On July 07 2011 04:33 Haemonculus wrote: I don't have any background in economics, so I can't really argue your first point. However it sounds like your problem is more with the government currently looking out for the interests of the rich and powerful corporations. That is another point we can agree on. I still do not see how abolishing government entirely solves that. The current administrations around the world have slowly been hijacked by corporate interests. Our lobbying system is horridly flawed.
I'd also argue about food standards making us fat. More of a cultural thing. Countries around the world have been catching up to us in terms of obesity as they adopt more of our diet. Saying the government makes us fatties seems a bit silly to me.
Then again everything I write here I say coming from the point of view of someone lucky enough to be born into a life of relative comfort. I'm not rich by any means, but growing up I never had to worry about having enough to eat or anything like that.
Honestly though, how is government looking out for the interests of the rich and powerful just current problem? Historically it has nearly always been that way, exceptions are few and far between. It has always been the rich and powerful running government for their own interests, going all the way back to the days of kings up to today. Even the people who created the constitution for the US were the rich and influential members of that society, and they created the constitution and become powerful. It's nothing new. The romanticized history taught by government funded schools can certainly make it seem that way.
It's fine to consider the diet a cultural thing, but on one hand you are saying government protects us by checking over the food supply, and on the other we have government not just allowing but subsidizing extremely unhealthy foods. Even foods that "should" be good for you are more often than not terrible. Take corn for example, unless you go out of your way and spend more money the corn you eat has been genetically modified to include insecticide inside of it. With each bite you are eating insect poison. Corn with built in insecticide is subsidized and therefore cheaper to produce, organic corn is not. That is just one small piece of why the US has the highest cancer rate in the world, it is not just obesity (which is most prevalent in poor demographics who cannot afford healthier food, as the government taxes their labor and uses it to fund poisoned food). Other countries catching up does not excuse anything or change my argument, it is simply a sign of the extreme draconian style of the US spreading to the rest of the world. It's not a good thing, any way you look at it.
I'm not saying we should abolish government, I might as well say we should move to the sun because that might be just as viable. I'm saying we should learn about it's deception, and not happily support it. We can't get rid of it but that doesn't mean we have to like it or help it grow every time it asks. It's an extremely small step, but also the only positive option that is still available to us. That might not always be the case.
Captialism and government completely go hand in hand. The capitalism we see in the US would not be possible without the goverment enforced fiat curreny that fuels it. It is entirely designed for the extreme levels of growth, consolidiation, and debt.
Stop and think about how many "mom and pop" stores are around today compared to 20 years ago. That isn't a random chain of events, rather it is the direct and inevitable result of the fiat currency that was forced on the entire country back in 1913 by the government. All developed countries of the world use the same basic rules of fiat currency enforced by their governments (because it works so well in terms of gaining power and control), and for most of then it is the same group of bankers running the whole show. Government is run for corporations and corporations are run in government, they are two arms of the same beast.
Then, if you have an investment, that will bring you more money than it costs you today, you should do that. In theory, you can't under a currency that is tied to something.
Lastly, monetary policy allows you to prevent inflation or deflation. Regardless of what you think of the FED's policies today, in theory that's darn important.
Consolidation is an emergent property of markets. There are laws against that. Others would argue that consolidation is not a bad thing as companies get more efficient when they get larger. Still others would argue that consolidation furthers the downfall of the giants today to make way for the giants tomorrow. Creative destruction and all that.
That same inefficiencies created by size are the reasons why small general stores don't exist anymore. They aren't as good in bringing to customers what they want cheaply.
As for "government is corporations", well, that's an empty phrase so I won't argue that.
On July 07 2011 04:05 Treemonkeys wrote: As far as safety standards? Like safety standards that made the US the most obese country in the world? Like safety standards that made the US have the highest cancer rates in the world? Going back to my own problems with how society is detrimental for me, the majority of the food supply in the US is basically poison to me and everyone else with my condition. I have to go way out of my way and spend extra money to get food that doesn't destroy me. Only I grew up like you, trusting the goverment stamp of approval on food, so much damage has already been done that cannot be undone. With a healthy food supply I never would have had this condition to begin with.
Either the safety issues you talk about could have been discovered by you in your local library for free or they weren't known.
If they weren't known, it's not the companies fault. If it was known, you should have checked that out first, as you would have in anarchy because nobody would stop companies selling bad stuff in anarchy, nobody did in the states.
On July 07 2011 04:05 Treemonkeys wrote: Organic food that has not been genetically modified to include pesticides and other things is clearly better for you, but it costs more and is less accessable, do you know why? There are two main reasons, among others. First, the genetically modified food is subsidized by the goverment - making it less exepensive. In other words, government is stealing money from taxpayers, giving it to food corporations that are growing unhealthy food, and then feeding it back to those same taxpayers telling them it is perfectly safe. Second, to be allowed to advertise your food as organic and non-modifed, you have to pay extra money to have it "certified" to show you aren't lying - further increasing the cost. This is an expense imposed by the government. Whatever you think of the government's true intentions with doing all of this, the results of it are clear.
The more yield you want your field to have, the closer you plant your crops. The closer the crops are, the more fertilizer you need and the more risk of total loss you have in case of a bug coming along.
So you need to spray your high yield field with fertilizers and pesticides. That makes the field more efficient and cheaper.
Organic food on the other hand can't be grown in high intensity mono-cultures because you can't use pesticides or fertilizers. That reduces the yield, increases production costs per unit. Thus, more expensive.
Now you have stuff on the market that is indistinguishable from other stuff, that is cheaper. The evil corporation could just label the cheap stuff as the expensive stuff and keep the difference. We don't want that. So we ask an institution to label the different kinds of stuff for us. Nothing sinister there.
Nuclear tests? I'm all for getting rid of nukes. No one should be able to level cities from across the world. Maybe such weapons deter attacks, but yes, I am very against nuclear weapons. (except in video games, BRING IT ON GHANDI, FINISHING STONEHENGE BEFORE ME! ) I disagree however that a world without a central government would be a world without nuclear weapons. What's to stop a powerful corporation from building a few for themselves?
I agree with you that if "government" did not develop nuclear weapons, someone else "might". But dealing with our current reality, it was government that developed them, it was government that built them, and it was government that continues to test them. Like slaves, there is seemingly nothing we can do to stop this. Once again I am not arguing "for" anarchy, I am arguing against government. I see the evils of anarchy and goverment as the same thing, or rather the evils of humans dominating each other with violence and deception. Personally I think we are simply fucked BUT if there is to be any hope at all, it has to start with us - as common people - to realize and acknowledge how horrendously evil the people who are at the tip top of our society, running the whole show, truly are.
We could stop it. We don't. The only point you have is that people in anarchy couldn't have developed the atom bomb due to lack of high tech.
The future of the planet? That should absolutely be a top priority of any and all governments. Again I think you're finding fault with the current administrations around the world, and not necessarily the system. Do you think that a non-government state would treat the planet better? Hint: The biggest enemies of the EPA are not governments. I find it hard to believe that companies would adhere to environmentally friendly standards were they not forced to. Recycling industrial waste is expensive. Dumping it in the river is cheap.
While they may or may not be looking out for the planet, I can be damn sure that when the shit hits the fan they will not be looking out for the billions of people in the world. They will use every resource they have stolen to make themselves safe and comfortatble. I mean we see this already, who are the ones with vast underground complexes in the event of nuclear war? It's us that paid for those things, but it will be them hidden away safely inside.
We elect the people who go into the bunkers. Or they build their own. Run for office or build a bunker. Nothing unfair with that. Still you dodged the point that individuals need force to internalize externalities.
War is horrible, no one will contest that. I just find it unrealistic to think that no government = no wars. We've been killing each other since the dawn of humanity.
Yeah, people would probably still fight. But it is the people's willingness to let the government take endless sums of labor and use it to create massive military and weapons of destruction that takes it to the scale it has been at for modern times.
You were on to something when you mentioned that agricultural companies lobbied to get what they want, that isn't an isolated event, it is the standard for all legistlation that goes through.
Whether people kill each other daily, on a tribal sized level, or on a massive scale every so often, doesn't really matter as long as they still kill each other. Western democracies have a pretty good track record of not fighting each other. We might be onto something.
Lastly, even though lobbying sucks, without rules, companies would just do whatever they wanted.
Anyway, we know that government is hugely inefficient as it is, but it is the best we got. All we have right now is due to organization that only in theory would be possible without it.
Winston Churchill: It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried.
Then, if you have an investment, that will bring you more money than it costs you today, you should do that. In theory, you can't under a currency that is tied to something.
Lastly, monetary policy allows you to prevent inflation or deflation. Regardless of what you think of the FED's policies today, in theory that's darn important.
Consolidation is an emergent property of markets. There are laws against that. Others would argue that consolidation is not a bad thing as companies get more efficient when they get larger. Still others would argue that consolidation furthers the downfall of the giants today to make way for the giants tomorrow. Creative destruction and all that.
That same inefficiencies created by size are the reasons why small general stores don't exist anymore. They aren't as good in bringing to customers what they want cheaply.
As for "government is corporations", well, that's an empty phrase so I won't argue that.
I wasn't even arguing for a gold standard that is just a straw man. Monetary policy "allows" you to prevent inflation and deflation. Yeah it allows it, it also allows them to create inflation and deflation, which is what they do. In theory the Fed's policies are darn important? Yeah it's a theory, which means it can be wrong. In this case, it is. Actually the real question is "important for who and what purpose?". Obviously this mass economic scheme is important to someone. Go back to my post on how values are subjective and stop being so arrogant to shove what you and the "experts" think on to me.
I never said "government is corporations" unless there is a typo I am unaware of, repeating my arguments in a simplistic and stupid manor doesn't help your argument at all. Governments are people, corporations are people. More often than not they are the same people and/or share the same interests. This I am specifically saying about the US. Just take your pick of any senator, congressman, or executive officer and see what board of directors they used to sit on or continue to sit on and what stocks they own.
Either the safety issues you talk about could have been discovered by you in your local library for free or they weren't known.
If they weren't known, it's not the companies fault. If it was known, you should have checked that out first, as you would have in anarchy because nobody would stop companies selling bad stuff in anarchy, nobody did in the states.
This is another straw man. I was specifically making a counter point to what someone else said about government protecting us in this manor. You're point in that regard is irrelevant.
The more yield you want your field to have, the closer you plant your crops. The closer the crops are, the more fertilizer you need and the more risk of total loss you have in case of a bug coming along.
So you need to spray your high yield field with fertilizers and pesticides. That makes the field more efficient and cheaper.
Organic food on the other hand can't be grown in high intensity mono-cultures because you can't use pesticides or fertilizers. That reduces the yield, increases production costs per unit. Thus, more expensive.
Now you have stuff on the market that is indistinguishable from other stuff, that is cheaper. The evil corporation could just label the cheap stuff as the expensive stuff and keep the difference. We don't want that. So we ask an institution to label the different kinds of stuff for us. Nothing sinister there.
More additions to the straw man mentioned above, you are avoiding the primary point I made that government does not enforce a safe food supply. Actually you aren't even avoiding it, you are reinforcing it by making excuses for it.
We could stop it. We don't. The only point you have is that people in anarchy couldn't have developed the atom bomb due to lack of high tech.
This is ridiculous. Yes we as all of humanity in theory could stop it. Only we cannot make decisions or act in that manor. We as in me and you, everyone in this thread, cannot do a damn thing about it. To say we can is just as ridiculous as saying "Team Liquid disarms the entire world's nuclear arsenal!" Absurd.
We elect the people who go into the bunkers. Or they build their own. Run for office or build a bunker. Nothing unfair with that. Still you dodged the point that individuals need force to internalize externalities.
I didn't elect anyone, once again stop being arrogant and assuming your will on me. Run for office, which requires vast sums of money and successfully winning a popularity contest and then you *might* have a slight chance in hell to do something about it? Ridiculous. I don't even care to argue over what is fair, that is far too much of a simplistic way to look at it. My arguments are not about fair and unfair, they are about how we are all slaves. Yeah I think it's unfair, but that is irrelevant because it is our reality. I don't really give a shit if getting wiped out by an explosion while some fat bastards hides in safety inside of a bunker I helped pay for my entire life is fair or not, it's fucking stupid for me to go along with and reeks of disposable servitude.
I have no idea what you mean by internalize externalities or what point I supposedly dodged.
Whether people kill each other daily, on a tribal sized level, or on a massive scale every so often, doesn't really matter as long as they still kill each other. Western democracies have a pretty good track record of not fighting each other. We might be onto something.
Lastly, even though lobbying sucks, without rules, companies would just do whatever they wanted.
Anyway, we know that government is hugely inefficient as it is, but it is the best we got. All we have right now is due to organization that only in theory would be possible without it.
Call me crazy, but I'd consider WWII much worse than two guys trying to kill each other. Government is only inefficient in terms of what taxpayers get as a return on their "investment". In regard to what government itself gets, more power for themselves, more control, more wealth, more of the earth, they are extremely efficient. It's pretty damn hard not to be when you are only spending other people's money and labor.
Winston Churchill: It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried.
Did you just ignore everything I said about how I wasn't arguing for anarchy? What is your purpose with this quote? Even as good as you may think democracy is, you think it came about over the satus quo of kings and emperors thanks to people like you, sitting here defending the status quo, saying it's the best we've had up until this point in time? No, of course not. It was people like me, saying the status quo is still fucking fucked up and needs to change.
Then, if you have an investment, that will bring you more money than it costs you today, you should do that. In theory, you can't under a currency that is tied to something.
Lastly, monetary policy allows you to prevent inflation or deflation. Regardless of what you think of the FED's policies today, in theory that's darn important.
Consolidation is an emergent property of markets. There are laws against that. Others would argue that consolidation is not a bad thing as companies get more efficient when they get larger. Still others would argue that consolidation furthers the downfall of the giants today to make way for the giants tomorrow. Creative destruction and all that.
That same inefficiencies created by size are the reasons why small general stores don't exist anymore. They aren't as good in bringing to customers what they want cheaply.
As for "government is corporations", well, that's an empty phrase so I won't argue that.
I wasn't even arguing for a gold standard that is just a straw man. Monetary policy "allows" you to prevent inflation and deflation. Yeah it allows it, it also allows them to create inflation and deflation, which is what they do. In theory the Fed's policies are darn important? Yeah it's a theory, which means it can be wrong. In this case, it is. Actually the real question is "important for who and what purpose?". Obviously this mass economic scheme is important to someone. Go back to my post on how values are subjective and stop being so arrogant to shove what you and the "experts" think on to me.
I never said "government is corporations" unless there is a typo I am unaware of, repeating my arguments in a simplistic and stupid manor doesn't help your argument at all. Governments are people, corporations are people. More often than not they are the same people and/or share the same interests. This I am specifically saying about the US. Just take your pick of any senator, congressman, or executive officer and see what board of directors they used to sit on or continue to sit on and what stocks they own.
I'm sorry, but you said that "the government forced a fiat currency on the people" and implied they did so for sinister reasons. You forgot to mention that that was done to stop the Great Depression and that there is good evidence today, that this was actually what did it. Either you are backtracking now, or your only point is "the fiat currency saved us, but it is evil!"
I've read your post on values and it remains a representative piece of moral relativism. It's also a red herring right now.
Also you said that the government is the left arm of the corporations and the other way round. Which is a phrase most often not followed by substantive evidence of corporations changing the government in a way people don't want. That's all I was saying.
Lastly, I apologize. I will henceforth refrain from linking to material created by people that have spent years to acquire the knowledge to create it.
Either the safety issues you talk about could have been discovered by you in your local library for free or they weren't known.
If they weren't known, it's not the companies fault. If it was known, you should have checked that out first, as you would have in anarchy because nobody would stop companies selling bad stuff in anarchy, nobody did in the states.
This is another straw man. I was specifically making a counter point to what someone else said about government protecting us in this manor. You're point in that regard is irrelevant.
I am aware that you were answering. The conversation was "Government forces corporations to make food safe" You answered "Government doesn't because people get sick, so we should abolish government" To which I am adding "With or without government, you have to check what you eat. So why are you complaining about something that you are not using anyway?"
Point is, the government has safety standards that are not totally ineffective. Without it, no regulations would be in place and people would be worse of. So again, your reasoning is: "Regulation sometimes fails to make food completely safe, thus we need to abolish regulation".
The more yield you want your field to have, the closer you plant your crops. The closer the crops are, the more fertilizer you need and the more risk of total loss you have in case of a bug coming along.
So you need to spray your high yield field with fertilizers and pesticides. That makes the field more efficient and cheaper.
Organic food on the other hand can't be grown in high intensity mono-cultures because you can't use pesticides or fertilizers. That reduces the yield, increases production costs per unit. Thus, more expensive.
Now you have stuff on the market that is indistinguishable from other stuff, that is cheaper. The evil corporation could just label the cheap stuff as the expensive stuff and keep the difference. We don't want that. So we ask an institution to label the different kinds of stuff for us. Nothing sinister there.
More additions to the straw man mentioned above, you are avoiding the primary point I made that government does not enforce a safe food supply. Actually you aren't even avoiding it, you are reinforcing it by making excuses for it.
One of us has a reading-comprehension issue. Could be me because I am the foreigner. IIRC, you claimed that the only reason government regulation exists and why organic, healthy food (that organic is always healthy is another natural fallacy) is so expensive is a government plot. I explained that it is simple economics. Industry farming is better than farming like a century ago.
We could stop it. We don't. The only point you have is that people in anarchy couldn't have developed the atom bomb due to lack of high tech.
This is ridiculous. Yes we as all of humanity in theory could stop it. Only we cannot make decisions or act in that manor. We as in me and you, everyone in this thread, cannot do a damn thing about it. To say we can is just as ridiculous as saying "Team Liquid disarms the entire world's nuclear arsenal!" Absurd.
You are almost there. "We" chose not to do that. We could if we cared enough, but we don't. And even if we cared enough, we would not get rid of our nuclear arsenal until everyone else does. Thus, the "we" that cannot change things is a "we" that is prevented in doing so by "them" who don't want to. Welcome to democracy.
We elect the people who go into the bunkers. Or they build their own. Run for office or build a bunker. Nothing unfair with that. Still you dodged the point that individuals need force to internalize externalities.
I didn't elect anyone, once again stop being arrogant and assuming your will on me. Run for office, which requires vast sums of money and successfully winning a popularity contest and then you *might* have a slight chance in hell to do something about it? Ridiculous. I don't even care to argue over what is fair, that is far too much of a simplistic way to look at it. My arguments are not about fair and unfair, they are about how we are all slaves. Yeah I think it's unfair, but that is irrelevant because it is our reality. I don't really give a shit if getting wiped out by an explosion while some fat bastards hides in safety inside of a bunker I helped pay for my entire life is fair or not, it's fucking stupid for me to go along with and reeks of disposable servitude.
I have no idea what you mean by internalize externalities or what point I supposedly dodged.
On a local level, running for office is easy. I will go to a cafe this sunday and talk to a guy who runs for my local district. If he wins, he will probably try and run for a city office. After this, maybe federal level. So that's easy. Of course your opinions might prevent you from gaining office and we are again at this darn "they", they who disagree with us and prevent us from doing what is good for them. Darn them!
You are not a slave. You are an american. Just your passport, and I really mean the thing you can hold in your hands, is worth 3000$ on the black market. Go anywhere you want, the jungle maybe, or an abandoned village in the ex soviet union, or even africa and live your society free dream. You can if you just want to. You have a right to also. What you don't have a right to is your anarchy where you are right now against the will of your fellow men.
Sorry, that was slang. Imagine I sell you an apple with a plastic wrapper. It's really cheap to produce both and the plastic wrapper adds value to my apple. Now you eat that apple, throw the plastic wrapper away. the externality is that the wrapper litters the street and somebody needs to clean that up. Without regulation I keep my profits and won't do a thing. A government can force me to go and pick up that wrapper, which costs time and thus money, but it has forced me to internalize the externality.
Whether people kill each other daily, on a tribal sized level, or on a massive scale every so often, doesn't really matter as long as they still kill each other. Western democracies have a pretty good track record of not fighting each other. We might be onto something.
Lastly, even though lobbying sucks, without rules, companies would just do whatever they wanted.
Anyway, we know that government is hugely inefficient as it is, but it is the best we got. All we have right now is due to organization that only in theory would be possible without it.
Call me crazy, but I'd consider WWII much worse than two guys trying to kill each other. Government is only inefficient in terms of what taxpayers get as a return on their "investment". In regard to what government itself gets, more power for themselves, more control, more wealth, more of the earth, they are extremely efficient. It's pretty damn hard not to be when you are only spending other people's money and labor.
If more people suffer by a societal system than did in WW2, then you are crazy preferring that. WW2 is over and we can do something to prevent that. Without government, we can't prevent the next guy from bashing someones head in.
Winston Churchill: It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried.
Did you just ignore everything I said about how I wasn't arguing for anarchy? What is your purpose with this quote? Even as good as you may think democracy is, you think it came about over the satus quo of kings and emperors thanks to people like you, sitting here defending the status quo, saying it's the best we've had up until this point in time? No, of course not. It was people like me, saying the status quo is still fucking fucked up and needs to change.
I'm sorry, I got confused. You were using the language of either anarcho-capitalists or hard core communists. Funnily enough, the last synthesis of class warfare in communism resolves itself into communal anarchy. If you are none of these things, what are you?
Then, I am not defending the status quo exactly as is. I am just not willing to tear down the whole thing because of some flaws inherited from history. And yes, it was people like me that changed the world. People that read experts, people that don't expect everyone to be evil and sheeple but themselves.
#1) The FED only causes inflation. Deflation can only be caused by drop in prices which can only be caused by increased production. The FED doesn't produce anything. All it currently does is Quantifying Easing which basically means it's printing money (creating inflation.)
#2) We came off the gold standard because after we started printing money we didn't have enough gold to back up all the dollar bills with it.
#3) Roosevelt's New Deal didn't end the Great Depression, it only worsened it and pro-longed it, in fact it wasn't gonna be the "Great" Depression until his social programs kicked in.
On July 06 2011 09:07 BestZergOnEast wrote: As far as roads are concerned - well, I don't think we need to get rid of roads just because we get rid of governmnt. If there is a demand for transportation (which obviously there is and will be) there will be a supply for it. ECON 101. It's really no different than any other industry. How are we going to get food to 300 million people? We don't have to solve that problem. The market does. Same with water and sewage. Customers would pay companies to provide these services - and due to market competition it would be much cheaper. As far as being safe - first of all, there's nothing the government does right now that will prevent you from getting assaulted. Maybe they will catch the guy after the fact, but even that is pretty unlikely. If you even bother to report the crime. But yes, I think carrying a gun is a good idea. And there is no need to complely abandon the idea of security simply because we abolish the state - their could be private companies you can hire for protection / redress. Yes, we would have a currency - a gold standard, most likely, although that would depend on the market. The current fiat money supply is inherently inflationary; this need not be the case. Indeed, it wouldn't if we abolish central banking. Central banks cause business cycles - depressions, recessions, if we had sound mone this wouldn't happen. There would be no depressions, except in extreme circumstances (being invaded, for example). Banks would be free to operate, certainly, but they would be treated like any other business. That is they would not have the government priviledge that is fractional reserve banking. The process of investment would be separated from the process of saving or warehousing of money.
The free market does keep the cost of health care down - something which government seems incapable of doing. Actually, doctors themselves aren't the problem - it's all the extra waste, bureaucries and market incentives... everything has to cost the maximum. Back before the government take over of health care everything cost the minimum, it was no big deal, you would go and pay what you could; the doctors would take care of you. That's the way it should be. There's no one to be afraid of. People are, for the most part, good, caring and sincere. We have just been taught our whole lives to fear each other... to put ourselves in adversarily situations where we need not. I think in an anarcho-capitalist society I would probably start business. A society without government would be incredibly prosperous. If you look at examples throughout history, you will find the less government involvement in an economy the more prosperous the country. The middle evil times were terrible... like was short, bruttish and nasty, but we're not talking about going back in time. We are talking about how there is a criminal organization named the state and how the world would be a better place if we recognized that violence and coercion are immoral and that there is no problem so massive it cannot be conquered by the voluntary actions of a free society.
I'm sorry to be rude, but there are several statements which are just a horrible fail. The Problem is that the "free market" in itself doesn't solve every problem. Go back to the beginning of Industrialisation in england: Live for these people sucked in every possible way. And guess what: not the free market but organisation helped them to improve their life. I'm also no friend of carrying a gun. The more guns are on the field the more likely someone will finally use it. And if you carry gun, the robber will also need a gun. so instead of knife vs. unarmed, we suddenly have gun vs. gun. In the first case you maybe lose your wallet, in the second case there might be a shooting for the wallet. the logic behind that is, that the robber wants to rob you, not to kill you. But the owner of the wallet might be in "defender's" mode and just shoots, because he it's his wallet. I don't want to promote that you don't do anything while you get robbed, but I also don't want dead people about some wallet. No let's even spin the theory further: Let's say the robber somehow has a contract with a security company. And he pays more/his company has more guards than yours. So now what protects you from this company in case you defend yourself against the robbery? Do I need to continue to ask, what happens if the company itself starts to send out its people for collecting money.
For the medical case: How comes the price for drugs in Europe is lower than in the US despite the glorious free market of the US vs the gov. driven health care system in Europe?
Now for Sumsi who said that "it would make no sense to fake a degree in medicine": You should know best that there are problems in Germany with not enough doctors on the countryside. Question: If the problem gets worse, what stops a fake doctor to "take care of the problem".
I'm also on your side that some research fields may not meet the criteria of serious science. But the problem is, that there would also be no reason to support abstract maths or theoretical physics. Because as far as I know it, the market demands for technicians in the broadest sense . Now we know that quantum mechanics is a rich field which leads to many useful tools. But when it was discovered, this wasn't obvious. So who would be building the Hubble telescope or the LHC / Tevatron without state driven education?
And the final question for everyone supporting the absence of government: What should your society do, if it every loses balance?
On July 01 2011 12:25 Legend` wrote: On paper it all seems good, but then theres are still things like
Which needs to be addressed.
Thriving small arms industry with rock bottom prices? Sounds great. Remember, guns are the great equalizer, which make a granny knitting club no less a pushover than a band of grunts. Where there is equality in power, there is peace. As such, these conditions are part of the reason for Peace in somalia. While the foreign opressors - UN, Ethiopia, US, are the reason for violence.
On July 07 2011 08:52 Kiarip wrote: #1) The FED only causes inflation. Deflation can only be caused by drop in prices which can only be caused by increased production. The FED doesn't produce anything. All it currently does is Quantifying Easing which basically means it's printing money (creating inflation.)
#2) We came off the gold standard because after we started printing money we didn't have enough gold to back up all the dollar bills with it.
#3) Roosevelt's New Deal didn't end the Great Depression, it only worsened it and pro-longed it, in fact it wasn't gonna be the "Great" Depression until his social programs kicked in.
edit:
ok you can carry on now
#1) No, please explain how you think fiscal policy works. Its called quantitative easing and why would we want to do anything but expand the money supply right now?
#2) No, we came off the gold standard because the Bretton Woods policy (which was a gold standard) created unsustainable currency arbitrage.
#3) No, the Fed may have been to blame due to a contractionary monetary policy (Milton Friedman and Alan Greenspan hold this view) but a significant majority of economists and historians agree that Roosevelt's policies as a whole helped end the great depression. This does not mean all of them were effective.
@Treemonkeys: could you please link me to an article explaining how the suspension of the gold standard during world war one is responsible for the decline of "mom and pop" stores today?
I don't think it reasonable for you to just sit there and say "straw man" when your actual arguments are so unclear in the first place. It's part of why I got tired of our discussione arlier. To explain further:
It's fine to consider the diet a cultural thing, but on one hand you are saying government protects us by checking over the food supply, and on the other we have government not just allowing but subsidizing extremely unhealthy foods. Even foods that "should" be good for you are more often than not terrible. Take corn for example, unless you go out of your way and spend more money the corn you eat has been genetically modified to include insecticide inside of it. With each bite you are eating insect poison. Corn with built in insecticide is subsidized and therefore cheaper to produce, organic corn is not. That is just one small piece of why the US has the highest cancer rate in the world, it is not just obesity (which is most prevalent in poor demographics who cannot afford healthier food, as the government taxes their labor and uses it to fund poisoned food). Other countries catching up does not excuse anything or change my argument, it is simply a sign of the extreme draconian style of the US spreading to the rest of the world. It's not a good thing, any way you look at it.
I will give you my impression of this paragraph so you can see why making your point clearer would be helpful.
You go from diet, to government regulations of food safety, to food subsidies, to GMOs, to cancer and obesity rates, throw in a snarky comment about taxes, and then seem to touch on and end on US imperialism (maybe just US policy formation process going to other countries, its hard to tell) and in the end I just don't know what you are trying to say.
On July 07 2011 08:52 Kiarip wrote: #1) The FED only causes inflation. Deflation can only be caused by drop in prices which can only be caused by increased production. The FED doesn't produce anything. All it currently does is Quantifying Easing which basically means it's printing money (creating inflation.)
#2) We came off the gold standard because after we started printing money we didn't have enough gold to back up all the dollar bills with it.
#3) Roosevelt's New Deal didn't end the Great Depression, it only worsened it and pro-longed it, in fact it wasn't gonna be the "Great" Depression until his social programs kicked in.
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ok you can carry on now
1. A drop in prices can also be caused if not enough money in relation to products is available. Like the paper argues that France hoarded gold without revaluing their currency and thus causing other countries to have their currencies increase in value relative towards their production.
2. I would invite you to read thearticle I posted. It's pretty good.
3. That is a claim. Backed by some good arguments, but usually from the more free-market minded folks. The problem with the way you put it is, that the New Deal kicked in 1933, when unemployment was highest and real GDP was lowest. After the New Deal was in place, unemployment fell and GDP rose unequivocally.
It's actually a misnomer to refer to the New Deal as Roosevelt's; in reality Roosevelt simply expanded upon what Hoover was trying to do. If you look at earlier recessions there was no government intervention to 'fix them' and instead of lasting decades they lasted years or months. To understand why you must understand the Austrian theory of the business cycle.
You see, the proper rate of interest is determined by the market (specifically by the % of income consumers save). When you have a central bank like the federal reserve manipulating interest rates it fools the market into making investments which seem profitable but they really are not. A recession is when this mal investment is liquidated. It's actually the healthy part of the boom-bust cycle.
Roosevelt's policies were absurd. He paid farmers to slaughter their own pigs. That's not going to get you out of a depression.
If you look at life a the beginning or during the industrial revolution, yes, life was brutal for the workers. But it was slightly less brutal than before. The reason why people moved to the cities abandoning their cottage industries and family farms was because as much as it sucked working 12 hours a day in a factory or coal mine it was slightly better than working 15 hours a day scractching a living out of the dirt. You cannot simply look at conditions 400 years ago in a vacuum, you must understand what came before and what came afterwards. It was capital accumulation, the development of industry - namely, it was capitalism that ameliorated the working conditions of these people, not orgnaization or unions. As far as arming yourself or not is concerned, I would live to live in a utopian world where I never have to worry about whether or not anyone who will hurt me, but so long as I don't I would rather trust in my ability to defend myself than trust in someone else not to attack me. I don't think a "dispute resolution organization" (as they have been theorized) would want to protect a criminal. It would cause too much headaches for them, so once they realized this guy was stealing from people they would drop him from their lists.
On July 07 2011 21:50 BestZergOnEast wrote: It's actually a misnomer to refer to the New Deal as Roosevelt's; in reality Roosevelt simply expanded upon what Hoover was trying to do. If you look at earlier recessions there was no government intervention to 'fix them' and instead of lasting decades they lasted years or months. To understand why you must understand the Austrian theory of the business cycle.
You see, the proper rate of interest is determined by the market (specifically by the % of income consumers save). When you have a central bank like the federal reserve manipulating interest rates it fools the market into making investments which seem profitable but they really are not. A recession is when this mal investment is liquidated. It's actually the healthy part of the boom-bust cycle.
Roosevelt's policies were absurd. He paid farmers to slaughter their own pigs. That's not going to get you out of a depression.
I don't know enough about the Great Depression to have a fixed opinion on whether the New Deal exacerbated the problem or fixed it. Both sides have good arguments. What I find funky with the Austrian Business Cycle argument is, that they assume that all recessions are caused by the exact same thing. This is based on only a handful of data points, as capitalism is rather recent and industrialization and international markets is even more recent. Now, whatever the cause of the deflation that led to the Great Depression was, Austrians have to claim that it is the same cause as in every cycle. This seems to contradict the observation that interconnectedness and complexity of markets have increased and new instruments for the government to mess around have been developed.
To your second point, I never quite got this. The business crowd and the FED have the exact same numbers. Both now what is going to happen if the FED decides to do X. From this point onwards, whatever they decided, it will be priced into nominal prices, leaving real prices unchanged. Then, the FED has a policy of 2% expansion each year, (I don't know whether that includes or excludes productivity growth), so nominal terms of bonds, which potentially could be inflated away, are already incorporating these 2%. The FED, if they hit their target and the stated policy isn't a lie, provides stability which a free currency might not have.
On July 07 2011 21:50 BestZergOnEast wrote: It's actually a misnomer to refer to the New Deal as Roosevelt's; in reality Roosevelt simply expanded upon what Hoover was trying to do. If you look at earlier recessions there was no government intervention to 'fix them' and instead of lasting decades they lasted years or months. To understand why you must understand the Austrian theory of the business cycle.
You see, the proper rate of interest is determined by the market (specifically by the % of income consumers save). When you have a central bank like the federal reserve manipulating interest rates it fools the market into making investments which seem profitable but they really are not. A recession is when this mal investment is liquidated. It's actually the healthy part of the boom-bust cycle.
Roosevelt's policies were absurd. He paid farmers to slaughter their own pigs. That's not going to get you out of a depression.
Hoover did very little, nothing that was comparable to the New Deal; to call the New Deal a "continuation" of Hoover's policies is the weirdest thing I've ever heard.
Both Paul Krugman and Milton Friedman reject the Austrian business cycle. Its about the only thing they agree on that I can think of except that they probably agree being Nobel Laureates is awesome.
You cannot cherry pick one program out of the New Deal and criticize it to prove the entire program wasn't effective, the program was massive and some pieces of it were absolute failures. Your other point about farmer's lives being pretty bad was very true though, if working in early industrial factories was better is debatable. Tenant farmers and sharecroppers got screwed badly since... those systems of farming were created.
it was capitalism that ameliorated the working conditions of these people, not orgnaization or unions.
No, that is definitely not true. You could argue that industrialization increased their living standard and I would agree that it did eventually (significantly after the end of the industrial revolution) but working conditions improved almost entirely through legislation or organizational efforts.
About previous economic contractions not being as long as the Great Depression: The National Bureau of Economic Research dates the contraction following the panic as lasting from October 1873 to March 1879. At 65 months, it is the longest-lasting contraction identified by the NBER, eclipsing the Great Depression's 43 months of contraction. The long depression occurred from 1873 to 1879, The Federal Reserve was established in 1913.
On July 07 2011 08:42 Brotkrumen wrote: I'm sorry, but you said that "the government forced a fiat currency on the people" and implied they did so for sinister reasons. You forgot to mention that that was done to stop the Great Depression and that there is good evidence today, that this was actually what did it. Either you are backtracking now, or your only point is "the fiat currency saved us, but it is evil!"
I've read your post on values and it remains a representative piece of moral relativism. It's also a red herring right now.
Also you said that the government is the left arm of the corporations and the other way round. Which is a phrase most often not followed by substantive evidence of corporations changing the government in a way people don't want. That's all I was saying.
Lastly, I apologize. I will henceforth refrain from linking to material created by people that have spent years to acquire the knowledge to create it.
Because they did force in on people and it was for sinister reasons. That doesn't make the gold standard (which was also forced on people) jesus fucking christ. That is just you projecting your simplistic view of the issue on to me, and than choosing to argue based on an assumption rather than understand, why? The gold standard was bad and fiat is worse. They are both just systems of control, to serve the wealthy and powerful. To think that fiat currency was the only way out of the great depression is absurd, there are always other options, and the consquences of fiat currency will be far worse that whatever so called good it did. You're picking a pretty bad time to praise the success of fiat as world economies are on the brink of failure - which will only pave the way for new currencies, and new and more powerful systems of the control. Thanks to fiat currency we now have a government that has grown in spending over 13 trillion dollars, and it is still accelerating! Most of this money is being using to build systems of control that will ultimately be used against us. Used to spread military over the entire world (which never even left your country) creating the largest and most powerful empire of all known history. Now you're probably going to tell me it's not an empire, because it's not called that. Empire is just a word, the US has every characteristic of one.
I'm curious, have you ever been to the USA? If so where did you visit? It is pretty normal here for people to be unhappy with what the government allows the corporations to do, and what the corporations do for the government.
I don't recall you linking anything.
I am aware that you were answering. The conversation was "Government forces corporations to make food safe" You answered "Government doesn't because people get sick, so we should abolish government" To which I am adding "With or without government, you have to check what you eat. So why are you complaining about something that you are not using anyway?"
Point is, the government has safety standards that are not totally ineffective. Without it, no regulations would be in place and people would be worse of. So again, your reasoning is: "Regulation sometimes fails to make food completely safe, thus we need to abolish regulation".
No it does not "sometimes fail" it subsidizes food that is terrible for you. I'll say it once again, highest cancer rate in the world, highest obesity in the world, combined with terrible health care. That is the USA.
I don't want to really get into what I think should be done, because I'm not sure. Which is probably why you're acting like an argumentative jackass in this conversation, no it wasn't your link that pissed me off, but posting it for the stated purpose of doing so sure did. It is apparently impossibly for you to respectfully talk to someone unless they present a god-mode "I have an infallible plan for the entire world here to present on a silver platter". I was simply having an honest conversation with someone who seemed interested until you butted in demanding all the answers and acting like a god damned smart ass.
One of us has a reading-comprehension issue. Could be me because I am the foreigner. IIRC, you claimed that the only reason government regulation exists and why organic, healthy food (that organic is always healthy is another natural fallacy) is so expensive is a government plot. I explained that it is simple economics. Industry farming is better than farming like a century ago.
Yeah it is you because I said it was two reasons (which are both true) among others and rather than than discuss the others like a decent fucking person you saw an opportunity jumped on it. Oh and cheaper farming is not fucking worth it if you are eating fucking insecticide, and don't fucking tell me that is better when it fucking destroyed my life.
You are almost there. "We" chose not to do that. We could if we cared enough, but we don't. And even if we cared enough, we would not get rid of our nuclear arsenal until everyone else does. Thus, the "we" that cannot change things is a "we" that is prevented in doing so by "them" who don't want to. Welcome to democracy.
So I could do something if I cared more? Now you're fucking telling me I don't care enough? Jesus christ you are fucking arrogant.
On a local level, running for office is easy. I will go to a cafe this sunday and talk to a guy who runs for my local district. If he wins, he will probably try and run for a city office. After this, maybe federal level. So that's easy. Of course your opinions might prevent you from gaining office and we are again at this darn "they", they who disagree with us and prevent us from doing what is good for them. Darn them!
Oh so you talked to a guy in a cafe, so it's easy? Probably not even the same country as me? Fucking stupid.
You are not a slave. You are an american. Just your passport, and I really mean the thing you can hold in your hands, is worth 3000$ on the black market. Go anywhere you want, the jungle maybe, or an abandoned village in the ex soviet union, or even africa and live your society free dream. You can if you just want to. You have a right to also. What you don't have a right to is your anarchy where you are right now against the will of your fellow men.
Sorry, that was slang. Imagine I sell you an apple with a plastic wrapper. It's really cheap to produce both and the plastic wrapper adds value to my apple. Now you eat that apple, throw the plastic wrapper away. the externality is that the wrapper litters the street and somebody needs to clean that up. Without regulation I keep my profits and won't do a thing. A government can force me to go and pick up that wrapper, which costs time and thus money, but it has forced me to internalize the externality.
I can't survive without either having my labor taken from me and used against me and to kill others, or without greatly risking my own safety. I am a slave. Oh many times did I fucking say I am not an anarchist or saying we should have anarchy? HOW MANY TIMES?
On July 07 2011 21:50 BestZergOnEast wrote: It's actually a misnomer to refer to the New Deal as Roosevelt's; in reality Roosevelt simply expanded upon what Hoover was trying to do. If you look at earlier recessions there was no government intervention to 'fix them' and instead of lasting decades they lasted years or months. To understand why you must understand the Austrian theory of the business cycle.
You see, the proper rate of interest is determined by the market (specifically by the % of income consumers save). When you have a central bank like the federal reserve manipulating interest rates it fools the market into making investments which seem profitable but they really are not. A recession is when this mal investment is liquidated. It's actually the healthy part of the boom-bust cycle.
Roosevelt's policies were absurd. He paid farmers to slaughter their own pigs. That's not going to get you out of a depression.
What I find funky with the Austrian Business Cycle argument is, that they assume that all recessions are caused by the exact same thing. This is based on only a handful of data points, as capitalism is rather recent and industrialization and international markets is even more recent. Now, whatever the cause of the deflation that led to the Great Depression was, Austrians have to claim that it is the same cause as in every cycle. This seems to contradict the observation that interconnectedness and complexity of markets have increased and new instruments for the government to mess around have been developed.
All recessions are essentially caused by the exact same thing: over-investment and mal-investment. A recession is a correction being made from a period of over investment. It doesn't really matter very much if the over investment is in houses or derivatives or tech stocks or anything else for that matter. The similarity of every recession and even the great depression is that people significantly overestimated the demand in the economy and the long term rate of return.
There are many reasons for this, and the most prominent in my opinion is the federal reserve setting artificially low interest rates. They do this to try and get us out of the LAST recession, but they go so far and keep rates low so long that in effect they are creating the bubble that is going to pop in the next recession. For example, the housing bubble was caused by Alan Greenspan's credit expansion policies and extremely low interest rates during the 2001 recession.
Of course, the Great Depression is different, but the same problems existed. Excessive credit, excessive investment on margin, excessively aggressive fractional reserve ratios... But I don't want to get too off course here.
I'd like to make it clear that the beliefs of Treemonkeys do not in any way represent the beliefs of actual trees, tree enthusiasts, treehuggers, or other tree-related organisms that I personally have come to know.
I can only come to the conclusion that he was denied some measure of water, sunlight, and nutrient rich soil as a sapling.
On July 07 2011 21:50 BestZergOnEast wrote: It's actually a misnomer to refer to the New Deal as Roosevelt's; in reality Roosevelt simply expanded upon what Hoover was trying to do. If you look at earlier recessions there was no government intervention to 'fix them' and instead of lasting decades they lasted years or months. To understand why you must understand the Austrian theory of the business cycle.
You see, the proper rate of interest is determined by the market (specifically by the % of income consumers save). When you have a central bank like the federal reserve manipulating interest rates it fools the market into making investments which seem profitable but they really are not. A recession is when this mal investment is liquidated. It's actually the healthy part of the boom-bust cycle.
Roosevelt's policies were absurd. He paid farmers to slaughter their own pigs. That's not going to get you out of a depression.
What I find funky with the Austrian Business Cycle argument is, that they assume that all recessions are caused by the exact same thing. This is based on only a handful of data points, as capitalism is rather recent and industrialization and international markets is even more recent. Now, whatever the cause of the deflation that led to the Great Depression was, Austrians have to claim that it is the same cause as in every cycle. This seems to contradict the observation that interconnectedness and complexity of markets have increased and new instruments for the government to mess around have been developed.
All recessions are essentially caused by the exact same thing: over-investment and mal-investment. A recession is a correction being made from a period of over investment. It doesn't really matter very much if the over investment is in houses or derivatives or tech stocks or anything else for that matter. The similarity of every recession and even the great depression is that people significantly overestimated the demand in the economy and the long term rate of return.
There are many reasons for this, and the most prominent in my opinion is the federal reserve setting artificially low interest rates. They do this to try and get us out of the LAST recession, but they go so far and keep rates low so long that in effect they are creating the bubble that is going to pop in the next recession. For example, the housing bubble was caused by Alan Greenspan's credit expansion policies and extremely low interest rates during the 2001 recession.
Of course, the Great Depression is different, but the same problems existed. Excessive credit, excessive investment on margin, excessively aggressive fractional reserve ratios... But I don't want to get too off course here.
What about war? There have been many recessions/depressions caused by the devastation war entails. If you just come back and say that war is a mal-investment in soldiers and weapons, I doubt the actual usefulness of this theory, it is so broad as to explain almost nothing. Its hard to argue against a statement that in some way improper allocation of resources causes recessions.
@Treemonkeys, you need to make your angry ramblings more succinct, I still have no idea what you're talking about other than you are bitter and feel no need to present solutions.
@BestZergOnEast:I'm not sure what your video was implying but it was entertaining. It seemed like you were saying that I was advancing the Keynesian argument but the rejection of the Austrian Business Cycle bridges that gap between the two.
Friedman (boss enough to be in the spellcheck) and Krugman (not quite there apparently) both reject the Austrian business cycle based on historical analysis, Friedman is certainly not a Keynesian economist he has repeatedly credited Hayek as an integral part of his intellectual development as an economist. So mainstream modern schools of economics influenced by Hayek and schools influenced by Keynes reject that business cycle.
I also think the more nuanced claim is that it contracted the labor market and reduced structural unemployment while increasing production, largely through gov spending. The Great Depression was well over by that point in economic terms, in fact there had been another recession since the end of the GDP contraction.
I would go on about the difference between the historical time period called the Great Depression and the economic period of contraction, but I just remembered this thread is about anarchy in Somalia...
EPT
