We're doing alright, but not as well as last year

Discussion in 'Markets & Economies' started by Jislizard, Nov 11, 2014.

  1. col0016

    col0016 Active Member

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    How can you say you believe in property rights and then say in the same sentence that you don't believe you have the right to give your property away?! You are a troll aren't you? Please be a troll... this is too stupid to be serious.

    So I can give a homeless guy a 1kg silver bar, but he can't sell it to buy food... seems legit.
     
  2. bordsilver

    bordsilver Well-Known Member Silver Stacker

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    Or if you give him food, the food is not his and at some point in the future he has to give the food back to the rightful owner (he'd better keep all of his poo, wee, snot, toenail cuttings, skin sloughings etc in a jar so that it can be magically reformed back into a quarter chicken and chips :p ).

    More seriously I think he's taking the whole "unearned wealth" transfer thing into ridiculous territory to avoid admitting I was correct. It's okay for, say, Gail Kelly to do an hour's work for over $4,000 an hour but it is not okay for me to give my best friend a free beer while we are at the pub celebrating my promotion. However, presumably if we had a contract whereby I paid my friend the beer money to come celebrate with me then he would have "earned it".

    Further, it's perfectly okay for a fictional entity like the State to have unearned wealth but not okay for real flesh and blood people. Ironically though, this whole debate started because he believes unearned wealth transfers increase freedom and therefore explicitly supports their existence. :/ WTF?!?

    Should just acknowledge that the whole thought bubble about how I view estate transfers at death was misguided and it didn't show any of the hypocrisy he was hoping would be there.
     
  3. col0016

    col0016 Active Member

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    So pretty much the crux of what Phransisku is trying to say is that bank CEOs making $20 million a year = good because they are working for it. Charity = bad because people shouldn't be able to give away any of their stuff (including money).

    I wonder if tipping is ok Phransisku?
     
  4. bordsilver

    bordsilver Well-Known Member Silver Stacker

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    Definitely not (as I have stated repeatedly). Debts should only be incurred with consent. This is fully consistent with the creation of the debt in the first place.

    In general marriages are a partnership with each spouse playing their own role. My wife probably works harder than me and yet doesn't earn fiat income. But because I earn the fiat income, there is a lot of property that is explicitly in my name. To claim that she has no right to whatever property is in my name is to assume that her work in the personal partnership is worthless. An assumption I clearly don't regard as true.

    Ironically you loathe the thought of the idle rich so much that you are willing to put people (such as my wife) into poverty/extreme circumstances for no reason. In contrast, I do not wish to inflict such circumstances on people unnecessarily. If it means that there are a handful of idle rich around the world, well so be it. I don't care what they do with any property they rightfully earned or legitimately inherited. It is theirs, not mine. It is really awesome to be able to not have to work pay cheque to pay cheque and it'll be great when/if everybody can achieve such.
     
  5. bordsilver

    bordsilver Well-Known Member Silver Stacker

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    Solution: Get the homeless person to lift their hand up, nod their head in thanks or maybe get them to dance like a duck singing off-key Miley Cyrus songs. It is now a paid service and not charity. Similarly, we are not giving charity to Red Cross, we are paying them to spam our letter boxes/email/etc.
     
  6. col0016

    col0016 Active Member

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    I get so sick of the letters from SEDA haha. I don't mind the monthly donation but it would be cool if they didn't waste so much of it thanking me.
     
  7. Phransisku

    Phransisku Member

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    Of course. Some constraints relieve others. For example, the constraint of a millionaire not being able to spend 0,0000001% of his wealth may become the power of a poor man to choose not to starve. He becomes unbounded to starvation. As for the millionaire, he becomes unbounded to...hm...erhh...nothing at all.
     
  8. Phransisku

    Phransisku Member

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    Maybe you don't understand english because I've been clearly saying that the owner can do whatever he wants with his property (I'm disregarding of course environmental constraints, etc.). Maybe the keyword here is "do", which is a verb that implies action. He can do whatever he wants. But he should not be able to change the rights of his property according to the law. That does not remove any power or right from him. On the contrary, it just prevents those rights to be transfered or taken away from him to people that did nothing to earn them.
     
  9. Phransisku

    Phransisku Member

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    He can, if we regard silver as being money. Then the homeless guy will use the money the only way money can be used: to spend on things. But if you "give" him an apartment, he should not be able to rent it, or if he did that rent should be yours by right (as well as the apartment). He should not be able to sell it, once it would still be yours. He should only be able to use it (live on it) for as long as you allow him to do so.
     
  10. Phransisku

    Phransisku Member

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    Not at all. This is what I believe for quite some time (since I made a serious thought about the subject).


    Of course you can buy a beer and let your friend use it. Why not? Nothing would change. Only in the eyes of the law the beer would be yours for as long as it existed.


    No, it's not ok for the State to have unearned wealth. The State shall not drive a car or drink a beer with the tax revenue got from the people. The State should only use that money for the people, never to himself. Oh wait, the State can't drive a car or drink a beer because it's not a person. The State is a nation's people, so the money can only be used for them. There is no problem after all.


    First of all, just because I say something increases freedom it doesn't mean I'm in favour of it.

    Second, I do not believe in specific wealth transfers (from person A to B), since they are neither fair nor they will promote good competition or a healthy Economy (they are like Communism but without assuring the money will go to the poor), but general transfers are a must to build a meritocracy.

    Third, I find it more interesting that you are perfectly ok with people not having to work to earn their own wealth while at the same time you criticize Communism for the same thing. For some reason, Communism destroys an Economy but your system doesn't damage it one bit.


    Of course I saw hypocrisy on that and I still do. I thought I had made myself perfectly clear:
    "But, even more crazy than that, is to dare think one should be the rightful owner of a death man's wealth if it's a positive number, but if it's a negative number all of a sudden he has nothing to do with that. That's doublestandard."
    "if the bequest ends up to be a negative number you must pay the bill. You can't say "now the bequest is not convenient for me anymore. I will step aside"."
     
  11. Phransisku

    Phransisku Member

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    How funny. Let me use the same fallacy: what I'm trying to say is that a bank employee making 40k a year = good because he's working for it, while a spoiled kid that has never worked in his life and that becomes the owner of that bank because his father just passed away and that makes millions while firing people just for fun = bad.

    How about that? Is it good to taste your own poison? Let me know when you're ready for a serious debate.
     
  12. bordsilver

    bordsilver Well-Known Member Silver Stacker

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    So it is only still mine while it exists now? So is my friend now liable for destruction of my property?

    Anyway, the others have repeatedly stated the the core problem with your idea. Apparently your law recognises property that is mine but will not allow me to "give" it away. It allows me to trade it for money. It allows me to trade my labour for money. It allows my labour to extract unowned materials from nature and thereby create new property or to value add existing property. But for some nonsensical reason it doesn't allow me to trade my property for something intangible like social capital or friendship.

    It is all a complete nonsense because if nothing else any property that I own I can disown. Once I disown it then it becomes a good freely available from nature and the first person to claim it then owns it. So I buy a beer and then I can disown it and leave it on the table in front of me. Half a second later, my friend can claim it and it becomes their legitimate property. They have used their labour to acquire a beer from the state of nature. Similarly with any bequest.


    The State is taking unearned wealth and giving that to people who didn't earn it. It is hypocrisy.

    Let me remind you of the simple fact that I am for individuals to be self-owners who have the right to peacefully go about their lives as they see fit. I criticise Communism and Socialism because it says that individuals are not self-owners who have the right to peacefully go about their lives as they see fit. Communism destroys an economy because it disregards the fundamental aspect of markets - individuals trading based on the relative value they see in each others skills or property. As L.V. Mises proved, Communism fails because it cannot do economic calculation while Socialism fails because it cannot properly price capital. Mixed economies largely overcome the economic calculation problem (or overcome it sufficiently to be able to bear the inefficiencies and waste), while "my" system allows economic calculation without interference.


    And I already stated that there is no double standard at all. There is no inconsistency, there is only consistent application of what constitutes voluntary trade between individuals. In contrast you are trying to saddle debt onto people who did not consent to the terms of the original contract agreed between the deceased and the creditor. That is completely inconsistent with voluntary trade and what it means to own property. It is a nonsensical thought bubble and if such a system really exists in Portugal, then it is pretty screwed up.
     
  13. lgf

    lgf New Member

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    I must be talking to a crazy person (and I must be crazy to keep talking to you). Phransisku accused mmm....shiney! of being a search engine, but you're not even that. Here you just talk about one thing: the right to indebt others. Where in that sentence is the word debt???
    The sentence clearly says that you can leave and doesn't say (doesn't even suggest) that you would have to pay a debt.
    Why are you so afraid of addressing that sentence?

    So you think that choosing to go to a property that is not yours and that you are 100% sure you're going to be robbed is equivalent to the situation where a woman marries a man, eventually becomes economically dependent and then is beaten randomly in her own home? Your mind is too elaborated for me. You are able to twist things to a level I've never seen before. Go on. I've seen that I can't get a serious discussion with you. But maybe I can get some fun out of it.
     
  14. lgf

    lgf New Member

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    My version of Liberalism? I don't have any version of Liberalism. You do. And it's a classic version as you insist on ignoring positive rights as part of the equation.

    You know, our ancestors freely decided to create a society called Democracy. This Democratic State doesn't force you to stay, despite the large investment it made on you. But you keep blaming it for constraining your freedom. Phransisku's example was perfect. You're like the guy who sued McDonald's because their chips were so damn good!

    Unfortunately, just part of the rights.

    Finally some democratic statement! After all, you're making some progress.
     
  15. lgf

    lgf New Member

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    So do you see a drama movie to relieve stress? I believe a hobby is something that we do to get entertained, culturally enriched and/or stimulated.
    Your definition of hobby is almost as narrow as your political and economical views!

    I see. That explains a lot of things...
     
  16. lgf

    lgf New Member

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    This thing has been discussed over and over again. A variety of definitions of freedom have been posted in this topic. It seems there's not a single definition, so we have to infer one from the existing. Phransisku has come up with a definition that seems to be equivalent (or at least compatible) with most of those definitions. Prove me wrong.
     
  17. lgf

    lgf New Member

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    That's funny, because I think your liberal territory is so ridiculous...
    Anyway, I find Phransisku's proposition very interesting and although I believe it may have flaws, until now none of you who were mad at him could actually point a real flaw.
    Charity isn't about giving (as renovator said). It's about helping others. Also, I think not being able to give doesn't reduce your property rights, since the "giver" can keep the property on the "receiver's" hands or he can get it back (so he actually has the full rights over the property all the time). But here I see some issues. If I give a house to poor people to live in and because of that they had to abandon their place, I shouldn't be able to get it back any time. There should be a period for getting it back. It's like renting. It needs a contract.
     
  18. lgf

    lgf New Member

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    That has a name. It's called "inside information". It's not fair, it's not legit, it's not legal.
     
  19. col0016

    col0016 Active Member

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    The idea that you guys honestly believe you shouldn't be able to give your kid a bike, only lend it to them, really fukks with my head. But if I told my kid to clean up the garden and then "paid" them with a bike it would be ok because they "worked" for it?
     
  20. lgf

    lgf New Member

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    I don't exactly believe on that. It's Phransisku's idea and I found it interesting. As I said, it may have flaws. I don't know. But until now I couldn't find them. And you couldn't either imo.
    Regarding your example, I believe it's always a matter of being reasonable. If I make a transaction with values 3 times, 5 times, 10 times the market value, something is wrong. It can be money laundering, it can be other illegitimate/illegal activity.
     

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