Helping Americans understand just how rich we are

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Thomas summons the Aussies.

You tell me this NOW ??

Ionus - You're timing is perfect.

Although, you might not get the reference.
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T

I do....I have been following in the shadows...Only the Shadow KNOWS...

Lurking

I have not made one comment to the effect that anyone should give. I am saying that they shouldn't support barriers to economic entry. I'm advocating a level playing field, not handouts.

Nobody ever gave me a single dollar, I would have it no other way. But I was born with a winning lottery ticket. I was born with free access to several first-world economies.

If I were born without that, I would be in wretched poverty right now. And it's a cosmic injustice that so many others have that lot in life and a human injustice that first worlders find every pretext (from environment to appeals to pity within their own society) to deny others entry to the playing field they enjoy.

If I had to pick my strongest impressions of the USA, it would be a powerful military, a powerhouse economy and a ridiculous number of poor for a First World country. It is almost as if it was a conscious decision to maintain large numbers of poor to put pressure on the bottom of the class pyramid and thus maintain 'hunger' for success as the most efficient way to run the country. The large amount of crime and wasted human resource this generates convinces me it is the wrong method.

1) As Thomas noted, you are knocking down a straw man. I never made the claim that we are responsible for the poverty of others, I explicitly said we were not but you still chose to debunk your own canard.

2) A doctor doesn't have to be responsible for breaking a leg for it to be a generally good thing for him to set it. Likewise we don't have to be responsible for poverty for it to be a generally good thing for us to promote a more level playing field.

3) You don't like to blame rich for the poor unless it's the foreign rich, then you don't hesitate to blame Paulista bankers and Rio..., hellifino what the hell Ipanema Cariocas do for their money, for their poor.

Why do you do that? Do you blame yourself for America's poor? The pattern seems to be trying to find a scapegoat to blame, but I'm not about blaming anyone for poverty here, I'm appealing for attitudes that would help people get out of poverty.

You don't have to be responsible for a tragedy to help. You don't have to have caused the earthquake to save lives afterwards.

This blame game strikes me as a childish tit-for-tat and the worst thing is that you keep debunking it when I'm not arguing it with you at all. You and others here just keep repeating the same fallacies (strawman about blame, guilt by association, ten wrongs must be enough to make a right) but won't address my actual point at all:

1) Can we adopt attitudes and policies that can make the world's economy a more level playing field? I say yes, do you dispute this?

2) Do we have enough wealth as a nation to afford to do so? I say yes, do you dispute this?

Amid all these red herrings, will any of you actually address this?

These aren't the right questions. The questions are not can we do these things, the question is should we do these things. And you seem to take it for granted that we should, because you reduce all consequences of doing so to trivialities in the face of the global poverty problem.

I submit, and I suspect George would as well, that the answers to these questions are not that simple. And the politics of them are equally difficult. Though you have disdain for American 'poor,' I assure you that there are many people struggling to keep up here at this time and the political will to pass laws to allow more jobs to be sent overseas simply isn't there.

You seem to think that it is America's mission to raise everyone else up to the status that we enjoy, or should be our mission. I doubt the vast majority of Americans would agree with this. I circle back around to my initial comments in this thread: since when has the mission of the rich to be to ensure that EVERYONE gets rich? The things you posit are counter to observed human behavior.

Cycloptichorn

You are being a hypocrite, you and Cyclo went out of your way to make it about me. What was your point about asking where I host servers? And when you mentioned your story I said it wasn't relevant. I'm not trying to make it about you, I'm telling you that it is laughable to do so.

I'm saying that it doesn't matter where I host servers, or what you might have gone through. Diest, you became a highly-educated engineer. You probably make something like $70,000 a year.

I am talking about people who live on sewage. People who starve to death.

Do you think my servers, or your angst about slightly irresponsible parents is even relevant at all? I don't, and by telling you that Poland etc are nonsensical I'm not trying to make it about you.

Your outrage at personal intrusion is unwarranted, I think your personal story is completely irrelevant to this. What does the buying power of someone in Poland have to do with the many kids who will die today?

What does your angst or mine have to do with it?

Get where I am going with this? It's a wholly nonsensical line of response, to try to quibble about misery and appeal to American cases of pity. And you know this, you just are playing counterweight to my own strength of conviction.

Don't get me wrong, I think that's nice (I hate when people argue the way I do here) but you'd be better served by having the same strength of conviction. You entered this thread saying the same thing I am, that Americans have "petty" problems in comparison to the truly miserable. You might not want to own up to going off on nonsensical tangents about buying power (you know the buying power discrepancy is still there, so what's the point?), the appeal to American cases of pity (no doubt there are cases of American suffering, but you know we don't need trade advantages to address them) and all.

Yes I am being an ass with you, and refusing to let you save face about it but you know you were off on tangents and arguing with me for being an ass rather than arguing with what I am saying.

But when all is said and done, don't you agree? Can we afford to give the world a better shake? If so, you are just disagreeing with the vehemence with which I express the argument, not the argument, and I shouldn't have goaded you into bad arguments against it.



It's frustrating to me to see a wall of excuses and denial because people don't like uncomfortable feelings of fortune. A good example is how many people keep getting back to guilt and blame. I have laid no guilt and blame here but you said this was about projecting guilt, perhaps it is but I don't feel particularly guilty about my lot in life at all and I think a lot more of this has to do with guilt that you guys are feeling.

Quite frankly, it's silly. You aren't responsible for being born with a winning lottery ticket, I don't blame you or George for the poor in Rio, but still George would rather knock down that straw man than address what I have to say.

We don't have to blame someone to take actions to improve a problem.



I can't get over myself, neither can you. Nobody can and that is just rhetoric, full stop (he wanted out of retirement).



Not really, I care more about refuting it than convincing you. It's more like this concept:





Well if insular isn't it, what would you ascribe your arguments to?

I have a feeling that if you saw a baby die of starvation, or saw an elderly man eating his feces you wouldn't be bringing up things like the purchasing power in Poland. You'd be saying that even they should be leveling the playing field.

What causes you to speak about that kind of wretched misery with first world angst in the same breath? On a fundamental level I think you know all this but I think that living in a bubble of wealth helps make it an abstract concept to you.

Now yes, I am being a dick by ascribing it all to being "insular" and there can be many reasons (not the least of which reacting to someone being a dick) for your arguments but knowing about poverty in the abstract, as some exotic thing, is nothing compared to loving and caring about the people suffering.

Fbaezer said I am a true citizen of the world, which I'd like to think is true, but it's not true that I value all human life with perfect equality except in abstract. I care more about my mom than yours, for example (no knock on your mom, who I'm sure is a bang-up mom herself and all) and likewise I care more about poor people who I have seen, touched, laughed and cried with than those who I don't.

So African poverty is still abtract to me, Latin and Asian poverty isn't as much. And without taking too much offense to it, I think you'd be able to acknowledge that living in America is a very insular existence in many ways. Insular within America itself (things like not knowing your neighbor's name) and insular within the world (things like knowing less about what is going on) and insular about what true societal (as opposed to individual) poverty is like.



I will try, but I can't promise that something like Poland compared to starvation won't set me off again.



But what is your point about purchasing power? Yeah, salary isn't the be-all, end-all way to measure wealth, but I never brought up salary as such a thing.

And if you bring up purchasing power is it because you think that normalizes the wealth enough to negate my point? You know it doesn't, whether or not you are willing to admit it you know this makes no sense.

There is a canyon of discrepancy in purchasing power, it's a canard that the world's poor can have their misery explained away through lower costs of living and the discrepancy between purchasing power and salary etc.

You know this, I know this, and that argument has no place here.

Perhaps the core of this thread RG is to help others understand their wealth. It is after all the title: Helping Americans understand just how rich we are.



I may miss the opportunity to be a better person by not really caring how convincing I am, but this is a rant and always will be.

When I see **** like David saying we should mine our border to keep the Mexicans out, or more reasonable liberals say we should take care of us and ours first it really pisses me off.

It's just so damn selfish, and I will be the first to admit that I lack the serenity and patience to be a Thomas on this topic. I'm gonna be a Bill or a Cyclo instead (even if he chides me on this topic for arguing the way he does nearly every day).




If I stared with a nice calm statement like "there are poor in the world" and fostered no disagreement this would be a one-page thread with fewer moments of introspection (even my own, I'm still chewing on Thomas' claims about economy that I disagree with) and fewer "teaching opportunities" for al of us.

You don't learn from people agreeing with you in debate, nearly all learning in debate comes from disagreement, and while I cede that disagreement doesn't have to be so disagreeable the solution isn't consensus, just more moderating of my tone.

If we just sat here and said "we agree that the world has some pretty damn poor people" we wouldn't be forced to re-examine our positions on anything.

I'm sober and so are my arguments, I'm just not being as nice and sensitive as I could be and that is a legitimate criticism that I'll take to heart as well as I can.

Do you really think so?

In a room full of people with two legs and one person with one leg, who should I offer a chair?

It's no knock on the folks with two legs to say there is greater need.

You're missing the finesse of a good passionate argument when you result to bullet points and exclamatory stops. You need more practice if you're going to move significantly away from your dispassionate model



I went out of my way, because I don't think your personal desire not to suffer high taxes is incompatible with your desire to feed the world's poor and open up the job and financial markets to the world as well - especially in our current fiscal climate.

Cycloptichorn

I made no such claims, and you made up all those implications.

The contrast with Haiti was intended to show the scale of what our next aircraft carrier will cost (about double Haiti's GDP) and not a suggestion that the monies should be used as a gift to Haiti (I would prefer more a more favorable trade relationship with Haiti than a one-time gift).

And I never once said that America's military has done nothing useful for the world.

When are you going to stop arguing against things I never say? I've got enough on my hands without having to defend against the argument you'd rather ascribe to me than the ones I actually made.




The notion was yours, not mine. Why are you arguing it with me?

Again: you and Americans are not responsible for the poor in the favelas of Rio, but I just sat down with them for a beer on Sunday (I went into the Rocina favela) and these are good, hard-working people without much hope. You can't tell me we can do nothing to give them a more level playing field. You can't tell me we need it more than they do, but you'd rather just tell me it's offensive to blame Americans for it when I offer no such blame.

The uncomfortable feeling and jump to deny guilt is a form of survivor's syndrome. You are automatically being defensive for your fortune, even if nobody is blaming you for it.



Why, then, are you so quick to disparage such concern? You do things like describe it as "wringing of hands" to make it ignoble.



This is another canard. Yes, corruptions sucks, graft sucks. It's a piss-poor excuse to not help the dying, it's just another way to pretend like you couldn't help because the corrupt would get it anyway.

But you know that at the bottom of all these excuses, we could take measures to improve many lives if we were willing. So what's the point of these excuses? What does corruption and graft have to do with giving the third-world farmer a level playing field? What does corruption and graft have to do with protecting our steel industry at the expense of Brazil's more competitive one?

Corruption and graft is a symptom of poverty as much as it is a cause of it, you know damn well that we can make a difference anyway, so where are you going with this kind of "poor are helpless" argument? Do you argue that they are beyond hope?

'Incompatible' should read 'compatible' above, sorry

Cycloptichorn

Point taken, I didn't really believe you could feel that way about the poor anyway.

But I still maintain that the "we got to fix our problems first" mentality is a form of selfishness. Our problems pale in comparison to millions of people suffering in ways we'd never tolerate.

I ignored it, because this isn't about taxes or me, but you asked me if I'd be willing to pay higher taxes to address this and I want to answer that now.

I would. I would much prefer to donate my money where I most see fit, and I prefer governments that are efficient and only tax what is needed, but if our taxes were going to help the world, and not towards the military, the crumbling social security program, and the insane private healthcare system in America I'd have a lot less of a problem with taxes.

But my qualm with taxes above 50% is one of principle (is a man not entitled to at least half of his production?) and of economics and civics.

I'd happily toss in 70% of my income towards economic development of the third world (and I am not wealthy) if that meant every American would do the same.

Just imagine the difference we could make. Our politicians sell us war instead, telling us we can spread "ripples" of democracy and freedom by killing hundreds of thousands of people with our tax money. It should come as no surprise to you that I am not a huge fan of our taxes given how it is spent.

False dilemma. We can simply pick up their carbon cost for them instead of insisting that they handicap their industry to the same degree (or similar) that we will to our developed industries.

There is legitimate environmentalism, and there is environmentalism that is really aimed at economic advantage. After NAFTA I believe we suddenly started caring about certain emission and quality controls for trucks that I believe are not environmentally motivated but "keep more Mexican trucks out" motivated.

When we refuse to enter Kyoto because we point our fingers at the developing world's emissions I think it's an economic concern, not an environmental one.



If we care so much then why not make the cuts at home first instead of pointing at developing economies as our excuse not to?

It's self-serving that we are so isolationist about charity ("it begins at home") but suddenly are part of a global world when it comes to finding pretexts to be selfish.



I agree, but that is not what I think either Thomas or myself are talking about. The first world is using regulations as a competitive advantage. We negotiate "free" trade and then set the regulatory doorknob too high.

This is not environmentalism, this is use of environmental political capital to keep real capital.

I don't disagree with this - but every problem has to be sold to a populace who does disagree, and right now the US isn't exactly flush with cash or jobs to spare. No matter how much more severe problems are abroad, a populace is not going to focus on those when there are serious problems at home that need addressing.

Cycloptichorn

Well, I of course agree with this, because I do not believe in the concept of 'free trade.' I don't even believe in the term. It's just shorthand for 'setting up conditions so that the rich can get richer.'

Cycloptichorn

Whether we can directly affects whether we should.



What are the consequences of reducing our agriculture subsidies? What are the consequences of not protecting our steel industry over the more competitive foreign ones?

The consequences are that some politician would have had fewer votes in a swing state, we'd be fine.



Complexity is no excuse. Brain surgery isn't simple, it doesn't mean doctors should not attempt it.

These are just more excuses for a hard heart.




You guys are some of the shittiest debaters I know. I have never once expressed any disdain for the American poor. You guys keep bringing up straw men even after I explicitly deny having any part of the position you ascribe to me.

Diest TKO said I sound like I advocate helping people on the basis of nationality (against Americans), I explicitly say I do not advocate such a thing, and advocate privatization based on need, as opposed to nationality and on the next page he says it again.

George says I blame Americans for poverty, so I explicitly say I do no such thing, and he responds in the next post how I am wrong to blame Americans for poverty.

Thomas points out this straw man again, and he keeps going on about how the blame for American poverty is misplaced.

Honestly, you guys and your shoddy arguments are as frustrating to me as the issue. You guys can't stop making sweet love to your straw men. Here they are again:

1) I have no "disdain" for American poor.

2) I do not advocate prioritization of goodwill based on nationality, I advocate the opposite: prioritization based on need.

3) I do not blame America for the world's poverty.

4) I maintain that we are affluent enough to afford to do much better, and that the general American attitudes about these issues are insular and ugly.

Turn in your straw men already guys, 13 pages of relying on them should be enough to actually address my arguments instead of what you are able to make up and ascribe to me.



Another straw man. I want a more level playing field. We can't raise the world up to our level, but we can stop kicking their fingers when they are clawing their way up on their own.




Show me where I said everyone should be rich. Do you guys own a straw man factory?