When you sort the comments by "best," this comes up on top:
To answer the writers question, we dont want you to work all the time, we dont give a flying shlt what you do.. We just dont want to have to pay for your life of leisure. Do what you want, leave me alone.
পোস্টগুলি
২৩৭টি মন্তব্য:
237 এর 1 – থেকে 200 আরও নতুন» সবচেয়ে নতুন»I agree with the comment, and I would go further. An economic system that rewards hard work is going to be a more productive economic system than one that rewards talent for goofing off.
Personally, I don't care if someone else works or not as much as I resent the expectation that I should pay to support those who won't work to support themselves.
The core of the guy's argument appears very early and is not hard to miss. He goes on to put the argument in historical perspective and such, but here's his point:
"it’s clear the CBO was talking about workers voluntarily reducing their hours in response to the law—not getting laid off or seeing their shifts scaled back.
And anyway, isn’t that supposed to be a good thing?"
The comment that is rated "best" is doing a hell of a job beating up straw men, but it doesn't do much to counter the point of the essay.
Oh well, I guess the idea that praxis creates consciousness is really just deader than a door nail on the Left.
It used to be all about the Dignity of Labor. Now it's all about the Dignity of Goofing-Off.
Why are there professors of leisure studies?
"Why are there professors of leisure studies?"
There might be people who think we can learn a little about ourselves by studyin and thinking about how we choose to spend our time, how we define "leisure" in our own moment, and how we have done so historically.
But if Eric doesn't find it useful, then fuck it. Obviously.
So you can pay taxes! And support all those programs you think we all should support. Not to mention the self-satisfaction of actually earning one's pay, and not being on the dole (though so many do like that).
"We might then rediscover what Whitman called “higher progress,” and spend less time banging the keyboards in our office cubicles and more time working on humanity—our families, our hobbies, our faiths."
Can't let that happen! That wouldn't be adequately bootstrappy.
The article is hilarious. I doubt "professors of leisure studies" spend many hours beyond the minimum worrying about how to get tenure or publish more scholarly articles.
Ask most successful people about their hours. One of my medical students a few years ago was looking sick. I asked her about it and she told me that she just didn't know how hard she needed to study for the next exam so she over did it.
I doubt harrogate understands that mentality.
My average day when I was in practice was about 12 hours.
My partner used to say "I hope they never find out that I would do this for free.
The political left is still stuck in Marx's time. You can see it in that article.
This is true.
Obama and his crew has progressed to the 1920's, but that is about it.
My partner used to say "I hope they never find out that I would do this for free.
Then why didn't he do it for free? No one was stopping him and there are plenty of dollar-a-year men out there. Empty words.
The GOP wants people who pay for their own health insurance to keep subsidizing those who get it from their employers.
I liked to work and did not mind working hard and long hours to support my family, but I will be damned if I will consent to work like that to support these dingbats "discovering their inner selves!"
@harrowgate,
We might then rediscover what Whitman called “higher progress,” and spend less time banging the keyboards in our office cubicles and more time working on humanity—our families, our hobbies, our faiths."
We already have as much "enforced leisure" as a modern economy can bear in the social democratic states of Europe. Do we see an explosion of entrepreneurial activity in any of them? Is there any evidence that Europeans have built thriving "communities" around their families, hobbies, & faiths vis-a-vis Americans?
The answer to the questions above is "No". What one finds in Europe is that people have spare time but have no disposable income to do anything with it.
The American Right may have its issues, but it more clearly sees the downsides of the European social democratic model than the American left does.
The irony is that the only labor a labor saving devise saves is the wealthy bastard who invented/sold the labor saving technology. Another irony is that having a talent for goofing off is the same talent for goofing with something until you make it work.
Keep your nose to the grindstone wearing a hair shirt and crown of thorns... After you die, then you can goof off for eternity with heyZeus.
The average tax rate is around 50%, which is before other fees and payments. The federal government alone is a $4 trillion operation. If you want the "free" stuff, then you have to work for it. While money can be printed, wealth is created through conversion of natural resources and human labor. If you want more than just necessities; if you want health care; then you will have to work more than someone who settles for a life of leisure.
If Democrats would work as hard at useful work as they do trying to find ways to avoid working, the world would also be "a better place!"
If the government would just get the hell out of the way people would be free to pound nails on roofs until they are 80.
If they want to pound nails on a roof, what's it to you? Not everyone is fragile at 80. Such ageism!
You want to Logan's Run them?
Yes, Yes.Yes!!!!
The comment that is rated "best" is doing a hell of a job beating up straw men, but it doesn't do much to counter the point of the essay.
People only "voluntarily" reduce their hours in response to getting other people's money. It seems to me this objection strawmanily redefines strawman to mean "focuses on something I'd prefer they didn't".
Hagar: Do you mean the democrats of Silicon Valley that drive the world economy??
If the government would get the Hell out of the way, some enterprising nail pounder would invent a better roofing nail pounder (lets call it the Stanford nail pounder), make lots of money, found a university, educate millions of people so they can create other ways to make life better.
What happened to conservative's love of entrepreneurship? What suddenly has become lazy about starting ones own business?
Plenty of a dollar a year people there!
The issue is cost of living. Both redistributive change, and progressive devaluation of capital and labor; as well as unreasonable dreams of sex, money, and ego gratification; marginally productive energy policies; subsidizing foreign energy and natural resource recovery; illegal and excessive immigration; massively (or compensatory) inflated education costs; normalization of abortion; and, of course, longer lifespans; are the cause for people to work longer hours and more years. Except for the last, which is an outcome of improved knowledge and technology, we can thank both the Democrats and Republicans for these policies.
How many will start a business?
Blogger somefeller said...
"My partner used to say "I hope they never find out that I would do this for free.
Then why didn't he do it for free? No one was stopping him and there are plenty of dollar-a-year men out there. Empty words."
Actually, we did a lot of it for free. Something I doubt you'd understand. As for the rest, we didn't have your inherited wealth.
Why do you think I am opposed to amnesty ? I've had my arms up to the elbow in the bellies of more illegal aliens than you have ever met.
T Rellis: No one is stopping you except yourself. You sound like the conspiracy nutters who claim Big Oil suppresses the 100mpg carburetor.
Here’s why Harrogate is wrong:
it’s clear the CBO was talking about workers voluntarily reducing their hours in response to the law — not getting laid off or seeing their shifts scaled back.
Actually, that “voluntary” reduction in hours was the Obama administration’s spin.
The reduction in hours is not simply a "voluntary" choice to work fewer hours. It's due to a change in incentives. The net gain of working additional hours is eclipsed by the phase-out of health insurance subsidies (and higher taxes). If the income derived from working an additional hour is taken away in large part, there’s no incentive to increase one’s work effort or to increase one’s income. As a result, low income working people will confront the negative incentive effects of some of the highest implied marginal tax rates.
In essence, a low income trap has been set against those working poor who wish to improve their circumstance through greater work effort.
As for the “straw man”, who will be paying for the subsidies (and the lost tax revenue)? It’s those whose income is just above the subsidy threshold, either through taxes or higher health insurance premiums.
Well unless Buffet bought them out first....
Blogger Inga said...
"What happened to conservative's love of entrepreneurship? What suddenly has become lazy about starting ones own business?"
Are you going for the Nancy Pelosi prize for inane comments ?
Michael K, how's that sideline biz you do?
Kevin Drum just agreed that helping the poor keeps them in poverty.
But that's the price of feeling good, I guess.
We are constantly being lectured by those on the left about income inequality. The basis for this is the perception that if I have more, somebody else has to have less. By their lights, wealth is a zero-sum game. What then is the effect of having millions fewer wealth producers on the books? Answer: we all get poorer.
In reality wealth production is synergistic. Adding my labor to the market doesn't just increase wealth arithmetically, but geometrically. What I do, what you do, makes everybody else more productive. When I bow out, the whole edifice suffers.
At the most fundamental level, work fosters a healthy psyche. I might even hate my job, but when I accomplish something of value I feel better about myself. This is the intangible that is always missing in this discussion.
EDH:
Whether by intention or accident, the greatest penalty will be borne by the middle class. Based on the structure of left-wing regimes, the former is likely. Left-wing ideology favors the establishment of two classes: lower (i.e. majority) and upper (i.e. minority), by design, not evolution.
How many entrepreneurs have you worked for, Inga?
Being an entrepreneur is about as time-consuming as it gets. Why does Inga want us to work all the time?
Or how the Old World was set up, the aristocracy and the peasants.
Wherever there is a jackboot is stomping on a human face, there will be a well-heeled Western Liberal to explain that the face does, after all, have free healthcare and 100% literacy.
Being Inga means never having to make sense.
"Sideline business ?" You mean my book ? You can buy it through the Althouse Amazon portal.
http://www.amazon.com/Brief-History-Disease-Science-Medicine/dp/0974946656
Help me buy insurance.
Fewer people work, less taxes. Are we going to get the money we need to fund our wish list through robots?
If the government would just get the hell out of the way people would be free to pound nails on roofs until they are 80.
If I want to pound nails on roofs until I'm 80, new government policy is making it harder to do so. If I hate retirement and want to go back to work, new government policy makes it more difficult. If I've stayed at home with my kids, but they're older and now I want to continue my career, new government policy has made it more difficult.
I quit my job to start my business, busted hump to achieve some success and now I need to hire some more workers. New government policy has now made that more difficult.
Michael K said...
Are you going for the Nancy Pelosi prize for inane comments ?
Can you win it more than once?
They pretend to pay us, we pretend to work.
I do want people to work. Work, and accomplishment, have positive influences and effects on people's lives.
We'll talk about connection the 2014 Olympics to this post.
This time it will be different, it really will!
I wanna grow up to be a professor of leisure studies!
Paul Zrimsek:
Entrepreneurship is not only time consuming, but also involves elevated risk, which is why most people prefer to be workers.
Revenge against those who build. Academics should rule they're intellectual!
Asking the important questions.
"Why do Republicans want us to work all the time?"
"Why do Professors of Leisure Studies preferentially seek sexual satisfaction other species?"
Tyrone Slothrop:
The notable difference between the Left in America and abroad, is that Americans advocate for self-esteem development unbacked by productivity or achievement. This has assured that corruption is not limited to the head, but also spreads to the tail, which is consuming the body.
it’s clear the CBO was talking about workers voluntarily reducing their hours in response to the law—not getting laid off or seeing their shifts scaled back.
And anyway, isn’t that supposed to be a good thing?"
What is clear is that this guy doesn't understand how businesses work and the economic decisions that people will have to be making.
FIRST: The crux of the problem is that if you are getting subsidies for your MANDATORY health insurance and IF you make too much money you lose the subsidy and have to pay the MANDATORY premium.
Most people can't afford this. For example, the premium for myself and my husband is $1400 a month. We have elected to pay the penalty because we will soon be forced to participate in Medicare.
SECOND: On the business side: This brain trust doesn't understand that it takes a certain amount of man hours to accomplish any task. Be it flipping hamburgers, installing sheet rock, adjusting claims for an insurance company. MAN HOURS. You hire people to do the job. Part time now so that the business isn't stuck paying fines for not providing insurance.
THIRD: The person who is actually working and who actually NEEDS the income will be forced to make a rational decision to not advance in their career. Not work the extra hours for the money to buy things for themselves. Not change jobs. Because to do so will incur a HUGE MANDATORY health insurance premium.
If you "voluntarily" reduce your work hours you are also stagnating yourself in your job and have no prospects of earning more money to advance your family. You are stuck at a status quo. This is NOT a good thing.
There is no reward for hard work. There is no reward for advancing.
You are discouraged from moving because your health insurance is tied to the county you live in.
So. People will work less. Employers will have to hire more part time people who are not motivated to produce. People will be job locked more than ever. The entire economy will suffer because there are less people working. More people on the take. Less people to be taxed for all the freebies and subsidies. Less money to purchase things. Less incentive for businesses to expand or even start up.
The future is a stagnant economy with the majority of the people dependent on government and afraid to make any advancements or to become prosperous.
A nation of a few workhorses hauling the cart and the rest of the nation riding on the backs of the few workers.
Prince our elite educated betters are taking a fond walk down The Cold War memory lane, check out the James Cagney movie One, Two, Three.
n.n : you are right, therefore the main obstacle to entrepreneurship is not government, it's hypogonadism.
Actually, we did a lot of it for free.
Wait, you mean you voluntarily chose to do something that didn't maximize income? That's un-American, at least according to a certain subset of Americans. Don't tell John Galt!
Why do you think I am opposed to amnesty? I've had my arms up to the elbow in the bellies of more illegal aliens than you have ever met.
Interesting and random tangent. Not sure how you'd know how many illegal aliens I've met, but how do you know the people you're talking about were undocumented? Were you looking for their green cards in their bellies?
This whole discussion is really getting bizarre. There are two issues here: the indefensible cliffs that mean that in various cases people are better off lowering their income to receive more in government benefits than they lose in income; and the simple fact that, for people contemplating retirement or for a secondary earner (whose spouse is self-employed, for instance), the additional "income" from the subsidies can make it a reasonable choice to reduce hours or leave the workforce.
Democrats aren't acknowledging the first of these, and are spouting out nonsense with respect to the second -- that subsidized or free health care will allow people to pursue their dreams, never mind that someone has got to pay for the freebies.
And Republicans are so fixated on spouting out accusations of "your a taker!" that they lose credibility themselves.
Can we please talk about these cliffs instead?
http://janetheactuary.blogspot.com/2014/02/on-obamacare-and-takers.html
Seeing Red:
The most expensive education system in the world, and we don't even have 100% literacy. Perhaps remedial literacy, which is sufficient for part-time service jobs. Is it any wonder that illegal aliens are in high demand? They represent the greater value commodity (from conception to death).
People work less and our betters have less competition, convenient, eh?
"but how do you know the people you're talking about were undocumented? Were you looking for their green cards in their bellies?"
When I tried to get paid for the allnighters. Many, many allnighters.
it’s clear the CBO was talking about workers voluntarily reducing their hours in response to the law
If it's "voluntary" then why is it only happening in response to the law?
Why were they working those hours in the past?
Why did they stop working those hours now?
"We pass a law, you get free health care, and you can stop working so many hours."
Gee, it must be nice to believe in a system of economics based on government-as-Santa.
Soft bigotry of low expectations.
"The future is a stagnant economy with the majority of the people dependent on government and afraid to make any advancements or to become prosperous.
A nation of a few workhorses hauling the cart and the rest of the nation riding on the backs of the few workers. "
And then the workhorses leave. Oops !
(Per my comment above: Wish blogger allowed editing of posts. "You're a taker!")
When I tried to get paid for the allnighters. Many, many allnighters.
Ah, so it really wasn't doing it for free. It was just getting stiffed on the bill. I can see why that would be annoying, but that isn't frustrated altruism. Should've kept an organ or two for collateral, to maintain good market discipline and to prevent moral hazard.
Some feller, who are the most charitable? It's not the dems.
So who is this subset you're talking about?
Btw, when people think The State or are told The State will assume more responsibility for charity, people donate less. Or we can just do what Germany did or may still do, tax them for this.
Imagine we are on a shipwrecked island.
Is it helpful, as we are all on this shipwrecked island, for you to sit there on the beach and say you have a "right" to food, a "right" to shelter, a "right" to medical care?
Because all the rest of us have to work. We have to go out and fish for food. We have to build shelters.
Now imagine we are lucky enough to have a professor of leisure studies on our shipwrecked island with us.
He says he will look after our welfare. So we vote him in charge of the island.
His first move is to commandeer all the houses that have been built. And he gives them to the people who voted for him.
His next move is to commandeer all the fish that has been caught. And he gives them to the people who voted for him.
Now you write a happy ending to that story.
The workhorses are leaving. 3000 gave up citizenship, blue states are starting to lose population. Unless the immigrants are all Silicon Valley types, we are in trouble.
Jane the Actuary is quite correct. Read her post.
People will be doing a cost benefit analysis and deciding that it isn't worth it to work more hours. When your additional hour costs you $1400 a month,in our case as an older couple, it makes sense to just not work anymore. You lose more by making more and so you just stop.
Job Locked. You can't take that promotion. It will cost you too much so you just stagnate.
As to the entrepreneur fallacy. How many people HERE have actually started a business? Been an employer. Gone through all the hoops and run the gauntlet of inane government rules? We can rule Inga out.
Starting a business is expensive. Hard work. No paid vacations. No paid holidays. No one but YOU to do the work.
In this environment, why would anyone start a business. There are more downsides than upsides....beginning with.....you don't want to make too much money or you are back into the Catch 22 insurance trap.
Howard:
It's both. The relevant physical principle is that processes, including human behavior, follow a path of least resistance. Human will is capable of overriding the natural order. Human will can be observed to have varying degrees of coherence and resiliency. Government, or specifically authority, is merely another source or sink to influence human evolution.
In any case, we need both pioneers or entrepreneurs, and workers (at home, in the field, etc.). A successful society has a diverse distribution of productive enterprises.
A significant difference between left and right, is in the mechanism which determines distribution. The left believes in intelligent design and directed development, which is pursued through authoritarian monopoly formation. While the right believes in the market and organic development, which is moderated by the productivity of the people. In the center, we have conservatives who compromise between these two extremes according to the Judeo-Christian morality.
DBQ,
Congress sets up the question and defines the parameters before it asks the CBO to calculate.
I think Elmendorf sometimes frames the answers such as to provoke further didcussion about Congress' premises.
@horrogate
what factors lead these individuals' decisions to 'voluntarily' reduce their hours, or quit work altogether?
Positively Orwellian what you put together in the 3rd comment on this board
Now you write a happy ending to that story.
We kill him and have a long pork barbeque.
Set an example for those who voted for him.
@MichaelK
I've been wanting to ask you for some advice for my daughter who is looking at a medical career. She just started her third year as a biology major. Is there a way we can discuss this outside of this forum without giving up our email addresses? I'm really interested to hear your take on how the ACA will impact future doctors.
P.S. Sorry Ann for getting off topic and clogging this thread. I'll pay my penance through an offering in the portal.
Jane, we had to pass the bill to find out what the cliffs are, some knew a few years ago and pointed them out, some are just finding about them now. But those cliffs don't matter, it's the thought --the help-- behind those cliffs that's important.
This isn't about the cliffs, per se, it's getting into theology, history, nature of man stuff.
Dust Bunny Queen:
It is clear that many people do not distinguish between entrepreneurship and management. Those people perceive the relative ease of directing an established enterprise, and forget that, with few exceptions, it was not the product of spontaneous development. Even the large, established corporations do not operate in a vacuum.
Obamacare, freeing us from job lock and marriage lock. FORWARD!
somefeller said...
"Actually, we did a lot of it for free.
Wait, you mean you voluntarily chose to do something that didn't maximize income? That's un-American, at least according to a certain subset of Americans. Don't tell John Galt!"
Somebody else unclear on the concept.
DBQ nails it.
Mike Rowe for Walmart: Work is a Beautiful Thing
The liberal mind is like a lobster cooking in a pot.
"Didn't you notice that unemployment was getting worse?"
"No, no, that was voluntary. People were leaving the workforce to go on ski trips."
"Weren't you concerned about the massive deficits?"
"No, no, our government has a printing press. We just print more money."
Though I crunched numbers for a living, I do not "understand business" in J.P. Morgan's sense, and I would have no business starting my own business. I liked to work and have someone else who "understood business" see to it that I was paid and otherwise kept happy enough to stick around. That is the reality of it.
Also that "starting your own business" is not about "realizing your inner self," but spending your days working at the business and your nights doing the paperwork the government requires of you to discourage you from "starting your own business," which is no kind of fun at all for hardly anybody.
For the Democrats to claim that they want people to start new "mom and pop" businesses is a blatant lie. Big government likes big business likes big unions like big government. The last thing any of them want is individuals making waves and rocking their boats!
Saint Croix:
They think money is equivalent to wealth, or medical insurance is equivalent to health care. Our popular culture has deceived many people to believe in myths, which it seems have not been corrected by our education system.
Saint Croix:
A well known and characterized side-effect of civilization is a progressive dissociation of risk, which is the principle cause of corruption, and eventually civilization collapse. This is why left-wing regimes, long-held dynasties, and monopolies of some kind, are predisposed to catastrophic failure. They each, in their own way, unless compensated, circumvent natural feedbacks which constrain progressive dysfunction.
Our popular culture has deceived many people to believe in myths, which it seems have not been corrected by our education system.
Which seems to have been perpetrated by our education system.
FIFY
Subsidies for the working poor makes them lazy. Subsidies for the already fabulously wealthy motivates them like you wouldn't believe.
Subsidies for the working poor makes them lazy
No no no....you have it all wrong.
Subsidies for the working poor that are punitive if/when they become not poor makes them TRAPPED into their working poor status.
They may be the hardest working and most ambitions persons around, but if you are punished for getting ahead....you stop trying to get ahead. It is a rational action to an irrational system.
The Washington Post asks us why are there 47 million people on food stamps.
It's like asking why people use Obamacare to sign up for Medicaid rather than pay anything.
This is massive economic corruption. It's poison.
Obama has added almost 6 trillion in debt to our country in 5 years. And now we are told that unemployment is good, that we should be happy that we are working less?
"The best explanation for the advent of work without end, I now believe, is a failure of imagination. We’ve forgotten that the purpose of life is to be happy, and to pass that happiness on to future generations—not simply to keep acquiring more stuff. Our forebears understood that."
If lefties really believe this, one wonders why women fought so hard to be included in the work force? Perhaps the answer is that people like to work because it provides meaning to their lives, social status, and a sense of accomplishment beyond a paycheck.
Dust Bunny Queen:
Perpetual welfare sabotages personal development in much the same way that a child becomes passive or corrupted by overindulgent parents (the so-called "spoiled child" syndrome). Social programs should be short-term and accountable with a focus on rehabilitation in order to return people to productivity. Ideally, this will begin with family and friends (proximity engenders accountability), but the government could serve as a limited backstop.
We need to re-normalize the first level of social organization: family, and gradually higher level structures such as the community. The intelligent design meme has, as it often does, promoted misaligned development, with progressive consequences for individuals and society.
Kentucky pays more welfare if your child can't read. So, more children can't read. eITC qualification for a family is over $50k, but you can't have a lot of savings. Tho ZIRP is really helping witting that for a lot of s. So disincentive to work to save go play, be free, big daddy will take care of you, I just want to help!
"it’s clear the CBO was talking about workers voluntarily reducing their hours in response to the law—not getting laid off or seeing their shifts scaled back.
CBO: "exchange subsidies effectively constitute a tax on labor supply"
"By providing heavily subsidized health-insurance to people with very low income and withdrawing those subsidies as income rises, creates a disincentive for people to work, relative to what would have been the case in the absence of that act.” – Doug Elmendorf
Page 124 of the CBO report also talks about Labor Demand.
Illuninati,
Leftist intellectuals believe that because they have read about it in books written by the privileged few of past centuries.
I'd also add that it is utterly preposterous to suggest that people who are facing between 50-200% health insurance premium increases can "retire"
DBQ,
You made a living doing cost/benefit analyses with numbers. Most people don't even know what you are talking about and certainly are not going to do any.
Illuninati:
As Professor Althouse noted, there is increased costs associated with both parents working. Men and women should set priorities, and take turns as appropriate, in order to optimally realize family, friends, and personal ambitions. I think that would go a long way to mitigate "irreconcilable differences", as well as progressive corruption of our progeny.
Hagar, they are doing a cost-benefit analysis, just not detailed. They decide to maximize what they can, and work the system for the rest. Most won't get caught.
Work under the table, barter, etc.
They will react to what life deals them, but DBQ is talking about calculators and planning on paper.
To further St. croix's comment about electing the credentialed leisure professor -- pay attn to California, they're coming after private property. Your lawn is now considered"open space" and a group of more caring people than you will "nudge" you to stay within their caring guidelines. One of my first thoughts is if you and your neighbor who you don't get along with is on the board. There's a vid from a meeting in Greater San Francisco.
Subsidies for the working poor that are punitive if/when they become not poor makes them TRAPPED into their working poor status.
Trapped is working a dead end shit job you hate that provides no benefits and no hope of advancement.
I know. It's looking like more people will start using or have begun to use paper and pen. The real question is how many would show up at their congress critters town hall and express their displeasure.
Why does the Democratic Party want to accelerate the bankruptcy of Social Security and Medicare by encouraging people to leave the tax rolls?
Top income will be 400% of poverty level.
So, what do you get for having gamed the system as surfer dude in Hawaii, but now you are 40 years old, your bones are beginning to creek, but you have no family, no friends, no skills, no work history, no IRA?
People might have to start taking vacation days because taking them in cash might put them over the threshold.
The income transfers in Obama care have to be weighed against the income transfers under the previous system in which costs for indigent care were passed to those who had insurance.
If work empowers people, as the feminists have demonstrated, anything which substitutes government handouts for work disempowers the recipients. This is where I see the major damage.
Or the 35 y.o. Diaper boy. But pot will be free to take the edge off.
I once saw a comedian who made a joke about China. They discovered all these things, he listed them, then they discovered opium and the world caught up.
MyRa in treasuries, what's supporting SS.
For better or worse, the CBO analysis is about the perverse incentives involved at the margins when benefits are withdrawn upon the achievement of certain income levels. The effective marginal tax rate takes away most of the economic benefit of extra work. At that point many individuals say, why take on the extra work or the extra responsibility of a promotion? Imagine a 90% marginal tax rate--why do much more if the deal is $.90 for you and $.10 for me? The White House and the Dems are trying gamely to make this high marginal tax rate into a benefit ("Why, it is more choice!") but it is a penalty, and they look silly to anyone who thinks about it a bit. I suspect they sound silly to themselves.("Yeah, that's the ticket! More choices!") Incentives do matter, particularly at the margins.
harrogate wrote:
"it’s clear the CBO was talking about workers voluntarily reducing their hours in response to the law—not getting laid off or seeing their shifts scaled back.
And anyway, isn’t that supposed to be a good thing?"
Not necessarily. Your expenses are probalby more than just health care. And so, if your hours are cut and you now arent meeting expenses because your hours were cut then it's not a good thing.
Saying "Yeah, but now you'll have time to spend with your kids" isn't exactly a good answer, if you have to come up with next months rent and now are running short.
I never had a job that I would do for free. I didn't find work soul destroying or dehumanizing, but it was filled with boredom punctuated by annoyance. If any of it was character building, I missed that part. That said, work was not the least interesting or most damaging part of my life. That distinction belongs to marriage......In my later life I have become acquainted with leisure time. I have not yet started on my first novel. It's truly amazing the predicaments kittens can get into and don't get me started on the subject of pornography. Life, it has been observed, is a long fool's errand to the grave, but it's a tad less onerous if you can sleep in.
And even if your hours aren't cut and you are voluntarily deciding to cut your hours so as to not be penalized, you still have to weigh what putting that cap on your salary will do for your bottom line.
heyboom, look at my web site. e-mail is there.
http://abriefhistory.org
"Now you write a happy ending to that story."
The hard-working people whose fish were confiscated get hungry. They cook and eat the professor of leisure studies. They make a drinking bowl of his skull. Everybody who matters is happy.
"Why Do Republicans Want Us to Work All the Time?"
Tell the 'professor' it has something to do with a) making ends meet, b) paying enough taxes to finance all the roads, schools, airports, hospitals, health care, military, etc... c) paying that professors salary, d) getting new ideas so we can progress.
And let him know that there is no such thing as a free lunch (TINSTAAFL.) For all the things we get, someone, somehow, pays for it.
If he wants more free time, then the professor can just go work part time himself and live on a part-time salary.
Trapped is working a dead end shit job you hate that provides no benefits and no hope of advancement.
Because God knows they're in those jobs through no fault of their own.
You know how you avoid dead end shit jobs? Don't take those dead end shit jobs in the first place.
The 400% percent limits think is like the AMT. It's locked, so as wages go up, more people will have to make the cost/benefit calculations. It's almost like it was planned that way.
"When I tried to get paid for the allnighters. Many, many allnighters.
Ah, so it really wasn't doing it for free. It was just getting stiffed on the bill. I can see why that would be annoying, but that isn't frustrated altruism. Should've kept an organ or two for collateral, to maintain good market discipline and to prevent moral hazard."
I know you wouldn't understand but there is this thing called indirect benefits of working.
My partner and I set up a trauma center because it would be good for the hospital we worked in. The hospital in 1978 was 100 beds and had had some issues with MedCal fraud by some principals a few years before.
Now, 34 years later, it looks like this. We weren't paid by the hospital, either but we did benefit from the better medical community.
That meant we did a fair amount of free care which we did voluntarily. We knew we wouldn't get paid for some of it but did some studies first to be sure it wasn't a total loser.
Again, I expect this reasoning is way over your head.
@MichaelK
Thank you. I'll be in touch.
Roofing may be a "shit job with no hope for advancement" to Garage, but it is also skilled work that there is satisfaction in doing well.
I am disturbed at the tendency by some to denigrate the value of honest work.
So much of history is a repeat. When I listen to the professors of leisure studies a song from my youth comes alive. I don't know whether links are allowed so just google "A Walt Disney Silly Symphony - The Grasshopper and the Ants".
So much of history is a repeat. When I listen to the professors of leisure studies a song from my youth comes alive. I don't know whether links are allowed so just google "A Walt Disney Silly Symphony - The Grasshopper and the Ants".
Average professor salary at university of Iowa is $130k.
He needs to lose his insurance.
Consider it a life lesson.
If he's full time, he's living very well in Iowa.
He's been studying and teaching leisure since 1975?
Average professor salary at university of Iowa is $130k. He needs to lose his insurance. Consider it a life lesson. If he's full time, he's living very well in Iowa.
That comment might make sense if he was arguing that people can go without health insurance and it's no big deal and thus might deserve that lesson. But he's arguing the opposite. However, your resentment of the good professor is duly noted, as is the case for the people making little fantasy jokes about killing and eating him.
Really, if it wasn't for resentment of those who have a more generous moral vision coupled with loathing of those who are in need of a little help, what motivations would American conservatives have left? Other than the ones who have real money to shelter from taxes and are therefore at least acting on rational (if a little greedy) self-interest, of course.
M Barone's analysis is in point here:
Americans who made it need not feel guilty and those who didn’t make it need not feel entitled; It needn’t be Darwinian State/Nanny State, but somewhere in between. Compassionate folks must understand: Soft America lives off the productivity, creativity, and competence of Hard America, and the Soft part of our society can exist only if there is enough Hard part.
Blogger garage mahal said...
"Subsidies for the working poor that are punitive if/when they become not poor makes them TRAPPED into their working poor status.
Trapped is working a dead end shit job you hate that provides no benefits and no hope of advancement."
The voice of experience. You should have gone back to school, garage.
Do American conservatives have a "resentment of those who have a more generous moral vision" when that vision involves the person who actually made the money being generous with it? I've never met such a person. Conservatives are perfectly willing to give their own money generously, they just object to having it taken in ever larger percentages by smug bastards who think spending other people's money is 'generous'.
Do American conservatives have a "loathing of those who are in need of a little help". Again, none that I know. What they loath are those who could work but would rather mooch, who demand free housing, free food, free cellphones, free everything, just for . . . what, exactly? Not even thanks, in most cases.
By the very rich smug bastards like Hollywood, et al.
This article explains the cost benefit analysis that people need to do.
A couple ages 55 with an income of $62,040 in 2014. They would pay $211 per month for the cheapest Obamacare plan available on healthcare.gov: That is with a subsidy.
However. Lets say the husband is the sole earner, lets say he is even self employed. and has an opportunity to do business with another firm and increase his income to $75,000 and the chance for further advancement up the ladder. He would lose the subsidy and have to incur an additional cost of $1,342 per month. That's an extra $13,572 per year for the same bare-bones insurance plan.
So deducting the $13,572 from his increased income: 75,500 - 13,572 = 61,428. He is WORSE off financially. NOT even accounting for additional income taxes and other possible lost deductions!! In addition....they have a $12,700 deductible on their insurance policy. IF they had that kind of money laying around, and they don't, the wise thing would be to buy a cheap catastrophic policy and BANK the 13,572 and the 12,700 = $26,272 and just pay for the routine care needed out of pocket. If a catastrophe strikes he is covered after a large deductible....like...oh...I dunno $12,700. And if not needed, the money is his to use as he wants. We used to call these Medical Savings Accounts or HSA's But NO... he isn't allowed to do this because...Obama. He has to buy the premium coverage and include idiocies like maternity care for his 55 year old wife.
So....he turns down the chance to advance his career and potentially climb the ladder. He stays put. JOB LOCKED!
Here is another disaster...The same self employed guy. Works on a commission basis. Qualifies for the subsidy based on LAST year's earnings. However, he has a great year in 2014. When he files his taxes....guess what!! HE OWES THE SUBSIDY and has to repay it. ALL OF IT. All $13,572. So.. at some point he just stops working and turns down business.
Job Locked AND stagnant income stream. While prices are going up all around him....he cannot make more money or ELSE!. But....whoo hooo...he gets to read bedtime stories to his grandchildren and do more yard work.
So....all you bleeding heart Liberals, tell us just how great this is for the middle class and the working poor.
Not even thanks, in most cases.
No gratitude, no embarassment, nothing but a deep sense of entitlement and contempt for those who support them.
What resentment? Elections have consequences. He's a protected class. The average salary and decisions he might have to make because of his vote might be educational for him. If he's married, would he divorce? Ask them to change the form of his compensation so he doesn't insure the cliff? Live in the real world?
oops....keyboard error 75,000 not 75,500
75,000- 13,572 = 61,428
The math still works.
The reality is that this whole shit pile encourages people to NOT work. Discourages people from even trying to advance. And more importantly takes away people's self respect and independent thinking.
So....all you bleeding heart Liberals, tell us just how great this is for the middle class and the working poor.
I mean the working poor who WANT to try to be middle class and the middle class that would aspire to being moderately wealthy. Those who want to just stay in the trough can do it because everyone else is paying for them to do nothing or as little as possible.
We have to put money away now so when we lose our company insurance in 2-3 years we can afford the marriage penalty. So we will cut back to stay married. For better or worse.
So we don't spend money on frivolities like clothing, shoes, dinners out, who will it hurt? Going Galt won't be just for the rich.
"A little help?" Lololololol. It's tomes to repost how many government programs provide "a little help."
...are 'necessary' to provide....a little help.
I just checked out Benjamin Hunnicut's home page.
I thought that he may be Professor of Leisure Studies, but surely he's part of a larger traditional department like say Sociology. But no, he's not only a full professor, but Leisure Studies is his department, and has been his department since he was an assistant professor nearly 40 years ago. Just imagine decades of irony challenged students submitting their resumes applying for a job with resumes saying they have a degree from U of Iowa with a major in Leisure Studies.
Also Garage, if you're still around you might want to check out the quotes with which Hunnicut tops his home page. They don't exactly jibe with your initial comment.
Ask most successful people about their hours. One of my medical students a few years ago was looking sick. I asked her about it and she told me that she just didn't know how hard she needed to study for the next exam so she over did it.
Isn't that a wonderful image. Republicans want us to work ourselves sick for some twisted morality.
somefeller said...
Really, if it wasn't for resentment of those who have a more generous moral vision coupled with loathing of those who are in need of a little help, what motivations would American conservatives have left?
"generous moral vision" - weasel words if I ever heard 'em.
"a degree from U of Iowa with a major in Leisure Studies."
Is that like "Policy Analysis & Management and Feminist, Gender, & Sexuality Studies ?"
"it’s clear the CBO was talking about workers voluntarily reducing their hours in response to the law—not getting laid off or seeing their shifts scaled back."
Let's see if you are able to make that argument in family court when your ex demands more in child support and the courts rules yes you owe her more because you can earn more. Maybe you and Inga and Garage along with Somefeller never heard of the term imputed income.
So now a medical student who thinks she should know as much as possible about her profession before making any (literally) life-and-death decisions has a "twisted morality"?
And the evil conservative who told the story did not in fact say that he demanded that she work even longer and more sickening hours: he doesn't say what he told her, but I had a strong impression that he told her to cut back on her hours. Perhaps he can tell us himself.
@Hagar
Roofing may be a "shit job with no hope for advancement" to Garage, but it is also skilled work that there is satisfaction in doing well.
I am disturbed at the tendency by some to denigrate the value of honest work.
Garage is just pissed that a high-school drop out who became a roofer and his wife who grew up on a farm formed a roofing/building supply business, became billionaires, and gave her enough wealth to do this:
Hendricks donation highest ever in state
Records show Gov. Scott Walker’s largest single donor is Diane Hendricks, owner and chairman of the board for Beloit-based ABC Supply Co. and numerous other enterprises. She gave Walker’s campaign $500,000, according to the Associated Press.
Not bad for a roofer and a farm girl.
Somefeller reminds me of crane operators on a union job.
Alex wrote:
Isn't that a wonderful image. Republicans want us to work ourselves sick for some twisted morality.
You can work as hard or as at leisure a pace as you want. If you want to sit on the couch and smoke a bowl all day you can even do that. Just don't expect other people to provide you with the pot and the bowl.
somefeller said...
Really, if it wasn't for resentment of those who have a more generous moral vision coupled with loathing of those who are in need of a little help, what motivations would American conservatives have left?
Not supporting policies (that you reflexively supporting without any critical thought) that have increased poverty does not indicate a "loathing" of anyone or anything.
Look, we could fit on to the top of a pin what you know about economics, and you know even less about what conservatives believe, so you just sit there and tell yourself some silly lies so you feel good inside.
And remember, you're a "good" person.
Alex wrote:
ne of my medical students a few years ago was looking sick. I asked her about it and she told me that she just didn't know how hard she needed to study for the next exam so she over did it."
Isn't that her choice? The conservative woudln't know how hard to study for the test either. I suppose the answer would be study hard enough to pass the test. If she's overburdened though, maybe she should seek out a profession that isn't so taxing as the medical profession.
And speaking of people who have nothing going on in their lives other than resentment, Jay is here! Back after a hiatus. Maybe he can recap how Romney was totally going to crush Obama and how anyone who thought otherwise was just an idiot. Until, of course...
And once again, I must ask, do today's conservatives have much to offer other than resentment and loathing? I certainly hope they do. Call that the audacity of hope.
Poor somefeller is so eaten up with resentment and loathing of Jay, among others, that he hasn't noticed that his assertion about resentment and loathing has been refuted.
What resentment? It's what America voted for. Pointing out the flaws isn't resentment.
We're only at the beginning of this, there's a lot more entertainment value to be had.
Poor somefeller is so eaten up with resentment and loathing of Jay, among others, that he hasn't noticed that his assertion about resentment and loathing has been refuted.
The sad and funny part is, you probably think that's true.
We're only at the beginning of this, there's a lot more entertainment value to be had.
Nah, if history is any guide, the GOP will win the Presidency in 2016 so we're not at the beginning. But if you're suggesting Hillary will win in 2016 and 2020, I'll have to retract my comment about conservatives offering little hope in their commentary.
Beginning of Obamacare.
Somefeller, you forgot to add that slavery is freedom.
Not bad for a roofer and a farm girl.
That was when Walker awkwardly tried humping a disgusting Morticia-like creature and said he planned on dividing and conquering Wisconsin? You would be proud of that.
Beginning of Obamacare.
So you've given up on repealing Obamacare. Good for you. That shows maturity. And yes, it is the beginning, a fine addition to American life like the New Deal and Great Society. I'm happy to see something positive breaking out here.
Poor somefeller thinks if he continues to pretend not to have read my 4:27pm comment, no one will notice that he has no answer to it.
He also thinks no one will notice that he's severely criticizing Republicans on the previous thread for still worrying about Clinton's crimes so many years later - crimes that are entirely relevant when the wife who lied and lied to help him escape punishment for them is running for president - but feels free to sneer at another commenter here for being wrong on a totally unrelated issue many months ago. Hypocrite, or fool, or a bit of each?
A professor of leisure studies?
Maybe I would happy if that guy worked some of the time.
Wow! Thinking the New Deal was a good thing - ignorant, but not necessarily stupid. Thinking the Great Society was any kind of success at all? Moronic.
Now, now, Dr. Weevil.
The war on poverty has been just as successful as the war on drugs.
somefeller said...
And once again, I must ask, do today's conservatives have much to offer other than resentment and loathing? I certainly hope they do. Call that the audacity of hope.
2/9/14, 5:40 PM"
Why do you resent taxpayers and those who work hard? Those who aren't handicapped, disable or to ill to work ought to remember that charity begins at home and be charitable to themselves by doing better for themselves and not living off other people's taxes.
Now that last years government "shutdown" has demonstrated who relatively few federal employees are actually essential half of the non-essential employees should be given all that extra leisure time to enrich their lives.
Interesting point by Michael Goodwin: Obama Democrats’ troubling view on work.
The party of blue collar workers has been taken over by those denigrating their work, and the takers have pushed the makers out of the party. And, we have seen some of our more leftist posters here parroting this, essentially positing that the rest of society has an obligation to support those who in a previous time would have been in low end, maybe dead end jobs. But, what is never mentioned is that that requires that others support them, if they no longer have to work. And, how do we determine who has to support whom anymore? The only answer seems to be "we won". A small majority is able to justify taking the fruits of others' labor with this theory.
Republicans have had the same amount of success repealing ObamaCare as they have repealing the New Deal. Is it really that hard?
6. NRA - National Recovery Act
The National Recovery Act was designed to bring the interests of working class Americans and business together. Through hearings and government intervention the hope was to balance the needs of all involved in the economy. However, the NRA was declared unconstitutional in the landmark Supreme Court case Schechter Poultry Corp. v. US. The Supreme Court ruled that the NRA violated the separation of powers.
There's one.
If you need to "study" (i.e. cram) for a test, then you have already failed. Tests may require limited, creative extrapolation, but are primarily given to assess an accumulation of latent knowledge and skills.
"And the evil conservative who told the story did not in fact say that he demanded that she work even longer and more sickening hours: he doesn't say what he told her, but I had a strong impression that he told her to cut back on her hours. Perhaps he can tell us himself."
Actually, I teach a different course; one that involves clinical teaching. She was a first year student and it was her first semester finals in basic science. She said she didn't know how hard she had to study so went all out. I had nothing to do with it but she did look like a dish rag by that time.
Sh went on to do well and is now probably finished with her specialty training.
I'm sure entrepreneurs starting businesses would understand. Civil servants not so much.
And once again, I must ask, do today's conservatives have much to offer other than resentment and loathing? I certainly hope they do. Call that the audacity of hope.
Resentment of what? People talking the fruits of their labor at gunpoint because others want such, justified because "we won"?
What? Repeal? Don't we have to have elections first? Obamacare just keeps rolling along, new discoveries every day, that's the entertainment value.
Blogger n.n said...
"If you need to "study" (i.e. cram) for a test, then you have already failed. Tests may require limited, creative extrapolation, but are primarily given to assess an accumulation of latent knowledge and skills."
Spoken like someone who has never been in medical school. There is not enough time to learn all you should. Engineering, which I did before, is a different kind of learning. Medicine is memory.
And yes, it is the beginning, a fine addition to American life like the New Deal and Great Society
Hysterical.
I'd feel sorry for you, but you obviously enjoy wallowing in ignorance.
Somefeller and GM keep me laughing. The programs they like are broke. ZIRP to infinity and beyond, or until the dollar isn't the reserve currency anymore.
So we will be "nudged" to "invest" in t-bills like MyRA!
Or we will be " un patriotic."
Thinking the Great Society was any kind of success at all? Moronic.
Well, the Tea Partiers who had signs saying "keep your government hands off my Medicare" seemed to think that Great Society program was successful. But they were morons otherwise so you may have a point there, Doc.
Well, the Tea Partiers who had signs saying "keep your government hands off my Medicare" seemed to think that Great Society program was successful.
Yeah, that like totally happened!
Republicans have had the same amount of success repealing ObamaCare as they have repealing the New Deal. Is it really that hard?
Apparently so. But notwithstanding that, you still can run against it for decades and keep the rubes all stirred up. Just look around.
Then again, they may have felt the same way I feel about Social Security: I'd be a Hell of a lot better off I'd invested the same amount myself instead of handing it over to the feds, but since they've taken hundreds of thousands of dollars from me over the years, I do hope to get some of it back, if I live long enough.
Of coure, somefeller is still avoiding my 4:27pm correction of his entirely false statement about what conservatives resent. No conservative I know resents Bill Gates or any other leftie millionaire or billionaire giving as much of his own money as he wants to charity, as long as his charities do not include Al Qaeda. It's the "generosity" involved in A taking B's money and giving it to C that we find totally uncharitable, especially since A always finds a way to keep a big fat slice for himself.
Too bad somefeller can't argue like a grownup.
Declaring victory on the Internet is always convincing, Dr. Weevil. But I know, attention must be paid! (That was a literary reference - is it too liberal elitist to use those in blog comments?)
Quite simply, in trying to score cheap points on the cbo report regarding job lock republicans are arguing against individual economic freedom and their own stated principles. Hayek even, was in favor of a social insurance system to provide for externalities like health problems as a means of increasing competitiveness in the market.
Lock box!
Declaring victory is perfectly proper when the opponent shows himself to be totally incapable of answering one's argument, as somefeller has done here. Does he think a forfeit is somehow not a loss?
" the Tea Partiers who had signs saying "keep your government hands off my Medicare"
The left wingers had a lot of fun but those signs were held up at Paul Ryan speaking events by lefties.
There were a couple that could have been at Tea Party rallies but they were probably held by interlopers as we saw at Tea Party rallies out here in California. Total fake signs.
It was a lefty myth but you don't know any better.
Plants!
garage - how is the diet coming along?
Cliff said...
Quite simply, in trying to score cheap points on the cbo report regarding job lock republicans are arguing against individual economic freedom and their own stated principles.
Yes, because nothing says "individual economic freedom" like me paying more in taxes (and for health insurance) so you can not work and receive subsidized health insurance.
Fail.
And if you think Hayek would favor any model similar to ObamaCare you're either ignorant or dishonest.
It was a lefty myth but you don't know any better.
Provocateurs and Mobys, all of them! Just like the guys talking about how Obama is a seekrit mooslim or that he's preparing FEMA camps for political opponents. No true conservative would do such a thing.
Declaring victory is perfectly proper when the opponent shows himself to be totally incapable of answering one's argument, as somefeller has done here. Does he think a forfeit is somehow not a loss?
Yep, self-declared victories are the sweetest ones. Especially when your the sort (like our Dr. Weevil here) who hasn't experienced any other kind.
People work for different reasons; if you're lucky you like your job. If you're very lucky, you're passionate about it, and yes, you'd at least theoretically do it for free. That applies to craftsmen of all types--be they lawyers, doctors, artists, sculptors, furniture makers etc.
For some folks--unlucky folks--work is drudgery and they'd like to do less of it. You can be paid beaucoup bucks--and hate your job. Or maybe you are being paid a lot, but you'd rather be home with the kids (can you say female lawyers on the partnership/Mommy track at a Big Law firm?")
But let's cut the crapola---and hit the bulk of these cases. If somebody sorta likes their job--it's not too bad, it pays the bills, and they have health insurance (they are "job slaves" in the Left's parlance), getting your hours cut can be a disaster. Yes you can go buy an Obamacare policy--you don't have to stay on that job you don't like. But what the heck are you going to use to pay for that policy? No job equals no dough. And not only that, you still have the bills to pay from the time when you were "getting by" on the wages from that job you didn't like.
If you want me to believe that people are "hob slaves" because health insurance is the single most important thing in life, then I say y you've got your priorities screwed up.
GM is senile. Can't remember the 2000 election?
somefeller is so stupid he brings up "Mobys" by name, as if he wants to remind us that the very concept is named after the lefty who invented it, and did so openly (which was also pretty stupid).
But hey, he's generous: always willing to spend other people's money on causes he thinks worthy, even if they don't.
I see that garage's affection for Scott Walker grows daily! Along with somefeller's made-up facts.
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