Egan-Jones Downgrades U.S. Debt

[BigRob]

I am looking at a much broader area to establish "median value."

For exemple, a whole County, not a whole "street!"

You can do this, and you will quickly develop counties that all the "rich" want to live in, and then develop counties where all the poor will be stuck...then we hear lamentations about divides between the rich and the poor.

And the median value already takes into account the "high" and "low" in any area. I don't want to "punish" anyone. But, although I believe that revitalization of a ghetto area is a good thing, it can easily turn into gentrification fo that area, which is VERY negative, as it take the (inferior, certainly, but still )only home poor people have ever known, and displaces those people with no affordable place to go to. . .while the "new gentry" drives the price up far beyond the original residents' affordability.

Cities push for revitalization because it pushes people out that pay no taxes, pushes people out that drive property values down and replaces them with tax payers (mostly) and allows the area to see an increase in property values and attract new business to the city.

It does a city no good to have multiple ghettos. It also does no one any good to tax people even more on trying to enact a change that only serves to benefit a town and attract new business, and new jobs.

 

[Dr.Who]

and then some people start taking all the apples some have none...and the people with all the apples say I want even more apples ...make it easier for me...so they give there apples to someone with even more power...who helps them get more apples and sell those apples...the guy with few...well who the F cares right?

There is not often a situation in which some people pick all the apples. But then those without apples would simply pick blueberries. The world has not yet run out of any natural resources in a situation in which there has not been a ready replacement. At times of course there are local shortages. So why shouldn't the one who works hardest at picking apples first provide for his family and then sell the rest? As long as he does not harm his neighbor by knocking down his ladders that is the natural law.

If he had all the apples then he could not get more apples (there is no such thing as more than all) as you say in your example. But those with a lot of the apples do indeed get help from the government to take even more than they could otherwise get with their own labors. This is an example of harming ones neighbors and should be stopped.

 

[Dr.Who]

The question is not of harm. Do I do harm to a homeless person if I fail to give him a five dollar bill I don't urgently need? No; I have simply failed to do good. I have nevertheless done evil by failing in my duty to be charitable to others.

We do indeed have a responsibility to care for others - but the federal gov does not have the authority to make us care for others. When they do force us to give to the homeless man they deprive us of the ability to give to the sick man. What gives the gov the right to decide that my money is better given to the homeless than to the sick?

There presently is no law against failing to do good. As there should not be.

Insofar as property is necessary for the discharge of many of our duties, we have a relatively broad right to it. But again, that right is not so unlimited to allow you to licitly deny others the bare minimum of resources necessary to discharge their own duties.

If I deny others access to resources simply by using them myself that is not causing them a harm it is simple me taking care of my own. I may certainly decide to take care of others after taking care of my own but the gov should not force me to. On the other hand if I deny others access to resources by preventing them in some way from taking them (like knocking down their ladders) then I have harmed them.