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Dear 22 Year Old: Concerning your economic Future

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Re: Dear 22 Year Old: Concerning your economic Future

#61

Post by [deleted] »

Experimentalist wrote: post #52
ataggart wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"This sort of viewpoint" is fundamentally different from the luddite fallacy. The crux of the fallacy is misapprehending the results of productive increase, thus mistaking a Good Thing for a Bad Thing. That's not what's going on in the article (unless you have a very different perspective on intergenerational debt). Now it is certainly true that we'll be in less trouble if the economy grows faster than the hole being…

I think "Ludic fallacy" might be a more accurate fallacy to cite. The Ludic fallacy refers to making predictions based on past events, even though the probability of future outcomes includes variables not contained in the past dataset.

[deleted]

Re: Dear 22 Year Old: Concerning your economic Future

#62

Post by sbov »

jsz0 wrote: post #26
ianisborn wrote: post #4

Being a 22 year old myself, I'm grateful that nothing in here is surprising to me and that my parents made me start a savings account when I was young (like 10 or something). To be honest, I don't think I've met anyone from my generation who expects to see money from social security when they retire.

Social Security is good till 2040 at minimum. Some modest adjustments can extend it even further and more radical changes gets it to the 22nd century. All of this is possible without even touching the ~50% of the budget that goes towards military spending or raising payroll taxes significantly. My personal opinion is we shouldn't even consider cutting a single social safety net until military spending has been slashe…

Note that defense being 50% of the US budget doesn't include mandatory spending, such as social security. If you include these the US spends about the same on social security as defense, at about 20% each.

Re: Dear 22 Year Old: Concerning your economic Future

#63

Post by ataggart »

jojopotato wrote: post #60
ataggart wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're being overly narrow in your definition of a ponzi scheme. It's simply a scheme whereby, for an individual, the amount of money they receive will exceed the money they spend only so long as the ratio of new members to old members exceeds one. It's not a real investment as there is no productivity increase occurring; it's just an accounting game. And that's precisely how Social Security operates, and precisely w…

You're right, I am probably being to literal in my definition of a ponzi scheme. I definitely agree that Social Security is going to go through growing pains as the population demographics change and benefits won't be the exact same as the previous generation, but I feel like people use the term "ponzi scheme" to smear the whole idea of Social Security rather than articulating why we shouldn't have it.

Given that the structure of Social Security does conform to a ponzi scheme, it's a smear only insofar as ponzi schemes are "bad".

Re: Dear 22 Year Old: Concerning your economic Future

#64

Post by stretchwithme »

_delirium wrote: post #59
loewenskind wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>And if you look to the decline of the last great empire, Great Britain, in came in the wake of an expansion of the public sector Talk about oversimplifications that fit ones own viewpoint! A lot of things changed in the UK since they were at their peak. Correlation, Causation and all that jazz.

Also, it's not even correct: there's been a massive decline in the public sector in the UK since its peak as an empire. It was a state-centered monarchy with strong mercantilist policies, not some kind of libertarian paradise.

and how did it manage to become so powerful? The countries it dominated didn't quake in fear of its mercantilist policies. It was the guns. And it was the trade that their manufacturing made possible and the rule of law that made it successful entrepreneurship possible.

And yes, it all eroded away. It wasn't the loss of the colonies, but the loss of the things that gave it the ability to project its power in the first place.

Re: Dear 22 Year Old: Concerning your economic Future

#65

Post by stretchwithme »

izendejas wrote: post #51
stretchwithme wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think public spending on research is the ultimate determinant of a nation's technological edge. After all, it was not government research that gave us the ability to manufacture Germany into submission. That came from people like Henry Ford. Even the airplane came from a private endeavor, while a government effort failed to get off the ground. And if you look to the decline of the last great empire, Great Bri…

Does ARPANET mean anything to you? Without ARPANET, it's quite possible we wouldn't have the massive growth that has resulted from an open internet that doesn't discriminate packets. Would you have preferred Telcos (or other "private endeavors") designing the internet protocols with proprietary standards and full control over every packet (or lack thereof if they had had their way)? Yes, entrepreneurs have redefined…

And how did THE Telco get that way? Why the government gave it a monopoly. I'm not sure I would hold that up as an example of enterprise. More like the-entire-country-is-captive enterprise.

If the government hadn't established AT&T as a monopoly, we would've had more innovation. Somebody would have tried to send faxes decades earlier if it were legal to plug your own equipment equipment into the wall.

Re: Dear 22 Year Old: Concerning your economic Future

#66

Post by loewenskind »

stretchwithme wrote: post #64
_delirium wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, it's not even correct: there's been a massive decline in the public sector in the UK since its peak as an empire. It was a state-centered monarchy with strong mercantilist policies, not some kind of libertarian paradise.

and how did it manage to become so powerful? The countries it dominated didn't quake in fear of its mercantilist policies. It was the guns. And it was the trade that their manufacturing made possible and the rule of law that made it successful entrepreneurship possible. And yes, it all eroded away. It wasn't the loss of the colonies, but the loss of the things that gave it the ability to project its power in the firs…

You mean they became less relevant because they became less evil?
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