A couple economic ideas to decrease unemployment

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No, it is not right to say that I said that all other value systems are arbitrary and subjective. Here's what I said:
" the selection of other values is ultimately arbitrary and subjective ", which is valid given the amount of statement made. Nutritional value certainly has a scientific basis, however, the selection of nutritional value as important is outside of the realm of science.

The near universality of a preference is arbitrary, unless we are going to argue that mankind should be reduced to basic instinct and intuition without ability to disagree or defy, or unless we would argue that it reflects a higher morality, which is that "metaphysical such and such" that I referenced.


Ok? I disagree with your statement on the following grounds:
1) You are assuming that you are rational but other people are not. It is implicit in this actually. After all, you say "humans are not perfectly informed, rational decision makers", but you also say that value systems can be logical and thought out, meaning that a) there must be a person or group of people who are rational and informed in thinking things through, and likely b) that you are in this group that will have control.
2) I fundamentally disagree. And would ask that you prove that value objectively exists, not that people value things, but rather that there actually is a value out there that can be rationally stated as necessarily valuable. Not contingently valuable on personal beliefs or even beliefs you assume to be universal.


I disagree. I don't think society has rights. Not only that, but any effort to skew does mandate something, it mandates an action that will skew in the manner that legislators think leads to "rational" actions, and is in accordance with "strength of will", both of which seem problematic terms. Not only that, but doesn't this irrationality also impact the nature of the democratic government? How come that is given free-reign even though it should be prone to the same psychologically derived short-coming of the market in poor decision making? It seems to me that we are just replacing one flawed mechanism with another. Finally, if my point, that values are arbitrary, is true, then this "soft paternalism" is also an arbitrary action, which means that it is still just "your arbitrary opinion" on things, and still within the realm of psychological delusion.

In any case, you have not proven your point at all. In fact, you haven't even addressed the core issue, which is my contention that values must be objective to be judged, and that there is no source of objective values that logically carries legitimacy. This is values in the sense of "valuation", a phenomenon of desire, not in the sense of nutrition facts or anything of that nature, as those are just facts, not statements on how the world ought to work or what people ought to do.

Very true. Although another line of corporate thinking:

1) We need people to buy things.
2) There are 6.5 billion people on the planet, growing exponentially fast.
3) Doesn't matter if our customers die young. There will always be more customers behind them.

Case in point: Tobacco companies who knew/know full well that their product shortens life spans.

As to the original question, the ugly truth is:

- Companies are almost always in business first and foremost to make profit.
- If a machine can do the task cheaper than a human, I - the company - will use the machine to maximize profit.
- The tax break thing benefits me only if the tax break is greater than the wages of the extra people I hire.

It works the same way with tax-breaks-for-keeping-your-plants-in-country. If I can save a billion dollars in taxes by keeping my plants in the U.S., but I can save 10 billion in cheap labor and production costs by keeping my plants in China, then China it is.

And yes, all of this sucks for the domestic workers and attempts to revive the economy, but that's part of the ugly cycle. As a single company, I alone can not/am not responsible for saving the world, just keeping myself in business.

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Health Care however is way more in a company's interest than so many voters and companies in America bother to realize:

- Yes, as a company or a taxpayer, the last thing I want to do is spend more money on something that benefits only someone else, not me personally, like their healthcare.

- However, how much money am I the company spending on covering that person's shift when they're sick? Lost productivity because they came to work ill? Lost productivity because they spread their flu to a dozen other workers because they can't afford to stay home or get a flu shot?

- How much money do I the taxpayer spend in unemployment for people fired for being sick/injured? (And yes, that's illegal but it still happens all the time). How much do I the taxpayer shell out for disability and welfare for someone who, given a simple treatment, could easily get off disability and back into the workforce?