Welfare

[mererdog]

government sponsored monopoly (the only kind)

I suggest researching the phrase "barriers to entry" and rethinking that position.

[mererdog]

Even if at some point we were misled, we elected the politicians, who ran on platforms that apparently a majority of Americans wanted

When only a little over half the voting age public vote, elections can not be indicative of what most people want. In a party system, votes tend not to go for what people want, but for what they are willing to grudgingly settle for...

No, our history has been a repetition on the theme of you accusing me of being socialist, and my stating that I am not.

It effectively derails your argumentation. You have to admit its an effective gambit.....

[revtimothybland]

that is only the presidential election, revtim, which in my opinion is the least important of the elections because it is decided by the electoral college. The congress are the ones who are supposed to make the laws, and I do say "Supposed", since our current president seems to be writing a lot lately. Congress is elected by direct election, and they have control of our social systems regulations.

While this is true, I still don't believe that it's a direct vote anymore. Congress is ultimately responsible for just about everything horrible in this country, and the president has been a puppet of them since after Jefferson. Congress controls the vote, keeping itself stocked with members that will continue with their legacy of greed and corruption, and, to this end, they control who's available for us to vote for in the first place. Thus, our voices are being stripped from us, using our own system, and we COULD do something about it, but no one will. Too much fear.

[panpareil]

I suggest researching the phrase "barriers to entry" and rethinking that position.

Barriers to entry are created and maintained by the state, which maintains the monopoly on force. Licenses, copyright, trademark, patent, taxes, tariffs and regulations are all designed to create and protect monopolies.

Predatory pricing for instance is unsustainable and cannot create a monopoly. If you continuously sell something for less than it is worth or at a loss you will go bankrupt. If your competitor is unable to match your price he may go out of business too. But, if you raise your prices after your competition is gone you are inviting new competition and you have to lower prices and operate at a loss again. Whenever you raise your prices to gouge the consumer you incentivize competition. The only way predatory pricing works is if the state steps in to eliminate competition and facilitates the gouging of consumers with force.

Other supposed barriers to entry are just facets of completion, which fosters efficient businesses and a higher standard of living for consumers.

The cost of entry into an enterprise is paid for by higher efficiency, or by additional and original value added to the product.

This is one of those things that the average man can not conceive of overcoming, and settles in his mind that those who do overcome this must be cheating, stealing, or exceedingly lucky.

[kokigami]

When only a little over half the voting age public vote, elections can not be indicative of what most people want. In a party system, votes tend not to go for what people want, but for what they are willing to grudgingly settle for...

It effectively derails your argumentation. You have to admit its an effective gambit.....

It is, but I have a different theory on why it happens.

[mererdog]

Barriers to entry are created and maintained by the state,

Some are, most are not.

Predatory pricing for instance is unsustainable and cannot create a monopoly. If you continuously sell something for less than it is worth or at a loss you will go bankrupt. If your competitor is unable to match your price he may go out of business too. But, if you raise your prices after your competition is gone you are inviting new competition and you have to lower prices and operate at a loss again. Whenever you raise your prices to gouge the consumer you incentivize competition. The only way predatory pricing works is if the state steps in to eliminate competition and facilitates the gouging of consumers with force.

Whether or not you are "inviting competition" is irrelevant. Once your competition is gone, you have a monopoly. Whether it lasts a day, a year, or a decade.

The cost of entry into an enterprise is paid for by higher efficiency, or by additional and original value added to the product

Or it simply doesn't get paid, because people decide to go into less expensive enterprises where profit is more readily available. The thing you seem to miss is that monopoly is not about whether people can compete, but about whether people do compete- and there are lots of reasons why people would decide not to enter into a market. It is common in rural areas for a business to have a monopoly in the local market simply because no one has decided that competing with them is the best profit opportunity.

[kokigami]

Some are, most are not.

Whether or not you are "inviting competition" is irrelevant. Once your competition is gone, you have a monopoly. Whether it lasts a day, a year, or a decade.

Or it simply doesn't get paid, because people decide to go into less expensive enterprises where profit is more readily available. The thing you seem to miss is that monopoly is not about whether people can compete, but about whether people do compete- and there are lots of reasons why people would decide not to enter into a market. It is common in rural areas for a business to have a monopoly in the local market simply because no one has decided that competing with them is the best profit opportunity.

As and example, watch the events transpiring with Amazon..

[panpareil]

Some are, most are not.

Ok, let me be more specific. All artificial barriers to entry are created and maintained by the state, The rest are a natural part of competitive business.

As and example, watch the events transpiring with Amazon..

Amazon and Google can only hold their place because of state protection of their trade secrets. Without it their secrets would soon be in the public domain and competition for their business would be all over the place.

[kokigami]

so, the only property right you don't approve of is intellectual property? Really?

[Seeker]

"Intellectual property" is a neologism which conflates several conventions which evolved separately and under different circumstances.

Copy right derived from the days when a copy was made by hand. The right to access the original for the requisite extended period was valuable and could be controlled. It derived from possession of the physical book. Once the copy had been made, the owner of that copy could grant a copy right on his physical book. There was no claim to ownership of the thoughts contained in the book.

Patents are much closer to the "intellectual property" idea, but are in essence a restriction imposed by the state on the exploitation of an idea, and usually make the idea itself public domain.

Trade marks are intended as a fraud prevention measure. Like patents, they are a state-enforced protection against the use of a particular recognised marking in order to allow the public to have confidence in the provenance of an item.

None of these are what I would consider natural rights. Nor do they match the current rhetoric of the pro-IP lobby who claim increasing jurisdiction over the ideas or "content" itself.

[panpareil]

so, the only property right you don't approve of is intellectual property? Really?

It is equally interesting that this is the sole form of property that is honored by the left,

I on the other hand totally approve of honoring property rights. It's just there is no such thing as intellectual property.

Property requires scarcity and inalienability meaning it can be lost by the original owner and possessed solely by a new owner.

Intellectual property has neither and is therefore not property. Ideas can be owned until death, and can be infinitely reproduced at no loss to the original owner.

What IP does do is facilitate the enforced transfer of real property in exchange for imaginary property, or even of less value the temporary use of imaginary property.

It also hampers innovation, and therefore the standard of living tor every human. Remove the state protection of corporate (another government fiction forced on the populous) ownership of ideas and they will only hold possession of ideas they can keep secret. Everything else will be public domain and available to each human to better their own life.

I know all the objections to this, but i do not have time to list them all and bat them away.

[cuchulain]

I think intellectual property holds progress back, because if everybody had access to the supposed intellectual property, everybody would have a better chance of discovering ways to improve upon it. Just my opinion.

[Seeker]

I believe there were some studies done on historic data from the industrial revolution when patent control was patchy. These broadly supported your point. Unfortunately I don't have a reference - if anyone else does, I would welcome a link.

[kokigami]

Interesting. I would argue that liberals have a mixed view on intellectual property rights. My view is that our current IP law is problematic, but, if there is anything that can be said to have been created without theft.. it is ideas. IP "rights", therefore are the most valid of all property rights..

Mostly I find this question an interesting diversion. It might make an interesting thread..

[cuchulain]

so here is an example of welfare gone wrong. I have a friend who works at a restaurant, and who has severe asthma. He is on Medicaid, which covers all of his necessary meds. He just got promoted to management, which normally you would think of as a good thing. Unfortunately, since he now makes more money, Medicaid doesn't want to cover him anymore. Understandable, it is designed that way. But, with Medicaid not covering him anymore, he will end up with less money because of out of pocket expenses and having to pay for health insurance, which isn't covered by the restaurant, they don't have enough employees for the government to mandate that they pay for it. So, the only affordable insurance option he has under obamacare doesn't cover his meds either, meaning if he doesn't pay the insurance he gets penalized come tax time, and he is still out of pocket on his meds. Either way he works it out, this promotion, which should help him get ahead in life, will end with him making about half as much as he did when he wasn't management, if not less, and working harder to boot with his new management duties added in. He doesn't have a degree, specialized training, or anything, so he can't really switch to a management job somewhere that will cover his insurance needs. His only real option at this point is either get another job with insurance, losing his status as manager in the process, or demote himself so he can go back to Medicaid and back on welfare. And that is the problem with welfare, it is designed in such a way that people on welfare have an extremely hard time getting off welfare, even when they work and do things right, it is a system that in conjunction with other welfare programs end up penalizing people for doing what they should be doing, which is working and trying to work their way up the ladder.

[panpareil]

Interesting. I would argue that liberals have a mixed view on intellectual property rights. My view is that our current IP law is problematic, but, if there is anything that can be said to have been created without theft.. it is ideas. IP "rights", therefore are the most valid of all property rights..

Mostly I find this question an interesting diversion. It might make an interesting thread..

Property is something that can be lost or destroyed. Theft of property deprives one of property. Property is also scarce. There is a limited amount for people to share.

Ideas are not property since the have none of the attributes of property. Ideas can be share without loss to the owner. They are not scare, they are instead infinitely dispersable.

Which means the public is impoverished by the artificial creation of government supported monopolies on ideas and their use and dissemination. IP rights are the supposed rights to have government supported monopolies to the detriment of the public. The argument for these monopolies is the same as for all other monopolies. If monopolies were not granted then the public would be denied the product or service. IP can support this notion no stronger than the oil industry could when they became the target of antitrust litigation.

The government creates large corporations by eliminating their competition with IP enforcement and eliminating risk of loss to the rich by the fiction of incorporation. Large corporations exist with the coercive force of big government turned on the public. The larger the government the greater the power of corporations.

so here is an example of welfare gone wrong. I have a friend who works at a restaurant, and who has severe asthma. He is on Medicaid, which covers all of his necessary meds. He just got promoted to management, which normally you would think of as a good thing. Unfortunately, since he now makes more money, Medicaid doesn't want to cover him anymore. Understandable, it is designed that way. But, with Medicaid not covering him anymore, he will end up with less money because of out of pocket expenses and having to pay for health insurance, which isn't covered by the restaurant, they don't have enough employees for the government to mandate that they pay for it. So, the only affordable insurance option he has under obamacare doesn't cover his meds either, meaning if he doesn't pay the insurance he gets penalized come tax time, and he is still out of pocket on his meds. Either way he works it out, this promotion, which should help him get ahead in life, will end with him making about half as much as he did when he wasn't management, if not less, and working harder to boot with his new management duties added in. He doesn't have a degree, specialized training, or anything, so he can't really switch to a management job somewhere that will cover his insurance needs. His only real option at this point is either get another job with insurance, losing his status as manager in the process, or demote himself so he can go back to Medicaid and back on welfare. And that is the problem with welfare, it is designed in such a way that people on welfare have an extremely hard time getting off welfare, even when they work and do things right, it is a system that in conjunction with other welfare programs end up penalizing people for doing what they should be doing, which is working and trying to work their way up the ladder.

Welfare is not meant to make your life better. It is meant to keep you where you are.

The way to a better life is simple to understand, learn to do what people value more. But, it is difficult to accomplish. In physics, work is the force or energy it takes to get from point A to point B. There is no short cut.

[kokigami]

Property is something that can be lost or destroyed. Theft of property deprives one of property. Property is also scarce. There is a limited amount for people to share.

Ideas are not property since the have none of the attributes of property. Ideas can be share without loss to the owner. They are not scare, they are instead infinitely dispersable.

Which means the public is impoverished by the artificial creation of government supported monopolies on ideas and their use and dissemination. IP rights are the supposed rights to have government supported monopolies to the detriment of the public. The argument for these monopolies is the same as for all other monopolies. If monopolies were not granted then the public would be denied the product or service. IP can support this notion no stronger than the oil industry could when they became the target of antitrust litigation.

That is a definition of property. But, it is really just a definition of objects. Property is really more of a legal concept, and comes from the word, roughly, to possess which we use frequently to describe non object concepts. He possesses great charm, or great intellect.. As far as property law, it is really about communal agreement on the term. Legally, IP is real, because most people agree it is real. Just as legally personal property is real because most people agree it is real. If we all agreed tomorrow to eliminate personal property, there would be no personal property. Just things we possessed. Possession is different, in that it has no lasting social standing.

The government creates large corporations by eliminating their competition with IP enforcement and eliminating risk of loss to the rich by the fiction of incorporation. Large corporations exist with the coercive force of big government turned on the public. The larger the government the greater the power of corporations.

There is some of this, certainly. When Amiga computers went under, the IP rights to the OS and technology all went up for sale to pay off creditors. Most of the patents are now dormant in the legal hold of companies that have no interest in using them, but only keep them to a) keep others from using them, and b) to bolster the number of patents they can claim to own. In this way, IP law is definitely damaging to trade commerce and competition. I have been wondering if IP is taxed. I think it should be..

Welfare is not meant to make your life better. It is meant to keep you where you are.

The way to a better life is simple to understand, learn to do what people value more. But, it is difficult to accomplish. In physics, work is the force or energy it takes to get from point A to point B. There is no short cut.

Well, kind of, yes. Welfare is not envisioned as a way to improve ones net worth, for example. This is, in my opinion a mistake, but it is socially supported. Welfare will help to pay for housing rental, but not for housing purchase, ostensibly because the welfare recipient would then be gaining net worth from the system. Instead, of course, the landlord is increasing his net worth from the system. No one seems too upset about this, though, conceptually it isn't different. It is just a matter of who is gaining from the system.

The restaurant worker mentioned by cuchulain is caught in a different part of the system, of course. I have seen a lot of people in that particular trap. It wasn't intentionally designed as such, I think. But it has become such. There are unintended consequences of the structure. Like the way that Walmart uses the system to maintain low wage employees. I can say that eliminating the welfare system won't actually improve the users situation, however. It is a difficult problem to solve.

[panpareil]

Property is one of those things that existed before law or society. Many animals recognize property. They fight for food. They fight for territory. They fight for mates. Property is a requirement for survival in the animal kingdom. Law only recognizes the obvious, that property is necessary for survival.

IP should be taxed as other riches are taxed. A portion of ones IP should be distributed to the public on a periodic basis, Just as ones money is confiscated and distributed. Only IP can be distributed to the entire population, not just a select few.

The trap of entitlements may not be intentionally designed, but it is certainly an ignored byproduct. The benefits to government have so far outweighed any negative feedback that would move it to change. Its like they are handing out free drugs. There is benefit to the user but it perpetuates the problem and invites the creation of more users.

Something like a 22 trillion dollars has been spent on the war on poverty when adjusted for inflation. This is enough money to make each person in poverty independently wealthy, and yet poverty has stopped its downward trend when the war on poverty started in 1964 and has actually grown 4 percent since its low in 1974 while the amount spent has more than doubled.

By the way I loved Commodore computers.

[cuchulain]

I know welfare isn't designed to make someone's life better, I feel like it was intended to be a stepping stone so someone could get back on their feet and then from there make their own lives better, what I was pointing out is that the system is currently failing to do that in the case of my friend. He gets ahead a little bit, and thanks to the addition of obamacare, he is actually set further behind. There clearly needs to be some kind of welfare reform, although I am wise enough to admit I don't know what direction that should take. But when someone is penalized by a system for doing what they are encouraged to do, there is an issue, obviously.

[kokigami]

Property is one of those things that existed before law or society. Many animals recognize property. They fight for food. They fight for territory. They fight for mates. Property is a requirement for survival in the animal kingdom. Law only recognizes the obvious, that property is necessary for survival.

possession isn't property. Some animals do have property concepts, of course, but not most. The concept of property only exists if the social group recognizes the concept. That is, if, on the whole, you can leave your stuff unattended, and others will still view it as yours. In many places, property rights only exist for those with might (in both the human and animal worlds). Government, at its most basic, is a social contract to acknowledge property as a more universal concept, and a social pledge to use the collective might to enforce the contract. Property isn't necessary for survival. This is evident as many creatures have no concept of property. I doubt worms do, for a simple example.

IP should be taxed as other riches are taxed. A portion of ones IP should be distributed to the public on a periodic basis, Just as ones money is confiscated and distributed. Only IP can be distributed to the entire population, not just a select few.

I am not sure why you think IP should be taken rather than the value of IP. We don't confiscate peoples land to redistribute. We tax a value, not a thing.IP has value.. (it is hard to establish that value, of course..)

The trap of entitlements may not be intentionally designed, but it is certainly an ignored byproduct. The benefits to government have so far outweighed any negative feedback that would move it to change. Its like they are handing out free drugs. There is benefit to the user but it perpetuates the problem and invites the creation of more users.

There have been attempts to address it. The haven't been successful for various reasons. The largest is probably mis information about the nature of poverty in America, but followed closely by the meme that those on welfare are the "takers", and the class warfare that has been promoted by the wealthy between the middle class and the poor..

Something like a 22 trillion dollars has been spent on the war on poverty when adjusted for inflation. This is enough money to make each person in poverty independently wealthy, and yet poverty has stopped its downward trend when the war on poverty started in 1964 and has actually grown 4 percent since its low in 1974 while the amount spent has more than doubled.

well, more or less true, over 50 years of programs. A large part of that problem has been that, as I said before, the money is never used to improve the net worth of the recipient. It is simply channeled through them to the wealthier portion of America. A welfare program will pay your rent to a landlord, and improve their net worth, but won't pay your mortgage. And as much as any part of the system was designed to not help the poor, this is somewhat intentional. It comes from the belief that we can end economic inequality by keeping the poor just barely afloat. It isn't about spending more money. It is about spending it correctly.

That said, because our economic system is fluid, there will always be poverty. It is very easy to go down the economic ladder.

By the way I loved Commodore computers.

Wanna buy some?

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/03/kathryn-edin-poverty-research-fatherhood

Edited November 9, 2014 by kokigami