4 Ways to Spend Money

[MadMoney]

I realize the clip is low quality, but I don't know if any of you had heard, read, seen anything by the late Milton Friedman. He was a nobel prize winning economist and contributed much to free market thinkers today. This was one of his most famous observations (primarily for its combination of brilliance and simplicity). His reasoning in the video posted below is why I am skeptical of any government intervention in the free market. But of course, I would love to hear what you think.... enjoy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Un4-eI1T71E

[Schrödinger's Cat]

First, I'd like to ask why you're posting a video that is meant to address social capitalism on a socialist forum.

Secondly, Milton is notorious on RevLeft for his connection with neo-liberalism - specifically, the Chilean experiment which led to high levels of unemployment and poverty, and caused the GDP to grow at a slower rate than most of Latin America.

On this video: not only was the man's logic a tumbleweed of sensationalism, but he fails to see a glaring contrast to his moot point: the tax money is coming from your pocket. Public schools are no worse than their private peers, I might add. Similar demographics perform nearly the same - with public school students edging ahead in math and reading.

The problem with the current system is that it allocates purchasing power to people for non-labor reasons. So yes, capitalists should stop spending my money. They're thieves.

[jake williams]

This is just a great example of the fact that the reason capitalist ideologues come up with crazy ideas is that they really are greedy, sick, defective, malevolent people who hate others, and project this onto whole societies and call it "human nature". I care about what I give to other people! I care about not wasting resources! "Human nature" is not the problem. Milton Friedman is the problem.

[Lost In Translation]

I agree with jammoe. This is just capitalism with a quasi-humorous twist.

'I know 4 ways to spend money! But wait, they're all the same, because in the end, it goes to greedy bourgeois!'

[Decolonize The Left]

First, I'd like to ask why you're posting a video that is meant to address social capitalism on a socialist forum.

Secondly, Milton is notorious on RevLeft for his connection with neo-liberalism - specifically, the Chilean experiment which led to high levels of unemployment and poverty, and caused the GDP to grow at a slower rate than most of Latin America.

On this video: not only was the man's logic a tumbleweed of sensationalism, but he fails to see a glaring contrast to his moot point: the tax money is coming from your pocket. Public schools are no worse than their private peers, I might add. Similar demographics perform nearly the same - with public school students edging ahead in math and reading.

The problem with the current system is that it allocates purchasing power to people for non-labor reasons. So yes, capitalists should stop spending my money. They're thieves.



:thumbup1:

- August

[mykittyhasaboner]

honestly, i dont here an economist talking in this video. i hear a foolish hysterical old man babbling to me about how complicated money is.

basically the video is " you spend your money on yourself on others, rabble rabble rabble, and misuse others' money."
what a great fucking economic theory!

[pusher robot]

but he fails to see a glaring contrast to his moot point: the tax money is coming from your pocket.


Actually, most people pay vastly less than their proportional share of taxes, meaning that the dollar values that their vote controls, proportionately allocated, vastly exceeds what they actually pay. So they literally are making decisions about spending other peoples' money.

[Die Neue Zeit]

What an idiotic comment! [Again.]

There are income taxes (including the key payroll taxes), sales taxes, property/estate taxes, etc.

[pusher robot]

What an idiotic comment! [Again.]

There are income taxes (including the key payroll taxes), sales taxes, property/estate taxes, etc.

Even if I accepted, arguendo, that you're right and everyone receives benefits exactly in proportion to their taxes paid, Friedman is still right, because the actual people making funding allocation decisions are bureaucrats. Elected or not, they make funding decisions with money that was taken from other people by forces, i.e., other peoples' money. Yes, perhaps .0000001% is their own money, but since it's such a small fraction as to be insignificant, they spend it less carefully than if it was 100%.

[MadMoney]

The other reason I posted this was to bring more debate about the idea of a "gift economy." How could anyone know what I want more than me? A baker is willing to give his bread away, but suppose he's giving me rye and I want some pumpernickle. Or maybe I don't even want bread at all. It seems to me that people ought to make decisions about how they spend their money (or labour credits :confused:) on their own instead of an individual in government or some committee or the vote of "society." However, this idea cannot exist without some form of a market.

[Schrödinger's Cat]

Actually, most people pay vastly less than their proportional share of taxes, meaning that the dollar values that their vote controls, proportionately allocated, vastly exceeds what they actually pay. So they literally are making decisions about spending other peoples' money.

This is untrue. I've made a thread about this particular issue before (http://www.revleft.com/vb/usa-workers-carry-t84829/index.html?t=84829). Workers of all income brackets pay more than they own in wealth. The bottom 50%, while paying a 'mere' 4% in taxes, owns less than 3% of the wealth.

Not that you believe it is so, but there are quite a number of people who freely admit that we have a government full of rich politicians, backed by rich companies, with rich donations - yet somehow they've decided to help the poor. Right...


Friedman is still right, because the actual people making funding allocation decisions are bureaucrats. That is a true statement, and exactly why I'm not amused by people posting videos that address social capitalism and not socialism. There are more proponents of direct democracy on this forum than there are proponents of republicanism. The "left" is historically associated with direct democracy.

[Bud Struggle]

Here's another view of it:

http://www.taxfoundation.org/news/show/250.html

[pusher robot]

This is untrue. I've made a thread about this particular issue before (http://www.revleft.com/vb/usa-workers-carry-t84829/index.html?t=84829). Workers of all income brackets pay more than they own in wealth. The bottom 50%, while paying a 'mere' 4% in taxes, owns less than 3% of the wealth.
I don't really understand what you're saying here. I'm saying that if you took, e.g., the federal budget (not all of "the wealth") and divided it evenly by the number of voters, that the share per voter would be larger than what most voters pay, i.e., they have the ability to influence proportionally more of the budget than they contribute to it. Your response doesn't seem to contradict this in any way, but yet you say it's "untrue." Am I missing something to your argument?

[jake williams]

I don't really understand what you're saying here. I'm saying that if you took, e.g., the federal budget (not all of "the wealth") and divided it evenly by the number of voters, that the share per voter would be larger than what most voters pay, i.e., they have the ability to influence proportionally more of the budget than they contribute to it. Your response doesn't seem to contradict this in any way, but yet you say it's "untrue." Am I missing something to your argument?
You're missing the fact that rich people have more money than poor people, unless I'm mistaken.

[pusher robot]

You're missing the fact that rich people have more money than poor people, unless I'm mistaken.

No...