Your time out sure changed your tone. Took you less than 10 posts to call someone fucking stupid.
I didnāt want you to be confused again by any of my pop-media references.
But, as I keep mentioning, you feel a need (to claim) to want to leave the chat because someone said your āmagicā word. If I would have just started that above post with āAll forms of meanie-ism have the same underlying dynamicā¦ā you wouldnāt feel any such need (to claim) to want to leave the chat at allā¦ be honestā¦ now would you ???/?
So, the above is objectively stupid behavior. Sorry about that. And, Iām sure youāve heard that āstupid is as stupid doesā. Sorry about that too. Now I know you donāt got anything against name-callingā¦ I canāt remember what you called me above ITT, but I remember getting a chuckle out of it.
So, youāre a name caller whining about being called a name. Which again, is objectively stupid behavior. Sorry about that too.
If I stop calling you names, will you actually go ahead and exit the thread? Do you need to get the last name calling in? Are you fucking stupid?
I dont know from my understanding its pretty easy for them to look it up and they have all the info they need to. Maybe not though.
Capitalism does not create scarcity. All economic systems involve people being deprived of things they badly need or want. Capitalism does not involve more intentional deprivation than other systems. In fact history has shown the socialist systems inevitably trend toward deprivation and limited options for consumption while market based systems trend toward abundance. This should be obvious, we do not live in a universe where everyone can have everything. Any economic system should have a solution to how to best allocate the things we have and to drive the creation of more things we want and/or need. Capitalism claims a better answer to the economic calculation problem and a better solution for maximizing marginal utility, this is well accepted in mainstream economics.
If landlords are not deciding who gets to live where (in competition with private home ownership), then it will be done by government bureaucrats or I guess some randomized lottery system, neither of which is more likely to generate a better overall result for society due to the lack of incentive for maximizing marginal utility in those systems.
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First redbaiting, and now more US/USSR cold war propaganda ITT. During the cold war, both the US, and the USSR spewed forth the same exact lies: that the world is binary, that there is -only- US/Euro style capitalism and Eastern Europe style āsocialismāā¦ and thatās it. It was, quote obviously, in both sides best interests to promote this kinda stupid and brain dead Manicheanism.
Thatās what you just did. Does it feel nice to have a such a freshly washed brain?
Out here in reality, of course, there are plenty of other choices than US style capitalism and cold war era style āsocialismā. One such non-Manichean choice is, as Iāve mentioned, Georgism.
Hereās the problem for you fans of violent evictionsā¦ judged by the very same exact criteria embodied by standard economics, Georgism >>> Landlordismā¦ and itās not even close. Hereā¦ check it out for yourselfā¦
Standard economic theory suggests that a land value tax would be extremely efficient ā unlike other taxes, it does not reduce economic productivity.[12] Milton Friedman described Henry Georgeās tax on unimproved value of land as the āleast bad taxā, since unlike other taxes, it would not impose an excess burden on economic activity (leading to zero or even negative ādeadweight lossā); hence, a replacement of other more distortionary taxes with a land value tax would improve economic welfare.[25] As land value tax can improve the use of land and redirect investment toward productive, non-rent-seeking activities, it could even have a negative deadweight loss that boosts productivity.[26] Because land value tax would apply to foreign land speculators, the Australian Treasury estimated that land value tax was unique in having a negative marginal excess burden, meaning that it would increase long-run living standards.[27]
It was Adam Smith who first noted the efficiency and distributional properties of a land value tax in his book The Wealth of Nations ā¦ [A.Smith quote]
Benjamin Franklin and Winston Churchill made similar distributional and efficient arguments for taxing land rents. They noted that the costs of taxes and the benefits of public spending always eventually apply to and enrich, respectively, the owners of land. Therefore, they believed it would be best to defray public costs and recapture value of public spending by applying public charges directly to owners of land titles, rather than harming public welfare with taxes assessed against beneficial activities such as trade and labor.[28][29]
Henry George wrote that his plan for a high land value tax would cause people āto contribute to the public, not in proportion to what they produce ā¦ but in proportion to the value of natural [common] opportunities that they hold [monopolize]ā. He went on to explain that āby taking for public use that value which attaches to land by reason of the growth and improvement of the communityā, it would, āmake the holding of land unprofitable to the mere owner, and profitable only to the userā.
A high land value tax would discourage speculators from holding valuable natural opportunities (like urban real estate) unused or only partially used. Henry George claimed this would have many benefits, including the reduction or elimination of tax burdens from poorer neighborhoods and agricultural districts; the elimination of a multiplicity of taxes and expensive obsolete government institutions; the elimination of corruption, fraud, and evasion with respect to the collection of taxes; the enablement of true free trade; the destruction of monopolies; the elevation of wages to the full value of labor; the transformation of labor-saving inventions into blessings for all; and the equitable distribution of comfort, leisure, and other advantages that are made possible by an advancing civilization.[30] In this way, the vulnerability that market economies have to credit bubbles and property manias would be reduced.[12]
So, have we now driven a stake through these stupid, stupid, stupid cold war propagandistic misuses of standard economics?. Which were basically lies used to rationalize the continued use of violence against renting folks. I feel we have.
This, of course, is laughably and obviously false. Right now, in the heart of the greatest capitalist empire in history, we have both massive levels of homelessness, and orders of magnitude more housing sitting vacent.
There is no housing shortage at all. But still, there are homeless. Thatās artificial scarcity ācreatedā by capitalismā¦ in itās most obvious possible form.
Itās kinda like you are so brainwashed you canāt observe the most obvious of things right around you.
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Believing such utter gibberish also requires a complete rejection of history. Or complete ignorance coupled with a total lack of curiosity, I guess. Anyways, hereās another historical example of capitalism ācreatingā scarcity, this time with food. Emphasis is mineā¦
The Great Famineā¦ was a period of mass starvationā¦ During the famine, about one million people died and a million more emigrated from Ireland,[5] causing the islandās population to fall by between 20% and 25%.[6].
The event is sometimes referred to as the Irish Potato Famine , mostly outside Ireland.[7][8] The proximate cause of the famine was a natural event, a potato blight,[9] which infected potato crops throughout Europe during the 1840s, also causing some 100,000 deaths outside Irelandā¦
From 1846, the impact of the blight was exacerbated by the Whig governmentās economic policy of laissez-faire capitalism.[11][12][13] Longer-term causes include the system of absentee landlordism,[14][15] and single-crop dependence.[16][17].
Pretty funny to accuse someone of red-baiting by bringing up the Soviet Union, and then two posts later citing Irish potatoes.
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Correct, such as Norway, Denmark, and Japan, all of which have landlords yet very few homeless people.
I donāt understand what you are getting at here.
If there is no housing shortage there is by definition no scarcity, there is no evidence that this same problem of empty houses and homeless people coexisting would not also occur in a Georgist or Socialist system. There is nothing uniquely capitalist about it.
The Irish Potato Famine was caused by a blight as it says right in your quotation. You may blame capitalism for not offering a better solution, but I believe more modern systems of government with better social safety nets have better solutions to this type of problem without abandoning the positive aspects of market based economies.
And LOL at me āRed Baitingā go back and read your last few posts and the adjectives you use to describe capitalist systems. Who is baiting? You apparently cannot talk rationally about opposing ideas, and instead feel you have to resort to over the top condescension as a substitute for substance.
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It says āproximate causeā. Ireland was a net exporter of food throughout the famine. How was this achieved? Redcoats at the docks protecting ships loaded with grain for export.
Well there is empirical evidence, of course. But we donāt need to go all empirical here, at least not at first. Letās start with the simple-minded basics of standard economic theory, Mr.Econ smarty-pantsā¦
Do you agree -or- disagree, with .[12] Milton Friedman, who, as characterized by the Wikipedia editors, was of the opinion thatā¦
Henry Georgeās tax on unimproved value of land as the āleast bad taxā, since unlike other taxes, it would not impose an excess burden on economic activity (leading to zero or even negative ādeadweight lossā); hence, a replacement of other more distortionary taxes with a land value tax would improve economic welfare.[25]
If you disagree, please elaborate on your area(s) of disagreement.
I will take the term Mr.Econ smartypants as a compliment but I am not any sort of trained economist. Georgism is not a concept I have thought about a lot so you can probably pick apart my assessment but I am here to engage with someone who has a different perspective and maybe learn something as well, so here goes.
I canāt say I completely agree with Milton Friedmanās assessment. In the present day and age with modern transportation and digital economies there are substitutes for location in a lot of ways. For example, consider the current shift from brick and mortar retail to Internet retail and the associated land footprints. Obviously such policy would drive investment away from location and land-centric businesses where possible. So there would be some market distortions form my point of view.
Unrelated to Mr. Friedmanās statement, I think landlords would still exist under this system so it is somewhat off the original topic of the thread. I also expect landlords would find a way to pass the increased tax burden onto tenants, although I am aware the Georgists dispute this. I do not believe many landlords are actually efficiently pricing their rents.
Land holdings are not the key to wealth that they once were, guys like Gates, Bezos, Buffett, etc are not getting rich off their land, and these people would minimize their landholdings in such a system. I think this is actually what someone likes Friedman likes about it. I think it would not reduce wealth inequality and might actually increase it.
Additionally I am trying to envision how high such taxes would have to be to support the modern state. In my opinion such a system should still be accompanied by capital gains taxes and income taxes.
FYI: the footprints are about the same. Whatās different in e-commerce is that footprint is located on cheaper land. Instead of erecting a 1m sqft store on unimproved land that costs $X, a 1m sqft DC is erected on unimproved land that costs, say $X/2. When M.Friedman is talking about ādistortionsā he isnāt using it in the way you seem to be using itā¦ as in simply any and every possible changing. He means it in a more technical econ senseā¦ that the rent-seeking baked into the status-quo is a ādistortionā to the āfreeā market, and that under a Georgism system the āfreeā market would not suffer such ādistortionā.
Cliffs: you got this part all backwards.
Sure, there would be landlord-tenant relationships under a Georgist system. But hereās the difference: without that aforementioned baked in rent-seeking, that landlord-tenant relationship under a Georgist system wouldnāt be capitalism.
So we have the surprising (to liberals) fact that (a) not only is the status-quo <<<< Georgist when it comes to the metrics of standard economics, but (b) under Georgism the landlord-tenant relationship isnāt even capitalistic.
Itās also quite relevant. I feel I can speak for the OP here.
Iām sure the OP wasnāt considering Georgism when he wrote his OP. I wouldnāt be surprised if he had never heard of Georgism. But I know he isnāt against the existence of the landlord-tenant relationship in generalā¦ as he is surely fully supportive of our FWs at Hotel Bauen. What he, along with every other anti-capitalist, is against is the rent-seeking built into the status-quoā¦ because thatās what capitalism is: violent rent-seeking.
Letās do a poll !!!1!
Judging by the criteria espoused by standard economics, a Georgist system >>>> our pre-pandemic status-quo.
- Agree
- Disagree
- Bastard
0 voters
This is why the poor should be homeless.
Iāve never read anything on it before - working through the wiki now. I definitely agree with the idea that land doesnāt belong to anyone, but to everyone; that there is no proper original owner of land and itās always based on just taking/theft. But, Iāve never really thought about the single-tax and economics. It certainly has broad support among economists - from Milton Friedman to Joseph Stiglitz.
Embarrassing true story:
I studied Econ in college and in one of my entry level classes did a project on why the minimum wage is bad for workers based on knowing nothing about the world besides where lines meet.
Thankfully my knowledge of Econ evolved beyond this rudimentary understanding that gets taught in Econ 101. The issue is most people never take another Econ class beyond this level.