zeke5123a
2d ago
And both were silly. Trump isn’t dumb but he also isn’t playing 5D chess.
zeke5123a
2d ago
Re MQD I wouldn’t phrase it that way. Instead, the rule is that Congress does not hide elephants in molehills. That is, there needs to be clear intent Congress was giving the president the power to do X; an open ended grant is generally not clear intent. ACB had a concurring opinion that explained it well.
zeke5123a
3d ago
But is he? Again some of your evidence for “increasing the power of the executive” is not passing a budget. That hasn’t happened in this century. If so, why do we think Trump is increasing the executive power?
zeke5123a
3d ago
Seems like a really shitty coup when the opponents can simply undercut the whole thing by voting with the majority to continue to fund government at pre-existing levels. Is your argument that Trump is tricking the Democrats? Maybe everything is going according to how Darth Trump has foreseen.
Or maybe your theory is wrong. I’m going with that one.
I would add some of your other arguments (eg recession) prove that Trump is in fact using Congress. Or your argument that failing to prepare a budget seems odious until you realize there hasn’t been a budget in the 21st century.
In short, I don’t think your argument holds water.
zeke5123a
3d ago
No—given that I gave a prime example of what I consider real insurance. It isn’t the only one (eg home insurance). I also explained the key difference
zeke5123a
4d ago
And Luigi would be confusing health insurance (a weird chimera) with real insurance. Take life insurance. Premiums aren’t that expensive. But they help protect a family from an unexpected death. That is, both the insured and insurer are better off. That is, the insured are trading off EV for downside protection (which makes sense giving diminishing marginal returns) while insurer is making the EV positive play and provided there isn’t system bias should come out ahead.
zeke5123a
4d ago
Yes you’ve distinguished insurance (ie something that makes economic sense for both the insured and the insurer) with a government subsidy (ie something that on net does not make economic sense).
If the social safety net story actually made people take more risky bets that on balance produced materially higher returns, why couldn’t private insurance cover it?
zeke5123a
5d ago
Well fed and state tax free. If you are in highest bracket basically double the yield
zeke5123a
5d ago
The fiscal multiplier is a highly controversial hard to prove theory.
But yes there is no one literally breaking glass. But the question is whether dollars are flowing to their highest and best use. Taking from people who’ve proven themselves to be generally productive and giving the money to people who appear unproductive argues that it is less likely the money is being spent on its highest and best use (and therefore likely regards economic growth). Moreover there is deadweight loss on tax and transfer.
Of course, maybe the distributive effect is worth the economic slowdown but that’s different from saying tax and transfer somehow accelerates economic growth.
zeke5123a
5d ago
Sure but the other poster was suggesting that the government was providing a subsidy equal to the value of government cost. That is not true.
zeke5123a
5d ago
Munis can be attractive since they are tax exempt. HNW individuals should probably have a small sum in Munis
zeke5123a
5d ago
It also assumes the cost to educate is actually 18k. Instead I imagine in a lot of cases the UFT or NEA have negotiated a sweet heart deal.
zeke5123a
5d ago
The argument isn’t even to end everything right away; it’s to slowly reduce benefits. For example, let’s say you put the subsidies back on for Bill and Shelly. Perhaps you do it at 80% of prior benefit with mandated reductions in subsidy of the 1/4 of the remaining amount for the next four years. This is less of a shock to the Bills and Shelly’s of the world while still cutting off non productive spending.
We could start doing things like eliminating benefit cliffs; start raising slowly the age of SS; do more work requirements, etc.
It doesn’t have to change over night. But the goal ought to be within 10-15 years to drastically reduce these programs.
zeke5123a
5d ago
You are confusing GDP with the real economy. Real economic value is increasing production so that the per unit cost decreases (ie over all wealth has increased). Government spending only helps the real economy to the extent it is increasing productivity. The items OP described are in fact not doing any of that—instead the government borrows and gives money to slackers as you put it.
zeke5123a
5d ago
For another intuitive look at this, a family with two kids in public school will consume $3000-7500 per month(!) in state expenditure. Public education costs alone dwarf the entirety of taxes most families pay (of which only a small amount is even earmarked for education).
No — the state spends that much in resources to a politically important group Do you think the parents are receiving that benefit in kind?
zeke5123a
5d ago
This strikes me as a Hayekian knowledge problem. Local charities can help people in need but can use discretion (ie local knowledge) to minimize free riding. In contrast, federal government programs are designed to lack discretion (ie rules based). Even if the rules might make sense, people will figure out how to MinMax
zeke5123a
5d ago
Yes and no. It was obvious from day 1 that those CDOs weren’t good as good. They were labeled AAA but had yields materially higher compared to other AAA. This was attractive for insurance companies who legally were required to have a percentage of assets in AAA. But the only reason why one AAA trades at a yield much higher than other AAA is that the first isn’t really AAA.
zeke5123a
6d ago
I think the OP os largely posting nonsense but if you wanted someone you’d probably pick family to lower the risk (eg Don Jr)
zeke5123a
7d ago
This was the standard in Iceland. If you killed someone and paid the weregild, no feud would occur. But if you tried to hide your killing, then you became outlaw.
No, the question for self defense is not whether you are perfectly proportional with your defense but whether you have a reasonable belief your attacker may seriously harm or potentially kill you. Once you do that, you ca. use lethal force while the threat remains.
More options
Context Copy link