That really doesn't speak to the usefulness of the distinction. To the extent that workers, as a whole, have common goals (like capturing a bigger share of the productivity gains, for instance), it probably make sense to organize as a single group to pursue those goals.
The right also organizes humans into us-vs-them: the natives versus the immigrants, the faithful versus the infidels, and so on. Whether those make sense depends only on the values, way of living or material conditions you want to protect and whether the other group is a menace to them.
the left books everyone according to socioeconomic status; your point about the right placing everyone into a whole set of "us vs them" categories stands, but, I'm hoping that you're trying to say something like human souls should not be categorized on the basis of... (x,y,x) where any of x,y or z are groups we assign to people. Right?
People always want to believe they’re special, and build systems to recognize their belief system. Religions, capitalism (just another religion), etc.
100 years from now, your birth date and death date, and the life lived in between, will be no different than any other human, lines on a headstone or rows in a database. Maybe you’ll have a Wikipedia page, for the historical ledger, but if not, nothing changes.
There is a vast darkness, eons of empty space around us, and no other known life in the universe.
Every lizard is special. Every crab and spider and snail is special. Every person is especially special.
Your attitude about that is, let's say, demented as a result of hating your own species and your inability to love yourself or the people around you, or even the people you hate.
I encourage you to believe this if it helps with the human condition. Remember, the sun will eventually expand, incinerate Earth, and all of this will exist only as light, rf, and other energy others might potentially observe billions of years from now. Enjoy the warmth from the sun on your face on a cool day for what it is.
Yes, yes, yes. Are you trying to sound jaded, cynical, intelligent?
Surely there can be no counterargument to your final analysis of the pointlessness, the end of life.
I'd posit something different that you might sleep on: That your existence is worthwhile and, in fact, unique once and only once in all the history of the universe. That your ability to observe phenomena actually solidifies and collapses indeterminate waveforms. That you're living in the one and only terrarium that we know of, and belong to the most intelligent species that we know of, and that you therefore:
Have an obligation to the universe be worth more than what you're saying you believe in the prior statement. Of course, you can be whatever you want to be, and if that's merely believing that the smartest-sounding thing to say in a chat forum is that we're all meaningless and that the earth will be swallowed by the sun in a few billion years, then have at it; you're no doubt still a credit to your species for realizing things like that. Dogs, for instance, have no idea. But still, it's very disappointing. I mean, you have a vast number of upvotes on HN. Surely you must have something more interesting to impart about Life, the Universe and Everything? Even if it's just about fish?
That's because the raw material is only ~10% of the retail price. According to EU data, commodity prices for sweet whey powder in the EU are about 1.6 € per kg.
That doesn't add up with what OP said, though. Firstly, they mentioned a 2-3x increase, whereas your link has a 60% increase. Secondly, what're they buying if not retail? Thirdly, 2 euros per kilo is surely much better value per gram of protein than you're ever going to get with chicken?
2 EUR/kg was the price for buying in bulk, which is not accessible for individuals.
At retail I had been buying for a few years, before the start of the current price increase, pure non-adulterated whey protein concentrate at around 15 EUR/kg, i.e. at somewhat less than 19 EUR per kilogram of pure protein, which was less than the price of any kind of meat per its protein content.
Today I can buy chicken breast at a price around 25 EUR per kilogram of pure protein, which is much less than the current price of whey protein.
The world is turning to crap right now because of affinity fraud.
"He goes to my church/eats my traditional food/wears the jersey of my favorite sportsball team. I trust him!"
People decide someone is their friend due to some superficial similarity which a charlatan has dressed himself up in (and conversely that others are their enemy due to some superficial dissimilarity), and then their "friend" steals their political power to do bad things.
And people are too committed to their self-conception as savvy judges of character to admit their error. The error becomes a religion, a folkway, and is persisted across generations. You have to keep committing the error in order to honor your ancestors who were first fooled.
So... the Red Cross using their financial resources and/or political connections (which others lack) to successfully influence policy is committing to corruption?
Not a great example. After the Haiti Earthquake donations poured into the Red Cross, helping them raise half a billion dollars. Those half a billion dollars were ultimately used to construct 6 permanent homes. [1] These are the exact sort of people I expect to be involved in lobbying politicians, and the last sort of people I want anywhere near anything relevant to me.
No no no, you don't understand. It's corruption when groups I don't like do it, when groups I like do it it's fine. Just like when my side wins elections it's democracy and when the opposition wins elections its fascism.
Democracy is supposed to have something to do with majority rule or at least having policies that benefit the greatest number. When corporations that answer to no one use their disproportionate financial resources to hijack the political system and push policies that hurt the common people, that is fascism, yes.
Which corporations "that answer to no one" (no publicly traded companies) have hijacked the political system and which policies have come about as a result that have hurt the majority of people actually represented by that system in ways that aren't:
A) Vagaries that most people don't actually care much about.
B) Tradeoffs that didn't go the way you personally want.
> Democracy is supposed to have something to do with majority rule or at least having policies that benefit the greatest number
No. Modern democracy is supposed to protect the minority and allow regular peaceful transitions of power. That's why we need individual liberties and constitutional rules that protect the individual and prevent the majority to take away their liberties.
You absolutely can prevent a "hip neighborhood" from becoming the equivalent of a short squeeze. Prices are not only signals of current scarcity, but also future scarcity. Once you've established that any increase in property value will lead to an influx of capital, followed by a swift increase of supply, every increase will partially suffocate itself.
That's basic Econ101: households optimize for (subjective) utility, not for profit on some balance sheet. Taxing households for non-realized gains doesn't take into account liquidity nor the (subjective) negative utility and opportunity cost of selling your home and moving away.
> One might think that homeowners would be happy that their largest asset has appreciated substantially in value, as homes did,...
This is absurd. There's absolutely no benefit to you if the value of your house increases if you have no intention of selling it. That's exactly the point of treating owner-occupied homes differently from commercially owned property. The author should be embarrassed that he, as a an economist, doesn't know that in economic theory, households do not optimize for profit on some balance sheet, but for personal (subjective) utility. That's econ 101.
Yes there is. You own a more valuable asset, so now even if you want to keep it you could take out a loan against it for a greater amount than if it hadn't appreciated.
Your statement is based on assumptions that just don't hold for many people. First and foremost, you imply a subjective utility of receiving a loan. For many people, having loans - especially collateralized against your home - has negative utility, not positive. Case in point: someone who'd need to take our a loan to pay the property tax.
But even if you were right for the majority of home owners: feel free to tax collateralized homes as commercial property based on the volume of the mortgage. Case solved.
You mean take out a loan to pay for the increased taxes? The banks win with that one. Some people, especially as they age, are seeking out simplicity with their finances amongst everything else.
You're making a valid point, but not in favor of taxing owner-occupied homes, but in favor of treating collateralized homes as commercial property. I'd be okay with that as long as the basis for taxation is the volume of the mortgage.
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