It's be perfectly fine, if we can get to the point of living in a post-scarcity society. (because at that point people wouldn't be living off 'the taxpayers' but rather the accumulated structure* of the ages)
*i.e. that archetypal clean near-infinite-on-human-scale energy source that would make such a society and economy possible.
That's a good assessment on the merits of means tested programs, but the demerits are that they create perverse incentives, screw over people at the margin, and (as a function of both of these) make income vs asset distinctions problematic.
Yeah, that's not what he's saying at all. What he's saying if you look at places with very weak state institutions - like Afghanistan, Somalia, Haiti, you see the continuum between 'street gang' and 'state' and the very fuzzy distinctions between to which we grant 'legitimacy' and to which we maintain are no more than criminal enterprises.
Pet peeve time. This notion of Henry Ford is sorta true (in that he sorta said the same thing himself) but misses a big picture of what he did.
Sure he paid unskilled labor something like a then unheard of amount of 5 bucks a day.
But he did it by continuously refining his assembly line and production practices that got eventually rid of almost all the skilled labor that used to be involved on Ford's line when it first started. And who getting paid a lot more than 5 dollars a day.
Dollar index volatility has not been highly correlated with commodity index volatility over the last three years. (it was a slight contributor to the run up to the '08 peaks, but speculation and 'real' demand were much larger contributors)
16-20 year olds don't know anything. They rarely even know how to show up for work on time and ready to work. At the very least 25 year olds know this. It's pretty much why McD's in my area seems to have replaced the 17 year old kids I remember working there when I was that age with 25-35 year old Central american immigrants that barely even went to high school. http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/magazine/whos-lovin-it/2011/08/12/gIQAoOVRuJ_story.html
(I would also note that there's a segment that have no problem with kids working for less than minimum wage - those that sponsor unpaid internships. Of course, those kids normally have mommies and daddies that have the means to pay for college)
Just as a side comment, I had heard the Green Latern analogy before but didn't realize Yglesias is the first one tha popularized it.
Curiously, though, I find his oft-repeated notions of what the Fed could and should be doing in a zero-bound monetary environment to be guilty of this same fallacy. (though there's also some underpants gnomism a la DarrenG with this policy perscription). I also found this recent post rather Green Lanternish as well.
That's a good point. And along the same lines, you have Columbine which did spur a lot of calls for new gun control legislation (mostly unsuccessfully). And Colombine was kinda of big deal mediawise even if it's in flyover country (a rather rich rather white rather suburban part of flyover country, which was the cause of the media resonance their was)
Perhaps the Beltway's sniper's relatively proximity to both the unsuccessful gun control efforts of Colombine and cultural changes from 9/11 made it a non gun control issue. Plus Virginia isn't Colorado (though it's close in a lot of respects).
And yet another factor is that the Beltway Sniper was relatively quickly forgotten after they were caught, because 1) they were not, after all, criminal masterminds. and 2) this and other aspects (e.g. looking through every white van on I-95 when the dudes were in a blue sedan) made the authorities look really bad afterwards.
This goes to the second question - it is both the scale and the location in NYC (and Washington) that made it resonate. Look at how much Irene coverage there was, when by for example Florida standards (to say nothing of Puerto Rico and the rest of the Caribbean) it was just another middlin storm in the middle of the season.
3000 thousand deaths in a single stroke is a lot and would be noticed everywhere, but just noted in a lot of places. Even in the 24/7 cycle, there's entire civil wars (mostly in Africa) that barely if ever make the cut.
Kinda like what Will Truman said above, one facet is that a big event *creates* a 24/7 news cycle. It was before I was born, but I'm under the impression the Kennedy assassination was like that - everyone tuning into the radio or turning on the newfangled TV to catch the latest tibits of the hints of rumors.
Adding on this one could possibly say that some big event is alway associated with a change in communication. TV's first big story was the Kennedy assassination. Cable news' first big story was the first Iraq war. Internets' first big news was 9/11*. (going backwards, photography's first big news was the Civil War.)
So to the original question I'll say false with an asterisk.
*as a minor point it was also the day when a continuous crawl became standard on all cable news, and not just the financial guys like Bloomberg and CNBC
Not seeing the debate, and reading both this post and Isquith's first, I was expecting something considerable different when I saw the clip in question.
I'm not opposed to single payer, and the current system is a soup sandwich, but that's not what Blitzer's hypothetical was all about.
And it's further tendentious because Mr Hypo Coma would get treatment even in today's regime. (he'd be screwed as a soon as he woke up, but again, not part of the hypothetical)
Franklin always struck me as more judgmental than that, but in his unique kindly avuncular way. (I mean, what is Poor Richard's Almanack but a collection of "ur doin it wrong!"?)
It's a central quandary of modern times and of futurism
People are miserable if they get up every morning and go somewhere to be told what to do for 8 or so hours a day.
But people are downright sociopathic if they're *not* getting up out of bed every morning and going somewhere and told what to do for 8 or so hours a day.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.
On “Affirmative Action and Philosophy vs. Reality”
Likely they're just stallin'
On “Those Poor Bastards…”
"but for one thing the 0.7% gross national income devoted to official development assistance would be a good start."
So the corrupt kleptocrats of the third world can fly out 100 million dollars a day to banking havens rather than just 10 million?
On “Neoliberalism and the Human Economy”
It's be perfectly fine, if we can get to the point of living in a post-scarcity society. (because at that point people wouldn't be living off 'the taxpayers' but rather the accumulated structure* of the ages)
*i.e. that archetypal clean near-infinite-on-human-scale energy source that would make such a society and economy possible.
"
That's a good assessment on the merits of means tested programs, but the demerits are that they create perverse incentives, screw over people at the margin, and (as a function of both of these) make income vs asset distinctions problematic.
"
Yeah, that's not what he's saying at all. What he's saying if you look at places with very weak state institutions - like Afghanistan, Somalia, Haiti, you see the continuum between 'street gang' and 'state' and the very fuzzy distinctions between to which we grant 'legitimacy' and to which we maintain are no more than criminal enterprises.
On “Liberty, Anarchy and the Pragmatist’s Dilemma”
"It reduces the need for men as leaders — agents like Facebook are able to produce consensus in a fashion more conducive to women leading."
Super serious - would you do a guest post on this. I don't agree, but would really like to hear a contrary argument.
(It would, at the very least, be super-ironic given Facebook's origin as a method of rating the attractiveness of coeds)
"
Plus, we don't know how that will all play out.
On “Some may use this to question public policy…”
Pet peeve time. This notion of Henry Ford is sorta true (in that he sorta said the same thing himself) but misses a big picture of what he did.
Sure he paid unskilled labor something like a then unheard of amount of 5 bucks a day.
But he did it by continuously refining his assembly line and production practices that got eventually rid of almost all the skilled labor that used to be involved on Ford's line when it first started. And who getting paid a lot more than 5 dollars a day.
Today we call that 'outsourcing'
On “On Lowering or Eliminating the Minimum Wage”
Related to this sub-thread and another sub-thread above, Louis CK on 20 year olds and jobs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kl5vihsERDw&feature=related
On “Unintended Consequences Sunday Sidebar Comment Request Open Thread”
As another libertarian leaning libertarian, I would have this comment's babies if it were not morally dubious and biologically impossible.
On “On Lowering or Eliminating the Minimum Wage”
Dollar index volatility has not been highly correlated with commodity index volatility over the last three years. (it was a slight contributor to the run up to the '08 peaks, but speculation and 'real' demand were much larger contributors)
"
16-20 year olds don't know anything. They rarely even know how to show up for work on time and ready to work. At the very least 25 year olds know this. It's pretty much why McD's in my area seems to have replaced the 17 year old kids I remember working there when I was that age with 25-35 year old Central american immigrants that barely even went to high school. http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/magazine/whos-lovin-it/2011/08/12/gIQAoOVRuJ_story.html
(I would also note that there's a segment that have no problem with kids working for less than minimum wage - those that sponsor unpaid internships. Of course, those kids normally have mommies and daddies that have the means to pay for college)
On “Political Theodicy”
Just as a side comment, I had heard the Green Latern analogy before but didn't realize Yglesias is the first one tha popularized it.
Curiously, though, I find his oft-repeated notions of what the Fed could and should be doing in a zero-bound monetary environment to be guilty of this same fallacy. (though there's also some underpants gnomism a la DarrenG with this policy perscription). I also found this recent post rather Green Lanternish as well.
On “On Lowering or Eliminating the Minimum Wage”
I would seriously consider eliminating it for 16-20 year olds. (+/- a year or two on either side)
On “Political Theodicy”
This seems wrong (i.e. Rawls) but I may be completely both misunderstanding and missing the point.
On “A 9/11 Question”
That's a good point. And along the same lines, you have Columbine which did spur a lot of calls for new gun control legislation (mostly unsuccessfully). And Colombine was kinda of big deal mediawise even if it's in flyover country (a rather rich rather white rather suburban part of flyover country, which was the cause of the media resonance their was)
Perhaps the Beltway's sniper's relatively proximity to both the unsuccessful gun control efforts of Colombine and cultural changes from 9/11 made it a non gun control issue. Plus Virginia isn't Colorado (though it's close in a lot of respects).
And yet another factor is that the Beltway Sniper was relatively quickly forgotten after they were caught, because 1) they were not, after all, criminal masterminds. and 2) this and other aspects (e.g. looking through every white van on I-95 when the dudes were in a blue sedan) made the authorities look really bad afterwards.
"
See also, the Beltway Sniper.
Which is another facet of the modern news cycle.
Location Location Location.
This goes to the second question - it is both the scale and the location in NYC (and Washington) that made it resonate. Look at how much Irene coverage there was, when by for example Florida standards (to say nothing of Puerto Rico and the rest of the Caribbean) it was just another middlin storm in the middle of the season.
3000 thousand deaths in a single stroke is a lot and would be noticed everywhere, but just noted in a lot of places. Even in the 24/7 cycle, there's entire civil wars (mostly in Africa) that barely if ever make the cut.
"
Kinda like what Will Truman said above, one facet is that a big event *creates* a 24/7 news cycle. It was before I was born, but I'm under the impression the Kennedy assassination was like that - everyone tuning into the radio or turning on the newfangled TV to catch the latest tibits of the hints of rumors.
Adding on this one could possibly say that some big event is alway associated with a change in communication. TV's first big story was the Kennedy assassination. Cable news' first big story was the first Iraq war. Internets' first big news was 9/11*. (going backwards, photography's first big news was the Civil War.)
So to the original question I'll say false with an asterisk.
*as a minor point it was also the day when a continuous crawl became standard on all cable news, and not just the financial guys like Bloomberg and CNBC
On “I didn’t watch the Tea Party debate”
Not seeing the debate, and reading both this post and Isquith's first, I was expecting something considerable different when I saw the clip in question.
I'm not opposed to single payer, and the current system is a soup sandwich, but that's not what Blitzer's hypothetical was all about.
And it's further tendentious because Mr Hypo Coma would get treatment even in today's regime. (he'd be screwed as a soon as he woke up, but again, not part of the hypothetical)
On “A Work In Progress”
Franklin always struck me as more judgmental than that, but in his unique kindly avuncular way. (I mean, what is Poor Richard's Almanack but a collection of "ur doin it wrong!"?)
On “On the Changing of Narratives”
This is another great post.
On “The Machinery of… whatever”
Conservatively, about a million people had access to the same material Manning (allegedly) released. Are they all evil or cowards (or evil cowards)?
"
Aren't they called 'provincists' up there?
"
I'm thinking this is the best post I'll be reading regarding the 9/11 anniversary. (It's the best one I've read so far)
On “A More Human Economy: The Jobless Future and the Medium Chill”
It's a central quandary of modern times and of futurism
People are miserable if they get up every morning and go somewhere to be told what to do for 8 or so hours a day.
But people are downright sociopathic if they're *not* getting up out of bed every morning and going somewhere and told what to do for 8 or so hours a day.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.