Obama and redistribution of Wealth...

I see the scenario as 5 people thinking of alternatives to best maximize their work, planning, and if need be agreeing to a best scenario outcome, THAT YOU AND I have no business placing MORAL VALUES in since WE are not participants, we are only observers.

How do you know that the rich person perhaps may sacrifice himself and allow the woman and child to eat, while go hungry…voluntarily? Or how do you know that the hunter may have some illness and volunteers his body for sustenance when he dies? Or kills himself in order to help the others. These are variables THAT YOU refuse to recognize. You assume humans are robots, and only reach one logical solution. THIS IS the COOPERATION, that I KEEP TELLING YOU ABOUT, but that you are neither willing TO recognize its existence or you are prejudging behavior BASED on your own selfish intuitions on how you or others around you act.

Make no mistake there are real world shortages of food and water; and, yes, people determine how to allocate those physically scarce resources by using every means of moral reasoning under the sun (favoritism, group survivability logic, majority vote, lottery, unregulated money, moral code of the society, might-makes-right, etc) to bolster their position at cost to someone else.

Again, more Marxism, and class struggle references.

All resources are scarce. The market, through prices limits its uses. If trees are scarce…then the price of wood shall go up to reflect its scarcity, and therefore the creation of tables, chairs, doors will have to be curbed since it is too costly to extract wood and hence make those things I mentioned. However if government comes in and doesn’t like prices it distorts them by either setting price sealing thereby lowering the price of wood…which can possibly mean the use of all the trees…hence wasting the resource. Or the government can come in and price the WOOD to high…thereby influencing the entire market to substitute to another GOOD which may have not been necessary. Hence metals or aluminum will now be burdened and siphoned off on chairs and table…now distorting the demand and supply of aluminum or metals. AGAIN…THERE’S THAT DARN GOVERNMENT MAKING THINGS WORSE….

Like the government involvement in Bio-fuels…what did that do to the corn industry? It shifted resources from growing corn to eating, to growing corn for fuel. The consequences were shortages in CORN a basic staple of food in some parts of the world. Do you know that the U.S.’s support of certain farm industry through subsidies therefore lower the price of certain agriculture. These products are then dumped into the global market place, making third world farmers due to U.S. competition... lose market share. Then as these 3rd world farmers lose market share they turn away from farming and into other avenues. As soon as some other domestic policy in the U.S. is passed through our legislature, which favor the home industry to use the farming product in some other tangible profit generating activity, and thus...removes their product from the world market. It causes shortages and again unintended consequences...in that the 3rd world farmers who have turned away from farming suddenly not only see the price of food go up…but also no longer have the FARMING in place to supply the need for the goods in their own country.

Again…governments interfere at the behest of a few. This is the problem, with government, and is not CAPITALISM. Capitalism is NO government interfaces…no subsidies, and no impediments to trade.

Since in your view greed and human competitiveness apparently have nothing to do with people getting hurt in a situation of true scarcity. I challenge you to explain why in a world of plenty we have children dying per day[/url] largely due to under nutrition or, to be more blunt, starvation.

Easy…
Massive starvation, malnutrition has ONE root cause. And that is GOVERNMENT MEDDLEING AND unintended consequences. Be they sanctions imposed by a FOREIGN STATE or poor internal government medaling in markets.

I already answered your question regarding scarcity in OUR society. However you are asking me about scarcity in an environment that is atypical…and has neither value nor relation to real world scenarios. YOU also ask about moral relevance in said situation to a situation which observer morality cannot play, and is ONLY SUBJECTIVE. I gave you my answer, and since your QUESTION is not real a real world occurrence, I answered with the best set of information YOU only provided.

Please explain to me how Coca-Cola plants that drop the water-table from 20 feet in depth to 150 feet is enriching anyone other than themselves, especially in agrarian communities that depend on water for farming?

Another bad assumption. Is water controlled through demand and supply? In other words is water privatized or is it in the hands of government?

Last time I checked, the price of water is set by a bureaucratic panel. If Coca Cola is using too much water, and the price of water is accordingly not being bid up, as it would have had the price of water been dictated by the laws of supply and demand, wouldn’t their use be limited based on the amount they are willing to consume? Again you point to A PROBLEM…AND I’M TELLING YOU THE CAUSE. You say there’s abuse, but I’m telling you the abuse usually occurs because government meddling. To simply put it...Government, is not smart enough. It is not smarter than the market. It doesn’t have enough information.

This is the inherent PROBLEM with communism. The inability of CALCULATING prices. Since prices can only be determined in a market setting by ALL participants SEEKING their own self interest. Self interest sets the prices for Ipods, shoes, cars…everything you can think of. Because everyone seeks self interest there is enough Ipods, shoes, cars to meet demand. If ipods was priced below the market there would be shortages…hence not enough ipods to meet demand. But because the resources to build ipods are limited and demand for ipods is such, only those who really want ipods and have made the necessary choices to purchase one shall get one. This is the best way to allocate resources…not through arbitrary methods or political favors as happens in socialist societies. Yes it happens in the U.S. through corporatism...but isn’t corporatism GOVERNMENT in cooperation with industry. Again is that Capitalism?





[edit on 18-8-2009 by Gateway]

Oh, that's right Coca Cola is making a profit and thus their usage of the water is clearly superior to that of the peasant farmers who try to scrape out an existence by feeding themselves and their families based on the fruits of their own labors, on their own land no less!

I answered this, see above.

If anything I write here sticks I hope it's this:

Okay good luck with that…but I can tell you that everything you discuss is seriously flawed. Your views, I’m afraid are akin to a freshman/college student or high school graduate’s understanding of economics, society, and full of fallacies and misconceptions.

The idea of what is moral is completely bogus.

Because you believe it is bogus, does not make it so. I think you mean, COLLECTIVE morality is bogus, BUT INDIVIDUAL morality is very much a tangible thing, since it does not involve coercion. In other words: You cannot say that YOUR decision of taking the food, for example from a RICH MAN and giving it to others is THE ONLY COLLECTIVELY AND CORRECT MORAL DECISION. The correct and ONLY MORAL as well as righteous DECISION is if the RICH MAN DECIDES voluntarily to give UP his FOOD.

Here’s another example: Say YOU AND I are walking down the road. I have no money to spare and you HAVE just received YOUR PAYCHECK. WE both walk past a WOMAN AND HER CHILD BEGGING FOR FOOD. According to your definition of COLLECTIVE morality, I HAVE every right TO MORALLY TAKE your PAY CHECK and give half to this WOMAN AND HER CHILD.

My sense of MORALITY, is more consistent, and less full of contradictions. Although I would hope that YOU reach into your POCKET AND VOLUNTARILY PROVIDE FOR help for this WOMAN, IT IS MORALLY WRONG for me TO TAKE WHAT IS yours and GIVE IT to others. AND although you’d like to coin my values and beliefs as simplistic, I on the other hand am willing to see my views as beyond reproach, and morally correct since I’m not dumping the belief of what’s your can also be someone else's. On the other hand I see YOUR sense of morality as arbitrary, with no sense of foundation, full of contradiction, because you believe…and correct me if I’M WRONG THAT TWO WRONGS according to your logic...MAKE A RIGHT.

A person can plan out their next meal it doesn't mean that they're going to acquire it if they lack the resources or skill to get it.

I like to eat meat everyday, but that doesn’t mean I know how to kill, skin, pluck an animal to be able to eat. Again you ignore basic division of labor, specialization in society. Furthermore it is not necessary for me to know these skills, since I can use other skills that I have and trade them for my meat. Again your WHOLE scenario disregards the IDEA OF human cooperation, ingenuity, division of labor….etc.

Its psycho babble scenario with no REAL place in the world. It is like mathematics analysis of human nature which does not take into affect human tendencies to behave unpredictably. Human nature only operates through a few axioms which need not be complicated by dogmatic mathematics to explain and only real truth: Human Action…

If you don't want to deal with the hypothetical scenario because you refuse to confront the fact that there are situations occurring right now requiring you to determine whether or not YOU as an individual enrich yourself or help make it possible for someone else to survive, you're more than welcome to fool yourself.

Again, more flawed Marxism. Everyday when you go to work and trade your labor services is at the expense of someone? Is someone made worse off because you have acquired income? Trade, your trade (your labor for income) is not making anyone else worse off. You are rather contributing to society’s well being and overall standard of living. You have made your employer better off by finding someone who will produce something, and in return you acquire income that you need to survive. Nobody is being hurt by this transaction. Just as someone is working in Calcutta or Ethiopia or South Africa…their work or labor makes society better off, because they are helping to produce a good that is demanded FULFILLING A need.

My point was fairly straight-forward in my original post, but since I didn't state it explicitly I will now:

We cannot call ourselves a civilized race until all people have water, food, and basic shelter. Until that happens we cannot say we're civilized.

How best to allocate this resource has been through the market. Remove prices, demand and supply forces and you will only have further starvation, death, and degradation. The increase in human population is a result of the success in providing these things. How else do explain human pop. growth without the lack of these things? First came prosperity, then the lag and the natural growth of the human population follows. Or do you think, first the billions of people came first, and then the resources. If you believe the chicken came before the EGG then YOUR comprehension of society, markets, and human condition is FAR WORSE THAN I thought….and beyond my help.

Alright lets talk about the 1943 famine in India where an estimated 3 million people died. Do you think the untouchables were the first to feel the sting of the famine or was it the Brahmins who suffered first?

I do not have time to correct your misunderstanding of history, or give you history lessons. But I can give you a clue, as to who was responsible for instigating the famine. See here

Focus on this tidbit of information:
“where the condition of farmers was worsened by landlords (mostly British) by imposing taxes and leaving them in an abject poverty.”

Also see here about the notorious SALT TAX Gandhi marched against.

Tell me, who got the ball rolling here? Who imposes taxes? Are TAXES good? Does it help a society? Will we be better off TAXED further by this new administration? (Hint: STATE/Government)

What an evil and A MORAL GHANDI to protest TAX HIKES huh…Xtraeme?

By the way, it’s interesting to note, that Gandhi’s struggle was AGAINST AN OPPRESSIVE STATE.

Capitalism does not solve all problems. Consider the goal of capitalism isn't to drive down scarcity for society, but for the people who invest in the company. Put in economic terms capitalism produces a bell-shaped curve on return on investment (ROI) for society.

Your last, paper is WORTHLESS. Has no relative value except in the halls of psychology or other poor social sciences. ROI is an accounting/finance term, and should not be lumped in with poorly conceded social science papers, with no empirical data to make such terrible generalizations. By the way, ROI is return for capital investment made by an investor. If a company has zero or declining ROI it will soon, be bankrupt or purchased by another institution.

Having worked at Microsoft as a software developer I can say with some clarity that if it weren't for the US govt filing an Antitrust lawsuit the consumer would be much worse for wear. MS

So other operating systems would have never existed? I suppose mac o.s., solaris, linux are products that the government created?

My point is NO GOVERNMENT laws were necessary. These systems were created by the market. Having witnessed Microsoft’s profits…was there no incentives for other O.S. system to compete and enter the market? The regulation was put in place because of competitors who couldn’t compete and had poorer products. Were you using NETSCAPE?…and these other companies that were losing market share, and brought on this lawsuit simply because customer preferred the Microsoft product over their product. If Microsoft was producing an inferior product, SHOULDN'T IT HAVE FAILED?




[edit on 19-8-2009 by Gateway]

Originally posted by Better Mouse Trap
LOL, It's always the rich greedy people who made their money on the blood sweat and tears of someone else who worry about something being taken away from them. These very elitist would rather blow money on a vacation in Spain then to be taxed a little more.

Face the facts, prevention is the best path to take.

You get the picture I'm painting?

I think I understand what you are saying. My only issue is - Why do we need to take one person's freedoms away so that another can gain from it?

[edit on 23-9-2009 by Pathos]

Another foolish thread touting the communist ideals of the free market system.

The repub elitists have re-distributed the wealth of the U.S. from the middle class to the ultra elites steadily over the last thirty years since that con artist, trotskyite, Reagan was elected, with a an interruption during the eight years of Clinton's presidency which is the only real economic growth of the last thirty years.

The destruction of the U.S. middle class through crooked banking schemes creating this re-distribution of wealth has resulted in the destruction of the worlds economy.

Markets need demand more than they need supply in our over productive world of advanced technology. We have an economic downturn where automobiles are piling up at U.S. ports because nobody can afford to buy them. We have no shortage in supply, we have a massive shortage in demand.

If you can not see this simple reality, then you need to take off the blinders that you are wearing.

reply to post by Gateway

My point is NO GOVERNMENT laws were necessary.

REALLY!

So we stop enforcing property rights, patent laws, all that, and the market will function fine?

So if some con artists lies and cheats me out of property, I can hunt him down and gut him, and no law enforcement group will come after me?

Marx had the same foolish idea, we don't need government. Without government everyone would work together and life would be peachy, all of us living in a nice commune.

What you want is a system that protects the property rights of some, but not others. You want a system where cheating someone out of their property is defended by the law.


Oh yeah, and of course huge military budgets to protect the overseas assets of the super rich, with the current tax system which has the middle class paying for the exportation of their jobs.

By the way, computers, software, the internet, all originally funded by huge amounts of government money. The market system only gets involved when the technology reaches a point where it can be profitable.

You live in a dream world.

Originally posted by poet1b
By the way, computers, software, the internet, all originally funded by huge amounts of government money. The market system only gets involved when the technology reaches a point where it can be profitable.

That's a very true statement. The society as a whole bears the cost (sometimes quite significant) of innovation. Private companies aren't capable of underwriting the kind of risks associated with such investments.

The Interstate System is maintained by the government and is widely regarded as one of the most important catalysts of the US business.

reply to post by buddhasystem


And before that government money paid for the building of the railroads which launched our nations industrial age.

Before that, they build the canals.

There are so many critical areas where government supports business, that people who claim government shouldn't have any involvement in business are simply clueless about, such as standards.

The Apollo program launched a great many of the technologies that have driven our economy over the last half a century.