CEO raises minimum wage to $70000, takes $70000 wage himself until profits are met.

[franklin]

We agree on some things(we should make education better, we should find a way to resolve poverty). We disagree on others(other nations are making themselves great, raising taxes is bad). I think we can both argue about how unattainable a meaningful degree is in our system compared to other systems across the world. Other shenanigans.. blah blah blah. Great, status quo, as it should be.

Those are very basic terms to agree or disagree to. I find the source of the statistical problem and target policy there. You prefer to write that off as "status quo" and prescribe complete overhauls that may or may not help anything. Essentially, you glorify the upsides while not paying attention to the downsides or even aware they exist.

You and dalamaintnuthin keep grinding that raise taxes axe. America spends just as much as a % of GDP as Canada and many other developed nations. Our GDP increases faster and we earn more per capita than most other nations, especially on a PPP basis. This extra income allows us to have a lower safety net, for the most part because most of us can afford our own. Denmark makes just 70% of what Americans do. That extra 30% here provides a lot, on our own and with dignity.

But something you mentioned a few pages back... a seemingly running theme.. not exactly, but something along the lines of if the dollar falls, American corporations will ruin economies of every other nation they can weasel their way in to.

Is that correct?

Japanese auto manufacturers are currently receiving an $11,000 per vehicle windfall due to their currency devaluation that started in 2012. What effect do you suppose that has on US auto manufacturers?

It works the same both ways, but in the end beggar thy neighbor policies are no good for anyone so the US carries the burden of the rest of the world engaging in trade wars.

 

[Dr. Jones]

"The rich alone use imported articles, and on these alone the
whole taxes of the General Government are levied... Our revenues
liberated by the discharge of the public debt, and its surplus
applied to canals, roads, schools, etc., the farmer will see
his government supported, his children educated, and the face of
his country made a paradise by the contributions of the rich
alone, without his being called on to spend a cent from his
earnings." --Thomas Jefferson to Thaddeus Kosciusko, 1811.

 

[Harambe]

Those are very basic terms to agree or disagree to. I find the source of the statistical problem and target policy there. You prefer to write that off as "status quo" and prescribe complete overhauls that may or may not help anything. Essentially, you glorify the upsides while not paying attention to the downsides or even aware they exist.

Isn't emboldening your strengths and hiding your weakness something everyone, and everything does? Name me any business that's completely forthcoming with how bad their goods or services can be and I'll be a customer/subscriber for life.

You and dalamaintnuthin keep grinding that raise taxes axe. America spends just as much as a % of GDP as Canada and many other developed nations. Our GDP increases faster and we earn more per capita than most other nations, especially on a PPP basis. This extra income allows us to have a lower safety net, for the most part because most of us can afford our own. Denmark makes just 70% of what Americans do. That extra 30% here provides a lot, on our own and with dignity.

You have two things wrong there.
1. I'm not so much a proponent of tax increases as you think. First we should address tax dodgers. We, the people, need to demonize that more than draft dodgers of the 40's and 50's were. Then, if that hasn't done anything, look at making the government more lean and effective(because yes, I believe the government is bloated as all hell, and ineffective in their efforts). Then, if we're still effed, increase taxes. I point at Norway, and their high tax rate as an example of something that's working, and by a quantifiable measure, yields a happier and more prosperous populace.

2. If everyone is paying into a system, and EXPECTS the government to pay for something, it's not a social faux pas to be using it. It's not something that only poor people do, and therefore there is no dignity lost, as it's something you've paid for as your plan, not something you're getting because you can't afford it otherwise.

Japanese auto manufacturers are currently receiving an $11,000 per vehicle windfall due to their currency devaluation that started in 2012. What effect do you suppose that has on US auto manufacturers?

It works the same both ways, but in the end beggar thy neighbor policies are no good for anyone so the US carries the burden of the rest of the world engaging in trade wars.

I'll take this as Yes.

Which, in one way of thinking, makes us enslaved to the position we're in now.... enslaved by the rest of the world. Enslaved in one hell of a place, but still enslaved. I'm a jackass for complaining about it, I know, but slavery doesn't seem to be our forte. Don't we owe it to ourselves, and the rest of the world, to find an effective exit strategy?

 

[Dr. Jones]

Have you guys studied, for example, how Apple handles their offshore tax strategies? Mind-boggling how little they pay and the lengths they go through..

I believe in paying fair taxes. Hell, I even pay close to 25%.. but I won't pay a lot more than that. Some wealthy corps are paying less than 3% and the dollars they save/don't pay is difference-making.

 

[franklin]

You have two things wrong there.
1. I'm not so much a proponent of tax increases as you think. First we should address tax dodgers. We, the people, need to demonize that more than draft dodgers of the 40's and 50's were. Then, if that hasn't done anything, look at making the government more lean and effective(because yes, I believe the government is bloated as all hell, and ineffective in their efforts). Then, if we're still effed, increase taxes. I point at Norway, and their high tax rate as an example of something that's working, and by a quantifiable measure, yields a happier and more prosperous populace.

We do go after tax dodgers, our system is built for it. People will always innovate and find ways to dodge taxes. We should expect us to do as much. The job of government is to seek out the new methods and catch up to tax dodging. We will always have a tax dodging "problem" as Dr. Jones stated. It's an endless cycle of playing catch up.

It would actually help if the public ignored the issue a bit more. Politicizing it creates talking points and forces the two parties to fight against each other. If we ignored it then they would gather bipartisan support in committee and pass fixes quietly.

I'll take this as Yes.

Which, in one way of thinking, makes us enslaved to the position we're in now.... enslaved by the rest of the world. Enslaved in one hell of a place, but still enslaved. I'm a jackass for complaining about it, I know, but slavery doesn't seem to be our forte. Don't we owe it to ourselves, and the rest of the world, to find an effective exit strategy?

It's not exactly a one way street. We export inflation, for example.

Our export strategy is to lift the world out of poverty and allow natural adjustments to equalize things out. Export dependent nations do not stay that way forever nor do import nations. It takes decades for things to reverse, however.

 

[Harambe]

Have you guys studied, for example, how Apple handles their offshore tax strategies? Mind-boggling how little they pay and the lengths they go through..

I believe in paying fair taxes. Hell, I even pay close to 25%.. but I won't pay a lot more than that. Some wealthy corps are paying less than 3% and the dollars they save/don't pay is difference-making.

GE Makes Apple look reasonable.

https://www.sanders.senate.gov/top-10-corporate-tax-avoiders

Skewed, but you get the picture.

 

[NAOS]

I think the most productive turns in this conversation have come when people have shared their personal experiences, so here goes a dose of mine:

I was born to a single mother who came out of a very small mormon community. While her father had educated himself and chosen a career in pharmacy, both her parents were raised on farms and with the basic tenet that the church will do a huge part of raising your kids. They lived with tons of space and unsupervised time. There were six kids that basically got to do as they please, and figure things out on their own. Most of those lessons were good, but the sexual politics of the place were still suffocating, and when my mom came out the wrong end of those politics she was forced to leave. She moved to Salt Lake City and had me on her own.

We lived check-to-check for years. She was lucky to find steady work (without a day spent at college and without taking high school seriously) doing data entry. She had no pretension that her job contributed to some greater good; it didn't provide any rich meaning for her; but she also knew she couldn't move laterally somewhere else more meaningful and she was absolutely dependent on the amount she was making. Coming home and dealing with a kid after a day like that left little time for any other kind of community or resources for insight/meaning. It was day-to-day, like sitting at a loom.

Eventually she met the man she'd marry and have two more kids with. They met at work. This guy was a mild to moderate alcoholic, always teetering on a bad mood and really possessive of his space. But he was a dependable provider. All he valued was work (and then playing HARD). I mean it: ask him for one spec of insight and it all comes back to keeping your nose to the grindstone and picking yourself up by the bootstraps. He can't give you a single insight into human characters that doesn't quickly reduce itself into a strategy for selling them something. My mother's hardships had eventually turned her into a similar character. They meshed.

The house was like a training field for how to be a dependable laborer. If you strayed from the vision and their punctuality -- as I often did, out chasing pheasants, riding my bike, building forts... you know, kid things -- then you got spanked. When I was 5 they gave me a watch and made me check in with them every hour and on the hour. If I was 5 minutes late, then I had to stay in for the rest of the day and there was some other form of punishment that would happen before the day was through. Like punching a clock.

They were exceedingly proud when I bought my own nintendo with money I'd saved shoveling driveways all winter. I was seven. I'd pick up yard work jobs like this for the rest of my youth. My first job came in the summer of my 11th year: two dollars per hour watering plants at a nursery. I bought a bike. They were absolutely convinced they were teaching me all the values I needed to succeed. Of course, I wasn't really challenged by any of this ****. This was just work I was doing while my mind was on other things, and it always felt weird when we'd have some small "proud of ya" talk after I'd saved enough to purchase something. I mean, the rest of my life was far more interesting... you know, what I was doing/learning with these things. In their mind, they were keeping track of "the rest" by monitoring my grades at school. I received nothing but As until the last quarter of 4th grade. That quarter I had broken my right hand during recess and my teacher gave me an A- in handwriting. My step-dad saw the grade, flew into a rage, and hit me in the face for the first time. Not the last.

This all has a few points. Here's the first: the axes of reward and punishment were all derivative of wage labor. It was all work for work's sake. Nothing more needed to be said. And, here's the second point: the dramas of wage labor, which my parents were so thoroughly steeped in, conform very poorly to the experiences of childhood. I mean, it's sort of a magical thing that adults learn to conform to the values of wage labor, especially on the edge of solvency, but kids obviously have no intuitive grasp of this, nor should they. If kids have any intuitive sense for this stuff, that all comes to the fore when they ask "why?". They know that there is no such thing as a value in itself (no such thing as work for work's sake, end of discussion). The smartest moves I've made as a more mature person are paying attention to that intuitive sense, and valuing my labor and learning way more than I was taught.

***

I could go on and talk about how I paid my own way through college and yada yada yada. I have bootstrapping stories for days. But most of that would occlude my points. Instead, I'd like to let a different light into this discussion: what do we value besides work? and how does the day-to-day reality of work soak up our available time to perfect/deepen these values? what about finding new non-work values?

My parents made the mistake of living a polarized life: WORK VALUES, which then switched over to HOW-TO-RELAX-FROM-WORK-STRESS-BEFORE-GOING-BACK-TO-WORK VALUES. That polarity eventually became unipolar: WORK. There have been a few times in this thread when national pride has surfaced. I'd say if we want to be proud of something, then lets live rich lives outside the dramas of work. And if we can't, then let's do our damnedest to give this to our kids.

tl;dr


EDIT TO ADD:
I don't want this to read as a complaining about my childhood. While it was happening I always felt it was normal. And there were stretches of time when me and my sisters were absolutely spoiled with things.

 

[Harambe]

We do go after tax dodgers, our system is built for it. People will always innovate and find ways to dodge taxes. We should expect us to do as much. The job of government is to seek out the new methods and catch up to tax dodging. We will always have a tax dodging "problem" as Dr. Jones stated. It's an endless cycle of playing catch up.

Hence demonizing it, not just having the government play catch up. Making it a bigger social gaffe than calling a bill a "black baby" (See Here. Not only make it illegal, and have the government catch them, but make it an unacceptable business practice.. like not hiring LGBT as a whole.

It would actually help if the public ignored the issue a bit more. Politicizing it creates talking points and forces the two parties to fight against each other. If we ignored it then they would gather bipartisan support in committee and pass fixes quietly.

We will way, way, way agree to disagree on that. Compared to other topics, it's like seeing a running Pinto.

It's not exactly a one way street. We export inflation, for example.

Our export strategy is to lift the world out of poverty and allow natural adjustments to equalize things out. Export dependent nations do not stay that way forever nor do import nations. It takes decades for things to reverse, however.

I don't doubt that this exists. I even looked the strategies up(still stingy on those links). But I'm not sure it's wise for us to sit at 18 trillion in debt. I also don't believe for a second we do it "because we're good guys".

But this line of thinking, and this action, still chains us somewhere. We've got to either end this cycle, or fully commit and Globalize.

 

[RandyForRubio]

We need to make more incentives for wealthy people to spend money.

I know it gets railed on a lot, but I've seen trickle down economics work, but only when those up top spend their money.

I know the company I work for pays its taxes fairly, but they would prefer to spend their income on improving their business (new equipment, new buildings, improving old buildings) than just simply pay income tax. By doing that, they might lower their profit a bit, but they improve work quality, efficiency, and give an economic boost to dealerships and construction. Hell, during the recession we were one of the main reasons our main contractor could keep most of his guys hired because of the work we gave him.

So let's find more ways to get people to spend their money. Whether that be lowering income tax (although this doesn't work very well), decreasing property tax, allowing people to write off their reduction in equipment values in one year, etc etc. In essence, find ways to create more jobs, which Obama hasn't actually been completely terrible at.

And if we have to raise taxes on the rich, then so be it. It isn't fair, but another 10% on people who make $100k isn't gonna kill them. Granted it's all moot if our government spends it inefficiently.

 

[jimmy eat jazz]

The problem with this experiment is that, in general, people in banking deal with literally almost EVERYONE in every field, across the entire world. Academics study cross-sections of their field of interest.

I hate to break it to you, but people working in private organizations specialize too, many are very highly specialized. Before I got my Ph.D., I worked as a commercial lending officer at a major money center bank. My world there was very constrained to my clients, to the regs that structured how I conducted my work, and to the culture of the commercial banker. Your claim that people outside of academia deal with EVERYONE in every field, across the entire world is laughably mal-informed and naive.

Asserting that the academic world is just as in touch with the rest of the workforce as any other field is a pretty big reach. There are certain fields of academic study that the professors or researchers are a lot closer to the reality. For example, healthcare instruction is generally done at an actual hospital, and business instructors are, generally speaking, usually business men or women themselves, and are or have recently been close to their field of work.

How much experience do you have with academics? Are you aware, for example, that many, many academics consult regularly with government, private sector, non-profit sector, etc? Before I left academics, I was spending nearly 40% of my time consulting on very real world issues.

Many in academics also serve in administrative positions (e.g., Dept Chair is often a rotating position), where they deal with a whole host of stakeholders on a wide variety of issues that are very real world stuff. Your apparent assumption that academics remain perpetually mired in some kind of detached ivory tower is just plain dumb. Sorry.

What's a pretty big reach is your insistence to cling onto stereotypes of academics.

TA career academic, on the other hand, does not have a lot of real world experience. They have research experience, and have worked hard in putting themselves in a good situation to publish articles that other career academics will study and critique. That is why people say that academic types are out of touch with reality. Refute it all you want, but to compare academia to banking is disingenuous and disappointing for a self proclaimed social scientist, and you probably know that.

I am sorry to disappoint you. . . actually I'm not. I will refute it all I want. Your arguments is based on uninformed stereotypes and is just plain wrong. My experience as an academic was every bit as 'real' as my career as a past commercial banker and my current career as a consultant.

BTW, I am not a 'self proclaimed' social scientist, I am a real social scientist with numerous publications in scientific journals to prove it. But, I suppose here, as well as elsewhere, you'll need to take my word for it (speaking, I presume, as the only one in this conversation with actual experience in the thing being discussed). If you choose not to take my word for it, then, oh well.

 

[jimmy eat jazz]

We need to make more incentives for wealthy people to spend money.

I know it gets railed on a lot, but I've seen trickle down economics work, but only when those up top spend their money.

I know the company I work for pays its taxes fairly, but they would prefer to spend their income on improving their business (new equipment, new buildings, improving old buildings) than just simply pay income tax. By doing that, they might lower their profit a bit, but they improve work quality, efficiency, and give an economic boost to dealerships and construction. Hell, during the recession we were one of the main reasons our main contractor could keep most of his guys hired because of the work we gave him.

So let's find more ways to get people to spend their money. Whether that be lowering income tax (although this doesn't work very well), decreasing property tax, allowing people to write off their reduction in equipment values in one year, etc etc. In essence, find ways to create more jobs, which Obama hasn't actually been completely terrible at.

And if we have to raise taxes on the rich, then so be it. It isn't fair, but another 10% on people who make $100k isn't gonna kill them. Granted it's all moot if our government spends it inefficiently.

Hey Howard, I'm not picking on you, but I did want to offer another perspective.

Actually, what we want the wealthy to do as much if not more than spend is to save. (Money can be either consumed or saved.) Increasing the savings rate increases the availability of capital lowers the cost of capital and makes us less dependent on foreign sources of savings (which is one of many reasons it is so important to protect the integrity of the US$, so as to entice foreigners to invest in dollar denominated assets and one reason why the Tea Party numbskulls who were pushing for defaulting on our debts are so dangerous).

Trickle down economics doesn't work, not as a sound macro-economic policy. I think you'd be hard pressed to argue that the weight of evidence comes down in favor of it, although from casual observations it might appear so.

Note also that Trickle Down economics was initially based on an assumption of the existence of a Laffer Curve, in which reducing the marginal tax rates of the wealth would induce greater work effort, greater income and greater savings (and consumption). This was a dubious theory to begin with That is in the early 80's when marginal tax rates were higher, but with the marginal tax rates already so low, it's an even more dubious theory.

In short, there's precious little valid evidence that continuously giving tax breaks to the rich in turn really helps the little guy. IMHO, that the rich (and their political allies) have managed to convince a blue collar worker earning $40,000 a year that it's in his beneift to cut yet again the tax rates for the 1% is a thing of wonder. It's yet another way in which the plutocrats have structured the rule of the game so that they benefit disproportionately.

 

[franklin]

Hence demonizing it, not just having the government play catch up. Making it a bigger social gaffe than calling a bill a "black baby" (See Here. Not only make it illegal, and have the government catch them, but make it an unacceptable business practice.. like not hiring LGBT as a whole.

I'm not too sure mega-rich people care all that much what you and I think of them. You can try it, but I'm not sure a google slogan along the lines of 'hey, we pay twice what apple pays in tax rates so give us twice as much for our product as theirs' is going to work.

 

[Harambe]

I'm not too sure mega-rich people care all that much what you and I think of them. You can try it, but I'm not sure a google slogan along the lines of 'hey, we pay twice what apple pays in tax rates so give us twice as much for our product as theirs' is going to work.

You only don't care what someone thinks until you do.

Slave owners didn't care what the north thought of slaves.

Racists in the 60's and seventies didn't care that the rest of the country was changing racism.

The mormon church didn't care what the reset of the nation thought about giving African Americans the priest hood.

The government didn't give a crap the people wanted to drink, and yet prohibition was thing.

Indiana didn't give a **** about passing a 'right to discriminate' law.

Seeing a trend? It all starts somewhere.

 

[franklin]

You only don't care what someone thinks until you do.

Slave owners didn't care what the north thought of slaves.

Racists in the 60's and seventies didn't care that the rest of the country was changing racism.

The mormon church didn't care what the reset of the nation thought about giving African Americans the priest hood.

The government didn't give a crap the people wanted to drink, and yet prohibition was thing.

Indiana didn't give a **** about passing a 'right to discriminate' law.

Seeing a trend? It all starts somewhere.

True, and I told you good luck with that.

Studies on campaigns to change perspective obviously show positive results (tobacco i.e.), until they don't (buy local). Everything in life is a calculation and it's pretty damn hard to wholesale change a country of 300mm people to disregard money.

Again, if you want to try then good luck with that. Also again, you're not considering the added benefits of having companies here who can take advantage of cheating taxes. Why do you think Deleware and the Caymans are so popular? Attraction and community benefit.

 

[franklin]

I think the most productive turns in this conversation have come when people have shared their personal experiences, so here goes a dose of mine:

I was born to a single mother who came out of a very small mormon community. While her father had educated himself and chosen a career in pharmacy, both her parents were raised on farms and with the basic tenet that the church will do a huge part of raising your kids. They lived with tons of space and unsupervised time. There were six kids that basically got to do as they please, and figure things out on their own. Most of those lessons were good, but the sexual politics of the place were still suffocating, and when my mom came out the wrong end of those politics she was forced to leave. She moved to Salt Lake City and had me on her own.

We lived check-to-check for years. She was lucky to find steady work (without a day spent at college and without taking high school seriously) doing data entry. She had no pretension that her job contributed to some greater good; it didn't provide any rich meaning for her; but she also knew she couldn't move laterally somewhere else more meaningful and she was absolutely dependent on the amount she was making. Coming home and dealing with a kid after a day like that left little time for any other kind of community or resources for insight/meaning. It was day-to-day, like sitting at a loom.

Eventually she met the man she'd marry and have two more kids with. They met at work. This guy was a mild to moderate alcoholic, always teetering on a bad mood and really possessive of his space. But he was a dependable provider. All he valued was work (and then playing HARD). I mean it: ask him for one spec of insight and it all comes back to keeping your nose to the grindstone and picking yourself up by the bootstraps. He can't give you a single insight into human characters that doesn't quickly reduce itself into a strategy for selling them something. My mother's hardships had eventually turned her into a similar character. They meshed.

The house was like a training field for how to be a dependable laborer. If you strayed from the vision and their punctuality -- as I often did, out chasing pheasants, riding my bike, building forts... you know, kid things -- then you got spanked. When I was 5 they gave me a watch and made me check in with them every hour and on the hour. If I was 5 minutes late, then I had to stay in for the rest of the day and there was some other form of punishment that would happen before the day was through. Like punching a clock.

They were exceedingly proud when I bought my own nintendo with money I'd saved shoveling driveways all winter. I was seven. I'd pick up yard work jobs like this for the rest of my youth. My first job came in the summer of my 11th year: two dollars per hour watering plants at a nursery. I bought a bike. They were absolutely convinced they were teaching me all the values I needed to succeed. Of course, I wasn't really challenged by any of this ****. This was just work I was doing while my mind was on other things, and it always felt weird when we'd have some small "proud of ya" talk after I'd saved enough to purchase something. I mean, the rest of my life was far more interesting... you know, what I was doing/learning with these things. In their mind, they were keeping track of "the rest" by monitoring my grades at school. I received nothing but As until the last quarter of 4th grade. That quarter I had broken my right hand during recess and my teacher gave me an A- in handwriting. My step-dad saw the grade, flew into a rage, and hit me in the face for the first time. Not the last.

This all has a few points. Here's the first: the axes of reward and punishment were all derivative of wage labor. It was all work for work's sake. Nothing more needed to be said. And, here's the second point: the dramas of wage labor, which my parents were so thoroughly steeped in, conform very poorly to the experiences of childhood. I mean, it's sort of a magical thing that adults learn to conform to the values of wage labor, especially on the edge of solvency, but kids obviously have no intuitive grasp of this, nor should they. If kids have any intuitive sense for this stuff, that all comes to the fore when they ask "why?". They know that there is no such thing as a value in itself (no such thing as work for work's sake, end of discussion). The smartest moves I've made as a more mature person are paying attention to that intuitive sense, and valuing my labor and learning way more than I was taught.

***

I could go on and talk about how I paid my own way through college and yada yada yada. I have bootstrapping stories for days. But most of that would occlude my points. Instead, I'd like to let a different light into this discussion: what do we value besides work? and how does the day-to-day reality of work soak up our available time to perfect/deepen these values? what about finding new non-work values?

My parents made the mistake of living a polarized life: WORK VALUES, which then switched over to HOW-TO-RELAX-FROM-WORK-STRESS-BEFORE-GOING-BACK-TO-WORK VALUES. That polarity eventually became unipolar: WORK. There have been a few times in this thread when national pride has surfaced. I'd say if we want to be proud of something, then lets live rich lives outside the dramas of work. And if we can't, then let's do our damnedest to give this to our kids.

tl;dr


EDIT TO ADD:
I don't want this to read as a complaining about my childhood. While it was happening I always felt it was normal. And there were stretches of time when me and my sisters were absolutely spoiled with things.

A truly great post and thanks for sharing. I'll share my thoughts on your goals later.

 

[babe]

"The rich alone use imported articles, and on these alone the
whole taxes of the General Government are levied... Our revenues
liberated by the discharge of the public debt, and its surplus
applied to canals, roads, schools, etc., the farmer will see
his government supported, his children educated, and the face of
his country made a paradise by the contributions of the rich
alone, without his being called on to spend a cent from his
earnings." --Thomas Jefferson to Thaddeus Kosciusko, 1811.

Our founders expected tariff proceeds to fund the federal government. It looked good, since prior to the Rev the Brits were charging and keeping the tariffs. Now, our economy was going to get the boost from keeping this money right here, and spent here.

The plan did prove out, I think until about the Civil War at least but maybe all the way up to the Income Tax and the Federal Reserve. Probably we should go back and try it again.

 

[Harambe]

True, and I told you good luck with that.

Studies on campaigns to change perspective obviously show positive results (tobacco i.e.), until they don't (buy local). Everything in life is a calculation and it's pretty damn hard to wholesale change a country of 300mm people to disregard money.

Again, if you want to try then good luck with that. Also again, you're not considering the added benefits of having companies here who can take advantage of cheating taxes. Why do you think Deleware and the Caymans are so popular? Attraction and community benefit.

When benefit outweighs the $3.09 trillion drain over ten years, we could look at that. I'm not convinced in the slightest that in the grand scale of a country, the benefits outweigh what we could have been spending on teachers, police, firefighters, etc.

 

[NAOS]

Our founders expected tariff proceeds to fund the federal government. It looked good, since prior to the Rev the Brits were charging and keeping the tariffs. Now, our economy was going to get the boost from keeping this money right here, and spent here.

The plan did prove out, I think until about the Civil War at least but maybe all the way up to the Income Tax and the Federal Reserve. Probably we should go back and try it again.

...would be a near-total reversal, at this point. I'm guessing the list of things that we get protectionist about is quite small.

 

[NAOS]

True, and I told you good luck with that.

Studies on campaigns to change perspective obviously show positive results (tobacco i.e.), until they don't (buy local). Everything in life is a calculation and it's pretty damn hard to wholesale change a country of 300mm people to disregard money.

Again, if you want to try then good luck with that. Also again, you're not considering the added benefits of having companies here who can take advantage of cheating taxes. Why do you think Deleware and the Caymans are so popular? Attraction and community benefit.

brough, it all starts with finding theee universal common denominator and then sending a www link for common sense strategies for talking. There is a common sense out there -- only one! -- and it fixes everything.... been happening sense Descartes invaded philosophy and left the esoteric crap to God. Thank God, right RoachO? can I have that link again? almost time for my new morning prayers.

 

[Dr. Jones]

I think the most productive turns in this conversation have come when people have shared their personal experiences, so here goes a dose of mine:

I was born to a single mother who came out of a very small mormon community. While her father had educated himself and chosen a career in pharmacy, both her parents were raised on farms and with the basic tenet that the church will do a huge part of raising your kids. They lived with tons of space and unsupervised time. There were six kids that basically got to do as they please, and figure things out on their own. Most of those lessons were good, but the sexual politics of the place were still suffocating, and when my mom came out the wrong end of those politics she was forced to leave. She moved to Salt Lake City and had me on her own.

We lived check-to-check for years. She was lucky to find steady work (without a day spent at college and without taking high school seriously) doing data entry. She had no pretension that her job contributed to some greater good; it didn't provide any rich meaning for her; but she also knew she couldn't move laterally somewhere else more meaningful and she was absolutely dependent on the amount she was making. Coming home and dealing with a kid after a day like that left little time for any other kind of community or resources for insight/meaning. It was day-to-day, like sitting at a loom.

Eventually she met the man she'd marry and have two more kids with. They met at work. This guy was a mild to moderate alcoholic, always teetering on a bad mood and really possessive of his space. But he was a dependable provider. All he valued was work (and then playing HARD). I mean it: ask him for one spec of insight and it all comes back to keeping your nose to the grindstone and picking yourself up by the bootstraps. He can't give you a single insight into human characters that doesn't quickly reduce itself into a strategy for selling them something. My mother's hardships had eventually turned her into a similar character. They meshed.

The house was like a training field for how to be a dependable laborer. If you strayed from the vision and their punctuality -- as I often did, out chasing pheasants, riding my bike, building forts... you know, kid things -- then you got spanked. When I was 5 they gave me a watch and made me check in with them every hour and on the hour. If I was 5 minutes late, then I had to stay in for the rest of the day and there was some other form of punishment that would happen before the day was through. Like punching a clock.

They were exceedingly proud when I bought my own nintendo with money I'd saved shoveling driveways all winter. I was seven. I'd pick up yard work jobs like this for the rest of my youth. My first job came in the summer of my 11th year: two dollars per hour watering plants at a nursery. I bought a bike. They were absolutely convinced they were teaching me all the values I needed to succeed. Of course, I wasn't really challenged by any of this ****. This was just work I was doing while my mind was on other things, and it always felt weird when we'd have some small "proud of ya" talk after I'd saved enough to purchase something. I mean, the rest of my life was far more interesting... you know, what I was doing/learning with these things. In their mind, they were keeping track of "the rest" by monitoring my grades at school. I received nothing but As until the last quarter of 4th grade. That quarter I had broken my right hand during recess and my teacher gave me an A- in handwriting. My step-dad saw the grade, flew into a rage, and hit me in the face for the first time. Not the last.

This all has a few points. Here's the first: the axes of reward and punishment were all derivative of wage labor. It was all work for work's sake. Nothing more needed to be said. And, here's the second point: the dramas of wage labor, which my parents were so thoroughly steeped in, conform very poorly to the experiences of childhood. I mean, it's sort of a magical thing that adults learn to conform to the values of wage labor, especially on the edge of solvency, but kids obviously have no intuitive grasp of this, nor should they. If kids have any intuitive sense for this stuff, that all comes to the fore when they ask "why?". They know that there is no such thing as a value in itself (no such thing as work for work's sake, end of discussion). The smartest moves I've made as a more mature person are paying attention to that intuitive sense, and valuing my labor and learning way more than I was taught.

***

I could go on and talk about how I paid my own way through college and yada yada yada. I have bootstrapping stories for days. But most of that would occlude my points. Instead, I'd like to let a different light into this discussion: what do we value besides work? and how does the day-to-day reality of work soak up our available time to perfect/deepen these values? what about finding new non-work values?

My parents made the mistake of living a polarized life: WORK VALUES, which then switched over to HOW-TO-RELAX-FROM-WORK-STRESS-BEFORE-GOING-BACK-TO-WORK VALUES. That polarity eventually became unipolar: WORK. There have been a few times in this thread when national pride has surfaced. I'd say if we want to be proud of something, then lets live rich lives outside the dramas of work. And if we can't, then let's do our damnedest to give this to our kids.

tl;dr


EDIT TO ADD:
I don't want this to read as a complaining about my childhood. While it was happening I always felt it was normal. And there were stretches of time when me and my sisters were absolutely spoiled with things.

Great post.
I would love to hear your philosophy about how you would likely parent a 5 or 7 year old now.. After your own childhood.