So society is like a ponzi scheme, but with people instead of money? Looks like I haven't done my fair share of reproducing.
There's surely a name for this type of statement. I don't know what it is offhand, but it can't be good.
English-only, please.
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Society relies on people taking care of each other. The more people and resources there are to take care of others, the more each person is free to pursue their own lives. A ponzi scheme involves the transfer of money without anything ever being created. Society relies on people making things for themselves and each other and doing things for themselves and each other.
If goods and services are seen only in terms of their monetary value then society looks like a ponzi scheme, but if you examine the actual human interactions you can discover that it isn't.
The definition of a ponzi scheme is using new investments to pay prior obligated returns. So in that way, Social Security is a ponzi scheme. End of story. Sorry, but no matter how wonderful it is that people are born, and exist, and relate with and support each other, there's no way around that fact.
And, IMO, there are a hell of a lot more warm fuzzies involved in the idea of doing things for and on behalf of other people voluntarily, than under the compulsion of government mandates. But I do get your meaning.
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I'm all for taxes. I love taxes. I love (working) social programs. I am, of course, a liberal. But when school taxes come around on our ballot, I always vote 'no.' Why? Because no matter how many times our local taxes go up to support schools, I still find that teachers are receiving a crummy salary. I still find that schools are poorly equipped. I still have kids at my door selling crap I don't need to raise money for this school project or that.
The money for education is already in our system. It needs to be used properly. And don't get me started on those 'life skills' classes.
The money for education is already in our system. It needs to be used properly. And don't get me started on those 'life skills' classes.
And, IMO, there are a hell of a lot more warm fuzzies involved in the idea of doing things for and on behalf of other people voluntarily, than under the compulsion of government mandates. But I do get your meaning.
Don't mind me, I can't stay. I just stopped in to drop off this picture for Chrissy, since Penn Jillette agrees.
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Sorry, but it's not, despite what you (and Rick Perry) insist.
It's nice to be able to dismiss all arguments with a simple "End of story," but the story is ongoing.
One take that disagrees:
http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2011/09/09/is-social-security-a-ponzi-scheme
From the linked article.
He's right all the way up to the em dash, where his argument falls apart. Unlike Social security, which "depends on growth of the number of future taxpayers," as he plainly states, private investments depend only on growth in the value of the assets in which the accounts invest. The value of an asset is not determined by the number of people willing to purchase it.
This part's very cute, though.
In other words, the "asset" that social security is "investing" in is the idea that even if the number of taxpayers decrease, their income will increase fast enough that they can be taxed enough to carry the load.
I thought considering people as "assets" went out in the 1860s.
Most pension funds are not terribly concerned about growth of assets. Their foremost concern is a steady stream of income. The funds that take on risky assets are called mutual funds. Pension funds largely buy bonds and stakes in very stable revenue generators like rental building management businesses and conglomerated businesses with highly diversified portfolios.
Mutual funds take on risky assets, however many give the option to contributor how much risk they are willing to take and often giving the advice that at under 30, one takes on a very aggressive approach while those above 55 are to roll back their risk to very conservative. There are quite a few ponzi schemes that straggle with the mutual funds.
Mutual funds take on risky assets, however many give the option to contributor how much risk they are willing to take and often giving the advice that at under 30, one takes on a very aggressive approach while those above 55 are to roll back their risk to very conservative. There are quite a few ponzi schemes that straggle with the mutual funds.
You can call it compassion or you can call it what you will. You can even say the government is using guns to force this "compassion," although I haven't seen that. But until we have enough compassionate people to keep the poor afloat, it's in the best interests of the country as a whole for the government to step in. I know this frosts the souls of the followers of Ayn Rand, of course.Don't mind me, I can't stay. I just stopped in to drop off this picture for Chrissy, since Penn Jillette agrees.
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Uh, you mean the demand for the asset? You're saying that demand for an asset does not influence its price?
No one thing determines price of any good - there are a lot of factors that go into that - but demand is one of the big two, the other one being "supply."As to the previous sentence, you're referring to growth in the value of assets... in other words, inflation.
In other words, they're betting on inflation.
The argument in this article (I didn't read it, but it's apparent from the bit you quoted) is that both methods depend on inflation - which, again, there's no one single factor that determines inflation/deflation rates (not even the Federal Reserve, Ron Paul), but population growth and decline is one of the factors that influence it, due to how it affects the demand for assets and other limited goods, because that demand does affect their price. Look at petroleum, for example: increased global demand (in other words, increasing populations using petroleum) leads to increased price leads to owners of petroleum making money. Off of inflation.
In fact, if you think about it hard enough, and I don't recommend this because it will make you sad, almost the entire post-war structure of the economic system of the U.S. is based on inflation, from the housing market to how we plan retirement.
I am not intentionally trying to channel Ron Paul here because what he says is far too simplistic for someone who has even taken a small handful of econ classes to swallow, but the fact is that much of, and maybe even most of, the economic growth in the U.S. has been due to inflation. What most Paulies don't get is that that inflation is in the context of a global currency market, and our GDP's relationship to the CPI in that context, and...
We need a real economics major in here because my brain is all #*$&@&$ right now just from thinking about this.
Actually, there have been nascent stirrings in the accounting community regarding valuating employees to give more accurate balance sheets in a knowledge-based economy. Google's investment value is in its creative employees, not the number of buildings it owns. Businesses can't own employees and so it doesn't quite work (hence your remark), but it makes a lot of sense in a business valuation perspective for businesses for whom the creativity of their workforce is THE reason to invest in them: Facebook, Google, Apple (their marketing department anyway), etc.
/nerd
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Wasn't administratium first discovered in public school administrations? Surely they have some of the highest concentrations.
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That Penn Jillette thing expresses one of the features of whatever that is -- libertarianism, Randism, some codgerish fantasy of rugged individualism? -- that just irritates me to no end because it is so short-sighted. Maintaining a publicly funded social safety net is not compassion, and it's not force, and it's not some shallow ego-trip as the picture-quote implies. It's enlightened self-interest. It maintains a society in which there is less communicable disease (which doesn't care how rich or self-sufficient you are), less social inequality which breeds less class resentment which provides less fertile ground for demagogues and propagandists, stronger, better educated, better qualified workers to drive the economy that, yes, even the most ardent Randites rely on every day. And ultimately it provides a society in which we do not have to live surrounded by suffering and misery every damned day. Plus, it provides a safety net in case I should some day fall on hard times. And that is in my best interests.
Compassion is great, but compassion is not a necessary component here. Even the most selfish bastard in the world will benefit himself by benefiting others in this way.
Unless, of course, he has no clue how things work, what poverty is or how it happens, how epidemics occur or are prevented, how economies work, or even what taxes are. ETA: Or that education is not charity.
Compassion is great, but compassion is not a necessary component here. Even the most selfish bastard in the world will benefit himself by benefiting others in this way.
Unless, of course, he has no clue how things work, what poverty is or how it happens, how epidemics occur or are prevented, how economies work, or even what taxes are. ETA: Or that education is not charity.
I can't help but wonder if there was a better way to structure social security. The idea is to give the poor a helping hand, right? To make sure they can survive and hopefully pull their way out of their poverty cycle, right?
I'm not expert, so I'd rather know...less about how much money we're spending, and more about HOW it is being spent. You can throw ten billion dollars at a problem and still have a problem if you don't spend your money properly.
ETA: So, rather than giving the poor money, shouldn't we try to create jobs? And doesn't that mean, trying to create an environment where creating a business - coffee houses, book stores, restaurants, hair saloons, computer part stores, you name it - is easier, more streamlined, and so on?
I'm not expert, so I'd rather know...less about how much money we're spending, and more about HOW it is being spent. You can throw ten billion dollars at a problem and still have a problem if you don't spend your money properly.
ETA: So, rather than giving the poor money, shouldn't we try to create jobs? And doesn't that mean, trying to create an environment where creating a business - coffee houses, book stores, restaurants, hair saloons, computer part stores, you name it - is easier, more streamlined, and so on?
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Social security isn't about giving poor people money. It was created to prevent the problem of elderly people - who no one really wants to hire - from starving to death in the street and eating cat food under bridges and stuff, which is what used to happen to our elderly, particularly during the Great Depression. Its secondary role is to make sure that orphaned kids have an income of some sort.
At least, that's how I've always understood SS.
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You can not have a comprehensive welfare state without taxing the living crap out of the poor and the middle income earners. There simply isn't enough money in the hands of "the rich" to fund more than maybe 3-9 months of a federal budget.
The proper thing to do is, of course, to not have the poor and middle income earners pay the highly regressive taxes like sales tax, but I welcome anyone to try and devise a system that's not open to incredible abuse to avoid that.
The progressive idea is to tax the poor and middle income earners incredibly much, and then hand money back to them in the form of tax breaks, loop holes, deductions and straight out cash hand-outs.
Which of course creates self-feeding bureaucracies that need to be fed and watered, and who will look for new tasks and tasklets to do in order to justify its own existence.
The proper thing to do is, of course, to not have the poor and middle income earners pay the highly regressive taxes like sales tax, but I welcome anyone to try and devise a system that's not open to incredible abuse to avoid that.
The progressive idea is to tax the poor and middle income earners incredibly much, and then hand money back to them in the form of tax breaks, loop holes, deductions and straight out cash hand-outs.
Which of course creates self-feeding bureaucracies that need to be fed and watered, and who will look for new tasks and tasklets to do in order to justify its own existence.
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The definition of a ponzi scheme is using new investments to pay prior obligated returns. So in that way, Social Security is a ponzi scheme. End of story. Sorry, but no matter how wonderful it is that people are born, and exist, and relate with and support each other, there's no way around that fact.
And, IMO, there are a hell of a lot more warm fuzzies involved in the idea of doing things for and on behalf of other people voluntarily, than under the compulsion of government mandates. But I do get your meaning.
Chrissy. I was answering the question of whether society was a ponzi scheme, not social security. So your response came across as dismissive and non- responsive.
Social security isn't a ponzi scheme either any more than or less than banking or capitalism itself. Banks give interst because they can take money in now from depositors, make money loaning it out and give a piece of that in return. Surely, you don't think the actual money you deposit stays in the bank somewhere.
Economics is a matter of the creation and flow of wealth as a component of and tool for the maintenance of society. Capitalism relies on the flow of money. The social security fund takes in money from one set of people now and uses that to pay other people now, but it notes what those first people are owed in the future. Banks do this all the time.
And no, we can't trust social security to banks because they are profit making, risk taking institutions. They are not set up by or answerable to the prople which our government is meant to be.
Perhaps not, but they're working bloody goddamn hard to improve that situation.
caw
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Right-brained mode over, renewing debate.
Bureaucracy != government. As I've always understood it, bureaucracy is increasing layers (or "middlemen") between buyer and seller, or operations and customer. You're talking about adding an additional layer between billing and operations, or complicating the relationship between billing and operations, or adding additional paying figures within billing... in any case, the result is that you have to hire more people to handle billing/receivables/etc.
Secondly, the amount of expenses that a business spends on payroll varies greatly by business. A small architecture firm versus a national clothing retailer are going to have very different payroll figures, I think.
This isn't a right versus left thing, because plenty of people on the right have a problem with this, too. But every time I hear a "private benefit" argument, it's like... hmm... was that a private benefit for you? Or is it just a private benefit now that you're already a recipient of the public benefit? Nice.
Anyway, if you knew more teachers (and, OK, about 2/3 of my family are teachers; husband, grandma, grandpa, two great aunts, one uncle, one aunt, four cousins, etc - this in a small family), you'd probably know that the difference in between students who want to learn versus those who don't make all the difference in the world. AW teachers, feel free to chime in here.
Bureaucracy != government. As I've always understood it, bureaucracy is increasing layers (or "middlemen") between buyer and seller, or operations and customer. You're talking about adding an additional layer between billing and operations, or complicating the relationship between billing and operations, or adding additional paying figures within billing... in any case, the result is that you have to hire more people to handle billing/receivables/etc.
Ergo, more bureaucracy.
Already covered this part. If you want, I can look up some school district CAFR's, but it's a bit late for that. There may be some cost drivers that we haven't thought of.
Well, for one thing, payroll or operations payroll? There are a lot of people on a school's payroll, just like any other business or non-profit or government agency, that aren't working in operations. Teachers are the operations employees, but janitors and security guards and secretaries and... you get my drift, are not. They're support.
Secondly, the amount of expenses that a business spends on payroll varies greatly by business. A small architecture firm versus a national clothing retailer are going to have very different payroll figures, I think.
I was just pointing out that your plan doesn't improve anything. Access, quality, and efficiency are the only ways I can see to improve education. I don't think your idea improves efficiency; in fact, I think it hurts it. See above.
I'm just amazed at how many upper-middle class folks with rich friends and relatives that I meet from south Florida that happen to have their kids in magnet programs. I guess it could just be a coincidence. You're right, it's irrelevant to the argument at hand, but this is the problem I see with "charter schools" and such.
Covered this in previous post.
I said "old and rich," and this is part of my narrative lens that I insufficiently explained. Baby boomers hold 78% of the wealth in this country, and they hold a disproportionate amount of economic and political capital, in part due to the size of their generation versus all others ('cause they didn't have enough kids). They also benefited from the best and most government-subsidized education that our nation has ever offered. Now that they're relatively old and wealthy, many of them are all "Yay, Medicare Part D! Boo, public education!"
This isn't a right versus left thing, because plenty of people on the right have a problem with this, too. But every time I hear a "private benefit" argument, it's like... hmm... was that a private benefit for you? Or is it just a private benefit now that you're already a recipient of the public benefit? Nice.
Covered this.
I do think that intentionally increasing the economic burden of childrearing is an inherently bad thing for society.
It's already a priority, for people with kids. That's the problem. It should be a priority for all of us, because it benefits all of us. The problem is the perception of private versus public benefit. People think it's a private benefit if they don't see how it's benefiting them right now at this very moment. They forget, or just don't care, that they benefited from government subsidization of education.
You don't have a lot of friends or relatives that are teachers, huh? There's a huge difference in working environment between private and public schools, just like the difference in working environment between "desirable" public schools and "undesirable" ones. Private schools pay less, and this mitigates it somewhat, but it's not easy to get a job in a private school, either. Actually, the best private schools have a bunch of PhD and MA/MS holders (not in education, but in their primary fields) as teachers; I had a doctoral holder as a teacher for my HS classes in Latin, chemistry, Roman culture, world history, German...
Anyway, if you knew more teachers (and, OK, about 2/3 of my family are teachers; husband, grandma, grandpa, two great aunts, one uncle, one aunt, four cousins, etc - this in a small family), you'd probably know that the difference in between students who want to learn versus those who don't make all the difference in the world. AW teachers, feel free to chime in here.
I'll keep liking you too as long as you don't call me lady again. Pshaw, I'm like a zygote.Taking a break. You are one long-winded lady.
Yeah, it was pretty bad. I apologize sincerely.
The Social Security was brought up in the previous post and my brain latched on that. I didn't even read "society" in your post until this morning. My bad, completely.
Social security, when it was originally set up, wasn't supposed to be spent. Yes, the idea of the government holding your retirement money WAS safer than banks or investment firms, because it was the big, strong, safe, benevolent government. But then the government changed the rules. They decided to spend the money. Not invest it. Not try to increase it. Just spend it, 'cuz, look how big it is! And look at all these people! And there'll be plenty more where they came from!
Government never increases wealth. It never invests money for profit. The government spends. There is no income-producing motive. Their income is to collect our taxes. So, there's never any growth (unless you count the growth of the population) and there's never any wealth. In fact, there's not even a break even. There's massive, massive debt, and tax dollars going to pay interest on that debt.
ETA: I'm not an anarchist. I do believe the government has an important role (roles) in society. But not as our investment specialist.
ETAA: And there's a huge difference between a bank using invested money to make a loan, which earns interest and is then paid back, and the government using it to build a fleet of B-52 bomber planes (or whatever).
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Not really. My ATA would be like the AMA, the overseer of licensure, regulations, etc. Like the government is now, only the government is much bigger, inherently.
Not if the government stepped out of control mode and just provided the financing for the lower-incomes. But yeah, you're right, they'd probably have to set up a whole new department for that and appoint a bunch of committees.
Yes, because you're comparing service-based industry with a product-based industry. But percentage wise, payroll is pretty consistent across service businesses. I used the percentages I typically see in a service-based business, like teaching.
And now we're back to the efficiency argument (Hey! I remember you! lol) And you've previously convinced me that government CAN be efficient (whereas I think that the free-market has that advantage).
I just stared at my computer for like, 30 minutes just now. I'm torn. First off, I don't see anything "intentional" about it. Kids are expensive. People have them anyway. I love kids. I think kids are awesome. But there are responsibilities, economic and otherwise, that have nothing to do with government. But there's a segment of the population that feels entitled to government benefits BECAUSE they have kids. While I'm not opposed to helping people who need help, there's also that whole responsiblity thing. In a perfect world, you wouldn't have kids until you're completely responsible. Would society crumble? Would the population die out? I don't think so. Would social security crumble? Probably. But since my scenario is unlikely, it's moot.
I understand what you're saying.
I'm certainly not arguing the benefit and the joy of teaching good students. But increasing teachers' salaries was the whole impetus for my plan.
I talked to my son (8th grade) last night, asked him about his teachers and mentioned that "they don't make enough money" and Zach said immediately: "Oh my God, Mom. You know what, I only have one teacher that doesn't say that to the class." And I was like, "What?" And he said, "All my teachers are always like, 'They don't pay me enough for this job.'" And these are teachers of AP students. They don't want better students. They want more money.
I'll keep liking you too as long as you don't call me lady again. Pshaw, I'm like a zygote.
Oh, no.... (I'm a champion of the zygotes, as you probably know.
)
We can just take this whole discussion down to this one statement. If you believe that the growth in the value of an asset is the same thing as inflation, we're so far apart we have nothing to discuss.
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Yeah, it was pretty bad. I apologize sincerely.
The Social Security was brought up in the previous post and my brain latched on that. I didn't even read "society" in your post until this morning. My bad, completely.
Social security, when it was originally set up, wasn't supposed to be spent. Yes, the idea of the government holding your retirement money WAS safer than banks or investment firms, because it was the big, strong, safe, benevolent government. But then the government changed the rules. They decided to spend the money. Not invest it. Not try to increase it. Just spend it, 'cuz, look how big it is! And look at all these people! And there'll be plenty more where they came from!
Government never increases wealth. It never invests money for profit. The government spends. There is no income-producing motive. Their income is to collect our taxes. So, there's never any growth (unless you count the growth of the population) and there's never any wealth. In fact, there's not even a break even. There's massive, massive debt, and tax dollars going to pay interest on that debt.
ETA: I'm not an anarchist. I do believe the government has an important role (roles) in society. But not as our investment specialist.
ETAA: And there's a huge difference between a bank using invested money to make a loan, which earns interest and is then paid back, and the government using it to build a fleet of B-52 bomber planes (or whatever).
Apology accepted. Now back to the merciless savagery.
The change the government made in social security wasn't a change from holding the money to spending it. It changed from having two different budgets to one. I don't think they should have done that, but it's mostly accounting not hoarding money.
Governments do create wealth, just not in obvious fashions. The highway system reduces the cost and time of travel increasing the wealth of everyone who uses it. The copyright and patent systems increase the wealth of artists and inventors by protecting them from copying. The education system if properly increases the knowledge and skills of the people thereby increasing their capability to produce and so on.
You're making what seems to me a common mistake, that of not seeing the role of catalysts, of processes that facilitate other processes sometimes by accelerating, sometimes by moving things around and sometimes by slowing things down. Life depends on processes like this, so do computers and so do societies.
The socialization of transportation and other infrastructure costs is also responsible for creating a society that uses far more energy than it would have had factory farms and mass producers of widely-distributed disposable goods had to compete with local farms and locally-produced repairable goods by recognizing the full costs of transportation. Much of today's energy crisis can be laid directly at the feet of government for encouraging wasteful practices to keep the mass-production factories humming.
That's the only widely-accepted definition I'm aware of.