Thrift shops, Goodwill, Salvation Army

[bobmoore]

Dillon,
I see no profit in argument, so let me use an illustration.

I have $5 in my pocket, and I want an item that costs $40. I look over at you, and see that you have $300. So I reach into your pocket to take what I want. What do you do? You defend your property and don't allow yourself to be robbed. But then I think about it for a while, and then elect a politician who, by a stroke of his pen, confiscates
your money and gives it to me. There is no functional difference between the two scenarios.

Many people don't bother to think about their positions, but rather react emotionally to what they think is fair, not what is rationally true.

Trying to equalize economic outcomes is a fool's errand.

[Caultron]

This is veering perilously close to being off-topic but it's no crime for a business or person who makes money by operating within a society to pay a fair share back into that society.

Opinions on what's fair obviously vary, but it's probably not zero.

If you want a society with no government interference, move somewhere like Somalia.

[crfriend]

I have $5 in my pocket, and I want an item that costs $40. I look over at you, and see that you have $300. So I reach into your pocket to take what I want. [...]

The problem is that today it's not operating that way. A more accurate scenario in today's economy is that I have $50 in my pocket that I need to buy groceries for my family with; you have $5000 in your pocket and see a $20 item you want. You don't want to spend any of your money, so you manipulate the system to take $20 from me -- and I have no defence against your action. You get your $20 item, but now my family is hungry for another week. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Many people don't bother to think about their positions, but rather react emotionally to what they think is fair, not what is rationally true.

This has surprisingly little to do with emotion and quite a lot to do with plain ethical behaviour -- which is now lost on those in power. That is to say real power, not the politicians who are stooges to their paymasters (this is a hallmark of an oligarchy; see my comparison of the USA to Russia).

This is not so much "trying to equalise economic outcomes" as trying to remember why humans form societies and to enable a "rising tide to lift all boats". There is always going to be disparity between the rich and the poor; that's just the way things work, and humans need to be fairly compensated for their contributions to society. What's incumbent upon society, however, is to prevent overt predation -- in either direction -- and it's overt predation of the lower 99.95% that's in play today; it's just as wrong for somebody making $9 an hour to mug the guy with $10,000 in his pocket as it is for the guy in the $10,000 suit to shave compensation for those working him to below a living wage while he rakes in the extra pittance.

But, yes, this is off-topic for a forum dedicated to espousing and advocating men's skirt-wearing. However, ethical play applies to both concepts, even if only tangentially.

[bobmoore]

It is true that what is, and what ought to be are wildly different.

It is also true that some rich folks are as crooked as some poor folks. But neither is entitled to rob the other by way of remedy.

Socialistic societies that destroy the upper class also destroy the opportunity to work oneself into prosperity because who will work altruistically so others can enjoy what they did not earn? The original Mayflower Compact was a socialist setup. The colony very nearly died out becaue no one was willing to have the fruit of his labor confiscated for the benefit of others. Only after private property was recognized did the colony flourish.

Human nature is what it always has been. People want What they have earned, and other people want whatever they can get by whatever means. Kill the incentive to produce, and all of society is impoverished.

[partlyscot]

Socialistic societies that destroy the upper class also destroy the opportunity to work oneself into prosperity because who will work altruistically so others can enjoy what they did not earn? The original Mayflower Compact was a socialist setup. The colony very nearly died out becaue no one was willing to have the fruit of his labor confiscated for the benefit of others. Only after private property was recognized did the colony flourish.

Can you cite references for that? I am only reading that the compact was an agreement to run like an English town, there were no actual "rules" in the compact. It seems from what i can find that the near collapse was to do with disease and weather.

[Jim]

Worse, more jobs are becoming of a "contract" nature which means that the individual gets taxed at almost a double rate to pay for the Ponzi scheme known as "Social Security".

This is a common accusation. When examined it does not hold up. Here's an analysis from The Motley Fool:

Such an accusation is tempting to make: Yes, Social Security is pay-as-you-go, and yes, it's not currently in a perpetually sustainable state. But Social Security's other features make it most assuredly not a Ponzi scheme.

What sets Social Security apart?
First and foremost, Social Security's Trust Fund is invested in real-life assets: special-issue U.S. Treasury bonds. It's not the world's greatest investment , but those bonds carry with them real obligations of the U.S. Treasury to hand over cash for Social Security to pay its beneficiaries. Contrast that with a typical Ponzi scheme, where the scheme's assets are completely phantom, and you can see that those real investments make Social Security far superior to a Ponzi scheme.

Second, Social Security's accounting is about as honest as any accounting based on projections can be. Its trustees are actively telling you that it is running out of money. On top of that, Social Security's website explicitly tells you that the program likely won't be enough to cover your costs in retirement. Social Security tells you what's going on, warts and all, and it wants you to invest around its shortcomings. A Ponzi scheme, on the other hand, will lie through its teeth in its accounting and projections to try to encourage you to "invest" more in it.

Third, Social Security is a mandatory program for nearly all U.S.-based wage-earners. The money coming in to pay benefits will keep coming in unless there's a tremendous shift in the law. When Ponzi schemes collapse, they often collapse quickly after they're uncovered as scams, because people stop contributing new money.

Fourth and finally, Social Security has a multidecade history of being patched up by Congress. When it started, Social Security's tax rate was 2% (half paid by you, half paid by your employer), while today it's 12.4%. Similarly, Social Security taxes were originally levied on your first $3,000 of income, while today's taxes are taken out of your first $117,000. That's a substantially higher tax rate on twice the income base after adjusting for inflation. Additionally, since the mid-1980s, your Social Security benefits themselves can be taxed if your total income level is high enough, with a huge chunk of that tax money helping to shore up the system.

Read more: http://www.fool.com/retirement/general/ ... z400qm2khP

[dillon]

Dillon,
I see no profit in argument, so let me use an illustration.

I have $5 in my pocket, and I want an item that costs $40. I look over at you, and see that you have $300. So I reach into your pocket to take what I want. What do you do? You defend your property and don't allow yourself to be robbed. But then I think about it for a while, and then elect a politician who, by a stroke of his pen, confiscates
your money and gives it to me. There is no functional difference between the two scenarios.

Many people don't bother to think about their positions, but rather react emotionally to what they think is fair, not what is rationally true.

Trying to equalize economic outcomes is a fool's errand.

You are misreading my message, and frankly, your contentions in that regard are absurd. Unchecked, ie lassiez faire economics, are not what built our economy. All your success and mine are owed to the fact that a "socialist" president, FDR, leveled the playing field for business and commerce by introducing a modicum of regulation. No one is talking about hands in pockets. Without an extent of socialism, you would not have a paved road in Haywood County to drive on or schools for the kids. So, yes, the minimum wage may be a Socialist plot, but it is grossly hypocritical to declare that all your success is of your own making, and that you owe nothing to an ideolgy you now decry. I am grateful for what "big government" has given me: public schools, public health, law enforcenment, sanitation, communications (including this pathway, the internet) an affordable Universit education, and ALL the basic infrastructure of life. Consider what you have truly gained and benefited from that emerged from ideas that were once considered socialist. No one is talking about picking your pocket, regardless of what your propagandists may feed you. What we are talking about is the symbiotic relationship between business and worker. Neither acheives anything alone, but when they can work together, both can prosper. That is the value of Unions, but in lieu of that, we have a minimum wage, LIKE EVERY OTHER FIRST WORLD NATION. I suggest you turn off the brain-rotting Fox News, and start looking at human existence from an objective POV. And stop insulting our intelligence with these pathetic parables that are profoundly ridiculous and frighteningly naive.

[moonshadow]

Alright.... we almost had a thread locked for a lot less than this.

If no one else is going to say it.... "enough is enough already!"

This has absolutely NOTHING to do with thrift shop skirts.....

[dillon]

Okay, one final comment and I've said my last. I apologize for my frankness, but I have a low threshold of indulgence for BS. Anyway, I wanted to mention a Stephen Colbert comment, regarding WalMart: "WalMart announced that they intend to close 269 stores...and this time they are WalMart stores."

[Judah14]

Alright.... we almost had a thread locked for a lot less than this.

If no one else is going to say it.... "enough is enough already!"

This has absolutely NOTHING to do with thrift shop skirts.....

That shows how laid-back this forum is, it is easy to wander off-topic.

[crfriend]

Worse, more jobs are becoming of a "contract" nature which means that the individual gets taxed at almost a double rate to pay for the Ponzi scheme known as "Social Security".

This is a common accusation. When examined it does not hold up. Here's an analysis from The Motley Fool:

Such an accusation is tempting to make: Yes, Social Security is pay-as-you-go, and yes, it's not currently in a perpetually sustainable state. But Social Security's other features make it most assuredly not a Ponzi scheme.

Likely it was not designed from its inception as a Ponzi scheme*, but modern economics has turned it into something that dramatically resembles one -- the need to bring in ever-increasing numbers of people to pay ever-increasing dividends to the people already present in the system. With ever-declining wages and a smaller workforce in the pool, the system is doomed now to failure because not enough wage-earners can be brought into the system to sustain the beneficiaries. The operative question is when it will implode unless some very serious changes are made at the macroeconomic level.

My calling Social Security a Ponzi scheme has to do with observed behaviour of the system in the modern era, not anything to do with its founders' intent. I suspect its architects would likely be perplexed and appalled by what they'd see now if they were alive.


* The term might not have even existed at the time, and the lens offered by social mores of the time could not foretell what would come economically in the latter decades of the 20th Century and into the 21st.

[denimini]

Alright.... we almost had a thread locked for a lot less than this.

If no one else is going to say it.... "enough is enough already!"

This has absolutely NOTHING to do with thrift shop skirts.....

I agree with that - it was fair enough to comment on the Goodwill operation but it has gone elsewhere now.
There are enough different thoughts about skirt wearing to have a polite and stimulating discussion without going somewhere that we share very little at all.

[PatJ]

This thread has been a most interesting read.

But it has left me with a question.

I do believe that there needs to be a government in control of our countries, but it seems to me that those who are in government - in seats of power - all have law degrees - they are lawyers.

If one is a hammer, one approaches every problem as if it were a nail. Lawyers approach every problem by passing more laws.

Since we have many economic problems, social problems, and countless other problems, would it make better sense to vote some Economists, or other people with specialties of one kind or another into office to address all the problems that have been mentioned rather than to keep voting for lawyers who are only going to try and pass laws as a futile attempt to solve problems they don't how to fix?

Oh and one more thing, someone wrote much earlier, "Right to work is just a tool to allow employers to intimidate workers." I have watched what has happened to workers who have lost their unions and have observed that this is a true statement. I don't always like what unions do, but workers have no protection without them.

This reflection was written while wearing a skirt. (After all, this is the Skirt Café!)

[skirtyscot]

That Zucman link shows that even the second-richest half percent have been flat lining. Only the top half % are getting richer. Remarkable.

Meanwhile here in the UK the government has decided to jack the minimum wage up substantially. Later this year it will go up from £6.70 to £7.20, and they have said it will reach £9 before the next election (spring 2020). The cynical view is that the govt are trying to cut the cost of benefits paid to low-paid workers. But it's still not what you'd expect from a Conservative govt, given that it's their supporters who will foot the bill.

[crfriend]

That Zucman link shows that even the second-richest half percent have been flat lining. Only the top half % are getting richer. Remarkable.

There's enough of a history now that extrapolations of reasonable accuracy are possible. Extrapolation wasn't reliable 20 years ago because the associated dynamics weren't well understood (mainly the rate of acceleration of the process). We now understand the rate temporally as well as monetarily, and the curves look very, very grim indeed.

Meanwhile here in the UK the government has decided to jack the minimum wage up substantially. Later this year it will go up from £6.70 to £7.20, and they have said it will reach £9 before the next election (spring 2020). The cynical view is that the govt are trying to cut the cost of benefits paid to low-paid workers. But it's still not what you'd expect from a Conservative govt, given that it's their supporters who will foot the bill.

Since health care is funded by society in the UK, the increase in minimum wage may well help, even if only for the cynical case -- but it would still be an improvement over the current situation.

Here in the US -- which has no form of socially-aware health care -- that increase would be sucked up by the insurance companies in the form of the mandate to purchase "health insurance", which is not the same thing as care. The "far right" loves to rail on about "Obamacare" (as the "Affordable Health Care Act" (ha!) is known), but in point of fact it was originally instituted in Massachusetts by ex-governor Romney as a gift to his fellow elites in the insurance industry. It was a disaster for the middle class in Massachusetts, and now that it's national it's a disaster for the middle class nationwide. It's a wealth-transfer scheme, pure and simple, from the poor to the rich, and a wonderful example of an oligarchy at work.