wrong because human wants and desires are unlimited. This is the basic condition in economics. So in theory there is an infinite amount of jobs to be don…
Here's the full quote from the nytimes article:
"Some countries have developed policies that encourage older people to leave the labor force, so they do not “crowd out” younger workers. But studies across countries and time suggest that crowding-out may not actually be a problem. Economies do not appear to have a fixed number of jobs. When more older people are working, they are earning money that they will then spend in ways that may create more jobs for young people, for example."
So in this case, I don't disagree with you, but it seems that the times article identifies the lump of labor fallacy immediately after the quote you provided.
I live in france, am 29, I worked 2 months in my life. "what they do instead" Trying to go back to school, I learned programming for 2 years in some technician school program, did not get the degree, after that I expanded my programming skills by myself, but it has been pretty bleak. I'm quite ashamed of myself. I have many ideas of projects, but they really seems to be out of my reach in terms of skill, experience,…
I'm sorry for your troubles. I do have a question: How do you pay for anything? Have you been on govt. benefits this whole time?
I only do my shopping at aldi, so I save a good amount of money.
don't forget that in france, government benefits are pretty good compared to other countries.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think you are right, but I think they are wrong for doing it given the importance of the military in a lot of regions and the military being a known career path for many young males.
It's not employment because it doesn't generate wealth. Your warm feelings about it notwithstanding.
Given that these are employment figures, it's odd to segregate one career from all the others.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Fair enough. The main reason why there is a lump of labor fallacy is that it rests on the fact that there is just a fixed quantity of jobs in the economy. A fixed amount of jobs means that thers is only a fixed amount of goods and services people desire. But this is wrong because human wants and desires are unlimited. This is the basic condition in economics. So in theory there is an infinite amount of jobs to be don…
Yes, that's more or less the lump of labor fallacy. I'm still not sure why it's relevant here. Here's the full quote from the nytimes article: "Some countries have developed policies that encourage older people to leave the labor force, so they do not “crowd out” younger workers. But studies across countries and time suggest that crowding-out may not actually be a problem. Economies do not appear to have a fixed numb…
I think it is important to point out because so few people still know about it. If few people know about it, they are likely to support harmful policies that they think will help the economy or job creation, but will not.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's just wrong to mention DI here, since that won't apply to most people (downthread, I pointed out that it has serious incentive problems if you're on it, so I partially agree with you there). I'm certainly not eligible for it, not even with the most cooperative doctors I could find. So it's not lost income for me. Also: I hope your Econ 101 class that you tout mentioned the lifetime earnings hypothesis. Based on t…
> It's just wrong to mention DI here I agree with SSI and SSDI the pit is very, very deep. The incentive to just give up is extraordinary. You have to willingly forgo tens of thousands of dollars for the pleasure of working. Since trying even just a little bit disqualifies you. And yes, SSI/SSDI eats your soul. But the argument stands even without SSI/SSDI though. Just adding ACA on top of the existing subsidies was…
And you can't make the point without disability income. As shown lower down in the thread, your claims are hyperbolic even including DI of $31k!
It's funny..I agree there is a problem here. I just think we need someone intellectually honest to do the numbers properly. And that person is obviously not you.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, that's more or less the lump of labor fallacy. I'm still not sure why it's relevant here. Here's the full quote from the nytimes article: "Some countries have developed policies that encourage older people to leave the labor force, so they do not “crowd out” younger workers. But studies across countries and time suggest that crowding-out may not actually be a problem. Economies do not appear to have a fixed numb…
>still not sure why it's relevant here. I think it is important to point out because so few people still know about it. If few people know about it, they are likely to support harmful policies that they think will help the economy or job creation, but will not.
In the other case - our previous discussion, I explained how I though you had misapplied the lump of labor fallacy. You claimed that notion that H1B workers could displace local workers commits the lump of labor fallacy.
I made an argument that very specific, targeted immigration programs designed to increase workforce in a narrow sector of the economy can in fact cause market distortions that lead to displacement and deterrence. This is a pretty common objection to these sorts of visas. Many people who support free markets and free immigration see a real problem when the government starts creating programs where a worker is allowed to come to the US only under certain employment conditions (in this case, related to working as an employee to a high tech company).
Even Milton Friedman chimed in:
"There is no doubt," he says, "that the [H-1B] program is a benefit to their employers, enabling them to get workers at a lower wage, and to that extent, it is a subsidy."
I assure you that Milton Friedman was aware of the lump of labor fallacy. It's a bit more complicated than just citing a fallacy.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If your future economic prospects require ever increasing consumption then surely there's a problem; resources are finite. If we need more people consuming more and more stuff (that mostly gets put in landfill within a couple of years) then we're completely screwed. We need to start restructuring our way of life to accommodate the need to conserve resources, for one, and the need to support a basic standard of living…
Depends on what that 'consumption' consists of. We could have an economy of eternal growth in art, scholarship, mathematics, music, and software. The main input there is human thought.
They're all production with minimal consumption agree; they hardly summarise current human activity though. They don't require [many] raw materials beyond energy and humans but nevertheless they do tend to still use some non-renewable resources.