Strategic Insanity

[Callie]

Strategy games often feature a variety of different factions which exhibit a number of advantages and disadvantages. If you were a leader of a faction in a strategy game, what do you think your advantageous and disadvantageous traits would be? This can be a broad description that encompasses most games, or a more specific list tailored to one specific game. Try to keep yourself balanced, but don't forget to include unique strengths!

 

For example, this is what kind of traits I'd assign myself in SMAC (Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri). It's similar to one of the in-game factions, although they're my favorite anyway.

 

Click to reveal..

+1 Economy - Capitalist initiatives

+1 Research - Highly mathematical

+1 Industry - Engineering emphasis

+1 Efficiency - Bureaucracies highly scrutinized

Free Trade - Increased income from treaties and non-military pacts.

 

-2 Probe - Skeptical of intelligence agencies

-2 Support - Neglected defense budgets

-3 Morale - Inherently pacifist

-3 Police - Resists authority, drone riots may lead to destruction of base facilities

 

Non-Interventionist - May not pronounce Vendetta, may not form military pacts, may not commit atrocities, may not participate in planetary elections, does not participate in sanctions, may not provide or receive loans, and may not violate diplomatic agreements of any kind. Military units may not leave borders during peacetime.

 

Agenda: Democratic, Free Market

Aversions: Police State, Power

Priorities: Build, Discover

Tech: Biogenetics

 

[Alorael at Large]

It's an interesting question. As a policy priority, I'd get a bonus to efficiency. But everyone promises reduced bureaucratic overhead, and yet bureaucracy persists; more importantly, I can't even manage high efficiency on a personal level, much less on a governmental scale.

 

—Alorael, who will just give himself a huge bonus against infantry. You know why.

[Dantius]

Originally Posted By: Excalibur

Click to reveal..

+1 Economy - Capitalist initiatives
+1 Research - Highly mathematical
+1 Industry - Engineering emphasis
+1 Efficiency - Bureaucracies highly scrutinized
Free Trade - Increased income from treaties and non-military pacts.

-2 Probe - Skeptical of intelligence agencies
-2 Support - Neglected defense budgets
-3 Morale - Inherently pacifist
-3 Police - Resists authority, drone riots may lead to destruction of base facilities

Non-Interventionist - May not pronounce Vendetta, may not form military pacts, may not commit atrocities, may not participate in planetary elections, does not participate in sanctions, may not provide or receive loans, and may not violate diplomatic agreements of any kind. Military units may not leave borders during peacetime.

Agenda: Democratic, Free Market
Aversions: Police State, Power
Priorities: Build, Discover
Tech: Biogenetics

Yet another reason why it's a good thing Internet libertarians don't run countries.

[Callie]

You never mentioned any of your downsides.

[Dantius]

Originally Posted By: Excalibur

You never mentioned any of your downsides.

If you want to know what a country run by engineers looks like, just look at China. Nine out of nine members of the Politburo's Standing Committee are engineers.

Take from that what you will.

EDIT: Corrected total number of members

[Callie]

China is oh-so lacking in the political freedom department. I would tend to call that a major downside.

 

<---Is an engineering major.

[Harehunter]

Libertarians seem to be very pragmatic. The thing I most disagree with them is in the area of foreign policy. At the time the U.S. Constitution was written, isolationism was a very practical position. We didn't want anyone coming here to intervene in our affairs, and we didn't have the need or the desire to intervene in the affairs of any other nation.

 

I would like to take the libertarian stance to bring all our troops brought home from places where there is no possibility of hostile action. However, this view is naive and shortsighted in the extreme.

 

Up until WWII, all miltary forces were brouhht homr in the military forces were drawn down to a small cadre, and all weapons production was throttled down to a small trickle. When the next military involvement came around, we were totally unprepared, and building back the strength was always rushed and incomplete.

 

It was after WWII that the administration recognized that, like it or not, the U.S. had become the go-to nation whenever a conflict broke out over seas. It was also in the post WWII era that we began forming more and more business relations with other countries, binding our economic health to that of the other nations in the world. With this interdependency in mind, we are obligated to become involved with the affairs of the other countries because it, like it or not, it has become in our own national interest.

[Dikiyoba]

Originally Posted By: Harehunter

With this interdependency in mind, we are obligated to become involved with the affairs of the other countries because it, like it or not, it has become in our own national interest.

What happens when it's in the USA's national interest to be in another country but it's not in that countries national interest to be there? Are we obligated to stay there then?

Dikiyoba.

[Harehunter]

Engineers are very good at what they have been trained to do. I have a great deal of respect for engineers. In fact I work with them every day. However, once they try to apply their logic to other things, they do tend to muck things up. Every program I have seen that was designed and written by an engineer is most cumbersome, unmaintainable PoS (Piece of Software) that I have ever seen.

 

As to the idea of Social Engineering, that is a whole 'nother thing. As I have heard from Russian immigrants, socialism is slavery; not to a single person, but to the government that takes control of every aspect of your life. Their primary reason they came to the U.S. was to get away from that oppressive system.

 

@Dikiyoba. That is exactly the reason libertarians want to stay out of international affairs. In this instance I have to agree with them. This sort of intervention initiated in the best interest of the U.S. will almost always come back to haunt us in a very bad way.

[Lilith]

Originally Posted By: Harehunter

Libertarians seem to be very pragmatic.

the position that all taxation is theft does not strike me as "pragmatic"

[Dantius]

Originally Posted By: Dikiyoba

What happens when it's in the USA's national interest to be in another country but it's not in that countries national interest to be there? Are we obligated to stay there then?

Dikiyoba.

Yes. Absolutely.

Let's look at a relatively uncontroversial case study. It's widely agreed that Bashar al-Assad is doing terrible tings to his people to stay in power. Since he's the dictator, it's certainly not in the Syrian government's interest for the US to intervene and stop them massacring their own people. Does that mean that, since it's not the "that countries national interest" for us to be there, that we shouldn't intervene? I think not.

So "that countries national interest" is largely irrelevant when determining whether to occupy/invade a country. I mean, it certainly wasn't in Germany or Japan's national interest at the time to be invaded, have their governments deposed, and occupied for decades, but they seemed to have turned out alright after that. In the absence of them being allowed to decide whether or not they get invaded or occupied (because OBVIOUSLY they would pick no), then the only relevant judge of what to do would by default fall to the occupier: aka the US. Of course, in a perfect world we would only intervene in cases of obvious humanitarian crisis, ala Kosovo or Libya, both of which were cheap, painless, and accomplished their objective. Since this isn't a perfect world, I suppose we'll just have to swallow self-interest as a means to improvement: while Afghanistan may be a blatant case of American intervention for our own self-interested reasons, and while it's obviously FAR from the land of milk and honey it was promised it would become back in '01, it's not really a viable argument to claim that Afghanistan was better under the Taliban than it is now.

Of course, it upsets a lot of people across the political spectrum when you say that, in certain cases, sometimes it's actually in a countries best long-term interests to remain and occupy them even if they object to it. Building stable, long-term institutions to make democratic self governance possible is hard, and all too often the publics of both occupier and occupied simply give up before such institutions can be built. This creates more a sort of vicious loop, providing "case studies" for various anti-occupation groups, and politically pressuring future occupations to become still shorter and less likely to succeed. But that's another problem entirely.

[Harehunter]

You make a valid point. If it is in the interest of not just the U.S. but of the entire region, it does behoove us to take action. In the circumstances you pointed out, there are other nations that are calling on us to take action.

 

Actions done solely by the U.S., while they may even be in the best interest of the local population, tend to be viewed as American Imperialism. These are the sort of actions that I think we should avoid.

 

I don't want to have the U.S. portrayed as the policeman to the world, but I do recognize that that is what we became, like it or not, after WWII and especially during the decades of the cold war. There is a fine line between being the beneficiant policeman, and being the international bully.

 

As someone who served in the military, I have would have gone anywhere that the CinC would have directed us. I would only hope that the cause was just, as in Desert Storm.

[Harehunter]

Not all taxation is theft. Excessive taxation so that the government can dictate what the population should buy, what they should drive, what they should eat, is theft.

 

When a business owner is told that he makes too much money, and that he should give it to the government to be redistributed to those people who are not as fortunate or as entrepreneurial, that is excessive taxation.

 

[Lilith]

Originally Posted By: Harehunter

When a business owner is told that he makes too much money, and that he should give it to the government to be redistributed to those people who are not as fortunate or as entrepreneurial, that is excessive taxation.

so taxation is theft but only when it happens to business owners. got it.

[Harehunter]

Individuals run the company. Small business owners often have only one employee; themselves. You tax the business, you tax the individual.

 

Raising taxes also affects individuals. Where do you think the business gets the revenue to pay those taxes? The employees don't get raises, customers have to pay more for the product or service. And if the owners of the business decide that they are going to have to go out of business in order to pay the taxes, and they shut down, what then of the employees?

[A less presumptuous name.]

Originally Posted By: Dantius

Originally Posted By: Dikiyoba

What happens when it's in the USA's national interest to be in another country but it's not in that countries national interest to be there? Are we obligated to stay there then?

Dikiyoba.

... Since he's the dictator, it's certainly not in the Syrian government's interest for the US to intervene and stop them massacring their own people.

Just a quick note - Dikiyoba mentioned the "countries [sic] national interest, not the governments. The two don't always go hand-in-hand.

Taxation brings up a whole bag of issues. Looking at it economically, most taxation sucks more out of the total benefits of a market economy than the tax revenue can create, something called dead weight loss. Naturally, that's something that we wish to avoid. Also, consider the extreme case where the top income bracket is taxed at 100%. What incentive would people have to work for such wages? Absolutely none. Fewer people would take jobs putting them into such brackets because they receive no benefit. Thus, the tax revenue would decrease!

I'm not proposing that taxes are all bad or that they should be eliminated. Clearly the government plays many important roles in our nation, and tax revenue allows that to be the case. How much the government should tax and spend, though, is a much more complicated issue that I don't wish to delve into at this time, mostly because I really don't have a solid idea or anywhere near enough evidence to make a solid argument.

[Harehunter]

Nice distinction.

[Dantius]

Originally Posted By: Harehunter

Not all taxation is theft. Excessive taxation so that the government can dictate what the population should buy, what they should drive, what they should eat, is theft.

How, exactly, does the government use taxation to "dictate" what people should buy, eat, and drive? If you're referring to tax incentives, it's pretty difficult to claim that because I (the government) am offering you a $4000 tax break if you buy a Volt, that I'm somehow "dictating" that you buy a Volt.

And the government has every interest in incentiveizing and decentivizing (is that a word?) certain behaviors. If a nickel tax on every cigarette you smoke makes you cut down on smoking, then your health and the health of people around you has been improved- which is a good thing.

And if this is some oblique reference to the PPACA, then somebody's attacking a straw man- the government is not forcing you to buy a product, they're imposing tax penalties in order to defray the costs of uninsured medical care and making it impossible for insurers to deny you coverage for preexisting conditions. That's not "dictat[ing] what the population should buy", it's penalizing someone for not buying a vital service that benefits both them and everybody else that by all rights they should posses already- which you'll note has already been done for car insurance, so it's hardly an unprecedented expansion of federal power.

Originally Posted By: Harehunter

When a business owner is told that he makes too much money, and that he should give it to the government to be redistributed to those people who are not as fortunate or as entrepreneurial, that is excessive taxation.

Ugh. Taxes are not "redistributed" to people who are not entrepreneurial. The vast majority of taxes goes to funding the military, healthcare, Social Security (are old people insufficiently entrepreneurial for your tastes?), and interest on bonds. That's hardly Soviet-style "redistribution".

Originally Posted By: Master1

Taxation brings up a whole bag of issues. Looking at it economically, most taxation sucks more out of the total benefits of a market economy than the tax revenue can create, something called dead weight loss. Naturally, that's something that we wish to avoid. Also, consider the extreme case where the top income bracket is taxed at 100%. What incentive would people have to work for such wages? Absolutely none. Fewer people would take jobs putting them into such brackets because they receive no benefit. Thus, the tax revenue would decrease!

This is called the "Laffer curve" (as I'm sure you, Excalibur, and Lilith know). While it's fine in theory- I mean, it makes logical sense that a government would collect no money for no tax, and I accept the arguments that it also makes no money at 100%- it's incredibly misused in practice. When you're trying to build a tax policy based on the data points (0,0) and (100,0) and the idea there's a maximum somewhere in between (hello MVT!), everything in between is basically guesswork, and guesswork is really not an acceptable justification for economic policy. This was used as an excuse for Reagan-era tax cuts, and I can't believe people bought it, much less that people still buy it now. Just because the government collects less revenue at rates close to 100% doesn't mean that it would also collect less revenue at rates above 35%, and the idea that tax dollars don't contribute productively to the economy should be laughable- just look at things like roads, the Internet, and practically any defense or healthcare contractor and tell me that they don't contribute "total benefits" to the economy greater than their cost.

[Alorael at Large]

Painting simplistic pictures of government leads to simplistic, and failed, policy proposals. Everyone likes liberty. Everyone agrees that liberty is a good thing... up until the point where it runs up against other goods. We sacrifice liberty to do whatever we want to be free from others who want to do horrible things to us. We give up the chance to spend our own money so that public goods that individuals and corporations would not provide are funded.

 

Raising taxes is bad for everyone except when the taxes go to things that are good for everyone, which despite cynicism about government and bureaucracy is fairly frequent.

 

—Alorael, who will also point out that the government has an interest in regulating the products you buy when your use of those products has a cost to the government, which in turn changes how it can spend on various public goods.

[Archaeolagent]

Originally Posted By: Dantius

which you'll note has already been done for car insurance

This is the part that confuses me. Some people seem to think that it's completely different for health insurance. How is it different? It seems to me the only distinction is whether the penalty comes in the form of legal citation that you must pay, versus a tax penalty that you must pay.

[Harehunter]

Originally Posted By: Dantius

How, exactly, does the government use taxation to "dictate" what people should buy, eat, and drive? If you're referring to tax incentives, it's pretty difficult to claim that because I (the government) am offering you a $4000 tax break if you buy a Volt, that I'm somehow "dictating" that you buy a Volt.

How does your buying a Volt benefit me, and why should I pay for it?

Originally Posted By: Dantius

And the government has every interest in incentiveizing and decentivizing (is that a word?) certain behaviors. If a nickel tax on every cigarette you smoke makes you cut down on smoking, then your health and the health of people around you has been improved- which is a good thing.

I have never smoked, but I still believe that it is an individual choice. As to the government taxing it, that is thoroughly within its authority.

Originally Posted By: Dantius

And if this is some oblique reference to the PPACA, then somebody's attacking a straw man- the government is not forcing you to buy a product, they're imposing tax penalties in order to defray the costs of uninsured medical care and making it impossible for insurers to deny you coverage for preexisting conditions. That's not "dictat[ing] what the population should buy", it's penalizing someone for not buying a vital service that benefits both them and everybody else that by all rights they should posses already- which you'll note has already been done for car insurance, so it's hardly an unprecedented expansion of federal power.

Is it a penalty, or a tax? As I understand, the law specifically calls it a penalty. That is the main point of contention with regard to that bill. As to your comparison to the requirement that drivers have car insurance, that only applies to "Liability" insurance. This is to cover the cost of property damage or physical injury to another party. Comprehensive and Collision insurance are required by the lien holder; after all you don't really own the vehicle until you've paid off the lien. Once that is done, there is no requirement for C&C. I live in a high risk city, so I make a choice to carry C&C on the vehicles I own even though they are paid off.
The main difference here is the insurance required is to protect others. Medical insurance is for myself and my family, the same as the C&C. I make the choice of how much coverage to buy, how much I can afford to pay the premiums, etc.

Originally Posted By: Harehunter

When a business owner is told that he makes too much money, and that he should give it to the government to be redistributed to those people who are not as fortunate or as entrepreneurial, that is excessive taxation.

Originally Posted By: Dantius

Ugh. Taxes are not "redistributed" to people who are not entrepreneurial. The vast majority of taxes goes to funding the military, healthcare, Social Security (are old people insufficiently entrepreneurial for your tastes?), and interest on bonds. That's hardly Soviet-style "redistribution".

I was just paraphrasing what someone said on the campaign trail back in 2008.

[Lilith]

Originally Posted By: HOUSE of S

This is the part that confuses me. Some people seem to think that it's completely different for health insurance. How is it different? It seems to me the only distinction is whether the penalty comes in the form of legal citation that you must pay, versus a tax penalty that you must pay.

i suppose one difference is that it's possible to choose to not own a car but not possible to choose to not own a health

Originally Posted By: Harehunter

How does your buying a Volt benefit me, and why should I pay for it?

would you like to live in cities with less air pollution? then someone buying a volt benefits you

[Dantius]

Originally Posted By: Harehunter

How does your buying a Volt benefit me, and why should I pay for it?

While buying a volt dosen't actually cut nt carbon emissions unless you have nuclear/renewable power generating your electricity, it does both a.) reduce dependency on foreign oil, and b.) relocate dangerous smog and pollution to areas where millions of people don't live.

Furthermore, you aren't paying for it. The government is, by not taking as much money from me as they normally would. Granted, this might impose a minor cost to you, but it's not like you and every other American citizen is writing me a check to buy it.

(Full disclosure: My main car is a Prius, not a Volt. I don't buy American cars anymore, inferior quality for the price)

Originally Posted By: Harehunter

Is it a penalty, or a tax? As I understand, the law specifically calls it a penalty. That is the main point of contention with regard to that bill. As to your comparison to the requirement that drivers have car insurance, that only applies to "Liability" insurance. This is to cover the cost of property damage or physical injury to another party. Comprehensive and Collision insurance are required by the lien holder; after all you don't really own the vehicle until you've paid off the lien. Once that is done, there is no requirement for C&C. I live in a high risk city, so I make a choice to carry C&C on the vehicles I own even though they are paid off.

Honestly? It's a tax, and it's being called a penalty because the political climate now is so irrationally hostile to the word "tax" if it's not followed by "cut" that it's funny. Also, because if it were called a tax, it wouldn't g before the Supreme Court, and it kind of has to because the Court is almost certainly going to uphold the law (again, different subject).

And re liability insurance: You're splitting hairs. The Big Gubbmint has forced you to buy a product because it is in the interest of the nation to have because a large pool drives down everyone's costs, and also in your interest to posses in the event you get in an accident.

Originally Posted By: Harehunter

The main difference here is the insurance required is to protect others. Medical insurance is for myself and my family, the same as the C&C. I make the choice of how much coverage to buy, how much I can afford to pay the premiums, etc.

Medical insurance is not just to protect yourself. It's also to protect other for similar reasons. Although it pains libertarians to hear it, healthcare is not a free market, because the invisible hand cannot operate in it. If I'm rushed to Lutheran General with a heart attack, I can't say "Oh, your treatment is too expensive, so I'll go to a hospital in Indiana instead": I get the treatment at your price, or I die. Because of this, the only effective means of paying for healthcare in the absence of a national program that sets and pays for costs (which is SOCIALISM OMG!!!!!), is insurance. By purchasing health insurance, not only do I remove the burden of paying for my treatments from the government (since hospitals can't turn down patients), but I also decrease the amount charged to everyone else by increasing the pool of the insured. So, although it might seem like purchasing insurance is a decision for me and my family alone, it actually affects everybody, much like smoking, which means the government has clear and compelling reasons for regulating and monitoring it.

[Alorael at Large]

The real problem is that if you consider the cost of health insurance and decide it's not worth it, that's probably because you and your family are in good health and you're betting that you'll stay that way. That means the people left in the insurance pool are the people who are sicker and likely to get sicker... which means the insurance companies have to charge more to cover their costs. Now more people drop out of insurance.

 

The ways out are either individual underwriting, where the premiums are by design going to be high for whoever you are, or creating artificial ways to pool risk. Mandating coverage is one way to pool risk. But you could instead just subsidize the cost of high premiums... which is what the penalty does. Nomenclature aside, it's all just ways to get the health care system to cover more people who want coverage.

 

The government has reason to subsidize environmentally-friendly anything (and I cannot weigh in on the relative carbon footprint of the internal combustion engine versus fossil-fueled power plants). Protecting the environment is impossible for any one person, or company, but everyone benefits from it, and one person's benefiting does not reduce anyone else's benefits.

 

—Alorael, who notes that even without second-hand smoking, the government has a vested interest in reducing smoking. Common law holds that the state has an interest in preserving the life of its citizens. Well, smoking kills them. And it kills them very expensively, in a way that often costs the state more money.

[Dikiyoba]

Originally Posted By: Alorael

The real problem is that if you consider the cost of health insurance and decide it's not worth it, that's probably because you and your family are in good health and you're betting that you'll stay that way.

And if you bet wrong, then everyone pays through things like emergency room visits and bankruptcy.

Dikiyoba honestly has trouble understanding opposition to universal coverage. Given that the current system leaves people without access to appropriate medical treatment and that lack of treatment leads to very real pain and suffering, plus reduced productivity from the people who can't be treated but currently aren't, shouldn't everyone be on the side of too much coverage, not too little?

[Alorael at Large]

I understand not wanting to pay for something for someone else. It would be nice for everyone to have healthcare, but it would also be nice for everyone to have nice houses, fancy cars, many vacations, and state of the art computers. I don't want to pay for all of those things for everyone else.

 

Where I don't understand it is where you can look at how much we pay for healthcare, through taxes and insurance, versus how much people in other countries pay, in total. They pay less and get more for it! THe free market is all well and good, but I support it when competition leads to lower prices and better products. In this case, it doesn't, and I'm more attached to paying less than to ideological concerns over what kind of entity I'm paying.

 

—Alorael, who can also understand annoyance from healthy people who choose to risk not having health insurance. Yes, having to pay for everyone's insurance, including your own, is more expensive right up until you need a doctor.

[Dikiyoba]

Originally Posted By: Alorael

It would be nice for everyone to have healthcare, but it would also be nice for everyone to have nice houses, fancy cars, many vacations, and state of the art computers.

Except that people don't die because they don't have giant house or a fancy car. People do die because they don't have healthcare. It's "nice" for everyone to have healthcare in the same way that's it's "nice" for everyone to have enough food that they don't have to worry about going hungry.

Dikiyoba.

[Goldengirl]

Originally Posted By: Harehunter

I don't want to have the U.S. portrayed as the policeman to the world, but I do recognize that that is what we became, like it or not, after WWII and especially during the decades of the cold war. There is a fine line between being the beneficiant policeman, and being the international bully.

There is not an absolute dichotomy between imperialistic hegemony and non-interventionism. As the famous US foreign policy expert, Joseph Nye, said, the United States can serve frequently as the "sheriff of the posse." That is to say, instead of unilaterally deciding what to do about situations in, say, Iran or Syria, the US can serve as the head of a coalition of governments. This multilateral framework was more or less the modus operandi during the Clinton Administration, and even going into Afghanistan, but it frayed at the edges with the war in Iraq.

Leaving the decision for intervention up to any one government will be counterproductive; absolute power corrupts absolutely. However, balancing the interests and needs of different states against one another through some sort of multinational body (Hmm... United Nations perhaps?) can serve to check against foreign adventures and instead create beneficial solutions.

[A less presumptuous name.]

Warning: I took a step back away from healthcare in the following post, as there were a few points I wanted to make on taxes and government policies. Also, this is perhaps my longest post on these boards. I've tried to make is easy to follow.

 

 

 

Originally Posted By: Harehunter

Originally Posted By: Dantius

How, exactly, does the government use taxation to "dictate" what people should buy, eat, and drive? If you're referring to tax incentives, it's pretty difficult to claim that because I (the government) am offering you a $4000 tax break if you buy a Volt, that I'm somehow "dictating" that you buy a Volt.

How does your buying a Volt benefit me, and why should I pay for it?

 

This is what economics calls an externality. Dantius alluded to the idea in his reply, and I'd like to expand on it a bit more. When we look at costs and benefits, it's easiest to look at them privately. For example, the Volt will cost me x initially and y per year, while saving me z per year in decreased gas consumption. This does neglect other factors, though, as well as the externality, or public affect. As Dantius mentioned, there are benefits that affect everyone.

 

When the government uses tax incentives to support products like the Volt, what it really is doing is looking at the total benefit of the car. With the decreased pollution, everyone gets a tiny bit of benefit, so the government steps in and uses taxes to essentially make everyone pay a tiny bit for them. In doing so, the government increases the amount of people buying advantageous products, all together moving the market to a more socially optimum point.

 

Correcting externalities is one of the greatest arguments for tax programs, and it works really well on paper. The trick is that taxes deal in dollars whereas pollution is not easily measured that way. So how much benefit is there really, and is it truly distributed over the whole population? We can't really get a perfect answer to this, so the government is left with a bit of guesswork.

 

 

 

Really, I think that a comprehensive course in economics, both micro and macro, should be a required part of a public education. It has made me far more aware of what is actually going on the the world, and has really made me think about what is best. Just rehashing some theory in this thread has made me think about taxes. By definition, simple taxes are inefficient. But since we all want government services, they're a necessary evil. Also, there are corrective taxes, such as those mentioned higher up in this post, that benefit society as a whole.

[The Loquacious Lord Grimm]

While not opposed to the idea of universal healthcare (it is honorable, intelligent, and socially responsible for a nation to help care for those who cannot otherwise take care of themselves), I do have some major issues with the fundamentals of the healthcare solution that has now gone before the Supreme Court:Mostly, it comes down to the expediency with which the plan was created, and the short-term political motives that drove it.

 

If we are to create a national health system, it needs to be done through the careful application of medical, economic, and sociological research. I'm talking surveys, experimental implementation of new policies, constant generation of new ideas... response to consumer feedback. Such a massive and significant undertaking must be crafted to suit the needs of those it serves, and constantly reexamined for relevance. It must be treated like an active economic organism, not thrown together in a one-size-fits-most plan implemented through the process of "ooh! ooh! vote for me if you like my idea!".

 

Anything less, and you end up with a system that has an indeterminate but very real and very dangerous shelf life.

 

Quick edit, for stupid question, aimed above:

What would stop us from moving towards a less simple tax system, then? Given the computing dependence of many modern governments, and the public access to computing and Internet in these same regions, it stands to reason that we have the technology and the means of implementation and instruction in a more finely-tuned system. Something where the lines between brackets can be blurred, and the system of distribution more transparent, and inefficiencies and inequalities identified an eliminated? Am I making any sense?

(This isn't theoretical. I don't know enough about economics and taxation, and the the only rationale I can think of is that it is always unreasonably hard to change an established system)

 

_________________________

The Silent Assassin once experimented with the idea of creating a time bomb with an indeterminate fuse.

It became rather obvious when he reached the field testing stage, during which he avoided the neighbors' shed for three weeks.

[Harehunter]

I think there is a distinct difference between liability insurance and C&C. Another factor is that the laws governing liability insurance are written at the State level. The States have that authority, the Federal government does not, as per the 10th Amendment to the Constitution. The Constitution was written to limit the powers of the Federal government to those things that required a united resource, such as national defense, or required a common rule of law such as interstate commerce.

 

It is that Commerce clause that permits the Federal government to fund and build the interstate highway system, to deal with situations where a business in one state is doing illegal practices in another state. It is also this clause that they are using to justify compelling individuals to enter into contracts with private businesses. This, I believe, goes way beyond the stretch of this rather elastic provision.

 

The biggest problem with the healthcare act is that it gives far too much authority to unelected bureaucrats who make regulatory changes without so much as a by your leave from the representatives chosen by the people to govern them.

[The Ratt]

Originally Posted By: I am Lord Grimm.

If we are to create a national health system, it needs to be done through the careful application of medical, economic, and sociological research. I'm talking surveys, experimental implementation of new policies, constant generation of new ideas... response to consumer feedback. Such a massive and significant undertaking must be crafted to suit the needs of those it serves, and constantly reexamined for relevance. It must be treated like an active economic organism, not thrown together in a one-size-fits-most plan implemented through the process of "ooh! ooh! vote for me if you like my idea!".

Ah, I can hear the Republicans already, "YOU'RE USING MY MONEY FOR WHAT!?!"

[Randomizer]

Originally Posted By: Dantius

Originally Posted By: Master1

Taxation brings up a whole bag of issues. Looking at it economically, most taxation sucks more out of the total benefits of a market economy than the tax revenue can create, something called dead weight loss. Naturally, that's something that we wish to avoid. Also, consider the extreme case where the top income bracket is taxed at 100%. What incentive would people have to work for such wages? Absolutely none. Fewer people would take jobs putting them into such brackets because they receive no benefit. Thus, the tax revenue would decrease!

This is called the "Laffer curve" (as I'm sure you, Excalibur, and Lilith know). While it's fine in theory- I mean, it makes logical sense that a government would collect no money for no tax, and I accept the arguments that it also makes no money at 100%- it's incredibly misused in practice. When you're trying to build a tax policy based on the data points (0,0) and (100,0) and the idea there's a maximum somewhere in between (hello MVT!), everything in between is basically guesswork, and guesswork is really not an acceptable justification for economic policy. This was used as an excuse for Reagan-era tax cuts, and I can't believe people bought it, much less that people still buy it now. Just because the government collects less revenue at rates close to 100% doesn't mean that it would also collect less revenue at rates above 35%, and the idea that tax dollars don't contribute productively to the economy should be laughable- just look at things like roads, the Internet, and practically any defense or healthcare contractor and tell me that they don't contribute "total benefits" to the economy greater than their cost.

The Laffer Curve has a fundamental flaw with its simplistic nature. Human nature is to pay as little taxes no matter what the tax level. Reducing the tax rates doesn't increase tax revenue because the tax payers are still going to use tax loopholes to reduce it even more. While they are happy to pay lower rates on what they will pay out it won't increase their taxable income.

The surge in tax revenue in the Reagan Era didn't come from reduced tax rates. It came from the surge in the stock market causing more taxable trades as people locked in profit. Day trading and most other trades during this period were short term capital gains that were taxed as ordinary income and that's the highest tax rate for most individuals.

[Randomizer]

Originally Posted By: The Ratt

Originally Posted By: I am Lord Grimm.

If we are to create a national health system, it needs to be done through the careful application of medical, economic, and sociological research. I'm talking surveys, experimental implementation of new policies, constant generation of new ideas... response to consumer feedback. Such a massive and significant undertaking must be crafted to suit the needs of those it serves, and constantly reexamined for relevance. It must be treated like an active economic organism, not thrown together in a one-size-fits-most plan implemented through the process of "ooh! ooh! vote for me if you like my idea!".

Ah, I can hear the Republicans already, "YOU'RE USING MY MONEY FOR WHAT!?!"

I saw a nice article on the history of Obamacare. It was based on a health mandate plan from the Republican Heritage Foundation pre-Clinton era as an alternative to the Democratic proposal of a single government sponsored nationalized healthcare system. The Republicans wanted individual choice for users and not forcing everyone into a single plan. At least until it became law.

[A less presumptuous name.]

Originally Posted By: I am Lord Grimm.

Something where the lines between brackets can be blurred, and the system of distribution more transparent, and inefficiencies and inequalities identified an eliminated? Am I making any sense?
(This isn't theoretical. I don't know enough about economics and taxation, and the the only rationale I can think of is that it is always unreasonably hard to change an established system)

If this is aimed at my assessment of the loss generated by by taxes, I need to make a distinction. The deadweight loss is generated by the tax, not the bureaucracy. When a tax is applied to a good, it raises the price of the good, thus decreasing the amount of said good that consumers will buy. Thus, we are paying more and getting less. Likewise, the producers of the goods are paying some of the tax, so they make less money per unit and sell fewer units.

Certainly there is also bureaucratic loss, which you seem to be thinking of. Yes, we could do something about that to make it better, but think of all those poor government lackeys who would be out of jobs!

[Lilith]

Originally Posted By: Master1

If this is aimed at my assessment of the loss generated by by taxes, I need to make a distinction. The deadweight loss is generated by the tax, not the bureaucracy. When a tax is applied to a good, it raises the price of the good, thus decreasing the amount of said good that consumers will buy. Thus, we are paying more and getting less. Likewise, the producers of the goods are paying some of the tax, so they make less money per unit and sell fewer units.

for some reason economists complain a lot more about deadweight loss caused by taxes than other kinds of deadweight loss, such as the ones caused by IP laws

I WONDER WHY

[VCH]

Originally Posted By: Lilith

Originally Posted By: Harehunter

Libertarians seem to be very pragmatic.

the position that all taxation is theft does not strike me as "pragmatic"

Agreed, that's rubbish.

[Callie]

Not to spoil the fun here, but I was wondering if anyone besides Alorael had their own faction ideas.

[A less presumptuous name.]

Originally Posted By: Lilith

for some reason economists complain a lot more about deadweight loss caused by taxes than other kinds of deadweight loss, such as the ones caused by IP laws

I WONDER WHY

2 reasons. Many prominent economists are conservative, and the intro econ textbooks often focus on things like taxes rather than IP.

[Dantius]

Originally Posted By: Master1

Originally Posted By: Lilith

for some reason economists complain a lot more about deadweight loss caused by taxes than other kinds of deadweight loss, such as the ones caused by IP laws

I WONDER WHY

2 reasons. Many prominent economists are conservative, and the intro econ textbooks often focus on things like taxes rather than IP.

Because when I think "conservative", the words "Paul Krugmann" spring to mind first.

[The Loquacious Lord Grimm]

Originally Posted By: Excalibur

Not to spoil the fun here, but I was wondering if anyone besides Alorael had their own faction ideas.

Lenar Labs as a faction:

Bonuses:
+4 Research - Advanced Thirst for Knowledge
+2 Espionage (probe, w/e) - Manipulates neighbors
+1 Close Range weapons - tactical preference
+1 Industry - Production Emphasis
Reduced unit upkeep and reduced detection for friendly stealth units, increased detection of enemy stealth units - due to emphasis.

-2 Efficiency - Unable to establish formal chain of command.
-1 Police - Unable to establish formal chain of command.
At irregular but frequent intervals, a random build order or current technology research will be damaged or reset, or a random settlement will catch fire, damaging or destroying buildings, due to disregard for safety from Advanced Thirst for Knowledge.

Untrustworthy: This faction may form no formal alliances, pacts, or diplomatic agreements of any kind except for trade of technology or money, cannot be part of any sanctions, and cannot pronounce Vendettas. This faction may vote in all elections, and can hold office. Trade with this faction is automatically established upon contact, and continues through any form of aggressive relationship.
Instigator: The AI for this faction will regularly send espionage units into all other factions, in an attempt to frame other factions for sabotage.

Agenda: Dictatorship, Free Market
Aversions: Police State, Theocracy
Priorities: Research, Espionage
Tech: Stealth/Probe
_________________________
The Silent Assassin's faction is a network of nomadic traders, interested only in secrets and new pie recipes, but supplying the world with humor and reasons for fear in equal measure.

[Randomizer]

Cruel and Unusual Punishment

 

Supreme Court Justice Scalia is invoking the Eight Amendment against the Court having to decide which parts of the Health Care Act can remain if the mandates are removed. He said they weren't going to read all 2780 pages to decide what was constitutional.