To get back to rockets, I assume everyone agrees they treat
a government funded rocket going bang exactly the same as
a similar mission similar private funded rocket going bang,
otherwise expect the two to have different risk profiles and
associated costs.

And of course no change in attitude depending on whether
group A or B or C etc. is in government at the time or
provided the public funding.

"Jim Wilkins" <muratlanne@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:u8u70g$d7mm$1@dont-email.me...
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NAIRU
> "In the U.S. boom years of 1998, 1999, and 2000, unemployment dipped below
> NAIRU estimates without causing significant increases of inflation. There
> are at least three potential explanations of this: (1) Fed Chair Alan
> Greenspan had correctly judged that the Internet revolution had
> structurally lowered NAIRU, or (2) NAIRU is largely mistaken as a concept,
> or (3) NAIRU correctly applies only to certain historical periods, for
> example, the 1970s when a higher percentage of workers belonged to unions
> and some contracts had wage increases tied in advance to the inflation
> rate, but perhaps neither as accurately nor as correctly to other time
> periods."

Nothing in the above changes the reality that a number of central
bankers around the world are currently stating they need to get
unemployment up. Despite a significant chunk of the current
inflation being due to a pandemic, a significant war and the
potential for an even more significant war. Tariffs are taxes and
increase prices, breaking and remaking supply lines costs. And
my main point, governments are expected and do deliberately
create and destroy jobs, not just create them. The best way to
fight poverty and whole lot of other problems is full employment,
the economic system says that must not happen.

That leaves upping the median wage, distributing the money more
widely, invoking the collective wisdom of many more people rather
than a small number of wealthy ones or the government. All the
options have costs and a lot of effort goes into the narrative someone
else paying is the best.

The NAIRU theory at least needs to explain the low unemployment
and inflation rates in the two or so decades after WWII happened.

That said the credit system will tend to freeze if interest rates are
well below the inflation rate.

If you pull apart the various economic theories you discover how
many value judgements are built into them, results tend to agree
with the world view of the person proposing the theory. It was
a while ago now but being shown how one economic model
was in fact nothing more than a mirror, reflecting back the
input assumptions. It would be fun to test the latest models
on the optimum level of slavery (do what the Romans did, it
worked for hundreds of years) or the effect of one person
owning everything and so on.

> NAIRU may be an example of confusing correlation with causation, an
> obviously faulty example being that the weather is always clear during a
> full moon because you never see it full during rain. The left is notorious
> for conflating the two

Politics and humanity usually conflate the two, not just a sub
section, most political statements that make the mass media
reportage are the good/bad guys are in power which is why so
much good/bad is happening. It can be the same event but
badged accordingly.

> to further the goal of blaming and confiscating the success they envy but
> aren't able to achieve by themselves.

By the way as some people could own the universe and consider
themselves poor, plenty of the rich "blaming and confiscating the
success they envy but aren't able to achieve by themselves" It
is a part of the human condition and often reinforced, one very
obvious example is artists where success = big sales, not some
sort of artistic quality, and can easily be the latest fashion.

Confiscation is taking things, I see plenty of people claiming
credit for anything considered a success. Plenty of bonus
payments have little to do with individual performance, being
based on metrics the company or the market sector as a whole
achieved but paid out to only some of the staff. After all that is
money that otherwise would have gone to the investors who
have had the success to enable them to invest, so are the
workers in the company "further the goal of blaming and
confiscating the success they envy but aren't able to achieve
by themselves"?

Yes I know, payment to us is valid, payment by us is unfair. If
the government allows the above can it also arrange "bonus"
rather than welfare payments to the poorer people, paid for
by the investors, payments based on sector wide metrics etc.
Or "bonus" employment at the company for those struggling?

How about given the unemployed are providing the service of
keeping the value of money they receive a fee for the service,
plus a bonus depending in the rate of inflation. Comes with the
"I'm an inflation fighter" t-shirt, with space to add your preferred
company or billionaire to show who you are fighting for. And
space to show how long you have been fighting the good fight.

A government rule that is liked is called a law, as law and order is good.
A government rule that is disliked is called a regulation, as deregulation
is good. The public is educated to agree with this so a public figure
can be pro law and order and pro deregulation instead of saying they
want that rule but not that other rule.

No unemployment benefit, it is inflation fighting fees plus bonus.

So much of politics is defining key words and whether they are
then good or bad,

How do you confiscate success, taking credit, or is it confiscating
the material results of success?

> Rich folk don't really cause poverty, the zero-sum fallacy, they just
> highlight it and incite toxic envy.

The rest is really a response to the it is them that is responsible
rhetoric. And they are defective people so can be ignored.

As for the causes of poverty the rich like all of us are a contributor,
but the rich have more power and so have a greater input, phrases
like toxic envy are the usual rhetoric, like the rhetoric about how all
bosses are criminals, making the problems worse. We like the
flood of cheap fashion clothing but few would like to have the working
conditions of the mass garment industry. Volunteer to take a pay
cut, it will enable more people to afford your work, help make poverty
history. The reality your income is other people's costs.

Put it another way the rich person could invest in new ventures
or pay twice the last price to own a trophy old master, the poor
person could upskill or spend money on an addiction, both
create economic activity, but not the same effect on building
a better world.

Having a physical or mental disability is poverty determining,
along with poor health. Wheelchair access adds costs to
buildings for example, so how much should the person in the
wheelchair pay for it or for the wheelchair itself? When it
comes to health if the people around you do not have adequate
food, clothing, shelter and medical support then you are in
trouble as communicable diseases do not run credit checks.
Medicine or surgery to give people better quality of life also
makes them more employable and able to afford the care.
So how much should medical care be a public or a private
good? Welcome to politics. Add education etc.

We all draw on the resources of the state, changing over
time. The poor are obvious as they receive direct payments.
Businesses tend to prefer not have to pay a tax others do,
as that is less visible than refunds or subsidies.

The wealthier you are means having more property and doing
more business. Think of the cost of insurance and doing
business if the government does not bother much with
stopping theft or fraud, or providing resources to settle
business disputes. Or just more business usually means
more use of roads. Kidnapping and other crimes are
generally more profitable when done to the wealthy.

One way to fight poverty is to regularly change governments,
the greater the electoral margin a representative has the
more they are the system's representative to the electorate,
not the electorate's to the system. As it is the power brokers
that determine whether the representative stays. The longer
one group stays in power the more the system is set up to
help particular groups and not others.

We now know any organisation, public, private, religious,
charity etc. rapidly abandons its official reason for existence
to prioritise defending the organisation and especially the
people in charge. It is the paradox that the organisations
humans create to enable the co-operation to do good
things better need strong competitors to enable that
co-operation to stay focused on better for the clients.

The more powerful someone is the more they are able
to influence the rules, at the extreme a monopoly or a
cartel sets both prices and wages. Plenty of examples
about how people claim making it easier for "us" will
make a better world, but easier tends to push towards
monopolies. Or just current practice of the difference in
payment terms and prices a big business can impose
on its suppliers versus a small business, add any
economies of scale and watch the small competitors
financially strangle. No need for predatory pricing. Then
tell the customers for example no warranty if your vehicle
is serviced by non approved people.

Make life harder for the powerful and you will generally
have more progress to a better world, the people
involved tend to be volunteers and can end the situation
by leaving or donating. But so many of them are so sure
they know what is best, making it easier for themselves
is really the best way forward. Besides the more powerful
you are the more you are obviously right (success is proof,
it was all skill) and have lots of people saying you are right.

The information business is at its most profitable when
telling people what they want to hear, and least when
telling people what they need to hear.

We all have a limit, which varies over time, if we are
currently financially stable, for how much money is required
to get us to undertake more paid work. If you eliminate
poverty you will eliminate the poverty jobs, the badly paid
poor condition ones the desperate take that helps keep
them in poverty. Nice cycle.

In the short term reinforcing success is the way to go, long term
it is fixing the problems that matters, and the bigger the current
success is the harder it becomes to fix the problems, because
we are human and the systems we set up to decide what to do
are more influenced by success and much more averse to loss.
How much easier it is to give support than end it.

> High ability can do very well by filling a demand even in poor countries.

All through history there are examples of great ability enabling
people to rise well above what they started with, and people
able to maintain a privileged position despite having near
zero ability. The rise in particular tends to be the exception
while being used as an example of how the system works,
rather than what happens to all those good and above average
people outcomes. If you want fairness then the outcomes should
reflect ability and effort, but society decides some abilities
are more important than others and the closer you are to the
current ideal the more opportunities you will tend to receive,
and the easier time you will have, before adding any family benefits.

Politics is about defining that fairness, what the mythical
average person can expect then should be treated.

Geoffrey Sinclair
Remove the nb for email.