Climate change science resources

They have the ear of government -- and to paraphrase Pericles, just because you have no interest in economics does not mean economics has no interest in you. That is why we see disgraceful atrocities like cap-and-trade offered as "solutions" to the non-problem of CO2 emissions. In fact, it was the self-evident, gratuitous viciousness of cap-and-trade that first alerted me to the possibility that AGW was a hoax.

The point is that they didn't have to "find" ways to profit because they were PROVIDED with them by government.

Not if we are honest, we don't. Honest people call it injustice perpetrated by government for the unearned profit of the privileged.

 

There's a lot here, and I'm not sure I'll get to all of it. We'll start with the critical relationship between property and rights.

Property is the basis of freedom of contract, which is simply liberty in action. ... Freedom is more than the right to own property or the right to buy and sell. But once the citizen loses the right to own—even if he previously owned nothing—he loses the ability to control his own life.Sep 1, 2000

Property and Liberty - Foundation for Economic Education

 

Sorry, but I'm not outraged by wealthy citizens pursuing their own interests.

 

This is simply false. The exclusion of our fellow human beings from the category of property is an evolution of our sensibility, not a falsification of our ancestors' opinions.

 

Nope. It's a fact.

Wrong. If our ancestors' opinions on the matter had been factually correct, there could never have been any basis on which our "sensibility" could have evolved to reject them. The implication of your claim seems to be that our sensibility could just as easily "evolve" again, making slavery acceptable to our descendants. Are you in fact making such a claim? IMO you need to think about how the Dove quote relates to the issue of property rights.

 

Even when it involves -- as it usually does -- forcible, uncompensated abrogation of your rights...?

Anger is not a very pleasant or attractive emotion; but if you are not rich, and you are not angry, then you do not understand what the rich are doing to you.

 

Which I doubt you can offer a consistently defensible account of.

No it isn't. Contracts are based on trust, and need not involve any property at all.

No it isn't. People don't need contracts to have or act on their liberty.

In fact, chattel slavery proves that the right to own, buy, and sell property has nothing to do with freedom.

I thought this right applied to everyone, not just citizens.

No, that's false. Wild animals have no right to own property, and they control their own lives just fine.

I was a FEE member in my twenties, but far surpassed it in economic understanding decades ago. The article confuses property rights with a lot of issues that are tangential to them -- like income tax, police powers, and the War on Drugs -- and does not offer a coherent, intelligible, or defensible justification for them. It claims, "As new forms of property and wealth have developed in the last 200 years, it is now much clearer how vital property is to all citizens’ freedom, not merely that of landowners." OTC, the development of these new forms of property has made it clear that their owners are forcibly depriving all citizens of their freedom in order to extract unearned income from them, just as landowners have done for thousands of years.

 

As a matter of fact, yes, the sensibility of our descendants could indeed evolve in a new and unexpected direction in the future.

 

I would not say I'm rich, but I'm comfortably retired, and I don't think I've been treated unfairly by anyone. If it's any comfort to you, I think we all, including the rich, should be paying higher income taxes.

 

You are free to deny all you want.

 

....has no qualms about lying, as we shall see.

And there's the lie.

Oxfam disingenuously employs the Fallacy of Equivocation.

Oxfam and others briefly mention income in an hit-and-run and then falsely equivocate income with wealth.

Income and wealth are not the same thing.

Oxfam and others continue their Göbbelization by implying that wealth is cash, when, in fact, 99% of wealth is non-cash assets.

Take Bill Gates. It's claimed his net worth is $95 Billion but he only has maybe $7-$12 Million in cash. The other $94.9 Billion is non-cash assets.

It works like this.

I take $10,000 of my hard earned money and study at the library and online to learn how to write a business plan. They I prepare a business plan and distribute it to potential investors who contribute $10 Million in investment funds.

Then I use that $10 Million to buy property and build a 40-story commercial-residential complex that has condos, apartments, office space, and retail space.

Then....other people say my property is worth $40 Million.

And, then....20 years later....other people say my property is worth $120 Million.

And, then people just like you say I'm the bad guy and I'm evil because other people say my property is worth $120 Million and I won't share that $120 Million with The Poor® even those I don't even have $120 Million in cash.

I just explained how that happens.

It happens because other people say something is worth more.

What should Bill Gates do?

Should he take the $90 Billion in Microsux stock he owns and distribute it to The Poor®?

How shall he do that?

Should he take a pair of scissors and cut up the $90 Billion in stock certificates into 1 mm x 1 mm squares and give them to The Poor®?

Because if he did that, The Poor® would still be poor because the 1 mm x 1 mm square has a value of $0.

Or should he sell his $90 Billion in Microsux stock?

Well, wait a minute....he would have to get permission from the SEC because his stock is not common stock.

Let's assume he got permission from the SEC to sell his preferred shares of stock.

What do you suppose would happen if Bill Gates dumped $90 Billion in Microsux stock on the market?

Microsux stock would now be worth $0.03/share and The Poor® would still be poor.

Are you writing this down?

And for the record, I'm a Constructivist,

 

You are merely unaware of it.

Income is always and everywhere The Wrong Thing To Tax. Income tax is just how the rich prevent the ablest of the poor from accumulating enough assets to offer them significant competition.

 

I am the one offering facts and logic in support of my views. You are just making unsupported assertions.

 

Based on what?

 

We disagree.

 

No, actually you're just shouting.

 

Why not? There's no way to know the future.

 

You know better than that.

 

Understanding enables prediction.

 

Not necessarily. When I was preparing young officers for service in Africa I offered this advice.
Africa may be better than you expect. It may be worse than you expect. It will not be what you expect.

 

Sorry, but I don't.

 

Oxfam? Let's see..

It's no lie that 10 people have greater assets than the bottom 3.5 billion,

It's no lie that median wages have been stagnant for the 4 decades of neoliberalism , while CEO wages have increased from 100 to 300 times that of ordinary workers, while real unemployment (U6 + those who have given up looking for work) has always been >10% even during Trump's best achievement before the pandemic, during our neoliberal Friedman-inspired era.

It's no lie that poverty in the US is still c.10% (before the pandemic).

...I can see some equivocation coming....

Even if true, doesn't change the facts as outlined above.

True, much wealth is gained by asset price rises; apparently Musk sailed past Bezos recently...without doing anything! So Musk can continue his space adventures.....because the US can't fund NASA....

(The Nazi reference escapes me)

Addressed above. The point is above poverty employment, or state assistance, is required to eliminate poverty.

Bill Gates, along with Buffett and "millionaires for higher taxation" are demanding higher taxes.

"Dozens of millionaires are demanding higher taxes — on themselves. Over 80 men and women worth seven figures from the U.S., U.K., Germany, New Zealand, Canada and the Netherlands calling themselves the “Millionaires for Humanity” have signed an open letter asking their governments to “raise taxes on people like us.

This is how the macroeconomy works; (your analysis relates to microeconomics, and has nothing to do with high real unemployment, flat-lining median wages, and the persistent "rust-belt" in the 1st world, all of which are causes of the current political hyper-partisanship: see the link below for an explanation of macroeconomics and its significance.

Comical claims by mainstream economists that the facts have changed – Bill Mitchell – Modern Monetary Theory (economicoutlook.net)

No, as I said, microeconomics is for bean-counters (accountants) ....and as for 'construction', how did Trump do with his promised massive $trillion infrastructure build? He had four years to get started, for God's sake.

 

I would argue that the SOA is currently on the brink of civil war (Uniparty vs MAGA... and urban vs rural).

But yes, there will always be poor among us.

 

Yes, necessarily. Understanding something means having an accurate internal model or representation of it. An internal model or representation is accurate if it can reliably predict the phenomenon in question.

That was a prediction about both Africa and the young officers, and simply indicated your belief that they did not (yet) understand Africa.

 

PLUS he would even receive a few cents of interest for each month that his $400 sits there...

As for me, while I do not consider myself to be living in poverty by any means (though I do not consider myself "wealthy" either) , I could definitely cut back on A LOT of my expenses if need be... For one example:

• Pizza purchases at various pizza chains: ~$15/week, when I pick up pizza most weeks on each Tuesday, so assuming that I do so ~80% of the time, eliminating that unnecessary expense entirely would amount to over $600 a year (or ~$65/month) savings right there.

Of course, there's other things as well... Do I need an $8,000 secondary vehicle? Do I need a $1,300 computer set up? Do I need to keep buying computer games? Do I need a $600 camera? Do I need a $600 bicycle? Do I need a $700 smartphone? Do I need X type of food instead of Y type of food? and on and on and on...

If one were to actually make a budget and keep very close tabs on what they are actually spending their money on, one (even myself) would likely be very surprised at just how much money they are actually spending (and just how much of it could actually be dialed back a bit if need be).