I meant there the satisfaction you get to consume. If you buy 10 pieces of bread and only eat half of them, the other half were a waste of the labour you had to put in to get the money for them. (I guess if you value having food in abundance for a visit or whatever, you may not consider it to be a waste.)
I disagree with you. Gaming is not wasted resources, period. I say it is very productive. Also, all economic expansion? So I guess using the steam engine is a waste of resources not really needed. The creation of the internet is a waste of resources that are not needed. Creating more food through advancing technology is utilization of resources that are not really needed. All inventors that have ever existed, used things that were not needed.
No, their primary intent was not to create a shortage. Their primary intent was to help farmers stay in business. One way they figured of doing this was to take food off the market(this increases prices). They can’t simply “dictate” prices because some people can simply not buy the product. I mean, what if people suddenly decide to stop consuming wheat(a very likely possibility). How do you help wheat farmers then?
You ignore the substitution effect. People will react to the price floor by simply switching to other products. Demand is hurt when prices increase. This is a fact.
???How’s he going to feed his family meat when he doesn’t have enough potatoes to satisfy the hunger. Again you can not have any trade unless there is excess food.
You can only do this because there is food out there that noone is hoarding.
That is loss, as in negative profit. Loss is not waste. Facilities erected for one purpose can be used in another. Product manufactured with one expectancy can be re-marketed by bankruptcy trustees. Loss does not mean waste.
No I don’t, and yes I have. I am just stating that the entire industry, as is the entire economy is built not on scarcity, but on limited excess.
I guess when you say all economic expansion is using resources that are not needed, then the creation of vaccines was not “really needed.” Or the creation of anti-biotics was not needed. All medical technology we use today was not “needed.”
Hoover(not an economist mind you), did not want scarcity. They didn’t plan on creating shortages. They wanted to help the farmer so that they did not lose their jobs.
Also some questions about minimum prices on food. How will you help the farmer if a natural disaster wipes out their crops? I mean, let us take orange farmers. Let us say a frost occurs, and it wipes out our supply of oranges? How do you help these farmers stay in business?
If you spent your money on video games, you obviously do not think that they are a “waste of resources.” If you did, you would not buy them. It is like the concept of marginal utility. Our teacher asked my class if we wanted to be in class today. Some of the kids shook their head no…they would rather be somewhere else. The teacher told them they were liars, because if they TRULY wanted to be somewhere else, they would be at that other place, and not here. Every time you commit an action, you value that action much higher than any other available action at your disposal. Same goes when you buy a video game. At that moment, you value that video game more than any other product out on the market. If you want to go that way, I can argue that all action then is “waste.”
Society functioned quite well for thousands of years without the current concept of medical ‘expertise’. My contempt for the economic ‘expert’ is symptomatic of my contempt for all proffesionals. I think that a lot of the ‘advances’ in medical knowledge has actually been steps backwards. Things that help one condition precipitate other conditions that are more deadly. I do ‘like’ that I do not have to watch out for polio and small pox, but I know that as long as I live, something out there is going to kill me, and I wonder if what will kill me will be a natural bug, or something man made.
3.14 Work of the Government
Any
government department should be trying to put itself out of business. This is
true from employment insurance to the post office. Government bureaucrats
do not make good executives. What they oversee is not theirs, it is ours. They
are therefore very inefficient in the conducting of their duties. No, I do not
mean that government clerks are useless. I mean that the bureaucracy of
government inevitably leads to inefficiency.
Any business which the government conducts, should never be a protected
monopoly, and if competition should be strong enough to drive the
government out of the business, the government should be glad to have spurred
the economy in this section and be very glad to disband the department.
Regulations protecting crown corporations from competition make no sense at
all. If competition can exist, then the government must do all in its power to
ensure that it does exist, and for governments to actively thwart competition is
counter to its mandate. We do not have government for the sake of
government.
Government’s role is; the protector of wealth, the facilitator of wealth, and to a
minor point, the re-distributor of wealth. As the protector of wealth, we have
the police, the military, the courts and the prisons. As the facilitator of wealth,
we have the public schools, highways and the airports. As the re-distributor of
wealth we have the welfare, pension, unemployment insurance, health
insurance, business grants, home ownership grants, university grants, fuel
subsidies, daycare subsidies…, etc. It is interesting that what I call (and most
economists would agree) a minor point of the government’s function, garners
the major portion of its interest.
Many of the redistribution schemes of government, are by their very existence,
grand illustrations of the inefficiencies of government bureaucracy. Wealth
redistribution is one area the government should shrink, not in the amount that
it actually distributes to the public, but in the manner in which it distributes this
wealth to the public.
Besides the expense of maintaining the bureaucracy, wealth redistribution reeks
havoc with the general economy. Wealth is the product of labor. Why then do
we pay someone to be idle? It is very difficult for a working person to be
enticed to keep working, when he cannot see any improvements to his life over
the person next door who is idle. It is very disheartening to any business that is
barely surviving to see a major competitor receive a government bail-out or
subsidy. I would suggest that universality is the key to reducing bureaucracy,
and improving the results of wealth redistribution.
If governments wish to assist the lower class, it should do so without stigma or
investigation. It should matter little to a government if a poor man may make
some money with his labors. Why should he be restricted from contributing to
society? It should matter little to the government if such assistance goes to a
person of considerable means who pays considerable taxes, for it is only his
taxes that are being partially returned to him. It should matter little to the
government as to whether the person is unemployed due to unfair treatment of
his employer, or just because he is at the age of retirement. It makes no
difference to the government if the person is attending school, working on an
invention, or trying to get a business off the ground. Some people receive a
personal tax deduction, while others receive about the same amount through
welfare. Though the tax deduction matters little to most people’s standard of
living, it is allowed to all, whether or not someone has received welfare, or
unemployment, or pension.
I have always felt strongly that welfare was detrimental to the economy of a
nation. It was with some surprise, and confusion that I learned of the hardship
brought to ancient Rome when a shortage of gold ended the corn dole. My first
reaction was that the economy should be quite capable of growing to feed the
Romans. The ending of pubic assistance should prove to be an economic
boom. (I had not as yet fully understood the contribution of an adequate money
supply to an economy.) My feelings about public assistance meant that the corn
dole must have been a terrible drag on the economy. Why was the ending of
the dole coincidental with such dire economic consequences? The corn dole of
ancient Rome was not a drag to the economy because it was universal. It was
not given out on any arbitrary necessity, but was free for all. With subsistence
taken care of, healthy able workers and artisans were available to business at
very low wages. These businesses paid for the subsistence in their taxes, and
wealthy people could partake in the dole. The dole was not an incentive for
people to remain poor. It was not a disincentive for people to work. It was
merely subsistence provided for all.
I propose, that the government should investigate its citizens as little as
possible. The government should, on establishing a poverty line, distribute to
every man, woman and child a large portion of what they need to subsist,
without the bureaucracy to ensure their actual need. To the high income earner,
this is their personal tax deduction. To the unemployed, this is their
unemployment insurance. To the elderly, this is their basic pension. To the
student, this is their education grant. To the artist, this is their arts endowment.
In this way the departments for welfare, unemployment, and pension could be
abolished. There would be no need for arts endowments, research grants, or
student assistance. Wealth could be very well be redistributed, without
regulations preventing able-bodied persons from contributing to the wealth of
the land.http://www.lulu.com/arman
A universal dole would also be a bailout for small businesses like farms. If the orange business fails, the assets will likely go to other businesses. The government should not make special measures for special circumstances.
I’m a part of LAUSD’s teacher’s union, one of the most powerful. How did they get so powerful? Unions are a lot like states. I am forced to be a member of this “state” (the union), pay “taxes” (member dues), and abide by arbritary rules set about by the union leaders. Every school in LAUSD is forced to obey the rules and cannot pay teachers what they believe his/her labor is worth. Individual differences are hardly taken into account with this ridiculous one size fits all policy. Do a terrible job of teaching and you still have a job. Do a fantastic job of teaching and you get no rewards. There is no free market, no competition for labor, no choice, which leads to the disastrous results you are now seeing in public schools in LAUSD. Public education + teacher unions = worst possible results. I can go on about the lack of accountability in public schools. But the evidence of the enormous drawbacks versus whatever benefits unions can have should be obvious. One size fits all collective bargaining rules CANNOT satisfy everyone for long, no matter how hard the strike or threat of the strike was. Look at the writer’s strike. The threat of another strike is inevitable. Let the employers compete for your labor and the workers will get paid what they deserve.
I am not talking about “expert” at all. I am talking about economic innovations. Let us not put the “human” into the equation. Also, can you share with us some “advances” you believe have been a step backwards in medical knowledge?
First off, your chapter on government doesn’t answer my question. Secondly, I question the effectiveness of that corn dole. First off, a lot of the corn that was recieved by rome was imported. You are against relying the foriegn importation of any food. Also, the “corn dole” was not used under the reasons you give.
Secondly, what do you mean by “having government ensuring competition?” Do you believe in the anti-trust laws? Do you believe the persecutions of Microsoft, ALCOA, Standard Oil, IBM, and even possibly google ensures competiton?
Also, explain this statement more: “The government should, on establishing a poverty line, distribute to
every man, woman and child a large portion of what they need to subsist,
without the bureaucracy to ensure their actual need”
To me, this is saying that government should distribute, but not make sure they are distributing.
Let me also say farms are no longer a “small business.” They are large corporations nowadays.
So in accordance with a “orange failure” the bailout money should be given to all businesses equally? So if the orange farmers plead to the government that they need $10,000 to get bailed out, all business owners should recieve $10,000? Where is the government going to get this money? Also, is government then in charge of production, under your idea?
I am sick to death with the “your wrong” attitude. If YOU have an understanding, put it forward. If YOU have some secret information from some secret society founded before Rome, then put it forward. If you don’t have anything positive to say, keep it to yourself! You know very well that I have completely trashed the conventional opinion on the economic history of Rome, and have not gotten a single lucid comment back http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=2207846194&topic=2181
The business is not important. The people are important. A blanket dole to all people would in many instances be a bailout of the family business, or a startup grant for a family business, but in the vast majority of the payouts, it would only constitute a return of tax, like a personal deduction.
Absolutely not. As is, the government looks closely at why we need the money, whether we’re in school, or starting a business or involved in some R&D; whether we’re retired, or long time unemployed, or handicapped, whether we’re in need or just in want; all of which I demand is none of the government’s business. Give us our money, or don’t give us our money, but don’t make a big grandstand announcement about how you’re going to put our money to this sector or that project and pretend that you’re doing anything but creating a photo-op
The government should distribute without looking closely as to where the money is going. All people should be treated the same by the government, and the government should not give a nickel to one person unless it is doing the same to all people. Under NO circumstances should government EVER be directly involved in creating, maintaining or bailing out a business.
So Arman, I ask you again, the government is deciding to give ALL americans a tax return(more money for poor people vs rich people). Do you support it? Or do you believe that every person in america should recieve the same amount of money, regardless? Because with your previous logic, I believe poor people should recieve more than rich people, since poor people are the driving force of the economy.
Isn’t a blanket dole wrong under your logic? Read “Under NO circumstances should government EVER be directly involved in creating, maintaining or bailing out a business.” So a blanket dole can not bailout a family business. So all tax returns, all help towards “family businesses” means helping everyone. And do you mean EVERY SINGLE PERSON in the country? How would this work in a country like china?
Why then give you money at all? Why then should the government give you money? The people are going to wonder why they are getting money. They are going to wonder why someone like bill gates is getting all this tax-payer money. They don’t care if they are getting it too. They are going to wonder why he deserves it as much as they do. They would think “I deserve more money than Bill gates, because I have less money than he does.”
So reckless spending then. Simply, have no accounting practices of where they put money. Just throw money into the air basically. So no bailing out of businesses either? What about if all farmers suddenly can’t maintain their bills and they are going to fail quickly? Since you said under NO cirumstances, I believe under your administration, you would allow all farmers to fail.
So equally giving money. In this sense, if you want to “protect farmers from foriegn competition,” then you are protecting ALL businesses from foriegn competition. As you said, all people should be treated the same from the government. Therefore, if you are going to give protection for farmers from foriegn competition, the same should be said for oil, and steel, and other businesses. Same goes with getting rid of minimum wage. Since you said all people should be treated the same by the government, minimum wage gives special treatment to low-income earners. If you are going to raise the wages of poor people, you need to raise the wages of rich people as well. But alas, this can’t work as well, because as you said, “under NO circumstances should government EVER be directly involved in maintaining a business.” Therefore, all that talk last time about protecting farmers or the farm industry can not happen. Also, what about the creating, maintaining and bailing out people? Should government be involved in that? An example of this is how the government is going to bail out sub-prime mortgage lenders. Do you agree with this?
And about your “economic history” of rome, why not post your argument on the history of Rome into a new post here? Don’t rely on facebook to confirm truths. You need more than just one source to confirm something.
Yes. No more welfare offices. No more unemployment offices. No more student grants. No more social security cheques. No more startup grants. No more business developement aid at all. No more corporate bailouts. Government bureaucracy could easily be halved
Since there are more poor people than rich people, you could put it that way. People are the driving force of the economy. Not business.
The government should not ever try to help a business. The business that it helps has competition, and by helping one business, it is working against all the other businesses.
If the trees are destroyed, then there is no business to save. If the trees are still there, then the farmer can mortgage, or sell the production assets. The government should not get involved with the business.
Is that really how you think?? More of the money was Bill Gates’ money to begin with! Why should government bureaucracy be employed in deciding who should get what?
So that you can ignore it here too? I might repost it when I think this thread has petered out, but not right now.
No, that’s not true. Welfare offices, and unemployment offices can exist. Even student grants and social security cheques. Hell, even business development aid. Except they wouldn’t discriminate. All people would be eligible for such aid.
Stop avoiding the main point of my statement there. I said poor people should recieve more money than rich people. They should recieve more benefits than rich people. Do you agree with that or not? Don’t just look at my statement of me using your logic.
Well, what do you mean by business? Does it have to be a corporation? Because not all businesses are incorporated. They can be sole proprietorship. In that case, the business then isn’t its own entity.
What if the farmer can’t mortgage? What if his credit is bad? What if no private entity will take his risk? What can the government do then? You know, there are a lot of poor people who can’t take out loans…What are they to do?
I didn’t speak about myself. And if you are asking that question “Why should government bureaucracy be employed in deciding who should get what?” why not apply that to minimum wage? Isn’t minimum wage having the government bureaucracy deciding how much poor people can get paid?
Not just me Arman. I am talking about other users here. Posting about economics of rome here would be off-topic.
But please, answer my question. Do you believe poor people should recieve more money from the government than rich people?
??Unemployment is discriminatory. You can’t get welfare if your business is on a rough patch. As is, government pay outs have a huge cost in the bureaucracy it takes to run them, and the bureaucracy’s main job is to discriminate in the pay outs. You’re not catching my vision at all.
Why?? Who’s money is it?? The rich contribute more to the government funds, and so they should automatically get less from the government??? Government must at all times try to treat all people as equal. The more that they can do that, the better the government. You seem to feel that government should be a Robin Hood, to take only from the rich and give only to the poor. That’s not good government.
Your questions do not make sense. A business is a business. Government cannot aid one business without setting itself against all other business, because all business is in competition for the same consumer dollar.
What part of my statement is unclear??? Quit being so obtuse
Maybe get a job instead of trying to run a business!!
No. Government clerks do not receive application from you to set a salary for you. The floor is simple. It should be more simple than it is. It does not demand intensive government bureaucracy as all current dole programs do.
Just because you keep repeating it, doesn’t make it true. In fact, shortage of food may often be the motivation for trade: to optimise the use of what little resources there is available. Take for example, the most extreme cases of famine the world over throughout history, when the grass seeds are already eaten, and tree barks already stripped, neighbors start to trade their dead with each other so that each family don’t have to eat their own dead. Now, are you going to tell us they have excessive food?
How exactly do you define “excessive food”? If you define fellow human beings as bags of food lying around or walking around, I suppose “there is excess food” just means there are human beings . . . then again, trade may have proceeded even the arrival of humanity; gnobles trade food for sex, and vice versa, all the time, with regularized transaction rituals.
If you really think about it outside the confines of your own ivory tower abstraction, “excess food” is not really possible to define: is a family of four growing 100 bushels of corn and nothing else having “excess food”? Well, that’s 5600lbs of corn a year, or 3.8lbs of corn per person per day, assuming no rats, birds or insects stealing corn, that’s far more than enough calories to keep a person alive. However, is eating corn all year and nothing else a way to live? Can people even survive entirely on corn? We know calories alone is not enough, there has to be enough proteins and vitamins. We know 90% of corn produced in this country are used as animal feed. Beef cattle has a conversion rate of about 10-to-1, so 3.8lbs corn would produce 0.38lb of feeder cattle, which would yield about 0.2lb of beef after buchering . . . and 0.1-0.15lb of beef in the plate after cooking. That’s about 2-3 ounces of beef, not nearly enough food. So, 100 bushels of corn is not “excess food” for a family of four. On the other hand, people have been known to live off crab grass seeds and tree barks during famine . . . yes, even then they would trade tree barks and grass seeds collected for the neighbor’s fuel and/or clothing, simply because getting a grass jacket may result in more calories preserved in your body than eating another tree bark can give you.
What this illustrates is that people do not eat a uniform substance called “food”; nor do they grow a uniform plant species called “food.” 100 bushels of corn (5600lbs) would be considered enormous “riches” for the folks living off collecting grass seeds and tree barks, yet it may not be nearly enough for people who want an animal-based diet. Yes, technically human beings can live off wild grass seeds and tree barks, but there is always a need for higher quality food. How much corn is a pound of beef worth, or for that matter how many strips of tree barks is a liter of corn worth is where free market trade comes in. More importantly, as a consequence of free trade, specialists would have the means and the incentive to focus on breeding cattles that produce the most amount of beef per corn consumed . . . some may even come up with the idea of aquaculture and raise tilapia on ground-up corn meals, which would produce one pound of high protein fish for every 2-3lbs of corn feed (instead of 1lb of beef for every 10lbs of corn) . . . thereby producing much more high quality food than raising cattle would produce on that 100 bushels. That’s why trade and specialization bring wealth of nations, as Adam Smith observed hundreds of years ago.
Your insistence on the primacy of farming and advocacy for government intervention to create excess food production, and looking down upon trade, have been tried in backward third-world countries like China for thousands of years (in cycles, those who gathered enough power to enforce their agro-centric policies effectively invariably produced widespread famines, and had their regime overthrown) . What the agro-idealists do not realize is that allocation of resources, even for food production, have to be re-adjusted constantly, depending on weather pattern, soil condition, river water level and course change, technological advance, human, animal and plant epidemic, etc. etc.. Bureacrats do not possess the magic blackbox to make those choices right. In fact, they are much worse at adjusting to changes than the free-market trade system. As late as the 20th century, both Mao and Pol Pot tried to turn their whole countries’ population into farmers, and banned all private traders. The result were invariably widespread famines: the bureacrats simply couldn’t figure out what crop to plant for which plot of land, yet they issued orders to the farmers anyway, in the name of producing as much “staple crop” (rice, wheat, corn and potato) as possible. The result was a catastrophe, with upwards of 40 million people died of famine as consequence.
BTW, farming was not even close to being the first human endeavor/business. Hunter-gathering went on for tens of thousands of years. The early farm crops had very low yield, and the farming methods resulted in terrible soil erosion. Until hunter-gathering became hard to get by due to natural resource exhaustion, and crop species became much more productive due to artificial selection, it made little sense to farm. In fact, for fish, the primary source of fish in the West did not switch from hunter-gathering to fish farming until the mid-20th century. BTW, the early grass-seed crop farmers were probably motivated by beer-making (for entertainment or religious purpose) as the yeast required relatively uniform seeds that would have been hard to come by in the wild.
What are you talking about? You just said that the government should give out money equally. Where did “unemployment = discrimination” come from? As you said, the more they can treat all people equal, the better. I say under your logic, you can have a welfare office. Except that the welfare can not discriminate in who they pay out to. If anybody comes in asking for a welfare check, that person can do so.
You can say that it is the people’s.
Under our current law system, a corporation is different than a sole proprietorship. If I have a sole proprietorship, and I get sued for mis-conduct, that person can take my house and car. Under a corporation, the person suing me can’t go after my personal assets. And government can not aid one business, then government can not protect food.
You think people only take out loans to run a business? So I guess you paid for your house straight cash…or your car straight cash, is that it?
No, but they do intrude upon businesses and tell them how to operate their business. There is a cost in enforcing such a policy as well. Also, you do have to submit some form of paperwork to the government in order to get a job. And they do in a sense, “set the salary for you.” They set it at a bare minimum…but they still set it. If they didn’t, minimum wage would not exist.
Until I have more than I believe I need, I cannot let go of what I have. In order to trade, hoarding has to be gotten over, and that means that there must be excess. That you cannot objectively define exactly what makes excess is moot. When there are shortages, especially in food, all trade becomes impossible. Making sure that there was enough food to well outlast the seasons has always been man’s primary endeavor, and all trade grows out of the excess. Your denying of the fact is not any proof to the contrary.
Fine, you can call it what you want, a welfare office, OR an unemployment office, OR a student assistence office, but you cannot have " Welfare offices, and unemployment offices … student grants and social security cheques."
I asked you three questions and your statement half heartedly answers one. If it the people’s money, why are you questioning which people should get it. If I want social security, what right does the government bureaucrat have to tell me I’m too young? If I want unemployment, why should my self employed history be irrelevant? If I want student assistance, why should the bureaucrat not recognize the educational path that I am on? If it is the people’s money, then let the people have it, and let the government bureaucrat find something useful to do with his life. Then change the tax form. No personal deductions for anything. It is none of the government’s business what we do with our money, or why we find ourselfs needing extra right now.
I know the delineations of business! What does that have to do with anything. The government cannot assist one business without setting itself against all other business.
The food supply is important enough to protect. That the protection seems contrary to the immediate interests of the entire economy is moot. Our future welfare cannot be left up to the vagaries of the market. What I am saying is that any government action should be with a clear and permanent purpose, and not a reaction to today’s calamity.
That logic is quite strained. Minimum wage is not a set salary. It is the firm floor from which all salaries are determined. That all workers quickly get off the entry level shows you that the wage is not a “set” one.
We were discussing what government should do to give emergency relief for farmers. I said that business was none of the government’s business. If the business has assets, then they can be sold or mortgaged. If the business had no assets to sell or mortgage, then there is no business to salvage. How or why you started to argue that government should be concerned with the individual’s desire for personal financing is a question I find most perplexing.
Unless you have more urgent need for something else 
For example, starving people trade what little food they have for clothing, medicine, and weapons all the time
“Hoarding” is just another way of saying saving for future consumption or trade. People who do not immediately consume everything they have and starve or freeze to death the next day have to “hoard” something, whether food, clothing, fuel, currency or weapons.
If you can not even define what “excess” is, you can not begin to make statement on “excess” being the precondition for anything.
That’s preposterously counter-factual. People may trade wild grass seeds for tree barks, or even their own dead relatives for the dead of their neighbor’s when extreme starvation leads to cannibalism . . . all of these trades are not only possible, they routinely occurred in human history, and were all driven by food shortages.
There was a long time, tens of thousands of years, when man didn’t even know what “seasons” were. Before hunter-gathering gave way to agriculture, the time horizon for planning was much much shorter than a planting season. In fact, when aboriginals were discovered in rain forests in the 19th and 20th century, none of them planned for “seasons.” Food was just something they could catch that day . . . anything not consumed that day woud be rotten overnight.
Your repeating the same misconceived notion doesn’t turn it into truth. History is replete with examples of people turning to trade because they did not have enough food, and saw trade as a way to improve their food supply. The settlers did not give metal knives to Indians to arm them; they traded metal instruments for food from Indians to have something to eat. The Indians did not have “excess” food as the land was literally at carrying capacity with the primitive farming techniques that they had. The Indians wanted the metal knives because (a) metal knives made for much better tilling tools than their wood sticks, and much more efficient butchering tools than flint chips, which meant more meat could be produced out of a carcass and less waste; (b) they could use the knives as weapons to kill other Indian tribes and loot their resources. So the Indians cut back on their current consumption of food, perhaps going hungry for a few days, in order to make the investment in the hopes of more food in the future.
Doesn’t that just prove that:
(a) Minimum wage level does not help the overwhelming majority of workers;
(b) Raising Minimum wage cut-off line just means a higher threshold a new member of the labor force has to overcome in order to have the first job?
Both points bear out in real life. That’s why raising minimum wage makes it harder for teens and young workers to find their first jobs. That’s actually the precise reason why the labor union advocated minimum wage to begin with. Unions are “guild” organizations; they don’t want new competition.
Au contraire, the market is the most efficient calculator of all. Why should we entrust ‘our’ future welfare to the vagaries of state policy?