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Dominoes
Sep 20, 2007

The OP is a list of American Liberal talking points. It's a D&D groupthink-branded "How to Talk to a Liberal (If You Must):", with no regard for exploring new policy ideas or fairly evaluating effects of existing ones. It serves to reinforce existing biases, representing a fundamental problem with modern politics.

Dominoes fucked around with this message at 15:08 on Oct 22, 2011

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Dameius
Apr 3, 2006

Dominoes posted:

The OP is a list of American Liberal talking points. It's a D&D groupthink-branded "How to Talk to a Liberal (If You Must):", with no regard for exploring new policy ideas or fairly evaluating effects of existing ones. It serves to reinforce existing biases, representing a fundamental problem with modern politics.

If you have good articles/pieces that help some one frame an argument from an alternative perspective then I don't think any one in here would object to you including them. The thread's purpose is to help D&D d&d. Having fully fleshed out counter positions to ones common in D&D can only help anyone who visits this thread since there is a model example and blah blah blah.

Helsing
Aug 23, 2003

DON'T POST IN THE ELECTION THREAD UNLESS YOU :love::love::love: JOE BIDEN

Waco Panty Raid posted:

Oh yes, a "nitpick" to point out that the very law you cited for your Loughner fantasy doesn't even work the way you think it does, and you think that is telling on me? Maybe instead of attacking me for "nitpicking" you should rethink why you hold these opinions if all you are using as basis is some article you read that doesn't even get basic facts right.

I don't think handguns or automatic rifles should be available on demand to regular citizens because they make it far too easy to commit the sorts of massacres that occured in Arizona and Norway this year. I'm not sure why you pointing out that the AWB was actually weaker than the article I read said it was doesn't strike me as a reason to change my opinions on gun control - it really just reflects that the AWB was a laughably weak piece of legislation.

If you want to argue about why its important that citizens be allowed own dangerous killing machines then I'm happy to hear your arguments, but I really could care less about the details of the AWB.

Interlude posted:

Whether or not you consider gun ownership a "civil right" by the standards of your home country's law, it is here in America and thus your standard of judgment is inapplicable.

We aren't in America, friend, we're on the internet.

Waco Panty Raid
Mar 30, 2002

I don't mind being a little pedantic.

Helsing posted:

I don't think handguns or automatic rifles should be available on demand to regular citizens because they make it far too easy to commit the sorts of massacres that occured in Arizona and Norway this year. I'm not sure why you pointing out that the AWB was actually weaker than the article I read said it was doesn't strike me as a reason to change my opinions on gun control - it really just reflects that the AWB was a laughably weak piece of legislation.

If you want to argue about why its important that citizens be allowed own dangerous killing machines then I'm happy to hear your arguments, but I really could care less about the details of the AWB.
I agree that the AWB was really just a nuissance to legal gun owners, which is why it is laughable that anyone still brings it up (especially in the US) and doubly laughable that someone would actually try to credit it with stopping/lessening a spree killing.

Obviously this isn't meant to be a gun control thread, hell I don't know if gun control threads are even allowed anymore in D&D, so I'm not going to get into arguing against your vague opinion of what "on demand" might mean (I certainly wouldn't apply it to Norway's licensing/storage controls or the controls the US places on automatic rifles (assuming you mean full-autos and aren't referring to semi-autos, in which case it depends on the particular state)). Safe to say I disagree with your opinion that we should kneejerk ban firearms in response to extremely rare tragedies with understandably-high emotions and media coverage attached to them.

Helsing
Aug 23, 2003

DON'T POST IN THE ELECTION THREAD UNLESS YOU :love::love::love: JOE BIDEN

Waco Panty Raid posted:

I agree that the AWB was really just a nuissance to legal gun owners, which is why it is laughable that anyone still brings it up (especially in the US) and doubly laughable that someone would actually try to credit it with stopping/lessening a spree killing.

Obviously this isn't meant to be a gun control thread, hell I don't know if gun control threads are even allowed anymore in D&D, so I'm not going to get into arguing against your vague opinion of what "on demand" might mean (I certainly wouldn't apply it to Norway's licensing/storage controls or the controls the US places on automatic rifles (assuming you mean full-autos and aren't referring to semi-autos, in which case it depends on the particular state)). Safe to say I disagree with your opinion that we should kneejerk ban firearms in response to extremely rare tragedies with understandably-high emotions and media coverage attached to them.

I also live in a large urban centre that has a rising problem with gun related homicides, many of which come from America. There's also a lot of documentation about how American guns are flowing into Mexico and being used en masse by the cartels. We can agree to disagree, and I'm happy to stop derailing the thread, but my opinion isn't a knee jerk response.

Either way, I think this debate serves to prove that there is no consensus here about "gun control being a red herring", which is the post I was originally disputing.

Cognac McCarthy
Oct 5, 2008

It's a man's game, but boys will play

Dominoes posted:

The OP is a list of American Liberal talking points. It's a D&D groupthink-branded "How to Talk to a Liberal (If You Must):", with no regard for exploring new policy ideas or fairly evaluating effects of existing ones. It serves to reinforce existing biases, representing a fundamental problem with modern politics.

I won't even disagree with this; please contribute radically-different articles or ones calling for new paradigms in political discussions. I think the most useful articles so far are those that specifically address the arguments and rhetorical bases of American conservatives. But I also wanted this thread to help posters with specific debates they're having elsewhere, be that with regular, "mainstream-thought" liberals, or crazy conservatives. Sometimes you can't even hope to convince someone they're entirely wrong: it suffices to disprove myths. So we should be seeking to think more critically about our own positions, and this thread can and ought to help with that. I invite you to contribute to that.

Z-Magic
Feb 19, 2011

They talk about the people and the proletariat, I talk about the suckers and the mugs - it's the same thing. They have their five-year plans, so have I.
EMA (essentially paying students to continue with higher education) still gets brought up in the UK a lot even though it's been scrapped. The normal arguement is something along the lines of 'you shouldn't get paid to go to college' (sixth form college, not uni) and 'why should my tax money go to a bunch of lazy students. From a purely economic point of view one good one way to counter these arguments is the following study by the IFS (The Institute For Fiscal Studies).

Study - A cost-benefit analysis suggests that the costs of EMA are completely offset.

I know this thread is mainly for the US but I'd appreciate it if we were able to have some UK specific stuff as well.

Z-Magic fucked around with this message at 12:18 on Oct 23, 2011

Bruce Leroy
Jun 10, 2010

Interlude posted:

Whether or not you consider gun ownership a "civil right" by the standards of your home country's law, it is here in America and thus your standard of judgment is inapplicable.

Except the point is that there are functioning, stable, democratic nations that don't have gun ownership as civil rights, which is an obvious refutation of the gun rights advocacy tropes that the 2nd Amendment is necessary to preserve order, keep crime low, and prevent government tyranny.

I say this while being in favor of gun rights. It's just that I'm also in favor of not making up bullshit to support my positions and not ignoring inconvenient facts.

Dominoes posted:

The OP is a list of American Liberal talking points. It's a D&D groupthink-branded "How to Talk to a Liberal (If You Must):", with no regard for exploring new policy ideas or fairly evaluating effects of existing ones. It serves to reinforce existing biases, representing a fundamental problem with modern politics.

Now you're just poo poo posting.

You aren't bringing up specific, tangible problems with any of the sources being used, e.g. "those statistics are wrong," "the research methodology is flawed," "the underlying premises are wrong," "the logic is fallacious," etc., all you're doing is simply labeling it all as "liberal" and throwing your hands in the air as if something supporting a liberal argument necessarily means that it is wrong or bad.

Why don't you either make some well-reasoned critiques of the sources already presented or present your own sources that refute them?

GodlessCommie
Apr 4, 2008

by Jeffrey of YOSPOS
How about an article or a graph about how raising the minimum wage is a good thing and won't raise prices too much?

Enjoy
Apr 18, 2009
Only a moneyless society can allow mankind to dissolve capitalism and achieve equality, comrade.

Why We Don't Need Money - A sane alternative way of allocating resources

Enjoy fucked around with this message at 18:14 on Oct 23, 2011

internaut
Mar 2, 2007

I don't stop for nothin', kid.

GodlessCommie posted:

How about an article or a graph about how raising the minimum wage is a good thing and won't raise prices too much?

Minimum wage does not necessarily have negative consequences for economic growth and lowering minimum wage hurts agents in the economy
Rise in minimum wage significantly increased teenage wages without impacting teen employment

Cantorsdust
Aug 10, 2008

Infinitely many points, but zero length.
I've been having this discussion with my fiance for a while now, and I want DnD's take on this. We were talking about who we would vote for in the coming presidential election, and I said that I was planning on voting 3rd party (Green, socialist, whatever.) She was surprised, giving the standard reasoning that I would be throwing my vote away/might as well vote Republican then. We live in Missouri, which is usually a pretty close election, so she does have a point there.

I explained that I see the Democratic party continually tracking right to gain more conservative voters under the assumption that as long as they stay slightly to the left of the GOP, they won't lose their leftist base. If I vote for a third party to the left of the Democrats, it won't get a candidate elected, but it will be a signal to the Democrats that they will lose voters as they move right.

Besides, I said, the election is most likely going to be between Romney and Obama anyway, and those two are both center-right. If Obama loses and Romney wins, I can't see things changing, considering how lovely of a president Obama is anyway.

She acknowledged the reasoning, but wasn't entirely convinced. She still thinks that Obama really is liberal, but he can't get anything done with a Republican Congress/is really politically inexperienced. I think that Obama is deliberately moving right, and all this talk of his incompetency is merely excuses meant to cover his rear end, but I didn't have any examples on hand to prove my point.

Could you make a summary of truly terrible things Obama has done that could show he's not just incompetent but actively conservative? (Or, alternatively, prove me wrong and show that he is really trying.)

Enjoy
Apr 18, 2009
Do conservative governments make people want to die? Mortality and political climate: how suicide rates have risen during periods of Conservative government, 1901–2000

Dameius
Apr 3, 2006

Cantorsdust posted:

I've been having this discussion with my fiance for a while now, and I want DnD's take on this. We were talking about who we would vote for in the coming presidential election, and I said that I was planning on voting 3rd party (Green, socialist, whatever.) She was surprised, giving the standard reasoning that I would be throwing my vote away/might as well vote Republican then. We live in Missouri, which is usually a pretty close election, so she does have a point there.

I explained that I see the Democratic party continually tracking right to gain more conservative voters under the assumption that as long as they stay slightly to the left of the GOP, they won't lose their leftist base. If I vote for a third party to the left of the Democrats, it won't get a candidate elected, but it will be a signal to the Democrats that they will lose voters as they move right.

Besides, I said, the election is most likely going to be between Romney and Obama anyway, and those two are both center-right. If Obama loses and Romney wins, I can't see things changing, considering how lovely of a president Obama is anyway.

She acknowledged the reasoning, but wasn't entirely convinced. She still thinks that Obama really is liberal, but he can't get anything done with a Republican Congress/is really politically inexperienced. I think that Obama is deliberately moving right, and all this talk of his incompetency is merely excuses meant to cover his rear end, but I didn't have any examples on hand to prove my point.

Could you make a summary of truly terrible things Obama has done that could show he's not just incompetent but actively conservative? (Or, alternatively, prove me wrong and show that he is really trying.)

With out even having to point out all the truly terrible rightist poo poo he has pushed the argument that he is a secret liberal being held back by the mean old Republicans falls flat. From 2008-2010 the Democrats had control of both the legislature and the executive. If Obama really wanted to get poo poo pushed through he could have.

The likely response you'll hear is that Lieberman or some Blue Dog boogeyman held the entire party hostage but to that I'd say one: That means it wasn't Republicans holding things up, it was Democrats, and two, Obama could have tried a LBJ style approach to controlling his party. Obama might not have had the accumulated political favors to call in that LBJ had but Obama could have been much more proactive and aggressive than he was is the point.

If that doesn't work for whatever reason you could point out Obama has cut more taxes than Bush Jr. did, he has created a funding shortage bubble inside SS via the payroll tax break he gave out. He has also raised taxes on the bottom fifth by letting certain tax breaks/subsidies expire and this is especially egregious since he has lowered the tax burden on the top fifth. Most recently and currently most rage inducing Obama is talking about gutting out Sarbanes-Oxley (sp?) to spur job growth. Sarbanes was passed after the whole Enron fiasco during Bush Jr. and required honest book keeping/reporting for businesses to their investors.

There is a lot more and I'm sure more people can help with actual links but you can google the news stories about any of those pretty easily.

Oh also, Obama takes the compromise position when dealing with Republicans now as the starting point for negotiations before he even meets them at the table. Basically he capitulates to their demands before he even begins to try and bargain with them.

Interlude
Jan 24, 2001

Guns are basically hand fedoras.

Bruce Leroy posted:

Except the point is that there are functioning, stable, democratic nations that don't have gun ownership as civil rights, which is an obvious refutation of the gun rights advocacy tropes that the 2nd Amendment is necessary to preserve order, keep crime low, and prevent government tyranny.
That's nice that you think that, but it still can't be used to hand-wave away the 2nd Amendment. I mean I suppose you can just pretend it doesn't exist and debate the issues, but it's kind of the elephant in the room.

Bruce Leroy
Jun 10, 2010

Interlude posted:

That's nice that you think that, but it still can't be used to hand-wave away the 2nd Amendment. I mean I suppose you can just pretend it doesn't exist and debate the issues, but it's kind of the elephant in the room.

Nice job quoting me out of context.

The second part of my comment was that I'm still in favor of gun rights, so I was clearly not "hand-waving away the 2nd Amendment." My point was that those specific issues used by some groups to promote gun rights and reduce regulation (e.g. reducing crime, preventing government tyranny,etc.) are fallacious and just obscure more important arguments about civil liberties and real sociological issues, which I contend support the 2nd Amendment.

It only hurts supporters of the 2nd Amendment to argue demonstrably false tropes that guns are necessary to solve certain problems, especially when other nations have shown that this is not the case. It's more productive to talk about things like (1) fearmongering from those in favor of very strict gun control, (2) false choice fallacies from idiots who frame the debate as either being against the 2nd Amendment entirely or in favor of completely unrestricted and unregulated weapon ownership, (3) that there are other, more important contributors to crime like poverty, so we should deal with those instead, (4) how other nations like Canada, Switzerland, and Finland have personal gun ownership, but do not have anything close to the crime and recidivism rates of the USA so it's not gun ownership in and of itself that causes crime and other problems.

Bob Nudd
Jul 24, 2007

Gee whiz doc!

GodlessCommie posted:

How about an article or a graph about how raising the minimum wage is a good thing and won't raise prices too much?

Not trying to push an agenda here or anything, but the article mentioned in the OP -


also finds a 79% consensus among economists that "A minimum wage increases unemployment among young and unskilled workers" So, ya know, don't throw that article around too much if the stimulus point is the only one you like.

cremnob
Jun 30, 2010

Reducing the welfare state in Germany has lead to economic growth and low unemployment.

http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/67899/steven-rattner/the-secrets-of-germanys-success

quote:

The Secrets of Germany's Success

What Europe's Manufacturing Powerhouse Can Teach America

Steven Rattner
STEVEN RATTNER is former Counselor to the Secretary of the U.S. Treasury and former Lead Auto Adviser in the Obama administration.

As Americans fret about persistent economic challenges, particularly high unemployment, a nearly opposite mood pervades Germany. Neither the economic crises in the rest of the eurozone nor the instability in the Middle East has dampened a deep-seated conviction among German business leaders and economists that two decades after the costly reintegration of East Germany the country has reestablished its position as an economic juggernaut.

Germany's optimism appears warranted: whereas unemployment in the United States rose during the recent economic recession, from 4.6 percent in 2007 to 9.0 percent in 2011 (seasonally adjusted), in Germany, it fell, from 8.5 percent to 7.1 percent. For the first time since 1992, fewer than three million Germans are unemployed. By the time U.S. President Barack Obama was telling Americans in his January 2011 State of the Union address that the United States needed to double its exports, Germany had quietly become the world's second-largest exporter (after China). Indeed, Germany's exports have contributed two-thirds of the country's economic growth over the past decade and have driven its GDP per capita to increase faster than that of any other major industrialized country.

When it comes to boosting exports, of course, the need to maintain or even increase the size of the manufacturing sector, in particular, has been an article of faith in major developed countries for decades. Politicians and voters alike believe that having companies that "make something" is a key element of economic success, in part because manufacturing jobs have historically paid above average wages. For its part, Germany embraced manufacturing, and much of its economic success is thanks to that decision.

THE MITTELSTAND MIRACLE

Germans credit both their public and their private sectors for their country's success. Germany's government, particularly under Gerhard Schröder, who was chancellor from 1998 to 2005, played an important role in the country's economic growth. In early 2005, Schröder pushed through parliament a massive reform program called Agenda 2010. Doing so was politically costly for the chancellor. His party suffered a major loss in that spring's regional election, and when Schröder called for an early general election in the fall that year, he was defeated. But Agenda 2010 survived and successfully rolled back the German welfare state by, among other things, paring unemployment benefits to encourage work, relaxing stultifying regulatory practices, and forging a grand bargain with labor unions whereby the unions agreed to hold down wages and the government assured job security for workers.

This greater job security was afforded in large measure through a "short work" scheme: workers' total number of hours were reduced to avoid layoffs, and the government covered part of their lost salaries. Approximately 1.5 million Germans were enrolled in the program at its peak, in May 2009, at a cost to the government of 4.6 billion euros that year alone. According to a 2009 report by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the program saved approximately 500,000 jobs during the recent economic recession.

Of at least equal importance was the role of the private sector, especially the innumerable small and medium-sized manufacturing firms known as the Mittelstand. These companies combine the advantages of stable family ownership with a focus on producing sophisticated goods that emerging markets cannot easily replicate. As Germans like to say, "We make the thing that goes inside the thing that goes inside the thing." Although family-owned businesses can be a mixed blessing, of course -- they are subject to familial strife and succession problems -- the overall success of these companies is widely acknowledged. The Mittelstand now employ millions of people and seem to put a higher priority on employing Germans than do publicly traded multinational giants. Many Germans believe that since the Mittelstand are privately owned, they focus more on long-term growth than short-term profits.

A significant portion of Germany's industrial success can be traced to two manufacturing sectors. The first, heavily dominated by the Mittelstand, includes companies that build the sophisticated machine tools that emerging markets need as they develop their own manufacturing capabilities. This might sound like selling arms to one's adversary, but it has worked well for Germany. The second sector includes Germany's marquee auto brands -- BMW, Daimler, Porsche, Audi, and the like. Automakers are, of course, central to the German economy, composing about 20 percent of GDP. In particular, high-end cars have become hot commodities for affluent consumers in booming new markets, such as China, which alone accounts for 25 percent of BMW's global profits.

Some have warned that Germany's economy is overly export-dependent and vulnerable to the vicissitudes of the global economy, but the country's success as an exporter has created a virtuous circle that has instead strengthened the German economy. More exports have generated more profits and created more jobs, and these in turn have fueled domestic demand for consumer products. Germany's exports in February 2011 were 21 percent higher than a year earlier, and its imports were 27 percent higher.

BAD FOR EU, GOOD FOR ME

Although Germany's public and private sectors deserve enormous credit for their accomplishments, the reasons for the country's economic triumph are more complicated. Not all of Germany's economic policies -- especially its decision to hold down wages -- have had positive effects. According to a December 2010 International Labor Organization report, real earnings in the country dropped by 4.5 percent over the past decade. In other words, even as Germany was selling more and finding innovative ways to keep more of its citizens employed, it was failing to provide most Germans with an improved standard of living. And inevitably, wages can be held down only for so long in an otherwise healthy economy. Accordingly, real wages have begun to rise -- by 1.5 percent in 2010 -- marginally eroding German competitiveness.

At the same time, the short-work program adversely affected productivity: between 2007 and 2009, GDP per employee fell by five percent in Germany while rising by two percent in the United States. The tension between maximizing productivity, or competitiveness, and maximizing employment is something almost all developed countries face. In some ways, Germany and the United States are on opposite ends of this spectrum. Germany maximized employment, and its GDP suffered; the flexible U.S. economy tends to maximize productivity, and it has a higher unemployment rate as a result.

Meanwhile, the introduction of the euro in 1999 quietly brought Germany another advantage: it fused the country to others whose competitiveness, as measured by the cost of each unit of labor, had stagnated, particularly Greece, Ireland, Italy, Portugal, and Spain, but also France. Meanwhile, since 1999, Germany's competitiveness has increased by nearly 20 percent. Germany wins more business worldwide when it competes against other eurozone countries to sell its exports, and it even outperforms them in their home markets. About 80 percent of Germany's trade surplus comes from its trade with the rest of the European Union.

The eurozone's weak economic performance and the simmering sovereign debt crises in several peripheral eurozone countries have kept the value of the euro well below what the deutsche mark would be worth today if it still existed. (According to some estimates, if Germany abandoned the euro, its currency would immediately appreciate by 30 to 40 percent.) This gives Germany an enormous competitive trade advantage over countries with their own, more expensive currencies, such as the United Kingdom and the United States. The economic stimulus from the undervaluation of the euro has been so powerful that the biggest economic worry in Germany today is that the economy will overheat and trigger inflation.

LEARNING GERMANY'S LESSONS

Whatever its flaws, the German model shows that a developed country can remain competitive even in a world where new economic giants, such as China, India, and others, are emerging. To accomplish this requires determined political leadership -- of the kind that Schröder displayed in 2005 -- as well as figuring out the right ways to exploit a country's comparative advantages. Germany has succeeded in large part through its focus on specialized manufacturing and marquee brands. Given the vastly lower labor costs and quickly rising productivity in the developing world, emphasizing the top of the value-added chain is the surest way forward for advanced economies. In 2009, General Motors' labor costs were $55 per hour in the United States, $7 in Mexico, $4.50 in China, and $1 in India for the same types of work. Although productivity in Mexico, China, and India was lower than in the United States, the difference in wages more than compensated.

As the German example has shown, superior products, and at least some with significant brand recognition, can buoy an entire economy. Even though locally produced Buicks are a huge success in China, the United States may not have auto brands with enough marquee value to compete widely for China's high-end consumers. But it does have an enviable global edge in several high-growth sectors, including social media (Google and Facebook), entertainment, technology, and finance.

The United States will also have to be realistic, however. Given the high rates of investment in the developing countries and the fact that these countries' workers are becoming increasingly skilled, even the smartest government policies cannot keep the U.S. economy's share of global manufacturing exports from declining. This will mean more human dislocation, which Washington should work to ameliorate. Creative approaches along the lines of Germany's Agenda 2010 would help. Although the short-work program has had its disadvantages, by spreading available work across a broader pool of laborers, it prevented some of the wrenching social costs, such as high unemployment, that the United States has recently experienced. And just as Germany has profited from its focus on producing highly trained engineers, the United States would benefit from better technical training programs.

The United States may also find inspiration in Germany's growing focus on encouraging new industries, such as the alternative energy sector. In typical German fashion, its green-energy companies manufacture mainly niche products, such as components for solar panels and machine tools for building parts for solar devices. Thanks to new laws encouraging investment in green energy, last year Germany's green-energy industry received $41 billion in new investment, compared with $34 billion in the United States. Such government interventions can, of course, create a slippery slope, with all the attendant risks of poor execution and management. But at least some of these risks can be mitigated if the government insists that its capital be used to leverage private investment.

Germany has lived off exporting to other markets for a long time. The United States would benefit from nurturing such an orientation in its own economy. In Germany, even the Mittelstand business owners are international. Many have lived and worked outside of Germany and speak excellent English -- the global language of business. Obama's rhetoric about doubling exports represents at least a first step toward achieving greater U.S. focus on world markets.

The challenges of globalization for developed countries -- and particularly for these countries' workers -- are real. Germany's success as an exporter of niche manufactured goods has not been unambiguous, but on balance, the German example shows that a combination of good private-sector performance and a sensible policy approach can encourage real growth, even in the West. Absent a more thoughtful approach, U.S. industry is likely to find itself under unrelenting pressure as globalization inexorably grows.

Helsing
Aug 23, 2003

DON'T POST IN THE ELECTION THREAD UNLESS YOU :love::love::love: JOE BIDEN

cremnob posted:

Reducing the welfare state in Germany has lead to economic growth and low unemployment.

http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/67899/steven-rattner/the-secrets-of-germanys-success

That article lists all kinds of factors that almost certainly had a much bigger impact than welfare reforms, like an an undervalued Euro, the short work program, the good working relationship between big unions, big business and the government, and the highly competitive performance of Germany's manufacturing sector (which is heavily subsidized, by the by).

There's literally nothing specific in that article about how welfare benefits were distributed before and after the reforms or about the specifics of how the reforms altered your eligibility by "paring unemployment benefits to encourage work". Hell, the article's author, Rattner, doesn't even cite the welfare reductions as being any more or less important than the numerous other factors he discusses, and to I think anyone with half a brain can probably see that the short work program is the leading factor in low unemployment.

When your making a political economy argument you need to get a bit more sophisticated than "in 2005, German welfare was reformed. In 2011 German unemployment was 7.1%. Therefore welfare reform created created economic growth and employment."

Paul MaudDib
May 3, 2006

TEAM NVIDIA:
FORUM POLICE

Bruce Leroy posted:

Except the point is that there are functioning, stable, democratic nations that don't have gun ownership as civil rights, which is an obvious refutation of the gun rights advocacy tropes that the 2nd Amendment is necessary to preserve order, keep crime low, and prevent government tyranny.

You can find examples of functioning, stable democratic nations that don't have pretty much anything as a civil right. Americans don't give civil rights to kids, so Europe should take away children's rights. Europe doesn't have free speech as a right. America doesn't think welfare (right to food/shelter) or healthcare is a right. And so on and so on.

And your opinion that it shouldn't be doesn't change the fact that firearms ownership is a civil right here. It's a losing battle, one that has legitimate origins in the eyes of many Americans due to the American revolution, and it's simply not worth fighting again.

e: What I am saying is, enjoy living in your first-world European democracies, and if you really want to help you should push for the things that create equality and raise standards of living so that crime is naturally reduced instead of trying to push measures that will create a backlash against those same policies. There's tens of millions of Americans living with disease, no access to dentistry, in food deserts, and so on. We even have Doctors without Borders-style organizations working here in the US. Education costs $25k a year. This should be a thousand times more important to you than whether someone gets to keep a gun. The best way to address crime (and the perceived need for gun ownership) is to make people feel safe and have a stake in society and we are massively falling down there.

Besides, how did that nut who shot up the kids' camp get a gun in gun-free Europe anyway?

Paul MaudDib fucked around with this message at 20:11 on Oct 24, 2011

cremnob
Jun 30, 2010

Helsing posted:

That article lists all kinds of factors that almost certainly had a much bigger impact than welfare reforms, like an an undervalued Euro, the short work program, the good working relationship between big unions, big business and the government, and the highly competitive performance of Germany's manufacturing sector (which is heavily subsidized, by the by).

There's literally nothing specific in that article about how welfare benefits were distributed before and after the reforms or about the specifics of how the reforms altered your eligibility by "paring unemployment benefits to encourage work". Hell, the article's author, Rattner, doesn't even cite the welfare reductions as being any more or less important than the numerous other factors he discusses, and to I think anyone with half a brain can probably see that the short work program is the leading factor in low unemployment.

When your making a political economy argument you need to get a bit more sophisticated than "in 2005, German welfare was reformed. In 2011 German unemployment was 7.1%. Therefore welfare reform created created economic growth and employment."

I never actually said reducing the welfare state was the sole reason for economic growth and low unemployment, so I find it amusing how you're trying to minimize it. I realize it's uncomfortable because liberals in America often look to Germany as the Socialist Utopia, but saying "That article lists all kinds of factors that almost certainly had a much bigger impact than welfare reforms" and then "I think anyone with half a brain can probably see that the short work program is the leading factor in low unemployment" is pretty rich considering that I "need to get a bit more sophisticated".

But yes the short work program was apart of Agenda 2010 which was the government's way to ensure job security in return for holding wages down. That's what the "good working relationship between big unions, big business and the government" was about.

e: And according to Goons in the German politics thread, Agenda 2010 was overall a necessary step.

cremnob fucked around with this message at 19:47 on Oct 24, 2011

Helsing
Aug 23, 2003

DON'T POST IN THE ELECTION THREAD UNLESS YOU :love::love::love: JOE BIDEN

cremnob posted:

I never actually said reducing the welfare state was the sole reason for economic growth and low unemployment, so I find it amusing how you're trying to minimize it.

I strongly doubt that very many American conservatives would agree that having the state directly paying employee's wages to keep them employed is a good example of "reducing the welfare state". And given that German welfare benefits are still substantially higher than American benefits, I suspect that most Americans liberals (and I am emphatically neither American nor a liberal) would probably embrace a "reduction" of their welfare state that left their country more closely resembling the German system.

quote:

I realize it's uncomfortable because liberals in America often look to Germany as the Socialist Utopia, but saying "That article lists all kinds of factors that almost certainly had a much bigger impact than welfare reforms" and then "I think anyone with half a brain can probably see that the short work program is the leading factor in low unemployment" is pretty rich considering that I "need to get a bit more sophisticated".

Why exactly do you think that its ridiculous to argue that a program in which the government literally steps in to start paying employees on behalf of their employers is the main reason that unemployment has dropped in Germany? On the face of it that is a much more plausible explanation than the idea than your rather vauge account of how unspecified welfare reforms five years ago suddenly caused unemployment rates to decrease last year.

If you actually have specific evidence for the idea that German economic growth was improved by 'welfare reform' as opposed to the short work program, a devalued Euro and an internationally competitive manufacturing sector then please post it. In the article you posted so far only two sentences are devoted to the totally unspecified change in benefits, whereas your own article says that: "According to a 2009 report by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the program saved approximately 500,000 jobs during the recent economic recession."

quote:

But yes the short work program was apart of Agenda 2010 which was the government's way to ensure job security in return for holding wages down. That's what the "good working relationship between big unions, big business and the government" was about.

But this still doesn't actually substantiate the idea that a change in how welfare compensation rates were determined had a positive impact on German economic growth and employment. Just because one specific part of a policy package had good effects doesn't mean we can simply assume that the entire package was equally effective or justified.

quote:

e: And according to Goons in the German politics thread, Agenda 2010 was overall a necessary step.

Then why don't you repost the substance of their arguments, rather than making an extremely vague appeal to authority?

Here's a much better article that gives a clearer picture of how the system works:

quote:

U.S. Should Try Germany's Unemployment Medicine
By Kevin A. Hassett | Bloomberg.com
Monday, November 9, 2009

Germany's unemployment rate is remarkably low, and has been declining in recent months. It is time to look around and see what policies are working in Germany, since the U.S. efforts to combat high unemployment seem largely ineffective.

As the U.S. unemployment rate surged to 10.2 percent in October, economists scratched their heads and puzzled over the job-creation failure of the biggest stimulus package in the nation's history. Across the Atlantic in Germany, policy makers were high-fiving as their unemployment rate unexpectedly ticked lower for a second time after peaking at 8.3 percent in June and July.

While economic differences can be difficult to explain, the remarkable resilience of the German labor market is clearly and directly attributable to a specific economic policy. German policy makers have been innovative and clever. The Germans have discovered a secret medicine that can cure unemployment, or at least minimize its spread. Americans would do well to take some.

The policy in question is called "Kurzarbeit," which translates approximately as "short work." Firms that face a temporary decrease in demand avoid shedding employees by cutting hours instead. If hours and wages are reduced by 10 percent or more, the government pays workers 60 percent of their lost salary. This encourages firms to use across-the-board reductions of hours instead of layoffs.

Here's how the program works.

A firm facing the challenges of the recession cuts Angela's hours from 35 to 25 per week, thus reducing her weekly salary to 714 euros from 1,000 euros. Angela does not work for the firm during those hours. As part of its short-work program, the government now pays Angela 171 euros--60 percent of her lost salary. Most important, she still has a job. Effectively, the government is giving her unemployment insurance for the 10 hours a week that she is not employed.

Economic Case

The economic argument in favor of such a policy is powerful.

When a recession strikes, firms are faced with a dilemma: sales and profits are down, and many workers are idle. But finding skilled workers is costly and time-consuming, involving large fixed costs. If a firm fires workers, it may incur large hiring and training costs when the recession ends and sales turn back up. Thus, a firm would prefer, all else equal, to hoard labor during a recession.

Firms might well prefer to respond to a 20 percent cut in sales by reducing everyone's work by 20 percent. That way, employees remain part of the firm, and ramping up production is less costly down the road.

A number of factors discourage American firms from making that choice. The biggest is government policy. If a firm lays off workers, the government mails the unemployed a check. If the firm reduces work-hours, there is no government assistance, and employees are left to face the entire decrease in wages on their own.

Keep Team Intact

A U.S. program based on Germany's would be attractive to firms, workers and taxpayers.

It would subsidize firms as they hoard labor, enabling them to keep the best parts of their team even when sales dip. As the economy expands, firms will then be able to expand rapidly too, without sinking tons of time and resources into costly search.

For workers, having a part-time job is vastly preferable to being unemployed. Showing up at work every day, even for shorter hours, keeps them in contact with the labor force, making it much easier to search for alternative employment. Plus their income would likely be higher than if they were let go and living off unemployment insurance alone.

For the government, supporting a worker whose hours are reduced would be less costly than trying to replace the entire lost salary. Moreover, fewer workers would be stigmatized by being laid off, significantly reducing the chances that long- term unemployment skyrockets. The faster recovery that results should push government revenue up sooner as well.

U.S. Work-Sharing

In the U.S., this sort of hour-trimming is most commonly known as work-sharing, and 17 states utilize it in some form to make up part of employees' reduced wages. But few companies are participating, mostly because the government's contribution is not large enough to make work-sharing attractive.

If the U.S. is to share in the labor-market success of its German friends, it needs a significant expansion of subsidies for work-sharing. Compared with the $787 billion economic stimulus, the costs would be low.

The German program so far this year has cost a measly $2.85 billion. Adjusting for the larger U.S. population, that suggests the U.S. could fully copy the German system for $10.6 billion--about one-seventieth the cost of the stimulus.

It is not too late to adopt and expand work-sharing. This recession would have been far less harmful to workers if we had adopted aggressive job-sharing sooner, but job destruction must be slowed before job creation can be the headline story.

Work-sharing would do the trick. The sad fact is, the labor market is still bleeding jobs. German medicine might help.

Kevin A. Hassett is a senior fellow and the director of economic policy studies at AEI.

If you want to argue that increasing labour market flexibility in Germany by reducing unemployment benefits resulted in higher GDP growth which resulted in a reduced unemployment rate in 2011 then I am sure there are interesting points to be made on both sides... But first you'd actually have to make that argument, and back it up with a coherent analysis and some evidence.

Beerdeer
Apr 25, 2006

Frank Herbert's Dude
Here's the conversation that just started on FB: (I'm Peter)



This is a lost cause isn't it?

Bruce Leroy
Jun 10, 2010

Paul MaudDib posted:

You can find examples of functioning, stable democratic nations that don't have pretty much anything as a civil right. Americans don't give civil rights to kids, so Europe should take away children's rights. Europe doesn't have free speech as a right. America doesn't think welfare (right to food/shelter) or healthcare is a right. And so on and so on.

And your opinion that it shouldn't be doesn't change the fact that firearms ownership is a civil right here. It's a losing battle, one that has legitimate origins in the eyes of many Americans due to the American revolution, and it's simply not worth fighting again.

e: What I am saying is, enjoy living in your first-world European democracies, and if you really want to help you should push for the things that create equality and raise standards of living so that crime is naturally reduced instead of trying to push measures that will create a backlash against those same policies. There's tens of millions of Americans living with disease, no access to dentistry, in food deserts, and so on. We even have Doctors without Borders-style organizations working here in the US. Education costs $25k a year. This should be a thousand times more important to you than whether someone gets to keep a gun. The best way to address crime (and the perceived need for gun ownership) is to make people feel safe and have a stake in society and we are massively falling down there.

What the gently caress is with all of you taking my words out of context and selectively quoting my words?

I clearly wrote that I'm in favor of the 2nd Amendment, so it's quite obvious that you are falsifying my "opinion" because you have an agenda and/or that you suck at reading.

My point was that claims about guns reducing crime and preventing government tyranny are unfounded, especially because there are places with equal levels of civil rights, lower crime rates, and no government "tyranny" that also don't have personal gun ownership as a civil right. The US has far more guns per capita than any other nation in the world yet we have higher crime rates than other comparable first-world nations, so it should be obvious that more guns are not the answer to our crime problem.

That said, my other comments pretty clearly outlined how we can have gun ownership and reduce crime and suffering by other, more important means, like reducing poverty and improving education. So what I was actually saying is that being restrictive or more permissive with gun laws is not actually going to do anything substantive about crime and other problems, other than maybe give people a false sense of security.

Paul MaudDib posted:

Besides, how did that nut who shot up the kids' camp get a gun in gun-free Europe anyway?

Once again you are taking my words out of context, putting words in my mouth, and entirely ignoring the facts. I specifically cited Switzerland and Finland as two of many European nations who have lower crime rates than the US while also allowing for private gun ownership, so I was clearly not asserting that Europe is "gun-free." Norway, the site of Anders Breivik's terrorist acts, is another one of these nations that allows for private gun ownership, yet generally has significantly lower crime and recidivism rates than the US, but you're too busy arguing with straw men to actually notice important things like facts and context.

Honestly, I'm not sure who you are exactly arguing with, but your use of strawmen and taking things out of context make it patently obvious that you're not arguing with me.

Interlude
Jan 24, 2001

Guns are basically hand fedoras.

Bruce Leroy posted:

Nice job quoting me out of context.

The second part of my comment was that I'm still in favor of gun rights, so I was clearly not "hand-waving away the 2nd Amendment." My point was that those specific issues used by some groups to promote gun rights and reduce regulation (e.g. reducing crime, preventing government tyranny,etc.) are fallacious and just obscure more important arguments about civil liberties and real sociological issues, which I contend support the 2nd Amendment.
You're over-analyzing this. I was simply saying that if we're discuss guns in America, its useless to bring up the fact that gun ownership is not a civil right in other countries.

quote:

It only hurts supporters of the 2nd Amendment to argue demonstrably false tropes that guns are necessary to solve certain problems, especially when other nations have shown that this is not the case. It's more productive to talk about things like (1) fearmongering from those in favor of very strict gun control, (2) false choice fallacies from idiots who frame the debate as either being against the 2nd Amendment entirely or in favor of completely unrestricted and unregulated weapon ownership, (3) that there are other, more important contributors to crime like poverty, so we should deal with those instead, (4) how other nations like Canada, Switzerland, and Finland have personal gun ownership, but do not have anything close to the crime and recidivism rates of the USA so it's not gun ownership in and of itself that causes crime and other problems.
In case you haven't noticed, things are pretty bad in the US. We have awful socioeconomic mobility, a harmful war on drugs, vast swaths of people with little to no access to anything that will lift them out of a subsistence existence. That things are so much better in other first world countries has little to do with access to guns and more to do with the fact that are better places to live if you're poor, ergo less crime.

Bruce Leroy
Jun 10, 2010

Interlude posted:

You're over-analyzing this. I was simply saying that if we're discuss guns in America, its useless to bring up the fact that gun ownership is not a civil right in other countries.

It's not entirely useless because it blatantly contradicts certain claims by pro-gun advocates that society would go to poo poo if guns were further restricted. The problem is that certain pro-gun people are muddying the waters and preventing real debate on the issue of sensible gun regulations (e.g. restricting access based on criminal history, mental health history, waiting periods, firearm registrations, etc.) by bringing up red herrings that fearmonger to prevent discussion of real issues. E.g. if you tell people that crime will skyrocket, causing their families to be raped and murdered, or claim that the government is going to start herding them into FEMA camps if they don't have guns to defend themselves, it prevents many people from rationally discussing the issues.

Interlude posted:

In case you haven't noticed, things are pretty bad in the US. We have awful socioeconomic mobility, a harmful war on drugs, vast swaths of people with little to no access to anything that will lift them out of a subsistence existence. That things are so much better in other first world countries has little to do with access to guns and more to do with the fact that are better places to live if you're poor, ergo less crime.

That was kind of my point and the reason why I am still in favor of gun rights and the 2nd Amendment even though issues like crime are not positively affected by gun ownership.

This again brings up my point about red herrings in gun rights debates, as conservative organizations will fearmonger about Democrats trying to confiscate their guns and allow them to be victimized by criminals or an oppressive government. Just look at any even moderately conservative website and you'll find many conservative commentors talking about how Obama is anti-gun and wants to take away their 2nd Amendment rights when he really hasn't even articulated a position on gun rights, let alone craft or sign any legislation further restricting 2nd Amendment rights.

All of this distracts many people from real issues that would tangibly better their lives and actually reduce crime, like ending the drug war, reducing poverty, and improving education. If you're constantly worried about your 2nd Amendment rights and think that your very safety and liberties rely on you and your guns, then you are not very likely to calmly and rationally study the true issues.

Rrail
Nov 26, 2003

by Y Kant Ozma Post
I have an argument that comes up frequently and I am unaware of the eloquent way to defeat it-

My coworkers (at any organization I've worked at in the past few years) are solely upper-middle class former military. I would say about a quarter of them routinely bring up "all the peopel doing nothing and receiving government handouts". Now, I can generally mitigate their point by talking about how it's a relatively small amount of the budget, how the education system in the United States works against them, etc. It is easy to explain that the underlcass has a much harder time moving up because of the way income and expenses work, access to schools, jobs, even good nutrition.

What I can't defeat is the argument that the individual has no excuse for not moving up because anyone (which really means anyone not disabled) is able to join the military to start a better life for themselves. An argument of "well they shouldn't have to" isn't going to work, and to be honest, I don't really buy into that either. So, what are my options? How would you debate this?

Dominoes
Sep 20, 2007

Rrail posted:

What I can't defeat is the argument that the individual has no excuse for not moving up because anyone (which really means anyone not disabled) is able to join the military to start a better life for themselves. An argument of "well they shouldn't have to" isn't going to work, and to be honest, I don't really buy into that either. So, what are my options? How would you debate this?
Easy: The military's picky as hell right now, and their point about anyone being able to join is flat wrong. That's among fit young people - out of shape and older people don't have a chance. Poor people often have kids at a young age, making joining the military an unattractive option. The military is not intended to be and makes a poor substitute for a career-building institution. Treating it as such because it can build careers as a side-effect is disingenuous. Even if the military was recruiting more aggressively now and accepting more people, it would never be an option for most or all poor people in this regard due to the previous reason.

Dominoes fucked around with this message at 10:42 on Oct 25, 2011

Rrail
Nov 26, 2003

by Y Kant Ozma Post
The problem with using that argument is it still comes back to personal choice: "So don't get pregnant when you're young", for instance. I am having trouble comprehending how you can get to 18 years old as being incapable of military service that does not derive directly from personal choices (except for poor nutrition). I have never gone through this so I am very ignorant to it.

V. Illych L.
Apr 11, 2008

ASK ME ABOUT LUMBER

Asthma is a typical no-go. Bad eyesight. Colourblindness. Chronic illness of practically any kind. Usually, if there's something wrong with you, the military doesn't want you. At least, not over here in socialist nazi communist Norway. I imagine it's similar in the US these days, with the downscaling of the armed forces and everything.

Also, joining the military of the USA is a pretty potent political statement that not everyone's willing to make. You should seriously not be forced to explicitly endorse American warfare in order to have a decent life.

edit: And that's buying into the in my opinion flawed premise that all behaviour is a matter of personal choice, responsibility et cetera. Teenage pregnancies are more common among poors because, well, poors don't really have a lot else to do. The best way to decrease them, bar none, is to increase the standard of living among poor groups.

V. Illych L. fucked around with this message at 14:39 on Oct 25, 2011

Rrail
Nov 26, 2003

by Y Kant Ozma Post
Right, those with disabilities can't get in, that's fine. That doesn't account for 75% of the population.

I agree completely with the last thing you said, but that won't work with a good portion of Americans as an argument.

Paul MaudDib
May 3, 2006

TEAM NVIDIA:
FORUM POLICE

V. Illych L. posted:

Asthma is a typical no-go. Bad eyesight. Colourblindness. Chronic illness of practically any kind. Usually, if there's something wrong with you, the military doesn't want you. At least, not over here in socialist nazi communist Norway. I imagine it's similar in the US these days, with the downscaling of the armed forces and everything.

Also, joining the military of the USA is a pretty potent political statement that not everyone's willing to make. You should seriously not be forced to explicitly endorse American warfare in order to have a decent life.

Diagnosis of ADD/ADHD, severe dental problems, endocrine disorders, transgender disorders, etc. There are seriously a lot.

http://www.military.com/Recruiting/Content/0,13898,rec_step07_DQ_medical,,00.html

V. Illych L.
Apr 11, 2008

ASK ME ABOUT LUMBER

Rrail posted:

Right, those with disabilities can't get in, that's fine. That doesn't account for 75% of the population.

I agree completely with the last thing you said, but that won't work with a good portion of Americans as an argument.

Really? People don't accept that people shouldn't be economically discriminated against on the basis of their political views? That's... certainly something.

By the way, poors generally have worse health than wealthy people from a very early age, preventing more of them from choosing the military. Military culture is also modelled (again, Norway) mostly on middle-class white culture, which creates problems for poor people.

Going through the military is practically problematic for women, blacks and latinos. It's ethically problematic for anyone left of the Republican party. It's impossible for the disabled or chronically ill.

The military is not a good institution for climbing socially. It's just marginally more possible there than in the rest of American society - which honestly says more about American society at large than it does about the military.

Dameius
Apr 3, 2006
Do you think this line of argument would resonate with them: the military is a volunteer force with a limited budget and limited scope. There is not enough jobs in the military for every potential candidate to join. There is even not enough jobs in the military for just the current eligible poor, which numbers in the low millions (without checking numbers yet).

So without even getting to the military as bad avenue for career development argument clearly not everyone could just join the military. If not everyone can join then we need to do something else for the rest of the people.

The way I would think of using this is to open with it to get them to admit that not literally everyone can join the military and then quickly transition to talk about what else can be done. If they wanted to, they could hang the discussion on, "well not everyone could but some can and if some can and they are not trying then all poor people are lazy, QED." Really the only way around that I see right now is to not let them have the chance to entrench themselves in that position during the conversation.

This isn't watertight but it might help.

Rrail
Nov 26, 2003

by Y Kant Ozma Post
The argument generally boils down to the fact that not all poor people are lazy, but a lot of them are don't care to ever even have a job because welfare is easier.

a lovely poster
Aug 5, 2011

by Pipski

Rrail posted:

Right, those with disabilities can't get in, that's fine. That doesn't account for 75% of the population.

I agree completely with the last thing you said, but that won't work with a good portion of Americans as an argument.

How about it's loving dumb that the poor should be expected to join the armed forces, even if they could, in order to obtain a reasonable standard of living. It's just crab mentality (I had to join the armed forces in order to establish a career so they should have to as well) and is standard right wing authoritarian bullshit.

And no, you're not really ever going to be able to convince him otherwise, especially as long as you agree with it(probably even if you didn't).

Rrail posted:

The argument generally boils down to the fact that not all poor people are lazy, but a lot of them are don't care to ever even have a job because welfare is easier.

I would suggest doing some research on our social programs and actually learning whether or not "welfare is easier" because it isn't. It's a maze of bureaucratic poo poo for a paltry sum of money.

a lovely poster fucked around with this message at 15:31 on Oct 25, 2011

Rrail
Nov 26, 2003

by Y Kant Ozma Post

a lovely poster posted:

I would suggest doing some research on our social programs and actually learning whether or not "welfare is easier" because it isn't. It's a maze of bureaucratic poo poo for a paltry sum of money.

I'm sorry, I meant that's what THEY are saying, I don't really believe that.

a lovely poster
Aug 5, 2011

by Pipski

Rrail posted:

I'm sorry, I meant that's what THEY are saying, I don't really believe that.

That's where I would start. Look at your state's website and learn the payout amounts for "welfare" (you're probably going to need to explain the variety of social programs that people tend to lump into the term welfare here) and show him. No one is sitting pretty living off of money from welfare.

ass is hometown
Jan 11, 2006

I gotta take a leak. When I get back, we're doing body shots.

Rrail posted:

I'm sorry, I meant that's what THEY are saying, I don't really believe that.

Then just steer the argument to that point and bombard them with facts about welfare being more work then people seem to think.

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Dameius
Apr 3, 2006

Ridonkulous posted:

Then just steer the argument to that point and bombard them with facts about welfare being more work then people seem to think.

Facts never win an argument.

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