quote:

ORIGINAL: unome

quote:

ORIGINAL: Bruce Johnson

Wealth that is created by others voluntarily paying for products and services is good. Wealth that is created by force is not good.

Good stuff.

I would argue that wealth was never created by force. It was stolen by force. This force can be through things like slavery or by violence by the state like the Roman Empire, Bolsheviks, Mao, Hitler, etc. (All of these states also used slave labor.)

Sadly, this happened throughout pretty much all of human history until very recently when it has largely been legislated away.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Mark Anderson

quote:

ORIGINAL: unome

quote:

ORIGINAL: jbusse

Interesting, I didn't remember that. I'm not a big fan of GWB, with his brutal foreign policy record, but if his social security reform had passed, it might have been his most important accomplishment. The way things are, the wealth gap just keeps getting wider and wider.

Many people have wanted to do this for years. I do not really understand why anyone is against this. If you do not trust the stock market, you could always just buy government bonds so no one would be forced to invest.

The cynic in me thinks that some politicians like the us v them of class warfare. And I suppose it is hard to demonize corporations, Wall Street, banks and capitalism and then pass laws that helps enfranchise the middle and working classes and even the poor to become owners of corporations, Wall Street, banks and capitalism.

The left should be the biggest supporters of this idea. Everyday people could own enough of corporations where could then put pressure on corporations RE environmental standards, racial equality/social justice, executive competition and so on.

I may seem like I am defending the wealthy, but I only want America to keep growing because then everyone wins. And I do not want a guy to buy his third Bentley, I want average Americans to do well and live the American Dream. We have the biggest economy in the world and owning a nice chunk of it would make everyday people much wealthier over time.

Thanks for bringing this up.

I remember (as it was happening)saying on the Politics Board that this seemed like a good idea. You could play it safe or try to go a little riskier. But you would be in control.

I got lambasted. I think it was JC, DAO and some other posters just ripping it. It was about most people basically not being smart enough to do it. Gamble their retirement away, etc...

I just kind of let it go because these people were so adamant.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Mark Anderson

But Bernie says he could change the losing streak Socialism is on. It would be different.

quote:

ORIGINAL: jbusse

But if you take it too far, people just leave. I'm guessing more businesses have left California to go to Texas, for instance, than the other way around. Same with people. Cuomo has apparently been visiting those in the top 1% who left Manhattan for another residence to try to get them to come back.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8595717/Cuomo-begs-wealthy-New-Yorkers-come-save-city-Ill-buy-drink.html

quote:

ORIGINAL: unome

quote:

ORIGINAL: jbusse

But if you take it too far, people just leave. I'm guessing more businesses have left California to go to Texas, for instance, than the other way around. Same with people. Cuomo has apparently been visiting those in the top 1% who left Manhattan for another residence to try to get them to come back.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8595717/Cuomo-begs-wealthy-New-Yorkers-come-save-city-Ill-buy-drink.html

This is why I love devolving as much power to local areas, and to people as possible. If you want to live in a high-tax state with all the things, good and bad, that this entails? You be you!

But, a lot of the wealthy choose to have their permanent address in a state like Texas, Nevada, Florida, South Dakota, Washington, Alaska and Wyoming do so because paying a massive amount of state income tax, when you already pay a ton of federal income tax, is not fun.

The same thing would happen if we relive the 91% income tax "good old days", but the money would find its way out of the country into investments overseas or other tax havens. For some reason, people just do not want to have huge amounts of their money taken from them by sovereign force. Of course, we should tax the wealthy a lot, but if you want to try and get too much of other people's money, they resists and you get less.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Mark Anderson


And how are the rich going to make up this money(wealth) that they have lost?

By letting go(firing) of their employees that the government was trying to help.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Bruce Johnson

I actually believe socialism would work if everyone lived for the sake of others. In a world of selfishness, greed and violence it does not work. In order to get to the goal of co-prosperity, you have to address what is inside our hearts. The change can only happen voluntarily from within- never by force. As an idealist, I believe the day will come.

quote:

ORIGINAL: unome

Switching back to COVID, I read a piece on Afghanistan, of all places, and it seems like the COVID cases there have really gone way done. Now, it is hard to know how accurate these numbers are, because the testing is so low, but looking at the numbers in this article, and the fact that their reported numbers have gone way down and I have to ask: has Afghanistan showed us what happens when a country reaches herd immunity?

https://www.voanews.com/south-central-asia/10-million-afghans-likely-infected-and-recovered-covid-19-survey


Nearly a third of the country infected and recovered and 53% in Kabul sounds like what you might expect from herd immunity.

Herd immunity has been calculated by mathematicians at 43%, but that is sort of a general principal than something that makes sense in reality. In reality, it makes sense that you would need a higher number in dense urban areas than in less dense rural areas. Also, herd immunity significantly slows the spread, but it does not end the disease.

The CDC estimates that there have been 10x the number of COVID cases in the US than what have been reported, so that could put the US at 50 million cases. So, we are not real close to true herd immunity yet.

However, herd immunity is also a gradual thing. The states and countries that have had high death rates from COVID had huge numbers of uncounted cases that happened before there was testing and developed the start of herd immunity. If these areas also follow up this partial herd immunity with mask usage, social distancing and keeping high-risk activities shut down, there could be a lower effective herd immunity rate that may be achievable once an area gets to a number lower than 43%.

How much lower? It is hard to know and it likely depends on how good people do on mask-usage and social distancing.

We might not be too far away from slowing this thing down significantly IF people wear masks or socially distance.

quote:

ORIGINAL: jbusse


I can't quite make out the x axis on the plot,

quote:

ORIGINAL: kgdabom

I don't claim to have any understanding of economics. However, the thing that seems obvious to me and correct me if I'm wrong is production is what we need. If nobody is producing anything then their is nothing to buy or own. If we can generate production to me it seems that would drive prosperity. Hopefully for everybody. Get the GNP up. That In my uneducated opinion about economics is how we may be able to pull our country out of the economic devastation that has been brought on by the COVID-19.
David F,
Lynn,
Unome
Jbusse
what are your thoughts about this?

quote:

ORIGINAL: kgdabom

quote:

ORIGINAL: kgdabom

I don't claim to have any understanding of economics. However, the thing that seems obvious to me and correct me if I'm wrong is production is what we need. If nobody is producing anything then their is nothing to buy or own. If we can generate production to me it seems that would drive prosperity. Hopefully for everybody. Get the GNP up. That In my uneducated opinion about economics is how we may be able to pull our country out of the economic devastation that has been brought on by the COVID-19.
David F,
Lynn,
Unome
Jbusse
what are your thoughts about this?

Bump. I would appreciate some comments on this please.

quote:

ORIGINAL: unome

quote:

ORIGINAL: Bruce Johnson

I actually believe socialism would work if everyone lived for the sake of others. In a world of selfishness, greed and violence it does not work. In order to get to the goal of co-prosperity, you have to address what is inside our hearts. The change can only happen voluntarily from within- never by force. As an idealist, I believe the day will come.

Socialism would work if everyone lived for the sake of others, but that will never happen. Idealism is nice and makes for cool songs.

"Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people sharing all the world, you"

Beautiful sentiments, but even like-minded people trying true socialism in small communes have failed miserably.

I am not even sure you would want to eliminate the desire for personal gain from humanity as that has been the drive behind so much human progress. If you look like Jeff Bezos and everyone has equal money, you get no hot chicks. You look like Jeff Bezos and have a crap ton of money? You get hot chicks with brains. Losing the desire to better one's lot would be really sad and would result in far less advances for our country and species.

I suppose maybe we would not care if we were truly happy singing Kumbaya in our identical little houses with our identical wives and our identical children. (You are not getting rid of jealousy of the lot of others if some people have more or better of anything and if the guy down the street is married to Kate Upton and you are married to Roseanne Barr.) And how we would ever get from here to there?

I love the short story "Harrison Bergeron" by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. and it imagines this type of equality.

It is not a long read at all. Way too long for many here, no doubt, but it packs the punch of a whole book in far, far less words.

http://www.tnellen.com/cybereng/harrison.html

I have read history though so anything pointing towards forced equality of result gets too Stalin/Mao for my liking. With Stalin likely responsible for at least 9 million deaths and Mao largely thought to be responsible for between 40 and 80 million deaths (kind of makes COVID seem like a walk in the park), forced equality looks a lot less like idealism and a lot more like mass murder of the unrepentant.

The problem with this idealism is that you will never have all of humanity just suddenly resist all selfishness, greed and violence. And it is not like the socialists were ever without selfishness, greed or, especially, violence anyway. And so when the people who, theoretically, want the kind of idealism you espouse see resistance to this ONE TRUE WAY of thinking. Well, they just imprison or kill those that dissent. It is like idealism, but without anything that is actually ideal.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Brad H

And while everyone is obsessed with COVID-19, it reached 100 degrees in the arctic circle last weekend (highest temperature ever recorded). Once COVID 19 is behind us, we may want to address that issue rather than continuing to kick the can down the road.

quote:

ORIGINAL: David F.

quote:

ORIGINAL: kgdabom

quote:

ORIGINAL: kgdabom

I don't claim to have any understanding of economics. However, the thing that seems obvious to me and correct me if I'm wrong is production is what we need. If nobody is producing anything then their is nothing to buy or own. If we can generate production to me it seems that would drive prosperity. Hopefully for everybody. Get the GNP up. That In my uneducated opinion about economics is how we may be able to pull our country out of the economic devastation that has been brought on by the COVID-19.
David F,
Lynn,
Unome
Jbusse
what are your thoughts about this?

Bump. I would appreciate some comments on this please.

I’m currently producing tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, onions, carrots, and shallots in my garden. If consumers don’t have the ability to acquire them then what good are they other than for my own consumption? What good is any production if people don’t have the ability to get their hands on it? Consumers create the jobs not the owner who oh so graciously uses his/her wealth as leverage to borrow more money to build a store and import garbage from China so they can earn 380x the slave wage they trickle on to their employees.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Mark Anderson

quote:

ORIGINAL: David F.

quote:

ORIGINAL: kgdabom

quote:

ORIGINAL: kgdabom

I don't claim to have any understanding of economics. However, the thing that seems obvious to me and correct me if I'm wrong is production is what we need. If nobody is producing anything then their is nothing to buy or own. If we can generate production to me it seems that would drive prosperity. Hopefully for everybody. Get the GNP up. That In my uneducated opinion about economics is how we may be able to pull our country out of the economic devastation that has been brought on by the COVID-19.
David F,
Lynn,
Unome
Jbusse
what are your thoughts about this?

Bump. I would appreciate some comments on this please.

I’m currently producing tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, onions, carrots, and shallots in my garden. If consumers don’t have the ability to acquire them then what good are they other than for my own consumption? What good is any production if people don’t have the ability to get their hands on it? Consumers create the jobs not the owner who oh so graciously uses his/her wealth as leverage to borrow more money to build a store and import garbage from China so they can earn 380x the slave wage they trickle on to their employees.

It doesn't help that a majority of our politicians are basically on China's payroll.

TERM LIMITS!!!!!!

quote:

ORIGINAL: Mark Anderson

quote:

ORIGINAL: Brad H

And while everyone is obsessed with COVID-19, it reached 100 degrees in the arctic circle last weekend (highest temperature ever recorded). Once COVID 19 is behind us, we may want to address that issue rather than continuing to kick the can down the road.

Eat some more Impossible Burgers at Burger King.

Wasn't NYC supposed to be under water by now? As predicted by a man(Al Gore) who has become rich off of global warming. Gore's mansion in Tennessee uses more electricity that an average family uses in 21 years. He doesn't seem too worried.

Almost forgot his other home. The Ocean view Villa in California. Once again, really worried about Global Warming and rising water levels.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Brad H

And while everyone is obsessed with COVID-19, it reached 100 degrees in the arctic circle last weekend (highest temperature ever recorded). Once COVID 19 is behind us, we may want to address that issue rather than continuing to kick the can down the road.

quote:

ORIGINAL: unome

quote:

ORIGINAL: bohumm

quote:

ORIGINAL: unome

quote:

ORIGINAL: bohumm

The argument that we shut down and we can't afford to do it again is false. We didn't shut down while fully complying with universal infection control practices at the public health level; we've been uneven, sporadic, and incomplete from Day 1, and as long as we continue that path, our economy will continue to die the death of a thousand cuts. "I couldn't afford to make that necessary repair" turns into an exponentially more expensive necessary repair down the road that leads to other expensive repairs, compounding the problem.

We don't necessarily have to go all McMurphy at this point, but we need to go more there than where we are right now, or we will eventually have to go all McMurphy and maybe beyond eventually. Epidemiology is a complex discipline but getting it wrong leads to a simple outcome: the problem in its current form never goes away.

It is not false and you have not certainly not presented any evidence to this effect whatsoever.

Not that any of this even matters, because what you or McMurfy want won't happen.

The reality is that you are extremists in the same way some of the idiot Trumpers are extremists. You want all or nothing. Whether it is not wearing masks as a sort of constitutional right or shutting everything down as a panacea, these are both wrong headed and both will cost us so much in unneeded loss of life or economic resources.

Should Trump have done a better job in March and April? Sure, but he failed, and will likely be voted out of office because of it.

But, we do not need to be extreme. We can take smart moderate action. Any Governor in a state with a big COVID HAS TO take action on stuff like masks and shutting down obvious infectious activities. If he or she does not, the President should step in. He won't, but he should.

We can get this problem manageable, but we do not need a death from a thousand cuts or one big death blow; we need smart, prolonged, moderate action and we will have cases drop and we will not get the eventual backlash of loss of freedom you see from heavy handed government action.

Evidence: Current case levels.
Evidence: Worsening economic crisis.
Current economic czar: the virus.
Choices: take measures sufficient to tamp down transmission, test thoroughly and quickly, and contact trace, or, at best, continue on our current path with "smart, moderate action."
Current path: Out of control health crisis, deepening economic crisis.

How come Italy and Spain are on a completely different path than us right now?

Evidence: Current case levels have dropped by 15,000 a day from two weeks ago.

Evidence: U.S. economy added 1.8 million jobs in July as it worked to recover from the coronavirus pandemic
The jobless rate fell to 10.2 percent, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/08/07/july-2020-jobs-report/

Current path: Nothing at all like what you wrote.


The current path is only a problem if we do not do smart things like wear masks and keep some obvious activities closed or severely limited. We still have Governors like Kemp that are arguing that required mask-wearing is a civil liberty violation.


Italy and Spain?

Italy's economy are crushed:

https://economics.rabobank.com/publications/2020/july/covid-19-devastating-impact-on-italy-economy/#b8e0c36f-082b-4f40-a4f1-aa76c9c9701c

Spain re-opened more because their economy was in such bad shape and their COVID numbers have really jumped.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Bruce Johnson

quote:

ORIGINAL: unome

quote:

ORIGINAL: Bruce Johnson

I actually believe socialism would work if everyone lived for the sake of others. In a world of selfishness, greed and violence it does not work. In order to get to the goal of co-prosperity, you have to address what is inside our hearts. The change can only happen voluntarily from within- never by force. As an idealist, I believe the day will come.

Socialism would work if everyone lived for the sake of others, but that will never happen. Idealism is nice and makes for cool songs.

"Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people sharing all the world, you"

Beautiful sentiments, but even like-minded people trying true socialism in small communes have failed miserably.

I am not even sure you would want to eliminate the desire for personal gain from humanity as that has been the drive behind so much human progress. If you look like Jeff Bezos and everyone has equal money, you get no hot chicks. You look like Jeff Bezos and have a crap ton of money? You get hot chicks with brains. Losing the desire to better one's lot would be really sad and would result in far less advances for our country and species.

I suppose maybe we would not care if we were truly happy singing Kumbaya in our identical little houses with our identical wives and our identical children. (You are not getting rid of jealousy of the lot of others if some people have more or better of anything and if the guy down the street is married to Kate Upton and you are married to Roseanne Barr.) And how we would ever get from here to there?

I love the short story "Harrison Bergeron" by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. and it imagines this type of equality.

It is not a long read at all. Way too long for many here, no doubt, but it packs the punch of a whole book in far, far less words.

http://www.tnellen.com/cybereng/harrison.html

I have read history though so anything pointing towards forced equality of result gets too Stalin/Mao for my liking. With Stalin likely responsible for at least 9 million deaths and Mao largely thought to be responsible for between 40 and 80 million deaths (kind of makes COVID seem like a walk in the park), forced equality looks a lot less like idealism and a lot more like mass murder of the unrepentant.

The problem with this idealism is that you will never have all of humanity just suddenly resist all selfishness, greed and violence. And it is not like the socialists were ever without selfishness, greed or, especially, violence anyway. And so when the people who, theoretically, want the kind of idealism you espouse see resistance to this ONE TRUE WAY of thinking. Well, they just imprison or kill those that dissent. It is like idealism, but without anything that is actually ideal.

As a religious person I don't believe that good and evil will co-exist forever. If that was the case there would be two Gods. Unlike traditional Christians, though, I don't believe just being raptured will change what's inside. I also believe that ultimately everyone has to be restored- otherwise it would not be the Kingdom of Heaven. Who could be in bliss knowing one of your children was suffering in eternal hell.

Sorry to bring religion to the discussion. I'm just defending my idealism, but I'm not sure how we got here. It's a Covid discussion forum.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Lynn G.

quote:

ORIGINAL: jbusse


I can't quite make out the x axis on the plot,

If you click on the picture you get a much clearer view.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Brad H

And while everyone is obsessed with COVID-19, it reached 100 degrees in the arctic circle last weekend (highest temperature ever recorded). Once COVID 19 is behind us, we may want to address that issue rather than continuing to kick the can down the road.