Thread: Is the Bible the fiscally liberal atheists' only justification for liberal programs?

Originally Posted by MAYTAG

The entitlement programs are funded by the wealthy, who create the businesses which are taxed directly, and employ the middle class, ultimately being responsible for almost the entire (paid for) budget of the U.S. When these people are driven out of business by excessive union demands, or are taxed so highly that they can no longer afford to hire workers, who will pay for these entitlement programs?

I believe the phrase is "killing the golden goose." When you kill the golden goose, there are no more golden eggs for anyone. This is what happens when society tries to get the rich to pay for everything.

Originally Posted by MAYTAG

Money is only worth what it was traded for. If money is being doled out freely to any and everyone then it loses its value. It is such a pity that the American public school system does not teach you guys about economics. You can't just hand out money to everyone and expect that money to be worth the same as it was before it was handed out. When everyone has more money, there are increases in demand. This increase in demand causes dwindling supplies, to which the producers will respond by raising prices. Handing out free money is at best a zero sum game and, at worst, can destroy the economy through inflation. This is no opinion, these are the laws of economics at work. The wealthy only get richer when the dollar is devalued because they have cleverly leveraged their holdings to protect themselves against just such an event.

Nevertheless, I don't think there is anything wrong with spreading the wealth to a certain point in order to simply include more people as consumers so that their basic needs are met. There is serious potential here, however, for a dangerous sociological reaction to such actions, and we are seeing the beginnings of that in the U.S. today. The law of scarcity provides that humans have unlimited wants and needs which are meant to be satisfied by limited resources. Providing for the basic needs of the poor is an attainable goal, but it was done long ago. And just as scarcity predicts, they wanted more. Instead of attempting to get more through developing a marketable skill, learning a trade, getting an education, etc, they largely decided to simply petition the government to give them more. And they got it. Now, we live in a nation where the poorest people are the most obese. Now, we live in a nation where foodstamps recipients have plenty left over at the end of the month to trade for cash, which presumably will not go towards the food for which it was intended. And despite that, we now live in a nation where the liberal politicians claim that they need EVEN MORE. Now, we live in a nation where, instead of being grateful for what they are being freely given, the welfare recipients are bitter that it isn't enough to afford the nicer things they would rather have. And we live in a nation where many are blind to any opportunity to better themselves by their own hard work, but only by petitioning the government to take more from someone else to give to them. This is a sociological disaster in the making. The entitlement programs are funded by the wealthy, who create the businesses which are taxed directly, and employ the middle class, ultimately being responsible for almost the entire (paid for) budget of the U.S. When these people are driven out of business by excessive union demands, or are taxed so highly that they can no longer afford to hire workers, who will pay for these entitlement programs?

Money is not worth anything if it isn't being traded for anything.

You are using an old model from the early 20th Century economic playbook. The government has to spend enough money so that it will affect a broad spectrum of industries and people. Otherwise it won't be effective. One of the problems with the Roosevelt programs is that they didn't do anything to increase black employment. Consequently a large percentage of the population continued to suffer from the effects of the Great Depression well into the 1980s and even to today. Heck, even when the country was fighting around the world in WWII it still excluded its black citizens from meaningful work in defense industries. So why should they have wasted time and effort trying to get educated or learn trades when they couldn't even go to decent schools? The country is still paying a price for our parents and grandparents' bigotry.

The old supply and demand rule isn't really applicable anymore. Consider computers and cell phones. The demand is astronomical. There's no shortage and the prices have dropped dropped dramatically. On top of that the demand has led to product innovations and countless models with improved reliability and features. The same is true with all consumer goods.

The whine about the wealthy being driven out of business is pure BS. Companies are owned by everyone. There are a few large private companies but they could go public if their owners weren't greedy (for money or personal power and control). Do you think Boeing will go out of business if its CEO has to pay a 40% tax rate?

The Koch brothers whine like babies over taxes because they run a private company. They could go public if they wanted to. Instead they want to operate as a feudal barony and treat their workers as serfs. Curse words.

Don't make the same mistakes as our parents and grandparents made. If you think that you can screw over people in the 21st Century you will end up on someone's dinner table.

Originally Posted by Unifier

I believe the phrase is "killing the golden goose." When you kill the golden goose, there are no more golden eggs for anyone. This is what happens when society tries to get the rich to pay for everything.

If the rich own everything why shouldn't they pay the bills?

Originally Posted by MAYTAG

Outside of confusedly defining Christian charity as forcing other people to give away their money, what arguments do atheists have for fiscal liberalism?

The Bible seems an odd justification source for an atheist. So I want to hear a real atheist's argument in support of liberalism, one that uses logic and expertise of economics to justify that approach.

I was a liberal atheist for many years until I took an economics course in college. I would love someone more knowledgeable on the topic than that to show me a well-reasoned argument to justify entitlement programs, government spending, high taxation, increased regulation, union support, etc. (things I supported before learning a little about economics).

I am specifically not looking for anyone's opinion on how greedy or mean-spirited rich people are. It seems to me that liberal policies take the delicate balance of a free market for granted. I would be happy to read someone justify them and explain how the potential economic pitfalls can be avoided.

I'm a fan of Hayek. I'd expect "liberalism" as you call it to be supported by ideas of providing for those in need, but I would agree with you that having the government do it all is not the way to go about it. A free, low-taxed or untaxed market could certainly manage a lot better than a giant, wasteful government apparatus.

Originally Posted by The Wyrd of Gawd

If the rich own everything why shouldn't they pay the bills?

Who owns your home and who pays the bills for it? "The rich" don't own everything.

Originally Posted by Durandal

Who owns your home and who pays the bills for it? "The rich" don't own everything.

The government and insurance company own my house. I just pay them rent to use it.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/12/us...perty-tax.html
“The same problem kept coming up,” said Charlene Nelson, a homemaker who became a leader of the effort to amend the Constitution, pointing to what she deems the underlying problem with the property tax. “It means all of us are renters — none of us are homeowners.”

Originally Posted by The Wyrd of Gawd

The government and insurance company own my house. I just pay them rent to use it.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/12/us...perty-tax.html
“The same problem kept coming up,” said Charlene Nelson, a homemaker who became a leader of the effort to amend the Constitution, pointing to what she deems the underlying problem with the property tax. “It means all of us are renters — none of us are homeowners.”

I've heard that you can buy your property in allodial to get away from said taxes, though I don't know whether it would actually work.

Anyway, it's the government that holds the allodial title and charges you that tax, not "the rich."

Originally Posted by Durandal

I'm a fan of Hayek. I'd expect "liberalism" as you call it to be supported by ideas of providing for those in need, but I would agree with you that having the government do it all is not the way to go about it. A free, low-taxed or untaxed market could certainly manage a lot better than a giant, wasteful government apparatus.

But it doesn't, does it?
At the turn of the century, the consolidation of wealth at the top was so acute that the U.S. government had to borrow money from J.P. MORGAN PERSONALLY! Another robber baron bragged that he could hire half the workers to kill the other half.
Greed being what it is, regulation is an unfortunate necessity, because man will not regulate himself given the means to circumvent the good of the people. An unfettered free market is a license to kill in the hands of those that bend it to its will. We have seen this graphically displayed. When the government pursued "laissez faire" the economy quickly collapsed on itself, leading to the Great Depression. When Phil Gramm successfully took the handcuffs off the banking industry, within five years the house of cards collapsed again.

Originally Posted by The Wyrd of Gawd

You are using an old model from the early 20th Century economic playbook. The government has to spend enough money so that it will affect a broad spectrum of industries and people. Otherwise it won't be effective. One of the problems with the Roosevelt programs is that they didn't do anything to increase black employment. Consequently a large percentage of the population continued to suffer from the effects of the Great Depression well into the 1980s and even to today. Heck, even when the country was fighting around the world in WWII it still excluded its black citizens from meaningful work in defense industries. So why should they have wasted time and effort trying to get educated or learn trades when they couldn't even go to decent schools? The country is still paying a price for our parents and grandparents' bigotry.

Government is not a competent investor. It has no incentive to invest wisely or produce efficiently. You know who the talented investors are? The rich. So why on earth would you want to take money AWAY from the people who are skilled at investing and give it to the government which is WHOLLY unqualified for that job? If you are going to insist (with no reasoning, btw) that some entity "has to spend enough money," shouldn't you at least choose an entity which is skilled at spending money and getting that spending to yield a desirable result? Certainly you don't think the politicians whose only skills are looking good on television and keeping clean criminal records are qualified for this? There is already a way the universe determines who is qualified to spend money. It is the free market. And through the magic of the free market, the people who get the most money are also usually the most capable at investing it. Leave well enough alone. Your papa government hardly ever gets anything right.

The old supply and demand rule isn't really applicable anymore. Consider computers and cell phones. The demand is astronomical. There's no shortage and the prices have dropped dropped dramatically. On top of that the demand has led to product innovations and countless models with improved reliability and features. The same is true with all consumer goods.

I'm sorry, but this is absolute nonsensical garbage. Why are you in this discussion? I can not sit here and post all the many factors and ways that each affect supply and demand. This is something your school has to teach you. When I took my economics course, I had a pre-test to study of 100 questions, all asking about different factors which can affect supply and demand. Some of them seemed contradictory on their faces. It was only after I studied and practically memorized the test that I acquired an intuitive understanding of supply and demand and how the nearly infinite number of possible factors might affect it. I say this to get you to realize how far you are from making a valid argument.

Let me explain enough to address your specific point about computers and cell phones. In economics, the term "ceteris paribus" refers to a state where all other factors remain equal while only the relevant factor being discussed is considered a possible variable. It can be stuck at the end of a sentence to mean "other things remaining equal." When I say that an increase in demand causes an increase in prices, this is indisputable. It's unavoidable. Other factors can come along and lower the prices, but the increase in demand by itself will always cause prices to rise ceteris paribus. Here's how: Cell phones are the big thing. Everyone has to have one. They start flying off the shelves. The cell phone salesman recognizes this and does what he must to maximize his profits, he raises prices. But he didn't just do that to maximize his profits because he is greedy. No. He did it because he's a business man, and he knows what's about to happen when cell phones start flying off the shelf. He has to set his prices at a point where he will (ideally) sell completely out of cell phones just as the new shipment arrives to restock his supply. So he raises the price in order to slow down the frenzy so he doesn't sell out. If he sells out, then he loses money because now customers who would be willing perhaps to pay more than the original price for the phone are being turned away and he sells nothing. He's not in business to sell nothing. Furthermore, because cell phones have become so popular, people all over are willing to pay more for them. So the supplier (who sells cell phones in bulk to the salesman) now sees that he can get a better price for his cell phones. He HAS to sell them at the better price. Because he is greedy? No. Because he's a business man, and he knows what's about to happen when people start bidding more money on cell phones.

Soon, the supplier himself will have to pay more for the cell phones and he will have to charge the salesman more to make up for that price hike. The salesman then has to charge his customers more. But they all have to do this preemptively in order not to lose money. They have to predict these things and that's what running a business is all about. They have to charge what it will cost to restock their supply, and they aren't sure what it will cost, but if demand is going up, they can safely assume the prices will too. This is a chain that goes all the way back to the various laborers and experts who extract the raw materials used to make cell phone parts from the earth and engineer those materials into working cell phone parts respectively. Someone is willing to pay them more for their work, so they're going to sell to that guy. And if the first guy still wants his shipment, he is going to have to match the new, higher price. At no point can you say that one of these people is greedy. They are each just doing what they can to keep their business running and earn a living. So the prices rise. But that's ceteris paribus.

In the real world, there are other factors. The one relevant to your argument is COMPETITION. Someone else who has had nothing to do with cell phones to this point sees what a hot commodity they are suddenly becoming. So he wants in on it. But how to compete against the already established cell phone companies? He spends some money on research and development, and his team comes up with some new engineering techniques which will produce cell phones more efficiently... making them cheaper! The other cell phone companies have to adapt and figure out a way to make their phones cheaper so they can compete with the new hotshot cell phone company. So, even though increased demand has caused the prices to rise, competition and new technology developed by an entrepreneur seeking a profit have resulted in even cheaper cell phones despite the effect demand had on the prices!

Understand that in all that I have only scratched the surface of two of the most basic factors which can affect supply and demand. Your statement, "The old supply and demand rule isn't really applicable anymore." is absolutely horrifying and very VERY false. The free market is unique in its ability to produce goods such as the cell phone EVER MORE efficiently, making them cheaper and producing greater wealth. When the government steps into the role of producer, it necessarily creates a monopoly in that market. No private company can compete with the government and the government itself has no incentive to produce more efficiently as Mr. Entrepreneur did in the above example. Monopolies cause markets to stagnate. It is no wonder that telephone technology went straight to the moon shortly after the break up of the AT&T monopoly. Once entry into the market became possible, it wasn't long before that free market magic changed our lives and the way we communicate. Government is no different from any other monopoly, except for being worse because they actually waste the money of their shareholders (the taxpayers). At least private monopolies keep their owners happy.

The whine about the wealthy being driven out of business is pure BS. Companies are owned by everyone. There are a few large private companies but they could go public if their owners weren't greedy (for money or personal power and control). Do you think Boeing will go out of business if its CEO has to pay a 40% tax rate?

Companies are not owned by everyone. That is pure BS. When a company "goes public" that does not mean that the public owns them. I mean, are you FREAKING kidding me? Going public means that shares of the company are available to investors to be purchased. PEOPLE BUY THAT STOCK. And they are the owners. Not everyone. Companies sell shares of their stock often in order to acquire cash. So I don't know what the hell you think you're talking about calling non-publicly traded companies "greedy" for not going public. That doesn't make any sense. It would be the opposite, but that's also crap. Did you see in the OP where I said I wanted to talk to someone who knew a little about economics? Do you really think you fit that description, Wyrd? It's ok. You're learning like we all are. Moving along...

The Koch brothers whine like babies over taxes because they run a private company. They could go public if they wanted to. Instead they want to operate as a feudal barony and treat their workers as serfs. Curse words.

I don't know what to say to this. What does their running a private company have to do with their views on taxation? How would going public affect their views on taxation? Their workers are free to look for employment elsewhere if they are being treated badly. Perhaps at one of those public companies *chuckle*.

Don't make the same mistakes as our parents and grandparents made. If you think that you can screw over people in the 21st Century you will end up on someone's dinner table.

Believe me, Wyrd, it's a tough choice to make, but this one has to be your dumbest argument.

I have a hard time believing that the same people who lack the motivation to learn how to do something useful above a minimum wage pay grade will suddenly rise up and conquer the nation. *chuckle*

But you tell them from me; they have to actually WIN their revolt before they start making any demands. *more boisterous laughter*

And believe me, we're ready for them. *downright evil, greedy laughter*

We've been ready for them ALL ALONG! BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!