Being told "professional poker doesn't contribute to society."

[Tien]

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when you consider taxes and spending habits and the velocity of money yadda yadda economic efficiency blah blah social stability poopoop it just comes down to an economic argument, but the bottom line is that you're doing nothing to increase society's total wealth. you consume without producing. you're a leech on society.

the effect you achieve by paying "extra" tax (and i put it in quotes because it could be that more tax would be paid if the money was spent in some other way) is basically an effective increase of the tax rate. it doesn't "contribute" in any way.

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I think you just dodged the entire statement.


If Lyric makes 200 000$ a year paying poker and paid 100 000$ last year in taxes, that 100 000$ he paid in taxes is money the US government would have never seen ever again if he or some other pro didn't win the money.

That 100 000$ was used to pay for 3 police officer's salaries.

Without these online poker "professionals" paying taxes, all that online money would never return to the United States ever again.

This argument about contribution is old and really really subjective to argue.


But really, 99.99% of the people working aren't doing it to "contribute" to society, they are merely working jobs so that they can make money and feed their kids.

It's human nature you have a problem about if you are arguing over "contribution". How many people out there would quit working their 9-5 "contributing" jobs if they suddenly were given the skill to make 150-200K a year playing poker?

Humans are greedy animals and "contribution to society" is often times at the bottom of the priority list when it comes to making money.

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The flaw in your argument is that the fish would spend the money somewhere else, giving additional people things to do, and then those additional people would pay taxes.

No amount of hand waving is going to get around the fact that if you don't produce something when you earn money, then your job is not productive. Paying taxes doesn't make you productive. Spending money in any way doesn't make you productive. Giving poker dealers jobs doesn't make you productive. Generating something of net benefit to society is what makes you productive, and professionals gamblers do nothing of that sort.

If it bothers you, then do some soul searching. However, don't had wave your way into an economically flawed argument.

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The flaw to this entire argument all together is people's definitions of what "contribution" really is.

YOUR definition of contribution is different than someone else's definition of contribution.


If Lyric paid 100 000$ in taxes as well as spent a whole bunch of the remaining money buying tangibles and helping fueling the economy by spending the money, than to me, he contributes to the economy. He earns a lot and spends a lot. The more you inject liquidity into the economy, the more it is stimulated.


If you want to group "contributions" in terms of adding some sort of advancement to human kind than fine, poker players don't "contribute", and neither do hundreds if not thousands of other job descriptions out there.


Do Tabacco companies contribute?
Do Alcohol companies contribute?
Does people who own gambling institutions contribute?




If your definition of contribution meaning producing something to help society or the advancement of society. There are PLENTY of jobs out there that don't produce diddly squat that aren't at the center of attack of all this "contribution to society" bull [censored].


Let's erase all these jobs in society that don't produce anything nor make these people productive in any way and you will suddenly find yourself with millions of unemployed people.

[Tien]

And you are so horribly wrong when you say:

"paying taxes is not being productive"
"Spending money is not being productive"


You do understand that the entire world economy works because people pay taxes and spend a bunch of money.

[Dima2000123]

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And you are so horribly wrong when you say:

"paying taxes is not being productive"
"Spending money is not being productive"


You do understand that the entire world economy works because people pay taxes and spend a bunch of money.

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No, I do not in fact understand that. Please do explain that to me, I must've been sick during that lecture in college.

[stinkypete]

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And you are so horribly wrong when you say:

"paying taxes is not being productive"
"Spending money is not being productive"


You do understand that the entire world economy works because people pay taxes and spend a bunch of money.

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No, I do not in fact understand that. Please do explain that to me, I must've been sick during that lecture in college.

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i was trying to come up with a good reply to tien, but that about sums up my thoughts.

[Tien]

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And you are so horribly wrong when you say:

"paying taxes is not being productive"
"Spending money is not being productive"


You do understand that the entire world economy works because people pay taxes and spend a bunch of money.

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No, I do not in fact understand that. Please do explain that to me, I must've been sick during that lecture in college.

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Sooo, how would the world economy do if consumer spending all across the world were to be cut by 50% and how would the world economy be effected if people were to stop paying taxes?

I don't need to go to a college lecture to figure that answer out.

[Dima2000123]

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Sooo, how would the world economy do if consumer spending all across the world were to be cut by 50% and how would the world economy be effected if people were to stop paying taxes?

I don't need to go to a college lecture to figure that answer out.

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Perhaps you need to go to college to learn to ask the right questions, which is far from a trivial skill. People don't just stop spending out of the blue, that's irrational. If they do it, they do it for a reason, like loss of income, or desire to save more (to spend more later). For what reason would people in your hypothetical scenario decide to cut spending by 50%?

[Tien]

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Sooo, how would the world economy do if consumer spending all across the world were to be cut by 50% and how would the world economy be effected if people were to stop paying taxes?

I don't need to go to a college lecture to figure that answer out.

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Perhaps you need to go to college to learn to ask the right questions, which is far from a trivial skill. People don't just stop spending out of the blue, that's irrational. If they do it, they do it for a reason, like loss of income, or desire to save more (to spend more later). For what reason would people in your hypothetical scenario decide to cut spending by 50%?

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My point was that every single economy in the world is effected by consumer spending. Consumer spending is the only thing that keeps every single company known to mankind in business.

People stop spending and everything collapses. People increase spending, and more jobs are created to meet the demand in consumer expenditure.

Sure you can say the money will be spent eventually, but you have to consider, the faster the money is spent, the faster the economy is stimulated. The more people out there are making money and spending money, the more the economy grows to meet that demand in expenditure.

Your perception about how strong the economy is and how easily it will rebound from such a recession from the loss of millions of job is highly ludicrous. If you followed the news about the subprime fiasco, you would have realized how close America was to being thrown into a recession because of lack of liquidity in the markets.

It took tens of billions of dollars of world bank injections as well as half a percentage point to save America from going into the inevitable recession.

I hardly think any economy would be able to withstand a sudden unnatural loss of millions of jobs.

My point about the roll these unproductive jobs play still stands.

[stinkypete]

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Sure you can say the money will be spent eventually, but you have to consider, the faster the money is spent, the faster the economy is stimulated. The more people out there are making money and spending money, the more the economy grows to meet that demand in expenditure.

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what makes you think the pro poker player would spend that money faster than the guy he took it from? i'd argue that the poker player is much more likely to put it away and save it for retirement than some schmoe who lives paycheck to paycheck.

[Lyric]

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Sooo, how would the world economy do if consumer spending all across the world were to be cut by 50% and how would the world economy be effected if people were to stop paying taxes?

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Doesn't matter. That's not the point.

[Dima2000123]

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The flaw to this entire argument all together is people's definitions of what "contribution" really is.

YOUR definition of contribution is different than someone else's definition of contribution.

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There isn't a lot of leeway in the economic definition of "contribution to society".

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If Lyric paid 100 000$ in taxes as well as spent a whole bunch of the remaining money buying tangibles and helping fueling the economy by spending the money, than to me, he contributes to the economy. He earns a lot and spends a lot. The more you inject liquidity into the economy, the more it is stimulated.


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I would estimate conservatively that 95% of the economic arguments that start with "stimulate the economy by spending" are complete crock. The fallacy is ignoring the opportunity costs. The money that the poker pro spends would've been spent anyway, by the fish instead of the pro. The problem is that when the poker pro enters the picture, you're using up one more person for no net gain in spending.

Thus, you actually lose one person's worth of spending, instead of spending (and necessarily producing) more. In general, before making fallacious "stimulate spending" argument, it always helps to remember that everything that is spent has to be first produced. If your economic theory increases spending without increasing production, then your theory tries to make something out of nothing. Look up "broken window fallacy" on Wiki for more detailed explanation.

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Let's erase all these jobs in society that don't produce anything nor make these people productive in any way and you will suddenly find yourself with millions of unemployed people.

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Now, this particular fallacy is called "lumps of labor fallacy". If we erase all those unproductive jobs, then we'll free up a bunch of people for more productive jobs which will now get created. In the end society will win, because the more goods and services get produced, which is going to happen if unproductive jobs are replaced with productive jobs, the more there is to spend.

Please remember that I'm not making an argument that unproductive jobs should be eliminated. I'm merely disproving fallacies that try to show that unproductive jobs are productive. I really hate it when some [censored] gets passed around as fact about the subject I'm knowledgeable about.