That makes sense. But then how do you find this time for long-form arguments with strangers on the internet?
I usually donāt lol. Itās very rare for me to get into a conversation as much of a tangled mess as this one.
Fiddlesticks. Look at Hong Kong until China annexed it. Small and medium-sized companies flourished. There are a ton of similar examples.
Hong Kong is an incredibly niche place. To point to that city state as a good example to extrapolate the effects of government policy is a bad idea/methodology.
I challenge you to point out a single huge multinational corporation (historical or present day) that grew without government assistance.
I think you missed my point, I am not stating that all or even many corporations become monopolies without government assistance. Usually what happens is that a corporation gets so big that they gain so much control that they can alter government policy, and therefore they grow with government assistance that they themselves implemented. Most if not all monopolies follow this pattern. First the start small, then they get big, then they push out competition, then they buy out the politicians, then they set the laws that make them even bigger.
Their governments instigate and enable their problem.
Instigate? No. Enable? Absolutely.
Our only differences on this topic seem to be that I view small businesses as the essential heart of American market economics, and I view mega-corps as mutants resulting from government bloat.
The mega-corporations are the natural result of capitalism. You canāt have one without the other.
The American dream is alive and well, and there are numerous success stories all around us.
There are also numerous lottery winner stories around. That doesnāt mean that everybody should buy lottery tickets as a means to success.
The idea that itās ādeadā (let alone long dead) has no basis in reality.
Nowadays people are too poor to reasonably afford a home, food, and the basic necessities. The retirement age keeps getting higher. The majority of americans are living paycheck to paycheck. It absolutely has been dead, and for a while.
good example is Donald Trump, who took a small loan of a million dollars
Inheriting wealth is not a means for being successful for the overwhelming majority of americans.
Depending on the type of business, you really donāt need any money
The success of a business is directly tied to the starting investment.
I have no doubt that some employees who hate their jobs feel trapped. But I contend thatās just their feeling, and theyāre not really trapped at all.
If you donāt feel like you are free then what is the point? Regardless, itās not just a feeling, because objectively, vertical mobility is not doing well in the united states. Horizontal mobility is not true mobility.
Especially in the post-covid epoch, when thereās such a labor shortage that you could walk into just about any business and get an interview.
āJust about any businessā does not equate to a livable wage, because just about all businesses have employees who are being paid below a livable wage. And like I said, horizontal mobility is not true mobility.
I usually donāt lol. Itās very rare for me to get into a conversation as much of a tangled mess as this one.
Iām flattered. Thank you. I find the conversation enjoyable, though I agree itās a tangled mess. Yet if youād find it prudent to quickly wind it down, I wonāt be offended.
Instigate? No. Enable? Absolutely.
Well then weāre close to splitting hairs. My contention is governments should be too small to enable companies to grow huge. I get that we donāt completely see eye-to-eye on this, but Iām not sure itās worth our bickering over the details.
The mega-corporations are the natural result of capitalism. You canāt have one without the other.
I mentioned the importance of definitions recently. Among people who disagree over capitalism, I find we are often operating on different definitions. What if we just talk about free markets? Thereās nothing about freedom that inherently gives rise to mega-corporations. They didnāt even exist until relatively modern times.
There are also numerous lottery winner stories around. That doesnāt mean that everybody should buy lottery tickets as a means to success.
No kidding. When you hold a race, thereās one winner. You might give out medals for second and third place, but most competitors are losers. And thatās great. Everyone goes home and tries again tomorrow. In the end, some people are never able to win at all, due to lack of drive, technique, or what-have-you, and thatās fine. Life isnāt fair, and we wouldnāt want it to be. All that matters is that everyoneās able to compete, fair and square.
Nowadays people are too poor to reasonably afford a home, food, and the basic necessities. The retirement age keeps getting higher. The majority of americans are living paycheck to paycheck. It absolutely has been dead, and for a while.
Okay, now I really wonder where you live. Is it a West Coast city? What you describe is absolutely not the America I know and love.
Inheriting wealth is not a means for being successful for the overwhelming majority of americans.
Yeah, it was a joke. I explicitly said I was joking.
The success of a business is directly tied to the starting investment.
No, not usually. Its rate of scale is directly tied to the starting investment. Itās eventual success is only tied to that certain kinds of tech startups, where a ton of work is needed before thereās anything to show for it. For most businesses, success is tied to vision and execution.
If you donāt feel like you are free then what is the point?
The point is always God. And God, incidentally, is the source of our freedom. People may feel a lack of freedom resulting from estrangement from God. Thatās hardly the fault of corporations (although you could make a good case that any corporation propagating secular culture is indirectly at fault.)
āJust about any businessā does not equate to a livable wage, because just about all businesses have employees who are being paid below a livable wage. And like I said, horizontal mobility is not true mobility.
Whatās a livable wage? Thatās a mighty subjective phrase. It wasnāt long ago that many of us lived in single-room log cabins that we built ourselves, hauled our own water without plumbing, used outhouses, lacked electricity, had a horse and cart instead of a truck, and grew most of our own food. And we were happy. Because we had God, and in the end thatās all weāve ever needed. If youāre defining a ālivable wageā in terms of anything more than that standard, itās unreasonable.
Iām flattered. Thank you. I find the conversation enjoyableā¦
I am enjoying it too, and itās quite alright. Iām (so far) able to keep up.
Well then weāre close to splitting hairs.
Iāll move on then from this part.
What if we just talk about free markets? Thereās nothing aboutā¦
Even the term āfree marketsā is incredibly vague. And depending on what you count as āmodern timesā, even capitalism itself hasnāt existed until modern times. So it would kind of not make sense to expect to see mega corps in an economic system that doesnāt permit the kind of corps we see today.
And I hate to repeat myself, but core principle of capitalism is competition, but competitions inherently have winners. And therefore the freedom you speak of inherently gives rise to mega-corps. They buy each other up and kill off competitors until they become mega-corps.
Any given loser of a competition under capitalism may not immediately die, but each loss forces a company closer and closer to dying.
everyoneās able to compete, fair and square.
We unfortunately donāt have that though due to inheritance discrepancies, and the burden of entry that corporations put in place through their control of politicians, and through the inherent difficulty of starting a business in an economy as specialized as ours.
For instance if somebody wanted to start up a new business to compete with google, at a minimum they would need several billion dollars to have a reasonable chance of success. Google has such a huge market share and is so well established that it would take decades for any new company to put an actual dent in googleās market share.
Is it a West Coast city? What you describe is absolutely not the Americaā¦
I actually live on the East coast, in a mid to large sized city, I think mine is 3rd in pop for my state. And as for your second bit here, I havenāt made anything up.
Yeah, it was a joke. I explicitly said I was joking.
Sorry, I am a very argumentative person if you couldnāt tell already lol
No, not usually. Its rate of scale is directly tied to the starting investment. Itās eventual success is only tied to that certain kinds of tech startups, where a ton of work is needed before thereās anything to show for it. For most businesses, success is tied to vision and execution.
This is another one of the issues that I wish I had more data on, but unfortunately do not. The closest I was able to find was this:
And the most frequent cause of failure is lack of cash, which definitely ties into what Iāve been saying.
People may feel a lack of freedom resulting from estrangement from God.
So this is similar to the drug addiction/true christian inverse correlation that Iāve been talking about in one of the other threads. I know you donāt quite agree with the freedom index Iāve been using, but freedom is not in any way correlated with christianity.
Whatās a livable wage? Thatās a mighty subjective phrase
Sure, itās a subjective phrase, and I would personally like to see it added and defined within a new amendment to the constitution, though it probably would never happen
As for an actual definition, a living wage should be defined as a wage that is sufficient to raise a family on, with adequate housing and food. A living wage should be a basic but decent wage for a family.
I would also like to point out that you seem to have missed my point about the lack of freedom through vertical mobility.
And we were happy. Because we had Godā¦
I donāt think that was the reason, I think the reason was because life was literally simpler and more connected to nature. Also you canāt be happy if you canāt afford food and shelter.
anything more than that standard, itās unreasonable
Iām not saying a livable wage is one in which you will be able to afford anything fancy. It should be a basic wage, but enough so that you can have a family without worry
core principle of capitalism is competition, but competitions inherently have winners.
This is false. A broad class of competitions do not have winners. Only zero-sum games have winners. The economy is not a zero sum game. Every participant adds value.
For instance if somebody wanted to start up a new business to compete with google, at a minimum they would need several billion dollars to have a reasonable chance of success. Google has such a huge market share and is so well established that it would take decades for any new company to put an actual dent in googleās market share.
And the most frequent cause of failure is lack of cash, which definitely ties into what Iāve been saying.
Itās true, but most successful entrepreneurs learn from previous failures, so many of those failed companies generally result in eventual success.
Sure, itās a subjective phrase [ālivable wageā], and I would personally like to see it added and defined within a new amendment to the constitution, though it probably would never happen
Iāve occasionally thought it would be nice to have a website where anyone could post ābillsā they wish were actual laws, and other users could vote on them. Itād be fun. Not that I really think we need any more laws. I just wonder what people would come up with.
As for an actual definition, a living wage should be defined as a wage that is sufficient to raise a family on, with adequate housing and food. A living wage should be a basic but decent wage for a family.
Youād struggle to transform that into a legally reliable definition. Does it include iPads for the kids? How about the cost of pet grooming? Vacations for the whole family to the Bahamas every couple of months? Where exactly do you draw the line? Again, it was commonplace for most people to grow their own food in the not too distant past, and we lived simple lives. Isnāt a living wage, then, $0?
I would also like to point out that you seem to have missed my point about the lack of freedom through vertical mobility.
I didnāt miss it. I just skipped the reply. Because I see plenty of evidence that vertical mobility is alive and well. You can deny it all youād like, but there are so many rags-to-riches stories. Maybe you donāt hear about them much because theyāre mostly Republican.
Also you canāt be happy if you canāt afford food and shelter.
This is false. A broad class of competitions do not have winners. Only zero-sum games have winners. The economy is not a zero sum game. Every participant adds value.
This varies wildly by industry. Some are zero-sum, some are positive sum. And the age of an industry is usually the defining factor for this, which means most industries turn into zero-sum. Take for instance nuclear fuel pellets. A company who takes part in such an industry is in a zero-sum one because of how limited the demand is for it. And the demand for nuclear fuel pellets doesnāt change much at all because of how long it takes to build new reactors, how much political force it takes to build one, etc. A company in such an industry canāt expand the total demand much at all, so there is no new value they can add.
Oh yeah? May I introduce you to Gabriel Weinberg
An MIT graduate with past business experience and their foot in the door a decade and a half ago isnāt really evidence that just anyone can start a new business today to compete with google.
so many of those failed companies generally result in eventual success.
Not everybody can afford to have a failed company on their hands.
I just wonder what people would come up with.
I think that is a fun idea and I would fully support it. I think youād be surprised at the amount of āsocialistā policies that are widely popular. It would be a difficult thing to pull off though given that most people donāt really know how to write in leagalise, and how many policies need to be rather complicated or need a high level of understanding to make sense.
Does it include iPads for the kids? How about the cost of pet grooming? Vacations for the whole family to the Bahamas every couple of months? Where exactly do you draw the line?
None of that crap.
Food + Housing + Basic utilities + Transportation + Healthcare (if not already universalized) + Maybe a 5-10% on top for discretionary spending.
However much each of these end up costing, calculated yearly, added up, should be a reasonable start.
Again, it was commonplace for most people to grow their own food in the not too distant past, and we lived simple lives. Isnāt a living wage, then, $0?
If everybody owned land, it would be much closer to $0. But you still need to buy/get/pay for fertilizer, water, heating, taxes etc. Those things arenāt free. I would love to own my own self-sufficient homestead and have been rather obsessed with videos about it. I wish everybody had the money/land for it, but thatās not how things are.
And additionally, everybody having their own homestead isnāt generally a good thing for efficiency, because economies of scale probably also applies to food production, and therefore it is more efficient to have industrial farming as the main food source.
Because I see plenty of evidence that vertical mobility is alive and well.
I canāt remember if I posted this link elsewhere, but Iāll do it again just in case:
Maybe you donāt hear about them much because theyāre mostly Republican.
I donāt hear about them because I donāt really care for lottery winning stories, and avoid the news sources that show them. I want news with more substance than that.
Jesus could.
We arenāt all Jesus and are therefore subject to the negative effects of poverty.
This varies wildly by industry. Some are zero-sum, some are positive sum. And the age of an industry is usually the defining factor for this, which means most industries turn into zero-sum. Take for instance nuclear fuel pellets. A company who takes part in such an industry is in a zero-sum one because of how limited the demand is for it. And the demand for nuclear fuel pellets doesnāt change much at all because of how long it takes to build new reactors, how much political force it takes to build one, etc. A company in such an industry canāt expand the total demand much at all, so there is no new value they can add.
Iām not formally trained in economics or game theory, but this doesnāt seem right to me. Anyone employed in the manufacture of nuclear fuel pellets adds value to the economy simply by virtue of showing up for work, and doing whatever it is they do.
An MIT graduate with past business experience and their foot in the door a decade and a half ago isnāt really evidence that just anyone can start a new business today to compete with google.
Again, entrepreneurs usually need to fail, and build upon those failures, before finding success. Itās normal.
The fact that heās an MIT grad doesnāt mean much. Anyone can start a Google competitor, but the kind of people who do are the same kind of people likely to want to attend MIT.
Not everybody can afford to have a failed company on their hands.
Almost everyone can, though not everyone wants to. Itās stressful and time-consuming, though also rewarding in a variety of ways. Even if it fails.
I think that is a fun idea and I would fully support it. I think youād be surprised at the amount of āsocialistā policies that are widely popular. It would be a difficult thing to pull off though given that most people donāt really know how to write in leagalise, and how many policies need to be rather complicated or need a high level of understanding to make sense.
Thanks! I wouldnāt be at all surprised by the popularity of socialist policies. Kids are naive. Thereād be a ton of things like āFree ice cream for everyone!ā As a serious policy proposal it would be objectionable, but as a playful idea itās fun to imagine. As for legalese and complications, you could make suggestions to improve someone elseās idea.
Food + Housing + Basic utilities + Transportation + Healthcare (if not already universalized) + Maybe a 5-10% on top for discretionary spending.
What kind of food? Caviar? What kind of housing? McMansions? What kind of basic utilities? All 800,000 TV channels? What kind of transportation? A Bugatti? What kind of healthcare? Cosmetic surgeries for pets? Itās very hard to draw the line anywhere above $0, which is the technically correct number.
If everybody owned land, it would be much closer to $0. But you still need to buy/get/pay for fertilizer, water, heating, taxes etc. Those things arenāt free. I would love to own my own self-sufficient homestead and have been rather obsessed with videos about it. I wish everybody had the money/land for it, but thatās not how things are.
You can make your own fertilizer with compost. You can haul your own water up from the stream. You can chop your own wood for heating. Property taxes are a racket. Yes, this presumes everyone owns property of suitable acreage, and with a stream, and thatās unrealistic for everyone. But itās entirely possible for some.
I love those videos too. I try not to spend much time on YouTube, but on occasion I can easily lose an hour or two to My Self Reliance.
But to your point about a āliving wageā, itās going to vary from $0 for some people on up to ā I shudder to think what the upper bound of that range is.
And additionally, everybody having their own homestead isnāt generally a good thing for efficiency, because economies of scale probably also applies to food production, and therefore it is more efficient to have industrial farming as the main food source.
True, but as I mentioned I think economic efficiency is overrated.
We arenāt all Jesus and are therefore subject to the negative effects of poverty.
We can all strive to be more like Jesus. I know itās not easy, but thereās so much value in trying.
Anyone employed in the manufacture of nuclear fuel pellets adds value to the economy simply by virtue of showing up for work, and doing whatever it is they do.
But when they do that it doesnāt change the demand for nuclear fuel pellets. The demand is largely static, so in order to sell X more pellets, X pellets from other producers must go unsold/not made. Somebody else has to lose, which makes it a zero sum game.
The fact that heās an MIT grad doesnāt mean much.
It does. Not everybody is an MIT grad or has the skills to be one, and yet you say that just anybody can compete with google. That is a contradiction.
Almost everyone can
60% of the country cannot because they are living paycheck to paycheck and cannot afford it.
I wouldnāt be at all surprised by the popularity of socialist policies. Kids are naive.
Basically every other developed nation seems to think otherwise. For example, we are more or less the only one without universal healthcare, thatās whatās naive.
What kind of food? Caviar? What kind of housing? McMansions? What kind of basic utilities? All 800,000 TV channels? What kind of transportation? A Bugatti? What kind of healthcare?
Basic food, not caviar. Basic housing, not mcmansions. Utilities should include heating, cooling, water, electric, literally just the basic necessitites, not cable. Etc.
Youāre splitting hairs at this point.
Itās very hard to draw the line anywhere above $0, which is the technically correct number.
Nobody can survive on $0. You need to have food water and shelter.
Yes, this presumes everyone owns property of suitable acreage, and with a stream, and thatās unrealistic for everyone. But itās entirely possible for some.
If it is unrealistic for everyone then it isnāt a reasonable answer to what the minimum wage should be.
itās going to vary from $0 for some people on up to ā I shudder to think
If housing in this country wasnāt so fucked, it would probably be around $40-50k a year. Nobody is buying caviar and a bugatti with that budget.
We can all strive to be more like Jesus. I know itās not easy, but thereās so much value in trying.
Blaming individuals for the failures of a system, and suggesting individuals change to deal with that defect in the system is irrational.
But when they do that it doesnāt change the demand for nuclear fuel pellets. The demand is largely static, so in order to sell X more pellets, X pellets from other producers must go unsold/not made. Somebody else has to lose, which makes it a zero sum game.
The production of anything means itās not zero-sum. Demand can expand and contract over time in any market, but that doesnāt matter. If you grow an apple or produce a nuclear fuel pellet, you add value to the economy. Now if there are multiple sellers competing, then itāll drive down the price. But weāre not discussing prices here.
It does. Not everybody is an MIT grad or has the skills to be one, and yet you say that just anybody can compete with google. That is a contradiction.
Itās a matter of drive. Anyone can try to compete with Google. Someone must be adequately driven, and reasonably intelligent to succeed. But everyone who fails will gain the opportunities to build on those failures and start a more successful venture.
60% of the country cannot because they are living paycheck to paycheck and cannot afford it.
Again you can start a business for $0 or next to nothing.
Basically every other developed nation seems to think otherwise. For example, we are more or less the only one without universal healthcare, thatās whatās naive.
Why would we Americans care what other countries think? Weāre blessed by God to be the greatest country on Earth. People flock from around the world to live here, and they want to so badly that theyāre willing to become illegal just to live here. Itās very rare that you can find a principle applicable to other countries which also happens to be applicable to the US. If some other country wants to give out āfreeā ice cream to all of its citizens (in exchange, of course, for an obscenely high tax), they can have at it, for all we care.
literally just the basic necessitites, not cable. Etc.
My point was that itās subjective what the ānecessitiesā are. Some people like me will say it costs $0, while others may insist itās a minimum of $250k. This is complicated by the fact that the dollar is worth dramatically different values in different parts of the country, a fact often ignored. Generally speaking itās worth much less in urban areas.
Nobody can survive on $0. You need to have food water and shelter.
Again, grow your own food, haul your own water up from the stream, and build your own shelter out of logs you felled yourself. $0, just like our forefathers.
If it is unrealistic for everyone then it isnāt a reasonable answer to what the minimum wage should be.
Whoa, I thought we were discussing your notion of a ālivable wageā as an abstract concept, but now youāre changing it to minimum wage. The concept of a minimum wage is evil for multiple reasons.
First and foremost, itās a free country, and so weāre all allowed to negotiate our own terms of business. If I want to hire someone for $1 a day, and that person agrees to the compensation, itās nobody elseās business. Not yours, not the governmentās, nobodyās.
Secondly, minimum wages are absolutely disastrous for the economy, and that has been shown time and again. When you run a business, you have a certain budget to spend on compensation. Letās say you want to hire two people to help you, and you can afford a maximum of $100 per day to hire them. That means you can pay them about $6 per hour maximum. Now some busybody steps in, and introduces an oppressive law that you have to pay more than $6. Well that sucks, doesnāt it. That means you canāt hire two people after all. You can still hire one person up to $12 per hour, but youāll have to overwork him to produce the results of two workers. Meanwhile somebody else will be jobless. Now letās say the busybody comes back and says $12 is still too low! Well fine, that means you canāt hire anyone at all. So now we have two people out of work who would have had jobs. And it also means youāll need to find a robot thatās cheaper than $100 per day, because if you canāt then the busybody just drove you out of business.
The concept of minimum wage is un-American and downright evil.
Blaming individuals for the failures of a system, and suggesting individuals change to deal with that defect in the system is irrational.
The production of anything means itās not zero-sum. Demand can expand and contract over time in any market, but that doesnāt matter. If you grow an apple or produce a nuclear fuel pellet, you add value to the economy. Now if there are multiple sellers competing, then itāll drive down the price. But weāre not discussing prices here.
Value to the economy isnāt the issue here though. The topic is about whether or not a company hurts another through competition, and economic value cannot explain or measure the of hurting other companies.
If 10,000 fuel pellets are needed for the year, then the market will create and sell roughly 10,000 pellets for the year. If company A sells extra pellets, going from 1k/yr to 2k/yr those sales need to come from somewhere within that 10,000 demand limit. As a result all other companies lose 1k/yr in sales. Maybe the majority of that loss goes to company B or C, or maybe it is spread out. It would only be a positive sum game if the 10,000 pellet demand was able to increase, but it canāt due to the restrictive amount of reactors. As a result of all of this, this industry is a zero sum game.
Itās a matter of drive.
Thatās a part of it, but not the whole.
Again you can start a business for $0 or next to nothing.
Even if that is true (which it is instead highly misleading), it has nothing to do with the impact of losing a business. One is the cost of startup the other is the cost of loss.
Why would we Americans care what other countries think?
I didnāt say that we should, but you said that kids are naive when it is instead developed nations that are implementing these policies.
Weāre blessed by God to be the greatest country on Earth.
Seems to me that having the highest number of school shootings should instantly disqualify us from such a title.
If some other country wants to give out āfreeā ice cream to all of its citizens (in exchange, of course, for an obscenely high tax), they can have at it, for all we care.
Actually it doesnāt quite work out that way. Americans overall spend more on healthcare than most other nations because of how inefficient it is to have insurance companies leeching money away from the american people.
Overall countries spend less on healthcare with socialized medicine.
My point was that itās subjective what the ānecessitiesā are.
Only to a degree. We can objectively measure the amount of food and water you need, what kind of shelter is the mimimally viable product while still being healthy, etc.
Again, grow your own food, haul your own water up from the stream, and build your own shelter out of logs you felled yourself. $0, just like our forefathers.
There is no such thing as a free lunch.
Whoa, I thought we were discussing your notion of a ālivable wageā as an abstract concept, but now youāre changing it to minimum wage.
The two are tied together. There should be a minimum wage, and it should be a livable one. Thatās how it was started and it should have stayed.
The concept of a minimum wage is evil for multiple reasons.
No itās not. Poverty wages are whatās evil and the solution to them is a minimum, livable wage.
If I want to hire someone for $1 a day, and that person agrees to the compensation, itās nobody elseās business. Not yours, not the governmentās, nobodyās.
It is the business of the government to protect the people, and greedy corporations who pay poverty wages is one such thing that we need protection from.
Secondly, minimum wages are absolutely disastrous for the economy, and that has been shown time and again.
I disagree that it is disastrous, but even if it was I wouldnāt mind much since the economy is the main driving force for pollution.
Letās say you want to hire two people to help you, and you can afford a maximum of $100 per day
Right there is your lie about it being $100 per day. These companies absolutely have the money to pay a living wage yet they only set the āmaximumā they are willing to pay such that it is a poverty wage. These companies rake in billions upon billions of dollars a year in profits. The money is absolutely there they just like to pretend that it isnāt.
I usually donāt lol. Itās very rare for me to get into a conversation as much of a tangled mess as this one.
Hong Kong is an incredibly niche place. To point to that city state as a good example to extrapolate the effects of government policy is a bad idea/methodology.
I think you missed my point, I am not stating that all or even many corporations become monopolies without government assistance. Usually what happens is that a corporation gets so big that they gain so much control that they can alter government policy, and therefore they grow with government assistance that they themselves implemented. Most if not all monopolies follow this pattern. First the start small, then they get big, then they push out competition, then they buy out the politicians, then they set the laws that make them even bigger.
Instigate? No. Enable? Absolutely.
The mega-corporations are the natural result of capitalism. You canāt have one without the other.
There are also numerous lottery winner stories around. That doesnāt mean that everybody should buy lottery tickets as a means to success.
Nowadays people are too poor to reasonably afford a home, food, and the basic necessities. The retirement age keeps getting higher. The majority of americans are living paycheck to paycheck. It absolutely has been dead, and for a while.
Inheriting wealth is not a means for being successful for the overwhelming majority of americans.
The success of a business is directly tied to the starting investment.
If you donāt feel like you are free then what is the point? Regardless, itās not just a feeling, because objectively, vertical mobility is not doing well in the united states. Horizontal mobility is not true mobility.
āJust about any businessā does not equate to a livable wage, because just about all businesses have employees who are being paid below a livable wage. And like I said, horizontal mobility is not true mobility.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Social_Mobility_Index
Iām flattered. Thank you. I find the conversation enjoyable, though I agree itās a tangled mess. Yet if youād find it prudent to quickly wind it down, I wonāt be offended.
Well then weāre close to splitting hairs. My contention is governments should be too small to enable companies to grow huge. I get that we donāt completely see eye-to-eye on this, but Iām not sure itās worth our bickering over the details.
I mentioned the importance of definitions recently. Among people who disagree over capitalism, I find we are often operating on different definitions. What if we just talk about free markets? Thereās nothing about freedom that inherently gives rise to mega-corporations. They didnāt even exist until relatively modern times.
No kidding. When you hold a race, thereās one winner. You might give out medals for second and third place, but most competitors are losers. And thatās great. Everyone goes home and tries again tomorrow. In the end, some people are never able to win at all, due to lack of drive, technique, or what-have-you, and thatās fine. Life isnāt fair, and we wouldnāt want it to be. All that matters is that everyoneās able to compete, fair and square.
Okay, now I really wonder where you live. Is it a West Coast city? What you describe is absolutely not the America I know and love.
Yeah, it was a joke. I explicitly said I was joking.
No, not usually. Its rate of scale is directly tied to the starting investment. Itās eventual success is only tied to that certain kinds of tech startups, where a ton of work is needed before thereās anything to show for it. For most businesses, success is tied to vision and execution.
The point is always God. And God, incidentally, is the source of our freedom. People may feel a lack of freedom resulting from estrangement from God. Thatās hardly the fault of corporations (although you could make a good case that any corporation propagating secular culture is indirectly at fault.)
Whatās a livable wage? Thatās a mighty subjective phrase. It wasnāt long ago that many of us lived in single-room log cabins that we built ourselves, hauled our own water without plumbing, used outhouses, lacked electricity, had a horse and cart instead of a truck, and grew most of our own food. And we were happy. Because we had God, and in the end thatās all weāve ever needed. If youāre defining a ālivable wageā in terms of anything more than that standard, itās unreasonable.
I am enjoying it too, and itās quite alright. Iām (so far) able to keep up.
Iāll move on then from this part.
Even the term āfree marketsā is incredibly vague. And depending on what you count as āmodern timesā, even capitalism itself hasnāt existed until modern times. So it would kind of not make sense to expect to see mega corps in an economic system that doesnāt permit the kind of corps we see today.
And I hate to repeat myself, but core principle of capitalism is competition, but competitions inherently have winners. And therefore the freedom you speak of inherently gives rise to mega-corps. They buy each other up and kill off competitors until they become mega-corps.
Any given loser of a competition under capitalism may not immediately die, but each loss forces a company closer and closer to dying.
We unfortunately donāt have that though due to inheritance discrepancies, and the burden of entry that corporations put in place through their control of politicians, and through the inherent difficulty of starting a business in an economy as specialized as ours.
For instance if somebody wanted to start up a new business to compete with google, at a minimum they would need several billion dollars to have a reasonable chance of success. Google has such a huge market share and is so well established that it would take decades for any new company to put an actual dent in googleās market share.
I actually live on the East coast, in a mid to large sized city, I think mine is 3rd in pop for my state. And as for your second bit here, I havenāt made anything up.
Majority of citizens living paycheck to paycheck
Housing is increasingly unaffordable with an 18% hike in prices I donāt know about you, but my wage has never increased anywhere close to be able to match that. Grocery prices are no different
The retirement age is going up
Sorry, I am a very argumentative person if you couldnāt tell already lol
This is another one of the issues that I wish I had more data on, but unfortunately do not. The closest I was able to find was this:
https://www.luisazhou.com/blog/startup-failure-statistics/
And the most frequent cause of failure is lack of cash, which definitely ties into what Iāve been saying.
So this is similar to the drug addiction/true christian inverse correlation that Iāve been talking about in one of the other threads. I know you donāt quite agree with the freedom index Iāve been using, but freedom is not in any way correlated with christianity.
Sure, itās a subjective phrase, and I would personally like to see it added and defined within a new amendment to the constitution, though it probably would never happen
As for an actual definition, a living wage should be defined as a wage that is sufficient to raise a family on, with adequate housing and food. A living wage should be a basic but decent wage for a family.
I would also like to point out that you seem to have missed my point about the lack of freedom through vertical mobility.
I donāt think that was the reason, I think the reason was because life was literally simpler and more connected to nature. Also you canāt be happy if you canāt afford food and shelter.
Iām not saying a livable wage is one in which you will be able to afford anything fancy. It should be a basic wage, but enough so that you can have a family without worry
This is false. A broad class of competitions do not have winners. Only zero-sum games have winners. The economy is not a zero sum game. Every participant adds value.
Oh yeah? May I introduce you to Gabriel Weinberg, who started a Google competitor in his basement with a $0 investment, which now earns $25 million annually.
Itās true, but most successful entrepreneurs learn from previous failures, so many of those failed companies generally result in eventual success.
Iāve occasionally thought it would be nice to have a website where anyone could post ābillsā they wish were actual laws, and other users could vote on them. Itād be fun. Not that I really think we need any more laws. I just wonder what people would come up with.
Youād struggle to transform that into a legally reliable definition. Does it include iPads for the kids? How about the cost of pet grooming? Vacations for the whole family to the Bahamas every couple of months? Where exactly do you draw the line? Again, it was commonplace for most people to grow their own food in the not too distant past, and we lived simple lives. Isnāt a living wage, then, $0?
I didnāt miss it. I just skipped the reply. Because I see plenty of evidence that vertical mobility is alive and well. You can deny it all youād like, but there are so many rags-to-riches stories. Maybe you donāt hear about them much because theyāre mostly Republican.
Jesus could.
This varies wildly by industry. Some are zero-sum, some are positive sum. And the age of an industry is usually the defining factor for this, which means most industries turn into zero-sum. Take for instance nuclear fuel pellets. A company who takes part in such an industry is in a zero-sum one because of how limited the demand is for it. And the demand for nuclear fuel pellets doesnāt change much at all because of how long it takes to build new reactors, how much political force it takes to build one, etc. A company in such an industry canāt expand the total demand much at all, so there is no new value they can add.
An MIT graduate with past business experience and their foot in the door a decade and a half ago isnāt really evidence that just anyone can start a new business today to compete with google.
Not everybody can afford to have a failed company on their hands.
I think that is a fun idea and I would fully support it. I think youād be surprised at the amount of āsocialistā policies that are widely popular. It would be a difficult thing to pull off though given that most people donāt really know how to write in leagalise, and how many policies need to be rather complicated or need a high level of understanding to make sense.
None of that crap.
Food + Housing + Basic utilities + Transportation + Healthcare (if not already universalized) + Maybe a 5-10% on top for discretionary spending.
However much each of these end up costing, calculated yearly, added up, should be a reasonable start.
If everybody owned land, it would be much closer to $0. But you still need to buy/get/pay for fertilizer, water, heating, taxes etc. Those things arenāt free. I would love to own my own self-sufficient homestead and have been rather obsessed with videos about it. I wish everybody had the money/land for it, but thatās not how things are.
And additionally, everybody having their own homestead isnāt generally a good thing for efficiency, because economies of scale probably also applies to food production, and therefore it is more efficient to have industrial farming as the main food source.
I canāt remember if I posted this link elsewhere, but Iāll do it again just in case:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Social_Mobility_Index
We are #27. We could be doing far better.
I donāt hear about them because I donāt really care for lottery winning stories, and avoid the news sources that show them. I want news with more substance than that.
We arenāt all Jesus and are therefore subject to the negative effects of poverty.
Iām not formally trained in economics or game theory, but this doesnāt seem right to me. Anyone employed in the manufacture of nuclear fuel pellets adds value to the economy simply by virtue of showing up for work, and doing whatever it is they do.
Again, entrepreneurs usually need to fail, and build upon those failures, before finding success. Itās normal.
The fact that heās an MIT grad doesnāt mean much. Anyone can start a Google competitor, but the kind of people who do are the same kind of people likely to want to attend MIT.
Almost everyone can, though not everyone wants to. Itās stressful and time-consuming, though also rewarding in a variety of ways. Even if it fails.
Thanks! I wouldnāt be at all surprised by the popularity of socialist policies. Kids are naive. Thereād be a ton of things like āFree ice cream for everyone!ā As a serious policy proposal it would be objectionable, but as a playful idea itās fun to imagine. As for legalese and complications, you could make suggestions to improve someone elseās idea.
What kind of food? Caviar? What kind of housing? McMansions? What kind of basic utilities? All 800,000 TV channels? What kind of transportation? A Bugatti? What kind of healthcare? Cosmetic surgeries for pets? Itās very hard to draw the line anywhere above $0, which is the technically correct number.
You can make your own fertilizer with compost. You can haul your own water up from the stream. You can chop your own wood for heating. Property taxes are a racket. Yes, this presumes everyone owns property of suitable acreage, and with a stream, and thatās unrealistic for everyone. But itās entirely possible for some.
I love those videos too. I try not to spend much time on YouTube, but on occasion I can easily lose an hour or two to My Self Reliance.
But to your point about a āliving wageā, itās going to vary from $0 for some people on up to ā I shudder to think what the upper bound of that range is.
True, but as I mentioned I think economic efficiency is overrated.
We can all strive to be more like Jesus. I know itās not easy, but thereās so much value in trying.
But when they do that it doesnāt change the demand for nuclear fuel pellets. The demand is largely static, so in order to sell X more pellets, X pellets from other producers must go unsold/not made. Somebody else has to lose, which makes it a zero sum game.
It does. Not everybody is an MIT grad or has the skills to be one, and yet you say that just anybody can compete with google. That is a contradiction.
60% of the country cannot because they are living paycheck to paycheck and cannot afford it.
Basically every other developed nation seems to think otherwise. For example, we are more or less the only one without universal healthcare, thatās whatās naive.
Basic food, not caviar. Basic housing, not mcmansions. Utilities should include heating, cooling, water, electric, literally just the basic necessitites, not cable. Etc.
Youāre splitting hairs at this point.
Nobody can survive on $0. You need to have food water and shelter.
If it is unrealistic for everyone then it isnāt a reasonable answer to what the minimum wage should be.
If housing in this country wasnāt so fucked, it would probably be around $40-50k a year. Nobody is buying caviar and a bugatti with that budget.
Blaming individuals for the failures of a system, and suggesting individuals change to deal with that defect in the system is irrational.
The production of anything means itās not zero-sum. Demand can expand and contract over time in any market, but that doesnāt matter. If you grow an apple or produce a nuclear fuel pellet, you add value to the economy. Now if there are multiple sellers competing, then itāll drive down the price. But weāre not discussing prices here.
Itās a matter of drive. Anyone can try to compete with Google. Someone must be adequately driven, and reasonably intelligent to succeed. But everyone who fails will gain the opportunities to build on those failures and start a more successful venture.
Again you can start a business for $0 or next to nothing.
Why would we Americans care what other countries think? Weāre blessed by God to be the greatest country on Earth. People flock from around the world to live here, and they want to so badly that theyāre willing to become illegal just to live here. Itās very rare that you can find a principle applicable to other countries which also happens to be applicable to the US. If some other country wants to give out āfreeā ice cream to all of its citizens (in exchange, of course, for an obscenely high tax), they can have at it, for all we care.
My point was that itās subjective what the ānecessitiesā are. Some people like me will say it costs $0, while others may insist itās a minimum of $250k. This is complicated by the fact that the dollar is worth dramatically different values in different parts of the country, a fact often ignored. Generally speaking itās worth much less in urban areas.
Again, grow your own food, haul your own water up from the stream, and build your own shelter out of logs you felled yourself. $0, just like our forefathers.
Whoa, I thought we were discussing your notion of a ālivable wageā as an abstract concept, but now youāre changing it to minimum wage. The concept of a minimum wage is evil for multiple reasons.
First and foremost, itās a free country, and so weāre all allowed to negotiate our own terms of business. If I want to hire someone for $1 a day, and that person agrees to the compensation, itās nobody elseās business. Not yours, not the governmentās, nobodyās.
Secondly, minimum wages are absolutely disastrous for the economy, and that has been shown time and again. When you run a business, you have a certain budget to spend on compensation. Letās say you want to hire two people to help you, and you can afford a maximum of $100 per day to hire them. That means you can pay them about $6 per hour maximum. Now some busybody steps in, and introduces an oppressive law that you have to pay more than $6. Well that sucks, doesnāt it. That means you canāt hire two people after all. You can still hire one person up to $12 per hour, but youāll have to overwork him to produce the results of two workers. Meanwhile somebody else will be jobless. Now letās say the busybody comes back and says $12 is still too low! Well fine, that means you canāt hire anyone at all. So now we have two people out of work who would have had jobs. And it also means youāll need to find a robot thatās cheaper than $100 per day, because if you canāt then the busybody just drove you out of business.
The concept of minimum wage is un-American and downright evil.
What system? Weāre all individuals.
Value to the economy isnāt the issue here though. The topic is about whether or not a company hurts another through competition, and economic value cannot explain or measure the of hurting other companies.
If 10,000 fuel pellets are needed for the year, then the market will create and sell roughly 10,000 pellets for the year. If company A sells extra pellets, going from 1k/yr to 2k/yr those sales need to come from somewhere within that 10,000 demand limit. As a result all other companies lose 1k/yr in sales. Maybe the majority of that loss goes to company B or C, or maybe it is spread out. It would only be a positive sum game if the 10,000 pellet demand was able to increase, but it canāt due to the restrictive amount of reactors. As a result of all of this, this industry is a zero sum game.
Thatās a part of it, but not the whole.
Even if that is true (which it is instead highly misleading), it has nothing to do with the impact of losing a business. One is the cost of startup the other is the cost of loss.
I didnāt say that we should, but you said that kids are naive when it is instead developed nations that are implementing these policies.
Seems to me that having the highest number of school shootings should instantly disqualify us from such a title.
Actually it doesnāt quite work out that way. Americans overall spend more on healthcare than most other nations because of how inefficient it is to have insurance companies leeching money away from the american people.
Overall countries spend less on healthcare with socialized medicine.
Only to a degree. We can objectively measure the amount of food and water you need, what kind of shelter is the mimimally viable product while still being healthy, etc.
There is no such thing as a free lunch.
The two are tied together. There should be a minimum wage, and it should be a livable one. Thatās how it was started and it should have stayed.
No itās not. Poverty wages are whatās evil and the solution to them is a minimum, livable wage.
It is the business of the government to protect the people, and greedy corporations who pay poverty wages is one such thing that we need protection from.
I disagree that it is disastrous, but even if it was I wouldnāt mind much since the economy is the main driving force for pollution.
Right there is your lie about it being $100 per day. These companies absolutely have the money to pay a living wage yet they only set the āmaximumā they are willing to pay such that it is a poverty wage. These companies rake in billions upon billions of dollars a year in profits. The money is absolutely there they just like to pretend that it isnāt.
The government/capitalism.