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Economic Liberalism Discussion

TheHappyVampire

Well-known member
Loving free trade, immigration, entrepreneurship, capitalism, and being globalist shills.

This is a discussion thread on economic liberalism. Classical liberals, libertarians, fiscal conservatives, neoliberals, and even social democrats are welcome to discuss policy that could produce a capitalist society that benefits all. Keep it civil, please.

Heritage Foundation's Index of Economic Freedom

What I would like to start on are victimless crimes.

The Budgetary Effects of Ending Drug Prohibition (Cato Institute)
In the past several years, the national movement to end drug prohibition has accelerated. Nine states and Washington, DC, have legalized recreational marijuana, with at least three more states (Connecticut, Michigan, and Ohio) likely to vote on legalization by the end of 2018. Dozens of others have decriminalized the substance or permitted it for medicinal use. Moreover, amid the nation's ongoing opioid crisis, some advocates and politicians are calling to decriminalize drugs more broadly and rethink our approach to drug enforcement.

Drug legalization affects various social outcomes. In the debate over marijuana legalization, academics and the media tend to focus on how legalization affects public health and criminal justice outcomes. But policymakers and scholars should also consider the fiscal effects of drug liberalization. Legalization can reduce government spending, which saves resources for other uses, and it generates tax revenue that transfers income from drug producers and consumers to public coffers.

Drawing on the most recent available data, this bulletin estimates the fiscal windfall that would be achieved through drug legalization. All told, drug legalization could generate up to $106.7 billion in annual budgetary gains for federal, state, and local governments. Those gains would come from two primary sources: decreases in drug enforcement spending and increases in tax revenue. This bulletin estimates that state and local governments spend $29 billion on drug prohibition annually, while the federal government spends an additional $18 billion. Meanwhile, full drug legalization would yield $19 billion in state and local tax revenue and $39 billion in federal tax revenue.
The Cato Institute provides us a bulletin on the budgetary effects of ending drug prohibition. Basically, it is saying that the United States could gain billions of dollars when not wasting resources on enforcing drug laws. The best to deal with drug use is to provide the necessary facilities to help people move out of addiction, programs to find jobs, and make drug use 'uncool' in local popular culture.

One could say that trying to enforce laws on prostitution and gambling is also a waste of money and instead should be decriminalized/legalized with proper regulations.
 
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make drug use 'uncool' in local popular culture
Continuing this kind of program seems meaningless. It's ineffective on the stuff people actually do for social reasons, still a big waste of money, and the stuff that is done for social reasons is what we're nominally talking about letting up on to begin with.
 
Continuing this kind of program seems meaningless. It's ineffective on the stuff people actually do for social reasons, still a big waste of money, and the stuff that is done for social reasons is what we're nominally talking about letting up on to begin with.
My twin brother and I had a discussion about this. He and I went through the same 'say no to drugs' assemblies through our years in school and we wonder that anyone who doesn't heed the warnings of what drugs could do to you after all these years is just a lost cause or simply has to learn things the hard way.
 
My twin brother and I had a discussion about this. He and I went through the same 'say no to drugs' assemblies through our years in school and we wonder that anyone who doesn't heed the warnings of what drugs could do to you after all these years is just a lost cause or simply has to learn things the hard way.
Kids don't, generally, hang out and do fucking METH man. Weed. Booze. Cigs. These are your group activities. Hard shit CAN happen as a social thing but usually the causes are much more complicated than a cartoon drug dealer going "come on man, be COOL." DARE isn't going to stop the opiod epidemic (or literally anything else). Further, weed isn't actually addictive or anything so there's no real reason to fight it in the first place.
 
Kids don't, generally, hang out and do fucking METH man. Weed. Booze. Cigs. These are your group activities. Hard shit CAN happen as a social thing but usually the causes are much more complicated than a cartoon drug dealer going "come on man, be COOL." DARE isn't going to stop the opiod epidemic (or literally anything else). Further, weed isn't actually addictive or anything so there's no real reason to fight it in the first place.
Very true. Marijuana, alcohol, and smoking are what really gets the crowds. To discourage this, many suggested establishing a tax on the products and putting/keeping 21 as the legal age. Such policies would probably encourage a black market.

The hard drugs tend to appeal to those who are really down on their luck. That's why we need programs to help the unfortunate get jobs and/or a higher education so they don't turn to the really hard shit.
 
Here's another problem that you're not putting into your equation: the current system isn't viable. Capitalism by it's very nature only ensures that the rich horde everything while fucking over everyone else. Thus, politicians and leaders who had this little thing called enlightened self interest decided that 'no, I don't want to be hung up from a street lamp in the near future' and laid down a lot of the regulations we had.

Capitalism in it's base state is not your friend. All it wants to do is consume and destroy anything that opposes it. Now it's at a point where regulations aren't going to fix the problem... because the system that is Capitalism isn't viable anymore.
 
Here's another problem that you're not putting into your equation: the current system isn't viable. Capitalism by it's very nature only ensures that the rich horde everything while fucking over everyone else.

And what do the rich do with "everything" once they have hoarded it? Eat it?
 
Very true. Marijuana, alcohol, and smoking are what really gets the crowds. To discourage this, many suggested establishing a tax on the products and putting/keeping 21 as the legal age. Such policies would probably encourage a black market.
Sin taxes are inherently regressive, because any kind of sales tax is ultimately a bigger problem for the poor. A slight extra premium is one thing but ultimately the profit is never going to be worth the cruelty.

As for discouragement:
Not that excess CAN'T be a problem, obviously alcholism, lung cancer, etc are risks, but excess is, again, more caused by circumstance than substance. And if someone is really an acoholic, or hooked on nicotine, sin taxes both don't actually curb addiction and are as mentioned often just dodged in some fashion or another. The drinking age being 21 is a crock of shit to begin with, you shouldn't be able to die for imperialism in the military but not drink legally. If anything drinking age should be 18 and the military should be off the table until you're 21.
And what do the rich do with "everything" once they have hoarded it? Eat it?
Hoard more of it. Getting richer is a goal unto itself.

Not sure what Gotcha you thought this was setting up, frankly.

I just want a discussion on economic liberal policies, not a discussion on why capitalism is bad or good.
You cannot talk about economic liberalism without talking about capitalism, and you can't talk about policy without talking about its merits. This statement is self-contradictory.
 
You cannot talk about economic liberalism without talking about capitalism, and you can't talk about policy without talking about its merits. This statement is self-contradictory.
I can see that. I understand people's grievances, it's just so damn tiring of constantly reading and hearing the same 'evil rich people' or 'exploiting the weak' talk. I just want a calm conversation and hoping this new forum site would help provide that. I hope you understand.
 
I can see that. I understand people's grievances, it's just so damn tiring of constantly reading and hearing the same 'evil rich people' or 'exploiting the weak' talk. I just want a calm conversation and hoping this new forum site would help provide that. I hope you understand.
Imagine if you will, how tiring it is to actually be SUBJECT to exploitation, rather than just reading about people being upset about being exploited.

In the twilight of capitalism, you are trying to insist upon it's merits, which means that you are going to have to deal with those grievances, whether you like it or not.
 
And what do the rich do with "everything" once they have hoarded it? Eat it?
Usually most of it is literally gathering dust in a bank or off-shore account somewhere while a comparatively small portion of it is used to 'show off' like some male peacock showing it's feathers for dominance.
 
I can see that. I understand people's grievances, it's just so damn tiring of constantly reading and hearing the same 'evil rich people' or 'exploiting the weak' talk. I just want a calm conversation and hoping this new forum site would help provide that. I hope you understand.

Well maybe if corporate executives stopped sending death squads to murder trade unionists and then gorge themselves on martini lunches while crying about how mean everyone is to them, perhaps people would view economic liberalism in a better light.
 
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There are multiple classes of 'Globalist' much like there are multiple types of 'Communists' and 'Capitalists' and other ideologies/religions.

There are the 'Dragons' who use globalism as a method to gorge themselves on the world's wealth, then there are the 'use globalization as a uplifting tool' who are more idealistic, then there are the pragmatic 'humanity suffered far too many wars because of empires and the economics of said empires, to globalize is to keep the cycle of world war at bay'. There are more but from what I can tell, these are the biggest groups of them.
 


90's style centrism is dead, says Fucking Third Way. Also: we here at Third Way, as Democratic Centrists, will fight socialists AND chuds! Also, Clinton triangulation is dead, so we spent a year and a half triangulating aaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

Whats ironic is the fuck heads in that thread I was talking about whining about Bernie going after D-leaning CEOs of corporations are probably creaming themselves over the Centrist Radicals going after literal fucking Democratic politicians.

Pro-public sector my ass.
 


90's style centrism is dead, says Fucking Third Way. Also: we here at Third Way, as Democratic Centrists, will fight socialists AND chuds! Also, Clinton triangulation is dead, so we spent a year and a half triangulating aaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

It's less 'dead' and more 'now the Dems' base' because the GOP went so far right.
 
It's absolutely not the Dem's base. It's the donors and the NewDem leadership caste, but the base is abandoning it.
 
As a side note, let's not lose track of the fact that the Cato Institute is largely disconnected from reality.

They're not wrong though?
 
They're completely wrong. Capitalism didn't deliver these things, unions FIGHTING capitalism did.
Dude, people not having to work from sunrise to sunset on farms absolutely did increase incomes and reduce work hours. Not to mention that you don't need unions to have workers rights
 
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