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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   25497 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 20, 2025

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"The luxury of the spendthrift slackers is paid for by the industrious" is not an economic argument, it's a moral one. I don't see the resemblance to Broken Windows- can you clarify?

"The luxury of the spendthrift slackers is paid for by the industrious" is not an economic argument, it's a moral one.

It's an economic fact. Someone's paying for the spendthrift slackers; it sure as hell ain't them; it's people who are working.

The argument that the transfer payments from the industrious to spendthrift slackers are somehow contributing to the economy such that if they were cut off you would be poorer is the broken windows argument. The core of the fallacy is that forcing people to move money around is somehow resulting in prosperity.

It's an economic fact. Someone's paying for the spendthrift slackers; it sure as hell ain't them; it's people who are working.

Statistically, it's whoever buys T-bills. The government's budget is mostly debt.

Is it? We run steady deficits that we debt fund, but I’m pretty sure the majority of each annual budget is still paid by taxes.

Yep, for FY2024 outlays were 6.8T on revenues of 4.9T, so while the deficit was enormous, it was not over 50%.

Figures, I got a bunch in T-bills. (The spendthrift slackers don't)

A fact is not an argument. "If you don't stay home old people may get COVID" is a medical fact, but it is not obvious from that fact what the best course of societal action is.

But anyway, I thought you meant Broken Window policing. The difference between this and the Broken Window fallacy is that these people aren't actually inflicting any damage. They're spending huge amounts of money on frivolous stuff (which is why OP is offended), and that money is circulating around so that high earners can earn it again. The speed of money through the economy drives economic growth, and while a perfectly laissez-faire system might very well have a higher speed of money, switching to such a system, even if it were phased in over a few years, would cause a huge economic contraction. You might object that, as with broken windows, the 27% tax bill is imposing an opportunity cost, that taking OP's money so someone on "stress leave" can buy Tinkerbell statues prevents him from inventing a better battery or something, but A) not giving the Tinkerbell salesman that money might prevent HIM from inventing the same battery and B)the vast majority of taxes taken collected from the industrious and squandered by the poor on frivolous stuff actually impose the opportunity cost of the industrious not being able to squander the money on frivolous stuff himself. So it all boils down to who "deserves" the money, and all talk of desert is moral disputation. Since no one agrees on morality anymore, there can be no moral disputation on a wide scale and so people need to either make peace with the current system or wield it to their benefit.

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.

The difference between this and the Broken Window fallacy is that these people aren't actually inflicting any damage.

They are costing money for no gain.

They're spending huge amounts of money on frivolous stuff (which is why OP is offended), and that money is circulating around so that high earners can earn it again.

Again, this is just the broken window fallacy. If the high earners hadn't had it taken from the in the first place, they could spend it themselves without having to earn it again.

I'll continue this with you if you explain your understanding of the difference between an economic and a moral argument. You keep stating that the situation isn't fair, which is a moral complaint, not an economic one. I don't dispute that it isn't fair, I dispute that if it were abolished everyone currently alive would get richer.

You keep stating that the situation isn't fair

In fact, I have said nothing in this subthread about fairness.

I don't dispute that it isn't fair, I dispute that if it were abolished everyone currently alive would get richer.

Nobody's claiming that. Obviously the people who are spendthrift slackers would get poorer.

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