His pension is $76,111 - a month

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mect

Platinum Member
Jan 5, 2004
2,424
1,636
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Its dumb because it does not fit the conversation. Saying that this article is an example of laissez faire is stupid. His response to my comment in context is dumb.
Your complete lack of understanding of union negotiations within the public sector is what is dumb.
 

realibrad

Lifer
Oct 18, 2013
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898
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Your complete lack of understanding of union negotiations within the public sector is what is dumb.

How so? Are you trying to say that people that a union that requires people to pay dues and then negotiates even when the person would rather not be part of the union is laissez faire?
 

mect

Platinum Member
Jan 5, 2004
2,424
1,636
136
How so? Are you trying to say that people that a union that requires people to pay dues and then negotiates even when the person would rather not be part of the union is laissez faire?
How is this unique to public sector unions? Also, this isn't universally true for public sector unions (this is dependent on whether or not you are in a right to work state, not on whether your union is part of the public sector). Also, this wasn't your original statement regarding public sector union negotiations.
 

realibrad

Lifer
Oct 18, 2013
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How is this unique to public sector unions? Also, this isn't universally true for public sector unions (this is dependent on whether or not you are in a right to work state, not on whether your union is part of the public sector). Also, this wasn't your original statement regarding public sector union negotiations.

Perhaps you have confused me with someone else.
 

mect

Platinum Member
Jan 5, 2004
2,424
1,636
136
Perhaps you have confused me with someone else.
Below is the thread leading up to my original comment. Here your contestation is that the tax payers are being forced to pay for the increases to public sector employee's salaries without being part of the bargaining process.
The people aren't being forced to pay.

The ability to negotiate was handled in the previous election.

Welcome to representative government 101.

The people are being forced to pay. Democracy in this case has overridden capitalism.

Whereas here you have switched your argument to employees being forced to pay union dues when they don't wish to be part of the union.

How so? Are you trying to say that people that a union that requires people to pay dues and then negotiates even when the person would rather not be part of the union is laissez faire?
 

realibrad

Lifer
Oct 18, 2013
12,337
898
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Below is the thread leading up to my original comment. Here your contestation is that the tax payers are being forced to pay for the increases to public sector employee's salaries without being part of the bargaining process.

Whereas here you have switched your argument to employees being forced to pay union dues when they don't wish to be part of the union.


First, you seem to be unaware of the context of my posts.

"Funny how a Republican is complaining about laissez faire policies."

That is the topic of which I have been responding to. Taxpayers are not part of the bargaining process and the state is. Thus, it cannot be laissez faire.
 

pmv

Lifer
May 30, 2008
13,636
8,522
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Mike Belotti: Basically single handedly built a football program that brings the school about 30m in profit a year. Taxpayers complain that he gets a 2% of that profit a year....

A question there then is surely whether the taxpayers actually _want_ that particular school to get all that profit per year? And whether they consider paying for the guy's pension is a fair price for it.

Surely most taxpayers get no benefit from that one school's budget? Or does the excess money go back into the whole school system? Where does that $30m go? That actually seems quite relevant to the judgement about his pension.
 

pmv

Lifer
May 30, 2008
13,636
8,522
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Capitalism bring inequality but raises the bottom. All other system bring inequality but maintain or lower the bottom. The powerful always influence political power. Its human nature to use power for your own benefit.



No, that is human nature. I think its wrong to attribute jealousy to capitalism.



I agree, it is dumb. Capitalism forces people to compete to gain wealth. The other system simply allow those people to take wealth. I would prefer the system that is marginally better.


That's a daft way to try and divert the blame, by playing games with words.

Capitalism is all about competitiveness, desire for status, and to maximise one's income. You can invoke deadly sins if you wish to try and pretend there are different motivations involved, but it's a distinction without a difference. It's about culture, not sin. It's about the value system that goes along with capitalism. All capitalists try to play the game according to the rules in order to maximise their profit and 'win' according to how 'winning' is defined. They will do whatever works. The state actors adopting the same values are no different. You seem to think you can separate some 'pure capitalism' from politics. You can't. That's where libertarians always seem a bit blinkered.
 

realibrad

Lifer
Oct 18, 2013
12,337
898
126
That's a daft way to try and divert the blame, by playing games with words.

Capitalism is all about competitiveness, desire for status, and to maximise one's income. You can invoke deadly sins if you wish to try and pretend there are different motivations involved, but it's a distinction without a difference. It's about culture, not sin. It's about the value system that goes along with capitalism. All capitalists try to play the game according to the rules in order to maximise their profit and 'win' according to how 'winning' is defined. They will do whatever works. The state actors adopting the same values are no different. You seem to think you can separate some 'pure capitalism' from politics. You can't. That's where libertarians always seem a bit blinkered.

Again, you are misunderstanding.

Human nature drives people for wealth/power. Capitalism takes that nature and attempts to turn it into something beneficial. The other systems try and stop that inherent nature. The problem is all 3 systems are run by people, so what ends up happening is corruption of those systems. Set aside inefficiencies and that argument, in terms of corruption, Capitalism simply works the best.

So, its not word games. Capitalism takes the same motivations and tries to turn them into something good. So, its not all "capitalist" that try to maximize their profits, its people. You can attempt to force people to be better, or you can accept they are shitty and try to hone it.
 
Nov 25, 2013
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So then why come here? P&N is a place where people like to debate and challenge their ideas. If you don't want to join in, then don't. You appear to be a person that thinks your opinion on right or wrong is valuable, and its not. The only real thing of value is if you can form an argument. If you cant, and engaging is making you unhappy or its not fulfilling, the move on.

You have a nice day too.
 

Jhhnn

IN MEMORIAM
Nov 11, 1999
62,365
14,681
136
Again, you are misunderstanding.

Human nature drives people for wealth/power. Capitalism takes that nature and attempts to turn it into something beneficial. The other systems try and stop that inherent nature. The problem is all 3 systems are run by people, so what ends up happening is corruption of those systems. Set aside inefficiencies and that argument, in terms of corruption, Capitalism simply works the best.

So, its not word games. Capitalism takes the same motivations and tries to turn them into something good. So, its not all "capitalist" that try to maximize their profits, its people. You can attempt to force people to be better, or you can accept they are shitty and try to hone it.


Except Capitalism is not a system of govt. It's a way to distribute goods & services based strictly on accumulation of wealth & the ability to pay. When right wing billionaires can buy off the GOP to let them loot the Treasury it's obviously corrupt.
 

Ackmed

Diamond Member
Oct 1, 2003
8,487
533
126
76k a month seems pretty ridiculous. Seems like them "I'm gonna get mine, fuck everyone paying for it" attitude. For 20 years service we're sitting at around $2,200 a month. That can go up if you do more years, or have a higher monthly average. Also we're negotiating a higher multiplier soon, which can also drastically change it for the better.

How so? Are you trying to say that people that a union that requires people to pay dues and then negotiates even when the person would rather not be part of the union is laissez faire?

I don't like that practice at all. Luckily, we can chose to pay into the union or not to. We have a new contract coming up in August, negotiations are starting in May. If things don't go as I'd like them, I am opting out of my monthly dues. The vast majority of our employees pay dues, but many are also waiting to see what happens this Summer. The current Union President is not very popular.
 

pmv

Lifer
May 30, 2008
13,636
8,522
136
Again, you are misunderstanding.

Human nature drives people for wealth/power. Capitalism takes that nature and attempts to turn it into something beneficial. The other systems try and stop that inherent nature. The problem is all 3 systems are run by people, so what ends up happening is corruption of those systems. Set aside inefficiencies and that argument, in terms of corruption, Capitalism simply works the best.

So, its not word games. Capitalism takes the same motivations and tries to turn them into something good. So, its not all "capitalist" that try to maximize their profits, its people. You can attempt to force people to be better, or you can accept they are shitty and try to hone it.


You know, I'd agree up to a point. In times and circumstances where it works as intended, you could argue that capitalism does that.

But, firstly, you are _assuming_ the 'drive for wealth and power' is an absolute and simple part of 'human nature', rather than culture and values being partly determined by the nature of the society and culture in which people are immersed. I don't see where your evidence is for that. (It occurs to me that social-psychology experiments have allegedly found that people behave less selfishly than rational-economic-man theory would predict...except for students of economics!)

Capitalism uses those motivations, but it also reinforces and normalises them. If you normalise the idea that your value depends on how much money you can accrue, that is going to effect behaivour in a multitude of ways. You just seem to see it all as much more simple than it is, both in terms of economics and psychology.

Furthermore there is no perfect capitalism, and those motivations won't distinguish between some idealised pure form of capitalism and what actually happens in practice. In practice the most successful capitalists have the least amount of self-interest in defending pure capitalism.

Nor is capitalism ever all-encompassing, it requires a state to function (anarcho-capitalism leads straight to Putin). So there's always something there to be corrupted.

Finally does it not give you any pause that libertarianism appeals to a rather narrow demographic? Believers are predominantly white, upper-middle-class, educated and affluent and usually come from backgrounds of that same class. Seems to me there's a reason for that.
 
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realibrad

Lifer
Oct 18, 2013
12,337
898
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Except Capitalism is not a system of govt. It's a way to distribute goods & services based strictly on accumulation of wealth & the ability to pay. When right wing billionaires can buy off the GOP to let them loot the Treasury it's obviously corrupt.

People buying the government and then using the state to increase their wealth is mutually exclusive to each other. Capitalism makes some wealthy, and that wealth can be used to by the state, but doing that is not because of capitalism. Unless you are trying to say unequal wealth is the inherent problem.
 

realibrad

Lifer
Oct 18, 2013
12,337
898
126
76k a month seems pretty ridiculous. Seems like them "I'm gonna get mine, fuck everyone paying for it" attitude. For 20 years service we're sitting at around $2,200 a month. That can go up if you do more years, or have a higher monthly average. Also we're negotiating a higher multiplier soon, which can also drastically change it for the better.



I don't like that practice at all. Luckily, we can chose to pay into the union or not to. We have a new contract coming up in August, negotiations are starting in May. If things don't go as I'd like them, I am opting out of my monthly dues. The vast majority of our employees pay dues, but many are also waiting to see what happens this Summer. The current Union President is not very popular.

That is fine, and Unions have done a lot of good for a lot of people. Its just that Democracy allows you to give up your individual rights, and in some cases, give it to the state. When you give up your rights to the state, its no longer laissez faire.
 

realibrad

Lifer
Oct 18, 2013
12,337
898
126
You know, I'd agree up to a point. In times and circumstances where it works as intended, you could argue that capitalism does that.

But, firstly, you are _assuming_ the 'drive for wealth and power' is an absolute and simple part of 'human nature', rather than culture and values being partly determined by the nature of the society and culture in which people are immersed. I don't see where your evidence is for that. (It occurs to me that social-psychology experiments have allegedly found that people behave less selfishly than rational-economic-man theory would predict...except for students of economics!)

Capitalism uses those motivations, but it also reinforces and normalizes them. If you normalize the idea that your value depends on how much money you can accrue, that is going to effect behavior in a multitude of ways. You just seem to see it all as much more simple than it is, both in terms of economics and psychology.[/QUOTE]

I have no problem wanting and helping a society become better. I disagree that Capitalism reinforces our bad traits. Capitalism is simply that people compete and keep their profits. The only real argument is that sometimes it can be inefficient and incentivize capital to things that might not be for the best in the long run. Capitalism does not conflict with altruism or any other positive part of human nature. Capitalism does not make people selfish, but it can convert the selfish to productive people if they play by the rules.

Capitalism is not a system that says your value is tied to how wealthy you are. Its a system that shows how valuable your work is to others. If other people pay you for what you do, it has to be because they felt it worth paying for. It does not say your value in other ways. I think your big flaw here is adding parts to Capitalism that are not really part of Capitalism.

Furthermore there is no perfect capitalism, and those motivations won't distinguish between some idealized pure form of capitalism and what actually happens in practice. In practice the most successful capitalists have the least amount of self-interest in defending pure capitalism.

People will influence any system, and you will never have a pure anything most likely. If a "Capitalist" uses the state to be anti-competitive, the he is not really a capitalist. You may say that is a word game, but its very much not. Its like going to a anti-racism protest and calling every Black person the N word in private. Just because you signal something does not mean you are that thing.

Nor is capitalism ever all-encompassing, it requires a state to function (anarcho-capitalism leads straight to Putin). So there's always something there to be corrupted.

Every system needs the state to run. Not sure why Capitalism is singled out here.

Finally does it not give you any pause that libertarianism appeals to a rather narrow demographic? Believers are predominantly white, upper-middle-class, educated and affluent and usually come from backgrounds of that same class. Seems to me there's a reason for that.

This is deeply flawed. Only recently (relatively) has Capitalism been associated to those things. That same demographic has also been very anti-Capitalism.

But, think of it like this. If you believe that Capitalism is responsible for the Isolation of wealth/power to the self interested, then show me where other systems have not had the same narrow sliver of society that has an unequal amount of wealth/power. In Capitalist countries, you can measure wealth/power by how much money or things they have. Much harder to measure those things in systems where you simply control wealth/power.
 

pmv

Lifer
May 30, 2008
13,636
8,522
136
I have no problem wanting and helping a society become better. I disagree that Capitalism reinforces our bad traits. Capitalism is simply that people compete and keep their profits. The only real argument is that sometimes it can be inefficient and incentivize capital to things that might not be for the best in the long run. Capitalism does not conflict with altruism or any other positive part of human nature. Capitalism does not make people selfish, but it can convert the selfish to productive people if they play by the rules.

But 'the rules' don't exist seperate from capitalism itself, the rules are a product of capitalism, and tend to be set by the most succesful capitalists.

Capitalism is not a system that says your value is tied to how wealthy you are. Its a system that shows how valuable your work is to others. If other people pay you for what you do, it has to be because they felt it worth paying for. It does not say your value in other ways. I think your big flaw here is adding parts to Capitalism that are not really part of Capitalism.

But it is. The essence of capitalism is profit maximisation. Your flaw is assuming 'profit maximisation' is synonomous with 'how valuable your work is to others'.


People will influence any system, and you will never have a pure anything most likely. If a "Capitalist" uses the state to be anti-competitive, the he is not really a capitalist. You may say that is a word game, but its very much not. Its like going to a anti-racism protest and calling every Black person the N word in private. Just because you signal something does not mean you are that thing.

That is absolutely a word game. 'No True Scotsman' in fact. If a capitalist uses the state to be anti-competitive he is just following the logic of capitalism - maximising their profits. You can define 'capitalism' to be a system of idealised (and generally unenforcable) rules if you like, but that's not what actual existing capitalism is and has always been. It's an ethos and a culture and a distribution of power.

Every system needs the state to run. Not sure why Capitalism is singled out here.

Becuase capitalism is what we are arguing about. You are the one arguing you can somehow keep capitalism separate from the state. I agree that problems with 'the state' are far from unique to capitalism, but you are arguing that somehow capitalism can escape the problem.



This is deeply flawed. Only recently (relatively) has Capitalism been associated to those things. That same demographic has also been very anti-Capitalism.

I didn't say 'capitalism', I said 'liberatarianism'. And that demographic is a relatively new one, and libertarianism is a product of it, because it serves its needs, both political and psychological. I don't actually think libertarianism will ever get it's way, because it's the philosophy mostly of the younger and less elite members of that demographic. It's a philosophy for small business people and higher-paid technocrat employees. The true elites have slightly different interests. But it's still of use to those true elites, and employed partially as an ideology it can do harm. For one thing I believe it's political trends associated with it that are driving a scary far-right reaction against it.

I also don't think libertarianism has no value, it's a useful standpoint from which to analyse problems, another way of looking at things to throw into the mix.

Being annoyed by other people's arguments is the price of pluraism, which I think is a valuable thing. But to cling to it as _the_ one true way, just seems simplistic at best and at worst to be motivated by pure self-interest. It's significant that substantial demographic groups see it as having nothing positive to offer them.
 

realibrad

Lifer
Oct 18, 2013
12,337
898
126
But 'the rules' don't exist separate from capitalism itself, the rules are a product of capitalism, and tend to be set by the most successful capitalists.

No. You cannot attribute the broken rules to the system if its not inherent to the system. People will always try and break the rules, or rewrite the rules to benefit themselves. That was the human nature part that I was talking about before. All systems will be broken in the same way. This is why you need a government to keep people from doing that.

To sum that up, those with power will rewrite the rules. That is a problem in all systems as power is and will always be unequal.

But it is. The essence of capitalism is profit maximization. Your flaw is assuming 'profit maximisation' is synonymous with 'how valuable your work is to others'.

I very much disagree with this. Capitalism is not about profit maximization. Capitalism is about private ownership because it incentivizes efficient resource allocation. Profits are the incentive, but, not the goal.

Now, on an individual level profits are what is sought. Few care about using resources efficiently, but that is on purpose. As I mentioned before, Capitalism is about taking core human desires and shaping it in a way that makes us better off.

So, if you want to become wealthy, you have to come up with a way to do something or make something that people are willing to pay you for. You must make them better off if you want to be better off. No other system has that.

That is absolutely a word game. 'No True Scotsman' in fact. If a capitalist uses the state to be anti-competitive he is just following the logic of capitalism - maximizing their profits. You can define 'capitalism' to be a system of idealized(and generally unenforceable) rules if you like, but that's not what actual existing capitalism is and has always been. It's an ethos and a culture and a distribution of power.

Your flaw is your presupposition, and, once you let go of that folly, your argument falls apart. Capitalism is not about maximizing profits. You have put the cart before the horse sir.

Becuase capitalism is what we are arguing about. You are the one arguing you can somehow keep capitalism separate from the state. I agree that problems with 'the state' are far from unique to capitalism, but you are arguing that somehow capitalism can escape the problem.

No I am not. I literally said you need the state to enforce rules. Capitalism is a system to help organize people. People will often do things that benefit themselves at the expense of others. You need the state to stop that.

I didn't say 'capitalism', I said 'liberatarianism'. And that demographic is a relatively new one, and libertarianism is a product of it, because it serves its needs, both political and psychological. I don't actually think libertarianism will ever get it's way, because it's the philosophy mostly of the younger and less elite members of that demographic. It's a philosophy for small business people and higher-paid technocrat employees. The true elites have slightly different interests. But it's still of use to those true elites, and employed partially as an ideology it can do harm. For one thing I believe it's political trends associated with it that are driving a scary far-right reaction against it.

I also don't think libertarianism has no value, it's a useful standpoint from which to analyse problems, another way of looking at things to throw into the mix.

Then lets focus on Capitalism. There are many flaws in the Liberation world, and it would be far too long to go over and also talk about Capitalism. I know you believe me to be a Liberation, but, I would disagree because there are far too many things that I believe it gets wrong.

Being annoyed by other people's arguments is the price of pluraism, which I think is a valuable thing. But to cling to it as _the_ one true way, just seems simplistic at best and at worst to be motivated by pure self-interest. It's significant that substantial demographic groups see it as having nothing positive to offer them.

Personally, I follow whatever makes the most sense. If there is a better system, then I would have no problem switching to it.

I do feel that you have a warped view of what Capitalism is/is not. I am enjoying this discussion, but I think if we continue, we really should focus on that. I think every other issue stems from that.