Krugman Advocates for DEATH & TAXES

[Oddball]

The GI bill went far, far beyond providing compensation. It created a wide range of social welfare programs for returning GI's. It was the largest example of social engineering this nation has ever created, and it was not done simply to "benefit" soldiers in exchange for their efforts.

Wrong, yet again.

The GIs had choice as to whether they'd further their education or not...Do-gooder social engineers prefer to force everyone into the technocratic mold.

Of course! and welfare recipients have a choice as to whether to participate in TANF.

Your streak continues, Tom!

Welfare recipients are directed to sign up for as many handouts as possible, when they come into contact with the lardasses at social services departments.

Back when I was foolish enough to believe dingleberry bureaucrats were really acting in my best interests, I went to a MN state job services program...The only way I was allowed anywhere near their job listings was to be signed up for every program they offered, which could possibly apply to me.

You lose again, in the experience with actual reality department, tovarich.

 

[BlindBoo]

Technology made child labor and slave labor too expensive.

The invention of the Cotton Gin increase slave labor. The industrial machines required small hands of children for maintenence.

The Civil War made slavery too expensive. The socialist movement outlawed child labor.

 

[Oddball]

More revisionist nonsense.

Steam engines driving cotton gins and textile looms are much cheaper, less bothersome and more productive than slaves or children.

 

[8537]

Wrong, yet again.

The GIs had choice as to whether they'd further their education or not...Do-gooder social engineers prefer to force everyone into the technocratic mold.

Of course! and welfare recipients have a choice as to whether to participate in TANF.

Your streak continues, Tom!

Welfare recipients are directed to sign up for as many handouts as possible, when they come into contact with the lardasses at social services departments.

If only that were true, Tom. If only that were true....

But since most states pay a portion of their own TANF and other benefits, the idea is long passed. I'm sure you heard that from Rush etal, but it's only true in the poorest of states that still use the federal poverty level calculations.

You lose again, in the experience with actual reality department.

 

[8537]

Technological advances explain those much better than merely being a product of progressive authoritarian central control.

Technology led to the end of child labor? Technology forced companies to control pollution levels? Methinks you have the cause and effect backwards there, Tom.

And of course, you forget that as it pertains to medicine, much of the advancements in the past century were based on research from (gasp!) subsidized educational institutions, the NIH and (double gasp!!) government-issued grants.

Technology made child labor and slave labor too expensive.

Please explain that one, Tom. There's a hell of a lot of technology in China, but they still employ 13 y.os.

Moreover, pollution = waste, which affects bottom lines...Of course, you conveniently overlook the greatest industrial polluter in America: the US federal gubmint.

you can't be serious. pollution is a waste that doesn't impact the bottom line. We call that an externality.

Your comment about NIH and gubmint grants is non sequitur, as it presumes those medical breakthroughs wouldn't have been made in absence of those confiscatory redistributionist schemes, which you damned well know is a fallacious presumption.

No, it's not an assumption. It's a fact. When you subsidize something, you get more of it, quicker. We subsidized medical tech, and got more medical tech.

You can argument against the most basic economic concepts, but it only makes you more wrong.

But I really don't expect know-it-all central authoritarian types to admit that the hoi polloiy can actually figure out things for themselves, without your technocratic do-goodery at our heels every step of the way.

And I don't expect jackboot semi-fascist acolytes of anything spewed by the far-right ideologues to ever crease open their mind the slightest bit. You don't disappoint.

 

[8537]

More revisionist nonsense.

Steam engines driving cotton gins and textile looms are much cheaper, less bothersome and more productive than slaves or children.

Then why did children and slaves drive cotton gins instead of steam engines?

That's a rhetorical question. Think, then respond.

 

[daveman]

The USA did wonderful with the draft. A great equalizer.

Does anyone seriously think we would have stayed in Iraq and Afghanistan as long as we have if a draft had been in effect?


bring back the draft under a national service program.

more socialism now!

In case you haven't noticed, the armed forces have advanced technologically since we had a draft. You expect conscripts to be about to do as well as volunteers?

I don't. I'd much rather serve alongside someone who wants to be there and is motivated to excel than someone who has to be there.

advanced technology? Oh my!!!!! Draftees were used when nuclear technology was introduced into the military.

How much has general staff pay and benefits increased since the draft was canceled?

It's kept up with inflation -- not much more. No one joins the military to get rich.

 

[daveman]

There's a big difference: soldiers perform a valuable service to the country; welfare recipients don't.

And that's what the "the military is socialist!!" idiots can't understand.

 

[editec]

oF course HEALTH CARE ALREADY HAS DEATH PANELS.

We call those death panels health care insurance companies.

So the question isn't "Ought we limit the amount of money we'll pay?"

The question is" How to we fund what we DO pay for.

This ought not to be too hard for people to understand IF they aren't idealogues who are faith based idiots.

And by faith I do NOT mean religious faith, I mean faith in a mythical economic system.

 

[BlindBoo]

More revisionist nonsense.

Steam engines driving cotton gins and textile looms are much cheaper, less bothersome and more productive than slaves or children.

According to the Eli Whitney Museum site:

Whitney (who died in 1825) could not have foreseen the ways in which his invention would change society for the worse. The most significant of these was the growth of slavery. While it was true that the cotton gin reduced the labor of removing seeds, it did not reduce the need for slaves to grow and pick the cotton. In fact, the opposite occurred. Cotton growing became so profitable for the planters that it greatly increased their demand for both land and slave labor. In 1790 there were six slave states; in 1860 there were 15. From 1790 until Congress banned the importation of slaves from Africa in 1808, Southerners imported 80,000 Africans. By 1860 approximately one in three Southerners was a slave.[10]

 

[Sallow]

There's a big difference: soldiers perform a valuable service to the country; welfare recipients don't.

And I note that Nonsensical Number has no idea how innovation happens in the real world.

There is no difference at all.

Socialism is socialism.

If you are going to discuss it..changing the meaning of the word lessens your argument.

The post office performs a valuable service as well. Doesn't make it any less socialistic.

 

[Big Fitz]

Technology made child labor and slave labor too expensive.

The invention of the Cotton Gin increase slave labor. The industrial machines required small hands of children for maintenence.

The Civil War made slavery too expensive. The socialist movement outlawed child labor.

Because it was competing against adults too effectively and causing social ills with children such as dying young in industrial accidents or being worked to death.

Slavery, Civil War, not withstanding was dying off already purely because the British war on slavers and modernization was eating the institution away. Not to mention the Abolitionists were having effect. Slow effect, but effect none the less.

The Civil War was about states rights. Slavery was just the issue that was the fulcrum. It could have been smoking, or drinking age, or gay marriage. The issue was irrelevant. The Central Government side won.

 

[asterism]

oF course HEALTH CARE ALREADY HAS DEATH PANELS.

We call those death panels health care insurance companies.

So the question isn't "Ought we limit the amount of money we'll pay?"

The question is" How to we fund what we DO pay for.

This ought not to be too hard for people to understand IF they aren't idealogues who are faith based idiots.

And by faith I do NOT mean religious faith, I mean faith in a mythical economic system.

Had the Administration and its surrogates responded to Palin's statements about death panels in that way, I'd put more credibility in your point. However, the response from both was "Nuh uhhh! She's a lunatic."

 

[BlindBoo]

Technology made child labor and slave labor too expensive.

The invention of the Cotton Gin increase slave labor. The industrial machines required small hands of children for maintenence.

The Civil War made slavery too expensive. The socialist movement outlawed child labor.

Because it was competing against adults too effectively and causing social ills with children such as dying young in industrial accidents or being worked to death.

Slavery, Civil War, not withstanding was dying off already purely because the British war on slavers and modernization was eating the institution away. Not to mention the Abolitionists were having effect. Slow effect, but effect none the less.

The Civil War was about states rights. Slavery was just the issue that was the fulcrum. It could have been smoking, or drinking age, or gay marriage. The issue was irrelevant. The Central Government side won.

I'm afraid not. States rights was part of the issue but the cause of the war was that the Southern States seceded from the union over fears that the balance of power between slave and non-slave states was about to shift to the non-slave states. Slavery had been an issue well before the forming of the Constitution. I agree however that Slavery was going to die anyway due to the factors you mentioned.

 

[Toro]

Krugman responds

Death Panels and Sales Taxes

I said something deliberately provocative on This Week, so I think I’d better clarify what I meant (which I did on the show, but it can’t hurt to say it again.)

So, what I said is that the eventual resolution of the deficit problem both will and should rely on “death panels and sales taxes”. What I meant is that

(a) health care costs will have to be controlled, which will surely require having Medicare and Medicaid decide what they’re willing to pay for — not really death panels, of course, but consideration of medical effectiveness and, at some point, how much we’re willing to spend for extreme care

(b) we’ll need more revenue — several percent of GDP — which might most plausibly come from a value-added tax

And if we do those two things, we’re most of the way toward a sustainable budget.

By the way, I’ve said this before.

Now, you may declare that this is politically impossible. But medical costs must be controlled somehow, or nothing works. And is a modest VAT really so much more implausible than ending the mortgage interest deduction?

Death Panels and Sales Taxes - NYTimes.com

 

[boedicca]

Krugman was obviously smacked down for not using obfuscating language to hide the real meaning of his words. He's supposed to speak in the proper code.

 

[The Infidel]

Krugman responds

Death Panels and Sales Taxes

I said something deliberately provocative on This Week, so I think I’d better clarify what I meant (which I did on the show, but it can’t hurt to say it again.)

So, what I said is that the eventual resolution of the deficit problem both will and should rely on “death panels and sales taxes”. What I meant is that

(a) health care costs will have to be controlled, which will surely require having Medicare and Medicaid decide what they’re willing to pay for — not really death panels, of course, but consideration of medical effectiveness and, at some point, how much we’re willing to spend for extreme care

(b) we’ll need more revenue — several percent of GDP — which might most plausibly come from a value-added tax

And if we do those two things, we’re most of the way toward a sustainable budget.

By the way, I’ve said this before.

Now, you may declare that this is politically impossible. But medical costs must be controlled somehow, or nothing works. And is a modest VAT really so much more implausible than ending the mortgage interest deduction?

Death Panels and Sales Taxes - NYTimes.com

Sounds to me like someone got to him.... Now he is back pedalling!

What a hack!

 

[CrusaderFrank]

It's well known, amongst people who know their economic stuff, that Keynesians are closet eugenicists.

It's well know, among people who know their economic stuff, that Oddball is completely and utterly full of shit.

You can tell the man who boozes by the friends he chooses...

Keynes was a proponent of eugenics, having served as Director of the British Eugenics Society from 1937 to 1944. As late as 1946, before his death, Keynes declared eugenics to be "the most important, significant and, I would add, genuine branch of sociology which exists."

John Maynard Keynes - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

John Maynard Keynes was treasurer of the Cambridge University Eugenics Society during its early years, in addition to his involvement with other societies. What is interesting is that there appears to be no mention in biographies of his connection with the Cambridge University Eugenics Society. (???) The fact that he was treasurer and not just a member of the Society indicates that he had a keen interest in being involved. He was also a Council Member of the Eugenics Society in London from 1937-1944 and gave the Galton Lecture in 1937 on "Some Consequences of a Declining Population".

The University of Cambridge Eugenics Society from 1911

Welcome to the closet, Mr. Closetcase.

I agree with 8537, there;s nothing closet about Keynes Eugenics, he's right out in he open with it.