Text 13896, 557 rader
Skriven 2007-04-23 23:51:14 av Josh Hill (259.babylon5)
     Kommentar till en text av rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated
Ärende: Re: OT: Finesse contest finalists - thanks to all!
==========================================================
On Mon, 23 Apr 2007 20:03:48 -0500, "Carl" <cengman7@hotmail.com>
wrote:

>
>"Josh Hill" <usereplyto@gmail.com> wrote in message=20
>news:ufbo235v2v2tm3bqpefp7cv5mgbnt8cdfk@4ax.com...


>***** Note, my newsreader isn't adding '>'s  this time. ******
>
>I tend to think that the percentage of @$$holes in the world is
>probably constant throughout history.   These days countries have
>a stronger legal infrastructure than ever before to restrict the @$$hole=
s.
>
>**************************************
[my text snipped to avoid quoting confusion]

I'm not sure if that's true. Historically, there have been kindly
cultures and warlike, predatory ones. I don't know that the latter
would consider themselves less moral, but I think most of us would
characterize them that way. So I think the statistical baseline can
vary by society. And if that's the case, it can also potentially vary
with time. I believe that Republican government, with all its flaws,
and its cousin, modern welfare-state capitalism, with all /its/ flaws,
lead to a society that becomes increasingly caring, if for no other
reason than that some degree of enfranchisement is granted to those
who would be powerless in an autocratic society.

[Me:]

>But don't those conditions influence our morality? We become what
>circumstance allows, and I believe that the prosperity of the middle
>class has led in the advanced countries to a significant change in
>outlook, one that emphasizes opportunity and reward rather than
>punishment.
>
>
[You:]
>
>That would imply that with diminished conditions, a diminshed morality
>is acceptable.

Not necessarily acceptable, just more likely to be the case. Also,
having a different morality -- less moral from our perspective,
perhaps, but no less moral by the perspectives of at least some of the
people who lived in that society.

>I don't know where you're getting this information. I'm too tired to
>do a thorough search, but this quote is representative of what
>surfaces when one does one --
>
><skip>
>
>The figures I saw considered all assets, not just income.

The figures I've seen for assets tell much the same story.

>>>>Income inequality is not inherently good or bad either.
>>>
>>> Well, nothing is inherently good or bad, but if the reality is a
>>> country in which virtually all the gains of the growing economy have
>>> been going to the top 10% while regular people struggle to maintain
>>> the same standard of living, and in which some /working people/ are
>>> forced to live in cars, I vote for bad.
>>
>>All of the gains have not been going to the upper 10%, and those top
>>10% are paying over 50% of the taxes, providing services to those
>>that pay no or little taxes.
>
>It's actually worse than that:
>
>'A new research paper by Ian Dew-Becker and Robert Gordon of
>Northwestern University, "Where Did the Productivity Growth Go?,"
>gives the details. Between 1972 and 2001 the wage and salary income of
>Americans at the 90th percentile of the income distribution rose only
>34 percent, or about 1 percent per year. So being in the top 10
>percent of the income distribution, like being a college graduate,
>wasn't a ticket to big income gains.
>
>'But income at the 99th percentile rose 87 percent; income at the
>99.9th percentile rose 181 percent; and income at the 99.99th
>percentile rose 497 percent. No, that's not a misprint.
>
>****
>One presumes much of that increase in wealth comes from investing
>in new companies and ideas, which creates jobs, provides health care, et=
c.
>
>Such investment is a good thing.  If it's rewarded, all the better.

That doesn't mean anything if the new wealth doesn't go to most of the
people in our society, but rather to the tiny fraction who don't need
it. And that, in essence, has been what's been happening. Compare the
period of the liberal ascendancy from Roosevelt through Johnson or so,
in which not only did our national income grow much faster than it has
during the conservative years, but the benefits went to everybody,
from the rich to the poor.

>>As to living in cars, etc, let's look at the statistics of how those th=
at
>>are defined as poor actually live:
>>
>>a.. Forty-six percent of all poor households actually own their own hom=
es.
>>The average home owned by persons classified as poor by the Census Bure=
au=20
>>is
>>a three-bedroom house with one-and-a-half baths, a garage, and a porch =
or
>>patio.
>>a.. Seventy-six percent of poor households have air conditioning. By
>>contrast, 30 years ago, only 36 percent of the entire U.S. population
>>enjoyed air conditioning.
>>a.. Only 6 percent of poor households are overcrowded. More than two-th=
irds
>>have more than two rooms per person.
>>a.. The average poor American has more living space than the average
>>individual living in Paris, London, Vienna, Athens, and other cities
>>throughout Europe. (These comparisons are to the average citizens in=20
>>foreign
>>countries, not to those classified as poor.)
>>a.. Nearly three-quarters of poor households own a car; 30 percent own =
two
>>or more cars.
>>a.. Ninety-seven percent of poor households have a color television; ov=
er
>>half own two or more color televisions.
>>a.. Seventy-eight percent have a VCR or DVD player; 62 percent have cab=
le=20
>>or
>>satellite TV reception.
>>a.. Seventy-three percent own microwave ovens, more than half have a=20
>>stereo,
>>and a third have an automatic dishwasher.
>>
>>The average consumption of protein, vitamins, and minerals is virtually=
 the
>>same for poor and middle-class children and, in most cases, is well abo=
ve
>>recommended norms. Poor children actually consume more meat than do
>>higher-income children and have average protein intakes 100 percent abo=
ve
>>recommended levels.
>>
>>Overall, the typical American defined as poor by the government has a c=
ar,
>>air conditioning, a refrigerator, a stove, a clothes washer and dryer, =
and=20
>>a
>>microwave. He has two color televisions, cable or satellite TV receptio=
n, a
>>VCR or DVD player, and a stereo. He is able to obtain medical care. His=
=20
>>home
>>is in good repair and is not overcrowded. By his own report, his family=
 is
>>not hungry and he had sufficient funds in the past year to meet his=20
>>family's
>>essential needs. While this individual's life is not opulent, it is equ=
ally
>>far from the popular images of dire poverty conveyed by the press, libe=
ral
>>activists, and politicians.
>>
>>In good economic times or bad, the typical poor family with children is
>>supported by only 800 hours of work during a year: That amounts to 16 h=
ours
>>of work per week. If work in each family were raised to 2,000 hours per
>>year--the equivalent of one adult working 40 hours per week throughout =
the
>>year--nearly 75 percent of poor children would be lifted out of officia=
l
>>poverty.
>>Father absence is another major cause of child poverty. Nearly two-thir=
ds=20
>>of
>>poor children reside in single-parent homes; each year, an additional 1=
.3
>>million children are born out of wedlock. If poor mothers married the
>>fathers of their children, almost three-quarters would immediately be=20
>>lifted
>>out of poverty.
>>
>>There are very few cases of people living out of cars, and with 81 fede=
ral
>>social programs and most states having equivalent programs, the need fo=
r=20
>>one
>>to actually live in a car is suspect.
>>
>>Also, even in terms of health insurance, the figure given out most ofte=
n is
>>that there are 45 million uninsured people in the US, however if you br=
eak
>>that down, 15 million of those are eligable for some form of health car=
e
>>under a federal program right now but do not take advantage of it, and
>>another 13 million make over 50K a year (MN classifies someone making 6=
7K
>>wealthy and in the top tax bracket) but choose not to buy it.    If one
>>considered the illegal alien/undocumented worker population as being th=
e 12
>>million that are usually reported, that leaves a *much* smaller portion=
 of
>>the population that are actually  about 5 million.
>
>Wow, I have to run off and get poor.
>
>***
>Let's not get silly

Precisely my point. I mean, I don't have half the things those typical
poor Americans are supposed to have.
>
>Seriously, this Marie Antoinette stuff makes my blood boil. It's not
>just that transparent spin like "81 federal social programs" is an
>insult to my intelligence.-- do they really think the American public
>is so dumb that we can't tell the difference between 81 pennies and 81
>dollars? -- but that it's an intentional attack by some unknown
>prosperous people on the weakest and most unfortunate members of our
>society.
>
>***********
>Exactly where is the attack?  There are many federal social programs
>and many state programs.  Between the two, there are a lot of resources =
out=20
>there to prevent people from living in cars and starving to death.  Ther=
e=20
>are programs that let entire generations of people to live off of them.
>
>Please point out exactly where there was any attack on thepoor?

My problem here is that the attack was so multi-faceted that I don't
know where to start. They imply that the poor are living in luxury,
swamped in color TV's and houses and cars. Then, they say that the
typical poor family is supported by 16 hours of work a week, and
conveniently neglect to mention that in many poor communities /people
are unemployed and can't get jobs/. Then they say that father absence
is a typical cause of child poverty, as if that somehow excuses the
shameful fact that so many children are poor, and make the nonsensical
assertion that if the single moms suddenly got married most of the
poverty would go away, having apparently never considered the fact
that many of the dads are teens or deadbeats or addicts or unemployed
or in prison. Then they have the unmitigated gall not only to minimize
the plight of homelessness, but to imply that it is somehow a crock,
while presenting intentionally misleading and meaningless statistics
about 81 Federal programs, when the simple fact is that sufficient
housing and support for the homeless is /not/ available and hasn't
been since Ronald Reagan was president. Then they try to make the 45
million uninsured "disappear" through sleight of hand.

Here in New London, the working poor earn minimum wage, and that isn't
enough to support a family and pay for an apartment. So they work two
shifts and can't supervise their children. And something comes along
-- they get laid off or they catch pneumonia and lose a month's
income, say -- and they get evicted, and then if they're lucky and
have local friends they crash in somebody's attic and if not they end
up living out of the family car, and trying to hide it, because
they're ashamed. Very different from the rosy picture above. Very
different.

>
>***********
>
>Does a hungry child's belly hurt any less because he has a
>deadbeat Dad? I don't know about you, but I've lived in urban areas
>for much of my life, and I've seen the effects of poverty. It's real
>and it sucks and brushing it under the carpet doesn't make it go away.
>
>************
>My youth was not exactly one of comfort.   I am at least as aware of the=
=20
>conditions you refer to as you are and I'm not brushing anything away.  =
My=20
>comment elsewhere was that I have no problem with social programs.   I d=
o=20
>think we're continuing to throw more money on programs that aren't worki=
ng=20
>long term.  At best they're keeping the same rate of poverty year after=20
>year, generation after generation, yet they're held up as some shining=20
>achievement.  No one should dare question them or else you're a heartles=
s=20
>bastard and you'll have emaciated children dropping at the side of every=
=20
>road.
>
>On top of that, a *lot* of money is lost to fraud and redundancy with st=
ate=20
>programs.

While they do have a role in some cases, I don't much believe in
social programs and long-term welfare. I do believe in education,
jobs, and help for the disabled and mentally ill. And on the whole I
think our efforts in those directions are shamefully lacking given our
society's wealth.

>
>************
>
>>>>Wealth is a poor standard for judging good and evil.
>>>
>>> I consider discrepancies in wealth /wrong/ to the extent that I can
>>> find no social purpose or social harm in them. In that, they're no
>>> different than the likes of killing, in that right (a just war) or
>>> wrong (a murder) depends on context.
>>
>>You assume that there has to be a social purpose for such things; there
>>doesn't.  If you're proposing that all aspects of life must be classifi=
ed=20
>>in
>>terms of a social purpose and controlled to obtain that outcome (which =
I
>>would consider a lack of freedom), then we completely disagree on the
>>purpose of government (which is fine).
>
>I don't see it as a matter of something that I want or not. Rather, I
>see it as a matter of what is, because cultures compete, and those
>which are less successful either change with time or are dominated or
>destroyed by others. A social evolutionary process, in other words.
>
>******
>Perhaps.  Sweden is moving away from the nanny state mentality that it h=
ad,=20
>and
>France is in for tough times.
>******

Read an op ed article on France yesterday, which essentially said that
it isn't:

But is the French situation really so dire? From every quarter one
hears calls for =93reform=94 to bring France more in line with
Anglo-American practices and policies. The dysfunctional French social
model, we are frequently assured, has failed.=20

In that case there is much to be said for failure. French infants have
a better chance of survival than American ones. The French live longer
than Americans and they live healthier (at far lower cost). They are
better educated and have first-rate public transportation. The gap
between rich and poor is narrower than in the United States or
Britain, and there are fewer poor people.=20

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/22/opinion/22judt.html?_r=3D1&oref=3Dslogi=
n

In any case, I'm not a socialist any more than I'm a capitalist. The
most successful economies, including ours, are mixed, and our
challenge is to fine tune the mix.

>>Some people inherit money...that's called luck.  Some people make more=20
>>money
>>than others through hard work, investing in themselves (an education), =
and
>>taking risks (starting a business).  That's called earning their money.
>>Some people aren't willing to work that hard because they have other
>>priorities in their lives, don't have the talent, aren't willing to go =
to
>>college, risk their savings, etc.  That's fine and *no* judgment should=
 be
>>made in either case.
>
>I see them as radically different. Setting aside for the moment my
>bourgeois values, I believe that the societies in which merit and
>initiative predominate over hereditary privilege are the most
>prosperous, the most powerful, the happiest. Which is why capitalism
>has proven so much more successful than the old aristocratic system.
>
>******
>I'd much rather see the government focus on providing incentives to
>the wealthy to invest in new businesses and technologies rather than
>a feel-good attempt to drag the wealthy down as much as possible.
>
>Incentives for the wealthy to spend  work much better than something
>like the absurd luxury tax on yachts that almost destroyed the iundustry
>and didn't gnerate any money.
>
>Also, money spent by the government tends to be spent on a much
>narrower portion of the economy.

You appear to have contradicted yourself, calling first for
encouraging the wealthy to invest and then to encouraging the wealthy
spend. In fact, the wealthy /have/ to do one or the other, unless they
keep their fortunes under their beds. The yacht tax was stupid because
it singled out a specific industry, not because it taxed the wealthy.
And government spending is better for the economy than leaving the
money to the wealthy, precisely because the wealthy are less likely to
spend and more likely to invest, and the economy is generally demand
limited. That being said, from a macroeconomic perspective, a dollar
spent is a dollar spent. From a social perspective, it is better to
spend it on those who need it rather than on those who don't, as long
as doing so doesn't decrease incentive.


>******
>
>>At some point, if the wealthy are paying their taxes, giving to charity=
,
>>living their lives without trying to harm others... what they make is n=
one
>>of our business.  If  it's more than I make, good for them...I don't ho=
ld=20
>>it
>>against them for a second.  I don't envy them, resent them, want to tak=
e
>>anything away from them in the slightest.  It's simply none of my busin=
ess.
>
>I grew up in fairly privileged circumstances, so I've seldom if ever
>had cause to envy or hate the wealthy.
>
>******
>You seem to express a healthy resentment

Because, I think, you're reading your own assumption into it: my
concern is for the poor and working people who are struggling to make
ends meet, as well as for the well being of the country as a whole. In
fact, I would likely lose out personally if inherited wealth were
taxed.

>*******
>
>But, as I said, I don't much believe in hereditary wealth (I've no time
>to go into some minor exceptions to that statement).
>
>It is not as you seem to be implying innocent: hereditary wealth is
>in some measure a tax on the productive members of society,
>a tax that is not repaid by the small percentage of income that
>goes to the government or charitable causes.
>
>**********
>The initial creation of the wealth was taxed.  Once the wealth was aquir=
ed=20
>and taxed, whatever is left should be considered the property of the per=
son=20
>that made it.  He or she should be free to give it to a son or daughter,=
 the=20
>next door neighbor, the local charity, or bury it in the back yard. You =
or I=20
>don't have an inherent claim to it simply because it would otherwise go =
to=20
>someone as a happy accident of birth.  So what?  I don't care if someone=
=20
>else is wealthy.  That doesn't change how hard I work, or what I expect =
as a=20
>reward for my efforts.   I have a job.  I do my best at it and I make a=20
>reasonable living.  The quality of my life is not diminished if someone =
else=20
>is wealthy. Someone else's luck is none of my business.
>
>You seem to see wealth as something that should be lent by the governmen=
t to=20
>people as an incentive, but only short term and only for as short a peri=
od=20
>as possible (taking it back as much as possible in any tax possible).

If wealth were something you kept under your pillow, that would make
sense. But it isn't. It's the right to some of your land and mine, to
some of your work and mine. And I'm all in favor of that if that right
proceeds from obligation and necessary incentive -- if it goes to
someone because they work hard or take risks or invent things. But a
hereditary aristocracy that has no real obligations? No thanks. I
believe in markets and competition and incentive. I believe in reward
for hard work. But inherited wealth is just welfare on a grand scale.
It destroys incentive just as welfare does, and it taxes us just as
welfare does, because those who inherit wealth inherit the right to
some of our labor and some of our land and some of our raw materials
and infrastructure.

As to the gummint, it's just a stand-in for the group. And there are
times when resources have to go to the group, because we have to work
together. We expect that the members of our society -- not
infrequently the poorest members of our society -- will give their
lives to Uncle Sam if the need arises. Compared to that, what's the
harm in a bit of cash?

>**********
>
>>You could move towards the old argument Aren't all people equal? Should=
n't
>>everyone make the same amount of money?  That's a discussion by itself =
and
>>not a workable plan.
>
>I agree. As things now stand, the benefits of incentive outweigh the
>drawbacks of inequality, particularly insofar as mechanisms exist to
>reduce the inequality.
>
>>> Anyway, morals are very variable: we think the Pashtun are creepy
>>> because they practice pederasty and harbor the likes of Bin Laden,
>>> they think we're creepy because our women run around half-naked and
>>> we're greedy and we ignore the principles of hospitality. So we have
>>> either to assert that a single moral system is favored over the other=
s
>>> -- a moral system which just happens to be the one our own society
>>> holds up as an ideal, naturally -- or we have to think of morality as
>>> involving a varied response to a deeper purpose, and ultimately accep=
t
>>> the possibility that morality evolves much as our genome does.
>>> (Caveat: I've skipped for want of time a lot of useful philosophical
>>> dialectic, e.g., Kant's categorical imperative.)
>>
>>I suppose it depends on how large a set or morals one is defining.  If =
one
>>suggests a small set of morals (don't kill, don't steal, etc) it should=
 be
>>shared.  Unfortunately that's not even the case, given that women in ot=
her
>>countries are casually killed with no legal ramification.
>
>Exactly. Even something as seemingly basic as the incest taboo has
>been ignored in some societies -- pharaonic Egypt, forex, at least
>among the country's rulers -- and takes varying forms in different
>societies.
>
>********
>It wasn't just the rulers.  I seem to recall that someone in the time
>of Caesar wrote back to Rome suggesting that there wasn't a virgin in
>the entire country.
>********

Sounds like an interesting place . . .

>
>Our own morals have evolved significantly even within my
>lifetime, e.g., homosexuality was widely looked upon as a sin when I
>was young. I imagine that the Americans of 200 years from now will
>look back on our behavior in much the same way that we look back on
>that of our slave-holding, male chauvinist, Indian-land-stealing
>ancestors.
>
>And there are things that the people of 2207 will take for
>granted that we find horrifying, just as the people of 1807 would have
>been morally outraged at some of our behavior -- revealing dress, say.
>
>********
>They might consider morals an outdated concept.
>Future generations will always look back at their ancestors as
>primative.

Probably with justification, unless we have a new dark age. But I
don't think morals will ever be outdated, despite what some European
pseudointellectuals say. I've long believed that morals are not unique
to humanity, but are shared in their root form with other social
creatures, and from what I've been reading biologists are now reaching
the same conclusion, finding for example surprisingly sophisticated
moral (and amoral) behavior among chimpanzees. And I believe that
morals have a purpose. Societies that try to dispense with them, as
the Nazis did, fail.

--=20
Josh

"Wagner has wonderful moments, and dreadful quarters of an hour." - Rossi=
ni
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