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David Simon: 'There are now two Americas. My country is a horror show'

theguardian.com

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Re: David Simon: 'There are now two Americas. My country is a horror show'

#181

Post by 7Figures2Commas »

beachstartup wrote: post #86
7Figures2Commas wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's fascinating. I'd love to meet the "sensible people" who believe that debt, both personal and national, is not at all implicated in the economic divide between rich and poor that David Simon speaks of.

> I'd love to meet the "sensible people" uh, okay. it would be better if you simply just stated your case and/or evidence because that is what HN is for.

> it would be better if you simply just stated your case and/or evidence because that is what HN is for.

I think you have it backwards. The OP suggested that "sensible people" (all of them, apparently!) don't believe that debt ("in and of itself", whatever that means) is "a serious problem." That is an extraordinary claim, and extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

But I'll indulge you:

1. Navy Admiral Mike Mullen, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has stated "I've said many times that I believe the single, biggest threat to our national security is our debt, so I also believe we have every responsibility to help eliminate that threat."

2. David Walker, former Comptroller General and head of the GAO, has been sounding the alarm about the tens of trillions of dollars in debt and unfunded liabilities the United States has racked up for years. He has warned that unless something is done, the US will plunge into a "fiscal abyss."

3. Barack Obama, as a Senator, stated, "The fact that we are here today to debate raising America's debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. It is a sign that the U.S. Government can't pay its own bills. It is a sign that we now depend on ongoing financial assistance from foreign countries to finance our Government's reckless fiscal policies... Increasing America's debt weakens us domestically and internationally. Leadership means that 'the buck stops here.' Instead, Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better."

Are Mullen, Walker and Obama not "serious people"?

Re: David Simon: 'There are now two Americas. My country is a horror show'

#182

Post by anoncowherd »

patcon wrote: post #147
avar wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The libertarian and anti-government sentiments aren't saying that we shouldn't be all in this together, but that we shouldn't be forced to be all in this together. That difference is what the entire argument is about. Few people are saying saying "let's not do this" for some value of "this", they're saying "let's not force everyone to do this". That's a very profound difference, it's why having the government make an…

I'm torn here. If you insist everyone make every moral choice for themselves, then we will be unable to maximize the "right" choices. For example: If I want to buy ethical foods, I'd rather shop at a place where all these criteria are enforced. It would be mind-numbingly draining to have to make all these choices myself. Frankly, I would tune out. In a libertarian society, every person would need to be educated on fo…

>> I'm torn here

That's good. You're sensing that something is wrong.

>> If you insist everyone make every moral choice for themselves, then we will be unable to maximize the "right" choices

Why would "we" need to "maximize" the right choices? Who's we anyway? Aren't we all just individuals, with our own goals and desires that are constantly changing anyway? Who's anyone to "maximize" the "rightness" of your choices, as long as you don't harm others? How bad should you want that bar of chocolate tomorrow at noon? What about in the evening?

See, economies consist of exchanges between people, and whenever an exchange is voluntary, it leaves both parties better off.

There's no "optimization" necessary there. It's all based on each individual's subjective preferences. If you want an apple, and have a dollar, you can give that dollar to someone in exchange for an apple. If you do this, it means you valued the apple higher than your dollar, and the other guy valued your dollar higher than his apple! -Bam. Both are better off. No "maximizing" necessary.

>> In a libertarian society, every person would need to be educated on food systems, why some are ethical and why some aren't, etc

Really? Is it really unclear to anyone that treating animals well is better than treating them horribly? Why would anyone prefer the meat that's produced through treating animals horribly, or even badly, compared to a more "organic" alternative?

Sure, prices are a factor, but just about everyone would like to support treating animals well, right? So if organic production is increased, those prices will fall. It may still be a bit more expensive, but organic, non-GMO food comes with the additional benefit of not being harmful to your health, and that's quite valuable too.

>> nevermind the 3 year study and expert panel that analyzed the issue and recommended process/measure/regulation X.

Who are the "experts"? -Where do they come from? What are they affiliated with? Who paid for the study? What kind of regulation are we talking about? Why would it be good? What's the alternative? How often is coercion better than no coercion? (Pro-tip: never)

.. And so on.

Re: David Simon: 'There are now two Americas. My country is a horror show'

#183

Post by dnautics »

hbags wrote: post #173
dnautics wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

22.6% of the US economy under state control is responsible for ~100% of the inequity. Inflation has a compounding effect of screwing the poor and transferring that wealth to the rich. It shouldn't be surprising that in 1970 Nixon unpegged the dollar and let inflation float and since 1973 the income inequality in this country has gradually become unhinged. we keep giving more power to fewer people under the rubric of…

Inflation is most damaging to those who save but do not invest. The poor are near 100% consumption, so it has essentially no effect on them. A person whose average cash balance is $100 is not vulnerable to inflation.

No, inflation is most damaging to people whose spending is close to their salary. To simplify the math, I will use 'easy numbers', obviously the magnitudes are off, but you should plug your own numbers to verify that this is still true:

if a poor family is spending 90% of their income on day to day expenses, and a rich family is spending 20%, and there is 10% inflation, then the poor family will then be spending 99%, which is a 90% reduction in margin of safety/ability to invest. The rich family will then be spending 22% which is a 2.5% reduction in margin of safety/ability to invest.

Now, you might argue that wages catch up. For starters, many poor are on fixed incomes. BUT even for the employed, liberal economists routinely argue for screwing the poor out of their wages (of course they don't put it that way):

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/13/the-case-for-hig...

It goes like this: even in the long run, it’s really, really hard to cut nominal wages. Yet when you have very low inflation, getting relative wages right would require that a significant number of workers take wage cuts.

Think very carefully about what that means.

Ironically, it was keynes himself that warned:

By a continuing process of inflation, governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens. By this method they not only confiscate, but they confiscate arbitrarily; and, while the process impoverishes many, it actually enriches some. The sight of this arbitrary rearrangement of riches strikes not only at security, but at confidence in the equity of the existing distribution of wealth. Those to whom the system brings windfalls, beyond their deserts and even beyond their expectations or desires, become 'profiteers,' who are the object of the hatred of the bourgeoisie, whom the inflationism has impoverished, not less than of the proletariat.

Re: David Simon: 'There are now two Americas. My country is a horror show'

#184

Post by gnaffle »

dobbsbob wrote: post #162
majika wrote: post #6

This is a remarkably sensible speech. The idea that the market will solve such things as environmental concerns, as our racial divides, as our class distinctions, our problems with educating and incorporating one generation of workers into the economy after the other when that economy is changing; the idea that the market is going to heed all of the human concerns and still maximise profit is juvenile. It's a juvenil…

To defend the free market position though I don't agree with it, an evil party can be elected in those countries who could purposely mismanage the welfare state and destroy it. Then they point to the ruins and say look this doesn't work adopt our new evil system. Canada and UK try to do this whenever an ultra conservative local or national gov is elected. They can purposely fuck it all up with a wave of the hand whic…

Huh? When was the last film or book banned in a Nordic country?

Re: David Simon: 'There are now two Americas. My country is a horror show'

#185

Post by Fomite »

anoncowherd wrote: post #115
touzen wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Sweden private for profit schools and schools run by the municipalities compete with each other. All of them are funded by the tax payers and they get a certain amount of money for every student. The system is a disaster, with a lot of for profit schools slashing costs to maximize profits regardless of what the consequences are for the students. And that's just one of the many failures of the system. Basically, th…

>> In Sweden private for profit schools and schools run by the municipalities compete with each other. All of them are funded by the tax payers and they get a certain amount of money for every student. How the hell can a school be "private" , while being funded by taxpayers?

The privatization of rewards while the public bears the risk is a pretty well established business model these days.

Re: David Simon: 'There are now two Americas. My country is a horror show'

#186

Post by chongli »

justincormack wrote: post #91
chongli wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can the Nordic model work in every country, though? All of the Nordic countries have trade surpluses, especially when you look at the per-capita numbers. How would this work in a country of large trade deficits like the US?

Its not really to do with trade surpluses. They have not always had trade surpluses, indeed they mostly had huge banking and deficit crises a while back, the surpluses are more recent (Finland's started with Nokia, which at one point dominated the economy and trade).

I was talking about trade surpluses in real goods. Banking (and other financial activity) is just a form of rent-collection that masks this effect.

Re: David Simon: 'There are now two Americas. My country is a horror show'

#188

Post by chongli »

RamiK wrote: post #111
chongli wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it's based on the idea of exponential growth. Exponential growth is not sustainable without exponential growing access to resources.

Instead of regurgitating an old chestnut: "thermodynamic limits impose a cap to energy growth lest we cook ourselves. I’m not talking about global warming, CO2 build-up, etc. I’m talking about radiating the spent energy into space."("Exponential Economist Meets Finite Physicist", http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2012/04/economist-meets-... ) Essentially, even if we have exponential growing access to resources, we'…

Heat capacity and space are resources too.

Re: David Simon: 'There are now two Americas. My country is a horror show'

#189

Post by cdash »

xradionut wrote: post #71
danso wrote: post #2

It's hard to talk about David Simon without immediately thinking of The Wire, and I'm glad he mentioned it (he's infamously annoyed that people see it as compelling drama more than its attack against institutions, including the capitalist system): > So I'm astonished that at this late date I'm standing here and saying we might want to go back for this guy Marx that we were laughing at, if not for his prescriptions, t…

The chilling thing is the answers you get when you ask some of the more frank of the upper class in a moment of candor what should happen to the people that are no longer necessary or left behind. Some of outliers of their solutions range from literal slavery via prison/slums, to starvation, to genocide. Worst of all answers is indifference or "God will provide". They got theirs, go fuck off and die.

This fuck you got mine attitude is very prevalent on this site actually even if wrapped up in some absurd justifications.

Re: David Simon: 'There are now two Americas. My country is a horror show'

#190

Post by 21echoes »

anoncowherd wrote: post #170
steveklabnik wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The NAP is pretty useless, because it doesn't define what 'force' or 'initiation' means. People have very significant disagreements about these definitions. Furthermore, it only makes sense in an alternate reality where we're re-set to zero. The NAP doesn't really provide a means from getting from where we are today to a world 'without force,' as if that was even possible.

>> The NAP is pretty useless, because it doesn't define what 'force' or 'initiation' means. Do you also need a definition for, say "rape", "kill", "steal", "rob"? What does it mean to "force someone to do something"? Have you got an inkling, perhaps? >> The NAP doesn't really provide a means from getting from where we are today to a world 'without force,' as if that was even possible. Why would it need to? It's not a…

the NAP is in effect. it's just me and you in the forest, and there's one apple tree. you "own" the apple tree. I am starving, and I "steal" an apple from your tree.

who initiated the aggression?

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