What political party do you vote with?

you tackle inflation with interest rate changes - if tax increases the likelihood of cost push inflation

raise the interest rate concurrently, this will reduce spending, push more people to save etc., the economy will by theory recover.

you stated higher taxation leads to higher inflation, and whilst this can be true in theory - it is not relative to income. thus, if income does not rise with said inflation - the economy becomes stagflated instead.

true inflation is a raise in prices, to that of gdp basically.

and anyways, more prevalent taxes such as capital gains and income tax are a bigger burden on consumers. an increase in tax here will equate to a reduction of spending, thus it can actually be deflationary. i'd wager taxation would cause this over inflation more often than not.

 

We appear to be talking from differing perspectives, that of the government and that of the ordinary citizen.

 

Ditto.

 

I vote republican.

 

Indie
That doesn’t address what was said

LOL – you are unable to address what was said so you just try and misdirect, another of your tricks

To re-cap

You argue that an individual should be solely responsible for any advantage or disadvantage they receive.

But as I’ve pointed out a child cannot be responsible for the situation they are born into, be it advantage or disadvantage.

They didn’t earn that advantage and cannot be blamed for getting the disadvantage.

Now the greatest effect on a person’s life is where and to whom they are born. This can give someone advantages or disadvantages that can affect their whole lives and their possibility of having success or failure, and long before they have the independence to take certain actions themselves.

So is it justified for a person born into advantage to retain exclusive rights to advantages they didn’t earn rather than share them with others who through no blame of their own are disadvantaged?

Which leads to …

 

Indie
But a child cannot be responsible for been born – either to disadvantaged parents or to advantaged parents.

That is just trying to side step the question – but what you are admitting is that the individual (in this case the child) isn’t responsible.

Others are responsible for its position; it isn’t about the individual but about wider society.

I mean if some individuals are gaining advantages they didn’t earn and others through no fault of their own are having disadvantages thrust upon them then your individual deterministic argument seems to fall apart.

*

They didn’t earn that advantage and cannot be blamed for getting the disadvantage.

But as you have already established it has nothing to do with that individual so it becomes a wider social phenomena.

I mean the greatest effect on a person’s life is where and to whom they are born. This can give someone advantages or disadvantages that can affect their whole lives and their possibility of having success or failure, and long before they have the independence to take certain actions themselves.

It comes down to potential I’m trying to help people fulfil their potential and you seem to want to stifle that potential.

And so on to….

 

Indie
So is it justified for a person born into advantage to retain exclusive rights to advantages they didn’t earn rather than share them with others who through no blame of their own are disadvantaged

Again you are side stepping the question – throughout history there have been injustices that broke no law.

Oh not back to this again Indie, we’ve covered it many times.
As I’ve pointed out before your comments on this subject really gives an insight into how you think.

In the past your ideas for helping the ‘disadvantaged children’ have included - forcibly removing them from their parents and passing them on to more wealthy guardians. Or making sure such children are never born by sterilising, against their will, all people you regard as poor or of little value to society.

Why not just try and help such people out of disadvantage?

I mean you already admit they didn’t earn that disadvantage, so why not try and be kind rather than cruel?

And that leads on to…

 

Indie

Again you side step the question – as I’ve pointed out in the past - charity although it can be a help has never been able to bring about the changes that are needed to improve the lot of the majority of society.

To repeat from a pervious post –

And we have been through this before and I’m still waiting for you to supply the evidence (you promised to give then never did) to back up your view that this has worked in the past.

And it also comes up against the same argument about the deserving and undeserving that you still seem able to address.

It is the old con of the self serving argument of the deserving and undeserving poor. The deserving being those that don’t ask for help and so don’t need any. And the undeserving being those who do ask for help thereby showing that they are scroungers and wasters who don’t deserve any help.

So it was plain - the argument went – that there was no need to give assistance to the disadvantaged.

The problem was that these people were often the same people but just at different stages of life or circumstance.

And as I pointed out at the time this is very similar to the right wing argument often put forward today that if people are responsible and make “better decisions” they don’t need assistance but if they’re irresponsible and make “poor decisions” they don’t deserve assistance.

 

Once more it seems to come down to what goal is trying to be achieved.

My goal is to make societies fairer and better to live in, places that give a reasonable opportunity, to all the habitants, of having a healthy and fulfilled life. Places were people are more likely to realise their potential.
This seems reasonable and rational because it would seem totally irrational and unreasonable to actually want to live in a society where things were more unfair and many people’s lives were worse.

For example for people like indie the way to deal with a social problem like disadvantage is through the enforced sterilisation of the poor and the removal of their children to ‘better’ homes. To me that doesn’t equate to a better or fairer society, if anything is points of the opposite.

 

no, we aren't. i was talking about the standard procedure of the central bank, if for whatever reason, inflation occurs - this includes tax induced inflation.

i am not even arguing a left wing argument. all i have been saying is this - since we pay taxes, i feel they should go toward benefiting the person

the government should provide free health care to a point. we do here in the uk, it works - it excludes wants but not needs. if not spent on healthcare, your money is pilfered away on benefits

the antithesis of capitalism. it is the reason why our country has a deficit, anyways.

your argument is that businesses need to make profit. glaxosmithkline recently decided to bump down their prices of medication to less developed countries, maybe realizing their need for an ethical stance, but even still - if it was a case of profit, the business have been able to do so without the worry of loss. the industry is vastly over inflated and ill conceived.

so even business has proved you wrong.

you are entitled to your opinion, but it stands to question and rightly so.

 

back to us politics

doesn't anyone realize that democratic ideology is dead? it was handed the noose in 2008.

 

What happened in 2008?

 

the sub-prime mortgage crisis.

 

IB

Do you mean the idea of democracy is dead?

Or is this related to the US Democratic Party?

Could you please clarify? I mean what does the sub-prime problem have to do with either?

 

i said democratic, not democracy - and we are talking about political parties.

a time line:

- 1999 dot com crisis. government push lax regulation.
- the people were happy. benefits, easy finance, mortgages - fuck yes.
- inflation occurs
- republicans eventually take power.
- the people were angry
- they uphold the silver spoon ideology
- the market naturally explodes (for numerous reasons)
- people blame the republicans.
- they have to spent tax payers money on a bailout, of which the consumers equally caused.
- republicans tarp bailout is loathed
- it eventually starts working
- it has worked
- the democrats kept it up - look who reaps the benefit.

the economy is america is still wilting, however. but this has a lot more to do with conflicting and purely coincidental inflation of commodities. it will improve, and probably too quickly, after another lesser bottoming of the market.

at least the republican party took some honest risks that eventually paid off. people do not realise that the reason the market crashed was because of bankers, sure, but also people are government

the government issued benefits, and used various constitutional acts to push mortgage and financial lending to SUBPRIME (the name says it all, doesn't it?) candidates - these people, who couldn't afford the loan would then decide to simply not pay.

hence, the crash. government allowed it, greedy consumers who jumped on a hot market caused it. banks were obligated, to a point, to lend - look at the interest rates set by the central bank.

the banks were chopping up mortgages into securitization packages and selling them off as mens of profit - i believe they knew what was occurring and had rather had less profit but the capital upfront, then vise versa. the root issue in the banking sector was that of investment banks - but these 'too big to fail' organizations have got off rather easy.

but then, so have the consumers and the government. many of these mortgages are still toxic.

this was all because the democratic party were pushing for inflation after the last crash - i fear it will happen again.

 

IB

Sorry to be pedantic but yes - democratic with a small d, - “Of, relating to, or supporting democracy or its principles”

If you are talking of the US Democratic Party it helps to give them a capital.

*

Sorry but your reply is rather confused and opaque.

I mean the ideology that was guiding the US economy from the 1970-80’s up to the financial crisis was in main neo-liberal in character. Those ideas were embraced by many political parties including those of the Democrats and Republicans in the US and the Conservative party under Thatcher (et al) and New Labour under Blair.

So I’m rather unsure what your point is?

It would seem to me that the problem is the neo-liberal ideology followed by several political parties not just one.

 

i don't use capitals.

and please, lest not be hypocritical. there is point, but i'd like to know

since we are talking about being 'opaque'

why are you data mining? if we know anything, it is that the difference between 1970 and 2000+ is so vast, there is no justification to your comparison. and i really, really, mean none.

what i said was a reflection of events after the crash of 1999. in regard to politics, the economy, it is case by case - they were right policies to begin, but they carried them for way too long.

 

Not at all, as you continuously point out and restated below "a child cannot be responsible for the situation they are born into, be it advantage or disadvantage." A child is fully entitled to receive what his/her parents may provide as a start in life, and as an adult takes responsibility for creating or building upon whatever if anything had been provided them.

I think we both can agree on that as a fact.

I don't find a need to try and place blame for having or not having an advantage.

You've restated that numerous times, and all I can say in response is that parenting is a major responsibility that far too many people exercise irresponsibly as a right to the detriment of their offspring.

Absolutely!

Those on the Left having something to use emotionally as a tool to implement their form of government over society, gradually increasing individual irresponsibility and destroying both the government and the society.

 

Some are born bereft of certain emotions. Empathy,for example. That cannot be forced on people. You have it or not.

 

IB

Fine, but that means you need to be clearer about what you mean, that’s all, and don’t get huffy if someone asks for clarification.

In what way hypocritical?

Then could you please present it?

What do you mean by ‘data mining’?

So you disagree with the view that the ideology that was guiding the US economy from the 1970-80’s up to the financial crisis was in main neo-liberal in character?

If so please present your argument.

But could you please clarify them because they are not clear to me.