U.S. Politics: Feelings Trump Facts

[OldGimletEye]

38 minutes ago, White Walker Texas Ranger said:

Out of curiosity, how do you determine what's an economic rent and what's a normal economic profit on a systematic basis?

Well, you really don't have to determine it, under this cash flow plan.

Say, I'm a chief financial officer. And I'm not really sure what my companies cost of capital is. Will just say it's X.

Now suppose my company wants to buy a new piece of machinery. To make things simple, will say the machine will generate $100,000.00 in profit in the next year. And then the machine becomes worthless.

If the the corporate tax is 20% and there is an immediate write off for buying the machine, then by buying the machine, I get a reduction of $20,000.00 off my tax bill.

Suppose the next year, the machine generates $110,000.00 in cash flow next year.

It's present value, this year, would be: $110,000.00/1.X

The present value of the taxes paid would be, under a 20% corporate tax would be: $110,000/1.X * .20

If you look at this, you will see, that whatever X turns out to be, if next years profit stream is more than the cost of capital, then those excess profits will get taxed.

Let's say, the cost of capital is 10%. Then the present value of the $110,000 will be $100,000.00 and the present value of the taxes will be 20,0000, which offsets the 20,000 you got from an immediate write off.

But, then let's say instead the cost of capital is actually 5%. Then the present value of $110,000.00 would be about $104,762. Everything above a present value of about $100,00 is excess profit, in the sense you don't need that to bring a factor of production into use. Present value of taxes would be about $20,950, which means the $950.00 is taxes being paid on economic profits.

The point is whether the cost of capital is 10%,5%, 13% or whatever, you don't need to know it exactly.

Historically, speaking, if I recall correctly these results were derived from Harbenger around 1948.

[Kalbear]

7 minutes ago, Manhole Eunuchsbane said:

What was his take on the bailout? 

Not sure. Suspect that it was an example of government intervention that should be stopped.

7 minutes ago, Manhole Eunuchsbane said:

I really can't get my head behind a "taxation is immoral" argument. The moral benefits to taxation far outweigh the concerns of personal liberty. You like usable roads? Fire/Police services? Libraries? County hospitals? I just don't see how you can make a moral argument of any substance against taxation unless those funds are being abused to a degree that you are not benefiting from social services.

Yeah, all of that doesn't matter because taxation is depriving people of their freedom to do what they want to, and all of it is immoral. If people want roads they should be able to make them, and make them however they choose, and the market will figure out the best way. Fire/police should be privatized. Libraries and hospitals definitely should. 

Basically, he starts from the premise that government should exist only as much as it has to, and anything else is completely immoral. And not just immoral, but the worst crime one can commit - using the monopoly of the threat of violence. Everything else falls from that fairly simply. Whether or not actual good or utilitarian happens doesn't matter, because it's all poisoned fruit from a bad tree.

[IheartIheartTesla]

Shouldn't private companies build the Wall then? How can any libertarian be in favor of that (and as far as I can tell, they are at least 15% of the GoP). This taxpayer funded Wall should be hugely unpopular, and yet here we are.

[Fez]

11 minutes ago, IheartIheartTesla said:

Shouldn't private companies build the Wall then? How can any libertarian be in favor of that (and as far as I can tell, they are at least 15% of the GoP). This taxpayer funded Wall should be hugely unpopular, and yet here we are.

Right. But it'll be Mexican taxpayers, so it'll all be alright! Its fine for godless foreign heathens to have repressive governments that don't adhere to the standards that us freedom-loving patriots enjoy.

[Kalbear]

20 minutes ago, IheartIheartTesla said:

Shouldn't private companies build the Wall then? How can any libertarian be in favor of that (and as far as I can tell, they are at least 15% of the GoP). This taxpayer funded Wall should be hugely unpopular, and yet here we are.

Ideally yes, but they'll take what they can get. For instance, the REINS act is supported by @Commodore even though it puts a massive amount of power in the hands of the government and specifically congress because it will (he hopes) reduce regulation. (The actual effect will likely be to simply make industries supported by Republicans get kickbacks and others not, but never mind that). 

He also is in support of the US staying out of other countries and other countries staying out of the US, so that's why the wall is a good thing, as are any anti-immigration policies. Because ideally everyone should be left alone, and if they want in, well, sorry they had the bad luck to be born not American, maybe they could fix their own country. 

[maarsen]

1 hour ago, Kalbear said:

Not sure. Suspect that it was an example of government intervention that should be stopped.

Yeah, all of that doesn't matter because taxation is depriving people of their freedom to do what they want to, and all of it is immoral. If people want roads they should be able to make them, and make them however they choose, and the market will figure out the best way. Fire/police should be privatized. Libraries and hospitals definitely should. 

Basically, he starts from the premise that government should exist only as much as it has to, and anything else is completely immoral. And not just immoral, but the worst crime one can commit - using the monopoly of the threat of violence. Everything else falls from that fairly simply. Whether or not actual good or utilitarian happens doesn't matter, because it's all poisoned fruit from a bad tree.

There are places that one can move to if a desire to live without government is your end all and be all. Somalia, South Sudan, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo are all places with a minimal amount of government to interfere in your life.

[Kalbear]

1 minute ago, maarsen said:

There are places that one can move to if a desire to live without government is your end all and be all. Somalia, South Sudan, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo are all places with a minimal amount of government to interfere in your life.

Yeah, that's the typical antilibertarian response, and I'm pretty sure that the rote answer is that they do not share the requisite cultural and ethnic backgrounds desired. 

[LongRider]

1 hour ago, Dr. Pepper said:

We can just put the "taxation is immoral" folks all in Florida.  They are probably the same as the "climate change is a chinese hoax" folks.  

 

They had better know how to swim then. 

[The guy from the Vale]

1 minute ago, Kalbear said:

Yeah, that's the typical antilibertarian response, and I'm pretty sure that the rote answer is that they do not share the requisite cultural and ethnic backgrounds desired. 

And the answer to that is that our current cultural background includes the existence of a state providing basic services. The libertarian dream might work in the first generation (I doubt even that, tbh, but I'll grant that for the sake of argument). But those who grew up in a libertarian society will not have the requisite cultural background to make it work either. Infact, I suspect their outlook on life will be closer to that of the average Somali or Congolese than it would be to ours.

[maarsen]

Just now, Kalbear said:

Yeah, that's the typical antilibertarian response, and I'm pretty sure that the rote answer is that they do not share the requisite cultural and ethnic backgrounds desired. 

I am pretty sure that both groups are very attracted to guns, and in using them to keep governments from interfering with their right to interfere with other people's rights. Seems to be a similar enough cultural background.

 

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

14 minutes ago, maarsen said:

There are places that one can move to if a desire to live without government is your end all and be all. Somalia, South Sudan, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo are all places with a minimal amount of government to interfere in your life.

This is why every Libertarian should make "The Rule of the Clan" required reading.  Individual liberties and reasonable strong States do not exist without each other.  This is not to say the State cannot be empowered to a degree that it ignores individual liberties they can, but without the State to act a guarantor of individual liberties these liberties disapear in the roiling chaos of clan and tribal strife.

[OldGimletEye]

10 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

This is why every Libertarian should make "The Rule of the Clan" required reading.  Individual liberties and reasonable strong States do not exist without each other.  This is not to say the State cannot be empowered to a degree that it ignores individual liberties they can, but without the State to act a guarantor of individual liberties these liberties disapear in the roiling chaos of clan and tribal strife.

There are really two types of libertarians. There are those types of libertarians that believe freedom tends to enhance human welfare. I don't often agree with these types of libertarian's conclusions, but at least they tend be reasonable. 

Then you have the type of libertarians that methodologically start out defining "freedom" as a defense of property rights. And they have an absolutist view of those rights. And their methodological starting point,  and the conclusions derived thereon, is:

Quote

An extraordinary example of how, starting with a mistake, a remorseless logician can end up in Bedlam...

 

[maarsen]

Every social system that can be thought of, at some point in human history it has been tried. If there are no long standing libertarian type societies  in existence today, well then, that is because it has been tried and failed long before it made an impact. Societies and/or cultures do not exist to help individuals survive but for the group as a whole survive. if a hundred members are the minimum needed for a group to last then any specific individual in that group, assuming there is an excess, is entirely replaceable. In order not to be the person most likely to be replaced, some sort of government will evolve, again helping the group survive as it helps to limit conflict. Game theory helps to explain all of this.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

4 minutes ago, maarsen said:

Every social system that can be thought of, at some point in human history it has been tried. If there are no long standing libertarian type societies  in existence today, well then, that is because it has been tried and failed long before it made an impact. Societies and/or cultures do not exist to help individuals survive but for the group as a whole survive. if a hundred members are the minimum needed for a group to last then any specific individual in that group, assuming there is an excess, is entirely replaceable. In order not to be the person most likely to be replaced, some sort of government will evolve, again helping the group survive as it helps to limit conflict. Game theory helps to explain all of this.

That's a very anthropic argument.  It is as unsatisfying as most anthropic arguments.  We are as we are because we are as we are.

[Kalbear]

4 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

That's a very anthropic argument.  It is as unsatisfying as most anthropic arguments.  We are as we are because we are as we are.

It's also inaccurate. Most forms of government have only come about in the last couple hundred years, there are major changes to them, and tech will make even more changes possible. Libertarianism is one that becomes a bit more possible with better tech. I find it to be incredibly callous and weak, and absurdly selfish - but it certainly has more possibility with more tech. 

[Dr. Pepper]

46 minutes ago, Nasty LongRider said:

They had better know how to swim then. 

Or not...

Maybe they'll be an ark and their god will save them.  Or something.

[Martell Spy]

Quote

It's also inaccurate. Most forms of government have only come about in the last couple hundred years, there are major changes to them, and tech will make even more changes possible. Libertarianism is one that becomes a bit more possible with better tech. I find it to be incredibly callous and weak, and absurdly selfish - but it certainly has more possibility with more tech. 

Yeah you could certainly turn the US into something almost resembling a libertarian "paradise" by exploiting already happening trends. Keep slashing the social spending and taxes of rural states, and move taxes to things like the sales tax that fall on the working and middle classes. Privatize more and more of the rural lands and give them to private owners. And in the liberal areas, empower financial and tech behemoths. Slash most worker protections, bankruptcy laws, child labor laws. Turn most of the populace into Walmart drudges. Eventually perhaps create a modern peon system based on debts, with company stores. We could all be living in Shadowurn, wiz chummer.

Or you could just move to Honduras. or go join the seasteaders.

There just aren't a lot of actual libertarians. There's just a ton of people, especially on the right that call themselves libertarians. Usually McJesus is in the way on the right. And the hideous economic ideas is in the way of lefties. There's also a ton of authoritarians on the right, which in theory are supposed to be the enemies of libertarians. And of course there are the wealthy donors of the Republican party, that love to call them selves libertarians, because who would argue with an idealogy that places more and more power in your hands?

 

 

[IheartIheartTesla]

1 hour ago, Fez said:

Right. But it'll be Mexican taxpayers, so it'll all be alright! Its fine for godless foreign heathens to have repressive governments that don't adhere to the standards that us freedom-loving patriots enjoy.

Yeah. Its just ironic that the model for this Wall building is : American taxpayers pay for the wall, and then get reimbursed because Mexican taxpayers* pay back the American government. In other words, exactly like a tax refund works.

* I think another model for paying for it involved seizing money sent back from US to Mexico by both legal and undocumented immigrants, using some variant of the Patriot Act.

[maarsen]

11 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

That's a very anthropic argument.  It is as unsatisfying as most anthropic arguments.  We are as we are because we are as we are.

Not really, Scot. There are hundreds of existing cultures, and many more that no longer exist, but that we do have info on. Consider the Greek city states of Athens and Sparta, ancient Rome, and China going back even further. All had varying types of social organization. Even the Vikings had a social organization, even as every man considered himself the equal of any other. Some animals do not have very much social organization, as do human cultures such as pre-contact Inuit. Lots of individuals do leave our society and try to make a go of living alone, usually up in Alaska, if I can believe what I see on TV. Is that the basis of a long term survival strategy for the human race? You need men and women together to survive as a group, and women have to be receptive to the men for babies to come along. The beginning of any culture is for men to subjugate their desires and make nice to the females.

The anthropic argument supposes that there is no counter example. For me the non functional counter example to my argument is pre- pubescent boys.

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

5 minutes ago, Martell Spy said:

Yeah you could certainly turn the US into something almost resembling a libertarian "paradise" by exploiting already happening trends. Keep slashing the social spending and taxes of rural states, and move taxes to things like the sales tax that fall on the working and middle classes. Privatize more and more of the rural lands and give them to private owners. And in the liberal areas, empower financial and tech behemoths. Slash most worker protections, bankruptcy laws, child labor laws. Turn most of the populace into Walmart drudges. Eventually perhaps create a modern peon system based on debts, with company stores. We could all be living in Shadowurn, wiz chummer.