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biccat wrote:Simply repeating it doesn't make it true. Even if it's a big lie.

No, but repeating something that is common fething sense, and seeing you continue to pretend it isn't true, only to keep repeating your original claims makes it about as true as things can be (though in this case you didn't raise the issue, so I'm not calling you out on repeating it this time).

Actually they usually are.

No, they're part of a system, in which other people take on other roles, in order to allow the doctor to focus his time. Let's use the words of oh, umm, say, you, in establishing this;
"No, there's a guy who shows up at a hospital and says "I need a hernia operation". The hospital works out the details: hires the doctor and nurses, buys medical supplies, arranges payment, etc."

Oh look, a system, in which people take on different roles to produce far greater outcomes than if each person was left to operate entirely in isolation. It's almost as if the increase in efficiency of specialisation is the entire driving force behind the creation of sophisticated business systems.

You could just as easily have said "there isn't a guy with a factory saying 'I need three hours of mopping.' and a janitor saying 'I will sell you three hours of mopping.'" No one actually does this. But the guy with the factory does say "I need someone to clean my factory" and a janitor does say "I will clean your factory for $X."

Yes, and that mopping, in and of itself, it completely worthless, without there being a factory there, slaughtering chickens and making a dirty floor in the process. Nor is the slaughtering of chickens a valuable thing, if there isn’t a factory worker there to clean the floors and make sure the chicken remains hygienic.

It is the interaction of the cleaner, the manager, the line worker, the receptionist and everyone else involved in the process that gives value to the whole operation. There is no inherent value in the actions of any individual person.

You're right, he wouldn't do very good as his own nurse, administrator, cleaning, etc. Which is why doctors hire other people to handle those issues.

Exactly. It’s like you don’t even know what you’re arguing against, but you’re determined to argue against it.

You're also ignoring the fact that for quite a long time many doctors did operate independently and not "as part of a complex medical system." If you had an ailment, you called a doctor who might operate out of his house or would make housecalls. He would charge you a flat or hourly fee. Medical care suffered because doctors did do all (or most) of their own nursing, administration and cleaning, meaning that they spent less time honing their skills as a physician.

So the existence of a sole trader means that larger, more complex organisations don’t exist. What the hell?

With the advent of modern hospitals and clinics, doctors have been able to specialize their skills (and that's what makes a market more efficient, specialization) without having to worry about sundry duties. Medical care has improved as a result; I'd much rather have a modern surgeon operate on me than a 19th century sawbones, even given the same tools.

Yes, exactly. Specialisation allows for greater efficiency and improved results. I dearly love that you’ve launched into arguing against me without bothering the read what I’m saying, and accidentally ended up repeating my own argument.

I like how you just throw the word "fair" in there at the end as if it somehow strengthens your argument. In fact, it muddies your whole comment because what is "fair" is an individual and subjective measure.

Well, obviously it’s subjective. That’s the point, there is no objective measure of what a person is really worth. Which is why the simplicity of ‘you are worth what you are paid’ is such a hopelessly shallow measure.

Stepping away from the medical system for a moment, are you going to argue that there's a hugely complicated janitorial services market?

I’m going to argue that the value of janitorial services is dependant on the value of other systems in place around the janitor. This is evident in the fact that a janitor in a hospital in New York is priced more highly than a janitor in a hospital in Burkina Faso. And note the the doctor in Burkina Faso is also paid a lot less than his counterpart in New York.

This is my point. That a person’s worth is not fixed, but defined by their interaction within the system. You can't isolate one part of that system and determine it's true, absolute value. Instead you have to guess. Pricing that labour under the market is a good starting point, but one with well established systemic flaws. So we do what we can to modify those systemic flaws (minimum wages, progressive tax), this is not perfect, but it remains infinitely preferable to just pretending those systemic flaws don't exist.

I would be a [see forum posting rules]?

sebster wrote:I’m going to argue that the value of janitorial services is dependant on the value of other systems in place around the janitor. This is evident in the fact that a janitor in a hospital in New York is priced more highly than a janitor in a hospital in Burkina Faso. And note the the doctor in Burkina Faso is also paid a lot less than his counterpart in New York.

Yes, welcome to understanding capitalism. The value of a person's labor is not fixed, instead it depends on the value the person confers by means of his labor. I'm glad you're finally realizing this, insead of insisting that there's some fair labor price that can be controlled

sebster wrote:This is my point. That a person’s worth is not fixed, but defined by their interaction within the system. You can't isolate one part of that system and determine it's true, absolute value. Instead you have to guess.

Of course I agree that you can't establish an absolute value, because that value is subjective. Like I said in my last post.

But you don't have to "guess" at the value, the market takes care of that problem. I offer $5/hour, the guy next door offers $6/hour. Janitors will move next door until his need is met or I raise my offer, because people will work in their own self interests. I'm not "guessing" when I offer a wage, I offer an amount of money that covers my costs and provides an incentive to work for me.

sebster wrote:Pricing that labour under the market is a good starting point, but one with well established systemic flaws.

This is the part where you're creating problems. What are those "well established systemic flaws?" You can't just simply throw out a line like that without any support, especially when it's central to your entire argument.

sebster wrote:So we do what we can to modify those systemic flaws (minimum wages, progressive tax), this is not perfect, but it remains infinitely preferable to just pretending those systemic flaws don't exist.

Is it really preferable? Even assuming those "systemic flaws" exist, which again you haven't identified, do minimum wage laws and progressive taxation actually solve those problems or do they create new problems that are worse than the flaws you're trying to overcome?

biccat wrote:do minimum wage laws and progressive taxation actually solve those problems

Yes, especially when the minimum wage laws are tied to inflation (they usually aren't).

As an aside, do you honestly believe that things like "trickle down economics" actually work, or have you been paying attention to the past twenty years?

The two are, in fact, mutually exclusive.

Melissia wrote:As an aside, do you honestly believe that things like "trickle down economics" actually work, or have you been paying attention to the past twenty years?

The two are, in fact, mutually exclusive.

Are you seriously trying to make the case that government involvement in the economy has decreased in the last 20 years?

biccat wrote:

Melissia wrote:As an aside, do you honestly believe that things like "trickle down economics" actually work, or have you been paying attention to the past twenty years?

The two are, in fact, mutually exclusive.

Are you seriously trying to make the case that government involvement in the economy has decreased in the last 20 years?

What is this, non-sequitur day?

That has nothing to do with what I said. Nothing. At all. Not even remotely.

Melissia wrote:

biccat wrote:Are you seriously trying to make the case that government involvement in the economy has decreased in the last 20 years?

What is this, non-sequitur day?

That has nothing to do with what I said. Nothing. At all. Not even remotely.

Of course it does, assuming you're not making a non-sequitur yourself.

"Trickle down economics" is well understood to be the idea that by providing government welfare to companies the benefits of that welfare will "trickle down" through the channels of commerce and benefit others. Note that this is not at all what I was talking about, so I'm assuming (now) you're not using this argument because it would be a non-sequitur, which you apparently have little taste for.

One alternative definition of "trickle down economics" is as a perjorative for tax cuts. This relies on the uninformed belief that by not taking as much money from someone you're providing them an intrinsic benefit. You probably realize the obvious flaw in this argument.

However, assuming you're taking this view (and arguing in favor of progressive taxation), then I'd point out that the concept of progressive taxation is irrelevant when uncoupled from the broader economic issues I was addressing in Sebster's post. A relevant response would be pointing out what flaws exist in the market economy and how this is rectified by progressive taxation.

Again, assuming you're not engaging in non-sequiturs, this definition of "trickle down economics" is probably not what you intended.

A final definition of "trickle down economics" is as a synonym of supply-side economics. Which is basically the idea that economic growth is best accomplished by removing artificially created barriers to trade and making the market more free. Since it is the government that imposes these artificial barriers, either through regulation or manipulation, government regulation and involvement in the market are relevant as to whether trickle down (or supply-side) economics makes sense.

Because the government has grown over the past 20 years - explosively I might add - to argue that trickle down/supply side economics has been the practice for the last two decades is quite silly, although not outside the realm of possibility.

Therefore, because I assumed you were trying to stay on topic and address the issues being discussed I attributed your use of the term "trickle down" to mean "supply side." My comment then was addressing the fact that the government has not removed barriers to trade over the last 20 years, because as it grows it continues to distort the market.

If you intended one of the other definitions, then I understand how my post might not make sense. But hopefully you understand why those definitions wouldn't make sense in terms of the broader issues we're discussing.

biccat wrote: This relies on the uninformed belief that by not taking as much money from someone you're providing them an intrinsic benefit. You probably realize the obvious flaw in this argument.

There are no flaws in that argument. Not taking Y from X, where Y is beneficial to X, is necessarily beneficial to X. The only way that not taking Y can not be beneficial to X, is if Y is not necessarily beneficial to X which, in this particular case, would entail an argument that X does not benefit from additional money. There are, of course, circumstances in which X would not benefit from additional money, or in which taking said money from X leads to greater benefit, or even circumstances in which X might be harmed as a result of possessing additional money.

biccat wrote:

Melissia wrote:

biccat wrote:Are you seriously trying to make the case that government involvement in the economy has decreased in the last 20 years?

What is this, non-sequitur day?

That has nothing to do with what I said. Nothing. At all. Not even remotely.

Of course it does, assuming you're not making a non-sequitur yourself.

"Trickle down economics" is well understood to be the idea that by providing government welfare to companies the benefits of that welfare will "trickle down" through the channels of commerce and benefit others.

.

I always understood it as the idea that capitalism with fewer government fetters would allow the economy to grow faster, thus enriching everyone else by the wealth inevitably "trickling down" the scale.

At least, that was how Ronald Reagan and Maggie Thatcher promoted it, in order to justify deregulation and anti-union legislation, etc.

biccat wrote:"Trickle down economics" is well understood to be the idea that by providing government welfare to companies the benefits of that welfare will "trickle down" through the channels of commerce and benefit others.

Yeah, and it has never worked.

In the past twenty years we've been seeing deregulation and tax cuts for the rich and big business. And yet despite the government practically bending over backwards for these interestes, our economy's tanked. Repeatedly, without recovery and with very little job growth.

Melissia wrote:In the past twenty years we've been seeing deregulation and tax cuts for the rich and big business. And yet despite the government practically bending over backwards for these interestes, our economy's tanked. Repeatedly, without recovery and with very little job growth.

Um, what?

Under what metric has there been significant deregulation and tax cuts "for the rich and big business"? The number of federal regulations is higher now than ever and "the rich and big business" are paying more of the federal tax burden.

We're talking about the US, right? Not some other country?

Dunno if you've paid attention to the news recently, but in the finance sector has been heavily deregulated, or have had enforcement effectively turned to nothing. It was kind of a big thing when said deregulation ended up leading to a major economic recession. Which we're still in.

Melissia wrote:We're talking about the US, right? Not some other country?

Yup. The one with 80,000 pages of Federal Regulations.

Melissia wrote:Dunno if you've paid attention to the news recently

I have, in fact.

Melissia wrote:but in the finance sector has been heavily deregulated

It has? Are you sure? Could you point out a Congressional bill that deregulated part of the market?

I recall Sarbanes-Oxley in 2002, the Fair Credit Reporting Act in 2003 and Dodd-Frank in 2010. The only recent deregulatory move I recall would be the repeal of Glass-Steagal in 1999.

Melissia wrote:or have had enforcement effectively turned to nothing. It was kind of a big thing when said deregulation ended up leading to a major economic recession. Which we're still in.

You've made this claim many times, usually without any evidence, and completely ignored the role that the government had in creating the financial mess.

Lets start with an easy case: what do you mean by "regulation"? Perhaps a bit more difficult, what type of regulation would have prevented the financial crisis?

biccat wrote:http://x8f.xanga.com/d25e1030c1732278362793/m221730229.jpg

I can throw together a random, unsourced and low quality chart too, but I doubt you'd care either.

Melissia wrote:

biccat wrote:http://x8f.xanga.com/d25e1030c1732278362793/m221730229.jpg

I can throw together a random, unsourced and low quality chart too, but I doubt you'd care either.

I'd just like to let you know that you're probably one of my favorite posters. If you posted more weiner dog pics, you'd probably kick Frazzled out of the top 3.

Wow, a page count. It is as if someone is saying the content of the pages have no bearing. Are you arguing that if we used smaller font it would be more beneficial for business and the economy? (besides from saving paper)

biccat wrote:

Melissia wrote:

biccat wrote:http://x8f.xanga.com/d25e1030c1732278362793/m221730229.jpg

I can throw together a random, unsourced and low quality chart too, but I doubt you'd care either.

I'd just like to let you know that you're probably one of my favorite posters. If you posted more weiner dog pics, you'd probably kick Frazzled out of the top 3.

J-Roc77 wrote:Wow, a page count. It is as if someone is saying the content of the pages have no bearing. Are you arguing that if we used smaller font it would be more beneficial for business and the economy? (besides from saving paper)

There's no easy way to measure the number of federal regulations because no one in the government keeps track of them.

A measure of pages in the federal regulations does give us an idea of the rate of growth of regulations. Presumably you're aware of this.

biccat wrote:The one with 80,000 pages of Federal Regulations.

When the Heritage Foundation is able to point out why the page count of the CFR is not a particularly good measure of regulatory weight, then perhaps you should revisit your evidence.

Yet the CFR also has significant drawbacks as a measure of the regulatory burden. Foremost among these is that the number of pages in a regulation does not necessarily indicate a heavier burden. For instance, a 500-page regulation that outlines numerous exceptions and conditions could actually impose a much lesser burden than a one-line prohibition of a certain activity.

biccat wrote:
It has? Are you sure? Could you point out a Congressional bill that deregulated part of the market?

I recall Sarbanes-Oxley in 2002, the Fair Credit Reporting Act in 2003 and Dodd-Frank in 2010. The only recent deregulatory move I recall would be the repeal of Glass-Steagal in 1999.

Are we now pretending that the number of bills intended to deregulate the finance industry is more important than what steps were actually taken towards deregulation?

dogma wrote:

biccat wrote:The one with 80,000 pages of Federal Regulations.

When the Heritage Foundation is able to point out why the page count of the CFR is not a particularly good measure of regulatory weight, then perhaps you should revisit your evidence.

However, the answer is not easy to determine. There is simply no explicit, complete, and accurate way to track changes in regulatory costs from year to year.26 However, a number of measures can illuminate the picture, albeit imperfectly. Together, they may provide a fair picture of what is happening in the regulatory world. Among these are:
Number of Federal Register Pages.
...
Length of the Code of Federal Regulations.
...
Number of Major Rulemaking Proceedings.
...
Cost Estimates.

Thanks for the support.

dogma wrote:Are we now pretending that the number of bills intended to deregulate the finance industry is more important than what steps were actually taken towards deregulation?

If you've got some evidence of deregulation other than platitudes, I'd certainly be interested in hearing it.

I think what you're trying to do is called affirming the consequent.

Biccat, I find it odd that you regularly claim that other posters who post graphs and sources not to your liking are poor examples and that the posters do not know what graphs and sources are good ones. Then you go and post a page count saying that magically a large number of pages proves your point without any reference to the content of the pages written in the documents. It is almost as if you have no grasp of what your graph shows or are purposefully trolling as you have yet to prove a decent point in your favor. If your point was that the entirety of Federal Regulations is a lengthy read well then, you have shown that and nothing else.

J-Roc77 wrote:Biccat, I find it odd that you regularly claim that other posters who post graphs and sources not to your liking are poor examples and that the posters do not know what graphs and sources are good ones.

Welcome to the internet!

Protip: Sources that disagree with you are biased.

/resumes lurking cringe-inducing thread

Monster Rain wrote:

J-Roc77 wrote:Biccat, I find it odd that you regularly claim that other posters who post graphs and sources not to your liking are poor examples and that the posters do not know what graphs and sources are good ones.

Welcome to the internet!

Protip: Sources that disagree with you are biased.

/resumes lurking cringe-inducing thread

Don't listen to MR, he is biased against the internet, and somewhat to charts and graphs. He was beaten up by the internet as a child and has held a grudge ever since.

Ahtman wrote:Don't listen to MR, he is biased against the internet, and somewhat to charts and graphs. He was beaten up by the internet as a child and has held a grudge ever since.

My uncle would get all hopped up on internetz and... I don't want to talk about it.

Monster Rain wrote:

Ahtman wrote:Don't listen to MR, he is biased against the internet, and somewhat to charts and graphs. He was beaten up by the internet as a child and has held a grudge ever since.

My uncle would get all hopped up on internetz and... I don't want to talk about it.

Finally the level headed posters take the thread in a direction we can all agree on.

I have talked with biccat before about his appalling posting style. I usually say nothing but sometimes the hypocrisy is too thick! I admit, I sometimes take troll bait when I have free time.

Oh biccat isn't alone in this, by any means.

biccat wrote:If you've got some evidence of deregulation other than platitudes

Gramm-Leach-Bliley ring a bell?

It repealed a HUGE amount of regulation involving the finance sector, including Glass-Steagal, and was directly responsible for us having megabanks that are too large to let fail.

Really, almost every major example of deregulation has had a disastrous aftermath.

Melissia wrote:

biccat wrote:If you've got some evidence of deregulation other than platitudes

Gramm-Leach-Bliley ring a bell?

It repealed a HUGE amount of regulation involving the finance sector, including Glass-Steagal, and was directly responsible for us having megabanks that are too large to let fail.

Really, almost every major example of deregulation has had a disastrous aftermath.

Strangely enough, every major example of regulation has had a disastrous aftermath. Also, Gramm-Leach-Bliley was the Glass-Steagal repeal I referenced above.

Also, what about airport deregulation?

J-Roc77 wrote:Biccat, I find it odd that you regularly claim that other posters who post graphs and sources not to your liking are poor examples and that the posters do not know what graphs and sources are good ones.

I do?

Oh wait, I don't.

Glad we cleared that up.

biccat wrote:Strangely enough, every major example of regulation has had a disastrous aftermath.

So you really believe that any and all regulation is bad no matter what always all the time?

Seriously, Biccat?

My fallacy counter just broke.

It's been smoking for the past couple of pages, but it finally died.