Wall Street protesters: We're in for the long haul

[Ideologue]

Ouch.  Well, I was going to add that he seemed a little rainbow brite for my tastes, personally, but

Also, I thought Wags was Viper and Viper must be opposed at all turns.

I also thought he was viper.  How odd.

If you want to become a radical, then do it.  But at least think things through.  Provide me with a detailed and interesting vision for the future.

You know my basic positions--a negative income tax, significant government control over the economy, large-scale government-run research and development for the long-run augmentation of and/or replacement for human participation in the economy and/or biosphere.

Well Viper and Wagnaard are similar enough to make it an understandable reading error.

It's the blondes.

[Ed Anger]

Occupy Denver elected a dog their leader. Fleabaggers. 

[Razgovory]

Was the dog as smart as Sarah Palin?

[Razgovory]

Ouch.  Well, I was going to add that he seemed a little rainbow brite for my tastes, personally, but

Also, I thought Wags was Viper and Viper must be opposed at all turns.

I also thought he was viper.  How odd.

If you want to become a radical, then do it.  But at least think things through.  Provide me with a detailed and interesting vision for the future.

Labor camps as far as the eye can see!

[Neil]

You know my basic positions--a negative income tax, significant government control over the economy, large-scale government-run research and development for the long-run augmentation of and/or replacement for human participation in the economy and/or biosphere.

Don't you feel that your programme creates too much leisure?

[Ideologue]

You know my basic positions--a negative income tax, significant government control over the economy, large-scale government-run research and development for the long-run augmentation of and/or replacement for human participation in the economy and/or biosphere.

Don't you feel that your programme creates too much leisure?

Not really.  The upward march of the normal unemployment rate is basically unstoppable and will almost certainly accelerate.  The question is how we intend to manage the transition.

Labor camps as far as the eye can see!

Labor?

[fhdz]

Ide's Earth:

[Ideologue]

What the fuck is that?  Tim riding a swan?

[fhdz]

What the fuck is that?  Tim riding a swan?

Philistine.

[Neil]

Not really.  The upward march of the normal unemployment rate is basically unstoppable and will almost certainly accelerate.  The question is how we intend to manage the transition.

I'm not so sure.  You can export employment, but that's a temporary measure.  Eventually, you're going to run out of money, and once you've looted every productive enterprise the state can lay its hands on to finance a huge population of layabouts, you end up like the Soviet Union.

Unless your society has access to practically limitless stocks of materials and energy, you'll reach a breaking point.  The end of human work is the end of human history.

[Ideologue]

Not really.  The upward march of the normal unemployment rate is basically unstoppable and will almost certainly accelerate.  The question is how we intend to manage the transition.

I'm not so sure.  You can export employment, but that's a temporary measure.  Eventually, you're going to run out of money, and once you've looted every productive enterprise the state can lay its hands on to finance a huge population of layabouts, you end up like the Soviet Union.

Unless your society has access to practically limitless stocks of materials and energy, you'll reach a breaking point.  The end of human work is the end of human history.

I don't think the entire society would become layabout even with a negative income tax--at least not in the short term--although you'd probably wind up with about 10-20%, thirty or forty million in this country as the workforce is currently calculated, which is a sustainable number, and not a great deal more than are actually unemployed or underemployed now.  The true drivers of the First World economy, the scientists and engineers researchers and administrators, would be just as active as ever, and probably moreso as consumer demand spikes up.  The primary motivation for work is a comfortable existence, but I think it's a mistake to equate a comfortable existence with what a dole check, or a pay check, can buy.

I know that personally I would still be looking for work even if I got $10,000 from the government just for existing, even if I could only expect to earn another $15,000 working a menial job; it would at least get me out of the house and interacting with people, and buy little luxuries that I enjoy.  I think most people are like that.  And those that aren't don't exactly contribute a lot anyway.

It's not about looting productive enterprises, it's merely taxing them.  At a higher amount?  Yes, but considering that as perforce destructive is the same zero-sum thinking of which I'm often accused.  The largesse would stimulate demand for goods and services, driving up demand for labor and hence wages and likely reducing the number of people who would accept the NIT alone.  Its monumentally redistributive, but I don't accept that it would be destructive.  And, if these arguments fail, our government wastes colossal amounts of money on things that I would not, e.g. the F-35.  And weapons generally, that is, of a non-fissile nature.  (This is somewhat off-topic, but do the unit costs on IC and SLBMs include the warhead?  I suppose not, as it seems kinda crazy that a tank costs more than a device capable of shattering a city.)

As for the Soviet Union, its biggest problems were party corruption and the lack of a free market*--these reinforced one another, since the former were unable to competently manage a command economy, and the lack of the latter reduced feedback that might have moderated their idiocy.  These huge, insuperable problems aren't present in my program.

*And being Russian, you must admit, could not have been much of a help, either.

[Barrister]

I know that personally I would still be looking for work even if I got $10,000 from the government just for existing, even if I could only expect to earn another $15,000 working a menial job; it would at least get me out of the house and interacting with people, and buy little luxuries that I enjoy.  I think most people are like that.  And those that aren't don't exactly contribute a lot anyway.

I suspect you are wrong.

[Syt]

I've only read Moorcock's "Col. Bastable" alt-hist stories, but they were among the most horrendous drivel I've ever set eyes on.

[dps]

I know that personally I would still be looking for work even if I got $10,000 from the government just for existing, even if I could only expect to earn another $15,000 working a menial job; it would at least get me out of the house and interacting with people, and buy little luxuries that I enjoy.  I think most people are like that.  And those that aren't don't exactly contribute a lot anyway.

I suspect you are wrong.

Well, he might still be looking for work, but he wouldn't find it.  'Cause nobody is gonna want to employ his lazy useless ass, no matter what kind of economic system is in place.

[Ideologue]

I know that personally I would still be looking for work even if I got $10,000 from the government just for existing, even if I could only expect to earn another $15,000 working a menial job; it would at least get me out of the house and interacting with people, and buy little luxuries that I enjoy.  I think most people are like that.  And those that aren't don't exactly contribute a lot anyway.

I suspect you are wrong.

Well, he might still be looking for work, but he wouldn't find it.  'Cause nobody is gonna want to employ his lazy useless ass, no matter what kind of economic system is in place.

I really wonder what I did to piss you off so much.   Pretty much everything you say to me lately is some hateful bon mot like the one above.