(03-15-2022, 10:21 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(03-14-2022, 03:09 PM)JasonBlack Wrote:

(03-14-2022, 11:49 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(03-14-2022, 08:34 AM)JasonBlack Wrote:

Quote:Raise taxes on the wealthy; not to confiscatory levels, but at least to Clinton era levels, and even higher on those making the most money.

This part is very, very important. No society needs to return to the 91% top tax bracket that we peaked at during the high. Imo, the problem is less the tax rates and more the tax loopholes.

The high rates weren't there to raise money.  They were there to discourage greed.  In the 1950s, the ratio of the company President to his workers was roughly 30.  Now, the CEO gets 300-400 times their pay.  A little effective disincentive is well in order, and soon.  If things proceed apace, we'll soon need to begin taxing wealth, not just income.  In fact, we may be there already.

The problem isn't "greed" in the first place. It's lobbying, cheating, extortionist labor contracts and a bureaucratic mess which breeds dishonesty and lack of accountability. Currently, the left thinks we need more regulation and more taxes, the right thinks we need less regulation and less taxes. Both are wrong. We need to replace the fossilized, ineffectual regulation with updated regulation that has actual teeth, and focus less on the tax rates vs on closing the loopholes that allow the rich to pay less taxes than the rich even with high theoretical tax rates.

y 
All you say is true, but it still fails on one level.  We are now at the end of 40+ years of a social model that empowered individuals but restrained the commons.  What has that produced?  As you note, regulatory capture is a major "success", at least it is for the powerful who did the capturing.  Tax restraint has guaranteed that needed spending will never happen -- only spending with strong support by the same individuals and groups that captured our regulatory apparatus. Unless you are already part of the top, you missed out and aren't likely to join them.

Since this has had an open run of 40+ years, the imbalances that have been created can't be addressed by "leveling the playing field".  The playing field needs to be tilted in reverse, at least for a while, so we can finally produce something approximating general prosperity, and repair old and create new infrastructure -- physical and social.  At some point, that will also become a net negative, and the return to individualism will return ... but not soon.

(03-18-2022, 08:17 PM)JasonBlack Wrote:

(03-15-2022, 10:21 AM)David Horn Wrote: All you say is true, but it still fails on one level.  We are now at the end of 40+ years of a social model that empowered individuals but restrained the commons.  What has that produced?  As you note, regulatory capture is a major "success", at least it is for the powerful who did the capturing.  Tax restraint has guaranteed that needed spending will never happen -- only spending with strong support by the same individuals and groups that captured our regulatory apparatus. Unless you are already part of the top, you missed out and aren't likely to join them.

Since this has had an open run of 40+ years, the imbalances that have been created can't be addressed by "leveling the playing field".  The playing field needs to be tilted in reverse, at least for a while, so we can finally produce something approximating general prosperity, and repair old and create new infrastructure -- physical and social.  At some point, that will also become a net negative, and the return to individualism will return ... but not soon.

edit: I misread. what does "tilting the playing field in reverse" entail? I really don't like the sound of that (it sounds like confiscation, witch hunts, and "sins of the father" style retribution, not like building up a new middle class)

JasonBlack Wrote:The part I disagree with is that focusing on empowering the individual vs empowering society is a false dichotomy. We want to empower a society which empowers the individual. The GIs did a very good job of this. The boomers rightly called them out for narrowly focusing on straight white people rather than trying to empower Americans of all races and sexualities (they also did so at the appropriate time, choosing a 2T to wage moral warfare rather than a 4T), but the basic idea of building a society that promotes confident, vigorous individuals is a win-win for everyone, not a proposition that requires sacrificing one for the sake of the other.

(02-19-2022, 04:24 PM)galaxy Wrote:

(02-19-2022, 09:14 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(02-18-2022, 08:57 PM)galaxy Wrote:

(02-17-2022, 08:34 PM)JasonBlack Wrote:

(02-17-2022, 03:50 PM)galaxy Wrote: Me: Civic/Adaptive borderline, more Civic than Adaptive. Born in January 2001, currently aged 21, student, from Missouri.

last year for Civic births is 2004, you're in firmly my squad bro (1991 Millennial here. guess that makes me middle wave and you late wave)

The divide is somewhere in the middle of 2002, depending on location and individual factors, with a hard limit at November 3, 2002 being the last day a Millennial could be born.

That's a tad deterministic, don't you think?  History is not determinant like physics or chemistry.  There is no magic formula that makes it all clear.  We can agree that the 2002-4 timeframe marks the end of the Millennial generation (in most places -- there are bound to be exceptions) but driving a stake in the ground and declaring a distinct difference on each side can't make sense.  The idea of cusps has been well established in the S&H framework; members of the ~2001-5 cohorts will be cuspy by definition.  

History never changes that fast unless something of a catastrophic nature occurs.  Nothing like that happened anytime in the near vicinity except 9/11, and no one claims that as definitive anymore.

Perhaps I've been a little too deterministic, but I really do feel very strongly that voting (or at least being old enough to vote) in the 2020 election is an important marker of Millennialism (as well as graduating high school in the Class of 2020 or earlier).

Also, when I referred to location, I was referring to lockdowns. Someone born in 2002 who lived in Montana in spring 2020 (where schools actually reopened in-person for a few weeks in May, one of the only places where that was possible) will probably be more Millennial than someone born in 2002 living in New York City in spring 2020. It has to do with reaching certain societally-determined (but admittedly vaguely defined) "markers of entry into adulthood" before the Crisis really gets serious.

We see the GI generation end the same way - most of those born after 1925 were not "old enough to be of consequence" (for lack of a better phrase) before the war ended.


The cusp cohorts, by the way, are defined by memory of the events of 2001 and memory of the events of 2008 respectively. So roughly 1998 to 2004. Though I personally still prefer a tripartite division of the Millennial generation (roughly 1982-1988, 1988-1996, 1996-2002).

(03-19-2022, 09:06 AM)David Horn Wrote: We don't have any need to look back for demons. They're here today. Today's rich and powerful have played the role of Svengali to a tee. In response, our first step: convince the victims that they are, in fact, victims. The second step: reclaim what has been stolen.

Quote:Now, you seem to support the argument that, "This is mine, I stole it fair and square." And yes, the powerful have used the tools intended to restrain them to restrain us and maximize benefits to themselves. Here's the question: is turnabout fair play? I say yes in spades.

Quote:The GIs, including my own parents, maximized benefits to them and theirs, and limited who got to be part of the tribe for reasons unrelated to their own actions. They were still 19th century thinkers. Let's not laud them for being wise in that regard, but let's agree that shared responsibility, including burden sharing, is no longer optional. Let's make the burden and the benefits more broadly shared, certainly. But let's not give the rapacious a free pass to keep their ill gotten gains either.

(03-14-2022, 08:34 AM)JasonBlack Wrote:

Quote:raise taxes on the wealthy; not to confiscatory levels, but at least to Clinton era levels, and even higher on those making the most money.

This part is very, very important. No society needs to return to the 91% top tax bracket that we peaked at during the high. Imo, the problem is less the tax rates and more the tax loopholes.

(03-19-2022, 09:01 PM)JasonBlack Wrote:

(03-19-2022, 09:06 AM)David Horn Wrote: We don't have any need to look back for demons.  They're here today.  Today's rich and powerful have played the role of Svengali to a tee.  In response, our first step: convince the victims that they are, in fact, victims.  The second step: reclaim what has been stolen.

 
lumping all the rich and powerful into a single group is ideologically lazy at best. alas, "2 easy steps" is not how wealth redistribution works, regardless of whether of the means thereof are political or violent. Arms dealers, politicians, doctors, private business owners, lobbyists and savvy investors are all rich, but neither their methods, their personalities nor the honesty of their dealings are all that comparable.

JasonBlack Wrote:

David Horn Wrote:Now, you seem to support the argument that, "This is mine, I stole it fair and square."  And yes, the powerful have used the tools intended to restrain them to restrain us and maximize benefits to themselves.  Here's the question: is turnabout fair play?  I say yes in spades.

Don't get me wrong, I will shoot anyone in the head who tries to break onto my property and steal what belongs to me. This; however, is not the main thrust of my argument because that isn't something I expect you to care much about.

1. Socialist rebellions have a poor track record of success, and an even poorer track record of maintaining civil liberties or quality of life even when they do, whether that's the USSR, Maoist China, Allende's Chile, Venezuela or, perhaps most gruesomely, The Khmer Rouge in Cambodia.
   
2. millennials aren't that much more fiscally liberal than their Gen X and boomer elders. certainly not enough to rally behind a leader of that ilk
   
3. you would need to get most of the military on your side, and they definitely aren't socialist
   
4. take way property rights and people have little incentive to work (unless you're going luddite with it and want to start an agricultural commune.
   

those can have reasonable success, but even then usually only for like 20 years tops. most don't last 1)

JasonBlack Wrote:

David Horn Wrote:The GIs, including my own parents, maximized benefits to them and theirs, and limited who got to be part of the tribe for reasons unrelated to their own actions.  They were still 19th century thinkers.  Let's not laud them for being wise in that regard, but let's agree that shared responsibility, including burden sharing, is no longer optional.  Let's make the burden and the benefits more broadly shared, certainly.  But let's not give the rapacious a free pass to keep their ill gotten gains either.

keep in mind they built the highways and put in the dues to ensure your generation could attend university far more easily than my own (I had the privilege of going myself, for which I am grateful, but I chose a route that did not require a degree).

(03-20-2022, 09:08 AM)David Horn Wrote: There are two issues here.  First, the need to restrain ROI, greatly increase the economy's growth rate or both is basic math.  Failure will lead to all wealth in very few hands with little ability to change it.  Second, the core structure of the economy should not be based on a model that makes monopsony the default.  Sorry, but that's where we are today, and that's a no-fault-no-foul model for penury -- evil not required.

Quote:Now, you seem to support the argument that, "This is mine, I stole it fair and square."  And yes, the powerful have used the tools intended to restrain them to restrain us and maximize benefits to themselves.  Here's the question: is turnabout fair play?  I say yes in spades.

Quote:You should be careful about putting words in other people's mouths.  No one in their right mind wants a dictatorship of the left any more than one on the right.  My models are Sweden and Finland, not the USSR. You set up a strawman to knock him down.  If your basic premise is wrong, so is the rest of your argument.  And it's odd that you mention the most socialist enterprise in the nation: our military.  They are provided benefits no one else gets -- from raising their hands to taek the oath until they die.  I know, I'm still benefitting from my service 50 years ago. And again, you try to make a point no one is making.  Private ownership of property is fine with me.  I certainly have some.

Quote:This is the problem with our bifurcated politics.  In the last 1T, and I believe the next one too, the liberal view of economic policy was king, but the conservatives controlled the culture.  So we had all the things you mentioned and a stifling culture to enjoy them in.  The last 2T was inevitable, and the next will be as well.

(03-20-2022, 09:08 AM)David Horn Wrote: This is the problem with our bifurcated politics.  In the last 1T, and I believe the next one too, the liberal view of economic policy was king, but the conservatives controlled the culture.  So we had all the things you mentioned and a stifling culture to enjoy them in.  The last 2T was inevitable, and the next will be as well.

(03-20-2022, 08:28 PM)galaxy Wrote:

(03-20-2022, 09:08 AM)David Horn Wrote: This is the problem with our bifurcated politics.  In the last 1T, and I believe the next one too, the liberal view of economic policy was king, but the conservatives controlled the culture.  So we had all the things you mentioned and a stifling culture to enjoy them in.  The last 2T was inevitable, and the next will be as well.

What's fascinating - and what I didn't expect - is that it looks like the liberals, after taking control of the culture during the 2010s as the 3T bible-thumping moralism died down, are turning into the new conservatives. I did not see that coming, and I'm not completely sure how to feel about it.

(03-21-2022, 04:28 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: How would I, a boomer, change our government? Rid it of neoliberalism. That would about do it. The rest would follow, as we are freed to deal with our problems and needs.

http://philosopherswheel.com/freemarket.html

(02-18-2022, 08:57 PM)galaxy Wrote:

(02-17-2022, 08:34 PM)JasonBlack Wrote:

(02-17-2022, 03:50 PM)galaxy Wrote: Me: Civic/Adaptive borderline, more Civic than Adaptive. Born in January 2001, currently aged 21, student, from Missouri.

last year for Civic births is 2004, you're in firmly my squad bro (1991 Millennial here. guess that makes me middle wave and you late wave)

The divide is somewhere in the middle of 2002, depending on location and individual factors, with a hard limit at November 3, 2002 being the last day a Millennial could be born.

(03-21-2022, 10:04 AM)beechnut79 Wrote:

(03-21-2022, 04:28 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: How would I, a boomer, change our government? Rid it of neoliberalism. That would about do it. The rest would follow, as we are freed to deal with our problems and needs.

http://philosopherswheel.com/freemarket.html

Not too long ago I actually posted about this here. That neoliberalism, aka Reaganomics, has remained on the shelf long after what should have been its sell by date. It is now anyone's guess when the stench might be removed from the shelf. Any guesses?

And, big money corrupts everything it touches. Any questions?

(03-20-2022, 09:08 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(03-19-2022, 09:01 PM)JasonBlack Wrote:

(03-19-2022, 09:06 AM)David Horn Wrote: We don't have any need to look back for demons.  They're here today.  Today's rich and powerful have played the role of Svengali to a tee.  In response, our first step: convince the victims that they are, in fact, victims.  The second step: reclaim what has been stolen.

 
lumping all the rich and powerful into a single group is ideologically lazy at best. alas, "2 easy steps" is not how wealth redistribution works, regardless of whether of the means thereof are political or violent. Arms dealers, politicians, doctors, private business owners, lobbyists and savvy investors are all rich, but neither their methods, their personalities nor the honesty of their dealings are all that comparable.

There are two issues here.  First, the need to restrain ROI, greatly increase the economy's growth rate or both is basic math.  Failure will lead to all wealth in very few hands with little ability to change it.  Second, the core structure of the economy should not be based on a model that makes monopsony the default.  Sorry, but that's where we are today, and that's a no-fault-no-foul model for penury -- evil not required.

Quote:

JasonBlack Wrote:

David Horn Wrote:Now, you seem to support the argument that, "This is mine, I stole it fair and square."  And yes, the powerful have used the tools intended to restrain them to restrain us and maximize benefits to themselves.  Here's the question: is turnabout fair play?  I say yes in spades.

Don't get me wrong, I will shoot anyone in the head who tries to break onto my property and steal what belongs to me. This; however, is not the main thrust of my argument because that isn't something I expect you to care much about.

1. Socialist rebellions have a poor track record of success, and an even poorer track record of maintaining civil liberties or quality of life even when they do, whether that's the USSR, Maoist China, Allende's Chile, Venezuela or, perhaps most gruesomely, The Khmer Rouge in Cambodia.
   
2. millennials aren't that much more fiscally liberal than their Gen X and boomer elders. certainly not enough to rally behind a leader of that ilk
   
3. you would need to get most of the military on your side, and they definitely aren't socialist
   
4. take way property rights and people have little incentive to work (unless you're going luddite with it and want to start an agricultural commune.
   

those can have reasonable success, but even then usually only for like 20 years tops. most don't last 1)

You should be careful about putting words in other people's mouths.  No one in their right mind wants a dictatorship of the left any more than one on the right.  My models are Sweden and Finland, not the USSR. You set up a strawman to knock him down.  If your basic premise is wrong, so is the rest of your argument.  And it's odd that you mention the most socialist enterprise in the nation: our military.  They are provided benefits no one else gets -- from raising their hands to taek the oath until they die.  I know, I'm still benefitting from my service 50 years ago. And again, you try to make a point no one is making.  Private ownership of property is fine with me.  I certainly have some.

Quote:

JasonBlack Wrote:

David Horn Wrote:The GIs, including my own parents, maximized benefits to them and theirs, and limited who got to be part of the tribe for reasons unrelated to their own actions.  They were still 19th century thinkers.  Let's not laud them for being wise in that regard, but let's agree that shared responsibility, including burden sharing, is no longer optional.  Let's make the burden and the benefits more broadly shared, certainly.  But let's not give the rapacious a free pass to keep their ill gotten gains either.

keep in mind they built the highways and put in the dues to ensure your generation could attend university far more easily than my own (I had the privilege of going myself, for which I am grateful, but I chose a route that did not require a degree).

This is the problem with our bifurcated politics.  In the last 1T, and I believe the next one too, the liberal view of economic policy was king, but the conservatives controlled the culture.  So we had all the things you mentioned and a stifling culture to enjoy them in.  The last 2T was inevitable, and the next will be as well.

(03-21-2022, 12:56 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Indeed. Perhaps Jason will enjoy our next 1T, and I won't. I am already totally out of step with Millennial and Gen Z youth culture. What's that Japanese video game people here seem to know about, and I don't? Things won't be exactly the same next time around starting in 2029, but it'll be enough alike so that the cycle goes on. Well, at least unless and until it doesn't. We get off Reaganomics in the 2020s, or we don't turn the cycle. I admit, a start has been made with such actions as the American Rescue Plan and the Infrastructure Bill. A tax increase on the wealthy is still the biggest missing piece, as well as greater action on climate change. Unending rises in the national debt, continued accelerating climate breakdown, and continued gross inequality, will not bring us into the next first turning. We can't get every change we want in the next 7 years, but we must turn the corner.

If we do, then the 1T should see some consolidation of policies begin in the 2020s, and the 2T's early years a further acceleration in the right direction. Let us hope.

(03-21-2022, 12:56 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Indeed. Perhaps Jason will enjoy our next 1T, and I won't. I am already totally out of step with Millennial and Gen Z youth culture. What's that Japanese video game people here seem to know about, and I don't? Things won't be exactly the same next time around starting in 2029, but it'll be enough alike so that the cycle goes on. Well, at least unless and until it doesn't. We get off Reaganomics in the 2020s, or we don't turn the cycle. I admit, a start has been made with such actions as the American Rescue Plan and the Infrastructure Bill. A tax increase on the wealthy is still the biggest missing piece, as well as greater action on climate change. Unending rises in the national debt, continued accelerating climate breakdown, and continued gross inequality, will not bring us into the next first turning. We can't get every change we want in the next 7 years, but we must turn the corner.

If we do, then the 1T should see some consolidation of policies begin in the 2020s, and the 2T's early years a further acceleration in the right direction. Let us hope.

(03-22-2022, 10:40 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(03-21-2022, 12:56 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Indeed. Perhaps Jason will enjoy our next 1T, and I won't. I am already totally out of step with Millennial and Gen Z youth culture. What's that Japanese video game people here seem to know about, and I don't? Things won't be exactly the same next time around starting in 2029, but it'll be enough alike so that the cycle goes on. Well, at least unless and until it doesn't. We get off Reaganomics in the 2020s, or we don't turn the cycle. I admit, a start has been made with such actions as the American Rescue Plan and the Infrastructure Bill. A tax increase on the wealthy is still the biggest missing piece, as well as greater action on climate change. Unending rises in the national debt, continued accelerating climate breakdown, and continued gross inequality, will not bring us into the next first turning. We can't get every change we want in the next 7 years, but we must turn the corner.

If we do, then the 1T should see some consolidation of policies begin in the 2020s, and the 2T's early years a further acceleration in the right direction. Let us hope.

I'm a lot less sanguine about this 4T's progress than you are.  What's really changed so far?  Nothing of substance.  Yes, we were able to pass a huge Band-Aid Bill because the pandemic made in mandatory.  What we haven't even discussed seriously is the necessary restructuring of the economy to put a serious damper on wealth accretion at the tip and raise the basic pay structure for the rest of us to something similar to the one we saw in the last 4T-1T.  To be honest, our goal should be to make this saeculum superior to the last.  Without that, we will have made negative progress, and that's a dangerous precedent.

(03-24-2022, 06:10 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: Of course. I'm not sanguine either; maybe less so, because of the realization that we have to turn the corner in the next 7 years or we go off a cliff forever, and we haven't made much of a turn yet, really. The crisis mindset is increasing; perhaps that offers some hope.

(03-24-2022, 12:21 PM)JasonBlack Wrote:

(03-24-2022, 06:10 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: Of course. I'm not sanguine either; maybe less so, because of the realization that we have to turn the corner in the next 7 years or we go off a cliff forever, and we haven't made much of a turn yet, really. The crisis mindset is increasing; perhaps that offers some hope.

This much we agree on. People still hold onto delusional ideals and want some sort of government or heroic figure to rescue them, but no one can rescue a person from bad character and principles, and this is 30x more true of a nation than it is a person.