The purpose of the stimulus package isn't to increase productivity. It's to increase spending. Please explain why extending unemployment benefits and giving out more food stamps will not increase spending.
Not quite...here is a better way to put it. Those capable of working hard but refuse to do so deserve to not have enough to eat.
The purpose of the stimulus package isn't to increase productivity or increase consumer spending. It's to pander to constituents.
Did you hear me say that? I said that people who are productive will have enough to eat. Dannytoone did a nice job of spelling it out a little more clearly for us.
The threat of starvation would encourage more productivity. I figure, if they can't find a job, let them starve. That sounds very American to me. Just like baseball and apple pie, that idea. Well, apple pie for the productive. As for unemployment benefits, they are for a limited amount of time. It's not like people laze around on their couches, indefinitely collecting huge sums. The idea behind extending unemployment benefits is to prop up people who are having trouble finding a job, and allow them to continue pumping money into the economy along with all the "productive" folks.
And what about the inverse of that? Those who aren't capable of being "productive." They get to starve?
Ya know, I had that thought as well. Now I work in a level 2 (out of 5) prision (non-violent, average stay is about 7 months) and the number of inmates who would rather steal/sell drugs/etc. than work is significant. Part of the factor is that they don't have jobs available to them. Now there are all sorts of arguements about moving to the jobs, etc. But when one lacks the confidence to live a responsable life in a single location, what makes you think they will move to the jobs, etc.? I would also argue that most of these guys are physically able and mentally able to work, but are social retards which renders them unable (and, subsiquently has landed them in prision). Do these people not deserve to eat?
I love it when 7th graders try to philosophize. And I love it even more when they try to talk economics. Next up: "Why Spiderman would totally kick Batman's ass".
This again proves my point that libertarians hate efficiency. First, would you rather that people be robbed, criminals be policed, and jails be built rather than offer some cheap support that prevents all three? Second, wold you really want the worst 4% of people doing jobs? The 4% least able to show up, the least able to do tasks, the least able to follow rules? It would hurt the economy more to have them working than not. You have to remember that civilization was designed for man, but man was not designed for civilization. We are animals, and we have that wide variability that serves species in the wild. A variability that happens to be wider than can be absorbed by the confines of civilization. And if your only option for those people are harassment and deprivation, then they won't see a problem in taking that civilization down. It happens all the time, and don't think it can't happen here.
sorry, but you are going to have to prove that giving a criminal food stamps will make him significantly less likely to steal or murder. Somehow, I don't think you are going to find it. If that were the case, New Orleans would be a bastion of peace and rule of law. Second, your argument that it would be worse to have them working than not is absolutely ridiculous, from nearly every economic perspective out there. Even shitbrains provide economic benefit when they work, no matter how much less capability they have.
I used to be one many years ago, after all. If you never got that far in school, I could see why you'd never be able to remember what it was like to be able to relate. And remember: wherever you go, there you are.
Not all libertarians hate efficiency although even the most thoughtful make several errors in reasoning about politics and economics. Glibetarians like danny (ie. dorm-room bullshit "libertarians" who just mouth the catchphrases and talking points without any understanding of their larger implications) are probably closer to your description although most of them would even balk at jails because then they'd have to pay taxes for police, the jails, the guards, the prisoners' food, etc. So basically glibertarians hate civilization because they think it costs too much. Glibertarians -and even libertarians to a slightly lesser extent- just can't seem to grasp the concept of enlightened self-interest. Somewhere along the way, they lose the "enlightened" bit. They also don't recognize the Law of Unintended Consequences and therefore cannot understand how their ideas would lead to the exact opposite of liberty.
No silly, he wants them dead. He wants them out of the way. They aren't convenient so we should just let them starve to death so we don't have to deal with them. It's a special kind of coldness embodied by my boss who regularly refers to the homeless as "human trash" even though if he hadn't inherited his money, he'd be right out there with them because he's borderline retarded. But I digress.