On January 13 2012 22:54 Focuspants wrote: [quote]
You just sourced a belief in evolution as a trait of being a psychopath. Reducing an argument to "Hitler also did this" is like intellectual foul number one. You then compare being anti gay, with being anti a soccer team. You then state you want everyone that doesnt have money to die to test how giving people might be. I dont think youre making a very good case for voting for Ron Paul. Maybe you should leave that to people who understand economics or foreign policy. Spreading your flawed logic isnt really going to help.
People who understand economics are not going to advise voting for Ron Paul ;-)
All of Austrian economics begs to differ. Unless of course you consider everyone not having a Keynsian based veiw (in some form or fashion) as not understanding economics.
Where did I say anything about Keynesianism? Again, people who understand economics will not advise voting for Ron Paul (or anyone else subscribing to the Austrian school, for that matter) :-)
Liar
So, tell me why we should keep propping up the debt? Doing that just makes its even worse....Does the 2008 housing crisis ring a bell?
I'm sorry, but "Austrian economist agrees that Ron Paul is right on the economy" is like the equivalent of "Catholic theologian agrees that Vatican is right on contraception".
doesn't refute the point that there ARE people have studied economics that will advise voting for Ron Paul
And in the same breathe, there are people that are professional economists that disagree with Ron Paul's economic views. It simply is not clear cut, and out of all the economically literate people I have seen on this forum, most of them have disagreed with "Austrian economics" for a slew of reasons.
Also, my post still retains the fact that providing such inane "proofs" is absolutely meaningless.
well that's the type of inane proof that kwizach's statement required.
And as for why there's a revival of Keynesianism? What do you mean revival? lol. It's always been here, and the reason it's always been here is because it justifies the government's intervention in everything, and justifies increased government power by funding it with government spending...
It's very easy for the people in the government to say yes to Keynesianism, and no to Austrian theory, because Austrian theory effectively argues for limited government by minimizing its budget.
But Keynesianism has always been here as the guiding principle for the government, and look where we're at now? lol
This is an example of correlation does not imply causation. The USA uses Keynesian economic principles, and is in a recession. The logic does not follow that Keynesian economic principles caused the recession. Perhaps the use of expansionary monetary policy exacerbated the housing bubble, but if you look at monetary policy at the time, the Federal Reserve wasn't even undertaking aggressive QE.
I didn't say that there was a causation. GSE's in combination with the low interests was enough to exacerbate the housing bubble. QE comes later when people that are in debt decide to stop borrowing despite of the low interest rates.
The current revival of Keynesian thought has mostly been focused around Market Monetary Theory (MMT), which is government targeted growth rates, and artificially hitting those targets through monetary devices. The target that is usually batted around is 5%. So if the American economy shrinks by 2%, a 7% expansion of the money supply would make up the shortfall. This allows industry and government to have stable expectations. I'm not really sure what I personally feel on the matter, I think that the system sounds solid in autarky, but would have considerably less effectiveness in the real world.
But the percentage growth is calculated not in terms of productivity. Keynesian vs Austrian economics in the end is the debate of Supply vs Demand based economy. All the policies that are sound according to Keynesianism are a result of the idea that economy is demand-driven, and demand-driven economy can be a useful model to explain some things, but at its core the assumption isn't right.
My problem with Austrian economics is it isn't based on reality. All of the criticisms for Austrianism (lack of market controls when many markets trend towards monopoly or "tragedy of the commons" type scenarios, increased inequality, no social safety net in case of negative shocks, etc.) are dismissed with reference to a market expectation that has never existed.
Well, monopolies have been traditionally propped up by the government. The Industrial Revolution during which many people were exploited was largely driven by people voluntarily moving into the cities, and of course a dramatic increase in the supply of labor will lead to a significantly cheaper cost of labor, until the market equilibrates.
It is not possible for people to have perfect information, and yet many examples I have read call for just that. It is not possible for markets to have free entry and exit, and yet I have seen examples that would require exactly that, the list goes on.
Can you give some examples of what you mean by this?
It really saddens me that a lot of the people who are rabidly supporting Ron Paul in this forum keep coming off as a little ignorant and looney.
Listen guys, if you want to support Ron Paul then quit taking the bait when everyone starts picking at his beliefs in Austrian economics, evolution, etc. You are letting them set the terms and the context of the debate, and you aren't going to win that argument. You won't win people over to Ron Paul by trying to convert them to be libertarians or believe in Austrian economics. You are giving the anti-Ron Paul people way too much ammunition here.
Focus on the policies, focus on the common sense issues. There are some things that are just common sense and that a large number of Americans both left and right agree with. For example, ending their aggressive, interventionist foreign policy and acting like the police of the world. "No unnecessary war" is an argument you can win. "Reduce military spending" is an argument you can win. "Don't send our young people to die for frivolous reasons," as well.
Here is another one: "Reduce the deficit/debt." Just apply common sense here. The debt is a real problem. It's growing by large amounts daily and even servicing the interest payments on the debt is becoming a significant burden. You cannot continually increase your debt for eternity, and a balanced budget is just good economics whether you are Austrian/Keynesian/Don't know a thing about economics. "Reduce the deficit" is an argument you can win. Sure, keynesians will argue that we should be increasing the debt and that it won't hurt us at all, but you weren't ever going to win those types of people anyway so don't try.
And one more: "End corporatism." This is the type of issue that unites Tea Partiers, OWS'ers, and just average citizens. You have a system that is getting more and more corrupt. Politicians are bought and paid for by corporations and special interest unions across the country. They don't represent you, they fleece you, they pick the winners and you are the losers. The solutions here are much more complicated, but they start with getting truly principled people into office who aren't actively LOOKING to get bribed. Ron Paul's record of voting against pork and earmarks (bribes) is the best out there hands down. "Get government and corporations/special interests out of bed together" is an argument you can win.
I support Ron Paul, not because of his philosophy in academic issues, but because of the common sense and good policies that resulted from that philosophy. It does no good to talk about ending the fed or going gold standard, because Ron Paul could not do that if he focused his entire administration on it. When you talk about such things, you are hurting his potential support.
Focus on the issues, the common sense issues, the popular issues. End the wars, don't start new ones, reduce spending, reduce the power of the federal reserve, reduce the power of lobbyists in politics, end corporate welfare, etc... And on the flip side, show how his opponents, whether republican or democrat, are often on the opposite side of the popular issues. Keep it simple, please.
On January 14 2012 04:13 Kiarip wrote: Can you give some examples of what you mean by this?
Sure.
An open market, in the economic sense, is a market with complete information, free entry and exit, and zero profit. Economic profit ofc. The closest thing I can think of to an open market in reality, is coffee stands in a large city. Prices vary, volume varies; but after paying barista's, managers, and the owner makes a return on his investment equal to the opportunity cost involved, there is no money left over. If you make less then that you sell the business, if you make more then that people come into the market and crowd you out.
What I hear from the Austrians, is that this market system can be applied to many more things. State policies (creationism, contraceptives, etc), education, currency, etc. The problem is, information in these cases is much less equitably distributed. Coffee shops are usually clustered close together, and their prices are displayed on a board. State policies are hard to cost. How unpleasant will it actually be living in a state that teaches creationism in schools? The other problem is entry and exit. Moving is expensive and difficult. Finding a new place to live and a job takes time and can set your career back years. This means that the market solution in these cases doesn't work well enough.
I'm not against free markets, I think they are great, my undergrad was in economics after all. I just think that government oversight, regulation, and protection is important to protect consumers. I've read some Austrians even discussing removal of the FDA, explaining that the free market will regulate products, where unhealthy products will fail because they aren't as commercially viable as healthy alternatives. This is just willful naivety.
On January 12 2012 21:05 BobTheBuilder1377 wrote: @mcc Glad you liked those videos but, as you can see it's from a FOX AFFILIATE. Not the original fox that misinforms people when it comes to REAL journalism.
As can be seen in my post I disliked parts of those videos even before I found out they are from Fox, for reasons mentioned in that post. I did not base my view of the videos on their origin, but in their content, The origin just makes me doubt those videos' credibility somewhat more than before.
So, you still think Ron Paul is a racist? I think it was more negligent IMO.
I did not say he is racist. I said either he is racist or he supports racists, by that I mean pandering to them, using their votes, in general not really opposing them).
EDIT:The possibility of just stupidity and negligence is there, but the chance of that seem high only if we just went by the newsletters.
On January 13 2012 15:29 DrTyrant wrote: Cities where guns are practically banned have the highest crime rates: Chicago and Detroit
If you want to live in a free society, you have to accept the fact that sometimes bad things will happen.
Also the Brevik incident shows that we need more gun rights and less anti-freedom Obama.
Something does seem unfair about strict gun laws that criminals are going to ignore anyways. They can get their drugs illegally, why not their guns? Meanwhile I am unable to defend myself and family because the government has made it criminal to do so.
You know that most criminal owned guns are stolen legally owned guns. Destroying all legally owned guns would seriously limit number of guns available to criminals in medium to long-term. Also if you note in countries with minimal gun ownership crime rates are definitely not higher than in US, in first world countries actually quite the opposite. I am not advocating doing that in US as I think the issue is much more complicated than just guns or no guns, but in most first world countries significantly increasing handgun ownership would be a very bad idea.
On January 13 2012 16:55 ryanAnger wrote: Okay, look. I'm going to explain this for everyone who doesn't seem to understand. This is what is going to happen:
1- Ron Paul gets the nomination. Close race between him and Obama, Paul will probably win because he steals most of Obamas base, because they all hate him now (ie, me.)
2- Mitt Romney gets the nomination, Ron Paul goes third party and takes 20% of Mitt's vote and about 10% of Obamas. Obama wins another 4.
Right now, those are the options. So the question is not whether you want Mitt or Newt or Rick or Jon or whomever as President, because it's just not going to happen. The question is whether you prefer Ron Paul or Obama.
Ron Paul has no chance against Obama unless new recession hits and even then he will not be a favourite. You are not most of Obama's base, not even close If Obama just straight up publishes Ron Paul's plans and what they entail, Ron Paul will at best get Republican votes plus few young people, none of the non-student non-Republican population would vote for him. They like the things that they would lose much more than they care about "liberties" or saving money on foreign policy.
Ron Paul will actually fare even worse than Romney. Unless Paul goes third party and siphons the votes from Romney, that is true.
I like that entertainment for a year is more important then welfare and the loss of medicare/medicaid in no way requires a personal increase in healthcare spending.
Why doesn't the chart show that the person got sick and went 200k into debt to cover his healthcare costs?
On January 13 2012 19:13 bUbUsHeD wrote: It's cool to see so many pro Ron Paul comments. On the other hand I don't understand all the hate and contempt for the man even if you don't agree with his positions.
You have to give him a couple of things - he is a man of integrity, a true renaissance man who did his best to be an athlete and intellectual, he is always polite, charitable, compassionate and even despite his age works relentlessly for his beliefs. He is not full of himself and unlike other politicians he is not an actor for hire by the highest bidder.
I think people who use the harshest of words to talk about Dr. Paul don't really know much about him and just consume what's thrown at them by the media. Check this video to see the real man and if you disagree with his positions address the issues and don't just try to smear him with dirty adjevtives.
RP is a real personality no matter what the election outcome will be.
Most of us not supporting Paul don't hate or even dislike the guy. We do see him as a politician though, who would accept support from anybody to get into office and push the country to his ideals.
If it's anything we hate, it's his rabid supporters. The people who enter these topics all over the internet with phrases like "educate yourself." They post an entire arsenal of youtube videos with the idea that people don't like Paul because they just don't know him well enough. "If people only knew him, they would support him!" They brood over Paul propaganda and become convinced that his simple answers and good-hearted nature is THE solution to all our governmental ires. They never believe they're facing a grassroots political machine to feed them utopian lies because of relative untarnished name of Paul.
This is where our outrage lies.
He is way better than Romney or Obama , you should vote him for that sole purpose.
Anyways, how is a Ron Paul supporter supposed to address you when people who do not support Ron Paul say he is a racist ? How can we talk to a man like that when Dr Paul has documented history of helping minorities for free if they were in a though spot ? Seriously now ... people jump to say , oh well he denies evolution ... Yeah?So?And?Who cares? You want someone who strongly supports evolution ? + Show Spoiler +
Ok get Hitler, his plan was highly influenced by evolution. Yes this is the most extreme I can get, but it is true.
He is racist? Really ? He is anti-gay ? So what ? I am anti Real Madrid ( ex-soccer fan) but I have nothing against their players or their supporters . His economic plan is seriously flawed ? Really ? Have we invented the perfect economy and we're not using it or what's up ? His libertarian society would not help people who find themselves in a bad place financially ... This is very good imo... once people die because they have no money, it will be a true test to our species if we are able to willingly sacrifice some of our comfort to help our sisters and brothers not dying because of simple apathy .
America is a republic, save it, democracy is seriously flawed because the people in power figured out how to mess it up for their own interests.
And about states being more involved in the internal matters...It is common knowledge that the more things you try to manage, the poorer your performance will be on those tasks.
You just sourced a belief in evolution as a trait of being a psychopath. Reducing an argument to "Hitler also did this" is like intellectual foul number one. You then compare being anti gay, with being anti a soccer team. You then state you want everyone that doesnt have money to die to test how giving people might be. I dont think youre making a very good case for voting for Ron Paul. Maybe you should leave that to people who understand economics or foreign policy. Spreading your flawed logic isnt really going to help.
I went out of my way exaggerating but still, there is a connection to reality in what I've said. Everything I've said is in the reach of reason, maybe the soccer thing was way of base, but I believe that's the same way of disliking rather an idea than actually the people. I didn't say I wanted to let people to die for whatever reason, I said it would be a true test to our species if we have a future, because I am sure, I would bet my life on this idea, if we don't help each other, we are inevitably going towards our selfdestruction....
Just because some statements are extreme, doesn't need your complete denial of ignorance to them.. you perhaps need to see why I'm being extreme in the first place ...
Who is making a good cause for voting Ron Paul anyways ? It's Ron Paul himself, if you watch him you see he is man of integrity , honest and actually cares about what he's talking about or what is at stake here . But people don't pay closely enough attention to their options ... Obama, whether he has the intelligence or not, and it seems he is a fairly intelligent man, he doesn't have the backbone to make the good strong decisions . Romney would be the destruction of America imo.
There is no rational link between theory of evolution and social "darwinism" (this is what Hitler was influenced by not evolution ).
The difference between disliking homosexuals and Real Madrid is twofold. First one is general group of people, one is specific instance of organization, so you cannot create laws against Real Madrid unless you create a law against all football clubs. Second, more important, distinction is that disliking and subsequently creating laws against homosexuals (which is in practice if not in theory what Ron Paul wants to do) causes a lot of suffering. Disliking football players is not linked with persecuting them. Only if there was any possibility of persecution targeted at football players would your analogy make sense, as it is, it fails.
If helping each other is so important to our survival why not mandate it ? But anyway, do you not actually see how immoral is the suggestion that we should let some people suffer just so others can show them mercy. Inquisition collaborators/communists/fascists all of them were willing to let people suffer for greater good. Good company.
Ron Paul the man of integrity, for me it was enough to see his newsletters(and I do not mean only the racist part) and his reaction to it to completely change my opinion of him. I actually thought before that he is quite crazy, but honest and principled man. This election shows just one thing. There is small likelihood in (US) politics to be in some higher position for long and be an honest and principled man. And Ron Paul has been there for a loong time. And the funny part is the newsletter is not the end, his pro-life Iowa ad seems rather damning. He showed that he either lies to pander to christian fundamentalists or is a coward or is a really immoral person, have your pick. Coward would be not so damning really, but still not a paragon of virtue either.
mcc , either I'm a complete fool or you are totally biased and have some default characteristics that make you dismiss Ron Paul without carefully analyzing the data.
The pro-life ad is rather weird imo, but still I believe none of us who haven't witnessed an abortion can't say more than , I believe life starts at blabla/saying that you are against legalizing abortion is basically saying you're anti-women and you believe women's role is to simply be a broodmare ...It's a really sticky thing, I'm against abortion after 49 days that the fetus formed(ye I'm a bit crazy on this topic =D) , then again I wouldn't support legislation for banning it ever.
Stop it with the newsletter racist whatever....He god damn helped minorities for free when it was needed...what the hell ?????
Anyways, it's a really weird place to be in...I would never want to run for president or be in this kind of environment...Especially in America....that's crazy...still I believe you're totally biased :D
Gingrich attacks Romney over his fluency in... French???
If there is one thing that sums up the clusterfuck that is shaping up to be the republican primaries, it is this. Jesus.
Is that a real ad? Lol, it almost seem like they ran out of things to say about him. "Oh, and he uhm... speaks french!"
At one of the debates in New Hampshire Huntsman (the former ambassador to China) was mocked because he spoke Chinese. You have to remember that a certain part of the republican base feels speaking anything other English is straying from the tradition of our country.
Last night Jon Stewart had fun on his show playing clips of Gingrich, check it out. (related to the language issue to some extent)
Spamming imagemacros and the likes can't be the purpose of this thread. If you have an argument to do so, don't replace it with a 3 word catchphrase or with cartoons. Either make the full argument or get out.
(Or let's create seperate topics for the campaigns and the issues or something.)
On January 14 2012 06:46 bOneSeven wrote: mcc , either I'm a complete fool or you are totally biased and have some default characteristics that make you dismiss Ron Paul without carefully analyzing the data.
The pro-life ad is rather weird imo, but still I believe none of us who haven't witnessed an abortion can't say more than , I believe life starts at blabla/saying that you are against legalizing abortion is basically saying you're anti-women and you believe women's role is to simply be a broodmare ...It's a really sticky thing, I'm against abortion after 49 days that the fetus formed(ye I'm a bit crazy on this topic =D) , then again I wouldn't support legislation for banning it ever.
Stop it with the newsletter racist whatever....He god damn helped minorities for free when it was needed...what the hell ?????
Anyways, it's a really weird place to be in...I would never want to run for president or be in this kind of environment...Especially in America....that's crazy...still I believe you're totally biased :D
I think you do not see my problem with that ad. He saw a living baby thrown into a bin and did nothing and went away. So a) he lies or misinforms - Either the story is completely untrue or the baby was not viable or he made up parts of the story b) story is true and he did nothing - Either he is a coward, because he did not want to get into trouble(or something) or immoral
As I noted the racist part is not really my only objection about the newsletters in my post and many times before, so there.
The thing that really pushed me into the Ron Paul camp was the data that all things that the FEDERAL government subsidize inflate at a ridiculous rate. Healthcare, way outpaces inflation. Subsidized food? Food costs are rising faster than inflation. Education? College costs are rising way way way faster than inflation. (in fact, to get maximum federal money, they have to raise their tuition a certain amount each year, artificially inflating education costs)
FDA? They've been beating the rate of inflation as well, and jumped 15% from 2009 to 2010.
Welfare? *facepalm*
Now, the question of course is if we knock the size of the federal government down to where it doesn't run these functions for the country will that inflation just crop up in some other form? Possibly. However, what we can be confident of is that if all of these aspects of our country continue to be run federally we will again have spending that in each of these parts of our society that far outpaces inflation.
That is why I'm a Ron Paul supporter. There are certainly other benefits to a Ron Paul presidency, but the main one would be an effort to limit the size of our government as a large empire simply becomes unduly influenced by all that it is supposed to be controlling.
EPT
If Obama just straight up publishes Ron Paul's plans and what they entail, Ron Paul will at best get Republican votes plus few young people, none of the non-student non-Republican population would vote for him. They like the things that they would lose much more than they care about "liberties" or saving money on foreign policy.
