ancap

7 ms·

1.
by ancap 2y ago
> Um...how many stories in the media, from the front page of the NYTimes to top-grossing movies, are about the incompetence & evils of governments & members of ruling classes? I don't have a copy of today's NYT so I&#x2
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by ancap 2y ago
> I find this definition interesting because it seems to me there’s a very prevalent portrayal in media pointing towards the opposite, that is that humans left alone (read, without some powerful/wealthy authority) will unravel into
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by ancap 2y ago
Compared to today? In the past century hundreds of millions of people have been slaughtered by states. Compare that with any "private sector" killing, now or in "early civilization" and the mounds of bodies are non-exist
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Covid Charts Quiz(covidchartsquiz.com)
3 points by ancap 5y ago|0 comments
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by ancap 8y ago
I think there's some confusion here because often when talking about "flat" or "stagnant" wages people are referring to the idea that inflation outpaces wage increases (which is wrong, and the point I was addressing
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by ancap 8y ago
That's because wages aren't flat. All of the studies which claim wages are flat make one or more methodological errors. The errors primarily being 1) using different price deflators when calculating price inflation vs wage inflati
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by ancap 8y ago
Actually, it doesn't make sense even if everyone is not playing fair. Self-harm is self-harm. What kind of negotiating is that? "If you shoot a hole in your boat I'll shoot one in mine!"
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by ancap 8y ago
Economic ignorance abounds in these comments. Tariffs are more accurately termed a punitive tax on consumers. A country enacting reciprocal tariffs is like shooting a hole in your boat to get back at your neighbor who shot a hole in their o
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by ancap 9y ago
Even absent government regulation, I still don't see consumers being terribly concerned about the source of their apple. Why? Because the quality of it is reflected by the reputation of the seller. But even if I were to concede the arg
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by ancap 9y ago
>...That's transparency The criteria you specify for transparency is subjective and I don't agree that all of those criteria are strictly necessary. Specifically, I don't agree that knowledge of "provenance, relative
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by ancap 9y ago
I disagree. I think in a lot of cases buyers should or would demand transparency (ie. has this house ever been flooded?), but I don't think it's a strict requirement in the broad sense you may be implying. Transparency can be subj
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by ancap 9y ago
>So I suppose in your mind that whatever a company wants to do is fine, and that's your prerogative. Non sequitur and a red herring. >To believe otherwise is to believe that a person does not have personal agency, and that a pers
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by ancap 9y ago
> They do not act perfectly rational. I suppose you have your own definition for "perfectly rational" that you're standing by, and that's fine. But I fail to see the point. How is that relevant to this thread? I origi
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by ancap 9y ago
>Yes, they did. My social security number, my address history, my employment history, all my data. I can write down in my notepad right now: s73v3r_ - thumb sucker and whether it's true or false, real or imaginary, relevant o
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by ancap 9y ago
Sure people are rational, even though you as an external actor may not agree with their motives. Even a schizophrenic is rational given what they have to work with. I'm not sure what perfect information has to do with anything. It&#x27
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by ancap 9y ago
>Yes it does. While you've presented a compelling counter-argument, I'm still not convinced. >And when did I agree to Equifax's terms? You didn't need to because they never stored "your data".
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by ancap 9y ago
I find the term "your data" bothersome. Just because there is a piece of data out there that pertains to you it doesn't make it "your data". Some will contend that the data is only gathered through a violation of yo
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by ancap 9y ago
>First, do you or anyone you know directly or indirectly profit from these types of services? Of course. No one would be using them if they weren't better off from using them.
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by ancap 9y ago
No, I'm equating one statement of economic nonsense with another statement of economic nonsense. It was a reductio ad absurdum. Unless there are severe external market constraints pushing down the demand of labor, an employer would ne
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by ancap 9y ago
That's just wrong and demonstrates a fundamental lack of understanding of basic economics. If labor were much cheaper, I personally might be willing to hire a maid, a gardener, a masseuse, a cook, etc. Similarly a retail business might
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by ancap 9y ago
I'm not sure what's so hard to believe about that. It's not even a controversial statement. Are you suggesting that if labor were cheaper the market would not consume more of it?
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by ancap 9y ago
Few things hurt the poor, in particular unskilled minorities, like minimum wage. Those people are effectively outlawed from the labor market because their marginal productivity doesn't make the cut. This is why there is often exception
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by ancap 9y ago
No one who is employed is paid "the true value of their labor". Every exchange, whether it's dollars for a good or dollars for labor, happens because of the subjective value the exchange provides to the exchangers. >Busine
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by ancap 9y ago
>The people in power do everything they can to keep wages down. Wages are set by the market through supply and demand
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by ancap 9y ago
What does "deserving" have anything to do with it? That's entirely subjective. If Sam gave his wealth to a plumber, the plumber wouldn't have been any more "deserving". If he gave it to a hospital, the hospital
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by ancap 9y ago
I am often left wondering why people seem so concerned about income inequality, and when asking those who are concerned sadly the response tends to be indignant. With that said I was quite interested that your linked article might explain w
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by ancap 9y ago
"Dry wall contractor" is a pretty generic job title. "Uber driver" is very specific including the "location" where the driver is working. To make the analogy fair you'd have to do have a "Dry wall con
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by ancap 9y ago
https://files.stlouisfed.org/files/htdocs/publications/es/07... http://www.nber.org/papers/w13953.pdf http://cep.lse.ac.uk/pubs/download/dp1246.pdf The la
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by ancap 9y ago
Unfortunately, this is because accounting for Asians contradicts the desired political narrative.
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by ancap 9y ago
These "wage decoupling" studies generally make two methodological mistakes. 1) They do not include fringe benefits in their calculation of wages 2) They use one inflation measure to adjust for cost changes in productivity over tim

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