Readit NewsTeever commented on US retail giants raise prices due to tariffs english.elpais.com/econom... · Posted by u/geox
How do you design a progressive consumption tax? Tax only private jets and yachts?
Wondering why raising higher-bracket income tax is such a problem.
Canada has a national 5% Goods and Services Tax (GST) that is offset by an income-tested GST credit that is paid out quarterly.
Additionally there are a lot of goods that are GST exempt.
Things like basic groceries, prescription drugs, feminine hygiene products, hearing aids etc...
Teever commented on The unlikely revival of nuclear batteries spectrum.ieee.org/nuclear... · Posted by u/purpleko
Teever commented on Uncle Sam shouldn't own Intel stock wsj.com/opinion/uncle-sam... · Posted by u/aspenmayer
> Greed is the impulse to rig the game once you’ve won a little, so you can keep extracting more without competing.
You're making up your own novel definition of greed there, which is certainly cheating when you're saying Milton Friedman is wrong. He was using greed in a more generally accepted sense, ie, a desire for more than one has right now.
There are a lot of greedy people out there who are scrupulously honest. As far as I can tell, the average greedy person should be modelling scrupulous honesty, advocating fair systems and enforcing rule-following behaviours - that is creating the best environment for acquiring capital and maintaining property rights. Greedy people who white-ant the systems sustaining their capital are generally more stupid than greedy.
Give me your definition of greed.
Teever commented on Uncle Sam shouldn't own Intel stock wsj.com/opinion/uncle-sam... · Posted by u/aspenmayer
You're splitting stupid hairs here over the exact implication of words in a setting where they don't exactly matter. Whether you call it greed, self interest, a desire to amass wealth, etc, doesn't really matter because for the fat part of the bell curve it's all the same.
No.
Greed and competitiveness are two different motivators, and free market capitalism is driven by competition and not greed.
People compete for many reasons and the collection of material wealth is only one of them.
Teever commented on Uncle Sam shouldn't own Intel stock wsj.com/opinion/uncle-sam... · Posted by u/aspenmayer
"Winning profit" is greed. That's how you amass wealth.
It's like you're arguing that overeating isn't how you gain weight, it's just having an unbalanced caloric ratio.
Profit seeking through competition isn’t the same as greed. Greed is the impulse to rig the game once you’ve won a little, so you can keep extracting more without competing. And that tendency from some kinds of people corrodes free market capitalism and its ability to drive innovation and reduce prices. Competition only works if players play by the rules.
And your food analogy works against you. If we extend your analogy, profit is like eating, greed is like overeating. Saying profit = greed is like saying every person who eats three meals a day is a glutton. Competition rewards healthy eating -- efficiency, balance, discipline. Greed is scarfing down the pantry and locking the fridge so nobody else can eat.
There is no substance that can be practically transported to earth from space at a cost that would justify the transport costs.
Are you talking about the current transport costs or theoretical optimal transport costs?
What do you think is the biggest part of the transport costs and why in your opinion can it not be reduced?
Teever commented on Uncle Sam shouldn't own Intel stock wsj.com/opinion/uncle-sam... · Posted by u/aspenmayer
> Is there some society you know that doesn’t run on greed? … What is greed? Of course none of us are greedy. It’s only the other fellow who’s greedy. The world runs on individuals pursuing their separate interests.
Milton Friedman when asked about combating greed.
Milton Friedman is wrong.
The human emotion that drives free market capitalism optimally isn't greed, it's competition.
People compete to produce better goods at a lower price to win acclaim and profit.
Greedy people mess that all up by amassing wealth and then using that wealth to change the rules of the game so that they can amass more wealth.
Yes, the the cost of (at least) some foreign workers is that the jobs they had creating good exported to America will go away. That's true. The trade-off though isn't just that the Americans don't get their stuff. The real trade off is that the good those factory workers buy (whether they be physical or immaterial, cultural or financial services) will not get bought. Americans making those good will therefore ALSO be out of a job.
In the end, nobody gets what they want and everybody loses employment. It's a lose/lose for everybody involved.
The US is treating everyone else like shit and isolating themselves from the world.
The world is slowly esponding accordingly and reconfiguring to the new reality where the US is unreliable and unfriendly.
While it's a lose/lose this will ultimately hurt the US more than everyone else.
The world isn't going to come to the aid of the US and prop them back up to their place of hegemony when this all goes to shit. The rest of the world is going to pick at the carcass of what was once an inspirational empire.